The Royal Oak at Ecchinswell

Several things can occur when out for a meal. One of these is that the food you order is made from poor ingredients and cooked badly, another could be that the dish is too complex and cooked terribly. My favourite meals out are those where excellent ingredients are cooked to perfection in a simple way and The Royal Oak does exactly this.
The menu looked very promising, choosing what to have was the only issue. I decided to forgo a starter and save room for pudding for a very good reason; the head chef here had, at one time, been the second best pastry chef in France. I'm not sure anyone would ignore the pudding menu knowing that. 

Making Sloe and Hedgerow Gin

Autumn arrived and brought with it a questionable frost. Was it a real one or were we all just a little bit surprised by the sudden drop in temperature? Apart from being the time for pumpkin soup, squash in all its forms and stews galore it is also the time for sloe gin. There are some sloe purists who will not touch this lovely berry until a frost has been; there are those like me who pick them nice and early and speed nature up a bit. Either way if you've got sloes around you it would be rude not to make some sloe gin.

Caramelised Apples

Apples are everywhere at the moment. They are falling out of trays at the market, falling off the trees along the road and falling onto my plate at any given opportunity. As much as I enjoy an apple on its own, it has to be a good one mind, sometimes you can have too many to know what to do with. Apple cakes, crumbles, pies and flapjacks are all lovely but I wanted to enjoy some apples at their very best and not shrouded by too many other flavours.

Vegetable Patch Recipes

Recently it has become apparent that most of the meals I eat are vegetable orientated. There are two reasons for this; firstly I have a cornucopia of vegetables in my garden at present and each one needs celebrating in its own way and secondly meat is so expensive.

Quince and Apple Pie and a Pastry Lesson

Pastry has to be, without doubt, the best cradle, blanket or hat for any rich, sumptuous bed of fruit, meat or vegetables. It is that crunch, that warmth and that way it crumbles which makes it just so. I thought of pastry as my nemesis. Stupid stuff that was invariably delicious when prepared by anyone but myself. All this was to change when I met Jane.