Alternatives to Alcohol

Sober October has given me an opportunity to explore some non-alcoholic alternatives, with M&S being my primary source of inspiration!  Although the not-so-autumnal weather has also meant hot chocolates have been on the menu.

Two of my favourite finds in M&S have been their 'Spiced Normandy Apple sparking Juice', which tastes just like apple pie, and the 'Moroccan Mint & White Tea'.  The latter I enjoyed with a lamb and cous cous dinner and I truly believe that nothing else would have made a better pairing.

I actually had a go at trying to recreate the mint & white tea drink and I think it worked out quite well.  I made a large cup of white tea and pomegranate using a Twinings tea bag (for ease), and stewed this with 8 mint leaves.  I strained the tea and added another cup and a half of cold water, stirred in 2 teaspoons of sugar and a tablespoon of lemon juice and then cooled the mixture down, first outside and then finally inside the fridge.  I think it would be good with sparkling water and/or with gin!

There was 1 day when I deviated from not drinking, but this was within the rules.  Dave bought me a Golden Ticket so that I could enjoy a 34 year old port that our friend, Cate, had been saving to share with us.  After a couple of false starts over the years, and a delayed opening due to little Iona and then little Finley, there was no way that I was missing out on this tasting!

So, on my last day of Sober October, I am pleased to have raised a little bit of money for Macmillan (although certainly not turn away any more last minute donations!), I have had a month of healthier living and feel better for it, and I have surprisingly made some positive foodie discoveries.  I will now give a little more thought to what drinks I serve with dinner and give serious consideration to non-alcoholic alternatives.

Testing My Teetotal Tenacity

I can tell you it has been a tough week since Sober October started.  Not drinking is difficult.  And I don't mean in the physiological sense, but socially it can only be described as not at all fun.  Boring, in fact.  And hard to avoid.

I have, unusually, had two steaks this week and not one of them was accompanied by a rich glass of rioja.  We ate grilled sardines with garlic and lemon at the weekend, not washed down with a crisp glass of sancere.  And I have spent a few nights with friends, not enjoying an IPA or Hendricks, instead having a fourth cup of tea or third glass of tonic water.

As expected, the challenge of Sober October for me is not the abstinence in itself, but the repercussions of being teetotal.  That is not to say that my friends or family have been disparaging about me not drinking, but it has meant a change in plans or a cutting short of an evening.

Now, I did promise to explore more interesting non-alcoholic alternatives during October and have not done a very good job so far.  My liquid diet has so far consisted of tea, tonic water and juice.  And more tea.  At the weekend, however, while out with Dave in the pub I ordered a Virgin Mary.  This really is a good mocktail that won't leave you feeling short-changed.  It packs a punch with pepper, chilli and lemon juice, so you really don't miss the vodka at all.  I have also bought myself some specialist herbal tea from the market and will try this out later on in the week.

Finally, I thought you might be interested to learn where the word "teetotal" came from.  The internet tells me that it was first used by a worker from Preston in a speech in 1833 urging people to be totally abstinent (total with a capital tee), rather than the laxer form of abstinence first suggested by some in the temperance movement, who thought that abstinence should only apply to spirits, not beer.

On that same subject, my friend Bob Eadie was the first to teach me of the Gothenburg Public House System while we were out campaigning in deepest darkest Fife.  The system originated in Gotheburg, Sweden, in the 1860s as a way to try and curb consumption of alcohol.  The problem was that hard-working miners and other manual labourers were spending too much of their wages in the pub.  Knowing that it would be impossible to simply stop people drinking, the Gothenburg pubs were established as a kind of community pub with the dual aim of trying to discouraging drinking but also whatever profit was made from drinking was ploughed into community projects.

The system took a strong hold in Scotland, hence why there are so many pubs now called "Goths" in Scotland, particularly around the mining communities.  At one point there were more than twenty in Fife.  While the environment in these establishments was unwelcoming, and gambling, dominoes and other games were banned, the profits funded charities, clubs, district nurses and buildings like community centres, libraries and cinemas.  Most of the goth pubs in Scotland now are just goth by name, but there are a handful that follow the original Gothenburg principles.

Going Sober For October In Support Of Macmillan

After a year and a bit of particular excess, mostly attributable to a solid month of celebrations for our weddings, a period of sobriety is very welcome.  And I m particularly happy to be doing so in aid of Macmillan.


My very dear friend, Helen Eadie MSP, who passed away in November last year, introduced me to the work of Macmillan to support those fighting cancer.  She was a huge fan of the Macmillan nurses. The charity helps cancer sufferers deal with the myriad of problems and worries associated with having this serious disease - lightening the load in difficult times.

Over the coming month, I hope to raise awareness of the work of Macmillan and raise some funds for this brilliant charity.   For an organisation where 98% of its income comes from voluntary donations, fundraising really is key to make sure that it can carry on providing the care and support that many cancer sufferers have found invaluable.

Day 1

I am on my first day of #gosober and Dave has already tried to trick me into having a drink ("Do you want to try my beer?")!  And at a few points this evening I have thought a wee glass of wine would be nice.  I think this relaxed attitude towards alcohol is partially cultural and partially habitual, but there is also, for me as a foodie, an aspect of taste.  Quite frankly, wine tastes better than water!

So this, I think, will be my biggest challenge in October.  I need to keep myself interested in non-alcoholic drinks.  This evening I have treated myself to a very delicious grapefruit San Pellegrino with Dave in the pub, but I just did not fancy a second one in the way that I would not find it difficult to say no to a second glass of wine.  After that I have been on tea, which is probably why I am still wide awake at half 10!

For my blog this month, therefore, I will be bringing you the good, the bad and the ugly of the non-alcoholic drinks that I try.  If you like what you read, please donate.  If you appreciate the challenge I am facing, please donate.  If you believe Macmillan is a good cause, please donate.  Or, if you start to feel sorry for me and fancy buying me a "Golden Ticket" for a night off sobriety, please do so through my donations page.

Tortilla de Patatas

In every bar across Spain you will be sure to find a tortilla - even if that's the only tapa it serves. It is also far from uncommon to see tortilla on offer as a sandwich filling.

The standard base for a tortilla (omelette) is eggs and potatoes (patatas). But in different regions and in different households there may be some additional ingredients. For example, I like onion in my tortilla. And in Valencia you commonly find pea and potato tortillas.

My friend Victor, whose Dad is Spanish, first showed me how to make a tortilla with a recipe that he brought back from Barcelona that he learned from his uncle.

It is simple enough. Slice waxy potatoes thinly. You will need enough to fill a large frying pan, even though the tortilla is going to be made in a small but deep frying pan. This is when I also fry my onions.

You will need a lot more oil than you think, so, when the potatoes are ready, you need to put them in a colander and drain off the excess oil. This also allows the potatoes to cool, which is important because you don't want hot potatoes cooking your eggs too quickly.  You can reuse the excess oil that you drain off.

Once the potatoes are cool and drained, put them in a small deep frying pan. Bear enough eggs to cover the potatoes - this could be as much as half a dozen - and add salt before pouring into the pan with the potatoes.

Now you have 2 options. You can cook the omelette mostly through, then finish up under the grill. Or you can try and flip it by using a plate. This way is a little messier, but I find it is better. The reason it is better is because the best tortillas are still slightly runny on the inside and flipping it achieves this better than the grill approach.

The other thing to note with flipping is that you don't have to do it just once. You can flip every couple of minutes. So, if you make a mess of the top, don't worry coz you're going to flip if again soon. I see this kind of like making a quenelle. Flipping back and forth will eventually achieve nice smooth edges. Unless, of course, the pan you're using is no longer non-stick. Then it would just be an irretrievable hash.

And there you have it. If you want to jazz your tortilla up, try adding green beans, or red pepper and chorizo, or maybe asparagus and little prawns. You get the picture!

Making It Easy

Keeping up with the Challenge has been pretty hard lately with all of the things going on.  Moving my brother into our house, complete with dogs, fish and a mountain of "stuff" was time-consuming in itself, but has left the kitchen a bit cramped and difficult to work in.  We have also been doing a lot of work on the new house, creating a level of household chaos I never thought could have existed.

However, we still need to eat!  So, I took the opportunity last week to cook from one of my recipe books - limited somewhat by which ones I could actually see and access as I weaved my way around stuff and more stuff - all covered with a layer of dust left over from the rewiring.

I picked up one of the earlier books that I had bought: 'Gordon Ramsay Makes It Easy'.  I think I actually bought this book originally for my dad in 2005, when he was first getting on board with the new wave of home cooking and celebrity chefs that was sweeping the UK at the time.  I actually liked the structure of the book - divided into sections like "Great Fast Food" and "Posh".  I think then that I must have bought another copy of the book for Dave.

One of the first recipes I tried from this book was the Carpaccio of Beef.  Anyone who loves their steak rare will love carpaccio.  I always order this at Via Romana in Los Belones, Spain, when I go back.  They serve it with peppery rocket, sweet balsamic and salty parmesan.  We also order a garlic flat bread to accompany it.  If you're making carpaccio yourself, the trick is to cool the seared beef so that it is easier to slice thinly.

I also tried to cook the Wild Sea Bass Wrapped in Courgette Flowers as a canape once.  I wasn't able to find courgette flowers - have you ever seen them? Anywhere? At all?!  But I did wrap the small squares of fish in thinly sliced courgette, and it was a lovely combo.

I have little sticky labels all over this book - obviously intending to try a few other recipes.  For example the Mini Tart Tatins of Caramelised Red Onion and Goat's Cheese, the Lemon Chilli Chicken Wings with a Couscous Salad and the Butternut Squash Puff 'Pizza' with Sage and Smoked Cheddar.  But, on the night in question, I opted for the Turbot Fillets with Fennel and Lemon - hindered slightly by not being able to find turbot.

It was a simple recipe whereby you created a fragrant stock with lemongrass and vanilla in which to poach the fish and serve it on a bed of aromatic, slightly caramelised fennel.  I found that a lot needed to be done last minute, so struggled a little to sufficiently reduce the sauce and still keep the fish warm and not overcooked.

With a stroke of genius, I paired the fish with a green salad of cucumber, apple and spring onions, which added a crisp, fresh dimension to the meal.  But it didn't need much embellishment.  It was a perfectly delicious fish dish that I would be happy to eat for lunch in the sun with a nice cold glass of white wine.

The Sun's Out - Shall We Go To Greece?

After what seems like years of wet and cold weekends, the sun is finally out!  And the forecast suggests it is here to stay... for the week at least.  I felt we better take advantage of the warm weather and try out a new salad recipe.

I picked up a book which I must have bought about 10 years ago and, to my shame, I have never cooked from.  And there is literally no reason why I shouldn't have.  The dishes are not complicated to cook and the beautiful pictures add to their appeal.  I suppose the only thing stopping me was where to start.

Tessa Kiros' "Falling Cloudberries" is half autobiography and half cook book.  The eclectic nature of the collection is summed up by the opening words across from the title page: "My mother's name is Sirepa Suula Kerttu Peiponen.  My father's name is George."  It is a book that I relate to - a compilation of food memories from all of the many places she has lived.  Tessa's recipes from family and friends are interspersed with family photographs and recollections, making it an interesting read as well as a resource.

Arranged by country (Finland, Greece, Cyprus, South Africa, Italy and World), I find it easiest not to go into it looking for something in particular.  Rather, I prefer to flick through it and become captivated by the familiar feelings of tradition, friendship and nostalgia that her food evokes.

The recipe that I picked to enjoy with our very welcome good weather was a Greek Chickpea, Feta & Coriander salad.  Simple to assemble, it was packed full of fresh, zingy flavours, bringing the chickpeas alive with clean herbs, salty feta and aromatic garlic and lemon.  Tessa suggested that the salad would be nice served with lamb chops marinated in cumin and yoghurt and then grilled.  So I took her advice and we were not disappointed!

Incidentally, I love my butcher!  Kelvin's on East Street, Bristol, has all of the usual butcher's fare, presented with that plastic grass that is the sign of a quality local butcher!  The blackboard outside often advertises one-off stock, such as "goat here today".  And the deeper you move into the shop, the more adventurous the produce gets: pig tails, ox liver, tongue...  This is where I got my four lamb leg steaks for dinner and a ham hock that I shall be slow cooking at some point this week!  All for under £10.  Bargain.

Duck a l'Orange: Souk Style

Dave and I had a delicious lunch a few weekends ago at the amazing Soukitchen.  We ordered the mackerel special, which was a whole char-grilled fish with saffron butter and crispy potatoes, and a duck salad with blood oranges pine nuts, pomegranate seeds, a yoghurt sauce and hot flat-breads.  Both dishes were packed full of middle-Eastern flavour and we came away a very satisfied couple.

It was the Souk's duck dish that was the inspiration for a delicious dinner this week.  I had a whole duck in the freezer - as you do when you see a great deal on something in the supermarket, but then are not sure what to do with it - and decided that it was the perfect excuse to defrost it.

Not having cooked a whole duck before, and worried about it becoming too dry, I referred to google.  I discovered an article on The Hungry Mouse blog that gave me some pointers and then devised a plan.  I brought out my super-duper Sage multi-cooker (i.e. a crock-pot) and put the whole duck in there for 8 hours on low slow-cook.  I left this on overnight, but in retrospect I would probably try and do this during the day and turn the duck every now and then.

The next evening, I put the duck in a roasting tin, rubbed the skin with Ras El Hanout and put it in a hot oven for about 25 minutes (as I cooked it from cold).

In the meantime I busied myself preparing the salad.  I sliced blood oranges and Dave de-seeded a pomegranate.  He used the bowl of water method, which he said worked really well.  There was a good amount of juice that came out of the orange, so I popped this in a pan with chopped garlic and olive oil, a squeeze of lemon and about 1/4 teaspoon of smoked paprika, cooking it down to make a dressing for the salad.

Once the duck was ready, I assembled the salad leaves, topped with torn up duck, arranged the blood orange slices around the plate and scattered over pomegranate seeds and pine nuts.  Then I drizzled over my sauce.

I didn't have time to make flat-bread so we had it with a baguette, but I certainly will make time next time.  And I had forgotten that it had come with a sort of yoghurt dip.  Again, I shall work on this for next time.  But, a very good dish in its own right.

There was tonnes of duck left over so we had duck fried rice for dinner the next night and duck miso soup for lunch.  Just like a chicken, one duck can stretch out to a fair few meals - and it was on offer too!

Perks of the Job

The last 4 weeks have been dominated by the epic task of moving my brother an hour down the M4 into our new home in Bristol. This mammoth logistical operation has been punctuated with some blood, a lot of sweat, and a few tears.

The deed is now done and the whole family - husband, brother, dogs - are getting used to the new arrangement. Our house is bursting at the seams with not only our own belongings, but also those of my parents and their office, which were left behind following their move to the States.

As I manoeuvred round precariously stacked boxes and squeezed my way into the cluttered lounge last night, it dawned on me that there was an one up side that I had not previously considered: I have inherited a huge selection of random booze. The kind that posh cocktails call for!!

And all of a sudden it was cocktail time. I pulled out the Diffords Guide 'Cocktails #8' that I'd bought for my brother one Christmas and chose a Basilico. I proceeded to mash basil leaves, squeeze lemons and dissolve sugar. With the addition of vodka and Limoncello, my evening became a little bit brighter as a ray of sophistication shone through the chaos surrounding me.

Crab Pasta Beats Steak Pie

So, it seems that it is a tradition in Scotland to have a steak pie on New Year's Day.  The Scotsman tells me that the steak pie became the traditional dish for the first day of the year in Scotland when it was not a previously taken as holiday and pies were bought from the butcher as people were too busy to make their own.  Now, of course, Scotland takes two days off after Hogmanay to cope with the hangover and then actually enjoy the start of the year!

The Casson family traditional New Year's Day meal is BBQ.  Specifically, BBQ on Calblanque beach in Murcia, conversing with friends, scouring the sands for driftwood to build a fire, which we later then light to warm us as it gets dark, and generally making the most of the day off.

Having had a quiet New Year's Eve, Dave and I chose to forgo the pub and stay home on the 1st.  We pottered around, cleaning, tidying, writing letters, watching TV and plotting out projects for our new home.  For dinner, after such a rich meal the night before, we opted for a simple crab linguine loosely based on a Ben O'Donoghue recipe from the BBC.  His recipe involved passing brown crab meat through a sieve and later adding white crab meat to the dish.  I hadn't been able to get white crab meat when I did the shopping on the 30th - too close to New Year's Eve!  And, frankly, I could not be bothered passing the meat through a sieve and I am sure that Seafood & Eat It had prepared the crab so that it was all ready to go.

As O'Donoghue's recipe suggests, I boiled the fennel with the linguine.  Meanwhile, I heated the crab in a pan with butter, lemon juice, white wine, a touch of paprika and fresh coriander.  When the pasta was ready, I mixed the crab sauce through and served it topped with some fennel fronds and a little dollop of caviar that I had left over from the night before.

If you read The Scotsman article you will note that there is a theme to New Year's Day food in that it tends to be symbolically circular.  Well, I served my dinner in a round bowl, that should surely count!