Bathroom blues

Apologies for the much-longer than anticipated break in transmission which was caused by (a) BT mucking up my land line and losing broadband for a while (b) being away from London for work and most eventfully (c) the return of Brian and his merry gang of Vassily and Min Yang for the installation of my new bathroom. I've been here in Tottenham for over nine years and the one room I've done nothing to is my bathroom. It was a monument to mank. A horrible yellowish bathroom suite, including a much-loathed corner bath as there was no room for what I like to think of as a proper bath. No shower. Peeling paintwork. A tongue and groove panelling which made tiling an impossibility. But when Brian took a look, he had a solution: knock down a wall and build a new one. After several gulps and examining the bank balance, I decided to go for it.

Here's Brian in the remains of the room - after we'd discovered that the old wall was the Victorian brick. A heavy layer of dust descended on the house and the study where the pc is was off limits for nearly a fortnight.

But it was such a relief to see the old bath languishing outside, waiting for its graveyard.

Bake for builders is my motto, and during their time here, I treated the team to a pecan and date loaf and banana blondies, which went down a storm. A reveal shot is now in order, so here's the old bathroom...
Yuk yuk...and here's my new one:

Slate tiles on the walls and floor (Brian insisted on a tiled floor), and a couple of orchids to complete the look. Brian, Vassily and Min Yang did a fantastic job - thank you. And while they were at it, I decided to get a radiator for the landing, which Mouse has claimed as her own. More cooking, reviewing and general food chat is now back on the agenda - I hope you'll stick around.

Squash alert

I have a serious squash infestation. They've been sneaking in via my veggie box, and three more came in from the allotment. They are now huddling together in the corner of the kitchen, muttering to each other, so it's time to pay them some attention. This is such a beautiful and patient veg: they keep for ages for use through autumn and into winter.

For supper, one baby will get the cheese and cream treatment, which I think I first saw on an early River Cottage programme, and then the wonderful Debbie of Hidden Valley Pigs served it up for lunch during a memorable piggy weekend of pork processing and fish smoking. Scoop out the seeds from your squash, reserving the top to form a lid, then fill the cavity with cheese and cream. I've used Parmesan to pack flavour into this small squash.

The oven is at gas mark 6, and it goes in for around 45 mins. And another three squash are de-seeded, seasoned and sloshed with a little olive oil. I'll deal with the roasted flesh at the weekend.
The finished cheesy squash was really lovely, and I forgot to take a photo of it until I'd scooped it clean.

All food entering the house has to pass the Mouse test.

Damsons, cats, more soya milk and a deeply rich tomato sauce

Part two of my So Good soya milk tasting took part today, when I collared my lovely next-door neighbours, Tom and Megan, to blind taste two smoothies: one cow's milk and one So Good milk. It's my standard Sunday morning mixture of banana, honey and milk whizzed together, with the addition of the flesh of a mango I bought last week at Shepherd's Bush market. Here we have Tom swigging down glass B...

...while Megan samples glass A. They liked both smoothies, although they thought glass A, the soya version, was sweeter. Now that I've used So Good, I could tell which was which just by smelling them. In the end, and before I revealed which was which, Tom preferred the soya while Megan liked the cow's milk best. I much preferred the cow's milk...but then, I don't have that sweet a tooth and a smidgen of bias is creeping in. But clearly, So Good did work well in this experiment, and Tom happily finished off the soya smoothie.

After the romanesco cheese debacle, I'd mentioned my concern about the sweetness to Emma at Wild Card PR agency - she replied: 'In answer to your question re. why it is so sweet, all soya milks tend to be sweetened to improve the taste and make more milk like (soya beans aren’t naturally sweet). Some soya milks use fruit juice to sweeten the taste – So Good uses sucrose and vanilla flavouring. So Good held extensive consumer research to investigate the taste preferences of both soya and non soya milk drinkers. They found that the new recipe was most popular with both sets of consumer groups and was more highly favoured compared to the old recipe and its biggest competitor for creaminess, smoothness, thickness and taste.' Hmmm - maybe many of today's consumers have grown up with much more processed and therefore sweetened food than when I was a lass.
Yesterday, I spent a lovely day in the Bucks countryside with J, scrumping damsons which I cooked down and pureed to go with a fantastic lunch dessert of rice pud and a new find of J's - Tesco's Finest hazelnut yoghurt. Yummylicious. One of the many joys of visiting J is spending time with Daisy, here resting with a monkey...

...and Freida, caught here on patrol, trying to find out why J and I were laughing so much at poor Daisy.

The main cooking today has been using up the final good-sized harvest of tomatoes from the allotment and the garden. Q and I are now in digging mode, getting ready to plant onions and garlic, and clearing the ground of bean and tomato plants.
Nigel Slater had a recipe for green and red tomato chutney in last Saturday's Observer, and after much rummaging in the recycling bin I dug it out. Nigel's version is here, but I didn't have quite the weight of tomatoes - about 100g short - so I added some celery. I didn't have enough raisins either, but I discoverd some sticky prunes lurking in a cupboard.

In went the green toms, onions, raisins, prunes, sugar, salt, vinegar and a chilli from the garden. It bubbled away happily for half an hour before I added the red toms.

After a total of an hour's cooking, it looked a little bit liquid and not very jammy. And I don't think I cut the big toms into small enough chunks. Still, the flavour was fantastic, so I decided to pass the mixture through a sieve and come up with a sauce. It tastes lovely: richly sour and sweet and perfect, I reckon, for adding to some porky sausages or a jacket spud on a cold winter's day. Quite an autumnal jarful.
The sky has now turned grey so Mouse has settled into her basket while I type away.

Chicken, Mouse, and one amazing lady

A very nice surprise yesterday: a punnet of heirloom toms in my Abel and Cole box. So pretty.

I came across a tempting recipe on the Gourmet website last week - this week I was determined to try it. The original ingredients for the cilantro almond chicken are here; I altered it slightly to reduce the quantities.

First I got a couple of Leckford Farm chicken breasts from Waitrose - and bloody good they are too. They got poached in a splash of white wine, some water, a bay leaf, celery, a carrot, an allotment onion and black peppercorns. While that was simmering sweetly, it was time to put the sauce together. First, toast a handful of slivered almonds under the grill, watching them like a hawk, or dry fry them in a saucepan (same hawk qualities needed). Put them on a plate to cool. Mix 3 tbs sour cream, 3 tbs mayo, juice of a lime, a finely chopped jalapeno pepper, a couple of cloves of garlic and a pinch of salt. Add a handful of chopped coriander and add the cool almonds.

Gently mix in the shredded chicken and there you have it. It was lovely, but next time I think I'll try it with half sour cream and yoghurt rather than mayo. The warmth of the almonds and the heat of the pepper is a great combination.

I had one chicken breast left, and dug out Angela Nilsen's Ultimate Recipe Book for her fabulous take on Coronation Chicken. I cooked this last summer and it was a revelation: a retro classic that fully deserves its place in the UK food hall of fame. To go with the spicy chicken sauce, I went for a cooling couscous, with spring onion, almonds and a spritz of lemon juice. One of the reasons I love Angela's recipe is her introduction - she rang the wonderful Marguerite Patten to ask for advice.
Marguerite is now in her 90s, and is as resolutely helpful and polite as she's ever been. She cooked through the second world war, showing people how to make the best of rationing, then was one of the first tv cooks when television arrived. She's published heaven knows how many recipe books and popped up on the 1940s House (Channel 4) a few years back to give handy hints on wartime tea treats. I love her We'll Meet Again - a collection of hair-raising WW2 recipes. Why is this wonderful woman not a dame? She's a national treasure.

Meanwhile, on the home front and for all Mouse fans, here's my girl in her summer quarters. Mouse has a number of sleeping stations dotted round the house. Her winter residence is a basket on the landing on top of the hot water pipes. In the summer, she prefers this fleece-lined Ikea basket in the study.

Mouse says: Enough talk already. Some of us are trying to sleep.

Our lady of the chillies

My little Mouse flat out in the sun, dreaming of tuna.

In praise of Mouse

Mouse is my gorgeous little ginger and white cat - she and I have been together for three years now. She came from north London Cats Protection, along with her brother Teddy. Very sadly, Teddy got pancreatic cancer and died a couple of years ago. Mouse was extremely timid when she arrived (hence her name). Now she's a bossy boots and clearly lets me know when it's time to eat, play or give her a lap. Quite right too.