Gratin tombé

Today I decided to make a sweet root vegetable gratin of potato, pumpkin and sweet potato. Seemed like a simple enough idea...until I discovered that my sweet potato was one of those white yammy ones (SO inferior to the orange ones). Grrr!
Nevertheless, I soldiered on, lovingly applying thin slices of a third of a pumpkin, 1 red onion, 6 small potatoes, 1 sweet potato (imposter) and thyme to a baking dish. Then in a measuring jug I whisked up with a fork 200ml of milk and 200ml cream, 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard, 1 crushed garlic clove and a big handful of grated Parmesan, poured this over the top and sprinkled a layer of breadcrumbs over the top and a bit more Parmesan for good measure. Then I baked this at 180 for about 1-1 1/2 hours.

The thing about my personality sometimes is that while I can be quite meticulous in constructing a dish I can be equally careless when it comes to oven handling. I pull things out of our oven one-handed in the most precarious and dangerous fashion. Usually when I pick it up I know it's going to be fine, but sometimes I know I'm in trouble and I still don't stop...



Voila!

The 5-second rule prevails, plus it didn't even touch the floor anyway, so I scraped it up and re-baked it with a new breadcrumb layer. And it was delicious - creamy, earthy vegetables with hints of thyme and Mr Muscle.

The saturday ramble

My mate Kirsty K and I have totally embraced the English pastime of rambling. Not so much walking poles and maps wrapped in plastic as the joy of taking a very long stroll to a country pub for dinner.



One Saturday a little while back we took a train to Guildford in Hampshire then ambled through field, farm and forest to Liss. We enjoyed a halfway break at the Hawkley Arms getting smashed on the local cider but feared a come down deep in the woods so took the precaution of carrying four more pints in milk bottles to tide us over till we reached the next pub. Part two of the ramble was a bit woozy then but still remarkably beautiful; bright yellow canola fields and wooded tracks carpeted with pretty and pungent baby shoots of wild garlic.





When we finally got to Liss some seven hours after we set off, we were dozy and starving. I can't remember the name of the pub we stumbled into but the food was brilliant (in our experience the country pub kitchen can be a bit hit and miss if it is open at all). In that moment, a big bowl of mushrooms in a cheesy, mustardy, creamy sauce topped with buttery crumbs was the best thing I ever ate.