When we were invited along to join some friends at a beer festival in their village we were still in the grips of a fairly cold spring, but when the weekend in question actually approached and we heard that it was going to be a scorcher we were delighted. While being in the middle of a field drinking beer isn’t necessarily the way to avoid sunburn and sunstroke we took all precautions and arrived loaded up with bottles of water and sun cream. Even though we were told that we didn’t need to bring anything I figured the more sustenance we had the more beer we could taste, so to that end I whipped up some Everyday Brownies from Nigella’s Kitchen the night before. They were super easy to make and had the added bonus of being robust enough to survive the train journey to the festival (I doubt any fancy cupcakes would have!). They were just the thing come the mid-afternoon munchies and went down well with the friendly crowd we were with. We had a great day at the Haddenham Beer Festival which was rounded off nicely with more beer from the local pub (well the festival had run out) and a few chilli-dogs back at my friend’s house – lord knows how we made it back to the station and on to the right train, but we did. Oh and for anyone that’s interested, if you leave a camembert out in the full sun for an hour it bakes as well as in any oven (umm, fondue!). 
Following the over-indulgences of a beer festival and a family BBQ (we were celebrating the British win at Wimbledon, so we just had to treat ourselves!) I decided a nice light meal was the way to go so I made the Sea Bass Ceviche from Wahaca. A little bit of prep was all that was required and I could just sit back and let the fish ‘cook’ in the citrus juices, I then simply made it all look pretty on a platter to serve alongside some tortilla chips. In the middle of the heat-wave we’re experiencing this is the perfect dish, it’s light, fresh and zingy – I may have to make another ceviche next week, I’d forgotten just how tasty they are and who knows how long the hot weather is going to last. 
The following night I made the Tomato & Basil Tarte Tatin from Lorraine Pascale’s Baking Made Easy, it really could not have been easier as there was absolutely no pre-cooking required, just put everything in the pan, cover with the pastry and pop it into the oven. Now I do just have to dispute the cooking time given in the recipe, I had my reservations when I first read it and after 20 minutes I was right, the tomatoes were definitely not cooked enough so I popped it back in. Served with a massive salad this was a very light and healthy dish (if you just completely forget all about the puff pastry).My fourth, and final, new recipe of the week was Fusilli al Fagiolini from The Geometry of Pasta (my favourite pasta book, I have to say). I can’t say that I’ve ever consciously had pasta with green beans but I thought it sounded tasty (and cheap…that’s always important too). It involves cooking some of the green beans in advance and then blitzing them with some cream, garlic and bit of ground cinnamon but once that’s done all you need to do is cook the pasta and add the remaining beans to the pan towards the end. Once everything is mixed together you get a lovely combination of creamy-coated pasta with the slight crunch of those green beans and just a hint of sweet cinnamon in the background. Another winner from a brilliant book!
Recipe Count: 89
New Target: 104
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