Holiday Food

The lovely thing about being on holiday is that you can make the meals as simple as you want, or, as I am finding, flick through cookbooks at leisure and have the luxury of time to try out new recipes.

And as everyone knows, when your beside the seaside, you appetite is ravenous.

I brought two new books along with me on holiday.

Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall’s (of River Cottage fame) Light and Easy book, and Chelsea Winter’s new book, Everyday Living. I also have the standby recipes I store on my ipad and there is an ancient (but good) cookbook in the bookshelf here.

For afternoon treats I brought along our traditional Christmas cake, which is a brandy-soaked fruit cake, layered with almond icing and topped with rich butter icing, laced with more….. Brandy. All of us like fruit cake, except I do find that the little children tend to eat the icing and leave the cake, or as I found here (sshhh – I think it was the teenage son),  snaffling off the end layer of icing.

My mother gave me her recipe for Chocolate Licorice Truffles, which were a little fussy to make, in that you had to melt and dip chocolate, but are so rich, we’re only eating about one a day, which is  a good thing, because they’ve lasted nearly a week.

My aunty and cousins are coming for the weekend, so I plan on making Chelsea Winter’s Fresh Mint Chocolate Slice.

I’ve really enjoyed Hugh’s book this year. His food is earthy and simple and easy.We eat our dinner late at the beach, usually in the twilight on the table outside, with the citronella candles burning and the barbeque sizzling. The beach is usually quiet at that time of day, so we are serenaded by the crashing or lapping of the ceaseless ocean tide.

We have also adopted the family tradition from Rob's eldest brother who introduced us to this lovely ritual, of cheese and wine... whatever you fancy ... something to drink late afternoon. When you eat so late at night, it's a little filler - quite a luxurious one - to keep the wolves away.

Hugh’s Roast Beetroot, Potato and Garlic dish was lovely to eat in the dim light. The colours are medieval and the taste earthy and delicious.

We also  loved his storehouse fishcakes for lunch.

Usually we just have sausages and steak as our staple meal, with fresh lettuce from the Caretaker’s garden. This year I’ve enjoyed adding creamy sauces to the steak. I like to marinade the meat for at least 12 hours with my Great Aunty Gwen’s Famous-In-The –Family recipe, which is a mixture of soya sauce, ginger, garlic and brown sugar.

The caretaker has hens in his garden, so we’ve been able to get fresh eggs everyday, which is a real treat.

The next thing I’m going to make out here is Chelsea’s Pavlova which is made from 8 eggs! My friend Kim made it for Christmas and said it turned out great!

I am enjoying the luxury of time to think about food, if I feel like it. And that’s the beauty of it.

What do you like to cook when you’re on holiday? Do you have any food traditions?