Bite Club brings me back to my roots..

This month's cook is Nigella Lawson, and the book I've been into is Nigella's Kitchen.  Since Handsome Son is expected for dinner this evening, he will be my official taster. First course: Sunshine Soup, using red bell peppers and corn from the farm

Seen here at right, her poshed up picture at left.  But it's very good even if mine isn't quite as sunny as hers.  I had a red pepper, she used both red and yellow.  But I also had lovely whey in the freezer from yogurt cheese making, great in this sort of soup, and a chicken broth. So I have hopes of this one.

Then roasted vegetables (not Nigella, just general principles) with roasted salt potatoes (thank you Deborah Madison) and winter squash, plum tomatoes, shredded cabbage, all from the farm, and chicken sausage from Aldi, one of which we now have.

Then a nice seedcake (this is what I'll take in to Bite Club next Wed, since it will keep, if there's any left, that is).  I notice, cattily, that mine didn't sink in the middle as hers did...

The seedcake amused me because I'd never had it in my life, but saw references to it in Miss Marple, where she was at Bertram's Hotel, and it was supposed to be a big deal afternoon tea item.  And there's Jane Eyre, to whom it was evidently a huge treat, not that that's saying much when you think of her life at Lowood, but moving right along.

Anyway, I thought I should honor my roots and do a seedcake, if only to amuse my fellow Club members who think I'm a bit dotty anyway. 

So there's tonight's menu.  HS rarely looks at my blog, so he won't get the surprise spoiled.  Also a glass of merlot if required, and homemade lemonade if not, HS being a rather abstemious man.

English Breakfast pot of tea afterwards when we move to the sitting room. That's the other side of the room from the dining room.  But not the stitching area, which is the far corner of the same room. Or the conservatory, which is the part behind the sofa in the sitting room.  Just so you don't get lost in here.