Georgina Hayden

Feeding since 1982

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Elderflower jellies (and cordial)

06.02.2015 by georgie // Leave a Comment

It’s elderflower season! And I am giddy from picking this free treasure. I love that even living in a heavily built up and busy city I managed to do a little foraging. These beauties were found by the canal in East London and I’ve been back twice since (I haven’t depleted the whole tree I promise). We’ve had a quiet couple of days after a heavy few weeks and this was perfectly calming and therapeutic. So, a short and simple blog post from me today, and appreciating these beautiful little flowers in all their glory.

 

Elderflower
Freshly picked elderflower
Elderflower jellies
Elderflower jellies

 

ELDERFLOWER CORDIAL

Classic elderflower cordial calls for just caster sugar and lemons, however I love the subtle addition of honey.

  • 15 heads of elderflower (be sure not to wash them, but do pick off any bugs)
  • 500g caster sugar
  • 4 tablespoons good quality runny honey
  • 2 unwaxed lemons

Continue for recipe…

Categories // Drinks, Preserving Tags // Cordial, Dairy-free, Elderflower, Jelly, Preserving, Pudding, Wheat-free

Thai spiced mackerel pâté

04.27.2015 by georgie // Leave a Comment

Hello Monday. What a joy to start the week with some good food and a blog post and a spot of crochet on the bus!

There are some really exciting things in the pipeline which are keeping me busy right now, one of which is a supper club, my first! We’re holding it the week before Archie’s birthday in May to raise money for Sands and Tommy’s, two amazing charities. I’ve wanted to do some fundraising for a long time and I’m so excited about hosting a proper supper club and cooking for so many people, it feels like a great personal challenge whilst also doing something positive in memory of our baby. I’m just working on finalising the menu at the moment and placing orders – watch this space.

I also recently did an interview with fashion and lifestyle website Secret Sales, and got to talk about my job as a Food Stylist and why I love it. I’m really chuffed as I love what I do and where I work, so it was a lovely opportunity to talk about it. You can read the interview here.

Thai spiced mackerel pate

And even though all these things are exciting and fun, today has been a really lovely calm day, I got a chance to thoughtfully cook myself lunch (and shoot it) before leaving the house and Skype my best mate in Spain – I miss her bad. It feels so good to actually take the time to think about what I need, and want.  I’ve been trying hard to make sure we regularly eat fish for some time now as it is such a quick and nutritious source of energy and omega 3’s – proper brain food. However being a Monday fresh fish isn’t really an option, so I went for the smoked kind instead, which is a brilliant fridge staple. Read more…

Categories // Fish, Light meals, Preserving, Starters & sides Tags // Fertility, Gluten-free, Mackerel, Nutrition, Pate, Snack, Starter, Thai, Wheat-free

Foods that heal

09.09.2014 by georgie // 3 Comments

A few weeks after losing Archie (our little boy),  my better half Peter returned back to work but would come home at lunchtime everyday to see me. The first day he came back was the first day I stepped into the kitchen (we had survived on foods from incredibly generous family and friends up until this point). We ate scrambled eggs and avocado on toast. Or that was the plan at least, in actual fact we pretty much just ate avocado and blackened bread. I’d ruined the scrambled eggs, charred the toast. How can you ruin scrambled eggs when you cook for a living? Who knows, but I did and it led to a melt down. What was I going to do with my life? I can’t even scramble eggs! It was not pretty.

It has been a bleak few months and for the first time in my life food and eating have been pretty low down on my priority list. I didn’t think I’d ever actually know what it felt like to eat for energy and not for fun, but that is what it has been like – food to fill a hole. But then little by little my love of cooking is creeping back in. Our large groaning bookshelf  is serving a purpose – how many cookbooks does one girl need? It is rebuilding my confidence, rebuilding my body -which has taken a battering, and is helping me fall back in love with cooking and eating.

Being someone who writes recipes for a living I’ve never been particularly good at following recipes from books, often I would read them as inspiration and tweak things here and there depending on what I have and what is in season. However I genuinely feel like this mammoth book collection has been a saving grace – I haven’t felt able to ‘go it alone’ and being hand held is exactly what I need right now. My weekly goal is to find things to cook during the week, make a list and shop. Simple but it is proving to be a huge help. I love going to the butchers, fishmongers, green grocers and even supermarket – things I took for granted before. There is something wonderful about being frugal too. My aim is to make use of everything we have, trying to keep waste to a minimum. It’s a wonderful exercise.

So what do I mean by foods that heal then? There are the foods that are nutritionally sound, such as the bombay eggs and spinach I had for lunch today (spinach, turmeric, green chilli, garlic, cumin, free range eggs… winner on so many levels), which I know are healing me on the inside and then there are the recipes that are healing emotionally. There is definitely something calming almost meditative with certain recipes, especially things like baking and preserving which take time and patience. There have been many batches of bread over the last few months (a few inedible), and even Peter has become addicted to the no nonsense recipe we have adopted.

So for my first ‘healing’ recipe I give you a simple one. Jam. It was one of the first things we made, and we’re still enjoying the fruits (sorry) of our labour. Also, making apricot jam leads onto one of my favourite meals of all time… the most comforting thing you’ll ever eat. I’ll save that for next time though.

 

Apricot jam

  • 1kg apricots (when I made this years batch I also had a glut of flat peaches, so threw a few of those in there too)
  • 600g granulated sugar
  • Juice of 2 lemons
  • A bay leaf

Halve the apricots, keeping 6 of the stones to one side, and place the flesh in a large heavy bottomed saucepan. Add the sugar, lemon juice  and bay leaf and give everything a good stir. Leave to one side to steep for a couple of hours.

Using a nut cracker, or rolling pin (be careful though!) crack 6 of the apricot stones and remove the kernels. Place in a small bowl and cover with boiling water, for just enough time to remove the brown paper skin. Split each kernel into 2 and add to the pan of fruit.

After 2 hours place the pan on a low heat and stir until all the sugar has dissolved. Once it has dissolved turn the heat up to medium-high and cook for around 25 – 30 minutes, stirring often. You want the apricot flesh to have cooked down and should have a lovely deep colour – it’ll be a medium soft set jam.

When the jam is ready, leave it to cool for 10 minutes and then carefully spoon into sterilised jars (try and make sure you get at least one apricot kernel in each jar). Seal whilst still hot and then leave to cool before labelling them. Once you open a jar, remember to store it in the fridge.

 

Making apricot jam
Making apricot jam

Categories // Preserving Tags // Apricot, Dairy-free, Gluten-free, Jam, Preserving, Wheat-free

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Georgina is a food writer, stylist and illustrator from North London.
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  • The Christmas-present-production-line has begun! What are you guys making? These bergamot loukoumia are my favourite. They melt in the mouth and the bergamot offsets the sweetness so well, which means they’re criminally addictive. And yiayia is coming over on Friday to making hundreds of kourabiedes and melomakarona. These are traditional festive Greek biscuits. Kourabiedes are slightly nutty shortbread that are laced with orange blossom and dusted in icing sugar. And melomakarona are very unusual, they are a biscuit that is then dipped in a spiced hot honey syrup and scattered with chopped nuts. Both make great gifts (and you can find all the recipes in Taverna). I’ll try get some filming of yiayia on Friday for you all! It’s going to be a lot of fun.
  • Its December! And I’m thrilled to announce some exciting news. The brilliant team at @sundaybrunchc4 have asked me to regularly join them to chat all things cookbooks! What’s hot, what’s exciting. I’ll be back on your screens on the 22nd Dec with a selection of great last minute christmas cookbook gift ideas. I cannot wait 📚 
Photo by @nassimarothacker for @deliciousmag
  • The @deliciousmag Christmas edition part two is out now! There is everything you need for the big day in there and more, including my dream party menu (spoiler alert - it’s Indian themed. All I ever want is Pani puri, spicy chai and Indian sweets). These gulab jamuns are fun to make whilst being a great alternative to regular festive sweet offerings (milk based, cardamom laced and deep fried. The dream). Check out my stories for a flick through the mag. It’s an absolute beaut. 📷 by the dreamboat @nassimarothacker
  • Great yiayia made us the simplest most delicious lunch today. Spaghetti, cooked in stock (always). A slow cooked garlicky tomato sauce lace with cinnamon (so Greek). And more salted anari than you can shake a stick at. Persephone ate with her fork half the time, but she knew she could shovel it in quicker with her hand. #ThatsMyGirl

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