The Nook On The Square

In March last year I was one of many to watch a very interesting series of programmes called The Restaurant Man where chef Russell Norman followed the journeys of people who packed in their day jobs to follow their dreams of opening a restaurant, despite having no catering experience.
For me, having been in the trade since leaving school 30 years ago, it was a very interesting set of programmes, especially as the final episode was a new cafe opening just 12 mins drive from my home.
Sisters Kate and Alex had a dream of transforming the ground floor of Kates house in the small village of Dunchurch, Rugby into a quaint, shabby chic cafe - The Nook On The Square.
In the program we saw the sisters taken to a top London hotel to learn about the etiquette of afternoon tea service, and to a transport cafe to experience the pressure of fast paced service and finally to France to be shown how to create beautiful square quiches.
Russell felt that being in a quiet village The Nook needed a signature dish to bring in regular customers and the quiches would be that such dish.



The Nook On The Square, Dunchurch, Rugby

 

Word spread about the cafe and it's involvement with the BBC 2 series and, on opening day, there was a queue down the street of inquisitive customers. A couple of months later the program aired and custom again went through the roof. It was far busier than either of the sisters ever envisaged.

Alex eventually left to return to nursing and a new manager was employed, along with several more staff.

And me? Well out of the blue last August I spotted an advert for a head chef for The Nook On The Square and, having been very unsettled with my job at The Red Lion for quite a while, I had no hesitation in applying for the job!

On August 28th, 2014 my new journey began!

Quiche Of The Day

As summer approaches (yes it is really coming!) it's time for salads and light meals. So the new menu at The Old Red Lion, Litchborough now contains "Quiche of the Day" which will always be a vegetarian choice, perfect for National Vegetarian Week.
Fresh from the oven here's todays choice - Tomato,Courgette,Basil and Mozzerella

Tomato, Courgette, Basil & Mozzerella Quiche

This is a photo of yesterdays choice - Broccoli, Pesto, Cashew & Goats Cheese

Broccoli, Pesto, Cashew & Goats Cheese Quiche

So what's your favourite flavour?
 Please feel free to share your favourites in the comments box below

Ready Steady Cook!

Like any other commercial outlet selling fresh produce Skylark Farm has it's fair share of waste each week.
Having the cafe now it is essential that we make good use of fruit and veg that are no longer nice enough to sell but still of a decent quality to be used in cooking.
So Sam set me a challenge today. I was given these 2 boxes of fruit and veg that had been removed from the shelf and told to create something with them and other store cupboard ingredients.
So in true ready steady cook style i got to work sussing out exactly what i had in my box. I seperated the veg from the fruit first and decided the veg would be my first challenge.
There were quite a lot of tomatoes and a real mixed variety of other veg so my decision was to make 2 soups.
For the tomato soup i roasted all the tomatoes in the oven first so that i could remove all their skins.
Then in a pan i sweated off some chopped onion, celery and carrot for about 5 mins before adding a couple of tbsps of tomato puree, 2 tbsp ganulated sugar, 1tbsp balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper.
Next i chopped the tomatoes and added them to the pot along with vegetable stock, enough to cover.
This all simmered away for about half hour before i removed from the heat, did a whizz in the blender then passed through a sieve. I put the soup back in the pan and seasoned slightly more to my own personal taste.


For the vegetable soup i used the same method though did not add balsamic vinegar or sugar.
And here is the end result. Thick, hearty soup which tastes delish!

After having used all the veg Sam gave me i still had onions, 1 red pepper, mushrooms and broccoli left to use.

Still with only the addition of store cupboard ingredients i decided to make quiche.

First i made the pastry base using shortcrust pastry. Very easy pastry to make so long as you remember it's half butter to plain flour with the addition of water.

I used 12 ozs of flour to 6ozs of butter for this recipe. Rub the butter in the flour (or whizz up in your food processor for quickness) and the add water to make a soft pliable dough.

Roll out and line your dish or tin with the pastry, (i treated myself yesterday to 4 small, fluted, deep, loose bottomed flan tins so i could make individual portions of quiche). You now need to bake this pastry blind.
Whilst that was baking i finely chopped up my veg and put in a bowl with some mixed herbs, salt and pepper. I whisked up 6 eggs (6yolks but only 4 whites), then added a pint of milk and whisked again.

When the pastry cases were ready i removed from the oven and put a layer of grated cheese in the bottom (bout 1/3 full), then the chopped veg on top followed by the egg/milk mixture.

Cook at 180 c/ 350 f / gas mark 4 (or if like me you have a fan oven that burns everything quickly turn your temperature down 10 degrees!) for about 35 - 45 mins.
Test to see if the inside is cooked by sticking a knife in the center of each pie and it should come out clean!
Best served warm but equally as nice cold!

So i did it and accomplished the challenge with some beautiful end results!

Pop by the blog tomorrow and i will show you what i've made from the waste fruit!