I have news, it’s life changing news that both myself and John are very excited about. Somewhere my mother’s knees just buckled!

We are now the proud owners of an allotment plot! After nearly two years of being patient on a waiting list, we finally got the call to say there were spaces available. I’m sure I’m supposed to wait until I am retired to do this sort of thing, but there is nothing cooler to me than the thought of growing your my own food. We get the keys and pay the rent tomorrow, it all adds up to a grand total of sixty four pounds for the whole year, it’s not bad is it?  The timing is perfect as I’m about to graduate so I will have more free time to work on it and the summer seems to be hitting us hard already which is making me very excited and hopeful about the months ahead.

We now need to decide what kind of stuff to grow, we need to chit some potatoes and prepare the ground for sowing. I remember there always being egg boxes of sprouting potatoes around the house back home. On top cupboards, in the kitchen, on the upstairs window shelf, on the dinner table – which is now in my own living room – in the bathroom, in my bed…just kidding. It was just another quirky characteristic that made up the Preece household which now makes me chuckle!

Speaking of potatoes, here is another baked one for you to feast your eyes upon. Don’t worry, this is the last baked potato, promise!

1 baked potato per person

225g smoked haddock for every 2 potatoes

300ml double cream

2 tablespoons wholegrain mustard

a palmful of parsley leaves

Put the smoked haddock in a baking dish, skin side down. Season the cream with the mustard, parsley and a little salt and pepper. Pour the mixture over the haddock and bake in the same oven as the potatoes for about twenty minutes. Break apart the potatoes into two and scoop out the potato inside, mash the potato with the cream from the cooked fish. Pull away the flesh of the fish, leaving them in big chunks and stir them into the creamed potato, check seasoning then pile back into their jackets. Place under a hot grill until the peaks crisp and colour.

So here we are combining cream, bacon AND cheese. There is nothing wrong about these three things, they  put a big fat  smile on my face while my arteries condemn me to hell. Everything in moderation of course.

Pasta bakes and jacket potatoes were my university diet for about a year. I used to sit in lectures looking forward to my lunchtime jacket and fantasize about the fillings that I could create. But in my opinion, there is nothing better than a fluffy potato with lots of melting butter, when I see the afternoon sun on the trees, that deep warm colour, I am reminded of this nostalgic, comforting supper.

Brilliant, I’m hungry again.

So try to switch up your normal jacket potato, even though they’re satisfying enough, it’s all about experimenting!

Allow 1 jacket potato per person

100g pancetta

150g double cream

100g gorgonzola, diced

Fry the pancetta until it’s fat is golden, try not to use any extra butter or oil. Stir in the cream and gorgonzola and leave to bubble gently at a moderate heat for a minute or two. Split the potatoes, then spoon in the creamy sauce.

So I failed at staying away from my blog, it just took me to open Lightroom and see a flash of the recent food photographs I took for me to realise how much I wanted to make a post. What can I say? It relaxes me, and flushes out any stress that I am holding at the moment. I finished another roll of film today, a little last minute but is quite typical of my character and sums up my entire time at university!

I’ve almost become a little numb to the worry I should be feeling at the moment in regards to my final show, there is a lot more that I need to sort out than I thought, and everything else including keeping a tidy home, eating healthy and – what I should be doing – enjoying the sun,  are exempt from my priority list for now.

1 Freddi + 1 large stuffed crust pizza + Game Of Thrones marathon procrastination must = major deadline times.

So to celebrate my heightened craving for carbs season, I’m doing Nigel’s baked potato in three ways. For years I thought I had my baked potato skills down, I was no fool. Fed up of sticking a large potato in the oven for an hour and a half to find the inside still quite firm and not fluffy was a major, ongoing disappointment. So then I tried to microwave for about ten minutes, then bake for about half an hour, this way the potato was almost certain to be soft, however the skin never had that firmness and crunchy-ness that I craved. So I tried to leave the skin without any oil added before baking, wetting it, sprinkle with salt and then prick the skin here and there. And voila! Nigel saved me again from a simple problem.

” My friend Rosie Stark told me to hit my baked spud with a neat karate blow instead of a knife as it comes from the oven. It guarantees a baked potato that is as light as snow inside.” Nigel Slater, Real Good Food.

Rosie wasn’t wrong, I find this little technique useful and also a little endearing. So first up is pretty much pesto, mixed in with the fluffy potato insides. I had never made my own pesto before, you can totally taste the difference from shop bought, the flavour is much more intense and the process a hell of alot more satisfying.

A quick hello to my new followers! It’s good to have you here.

1 baked potato per person

2 large handfuls of basil leaves (my basil plant is now naked)

3 plump cloves of garlic

2 tablespoons pine nuts

2 tablespoons grated parmesan, plus extra to finish

You will also need 4 tablespoons of olive oil!

Prepare the baked potato as described above and bake in the oven at 200C for an hour or so.

Cream the garlic to a paste with a little salt using a pestle and mortar. Add the basil and pine nuts, pounding to a thick paste. Trickle in the oil then mix in the Parmesan until you get a bright green paste.

Crack the baked potatoes open, scoop out the insides and mix the pesto and potato together, pile back into the skins, grate some Parmesan on top and return to the oven until bubbling!

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I’m full of nerves recently, I don’t deal with anxiety well and choose to do anything but deal with what’s causing it. I have a final show to put up at the end of next month, and a wedding photography job that I’m having to prepare for in the same week. Both of these events will pretty much sum up as to how creative and versatile I am able to be as a photographer, it will truly test me as I have been so used to shooting food for most of the last year. So I’m a little weak at the knees at the moment along with suffering from stomach flips at the very thought of hanging an end of year show, and my first wedding job.

I won’t be blogging so regularly now until after May when everything is done and dusted, however much I wish I could do this everyday. I CANNOT wait to have this blog as my full time hobby, especially now as summer is just around the corner and the days are getting longer, which means more light and results in more available daylight to photograph. I’m a few weeks behind on my blogging, forgive me, but I’m having to go cold turkey starting from today, unless I get a large amount of work done and have time to cook and blog til’ my heart’s content.

Celeriac is a vegetable I had never tasted before, until Mr Slater required one for his potato & celeriac cake. No, not of the sponge variety, that would have to be a very acquired taste, I’m still trying to digest the idea of a beetroot chocolate cake! A layer of celeriac, a layer of potato covered in a thick buttery sauce. This was a perfect accompaniment for a beautiful fillet of smoked haddock that I baked in a foil parcel, even though I could’ve eaten the whole damn dish but refrained in the knowledge of how much butter there actually was in between the layers.

I’m nearly at the end of Mr Slater’s potato section in the book so if I have the time, I will try to do a few more posts, but if I don’t, please make the most of your spuds and get creative!

So wish me luck for the next month or so, and I shall see you on the other side! In a while crocodile.

500g waxy potatoes

1 medium celeriac

a handful of dill leaves 

a handful of thyme leaves

Buttery goodness

A smoked haddock fillet parcel, perfect as the main dish.

Celeriac Cake

1 medium Celeriac

500g waxy potatoes

90g butter

4 cloves of garlic

2 heaped tablespoons Dijon mustard

a level tablespoon of thyme leaves

60ml of vegetable stock

a handful of dill leaves

If you fancy the fish as a main:

Allow one fish fillet per person

-smoked haddock, cod or mackerel

a scoop of butter

dill leaves

lemon wedges

salt & pepper

Slice the potatoes and celeriac very thinly so you can see through them, mix together and soak in a bowl of cold water. Melt the butter in a saucepan and when it starts to bubble, add the garlic and cook slowly for five minutes. Take off the heat and stir in the mustard, thyme leaves and a grinding of salt and pepper. Drain the potatoes and celeriac and dry them on some kitchen paper. Toss them in with the mustard butter until they’re all coated. Lay the mixture in a baking dish and pour over the stock. Cover with a circle of greasproof paper, then bake in the oven, preheated to 190C for about an hour until tender.

Remove the greasproof paper and turn the heat up to 220C and bake until the top is crispy.

For the fish:

Place a fillet of fish in a sheet of foil, season with salt and pepper.  Leave out the salt if the fish is smoked, it will already be quite salty. Top with some dill, parsley, and wedges of lemon, then add a scoop of butter on top. Roll the parcel up like a cornish pasty and bake in the oven for around twenty minutes during the last bit of cooking of the celeriac and potatoes.