Velvet Antlers Power Pancakes

After many requests we have finally given in - here is the recipe for our killer pancakes. These started off as my baby, a breakfast I made regularly for Dave which I gathered from an old book of Scottish recipes from Skye. The original recipe was for traditional Scottish Drop Scones (many small pancakes). I experimented with the vanilla (a favourite of mine) but stuck firmly to making the small drop scones - perfect for eating with one hand with a mouse in the other. But after Dave liked them so much for climbing fuel and took up the pancake mantle, he opted for more American style large pancakes.

This is a simple recipe, so where can you go wrong? Don't underestimate the effect of flour quality! Our wisdom garnered from the glitterati of Scottish cooking has led us to McDougalls flour in the UK. Try it back to back with the supermarket's own brand flour lurking in your cupboard and be amazed! Laterally, Dave experienced new levels of fluffiness using Spanish flour, which he attributed to higher levels of raising agent. Since then we've experimented with adding a smidgen (if you are not familiar with this standard Scottish unit of measurement click here) of baking soda to achieve new levels of fluff.

Ingredients

4oz the best self-raising flour you can get your hands on (wholemeal is nice too)

1oz caster sugar

1/4 pint milk

1 medium egg

1 dribble of vanilla extract

optional smidgen of baking soda

Seive the flour into a bowl and add the sugar and baking soda. beat the egg into the milk and vanilla and add to the dry mix. Stir until you ave a smooth batter, adding more wee drops of milk if it's too thick.

Spoon into a hot pan (with a little sunflower oil) if making drop scones of pour straight from the bowl for big panakes. Serve up with maple syrup, jam, butter, bacon, fruit or whatever takes your fancy...

Then have a good day.

Velvet Antlers Lentil & Bacon Soup

Velvet Antlers Lentil and Bacon soup

Here is another all time favourite of ours, made frequently through the winter months in our massive pot which Dave got for christmas a couple of years back. This soup, like most homemade soup of course, can’t really be beaten for being gorgeous to eat, very healthy and being cheap and really easy to make.

Ingredients:

350 grams red split lentils
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
5 slices of bacon medallions
2 medium onions
3 carrots
3 sticks of celery
1.6 litres of water
Salt and black pepper

Wash the lentils in a sieve and then leave to soak in warm water for 30 minutes. In the meantime, chop the bacon and vegetables. Heat the oil then fry the bacon and add the vegetables, frying until soft.

Drain the lentils and add these and the water to the vegetables. Add the salt and pepper. Bring to the boil and simmer for 30 minutes. Remove any scum and for best results leave to cool for a while and blend the soup.

Enjoy. And thanks for all the messages letting me know how much you enjoyed my gingerbread!

Fresh bread on demand

This thing of beauty arrived this morning. A white tin loaf sprinkled with poppy seeds and hand- delivered by Mandy from Tigh Fuine on her bicycle. As you can see, I'm looking rather pleased with it. Who wouldn't be? It's home-made, hand-made, fresh, organic, cheaper than buying a slightly fousty loaf from the local shop and delivered for free. What's not to love? All those that live outside Mandy's delivery area may now turn green with jealousy. The rest of you shoud start banging down her door!

Drop me a line and I'll pass on your email (the website is being worked on as we speak) and you can be added to her weekly email she sends out on a Monday telling you what breads she is baking that week. You just let her know what loaf you would like and on what day. Genius.

All that was left for me to do this morning was swither over having some of my new delivery for breakfast, or some of those fresh baked blueberry scones that are cooling in the background. It was a tough call...

Today's lunch

I went out to buy lunch today. This is what I came home with. Nice eh? And yes, I did eat all of it! The flower garnish are Nasturtiums – completely edible, according to Becky from Shielfoot Organics. How did they taste? ‘Woody’, just like Becky told me they ‘would’ be.

Today’s lunch shopping was rather more interesting than normal; at Lochaber Larder’s monthly food producers gathering and market in Fort William. Among the delights on offer was Tigh Fuine’s (Gaelic – ‘bakehouse’) gorgeous breads. Mandy bakes daily and delivers her loaves to the door (so long as you leave her the dosh in a jam jar first!) every morning. Velvet Antlers headquarters will be partaking daily from now on. If you’d like Tigh Fuine’s number, drop us a line. I arrived back home with warm bread, edible flowers, chutney, rainbow eggs and more than a few new friends.

So there you have it. If the story behind this not-so-humble sandwich doesn’t convince you that seeking out local food is good for you, nothing will.

Frying eggs the hard way.

Whilst I’m on the subject of frying eggs, it reminded me to tell y’all about Oleifera Rapeseed Oil. Back in the days of PO (pre-Oleifera) I was an advocate of organic sunflower oil for all things frying, baking and cooking as I found olive oil too heavy and with an overpowering taste. Lately, I’ve been trying out Oleifera which as well as looking quite classy on the old kitchen work-top, has converted me to the benefits of rapeseed oil. You know when you fry eggs you get that crispy hard bottom and edges? Well, I did anyway, but crispy bottoms are now a thing of the past and you don’t even need to use that much of it, so it isn’t swimming in grease.

Award winning design, a great product and guess what?

It’s Scottish! Yahoo!

Scottish cafés we like part two: Lochaber Farm Shop

A welcome addition to the café scene in Fort William is the arrival of the Lochaber Farm Shop’s new café. In their new purpose built lodge, they offer the best of both worlds. You can sit down and enjoy the view of Aonach Mor whilst eating one of the best bacon and egg rolls known to man and then do what I do and pop across the hall to buy the same locally produced bacon and eggs to take home and munch your way through each morning until you run out and have to go back and buy some more. Not the healthiest, I know, but they taste so damn fine. I may end up the same size as their purpose built lodge if I’m not careful.

The shop itself has the best fruit and veg available in the area, far superior to the standard offered by Fort Williams’ big, local supermarket. If you know Fort William, you’ll know which one I’m talking about. Not long after we moved to this area, I made a lovely venison casserole with meat and veg bought from the Farm Shop and whilst eating it we couldn’t figure out why the carrots tasted so funny until it dawned on us what they actually tasted of – carrot! That may sound odd but they were the carrotiest carrots either of us had ever tasted. And they were organic and local. Far better than the bland, wobbly affairs on offer in town…

Just because I can, here’s an aerial view of the café, now that won’t be happening with every café I write about!

It’s a bit out of the way up at the Lochaber Rural Complex on the road to the Nevis Range gondolas and trying to remember on which days of the week it’s closed can be a bind (I’ve turned up many a time at the shop pre-lodge days to find it shut) but well worth the trek and perfect for fuelling up pre-skiing/boarding session.

Your Valentines Day gift sorted

Fear not, the blind panic that descends as we creep closer to Valentines Day can be completely avoided. Send your nearest and dearest a Lovey Dovey Hamper (cool name or not? What do you think?) and sidestep that whole drama whilst earning yourself a stack of brownie points for your thoughtfulness – result!

View the range of Velvet Antlers Valentines hampers here.

Stuff we chose for our hampers part 5 – Island Bakery

The Hebrides have some of the wildest most barren landscapes in the UK. But this empty and hard edged landscape seems to have brought out quite the opposite characteristic in the islands locals. The Scottish islanders have their own special rules for everything. They are a generous, open, but most of all; colourful bunch. Our experience of Mull’s locals has been just that. The main one we have found is that all visitors must go away with a stomach full of great homemade food. Happy days. One rule not to fall foul of in the Hebrides though is that nothing happens on Sundays, as my father-in-law found out; temporarily barred from the local shop in Dervaig for playing his bagpipes on a Sunday. He should have known better.

Tobermory’s Island Bakery from Mull was in fact the first supplier we chose for our hampers. While Velvet Antlers was still just an idea growing in my head we looked around for inspiration and products out there that matched my notion of the style statement I was looking for. While perusing a farm shop soaking up inspiration, Island Bakery’s Oat Crumbles kinda jumped out from the rest. I wonder if they were influenced in their brightly coloured biscuit boxes by Tobermory’s famous harbour buildings?

That technicolour waterfront that greets the returning firshermen every day is perhaps Mull’s most photographed icon. Mull is also famed for its music scene; Sadly Mull’s pubs no longer vibrate to the beats and jigs of Mull’s most famous musician, the late Martyn Bennett. His albums are regularly employed to supply the psyche for a training session or two in our house!

You’ll find some Island Bakery’s oat Crumbles, Lemon Melts or Chocolate Limes in most of our hamper range – we liked them that much…

Stuff we chose for our hampers part 3 – Kshocolat

The first flat Dave and I shared together was somewhat jammy for a pair of financially challenged students. My Bro had taken a contract job in sunnier climbs and we ‘looked after’ his place in the Merchant City of Glasvegas. We felt a little out of place. My little Renault 5 kept attracting polite notices not to park here again in the block’s private parking area. Anyone seen dead in such a vehicle couldn’t possibly afford such an address. I’d just graduated from art school and often sold my prints at a cool art fair across the road in the elegant Merchant Square.

It was hard, (well, torturous actually) to attempt to spend a whole day in front of Kshocolat’s boutique at my stall without giving in to the temptation of their magnificent hot chocolates. Thankfully my photographs sold well enough to warrant regular indulgence. The taste of Kshocolat’s white chocolate is my defining memory of living in this rather nice part of the world, five years ago. If only I could have such a nice memory of every place I’ve lived…

So now it comes around that I have the chance to share that special indulgence through Velvet Antlers. I’m pretty happy about that.

You’ll find Kshocolat’s white hot chocolate in our Pure Stoater, One for the Lassies hampers.

Stuff we chose for our hampers, part 1 - Brew Ha Ha

It’s a known fact – the Scots love to drink. We heard somewhere that folk outside of Scotland thought our national drink was whisky; Who told them that?! Of course if you go by gallons consumed per second in Scotland, it’s gonna be tea that stands out by a mile. Many of those gallons per second are consumed at Velvet Antlers towers, by Dave, who makes a cup of tea while he thinks about making a cup of tea. So let’s say he’s developed a fine sense of a good cup of tea.

For our hampers we chose Brew Ha Ha tea – a Glasgow company that we thought took tea a seriously as us and had a fair dose of cool factor. Brew’s the daddy?

…you are!

As we all know though, a good tea bag is only one part of the process of constructing a cup of tea worth talking about. It’s a dark art. According to Dave, Scotland is still split by those in the ‘milk in the bottom of the cup before water’, and the ‘strictly milk after the tea has brewed’ camps. We want to get some data on this to settle the issue. Please vote below!

Velvet Antlers heads to the BBC Good Food Show (and Spain)

Dave and I hit the A82 heading south on Saturday afternoon; Dave on his way to the sun and some bolt-clipping in Siurana and me on my way to the SECC for the BBC Good Food Shows’ first visit to Scotland - and it was inspiring to see how jam-packed it was. It was standing room only, way, way at the back at The Winter Kitchen and you had to have your elbows sharpened if you wanted near any of the stands that were giving away samples – all good, clean fun.

Photo courtesy of Coco Chocolate

What was great about this show was that as well as all the usual suspects, there was an interesting and uplifting array of smaller, Scottish producers outshining the big boys. Coco Chocolate's small but perfectly formed stand showcased the launch of their new range ‘Tattoo Love’ with beautiful ‘end of the pier’ drawings on each individual (dare I say it?) sexy, little organic chocolate. Can you call chocolate sexy? And by the time I got round to Fablet’s stand, the canny Glaswegians had all but finished off everything he had, the crumbs that I hoovered up though did make me sorry I hadn’t got there sooner.

The good thing about Velvet Antlers though, is that soon, we’ll be launching our product shots and then there will always be Good Food on show, whenever you want it.

Good food makes people happy

Good food always makes people happy, no matter how much or how little they already have.