A moment of heaven at Cloud 9

The last two Sundays we've indulged sufficiently in all weekend pleasures. We had pub roast two weeks in a row followed by a highly addictive ice cream in a new little joy factory in the Lanes called Cloud 9. It's all pink and pastel coloured and you are welcomed by that lovely scent of ice cream cones, cakes and all things sugar....truly heavenly! We haven't tried any of the cakes yet even though they look exciting and very naughty but we are slowly working our way through the ice cream flavours and they are really quiet wonderful. My personal favorite is definitely peanut butter but hazelnut and Belgium chocolate were very delicious too. They got some crazy flavours like Stilton and Red Bull...not sure but hey, nothing wrong with a bit of experimenting.

We shall definitely be back...either to indulge in more wonderful ice cream flavours, to try out one of those stunning fairy cakes or maybe for one of their ice cream lessons so we can experience our cloud 9 at home too. Go and check it out xx

Sunday lunch at the Walmer Castle

Autumn spoiled us with another amazing Sunday full of fresh air and sunshine! And my wonderful Milton and I took the chance for a Sunday roast in the sun at Walmer Castle on Queens Park Road - more by accident than planned but so incredibly well worth it!

Milton had duck roast with a lovely spicy crust and even if rather well done it was very tasty.
I went for lamb shank and together with a Stinger Ale and the Sunday paper I got completely lost in weekend heaven!

Really friendly staff, massive portions with an incredible variety of veg (roast parsnip, sweet potatoe mash, red cabbage, creamed leek, brussel sprouts, mini carrots, green beans and roast potatoes), stuffing and a lovely fluffy yorkshire. They got Hofbraeuhaus Beer from Munich on tab as lager and as wheat beer....but I do really love Stinger especially for Sunday lunch.

Roast as Walmer Castle gets 8 out of 10 points. Eating it in the sunshine next to my love easily hits the high score though xx

Miss Dahl's Fish Pie with Celeriac Mash

Tried out Miss Dahl's Fish Pie yesterday - as I really liked the idea of using celeriac for the mash instead of potatoes.

Sophie uses arrowroot instead of flour for the white sauce and poaches the fish in milk with a bay leaf which I haven't done before but will do in future.

I really liked the fine and subtle flavours of the pie but wasn't very impressed with the look as it's all rather creamy, white and mushy. But that might be a very personal preference as I just love colour....I love red foods and the rich brown of gravy - one of my visual favorites is a traditional sunday roast with its feast of colours and choice and wonderful wholesome goodness....bring on the weekend!

So far I've only made fish pie according to my own recipe which is probably not at all how it's supposed to be but has a layer of melted cheese on top of the mash and I did miss that golden gooey naughtiness with this pie.

Still, I've learned that leek works fantastically in a fish pie, arrowroot makes a nice white sauce and celeriac is underrated....

And after all, cooking out of Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights Cookbook generally makes me feel happy, content and connected to life's beauty of guiltless indulgence...xx

Spaghetti with Marmite

Nigella has just cooked spaghetti with marmite which seems a bit like cooking rice with ketchup on TV to me.....but still...I'd like to try it as I do love salty food and definitely belong to the 'love it'-marmite category.
Good chunk of butter, big teaspoon of marmite and some of the pasta water...done!