Briget Jones - I am not!

(All recipes were taken out of The Margaret Fulton Cookbook e.2004)

Yesterday whilst making the stock (Beef Stock - pg 16) I had a bit of a Briget Jones moment. Do you remember in the film, when she was making soup for her friends and she needed to tie up the bouquet garni with some string and all she found was some blue nylon string? The result was that her guests sat down to bright blue soup as the colour leached out of the string. Hilarious in the movie, not so much when I was hunting around for the string I knew I bought for this very purpose!

Finding the string ended up being the hardest part about making the stock. I really enjoyed putting it all together and I liked knowing that there was nothing in that stock that was bad for me. No additives, no preservatives, just meat bones, herbs, and vegetables. I don't know why I haven't done it before. Oh wait, yes I do, work and 2 small children LOL. But now that I know that it isn't hard I will be doing it again for future recipes.

(insert photo's when I find the card reader - Grrrr)

So on to today. Knowing that the Pot Roast (pg 96) would take just over 2 hours to cook I started putting this together around 10.00am The first thing I did was cut off the fat layer that covered 3/4 of the cut of meat. This was my only error for this dish. As I found out later the meat needed this fat to keep the moisture level in. As there is no other oil or water added the lack of fat did dry the meat out a little. It was still insanely delicious, and the sauce that was created by the basting of onions, carrots, tomato and herbs went a long way to keep the meat succulent, I could just see that it needed a bit more. This recipe was so easy and all the vegetable were cooked in the same pot (adding in at the half way mark) so very few dishes and everything could be cleaned up in the kitchen whilst it was cooking - very time efficient!

(insert photo)

The French Onion Soup (pg 24) was a little more time consuming, but for me was the best result. It was delicious. Ok - so I had to take 30 minutes to caramelise the onions and not let them brown but I had a glass of wine in hand and a bottle close by so it wasn't too hard :) The colour was a beautiful glossy light brown - thanks to my stock - and the onions were firm but sweet. It was topped by crusty toasted baguette slices which had Gruyere cheese grilled on it. A decadent but completely necessary finish LOL.

(insert photo)

All in all I think the kick off for my project was a success. I had fun, and the food was edible, and I got to share it with people I love. I don't think it could get much better than that. But I was thinking about taste and what it means for a dish to be considered 'good'. As I was sampling the food before it was served I realised that I didn't have a point of reference to know if my food was right. I don't know what French Onion soup is supposed to taste like.

I pondered this for a while and made the decision that a yard stick for me is not whether I produce the 'perfect' representation of a recipe, or a 'culinary experience' that can be rated by a food critic, my yard stick will be whether the people who share my meal with me can eat it and say "that was delicous" and go back for seconds!!

1968

1968 was a great year. In the September of 1968 this Margaret was born in the little city of Nieuwpoort in the South of Holland - the 2nd of 3 girls. My mother was reading an English book during the pregnancy where the heroine was named Margaret and she was so enamoured of the character that she bestowed her name on me. Not so enamoured that she could remember the name of the book years later when I asked - once this story was brought to my attention.

Half a world away the other Margaret was also involved in a birth of sorts. It was the year Margaret Fulton released her very first cookbook "The Complete Margaret Fulton Cookbook" Paul & Hamlyn 1968. There have been many revised and updated editions of this book and I have the fabric bound incarnate released in 2004. The book has changed in many ways, one being to change the ingredients to the metric system. I think this will make baking easier for me but I have been scouring the Vintage Book stores on-line to try and locate a 1968 copy. I have decided that I 'must' have one and so the search begins :) But the recipes, and the style are still the same.

Last night I made myself comfortable and began the process of choosing the first recipes I would make. We are having friends over for lunch on Monday (public holiday - yay) and it is the perfect opportunity to unleash. What I didn't expect to happen to the degree that it did was the nostalgia I felt as I turned the pages. There are recipes in this book I clearly remember my Mum making, recipes that reminded me of certain events, days, times. Both with my family and with Mr M's. It was fantastic. And it is this journey through my life that I am ready to explore.

So, what did I decide I was going to attempt? I am going to make 2 things. A French Onion Soup followed by Beef Pot Roast. Neither of which I have made before but both envoke warm yummy feelings. AND in the spirit of Margaret I will make these using a Beef Stock I will make myself, which means using a bouquet garni I will need to put together. I can already see that planning is going to be a big key to success in the venture and that the baking of main meals will be restricted to weekends until I win the lottery and can afford to stay home during the day to cook ;)

So with my ingredients list in hand I will head to the shops and see if I can find a butcher that sells a rolled brisket.. LOL