Changing Food… One Meal At A Time!
Autumn
Jan Fullwood Food Consultant
(aka JamJarJan)
NOTES FROM A CHAOTIC KITCHEN
Welcome to daily life in a chaotic, well-used kitchen…..
A constantly busy, always evolving space: full of cooking, eating and creating (dinner, treats, mess), for work and for play, for family and friends.
Let me introduce myself and my family:
- A Food and Recipe Consultant who is ‘never knowingly under-catered’, I’ll whip up a five-minute muffin mix at a moment’s notice. I’m constantly creating, evaluating and tasting, always cooking, eating and learning something new
- Long-suffering Hub, who just wants a clutter-free kitchen and peace and quiet. Happiest in the garden. He grows, I cook and preserve
- Eldest Cheffy Son and his Pastry-chef girlfriend, who cook catering quantities of restaurant quality food at every opportunity
- Protein & carb-obsessed younger Student Son, currently at uni. Loves food, but cooking not his forte - student survival skills ongoing
We all eat to live. Let me help you live to eat.
Share my learning and experiences to make the most of your meals too.
What's in Jan's Pan?
AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2026
Work in progress!
August and September have been full of big family gatherings. Whilst Student Son returned from his travels, both Cheffy Son and Personal Pastry Chef finished work at the end of August, so we’ve made the most of being together again over the last weeks of summer.
Student son is now an expert on Asian Food, particularly noodle dishes such as me goreng for breakfast, and Baan-mi galore. But he couldn’t wait for some of the good old English fare that he’d missed out on while he was away.
He wasn't disappointed, as Cheffy son and our private pastry chef left their jobs at the end of August in preparation for travelling at the beginning of October and frankly haven’t stopped cooking since. Needless to say, we have all eaten very well.
In particular, we have been playing with our new toy the Kamodo Joe. It's a ceramic grill and charcoal oven and we've been learning how to cook pizzas now we have no wood-fired oven following a close-call disaster when we nearly set the neighbour’s fence on fire.
We’ve also experimented with low slow roasting and smoking. Every time we learn a little more about how to get the best out of this beast, and Cheffy Son has made it his mission to learn and educate us while he’s here and has the time to do it.
We‘ve enjoyed family gatherings with both branches of the family, first in a wonderful house called Chime House in Christchurch near Bournemouth (not New Zealand this time!), where we raised a final glass or too to Grandad and the Chefs came up trumps with a celebration meal.
Then we spent August bank holiday in Devon, with all the associated brunching, sea-swimming, otters (I can recommend the Dartmoor Otter Sanctuary), fabulous farm shops, seaside fish and chips, holiday ice creams and games evenings (generally Scrabble, Cluedo and every evil form of UNO).
The long awaited opening of Rockfish restaurant has finally found its place at the end of the prom, along with the Salcombe Tap Bar, so we made sure we tested a beer or two too. Read on below for details.
There’s been plenty of produce to play with from the garden since we've been back, check out the produce below including ideas for a gorgeous gem lettuce glut.
We'll soon be back to being Empty-nesters (second time round - you just get used to it and then they return). As the eldest fly off on their Big adventure, and student son finishes his studies, we'll have to get use to an empty house, and considerably emptier stomachs with no chefs to feed us any more. I'm sure I've eaten enough to last me for the whole of their time away so perhaps we may get back to a more sensible weight and eat at sensible times once again. Good for the body but perhaps not for the soul, I'm going to miss that constant busy hubbub in the kitchen. Looks like I’ll have to learn how to cook for myself again...
Kamado Joe Cooking
We've had a huge amount of fun testing the many facets of cooking styles on our new toy. We replaced our beloved pizza oven after 13 years of wood-fired fun. But its time was up as a crack in the base caused a near catastrophe when the supporting timbers caught fire and started smouldering during our long hot summer.
Since Cheffy son left work, he hasn't stopped experimenting with it, and with previous experience of using this type of ceramic grills and egg style bbq smoker, he's been honing his skills, and showing us exactly what our new outdoor oven is capable of.
Hub has built a whole new outdoor kitchen, and set the oven up in the best position to ensure there's no chance of the neighbour's fence being at risk again (after the pizza oven it has replaced nearly burnt the whole place down).
We've had pizza parties (with the heavens opening just as we'd laid out all the ingredients), seared and grilled steak and slow cooked joints of meat and we've dabbled with smoking too. The oven is considerably more controllable than our pizza oven (it's all to do with air flow, and the ceramic holds the heat so it can cook like an oven as well as sear like a barbecue). It all depends whether the heat deflectors are used or not, plus ensuring there's enough charcoal to really crank the heat up.
We are still learning the best way to cook pizzas though - they take longer to cook than they did in the wood-fired oven, 10-15mins rather than 10-15 seconds! So we can't churn them out like we did before, but Cheffy Son has certainly nailed the pizza dough, and they crisp up beautifully on the pizza stone. We had some great toppings though - artichoke, goat's cheese and pesto, and our favourite Camempear. Plus the discovery of sweet pepperdew peppadrops are our new addiction, added to both meat and veggie pizzas to give a piquant flavour pop.
For carnivore cooking we've had belly pork and slow cooked brisket, as well as grilled rib eye, seared and cooked then sliced.
Big shout out to Pickett Butchers for all the amazing quality cuts of meat - I think we may have kept them in business while the boys have been home. Our diet may not be quite so protein heavy once thery're gone.....
What's in Jan's veg patch
Luscious lettuce
The little gem lettuces reached peak perfection late August, and we found an excuse to include salad leaves in everything. Not only crisp and cooling salads, but also wilted leaves in pasta along with peas, pesto and pancetta (perfect).
They even found thier way into our summer smoothies with peaches and mango - purest green perfection.
Flying saucer patty pan
Are they meant to be this big?? See Waht's in Jan's Air Fryer for inspiration.
Big peppers and small chillies
A perfectly formed long red pepper, perfect for the barbecue (we are still making good use of our Weber gas fired BBQ too, when we want a quick outdoor grill).
It overshadows the little chilli next to it, but that certainly packs a punch, and I'll be harvesting them for my favourite chilli jam recipe , here written by Matthew Drennan for delicious. magazine back in the day.
Rampaging runner beans
Yes, they are at that stage where they grow by the second, and you turn your back and more pop up.
But fret not, I discovered my Mum's hand held runner bean shredder and I can't believe how efficiently it deals with freshly picked beans. Pull it through the blades and it not only trims the edges to remove any fibrous pieces but shreds them into long strips in seconds. A quick blanch and they are ready to freeze if you're not using them immediately. The length lends itself to combining with spaghetti (or as an alternative to courgetti), or for braising with tomatoes. Love it.
What's in Jan's air fryer
Roast patty pan with crispy sage.
I thought patty pans were usually quite tiny, so it was as if a flying saucer had lost its way and landed in the veg patch when I spotted this, camouflaged amongst the leaves.
For a quick meal for two (while the chefs were out) I cut wedges and cooked in the air fryer at 200C for 20 mins until softened and toasty round the edges.
Towards the end of cooking I added some sage leaves spritzed with oil and they crisped up beautifully.
Served with some goat’s cheese and salad leaves this made for a light veggie meal as some respite from the heavy meats and carbs we seem to have been indulging in of late.
We've also discovered the crispiest of pork crackling can be frizzled up in the air fryer.
Cheffy Son cooked belly pork on the Kamado Joe with the skin on to keep the meat moist.
We then removed the pork and skin and cooked for 5mins on 200C. Goodbye chewy, tooth chipping rind, hello crisp, crunchy aerated heaven.
What's on Jan's plate
Rockfish restaurant has finally opened in Sidmouth, turning the end of the Esplanade into a proper destination and bringing the old Drill Hall back to life. Built in 1895 it was originally used by the Devon Volunteer Rifles and the building has been restored to house Mitch Tonk's eleventh restaurant. It's been sympathetically restored and includes tiles adorned with local landmarks, sich as Jacob's ladder here. I chose the megrim sole, which I'd never tried before - the fish is all MSC sustainable seafood. The waiter shows what fish is available that day, and highlights it in a distinctly fishy way, as you see bottom right above. With 'bottomless' chips, we were a happy bunch.
The Salcombe Tap Bar has opened next to it, with a view over the cliffs and east beach that draws people in to sit and drink in the views as they sup their craft beers.
Spritz by the seafront with a spectacular sunset ticks all the boxes in my book. Cheers!
Comments