Recipes, Notes & Reviews from my Kitchen: Hot Baked Tatties for an easy Autumn Lunch (2024)

Recipes, Notes & Reviews from my Kitchen:

Hot Baked Tatties

for an easy Autumn Lunch

I have been on my travels recently, I have been down to Spain and the Basque country, as well as London, The Potteries in Staffordshire and beyond…….there will be many more posts (and recipes) about my travels over the next few weeks on Lavender and Lovage,but, for now, I would like to share a wonderfully simple and very Autumnal recipe with you, as well as a review for some traditional Scottish haggis and a cook’s note-book. I was sent a package from Macsweens recently, the best commercial haggis makers in my opinion, as well as beautiful leather note-book from Julie Slater and Son,and my post today is all about simple, tasty meals and luxury stationery with some of my usual thoughts and comments in between!

Firstly, my Macsweens Haggis Booty! I was sent a lovely box with three of Macsween’s current “microwave” products for haggis, vegetarian haggis and black pudding, along with a cloth shopping bag, The Macsween Haggis Bible cookbook and some recipe cards.I cooked the veggie haggis and black pudding straight away for a family breakfast, that post will follow, but for a simple and tasty lunch the other day, I opened my Haggis Bible cookbook up at a random page and cooked us Hot Baked Tatties with my remaining haggis slices. As my recipe for the haggis was random, I am sure that Dom will accept today’s recipe post as part of his current Random Recipes challenge, as I was away from home and I only had a few books to use……and, the Haggis Bible was one of them! The theme for October’s Random Recipes is for local produce and ingredients, and I used locally grown Yorkshire potatoes for my baked spuds, from Butterwick farm shop just down the road.

The haggis I used in today’s recipe was piping hot in the promised 60 seconds and was peppery, full of oatmeal with Macsweens fabulous haggis spices being the star of the show. I always buy Macsweens haggis for Burns night, but a whole haggis is a bit too much to handle for non celebratory occasions, so these easy to microwave haggis slices are very handy for every day. I will talk about the black pudding in another post, but that was just as delicious and easy to serve as the haggis.

As I was on the road, and having chosen my random recipe, I then had to pack all of stuff up for the next leg of my journey, so, that’s where my beautiful LEATHER BOUND note-book came in handy, as I copied the recipe into my new Julie Slater A5 Tuscan Notebook.There is something very luxurious and exciting about opening a new diary or note-book for the first time, with that first virgin page ready to receive ink……and yes, I still write in ink with an old fountain pen……

…..and so the recipe was written, on that first virgin sheet of paper, and the die was cast, my new notebook would become my Cook’s Notes notebook, with jottings and doodles for all things culinary. I was given a choice of colours for my note-book, but in the end I decided on purple, to match my new reading glasses and case! The notebook came with a lovely chunky pencil and was beautifully gift wrapped; the leather is as soft as butter and the paper is of the highest standard and the ink did not “bleed” onto the next page. I would not hesitate to give one of these leather notebooks as a gift and the colours are exciting and diverse.Refillable notebook inserts can be purchased separately ready for when you run low on blank pages. The Italian leather notebooks come in at a very reasonable £15:75 (comparing them to non-leather notebooks that retail for a similar price in some major UK stationery and cards shops) and just shout pure indulgence and luxury.

That’s it for today, which is a miserable, damp and dank day……I might need to rustle up some more baked tatties for today’s lunch.The recipe for theHot Baked Tatties is shared below, and is featured in The Macsweens Haggis Bible, which you can buy on Amazon for £3:74 (RRP: £4:99). See you later with some more recipes, travel notes, reviews and some new giveaways. Bye for now, Karen

More about The Macsweens Haggis Bible:

Scotland’s National dish is the source of endless jokes and horror stories, yet continues to provoke curiosity around the world. With an ancient history and an eight-verse tribute penned by Robert Burns, haggis is a Scottish cultural icon. So how did it come to acquire its bad boy image and earn such mixed reviews, ranging from the devotion of its fans to the deep revulsion of the uninitiated? In this informative and light-hearted book, Jo Macsween of the famous family of Edinburgh haggis makers, expertly guides you through the myths and magic to a new realm of haggis appreciation that transcends neeps, tatties and Burns Night. Featuring fifty mouth-watering recipes, Jo rewrites the rules and demonstrates that haggis is a versatile ingredient that can be savoured at all times of day and throughout the year. She even dares to challenge the long-standing association of haggis with whisky, and recommends a new coterie of drinking companions.

Disclaimer: I received some haggis & meat products from Macsweens and a leather-bound note-book from Julie Slater, free of charge, to review: I was not required to share my findings on my blog or write a favourable review – all thoughts and opinions are my own and I was not paid for this post. Karen S Burns-Booth

As this recipe uses local, cheap seasonal ingredients and was randomly selected, it has been entered into the following challenges:

Random Recipes:

Credit Crunch Munch with Michelle this month:

(with Camilla and Helen as Co-Hosts)

October’s Four Seasons:

(with Anneli and Louisa as Co-Hosts)

Shop Local: