When a celeriac crossed my path this week I immediately thought about this bread recipe. Whatever you think about Delia, she has given us some great recipes and this is one of them. Her celeriac and Lancashire cheese bread is so easy to make and so delicious that it just doesn’t make any sense. You mix everything together in a bowl, then fashion it as roughly as you like into a sort of ‘splodge’, bake it for a while and when you open the oven something magical has happened.

We are moving house soon and baking fresh bread seems such a treat when we are so busy. An assembly job is the order of the day and we come up with this uber-ploughman’s. Chris headed off to the local deli where he picked up some Stilton, cooked ham and some Cornish Yarg, which we used in the bread in place of the Lancashire cheese that Delia suggests.

The Yarg is really beautiful to look at with the nettles encasing the rind and the taste is mild and creamy at first with a tanginess at the end. We crumbled the cheese into the bread mixture, nettles and all, and it was perfect. A word of warning though, don’t be tempted to increase the amount of celeriac even a little bit, as this makes the dough too wet and the bread will not cook properly.

We started the day with a double bacon and egg sandwich; a full day of British eating, in honour of our dreams (now shattered!) of rugby world cup victory. We even opened the first jar of fruity chutney that I made a couple of weeks back (recipe here). I made the chutney exactly as described except I needed to simmer mine for an extra hour to get the right consistency. The chutney is quite sweet but nicely so and is really improved after a couple of weeks sitting in the cupboard, becoming much richer and spicier.

We assembled everything on my virgin chopping board (from the Cheltenham Kitchener, possibly my favourite shop in my hometown) along with some oak leaf lettuce dressed in a mustard vinaigrette and some pickles (I like Garner’s).

I have made a batch of pickled onions this year (a present for my Dad) but I’m a little worried about the results as I found I needed twice as much vinegar as the guidelines called for. I’ve never made them before and I had no idea of the commitment involved. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the process (apart from the peeling), I just wasn’t expecting it. Let me warn you now, the smell of onions is very difficult to remove from your hands, even several days later! It is also important to know that the boiling vinegar not only produces an aggressive, soporific odour, it actually removes oxygen from the air and so you need to make sure the kitchen is well ventilated. Don’t get me wrong, you won’t be collapsing on the floor, clutching your throat and coughing, but you do need to open the windows.

In the excitement, we forgot to add the last of the summer tomatoes that have been ripening (very slowly) on the windowsill for the past few weeks. Some steamed or roasted beetroot would also have been perfect. I think the Ploughman’s lunch may actually be one of my favourite all time meals, an English version of an antipasti, meze or even tapas. It just seems more of an event. We actually managed to polish off all the food you see on that board, washing everything down with a glass or three of cider.