Cooking Challenge (and life in general) update 28.03.12

While Tom takes advantage of the nice weather to clean his bike and re-spray the exhaust, I thought I'd take advantage of the laptop being free and update the old blog! It's certainly been a while... Hi!

Since the last time I came on here I've been to look at a few (a lot) of wedding dresses with Tom's sister Jess and other bridesmaid Becky, and have been on the hen party for Jemma and Steve's wedding in a couple of weeks. I've also started to get a cough and am losing my voice bit which is definitely nicht gut for the wedding singing plan...I'm taking effervescent vitamin C tablets again to try and fix things before this weekend as I'm going back to Droitwich to do a girly dress rehearsal for our hair and make-up, but also hopefully to show Jem some of the songs we've been working on.

Hen party was loads of fun though, and was surprisingly beneficial as it gave me much needed bowling practice for a night bowling with work colleagues (including some very senior people from Europe) last night - whilst I sucked at bowling on the weekend I didn't do too badly at all last night and managed to hold my own on the men's team - I even got a strike or two! Yippee!

Anyway, back to the Cooking Challenge. I've managed to tick off a few other recipes but I have to honest I don't think I didn't a very good job on some of them so I'll be trying them again at some point to really try and get them right!

At the time of my last post (ten days ago I think) I started prepping everything for Ravinder Bhogal's Goan Sausage Burgers with Masala Chips and Chilli Pineapple Salsa, but as I'd left it too late I decided to just put it on hold and carry on the following night. Unfortunately the burger mixture got pretty soggy over night in the fridge so it didn't hold together very well when I did cook them following evening. The masala chips were really yummy though, although a bit sickly towards the end. I'm going to try to remember every thing I did to actually write this one up this time. This recipe had quite a few components so bear with the long post (also explains why I tried to make it over two nights!)

Ingredients (serves 6)
As usual I made this in smaller proportions for just the two of us and I can't quite recall what those were now, but I'll try my best to remember what I used to compare with the original recipe.

Goan Sausage Burgers
3 fat garlic cloves, roughly chopped (I used 1 really fat one)
1 thumb fresh root ginger, peeled and roughly chopped (I cheated and used a couple of tsp pre-chopped ginger which probably contributed to the mince getting too wet)
500g lean pork mince (I used roughly 350 - 400g)
1 small red onion (I used 1/2 white onion) finely chopped
1 red chilli (deseeded), finely sliced (I used 1/2 a chilli)
1 tsp each cumin and coriander seeds, both toasted in a dry pan and crushed (as I've mentioned before I dislike cumin and coriander so don't have seeds, so instead I just used a tsp each of the ground spices)
1 tsp mild Madras curry powder (I used 3/4 tsp)
zest and juice of 1 lemon (the lemons I had were a bit soft so didn't zest very well, so I decided to just add all the lemon juice which proportionally would have been too much for just the two of us, so again probably didn't help the mince mixture)
6 tbsp chopped fresh coriander (I think I probably just 1/3 of a bunch)
1 egg, beaten
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
a little vegetable oil for shallow frying

As I could tell the burger mix was getting a little wet even from the start I added some crushed up Jacob's Crackers (as in Jamie Oliver's burger recipe) to try to get it to bind a bit better.

For the pineapple salsa
1 small pineapple (I cheated and used 1/2 tin of pineapple rings)
3 tbsp chopped fresh mint (I just used a couple of shakes of dried mint)
1 red chilli (deseeded), finely chopped (I used half a chilli)
3 tbsp copped fresh coriander (I don't think I bothered this time!)
Juice of 1/2 lime (I used bottled lime juice, approx. 1.5 tbsp)
1 tsb mango powder (I left this out as there's nowhere near me that sells it!)

For the masala chips 
6 Desiree Potatoes, peeled and cut into thick wedges (I used about 5 large new potatoes)
100g jaggery or palm sugar (I used muscovado sugar sugar instead)
3 tbsp white wine vinegar
Groundnut oil for deep-frying (it uses a lot!)
2 tbsp vegetable oil
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2.5cm knob fresh root ginger, peeled and finely grated (I just used a couple of tsp of the pre-chopped stuff again)
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp chilli flakes

Phew! That's a lot of ingredents. Do you see why I didn't have the energy to attempt this in one night now?
Here's the method now:

Method 

1. Start with the burgers. Put the garlic and ginger into a food processor and blitz to a fine paste. Mix the paste in a large mixing bowl with the pork mince, onion, chilli, ground cumin and coriander, curry powder, lemon zest and juice, and chopped coriander. Combine well and then add the beaten egg to bind. At this point I whizzed up 3 or 4 Jacob's Crackers into crumbs in my mini-chopper and added them to the mix to try to get it to stick together better.

2. Let the mixture rest for about 30 minutes to allow the mince to absorb all the flavours. Don't add the salt or pepper until you're about to fry as apparently this draws the moisture out of the onions and makes it go soggy. As my mixture was quite wet already I didn't bother salting mine at all in the end, and it still had some really good flavours.

3. While that's resting, make your salsa. Peel and finely chop the pineapple, or in my case, pineapple rings. Combine with the mint, chilli and coriander if using. Add the lime juice, season, mix well and if sprinkle over the mango powder if you are using it.

4. Now it's time to make the wedges. These really were yummy so I might make them to go with other meals or as a snack, but not too often mind - they were deep fried after all!

Run the potatoes under water  to remove some of the starch and stop them sticking together, then wrap them in a tea towel or use kitchen roll to dry them off - this is important when deep frying as if they're too damp the oil will spit like crazy and you could get some nasty burns. I once had hot oil spit in my face as a child, and trust me, it is utterly horrible, so really make sure you dry off those potatoes as best as you can!

5. You won't be parboiling the potatoes, as they're meant to be firm when you cook them in the sticky chilli sauce, but you can pop them in an oven to keep warm while you cook the burgers like I did.

6. Soak the muscovado sugar in the white wine vinegar and keep mixing until it's pretty much all dissolved.

7. Add enough groundnut oil to a deep-ft fryer or a wok, so that your food will float in it and not touch the bottom. Heat until a dice sized cube of bread goes brown in 1 minute and then you can start deep frying the wedges, in small batches in best, until they are golden brown and cooked through. Drain the wedges on kitchen paper. I then popped mine in the oven at about 100c just to keep warm while I cooked the burgers as I knew it might not be that simple...

8. Heat a little vegetable oil in a frying pan (I think I probably used too much) and shape your sausage burgers into patties, by taking handfuls of the mixture, shaping into a ball and the flattening it slightly into a burger shape. I could have used the burger making kit and it might have bound together a bit better but then the patties would have been a lot thinner, and I wanted to at least try it by hand.

9. Fry for 4 - 5 minutes on each side over a medium heat to make sure they're cooked through but not overcooked. Once they're done, keep them warm while you finish the masala wedges (you can just swap them in the oven).

10. In a separate pan or wok, eat the vegetable oil and fry the garlic and ginger with the cinnamon until golden and fragrant. Mine might have turned out differently if I'd used fresh root ginger, but to be honest it still tasted great and the consistency was fine so I didn't really notice much of a difference this time. Pour in the jaggery (or muscovado) and vinegar and heat over a medium temperature. Let it bubble until almost most of the vinegar has evaporated, sprinkle in the chilli flakes, mix once, and quickly throw in the wedges and move them around to coat in the sticky sauce.

11. Serve at once with the burgers and the pineapple salsa.

I'm afraid I made the mistake of serving these on dark plate and when pretty much everything you're cooking turns out brownish, the photos come out pretty awful, but when I make this again I'll try to take a better picture!

I liked my potatoes a bit softer to Ravinder's recipe so mine definitely looked darker than the ones in her book (although the different sugar could have made a difference as well), but I still think they were really nice.

I wasn't mad about the salsa initially but then the masala wedges were pretty sweet so it was nice to have something refreshing to tone that down a bit. Although the sausages didn't stick together all that well, they did still taste really good, so I will try this again, but I'll try to get it right this time!!

In addition to that I've also made hummus, falafel, and vegetable bhajis, so that's another 4 in total crossed off the list, but I'll right those up separately, if I get the chance.

That brings the challenge stats to:

19 recipes done,  53 left,  and 39 and a half weeks to do it!

That's all for now! All this writing about food has made me hungry!!
Laters,
xx

Cooking Challenge update 22.02.12 Roast tomato soup & soldiers

Hi, sorry it's been a while since I've been on blogger to update anything.
Truth be told I've been spending a fair bit of my free time working on a present for Tom that I'm making (I decided pretty much at the last minute to do it, so there was no way I was going to be able to finish it in time for Valentine's day so he got a home made card (which is very cute if I say so myself) and a steak dinner, and then because he wasn't feeling very well on Valentine's Day itself I also did a nice dinner last Sunday :)

I shall reveal what I've been making when it's ready (and if I deem it of acceptable quality to share with the internet, hehe).

Anyway, I have still been cooking recipes off my list, I just haven't updated the totals, or written anything up.
Last week, sometime, I have actually forgotten when it was (probably on a weekend though), I made another soup recipe from Ravinder Bhogal's Cook in Boots book, the Roasted Tomato Soup with Ham & Cheese Soldiers recipe from the Comfort Food section. I wasn't in a depressed mood or anything, it just sounded (and looked) delicious, plus as I mentioned Tom wasn't very well at the time, and didn't have a huge appetite so thought he might appreciate it. See, I can do considerate too.

This one was again pretty easy, but I have to admit it's the one time I wished I actually had a proper blender rather than my hand blender. It did a good job, but I think the soup would have been even more delicious if I could have got it that little bit smoother, but then nothing is perfect in life so I try not to beat myself up about things like this :D

This recipe made a fair amount of soup for both of us to have a serving and a bit more on the night, and I still had enough to take it to work in a flask two days in a row, and still have a mugful left at the end. Now that's a sure sign of a good soup recipe in my book!

I'll give a quick overview of the recipe for those who are interested, but I really can't recommend buying the book enough (I should be on commission!); the photos are gorgeous and feminine (even to someone like me, who practically growls every time my mother suggests I try to be more 'girly'), the choice of recipes and structure of the whole book is great (each chapter serves a specific purpose in a woman's life), and the range of ingredients is varied enough to be interesting, but not so exotic as to be impossible to come by in a less ethnically diverse environment. Ok, now you're all going to think I AM on commission - honestly I'm not, I just love this book.

Anyway, here's what I used and what I did for Roasted Tomato Soup with Cheese & Ham Soldiers:

Ingredients (serves 6, or 2 with lots left over)
1 kg ripe tomatoes, halfed - I used a mix of normal vine tomatoes and cherry tomatoes that were reduced in the Co-Op and needed rescuing :)
4 garlic cloves, chopped
3 sprigs of thyme
2 red onions, sliced
salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 tbsp caster sugar
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 litre vegetable stock
dried basil (I didn't have fresh)
creme fraiche, to serve

For the soldiers (I adjusted the proportion to be enough for 2 people rather than 6)
20g melted salted butter (I don't normally bother with butter but this stuff was made by the Food processing unit at the College where I used to work, with milk from their top-notch dairy herd!)
4 slices white toasting bread
1 heaped tsp English mustard (I spread it thinly as I don't like it that much but thought I'd give it a go anyway)
100g double Gloucester cheese (also from my old workplace)
4 slices wafer thin ham

Method

1. I preheated the oven to 220c, and arranged the halved tomatoes in a roasting tin with the cut side facing up.

2. I then scattered over the thyme leaves, sliced onions, and the salt and pepper to taste.After that I sprinkled over the sugar and drizzled it with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

3. I then popped it in the oven for about 35-40 minutes (a bit longer than the original recipe stated as I didn't think my oven was quite hot enough. The smell was just divine....

4. Shortly before removing the tomatoes I put the stock on to boil in my awesome Alessi stockpot (I love that pot so much, it was made for making soup...), and once the tomatoes were looking blistered, wrinkled and split on the edges, I took the roasting tin out of the oven and added the whole lot to the stock.

5. You're then supposed to cook at the same temperature for 5 minutes while mushing the tomatoes with the back of a wooden spoon.

This was the bit I found a little bit difficult as they didn't seem to want to break up all that easily and it was quite hot working around the steaming stock. I'd definitely recommend wearing an oven glove or something similar at this point. I suppose if you actually HAVE a blender then it doesn't matter so much how you much you mush up the tomatoes as they'll get blended properly later on. In my case though I suspected that the hand blender wouldn't quite suffice, so was trying to mush them up as best I could. I almost gave in and used the potato masher, but then I remember you're not supposed to use metal spoons or utensils with tomatoes as the acids react with the metal and end up giving the food a nasty after-taste.

6. Once I was happy with the mashing job I'd done by hand, I reduced the temperature to a low-ish simmer, got out the hand blender and blended it in the pot for about... hmmm.... probably a good 5 - 10 minutes, but maybe more, until I was happy I gotten rid of the worst of the bits. It'd probably take much less time in the blender.

The thing to remember with hand blenders is that the powerful ones will suck your hand and therefore the blades towards the bottom of the pan, so if you've got a good quality pan with a non-stick coating then you'll want to take it easy with the blender so as not to scratch the surface. But at the same time you need the blending hood bit to be beneath the surface of your liquid or it might spray hot soup all over your hands/face/kitchen! Safety warning aside, they are a lot of fun to work with though, and I certainly won't be getting rid of mine anytime soon :)

7. I then left the soup on the back-burner on the lowest gas mark while I made the soldiers.

[Basically the soldiers are very similar to a croque-monsieur which is a very common French snack food (literal meaning is crunch-mister, so doesn't make a lot of sense), and which you might find under the ''Petit Creux' section of the menu. This means 'little hollow', as in I've got a little hollow space in my stomach that needs filling with something like a Croque Monsieur i.e. I'm peckish. I love the expression 'petit creux' so much that I use it over here in Britain all the time. In fact I've got a 'petit creux' right now]

Anyway....I heated my griddle pan until very hot as instructed, and brushed one side of each slice of toasting bread with the melted better.

8. On two of the unbuttered sides of the bread, I spread a teeeny thin layer of mustard, and then layered it with the cheese and ham, and topped with another slice of bread (so that the buttered sides are on the outside).

9. I then griddled each sandwich on both sides until the cheese started to melt. In my case I think the pan could have been a bit cooler as the cheese took a while to melt, and the bread was at risk of burning.

10. Once they were cooked, I cut each one into 4 soldiers and poured out two big bowls of tomato soup. I added a heaped teaspoonful of creme fraiche and stirred it into the soup and served with the soldiers as below (apologies for the shoddy picture, I was too hungry at that point to fiddle around with the phone camera settings to get a decent image!)

So there you have it, another recipe to tick off the list, and another recipe that I shall most definitely be trying again, although I have to admit I think I'll probably leave off the mustard as I didn't love it. The soup tasted really good without the creme fraiche when I took it to work, but it did certainly add something to the soup, so I'd recommend trying it both ways and just seeing what you prefer.

So that brings the current tally to:
 9 completed recipes, 63 recipes remaining and 44 and a bit weeks left.

It sounds like a lot, but I've got more recipes to write up so we are getting there, albeit somewhat slowly! Plus I've got a few birthdays coming up, so that gives me more opportunities to get the sweet stuff out the way (and not just eat it all myself!).

Bye for now,
Lettie
xx

Cooking Challenge update 12.02.12 Cardamom biscuits

Another 2 recipes to tick off the Cooking Challenge list - yippee!

Last night I made pasta, chorizo and cannellini bean soup (click here for the full recipe), which was really really tasty, and today my friend Amy came over and we baked cardamom biscuits (another one from Ravinder Bhogal). I had tried to make the biscuits previously but since I didn't have gram flour (otherwise known as chickpea or besan flour) at the time, I wasn't sure if they'd turned out right or not so I didn't want to tick them off the list without giving them another go.

I did a bit of research and found out that Tesco's sold Gram Flour so while my car was in the garage getting MOT'd yesterday I popped to Tesco's to get some. Unfortunately I didn't check how big the bags were so when I eventually found it I was a bit shocked to see it only sold in huge 2kg bags - the recipe only needs 50g per batch (!), so I think I'm going to have to find some more recipes that use gram flour...oops!

Anyway, as there were two of us baking I thought we may as well make two batches, so that we could each have some to give to our respective partners, and also colleagues, although in my case that might depend on how hungry Tom is when he gets back from work...

The last time I tried this my main issue with the recipe was that the biscuit mix seemed to be very dry and crumbly, so it was quite difficult to get it to a point where it was all coming together to be able to knead it into a good dough, but I wasn't sure if maybe the lack of gram flour was to blame for this. I think in the end I added a bit more oil and an egg to try to get it to bind better and they turned out ok in the end. But I was interested to see whether using gram flour made any difference or not this time.

Anyway, preamble over, here's what I used and how I did it:

Ingredients (made approx 26 small biscuits)
120ml - 150 ml sunflower oil, plus extra to grease (original recipe used 100ml vegetable oil, but I found it was too floury and wasn't binding so added more)
200g plain flour
50g gram (chickpea) flour
75g icing sugar
1/2 tsp crushed cardamom seeds
14 pistachios, shelled and cut in half lengthways

Method (NB. Just because we split the tasks doesn't mean this recipe can't be done very easily on your own!)
1. We preheated the oven to 180c and I greased a couple of baking sheets with some of the sunflower oil and some greaseproof paper.

2. While I was doing this, Amy ground up the cardamom seeds in the pestle and mortar (that she got me for my birthday as it happens), and I shelled the pistachios. If you've not used cardamom before, it normally comes in a jar of pods, so you need to split them open with a sharp knife and remove the seeds (ideally separating them from the inner bit that they are attached to), and then just grind them in a pestle and mortar.

3. Then I sifted the dry ingredients into a mixing bowl and stirred them together with a whisk, while Amy halfed the pistachios for me.

4. Then we added 100ml of sunflower oil to the mix and Amy started mixing it with her hands. When we realised it just wasn't binding we added a little more oil and it seemed to do the trick. It was a lot easier to bring together, and then we could start kneading it into a firm dough as the recipe had told us to.

5. Once the dough was ready we took heaped teaspoons of the dough (my measuring spoons are like mini ice cream scoops so they were perfect for this!) and rolled the dough into a ball in our hands.

6. We then flattened each ball ever so slightly so it was still domed (the recipe said to flatten into a disc, but we made the first batch like this, and they didn't look right), and then pressed a pistachio half into the middle and popped it on the baking tray. I think the first batch we made yielded about 25 biscuits and the second one did about 27.

Second batch ready to go in the oven. I love the colour of pistachios.

7. Once we'd filled both the trays and used up all the mix we popped the trays into the oven. Now the recipe said to bake for 25 minutes until the biscuits are a nice golden brown. The first time we did this we set a timer to turn the trays around and swap the shelves after ten minutes, giving them twenty minutes in total, but I'm not sure if my oven is just a bit wonky, but the first batch definitely seemed a bit overdone and dry. So the second time, I set the timer for 7 minutes to swap them around, and then gave them another 7 minutes. After this point, i.e. 14 minutes, the larger tray of biscuits looked the right colour, but the smaller tray wasn't quite there so I gave them another couple of minutes in the hotter part of the oven. I think the key is to just keep checking them to make sure they don't overbake!!

8. When I took them out of the oven they were an even light golden brown colour, and cracked on top, and when I used the spatula to take them off the tray they seemed to be a tiny bit soft still, but they crumbled a little bit on the edges if we weren't careful, so I took that to mean they were done. NB. Don't try to use your fingers to transfer them to the cooling rack, as the biscuits will be flipping hot and you'll just end up burning yourself...trust me, I know.

9. I then left them to cool on a rack (I figured if they were a little soft in the middle that they'd set as they cooled).

Pretty, high contrast photo ;)

Having left them quite to cool while I typed up these two recipes, I've just tried one now, and they do taste better than the first batch (i.e.not overdone), however they are still a little bit too dry for my taste. I'd definitely need a cup of tea or something to go with them, but then I think I've always liked to have a drink with biscuits, so maybe it's just me!

I think if I tried them again I would maybe experiment with reducing the amount of flour slightly and adding a tiny bit more icing sugar and perhaps a bit more crushed cardamom, just to up the flavour a little bit. Don't get me wrong, they were nice and crumbly and had a gentle, subtle flavour, not too sickly sweet or overpoweringly aromatic, but I think personally, they could do with a tiny bit more sugar and just a wee bit more cardamom, but I suppose that's down to personal taste. Now I think about it, I'm sure I read somewhere that gram flour can come in a paste form so perhaps if I had gram flour in this format the mixture mightn't be quite so dry... hmmm, food for thought!

To round up, that takes the cooking challenge 2012 totals to:

8 recipes completed           64 recipes to go       46 weeks remaining

Anyway, I better get some other food in the oven now - Mum gave me some chicken, bacon and mushroom in the fridge to use in a stew / to roast so better get cracking!

Bye for now!
Lettie xx

Pasta, chorizo, and bean soup

Hi there,
I'm aware I've not been including the full recipes for a lot of the dishes I've been cooking in the Cooking Challenge, (mainly because of the time to properly write each one up), but this one was nice and easy and very, very tasty, so I wanted to share it in full.
This recipe came from Ravinder Bhogal's Cook in Boots cook book (I really would highly recommend it), and was really quite easy, and once you've got your veg chopped it really doesn't take very long at all. I doubled the proportions as I didn't see the point in using half a tin of beans or half a carton of passata.



Here's what I used and how I did it:

Ingredients (makes 4 servings)

2 tbsp olive oil
Approz 100g chorizo, chopped (the original recipe said to use uncooked chorizo, but I couldn't find any so used the normal stuff from Aldi's)
1 large smoked garlic clove (or 3 normal sized cloves, finely chopped
2 small red onions, finely chopped
2 celery sticks, trimmed and roughly chopped
1 and 1/2 tsp dried rosemary (I seem to have terrible difficulty getting hold of fresh rosemary lately)
1 x 500ml carton of passata
800ml chicken stock
1 x 300g tin cannellini beans, drained and rinse
60g dried fusilli or any other kind of pasta


Method
1. I heated the olive oil in a large pan (I used my favourite Alessi Stockpot) and fried the sausage until it started crisping up and the oil started to turn orange with the paprika. Mmmm, I looove paprika... :)


2. Then I added the chopped garlic, onion, and celery and sauted until the onions started to go translucent.


3. I then added the dried rosemary at this point and continued to fry for about a minute.


4. After that, I poured in the passata and the chicken stock, and added the drained and rinsed cannellini beans and gave it a good stir. Then I brought the whole thing to the boil, popped on the lid, reduced the heat and let it simmer for 5 minutes.


5. After the 5 minutes was up, I then added the pasta, turned up the heat to a brisk boil, and let it cook in the soup for 10 to 12 minutes, stirring every now and then, and checking the pasta to see how it was progressing. When I was living in France I remember my older sister advising me to cook pasta separately if it's going in soup as it gets too starchy sometimes, but with this soup it would have been too thin and watery without it. Once the pasta was properly cooked the soup was a much nicer consistency and I'm sure made it that bit more filling!


6. Once the pasta was cooked I ladled it into bowls and grated over some parmesan cheese. Yummy!

I even managed to convince Tom to have some (he's got a pretty nasty cold / flu so hasn't got much of an appetite right now) and he ended up having seconds, so even with doubling the recipe it didn't last very long! It was very easy though, and the chorizo gave it such a delicious flavour, so I'll definitely try making this again for lunch at work.


With this one completed the new total is 7 recipes down, 65 to go! We're getting there...


Lettie xx

Vegetarian puff pastry tart

Right, here's another recipe that I cooked a few times over Christmas. It's surprising how such a simple dish can be so pleasing, but I think that's the beauty of puff pastry - anything that poofs up so much in the oven is pretty much guaranteed to put a smile on my face, even with ready-made pastry. The great thing about this dish, is that once you've done it once you can make up your own variations (the original recipe used courgettes for example) to suit your tastes. If you're cooking for kids, why not get them to pick and lay out the different toppings so it's even more fun!

I think next time I try it I might make meaty versions by scattering over some chopped up chunks of Frikadellen or even slices of cooked meat like salami, pepperoni, or chorizo, but the possibilities are endless!

Here's the link to the original Sainbury's recipe that I based mine on, and here's my version (it's been a while since I made it last, so I hope I've remembered the proportions correctly!!).

Ingredients

1 pack of chilled ready-made puff pastry (300g)
1 medium egg, beaten
2 tbsp olive oil
1 leek, finely sliced (I've also used roughly chopped onion before which gives a slightly different flavour)
2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
4 tsp red pesto
2 tbsp tomato puree
3 - 4 tomatoes, sliced
80g closed cup mushrooms
1/2 tsp oregano
Salt & Pepper (to season)
2-3 tbsp sweetcorn (optional)
70g-100g mature cheese, grated (I've used alternately Red Leicester, Cheddar and Double Gloucester, so it's up to you which one you prefer, and how much you use depends on how cheesy you want it to be)

Method 

1. Take the pastry out of the fridge and leave in its packaging at room temperature for at least ten minutes. If you unroll it while it's too cold it might tear or crack.

2. Preheat the oven to 220c (mine takes quite a while to heat up so I tend to allow a good 15minutes for this in my cooking timings).

3. After the ten minutes is up, remove the pastry from the packaging and roll it out straight onto a baking tray. If it comes wrapped up with greaseproof paper, which it most likely will do, then there may be some excess which you can just snip off with kitchen scissors. Using a knife, carefully score an outline about 1 to 1 1/2 inches from the edge of the pastry sheet, making sure the knife DOES NOT cut all the way through the pastry to the tray underneath. This is what will create the lip or borders of your tart.

4. Prick the pastry all over (including the borders) with a fork, and brush the beaten egg over the whole sheet of pastry.

5. Once the oven is at the right temperature, place the pastry tray in the oven and bake for about ten minutes until risen and golden.

6. While that's baking, make the tomato base for the tart. In a small bowl, mix together the olive oil, the red pesto, tomato puree and chopped garlic.

7. When the pastry's had its ten minutes it should be golden and will have risen a lot like an inflated balloon. Remove from the oven and gently press down on the middle bits with a spoon to 'deflate' it slightly, and then spread the tomato base over the pastry within the borders you previously cut into it. Scatter over the sliced leek and if you want to add sweetcorn, you can do so at this stage.

Mmmm, love leeks.

8. Then you can add the sliced tomato and mushrooms. You can either just scatter them all over randomly, or you can be sad like me and layer it in (somewhat neat) rows. Presenting it in that way makes it look like you've put in loads of effort, when in fact it's possibly the easiest thing I've ever had to make. Sprinkle over the oregano, season with salt and pepper if you wish, and then top with the cheese.

Doing it this way makes me feel like a trainee chef in a Cordon Bleu school in France!

9. Return to the oven for another ten or so minutes, until the tomatoes and mushrooms have softened and the cheese has melted.

10. Et voila! Dinner is served :)

This can be eaten as a main course shared between two people either on its own, with a side salad, or some nice bread. This might seem like huge portions for just two people, but as it's such a light dish I find that there never ends up being much leftover. You can also cut it into smaller portions if serving as a starter (or even with a buffet, but it's nicest hot so you might not want it sitting out for too long).

Although I've not tried this, I'm sure you could tart it up (excuse the pun!) with creamy dauphinois potatoes and maybe some asparagus on the side. If you've gone for the extra cheesy (more like pizza) version, then it could even go with something simple like peas and chips/boiled potatoes.

Christmas Baking: Gingerbread

Hi all,
as I mentioned before I have quite a few recipes to catch up and add to here, so I thought I'd better start with all the baking I did over Christmas.

I found this recipe via Pinterest, which if you haven't heard of it is a highly addictive virtual pin board where you can organise all the things you like that you find on the internet. It's great for finding other recipes amongst other things and the images link back to the original source, which in this case is here: www.manggy.blogspot.com

[NB. Having just finished writing my account of this recipe, mine looks considerably longer than the original, but then it is interspersed with comments on how I had to do things differently due to lack of necessary equipment etc. It might seem a bit of a effort, but it is totally worth it, as the end result is so satisfying, and better than any Gingerbread I've had in a long time.]

I won't lie, I made so much gingerbread over the holidays that I'll quite happily leave it until next Christmas before I make any again, but the recipe did indeed deliver absolutely yummy, thick and chewy gingerbread biscuits or cookies, or whatever you want to call them really. They are actually too chewy and thick to be biscuits, which are normally crunchier, and not really cookies either in my mind (not in the British sense anyway), but either way they are really, really moreish! So thank you Mark from manggy.blogspot :)

As with all my food posts, here's what I used and what I did (if I can remember that far back...)

Ingredients

425g plain flour
150g soft dark brown sugar (Billington's is great for this)
3/4 tsp baking powder (original recipe used baking soda but I wasn't sure of the difference until now!)
1/2 tsp table salt
1 tbsp ground cinnamon (makes the kitchen smell divine!)
1 tbsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cloves (had the bonus effect of clearing up a slightly stuffy nose - winner!)
165g unsalted butter, cut into small cubes (original recipe said cut into 12 pieces but I just cut them as small as I could to make sure they softened enough, but equally you don't want them melted!)
225g Tate & Lyle black treacle (original recipe specified molasses, but if you're interested in what the difference is, click here)
2 tbsp semi-skimmed milk (original recipe asked for full fat, but I never have it in the house and semi-skimmed seemed to work fine)

I chose not to ice my gingerbread as I didn't have the time or the patience (plus, from previous misadventures with icing I don't trust myself not to ruin the baking with shoddy icing), but if you'd like to try it the original recipe will show you how.

Method

I made this by hand, but again the original recipe very helpfully gives you alternative instructions for using a mixer with a paddle attachment, or a food processor. Bear in mind that doing this by hand is quite time consuming and requires a fair amount of effort so don't attempt this method if you're in a hurry or get fed up quickly!

1. In a small bowl, add the treacle and milk and carefully stir together until the treacle starts to lighten slightly in colour and thin out until it moves a bit more freely. Once it's all combined, set aside.

2. In a large mixing bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger and cloves. Add the brown sugar and whisk through to combine all the ingredients.

3. Scatter the butter cubes on top of the flour mixture and (*elbow grease alert*) gradually work into the flour in whatever way you can! The aim is for it to 'resemble a very fine meal' (manggy.blogspot.com). Mark suggested using either a pastry blender, a fork, two knives, or a rubber spatula (my weapon of choice). I might possibly invest in a pastry blender (or even a food processor) for next Christmas as this did take quite a while for it to be completely combined, and the second time I attempted this for the larger batches, I ended up varying my technique to also use forks and my hands just to make sure it was properly combined. But if you're using your hands you have to be careful that your body heat doesn't warm the mixture too much or the butter melts and won't distribute evenly, so you might need to stop and wash your hands in cold water a few times during the process.

4. Once that was done (finally!) I followed Mark's instructions and added about a third of the treacle/milk mixture to the dry ingredients and combined them with a rubber spatula to moisten the dough. Once that's all combined as best as you can, add another third of the milky treacle (half of what's left in your bowl) and combine again, and then repeat with the remainder of the milky treacle. You should end up with a nice soft dough with a rich brown colour. At this point, I feel I should probably mention that this is definitely one of those recipes that really does require you to wear an apron (and not one that you will be upset about if it stains) as preparing this this recipe by hand is really messy work. The kitchen will smell quite strongly of the rich treacle but I personally wouldn't recommend eating the gingerbread dough as it doesn't taste all that nice just yet!

5. Once it's all mixed together put aside while you prepare your baking trays.

6. Preheat your oven to just under 180 degrees c.

7. Cut out 6 rectangles of greaseproof paper the same dimensions as your baking trays. Unfortunately mine are not quite the right size for the large batch baking I had undertaken, but I had to make do with what I had.

8. Take your dough and divide it in two. The original recipe used scales to do this accurately but as one of my baking trays was smaller than the other I had to adapt the size of the dough balls accordingly.

9. Place each dough ball on a rectangle of greaseproof paper and shape into a rough cuboid shape (a bit like a meatloaf) and then cover with another rectangle of paper. Using a rolling pin, roll out the dough between the greaseproof paper until it's about 1/4 inch thick. In my later batches I experimented with rolling it out a bit thicker and it still turned out really nicely but obviously you have to adapt the baking times accordingly.

10. Place your 2 sandwiched dough sheets on a tray and pop in the freezer for about 20 minutes or until firm. If you're making for later on you can also put them in the fridge for 2 hours or overnight.

11. Use the remaining greaseproof paper rectangles to line the baking trays that will go in the oven and set aside.

12. Adjust the racks in your oven so there are two around the middle (you'll be swapping the trays over in the middle of the baking - my oven is hotter on the right side as well so I have to rotate both ways!).

13. Take a dough sandwich from the fridge/freezer and carefully peel off the top layer of greaseproof paper, and then lay it gently back on top of the dough. Put another baking tray on top of the loosened greaseproof paper, and then flip it so the tray is underneath. Carefully peel off the other rectangle of greaseproof paper and throw away. Repeat with the other dough sandwich.

14. I then used my Christmas-themed cookie cutters to cut out various shapes (bells, holly, snowmen, stars - the latter turned out to be a bit more tricky to get out of the cutters without misshaping them slightly - and just for fun, music notes, hearts, and flowers in subsequent batches), which I then placed on the lined baking trays leaving about 3/4 inch gap between each piece of gingerbread. Here's what they looked like before baking (you can see how the stars are a bit wobbly-looking).

15. Bake in the oven for about 8 minutes, swapping over the trays to the other racks and also turning if you're oven is like mine! Because my stars were quite a bit littler than the other shapes they cooked a lot quicker so I had to take them out before the other shapes to stop them being overcooked. In future I think the thing to do is do a batch of stars separately as it can be a bit a pain having to keep going back and forth to the oven constantly.

16. To tell when they've had long enough in the oven the original recipe gave a great tip which is to touch them ever so gently with your fingertip, and if they don't leave an imprint then they can come out, if they do leave an imprint, just pop them back in for another minute or so. They will set a bit more as they cool though, so don't worry about them being undercooked, it is better that they are not overcooked, as otherwise they end up a bit crunchy rather than chewy (as some of my stars did on the first attempt).

17. Leave the gingerbread to cool on the trays for a couple of mins and then move to a cooling rack using a metal spatula. I just covered my cold grilling rack with greaseproof paper and used that as a cooling rack - I only moved house 7 months ago and still don't have quite all the culinary equipment I'd like. It's not quite ideal but it did the eventually did the job. For the second attempt where I was making a lot more, I cleared a shelf from my fridge and used that over my sink area as a cooling rack.

18. With the left over scraps of dough, bring together and re-shape on more greaseproof paper rectangles, roll out, then chill and cut into shapes again. Your first batch of gingerbread will be done by now so you can re-use the baking trays, but you probably need more greaseproof paper to line them.

Here's what they looked like after they were done baking.

19. Instead of icing them with royal icing, I just dusted the ones I was giving to family and friends with icing sugar which looked nice and simple and didn't require any particular dexterity. It also meant that the decoration wouldn't get damaged en route to various people's houses over the Christmas period, so it worked out as the most practical option for me anyway!





I'm afraid I neglected to take any photos of the final dusted products, but I promise they did look and taste delicious. In fact, despite smelling quite rich, they were surprisingly moreish to be the point where the first batch I attempted was completely devoured by myself, Tom, and two friends in record time. I did however keep one piece behind which I put in a ziplock bag and hid (from Tom) to see how long it would last. After about a week it was a bit harder, but still totally yummy.

So if I can get my hands on some more advanced equipment by next Christmas then I shall definitely be making these again.

Coming next: Christmas Shortbread.

Lettie xx

Smoky bacon and tomato soup (serves 2)

Hi there,

I'm trying to be a bit more proactive (i.e. bit less lazy) about getting recipes up on here, so I'm typing this one up as my steaming bowl of soup is sat next to me on our nice new dining table - no more eating off our knees (hooray!).

Tom cooked for us last night and ended up going a bit overboard on the veg... as a result we had quite a bit left over which I thought might be nice to turn into soup using my newest toy, a Salter hand blender :) This makes me very happy as I've wanted a hand blender (or as I like to call them, soup sticks) pretty much ever since my year abroad in France. But anyway, I digress.

The veg we had left over was just basic mixed veg (baby carrots, cauliflower, broccoli) and some peas that had come from the freezer so there were quite a few options when I looked on the BBC Food website, but really I wanted something I could use my blender with, and something a bit tomato-ey. We also happened to have some smoked bacon in the fridge so Ian Rankin's recipe for Smoky Bacon and Tomato soup seemed an ideal place to start. You can click on the link above to see the original recipe but this is what I used and what I did.


Ingredients (serves 2)
(original recipe served 1 so I just roughly doubled the ingredients)


1 to 2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
2 to 3 garlic cloves, crushed
3 slices smoky bacon (I didn't want to use the whole pack!)
1 pint chicken stock
1 tin chopped tomatoes
1 soup/cereal bowl leftover veg (broccoli, baby carrot, cauliflower, peas)
5 tbsp tomato puree
1 tsp red pesto (completely optional, I just added it to see if it brought anymore tomato-ey-ness, but I'm not sure if it did)

Method

My method was pretty much the same as in Ian Rankin's recipe, but here's what I did anyway.

1. Heat the olive oil in a large heavy bottomed pan, add the onions and garlic and fry for 3-4 minutes until softened.

2. Add the chopped bacon and fry for another 3-4 minutes.

3. Add the leftover veg, stir in and cook for a minute or so.

4. Add the chopped tomatoes, 3 tbsp tomato puree, chicken stock (I forgot to actually stir my stock so the dissolved cubes were just sat at the bottom of the measuring jug...yuck!), and let it boil (not too vigorously) for 5 minutes.

5. After the 5 minutes is up, remove from the heat and puree using a blender. It took me a while as it turns out a bit, well, bitty, so I gave it quite a going over with the hand blender. I then added a couple more tbsp of tomato puree and the red pesto just to add a bit more flavour and blended it some more.

The result was a nice thick orange soup which tasted really nice, a good mix of smoky meat and rich tomato flavour, but...if I'm honest the peas didn't blend all that well so I was constantly finding teeny little bits of the outer shell of peas which were too small to be blended any further with the hand blender, but not small enough that I could ignore them. I'm probably just being fussy as it did taste really flavoursome, but after my first soup of the year (Roasted swede soup) turned out so well I don't think the consistency of this one was quite as good. I think next time I'll just leave out the peas.

[To add to this when Tom came home and tried the soup he disagreed with my criticisms and said it tasted awesome, and that it didn't matter that it wasn't perfectly smooth. At least I'll always have one satisfied customer :) ]

Memorable events from 2011

So, this is a couple of days late but I only really thought about doing this on New Year's Eve during a Quiz based on memorable events from the past year (which none of us were particularly good at actually).
Anyway, in loose chronological order here are some of the more memorable events in my life from the past 12 months.

1. We bought a Wii Fit just after Christmas 2010 and I got a bit addicted and managed to get quite fit and supple, but got out of the habit half way through the year and have only recently got back into it. I definitely need to use it more this next year!!

 

(http://blogs.examiner.co.uk/musicismyradar/2011/02/the-hold-steady---the-ritz-man.html)

2. Tom and I went to see The Hold Steady in concert in Manchester the day before Valentine's Day. It was one of the most fun gigs I've been to in a very long time.

3. We also saw Funeral For a Friend in Aberystwyth on the first night of their tour in March. Not many people will know this, but this particular band holds a special place in my heart as it was when Tom and I first went to see them together as friends a few years ago (also in Aberystwyth as it happens) that I started to realise that maybe we really were supposed to be more than just friends... 

3. Speaking of friends, my friend Victoria and her husband James had their first child, a gorgeous little girl Ffion Emma, in March!

4. Still on the theme of relationships, Tom and I decided to move into our own place and after a long search we eventually moved into our awesome house in May - happy days! Thanks so much to all our friends and family who lent us furniture and helped carry heavy and/or bulky things in and out of vans and up twisty stairs all day!

http://www.bigbrotherwatch.org.uk

5. It was the year of weddings and engagements as one of my oldest friends from primary school got married in July, followed by the wedding of one of my close friends from work in August, and then finally an old friend from the Netherlands got married at the end of August. Our friends Jemma and Steve also got engaged as did Tom's sister and her fiance Nick!

6. (Related to no. 5) Tom got asked to be a groomsman and I got asked to be a bridesmaid for Jemma and Steve's wedding next April. I'm happy that I got to spend some quality girl time with Jemma and Maid of Honour Cassy (including watching the Wedding Singer for the first time!) and we went to The Wedding Show at the NEC and successfully found the perfect wedding dress for Jem.

7. Going back in time slightly, I took Tom to see Bon Jovi in concert in Manchester for his birthday in June. We were right in the Gold Circle which meant we had a great view of the band and Jon Bon Jovi himself walked right past us during one of the songs. It might have rained all afternoon, but it was a great concert nonetheless! Here's a link to some pics I took. (Yes, it was before Tom got his hair cut...)

8. I nourished my latent creativity by making wall hangings from my postcard collection and I also made a cool book as part of Tom's Christmas present. I'm taking him to see Alkaline Trio next May but won't get the tickets until next year but wanted to give him something related to it... The words are the lyrics for the song 'Private Eye' which I cut from paper clipppings (seemed appropriate).






  

One of my proudest achievements :)

9. It was a great year for cooking as well, although there have been a few narrowly avoided disasters including the recent 'Chocolate Pudding Incident' in which I couldn't figure out why my cake mixture tasted so awful... until I realised I'd forgotten to add the bowl of sugar that was patiently waiting on the sideboard... Doh! I've been given so many awesome recipe books this year and also discovered loads of cool and interesting recipes through Stumble Upon and Pinterest. Some of the recipes I've written up on here, but there are loads more I've tried and not had time to write up but I'll try and get round to as many as I can this next year.

10. Speaking of which, another important event was starting this blog - yippee! It's been great learning how to use all the features on here and I've really enjoyed the opportunity to get back into writing more regularly. I hope if you've read any of it that it's not been too boring...

Inside Bath Abbey clock tower

11.To counteract all the time spent indoors cooking, writing, and looking up recipes on BBC Food, we did however visit some brilliant places this year. We had a great weekend visiting my uni friends in Brighton, and spent our holiday in Bath Spa where we saw some truly amazing things like the Roman Baths and beautiful country parks, and climbed up inside the Abbey Clock Tower. We also went to my friend's wedding in Holland which was really good fun, and we explored places closer to home like Barmouth, Llandudno, Llangollen, Pontcysyllte, and Llandegla Forest for some great walks, day trips and weekends away.

12. Upon my return from Holland though I got labyrinthitis and ended up being off work for two weeks, which was the longest period of sick leave I've ever had to take in my life so it was very weird. I couldn't read or watch TV, and I struggled to cook or even get around the house and do basic tasks so it was a really frustrating time in my life, having to rely on other peple to help me with almost everything. I still every now and then feel a bit dizzy, but for the most part it's gone so I'm really pleased it's over!!

13. As I started to recover from my labyrinthitis I got seriously addicted to the TV series Lost, having previously only ever watched a spoof version of it on Youtube by Tom's sister and her friends (see youtube video below). Despite the spoilers, I did still sob my heart out everytime someone died, especially like during the finale.

14. Back in the real world, sadly a few people passed away including my nieces' grandmother Sandy, and a friend of my mother's also lost her husband. My lovely cousin Jenny was also diagnosed with breast cancer this summer. However, as I mentioned in a previous post she seems to be going strong and has recently finished her chemotherapy, so we're all hoping the next few stages of her recovery go smoothly and are sending our love and messages to her via Caring Bridge.

www.cricbeat.com

15. We were also saddened by the tragic death of MotoGP rider Marco Simoncelli this year. I've really enjoyed watching the racing on iPlayer with Tom this year so it was a real shock to hear about Marco's awful crash. He was very young and had already achieved so much in such a short amount of time. I'm reminded of a phrase often used to describe the short-lived career of 19th Century French poet Artur Rimbaud, "meteoric".




16. Speaking of which, we also had a brilliant couple of nights star-gazing and watching the meteor showers with some friends and I also went on a night ride up to the Horseshoe Pass with Tom to see if we could see any more. That is one of the best things about living in less built-up areas, the stars are so much more visible than in urban places.

17. I had my uni friends over to stay and we went on our first ever Valley Run (a pub crawl on minibuses around village pubs in the local area). It was just fantastic seeing my friends again, and it was well timed as I'd been going through a tough time at work so it was something fun to look forward to. It unfortunately coincided with our shower choosing to leak everywhere and drip water through the living room ceiling - aghh!

18. My younger brother Patrick became Programme Director for and helped launch a Not-For-Profit enterprise Spectrum Designs Foundation which provides employment opportunities for individuals with developmental disabilities such as Autism. I even appeared in the September issue of their Newsletter in one of their shirts. Here's a promotional video below to explain more about what they do and why!

19. My friend Tammy kindly lent Tom and me a tree and decorations for our first Christmas in our house!

20. I met up with old buddies from France for a weekend in Manchester before Christmas for a rowdy "Mulled Wine and Mariah Carey" party (Mariah wasn't actually there in person, but there was lots of singing along and dancing to classic Christmas tunes).

21. In some very, very exciting news, I also accepted a job offer for a position in a publishing company not far from where we live. People who know me will know how much I LOVE books, so this is a very exciting move for me, and I can't wait to start this new challenge at the end of the month. :D

22. Finally I actually got to see all my family on Christmas Day. Last year my brother Patrick couldn't make it back from the States because of the bad weather so it was amazing to have all the family together in one place over the Christmas period.

So there you have it. Some good bits, some not so good bits, but overall, I think I'm starting to move in the right direction. That's one of the things that's good about keeping a diary or writing a blog, is that you can look back at where you were at a while ago and check where you've got to. That's not to say I'm one for resolutions or that I've got a big strategic plan for myself, but I've certainly got some plans for next year and with a bit of work (and with the help of this blog to keep me on track) I hope I'll achieve them.

With that in mind I hope you've all had a wonderful Holiday and wish you all the very best for 2012!
Cheers!
x

Chilli cheese toasts recipe

Sticking with the cheesy theme, this is one of my favourite snacks to make. The fact that everyone I've made it for has loved it has solidified its place in our house. I made it last night for Tom as he was working late and didn't want anything big by the time he got home, so it reminded me that it was time to share the love!

It's another from Ravinder Bhogal's 'Cook in Boots', and it's from the Chapter 'TV, remote control and a meal for one'. I also think it's quite a good one for a late breakfast after a night out.

Chilli cheese toasts

Serves 1

Ingredients

1/2 small red onion, finely chopped (I used white and found it just as nice)
1 tomato, finely chopped
1 green chilli (deseeded if you don't want it too hot), and finely chopped (you could use a shake of crushed chillis instead)
1/4 green pepper, deseeded and finely chopped
3 tbsp chopped fresh coriander (as I've mentioned before I'm not a lover of coriander, so I tend to just use a small amount of ground coriander instead)
2 tsp sweet chilli sauce or tomato ketchup (Aldi's do a yummy tomato and sweet chilli chutney which works brilliantly)
I also add 1/2 to 1tsp of pesto but that's completely optional
Ground black pepper
2 slices thick white bread
100g Cheddar cheese, grated

Method 

1. Preheat the grill to a medium high heat.

2. In a small mixing bowl mix together the onion, tomato, chilli, green pepper, coriander, sweet chilli sauce / ketchup, and pesto (if using). Season with pepper.

3. Toast one side of the bread under the grill, then layer the vegetable mix over the untoasted side of the bread.

4. Flash under the grill for 3 minutes so that the onion softens slightly.

5. Top with the cheese, and cook until bubbling.

6. Serve immediately with a generous helping of trash TV (Ravinder's words, not mine!)

My mouth is watering just looking at this...

ENJOY!

Perfect Cauliflower and Cheese recipe

 Hi all,
sorry it's been a while since I last wrote anything on here. Been a bit preoccupied with Christmas and work and so on.

Anyway, I wanted to post this recipe as I've cooked it a couple of times and it was sooooo good, I wanted to share :)

Of course it's from the BBC Food website (how I managed to survive without this for so many years I do not know), and it's from the Hairy Biker's (food and bikes, what could be better?). As with all my recipe posts I'll link to the original recipe but add what I changed and my comments or suggestions (not to suggest that I think I know better of course!).

Yes I put it under the grill and the breadcrumbs caught a teeny bit this time

 Perfect Cauliflower and cheese with bacon and mushrooms (veggies can leave out the bacon)
Preparation time  - less than 30 minutes
Cooking time - 30 minutes to 1 hour
Serves 4 (or 2 hungry people)

Ingredients

1 head cauliflower, trimmed and broken in to florets

250g smoked streaky bacon (I prefer non-streaked but it's up to you), cut into thin strips
250g chestnut mushrooms, finely sliced (I guess they go further that way)
I also added one leek, sliced
25g butter
50g plain flour
250ml full fat milk
200g Gruyere cheese, grated (I used cheddar instead) 
55ml double cream (I used low fat creme fraiche instead and it gave mouth-watering flavour)
Pinch mustard powder (I don't have any so seasoned with cayenne pepper, but go easy on it as it packs a punch!)
Salt and ground black pepper
Pinch ground nutmeg

For the topping
50g ciabatta breadcrumbs (I just used normal sliced bread - I'm not made of money!)
50g parmesan cheese, finely grated

I personally felt that the ingredients did not make enough bechamel sauce so I increased the amounts of butter, flour, milk and creme fraiche to make more but even then it didn't fully cover the cauliflower (perhaps the last two cauliflowers have been abnormally big, but I don't think so...). Generally the sauce melts and spreads a bit more in the oven, but still I prefer my cauliflower cheese to be absolutely covered in sauce so next time I might just go for it and add 50% more to each ingredient.

Method

1. For the cauliflower, cook the florets in a large pan of boiling water for about 10 minutes, or until just tender. Drain and set aside and set the oven to preheat to 180c while you're preparing the sauce.

2. Meanwhile for the bechamel sauce, fry the bacon strips in a dry frying pan until coloured but not crisp. Remove the bacon with a slotted spoon, keeping the bacon fat in the pan.

3. At this point I fried the leeks in the same pan with a little butter added as there wasn't much fat really (perhaps that's why it needs to be streaky bacon?). I then set aside the leeks with the bacon.

4. Then add the mushrooms to the same frying pan and fry for 2 - 3 minutes until golden brown (depending on your preferences you might want to add a small amount of butter). Remove from the pan and set aside with the other cooked ingredients.

5. Melt the butter in a clean saucepan and beat in the four until smooth. Gradually add in the milk bit by bit, whisking with each addition until smooth. Then stir in the mustard powder if using, or carefully shake in the cayenne pepper (keep tasting to make sure it's not too much), and add the grated cheese. Stir until the cheese has melted and then add the creme fraiche. Keep stirring until everything has melted and the mixture is fully combined and thick and creamy.

NB. If you're not sure about the technique of making a roux for a white sauce, watch the video on the link to the original recipe on BBC Food. Have to admit I've not used warm milk before, so I may give this a go next time to see if it makes it better.

6. Season to taste with salt and pepper, and then fold in  the mushrooms, bacon, and leeks.

NB. At this point you've probably had a few tastes and made loud exclamations about how tasty the sauce is - RESTRAIN YOURSELVES! Otherwise whoever you're cooking for will be in the kitchen like a shot, spoon in hand, and unless you can overpower them, you definitely won't have enough to cover the cauliflower!

7. At this point the oven should be warm enough, so put the cauliflower florets in an ovenproof dish and pour over the cheesy sauce. Sprinkle over a pinch of ground nutmeg.

In the original recipe they suggested putting the topping on before putting the dish in the oven, but as my sauce tended to melt a bit more in the oven I would be tempted to put it in the oven for a few minutes (maybe 5) and then add the topping and return to the oven, but have a go and see what you prefer.

8. For the topping, mix the breadcrumbs (ciabatta or otherwise) with the parmesan cheese, and sprinkle over the cauliflower. Place into the oven for 15 minutes, or until the topping is golden-brown and bubbling.

9. Spoon onto plates and serve with green salad and crusty bread, or whatever you like (could be a good side for Christmas dinner in fact). Be prepared for some serious bowl and spoon licking as there won't be much left over!

Hangover food (Masala omelette and homemade hash browns)

I need to preface this recipe with the reason behind my eventual cooking choice.

Long story short, my boyfriend had a very bad hangover this morning, and regardless of the fact that I wasn't feeling particularly sympathetic (amongst other unimpressive acts, he'd left our front door unlocked), I did feel as if I wanted to cook something that would help bring him back from 'Zombieland'. So I turned to Ravinder Bhogal's "Cook in Boots" to see if I could find some inspiration. After about half an hour drooling over recipes I didn't have the ingredients or energy to cook, I decided to combine two recipes from her 'Hangover Food' chapter.


The Masala Omelette I've cooked on several occasions but I'd never tried the hash browns before, and I thought since Tom really likes hash browns it would be pretty good hangover food. It turned out really tasty in the end and definitely filled us both up, and Tom did indeed seem a lot more alive after eating it (and was able to keep it all down, which is a definite plus!!). Now I can't say it cured him completely, but then again I haven't seen him as drunk as he was last night in about 2 years so the fact that he's up and about at all is a miracle.

Omelette might be a bit flat but probably due to being in the oven for too long

Now I didn't quite get the timing right to have both parts of the dish ready at the same time (partly because one of my two mixing bowls was otherwise engaged - ewww); instead I had to prep both dishes one at a time and keep the omelette warm while the hash browns were cooking, but what I thought I'd do was write down what I did this time, with comments on how I'd get it right next time at the end of the post.

Again, as with most of my posts I didn't follow the recipes exactly and I changed/added ingredients according to what I had in the fridge so this is what I used and what I did.

Ingredients

Masala Omelette (serves 2)
1tbsp vegetable oil
1 leek, sliced
1 handful closed cup mushrooms, stalks removed and quartered
1 v. small shake of crushed chillies (less than 1/4 tsp, original asked for 1 green chilli, deseeded and finely chopped)
1 small tomato, seeds removed and chopped
5 eggs
1 splash milk (optional)
1 tsp garam masala
1 shake ground coriander (the recipe asked for 1 tbsp chopped fresh coriander, but I'm not much of a fan, so never have it in the house)
sea salt and black pepper to season

Onion hash browns (makes 12, so there were a few left over!)
NB. Original recipe used cumin, but again I'm not a big fan so I left it out
500g peeled and grated potatoes
1 small onion, grated (or whizzed through a mini-chopper if you've got one :p )
2 shakes ground coriander (original recipe asked for 4 tbsp chopped fresh coriander)
1 shake crushed chillies (approx 1/4 tsp)
1 heaped tbsp plain flour
1 egg, lightly beaten
vegetable oil for frying (original asked for olive oil)

Method

1. Soak the grated potatoes in cold water for extra crunch. At this point I set it aside and left it while I started preparing the omelette. I'll comment at the end on how I would improve the methodology.

2. Preheat the grill to hot. Heat the vegetable oil in a non-stick frying pan and add the leeks, the chilli, and a tbsp of the chopped onion from the hash brown ingredients. Fry until soft, and then add the tomato and the chopped mushrooms and fry for another minute.


3. Meanwhile, beat the eggs (they need to be quite fluffy or it might end up a bit flat like mine) and season with the garam masala (it will turn the eggs a browny-green colour but don't be put off!), salt and pepper. Add the splash of milk at this point if you like and whisk in along with the ground coriander.

4. Pour the beaten eggs into the frying pan and tilt the pan so the egg sets evenly. Once it has set underneath (silicon spatulas are great for lifting up the omelette and taking a peek), slide it under the grill and leave until it's just set on top. (After this point I had to keep my omelette warm in the oven at a low heat)

5. Meanwhile, drain the potatoes then squeeze out as much excess water as possible.

6. Put the potatoes into a large bowl with the rest of the chopped onion, crushed chillies, ground coriander and mix well. Fold in the flour and mix in the egg.

7. Heat 1 tbsp of vegetable oil in a non-stick frying pan (I used a griddle pan and it worked just fine as long as you tilt the pan to make sure the whole surface is covered).

8. With wet hands, shape roughly 2 tablespoons of the potato mixture into a flat fritter and carefully slide into the frying pan. Cook the hash browns for about 3 minutes on each side until nice and golden brown and crispy-looking (again silicon spatulas are great for peeking underneath to see how they're getting on). Be gentle when turning them as if they're not brown enough underneath then they can fall apart pretty easily.

9. Drain on kitchen paper, and repeat with the rest of the mixture, adding more oil as necessary (be careful how much you put in as it can spit!). My pan could fit about 4 fritters at one time so I cooked them in 3 batches, although depending on how quickly you can shape and add the fritters you may have to turn some of them sooner than the rest of the batch.

10. Once they've all been cooked, remove the omelette from oven, divide in two and serve with as many hash browns as you can handle!

Notes for next time

Since it actually takes a little while to shape and fry the hash browns, next time I would probably try doing it the other way round, i.e. preparing and frying the fritters first and then popping them in the oven to keep warm while you cook the omelette, as this didn't actually take very long at all. I might also try halving the recipe for hash browns as it was quite a lot of food with the omelette as well, so this would reduce the frying time as well. I think they'd also be really nice served with tomato and onion chutney as well, so shall remember to add that next time.

I'll let you know how it goes next time I try this particular combo!

PS. Admittedly the colour of the omelette might not be very appealing to some of you, but I promise it was really really nice. And if that doesn't convince you, Tom just commented that the photo I just added makes it look a bit like doner meat. Next time I might just let him suffer...

Beef stew and swede mash recipe

Before posting more poppy seed recipes I wanted to have a go at making a brown stew as my mother had given us some stewing beef months ago when we first moved into the new house, and it's just been sat in the freezer ever since. So last Sunday I decided to give it a go once and for all. I don't actually cook with beef very often so was a little anxious about how it would turn out, especially as my mother's way of cooking looks distinctly like guesswork to me (albeit based on 40 years more cooking experience than I've got). I don't think I've ever seen her actually weigh ingredients, so it's quite amazing that she is able to turn out such tasty food.

Anyway, her recipe being far too vague for me to follow, I looked up brown stew on the BBC food website and got a few recipes, that were sort of what I was looking for, but not quite there. In the end I decided to mix up two recipes, and see how it turned out (it turns out I cook like my mother after all. Hmm..). One recipe was from the Hairy Bikers (Mum's Know Best) and was a Beef and Honey stew, and the other I found online for a traditional beef stew recipe. As the latter was in American measurements I didn't use all the ingredients, but rather just added a few to the Hairy Bikers recipe and based my attempt mostly on that method.

So here's my recipe for Beef Stew with Swede Mash (NB. The swede mash arose as I mistakenly thought I had a turnip to add to the stew and it was only when I was trying to peel and chop the bugger that I realised it was a swede!). This made enough mash and stew for two large portions, with a bit of stew left over for seconds, and trust me it didn't last long! If you try this, let me know how it turns out and any comments would be very welcome!

 Ingredients
30g plain flour (plus 1 tbsp which I added later on)
450g stewing steak, cubed
3 tbsp vegetable oil
1 onion, roughly chopped
3 carrots, peeled and roughly chopped
3 parsnips, peeled, and roughly chopped (I only had a couple in the house but would have liked more)
1 tbsp honey
550ml vegetable stock (I didn't have beef stock)
1-2 small glasses red wine
1 tbsp tomato puree
1/2 tsp dried thyme
salt and pepper to season

For the mash
1 swede, peeled and roughly chopped (swedes are actually quite hard to chop I discovered so be careful you don't cut off a finger!)
50g butter
salt and pepper to season

Method

1. Use kitchen  towel to pat dry the steak pieces (if they've recently been defrosted as mine were the flour makes them sticky if they're too moist). Place the 30g flour in a freezer bag, add the meat and shake till well coated.

2. Heat the oil in a large heavy bottomed pan and brown the meat on all sides. (Do this in batches as adding too much meat at one time makes the meat seam instead of brown). Once browned remove from the pan with a slotted spoon and place aside.

3. Add the chopped onions to the same pan you used to brown the beef and saute for about 5 mins until softened (you may want to add a bit more oil for this stage). Reduce the heat and add an extra tbsp or 2 of flour to the onions and cook for two minutes, stirring often.

4. Add one glass of wine to the pan to de-glaze, scraping any brown bits that were stuck to the bottom. Click on the link to see the BBC Food technique guide for de-glazing if you're not sure how to do this. The flour will start to thicken the wine as it simmers.

5. Simmer the wine for about 5mins, then add the vegetable stock, carrots, parsnips, honey, thyme and the beef. Bring back to a gentle simmer, cover and cook on very low heat for about an hour and a half (this is all the time I had, but the longer you can cook it, the softer the meat gets. Hairy Bikers recommended at least 2 hours for their recipe, but obviously you'll need to add the veg later on in the cooking process if you don't want to end up with a load of mush).

Heat-wise, even on my lowest gas level it was cooking too vigorously and was starting to stick on the bottom, so I had to move the pan to a much smaller ring to keep the heat low and bubbles small.

Whilst tasting my stew I felt it didn't have enough flavour, so during the simmering process I added the tomato puree and the extra glass of wine, and I think this really made a big difference to the colour and flavour but this is up to you really.

6. About half an hour before taking the stew off the heat you'll want to start the swede mash. Place the chopped swede in a pan of cold water and sprinkle in about 1 tsp of salt.

7. Bring to the boil and then reduce the heat to a low simmer. Cook for 10 to 15 minutes until tender.

8. Drain the swede and then use a potato masher to mash it up, adding knobs of butter until you get the taste and consistency you prefer. Season with salt and pepper to taste and transfer to a serving bowl.

9. At this point the stew should be about ready, but if not cover the mash with cling film and pop in the oven at about 100c to keep it warm.

10. Season the stew with salt and pepper to taste and then serve with the swede mash on the side.