Meatloaf and crispy pork and pak choi

As a treat for myself on my birthday a few weeks ago, I went to the Ballymore Inn for lunch. It is by a long shot, my favourite restaurant, or to give it it's proper classification..gastropub. They keep things simple, seasonal and everything is always perfectly cooked. This dish was no exception.
I didn't order a starter or a dessert, just this dish, and it was an inspired idea! It meant that nothing interfered with the gorgeous textures and flavours of the dish. I have tried in the past to extract the recipe from the waiting staff, or even a clue to the main ingredients in the sauce, but it never works! I didn't even try it this time. I did, instead spend a week or two trying out a few different versions of it, to see if I could even come close.
The one I settled on is not really hitting the flavours, but I stopped with this one, as I am quite happy with it.

First, you need a pork fillet, trimmed. 1 fillet serves 4 in this recipe. It's best to ask your butcher to trim the pork, but Super Valu have good deals on pork fillet at the moment, so you could try your hand at it. This video is a good demonstration of how to do that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFVYcfyd_S8

Then you need to get your hands on some pak choi.  This is fairly easy to get hold of at the moment, I got some in Super Valu on a 2 for 1 deal last week and I was delighted to see it was grown in Ireland. 1 pak choi per two people for this recipe.

So, first, slice the trimmed pork into slices no thicker than 1/2 cm. Toss the slices in seasoned flour.
Fry off the pork in batches in a pan with a couple of tablespoons of sunflower oil on a high heat for a minute on each side. Make sure it is cooked through, then leave the cooked pieces aside while you put on the noodles to cook (these only take a minute or two.) I used the medium egg noodles as they have a bit more body than the fine rice ones.  It is best to cook the pork a few pieces at a time, because if you crowd the pan, the pork will not crisp up on the outside and will stew.

Chop the pak choi in half, separating the leafy bit from the crunchy white part. Chop the white piece into wedges, four or six depending on how big the pak choi is. Leave the leaves whole.
(The white part needs no more than 2 minutes to cook and the green part no more than 30 secs to 1 minute.)

Now put the pork and white pak choi back in the pan with a couple of drops of sesame oil, a good dash of soy sauce, and a small squeeze of honey. After one minute add the leaves and only allow to barely heat, try not to wilt them too much and turn off the heat. Toss the cooked noodles into the pork and pak choi and serve.
If you have a nice Chinese dipping sauce, you could serve it on the side, but this dish is so yummy. And it is quicker than ordering Chinese!!

The next recipe is not quicker than Chinese, but it is a truly scrummy dish.
I got the recipe from the Good Food channel website, a real little gem for great recipes.

Meatloaf

Ingredients

600g minced beef
200g minced pork
200g bacon bits, fried until cooked
300g soft white bread cubed
1 egg
150 ml milk
1/2 t ground nutmeg
1/2 each salt and pepper
1/2 dried oregano
1 t dijon mustard
A good T of fresh chopped parsley

Beat the egg and mix with the milk and pour over the milk and let it soak up the liquid. Then mash the bread until it is mushy.
Add all the remaining ingredients and use your hands to mix together.
Grease 2 small loaf tins and fill with the mixture.
You can freeze one at this point. One loaf tin serves 4.

Cook for 50 minutes at 180c  or until cooked through. (There will be pink flecks in the meatloaf from the bacon so don't panic!)

Serve with mash and gravy and peas or beans, or anything you want really!
This makes a lovely sandwich the next day, sliced cold and with a bit of Ballymaloe relish. (Apologies for the APALLING photo!!)

The chunky white pieces are the bread, you can blitz it in the food processor if you want it less rustic, but I quite like the texture of the large pieces.

This is a really good value meal and the kids LOVE it.

See ya soon!!

Cakes and more cakes!

I always love baking cakes. The only problematic part of this however is that I like eating them even more!  I wouldn't be crazy for sweets or chocolate, but I do love baked goods.
As far as chocolate cake is concerned, it is hard to find a good recipe. To get the mix of moistness without it being too squidgy is a tough needle to thread. I have a couple of good go-to recipes and they work for what I need them to do, but really as far as cake goes I prefer a more exotic offering.

Of late I have been getting a few requests for some party cakes, decorated and piped. The pictures are below. I loved making them but they are time consuming and can be costly. I can really see how wedding cakes and fancy birthday cakes are so expensive.

I discovered a cake supplies shop in Kildare and also a couple of good websites where you can get all the equipment, decorations and sugar paste icing. The correct paraphernalia is most definitely the secret to success!
The website incidentally is jane-asher.co.uk.

All the cakes are iced with a layer of marzipan and sugar paste icing first. You roll that out like pastry. In fact, that sugar paste stuff is like a mixture between pastry and playdough. I can be tricky to manage. Not to mention sticky!

I also bought little stencil cutters for lettering which give a lovely finish and you can glitz them up with edible glitter before putting them on the cake which really adds a bit of fun, but they are an absolute curse to work with! I thought I had semi proficient fine motor skills until I tried this, but I was very ham-fisted doing this. Definitely a job for the more patient cook!

The first one here is a christening cake I made for my nephew Jack.

It was a lot of fun to make this cake, I had a bit of help from Robyn, despite my very high stress levels! Was not a very therapeutic excercise!
We bought the little baby model and made the pea pods from sugar paste. They were not difficult to make at all and were a great tool for hiding the uneven edges!!!
I was at the christening so could taste the result and it wasn't bad at all, if I do say so!
The lettering was piped, and I was relieved it worked out, lettering in icing is my biggest worry. It is not good to make a mistake, it's hard to fix cleanly. Although I am sure there is some professional out there that will correct me!

Next up, was the Gingerbread Man-eating giant Cupcake Cookie Monster (to use his full title!)

I bought a cake tin in the shape of a giant cupcake that I could use for birthday parties. It is well and truly earned it's keep, I have used it many times now.
The idea came after I had made a series of small cupcakes in the shape of a cookie monster type character for a birthday party.
The giant cupcake was for a haloween party so we added the gruesome detail of the poor sacrificial gingerbread man.

These were just little cupcakes covered in chocolate icing and rolled in vermicelli. The eyes are black and white ready to roll icing and the cookies are shop-bought choc chip cookies.

The Gulliver version ....

The recipe I used was Darina Allen's Yoghurt cake from the Ballymaloe cookery course book. It is all mixed in the food processor and is really moist.

The ingredients are

1 small carton of yoghurt
 Then using the carton as a measure...

1 carton of caster sugar
1 carton of sunflower oil
3 cartons of plain white flour
4 organic eggs
1 t baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla essence.

Whizz together and pour into a well buttered and lined tin. (I just buttered the cupcake tin and it was fine.)

Bake at 180 for about 45 mins until a skewer comes out clean.
For the cupcake mould I had to double the ingredients, but I had a little over so I made 6 buns out of the remainder.

 Robyn actually made this cake almost exclusively by herself. I was only performing a dogsbody type function, you know cleaning up!

It turned out well and it kept great. It was still moist three and four days later. I'd say it'd be gorgeous as a sandwich cake filled with whipped cream and strawberries.

Some other recent creations are :

The lettering on these last two were all glittery but it didn't come out very well in the photos.

Talk to you all soon x

A lot to catch up on!

It has been quite the few months. My new cookery school is now up and running, and there are more recipes to catch up on that I could nearly spend a week posting to catch up!
We have completed four weeks of lessons. The first week was all about EGGS! My favourite ingredient. If you have eggs in the house, it is so easy to rustle up something delicious. Especially if they are delicious organic eggs.
The next week was all about fruit, and we made smoothies, stewed fruit and fruit salad kebabs.

The children tried all sorts of combos using the yummiest fruits and we learned all about how to peel, slice and cook them.

The next week was all about vegetables, and we made guacomole, we made different combos of winter vegetable puree. The students' favourites were butternut squash and celeriac. (My favourites too!)

Then last week we were cooking with beans and pulses. This was my favourite week, because we made Falafel, Hummus and homemade baked beans. The recipe for this is included below. I guarantee you that when you make these a couple of times it will be practically impossible to go back to tinned beans!

I know the photo could be better, but they are yum, and pretty quick to prepare.

Baked Beans

First heat up a saucepan and add a couple of tablespoons of vegetable oil along with a finely chopped onion, a grated clove of garlic and a teaspoon of fresh thyme leaves.
Sweat gently until the onions are soft and translucent.
Then add
1 tin of canellini or haricot beans, 1 tin of chopped tomatoes, 2 T tomato puree, 1 t caster sugar, 200ml vegetable stock, salt and pepper.
Stir well and bring to the boil. Lower to a simmer and allow to simmer for about 30 minutes or until the sauce has reduced and thickened.
Serve with just about anything!

I use canellini beans in this recipe, mainly because they are more widely available, but you could use haricot, kidney beans, chickpeas or whatever takes your fancy.

This week our class will be making homemade pasta and ravioli fillings.
Yum Yum!

The Kitchen Wizards

Hello everyone!

My website is nearly ready, but in the meantime, here are all the details for the classes.

The Kitchen Wizards Cookery School is for primary school and secondary school students, who want to learn to cook for themselves at home and entertain their family and friends.
We aim to make children confident and self-sufficient in the kitchen, learning about nutrition and being adventurous eaters along the way!
The classes are once a week after school for 1 1/2  hours and each term is 10 weeks long.
After each term, the students will host an evening for their family cooking some of the recipes they have learned.
Each ten week module costs €220 and all equipment and ingredients are supplied.

Classes are in

Ranelagh
Beechwood Community Centre, Mountainview road
Tuesdays starting 21st September
Age 6 - 12    3.30pm-5pm
Age 13 - 18  5.15pm-6.45pm

Baltinglass
The Lalor Centre
Wednesdays starting 22nd September
Age 6 - 12     3.30pm-5pm
Age 13 - 18   5.15pm-6.45pm

Blessington
St Kevins Community Centre
Thursdays starting 23rd September
Age 6 - 12 3.30pm-5pm

Age 13 - 18 5.15pm-6.45pm

To book your child into one of the classes, call me on 059 6473030 / 087 2109635

See you all soon!!!

Dog Day afternoon! (Blackcurrant jam)

Today was the our first full day with our new puppy Bruno. He is a border collie rescue dog, and pretty damn sharp! He is already coming to his name and sitting on command.
We spent as much time in the garden as possible in an effort to kickstart the house training. It is starting to click with him where he is supposed to go, now he just needs to go there!
Garden time meant that I had lots of time to pick blackcurrants. It is a time consuming but very enjoyable task. I am sure there is a speedy efficient way to pick them, but I have yet to stumble upon it. The dog was very involved, inspecting tne contents of my basin from time to time, and sampling the odd dropped berry. I think he just sucked the juice and spat out the berry. Either way I feel he has had a paw in the making of this jam! Bless his little cotton socks if he is not all tuckered out now and fast asleep with his new buddy.

With such a crop of blackcurrants, jam was really the best use of this bounty, so I fished out my Ballymaloe cookery school book. Honestly who else could you turn to when it comes to the self-sufficiency of jam making only Darina herself. There is something very reassuring about her traditional recipes. They are written with conviction, experience and gravitas. No mere mortal could ever question her judgement on such matters. Her book is comprehensive in its details. You are given clear instructions on sterilising jars,storage, equipment etc. I felt tremendously equipped.

After picking about half the berries on the bush, I felt I had more than enough, so proceeded to de-stalk them, a task ideally suited for someone whos' primary objective was to monitor the bladder habits of a 10 week old puppy. This process takes some time. For my 800g of blackcurrants, this took an hour and a half. The type of job that is supposed to be good for activating the creative side of the brain. Indeed I found myself dreaming up colour schemes for the new flower bed I will never get around to planting.

(This is not 800g but merely a pretty picture!)

Next, I located a few jam jars and cleaned them thouroughly. (Or rather, Declan cleaned them thoroughly!) They need to be sterilised and Darina details a number of ways to do this including putting them through the dishwasher. I filled them with boiling water and emptied them out and put them in the oven preheated to 180c to dry. They only take a few minutes to dry out, and then they are ready for filling.

So next. I used a wide heavy bottomed saucepan and greased it. Then in went my 800g of now washed blackcurrants and 530ml water. Accurate quantities are very important as jam making is as much chemistry as it is cooking. Or 'Alchemy' as Nigella calls it.
With blackcurrant jam you must let the berries cook down until they are burst and soft so they don't end up tough in the jam. This takes about 10ish minutes. In the meantime, put 1kg of sugar into a stainless steel bowl, I used the lid of roasting tin, and put it into an oven at 150c for 10 minutes. Add the sugar to the softened fruit and stir until dissolved. Bring to the boil and cook for 20 minutes stirring frequently.  You can skim the foam off as you go. To test that it is at setting point, you can use a candy thermometer, and when the mixture reaches 105c it is done, or you can every few minutes (after about 15 mins) put a teaspoon of mixture onto a cold plate and allow to sit for a few minutes. If it wrinkles when you push it with your finger, then you are ready to pot it up.

I skimmed off the last little bit of foam from the top and ladled the mixture into the jars.
I was not really prepared for potting jam, so I only had parchment with which to cover the jam. I got 4 pots out of this mixture. Can't imagine it will last too long, we do go through jam in this house.
Probably not a good sign!

When the last bit of jam that I put in a bowl had cooled, we tried it on some buttermilk pancakes. I had some batter left over from this morning, and made little bitesized ones just to test the jam.

I was terribly pleased with myself, with my new dog, homegrown berries and homemade jam on pancakes. Although my waistline is not really benetitting from such an exercise, this is the kind of cooking that kids love, and it teaches them really how much damn sugar there is in jam!

Bye for now and woof from Bruno x

Toad in the hole and Millionaire's squares

Well now that the house is back to normal with just the usual amount of chaos (!) and we have eaten the results of the cookery classes, it's time to start adding a few new ones to the blog.

Yesterday I made caramel millionaire's squares. I have never made them before, they always look delicious in cafes but are almost always a disappointment. I think they need to be eaten while still very fresh.

I got the recipe from the condensed milk tin and it could not be simpler.

Millionaire's squares

First make the base, you can make a shortbread biscuit base with 25g melted butter and 200g crushed shortbread biscuits but having no biscuits, i just made a pastry base and blind baked it first. (Recipe is in an older entry, you will find it if you search on the side bar)
Then make the caramel. I used a large non-stick frying pan.

Melt
150g soft dark brown sugar
150g butter
until the butter is melted and the sugar is dissolved.
Then add
1 tin of condensed milk.
Stir occasionally and wait for the caramel to start bubbling, take it off the heat and pour over the pastry/biscuit base.
Allow to cool and then put in the fridge until set. (It won't harden, but will firm up a little.

Melt 200g chocolate (milk/dark) and pour over the top, spreading evenly.
Put it back in the fridge so the chocolate hardens and cut into squares.

They are rich, but very tasty. I would say if you leave them too long the pastry could go very dry. Thar won't be a problem in my house, the kids have taken to checking on them every half hour to make sure they are still there for dessert after dinner!

For lunch today, we made mini Toad in the Hole.

The kids loved it, and Robyn made the batter. Unfortunately I didn't think to take pictures, but next time.

First put a little sunflower oil into each cup of a muffin tray.

Put it into the oven and preheat to 200c. You want the oil to reach that temperature too.

Next cook 12 sausages or 24 cocktail sausages until cooked. Cut the large ones in two.

Make the batter by whisking

110g plain flour

2 eggs

pinch of salt

300ml milk

until smooth with no lumps until the consistency of cream.

When the oven hits its heat, take out the muffin tray carefully. The oil will be very hot.

Put two halves of the sausage, or two cocktail sausages in each section and fill with batter. The mixture should  make 12 exactly.

As quickly as you can put the tray back in the oven and bake for 10-12 minutes until they are puffy and golden brown. They will rise up dramatically.

Robyn likes sitting in front of the oven and watches them rise!!!

Who needs TV?!

When out of the oven they collapse a little. If you leave them to cool for a couple of munutes they shrink and are easier to remove from the tray.

We had them with fried onions and onion gravy (instant) Not the healthiest combo, but it was just what we needed on a horrible rainy day.

Baking day. Cheese and Bacon scones, plain scones, banana cake, shortbread, chocolate muffins, and busy bees!

Well. I am done! Three days, 12 children, 50 eggs, 6 kilos of flour and one scarred kitchen later!

Todsy was the busiest day, I knew it would be. It always surprises me when I hear parents saying they bake with the kids, but don't make dinners. Baking is the hardest. The kids eat all the ingreadients as they go, usually end up wearing half of what they are making and want the results immediately!! Dinners are a far less excitable affair.
All that aside, today was fantastic. The chidren in the workshop were patient and keen and the results were great. Although I think my own daughter left out the sugar in the banana bread, I just had a piece and can pretty much say for sure that there ain't no sugar in it!

My favourite from today, (a view also held by an 8 year old participant called Hannah) were
Cheese and Bacon scones.
They were light, but savoury and were a perfect lunch for us when we took a break.

The ingredients are:

450g plain flour

1 t bicarb of soda
1 t cayenne pepper (optional)
1 t salt
30g cold butter diced
110g bacon grilled and chopped (I actually put the bacon in a hot oven for 8 mins)
110 g gruyere or cheddar cheese
1 egg
375 ml buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 220c and flour a non-stick baking tray
First, sift the dry ingredients into a bowl and stir. Rub in the cold butter until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
Add the bacon (finely chopped) and the cheese.
Beat the egg and add the buttermilk.

Add the egg and milk to the mixture and stir until it comes together.
It will form a sticky dough so flour your board well before putting it down to roll.

Roll out to a thickness of 2-3 cm and cut into the shape of your choice. We used circles and squares just for variety! Brush with a little beaten egg or milk.

Put them on a lightly floured tray and bake for between 12-15 mins depending on the size of the scones.
Leave to cool on a wire rack.
This mixture makes at least 12 scones

Plain/Fruit scones

These are really simple and if you make them in a large quantity they freeze really well.


Ingredients


225g self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
50g cold butter diced
50g caster sugar
150ml buttermilk
1`beaten egg
50g sultanas

Preheat the oven to 180c and flour a non-stick baking tray
Sift the dry ingredients together and stir to combine. Rub in the butter with your fingertips until the mixture resemble breadcrumbs.
Add in the sugar and the sultanas if you are adding them and stir.
Mix the egg and buttermilk together and add to the dry ingredients, making a dough as you did with the scones above.
Roll out gently on a floured surface, cut into shapes & place on the tray. Brush with a little beaten egg or milk and bake for 12-15 minutes.

Leave to cool on a wire rack


We made chocolate muffins next, the recipe is in the posting a couple of days ago. The shortbread recipe is the one Daniel used to make strawberry shortcake, also in an old posting. (You can find all these if you search for them in the bar on the right.)

I am afraid the banana cake recipe is a little secret, only to be divulged upon completion of a course. It goes back years and I have to have something that's my own!

The busy bees on the other hand are a gorgeous little recipe and they need neither cooking nor chilling. The all important instant results! Perfect for making with really small children and really very nutritious. It is an Annabel Karmel recipe.

Busy Bees

In a bowl mix the following ingredients together in no particular order!

1 Weetabix crushed up
4 T peanut butter
1 T skimmed milk powder (such as Marvel)
1 T sesame seeds
1 T honey

Stir all the ingredients together and with your hand make little bee shapes, kind of like mini weetabix pieces.

Decorate with white buttons for the wings and choc chips for the eyes. If you dip a cocktail stick first into water then into cocoa, you can paint on stripes for the bees back. Apologies for the awful photograph.

So that was it! A successful few days. I will keep you all posted on the cookery school website, and once it's up, I will be back to family meals here on the blog.

See y'all soon!
P.S. Check out my kitchen after today!!