Our kitchen has been busy this week. Dinners have been mainly the old stand-bys from before, but I have one new one, courtesy of the Good Mood Food blog, I promise you will like it!
I have a few baking bits and bobs to post too, things I have been baking for a while, but have not gotten around to putting on the blog.
Brown bread.
This is not soda bread, but a nutty wheaten loaf, easy to make and quick to cook. Just make sure you have buttermilk in the fridge, it makes all the difference.
First add the dry ingredients to the bowl. This is where you can add whatever takes your fancy. Bran is nice too and wheatgerm with honey is lovely. Experiment, it won't make any difference to the success of the bread, it will just customise the flavour.
400g course wholemeal flour
100g plain white flour sifted
75ish g mixed seeds. I use poppy, sesame, pumpkin and sunflower.
50g wheatgerm (optional)
1 rounded t bicarb soda sifted
1 t salt
Stir and and make a well in the centre into which you add;
1 T treacle
400ml buttermilk
1 beaten egg
2 T sunflower oil
Mix into a fairly wet mixture and pour into a well buttered loaf tin (13 x 23cm)
Bake at 200c for about 50 minutes, check it and put back for 5-10 minutes depending on your oven. It should sound hollow when you tap the bottom.
Cool on a wire rack.
This freezes well too, so if you are the only brown bread lover in your family you could freeze half and use half. It does keep well, up to a week in the bread bin, but you will be toasting it after about 4 days!!
Roast Squash Spaghetti
This recipe is from the Good Mood Food book. I envy his photography, this picture is a bit messy looking, but it is a yummy dish. He has a great blog (check it out) but I am a cook book fanatic so had to buy the hard copy!
A lot of his food is very tasty looking and healthy too, but the kids were not crazy about the sound of some of them. I am determined to prove them wrong!
This one was a major hit, notwithstanding the fact that I oversalted the spaghetti, but I will know not to the next time!
Ingredients are highlighted green.
First, chop up a butternut squash. I chopped it into large dice, about the size of half a cherry tomato.
Add the squash into a roasting dish or tin with a punnet of cherry tomatoes, a handful of bacon bits or pancetta lardons
(you can get small packs of bacon bits in the cooked meats section ot the supermarket. Lidl do a very cheap two pack. They freeze well too)
Add in a glug of olive oil, about a tablespoon, a tablespoon of honey, salt. pepper, 1 t hot chili powder and 1 t cinnamon,
Toss everything around in the dish and roast at 220c for about 30 minutes.
15 from the end, put on the spaghetti in lightly salted water. (The dish is salty so don't go overboard like I did!)
When the spaghetti is cooked, drain it and pop it into the dish of veg, which should now be cooked. You want the squash to be a bit mushy on the outside to coat the spaghetti.
Serve with chopped fresh basil.
I didn't have any but it was very nice with freshly grated parmesan. I would say this would be a lovely vegetarian dish, maybe you could substitute the bacon with feta or halloumi cheese.
Next,
Lemon Meringue Bites.
I am really proud of these, although the recipe is someone else's, It was all my idea to make them tiny finger sized, and they worked really well. A nice size to have with a cuppa, and easy to transport.
I made a few tartlet sized ones to use up the pastry as my mini muffin tin only holds twelve at a time and I could not be bothered doing batches. We had these for dessert, and I gave the others to friends, so everyone was happy.
First, make the pastry in the food processor. Mix 200g plain flour and 100g cold diced butter until fine like peas, and add a beaten egg. Whizz until it forms a dough and immediately stop,
Roll out the dough on a floured board and cut into circles a bit bigger than the muffin holders.
Chill the pastry and preheat the oven to 180c.
While it is chilling, make the lemon curd.
This is a Barefoot Contessa recipe (hence the cup measures) and it truly could not be easier.
First. in a mixer, put;
1 cup caster sugar and 125g soft butter
Cream these together and add'
4 yolks and 4 whole eggs (keep the whites aside in a bowl for later)
Mix until incorporated and add pinch of salt and 3/4 cup of lemon juice and 1/4 cup of zest. (about 4 lemons)
It will look curdled at this stage, but don't panic, it will come together over the heat.
In a saucepan on a medium heat, pour the mixture and stir with a wooden spoon until smooth and creamy.
Set aside to cool.
While it is cooling bake the little pastry cases blind
(cover with foil discs and fill with dry beans like chick peas)
It will take about 5-10 minutes until the pastry is dried out and light golden in colour.
Leave the oven on.
Take out and cool.
Next, make the meringue.
Whip up the 4 room temp egg whites with a pinch of salt and 1/4 tsp cream of tarter (Bextarter) until fluffy, then gradually add 1/2 cup of caster sugar while it is whipping until the whites hold stiff peaks and are glossy.
Now to assemble!!
Fill the cool cases with curd, about a teaspoon and a half depending on the size of the cases,
Pipe or spoon the whipped meringue on top making sure it is stippled, so it browns.
Cook for literally 4-5 minutes, watching closely so it does not over cook,
The meringue will be still white and soft inside but the edges will have browned.
These are so worth the effort. You can have the cases and curd done well in advance, so it'd be good for a party. If you want to make one whole pie, just use a 23 cm tin and blind bake for 20 minutes. Then fill the case with the curd and top with all meringue.
I had a good bowl of curd left and the kids had it on toast the next morning. I also folded some of it into whipped cream and served it with raspberries as a dessert the following night. That was also yummy.
Ok so what's next.
Carrot Cake Buns.
This is just a Carrot cake recipe in bun sizes, but almost across the board the buns are more popular as they are easier to eat!
First prepare by grating the carrot, zesting and juicing the oranges and chopping the nuts and the whole process will be much quicker.
In a mixer, or with an electric hand whisk, cream together;
285g soft butter
285g light brown sugar
Then add one at a time;
5 egg yolks (reserve the whites)
zest and juice of one orange
Then add and mix gently with a wooden spoon;
170g self raising flour sifted
1 heaped t baking powder
115g ground almonds
115g roughly chopped pecans
285g grated carrot
1/2 t cinnamon
1 t mixed spice
1/2 t ground ginger
(You can mess around with the spices according to your taste, but they are fairly subtle, so don't be worried that they will overpower the mixture.)
When mixed well, beat the egg whites until stiff peak stage and fold into the cake mixture.
If you are baking as one cake, put into a 20cm square tin or two loaf tins and bake at 180c for 50 mins. Check with a skewer after 45 to be sure.
If you are making cupcakes they only need about 12-15 mins max. Again, check at 12 as ovens do vary.
These cupcakes freeze very well. Defrost overnight, and they taste as if they are almost freshly baked.
The icing is only gorgeous!!!
Mix 100g mascarpone cheese, 100g Philadelphia, 85g icing sugar and 1 lemon (juice and zest.)
Please do not be tempted to get low fat cheese, i did once and it was an unmitigated disaster. I curdled badly and tasted awful. Never again! If you are in for a penny in for a few pounds I say!!
Ice when the cake is cold or it will melt.
Ok. Last one!!
Peanut Butter Cookies a la Daniel.
These are from my first cookbook, called Kitchen Wizard, a truly spectacular little book that is alas out of print.
I am calling my cookery school after it, and will be boring you with all those details in the not too distant future, but now, on the the cookies!!
Preheat the oven to 180c
Line a cookie sheet with parchment
In a mixer, or in a bowl with a wooden spoon, cream together
125g soft butter
125g peanut butter
125g soft brown sugar
125g granulated sugar
Mix until light and fluffy and add
1 egg
1/2 t vanilla
Sift in 150g self raising flour.
The dough will be soft and you need to make little balls of dough gently in your hand and place them on the tray.
Leave space between them as they will spread out a bit.
Dip a fork into water and use to flatten the dough balls into little discs.
Bake for 10-12 minutes until light golden, (we let some of ours go a little too dark and they were bitter)
Cool on a wire rack.
Now!!! I am all tuckered out after that mammoth post. But it feels like I have covered this weeks highlights.
Talk to y'all soon!
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