A cup of tea

I'm revising for my Java exam, and right now a cup of tea is the closest I'm getting to any form of culinery delight...
That said, a cup of tea is hitting the spot completely, thus deserves a little blog attention. I think perhaps you should have one too?

A warm lentil salad with goats cheese and bacon...

Around a year ago I attempted to follow the Greek Doctor’s Diet, by attempt I mean I read the book and took a few things on board. It’s hard to take anyone who suggests that cheese and biscuits should never be eaten together, and that his diet is one that you should follow for the rest of your life, too seriously (or maybe that was just the point in the book that I realised I could never stick to this diet forever, cheese and biscuits, together, are the BEST). Despite the Greek’s faux pas (he did have extensive medical evidence to suggest his low GI approach was a winner) he made some fair points, and for a few weeks I did avoid potatoes, rice, bread and all the things that make it possible to eat anywhere near economically. Oh, and i didn’t really lose any weight, and that was the point I started running, which is far more fun than any attempts to curb your eating habits :)


If one good thing did come out of that diet it was a new love for lentils. This salad is especially tasty, probably because you fry bacon and onion in the pan before adding the lentils and water. This is a slightly modified version of my brother’s recipe, I’m using goats cheese rather than feta cheese, and peas instead of soya beans. Red onion tastes good in this as well, and i once used halloumi cheese which worked a treat. In short, you’ll probably find throwing in many things will work out fine.



A warm lentil salad with goats cheese and bacon...

• 4 bacon rashers, chopped
• Olive oil
• 1 small onion , finely chopped
• 200g cherry tomatoes , halved
• 150g green or puy lentils
• 1 cupful frozen peas
• 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 100g goats cheese in small pieces (or crumbles, depends on your goats cheese really)
  

1. Fry the bacon in a stick pan (as opposed to a non-stick pan, makes everything taste better when cooking the lentils) with a little oil until crisp. Remove the bacon.

2. Add the diced onion (add a little more oil if necessary) and fry until soft.

3. Add half the bacon back to the pan, and add the lentils. Stir the lentils in the mixture and allow a minute for them to soak up a little oil.

4. Cover the lentils with cold water (just enough to cover, you want the lentils to soak up the water, and shouldn’t expect to drain off the water before serving).

5. Bring the lentils to the boil, and then bring down to a simmer, put a lid on and leave for 20 mins. Check occasionally in case you need to add a touch more water.

6. Add the frozen peas in the final five minutes of cooking.

7. Before serving add the balsamic vinegar, cherry tomatoes, balsamic vinegar and goats cheese.



The recipe above is for two, but I usually make enough for tomorrow’s lunch as well, as it’s fine to take to work cold.

And we’re done, I really should be revising right now, which is probably why I’ve finally managed another blog post, because revision is boring. Revision has also coincided with Food Monthly day (the day that without fail the Observer must be bought). That it calls itself the ‘Credit Crunch Cuisine’ issue, yet offers little in the way of budget recipes, it still has some amazing dessert ideas from old Mr Slater. I managed to stop myself embarking on a bakewell tart attempt today (it would definitely not fall into the essential domestica tasks bracket), but after October 6th (when 3 hour Java exam occurs) I’m free to bake and bake and bake....

Strawberry & cream Puffs

A Simple Dessert using up half a packet of puff pastry:

Half a pot of Double Cream
Golden Caster Sugar (50 g)
Half a packet of puff pastry
Icing sugar
Strawberries

1. Roll out your puff pastry to make a square (you'll need a floured surface and floured rolling pin or things will get messy).
2. Put the pastry on a baking tray and place another baking tray on top of the pastry (this will stop things getting too 'puffed')
3. Put the pastry in the oven at 200oC (fan oven, 220oC non-fan) for 20 mins until golden.
   
4. Remove the pastry, and dust with icing sugar.
5. Heat your grill to high
6. Put your pastry underneath the grill to caramelise. Watch carefully! At this point mine pretty much burnt, but was still edible, just.
   
7. Cut the pastry into rectangles, whilst it is still warm.
   
8. Whip the cream lightly with the caster sugar and add a few drops of vanilla extract, until the cream just holds its shape.
9. Slice the strawberries.
10. Assemble the puffs, add cream to each pastry rectangle and arrange the strawberries on top. Add another pastry rectangle on the top if you haven't burnt half of them *ahem*
11. Dust with icing sugar to serve.
    

Notes: As mentioned - keep a close eye as you grill the pastry. I also found the cream too sweet so adding the caster sugar is probably unnecessary.

Balsamic Cherry Tomatoes

I'm in the throws of preparing some pizza (I had to give in and be a real chef after the shop sold out of Pizza bases) so Whilst I wait for the dough to rise, here's a (albeit brief) recipe for the balsamic cherry tomotoes that will become one of my toppings:

1.  Oven on at 160oC (Fan)

2. Slice your cherry tomoatoes in half

3. Throws tomatoes in a roasting dish with some balsamic vinegar and freshly ground black pepper.

4. Remove from oven 20-30 mins later.

And you have balsamic cherry tomatoes, suitable for salads, to accompany dips, for pizza toppings etc..

Sausages, Bubble & Squeak and Onion gravy

I made this dinner after my long awaited return to running. After work I went with my boss for a 7.5km run and at the time I was feeling quite perky, but obviously an easy dinner was called for. My bangers and mash is a trusted favourite with very little margin for error. It can't just be mash though, bubble and squeak is far more fun! Allow an hour and half for the onion gravy, which gives you enough time to boil the veg. By the time dinner was cooked I had the mother of all headaches, at first I obviously assumed this was the onslaught of a lifetime of migraines and went to bed having hardly touched dinner... The morning after, I googled 'headache after exercise' and it appears I probably had just cained the running a little too hard*, since my legs since ache slightly three days later, the diagnosis is probably correct. Oh well, exercise isn't good for you after all!

*NB - a website did mention it was either exertion or bleeding of the brain, thankfully it appears to have been exertion :)

Anyway, onwards to what i think it is a pretty good sausages and mash recipe:

Ingredients:

Pork Sausages
6 potatoes
Half a Cabbage
1 Onion
300 ml of Diluted Bovril (or any beef stock, but Bovril makes the BEST gravy)
100ml Red wine ( i probably added more)
Mayonnaise
Butter
Wholegrain Mustard
Diijon mustard
Worcestershire sauce

Onion Gravy:

1. Slice your onions as finely as possible, add to a generous knob of melted butter in pan big enough to accommadate the 400mls of liquid you will add later.

2. Cook the onions until soft, then turn the heat down, leave for around an hour until browned, stirring occasionally.

3. Add a teaspoon of dijon mustard to the onions, a few splashes of worcestershire sauce, and give it a good stir. (you may wish to add some plain flour at this point for a thicker gravy, instead I add 'diluted' corn flour at the end if thickening is necessary).

4.Now add the red wine and stock to the pan and bring to the boil. Leave simmering for around 20 mins. Add cornflour mixed with a little water if thickening is required.

BUbble & Squeak:

1. Chop the potatoes into even sized chunks (quarters).
2. Boil the potatoes for 20/30 mins, until soft when pricked with a fork, nearly falling apart.
3. Mash the potatoes, I use a potato ricer which makes your life alot easier. I add whatever I've got
into the fridge into my mash (within reason). Today I added a drop of milk, some mayo, some
wholegrain mustard and a small knob of butter (which will help the squeak brown later). Season
well with salt and pepper.
3. Slice then chop the cabbage, boil for about 5 mins, until soft.
4. Add the cabbage to the potato and mash together.

5. Warm a non stick frying pan on the hob, but don't add any oil.

6. Add the mash & cabbage mixture to the pan, and spread it out to cover the span of the pan. Now leave the mixture for a few minutes before stirring. The mixture should 'bubble' a little (thus the name), I really like the brown bits so I cook the bubble and squeak for about 20- 30 mins.

*Bubble and Squeak is traditionally made from left over mash potato and cabbage (but I love it so much I make it from scratch).

Sausages:

Put the sausages in the oven, at about 180oC (Fan Oven), this depends on the sausages, but my chipolatas required about 30 mins to go brown and sticky (don't prick the sausages, or add any oil).

And we're done, hopefully you're in a fitter state to eat than I was :)

Lamb Provencale, Roast Potatoes & Runner Beans

A few times a year my beloved Slow Cooker is dragged from its hiding place on top of the fridge and its normally to slowly cook lamb. This month I've committed myself to finally empty out our freezer, and fell upon a pack of rump steak lamb. I faltered slightly - not sure if I needed to slow roast rump of lamb (my recipe stated neck chops) the interweb offered little guidance, but going o the assumption that surely any lamb will be tasty after a good 8 hours in a trusty slow cooker I went ahead.

I inherited this recipe from my mother (as I did the Slow Cooker - which is probably at least 30 years old, vintage as they say on ebay) and it's probably one of the best I own, the simplicity of the ingredients and of the laissez faire method allowed me to spend the day getting to grips with my Java Open University course, an ongoing hindrance to my weekend fun having.

Ingredients:

2 x lamb rump steaks
1 tin Tomatoes
mushrooms
1 onion
2 cloves garlic

1. Prepare your vegetables, slice the onions, finely chop the garlic and slice the mushrooms.
2. Add a small amount of olive oil to a frying pan and brown the meat. Add the meat to the small cooker.
3. Lightly 'brown' the onions, garlic and mushrooms in the same pan.
4. Add the veg and the tine of tomatoes to the slow cooker, put the lid on, and leave for around eight hours (perhaps
less if you have a slightly nicer model!)

And we're done :) Giving me six and a half hours before worrying about my roast potatoes and my runner beans.

A few weeks ago I opened a tin of confit de canard and made a cassoulet. As a result I now have a lovely tub full of duck fat sitting in the fridge, so, my method for some of the crunchiest roasties is here:

Unpeeled Potatoes (mine were a bit long in the tooth)
Duck Fat (substitute with goose fat, or lard, or olive oil for a healthy option)

1. Parboil the potatoes, five to ten mins, until the potatoes are just soft when pricked with a fork.
2. Drain the potatoes and return to the pan over the heat, the potatoes need to dry for a few seconds. Take the pan off
the heat.
3. Add around 2 dessert spoons of plain flour to the pan with the potatoes, then jiggle the pan around, allowing the flour
to stick to the potatoes and the edges to rough up slightly.
4. Set the oven to the maximum setting, put a few dessert spoons of duck fat in a roasting tray and stick in the oven to
get hot. The melted fat needs to be very hot, almost to smoking point.
5. Removed the roasting tin and add the potatoes to the roasting tin and roll around allowing the potatoes to fry lightly
on each side in the hot fat.
6. Add the potatoes to the oven, and set the timer for an hour, turn the potatoes every 20 mins.


Now for the runner beans, not too much a story to tell, apart from to let you marvel at my new lakeland steamer. It's a metal flower looking device which fits any size pan, and should be versatile enough to let me steam fish in a wok and steam any vegetable in any sized pan, It's fab, buy one!


And eight hours later we're done , the finished article:


Dessert was the ever-giving cheesecake, tasting even nicer by dinner time :]

A Berry Cheesecake, getting better by the day

Well to begin my blog it seems suitable to detail the baking of my first cheesecake, a momentous event which filled my Saturday afternoon quite comfortably (I had a quick breather to sit on the village green in a brief spell of sunshine and get the latest Ottelenghi recipes from the Guardian, an integral Saturday activity (more on him later.. i appear to be in a double bracket quandary, best get closure)).



Despite not really being a pudding kind of girl (a bag of cherries seems to fit the bill for my less than sweet tooth), I've had the niggling feeling that perhaps Cheesecake is the kind of dessert I should probably be able to make/ kind of dessert I most definitely like eating. After having the most fantastically caramel/cheesecake dessert in Seville in February, followed by a white chocolate cheesecake to die for in Cambridge's lovely D'arrays a few weeks ago (this was coupled with a big win of £50 on the bingo, some girls are born lucky I guess...), around two weeks later D'arrays had a big fire, so I can't go back for the next few months, it also seems unlikely I'll be whisked back to Seville. Thus, here I am, at home and trying to bake the next best cheesecake of my life.

Alas, I cannot take full responsibility for the recipe (for a first attempt penning my own recipe would indeed be a fairly heroic act). Instead I direct you to the saviour of many of our mealtimes, the BBC Good Food website, where the Bake Raspberry cheesecake recipe did sound foolproof. I substituted the raspberries for some frozen mixed berries, but kept in the tons of cream cheese, sour cream and everything else basically, and also used 10 digestives rather than 8 to allow for inevitable eating of biscuit/butter mix (too tasty by far). As the recipe directed I made my base and stuck it into the oven to crisp us, then 'beat' together the remaining ingredients. I say 'beat' because the mixture didn't allow for the sort of beating my mother used to show me, instead I seemed to go from sludge to liquidy lumps in seconds, and after about half an hour of attempts at beating, the lumps did go (I never got anywhere near light and fluffy, if only i had a swanky pants kitchenaid, or even a kitchen big enough to store one). My lower arms still ache today, which proves that making cheesecake reaches parts that my dumbbells have never reached, so its health food really. A definite result!

Now I'm not sure on blogging protocol (it's my first time, you see) but I don't think i need to include the recipe again (as its online at the link above), please advise if I should, or definitely shouldn't - not sure about copyright ?!! Anyways, stuck ye olde cheesecake in the oven for 40 mins and fished it out, allowing it to sit, cool and crack in the most delightful way. A few hours later, after a successful Jambalaya (ooo recipe later, i promise!), I stuck on the sauce and go down to some cheesecake tasting...

Et Voila! We eat the cheesecake that tasted ok, but was nothing to write home about, and after a few gins its felt a bit sickly and i felt cross with myself for attempting to foray into the world of puddings. Thankfully we watched 'In Bruges' which is quite possibly the best film I've watched all year, and cheered me up no end.


This morning I stuck my head in the fridge and saw the offending cheesecake, and thought it might be worth another try, just to make sure it was such an absolute failure, and do you know what said ugly duckling had turned into? A Magnificent Swan! It's lovely, it tastes sweet and cheesy and generally like a cheesecake, and yes it may not be the best cheesecake ever, but we've all got to start somewhere haven't we? Unfortunately this meant I was eating a slice of cheesecake at 11 this morning, which isn't the healthiest way to start a Sunday.. hey ho!

Right now, I have a lamb provencale sitting in the slow cooker, which has about four hours left to go, so I'll hopefully be back with that recipe asap. Gosh, this has been fun, how cathartic a blog is :)