Angela's Recipe Blog

Apple Skillet Cake

2012-01-30T10:07:00.000Z

In the Stella magazine which came with yesterdays Telegraph was a pudding recipe by Diana Henry which I just had to try, and it certainly did not disappoint. We are not great pudding people and because of this I reduced the sugar used by a good half, which I realise would have affected the caramelisation and therefore the taste but it was still plenty sweet enough for us, especially as I served it with Kelly's Cornish Clotted Cream Ice Cream. Yes, we did eat it all in one go, two greedy people.... but Chris did have more than me. No surprise there. Here is the recipe from the magazine.

Rueben's Apple Skillet Cake

Serves2 greedy people, four restrained ones!

This is just really a big Pancake, It'sbased on the one that was famously served in the New York post-theatre eaterie,Reuben's.

It'snot difficult to make but it does require total attention - the sugar can easily burn.

. 2 tart eating apples

. 2 tbsp soft, plump raisins

. ¼tsp groundcinnamon

' 7 tbsp soft light-brown sugar

. 125m1 (4fl oz) milk

. 3 large eggs

. 60g ( just over 2oz) Plain flour

. about 35g (1½oz) unsalted butter

Peel and halve the appIes, core and cutinto thin slices. Toss with the raisins, cinnamon and 2 tabspns of the sugar and set aside.

Put the milk, eggs, flour and 1tbsp of thesugar into a food processor and blitz to make a lump-free mixure.

Set a 23-25cm (9-10 in.) non-stick frying-panover a medium heat and melt about 15g (half oz) of the butter. Add the applemixture and cook gently until the apples are quite tender. Now add a littlemore butter and pour on the Pancake batter. Let it set a little then start to bringthe sides - which should be setting - into the middle, letting the liquidbatter run to the edges, as you would an omelette.

Once the pancake seems set enough to turn(about four minutes) sprinkle the top with a tablespoon of sugar and slide it onto a plate. Invert the plate so that the pancake goes back into the pan on theother side. Add a little more butter (slide it underneath) and cook for threeto four minutes. You should be able to smell the sugar caramelising.

Now sprinkle the top with 2tbsp of thesugar and invert it, again pushing more butter underneath.

Cook for a couple of minutes. Sprinkle withthe final tablespoon of sugar and turn the Pancake over once more. lt shouldhave set right through and be sticky and caramelised on top.

Christmas 2011

2011-12-22T19:29:00.000Z

A week or so before Christmas in the early 1980's this little knitted Santa was brought into our village post office on the edge of Dartmoor. He had been found at the nearby bus stop and it was hoped that if we displayed him in our shop window he would be re-united with his owner. He was duly displayed until 4pm on Christmas Eve when, still unclaimed, I couldn't bear to leave him all on his own over the Christmas holiday so he came to sit on our Christmas tree as he has done every year since. Whatever the tree colour schemes have been over the last 25 or so years he has made an appearance and witnessed the joys and the sorrows of each festive season that has passed since.

In a charity shop a few years ago I found a book called Knitted Toys by Jean Greenhowe, and there he was, a Witty Knit.

Have a lovely Christmas everyone!

Beetroot

2011-11-27T15:57:00.001Z

We have been in the fortunate position for about 15 years ofhaving two allotments. Although itwasn’t our choice to work two all that time ago we were begged by fellowallotment holders to take on another as no-one wanted the unused one and atthat time it was feared the whole site could be taken over fordevelopment. It’s meant that we’ve beenable to experiment with crops and also give over part of one of the allotmentsto fruit bushes and even last year we planted three apple trees and two cobnuts. (The nuts were my husband’s idea,a total surprise to me when they turned up, but we actually harvested 6 nutsthis year!).

However this autumn we decided to give up half of one ofthe allotments as we are getting older and the waiting list is growing longer. We’ve seen lots of people over the lasttwenty odd years ‘have a go’ but are the first to admit that it’s jolly hardwork to keep a vegetable patch in tidy order and actually see a return for allyour hard work and financial investment.

Beetroot, something we have always grown, is suddenlyfashionable, cropping up in all sorts of recipes from cakes to roastedvegetables. It does make fantastic chutneys, and we are not averse to lightlypickling them, but currently our favourite way of using them is in a

smoked mackerel and beetroot pate

dead easy to make and great on good toasted bread, there areonly four ingredients.

You need a smoked mackerel, skin removed and checked overfor any bones, about 150 grams cooked beetroot, 1 tablespoon of mayonnaise anda dessertspoonful of yoghourt. Whizzedup in a processor, I use a stick blender, it couldn’t be easier. I have recently seen a similar idea using acan of sardines in oil, draining the sardines well. This is also very nice, but we actuallyprefer the smoked mackerel. We have alsoused pickled beetroot, but only those that have been lightly pickled by us athome. If you really like the taste of beetrootin vinegar you could give it a go with a commercial jar, or one of those littlepackets.

Ingredients ready to be whizzed up

Last time I made this it was a dismal old day and I was feeling in creative mood so made some crumpets and pikelets which we ate with the pate. They keep for a couple of days, we didn't eat 18-20 at one sitting!

I used a recipe from a book by Linda Collister and Anthony Blake, although I admit I didn't have the cream of tartar called for in the recipe. The cooked crumpets stuck to my crumpet rings, so having done battle and made two batches with crumpets rings, 12 crumpets, I thought I'd do pikelets instead which are free form. Of course I did not read the instruction which said add more milk to make pikelets!! Still they all tasted wonderful, totally unlike the rubbery purchased ones even if they would have won no prizes for their beauty.

sweet pickled beetroot

This way of saving beetroot for later in the year issomething that Chris is quite fond of, and whole cloves of garlic added to thejar at the same time are a welcome addition.

Simmer together for 30 minutes:-

2cm peeled and crushed ginger

600ml vinegar

200g sugar

2tsp salt

1tsp black peppercorns

1tsp mustard seeds.

Cool and strain the vinegar. Into clean sterile jars, pack cooked beetroot, we leave them whole or halve them if small, otherwise slice or dice them, and pour over the cooled vinegar. Seal the jars.

Such a Lucky Win

2011-11-17T19:56:00.001Z

After a pretty awful year during which I haven't really felt like blogging I have just won a wonderful book in a give-away by Maureen. The book by Diana Henry, who writes for the Sunday Telegraph, is called 'Roast Figs Sugar Snow'.

There is just so much in it I want to try, from Onion and Cider Soup to Italian Christmas Chocolate Cake, I'd like to cook just about everything. Wonderful photographs, and lots of text makes interesting background reading to each recipe, there couldn't be a better time of the year to aquire this book. After Maureen's blog post it would definitely have been on my Christmas list if I hadn't been lucky enough to win it.

Another of my favourite Diana Henry books - Food from Plenty

From an Old Postcard Album

2010-10-09T16:18:00.001+01:00

We've got quite a collection of old postcards, aren't these two wonderful.

Catherine Hill, Frome, Somerset

The Pannier Market, Barnstaple, North Devon

On the back of this card the writer apologises to the addressee that she won't be there in time for tea today, what faith and all for 2d!

Spiced Pickled Pears and Quinces

2010-10-07T16:50:00.000+01:00

When Sharon gave me a large bag of pears I knew what I wanted to do with them. Every year I make a jar or two of these spiced pickled pears which go wonderfully well with all the cold meats and cheeses we have during the Christmas season.

This year, as well as the pears, I have put up a jar of quinces in the same vinegar mixture. I have no idea how successful it will be, but the vinegar has changed to quite a dark red and has a very strong quince flavour.

Spiced Pickled Pears      from Delia Smiths’s Christmas

2lb pears (firm ones)                 ½ teaspoon whole cloves

12oz soft light brown sugar        1 level teaspoon juniper (or allspice)
                                                berries

10fl.oz white wine vinegar         1 teaspoon black peppercorns

10fl.oz cider vinegar                  ½ a lemon, cut into thin slices

3inch cinnamon stick, broken

Put everything but the pears in a large pan, heat slowly, stirring occasionally to dissolve the sugar, then bring to the boil.

While this is happening peel the pears, cut in half and core. Put into the hot vinegar and poach gently until they are just tender, and slightly translucent. Remove them with a slotted spoon, leaving as many of the spices behind as possible into a heated jar. This quantity of pears, sliced in half, will fit into a ¾litre jar. Boil the remaining vinegar to reduce to a syrupy consistency, and while still boiling strain over the pears in the jar, to cover them. You can fish out the lemon slices to put in the jar, and a few escapée spices won’t hurt, but it can taste medicinal if there are lots. Seal the jar immediately. Store for a month before using. The pears will keep for months unopened.

These cherry sized crab apples are Malus Butterball, they have a wonderful flavour, and I am hoping to make some golden coloured crab apple jelly from the first years crop.

Birthday Celebration

2010-10-06T10:46:00.000+01:00

Last week Imogen, in celebration of her birthday took Sharon and me to At the Chapel, Bruton for tea. On their website it says that the premises were previously a 17th Century Coaching Inn, but inside it looks just like a non-conformist chapel.

We ate the most delicious, and huge, Almond Croissants

When we arrived the woodfired oven in the bakery was just being lit, we lingered so long over tea that by the time we left I would think it was hot enought to start baking the pizzas, for which they are well known.

Joe, who is one of the chefs, told us that the pizzas are cooked while the oven is at it's hottest, followed by a wide variety of artisan bread , baked for sale in the shop.

It was a lovely afternoon, thank you Imogen for such a treat.

Scottish Highlands

2010-09-25T15:37:00.000+01:00

We’ve just come back from what was my first visit to the Scottish Highlands, flying from Bristol to Edinburgh and then a series of trips by rail and coach. It’s hard to believe that this beautiful country is at the ‘top end’ of the UK. The weather was anything but perfect and the top of the Cairn Gorm was totally enveloped in low cloud, the view from the top is reputed to be awesome! However the Ptarmigan Restaurant there provided a little consolation with a dish of salmon in a creamy leek sauce, even if we didn't see it's namesake.

I came back with a very nasty cold and to cheer myself up made a lovely spicy tomato soup on the day after we got back, just what the doctor ordered, eaten with Scottish Oatcakes.

I used a can of tomatoes, a squirt of Heinz tomato ketchup, a red chilli from the greenhouse, 3 cloves of garlic, and a spoonful of Maggi dried coconut powder,( I recently discovered this very useful product). I first cooked the garlic and chilli, with most of it’s seeds in a little olive oil, added the canned tomatoes with a good squirt of ketchup then whizzed it up with enough water to make it souplike, adding a tablespoon of dried coconut powder.

The big white mug came with a bottle of whisky last Christmas, but ‘Famous Grouse’ was a pretty good description of me until I began to feel better!

Social Housing for Tiny Workers

2010-09-13T10:36:00.003+01:00

Now I have actually given Imogen the birthday card I made especially for her I want to show it off! I'm quite pleased with it, the photo was taken in the kitchen garden of Arlington Court, North Devon this Summer, and with the help of Photoshop I turned it into a lovely card. The National Trust had made 'Insect Towers' for all their tiniest visitors.

Hats for Smoothies

2010-09-11T18:07:00.000+01:00

I read this post on the lovely GiddyStuff blog at the beginning of the month and was inspired to knit a few of these little hats myself, here are the first few I have made!

I remember reading last year about the Innocent Smoothie idea for raising money for AgeUK, but had completely forgotten about it in the meantime. Each little hat should raise 25p for the charity, and although my little hats don't look as smart or clever as other people's I'm enjoying making them and do hope someone will like them enough to pay a little bit extra for their smoothie.
You can download patterns from this link if you would also like to join in. The deadline for sending your hats in is October 10th.

A Gift of Apples

2010-09-11T14:51:00.022+01:00

A couple of weeks ago one of the branches of an apple tree in Orchard Street allotments fractured and Sandra one of the allotment holders very kindly asked if we would like some of the apples as they were going to have to cut off the branch before it ripped the tree more severely. As we have a very long ladder Chris offered to carry it round and help out if needed. He came back with a box of apples which were rather under ripe but in excellent condition, and at the same time Imogen gave us a large bag of windfalls from the tree in her garden. I love these kinds of gifts and set to, to use them up.

As we were at the end of the school summer holiday period and we were having lots of family visits or visiting them the windfalls went into delicious apple pies for puddings here or as contributions to family meals away. Another family favourite is chopped up apples with sultanas and crystallised ginger in a spicy apple fruit cake, if you haven’t tried it you’ve missed a treat. Don’t forget that the apples can be quite wet so not too sloppy a cake mixture. I usually soften the apples a little in the microwave first, and use a basic plain cake recipe i.e 1lb self raising flour, 8oz margarine, 6oz dark brown sugar (but that’s a matter of taste, white or brown, or a bit more if you like things sweeter) and 3 large eggs with approx. ¼pint milk, baked in an 8½” cake tin.

With the picked apples I made a big batch of apple chutney, mostly because our older son likes this one above all others and then some jars of blackberry and apple jelly. We have still got a few of the larger apples left. I’m not sure if they will last well because of their early picking, but our quinces should be ready in a couple of weeks and I’ve found a lovely recipe for Paradise Jelly which I’d like to try this year.

Our favourite Apple Chutney Recipe

5lbs apples,peeled, cored, chopped                 1 pint vinegar
1lb brown sugar                                              1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon ground ginger                              3-4 dried chillies
8oz chopped, stoned dates
8oz chopped onions
8oz sultanas

Bring the vinegar to the boil with the sugar, salt and spices. The chillies are up to you, if you leave them whole you can fish them out at the end. Add the rest of the ingredients and boil until thick. Put into hot jars while the chutney is still very hot and use vinegar proof lids.

Using these apples this year the chutney was very thick before it had properly cooked so I had to add some water and a little more vinegar. Some of the apples being quite small and all them under ripe I think they are not so juicy. The taste is still excellent, even though it has had no chance to mature yet.

Apple and Blackberry Jelly.

The quantities of fruit for this preserve can be pretty elastic.

I had picked 5lbs of blackberries, and used 3lbs of green cooking apples. If you want to use a larger proportion of blackberries you might want to add some lemon juice to aid the setting.

First of all wash and cut up your apples, no need to peel or core, just make sure you remove any blemishes and bruised bits, put the fruit into a large pan with enough water to cover it and cook until the apple is beginning to soften, add the blackberries and cook until it is all soft and mushy, squash with a potato masher or wooden spoon if needed, but don’t let it catch on the bottom of the pan, there should be enough liquid in the blackberries, but add more water if the liquid is not still covering the fruit. I didn’t bother with jelly bags this time, I just ladled the fruit into sieves over deep large bowls and let it drip through, turning it with spatulas once or twice. This will take several hours, cover the sieves with clingfilm if there are wasps about.

( I have a translucent but slightly cloudy jelly, but for the first time I questioned why I go to such lengths to achieve such a perfect finish when it will taste just the same. I’m getting much more canny in my old age.)

Measure the extracted juice and put into a large clean pan. You can divide up the liquid if you have too much for your pan. For each 1 pint juice add 1lb of sugar. Bring slowly to the boil, stirring now and again, until the sugar has dissolved and then a full rolling boil until you reach setting point, test it after 15 minutes, it should be about there, if not give it another few minutes and test it again. A teaspoonful on a cold plate left in the fridge for a few minutes should wrinkle when you push it with your finger, and also when you lift up a wooden spoonful of jelly from the preserving pan and pour it back slowly into the pan it should form drops on the edge of the spoon and a leave a coating on the back of the spoon that you can leave a trail across with your finger.

Pour into clean, hot jars and seal with lids or cellophane jam pot covers

Although I keep a large handwritten notebook for preserving recipes that I’ve used time and time again I cannot recommend too highly the Basic Basics Jams, Preserves and Chutneys Handbook by Marguerite Patten. So many recipes and easy to understand methods.

In one of my many folders of clipped out recipes I have one for Paradise Jelly, the cutting says that this is ‘a beautiful jelly, very good with turkey, chicken and pork, and was found in the Old Yankee Cookbook’. We have a good crop of quinces this year, if rather smaller fruit than other years, but I am going to give this a go. I will strain this one carefully, with a name like this how could I not!

Paradise Jelly

4 large quinces
1.5kg (3lb 5oz) cooking apples
750g (1lb 10oz) cranberries
Approx. 2 kg (4lbs 8oz) granulated sugar.

Wash the apples and quinces (get rid of the fluff on the quinces) and chop them into chunks (no need to peel or core). Put them into a large pan, cover with water, turn down the heat and cook until soft, about an hour, adding the cranberries after half an hour. Suspend in a jelly bag overnight. To each 500ml of juice add 500g sugar (1lb to a pint) Bring slowly to the boil to allow sugar to dissolve, boil until setting point is reached. I’m really looking forward to getting round to trying this one.

Beautiful Squash from the allotment

Bought down from our allotment this week because the weather forecast wasn't too good. Wall to wall sunshine since they were harvested! But aren't they beautiful.

Somerset Levels

2010-09-10T18:12:00.000+01:00

Yesterday being such a glorious day we took time out from garden and kitchen to visit one of our favourite places, The Somerset Levels. (The link leads you to the Ham Wall area, where we were yesterday)

In the past peat extraction was a major industry in this part of Somerset but now the area has been allowed to flood and is habititat for large numbers of birds, water and woodland. There is a large network of lakes and rhynes, the name particular to this area for the drainage ditches which cross the Levels.

One of the rhynes

Yesterday there were dozens of brilliant dragonflies, we managed to indentify the Four Spotted Chaser, and the colourful Emperor, but watch as I might there was no chance to get a photgraph.

One of the ditches was being dredged, and we were lucky enough to be able to talk to the operator as he was walking back along the silt he had pulled out to rescue any creatures that had been bought up to the bank. We did see one small dead fish on our side of the bank, and a few fresh water mussels. We didn't even know until we were talking to him then that there was a fresh water mussel. I took a photo of Chris holding a shell just to show how big they are.

A grey heron was working his way along the bank, and from the hole in the mussel shell I imagine this one provided a snack earlier. Plenty of swans in evidence and the ever present resting cormorants that you see on some of the lakes but nothing more unusual about at this time of the year.

It is here about that the starlings roost in the late autumn and early winter months, a magical sight and sound, the thousands of wing beats coming in over your head. Winter also brings large numbers of waders, spoonbill last winter, and lapwings move into the fields if they start to flood. Where there are large flocks of birds there are always the raptors, and we've seen Hen Harriers and Peregrines in some parts of the Levels.

Looked like a group of volunteers busy yesterday.

Courgette and Feta Bake

2010-09-06T17:25:00.001+01:00

I recently twice made this recipe from the cookbook New Recipes from Moosewood Restaurant. Called Zucchini-Feta Casserole, it’s a bit more like a bake.

I think I should have used a tin, rather than a pottery dish and then the base may have been crisp. The first time I made it I mis-read the recipe and mixed the egg mixture in with the bulgur wheat, so I put it all on top of the courgettes, before topping with tomatoes and cheese. It did actually taste just as good that way.

These quantities are for 2-3 people.

Sauté a cup of sliced onions and two cloves of chopped garlic in a little oil until the onions are translucent, add 3 cups thinly sliced courgettes, and cook until they are just tender, add a sprinkling of herbs, basil and marjoram, and some black pepper.

Place a scant half cup of bulgur in a bowl with the same volume of boiling water, and leave until the grain is tender and edible. Add ½cup chopped parsley, 1 tablespoon tomato paste and a good half a tablespoon of soy sauce to the bulgur. Mix well and put into the pie dish, firming it up a bit.

On top of the bulgur put the cooked vegetables.

Mix together an egg, ½cup of cottage cheese, and 3 ounces chopped feta cheese. Pour on top of the courgettes.

Slice a tomato or two over the egg mixture, and scatter with a little grated cheese.

Bake for about 45 minutes, at about 175°C uncovered for the last 15 minutes to brown the top.

Delicious! Serve with a crisp salad.

Sarah's Layer Cake Quilt

2010-08-25T15:47:00.000+01:00

Sarah, Imogen's daughter, has just made her first quilt, a complete delight. She chose a Layer Cake Selection which, she said, reminded her of the fabrics her grandmother had had, which makes it all the more charming.

I have not noticed Layer Cake fabric packs anywhere (being blinkered most of the time), but looking it up on the Moda Bakeshop site, I see that there are 42 10" squares in each pack. I don't know why, but this particular pack reminds me of a Punch and Judy show, a Helter Skelter, or a circus from a watercolour painting or on the box of an old jigsaw!

Imogen and Sarah with Sarah's First Quilt

There are some much better photos on The Faerie Godmother Blog Sarah says she's set to continue with her quilting, she has some great ideas planned for the next one! and she has opened my mind to the possiblities of pre-cut packs

Talented Friends

2010-08-22T16:06:00.001+01:00

I'm so privileged to have such talented friends, here is some work from three of them who haven't appeared in this blog before.

Isabel made this lovely little vase especially for the sweet peas we grow each year.

Here she is on a painting day, she taught Art for a number of years, a versatile and well-known potter, she is also a talented watercolour artist.

How many people get a hand-drawn postcard? Thank you, Caroline. Both she and her husband travel with their sketch books. Very different styles, both brilliant. See more on An Eye for Detail. Perhaps we'll see more of Caroline's water colours on there soon?

A much more long term prospect are Pat's beautiful bonsai trees, grown by her from their beginnings.

These photos were taken on rather a dull day, Pat was about to move house and find new homes for these growing works of art. I loved them all so much I didn't want them to escape my photographic clutches!

Those Careless Mammoths

2010-08-19T17:02:00.000+01:00

Image from Wikipedia

In yesterday’s newspaper...

Woolly mammoths killed off by climate change after ice age

Climate change rather than the hunting skills of early Man killed off the last of the woolly mammoths, a study has suggested.

It was thought that mankind or the impact of a giant comet led to the demise of the ice age beasts around 20,000 years ago.

But the Durham University study, the most comprehensive to date, found woolly mammoths were forced from their grassland habitat by the spread of forests as the climate warmed after the last ice age. Modern species could experience a similar fate if global warming was allowed to continue, it warned.

Prof Brian Huntly said: “We believe that the loss of food supplies, from productive grassland was the major contributing factor to the extinction of these mega-mammals”

And the quick as a flash reply in today’s letters page, sent by Ella Hatfield, from Skipton, North Yorkshire.

Mammoth energy use.

Oh, the wicked mammoths killed off by climate change. They brought it upon themselves with their profligate use of light bulbs. When will the world ever learn?

Thank heavens for our wonderful sense of humour!!!

The Blackbirds have Flown.

2010-08-17T17:26:00.000+01:00

Walking into the garden yesterday evening the scent from our night-scented stocks was wonderful, (and today the bees are loving them), but there was no rustling in the hedges, the last blackbird had flown.

I’m pretty sure that the blackbirds have reared three broods this year, and until a few days ago an extremely well grown youngster was keeping the male bird very busy with it’s incessant demands for food, I was becoming pretty well-trained myself, rushing out with bird seed when the squeaking got too urgent.

Ready to leave the nest

The blackbirds always stake out their claim (they are very territorial) to our garden early in the year. I believe they are one of the earliest garden birds to start nest-building. There has been a pair nesting somewhere in our small walled garden every year for the last 15 years and they give us so much enjoyment. Sometimes the sparrows join them to nest in the ivy, because of the high walls we are very rarely visited by cats, who have to come accross the roof to gain access. Sad to think that Summer is coming to an end.

'Bread and Butter' Pickles

2010-08-14T17:37:00.001+01:00

Evidently this has been a ‘good’ year for cucumbers. I used to wonder why those people who grew them were so generous with their crop, now I know. I can't believe how fast they grow.

This morning I set to, to make some ‘Bread and Butter Pickle' I used a recipe I had noted down a while ago.

4 quarts sliced cucumbers (I took 32fl oz as an American Quart)
6 medium White onions, sliced.
One-third cup salt.

3 cups sugar
20fl. oz white vinegar,
3 teaspoons mustard seed and one and a half teaspoons each of ground turmeric and celery seed

I used my ancient Magimix for the slicing of cucumbers and onions, but I’m not sure if the result isn't a little too fine.

Mix the salt with the sliced vegetables and leave for a couple of hours, drain off the liquid that comes out, rinse with cold water and drain again. Press with a plate with weights on top to extract as much water as possible.

In the meantime make the pickling liquid.

Dissolve 3 cups of sugar in 20 fl. oz white vinegar, adding 1½ teaspoons ground turmeric, 1½ teaspoons celery seed, and 3 teaspoons mustard seed.

When you have drained and rinsed the cucumber and onion, add them to the boiling pickling liquid, and bring back to the boil

Have ready hot preserving jars and a pan of hot water, big enough and deep enough to take the filled jars. Pour pickle into hot jars (I had enough for 3 1-litre jars and about a cup full over). Fasten the spring clip jars, if using screw-top Kilner jars loosen the caps by a quarter turn. Immerse the jars in the hot water and bring the water temperature up to 88ºc in about 10-15 mins and then hold that temperature for 10 minutes. Bale out some of the hot water and remove the jars onto a wooden surface to cool, tighten screw tops immediately you remove the jars from the water. Check for a seal when completely cold.

I am becoming more successful using the clip top jars now I use the faster sterilisation method, i.e hot contents, hot water to start with.

Two more recipes, very similar, but the last one is from a Good Housekeeping Recipe Book, does not call for heat sterilisation, and is for more manageable quantities.

But first the recipe from a most excellent book from North America called ‘Putting Food By’, mine a Fourth Edition was printed in 1991.

“Short Form” Bread and Butter Pickles

6 quarts thinly sliced pickling cucumbers (about fifteen 6-inch)
6 medium onions, thinly sliced
½cup pickling salt

1½ quarts white vinegar
4½cups sugar
½cup whole mustard seed
1 tablespoon celery seed.

The method is exactly the same as the previous recipe. Allow several weeks for the flavour to develop, may also be made with crisp young zucchini.

Bread and Butter Pickle from Good Housekeeping.

3 large ridge or smooth skinned cucumber, sliced
4 large onions, skinned and sliced
45ml (3 level tablespoons) salt

450ml (¾ pint) distilled vinegar
150g (5oz) sugar
5mls (1 level teaspoon) each of celery seeds and mustard seeds.

Same method, cook the vegetables for three minutes in boiling vinegar mixture, pot while boiling hot, into hot jars and cover immediately. Done.

Raspberry and Gooseberry Curd

2010-08-07T15:11:00.000+01:00

After tasting the delicious raspberry curd at Audley End, English Heritage, a while ago I thought I’d love to make some. But although I ‘googled’ it there didn’t seem to be many recipes and no agreement in the ones there were, so I thought I’d base my attempt on a Gooseberry Curd recipe which I have used for quite a while.

I used 2lbs of raspberries, cooked over a gentle heat and sieved, but really I don’t know why I cooked them as they could have been sieved raw. Dissolve 12oz sugar in the puree, using a double boiler or heatproof bowl over a pan of boiling water, then add 6oz butter, cut into smallish pieces and 4 beaten eggs (put these through a sieve so there are no stringy bits), heat until just below boiling, stirring often as it comes up to heat and thickens. A spoon should leave a trail in the curd when it is thick enough. It took 40 minutes to get thick enough, by which time I was a bit fed up, so this morning I thought I’d make a little experiment with a small amount of the curd. I put it in the microwave and let it boil briefly, it did not curdle.

I used a large pyrex bowl over boiling water to thicken the raspberry curd

Swap 2lbs of gooseberries for the raspberries to make gooseberry curd. I like to bake the gooseberries in the oven until they are tender.

Ready to put in the freezer

Fruit curds can be kept for a couple of weeks in the fridge, but for longer storage I decant into little tubs and freeze it. Unfortunately it tastes delicious when it’s frozen, so it’s still not safe from moments of greed.

Raspberry curd is excellent rippled into Greek yoghourt, as is Gooseberry Curd. I have deliberately boiled gooseberry curd (with no signs of curdling) after it has been in the freezer to thicken it slightly for a tart filling, using a lemon tart recipe, where it works really well.

Why not use raspberry or gooseberry curd instead of lemon curd in this recipe for Lemon Curd Ice Cream, which although it’s been about for years has stood the test of time and is easy and delicious.

Add to about 350g-450g fruit curd, 300g of thick Greek yoghourt and 300ml double cream, fold it all together and freeze. If you need to sharpen it up add the finely grated rind and juice of a half or whole lemon. The original recipe suggested you froze it in a lined loaf tin and sliced to serve. Why not?

I haven’t tried to make it with just Greek Yoghourt and fruit curd, but to cut the fat content it would be worth a go.

Artisan Market ,Catherine Hill

2010-08-01T15:56:00.000+01:00

Today I finally found time to go to the Artisan Market on Catherine Hill, Frome, and I was not disappointed! Held on the first Sunday on the month it's a showcase for local talent. I stupidly forgot I had my camera in my bag until we were nearly at the bottom of the hill so haven’t got as many photos as I’d have liked.

This photo is taken from St Catherine's website.

The traders I liked best were ‘felt so good’ where there were delicious looking felt bags just right for birthday and Christmas presents for the girls in your life and my complete favourite Miss Havishams Attic – to die for collection of vintage inspired cards and ephemera.

Here is her business card, but she explained that she had corrected her original spelling to fall in line with Miss Havisham of Great Expectations. Her web page is lovely, sprinkled with fairy dust as you move your cursor!

I didn’t expect to find food at the market, but there was a baker with the most fantastic looking bread, local farm shops and a cheesemaker were there, locally produced hot food available, and unbelievably a vendor called the anti-cupcake company selling whoopies and brownies. I’ve forgiven her her name (I love making cupcakes) because the produce looked so good. She was trading outside her mum’s shop,’ bonbons’ at the bottom of the hill.

Whoopies at the 'anti-cupcake company'

Strawberry cupcakes from Pandie Cakes

Seasonal flowers too!

What do you keep in your Freezer?

2010-07-25T15:35:00.033+01:00

We are getting a new large upright freezer next week, to replace a less than efficient chest freezer. Apart from it’s probable fuel consumption its main inefficiency is as far as I am concerned is its depth which means that unless I am feeling particularly athletic I take things from the top, instead of delving into its bowels to find the oldest bag of beans, box of raspberries etc.

We already have one upright freezer and I am looking forward very much to the new delivery, although I do wonder why two pensioners need so much freezer space – does in fact our allotment produce cost us a great deal more than we realise.

Apart from our allotment produce the things I like to keep in the freezer are fresh ginger, it can be peeled and grated from frozen, pulses that I have soaked and cooked, frozen into can size portions, tubs of meat stock, chopped parsley and nuts which I buy in large bags when I can. What do you keep in yours?

With this thought in mind I have this week removed some of the gooseberries from the freezer and preserved them in Kilner jars which can be stored in the larder. I haven’t done that for donkey’s years so am feeling quite pleased with myself.

Safely stored in the larder, but although I have no trouble with Kilner jars that have a disk and screw band I can never get the Le Parfait type to seal when I sterilise in a hot water bath. If I pour boiling hot jam into one and fasten down the clip immediately it does seal. What am I doing wrong?

Notes on Bottling Soft Fruit

I sterilised my jars of gooseberries by the water bath method, and this is how I did it, the first lot I did using the slow method, the second batch the quick method.

You will need a pot that is large enough to take your jars without them touching each other or the sides of the pan and deep enough for water to come up to the necks of the jars.

I couldn’t find a trivet (to provide a false bottom to the pan) to fit the first pan I used so I folded up one of my older tea towels to cover the bottom and stood the jars on that.

Here are the two methods:-

Slow water bath Pack the jars tightly with fruit, then fill up with cold syrup. Put the metal discs and screw-bands in place, then turn the screw-bands back a quarter-turn. Place the jars in the large pan and cover with cold water, immersing them completely if possible, but at least up to their necks. Heat gently on top of the cooker, checking the temperature of the water regularly if you have a jam/sugar thermometer, raising the temperature gradually from cold to 54°C in 1 hour, then to 82ºc within a further 30 minutes. Maintain the temperature for 10 minutes for gooseberries.

If you have no thermometer 82º is when bubbles are rising but not breaking the surface, just before it comes to a boil. A large pan will just about come to this heat after 1½ hours on low gas.

Remove the jars and place on a wooden surface, bale out some of the hot water first so you can get a firm grip on the jars, and immediately tighten the screw bands. When cold, test for a seal by undoing the screw bands and checking the discs are tight. They will be concave and rigid if there is a good seal, and as they seal you will hear a satisfying ping as the air inside creates a vacuum. If a jar is not properly sealed you must refrigerate it and use it up soon, or freeze the contents in a suitable container.

Quick water bath As before but fill the packed jars with hot (not boiling) syrup, cover and place in the pan of quite warm water. Bring the water to simmering point in 25-30 minutes, and keep simmering for 3 minutes.

A pretty standard sugar syrup recipe is 225g sugar dissolved in 600 ml water, (8oz to a pint). Dissolve sugar in half the water, heated and add the other half cold to cool it more quickly if you want cold syrup. You can bottle fruit in plain water, or in a syrup made from sugar and wine, or cider and sugar. Depends on the fruit you are using.

Sliced apples take the same processing time as gooseberries, for plums, apricots and damsons, hold the final temperature for 15 minutes slow method, 10 minutes quick.

Pears, add 1 tablespoon of lemon juice to each 450g (1lb) fruit, take processing temperature to 88ºC and hold for 30 minutes slow method, 40 minutes quick.

I've since found this very informative list of processing times.

Jams and Chutneys do not need to be processed. After they are made they are poured, while still very hot into hot jars, and sealed straight away. Jars that are clean can be heated easily by pouring water to about half an inch into them and brought to the boil in the microwave, just before you need them. When you pour out the boiling water they will dry immediately. If you need a lot of jars heat them in a low oven, about 70-100ºC

I do not have the same reliable success preserving with clip top jars with rubber rings, even when I totally submerge them for the processing. I am hoping that someone will tell me how they do it.

School terms ending at different times meant we had the pleasure of our elder granddaughter's company last week. We made our third visit to Audley End, an English Heritage property on Thursday. This time they had just opened the stable yard, and our granddaughter was thrilled to be able to meet two of the horses, Smiler and Captain, and even help to groom them.

Willing volunteers at the Stables at Audley End

In the shop I tasted a sample of raspberry curd, which was rather nice. I’ve made gooseberry curd before but never raspberry so will have a go and post the recipe soon.

From the larder at Audley End

Perhaps we ought to keep a list of 'good days out' somewhere. (Just begun one, click here). I'd certainly recommend Audley End, near Saffron Walden as well as Wimpole Hall, a National Trust property near Royston which has a Home Farm attached. Both places good for adults and children alike.

Courgettes Again

2010-07-09T20:28:00.067+01:00

This is the time of year that the courgettes come in thick and fast from our allotment and I need to find new ways of using them up. The photo above is today's harvest, so I made a hasty courgette risotto.

Risotto with Courgettes
Start off by cooking a finely sliced medium onion and 2 or 3 plump cloves of garlic, cut up small, in a little olive oil (you can use butter, but I have reluctantly foresworn it) and when the onion is translucent and not at all coloured, add to the pan 150g of arborio rice, stir it round until the rice is slicked with oil, then add in about 500g chopped courgettes. Now start to add hot, well seasoned stock, a ladleful at a time, giving it a regular stir as the liquid becomes absorbed into the rice.

When the rice is soft the courgettes will be cooked and it’s ready to serve, sprinkled with some grated cheese if you like.

You can cook the courgettes in the pan of stock as you are gradually adding it to the risotto if you’d rather.

Risotto with Courgettes

The following recipe from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is a real winner, which can even be frozen for later use in soup or pasta sauce.

Slow-cooked courgettes

I often (says HFW) cook courgettes like this - they lose most of their moisture and become a thick, fragrant, chunky mass. They can be used as a pasta sauce (just add a little cream) or the base for a lovely soup (just whizz up with a little stock and/or milk). But they also make a great toast topping - which of course the Italians would call bruschetta.

3 tbsp olive oil

3 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped

1kg courgettes, finely sliced

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat the oil in a large saucepan, then add the garlic, courgettes and a little salt. Cook gently, so the courgettes soften without browning. As they release their water, turn up the heat to bubble it off. When they become more concentrated and pulpy, turn it down again. Stir whenever they begin to catch on the pan, and do not allow them to brown more than a shade. Keep cooking until they are rich and oily, but not watery. Check seasoning.

We also like courgette in salad, cooked or uncooked (very thinly sliced). Here is a recipe I have tried this week, which would have looked prettier with the recommended red chillies!

Courgette Salad with mint, garlic and chilli

My Kitchen Devil paring knife and this sort of potato peeler cut thin strips well.

Slice courgettes lengthwise very thinly, a mandolin is best, but a potato peeler works well. Toss the courgette strips in a little oil and griddle on a pan, or on the barbeque until just cooked, lay out on a large plate, season with salt and pepper and while they are still warm drizzle over some lemon juice and olive oil. Deseed and chop finely a red chilli and half a clove of garlic. (The amounts will be a matter of taste and depend on the number of courgettes you are using, but as a rough guide this would be enough for us using 4 medium size courgettes and a chilli of medium heat). Scatter the chilli and garlic evenly over the courgettes with some chopped fresh mint.

I see Sophie Grigson adds char-grilled red peppers to a similar salad.

Here are three other ideas, all on a similar theme.

Jane Grigson’s Sweet-Sour Courgettes, Sicilian style.

1kg courgettes                         1 large clove of garlic, crushed
2 tablespoons olive oil              2 tablespoons wine vinegar
2 tablespoons water                 30g pine kernels
30g sultanas                             8 anchovy fillets, chopped small
Salt and pepper

Cut the courgettes in strips . Cook the garlic slowly in the oil and after a couple of minutes add the courgette strips. Keep them moving until they are just beginning to colour. Pour in the vinegar and water, cover and simmer for 15 minutes. Uncover, add the nuts, sultanas and anchovies and cook more rapidly until the liquid is reduced to about 2 tablespoons. Keep stirring so the courgettes are bathed in the sauce, check seasoning and eat with crusty bread.

Browned Courgettes, which are great just as they are, or with a little garlic cooked with them as a vegetable side dish. They are quicker to cook if they are sliced into rounds, but these are ready to use in Jane Grigson's recipe.

Elizabeth David – Italian Food. Sweet-Sour Courgettes

Cook gently 1kg sliced courgettes in olive oil, using 2 pans if necessary. When they are nearly tender season with plenty of black pepper, a little powdered cinnamon, four tablespoons of wine vinegar and two tablespoons sugar and a little salt. Turn them over in the juices which should evaporate into a small amount of sauce.

Antonio Carluccio Fried Marinated Courgettes

6 medium courgettes, topped, tailed and cut into batons, quarter lengthways if not too big.

Olive oil for frying

4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 bunch of fresh chopped mint leaves

2 cloves of garlic

1 tablespoon white wine vinegar

Salt to taste.

Heat a little oil in a pan and fry the courgettes in batches. Fry until brown and drain on absorbent paper.

Put the courgette batons in a dish, and add the extra virgin olive oil, mint, garlic, vinegar and salt, and leave for the flavours to combine before eating.

Jane Grigson's Sweet-Sour Courgettes - Sicilian Style

Woodpecker Feather

2010-07-09T19:21:00.000+01:00

I found this beautiful little feather on a walk through fields. It's 9cms long and I'm pretty sure it's from the wing of a Spotted Woodpecker, but don't know if it's a Lesser or Greater.

Garden Bunting

2010-07-01T16:48:00.000+01:00

While the weather has been so hot and all I've wanted to do is stay in the shade I've completed my first lot of bunting, which seems to be as fashionable as cup-cakes at the moment!

I wasn't very organised, am I ever, as I made a lot of triangles in my favourite fabrics and pinnned them on to tape to view the effect. All my lovely florals looked quite indistinct when seen from the other end of the garden, so these fabrics are a bit more 'in your face'.

I made myself a sturdy cardboard template 17cms wide and 23cms from the centre of the top of the triangle to the point at the bottom. I used two triangles for each 'flag', stitched face to face and turned the right way round and pressed flat. I found some stuff called seam binding in our local haberdashers, all sorts of colours and 2cm wide. Using 4 metres of tape I needed 15 'flags', any closer and they hang oddly when looped, a bigger gap between them wouldn't come amiss, but then I personally don't like them so much when they are in a straight line!

Using pinking shears, bunting can be made from just single fabric, or two-sided stitched with the wrong sides together. I haven't tried this, but if it's festooned around gardens or marquees I wonder if you would really notice the difference.

A red string is next off the production line, and during the snow at the beginning of the year I made a lot of 'flags' in Christmas fabrics, so if the very hot summer continues I hope to finish that one before Christmas this year.

Smart New Bookshelves

2010-07-01T11:28:00.000+01:00

I've just had some new shelves for my cookbook collection made for our kitchen, and they are exactly how I wanted them, thanks to the practical input of Alex, of A.A Cabinets who had to interpret my ideas into timber. No mean feat I can assure you! Here are two photos, the one on the top has the the books that were on the old shelves and on the bottom almost fully laden, so you can see how much space I've gained. It's wonderful to have so many of them in one place, it's been like greeting old friends trying to decide which ones should have a place here.

The two books I have the fondest memories of are long term residents. Bakery by Maria Floris bought in 1971 gave me such inspiration and began my enthusiasm for making bread and two years later I bought my copy of Dorothy Hartley's Food in England. This is the book that began my curiosity about ingredients and how others used them, and in the forty years since it has been written I don't think it has been bettered, it's both usable and readable. Not to say that I don't love my Elizabeth Davids, Delia, Nigella and so on, they just don't have the associated nostalgia. Now thanks to my wonderful new shelves they can all share the kitchen with me!

Preserved Lemons

2010-06-28T15:46:00.000+01:00

Preserved Lemons

8 unwaxed lemons
2-3oz (50-75g) coarse salt
¾ litre preserving jar.

Cut 5 lemons into quarters as far as the blossom end, do not cut through them. Fill the gaps between the quarters with salt. Sprinkle the bottom of the jar with salt, and squash in the cut lemons, sprinkling with the rest of the salt as you go. Juice the remaining 3 lemons and pour into the jar. You can top up with water, or citric acid dissolved in water. The lemons must be covered with liquid. Store for at least 4 weeks.

I tend to keep my jar of lemons in the fridge after the first four weeks. They keep for ages.

To go with our weekend barbeque I briefly cooked some broad beans, podded, and divested of their leather jackets if they are anything but tiny, and mixed while warm with half a preserved lemon, flesh and rind, chopped small and a little olive oil. Served at room temperature, the sort of food we love.

Felted Bag

2010-06-27T17:14:00.004+01:00

Here is my finished felted bag, the third one I have made from this fantastic pattern from Knitty.com. It's called a French Market bag. I use two strands of 4 ply because that's what I have, (my good friend Joan has a mega stash of knitting yarn which she generously shares) but you must use pure wool.

This is the bag in it's pre-felted state.

I felt in my washing machine, and to get a good result I have to put it through 2 cycles, a colourfast cotton wash and then a white cotton wash. You need to be able to put it on a 'mini load' programme, use a tiny bit of detergent, and put something in the wash to give the knitted fabric a bit of a thump. I used to use a pair of denim jeans I had grown out of, but our granddaughter is now wearing them, so I use two very old, thinnish bath towels that had been relegated to garage use, tied in a knot, the knot held in place with string. The knots come undone otherwise. I put the knitting in a laundry bag so it doesn't get out of shape.

This last stripey bag was knitted four inches longer than the pattern, and I extended the handle length by knitting 12 rows instead of 4 at the end of each bag handle.

More on Elderflowers

2010-06-25T16:54:00.008+01:00

I made my first ever batch of elderflower cordial last week, and although it tastes very nice I am surprised how 'thin' it is. Still with quite a small amount of sugar I don't suppose I was going to get a thick syrup to dilute, like the commercial kinds. Also, reading the label of BottleGreen, the one we usually buy, I see they use citric acid rather than lemons. I've got quite a nice lemonade recipe which uses both citric acid and lemons so I might try some elderflowers in that.

I made a litre of cordial, half of it's gone already!

The resulting cordial is a very pale straw colour, the elderflowers discoloured as soon as they hit the hot liquid, is this usual, or was it because I had frozen the flower heads?

The season for the flowers seems to be over here, walking in woods today I noticed that all the blossoms are drying up.

Chilli Jelly

2010-06-19T16:20:00.018+01:00

When we were harvesting the red cabbages from the allotment last year we bought a big box of Bramley apples to use in the annual production line of ‘red cabbage with apples’ which we make to use throughout the year.

Because there were quite a few apples over, and we are not great pudding eaters when no one is visiting us, I cooked down a couple of batches and froze it to use in a chilli jelly, and finally last week I got round to making the first batch.

Here is how I made my Chilli Jelly.

Roughly cut up the apples, do not peel or core, wash them well first and cut out any bruised bits, put them in a pan, adding enough cold water just to cover them. Bring to the boil and them simmer for about 30 mins or until the fruit is very pulpy.

(It was at this stage that I froze mine because I was too busy to carry on just then)

The whole contents of the pan should now be put through a clean jelly bag, or if you are making a tiny amount a couple of layers of butter muslin lining a colander, making sure that the bottom of the colander in well clear of the juice that comes through. Do not prod it or squeeze the bag if you want a clear jelly.

However, when you are making a lot of jelly it can be a long affair, so now I pour the whole panful of fruit and liquid through a normal kitchen sieve over a large bowl or saucepan, don’t force it through in any way. Keep the liquid that runs through the sieve in a cool place. I have a fairly coarse nylon jelly bag, bought in error I thought at the time, but the solid contents from the sieve are hung up in this bag, and because it’s quite coarse the extract will come through more quickly, and you can give it a prod and a squeeze to help it on it’s way and to get out as much extract as possible. Then using a jelly bag made from very closely woven fabric strain through it the liquid that came from the first jelly bag, and the liquid that ran through the sieve. It will run through quite quickly because so much of the solids have gone and will eventually give a crystal clear jelly. This sounds like a real effort as it reads, but believe you me it saves an awful lot of time when you put it into practice.

The next thing to do is to measure the amount of extract you have and put it into your preserving pan, adding 450g sugar,(I use ordinary granulated), to each half litre liquid (1lb to a pint) I added 7 dried red chillies to my 2 litres of extract. Bring it slowly to the boil, stirring to make sure all the sugar has dissolved before it actually does come to the boil. Let it boil for about 30 minutes, but check for a set after 20/25 mins and every few minutes thereafter when you think it’s near setting point. If it takes longer to reach a setting point just keep testing it until it does. My apples made 5 1lb jars and a half jar over. Because you have added dried chillies after straining the liquid you will get a few chilli seeds and it won't be as clear as using fruit alone.

Fish out the dried chillies and pour the jelly into warmed jars. Well sealed it will keep unopened for at least a couple of years, somewhere out of bright light and fairly cool is best.

For years I have made all my preserves in a very big commercial size pot, not a proper preserving pan. Having bought one last year which has a measuring gauge on the inside I noticed that my 2 litres of liquid rose to 3 litres when I added the sugar, and the level was back at 2 litres when it set. I don’t know whether this is a formula in any way, but believe I did read once that you can weigh the pan to check it’s setting point. Maybe I should have a go with a sugar thermometer which could do away with some of the testing.

The rampant climbing rose Himalayan Musk is in full flower on one of the garden walls at the moment, the scent is wonderful, especially in the evening.

I made a second batch of chilli jelly on the following Saturday morning, using the rest of the frozen apple and this time, having since read a post about redcurrant jelly in the English Kitchen blog I thought I would see what it would be like if I just tipped the whole lot through a seive, no jelly bags.

It's quite a lot lighter in colour, less depth of apple flavour, and a little more cloudy, it did save a bit of time, but because the stewed apple is quite dense the liquid didn't rush through the seive. The most time was saved by not having to wash the jelly bags. I will experiment with something like blackcurrants.

Elderflower Cordial

2010-06-15T17:01:00.002+01:00

It's been fairly tricky finding full bloomed elderflowers within easy reach of home that are not on the road side, but are in a public area, but we've done it. In fact taking the car to the garage for a small operation yesterday we spied a beautiful tree on the hedge in their car park and were kindly told to help ourselves. I am taking Darina Allen (Ballymaloe Cookery Course) at her word when she says the flower heads can be frozen for up to three months. I need to buy some lemons and sugar, and will then make one batch of each of the following two recipes, both from Darina Allen. I never tried making it before and am surprised how few elderflower heads you need.

Elderflower Syrup

6 heads of elderflowers
175g (6oz) caster sugar
600ml (1 pint) cold water
zest and juice of 2 unwaxed lemons

Put the sugar and water into a saucepan over a medium heat. Stir until the sugar dissolves, add the elderflowers, bring to the boil for 5 minutes, remove from the heat and add the zest and juice of the lemons.

Leave aside to cool. Cover and leave to infuse for 24 hours. Strain and bottle. Dilute as desired.

Elderflower Sparkler
This magical recipe transforms perfectly ordinary ingredients into a delicious sparkling drink.

2 heads of elderflowers
600g (1¼lb) sugar
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
4.5 litres (8 pints) cold water
1 lemon
Remove the peel from the lemon with a swivel top peeler and juice the lemon. Put the elderflower heads into a bowl with the lemon peel, lemon juice, sugar, vinegar and water. Leave for 24 hours, then strain into strong screw top bottles.

Lay them on their sides in a cool place.

After 2 weeks elderflower champagne should be sparkling and ready to drink.
Despite the sparkle this drink is non-alcoholic.

I am not sure however how long the finished cordial will keep so I may freeze some of it. I hope the sparkler won't produce the same results as the ginger beer my sons and I made years ago which blew all over the kitchen ceiling

Looking for Elderflowers

2010-05-28T14:25:00.000+01:00

For the last couple of years I thought it would be nice to make some elderflower cordial, so finally, this morning, off I went looking for some elderflowers. Sadly I only found one elderflower head in full bloom, but I will try again soon. We are considering planting two or three trees on our allotment.

Raspberry Vinegar and Brandy

2010-05-20T14:44:00.000+01:00

Raspberry Vinegar.

Makes a great vinaigrette and also good diluted with lemonade or fizzy water!

Allow 1 pint of good white wine vinegar to each 1lb of raspberries. Using a glass bowl, crush the fruit and pour the cold vinegar over. Leave for 3 days, stirring now and again. Strain through a jelly bag, or muslin. Add 8oz sugar to each pint of liquid. Bring slowly to the boil, dissolving sugar, and boil for 5 minutes. Pour into sterilized bottles and seal down.

I don't think the first recipe I used required it to be heated, but I don't know which one that was!

You can use frozen raspberries.

Raspberry Brandy
3lb raspberries,
750 cl, a bottle of brandy.
1 lb sugar

Crush the raspberries, once again frozen can be used.
I put them in a large glass stoppered jar, add the brandy.
Leave for about 2 months, out of the light.
Strain off the fruit, squeezing to extract all the juice.
Add 1 lb sugar, stirring every so often to dissolve the sugar.
Filter again if needed.

Improves with keeping, but can be used straight away. My notes tell me that the first time I made it I started on 27th November and bottled it on March 2nd. This same first time we thought it might be good topped up with champagne! It was, but it's pretty lethal!!! We haven't done it since.

The Christening Cake

2010-05-01T15:59:00.010+01:00

I painstakingly cut out and dried hundreds of these little icing flowers from ready made fondant icing that I tinted in pastel colours, and in the end used very few, but as they have dried out very well I am going to use them to decorate cup-cakes!

For the cake itself, I made a 10" rich fruit cake in February, which gave it a chance to mature beautifully, dosing it with brandy a couple of times in the early days.

Here's a photo of the cake before it was put on the tea table. I was disappointed to find that Royal Doulton had stopped making the Beatrix Potter figurines, because I love the china figure of Hunca Munca and her cradle of babies for a Christening cake. However I was able to use these china alphabets from Border Fine Arts, which worked well with such a short name! You can see how few icing flowers I used.

Here is my recipe for a Rich Fruit Cake:-

For a 10” round cake or 9” square

1lb currants
11oz sultanas
6oz raisins
4oz glace cherries, quartered
4oz mixed chopped peel
4oz blanched almonds, chopped
grated rind of two lemons
3 tablespoons brandy
11oz plain flour
1½ level teaspoons mixed spice
¾ level teaspoon ground nutmeg
3oz ground almonds
10oz soft dark brown sugar
10oz soft stork margarine
1½ tablespoons black treacle
6 large eggs

Put all the fruit, lemon rind and nuts into a large bowl, add the brandy, cover with clingfilm and leave to soak for a while, overnight is good, at room temperature.

Prepare your cake tin, I like to use silicone paper.

All the other ingredients, at room temperature, except the ground almonds, are put in a large mixing bowl and beaten together until properly amalgamated. I do have a heavy weight mixer which makes it less of an effort.

Then stir in the fruit and ground almonds. Do not beat it now.

Bake the cake in the middle of your oven at gas mark 1 or 140° C for 3 hours. This is quite a shallow cake, and three hours is usually long enough in my oven. If you want a deeper cake use a smaller tin, cooking for longer, testing after 3 hours, to check when your cake is cooked, whatever size tin you use. By the time it has been marzipanned and iced the 10” size pleases me. Cool the cake in it’s baking tin.

I like to store this cake for about 3 months. I might give it a tablespoon of brandy once a month for the first two months. Wrap it in greaseproof paper, then aluminium foil, make sure the foil is not in contact with the cake itself. Put the whole lot inside a polybox and leave it in a cool place.

A week before it is needed cover it with marzipan, which I admit I buy ready made these days, and then 3 or 4 days after the marzipan use a good ready made fondant icing. I can still remember all the horrors of royal icing we used to use!

Sharon's Quilt

2010-05-01T15:44:00.007+01:00

I had just begun to write about Sharon's wonderful quilt when I saw she had posted some photos on one of her blogs along with an explanation of her inspiration and method. This photo was taken in Imogen's garden about three weeks ago, the first warm day we had this year. Here also is a photo of Imogen's last hen, having outlived all her friends she seems quite contented living on her own.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

2010-03-23T18:08:00.014Z

I have just finished this quilt for our younger granddaughter. Because it can be folded into a cushion cover stitched into the quilt, it is more correctly called a Quillo. These are great favourites with children as they can easily be taken on car trips, for napping on the journey, or carting to the beach etc.

The fabric I bought came in a set of three panels, (caterpillar, leaf and butterfly), I bought two sets because I wanted to make a cushion cover on the back, the strips with all of the foods the caterpillar ate his way through, and the very cheerful dotty fabric I used as backing and in various pieced sections on the quilt front.

Folded up into it's cushion cover

The book ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ was written in 1969 by Eric Carle and has been a favourite ever since. More information on Eric Carle and many other topics for young children can be found at www.therainbowandsunshineplace.blogspot.com/

Housekeeping

2010-03-18T11:11:00.011Z

On several occasions when a few of us have a cup of coffee together conversation will turn to housekeeping skills, and in my case, lack of them. Although I make supreme efforts to keep the dust down and at least keep the kitchen and bathrooms in pristine condition, I am hopelessly untidy and a complete squirrel. Like a lot of fellow squirrels I sometimes find I have a series of bags and boxes waiting to be sorted, usually items that have been swept into said receptacle from floor and table when notice has been given of an impending visit less than half a day away.
It's not that I don't long for the look of softly glowing tables empty of all but a beautifully, but casually arranged bunch of flowers, sometimes we even achieve it fleetingly, but my brain does not seem to function in the organised way needed to sustain it.

The scent from the orange blossom is beautiful

When bent on a day of solid housework I find some interesting recipe, new knitting pattern, or something that has been missing for days ready to distract me from my purpose.
I am just so grateful that I enjoy, indeed am almost fascinated by, food preparation and preservation. I love cooking for friends and family, I love to read about the lives of those other women, past and present who did the same.
One of my all time favourite accounts is 'The Diary of a Farmer's Wife' 1796-1797 an account first published in the Farmers' Weekly in 1937. I have it in a rather ancient Penguin paper back and it inspired me to keep a similar sort of diary for a number of years, which I then stupidly destroyed when my life changed.
The quest for a perfect cupcake recipe is my current occupation. The one found the June 2007 edition of Good Food magazine has to be the favourite.

We loved the butter icing, made with Green and Black's Organic white chocolate with vanilla

Originally posted by Angela on Saturday, June 21, 2008 1 comments

Look what I've just bought!

2010-03-17T16:42:00.010Z

Aren't these exquisite, I just got them on Monday. They are handknitted, you can see a lot more on www.flickr.com/photos/longshaw Along side the photographs of so many little knitted creatures I have read that there will be some for sale at Stourhead on May 22nd and 23rd.

Stourhead is a National Trust property in Wiltshire, a house and the most beautiful gardens. There is a craft fair there each year so I am guessing the Longshaws will be part of that, but please check up if you are coming specially.

I have put my two mice in front of some Daphne so you can see how small they are.

Just Knitted

2010-02-24T15:23:00.004Z

I don't often knit things for myself but I just loved this cardigan from Rowan's Classic DK Designs for Men and Women. It's knitted in Rowan Pure Wool DK. I usually like to work in 4 ply but this has turned out quite well. First time I have ever worked from a chart which I found quite tricky to start with.

My Charity Shop Plate

2010-02-20T17:45:00.006Z

I bought this pretty cake stand in a Charity shop in Spalding sometime last year. Its Midwinter Chintz and today I used it for the first time as we had a tea party for our friend's 80th birthday.

I didn't remember when I bought it that I have had for years a dear little preserve dish in the same design, but with an older looking mark.

I have been a fairly acquisitive collector of china for as long as I can remember and I particularly like jugs! I try not to look too much these days as I know I have far too much 'stuff'.

Quiche Police

2010-02-03T17:33:00.007Z

This was in today's paper, one of the funniest things I've read for a while.

Buying a quiche? Prove you are 21

By Nick Britten

A TESCO checkout assistant refused to sell a slice of quiche to a shopper until she showed identification proving that she was over 21.

Christine Cuddihy, 24, was stunned when the assistant at a store in Cannons Park, Coventry, refused to sell her the 51p piece of cheese and onion tart because "she looked under 21".

In the end, Miss Cuddihy produced her driving licence in order to make the purchase.

"The girl told me, 'You don't look over 21. I need to see some proof of age'," she said.

"I told her I was certain the proof of age laws did not apply to quiche but she just said, 'We have to be really strict now and this applies to quiche bought over the counter.'

"At first I thought she was joking but her face was deadly serious. I didn't quite know what to say. It was very embarrassing. What on earth is dangerous about a slice of quiche?

"It's not even like I was buying a whole quiche to binge on."

Miss Cuddihy, from Leamington Spa, said' she spent several minutes arguing with the cashier, a woman in her mid-thirties, but hunger got the better of her.

I put the emphasis on the sentence with the bold type because I sometimes think that this could happen in the not too distant future.

While Snowbound

2010-01-17T16:35:00.010Z

My first ever bagels

While the snow and ice was on the ground I was in baking (and regrettably eating) mode, and thought I'd have a go at baking bagels. I'm pleased with them, thought the crust was a little tough but they tasted good. I'm not sure that I would make them regularly as they have to be poached before baking and we don't eat a very large number of them but it kept me busy on a snowy afternoon!

BAGELS

INGREDIENTS

2 tsp dried yeast (or15g/½ oz fresh yeast)

1½ tbsp granulated sugar

300ml (½ pint) water

500 g (1 lb) strong white flour,

plus extra for kneading

1 ½ tsp salt

1 Sprinkle the yeast and sugar into 100ml (3½ fl oz) of the water in
a bowl. Leave for 5 minutes; stir to dissolve. Mix the flour and salt
together in a large bowl. Make a well in the centre of the flour and pour in
the yeasted water.

2 Pour the remaining water, holding back about half, into the well. Mix in the flour. Stir in the reserved water, as needed, to form a firm, moist dough.

3 Turn the dough out onto a well-floured work surface.
Knead until smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes. As you knead
the dough, gradually work in as much additional flour as you can
comfortably knead - this dough should be very stiff and firm.

4 Put the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, turning it to coat, and cover with a tea towel. Leave to rise until doubled in size, about 1 hour.

Knock back the dough, then leave to rest for 10 minutes.

5. Cut the dough into eight equal-sized pieces. Shape each piece
into a ball. Form each ball into a ring by inserting a floured
finger into the centre of each one.

6 Work the finger in a circle to stretch and widen the hole.
Then twirl the ring around the index finger of one hand and the thumb
of the other hand until the hole is about a third of the bagel's diameter.

7 Place the bagels on a lightly oiled baking sheet, then cover
with a damp tea towel and leave to rest for 10 minutes.

8 Bring a large pan of water to the boil, then reduce the heat
to allow the water to simmer. Use a perforated skimmer to carefully lower
the bagels into the water in batches of two or three at a time. Simmer for one minute.

9 Transfer the drained bagels to a lightly oiled baking sheet.
Bake in the preheated oven 220c/425f/gas7 for
20 minutes or until golden. Leave to cool on a wire rack.

From Bread, Eric Treuille and Ursula Ferrigno

I also finished the quilt for our newest granddaughter, she was born three weeks early and I like to kid myself that it would have been finished in time had we not had to rush off unexpectedly!

A detail from the quilt, horses being their livelihood.

Christmas Stocking

2009-12-14T16:12:00.006Z

I've been watching Kirstie's Homemade Christmas, and although I didn't have time to blow a few baubles or make any soap in time for the festive season I was inspired to make a Christmas Stocking for our newest granddaughter. Luckily I have more than enough fabrics, buttons and ribbons in store to get going the minute the enthusiasm strikes, and it is far from the first Christmas Stocking I have made, but what I really liked was the idea of making the lining and top all in one operation. I have to admit getting the placing wrong at the first attempt but it is a really neat idea. If you didn't watch the programmes you can look it up on the Channel 4 website.

The Little Chef

2009-11-06T18:44:00.003Z

We have passed the Little Chef at Popham (made famous by Heston Blumenthal) many times in the last 12 months, and finally made it inside last week. There has never been space for us in the car park before!

I had the ox cheek in a red wine sauce with mashed potato and Chris had what looked like a warm roast pork salad, which he said was excellent, along with the chunky chips as an extra. I loved the ox cheek and creamy mash, but was unimpressed by the vegetables I ordered, most peculiar taste.

Certainly the best roadside meal we have ever had, and we'll be more than pleased to find a parking space again soon.

Grumbles

2009-10-20T11:29:00.003+01:00

This is how I'm feeling today, burned out, fed up etc. No, it's not quite the end of the road for me, but today we have the builder in and although I want the work done, and he's a lovely bloke and all that, he is working just outside my kitchen door, it's noisy and messy the outside door is wide open so it's quite chilly as well.

I've brought my coffee to my little office to escape for a while but I know it's only a temporary respite. I can't even go out because I waiting for a delivery from Dell, (my first order with the company) another fed-up making episode. One month ago I thought it might be a good idea to treat myself to a lap-top and it looked as though I had got myself a good deal. It arrived a week later, but with a most peculiar electrical plug, certainly not one I'd ever seen before. So I got in touch. Three weeks to the day of the lap-top being delivered, and four communications later I am waiting for my UK compatible mains lead. Am I holding my breath, not I am not. Will I deal with them again, no 'fraid not. I feel a bit better now I've shared that! It's still a good photo though, surprising what you find in the woods.

Eat Dorset - Food Fair

2009-10-18T15:27:00.034+01:00

Yesterday Chris and I went to the Eat Dorset Food Fair at Parnham House, Beaminster. A lovely bright and sunny day, with quite a frost early on, we thoroughly enjoyed the time we spent there. Quite a small affair compared with other events we've been to this year it was so friendly and with a wide spectrum of food producers.

We arrived a little too late to hear Lesley Waters in the demonstration kitchen, and Tamasin Day-Lewis was half an hour late starting her demo so we missed the end of that. Today there were more well known speakers but the Brazilian Grand Prix is on at 5 and my husband is a keen follower so we are staying closer to home!!

We bought some Hungarian Hot Wax chilli pepper seeds from a lovely lady from Sea Spring Seeds who was quite happy to talk about the failure of our butternut squash crop this year, as well as various items to be consumed more immediately.

From Bunnies Love we bought a jar of Carrot, Almond and Chilli Chutney, tasted delicious and it was something I had not seen before, but have now discovered it is call Angel's Hair Chutney!

From Townhill Bakery we got a sourdough loaf and the most amazing Eccles cakes.

Like everyone else Bridport Gourmet Pies was giving away generous samples of their produce. We bought a pork, cranberry and brie pie.

Every county in the west of England seems to have their own version of Apple Cake.

We succumbed to more fantastic cheese, this time from North Wootton Dairy.

I almost forgot the kippers and smoked trout pate we bought, I had the pate on sourdough toast for breakfast this morning, and a hessian bag containing 7 varieties of Fudges Crackers and Biscuits. I didn't know they did sweet biscuits as well, I love their Walnut Crackers.

Apples

2009-10-17T19:47:00.008+01:00

Traditions have to begin somewhere, and Apple Day (introduced by Common Ground) came into being on October 21st 1990. Now I see that many National Trust properties have their own Apple Day, as do Allotment Associations up and down the land. For information about Apple Days and the excellent Apple Source Book go to http://www.commonground.org.uk/

Imogen has given me the beautiful apples in the photo, from the tree in her garden. I am truly grateful for them, and today have used three of them in my beetroot chutney! Recipe here.

Here is a Somerset wassail rhyme, (although I know that wassailing does not take place until the New Year) found in the Apple Source Book.

Old apple tree, we wassail thee, and hoping thou wilt bear,
For the Lord doth know where we shall be, till apples come another year,
To bear well and bloom well so merry let us be,
Let every man take off his hat and shout to the old apple tree.

Old apple tree, we wassail thee, and hoping thou wilt bear,
Hat-fulls, cap-fulls, three-bushel-bagfuls,
And a little heap under the stairs.
Hip! Hip! Hooray!

Abergavenny Food Festival

2009-10-17T19:24:00.014+01:00

The Food Festival at Abergavenny was over quite a large area of the town, which until about 1 pm gave a feeling of spaciousness, but not long after 1 it became so very crowded that we gave up, bought some bread, cheese and olives and headed for the hills.

It's hard to compare it to Ludlow, where we were the week before, but there did seem to be a lot more emphasis on local producers at Ludlow, and one very marked difference was that there was room to sit down to have a cup of coffee or eat some of the delicious food on offer. At Abergavenny there were very few tables and chairs and the steps were soon full of people eating.

This photographic layout was an experiment which is not altogether successful, but I don't want to delete it.

This is what we brought home with us!

Julie and Julia

2009-10-16T12:19:00.007+01:00

Three of us went to see the film 'Julie and Julia' on Wednesday. Very entertaining, although I wished that at least they had put up a picture of the real Julia Childs, or had run one of her television programmes behind the credits. Here is my scruffy 1970's copy of her book. I am re-reading it at present. I hear that the book is currently back in demand because of the film.

Beetroot Chutney

2009-10-10T10:27:00.003+01:00

Beetroot and Apple Chutney.

1kg. cooked beetroot, peeled and cut into small cubes.
2 medium onions, chopped
450g peeled and chopped cooking apples.
225g sugar
500 ml vinegar
grated fresh ginger, bruised dried ginger root or about a teaspoon ground
1 teaspn salt

Put all the ingredients except the beetroot into a pan and cook until onion is tender and the mixture has reduced, about 30 mins. Add the beetroot and simmer for another 15 minutes, or until thick enough to be called a chutney.

Sometimes, when using ingredients like apple or rhubarb which produce a lot of liquid themselves I will boil down the sugar and vinegar before I add any solid ingredients. I have never found any difference in the keeping quality and it does reduce the time you spend in the kitchen.

Beetroot and Orange Relish,
My favourite preserved beetroot recipe.

450g cooked, chopped beetroot
450g chopped onion
2 oranges, grated rind and juice,
1 teaspoon salt
6 star anise
1 teaspoon fennel seed
350g sugar
500ml vinegar

Put the star anise, fennel seeds, sugar and vinegar in a pan and slowly bring to the boil, add the chopped onion, orange juice and rind, and simmer until the onion is cooked and the liquid is becoming syrupy, add the chopped beetroot and continue cooking until the mixture is fairly thick. I fish out the star anise before bottling. If you have time you could infuse the vinegar with the star anise a few hours before making the chutney, but the flavour is quite pronounced anyway.

I have also made this relish from previously home-pickled plain beetroot, topping up the vinegar from the jar to make slightly under the 500ml, presuming that the pickled beetroot would have absorbed some of the pickling liquid.

What We Ate Today

2009-10-07T18:43:00.006+01:00

Enough for two meals for the two of us.

Spicy root & lentil casserole

SERVES 4 • PREP 25 mins • COOK 20 mins

Low fat

2 tbsp sunflower or vegetable oil
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
700g/llb 9oz potatoes, cut into chunks
4 carrots, thickly sliced
2 parsnips, thickly sliced
2 tbsp curry paste or powder
1 medium sweet potato
Scant 1 litre vegetable stock
150g/6oz red lentils

(I put in one chopped up Black Hungrian chilli , we've grown them this year!)

Low-fat yogurt and naan bread, to serve

1 Heat the oil in a large pan and cook the onion and garlic over a medium heat for 3-4 mins until softened, stirring occasionally. Tip in the potatoes, carrots and parsnips and sweet potato turn up the heat and cook for 6-7 mins, stirring, until the vegetables are golden.

2 Stir in the curry paste or powder, pour in the stock, then bring to the boil. Reduce the heat, add the lentils, cover and simmer for 15-20 mins until the lentils and vegetables are tender and the sauce has thickened.

3 Serve with naan bread, and a spoonful of yoghourt. We didn't have any naan bread so ate it without, but as I had increased the lentils by 2 oz (50g) it was more than enough.

Adapted from Good Food Magazine booklet November 2009

Any favourite root vegetables could be used, as well as leeks. Not only economical but delicious

A Simple Loaf

2009-03-15T16:23:00.027Z

I found the recipe for this oh, so simple bread in one of my favourite blogs Joanna's Food.

I made just the two loaves with the dough, which was in the fridge for a day and a half before baking. The loaves were baked in a Le Creuset pot, on parchment paper, which made for easy transfer to the hot pot, and because when I tried baking my sourdough bread in a Le Creuset it got stuck!!

I didn't get the same covetable holey look that Joanna has, I probably didn't rise it for long enough. The other loaf has a better lift, but as I am giving it to a friend I can't really cut it up to see how it is inside. The flavour however is excellent, with a good chewy crust. Next time I may bake one uncovered to see how that turns out.

The only other unkneaded yeast bread I ever make is the occasional Grant Loaf, which is quite a dense wholemeal loaf. This recipe is definitely one to repeat.

This next recipe I found on http://www.101things.wordpress.com/

I haven't tried it yet, but it is a good, basic recipe

A Magical Bread Recipe for Novices That Works Every Time

500g white strong bread flour.
7g dried yeast sachet.
1tsp salt
300ml water
3tbsp olive oil. Plus a bit extra.

Mix the flour, yeast and salt together in a large bowl. Pour in the water and the olive oil. Mix with wooden spoon until it’s together enough to take out of the bowl.

Kneed on a floury surface until the dough feels elastic and silky smooth the the touch, and bounces back slightly when prodded. This should take about ten minutes.

Place in a warmish area and leave to rise until doubled in size. This should take about one hour.

Knock back the dough and kneed for a minute or so. Dough will be elastic and bouncy when prodded. Mould the dough into a round-ish shape or put it in a loaf tin. Slather the surface with olive oil (this will give a soft, chewy crust).

Leave to rise for another hour or so on the tray or in the loaf tin which you are going to put it into the oven.

Pre-heat oven to 220/200 fan/gas mark 7. Bake dough for 25 – 30 minutes until a nice golden colour.

Leave to cool on a wire rack.

Toad-in-the-hole

2009-03-12T17:25:00.015Z

Toad in the hole is a traditional British dish comprising sausages baked in a batter pudding. My edition of Mrs. Beeton’s Everyday Cookery, published in 1907 contains 2 recipes, one using beef steak, cut up in small pieces, and the second for preserved meat, beef or mutton.

In the Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson refers to an 1861 recipe from Mrs Beeton in which she uses steak and kidney, but says that left over meat could be used. She describes the dish as ‘ homely but savoury’.

Also mentioned is a reference to sausages cooked in batter in entries in ‘The Diary of Thomas Turner 1754-1765’ but not referred to as toad in the hole.

Alan Davidson gives the first recorded reference in print (1787) to toad in the hole meaning ‘meat boiled in a crust’

Jane Grigson, in a footnote to her recipe in ‘English Food’ says that the use of left over meat gave the dish a bad name as one of the meaner English dishes, but goes on to say that 'if you are able to buy really first-class sausages, Toad-in-the Hole makes an excelent family dish which no-one has any call to feel ashamed of' !!

However it came by it's name, I must agree with Mrs Beeton's description, 'homely and savoury'

Here is a recipe for Toad-in-the-hole that always works for me. I make this quantity for two of us, but by adding a couple of extra sausages it would stretch to three.

4 oz plain flour
1 large egg, topped up to half a pint with milk, I use semi-skim
4 meaty sausages, herby ones are nice
A tablespoon or so of oil for the baking pan

Sieve the four ounces of flour into a large bowl (with a pouring lip is good). Beat the egg with the milk, make a well in the centre of the flour, and gradually pour the milk and egg mixture into it, stirring with a fork. Keep stirring vigorously until all the milk is in with the flour, in a lump free batter. It should be the consistency of double cream.

You will need to pre-heat the oven to 200c, putting the sausages and oil in the pan in the oven as it heats. You are just lightly browning the sausages, and getting the oil piping hot ready to add the batter, so you don’t want it in there for ages.

Just before you add the batter to the very hot pan, and you can stick it on a gas ring for a couple of seconds if need be, whisk the batter really well, you should be able to see lots of little air bubbles. I use a Bamix stick blender with a whisking disc for this, but it can be done by hand with a wire whisk if that is what you have.

Pour the batter over the sausages, and quickly return to the oven. It will take about 35 to 40 minutes to bake. I put it one shelf above centre, but have a second shelf lower in the oven to transfer it to if I think it is over-browning. Don’t be tempted to peer at it until about 20 to 25 minutes in, because it might lose volume.

The pan I usually use is 7 by 5 inches, bottom measurement, it is wider at the top, as is the 7 inch round one I sometimes use.

The same batter is used for pancakes, but you don’t have to whisk as much air in for those.

Red Cabbage with Apple

2009-03-05T11:03:00.016Z

When I was still working I always looked in amazement at all those retired persons who claimed they never had a moment of spare time, and swore I would never be the same. Now here I am, nearly five years into it and my days have filled up alarmingly, although mostly with things I really want to do. Housework has to occupy a little of my time, but otherwise life is very fulfilling, if rather impoverished financially.

This is all to explain why a whole month has gone by since my last post, and that was just a photo!!

Red Cabbage with Apple

Red cabbage freezes and reheats exceptionally well.

2lb (1kg) red cabbage
salt
1oz (25 g) butter
1lb onion, peeled and chopped small
1lb (1kg) cooking apples
3 tablespoons vinegar
1oz (25g) sugar, you may think it needs a little more.
1 clove garlic
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
¼ teaspoon each cinnamon and ground cloves.

When serving, or defrosting:-
A tablespoon of redcurrant jelly, a good glug of port (and a knob of butter if it’s been frozen)

Remove outer, damaged leaves and cut the cabbage into
quarters. Cut away the centre core and shred the cabbage
finely. Cover with cold salted water and leave to soak while preparing onion and apple.

Cook the onion and chopped garlic gently in melted butter for about 5 minutes or until soft, add the apple, peeled, cored and chopped small, and continue cooking until apple starts to soften. Do not allow to colour.
Add the red cabbage lifted straight from the salt water.

Add the vinegar and sugar and spices. Stir well together. Cover with a lid and bring up to the boil. Simmer gently for about 45 minutes or until the cabbage is tender.
Add a little extra water only if necessary, the mixture should not be too wet.
If you are going to freeze it, do it at this stage.
Check the seasoning, add the redcurrant jelly and port for the last 5 minutes or so.

To serve from frozen. While still frozen, place in a saucepan along with a knob of butter.
Heat gently, breaking the block of cabbage up with a fork as it heats. Heat through until simmering, adding redcurrant jelly and port.

This is so good with roast pork (or chops) and goose, as well as sausages and toad in the hole.

My original recipe came from Katie Stewart, a Times food columnist of the 70’s but touches of Delia have crept in with the spices.

The more recent addition of redcurrant jelly and port was because of Imogen telling me of the delicious red cabbage her daughter Sarah had recently served.

I usually make this in batches,with many grumpy mutterings, based on 10lbs red cabbage (we grow them on our allotment now), and freeze it in meal size portions. Every year I am so glad I did make the effort!!

Snow!

2009-02-07T11:32:00.008Z

Just had to add this one of Rags enjoying his first experience of snow

Such a stunning view of a usually benevolent part of Exmoor, sent on by one of the family. I just had to share it.

Beany Thing

2009-02-05T20:21:00.007Z

I don’t know how this recipe evolved, but it hits the spot when you are looking for a cheap and cheerful meal that's a bit different. If you use canned beans it can even be put together very quickly.

I usually like to use beans I have cooked myself, as I don’t like the flavour or texture of ones from a can, and home cooked beans can be frozen, or kept in the fridge for a few days if you want to cook a big panful in one go.

The quantities here are a bit hit and miss, because it’s a recipe that can be stretched a bit if need be.

For about 4 people:-

Soak and cook about 250g (8oz) cannellini beans, or any bean you like.

Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a pan and cook a diced onion, 2 or 3 chopped cloves of garlic, two of each diced carrots and courgettes, and a large red pepper chopped, (you can add a fresh chilli if you have one)

When softened, add a tin of tomatoes, and a tin of sweetcorn. Season with salt and pepper, and some sort of spicy mixture. We like Schwartz PiriPiri Seasoning in this. (There is also a Spicy Season-All, and Cajun Seasoning which would work)

Add the cooked beans and simmer until the tomatoes have reduced a little, approx 10 minutes.

Sprinkle 100g (4 oz) grated cheese over the top and put under a hot grill until the cheese has melted.

If you have allowed the beany mixture to cool, bake it in the oven until it is hot through and the cheese has melted.

Serve it with boiled rice.

Pumpkin, Mushroom and Gorgonzola Pie

2009-01-31T11:47:00.009Z

This is one of the most delicious recipes I have found for a while. It was in the Sunday Telegraph magazine in a ‘Christmas Entertaining’ article. I think the author was Sally Bailey, apologies if I am wrong.

I didn’t have any puff pastry, it was a spur of the moment thing, so I made some shortcrust, which worked fine, and a bit of cheddar instead of the parmesan.

Pumpkin, Mushroom and Gorgonzola Pie

6oog (1lb 4oz) puff pastry

1.15kg (2lb 9oz) pumpkin or squash (Crown Prince
and butternut have the best flavour)
olive oil

25g (1oz) unsalted butter

400g (14oz) mushrooms, sliced (a mixture of
varieties if you can manage it)

1onion, finely chopped

3 whole large eggs and 2 yolks

350ml (12fl oz) double cream

75g (2¾oz) parmesan, grated

1 tbsp chopped parsley

200g (7oz) gorgonzola,(dolce rather than piccante, if you have a choice), rind removed and broken up into chunks

1 beaten egg, to paint the pastry

Cut off a third of the pastry and set it aside. This will make the top. Roll out the rest. You can use either a spring-form tin or a tart ring set on a metal baking-sheet. Either way you need it to be 25-28cm (10-11in) across. Set the pastry down into the tin, pressing it on to the base and then round the sides. Leave a decent overlap hanging down all round the edge - this makes it much easier to put the top on and also helps if you find your pastry shrinks a bit. Trim off any big bits of excess pastry, though. Put into the fridge or freezer to chill until firm. Bake blind for about 15 mins.

Cut the pumpkin in half and remove the fibres and seeds. Slice into pieces or chunks and peel each one. Arrange in a roasting-tin, season and pour over a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. Mix it all around with your hands to make sure the pieces are well coated with oil.
Put into an oven preheated to 200°C/400°F/ gas mark 6 for about 15 to 20 minutes, or until the pumpkin is completely tender and glazed in places.

Melt 15g (½oz) of the butter in a frying-pan and add a tablespoon of oil. Cook the mushrooms in this in batches, seasoning as you go. Cook each batch until it gets a good colour, then keep cooking until all the liquid the mushrooms exude has been thrown out and evaporated off. If you don't cook them until they're quite dry they'll throw off their juices once they're in the pie and make it soggy.

Heat the last bit of butter in a frying pan with ½tbsp oil and soften the onion.

Put all the cooled ingredients into the pie shell, and pour over the beaten cream, eggs and egg yolks, mixed with the parmesan and parsley. Put the pieces of gorgonzola on top, and cover with the pastry lid, trim, and egg wash. Bake in a hot oven until well browned and piping hot inside.

Happy Christmas

2008-12-04T11:54:00.009Z

I couldn't throw this magazine cover away, it's been in my filing system since 1987.

The weather at the moment is certainly seasonal, but I wouldn’t normally be wishing everyone a happy Christmas in the first week of December. I’m one of those people who is intensely irritated by ‘festive jingles’ inflicted on us when shopping in November and early December. But I do love Christmas, and most of all the preparation for it all, planning, baking, who is going to visit who, and when and where, choosing a tree – the whole lot.

I was going to post my favourite mincemeat recipe last year, and it’s even a bit late for this year, but it will still be delicious. It comes from Good Housekeeping December 1989.

I particularly like it because it is not overly sweet and makes excellent mincemeat slices, the ones made with porridge oats. Here is the recipe.

PECAN & ALMOND MINCEMEAT

50g (2oz) each pecan nuts and blanched almonds
125g (4oz) no-soak dried apricots
50g (2oz) dried figs
50g (2oz) stoned dried dates
350g (12oz) cooking apples
250g (9oz) sultanas
175g (6oz) shredded suet
2 medium oranges
5ml (1 level tsp) each ground cinnamon and grated nutmeg
1.25ml (¼ level tsp) ground allspice
125g (4oz) soft dark brown sugar
300ml (10fl.oz) brandy

1 Finely chop the nuts, apricots, figs
and dates. Peel, core and finely chop the
apples. Place in a non metallic bowl with
the sultanas, suet, finely grated orange
rind, strained juice and spices. Mix well
with the sugar and brandy.

2 Cover and leave the mixture to stand
overnight. Stir well then pack tightly
into sterilised jars. Seal.

3 Store for about 6 weeks before using.
TO FREEZE: After 6 weeks' maturing,
pack into freezer containers and freeze.
TO USE: Thaw at cool room temperature overnight.

MAKES ABOUT 1.1kg (2½ lbs)

Happy Christmas, Everyone!

Burcott Mill

2008-11-19T16:33:00.022Z

Sharon took her class on an away-day to Burcott Mill last week and brought back some spelt flour.

The spelt itself is grown at Sharpham Park, and is ground at Burcott Mill (near Wells) using their watermill.

I made a loaf in the breadmaker, mixing the spelt with Dove's white bread flour. Breadmaking, especially when using a breadmaker is the only time I think you can taste the difference in organic and non-organic produce. I set the breadmaker to a wholemeal programme, and because it had quite a light texture next time I will use less white flour.

There's nothing new about spelt, it is an ancient crop, a cousin of wheat, with an almost 'nutty' taste, especially when used for pastry. I know you can get spelt flour from the supermarket these days, but if you want it straight from the miller the address is www.burcottmill.com The Mill is open for tours at the weekends in the summer.

What Should We Eat?

2008-10-20T17:06:00.019+01:00

Beautiful Exmoor, an upland paradise for quiet walking or riding.

I have been pondering for a while how our food choices have changed over the last 40 or so years, or since I have been in the position to make those choices, and this morning, there was an article in the paper entitled ‘ Should we all be eating more fat?’, once again contradicting the current 5- a- day advice.

Mr. Groves, who has written a book called ‘Trick or Treat: How Healthy Eating is Making Us All Ill’ makes a persuasive case for an Atkins Diet sort of life style, citing more people falling prey to diabetes and heart disease than ever before. The article is third of a page of a broadsheet newspaper, so there is a lot to read , one point I can agree with is that fat laden foods do fill you up quickly, but to give up wheat because ‘it collects bacteria and dirt as it grows and is impossible to clean’? no, life would be sad without a freshly baked loaf.

We personally, use butter, olive oil and sunflower oil, all of which are relatively unadulterated in their production. We eat much smaller portions of meat than years ago, and many more vegetables. Thirty or forty years ago I would not have served a meal that was not primarily meat or fish, but now vegetables and lentils appear on the menu regularly, but how do I know that we wouldn’t have more even more energy if we ate a higher level of protein.

I am very glad that I brought up my sons when food advice was unambiguously pro protein, I cannot imagine them having grown up so strong and fit on a diet of vegetables, but all those extra calories were worked off by our extremely active lifestyle, like most farming families, and even their spare time involved walking long distance foot paths and pony clubs. They are still committed carnivores, I wouldn’t like to give them my vegetable crumble unless accompanied by a decent sized steak!

Not being clever enough to do too much research of my own, I think we’ll just carry on eating something of everything, and enjoying the continuing experience of new recipes and ideas, whether those ideas are of today or a hundred years ago.

Another photo of one of our favourite parts of England

Cheese Bread and Butter Pudding

2008-10-10T16:58:00.021+01:00

I’m sure I have seen, in my travels through my cook-books, a recipe for a cheese bread and butter pudding, but can I find it now, of course not.

I do keep a large index file to help me track down things I thought at some time or another were ‘good ideas’, (essential I’m afraid, these days), but I could only find cheese puddings made with breadcrumbs, which I didn’t much like.

Yes, that is butter and cheese bubbling round the edge of the dish, so a really lethal hit for cholesterol levels!

For my cheesy pud I used:-

A largish onion, cooked in a little butter until soft, and 2 rashers of bacon that I had in the fridge, cut up and added to the onion.

(It may well have been those two slices of bacon that inspired me to make a savoury bread and butter pudding to start with, as I don’t like to see things lurking in the fridge).

4 slices of buttered bread, cut to fit the pie dish. I put the first two in butter side down, to make the bottom of the pudding browned.

On top of the first two slices of bread I put the onion, bacon and two thirds of 120 grams grated cheddar cheese. Then the final two slices of bread, butter side up this time.

I used 3 beaten eggs, seasoned with pepper, and enough milk to come up to the top of the bread. The last third of the cheese was sprinkled on the top.

I baked it in a moderate oven for about 40 minutes until it was puffed up and set.

I had started off with two eggs in milk, but the mixture didn’t come far enough up the dish, so I just beat up another egg with some more milk to compensate.

We enjoyed eating this, there was more than enough for four but it is very rich, a probably never to be repeated experiment and certainly not very good for you, maybe I should have been more stingy with the butter. A crunchy green salad on the side was a welcome addition.

I had to put this photo in, picked today, probably the last of the season.

Soup

2008-10-01T11:52:00.034+01:00

In last Saturday's paper I found Xanthe Clay's recipes for soup, and loved her idea for beetroot and cardamom. I made it yesterday, the colour is amazing, the taste delightful.

I had baked the beetroots in the oven, which I used to do years ago when I had an oven that was on all the time, but it did seem to take for ever in my electric one. Still reading and sorting old cookery books, I had found a couple by Pomiane, who considered baked beetroots have the best flavour, I expect he may well be right, but as I can do quite a big batch in the pressure cooker which involves minimum water I think I shall definitely err on the side of economy.

Here are the recipes from the paper:-

Soup
Serves 4

A simple basis for countless soups. You need never pick up a carton again.

· 2 fat leeks, sliced and washed
· 2oz/60g butter
· Salt and pepper
· 2 medium floury potatoes, peeled and cut into small cubes
· 1½ pints/850ml pints water (or stock)

Cook the leeks slowly in butter until soft, but without letting them colour. Season lightly with salt and pepper.

Add the potatoes, stir until they are well coated in butter and cook for a minute or two longer.

Pour in the water (or use a light stock if you prefer) and simmer for 20 minutes or so, until the potatoes are soft.

Purée the soup. Liquidise, pass through a mouli-légumes, or leave it chunky if you prefer. Taste and check the seasoning. Reheat and add a little cream, chopped herbs or a dollop of pesto before serving, if you like.

Great ideas for soup

Just remember that starchy vegetables can be substituted for the potato, but non-starchy ones, such as spinach or mushrooms, should be added as well as the potato in the basic recipe, unless it's a very thin soup you are after.

Beetroot and cardamom Cook the seeds from 3 cardamon pods with the leeks, and use peeled beetroot (about 12oz/350g) instead of the potato. Vac-packs of ready-cooked beetroot can be used, but make sure that it's the kind cooked without vinegar. That said, a squeeze of lemon juice at the end improves the flavour of beetroot soup.

Sweet potato soup with Angostura bitters Sounds unlikely but it's a magic flavour combination. Use about 12oz/350g sweet potato instead of the regular potato and finish the soup with a few drops of Angostura bitters.

Butternut squash and harissa Cook the leeks as above, then stir in half a teaspoon of harissa (Moroccan spice paste). Cook for a minute, then add 1 large butternut squash, peeled and cubed (seeds removed) instead of the potato. Add more harissa to the finished soup if you like.

Jerusalem artichoke and hazelnut Use Jerusalem artichokes, peeled and cubed, instead of the potatoes. Liquidise the soup with 1 tbsp hazelnuts (toast them lightly first in a dry frying pan).

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As the Soup Season is with us again I am reprinting here my recipe for Squash and Carrot Soup, which could just as easily use harissa paste as the spices I used.

Spicy Squash and Carrot Soup

Use a medium size butternut squash, carrots equivalent to approx. three quarters of prepared weight of the squash and 2 onions.

Lightly coat these vegetables, cubed, with olive oil and roast at the top of a hot oven until browned and a bit caramelised, (the carrots may not be fully cooked all the way through but can be finished later in the stock).

Scrape the browned vegetables into a large pan, and stir in 2 teaspoons of ground cumin and half a teaspoon ground chilli powder, you can add more later on, if it's too bland.

Swish out the roasting pan with boiling water to make sure you have all the juices and add to the pan. Use enough stock to comfortably cover the vegetables, season if using fresh stock, you could add some mint and piece of lemon peel and cook until the vegetables are soft enough to puree, using a blender stick is easiest.

You should have a thick mixture which can be diluted with milk or more stock to the right consistency.

If you want to make it spicier at this stage, cook more cumin and /or chilli in a little olive oil and combine with the soup. Half a teaspoon of ginger could be added to the original cumin and chilli.

Reaping the Reward

2008-09-28T15:48:00.029+01:00

Our garden is festooned with hundreds of cobwebs each morning, which show up beautifully on a damp and misty autumn morning. I hate it if I walk into one, although I admire them greatly, I'm not overly keen on spiders, especially the monster sort you get in the garden at this time of the year.

It’s been rather an odd year, produce-wise. Our onion crop was virtually non existent but the leeks have done as well as ever. The autumn raspberries are still fruiting, but there are only about 10 red cabbages. In August the butternut squashes decided that the growing season was over, shed their leaves and hardened up. Many of them are oval rather than the traditional shape, and they have a more dense texture than usual. In spite of that the celeriac has not done too badly at all, a bit small, but I always thought that they needed a long growing season. Plenty of carrots, but no parsnips, gardening always seems rather a lottery to me, and more so because we grow on an allotment, so don’t see it daily.

One of our favourite Autumn and Winter meals is Vegetable Crumble which we begin to eat as the new root vegetables are harvested. I’ve never thought of it as a budget meal as we love it so much, but I suppose it would fit into that category. The original idea came from Cranks Restaurant at Dartington, long since gone.

For the crumble topping
Butter or margarine 4oz (100g)
100% flour 6oz (175 g)
Cheddar cheese, grated 4oz (100g)
Mixed nuts, chopped 3oz (75g)

Rub the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles
fine crumbs. Add the cheese and nuts

Base
Mixed root vegetables (parsnip
swede, potato, carrot, etc.) 1½ lb (675g)
Large onion or a mixture of onion and leek
Butter or margarine 2.oz (50g)
Flour or cornflour to thicken
Tomatoes 8oz (225g) fresh or well drained from a can
Vegetable stock ½pt (300 ml) (Knorr or Kallo Vegetable stock cubes)
Milk ¼ pt (142 ml)
Parsley, chopped 3tbsp (45ml)
Salt & pepper to taste

Chop the vegetables, then melt the butter in a large
saucepan and saute the onion until transparent. Add the
prepared vegetables and cook over gentle heat, stirring
occasionally, for 10 minutes. Stir in the flour, then add
the remaining ingredients. Bring to the boil, reduce heat,
cover and simmer for about 15 minutes, until the
vegetables are just tender. Transfer to an ovenproof dish.

Press the crumble topping over the vegetables and bake
in the oven at 190°C (375°F/Mark 5) for about ¾ hour,
until golden.

Serves 4

This really is a meal in itself but we usually have a green vegetable with it, and I have been known to serve it to accompany steak.

I think it is important to have enough liquid in the mixture before you bake it, as it can become a little dry.

Quince and Lemon Chutney

2008-09-27T15:13:00.014+01:00

I recently posted an item about the quince tree in our garden, and mentioned a recipe for a chutney I had found in an old WI cookbook. I made it this morning.

Here is the original recipe:-

QUINCE AND LEMON CHUTNEY

(Taken from The Times some years ago, from an article

on quinces)

1½ Ibs. quinces.

½ lemon.

1 shallot.

1 clove garlic.

4 ozs. raisins.

2 ozs. chopped stem ginger.

½ teaspoonful each of ground cinnamon.

coriander.

black pepper.

salt.

¼teaspoonful ground cloves.

1 Ib. sugar (½ granulated,½Barbados).

½ pint white vinegar.

Peel and core the quinces.
Chop them with the shallots and lemon (pips removed).
Put all into a heavy pan with the raisins, ginger, spices and sugar.
Add the vinegar and bring the mixture to the boil.
Simmer slowly, stirring from time to time, until the mixture is thick and looks like chutney.
It takes about ¾ hour. Pot immediately.

The only changes I made were that I used one whole, thin skinned lemon, of medium size, crystallised ginger, rather than stem, because I always have the crystallised sort in the larder, and one small to medium white onion instead of the shallot. These three items, with the garlic, I chopped in the food processor, before adding to the pan. Because the quince doesn’t collapse readily like apple it must be chopped into smallish pieces.

I’m really pleased with the result, it tastes fantastic, and will be set on a dark shelf for a while to mature. I'm lucky enough to have a large walk-in larder, and love to see the ranks of home made preserves I've put by. This made 3 jars.

Old Cookery Books and Budget Recipes

2008-09-23T10:59:00.058+01:00

I've been doing some extremely belated 'Spring' cleaning, and decided it's time for some things to go.

I have collected recipe books since the 1960's, and because lots of them have come from second hand shops some of them are quite old. I don't think any of them are of particular value, but I have loved reading them and using them over the years.

This beautiful illustration is one of several in an early copy of Mrs Beeton's Everyday Cookery

However, it is items like the one above that I treasure most. Found inside a book I bought about 30 years ago it is a handwritten cake recipe dated Yarner, Jan 7th 1913. It is written on both sides of the paper, folded in half to make four pages. It is one of three handwritten items I found in the book. Although I know that this Yarner is a farm in North Devon, I have never visited it, but I still feel a connection with it because of my possession of this recipe. The other two items, one a recipe and the other a poem entitled 'Forget me not' are not dated, nor do they have an address, but I presume they came from the same household.

Among such treasures there is also a huge number of old and well thumbed paperbacks, which I bought as they were published, and it is these items which are getting a severe pruning, along with more modern offerings, whose bright colours and many promises seduced me at the time.

Before they can be discarded, however, they have to be re-read, or at least re-examined to see whether I want to hang on to them for a few more years, whether their condition is good enough for the charity shop, or must they go straight to the re-cycling bin.

I've found some on the subject of frugality, very apt in the present economic climate. Jocasta Innes' ' A Pauper's Cookbook', Delia Smith's 'Frugal Food' Mary Norwak's ' Money-Saving Cookbook', and I know there are more yet to be discovered on the shelves.

I thought I might begin to put some of the ideas to the test, and the first one I have tried is from 'Farmhouse Fare' 'recipes from country housewives collected by Farmers Weekly' the seventh edition, revised after decimalisation.

So here it is Cheese Batter Pudding

6oz flour ........ 1 pint milk

2 eggs .............. 1/2 lb cheese

Make a batter of the milk, eggs and flour. Leave to stand for one hour. Grate the cheese and add half of it to the batter. Bake until risen and lightly browned.

Sprinkle the rest of the grated cheese over. Return to the oven until the cheese is crisply browned. If you are short of cheese, omit it from the batter and just sprinkle an ounce of cheese on the top. From Mrs C.P Rowan, Cornwall

Because I made it for just the two of us I used :-

1 large egg, enough milk to make it up to half a pint (275ml), 100g grated cheese and 100g plain flour. I put two thirds of the cheese in the batter mixture, and cooked it in a hot oven for about 30 mins when it was very puffed up, and rather browner than a usual Yorkshire pudding. I sprinkled the rest of the cheese over the top, but didn't leave it go crispy or brown, because I'm sure the lot would have been burned. The pudding went rather flatter, having been taken out and dressed with the cheese. However, it tasted delicious, and when I repeat it I shall try cooking it at a slightly lower temperature, maybe 200c, and put all the cheese in the batter.

I served it with creamed cabbage, whichwent very well. Finely sliced cabbage cooked in as little water as possible until only just tender. Every bit of water drained out of it, you can wait until its cool and wring it out in your hands. Chop it up in a food processor but don't go so far as puree-ing it, season and add double cream to re-heat. Equally good, I'm sure, would be leeks, finely sliced and cooked slowly in only a knob of butter and any water still on the leeks after rinsing. A heavy based pan, with a well fitting lid is best utensil to use for this.

Cheese Batter Pudding

Ouma's Recipe

2008-09-15T15:29:00.013+01:00

Louise, my older daughter-in-law’s mother is South African, from a Lebanese background, and when she was last in the UK, a few years ago now, she made a delicious dish of stuffed courgettes. I’m pretty sure that she had brought with her a gadget which looked like a large apple corer, with which she made the cavities in the courgettes.

Always one to look for a shortcut I found a ‘meat filling for vegetables’ in Claudia Roden’s ‘Middle Eastern Food’ and instead of even attempting to stuff it into a vegetable I slice courgettes very thinly lengthways, steam them gently until they are just tender and layer them up with the mince mixture. The whole lot is then covered in foil and baked in the oven. About 15 or 20 minutes would do it if all your components have just been cooked and are piping hot to start with. An hour if you have cold ingredients. It is important to have it good and hot all the way through if you are re-heating, and anything containing rice should be treated with care, not left lying around in a warm kitchen.

Louise and our mutual granddaughter loves this combination, although not a natural vegetable eater, the fact that it was ‘Ouma’s recipe’ (Ouma is the Afrikaans word for Grandma) was the inducement to try it!

Here is the recipe that I use:-

450/500g (1lb) minced lamb ..... 180g (6oz) short grain rice
A good ½ teaspoon ground allspice ..... 2 medium onions
Lamb stock to cover meat and rice while cooking (I use a Knorr Lamb Stock Cube)
Salt and pepper as required.

Tip the minced lamb into a very hot pan and stir it around until the fat starts to run. Pour it into a sieve to drain off surplus fat. If you have very lean mince, add it to the pan after you have cooked the onions.

Cook the chopped onions in the residual fat in the pan, or add a little oil to the pan if you need to. When they are cooked and golden coloured add the meat back in, let the meat change colour if you haven’t done it first, then stir in the rice, ground allspice, salt and pepper.

Use enough lamb stock to just cover the ingredients, and cook gently until the rice is soft, 15-20 minutes. You want the liquid to be absorbed into the rice, moist but not wet.

While the meat mixture is cooking thinly slice courgettes lengthways. You will need more than you think. Here is a chance to use up the ones that have made a bid for marrow status while you turned your back! And actually many of the courgettes I see for sale are much bigger than the ones I choose to pick from the allotment. Steam them for about 5 minutes. If your steamer is rather small, they will take a bit longer and you will have to turn them a bit so that they all cook equally.

Layer up the meat and courgettes as though you are making a lasagne. If I am not going to cook it straight away I do not assemble it, but put the meat onto a large cold plate to cool rapidly and leave the courgette slices to drain.

Our Quince Tree

2008-09-12T11:11:00.036+01:00

This beautiful little drawing came from a copy of a magazine called 'The Countryman', a then quarterly publication, it had a lot of line art. My husband still subscribes, it's become monthly I believe, and much more photographic. I don't think I have ever seen quinces for sale, but have been given the odd jar of quince jelly in the past and read a good deal about them so we decided to plant a tree in our garden, I'm guessing about 8 years ago.

The blossom is very delicate looking with a faint perfume and as it flowers early we wondered if it would survive on the tree long enough to produce fruit. In fact after the first couple of years it has gone on to produce more and more fruit annually, and is looking rather dominant in our small walled garden! Until this year, when it's crop of quinces is decidedly sad, and most of the leaves from one side of the tree started to drop in August. There are still about a dozen good sized fruits but a lot dropped off before they got very big. As it's been such a wet and cold summer we are hoping that that is all it is.

The first time I saw a quince in the flesh was about 25 years ago, and it looked like an oversized pear. They have a layer of fluff on them straight from the tree, which means they have to be thoroughly scrubbed before using if you are going to leave their skins on when cooking.

Quince and Lemon Marmalade (Marmelo)

450g/1 lb lemons
1.35kg/3 lbs ripe quinces
1.5 litres/2.5 pints water
1.35kg/3 lb sugar

Using a zester remove rind from lemons, otherwise peel and shred rind. (Yellow rind only, no pith). Squeeze out the juice. Put on one side. Put pulp, pith and pips from lemons in a large pan.

Peel and core the quinces. Put parings and cores with lemon piths, add half the water, bring to boil and simmer for about 20minutes. In the meantime cut up quinces into neat small dice, cover with half lemon juice as you are doing it, add rest of water and lemon zest, gently cook until tender in a large enough pan in which to rapidly boil the finished preserve.

When the quince is tender, but not collapsed, add the sugar, remainder of the lemon juice, and the strained extract of the pan with the peelings in. You can then throw the peelings, pips etc on the compost heap!

Over a low heat stir the quince mixture until the sugar has dissolved, then boil rapidly until setting point is reached. Cool slightly, then stir to make sure the quinces pieces won’t all rise to the top of the jars.

Makes about 5lbs.

Quince Paste/Cheese

900g/ 2lb quinces, weight when peeled and cored

450ml/¾pint water

3¾tablespoons lemon juice per pint puree (60 mls)

sugar, 450g/ 1lb per pint puree.

Chop up peeled and cored quinces, simmer in water until very soft, sieve or mash until very smooth. Measure puree, adding sugar and lemon juice as above.
Stir over low heat until sugar has dissolved, then boil until very thick. Watch very, very carefully. When you can draw a wooden spoon through the mixture and see the bottom of the pan for a second or so you are there.

You could boil the puree down before you add the sugar.

The first recipe I followed instructed to put cut up, unpeeled uncored quinces in pan with water, and sieve the whole lot when the fruit was very soft, but it is fairly hard work.

My preferred method, which works for me is to peel and core the quinces, after thoroughly washing, boil the peelings and cores for a while, strain off the extract and cook the quince flesh in that liquid, then adding the sugar and lemon as before. Don’t use more water than you need, you only have to boil it all off at the end.
Makes sense to double or triple the recipe, as you are going to be standing over the stove for a while.

This recipe should make a preserve that will turn out for slicing.

Each 1 lb sugar gives about 1½ lb preserve.

In this old recipe book, the first one, it says inside, published by Devon WI, is a chutney made from lemon and quince. With my meagre crop this year I am going to have a go at that. The original recipe it says was 'taken from the Times some years ago, from an article on quinces'. I would think that the WI cookbook is probably 1950's, and has hints and tips as well as recipes. A cure for mumps submits Miss Mold of Chawleigh WI is to 'Rub the afflicted part with a live snail'

A favourite way of cooking quinces is to lay peeled and cored thick slices in a layer, drizzle some honey over them and bake in a hottish oven. They turn a beautiful pinkish gold colour. They can be frozen like this as well, perking up apple pies and mincemeat slices later in the year.

Muffin Cases

2008-09-08T16:37:00.010+01:00

Sharon brought these silicone muffin cases back with her after her visit to the USA

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I just love these little muffin cases, they wash up perfectly in the dishwasher and the muffins slide out perfectly, thank you, Sharon.

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Here is Mary Berry's recipe for Blueberry Muffins:-

9 oz (250 g) self-raising flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

2 oz (50 g) soft margarine

3 oz (75 g) caster sugar

6 oz (175 g) fresh blueberries

grated rind of 1 lemon

2 size 2 eggs

8 fl oz (250 ml) milk

Pre-heat the oven to 200°C/400°F/Gas 6.

Measure the flour and baking powder into a large bowl. Rub in the margarine with the fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar, blueberries and grated lemon rind
Mix together the eggs and milk' then pour the mixture all in one go
into the dry ingredients. Mix quickly to blend.

Bake in the pre-heated oven for about 20-25 minutes until well risen, golden and firm.

I made 12 muffins in these cases with this mixture, using raspberries instead of the blueberries and lemon rind. I put the raspberries in at the end, because they are more fragile than blueberries.

I did make 12 muffins, we had already eaten the ones from the empty cases!

Cake!

2008-08-31T11:14:00.047+01:00

Raspberry Muffins

As we don't grow blueberries, but usually have raspberries in the freezer this is my take on an American favourite. Of course, this time of the year we still have fresh raspberries, the Autumn fruiting variety, which in spite of the awful weather are doing a valiant job.

Here's the recipe:-

10 oz plain flour and 3 teaspoons baking powder OR 10 oz self-raising flour and 1 teaspoon baking powder
Half a teaspoon salt.
4 oz white sugar
1 egg
8 fl. oz. milk
3 oz butter, melted
6 oz raspberries

This mixture makes 11 muffins in the standard size cases that I use.

In a large bowl sift together the flour, baking powder and salt, add the sugar. In another bowl or large jug, combine the milk, beaten egg and melted butter.

Pour the liquid ingredients into the dry and stir lightly until just combined. Fold in the fruit carefully so it's not crushed. Do not thaw frozen fruit.

Spoon into the muffin cases, and bake for about 25 mins at 190-200c until they are browned lightly and springy if you press them. Frozen fruit can lenghten the cooking time by 5 or 6 minutes.

Much the same, but baked as a cake is:-

Raspberry Streusel Cake

10 oz plain flour

1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder

1/2 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda

2 eggs

5 fluid ounces milk

8 oz raspberries

4 oz melted butter

4 oz golden caster sugar

Use exactly the same method to make the cake as the muffins, but this time turn it into a cake pan about 12 x 9 inches, lined with silicone paper or greasproof.

Then sprinkle over the streusel topping made by rubbing in 2 oz butter to 4oz plain flour, and stirring in 4 oz soft, moist light brown sugar. You want a fairly lumpy crumble mixture.

I bake this for about an hour at 180c, in the centre of the oven.

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Our friends Chris and Marilyn have just celebrated their Golden Wedding. Because the caterers were not available for the 'proper' day we had two parties! For the small informal 'do' we had, I made a batch of cupcakes, the same recipe that we used on the Bloggers Day, in the sew-together blog. They are unbelievably good.

Cupcakes

MAKES 12 deep cupcakes • PREP 10 mins •
COOK 18-20 mins. Freeze without frosting

150ml pot natural yogurt
3 eggs, beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
175g/6oz golden caster sugar
140g/5oz self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
100g/4oz ground almonds
175g/6oz unsalted butter, melted

TO DECORATE

1 batch white chocolate frosting (see recipe)

1 Line a 12-hole muffin tin with paper cases
and heat oven to 190C/fan 170C/gas 5.

In a jug, mix the yogurt, eggs and vanilla
extract. Put the dry ingredients, plus a
pinch of salt, into a large bowl and make
a well in the middle.

2 Add the yogurty mix and melted butter,
and quickly fold in with a spatula or metal
spoon - don't overwork it.
Spoon into the cases (they will be quite full)
and bake for 18-20 mins or until golden,
risen and springy to the touch. Cool for a few mins,
then lift the cakes onto a wire rack to cool
completely.
Keep in an airtight container for up to 3 days or freeze as soon as possible.

White chocolate frosting

Melt lOOg white chocolate in the
microwave on High for 1½ mins,
stirring halfway. Leave to cool. Beat
140g unsalted butter and 140g icing
sugar in a large bowl until creamy.
Beat in the chocolate. Cover and chill
for up to one month.

Up to 48 hrs before serving (or the
day before if ifs really hot), bring back
to room temperature, then spread over
the cakes.

This recipe comes from the Good Food magazine June 2007

From this recipe amount I made 16 generously sized cakes, and still had frosting over, which I have put in the freezer.

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I really loved the taste of this fruity when we tasted it at Isabel's house. It keeps well and improves as it ages, so if you are regular cake eaters it is well worth making two. The original recipe does not use black treacle, but I like the extra depth it gives to the cake, both in flavour and colour.

Isabel’s Pineapple Fruit Cake

6oz soft brown sugar 4oz butter or marg
Small tin crushed pineapple or chopped up pieces
12oz mixed fruit 4oz cherries
1 dessertspoon black treacle 8oz SR flour
2 teaspoon mixed spice 2 eggs

Put sugar, fat, fruit, cherries, drained pineapple and treacle in a pan, bring to the boil and allow to cool. Beat in two eggs, and then pour the fruit/egg mixture into the sieved flour and spice. Fold in to combine well.
Put into a lined loaf tin and cook for 1¾ hours at 350°f -180°c

In my own oven 1½ hours at 165°c gave a better result.

When doubling the recipe still use only one tin pineapple

Courgettes

2008-08-05T09:31:00.049+01:00

Courgette and Feta Pie

Some of the best ideas must come about when you are looking for ways of using up a glut of a particular vegetable as well as being determined not to buy any additional ingredients.

Here is what I used for what turned out to be a perfectly delicious vegetable pie:-

2 medium onions, peeled and sliced

500g courgettes (about) sliced thinly

a tablespoon of olive oil (or butter or vegetable oil)

4 cloves of garlic, chopped

125g feta cheese, cut into small cubes

chopped mint leaves to taste, if you like them

2 beaten eggs, add some pepper to these

1 sheet of ready rolled puff pastry,

sheets of filo would be great, but frozen puff is what I had lurking in the freezer.

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Start off by gently cooking the onion in the olive oil while you are preparing the courgettes and garlic. When they have softened, add the courgettes and garlic and continue until they are just cooked, covering the pan, keeping the heat low, so as not to colour the vegetables. Turn out into a cold bowl to cool.

Roll out the pastry a little more thinly on a floured board. I used a small oblong roasting pan so I could fold the pastry over the filling and not have to cut it up. Grease the bottom of the pan with a little oil so that it will brown well, and lay the pastry on it, with the ends hanging out equally all round, ready to fold over the filling later.

Add to the cooled courgette mixture the eggs, cheese and mint and stir all together. Put the filling in the centre of the pastry, and fold the edges over. Use the beaten egg that didn't come out of the bowl to stick the pastry together, you can tug the pastry gently to make it fit. If there is enough left over egg you can tip it on top of the pastry to glaze it.

Bake for 30-35 minutes at 225c to start with, turn the oven down to 200c when it is starting to brown. You are looking for nice crisp pastry all round.

Inside the pie

A Chutney of courgettes, apples and tomatoes

The mixture before cooking

Take 1kg each of courgettes, apples, (eating or cooking, but use a tart one) and tomatoes. Scald and skin the tomatoes, peel and core the apples and trim the courgettes, then chop them up neatly, and put in a large pan.

Peel and dice 500g onions and add to the pan, along with 500g raisins or sultanas, and 500g of soft brown sugar.

You will need 750ml of vinegar. In a small bowl put 2 level teaspoons ground cayenne (which will make it quite hot), a scant teaspoon of ground cloves, 1 teaspoon of salt, and a good 1inch size knob of ginger, which must be peeled and finely grated. Add a small amount of vinegar to the bowl and mix together. Add the rest of the vinegar to the vegetables, followed by the spice mix. Stir it all together and bring to the boil, then simmer for about 3 hours. It will need to bubble enough to gradually reduce the liquid, don't cover the pan, but don't have the heat so high that it burns on the bottom of the pan, stir it often. You want a nice thick mixture at the end.

This will make about 8 jars, which need to be matured for a few weeks.

Pickled Courgettes

450g courgettes, thinly sliced

salt

1teaspoon turmeric

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons white mustard seeds

2 tablespoons clear honey

300ml. cider vinegar

2 onions, sliced into thin rings

Sprinkle the courgettes with salt and leave for an hour. Mix the turmeric, salt, mustard seeds, honey and vinegar in a pan, bring to the boil and simmer for 5 minutes. Leave to cool, skim if necessary.

Drain the courgettes, wash well and pat dry. Pack into clean jars with the onion rings. Cover with the spiced vinegar. Seal well and store for 2-3 days before eating.

This recipe comes from The Perfect Pickle Book, published in 1988 to accompany a BBC TV series.

Summer Fruits

2008-08-04T15:35:00.007+01:00

Fragrant sweet peas,

with a favourite chicken made by Andrew Eddleston.

One of my favourite ways of using plentiful soft summer fruits is to combine them in a puree of sweetened blackcurrants. Although it is so easy to do, it looks stunning simply served with Greek Yoghourt. The same mixture makes a good Summer Pudding filling, and when set with gelatine a classy looking fruit terrine.

All you need to do is gently cook your blackcurrants with a tiny drop of water until they start to pop, and push them through a sieve. Sweeten to taste. When the puree has cooled to tepid, add raspberries and halved or quartered strawberries. If you want to set the mixture add soaked gelatine while the blackcurrant puree is still hot enough to dissolve it. If you are going to make a Summer Pudding add a little more water with the blackcurrants, so the bread will be well soaked with juice in the finished dish.

Frozen raspberries keep their shape when defrosted in the puree, and if you put frozen strawberries into a jelly mix they will also keep their shape as they defrost. Be careful, however of adding too much frozen fruit to jelly, as it will set too quickly and look messy. If you are making a Summer Pudding it won't matter if frozen strawberries collapse anyway.

Allotments

2008-06-22T12:19:00.020+01:00

Chris and I were away quite a lot this summer, all at the 'wrong time' as far as the garden was concerned, but Sharon and Imogen valiantly stepped into the breach and picked courgettes so they didn't give up producing, as well as trying to stop too much being wasted. Here are some photos that they took.

These pictures were taken at the beginning of July, a rare warm and sunny day this year.

But the following ones were taken earlier in the year just as a record of local allotments. I was hoping to find time to add more photos.

Mendip View Allotments

Mendip View

Welshmill Allotments

Rhubarb

2008-05-16T10:57:00.053+01:00

We grow rhubarb on our allotment

Always a prolific crop, here is the start of what I hope will be several ways of using some of it.

Rhubarb Crumble Cake

14 oz trimmed rhubarb
7 oz butter
10 oz SR flour
3 oz pale muscovado sugar
4 oz caster sugar
11/2 oz chopped hazelnuts
1 orange
2 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

For the nutty crumble topping:- Sift 4 oz flour into a bowl - add 3 oz butter, rub in roughly, stir in muscovado and nuts, set aside.

Cake mixture:- Slice rhubarb into 1-inch chunks and finely grate the rind of orange over it.
Put remaining 4oz butter, softened but not runny, caster sugar, remaining flour, spice, eggs and two tablespoons of the orange juice into a bowl and beat together.
Spoon cake mixture into a greased and lined 8 - 9 inch loose bottomed or spring clip cake pan. Scatter over rhubarb and orange, then cover the fruit with the crumble mixture.
Bake at 180c, Gas mark 4 for about one and a quarter hours. Cool slowly - don't turn out until completely cold - try to wait until the next day before eating.
You can make this with frozen rhubarb.

Rhubarb and Date Cake

6oz plain flour 170g

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

3oz margarine 85g

4oz caster sugar 115g

8oz trimmed chopped rhubarb 225g

4oz chopped stoned dates 115g

1 egg

4 tablespoons milk

Sift the flour and baking powder, rub in the margarine and stir in the sugar. The rhubarb should be in small pieces, add them and the chopped dates. Stir in the beaten egg and milk. We bake this in a 7" greased and lined tin, because that is what we have, but the recipe gives a 6 1/2" tin. Our result is rather a shallow cake. It is baked in a preheated oven, 190c mark 5 for one and a half to two hours. It can be a bit moist, but is delicious.

The recipe comes from a Mary Ford book, and says it will serve 12, not in our house!!

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Rhubarb and Ginger Crumble

First, bake your rhubarb in a hot oven, preferably in a shallow layer, do not add any liquid, bake for about ten minutes, when the juice of the rhubarb should be appearing in your dish. Cut up some crystallised ginger in thin slices and add to your dish. We love ginger so add quite a lot, and it loses it's heat somewhat when baked in with the rhubarb, bake for another five minutes, then stir in a dessertspoonful of honey. If the dish is not the one you want to serve your crumble in transfer the fruit, making sure you keep every scrap of juice. Add a crumble topping, 6oz flour, 3oz butter, 2 to 3oz sugar, and cook in a moderate oven, 180c Mark 4, for 30-40 minutes.

The rhubarb, ginger and honey mix is also delicious chilled, served with Greek yoghurt. Just make sure that the rhubarb is cooked enough, but still holding its shape, and you may feel it needs more honey.

Rhubarb Jam with lemon and orange

2½lbs prepared rhubarb
rind and juice of three sharp, but not Seville, oranges
juice 1½ lemons
2½lb granulated sugar.

Grate the rind from the oranges, or use a zester.
Cook the rhubarb with rind and the juice from the oranges and lemons until tender.
Add the sugar, and when it has dissolved, boil until setting point is reached.

Because there is not very much liquid in this recipe it will set quite quickly.

I've found a couple more interesting rhubarb ideas from Britains Best Dish

The first one is Joanne Temple's Rhubarb Bread and Butter Pudding, in which she layers cooked rhubarb with the slices of buttered bread, and the second is

Anne Aitken's Yorkshire Ginger Parkin served with cooked rhubarb and a sticky ginger sauce.

If you click on the link it will bring you to the recipe page.

Bread

2008-03-06T10:46:00.070Z

Hot Cross Buns

For very many years now I have thought of Eastertime as the beginning of the new year, trees in fat bud, the daffodils plentiful enough to pick and bring indoors, lambs appearing, earlier and earlier these days, and of course the birds with beakfuls of dried grass and twigs. This year the blackthorn blossom seems to be especially plentiful, let's hope we won't be calling it a Blackthorn Winter in a few days, that period of cold weather that often occurs when blackthorn is in flower.

I decided to make my hot cross buns a couple of days ago, and put them in the freezer ready for Good Friday breakfast and the rest of the holiday as well, as I have made quite a few.

Here is the recipe to make 24 buns:-

Mix together in a large bowl 2lb of white bread flour, 1 teaspoon of salt, 2 teaspoons of mixed spice and a small pinch of ground cloves, 4oz sugar and 4 teaspoons instant yeast ( 2 7g sachets)

You need to incorporate 4oz butter, which can be rubbed in, but I tend to melt it in the water I am using for the mixture. If you want to do that put 7 fl oz hot water from the kettle into a heatproof bowl and cut the butter up in little bits so that it will melt fairly quickly. Add 8 fl oz milk when the fat has melted, which should make a lukewarm mix and put it all into the centre of the flour etc. with two beaten eggs.

Instead of using milk with the water you can use some dried milk powder in the dry mix, 2 -3 oz. and use 15 fl oz water.

Stir in 8 oz dried mixed fruit, currants, sultanas and mixed peel with the liquid, you should have a soft dough. Turn it on to a floured board and knead it for about 10 mins. until smooth and elastic. If it is too sticky to handle add more flour cautiously, very dry dough makes for heavy buns!

If you have an electric mixer that is powerful enough to take this quantity of dough do not add the dried fruit until the end of kneading time or it will get a bit mashed up. Of course you will not have to knead it for 10 minutes if you are using a machine.

Put the dough back into a bowl and let it rise until doubled in size, 30mins to an hour. Pre-heat the oven to 220c. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface again and knead it gently until very smooth and divide into 24 portions, form each into a neat ball, by sort of flattening each portion and tucking the ends into the centre, which will then be the underside of the bun. Arrange the buns on a large, greased baking tray, or two, not quite touching, and allow them to rise until nearly doubled in size and just touching each other.

To make the crosses, mix together some flour and water to a thick,flowing paste. With a very sharp knife lightly incise a cross in the top of each bun, easier if you treat all the buns as one large item, and pipe the flour water mix across them. See the picture below.

The buns straight from the oven before glazing

Put the baking tray(s) in the oven, near the top and reduce the temperature to 200c as you do so, bake for 15-20 mins. To test for done-ness lift one of the buns off the baking tray and tap it on the bottom. It should sound hollow when cooked. If you are using two trays you will have to swap them around and they will take a good 5 minutes more to cook.

The buns can be glazed with a thickish syrup of sugar and water, or you can use beaten egg and milk brushed on before you pipe on the crosses.

You can make the crosses with thin strips of shortcrust pastry, stuck in place with egg wash.

Sourdough Bread

I'm feeling quite pleased with myself at this very minute, as I have not long taken this loaf out of the oven, and, of course, tasted it. But I'll tell you how I came to make it.

I went to a meeting on Tuesday morning, only four of us turned up, but one who did was Stina. I've met Stina before once or twice, but know very little about her except that she is very artistic and a devotee of organic and local food. Over her clothes she was wearing a large hessian apron with deep pockets, in lieu of a bag I understood, and from one of these pockets she drew a honey jar with a growing, naturally fermented sourdough culture. Did anyone want it, she asked. Of course I did.

Having taken it home and decanted it into a basin I found I had about 3 tablespoons of starter, which had a very fresh smell, and was gently bubbling. I decided to increase the bulk of the starter before I did anything else, so I added literally a few grains of instant yeast (I can hear Stina screaming from here), a pinch of sugar and couple of dessertspoonfuls of bread flour and some lukewarm water and left it in a reasonably warm room . It was looking very healthy in the evening, with a much more developed aroma so I divided it into two, half in a covered bowl in the fridge and the rest in a large mixing bowl, adding probably about 300 grams of white bread flour and enough water to make it a sloppy mixture, a bit like thick pancake batter. I left this at room temperature for 24 hours, the smell was delightful, and the sponge was very well risen.

First thing this morning I added about 250grams of rye flour, another approximately 200 grams white flour and some salt with enough water to make it a soft dough, a bit too sticky I grumpily thought at one time, as this was before my cup of coffee and I was in need of my caffeine fix. I used about 750grams of flour altogether and left it to rise in a stainless steel casserole rather than a baking sheet or tin, to see if I could get a nice rounded shape.

I baked it at 225C for about an hour, longer than I would have thought, but the casserole has a very thick bottom, and I really had a tricky job to get it out, it stuck on the bottom, even though I had greased the pan well, and of course it was much deeper than a baking pan.The shape is good because of the rounded pan, but not an altogether successful experiment.

I am going to give Sandra one half of the remaining starter, to which I have added a little water and flour, and have another go, perhaps writing down the amounts of flour and water I am adding at each stage.

A few days later now and I have made another loaf and written down quantities:-

On Thursday at 4pm I took the left over starter from the fridge, having duly given Sandra one half of the remaining amount. To my share of the starter I added 230g. (8oz.) wholemeal bread flour and 230ml (8fl.oz) lukewarm water. I stirred it all together and left it overnight at room temperature, covered with a damp cloth. ( Had I been making a new starter the flour and water would have to have been left for about 3 days at room temperature).

On Friday at 9am I divided this new mixture in two, putting half back in the fridge for next time and added 230g (8oz) white bread flour and 200ml (7fl.oz) lukewarm water to the one half, beating well together. I covered it again, with a plate on top of the bowl this time until this morning, when I added another 300g (12oz) white bread flour, 4 fl. oz. (120ml) lukewarm water and a teaspoon of salt. I kneaded it lightly, allowed it to double in size, about an hour and a half, kneaded it again and put into a greased bread tin. My bread tins are longer than the regular 2lb tins, and it 2/3rds filled it, I allowed it to rise to the top of the tin, and baked it for 40mins in a pre-heated oven 220c. or until it sounds hollow when you tap the base. A perfectly risen loaf, it rose above the bread tin while baking.

Meatballs

2008-02-20T11:38:00.017Z

Our grand-daughter has spent the last half-term holiday with us, and along with all her other interests she loves to help with the cooking. Even when she was quite tiny she would like to weigh out flour for bread, cakes and pastry. I still use a very ancient set of scales with a copper pan and lots of seperate weights, and she was fascinated by the art of getting the two sides to balance. Most of her activity in the early days was playing with bread dough or pastry, making them into tiny shapes for baking, and subsequently eating. These days however, she is getting good at the job, and even though she is still not keen on very sharp knives or fat that will spit at you, the results can be excellent.

One of her favourite meals is meatballs with tomato sauce and this is how we make it. In a large bowl combine 500g of good minced beef, a thick slice of wholemeal bread,( could be white if that's what is available, and it would be two slices of shop bought sliced bread), half of a large onion, finely chopped, and a large egg, salt and pepper.

Shape the mixture into balls, aim for the size of a large walnut, they always seem to turn out bigger, and put them on a floured plate as you work. When all the mixture is done put a smear of oil around a large shallow pan, and brown the meatballs all over. It really will be best if you have a pan that will take all the meatballs in one layer. When they are browned, take them out and put aside while you make the tomato sauce.

The easy way to do this is to liquidise two tins of tomatoes with the rest of the onion and two or three cloves of garlic, you can add a bit of chilli here if you like it, and I'll admit to adding a Knorr beef stock cube at the same time, do season it well. Or you could just use a jar of passata. Pour the tomatoes etc back into the pan and cook for a while so that the raw taste is gone, the oven should be heating up now, 150-175c, and than add the meatballs back into the pan. Bake for about 45 mins.

We like to serve this with rice, which is why we make quite a lot of sauce.

Cold leftovers are delicious is a buttered soft roll, with salad stuff and mayo, but this recipe does freeze well, as long as you defrost slowly and don't break up the meatballs as you re-heat.

Blast from the Past

2008-02-17T11:41:00.017Z

I had to have it! We were driving past our local Asda, taking our grand-daughter back to rendezvous with her mother after her half-term break with us and I saw a great big sign outside the store - Delia Smith £8.00 - who could resist. No time to stop then, we had an hour and a halfs driving and no time to spare. I was going to do the prudent thing and look at a copy in a book-store to see if I really needed it. As a collector of over 1000 cookery books I realise that was a silly assumption, but in mitigation I must say that my collection consists of some very old books, handwritten notebooks picked up over the years in second hand shops and those books published by 'Wives of Hartford, Connecticut' '300 Party Dishes collected in the 1930's at the Royal Crescent, Bath' you know the sort of thing. I have always been fascinated by what people eat, how they have prepared and preserved food, so this large collection has been on-going for about 40 years.

So what had Delia to say about food preparation of today. I had heard her on Radio 4 telling us of her opinion of organic food, there have been lots of recent interviews because of this up-coming television series, and as always I mostly agree with her views. But it is nostalgia that makes me want this book, as we are making our way to our meeting place, the Railway Children in the CD player and the continual plip-plip of a nintendo game coming from the back seat I am remembering Delia on the telly.... The Complete Cookery Course. The books of the series came in three volumes, which I later gave to my elder daughter-in-law, even though they were very precious. The combined volume of the three which came out later does not evoke the same memories.

Delia is a couple of years older than me, and I can remember so vividly watching those programmes, my sons still children, living in very rural Devon, nothing but trees and fields around us, as the house we lived in at the time was at the other end of the farm where the dairy herd was milked twice daily, and where most of the work went on. I was an accomplished cook myself, being lucky that my then husband was happy to eat just about anything in spite of having been brought up on very traditional farm-house food. I kept poultry for the table, at that early stage the laying hens were still the preserve of my husband's mother, but there was never a shortage of basic ingredients, milk of course, and from that clotted cream, and when we had too much of that I turned it into butter. I loved my life, even though it ended in divorce some years later, and Delia is part of those early memories.

In spite of plenty of the raw ingredients, our own meat from the farm, we kept Red Devons, as well as the dairy herd, pigs and sheep, my then mother-in-law taught me the meaning of frugality. We never had a lot of cash, my clothes budget was non-existent, so it was important not to waste anything, including food. She was an excellent plain cook, brisket with a boiled suet pudding served along side of it, that sort of thing, but you knew what you were going to have each day of the week, roast on Sunday , Monday, cold meat and pickle, Tuesday would be cottage pie, and so the days went on, delicious but predicitable. Quiche with a salad was quite an adventure then!

Having re-united our grand-daughter with her mum, we arrived back home several hours later, would there be copy left for me!! I can feel my heart rate increasing as we drive into the car-park. YES!! there are some left, not so very many, maybe they have a million boxes full hidden away, I rush though the automatic check-out, feed the £8.00 into the little slots, and rush home to open a nicely chilled bottle of wine while I view the book. I'm enjoying it, I'm learning a lot. Did you know that you could get ready-shredded cabbage and discs of frozen mashed potatoes?

Marmalade

2008-02-03T11:21:00.004Z

Seville oranges seemed to be in short supply this year, there were apologies in greengrocers for their lateness, but I did get some last Wednesday and yesterday made a batch of traditional marmalade using my tried- and -trusted recipe of many years. This method was particularly favoured by me because as a busy farmer's wife I used to buy quite a large quantity of Sevilles when I saw them and put them all, whole, in the freezer, dealing with them gradually as I found the time. That the method I evolved seems foolproof was another blessing.

The lemons had been in the freezer since Christmas

Whole orange marmalade using a pressure cooker

Take 1.5kg of Seville oranges and two lemons, place whole in a pressure cooker without a trivet, add .85 litre of water, bring to pressure and cook for 15 minutes. Leave to reduce pressure at room temperature.

When cool enough to handle cut each of the fruit in half, I use the lemon peel in my marmalade, and scrape out the insides into a coarse sieve, over a large bowl. Tip all the liquid from the pressure cooker into a preserving pan, adding a further .85 litres water and 3kg sugar to it. You can put this on a low heat to start to dissove the sugar while you shred the peel as finely as you can, it will be very soft, and sieve all the flesh, pressing down well on the pips and debris to get out as much pectin as possible.

I used to use the coarse plate on a mouli-legume for this job, but as that has seen better days now I used a nylon seive, it works but is much harder work. I have been trying to get a new mouli for ages, but can only find a small one! Because I wasn't convinced that I had got as much extract as usual I put the contents of the sieve in a little water, brought it to the boil for about five minutes and put it back through the sieve. Make sure that the sugar is dissolving while all this is going on, you don't want the liquid in the preserving pan to come to the boil yet, give it a stir now and then.

Put all the extract and the shredded peel into the pan, and once you are sure all the sugar has dissolved bring it to a full boil. It should only take about 15 mins or slightly more to set, so test then.

The result, it makes about 10 jars!

Squash

2008-01-30T13:01:00.001Z

We grow a lot of squash, and have experimented with many varieties, but have decided now to stick with butternuts, for their good yield of orange flesh and ease of preparation. They, along with most of the winter squash family are usually good keepers, but this year we have lost quite a few and have resorted to freezing some which is pre-prepared.

We have found several recipes that make delicious use of this vegetable or maybe it's a fruit?

Bacon and Squash Pasta

Heat a heavy based pan, cook 140g chopped smoked back bacon for a few minutes in 1 tablespoon oil, add a small finely slice onion and a little more oil if required, and cook until the onion softens. Stir in 25g butter, 500g prepared squash and about 2 tablespoon finely shredded fresh sage. Mix well, season and cook for about 8 to 10 mins until the squash is cooked but not going mushy. Meanwhile cook about 400g penne or any other pasta you fancy, then drain and add to the squash mixture. Stir in about 25g grated parmesan or 50g grated mature cheddar and serve. You can add more cheese at table if you think it needs it. We don't think it does.This recipe will serve four, and is easily halved.

Spicy Squash and Carrot Soup

A medium size butternut squash and carrots equivalent to approx. three quarters of prepared weight of the squash. 2 onions. Lightly coat these vegetables, cubed, with olive oil and roast at the top of a hot oven until browned and a bit caramelised, (the carrots may not be fully cooked all the way through but can be finished later in the stock).

Scrape the browned vegetables into a large pan, and stir in 2 teaspoons of ground cumin and half a teaspoon ground chilli powder, you can add more later on, if it's too bland. Swish out the roasting pan with boiling water to make sure you have all the juices and add to the pan. Use enough stock to comfortably cover the vegetables, season if using fresh stock, you could add some mint and piece of lemon peel and cook until the vegetables are soft enough to puree, using a blender stick is easiest. You should have a thick mixture which can be diluted with milk or more stock to the right consistency.

Thanksgiving Recipes

2008-01-29T10:20:00.008Z

The place settings we made for our Thanksgiving Party

Here at last are the recipes for our Thanksgiving dinner.

Chestnut and Apple Stuffing for the Turkey

Cut about 500g of bread into small cubes, spread out on baking sheets and dry in the oven, about 15 mins or so. Put to one side, while you cook two chopped medium onions and two big sticks of peeled celery in about 25g of butter until soft, season with salt and pepper. Add two peeled and chopped good desert apples, I used Cox's, and continue cooking until these are soft, not mushy. Tip into a large bowl, add the bread cubes, but use your judgement about whether you need all of it, 3 tablespoons chopped fresh sage leaves, a 240g pack of coarsely crumbled dry-packed cooked chestnuts and 250g ready to eat dried prunes, quartered. Add two beaten eggs and enough stock, turkey or chicken, to well moisten, but not wet.

About 4 cupfuls of this mixture went into the neck end of the turkey, the rest went into a buttered dish and was baked covered for 25-30 mins and then uncovered and baked until golden, about another 20 mins.

Cranberry, Recurrant and Walnut Sauce

1 pound fresh cranberries, one and a quarter cups of sugar, 1 cup red currant preserves, (use a small jar of redcurrant jelly), 1 cup water, 1 cup of coarsely chopped walnuts and two tablespoons grated orange rind.

Combine cranberries, sugar, redcurrant jelly and water in a large pan, bring to the boil, reduce heat and then simmer uncovered for 20 mins. Skim any foam, remove from heat and add walnuts and orange peel. Refrigerate overnight, covered. Delicious!!

This recipe is from Martha Stewart's book "Entertaining", which I bought in the 80's

Also from the same book:-

Cornbread

1 loaf or 36 tiny muffins

Combine one and a half cups yellow cornmeal with one cup plain flour, (Imogen used spelt), a third of a cup sugar, 1 tablespoon baking powder and 1 teaspoon salt in a large bowl.

Mix together one and a half cups milk, threequarters of a cup of melted butter and two eggs, and stir into the dry mixture. Pour into a greased loaf pan, 2lb size, but it will be a fairly shallow loaf, or 36 mini muffin pans. Bake at 200c 35 - 40 mins for the loaf, 18-20 mins for muffins. Leave in pan for 5 minutes or so and then turn out on a wire rack to cool.