Soup for lunch: honey roasted carrot and Italian lentil

I have continued with making soups for lunches at work. It’s an easy option really. They can be done on the weekend and stuck in the fridge ready for lunches when needed, they aren’t complicated and they’re healthy and low in calories compared with salad or sandwich alternatives.

I found both these recipes courtesy of the foodpress round up and both are great, although neither said how many servings they made so it all went a bit mental with the Italian lentil especially. I’ll reduce the quantities accordingly though, so you don’t have to worry.

Here is the original for the carrot – it was originally maple roasted, but I’d run out of maple syrup and used honey instead:

http://urbanclinic.net/2011/01/16/maple-roasted-carrot-and-ginger-soup/

And here is the original for the Italian lentil soup:

http://wonkydonkey.wordpress.com/2011/01/09/

Of course, me being me, I couldn’t just follow a recipe – I adapted these according to what was in my fridge and what I like to eat! Which of course means the addition of chilli, but feel free to leave it out.

These are actually both vegetarian and vegan friendly, and if you left out the pasta from the lentil soup, they’d be gluten free and lactose free too. So basically, won’t hurt anyone, but are full of warmth, goodness and heartiness. January perfection.

Honey roasted carrot and ginger soup

Serves 4

• 500-700g carrots, peeled and chopped into chunks (the original recipe suggests 1kg, which seems excessive. I used 500g but if you want it more carroty then up it a bit)
• 1 onion, sliced into 8ths. I used a large one, but I don’t think it matters too much
• Knob of ginger, peeled and sliced into matchsticks
• 4 whole garlic gloves, peeled
• 1 red chilli, finely chopped (optional)
• 1.5 tbsp olive oil (or any oil you have)
• 2 tbsp honey (or maple syrup)
• salt & pepper
• 800ml – 1litre chicken or vegetable stock
• grated ginger & lemon juice (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees celsius. Place the carrot, onion, garlic, ginger and chilli on a roasting tray. Drizzle with the oil, honey and seasoning and mix well to evenly cover. Ensure the veges are nicely spread out on the tray.
2. Place in the oven and roast for about 40-50 minutes, turning occasionally to evenly cook. When they are well cooked with some brown spots, remove from the oven.
3. Blend the veges to a puree, adding the stock as needed to form a soup consistency (rather than a puree consistency)
4. If serving immediately, turn into a saucepan to heat through then serve in bowls with a squeeze of lemon and a smattering of grated ginger. If keeping for later, just turn into a container for fridge, but make sure it’s fully cooled before putting in the fridge
5. Enjoy with some crusty bread.

Italian Lentil soup

Serves 4 (ish)

• 1 tbsp olive oil (or other oil)
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 2 carrots, finely chopped
• 2 celery sticks, finely chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped or minced
• 1 can chopped tomatoes
• 80g lentils (I used a mix of white and green)
• 50g small pasta (I used orzo but any small pasta will do)
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 1litre chicken or vegetable stock
• salt and pepper

1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan on a medium heat. Add the onion, carrot, celery and garlic and saute (fry) until softened but not browned. This will take about 5-8 minutes.
2. Add the tomatoes and stir until they break down a bit.
3. Then add the lentils, stir again to coat in the mixture. Then add the thyme and seasoning. Mix again.
4. Next add about half of the stock, bring to the boil and then reduce to a simmer and cover. Check occasionally and add more stock as needed.
5. When the lentils are nearly done (translucent on the outside but opaque in the middle) add the pasta, with more stock and cook until both the lentils and pasta are cooked through.
6. If it’s too thick, add more stock or water to achieve soup like consistency.
7. Serve with rustic farmhouse bread and memories of holidays in Italy.

January pick me up: Hearty beef and guinness stew

As you know, I made roast beef the other week, and I had left over beef – which is one of the great things about any roasts.  It was a bit on the tough side (being cheap meat from the supermarket and not from my lovely butcher) so I decided that a stew was the way to go with it.  And it most definitely improved the tenderness of the meat.

Of course, you don’t have to use leftover meat – you could just get some stewing steak or some lamb stew meat or whatever you feel like really.  Red meat is definitely better for this recipe.  I wouldn’t choose chicken or fish.

It was a great opportunity to try a recipe from my new best friend – the Hairy Bikers – and their 12 days of Christmas cookbook.  I had wanted to try it over Christmas but didn’t manage it, and this was perfect.  It’s their Beef stew with guinness and chestnuts with leek colcannon.  Well, I didn’t have any chestnuts and I don’t like leeks, so I put in chestnut mushrooms and made lemon and thyme mash instead!  It was still very delicious though and I don’t consider Guinness to really be alchohol – all that iron – it’s practically a vitamin/mineral!

This recipe also lent itself well to the spice rub I’d used on the roast beef and didn’t clash with it, which was another reason for choosing stew, over curry, for example.  The stew was just delicious and perfect for a miserable rainy January evening.  I did actually make it on the weekend – the long cooking times for stew mean it’s not really feasible for weekdays, unless you work from home and can stick it in the oven on a tea break!

And it went very well with the lemon and thyme mash.  The lemon acted as a bit of a palette cleanser and just lightened the rich tastes of the stew.

The only thing about it was I found it too watery – however, I did use significantly less beef than the recipe stated (as it was what I had left from the roast – but it was 250g which is enough for 2 people), although I used half quantities of everything else – so this might have been a factor.  I’ll give you the recipe for the quantity of beef and veges I used, but will reduce the liquid to the amount I’d use in future.  Then you can scale it up, as required.

Beef and Guinness Stew with Lemon & Thyme mash

Serves 2 (ish)

• 250g beef (stewing steak is great, or left over roasted meat, as I used), chopped into small chunks
• 1/2 tbsp plain flour
• 1/2 tsp each salt and pepper
• 1 tbsp oil (I used olive)
• 1/2 tbsp tomato paste/puree
• 1 onion, sliced
• 1 carrot cut into rounds (or I used 5 chanteray (small) carrots which I cut in half lengthways)
• 1 celery stick, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 6 (ish) chestnut mushrooms (or any fresh mushroom) sliced
• 125ml Guinness
• 100ml beef stock
• 1 tsp caraway seeds
• handful of chopped fresh parsley

For the mash:

• 400g potatoes, peeled and chopped into smallish cubes
• 80ml milk
• knob of butter
• salt & pepper
• 2 tsp dried thyme (or fresh thyme leaves)
• zest of 1/2 lemon

1. Pre-heat the oven to 150 degrees celsius.  Put the flour, salt & pepper in a bag and shake to mix.  Then add the beef and shake well again to coat the beef in the mixture.
2. Heat the oil in a frying pan and when it’s hot add the coated beef.  Fry on a high heat until browned on all sides.  Add the tomato paste, stir well to mix.  Then remove from the pan and place in a casserole dish.
3. Add the onions, carrots and celery to the frying pan and fry using the same oil on a medium heat (add a bit more, if needed) until browned.  Add the garlic and the mushrooms and fry again for another couple of minutes.  Add the veges to the meat and mix well.
4. Pour the Guinness and the stock over meat and vege and add the caraway seeds.  Stir well to combine, then cover the casserole dish and place in the oven for about 2.5 hours (I did this for slightly less as the meat had already been cooked once.  I probably did it for about 1 hour 50 minutes – 2 hours in total).
5. About 30 minutes before the casserole is cooked, prepare the mash.  The Hairy Bikers suggest poaching instead of boiling the potatoes.  Which is essentially simmering the water they cook in instead of boiling.  I’m not sure what difference it makes to be honest – I’ll leave that up to you!  So poach or boil your potatoes until cooked!
6. Then mash the potato.  When it’s mashed, scrape it to one half of the sauce pan and add the milk and butter to the other half of the pan.  heat the pan on the side with the milk and butter.  Then add salt, pepper and dried thyme.  When it’s just starting to boil, remove from the heat and vigorously stir and mash the potato into the milk and butter.
7. Then add the lemon zest and mash again until smooth and creamy.
8. When the stew is cooked, check to see if you have too much liquid.  If you do, you can bubble it off on the hob (I was too scared too having broken several casserole dishes this way!) Then add the parsley, stir well and serve with the mash and maybe even a pint of Guinness 🙂
9. Enjoy and feel your cockles being warmed!

Sunday roast on a saturday: Spiced roast beef and yorkies

I know it’s all wrong.  It’s not even a saturday today – and then to eat a sunday roast on a saturday  – what is the world coming to?!  But you see, an even bigger Sunday tradition happened (well tradition for me) – it was Dim Sum sunday lunch.  And being skint I couldn’t afford to buy more meat, and we had a beef roasting joint in the freezer, so it all made sense.

Somehow, when you’re hungover from the night before, dim sum just hits the spot.  You have it with green tea and some soup, and you feel all cleansed and refreshed.  Now, I’m not saying a good fry up or a sunday roast wouldn’t do the trick too, but there is something a bit special about dim sum.  Try it some time.  You’ll see what I mean.  My favourite dim sum are Ha Kau, Sui Mai and Char Sui Bau.  I also like the steamed ones that are long and white with prawns in them.  No idea what they’re called though.   We also had some crispy fried suckling pork, which was delicious.  Like crispy duck, but pork.

But anyway, you’d be forgiven for thinking this post was about Dim Sum and not about roast dinner at all!  I shall drag myself away from the delights of dim sum to roast beef.  Which was also delightful, but in a very different way.  The great things about roasts, which were expanded upon during the Christmas period – is the leftovers.  You can get a good 2-3 meals out of a roast.  Which makes it very economical meat and great for when you’re skint.  Especially if it also happens to be reduced in the supermarket when you buy it.  Just get it, chuck in the freezer and defrost when you want it.

I didn’t want to do the usual of just seasoning with salt and pepper or a bit of mustard or something.  So I found a Hairy Biker’s recipe for beef brisket which uses lots of lovely spices and just used the spices out of that recipe as a rub for the beef.  Which also meant I got to use my brand new pestle and mortar that I got for Christmas, so that was quite exciting.  I was so excited though, I forgot to take a photo!  Maybe next time. But the spices did work really well with it and made it very enjoyable.

To go with it, I did some roast potatoes, vege and of course, yorkshire puddings.  I’m not going to tell you how to do roast potatoes and vege, I’m sure you can figure that out for yourself.  But I will give you the recipe for yorkies.  It’s so easy.  For some reason, some people seem to struggle with getting these right, but I’ve always followed this recipe and had no problems at all.  It’s from Leith’s Simple Cookery (by Jenny Stringer and Viv Pigeon, published by Bloomsbury, and can be found on Amazon here http://www.amazon.co.uk/Leiths-Simple-Cookery-Jenny-Stringer/dp/074759046X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1294658537&sr=8-1) which is one of my favourite recipe books and something I cook from all the time (when I’m not cooking from Cook in Boots!).  The recipe itself is on page 274.

Spiced roast beef and yorkies

Serves about 3-4

2 tbsp oil (I used olive)

Beef roasting joint of about 650g – 1kilo (I used a silverside of beef)

For the spice rub:

1 tbsp dried allspice (pimento) berries

1 tbsp whole coriander seeds

1 tsp cumin seeds

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground black pepper

For the yorkshire puddings:

100g plain flour

pinch of salt

2 eggs

300ml milk (or 200ml milk with 100ml water)

1. Pre-heat the oven to 22o degrees celsius.  If doing roast potatoes, you want to get these in the oven about now, so they have enough time to roast, especially if your joint is small.
2. Grind the spice mix to a rough powder in a pestle and mortar (or use a wine bottle in a plastic bowl).
3. Next, make the yorkshire pudding batter.  It needs time to sit.  Put the flour and salt in a bowl and make a well in the middle.   Crack the eggs into the middle.  Using a hand whisk, beat the egg, gradually incorporating a bit of the flour mixture into the eggs until it’s all combined.  If it gets too thick add a bit of the milk.  Keep add the milk and whisking hard until it’s all combined and you have a thin mixture.  Cover and put in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, place the roasting joint on a baking tray and cover all over with the oil.  Rub the spice mix over the joint making sure it’s covered on all sides.
5. Place the joint in the oven and roast for 20 minutes at this temperature.  Then reduce the heat to 170 degrees and roast for 10 minutes per 450g for rare meat, 15 minutes for medium rare and 20 minutes for medium.  If you want it burnt to a crisp, then make a stew or casserole joint instead!
6. When you’ve got about 40 minutes left for the meat to roast, chuck in your vege for roasting (if you’re doing).  Then when you’ve got about 30 minutes left, oil a baking dish, pan, cupcake tin or yorkshire pudding tray.  Place in the oven until the oil is smoking hot.
7. Remove the batter from the fridge and pour into the prepared tray/dish and stick in the oven.  When you remove the beef, turn up the heat to 200 degrees celsius.  Bake for about 30-40 minutes, or until the batter is golden and risen.  If not using a cupcake or yorkshire pudding tray – do check that your pudding is done in the middle as with that amount of batter all together, it may take a bit longer.
8. When the beef is done, remove it from the roasting tray, put on a carving board or warmed plate, cover in tin foil and cloths and leave to rest for about 20 minutes.
9. Meanwhile, using the juices in the roasting tin, make the gravy by adding a tablespoon of flour, mixing well, making sure you scrape up the bits of the bottom of the pan, on a low heat.  Then add a bit of water, mixing well and gradually adding more until you have a thin-ish mix.  Bring to the boil.  If it’s looking a bit anaemic, add some marmite, gravy browning, or some beef stock, reduce to a simmer until thickened as much as you like your gravy done to.  Then remove from the heat and keep warm.
10. Carve the meat, place on warmed plates with the vege, some yorkshire puddings and top with the gravy.  Serve with a glass of red wine, and enjoy!

A Venison Epic

We thought as we were in Scotland that we’d get some venison, as it’s fresh and hung properly.  And although it wasn’t cheap, it was definitely worth it.  It was so delicious, not really strong or too gamey.  I would say it was a bit like lamb…but a bit richer perhaps.

Venison is a very lean meat, with very little fat, so it’s great if you’re watching the calories.  In fact, both the dishes we made with the venison are pretty healthy recipes.  Of course, if you’re watching the weight you wouldn’t roast your potatoes in goose fat like we did.  The recipe book with the roast venison actually suggests mashed potatoes, which are relatively  low in calories providing you use margarine and milk and not butter and cream in them.

I loved both these dishes.  They’re both completely different, but both were really delicious.    First we roasted a haunch of venison on the bone, after marinading it in spices and alcohol for 3 days, then with the leftover meat we made venison stew a couple of days later.  Because the meat was already marinated we left this part of the recipe out.  I picked this recipe because it didn’t have strong flavours of its own so the original marinade flavours would be retained and not confused.

The spices aren’t all the most obvious ones, and might take a bit to source them but most large good supermarkets should have them, or you can always turn to the internet.  They are definitely worth the effort to find.

We made the stew for new years eve – to line our stomachs and fill us up before our big night out.  And it was a totally epic night with all kinds of craziness, so the stew was very much needed.  We’d had enough of potatoes by this point so we had it with rice, but it would be nice with boiled potatoes or chunks of homemade bread, or even dumplings.

For the roast we, have, as has been our mainstay whilst in Scotland, the Hairy Bikers to thank and their 12 days of Christmas book.  This is a fantastic recipe, especially for a special roast meal.  And the chestnuts with bacon go with it so well.

For the stew recipe, I found this on a lovely blog by an English lady that’s gone to live in the US with her husband and raise various rare farm animals.  Most of the blog isn’t about food at all, but she said she always got rave compliments when she makes this stew so I decided to give it a go.  And she’s right, it is worth raving about, even though I didn’t use her marinade.  But the original marinade isn’t miles different from hers.  If you want the original recipe you can find it here http://poppycreekfarm.wordpress.com/2010/12/30/woodstove-venison/

The recipes here are as I did them, although the roast venison is pretty much as the Hairy Bikers have it.

Roast venison on the bone

Serves 6 – 10 (depending on how hungry you are!)

2.75kg/6lb venison haunch on the bone (the bone gives it lots of lovely flavour)

4 tbsp oil (we used olive)

100g streaky bacon or pancetta cut into small pieces

150g roasted chestnuts, peeled

salt & pepper

handful of chopped fresh parsley

For the marinade:

10 juniper berries

10 black peppercorns

10 cardamom pods (I didn’t have these so put in some allspice berries instead)

2 star anise

1 medium red onion, sliced

250ml red wine

150ml gin

juice of 1 orange & 3 long strips of rind

4 sprigs of fresh thyme (we used dried)

2 bay leaves

For the gravy:

500ml beef stock

2 tbsp plain flour

2 tbsp redcurrant jelly

Potatoes (as you like them) and roast vege to serve.

1. Marinade the venison in all the spices and alcohol by taking all the spices and lightly grinding them in a pestle and mortar (we didn’t have one so I used the bottom of a wine bottle and a plastic bowl!).  Put them in a large flat dish to marinade and add the wine, gin, orange juice and rind, onion, thyme and bay leaves.  Mix well to combine.  Then add the venison, squish around to cover in the marinade, turn over, squish again, spoon over to get the sides, cover in clingfilm and put in the fridge for 2-3 days, turning 3-4 times so each side is evenly marinaded.
2. When you’re ready to roast the venison, preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius.  If having roast potatoes, stick these in now too so they’re nice and crispy on the outside and soft on the inside.
3. Remove the venison from the marinade and reserve the marinade for the gravy.  Pat dry the venison.  Heat the oil in a large roasting pan on the hob and brown the venison on all sides.
4. Then place in the oven (no need for tin foil) for 10 minutes per 500g.  Then add an extra 15 minutes for medium and 30 for well done.  We did ours medium rare, which was perfect and roasted it for 65 minutes.  Once it’s done, remove from the oven and put on a warmed serving dish.  Cover in tin foil and clean towels and allow to rest for 20 minutes.
5. Whist the venison is roasting, stick in your other roast vege (I just added these to the potatoes) and make stock for the gravy.
6. Put the marinade in a pan with the stock.  Bring to the boil and simmer until it’s reduced to around 500ml.  Sieve it to remove the bits and set aside until you make the gravy.
7. Next make the chestnut and bacon accompaniment.  Heat a frying pan and add the pancetta or bacon and fry until it starts to go crispy.  Then add the chestnuts and the parsley and some seasoning.  Stir well and remove from the heat.
8. Finally, take the roasting tin and place on the hob.  Add the flour and mix well with the juices.  Gradually add the stock, stirring continually to avoid getting any lumps.  Then add the redcurrant jelly and simmer until the sauce is thickened and glossy.   Add more wine or stock if it becomes too thick.
9. Serve, ask someone else to carve, put the chestnuts and bacon on top of the meat and cover it all in gravy.  This is genuinely the best way to eat it!  And sink into rapturous delight as everyone is silent, stuffing their faces!

Venison stew

Serves about 6-8 (ish)

The remainder of the venison meat, cut into smallish chunks.  I would say this was at least 600g of meat.

2 tbsp oil (we used olive)

1 onion chopped into chunks

5 carrots chopped into small chunks

2 peppers chopped into chunks (you can use any vege you like here, this is just what we used)

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

2 tbsp redcurrant jelly (or cranberry)

150 ml red wine

tin of chopped tomatoes plus a couple of fresh ones

Any leftover gravy from the roast

salt and pepper

1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan.  Add the meat and brown on all sides.
2. Add the vege and fry until softened.
3. Add the canned and fresh tomatoes, red wine and leftover gravy.
4. Bring to the boil and simmer on a low heat, covered for at least 1 hour (go off and have a bath at this point, or paint your nails or something!).  The longer you leave it, the more tender it’ll be.
5. Check on the stew occasionally and see if it needs more liquid.  If it does, add more wine or some beef stock.
6. When its good and cooked, serve with rice or potatoes or dumplings or bread or any combination.
7. Eat, feeling it’s probably the best stew you ever ate!

Food glorious (christmas) food

We’ve been eating…lots…but as I say, that’s what Christmas is all about.  This is a medley of photos and food I’ve cooked and eaten over the past few days.  I kept forgetting to take photos, so they’re all a bit random!

My husband and I are in Scotland, renting a cottage with friends, as we couldn’t cope with the idea of another family Christmas where we try to please everyone, and fail, and only end up making ourselves miserable!  After an argument that lasted all of boxing day last year, we decided we wouldn’t be doing the family thing again.  And so far, I have to say a cottage in Scotland is the way forward!  We’ve not been entirely without family, we visited my lovely Scottish relatives.  But a few hours with some relatives you rarely see is not the same as all day with family we see all the time.

Food wise, I have been indebted to the Hairy Bikers and their 12 days of Christmas recipe book for all the delicious food.  Without them I would have been lost and panicking, but with the book, whilst it was lots of work, we produced lots of delicious food, with Christmas dinner being one of the best we’ve ever had.  Although they didn’t have capon roasting directions, but they were easily enough found on the internet.

We decided that there wasn’t enough of us for a turkey (minimum 10lbs!) so we went for a capon instead.  Which is a castrated cockerel.  Apparently it makes them eat more, get fat, and become more juicier than chickens or normal cocks.  And I have to say, this was a delicious capon.  And more or less a perfect size for us.

If you’re interested, it was about 7lbs and I did it for 30 mins on high heat, upside down, covered in foil, then 1.5 hours the right way up, covered on a medium heat, and then 30 mins with the foil off to brown it at the same heat.

I’m not going to reproduce all the recipes, if you’re that interested – buy the book!  But I’ll tease you with a few.  We loved the brussel sprouts especially, which is odd as normally we hate them.  But the key, it seems, is frying them in maple syrup.  The sweet syrup takes away all the bitterness.  And we also added chestnuts and bacon to them which just added to the flavours.

We also loved the stuffings.  They were just great.  We made chestnut and sage and apricot and almond, both out the hairy biker’s book.  I’ve made stuffing from a packet before, but doing it from scratch makes all the difference and really turns the stuffing into something worth eating and blogging about!

I have to say though, I bought fresh chestnuts and my fingers still hurt from peeling them!  If you can get vacuum packed pre-peeled ones, then I would definitely recommend them if you like your fingers!

My friend made the brandy sauce for the pudding and it was extremely tasty…might have something to do with the quantities of cream and brandy she put in it, but hey, its christmas!  And it’s freezing cold so we need our fats and alcohol.

The other thing of note was the christmas spiced vodka.  I wrote about making it in my previous post, but we’ve now drunk it and can definitely say, it is so beautifully warming and delicious (despite being frozen!) that its worth the effort and the wait.  And really 3 days isn’t much of a wait.

Well, the haunch of venison is now marinading in the fridge, for the obligatory 2 days.  We’ll be cooking that in a couple of days.  And looking at the meat, even uncooked, I know it’s going to be beautiful.

Even just thinking about all this food makes me feel happy.  There is something about cooking and eating that can be the best thing in the world.  Yes, I’ll have to put in some serious hours in the gym, but then, that’s what January is for.  That and paying off the credit card!  But as it’s still December I won’t contemplate either for any longer here.

Since Christmas day, we’ve had the obligatory capon and ham pie and capon curry.  And we’re now making soup from the capon bones.  I might even make a ham pasta bake with the remaining ham!  But Christmas is full of traditions, especially food ones, and to break them only makes for unhappiness.

I hope you all had really lovely Christmases full of gorgeous food and lots of wine.  And are now looking forward to 2011 in anticipation of all the great food that is to come.  Here are the recipes for the stuffings and the brussels sprouts.  All out the Hairy Biker’s 12 days of Christmas.

Brussels sprouts with pancetta and chestnuts

Serves about 4-6

500g Brussels sprouts, peeled and halved

1 tbsp oil (we used olive)

125g pancetta or streaky smoked bacon, chopped

125g roasted chestnuts, peeled and halved

1 tbsp maple syrup

salt & pepper

1. Boil the sprouts in a pan with boiling water and salt for about 8-10 minutes or until they look softened.  Drain and set aside.
2. Heat the oil in a pan, add the pancetta and fry until crispy.
3. Add the sprouts, chestnuts and maple syrup to the pan and mix together well.
4. Cook for a minute or two until the syrup caramelises, then add the seasoning, remove from the heat and stick in a warmed serving dish until ready to serve.
5. Eat, and be surprised at the sweetness and lack of bitterness.  You may find you actually like sprouts for the first time ever!

Chestnut and sage stuffing

enough for about 4-6 people

1 tbsp oil

1 medium onion finely chopped

75g roasted chestnuts, peeled and roughly chopped

115g sausagemeat

25g white breadcrumbs

zest of 1 lemon

1 bunch of sage, chopped

salt & pepper

1. Heat the oil in a frying pan, and fry the onion until softened.  Remove from the heat, put in a large-ish bowl until cooled.  It’s important its cold when combining with uncooked sausagemeat.
2. When its cold, add the rest of the ingredients to the onions, stir well so it’s all well mixed.
3. Set aside until it’s needed to stuff a turkey or chicken, or form balls with it and roast in the oven until cooked.
4. Sit down, stuff your face and let the compliments roll in!

Apricot and almond stuffing

serves about 4-6 people

1 tbsp oil

1 medium onion, finely chopped

1 garlic clove, crushed

50g apricots (ready to eat) roughly chopped

50g blanched almonds, toasted and roughly chopped

125g sausagemeat

zest of 1 orange

40g white breadcrumbs

2 tbsp fresh chopped parsley

salt & pepper

1. Heat the oil in a frying pan and fry the onion over a low heat until softened.  Remove from the heat and place in a large-ish bowl until cooled.
2. Add the rest of the ingredients to the onions, when cool, and mix well to combine and set aside until needed.
3. Stuff in turkey or chicken or roll into balls and roast in the oven.
4. Eat in smug satisfaction at your cooking expertise!

And now, after all that cooking and eating, sit down with a glass of spiced vodka and tonic and let others do the washing up!  You deserve it

Preparing for Christmas

This year is the first year I’m cooking christmas day.  Normally we go to either my family’s or my husband’s.   This year we’re done with the family drama and are escaping to a cottage in Scotland with friends.  Which is quite exciting, from a cooking point of view anyway.  I get to make Christmas dinner.  As well as exciting, it’s also terrifying because people have so many memories associated with Christmas, me included, that it’s hard to keep everyone happy and not screw up! But I won’t be on my own, I’m expecting everyone to muck in, and I’ll just do what I’m good at – delegating aka bossing everyone about!

Anyway, partly because Christmas things tend to need to be made in advance and partly because we only go to Scotland on Christmas eve, so there’s not much time to prepare, I’ve been cooking for Christmas.  And it’s been pretty fun, mostly, but I’m exhausted now!  I put on the obligatory Christmas cd that everyone seems to have stashed somewhere.  That started off as quite a novelty but about half way through I’d had enough of it!  There’s only so many Christmas songs any one person can take in one go.  And partly because I’ve done most of my gift shopping online, I’ve not been into many shops to notice the music that usually annoyingly plays all day in shops from about mid-November!

I started with the ham, which I roasted, and then glazed in honey and mustard – thanks to the Hairy Bikers – their Christmas recipe book (12 days of christmas – found on amazon here) has been invaluable already and prevented full blown panic from setting in!  It also helped me with my grocery shopping list, and so I didn’t end up buying all sorts of un-needed things in panic!

Then, whilst that was in the oven, I prepped the apple and mincemeat Jalousie’s (from Delia’s pudding cook book) that I’ve already blogged about here. I’ve made a couple more, one of which I cooked and the other I froze for Scotland.   This time, though I also added in some dried cranberries, because I had some that I thought would be good in here, and I had the orange this time. I also used some lovely fresh mincemeat that was made by my mother-in-law.  She gave me such a lovely big jar of it, that I had some leftover after the Jalousies.

And as it doesn’t have suet in it, it won’t keep, so I then made my first, and probably only, batch of mince pies!  I always thought they were difficult, but really, if you use ready made pastry as I do, and you already have the mince meat, there’s really nothing to it!   I also thought you needed pastry cutters for them, but I just used a jam jar and a glass – making sure one was bigger than the other.  I just used my cupcake/yorkshire pudding tin.   I’m quite proud of them actually, despite not making the pastry or mincemeat!  They taste delicious.  And the reason I use ready made pastry is, it’s a lot lighter than stuff that is homemade.  Often mince pies are quite heavy with pastry and get stuck in your teeth.  These were so light and deliciously flakey without being puff pastry-like.

The mince pies were ready for the oven at the same time the ham needed to come out, so that was perfect timing, and I then studded and glazed the ham before returning it to the oven, and removing the mince pies.  I then set about putting marzipan on the Christmas cakes I made back in October, which were my first ever blog on here – which you can find here, another Delia favourite.  No, I didn’t make the marzipan.  In all honesty, I couldn’t be bothered.  The Hairy Bikers do have a recipe, but it just seemed like a lot of effort, especially as I tend to pick off the icing and marzipan from the cake when I eat it!  It’s more for show, and for others to eat!  I’ll ice it in a couple of days when the marzipan’s dried out.

At this point I was flagging so I sat down with a cup of tea and one of my freshly made mince pies and had a breather.  It was worth it for the mince pie alone!

I had reserved the juice that came out the ham and accidentally cut off some of the fat when removing the rind (having never done it before and not being sure what was rind and what was fat!), so as suggested by the Hairy Bikers, for the stock remains after boiling the ham (which I didn’t do), I chopped up the veges for the stock, threw in some water with the ham juices, rind and fat, added the herbs and spices, and boiled for soup.  At the end I added some peas, and took a couple of slices off the finished ham to add to the soup  – and voila, pea and ham soup!  In the photo it looks yellow in colour, but actually its much greener – more of a greeny yellowy colour.

When the ham came out the oven I threw in the Jalousie, and set about the final bit of prep for today.  I made Christmas spiced vodka.  Well I started it.  I mixed up the fruit, spices and vodka and have stuck it in the fridge to absorb the flavours.  I’ll seive it and bottle it just before we head up to Scotland.  Another lovely Hairy Biker recipe (well I hope it’s lovely – I haven’t tried it yet!).

After this, I was well and truly exhausted, so I dished up some of the soup and ate that for tea.  Just lovely.  So, here are all the recipes, as I made them.  You know where they all originate from, but I think, bar the vodka (and the marzipan, which was shop bought!) I’ve adapted them all!

Mustard and honey glazed ham

Serves about 10 (according to the hairy bikers – I think it could easily serve more, especially as you’ll be eating Turkey too)

1.5-3kg De-boned, rolled piece of gammon (I used smoked because my mother-in-law gave it to me, but if you’re not a fan of salted things, go for unsmoked)

about 20-30 whole cloves

3 tbsp English mustard

3 tbsp runny honey

1. Pre-heat the oven to 160 degrees celsius (or a bit higher if it’s not a fan oven).  Wrap the gammon, as it is, in tin foil and place on a baking tray.  Roast in the oven for 20 minutes per 500g.
2. When the gammon has cooked for the right amount of time, remove from the oven and turn up the heat to 200 degrees celsius.   Unwrap but keep the foil under it.  Strain off any juices into a large saucepan if making the soup.  Slide a sharp knife under the rind and remove (without removing the fat).  Stick in the saucepan with the juices.  Score the fat all over in diamond shapes and stick a clove in the centre of each diamond.
3. In a small bowl mix the honey and mustard until smooth and even in consistency and then generously brush over the fat on the ham, and down both sides.   Pinch together the corners of the  foil to form a basket/boat around the ham.  Put the ham back in the oven for 10 minutes.
4. After 10 minutes, remove from the oven, brush again with the remaining glaze and return to the oven, but turn the ham around so the other side is facing the back of the oven, for a further 10-15 minutes, until the ham is golden.   If bits start to burn cover with tin foil.
5. Remove from the oven.  Leave to rest for 15 minutes if serving warm, or leave to cool completely before putting in the fridge if keeping for later.
6. Marvel at your wondrous culinary skills and admire your mother for all her hard work to make Christmas special.

Ham and Pea soup

Serves 4-6 (ish)

Reserved ham juices and rind

2 small onions chopped in half (or one large onion quartered)

2 carrots chopped into short lengths

2 celery sticks chopped into short lengths

4 bay leaves

small handful of black peppercorns

small handful of cloves

700ml – 1 litre boiling water (or chicken/vegetable stock)

150g frozen peas, defrosted

Cooked ham shredded

Tbsp creme fraiche

1. Add the vegetables, herbs and spices to a large saucepan with the rind and ham juices.  Add the boiling water or stock.  Bring to the boil and simmer, covered for about 30 minutes.
2. Add the peas and cook for a further 5 minutes.
3. Once the vegetables are properly cooked, pour into a food processor or use a hand blender to blend the soup.
4. Return to the saucepan, add the ham and the creme fraiche and heat through.  Taste for seasoning (its unlikely you’ll need salt, especially if you’re using smoked gammon, but I did add a chicken stock cube at this point as the base flavour was a bit weak).
5. Serve with warm crusty bread and eat immediately to feel satisfyingly warm and full.

Cheat’s mince pies

makes about 15

500g ready-made shortcrust pastry, warmed to room temperature

350g good quality, ready-made mincemeat

zest of an orange

(some extra sultanas, if you’ve not got quite enough mincemeat)

splash of brandy or rum (to go with the sultanas, or leave out if you have enough mincemeat)

butter for greasing

1 egg white

icing sugar for dusting

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees celsius.  Grease the cupcake tin with butter.
2. Place the mincemeat, orange zest, sultanas and brandy (if using) in a bowl and mix.
3. Flour your surface and rolling pin and roll out your pastry until its about as thin as a 50pence piece.   Take your pastry cutters, jam jars or glasses (you want 2 sizes, one slightly bigger than the cupcake dents in your tin and one slightly smaller.  Cut out 15 of the larger size.  if you run out of pastry, gather up the bits, re-roll and then cut.
4. Place each of the pastry circles in a cupcake dent.   Place about 1tbsp of the mincemeat mixture in each pastry dent.  You don’t want them too full.
5. Then gather up the pastry, re-roll and cut out 15 of the smaller circles.  Place on top of the pastry and mincemeat in the cupcake tin.   Again, re-roll your pastry if needed.
6. Brush the pastry tops with egg white, make a hole for the steam to escape in each mince pie.
7. Place in the oven for 20 minutes, or until cooked and golden.  Remove from the oven.  Leave to cool slightly before turning onto a wire rack.  If serving hot, dust with icing sugar, or wait til cold if serving cold.
8. Serve with a lovely cup of tea or glass of mulled wine to feel all festive.

Christmas spiced vodka

Makes about 500ml.

300g mixed dried fruit

75g caster sugar

zest of an orange

zest of a lemon

2 cinnamon sticks

6 cloves

2 tsp mixed spice

half a nutmeg, grated

750ml good quality vodka

1. Mix the fruit, zests, sugar and spices in a large bowl.   Add the vodka.  Stir well, then cover tightly with clingfilm and place in the fridge for 3 days.
2. After the 3 days, remove the clingfilm, line a seive with 2 layers of muslin and place over a large jug.  Pour the mixture into the muslin and allow to drip through.
3. Once its collected in the jug, pour into bottles and seal tightly.  Store in the freezer until needed.
4. Serve straight from the freezer in shots.  But do remind everyone its pure vodka or you could have granny passing out in the Turkey!

Photos of the jalousies and the marzipaned cake.

I shall now go and collapse into bed before doing it all again tomorrow!  Next up will be baking – cookies, cakes etc.

When you run out of alternatives…apple, cranberry and almond crumble

I ran out of ideas to cook the apples and succumbed to crumble.  But it’s just so simple, and it’s actually not that bad for dieting.  I don’t use that much sugar and I use low fat margerine instead of butter.

I bought some dried cranberries but I couldn’t remember what for, so I thought some of them may as well put them in.  This was one of those recipes that I just added stuff as I went along.  I’ve never actually written down a crumble recipe.  I got it from my mum and the rest I just make up as I feel like as I make it.

So, this is different every time, but this is what I did this time.  I loved the almonds in this, like soft fruit and crunchy almonds – mixed in with the crumble mix its all different sensations at once.  In fact, just thinking about it makes me want to make crumble now.

Apple, cranberry and almond crumble

Serves 6(ish)

6 apples

100g dried cranberries

2 handfuls of blanched flaked almonds

200g plain flour

100g butter or margerine

50g soft brown sugar

1. Preheat the oven at 200 degrees celsius.
2. Core and chop the apples (no need to peel).  Place them in a baking dish.  Add the cranberries and a handful of the almonds.
3. Chop the butter into little squares and put in a bowl.  Add the flour and rub the two together with your fingers until you have a crumbly mixture.  If you find it’s too dry add some butter and if it’s too gooey add more flour.
4. Add the sugar and the remaining almonds to the crumble mixture and combine well.
5. Pour the crumble mix over the fruit and put in the oven and bake until its golden on top and smells good.
6. Serve with custard or ice cream and sink into that familiar gorgeousness.

Toad in the hole with onion gravy

I’ve been coming down with a cold and have been in need of comfort food.  And as far as I’m concerned, pretty much anything with sausages is comforting.  Bangers and mash, cumberland sausage and yorkshire puddings and of course, toad in the hole.

Toad in the hole is so simple and quick, it’s great for midweek food.  You just whisk up the batter, shove it all the oven and wait for it to rise, then eat.

And there’s nothing better with toad in the hole, then lots of gravy.  My personal favourite is caramelised onion gravy.  The ultimate comfort food.

The way to make the gravy nice and brown, is first to brown the onions and caramelise them really well.  And if all else fails, put in a teaspoon of marmite!

I put in some mustard in the batter but it’s great without it too.  You could just add some grated nutmeg instead.  I’m not super keen on mustard so I tend to stick with wholegrain mustard as it’s quite mild.

Toad in the hole with onion gravy

Serves 4

2 eggs

110g plain flour

300ml milk

salt

2 tbsp oil (I used chilli oil)

8 sausages

mustard

for the gravy

1 tbsp oil

1 onion finely sliced

1 tsp sugar

1 tbsp plain flour

200ml boiling water

1 tsp marmite

handful of chopped fresh parsley

1. Put the flour in a bowl and make a hole in the centre.  Crack the eggs into the hole.  Gradually mix the flour into the eggs, a little bit at a time.  As the mix becomes very thick, add the milk a little at a time until all the flour is combined.
2. Once the flour is fully combined, add enough milk to make a thin batter.  Cover the bowl with cling film and put in the fridge for 30 minutes for the batter to create bubbles and become light (it helps it rise).
3. Preheat the oven to 220 degrees celsius.  Heat the oil in a baking tin or dish, when it’s hot, place the sausages in the oil and turn.  Put into the oven and when the oil is very hot turn the sausages again.
4. Add the mustard to the batter and then pour into the pan.  Put it in the oven until its brown and risen.
5. Meanwhile, heat the remaining oil in a saucepan and fry the onions until browned.  Then add the sugar and caramelise the onions.
6. When they’ve caramelised add the flour and cook for a couple of minutes.  Then add the water a bit at a time, whisking continually to avoid getting lumps.  When it’s all combined, bring to the boil and simmer until it’s thickened to the consistency you like for gravy.
7. If it’s not dark enough, add some marmite.  If not, just add some salt.  Then add the parsley.
8. Serve the toad in the hole with the gravy poured over it and enjoy!

Yet another pudding for apples

I continue in my quest to use the apples my uncle kindly gave me from his garden, as they are unfortunately, too sour to eat by themselves. It took me, as you’d expect, to Delia again, and this time, to a new recipe from her somewhat daunting recipe book The Delia Collection: Puddings. You’ll be relieved to know that I think I’m going to use the final amount of the apples on a Ravinder Bhogal recipe that looks yummy but I need some coronation caramel for that one, so this one came first.

As you know, I’m scared of pastry, so unlike most things, I buy my pastry. I will get over my fear one day, I’m sure, but not this day. So I used the Jus Rol shortcrust pastry for this, and really, if you’re in a hurry, you could do this as a mid week pudding if you used ready made pastry because there’s no need to mess about with making and then chilling the pastry first.

Also, Delia says to soak the raisins in the cider overnight but I didn’t have the time or patience for that so I just soaked them for a couple of hours. Obviously longer is better, but don’t worry too much if they don’t have much time. I only had about 50g of raisins so I made the rest up with sultanas. I don’t think it really matters – just use what you have to hand.

This does require a degree of thought before you do this recipe – because most people don’t have pastry in their freezers, the odd can of cider lying around and semolina. I suppose people like my mum might, but I couldn’t imagine any of my friends having such things! In fact, I didn’t. But I did manage to find everything I needed in M&S so they aren’t difficult ingredients to source and most supermarkets will have them, even the smaller ones.

I used the amount of apples as stated by Delia but I think you could easily add another 50g or so of apples without the parcels getting over full. I’d also use more raisins, and have increased both quantities accordingly in the recipe.

I cooked 4 out of the 8 parcels and froze the other 4 after putting together but before cooking. I’ll let you know how that turns out. But I thought 8 was too many for 2 people and we’d be eating them all week! Which would be no good for either of our figures! But these would be great for a dinner party as they are individual tartlets and they’re very pretty when they’re done, served with custard.

Delia also suggests using any other kind of fruit but if using soft fruit like berries or gooseberries or rhubarb, add a tablespoon of semolina instead of a teaspoon, to absorb the juices or your pastry will go soggy.

Anyway, once you start with this it doesn’t take long to put the parcels together and they are very good with custard. And great if you have a main dish in the oven too. This is my adaptation of Delia’s recipe, although feel free to make your own pastry.

Delia’s Apple and Raisin individual parcel tartlets

Serves 8

500g ready to roll shortcrust pastry

400g apples (whatever you have to hand – adjust the sugar accordingly), cored and diced (unpeeled)

100g raisins (or other dried grapes)

120ml dry cider

8 teaspoons semolina

16 whole cloves

8 teaspoons granulated sugar

1 egg white, lightly beaten

1. Soak the raisins in the cider for as long as possible, or overnight.
2. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees celsius
3. Grease a baking pan – I used a glass baking dish – something with reasonably high sides thats oblong or square rather than round in shape
4. Flour an area for working the pastry. I use my work surface. Cut the pastry into 4 pieces.
5. Roll each pastry piece into an oblong of about 26x13cm, then cut in half to make 2 squares.
6. Taking 2 squares at a time, put 1 teaspoon of semolina in the middle of each square, leaving about 1cm around the edges.
7. Top the semolina with 2 tablespoons of apples, 1 teaspoon of sugar, 2 cloves and 1 tablespoon of drained raisins.
8. brush (or use a knife) some of the egg white round the outside of the pastry.
9. Then pinch the corners together hard and fold up to make a little open box around the filling. Using a spatula to help, lift the parcel into the baking dish and firmly place in a corner.
10. Repeat with the remaining square until they are all tightly in the baking dish.
11. Add any remaining fruit to the parcels.
12. Then brush the visible pastry with the egg white and place in the oven for about 50 minutes or until the parcels look golden and cooked.
13. Serve with custard, ice cream or cream and enjoy, smug in your ability to make something with pastry!

Baked sausage casserole

This is another relatively quick, very easy, kid friendly weekday dinner, found again on allrecipes.com and made more interesting by me!  I always try to keep some sausages in the freezer because when you’ve run out of everything else, sausages are an easy and tasty ingredient for dinner.

This is pretty low in calories and fat, so great for dieting, or those just wanting to be healthy.  Sausages do make it slightly less healthy but if you use high meat content ones then it shouldn’t be too bad.

I didn’t take a photo as I wasn’t sure how it would turn out, but it turned out very well and made good leftovers for the next day too.

In the original recipe they suggest browning the sausages in a frying pan first.  I did this, but found the sausages over cooked and slightly burnt after being baked as well, so I don’t think this is really neccesary unless you want cremated sausages.  The sausages spend more than enough time cooking in the oven that you don’t need to worry about food poisoning if you don’t brown them first.  Plus, not browning them makes this super simple.  You basically just chop everything up, throw it in a baking dish or roasting pan and shove in the oven.  if you want to brown them first, then do this before you put the veges in the dish and basically just fry them in a little oil on all sides until they’re browned.  Then remove from the heat.

If you wanted to do a vege/vegan alternative – use lentils instead of the sausages, add a bit more water, chop your veges a  bit more finely, and voila – baked lentil casserole!  This is an excellent dieting alternative as lentils are low in fat & calories, high in protein and extremely good for you.  It might be less child friendly, however.

Preheat the oven before you start chopping because it’ll take a little time to heat and this takes no time at all to prepare.

Easy baked sausage casserole

Serves 4

2 onions – sliced into chunks

450g potatos thinly sliced on the wide side

2 carrots – sliced on the diagonal

2 peppers of different colours (for interest) chopped into chunks

Any other veges you fancy – aubergines, corgettes, celery, would all make good additions.

8 pork sausages (or any sausages really.  I used pork and apple).

250ml passata

hot water if needed

chopped fresh parsley, sage, thyme or basil (or a mix)

salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius.  Grease a large baking dish or roasting pan with a little oil.   I used a roasting pan.
2. Chop all your veges, and place in the baking dish – your potatoes and carrots going on the bottom.
3. Pour over the passata and water if needed.  Add seasoning and the herbs.  Gently mix with the veges.
4. Prick your sausages in a few places (to avoid exploding) and place the sausages on top and make sure they’re seated nicely in the veges.
5. Roast in the oven on a middle shelf for about 40 minutes, or until the sausages and potatoes are done.
6. Turn onto plates and enjoy!