Monday 25th of March 2013

Well, what a hectic (and BLOOMING FREEZING COLD) few days we've had at Distracted Towers.  The weekend consisted, mainly, of trying to keep the children occupied indoors when the weather was so dismal, which usually, for me at least, means roping them into some kitchen activities.  We cooked a huge batch of my slow-cooked onions.  We did them, this time, with red onions, as I especially love their sweet flavour, combined with stickiness when cooked this way.  A large portion of the onions went into the base of an ovenproof dish and was topped with chicken thighs with some soft goat's cheese pushed under the skin.  This was roasted for 45 mins at 180ºc and served with a basket of baguette chunks and some salad leaves for a surprisingly warming and really very satisfying meal.

Of course, we needed something sweet as well, and that came (as it so often does) in the form of my Fabulous Chocolate Brownies.  I had prepared some Jam Ice-Cream (strawberry as usual, but with a hint of amaretto for a change) with this weekend in mind, but what with the weather and all, serving ice-cream would just feel downright silly!

Tonight is, of course, a Monday so, armed with a batch of My Big Fat Chilli con Carne from the slow-cooker, I laid on a mini Tex-Mex fiesta with taco shells (bought-in!), grated cheddar, salad leaves, sliced avocado and soured cream.  Plates all clean, and out of the door on time...  Result!

Cath xx

Pudding Emergency!

Required at short notice to provide a pudding for today's lunch, I fell back on a favourite which can be conjured up pretty quickly from mainly storecupboard ingredients.  This is, I suspect hardly the 'proper' way to make frangipane, but hell, it works for me.  If it's easy and it tastes good, I'm one very happy Distracted Housewife!  The shop-bought sweet pastry cases are a storecupboard staple (actually, they live in the bread bin) and I cannot see that there is any point in being snobbish about them; while I never buy shortcrust pastry in the supermarket because I find it easy to make, I always buy puff and filo because, you know, eek!  Sweet pastry also gives me the heebie-jeebies, I have never managed to get the desirable shortbread texture without everything disintegrating into infinitesimal crumbs like, well, shortbread...

Tinned pears (in juice, never syrup for my tastes) happen to be a fruit that I keep in the cupboard habitually as I love their grainy texture.  They are wonderful with whipped cream or ice-cream and a quick, hot, chocolate sauce as a very basic Poires Belle Helene (which, after holidaying in the Loire Valley as a youngster, remains for me the most respectable way to fill a crêpe).  Pears and chocolate is a classic combination for me; hence the chocolate included here (although you can happily leave it out if the idea doesn't fill you with the greedy excitement that it does me!).  I would have rather like to have a scoop of ice-cream with this pudding today, rich yellow in colour and flecked with vanilla seeds, but sadly no amount of praying to the freezer could force some into existence so we 'forced it down' without...

Pear and Almond Tart with Chocolate

1 ready-made sweet pasty case from the baking aisle at the supermarket
50g dark chocolate, grated or very finely chopped (I used the processor)
1 tin of pear halves in juice, drained
2 eggs, beaten
80g each butter, ground almonds and caster sugar

Heat the oven to 180ºc.  Put your unwrapped pastry case onto a baking sheet.  Scatter the chocolate over the bottom of the pastry case.  Thickly slice each pear half widthways, but keep it 'together', as it were, and arrange them on top of the chocolate.  Melt the butter and stir in the ground almonds and sugar. Mix in the eggs, forming a nubbly paste with the consistency of double cream.  Gently (although this is a counsel of perfection for me, being both clumsy and impatient) spoon and spread this over the pear-and-chocolate filled pastry case and pop it in the oven for 20-25 minutes.  Take it out and leave it to rest for a few minutes as this is SO much better warm than hot.  Any leftover slices (ha!) are perfect with a cup of tea later, but don't put them in the 'fridge, something awful seems to happen to them if you do!

Cath xx

Jam-tastic!

Now this is bit of a revelation.  Homemade ice-cream in five minutes with no cooking!  You need a pot of cream, a jar of jam, a lemon, a shot of some sort of booze and a lemon (and you only need half of that!).  If I can get all of these things in the shop in the village, they are hardly difficult to come by.  True, you do have to freeze the ice-cream overnight, so it's hardly what you could call an instant pudding, but it is so easy that you can almost always have some in to feed the ravenous hordes, whether expected or not...

It does need to be a decent jam though, and I favour the Bonne Maman conserves.I've also had luck with blackcurrant with cassis and apricot with amaretto but I always, always go back to the favourite; strawberry with triple sec.  There's something about the orangey alcohol that just seems to bring out the true flavour of the strawberries and this has been described to me by more than one person as the most strawberry-ish strawberry ice-cream they've ever had.  Not bad for five minutes' work!

Jam Ice-Cream

284ml carton whipping cream
370g jar of jam (and see above)
2 tbsp booze of your choosing (and see above)
juice of half a lemon.

Stiffly whip the cream.  Stir the jam, alcohol and lemon juice together, then fold this mixture into the cream until thoroughly combined.  Pour into an airtight plastic container and freeze.  Transfer the box from the freezer to the 'fridge about twenty minutes to half an hour before you want to serve the ice-cream.  I normally do this as we sit down to eat, which is easy enough to remember.  Dish it out with an ice-cream scoop dipped in hot water for ease.

Cath xx

The Insolence of Youth

My baby is four, how did that happen?  Four! How very rude of him to keep growing up... Yes, it's JD's birthday and as usual I am finding it a little harder to cope with than his elder brother's progression in age.

He, on the other hand, is having a whale of a time.  From the early morning wake-up call, through the tearing of paper, punctuated with gasps and cries of "I've always been wishing for a [insert name of relevant gift here]....", through lunch and the blowing out of all four candles at once!

Ah, yes, the cake... always a pleasure to make a lovely cake for my boys' birthdays.  Though I don't believe that anyone should ever feel guilty about buying birthday cakes from the supermarket, or paying a bakery to make one, I get a lot of enjoyment from decorating the children's cakes to match their latest interests or passions and see it, in a way, as another gift; one given with special love and time from Mummy...

As we are very much all about dinosaurs at the moment, this volcano cake seemed appropriate.  Two ordinary chocolate sponge cakes; one made in a pudding basin and the other in my tarte tartin tin.  Iced with chocolate buttercream and sprinkled with grated plain chocolate and a little dessicated coconut, dyed black with food-colouring paste (just mix 1/4 tsp paste with 1/2 tsp or so of water and mix in the coconut to colour it.  Spread on foil to air-dry a little before using).  The 'molten lava' streaming down the sides is actually melted white chocolate with a little orange colour paste stirred in (Sugarflair's Tangerine/Apricot, if you're interested).  Spooned into the top crater and running gloopily down the sides, it looks rather good, I think.  The 'magma'-filled recess also made a good spot to place the candles, the chocolate achoring them steadily.  A good result all round, I feel!

Cath xx

In the interests of honesty and transparency, I feel that I should confess that, actually, I messed up the first attempt at the basin cake, by cooking it at too high a temperature for too short a time.  So we had a kind of melting-middle chocolate sponge with cream for pudding on Sunday.  As Homer (Simpson, this time) might well have said "Mmmmmm.... unexpected pudding".

Choccy Roccy

Generally speaking, I have much more of a 'savoury' tooth than a 'sweet' one.  I will always reach for celery, olives, cheese or nuts without even considering chocolates; I eschew the biscuit tin for a handful of my best-beloved Bombay Mix.  That being said, Rocky Road' is one of the few sweet treats that I really can't resist... So easy to make, and great for the children to help with too, my version gets a nice little kick from the ginger and is just how I like it; more 'rock' than 'choc'.  OK, it's very far from being a health food, but it's a lovely treat.  Cut into slices to serve with cups of tea or as a quick, no-effort pud, chop it up roughly to scatter over ice-cream or just break off a chunk for an instant sugar-fix...

Rocky Road

200g milk chocolate
200g plain chocolate
knob of butter
8 'pink wafer' biscuits, roughly broken up
12 glacé cherries, halved
12 marshmallows, quartered
2 tbsp glacé ginger, finely chopped
100g pistachio nuts, shelled
*hundreds and thousands, to decorate*

Melt both types of chocolate together with the butter.  Stir in all the other ingredients and mix really well to coat everything in chocolate.  Pour and scrape into a lightly oiled baking tin (whether you use a small one, for 'deep', or a larger one for 'shallow' Rocky, is up to you.  Scatter over some hundreds-and-thousands 'for pretty', if you like, then pop the whole assembly into the 'fridge.  Chill it until set, then cut, or break, it up as you like.  Enjoy!

Cath xx

Chocolate Mousse 1 - Football 0

Just as I do with sponge cakes, I think of chocolate mousse in imperial terms.  Not in a neo-colonial way, no, but in as much as the imperial weights and measures just seem to work with certain recipes. For each serving, use one egg and one ounce of chocolate.  A little dash of a carefully chosen flavouring and that's all you need.  Good, simple food at its best!

As far as flavourings for chocolate mousse go, I have tried many, many variations over the years.  Brandy is always my classic fall-back.  Fruity liqueurs work well, as does good old fresh orange juice.  I love mint chocolate mousse, but really good peppermint extracts are few and far between.  I'd be interested to know if anyone has a source...?  Dark rum is nice in the winter (for me, rum is very much a winter flavour) and coffee is an elegant flavour as long as no-one is going to object to a coffee-chocolate mix.  Some people seem to feel inordinately strongly about that; maybe brought on by too many cheap chocolate-covered 'coffee creams' as a child..?

Classic Chocolate Mousse

4 eggs, separated
4oz plain chocolate, chopped
1 tbsp brandy (and see above)

Melt the chocolate in a big bowl.  Let it cool, then stir in the egg yolks, one by one.  This is the point at which to add any flavouring.  Whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then carefully fold the whites into the cooled chocolate mixture.  Pour the mousse into serving pots and chill until set.  I don't usually garnish my chocolate mousse at all; today I used some strawberries from my friend Avril's garden; a few raspberries or a blob of whipped cream with a light dusting of cocoa are equally nice, when the urge for a little lily-gilding comes upon one.

The chocolate mousse was tonight's pudding, following a supper of Chicken, Leeks and Bacon with a Crumble Topping.  Very good it was too, unlike the football result!

Cath xx

Stir-Up Saturday

 
I know it's not Stir-Up Sunday yet, but I did our Christmas pudding today. The collect Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord is, anyway, a spiritual entreaty rather than a culinary one, but I like the tradition, all the same.  With the weather as manky as it has been, however, it wasn't as though we were likely to leave the house, so I made my decision and got it ready first thing, then left it in the slow-cooker all day. The first time I made a Christmas pudding I had only an ordinary pan to cook it and filled the kitchen with sticky brown steam in the process, my poor Hubby was horrified! For a few years after that, the pressure cooker proved a much better option, but this year I decided to try using the slow-cooker.  I'm aware that my alcohol 'selection' may look bizarre, but it’s because one year when I made my pudding I didn’t have enough brandy, so I made up this mixture. Result? Best pudding ever, so I stuck with it. Use all brandy if you prefer, though – or all rum is good too.  Don't forget to have everyone in the house stir the pudding and make a wish!

Christmas Pudding

Butter, to grease the bowl
350g mixed dried fruit
100ml brandy
100ml amaretto
100ml dark rum
150g wholemeal breadcrumbs
150g shredded suet
50g self-raising flour
200g dark muscovado sugar
freshly grated nutmeg, to taste
1 large egg, beaten

Butter a 1.2 litre pudding basin and line the base with a cut-out circle of greaseproof paper. Mix all the ingredients together (and see my notes above) and pack tightly into the bowl. Cover with a sheet each of greaseproof and foil, laid together and pleated in the centre. Tie tightly with string and cook, either all day on HIGH in an electric slow-cooker, in a pressure cooker (with boiling water) for 3 hours, or steam in boiling water for 6 hours. Carefully remove from the pan and leave the bowl to cool overnight. Take off the top wrapping and replace with a double layer of clingfilm. Store until Christmas in a cool, dark place.

Cath xx

'Raisin' the Bar

When you have friends coming to stay (as we did this weekend), it's nice to feel you've given them a good time, isn't it?  Lots of food, lots of wine and LOTS of fun and laughter.  All this can be smoothed by getting as much of the slog work out of the way in advance of of your VIPs' arrival  A lovely pudding is always popular, even if you have the sort of friends (I don't) that claim not to eat puddings!  Rum-and-raisin ice cream is a great favourite of my beloved and so a cheesecake inspired by these flavours seemed like a grand idea to me.  Thankfully it worked; trying out a new idea without testing it out on my long-suffering family first could have been a disaster!  You do need to start this in plenty of time, you need an overnight soak for the raisins and then another overnight (or most of the day) chilling to set the topping on the base.  Spreads the workload, though...

Rum & Raisin Cheesecake

100g raisins

4 tbsp dark rum

Pour the rum over the raisins, cover the dish with clingfilm and leave to soak overnight.  The next day:

300g digestive biscuits, crushed
100g butter, melted

Combine the crumbs with the butter and mix thoroughly.  Pat into the base of an oiled 20cm springform (or loose-bottomed, at any rate) cake tin and chill to firm up, while you prepare the topping.

2 eggs, separated
50g light muscovado sugar
150g cream cheese
200g ricotta cheese
150ml pot double cream
 
Beat the egg yolks with 25g of the sugar, then beat in the cream cheese and the ricotta until smooth.  Tip in the raisins and the rum and stir to combine. Whip the cream and fold this in as well.  Whisk the egg whites until stiff, then tip in the remaining 25g of sugar (sieved) and whisk until stiff and glossy.  Fold the egg whites into the cheese mixture, then pour this over the prepared base in the tin.  Chill for several hours, or overnight, until set.  Run a knife around the edges before releasing from the tin to serve.  Divinely delish!

Cath xx

A Trifle Boozy

My in-laws came yesterday for a (flying) visit. They were only here for one night and, with one thing and another, we've hardly seen them all year; so I thought I'd better push the boat out, dinner-wise. We started with a platter of various antipasti - olives, prosciutto and salami, that kind of thing - then moved on to a tomato risotto (done in the oven for ease and less time spent kitchen-bound for moi). As a pudding I put together this rather glorious and decadent trifle; I can't help feeling that a trifle is pretty much the ultimate in pudding indulgence and this one comes pretty close to the apotheosis, believe me. I used frozen raspberries, defrosted overnight in the fridge. When you're crushing them, it doesn't seem to matter and anyway, they're cheaper (especially given that our raspberry canes produced the grand total of nine raspberries this year). We had some Kahlua left from a bottle my BFF Steph brought to my birthday party last week, so that kind of suggested itself, really.

Boozy Raspberry Trifle

250ml cold coffee
60ml Kahlúa
2 tbsp sugar
500g Madeira cake
350g raspberries (and see above), crushed
250g tub mascarpone
400g can custard
142ml carton double cream
grated chocolate

Mix the Kahlúa and the sugar into the coffee. Beat the mascarpone and fold in the custard. Spoon a layer of the custard mix into the bottom of a suitably decorative bowl (preferably glass so you can see the layers, but don't lose sleep over it). Cut the cake into slices or cubes, dip quickly in the coffee mixture, then tessellate it to form a layer of booze-sodden cake Follow this with a layer of crushed raspberries and half the remaining custard. Continue, using up the rest of the cake and berries, leaving you with about one-third of the original custard mix. Stiffly whip the double cream and fold it into the custard. Dollop and spread this over the top of the trifle, then cover with a layer of grated chocolate. Chill for a few hours to let it settle before serving, in big squelchy spoonfuls. It looks very glam when you first bring it to table but, I assure you, that doesn't last long...

Rhubarb, What Rhubarb?!

Our rhubarb plant seems to be staging a rebellion. Against what, or whom, I have no idea but the crop this year has been sad to say the least. After last year, with rhubarb jellies and fools all summer long, I don't know what's going on...

So this afternoon I set to the plant and harvested what meagre crop I could, enough to make this cake at least. The mixture itself is made like muffin batter, but I much prefer this in a single cut-and-come-again slab. I grind the hazelnuts myself at home, using the mini-blender - you can substitute bought ground almonds if you'd rather.

Rhubarb & Ginger Cake

340g plain flour
2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp ground ginger
100g ground hazelnuts (and see above)

Stir all these 'dry' ingredients together in a capacious bowl.

250g light muscovado sugar
1/4 pint sunflower oil
2 large eggs
1/4 pint milk

Combine all these 'wet' ingredients in a jug, then stir into the dry bowl.

300g rhubarb, diced very small
2 tbsp demerara sugar

Stir the rhubarb into the batter. Scrape into a greased rectangular tin - about 30x20cm I suppose - and sprinkle the surface of the cake with demerara sugar. Bake at 180­°c for 45-50 minutes until a skewer comes out clean. Cover the surface of the cake after 15-20 minutes to stop it from browning too much. Cool on a wire rack.

Friends of ours got married yesterday, on a truly

glorious June day. I have never been to a nicer wedding, nor to one that took such good care of the youngest guests. The children really enjoyed the arts-and-crafts table set up in one corner of the reception venue, and they loved the fact that they had party bags to bring home! Craig and Amelia - here's to you and your future together. You deserve all the happiness you can imagine.

Soup Night

A bowl of soup with bread and cheese to accompany it must be one of the most pleasing and convivial suppers there is. I make a lot of soup nowadays, though I've mentioned before my childhood aversion to the stuff (except for my mum's fab vegetable soups). I still have a horror of tinned soup, though I know a lot of people have a nostalgic hankering for a particular tomato soup... An essential part of what have become our 'soup nights' is the pudding. We always like to follow soup etc. with a proper pud, something hearty and rib-sticking. Preferably with custard.

Neither of the boys are particularly keen on mushrooms 'as is', but this soup always goes down well, having all the lovely flavour but none of the somewhat difficult texture. I like to boost the fairly pedestrian button mushrooms with a good heap of dried porcini and a good bit of thyme, which goes wonderfully with mushrooms.


Cream of Mushroom Soup

80g butter
1 small onion, finely chopped
fresh thyme leaves
250g button mushrooms, finely chopped
10g dried porcini
50g cornflour
1/2 pint milk

Soak the dried porcini in 1 1/2 pints of water from the kettle. Melt the butter in a large saucepan and fry the onion, thyme and button mushrooms until soft. Add the cornflour and cook for a couple of minutes, stirring all the time. Pour in the porcini and their soaking liquid, add the milk and bring to the boil, still stirring all the time. Turn down the heat and simmer for half an hour. Purée and reheat, adjusting the seasoning to taste.

I like a swirl of cream and a scattering of chopped fresh parsley, but -hey - your decision!

The pudding I chose to cook last night was one that has been adopted as a self-conciously 'retro' classic. I mean it, though, I love this and cook it often. Rather than doing it in a cake tin, though, try a pie tin. You get a lovely domed effect, not unlike a tarte tatin. Speaking of which, why is that 'fashionable' and this 'retro'? I know which I'd rather have.

Pineapple Upside-Down Pudding

To me this is emphatically a pudding, and not a cake.

pineapple rings, juice or syrup reserved
glacé cherries
4oz butter, plus 2 tbsp more
4oz light muscovado sugar, plus 2 tbsp more

2 eggs

4oz self-raising flour
pinch baking powder (about 1/4 tsp)

Press the 2 tbsp butter onto the bottom of a deep pie tin and scatter over the 2 tbsp sugar. Place pineapple rings in the base of the tin, filling each central void with a glacé cherry.

Cream the remaining butter and sugar together, add the beaten eggs, flour and baking powder. Add a little of the pineapple juice or syrup to make a smooth and soft cake batter, then dollop and spread this over the pineapple base. Bake at 180°c for 25 minutes. Loosen the edges of the cake with a palette knife, put an upturned plate on top of the tin then flip it all over to unmould the pudding in all its glory. Serve warm, with lashings of custard.

Sunday Girl

We woke up this morning to every child's (and my husband's) dream - a half-decent covering of snow on the ground. Christopher was barely able to contain his excitement during breakfast, then he was straight out into the garden to throw snowballs and (inexplicably) carry small buckets full of snow from one side of the garden to the other. James was intrigued by it all, though rather suspicious and apt to break down in tears if any snow got too close to him!

I really started cooking again today, having had the best part of two weeks off family meal-duty (what with all our various gallivanting around). A Sunday dinner was a good place to start, and really, what could we want more on a cold evening than a warming chicken stew with lemon-spiked dumplings and a chocolate pudding to follow?

I can't really bring myself to type out a 'recipe' for this stew; as you do with stews, I just threw it all together. I browned some free-range, corn-fed chicken legs, added leeks, carrots and potatoes, then cooked it slowly, for a couple of hours, with a splash of vermouth and some chicken stock. My recipe for dumplings is here, though today I added the zest of a lemon, used its juice to bind the dough and used fresh parsley instead of the dried herbs. Half an hour before we ate, I threw in some halved green beans and added the dumplings to the pan.

Now, this pudding I'm very proud of. Chocolate puddings can be a real problem, balancing richness with a need to stand up again and sweetness with wanting the children to get some sleep tonight. This pudding fulfils the brief well, as most of the really sweet and rich part comes from the accompanying Choco-Fudge Sauce. The ginger may seem unconventional and, it's true, the pudding doesn't taste much of ginger - but it does have an indefinable warmth that a pudding without the added spice lacks.

Choc-Choc Pudding with Choco-Fudge Sauce

I cook this in my pressure cooker but, if you don't have one, steam the pudding for an hour and a half.

100g butter
30g golden syrup
100g light muscovado sugar

Melt together in a pan, then remove from the heat and allow to cool to blood temperature.

150ml milk
1 egg
200g self-raising flour
25g cocoa powder
1 tsp ground ginger
pinch bicarbonate of soda

Mix the dry ingredients together, then beat the milk and egg into the cooled butter mixture. Add the flour etc., to the pan and stir throughly until everything is well combined. Pour the mixture into a well-greased 1.2 litre pudding basin, cover with foil and tie tightly. In a pressure cooker, steam for 10 minutes, then cook for 25 minutes. Otherwise, steam over hot water for an hour and a half.

As I've mentioned above, the crowning glory of this pudding is my Choco-Fudge Sauce. I make this, rather lazily, by melting three Mars bars with 150ml double cream. It's extremely good for dressing up this rather plain chocolate pudding (and others), for pouring over ice-cream or for dipping fruit and marshmallows into as a 'chocolate fondue'. Not that children, in my experience, need much encouragement to eat fruit, but sometimes it's fun to get in a mess just for the sake of it. Anyway, you know by now that I'm a hands-on sort of girl, don't you?

A Little Kitchen Pottering

This morning I decided to make a chocolate blancmange for us to eat after dinner. Blancmange is a great 'storecupboard' pudding; as long as you have a pint of milk, you're sorted and, as anyone with small children usually has either too much or too little milk in the house at any one time it comes in handy as a way to use up the surplus. This was, as you may have guessed, the reason for my making one today. Too much milk, not enough fridge space!

Chocolate Blancmange

25g cocoa powder
40g cornflour
40g sugar
1 pint milk (yes - bad girl - I know I shouldn't mix metric and imperial but this is easier)

Mix the cocoa, cornflour and sugar together in a large bowl, then add enough of the cold milk to mix it to a smooth paste. Heat the rest of the milk to boiling point, then pour the hot milk over the chocolate mixture. Stir thoroughly, then return the mixture to the saucepan immediately. Sir continously as the mixture comes back to the boil, then let it boil for one minute (still stirring so that it doesn't stick). Pour it into a wetted mould and leave it to cool before chilling until completely set. Turn it out onto a plate and decorate it as gaudily as you like. I always like to see a glacé cherry, don't you?.

In a cooking sort of mood after the blancmange, I suggested to Christopher that we make some houmous for lunch. Dips are one of my (and the boys') absolute favourite things to eat and houmous is the dip I make most often, being whipped up quickly in the processor.

Houmous

I usually use canned chickpeas for this – organic for preference – and rinse them well to get rid of the foul-tasting liquid they come packed in.

420g can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
3 tbsp olive oil
1 clove of garlic, crushed, grated or very finely chopped
1 tbsp tahini paste, if you’ve got it
2 tsp ground cumin
juice of half a lemon

Place all the ingredients in the processor and whizz to a paste (I prefer a more interesting ‘grainy’ consistency to industrial smoothness). Taste to see if you need more lemon juice or cumin and add a pinch of salt if you like. Add a little water to thin the houmous to the consistency you like, then scrape itinto a bowl and serve with warm bread and crunchy vegetables, whatever takes your fancy. This makes enough for 2 or 3 people for lunch, but it keeps, covered in the fridge, for a day or so and makes an extremely good sandwich; on brown bread with spinach and grated carrot.

The fabulous plate in the picture is a new favourite - I bought it last week when I was away, on a rare trip to IKEA - credit where it's due!

This afternoon I took the boys to the cinema (a first for both of them!) to see a matinée showing of "Dr Seuss' Horton Hears A Who!". I was pleasantly surprised by how well they both behaved; Christopher pretty much perfectly, and James sat through most of it before wanting to go off exploring and find girls to flirt with. Only one, and already he's a charmer...there may be trouble ahead. The only slight downside of this lovely afternoon treat was that they were, weirdly, too tired to eat much dinner when we got home. I don't know why sitting in a dark room for two hours watching glorified TV should be so tiring, but apparently it is. Ho hum, what do I know..?

Rainbow Bright

Well, who's been a lucky girl today? A lovely card, handmade by Christopher (with just a little help from his teacher, I suspect), a pretty plate, covered in candy-coloured flowers and a beautiful, bright Zsiska bracelet that I've been coveting for weeks.

On top of all that, tonight we had a really good Sunday roast. Rib of beef with horseradish cream, Yorkshire puddings and lots of veg (including a dish of purple sprouting broccoli; steamed and then tossed, rather fabulously, in garlic butter). Then we had apple and blackberry crumble with custard. Though madame did find the 'waffer'-thin mint tempting, I feel I must go and lie down somewhere now...

Mulling It Over

It's been a really busy weekend for us; my parents came to visit and, as we won't see them over Christmas, I wanted to give their stay a bit of festive spirit. We went to Aberystwyth on Saturday afternoon and visited the Christmas market; Mum and I both bought some mutton for the freezer and I also brought home some big slices of Welsh Black braising steak. We nipped into Ultracomida to get some cheese before driving home. I was able to pick up my annual cheese treat, a Vacherin Mont d'Or.

Mulled wine is a Christmas favourite, so a good home recipe is helpful if you want to avoid buying the supermarket alternatives of ready-mulled bottles, or teabag things purporting to be an 'easy option'. If you want to take a shortcut (always useful at this time of year), I would suggest the cloth-tied mulling bundles available from Julian Graves. What I would do without JG at this time of year I really don't know, a big sortie for snack foods and spices is de rigeur. This year we are mostly eating their gorgeous (and very moreish) Garlic and Herb Grissini.

Mulled Wine

This makes a lot, but you can use half of it for the chicken recipe below (which freezes very well). Nor do you have to drink all of it in one evening (ahem). If you strain it into a jug it will keep in the fridge for a couple of days to be reheated. You can even microwave it by the mugful if you like... Please don't try to use cheap nasty wine for this, you need something halfway decent or it will just be foul.

2x 75cl bottles red wine
500ml water
1 lemon, sliced
1 orange, sliced
inch of root ginger, sliced (no need to peel)
2 cinnamon sticks
pinch of whole cloves
pinch of whole black peppercorns
1/2 nutmeg
50ml brandy
50g caster sugar, or to taste

Bung everything into a big pan. Bring to boilking point, then turn the heat down and keep the wine just below simmering point for about 20 minutes. Either dole it out straight from the pan, or decant into a punch bowl if you have one (we were lucky enough to be given one as a wedding present). Either way, serve in heatproof glasses or nice chunky mugs. Mulled wine and good cheese is a great combination on a cold winter's night.

This chicken casserole, which we had for dinner on Saturday night, is something that I first made a few years ago when Hubby's parents came to visit just before that Christmas. Most of the work can be done a day or two in advance, then finishing it off takes only about ten minutes of hands-on work and half an hour in the oven, making it ideal if you want to spend time with your guests rather than your stove.

Mulled Wine Chicken

half-quantity of mulled wine recipe above
5 rashers streaky bacon, chopped
6 small onions, quartered
400ml hot chicken stock
6 chicken legs

Boil the mulled wine, reducing the quantity by half, to concentrate the flavour. Heat a knob of butter and a drizzle of oil in a large casserole and fry the bacon and onions until just browning. Add the hot stock and the (strained) wine, bring to the boil, then lay the chicken legs in the liquid. Cover the pan and transfer to a 200°c oven for an hour.

*At this point you can quickly cool and then chill the chicken for two days, or freeze it for up to a month. Defrost thoroughly, bring to the boil and then proceed as below.*

250g chestnut mushrooms, quartered.

Stir in the mushrooms and return to the oven for 30-40 minutes. Serve with steamed potatoes or rice and some green vegetables. We had broccoli and sprouts from this week's veg box.

Pudding was another Christmas favourite of ours; Mincemeat Meringue Tart. This is my bastardisation of Michael Barry's 'Mince Pie Royale' from his lovely Radio Times Cookery Year. I make an almond pastry for the base, top it with my homemade mincemeat and then pile on meringue made according to the original recipe in the book. Dust it with icing sugar and serve with dollops of thick cream.

And it's only October!

Some things you just have to make in advance. The essential Christmas ‘big three’ are among them and I like to get these done and dusted as soon as possible. Today I tackled the mincemeat - just the cake and the Christmas pudding left to do.  I'm taking the boys to visit their Godmother at the weekend. It's James' first birthday on Friday, so I sense a big baking bonanza coming on!

Mincemeat

Seriously easy, and the homemade stuff is usually miles better than anything you can buy. This recipe makes three 450g jars to keep for Christmas and three little 200g jars which are useful for presents. I sterilise the jars, and their lids, in diluted sterilising liquid (from the chemists) for 30 minutes, then rinse everything with freshly-boiled water and dry them with a clean linen ‘glass cloth’.


3 large Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and finely diced
650g mixed dried fruit and peel
175g shredded suet
175g light muscovado sugar
¼ tsp each of ground cinnamon, ground mixed spice and ground ginger
about ¼ tsp-worth of freshly grated nutmeg
zest and juice of 1 orange
100ml brandy

Put all the ingredients into a really big bowl, then mix everything together really well. Pour over the orange juice and the brandy and mix again. Spoon the mincemeat into cooled sterilised jars and store in a cool dark place until Christmas.


For dinner tonight I made Julia's fab butternut squash, potato and cheesy pork chop thing from A Slice of Cherry Pie. I used Y Fenni cheese this time, which was a great variation.

Feeding Friends

It's been over a week since my last post, but things just don't stop for us (for which read me) at the moment. The boys and I had a fabulous week staying with my folks and were thoroughly spoiled - just what you need from your Mum and Dad, or Granny and Grandpa.

I even managed to fit in a couple of solo days out while my Mum looked after the children, which was bliss. I love them to bits, but sometimes it's nice to walk at your own pace and just poke around in shops for a bit of retail therapy. Souring the treat was my fruitless search for some attractive daytime shoes in a size 9, even after visiting a major shopping centre and (I think) every shoe shop in Bath! I bumped into more than one person on an identical mission while I was out, and nearly all the shop assistants admitted that mine is now a common problem - so WHY aren't the suppliers meeting the demand? Yes I'm tall, but I still want to be able to buy glamorous shoes with a decent heel, not ugly pumps and things that look like orthopaedic school shoes. Sorry, rant over.

When we got home on Friday night, it was a quick turnaround before some friends arrived to stay on Saturday. The boys stayed up a bit late for dinner and I cooked chili con carne with all the trimmings, followed by a Baked Alaska.

My Big Fat Chilli con Carne

1 onion, sliced
1 tbsp mild chilli powder
1 tsp each of ground cumin and dried oregano
1 beef stock cube
500g beef mince
400g can chopped tomatoes
400g can red kidney beans, drained
200g can sweetcorn, drained (or equivalent amount of frozen sweetcorn)
1 red pepper, deseeded and chopped

Heat some garlic-infused olive oil in a large ovenproof pan with a lid and fry the onion with the spices and herbs until soft. Add the mince and brown it really well, then tip in the tomatoes, the crumbled stock cube and half a can of water. Bring to the boil then put the lid on the pan and transfer it to a 150°c oven for 30 minutes. Stir in the drained kidney beans, the corn and the red pepper, then return the covered pan to the oven for another half an hour or so.

For a family meal I usually serve this with baked potatoes or rice, some salad and a bowl of grated cheddar cheese but, for something a little bit special I like to have all the trimmings; rice, tortilla chips, guacamole, soured cream and grated cheese. Even after all that we had room for a bit of pudding , so another retro favourite was delivered with a flourish...I used a bought sponge flan case for the base, topped with some caramel dulce de leche, but you can equally use some good jam or fresh fruit, puréed or not and even - gasp - make your own cake base if you like.

Baked Alaska

small bought sponge flan case
Dulche de Leche, jam, fruit or similar to cover the sponge base
ice cream, preferably not 'soft scoop'

For the meringue:

3 egg whites
150g caster sugar

Put the sponge on an ovenproof plate and top it with the caramel or whatever. Preheat the oven to 210°c. Whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks, then whisk in the sugar to make a thick and glossy meringue. You can have this done before dinner and just finish things off at the last minute. When you're ready for pudding, pile the ice cream onto the prepared base, then thickly, and completely, cover it with the meringue. nPop it in the hot oven for about 5 minutes until the meringue is crisp and golden on the outside. Serve immediately, it doesn't keep well as you can imagine!

After the children were in bed, we shared drinks and some cheese while we played Scrabble, before moving on to Pass the Pigs and 'Simpsons' Monopoly.

For lunch today I whipped up a batch of my Split Pea Soup with Prosciutto, which went down very well.

Busy, Busy, Busy!

We've had an incredibly busy week with one thing and another, and it shows no sign of letting up over the weekend or beyond. I'm taking the boys to see my parents next Friday, so I'm definitely hoping for a bit of a rest! It's times like these when I'm really glad to have a pretty extensive back catalogue of basic, no-fuss meals, because sometimes, as Nigella Lawson once wrote you really do "have to hit the kitchen running".

On Wednesday night, a friend who I hadn't seen since before I was married (over six years ago - eek!) came to supper. We only recently found out that we both live in the area (!). Hubby was at work, so we had dinner with Christopher and James; I cooked a big dish of my Vaguely Middle-Eastern Couscous, accompanied by pitta bread, yoghurt and a minted tomato and cucumber salad I followed this with a plate of Fabulous Chocolate Brownies. After the boys were safely tucked up, we settled down to a great evening of gossiping and poring over photographs. It's been so long since I had a girly night in with a friend!

I needed more brownies for Thursday, when thay were my contribution to a serious play-fest with the children at another friend's house, followed by lots of errand-running all over town on my part. For dinner I cobbled together a Potato and Bacon Layer, always popular and very straightforward, thank goodness.

Now that Christopher has reached the milestone of a - drum roll please - china plate at dinnertime, rather than his plastic ones, I wanted to cook him a favourite meal to celebrate, and to relax after the hectic last few days. He's always loved sausages (as, I think, do all children) and these Sweetcorn Pancakes go very nicely alongside some oven-cooked bangers. Liberally lubricated with ketchup (for Christopher), with fruit to follow, they made for a balanced meal that the boys could both eat without any assistance. After I get them off to bed tonight, I'm going to collapse with my knitting and enjoy some time off my feet before it all starts again tomorrow. Still, can't complain - I'd much rather be busy than bored, wouldn't you?

Bite this Chump!

Lamb for dinner tonight - some big, fat chump chops from the butcher in the next village. I much prefer chump chops to the ubiquitous cutlet chops - more meat, more crisp fat and, ultimately, more flavour. I roasted them, on a rack, over some big sprigs of rosemary and squashed cloves of garlic for 20 minutes at 200°c, then served them up with mashed potatoes, broccoli, cabbage and a rosemary and redcurrant sauce. This easy sauce dresses up a meal like tonight's no end, and makes the most of well-flavoured, good-quality lamb without overpowering it.

Rosemary & Redcurrant Sauce

100g redcurrant jelly
200ml lamb stock
large sprig fresh rosemary

Melt the redcurrant jelly in a small pan and pour in the lamb stock. Add the sprig of rosemary, bring to the boil and simmer gently for 10 minutes. Cover the pan if the sauce reduces too much; it should be slightly syrupy, but still liquid. Leave the sauce to cool, then strain out the rosemary and reheat gently. Season to taste and transfer to a sauce boat.

To follow a simple Sunday dinner, what could be better than cake? Chocolate cake at that. I did the chocolate version of my usual Victoria sponge and filled it with a vanilla-laced buttercream. Don't worry, we didn't eat the whole thing - there's plenty left for tomorrow!

Chocolate Sponge

200g soft butter
200g vanilla sugar
4 large eggs
160g self-raising flour
40g cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder

Cream the butter and sugar together. Add the beaten eggs, one at a time, interspresing them with spoonfuls of flour. Sift in the rest of the flour, the cocoa and baking powder, then beat well until you have smooth batter. Divide the mixture equally between two greased and base-lined 20cm sandwich tins, smooth the surface and bake at 180°c for 20 minutes. Remove from the tins and cool on a rack before removing the base paper.

Vanilla Buttercream

75g soft butter
100g icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
milk

Beat everything together, adding a splash of milk as needed to get a soft, 'dropping' consistency. Select the cake layer for the base and place it, upturned, on a serving plate. Spread over the buttercream over the surface of the upturned cake, top with the remaining cake layer and dust with icing sugar to serve.

(Not Very) Fancy Feast

I love getting parcels in the post, don't you? Even when I know it's coming because I ordered it, it's still exciting. Today my new Le Creuset bean pots arrived from Pots and Pans, so I had to make some soup to serve in them at dinnertime. We quite often make an evening meal of soup with bread and cheese, but these pots will make a basic supper seem sooo much more glam, I hope. This is the soup I decided to make, which you could just as easily have for lunch or dress it up with a swirl of cream for an elegant first course.

Carrot & Coriander Soup

olive oil
1 large onion, diced
2 tsp ground coriander
6-8 carrots, peeled and sliced
600ml vegetable stock
milk
fresh parsley

Heat a little oil in a large pan and fry the onion gently until soft. Stir in the ground coriander, then add the carrots and pur in the stock. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for half an hour or so until the carrots are really soft. Purée the soup, then reheat gently, adding milk to bring it to the consistency you want. Stir in some chopped parsley just before serving.

To go with the soup, I made some soda bread, which we had with some local Gorwydd  Caerphilly cheese. Soda bread is particularly useful if you want a homemade loaf but are short of time as it's relatively quick to make and bake. It's very good with soup; with a toothsome crust and a good dense crumb, it's brilliant for dipping.

Soda Bread

125g wholemeal bread flour
125g white bread flour
2 tbsp porridge oats
1 tsp salt
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
200ml milk, mixed with 1 tsp lemon juice

Mix the flours, oats, salt and bicarb. together, then slowly stir in the milk to make a sticky dough. It is very sticky, but try to resist the tempotation to add more flour. Just form it into some semblance of a ball, slap it down onto a lightly oiled baking sheet and cook at 220°c for 10 minutes, then turn the oven down to 180°c and cook for 20 minutes more. Leave the loaf to stand on a rack for 15 minutes, then serve warm.

Because soup, bread and cheese is quite light for the main meal of the day, I like to make it into a real feast by following the main course with a hearty pudding, something like a crumble or steamed sponge. Today I got out the pressure cooker and made a Spotted Dick, studded with juicy sultanas. If you don't have a pressure cooker, steam the pudding for 2 hours in a pan filled with boiling water to halfway up the side of the basin.

Spotted Dick
225g self-raising flour
1/2 tsp salt
125g suet
2 tbsp golden caster sugar
175g sultanas
2 large eggs
about 100ml milk
Grease a 750ml pudding basin. Mix the flour, salt, sugar and suet together, then stir in the sultanas. Beat the eggs and milk together, then add to the flour mixture. Combine all the ingredients thoroughly, adding a little more milk if you need it, to give a soft 'dropping' consistency. Cover the basin with a greased, pleated piece of foil, tie with string, then place in a pressure cooker with 750ml boiling water. Steam for 15 minutes, then cook at pressure for 30 minutes. Turn the pudding out onto a plate and serve, with custard of course.