Babbaccino

Much as I drink tea by the bucketload (and I drink what has become known, chez moi as 'naked' tea; black, with no milk or sugar), I do, rather love my coffee as well; more specifically, my latte.  My lovely husband bought me a coffee machine with a steam nozzle a while back and now I am never far away from one if I so fancy (which is often).  The children are fascinated by the way that the steam nozzle works and the resultant clouds of cloud-like milk foam (and, yes, they have been warned about steam being dangerous, burns being horrid, not to touch the machine, yada yada yada...).  After discovering the bambinoccino on the 'piccolo menu' at Pizza Express, they were unable to believe their luck when I pointed out that I was able to make these at home too.  These are always popular, at any time, but seem to go down best with them at weekends, making them feel 'grown-up', watching a favourite film while the rain rattles against the windows.

I serve what we call 'babbaccinos' in their very own little cups;  Maxwell & Williams demi cups, from the Cafe Culture range.  I bought these in my lovely local coffee shop, Y Mecca / The Mecca, which is well worth a visit should you ever happen to be in the Aberystwyth area!.  The sprinkle of cocoa mixed with cinnamon is de rigeur, and non-negotiable, as far as my boys are concerned.  As you can probably imagine, they feel much the same way about the biscuit perched on the saucer alongide their 'babba'.

Cath xx

Friday Night Fakeaway: Homemade Cheeseburgers

I've written before that I can't go very long without getting major cheeseburger cravings.   Having instituted the concept of the 'Friday Night Fakeaway' at home recently; feeding our cravings for curries, burgers, pizza, fried chicken and the like, without flaking out too much on our 'homemade is best' principles or busting out on our food budget.  It's proved so popular that, quite often, the menu for the following week's 'Fakeaway' is discussed and decided while, or occasionally even before, we eat this week's! I used to make beef burgers exactly as below, but using salt and pepper for seasoning, until I read Nigella Lawson's Feast and was wholly won over to the Zuni Café method she writes about in that book.

Beef Burgers

700g lean 'steak' mince
3/4 tsp caster sugar
3/4 tsp salt



Split rolls, sliced cheese and Special Burger Sauce (and see below), to serve



Put the meat in a large bowl, sprinkle it with the salt and sugar, squidging it all together with your hands. Form the meat into six burger patties.  Place them on a tray lined with greaseproof paper. Cover with clingfilm and chill them in the 'fridge until just before you need them, but do give them a chance to return to room temperature before cooking them. Brush them lightly with oil (I, almost exclusively, use British rapeseed oil in cooking now, but I just use the ordinary stuff here and save the cold-pressed for 'best') before cooking them under a medium-hot grill.  You could also fry them in a dry non-stick pan, barbecue them (though maybe not in this dismal weather) or even bake them in the oven. Keep an eye on them, though - you want them only just cooked through, still juicy and possibly, even, still slightly pink in the middles.


We like to eat our burgers in split rolls (cut-sides lightly toasted, please) with slices of Monterey Jack cheese and dollops of Special Burger Sauce, the recipe for which is taken from The Takeaway Secret by Kenny McGovern; a lovely book and an absolute must for any 'Fakeaway' aficionado.  The brand recommendations given in this recipe are Mr McGovern's; I have to say, I agree with him.


Special Burger Sauce
(American Fast-Food Style)


4 tbsp mayonnaise (recommended brand: Hellman's)
2 tsp yellow mustard (recommended brand: French's)
2 tsp tomato ketchup (recommended brand: Heinz)
1 tbsp finely chopped gherkin


In a small bowl, combine the mayonnaise, yellow mustard and ketchup.  Add the chopped gherkin and mix well.  Refrigerate for at least 1 hour before use.


I also cook some Real Oven Chips to go with burgers; while I have never been especially enamoured of chips, the same cannot be said of the rest of the household who LOVE them.  I would possibly be ousted from the pedestal I happily occupy if I ceased my provision of bowls of chips!

Happy Friday, everyone! Cath xx

Fast and Furious Dinner Rolls

I love freshly baked bread with supper, it somehow seems to make a fairly basic meal of soup or pasta feel like so much more of a 'dinner event'.  Rolls are always a great option for me, easily portion-controlled and saveable for the next day (if 'saveable' is indeed a real word, which I somehow doubt).  For the longest time, I've been making the Quick Mixer Rolls that I've written about before but in recent months I've moved on to these babies; a slightly smaller batch of dough and easily adapted to suit different meals perfectly.  Sometimes we have these as very basic round rolls, but these 'knots' are extremely easy and very popular.  I have had some, limited, success cutting the dough thinly and plaiting the strands, but it was way too much like actual effort for my liking.  The knots are ridiculously simple and give the false impression of hours spent tending dough.  It's our little secret, dear reader...

.I generally just brush the unbaked rolls with melted butter before they go in the oven (as below), but there are numerous ways to tart them up to better match your meal.  One of our favourites is cheese, herb and garlic rolls to go with tomato-based pasta dishes.  Simply sprinkle the butter-brushed rolls with a mixture of garlic salt, mixed dried herbs and freshly grated Parmesan cheese.  You can also scatter over either, or a mixture of, poppy seeds and sesame seeds, or make a naughty 'weekend breakfast' version by mixing a tsp of cinnamon with 2 tsp of sugar and sprinkling this over.  Gorgeous with freshly brewed hot coffee!

Fast & Furious Dinner Rolls

I must confess that the thing that makes these fastest is that I do the kneading in the KitchenAid.  They work well in the processor too, or even by hand, they just won't be quite as immediate.  More like 'national  speed limit rolls' rather than '100mph instant ban rolls', I suppose!

300g strong white bread flour
100g granary flour (or use all white)
1 tbsp easy-blend dried yeast
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
300-350ml warm water
melted butter, for brushing

Mix the dry ingredients together and then add as much water as you need to form a softish dough.  Knead for 3 minutes in a mixer or by hand until smooth, silky and springy.  Set aside in a covered bowl for 10 minutes.  Cut into eight, roll each piece into a thin sausage shape and tie loosely in a knot.  Place on floured baking sheets and cover.  Leave to rise for 30 minutes, brush with melted butter (adding any flavourings you like, and see above) and bake at 180°c for 15-20 minutes until the bottom of the rolls sound hollow when tapped and the crust is nicely burnished brown.

Cath xx

Risotto alla Carbonara

Yes, it's been a while. I won't go into boring details, nor will I make excuses for my time away, just know that I'm back, hopefully for good!


This is a lovely recipe that can be easily thrown together from ingredients that can be kept in the 'fridge or the cupboard for a good while.  I am wholly won over to the oven-method for risotti; I love the therapeutic stirring of a trad risotto but more and more often, especially on a week-night, there are more pressing tasks to attend to than standing over a steamy pot for half an hour. My mascara is grateful, let me tell you!. 


'Oven risotto' is very straightforward, and ideal if you have guests too, as the bulk of the work can be gotten out of the way, a dish bunged in the oven and a good time had by everyone (rather than by everyone else, while the cook stirs, cursing, in the kitchen). This risotto alla carbonara feels rather indulgent with its creamy texture and is almost a one-pot meal, though of course you do need hot stock, so if you're using homemade you'll need to heat that in a pan too, soz.  I've moved away over recently from my previously much-admired Touch of Taste bouillon liquid to another Knorr product, the oh-so-convenient Stock Pots; these are now my storecupboard emergency stock replacement of choice. 


The Black Forest Ham is not, I know, at all authentically Italian, but it eliminates the need to fry pancetta (thus saving on washing up) and gives a wonderfully rounded, smoky flavour  Anyway, I tried it once because we had a pack in the 'fridge that needed using up and the rest is, as they don't say but should, merely a matter of geography.  As for the cheese rinds, I find that they are a wonderful addition to this kind of risotto.  They impart a delicious, deep flavour to the risotto and are very popular with my children, who both love the savoury chewiness of the cooked-down rinds.  To this end, whenever I finish a chunk of Parm., I scrub the rind well under hot water, then transfer it to a bag in the top of the freezer set aside for cheese rinds.  Just fish out one or two and add them to risotti when you add the stock.  They can also be useful in certain soups, but do remember to remove the rind(s) before using the stick-blender.  I write from scalded experience...

Risotto alla Carbonara


30g unsalted butter
1 onion, finely chopped 
1 stick celery, finely chopped 
1 or 2 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely chopped (optional)
300g risotto rice
100ml dry vermouth (or white wine)
200g pack Black Forest Ham, chopped
2 Parmesan cheese rinds, if available (and see above)
1 litre hot stock.
3 eggs, beaten with 100ml double cream and 50g freshly grated Parmesan, 


Melt the butter in a large ovenproof casserole and soften the onion and celery.  I sometimes add a little chopped garlic at this point, sometimes not.  As with so much, food is all about how you feel!  When the onion and celery are very soft, tip in the rice and stir to coat in the buttery pan juices.  Pour in the vermouth, stir in the chopped ham and pour in the hot stock.  Stick the pot in the oven and cook, uncovered, for 30 minutes at 180°.  Remove the pan from the oven and vigorously stir in the egg mixture. Cover the pan with a lid and leave for five minutres while you  pour a(nother?) drink and finish setting the table or whatever.  With risotto, I like a salad and a glass of wine, both crisp, nothing more.

Cath xx

Oh Snapz!

Children always seem to want to snack, don't they?  I suppose it's because they are such busy little bees, but my boys always seem to be re-fuelling.  So I am always interested to find out about new snacking options for them; ones that are good for them, or at least not bad for them, and which have a touch more kid-appeal than the usual 'healthy' options seem to.  I received a parcel from Healthy Supplies this morning, containing a selection of the interesting and nutritious goodies stocked on their website.  First on our taste-testing schedule were some Snapz fruit and vegetable crisps... 

Baked, rather than fried, they are still crisp and really rather delicious.  We first tried the beetroot crisps and the carrot & paprika crisps.  It's fairly obvious which is which, huh?  The children were torn as to which they preferred but ultimately Chris liked the beetroot crisps best (as did I); sweet and crunchy as they were, while James preferred the carrot & paprika version.  I found these tasted very strongly of carrot, which would be a big plus for most people (and especially my carrot-addicted children), but I've never been a huge fan of cooked carrots , vastly preferring them raw, so I couldn't eat more than a few.  However, the two types were hugely complimentary when mixed together which was an interesting option, and the paprika added a pleasant piquancy to the earthy-tasting carrots.  We often eat root vegetable crisps as a pre-dinner nibble, but these weren't salty or greasy like some we've tried and tasted so clearly of the vegetables rather than the seasonings alone, that it was a completely new experience

Next,  I suppose, we moved on to 'pudding', and tried some of the apple fruit crisps.  One the left in the picture are the regular Crunchy Apple variety, the Apple & Cinnamon crisps on the right are strongly flavoured with cinnamon.  Rather too much cinnamon for my taste, but the children adored them and were pretty close to licking the dusty scraps out of the bowl after they'd polished the actual apple-slice-crisps off.  The cinnamon-flavoured apple crisps were noticeably thicker, and chewier, than the au naturel version, which were delicious and, somehow tasted even more of apples than do actual untouched apples.  Go figure!  The children rated the selection as follows.

Chris

• #1 Beetroot
• #2 Apple & Cinnamon
• #3 Carrot & Paprika
• #4 Apple

James

• #1 Carrot & Paprika
• #2 Apple & Cinnamon
• #3 Apple
• #4 Beetroot

As for me?  I preferred the beetroot and the carrot & paprika crisps when they were mixed together as a savoury option.  I wouldn't choose to eat the apple & cinnamon crisps again, but I might nibble on the odd pack of the plain apple crisps in the future.  I can see these finding a home in lunchboxes for school trips and the like in the future.

Cath xx

         

Saturday Salads

How to get children to enjoy salads? To get them, regularly, actually asking clamouring for them to be served for lunch? The answer, I find, is relatively simple... crunchy bits!

The first lunchtime salad I regularly serve is this simple hard cheese salad.  Known as 'lunchbox salad' by me, this is the little salad that my Mum used to pop in for me if ever I needed a packed lunch for school. Shredded Little Gem lettuce (rather than the original Iceberg), diced celery and grated carrot are combined with a bit of grated cheese (strong cheddar for Chris, 'Special Reserve' Red Leicester for JD, who is clearly becoming a food snob!) and a scattering of salted peanuts.  Obviously, times have moved on and heads would surely spin, were I to attempt to send this peanut-studded salad into school with my kids so we eat it with nuts at home, with croûtons for school trips and the like.

Croûtons are another easy way to add crunch to a salad, but don't forget some of the things that you can easily buy and stash in the cupboard for quick salad-bar assemblies.  Bacos, or similar bacon crumbles are great with this easy blue cheese salad dressing, again served simply over some shredded leaves (usually Gem or Romaine).  You can also get some rather addicting little fried onion shreds which are divine in a salad of this sort.  They're called 'Onion Crispies', but 'crispy' is such an idiotic word that we'll quickly gloss over that fact...



Blue Cheese Dressing


25g blue cheese, crumbled (I usually use Danish Blue, but anything goes!)
1 tsp cider vinegar
2 tbsp crème fraîche


Gently heat the crème fraîche and the vinegar with the crumbled cheese, stirring until the cheese has melted.  Taste it and add a dash of pepper if you like.  You probably won't want any salt, but you may want a dot more vinegar or crème fraîche.  This is also rather lovely as a dip, especially with leftover chicken strip from fajitas (naughty, naughty!).

Cath xx

Making the Mustard

Just before Christmas I made a massive batch of wholegrain mustard to form part of my Christmas gifts for family and friends.  Today I needed to make another batch, as the last jar that we have in stock now has only a mere scrape left in the bottom.  Making your own mustard really is so easy and extremely rewarding. I give you, below, the basic blueprint for my mustards - I have made wine mustards, beer mustards, cider mustards and now a sherry mustard using this basic recipe; all have been successful and delicious.  Try to look out for a wholefood shop or market stall that will sell the mustard seeds 'loose', those little supermarket jars can work out very expensive indeed!

Homemade Wholegrain Mustard

Use a vinegar that corresponds to the other liquid you want to use; i.e. sherry vinegar and sherry for a sherry mustard.  If you want to make a beer mustard, use a cider vinegar and switch the quantities (i.e. 200ml good beer and 100ml vinegar).  I suggest using a malt extract instead of the sugar or honey in this case.

100g brown mustard seeds
100g yellow mustard seeds
200ml vinegar (and see above)
1 tbsp English mustard powder
100ml beer/cider/wine/sherry
1 tbsp soft brown sugar or honey
1 dsp (2 tsp) salt

Either whizz the mustard seeds in a processor/blender, or bash them up in a pestle and mortar.  You don't need to reduce the seeds to a powder, just crack them a bit.  Put the seeds into a bowl, stir in the mustard powder, sugar and salt and pour over the liquid ingredients. Leave to soak for a couple of hours or until the mixture has thickened slightly.  Pot in small sterilised jars and keep in the cupboard for a couple of weeks to let the flavours fully develop.  See how easy?

Cath xx