A love of puddings versus healthy eating.

I am often asked, "Why are you not the size of a house when you make so many puddings, cakes and sweet things?"  This blog post aims to answer this question. I weigh a tiny bit more than  the average UK woman but am two dress sizes smaller for reasons which for now are a mystery to me. My weight is quite stable and doesn't fluctuate much, the only times I have lost lots of weight have been just after having a baby or when I have been very unhappy, and I don't plan on being in either of those situations again if I can help it.

So, what's my strategy for not putting on weight?  First and foremost, it's all about portion control.  I never deny myself anything. I always have butter rather than margarine.  However I have learned (and it HAS taken a few years!) not to overdo it.  My Mum always said "All things in moderation" when we were growing up and it was sage advice.  Here is an example.  As some readers may know, I LOVE peanut butter kitkat chunky bars.  When they were discontinued I was so heartbroken I emailed the manufacturers to ask why, and was told demand was too low to justify relatively high manufacturing costs. When they relaunched them recently with a competition to find the 'chunky champion' I voted my little heart out and was over the moon when peanut butter got 47% of the vote and was chosen to be permanently relaunched.  You get the picture.  Anyway I have HALF a bar every weekday when I am at work.  I find a whole one is just a bit too much.  People are amazed I can eat half a bar of chocolate and save the other half for another day.  But I can.  We try to only have chips once a week, and crisps at the weekend.  We only have puddings on Sundays and for special occasions.  When you keep treats really as a treat, they become more of one.

Also, I do really love vegetables, especially greens, I feel a bit wierd if I go a day without eating something green.  Another great quote I remember hearing once was "Green food = good.  Beige food = bad."  And although I love sweet things I would always rather have an extra helping of veg than an extra helping of pudding.  Sometimes I can have my five a day in one meal.  My husband maintains that its all the vegetables I feed him that are keeping him healthy despite smoking and drinking lots of red wine. It all balances out.

While on the subject of wine, I've found that as the years go by I am getting to be more and more of a lightweight when it comes to alcoholic beverages, and although I love the taste I am not able to drink as much without feeling the after effects.  These days I would rather have a lesser amount of something a bit special than lots of a bog standard 'three-for-a-tenner' bottle.  If I do find my clothes getting tight, just cutting out the wine for a while and the associated crisps and snacks which seem to accompany it seems to do the trick and help me lose a few pounds. I use wine and liqueurs in cooking quite a bit, but you get the taste without too many calories and often the alcohol is cooked off.

And there is chocolate.  My children and I always have chocolate first thing in the morning at weekends, it has become something of a tradition in our house.  However we don't have massive bars of dairy milk, just a little chocolate stick from Lidl - they have a sort of creamy filling, come in packets of eleven and are just enough to feel like a treat but only about the size of one kitkat finger.  Chocolate, like wine, is something where I prefer quality rather than quantity.  I'm a member of the Chocolate Tasting Club and can make one box of quality chocolates last four weeks, even including sharing them with my family.  They are so deluxe you only want two at the most in one go, and they are far more satisfying with less calories than a big bar of mainstream chocolate.

Breakfast is really important to keep me going and I always have it, usually granola or weetabix but I also love an egg on toast.  Sometimes I scramble eggs but mostly I cook one or two in a small non stick milk pan with a tiny bit of oil, on a medium heat with a saucer on top, sort of fried but healthier.  If I've been making macaroons, a leftover egg yolk (or two!) can be added to make it extra proteinaceous!

True, I enjoy making puddings and sweet treats, but I also really enjoy sharing them.  A large part of the joy of cooking is making friends and family happy by cooking them something special. I'm happy with a small piece of whatever it is, so that there is plenty for everyone else.

I've learned to stop eating when I'm full, but this doesn't make for waste, because I often have any leftovers for the next days lunch.  Our family creates hardly any food waste, everything that can be composted is, and at the time of writing our food waste bin is less than half full in three weeks....  but the food waste issue is something to be discussed in a future post.

Here's a picture of today's new recipe pudding: pear, almond and amaretto tart (from the new Lorraine Pascale book), and one of the proteinaceous breakfast:

Thank you for reading, more soon....

Caroline x

What could possibly go wrong?

Yesterday I made a toad-in-the-hole, however the Yorkshire pudding (or Yorkshture pudding as my son calls it!) part was sadly flat and unrisen, although it tasted ok.  I have never been very consistent with Yorkshire pudding, I think it is all to do with the size of tin versus the quantity of mixture, sometimes it's a triumph and sometimes, like yesterday, it's frankly rubbish.  This got me thinking about what could go wrong in the kitchen, and as I usually only share successes with the community at large I thought it might be confession time!

As far as my husband and I can remember, I have never cooked anything that has actually been inedible.  Interestingly the very first new recipe after I made my resolution (see "Welcome post") has been the only one ever to score only one star out of the possible five. It was a Nigella recipe for smoked cod with cannellini beans and included some peppercorns in the sauce.  I accidentally put too many in, and you were meant to remove them before serving , but as there were so many it would have taken forever and the food would have been cold so I just intructed the husband to leave them on the side of the plate.  This did not work.  They were too disguised by the sauce and every now and then you would crunch on one, flooding your mouth with pepperiness. Several years later I made another fish dish with chinese Sichuan peppercorns, crushed in the pestle and mortar, and these were really rather nice, not quite as peppery as the normal ones; but after the smoked cod disaster I didn't risk it on the husband and had it by myself while he was away.

There have also been recipes that have just been plain boring and tasteless.  It can be quite disappointing when you're looking forward to something new and then you have to put sweet chilli sauce on it to make it taste of anything at all.  For example tagliatelle with pancetta, lemon, broccoli and walnuts.  Sounds quite flavoursome. It wasn't. I've had similar experiences with quiches and curries.  You never know with chillies either, they can be bland as anything or fearsomly hot. Sometimes the flavour doesn't live up to the smell either which is worse. Even in a recipe taken from a magazine, the flavours just may not work, like haddock, prawn and cheese bake.  I never put cheese in a fish risotto so I was dubious about this one, and rightly so.

Desserts and cakes have lots of potential for problems.  In particular things that need to be set, with gelatine or agar.  There was the time I made a mars bar cheesecake, which I had made a few times before and was very popular.  I thought I knew what I was doing and decided to have a few cans of cider while making it.  Mistake.  I didn't dissolve the gelatine properly and as you consumed the cheesecake lumps of gluey, bogey-like gelatine got left in your mouth.  Most people politely left them on the side of the plate.  Then there was the strawberry mousse cake which didn't have enough gelatine in it.  When removed from the tin it looked fab but after a few minutes began to collapse and go a bit free-form.  I made another one a few weeks later with more gelatine and much better results. A similar thing happened with my limoncello cheesecake which used vegetarian gel powder, you have to use it differently to gelatine and I didn't... but rescued it with an hour in the freezer.  I've made cakes that weren't cooked in the middle and had to be turned into a ring cake with fruit piled up in the middle. I haven't ever tried to bake something with the oven on grill setting, but I know people that have, I'm lucky enough to have a separate grill.

 Strawberry mousse cake take one: oo-er!

 Take two: much better.

I've made naan bread that was more biscuit than bread, burnt things and set fire to things, made a coconut delight that was anything but delightful; and made hokey pokey that just tasted of bicarbonate of soda and made you foam at the mouth a bit! 

Then there are simple accidents, such as collapsing fridge shelves (I caught the just-setting trifle successfully) and the time I was up until midnight making jubilee cupcakes for school with triple coloured piped icing and they looked beautiful until I tried to move the cooling rack then... plop plop plop! they fell upside down, splatting their icing onto the table. I swore so loudly I woke the husband up, and he was upstairs!

The trouble is, I've shot myself in the foot with all this new recipe malarkey. The family now have such high standards it's quite difficult to serve up something run-of-the-mill, even on a weeknight.  I do have to go to work four days a week, I'm not home until 6.15pm and so I've had to become an expert on meals that are not only interesting but quick too, or we get hungry, and when we get hungry in our family, we tend to get short-tempered too.  And vegtarian on a Sunday didn't go down too well, in fact it was "unacceptable" a few years ago, but I'm working on that one...

Generally though, things do turn out remarkably well!

Thank you for reading, Caroline x

Tales of cheese and chocolate.

This blog post is not so much about culinary creations as culinary experiences.  What do you think of when you think of Switzerland?  Fresh air, mountains, army knives, banking or designer watches?  My first thoughts are of cheese and chocolate, and I was really looking forward to my first visit...

I had not been abroad for eight years (the last time was my honeymoon) when my friend invited me to Switzerland for her wedding. I was keen to find out more about food and drink in this beautiful country.  On the day I arrived in the village of Moiry, in the canton of Vaud,  there was a  houseful of guests.  Family and friends came and went all day long, enjoying pizza, pasta, salad, Swiss wine, coffee, chocolates, chat and each other’s company. We also enjoyed sachertorte brought back by my friend from a recent visit to Vienna. I really enjoyed the wine and wondered why I had never had Swiss wine before.  On doing some research, only 2% of it is exported, I think they like to keep it all for themselves, it was certainly very delicious.

The following morning,  we breakfasted on fresh bread with jams and marmalade, fruit juice and lovely coffee.  I’m usually a tea person in the mornings but decided to embrace change, as I was feeling very continental, I was told the Swiss only drink tea if they are ill.  After helping with preparations for my friend’s civil ceremony (a small family only event), and lunching on leftovers, the wedding party departed and I was left to my own devices for the rest of the day with another friend who was staying at the house but also not going to the civil ceremony.  

We borrowed bikes and headed for La Sarraz, two villages away and where we had got off the train the day before, on a mission to buy mint for the Pimm’s to be served at the big wedding party the following day.  After a stroll round the Co-op,  we found the mint (the last pack available) and picked up some fish and vegetables for dinner later.  Chocolate for my children was also purchased, as I’d promised to bring them some back.  I took a photo of some strangely dyed eggs, which I think were pre-hardboiled. The bike ride back to Moiry was uphill all the way, the sun had come out with a vengeance and we certainly broke out into a sweat, but made it back easily – passing cows with bells, goats and even some nuns en route.

After some chill-out time, and a walk through the village and into the forest, we returned to cook dinner.  The fish we had bought was pangasius, which I hadn’t heard of before.  I googled it and wished I hadn’t as there are some very scaremongering websites claiming it is unsustainable and could even make you ill due to dodgy aquaculture practices.  After some research I decided the good reviews outweighed the bad, and pan fried it with dill and served it on a bed of ribboned courettes and carrots with cherry tomatoes, accompanied by crusty bread.  I would say it wasn’t the tastiest fish in the world and I probably wouldn’t buy it again but it was ok, and we didn’t have any ill effects.

On Saturday morning we were up quite early as preparations had to be made for the big wedding party to be held at a Chalet, about forty minutes’ drive away, higher up in the mountains.  The wedding ceremony was to be held in a clearing in the pastureland, in a home-made “church” with the “aisle” and seating made out of hay and hay bales, and at the front an archway of pieces of wood, decorated with flowers.  The reception meal and party was to be held in a (very clean) barn area, which was also decorated.

When all was as it should be we had some lunch before it was time to get changed.  I had a “croque” of ham on bread with mustard, covered with melted cheese and what looked like paprika on the top.  I was informed that often the bread is quite stale so they soak it in wine first, although they hadn’t this time.  It was accompanied by gherkins and small pickled onions, which later I found to be a common accompaniment to savoury food, and very delicious.  I love gherkins! After this we went to a small hotel about ten minutes’ drive away where I would be staying overnight to get changed, and returned to the chalet for the ceremony and reception.

The ceremony was very unusual, combining a rock & roll theme with music, poetry and readings in both French and English (this was the French-speaking part of Switzerland).  It included what was what was termed the wine ceremony.  The guests had each written on a card a good wish for the happy couple and the two youngest bridesmaids collected these in a basket while music played.  The cards were sealed up in a wooden box containing a large bottle of red wine, the idea being that in five years’ time all would be invited back to drink the wine while the couple read the messages from their wedding day.  At this point the bride and groom drank wine out of two large trophies, which were then offered to the rest of the adult congregation as more music played. Next came the exchange of vows and rings, and they were declared married!  The bride and groom walked back up the aisle together to the strains of “You are the one for me, for me, for me, formidable” by Charles Aznavour. 

Afterwards there was photography (brief) and then the guests headed off to the chalet for aperitifs of Pimm’s or Swiss wine, accompanied by bread, breasaola (Italian air dried salted beef) and the usual gherkins and pickled onions.   When it was time to eat, each guest picked out their name card, which were pegged to string outside the barn and matched it to their place inside.  I was on the Jimi Hendrix table, with lots of people I knew and some I had just met.  Wine and conversation flowed, and as we waited for the starter there was a game of “Mr & Mrs” where the newlyweds sat on high stools at the front with placards with “ME/MOI” and “HIM/HER” on them, when asked questions by the guests they used the placards to display their answers, to much hilarity! Sugar cubes were also distributed to the guests, with a piece of coloured paper on which to write a message to the newly married couple, and some ribbon.  Each guest wrapped their sugar cube in their message and tied the ribbon round to make a tiny “present”.  The next day these were presented to the couple in a tin to take home, the idea being that every time they had sugar in their coffee they would find a message.

 

The starter was a salad buffet, with green leaves, assorted shredded cabbage and carrot salad with a choice of three dressings.  Each table was called to the buffet in turn when a song by the rock band of their table was played.  The main course was served to the table.  Roast pork with a delicious gravy reminiscent of the IKEA meatball gravy only much, much nicer; accompanied by garden vegetables and a creamy potato bake.  After all had eaten, a second helping was offered.  Before dessert, speeches were made by bride, groom, and bride’s father, some in both languages and some in just French. Dessert was meringues with fruit and double cream, and very scrumptious.  Before, during and after dessert, a live band played, a disco followed and there was much dancing and general merriment into the early hours.

The next morning I woke at 9.15am and after a quick wash and brush up, checked out of the hotel and went back to the chalet for breakfast, which was almost over but not quite!  Coffee, bread, two cheeses (gruyere and a creamy brie-like cheese), and jam were enjoyed al fresco.  After the clearing up was completed and some goodbyes had been said to those who were heading for home, we returned to Moiry for a restful day as some of us felt a little delicate!

We had a late lunch (cooked by my friend) of pasta with a creamy sauce of onions, bacon and gruyere, known as macaroni cheese d’alpage (only it was rigatoni!) but affectionately known to the family as “stinky pasta”!! Most of the day was spent sitting on the sunny balcony with coffee and little chocolates, or napping and the evening meal was a simple affair of bread, cheese (including a fabulous soft cheese with walnuts) and Swiss red wine.  I was also offered a sneaky meringue with cream as my friend began preparations for the next day’s dessert, a tart made with raisinee a “vin cuit” or cooked wine.  She explained to me what raisinee is, here is an explanation I found on the internet:

The “vin cuit” is a kind of very thick syrup, made out of fallen apples and/or pears that cannot be sold or eaten raw…  A second-life is given to them: they are crushed, so that their juice is extracted. This juice is then cooked for so long that it reduces and becomes thick and syrupy, like a kind of molasses.  To produce 1 kilo of raisinée, at least 10 kilos of juice is needed. The mixture has to be stirred carefully in a cauldron with a wooden spoon, over an open wood fire and it should not be left unattended because when overcooked the juice becomes bitter.

I was told that it needs to be stirred for twenty four hours and that villagers would take turns to stir it through the night. An early night followed, as tomorrow I was to be introduced to the delights of raclette!  Something I had heard about and eagerly anticipated…

I was up quite early and after a breakfast of hazelnut yoghurt, bread and jam with coffee, I helped with the preparations for the raclette party and barbecue that was to happen at lunchtime, thirty adults and many children had been invited, so there was much to do.  The garden was decorated with lanterns and the wedding flowers, bunting and table decorations, triangular sun canopies were put up to give some shade to the three large tables with benches either side,  and the tarte raisinee and a tarte a la crème were cooked.  Drinks were organised – Swiss beer, Swiss wine, coffee and Pimm’s for the grown-ups and iced tea and sprite for the children (the sprite was cooled in the “fountain” – which was really the cow watering trough just across the road), plus lots of water as it was quite a hot and sunny day. Crisps and snacks were put on the table; there was a sort of savoury croissant-like pastry stuffed with minced meat, and a baguette stuffed with a mixture of egg, ham and gherkins.  Many people brought assorted salads and the kitchen resembled a patisserie as there were SIX tartes of various kinds and two kinds of homemade biscuits (some tasted like they had caraway seeds in and the others were light and melt-in-the-mouth, a bit like trifle sponges only nicer).

In the corner of the garden there was a round table with the raclette “apparatus” on it.  Raclette is both the name of the cheese and the dish with which it is made.  The whole cheeses are about 6kg in weight and nearly one and a half of these were consumed at the party.  “Racler” means “to scrape” and the aim of the apparatus is to heat the cut surface of the cheese, melting it so that it can be scraped off and eaten with a variety of things, traditionally boiled potatoes and the now very familiar pickled onions and gherkins.  Raclette was one of those foods that I ended up having to eat with my eyes shut to fully appreciate the flavour! Each of the three half cheeses at the party had a subtly different flavour, and all were completely and utterly delicious.  There was a long queue and two men had the full time job of serving the raclette, although they were relieved later so that they could eat some.

There was also a barbecue happening at the same time, with the smell of sizzling marinated pork steaks and Swiss sausages floating through the air mingled with the smell of the cooking cheese.  The pork was very tasty, and so were the sausages.  There were two sorts, a white fat sausage called Kalbsbratwurst and another longer, thinner spicier one reminiscent of chorizo.  I only had a small piece of each though as I had to save room for the tartes.

There were two tartes a la crème, one made by my friend with puff pastry, and a similar one made by someone else with short pastry.  There was the tarte raisinee, a linzertorte (with jam and a sponge like base), an apricot tart and one made with hazelnuts drizzled with icing. I had to try a little piece of each for research purposes!  The tarte raisinee and the puff pastry tarte a la crème were the winners in my book, but all were delicious.

All too soon it was time to say goodbye, leave the party and leave Switzerland.  I was sad to go but really looking forward to seeing my family again.  The journey to the airport was easy, we arrived in plenty of time to buy large amounts of chocolate to take home to my friends and family, and get ideas for future macaroon flavours from a shop at the airport.  All went smoothly, we took off early, and I said goodbye to Geneva, looking out of the plane window as the lights twinkled in the darkness like diamonds on a Swiss watch.

During my time in Switzerland I met lots of new people from all over the world and enjoyed talking to them about their food experiences and their likes and dislikes.  I always find that even if people don’t like to cook, they usually have an opinion on food and cooking which makes for good conversation. And plenty of food and drink also makes for a great wedding!

So - what do I love about Switzerland?  Fresh air, cleanliness and lack of litter, friendliness of local people, the food (especially the cheese) and the wine.  The few minus points I could come up with are that everything is very expensive; and the noise of the cow bells does get to you after a while… every cow has a bell, and there are a lot of cows…

I'm planning to make a Swiss roll this weekend, and I wondered if Swiss rolls actually have anything to do with Switzerland.  It turns out that the origins of the term Swiss roll are unclear and the cake originated in Central Europe, but not in Switzerland as the name would suggest.  So now you know.

Thank you for reading,  Caroline x

Not a trifling matter.

Today we celebrated my brother-in-law's birthday.  He had said that all he wanted for a present from my family was for me to create him a trifle.  So I did. I sometimes feel that the trifle gets a bad press, and I suppose there are a few bad trifles out there. They are thought of as old fashioned and boring, with tinned fruit and packet custard... well I think now is the time to celebrate all that is good about trifles and boost their popularity a bit.






The trifle 'thing' all started when one of my cousins had a Pampered Chef party.  For those who don't know, Pampered Chef is a direct selling kitchen tools company, where someone has a party and friends order kitchen gadgets.  Anyway at the party I had my eye on this deluxe trifle bowl with removable stand and lid making it easy to store and transport but it was really too expensive to justify buying.  I told my Mum about it and lo and behold she bought it for our family in lieu of Easter Eggs as long as I promised to make lots of sharing family trifles in it.

The first trifle I made was served at what I termed "The first and inaugural trifle night" when in fact none of the family were invited(!) but friends instead.  Prior to this event I had been to London with work friends for a birthday celebration and had a rather scrummy strawberry ice cream sundae at Bella Italia in Leicester Square, liberally doused in vanilla Galliano liqueur.  I decided to invent a 'Godfather Fragola' trifle based on the dessert and including the vanilla liqueur. 

I ordered  the Galliano from a website specialising in liqueurs along with some others to be included in future puddings, and soaked some madeira cake I had frozen (offcuts from my son's birthday cake) in it.  Then for the next layer - the jelly - I made my own strawberry jelly as I had a vegetarian who would be eating it so no pork gelatine allowed.  I used a mix of vegetarian gel powder, water and strawberry puree and it worked very well. I set strawberry pieces into the jelly. The next layer was custard (home made, as discussed below) and sliced strawberries around the outside of the bowl.  Then more strawberries.  Then whipped cream with crushed meringue in and grated chocolate.  Topped with whole strawberries, grated chocolate and strawberry coulis. And chocolate cigarillo biscuits, which seemed like a good idea at the time but afterwards I thought they weren't aesthetically pleasing and possibly a bit over the top... but what the hell.  They liked it anyway.

The second trifle was made for my Dads birthday and most definitely a family affair.  This was a 'Grasshopper' trifle based on Nigella's Grasshopper pie.   No grasshoppers were harmed in its making.  It had chocolate cake in the bottom, made specially and soaked in a mixture of creme de menthe and creme de cacao.  Next, lime jelly with grapes and kiwi fruit and sliced kiwi fruit around the bowl. Then grasshopper custard which is milk with marshmallows melted into it, mixed with creme de menthe and creme de cacao and folded into whipped cream with some green food colouring. The next layer was whipped cream with crushed bourbon biscuits in (the original grasshopper pie has them in the base) and halved grapes around the bowl, finished with halved slices of kiwi and chocolate letters spelling out the birthday greeting.

That trifle was very different from the first but just as good in its own way.  For the third trifle I thought I'd go for the more traditional effect but in a kind of 'deluxe' way.

I had some leftover white chocolate and macadamia blondie (as opposed to brownie) cupcakes in the freezer, so I used them, soaked in Mil's favourite sherry, Croft Original. It felt very bad opening a bottle of sherry before 7am! Then a layer of raspberry jelly which was left to set and then a layer of lime jelly with whole raspberries in.  Brother-in-law had said lime was his favourite jelly flavour but raspberry would go better in a trifle, so I put both in.  I went to work for the day and left the jelly to set. After the jelly came a layer of grapes, blueberries and sliced lime around the bowl.  The lime we found afterwards was very good at balancing out the extreme sweetness of the rest of the ingredients. Next came the custard.

Making real custard is a true labour of love and probably one of the few times in my life where I can actually truthfully say I am bored.  It's not therapeutic, like stirring a risotto,as I live in mortal fear of the dreaded curdling!  I stirred it for what seemed like an eternity and finally it did thicken.  Without curdling.  Sighs of relief all round. The next morning, the next layer was added, crushed hob nob biscuits, followed by whipped cream with marshmallows in.  Decoration was provided by flaked almonds, coloured polka dots, edible glitter, chocolate lettering and an ice fountain indoor firework.  I drew an 'Illustrated guide to your birthday trifle' and put it in his birthday card.  The side view was perhaps a bit messy compared to the others, but the taste made up for that, even if I do say so myself.

 

I would recommend making a big trifle in stages, its better to allow each layer to set, and it just seems easier that way.

Several people I know claim not to like trifle, but they have liked mine. Today I was very impressed with the speed at which the family wholeheartedly enjoyed it.  I don't expect the remains will last long.

Thank you for reading,

Caroline x

The story behind my Macaroon Obsession.

I know I only wrote my first post yesterday, but I'm all fired up with enthusiasm.  I have just been making macaroons.  Anyone who knows me or who is a friend on Facebook will know I am just a bit obsessed with making and eating macaroons, so I thought I'd write a post on how it all began...

It was Good Friday, 2010.  My lovely mother-in-law (or Mil for short) had both children for the day and I had a rare and lovely day all to myself.  I spent the morning watching a film the husband would hate - "Julie and Julia" - thoroughly recommended to anyone interested in new recipes - while he washed the car, as he loves to do.  And in the afternoon I made my first ever macaroons.  I had seen them on the cover of delicious. magazine that month and really fancied making them, but had heard they were time consuming and tricky to get right; but I like a challenge, so read the article carefully and off I went. 

Just in case you don't know there are many sorts of macaroon (or macaron as they are called in France) from different countries.  The ones I'm talking about are basically ground almonds, (sometimes mixed with other nuts) and icing sugar folded into an often brightly coloured meringue which may include other flavourings; the mixture being piped into rounds and baked before being sandwiched together with a filling, usually butter icing

I made two sorts that first time, pistachio and strawberry, and they were a great success, taste wise, especially the pistachio ones which are still my favourite flavour, even after trying lots of others. The colours weren't as bright as those on the magazine cover though which was a wee bit disappointing.  I've since learned that normal supermarket food colourings aren't "bake safe" and don't keep their colour well in the oven, you need paste or gel food colourings which you can buy online or in cake decorating shops.

When we had them after dinner on Easter Sunday my sister declared they were "better than Harrod's or Fortnum & Mason's" and I felt sure I would make them again.  Since then I've made a variety of flavours with varying amounts of success, the only ones that really didn't work were the chocolate ones, substituting some of the icing sugar for cocoa powder seemed to do something wierd to the consistency of the mixture and they wouldn't pipe properly and were too hard and very chewy when baked.

So, what are the secrets of a good macaroon?  Well, it isn't really all that difficult when you've done it a few times. There are two basic methods, the French method and the Italian method.  Use the French method every time.  The Italian method is very faffy, involves sugar syrup, thermometers and pans of boiling water.  The French method is much easier and gives good results in my opinion.  I can't compare it to the Italian method because I have never tried it!

Blitz 75g almonds and 115g icing sugar in a food processor, and sieve them.  Whisk two large egg whites to stiff peaks and then whisk in 50g caster sugar.  Colour and flavour the meringue as desired.  Fold in the almond and icing sugar mix, this is the most crucial bit!  You HAVE to get the right consistency or they won't pipe properly.  I use a silicone spatula to do the folding, keep going until you get a ribbon consistency, the mixture will fall from the spatula into the bowl in beautiful flat ribbons.  If you dont fold enough it will be too stiff and the finished macaroons will be all pointy rather than flat; if you fold too much they will be too flat and go crispy like biscuits with no yummy chewy middle bit.

Now for the piping.  I have a fabulous silicone piping bag which makes life so much easier, especially the cleaning it afterwards part, but any piping bag will do.  You can pipe the rounds by eye, draw circles on baking paper, use a template sheet that goes under the baking paper (I bought one from Squires shop online) or best of all use silicone macaroon moulds (from Lakeland) which do feel a bit like cheating but they do come out all beautifully the same size.  Where would we be without silicone?!

After piping carefully but confidently lift the baking tray about a foot in the air and drop it onto the work surface (warn family members first!) This gets rid of bubbles in the mixture.  Then leave them for about half an hour until a skin forms so that no mixture sticks to you when you poke them gently with a finger.  Then bake at 160 degrees C for 15 minutes.  Leave to cool for about 10 minutes, remove from paper/moulds and cool completely before sandwiching the pairs of macaroon "shells" together with the filling.

The most traditional filling is butter icing, flavoured with whatever complements the flavouring of the shells eg chopped pistachios, coffee, vanilla, lemon zest.  You can also use fresh whipped cream or creme fraiche mixed with fruit such as raspberries or blueberries, but this does make them go soggy quite quickly.  Macaroons should be crispy on the outside and soft and chewy in the middle.  You can get quite adventurous with the flavours - I've made green tea and lemon, sesame and lime, saffron and cardamom, and Christmas spiced ones to name just a few.

Once you've done a few they are not too time consuming.  When the contestants on the Great British Bake off made them, they had five hours to make three flavours.  Tonight I had made the mixture and piped a batch in less than half an hour.  It all comes with practice.  I made a double batch for the village auction of promises and they raised £32.  I have also made some for a friend's daughter's graduation party, but cooking anything for paying customers isn't really something I want to do very often.

It has got to the point where people have very kindly given me macaroon inspired birthday cards, and gifts, including a set of macaroon teacups - pictured below. My name is Caroline, and I am a macaroonaholic.

I have pink fingers once more tonight (from the food colouring).

 The first ever macaroons.

 Blueberry.

 

 

 The pink ones are rosewater and the others hazelnut.

The fab cups.  What a great present.

After yesterday's post, my son reminded me about something I had forotten to put in.  When we made the peanut butter squares, we were about to put the biscuits in the food processor when he noticed a spider in the food processor bowl.  Ignoring his advice to blitz the spider, I took the bowl into the garden and tipped out Mr Spider to "go back to his family", washed the bowl and all was well.

Until next time.

Thanks for reading,

Caroline x

Welcome!

Welcome to my first attempt at a blog!  Several friends (they know who they are) have suggested I write one so here goes. 

I'm a forty-one year old married mother of two children, a girl of twelve and a boy of six, living in rural Northamptonshire, England.  In addition to a 30 hours a week job (four days) and looking after my family my main hobby is cooking and trying new recipes.  After I had my son in 2006 I felt I had lost my identity somewhat (as you do) and I really needed a hobby - however I didn't have time for one.  So cooking became my hobby as we needed to eat anyway....

My new year's resolution in 2008 was to make one new recipe a week.  As I began trying new stuff, gleaned from various recipe books, magazines in the tea room at work, friends... I realised that my resolution was going to be very easy to keep.  In fact that year I made one hundred and fourteen new recipes, the family giving each one a star rating out of five.  I recorded them in a hardback notebook and the rest is history. The list in the notebook continues and from the beginning of 2008 to the time of writing I have made five hundred and eighty one new recipes, mostly successful, some amazing, some terrible.  There have been moments when recipes have been screwed up and hurled into the bin with amazing velocity.  My husband no longer has a favourite dinner, he has a top twenty, although I think if he had to choose it would be lamb tagine.  My favourite food is the humble potato, in all its many delicious incarnations.

The 'cut-out-of-magazines' recipes are filed in two files, under twenty six different headings (the fattest one being puddings), my cookery book collection has outgrown the extra bookcase I bought for it - there are more than a hundred (I had to count them for a survey once!) and I have almost given up watching TV apart from cooking programmes.  And I'm a very happy bunny.  Sometimes I follow the recipe to the letter, sometimes I adapt it and occasionally I totally make it up, I'm getting more confident as days go by but there is lots left to learn.

Some background: I grew up with my Mum, Dad and younger sister in a family where we grew most of our own fruit and veg, baked bread, brewed beer, my Dad even kept bees, and at times chickens and turkeys. From a young age I was interested in food and ingredients.  Mum was a good cook and as I grew up in the 1970s and 80s we enjoyed lots of home grown produce and hardly ever ate convenience foods.  We used to go the the Italian shop in a nearby town for mortadella and olives, and my sister and I were always encouraged to try new things and get involved with the food preparation. My Grandma was "in service" as a cook in her younger days and I used to go round to her house at the weekend when I was a teenager and she would show me how to make doughnuts, coconut tart, "caramel custard" and other treats.

When I did my A levels I took food and nutrition along with biology and chemistry with a view to a career in food science (which didn't happen, but I did still end up being a scientist) and learned lots of useful stuff including how to bone out a chicken and time plan meals. In my twenties I was busy with day release college courses and cooking took a bit of a back seat but underneath I was always going to be a foodie! My husband and children are great eaters and not fussy, my son has helped in the kitchen since the age of two when he pushed a chair up to the worktop with the words "I help too!"

My aim with this blog is to post interesting snippets and photos about what I am cooking, to share successes and failures and discuss lots of food related issues that I'm interested in.

I'm inspired by (in no particular order and not an exhaustive list) Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Nigella Lawson, Nigel Slater, Jamie Oliver, Lorraine Pascale, Jo Pratt, Ching-He Huang, and good old Delia Smith - who taught me how to make omelettes.  My favourite book of the moment is Gok Cooks Chinese, I've made loads of things from it.  I subscribe to delicious. magazine which has so many brilliant ideas; I also get more than you might think out of the free magazines from Asda and Morrisons.  The Sainsburys magazine is good too, though I don't shop there much becasuse it's so expensive!  I'm also a member of the chocolate tasting club.

Today - we had a new recipe for breakfast.  I had portobello mushrooms from the fortnightly vegbox to use up, and my husband had suggested having them on toast, there was a great idea in the new delicious. magazine which had plopped through the letterbox yesterday - slice and fry the mushrooms in butter and rapeseed oil, add thyme and a splash of cider and reduce.  Serve on toasted bread rubbed with a garlic clove and top with a poached egg.  Husband and daughter loved it, son doesn't like mushrooms so he had an alternative.  It was strange opening cider at 9am!  It kept in the fridge with a stopper in and was still fizzy later.

I had promised my son we'd make peanut butter squares (from the new Lorraine Pascale book) this weekend, so we did.  We made double quantity as I wanted to take lots to work on Tuesday to welcome some new members of staff.  It was very easy and fun with lots of chocolate chops going on!  Melt butter, blitz digestive biscuits.  Mix butter, biscuits, light brown soft sugar and peanut butter with vanilla extract and press into tin.  Top with melted chocolate and freeze for half an hour.  We made one batch topped with milk chocloate and one with dark.

Dinner is cooking as I type.  I've roasted beetroot (from the vegbox again) with garlic, thyme, rapeseed oil and seasoning to be made into a salad with goat's cheese and a simple dressing (from River Cottage Everyday book, originally has redcurrants too but no redcurrants were forthcoming today).  This will accompany roast lamb from a local farmer we know and new potatoes.

I may have pink fingers from peeling the beetroot but life is good.

More soon, thank you for reading :-)

Caroline x