Edible gold and cranberry syrup.

I've already written a post all about Christmas dinner when I had a house-full in 2012, but I wanted to share this year's menu too.  It wasn't as complicated as two years ago, we just had my parents for dinner so there were only six of us, but I was still pretty excited and inspired weeks in advance by the festive editions of the food magazines, especially Feel Good Food which is a favourite at present. It was the cover of this magazine which featured a red velvet roulade that caught my eye and I was immediately on ebay ordering edible 24 carat gold at a very reasonable £2.49!  More of this later, here's a rundown:

Champagne / Cranberry Gin Fizz / Fruit juices

Sausage rolls (made by my Mum)

Iberico ham and melon on sticks

Crisps

-

Beetroot & vodka cured salmon

Pickled cucumber salad

-

Roast Turkey with sausage, sage & onion stuffing

Pigs in blankets

Apple & Bourbon roast smoked gammon (served cold)

Deluxe roast potatoes & parsnips

Glazed sprouts & carrots with nutmeg

Bread sauce, cranberry sauce, gravy

-

Red velvet roulade with white chocolate and gold leaf

served with Bailey’s cream

-

Cheese and biscuits, grapes, port

-

Coffee / tea, chocolate mint leaves

The cranberry gin fizz was an idea in the Lidl Christmas magazine.  Frozen cranberries were cooked with sugar and water to make a syrup when mashed with a potato masher and sieved.  One part of the cooled syrup was mixed with one part of gin and topped up with prosecco, and frozen cranberries added instead of ice cubes.  I has one as a little cook's treat while cooking the veg.

The Iberico ham and melon on sticks was a memory of our Spanish holiday this summer (see earlier post), Lidl had some Iberico ham in and it went beautifully with the drinks. I used the little wooden sticks that come with my graze boxes which was a nice touch, a little less boring than plain old cocktail sticks.

The salmon was cured on the Sunday before Christmas, giving it four days in the fridge. This was also from the Feel Good Food magazine. I'd cured salmon with beetroot before but this was a slightly different twist, using vodka, coriander seeds, fennel seeds, black peppercorns, salt, sugar, lemon zest and grated raw beetroot with dill. It was served with a simple salad of ribboned cucumber dressed with white wine vinegar, sugar and more chopped dill.

The turkey was simply cooked, as was most of the main course, and I haven't got photos of it, but above is one of the gammon.  It was boiled in apple juice and spices, then roasted with a glaze of apple sauce and bourbon whisky.  We did find it a bit dry, and I think in future I'll always roast gammon instead of boiling as somehow it does turn out to be more juicy that way.  It was still nice though, and has all been eaten!

Here's the aforementioned roulade. I made the red velvet swiss roll on Christmas Eve, using up all the rest of my "Christmas red" food colouring paste. After it had cooled and been spread with the cream cheese icing, I cut the ends off and left it in the fridge overnight to set before decorating.  Eating the ends on Christmas Eve I was a bit worried the sponge wasn't actually all that tasty but it got better by the morning.  My daughter had made white chocolate decorations with a kit of templates and a silicone mat given to me by a friend for my birthday, so I added those plus gold edible glitter and the edible gold leaf which was a bit tricky to handle but not too bad once you got the hang of manipulating it with a table knife.

I also used the edible gold on this trifle, made a few days later for a Christmas get together with my husband's family. Chocolate cake and white chocolate chunks soaked in blueberry liqueur, lemon jelly with blackberries and blackcurrants, custard, cream with crushed meringues,lemon zest and decorations (plus non edible holly from my tree).

The family gathering featured a gingerbread nativity competition.  We didn't win,but here's our entry, complete with jelly baby Jesus:

Finally, here's a fun idea that I found on Facebook, my children and I made two with my nieces when they came to stay recently.  A Terry's chocolate orange in the middle, with maltesers stuck to it, white chocolate and icing holly on the top.

All in all, there was much feasting, and as January beckons, I'm thinking about abstinence and healthy eating!

Thank you for reading,

Caroline :-) 

Ostriches and samphire.

Welcome to my first blog post in a while. It was meant to be written in August when I got back from a trip with my children to visit my Uncle, however the return journey from said trip involved a serious car crash (not my fault) that resulted in all of us being hospitalised, normal life going out of the window for quite a while and the laptop that I write my blogs on being broken beyond repair. I'm happy to report that we have all healed well and made a full recovery AND I have a replacement laptop, and can finally get back to blogging.

On one of our days out while visiting the above-mentioned Uncle, who is a confirmed carnivore, we went to an unusual type of farm shop.  It was at an ostrich farm, which sold the meat and eggs from their ostriches, as well as other unusual meats including crocodile, wild boar, kangaroo and zebra. They also sold venison, and camel and llama when in season.

Now, although I eat meat I do like to know that the animal or bird in question has had a good life, so it was good to see the ostriches living a happy free-range existence at the farm before having a "mixed grill" - only in a frying pan - that evening. We were assured that the other speciality meats that we tried had been either culled due to overpopulation or farmed naturally on wide open pastures. A major selling point was also the fact that the meats are a low fat option.  We liked them all, the crocodile was a bit like chicken, and I liked the kangaroo best, it was very tender and flavoursome.

Read more about the farm at www.oslinc.co.uk.

That afternoon, we drove further on, to the coast, and found a beach with more samphire than I had ever seen before.  I had picked and eaten samphire from Wells-next-the -sea harbour before but this was something else!  

I'm not saying where it was as I was a bit worried about the entire beach being decimated. We saw a group of people pulling it up by the roots and taking it away by the sackful!  They claimed it was for their own personal use but that seemed a bit unlikely to me.  I thought perhaps they had a pub or restaurant and it was going to feature on the current weeks specials board or something...  they did give me cooking tips though.

We picked a sandwich box full and not by the roots, enabling the plants to re-establish and grow again.

Apparently picking it by the roots enables you to prepare it by holding it by the roots, swishing it in some clean water to wash, then stripping off the good bits.  I just floated ours in a bowl of water and let the dirt fall to the bottom, then wrapped it in a tea towel and whirled it around my head while standing in the garden. I simply boiled it, then added butter and black pepper.  Salt isn't required as it's naturally salty from growing in sea water.

It's good with a poached egg on top, with seafood risotto, or as an accompaniment to fish dishes.  I've seen it used quite a bit on masterchef this year. See www.bbc.co.uk/food/samphire for more ideas.

 
Today is the last day of the year, so I've totalled up by new recipes for 2014 - and there were 87, including 13 meat free main courses. Since January 2008 the running total is 821.
May there be many more in 2015!  It's the first time the annual total has dropped below 100, but that was due to the car crash rather than lack of inspiration...

Thank you for reading.  I'm hoping to write another post about this year's Christmas menu today too and I've got lots of ideas for future posts, so I'm firmly back in the blogging community.

More soon,

Caroline x

For the love of chocolate.

I have always loved chocolate.  I've been a member of the Chocolate Tasting Club for twelve years, and always have tea and chocolate first thing in the morning on a day when I'm not going to work.  Until recently, I had a brown sofa and rug, bedclothes and towels, so that the chocolate stains didn't show!  When a friend discovered a relatively new chocolatier in Leicester called Cocoa Amore, offering chocolate making workshops - we decided to book a workshop for two - as our birthdays are a fortnight apart it would be our birthday presents to each other.

As it turned out, our visit was even better than anticipated.  The team (two very friendly blokes) welcomed us and and shop was beautifully appointed and smelled lovely!

Our host immediately put the kettle on and we sat down with a little cast iron cup of special and delicious cocoa tea, together with a glass of water to cleanse our palate between tastings.  On the stainless steel worktop in front of us was a map of the world's cocoa growing regions, which are 10-20 degrees north and south of the equator, and dotted all over the map were little tubs with samples of chocolate from each area for us to taste.  It was very similar to a wine tasting, the growing conditions, area and variety make a big difference in the taste of the chocolate. We were first given an introduction to the cocoa plant and how it is grown, and how the beans are harvested and treated in order to produce the various products.  

I found this website which gives you an idea: 

http://www.icco.org/about-cocoa/growing-cocoa.html

Then came a fascinating combined history and geography lesson all about how chocolate has developed through history, the different sorts of modern day chocolate and the ingredients therein (Hershey's tastes weird as it uses soured milk powder!). There was a lovely story about The Grenada Chocolate Company which must be the eco-friendly chocolate company ever, but had a sad ending as the mastermind behind it all sadly died when he was electrocuted while mending some machinery.  Read more about the company at www.grenadachocolate.com.

As we travelled the cocoa-producing world from the comfort of our stools, we tried the chocolate as we went along, experiencing some surprises along the way - such as white chocolate which contained a higher % of cocoa than some milk chocolate - and a spectacular dark chocolate that gave my friend goose bumps!  We also tried 100% cocoa chocolate, which while very, very intense was not as bitter as you might expect.

After that, it was time to get messy and do some proper hands on chocolate making.  First we made chocolate shells, which would be chilled and later filled.  The chocolate was already melted and tempered in a special machine and as soon as we had polished our moulds with cotton wool (yes, really!) to make sure the finished chocolates looked shiny and professional, the chocolate was ladled into the moulds and the surface scraped, then we knocked the side of the mould - for a long time - to bring air bubbles to the surface, tipped the mould upside down, more knocking and scraping which was quite fiddly, and the shells were ready for chilling -  well once they had been "tidied up" by the pro...

While the shells chilled we made truffles, from ganache which was 70% chocolate to 30% cream, rolled into balls and coated with chocolate before being finished with cocoa powder. The coating was fun, instead of delicate dipping we scooped up a handful of melted chocolate (wearing gloves) and rolled the truffles in it in our hands.

After that, we made the filling for the shells, using a softer 50/50 ganache.  We chose our flavoured oils - I chose raspberry and mint, my friend chose orange and cinnamon.  We carefully mixed the flavourings in, tasting to get the balance right, then piped the filling into the shells.  I think I impressed them with my piping skills!!

The filled shells were then given a top coat of chocolate to seal in the filling and were put to chill in the fridge while we chilled with a very special hot chocolate and a choice of one of their very special chocolates.  I chose green tea and sesame hot chocolate and my friend birds eye chilli. It came on a special tray, as a glass of hot milk with a bar of chocolate separately to mix in as much or as little as you liked - you could eat some of it as it was if you wanted - with a special stirrer to mix it with.  And the chocolate I picked - well - no prizes for guessing it was the peanut butter cup!

The photo above shows what I came home with, including the rest of the piping bag of filling. We asked what to do with it and the recommendations were either to pipe into espresso cups and serve as a dessert (which I did) or to drizzle over pancakes or waffles. Yum.

I think the results look great - I was praised for my polishing of the mould, making the chocolates very shiny!

The leftovers.

I would highly recommend this day to anyone who loves chocolate, I also had to buy a selection of their other creations to try, and will be returning.  They make all sorts of gorgeous things, even chocolate dipped potato crisps!  See their facebook page for more information.

Thank you for reading,

Caroline :-)

Olives for breakfast.

I've just come back from a fabulous and very hot few days in Spain - my first visit.  My husband and I enjoyed a few child free days in the sun while they were having their own holiday in France with their Scout Group. I was looking forward to enjoying the food and it seemed the ideal opportunity for a blog post as I haven't written one for ages.

We arrived late at night and the first meal consisted of chilled Cava and olives as that was all there was in the villa - but I wasn't complaining!  In the morning we headed out in our cute little red rental Fiat 500 to the local supermarket - Pepe La Sal.  They had an impressive array of whole cured hams hanging up behind the meat counter and an equally impressive array of cakes and pastries - I wish I had taken  a photo. There was also a big fridge full of ready made microwaveable tapas dishes (discussed later) but we didn't have a microwave. You could get the ham sliced to order or buy it ready sliced in packets.  Similarly the cheeses. There were olives stuffed with all sorts of fillings, we thought we'd try the smoked salmon and the serrano ham ones. We bought ham, cheese, bread, olives, local unsalted butter, Allioli (creamy garlic dip), crisps, and nibbles.  Then we headed back to the villa for assembly of our DIY continental breakfast, and very delicious it was too, as you can see:

On closer inspection, we had bought three sorts of sliced ham, the cheapest was €3.05 for 104g, the next most expensive was €3.59 for 72g and the last one was a mind boggling €8.57 for 72g!!  We had been joyfully throwing goodies in the trolley without noticing the price, after all we were on holiday...  I looked them up and the cheapest was Centro D.O. Teruel - a serrano ham- for more information try the following link: 

http://jamonesairesano.es/en/designation-of-origin-of-teruel/

The mid price one was Iberico a Maquina, which from some googling appears to be an Iberian ham possibly where the pig is fed on acorns. The final one (and it WAS the most delicioso, having a very deep flavour) was Bellota a Maquina. Any readers who can tell me the difference please do because I  haven't been able to find out!

Our breakfasts were so filling, and eaten quite late, so we didn't really bother with lunch other than wine/beer and crisps and the odd Mojito (from a Chinese restaurant where you could sit outside on a sofa looking out to sea, we never had any food there, just enjoyed drinks and the free wifi!!!) and saved ourselves for dinner.  Sometimes I made my own tapas, a little slice of bread with Allioli and tomato/cheese, topped with an olive.  I would have liked to try more tapas dishes in a restaurant, and might next time, but it can work out quite expensive if your're not careful, and also I didn't seem to be hungry at the right moment.  All our evening meals were eaten al fresco, so as not to waste a moment of the wonderful weather, and there seemed to be a theme of orange tablecloths and/or napkins.

The first night my husband had prawns wrapped in bacon followed by lamb chops, and I started with a lobster salad, which truly deserved to have it's photo taken:

followed by slow roast piglet with orange sauce. Both mains came with chips, picked red cabbage served warm and mixed vegetables. All was delicious, especially the orange sauce. We never did have a dessert!

The next morning we popped down to a little convenience store called Deli Merkat (affectionately known as the deli meerkat) for bread, chocolate croissants and a beef tomato which I thought would go well with the rest of the ham and cheese, and it did, being packed with flavour.  The fruit and veg was not a perfect looking as at home, the rest of Europe seem to embrace "inglorious vegetables" rather better than we have.  To learn more see :

http://www.wimp.com/allsupermarkets/

Dinner on day two was at a fish restaurant - I had grilled sardines followed by Sole Menier (Sole Meuniere) and hubby had prawns with garlic followed by rabbit with garlic. Again both mains had the same accompaniments - buttery rice and crushed potatoes with olive oil and a sort of aubergine thing.  All good, though they didn't manage to get our starters out at the same time, and to be fair my husband's glass of pre-prandial gin was so enormous it should really have been served in a bucket!!  There was only a thimbleful of tonic in the huge glass - it was the first time ever he has asked me to "help him out" with an alcoholic beverage!!

On the last night, we found a restaurant that specialised in paella. I had only had this dish once before, and obviously never an authentic Spanish one, and really wanted to try it, but there was a snag.  They would only cook it for a minimum of two people, and my husband really didn't want it, as it's not his type of thing at all, he wanted steak.  So after some discussion, and not having a starter or dessert, I ordered a Paella Marinera for two all to myself!! I really hoped it was going to be good as it was €30!  Eeek!  The waitress gave us some funny looks and I suspected this had never happened to her before but when it arrived, it was delicious and included baby squid and squid rings, mussels, clams, white fish, shell-on prawns and langoustines. Peeling them gave me yellow fingernails! I did have to leave some of the rice, and my husband enjoyed his steak with salad and chips.  The white wine was a bit rough though, we wished we had ordered red instead.

before...

and after!

Speaking of the wine, it was generally very good, we had Cava, Verdejo, Torres de Casta Rosado (the Spanish seem to drink a lot of rose), Campo Viejo white Rioja, and various house whites (variable!)  The Spanish beer - Mahou was lovely too.

I would definitely go back to Spain, I loved the outdoor dining and the whole experience. And they eat more vegetables than the French.

Thank you for reading,

Caroline :-)

Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.

I couldn't imagine cooking without herbs, and although I'm not keen on gardening, I've managed to grow quite a few herbs in my garden: chives, bay, mint, sage, thyme and rosemary.  I'm especially proud of my bay tree which was given to me by my Mum a few years ago, at the time it was about 18 inches tall, and now it looks like this:

I often prune it and give friends a bouquet of bay leaves, if they'd like some. The chives and sage are in pots, the thyme grows on the rockery; and the rosemary bush is on the left of the bay tree in the above picture.  It's my second rosemary bush, I tried to move the original one and it died, but this one is doing well. The mint does go a bit mad - it came from a friend who gave us some of their home grown potatoes and some mint to cook with them. I didn't use all of it, and put the rest in a glass of water on the window sill. It grew some roots, so I planted it and now we've got a massive patch.  I've also got basil on my kitchen windowsill, which gets used and replaced every few weeks, and other herbs (flat leaf parsley, dill, tarragon, coriander) I buy in bunches and keep in green bags in the fridge (see my "waste not want not" post to learn more about green bags). Mum also has a lot of curly parsley in her garden, she dries it in the microwave and crumbles it for me. Dried herbs often don't have as much flavour as fresh but the microwave drying seems to retain the green colour and more of the flavour too.  Some of the bunched herbs can also be frozen either as they are, or in cubes of ice, or even better as herb butters.

Can you spot my cat in her favourite spot between the rosemary bush and the bay tree?

Sage and chives.

Thyme on the rockery.

A friend has offered me some more herbs to grow, so I might soon add some others to my collection.

So, what can you do with herbs? The possibilities are endless, and some herbs have a particular affinity for certain foods - like dill with fish and rosemary with lamb.  It would be a very long post if I rambled on about all the uses of herbs in cooking - and I'm always discovering new things but here some of my favourites:

Add to risotto - at the end to retain the flavour.  Use when making stock - tie up with string to make a "bouquet garni". Even just the stalks of parsley are good for stock. Use in dips, I made a lovely fresh dip with mint, yoghurt and radishes once.  Use in bread, dumplings and stuffings - our Easter Sunday roast turkey was stuffed with sage, walnut and apple stuffing. Talking of roasts, make holes in a lamb joint and stick sprigs of rosemary in with garlic and/or anchovy fillets, or use a rub made with finely chopped rosemary and paprika.

Bay is great with potatoes, lemon and onions, baked with whole mackerel on top, add dill too if you have some.  If you're cooking a whole salmon, stuff it with lemon slices, herbs and a splash of white wine. Also bay goes well in a lasagne, in either or both of the sauces.

Herbs and eggs are a good combo, I've used thyme in cheese souffIes and a variety of herbs in Iranian spinach tortilla - very fresh tasting! Some parsley and dill really makes a warm mackerel salad with new potatoes and steamed green vegetables. I've made a smoked trout pate recently too, accompanied by beetroot and dill relish.  Added to breadcrumbs, herbs will liven up the coating for a chicken or  pork schnitzel, and a herb crust for fish can be enhanced by adding some Indian spices. Basil is great with most pasta dishes and made into a basil and cream sauce for ravioli, or a basil, white wine and lemon dipping sauce for asparagus. 

One of my favourite pasta dishes uses chopped fresh rosemary with dried oregano, fennel seeds, garlic, harissa paste, red wine, chilli, tinned tomatoes, prawns and chorizo - added to linguine with parsley scattered over..  It smells amazing!

You can use herbs in sweet dishes too.  Nigel Slater does a gorgeous white chocolate and cardamom mousse using bay infused milk - this has become a family favourite; and I've made a milk chocolate mousse with rosemary infused milk - though the flavour was a bit delicate and next time I'll try infusing it overnight. Another Nigel favourite is lemon and thyme cake, and I've made a raspberry and thyme custard tart.  I can't find my own photo so here is one from delicious. magazine but mine did look exactly like the picture!

I also love just infusing some fresh mint leaves in boiling water to make a mint tea, very good for the digestion!

Next I want to try some of the more unusual herbs, so if anybody is growing some please let me know if you have some spare...

More soon, thank you for reading :-)

Caroline.

Photo opportunities.

One Friday recently my husband was away and my friend came for dinner.  We combined both our hobbies by having a photographic dinner party. She never goes anywhere without her camera and wanted to have a go at food photography, and I was happy to cook her dinner, pour the bubbly and entertain her with intelligent conversation (ahem!).  This particular friend is quite special because without her you wouldn't be reading this.  It was her idea that I should write a blog, she encouraged me and she also came up with the name.  So I owe her a lot of thanks.

I usually take photos of my food with my phone, as it's handy, and I don't really have the time to style it as the family are often starving and I don't have time to hang around.  When I take a photo with my phone, it's automatically uploaded to dropbox on my laptop and netbook, so wherever I write my blog, the photos are there ready to be added. 

Sometimes, if it's a cake for example I will take the time to find a background (possibly the floor!) and some decent lighting, but on the whole the photography aspect is a bit rushed. However, I think photos are really important when describing food, a picture really does speak a thousand words, and if you look at a cookery book where not all the recipes are illustrated, you will know what I mean. 

So... we had champagne and nibbles, and a platter of prosciutto, fennel seed salami and bresaola and olives... and let her take photos of whatever she wanted, the food, the kitchen, the table... with fabulous results.  Having a decent camera and lens AND knowing what to do with them makes all the difference as you can see:

For the main course I made a lasagne, served with a simple green salad.  When you have made a lasagne without using jars of ready made sauce, you will never go back.  I made the tomato sauce in the morning, before work so it was ready to add, and just cooked steak mince and added it (with the secret ingredient, a splash of Worcestershire sauce) and some red wine. Then I made the bechamel with lots of nutmeg and a bit of double cream in.  It only needs a little bit, but makes it taste really luxurious. I layered it up with some fresh lasagne that I had frozen a few months before when there was some left over in the packet, topped it with cheese and put it in the oven.

By the time it got to dessert, we had finished the champagne and a bottle of prosecco, AND put the world to rights -  and somehow there wasn't a photo of the pud - but we had frozen berries with hot custard and vanilla meringue kisses that I had made the night before.  A light but delicious girly dinner - and a very good time was had by both. 

I tried to use the above photo of some of my cookery books as a background for the blog template, but it had problems uploading it, so I've given up for now.  And I had to include a photo of my pride and joy, which looks rather fetching in black and white.

I hope to feature more of the photos in future posts, but as they were such high quality they took a long time to upload, so I can't feature too many at once - and I hope it won't be the last time I have a photographic dinner party, as I enjoyed it so much.  And hopefully I'll be a bit more inspired to take better photos of my food from now on, if my family will let me!

Thank you for reading :-)

Caroline x

Let's do lunch.

Lunches are a  very personal thing, and in our family, a very different experience for each family member.  My son has a packed lunch at school, consisting of a ham or turkey sandwich, a yogurt, some fresh fruit, some raisins and a drink of water.  My teenage daughter has an allowance of £12 to spend at school on food for the week, loaded onto their high tech system which enables her to pay with a fingerprint.  I nag her to try and have her five a day and have extra fruit at home but I doubt she does.  My husband has crackers or ryvita with soft cheese or hummous, plus tomatoes and fruit.  I am the chief user-up-of-leftovers. In fact, I often make a bit extra so there are definitely going to be leftovers. If there aren't any leftovers, I see what's in the fridge or cupboards and improvise.  Or treat myself to sushi.  Or chips from the staff canteen!  I don't often have a sandwich, I really do find them boring, but then it does depend on the filling.

A while ago I bought a book on lunches which was really inspiring and was going to try and make loads of interesting soups, salads, bagels and pasta based things but after a while it kind of fizzled out, I do make something interesting when I have time (and when there aren't leftovers) and the highlights have included hot smoked salmon, green bean and red pesto pasta salad; brown rice salad with tomato, cucumber, avocado, mozzarella and sunflower seeds; mozzarella,tomato, basil and anchovy bagels.  I also sometimes do a chickpea, olive, thinly sliced fennel and parsley salad with a simple lemon juice dressing.  And my complete favourite is Vietnamese chicken noodle salad with beansprouts and a lovely fresh tasting dressing using fish sauce. The problem usually is that it's all too much trouble after a day at work to be making fancy salads, especially if you're cooking a meal from scratch too.  I'm not superwoman (though some people may think otherwise!)

My daughter made me an amazing sandwich for lunch this weekend - she invented the recipe and it's basically two pieces of cheese on toast, sandwiched together with layers of ham, pesto, avocado and tomatoes.  I could only manage half and a bit, and was so full for the rest of the day I only had a "mini-meal" for dinner!  She had the rest, and one of her own. Here it is in all it's glory:

In other news, I've recently been diagnosed with lateral epicondylitis (you might know it as tennis elbow, but the medical terminology sounds much more impressive) - unfortunately as it is the right elbow, avoiding using it as much as possible has included me attempting some left handed cooking. Stirring is ok, grating and pushing things through sieves is much slower than usual; and I have to ask for help opening jars. It should get better by itself, but only if I'm careful. No heavy pan lifting for a while then...

More soon, when you will read about my combined girly dinner and photo shoot...

Thanks for reading,

Caroline. 

The Marvel of Meringue

On Mothering Sunday, I went to visit my Mum, bearing cupcakes and a card, and came away with a new cookbook - she had bought me the Meringue Girls Cookbook by Alex Hoffler and Stacey O'Gorman.  It's a great book, and even has layar interactive technology so you can scan the pages with your smartphone and lo and behold! A video of the authors appears with handy hints and tips.  Learn more about the Meringue Girls here: www.meringuegirls.co.uk

They make their meringues slightly differently to any way I have made them before, in that the sugar is heated in a hot oven for 5 minutes before being gradually added to the egg whites (which are whisked to stiff peaks before adding the sugar).  Once all the hot sugar is incorporated, the meringue is whisked at high speed for 5 minutes until the bowl is cooler and all the sugar crystals have dissolved and the mixture stands in a smooth shiny peak on the tip of your finger.  And it's VERY shiny.  Like gloss paint shiny, you can almost see your reflection in it.

 

 

The first recipe I tried was their pretzel chocolate marshmallow meringue tart.  This was a very rich dessert consisting of a digestive biscuit and pretzel base, then a salted chocolate ganache, then topped with meringue mixed with melted marshmallows.  It's set in the fridge rather than cooked, as the gelatine in the marshmallows sets the meringue.  Just before serving you flash it under a hot grill (or blowtorch it) and top with pretzels. It was so rich we couldn't finish it all, so I took it to work, where it didn't last long!

 

Today I thought I'd try and make their meringue "kisses" - piped blobs of meringue, coloured and flavoured as you desire - there are loads of ideas in the book - and sandwiched together in pairs with something, or just eaten as they are.  Apparently they keep for up to two weeks, though unless I hid them there's no chance of them hanging around that long in our house!  I went for the rosewater and pistachio ones as I happened to have some ground pistachios left over in the cupboard.  After making the meringue, I mixed in the pistachios and some rosewater and then it was time for the piping.  The method they use is painting stripes of food colouring on the inside of the piping bag with a paintbrush, turning it the right way out and filling it with mixture, then piping.  This is not nearly as easy as it sounds.  Firstly I didn't have a clean paintbrush.  I tried a pastry brush but that wasn't working so I used the end of a spoon.  That was ok, but the turning-the-bag-the-right-way-out resulted in my hands getting covered in red food colouring.  I persevered, and the meringues did have a nice effect but not quite as good as in the book.  I definitely need more practice, and next time I'll not bother with the piping nozzle as I think the hole  was too small.  Still, they looked ok as you can see, having been sprinkled with more pistachio before the baking:



 

The above photo was taken as they came out of the oven - after 40 minutes at 100 degrees C, you know they're done when they leave the baking paper easily with their bottoms intact!  I sandwiched them together with whipped cream containing more ground pistachios and more rosewater.  The middles were light and a bit gooey and the outsides very crispy.  I'm looking forward to making more of these, and they were a hit with the family, daughter gave them four and a half out of five even though she doesn't like nuts. 

 

 

I'll keep you posted.  I think some kind of pavlova is next.  I've made meringue based desserts before, including roulades, and piled up small meringues stuck together with cream and fruit, but this book has so many good ideas it has really fired my enthusiasm. They even float them in hot chocolate! I have a special friend coming for dinner in a few weeks and she might be treated to a meringue based pud... 

 

Thank you for reading, feel free to share this,

 

Caroline :-)

Further adventures in pasta making.

After a few goes at fettucine and spaghetti, I decided it was time to try my hand at ravioli.  I had been given a  kitchencraft ravioli cutter for my birthday (just like the ones they have on MasterChef) and so started researching recipes and thinking what to do first.  The ideal recipe sprang from the pages of my MasterChef cookbook - another birthday present - the classic ricotta, spinach and lemon ravioli, with walnut pesto and a basil and cream sauce.

I made the pasta as before, using my usual recipe, rather than the one in the book containing ten extra egg yolks (I thought that was a trifle excessive!) and after the rolling and thinning process used the cutter to cut out the squares of pasta - see below.

The filling was a mixture of spinach wilted in butter and then squeezed to get as much of the water out as possible, ricotta, lemon zest and seasoning. It was important to firstly get the right amount of filling so as not to let it escape, and secondly to not get air inside because then they burst during the cooking stage. The edges were brushed with water and firmly pressed together.

 

 

 

So far so good.  The next stage was the pesto.  This was made by mixing toasted walnuts, basil leaves, garlic, grated parmesan cheese and seasoning in a pestle and mortar, adding enough olive oil to loosen to my desired consistency.  The sauce was sautéed shallot, with cream, chopped basil stalks, lemon juice and seasoning. 

 

The ravioli was cooked in boiling water for about 5 minutes (and it didn't split) and served with the sauce and pesto spooned over.  I forgot to take a photo of the finished dish, but it looked gratifyingly like the photo in the book, though obviously square ravioli instead of round!

 

 

 

 

I would definitely make ravioli again, though it is a bit fiddly, you need a day off work and no distractions to do it properly, I need some good ideas though so if you have any, please leave a comment below!  What's your favourite ravioli filling?

 

On another note, it was the hospital Easter bake off again last week, and this time there were a lot more entries - 23!  I made vanilla cupcakes with Cadbury's mini eggs on top and in the middle, plus hot cross buns; however I didn't win anything as the standard was very high.  I was very pleased with the results though, and so were the people who bought and ate them, so that was the important thing.  Next time...

 

Thank you for reading, more very soon, I've entered the wonderful world of meringue making!

 

Caroline :-)