Winter warmers.

The nights are drawing in, the heating is on, bonfire night has happened and the leaves are rapidly falling.  The time has come for some serious comfort food. I NEVER seem to be able to make enough dumplings when I make a stew, even once when I made thirty six! And, having said that, I can never make a small stew, it always turns into a massive pot of meaty and vegetably (if that's a word?) goodness that cooks on the hob for a good three hours, by which time everyone is so hungry that they burn their mouths on the gravy... and we have enough leftovers for the next day and then some for the freezer. But no dumplings.

Then there is the joy of a lamb tagine,oven cooked for three and a half hours, with spices, prunes and apricots; served with couscous and green beans. I've also made a slow  cooked beef ragu that took a good four hours to develop all the flavours.

Today's first new recipe of two was another wintry delight -  Chinese Northern Lamb, from a new book called Whole Food Slow Cooked.  A 2kg shoulder of lamb on the bone was balanced on top of chunks of onion and green & orange peppers; and rubbed with a spice paste which smelled amazing!  To make it I toasted Chinese Sichuan peppercorns, cumin seeds and fennel seeds in a pan until fragrant, then crushed and mixed with tumeric, ground ginger, chilli flakes, garlic, vinegar, sugar and salt.  

After three hours in the oven at 160 C,covered with a lid; and another hour uncovered, it looked like this:

We had it with rice and stir fried pak choi, and it was very delicious, but I think I would use a spice mill for the spice paste next time instead of just a pestle and mortar as the peppercorns weren't crushed finely enough and were a bit unplesant if you bit on one. However, it got a good four out of five.

I also did a new recipe dessert.  The Christmas food magazines are out and there are so many fab recipes to try and so little time.  I've also planned the Christmas Day menu today. But back to the pudding: Raspberry and citrus syllabub mini trifles.

These were really easy and yummy, just trifle sponges, raspberries, and cream whipped with a mixture of orange and lemon zest and juice with some sugar dissolved in.  They need to be left for a good three hours for the cream to be absorbed into the trifle sponges, so they are sort of a slow "cooked" pudding!  Even the cat was enthusiastic and wanted to lick the glass out...

More soon, thank you for reading,
Caroline :-)

The story of "Assorted Soup".

On a recent trip to visit family in Scarborough, I paid my first visit to the ingredients paradise that is the Happy Rooster Oriental Foodstore.  Not having anywhere like it close to home, I stocked up on many new and fabulous oriental ingredients, including an interesting-looking (if somewhat overpackaged) collection of strange, wonderful and mainly previously unheard of items entitled "assorted soup mixture". My son was amused by the Fox Nuts, I was perplexed by the Dong Sum Root and Hoantchy, although I HAD heard of Longan, having eaten some fresh ones for the first time the day before - they're a bit like lychees. And what on earth is a Dioscore? If anyone reading this blog can enlighten me about any of these, please comment.

A few weeks later, on a grey and windy November day, my daughter was off school with a headache and sore throat.  It was just the sort of day to make something healthy and warming, and hopefully make her feel better. The time had come to make "assorted soup".

Following the instructions on the packet, I washed and soaked the contents of the packet, added chicken (two free range chicken breasts), several slices of fresh root ginger and eight bowls of water.  It didn't specify what size of bowl, so I went for a "rice bowl" size, thinking that it was easy to add more water later if required, and important not to dilute the flavours.

When going to the fridge for the ginger, I realised I didn't have any.  Shopping list fail!!  Not like me at all!  But the wonderful world of social media came to the rescue.  I posted a request on the village FaceBay page, a friend happened to be in the local supermarket at the time, popped some in their trolley and delivered it to my door within thirty minutes! What a fabulous community I live in.  Anyway,back to the soup making...

It didn't smell all that interesting, in fact it didn't smell of much at all, so I thought I would add some more flavour by adding another of my Happy Rooster purchases, a stock cube with barely any English writing on, but a delicious smell and rather lovely orange colour. The bits I could read said "Product of Thailand" and "Directions: Dissolve 2 cubes in 1 litre of boiling water, add other ingredients such as shrimp, fish, mushroom or vegetable". I thought I would just go for it and chucked it in.  

After some time - two hours - which was the time specified on the assorted soup mixture packet, it was smelling and tasting rather delicious, and looked like this:

I wasn't sure if you were meant to eat the assorted mixture of flavourings or not, so erred on the side of caution and strained them out.  I thought it might spoil everything to bite on a Fox Nut and be left with an unpleasant taste in the mouth!  I considered trying them, but in the end I didn't. The chicken breasts were shredded with a fork and returned to the pan of now strained soup, together with my own assorted other ingredients: a pointed red pepper cut into strips, two carrots made into ribbons with a potato peeler, some authentic Japanese Ramen noodles (another Happy Rooster purchase), two of the slices of ginger cut into matchsticks, and some pak choi and choi sum, chopped up. And a splash of soy sauce. When all the ingredients were added, I decided it DID need a bit more water, so sloshed a bit more in. Four minutes of simmering later and my assorted Chinese/Thai/Japanese noodle soup was good to go:

I thought it looked rather pretty, and it cheered up both the dull day, and my daughter - who gave it 5 out of 5! So all in all, a successful experiment.

Thank you for reading, and if you happen to be in Scarborough, do visit the Happy Rooster at 16 North Marine Road YO12 7PD.

More soon I hope,  Caroline :-) x

A helping hand from my KitchenAid

NOTE: Apologies for the lack of  posts recently. I have been rather busy this year coping with marital breakdown, adjusting to single parenthood; and recently and quite unexpectedly, a new relationship.  But it's all good now and everyone is happy.

Back to the blog.  In 2012 I got a KitchenAid Artisan stand mixer for Christmas. Although when I was growing up I had a lot of fun with my Mum's Kenwood Chef stand mixer and was well aware of what you could do and the attachments you could get, even down to coffee grinding, meat mincing and sausage making; I somehow decided when I moved into my own house that I didn't have room on the worktop and could make do with an electric hand mixer. And this I did for over 16 years.  But having seen the KitchenAid stand mixer in all its glory on television programmes and in shops, I eventually decided that the time had come to make room on the worktop.  The first problem was deciding what colour to get.  They come in so many gorgeous colours that this was very difficult!  I nearly got pink, then thought about green (my favourite colour) but after much humming and ha-ing I went for black.  Like Nigella's.

The first stand mixer to carry the KitchenAid name was manufactured in 1918, and over years the design has not changed all that much; in fact attachments from the mixers of the 1930s can still apparently be used with the modern machines of today.

I can't remember the first thing I used it for, but I've never looked back.  It's so solid and well made, and quite frankly beautiful!  I even polish it sometimes...  

It's fab for meringue (and hence macaroons of course), cakes, cheesecake mixture, biscuit dough, whipping cream, butter icing, fondant icing, brownie mixture... I couldn't make bread or pizza dough without it because kneading dough kills my wrist due to a severed tendon in my ring finger 15 years ago. And the pasta attachment is great, no handle turning required. For more about that see my "Adventures in pasta making" post. See the marvel of meringue post too for photos of how it performs in the meringue department.

The attachments and the bowl go in the dishwasher (except the pasta machine which doesn't get washed at all, it has a special brush that you brush it with when it's dry) and it's very easy to clean.  Even my daughter manages to leave it looking good, when she does after school impromptu baking. I did have a problem with the wire whisk when I accidentally turned the KitchenAid on with the whisk attached and the beater in the bowl too. It got a bit bent but my daughter stood on it to bend it back and it's nearly right, just makes a bit of a loud noise as it's not quite perfect.  I might get a replacement one soon, you can get pink ones...

I do think cakes turn out better when using it compared to the electric hand mixer ones of yesteryear, and it makes excellent butter icing, because you can leave it for a good five minutes and no aching arms. The longer you leave it going with butter icing, the lighter and fluffier it gets. I'm not sure what I did without it really, and as for making room on the worktop, it's a thing of beauty and a joy forever... I could just sit there and look at it gleaming!

More soon, thank you for reading,

Caroline :-)

A little of what you fancy...

Following on from my post yesterday, I was reminded that I had promised to write about both savoury and sweet canapes.  Upon doing some research, I have discovered that there is technically no such thing as a sweet canape.  The nearest thing to a sweet canape is probably a petit four, which can be sweet or savoury but is usually sweet. Confused? You will be!  The word canape is French for covering (for a bed) but applied to a covering of a wafer, cracker, bread, toast with a savoury topping.  Petit four means "small oven" and refers therefore just to something small and bite sized, usually served at the end of a meal with coffee but can be savoury and served with pre-dinner drinks.

Anyway - the savoury ones have been discussed already, so here are some thoughts on the sweet variety of whatever-you-want-to-call-them!

I got the inspiration for this post from two new recipes made at my recent Pampered Chef party.  I had bought a mini muffin tin, with a wooden "shover downer" (it's proper name escapes me!) with which to make mini quiches, muffins, and all sorts of delicious bite sized morsels.  We made rolo tartlets - a shortcrust pastry case with a rolo in, baked then topped with a white chocolate button that melts into the gooey rolo - you get the idea!  Also Bailey's cheesecake tartlets using cookie dough instead of normal pastry, filled after baking the cases with a mixture of cream cheese, icing sugar and Bailey's, piped in and dusted with cocoa powder:

Other ideas I really want to try are lemon curd mixed with whipped cream and topped with strawberries, and apple sauce topped with crumble mixture.

Another bite sized sweet treat I've attempted to make is the fondant fancy, I'm going to admit here to being a big fan of the Mr Kipling ones!  I saw them being made on the bake off and thought "Can they really be that tricky?"  Er,yes. The home made ones were good, but made the most hellish mess of the kitchen (and me!!) and were rather larger than bite sized in the end!  I even made a really posh version from a recipe in a Sunday supplement I found in the tea room at work with chocolate icing and chocolate decorations on top and a whole macadamia nut under the icing, which looked a whole lot more glamorous,but I can't find a photo.

There is also the malteser and Mars bar square:

And the peanut butter square - which must be one of the unhealthiest recipes ever, containing only peanut butter, butter, chocolate, sugar, digestive biscuits and vanilla extract. But hey, you only need a small piece.  Stopping at one is sometimes a problem though.

Of course, the highly favoured macaroon/macaron can be made in a mini version too. After dinner coffee will never be the same again.  

Thank you for reading, Caroline x

Cocktails and canapes.

As you can probably tell by now I always enjoy finding new recipes on the internet and loads of great ideas often appear on my Facebook news feed. I do love a cocktail and the other day there was a link to "10 easy prosecco cocktails that everyone should master" and when I had my cousin round for a girly night last Friday we gave a couple of them a try. There were some quite spectacular recipes including a "Paddington" with marmalade, honey and whisky which I didn't try - more because I don't like honey than anything else!  One of the ones I DID try was the "Green Ginger Fizz", 25ml ginger syrup from a jar of stem ginger, 25ml freshly squeezed lime juice, topped up with prosecco and topped with a slice of lime. You could also use the Kings Ginger, the ginger liqueur I've mentioned in some of my previous posts, instead of the syrup.

The other one was my favourite, the English Garden. 20ml elderflower cordial, 20ml gin and topped up with prosecco, and a mint sprig to finish. Very girly and sophisticated, and most refreshing.  You might remember the cranberry gin fizz from my Christmas post, this was a variation on that. I had a sloesecco once too, when I went out for dinner and decided on a cocktail rather than a pudding, as I was rather full. Sloe gin with prosecco. Here it is:

And here is my English Garden:

I did love the mint, and speaking of which you've got to love a Mojito, there was another post recently that gave a recipe for lots of summer cocktails including a blackberry Mojito which I really want to try, watch this space. I like to run a bit of lemon or lime around the edge of the glass too, for a little bit of extra zing, like I do with my gin and tonics. Of course a classic margarita has salt around the rim, to cut down on the bite of the alcohol, and tequila drinkers (especially when it was cheap tequila) licked salt off the back of their hand before drinking it and then sucked on a lime afterwards - to stop the burning!  I used to drink tequila slammers in days gone by with my sister - we'd do the salt licking, then mix tequila and cava, bash it on the table three times before downing it! My tastes are a bit more refined now and boringly sensible drinking has taken over...

Of course if you're really pushing the boat out, you can use champagne instead of prosecco or cava, or if you don't drink alcohol you can use sparkling grape juice.  I've been to a bar that does the most amazing non-alcoholic "mocktails" such as the beautiful "summer sunset".  

I also love the creamy cocktails such as the Brandy Alexander: brandy and creme de cacao with cream.  It has an interesting Wikipedia entry if you're curious.

Anyway, this talk of cocktails is all very well, but what about some nibbles to go with?

One of my favourite and more unusual nibbles is frozen soya beans (or fresh if you can get them) roasted in olive oil and sprinkled with salt; also chorizo fried in red wine, and garlic prawns; but I do love a canape!

Here is an example - I had a leftover lobster in the freezer to use up and some reduced price smoked salmon.  You might be forgiven for thinking "what kind of a woman has leftover lobster in her freezer?" but hey, they were on special offer at Christmas and I had bought two but hadn't got round to using the second one.  So I cheated with some ryvita thins spread with cream cheese, added the lobster meat and smoked salmon, some salmon caviar and a grind of pepper and served on a bed of leaves with a squeeze of lemon. You can use bread toasted in the oven instead of bought crackers, also rye bread and once I even made parmesan shortbread for the bases.

Another good idea is to use those bags of mini poppadoms as they make great edible bite size plates - fill with prawns either marinated with chilli or in a yogurt, lemon and coriander dressing.  

Examples of other canapes I've tried are: dates filled with a slice of jarlsberg cheese and wrapped  in parma ham - mini Caesar salads consisting of a blob of yogurt flavoured with lemon zest and black pepper, with an anchovy fillet, parmesan cheese shavings and a deluxe crouton served in a lettuce leaf. Also parma ham wrapped goats cheese and rocket things that were meant to look like trees but were a complete disaster presentation wise though they did taste lovely!  A favourite recipe that my sister used to make that I've adopted is small thin slices of lamb steak spread with English mustard and sprinkled with brown sugar and served warm from the oven with cocktail sticks.  Sounds strange but tastes wonderful.

Time to find something to celebrate then.  Happy Bank holiday Monday! Please drink responsibly.

Thank you for reading, Caroline x

Easter treats!

Whether or not you are religious, Easter is a great time for getting together with the family and sharing something delicious. A roast of spring lamb or a whole salmon with some spring vegetables, followed by something chocolatey for dessert is a great boost to the spirit and really signals the end of winter as well as the end of lent.  Especially if there is a bunch of daffodils on the table.

I like to start with champagne and nibbles, and maybe home made canapes (in our family we always make the most of an excuse to drink champagne, it's my second favourite drink, the first being a cup of tea).  These are mini filo tarts with brie, cranberry and rocket, served warm. I feel a blog post devoted to canapes both sweet and savoury coming on soon.

This year we had a small haunch of venison for the main course, with roast potatoes and vegetables -  but not carrots as my parents seem to have a lot of carrots in the dining room at the retirement community where they live and Mum had requested that we didn't have them! In previous years we have had lamb with Janssen's temptation - a very unhealthy but delicious potato gratin with anchovies and cream in.

I do have to admit though, that there is no getting away from the fact that Easter is really ALL about chocolate treats.  And the dessert is my favourite part of Easter Sunday/Monday lunch.  I've discovered that when it comes to Cadbury's mini eggs and creme eggs,the possibilities are endless. Two years ago I made an Easter themed trifle with hot cross buns in the bottom soaked  in vanilla liqueur, raspberries, grapes, peaches, three kinds of jelly (lemon, raspberry and lime), halved mini creme eggs, vanilla custard and topped with whipped cream, silver shimmer spray, chocolate hearts and mini eggs!

This year I made a creme egg cheesecake, with chopped creme eggs in the cheesecake mixture and topped with more creme eggs drizzled with milk and white chocolate, plus white chocolate coloured yellow with food colouring paste to look like the egg yolk. It was made in a 9 inch tin so was the tallest cheesecake I've ever made.  In fact I made two, one for the family and the other as an Easter present for my department at work.

I havealso made an Easter themed chocolate cake, this had maltesers in it and on it, and the mixture had a touch of Horlicks in it to give a malteser-y flavour:

It really is better to not even think about calories in the case of the above. It's usually one of those days in the year when you don't really want anything else to eat for the whole day, but if you do there is always a hot cross bun or an Easter nest cupcake:

The hot cross buns were made for an Easter bake off at the hospital where I work, and they didn't even get placed, but I was still pleased with how they turned out, I love the sticky glaze.  My cousin once accidentally made some with cumin instead of cinnamon, I suggested trying them with cheese. Many of the best discoveries are made by accident!

I hope all my readers had a Happy Easter, and have many more happy ones in years to come.

Thank you for reading,

Caroline :-)

 

Afternoon tea (one lump or two?)

Afternoon tea is one of the great joys of life.  There's a Chinese proverb that says "Better to go without food for three days than tea for one" and while I firmly agree with that, and have decided that tea would definitely be my luxury item to take to a desert island, tea AND cake are a marriage made in heaven, and even better when preceded by dainty crustless sandwiches and a glass of champagne.

A bit of history for you.  Tea was introduced to England in 1662 by Catherine of Braganza, a Portuguese princess; but the custom of having afternoon tea in homes, hotels and elegant cafes didn't become popular until the 19th century. The tradition continued until the 1970s,when cafes became more downmarket and self service as working practices changed, but then resurged in the 1990 when more quality leaf teas became available, and these days it is now seen more as a treat for special occasions rather than an everyday thing.

Here are some photographs of a wonderful afternoon tea I had for a friend's fortieth birthday at a local country house hotel and spa - and very delicious it was too. We went back to the same establishment where I had previously enjoyed the same for my fortieth birthday, and the standard was still as high. The weather was fine, so we had an outdoor table in a beautiful courtyard, and we ate and drank listening to music played by a real pianist floating out from the open doors to the house. The sandwiches used interesting breads and fillings, and the cakes were amazing.  We thought we'd finished when another plateful was served!

Of course, I am equally keen on creating my own afternoon teas as I am on going out to eat them, and have got a great book called "The Perfect Afternoon Tea Recipe Book" by Anthony Wild and Carol Pastor, with all manner of mouth watering ideas to try.

I made afternoon tea for my mother in law last Mothering Sunday, this was a simple affair with cucumber sandwiches, smoked salmon sandwiches and prosecco, followed by tea and vanilla chiffon cupcakes, pictured below:

 .

And of course, it's an ideal opportunity to serve macaroons. Other suitable recipes I've made include tea breads (pistachio, cardamom and marmalade is a recent favourite), mini meringue "kisses" sandwiched together with flavoured cream, mini lemon drizzle cakes, chocolate eclairs or profiteroles (which can be made in a smaller and more dainty way) ,little slices of walnut tart - and not forgetting scones, with the obligatory jam and cream..

Then there is the tea of course, and leaf tea really does taste better than bags in my opinion, although there are teabags AND teabags! My husband went to Harrogate once and visited the celebrated Betty's tea room.  He brought me back the Rolls Royce of Earl Grey teabags, made of special biodegradable mesh. To quote from their website:

The shape and material of these special tea bags allow you to enjoy all the benefits of leaf teas, but with the convenience of a tea bag.

This tea is a blend of fine black China tea, which has been subtly fragranced with natural bergamot oil. A scattering of cornflower and marigold petals add floral overtones and make them rather pretty too.

They are about £6 for 20, but worth it!

Earl Grey is my favourite tea, but there are all kinds of others to try, Darjeeling and Formosa Oolong are other favourites, and Earl Grey with rose petals.  I know people who get tea delivered by post from specialist shops, and I've even been sent leaf tea as a present all the way from Australia!

I don't have sugar in tea, but if you do, at afternoon tea sugar should be served as lumps in a bowl with tongs, it's all part of the experience.  Should the milk go in before or after?  This is still open to debate. Read more here: 

http://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2014/oct/03/how-to-make-tea-science-milk-first 

http://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,,-1400,00.html

I don't know why, but somehow to me tea tastes better out of a cup and saucer, it's probably a psychological thing. At home I do normally use bags and a mug, but if I want to treat myself the cups and saucers come out.  I was given these fabulous macaroon cups and saucers as a birthday present once, they came from France. I also have a glass tea infuser rather than a pot, and a handmade tea cosy made by my Mum.

So why not treat yourself to afternoon tea soon?  You're worth it!

More soon, thank you for reading,

Caroline :-)