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 :-)



On a knead to know basis...

I love bread, and making it, although it can take a while due to the rising and proving stages, it doesn't usually involve much "hands on" time.  This is especially true now I can use my kitchen aid mixer to do the kneading - my left wrist has never been the same since I severed the tendon in my ring finger 13 years ago and kneading can be a bit painful. 

Granny and Mum always made delicious brown bread with my Grandpa's flour in my childhood, and Mum made great focaccia with rosemary and olives on, so breadmaking runs in the family. My cousin who is a proper chef and studied at the Culinary Institute of America is a fabulous baker and has an artisan bread Facebook page, check out "Nessa's Artisan Bread".

Anyway, today I decided to make fig, fennel and walnut bread, inspired by a friend, but I didn't have any sort of recipe.  I did a bit of googling, and most recipes used dried figs, but I had got some fresh ones, I found a recipe and adapted it, also substituting the rye flour for normal wholemeal along with the strong white and guessing the amount of yeast and water!  It was difficult mixing the fresh figs into the dough (cut into chunks but they were quite squishy) but I managed it and proved my two loaves on the front room windowsill as it was a sunny day.  Considering all that it wasn't at all bad!  Slightly overdone perhaps, but a great crust - the recipe suggested I put a mug of water in the oven to create a steamy environment and it seemed to work.  I liked it!  Goes well with cheddar cheese.

before cooking...

...and after.

 

I'm a big fan of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and always use his "Magic Bread Dough" recipe for pizza bases and flatbreads, the latter dry fried and drizzled with garlic oil. It uses half strong white flour and half normal plain.  Nigella also has a great recipe for "lazy loaf" which uses muesli and doesn't need kneading or proving. You just mix everything up to a thick porridgy mixture and chuck it in a lined tin, put in a cold oven, turn on to 110 degrees C, then after cooking for 45 minutes, turn up to 180 degrees C and cook for another hour.  Almost fool proof! - although a certain friend of mine managed somehow to make it go wrong!  Another Nigella favourite is Irish Oaten rolls made with stout and honey (only I used golden syrup) - the only soda bread I've made that's been successful - see later.  I've made a loaf with Weetabix too.

I used to have a bread machine, the good points being waking up to the smell of freshly baked bread in the morning and just chucking in the ingredients and pressing a few buttons.  However the downside was it took up too much space on the worktop for something that didn't get used very often, the little paddle that mixed the ingredients always got stuck in the bottom of the loaf, and the tin was a pain to clean, also you only get one size of loaf. It doesn't keep well either.

Attempts at making soda bread have not been too successful, with the exception of the Irish oaten rolls -  it always seems heavy and never done properly in the middle, even Riverford's carrot, walnut & thyme version. My attempt at naan bread was also a complete disaster, I'm blaming it on the fact that I haven't got a tandoor oven to cook it in.

 So all in all a mixed set of experiences with breadmaking - I've still got lots to learn but my top tip is don't cover your bowl of proving dough with a tea towel, in case it goes bonkers and sticks to the tea towel - SO hard to wash bread dough out of cotton tea towels"!!  At the risk of being slightly less green, use cling film.

 Thank you for reading - more soon!

 Caroline :-)

 

Souper!

I'm aware that the title of this post sounds like the title of a Jilly Cooper novel, but the similarities should end there. My daughter has recently been making soup at school, and I have been enjoying the results. She made a vegetable soup, and a pea and pancetta soup, and they were both delicious. The next week she made hedgehog bread, which was fab too.  I'm a big fan of soup, though my husband doesn't class it as any sort of  meal, more as a drink... but I disagree and think you can definitely class a hearty soup as a main course.

Also, last night I made a very special soup, for the starter of a family dinner with my parents today - using two (frozen) lobsters. Here is the end result:

 

 

It may not look like much, but it is the soup equivalent of understated glamour - 2 hours of cooking, brandy, wine, flambéing, double cream and a lot of love went into it!  It's the second time I've made it and it's definitely been the pinnacle of my new recipe project.

 

First I removed the meat from the defrosted lobsters and set it aside.  That part was fun, I used cherry stoners and poultry shears with a skewer to get the claw meat out. Then I broke up the lobster shells and cooked them with carrot and onion in butter, flambéing in brandy (Armagnac left over from the Christmas goose recipe) and then simmering in fish stock and white wine for 20 minutes.  Meanwhile I made a roux with butter and flour, adding boiling milk to make a thick white sauce.  This sauce was then added to the lobster and vegetables and simmered gently for an hour to allow the flavour of the lobster to go into the sauce.  After that, I removed the big pieces and sieved the rest, adding a bit more hot water as it was a bit too thick, and there wasn't very much of it for six of us! However, after reheating with a splash more Armagnac and some double cream and adding the chopped lobster meat it was perfect.

 

 

 

This is how much meat you get out of two smallish lobsters - shown in a cereal bowl - definitely quality rather than quantity.

 

 

Before the flambéing stage... I think next time I'll use a rolling pin to break the shells up a bit more. Note the bay leaves from my tree.
 

Nearly there...just the sieving to go. 

Last autumn half term, we went to visit my Uncle in North Lincolnshire, who is a keen gardener and he sent us home with a huge box of his home grown tomatoes, so after having eaten some just as they were, I set about turning the rest (three and a half kilos of them) into tomato soup. I made it in my massive stock pot (see below) and based it on a recipe from "A Celebration of Soup" by Lindsey Bareham - cooking the tomatoes (no need to bother skinning them as the skins will be sieved out later) with softened shallots, garlic and a bouquet garni with seasoning until mushy, then adding vegetable stock and simmering for 20 minutes, before sieving and reheating with a splash of cream and a pinch of sugar, which really brings out the flavour of the tomatoes.  There was such a lot I froze some for another day.

 

One of my other favourite soups was from celebrity Come Dine With Me - Linda Barker made cauliflower soup with goats cheese and truffle oil and I loved the sound of it - and I served it to my friends at my own CDWM night where it was deemed the highlight of the meal.  The goats cheese is passed through a tea strainer and mixed with truffle oil before a little dollop of it is placed in the centre of the soup and garnished with chives.

 

Another favourite started life as an Annabel Karmel baby puree but was so yummy that with a bit of extra seasoning and larger quantities became an adult meal - using red lentils and sweet potato.

 

I also love green soups, a fast and healthy one is maltese pea and cumin soup, made in minutes using frozen peas; also pea and tenderstem broccoli where you blitz half and not the other half to give it a bit more texture.

 

You can't go wrong with a nourishing chicken soup, made with the leftovers from the Sunday roast, or a miso prawn soup with noodles and spicy chilli, leek and butterbean soup with herb butter.. the list goes on.  Other soups I've made and enjoyed include beetroot & orange, fennel, pumpkin, celeriac, parsnip, and carrot & ginger.

 

Presentation can be fun too, okay it's just a liquid, but serving it in teacups or shot glasses, garnishes, fried onions, breadcrumbs, bacon bits, herbs, serving it with cheese toasts or interesting bread can make it look a bit more special.

 

 

 

One thing I've never tried making is a chilled soup, but I plan to give that a go when the weather warms up.

 

Thank you for reading,

 

Caroline :-)