Morale Boosting Mince Pies

It was the Sunday before the last working week prior to the Christmas Holiday and I was slowly starting to feel festive despite the damp weather. I decided therefore to make some Mince Pies. The soundtrack of choice for cooking was the Stone Roses Compilation The Complete Stone Roses which is an excellent overview of their work for the Silvertone Record Label and contains everything from early rather primitive efforts like 1985's 'So Young' through to more familiar, sophisticated works like 'Fools Gold', 'Mersey Paradise' and 'What the World is Waiting For'.

I found a cake tin with twelve spaces in it and greased each space with margarine as well as a sprinkling of plain flour in each. I then made some shortcrust pastry by kneading eight ounces of plain flour with four ounces of margarine until they formed a breadcrumb-like consistency and bound the crumbs together into one mass of pastry with around two tablespoons of soya milk. I then rolled out the pastry as flatly as possible   and one by one cut circles with a diameter of around six centimetres from the pastry.

I then formed them into cup shapes and added one to each of the twelve spaces in the cake tin. When I did this I pressed them against the sides of each cake tin so that the top part of the pastry cups was slightly above the top of the spaces of the cake tin.

I filled each pastry cup with enough mincemeat to reach the top of the cups while still leaving the tops of the cups exposed. In order to give an extra taste to the pies I added an eighth of a teaspoonful of dark navy rum to the mincemeat in each cup.

I took the rest of the pastry and cut out lids from it that were about five centimetres in diameter and joined the edges of the lids with the pastry edges at the top of the cups to form the pies. As I only make mince pies at this time of year the skill of successfully joining the pie lids to the pastry cups is one that is usually forgotten by the end of January and has to be re-learned the following Christmas.

Once I had manipulated the pie lids onto the top of the cups to form proper mince pies I baked in them in the fan oven at 220 degrees, 230 for non-fan ovens, for fifteen minutes after which time the pastry had turned a golden-brown colour.

After I had turned the pies out onto a wire rack and left them to cool for about half an hour I added a dusting of icing sugar to each to enhance the festive feel of the food. In recognition of the way my workmates had pulled together and worked hard during a taxing two month prior to Christmas I took the pies to work for them to sample and they were met with unanimous approval.

Lined up and ready to eat complete with a dusting of icing sugar- the taste outweighed their appearance by some way. 

Mock Roast

Christmas Eve had been a very enjoyable day as it largely consisted of a trip to the pub in the afternoon and another one in the evening with plenty of good company. On Christmas morning after swapping presents with a few family members and taking the dog a walk to a deserted local wood I got down to the task of preparing Christmas Dinner. It was a Christmas Dinner with a difference as it contained no meat.

The album of choice, which was also my Christmas present, was the eponymous debut album by German Electronica duo Neu! Released in 1971 the album still sounds ahead of its time today and its minimalist ambiance has influenced everyone from David Bowie to Joy Division and Sonic Youth.

I took a white onion and diced it up finely. I then boiled it in a small saucepan of water for around twenty-five minutes until soft. While the onions boiled I greased an ovenproof Pyrex dish with margarine and added a box of shallot stuffing mix. to the dish. I then beat one egg in a separate bowl and when the onion had boiled sufficiently I poured it and the boiling water into the bowl with the stuffing mix and stirred everything thoroughly together so as to turn the contents of the bowl into a sticky but flavoursome paste. Once I had spread the stuffing evenly throughout the bowl with a butter knife I squeezed the juice of half a lemon over it and left the bowl to stand for around 30 minutes.

I peeled six white potatoes and then cut them into roughly five centimetre wide and one centimetre thick pieces. I put the potatoes to one side and prepared some sprouts by washing them in a bowl of ice cold water and then cutting their bottom ends off as well as removing the outer leaves. I also prepared five carrots by peeling them and topping and tailing them in the usual way before slicing them width-ways so that they looked the shape of pieces from the popular game 'Connect 4'.

In two medium sized baking trays with high sides I added enough sunflower oil to each so that oil covered the bottom of the trays. I pre-heated the oven to 170 degrees (180 degrees if you're not using a fan oven) and when the oven reached the correct temperature I placed the oil-filled baking trays in the oven for one minute so as to warm the oil up. I then took the trays out and added the potatoes which I left to cook for thirty minutes.

While the potatoes cooked I added four ounces of plain flour and two ounces of margarine to a mixing bowl together four sliced sage leaves. I rubbed the flour, margarine and sage together until they took on the shape of golden breadcrumbs interspersed with small pieces of green. Next I added two table spoons of unsweetened Soya Milk to the mixture and stirred it all together with a butter knife until I had a pliable pastry.

I rolled the pastry out and then cut it into pieces large enough to wrap around the centre of six Quorn vegetarian sausages which I had also plucked straight from the freezer. I added the newly wrapped sausages to a greased baking tray.

Also obtained from the freezer were four Quorn chicken style fillets that I added to my Le Cresceut dish and fried slowly in olive oil for fifteen minutes. I then added a hint of black pepper, five diced shallots and three large white onions that were also diced. After the onions and shallots had cooked long enough to become translucent I added a pint of chicken stock and made a thick gravy with quarter of a pint of boiling water and half a tablespoonful of flour as well as one chicken stock cube. I added the gravy to the Le Cresceut dish together with some more sage and left it to cook on a low light on the hob while the other parts of the meal were prepared.

The secret to preparing this meal is to make the stuffing mixture and leave it to set first. Then prepare the carrots and sprouts and then prepare the roast potatoes and leave them cooking for half an hour and while the potatoes are cooking make the pastry sausages and get the Quorn fillets cooking in the sage, onion and gravy as soon as possible.

After half an hour had elapsed I put the steamer on a high heat so as it came to the boil very quickly and I also took the potatoes out of the oven and turned each one over. When I returned the potatoes to the oven I added the sausages in pastry and the stuffing. I left the contents of the oven to cook for twenty-five minutes and while they were cooking I added the carrots and sprouts to the steamer together with some frozen peas and steamed them until I could put a fork through them easily.

I decided I wanted a white sauce to go with the sprouts and peas so I melted two ounces of butter in a saucepan and mixed this with a heaped table spoon of cornflour. I added a quarter of a pint of skimmed milk to the saucepan and stirred it into the flour and butter on a medium heat until it was thick.

After the potatoes, stuffing and sausages had cooked for their allotted twenty-five minutes the meal was ready. The question was did the lack of meat mean that Christmas Dinner would be ruined? The answer was a definite 'no' as the sausages with their strong-flavoured pastry made up for the loss of the usual pigs in blankets and the Quorn fillets were as tasty as chicken but without the worry of having to contend with fat and bone. The fillets further benefited from the sage and onion gravy as well as the liberal helpings of cranberry sauce I spread over them during the meal.

The roast potatoes were crisp and rich while the sprouts, carrots and peas found a tasteful place in the dinner thanks being covered in the white sauce.

The presence of the stuffing, which was made richer by the beaten egg and boiled onion pieces, meant there were still plenty of traditional features in this Christmas Dinner which was washed down with a bottle of champagne.

All laid out and ready to eat: easily as tasty as a traditional Christmas Dinner. 

Blue Cheese in December

It had been a good weekend; it began on the Friday evening with a first rate curry and then continued on Saturday with a trip to York to catch up with some old uni mates and then a visit to a real ale pub in the evening with some school friends. As a result when Sunday rolled around it was time to take things a little steadier and do some cooking.

As it was the last weekend prior to me finishing work for the Christmas and New Year Period I decided to make something a little festive. For me there are some foods that you automatically associate with Christmas and one of those is blue cheese, which I usually like to consume with a glass of Port at this time of year. For the recipe I prepared this time round I decided to incorporate some Blue Stilton into a quiche.

The soundtrack today was the Stone Roses' eponymous first album, which combines the best elements of sixties pop and makes them over in a late eighties Mancunian style that is memorable and unique.

I first made the pastry by greasing a 25cm wide pastry tin with margarine and sprinkling a spot of plain flour into it to make sure the pastry did not stick and then preparing the pastry from eight ounces of wholemeal flour and four ounces of margarine.

I put the pastry-lined tin to one side and then made the filling by finely chopping a bunch of parsley and a bunch of spring onions and adding them to a mixing bowl. I then took three ounces of Blue Stilton Cheese and crumbled it into the bowl with three ounces of plain cottage cheese and three ounces of quark, which is a pale, flavourless yoghurt originating from Germany readily available from many supermarkets. I stirred the cheeses, quark and vegetables together vigorously until the whiteness of the cottage cheese and quark covered all the other ingredients.

The next job was to lay my hands on three eggs, crack them into a bowl and whisk them extensively for about five minutes until the yolks had merged totally with the whites. I then added them to the bowl with the other ingredients and stirred them carefully together until the eggs had been fully absorbed. For a final touch I added a hint of white pepper.

After the contents of the bowl had been fully mixed together I poured them into the pastry case and used a butter knife to level the mixture off and spread it evenly throughout the case. I placed the meal in an oven that I had preheated to 180 degrees, 190 for those of you who don't have a fan oven, and let it cook for about thirty minutes. I could tell the quiche was ready as the edges were starting to turn a nut-brown colour.

So what can be said about the taste? Well the answer is that the spring onions and parsley give the quiche a sharp, fresh flavour that helped counterbalance the richness of the cottage cheese, quark and Blue Stilton. On this occasion I had the quiche with a salad but if you want to try this dish closer to Christmas then why not have it as a supplement to some crackers and a large cheeseboard and wash it down with a glass of Port?

A little overdone round the edges but this didn't detract from the excellent taste. 

Taking a hike

The next to last Sunday in November, the 18th of November to be exact, saw me attend a very enjoyable dedication ceremony for two good friends' baby son followed by a superb slap up carvery at a pub that I had last been to when Right Said Fred were topping the charts and Phil Collins had just made his last blockbuster studio album with Genesis.

As my assault on the pub's carvery lasted for the majority of the afternoon I had limited time for cooking and decided to make something that was quick to prepare but substantial all the same. The recipe I chose was Hiker's Parkin a perfect dish to fortify oneself against the crisp frost that had started the day and was set to continue throughout the week.

The album of choice for the cooking was Queen's 1978 effort Jazz; a record that was described by the NME on its release as being fascist. Fascist it is not but eclectic it certainly is as the album mixes heavy rock, catchy pop, stadium rock, a haunting acoustic ballad and disco- influenced funk. It was also an appropriate choice to listen to as I had it on heavy rotation at the time when the couple whose baby was dedicated earlier in the day had got married.

I first took a 10 centimetre deep and 25 centimetre wide baking tray and lined it with kitchen foil that was thoroughly greased with Margarine. I then poured five ounces of rolled porridge oats, two teaspoons of powdered ginger, two ounces of soft brown sugar and two ounces of mixed peel into my plastic mixing bowl. I stirred them together thoroughly with a wooden spoon until the sticky mixed peel was turned dry by being coated in the other ingredients.

In the meantime I melted three ounces of margarine in a small milk pan and then added the melted margarine to the mixing bowl together with six ounces of golden syrup, one beaten egg and two tablespoons of milk.

After all the ingredients were mixed together they formed a pleasantly fragrant paste that was golden brown in colour. I then poured the mixture into the greased baking tray and spread it evenly throughout the tray using a butter knife. The mixture was then cooked in the oven at 150 degrees (160 if you haven't a fanned oven) for forty five minutes. As always with dishes of this type I knew it was ready when I put a meat skewer through the middle of it and the skewer came out clean.

After the Parkin had been left to cool on a wire rack I cut it into bite size squares before I served it.

The taste was superb as the oats gave plenty of substance to the dish while the strong taste of the ginger was offset against the sweetness of the golden syrup, my workmates certainly seemed to agree when I took some of the Parkin to work the next day as it boosted their morale as well as meeting with the approval of their taste buds.

Straight out of the oven and left to cool on a wire rack prior to cutting up. 

Cut into squares and ready to take to work 

Time for Turmeric

On Remembrance Sunday I had a slight lie in after an evening of celebration, cake and Fifa 2013 in honour of the birth of my friends' daughter the night before. Then after a walking my hyperactive Lakeland Terrier I remembered I had bought a jar of Turmeric during the working week and decided it was time to put it to good use in my cooking.

Turmeric is a bright orange colour normally and looks more like something you would use in a school science project rather than an ingredient to use in cooking. It has a spicy flavour all its own however and adds a special dimension to any dish it is added to.

I used it this time round in a soup of chickpeas with spinach. The soundtrack for the cookery was Queen's 1977 release News of the World. The album is known for being front loaded with the one-two punch of We Will Rock You and We Are the Champions however there is much more to it as the third song Sheer Heart Attack would not have sounded out of place on a Sex Pistols or Clash album and the seventh song Get Down Make Love was subsequently covered by Nine Inch Nails. The album as a whole shows that there is much more to the Queen than just Bohemian Rhapsody and It's a Kind of Magic.

I put three tablespoons of olive oil into the bottom of my Le Cresceut dish and moved the dish from side to side so that the oil covered the bottom of the dish. I turned the heat up on the hob and poured a teaspoon of coriander seeds, three diced cloves of garlic, two diced onions and half a teaspoon of fresh coriander into the dish. After I had mixed these ingredients together I added a teaspoon of Turmeric which gave the food an almost radioactive glow as I stirred the Turmeric into it.

After frying the ingredients on a low heat for about ten minutes, always making sure that I stirred them periodically to avoid them sticking to the bottom of the pan, I added four ounces of chopped spinach, the juice of half a lemon, four tomatoes with the tops removed, a can of chickpeas and a pint of chicken stock. I then covered the Le Cresceut with the lid and left the dish to simmer for around half an hour.

After the half hour was up I added a hint of black pepper and blended the ingredients on the lowest setting that my blender had. I then re-served it in the Le Cresceut dish after warming it through on the hob for about five minutes.

After blending the soup it looked a dark colour not dissimilar in fact to the colour of khaki warn by soldiers in the Second World War. The taste was excellent with the chickpeas and spinach providing an earthy taste which contrasted well with the sour taste of the lemon and the powerful flavour of the Turmeric.

Halfway through eating- an earthy soup brought to life by the strong taste of Turmeric and Lemon

Florentine Age

The second Saturday in November saw me have the usual Saturday morning walk with my Airedale Terrier which helped to brush the cobwebs away after a handy trip to a newly discovered local pub with a good mate the night before.

On my return home I decided that I fancied something suitably filling and rich so I decided to make Poached Eggs Florentine for my lunch. The first step was to make a helping of Bechamel Sauce by putting a diced garlic clove and a diced onion in a milk saucepan with 450 millelitres of milk, half a teaspoon of grated nutmeg, the leaves from a sprig of time and a bay leaf. 

I let the contents of the pan simmer slowly whilst I melted fifty five grams of margarine in a larger saucepan, once  the margarine had melted I added fifty five grams of plain flour and stirred the flour into the melted margarine until it turned into a moist ball that was deep gold in colour. 

I then turned my attention back to the pan with the milk in and discarded the bay leaf as although it adds to the flavour of the dish it is unwise to eat it. I gradually added the milk, nutmeg, diced onion and garlic and thyme to the pan with the margarine and flour so  that the milk mixture combined with the ball of margarine and flour without making the mixture lumpy. Some recipes for this part of the dish advocate removing the thyme onion and garlic at this point and throwing them away but I find retaining them adds more taste to the dish and is less of a waste of food. Once everything was properly mixed together I left it to cook on a low light for thirty minutes. 

While the contents of the saucepan cooked I chose some appropriate music to listen to. Today's choice was Tom Waits' 1973 debut album closing time a record that covers a wide range of ground despite its only instruments being Waits' tobacco ridden voice, a pocket-sized horn section, a piano and the the odd bit of percussion, acoustic guitar and bass. This charming album mainly seems to be set in a late night world of rough bars populated by down and outs and other lowlifes and it owes a big debt to the work of Bob Dylan and Randy Newman.      

After half an hour I filled about half of another saucepan with water and while it was coming to the boil I added five ounces of grated cheddar cheese to the sauce that had been cooking and once the cheese had melted into the sauce I left it to cook on the lowest light of the hob possible.

When the water in the other saucepan came to boil I added the yolks and whites of four eggs to it and boiled them for about four minutes until they were slightly hard boiled. I then turned off the heat and set them to one side.

I added enough olive oil to fill the bottom of my Le Cresceut dish, turned on the heat and gradually added five hundred grams, roughly two medium sized packs worth, of spinach to the dish. As the spinach cooked it began to shrink which meant there was enough space to add a liberal helping of white wine vinegar, the Bechamel Sauce and the four eggs once I had first put them through a colander to remove all the water. Once I had stirred everything together in the Le Cresceut dish on a medium heat for five minutes it was ready to serve.

The results were pretty positive for my initial attempt at this quite difficult dish which is made rich by the hard boiled eggs, white wine vinegar and given substance by retaining the onion, garlic and thyme in the Bechamel Saunce. I think next time though I'll cook the eggs for a little less longer so that they are soft boiled and the yolk runs out of them onto the other ingredients when I serve it. In any event the meal was able to fortify me sufficiently for the evening's action-packed trip to the home of two of my friends in order to help them celebrate the birth of their daughter with a spot of sponge cake and a couple of bottles of champagne.

Just after the eggs and Bechamel Sauce had been added to the shrunken spinach

Two poached eggs and plenty of spinach, sauce and white wine vinegar  means a rich and tasty meal.

Leeks and Lemons

On the middle Sunday in October as I unwound after an exciting trip to a Turkish restaurant for a friend's birthday the night before I flicked through my recipe books and stumbled upon a tried and tested recipe that was easy to make. It used two ingredients that would not normally be found together; Leeks and Lemons.

I picked something a little more obscure as the soundtrack to the afternoon's food preparation with Arthur Brown's seminal 1968 offering The Crazy World of Arthur Brown. This album is best known for the song Fire, which he performed on Top of the Pops in a flaming head dress, but careful listening reveals an artist and band with a more diverse musical palette. Amongst other songs to check out are a passionate cover of James Brown's "I got money" which shows the range of Arthur Brown's voice, the mellow soul of "Rest Cure" and meandering, proto-ambient, piano driven "Child of my Kingdom,".

I topped and tailed two leeks having first peeled their outer layers off and removed all the dirt from them. I then cut the leeks length ways into strips that were about 10 centimetres long and 1 centimetre thick. Next I melted a generous piece of butter in the bottom of the Le Cresceut and tossed in the leeks with half a teaspoon of white pepper. The leeks were then sweated until the began to turn a pale brown.

I took a large Cox's apple and removed everything from it save the stem, core and pips. I took what I had removed and diced it into cubes. The diced apple was then added to the pan together with two bay leaves and a litre of vegetable stock. I find Cox's apples the best type of apple to use for this soup as they have a rich and sweet taste. I then let the dish simmer for twenty-five minutes.

After twenty-five minutes I removed the bay leaves, as it is not advisable to eat them, and added the juice of one lemon together with four sprigs of parsley. I blended the ingredients on the lowest setting I had on the blender and then poured the soup back into the Le Cresceut dish.

As I warmed the soup through I added a generous helping of grated Parmesan cheese and once this melted into the soup it was ready to eat. On paper a soup containing Leek, Lemon and Apple should not taste at all pleasant. However the reality is thankfully very different; the sourness of the lemon is well offset by the sweet richness of the Cox's apple and the strong taste of the Parmesan while the Leeks give the soup enough body to help it be substantial without making it an overly heavy meal.

Covered in Parmesan with a garnish of parsley- as tasty as it looks. 

Ready to eat- an unlikely mix of ingredients that are tastier than you'd think

Currants and Rum

It was the penultimate Sunday in October and I was unwinding after an enjoyable catch up with a couple of close friends, who were expecting a new daughter, the previous evening and the shock of having to don a boiler suit and oxygen mask and boiler suit to salvage my fire-damaged office towards the end of the previous working week. As always after these kind of events I headed for the kitchen to try and make something new.

I had forgotten to buy raisins to go with the rum I found at the supermarket so instead of rum and raisin slices I elected to make rum and currant slices.

The soundtrack to the rather long process of preparation was Steely Dan's 1980 album Gaucho, a record that although highly listenable with the odd moment of inspiration does suffer a little from over rehearsed songs and the fact that its composers were taking a family-sized amount of Class A drugs during the recording. For the second part of cooking I listened to John and (his then wife) Beverley Martyn's turn of the sixties offering Stormbringer! an album which contains some of John Martyn's best early songs such as the powerful slow-burning title track, the haunting harmonies of Traffic Light Lady and energy of Go out and Get It. Beverley Martyn also does her bit with above-par singing on several songs including the excellent self-penned Sweet Honesty.

I greased a 20cm by 20cm baking tin, that had high sides which were around 10cm tall, with a paper towel covered in margarine. In a bowl I mixed together four tablespoons of dark rum, which I had been asked for ID on when I purchased it the night before even though I am well over the legal drinking age, with two and a half ounces of currants. I then left the bowl to one side so that the rum would soak into the currants and make them bloated.

I then put seven ounces of dark chocolate and put them in a heat proof bowl with two and a half ounces of margarine. I put the bowl on top of a pan of boiling water and waited while the heat from the boiling water melted the margarine and the chocolate into a rich, dark liquid. After I took the bowl of chocolate and margarine off the hob I added nine fluid ounces of plain Greek Yoghurt and four and a half ounces of sugar to the heatproof bowl and stirred them together until I had a very thick mixture.

I sifted four ounces of plain flour into a separate bowl and then added the currants, rum and the rather gooey chocolate mixture together with three beaten eggs. Once these items were properly combined using a strong metal tablespoon I poured them into the greased metal tin and spread the mixture equally throughout the tin. I cooked it in my oven at 170 degrees, 180 degrees if you don't have a fan oven, for about half an hour. As always with these type of dishes I knew it was ready when I poked a skewer through the middle of it and it came out clean. Once it had cooled I cut the sponge I had made into bite sized cubes.

Despite it being unorthodox to use currants with rum the combination worked well and the dark rum, Greek Yoghurt and dark chocolate gave the cake a very smoky taste which was counterbalanced by the sweetness of the sugar which stopped the smoky taste being too overpowering.

All sliced up and ready to eat.

Strong tasting but still tasty enough. 

You say potato...

The first Thursday in October was a memorable one; I did a four hour walk in bright sunlight with the dog which gave me a good chance to unwind and take stock during my week off from work.

On my return home I decided to make my tea a little more interesting by having a go at making a Potato Tarkari. I needed to cook something with potatoes as my cupboard seemed to contain more spuds than one man could realistically consume on his own.

The record of choice for today's meal was Fairport Convention's first album which is an exciting brew of musical virtuosity, covers of singer-songwriters and American West Coast music all turned inside out from the original versions. It was recorded by the band in mid-sixties prior to them turning into the somewhat cliched   folk-rock act they became the early seventies.

I peeled two large white potatoes and after washing them I diced them into cubes and steamed them for around five or six minutes.

While the potatoes were steaming I took two red onions, around four ounces of ginger root juice (if you don't want your Tarkari to be too spicy use two ounces) and then cut them into one or two centimetre long pieces. I then put a small amount of olive oil into the bottom of my Le Cresceut dish, turned on the heat on the hob and poured the onions, ginger, a pinch of mustard, half a teaspoon of paprika, two ounces of fresh coriander and a hint of saffron into the dish.

After the potatoes had softened I added them to the dish and stirred them constantly to avoid the ingredients sticking to the bottom of the Le Cresceut which would have inevitably caused trouble trying to wash it after the meal was eaten. I stirred the contents of the dish, while still cooking it on a medium light, on and off for around twenty five minutes. In order to make sure the potatoes were properly done I added an eighth of a pint of water to the dish so the potatoes could absorb it.

The dish was exceptionally spicy and definitely one for those who like their food strong tasting and tangy. As is often the case with dishes involving potatoes they provided the body of the meal and their stodgy taste was offset by the strong spices in particular the raw freshness of the ginger root. To help complement the meal, and to keep my throat damp after all the spices, I had a large glass of California Red Wine which I would recommend highly to accompany this type of meal.

Plenty of spices are hidden between the pieces of potato

Sausages and Wine (in a Casserole with Butter Beans and Tomatoes)

It was a Wednesday, it was still my week off and it was yet another day of bright sunshine. It was also another day of unwinding prior to doing another cooking project in the evening.

The dish to be prepared on this particular evening was one of my idiosyncratic takes on a traditional dish. I chose to make sausage casserole but instead of using normal sausages I used some Marjarom flavoured vegetarian sausages.

With Peter Gabriel's mature and well-wrought 1992 offering Us on the CD player I lightly fried four of the sausages with two sliced cloves of garlic, a cubed red pepper and two diced onions in some oil in my Le Creuscet Dish. As the ingredients began to cook I added half a teaspoon of chili oil, together with half a teaspoon of paprika and half a teaspoon of chili powder. These ingredients set the stage for a very distinctive-tasting and spicy dish.

After the dish had cooked on a medium to low light for ten minutes and the onions had begun to brown I added four fresh tomatoes, which I had previously sliced into quarters, the leaves of two sprigs of fresh thyme and 300ml of chicken stock. In order to make the dish a little richer I added half a pint of rose wine. This wine is usually reserved for the use of students in drinking competitions or as a pre-night out beverage of choice. However in this dish it made perfect sense as its taste worked well with the thyme and numerous spices in the dish.

I turned up the heat on the hob a little and simmered the dish lightly to evaporate the wine. I stirred the mixture regularly as it simmered for a further twenty minutes. After the twenty minutes were up I added a tin of butter beans and used a large metal tablespoon to blend them into the rest of the meal. After a further five minutes I was ready to serve the casserole.

The sharpness of the spices and fresh thyme coupled with the richness of the wine, protein given by the butter beans and the sausages made this a dish good enough for a Sunday dinner or an even more formal meal.

Just after the wine had evaporated; the dish was nearly ready at this point.

A heady mix of spices, fresh vegetables, fruit and wine all in one meal. 

Leeks a la Nicoise

On the last Sunday in September I took time out to unwind from an action-packed cricket club dinner the night before with my customary morning walk. After I'd finished my walk thoughts turned quickly to cooking and after a light lunch I set about preparing an evening meal of Leeks a la Nicoise.

On the stereo during preparation of meal was Van Morrison's well-rehearsed and fiery 1984 live album Live at the Grand Opera House Belfast and with the sounds of stabbing brass bouncing between the speakers I commenced preparation of the leeks.

It's fair to say that great care must be taken preparing leeks. The first step is to cut off the bottom of the leek and then peel the tough outer layers of the leek off while scrubbing away any dirt contained between the layers.

For this recipe I used two leeks and after I had cut the bottom parts off and removed the outer layers I washed them and then fried them lightly in some olive oil in my Le Cresceut dish until they began to brown. I next emptied a tin of peeled plum tomatoes into the dish and used the sharp edge of a tablespoon to halve the tomatoes so their juice could run over the leeks and the tomatoes and leeks would cook quicker.

After the leeks had softened a little, which took another five minutes, I added a generous helping of fresh basil and two thinly sliced cloves of garlic to the Le Cresceut dish. After first stirring the pan's contents thoroughly I cooked the ingredients on a medium heat for around twenty five minutes until I was completely sure the leeks were soft enough to eat.

I served the dish with a small sprinkling of chopped parsley. The potency of the fresh basil coupled with the tinned tomatoes and garlic helped transform the otherwise bland leeks into something with a pleasant and memorable taste. The meal was enhanced by the fact that I accompanied it with two fried Mascarpone Quorn Escalopes to round it off in style.

Freshly cooked with a touch of parsley

The meal just before I added the Mascarpone Escalopes

Pumpkin season

Out on the town last Saturday night, the weather  was chilly and despite me wearing many layers in order to look like Bane from the Dark Knight rises as part of my Halloween fancy dress costume there was no denying that winter had arrived. In town there were many people wearing various Halloween costumes while others wearing more plain clothes appeared to have caned large amounts of booze to beer themselves up against the cold as they moved along the streets that connected the bars.

The next morning with thoughts of the tactical scampi and bacon fries and tasty Talisker Whisky I consumed at the final pub on our Halloween themed bar crawl still on my mind I chose to make a soup containing a vegetable synonymous with this time of year and the start of winter. My choice was a pumpkin and chili soup, which although it was already mid-morning I knew I could prepare before lunch bearing in mind the clocks had gone back the night before.

The soundtrack to the cooking was John Martyn's 1974 offering Sunday's Child. His music is perfect for laid back Sunday mornings after a night out and this album with its typically Martynesque ambient guitar, coupled with spare acoustic songs that are easily accessible fitted the bill.

The key task was to prepare the pumpkin, which was the size of a large round football. I carefully cut the top of it off and then halved it using the sharpest knife I could find in the kitchen. A strong sharp knife is essential for preparation of the pumpkin as on a previous occasion I succeeded in breaking the blade of my knife due to the toughness of the pumpkin.

After I had halved the pumpkin I undertook the much easier task of quartering it and then cut out all the seeds and orange-coloured pith. I followed this by cutting the pale flesh out in large oblongs and then dicing it for use in the soup. I was able to extract so much edible flesh from this pumpkin that I needed two pans to prepare the soup!

Next I topped, tailed, peeled and diced a carrot and did the same with two strong white onions and a clove of garlic. I poured enough oil into my Le Cresceut dish and a pan to cover the bottom of each and then added an equal proportion of carrot, onion, garlic and pumpkin pieces to the Le Cresceut and pan. I then added a quarter of a teaspoon of black pepper to the two sets of mixture together with a quarter of a teaspoon of dried chili oil to both sets of ingredients.

I heated the dish and pan on a medium heat on the hob for about 10 minutes while all the time ensuring that I stirred them both regularly to stop the food sticking to the bottom of them. After 10 minutes I added a pint each of vegetable stock to both of the dishes together with about 400 grams of dry red lentils that were split evenly in the same way between the dishes. I also added the leaves from two sprigs of fresh rosemary to the dishes, a sprig of parsley to each as well as a teaspoon of powdered ginger.

I brought the Le Cresceut and the pan to the boil and let them simmer for around half an hour. When the half-hour was up I poured the contents of the pan and the dish into a blender and blended the food on the lowest setting so as it was still reasonably thick.

After blending I poured the soup back into the pan and heated it through; it was now ready to serve.

It is true to say that pumpkins are not the easiest vegetable to work with as they are tough to prepare and if not used correctly in meals they can be exceptionally bland. In the past I have had some pre-prepared pumpkin soups from supermarkets that have been uninspired and tasteless. However it was not the case with this recipe; the chilli, herbs and ginger made it strong tasting soup without being overpowering. While the lentils, carrot, onion and garlic added much needed body to it while at the same time enhancing the taste of the pumpkin. If you are looking for something special to cook for Halloween this is it. I can certainly see it becoming as much a part of my future Halloweens as a themed fancy dress party, the Thriller album and the Ghost buster's Theme song.

There was so much pumpkin I had to split it between two pans.

Blended, ready to eat and on its way to becoming a classic Halloween dish.

   

Makin' Bacon

I don't cook many meat dishes these days but when I do I like to use bacon. For the recipe I made during my recent week off I decided to take on an old classic and made a spicy bacon roll.

I went back to where it all began with my choice of music to cook to as I listened to Dire Straits' final studio album On Every Street which was one of the first CD's I ever purchased towards the end of my G.C.S.E studies. As the slight but likeable country rock shuffle of the opening song 'Calling Elvis' gave way to the opening bars of the reflective title track I removed the fat from eight slices of unsmoked back bacon before slicing it into small squares.

In a shallow frying pan I fried the bacon and one diced white onion for around three minutes with two sprigs of parsley. I made sure I did not fry the contents of the pan for too long as I knew they would be baked for some time in the oven later on.

I then rolled out a ball of pastry which I had previously prepared using four ounces of margarine and eight ounces of plain flour. Once I had rolled the pastry into a large oblong I poured the contents of the frying pan onto it and spread them out until they were within two centimetres of the edge of the pastry.

I next dampened the four corners of the pastry with a small amount of water and joined them up so as the bacon, onions and parsley were encased totally.

I placed the roll on a greased baking tray and baked it in the oven at 190 degrees, 200 for non-fan ovens, for forty five minutes.

The results were highly enjoyable; the fact I had taken all the fat from the bacon left nothing but the unique taste than can only be obtained from eating quality bacon while the onions and parsley added the necessary extra flavour to the roll. The heavy pastry was complimented by having plenty of brown sauce with the roll as well as some steamed slices of carrot.

The roll immediately after cooking.

A cross section of the roll.

Delicious when served with steamed carrots. 

Coffee Break

It was the first Monday in October, the sun was shining, I was off work all week and it was a perfect opportunity to try out a new recipe. On this occasion I decided to cook something a little bit retro in the shape of some coffee sandwich biscuits.

The soundtrack for the cooking was Van Morrison's under-appreciated 1986 offering No Guru, No Method , No Teacher the album's laid back vibes, carefully delivered vocals, swirling string arrangements and Mexican horns made it perfect chill out material for a man on holiday.

I took six ounces of self-raising flour and mixed them with three ounces of caster sugar. Once the flour and sugar were suitably mixed I added three ounces of margarine and rubbed it into the flour and sugar with a tablespoon until the outside of the pieces of margarine were made as dry as dust by the flour.

I emptied the contents of an egg, having first brought it to room temperature, into a separate bowl and beat it vigorously. In a mug I dissolved two tablespoons of instant coffee in one tablespoon of hot water. I then poured the egg and the liquid coffee into bowl with the margarine, sugar and flour and stirred everything together until the contents of the bowl had turned into a hazel-coloured soft cookie dough.

The next step was to separate the dough into cherry sized balls making sure that I had an even number of them so that each pair would form two parts of one sandwich.

I baked the pieces of dough on a greased baking tray in the oven at 180 degrees (170 for fan ovens) for fifteen minutes and then left them on the side to cool after they had cooked for the allotted time.

In the meantime I made some coffee butter cream icing by taking four ounces of icing sugar, two ounces of margarine and a tablespoon of instant coffee granules and stirring them together with a wooden spoon in a bowl until I had a filling thick enough to hold together the biscuit part of the recipe.

When the biscuit pieces were cooled I took the flat side, which was attached to the baking tray whilst it was cooking, and spread icing on it. I then joined it with the flat side of another of the biscuit pieces to make a sandwich. I repeated the process for the other pieces of biscuit until I had around sixteen which I then piled up on a convenient plate.

The biscuits are certainly suitable for those who like their trips to Costa Coffee and Starbucks as the whole coffee granules in the icing have the strong and raw taste of fresh coffee while the coffee flavouring in the biscuits is a little more subtle but no less distinctive in its taste.

Currying Your Mussels

It was Friday, I had not only finished work for the weekend but also for the next week as well. As it was the end of the week I had a little more time to cook than usual and I hit upon making something that was rich and substantial as well as being fairly easy to prepare.

I dusted down my Le Cresceut dish and added enough olive oil to it to cover the bottom. I put Van Morrison's mellow masterpiece Poetic Champions Compose on the CD player and set about dicing two red onions, two cloves of garlic and one celery stick as stately strings and saxophone from the stereo permeated the kitchen.

I turned the heat on the hob and warmed the oil before adding the freshly prepared vegetables to the Le Cresceut dish and cooking them on a medium heat for around five minutes until they began to a hazel brown colour. I then added two bay leafs and the leaves of two fresh thyme sprigs together with half a tablespoon of curry powder which I made sure was stirred into the vegetables.

I had not been able to acquire fresh mussels as there were no local fishmongers available so I instead used a pack of precooked mussels in white wine sauce I had acquired from the Co-Op and dumped them into the dish. I turned up the heat further and put the lid on the Le Cresceut dish; this stopped excess heat escaping the dish and allowed the mussels to cook fully.

After about four minutes I checked the mussels and was pleased to see that all of them had opened, this meant they were all edible as those mussels that do not open during cooking cannot be eaten unless you want to make yourself ill.

I plucked four sprigs of fresh coriander from the plant growing on the kitchen window sill, cut the sprigs up into small pieces and added them to the mussels together with a tin of coconut milk obtained from Waitrose. After lowering the temperature and then cooking the dish for another two minutes it was ready to serve the dish.

The fresh coriander and thyme made all the difference to this recipe and gave the rich tasting mussels a distinct taste. The coconut milk also added well to the richness but on balance I think next time I will only use about half a tin to stop the dish becoming too runny. Despite this however if you like your seafood this is a dish you must try.

Cooking them fiercely in the dish meant the mussels all opened and could be eaten. 

Ready to eat- a little bit too much coconut milk however still a very tasty meal

Rocket Ride

After a very enjoyable Friday evening in mid-September entertaining two friends at their house, I spent the Saturday getting out into the country for some peace and quiet with the new puppy during the morning and in the afternoon I re-visited a risotto recipe I'd not cooked for around two years.

The risotto of choice was lemon and rocket risotto. The album I listened to matched my state of mind; it was Van Morrison's underrated 1983 masterpiece 'Inarticulate Speech of the Heart' which contains a sizable helping of meditative instrumentals and mellow songs dominated by crisp guitar lines and frosty synthesisers.

I covered the bottom of my Le Cresceut dish with olive oil, turned on the heat and added an ounce of margarine to the pan. Whilst the margarine was melting I diced three onions and four cloves of garlic on the chopping board.

Once the butter was melted I added the onions and garlic to the dish and then grated the zest of two lemons over them as they began to cook. I stirred the zest of the lemon into the onion and garlic and after about five minutes when the ingredients had softened sufficiently it was time to carry out the next stage of preparation. I added 300 grams of risotto rice and then leaned over the Le Cresceut dish stirring the mixture constantly for two minutes. It is important you do this as otherwise the rice becomes stuck to the bottom of the dish which will consequently ruin the whole meal.

After two minutes was up I took half a pint of white wine and poured it into the dish. I turned up the heat on the hob and boiled the ingredients for two minutes, always remembering to stir it constantly, until the wine had boiled away and the rice had become a little bloated.

I laid my hands on 750 millelitres of chicken stock and added it gradually to the dish, again stirring the ingredients constantly to avoid them sticking to the bottom of the dish, until all the stock was gone. I kept stirring the contents of the dish until I was sure the rice was cooked; a good test as to whether it is cooked is how bloated it is. If the rice is very bloated it indicates it has absorbed enough wine and stock to be soft enough to eat.

I then added two bags of rocket, I find Sainsbury's Rocket the best, and an ounce of grated Parmesan Cheese and mixed then in until the rocket was soft and the cheese had melted.

The results were top drawer; the distinctive and sour taste of the lemon zest was complemented by the rich Parmesan Cheese while the gritty rocket was counterbalanced by the large amount of wine in the recipe. The risotto rice, garlic and onions meanwhile gave the meal enough body not to need the presence of any meat in the recipe.

In the dish just after the Parmesan had melted 

Ready to eat- hopefully the taste matches that of some risottos made in professional kitchens

Rocket Love

On the second Saturday in September I had been given the responsibility of hosting and writing a quiz for the cricket team and as I had spent a large amount of the afternoon preparing for the evening I needed to cook something quick that would give me enough energy for entertaining club members that evening.

The meal of choice was a Rocket and Potato Frittata. The album of choice while cooking was U2's 1984 effort the Unforgettable Fire; U2 are a band that baffle me in that they are probably the most unoriginal band I have ever heard yet there is something about their passion that keeps you coming back for more. It is fair to say their music is reasonable to get you in the mood if you are having an action-packed night out.

I washed and then dried three large new potatoes, peeled them and cut them into thin slices. I next filled the bottom of frying pan with olive oil and placed the potato slices evenly on the oil. I fried them on a medium heat for twenty minutes and turned them periodically. I knew they had been fried for long enough as I could cut them in half with one hand using a butter knife.

The potatoes were then joined in the pan by an ounce of sliced rocket straight from the greenhouse. The trick in this part of the cooking was to continually pat the rocket down as it has a habit of expanding and floating on top of the potatoes and oil.

I mixed together in a separate bowl three beaten eggs, four diced stems of chives from my garden, a hint of black pepper and an ounce of grated Parmesan Cheese. I then poured the mixture into the frying pan and made sure it was spread evenly throughout as well as burying the Rocket leaves low in the pan. I found the best way of making the Rocket stay down was to push it with a metal tablespoon.

Before grilling- the surface was a little more runny than was acceptable.

While the mixture was cooking on the hob I preheated the grill and over the course of five minutes periodically shook the frying pan from side to side. After five minutes I placed the pan, with the Frittata still inside it, under the grill until the surface of it began the dry and the edges started to turn a chestnut brown.

I served it with steamed garden peas and it proved a filling meal what with the protein from the eggs while the Rocket gave it a strong, distinctive taste that was not overpowering. It only took a little over half an hour to prepare and set me up well to entertain members of the cricket club that evening.

Post grilling- the surface of the Frittata had dried up but there was still enough moisture in the dish to stop it tasting like rubber. 

Spice up your soup

It was the Tuesday after bank holiday, I'd taken a walk to the local park to relive scenes of my teenage years, reflect on my direction in life and think about the exciting and rewarding but (slightly) sad summer I'd had. It had comprised of entertaining nights out with my mates, weddings, a trip to Scotland, helping my great uncle get over his wife's death , a top drawer birthday meal, the illness and then loss of my dog to cancer, the arrival of a new puppy, visiting the Olympics and plenty of games of cricket at higher level than the season before.

There were some scraps of brown and rusty red creeping onto the leaves of the trees at the edge of the park and only two further fixtures in the cricket program. I knew that summer was on its way out and autumn was soon to be with me.

When I have a lot think about I like to disappear into the kitchen and on this occasion it was to make a spicy parsnip soup. This is a soup I've made many times and I promised a good mate of mine I'd put in the blog as it's one of his favourites and he wanted me to show him how to do it.

The album of choice for cooking was Talk Talk's first album the Party's Over which is a synthesizer-driven, written to order piece of work that is noteworthy for containing some strong singles and for the fact that it sold enough to contribute towards the funding of the production of later masterpieces Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock.

I first poured enough olive oil into my Le Cresceut dish to cover the bottom of it and heated the oil gently. I then diced a red onion, a garlic clove and four pieces of celery before adding them to the dish with half a tablespoon of ground ginger.

After these ingredients had cooked for a touch over five minutes I added dried cumin seeds and ginger root from the collection of spices, which I had received as part of my birthday present, together with half a tablespoon of curry powder. I mixed the curry powder and spices together and while they cooked I diced up around five hundred grams of parsnips and two hundred and fifty grams worth of carrots.

After another five minutes I added the carrots and parsnips to dish after first stirring the curry powder and spices into the onions, garlic, celery and ginger. I then poured a litre of vegetable stock into the mixture and left it to cook in the dish on a low light for about forty-five minutes. I always like to cook soups of this type for reasonable length of time to be sure the ingredients have all the time they need to fuse together prior to blending.

After the soup had cooked for the allotted forty-five minutes I took off the heat and let it cool for half an hour. I then blended it, returned it to the le cresceut dish and added a quarter of a pint of unsweetened soya milk to it. After reheating it through I poured it into bowls for serving.

The results were first rate and a taste of soups to come this autumn and winter. The soup was exceptionally thick and the use of small amounts of several different kinds of spices meant that it was thankfully not strong enough to make my eyes water. However it still retained a distinctive enough taste to stop it being too bland.

Warmed through with the addition of unsweetened soya milk and ready to eat

Rubbed in Cake

This recipe was part of my recent bank holiday cooking project which included two soups, a giant Yorkshire Pudding with Sage, Red Wine Lentils and peaches with cheese. Apart from the Yorkshire Pudding it was probably the most traditional of the recipes I made over the bank holiday weekend.

Yet more Neil Young was playing as work commenced on the cake; this time it was his 1980 record Hawks and Doves which is divided into a stunning acoustic side and a less convincing but mildly worthwhile country music side.

The first job was to put eight ounces of self-raising flour and four ounces of margarine into a mixing bowl and stir them together using what is popularly known as the rubbed in method. This contrasts to the more usual approach of making cakes which involves creaming sugar and margarine together and then adding flour to the mixture.

After the flour and margarine were properly mixed together I added four ounces of caster sugar, six ounces of raisins and a tablespoon of orange zest. In order to help these ingredients mix with the flour and margarine I gradually added to the mix two beaten eggs and two tablespoons of milk while stirring the sugar, raisins and orange zest into the flour and margarine.

The addition of the milk helped make the mixture a little lighter and help it rise when cooked in the oven. After I had stirred everything together I poured it into a cake tin that I had lined with greased baking paper. The cake tin was around 10centimetres deep and 25 centimetres wide.

The cake mix just prior to putting it in the oven

I baked the cake in the oven at 170 degrees (180 for non-fan ovens) for about 35 minutes until the sponge had begun to turn golden brown at the edges. I knew the cake was ready as I stuck a meat skewer through the middle of it and it came out clean. I also used the time honoured trick of pressing the sponge and watching it spring back at me; which is always another indication that it has been cooked for the right amount of time.

The results were first rate as the flavour of the orange and raisins combined with a sponge that was substantial but not overly rich made this a cake perfect with a spot of afternoon tea or as pudding after an evening meal.

Ready to serve as either a light pudding or with a cup of afternoon tea

Life is Peachy

Bank holiday Monday was an interesting one for me as it was the first time that my grandparents had come to visit for nearly eight months.

I decided to play safe with my menu choices therefore and for their pudding I returned to a tried and tested favourite of theirs which went down well when I cooked it for them at the August Bank Holiday two years before. I also played safe with my selection of music while preparing the meal with the expanded re-issue of Elvis' Aloha From Hawaii, a record which although it has its share of exciting straight ahead rock and roll also had enough mawkwish elevator music on it to appease my grandparents' conservative tastes.

I dumped a small tub of low fat cheese spread (without wanting to do any product placement I used low fat Philadelphia which worked well) into a mixing bowl together with a teaspoon of grated orange zest, a teaspoon of vanilla essence and three and a half tablespoons of ground almonds. After mixing these ingredients together with a metal spoon I left them to stand in the bowl while I prepared the peaches.

I took five peaches and cut them in half length ways as well as removing the stones from each one. I then placed the halves of the peaches in a high-sighed and newly greased glass baking tray. I spread the cheese, orange zest, vanilla extract and almond mixture evenly over each of the peach halves.

After the peaches had been fully covered with the mixture I cooked them on the baking tray in the oven for twenty minutes at 180 degrees (190 for non-fan ovens). When I took them out of the oven I noticed the edges of the cheese spread had begun to turn brown, which was a sure sign they had been cooked for long enough.

As they were two years previously the peaches stuffed with cheese were very popular with my grandparents and even my granddad (who is a diabetic and dislikes tomatoes) enjoyed them. The spread was not overly sweet but still had enough of a taste to blend with the peaches to make this a top quality but easy to make pudding. It certainly helped put me in my grandparents' good books after our eight month hiatus.

Post cooking- the brown colouring on the cheese is a dead giveaway that the dish cooked properly

Prior to cooking- always make sure the peaches are fully covered in spread.

Oranges are the only fruit

As part of my recent bank holiday cooking project I made a soup using some ingredients I wouldn't normally think of putting together, the result was a soup containing carrots, oranges and leeks.

With Led Zeppelin's perennially underrated final studio album In Through the Out Door on the player I weighed out two pounds of carrots before topping and tailing them, peeling them and then cutting them into small horizontal strips around 2cm wide and 1cm thick. I put the carrots to one side of the chopping board and took two leeks which I sliced into similar size pieces to the carrots. I made sure when preparing the leeks to remove their outer layers and scrub away any dirt caught between these layers. It is often the case that leeks bought from supermarkets, like these were, are quite messy and require a lot of cleaning during preparation.

I put the carrots and leeks into my Le Cresceut dish which I had first covered the bottom of with olive oil. I put the dish on a low light on the hob to cook while I made some orange juice. I squeezed the juice from two  oranges into a measuring jug and after the carrot and leeks had cooked for ten minutes I added the juice to them together with a hint of black pepper. I stirred the contents of the dish to be sure the juice and pepper blended with the vegetables properly prior to adding any more ingredients.

I next grated some of the skin off the oranges I had used to make the juice and added half of the zest I had made the dish and kept the other half for the garnish. After the ingredients had cooked for another five minutes I added a pint and a half of stock to the dish and left it to cook on a low light for around half an hour. Once I was sure the dish was cooked I took it off the heat and left it to cool for about twenty minutes.

After twenty minutes were up I blended the soup on a high setting in order to make it have the consistency of fruit juice from a carton- this was an approach to soup blending I had seen in high class restaurants and I was keen to replicate it with this dish.

I then served the soup with some orange zest and sprigs of parsley atop the bowl. On finishing a helping of the soup I knew that this was one recipe I would re-visit again and again; the orange had the happy ability to make the carrots and leek taste sweet like the tinned vegetables I had as a child but without the unhealthy ingredients found in tinned veg. For that reason alone I would recommend this soup.

Straight after blending- I put the blender on a high setting to give  the soup a light consistency just like they do in Michelin Starred restaurants

Self- made birthday cake

It was my birthday recently and I took it upon myself to make my own cake. I decided to make it by adapting a Victoria Sandwich recipe from an old cookbook from the seventies.

With the overproduced country rock and singer-songwriter stabs of Neil Young's eponymous first album darting out of the speakers I creamed in a bowl four ounces of margarine and four ounces of caster sugar. I knew I had mixed the ingredients together properly because the butter looked like it had fluff on it which told me the sugar had bonded with it.

I next beat two eggs into the mixture while periodically adding four ounces of self-raising flour. Once all the flour had been fully stirred in the cake mix was ready to bake. I greased a 20cm wide and 10cm deep cake tin with margarine and a sprinkling of plain flour.

Before I put the mixture into the tin I used a trick learned from a friend who is a talented cook as well and added 300 millelitres of skimmed milk to the mixture so as to make the sponge light and give it plenty of air.
I then added it to the tin and cooked it in the fanned oven at 170 degrees (180 if your oven isn't a fan one) for forty-five minutes. I knew sponge was ready as when I took it out of the oven it sprung back like a soft mattress when I pressed it with my hand.

While the sponge was on the side cooling I made the butter cream icing by taking a hint of vanilla essence, two ounces of butter and four ounces of icing sugar. I mixed these together in a bowl until I had sticky paste to which I added some red food colouring which dampened the icing a little.

After the sponge had cooled I cut the cake in half widthways and spread half the icing over the bottom half of it so as to form a sandwich. I then spread the other half of the icing on top of the cake. I was a little disappointed as the food colouring had turned the icing pink instead of red and therefore it was clear that aesthetics were not going to be the strong point of this cake.

However the taste was a different story; the sweet , rich buttercream icing was kept from being too overpowering by the light sponge which was helped in its lightness through the addition of the milk prior to cooking.

Cake from Big Pink: the icing may have not been the best colour but it was  certainly tasty enough.

Green King

With the season for certain fresh vegetables drawing quickly to a close I recently took some time out to make a mint and green pea soup while fresh peas were still in season.

As I began the rather dull task of shelling nearly one pound of garden peas I put on the CD player Led Zeppelin's fifth album Houses of the Holy; a record which brilliantly combines hard rock brutality with shimmering ambient passages.

After  the peas were prepared and washed I cut up into fine pieces two white onions and then sliced up three medium sized potatoes. I next poured some cooking oil into a high sided pan and lightly fried the potatoes and onions with a teaspoon of black pepper for ten minutes stirring them occasionally to avoid them sticking to the pan.

I then took four small sprigs of fresh mint from the garden and added them to pan together with a tablespoon of dried mint, a pint of chicken stock and the fresh peas. I stirred these items into the potatoes, onions and pepper and left them to stew on a low light on the hob for forty-five minutes.

After forty-five minutes I turned the hob off and left the pan and its contents to cool for an hour. I then blended the contents of the pan and returned it to the pan. Some recipes for soup of this type suggest mixing cream into the soup at this stage but I prefer to use plain pro-biotic yogurt as it lends flavour to the soup without making it unnecessarily rich.

The results were well worth the earlier tedium of shelling all the peas as the fresh mint, peas and yogurt gave the soup a refreshing taste which helped me to cool down after experiencing a large dose of very humid weather earlier in the day. If you get the chance to before fresh peas go out of season I certainly recommend making this soup.

The finished soup; a luxury that can only be enjoyed at its best when fresh  peas are in season

Chili from scratch

Last Sunday having wound down sufficiently from an excellent night out comprising of first rate Italian Food and even better company I decided to follow the lead of one of the guests at the meal who has a great talent for cooking homemade chili.

The record on the player for this piece of cookery was Neil Young's 1974 dark yet triumphant epic On the Beach which covers topics including divorce, drugs, vampires, music critics, Young's first band and ambulances . The album was unavailable on CD until 2003 which is why it is perhaps one of his most overlooked albums despite being one of his best.

I took three garlic cloves and three red onions and sliced them finely. I find that when making chili the taste of red onions is better suited to the overall flavour of the dish than white onions. I poured some olive oil into the bottom of my Le Cresceut dish and then added the garlic and onions together with half a box of Quorn Mince. At the same time I put half a tea spoon of paprika in the dish together with a hint of chili oil, which was part of a chili gift set two of the guests at the meal the previous night had kindly bought me. When making dishes of this type it is crucial to put your spices in right at the start of the cooking process so as to get the best flavour out of them. I let the ingredients cook on a low light for about ten minutes and stirred them thoroughly on occasion to stop them sticking.

In the meantime I cut up a large yellow pepper and after the spices, onions and garlic had cooked for ten minutes I added the pepper. I let the pepper cook for around twenty-five to thirty minutes. I find pepper can be pretty tricky to cook properly and there is always the danger of under cooking it which then allows it to ruin the dish it is part of. In this case by cooking it for the length of time I did I was able to ensure the pepper was cooked properly.

I next added three quarters of a pint of vegetable stock and a tin of mixed chili beans. I stirred them into the other ingredients and left the contents to cook on a low light for another half and hour so as to be sure the flavours blended together.

This dish is best with rice and on this occasion I served it with some long grain rice that I prepared by boiling it for twenty minutes. The taste of the food was among the best I have experienced this summer: the chili oil and paprika carried a distinct taste without overwhelming the unique taste of the mixed beans and the vegetables. The rice and homemade cheese and onion bread that accompanied the meal were enough to offset effectively the taste of the chili and paprika.

Chili with long grain rice -a winning combination

Cheese and Onion Bread

I first road tested this recipe during Christmas 2011 when I made it for a wine & cheese evening at a friend's house. I decided to cook it especially for this blog today having had my memory refreshed by the same friend about the recipe at an Italian Themed Birthday Party the previous night.

The album of choice for cooking the bread was Neil Young's 1987 effort 'Life' which was his last record with the Geffen label and first for the best part of a decade with his longtime backing band Crazy Horse. The album was his first step back onto a positive path and mixed songs packed with atmospheric drum machines and synthesizers and expansive acoustic numbers.

I poured 12 ounces of white bread flour into a bowl together with a sachet of yeast, an ounce of margarine and a beaten egg. I mixed the ingredients together with a metal spoon while periodically adding a quarter of a pint of milk. The mixture soon became sticky and then dried like wet cement so I added small amounts of white bread flour to it and tested my limited upper body strength by stirring hard at it until it formed a large ball of dough.

I left the dough on an upstairs window sill in the full gaze of the late summer sun and after an hour it had risen considerably. While the dough rose I cut up a red onion and fried it in a shallow frying pan for twenty minutes until it was golden brown. I then left the contents of the pan on the side as the dough continued to rise.

Once the dough had risen I rolled it out until it covered the surface area of a medium sized dinner plate. I then spread the onions evenly on top together with a hint of black pepper and some grated Red Leicester cheese. I then pulled the edges together so they formed a parcel. After this I cut six slits at equal points apart in the top of the bread and brushed the dough with milk.

Rolled out with the filling on top. 

On this occasion I cooked the bread on a deep baking tray at 170 degrees in a fan oven for forty-five minutes, as I was cooking my birthday cake at the same time. Normally however I would recommend cooking this bread on about 200 degrees ( in a fan oven or 210 for a non-fan oven) for twenty five minutes.

Folded up and ready for the oven. 

The trick in ensuring that the bread is cooked properly is to check that the edges are a golden brown. If you can push a skewer through it that comes out clean this also means that it is ready.

This is one of my favourite breads as the cheese and onion filling is not too overpowering a taste and it complements the thick spongy bread. This was certainly the opinion of the friends I cooked it for at the wine & cheese night judging by the positive feedback I received on Facebook after the event last Christmas.

Ready to eat: on this occasion with home made vegetarian chili 

Toad in the Hole with a Twist

On Sunday afternoon I wanted to wind down after an exciting Saturday afternoon playing cricket against a decidedly rough bunch of blokes and having a very early Sunday morning get up to some charity work. As there was a bit of rain in the air and the temperature was a little cooler than usual for this time of year I decided to make a traditional cooked dish eaten more commonly in winter.

I say 'traditional dish' but the Toad in the Hole I chose to make had one important difference; the sausages were Quorn ones which contained no meat whatsoever. The soundtrack for this part of today's cooking was the Grateful Dead's eponymous debut album which is far removed from the spaced out live jams they are known for and instead comprises of a short, sharp mix of blues, folk and garage rock.

I made the batter by making a well in a mixing bowl with four ounces of plain floor and then poured the contents of one egg into the middle of the well. I gradually added the flour to the egg whilst at the same time adding periodically half a pint of milk until I had a reasonably thick mixture.

As I always do with batter mixtures I left it to stand in the bowl for about an hour. After an hour I poured enough cooking oil into a 25cm wide and 5cm deep baking tray to just cover the bottom of the tray. I then added the batter mixture to the tray and spaced out evenly four vegetarian sausages in the tray.

I cooked the Toad in the Hole for twenty-five minutes at 210 degrees (220 for non-fan ovens) until the batter was golden brown and the sausages were a deep shade of ocher.

The resulting meal was every bit as tasty as a traditional Toad in the Hole as the batter was cooked enough not be sloppy but still moist enough not to be too crisp. The sausages had the same taste as normal meat ones but without the worry of having any fat or gristle to pick out. To complement the dish I served it with homemade onion gravy, mashed potato and boiled peas.

Out of the oven and ready to eat; I cooked it for just the right amount of time to avoid the sausages and batter burning.