Butterflies are free to fly

One thing I always like to do at the start of a week off is to make some cake to consume periodically during the course of the week. This time round I decided to make some butterfly cakes. The soundtrack was Cat Stevens' final album 'Back to Earth' which was recorded in 1978 and was his last record for nearly thirty years. The album was Stevens' best since his peak in the early seventies with the one-two punch of 'Tea for the Tillerman' and 'Teaser and the Firecat'. It is quite melancholy and one senses an era ending as the album unfolds but there is also an engaging purity and passion to the record that perhaps was due to Stevens recently converting to Islam which gave him a new focus in life.

I first made the sponge mixture by creaming together four ounces of low-fat margarine with four ounces of caster sugar until the grains of sugar in the bowl had been fully absorbed by the margarine. I then beat two eggs in a separate bowl and gradually stirred each into the mixture, which by now had become somewhat sloppy. So as to thicken the mixture enough to cook it properly I added four ounces of self-raising flour and stirred it in until the mixture had a consistency akin to that of a thick Angel Delight Pudding.

I greased sixteen patty tins in a baking tray with more margarine and then added enough of the mixture to reach the top of each individual tin. I cooked the mixture on 180 degrees, 190 for non-fan ovens, for twenty minutes and then put the tray to one side to cool.

While the sponges were cooling I made some butter cream icing by adding two ounces of low-fat margarine and four ounces of icing sugar to a bowl and stirring them together thoroughly using the same technique as I had to cream the margarine and sugar for the sponge mixture. This created an icing that was at first runny but set hard like cement after a period.

Once the sponges had cooled I took each out of its container and cut the top off them. I then cut each top in half length-ways and where I had removed the top from each sponge I put a layer of icing and then attached the two slices of sponge back onto each cake in the shape of a butterfly's wings.

I don't eat a lot of traditionally sweet cakes of this type however as I was on holiday this made a pleasant change and by using low-fat margarine it ensured that the sweetness in the cake was a tempered by a limited amount of fat.

Winged wonders- the freshly iced cakes.

Casseroled Pumpkin

The third part of my mission to use Pumpkin as an ingredient in every course of my evening meal last Saturday ,as a result of it being Halloween Weekend, was to make a Pumpkin Casserole. To me using Pumpkin in recipes is symbolic of the onset of winter as I'll make it at the time that it's Halloween which is invariably the time when the clocks change to British Wintertime.

The album I listened was by an act who's music always reminds me of wintertime; the album was the Walker Brothers' 1978 offering Nite Flights. The Walkers'  work, and particularly the solo work of their most famous member Scott Walker, has with its use of layers of strings and latterly electronic and avant garde touches an almost claustrophobic feel that reminds me of dark nights and short days. In that respect it is a perfect soundtrack to winter. Nite Flights was the final album in a trilogy recorded in connection with the Walkers' short lived comeback and their last album to date. The previous two albums were smothered with lightweight but enjoyable easy listening material .However this album dabbles in electronica and everything from the cover to the lyrics suggests a darkness hidden within which are some first rate songs that influenced David Bowie among others.    

As the opening pulses of 'Shutout' bounced out of the speakers I fried in my Le Cresceut dish 2lb of tomatoes. Prior to placing the tomatoes in the dish I cut them into five or six pieces so as they would cook more quickly. I lightly fried the tomatoes until the skins began to peel off. When they were at this stage I turned off the heat and left them to cool in the dish for ten minutes. The fact their skins were peeling made them easier to puree when the time came.

After ten minutes I took a mixing bowl and balanced a sieve over the bowl and then gradually added the cooked tomatoes to it. The trick here is to push the tomatoes from side to side using a wooden spatula so that the soft flesh and the juice filters through the sieve and into the bowl below. In doing this the skins of the tomatoes are left on top of the sieve and discarded. It's a laborious process but one that's worthwhile as when all the skins are discarded a tasty puree is left for inclusion in the casserole.

After the tomato puree had been prepared I took the flesh from a pumpkin the size of a football and cut it into cubes. The extraction of the pumpkin flesh is certainly a challenge; the first step is to take a very sharp knife (as you will break the blade from the knife otherwise if you use a blunt one; believe me I know) and cut the top off the pumpkin. You need to then cut it in half length-ways and then cut the two halves in half. At this point you're left with lots of stringy pith with seeds  attached to it that is damp and sticky to the touch. The trick is to cut underneath the roots of the pith and then scoop them out with the seeds. This leaves the edible flesh that can then be cut from the skin, cubed and washed.

I sliced a large onion up thinly together with three cloves of garlic and fried them lightly with some fresh Rosemary leaves and fresh Basil leaves. In the meantime I boiled eight ounces of red lentils for twenty minutes in a pan in just enough water to cover them. When the lentils were soft I added them to the pumpkin, onion, garlic and herbs which were still frying in my Le Cresceut. I then added the tomato puree to the Le Cresceut, stirred it into the rest of the ingredients and cooked it lightly on the hob for a further five minutes.

To make the dish ready for serving I cooked it in the oven at 165 degrees (175 for non-fan ovens) for fifteen minutes after which time it was ready to serve. For a casserole without meat this one had a lot of richness and flavour. As a rule pumpkin is pretty bland vegetable but when it's cooked with rosemary, basil, garlic and onion it comes alive with taste. Although the tomato puree was an effort to prepare the fact it was fresh gave it an edge over its tinned counterpart found in supermarkets which often has an artificial taste. The lentils meanwhile provided the necessary protein to help fortify me against the colder weather now accompanying the changing of the clocks.

An eclectic mix of lentils, herbs, fruit and vegetables

Alternative Pumpkin Bread

On Friday night I went to a gig by entertaining local band the Seventy, who those of you who follow this blog regularly will know I have mentioned before. The gig on Friday night was the fourth time I have seen them and it was a Halloween themed gig with the band, the two who supported them and the majority of the members of the audience wearing Halloween fancy dress. In keeping with the Halloween theme the band opened with a rocked up version of Ray Parker Junior's 1984 hit Ghostbusters which worked a treat and the remainder of the set was of a similarly high quality. It was also an opportunity for catching up with a wide range of people and doing plenty of dancing.

As a result of my adventures at the gig I decided to make something suitably Halloween themed and what better example of Halloween than something with Pumpkin in the recipe? The choice was some Pumpkin Bread. When people think of Pumpkin Bread they tend to think of the sweet dish from the United States, which is usually more like the equivalent of a fruit loaf as we would call it this side of the pond, in terms of the ingredients used to make it. However my dish was a savoury dish that was designed to go with some Pumpkin and Chili Soup I had prepared earlier.

The soundtrack to the cooking was the Rolling Stones' flawless 1971 offering 'Sticky Fingers' which contains the evergreen hit 'Brown Sugar' the underrated and epic heavy rock of 'Sway' the genuine country of 'Wild Horses' and the sophisticated and reflective closer 'Moonlight Mile' among its track list.

I first poured a pound of white bread flour into my mixing bowl together with a sachet of easy blend yeast and mixed the ingredients together. I then left the bowl on one side and took six ounces of flesh from a pumpkin the size of a football and fried it with the leaves from three sprigs of Rosemary from the garden. After lightly frying the Pumpkin and Rosemary  with a teaspoon of Nutmeg for around twenty minutes, by which time the Pumpkin flesh was soft enough to cut with the edge of a tablespoon, I turned the heat off the hob and left the pan with the Pumpkin and Rosemary in on the side to cool.

Next I added a quarter of a pint of milk to the flour and yeast and stirred it in until the flour and yeast had absorbed the milk. I then added the Pumpkin and Rosemary to the bowl and kneaded it into the flour, yeast and milk until a soft dough was formed. In order to ensure the dough was dry enough to be cooked I added a couple of tablespoons of flour to it and kneaded them into the dough.

I then found the warmest place in the house and left the dough in a mixing bowl there to rise for an hour. After it had risen I put it on a greased baking tray and cooked in the oven at 180 degrees (190 degrees for non-fan ovens) for half an hour. After taking it out of the oven I left it to cool on a wire rack and then served it with the Pumpkin and Chili Soup. The presence of the soft Pumpkin flesh in the bread made it quite moist while the Rosemary and Nutmeg helped liven the taste of what would have otherwise been a bland bread if I had only put Pumpkin in with the dough. This bread proved that Pumpkin Bread doesn't just have to be a sweet dish to have as a pudding.

Straight out of the oven and cooling down

All sliced up and ready to eat- on this occasion with Chili and Pumpkin Soup

Red Revolution

Today's blog article is all about the use of Red Cabbages in cooking and moreover how to use them in a creative way that doesn't just involve boiling the flavour out of them and then serving them with a white sauce to disguise their lack of flavour.

The first approach I used to make this usually dull vegetable interesting was by frying half of it, after it had been finely diced, in a Le Cresceut Dish with enough olive oil to cover the bottom of the dish until the cabbage began to soften and turn partially brown. The trick when frying cabbage is to stir it constantly otherwise it tends to stick to the pan and burn very quickly.

After the cabbage softened I added the flesh from two Cox's Apples. So as to give extra flavour to the dish I did not peel the apples before I cut the flesh, cubed it and added it to the red cabbage. At the same time I added two tablespoons of brown sugar, three sprigs of thyme from the garden and half a pint of cider. In this instance I used Bulmer's Cider which worked very well.

After simmering the contents of the dish until the cider had been absorbed into the cabbage and apple it was ready to serve to the guests of a meal I was hosting to herald the end of the working week and for me the start of a well-earned week off from the day job. The rich taste of the cider-soaked cabbage helped compliment the giant sage Yorkshire Pudding, steamed sprouts, lentils in gravy and roast potatoes that also formed part of an enjoyable meal and a fun evening.

Two days later it was the second Sunday in October and I needed something to compliment the corned beef hash I had prepared, see previous blog entry entitled 'Hashtag', and as it was a Sunday and I wasn't at work I prepared the Red Cabbage left over from the previous Friday by slow cooking it in the oven.

Kiss' 1985 hair metal platinum smash "Asylum" was on the playlist. The album has been described by the allmusic guide as being "chock full of nondescript fluff" a criticism that sounds similar to that handed out to the band Spinal Tap in their eponymous film when a reviewer described  their album 'Shark Sandwich' as being more like 'sh%t sandwich'. Accurate as that may have been for the Spinal Tap album to dismiss Asylum in similar terms would be a little harsh as although the band is clearly on autopilot for some of the record guitarist Bruce Kulick plays hard throughout and drummer Eric Carr clatters round the kit more than enough to ensure that the better songs like 'King of the Mountain' are memorable.

I first finely shredded the half of red cabbage remaining from Friday, cored two Cox's apples and then cut the flesh into cubes as well as dicing a large clove of garlic and a red onion. I then melted an ounce of butter in my Le Cresceut dish and cooked the cabbage in it for five minutes. I then added the apples, onion, garlic, two bay leafs, three sprigs of thyme, a teaspoon of grated nutmeg and half a pint of cider.

After taking the dish off the hob I cooked it in the oven at a temperature of 140 degrees, 150 for non-fan ovens, for three hours. Once the dish had cooked I discarded the bay leaves and served it with the corn beef hash I had previously prepared.

When compared to the Red Cabbage dish I had made the previous Friday this cabbage had more of what I would call a 'lived in feel' as slow cooked meals often tend to. What I mean by this is it had a more richer and mature taste compared to the more instant but also pleasant taste of the other red cabbage prepared a few days earlier.

The slow cooked take on red cabbage; rich and mature. 

Hashtag

When I was a child one of my favourite foods was corned beef hash. I especially used to like it mixed up with mashed potato. I think I got this from my granddad who first came across the dish when he was growing up in Scotland and he brought the dish down south with him after the war. He always refers to it as "corned beef and tatties". It's a simple meal albeit very tasty.

The Sunday before last I decided to make a variation on it called corned beef hash. It had been a wet and windy morning that had followed a wet and windy, but extremely excellent, Saturday night sampling flavoursome Mexican food while wearing an oversize Sombrero all as part of a friend's birthday celebrations. If the corned beef hash that I was about to make was simple comfort food to take my mind off the damp Sunday morning weather then the album of choice to listen was simple comfort music. I chose Kiss' 1987 platinum blockbuster Crazy Nights, which despite being cheesier than a Welsh Rarebit has many catchy songs that are played by the band with a passion and power that firmly sticks one finger up to critics and musical snobs. It's therefore the perfect record for a rainy day and helped me get stuck in to the task of dicing a large white onion, cleaning, peeling and cubing three white potatoes.

I first fried the white onion pieces in some olive oil in a frying pan for around five minutes until they began to brown. At the same time I added a pinch of black pepper and a quarter of teaspoon of mustard which I mixed into the onions. In the brief period that the onions were cooking I cut three slices of corned beef into small squares and after the onions were ready I added the corned beef and the cubed potatoes to the frying pan and spread them out throughout the pan.

I turned up the heat on the hob and once the potatoes and corned beef began to hiss I used a wooden spatula to look underneath the pieces and when they had started to brown I turned them over to fry the other side. So as to stop the food burning I added some extra olive oil to the pan to keep it moist. Once the potato pieces were soft enough to be cut with the wooden spatula and had browned on both sides I finished it by placing some fresh parsley on top and then the dish was ready.

This was genuine comfort food; the fried potatoes and the corned beef gave the meal a taste that was like the smell of a well-kept chip shop at peak serving hour. It certainly helped fortify me after my soaking that morning while walking the dog. The richness of the red cabbage cooked in cider that I had made to compliment it lent the meal some sophistication. The red cabbage dish will be featured in the next blog entry so watch this space...

The fresh parsley from the garden was the perfect finish to this meal. 

Personal Gingery

To help provide some motivation for my colleagues at work I recently made some gingerbread to take in for them. I used to bring my cooking projects into work more regularly but the job has become busier and some of my other free time has been taken up by accepting two public appointments. Still I managed to get some time to make some Grantham Gingerbreads which differ from normal gingerbread in that each piece is cooked individually rather than in a large block that is then cut up after it cools down.

I made them by creaming together four ounces of margarine and three and a half ounces of caster sugar. I then added the yolk of an egg and four ounces of self-raising flour and stirred these ingredients thoroughly together until a soft paste was formed. I then added two teaspoons of powdered ginger and mixed them into the paste.

After greasing a baking tray with margarine I added individual blobs of the paste to the tray. The blobs were around two centimetres wide and one centimetre high. I cooked them in the oven at 130 degrees (140 for non-fan ovens) for forty-five minutes.

The results were a gingerbread that was soft, not too tough on my teeth and (as one of my work collleagues commented) flavoursome without being  too overpowering.

Soft but tasty: the gingerbread just before I took it to work.

Lemons, Leeks and apple in a risotto

Quite a while ago on this blog I made a soup with leeks, lemons and apples in the ingredients. Last Sunday I decided to revisit the idea with a twist; I would use the ingredients in a risotto. With thoughts of a challenging week ahead and the icy keyboard sounds of Rush's 1987 album Hold Your Fire playing out around me I diced a white onion and prepared a leek by removing its outer leaves and clearing the dirt clinging to it. I sliced the leek narrowly lengthways and then cut in half the thin slices so as they would cook more easily.

I warmed some olive oil on the hob in my Le Cresceut dish, sprinkled in some white pepper and added the onion and leeks. I then fried them carefully on the hob until the onion became translucent and the leeks began to brown slightly. This process took around 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes I added the unpeeled, cubed flesh of a Cox's apple to the dish and stewed it with the leeks and onion for 10 minutes. I then added the juice from half a lemon, ten ounces of risotto rice and half a pint of white wine. Now came the tricky bit; I stirred the mixture repeatedly on a medium heat until rice became slightly translucent. I needed to stir the mixture continuously because otherwise it would stick to the bottom of the Le Cresceut dish and burn. I then gradually added half a pint of vegetable stock until the rice became bloated and soft.

To add an extra richness to the meal I melted two ounces of Parmesan into the mixture and once the melting was complete it was ready to serve. Like the leek, lemon and apple soup I made, on paper you would think these ingredients would not go together but they certainly did on this occasion to provide a filling and enjoyable risotto.

This risotto certainly tastes better than you'd think.