I started this blog because a long-term work contract had come to an end and I still wanted to have something to focus on that would fit in with being a full-time mum.  I have always wanted to write a recipe book and I originally thought that was what I would focus on, but I realised that I had no idea how to go about doing such a thing. Then I thought about blogging and realised that this was something I could do and it would mean that I shared my recipes with the world too.

When I started I had no idea that it would give me as much pleasure as it does. I had no idea that I would make so many new friends.  I hadn’t delved into the world of food blogging before I started this, but I now spend hours poring over other food blogs and it’s wonderful to be invited into other people’s kitchens and lives.

It has also made me more creative in the kitchen, trying new foods and new ways of cooking – you learn a lot from other people’s blogs!  I still sometimes cook the same old thing for tea, but not quite as often as before.

The only downside that I can find to this lark though is that it has encouraged me to bake more, and then, of course, to eat the result.  The bathroom scales have been shoved out of sight and I really need to devote more time to exercise. Oh well, you can’t have it all ways.

So, this is just to say thank you to everyone who reads my blog and to say here’s to another year’s blogging.

Kath x

This was the harvest from our polytunnel:

We were very excited as this is the first time we have had success with growing aubergines.  Mr OC planted a mixed seed collection and these beauties were the result. We kept them in the house on the windowsills until the fruit appeared and then transferred them into the polytunnel and this, I think, has been the secret of our success.  The ones planted directly into the polytunnel have produced flowers but no fruit, which was our experience last year.  Our tomatoes have been brilliant this year, supplying a constant stream of ripe fruit and our basil is beautifully scented.  I think this particular harvest is from a supermarket plant that I had pretty much used up in the house and so put it in the greenhouse and it has survived and gone from strength to strength.

I wanted to do something which made the most of both the aubergines and the tomatoes.  Sometimes, the aubergine gets a bit lost when baked with a tomato sauce when I do an aubergine lasagne thingy.  That is OK (and really quite delicious) when the aubergines are from the grocers, but when you have looked at them growing every day for a few months you really want them to be the centrepiece.  I do minted aubergines quite a lot, but the mint is over and cut back in the garden now.  Michele at Cooking at Home posted a wonderful and very inspiring pomodoro crudo the other week and so this seemed perfect to adapt a little for an aubergine and tomato salad.

So the tomatoes were diced and thrown into a bowl with some crumbled feta, salt and pepper and extra virgin olive oil and the basil and left to marinate whilst I got on with roasting the aubergines.

This picture doesn’t compare with Michele’s, so pop over to her site for a more beautiful image, where she uses mozzarella with her tomatoes.

I sliced the aubergines, sprinkled them with olive oil and seasoned generously with salt and pepper.

I then roasted them in the baking oven of my Aga, which is the equivalent of 180°c (gas mark 4) for about 20 minutes until soft and golden.

I placed the aubergines on the serving platter and placed the tomatoes and the lovely juices all over.

It’s best to leave it to stand for five minutes or so for the juices to be absorbed into the aubergine and then serve with lots of bread to mop up the juices.

This was a dish which definitely made the best of our polytunnel harvest.

I haven’t shared a dinner with you for quite a while and there has been a very good reason for this.  A few weeks ago Chele at The Chocolate Teapot said she had lost her baking mojo (only temporarily, she soon found it again), well I seemed to have lost my making dinner mojo.  I burned quite a few things, some things I undercooked, some I just didn’t season right.  Poor old Mr OC, he has had to suffer some disappointing meals.

This is why I was so pleased when this dinner made from Sunday’s leftover lamb was so tasty.  I do hope my making dinner mojo is back for good! (And so does Mr OC).

For the Lamb paprika:

Cooked lamb (however much you have left from a roast, or put another way, enough for two greedy people)
1 onion, diced
1 red pepper, diced
5-6 fresh tomatoes or 1 tin of plum tomatoes
2 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp cumin seeds
½ tsp sugar (if you are using fresh English tomatoes)
salt and pepper

Method

If you are using fresh tomatoes, place them in boiling water for 1 minute, drain, allow to cool and then peel off the skin. Dice the tomatoes, keeping the juice.

Fry the onion and pepper in a little olive oil over a medium heat until the onion is translucent and the pepper is softened.  Add the cooked lamb and the paprika and cumin and cook for a few minutes, stirring all the while so that the spices don’t burn. Add the diced tomatoes and their juice or the tin of tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper and add the sugar if using fresh tomatoes.  Turn the heat down and simmer gently for 30-40 minutes until the tomatoes have cooked down and the juices have reduced to a pulpy sauce.  Whilst this is happening cook the spiced rice.

For the spiced rice: (generously serves 2)

200ml basmati rice
300ml water
25g butter
1 scant tsp salt
1-2 tsp cumin seed
5-6 cardamom pods
generous handful of raisins

Method

Measure the rice in a measuring jug and rinse several times with water and then leave to soak in a jugful of water for 30 minutes if you have time.

Melt the butter in a heavy based pan and add the cumin seeds and cardamom pods and cook for a minute, stirring all the time.  Drain the rice and add to the buttery spices, stirring carefully until coated with butter. Add 300ml of fresh water and the raisins and salt.  Stir once gently, cover with a tight-fitting lid, bring to a gentle simmer and simmer for 20 minutes.  Take off the heat, take off the lid and cover with a clean cloth and leave to stand for five minutes.  All of the water should have been absorbed and the rice will be perfectly cooked.

Serve the rice and the lamb and tuck in.  A spoonful or two of yoghurt wouldn’t go amiss.

I have adapted it from Jill Brand’s version in Best-kept Secrets of the Women’s Institute Cakes and Biscuits (ISBN 0 74322 111 7) and reading through her introduction for this cake now she also says it’s ideal for picnics, so I must be right.  Jill uses half and half wholemeal plain flour and self-raising flour.  I use half spelt flour, half plain flour and two teaspoons of baking powder instead.  The spelt flour gives it a lovely nutty flavour and texture.

Because I am lucky enough to have an Aga I make this cake in the evening and then leave it to cook slowly in the warming oven all night and then check with a skewer when I get up and if I think it needs it I bake it for about 10 mins in the baking oven just to finish it off. It is deliciously moist this way and has the added bonus of filling the house with the scent of fruit cake with a generous dollop of mixed spice all night. But I have also cooked it the normal way and the way I will tell you about in the method below and it is almost as delicious.

For the mixed fruit I use whatever I have in the house, but it normally includes equal measures of raisins, sultanas and cranberries.  I have tried dates but I didn’t chop them finely enough and I found them a bit mealy.

450g (1lb) mixed dried fruit
200g (8oz) caster sugar
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
100g  (4oz) butter
200ml (7 floz) water
2 eggs
100g (4oz) spelt flour
100g (4oz) plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp ground mixed spice
50g (2oz) glace cherries, chopped

Method

Preheat the oven to 160°c (gas mark 3) and line the base and sides of a 18 cm round cake tin.

In a large pan place the mixed fruit, sugar, butter, bicarbonate of soda and the water and bring to the boil.  Simmer for 10 minutes and then take off the heat and cool for 15 minutes.

Beat in the eggs.  Sieve the flours, baking powder and mixed spice into the bowl.  I add the cherries to the flour so that they get a good covering of flour in the process and this helps to stop them sinking to the bottom of the cake when cooking.  Add the cherries and mix well.

Pour the mixture into the tin and either cook in an Aga in the way described in the introduction or in the preheated oven for 1¾ – 2 hours until a skewer comes out clean.  Leave to cool in the tin for 15 minutes and then turn out onto a wire rack and leave to cool completely.

The name for this cake could indeed have a double meaning.  I get asked if we can make a chocolate cake at least once a week, and it is very often more regular than that.  Well, the request was sounded at about 6.30 am on Sunday morning, something along the lines of  ’Can we make a chocolate cake that we can ice and decorate’.  The request was, of course, answered with a bleary ‘Later, maybe’.  Well, I am afraid my children are determined little creatures and so after a trip to the garden centre and before making sunday lunch for my parents and our neighbours, this chocolate cake was made and iced.  It was then decorated after dinner and before pudding – very extravagantly I have to say, and there was no time to take pictures, it needed to be eaten. Needless to say it involved a lot of sugared orange and lemon slices, hundreds and thousands and silver balls.

Here is a slice I finished off about mid-morning today.

The recipe is based on Rachel Allen’s Italian Hazelnut Cake in her Bake book (ISBN 13 978 0 00 725970 0), with the added chocolate and the addition of ground almonds as I didn’t have 200g of hazelnuts in the house. Then it was iced with a fudge frosting, which is not entirely necessary but does make a very good addition.

If you use gluten-free baking powder, then this makes a delicious gluten-free cake.

For the cake:

100g whole shelled hazelnuts
100g almonds (ground or whole, depending on what you have available or go for 200g of hazelnuts should they be available to hand)
50g good quality dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids)
1 tsp baking powder
100g softened butter
5 eggs separated
175g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

Method

Butter and line the base and sides of a 20 cm springform tin.  Preheat the oven to 170°c (gas mark 3) or use the baking oven of a 3 or 4 oven Aga.

Whizz the hazelnuts, almonds, baking powder and chocolate in a food processor until they are fine crumbs.  Add the butter and pulse until just combined.

Beat the egg yolks and the sugar with an electric whisk until the mixture has a mousse-like texture. Add the nut and chocolate mixture and the vanilla extract and mix until combined.

Whisk the egg whites in a very clean bowl until they are stiff.  Add one-third of the egg whites to the mixture and mix in well to loosen the mixture.  Add the rest of the egg whites in two batches, folding in very gently to retain as much air as possible.

Pour the mixture into the tin and bake for 45-60 minutes.  I placed mine on the oven rack placed on the bottom rung of the baking oven of my Aga and it was cooked in 40 minutes, so do adjust according to your oven.  The cake is cooked when it is firm to the touch and a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the middle.

Leave the cake in the tin for 15 minutes, then take the side off, leave for another 15 minutes and then remove the base and then leave to cool completely.

For the icing:

25g good quality dark chocolate
100g icing sugar
25g butter
1 ½ tbsp milk
½ tbsp vanilla extract

Method
Place all of the ingredients into a heavy based saucepan and heat gently until melted and stir well to combine.  Beat for a minute or two until cooled and spread onto the top of the cake.

Decorate, or not, to your heart’s desire.

My eldest is now off from school for the summer and so we baked these together, the three of us, piled up at the worktop.  I was very happy indeed when she shouted “Yippee, this is fun, and I am not at school this time”.  A reference, I have no doubt, to the fact that since she started school she usually comes home to something that her younger sister and I have baked together,  but the three of us haven’t had much time in the kitchen together lately.

Making these biscuits went a little way to righting that wrong.

Makes about 12 large biscuits.

100g softened butter
100g soft brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
75g plain flour
50g spelt flour
50g ground almonds
25g cocoa powder
2 tsp baking powder
100g good quality dark chocolate, chopped into chunks

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°c, gas mark 4, or use the baking oven of a three or four oven Aga.

Beat the butter and sugar together until fluffy and light.  Add the egg and the vanilla extract and beat well.  With a large metal spoon stir in the flours, baking powder, almonds and cocoa powder.

Place heaped dessertspoonfuls of the mixture onto lightly greased baking sheets and cook in the centre of the oven for 12-14 minutes.  Take out of the oven and leave to cool for a minute or two before lifting onto a wire tray.  They are delicious eaten still warm from the oven but they taste good the next day too, should you have any left.

We have had a really good crop of blackcurrants this year in our garden and we have managed to pick them between the rain showers.  The smell of a colander full of blackcurrants is really quite intoxicating and as I was admiring their perfect purply black beauty I was wondering what would make the best use of this fruit.  A summer pudding is always very welcome in this house, but I was a bit short of bread.  I had a tub of cream which was just hanging on inside its use-by date so I thought it had to be ice cream.

The taste of this ice cream, both creamy and sharp at the same time, really is very enjoyable and it manages to capture the essence of the blackcurrant with its heady aroma.

I decided to make a sauce to go over it with another load of the horde and then what wasn’t used to adorn Sunday’s pudding I have frozen into ice lollies for when the summer returns!

I have used the recipe for Blackcurrant Ice Cream from The River Cottage Family Cookbook (Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall and Fizz Carr, 2005) which uses the basic custard method, but then adds extra double cream for added oomph.

I admit that I tend to only buy double cream, so when a recipe calls for single cream I just use about three-quarters double cream and a quarter milk.  I have no idea if this a huge faux pas or not, but it seems to work ok for me.  Please feel free though to be more sensible and use both single cream and double cream as directed.

For the ice cream

350g blackcurrants
2 tbsp water

300ml (or a 284ml pot) single cream
4 egg yolks
vanilla pod
125g caster sugar
300ml (or a 284ml pot) double cream

Method

Place the blackcurrants an 2 tbsp of water into a pan and simmer until they are soft and pulpy.  Leave to cool.

Pour the single cream into a saucepan with the vanilla pod and heat until it is steaming.  Take off the heat.

Beat the egg yolks and sugar together in a bowl until they are thick and paler.  Pour the cream over the eggs, whisking all the while.  Pour this mixture back into the pan and place over a gentle heat. Stir the mixture all the time to prevent scrambled eggs and keep stirring until the mixture has thickened enough to coat the back of the spoon. Take off the heat and stir for a few minutes until it has cooled down. Leave to one side whilst you deal with the blackcurrants.

Pour the blackcurrants into a sieve set over a bowl and using a metal spoon stir the mixture until all that is left in the sieve is skin and seeds and you have a lovely seed free blackcurrant sauce in the bowl.  Add this blackcurrant sauce to the custard mixture and mix well.  Add the double cream and mix this in well.

Place in an ice cream maker and follow the manufacturer’s instructions or pour the mixture into a freezer-proof container and freeze for an hour.  Remove from the freezer and beat well.  Return to the freezer and repeat this process another two times.

This ice cream freezes hard so you will need to remember to remove it from the freezer a good ten minutes before you want to eat it.

For the blackcurrant sauce:

blackcurrants
water
icing sugar

Method

Repeat the process for making the sauce above by simmering the blackcurrants, with a tablespoon or two of water until soft and pulpy.  Leave to cool.  Press through a sieve  over a bowl.  Add icing sugar to taste.

Use this as a sauce or freeze in ice lolly containers for a refreshing sharp ice lolly on a hot day.

We have broad beans in the garden.  Hooray!

I haven’t always been enamoured by broad beans.  When I was a child I disliked them with zeal.  They seemed too bitter and fibrous and my mum always seemed to serve them with liver! But things change, and my taste buds must have done as I love them now. I can’t say the same for liver though.

We went on holiday with my parents three years ago and had these little beauties as an appetiser at a little place, suspiciously called Cafe Londres. We have eaten them often since.  If I have parsley then I add it.  Our parsley in the garden has now gone to seed, so tonight’s version was un-embellished. It’s delicious either way.

I like my vinaigrette with a bit of zing so I always add more lemon than is traditional, but feel free to adjust to taste.

Shelled broad beans (fava beans, I understand, are the same thing)
1 clove of garlic, crushed
juice of ½ lemon
3-4 tablespoons of good extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper

Method

Make a vinaigrette by mixing together the crushed garlic, lemon juice, oil and salt and pepper and adjust to your taste (adding more oil or lemon to suit you).

Boil the broad beans for a few minutes until tender  (timings will  depend on the size of the bean).  Drain well and run briefly under a cool tap until they are cool enough to handle and then pop the skin off the larger beans.

Add the broad beans to the vinaigrette and leave to stand for at least 30 minutes before enjoying at room temperature.

Now to the chicks part of the title.  I was a little busy last week and this was the reason:

Our Black Rock, Daisy, went broody four weeks ago, so we let her sit on her eggs in a rabbit hutch.  The first chick hatched on Monday and the eighth hatched on Friday. It was very exciting to go out and find yet another chick hatched under Daisy.  I took each one off her after it was born and kept it warm in a box on the Aga, with a mop head as a temporary mummy and then when we were sure that no more were going to be hatched we reintroduced Daisy to her brood – and very happy about it all she is too.

I just hope they aren’t all cockerels.

My youngest daughter loves lemons, she will suck on half a lemon and enjoy every minute.  She sucks her two middle fingers on her right hand and if she gets a chance she likes to squeeze a bit of lemon juice on them before putting them in her mouth. So she often asks me to make lemonade for her.  She loves the drink but she also loves to suck on the leftover lemon halves.

The last few weeks we have had really hot weather and this drink has been perfect for quenching thirsts.

It’s very easy to make and if you would like it fizzy, then dilute with a little sparkling water.

3 lemons (preferably unwaxed, if not then scrub under warm water)
80g caster sugar
500ml just boiled water

Method

Using a vegetable peeler peel the lemons, making sure you have only the yellow skin and no white pith.  If you have any white pith then scrape it off, otherwise it will make the lemonade taste bitter.

Put the peel and the juice of the 3 lemons in a large bowl.  Add the sugar and the just boiled water.  Stir well, making sure that all of the sugar has dissolved. Cover with a clean cloth and leave for a few hours to infuse and cool.  Strain and enjoy with ice, or diluted with a little sparkling water.

This is one of my all time favourites.  I can’t remember a party from my childhood, or adulthood, when one of these beauties hasn’t been invited.  The pie in the picture is one of mum’s creations and it is from my mum that I have this recipe.  My mum makes the best sausage pies in the world!

I made one for a party we had over the May bank holiday weekend, but with all the pre party chaos I forgot to take a picture of my creation, so I have waited until my mum made her next sausage pie before posting this recipe.  Luckily for me she makes then quite often.

It is always popular and I rarely get a chance for leftovers.  It is important though that you get very good sausage meat from a very good butcher for this pie to be top notch.

500g ready-made all butter puff pastry
1 egg, lightly beaten, to glaze

1kg top quality sausage meat
6-7 tips of sage (by tip I mean the top 3 or 4 leaves of a sprig)
200g onion
salt and pepper

Method

If you don’t have a food processor then chop the onion and sage finely.  If you have a food processor, throw them both in and whizz until finely chopped.   Add them to the sausagemeat in a bowl, add a little salt and pepper and using your hands mix really well together.

Roll the puff pastry out into a large rectangle.  I forgot to measure mine to help with this but think about the baking tray you are going to use and it will probably be about the same size as that.

Place the sausagemeat in the centre of the pastry in a line, leaving an edge of about 3cm.

Fold the pastry over to meet at the top and crimp the edges well.  Place the pie onto a lightly greased baking tray and brush all over with a lightly beaten egg.  (You may have some spare pastry that you need to trim away.  If you do then brush this with egg and sprinkle with grated cheese and cut into fingers, place onto a greased baking sheet and cook for about 8-10 minutes for lovely cheese straws)

Place in a preheated oven at 220°c for about 30 minutes until golden brown.

You can serve this hot but I like it much better cold as the flavours really develop.