Cranberry Bread Again

Here is the Cranberry Bread.


Oh, my. Well, it went down quite quickly after the dinner of mussels.
Once you've made the recipe a few times you can really start going on feel. Only one thing is a must - DON'T USE A GLASS DISH, USE METAL. If you use glass, you will, as I have, become very frustrated and think something is wrong with you. If you use metal, you will feel like a lady goddess of the kitchen for whom everything works out.

Again, I use the Cooks Illustrated recipe, but tweak it as to what I have in the house.

First I melt the butter in my small saucepan, and instead of messing up bowl after bowl after bowl, I then mix up the wet ingredients in the butter saucepan.



I put in the yogurt and milk first to cool it down a bit. The recipe says buttermilk, but a yogurt milk mixture works fine. Then I add the egg, and because the wet ingredients have cooled a bit, I don't worry about it cooking. I didn't have an orange (or a Clementine or a satsuma, etc) so I used a lime. It was quite tasty, but I didn't get the full 1/3 cup of juice with it, so I added a bit more milk.

Then I mixed up the dry ingredients. Again, I don't have scales or cup measurements, so I have to do it by feel and sight, and its becoming easier and easier.


The only annoying thing about this recipe is chopping the cranberries, which is the single most frustrating task I do in the kitchen. Eurgh...



Mix it all together and bake it until it looks done. By using a metal dish, it will actually BE done when it looks done, instead of the opposite, which is what happens when one uses a glass dish...



Enjoy!

Seriously Simple Bolognese

This was the easiest and most simple Bolognese I've ever made. I totally recommend it.

olive oil
carrot
onions
american streaky bacon
mince (ground beef)
milk
beer
1 can of chopped tomatoes
brown sugar
nutmeg
salt & pepper
herbs

SERIOUSLY YOU PROB ALREADY HAVE ALL THIS IN YOUR HOUSE OMG.

Heat oil in a saucepan, add the chopped onions, finely chopped carrot, an d finely chopped bacon. Cook on a medium heat, then turn up heat a bit, so that the onion isn't browning too much but the bacon starts to get crispy. Add the mince and brown it, stirring it quite often so that it doesn't form into clumps. When its looking mostly cooked, add most of one beer, a cup or so of milk and a can of tomatoes. Add some brown sugar, some herbs (I had some fresh thyme) and a bit of salt and pepper. Grate in some nutmeg.



Reduce heat and cook until there is less liquid. Adjust seasoning to taste and remove from heat a bit before serving. This lets the sauce thicken a bit before you shove it over pasta.

Here it is the next morning on MANTOAST.



Enjoy!

Friends with Mussels

Had the delight of having Alice AND Colleen over for dinner the other evening.



I had no idea what I was going to make so I just headed down to Waitrose to browse. I decided not to stress myself and got two bags of mussels and a baguette. I found some reduced-price mushrooms and courgettes to saute quickly and a nice, buttery head of lettuce. Also, some white wine.

Here's the recipe:

Check over the mussels, taking out the ones that are quite broken. Also, pull the beards off the ones that have them, pulling down, then up, on the beard to remove it easily.
Put some butter in a saucepan. I had to use two because I don't have one big enough. But I shall continue as if I have a massive kitchen with gargantuan pots and pans, cooking on a gorgeous massive Aga. So.
When the butter has melted, put some chopped onions in the pan. Let those cook for a few minutes and then add some minced garlic. Let it cook for only a bit, about 30 seconds. While you do that, turn up the heat and add the mussels and white wine. Hm. I added the rest of the bottle after Fraser and I had both had a small glass, for two bags of mussels. Cover the pot, shake often and cook until they open. When the mussels are done, pour out the cooking juice into a bowl and keep the mussels covered. Melt some more butter in a saucepan over medium heat, then add an equal amount of flour and whisk. After a minute or so of whisking, slowly mix in the mussel and wine broth into the roux and bring to the boil.

Voila! You are finished!

I served it with sautéed courgette and mushrooms, salad and a baguette.

Potato Pancakes

Here's a great recipe for potato pancakes. I love this guy's narration.
Anyways, I really like it because it doesn't require squeezing out the potato pancakes in a kitchen towel, like my ma always did. I only have 2 kitchen towels, and things always take a couple days to dry after washing them, so I was hesitant, but this worked wonderfully. I just watched the vid and then made them - have confidence that this doesn't really require a recipe, just ingredients.

http://foodwishes.blogspot.com/2010/12/crispy-crusty-potato-pancakes-always.html

Tart aux Leftovers

Um, so I made this pie the other day that didn't turn out very well. The inside was good, cranberries and apples, but the pie crust wasn't that good. I kneaded it too much and didn't add enough fat so it wasn't melty and buttery and flaky. My own fault. I was showing off.
HOWEVER, it did work out to my favour in its reincarnation. There was a bit of dough left so I shoved it in the fridge.

The next day I was hungry so I turned it into a tart. Like a savoury gallette. I rolled it out thin, layered brie, tomatoes and red onions in a circle inside the dough, crimped the edges over it, cracked black pepper over the top and put it in a hot oven.

It was nice.

aHA! Toad in the Hole that worked!

See here a successful incarnation of Toad in the Hole!



Here is the recipe: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/toadinthehole_3354
Notes - I only had three eggs and it turned out fine. Beef drippings can be bought for mere pennies at the shop - who knew?

Served with simple mash (done with milk) and a salad. So tasty even the camera's eyes went blurry.

Curry, of Sorts

Here's instructions for what was made last night, on a bit of a whim.

Heat oil in a pan over a high heat. Add some spices and pastes - whatever you've got. I added about 2 tablespoons of tikka masala paste, 1 tablespoon of thai green curry paste, small bits (depending on spiciness) of corriander, chilli powder, cayenne, cinnamon, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and some tomato paste. You have other things? Add them also, or instead. Cook for a minute or so, constantly stirring so that it doesn't burn (much).



Add one chopped onion and some tomatoes.



You could totally used canned tomatoes, but I like not, because it feels more like I'm eating my required vegetables when I use fresh rather than canned. I used a few whole tomatoes, chopped, some leftover cherry tomatoes, halved, and strangely, some leftover chopped tomatoes from the Thanksgiving salad, that I had saved for some reason. Like, I saved the whole salad, dressed and everything. Soggy and gross, but not off, I picked out the tomatoes - there were quite a few, and shoved them in. It felt nice not to waste them.

When the tomatoes had cooked down a bit, I added one stock cube, some water and a bit more tikka masala paste. At this point both me and the man were sneezing and nose-dripping from all the spices. :)



Sometime in the middle of this, I mixed up some yogurt, some oil, a bit of the tikka masala paste, salt, pepper and brown sugar in a dish, and placed the two chicken breast in it. These were skin on, bone in chicken breasts, as I had just hacked them from the whole chicken myself. I do love hacking up a chicken, dreaming of all the lovely things I'll be able to do with it. I smashed the breasts a bit with my fists, to flatten them out and then tossed them in the yogurt
mixture and let them marinate.



I sliced two peppers in half and cut a few red onions into rings. They got brushed with oil and put under the broiler until browned.



When they were done on both sides, I left them on the the cutting board to cool, and put the chicken under the grill.



By this time the sauce had thickened.



Chop up the peppers and add both them and the onions to the sauce. Once the chicken is cooked, chop it up and add it to the sauce.

I served this with rice, and, as it was really freakin' spicy, added yogurt to the whole mix to cool it off a bit. At that point, you could really taste the flavours and it was a lovely treat! Add sliced green onions and a squeeze of lime and you're ready for dinner.



Here you can see it better the next day on a toast and eggs. Man-lunch.

Turkey Noodle Soup

Made from Thanksgiving turkey leftovers, obviously.

Since I don't have a massive stock pot, I hacked my turkey carcass into a few bits so that it could fit in two smaller pots. I didn't have any carrots left over, so I just chopped up some leeks, an onion and some celery and put that in the pot with the bones, along with water to cover and bay leaves. I let it boil away for a LONG time. Then I drained the stock through a colander, and brought the stock to a boil again, skimming, and occasionally topping up with water when needed. It tasted lovely, but I wasn't ready for it, so I just left it on the stovetop.


So anyways, a lovely dear friend of ours stayed over with us on Friday after breaking up with his girlfriend. Frowny. So I did what I know best and fed the fellow. After one or nine pints on Friday night we headed back to the house and devoured the Tupperware container of leftovers with our fingers. Yum. The next morning there was just enough left for soup.

Pre-Friday photo. I am now quite surprised that we manage to eat so much of this with just our fingers.

I had about 3/4 cup of gravy still left from Thanksgiving, so I shoved that in with the stock. It was quite gelatinous, so it needed stirring through, but it added lovely flavour and texture to the soup. Then I chopped up the leftover turkey into comforting Campbell's-Chicken-Noodle-Soup-sized pieces. There were a few peas, some mashed potatoes and some cranberry sauce left as well, so it ALL went in with the stock. Mmm.

Then I made no0dles. I followed a recipe that I found online, stating 1 egg to 1 cup of flour. So I tried to do that, but I think I added too much flour as the one egg wasn't cutting it. So I added another egg, mixing it all up in a bowl with my fingers. When it started to gather, I dumped it out on the the worksurface to knead. The next step was challenging as I had recycled my wine-bottle rolling pin and had to improvise. I used a cunning mixture of a beer bottle and a jar of mayonnaise. I rolled the dough nice and thin, keeping both sides floured, and sliced and stacked and cut it into thinnish, 3 inch noodles. The noodles went into the soup, the top on the pot, and it boiled away for 10 minutes or so until the noodles were cooked.

OMG it was lovely!


What a surprise. I've never made homemade noodles before and it was well worth it. :)

THANKSGIVING!

OMG. What a lovely holiday.



Thanksgiving started a few days early, with the making of the cranberry sauce, the baking of the bread (for the bread stuffing) and the cooking of the pumpkin.

Cranberry sauce: lots of cranberry, zest and juice of a few satsumas, sugar, water. I like to not stir it too much, so that many of the berries stay whole and look like sparkling berry jewels. Pronounced, JEW-ELLES.

Bread: search Grandmother Bread, from a wonderful blog called Chickens In the Road. I used about 1/2 wholemeal flour and just made one loaf.

Pumpkin Pie: i kind of winged it with the crust, using 1/2 butter and 1/2 vegetable fat. For the inside, I followed the Cooks Illustrated recipe, but instead of using canned pumpkin and canned candied yams, I used a whole small pumpkin and one decent-sized sweet potato. I just baked them, then mashed them, then followed the recipe as stated.

WHICH LOOKS TASTIER?

Then I peeled 1000lbs of potatoes, and chopped up the veg for the stuffing. Those all got bagged and put in the fridge.



Turkey - Oh you tasty, well-performing turkey. I got it at Mark's and Spencer's, frozen. I defrosted it half on the counter, half in the fridge, and then brined it in the sink for about 3 hours. I'd have loved to brine it for longer, but even I didn't want to risk infecting 5 guests (well, 4 if you don't count the other resident of room-flat) with infamous poultry/kitchen disease.
At about noon the next day I took the turkey out of the fridge to try and bring it to room temperature-ISH. At about 3, I stuffed it (see next entry) rubbed butter over top and under the skin and then covered it in salt and pepper. I chopped up a few ribs of celery, carrots and onions and sprinkled them around the turkey, and shoved said turkey in the oven for 3 hours. For much of the time I made my turkey a little foil hat to wear to keep his skin from burning.



Stuffing. I sliced up my bread into cubes, and then dried it out in the oven. The cubes weren't rock hard, just a mix of totally crispy to crisp-chewy. Theses were mixed with the pre-chopped celery and onion, fresh parsley, dried sage (there must be enough Americans in Glasgow to have cleared out the Waitrose of the ever important Thanksgiving herb, fresh sage) and pepper (no salt as I knew the chicken stock was a bit salty). Then I mixed in two eggs and most of the egg whites leftover from the pumpkin pie, and some chicken stock. Leave it a bit so that the bread cubes can really soak up the liquid. Shove it in the turkey.



Gravy - I followed the recipe for Best Turkey Gravy from Cooks Illustrated, skipping the last step. My turkey didn't really have many sticky pan bits to cook up, so at the end I just mixed the thickened gravy, the set-aside gravy, the skimmed pan juices, a bit of white wine and about 1/2 of the minced, cooked gizzards over medium heat. It SURE WAS TASTY.



Salad - I made some. Dressed it with olive oil, red wine vinegar, maple syrup, salt and pepper.

Mashed Potatoes - I boiled them, mashed them, added cream and milk to them and whisked them.

Brussels Sprouts - cooked for a while in a high heat oven, tossed in olive oil, salt and pepper. Don't be afraid to let them get nice and brown.

Peas - I sort of followed a Cooks Illustrated recipe for Sauteed Peas with Shallot. Oil, shallot, then peas and a little white wine, cover. Add chopped parsley and a squeeze of a satsuma. Serve.

Well, folks, I think that was about it!

I had a lovely Thanksgiving, shared with friends, with my family in my heart.



Happy Holidays!

Making Boring Dinner - some lessons

Here's what I made for dinner the other night:



I do some art on Tuesday nights, and don't get home until about 8:30. But I still like to cooks something, so here's what got made.

All it is, really, is chicken breast sliced up, dusted with flour, garlic powder, chilli powder, salt and pepper, cooked in a frying pan.



Then I chopped up a leek, removed the chicken from the frying pan and cooked the leek. I boiled some water and put in some spaghetti, then chopped up some broccoli and got the salad ready. I put a smallish jar of nice pasta sauce in with the leeks and let it simmer. When the pasta was nearly done, I put the broccoli in with the pasta and put the lid on. After about 2 minutes, I took out the broccoli and put the spaghetti straight in with the sauce. That was the end of dinner.

Boring, but relatively well-rounded.

So lesson number one for me, I guess, is don't be afraid of the boring dinner. If its healthy, its really good enough.

Lesson number two is something I struggle with, and I image many other people do, too - I hate putting something boring on the table, but a lot of times, that's okay.

For example, I could have minced a shallot and some garlic, measure white wine and made some stock, dirtied another pan and made a somewhatmoretastier pan of braised broccoli. OR, I could do what I did, I just cooked it so it wasn't raw anymore, and put it on the table so it got eaten.

Broccoli, on the table, eaten, is better than veg not cooked because of time and effort needed to prepare them.

Live on the boring dinner and the effortless sides.

Cranberry Bread

These are the delicious leftovers from a loaf of cranberry bread, or, really, cranberry cake.
The recipe is from Cooks Illustrated, minus the nuts, using milk instead of buttermilk ('cause that's all I had) and baking it for about 300 more minutes than stated because it JUST WOULDN'T BAKE THROUGH.



But then it did, so I took it out eventually and ATE IT AND IT WAS DELICIOUS.

Note: does your butter ever start tasting a bit different? Definately not 'off,' but has a flavour that's not terribly enjoyable on toast? That's what had happened to some butter in my fridge, so its the butter I used in this bread. The odd flavour was masked by all the other delicious elements, so it was a handy use for said butter.

Breads

I'll shove up some photos when I've got some, but please, remember, do not be frightened of bread-making. There are so many quick and yeasted breads that are easy-peasy to make.
Here I will copy my two favourites.

Pan-grilled Flatbreads, Cooks Illustrated

Ingredients

1	package dry active yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons)
1	cup water (warm -- 110 to 115 degrees) HALF BOILING, HALF COLD TAP WATER MAKES PERFECT 'WARM' WATER
1	tablespoon olive oil , plus extra for brushing
2	teaspoons granulated sugar
1/4	cup plain yogurt
1 1/2	teaspoons table salt , plus extra for sprinkling
1/2	cup whole wheat flour , sieved (before measuring) to remove coarse flakes of bran MEH- USE WHATEVER FLOUR YOU LIKE, IT REALLY DOESN'T MATTER
2	cups bread flour , plus additional as needed
2	tablespoons sesame seeds (optional)

Instructions

1. In either the workbowl of a food processor fitted with stainless steel blade or, if working by hand, a medium mixing bowl, sprinkle yeast over warm water. Add oil, sugar, and yogurt and pulse to mix, about four 1-second bursts, or, if working by hand, mix with wooden spoon until well combined. Add salt, sieved whole wheat flour, and 2 cups bread flour; process until smooth, about 15 seconds, scraping down sides of bowl as necessary, or, if working by hand, mix with wooden spoon until flour is incorporated, about 3 minutes. Process dough (adding more flour as necessary until dough just pulls completely away from sides of bowl) until soft and satiny, about 30 seconds, or, if working by hand, turn dough out of mixing bowl onto very lightly floured work surface and knead until smooth and elastic, 12 to 15 minutes. Squeeze dough gently with full hand; if dough is sticky, sprinkle with flour and knead just to combine. Place dough in medium bowl or straight-sided plastic container, cover with plastic wrap, and place in warm, draft-free spot until dough doubles in size, 30 to 45 minutes. (At this point, dough can be punched down, wrapped tightly in plastic wrap, and refrigerated up to 2 days.) I DO THIS BY HAND AND IT DOESN'T TAKE TOO LONG AT ALL
   

2. Turn dough onto lightly floured work surface and, if it is sticky, sprinkle very lightly with flour. Following illustrations 1 through 4 below, cut, shape, and roll dough. If using sesame seeds, brush tops of circles lightly with water, sprinkle each circle with 3/4 teaspoon seeds, and gently roll over with rolling pin once or twice so seeds adhere to dough. DON'T WORRY ABOUT BEING TOO SPECIFIC. SERIOUSLY, BREAD IS MORE FORGIVING THAN YOU THINK.
   

3. Five to 10 minutes before cooking flatbreads, heat large, heavy skillet (preferably cast iron) over medium-high heat until hot. Working one at a time, lift dough circles, gently stretch about one inch larger, and place on the skillet. Cook until small bubbles appear on surface of dough, about 30 seconds. With tongs, flip bread and cook until bottom is speckled and deep golden brown in spots, about 2 minutes. Flip bread over again; cook until bottom is speckled and deep golden brown in spots, 1 to 2 minutes longer. OOH, THIS PART IS FUN.
   

4. Transfer bread to wire rack and cool for about 5 minutes (brush bread lightly with olive oil and sprinkle with salt to taste, if desired). Wrap breads loosely in clean kitchen towel and serve warm. Or wrap breads tightly in foil and store at room temperature up to 2 days; reheat in 300-degree oven until warm, about 15 minutes. I TEND TO JUST EAT THEM NOW AND SKIP STEP 4 ENTIRELY.

Here's another recipe that makes everyday bread-making a reality.

Quick and Easy Cream Biscuits, Cooks Illustrated

Ingredients OFTEN I WILL HALF THIS RECIPE FOR BISCUITS JUST FOR DINNER

2	cups unbleached all-purpose flour , plus extra for the counter
2	teaspoons granulated sugar
2	teaspoons baking powder
1/2	teaspoon table salt
1 1/2	cups heavy cream IT WILL KEEP IN THE FRIDGE FOR AGES - I LOVE THIS

Instructions

1. Adjust oven rack to upper-middle position and heat oven to 450f degrees. Line baking sheet with parchment paper. OR FOIL. WHATEVER.
   

2. Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in medium bowl. Stir in the cream with a wooden spoon until dough forms, about 30 seconds. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured counter and gather into a ball. Knead the dough briefly until smooth, about 30 seconds.
   

3. Shape the dough into a 3/4-inch-thick circle. Following illustrations below, cut biscuits into rounds or wedges. Place rounds or wedges on parchment-lined baking sheet. (The baking sheet can be wrapped in plastic wrap and refrigerated for up to 2 hours.) Bake until golden brown, about 15 minutes, rotating baking sheet halfway through baking. WEDGES ARE SUPER EASY.

Enjoy!

Toad in the Hole

I totally followed the recipe and it didn't work well... :(
I think I need more baking dishes. Ones that aren't glass.
This is why I don't like recipes.... too bad baking requires them.

http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/pork-recipes/toad-in-the-hole

The yorkshire-puddingness of it wasn't cooked all the way through but the outside was burnt. Plus there was mystery additional liquid - pork juice? Bleurgh. Luckily, it tasted fine.

Thai Green Curry

This is a tasty favourite of mine because its so rich and different tasting.

I mostly followed the recipe you can find here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/nigelslatersthaigree_80244

Here are the changes:
Remember the chicken pot pie? Remember how I baked the chicken breasts and wings and just used the meat? Well, I was lazy, so I put the baking tray with the skin, bones and wings in it back into the oven and forgot about it.

BUT THEN I USED IT THE NEXT DAY. HAHAHAHahahaha....

I just used them to make chicken stock. I put it all in a small pot with some left over leek bits, trimmed carrot ends and an onion and let it boil away until I needed it.



What else... OH, instead of using chicken breasts I just cooked the other half of the chicken. You know, the non-breast part. I just shoved it in my round glass baking dish with some salt and pepper and baked it until it look done. Then I took it out, cooled it off a bit, and pulled the meat from the bones.

this looks disgusting but man is it tasty.

I used coconut oil because it is so flavourful and Waitrose Thai green curry paste because it looked good.



I really just had to work at getting the flavours right, adding more sugar, fish sauce, soy suace and curry paste to the coconut milk and stock until the flavour was right.

I am not a millionaire - the chicken cost less than £6 and served six (in two separate meals) and all those gorgeous baby veg were REDUCED. genius.

Then I added the chicken, some frozen peas, and my delightful REDUCED veggies. What a joy.



I served it all over rice and served it to my happy friends and family. :)



OH! I FORGOT: look at this wonderful product! Frozen freshly-chopped cilantro in a resealable freezer bag. Booyah! Its so great.

The Long Pot Roast

I made a pot roast, but I didn't take any photos, 'cause I was mostly asleep the whole time.
We were supposed to have the pot roast on Thursday, but it didn't roast through enough, so we didn't have it until Friday night. At least the flavour was improved.

Ages ago I bought a silverside roast that was reduced from £17 to £10. I cut it into three pieces and froze two of them up. If you place frozen meat, unwrapped, on a calphalon pan it'll defrost in no time. So I placed my meat, wrapped, on a calphalon pan and left for a bunch of hours. By the time I came home the roast was, well, slightly defrosted on one side. Here begins the saga.
Anyways, it took about one million years for the beef to defrost, even after I took it out of the wrapping, because I must have been refreezing it with my constant eye contact.

But on to the recipe. It's mostly from Cook's Illustrated, Pot Roast with Root Vegetables.

Sear the beef on a high heat in a pan until its brown on all sides. It says do this in a Dutch oven, which I do not have. So I did the browning and the sauce making in a frying pan and the roasting in a glass baking dish. Once the beef is browned, take it out and place it in the baking dish. Chop up a small onion, a rib of celery and part of a carrot (eat the other part). Fry these in the same frying pan over a medium heat for about 6 minutes. Add a teaspoon of sugar and a minced clove of garlic. Fry for about 30 seconds, then add some stock. I used half a stock cube and about 250ml of water. Deglaze the pan and boil the kettle. Pour the veg and stock mix over the beef, and pour boiling water into the dish until it reaches halfway up the beef. Cover it with foil and put it in a 160C oven for about 3.5 hours.

Wellllllll, I put the roast in at about 8pm, so I screwed up there. Anyways, I kept turning the roast every half hour or so, but it never got done. After about two hours I cut up some root vegetables and scattered them around the roast, nestled in the liquid. So when we went to bed at around 11.30pm I just turned off the oven and LEFT THE ROAST THERE. OVERNIGHT. WITHOUT HEAT OR COOLING. AND I'M STILL ALIVE.

I must be a superhero. Get me.

Anyways, the next morning I took the roast out of the juices and put it on a plate. I covered both the roast and the veg and liquid and left to try on wedding dresses. LEFT THE FOOD ON THE WORKSURFACE.

When I got back at around 5pm I started making more of a stew than a pot roast. A pest had invaded my kitchen and eaten half of the roast. But that was okay, because the ratio of meat, sauce and veg turned out just fine.

I skimmed some of the fat off the top of the liquid and poured both the liquid and veg into a sauce pot. I sliced up the meat and then tore it into pieces and shoved than in the pot as well. Then I added some red wine and salt and let the whole thing bubble away until I ate it and it was DELICIOUS.

The end.

Man Eggs

This was not made by me, but by my man, King of Eggs.


With the addition of ketchup, or tomato sauce, or red sauce or WHATEVER YOU WANT TO CALL IT, it went down in about 20 seconds.

Nice work, baby.

Steak and Potato Pie

Remember that other steak? He needed cooking. So, I made a bit of a pie.

First, chop potatoes into a few pieces, put them in a pot, cover them with cold water, add some salt and put them on a hot burner. Aka, boil some potatoes. Maybe I go a bit overboard with the instructions.

Chop up a couple of onions and some celery. Put some butter and some lardons in a frying pan and start frying up the onions. Take the steak, cut off the fat, and chop the meat into small pieces. Put the chopped steak in the pan, along with the piece of fat from the steak. Cook the steak for a while, and then remove the steak-fat. Similar as to the chicken pot pie, add a couple of spoonfuls of flour and cook it for a minute or two.

Then add stock (all I had was chicken) until a sauce forms. To that add some Worcestershire sauce, some red wine, the celery, some cherry tomatoes (I squashed them with my hands as I put them in) and a spoonful of cream.

As you can see, this was a bit of a catch-all for things I had in my fridge. If you have other vegetables, add them. Beer instead of red wine would be fine. Chorizo instead of lardons sounds great. Feel free to make it your own.

By this point the potatoes should be done. Drain them, mash them, and then add milk and some beaten eggs. Mix it all together til its really smooth.

Pour the filling into your dish. When putting the potatoes on top of the filling, plop wee bits of mashed potato all around the top of the dish. Then start smoothing it out with a fork. Make nice fork-y bits that will brown nicely.

Shove it in the oven until the potatoes get browned on the tips.



Yum!

Simple Salad

Solving your salad woes.

Do find salad kind of lame sometimes? Me, too. But I know its good for me, and it never really tastes BAD, so I usually make it. This night, though, I only had lettuce and mushrooms. For being the main ingredient in a salad, lettuce is surprisingly bad at mixing with salad's back-up star, the dressing. It often turns out that unless you use a tasty and fatty (and delicious and bad at the same time) creamy dressing, your dressing falls listlessly to the bottom of the bowl and your lettuce tastes unsurprisingly like lettuce. Add to that some raw mushrooms, tasty slightly chalky and papery and raw. Meh.

So - what I did instead was this: I chopped my lettuce nice and small. Then I rinsed it in my salad bowl to get rid of any grit. I left it on the chopping board to drain a bit and chopped up my mushrooms. Into a bowl I whisked together some (that is an exact measurement) oil, red wine vinegar, honey, tons of pepper and salt. Then I plopped the mushrooms in the bowl with the dressing and let them marinate. The shrooms soak up the dressing and soften at the same time, solving two problems at once.



That's about it. Mix them together and you get a really lovely salad!

Chicken Pot Pie

I just love chicken pot pie. Chicken pot pie, you are so delicious.

Firstly - I set the oven for 200C. Instead of buying chicken breasts, I bought a whole chicken and cut away the breasts and wings from the rest of the body, skin, bones and all. I put a little butter under the skin and rubbed salt and pepper on the skin. I laid the half-chicken on a few rings of onion to keep the chicken from sticking to the roasting tray and shoved it into the oven until cooks (or mostly cooked).



Chop up two small onions, a couple sticks of celery and a two carrots. Melt some butter in a frying pan (preferably, use a NON non-stick pan). As the chicken cooks away in the oven, it'll start spitting out some fat. Take the roasting tray out of the oven and drain the chicken fat into the frying pan - using the chicken fat instead of just butter, vegetable oil or olive oil adds more interesting flavour.

Place the onions in the frying pan and cook them down a bit. While the onions are cooking down, place two stock cubes and the appropriate amount of water in a pot. Or, if you've got stock, just heat it up a bit - about 2-3 cups. Leave it on the stovetop, ready for use in making the sauce.

Add about two tablespoons of flour to the frying pan and stir constantly for about two minutes, scraping the bottom of the pan so that nothing burns, only browns. Basically, to make a roux, always just add the same amount of flour as butter. Slowly add in ladles of the stock and stir until a nice thick sauce form - taking care to scrape the bottom of the pan.




Once the sauce is formed, add the following: celery, carrot and a few tablespoons of cream. Take the chicken out of the oven and tear the breasts off the bone. Chop the chicken into small pieces (most of it will be cooked through, but don't worry if bits are a still a bit raw - there will be plenty of time for it to cook through later) and add them to the pan. Get some frozen peas out of the freezer and add a bunch of those, too.



Now for the pastry topping: this can be done hours in advance or just any time whilst you're cooking. The basic idea for the pastry is one part flour to one part fat, plus lots of salt and pepper, and maybe some sturdy herbs like thyme or rosemary. Here's what I did for this recipe: I measured out about 200g of flour - half plain and half wholemeal. I got out about 200g of butter and sliced it in to pieces - this helps warm it up a bit faster and makes it easier to mix. You may end up using less butter than that because you end up doing it by feel. So, into the bowl put all the flour, salt and pepper and about three-quarters of the butter. Now, work the flour and the butter together in the bowl with your fingers. Just start squishing it all together until the butter and flour is mixed and starts forming a dough. Once it forms a dough that mostly sticks together, add a bit of cold water (maybe just over a tablespoon) and mix the dough together til it forms a ball. Press that ball into a disc, leave it in the bowl and shove it in the fridge until you're ready for it - just make sure its cold and hard.



When you're ready, take the pastry out of the fridge, use plenty of flour one your work surface and rolling pin (aka wine bottle) and roll the dough out into whatever shape your dish is. Best thing to do is roll it out a bunch, then take your baking dish, turn it upside-down on the dough and press it down a bit so it leaves an imprint. Then use a knife and follow the imprint the cut the shape you need. Use extra bits to fill in the ragged edges. I usually have a bunch leftover and since the crust is obviously the TASTIEST bit, I use it all. I just formed it into another shape and doubled up the crust, ie. regular crust across the whole thing, with a second layer of heart shaped pastry in the centre. You'll see what I mean from the photo.




Okay, so... pour what's in the frying pan into your baking dish. Then place the pastry topping(s) on top - crimp the edges a bit so that the filling can't bubble over the top. Then cut a few slits in the pastry so that steam can escape.

One last step - thought its not necessary: crack one egg in a bowl and stir it up a bit. Glaze the pastry with the egg - this way it gets a nice, golden finish to it. I just use my fingers as I haven't got a brush.

Shove the pie in the oven at 200C-ish and cook it 'til its bubbling and the pastry is a pleasing light brown colour.



Enjoy!