Peppermint Dreams

I have started a new project, which I am very excited about. I have started to learn how to knit. After a couple of weeks of bake-tastic-ness, and an increasingly tighter waistband, I needed to focus on something that was not food realted. I went to visit my gorgeous friend T, who inspried me to learn how to knit. I left with some basic knowledge, a pair of needles and a ball of wool. After a few practice sessions and a few trips to You Tube (thank goodness for you tube!!!) I was away. 

There is something very theraputic about the repetition of kntting and I have to admit that I am hooked! I managed to make J a scarf, which I had to start over about thirty times. It did have a LOT of holes in it where I had managed to drop stitches, but I just sewed them up and I have to say I am chuffed to bits with it!

I have now decided to make J a patchwork blanket. It is very much a work in progress and I have worked out that I will need over a 156 knitted squares, but it should keep me out of trouble!

However, I do have to say that after a week of not baking anything, I did get itchy feet and needed to make something. After stumbling across a recipe for peppermint creams, courtesy of Nigella, following some bedtime reading (I absolutley LOVE to read cookery books like they were novels!), I just had to try them.

All you need to do is:

Mix 500g icing sugar with 2 whisked egg whites (whisk until they are just bubbly and fluffy) and peppermint extract together until you have a firm "dough".  Then roll out until it is about 1/2cm thick and cut some shapes out it.

Leave them on some baking paper on a try over night somewhere cool or in the fridge to firm up.

The next day melt some dark chocolate and paint/dip the mints in whatever pattern or design you wish. Nigella makes them into dominoes, but I went for peppermint circles. you could even add some green food paste to the icing mixture when you are  to make them look "minty". Leave them to set and enjoy!

I managed to get about 32 out of the batch and I did have to add quite a lot of peppermint extract in order to get the right level of mint taste, but just taste as you go and add as much or as little as you like. We also had these one night after dinner with my friend and her husband and they were recieved really well.

So here's to another week of knitting and yummy bedtime reading!!!

All Hail All Hallows!

It is no lie in our house that I love a good knees up and will pretty much find ANY excuse to dust the old cake pans off and cook up a feast! Hallow'een is no exception. This is pretty much my favourite time of year. I love the weather, the colours and the celebrations and of course the food! Last year I could not indulge my party needs as we were having our kitchen fitted and were not able to produce anything more than some sausages and barms for a family bonfire. It still went down well, but I really wanted to pull out all of the stops for a delicious dinner. After much deliberation, I decided on Butternut Squash Soup, Lancashire Hotpot, Butternut Squash Muffins (there is a theme here!), Creepy Sugar Cookies and of course Parkin.

As I have mentioned before, we recive a veg box every week and I had to get my inspiration form the ingredients that they had sent me. After receiving a glut of Butternut Squash, I needed a few ways of eating them. I stumbled across a recipe for Butternut Squash Soup and I adapted it to what we had  in the cupboard. I managed to roast the squash along with a baby gem squash, potatos, sweet potatos, carrots, garlic, thyme and rosemary in the oven for 40mins on 180C. Then I blended it with a little chicken stock and devoured! Admittedly it's not a pretty dish, but trust me it tasted divine!

The Lancashire Hotpot (sorry I forgot to take photos) was also another "One Pot". Just layer some onions in the bottom of a casserole dish followed by a layer of diced braising steak, a layer of carrots and finally a layer of thinly sliced rounds of potato. Pour in a litre of beef stock and drizzle the top of the potatos with some olive oil and herbs. I used italian herbs this time and it tasted wonderful. Cook on 150C for at least 3 hrs and keep checking it to make sure there is enough liquid in the casserole to stop it from drying out.  Bob's your uncle a really divine and warming dish perfect for this time of year!

Finally pudding!! (The best course!!!). I was struggling to come up with something a bit different that was not too heavy after such rich dishes, but still tied in with the Hallow'een theme. I then stumbled across this recipe from Jamie Oliver: Butternut Squash Muffins. They were amazing. I can honestly say I was a little (read a lot!) bit dubious about using squash in a cake, but they really worked.

They looked a little boring, even in thier silver and black cases, so I made some super quick spooky decorations to stick into them. I am so glad I did, as they just made them look that little bit extra special.

I also decided to make some creepy cookies, recipe here: Creepy Cookies. The recipe suggested icing the whole biscuit in royal icing, but I thought that would have made the biscuits too sweet, so I just piped a coloured edge around the biscuit and used a black cake decorating pen to mark the faces directly onto the biscuits and crushed some edible glitter and sprinkled it onto the stalks, onto which I had put some edible glue, to make them more pumpkin like.

There was nothing at all left after our meal, which we enjoyed with our two very dear friends and thier little girl. Even J ate seconds and thirds of the soup and hot pot, whilst still ensuring he got his fair share of cake and biscuits! A veritable table creaker if ever there was one!

Wombles and Rainbows

It was Womble's (aka my Dad's) birthday this week and of course that called for a rather smashing birthday cake.  But what to bake?  Whilst surfing the net for ideas, I came across a Rainbow Cake that someone had made for thier little boys birthday, via a forum that I visit on Natural Mamas. Now I know it's for a little person, but this cake kind of sums up my family. Sparkly, coulourful and a little bit silly!

I started out by making a plain victoria sponge. I like Nigellla's recipe:  http://www.nigella.com/recipes/view/victoria-sandwich-3797

I doubled the ingredients and mixed it all in 1 bowl so that I could then seperate the mixture into 5 disposable round trays, that I greased with my new favourite thing, Wilton Cake Release, and poured equal amounts of the cake mixture into each.

I added a drop different coloured food paste into each of the tins and stirred until I got the desired colour. As you can see I chose red, yellow, green, blue and orange. I then baked the cakes 2 at a time for 8 mins on 180 C and left to coold for a couple of mins before turning out onto wires racks to cool completely.

The next step was to layer the slices of cake in whatever colour order you want them in, with a layer of butter cream inbetween each one (make sure this is a thin layer, or it could get really sickly). I used Betty Crocker's vanilla butter cream icing, as I ran out of time to make my own, plus it tastes delicious! Then cover the whole of the outside of the cake with buttercream.

By this time you will have a 5 layered cake covered in buttercream ready for decoration. I chose smarties as they are rainbow coloured, but you could use anything: Jelly Tot's, Dolly Mixtures, Skittles etc.

I have to say that it has a real home made/lived in feel to it, which I really like. "Gronky" our family would call it. However, when you cut into it, is where the real wow factor comes in.

Wonderful! A real rainbow on a plate! It was enjoyed by all and brought a smile to everyone's face!

 Needless to say it did go down a storm, but beware, it is toothachingly sweet and I would advise against cutting yourself a huge great big hunk of it in one go, as you will probably struggle to eat it all (i know because we tried!).  But this cake keeps well in an airtight container for a couple of days, so you can continue to enjoy rainbow loveliness for a few more days! Enjoy!

Bored to the Core.

We have had a right week of it! Poor J has had some major attachment anxiety after being away from us for the weekend. On Monday I had to be called to pick him from nursery as he kept crying and calling for me, which I did like a shot. After a great big cuddle and a couple of hours of playing and reassurance, I asked J what he wanted to do. His response was "Mix mix peease, cakey. Mix mix" (like mother, like son!). Ususally this would not be a problem, however we had only one egg and not much by way of flour. So the question was what could we do? We managed to cobble together a couple of scones, but more importantly J had a really lovely smile back on his face.

Gorgeous!!!!!

On Tuesday we awoke to a pretty miserable day. Cold, grey, wet and incredibly windy. Nice!!! We pretty much exhausted all of our games and activities, so by the time we hit a very cold and wet Wednesday we needed a plan. But what to do? We could not get out to go to the supermarket as it was shut for a full week of refurbishment and all J wanted to do was make something. After looking around the kitchen I realised we had 8 apples that were on the edge of useability. That was it Eureka! Dried apples.

I did the chopping and J did the dipping in lightly salted water and threaded them onto a piece of clean dowel we had in the house, after which we left them out on the side to dry for 4 days. What a huge success! So pretty and tasty too! We quickly rinsed them and have patted them dry and they are ready to go. Fabulous! They have already been ear marked to decorate a dorset apple cake. Mmmm!

Keep Calm and Eat a Cupcake!

 
So not much baking has gone on this week, as we have just come back from a fabulous weekend in Bruges. It is the first time since before we had J that we have had some quality time away, just the two of us, and boy was it needed! It was wonderful just being able to stroll around the city and have a few drinks and some amazing food at a really leisurely pace.  So I decided to share a couple of the fabulous items that we had.

After a really great flight and arriving over an hour early, we landed in Brussels at 6.30pm. We then caught two trains and arrived in Bruges at 8pm. A quick change and unpack later, we ventured out for dinner. I made a vow (as a converted fussy eater!) to try as many new things as possible whilst we were away. After meandering around the main square (where I had heard that they charged premium prices for average food) and roads, we decided to head off the beaten track and stumbled across an Italian called De Stove, where we had the most wonderful food. They brought us apetisers of smoked mozzarella and baked aubergine, with warm thick ciabatta. Si had the roast Lamb rissotto and I had the pea and saffron rissotto, followed by the most amazing Limoncello Tartuffo. Now I am not joking when I say that I would travel a thousand miles for that Tartuffo! It was heavenly! I am currently searching furiously for a recipe so that I can recreate this at home!

The day after, we spent most of the day walking around looking at the usual sights - the Belfrey, the canal tour, the lake of love, the museums etc - which we punctuated with cafe stops and lots of delicious light bites. During our walk around, the number of tourists and cars started to increase, which in turn started to frustrate Si with the continual bumping and banging of umbrellas and people. It was time for a break! We stumbled across the most amazing cupcake tea room with a sign that read "Keep Calm and Eat a Cupcake". Well it would have been rude not to. So in we went!

The displays and the varieties were absolutely phenomenal. So diverse! They had everything from strawberries and cream to chilli, pepper and chocolate. I opted for a rather gorgeous chocolate and meringue topped cupcake and Si had a lemon cheese cake both to be washed down with hot chocolate (chocolate overload I know, but where else can you over indulge in chocolate other than in Bruges!) Now these were not your ordinary hot chocolate drinks that we enjoy at home. They came served on a platter with hot milk in a mig and liquid chocolate served in a little bowl to be mixed in by yourself, along with cream and sugar and a dish of chocolate (yes more chocolate!!!) thins and truffles. Needless to say we most certainly did not need to eat lunch that day!!!

After a rather indulgent bite to eat, we set about shopping for gifts for people at home. We settled on (you guessed it) chocolates. Everywhere we went we were greated by amazing displays and flavours, but sadly we could not face any more chocolate! The bag we brought home for ourselves remains untouched in the fridge as I type! It may take another week before we can face it!

The city was very gothic and romantic and absolutely breathtaking, especially at night. We usually have a rule that once we have visitied somewhere, we won't go back, but continue to travel to new and different places, however when asked if we would go back, I have replied "in a heart beat!".

Phew!!!

I have been on a baking frenzy!! Si is going away tomorrow for a couple of days and it will be just me and the little man. So I thought I would pre-make some dinners and some food for Si to take with him. I began baking at 5pm and have just sat down. Phew!

So on the roll call we have:

4 Naan Breads
2 portions of Chicken Shashlik
12 Lemon and Raisin Scones
8 Mini 3 Cheese, Bacon and Onion Tarts
1 Tomato and Cheese Quiche
1 Tomato, Bacon and Cheese Quiche
8 portions of Ham Soup
4 Thyme French Loaves (from my new favourite book "Confessions of A French Baker" by Peter Mayle and Gerard Auzet)
Fish Pie

And there is still more to make tomorrow:

Apple Rings
Carrot Cake
Gingerbread Men

I think I may have gone overboard! Oh well the freezer will be full again after our pre-holiday pillage and none of us are going to go hungry!

What can you do with a Purple Carrot?

I have been receiving an organic vegetable box for a few weeks now and I LOVE it! They send you seasonal items and the box changes everyweek. There have been a couple of items that I really had no idea what they were - the main surprise item was a squash that looked like a grapefruit/pepper hybrid  and the grapefruit that looked, smelled and tasted like a bright pink orange!! - but it is opening my eyes up to a whole new world of food and cooking. This week was no exception. We got back from our holidays to be greeted by this weeks box, which contained the usual bananas and potatoes along with other veg and fruit. Buried at the bottom though was a bunch of purple carrots. Brilliant!

Now these beauties are absolutely gorgeous. Really pretty, but I don't know what to do with them. I feel like I should do something a little more ceremonious with them other than boiling them within an inch of their lives and serving them sliced or mashed. So I got to thinking and started googling recipes.

The first recipe I stumbled across was a "Carrot Cake" Porridge reicpe, that I spotted on a forum last night. It sounded so obscurely fabulous that it needed to be tried. I am sooo glad that I did. It was delicious and will be making a regular return to our breakfast table!!

"Carrot Cake" Porridge

2 pinches of brown sugar
Sprinkle of cinnamon and mixed spice
30g oats (or however much you want)
Milk (however much you want to use)
Chopped apricot or apple (I used a soaked dried apricot)
1 grated carrot

Mix oats and milk/water and heat up by your chosen method
Add other ingredients and stir. Enjoy!

Now posed the question "What else can I do with a purple carrot?" I decided to roast some using some fresh thyme and rosemary from the garden, along with some potatoes and garlic. Not incredibly exciting but again absolutely gorgeous! Plus what better way to showcase the amazing colour that they have running through them.

I have aready ordered and received my next bunch and am now going to try Carrot and Courgette Bread and a rather interesting Carrot Sandwich Spread (which should be interesting!) along with a Spiced Carrot and Lentil Soup and a Beef Pilaff.

Happy Eating!!