Honey and thyme roasted parsnips and apple butter roast potatoes

When I made the delicious roast pork and crackling, I didn’t just eat the pork by itself (although I could have done…. could have done quite easily, actually), I did, in fact,  behave like a civilised person and served it with vegetables.  

I really like to make the most of what we have and I always believe that adding something as simple as a few fresh herbs or spices or other flavourings, moves the finished dish up from the level of plain boiled vegetables (and how uninspiring that sounds) to something really delicious and which, if necessary can be eaten alone and still make the diner feel happy. It’s a policy that has served me well, as the Bear has been known to present me with extra people for dinner at short notice.

That’s not a bad thing as I love cooking and I always have more than enough for extras….at home we set an extra place for the Unexpected Guest…just in case. If they do arrive then they won’t feel like they are causing a problem. If they don’t, well, at least we were ready for them.

The only problem that can arise is that the extra guest might turn out to be vegetarian or (as happened on one fraught evening, less than an hour before a meaty, buttery, cheesey, creamy extravaganza of a dinner was served) a vegan. If the meal is based around a meat dish then the side dishes and vegetables should be delicious enough that it is no hardship to make a meal just from them.

As a family we have always been strong on side dishes. We had a cousin of my father’s who would come to stay at Christmas or other family occasions and she would take great delight in counting the amount of separate dishes we had produced. That, of course, is because she lived through the war years when food was scarce and then later she lived alone. You never really make as much effort when you are cooking for one and a big selection of side dishes highlights the fact that first of all there’s plenty to eat and share and secondly,  it is a celebration.

I remember there was one famous occasion when Cousin Joan was almost beside herself  as she counted that there were over twenty separate dishes. OK, I admit several of them were potato dishes – roast potatoes, new potatoes boiled with mint, creamed potatoes and mini baked potatoes but even so, it was a triumph! My mother and aunt had excelled themselves. Everyone of us could choose something they particularly liked. Not one person felt left out and everyone felt full…..

So, as you see, I have a lot to live up to. This day, though, I wasn’t going for twenty or more vegetable and side dishes… just two. I was going to roast parsnips in honey and thyme and make roast potatoes with apple butter. Sweetly savoury vegetable dishes that would be perfect with the roast pork… or just by themselves!

The two can be cooked together, so read through this  because I will tell you about each, separately.

Honey and Thyme Roasted Parsnips

I had been shopping for vegetables and spotted some small parsnips labelled “Heritage variety parsnips”. They looked small and dainty and were, the greengrocer assured me, sweet and delicious. There was no other indication of what variety they were but it took it on trust and bought some.

I prefer my parsnips boiled then whizzed to a puree with some cream and horseradish but these were too small and dainty to do that to. Besides, the Bear adores roasted parsnips and as I was roasting pork anyway, it made life a lot easier to roast them alongside the joint.

They were topped and tailed, scrubbed and then rubbed in some garlic and oil. This is where using a tube of smooth garlic puree works well – it’s easy to get a smooth blend of oil and garlic so everything is coated consistently.

Parsnips with honey

Squeezing some honey over those baby roots will really work with the garlic and, when cooked, add a rich and tasty glaze.

Don’t go mad… just a drizzle over them will do.

Sprinkle some thyme over the parsnips as they cook – the stems will dry and the leaves fall off so don’t worry about trying to just get leaves, which is what everyone tells you to do. All you have to do then is pick out the by now hard and dried stems and the leaves stay behind. Cut the hardier stems from lower down on the thyme bush and just put them on top. (You will need the baby soft tender ends of the newest growth later) As they cook they will add another lovely layer of flavour.

The parsnips can go in the oven about half an hour, forty minutes before you take the meat out.  The temperature will be relatively low because of the meat so you won’t burn them.

 Then, when everything is ready  you can sprinkle some of the soft and tender baby thyme leaves over the parsnips.

They were delicious – parsnip is sweet and earthy by itself, the honey and thyme brightened that and the garlicky oil baste at the start brought everything together into a lovely sweet and savoury dish.

Apple Butter Roast Potatoes

I also had some baby potatoes and rather than just have them as steamed or boiled, I thought I might as well use the heat of the oven and roast them as well. Cost saving and efficient, as I’m sure you will agree.

Remember at the end of August we went foraging for apples in that abandoned orchard? I’d made lots of apple butter and used them in cakes and crumbles. I still had some left and they were really in need of being used up.

Pork and apple is a heavenly mix but rather than making an apple sauce, I thought I would roast them with the potatoes.

I didn’t peel them because I wasn’t going to peel the potatoes… I just cored and segmented them.

I cut the baby potatoes in half so they were roughly the size of the apple bits and sprinkled some thyme and oil over everything.

Using the same herb in the cooking process ties the dishes together well and makes them fit coherently. You don’t want them to taste overpoweringly of thyme – this just adds a hint, more of an echo really so they don’t clash with the parsnips.

Into the oven they go, alongside the parsnips so they can roast gently with the meat.

A spoonful or so of apple butter, towards the end of the cooking melts over the potatoes and adds a lovely appley, cinnamon, clove tasting glaze. Do this in the last ten minutes or so, after the potatoes have started to turn golden.

The apple has roasted to a soft, sweet mouthful and the potatoes have that delicious roasted taste, glazed over with the spiced apple butter.

Perfect to serve with roast meat.

Both of those dishes took just a few minutes to prepare and then they were left to do their thing in the oven. Much easier in my eyes than boiling or steaming. Much tastier too.

If a vegetarian had arrived that night – or even a vegan – they could have had , at least potatoes and parsnips and not felt too badly done by.

Cousin Joan would have approved though I am sure she would have wondered why I couldn’t have served at least another four or five dishes to accompany them……

Slow roast shoulder of pork with perfect crackling

The weather is getting worse and, while it is lovely to live in an apartment where three of the walls are windows, it does get gloomy when you are surrounded by rain spattered glass and grey clouds. When that happens, the only thing to do is put the lights on and make everything look cosy and then curl up, knowing that something meaty and tasty is in the oven….. just relaxing while the smell of roasting meat fills the room. It’s a smell that has always reassured me that things are happy and well in the family.

 A smell that was a constant in my childhood and it means home and happiness with loved ones. My wonderful brother and I are very similar in many ways. One of our favourite things is the crispy, fatty bits on a roast joint… all juicy and packed with flavour.

Not everyone likes this of course….The Bear has many good points and I am always glad I married him, but one of his finest points is that he doesn’t like crackling or the fat on a roast. That, of course, is good for me as it means that I don’t have to share. My brother used the same criteria when he got married – my sister in law is absolutely fabulous and we all love her dearly (he made a brilliant choice, marrying her) but again, she hates that sort of thing. Perfect. There’s nothing finer in our eyes that a gorgeous piece of crackling and the two of us have been known to stand in the kitchen at home dividing up the crisp and tasty skin….

Anyway, while I was shopping I’d spotted this marvellous piece of pork. Outdoor reared and free range meant that it was guaranteed to be tasty. The rain was bouncing off the pavements outside and I just knew that roast pork would be the perfect  antidote to the gloomy rain blues.

Pork shoulder is a great cut because it isn’t expensive but, as with most things, treated with care and respect you can produce the most delicious meals. Time is what shoulder needs, time and heat and salt. That’s all.

This was a lovely piece of pork shoulder with a good layer of skin around it, which is just what you need to get perfect crackling.

Pork shoulder needs slow cooking and it will turn into the softest, tenderest piece of meat ever. The rind will crisp up (if you slice at it) into delicious strips of hard, crunchy and tasty crackling.

But the rind is tough and to get through it you need a very sharp knife. Butchers will slice the rind for you and, in fact, most joints come with the skin cut already but I like to get a lot of narrowly spaced slashes so I start by sharpening my favourite filleting knife.

I’ve never yet managed to use a sharpening steel so I use the Chantry knife sharpener which is one of my better kitchen equipment buys. All you have to do is run the knife through the middle a few times and the blade is perfectly sharp, which is something I have never achieved using a steel.

While you are doing all of this, get the oven preheated to 230 degrees C/450 degrees F

There were some slashes in the rind already but I sliced between them, so each strip of rind was about 1 cm wide, if that. Be careful, if you are slashing not to slice into the meat itself – just cut the rind and the fat below.

The next thing is to get some kitchen roll and dry off the rind before rubbing it over with a smear of oil and then some salt.

What you have done is wiped off the water and added some oil to help start the crisping process and salt to drive out extra moisture and add flavour.

I like to use Maldon sea salt as the crystals are large and easy to pack into the slices of rind. Maldon has a great taste as well. When the pork comes out of the oven the rind will have crisped and almost bubbled up with flecks of salt crystals embedded into it to make the crackling taste divine.

By now the oven will be bouncingly hot so get the pork into a roasting tray and put it into the oven for twenty to thirty minutes.

This is a very hot oven and what it does is sear the rind and start making the crackling. If the oven isn’t hot then the rind won’t ever get crispy.

After the first burst of heat you will see, when you peek inside, that the slices are separating and the rind is starting to cook. You just know, when it looks like this after half an hour that it will have the perfect crackling when it is finished!

You can turn the oven down now to a moderate 170 degrees C/340 degrees F and just leave the joint to cook slowly for a two and a half hours……

There now.

Golden, bubbled and crisp. Studded with salt crystals promising that every mouthful will be deliciosuly savoury.

When you get it out of the oven if you rap on the top of the crackling it makes a hollow sound.

The meat is dark and caramelised from the fat dripping over it as it roasts.

The fat layer has almost disappeared in the long slow cook, making the meat juicy and the crackling crisp.

The crackling strips snap easily into bite sized bits…. perfect for nibbling at while you slice the pork……

A wet grey afternoon can be ignored because you are inside, in the warmth with a marvellous meal, just ready to share with your loved ones.

That is Heaven… that is my guilty pleasure and that is one more reason to appreciate the Bear not liking everything I adore!

Shortbread

Sometimes… when I have a  few minutes, I loiter around the web, looking at things I might want to buy. I’d spotted that lovely madeleine tin on Amazon and I could justify buying that because I’d never made madeleines before and I was absolutely sure you’d all want me to make them… and I was right, wasn’t I?

Anyway, on my idle perusal of other things I hadn’t got (yet) and possibly wanted to get, I spotted a shortbread mold.  A beautiful stone mold with thistles and segments.

I love shortbread. I love its buttery, crumbly, sweet but not too sweet, sandy- textured biscuitness.

A good slice of shortbread with a cup of tea can make the whole world seem better.

It was obvious, then, I had to buy the shortbread mold.

What happens if anyone drops in and I don’t have anything nice for them to have with a cup of tea? What happens if there’s a crisis and I have to offer comfort, tea and shortbread to get them through it? I can’t take risks like that with my friends’ happiness.

Well, that’s what I told the Bear when he found me smuggling in another package from Amazon.

So, I set to.  The oven was switched on to 150 degrees C/300 degrees F

250g of unsalted butter and 125g of golden caster sugar were creamed together.

250g of good, fine plain flour and 125g of cornflour were sieved in and stirred lightly together.

If you had fine polenta (cornmeal) or semolina that would be a lovely thing to add, giving it a lovely crumbly texture. I didn’t have any so I stuck with cornflour.

I used the butter wrapper to wipe out the stone mold and get a thin layer of butter into all the crevices. (I’m thinking that one of those sprays of cooking oil might be good here)

Because I love it and because I wanted it, (what better reason do I need?) I added a quarter teaspoon of vanilla bean paste to the butter and sugar.

The flour I had chosen was a good ’00’ (extra fine) so it will be smooth but just to make sure, I sieved in the flour and cornflour mix.

Sometimes, you know, I do like to faff about in the kitchen and sieving isn’t essential it just panders to my inner domestic goddess…

Bring the mix together but don’t go at it too heavily – overworking the flour will make the shortbread tough and that would never do.

See? It looks almost sandy. That’s what you are after.

Now, just pack it into the mold and press it down firmly.

Once it is flat, prick the shortbread with a fork before putting it in the oven for about 50 minutes.

It will cook to a delicate golden colour.

Look! Out of the mold you could see the thistle pattern.

Next time I do it, I shall pack it down harder to make the pattern more defined but, as it was the first time I used that mold, I didn’t mind…. it all tastes the same anyway.

Lovely. And I could eat it happily… there was no crisis (but how comforting that shortbread would have been if there had been one) there was just a cup of tea and the rest of the afternoon to enjoy it all.

It was crumbly, buttery, sweet enough but not too sugary… it was shortbread. Plain and simple shortbread.

Perfect.

….and there was ginger beer, lashings and lashings of ginger beer!

It sounds like an Enid Blyton novel, doesn’t it?

Well that’s what it could have been… the Famous Five go wild in 

Sherwood Forest.

And that’s why there has been no real cooking…..

What happened is that  5 friends decided to hire a villa in

 Center Parcs in Sherwood Forest for a girls weekend.

The villa was fabulous with a flat screen television, a real fireplace,

comfy seating for all of us and free internet access.

The living room windows opened out onto that fantastic view.

And at the edge there was a lovely river.

There were ducks and swans and moorhens

Some of them came to stare through our windows in

the hope of getting something to eat…..

Swans appeared and pecked at the windows as we walked past

And those of you who are friends with Omnivorous Bear on Facebook

will recognise one of the victims being pecked!

It was like a Disney movie with all the animals coming up

to the window to ask for food.

There was even a strange dark grey swan.

The Subtropical Swimming Paradise was just that….. with rock pools and spa pools.

We lazed and chatted in the bubbles, we swam outside in the heated pools in

the moonlight…

 …and careered down water rapids, face first.

 And because it was Sherwood Forest, home of Robin Hood ,

we took archery lessons.

Walking through the woods, we  found  toadstools – the Amanita muscaria 

– the sort of toadstools you might expect to see with gnomes…..

Or even small bears…

We hired bicycles and cycled through the woods….

 

and got something to eat from the pub…..

And raised glasses to ourselves as we made toasts to what was turning out to be

 a brilliant weekend.

And that’s where the ginger beer entered the equation…

Crabbies Alcoholic Ginger Beer to be precise.

Oh it was delicious…and oh, how it made us laugh!

That would be the 4% alcohol, I bet.

And I’m assuming that none of the real Famous Five had THAT kind of kick

from their ginger beer!

And that is why there was no real cooking….

we were too busy laughing and eating and drinking!

Cheers girls! It was a fabulous weekend and you were all fabulous company.

                                                                                                                             Normal service will be resumed shortly.

Angela’s Apples … another T.O.B Cook

Everybody, welcome Angela, the newest T.O.B. Cook. Angela is my dear friend from the North.

We were both Northern girls and adored our birthplace… but I married and moved to the Midlands to be with the Bear and she married and then moved away even further. She’s ended up in Georgia, USA.

Angela’s the one I think of when I try and do gluten-free food as she is coeliac (or celiac as they spell it in the USA) We keep in touch, most days, through email and Facebook and she follows what happens on here. She’d read the posts on Apple Butter and Apple Butter Cake and, after a jaunt out with her neighbours where she picked apples, decided to see what she could do….this is what she wrote to me this morning:

“I needed to make some bread so, I thought, as I was putting the oven on, I might as well make the apple cake. And as I was chopping apples, I thought, I might as well make the apple butter. OK, I’m not a novice in the kitchen, but I’m not an accomplished chef either…. maybe it was all a bit over-enthusiastic…

Oh, I started off by sterilising the jars and the lids – in the dishwasher!!! Only the Americans could come up with such an easy way? That gave me a couple of hours to get everything done….

So I mixed the gluten-free bread mix, put it in the laundry room to rise. That gave me 45 minutes….

I chopped all the apples, putting 4 ½ lbs in a pan with apple cider vinegar, which then got left whilst I…

… made the cake mix. I used “Bob’s Red Mill All-Purpose Baking Flour” to which I added Xanthan Gum. I had no yoghurt so used low fat sour cream. I, for some reason, bought brown sugar instead of caster sugar.

I, for some reason, bought canola oil and can’t find out why.

(I’d already been shopping on Thursday, but then went back up again on Friday! But – I did see a good yard sale……)

Vanilla pods were replaced by ‘fake’  vanilla and I had no bicarb!!! Instead of “3 smallish apples and a box of stewed apple” I used 3 large apples – too many apples to be honest!

45 minutes was up, so the bread and the cake went in the oven.

Apples by this time had been left for over an hour… but were nicely mushy. I don’t have a Mouli and, to be honest, I do as little transferring and dirtying of dishes as possible.

(Hey, I’d already used two bowls for the bread, two bowls for the cake, chopping boards, pans, cake tins, bread tins…. the kitchen looked like a massacre… and by this point last night’s empty wine glass kept catching my eye….)

So, I used ‘Billy Blender’… I have to say I thought it would be really sharp – apples plus cider vinegar, but it tasted good – so no sugar was added.

It was 6.30, what about tea? So on top of all that I started making a salmon and prawn risotto.

Stir the apples, stir the risotto. Wine was required for the risotto……

Bread was taking an age, so turned the oven down for the bread and the cake. I think they were both in for an hour, maybe the cake was in for a bit longer.

Risotto was nice, if a little too much wine had been added!!!

Bread was normal – takes longer than it says on the packet, but gets there in the end.

Cake was absolutely gorgeous. Very moist – quite heavy. As I don’t eat cake or biscuits very often it was absolute bliss. I had been cooking since 4.30. By now it was 8 – 8.30 pm.

The spoon was leaving a trail. So…. jar filling….

What the hell happened?!?!?

3 jars? 3 jars is all I got.

Four bloody hours of cooking and I got 3 measly 8 oz jars!!!

I’d bought 12 Mason jars! Cost me 10 bucks!

4½ lb of apples and I got 3 measly jars. What went wrong?

I used 4½ lb  and I got 3  jars.  Lorraine got 10 jars – dunno what 14 cups translates as? You used 3lbs – how many jars did you get?

Maybe I cooked it for too long? Maybe I didn’t cook it for long enough – it’s more like jam/spread than ‘butter’.

It tastes OK – very, very rich taste though. But with vinegar – no need for sugar, which is good?

I won’t be making apple butter again, but will, most definitely, make the cake! And bread. And risotto…..”

I read all of this when I got to work in the morning and yes, I laughed.

Not in a mean way, you understand, but as I often laugh when I read her emails. I could just picture her glaring at the pans and staring at the wine bottle. I laughed at the thought of her looking at the canola oil and wondering why she bought it. I could just imagine her outrage at only ending up with 3 jars… “THREE measly jars”.

I suppose I should have told her than when I did my second batch of Apple Butter I did, in fact, use at least ten or twelve pounds of apples….

Still, she has cake that she can eat while she plans going out to get more apples!

Let her eat cake, I say…..

Roasted pumpkin seeds

Sometimes we all need a little treat.

I don’t tend to buy crisps, crackers or olives  to nibble at with a glass of wine unless we have guests. I don’t know why… maybe I think we don’t deserve it or maybe it is that we are fat enough and having extras isn’t a necessity. Perhaps I think it is a needless extravagance?

But you know what? We do deserve to have something every now and again. After all, the person I like best in the world would be sharing them with me and I’m happy enough to put stuff out for people I don’t love half as much.

So, what follows is the ideal compromise. It’s healthy, it’s tasty and it doesn’t cost very much at all.

I’d bought a small pumpkin to make some Puy Lentil and Pumpkin Soup and I’d had to scoop out all of those plump seeds. What better than to use something that others might just throw out?

They are all embedded in the fibrous middle but they are easy enough to remove if you gouge at it all with a spoon.

If you put them in a colander and run water over them it’s quite easy to pull the orange fibres off, leaving just the seeds behind. They will feel very slippery so give them a good rub in fresh water.

Once they are clean, spread them, out on a board and leave them to dry off.

This time I wanted plain and simple butter and salt roasted pumpkin seeds (I often make them and flavour them with things like chilli powder or spices ) but there’s something rather delicious about the plainness of the roasted seeds… plain, certainly but tasting deliciously of butter and salt!

Get a flat baking tray and put a knob of butter and some salt on it (I always use a silicone sheet because it is so easy to clean and doesn’t tear if you scrape at it. If you haven’t got any, it doesn’t matter – use tin foil or be prepared to clean the baking tray)

Put the tray in a pre heated oven at 200 degrees C/390 degrees F and get the butter melted and hot.

Toss the pumpkin seeds in the melted and salted butter and put them back in the oven for ten minutes or so.

After ten minutes, give them a shake… they should be browning nicely.

Put them back in if they need a few minutes more – this will depend on how much moisture was left in the seeds.

Once they have cooled… put them in a bowl and share with your best friend.

A glass or two of wine makes this the perfect pre-dinner snack – healthy, tasty and all it took was a knob of butter, ten minutes and some otherwise thrown away seeds!

Meatfree Monday – Puy Lentil and Pumpkin Soup

At this time of year, the shops start to fill with pumpkins. Halloween is not far off and millions of pumpkins will be bought to make into Jack O’Lanterns.

You can’t just buy a pumpkin and carve it… you have to DO something with it. Last year I made Pumpkin Soup, flavoured with smoked sweet paprika and drizzled with Chilli Oil

I separated the seeds from the fibrous middle and roasted them with jerk seasoning to make a tasty roasted pumpkin seed snack

This time, though, I wanted to make a soup that would be a meal in itself.

I had a small pumpkin that would be ideal for soup. I also had a craving for something with a bit of spice because I had a cold that was dragging on. I needed a burst of heat in that soup to burn through the fogginess that an autumn cold makes you feel.

I remembered a soup I had seen in the Australian Gourmet Traveller for Green Lentil Soup with Pumpkin and Harissa that would be perfect. My little sister lives in Australia and sends me (if I’m not there to buy a copy) the Gourmet Traveller Annual Cookbook as my Christmas present… the fact it costs way more in postage to send than it costs to buy is neither here nor there – it truly is the magazine I most look forward to getting.

It looked a fabulous recipe. I knew that adding my favourite Puy lentils would add heft to the soup and jazzing it up with Moroccan spices would enliven the whole bowlful.

I chopped two sweet white onions, then put them in a pan to soften with a teaspoon of Maldon Sea Salt.

While they were cooking I halved the small pumpkin I had and scooped out the seeds.

Don’t throw the seeds away, because you can roast them later for a lovely, healthy snack.

I roughly measured half a mug of Puy lentils – now, this is one of my Starbucks City Mugs that roughly hold 20 fl.oz, so the equivalent measurement will be 10 fl oz if you use a Pyrex jug… or, about a full normal coffee mug size. Me? I like coffee so I have a very big mug!

Once the onion has softened and looks translucent, add the lentils and then pour in a mug and a half of water (that’s roughly a pint and a half) and let the onion and lentil mix slowly cook.

Add in a vegetable stock cube for flavour.

While that is gently cooking, start preparing the pumpkin.

The rind of the pumpkin in very hard and I have found that the best way to peel it is to cut the pumpkin into segments and then slice off the rind.

By the time you have it all segmented, the lentils will have started to soften and the colour will have leached out into the water and stock.

Now add in the segmented pumpkin

And then add a tin of chopped plum tomatoes.

Stir it all round and let it simmer gently.

I wanted a bit of heat in the soup and a Moroccan feel so Rose Harissa paste was the obvious choice. You can buy Harissa paste in most supermarkets now – this one has rose petals in it and a deep and complex flavour. It is essentially a chilli paste so add it according to your preference. A teaspoon full will not make it too hot – if you want more heat (and I do) add another.

Stir it in so it blends with the lentils, pumpkin and tomatoes.

I also have some Belazu Pickled Lemons which will add a marvellously sharp-sour element to the rich and earthy soup.

A quick scoop out of the middle of the lemon and the rind is ready for slicing then adding to the soup. I used two small lemons.

And then stir it all round… the pumpkin should have softened, the lentils will be tender and the flavours will have come together to make a deep, rich, spicy soup with sharp overtones

Serve it in a bowl with a spoonful of natural thick yoghurt and a sprinkling of coriander.

And there it was. Steaming perfection in a bowl.

Meatfree and delicious.

Hot Toddy for a cold

There’s a reason for me being so quiet over the past few days… I have had a cold that has made me feel dreadful.

A rattling cough, a pounding head and aches all over made me feel so bad that I actually came home from work.

I knew what I had to do, of course.

The best cure for a cold is to go to bed, clutching a hot toddy and try and sleep.

So, first of all, a spoonful of lovely honey in a mug

The juice of half a lemon and a slice of lemon go in next, topped up with hot (but not boiling) water

Then stir it round to make a hot, sweetly-sharp mix

Then, to help those poor, tired muscles relax and the pounding head to ease…. find a bottle of whiskey.

This is Redbreast, a gorgeous Irish pot still whiskey (there’s a difference, you know – Scotch whisky is classed by some as the only true whisky and it is spelled without the ‘e’. Irish whiskey has the extra ‘e’ and gets an extra distillation. Three as opposed to Scotch’s two) It doesn’t matter what you use – that was just at the front of the drinks cupboard.

Just a drop or so adds a deep, soothing, rounded flavour to the hot honey and lemon… and with a couple of cold cure capsules is the ideal medicine for a rotten cold.

The next step is the most important – get off to bed and curl up while you sip your hot toddy. Cocooned in a duvet and propped up on pillows, the delicious hot toddy soothes and relaxes….

Sleep really is the best medicine, you know.

After a couple of hours of sleep I felt so much better.

Just remember that, next time you have a dreadful cold!

Lolly, updated.

Lolly has been at it again…

October 2010

Autumn is here as is the apple crop. We have all been trying to do as much as we can with the huge haul of apples and the lovely Lolly is no exception.

We both love cake baking and Laura and I have been working on delicious cakes using apples. One thing we found on our searches was that apple butter or stewed apples can reduce the need for fat in a cake and anything that can make cake almost a health food is good for us!

  Lolly had emailed me one morning and we were talking about the potential for cake ” I was having a look at your blog and came across the recipe for the Apple Cake that you made with Apple Butter, and some chopped up apple pieces. I have 3 smallish apples left from my bounty, as well as a small Tupperware box of stewed apple and I wondered if you thought it would work if I made it like this….

Peel and core my 3 remaining apples, mix with juice of ½ lemon.

Put 250ml greek yogurt in a bowl and add 200g golden caster sugar, 60 ml veg oil, 2 eggs and the seeds from one of your wonderful vanilla pods and gently mix

In another bowl put 300g plain flour, 1 ½ tsp baking powder, ½ tsp bicarb, and then instead of the apple butter, two heaped dessert spoonfuls of stewed apple and a tsp of cinnamon.

Mix through and add dry ingredients and chopped apple.

 Do you think that this would work, or do you think I should also add a little bit of butter for a bit of fat?”

Look at that! I think you could say that it worked!

Lolly says “  Well I made it! I think that I put too much of something in, perhaps flour as the cake is a little dense. However, that hasn’t stopped it from being devoured by everyone at work so it must taste alright!!! I also made a small heart shaped one for Giles…!”

I think that is how it should be for a cake that is best eaten with tea or coffee – somehow, light and fluffycakes belong more with afternoon dainty teas. This is the sort of cake that is perfect for a mid morning break, say. Nothing too sticky… nothing too airy, just a perfect slice to have with a hot drink.

Well done, Lolly… and I bet Giles loved his heart shaped cake!

(You can see the rest of Lolly’s cooking adventures here)

Remembrance of Things Past… madeleines for an anniversary tea.

One year ago today I started this blog. I can’t believe how many things I have cooked since then. One good thing about writing about what I cook is that I have been forced to cook new things. I know how easy it is to rely on the same old favourites all the time. I have been inspired by reading all the blogs my new friends have written or have pointed me to. I have made things I had just previously read about and discovered that things are never as tricky as they might seem. All it ever takes is a bit of time to read things through so you understand the process and love and determination in your heart. My main inspiration is the Bear – I just want to make good things for him… and after all, this blog is named after him.

When I look back at all the posts I’m amazed that anyone read them or that they continue to read them.

I had to celebrate a full year of blogging and all the friends I have made because of it. I’d love to be able to celebrate with you all here.. maybe laughing and talking about the past year over cups of tea and cakes….

And that made me think of Marcel Proust. And madeleines. Proust talks of eating a madeleine with a cup of tea and being transported back to earlier times….

She sent out for one of those short, plump little cakes called petites madeleines, which look as though they had been moulded in the fluted scallop of a pilgrim’s shell. And soon, mechanically, weary after a dull day with the prospect of a depressing morrow, I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid, and the crumbs with it, touched my palate than a shudder ran through my whole body, and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary changes that were taking place…at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory…”

— Remembrance of Things Past, Volume 1: Swann’s Way.

What better cakes to bake for a wet Sunday afternoon when I want to look back on the last year?

The rain was lashing against the windows and all over Britain people were staring at the dismal weather and deciding to stay inside. We were going to do the same but I was going to make tea time special to celebrate this special day.

To make madeleines you need a madeleine tin. These have a wonderful scalloped base that are essential for the perfect madeleine. You won’t regret buying one (if you need any encouragement, that is) If you are looking at kinds to buy, avoid the silicone ones – the metal heats better and is  much easier to handle than a wobbly, rubbery tray.

You also need good instructions and the best I have found (after intensive searches) is from David Leibovitz  on “Living the sweet life in Paris”

First of all melt, then let cool, 120g unsalted butter.

You will use most of it in the cake batter but just lightly brush the madeleine tins with a quick wipe of melted butter.

Sprinkle the buttered tins with flour

Then upend the tin over the sink and shake off the excess.

Put the tin in the freezer to chill down properly.

In the bowl of a mixer, put a pinch of salt, 130g of golden granulated sugar and three large eggs (that have been allowed to come to room temperature)

Whisk them together for five minutes until the mix becomes pale and thickens slightly.

Weigh out 175g of fine plain flour – I always use ’00’ (it’s available in most supermarkets now, in the baking aisle) and add 1 level teaspoon of baking powder. The baking powder makes them rise well, giving the traditional (and desired) “humpy” effect on the back of the finished madeleines.

Sieve the flour mix into the egg and sugar bow and fold it in carefully.

Zest a lemon and add it to the melted butter. Remember to scrub the lemon if it is a waxed one.

Once the flour is in, add a little of the melted butter and fold it in gently.

 

Gradually, add it all slowly and carefully. Don’t overwork it because all that will do is toughen the gluten. Just fold it in as lightly and smoothly as possible.

Pour your beautifully smooth and silky batter into a jug and put it in the fridge for at least an hour. You can make the madeleine batter up to 12 hours ahead, if that will suit you?  What a great thing that would be if you had people coming round!

When you are ready, heat the the oven to 220 degrees C/425 degrees F

Get your beautifully frozen tin from the freezer

… and spoon in a dollop of the madeleine mix

The madeleines will only take between 8 or 9 minutes, so while they are baking, make some  tea.

We love beautifully fragrant green tea and I think the pure, delicate taste would be perfect with the light, sweet cakes.

As the tea infuses the leaves unfurl.

At the same time,  the madeleines are ready.

Beautifully humped and golden.

They are tipped out onto a wire rack to cool slightly. The underside has the gorgeous scalloped markings of the perfect madeleine.

Golden, sweet, warm cakes. Light and delicious.

We ate them with our steaming cups of tea as we looked back over the past year. We used the random post picker button on the main website page (which you can also get to by clicking on the Bear in the top corner) and read about meals and treats and smiled as we did so.

The weather may have been awful but the madeleines were fabulous.

Happy Anniversary to the blog!