Just Desserts

You've heard of death by chocolate....
now prepare for Mortality by Meringue! But what a way to go....

Last Saturday found us both in the nest of the Legal Eagle and her Beau.
A delicious sherried chicken took care of the protein intake, but the Eagle is famous for her puds.This meal had one which approached perfection in its simplicity...

First take a Snowdon-sized mountain of fresh summer fruits



Then produce a veritable home made Mount Fuji of meringues, light, crunchy and irresistibly chewy in the middle...



Serve in good sized bowls, with cream or ice-cream (or Both!)



After dinner and its badinage, there was nothing else to do but indulge in a little light bondage bandage. Mrs P had an exam coming up and needed some willing victims for First Aid practice.

Cometh the hour, cometh the man. Sadly this is the only photo I managed to take that wasn't too blurred by the laughter-shake.

We leave you with



"Beau Brummel, or Pudsey's Revenge"...

Barbecue 2 - Putting my blog where my mouth is!

Many apologies to everyone out there muttering "he's gone walkabout again"! Especial apologies to Welsh Dog, the Legal Eagle (and Beau), the Erdington Lurker, and most of all, to Amalee.

In case you haven't read her comment below, Amalee was facing going "to a barbeque party where the food will be kinda ok and the drinks a bit ropey". She was looking to me for inspiration, and I let her down...

I have been mad busy; happy and healthy, but busy.

There will be more of what I have been up to later, but, with no more ado, to the food.

The hot weather of the last few days has indeed found me re-acquiring the title I earned some years ago from a neighbour - The Man Who Cooks In the Garden. ***

Last Autumn we bought a lovely gas fired barbie. (Not having to wait 45 minutes to get to cooking heat makes a huge difference.)

A few of our recent dishes...

Pork Spare Ribs, Chinese Style

Chicken Kebabs (a working afternoon in my Mum's garden)

I have developed an all-purpose basic marinade that I can put together in two minutes flat. I shall demonstrate with this handy boned shoulder of lamb I have adjacent to the keyboard...


Get your friendly butcher to bone a shoulder of lamb for you. If you don't have a friendly butcher, find a butcher and smile. It may work. A whole shoulder of lamb will do kebabs for six people easily. I froze half the shoulder for later.

Ingredients for the marinade : two or three tablespoons plain yoghourt, the same of curry paste (Pataks are good), two crushed cloves of garlic, some lemon juice, and some fresh mint.
Dice your lamb into cubes a bit bigger than an inch square.

Chop mint and put in a large bowl with the paste, yoghourt and crushed garlic.

Add meat and marinate for a couple of hours, stirring when you remember to.

Finally skewer up, with onion, peppers courgettes or mushrooms to taste...



The finished kebabs, with red cabbage coleslaw and tomato and basil couscous.

I do hope I have made you all hungry again, even if it is late.

FOOTNOTE *** My wife's nocturnal slug hunting by torchlight led her to be called The Woman Who Gardens At Night. Very sultry and mysterious!

More Soon....

Flipping Amazing

Like every year, Pancake Day fell on a Tuesday this year. That probably accounts for why I so rarely make pancakes on the traditional day.

Working and pancakes just don't mix. When you get home from work you want to eat dinner, plain and simple. Eat. Dinner.

In Phantom Towers, most of the time I cook, and if I've just got through the door, cooking the main course is just about my limit. Most years, therefore, my good lady misses out. This year she had a plan....

Our good friend Battey Moo has had a rough time of late, so my wife invited her round for a meal, on Tuesday. Cunning. I suspect she felt the social pressure of having another mouth to feed would ensure she got an evening of batter delights, lifted with the scent of citrus, and frosted with caster sugar like snow on a winter's morn.

I really didn't know what I was going to cook until I got to Mr Waite and Mr Rose's grocers. Knowing that Battey is allergic to nuts ruled out the pasta options on an evening when I felt like pesto. I had a look in the fish section and spotted some lovely looking cod, sustainably caught and the best thing to come out of Iceland since Benni, Bjorn, Agnetha, and ...... Um, ABBA.

Armed with my cod, I made haste to the Seven Sisters Road and bought a bunch each of basil, mint, dill and flat leaf parsley. Whizzed in the food processor with fresh but tiring bread and a sploosh of olive oil I soon had a herb crust to top the cod with. (I started this off in a frying pan, finishing it off in the oven and then flashing it under the grill to brown the crust. It's always worth having a metal-handled frying pan, both for this and Tarte Tatin.)

The cod was accompanied by boiled potatoes, fennel, braised and browned, and steamed sugar snap peas with garlic and oyster sauce. The meal was delicious, and afterwards I stretched out on the sofa next door to regather my strength for making the pancakes to come.

I stretched out, and Tigger hopped up next to me. We both stretched out.

You can guess what happened next....



Me Too!

They woke me up just as our Battey Moo was leaving.

Maybe pancakes for Sunday lunch instead?

ttttttgggggggggggggyyyyyyyyyyy

(You may find this difficult to believe but Tigger climbed up on my lap whilst I was writing the post above, then he stood with one paw on the keyboard and wrote his name? I know the letters are next to each other on the keyboard, but WEIRD. I think he wants his own blog....)

Pasta Perfect

After the headlong rush towards Christmas, late December and early January can be difficult times to find motivation in the kitchen.

Work days seem to get longer and evenings shorter, leaving work in the dark and arriving home cold, wet and uninspired.

It is the weekends that offer a chance to take time and pains over a meal. A few weekends ago we invited the Legal Eagle and her Beau for supper. My wife and I discussed menu options the night before. I started off suggesting a casserole; she fancied something more individual, maybe fish. I dismissed this as too fiddly and being too 'last minute'. She suggested lasagna - now I was beginning to get enthusiastic. I saw her lasagne and raised it to cannelloni.

Even better, though, would be cannelloni with home made fresh pasta! I went to sleep happy,thinking of the day to come, and getting out the pasta machine...

I don't make pasta very often, but I always enjoy the process.



THERE IS A MAGIC IN MAKING PASTA FROM SUCH SIMPLE INGREDIENTS.



3 EGGS, 10oz OF FLOUR, NO NEED TO USE A BOWL.



MIX TO A DOUGH WITH A FORK,KNEAD FOR 10 MINUTES AND REST IN CLINGFILM



ROLL THE DOUGH THROUGH THE PASTA MACHINE, GETTING THINNER EACH TIME



REST THE PASTA ON TEA TOWELS WHILST WAITING TO BE ROLLED



THIS IS NOT A GOOD TIME FOR YOUR VISITING CATS TO JOIN IN - HARDEN YOUR HEART!



WHEN THE PASTA IS AS THIN AS YOU CAN GET IT - DROP 3 OR 4 AT A TIME INTO BOILING WATER



BLANCH FOR 1 MINUTE



AND DROP INTO COLD WATER



GENTLY RINSE UNDER THE COLD TAP TO REMOVE EXCESS STARCH- YOUR PASTA IS NOW READY TO USE!



THE FINISHED DISH OF CANNELLONI BEFORE FINAL COOKING



AND AFTER!!



I have to say it tasted great too. And we had enough pasta left over (uncooked) to make lasagna the day after.

Shortcut Pastry

I love flans and quiches, but too often resort to buying ready-made pastry cases. It's just inertia, as I know I can make pastry in five minutes flat with a little help from my 20 year old food processor (a wedding present, thank you Mum!).

I favour a really rich pastry, say 14 oz flour, 7 oz butter, 3 egg yolks and iced water. Pastry this rich can be very crumbly, difficult to roll out and bake blind. A couple of weeks ago I tried out a couple of tips which I am pleased to pass on.

First, don't even try to roll out the pastry to fit the flan tin. Instead, roll the dough into a sausage shape when you make it (wrap it in cling film while you rest it). Then, to make the pastry case, just cut pound-coin thickness slices off the roll, and push them into the tin.








Just fill up any gaps as you go. It's so much easier than having the dough tear or stretch, and you don't waste any as off-cuts either.

The second tip is about baking blind. Usually the books tell you to line the pastry case with foil, then add baking beans to weigh down the pastry. I always find that the tinfoil sticks to the pastry, and it rarely shapes itself properly to the pastry case. So, don't use tinfoil, use clingfilm!

Don't worry, it won't melt at the heat used do bake pastry. It conforms perfectly to the shape of the pastry case, and never sticks.





The finished cheese and vegetable flan in all its glory...

Strike While the Oven is Hot

One of the ways of coping with after-work exhaustion is to cook some of your meals in advance. A couple of Sundays ago thats exactly what I did...

Saving time like this can only work if you have been shopping with cooking-ahead in mind. I had bought a piece of boned, stuffed shoulder of pork and some minced beef. I also checked that I had flour, butter and eggs in the store cupboards.The night before I made a batch of rich (2:1 flour to butter) shortcrust pastry. In the food processor this took 5 minutes,no more. I rolled the pastry in cling film, and left it in the fridge to rest overnight.
The pastry went to line two flan tins, was baked blind and turned into vegetable and cheese flans (or quiches, for the more pretentious of us.)
The flans were baked at gas 4, which was also the temperature I roasted the pork at. Whilst these were in the oven I made a beef chilli. Somehow adding the chilli heat and some(tinned)kidney beans makes mince-for-two go twice as far.

All in, I spent about two hours actually cooking, and by the time I finished we had the main ingredients for our dinners for the rest of the week.

I was particularly pleased with a couple of neat bits of technique with the flan cases which I tried for the first time...

More Tomorrow....

A pizza cake!

Pardon the bad pun, but this tip will make handling homemade pizzas a piece of cake.

I have always found that getting a home-made pizza into a hot oven and onto a hot pizza stone is a bit of a struggle.

Simply get yourself a box of baking parchment, also known as silicone paper. Cut a piece a few inches larger than your proposed pizza, and simply roll the dough out on top of the paper. When you have finished adding the toppings, simply slide the entire thing, paper and all, onto your pizza stone or baking sheet. Lifting it out is also a doddle.

Pizza dough.
(This will make enough dough for two pizzas. If you only want one, freeze half for next time...)

12oz strong bread flour
7.5fl oz tepid water
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon easy blend dried yeast.

In a large bowl mix all dry ingredients together well.

Add the olive oil to the water, then pour half into a well in the centre of the flour.Stir to incorporate, adding more liquid until the mixture coheres. (You may need to add more liquid, depending on your flour, but try not to get it over wet and sticky.)

Knead to a ball in the bowl, then drop it onto a clean worktop. Knead by stretching the dough away from you with the heel of your hand, then gather back in, turn by a quarter and repeat. Do this for 5 to 7 minutes, until the dough is elastic, and bounces back when pressed.

Cover the dough with oiled clingfilm and leave to rise until doubled in size, probably an hour or so.

When nearly doubled, put oven on to pre-heat at gas 8, 230C.

When doubled in size, knead gently for a minute to flatten the dough.

Cut in half, and roll each piece out into a circle about 10 or 12 inches across. Do this directly onto the baking parchment.

All that remains then is to spread the dough with a smear of good quality tomato puree or well-reduced homemade tomato sauce, then add your favourite toppings. Yesterday's was halved cherry tomatoes, chorizo sausage and mozzarella.

Slide your pizza onto a baking stone or oven tray, and bake towards the top of the oven for 12 to 15 minutes. Lovely.

P.S. The idea for the parchment paper came from a most excellent book by Tom Norrington-Davies, Cupboard Love. It's full of good ideas, and realistic suggestions for after-work cooking.

You say Tomayto, I Say Tomarto

Although our tomato crops are not as impressive as some, we are approaching a modest glut at the moment. We have only grown tumbling tomatoes this year, but we have plenty of plants. Tomatoes are peeking out from all corners.


I have to confess that we are not the world's greatest salad eaters, and I always think that toms taste better cooked, even baby ones.

One of the nicest ways of making a star out of them is on top of a freshly baked pizza base, with some basil torn over just before serving...



I'll post the recipe tomorrow, along with a tip that made my day when I read it!

Veg Box Day Soup

Today I found tired spring onions and some lackluster carrots glaring at me resentfully from the veg rack.Friday is the day of the Phantom's Veg Box delivery. A day of "out with the old, in with the new". So it was use it or lose it time.

I had some stock left over from last night's supper, so soup seemed to be the natural thing to make. I made this today while my wife was in the garden cutting the grass and generally daring the rain to start.The recipe below doesn't take long to make or cook, and is ideal for lunch.

I refer to a "seed-toasting pan". This isn't some special gadget. If you ever have a small old saucepan that has lost its non-stick, or seen better days, don't throw it. Use it for dry toasting seeds such as coriander and cumin for curries, or pine nuts for salads and pesto.

I also refer to a mortar and pestle. Obviously not everyone will have one. I didn't feel up to rummaging for ours. As I am still taking things very easy I just used the end of my rolling pin and a large bowl!

Carrot and Coriander Soup.

10 small carrots, 5 medium or 2 or 3 monsters
3 small or 2 medium onions, or 2 large bunches of spring onions
2 heaped tablespoons of split red lentils
2 pints chicken stock
2 level tablespoons of whole coriander seeds.
2 cloves garlic
Olive oil

Peel carrots and onions. Chop both roughly to the size of Dolly Mixtures.

Wet the bottom of a medium saucepan with olive oil. When hot add onions, and let soften for 5 minutes or so. Then add carrots, stir, and continue to cook gently for another 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Try not to burn any of the onion.

Meanwhile, put the coriander seeds into the dry seed-toasting pan and heat over a medium gas, shaking the pan every so often. The seeds will darken slightly and give off a nutty smell. This should only take a minute or two. Pour the seeds into the mortar to cool, then grind with the pestle until fairly fine.

Chop the garlic coarsely, and add it and the split red lentils to the veg pan and cook for a further couple of minutes.

Add the crushed coriander to the veg pan, stir, and cook for a minute.

Add the stock, stir, bring to a simmer and cook, covered, for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally to stop the lentils from catching.

Cool slightly, then whiz in small batches in the liquidizer or pass through a Mouli.

More Loafing About

My Learned Friend the Legal Eagle has requested the recipe for my picnic loaf, as featured previously.

Your wish is my pleasure.

Seeded Sandwich Bread.

I developed this loaf for picnics; the mixture of flours gives a loaf that holds together well, - the seeds add extra flavour and texture.

Apologies for the Imperial measurements, they just work better with these ingredients.

(For a 2lb loaf tin)

12oz Strong Stoneground Organic Wholemeal Flour

12oz Strong Organic White Flour

2 Tablespoons of poppy seeds

3 Tablespoons of sunflower seeds

1 Teaspoon of table salt

11/2 level teaspoons of Dove’s or Allinson’s Easy Blend Yeast

2 Tablespoons of Olive Oil, plus extra for oiling bowl.

5 fl oz Boiling water, made up to 15 fl oz with cold water

Mix the dry ingredients well in a large bowl. Pour in the olive oil and most of the water mixture, which should feel hot to the fingers but not uncomfortably so.

Stir with a large spoon to mix together, adding the rest of the water as needed. A small amount of unincorporated flour is fine.

Dump the proto-dough onto the worktop, incorporate all the bits (the seeds will try and escape - do not let them.), and knead for about seven minutes. (You will get this down to about five minutes kneading with practice). Form the dough into a ball.

Pour a small puddle of extra oil into the bowl, drop in the dough, wiggle it about to coat lightly with oil, then cover loosely with clingfilm. Leave to rise until doubled in size. This is best done slowly, at room temperature.

When doubled in size, drop the dough back onto the counter and knead lightly for a minute to ensure there are no large air pockets.

Preheat the oven to gas 7, placing a rack in the middle of the oven.

Lightly oil or butter the loaf tin. Fold the dough into the tin, shaping the top slightly domed. Leave to “prove” (rise) until the dough rises to just above the top of the tin.

Make two evenly spaced cuts an inch or so down into the dough, running lengthways. This will allow the bread to rise evenly without tearing. Sprinkle with a dusting of wholemeal flour. Bake in the pre-heated oven for 30 – 40 minutes. You will know the bread is ready by the wonderful bready smell! Turn out of the tin and check it is cooked fully by tapping on the bottom of the loaf. It should sound “hollow”. (If not, put back in the oven for another five minutes or so, without the tin).

Cool on a rack, wrapped in a clean tea towel to help keep the crusts soft.

Salad Heaven, Salad Hell.

Imagine my hunger.

Safe in the Staffroom fridge I had a plastic box of salad stuff left over from dinner the previous night. Clock-watching, my imagination savoured the contents of the box. Smoked salmon. Hot-Smoked mackerel. Potato salad made with mayonnaise and floury organic potatoes. Beetroot in balsamic vinegar. Coleslaw, cottage cheese and leaves of rocket and lamb’s lettuce dressed with lemon-flavoured Colonna Gran Verde olive oil…..

One O’clock came, I hastened to the fridge, grabbing my carrier bag from it and almost running to the park to claim a bench in the sun for the coming delights. I felt the soft give of the slice of bread I had cut, the hard metal of the fork rattling a drum beat as my feet struck the cherry-blossom path into our local greenspace.

I sat down, brought out the fork, laying it on a serviette on the bench. I placed the slice of bread down, rummaged for my bottle of water.

Let the feasting commence…

I opened the lid.

Potato Salad.

Wrong Box.

Shit.

My Lunch was still in the fridge at home.

Loafing About

With the weather forecast getting better by the day, we decided to visit to Kew Gardens yesterday.

Now, for us, one of the joys of the day is taking along a good picnic.

So, a couple of days ago I made some bread for our sandwiches.

If I can convince one person to try and make bread for the first time I will be happy.

Making bread is easy, and it doesn’t take hours of work.




I timed how long it took to make the dough from scratch. 15 Minutes!!
Then I left it to rise for an hour, whilst doing battle with my other half over the Scrabble Board.



After an hour of rising, I knocked the dough down (basically kneaded it again for two minutes). Then I popped the dough into a tin for the final rise (proving) whilst returning to the garden to finish off the game (I lost, badly.) (My wife would say I always do lose badly!)





Two hours after starting, the dough went into the oven.

And Voila!

Catching Up

(One of the many things I wanted to blog about but didn’t have the energy to in the last fortnight)....

A survey published recently which found that most people have a repertoire of only four or five recipes which they cook time and time again. The most commonly cooked family meals?

1. Spag Bol
2. Roast Dinner
3. Sausage and Mash
4. Stir Fry
5. Stew
6. Chicken Tikka Masala
7. Chilli Con Carne
8. Shepherd’s pie
9. Fish and Chips

With spag bol being cooked twice a week by over 6 million people.

One can’t help feeling that the number of people who actually cook Chicken Tikka rather than re-heat a ready meal is pretty slim. And fish and chips?

As with all surveys, you have to question the motives of those who commission it. In this case, learning that the survey was paid for by Loyd Grossman’s company (manufacturers of jars of ready-made sauces) gives a clue to the viewpoint in question.

Mr G. is saying that people are stuck in a rut, lacking in ideas and what they need is a jar of sauce!!

Surely what is needed is an improved range of knowledge about techniques and ingredients. A box of minced beef fried up to slush with onions is only ever that, regardless of whatever flavour sauce is poured on top. But that mince could be turned into fresh burgers, meatballs, meatloaf, lasagne, bastitsio or stuffed into any variety of cabbage, aubergine, pepper or tomato. Not to mention keema curry!

When Loyd Grossman presented Masterchef he helped stimulate ideas about techniques and ingredients. Now all he is doing is encouraging laziness in the kitchen and limiting people’s culinary horizons.

I am a sad enough foodie that I actually keep a food log of each day’s main meals. I went back over the last 10 Tuesdays. This is what we had:

1. Cottage pie (made with minced leftover roast lamb).
2. Baked Salmon Steaks
3. Pea and Jerusalem Artichoke Soup
4. Cold gammon Knuckle with parsnip mash
5. Baked Salmon Fillet on a bed of celeriac and carrot
6. Grilled Mackerel and trout with a warm ratatouille and couscous
7. Belly of pork braised with ginger, star anise and soy
8. Chinese Take Away (!) (I had the ‘flu)
9. Shop bought chicken curries (Ditto)
10. Casserole of Dublin (lamb shoulder) chops.

By and large, simple ingredients, simply prepared. And not a jar of sauce in sight….