Month: April 2013

Foodie Penpals pt.1

Foodie Penpals

My latest foodie adventure has begun by signing up to be a foodie penpal via Rock Salt (who got the set up from The Lean Green Bean)…and it’s bloody brilliant! Basically, you’re added to a database of foodies. Each month the coordinator picks someone from the database to send you a parcel of interesting foodie goodies and at the same time you’re chosen to send a parcel to someone else. Then you get in touch (to say thanks or check it all arrived ok) and then blog about what you got. Easy.

A couple of weeks ago my first parcel arrived, it was like an early birthday present, with a card and everything! The lovely Teresa had neatly packed a wonderful mix of goodies and cooking ingredients and tucked into the card was one of her favourite recipes for me to try.

foodie parcel goodies

I made very short work of the nãkd. snack bars, and coconut macaroon, but I did then share the bombay mix with Richard so I’m not a total meanie.

The maize meal (fine polenta) was my favourite ingredient in the parcel because I’ve hardly ever used it but kept meaning to.

I was surprised how easy it is to make soft polenta and I followed this recipe which turned out great. I had planned to put any leftovers into an oven proof dish so they could set, allowing me to slice it and make polenta chips…but there were no leftovers 🙂

roasted tomatoes, olives and polenta

To go with the polenta I just grilled a few tomatoes, then at the end I threw in a few olives and a tablespoon of sundried tomato pesto, then returned to the grill just to warm everything briefly. Serve the tomato and olive mix over the polenta with some fresh basil and black pepper.

roasted tomatoes, olives and polenta

The rest of the maize meal was earmarked for Teresa’s recipe suggestion – Glamorous Raspberry and Polenta Cake by Jane Hornby.

raspberries

This is a great recipe to make all year round because it makes smashing use of frozen raspberries.

frozen raspberries

raspberry and polenta cake

slice of cake anyone?

raspberry and polenta cake

I can highly recommend the foodie penpal scheme as it’s as much fun packing up a parcel as it is receiving one – do it!

x

Foodie Penpals UK & Europe: http://thisisrocksalt.com/foodie-penpals/

Foodie Penpals US: http://www.theleangreenbean.com/foodie-penpals/

Anger Management Brownies

Cooking, Recipes

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I made these when I was very, very cross. In fact, I’m just gonna go ahead and say it, I had PMT. I was so grumpy, it was actually ridiculous. I shouted at a sofa, a laptop, my phone and Richard. Luckily he’s very patient and extremely understanding so just laughs at me when I lose my temper at everything! In return for his patience I shared my anger quashing brownies. I find that chocolate is good for when my hormones are on the blink and I add extra chocolate enhancing flavours like cardamon and coffee to make them even more consoling.

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Anger Management Brownies

Ingredients

100g butter (plus extra for greasing)
200g dark chocolate
4 eggs
200g golden caster sugar
1 teaspoon of ground cardamom
1 espresso (or 50ml of very strong coffee)
50g honey
1 teaspoon of rosewater
130g plain flour
1 tsp of baking powder
30g cocoa, and a bit more for dusting

Method

  1. Line a 20cm square cake tin (or similar sized rectangular one) with a piece of baking paper and grease well with butter. Preheat the oven to 180°C.
  2. Put the chocolate and butter in a bowl which is fitted on top of a pan of just boiling water, heat until both are melted.
  3. Whisk the sugar and eggs together until the mix has about doubled in size and is a lot paler than it was when you started whisking.
  4. Add the espresso, ground cardamom, honey and rosewater to the egg mixture and whisk again to combine.
  5. Now pour the melted butter and chocolate into the egg mix and whisk once more until smooth.
  6. Then fold in the flour, baking powder and cocoa and then tip the mixture into the prepared tin.
  7. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Don’t worry if it’s still quite wobbly in the middle, it will set more when it’s cold.
  8. Leave to cool (if you can wait that long) then slice into squares, dust with cocoa powder if you’re feeling fancy.

I like to serve mine (if I’m feeling particularly grumpy) with a good slice of action movie! Yippee–ki–yay!

Auntie Mim!

Cooking

I am very, very happy to announce the arrival of the newest addition to team Nice – my first nephew Milo! Milo

He’s absolutely brilliant! And the whole family is over the moon. My Dad is a National Trust volunteer and he baked some jam tarts to take into work to celebrate becoming a Grandad! He used my recipe from my last blog post and made Milo’s initials out of pastry – check it out:

Dad's Jam Tarts for Milo

I am so pleased to be an Auntie, but I have absolutely no idea what to do. Babies baffle me, as do so many of my female friends who seem to instinctively know how to hold a them, change a nappy and understand all the crazy noises they make. Why don’t babies arrive with step-by-step guides like flat pack furniture? And as for crying, turns out they are just sleepy or a bit hungry – so why do they sound like they are in mortal danger? It’s misleading, like when you get a work email marked URGENT but it’s for a marathon in six months time.

Ok, so we’ve established my hopelessness with babies, but I like to think I’ll do pretty well at the unending stream of “Why?” and “are we nearly there yet?” questions later on… and I could cook for them too (seamless link)!

So to welcome Milo and to give the new Mum and Dad a bit of a break I spent a day in the kitchen making a whole plethora of ready meals, freezer meals and baked goodies so they can spend even more time with the little fella. I tried to do some research on the kinds of foods most suitable for new Mums and Dads but the results were conflicting – some websites have huge lists condeming ingredients like fresh herbs, peanuts and eggs, whereas other sites seem to advocate eating whatever you like as long as it is healthy and doesn’t include too much shark. Hmm. So I just made a selection of foods I thought they would like, but included a list of all the ingredients, just in case. Worst case scenario they’ll give the food to visitors – which I hope is still vaguely helpful.

Here we go. My menu for my Brother and his Wife:

Eat Now…

Blueberry Lemon Drizzle Cake

Blueberry and Lemon Drizzle Cake

Soda Bread

Soda Bread

Eat Later…

Couscous

Spiced Couscous (just add water, serve with pomegranate and fried Halloumi cheese)

Mashed Sweet Potato

Mkomazi Cardamom-Mashed Sweet Potato (from the “World Food Cafe” Book)

Garlic Hummus Very Garlicky Hummus

Freeze…

Lentil Moussaka

Lentil Moussaka

Giving food seemed to be a good plan, and I would recommend doing this for anyone you know who has just had a baby. Making a selection of dishes that won’t all go off at the same time is also a good tip…oh and things they can eat with one hand 🙂

xxx

Bring Back Jam Tarts!

Recipes

Tangerine and Raspberry Tarts
Ok, so Jam Tarts haven’t disappeared completely, but as cake trends go…they’re no macaron right now.

Well, take a hike cupcakes and cake pops, move over oversized meringues and make room for the Jam Tart because…

  • Firstly, Jam tarts are easy to make – comprising of only 4 ingredients
  • They’re cheap to make – one of the 4 ingredients is water and another could be any old jam at the back of the cupboard!
  • Speedy, too – needing only 15 minutes in the oven!
  • and they’re a bit magic – well not actually magic but there’s definitely something very exciting and totally delicious that occurs when jam is baked in pastry

Yes they’re simple, but some of the best things are. You really don’t need to spend all day in the kitchen to bake these and the house will get that wonderful homely smell without so much as a balloon whisk in sight.

Jam Tarts

Makes 12 small tarts

Ingredients

100g plain flour (plus a little extra for rolling out)
50g butter
cold water to bind
Jam, marmalade or fruit curd of your choice

Method

1) Rub the butter into the flour until the butter is well incorporated and the texture is sandy or like fresh bread crumbs

2) Mix in enough cold water to bring the mixture together to make a smooth dough which picks up all the flour in the bowl – I used about 3/4 of an espresso cup full of water…if that helps 🙂

3) Leave the dough in the fridge to rest. You can leave it in there for about 30 minutes but I don’t usually time it. Instead, I just leave it in there until I’ve preheated the oven to 180°C, cleaned and floured the surface, found my rolling pin and pastry cutters and greased a 12 hole bun tin.

4) When you’re ready, roll out the dough onto the floured surface til it’s about 2-3mm thick and cut out 12 circles.

5) Line the prepared bun tin with the pastry discs and fill each one with a level teaspoon of jam

Making Jam Tarts

6) Bake in the oven for 12-15 minutes or until the pastry is cooked through and the jam is bubbling (just enough time to put away the rolling pin and get the coffee on)

Before Baking
After Baking

7) Once baked, let them cool in the tin before transferring to a wire rack to go completely cold.

If you’re still not convinced that Jam Tarts are snazzy enough for your fanciest of guests, then do go ahead and add an arty drizzle of chocolate, dusting of icing sugar, scatter a few slivers of lemon zest or use any leftover pastry to well, tart up your tarts!

x

Chocolate Drizzle I heart Jam Tarts Jam Tart with Pastry SpotsJam Tart with Pastry Lattice Tarted up Tarts!

Are there any old fashioned foods you’d like to bring back, or any trends you could do without? Let me know – I’d love to hear from you. x