Dairy free baking - Chocolate & chilli olive oil cake

It's safe to say that between Slimming World and being dairy free I miss cake. I mentioned on Twitter last weekend that I fancied chocolate cake and lovely Jules of Butcher Baker suggested Nigella's chocolate olive oil cake. And what a good suggestion it was. Rich, yet light with a massive chocolate kick - you only needed a small slice (which is a godsend for the diet) to really feel like you'd had a good pudding. Sadly I had to foist a fair amount off on M's parents as otherwise in all likelihood I'd have been found face down in it at some point during the week.

Of course I made some changes to Nigella's recipe, because... well I'm a foodie.

Chocolate olive oil cake - serves 12

150ml olive oil - not extra virgin as the taste would be too strong
50grams cocoa powder
125ml recently boiled water
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon of chilli flakes, crushed with a pestle and mortar
100g plain flour
25g custard powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
Pinch of salt
200g caster sugar
3 large eggs

Preheat the oven to 150 degrees and line the base of a 20cm cake tin - I used one with a loose bottom
In a jug mix up the water, vanilla and cocoa powder until you get a runny paste - pop to one side for now
 Beat the sugar, olive oil and eggs until foamy - I did this for about 5 minutes on a low speed (the baby was asleep and the higher speeds seem to register with him and wake him up)
Turn the speed right down, and beat in the cocoa paste, and then the flour, custard powder, bicarb, crushed chilli flakes and salt
Pour the cake batter into the tin, and bake for 35 minutes - until a skewer comes out clean
Leave to cool, and when popped out of the tin, serve as a pudding (I had it with raspberries - and I bet Oatly creamy oat would be fabulous), or with tea for a fancy threesies. 

Perfect pulses - lentils 2 ways, and some thrifty tips

As we heralded in the New Year I had one of those dawning realisations that this year was going to be an expensive one - between doing up our house (which grows as a project each time we remove another layer of lining paper) and arranging a wedding, our available funds are, shall we say... depleted?

I know that January is a common time for people to be tightening their belts and when this is the case for us pulses become a staple not just in my storecupboard, but in more of our meals, bulking out dishes so that they easily do leftovers as well as using them as a meat replacement in meals such us bolognaise.

It was with this all in mind that I gleefully happened across Michelle's recipe for Root vegetable dhaal. It fulfills criteria necessary at this time of year - thrifty, healthy and warming. Ideal for my packed lunches - although the search for a functioning flask continues - and with some homemade soda bread (recipe on the link below with the soup) the perfect Saturday lunch for a break in the decorating.

Alongside that I'm also going to knock up a batch of a Nigella recipe I appropriated and adapted a couple of years ago, her Split pea and frankfurter soup (I've always called split peas yellow lentils). I have the frankfurters in the freezer as I pick them up when they're on BOGOF. 

These are just a couple of pulses centric recipes that I'm making now. of course, lentils can be added to soups - especially good for thickening as well as bulking out, stews, chillis, bolognaises and plenty of other things to make them go further. If in doubt I add a cupful of red lentils and add the same of extra liquid - be that stock, water or wine.

Other recipes I've blogged include:

Lentil ragu
Harissa lentil salad
Spicy lentils with sausages (both these posts link to Helen at Fuss Free Flavours, as they're her recipes)

I use pulses in lots of other recipes, including last night's supper - chorizo and cannelini bean chilli (I double the cannelini beans as a cheap way of making dinner go further. I do the same with kidney beans in normal chilli and my slow cooker chilli.

My first cake

I feel like there should be a picture of a Fisher Price toy under here, but no - it's just my favourite fruit cake that I was baking at 7am this morning. Damn you, insomnia.

Based on Nigella's Marzipan fruit cake (Domestic Goddess, page 34) but with extra marzipan and cherries, and using figs instead of pears. Because, you know, I'm incapable of sticking to an actual recipe more than once.

All hail the new pantry and yhe migraine inducing 'vintage' kitchen. And cake, obviously.

Chocolate chip and pretzel cookies

Salty and sweet is a thing. A real honest to goodness thing. I was out with my lovely sister and my genius nephew (true story) a couple of weeks back, we popped into M&S ostensibly for a cardigan and picked up an elderly lady (also true story) and some chocolate and caramel pretzel bites. We demolished them happily, as Noah napped and removed his socks in the back of the car. 

I went away that evening thinking about those sweets (what can I say? I need to get out more) and wondering if I could make those flavours work in a cookie. Pinterest threw up a few suggestions but as it tends towards American recipes I wasn't entirely sold on their ingredients. 

When Nigella Express came out I made her Totally chocolate, chocolate chip cookies a handful of times, whilst I love them, they are amazingly rich and sometimes the chocolate feels a bit headachey. Plus M can't eat dark chocolate as it makes him feel sick. So I needed to adapt the recipe and this is my adaptation of that

Chocolate chip and pretzel cookies

125g milk chocolate, melted (I used leftover Christmas and Easter chocolate)
150g flour
30g Cadbury's drinking chocolate (the one you make up with milk)
1 tsp bicarb
1/2 tsp salt
125g softened butter
50g white sugar
75g soft brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
200g chopped up chocolate - a mix of white and milk
150g pretzels (about 2 handfuls) lightly crushed - reserve about 24 whole ones

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees and line a cookie sheet with baking parchment
Beat the butter and sugar in your mixer (or with a hand beater)
Add the melted chocolate, egg and vanilla continuing to beat until well combined
Fold the flour, bicarb drinking chocolate and salt into the batter
Stir in the chopped chocolate and pretzels 

Using a tablespoon measure out big dollops (technical term) of cookie batter onto the sheet. Don't press them flat as the mixture spreads, so leave big gaps between the spoonfuls. I can fit about 8 cookies at once on a sheet. 
Top each ball of batter with a whole pretzel - just push it lightly into the cookie

Bake for 15 minutes - remove from the cookie sheet straightaway with a spatula and cool on a wire rack - this helps mine stay smooshy in the middle (which is how I prefer them). If you like your cookies crispy then cool them on the tray for 5-10 minutes first as they'll continue to cook using the residual heat from the tray. 

This mix makes at least 24 cookies and they keep in an airtight tin for up to 5 days. You can freeze the original Nigella recipe - but I don't think you could with the pretzels as they would go soggy. 

Just a note for the Guiders out there - I know that our girls would go mad for these - try doing them with teaspoonfuls of mix instead of tablespoons and you'll get - 2-3 times as many! As they're such a quick bake (and in smaller measures would be even quicker, 9-10 mins) they're ideal for a chocolate badge evening, or to be bagged up for a bake sale, father's day or mother's day treats... well the list is endless so I'll leave the reason up to you.

Meal Planning Monday: The healing edition

After last week's slightly incoherent, rambly post about the ills of hospital food, I'm still at home and slowly getting back to full strength. I'm hoping to go back to work next week, but have to get checked out by the doctor to say that's OK first. Consequently this week features a lot of comfort food, as demanded both by the weather and by the slowly healing system of this poorly person.

Breakfasts are 0% Total Greek yoghurt with some lightly stewed eating apples that I cooked down this evening with about 100g of sultanas soaked in orange juice and zest. I'm planning on making some granola to add some crunch - apparently crunchy foods increase serotonin and I've been craving them since my release last week.

Lunches for me are another batch of Nigella's split pea and frankfurter soup, with a good spoonful of lazy chilli stirred through.

Dinners, as I say are full on comfort food. It's not so much about calories, but about needing that soothing unctuousness that comfort food provides. M has work and Welsh this week so I'm getting the slow cooker back out for a hearty, warming casserole:

Monday: Toad in the hole, mashed potatoes and vegetables

Tuesday: Chicken and sweet leek pie with vegetables- cauliflower and spring greens I think

Wednesday: Chicken, butternut squash and barley casserole - I'll blog this as it's a long standing recipe I've been using for years that doesn't seem to have made the blog as yet

Thursday: Leftover casserole

Friday: Apparently I said we'd find out when we got there which means my brain was addled after thinking up four dinners. The fact that I just had to ask M this is evidence that I really am not on form yet.

I should be getting beetroot in my veg box tomorrow so M has requested Jenny's Beetroot chocolate cake, and I have a bit of a craving (is it the crunch again?) for Eccles cakes, so will be breaking out my t&t Delia recipe. 

I've promised M a roast on Sunday as he's at archery in the morning, so will either do the slow roast pork from the other week, or go steady on the cauliflower in the week and do roast beef and cauliflower cheese. Oh I think I've just decided! Beef it is, with a mustardy crust. Yum.

A person can develop a bad, bad cold: Split pea soup and soda bread

If you follow me on twitter you'll know this has been a poorly week in Penelope's Pantry. I've been completely wiped out by a virus/ infection that's manifesting itself through recurrent migraines. As you can imagine all thoughts of food and cooking have long gone out of the window, but by Friday I was just starting to feel a bit less like death warmed up. Then M came home from Newcastle. With the same bug/ virus. Now despite the fact that I have no energy, I've turned on Accu Broadway and am cooking my little heart out. I knew we needed some hearty, easily digestable, healing food and so I turned to Nigella.  I knew her recipes wouldn't fail and that I was bound to find something in one of her books that would sound attractive and not require much brainpower. Soup it was.

I've added this to Maison Cupcake's Forever Nigella blog hop for January - be sure to pop over and have a look at all the entries.

Nigella's Split Pea and Frankfurter soup (with a couple of Pantry amendments)

2 cloves garlic
1 celery stick
1 carrot, peeled
1 onion, peeled
500g yellow split peas
1250ml vegetable stock
Pack of frankfurters - I used Waitrose's own brand
1/2 tsp ground mace
3 tablespoons of rapeseed oil

Blitz the vegetables and garlic up in the food processor, and tip into the warmed oil in a large pan
Soften gently, but don't allow to colour
Add the mace, and stir in so it's evenly distributed
Add the split peas and stir in
Add the stock (I just used 4tsp of Marigold veg bouillon in a litre and a quarter of water)
Bring to a gentle boil, pop a lid on your pan and turn the heat down and cook for an hour
I found I needed to add another half a pint of water as my lentils had absorbed all the water making this more like a casserole in consistency than a soup
Add your chopped up frankfurters, then adjust your seasoning to taste (as they're quite salty I found)

At this point I felt that the soup was missing something so added a teaspoon of lazy chilli, once stirred through you don't get a huge kick of chilli but it adds a much needed warming depth. You could equally add fresh chilli at the start but it retained some of it's freshness by not cooking it through.

Serve hot with soda bread.

No Knead Soda Bread, based on this recipe but amended slightly

300g malted grain bread flour
1 pot buttermilk 284ml (isn't that an odd amount?)
1 dsp baking powder
1 tsp sea salt


Preheat your oven as hot as it will go
Put the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl and mix through roughly with clean hands
Add the buttermilk and mix (again, by hand) until you have a soft, pliable dough. I needed all the buttermilk, despite the original recipe stating less, but flour is a moveable feast, so if you don't need it all don't fret, everything just needs to come together.
Dust your worktop and hands lightly with more malted flour, and shape the dough into a round (now, if I can manage this with one arm in plaster anyone can)
Cut two dints in the loaf with either your spatula or a sharp knife

Bake for 20ish minutes - I do this on a pizza stone, as it normally results in a nice crispy bottom for loaves that aren't in a tin. Mine today took about 40 minutes, but that's probably down to having a slightly wetter dough. It's done when you can tap on the bottom and it sounds hollow, and when the top is lightly crusted.

That's our poorly Pantry tea tonight, it'll be served cwtched up on the sofa, under blankets hopefully with a shockingly fabulous film on in the background.

Meal Planning Monday: a somewhat truncated week in the pantry

Hello. I've had a couple of weeks off meal planning as life has just been too hectic here at Pantry HQ. That's not to say that meal planning hasn't been taking place - it has to, in order for me to budget and shop, but it's had to be flexible as I'm still in the completely exhausted camp. Any suggestions for overcoming permanent and overwhelming tiredness are incredibly welcome.

This week and next week are somewhat short weeks in the Pantry due to my work schedule, once again I'll be at the mercy of Premier Inn and their fantastic breakfasts, yet somewhat dubious and bland dinner menus. That said, the steak was lovely last time but I'll start mooing if I eat steak every night!

Monday: Chorizo, Butternut Squash and Cannelini bean chilli (possibly with cornbread depending on when I get in tomorrow)

Tuesday: Probably leftovers, although if not it'll be freezer surprise.

Wednesday - Thursday I'll be working away

Friday: I have a packet of lovely local bacon to use, so possibly Nigella's carbonara

Saturday: I'm not sure what we have planned this weekend so possibly a casserole of some description and on Sunday I've promised Mark the roast he missed out on tonight.

So that's us, hopefully the freezer surprise, and using up what's in the fridge and pantry will keep costs down, as well as make life a bit easier for me. Be sure to head on over to At Home with Mrs M to see what she and everyone else is up to.

Meal Planning Monday: Better late than never

*scooting in, trying to remain unnoticed*

Well that didn't work did it? Sorry for the late post, but yesterday was M's birthday, and amongst other things we spent much of the day trying to sort the car out. Anyway, veg box is here - M is back to work, I am getting ready to go back to work and so meal planning is back at the fore.

Monday: Spaghetti carbonara (Nigella's recipe, but without the whole packet of spaghetti she reckons on.)

Tuesday: Was supposed to be risotto, but has ended up being a hot chocolate and 2 biscuits.

Wednesday: Risotto - using my bianco recipe, but adding chorizo and roasted butternut squash

Thursday: Sausages, corn on the cob and baked potatoes

Friday: We're hoping to catch Harry Potter, homemade pizza

Saturday: I'm at camp training all day, so right now I'm not sure... maybe Salmon and greens?

Sunday: I'm quite fancying Pasta Puttanesca, there's a Jamie Oliver recipe I like so I think I will whack a pot of that on.

Lunches are smoked salmon and cream cheese, or Greek salad.

Breakfasts for me are fruit.

Don't forget to pop over to At Home with Mrs M for more meal planning inspiration from all of this week's participants.

You'd better come on down

And meet, the nicest kids in town (not that I'm biased at all)

Also, there actually is cake in this post. Quite a lot of cake

I was trying to work out what order these next few posts should go in. Should we go with the most recent camp backwards to the fundraising, or the other way around? Does anyone else really care? In the end my need to be ordered won out and we're starting with the fundraising. This year's cafe was to raise funds for the girls centenary adventures, and whilst we raised less money than previously, the cafe was buzzing, the girls had an amazing time and there was a lot of cake.

See, a lot of cake. And you can't even see the cream teas that we were serving from the kitchen as the scones were being baked freshly.

The Rocky Road that I had trialed previously went down a storm - although it's a family cafe, something based in chocolate is obviously going to be popular! As well as the rocky road, I made a victoria sandwich using Nigella's recipe and cupcakes to the Magnolia Bakery recipe that I've posted about previously. I used blue vanilla buttercream to frost them, and in honour of our centenary sprinkled them with white chocolate stars. Sadly the photograph doesn't do them justice - let's just say this, lots of little hands got them out of their box and put them in the stand.

Victoria Sponge

Since my food processor went to the big, dusty cupboard under the stairs in the sky, I did this old school style - something I haven't done for a while. It takes more elbow grease than I remember! When using the procesor I add extra baking powder.


This is from Nigella's How to Eat, a book that I use more than I think going by the mucky pages strewn throughout. It was actually the first cookbook I read from cover to cover before actually using it as a cookbook.

Ingredients (as always, my notes are in italics)

200g self-raising flour Nigella doesn't sift hers, but I do - old habits and that. I have visions of my formidable Home Economics teacher turning up in my kitchen, peering over my shoulder and demanding that I redo it

25g cornflour
225g caster sugar
225g very soft unsalted butter - so soft that should you want to you would be able to squish your finger in it. Try this with a knife, not your finger though
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 large eggs
2-4 tablespoons milk - Nigella specifies full fat milk, but as I never have this in the house I use skimmed

Method


Preheat the oven to gas makr 4/ 180
Butter and flour 2 sandwich tins (I only have one - I'm sure at some point I had two, but alas, no longer)
Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy
Add the eggs, beating in one at a time, alternating with a spoonful of the sifted flour
Add the vanilla extract
Fold in the rest of the flour gently (add the baking powder and cornflour to the rest of the flour when I'm weighing out my ingredients)
Stir in the milk

Divide between your cake tins and bake in the middle of the oven for about 25 minutes. Mine take slightly less time as we have a fan oven, but test with a skewer to be sure. Cool on a wire rack and sandwich together with jam. I used an apricot and amaretto jam that I had bought from Kavey of Kavey Eats when she had a stall at Covent Garden, it was amazing and I did think I could have added some almond extract or (if I had the processor) some marzipan to take that amaretto-ey flavour further through the cake. I would have used that in place of the vanilla extract.
Dusted with icing sugar, taken to the Guide hut and sold for 75p a slice I think.


No pictures of my cake I'm afraid as by this time the camera had been donated to an older Guide and I was to be found in a corner inhaling a cream tea and a coffee (a contradiction there I'm sure, but hopefully you know what I mean?)

Marshmallow treats


Rice Krispie cakes

And finally... a small story for you as an aside. One of my Brownies came to help her sister who is one of my Guides out at the cafe. It's always great to have an extra pair of hands on board and Georgie has sales skills that Alan Sugar would envy. Faced with customers she would point to the cake below and explain that "this is my Nonna's cake. It's Italian. You're lucky to be allowed to eat it. That's one pound please" (it was supposed to be 50p a slice, but who am I to complain) Genius. I think everyone bought pieces of Nonna's cake. I am also holding out for the recipe, it was that good. Also note the chocolate cupcake that had managed to become unpeeled during her sales pitches... clever girl that Georgie!

I'm right up the road - even if it's rocky

I'm right up the road
I'll share your load
If you just call me

Well, the Guides are learning Lean on Me for the forthcoming fundraiser we're running so the lyrics are currently running around my head naturally. One of the perils of being a Guider is that I spend a large proportion of my waking life listening to people chat about random things and simultaneously thinking "Could the girls do something related to/ like/ adapted from this?" Rocky Road came about in one of these ways. Before or after acupuncture each week I bribe or treat myself to a Starbucks coffee and a piece of rocky road. It's half an hour of peace and pleasure after the prior hour of pain (well more discomfort but that doesn't alliterate half so well). I was wondering if this would be something the Guides could make for the cafe, as it seemed to be fairly simple (although did I ever tell you about the disaster with the truffles? No? Let's just not mention it again).

As it was a sweet dish I went straight back to my beloved Nigella, and found a recipe in Nigella Express. For once I made it exactly as stated - I know, I was shocked too!

INGREDIENTS

125g soft butter
300g best-quality dark chocolate (minimum 70% cocoa solids), broken into pieces
3 x 15ml tablespoons golden syrup
200g Rich Tea biscuits
100g mini marshmallows
2 teaspoons icing sugar for dusting

METHOD


1. Melt the butter, chocolate and golden syrup in a heavy-based saucepan. Scoop out about 125ml of this melted mixture and put to one side.
2. Put the biscuits into a freezer bag and then bash them with a rolling pin. You are aiming for both crumbs and pieces of biscuits.
3. Fold the biscuit pieces and crumbs into the melted chocolate mixture in the saucepan, and then add the marshmallows.
4. Tip into a foil tray (24cm square); flatten as best you can with a spatula. Pour the reserved 125ml of melted chocolate mixture over the marshmallow mixture and smooth the top.
5. Refrigerate for about 2 hours or overnight.
6. Cut into 24 fingers and dust with icing sugar by pushing it gently through a tea strainer or small sieve.

I'm going to take them into work tomorrow as a thank you for those who've had to cover my work while I've been off sick. Let's face it, given that much chocolate who could be cross? Fingers crossed that no-one is the answer to that!

Banana Shpeel

Sorry, it's a completely off-centre reference to a Cirque du Soleil show, but I wanted to maintain my good track record of musical references in post titles *is a girly swot*

I was searching through my previous posts and was astounded to find a lack of reference to Nigella's banana bread from Domestic Goddess. In my copy of DG this is one of those pages that's covered in sticky fingerprints, flour and quite possibly bits of banana. In my defence I never claimed to be the cleanest cook.

Last time I made this, I tried the variation and made a chocolate banana bread. I have a confession to make: I didn't like it anywhere near as much as the regular one. So this week I went back to my reliable tried and tested recipe.

INGREDIENTS

100g sultanas
75ml bourbon or dark rum
175g plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
125g unsalted butter, melted
150g sugar
2 large eggs
4 small, very ripe bananas (about 300g weighed without skin), mashed
60g chopped walnuts
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
23 x 13 x 7cm loaf tin, buttered and floured or with a paper insert

METHOD


1. Put the sultanas and rum or bourbon in a smallish saucepan and bring to the boil.
2. Remove from the heat, cover and leave for an hour if you can, or until the sultanas have absorbed most of the liquid, then drain.
3. Preheat the oven to 170ºC/gas mark 3 and get started on the rest. Put the flour, baking powder, bicarb and salt in a medium-sized bowl and, using your hands or
4. a wooden spoon, combine well. In a large bowl, mix the melted butter and sugar and beat until blended. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then the mashed bananas. Then, with your wooden spoon, stir in the walnuts, drained sultanas and vanilla extract. Add the flour mixture, a third at a time, stirring well after each bit. Scrape into the loaf tin and bake in the middle of the oven for 1–11/4 hours. When it’s ready, an inserted toothpick or fine skewer should come out cleanish. Leave in the tin on a rack to cool, and eat thickly or thinly sliced, as you prefer.

Variation

Replace 25g of the flour with good cocoa powder and add 100g of dark chocolate, cut up into smallish chunks.

This is such an easy cake to make, and it goes down a treat with everyone I've ever offered it to. Honestly, I can now make it in about 20 minutes and then once it's in the oven you can do what you like. It always bakes with quite a dark top, but it's just the colour it goes. Great for elevenses with a cup of tea.

I ham what I ham

And what I ham, needs no excuses (thank you Forbidden Broadway for the inspiration!)

Now I think I am quite possibly the last person in the country to try Nigella's Ham in Coca Cola. It's a Christmas staple for most of my 'foodie' friends, and almost everyone I know has either made it themselves or tried it courtesy of someone else. Well everyone apart from me that is. A combination of not having been in the mood for soup over the last week (mainly because of the good weather) and forgetting I had some bread in the freezer meant that I seemed to empty my purse remarkably quickly by buying sandwiches. I was keen for that not to happen this week, so decided to tackle Nigella's ham recipe.

For once I followed the recipe exactly and I have to say it's gorgeous. The ham itself is incredibly soft and tender, and the flavour is very slightly sweet with a hint of smokiness. To be truthful, I liked the taste as much after boiling as I did after adding the glaze, and I'm yet to try a glazed part so am reserving judgement on that - as so far, the treacle just seemed to burn and fill my kitchen with smoke.

My Bank Holiday Monday involves taking a group of Brownies on a steam train and as we'll be out from 10am to 8pm so this ham will form the filling of my sandwiches - and I can definitely see Ham, egg and chips for tea on Wednesday (well potato wedges really but that doesn't have the same ring to it). The recipe does take a fair while, but is completely worth it, and is an easy enough thing to do whilst pottering on a rainy Sunday.

INGREDIENTS

2kg mild-cure gammon (I could only find smoked gammon so soaked it first)
1 onion, peeled and cut in half
2-litre bottle of Coca-Cola
FOR THE GLAZE:
handful of cloves
1 heaped tablespoon black treacle
2 teaspoons English mustard powder
2 tablespoons demerara sugar

METHOD

1. I find now that mild-cure gammon doesn’t need soaking, but if you know that you’re dealing with a salty piece, then put it in a pan covered with cold water, bring to the boil, then tip into a colander in the sink and start from here; otherwise, put the gammon in a pan, skin-side down if it fits like that, add the onion, then pour over the Coke.

2. Bring to the boil, reduce to a good simmer, put the lid on, though not tightly, and cook for just under 2½ hours. If your joint is larger or smaller, work out timing by reckoning on an hour per kilo, remembering that it’s going to get a quick blast in the oven later. But do take into account that if the gammon’s been in the fridge right up to the moment you cook it, you will have to give it a good 15 minutes or so extra so that the interior is properly cooked.

3. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 240°C/gas mark 9.

4. When the ham’s had its time (and ham it is, now it’s cooked, though it’s true Americans call it ham from its uncooked state) take it out of the pan (but do NOT throw away the cooking liquid) and let cool a little for ease of handling. (Indeed, you can let it cool completely then finish off the cooking at some later stage if you want.) Then remove the skin, leaving a thin layer of fat. Score the fat with a sharp knife to make fairly large diamond shapes, and stud each diamond with a clove. Then carefully spread the treacle over the bark-budded skin, taking care not to dislodge the cloves. Gently pat the mustard and sugar onto the sticky fat. Cook in a foil-lined roasting tin for approximately 10 minutes or until the glaze is burnished and bubbly.

5. Should you want to do the braising stage in advance and then let the ham cool,

6. Clove and glaze it and give it 30–40 minutes, from room temperature, at 180°C/gas mark 4, turning up the heat towards the end if you think it needs it.

Have an eggroll, Mr Goldstone

Have a napkin, have a chopstick, have a chair...

I have a lot of love for Patti LuPone, and the very exciting time I saw Gypsy with my friend Lauren in New York. This is a slightly tenuous link to what I actually cooked, but I completely failed at finding any lyrics that included noodles. I contemplated going down the campfire route and quoting "On top of spaghetti" but these were rice noodles and I'm nothing if not a stickler for the details. Plus this way I get to talk about Patti LuPone and the amazingness of Gypsy. In case you missed the revival, here's the performance from the 2008 Tony's (I know it's the wrong song... but still GreaT! PlaTe! *faints*).




Sorry, I got a bit carried away there, forgetting that I had actually cooked something for this post, but first I must apologise for the photo quality. The light in my kitchen is rubbish, but I normally manage to get a passable shot. I have no idea what went wrong this time, it's out of focus and the colours are a bit peculiar. I can only grovel. I swear if my local Adult Ed college does a photography course that doesn't clash with my Guiding activities I will be there, plate of cakes and digital camera in hand.

As you probably know I'm quite a hardcore Nigella fan (the woman, not the flowers) but mainly stick to her baking recipes which I must say I largely find faultless. This month's challenge was to try her Seared Salmon with Singapore noodles (from Nigella Express). The rules for our challenge are that if you don't like something about the recipe you can make substitutions but you should stick to the main idea as much as possible. For me this was the first month I needed to make a substitution, but I loathe Singapore noodles because of the curry flavour in the stir fried noodles. I love noodles, pad thai is one of my all time favourite dishes, and although Singapore noodles has a different flavour, the idea of it is one that I like in theory, just not in execution.

Seared Salmon with Singapore Noodles - serves 4

Nigella says: I know the list of ingredients is long but a lot of this is stuff that will help you generally if it's part of your storecupboard stash. If you don't want to go in for specialist shopping at all, replace the tiny dried shrimp with about 100g of frozen prawns (thaw them first). Sherry could be used instead of the Chinese cooking wine, though I should tell you I get this very easily from my local supermarket.

Salmon
2 teaspoons medium madras curry powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
4 salmon fillets approx 200g each
Tablespoon of garlic oil.

Mix the curry powder, salt and sugar in a wide shallow dish and dredge the salmon in this. Turn all the pieces over in the rub.

Heat the oil in a heavy based pan and cook the salmon fillets on a high heat for about 2-3 minutes a side, searing the sides as well if the fillets are very thick.

Noodles
250g Vermicelli rice noodles
50g dried shrimp (or 100g prawns)
125ml chinese cooking wine (or sherry)
Tablespoon garlic oil
100g finely sliced chinese leaf
125g baby corn cut into rounds
2 spring onions finely sliced
2 teaspoons medium madras curry powder
1 teaspoon finely chopped ginger
250ml chicken stock
3 tablespoons soy sauce
150g beansprouts
handful of fresh chopped coriander

Put the rice noodles in a bowl and cover with boiling water. Leave to soak for 4 minutes and then drain.

Soak the dried shrimp in the wine.

Heat the oil in a wok and fry the chinese leaf, baby corn and spring onions for a few minutes.

Add the curry powder and ginger to the wok, and add the stock and soy sauce. Pour in the shrimps and their wine and the drained noodles. Toss everything together.

Finally, stir in the beansprouts and give everything one final toss before turning out into a bowl and sprinking with coriander.

OK, so as always, these are the changes I made, and my random ramblings about it.

Firstly, it's a lovely easy recipe - if for some reason you've stumbled across my blog and found this page - try this. Like her banana bread, it's lovely and easy.
I probably doubled the veg she suggested you put in. I just think on something like this the more veg the better, it's healthier, it's economical (as you can use up everything in your veg tray)and it goes further. All bonus points in my book.
I substitued the chinese leaf for savoy cabbage. Sainsos wanted £1.79 for a tiny amount of pak choi, but only 69p for a whole savoy cabbage. I love dark green cabbage so it was a winner for me. I used about half in the noodles.
North London is a veritable wasteland where dried shrimp is concerned - I trawled the supermarkets and grocers in a desperate attempt to find it - all the while knowing that I could probably schlep to Whole Foods and get them (albeit exorbitantly priced) so decided to do without.
As I said, I don't like the curry flavour in Singapore noodles so omitted the curry powder (although I do still have the leftover curry powder from the Malay Korma which is still begging to be used up)
Oh, I forgot the coriander. Again.
This was a lovely dish, I would definitely cook it again, but I might try it with the curry powder just to see. I was so sure that I wouldn't like it that now I'd quite like to try it as I felt the dish needed more oomph.

This bowl food, has a lovely soothing effect. The fact that you cook the noodles in stock gave some fantastic extra flavour - I used homemade chicken stock which I think made a real difference as you get the flavour without the saltiness of stock cubes. Have I done a post about how I make stock? I'll check and if not, next time I do a roast will do a post on making stock.

Things here are still quiet, reserved and a bit down, although I did a better job at being a bit more like my usual perky self today (a large quantitiy of skittles helped here). I'm making the Easter chocolate truffles with the Guides on Tuesday, so will do a picture post of the glittery goodness we come up with. Other than that I was going to have a freezer week so there's unlikely to be anything thrilling to blog, although I might make some scones tomorrow morning to take over to my sister's for a bridesmaid dress fitting. If I manage to get up and get organised to do that you can expect another post soonish.

There is a part b to this challenge which was a sweet dish from Nigella Express, Caramel Croissant pudding. As I'm a bit lacking in the appetite department at the moment I feel no real urge to make this, but I might give it a shot!

It's going to be a Happy New Year

As always for me, New Year was a quiet affair, it's a celebration that I don't really have much time for; parties make it feel anticlimactic, I can't bear the prospect of paying to get into pubs and then paying more for drinks and London itself is just bananas, and not having been part of a couple of late I am excluded from the nights in a lot of my peers indulge in. Anyway this year I decided to spend it with someone and just have a night in. I made us comfort food - cottage pie with lots of green vegetables, and bought some cava for midnight. It felt exactly right, relaxed, cosy and intimate.

I used the cottage/ shepherd's pie recipe I always revert to, which came from one of my Mum's Good Housekeeping recipe books from the 1970's. It was one of those books that was designed to help you use up your leftovers, and told you what you could freeze, and what could be made in a slow cooker and things. I have no clue where it is now, which is a shame as it would be really useful. Apart from the section on cooking things in aspic, I don't think anyone will ever want to revive that trend *shudders*

Anyway, so that was my new year, cottage pie, some winter Pimms (which I deserve commision on because I am encouraging so many people to try it!) and the heating on.

So, with a post title that finally bears some resemblance to lyrics from a musical (I'm hoping the launch of Glee will provide me with some new inspiration as of late I've been reduced to titles that actually resemble my recipe and not some vague allusion!)

Not making the Nigella cornbread stuffing had left me with a single orange and a pack of fresh cranberries. A morning spent googling for muffin recipes hadn't come up with anything much, and I wasn't sure where to go until a friend pointed me back to Nigella, and Domestic Goddess this time (I know I've been all about Feast of late). The Christmas Morning muffins were just what I had in mind, and took about 20 minutes to knock up.

Christmas Morning Muffins

200g plain flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
75g demerara sugar
good grating fresh nutmeg
1 clementine or small orange - I would grate and add the zest aswell if making again
approximately 50ml milk
60g unsalted butter, melted
1 large egg
150g dried cranberries
12-bun muffin tin with papers

for the topping:
2 teaspoons demerara sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon


Preheat the oven to 200ºC/gas mark 6.

1. In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, bicarb and sugar, and grate over a generous amount of fresh nutmeg.
2. Squeeze the orange or clementine juice into a measuring jug, then pour in milk on top till it comes up to the 150ml mark. Add the melted butter and the egg, and beat to combine.
3. Pour the jug of liquid ingredients into the bowl of dry ingredients and stir till the ingredients are more or less combined, remembering that a lumpy batter makes light muffins.
4. Last of all, lightly fold in the cranberries and fill the muffin cases or cups. The amount of cranberries specified here makes for heavily fruited muffins; if you want them sparser, use half the amount.
5. Mix together the demerara sugar and ground cinnamon and sprinkle over the tops of the muffins.
6. Stick them in the oven and bake for 20 minutes

Nigella says to split them open and spread them with butter and marmalade, but we just ate them as they were. The cranberries make for fantastic pockets of tartness in what would otherwise be a quite sweet, but very light muffin, which is quite nice with a coffee for a late breakfast.

Next time, I need to find a way to use up the huge bag of oatmeal I bought to make facepacks with the Guides, and also more exploits in bread with Mabel the leaven.

If you seek perfection in sugar confection well there's something new on the scene

I'm sure you weren't expecting to hear from me again so soon. But alongside the bread, I also made Promise cake this week.

Promise cake is a very important institution at both the Brownies and Guides I volunteer with. When a girl is ready to make her promise she does so in front of the rest of the unit, and we welcome her into the Sisterhood of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts. To celebrate this occaision, as well as going into uniform for the first time, and getting her promise badge, the girl also has a Promise cake which everyone shares. Reminding us that we're all part of a family that celebrates together.

To be honest - and this is just between you and me - the cake is nothing special. It's Nigella's recipe for a Victoria Sponge, it's in How to Eat and Domestic Goddess

225g unsalted butter, very soft

225g caster sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

4 large eggs

200g self raising flour

25g cornflour

3 - 4 tablespoons milk

2 x 21cm sandwich tins buttered (I only have one of these, and every time I'm somewhere where I can buy one, I look and get entirely confused about what size I already have!)

Nigella says that you can whack all of this in the food processor and add a teaspoon of baking powder and blitz it to a batter. I'm afraid I'm old school, so I do it the way I was taught in Home Ec, and cream teh butter and sugar, add the eggs, alternating with a spoonful of flour and then the vanilla. Sift and fold in the rest of the flour, cornflour and add the milk until the mixture is a dropping consistency.

Bake in a 180 degree oven for 25 minutes, then cool on a wire rack.

At Guides we've had it filled with raspberry jam, lime curd, and whipped cream and strawberry jam. All very popular, although apparently not "as good as Brown Owl's"! Not that I'm competitive or anything, but I shall spend the rest of my days honing this recipe until I at least achieve equity with Brown Owl! I normally let the girls top the cake and we try to replicate our Trefoil with silver balls, icing or icing sugar over a stencil. One day we'll get one that's successful. Alternatively I could learn to actually ice a cake!

To my mind, the important part of a promise ceremony, and the accompanying cake is that we share it, together, we celebrate together, and the girls remember that our unit is part of the wider Guiding family. As you can't see the girls' faces I've added a picture of a recent promise below.

Oh and thanks must go to Virna for today's title, as musical references to cake were beyond my reach today. So thank you Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and Virna!

Paciencia y Fe

More of a theme than a title, Patience and Faith, from In the Heights, another of my favourite Broadway musicals. Perhaps I should just move there since there's barely anything on in the West End that takes my fancy anylonger. Although, that said the upcoming adaptation of Terry Pratchett's novel Nation by The National Theatre is making me squeeishly excited despite not being a musical (unless one were to include the beer song? Does one song about beer a musical make? Hmm, I'm sure that's a debate for another post)

Anyway, Paciencia y Fe were much needed in the vicinity of the Pantry on Saturday as I attempted to make lime curd. I should explain, I have attempted to make custard from scratch once before, and we suspect I poisoned my little sister with it. I was doing it by hand and had been whisking for EVER before giving up and putting the not custard in ramekins and baking them in an attempt to make creme brulees. They weren't successful, Mandy was very sick. However, this was a long time ago, and before making my notes for this post (because I do make notes y'know, it's not entirely a stream of consciousness) I had forgotten all about it. I must have been scarred though as, until Saturday I had never attempted anything custardy from scratch again. Ambrosia or Sainsos TTD were as custardy as I got. The shame. But on Saturday, when challenged to do something new with courgettes, and having decided upon Flora's famous Courgette layer cake from Nigella's How to be a Domestic Goddess, lime curd was required. As an aside, don't you just hate that, when you look over a recipe and think. That's it. That's the one I'll try, only for the last line to be, "and fill with the lime curd from page 344" Outrage. However, I was organised, and eggs were purchased.

Lime Curd (pg 344 Domestic Goddess)

75g unsalted butter

3 large eggs

75g caster sugar

Juice of 4 limes

zest of 1 lime

So, having grated and zested my limes, and weighed out my ingredients, I melted the butter in a big pan over a low heat. When melted I added the sugar, eggs, lime juice and zest and whisked. Now, I have a lovely little handheld electric whisk that does everything I need it to, and it still took 5 tracks of Daniel Boys album So Close, which is approximately 20 minutes of whisking time. With electricity - hence the need for paciencia y fe. I rolled my eyes, made exasperated noises and even sang at it, but clearly it was time for me to learn a lesson and it didn't cook any faster for all my efforts. However, eventually it came together, and all my worry that I wouldn't know when that was and would end up poisoning people again went out the window as I could clearly tell it was ready.

Compared to that the courgette cake was a doddle. Basically 2 sponge cakes with courgette added, however, Nigella tells you to drain the courgettes, which I did in the same way as always by wrapping them in a teatowl and wringing it out. Fortunately I did this into a bowl as I found Nigella's batter as per her recipe far too dry. I added about 3 tablespoons of the courgette water until the batter worked it's way to a dropping consistency.

250g courgettes (weighed before grating)

2 large eggs

125ml vegetable oil

150g caster sugar

225g self raising flour

1/2 tsp bicarb

1/2 tsp baking powder

Once again Paciencia y Fe were the keywords as for some strange reason I only have one sandwich pan, so had to bake each layer separately, leave them to cool in the tin and then re-butter and line and cook the next one. When everything was finally baked and cooled, and I must say that they came out of the oven the prettiest golden brown (which was a result having made banana bread last week that entirely caught on top) although not particularly risen, but very light nonetheless. So, yes, baked and cooled, I sandwiched together with the lime curd (the remains of which are now in a kilner jar in my fridge waiting for an opportune moment.)

Now finally I have a bone to pick with Nigella middlename Lawson. Your cream cheese icing recipe is pants. I used exactly the quantities in the recipe and even 24 hours later it resembles nothing like the one I use on top of the chocolate Guinness cake. I was very disappointed, and stomped around (yes, so much for Paciencia y Fe, Olga Merediz can just bugger off and I'll skip straight onto 96,000 thankyouverymuch). However, it does taste fab, the lime juice cutting through the richness of the cream cheese and icing sugar wonderfully.

So here we have the assembled cake. Courgette Layer cake, with lime curd, and a large dose of Paciencia y Fe.

Iron Cupcake: Chocolate Guinness cupcakes (my non entry)

I think I mentioned previously about being interested in entering London's first Iron Cupcake comptetion, which naturally had a theme of Chocolate.

Being more than a little retentive, I naturally expended energy in planning my entry - an adaptation of Nigella Lawson's Chocolate Guinness cake. Duly had a practice run to see how much like a pint of Guinness I could make my cupcakes look. Result - plain white cupcake wrappers in a silicone cupcake mould (no matter what anyone in John Lewis tells you, you do need a cupcake wrapper in these) with a plain piped frosting. I then just had to work out how to transport my cupcakes to the competition, as I work in West London and this was going to be in South - normally my cakes I take into work have to be fairly tough going as an hour and a half commute necessitates this. Sadly, at this point there was a flaw in my plan. Just how was I going to get them in one piece to work, stop my colleagues murdering me to get to the cakes and then get them to London Bridge. Shortly before my head exploded at the thought of so many obstacles (quite literally in the case of my tube journey) I realised that the competition actually clashed with John Barrowman's Royal Albert Hall gig which a good friend had got me tickets for months beforehand. So the cupcakes were made - and eaten by a very grateful team and flatmate.

Next month is summer fruits... if I can work out the transportation issue then watch this space...

Chocolate Guinness cupcakes (from Feast, Nigella Lawson)

This recipe makes 14 big cupcakes, which need baking for 20 minutes at 180 degrees C

250ml Guinness

250g unsalted butter

75g cocoa

400g caster sugar

1 x 142ml pot sour cream

2 eggs

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

275g plain flour

2.5 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda

Preheat the oven and line your cupcake tin/mould

Pour the Guinness into a saucepan and add the butter. Heat gently until the butter has melted.

Whisk in the cocoa and sugar.

Whisk the eggs, vanilla and soured cream together and then add this to the saucepan.

Finally whisk in the flour and bicarb. Use an electric whisk btw.

Use a ladle to measure out the cupcakes, then put your tin/s on a baking sheet and cook in the middle of your oven for 20 minutes.

When done let them cool in their tins before tipping out. Then when completely cold you can ice them.

Cream cheese frosting

300g cream cheese

150g icing sugar

125ml double or whipping cream

Beat all of this together until smooth, then using a piping bag and round nozzle, ice your cupcakes so that the white frosting looks like the head of a pint of Guinness. Trace a shamrock in the frosting with a cocktail stick if you're really going for it (yes I was going to do this).

Part One: Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens

Or so the song goes anyway. This weekend I’ve been trying to bake my cares away. With a certain amount of success it has to be said. There is an amount of satisfaction to be derived from the creation of things for others to eat, especially when one’s appetite is absent without leave as mine is at present. That said, I’ve done an admiral job of polishing off two slices of cake this morning – only cause my antibiotics must be taken with food you understand.

My Victoria Sandwich cake is a Nigella recipe, and as a rule I fill it with Tiptree strawberry jam. I fell in love with this brand (well they stole my wholehearted affection from Bonne Maman) on discovery of their Victoria Plum conserve which is amazing. Sadly because Tiptree will only make their conserves with what is in season, until such time as we have a relatively dry summer (seriously powers that be, I’m asking here!) I’m out of luck. Until that time strawberry fills the hole, raspberry is not so good on account of the pips, but bramble jelly works especially well with cream scones. Please excuse the tangent. Jam is important to me, and I think something I’m going to conquer, having mastered the art of pastry *cough* well, most of the time anyway.

So the cake, well my Guides loved it – we have a tradition of Promise cakes that I blatantly stole from my Brown Owl, so promise ceremonies are much hoped for. Last term heralded no less than 8 promises, and we are waiting on another new member, with much whispering in the back of “cake! Cake!” And that’s just the leaders.

Anyway, so Nigella’s recipe for a Victoria Sandwhich is as she promises, easy. It can be made in the food processor, or as I choose with a hand blender (less washing up that way). And far from my memories of endless creaming of butter and sugar that come from having a sadist of a Home Economics teacher it’s a case of chuck it all in and bake. Wham, Bam thank you Ma’am. Or something along those lines.

For a two layer cake (2 x 21cm, 5cm cake tins)

220g self raising flour (I do bend to tradition and sift the flours and baking powder)
25g cornflour
2 tsps baking powder
225g butter
2 – 4 tblsps milk (Nigella says to use full fat, but with all that butter I’ve never noticed a problem with the milk being skimmed)
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract (if you plan ahead and have vanilla caster sugar – which I’ve just used up – to hand, leave this out)
225g caster sugar (I picked up the wrong packet and used light brown soft sugar yesterday, it affected the colour of the cake but nothing else) plus extra to dust over the top.

I beat the softened butter and sugar together until pale and creamy then add the eggs and flours, and finally the milk until I get a soft batter. I whisk using a hand blender on low and remember to scrape my bowl down on a regular basis.

The cake gets baked for half an hour at 220° in two tins, or if like me you’ve lost one of your sandwich pans (where? I don’t know, I swear our cupboard eats bakeware) then in two batches, ad cool completely on a wire tray.

When cool sandwich together with jam, or for more discerning audiences that Guides, jam and whipped cream, or whipped sweetened mascarpone. Simple, the first thing I ‘learnt’ to make at school, and I am still doing so 21 years later when my Twilight DVD skips for no reason and I'm home alone on a Saturday night.

Oh and by the way has anyone else tried Nigella's Basic bread recipe from How to Eat? Pages 31 - 32. It needs at least double the amount of yeast she suggests and less kneading? Am I right? All contributions and suggestions gratefully received.

The Best Pies in London

To misquote Mrs Lovett of Sweeny Todd slightly. Apple again (so probably not only am I misquoting Mrs Lovett but I'm making pies far too vegetarian in content for her liking, so I'm stopping with all Sweeny references now as she scares me, even if she is only fictional) and you'll be pleased to hear that I have finally beaten my pastry demons.

The bad back demanded a quiet weekend; last you heard I was still pyjamaed and contemplating something other than biscuits for breakfast. Surprisingly enough I managed to finally heave myself out of my bed (what can I say? James Martin on Saturday Kitchen ending were just about prompt enough) and found my way to the local supermarket to stock up on supplies for a pie centric afternoon.

First of all I made the pastry, determined that this time I would make edible pastry that would not crack and would not taste like it should be wrapped around a sausage. I just about succeeded, using the same recipe as before but removing all fannying about from the method. So I know some of you will be sad to hear that I was no longer stood on steps to seive my flour, and it's sad but true. In order to make a pie with bottom and top layers of pastry I doubled the quantities from last time.

240g plain flour

120g Trex (changed from half butter-half Trex last time)

2 egg yolks

cold water to bind

Despite having practically no circulation to my extremeties (it's OK, I'm used to it) I decided to stick with the food processor method advocated by Nigella, and blitzed up the fat and flour until it looked like breadcrumbs. At this point I added the egg yolks and 3 dessert spoons of cold water at which point the pastry dough took. I tipped it out of the processor and gave it a single knead before putting it in a freezer bag and leaving that in the fridge.

I peeled and chopped a mixture of cooking and eating apples, which I then tossed in some sugar and orange juice over a low heat for about 5 minutes or so. At this point I started to get antsy, I knew that the pastry needed a good half hour in the fridge but wanted to get it over with now. It being the disaster that is pastry in my hands.

To occupy myself I made tea, I talked to the dog, and when neither of those diverted me for more than 5 minutes. I put the Spring Awakening soundtrack on full blast and scared the boyfriend by belting a top A in Mama Who Bore Me (reprise). Truth be told I scared myself and had to have a little sit down afterwards. I don't think my back is ever going to heal if I keep trying to push my vocal range to a part suited to 18 year olds. Just in case you're bored and wating for pastry to do whatever it does whilst in the fridge here's some Spring Awakening (OBC of course) goodness to keep you occupied and out of mischief. Also, there's no top A in this video to scare your partner with. Winner.

So eventually the pastry did come out of the fridge and I split it roughly into two halves, popping one back in there (no I was not taking any chances). Having floured the worktop and rolling pin approximately 27 minutes previously, I was ready and raring to go. Somewhere in my head I had it that I should roll for a bit and then do a quarter turn and flip (the pastry, I'm not on a trampoline or anything here) so that's what I did and it was remarkably, surprisingly successful. At this point I started to get stressed as the boyfriend had decided to use the oven for meringues which weren't on the list of things to make (he was using up my spare egg whites but still... really people!) and I had no idea if the oven was going to be hot enough to blind bake my pastry. Clearly the cooking gods were listening to my silent prayers... and it was just about hot enough. Oh the pan I raved about in my previous pastry related post, not so much to rave about. Baking beans and parchment paper would have done just as well. If we're being hyper critical I think I underestimated the shrinkage of the pastry, otherwise all was good and sighs of relief were heard for miles around, along with the phrase "do we have any wine?'.

I filled the pastry case with the lightly cooked apples, and took to rolling out the pastry lid. I confess that the first attempt at this wasn't successful so I re-kneaded it and re-rolled it out, not swearing at all, although I may have been singing again. This time the shape and thickness seemed about right and I trimmed off the edges. Boyfriend helpfully reminded me to seal the edges (which I hadn't thought about) and I egg-washed and dusted it with caster sugar before putting it in the oven for about 40 minutes. I added the apple to show off. As you do.

This time I filled the unendurable wait with making a fish pie, loosley based on a Jamie Oliver recipe, that I had ingeniously not remembered to write down, so sort of collated from memory. I used creme fraiche as the basis for a very light cheese sauce that covered undyed smoked haddock, and pollock, with a base of onion, carrot, and parsley. Finally I stirred in leaf spinach to the sauce and added it to the dish which already had the uncooked fish in it. We then topped this with mashed potato and shoved it in the oven for about 45 minutes. It should have had hard boiled eggs in it, but 1) I forgot, and 2) I'm not a fan so I'm quite glad I forgot. This was served with peas (and because I'm common, tomato ketchup for me) to raving of the good sort from the boyfriend. All in a days work.

We had the apple pie on our laps in front of Strictly with home-made custard and I have to say not only did it look fantastic, but it tasted great. I don't know if it's the fact that everything was more compacted than the last attempt - Nigella is right, baking is the one time when you really do need the right size tin - but again the pastry was very short and light and this time it worked with the filling. Ladies and gentlemen, drum roll please... I think we can say that the pastry demons have been conquered.

Chutney...

For once, I haven't been able to find any musical theatre reference to 'chutney' aside from a minor character in Act 2 of 'Legally Blonde' so consider yourselves spared (well, for the time being at least.)

Life has resumed it's normal, hectic pace (thanks to large quantities of painkillers still, but the back is finally showing signs of improvement) here in chilly London, with Guiding taking up a large part of my time, work even more and sleep not nearly enough. However, I had a long weekend off work so decided to put Friday to good use. Today, not so much, I'm barely able to stand and despite intial thoughts of a Nigella Apple and Almond cake, the thought of trekking into the town centre (which takes approximately 4 minutes) is all too much - I may change my mind at lunchtime, or may continue to substitute tea for meals... we shall see.

So back to the tomato chutney. Over the past week, autumn has actually been fruitful, and for once I'm being literal and not metaphorical. I've have been the ever grateful recipient of a big bag of Bramley apples, and the insistent picker of about 3 kilogrammes of green tomatoes. Being saintly, I only kept half of those (I've yet to see what the grower of the tomatoes has done with his half!) and went to my usual fallback of the wonderful women on the f&d boards at http://www.handbag.com/. To be fair I knew I wanted to make chutney and was already kicking myself for not following a friend's mothers (I confess, that apostrophe has beaten me) example and keeping all my jars so that it was quick and easy to do, but was forced (forced I tell you) to place an order with Lakeland for some, oh so pretty kilner jars, the pie pan I linked to last week, and somewhat randomly a staplefree stapler which I was sure I couldn't live without. Or something.

A very kind poster suggested the following recipe:

Chutney:1.5 kg (3lb) green toms,

250g (0.5lb) onions,

1kg (2lb) cooking apples,

500g (1lb) brown sugar,

250g (0.5lb sultanas,

60g (2oz) mustard seeds (soaked for 3 hours),

4 chillies, chopped,

1tsp ground ginger,

2.5 cups (625mls) vinegar

1. Coarsely mince the onions and tomatoes and put into a large bowl.

2. Sprinkle with the salt and set aside for 24 hours. Strain.

3. Put the onions, toms and remaining ingredients into a large saucepan and bring to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 1.5hours.

4. Pour into warm sterilised jars and when cool, cover with two layers of greaseproof paper and one layer of aluminium foil. Tie securely with string.

So, this being me of course things didn't go entirely to plan. I blitzed the onions and tomatoes roughly in the food processor on Wednesday evening and put them in a bowl covered in clingfilm overnight. At this point I hit my first hurdle, salt. I don't add salt to food with much regularity so don't really keep it in the house, I know! I know food needs seasoning, it's just I seem to have a really sensitive sense of taste where it's concerned and unless it comes in the form of marmite, or on chips I can find it entirely overpowering as a seasoning. Now I don't care if that makes me some kind of foodie luddite, but I do care when it means all I have in the house is a tablespoon that I have eked out of a salt grinder. (Note to self: read whole recipe properly before starting) Anyway I decided that was enough and left the onions and tomatoes salting happily in the kitchen. Thursday night came and a Brownies meeting overran until 10pm so I took an executive decision to leave them salting until Friday morning and just put the mustard seeds in to soak. It didn't seem to harm them, although the vegetables were somewhat pungent when I started to drain them.

So Friday morning and I'm happily draining the water that has come out of the onions and tomatoes, blitzing up the chillis and apples in the food processor and borrowing the flatmates pan to cook the chutney in. Everything gets chucked in, stirred around and brought to the boil. Oh and prepare yourself for the smell - this is pungent stuff. Fabulous, but the smell was in my hair and about my person for hours - and that was with every window open and the extractor fan going full belt.

Anyway, it being a chuck it all in and let it cook for an hour and a half recipe, I made use of the time sensibly by finishing packing for Brownie holiday whilst watching musicals and entirely forgetting to sterilise my jars. If I were to make another batch, I would stir slightly more regularly than I did as I did manage to burn the bottom of the pan - no permanent damage fortunately, but still something I'd try to avoid in the future. When jarring (is that even a word?) the chutney a quick taste suggested that at present this is a very tart chutney, full of fruit and veg with a really nice thick consistency. At present it's maturing in our cellar, but come Christmas we'll officially open it and do a tasting session with some good, strong cheddar. But please, until then keep your fingers crossed for the green tomato chutney.

Other things cooking in the pantry over the last week; another Nigella chocolate Guinness cake (entirely consumed by cold, tired and wet Guiders this weekend) and a lot of pasta with tomato based sauces.

Come back next week to find out if I ever leave the confines of the flat to try the Nigella Apple and Almond cake (Feast ) and if I decide to brave pastry again... Watch this space!

And here endeth the first post with entirely NO mention of musical theatre *sob* it's a sad day for blogging when that happens...