Preserving prettiness: Rhubarb and ginger jam

Rhubarb and ginger is one of my favourite flavour combinations. I keep meaning to bake a cake based on it, but as yet have forgotten. Most often I stew rhubarb with a tiny bit of sugar and some ground ginger to top porridge or yoghurt.

The other weekend Tesco were selling off their rhubarb for under half price. I nabbed two of the 400g packets with the original plan to stew it. On noticing that I had a tub of stewed from M's mum already in the freezer I thought a new plan was in order. So it was time to break out the maslin pan, jam spoon and jars and get preserving.

This is based on a WI recipe

800g rhubarb cut into 1 inch pieces
800g granulated sugar
50g crystallised ginger (the one covered in brown sugar if you can get it) finely chopped
Juice of 1 lemon

Cut the rhubarb up and put in a large mixing bowl. Top with the sugar and cover with a tea towel. Leave overnight.

The next day stir in the sugar - most of it will have dissolved, if you feel like it's not started dissolving, leave longer (I left mine for 2 days without incident)
Pour into your pan, scraping down the sides of the bowl to get everything out

Chop your ginger really finely (this is my favourite of any photo I've taken. Ever)

Add the ginger and the lemon juice to the pan
Bring gently to the boil, stirring all the while. Skim off any scum that comes to the surface (or be lazy like me and just stir in a knob of butter at the end)

Boil for 30 minutes or until the sugar starts to flake on the edges of the pan

Do the saucer test to make sure that the jam has set
Use a funnel to pour the jam into sterilised jars, seal and when cool label

It's as simple as that. I may have taste tested the scrapings in the pan as this is destined to be Christmas presents. Yes, I said it again.

Who can say if I've been changed for the better? Lifechanging soup. Changed up

I have oft waxed lyrical of the power of Skye Gyngell's Lifechanging soup - also known by the author herself as Sweet potato and ginger soup. From my much loved (read sticky) copy of her book A year in my kitchen it was the first recipe of hers I tried and it was a resounding success.

Of late, I'm not sure if it is to do with the migraine medication or *gasp* my tastebuds finally maturing, but I don't crave sweetness anymore. Saturday was the first chocolate I have eaten in ages and that was Green and Blacks 70%. For some reason that sugary hit is no longer what I fancy (food that crunches however? Bring. It. On.) As such, looking at Lifechanging soup this morning didn't really ring my bells. So I changed it up. A bit. And here it is.

Lifechanging soup. Changed.

2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
2 red onions, finely chopped
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 red chilli or, 1 tsp lazy red chilli
1.5 tablespoons of fresh root ginger grated
1.5 litres of chicken/ veg stock
Salt and pepper to taste
1 tablespoon tamarind paste
1 tablespoon palm sugar
1 lime, juiced

Melt the butter in a large pan and sweat the onions off until they're starting to soften.
Add the ginger, tamarind and chilli and cook off until you can smell the aromatics
Add the potato and stir until slightly shiny from the butter and spices
Add the stock (I used chicken as that's what I had in the freezer)
Cook for half an hour or until you can smush the potatoes easily against the side of the pan
Blitz in the pan using a hand held blender, until you get a nice smooth consistency
Taste, and add seasoning to taste
Bring back to the boil and serve with sourdough bread and butter

I'm having this for lunch at the moment, on these chilly, sunny spring days it's lightness of flavour yet oomph from the spicing is just what's needed to power me through the afternoon. Yum.

The original recipe calls for maple syrup and cream instead of the palm sugar, and doesn't use chilli but I like the fresher, zingier flavour at this time of year. The original has it's place and is equally as life changing.

Where did I go right: Herman, but Light at Heart

Following on from my Herman ze German post, this weekend I bakend up the leaven, substituting the cooking apples and sultanas for pears and crystallised ginger. However, I'd also been sent some Light at Heart a new sugar and stevia blend from Tate and Lyle. The information said to use half as much as you would usually, so with a little trepidation I did just that (I had run out of caster sugar) using the white sugar in the cake and the brown to sprinkle on top before cooking.

The result was simply a lovely pear and ginger cake, Herman always bakes up beautifully, and the Light at Heart sugar really has made no difference to the taste at all, which was a lovely surprise.

You'll note it's slightly overcooked *ahem* I was mildly distracted doing Follow Fridays on Twitter, and forgot about it somewhat. But we'll just ignore that. Slightly. *ahem*

For those of you who follow me on twitter, this was the photo I was trying to take when my landlord caught me leaning precariously out of a window with a camera in one hand and a plate of cake in the other!

4th Friern Barnet Guides do Random Bakes of Kindness Part 4

Barbara is a new Guide with us, one who throws herself into everything we do with gusto and enthusiasm, so her keenness for this Challenge wasn't unsurprising. She quite literally bounded into view, her hand waving in the air as I asked "So, who wants to do their Random Bake of kindness next week?"

Barbara chose Gingerbread easter bunnies - sometimes it's best not to question the thought process of your average 10 year old. And it's actually very seasonally appropriate taste-wise, if you ignore the Easter part of the equation. I think I might use this recipe again if we do Christmas bakes as part of our weekend away in December. I think these would make brilliant tree decorations, iced with white water icing and silver balls, and gingham ribbon through the top of star shapes. Plan!

Ingredients

250ml honey
250g soft brown sugar
150g softenend butter
100g ground almonds
400g plain flour
1 tsp cinammon
1/4tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground cardamom
1/4 tsp ground mixed spice
4 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp lemon zest, grated
1 egg
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
2tbsp water

Method

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C/ Gas mark 4

Heat the honey, sugar and butter in a pan on a low heat, stirring until the sugar has dissolved (we had adult supervision for this bit, obviously) Remove the pan from the heat and pour it into a bowl to cool
Add the ground almonds, flour, spices, lemon zest and egg to this bowl and mix well
Stir in the bicarb and knead with your hands until the dough is shiny and stops sticking to the bowl
Roll out the dough on a floured worktop to a thickness of about half a centimetre
Cut out your shapes, rerolling until you've finished the dough
Place on baking trays lined with parchment and and bake for 14-18 minutes
Remove from the oven carefully and cool on a wire rack

Decorate with water icing.

We found these spread more than we would have liked so if the girls decide they want to do a weekend of Christmas prep then I might do a trial run in the coming weeks mixing it up with my gingerbread recipe that I've used for Christmas Gingerbread Guides previously.

Global Fusion Taste Team: Garlic, chilli and ginger

There's been a little bit of excitement in the Pantry of late, which should hopefully produce some interesting posts going forwards. Today is the first in a series of posts in my role as a member of the Global Fusion Taste Team. I answered a callout on Twitter for team members (I'm always a bit reticent to do that as I'm never sure I'm 'good' enough - well that's not true, I know I am, I just know that this blog and it's little following *waves* aren't up there with the big hitters) Anyway, this week a big box arrived, which had he been here would have led Mark to roll his eyes and ask if I've been online shopping at Lush again. In it was, a pinny, a recipe notebook (stationery and a pinny - can Worldfoods read my mind?) as well as a huge range of sauces and dips for me to try, work with and feed Mark with over the coming weeks. Excited? I am.

So Wednesday night loomed and courtesy of a meeting at work being cancelled we had a night in together. Off to Sainsos we went with the first challenge looming in my mind. It involved a garlic, chilli and ginger, dipping, or stir fry sauce. Having spent much of the recent weeks in hotels a stir fry really appealed, with lots of veg and some brown basmati rice.

Ginger, garlic and trinity are often hailed as the 'holy trinity' (apologies for the blasphemy) of Chinese cooking, and if I'm just doing a bog standard stir fry I will press or chop a couple of cloves of garlic, grate variable amounts of ginger and chop up a chilli as my base. Initially I thought the jar would work as a sub for these, but on sniff test and finger taste I felt it needed a bit more oomph for my tastebuds. On investigation, the recipe suggestion was to add more, so lesson learned - READ things in advance Penelope. I should also say that the last time I did a stir fry out of a jar it was about 10 years ago and I intially worried that it was going to be that incredibly cloying sweet synthetic taste I remembered, however this was light, fresh and not at all syrupy.

I should point out here that Mark likes things significantly milder than I do so I actually made two generous dishes from one jar of sauce, and both those dishes did two solid meals. Mark had his leftovers for lunch the next day, and mine went in the freezer for a later date.

Pantry Prawns; courtesy of Worldfoods

1 clove of garlic, pressed
Large peice of ginger grated
(to my shame) teaspoonful of lazy chilli
250g prawns (Mark had 2 chicken thighs finely sliced, and cooked until brown)
Red pepper chopped
Courgette chopped
Onion finely chopped
Spinach
Sweetcorn
(I forgot I had edamame beans and green beans in the freezer, but had I remembered I would have added those too)
Half a jar of Worldfoods Chinese ginger, garlic & chilli sauce

In a large pan or wok, heat up some flavourless oil and add your garlic, chilli, ginger and onion. Sweat the onion off, stirring constantly
Add prawns, and cook until they turn pink,
Add vegetables and cook until they just start to soften
Add sauce and reduce down

It took, less than 10 minutes to cook this, bearing in mind I also did a chicken one that was missing the extra spices, and rice as well. Perfect for a quick, easy supper when you've been at work all day and done battle with Mr Sainsburys to boot. You'll see from the pic, that I had got out soy sauce to use as a condiment as I hadn't added salt at any point, but really didn't feel that the dish needed it - I'm terrible for underseasoning things though so do a taste test yourself, and add soy or salt to taste.

The only thing I think I would do different again, would be to add some coriander at the end to freshen it up.

So, there you have it, my first challenge as a member of the Global Fusion Taste Team... watch this space for more installments, including my favourite - Pad Thai!

Ginger: Does everything Fred does, but backwards and in heels

Or at least perks up biscuit recipes no end. This Sunday, with the recent acquisition of a pot of candied ginger, and nothing to do except watch the rain and prep for Guides I decided to make some ginger biscuits. There must have been something in the air, as Jules from Trainee Domestic Goddess had the same idea.

I knew I didn’t want to make ginger nuts, as much as I love them I am yet to find a recipe that accurately replicates the crunchy and fiery biscuit that seems to have been made for dunking alone. Before I open up any cans of worms, this is my blog and as such I get ultimate veto. The judges decision is that: Dunking is to be encouraged, but only with worthy biscuits such as the ginger nut.

My stack of cookery books did little to help in my quest; I’ve already tried and put post in notes on the varying ginger biscuit recipes that weren’t up to scratch, so with a sinking heart I decided to approach Google. Now for most things in life that I don’t know, the answer is Google it. Recent queries have included:

How to tie a friendship knot in a necker?
What are the actions to ‘Alive. Alert. Awake. Enthusiastic’?
Gordon Ramsey F word lasagne recipe

So as you can see, whatever the question Google generally has the answer, with great faith I entered the search criteria ‘ginger biscuit recipe’ hoping that someone somewhere would have one that I would like. The proliferation of recipes for Gingerbread men saddened me, as without an appropriate cutter I had little hope of making those, and was getting progressively more excited each time I saw one as I went through my search results). Note to self, definitely buy the next gingerbread man cutter I see – this is a necessity.

Eventually I found a blogger - Carla Nayland who seemed to have a recipe that:

a) Sounded interesting
b) That I had all the ingredients to in the cupboard and so didn’t need to get changed out of my yoga pants and Popular t-shirt.

c) Was in old measurements. Does anyone else find recipes in pounds and ounces distinctly comforting?

So off I pottered… I did make some changes, so this isn't exactly the same as hers, although the method is.

Carla Nayland Historical Fiction: April recipe: Stem ginger biscuits

4oz butter

2 tablespoons golden syrup (when measuring this out, fill a teacup with boiling water and dip your spoon in it before each spoon of syrup and it'll slip straight off)

1 oz sugar

4 oz candied ginger (this is doubled from the original recipe - I considered blitzing it to a paste, but wanted the textural difference)

6 oz self-raising flour

2 teaspoons ground ginger (again I doubled it)

Put the butter, syrup and sugar in a saucepan and heat gently until the butter has melted and the sugar dissolved. Remove from the heat.

Stir in the flour, ground ginger and candied ginger. Mix thoroughly. It should form a soft dough that leaves the sides of the pan clean.

Put teaspoonfuls of the mixture onto a greased baking tray, spaced about 1 inch (approx 2-3 cm) apart to allow room for the biscuits to spread as they cook.

Carla says that she, usually gets 30 biscuits out of the quantities given, but using a teaspoon I probably got half that...

Bake at about 180 C (approx 375 F) for about 15 minutes until the biscuits are golden brown and set.

Remove from the tray and cool on a wire rack. Store in an airtight tin. If they get the chance, they keep for up to 2 weeks (they lasted 24 hours in this house!)

The biscuits were nice, I should have probably flattened them with a fork, and remember thinking that I needed to do that so I have no idea why I forgot. They could still be more gingery, and I had already added more than the recipe suggested but I do like things fiery and if I were to do it again, I might add some pepper aswell, although then I'm crossing over into Christmas tree biscuit territory. Overall though, the quest for the perfect ginger biscuit recipe continues apace.

I picked our first rhubarb of the year this weekend, and as my flatmate had already wowed us with her rhubarb fools (I forgot to take photos but they were lush) I made a fruit compote with apples, tea soaked sultanas, cinammon and more ginger. It tastes amazing on porridge and makes me feel like I'm being super healthy in the morning - probably at least in part to the tartness of the rhubarb.

Rhubarb, rhubarb: Crumble, crumble

I believed my drama teacher (snaps to Mr Davis) for years when he taught us to mouth "rhubarb rhubarb" to make it look as though we were talking when not the focus of a scene in the school play. And this was someone who took our school plays extremely seriously; I was in Brecht's "Caucasian Chalk Circle" at 13! Never were we subjected to *shudders* "Children's theatre" and his tolerance for my love of musicals was less convincing (although he came to see me in every single one I did) than my turn as about 7 characters in a 6 hander adaptation of "Under Milk Wood." Seven layers of under-dressing, and the payoff? I got to meet Max Bygraves! Oh yes... I had made it! Still, Mr Davis clearly gave me a good grounding in appropriate onstage behaviour, how to 'become' your character, and of course, projection which I make use of daily in my work as a Learning & Development officer. Yup. Score there on the career front Penelope!

But back to the question in hand. Rhubarb. I finally moved house a fortnight ago and am loving the new flat. I'm back in North London (my spiritual home) back Guiding on a regular basis, and am even nearly unpacked. My new flatmate, showed me around the garden (yes, we have a garden! Squee!) and pointed out a rhubarb plant that 'needed' using up before it spoiled. Well in my role as new flatmate, I clearly felt it my duty, to be thrifty, and to demonstrate my skills in the kitchen. So, out of boxes came the Nigella cookware - and I'm sorry but if you don't swoon at the duck egg blue china then you must be either unwell or insane. And that's not an opinion. It's fact. Well, in my world anyway - so it was time for crumble.

As with cookware, I fall the same way with baking recipes, so went back to basics with Nigella and How to Eat. Nigella loves rhubarb (and although I have yet to go as far as her rhubarb vodka) and her recipes, whilst simple really do work with both the flavour and the texture of the fruit. In Domestic Goddess and Feast, she alters her crumble recipe, but I wanted plain and simple so that I could vary it slightly with flavours that I know marry well.

I don't know about you, but crumble was the first thing I learnt to make in Home Economics (same school as the heavenly, influential Mr Davis; teacher from the other end of the spectrum entirely). I remember vividly the excitement of taking in our ingredients (tinned apple? No, I have no idea why either, flour, margarine, sugar) and bringing home our crumbles. Mum was duly impressed, and I was thrilled. I was already able to make flapjacks, and New Zealand biscuits, as well as help Mum with regular dinners, but in my eyes, this was 'proper' cooking. Not just watching and copying, but being TAUGHT technique. It was overrated. Rubbing in is just that, although I find it oddly soothing these days.

Like so much when baking; rubbing in takes me out of that world of office politics, of activity planning, of my disastrous love life and important decisions about whether or not to bid on an Orla Kiely handbag on Ebay (decision yes, some git outbid me at the last second. I'm still bitter). This week has been a struggle for me healthwise, but I managed to sit at the table and rub the butter into the flour. Somewhere along the line in the moves I have lost my vanilla sugar so soft brown sugar was added to this, along with about half a cup of oats. I don't always add oats to crumble, but it adds a lovely texture to the topping. I spread this over the chopped up rhubarb that I had tossed in some sugar and fresh grated ginger. I know I should probably use the stem ginger in syrup but the thought of it makes me feel nauseous. I have no reason for this apart from the gloopiness (it's a word).

Speaking of the rhubarb, I actually picked it! This was exciting. The recipe had called for 750g of trimmed rhubarb and I have to confess that I had no idea how much I would need to pick. No idea at all; some days that Felicity Kendall fantasy just steps further away I just know that she would have known instinctively. *Sigh* Still, it only took three trips to the bottom of the garden to get about the right amount. I chopped the leaves off - I'm still convinced that they're poisonous despite people telling me the opposite. Anyway once I had gathered enough, I chopped the stems up into about 5cm pieces (I say about, because truthfully I have no idea without holding a ruler in my hand how long 5cm is. And I may be retentive, but even I don't chop rhubarb whilst holding a ruler!)

So this is a very long winded way of telling you that the crumble was bloody gorgeous. Of course, only I could make crumble on the hottest week of the year without the foresight to buy icecream to go with, but natural yoghurt made a refreshingly tart addition to the tasty fruit and crumble combo. My proudest moment, at a Guiding meeting the next day, receiving a text from the new flatmate "That crumble is bloody gorgeous" Ladies and Gentlemen, the pantry has reopened, and I am back!

Healing food: Salmon and greens

Firstly I should apologise for the dearth of posting over the last week or so. I've been feeling unwell since Sunday (which was entirely my own fault and due to the vast quantity of wine consumed on Saturday), but when I was still horribly poorly on Tuesday I realised that I had probably just done my usual and got myself run down. Scarily for me this usually precedes a chest infection so I've been doing my utmost to heal myself. This has meant lots of rest, fluids and fairly simple food.

Today I've worked from home and in a final bid to kill or cure, I made my stock healing meal. Fish, cooked in sherry, soy, chilli, garlic and ginger with pak choi and brown rice. It's not particularly posh and neither is it difficult, but it feels insanely healthy and the simplicity of it really does appeal to me when I'm unwell.

All I do is splash some sherry in a bowl, and add 2 grated cloves of garlic, lots of grated ginger, and 2 whole red chillis chopped up. I then add lots of soy sauce to this and just taste to check how it is.

I then line a baking tray with foil and place on this the pak choi (stems/ leaves/ technical term anyone?). On top of this goes the fish (I used salmon today as that's what I had in) and then the soy/ sherry mixture is poured over the top. I then close the foil up tight to make a parcel and bake it in the oven for about half an hour. While this is cooking I boil the rice (yes, still doing rice a la Delia - it's faultless so I see no reason to change).

Et voila! A big bowl of simple, healing food. This plus an early night, will hopefully sort me for once and for all!

Life changing soup

And I'm not even stretching the truth! At all... I discovered this soup recipe thanks to one of the wonderful women over at Handbag.com on the f&d forum, and I adore it.

Soup is pretty much a food group all by itself as far as I'm concerned, it's an amazing way to increase my vegetable intake (and use up my vegetables), and it hits the key targets for a busy working woman (that's me in case you were confused) of being quick, easy and healthy. At this time of year, it really is a key staple in my diet. However, my stock recipe is what I call 'Saturday soup' (TM) where I use up all the leftover veggies from the last weeks veg box, boil them in stock until soft and blend until smooth. That's it. Hardly Masterchef material. As you will know I also extended my repertoire early on in my blogging days to include Celeriac and carrot which is yummy, and a 'proper' recipe.

That pales into insignificance when up against 'Life changing soup' aka Sweet potato and ginger. It's a recipe from the Skye Gyngell book "A year in my kitchen " and really showcases her understanding of balancing sweet, sour, salty and hot flavours. The basis for the soup is sweet potatoes, red onion and ginger, cooked in vegetable stock. This in itself is amazing... and then you add some (seemingly odd) extras: cream, maple syrup, lime juice and tamari paste (or soy sauce). I have to confess I don't understand how these change the flavour of what is a tasty, but fairly standard soup, into the realms of life changing. But oh dear Lord, they do. They so do. Buy the book, try the recipe and see for yourself... life changing soup...