This week in my kitchen :: Trying New Things

 

Weekdays are busy. I'm always looking for new recipes for those days. New favourites are Jamie Oliver's Sweet Potato Muffins and Hugh Fearnley-Whitingstall's Beetroot Burgers and Spinachy wraps. If you like beetroot and felafel, you will love these. I found another simple breakfast recipe for baked oats here. I made it the night before, leaving it in the fridge overnight, and then popped into the oven to bake whilst making morning coffee. Cut into squares and then served warm with butter melting on top it makes a delicious alternative to porridge or cereals. The little squares are good to eat on the go too, and would make great lunch box deserts. 

• Mango and avocado salad with Jamie Olivers sweet potato muffins video and recipe 
• Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's Spinachy Wraps. These chick pea (garbanzo bean/gram) flour wraps with a spinach filling are extremely more-ish and very easy to make. The chick pea flour adds a nutty dimension. I've also made them with left over salad leaves like watercress and rocket instead of spinach, they are just as tasty. I love them with baby gem lettuce leaves, cottage cheese and green olives. 
• crunchy pears
• this turkey mince bake but with a potato and not squash mash
• stocking up on omega three. Cheap and cheerful. I love the vintage style packaging and wish I could do something withe them...some kind of Christmas decoration? 
• Labeling what's left of the original sweet cherry wine to squirrel away for Christmas
• Hugh Fearnley Whitingstall's beetroot burgers. These along with the spinach wraps are my favourite new recipe, made by grating raw beetroot, carrot, onion, garlic with cooked chickpeas, spices and seasoning. Just blitzed together and combined to make tasty little burgeers, these are amazing. 
• Baked oats. Love this easy recipe. It's one that you can vary depending what's in your store cupboard.

Weekend now and time for a bit of slow cooking...

Hope you have a good one, 

debx

weekend :: Whisky, date and walnut cake

Autumn...mmm...

Whisky, date and walnut cake

This is a moist fruit cake that contains dried vine fruits and cherries as well as fudgy chewy medjool dates and has a topping of crunchy walnuts. It's flavoured with treacly muscovado sugar and a splash of whisky or you could use your favourite liqueur.

Ingredients:

• Nineteen ounces of dried fruit, raisins, sultanas, candid peel etc including medjool dates (with the stones removed and chopped into pieces about 1cm cubed)and undyed glace cherries.
• Ten ounces of sifted Self Raising flour
• Five ounces of Muscovado or golden caster sugar or a mixture of both
• Eight ounces of butter or alternative
• A little natural vanilla extract
• A little malt whisky
• Walnuts to decorate the top of the cake
• Eight fluid ounces of water
• Two large eggs, beaten well
• One level tsp of mixed spice
• One level tsp of baking powder
• A little apricot jam to glaze

You will need a heavy bottomed saucepan and a deep eight inch baking pan lined with a double of layer of baking parchment. You can see how to do this here.

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 150c/300f.
2. Prepare the baking pan by greasing and lining and then put to one side.
3. Place the butter or alternative into the saucepan and melt.
4. Add all the other fruits, water, spices, vanilla extract, alcohol if using and sugar. Cover and simmer for twenty minutes until the fruits have all plumped up and the sugar has dissolved. 
5. Take off the heat and allow to cool. You may speed this up by filling the sink with cold water and standing the pan in it.
6. Once cooled down (not cold or the butter will begin to harden)remove from the sink and add the eggs and flour and mix well.
7. Carefully spoon the mixture into the lined cake pan. Arrange walnuts on the top and then glaze with a little apricot jam. If it's a thick jam thin with a little warm water. Place on a baking tray and cook in the centre of the oven for an hour. Remove the baking parchment and then cook for a further fifteen minutes until a lovely golden brown colour. Test with a skewer to ensure that it's cooked in the middle. 
8. Leave to cool in the tin for five or ten minutes. Carefully remove from the tin and place on a rack to cool further. 

This cake keeps really well in an air tight container. I think that it improves with age as the flavours mature. 

Have a cool week...
debx

In my kitchen :: lots of old favourites and up-cycling another little wooden cupboard...

In case you were wondering...

• sunset through the kitchen window
• a batch of chocolate macaroons cooling
• making chicken marinade ready for oven baking
• broth bubbling on the hob
• garden herbs and homemade spelt bread
• baked squash with tangy soft cheese and salad leaves that are still going strong in the veg patch
• porridge...the vehicle for lots of yummy berries and creamy yoghurt or fruit puree with maybe a trickle of fudgy maple syrup or earthy honey (or maybe all four...)
• baked Mediterranean vegetables to serve with pan-fried fish
• seasonal vegetable soup
• persian horesht with rice and yoghurt
• gorgeous old Peugeot shopping bike...an auction win spied through the kitchen window
• wine and pickles the scent in the kitchen fluctuates between a winery and a pickle factory...Currently Ahmad's cherry wine made from local big black Morello cherries...I may not be a fan of the aroma but love the gentle rhythmic plopping sounds as the little air bubbles rise up and explode...Until they get too violent and are banished to the shower. 
• scrumptious rhubarb slowly cooked with honey ready for a flapjack crumble topping...
• lemon drizzle cake, birthday request and lemon poppy seed muffins
• food and garden gifts from a kind neighbour
• sewing. Lots of curtain making, mostly by hand...almost zen like therapy as I work the thread...flowing from right to left like a tiny stream trickling through the woven fabric
• another little up-cycling project 

Up-cycling a small wooden cupboard

This one was a small cupboard that I bought for £8 at a local car-boot sale. It isn't very old. but well made and sturdy. The drawer was constructed with dove tail corners and it run smoothly. The little doors open easily but close just as well, and hang perfectly when closed...See, I'm learning from past mistakes to check things closely before I buy them. As you can see it had been stained dark brown to look like old oak and had antiqued metal handle and fastener. Not my favourite look unless original but I soon freshened it up with a bit of paint. Here's how:

1. Remove any handles using a screwdriver
2. Wash the cupboard inside and out with warm soapy water
3. Rinse and wipe to remove any excess water then leave to dry
4. At this point had the cupboard been highly varnished I would have given it a good sanding with fine sandpaper to help the paint adhere but as the finish was matt, this wasn't necessary.
5. Paint with undercoat or any left over emulsion paint. At the moment we always have a big cheap tub of white emulsion on the go for ceilings and new plaster so I used some of that.
6. Leave to dry.
7. Then the fun bit...the actual painting. A small project like this is perfect for using up any leftover paint or sample match pots. I had four small sample pots of F & B estate emulsion paint. It's has a lovely chalky matt texture and ca been diluted with water if you want a more transparent coating.  With a brush small enough to dip into the pot I used No 270 Calluna for the outside and NO 47 Green Smoke (the same little mini match pot left over from this project) for the inside of the both cupboard and drawer. I love the contrast when it's opened up. 
8. Paint a second coat once the first is completely dry.
9. When completed put the handles back on...unless like me you decide to use something different. I'm looking for something simple.  

We now have a cute little cupboard to hoard all the coffee we stock up with on trips to Ikea...(I know...but we love it...)

...Just need to find some nice simple handles now...any ideas...
dx