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Monthly Archives: February 2009
Boiled Cake – The aftermath!
I’m happy to report after a long baking hiatus, my boiled cakes were a thumbs up success!
One has almost been completely demolished, one has been given to my Mum and the other 2 reside in the freezer for a future date.
I haven’t baked anything sweet for so long that I felt I was out of practice. So after keeping my fingers and toes crossed last night, all seemed to go well. By the time I made it home from work today, there were only a few crumbs of cake left in the tin foil. Result!
Boiled Cake
I’m giving you all a really easy and very very tasty recipe to try…….
My Grandmothers Boiled Cake recipe.
Here we go……….
2 cups of mixed fruit
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
2 cups plain flour
1 tea spoon baking soda
1 tea spoon mixed spice
2 eggs
4 oz margarine
Boil the fruit, sugar marg and water in a saucepan for 15 minutes.
Allow this mixture to cool.
Beat in eggs flour and spices.
Split into 2 loaf tins (lined or greased and floured)
Bake at 170oc until a toothpick or skewer comes out clean.
Serve sliced as is or spread with butter, very yummy for a cup of tea any time.
I currently have 4 in the oven as I’m writing this! They freeze very well, as long as they are wrapped securely in greaseproof paper and tinfoil.
(Wilbert, if you are reading this, get your mixing bowl out!)
I have a social life!
Tonight I have a social life, quick someone pinch me :0)
Hubs and I are going out for a meal. We haven’t been out since our wedding anniversary in August last year , so it’s long overdue. We reckoned that we can leave the kids for a couple of hours now that they are old enough and finally claim some “us” time.
I’m really really looking forward to this. It’s not anywhere fancy, just a local restaurant that serves really good food. Combine that with a bottle of wine and my gorgeous husband, what else could I ask for? (except maybe the winning combination for the lottery!)
Dessert!
As the weekend fast approaches, I’ve dug up an old recipe for you all to try. Now don’t go ewww when you read the title! Despite the description it is really rather delicious :0)
Deep Fried Ice Cream
Ingredients
1 block vanilla ice cream (Sliceable block is easier to manage)
Rice paper
1 beaten egg
desiccated coconut
Method
slice ice cream into pieces approx 2cm wide
Quickly wrap in rice paper, like you are wrapping a present
Seal edges with beaten egg
Return to deep freeze for a minimum of 24 hours or have prepared in advance for when you need them
When ready to make, heat a deep fryer on hottest setting
Dip ice cream parcels in beaten egg and roll in coconut
Drop into fryer for a few seconds until coconut is golden
serve immediately.
Each sheet of rice paper will wrap 2 slices of ice cream if you are using A4 size sheets. These are readily available from an Asian grocer/food store.
Serve immediately
Leftovers
This week I’m on a mission to reduce the amount of food in my freezer. So over the past two days I defrosted the following items:
1 bag of boiled peas
1 bag of potato and carrot mash
chicken drumsticks
shortcrust pastry
a small bag of boiled ham
leftover potato soup
about 1/4 lb minced beef
2 slices chump steak
From this so far I have produced:
Sunday Lunch
Sandwiches today
Mixed ham and veg soup for tonights tea (all scoffed)
1 plate pie (for tomorrow nights tea)
4 mini cornish pasties, tea egg and flapjacks(my lunch tomorrow shown in the picture)
chicken drummers roasted for lunch tomorrow (kids)
I’m pretty happy with this as previously the dog would have had the leftover soup, ham and mash.
Next on the agenda is a new way to use up 4 sticks of garlic bread. this was purchased for my eldest to have with her mates on Friday night. She didn’t cook any of it. Grrr!!
Have to also find inventive ways of using assorted frozen veggies instead of just plonking them on plates as a side with a meal.
Once I get the freezer cleared I can do another bulk shop at the butchers. Hopefully he will still have freezer mince on offer. This is ready frozen in 1lb bags and he usually does 10lbs of mince for approx £13.
I think I will go and peruse Love Food Hate Waste for inspiration
In the midst of all this I have also managed to make another batch of flapjacks and also try my hand at some tea eggs. I think next time I make them though, I need to leave them as long as possible in the marinade. My eggs were very delicately marbled but tasted rather good!
Happy Valentines day!
Happy Valentines Day to all, I hope you’ve received something nice today from your loved one :0)
I had a rather nice surprise this morning, a bunch of red roses delivered to my door. I really wasn’t expecting anything as hubs and I were away last weekend for a joint birthday/valentine celebration. It made a rather lovely start to my day!
We will be dining in this evening with a Marks and Spencer meal for 2 as our eldest is going out for the evening.
Envy follow up
I managed after a search and a half to get my mitts on one of the fantastic lock and lock lunch sets! I’m so chuffed, it arrived last week to squeals of delight from me and much eye rolling from my husband :0)
It’s a perfect size to help me portion control my lunch, combine that with the lock and lock technology and it doesn’t leak or drip. If you place the bottle in the fridge overnight, it helps keep your lunch cool in the nifty insulated bag. Another purchase was small gel ice packs to help keep my lunch extra cool when the weather starts to get warmer.
Now for the down side……….. I had to get it shipped from Australia, grrrrr!!!!!!
Pasties and pies
Tonight I had some leftover potato and carrot, so I decided to use the puff pastry lurking in my freezer and make a plate pie for tomorrow nights tea. I Ended up with enough pastry left to make mini pasties for lunch boxes tomorrow :0)
They were very simple to make, the only thing I would improve, upon tasting the pasties, would be to add a little more seasoning.
I found the plate pie inspiration on the MoneySavingExpert website and I just used the leftover pastry to cut top and bottom circles to make the pasties.
The filling was cold mashed potato, carrot, onion and salt and pepper. When I had lined my pie plate with pastry, I filled with the potato mix and placed strips of pastry over the top. i used and egg wash to seal the pastry and glaze the top. I baked this in my fan oven at 180oc for approximately 20 – 25 minutes.
Potato Bread
I’ve been off on a bit of a tangent recently about my obsession with bento. (sorry!) So I’m now going to post a brilliant recipe for potato bread. This is so yummy and easy, yet I only mastered it a week ago, to my Mum’s shame!
The key to the whole recipe is salt. The amount used might sound like an awful lot, but trust me, it needs it. Let me explain………
you’ve heard about if you make a dish that’s too salty, you drop a peeled uncooked potato in the pan and it absorbs all the excess salt? Well this is kind of the same. Because potatoes are made up of mostly water, it uses a lot of salt to bring out the flavour.
Potato Bread (Also known as fadge, potato scones)
1/2 lb cold cooked potatoes, very well mashed to remove all lumps
1/2 oz melted margarine or butter
3 oz plain flour (approximately, you might need more or less of this depending on your mix)
Salt to taste (Around half to one teaspoon approximately)
Mix the cold mash with the melted margarine and salt. (As I don’t add salt to the water my potatoes are cooked in, it’s usually about a 10 pence piece sized round of salt in the palm of my hand. If you’re not sure add a little at a time until you reach the desired seasoning level. The potato bread will be bland and tasteless without this so you can’t omit it completely but you could try adding a substitute like lo-salt if you are worried about the level used, though I can’t vouch for how the potato bread will taste!)
Work in as much flour as the potato paste will allow. (I work mine in until it forms a thick dough. At this stage I taste the dough to check the seasoning at this point and add more salt if necessary.)
On a floured surface roll out very thinly and cut into “rounds” (I just stamp mine out with a pastry cutter into lunchbox sized pieces)
Prick well with a fork
Place on a moderately hot dry frying pan to cook for approx 3 minutes on each side, until nicely (harned)browned and the dough isn’t raw in the middle.
You can serve hot (mmmmmmmm!) or place on a cooling tray and tea towel. I use a linen glass type towel as this ensures no fluffy bits will stick to your potato bread.
Can also be served toasted or fried in a traditional Ulster Breakfast
A variation of this recipe is to make it using leftover champ. Another traditional irish potato recipe
