Category: Fruit

05
Feb
2016

Dishiest Dish – Apricot and Rhubarb Frangipane Tarts

categories: Apricots, Books, Dish of The Week, Dishiest Dish, Pastry, Rhubarb, Tarts, TV

It’s been a while since we have had a dishiest dish – I thought it was timely that we had look at some I had cooked successfully! I made these Apricot and Rhubarb Frangipane Tarts over the break. They were pretty easy to make and tasted delicious!

And who says you can’t play with your food? These are perfect for a little game of tic-tac-toe!

Or you can give them to people you like as little kisses and hugs. Valentine’s day’s a-coming. Why give someone flowers when you can give them some delicious almondy fruity deliciousness?

Who doesn’t love

Crisp buttery pastry – no soggy bottoms here!
A lovely sweet almond filling
The apricots and rhubarb, both of which have a natural tanginess help to make the tarts not too cloying or heavy.
An amaretto and apricot glaze

Never mind saying it with flowers. Proclaim your love with pastry!

My Six Week Challenges

This year, instead of setting a series of resolutions, I was inspired by my friend Ali to try a series of smaller challenges over the course of the year. I started mid-January with 6 weeks of no alcohol. The start of February sees me trying to build a meditation practice! I am aiming for 42 days straight of meditation. I haven’t figured out what I will pick up in mid-Feb but that’s half the fun – deciding what to do next! Hopefully some things I will stick with and some things I may do another six weeks later in the year!

Reading

I have been on a reading binge – I have had a real spurt of books I have enjoyed.

Disclaimer by Renée Knight

Imagine if you started reading a book that had mysteriously appeared in your house only to find out the book was about you. Specifically about you and an incident from your past which you have kept hidden from everyone – and the only other person who knew about it is a long time dead….

I would give this one a 7/10. The plot required a hefty suspension of belief on a couple of major points but all up, a fast paced enjoyable read.

All These Perfect Strangers – Aiofe Clifford

I loved this. But I am a big fan of the mystery set in academia. The Secret History is one of my favorite books and there are some similar themes here. This is not released until March – I was given a free copy for review but it is certainly one I can heartily recommend.

Funnily enough, the book in Disclaimer was called The Perfect Stranger. It was a really weird but totally cool coincidence!

9/10

The Grown Up – Gillian Flynn

This short story (it’s just over 6O pages on my Kindle) has more twists and turns than a spiral staircase. I loved it. And you can read it from start to finish in about an hour!

9/10

Luckiest Girl Alive – Jessica Knoll

Another outsider goes to posh school – mayhem ensues book. I did tell you I had a thing for them. Do not read this if you are one of those (annoying) people who has to like the main character in a book. Tifani/Ani in Luckiest Girl Alive is awful! She’s shallow and self obsessed, snarky and mean. I am about three quarters of the way through this and I am thoroughly enjoying it. I hope the end is not a let down.

I just noticed three out of the four of them mention Gone Girl. And have black, white and yellow covers. I’m sensing a zeitgeist.

Watching

Come Dine With Me

I started watching old episodes of the British Come Dine with Me on the telly over the break and am now utterly obsessed with it. I soon exhausted all the episodes available and am now mainlining episodes on You Tube.

The best part is the narrator. He is hilarious.

Oh and there was a series of episodes with my girl-crush Sabrina Ghayour of Persiana fame.

Pointless

Another British show. This is like a reverse Family Feud where people try to guess the least popular answers to a question, the goal being trying to get an answer that whilst correct, no one in the studio audience chose. It would be a fairly run of the mill quiz show if not for the hosts – host and co host who are just delightful. Charming, witty. Smart. I could watch the two of them banter all day!

The XFiles

So excited about this. We were a week behind the States so are only two episodes in. And it’s been great. Even though I have been watching the classic episodes, when I heard that theme music and saw that they had kept the old intro I got almost a little teary….

Other Stuff

Nigella

And speaking of getting a little teary, I went to see Nigella Lawson in conversation. She was brilliant. There a not many people for whom I would stand in line for and hour and a half just to get a book signed by she was worth every minute.

Now, how about a recipe for these babies?

This week I am looking forward to cooking:

Chicken, Feta and Zucchini Meatballs from my latest Tasty Reads Choice, Life in Balance by Donna Hay. We have our meeting in a few weeks and I feel I have not done this book justice. Time to get cracking!
A Biscotten Torte from the A-Z of Cooking
Tomato, Peach, Proscuitto and Mozzarella Salad. I am the only person in my family who likes fruit mixed in with salads that are not fruit salads. Does that make me weird? Or them?

Time to share. What are you enjoying reading / watching / doing?

What was the best thing you cooked this week?

Whats top of your list to cook next?

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06
Jan
2016

REPOST – Two Ways With Leftover Chicken

categories: A Moveable Feast, Avocado, Chicken, Chipotle, Leftovers, Lunch, Starters, Vol Au Vent

Happy New Year!

I hope the festivities were wonderful and the champagne was flowing freely!!! The only downside to all the partying is that invariably you end up with a fridge full of leftovers. This year we were inundated with leftover chicken so, if you ever find yourself in the same situation, here are two ways to use it up.

My first leftover chicken recipe uses one of my favourite retro ingredients, the vol au vent shell. (Sorry Glenda, still store-bought!)

And it’s simples – mix up a white sauce add some tarragon, stir in your chicken, fill your vol au vent cups, sprinkle on some cheese and in a couple of minutes you have a super cute little appetizer with which to kick off your next party!

My Chicken and Tarragon Vol Au Vents are based on a recipe I found in a Feast Magazine but can also be found here.

My next take on leftover chicken is a more modern Chicken, Avocado and Chipotle Tortilla which you can serve two ways.

I got this recipe from A Moveable Feast by Katy Holder where it was originally conceived of as a wrap. I made one of these and took it to work (yes, sadly I worked between Christmas and New Year). It was tasty but I am not a fan of the taste of cooked avocado and even putting the wrap into the sandwich press was enough to turn the taste from delicious to awful. If you like cooked avocado, or you want this all to yourself, this could be just the thing for you!

If however, like me you do not like the taste of cooked avocado, or you want to share the deliciousness, turn it into a “pizza”

Heat the tortilla until crispy, sprinkle the chicken, avocado and the chipotle salsa over the top, cut into slices and serve immediately to your guests as an appetizer. (Or eat it all by yourself! I won’t judge you.

Chicken, Avocado & Chipotle Tortillas

Print Recipe

Two delicious ways with chicken tortillas

Author: Taryn Fryer
Yield: 1 1x

Ingredients

Scale

1 tortilla
1/4 cup chopped leftover chicken
1/4 avocado, roughly chopped
1 small tomato, chopped
1/4 red onion, finely chopped
1/4–1/2 chipotle chilli in adobo sauce (or to taste)
1 sprig of coriander (cilantro), finely chopped
1 tsp lime juice
Salt and Pepper
Toothpick

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Instructions

At least one hour before serving, make your salsa.
Discard the seeds from the tomato, mix with the onion, chilli, coriander and lime juice. Season to taste.
Set aside to allow the flavours to blend.
Just before serving, drain the salsa, neither of these recipes needs soggy tortilla!

For The Pizza

Heat the tortilla under the grill until it gets crispy.
Once the tortilla is crispy, take it out of the oven and top with the chicken, avocado and salsa.
Cut into slices and serve immediately.
Perfect with an ice cold beer!

For the Wrap

Warm the tortilla according to packet instructions, to soften.
Spread a line of chicken, a line of avocado and a line of salsa in the middle of the tortilla, leaving a 2 cm gap on all sides.
Fold in the bottom, rotate 90* and fold over one side then the other.
Tuck the remaining side of tortilla, securing with a toothpick.
Place into your sandwich press or under your grill and heat until the outside of the tortilla is golden and crispy.
Don’t forget to remove the toothpick before eating!

I wish you all the very best for 2016 and may it be the year all your dreams come true! Thank you for reading and commenting and being a part of my teeny corner of the internet. It’s a New Year – Let’s make it wonderful!

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28
Nov
2015

REPOST – Rosemary and Blood Orange Cake

categories: Cake, Cookbook Guru, Orange, Rosemary

What Katie Ate by Katie Quinn Davies is the featured book on the Cookbook Guru this month. I made Katie’s Rosemary and Blood Orange Cake. It turned out pretty well, despite some massive hesitations on my part.

If you are not familiar with Katie Quinn Davies, Ladyredspecs of Please Pass The Recipe wrote a great post on her background and work here.

One of the issues she mentions with the recipe she tried, a carrot cake that was definitely on my list to make, is a certain vagueness Katie has around specific quantities of some ingredients. This made me chuckle because only a few days before I’d had a very intense (and hilarious) discussion on just that point and it involved rosemary, one of the key ingredients in this cake.

I mentioned I was thinking of making this cake to the work girls. One of them visibly paled. “Go easy on the rosemary” she said. She then told us this awful story of how she had made a rosemary panna cotta for a dinner party and it turned out terribly.

“People were gagging, ” she told us. “The rosemary was soooo strong”.

We asked how much she put in. “Four sprigs” she said. There was then one of those talks which only happens when you really don’t want to go back to work. How big is a sprig? She thought it was the size of the stick you get in the pack from the supermarket. I think it is something about the size of your little finger. One of the girls thought it was about the size of the tip of your little finger. The internet was not really helpful. So we never really got an answer. She used four sprigs of rosemary in her gag inducing dish.

I got home and checked Katie’s recipe. It called for three sprigs.

So what to do? It was less than the panna cotta’s four sprigs and my idea of a sprig was smaller than my friend’s. But all of a sudden three sprigs seemed like a lot. Rosemary is a strong flavour. I really didn’t want people gagging over my cake.

Aarrggghhhhhh!!!!!

In the end I gave in to fear and used two sprigs. And, as one of my friends commented “You can’t even taste the rosemary”. You could taste it could but it was faint. I should have trusted Katie, I think three sprigs would have been about right. And a more exact measure of rosemary would have been ideal!

The Rosemary and Blood Orange cake looked lovely. However, my version was quite bland. This was more than likely my fault for being a coward with the rosemary; it certainly would have been a bit more interesting if that flavour had been stronger.

It was a shame because the orange flavour was pleasant and the structure of the cake was great – the crumb was good, it was moist on the inside and golden on the outside. It just needed a little something…possibly another sprig of rosemary for it to level up from being a decent, if ordinary cake to something spectacular.

The cake keeps really well but the rosemary kind of works against it – after a few days it is hard to tell if those little green flecks are rosemary or teeny specks of mould.

I would like to say I would try this cake again but currently my spreadsheet of cakes to make contains 500+ recipes. So, let’s say I bake a cake every week, which I don’t and this goes to the back of the queue, that would mean baking it again in about ten years.

Actually, that seems about right. Let’s catch up in 2025 for an update on this!

Katie’s recipe, and her stunning photo of this cake can be found here.

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24
Nov
2015

Sussex Pond Pudding

categories: Desserts, England, Lemon, Pudding

In a weird coincidence, the last three cookbooks I have read have all contained recipes for Sussex Pond Pudding. I had never heard of such a thing before and suddenly, it was stalking me! The universe was absolutely, positively telling me something. And I took that message to be that I should make one. Because that’s what the universe does right? Offers a gentle guiding hand to point you in the direction of where you need to be going.

But first, somewhat of a digression. The cognitive bias that had me seeing Sussex Pond Pudding everywhere has a name – The Bader-Meinhof Phenomenom. It occurs when a word, name or thing comes into your attention and shortly afterwards it reappears with what seems like greater than normal frequency. I’d love to know if, after reading this any of you randomly hear the words Bader-Meinhof or Sussex Pond Pudding over the next few weeks. Let me know if you do.

Sussex Pond Pudding – The Inspiration

My most recent sighting of a Sussex Pond Pudding (kinda makes it sound like the Loch Ness Monster) came from Big Table, Busy Kitchen by Allegra McEvedy.

I find Allegra McEvedy immensely likeable and all of her recipes that I have tried have been successful. She describes the Sussex Pond Pudding as follows:

“This classic English Steamed Pudding is definitely of a superior nature to most of it’s steamy brethren…it’s the only steamed pudding I ever make and I need to make it at least once a winter”

High praise!

The next reference came from The National Trust’s Complete Traditional Recipe Book by Sarah Edington.

She offers some the following explanation of the name.

“Sussex and Kent extend their rivalry to puddings – the most famous being Sussex Pond Pudding and Kentish Well Pudding. The former consists of a suet crust enclosing butter, brown sugar and a whole lemon, and in the latter currants are added. Either way, when the pudding is cut open, a rich sweet syrup, the well or pond – oozes out.”

The final book (which was actually the first book I read containing those three words was Laurie Colwin’s Home Cooking. Which you can read more about here.

You may have noticed that thus far, you have not seen any of my photos of the Sussex Pond Pudding. I thought I would intersperse my pictures with Laurie’s commentary.

A Digression on Suet

By the way, Laurie Colwin calls it Suffolk Pond Pudding. For the sake of consistency, I will refer to it as Sussex Pond Pudding throughout.

But first. Can we talk about suet? OMFG – was a more disgusting substance ever invented? This has to figure right up there with the civet pooping coffee and that bird embryo they keep getting people to eat on Survivor and The Amazing Race. I had to look it up because I was actually not too sure what it was. I wish I hadn’t

Suet – raw beef or mutton fat, especially the hard fat found around the loins and kidneys.

I am really sorry British people who eat this stuff all the time but that is just disgusting. Raw sheep kidney fat. Exactly what I want in my sweet pudding.

Turns out you can buy (fake?) suet in the supermarket and it looks kind of like breadcrumbs of butter. So not as bad as you might think. Just try not to think where those buttery breadcrumbs come from.

And that pastry? Was a bastard of a thing to make. And I was not at all happy with the finished product. It was very both heavy//thick and fragile. Getting it to line the pudding bowl was a nightmare.

Sussex Pond Pudding – The Commentary

And now, over to Laurie Colwin.

“Sussex Pond Pudding although something of a curiousity sounded perfectly it splendid….it never occurred to me that nobody might want to eat it”

No one wanted to eat mine either. The fussiest eater in the world took one look at it.

“What is that?”

It’s a Sussex Pond Pudding”

“It looks disgusting”

He comes from Kent. Maybe I should have added currants.

Back to Laurie:

“My suet crust was masterful. When unwrapped from it’s cloth, the crust was a beautiful deep honey colour”

Mine too, at least at the bottom, which became the top where all the butter and sugar had soaked into the pastry.

“My hostess look confused. “It looks like a baked hat”, she said.

“It looks like the Alien,” my future husband said.

“Never mind, ” I said. “It will be the most delicious thing you ever tasted”.

“I cut the pudding. As Jane Grigson had promised, out ran a lemon-scented buttery toffee. I sliced up the lemon which was soft and buttery too. Each person was to get some crust, a slice of lemon and some sauce. What a hit! I thought. Exactly the sort of thing I adored. I looked around me happily and my happiness turned to ash”

The buttery lemony sauce was by far the best thing about this . It was actually quite delicious. And the soaked buttery pastry was not awful either.

My host said: “This tastes like lemon-flavoured bacon fat”

“I’m sure it’s wonderful, ” said my hostess. “I mean, in England”.

The woman guest said “This is awful.”

My future husband remained silent.

Mine did not taste like bacon fat, maybe because I used the fake supermarket suet. If you got the right ration of sauce (lots) to pastry (not much) it was actually not too bad. It was not the “weird inedible sludge from outer space” Laurie Colwin describes however it is also not something I will feel compelled to make at least once a year like Allegra. Or ever again.

Although I am going to have to find something to do with the rest of that suet!

I guess that sometimes, instead of being that gentle guiding hand, the universe is a smartarse little jokester who is six steps ahead of you laying down banana peels for you to pratfall on.

And then, just as you are shaking your fist at it, it gives you a little wink and a grin and holds out its hands in a let’s be friends gesture. In my instance, remember a couple of weeks ago I said this:

I have a real hankering to go back and watch some early XFiles. I have yet to scratch that particular itch but it’s there….

And lo and behold, I was flicking channels on Saturday night during an ad break in, ok, I admit it, The Hunger Games and look what was on my telly:Just a couple of minutes before this scene Mulder was examining Scully’s butt for alien probes. It was AWESOME! I can’t wait for next Saturday!

Have a great week!

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25
Oct
2015

The Dishiest Dish – Black and Blueberry Crumble

categories: Apples, Berries, Desserts, Dishiest Dish

Black berries, blueberries, dots of marzipan, almonds, choc chips, a splash of amaretto and, of course some custard? How could the Black and Blueberry Crumble not be the dish of the week?

Close second was Karen Martini’s Sausage, Ham & Egg Pizza.

Fail of the week? The Broccoli con Anchovy from The River Cafe Cookbook. I’m not sure what it is with me and this book. Last week the rotolo was a fail. This week, I didn’t even get to cook anything.

Here’s the thing. I put broccoli on my shopping list. I ticked it off my list meaning it had gone from shelf to basket. I should have had broccoli in my fridge. BUT I tootled off to twilight yoga on Sunday afternoon planning to have a healthy broccoli con anchovy supper on my return. Got home, had my aromatherapy bath, got into my jamies. And no broccoli. Not in the fridge, not misplaced in the cupboard. Not in the car. Just a black hole of broccoli.

And yes, I could have gone and bought some but I was already in my pyjamas and Doctor Who was about to start.

This week I am looking forward to cooking:

Tasty Reads is coming up, I am going to make the Chicken, Cheese and Corn meatballs and the Raw Tuna Meatballs from the meatball cookbook. I found the Turkey Cran meatballs I made a little too sweet for my taste. I will try these again but instead of the dried sweetened cranberries required by the recipe I will use fresh (frozen) cranberries. They will bring a much needed touch of tartness. Also place the balls in the freezer for maybe 15 minutes so the cheese doesn’t ooze out everywhere.

In Other News I Am

Listening To

I know I spoke about this last week but OMG Episode 3 of Limetown sent shivers up my backbone. The last ten minutes? Possibly the scariest thing I have ever listened to.
In the same creepy vein, Mark had never heard of Jonestown until this week. Reminded me of this other creepy, but this time true, pod.

Reading/Listening

I finished A Rush Of Blood on audio, It was ok. I think the author drew a long bow for the reasons for the murders.

Am about to start Life After Life.

Watching

We saw William Shatner’s Stage Show the other night. Briilliant. We have started marathon watching Boston Legal on the back of it. It’s still immensely watchable!

Also A Beautiful Lie on ABC. This is a modern day version of Anna Karenina which so far has been superb. Except for one teeny thing…the Vronsky character is not at all good looking. In fact, Mr Karenina is waaay more handsome. Despite this, absolutely loving it.

Green Sauce – From Meatballs The Ultimate Guide by Matteo Bruno

Print Recipe

Ingredients

Scale

50g (a large bunch) flat leaf (Italian) parsley, leaves picked
50g (a large bunch) basil, leaves picked
1 clove of garlic
35g blanched almonds
10g anchovies
Juice of 1 lemon
120ml extra virgin olive oil
25 parmesan cheese, finely grated

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Instructions

Blitz the herbs, garlic, almonds, anchovies, lemon juice, olive oil and a pinch of salt and pepper in a food processor for around a minute or until a smooth sauce has formed.
Add the parmesan and blitz for another minute.

What’s going on in your life / kitchen? What was the best thing you made this week?

What are you looking forward to making next week?

What are you reading, watching, listening to?

Please share!

Have a fabulous week everyone!

Happy Cooking!

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