Almond and Raisin Tea Loaf - Recipe

Bonjour!

The other day I discovered a packet of (almost out of date) flaked almonds lurking at the back of the kitchen cupboard ... I also had a stray egg that was a couple of days old hanging about in the fridge ... good excuse as any to throw something together then ...

6oz/180g Self Raising Flour
4oz/125g butter/marg
1 egg
3oz/80g sugar (I used Demerara)
1 1/2oz/40g raisins
1 1/2oz/40g flaked almonds
A few drops vanilla essence
4-5 tbsps milk (approx)

Nothing new here (there rarely is with my cooking!) - mix up the flour, butter, egg, sugar  and vanilla essence with the milk to give a good consistency (add more milk if you think the mixture is too stiff - I'm sorry ... I can't say the work 'stiff' without thinking 'mistress to bishop'!). Stir in the raisins and almonds. Place in your desired loaf tin - mine's approx 21cm/13cm.  Bake on 180 deg conventional - I guess that would be 160 deg fan (I don't have this luxury at the moment as our fan oven is broken - we've had it fixed once and it's gone again so have given up for the moment!) or Gas No4 (but I've never used a gas oven so you'd have to double check!) for 45-50 minutes.

It's not overly sweet as I've tried to lessen the sugar (although the raisins compensate for this) and does have a slightly firmer (ooh matron!) consistency than a standard cake type thing (must be just the one egg) but tastes lovely sliced up and spread with a bit of butter with a good strong cuppa!

What's been lurking at the back of your kitchen cupboard lately?


Jen x


PS. Apologies ... I appear to have had a 'Carry On' moment or two there!

Hot Beef and Cauliflower Fry - Recipe

Bonjour!

Yet again I've neglected the 'Biryani' aspect of the blog so thought I'd share a quick recipe I rustled up the other night with some leftover roast beef.  My mum does a mean cauliflower and mince curry and I decided to chuck in some cauliflower I had at the bottom of the salad/vege drawer for good measure to see what happened! As as you may know, my recipes/ingredients are very 'loose' aka 'thrown together' so things can be added/taken away/adjusted etc ...

Ingredients:

Leftover roast beef - enough for four portions (chopped up)
A couple of large onions (and I had a red one to use up so threw that in as well)
A few cloves of garlic
1 large chilli - you always use a smaller one or none at all if you're a big girl's blouse (kidding!)
A couple of tsp lazy ginger
2 tsp cumin seeds
2 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp turmeric (mum always says too much turmeric will make the dish bitter to taste!)
A dash of pepper (I like garlic pepper!)
Beef Oxo cube or something similar
1 large potato (cubed) and approx 1/4 cauliflower
Coriander (which I forget to include in the above pic)

I whizzed the onion, garlic, ginger and chilli in my new chopper (a birthday present to myself!) but you could just chop/slice finely (or leave chunky if you prefer) and fry in a couple of tbsp oil until soft ..

Add the cumin, ground coriander, turmeric and pepper, potatoes and meat - I also whizzed up a load of fresh coriander and added to the pan - fry for about 10 mins ...

Then add the beef stock cube (dissolved in  boiling water - the amount of water depends on how much gravy you want - I used about 500ml), a dash of salt and bring to the boil for a few mins, reduce the heat and simmer covered for about 35-40 mins adding the cauliflower about 20 mins from the end so that it doesn't break up too much.  Add extra water from the kettle if you think it's drying up ... chuck in a bit of fresh coriander towards the end eh voila ...

We served with rice and poppadoms and a little natural yogurt on the side ... oh and some of my mum's hot apple pickle!  How do you use your leftover roast beef?

Jen x

Cooking with Gourmet Gorman - Roasted Pumpkin stuffed with Lamb Mince & Chickpea Curry - a Halloween Special ...!

Bonjour!


I couldn't let Halloween weekend go by without a quick post based around my 'musician brother' Mike's (aka Gourmet Gorman)  'frightful' culinary antics - the video is a few years old from his Cooking with Gourmet Gorman series and this particular one is the Halloween Special ... !

Roasted pumpkin stuffed with lamb mince and chickpea curry ... I don't think I need say anymore ... apart from it's absolute bonkers! I'll let the maestro do the talking now shall I ...?

Yes I know ... what can I say ... my brother is a nutter! You can see the extremely fine line between genius/insanity thing can't you?  The dish looks good though!

Hope you've enjoyed Halloween weekend! What have you been cooking?


Jen x

Apple and Ginger Cake - Recipe

Bonjour!

Every year around this time my mum and dad end up with an abundance of apples from the 4 trees in their garden! My mum makes up her annual batch of spicy apple pickle (marvellous stuff!) and various apple crumbles, pies and cakes. I have a fair few of said apples to use up so decided to try a variation on one of my mum's cake recipes ...

Ingredients
8oz flour
4oz butter/baking margarine
2 eggs
4oz sugar
4-5 tbsp milk
1 large apple (or 2 small) - finely sliced
2oz crystallised ginger - finely sliced
Couple of handfuls of raisins (optional)

Just the usual of method of mixing together the flour, butter, eggs and sugar with milk to make a decent consistency and throw in the apple, ginger and raisins. Stick it all in your greased baking tin (this one measures approx. 16cm square) and bake on 180 deg for 50 minutes or thereabouts ...

Make yourself a cuppa (or 'brew' as Dave at work likes to call it!), sit yourself down and enjoy ... !  What's your favourite way to use up a tonne of apples?


Jen x

PS. Apologies that I've used Imperial measurements above - showing my age!

Cherry and Ginger Loaf - Recipe

Bonjour!

From one sweet cherry to another (if you have no idea what I'm taking about see previous post!). The other morning I had an hour or so to spare (actually - read that as 'I chose to ignore the huge ironing pile') so decided to try out my new Breville hand mixer (£11.99 on offer at Sainsburys - which I thought was a bargain!) ... I had some cherries and ginger to use up (don't we all on occasion) so made a Cherry and Ginger Loaf type thing  ...

6oz/180g self raising flour
4oz/125g butter/marg
1 egg
3oz/90g sugar
3oz/90g cherries
2 oz/60g crystallised ginger (chopped fairly finely)
a few tablespoons of milk

I mixed up the flour, butter, egg and sugar with enough milk to give me a good 'cake' consistency, added the cherries and ginger, piled it all into my ceramic loaf dish (which measures 21cm/13cm) ...

... and baked on 180 deg (conventional oven - the fan in ours has broken) - think this is Gas 4 (but don't quote me on that!) for 55 minutes - you could get away with 50 mins if you don't like too crusty a top  ...

Then all you have to do is make a huge cuppa and dig in! Unfortunately it's very moreish so some restraint has to be exercised ... good  luck with that!


Jen x

Roast Beef and Potato Pepper Fry...!

Bonjour!

Thought I'd take a trip down the 'foodie' route again with an Anglo-Indian favourite ... Pepper Fry!  I remember various forms of mince, chicken and beef pepper fry from my childhood days - if we were feeling under the weather or full of cold etc a plate of pepper fry and rice would sort us out!  My mum, nana and grandpa were all a dab hand at 'throwing' it together using leftover or fresh meat - let's hope I can continue with tradition ...!

I used leftover roast beef and potatoes - enough for two servings here ...

Prepare the following ... 1 large onion, a couple cloves chopped garlic, chopped ginger to taste (I used 1 large tsp of 'Lazy Ginger' on this occasion), 1 tsp turmeric, 1 tsp pepper (or to taste) - I used garlic grain pepper cos I love it! (You could also add a chopped chilli into the mix if you wanted to pep it up a bit!)

Fry the onion, garlic, ginger and turmeric in a little oil for a few minutes to soften... (the method is similar to my lamb fry -  here) ...

Add the beef, roast potatoes and pepper and fry for a further 5ish minutes ...

Add hot water from the kettle to just about cover the medley (I also chucked in some chopped coriander too as I'm obsessed with the stuff! ), cover and bring to the boil ...

Simmer for 25 minutes or so until the meat is thoroughly heated and you're left with a pepper fry (think I'll add more water next time as I like loads of gravy!) ...

Serve with rice and yogurt if you like and maybe a bit of bombay mix on the side?

You can't beat a good old Pepper Fry!  It's simple but tasty and a really quick and easy way to use up leftovers!

What's your favourite way to use up roast beef?

Jen x

Leftover Lamb Fry (Anglo-Indian Style) ...!

Bonjour!

Breaking from my music tradition decided to 'do a foodie' today - as if you hadn't already gleaned that from the title!   What now seems like eons ago - in between Christmas and New Year the family came over for yet another meal (there's a surprise!) and I cooked a large leg of lamb.  We don't have lamb very often as it's so expensive but it's my mum and hubby's favourite meat and was on offer in Sainsburys (another surprise!).

There was a good plate of meat leftover and so I used it the night after to rustle up a quick and easy curry or 'fry' as my grandpa and many Anglo-Indians have called it. My mum describes a fry (loosely) as 'meat fried with onions and masalas to make a curry with a dry(ish) sauce'.

So here's the plate of  cold lamb ...

and I used the following ingredients...

1 medium red onion chopped or sliced, couple of teaspoons lazy garlic and ginger (or you could use fresh), 1 green chilli sliced, 5 curry leaves, 3/4 teaspoon turmeric, 3/4 teaspoon cumin seeds, a few cherry tomatoes (or you could use half a can),  also a couple of tablespoons oil for frying.

Fry the onions, garlic, ginger, chillies and curry leaves in oil for a few minutes to soften ...

Add the meat and spices and fry for a further 5ish minutes (without burning Mum says!) - if it starts to stick to the pan I usually add a little water from the kettle ...

Add in the tomatoes and enough hot boiled water from the kettle to just cover the meat and spices, bring to the boil and simmer for about 20 minutes or until the meat is heated through thoroughly (probably not such a good idea to take a steamy photo at the same time!) ...

After the water has reduced down you're left with a 'fry' ...

This amount serves 2  - we had ours with leftover biryani (yes it was leftover night!) and yogurt and onion salad ... very nice it was too ...!

It's a great way to use up leftover meat from your roasts and as usual you can add in pretty much whatever you like to the mix in the way of additional spices/vege etc! We're having beef this Sunday so may be able to rustle something similar up next week ...!

What's on your menu for this Sunday?  What do you do with your meaty leftovers?

Jen x

Aloo Saag aka 'Potato Stuff'!

Bonjour!

It's been ages since I've 'done a foodie' but after I watched 'Rick Stein in India' (a while ago I know!) I was inspired!   Just a humble offering of Aloo Saag (Spinach potatoes) or 'potato stuff'! as myself and brothers called it when we were little. It's so simple to make but so tasty and satisfies my carb cravings - of which I have many ...

The ingredients are approximate and you can use more or less until you happen upon your perfect combo - Mum always says not too much turmeric though as it can makes things bitter!

Oil -couple of tablespoons
Onion - 1 large chopped
Garlic - few cloves chopped
Ginger - couple of teaspoons lazy ginger (or a small piece of chopped unlazy/fresh ginger)
Chillies - chopped - amount depends on hot how you like it!
Mustard Seeds - 1 teaspoon
Turmeric - 3/4 teaspoon
Potatoes (5/6 small/medium chopped to make 4 servings?)
Spinach (I use frozen for convenience and add a good few tablespoons)
Fresh/Frozen coriander to season (I am addicted to coriander!)
Salt to taste

Fry the onions, garlic, ginger and chillies in the oil to soften - add mustard seeds and turmeric and fry for a further 5 mins or so.  Chuck in the potatoes, spinach, coriander and salt to taste. Add enough hot boiled water to steam the potatoes and the amount is really trial and error, depending on how much you're cooking. Too much and you end up with soup so better to use less as you can always add more from the kettle at any time.  Bring to the boil and simmer for about 20 mins until potatoes are soft.

When we were little we would sometimes have our 'potato stuff' with dhal and parathas - makes a great veggie meal.  Also as a side dish with curry and rice - we had it with roasted garlic chicken, rice and Mum's South Indian pepper-water the other night (because we're greedy!) and it went down a treat!

Hadn't added the pepper-water, yogurt, salad and pickle at this stage but you get the picture!

What would you eat with your Aloo Saag - or should I say 'Potato Stuff'?

Jen x