Happy New Year!

Hi Everyone,  happy new year! I am sure you are all as pleased as I am that the world didn't end in 2012.  After all, who knows what new adventures 2013 may bring us.

2012 saw us leaving the big city behind for exciting new adventures on a small rural island (more about that in subsequent posts).

 It also saw the arrival of a new family member in the shape of an 8 week old spaniel pup who is growing bigger by the day (there will be plenty of posts on him as well).

So, more recipes, more fun, more adventures and lots to look forward to in 2013.   Happy Reading!

Superfruits: Jamie Oliver's Blueberry Cake Recipe

As mentioned in my previous posting, I love blueberries. As they are now in season, there is a great abundance of them around, and so I've been experimenting with various ways to enjoy them.

Of course blueberries on their own or with a little cream/crème fraiche are great, and I do enjoy eating them this way.  Although they are not as fragile as raspberries for example, they do eventually begin to go mouldy, and therefore I've decided to share some of the recipes I've tried out for using up the excess.

Blueberries are on the list of "superfruits," like pomegranates and watermelon because of the high levels of antioxidants they contain.  Antioxidants are known for their anti-aging effects (while repairing cell damage).  There is also evidence to support their effects on other signs of aging such as memory recall and motor skills.
Blueberries are also rich in vitamins A, C, E and K.  I should point out, that like all fruit and veg, the greatest nutritional benefits are gained by eating them fresh and raw, but a few more fruit pud recipes never go amiss!

So, on to the Blueberry Cake.  It is a lovely, moist cake, which has a nice lemony flavour.   This tartness balances out the sweetness of the blueberries very nicely.  The cake is excellent with some fresh yoghurt, or ice cream (for a little further indulgence).

Blueberry Cake Recipe
225g butter
220g caster sugar
3 eggs
300g self-raising flour
grated zest and juice on one lemon
400-500g fresh blueberries


Directions
1. Preheat oven to 175C (that's 155C fan-assisted and 347F)  Butter and flour a 25cm spring-form* tin, and line base with greased greaseproof paper

2. Cream butter and sugar and then add eggs one at a time, beating until light and fluffy

3. Gradually beat in the flour, lemon zest and juice.

4. Arrange berries in a single layer at the bottom of the tin and then spoon cake batter over them.

5. Bake for 1 - 1 1/4 hours (was done in 1hr 15 min for me) or until skewer comes out clean.

6.  Rest in tin for five minutes and then remove to wire rack to cool.  Remove greaseproof paper when the cake is cool!

*I used a regular 25cm cake tin when I realised my spring-form was too small, just made 'handles' out of extra lengths of greaseproof to ease removal


The key, as with all desserts, is to enjoy!

Seasonal Eats: Blueberry Muffins With Cinnamon Streusel Topping

If there is one thing I enjoy about summer it is the abundance of fresh, local produce.  We are quite lucky in the UK that even fairly big cities are not too far away from agricultural lands.  This means that we can get truly local produce, if not straight from the farm gate (which is an excellent option), than at least from a local farmer's market.  Farmer's markets and farm shops are excellent places to go to find out what's in season.

Unlike supermarket fruit and veg, local produce tends to be picked at full ripeness and then sold on directly. Generally speaking, the fresher the better, in terms of both flavour and nutrient value.  Without having long storage or travel times, perishable items can be sold at their best.  Of course, this means that you need to eat and enjoy them straight away, or otherwise look into preserving the leftovers in the manner of your choice.

The soft fruit season is currently upon us, which means lovely berries everywhere!  From strawberries to raspberries to blueberries and gooseberries and soon enough blackberries and brambles it's a truly great time of the year.

I currently find myself with a whole lot of blueberries to contend with, and so I've slowly been going through recipes that highlight this amazing fruit.  We started out with blueberry pancakes, which were absolutely gorgeous, and fluffy, and tasted lovely with maple syrup.  Now we are continuing the breakfast theme with lovely, simple blueberry muffins which are quick to make and just as quickly eaten up.

Cinnamon Streusel-Topped Blueberry Muffins
Makes 12 (or 6 large muffins)


For the Muffins
1 1/2 cups plain flour
3/4 cup caster sugar 1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder

1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1/3 cup milk (approximate measure: see directions)
1 cup fresh blueberries

For the Topping

1/2 cup soft brown sugar (demerera or granulated sugar also work)
1/3 cup plain flour
1/4 cup butter, cubed
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 200C (400F). Grease muffin cups or line with muffin liners.

2. Combine dry muffin ingredients.

3. Place vegetable oil into a 1 cup measuring cup; add the egg and enough milk to fill the cup. Mix this with flour mixture.

4. Fold in blueberries.

5. Fill muffin cups right to the top (the batter is more like a dough, and will be quite thick), and sprinkle with crumb topping mixture.

To Make Crumb Topping: Mix together topping ingredients with a fork.  Sprinkle generously  over muffins before baking.

6. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until done.

(Original recipe from Colleen on All Recipes.com http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/To-Die-For-Blueberry-Muffins/Detail.aspx)

I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!

Spring Wildlife Watch

Nope, you aren't seeing double!

This posting was originally from 29th May but unfortunately didn’t get posted until now, as the camera’s memory card was playing up. With a degree of hindsight we will continue to hope that the time mentioned was the not the whole of our summer! 

Well, the nice weather was grand while it lasted but now it seems we are back to rain and wind and cold...hopefully that won’t be our summer finished!

Since the weather isn’t brilliant for outdoor activities today, I will give a quick update for the last couple of weeks. The weather has been fabulous and warm with a succession of cloudless days extending into the weekend. The warm weather brought out our urban wildlife in force and a day’s spotting in the hills tallied: several carrion crows, numerous jackdaws, a hen pheasant (and the calls of the cock pheasant – if you haven’t heard it before it is a most unnatural sound of grating shifting gears - ), a family of very noisy rooks, several chaffinches, a pair of beautiful siskins, and some very cheeky robins. There were also a rather large flock of blue tits, and a few wagtails busy among the fields. The surrounding croplands held their own share of wild birds. Over the bright yellow rapeseed fields we saw numerous swifts, abruptly scattering at the sight of a pair of merlins. The verges were busy with flocks of woodpigeons searching for nesting material.

The hill lambs are getting quite big now, and have clearly been embracing the sunny weather. A flock of greylag geese didn’t arouse much interest from the sheep, which seemed to consider them pasture residents. However, an amusing interlude passed between a large single lamb and a grey heron. The heron was busily fishing (with a great amount of success – we saw him catch at least 3 small fish in the short time we watched him) when he was interrupted by the curious lamb. The lamb had clearly never seen a heron before and upon seeing the bird looked at it with great interest before quickly trotting over for a closer look. The bird, interrupted, moved off and the lamb continued to follow it until the heron fled from the margin further out into the pond. It is always enjoyable to watch the curiosity of the young, and this lamb’s new experience was no exception.

The heron interrupted - the lamb can just be seen on the right

 
The pond itself was full of wildlife. As we arrived around late evening (loving the return of the long summer nights, it was quite a busy place. Coots sat on their tall stick nests, their mates busily and aggressively chasing off incomers with noisy calls and rushes.

Swimming with purpose

Issuing his war cry!

 Even a Canada goose was abruptly seen off the premises. A pair of moorhens were busily collecting nesting material along the pond’s edge. A posse of mallard drakes were seen “hanging out” by the pond’s edge, not a female in sight. A family of Mute swans with 4 lovely cygnets were sliding gracefully around the pond.

Proud Parents

The Cygnets

And a Quick Head Count - Note the pair of Tufted Ducks in the background

 A pair of tufted ducks were also seen making their way around the pond. Chaos followed a noisy splash and we made a quick search of the banks for any signs of intruding North American mink or by some small chance an otter taking a respite from hunting in the burn. We were a bit disappointed to see a large Norwegian Rat fleeing the scene. The only other mammals for the day were a small family of rabbits browsing along the banks. All in all, not bad for a day’s wildlife spotting!

French Onion Soup Recipe, from Stock to Finish!

Jump to stock recipe
Jump to soup recipe

It's been a rather cold and rainy last few weeks, but instead of feeling glum I've decided to rejoice in the fact that it is still cool enough to cook (and enjoy) some of my winter favourites.

Spring vegetables actually work quite well in a variety of mild broths because of their lovely subtle flavours.   Baby carrots, spring leeks, and new potatoes combine with chicken to make a gorgeous springtime soup (but more about that later).

So anyhow, last night I decided that a warming stew would be the perfect dinner for a cold and wild night.  Having had a stew in mind at the weekend shop I had a look round and found that beef from the butcher's - still on the bone - was cheaper to buy than your pre-cut boned stewing steak.  I got myself two lovely pieces of bone-in shin (a larger and a smaller) and tried out Jamie Oliver's brilliant recipe for "Melt in Your Mouth Shin Stew."  After 3 hours of cooking the meat was literally soft enough to break up with the back of your fork and the flavour was incredible.  Don't just take my word for it, you can find the recipe here:
melt-in-your-mouth shin stew | Jamie Oliver | Food | Recipes (UK)

Minor adjustments I made to the recipe (because the butcher only had two small shins - about 500g worth) was to use only one onion, a single bay leaf, one tin of tomatoes and half a cinnamon stick.  I also reduced the wine to 250mL.  I left the other ingredients the same, and the balance in the end was just right!

Moving on, as this post is actually not about that stew (though it was lovely):

Having cut most of the meat away from the bone, I was left with two glorious bones perfect for turning into stock.  The recipe, which I borrowed in part from a fellow blogger: How to Make Beef Stock was as follows:

Stock Recipe:

Shin bones (what was left from the shin stew recipe)
1 small onion
1 carrot
3 celery stalks
1/4 cup tinned plum tomatoes (the last bit left in the tin from your stew  :) )
a pinch of dried thyme
2 cloves garlic
1/2 bay leaf
generous pinch of dried parsley (the fresh definitely has more flavour, but I didn't have any on hand)
1 tsp salt
2 cloves
6 peppercorns


I forgot the garlic mentioned in the above recipe, but it turned out OK (as I believe garlic makes all things better I've no doubt this would have only improved the  taste).

The colour of my stock was fairly rich due to the addition of the tomatoes but if you want richer colour (and probably flavour as well), roast the bones and some of the veg as suggested in the How To Make Beef Stock Recipe.

Put all the ingredients in a large pot  and cover with about 2 inches of water.  Bring to a boil. Then, reduce to a simmer, cover loosely, and let the goodness cook out of the bones (minimum of about 4 hours - great for a Sunday afternoon if you are just lounging around, or while you are cooking something that takes about that long anyway - like stew!)  Add more water as needed until the last two hours when you want the flavours to intensify.

You can store your stock in the fridge or freeze in recipe size portions for later.

All that was left of the bones when they had given their all!

The finished stock ready to be made into soup!

Now my stock has gone into the freezer for later use but as I have a favourite recipe for French Onion Soup I'll give it to you here:

French Onion Soup Recipe

 4 - 6 large onions (normal cooking onions will work, adding a red onion or two will increase sweetness) (peeled and thinly sliced)
knob of butter
1 tsp dried thyme
A tablespoon of flour
pinch of sugar
2 Tbs sherry or ruby port
1/4 cup red wine
4 - 6 cups beef stock
french bread (sliced)
gruyere cheese (grated)

1. Melt butter in a large pot over med-low heat.  Add onions and thyme and cook, covered until onions are soft (at least 20 min).

2. Stir in flour, sugar and port wine and bring to boil, uncovered for a few minutes until onions appear golden in colour.

3.  Stir in wine and beef stock and cook, lightly covered for 45 min.

4.  When soup is nearly ready slice and lightly toast bread and cover with grated cheese

5.  Place soup in ovenproof dishes (or in a larger ovenproof  dish - I use earthenware), and top with croutons (cheese-side up).  Place in the oven set at 220°C until cheese is bubbly, and then serve.

The soup is lovely on cool nights when you feel the need for a really warming dish!

    

Reflecting on Tea

 "There are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea."
Henry James


As I savour my third cup of tea of the day, I think it is about time I share a post that I have been wanting to write for awhile. Tea is an important part of my daily ritual, and I know that I'm not alone in this.

As a tea-lover, I don't like to limit myself to just one type of tea. I've tried various teas from all over the world and have reveled in the seemingly infinite variety that exists in a drink made from the leaves of a single plant: Camellia sinensis.  In addition to "true" teas there are also a wide variety of herbal and floral infusions (or tisanes) which have been equally well-enjoyed over time.  I won't go to deeply into the history of tea drinking, though it is quite interesting, if you want to learn more about the history of tea in Britain for example, along with a lot of other useful information about tea, check out the website of the UK Tea Council. 

According to one popular legend, tea was first discovered by the Chinese Emperor Shen Nung, who was boiling his drinking water when a leaf from a tea plant blew into it.  The emperor enjoyed the resulting beverage and thus, tea was born.  Shen Nung was certainly an interesting man, and is credited with being the father of Chinese Medicine and bringing agriculture to China around 5000 years ago.  Having supposedly tasted 365 herbs during his life and eventually dying due to a toxic overdose, it seems likely that he would have been brave enough to try this new herbal infusion.  Therefore, I'd like to think that this particular legend has a factual basis.

This is my interpretation of that exciting day, think of it as something like "Paint" Calligraphy!

Tea drinking eventually caught on in the rest of the world, and now is the second most consumed beverage after water. 

As I mentioned, tea comes from the dried leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant of which there are two major varieties: C. sinensis sinensis (the Chinese tea) and C. sinensis assamica (the Assam tea plant).  There are also various hybrids of these varieties.


I was fortunate enough to visit the only tea plantation in America, the Charleston Tea Plantation, and therefore can show you what a field of tea looks like: 

Tea plants growing under the hot Charleston, South Carolina sun!

 The tea harvester is unique to this plantation.  It picks the top two leaves and bud on each plant to prepare for processing.

This sign shows the next nearest tea plantations!

In addition to enjoying the lovely (though hot) weather, visiting the tea plantation was a fascinating opportunity to see how my favourite drink is made.  The plantation has its own factory which produces tea for the Bigelow Tea Corporation, an American tea producer. 

I've decided to have a cup of "American Classic Tea" which I purchased at the plantation to refresh my memory.  It is a good deal lighter than your average English Breakfast, and I prefer to drink it without milk.  In fact, it is an excellent tea for making iced tea or the Southern American favourite, Sweet Tea.

Speaking of iced tea, I tend to use light flavoured teas like American Classic, Darjeeling or Ceylon.  If making iced tea with something strong like English Breakfast, I find it best to add cold water to the strongly brewed tea to make the taste more refreshing.  Lemon and sugar or fresh mint leaves may be added as desired.

I love drinking tea all day long, but I found that certain types of tea are best suited to different times of the day. I should point out here, that tea, like Whisky, is available as individual types (the single-malts as it were) and as carefully constructed blends which combine elements of many different types of tea to provide a specific taste.  The perennial favourite, English Breakfast is in fact a blend most commonly of Assam, Kenyan and Ceylon teas with the occasional addition of Keemun. 

As an aside, and to confuse matters slightly, blends of this variety in North America are often known as "Orange Pekoe."  The term specifically describes the way tea is graded (not in China, however) by leaf size in various tea producing regions.  An orange pekoe was therefore a medium grade, whole leaf black tea.  In this grading system, the smallest leaves and leaf buds are most highly valued.  At this time I will also point out something that mystified me for years.  The appellation BOP attributed to some teas that you may encounter actually stands for "Broken Orange Pekoe" and thus is really just a medium grade, tea made up of broken leaves, the type usually used in blends.  FOP means "Flowery Orange Pekoe" and tends to be of a slightly higher grade picked from the second or third flushes.  A flush refers to a tea harvest, and the value of first flush (first harvest) of the year is higher than later flushes.  The "tips" of the tea (which also demand higher prices) are the young unopened leaf buds, and are prized for their delicate flavour.

 A strong, full-bodied blend like English Breakfast is perfect to wake you up in the morning.  I am quite fond of the especially rich blends made by Twinings and Whittards of Chelsea: Twinings 1706 Blend and Whittard's 1886 Blend.  Irish breakfast tea is also excellent, and depending on the variety tends to be brighter in colour and have a strong malty flavour owing to the addition of greater percentages of Assam tea in the blend.  On its own, Assam tea, from the banks of the Brahmaputra in the Assam region of India is an equally nice breakfast tea option.

For afternoon teas, I prefer the lighter, refreshing taste of more delicate tea varieties and blends.  My favourites for afternoon tea include: Ceylon (tea from Sri Lanka - interestingly, tea only became an important crop in Sri Lanka after a disease of coffee plants known as "Coffee Rust" decimated the country's coffee plantations), Darjeeling (which comes from the hilly uplands of the Darjeeling region of India) and the many fantastic Chinese teas, including Lapsang Souchong (a smokey flavoured tea produced in Fujian Province), the variety of Oolongs (a tea made by a specific oxidisation process which is midway between black and green teas), and of course the many and varied Green Teas (a few of which I enjoy including: Gunpowder Tea and Sencha (which originally comes from Japan)) 

The scented or flavoured teas like Earl Grey (a blend flavoured with Bergamot) and Jasmine (green tea rolled with Jasmine flowers) are also enjoyable afternoon teas and may be equally enjoyed as nighttime and after dinner teas.  I find that the naturally caffeine free tisanes are an excellent after dinner alternative, and teas like Peppermint and Nettle have properties which aid digestion.

I could go on for quite awhile about the joy and variety of tea drinking, but at the danger of going on overlong I will save these reflections for future blog posts.  Now, I think it's time for a nice cup of tea!

Thinking of Pizza this Friday? Think Homemade and Save Money!

(You don't have to make a heart-shaped pizza to prove that homemade food is Made with Love - But you can!)

See the Recipe!

It was not so long ago that I was wandering through the aisles of Sainsbury's on a quest for pre-made, chilled pizza dough. At the time, this didn't seem a Herculean task, and as one of my recipes listed this in its ingredients list, I thought it would be a relatively simple matter. It was with some surprise then, that the initial quest was unsuccessful. As the supermarket is frequently changing the location of various items I thought that I must just be looking in the wrong place.

After questioning a very friendly person stocking shelves I was directed to the aisle with butter and yogurt. Here, (along with puff pastry - knowledge gleaned from a previous quest-), I found a very small selection of pre-made pizza bases and a roll-out garlic pizza bread dough. The store-brand pizza base was very inexpensive, but it immediately brought to mind some very dubious ready-made pizzas that I had tried in the past. The other base (yes there was only one other) seemed ok but was £1.69 for 2 X 150g bases. Neither of these really seemed to be what I was looking for, and the garlic pizza bread dough actually cost more than the perfectly respectable pre-made pizza breads in the chilled foods section!

I got to thinking... Pizza dough is in fact really simple to make, and if you have the time to allow for rising, homemade pizza is a really excellent (and inexpensive) alternative to the Take-Away variety.

Here is my recipe for a four-topping pizza:

Pizza Dough

2 tsp active dried yeast
a pinch of sugar
350g (12 oz) strong plain white bread flour (or 00 pasta flour)
2 tsp olive oil
150 ml (1/4 pint) water
1/2 tsp salt

1. Combine yeast with 3 Tbsp warm water (2 parts cold to 1 part boiling) and sugar and allow to sit for 10min until frothy. (You can skip this step with the active dried yeast but with traditional dried yeast or fresh yeast (2tsp is equivalent to 15g (1/2oz)this is essential).

2. (If you are lucky enough to have a food processor like me): When yeast mixture is frothy add it, along with the salt, oil and water to the flour and mix using the dough tool until just combined and then mix a few seconds longer to finish kneading.

If you don't have a food processor: mix the ingredients with a wooden spoon until combined, and then knead on a lightly floured surface for 5 minutes until dough is smooth and elastic.

3. Place dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover in oiled cling film and allow to rise (known as proving in baking) for 30min - 1 hour when dough will have doubled in size.

4. Preheat oven to 240°C (that's 220°C for my fan-assisted oven) (475°F).

5. Turn out dough on a floured surface and knead for one minute and then allow to rise for another 5 minutes.

6. Place base on lightly floured baking sheet and cover with toppings. Bake for 10-15 minutes until golden and crisp.

Pizza Topping:

My favourite combination of pizza toppings is sweet peppers, double pepperoni and msuhrooms along with tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese.

For a quick pizza sauce combine tomato passata (available in several varieties at your local shop) with half a teaspoon sugar, salt and pepper to taste, and your choice of Italian herbs (but especially oregano and basil as these are the main flavours in most red sauces). I also like to add dried chili flakes for a bit of extra kick!


So, you may ask, how much am I really saving with the additional effort? I had a look at the local takeaway prices, and for my four-topping (in this case double pepperoni, peppers, mushrooms) pizza the average price was £16!

With some rough costings (with ingredients from Sainsbury's unless indicated otherwise):

1 kg Very Strong Canadian Bread Flour £1.09
or alternatively (1.5 kg Strong White Bread Flour: £1.02)or
(1.0 kg McDougalls 00 Flour £1.60)
8 sachets fast-action bread yeast £0.93
2 L Extra Virgin Olive Oil £6.00 (normally around 45 - 50p/100mL and in this case 29p/100mL) 1tsp = 5mL
750g table salt £0.89
1 yellow pepper £0.80
700g Passata £0.99
11g Italian Seasoning Blend £1.48 (posh brand)
300g Fresh Mushrooms £1.00 (or about 89p for sliced button mushrooms in a tin)
100g Unearthed Hungarian Spicy Pepperoni from Waitrose £1.99
125 g Essential Waitrose Mozarella £0.99

This works out to:

38p worth of flour
12p of yeast
5p of oil (at average price)
35p for passata (used a bit more than a third of a jar)
60p for the sweet pepper (I used 3/4 of pepper)
less than 30p for my fresh mushrooms
99p for mozzarella (fresh ball of mozarella)
and 67p for a third of the pepperoni package.

The total cost of my pizza: £3.46! Even rounded up, my pizza is less than a quarter of the price of a Takeaway (and surprisingly even less than a posh ready-made pizza) in (when you consider the time it takes to decide, place an order, and wait for its arrival) approximately the same amount of time! In my books, it is worth it!