Day 2 of National Vegetarian Week…..

…..and it’s that perennial Middle Easters favourite, hummus, or no, that should be humous, no, spellcheck is telling me “humus” (actually, I’ve seen it spelt about 5 different ways so take your pick). Doesn’t really matter. If you’ve not had it before, it’s a great dip which is widely eaten in all countries round the Mediterranean and Middle East, Greece, Turkey, Lebannon, Israel, Palestine, and so on round north Africa. And it’s simple, tasty and easy to make. Years ago I even saw a television program that claimed that it can act as an anti-depressant and promotes long life (and if I can find a link I’ll post it).

The one that I like to make is based on a book I received a couple of years ago as a ‘Secret Santa’ present called The Greek Vegetarian by Diane Kochilas and which is well worth a read. Not many photos, but the ones that are there fill me with longing (and not just for the food – one of my best holidays was spent in the small town of Tolon on the Greek mainland. Bliss). She lists it as part of a stuffing for grape leaves, along with rice and parsley, but on it’s own, her humous is one of the most delicious things I’ve tasted.

Humous

1. 2 tbsp tahini paste (available from mist major supermarkets or from heath food stores)
2. 1 cup of water
3. Strained juice of 2 lemons
4. 2 x 400g tins of chickpeas
5. 4 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped finely
6. 0.5 tsp cayenne pepper
7. 0.5 tsp paprika
8. 1 tsp ground cumin
9. salt to taste
10. 1 tbsp olive oil

Blend the tahini, water and lemon juice from one lemon in a food processor. Add the chickpeas, spices and garlic and pulse until you have a texture that you’re happy with. Some people like it smooth, some with a bit more texture. Check your seasoning and add more lemon juice if you like. Leave it for an hour or two for the flavours to amalgamate. Sprinkle a little good olive oil and a dusting of paprika on top before serving.

It’s good with breadsticks, pitas, crisps…..anything to scoop it into your mouth.

Happy National Vegetarian Week!!!!!

Yes, it’s that time of year again.

(to be read in your best Peter Greaves voice) -My plan – if I choose to accept it – is to update this blog daily for the next 7 days. This recording will self destruct in 10 seconds (you may want to leap out of the phone box now).

And if you weren’t alive during the 60′s and 70′s and have only ever seen the rebooted Tom Cruise version, you’ll now be totally confused.

However that may be, we’re going to start with a bang today because today is (pause for fanfare) my son, Alexander’s 16 birthday. Yay!!!!!!

 

16 is a BIG birthday here in Scotland.  He can now get married without parental consent, move out, babysit, get a licence for a moped or a glider, or even buy wine or beer to go with a meal. Of course, if he tried to do any of them (except perhaps the babysitting) I’d go ballistic.

Chocolate Birthday Cake

1. 50g/2oz cocoa powder
2. 6 tbsp boiling water
3. 3 free-range eggs
4. 4 tbsp milk
5. 175g/6oz self-raising flour
6. 1 rounded tsp baking powder
7. 100g/4oz baking spread or soft butter
8. 300g/10oz natural caster sugar
9. 200g pack cream cheese
10. 500g icing sugar
11. 1tsp vanilla extract
12. 100g block of milk chocolate

Grease and line two 8″ (20cm) loose bottomed sandwich tins, and pre-heat your oven to 180C. Mix the cocoa powder and the boiling water together into a thick paste. Cream the eggs and butter together and then add all the rest of the ingredients EXCEPT the last 4. These are for the icing and decoration. Then finally add the cocoa paste. Mix it until thoroughly incorporated. Split the mixture between the two sandwich tins and bake for 30 minutes or until a skewer inserted into cake comes out clean.While the sponges are cooling whisk the icing sugar, vanilla extract and the cream cheese together. It will look runny, but leave it in the fridge till the sponges are cold and it’ll thicken up. Place the bottom sponge on a cake stand and smear 3 or 4 dollops of the icing over the top before carefully placing the other sponge on top of it. Pour the rest of the icing (you may not need it all and be careful as it can dribble over the edge of the cake stand) and gently push it out to the edge of the sponge. It will slowly drop down and cover the sides of the sponges. Either grate, or use a potato peeler (or a cheese slicer), the block of chocolate over the top. This will give you a really nice  looking cake.

Even if I do say so myself

 

Fritter Me This, Fritter Me That…

So. What do you do when you’ve got the bananas in the fruit bowl and they’re going a little more brown than you’re comfortable with? Yet more banana bread? And what’s this? A pineapple that you bought, planning to do something ‘interesting’ with (which is never adequately explained) is also eyeing you forlornly whenever you slink past it?

Goodness, that’s four sentences in a row with question marks after them. So I better come up with something nice. I really don’t want banana bread. It’s good. It’s very good. But you can have to much of a good thing, don’t ya know. And a pineapple? I’d got my recipe books out and saw a preserve made with one, but sometimes you just can’t………..be………………bothered. So, time to man up, and admit that if all else fails I have two default programs. Number one is to slap a bit of pastry on top and pretend that what’s underneath isn’t, in fact, leftovers, but something that you’ve just made specially for the occasion, and number 2 is to deep fry it and smother it in syrup. Guess which one I went for

Banana and Pineapple Fritters

1. 1 large ripe pineapple, peeled, cored and sliced into rounds
2. 3 or 4 ripe bananas, peeled, halved and sliced lengthways
3. 200g self raising flour
4. 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
5. 1 tsp cinnamon (or you could use nutmeg/mixed spice etc.)
6. enough cold water to make a thick batter (some people use sparkling water as this makes the batter really light, but normal tap water is fine)
7. 0.5lt of sunflower oil (or any flavourless oil)
8. 2 tablespoons of icing sugar with another teaspoon of cinnamon nutmeg/mixed spice etc.) mixed through it.
9. Syrup of your choice for drizzling. I adore golden syrup, but you can use maple. I recently found flavoured golden syrups and the one in the photos are drenched in Tate & Lyles Butterscotch Golden Syrup.

Prepare the fruit first. Peel core and slice the pineapple and peel and slice the bananas. Set aside while you mix the flour, bicarb and cinnamon together with enough water to make a thick batter. A whisk will help make sure there are no lumps.  Now set the batter aside and fill a deep frying pan or a saucepan with the oil to the depth of about 2cm. Heat the oil until it’s shimmering and a drop of the batter rises to the surface of the oil within a couple of seconds.

Dip the fruit into the batter to coat it and gently drop them into the oil. Leave for about a minute and then, using metal tongs, turn them over to cook on the other side. Once they’re an even golden brown, take them out and keep them on some kitchen towels to drain while you continue to cook some more. Only do a few at at time to avoid overcrowding the pan. Once you’ve made them all, put the icing sugar into a sieve and dust them with it before taking to the table.

I served it with some Ben & Jerry’s “Fossil Fuel” ice cream.

And I’m really beginning to wish I wasn’t sitting here writing this and looking at these photos while I’m on one of my ‘fasting’ days on the 5:2 diet

Soup, Soup, Glorious Soup

…..nothing quite like it for making you poop.

Sorry, it was the only word that came to mind while I’m sitting here at the computer. Possibly inspired by a wee ‘accident’ by one of my dogs earlier this morning 

But, and I can’t quite believe that I’m saying this, it’s still soup weather here. Although the rest of the country has had lots of snow  this winter, the west of Scotland has escaped relatively unscathed. But it is bitterly cold still. So, instead of lighter foods, salads and even possibly an early barbecue, we’re still hunkering down with soups, stews and wrapping up well when we go outside.

One of the nicest soups I know how to make is a spicy ‘Thai’ inspired Butternut squash soup that I first had at a dinner party (doesn’t that sound nice and posh?) and made for me by my best friend. I took a spoonful and stopped dead. She thought it meant that I hated it. On the contrary – I was savouring every single delicious bit of it. I couldn’t believe that it was made with just 6 ingredients.

Thai Style Butternut Soup

1. 1 medium Butternut squash, peeled, deseeded and diced into 1cm chunks
2. 400ml tin of coconut milk
3. 2lt vegetable stock (made with a stock cube is fine)
4. 1 large onion, peeled and chopped
5. 2tbsp curry paste
6. olive oil for frying

Place the chopped butternut squash and the onion into a large pan and drizzle with some olive oil. Stir the vegetables to make sure they’re well coated and then place over a low heat and allow them to cook until they’ve started to soften. Add the curry paste and stir through the. Keep stirring to make sure it doesn’t catch and after a minute, add the liquids. Reduce the heat and allow the soup to simmer until the squash is soft and can be easily squashed.

Let the soup cool slightly, as if any of it splashes on you, it’ll burn, and then either put it into a liquidiser in batches to make it smooth, or else you can go in with a stick blender – which also cuts down on the washing up

And do you remember Lucy, my cake loving cat? I was making some Chelsea Buns (didn’t quite work out, I’ll need more practice) and she was hiding behind the Butternut squash waiting her chance to grab some!!!!!

Little minx!!!!!!!

 

Too Hot? Too Cold? Or Just Right?

I bought a book. About porridge. No, not Goldilocks and the 3 Bears (yes, you know who I’m talking about……..burglar, vandal and thief. She breaks into the house, smashes up the chairs, eats the porridge, and finally trashes the bedroom), but Porridge: Oats and their Many Benefits. It’s a very interesting book. Not only gives you some really nice looking recipes, but also looks at the health benefits, gives you some beauty treatments, and looks at the history of these unassuming little grains. However, I was rather surprised that, even though the author gives recipes for ‘traditional porridge, basic porridge’ and another two listed as ‘Traditional Scottish Porridge’, nowhere does she list the way that I, my Mother AND my Grandmother (all Scots to our bones) make/made it. All of these recipes list cooking the oats with the milk. I can tell you that I have spat out porridge made like this (yes, there is a hotel I will not darken the door of who served this abomination to me once).

‘Proper’ Scots Porridge

1. 1 cup of porridge oats
2. 2.5 cups of water
3. 1 cup of milk
4. 0.5 tsp of salt

Place the water, the oats and the salt in a saucepan and heat gently while stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. After about 5 minutes it will thicken and become gloopy. Pour into a bowl. Keep your milk separate. If you add it, it will cool the porridge down. Take a little bit of milk onto your spoon and then a little bit of porridge. Eat. You may, if you are like me, even add a little more salt.

Oh, and do you like the bigger photos? I’m trying them as an experiment.

Lady Marmalade

Have you ever noticed that sometimes the sizing of bakeware can be a bit…..arbitrary? I’ve got a decent selection. I’ve got 6, 7, 8 and 9 inch cake tins, 7 and 8 inch sandwich tins, some muffin trays and some cupcake trays. They’ll get you through most recipes. What I can’t abide is when a recipe calls for 8 and a quarter inch, or 5 and two thirds inch measurements. Or, as I found out this morning. a tea loaf recipe that calls for 1 and a half pound loaf tins. What? I have 1 pound and I have 2 pound. I’ve never needed anything else. So should I try cutting a third off the amounts and squeeze into the 1 pound? Or should I scale up and see if I can make it into the 2 pound tin. I sat and looked at it. For an awful long time. So how does my solution strike you? Double everything and, instead of having enough for a 1 and a half pound tin, I’ll have enough for 3 pounds that I can then split it between a 1 and a 2 pound tin. All I’ll have to do is keep an eye on the timings.

So I’ll add that to the list of things that really irritate me (a thankfully small list and, to be honest, I’m also thankful that it’s all I’ve got to worry about). The other main cookery related one is manufacturers inability to make bottles of spices wide enough to get a teaspoon into.

Marmalade Teabread

1. 400g plain flour
2. 2 eggs
3. 2 tsp ground ginger
4. 2 tsp baking powder
5. 100g softened butter or margarine
6. 100g sugar
7. 8 tbsp marmalade
8. 6 tbsp milk

Grease your loaf tins, and line them to make getting the finished product out easier. Yes, even if they’re non stick. I’ve discover that you can still cheat a little bit and just do what I call half lining. It also makes lifting the cake out easier.

Put the flour, ginger and baking powder into a large bowl and mix them together to make sure that you haven’t got any clumps of ginger sticking together (much as I love ginger, a big mouthful can be a bit much). And the butter, sugar, eggs, marmalade and about 4 tablespoons of the milk. Mix together with an electric whisk until you have a soft dough. You may need to add the rest of the milk to achieve the right consistency.

Spoon the mixture into the prepared tins and bake in a pre-heated oven at 170C for 50 minutes to an hour.

Allow to cool before serving, spread with butter and a good hot cup of tea.

Oh, and can we have an unbiased opinion from our independent judges?

“Wuffwuff – if we sit here long enough, she’s bound to drop some eventually – wuffwuff.

And there you have it

Meat Free Mondays?

Or how about Vegan Mondays? As I’m already a vegetarian, I’m already doing meat-free on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wed……well, you get the idea. So I’ve decided (actually, it’s more like ‘we’ve’ decided, as this was originally Katy’s idea) to try and go Vegan for one day a week. There are a few dietary differences between Vegetarian and Vegan. According to the Vegetarian Society’s website:

“Someone who lives on a diet of grains, pulses, nuts, seeds, vegetables and fruits with, or without, the use of dairy products and eggs. A vegetarian does not eat any meat, poultry, game, fish, shellfish or by-products of slaughter.”

A Vegan however, doesn’t partake of any animal product at all. No eggs, milk, cheese, honey (some people call themselves ‘Beegans’, which is just plain stupid in my book). They also don’t wear any silk, wool, leather, and any products for cleaning, for example, are likewise animal free and not tested on animals either. I already don’t wear leather or use make-up or cleaners that aren’t animal friendly or tested on them either. So it’s a step further along the path and one that I’ve been thinking about for a while. But a life without cheese? Aah, that’s the hardest step for me. We shall see.

Okay, back to my first attempt at vegan baking.  I have been reliably informed that when baking, a tablespoon of apple sauce makes a good replacement for an egg. Likewise, there are suitable spreads and milks available at my local Co-Op.  So off I trotted and came back with Vitalight (which I can’t see without that stupid song from their advert popping into my head), some almond milk, and a jar of own make apple sauce. I also decided to try one of the recipes from my new book, Karon Grieve’s ‘Simply Scottish Cakes and Bakes’. So, now I’ve got my ingredients and my basic recipe, let’s see how we get on……

Basic Scones

1. 225g self raising flour
2. 1 tablespoon sugar
3. pinch of salt
4. 90g Vitalight spread
5. 1 tbsp apple sauce
6. 50ml almond milk

Place all the dry ingredients into a bowl and mix together thoroughly. Add the milk, a spot at a time, and continue until the dough comes together and makes a pliant dough. Split the dough in half and roll into circles. Flatten them slightly and cut through (not all the way, but deep enough to make 4 individual scones). Sprinkle with a teaspoon more of sugar.

Place in a pre-heated oven (200C) for 12-15 minutes, or until browned.

Leave to cool, and then serve with more Vitalight and jam. Yes, I know – the state of my kitchen

They were delicious and no, they didn’t taste of apple sauce.