Category Archives: Weekend Cooking

Weekend Cooking – Curried Carrot & Apple Soup

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It’s been a while since I wrote a Weekend Cooking post - Weekend Cooking is hosted at Beth Fish Reads and is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. For more information, see the welcome post.

I had quite a lot of apples recently and after making various puddings I looked in my cookery books and found a recipe for curried carrot and apple soup in the Kitchen Doctor Low-Cholesterol Cooking for Health.

I adapted the recipe to make enough for two rather than four. Here is the recipe as detailed in the book, click on the image to enlarge:

It’s really easy to make – first heat the oil and gently fry the curry powder for 2-3 minutes. Then add the carrots, onion and apple, stir and cover the pan, cooking over a low heat for about 15 minutes until they soften. I added the stock and brought it to the boil.

Then I blitzed it with a hand-held blender, seasoned it with salt and coarse ground black pepper. If you like add a swirl of yoghurt (I didn’t this time) and serve.

The curry and the apple tone down the sweetness of the carrots – delicious.

The book contains over 50 low-cholesterol and low-fat recipes, with sections on soups and starters, meat, poultry and fish main courses, plus pasta, pulses and vegetable dishes and desserts, cakes and bakes.

Weekend Cooking – Forever Summer

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Although it’s not yet summer here, it’s been feeling like it this last two weeks. We’ve had some gloriously sunny days, which made me think of cooking something from Nigella Lawson’s Forever Summer. This is a book full of recipes to give you that summery feeling all year round. There are recipes from around the world and I decided to make Strawberry Meringue Layer Cake.

Nigella writes that this is an Oz-emanating recipe that she scribbled down from a friend after a gardenside Sunday’s summer lunch.

It’s a combination of Pavlova and Victoria Sponge: make the sponge mixture by creaming 100g very soft butter with 100g caster sugar, beat in 2 egg yolks, fold in 12g plain flour, 25g cornflour and 1½ teaspoons of baking powder, add 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract and stir in 2 tablespoons of milk to thin the batter. Divide this mixture between 2 x 22cm Springform tins.

Then add the pavlova mixture - whisk the 2 egg whites until soft peaks form, gradually add 200g caster sugar and spread a layer of the meringue on top of the sponge batter in each tin and sprinkle over 50g flaked almonds.

Bake for 30 – 35 minutes in a preheated oven – 200°C/gas mark 6 until the almond scattered meringues are a dark gold. Let the cakes cool in the tins until you’re ready to assemble the cake.

Whip 375ml double cream and hull and slice 250g strawberries and sandwich the cream and berries between the two cakes – meringue on the base layer and on the top.

I made this last weekend when we had the family round,  As Nigella suggested I placed more strawberries in a separate dish to eat alongside the cake and it was half gone by the time I remembered to take a photo of it. It’s definitely a recipe I’ll be making again – it’s scrumptious.

 

Weekend Cooking is host at Beth Fish Reads and is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. For more information, see the welcome post.

Weekend Cooking – from The Long Song

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One of the books I’m currently reading is The Long Song, a novel about slavery set in 19th century Jamaica, by Andrea Levy. The narrator is July, now an old woman born as a slave, writing her memoirs.

This morning I read about the preparations for the Yuletide dinner of 1831. There were to be twelve people at the plantation owner’s table.  Caroline, the owner’s sister is giving Hannah, the cook, her orders for the food to be provided.

There was to be both turtle and vegetable soups, mutton, pigeon pies and guinea fowl, a boiled ham and a turkey or two, turtle served in the shell (but she would prefer beef), four stewed ducks, cheese, as many hogsheads as they could get and roasted pig.

There was also to be:

… malt liquor, wine, porter, cider, brandy and rum, watermelon, mango, pawpaw, naseberry, soursop, grandilla fruit. ‘And make sure the preserve has come from England. Strawberry or damson. Do not serve guava, ginger or that ghastly sorrel jelly. I’m so tired of Jamaican jams.’

Hannah had stopped listening, for the need to shout ‘And me to fix-up all this? You  a gut-fatty, cha!’ at her misssus was becoming overpowering in her. (pages 74 – 75)

And in case they were still hungry after this obscene amount of food, Hannah was told to make plum pudding. Hannah remembered how to make it -

A little fruit, a little molasses, some cornmeal, eggs, plenty rum. Mash it up a bit. Put this mess in that silly round mould the missus did give her the first Christmas she arrived, and boil it until the water does run dry. And when the thing is hard then it is done. (pages 75 – 76)

So far I think this book is beautifully written, vivid, lively and enthralling.

Weekend Cooking is hosted by Beth Fish Reads.

Weekend Cooking

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Two Greedy Italians

I love Italian food, so Two Greedy Italians by Antonio Carluccio and Gennaro Contaldo looks like a book that I would love to have!

This book  accompanies a new series on BBC2 which starts on Wednesday 27 April 2011 at 8 pm.

Carluccio and Contaldo are old friends. They return to Italy to reconnect with their culinary heritage, explore past and current traditions and reveal the very soul of Italian gastronomy. Containing over 100 mouthwatering recipes, this  book goes beyond the clichés to reveal real Italian food, as cooked by real Italians. It includes an intriguing combination of classic dishes and ingredients as well as others showcasing the changes in style and influences that have become a part of the Italy of today.  (Description adapted from the Product Description on Amazon.)

  • Hardcover: 192 pages
  • Publisher: Quadrille Publishing Ltd (18 April 2011)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 9781844009428
  • ISBN-13: 978-1844009428

We do have one of Antonio Carluccio’s books – Passion for Pasta, which is a beautiful book, full of recipes for making your own pasta and sauces. He writes:

… I would like you to forget about bottled sauces, ready-made pasta dishes, and pre-packed Parmesan cheese. Instead indulge yourself by trying the amazing soft texture of your own hand-made pasta, the bite of fresh Italian cheeses, the flavour of cured meats such as Parma ham, and anchovies and fresh basil. (page 7)

There are also lots photos of mouth-watering food, such as this which shows Pasta Per Tutte Stagioni - Pasta For All Seasons, made with fresh shitake mushrooms, fresh oyster mushrooms, chanterelles and small dried fusilli. It includes double cream, smoked ham, lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, parsley and truffle oil, which Carluccio says is very expensive and very sophisticated – a dish for special occasions!

  • Paperback: 192 pages
  • Publisher: BBC Books; 2nd Revised edition edition (24 July 2003)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 9780563487616
  • ISBN-13: 978-0563487616
  • ASIN: 0563487615
  • Product Dimensions: 25.8 x 18.2 x 1.4 cm
  • Source: I bought it

This is my contribution to this week’s Weekend Cooking hosted by Beth Fish Reads

“Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend.”

Weekend Cooking: Kitchen: Recipes from the Heart of the Home

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Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog’s home page. For more information, see the welcome post at Beth Fish Reads.

Nigella Lawson’s programmes and books never fail to entertain and inform. Her latest is Kitchen: Recipes from the Heart of the Home.

Click to watch this video

In the Introduction she writes about what the kitchen means to her and says:

A real chef would have an apoplectic fit and a nervous breakdown simultaneously - if forced to cook in my kitchen. The surfaces are cluttered, the layout messy and getting messier by the day (and, overall, I’ve no doubt my kitchen would fail many a health and safety test and law of ergonomics). But I love it, even if it is more of a nest than a room. (page xv)

Thank goodness for that , not only is Nigella a real woman she has a real kitchen too. I like the way she writes, with no fuss or nonsense and I like her mouth-watering recipes, that are easy to follow and a pleasure to cook. In this book she begins with a list of kitchen equipment that she regards as essential and non-essential too.

I previously posted a recipe from this book – Blondies, which my husband made. I bought him the book for Christmas and yesterday he made Strawberry and Almond Crumble, which is so delicious! We had friends round so I didn’t take a photo and we ate it all up! Here’s a photo from the book:

The recipe is online at BBC Food Recipes.

Nigella writes:

The oven doesn’t, as you’d think, turn the berries into a red-tinted mush of slime, but into berry-intense bursts of tender juiciness. This is nothing short of alchemy: you take the vilest, crunchiest supermarket strawberries, top them with an almondy, buttery rubble, bake and turn them out on a cold day into the taste of an English summer. Naturally, serve with lashings of cream: I regard this as obligatory. (page 131)

I love that description of crumble as an ‘almondy, buttery rubble’, and I love this recipe. This book is one of Nigella’s best.

Weekend Cooking

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Time now to think about cooking for Christmas. I’ve made the Christmas Cake and that is maturing nicely (I hope). Whilst out shopping I found this book with more ideas for Christmas Cakes and Cookies:

It’s a flip-over book that is also free-standing, so you can stand it up whilst looking at the recipes as you cook. There are recipes for Shortbread Snowmen, Gingerbread Reindeer, Snowflake Delight, Festive Fudge, Christmas Crunchers and Christmas Toffee Pudding and many more delicious temptations.

I’m very tempted by the Christmas Toffee Pudding which is made with dates:

(click image to enlarge)

For more tempting cooking posts have a look at Beth Fish Reads

Weekend Cookery – Blondies

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I haven’t done a Weekend Cookery post for a few weeks, so I thought it was about time I did.

My husband likes to cook and often cooks dinner, but he doesn’t bake. He’s a fan of Nigella and and also of Blondie. So, he couldn’t resist making Nigella’s recipe in the pullout in the Radio Times of Nigella’s Simple Treats.

Here are Dave’s Blondies – they are absolutely delicious.

He made them by combining 200g porridge oats, 100g plain flour, and ½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda in a bowl. In another bowl he beat together 150g soft unsalted butter and 100g light muscovado sugar until pale and then stirred in 1 can (397g) condensed milk, then add in the oats mixture. When this was well mixed he added in 1 egg and 170g of dark chocolate, chopped into small pieces.

He then put the lumpy mixture into a 9in square cake tin and baked it in a preheated oven at 180°for about 35 minutes. As Nigella describes it, it was ‘quite a pronounced dark gold around the edges and coming away from the tin’ and was still  ’frighteningly squidgy, not to say wibbly.’

He let it firm up in the tin and then cut it into pieces. You can see in the photo below that they are a lovely consistency and the chocolate pieces are softly melted into the  chewy oaty mixture.

Weekend Cookery is a weekly event hosted by Beth Fish Reads, where you’ll find more cookery related posts.

A Plethora of Plums

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We have an old plum tree in our garden. This year is the first year we’ve been here and we didn’t know what to expect from the tree. It’s been absolutely blooming, full of fruit. The boughs are weighed down to the ground with the weight and I’ve picked many kilos of plums. I don’t have any jam jars so I’ve been cooking the plums and either eating them with ice cream, or making crumble, or freezing the fruit.

I made crumble with some of these, a simple recipe made with plain flour, sugar and butter, rubbed in until mixture resembles breadcrumbs and then cooked on top of the plums for about 30 -40 minutes at 190°C.

Check out the other entries this week at Weekend Cooking.

Weekend Cooking

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I  don’t think I qualify to write a Weekend Cooking post this weekend as my attempts so far have been a bit disastrous. First of all on Friday evening we decided to have an easy meal and bought a Chinese style meal for two from the supermarket. Simples!

But no, when I opened up the egg fried rice this is what happened to my finger, because stupidly I left it in the line of the escaping steam - painful and not a pretty sight! D sprained his ankle and tore a ligament two weeks ago and is still limping about painfully – we’re hoping there won’t be a third accident! 

 Mt second cooking disaster was last night’s meal. I cooked pork in cider, topped with a layer of sliced potatoes. The potatoes hadn’t browned nicely so I put the casserole under the grill and left it too long. Result – a burnt offering of potatoes (I couldn’t bear to take a photo!). Luckily the meat and vegetables underneath were OK. I dread to think what I’ll do for tonight’s meal!

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. For more information, see the welcome post, and have a look at some better efforts than mine.

Weekend Cooking – Bread

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Bread is one of my favourite foods. I’ve been baking my own bread for about 4 years now, using a breadmaker. I’ve tried making it by hand but all that kneading just defeats me and it is so much easier with a machine. It is very simple – you just put all the ingredients in the bread tin, choose the appropriate setting, press start and leave it to knead, prove and bake. My breadmaker has a little dispenser so you can add nuts, or dried fruit. Or there is a dough setting – doing all the hard work for you – and then you can shape the dough into rolls, baguettes, plaits, croissants or whatever takes your fancy and bake them in the oven.

I vary what I make, sometimes using a packet mix, which does give a very good result. My favourites are Cheese and Onion, Ciabatta and Mixed Grain. Other times I use fast acting dried yeast and the Very Strong White or Wholemeal flour, sometimes making half white and half brown bread. I recently bought a Country Grain flour - with malted wheat flakes, rye flour and malted wheat and barley flour and mixed that with the very strong white flour to make this loaf:

 

For this I used 1 teaspoon of yeast, 250 grams of the Country Grain flour, 225 grams of strong white flour, I½ teaspoons of sugar, 1¼ teaspoons of salt, 25 grams of butter and 340 ml of water and set the breadmaker on the wholemeal setting. It took 5 hours to make and bake. There is a rapid setting as well but I find that  the bread doesn’t rise as much and it takes more yeast.

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs