Stuff it!

Thus far my forays into baked pasta have been limited to the odd pasta bake (you know the sort of thing: tomatoey sauce, cheddar on top) and macaroni cheese. This week I decided to get sophisticated and make stuffed and baked ricotta shells. Times are currently hard in Kirkstall (in part owing to my handbag-buying habit), and this recipe featured in the seven meals for £35 section in Olive. I picked this recipe as courgettes were a main ingredient and the gentleman of the house likes them very much, and I thought it'd make a good photo for the blog.

This dish is economical: as our store is well stocked, I was able to buy everything we needed for £6.07 (including a re-stock of olive oil). I did make some alterations to this recipe--I thought that a tomato sauce consisting of just tinned tomatoes, a clove of garlic and oil was miserable, so I chucked in a pinch of sugar, some balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper (obviously) and stirred through some basil that was hanging about. (Olive could suggest all of the above, bar the basil: there isn't anything there that might not be in one's store.) ANYWAY, this is not a fast dish to make, as grating three courgettes takes a while--however, it is a nice comforting dish, and the pasta stays firm, although the filling could perhaps do with a little less lemon. And I think it photographs very well for the blog.

Next on the list for this week is an accidentally delicious cake. I'd seen a feature in Olive, in the July issue, on Matcha green tea powder, and there was an accompanying recipe for a green tea loaf. I don't like green tea as a drink, but I thought that a note of green tea in a loaf might make a nice sophisticated dessert for a dinner party--in the way that fish sauce is foul but can make a dish delicious. The only Matcha powder I could find in Leeds city centre cost £25 from Harvey Nichols. Such is my dedication to this blog I was looking at it and thinking about buying, when it was removed from my hands and I was removed from the store by Sam who couldn't believe I was even countenancing it. (Neither can I, with hindsight.) Anyway my solution to the tea problem was to make some strong green tea and add that to the loaf mix whilst also dying the cake green to get the required visual effect.

The green tea was utterly undetectable. There's no other way of putting it. However, as the cake had almonds in it, I thought it would go well with caramel, and I just happened to have a can of dulche de leche in. I served it in large chunks with a bowl of dulche de leche on the table. In the words of one of our guests, W, it was green for no reason, but it was delicious.

Now onto the recipe I tweeted my way through this morning: lemon sorbet. This will be served as a desert to follow a raclette party tonight. Much as I love raclette, it doesn't leave much room--or desire--for a pudding, but I thought that a sorbet might be nice to clear palates and make us all feel a bit less dirty after all the cheese. I've had a teaspoon of it for sampling purposes and it is delicious, very refreshing. I think it'll work a treat tonight.

Summer slippers

I'm ever so sorry, there was an impromptu publication break this week. Better late than never, though, here is your round up.

Last Monday saw the return of mackerel to this kitchen--and indeed, the smell, which lingers somewhat in a flat, even with an extractor fan and an open window. Anyhow, my Green party voting liberal as you like hippy parent, has for reasons known only to herself, started taking the Daily Torygraph (at least it isn't Murdoch owned). However, I shall lay off the teasing for a while as she posted me Jamie Oliver's Summer Seafood booklet which has lately come free with the Telegraph, and I picked out crispy skinned mackerel with an Asian style dressing. The fish is served on a bed of rice and is topped with mint and coriander (which I thought was nuts till I tried it) and has a sticky, spicy, honey and soy dressing. The crispy skin comes from dry frying the fish skin side down in an extremely hot pan. This was one of my favourite dishes so far--really light, perfect for summer, and made using sustainable fish. 

This week I had the absolute honour of watching A graduate from his Phd. My two contributions to the day were doing an extra loud scream for him, with friend N, as he was handed this most prestigious of qualifications, and, more credibly, making him a graduation cake, and so making my first foray into sugar craft. I haven't used a recipe for a lemon cake in years--I usually just chuck some juice and zest into a sponge mixture, so wanting to improve my technique, I made this recipe for lemon cake. I scaled it back by a third. It was quite a lot of effort, but worth it for the occasion! And the sponge was very nice, though I say so myself--it had a huge citrus hit. Now, my intention for the icing was to make a beautiful skyscape to represent A's freedom and future. However, sugar craft is harder than I thought, so what I ended up with looked like the background to a child's cartoon; perhaps it's not too disgraceful for a first attempt, though. 

And finally, stuffed aubergines, from the August issue of Olive. These came from the 30 minute supper section. Now, I love aubergines, they are my favourite vegetable; Sam thinks they are as enjoyable to eat as slippers. I'd never done aubergines stuffed with cheese, or under the grill and not in the oven. The goats cheese and tomato filling was really tasty. However, I grudgingly agree with my other half, on this occasion, that aubergines when grilled in halves are somewhat slipper like to eat (I gave up halfway through my second half), they are best roasted slowly in the oven, without a shadow of a doubt.

More next week, it'll probably be made with the products of bin diving as I have spent all of my wages on a handbag.

Friday night treats

So I promised when I posted on Sunday I'd email and say how the summer pudding turned out. Well  here it is in the bowl...

And here it is, in one piece, out of the bowl (admittedly, I made an error when I expected the juices to soak against gravity and dye the bread at the top, or bottom when it's turned out.









And here is a slice of it, all ready to eat! It was very nice, the bread was lovely and gooey and the sharpness of the fruit cut through the curry takeaway which we ate to celebrate the finale of The Apprentice. (I am still happy that Tom won.) Next time, though, I think I'll add a smidge more sugar.

Finally, a picture of the maturing fruitcake, which is smells fantastic. I'd also like to add that my thumbnail is not dirty, I just caught some crumbs on it when I turned the cake over! I'm most hygienic at all times in the kitchen.

A less than triumphant return

Welcome back to tales of my culinary experimentations. I had implied, when I decided to have a blog break, that there might be changes to the blog, but actually what I needed was a week eating my favourite pasta dishes and flapjacks (not together) to re-energise myself to complete the 111 recipes.

Having rid myself of pastry as a culinary enemy, via making all sorts of variations of it for this project, I seem to have met another nemesis (fans of the film Unbreakable will be aware every hero needs a nemesis): wholemeal bread. I made another attempt at it last Sunday. In truth, I both wanted to make myself a successful loaf of non-white bread and rid myself of the kamut flour which I bought in January and now had precisely no idea what to do with. It promised me a creamy wholemeal loaf. It delivered a lumpen chunk of bread, which behaved like soda bread in that it was obvious it wouldn't be nice when it cooled. And I followed the instructions on the back of the pack to the letter. It doesn't matter, it was very nice as an accompaniment to soup, and I now have some much needed room in a baking cupboard which is groaning under the weight of flours, sugars and preserved fruit. I am sure that I will have another go at bread using non-white flour, and succeed.

Now to fro-yo, as Sam tells me I am not allowed to call it. I don't buy The Times, I haven't for over 18 months, but I caught a glimpse of a special on frozen yoghurt which seemed to suggest it had only recently been invented--I vividly remember it being available in Teeside Park cinema, not known for its cutting-edge cuisine, in the early 2000s. However, let's not stray into the hideousness of News Corp and their irrelevant publications, and say I wanted to use my ice-cream maker, but did not want the cream and egg yolks of the ice-cream recipe I made a couple of months ago. So I attempted frozen yoghurt, from this website. I really wish that this were a success story. I do. I wanted a delicious snack with no fat. The truth is I have made a solid lump of yoghurt ice which won't scoop, snap, carve, or yield to hammering. Fail.

I made the frozen yoghurt to go with a summer pudding. The summer pudding is currently maturing in the fridge and shows no sign whatever of being a failure--the bread is pink and the fruit smelled and tasted very nice when I put it in. I got the recipe from Woman's Hour, a programme whose podcasts I often listen to whilst I do my dry-as-a-camel's-arse day job. The chef pointed out the real seasonality of redcurrants, which leads to their reasonably brief appearance in shops, at which point I coveted both summer pudding and redcurrants, so took the opportunity of guests coming tonight to make one. I shall let you know if it slides out of the bowl in one piece tomorrow.

So, that's all folks, for this week, save to update you that Grandma's cake is maturing beautifully and I have nearly crammed in a half bottle of brandy during its 'feeding' sessions. Same time next week. *Goes shopping for cream to go with the summer pudding.

Winging it

So I promised to report all flops and failures as well as the romping successes. Well, one has snuck in this week--see if you can spot it. All of the dishes have a running theme this week: I didn't have a recipe for any of them. I know, I know it says on the top of this blog that I'll be trying out recipes, but if you think I am so anal as to keep strictly within semantics so rigidly you must either never have met me, or this is your first time here--if so, welcome. ANYWAY, these were all things I hadn't made or cooked before.

Sam and I were going out on Saturday night, poverty had decreed that this week we would try and live on our stores for a bit (we were well-stocked), and what we had in the house was sausages and potatoes. However, sausages and potatoes are not the foods for the warmest day we had had in WEEKS. So I created a hot sausage and potato salad. I did start Googling recipes for this, but really...it's a salad: the point is you put in bits you like and think will go well together, then eat. Now I am rather cautious about feeding Sam salads. Not because he will dash it to the floor, tell me salad is the food of girls, and enquire where his manly pie is, but I worry that it won't fill him up, and I'll see him apologetically hunter-gathering in the kitchen for digestives. I thought, though, a salad that contained both sausages and potatoes might do the trick. And it did: I just served sliced grilled sausage with new potatoes on a bed of spinach and baby plum tomatoes, in a mustardy, vinegary dressing. I can't think why I hadn't done this before: I am not an unadventurous cook. I think this is the best way to eat sausages and not feel filthy afterwards!

Now for the failure. This blog is a sort of shit sandwich--as in the uncouth term for being in the office and having your less-good feedback embedded in the better stuff--I am doing this to hope that this one slips in here between two things that really work so you'll forget about it. So this week's flop was an artichoke. I've long been a fan of these on top of pizzas and eaten with a fork straight out of a jar, and I was curious to see what a freshly cooked one would taste like, so when I saw them on sale in a branch of a certain Northern chain of supermarkets, I bought one; it cost £3, but nevermind, I thought, it is gigantic.

Not so: after I had removed stalk, scary-looking outer leaves and choke (horrid fluffy looking stuff which sticks painfully in the throat if eaten), and blunted a knife and generally made a mess, I was left with the teeny tiny heart, which I rubbed with lemon juice in an attempt to stop it browning. I then boiled and boiled for just over half an hour as advised by friends and the patronising woman on this video. Having fished out the brown mess I poured over some dressing and served. It was mushy down the bottom, and tough round the sides. I came as close as I have done to producing something utterly inedible. Even Sam, who is a gent at all times, deemed it a failure and looked relieved when I followed it with a soup he likes.

Anyway, I want to divert your attention from that failed attempt at cooking vaguely unusual vegetables and tell you about my marvellous frappucino cake. The last time I had anything to do with coffee cake I was still living at home, and made it with something called coffee essence which came from an ancient bottle of my mothers--and tasted NOTHING like coffee. So I brewed some strong coffee and made a three-egg cake batter (replacing half the butter with vegetable oil--in part for health reasons, in part due to a lack of butter) and sloshed about two tablespoons of coffee in. It did rise in rather an odd way (producing a slightly off-centre dome) but I suspect this was down to using self-raising flour as much as anything.

To give it the feel of a frappucino coffee, I split the cake and put a layer of caramel in--I do have a penchant for summer coffee drinks, and I thought this would do quite well to emulate them. I then finished it off by plastering it with a thin layer of butter-cream, again with some proper coffee in it. It was very nice, though I say so myself, moist, coffee-tasting and completely made by the layer of caramel.

So it's goodbye for a couple of weeks now: I want to go away, refresh what I'm doing here, and come back with something good to read!