Fish fight - a drum roll for the dab

We've been trying different types of fish recently, in part influenced by Hugh's Fish Fight. Coley and tilapia are two of our new favourites. Mr M picked up some pieces of dab on Friday and made this delicious pile with pea and broccoli mash. Yum.

Greengages

These made delicious mini crumbles - just add a spoonful of demerara sugar, a splash of vanilla extract and top with a nutty crumble topping. Yum.

Weekend baking

Mint tea

Our mint patch is being put to good use this year what with tum-settling remedies and summer peas.

Mixer magic

Having spent far too long discussing our mixer requirements, we finally took the plunge and bought a Kenwood Prospero. We'd wanted a mixer for absolutely ages and hadn't included it on the wedding list due to a lack of space - but radical measures have taken place in the M household and our microwave has been popped into storage, leaving us with the perfect mixer space. If only we had thought of this when we were compiling the gift list.

Following said purchase, our oven decided to test us - so the lovely mixer has waited patiently in the perfect mixer space, gathering dust. Until, that is, we had a craving for pizza last weekend and we decided to go for it. Or rather Mr M did - as you can see from the pictures. I kept my hands clean by taking action shots.

I'm on a mission to make meringues this weekend with the balloon whisk attachment. It's all very, very exciting.

C is for carrot cake

After a herumphy moment at Bill's yesterday, when I realised I couldn't have a slice of their delicious walnut cake with my coffee due to the rather odd ingredient of orange juice, I concluded that some baking was in order on my return home. Having rediscovered Pret's carrot cake (made with pineapple juice) last week, I decided to have a go myself. I've made Nigella's carrot cupcakes before, but never a large cake. As I'm slowly working my way through Home Baking, I thought I'd have a go at Eric's version. It's always odd making a cake with oil rather than butter - it just feels wrong, but it really does mean that you get a fantastically moist* cake. I opted for Nigella's cream cheese icing which seemed to be one of the few that didn't require butter. It was in the oven for an extra 20 minutes, and is absolutely delicious. Even Miss P agrees - ahem - a certain someone discovered that she too likes carrot cake with cream cheese icing. An extended face washing was deemed necessary. Little monkey.

Hope you had a lovely weekend!

*Utterly juvenile but this word still makes me giggle.

Feeling festive

I made mincemeat for the first time this weekend. It was so easy and delicious. What's more, it's citrus free. I've been nibbling on these little starry treats all week. 

Heart warming, toe tingling soup

This damp, dull weather calls for food that soothes the soul and warms the hands. I often forget just how relaxing the act of making soup can be. How quickly the flat fills up with such wonderful earthy smells. And yet, for some reason I tend to shun this ritual - the thought of the time consuming chopping and the missing ingredients tend to feature high on the why not list.

Cold feet, another sleepless night and a general air of dankness led to me yearning for soup to lift the heart. Not to mention a complete lack of desire to walk aimlessly up and down the uninspiring supermarket playing 'guess where they've moved it now' - which really does tire after a while. I wonder whether it's a ploy to keep old minds active and yet all it does is cause confusion and dismay. I struggle to believe that the simple act of moving beans to the next aisle increases sales. Well, it does for the supermarket up the road. I digress.

We had some small squash left from our recent PYO trip, some very sad, very floppy purple carrots from the farmers market a couple of weeks ago, an onion which had secretly rotted at one end (poor produce from same said uninspiring supermarket), some of Mr M's fresh chillies that he's been growing at work and some long forgotten celery in even more of a state than the carrots. I found this recipe, ignored the quantities and the bay leaf. And it is delicious. And the heart has indeed been lifted.

Strawberries and cream

And with Wimbledon (and the football and the cricket) playing in the background it would be rude not to. Particularly when you've picked the strawberries yourself (we didn't leave that many behind at the PYO farm on Monday). You can't beat it.

Or can you? Why, yes. I believe you can. By having said strawberries and cream on a vanilla sponge base. Oh my. So pleasing.

Sponge base - serves 8
125g soft butter
125g caster sugar
125g self raising flour
1tsp vanilla essence
2 eggs
3-4 dsrtspn milk

1. Preheat the oven to 180C
2. Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper
3. Cream the butter and sugar together.
4. Add the vanilla essence and the first egg. Mix, then add roughly half of the flour. Stir until smooth.
5. Add the second egg, mix, then add the remaining flour. Once the mixture is smooth add the milk to loosen.
6. Pour the mixture into the the baking tray and level out with the back of a spoon or palette knife.
7. Pop in the oven until golden brown.
8. Leave to cool.

Creamy mixture of joy - to cover 1/2 of the above tray bake. Serves 4.
142ml double cream
2 dsrtspn Greek yoghurt
A little icing sugar (I use a funny tea strainer thing as my sieve because I'm lazy - probably equates to roughly 1 tsp)
2 handfuls of strawberries - chopped

1. Whisk the double cream until there is a slight visible drag in the bowl.
2. Sprinkle a little of the icing sugar over the top and gently fold in the Greek yoghurt until combined.
3. Spread over the sponge with a palette knife and sprinkle the strawberries on top. Dust the top with a little icing sugar and devour.

Comedy fact. We - yep, Mr M and moi - thought we could eat all of the above in one sitting. Clearly an eyes bigger than stomach moment. And I had divided the sponge base in two - with the spare half popped away for another day. The photo shows the half that we thought we could polish off. We were defeated. Half of it has gone in the fridge for tomorrow. I reckon if you double the topping recipe, you'll be able to feed 8 quite happily.

Clear as mud, eh? Tasty mud, mind you.

Samphire

British samphire courtesy of our mobile fishmonger - out of season, it apparently comes from Israel and tends to be smaller. We probably wouldn't have been tempted had we not had it the day before when Mr M took me out for lunch. Boil in lightly salted water for a couple of minutes before being tossed in olive oil and a knob of butter with a crack of pepper. Heaven.

Pipe dreams

Hello! Hope you're enjoying the delightful sun today. I popped to the shops this morning on my bicycle, complete with basket. Thrilling on two counts - it was the basket's inaugural journey and I'd not been out on my own with the responsibility of D locks and the like. I did spend the shopping trip expecting to return to an empty bike stand, but was pleasantly surprised. Even the basket was still there. As a 'well done' treat, I managed to scrape together enough change for a bag of juicy cherries. Divine. I was even allowed to test the goods before buying - brilliant. My type of stall.

Yesterday afternoon I set about trying out the shortbread rings in the June issue of Country Living magazine. The recipe is seriously simple - icing sugar, flour, butter and baking powder.
They should have looked like this pretty little picture - all swirly and twirly.

Instead, they looked like this because my icing bag (poor tool choice) with medium (in icing not biscuit terms) nozzle exploded in a biscuity mess from the pressure. So, I present to you shortbread dollops. Light and delicious. Just don't spend too long looking at them.

Note to oneself, get a proper piping bag and appropriate nozzles. Sigh.

Time for tea and cake

After being woken at 5am by a very keen political campaigner putting leaflets through our door, marking 'x' in hopefully the right box and being slightly thrilled at having to vote on behalf of Mr M, tea and cake were the order of the day.

I'm trying to refine a cake recipe that I've been fiddling with recently. On a whim, I threw in some blueberries at the last minute. Nice, but a little too juicy. Will share once I've got it right!

I wonder what colour No. 10 will be when we wake up to tomorrow...

Bread making

Mr M is the master breadmaker in this household. He likes to make it the traditional way, on our worn counter, experimenting with different mixes of flour. As they bake, the flat is filled with mouthwatering aromas and are usually eaten with either pate or cheese for lunch.

I, on the otherhand, have never attempted bread for I am the master cake baker. But that is all about to change. This Saturday we're off to our local French restaurant for a bread making course. I'm so excited. I've even been practising albeit with pre-mix (yep, that's my first ever loaf in the photo!) because it would be rather odd to turn up having never made bread before. I'm also ever so slightly competitive...

The only tiny, little, miniscule problem is that Mr M is currently in America. He's due to leave this afternoon, so isn't officially 'stranded' just yet...

Poached eggs. Help required!

I can NOT for the life of me work out how to poach an egg. I've got the poached egg rings but, truth be told, I want to be one of those people who can just use a saucepan and water. I've tried the swirly whirly water trick with a splash of vinegar but that just resulted in 4 saucepans of eggy water.

This evening's attempt was slightly better but was really just a poached fried egg as it were. Oh, and yes that is a fish cake underneath the pitiful egg. Suggested serving tip on the wrapper - darn nice it was too.

So, how do you poach?

Cafe au lait with a splash of pink?

A splash of pink from one of my favourite flowers with its delicate petals. I tried to grow them when we first moved in. Alas, shade and squirrels put a stop to my grand plans - so I shall continue to buy them on special occasions until we have a sunnier spot and I can try again.

So, how has your weekend been? We've been quite busy, pootling out to celebrate my mother-in-law's birthday yesterday and having my parents over for a spot of Mother's Day lunch today. I was adamant that I would bake a cake for lunch. And bake I did, with the aid of Mr M's right arm doing a mighty fine food processor impression*, at silly o'clock last night.

I'm not too sure why I became fixated with baking a coffee cake - it's certainly not one of my favourites. It may have taken hold as I flicked through the Hummingbird bakery cookbook (still not baked a thing from there - I don't think the icing recipe really counts as baking...) - who knows! I even bought one the other weekend from the supermarket which was, as expected, a bit blah.

So, here is my first attempt. I'm starting to realise that everyone has their own version. Mine is a take on Nigella's Victoria Sponge recipe. Full credit to Mr M for suggesting, and fetching, the cocoa. And for helping - I don't think he realised just how much help was required.

Cake -
225g unsalted butter, softened
225g caster sugar
4 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
190g self raising flour
25g cornflour
10g cocoa
2 tbsp milk
1 heaped tbsp coffee granules, dissolved in 120ml hot water
50g chopped walnuts

Icing -
160g butter, softened
500g icing sugar (gasp!)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tbsp coffee granules dissolved in 60ml of hot water.
25ml milk
50g chopped walnuts

Preheat the oven to 170C and line two 20cm round cake tins.
Get Mr M-imix to cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl. Add the vanilla extract, one egg, together with a spoonful of the dry ingredients, to the bowl and combine using Mr M-imix. Repeat for the remaining 3 eggs. Stir through the rest of the dry mix until combined. Add the milk and 2 tbsp of the cold coffee to the bowl. If the mixture is still a little stiff, add another spoonful of the coffee until you're happy with the consistency.
Chop 50g of walnuts (putting the remainder aside for decorating) and stir through the mixture.
Divide equally between the two tins and pop in the oven for 30-40 minutes.
Once cooked through, leave to cool. If baking late into the evening and there is no cat-free zone, pop in the oven wrapped up in a tea towel with the door propped open with an oven mitt. Dream about two rock hard, cement-esque Olympic discuses with a faint whiff of coffee ready albeit a little early for 2012.

Once cool, flatten the bottom half of the cake by slicing the dome off.
Cream the butter and icing sugar using Mr M-imix on double-fast speed, as time is running out and hand blender has gunked up on account of butter not being 'soft' enough. Add vanilla, milk and 30ml of the dissolved cold coffee - mix until smooth. Add more coffee if it doesn't feel 'soft' enough.
Using a palette knife spread the bottom half of the cake with a thick layer of icing.
Plonk the other half of the cake on top. Spread the icing over the top and sides.
Sprinkle with the crushed walnuts, pushing down with the palm of your hand to make them stick.
Answer door.Pop the kettle on and grab a plate. I must confess to having already had 3 slices today. Mum adamantly refused to take any home, so it will have to join me in the office tomorrow for others to try.

*One day, when we own stairs and carpet and a proper spare room which doesn't double up as a sitting room, office, dining room, sewing room, guest room, cat house and library, I am going to own a food processor. I can not wait. Nor can Mr M.

Rhubarb ribbons

It's hard to believe that rhubarb could be so pretty. In fact, it's hard to believe that I agreed to make a rhubarb pudding in the first place considering my lifelong dislike of its sourness.

We had friends over for a leisurely lunch on Saturday and with Mr M's lamb shanks on the menu, we needed something equally as delicious for dessert. Being prepared as always, we decided on the pud late Friday night which meant an early start the next day to buy all the bits. The first supermarket had obviously made the decision not to stock seasonal food (naughty, naughty Mr Sainsburys) so I carried on up to Mr Waitrose - where they had piles of British rhubarb. Marvellous.

There was a bit of a rush on to get the pud ready. You see, there was a deadline. We would be eating pud at about 3:30, and it needed a minimum of 4 hours, but ideally 5, in the freezer, and softening fruit can't be rushed, and it was already 10:30. Gah. Anyhoo, the rhubarb (400g) and sugar (50g) behaved perfectly. The crumble was a little more time-consuming but that was soon sorted.

Mix one pot of mascarpone (250g) with one of Greek yoghurt (400g), stir through the cooled rhubarb, a splash of vanilla extract (and vanilla seeds if you're posh) and some of the crunchy crumble so that it swirls like raspberry ripple. Spoon into a loaf tin lined with cling film and pop in the freezer. Take the chilly bundle out of the freezer 20 minutes before serving. Turn out onto a beautiful serving plate, pile the remaining crumble on top and serve large slices with a big spoonful of rhubarb coulis.

Eat as quickly as you can so that you can get a second helping in before anyone else has finished their first.

I will most definitely be making this again - blackcurrant would be amazing, as would raspberry and perhaps gooseberry...

So, thank you Mr Waitrose for your British rhubarb and tasty recipe.

Whisks at the ready!

It's pancake day! I love pancakes. Mr M is the master of pancakes but is busy with work this week, so we had valentine's pancakes yesterday morning before he pottered off with Mr H to a seed swap and cosy pub to watch the football. We managed to get six pancakes out of the batter. 1 savoury (garlic mushroom and cheese), 1 sweet (strawberry jam and cream cheese) and 1 traditional (sugar). Yum!

Happy flipping!

Bachelors' buttons

I must confess to making these the weekend before last and not having the time to post about them. We had some old eggs that needed to be used up, so biscuits seemed to be the order of the day. I've been meaning to bake something from The Woman's Book for ages and was drawn to the name Bachelors' buttons - luckily we had all the ingredients in the cupboard and fridge.

Simple to make and moreish like you wouldn't believe!

Ingredients -
5oz flour
2oz caster sugar
2oz butter
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 170C (a.k.a. 'a good oven')
Cream the butter and sugar together, and add the vanilla.
Beat the egg and add gradually with the flour until a stiffish paste is formed. No need to add the entire egg unless necessary.
Take small portions and roll them into balls the 'size of hazel nut' with a little flour to prevent them sticking to the hands
Pop them on a greased and floured tin. Just before sticking in the oven sprinkle them with sugar
Bake until golden - about 12-15 minutes
Place on a rack to cool
Make a lovely cup of coffee to go with the first ones to cool...

They are part shortbread bite and part dry sponge finger - that is selling them rather short, they are very tasty indeed. Enjoy!

Red relish

Mr M came home armed with a small bunch of beetroot from the local farm shop during the week. Rather than roast it as per normal, we made lamb burgers and the beetroot relish from the November issue of Country Homes & Interiors.

Grated onion, carrot and beetroot. Crack of pepper. Balsamic vinegar and a dash of runny honey.

Delicious.

The red sea came to tea

A very red raspberry puree from the depths of the freezer on a bed of puff pastry.

Tasty and quick to throw together (200C, cook for 20 minutes), but be sure to cook the pastry first before adding the puree otherwise you'll end up with soggy raw pastry like I did. Not so tasty.