Fruit, nut and seed bars

These are great. They’re similar to flapjacks, but because they’ve got fruit in, you can call them “breakfast bars” and say they’re healthy.

Ingredients
Makes 16

140g light muscovado sugar
3 tbsp golden syrup
140g butter
250 rolled oats
150g walnut pieces
150g mixed dried fruit (I used a mixed dried berries pack)
50g sesame seeds or mixed seeds

The Cooking

It’s really easy. Pre-heat the oven to 160C/320F/gas 3. Pop the butter, sugar and syrup into a pan and heat until they’re melted. Meanwhile put all the other ingredients into a large bowl. Once the sugar, syrup and butter have melted, pour it over the rest of the ingredients and mix it until everything’s coated.

Spoon the combined mixture into a square tin (about 23cm x 23cm or thereabouts) and then pat it all down so it’s compacted. Put it in the oven for 35 minutes.

Leave it to cool completely, then cut up into bars. It’s that simple!

Hello World

Hello. This is me. I thought you might like to see what I look like after almost 4 years writing this blog. So here I am making some pastry. I like making pastry.

The BBC Good Food Show 2008

The nice people at Miele invited me to this year’s BBC Good Food Show. I was going to go anyway, and they got me in for free! I even got to go backstage at the supertheatre and meet James Martin and have a posh lunch and everything. Yes, you do wish you were me.

I haven’t had the photos developed yet I’m afraid, so you’ll just have to imagine and enormous hall full of food stalls. There was pretty much everything someone who loves food could ever want. And I found the world’s best knives – Kai Shun Knives. Honestly, they’re amazing. The sharpest knives I’ve ever used, and I’ve got Global knives at home. I wanted to buy a small santoku knife, but made the mistake of telling my husband first, who pointed out that I already plenty of knives and £100 is a lot to pay for one knife. But I will have it. I will save up and I will have it.

I did buy a whetstone for my Global knife though. And some sloe gin for my mother-in-law. And I ate loads of free cheese, which is the best kind of cheese. It was a good day.

Hasselback Potatoes

Sometimes called saddleback potatoes, this is kind of a cross between roast and baked potato. Something a little different for an ordinary midweek dinner. Plus it looks pretty.

Sorry about the rubbishness of the photo. You get the idea though.

Ingredients

Potatoes. However many you’d like. Big, small or medium. Medium-sized are the easiest to cut.
Olive oil
Salt

The Cooking

Heat the oven to about 210C/410F.

It’s up to you whether you peel the potatoes. I don’t, because the skin is where the goodness is, so says mums everywhere. Now cut the potato in slices, making sure you only slice about 3/4 of the way through. Handy hint: put the potato in a big spoon or ladle and the edges of the spoon will prevent the knife from slicing all the way through.

Pour over some oil and rub it all over the potatoes, trying to get some in the slices. The potato won’t fan very easily but don’t worry it will once cooked. Sprinkle over some salt. Put the potatoes into the oven and cook them for about 45 minutes. Halfway through give them a bit of a shake and a little more oil, which should now slip into the slices more easily.

That’s it! You could grate some cheese over it if you like, or sour cream, or whatever you like. I had mine with ham in parsley sauce. Very nice.

Peas with bacon

A simple side dish that takes 5 minutes to make, to be served with pretty much anything you like, because bacon goes really well with peas.

Ingredients

Peas, frozen or fresh
Cubed/chopped bacon or pancetta, about 1/3 of the amount of peas
1/2 an onion, chopped finely
Chicken stock

The Cooking

Ok, in a non-stick pan fry the bacon to whatever consistency you like it. Just cooked or nice and crispy, up to you. Once it’s as you like it, add the chopped onion and fry until soft but not coloured (about 2 minutes), then throw in the peas, give it a stir and pour in just enough chicken stock to moisten the whole thing. Cook for a couple of minutes and you’re done! This is excellent with a nice Sunday roast.

Roast Guinea Fowl stuffed with Sausagemeat

Here’s something a bit different to chicken but just as easy to cook. I’ve chosen to stuff it with sausagemeat because the juice and flavour from it enriches the guinea fowl and helps keep it moist. When you stuff a bird you have to adjust the cooking times to make sure that the stuffing cooks through but the meat doesn’t overcook, which can be a bit of a balancing act, but as long as you follow these general rules it’ll all turn out fine.

Ingredients
Serves 3/4 or 2 plus leftovers

1 guinea fowl (about 2.5lb/1.25kg)
Some butter

½ an onion, chopped finely
2oz/75g breadcrumbs
150g minced pork or sausagemeat
Handful of parsley (finely chopped)
Salt and pepper

The Cooking

Mix together all the stuffing ingredients (that is, everything that’s not the bird and the butter) until they’re well-mixed. Identify the neck and bum ends of the bird and at the neck end loosen the flap of skin from the breasts. Pack about 1/3 of the stuffing mixture inside and then secure the flap of skin back down with a couple of cocktail sticks. Put the rest of the stuffing up the bird’s rear end (fnarr fnarr etc).

Pre-heat your oven to 190C/375F/gas mark 5. Put the bird on a roasting tray, smear it with butter and cover it with aluminium foil. The rule is that you cook it for 20 minutes per 1lb (450g) plus 10 – 20 minutes extra so for a 2.5lb bird you’re going to cook it for about 1h 20 mins. Halfway through, smear the bird with some more butter to baste it again. For the final 15 minutes of cooking, take off the aluminium foil and increase the heat to 220C/425F/gas mark 7 to make the skin nice and brown and crispy. Take it out of the oven and let it rest for 20 minutes before serving. Very nice, and the stuffing is very juicy and the meat good and moist

Festival of Food at Southbank Centre

The Slow Food movement is running a food festival on London’s South Bank from today until Sunday 21st. They’re running free food demos, sampling, a “busy bee” craft tent for kids and a good range of food and drink stalls.

The Slow Food movement is incredibly important for anyone who believes in quality, honest, fair global produce. I’m a member and so should you be, there’s bound to be a branch near you.

I went along to the festival today and found it small but perfectly formed. Arranged around the Royal Festival Hall, there’s oysters, bread, cheese, meats, game, a very tasty Portuguese pork roast, and much more. The cookery demonstration given by Cyrus Todiwalla of Cafe Spice Namaste was very good – it’s not often nowadays you can get an entertaining and informative lesson for free.

The talk by Peter Gott of Sillfield Farm was a good lesson in what slow food really means and the importance of supporting pig farmers in this country. And he showed us how to butcher half a pig, which is always a useful lesson. I bought a large bit of the belly for a tenner, which is a bargain when you know how much attention and care goes into producing it.

The festival runs for another three days and includes talks/demos inlude how to smoke your own food at home, how to make honecomb, great dishes for under a fiver and “Be a bee” for kids. Go along!

Book Review: Rosemary Shrager’s School for Cooks

Rosemary Shrager’s new book – a tie-in to her ITV series – is designed for the home cook who wants to add a layer of cheffiness to their food. There is an emphasis on presentation as well as tips on mastering some of the basic skills, and the recipes are a mixture of classics with more modern dishes, with some innovations from the author herself.

For me there is too much of a ‘dinner party’ sense to many of the recipes. Dishes such as ‘Herb-crusted Rack of Lamb with Spinach Mousse, Pea Pancake and Flaegeolet Beans’ are rarely likely to grab me as a good idea for an everyday tea, although if I was making dinner for the Bank Manager I might re-consider.

That said, there is a good section on vegetables with plenty of simple and versatile ideas for accompaniments.

As someone with an extensive collection of food books I will probably find it useful for variations on classic recipes, and ideas when I am lacking inspiration. I would recommend School for Cooks for those seeking a collection of dinner party recipes to show off their culinary skills.

A Magical Bread Recipe for Novices That Works Every Time

It’s so satisfying. It’s just a plain white loaf, made by hand. But it works every time and it’s ridiculously simple. If you think you can’t do bread, you can. This will work I PROMISE.

Ingredients
500g white strong bread flour.
7g dried yeast sachet.
1tsp salt
300ml water
3tbsp olive oil. Plus a bit extra.

The Cooking

Mix the flour, yeast and salt together in a large bowl. Pour in the water and the olive oil. Mix with wooden spoon until it’s together enough to take out of the bowl.

Kneed on a floury surface until the dough feels elastic and silky smooth the the touch, and bounces back slightly when prodded. This should take about ten minutes.

Place in a warmish area and leave to rise until doubled in size. This should take about one hour.

Knock back the dough and kneed for a minute or so. Dough will be elastic and bouncy when prodded. Mould the dough into a round-ish shape or put it in a loaf tin. Slather the surface with olive oil (this will give a soft, chewy crust).

Leave to rise for another hour or so on the tray or in the loaf tin which you are going to put it into the oven.

Pre-heat oven to 220/200 fan/gas mark 7. Bake dough for 25 – 30 minutes until a nice golden colour.

Leave to cool on a wire rack.

Ta dah! Seriously, try this recipe. Your friends will be astonished at your baking prowess.

Roast Squirrel

Let’s not be squeamish about this – I cooked a squirrel. I didn’t shoot it myself, I bought it at the farmer’s market. And why not? It’s meat, just like rabbit and lamb and chicken is meat. It’s not a LOT of meat, squirrels being quite small, but it is surprisingly tasty. And not like you’d expect – I expected it to taste gamey or like rabbit but it actually tastes like a cross between turkey and lamb.

As it’s quite lean, I wrapped it in bacon and roasted it for half an hour. Because it was an experiment I didn’t make a big meal out of it, just cooked it on its own. It would probably have been nicer in a casserole slow-cooked for a couple of hours. However, like I say, it was tasty and I would eat it again. Certainly if we plunge into a hideous depression and can’t afford more usual meats, squirrel could earn a place at the table. If you do happen to see one for sale, pick it up and have a go.