Lime meringue pie: In which the DWC makes me a birthday surprise
As you know, it’s one of our slightly less mental traditions at English Towers that the birthday person gets to choose whatever they like for their birthday cake. Usually, da brevren compete with each other to find the most complicated (The Mad Professor), chocolate-filled (the Death Wish Child), or retro (English Dad) recipes they can possibly find. And then, of course, when it’s my birthday, I just make whatever I fancy.
This year turned out to be a bit different. ‘I’m going to make your birthday cake’, said the Death Wish Child, confidently. ‘What would you like?’.
‘Well’, said I, ‘what I would really really like is lemon meringue pie. No, lime meringue pie, but don’t worry, I’ll help’.
‘Nope’, said the small confident one, while imaginary fireworks and laser beams went off behind him. ‘*I* shall make the pie’. So sit back and enjoy, while my wonderful offspring takes you through his birthday pie:
First you need a pastry bottom (although I suspect that I might already have one):
For the pastry, you’ll need:
200g cold butter
400g plain flour
Pinch salt
1tbsp caster sugar
1 egg yolk
4 or 5 tbsp cold water
Firstly, preheat the oven to 180/gas 4. It’s easiest to do this in the food processor (the pastry, not the preheating. That would be silly. And anyway, you’d never fit the oven in there), but you can do it by hand if you’re not as lazy as us.
Chop your cold butter into squares and add it to the flour, salt and sugar. Process it until it looks like breadcrumbs.
Now plop in the egg yolk and pulse slowly, adding tablespoonfuls of water until it just comes together.
Flour the work surface (and your trousers, and your mother, and the floor) and squish the mixture together into a ball. Roll it out to about 5-6mm thick, then roll it onto your rolling pin and unroll over your flan dish or baking tin (about 24cm should do it). When it all breaks apart, swear a bit and kind of patch it together. Nobody will notice. Push it in to the edges and trim the top.
Now to bake it blind: scrunch up a bit of greaseproof paper, then smooth it over the pastry and pour in some baking beans – you can use ceramic or whatever. I’ve got some old dried beans – for about 15 minutes.
Then take it out of the oven, remove the baking beans and put it back in to cook the bottom (ooer) for about another 5 minutes, then take it out and leave to cool. Turn the oven down to gas 2/150 degrees.
Meanwhile, make the lime curd. We use bottled lime juice in this house, but if you want to juice several limes, be my guest:
100g butter
6 tbsp lime juice (or for lemon curd, 2 lemons, zested then juiced)
150g caster sugar
2 eggs plus 1 extra yolk (keep the white for the meringue)
Take a saucepan and bung in the butter, juice, zest and caster sugar. Melt it all together slowly until the sugar is all dissolved.
Meanwhile, in a bowl, whisk the eggs and yolk until well combined. Now, take your warm, limey, butter mixture and gently pour a little bit into the egg, whisking all the time, then a bit more, then a bit more, until you’ve combined about half of it with the eggs. Now bung that lot back into the saucepan and keep whisking and simmering until the mixture thickens. Make sure there’s someone behind you at this point shouting ‘WHISK! WHISK FASTER!’.
Turn off the heat and leave to cool. Remember to just stir it occasionally to keep it from getting a skin on. When it’s about room temperature, pour it into the pastry case and pop into the fridge to cool.
Finally, for the meringue:
4 egg whites
225g caster sugar
Whisk the eggs in a very clean bowl until they form firm peaks, then keep whisking while you add the sugar, spoon by spoon, until it’s all incorporated and the meringue is thick and glossy. Pile it all on top of the lemon curd and fluff it up a bit (or you can pipe it like my man here):
Bake in the very low oven (gas 2/150 degrees) for about 40 to 50 minutes, depending on how squelchy you like your meringue. If it’s a Special Birthday Meringue Pie, you can decorate it and add candles.
Then sit down with some pink champagne and blow your candles out, wishing with all your heart that you get to spend every birthday just like this, with the people that you love.
Thanks, Charlie xxxx
Thanks Mum! Win a wonderful hampergifts.co.uk pressie for your Mum this Mother’s Day
Bedtime stories, making jam, just listening, washing up, endless lifts, changing nappies, wiping noses, birthday parties, cheese on toast, buying presents, roast dinners, being a fab grandma, cleaning, school runs, baking, saying no, saying yes, lending me money, giving me money, homework help, ironing, belly laughs, parents’ evenings, burying several hamsters, phone bills, pierced ears, holidays, cuddles, plasters, bedtime stories, sandcastles, sleepovers, sewing, rice pudding, kissing it better, hot buttered toast, lemon meringue pie, shopping, snowmen, goldfish, phone calls, camp fires, macaroni cheese, driving lessons, porridge and syrup…
What do you want to thank your Mum for?
If you’d like to win this fabulous ‘I love you Mum’ gift set worth £59.95 from hampergifts.co.uk for your lovely mum (or someone else’s lovely mum, come to think of it) this Mother’s Day, then just thank your mum for something/anything! in the comments section here (tweet your entry with the hashtag #EMthanksmum for an extra shot at winning) and you’ll be placed into the draw. Off you go, then.
Entries must be received by 28th March 2011. No cash alternative to this prize is available. UK only addresses excluding Channel Islands, PO and BFPO boxes.
*****This competition is now closed. Thank you for all your entries. The lucky winner is Hayley Chalmers. Congratulations Hayley xx *****
The Sensatori Resort, Mexico: our final destination, Chichen Itza
Right, quick general knowledge quiz here: who can name the Seven Wonders of the World? Apparently (and I didn’t know this because I have the general knowledge of a small onion) the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World are all nearly gone. Only the pyramid at Giza remains. The rest, like the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and the Colossus of Rhodes are long gone, so in 2001 it was decided by a swiss-based foundation (you can read all about it here) to choose seven new wonders. Votes were cast and in 2006, the 7 new wonders were chosen:
The Great Wall of China, India’s Taj Mahal, Petra in Jordan, the amazing statue of Christ the Redeemer in Brazil, Macchu Picchu in Peru, The Colosseum in Italy, and…
Chichen Itza*
A hot, sweaty, bumpy, three-hour drive into the very centre of the Yucatan peninsula takes you to one of the most amazing places on earth. It takes your breath away. And that’s not because it’s so hot it’s like falling into a vat of soup. The place is awesome. And for all the hassle and annoyance it took us to get there, we wouldn’t have changed our trip for the world:
Over 1000 years ago, the Mayan civilisation at Chichen Itza (or ‘Itchy Pizza’, as it swiftly became known), was bustling and ground-breaking. Their calendar was created decades before anyone else worked out how the sun could tell us what time of year it was, and the great structures were built there before machinery and, amazingly, even before the wheel.
On the downside, human sacrifice was commonplace (even to the extent that during games in the massive arena, the captain of the losing side would also lose his head – shouldn’t imagine many people put their hand up for that particular role). Oh and by the way, the reason there aren’t many people in these pictures is because it was so hot, they were all vying for places under the surrounding trees. Hot. So hot you feel like you can’t move.
Our day there was amazing. And neatly rounded off a trip that was, quite simply, the best I’ve ever experienced.
For us, the highlight of this holiday (if we had to pick just one) was the people. From the taxi driver who told us that he knew a bit of Mayan as his parents had used it to talk so that the kids wouldn’t know what they were saying, to the amazingly friendly and attentive service in the hotel, through to the wonderful welcome we received in Chumpon at the jam co-operative. What a fabulous bunch the Mexicans are.
And that hotel: a white-suited butler who magically appeared to help you find the perfect sunbed spot (and vanished just as quickly), amazing restaurants, wonderful room service waiters who pandered to the Death Wish Child’s cheeseburger addiction with such enthusiasm (I once picked up the phone to order and was asked ‘ah, yes. No onions for the DWC?’)… the hotel is a modern miracle. Their devotion to sustainability, from equipping the maids with trolleys fitted with recycling boxes, to heating the pools with solar panels and even growing their own fruit, vegetables and salad in a massive hothouse is just incredible.
The perfect holiday recipe? A big slice of luxury with a generous splash of enthusiasm… a drizzle of creativity and a final sprinkle of excitement. All placed on a backdrop of the bluest azure and sparkling white. I’ll have what she’s having.
A massive thank you to the entire team at Thomson, from the lovely chaps in the press office, to the fabulous cabin crew and the wonderful on-site guest relations team. We’ll be back! xxxxx
Thomson offers seven night holidays in Mexico at the 5T Sensatori Resort Mexico in Riviera Maya, on an all-inclusive basis, from £1415 per adult, £718 for the first child, and £1058 for the second child, based on two adults and two children sharing. Departing on 28th July 2011 from London Gatwick airport, the price includes return flights, accommodation, transfers and all taxes and charges. To book visit www.thomson.co.uk/sensatori or call 0871 231 5595.
*I think the Pyramid of Giza is still in there as an honorary candidate
Carbon Trust have created an infographic that explains why business holds the key to meeting UK carbon reduction targets. If you click yes on this site, they’ll use your support to get more businesses to prove carbon reduction. www.carbontruststandard.com/cutcarbon
The Divine Women Awards, 2011: my nomination
So the lovely chaps at Divine have long had my vote for not only making scrummy chocolate, but making it with very high quality and, more importantly, Fairtrade cocoa beans.
Recently, they sent me a ton of chocolate (YAYYYY! 7 bars! Keep your mitts off), and asked me if I would nominate someone for the Divine Women Awards, which are designed to recognise the efforts of women around the UK. Campaigner (and Colin’s wife), Livia Firth is on the panel and will be helping the search for the most Divine woman.
I didn’t have to think for long. My nomination is Keris Stainton. Author and journalist Keris has long been one of my heroines – I love her articles and she’s just the nicest, kindest person. We’re long-standing Twitter-mates, and I was lucky enough to snaffle a review copy of her amazing young adult fiction book ‘Della says OMG’ before it was published.
After the awful earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Japan, Keris was moved to start ‘Authors for Japan’. The campaign, that ended up raising an incredible amount of money for the Red Cross Japan Tsunami Appeal saw Keris galvanising her many contacts in the writing world into action – persuading them to donate items for an auction with all proceeds going to the appeal. The lots on offer weren’t just books, although there were some amazing ones: signed copies, original proofs and more, but incredibly generous offers too: the chance to be named as a character in a book…. coffee and cake in London with a literary agent (perfect for a potential author)… My own lovely Linda donated a place at a freelance writing workshop, plus several of her books. All this, I feel, a testament to Keris’s standing in the literary world generally.
I asked Keris (sneakily, via email) how it all came about:
“Authors for Japan came about after I saw the news about the earthquake and tsunami and found I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I woke up in the night and lay there, thinking about how lucky I am and how I wanted to do something to help. At first, I was going to just put a button on my blog, but then I remembered the wonderful Authors for Queensland auction and decided to try that instead. I was completely overwhelmed by the response – I basically had to put everything else on hold for over a week – and the total donated is over £11,000, which is just amazing. Aside from the amount of money raised, I’ve been so touched by how incredibly generous people have been – both the authors who donated and the hundreds of people who bid on the lots. It’s one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done.”
Amazing and inspiring. Laydees and gentlespoons, I give you Keris Stainton.
So there’s my nomination. What about you?
ABOUT THE DIVINE WOMEN AWARDS 2011
Who is Your Divine Woman?To mark the centenary of International Women’s Day and to celebrate the amazing achievements of women across the nation, leading Fairtrade company Divine Chocolate is joining up with ethical jewellers Ingle & Rhode to launch the first ever Divine Women Awards.
Divine Chocolate and Ingle & Rhode will be inviting public nominations in a search to find the most Divine Woman in the UK, between the 8th of March and 8th of April 2011. Livia Firth will be joining the judging panel to select the most Divine Woman from a shortlist following an open public vote on the Divine facebook page http://apps.facebook.com/DivineWomenAwards.
Please click ‘like’ on my nomination for Keris.
The ultimate winner will be awarded a truly divine prize of a bespoke pendant worth over £1,000, made with Fairtrade and Fairmined 18 carat gold from ethical jewellers Ingle & Rhode.
Marco Pierre White and Bernard Matthews: a ‘bootiful’ friendship?
I know, sorry. No more puns, I promise.
Have you seen the new advert for this campaign, though? It’s Marco Pierre White and Martin Kemp eating in a restaurant together. The interesting thing is that their conversation was unscripted (as you can tell when Martin starts to squirm slightly after describing his wife’s turkey as ‘a bit dry’!) and although it’s a bit funny, it does show you that most of us think of turkey as just a Christmas bird.
The slightly scary chef and Hell’s Kitchen shouty-person is the new ‘face’ of turkey (sorry, the mental image is just too much not to have a tiny bit of a snigger) and this is a fabulous campaign as it really gets everyone considering turkey as an ‘everyday’ meat, and that’s good for turkey farmers everywhere. I’m quite a fan of turkey meat anyway, actually, although I usually buy it already minced to use in burgers. This campaign has made me consider using other cuts too.
Bernard Matthews Farms have launched a new website called changeyourmeatnotyourmenu.co.uk and it’s got tons of stuff about using turkey, from nutrition and health tips (turkey is low in fat and high in protein) to some really great recipes including stir fried turkey with ginger, and the turkey breast recipe from the advert (you can check out the video here.) And just as important, there’s also information about farming and welfare standards, including facts about The Red Tractor, an independent mark of quality that guarantees high standards of food safety and hygiene, animal welfare and environmental protection.
So, anyone got any good turkey recipes for me to try out?
Paddy’s weekend: BMB vlogging, the Albert Hall and a very small dog
Well it was all happening this weekend. We flew over on the eve of St Patrick’s Day (bit sad to be missing out on all the fun, but hey) so that I could attend the British Mummy Bloggers‘ video blogging workshop. There was sniggering. Lots of sniggering. This was mostly because I was catching up with old friends (and meeting lots of new ones):
Here’s the lovely Geeky Mummy, and my old (disclaimer: I don’t mean she’s old, I mean our friendship is old) partner-in-wine the lovely Helen from the Knackered Mother’s Wine Blog:
And here’s the lovely Laura, with Sandy Calico and… wait, is that Jay peeking in there?
And here’s Taralaraloo and Jay doing a bit of hard-core gurning (and yes, we were actually supposed to be paying attention at this point – apparently it’s something about lipstick and turning side on to the camera…):
Oh and then there was so much more – there was wine and laughter and lovely food at my lovely glam friend Tums’ house with Foxy too (sadly my pictures of her gorgeous Moroccan chicken didn’t come out, but trust me, it was gooood), and we went out to dinner with my Disreputable Dad…
…and then rushed off to The Albert Hall and saw the fabulous Classical Spectacular and jumped at the canons and waved our flags and sang along to Land of Hope and Glory, which was such good fun:
…and we went out for a really nice curry with Mad Uncle Ali, and we played on the swings and went to the skatepark with Ali’s girlfriend’s cute little boy, and I went to see my lovely sis in law and got to meet my lovely niece Lu’s new doggy, Bella, the cutest and tiniest little dog in the world:
And we basically managed to speed-socialise with all our nearest and dearest in the space of one weekend.
Phew. Now I’m back. With 500 million emails to catch up on and chickens to clean out and a very disgruntled Ninja Cat of Death to placate (she hates it when we go away).
And then I’m going to have a lie down and a gin. Not necessarily in that order.
In which Tiny the hen is either a cockerel, or she’s playing a teeny vuvuzela
So yes, yes, I know… two chicken posts in one week potentially makes me a chicken bore. But wait. I have exciting news…
With the departure of Mr Nutty, things have been a bit quiet round English Towers way, and then, suddenly, there was a funny, squeaky little noise in the garden…
The Death Wish Child grabbed the video camera and…
Turns out little Tiny the hen could possibly be Tiny the cockerel. Either that, or she’s cleverly concealed a teeny vuvuzela somewhere about her person.
Irish soda bread for St Patrick’s Day
Happy Paddy’s Day!
I’m off home to see the folks for a few days, but seeing as it’s Paddy’s I thought I’d tempt you with a nice, easy and traditional recipe to celebrate.
The lovely Spudness from The Daily Spud runs a fantastic Paddy’s Day Food Parade, so pop over to Spud Towers to check out all the other recipes.
This is an adaptation of one of Rachel Allen’s recipes, but as usual I’ve had a little fiddle. I know. I can’t help myself. Soda bread is still the staple for many an Irish household, and this recipe is a great basis for all sorts of additions. You can add seeds, nuts, dried fruit (use only 1 tsp salt if you make it sweet), even chocolate chips.
It doesn’t keep well, being yeast-free, but if you slice it and freeze it, you can toast it straight from frozen (if it lasts that long). If you’ve never made your own bread this is a great place to start, as there’s no rising or kneading. And the mud pie element of this makes it perfect to cook with children too!
Traditional Irish Soda Bread
100g white bread flour
450g wholemeal flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tsp salt
400ml buttermilk (or mix whole milk with the juice of 1/2 lemon)
1 egg
2 tbsp oil
1 tbsp treacle
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees/gas 6 and oil a loaf tin. Now put the flour in a bowl and sieve in the bicarb (omit this step at your peril – nasty green lumps don’t give this a St Patrick’s day feel – they just look gross). Add the salt and stir it all together.
Now, measure out the milk and squeeze in the lemon, or just use buttermilk. Add in the egg, oil and – while you have a nice oily spoon – the treacle. Whisk this lot together until it forms a completely revolting-looking brown gooey liquid (persevere, the treacle takes time to mix in). Now, just slosh the liquid into the dry ingredients and mix into a big wet mud pie.
Flop your muddy mixture into a buttered loaf tin, then pop it into the preheated oven and sit back while your entire kitchen fills with the gorgeous aroma of baking bread. As usual, make sure the loaf is done by tapping its bottom (ooer) and making sure it sounds hollow, otherwise give it a bit longer. You might need to cover the top if it’s getting too brown.
Serve warm with lashings of Irish butter and a big blob of home made jam. Or, you can add a slice to the pan after you’ve been cooking the bacon and scoff it, dipped in runny egg of course, with your big durty fry-up. Mmmmmmm.
And finally, I’ll share with you the beautiful Irish blessing that my lovely friend Jen sent me today:
May luck be our companion
May friends stand by our side
May history remind us all
Of Ireland’s faith and pride
May God bless us with happiness
May love and faith abide.
Anon.
‘You’ll meet me halfway, so?’
Poor Mr Nutty’s head situation isn’t getting any better. I started to leave him out at night (he prefers to roost on the top of the hen house with his missus), figuring that death by fox or having your head eaten by your bitches are pretty similar on the ‘ouchy’ scale.
What did become clear while we were away was that he was getting a bit miserable. Poppy’s Mum was worried as he’d stopped cockadoodledooing and seemed a bit listless. I bet it bloody hurt. When I could catch him, I was treating his head with antibiotic powder, but let’s face it, he was never going to mend whilst billetted with the mean girls so eventually I decided to pop an ad in an online ‘buy and sell’ marketplace.
My first phone call wasn’t promising. He sounded about twelve, was shouting at the top of his voice and kept leaving yawning gaps in the conversation:
Shouty Fella ‘WELL…’
(A lot of Irish people start a conversation with ‘well?’. I’m never quite sure of the appropriate response. For a long time I went with a very English ‘yes, I’m fine thank you’, but I don’t think it’s actually an enquiry into your health, so now I just say ‘well’ back and hope for the best).
Me: ‘Well…’
*MASSIVE SILENCE*
Me: ‘Hello?’
Shouty Fella: ‘I’M RINGING ABOUT THEM BIRDS. ARE THEY LAYIN’?’
Me: ‘Well one of them is’
Shouty Fella: ‘WHY?’
Me: ‘Well, the other one is a man’
*MINUTE OF SILENCE*
Shouty Fella: ‘ARE THEY RELATED?’
Me: I don’t think so – I bought them as a ‘breeding pair’. Surely they wouldn’t want to do that sort of thing if they were related…’
Shouty Fella: ‘I’LL COME HAVE A LOOK AT THEM, SO?’
Me (pacing kitchen and explaining where I am in Cavan): ‘I said I’d deliver if you’re local’
Shouty Fella:’ I’M FROM GALWAY’
Me: ‘Well that’s not exactly local, is it?’
*HUGE PAUSE*
Me (increasingly exasperated): ‘Hello?!’
Shouty Fella: ‘YES?”
What fresh hell is this?
Me: ‘I said IT’S NOT EXACTLY LOCAL!’
Shouty Fella: ‘YOU’LL MEET ME HALF WAY, SO?”
Me: Well, no, because you live in GALWAY. I was thinking more like if it was the next town…
Shouty Fella: ‘IT’S QUITE A WAY, SO?’
Me (losing will to live): ‘Cavan to Galway? Yes, yes it’s a very long way.’
*VERY LONG PAUSE*
Shouty Fella: ‘WHAT COLOUR ARE THEY?
Me (suddenly feeling the urge to match his volume): ‘The colour they are in the PICTURE on the WEBSITE. In the same advert where it says I live in CAVAN’.
Shouty Fella: ‘YOU WON’T BE ABLE TO DROP THEM TO ME, SO?’
Me: ‘No, no I’m afraid I won’t.’
Shouty Fella: ‘DO YOU KNOW A COURIER THAT WOULD BRING THEM?’
Me (silently banging head against kitchen table): ‘No, no I don’t. Maybe you could look into arranging it and ring me back if you get it sorted’.
Shouty Fella: ‘I’LL ASK MY FATHER’
Me: ‘Right, bye then’
*YAWNING SILENCE*
Shouty Fella: ‘BYE’
If he actually rings back, I’m going to kill myself.
A Yeo Valley surprise and cooking with yogurt
Recently, the lovely chaps at Yeo Valley set me a little challenge: ‘fancy checking out a few of our products and then letting us know how you cook with them?’ ’No probs’, I said, ‘piece of cake’ (see what I did there?). So yesterday I had a call from a courier. Not your normal ‘yes, I’m just leaving Dublin – can I have directions?’ (you want an hour’s worth of directions? I hope you’ve got a big notepad), but a lovely friendly one ‘I’ve got some stuff for you from Yeo Valley – it’s refrigerated so I’m going to personally drop it to you now’. How’s that for service. When it arrived, my jaw did drop somewhat, though:
Er… wow.
After unpacking (and letting a delighted D next door take her pick), I moved it all into the garage and called Poppy’s Mum to take all the children’s yogurts and those cute little tube things (she looks after two little tinies). After weighing her down with butter, compote, pots and creme fraiche and fifteen minutes of hysterical laughter when I took the packing peanuts out to the bin and was caught by a gust of wind (it was like a packing peanut snow storm), my fridges looked like this:
Unlike Laura, there will be absolutely no lemon curduments. Anyone seen looking even remotely suspicious near the lemon curd ones will be prodded with a sharp implement until they back the hell off. I might even bare my teeth and snarl a bit. What? They’re my favourite.
So what will I be doing with all this lovely stuff? Well, I’m going to try Laura’s Lovely Lemon Curd Cheesecake, but with the Mango and Vanilla flavour instead (nomnom) and I’ll be making my talented friend Like Mam Used To Bake‘s gorgeous healthy home-made granola to stir into the little fat free blueberry pots of probiotic yogurt for breakfast. We’ll be spooning the rhubarb yogurt over a slice of home made lemon and almond cake, and freezing the strawberry one in an ice cube tray to add to smoothies with banana and milk. Their fruit compote is a new one for me. I’m going to be popping a spoonful in the middle of some vanilla breakfast muffins this weekend and eating them for breakfast.
I’ll be making Anjum Anand’s Bengali Yogurt Fish (from her I Love Curry book) with the Greek Yogurt (one of my favourite fish recipes) and of course my own easy peasy tandoori chicken with the fat free natural yogurt (yummy in the boy’s packed lunches with crusty ciabatta, a blob of mayo, some rocket leaves and a teaspoon or two of mango chutney). Talking of Indian food – I’ll also be making my Indian spiced courgette fritters and serving them with a cooling yogurt and mint dressing.
I’ll be using the creme fraiche to make my friend Erica’s gorgeous wild mushroom tagliatelle and the lovely fresh butter for all manner of cakes, biscuits and, of course, for spreading thickly on hot toast.
What an amazing selection. I’m very impressed. Now back to guarding the lemon curd. Go on, just try me. I dare you.
