Easy peasy Christmas pudding (gluten free if you need it to be)

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Okay, okay, so we’ve missed Stir-up Sunday, but honestly, it doesn’t matter. If you still fancy doing a bit of lovely therapeutic stirring in the kitchen for Christmas, and filling your house with delicious Christmassy smells, there’s plenty of time. PLUS this one’s so easy I absolutely, faithfully promise you that it will turn out absolutely perfectly. How about that for a guarantee?

As usual, feel free to tweak the recipe. Last year I had loads of time and spent ages snipping up dates and dried apricots. This year I’d kind of decided not to bother and then changed my mind, so actually just bought a 500g bag of luxury mixed fruit from Waitrose. Yup, it was that easy.

Remember, if you don’t want to add booze, substitute with fruit juice (or more tea), and if you need the ressup to be Gluten-free I’ve added tips for that too. If you really must eat peel, though (bleurgh, devil’s toenails), I shall never speak to you again. Just saying.

Oh and quick tip: tick off the ingredients as you put them in, which will save you doing what I did and forgetting the spices.

Right, here we go then:

Christmas Pudding

500g dried fruit - sultanas, raisins, dried cranberries, chopped dates, dried apricots snipped into small pieces… whatever you like.

1 tbsp Maraschino cherries, halved (optional, but it’s nice to see a little glistening bit of red when you cut it open)

1 lemon

100ml black tea

100ml booze - I used Pedro Jimenez sherry, but you can use rum, brandy… whatever

1 cinnamon stick, snapped in half

3 eggs, beaten

1 tbsp honey

1 tbsp black treacle

1 Bramley apple, grated

100g self raising flour (or rice flour for gluten free - thanks as always to the lovely Pippa for the help regarding gluten)

100g fresh white breadcrumbs (or again, ground almonds if you need to keep the recipe gluten free)

150g veggie suet

150g dark muscovado sugar

25g almonds or pistachio nuts, finely chopped

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1/2 tsp ground mixed spice

Weigh out the dried fruit, then have a good pick through and get rid of any stems, they’re yucky if you crunch on them. I let them fall through my fingers into the bowl a handful at a time. If you’re using larger dried fruit like prunes or apricots, make sure they’re stoneless and snip them into small pieces.

Finely grate the lemon zest, then juice it as well. Add the zest and juice to the fruit then brew up the tea (one tea bag is fine for that amount of water) and pour it over the fruit, along with the rum/brandy/whatever. Add in the cherries and the cinnamon stick and stir it all up. Cover with a plate and leave the whole shooting match to steep (make sure it’s not a metal bowl) overnight, stirring occasionally if you remember.

The next day, then, weigh out all the dry ingredients and combine them in a huge bowl. Don’t forget the spices! The muscovado sugar can be a bit lumpy so you might need to sieve to break up any lumps.

Take the steeped fruit and remove the cinnamon stick pieces. Add the eggs (give them a quick mix with a fork first), honey, treacle and grated apple (leave the peel on).

Stir well, then you can add all that into the dry ingredients. Give it a really good stir (get everyone to take a turn to stir and make a wish).

Now butter a big basin (3 pint/1.7 litre) or two small ones and bung in your mixture. I’ve got a fabulous new Mermaid one which is non-stick, non-scratch and non-whatever else. It’s also got a nice rim around the top perfect for tying your string round it. Check out www.mermaidcookware.com.

Cut out a circle of greaseproof paper and butter it well. Tie around it with string. Then cover with foil and tie again (this way, you guarantee no water will get in to ruin your pudding). Or you can tie it in a muslin, or use one of those special circular moulds.

To steam it, you can use a steamer if you’re posh, but I haven’t got one so I just use a huge saucepan and balance the basin inside it on a circular metal pastry cutter so it isn’t sitting on the bottom of the pan. This will also stop it burning if you inadvertently let it boil dry. Add boiling water about halfway up the basin and put the lid on the saucepan. Steam for 5 hours, making sure you go back every so often to top up the boiling water.

And that’s it, you’re done. I rewrap it with fresh greaseproof paper and foil, but you don’t have to. Keep it somewhere cool until Christmas day when it’ll need to steam for about another 2.5 to 3 hours (don’t worry if it gets a bit longer, it won’t ruin it). Or cook it the day before and *gasp* just microwave it on Christmas day. Much easier, but possibly a little sacrilegious.

BTW: If you want to make little mini puddings instead, remember to put a teeny piece of buttered greaseproof paper in the bottom of your ramekin, otherwise you’ll never get the buggers out. Then you can just cover them with foil, put them on a deep baking tray, add boiling water to half way up the sides of the ramekins, and bake in the oven for 30 minutes on 180/gas 4.

BTW 2: Nigella advocates vodka rather than brandy to flame a pudding – apparently the flame is better and lasts longer. Just mind your eyebrows

Off you trot, then. Smug in the knowledge that you made your own puds. Just don’t let me down with the peel. Barf.

Apricot, pear and apple chilli chutney

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Christmas is THE time for chutney. Quite apart from the turkey leftovers, there’s all that ham, and tons of lovely cheese - a tangy chutney accompaniment is a must.

This chutney is loosely based on the cranberry and apple chutney in Nigella Christmas, but inspired by my very clever friend Katie, from Feeding Boys, who made a lovely autumnal pear chutney, I decided to pop in some pears and dried apricots as well. Oh, and because I love a bit of spice, I’ve added a fresh red chilli too. Leave it out if you’re not keen, or maybe deseed and just add the flesh.

A few tips:

  • Make sure you cut the apples and pears into quite small pieces. My apples were frozen and I hadn’t chopped them that small, so quite a few large chunks remained. Not the end of the world, admittedly, but a bit annoying.
  • If you don’t like something, substitute something else. Like cranberries? Then just do half the amount of sultanas and do the other 125g in cranberries. Don’t like dried apricots? Add some different dried fruit.
  • No pears? Try quinces… or even veg - courgettes or butternut squash work well.
  • Feel free to double up if you’re making presents or whatever. This recipe makes about a litre of chutney and filled two and a bit small kilners.

You will need:

1 large onion, chopped

350g apples, peeled and chopped into small chunks

250g pears, peeled and chopped into small chunks

150g dried apricots, chopped into small dice

250g sultanas

350ml bottle of cider vinegar

1 red chilli, chopped very finely

200g brown sugar

1 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground turmeric

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground coriander

1tsp ground black pepper

1 tsp salt

Bung everything into a big saucepan and stir while you bring it to the boil (see what I mean about the apple pieces?):

Once it’s boiled, turn it down to a simmer and allow to cook for 45 minutes until thick and golden brown, stirring occasionally.

Pour into sterilised jars. Click here for a link to my buddy Mammy’s excellent advice on sterilising jars.

And as this chutney makes a perfect thrifty Christmas pressie, I’ve added it to Violet Posy’s wonderful Thrifty Christmas blog. Pop over to get more thrifty inspiration and craft ideas.


Fish on Friday! Gorgeous kedgeree

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So as you know I’m involved with the Fish is the Dish project, a fabulous endeavour from Seafish.org encouraging families to eat more fish. Basically I get challenged every couple of weeks to cook with a different fish ( love it when my delivery man appears at the door clutching my parcel - it’s like a fish version of Christmas). This week it was beautiful fillets of undyed smoked haddock from Delish Fish. The fillets were firm and meaty, and not at all yellow (remembering the smoked haddock of my youth here).

I fiddled with this recipe quite a bit, but I have to tell you, the end result was fabulous, and was woofed down by every member of the family - even the curry-hating Death Wish Dude. English Dad isn’t sure he could eat it for breakfast (I certainly could), but it’s an easy and nutritious supper and would make a fab brunch if you have guests or over Christmas:

Kedgeree

450g smoked haddock

Milk

2 bay leaves

1 onion

25g butter

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp turmeric

1 pinch crushed chilli

350g basmati rice

4 hard boiled eggs

Chopped coriander

Firstly, boil the kettle (the man from British Gas told me never to heat water on the stove - apparently it’s much more energy efficient to use kettle-heated water!)

So lay the haddock fillets in a nice heavy frying pan and pour over enough milk to just cover them. Add in the bay leaves and quartered onion. Poach for about 8 minutes or until the fish is beginning to flake.

In the mean time, pour boiling water over 4 eggs in a saucepan and place on the heat. They’ll take 8 minutes too.

Once cooked, remove the fish, cover and keep warm in a low oven. Reserve the cooking milk in a jug, topping up to 600ml with stock.

Chuck out the bay leaves, but keep the onions and chop them as finely as your burning fingers will allow. Fry them in the butter for a few minutes until softened, then add in the spices.

Pop in the rice, stir around until coated and then add the milky/stock liquid. Bring to the boil, then cover and simmer for about 15 minutes.

Then stir in the flaked haddock (and add frozen peas if you’re using them) and cook for about another 5 minutes or until the rice is just cooked. Keep an eye on the liquid. You might need to add a bit more stock.

To serve, top with the boiled eggs. And I think a nice sprinkling of coriander would be perfect.

Enjoy!

For more information on the Fish is the Dish campaign, go to their website, check out their Facebook page, or find them on Twitter @fishisthedish.

 

Win a Tassimo coffee machine!

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We are, dearest reader, a household divided. Nothing new there, you might think - we’re already divided into the pasta haters vs pasta lovers (that’s us three against English Dad), the creamy sauce lovers vs the creamy sauce haters (yup, that’s us three against English Dad too)… hmmm, there seems to be a pattern emerging.

Anyway, we’re two for two on the tea/coffee debate. I have the largest mug in Christendom (pink Minnie Mouse), which I fill on a fairly regular basis with builder’s tea, liberally topped up with milk. The Mad Prof is a tea lover too, whereas the Death Wish Dude and his Dad are confirmed coffee lovers.

Since we’ve been testing this Tassimo whatnot though, the house has been filled with the delicious smell of coffee, and I’ve even had the odd tongue-scorching, molten lava temperature cup of espresso. I know - not like me at all. It’s like when you really don’t fancy a mince pie, then someone warms one up and you smell it and really want one.

Anyhoo. Digressing. The Tassimo has these little plastic yokes that you pop in and press down on the thingy and then, voila! you get a freshly brewed mug of coffee! No filter papers or coffee grounds or any of that messy stuff. I love it.

Happily, I’ve also got one to give away. Pop over to my Facebook page here and leave me a comment (say hello, say ‘bum’, say whatever you like) on the Tassimo post and you can be entered into the draw. Good luck!

Draw closes Sunday 27th November. No cash alternative. Winner chosen at random.

Roast figs with brown sugar and cinnamon, inspired by Diana Henry

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I absolutely love Diana Henry. Her book ‘Food from Plenty’ is one of my absolute favourites, so I was delighted to be offered a copy of her ‘Roast Figs, Sugar Snow’.

This book is just gorgeous. It’s all about Autumn and Winter, and the ingredients: figs, pumpkins, maple syrup, chestnuts, cranberries, quinces, are so evocative of the seasons. It’s like a massive warm hug in a book (with an optional hot chocolate).

Some of the recipes I’ve already got bookmarked include Danish Christmas Rice Pudding, snow biscuits, a steamed apple and marmalade pudding and roast figs and plums in vodka with a cardamom cream. You’re drooling already, right? It’s the perfect book to curl up with in front of the fire - not just recipes, but a lovely, seasonal read that will get you in the mood to get in the kitchen and rustle up some comforting winter food.

Inspired by this gorgeous book, and by the beautiful soft, dusky orbs in my local farm shop, I thought I’d have a go at roasting some figs. The result was utterly delicious. And so easy:

Roast figs with brown sugar and cinnamon

6 figs

50g butter

50g soft brown sugar

1/2 tsp cinnamon

Preheat the oven to gas 5/190 degrees. In a non-stick baking tin, place the figs, cutting a deep cross into the top of every one.

Melt the butter and brown sugar gently in a pan on the stove, add in the cinnamon, then pour the whole lot over the figs.

Roast for about 15 minutes. Serve with some thick double cream (Henry adds crushed cardamom seeds and a little icing sugar to hers) - a sprinkling of crushed pistachios would be gorgeous too.

Roast Figs, Sugar Snow: Food to Warm the Soul is available now, published by Octopus.

 

 

An ‘heirloom’, personalised Christmas Cake recipe

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I’ve written at length (and ad nauseum, probably) about Christmas cake before. There are all sorts of Christmas cake recipes out there – those ones that have been handed down from grandparents and great grandparents, and others from Delia or Nigella that people swear by.

As I’ve said before, I’ve got a bit of an aversion to food snobbery, and a healthy addiction to the ‘bung it all in and see what happens’ technique. Basically, as long as you keep the basic proportions right, it will come out okay. And don’t put stuff in just because it says so in the recipe. If you don’t like peel (bleurgh), leave it out and add a bit more of something else. It’s your cake. Some people soak their dried fruit for days (or weeks) beforehand, but I’m afraid I’m lacking in the required patience. If you fancy the fruit soaking version though, I’d heartily recommend the recipe on Ruth’s website, The Pink Whisk.

So here’s the cake(s) that I made this year. For ingredient notes and aternatives, please skip to the end of this recipe.

The Personalised Christmas Cake

800g dried fruit (I used 350g sultanas, 200g dried cranberries, 100g dried apricots, 100g ready to eat dried prunes, 50g glacé cherries)

175ml good quality rapeseed oil or 200g butter

200g dark brown sugar

2 tbsp honey

2 tbsp black treacle

120ml Pedro Ximenez sherry

120ml orange juice (or two fresh oranges, juiced)

About 2tsp spice (I used cinnamon, ginger and a grating of nutmeg)

3 eggs

200g self raising flour (or 300g flour and omit ground almonds).

100g ground almonds

Before you start:

Sort everything out: preheat the oven to gas 2/150 C and double line the bottom of your cake tin/tins with parchment paper, and up the sides too (tiger stripe pattern optional). Weigh all your stuff, crack the eggs into a bowl and mix them… just get yourself completely ready.

Step one:

Pop the dried fruit into a large saucepan along with the butter, sugar, honey, booze, fruit juice and spices. Stir gently over a low heat until the butter is melted and the sugar is completely dissolved. You can bring it up to a gentle bubble, but don’t let it boil vigorously as your alcohol will disappear.

Now leave it to cool. If you add the eggs straight in, they’ll be scrambled. You can leave it overnight to steep if you like. Oh, and at this stage, have a taste! If it doesn’t taste sweet enough, add something else sweet (this is often the case if you’ve used brandy or whisky which doesn’t have much natural sweetness, as opposed to, say, a liqueur - Nigella suggests a tablespoon of marmalade, which I think is a great idea – or maybe cranberry sauce?). If it’s overpoweringly, cloyingly sweet, then a squeeze of lemon, maybe? It’s your cake - do it how you like it.

Step two:

When cooled, stir in the eggs, flour and ground almonds. Pile into your one large springform tin, or two smaller ones and bake for about an hour and a half for the two small ones, or up to two hours for the large.

Test by pushing a skewer into the centre of the cake. It should come out clean.

And that’s it! Congratulations, you’ve made a Christmas cake (or two).

Cover the cake(s) in foil while they cool to stop the tops going hard. Then, when completely cool, wrap up the cake in parchment paper and then foil, and stash somewhere until you need it, occasionally unwrapping your gorgeous present to stab it with a cocktail stick and slosh with a couple of tablespoons of your chosen booze. Or just eat straight away.

You can do all that fancy pants marzipan and icing stuff, but for god’s sake don’t look to me for inspiration. I have the artistic ability of a small pickled onion.

Make sure you write your recipe down. You just created a family heirloom! For tips on marzipan, icing and decorating, click here.

NOTES ON INGREDIENTS:

Dried Fruit

One rule here: choose what you like. As I mentioned above, I hate peel with a vengeance so I leave it out. Other people use glacé fruits, snipped into little pieces. I used a 300g luxury pack of mixed raisins, apricots and cranberries which I saw in a nice foodie place and bought, then topped it up with random half packs of leftover cranberries, prunes (chopped into pieces), dried apricots and sultanas. Pick what suits you, bin the rest.

Butter vs Oil

Generally if you need lightness in a cake, butter helps as you can beat in air and it holds it well, but I’m finding I’m using more and more oil, (you can whisk it with the eggs and get a similar airy effect), especially Rapeseed, which adds a subtle nutty flavour and, being rich in vitamin E, high in Omega 3 and half the saturated fat of olive oil is obviously a healthy option. In this recipe you want the moistness, etc, but not the air, so use oil if you like. I made this cake with local P E Mead rapeseed oil, which is my absolute favourite and it turned out perfectly. There’s obviously a bit of water content in butter, so if you’re substituting oil use slightly less. Having said that, don’t kill yourself (you know me, I don’t do adding up): 100g of butter will be about 90 - 100ml oil.

Sugar

Again, use what you’ve got - the darker the sugar, the more treacly the taste. I used Muscovado. You’re melting it, so it doesn’t matter how big the granulation is.

Honey

The honey here gives moistness and sweetness, but you could substitute golden syrup if you don’t like (or are allergic to) honey. I used Rowse Supahoney with lemon, because I absolutely love its taste (I’m a bit into Manuka honey) and use it all the time so I had a pot open. You could also use black treacle which gives a lovely dark toffee taste, or mix the two.

The Booze

No rules here. I’ve used Morgan’s Spiced Rum which has a gorgeous vanilla flavour but not much sweetness, cherry brandy, which not only has that lovely sweet cherry taste, but gives an almondy hit too and plain brandy as well. Use whatever you like/whatever you have. Again, taste your mixture and adjust sweetness accordingly. If you don’t want to use alcohol, just double up on the fruit juice.

Fruit Juice

I used cranberry juice, because I thought it would go nicely with the dried cranberries, but you can use freshly squeezed orange juice (bung in the zest too for an extra zing), or juice out of a carton. It honestly doesn’t matter.

Spice

I make a lot of curries so my spice turnover is quite high. All I would say is, if the jar of ‘Mixed Spice’ in your cupboard was purchased in the 1940s it’s not going to add much to your cake. I used 1 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp ground ginger and a good grating of nutmeg, but use what you have: mixed spice/ginger/cinnamon/ground nutmeg (not too much, it can be overpowering). Just make sure it’s fresh.

 

A bit like Challenge Anneka but with a pig’s heart and without the helicopter

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So it was parents’ evening last night for the Prof. In a chilling premonition of what was to follow, his teachers all said the same thing: ‘he’s LOVELY!’, they chanted en masse, like the crowd in The Life of Brian (‘Yes! We are all individuals!’) - not really, it’s just for dramatic effect - there were large sections of waiting in drafty school corridors between each appointment… ‘but he’s SO disorganised…’

Tell me something I don’t know. He’s the cleverest clever person I’ve ever met, but he’s tackling his A levels with a jaunty smile and a devil may care approach to organisation that would, frankly, make a toddler look like the MD of a FTSE 100 company. There are papers EVERYWHERE and and at 8.20am each morning, when we should be in the car, he is rummaging around trying to find lost books and missing papers. ’He forgets to hand his homework in’, they tell me, over and over again, ‘and he missed out the last three pages of my Powerpoint homework assignment’, another tells me, ‘I’m still wondering how that’s even possible. But he’s LOVELY…’

Which brings me neatly to this morning. After dropping them off at school and arriving home just in time for my first cup of tea of the day, my phone rings. I know it’s him. It’s just a case of what he’s forgotten today. The conversation goes like this:

Him: ‘Hullo’

Me: ‘What have you forgotten?’

Him: ‘Erm… my paedo tag…’

Me: ‘Please don’t call it that, darling’

Him: ‘Sorry, my ID tag, my lunch money.. oh and [suddenly he's gone a bit muffled] Ineedapigheartbyelevenforbiology’

Me:’I'm sorry, I missed that last bit. It sounded, ahaha, as though you said you needed a pig heart by eleven’.

Mad Prof: ‘Erm… yeah, I do’

Me: ‘WHAT THE BLOODY HELL?! Where the HELL am I going to get a pig heart by eleven?! You are a NIGHTMARE!!!’

So I rouse the husband (it’s his day off) and, thinking now that I’m a bit like Anneka Rice on Challenge Anneka, implore him to pop to work and pick up a helicopter so we can do it for real. Having been knocked back, ‘IT’S MY BLOODY DAY OFF!’, we’re forced to do it like normal people and rush to the car instead. Screeching up to our local butcher, we rush in and yell at him about needing a pig heart.

‘You and everyone else’, he shrugs. I sold out yesterday. Most people ordered them last week’

WAIT. They ORDERED them? Last week? I’m going to kill him.

We rush back to the car again. Hubby drives, while I frantically Google butchers. My phone screen is TINY and there are suprisingly few in the Herts/Beds/Bucks area and we’ve now got under an hour to get the heart and get it to school before Biology begins.

Cue Benny Hill music.

On the bypass to Hemel Hempstead, I ring my mum. She’s used to odd demands but this one takes the biscuit: ‘QUICK! I yell, I need a pig’s heart, STAT!’

English Grandma is the fastest Googler in the west. Within two minutes she’s got the names and phone numbers of several butchers. I start ringing round.

‘A pig’s heart? Nah sorry, we’ve got some frozen ones…’

‘Pigs hearts? No, don’t get the demand really…’

And then finally, like J R Hartley, we strike gold: ‘I’ve got lambs hearts - will they do?’

Swinging the car around like the curly haired one in The Professionals, Hubby heads for the butcher’s. I leap out before he’s even stopped, grab the heart, hand over my £1.11 and sprint back to the car, shouting my thanks as I run.

Back at the school, I hand the squishy package over to the receptionist. ’Right, there’s a heart for his biology lesson, his ID tag, and his lunch money… oh and give him a slap round the head from me’.

‘Okay’, says the receptionist, ‘but I’m afraid we’re not allowed to deliver the slap’

‘I tell you what, next time he does this to me, it won’t be a lamb’s heart nestling on this reception desk, it’ll be his own, removed with a blunt and rusty spoon…’

She looks at me a bit funny

‘Never mind. I’ve had a hard morning.’

 

My secret X Factor addiction, and win a Lucky Voice X Factor special edition karaoke machine!

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Okay, I’ll admit it, I blimmin’ love X Factor. I know there’s a bit of snobbery surrounding it, and yes I know it drives people bonkers when we’re all chatting about it on Twitter (filter it out, people!) but bar the auditions where it’s akin to jeering at performing monkeys, I usually follow it (at the live stages) and think that, despite what people think, there are actually some very good singers on there (and some rubbish ones, obviously). Talking of rubbish ones, Frankie is now histoire and, although I really liked The Risk, I still think that Yeo Valley’s The Churned are the best boy band X Factor has ‘discovered’ so far. I’ll be interested to see who’s in the final.

To tie in with this year’s X Factor, Competition Hunter, a pretty cool website where you can find (and suggest) tons of UK competitions (did you know that there are people who make a living from entering and winning competitions?!), have asked me if I want to give away a pretty swanky X Factor special edition karaoke machine to so you can get practicing for next year’s X Factor. To be in with a chance to win, just leave a comment and let me know which song you’d sing at a karaoke competition (and there are no extra points for ‘I Will Survive’).

Good luck!

(Competition closes Sunday 20th November at midnight. Judge’s decision is final. No cash alternative).

 

*************THIS COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED! CONGRATULATIONS TO MIRIAM WHO WON THE KARAOKE MACHINE!************

 

Making changes, feeling confident in your own skin and embracing your inner weirdo!

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I was chatting to my homey Erica recently about making changes. Every so often I get to a stage where I think: yup, things have got to change. I’m full of enthusiasm for a few days and then it tails off. Current moans include:

Organisation. We can’t seem to get out the door in the mornings on time without forgotten ID cards, missing ties and the wrong books. Birthdays have been missed, essential supplies have run out and appointments have been forgotten.

Housework (especially ironing) getting on top of me (not literally ahaha).

Letting other people bring me down.

Feeling guilty about saying no (or just not saying it when I know I should), especially work wise.

Getting too involved in the boys’ lives and, hence, worrying too much.

Crap time management: spending far too much time on Twitter and checking emails.

Not having enough self confidence generally.

The self confidence thing is ridiculous. I have lovely friends who would definitely tell me if I was being a knob, so I’m pretty sure I’m not one, but still I worry incessantly about saying/doing the wrong thing, whether I’ve upset people and about what people think of me. I know, deep down, that I shouldn’t care. But I can’t stop myself. Erica said she’d learned to ‘embrace my weirdness’, which I think is fab. After all, if you can’t love you, how do you expect anyone else to?

So what do you reckon, then? How do you have a sort out when things are all at sea? I feel like I need to set myself some ‘rules’, but I’m not even sure what they should be, apart from:

1. Embrace my inner weirdo

Trout with a lime and caper butter sauce

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I’m REALLY enjoying this Fish is the Dish project. They send a ‘fish parcel’ every couple of weeks and I get to cook with all sorts of really beautiful fresh fish.

This week, it was some gorgeous fresh trout from a company called Dawnfresh. The colours were absolutely amazing. We all gathered round oohing and ahhing at the beautiful skin (and then had a big family argument about how to cook it).

I won (obviously) when I found this gorgeous recipe over at BritishTrout.co.uk - it’s basically fillets of trout with a lime and caper butter sauce. It was so easy and quick, and absolutely delicious. I changed it about as we didn’t have any fresh herbs, which I think would enhance it even more, but do give it a try anyway, it was yum scrum:

Trout with a lime and caper butter sauce

6 trout fillets, seasoned

125g butter

2 tbsp capers, rinsed

2 tbsp lime juice

So basically just use a knob of the butter to gently fry the trout, skin side down. It cooks really fast, so you only need to give it about 3 or 4 minutes before you flip it over and cook on the other side for about a minute.

Then just remove the fillets and keep them warm. Pop the rest of the butter into the pan, and add in the capers and the lime juice. Once the sauce is all lovely and foamy, pour it over the fish and serve.

Simples!

My twist: we ate our trout with some lovely baby roasted potatoes sprinkled with rosemary salt, and also some roasted parsnips - the sweetness went really well with the vinegary capers.

For more information on the Fish is the Dish campaign, go to their website, check out their Facebook page, or find them on twitter @fishisthedish.

 

The Disreputable one and the nasty case of the travelator nun pile-up

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My Disreputable Dad popped by for a cuppa today. He does make me laugh. He was telling me about his business trip to Santo Domingo (I don’t know either, you’ll have to look it up).

I’m really not sure he should travel alone. He was telling me about the amazing seats Iberia have in business class now - there are loads of buttons and apparently you can lie almost horizontal ‘although when I was just waking up, I pushed the button of the lady sitting next to me instead of my own and shot her bolt upright from her reclining position, in the process showering herself with hot coffee’. Oops.

He was also telling me about the nasty cut on his calf:

DD: ‘Oh, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you’.

Me: ‘Go on, try me’

DD: ‘Well, I was on one of those travelator things in the airport, and there were a load of nuns pushing wheelchairs…’

Me: ‘Rrriiiiggghhhht… empty wheelchairs?’

DD: ‘No! Wheelchairs full of old people and people with no legs and things.. So we’re all going along this travelator, and there’s a nun pushing a wheelchair in the front, then another nun pushing a wheelchair behind her, then an old man, then me, then another nun pushing a wheelchair…’

Failing to see how this could possibly have caused the nasty cut on the back of his calf, I allowed him to push on.

DD: ‘So we get to the end of the travelator, and the nun at the front doesn’t realise that you’ve got to lift the front wheels of the wheelchair over the little lip. So her wheels stick fast and her wheelchair stops dead, then the nun pushing the wheelchair behind her piles into the back of her, then I pile into them, the old man falls flailing to the floor, then the nun behind us rams into the back of me. Hence the cut calf.

Me: ‘OMG! What happened next?’

DD: ‘Well then the first nun realised her mistake, lifted the wheels of the wheelchair up and everybody started moving again and fell onto the floor in a big heap.’

‘Nuns’, he informed me solemnly, ‘are the worst drivers in the world’ (this is actually true - ask anyone who’s lived in Ireland).

You just couldn’t make it up.

Eating my way around Boston and New York, a guest post by the gorgeousness that is Erica

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Hello lovely English Mum readers. I’ve hijacked her blog today so that I can exercise my foodie passion. I’ve been eating my way around Boston and I thought I’d share my highlights with you. The trip was a two-legged trip, first few days were spent in Boston and the last two in New York. The food in America is pretty good depending on what you like, we went for standard American fare during this trip but there were plenty of fine dining options along the way. Here’s my food lover’s guide to Boston (and a wee bit of NYC) then..

Breakfast
Thornton’s is one of those places that you imagine the actual Bostonians eat, not touristy at all but with amazing food. Alex went for a breakfast bagel which was huge and I had poached eggs with rye bread and home fries (spicy potatoes). I love the Kitsch plates!

Boston loves Dunkin’ Donuts, in fact they have more Dunkin’ Donuts outlets per square metre than any other American city, 77 in total. They are literally everywhere. And their slogan? ‘America runs on Dunkin’, and they aren’t even being ironic. We went once as a treat!
My final breakfast highlight in Boston, and please don’t judge me, was at the train station (we travelled to New York by Amtrak). You know when you’re up early, cold and starving and you just want ‘dirty’ food. You know what I mean, right? Well Cosi delivered with this breakfast quiche. It was like quiche lorraine in a pastry cup, totally random but it hit the spot! The picture doesn’t do it justice. Honest.

The best breakfast I had, in fact it probably tied with Thornton’s, was at Tick Tock Diner in New York. French toast, bacon and maple syrup. Possibly the best food combination ever. Ridiculously huge portion that was made even more ridiculous with the serving of THREE milk jugs of maple syrup. Only in America.

Elevenses

Also known as second breakfast, ahem. We didn’t partake much. Honest.

Starbucks, they are everywhere, including a full size outlet inside our hotel as well as Starbucks perculator in the room! It was a little bit Starbucks overload if I’m honest and I’m now caffeine detox-ing.

I couldn’t write a post on English Mum without mentioning cupcakes. I don’t really eat cupcakes, apart from Englishmum’s Lime and Pistachio variety. I’m very discerning when it comes to my cupcakes dontcha know. I couldn’t not take a picture (my picture was rubbish so I picked one up from their site instead) of Johnny Cupcakes, which isn’t actually a cupcake store at all but a t-shirt shop, so there we are.

Slight departure from food there, but we’re back on it with Sugar Heaven, possibly the greatest sweet shop in the world. Loved it. Spent an absolute fortune. The pic n mix spans two full walls, that’s serious pic n mix people.

We spent $35 (just over £20) and bought everything from American Skittles to a ‘blood bag’ filled with liquid candy for Halloween.

Next time… lunch and dinner!

For more from Erica, visit LittleMummy.com

The murder of Billy Dove

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On Saturday night, well, early Sunday morning, when many people were enjoying the aftermath of bonfire parties or, like me, were safely tucked up in bed after lovely evenings with their families, 21 year old Billy Dove was stabbed in Hemel Hempstead town centre. Obviously I can’t speculate as to the circumstances, but the end result was tragic: Billy died.

As the parent of teenagers, this terrifies me. My lovely nephews live in Hemel Hempstead. They mix in the same circles as Billy. They’re out in the town centre at night. You can’t help but think: what if it had been one of them?

A 17 year old boy has been charged with Billy’s murder and another, also 17, is still being interviewed. 17! What on earth goes through the head of a lad just 6 months older than my son to make him disregard his own life and that of another so much that he can carry a blade, and worse - use it?

Of course, ‘society’ will be blamed. Joblessness is at an all time high. Hemel Hempstead town centre is a shadow of its former self. Still, the majority of young people are decent, honest and law abiding. Nearly 10,000 people have paid tribute to Billy on the Facebook page created in his memory. Most of the commenters are young and local. They’re all horrified by what’s happened. So can we blame this on unemployment and/or social issues when the vast majority are horrified and appalled, and wouldn’t dream of committing such an act? I just don’t know. Should we just accept that every so often, a real scumbag is born (or made) and nothing any of us can do will stop that happening?

All I know is that it scares me. It makes me worry for the future of my teenage boys, and it makes me sad for the parents and friends of a young man who are mourning a future and a life cruelly wrenched from them.

A trip to Billingsgate Seafood School

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I’ve already told you about the lovely chaps at Seafish - they work really hard promoting great quality, sustainable seafood, and their campaign, Fish is the Dish, is all about encouraging us all to eat more fish and the website is a fabulous resource for recipes, cooking tips and advice about choosing and cooking fish.

They’d noticed the Sea Bass debacle, and invited me up to Billingsgate Seafood School at the famous fish market, to teach me some fishy skillz. The course was a special one as we were being taught by none other than Allan Pickett, Head Chef of the beautiful Plateau Restaurant in Canada Place, in the very heart of the Docklands.

 

Allan was a brilliant teacher. We warmed to him straight away as he abandoned the teaching ‘stage’ at the front of the kitchen to come and work next to us at the workstations. First of all we were presented with a whole Sea Bass and a scary scraper-contraption and had a good old go at descaling. This was hilarious as scales were flying everywhere. I found several scales down my cleavage that night, alarmingly…

Next, Allan took us through filleting the Sea Bass. It really is all about technique (as the actress said to the bishop), pressing down firmly on the flesh ‘opens up’ the fillet as you gently cut the flesh away from the bones. It’s a bit gruesome when you have to break the heads off after you’ve cut round them, yes, but it’s also fascinating, and there’s a real sense of satisfaction when you’re left with two neat fillets at the end of the process.

After we’d finished the Sea Bass, we moved onto the Plaice. These ugly mothers have two larger fillets on the top side, and two smaller on the underside. I found this a bit more tricky, as the fillets are thin anyway - a bit too much enthusiasm while you’re cutting and you can find that there’s hardly anything left!

After the filleting, we got down to the cooking. Here are the very simple, and very delicious, recipes we used:

Shallow fried Plaice fillets with French beans and almonds, with nut brown butter sauce

1 Plaice (per person)

Flour, for dusting

Salt and pepper

80g butter

60g French beans, blanched in boiling salted water

10g almonds (toasted then chopped)

Fillet the Plaice (or ask your fishmonger to do it), then skin as well. Season the flour well then dust each fillet, tapping away the excess.

Heat a little vegetable oil in a pan, then shallow fry the Plaice fillets (we were taught to fry them on the presentation side until golden and NOT to mess with them). Flip over briefly to make sure the other side is just cooked through.

Put the fillets on a warm plate then add in the butter to the pan, swirling around until it’s bubbling and beginning to brown. Pop in the beans and almonds, just to warm them through, then spoon the whole lot over the cooked Plaice fillets.

Roast fillet of Sea Bass with a sauce vierge

1 whole Sea Bass, well scaled and filleted

300g new potatoes, cooked then peeled

1 punnet red or yellow cherry tomatoes

1/2 lemon, juiced

1/2 bunch chives

1/2 bunch chervil or parsley

125ml good quality olive oil

30g pitted black olives, sliced lengthways

Salt and pepper

Heat a pan then add a little vegetable oil. Once hot, add in the Sea Bass fillets carefully and cook slowly on the skin side until crisp and nearly cooked through.

Meanwhile, slice the cooked potatoes and sauté in butter in another pan until brown.

Cut the tomatoes in half and grill until just warmed through and starting to soften.

Spoon the potatoes onto the middle of a warmed plate. Quickly flip the fish over in the pan just to make sure the other side is cooked through, then put the hot fish on top of the potatoes, and arrange the cherry tomatoes around the plate.

Mix the olive oil with a little lemon juice, pour into the hot pan. Add in the chopped herbs and olives. Warm through and pour over the dish.

And that’s it! The evening went so quickly I was actually really disappointed when it ended. We had a chance to sit and chat while we ate our dishes with a glass of wine, which was really nice.

The dishes were both delicious and I really feel ready to buy a whole fish and have a go myself at home. Remember, though, your fishmonger will always fillet any fish for you, so don’t feel you can’t ask.

Massive thanks to Jo at Seafish for arranging my fab day out, and to the lovely staff at Billingsgate, and the ever-patient Chef Allan Pickett,

 

 

 

A wonderful bonfire night in pictures

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Saturday night, we went to my big bro’s for a few fireworks and a bite to eat. Having lived in Ireland for a while, I’ve really missed bonfire night. There’s something about the smoky smell of the air that made me feel really nostalgic (and hungry). I took some peanut butter brownies, but there was no need. My niece and nephew, Turtle and Jackson, are both incredibly good cooks. Turts had made some awesome sparkly cupcakes:

And Jackson had excelled himself with a fudgy chocolate tart, with beautiful crisp pastry (yes, even on the bottom, I did a ‘Mary Berry’ and flipped that bad boy over:

Plus my lovely sis in law had done yummy, cheesy chilli chips and dips (GREAT idea for a party this - tortilla chips tossed with loads of cheese and sprinkled with chilli, then baked and dolloped with sour cream, guacamole and salsa - delicious):

We also feasted upon hotdogs and a lovely chilli, but I’d abandoned my camera by then, sorry. The big bro did, however, introduce me to Sagrantino. Here’s a really old one from his collection, next to a newer one he’s laying down:

And then we went outside and did a bit of this:

And let off some rockets, (the THIRTY QUID rockets that English Dad insisted on buying - what is it with men and fireworks?) the only evidence of which, sadly, I have is this:

Hopefully their chickens weren’t too traumatised by the whole thing. Millie the pointer was wonderfully well behaved (she’s only a baby too):

Isn’t she beautiful? A wonderful evening was had by all, rounded off with a glass of port from 1970!!

What about you? What did you get up to?

Ugly face chicken pies for bonfire night

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I’m not completely sure where I first saw this recipe. Rest assured it wasn’t my idea - I’m thinking maybe Martha Stewart or somewhere like that?

Anyhoo, if you’re entertaining on bonfire night, these little beauties are a great talking point. If you don’t fancy chicken, just fill them with your usual minced beef recipe, or even just squeeze sausagemeat out of the casing to fill them.

The teenagers, you’ll be delighted to know, took me to task over my original ‘scary’ description in the title, and said that it should be ‘grumpy’ or maybe ‘ugly’, so ugly it is, but if you want to make smiley ones go for it - they’re your pies, after all.

You will need:

3 chicken breasts, cut into small chunks

1 onion, finely chopped

Ham, cut into small chunks

1 tbsp flour

Chicken stock (about 200ml)

Seasoning

Making the filling:

So sauté the onions in a couple of tablespoons of rapeseed oil. Add in the chicken and fry until it’s lightly browned. Bung in the ham, then add in a tablespoon of flour, salt and pepper, and about 200ml chicken stock. Stir well and cook gently for a while, just until the ‘rawness’ of the flour disappears and the sauce looks creamy. Add in some thyme here if you like. It’s my favourite flavour with chicken.

The pastry:

If you want to make your own pastry, rub 200g of cold butter into 400g of plain flour, then add in 3 or 4 tablespoons of cold water until it just comes together. If you’d rather buy it, that’s fine too.

Preheat your oven to gas 4/180 degrees. Roll out your pastry and line a 6 hole yorkshire pudding tin (or individual little pie dishes) with pastry.

Baking blind:

You don’t have to blind bake these, but the bottoms will be crisper and they’ll hold together better. Up to you. Scrunch up some squares of greaseproof paper, then smooth out and pop on top of each pastry base - pour in baking beans (I use some old dried haricot beans that I keep especially for blind baking) and bake for about ten minutes. Then remove the beans and give them another 5 minutes.

Making the pies:

Now roll out the rest of the pastry and cut out your scary faces (I cut round a saucer, then used a piping nozzle for the holes). Fill generously with the chicken mixture then top with the pies. A quick pass through the eggy wash department and your ugly faces are ready for the oven.

Bake for about 15/20 minutes until golden. Pair with mini baked potatoes and maybe some roasted butternut squash soup and you’re good to go. Have a great bonfire night. Oh and be careful out there!

Chocolate wookie cupcakes and the 11-teenager sleepover

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So the Mad Prof decided that over half term he was going to have a Star Wars Marathon. This marathon, he informed me, would take the form of a…

‘…no-holds-barred 11 hour Star Wars fest where me, Jake, Mick, Sam, Harry, Max, Tom…’

Wait.

‘Six mates?’

‘Yup. Oh, and the two girls…’

‘Wait, EIGHT of you?’

‘Yup, as I was saying, we’re all going to watch all six Star Wars films back to b…

‘Eight mates? EIGHT BLOODY MATES?’

‘Yeah, that’s okay isn’t it? I thought you could do cupcakes and stuff, and we could order pizza, ooh and you could make those awesome cocktails…’

It’s the guilt, you see? Years in Ireland away from their mates and living 30 miles from school and not able to socialise because of living in such a rural location…

Reader, dearest, I gave in.

And so it was that our lounge came to be inhabited by seven enormous, gangly teenage boys, plus two token girls (I offered them the Prof’s bedroom, but they declined).

‘But where will you all sleep?’, I asked…

‘Muuuuum, we’re not going to sleep, it’s a Star Wars Marathon!’.

Oh, right. And that’s when the Death Wish Dude chipped in:

‘Erm… so if he’s having some mates round, can I have a mate round too?’

Why the hell not.

So I made Wookie cupcakes (badly) and we bought cider and ordered pizza (nearly £100 worth of pizza, incidentally), and I made cocktails and we sat upstairs, me worrying about spillages and breakages, and English Dad worrying about his precious telly and whether they’d keep him awake all night.

Turns out our fears were unfounded. Not many of them managed to watch every film, and yes, there was plenty of hilarity, a lot of thudding about, some pillow fights, clinking of bottles, choruses of ‘these are not the droids you are looking for‘, oh, and the window blind fell down, but there were no breakages, no spillages, no drunken antics and a perfect queue of ‘thank you very much for having me’ as they exited stage left, a little bleary eyed, the next morning.

‘That was awesome, Mum, we must do that again’.

Errrrm, yeah.