Christopher Lloyd Gardener Cook

22 August 2010 00:25

I bought this book earlier in the year at my local library book sale. As you can imagine I already have quite a few gardening and cookery books but this is the only one which spans both interests.

Sadly Christopher Lloyd died fairly recently and I didn’t get around to visiting his beautiful gardens at Great Dixter although I had planned to for years.

Christopher wrote a gardening column for The Guardian for years and they were always very enjoyable but I hadn’t realised that he was also a keen cook, which was a bit daft of me really as there’s no point in growing lovely fruit and veg if you don’t eat it.

The blurb says: Christopher Lloyd takes us from plant to plate, recommending the best varieties to grow, telling us where to grow and how to plant…. he also passes on over a hundred of his favourite recipes.

He tells lots of stories too, which are often quite funny. There are plenty of lovely photographs of plants but none of the cooked recipes. So, no food porn to gawp at but it’s still a lovely book to browse through.

No Comments »

Categories: Gardening, Recipes

Tags: , , ,

Coffee Cream

15 August 2010 23:11

This pudding isn’t exactly exciting looking, it is after all beige and it’s what granny would have called “a shape”. I adapted this recipe from a Margeurite Patten one which was actually in the section of “food for the elderly”. It uses up half a can of evaporated milk and as I often have exactly that much left over from doing a particular pasta dish, I thought I would give it a try.

1/2 large can evaporated milk
2oz sugar
3 heaped dessertspoons cornflour
water
1 tsp instant coffee granules

Make the evaporated milk up to one pint with water. Blend the cornflour, sugar and coffee with some of the milk. Bring the rest of the milk to the boil. Pour onto the blended mixture and stir well. Return to the saucepan and bring to the boil again. Continue cooking, stirring all the time until it has thickened.

Pour the mixture into a mould. Leave to cool and set which will take several hours.

If you can remember Symington Table Creams, this pudding tastes and has a similar texture to those puddings. I read somewhere that you can still get the Symington ones but I haven’t seen them for years.

Basically it’s a very thick custard mixture which sets when it is cool. The sky’s the limit flavour-wise with this sort of recipe because you can add any kind of flavouring you fancy.

The original recipe called for vanilla essence but I tried coffee, in future I’m going to add some booze, probably Bailey’s Irish Cream. I’ll also try cocoa and I’m going to have a go at Maple and Walnut which was my favourite Symington one, I’ll use maple syrup instead of sugar but I’m not sure about the walnut flavour. Is there such a thing as walnut or pecan essence?

This is a very simple store-cupboard dessert, but it’s still tasty.

No Comments »

Categories: Desserts/Puddings, Recipes

Tags: , , , ,

Pasta with Chorizo and Tomato

8 July 2010 23:34

This is the meal which I cooked for dinner last Wednesday night, it was very tasty, although not a terribly sensible choice given the fact that the weather was very warm here that day. It would be a perfect winter warmer I think. It should serve 4.

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, sliced
250g / 8oz chorizo sausage, sliced
425g / 14oz tin chopped tomatoes
1/2 cup dry white wine
1/2 – 1 teaspoon chopped chilli
12 oz pasta
garnish with chopped herbs and cheese

Fry the onion in the olive oil until tender
Add the sausage to the fried onion and stir together, cook for 2-3 minutes. Add the tinned tomatoes, wine and chilli and season with salt and pepper.
Bring to the boil and then simmer for 15-20 minutes.

Meanwhile cook the pasta until al dente. Drain it and return it to the pan. Add the sauce to the pasta and stir well.
Serve and sprinkle the top with herbs and cheese.

This is the original recipe but as ever I changed it a bit. I had some chilli cheese which needed to be used up. I think it was just a sort of cheddar cheese which had a lot of chopped chilli added into it.

Frankly it was so fiery it left me gasping but I hate food to be wasted so decided that I could use it up in this pasta dish, obviously substituting the chilli cheese for the chopped chilli which the recipe called for.

I think I added about 6oz of the chilli cheese.

It probably seems a bit strange but our ‘boys’ have always been big pasta fans and they have always wanted a mixture of different pasta shapes in the same meal.

Don’t ask me why, I’ve never been able to understand it because to me pasta is pasta and it tastes the same no matter what shape it is.

I didn’t want to open some good wine just to cook with, so for the first time in about a hundred years I bought a box of wine just for cooking. I had been assured that boxes of wine have improved greatly over the years. Sadly the wine turned out to be very dry indeed, in fact it is what we in Scotland would describe as wersh.

The chilli flavour was so overpowering in my version of this recipe that we couldn’t detect any wine flavour at all, but it was still a very nice meal.

No Comments »

Categories: Recipes

Tags: , ,

Early birthday celebration

18 June 2010 21:39

Because Laura (our son Gordon’s girlfriend) has her birthday on June the 10th and mine is on the 19th, we decided to combine our birthday meals out. The only evening which we could all manage was on Wednesday.

So we went to the Annapurna restaurant and had lovely Nepalese food. We had been there before but it was the first time for the rest of the family and luckily they enjoyed it.

I did make a chocolate birthday cake for us both but it turned out to be the driest one which I have baked yet. So the search for the perfect chocolate cake recipe continues.

I did quite like the icing though. Very different because instead of using butter, you use jam and although it probably isn’t any healthier for you somehow the fact that you aren’t eating loads of chocolate flavoured butter is a plus.

So this is the recipe for it.

75g dark chocolate
75g jam of your choice
150g icing sugar

Put the chocolate in a bowl which has been placed above a pan of hot water. When the chocolate has melted, remove the bowl from the heat and mix the jam into the melted chocolate. Add the sifted icing sugar and beat with enough water to make the mixture easier to spread.

I used strawberry jam but you are supposed to use blackcurrant or raspberry. I think any red fruit jam would work though.

No Comments »

Categories: Recipes

Tags: , ,

Chocolate Sponge Cake

23 March 2010 11:23

It was number 1 son’s birthday recently and although he isn’t mad keen on cake, I felt the need to bake one for him. We ate it with home-made vanilla ice-cream and he did enjoy it after all. It’s a very simple recipe.

175g/6oz margarine
175g/6oz sugar
2 eggs
200g/7oz self-raising flour
25g/1oz cocoa powder
6 tablespoons milk

Grease 2 x 18cm/7 inch cake tins.
Cream the margarine and sugar together until pale and fluffy. Mix in the eggs one at a time. Mix the cocoa powder into the flour and add it to the cake mixture, folding it in with the milk to form a dropping consistency.

Divide the cake mixture equally between the two tins and bake in a preheated oven, 180 C (350 F), Gas Mark 4, for 20-25 minutes until risen and firm. Leave in the cake tins for 5 minutes, then remove from tins and cool on a wire rack.

Sandwich the two cakes together with chocolate buttercream or whipped cream as desired.

To make buttercream:

2 tablespoons cocoa powder
2 tablespoons of boiling water
125g/4oz butter or marg.
250g/8oz icing sugar sifted

Blend the cocoa powder with the boiling water, then cream the butter/marg with the icing sugar until light and fluffy. Then beat in the cocoa mixture.

This should be enough mixture to sandwich the cakes together and cover the top. Decorate to your taste. I used broken chocolate pieces. Enjoy.

No Comments »

Categories: Cakes, Recipes

Tags: ,

Chocolate, Banana And Toffee Pie

1 March 2010 23:57

This one went down well with the whole family. It will serve 6.

For the base:
65 g/2½ oz unsalted butter
250 g/9 oz chocolate digestive biscuits

For the filling:
397 g/13 oz tin of condensed milk
150 g/5 oz plain chocolate
120 ml/4 fl oz creme fraiche or single cream
1 tbsp golden syrup

For the topping:
2 bananas
250 ml/8 fl oz creme fraiche
2 tbsp strong black coffee

Melt the butter in a pan. Crush the biscuits using a rolling pin if you don’t have a food processor. Put the crushed biscuits into a bowl and add the melted butter. Mix well and press onto the base and up the sides of a 23cm/9in loose-based flan tin. Leave to set.

To make the filling: Place the unopened can of condensed milk in a saucepan of boiling water and cover with a lid. Lower the heat and simmer for 2 hours. Do not allow the pan to boil dry. This caramelises the condensed milk and you can buy this ready made in tins if you don’t want the faff of doing it yourself.

Remove the pan from the heat after 2 hours and leave it until it has completely cooled. Do not open the can whilst it is still hot, it is very dangerous as the contents are under pressure due to the heat.

Melt the chocolate with the 120 ml creme fraiche or single cream and golden syrup in a heatproof glass bowl over simmering water. Stir in the caramelised condensed milk and mix well, then spread the mixture over the biscuit crust.

Slice the bananas and arrange them on top of the chocolate filling.

Mix together the 250 ml creme fraiche and coffee then spread the mixture over the bananas.

Decorate with grated chocolate or chocolate curls. The easiest way to make chocolate curls is to use a potato peeler on the edge of a bar of chocolate.

No Comments »

Categories: Desserts/Puddings, Recipes, Sweets

Tags: ,

Scottish Tablet/Orkney Fudge

16 February 2010 23:20

I had a bit of a culinary disaster the other day when I tried to make fudge using a recipe from one of those fund-raising booklets that the local kirks publish. I don’t know what happened but I ended up with a solid block of brown sugar which I couldn’t even get a knife into.

I hate the thought of waste so I added some likely ingredients and boiled the whole thing up again and came up with a real winner this time. It isn’t quite tablet as the consistency is denser and to me it tastes very like Orkney fudge which you used to be able to buy, but I haven’t seen it for years. This is actually easier to make than tablet.
I’m swithering about calling it Fablet or Tudge, but leaning towards Fablet as it does taste fab.

1 1/2 lbs demerara sugar
6oz unsalted butter
3 large tablespoons golden syrup
300 ml carton single cream

Put all the ingredients into a heavy bottomed pot and bring them to the boil. At this stage it is a lovely toffee sauce but if you continue to simmer it for between 20 and 30 minutes the mixture should darken and thicken. When it looks quite gloopy as it simmers it should have boiled enough.

Remove from the heat and using a wooden spoon stir well until you feel the mixture getting thicker and heavier as it cools.

Carefully tip the mixture into a metal tray. A Swiss roll tin is ideal. When it has set score the surface with a knife to whatever size suits you best.

I think that if you continued to boil the mixture for another 10 minutes or so it would turn into a lovely toffee, which would be great if you don’t have to worry about your fillings being pulled out by it. Unfortunately I do.

7 Comments »

Categories: Recipes, Sweets

Tags: ,

Flapjacks

10 February 2010 22:17

Flapjacks

6 oz butter or marg.
6oz demerara sugar
8oz porridge oats

Melt the butter in a large pan with the sugar. Then add the oats and mix together well.

Tip the mixture into a greased Swiss roll tin and level out with a palette knife or fork.

Bake in the centre of the oven at gas mark 4, 180C or 350F for about 30 minutes.

Remove from the oven and after a few minutes cut into squares or rectangles. Leave in the tin until cold.

Flapjacks are great for packed lunches as they travel well and what with all the oats in them they are at least a bit healthy. The so called healthy cereal bars which you can buy in supermarkets are unbelievably expensive – about £2.50 for 5 very small bars and I doubt if they do you any good.

Obviously this is a very basic flapjack recipe but you can have fun playing around with it. Try out different kinds of sugar or substitute some sugar with golden syrup or honey.

Add some spices like cinnamon or ginger for a change, or add dried fruit or nuts.

If you don’t mind being naughtier try mini marshmallows or chopped chocolate.

Darker Flapjacks

As you can see from my photographs I have done one batch with white sugar and another with dark brown, which gives a nice toffyish flavour.

No Comments »

Categories: Recipes

Tags: ,

Magimix Le Glacier Ice Cream Maker

7 February 2010 23:01

We were lucky enough to be given vouchers for Lakeland Plastics at Christmas. As the weather has been so bad, we haven’t managed to use them until this week.

So we headed north to Perth and had a mooch around the Lakeland shop there. I’ve always fancied being able to make my own ice-cream so that is what we ended up buying and we’ve been trying it out this week-end.

We started off with the vanilla and then branched out to mint with crushed up Aero mint chocolate added to it. They were both really lovely and I’m looking forward to experimenting with lots of different flavours.

You get a basic recipe book with the machine but I think you can be really adventurous and make it up as you go along. There is a great Italian ice cream shop in St Andrews which has dozens and dozens of different flavours, I think my favourite is the Scottish Tablet one and that should be really easy to replicate.

I’ve got Turkish Delight left over from Christmas too and I think I’ll chop it up and add it to the basic vanilla with some rose-water, that should be lovely.

I hate cheap commercially made ice-cream. To me it is just like sweetened margarine and at least if you make it yourself, you know exactly what is in it.

The bowl of the ice-cream maker has to be in your freezer for about 12 hours before you can use it, but after that it only takes about 20 minutes to make the ice-cream.

So the ice-cream maker has been a great success and I would recommend it to anyone who is thinking about buying one.

No Comments »

Categories: Desserts/Puddings, Recipes

Tags: , , ,

Sparkling Rosé Jellies

7 January 2010 23:13

Rose jellies

We couldn’t stand the thought of a heavy pudding on Christmas day, especially since we had had the Girdlebuster Pie for my husband’s birthday the day before. Sparkling rose jellies seemed to fit the bill as they are light and refreshing after a big meal.

They are very quick and easy to make and obviously can be done the day before you need them.

6 oz sugar.
pork gelatine as directed on the packet.
1 bottle sparkling rosé wine.
1½ pints of water.

Make up the gelatine as directed on the packet, calculating how much you will need for the amount of fluid in the recipe. If you use powdered (beef) gelatine then you just sprinkle it into the sugared boiled water. However we haven’t eaten beef products since before the media got hold of the BSE story so I used pork gelatine, which comes in thin sheets which you have to dissolve in a bowl of water over a pan of hot water. Snip the sheets up first.

Pour the 1½ pints of water into a pan and add the 6 oz of sugar. Stir and bring up to boiling point, making sure that the sugar has dissolved. Remove from the heat.

Now add the dissolved (or powdered) gelatine into the sugared water. Whisk well together and place the pan in a cold place to set the jelly. After about 1 to 1½ hours the jelly should be on the point of setting. Now carefully add the bottle of wine and stir it into the jelly mixture. Ladle the jelly into pretty serving glasses or dishes and leave to set again, which should take about 3 hours.

The bubbles from the wine should be trapped within the jelly, giving a lovely texture to the dessert.

This recipe can be made with something like Schloer or a similar sort of grape juice, if you are making it for people who need to avoid alcohol. It would be especially popular for young teenagers whom you don’t want to feed booze to, but who have grown beyond the jelly and ice-cream stage.

The quantities which I have given will feed about 10 people. As you can see from the photograph, I added raspberries to mine when the jelly was setting this time. In future I won’t bother doing this as the raspberries tasted very tart compared to the jelly. It might work if you soaked the fruit in some more booze beforehand, but that would make it quite alcoholic.

I have tried this recipe using a white sparkling wine but I much prefer a rosé one as the fruitiness of the wine really comes out when it is very cold.

I added some raspberry juice to whipping cream to top them off.

With raspberry cream topping

No Comments »

Categories: Desserts/Puddings, Recipes, Sweets

Tags: , , , ,

« Older Entries