Watering "Can"

So, 3 hours ago this rather impressive cloud very accurately forecast the current precipitation, thunder and lightning.

Something about the feeling in the air before a good rainstorm ALWAYS makes me want to water the vegetables. I should know better by now.

Today I was feeling particularly frustrated by the total lack of a watering can. I was pondering knocking on some of the doors in our building to see if anyone would lend me their watering can, but then I realised I'm a recycling genius.





Items needed:
4 or 6 pint milk bottle (empty & clean)
Good metal skewer

Simply poke a nice pattern in the lid of the milk bottle with your skewer, some lids might need poking with a heated skewer, mine was great without heat which is lucky as we only have an electric hob.

Now I have a beautiful watering jug. So exciting.
This baby has the added bonus of being squeezable which is great for increasing flow as the holes are quite small but larger holes would make it too dribbly, I think.

Below is a little shot of the plants getting a good soaking. It really is very satisfying.

For those of you who are dairy free or don't have a boyfriend who drinks milk like its going out of fashion, I'm really sorry. You'll have to raid the neighbours bin, or buy a jug of tropical juice instead.

Leek and Potato Soup

This recipe starts with fridge leftovers. As all good meals should.  Some reduced price Leeks, a bag of potatoes and a few other bits and pieces. I happened to watch a cooking show yesterday - Ree Drummond The Pioneer Woman Cooks. She cooked some incredible looking beans and corn bread. Recipe here -Campfire Beans.

So here it is:

2 whole Leeks
1/2 Red onion
8-10 medium potatoes
2 pints of good stock (Marigold Bouillon is my fave)
1 medium sweet potato
Any other stock veg you have lying about such as Celery, Onion, Carrot

Chop everything roughly.
Fry off the veg in some butter until soft, add a bit of salt.
Add chopped potatoes and stock.
Simmer until the potatoes are soft and breaking up. 25minutes or so.
Blend until smooth.

Season with salt and pepper,  add cream if you fancy. Serve.

If you want a tasty bean centre, follow the bean recipe above in advance and then serve together.  I made a simple version with some fancy Heinz beans, smoked paprika and left over sticky chilli roast chicken. Just fry some smoked paprika with garlic and onion or spring onions, add whatever meats, (chorizo, bacon, chicken are all good) add some baked beans and heat through. Dump in the middle of the hot soup and eat. I'd highly recommend Ree's Corn bread with it too, would work really well. If fact any fresh bread would be fantastic, sourdough or soda bread, some kind of beet or potato bread. Anything really, with a good layer of butter.

I only just finished eating and I'm making myself hungry again. Oops.

The Chunky Veg Bolognese

• The Chunky Veg Bolognese
• 
  
• Rapeseed Oil for frying
• 2 rashers of Bacon
• Mixed dry herbs - usually Oregano and some Basil
• Bay leaf, salt & pepper
• 2-5 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely sliced, depending on my mood
• 1 onion, peeled and finely chopped
• 2 spring onions, chopped
• 1 large sweet potato, chopped
• 2 sticks of celery, chopped
• 1 medium courgette, chopped
• 500 g quality British beef mince
• 2 x 400 g tins of tomatoes
• 1 tsp of sugar (depending on your tomatoes)
• 500 g dried spaghetti
• extra virgin olive oil

Fry off the bacon, then add your stock veg (onions, celery, sweet potato) and brown a little, add the rest of your vegetables - everything should be roughly the same size, inch chunks are my preference. Toss in the beef and colour it up a bit. Add the tomatoes, herbs, whatever else is left, a bit of salt and pepper, a bay leaf and the chopped garlic cloves. Bring everything to the boil, add 400ml of water and leave on a decent but low speed and leave bubbling for around an hour. Check occasionally for sticking. Taste an add more salt, pepper, sugar, tomato paste, ketchup or whatever you like.
Serve over whatever pasta or spaghetti you like, chick pea fusilli or gluten free options are all delicious.

Variation is to double everything and use an additional packet of Pork or Turkey meat. Or soya mince, or Quorn mince. Alternatively boil off a hundred grams of red lentils for 5 minutes and chuck those in, these are more prone to sticking they make the sauce very .... thick so probably add more water or stock for this option.

Enjoy.
 

Profiteroles, Choux Buns & Eclairs

Choux-fun!

Expect to yield around 40 profiteroles from this recipe but you can also pipe larger rounds to make choux buns, or sausage shapes to make Eclairs.

With mixing, rest times, cooking time and decorations it is best to set aside a couple of hours to do this beginning to end. Measure and prepare before you begin to minimise mess. Mount your piping bags over glasses, ready to fill.

For the Choux Pastry

200ml/7fl oz cold water

85g/3oz Lactofree butter, plus extra for greasing

4 tsp caster sugar

115g/4oz plain flour

3 medium free-range eggs, beaten

For the filling

600ml/1 pint of Lactofree Cream (whipped)

For Chocolate Sauce

100ml/3½fl oz water (or Lactofree Cream)

80g/3oz caster sugar

200g/7oz good-quality dark chocolate, broken into pieces

1. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6. Place a small roasting tin in the bottom of the oven to heat.
2. For the choux pastry, measure the water, sugar and butter directly into a large saucepan. Heat gently until the butter has melted.
3. Turn up the heat, then quickly pour in the flour and salt all in one go.
4. Remove from the heat and beat the mixture vigorously with a firm whisk or sturdy spoon, until a smooth paste is formed. Once the mixture comes away from the side of the pan, transfer to a large bowl and leave to cool for 10-15 minutes.
5. Whisk your eggs whilst the batter cools, and prepare your trays for piping on to. Two trays in the oven at the time is enough or air won't circulate and the pastry won't rise. Lightly grease your baking sheet. 
6. Beat in the eggs, a little at a time, until the mixture is smooth and glossy and has a soft dropping consistency - you may not need it all.
7. Using a piping bag and plain 1cm/½in nozzle, pipe the mixture into small balls in lines across the baking sheet. Gently rub the top of each ball with a wet finger - this helps to make a crisper top.
8. Place the baking sheet into the oven. Before closing the oven door, pour half a cup of water into the roasting tin at the bottom of the oven, to create more steam in the oven and make the pastry rise better. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until golden-brown - if the profiteroles are too pale they will become soggy when cool.
   

   
9. During baking, whip your cream and place into a colander or sieve to 'rest' and drain the cream which will sometimes release moisture and/or collapse. It is best kept in the fridge to prevent this happening.
10. Remove profiteroles from the oven and turn the oven off. Prick the base of each profiterole with a skewer. Place back onto the baking sheet with the hole in the base facing upwards and return to the oven for five minutes. The warm air from the oven helps to dry out the middle of the profiteroles.
11. When the profiteroles are cold, use a piping bag to pipe the cream into the profiteroles.
12. For the chocolate sauce, place sugar, chocolate and cream into a small pyrex bowl and microwave until warm enough to melt altogether. Refrigerate to firm up the sauce so it is pourable but quite thick.
13. To serve, place the stuffed profiteroles into a large serving dish and pour over the chocolate sauce. If you make a thicker topping then spread it on.

For fun and variety you could use any flavoured cream to fill the profiteroles (chocolate, rose, raspberry, vanilla bean etc) or alternatively you can fill with custard, flavoured with anything you like. Though I prefer cream every time. You can also make a caramel toffee sauce with sugar and cream to top them with, which is glorious!

For a two bite profiterole pipe a ball shape with a base the size of a 10p from a piping bag with a 1cm hole, leave the same gap either side for expansion.

This recipe is adapted from James Martin's http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/chocolateprofiterole_86196

Addiction and us

My current favourite author is Louisa May Alcott. Thanks to Project Gutenburg I can download her entire library of works for free and I think she would be pretty happy about that. Explaining why here is a little off the point and if anyone bar me is reading this, I'll be surprised.

Last night I was reading 'Rose in Bloom' which is a sequel that I didn't realise existed, for a sweet little book called "Eight Cousins" set some time after the American Civil War, which follows a girl who is adopted by her Uncle, following the death of her father, his Brother. Uncle is a slightly kooky Doctor, a feminist, health enthusiast who believes hearty exercise, moderation, NO CORSETS and a bunch of other 'controversial' (read 'perfectly sensible') "schemes" are the remedy for the dissipation of youth, which is rich young teens who have essentially been doing nothing but partying since they were (7-)14, are 'fitting' themselves up for (mostly) arranged or sanctioned marriages, might go to University followed by a European "Tour" and then get married and 'set up for' business (the boys only of course). Rose is the beneficiary of 'a fortune' and is coached to become an entrepreneurial philanthropist, for which she is mocked by her rich relations including some of her 'Eight Cousins' but not all.

Somewhere in the middle of the book, May Alcott writes:

"Rose did feel rather alarmed, for if he drank the health of all the owners of those names, she felt sure that Charlie would need a very strong head indeed. It was hard to say anything then and there without seeming disrespect to Aunt Plenty, yet she longed to remind her cousin of the example she tried to set him in this respect, for Rose never touched wine, and the boys knew it. She was thoughtfully turning the bracelet, with its pretty device of turquoise forget-me-nots, when the giver came back to her, still bubbling over with good spirits.

"Dear little saint, you look as if you'd like to smash all the punch bowls in the city, and save us jolly young fellows from tomorrow's headache."

"I should, for such headaches sometimes end in heartaches, I'm afraid. Dear Charlie, don't be angry, but you know better than I that this is a dangerous day for such as you so do be careful for my sake," she added, with an unwonted touch of tenderness in her voice, for, looking at the gallant figure before her, it was impossible to repress the womanly longing to keep it always as brave and blithe as now."

So this is my point I suppose, with Phillip Seymour Hoffman's tragic death and the constant deluge of statistics of those addicted, dead and dying or criminalised for their addictions, we need to do more to love and help each other out, to stay away from the things that will eat us alive and destroy our lives.

One article made a point that those around people with addictions are not unaware of the situation, which isn't to say we are responsible when these things happen. We can never know what we might become addicted to, so shouldn't we do everything in our power to influence each other for good? Just be a good influence, not goad each other beyond what we know ourselves capable of, or even to stay well within bounds of what we suspect to be our limits?

I DO want to "smash all the punchbowls in the city" and I'm not ashamed of it. I want to have pleasant conversations, good clean fun and have a simple life full of blessings, for my self and to be a blessing to others.

If I ever push you beyond your limits, to a place you don't want to be, you're free to cut me off!    

DELICIOUS Flat Bread

So I was getting a serious craving on for some bread and being that I can't eat Yeast, that's a tricky issue to address. Yeast free bread is hard to keep fresh, wraps are a strong option but have underdeveloped gluten (not stretchy) so that they don't go hard, but they just AREN'T bread. They don't make a sandwich, whatever I may have told you in the past;

1. They aren't fluffy, doughy OR stretchy like bread should be. 
2. They don't absorb the butter/spread, it just sort of slides off onto your "sandwich" filler.
3. THEY AREN'T BREAD (well they are, but this was a pretty serious craving!)

In the summer at a family barbeque I had a serious bread revelation when my Uncle made some awesome flatbreads with just self-raising flour, salt and water. So gloriously simple. I rang him and asked him for the recipe the next day but it being 6months later, I forgot the quantities, so I took to the internet and searched it up. Luckily, Jamie Oliver came to my rescue. Not a sentence I get to write every day. The following is a concatenation of my Uncle's recipe and the results of my search.

Makes 6 (the size of small pizzas, quarter inch thick)

Ingredients

• • 400g self-raising flour, plus a little extra for dusting
• • 1 tablespoon sea salt
• • 1 tablespoon baking powder
• • 400g natural yoghurt/ soya yoghurt (400ml)
  
  I didn't have any yoghurt so I mixed just under 200ml Soya, just under 200ml of Lactofree Semi-skimmed milk and a splash of Lactofree Cream and stirred in a tablespoon of lemon juice ( acid to react with the raising agent).

The method is at the Jamie Oliver Website but essentially just throw everything into a bowl and mix it all up with your hand, then "knead" until it all comes together then for a minute or so longer, tip out on to a floured surface and knead until smooth, roll into a cylinder and slice into the size you'd like. I honestly wouldn't bother with the mixer for this. Mostly because the mess isn't worth fiddling about with, but also because the supple, silky dough feels just wonderful in your hands, plus its much easier to feel the gluten get to the right consistency and that's an important skill to practice.

Whilst the Bread is resting between sheets of baking parchment fry a couple of onions with some balsamic Vinegar and a few sprinkles of sugar, until they are tasty and let them rest whilst you cook your breads. Either as per Jamie Oliver, or as I did, in a scorchingly hot oven (240 C, ish) in lightly oiled pans. I can't give you a cooking time, as I wasn't paying attention, but grab them out when they look delicious. Really though! Chuck the onions on top and ENJOY!

Follow-up:
Most flat-breads don't keep at all well but these were still glorious by the next evening, I just popped them in the toaster (oven would work too I guess) and they were fab; crispy, chewy (not too chewy) and not at all stale. I'm going to try again today and see when and if they give up the ghost!

From left to right - Un-oiled flat-bread, oiled flat-bread and flat bread with Kalonji seeds (Nigella/Onion Seeds)

(Indian) Mango Pickle

I have a lot of mangoes. When I say a lot, I mean 15 mangoes. I bought them for £2. I think that's a pretty great deal.

So I needed to make some Tomato Chutney and not being able to get hold of green tomatoes, I settled on three massive punnets of red cherry tomatoes for £1, which makes the whole enterprise a lot more cost effective. Then I grabbed some standard onions (40p a pound) a couple of chillis, some courgettes and spices etc.

I followed the recipe found here because frankly, Elise is FANTASTIC, plus I've made it before. I added a whole chopped courgette because the first time I made this recipe we were in the midst of a Courgette glut and I had a rather unruly 'marrow' to use up, so in it went and it was great. I also macerated the tomatoes, onions and courgettes before I started, with 30g of salt and a bit of sugar. I don't think I'll do this again as the results are too salty, the whole batch tastes like ketchup, which is fine except I was making relish, not ketchup, so boo to the recipe that recommended that technique.

So I finished brewing that concoction and had cored and chopped 10 mangoes in the interim (what better to do on one's birthday?) and figured I'd try making Indian mango pickle. My Grandad eats this like a fiend and gets it from his neighbours. I'd always wondered how it was made so I looked it up. If you follow the recipe below with a couple of underripe mangoes (aren't they always, in the UK!?) then you'll get delicious results but I didn't want to risk this uncooked pickle as a gift. To get around this I've totally bastardised the recipe, (scuse language).

http://www.tarladalal.com/Mango-Pickle-(-South-Indian-Recipe-)-32879r


My recipe

Ingredients


1 to 2 medium sized raw mangoes cut into thin slices

1 Onion, thinly sliced
1 tbsp salt
1 Lime, juiced
1 inch of fresh ginger, grated
1/2 Cup of Vinegar (cider or your preference)

1 tsp chilli powder
1 tbsp mustard seeds ( rai / sarson)
A Pinch of fenugreek (methi) seeds
1 tbsp turmeric powder (haldi)
1 tbsp Onion Seeds (also known as Kalonji/Nigella)
1 tbsp Garam Masala
1 tbsp Smoked Paprika
1 cups sesame (til) oil or whatever is on hand
1 Onion grated
1 Courgette Grated
1 chilli (mild)

Marinade the Mangoes in lime, ginger, salt and vinegar.Dry roast all the spices then add the oil to the hot pan, once its hot quickly add the grated onion, chilli and grated courgette to cool the oil, let stand a while.Add the mango mix and heat on medium (gentle bubble) until you start to see the grated vegetables disappear and the larger mango and onion softer (30 minutes)I added around a cup of the liquid from the macerated tomatoes and onions (see above) but water should have the same effect.Once the oil starts to separate out and it seems to have the right consistency, place in hot jars and seal.