Sparkling raspberry jellies

Sparkling raspberry jellies

Did you know you could make jellies with sparkling wine? It's a long time since I tried, and I'd forgotten what a nice touch the bubbles are.

Ingredients

6 gelatine leaves (see notes below if you can't get these)
150ml raspberry cordial (or squash if you can't get cordial)
100g caster sugar
500ml sparkling wine
250g fresh raspberries

Method

• Place the gelatine leaves in a bowl of cold water.
• Heat the cordial with the sugar in a saucepan over low heat to dissolve the sugar.
• Remove the gelatine leaves from the water and gently squeeze out excess water.
• Add them to the cordial mixture and stir until the gelatine has dissolved.
• Remove from heat and leave to cool for about half an hour.
• Stir in sparkling wine, but gently, so as not to stir out all the bubbles.
• Plop the raspberries into 8 glasses and pour the mixture over. See notes below if you want to get a bit fancier.
• Serve in the glasses with a dollop of creme fraiche/cream/ice cream and a mint leaf.

Notes:
For a less posh version, or if you can't get hold of gelatine leaves, use raspberry jelly (jello to you Americans). Leave out the caster sugar and use just enough boiling water to dissolve the jelly. If you're using block jelly/jello rather than powdered, you can dissolve it in the microwave with no added water. Then continue as for the rest of the recipe.

For a more posh version, plop only half the raspberries in to the glasses and then pour only half the jelly mixture over them. Set the remaining jelly mixture aside, in a relatively warm place, and put the glasses into the fridge for two hours. Then top up with the remaining raspberries and the rest of the jelly mixture. That will give you a layered look. 

Gluten-free Chocolate Orange Cake

It's great to see Karyn back in the kitchen after her break, and great to be back guesting here too. I recently discovered that not only do I have an intolerance to cow's milk proteins, but I'm also intolerant to wheat. Now as strange as it might seem, rather than filling me with dread, my first thought was 'oh good, I can play with all my favourite recipes again!' I now have some yummy savoury and sweet biscuits recipes and a tasty brownie recipe in the bag, but wanted something a bit more 'special occasion', and was really just waiting for the excuse to try something. Thursday was National Charity Day at my company, where every office, all over the UK, spends much of the day doing stuff to raise money for local charities...and one of the events at my office was a cake competition. So here's my entry- didn’t win, but sold out fast when it was sliced and sold to raise even more money. Of course I had to make 2 - one for work and one for the family!

Ingredients

For the cake

1 large orange (or as I had to hand, 3 clementines!)

200g castor sugar

Either 200g ground almonds Or 100g ground almonds and 100g polenta (this gives a nice nutty texture)

6 eggs

1 teaspoon gluten-free baking powder (if you're not making this for someone with a gluten problem, then use plain old baking powder!)

1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

25g cocoa powder

For the syrup and filling

1 large orange

50g castor sugar

100g good dark chocolate

Method

Put one of the oranges (or all of the clementines) into a pan of water, bring to the boil and simmer for about 2 hours (Or until the fruit peel is nice and soft).

Grease the bottom and side of 2 cake sandwich tins, and line the bases with greased baking parchment or greaseproof paper. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C.
When the orange (or clementines) is ready, roughly chop into big pieces and remove any seeds. Then bung the whole lot, peel and all, into a food processor and whiz until it’s pulped. Divide the pulp roughly into 3, and set 2 lots to one side.
Add half of the eggs, ground almonds, polenta (if you’re using it) baking powder and bicarbonate of soda and sugar to the pulp left in the processor and whizz until mixed. Pour the runnier than usual batter mixture into one of the cake tins.
Put 1 of the other portions of pulp into the processor (don't bother to clean it first!) and add the other halves of all the ingredients and the cocoa powder, and whizz till mixed. Pour that into the other cake tin.
Bake both cakes for about 45 minutes to 1 hour. Check after 30 minutes, and if it's getting a bit too brown, put some tinfoil on the top. I used a fan oven and mine were done after 45 minutes. Leave to cool completely in the tins.
Meanwhile you need to make thin little strips of zest from the other orange. You can either use a julienne maker, a zester that allows you to remove strips of zest, or a vegetable peeler, and then cut those thicker slices into thin strips. Bung them, the juice of the orange and the sugar into a pan. Boil up together to make a thin syrup.
Use a cocktail stick to make lots of holes in the top of the chocolate cake.
Melt the chocolate (either in a bowl over a pan of water, or in the microwave) and beat the remaining orange pulp into the melted chocolate. It does get a slightly lumpy texture, but who cares when it tastes so good.
Put the orange cake onto a plate, spread a thick layer of the chocolate/orange mix onto it and put the chocolate cake on top. Spoon about half the syrup carefully over the top, giving each spoonful time to sink into all the little holes! Then put the pan back on the heat and boil until the syrup is sticky. Spoon the thick syrup carefully over the top making sure the thin strips of zest sort of gather in the centre - or at least don't fall off the sides!

So decadent you don't really need to add anything - but I bet it's heaven warmed very slightly with clotted cream!

Lettuce cups with turkey breast and edamame beans

Lettuce cups

I've been on a diet, lately, and was appalled to discover how many calories there were in a single, unadorned tortilla. I've also been experiencing some problems with some wheat products. So I was really pleased to come across a recipe for lettuce cups which I have predictably tweaked and am about to share with you.

Ingredients

500g turkey breast or similar lean white meat
30ml sweet chilli sauce
45ml soy sauce
15ml sesame oil
100g frozen edamame (soya) beans
15ml olive oil
3-4 spring onions
Fresh mint leaves (some)
Fresh coriander (cilantro) leaves (some)
30ml omega mix (sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds)
Lettuce leaves (gem lettuce for preference, but go with what you like/can get)
Lime wedges

Method

• Mix together chilli sauce, soy sauce and sesame oil
• Add the meat and marinate for about 15 minutes (longer if the meat pieces are thick)
• Chop the spring onions and steam together with the soya beans until just done and then drain, rinse in cold water and set aside
• Remove the meat from the marinade (but don't throw that away) and fry in the olive oil until done through.
• Remove the meat from the pan and slice finely.
• Into the pan, place the veg you set aside earlier, the sliced meat, the marinade, the herbs (chopped), the omega mix and a small splash of water.
• Give that lot a quick stir to heat through.
• Arrange individual lettuce leaves on a plate and spoon the mixture onto each.
• Fold the edges of the lettuce leaves over and eat with your hands as you would a tortilla.

Because my strapping sons can't be doing with this sensible food, I chopped up their lettuce leaves and served the meat mixture over a bed of egg noodles.

Lime sponge with lime curd and marshmallow topping

The coconut is optional

A while ago, a friend had a birthday. Friends have a way of doing that. And when they do, it's rather fun to bake them a cake. Not just any old cake, but something unusual. So this is what I decided on on this occasion.

Oven temperature

170

Ingredients

...for the sponge

125g butter
120g caster sugar
2 eggs
120g self-raising flour (or plain flour plus10mls of baking powder)
Grated zest of 2 limes

...for the curd

I have already provided the recipe for this curd, but for the sake of convenience, let's include it here
250ml sugar
2.5ml salt
60ml cornflour
250ml lime juice
Grated zest of two limes
15ml lemon juice
45ml butter

...for the topping

375ml sugar
2 egg whites
pinch salt
80ml water
pinch cream of tartar
5ml vanilla

Method

I would advise you to make the curd first, so that it has time to cool while you bake the cake. That way, they should both be ready for use at about the same time.

...for the curd

• Place the salt, sugar and cornflour together in a saucepan and gradually stir in the orange juice.
• Stir over a medium heat until the mixture becomes glossy and thick.
• Remove from the heat and add the rest of the ingredients. Stir well.
• Allow to cool completely before spreading on the cake or it will sink in to the sponge rather than forming a filling between your layers.

...for the sponge

• Cream butter and sugar until soft and light.
• Stir in grated zest.
• Beat the eggs well and stir into the egg butter mixture. If it starts to curdle a bit, sprinkle in a bit of the flour to calm it down.
• Sift and fold in the flour.
• Divide between two cake pans and bake for about 20 minutes, or until done (test with skewer, or by 'spring-back' method - cake should spring back when gently poked with a forefinger).
• Allow to cool.

...for the topping

• Combine the sugar, water, egg whites, cream of tartar and salt in the top of a double boiler. No, I don't have one either, so I use a bowl (which I later place over a saucepan of water). It works.
•  Beat well.
• Place over rapidly boiling water and beat constantly until the mixture is able to form stiff peaks. This should take about 7-10 minutes. And I don't need to urge to to exercise caution when using your electric beater near both a hot cooker plate and water, do I?
• Remove from the heat, and beat in the vanilla.
• Keep beating until the mixture is cool and of the right consistency for spreading on a cake.

...bringing it all together

• I like to place the flat (bottom) surfaces of a layer cake together - it sits better that way. So I turn one layer 'upside down'.
• Spread the curd liberally over the flat side of one layer.
• Top with the other layer, flat (bottom) side down.
• Spread the marshmallow topping all over the top and sides of the cake.
• You can choose to sprinkle with dessicated coconut at this point.

Nutella fudgesicles

Not a great photo, but you get the idea!

So... it's been a long old time, hasn't it? My life has been transformed yet again since my last post and some tough lessons have been learned.

But let's set that aside for now, because I simply have to share with you this delicious and far-easier-than-pie recipe. I came across it on Daily Waffle via Pinterest. The original recipe listed an ingredient I'd never heard of, so I thought I'd try a substitute. It so totally worked. And I think several other things might work, too, so I'll add a list at the end of things you might like to try.

But before we get down to things can I just make one thing very clear? Nutella is not a health food. Okay? It's healthier than many things, but it's crammed full of sugar. I mean, there's even been a class action on the subject. So please don't think that these fudgesicles constitute a healthy snack for your family and then come and sue me when that turns out not to be the case. This is a treat. Okay?

Ingredients

375ml Alpro soya milk - chocolate flavour
125ml Nutella

Method

Whisk the ingredients together and then freeze for at least a couple of hours until set. Literally, that's it.

If you have a set of those popsicle moulds, they're ideal. The recipe is enough for 5 popsicles using my moulds. But you could use an ice cube tray, with or without lolly sticks.

I have used recipes for frozen treats before and they form crystals or granules, which I don't like. This recipe didn't. Not even slightly. The texture was sublime. Sublime I tell you.

So. Now to the alternatives. Instead of the Alpro soya milk, you could try:

• Flavoured cow's milk
• Unflavoured cow's milk, and then add a few drops of vanilla/almond/peppermint/whatever essence
• Almond milk
• Rice milk
• Coconut milk... or cream
• [insert brilliant idea here]

By way of explanation

I owe you an explanation. We had a good thing going, you and I. And then I just disappeared. That was rude, and I'm sorry.

So what happened?

Well, early in September, my family of four became a family of five.

Normally, new arrivals to a family come with several months' advance notice, and weigh in at about 3.5kgs. Not always, as it turns out. Some of them arrive fully grown.

Skye is 19 years old, stands at least 6'1"(185cm) and weighed a very scrawny 55kgs (less than 9 stone or around 120lbs). I am pleased to say that he now weighs considerably more than that, and he continues to gain weight and build muscle mass. He has had a very difficult life, and is torn between a burning desire to turn things around and an abject fear of losing his identity.

Originally, he just needed a place to stay. He had arrived in our town - having walked 40 miles from another city - in search of his estranged father because he had nowhere else to go. He had exhausted all his other options, and was in a rather dark place. Living with his father (for reasons I am exploring in a book he and I are writing together, but do not feel released to reveal here) was a very stressful and traumatic experiment. He was on the brink of returning to a life on the streets of London. Yes, I said 'returning'.

By this time, he had befriended our sons, and was spending many nights sleeping on a mattress on the floor of my elder son's bedroom.

Permit me a proud mother's moment to interrupt my narrative in order to brag a little: my elder son has the smallest bedroom in the house. A mattress on the floor in there takes up all remaining floor space, but this has never stopped him from offering friends the opportunity to stay over when visiting the town (of course, when the friends are girls we have to make a different arrangement, but that is another story). We have several regular visitors, and have grown very fond of them. By the time we became aware of Skye's plans to head for London, many was the morning that I would go into my elder son's bedroom and find him sleeping on the mattress on the floor, while Skye had the bed.

But back to my story.

We couldn't stand by and let this lad head back to a life that had nearly killed him on more than one occasion, so we converted my studio in the loft into a bedroom and offered him a home with us. I checked with my younger son that he was okay with this arrangement, and he said two things: first, he had had a dream in which he had introduced someone to "my brothers, Björn and Skye" and secondly, that he believed that God had sent Skye to us for us to love.

People keep telling us what a wonderful thing we're doing, but that's not how it seems to us. And actually, I wish they'd stop. There was a while there when I started to 'believe my press' as the saying goes, and very nearly broke the fragile, precious thing we hold in our hands as a consequence. "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might" (Ecc 9:10). So we do this, and we do it unstintingly. It isn't always plain sailing, as you can imagine. There have been and will continue to be some very rocky moments, and new challenges around every corner. But we love him. Simply put: I used to have two boys, and now I have three.

From left: Skye (19), Torvald (18), Björn (20)

His background is almost as far removed from ours as it possible to be, but I don't give a fig. He never had a champion before, but he does now, and woe betide the person who threatens, insults or judges him!

So what does this have to do with you, you might ask?

Simply this. I have been so occupied with the change in my family's structure and dynamic, that I have stepped down from several of my projects, including this one.

I just felt that you had the right to know.

Oh... and our younger son now frequently introduces people to "my brothers, Björn and Skye."

Plum jam

I was recently given a large bag of slightly overripe plums, so I did what one does with large quantities of fruit that won't get eaten. I made jam.

Before we get started on the actual recipe, I should just debunk a few jam myths:

• 'Pound for pound' for all jams, i.e. use a pound of sugar per pound of fruit. Not all fruits work well with these proportions.
• Only use fresh fruit, preferably under ripe. You can make jam with frozen fruit, and you can also use very ripe fruit, but you might want to add a source of pectin.

Ingredients
Plums - as many as you have
Sugar - equal weight to plums (if you ca get preserving sugar, great, but it's not essential)
Water 30ml per 500g of plums
Lemon juice - half a lemon per 500g of plums. If your plums are very ripe, up the lemon juice quantity
Jam jars with lids (see below for yield information)

Method

• Wash plums.
• Place the plums and water in a large saucepan (better to err on the large side, you will need extra space when it boils up) and stew slowly until the skins are soft. I have a tendency to assault them with a wooden spoon during this stage, to release the juices.
• Add the sugar and stir until the sugar has dissolved.
• Add the lemon juice and boil rapidly without stirring until the jam reaches 105C (220F). I use a sugar thermometer, but there are other ways of testing a jam for readiness. I found that this stage went very quickly for purple plums, but it varies from fruit to fruit and also depends on the ripeness of the fruit.
• While the jam is boiling, sterilise the jars. You can expect a yield of 1.66 times the weight of the fruit you used. Make sure you have enough bottles!
• Before bottling the jam, prepare the bottles with boiling water, or they will crack from the heat of the jam.
• Fill the jars right up and immediately screw the lids on. As the jam cools, it will shrink slightly, drawing the lid down and sealing the jars properly.
• Wait for the jam to cool and set and enjoy on toast with cheese.

Zucchini (aka courgette) and carrot muffins

I finally get to add a recipe to the Z section of my recipe index. Woohoo!!

This is not a recipe with a back story, more's the pity. This is one of those google-and-tweak jobs that you do when you have a boatload of something-or-other and need a recipe to use it up.

Oven temperature
180C

Ingredients
175ml vegetable oil
2 eggs
175ml sugar
125ml dark brown sugar
5ml vanilla extract
500ml plain flour
2.5ml baking powder
2.5ml bicarbonate of soda
Pinch salt
10ml cinnamon (or you might prefer ground cardamom seeds)
375ml grated raw zucchini (skin and all)
125ml grated carrot
125ml chopped pecan nuts (optional)

Method

• Pop about 12 cupcake cases into muffin trays, or grease up muffin trays for about a dozen muffins.
• Beat the oil and sugars well.
• Add eggs and vanilla and beat some more.
• Sift together the dry (powdered) ingredients into a separate bowl and then stir into the wet ingredients.
• Stir in the veg and nuts.
• Divide between the muffin cups/cupcake cases. These should be about 3/4 full to allow space to rise.
• You might like to sprinkle the top with more cinnamon (or cardamom).
• Bake for about 20 minutes until done (test with a skewer).

What do I do with....courgettes?

Courgettes, aka zucchini or baby marrow are a lot more versatile than people give them credit for. These vegetables, if left to their own devices can grow very large indeed, but are (in my opinion) at their best when harvested young - anything between finger and banana sized. Speaking of bananas, courgettes may have green or yellow skin. One thing to note - they have tiny hairs on the skin which can trap little grains of grit... adding a most unwelcome crunch to the eating experience. So wash them well before using, but don't peel them.

Let's explore a few things you could do with them once you've done that.

I have encountered cooks who can't think of a use for one lonely courgette (or carrot, or whatever) when cooking for more than two people. A single courgette doesn't have to be left to rot in the veg compartment of the fridge. You can do things with them so that they don't go to waste.

Raw:
Pretty much as you would with a cucumber (although it tastes comp-uh-letely different), you could slice a courgette into your salad. You could also cut it into 'fingers' to use as crudites with dips.

Steamed or boiled:
Courgette works really well as one of the veg in the traditional meat-and-two-veg meal. You can steam or boil it for this. I suggest either halving them lengthwise or cutting them into fat chunks, rather than the sort of thin slices that you would for a carrot. They cook quickly!

Stir fried:
Absolutely yummy in a stir fry, this might be where you want to slice the courgettes fairly thinly. Unless of course, you're using the teeny weeny ones (finger sized), then I'd just halve them lengthwise. Courgette is also one of the traditional ingredients of ratatouille.

Roast/baked:
If you're doing a huge joram of roasted mixed veg (beetroot, carrots, potatoes, peppers, etc.), try throwing in a few large chunks of courgette. As an alternative, you could use them with (or even instead of) cauliflower and/or broccoli in a cauliflower cheese bake.

While in Australia on his gap year, my elder son spent some time with the Kitchen Crusader, and he taught me one of her tricks with courgette. Thinly slice lengthwise and use the slices to line an oiled loaf tin. Fill with cheesy mashed potato. Bake in a moderate oven for about half an hour or so and turn out onto a plate. I'm just imagining adding bacon to that... among other things.

Soups:
Because they cook so fast, and can disintegrate, they may not be at their best in a stew, but there are some fantastic courgette soup recipes out there!

Cakes:
Just yesterday, I was given some courgettes straight from someone's garden. I used some in a stir fry for dinner, and the rest were used to make courgette and carrot muffins. They were absolutely delicious, and I will share the recipe with you next week. But if you happen to have some courgettes to hand and you don't want to wait for my recipe, get googling - the Internet is your oyster!

So... happy cooking!

Image by raven_ryyder

Carrot, beetroot and banana cake

You may already know that it is possible to use beetroot (beets, to you Americans) in cakes. Or you may think I have wigged out. But I haven't. Honest. Try it.

I mentioned recently that I had found some beetroots on the marked-down-for-quick-clearance shelf at my local supermarket. Well, on that same day, I also found some past-their-best carrots and a bag of totally over-ripe, bruised bananas.

Please don't ever throw your over-ripe bananas out. I know how it goes: you have a family of banana-lovers, and you buy a large bunch because they're on a special. Then, just that week, the kids decide they're not in the mood for bananas and your spouse goes out of town on business. So they begin to look a little unsightly.

I don't enjoy the taste of over-ripe bananas on their own like that, but in this state, they are at their best for use in baking or smoothies, because the flavour is strong and sweet. So bake a banana loaf, or make up some smoothies. Both these things can be frozen.

Just as an added extra to today's recipe (and I will get to it, I promise), here's a smoothie I used to give my kids when they were little and feeling unwell enough to be off their food (all quantities are 'some'):
banana
honey
plain yoghurt
vanilla ice cream (just a smidge)
raw porridge oats

Just zhoozh that lot up together in the blender and serve with ice and a curly straw.

Anyhoo, back to what I did with the rest of the beetroots and the other things I found that day:

Oven temperature
180 (you might have to reduce this - see method below)

Ingredients
250ml sugar
250ml oil
3 eggs
375ml plain (cake) flour
7.5ml baking powder
7.5ml bicarbonate of soda
10ml ground cinnamon
250ml grated carrot (about one 5"/12cm carrot)
250ml mashed banana (about 3 smallish bananas)
250ml grated, raw beetroot

Icing
250ml icing sugar
'Some' cream cheese
Little lemon juice
Little water, if necessary

Method

• Cream sugar, oil and eggs well.
• Sift flour, baking powder, bicarb and cinnamon together and add to the creamed mixture.
• Add remaining ingredients. Blend well together.
• Pour into a deep cake pan and bake for about an hour. Check from time to time with a skewer. I found this baked really slowly, and the top started to burn a little, so I lowered the oven temperature and covered the cake with foil.
• Allow to cool on a rack. Don't ice it until it has cooled down completely.

Icing

• Mix a little icing sugar with the cream cheese until creamed.
• Keep adding icing sugar and mixing in.
• Add a little lemon juice for bite.
• If it gets too stiff, add just a tiny bit of water.
• Spread over the cooled cake.

Just so you know, this cake lasted less than an afternoon in my household! Oh, and that saucer (in the photo) is one of only two left from my late grandmother's tea service. I am very fond of it.

(Sort of) Borscht

You've probably realised that I'm a pretty transparent, heart-on-my-sleeve sort of person. I'm no good at dissembling (and have no interest in acquiring the skill, either, come to that). So if you are connected to me in other spaces, you will know the brutal truth that the reason that I have not been posting many recipes here, lately, is that I simply can't afford the ingredients. It occurred to me that, if I was being so up-front about it on Facebook and Twitter, there was no reason to be coy about it here.

We are currently in a fairly difficult financial position that is set to get immeasurably worse within the next few months. Of course, we continue to hope for a miracle and to work hard at making sure we have left no stone unturned, but, for now, it is what it is. We have been blessed by friends who have given us food hampers, which has been wonderful and kept us all fed, but I have been uninspired recipe-wise. I hope you understand.

Be all that as it may, my local supermarket has a shelf where they sell fresh produce that has passed its best. I decided to pull my head out of my... erm... navel and get creative with what was on offer there. This is what I did yesterday, with a bag of no-longer-firm beetroot (beets, to you Americans) I found. Variations of beetroot soup (probably best known as borscht) are very popular in most East European countries.

The thing you need to know about this soup is that it is extremely low in fat (apart from the soured cream, that is, and you could always choose to leave that bit out) and highly nutritious.

Ingredients
15ml olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 stick celery, sliced (optional - I leave this out because I have one son who loathes it)
3 or 4 beetroots, peeled and grated
1 large potato, peeled and grated
1 carrot, scraped and grated
1.25l stock - meat for omnivores, vegetable for veggies
Black pepper
Splash of red wine
Generous pinch of sugar
Soured cream

Method

• In a large saucepan, heat the oil and saute the onion and celery until the onion becomes slightly translucent.
• Add the carrot, beetroot and potato just briefly.
• Add the stock and bring to the boil.
• Reduce the heat and simmer for about 40 minutes.
• Season with black pepper (and salt if you feel compelled) to taste.
• Add the red wine and sugar. Stir until the sugar has dissolved.
• Serve, with a dollop of soured cream and crusty brown bread.

Some things you can try with this soup:

• Add a sprig or two of dill - it's surprising how well dill works with beetroot!
• Add about 15ml of freshly grated ginger root (instead of the dill, not as well as).
• Instead of either of the above, about 5ml horseradish will put hairs on your chest, if you like the stuff (I don't).

What do I do with...eddoes?

This is one of those things that regularly appears on the 'exotic' stand in the fruit and veg section of our larger supermarkets, along with mooli, yams, okra and dudhi. It's one of those things you might pick up and look at from various angles, wondering "What's one of these? To which cultural group is this an everyday thing? What would I do with it? Would the kids even eat it if I bought one and had a go?" Okay, you might not. But I did. So now you don't have to!

They are found in places like the Caribbean and are popular with West Indian cultures. We have a great many people of West Indian descent in our area, so it's no surprise that our supermarkets stock these corms - they know their target market! Apparently, they are also a staple in parts of Africa, but I never encountered them in any of the parts I visited. I must not have visited the right parts - after all, it is a large continent!

Eddoes look a bit like hairy, striped potatoes, and you can pretty much treat them as you would a potato. Chips, mash, roast, sauteed... the whole shebang.

To be honest, that is really all I need to say about them. They have a slightly different taste: sweeter and slightly nutty, with a silkier in texture. They feel a little slimy when you're working with the raw version, but don't be put off, they don't taste slimy when cooked.

Our eddo experiment...

We tried this recipe, which has them coarsely mashed with sauteed onion and a dash of chilli. Very nice, they were, too. All four members of the family approved. Tesco has also provided a few recipes that are worth exploring.

What do I do with...cauliflower?

I suspect that, for most people, the knee jerk thing to do with cauliflower is to serve it with cheese sauce. But, my very earliest childhood memory of cauliflower is fishing it out of the bottle of pickled veg before my Dad got to it. They were his favourites, too, so competition was hot!

From this, you will deduce that you can pickle it very successfully.

It can also be eaten raw, chopped up into small pieces in a salad or larger pieces to serve with a dip.
It works very well in a stew. You should pop it in fairly late, though, because it contains high levels of water and could go a bit mushy otherwise. Mind you, some people like it like that. In fact, if you cook it long enough to go fairly soft (don't destroy it!), you can mash it up with potatoes.

Served as a veg in its own right, it can be steamed or boiled (I prefer steamed, you won't be astonished to hear). If you fancy adding the cheese sauce, or even just white sauce, you go right ahead, but don't be misled into thinking that this is the only option and that cauliflower is off the menu if you've run out of milk and/or cheese.

I once ate a cream of cauliflower soup that was absolutely delicious and was astonished to discover how easy it was to make. Here's one example, but there are many others. I have also found that a cream of cauliflower-and-butternut soup works very well, and you can make it by following the cream of cauliflower recipe, and just adding some cooked butternut at the blending stage. As far as I'm concerned, butternut and cauliflower were made for each other (a bit like Forrest Gump's peas 'n keerits).

If you like a bit of bite to your food, try this cauliflower curry. Veggies may like this chickpea and cauliflower curry, which adds the protein source.

Image by Ian Britton.

What do I do with... carrots?

When I was a child, my grandfather had a vegetable garden in which he grew carrots. My grandparents' home was where we spent our Christmas holidays (which were in the height of summer, remember), as did all the rest of family: my mother's siblings and their spouses and - in due course - children. The cousins all played in the garden. When we got thirsty, we drank water straight out of the garden tap. If there was a hosepipe attached to the tap, we drank straight out of that. It didn't occur to us to do anything else. When we felt peckish, we dug up a carrot or pilfered some beans.

I still remember the taste of a just-washed carrot straight from the garden.

So, yes. You can eat them raw. Just like that, or dipped in houmous or sour cream and chive dip. You can also grate them up and pop them in a salad.

And before I go getting all sensible, they make a wonderful cake ingredient (but the icing absolutely has to be cream cheese icing!).

They can also be steamed or boiled (I prefer steaming) until just soft to serve as a vegetable. If you're not accustomed to cooking carrots, it is better to err on the side of raw rather than slushy and completely overcooked. If you saw Forrest Gump, you will know that 'peas 'n keerets' are a very good combination!

You could mash them together with potato and swedes, which is very popular in Sweden (although they don't call swedes by that name there, as you might expect).

Carrots can also be roasted. Just pop them in with your parsnips and/or beetroot next time.

And there is an endless supply of soup recipes involving carrots to one degree or another. Too many for me to even start trying to link to them all.

One really great thing about carrots is that you can grate them up into mince dishes while cooking (a) to make the dish go a bit further and (b) to get some veg down the neck of your picky eaters without their even noticing.

Image by kumarnm

Lemon and poppy seed cupcakes

My boss's husband is a keen gardener, and he has been collecting up the seeds from the many poppies in his garden, ready for next year's crop. I decided to put some of them to culinary use. I genuinely had every single ingredient in the cupboard, so I was able to make these without spending any... what's that stuff called again?

Every second person you speak to has a recipe for these, it seems. This is the one I used. I reckon (predictably enough) that they'd be even better with lime!

Oven temperature
180C

Ingredients
Cupcakes
275g caster sugar
200g butter, left at room temperature for a couple of hours to soften
540ml self raising flour
4 eggs, separated
Juice and grated zest of 3 small lemons
2.5ml vanilla extract
Poppy seeds (some)
Cupcake cases (about 18ish)

Icing
250ml icing sugar
Juice and grated zest of 1 lemon
Little water

Method

• Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
• Beat in the egg yolks, one at a time.
• Sift in the flour and mix well.
• Add lemon juice, lemon zest, about 10ml of poppy seeds and vanilla and beat some more.
• Beat the egg whites in a separate bowl with clean blades and then fold into the main mixture.
• Place your cupcake cases into muffin pans and spoon in the mixture. The cases should be about 3/4 full.
• Bake for about 20-25 minutes until done (test one or two with a skewer).
• Cool in the muffin pan for a little while before placing them on a cooling rack.
• Ice as follows: mix together the lemon juice, zest and icing sugar. If it is a little stiff, add just a bit of water.
• Plop a dollop on top of each cooled cupcake and then sprinkle with some of the poppy seeds.

What do I do with...cabbage?

I find it surprising how many of the people in those healthy eating type programmes, where the person's diet is given a makeover, don't recognise a cabbage, let alone know what to do with it. It strikes me as being one of the most commonplace of vegetables. However, just in case you're not familiar with it, here are some ideas as to what to do with this versatile vegetable.
When I was a child, I loathed cabbage... except for my Gran's pickled red cabbage (note: the link doesn't go to my Gran's recipe, that is lost to the grave, more's the pity), but then I was pickle-mad, it has to be said - I had been known to eat an entire bottle of gherkins in a sitting, and then drink the vinegar!

This iffy relationship was not improved when I went to boarding school and was regularly served a grey-ish substance that had once been cabbage, until the life was boiled out of it.

My relationship with cabbage now could hardly be further from that. And the same is true of my family. In fact, it is a miracle that my husband still has all ten fingers, because he regularly steals raw cabbage as I'm chopping it, and eats it straight into his mouth with a look of sheer bliss. Nor have I ever had to put up with the whinging my mother used to get at the dinner table: both my sons have happily eaten cabbage from the get go.

Until I moved to the UK, I only knew one kind of cabbage (other than red), and that was the sort that is known as green cabbage, here. There are also white cabbages which (as the name implies) are almost white, and very tightly packed. The leaves are much firmer and more brittle. But I think my favourite must be savoy cabbage. It is much darker, with curly leaves and has a stronger taste, somewhere along the road to Brussels sprouts, but not quite that strong.

Cabbage can be eaten raw in salads. There are scores of recipes out there for salads that involve cabbage. In the UK, the most popular is coleslaw. When I was a child, my Mom used to make a salad she (perhaps unimaginatively) called 'cabby appy' for family barbecues: cabbage and apple salad. This involved chopped cabbage and apple with raisins (and sometimes roast peanuts), all mixed up with mayonnaise.

All cabbages can also be steamed or boiled, but take care not to destroy the stuff completely until you're left with a barely identifiable, watery mass. I tend to steam mine and I like to add caraway or cumin seeds.

You can also use finely sliced cabbage very successfully in a stirfry with carrots, onions, bean sprouts, bell peppers, baby corn and sugar snap peas (and meat, if you like).

Cabbage is absolutely delicious in soups and stews, and it features heavily in a great many traditional European dishes, some of which I have even shared on this site, such as kåldolmar.

Cabbage is also the main ingredient of sauerkraut. You could make your own, or buy it from the supermarket and then use it in Polish bigos.

In researching this post, I have come across some fabulous sites offering cabbage recipes. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has some great ideas for red cabbage, while Cherie Stihler has dedicated an entire page to cabbages in general.

Image by richcd.

You may notice some service interruptions

For personal reasons I won't lay at your doorstep, I am going to have to reduce the frequency of my posts on this blog for a while.
I have tried to avoid having it come to this, but reality got in the way, as it does. I toyed with the idea of posting recipes without photos, but thought better of it. I like to provide you with evidence that the recipe I'm posting works with current ingredients and equipment. For example, I have noticed that my older recipes call for far more salt than more modern recipes, and I want to give you an accurate run down of what I actually use, not what the original recipes ask for.

I hope that you will continue to swing by as and when I am able to share recipes. I will keep posting links on Twitter and Facebook, so that you are still notified when there is something new to try.

Lime drizzle cupcakes

I recently made these for my neighbours' 58th wedding anniversary. I promise to make something far more splendiferous for their diamond anniversary in a couple of years' time.

Oven temperature
180C

Ingredients
100g butter, kept in a warm place for a couple of hours to soften it slightly
125ml caster sugar
1 large egg, separated
5ml vanilla extract
175ml plain flour, sifted
10ml finely grated lime zest (or you could use lemon)
5ml baking powder
60ml milk
juice of half a lime

Icing
25ml lime juice
60ml icing sugar

Method

• Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
• Whisk in the egg yolk and vanilla.
• Add the sifted flour, zest and baking powder and beat until it is all blended together.
• Add the milk and beat a little before adding the lime juice and beating a bit more for good measure.
• In a separate bowl (with clean blades) whisk the egg white until it forms peaks.
• Fold egg-whites into the rest of the mixture.
• Grease your cupcake pan, or pop a paper cupcake case into each hollow.
• Divide the mixture among about 8-10 cupcake spaces and spread it evenly.
• Bake for about 20-30 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.
• Cool in the baking tin for a few minutes, then remove and place in a huddle on a flat plate. Poke a few holes in their tops
• Whisk the juice and icing sugar together, then drizzle over the cupcakes.
• Pop the cupcakes onto a cooling rack until cooled. 

What do I do with....parsnips?

Parsnips something look like anaemic carrots. In fact, in Afrikaans, parsnips are called 'witwortels' (white roots) to distinguish them from 'geelwortels' (yellow roots). Because the yellow roots are more common, they are usually simply referred to as 'roots' (wortels).

However, they have a very different taste. I can remember being surprised to find them so sweet and not even slightly turnip/swede like in taste.

I have previously shared a recipe for roast parsnips, which is my favourite thing to do with them, but you can also:

• Roast them with honey a la Jamie Oliver (who also seems to like them with cumin)
• Add them to a salad
• Boil/steam them as you would carrots. In fact, you could mix them together with carrots for a bit of interest
• Use them in a soup as an additional ingredient - just grate some into your existing recipe
• Use them as the main ingredient of a soup (or even this)
• Make them into chips (which you can also do with carrots and beetroot, by the way)

In fact, in my research for this post, I came across an entire site dedicated to parsnip recipes. So I shall leave you with a link to said site and urge you to go off on a parsnip-fuelled adventure.

Cardamom babka

This is a variation on Tessa Kiros's recipe for 'Bobba's babka' from her book Falling Cloudberries. Kiros is one of my favourite favourites. She has a mixed heritage, has lived in various parts of the world, and loves preparing food for people. What a brilliant combination!

Her beautifully presented books are what inspired me to attach a little back story to each of my recipes on this blog. You can curl up and read them even if you're not in the mood for cooking that day... mind you, chances are that you soon will be.

This recipe is quite time consuming, but there are long periods when you can get on with other things while it looks after itself in a warm place.

I made this on Saturday to take to church on Sunday, but it didn't quite work out as planned, due to a rookie mistake on my part. Does it serve to encourage you to learn that I also make rookie mistakes, or does it cause you to lose confidence in my recipes? I'm going to take a chance. I shall reveal the rookie mistake at the appropriate moment.

I used a bread maker to mix up the dough, because yeast is my nemesis. Before I got my bread maker, I never produced a successful yeast-including product. Since I got my bread maker, I have never failed to produce a successful yeast-including product. Simple as.

I am going to share the recipe as per the original (non-bread maker) instructions, and then explain what I did differently.

Oven temperature
180C (adjust for fan assisted ovens)

Ingredients
625g plain (cake) flour
5ml salt
80ml caster sugar
15g dried yeast
250ml tepid milk
60ml vegetable oil (plus a little extra for brushing)
2 large eggs, lightly beaten

15ml ground cardamom (Kiros calls for cinnamon)
100g dark brown sugar
60g butter, softened

1 egg yolk
10ml milk
30g soft brown sugar

Method

• In a large bowl, mix together the flour, salt.
• In a smaller bowl, mix together the yeast, milk and oil and leave for 10 minutes to let the yeast  start to do it's thang.
• Scrape out the yeast mixture into the larger bowl (make sure you get it all - it tends to be reluctant) and mix well.
• Add the eggs and mix some more.
• Tip it out onto a floured surface and knead it well for about ten minutes.

OR... bung all the above ingredients into a bread maker and set it to 'dough' then proceed as below.

• Brush the top with oil and pop it oily side down into a large, clean bowl. Brush the surface that is now on top with oil, too.
• Cover with cling film (Saran wrap) and leave in a warm place for about an hour and a half to rise... and it will rise. It should now be about twice the size it was.
• Split the dough in half and roll out one half on a floured surface. You need to get it about .5cm thick. It should preferably be a roughly rectangular shape of about 25x45cm, but don't panic if the shape isn't perfect.
• Mix the cardamom with the butter and brown sugar and spread half of this over the rolled dough. Spread it well and evenly.
• Roll the dough into a sausage along its longest edge and set aside, while you repeat this process with the rest of the dough.
• Now lay the two sausages side by side and sort of twist/braid them together. Pinch the ends together well. When you've entwined them, give them a few extra twists, to tighten up the loaf.
• Pop them into a greased 30cm loaf tin (and this is where my rookie mistake came in. I forgot to grease the loaf tin. I mean... really???) and leave in a warm place for another hour or so, to rise some more.
• Mix together the egg yolk and milk and brush the top of the loaf. Sprinkle with brown sugar.
• Bake for about 30-40 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean when you poke it right in the middle.
• If the ends are cooking too quickly, and the middle too slowly, Kiros recommends you cover the ends of the loaf with foil.
• Cool for a few minutes in the tin before turning out onto a cooling rack. For those of us who have made rookie mistakes, this is the moment when half the loaf empties out and the other half stays behind in the tin. It tastes, just as good, mind... it just doesn't look good enough to serve to guests.
• Serve slightly warm or totally cooled (if it lasts that long) with or without butter.