Chinese! (style)

Tonight I'm making sweet and sour beef with fried rice.

Midweek Roast

Roast Chicken. Small bird.
Boiled Parsnips and carrots. Love my roots.
Sausagemeat stuffing balls. Packet stuffing mix with three skinned sausages added.
Potato Boulangere. Spuds and onions layered cooked in milk and stock. Very seasoned.

And for pudding...

Rhubarb and Ginger sponge with custard.


In the Y.M.C.A shop I bought a small flowered recipe file box. Pristine condition, only £1:45.

Bean and Vegetable Goulash

Borlotti Beans and Aduki Beans, cubed potatoes, sliced carrots and onions, chopped red pepper and canned tomatoes stewed in a rich paprika flavoured tomato sauce. Garlic and cayenne adding their own ooomph to the mix.
At the end of cooking I'll stir in 125 ml of natural yoghurt.

Other combinations of beans may be used. I've even emptied a can of regular baked beans into the pot along with flagelot beans and the ever popular red kidney beans. Adding vegetables extends it a bit, if you don't have many beans just puff it out with more potatoes.
Potatoes absorb all the flavours making them even more gorgeous than they already are. I think spuds are my favourite vegetable.


This favourite veggie meal will be served with plain boiled rice.

To add some protein to the meal I'll make a Queen of Puddings using up some old bread, a couple of eggs and full cream milk.

Vegetarian food needn't be glum.

Quiche Lorraine

I blind baked the cheese pastry case then left it in the turned off oven for a couple of hours to firm up.
The bottom, crisp and brown, all around the sides, even and crunchy and a lovely honey colour... it was my best pastry case ever.
Into it went two lightly fried onions and three rashers of chopped smoked bacon.
Then I cracked three eggs into a measuring jug and made up to 300 mls with milk. I didn't have any full fat so used skimmed.
Seasoned well with salt, pepper and freshly grated nutmeg. Poured over the bacon and onion and baked for 40 minutes.
Served with spiced up baked beans and chick peas and small roasted potatoes.
Very tasty, moreish and well received.

For a dedicated cook I sometimes get it very wrong.
Last night's Chicken dinner was horrible.
I think my solemn mood must have seeped into the cooking pot.
I wouldn't have cared so much if I'd be eating alone but when I'm cooking for three other people a failure of monumental proportions really grates.
I left mine.
The men and mum ate theirs.

All this to-do with mum and her living arrangements is making me feel quite ill AND mucking up my menus. I feel a total overhaul of menu planning is required.
Beginning tomorrow.

Today's fare was livelier and tastier.
Roast shoulder of pork, roasted potatoes, glazed parsnips and peas. Apple sauce and gravy. To finish...Apple and Apricot Crumble with custard. Mr Horsehound loved it, mum didn't say a word. I ate it because I was peckish.

I don't know what it is but there's something wrong with me at the mo and its manifesting itself in lack lustre food.
My heart just isn't in it.

Today's Offering

Chicken Napoli with pasta squiggles and an olive tomato and cheese scone.
Probably fruit for pudding.

Meatless Day

Lentil Lasagne for tea tonight.
And possibly a dinnertime Wimpy veggie burger in Rayleigh roundabout midday.
I like meatless days.
A recipe for the lasagne will be posted, probably tomorrow.

Minced Beef With Dumplings

Some minced beef fried with onions.
Then a handful of mixed veg and fresh tomatoes popped in.
I then poured in beef stock mixed with a little tomato puree, Worcestershire sauce, dried thyme, pepper and salt.
Bubble bubble.
And then transferred to a casserole.

Instead of my usual cobbler topping I opted for the easier option.... dumplings. 8. The effort and mental strain of making pastry was too much. My glands are enormous.

Anyway.

These, that be the dumplings not my glands,  have just been dropped on top of the simmering stew and, without a lid, the casserole dish goes back into the oven.

Minced beef is a favourite, it's versatile, cheap (compared to other meats) and friendly.
I somehow relate to minced cow flesh more readily than glistening chicken breasts.

For pudding a microwaved sponge pudding brought to the bungalow by superb amateur chef, Hairy Suit.
And though some prefer cream, ice cream or even yoghurt I always have custard with my sponge.
Simply lovely.

Yesterday I made a batch of Banana and Peanut Butter Muffins.
A couple of bananas were looking a bit sad, dead like, hanging on a hook in front of the radio, so instead of bringing out nuts and jam and cocoa for an elaborate cake, I used the old browning nanas.
And, together with peanut butter, eggs, flour, sugar, margarine I whipped up a 14 bonny beauties.

I'm doing that much more now, making do, being wiser in the kitchen, using up what I have instead of sweating around the supermarket buying ingredients I really can't afford.

Tomorrow will see me using up bread in a Bread Pudding.

Birthday Cake

From the Infantile School of celebration cakes comes this.
I took a basic Victoria Sponge recipe and jazzed it up a little.

250 g self raising flour
250 g butter
250 g caster sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
4 eggs
a good dash of vanilla extract
zest of 1 washed lemon


For the filling:
300 ml whipping cream
8 tablespoons of lemon curd. Homemade is preferable but good shop bought curd is ok. Don't though buy any basic really cheap curd as it's poor quality and will not befit a birthday cake.

In a large bowl... mix all of the above together using an electric hand whisk. Or you could use a free standing mixer. If you're that way inclined.

Pour equal amounts into two 20cm sandwich tins greased and lined with baking parchment or greaseproof paper.
Weigh the loaded tins to check you've not been heavy handed with either tin.
If you're content then.....

Bake in a pre-heated oven gas mark 4 for 35 minutes. Check near the end of cooking time and if the cake is still gooey/loose or liquidy on top cover with foil and continue baking for another few minutes.

When baked. Cool in the tins for an hour then remove to cooling racks.

Now you're ready to assemble.

Get a sharp knife and shave off any hard bits of sponge that might cause throat cuts or sadness. Then whip the cream to softish peaks, don't go mad with the whisk otherwise the cream will be too stiff to slather.
Mix in the lemon curd gently, I used a figure of 8 to get just the right amount of mixiness.

Now spread on the underside of one of the sponges. Top with the other sponge topside uppermost.
Lemony curdy cream will escape but don't fret it just adds to the homemadeness of it all.

you can leave it like that or.....Make a simple lemon glace icing using about 250 g icing sugar and enough fresh lemon juice to make a thickish paste.
Slather all over the roof of the cake and leave till set.
Decorate with coloured icings ( I used shop bought).

Store in a cool room or in the fridge.

As gale force winds silenced the dawn chorus I thought of toasted white bread and creamy Lurpak.

A lemon cake is baking. Made with butter, lemon zest and four eggs. When cooled it'll be filled with lemon curd and cream.
As I'm not feeling too well I won't make a proper dinner tonight, eggs and bacon will be fried.

My First Post

White Chocolate and Raspberry Muffins.
These were a St. Valentine's Day gift for Hairy Suit.
A simple vanilla Muffin mix to which I added canned raspberries then baked. Then when cooled drizzled with melted white chocolate.
They were eaten in silence by Mr and Mrs Horsehound and Mr and Mrs Hairy Suit.

They were a picture but I'm sorry to say that all were eaten before any photographic evidence could be procured.