Cranachan

Earlier I mentioned Cranachan and I have been asked for the recipe, it is ridiculously easy.  Quantities are totally up to your own preferred taste.

Get some pinhead oatmeal place it in a sieve and give it a good shake – to get rid of the dust – then toast it lightly in a dry frying pan before soaking it in some whisky for at least half an hour.  Add some clear honey to sweeten it and take off the rough edges.  Whip up some cream fold in the oatmeal mixture and also plenty of fresh Scottish raspberries.  Chill for at least an hour it will firm up it is alright for about 24 hours.

Told you it was easy.

Clams with White Wine

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Food, Photography

Fry off chopped onion (or preferably shallots), chopped yellow pepper in some olive oil on a medium heat.  When soft add chopped garlic and chopped chillies, and some chopped plum tomatoes, fry until the tomatoes start to collapse add some black pepper turn heat up and add a glass of wine and once it starts to boil throw in the clams put a lid straight on and stop cooking as soon as the clams open.  Finish off with some shopped parsley and chopped fennel.

I usually serve it with tagliatelle – which cooked in just the time it took me to get a photograph without steaming up the lens – but you could serve it with any pasta or with bread and a salad.

Cheese and Herb Scones

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Food

 

• 8oz Self-Raising Flour
• 2oz Butter Pinch of Salt
• 3oz of strong grated Cheddar Cheese
• 1/2 tsp Mustard Powder
• Large pinch Dried Herbs
• Milk

Sieve flour, mustard powder, and salt and rub in butter till fine breadcrumbs.
Mix in herbs and cheese.
Add enough milk to draw it all together.
Place on a greased tray and bake in moderately hot over (about 220f) for 12 mins.

Three tips:

• cut the butter into small cubes and freeze it for 10 mins before rubbing in.
• use a knife to mix the milk into the dry ingredients.
• shape out into a large round and cut into wedges rather than using a cutter and overworking the off cuts.

Chocolate Brownies

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Recipe

Melt 2 oz of good quality Plain Chocolate with 3 oz of unsalted butter in a bowl over a pan of boiling water and allow to cool.  While cooling grease and line baking tin; measure out 6 oz of caster sugar (I use vanilla sugar); 2 oz of chopped walnuts (I prefer to break them up rather than ending up with tiny pieces if you chop them, they are of course optional); whisk 2 eggs; and in a separate bowl measure out 3 oz of plain flour and 1/2 teaspoon of Baking Powder.  When chocolate has cooled but isn’t cold beat in the eggs and add the sugar and nuts then sieve and fold in the flour pour into tin and bake for 25-30 mins in a moderate oven.  Remember it is brownies you are making you want them to be cooked but still a little sticky when bitten into.  Cool in the tin, although they are rather tasty while still warm.

I like to cut it into small squares so I don’t feel guilty about having more than one piece.

Parmesan and Olive Loaf

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Recipe

You will need 3oz of chopped olives, 4oz of grated Parmesan, 12oz of Plain flour, 2tsp Baking Powder, ½tsp Bicarb of Soda, a little pepper (you don’t need salt because of the olives), 2 beaten eggs, 1/2pt Plain yoghurt mixed with 3 tbsp Olive Oil.  Sift the dry ingredients, add the olives and cheese then the wet ingredients, place in 2lb loaf tin and bake for 40-45 mins at 180c/350f/gas4.

As the meerkats say, ‘simples’, so why not give it try?

I have promised myself two things as I return to work, firstly make time and mark it as precious for reading both theology and other books and secondly to not stop cooking/baking again.  It doesn’t need to take long and there is something extra tasty about stuff you have actually made, well I think so.

Red Hot

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Recipe

Having enjoyed the produce of the garden over the preceding months the flash of red in the conservatory told me it was time to pick the first of our chillies and have something spicy tonight.  So beef curry with a beer to reward Hubby for his hard days work, you can find out what all the sawing and banging is about over on his blog.

Now in my book, a beef or lamb curry benefits from a reheat so this morning the curry is made so it can mature and be reheated tonight.

In a nice hot pan heat coriander, mustard and cumin seeds till they start to pop, put in a pestle and mortar and bash it up with however much garlic you like (we like 4 cloves) and some grated ginger.  If you can’t be bothered with popping spices at the start just add your preferred amount of ground garam masala or individual ground spices to the garlic and ginger. Fry sliced onions, lots of them, six medium for the two of us, as they start to soften and before they colour add chopped chilli to taste and the spice mixture.  Fry for a min or so then add the meat making sure all the meat gets nicely coated with the spices.  Add a tin of chopped tomatoes, turmeric and ground coriander with as little as water as necessary to cover the meat.  Bring slowly to a simmer and simmer for 30 mins.

This is when I leave it to mature for the day, but you could do the next bit now and eat it straight away.  When it comes to heat it up bring slowly to a simmer add, yoghurt and lots of chopped coriander the green stuff this time.  If you want/need a more detail of the recipe click here.  Although this post is titled Red Hot this curry isn’t, unless of course you put in lots of chillies but that is up to you.

Beef and Onion Curry

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Recipe

• 1lb sliced or diced beef
• 6 medium onions sliced
• 1 tsp coriander seeds
• 1 teaspoon of cumin seeds
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• garlic – to preferred taste
• chilli – to preferred taste
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1/2 tsp ground turmeric
• tin chopped tomatoes
• small pot of plain yogurt
• lots of chopped coriander

In a nice hot pan heat coriander, mustard and cumin seeds till they start to pop.

Put in a pestle and mortar with garlic, grated ginger and pound into a paste.  If you can’t be bothered with popping spices at the start just add your preferred amount of ground garam masala or individual ground spices to the garlic and ginger.  

Slowly fry sliced onions in a little veg oil, as they start to soften and before they colour (this will take a while 15 mins) add chopped chilli to taste and the spice mixture.  Fry for a min or so then add the meat coating it with the spices, fry for a couple of minutes then add a tin of chopped tomatoes, turmeric and ground coriander with as little as water as necessary to cover the meat.  Bring slowly to a simmer and simmer for 30 mins.

Personally I like to now leave it to mature having got this far in the morning and then re-heat slowly in the evening adding the yogurt and chopped coriander, but you can add those and serve straight away if you wish.

Because of slowly frying the onions this curry has a sweetness and is a good one for those who aren’t keen on too much heat.

Easy Peasy Chicken and Mushroom

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Recipe

As I put the coffee beans back in the fridge and spied the mushrooms which really needed to be used up I thought okay chicken and mushroom from the slow cooker tonight.  So while the coffee brewed I gathered the ingredients then as I cut the onion I saw a photo opportunity.  Originally it was just the onion that made me think that but then I thought again and took this shot for a blog post, flung everything in the pot tidied up and poured my coffee.  A smug feeling swept across me, well that was easy peasy I thought, all done bar the cooking in under 5 minutes.

Chicken thighs – yes I know they aren’t the organic free range ones I prefer but Sainsbury’s did a substitution on me – I like to skin them but leave the bones in for slow cooking.

The rest is stuff I always have around, a couple of rashers of good streaky bacon, onion, green pepper, garlic, mushrooms all chopped – lee and perrins, tin of condensed mushroom soup (great store cupboard item for a quick sauce for pasta or a veggie bake) and celery salt a desert island cooking essential in my book.  A bit of water and a slow cooker and it is really that easy peasy.  Will finish it off with some chopped parsley and probably have it with rice.

Slow Cooker Sausage and Beans

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Recipe

RevRuth over on her blog listed using her new slow cooker as one of her New Year resolutions. Now I have always had a slow cooker and tend to use it is spits and spurts and the mention of it has brought about another such time.

So especially for Ruth, and for anyone else out there who is wondering what they might cook in theirs, here is a very easy and very tasty recipe of Sausage and beans.

• 1 pack of good sausages
• 2 onions sliced
• 1 tin of haricot or mixed beans
• 1 small carton of pasatta
• a good heaped teaspoon of paprika

Put everything, including the liquor from the tin of beans, into the slow cooker and leave it to do its stuff – low all day, high if you don’t remember until lunchtime.

Great with some crusty bread to soak up the juices.

Christmas Dinner

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Suckling Pig

Well part of it, I think Hubby might blog about it over on his blog seeing he actually did the cooking!

Spiced Poached Pears

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Recipe

• Firm pears
• 1 litre of Cranberry juice
• Cinnamon Stick
• Rind and Juice of an Orange
• Fresh Ginger (about an inch roughly chopped)
• 3 Cloves
• 2oz Caster Sugar

Put everything apart from the pears in a saucepan to dissolve the sugar, bring up to boil then turn down the heat and add the peeled pears (I like to use an apple corer and make cylinders rather than keeping the pears whole) and simmer until cooked.

Remove the pears, strain the liquid and then return to the pan and reduce until it starts to go syrupy, pour over the pears and serve hot or cold.

Lime Compote

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Recipe

• 4 Limes
• 2oz Sugar
• 5 tbsp Water

Remove all skin and pith from the limes and segment them between the membranes.  Reserve the skin of one of the limes.  Dissolve the sugar in the water and let the limes steep.  Clean off all pith from the reserved skin and blanche it and then refresh in cold water, thinly shred and add to the limes.

Can be served hot or cold.