Master Chef?

Yesterday evening, I helped DS do a "dry run" of his Cookery Assessment for today.  He was given two sheets of paper, set out with spaces for his ingredients, utensils, safety considerations and method; he had to make an item of food in class today and present it to the teacher.

J. decided to make Salmon Fishcakes and to accompany these with mashed potatoes and carrots.  Sounds straightforward, but he is still only 13, doesn't really like to cook and hadn't made these before.  The only "plus" that I could think of, was that he likes salmon fishcakes! 

I said he could make these, but only if he made them at home first.  I didn't want to just give him a recipe and leave him to sink or swim! 

So we spent two hours in the kitchen, getting out ingredients - writing it down as we went, peeling potatoes and carrot - writing it down, cooking the potatoes, salmon and carrots - writing it all down...

It was very hard work.  DS got super-stressed (as he tends to do).  I did my best not to get cross (because I hate to see him upset and it makes me grumpy!).   I managed to be patient, not too bossy (!), help him to understand what he needed to do and why (like why we put a little egg in with the salmon and mashed-up potatoes). 

He learned a lot - how to prepare boiled potatoes and carrots, how to make fresh breadcrumbs in the blender (how to operate the blender in fact!), how to make fresh mashed potato properly, how to make the fishcakes so that they didn't fall apart when being cooked.... lots of stuff. 

This was the result:

Didn't he present it nicely?  And it tasted great - really very nice indeed! 

This morning we were in the kitchen early, getting the ingredients together for today's Assessment.  J. was calm, relaxed and really quite confident.  It really was worth doing it all at home first, to make sure he understood the process.

The "Dry Run" and J's hard work all paid off.  The Cookery teacher had asked three other teachers to come in and assess/judge the children's food. 

J's Salmon Fishcakes, with Mashed Potato and Carrots came FIRST!  He was congratulated and given a round of applause.  A girl in his group made Raspberry and Chocolate Tart, which was judged the best dessert. 

I am really proud of my son today! He doesn't like to cook, but he came up with this idea himself, he cooked it and presented it so beautifully and his efforts were given their just reward.  He's a little star!

* * *

Just in case you fancy having a go yourself, here is our recipe:

Lizzie and J's Salmon Fishcakes, with Mashed Potato and Carrot.

For each fishcake with mash you need:

1 Large potato (think medium-sized baking potato)
1 small Salmon Fillet
1 Carrot

You also need :

Cooking oil (we used sunflower oil)
1 Slice Bread for breadcrumbs (will make enough for about 4 fishcakes)
Herbs (we used dried mixed herbs, plus dried basil)
Salt & pepper, plus any other seasoning you fancy (spice?)
1 beaten egg (or two if making 4 or more fishcakes)
Butter
A little milk

Peel the potato and scrape/peel the carrots.  Cut the potato up into small pieces and boil until soft.  Slice the carrots (J. likes long slices, as you can see!), then steam over the potato pan (or place in the pan to boil for about 5-8 minutes).  Drain the vegetables and set aside to keep warm.

Meanwhile,  fry the salmon fillets in a little oil, until just cooked (they will be cooked a little more once they are in the fishcakes).  Place on a plate and remove any skin.  Break the salmon into flakes or smallish pieces.

Take around half the potato and put into a bowl, mash (but not too mashed - a few small lumps are fine), then add the flaked salmon, herbs and seasoning, plus a little beaten egg to bind it, then mash together gently.  If you prefer a smooth filling for your fishcakes, pop it all in the blender and blend it on "pulse" a few times, until you are happy with the texture (remember that over-blending cooked potato results in a sort-of gluey-stuff which is not very nice and doesn't hold its shape well either!).

To make the fishcakes, take a portion of the mixture, using two dessert spoons or floured hands and shape it into a patty.  Place it on the plate and dab beaten egg on the top (you won't be able to paint it on, as the mashed potato will stick to the brush, so just dab it over).

Season the breadcrumbs with herbs then sprinkle a layer of breadcrumbs over the fishcake, gently pushing it with a fork, to make sure it all sticks. 

Use the fork to help you scoop up the patty in a curved hand, then turn it over.  Apply egg and breadcrumbs to the other side.

Repeat until you have all your patties ready  (we made one large fishcake each, but you can make them more dainty if you prefer - however they stay together better if they are not too thin).

Fry the fishcakes gently, turning carefully with a fish-slice or spatula, once they are brown on the base. 

Mash the remaining potato, adding a blob of butter and dash of milk, plus any seasoning you like.
Make a layer of potato on the plate, then place the sliced carrot around this, or next to it, as you fancy.

Place your fishcake carefully on top, then garnish with salad (or serve with a side-salad). 

Serve with mayonnaise (J. added a little basil pesto sauce to his mayonnaise, which tasted really good).

Enjoy! 

*  *  *

Corn Bread Turtle-style!

D'you remember the wonderful parcel I received recently, from a certain DebTurtle? 

It had Sweeties!!

And some Cornmeal, with a recipe to try out my very own American-style Cornbread!

So, today I did just that. 

I found the recipe and cornmeal,

 got my ingredients together,

and also my equipment - don't you love my Cup Measures? So cute! 

I measured out my 1 Cup of Cornmeal

This part is strange for me - here in U.K. we generally write / measure recipes by weight or liquid measures, rather than cups-full (or part-cups).  It seemed strange to put my cornmeal, flour etc into those little cup things. 

All the dry ingredients in the bowl.

I then mixed up the "wet" ingredients in a jug; again it seemed strange to measure the liquids in cups (except the egg, which is 1 Egg in any "language"!).

The other odd thing was using vegetable oil, instead of margarine or butter.  In U.K. we generally use a solid fat in our baking recipes, or sometimes a softer "tub margarine", which is still solid, but has been softened already.  Margarine is a mixture of vegetable fats (sometimes with animal fats too), which stays fairly hard at fridge temperature and needs to be beaten quite hard to soften it (or put in the microwave for a short while - but don't tell Delia!). So I have very few recipes that use liquid fats, so this was an interesting experiment for me!

Once it was all mixed together, the batter/mixture went into the tin,

then into the oven at 200 degrees Celsius (same as Deb's 400F!). 

It came out looking a bit brownish on top, with a slightly crusty surface - like bread or scones. I let it cool for a while,

then I cut it into pieces.

We had Hungarian Goulash (sort-of!) for dinner tonight, with rice and a nice sun-dried tomato bread, from the Italian deli. stall at the Farmers'/Local Produce Market that is held at the local garden centre once a month.  It seemed a good chance to try out our interesting new food, so I put pieces of Corn Bread in the dish, along with the warm bread slices. 

We put butter on some of it and dunked it in the paprika & tomato sauce with our stew. 

It was yummy!

This one's definitely a "keeper"! 

I made this batch without sugar, as I wanted a plain, savoury bread.  Next time I will use a little sugar.  I think I'll also use my slightly smaller square pan, as the bread was a bit thin and dry - I think it will be moister and nicer if it's in a smaller pan and can be in deeper chunks!

So, thanks Deb - it was fun. X

Hugs and Hershey's

Oh the excitement!  There I was, about to sit down to my lunch today, when the doorbell rang.  Who could that be?  The postlady... with this:

A Small White Box... from U.S.A.

It had the sender's name on the other side, a certain nice blog friend... What could be inside?

 

Yummy! Sweeties! And American Sweeties at that.  We don't have these here (or not in my little provincial County Town anyway). 

Also This - she even remembered my response to a post with a recipe for Cornbread, where I said I'd often wondered what it was like and would like to try some.  My very own Cornmeal; and a beautifully written recipe so I can try it for myself. 

How Exciting!! So beautifully packaged too, with ribbons and pretty labels.  How lucky am I? 

I had to have a Tasting Session:

Oooh... quite sharp and rather Hot flavoured! Wasn't expecting that - I thought they were Sweeties... but actually they're quite nice, once you get over the shock. 

Six different wrappers... I wonder if there are six different kinds? 

This one was white chocolate and very creamy - nom, nom, nom... sticky...

And these are very sweet, slightly rough in texture and you have to suck them lots!  Nice...

So, resisting the temptation to scoff the lot all at once, I put the packets back together, so I could show them to DS when he comes in from school.  No doubt, he'll be willing to sample some himself.  I wonder what he will think of these?

And I must say a huge Thank You to Deb! 

Thank you Deb, you really do Rock!

What We Had for Dinner (a quick little recipe)

I haven’t been blogging much recently… about once a week really.  I haven’t been short of ideas, or even photos – just time!  I have had a lot of work to get on with and various members of the family have been unwell (including me but I’m fine now!). 

Anyway, I managed my product review post for Dobbies, but that was last Thursday.  There’s another post coming up, linked to the Dobbies thing, but not sure when that will be (soon, but don’t know the day yet). 

So. I thought I would make a quick little recipe post, about what we had for dinner last night – and also one evening last week.  I think it’s one of our current favourites and I hope some of you will like it too.

* * *

Swiss-style “Butter Noodles”

This is a recipe that I got from my BF, Su.  She was lucky enough to visit Switzerland recently and ate something like this at her hotel.  After a bit of experimenting at home, she came up with this recipe, to reproduce what she had eaten.  Sometimes she adds a dash of white wine as well – just for those who like to add a bit of extra zing! 

This is my own adaptation of her recipe, so, 2 stages removed from “real Swiss”, I’m afraid, but it still tastes great!  It also has an adaptation for a non-dairy eater, since I can’t have cheese, butter etc…

You need pasta noodles – the type called “Linguine” or “Tagliatini”, like flattened spaghetti.  If you can’t find these, spaghetti will do fine!

Allow about 60-80g / 2.5-3.5oz dry pasta per portion (depending on how hungry you are!).   Put it in a large pan of boiling water and set to simmer on the stove.

Now here’s the Magic Bit!

To your pan of pasta, add some Vegetable Stock powder/ cube/ liquid.  Try to use a low-salt version, as it condenses during cooking and can taste very salty otherwise. I use some called “Swiss Bouillon Powder”, which is lovely – about 4 – 6 tsp, depending on how much water I have.  If you don’t have veg. stock, chicken will do nicely.  Let the pasta cook in this “broth”.

Put some fresh spinach leaves into a steamer.  Allow a good large handful or two per person, as it steams down to a much smaller volume. 

Don’t steam this yet – it only needs a minute or two, or it turns to mush!

Alternatively, you can use broccoli florets/ spears, or serve with fresh salad leaves.

Grate some good cheese – Gruyere or similar, if you have it, else a well-flavoured Cheddar-style cheese is nice.  Also, some hard cheese, such as Parmesan or Gran Padano is lovely – that’s what is in my smaller bowl there. 

Cook some chicken breast portions (or use other ready-cooked chicken pieces).  For recipes like this, I put the frozen chicken breast fillets in the microwave and cook for 4 minutes, then cut them into nice pieces and give them another couple of minutes to finish cooking. 

You don’t need them all brown and roasted etc, although cooking them in a pan will give a nicer flavour.  This is one of my quick suppers though, so I go for the quick and easy option every time!

Put the steamer over the pan of pasta for one or two minutes, to blanch the spinach. If you cook it too long, it just goes mushy and is a bit sad and limp… not so nice to eat.

Remove the steamer again and let it drain.

Don’t Drain the Pasta Yet!

This is my Non-Dairy adaptation.  If you don't want any butter or cheese in your meal, remove a portion of the pasta, together with a few good spoonfuls of the cooking broth.  It will be like a nice pasta soup! 

Now you can strain the rest of the pasta, but keep a little of the cooking liquid in the pan, as it makes the butter sauce nicer.  Put the pasta back into the pan.

Add a generous portion of butter to the pasta and broth in the cooking pan and stir it in.  If you want to use wine, now is a good time to add it, as the butter and wine will make a nice sauce.

Stir in the cheese and heat through, so the cheese and butter form a coating over the pasta.  Add the cooking liquid from your chicken pieces.

Put your pasta portions into serving plates, then add pieces of chicken and a portion of spinach / salad.
Sprinkle with some grated parmesan. 

This is my non-dairy version.  It still tastes good, even without cheese (oooh, cheeeeese… I looove cheese… but it doesn’t love me, so I will do without – most of the time!).  It can be made more special with a little white wine.

Hope you feel inspired to have a go.  It’s a nice, quick supper recipe, which tastes lovely and can be made impressive enough for guests.

Use Gruyere, or other Swiss cheese, pan-cooked chicken – so it’s a bit browned - and add a glug of good, dry white wine during the sauce-making process – the wine and butter make a lovely glaze.
  
Slice the chicken breast diagonally and arrange it on the pasta, to one side, so it looks tidy – or serve on a flat plate and lay the chicken beside the pasta, with sauce spooned on top.
 
Use lovely fresh mixed salad leaves,  or nicely cooked dark green veg.  Most guests will love it!  But of course, you will need to have a practise-run first… yummm…

Yum, yum! Brownies, anyone?

Mmmm....

While I was on holiday, I came across this recipe for chocolate brownies, which was supposed to be very quick, easy and tasty. 

So, of course, I had to try it out!

* * *

Quick Chocolate Brownies

230g Dark Chocolate - 140g broken up and smashed into chunks

125g butter

250g sugar

1tsp vanilla essence

90g plain flour

2 eggs, at room temperature

pinch salt (if using unsalted butter)

20cm/8" square tin, lined

Melt the butter and 90g chocolate (the bit you didn't smash up!) in a bowl over hot water, or in a microwave (heat for 10-15 seconds, then stir, repeat until chocolate is melting, then stir until it has completely melted. This avoids burning the chocolate by over-heating).

In a separate bowl, mix the eggs, sugar, flour and salt (if using). 

Blend this with the melted chocolate mixture, to a smooth batter. 

Add the chocolate chunks and stir well.

Pour into the prepared tin and bake at 180 degrees C for 10-12 mins, until a skewer or sharp knife comes out clean. 

Cool completely, then remove from tin and cut into pieces.

* * *

The Verdict

The cakes seemed to take much longer to cook, than the 10-12 mins in the recipe.  This may have been the fault of my oven, which I suspect is not very good any more (other things have taken too long before, though they were big things).  It may also have been because I used chilled eggs... who knows? 

Anyway, once the brownies were obviously cooked, I left them in the tin on a rack, to cool down completely.

Even when cold, if you look at the photo above, you'll see that the chocolate was all runny.  They were really more like chocolate puddings, than chocolate brownies.  We did sample two, but ate them from a bowl, with custard!!

They tasted like brownies - in fact, they were really yummy - but we wanted Real Brownies, with that nice texture they have...

So, I put the whole tin into the fridge for an hour or two. 

Then I took them out and removed the paper:

They had the right sort of texture once chilled...

They had that lovely crackly top, like Real Brownies...

They looked and tasted just like Chocolate Brownies.

 

We tried a couple today, after storing them in a plastic box at room temperature.  They still taste like proper Chocolate Brownies, so I reckon they're okay!

I'm not sure why they took so long to cook - about 18-20 mins in the end - but if you try this recipe (and I really think you should!!), do follow the recipe time for your skewer test and only leave them longer if they're obviously not cooked yet.  However, I am pleased that, despite the minor hiccups and the necessary chilling time, these have come out wonderfully and taste great.

Definitely worth a try - the mixture was so quick to make and it was fun too!  I think I'll add some chopped walnuts (or similar) next time - I like brownies with nuts in.

Now then, where's the coffee, I need another Brownie!

That Yummy Chocolate Flan Thing...

Well, I got told off for not providing the recipe to last weekend's yummy chocolate flan... So I asked Su and she told me how it was made. It wasn't a scientific recipe, but I'll try to work out quantities for you - however it'll be "intelligent guessing", so it may not work out exactly right. Be prepared to do a "dry run" before making it for any special occasion, just in case you need to adjust the amount of something.  The texture should be nicely set, like a cheesecake (non-baked).

So, Su said "Whipping cream, a carton of Mascarpone and two bars of Dark Chocolate".  I think the quantities should probably be like this:

* * *

Pastry Case, "baked blind" and ready to use
250-300ml Whipping Cream, whipped to soft peaks
250g tub Mascarpone
2 x 100g bars (or 1x 200g) Dark Chocolate ( 70%+ cocoa!)
12 Large (halved) or 24 Small (whole) Strawberries
Garnish (Mint or Lemon Balm leaves, baked mini-balls of pastry, biscuit crumbs, chocolate to drizzle, icing sugar etc)

* * *

I'm not too sure about quantities for US-style cooking. This Recipe Converter may help.
It suggests that 250ml of liquid or 250g dry weight is equivalent to approx 1 Cup, 200g (chocolate) is approx 7-8 oz weight.
Hopefully this would help you work out the recipe okay.

* * *

1) Whip the cream to soft peaks. 
2) Melt the chocolate in a bowl, over hot water (or in a microwave).
3) Fold the melted chocolate into the whipped cream.
4) Fold in the mascarpone.  The mixture will begin to thicken.
5) Pour into pastry case.
6) Garnish with strawberries or other fruit, drizzled melted chocolate etc
7) Chill for an hour or more, until cold and set.
8) Add more garnish if wanted - biscuit crumbs, pastry balls, icing sugar etc
9) Serve with more cream if wanted, or ice cream, more fruit etc.

* * *

This dessert is really quite rich and filling, so you'll probably only want a smallish slice. The one Su made served 6 hungry people at two meals!

I hope this works out for you. Please let me know if you decide to try it and whether you enjoy the results!

Busy Saturday and A Recipe

Well, I've had a busy day... Dropped J. at his Saturday morning club, then popped into my mum's to make sure she was doing okay. She is recovering, but I thought I'd hang around til it was time to go and get J. Did her jobs, then settled down with these:

As you can probably work out, there are four more rabbits, part-made.  The stuff on the left is the second of these:

Can you resist that face?

This one was finished last night - while J. was bouncing at his trampoline club. Is it cute, or is it cute?

More photos:

It's hard to put them in the shop sometimes... I'd really like him for myself.  You know, the little bell on his collar really jingles! I love him to bits. And there's another on the way... two puppies, rabbits, kittens..oh my!

Then I made some of these:

 

Banana and Chocolate Muffins

I thought I might share the recipe, as lots of people commented when I mentioned them before:

Banana and Chocolate Muffins

Ingredients:

50g margarine / butter, softened

50g chocolate chips / chunks

75g soft, brown sugar

110g plain, wholemeal flour, sifted

pinch of salt

1 ripe banana, mashed

1 large egg, beaten

1) Heat the oven to 170 degrees C / 300 degrees F / Gas no.3

Grease and line cake pans or use paper cases.

2) Put flour, sugar and salt into a mixing bowl. Add the butter and mix well.

3) Add beaten egg and mashed banana.

4) Beat thoroughly to blend well together.  Add the chocolate chips / chunks.

Beat for 2 minutes, to incorporate air into the mixture. 

5) Spoon into cases and smooth tops. 

This mixture makes 10-12 small cakes

Or 6 large muffins

Or, if you double the mixture, as I did, you can have both!

6) Bake until golden and firm (15-20 mins), checking after 10 mins and turning / swapping shelves in the oven if necessary. 

Test with a skewer or sharp knife, leave to cool for a short while, then turn onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Just a word about the chocolate: Use good quality, dark chocolate for this recipe, if you possibly can.  The cakes are nice with milk chocolate or chocolate chips designed for cooking, but they are really great with decent quality dark chocolate chunks in.  If you don't have chocolate chunks, don't despair! Break bar-chocolate into bits and place in a plasic freezer bag (nice and thick!).  Bash with a rolling pin to break into nice chunks.  I like this kind of chunks best, as they are not all the same size, so some bits are bigger than others - a good surprise!

These muffins taste lovely. The mix of banana and chocolate is great. They are really nice eaten slightly warm and they make a good dessert, with cream (!), ice-cream, or custard sauce.

If you haven't scoffed the lot all at once, store in an airtight box/tin for up to a week.

This evening, we were piggies and sent out for pizza for our dinner.  Expect me to be eating nothing but gruel all week, to make up for it! (well, and the odd apple or grape, salad etc...)

That's my Saturday - hope yours was good too!

By the way, don't forget to leave your comments on the previous post, to enter my World Book Week Giveaway