Peach Ice-cream – in 5 minutes

Posted on September 16, 2013 by annie

This ice-cream should probably come with a warning or two.

Firstly – this ice-cream is so gorgeous that you may find yourself making it far too often and eating far too much of it.

Secondly – it’s not a quiet recipe to make, so if you’re planning to serve it up during a peaceful evening with friends, it may break up the ambiance somewhat unless you have another (preferably sound-proofed!) room you can go and make it in. We tend to eat in our kitchen, so we’re all there together, and the noise this makes as the processor tries to crunch up pieces of frozen fruit is a bit of a conversation stopper.
Also, do make sure that your food processor is robust enough for this sort of activity.

But – having started with the negatives, and they say you should never do that – there are so many positives. It is delicious. Creamy. Packed with fruit. And really quick to make. And a great reminder of summer now that’s it’s disappeared.

5 minute Peach Ice-cream

(Serves 4 – 6)
5-minute-Peach-Ice-cream3

Ingredients

  • 400g frozen sliced peaches – preferably frozen in small chunks
  • 2 tablespoons icing sugar
  • 170mls single cream
  • ½ teaspoon of vanilla extract

Directions

  1. Put half of the frozen peaches in the food processor and process until small chunks – then add the other half and the sugar and process until pureed. Try to use small pieces of fruit – the larger they are, the louder the noise and the more likely your food processor is to try and shake itself off the table.

  2. When the sugar is mixed in, taste to make sure you’ve added enough. Then, whilst the motor is still running add the vanilla and pour the cream in slowly till all combined

  3. You should by now have soft-scoop style peachy ice-cream. It should be ready to serve immediately, but you can always freeze for later. If you do, remember to take it out of the freezer a few minutes before you want to eat it as it will need to soften.

5-minute-Peach-Ice-cream4

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Not-Quite Eton Mess

Posted on September 8, 2013 by annie

Eton mess – the story goes – was first eaten after a meringue pudding was crushed by a yellow labrador whilst on the way to a picnic at Eton sometime in the 19th century. The remains were salvaged and served up as Eton Mess.

Like many of these stories, this one (Wikipedia tells us) is not true.
Maybe that’s a bit of a relief – the thought of dog hairs in your pudding doesn’t sound very appealing.

Whatever its origin, Eton Mess – a mixture of strawberries, cream and crushed meringue – is a very simple, quick and easy pudding to make, that is undeniably delicious, but equally undeniably high-calorie and high fat.

Have you ever looked up the exact fat content of double cream? If you haven’t I suggest you don’t unless you never want to eat double cream again. Unfortunately I did the other day – hopefully I’ll forget it soon – but that explains why I was looking for a low-fat version of Eton Mess.

This recipe is certainly low fat. My son tells me I can’t call it Low-fat Eton Mess as it isn’t quite the same. He’s right – the only thing that tastes like double cream is double cream, but this is a whole lot less fat and still tastes deliciously rich and creamy. Why not see what you think?

Not-Quite Eton Mess

(Serves 4)
Low-Fat-Eton-Mess-3

Ingredients

  • 200g strawberries, hulled, washed and sliced
  • 500g low-fat Greek style natural yoghurt
  • Approx 4 tablespoons caster sugar
  • A few drops vanilla extract
  • Approximately 5 small meringues (I used shop bought), broken into pieces

Directions

  1. Mix everything together in a bowl. Taste to make sure you’ve added enough sugar for your taste. Make sure you don’t add the meringues until the last minute or they will go soggy


  2. Divide into separate dishes – decorate with strawberry slices / grated chocolate / crumbled crunchie bar – and serve



Low-fat-eton-mess


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All good things…

Posted on September 2, 2013 by annie

Haven’t the school holidays gone fast?

There’s that glorious moment in the middle when you’ve forgotten all about school routine, are enjoying the seemingly endless days and feel that they will go on forever – and then it’s suddenly August bank holiday and the beginning of September. And you can start to see the kids trying really hard NOT to remember that school is looming ever closer. Ah well…

But we’ve had a great summer: … a glorious holiday in Italy….

… learning to kite-surf …
(although a lot of time was spent head down in the water!)

… and lots of cakes!

Strawberry-Pavlova

And summer’s not over yet, but this week will be a bit of a change…

Saucepans

Monday

Roast pork fillet with herbs



Tuesday

Pork, feta and pasta salad



Wednesday

Ham, Spring Onion and Cheese Quiche

Lemon and Raspberry Ripple Ice-cream
(as a treat because it’s first day back)



Thursday

Chicken Stir-fry

Chicken Stir-fry with rice

Chicken Stir-fry with rice



Friday

No cook pasta sauce
(Recipe to follow)

No cook pasta sauce

No cook pasta sauce



And perhaps to cheer ourselves up at the weekend
Cinnamon Rolls

What are you having this week?


As usual I’m linking up with Mrs M’s Meal Planning Monday where you can find more ideas.

Meal Planning Monday

Have a great week!


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Two-for-One: Roast Pork Fillet with Herbs – and Pork, Feta and Pasta salad

Posted on August 30, 2013 by annie
Pork,-Feta-and-Pasta-Salad

It’s always great when you can manage to get more than one meal from one evenings cooking. These are both simple recipes that you can either make separately, or cook extra roast pork the first night so you can use the leftovers the following evening in the pasta salad.

A word of warning – if you have a family of gannets like mine, you might like to remove the ‘extra’ meat before serving up the roast so that it doesn’t get eaten!

Roast Pork Fillet with Herbs

(Serves 6 – or 4 with leftovers for Pork, Pasta and Feta Salad tomorrow)
Roast-pork-fillet-with-herbs

Ingredients

  • 2 pork fillets both weighing about 450g if doing both meals – if only doing the roast then just get enough pork fillet to feed 4
  • a bunch fresh sage
  • a bunch fresh thyme and some
  • some fresh basil leaves
  • salt and pepper

Directions

  1. Heat the oven to 190°C.

  2. Strip the leaves from the herbs and chop.

  3. Pour a tablespoon of oil onto the chopping board and spread it over the board with half the herbs. Roll one pork fillet in the oil / herb mixture until all covered in herbs. Put to one side and do the same with the second fillet with more oil and the other half of the chopped herbs.

  4. Heat a little oil in a frying pan. Place one of the fillets in the pan and brown, turning till browned evenly all over but not cooked through. Place on a piece of tinfoil, scraping in all the herbs left in the pan and wrap up loosely.

  5. Do the same with the other fillet. Place both tinfoil parcels in a roasting tray and cook in oven for about 30 or 40 minutes depending on how well you like them cooked (mine were cooked for 40 minutes).

  6. When cooked, take out of the oven and leave wrapped in tinfoil for about 10 minutes to rest – carve and serve. If you’re hoping to make the salad tomorrow, put aside half of one of the fillets (~250g) before serving the roast.


And the following day…
(This recipe is adapted from one in BBC Good Food several years ago)

Pork, Feta and Pasta Salad

(Serves 4)
Pork,-Feta-and-Pasta-Salad

Ingredients

  • 2 x 250g pack tortellini (cheese / cheese and tomato filling)
  • 200g frozen peas
  • 100g cherry tomatoes, halved
  • Packet of rocket leaves
  • Half a 200g pack of feta cheese, crumbled
  • Leftover pork cut into thin slices (approximately 250g)
  • 4 tablespoons olive oil
  • 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

Directions

  1. Cook the frozen peas in a pan of boiling water and drain when done.

  2. Place the peas in a bowl with the tomatoes, rocket and feta.

  3. Cook the tortellini according to packet instructions in a large pan of boiling water. Drain.

  4. Whilst the pasta is cooking, heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a frying pan. Stir-fry the pork slices until heated through. When hot, remove from the heat and add the remains of the oil, the balsamic vinegar and salt and pepper to the pan.

  5. Add the pork and tortellini to the salad – mix all together and serve with extra feta if you wish.


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Ham, Spring Onion and Cheese Quiche

Posted on August 12, 2013 by annie

This is a lovely recipe for using up leftover ham (and if you saw the post last week you will know that we have quite a lot of ham to use up!). The ham and spring onions seem to complement each other beautifully in the creamy cheese.

Even better, it’s not too expensive – £3.23 for 5 / 6 servings was what it cost us, using leftover ham from last weeks roasts.

Quiches are of course, often made with cream but I’ve made this with milk. I can never quite bring myself to use too much cream in everyday food, and this ‘low-fat’ version was creamy and tasty enough for us.

It’s not a quick meal – although you can cut down on time by using ready made pastry. But if you plan ahead and blind bake the pastry case beforehand, the quiche preparation takes only about 10 minutes. Then you can relax and do something else whilst it bakes in the oven.

The recipe was inspired by one I saw on the BBC GoodFood website a while ago, that is no longer on the site.

Ham, Spring Onion and Cheese Quiche

(Serves 5 – 6)
Ham-Spring-Onion-Cheese-Quiche2

Ingredients

  • Shortcrust pastry – either ready made or made as here with 200g plain flour and 100g butter or margarine
  • 150g cooked ham, diced
  • 2/3rds bunch of spring onions, thinly sliced
  • 75g grated grana padano cheese
  • 200 mls milk (semi-skimmed or whole milk)
  • 3 eggs

Directions

  1. Ham-Spring-Onion-Cheese-QuicheRoll out the pastry to a circle about 5cms bigger than your quiche tin (I used a 24 cm flan dish).

  2. Using the rolling pin, lay the pastry over the flan dish. Push gently down into the ‘corners’, trim the edges with a sharp knife and prick the base with a fork.


  3. Ham-Spring-Onion-prep2Cover with baking parchment, fill with baking beans and bake blind at 200°C for 20 minutes. Then remove the beans and paper and cook for another 5 minutes or so, until it is a pale beige / biscuit colour

  4. Ham-Spring-Onion-prep;Sprinkle half the cheese evenly over the pastry base, then scatter over the chopped ham and spring onions.

  5. Beat together the eggs and milk, season with black pepper and pour into the pastry case. Scatter the remaining cheese over the top.

  6. Bake in the oven for about 45 minutes at 180°C until the quiche is set and cheese is browning. If the top darkens before it is cooked through, cover loosely with tinfoil. Eat hot or cold

    7. Ham,-Spring-Onion-and-Parmesan-Tart

And for the cost:

    1. 200g plain flour (Sainsburys basics plain flour = 9p)
    2. 100g margarine (Stork margarine = 28p)
    3. 125g chopped ham (leftover from roast ham = 64p)
    4. &#8532 bunch of spring onions – white parts sliced thinly (Sainsburys spring onions = 50p)
    5. 70g grated grana padano (Sainsburys own = 94p)
    6. 200 mls milk (either whole milk or semi-skimmed) (Sainsburys West country fresh milk 2.27l = 12p)
    7. 3 eggs (Sainsburys free range Woodlands medium eggs = 66p)

Total Cost = £3.23 (5 – 6 servings)

As I was using leftover ham and some leftover spring onions that needed using I have linked this up to the Turquoise Lemons No Waste Food Challenge that is being hosted by Elizabeths Kitchen Diary this month

Posted in Budget Meals, Main Course | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Ham, Spring Onion and Cheese Quiche and A Weekly Menu Plan

Posted on August 12, 2013 by annie

Last week was a good week : fine weather – it’s lovely having the children home – and I found some great new recipes in the kitchen.

Of course 50 years ago, it wasn’t such a good week for some – the Great Train Robbery got away with £2.6 million – Wikepedia tells us that is equivalent to £46 million today!

You could certainly buy a good few of our new favourite meal with that amount. At £3.23 for 5-6 servings, Ham, Spring Onion and Cheese Quiche is not an expensive meal, but is very tasty. Ham together with spring onions was not a combination I’d tried before, but they seem to complement each other beautifully. You can see the recipe here.

As you can imagine, we still have some cooked ham sitting in the freezer waiting to be used up, so that will figure on the menu this week. So the rest of the week looks like this …

Saucepans

Monday

Ham, Spring Onion and Cheese Quiche



Tuesday

Roast Tomato and Mascarpone sauce with pasta

Roast Tomato and Mascarpone Sauce with Pasta

Roast Tomato and Mascarpone Sauce with Pasta



Wednesday

Three Cheese Summer Vegetable Bake

Thursday

Salmon with Watercress Sauce (with friends)



Friday

Barbecue on the beach
(Let’s hope the weather holds!)

Have a great week!

And, as usual, I’m linking up to Mrs M’s meal planning monday where you can find other great ideas for meals.
Meal Planning Monday

What’s your family’s favourite meal?

Posted in Weekly Menu Plan | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

Two-for-One: Roast Honey Glazed Ham

Posted on August 8, 2013 by annie
Ham,-Spring-Onion-and-Parmesan-Tart

OK – it’s not really roast dinner season at the moment – but when faced with large amounts of ham to cook (and you can of course eat cold ham in any season) I got out my recipes for Roast Glazed Ham and dusted them off.

I always somehow feel that cooking a ham has an air of complexity to it that is somewhat off-putting. In fact it’s pretty simple. Perhaps there are one or two more steps than putting your chicken in to roast and walking away until its done, but in all honesty, not many.

I cooked the first hams in a fairly traditional Honey and Mustard Glaze which was lovely, but my youngest did say that he wasn’t quite sure about it. I couldn’t decide if that was the cloves or the mustard so tried a Honey and Thyme glaze the next time. That was very sweet but was unanimously approved of (- well, my husband had thirds and my eldest was moved to spontaneously say ‘Good Ham, Mum’ – high praise indeed!)

Both recipes are below, so take your pick.

I’ve found that one 750g ham does two meals for us. Roast ham with mashed potatoes and veg on the first night gives us just enough ham left over to make Ham, Spring Onion and Cheese Quiche (or Ham and Sweetcorn Mini-quiches) the second night. Just a word of warning – if you’re planning that combination make sure that you carve off the ‘extra’ and hide it before serving up the roast ham, so someone doesn’t spoil your plans and eat it!

If you want some other ideas for what to do with the leftovers then have a look here.

Roast Honey and Mustard Glazed Ham

Glazed-Ham

Ingredients

  • Two x 750g Unsmoked Gammon Joints
  • 1 onion, peeled and quartered
  • 2 carrots, peeled and coarsely chopped
  • 1 teaspoon black peppercorns
  • 2 bay leaves



    • Honey and Mustard Glaze:

  • 4 tablespoons runny honey
  • 2 teaspoons English mustard
  • About a dozen cloves



    • Honey and Thyme Glaze:

  • 4 tablespoons runny honey
  • 4 tablespoons orange juice
  • 1 tablespoon demerara sugar
  • 1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves

Directions

  1. Some gammons need pre-soaking, but not all – so follow the instructions on the packet

  2. Take ALL the wrapping off, place the gammons in a large pot and just cover with cold water

  3. Bring to the boil and simmer for 5 minutes. Pour off the water.

  4. Fill the pan with water again to just cover the gammons. Add the onion, carrots, peppercorns and bay leaves to the pan. Bring to the boil and simmer for 30 minutes – skim any impurities from the top if necessary. Drain and place covered in a bowl.

  5. Heat the oven to 200°C.

  6. If there is a layer of fat on the gammons, cut off the skin / top layer leaving a layer about a centimeter thick. Score the fat diagonally, criss-crossing to make diamond shapes. Place the gammons in the middle of a large sheet of foil in a roasting tin.

  7. Honey and Mustard Glaze: Place a clove in each diamond. Mix together the honey and mustard and spread all over the gammons.

  8. Honey and Thyme Glaze: Mix together all the ingredients and smear the glaze over the gammon joints

  9. Cover with the foil and roast for 40 minutes, basting at least once. Uncover for the last 15 minutes or so to allow the top to brown.

  10. Remove from the oven, cover with the foil again, and leave to rest for 20 minutes or so before carving.

  11. Serve with creamy mashed potatoes and vegetables.

Roast-Honey-and-Thyme-Glazed-Ham

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Honey and Mustard Glazed Ham and a Budget Menu Plan

Posted on August 5, 2013 by annie

Does it sometimes feel as if the Credit Crunch has been going on forever?

If your answer to that is (like mine) a resounding ‘YES’, it turns out that the reason we think that is – because it has. Yep, this month is apparently the five year anniversary of the start of the Credit Crunch.

At times it has felt as if prices in the supermarkets are going up almost as you watch. And with an ever-hungry, rapidly-growing family of meat-eaters, one of the things I’ve been looking at to try and reduce costs, is using some of the cheaper cuts of meat – pork cheeks, brisket and of course gammon.

Gammon is usually at the cheaper end of the meat counter, but this month I was rather taken with the Sainsburys multi-buy offer – three 750g gammon joints for £10 – which makes the grand sum of £4.44 a kilogram! (usual price £5.72 / kg so not expensive)

It does take a bit of time to cook of course – this is not the sort of meal you whip up in under half an hour in the evening. But that seems to be the problem with most ‘budget’ cooking – it’s difficult to find meals that are BOTH cheap AND quick.

However, once your hams are cooked (and I did this at the weekend), you then have the makings for several quite quick meals that are suitable weekday after-work food.

Budget Menu Plan

Cooking three gammons at once seemed too much of a challenge (although in fact it would have been fine and saved time) so I started with two and roasted them.
And from two hams you can get several meals:

  1. Glazed-HamRoast Honey and Mustard Glazed Ham with mashed potatoes and vegetables

    Cost = £5.23


  2. Tuna fishcakes Cook double quantities of mashed potato and there will be enough to make Tuna Fishcakes the next day.

    Cost = £3.31

  3. Even though we ate most of the ham I saved a couple of slices to make Ham, Spring Onion and Cheese Quiche

    Cost = £3.39


  4. The gammon was boiled before roasting and the liquid can be used in Split Pea Soup (something like this recipe)

    Cost = 92p


  5. The second gammon joint will give us enough for:

Not bad value is it?

Total cost for 6 meals is just under £22

And if you think that is enough – there was of course a third ham. That has also been roasted, this time in a Honey and Thyme glaze, and will be frozen – as will some of the other ham as I don’t think we’ll want to eat ham EVERY night for the next fortnight!

The recipes for roasting the ham are here – the first is the more classic Honey and Mustard Glaze. My youngest thought there was a bit of an ‘odd’ taste to it, which I thought might be the cloves, so I went for a sweeter Honey and Thyme Glaze the next time. It is really quite sweet, which we thought offset the flavour of the ham beautifully, but make sure you taste the juices before you pour them over your plate!

There are lots of recipes using leftover ham – here are a selection:

As usual I’m linking up to Mrs M’s Meal planning Monday where you can find other ideas for meals.

Meal Planning Monday

Have a good week!

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‘Simple Cakes’ and a Weekly menu plan

Posted on July 29, 2013 by annie

I have to say a BIG thank you to every one who commented last week and said how impressed they were with the cake my son made me for my birthday. He was so pleased with the results that he has been cooking all week – it’s been great to come home each evening to yet another gorgeous creation.

We’ve had Chocolate Ice-cream – which was very creamy and chocolatey…

…and Vanilla swiss roll with raspberries and cream filling – which I can’t show you as we were concentrating more on eating it than taking pictures.

This meant that we had a few egg whites to use up, so last night he decided that he just had to make Strawberry Pavlova with Raspberry Sauce (we didn’t argue).

Strawberry-Pavlova

The recipe came from Mary Berry’s book called ‘Simple Cakes’. It’s a great book – clear instructions, and truly delicious recipes which always seem to turn out just as they should. You can also find the recipe here. Meringue is one of those things that I don’t cook very often but I can honestly say that I did almost nothing for this – oh, except muster the energy to eat it.

Strawberry-pavlova-2

So – thank you for all the encouragement! I’m hoping that he’ll feel enthused to carry on doing some cooking during the holidays. Of course that means that my hips might be as wide as the River Thames by the time term starts again but, hey it’s worth the sacrifice if he gets to learn to cook!

Cooks Notes:

  • We followed the recipe to the letter (I’m told), but did cook it for a little over an hour. The recipe in the book says 1 – 1½ hours so we turned the oven off at 1 hour and 10 minutes when it was firm to touch and a beige colour
  • We added a raspberry sauce to the topping of whipped cream and sliced strawberries. This is very simple to make and goes really well with ice-creams, fruit and strawberry pavlovas. Make it as described in this recipe here.

Saucepans

This week I am aiming mainly for simple, quick meals that I can get together quickly after work or that the children can start making before I get home – I haven’t added any puddings just in case someone else has other ideas!

Monday

Roast ham with mashed potatoes

Tuesday

Ham and Sweetcorn mini-quiches (to use up leftovers)



Wednesday

Macaroni cheese

Thursday

Chicken stirfry

Chicken Stir-fry with rice

Chicken Stir-fry with rice

Friday

No cook pasta sauce

No cook pasta sauce

No cook pasta sauce

As usual I’m linking up with Mrs M’s Meal planning Monday

Meal Planning Monday

Do your children enjoy cooking? How do you get them interested in learning?

You may also like:

Lemon and Ginger Cupcakes

Lemon and Ginger Cupcakes

Cinnamon Rolls

Cinnamon Rolls

Posted in Desserts, Weekly Menu Plan | Tagged , | 6 Comments

Greek Pasta Salad

Posted on July 27, 2013 by annie

Maybe its the fact that we had MONTHS of rain without let up (it seemed) and it’s now time for change – or maybe its the fact that we went on holiday to a really hot sunny country (always a good way to get the weather to break!) – or maybe it’s the fact that July is BBQ dishes on the Four Seasons Food Challenge hosted by Chez Foti (this month) and Delicieux – whatever the reason, we have been having some great BBQ weather here in the UK, haven’t we?

In fact it was SO hot last weekend that we decided NOT to have a barbecue (I can already hear you shouting ‘ wimps’) as it would make things too hot (are we never satisfied?!?).

This recipe makes a great dish whether you’re serving with a real barbecue – or, served with some crusty bread, makes a simple supper to eat in the sun in the garden. It’s so colorful that it makes you feel like it’s summer and eating-outside-weather, even if it’s not. It’s also reasonably quick so we sometimes have it for supper without the barbecue.

Greek-pasta-salad-prep

The inspiration came from a Jamie Oliver recipe but I’ve given the details here as it has evolved somewhat since then. The quantities of ingredients have always been measured in ‘handfuls’ so the amounts I’ve given are a bit approximate – just make sure the colors are about equal (except for maybe the black olives) and it’ll taste just fine!

And as I said, I’m going to link this up to the Four Seasons Food blog challenge hosted by Delicieux and Chezfoti

Greek Pasta Salad

(Serves 6)
Greek-pasta-salad-3

Ingredients

  • 200g pasta
  • 1 clove garlic, peeled (optional)

  • 200g cherry (plum) tomatoes
  • ½ cucumber
  • 1 yellow pepper
  • couple of handfuls sliced black olives
  • 200g packet of feta

  • 6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
  • 2 tablespoons lemon juice
  • 1 teaspoon oregano – &/or a handful of fresh basil leaves torn if you prefer
  • salt and black pepper

Directions

  1. Pop the garlic clove into a large pan of salted boiling water, and cook pasta according to packet instructions


  2. Wash and dice the tomatoes, cucumber, pepper and ½ the feta and place in a large bowl with the sliced olives


  3. Make the dressing: mix together the olive oil, lemon juice (you can use white wine vinegar but I prefer the slightly gentler taste of lemon juice), salt, pepper and oregano and stir / shake well


  4. Drain the pasta when cooked, remove the garlic but reserve a couple of tablespoons of the cooking water – stir through the pasta


  5. Put the pasta into the bowl with the vegetables. Pour over the dressing and give it all a good stir before serving. Scatter with more feta if you wish. I usually serve warm as a side dish for a barbecue, or with some warm crusty bread as a quick supper.
Posted in Main Course, Quick Meals | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments