Category: Recipes

Add some relish to your beige

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If you’re anything like our household you are still mainly eating ‘Christmas food’ i.e. all the extras and nibbles you bought in the strange belief we all have that, at the magical time of year, we will suddenly be able to eat three times as much as usual.

By this stage most of the best bits like the cold meats have gone and things have largely petered out to the ends of crackers, cheese, pâté, crisps, pork pies and of course – mountainous tubs of sweets and chocolates.

Barring the latter, things can seem a little beige in the food department by now and so something is needed to help things along which is why I recently made a few jars of tomato and onion relish – my recipe for which I’ve included below.

I’ve started to crave ‘normal’ food and with each Christmas item that is finished up I am almost sighing with relief. The crackers are starting to be less crack and more soft and yet hating to throw anything away we are soldiering on through them – besides – there is still an unopened smoked cheese as well as all of the three-quarters eaten, clingfilm wrapped blocks to go. And I’ve just remembered the pickled onions I bought perhaps even last year that I completely forgot to get out!

A lot of people talk of starting diets in January and I can’t help wondering – how? Do they manage to binge their way through everything by the 31st December or do they have a complete banishment of anything left over consigning it to the bin for a fresh start?

For the first time, I cooked Christmas dinner this year, just for six and I found myself worrying about – would there be enough? Which was ridiculous, I’ve cooked for that many people and more on many occasions so why did I feel the need to just do a bit more here and there than I ever would normally? The Yorkshire puddings were perhaps a very indicative example. I made them ahead to go in the freezer until the day but being someone who doesn’t actually like them (yes, that’s right, I don’t like Yorkshire puddings, I’m sure I can’t really be the only one) I completely overestimated how many everyone else would have and made well over twenty! MOTH helped out somewhat by eating five straight out of the oven, but even despite this, we still have some in the freezer. There was even enough batter left over to have a few rounds of pancakes as well – a happy unexpected aside allowing for more gorging.

But I think while we sink into the long months of inevitable drabness where the hours between morning and night are often indistinguishable due to the persistent grey, it is the perfect time to embrace happy, hearty comfort food.

I have the slow cooker on the go today which always drives small cat crazy. The delicious smell that emanates and pervades around the house causes him to not wander far from the kitchen and to shout even more than usual whilst looking pointedly at his food bowl. You can’t blame him, I find there is a lure to stand over the hot pot of yumminess and inhale generously as if in a kind of food meditation. It can seem a strange thing to be browning meat and cooking onions first thing in the morning, but it is a glorious treat to know that tea is taking care of itself and there will be nothing to do later other than dish it up into bowls, grab a spoon and perhaps some bread and butter and dig in.

Food really can be a mood changer and I love eating and cooking in equal measure. If time, money and waistline allowed I would probably spend a large part of every day cooking, baking and eating. It has been pointed out jokingly (I think) that I may secretly be a feeder. I am of course, nothing that extreme, but I really do enjoy giving people something nice to eat – nothing fancy just good tasty grub.

At the start of this year one of my sisters and I had to take a 600 mile round trip to Durham and back for our Grampa’s funeral and to pass the time on the trains I took with me Jay Rayner’s ‘The Ten (Food) Commandments’ that I had been given for Christmas. On the return leg of our journey we had to stand for two and a half hours on an incredibly packed train and after a day which started at 4:50 a.m. and had comprised of small nibbles of easy to carry food, the high emotions of a funeral and the tiredness from public transport, I found the imagery of his descriptions of food rather visceral. I think I shall be forever left with a strange memory of being nose to armpit (neither my sister nor I top five foot three leaving our head height reaching to around other’s shoulders), sweltering in funeral clothes and barely able to move to take my coat off and reading about him cooking and eating one of the most delicious sounding steaks I have ever heard described. I had to console myself with some sugared jelly sweets we had grabbed before our third train of the day – not quite the same! I feel steak must be bought soon.

But today, I have slow cooked beef to look forward to, a delightful change from Christmas leftovers – which will, of course, be tomorrow’s lunch.

My recipe for tomato and onion relish

Ingredients:

  • 700g tomatoes
  • 350g brown onions
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 3 tblsp caster sugar
  • 1 tblsp dark brown sugar
  • 3 tblsp balsamic vinegar
  • 1 tbsp white or cyder vinegar
  • Tomato puree — about a table spoon
  • Pepper to season

Method:

  • Blanch and peel the tomatoes and roughly chop
  • Gently fry the onions in a little oil until soft
  • Add the sugar and cook for a couple of minutes, stirring occasionally
  • Add all other ingredients and simmer for 20-25 minutes until the consistency is thick and not too runny.
  • Spoon into sterilised jars as full as you can make them and seal shut

When is a courgette not a courgette?

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No, this isn’t the start to some kind of awful joke but a genuine pondering I had a while ago.

This year, having got our vegetable patch underway for the first time, we were fully prepared for the ups and downs and experimentation of what may or may not grow well. Our biggest failure of the year seems to have been the carrots. I can’t help thinking that it was perhaps the wonderful in many ways but exceedingly hard Suffolk soil, which when baked by the sun turns into solid clay, that may have been our downfall. I imagine that somewhere under their sprouting tops, they were secured more tightly than middle-class ladies at a health spa wrapped in mud and clingfilm and left in the dark to doze and snore to the questionably soothing sounds of some whales or a heaving rainforest. (Just why the sudden shrill call of some kind of anthropoid or feathered creature is supposed to be relaxing I am not sure.)

But one of the absolute rip-roaring successes has proved to be courgettes – in fact, almost too much so.

It got to the point where we were not only growing more than we could consume on a regular basis but that they were also rather oversized. This led to us greeting friends and family not with a hearty ‘hello’ and enquiries as to their health, but with, ‘do you like courgette?’ If the poor unsuspecting person answered yes, whether in truth or out of politeness, they were then proffered a ridiculously large green vegetable and we could sigh in relief that we had managed to reduce the stocks a little. Even our plumber did not escape and left, after sorting a leaky radiator, with one of our verdant monsters.

It wouldn’t have been so bad if courgettes happened to be our favourite vegetable but as it is, they feature among the bottom rungs of the veg league – if there were to be such a thing. MOTH (Man Of The House – the husband) particularly declared himself not a fan and so I set about finding ways in which to disguise this slightly insipid but amazingly fruitful food.

Garlic is a good one. Cook them in plenty of butter and garlic and all is well. Use them to bulk out vegetable dishes swathed in a tomato sauce and they disappear nicely into the background giving a good supporting role.

But after weeks of hiding them in various savoury ways I was getting a little bored so decided to try a different tack and go sweet. Using vegetables in baking is nothing new but I live with a man who is steadfastly traditional when it comes to cakes and so I knew it would be quite a challenge to make something he would try once, let alone eat a whole piece of.

And so a courgette cake I made – my own recipe – which I’ve included a link to below, and, well, I thought it was rather yummy. MOTH was brave and took a bite (admittedly before I told him what was in it) and, although not a particularly enthusiastic response, the comment ‘it’s alright,’ I took as pretty positive from someone who has quite an aversion to such things. (I did note however that it was just the one bite that was eaten – the rest I shared with my lovely singing group: The Kettle Girls.) I promised that the next cake would be more traditional, and it was: a classic sponge with jam and cream, followed not long after by a chocolate and choc-chip cake with chocolate frosting. (My teeth hurt just thinking about it.)

I don’t have a particularly sweet tooth myself and quite like the raw and earthy textures and flavours of more natural and less intensely sweetened things and I wonder if it could be traced back to The Brown Book.

When we were growing up, one of the cook books in our home was what we, the children, called The Brown Book. Everything about this book was brown from the recipes to the front cover, even the paper it was printed on seemed to have a light hue of brown. (I do believe it was from the 1970’s – which could explain a lot.) The titles of some of the recipes might give you an idea: Buckwheat Pancakes, Soya Burgers, Lentil Sprout Salad, Millet Cookies.

(At this point my conscience dictates I put a word in: the reason I can tell you these recipe titles is because I now have a copy of that book. Further confessions tell you that actually, I quite like the look of a lot of it now and it would be doing a huge disservice to my mum to let you think that the above was what we were served daily – it wasn’t – it was just the odd moment of Brown that appeared and made us kids roll our eyes. To this day I still can’t hear the word Carob without thinking of it’s treacherous lie that it is ‘like chocolate’ – it is not!)

Actually, our birthday cakes were really quite spectacular. They were always made into some fantastical shape or scene: butterflies, trains, dogs, someone fallen over skiing, a clog – you name it, we’ve had it. It was even only a couple of years ago, when one of my sisters was studying to be a vet, that a cake was made depicting a horse – mid operation – including red boot laces for innards.

Often, being the ones making the cake was as much fun as being the recipient of them. Holed up in the kitchen having shut out the birthday girl (who knew exactly what was going on but would pretend that they didn’t) a creative flurry of cake, icing and decorations would take place and usually so many of the sweets, chocolates and the such bought for decorating were eaten in the making of the cake, that by the time it was presented and the candles blown out no-one could face eating any more – for an hour or so anyway.

But, back to my original question – when is a courgette not a courgette? I was pondering this because ours grew so large it was often asked if they were now a marrow. Well, there is some debate online: some say a courgette left to get so big becomes a marrow, others say that there are still horticultural differences but that they are both a squash. So, when is a courgette not a courgette – when it is a marrow – or not – but definitely when it is a squash. Perhaps.

 

You can find my Courgette Batter Cake recipe by clicking here

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Courgette Batter Cake

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Ingredients:

  • 8oz (225g) courgette
  • 3oz (90g) light brown sugar
  • 3oz (90g) soft dark brown sugar
  • 8oz (225g) self raising flour
  • 1/4 tsp baking powder
  • 3 eggs
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 2 tbsp maple syrup

Preparation:

  • Pre heat oven to 160◦C fan (180 conventional)
  • Grease and flour baking tin

Method:

  • Grate or blitz courgette
  • On a medium heat cook the sugar, courgette and maple syrup until melted, soft and smelling like toffee – around five minutes then leave mixture to cool for around ten minutes
  • Whilst the sugar mixture is cooling, beat the eggs in a separate bowl until they are large, frothy and pale
  • When the sugar mixture has cooled, mix in the flour and baking powder and combine adding the oil to loosen
  • Gently fold in the eggs until all combined and the mixture resembles a batter
  • Add mixture to the tin and bake for around 30 minutes

Pear Sponge

Ingredients:

  • 4 pears
  • 1 apple
  • 8oz (227g) SR flour
  • 3oz (85g) soft brown sugar
  • 1tsp cinnamon
  • 1tsp ginger
  • 2 medium eggs
  • 100ml olive oil
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Preparation:

  • Pre-heat oven to 175°C (fan)
  • Grease and line tin

Method:

  • Peel and stew the fruit and let it cool
  • Mix together the dry ingredients in a bowl
  • In a separate bowl mix together the stewed fruit, olive oil, egg ad vanilla essence
  • Fold the dry ingredients into the wet mixture
  • Put mixture in the tin and sprinkle the top with brown sugar
  • Bake for around 30 minutes, let cool in the tin for 5-10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack.

Date and Dark Chocolate Loaf Cake

 

Here is my recipe for a date and dark chocolate loaf cake.

Ingredients:

  • 100g dates
  • 125ml hot water
  • 1tsp cinnamon
  • 1 tsp ground ginger
  • 100g soft brown sugar
  • 175g margarine/butter
  • 175g SR flour
  • 60g cocoa powder
  • 3 medium eggs
  • ½ tsp baking powder

Preparation:

  • Pre heat the oven to 170◦C (fan)
  • Line a large loaf tin

Method:

  • Stone and chop the dates and soak them in the boiling water with the cinnamon and ginger
  • When cool beat in the butter
  • Beat in the eggs
  • Stir in the flour, baking powder and cocoa powder
  • Bake for 45-55 minutes, let it cool in tin before turning out onto a wire rack

Bread, High-heels and the Inheritance of Hands

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A couple of years ago I began making my own bread by hand and it has now become an at least twice-weekly event. People often ask, “Isn’t it really hard to do?” and the answer is no.

However, I have recently made an addition to my bread making routine which I haven’t yet come across in any books; high-heels.

At 5’3” I know I am not actually that short but it is just short enough to find standard kitchen worktops just a couple of inches too high.

To give bread a good knead it is better to be able to exert some downward force and I found that I was always standing on tip toe whilst doing so. Making bread can be a bit of a work-out in itself but doing so at the same time as standing on your toes makes the experience rather more wobbly.

After joking many times that I should keep a pair of heels in the kitchen – not only for bread making but also to access the shelves in the cupboards (sadly just the lower shelves, the top ones are still out of bounds, heeled shoes not withstanding) – I eventually did it one day.

Now I can be found wearing my wedges whenever making bread – regardless of what else I may be dressed in. That’s right, I may be in my pyjamas getting an early loaf started, or in my comfies, having a relaxed day, but whenever there is the making of bread – there will also be my heels.

Making bread at home is something my mum always did. There is a running joke in our family that you could build houses with mum’s bread as it is dense and solid in the way that only true wholemeal bread can be. But, we loved it as children and we love it now.

It is the thing that will always be comfort to us: mummy’s bread – preferably with marmite.

It was the go-to food when we were ill, when we were running in from an after-school sports session and needed something to fill the gap before tea – and as we got older, it was the thing consumed late at night, giggling and in overtly hushed tones when we had staggered in from the pub.

I was terribly bullied at school and I remember on occasions when I came home in a not so good state, mum would either have or get some bread on the go and would encourage me to take out some anger and frustration by pummelling the dough. This was a great distraction for me at the time, if only for a short while, but now I believe that bread making, along with all cooking and baking, is best done not with anger but in a happy state of mind.

Many times, food made when ill, tired or angry has just not turned out well at all and I do believe the mood in which you make something can have an impact on how it ends up.

I am very lucky now to be able to make my bread overlooking our garden and often get treated to a good deal of bird watching – my current favourite visitors being the pair of wrens that I have seen many times hopping about the pots on our patio.

As I am kneading the dough I often reflect on how I have my mother’s hands and how she in turn had her mother’s. They are not pretty hands, they are not slender or delicate and never have prettily painted nails. (I try sometimes but invariably I have chipped, imprinted or got something stuck in the varnish within minutes of it going on.) But, they are working hands. Caring hands.

For my three sisters and I, our mum and our grandma; hands are for doing and creating, they are for caring for people, digging the garden, creating fun with paint, glue, needle and thread, they are for living. And I love them.

I haven’t always loved them, as a teenager I used to look in a kind of intrigued envy at the delicate gesticulations of people with slender fingers, small wrists and the tiniest of rings that could slip easily onto any finger. They were fascinating to me and I used to long for the same – usually when desperately trying to get a ring off a reddening giant knuckle that I had dared hope would fit.

But as happens so often, as you get older you begin to appreciate things in a different way. I can still feel the touch of my mum’s hand on my forehead when she comforted me as a child when ill in bed. The skin may have been rough, but the love conveyed could not have been more gentle. And I hope that my hands give as much care and love as they did.

When I come in from the garden with my fingernails full of mud and my skin prickled and scraped, I know that they have done a job and one that will either result in something yummy to eat or be a beautiful thing to look at.

And when I cook and bake I will always be reminded of my grand-ma and cooking with her in her kitchen with the old Formica table and how there was always porridge cake (my family’s name for flapjack) to be eaten and copious jars of fruit bottled in the pantry having been picked from the garden.

Hands and bread making – just two things that have been passed on along the female generations of my family – but, I think I am the first to introduce kitchen heels into baking. I wonder if it will catch on.