Halloween biscuits

I have spent two days this week standing in shops, scratching my head as I wander up and down the sweet aisle. As sweets only enter my children's diet when they appear in party bags, I'm not really up on today's sweets. However, I needed some for a recipe. All I wanted was some plain boiled sweets. You would think that would be simple, the sort of thing you could pick in any corner shop. But no... instead you can buy swidgy jellies, fruity chewies, sour thingamees, enormous gobstops and unknown sweets hidden behind wrappers containing TV characters. Boiled sweets are terrible for the teeth, maybe that's why they aren't very popular anymore. Ho-hum... eventually I tracked them down in a large supermarket under a silly name something like "sparkling gems".

Today was the last fundraising cake stall before Halloween so the children were encouraged to bring in Halloween theme cakes and biscuits. So last night I made a batch of gingerbread dough and cut out 10 pumpkin shaped biscuits from it. My daughters then cut out pumpkin lantern type faces from the biscuits and filled in the spaces with pieces of crushed boiled sweets. When cooked the boiled sweets melt and fill in the spaces like a stained glass window. Simple... apart from finding somewhere to buy the boiled sweets!

Halloween Biscuits

4 oz (110 g) dark brown sugar
4 oz (110 g) golden syrup
2 oz (50 g) butter
8 oz (225 g) plain flour
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 heaped teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
Boiled sweets

Heat the butter, sugar and syrup in a pan until just melted. Set aside to cool. Sift the flour, spices, salt and bicarbonate of soda into a bowl. Add the melted mix to the dry mix and stir until combined into a soft dough. Spoon the dough into Clingfilm and refrigerate for half an hour. Preheat an oven to 190 °C, 375 °F, gas mark 5. Cover a baking tray with greased greaseproof or parchment paper. Taking small pieces of dough at a time, roll it out and cut out pumpkin shapes either with a special cutter or by trimming pieces of a circular biscuit.

Use a sharp knife to cut out faces in the biscuits. Transfer the biscuit to the baking tray then place a boiled sweet in the holes in the face. Cook in the oven for 10 minutes until the biscuits have browned and the sweets melted. Remove from the oven and allow the biscuits to cool completely before removing them from the tray.

Making things with plums

When we bought our house back in 1998 it already had a well established plum tree in the back garden. It has continued to crop well every year, so much so that one year the weight of fruit broke some of the branches. We have learnt from this and thin out the fruit in early July but we still get pounds and pounds of fruit from it. Most of this I earmark for jam and chutney making but I also like to use some of it in cakes and bakes.

This week I invited a friend over to help herself to several pounds of plums from my tree and when she arrived she had a magazine under her arm containing a recipe for plum flapjacks. I hurriedly scribbled it down and later that afternoon I modified it and made my own version of them. And what a hit they turned out to be! Gooey, sticky and a cross between a flapjack and a cake. I think you could even serve it hot with custard!

Plum flapjacks

1 lb (454g) plums
½ teaspoon mixed spice
Pinch of salt
8 oz (225g) light muscovado sugar
8 oz (225g) butter
3 tablespoons golden syrup
10 oz (275g) oats
5 oz (145g) plain flour

Wash the plums then cut them in half and remove the stones. Chop into small pieces and place in a bowl. Sprinkle over the spice, salt and 2 oz (55g) of the sugar. Stir and set a side. Preheat oven to 200°C, gas 6 and grease a 20 by 20cm tin. Put the remaining sugar, butter and syrup in a saucepan and melt together. Put the oats and flour into another bowl and mix in the melted ingredients. Spoon half this mixture into the base of the tin and use wetted fingers to press it down as an even layer. Spoon the plums over this as another layer then finish with the remaining oat mixture and press down lightly. Bake for 40-45 minutes until bubbling and golden. Remove from the oven and use a spatula to run around the edge of the flapjack. Leave to cool completely in the tin then cut into suitable sized pieces.

The flapjacks didn't last a week - they were gobbled up by Thursday, so this afternoon I adapted a fruit cake recipe to make plum and orange fruit cake and this too proved to be yummy. I think I need to strip the tree and freeze the remaining plums so I can make more of these plum recipes throughout the year.

Plum and Orange Fruit Cake

8 oz (225g) self-raising flour
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon mixed spice

8 oz plums

5 fl oz (150ml) water
Zest and juice of 2 oranges
14 oz (400g) mixed dried fruit

4 oz (115g) butter or margarine
4 oz (115g) soft light brown sugar
2 tablespoons sherry
2 eggs, beaten

Preheat oven to 170°C, gas mark 3 and line a cake tin. Sift the flour, salt and spice into a bowl. Stone and chop the plums then place in a large pan with the orange zest and juice and the water. Bring to the boil and cook for about 10 minutes then add the dried fruit, butter and sugar. Stir until the butter has melted then bring back to the boil and simmer for another 10 minutes. Set aside and allow to cool. Add the sherry to the mix then pour the mix onto the dry ingredients and stir well. Stir in the egg then pour into the cake tin. Cook for one and a half hours. Test with a skewer and cool in the tin.

Having filled the cake tin again I didn't really need to make anything else for dessert but there were still plenty of plums so I decided to preserve some as plum crumble. A while ago I had bought 12 mini foil containers with lids from Poundland and these proved to be the perfect for making individual portion sized crumbles. It was satisfying to stack them up in the freezer, ready for another day when I have neither a ready supply of plums nor the time to make dessert.

Plum and Orange Crumble (makes 4 portions)

8-12 plums

1 orange

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

100g light muscovado sugar

125g butter

75g plain flour

75g wholemeal flour

25g oats

Stone and halve the plums and place them in a bowl with the zest and juice of the orange, the cinnamon and 50g of the sugar. Stir well then spoon into the crumble container.s Cut the butter up into small cubes and add 3 cubes to each of the 4 crumble containers. Put the remaining butter in a bowl with the flour and rub to breadcrumb texture. Add the sugar and oats to the crumble mix then scatter this over the plum mix. Seal the crumble containers and freeze if desired. To cook, thaw completely and bake for 15-20 minutes at 180°C, gas 4 until the juices start to bubble through the crumble. Serve hot with cream, custard or ice-cream.

Pancakes... in September...?!

As you may already know I'm a huge fan of duck. Very tasty! My very favourite way to eat it is Chinese style with pancakes, hoi sin sauce and cucumber and spring onions. Unfortunately, buying a kit for this meal is quite expensive and something we only have on special occasions. It is also unfortunate that my daughters love this meal too because it means there are never enough pancakes to go around. I have searched the shops for the pancakes on their own but alas they don't exist. I have also puzzled over the ingredients and wondered how to make them myself. A few attempts have resulted in pancakes but not the right type.

A few months ago I decided to write to the people who put together the excellent food magazine OLIVE. To my surprise shortly after sending my email I received a reply for Lulu Grimes with a recipe. I was very impressed! Then as I sat at breakfast in a static caravan in south Yorkshire in the last week of the school holidays I turned over the page of my September OLIVE magazine and there on the letters page was my name and the recipe for Chinese pancakes. Not only was I chuffed but I was also motivated to give the recipe a go.

At the moment Lidls are selling whole frozen duck for about £5 each which is much cheaper than any other way to buy duck so whilst I put one on the draining board to thaw I set about making pancakes. It is amazing what boiling water and flour can do. I have a feeling that to make pancakes as fine and delicate as the ones in the kits you either need some kind of mysterious factory machinery or to have been brought up in a Chinese household. Nevertheless once I'd figured out that they really needed to be rolled very thin and the oil needed to be properly hot before putting the pancake in the pan I managed to make some Chinese pancakes. They were a little more like a wrap than a proper Chinese pancake but still pretty good. I left them stacked between two plates until dinner time then once everything else was dished up I heated them in the microwave for 30 seconds. At least this way there were plenty to go round.

I figure with a little more practise they will become thinner and finer so I shall be trying them again but it also occurred to me that this is a really handy pancake recipe for anyone with allergies to milk or egg because they were pretty descent pancakes and made only of flour and water. Amazing!

Chinese pancakes (makes 16)

250g plain flour
1 teaspoon caster sugar
Sesame oil

Put the flour and sugar in a large bowl with 190ml of boiling water and stir to a soft, sticky dough. Knead it until it is very smooth. Rest for 30 minutes. Roll it into a sausage then divide it into 16 pieces. Roll each piece into a little ball. Taking two balls at a time, flatten both, brush one surface with oil then press them together with the oil between. Roll out into a 8-10cm pancake with two layers. Heat the oil in a frying pan then cook the pancake for 1 minute on each side until they are puffed up and just beginning to colour. Whilst still very hot, peel the two layers apart to make 2 pancakes. Repeat.

Pulling it out of the bag

I've had a ridiculously hectic two weeks! It started with putting in some hours at my daughters' school to help organise and run the summer fete and that co-incided with a sudden increase of sales in my shop. It's also a busy time in the veg garden and all this in the run up to the end of term and going on holiday. So whilst my head was full of imaginary suitcases that I packed and unpacked several times a day, other things were pushed aside. When I took the girls to school yesterday morning another mother was handing over a present to the teacher and at that point I shoved a suitcase out of my head and remembered the custom of giving the teacher a gift at the end of the year. With the shopping done for the week and no time nor intention to visit the shops again I had to think of some way to create two presents for my girls' teachers, plus, of course, smaller gifts for four teaching assistants.

Fortunately, our home is awash with craft items so I mentally pencilled in finding half an hour after school to help the girls make a gift for their teachers. And then for the teaching assistants... biscuits! Perfect... and something with an egg in so I can use up the last egg in the fridge before I go on holiday.

By four o'clock that evening we had made two secret boxes (they look like books but are really little boxes to put treasures in) for each class teacher. Then we spent another hour making chocolate chip cookies. These turned out really well and once they were cooled we placed 3 each in cellophane bags and wrapped them with curling ribbon. So from having nothing that morning, we had created some beautiful and personal gifts.

When we went into school this morning I enjoyed watching my two hand over their little gifts to their teachers. And they were gratefully received too. In my mind gifts like that are worth more than a bottle of wine or box of chocolates.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

4½ oz (125g) unsalted butter
6 oz (175g) light brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3½ oz (100g) plain flour
¼ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
¼ teaspoon baking powder
Pinch of salt
6 oz (175g) oats
2 oz (55g) chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 180°C, gas 4 and grease 2 baking trays. Cream together the butter and sugar then stir in the egg and vanilla. Sift in the flour and raising agents then add all the other ingredients and combine until a dough forms. Pull off pieces of dough and roll into a ball then flatten. Place the biscuits, well spaced out, on a baking sheety and bake for 15-20 minutes. Cool on a rack.

Tatty old apples

At this time of year I often have an empty fruit bowl. This may sound somewhat alarming but it is because it is soft fruit season and soft fruit doesn't store well in a fruit bowl. My family gorge themselves on the raspberries and strawberries often before they even reach the kitchen so they have little need for a banana shipped halfway across the world. Having an empty fruit bowl does have its downside, however, as when I'm in the middle of something and my girls pester me with a request for food my standard answers "Have a banana" or "Have something from the fruit bowl," cannot be used.

This happened last week and out tripped the world "Have something from the fruit bowl," without my brain even being involved in the task. A moment later they were back again, "There is nothing in the fruit bowl expect 3 horrible apples," my youngest complained. I dragged myself away from whatever I had been doing and in just a few moments had whipped up an impressive soft fruit fruit salad with a dollop of ice-cream. Then I inspected the apples in the fruit bowl and could understand why they had been rejected - wrinkly, is the word for it.

I hate food waste with a passion and although I could have dropped the apples into the compost bin with a clear conscience I decided instead to use them in a cake. So the next day when they informed me they were hungry I cut them each a slice of vanilla apple sponge and neither of them complained that the apples were horrible this time!

Vanilla Apple Sponge

9 oz (250g) unsalted butter, softened
8 oz (225g) caster sugar
4 eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
9 oz (250g) self-raising flour
3 apples, peeled, cored and sliced
1 tablespoon demerara sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 180°C, gas 4. Line a round cake tin. Cream together the butter and sugar then stir in the egg and vanilla. Sift in the flour and mix until a thick batter forms. Dollop into the lined cake tin then push the slices of apple into the mixture. Sprinkle with the demerara and cinnamon. Bake for 1 hour 5 minutes and test with a skewer. Leave to cool in the tin for a few minutes then cool on a wire rack.

Spread a little happiness - make flapjacks!

When I went shopping on Tuesday I came home with a big stack of stuff, mainly meat, that had been either on offer or reduced but which really needed processing in some way before freezing. That meant that most of Wednesday was spent on my feet in the kitchen making pies, sausage rolls and cooking various other dishes. However, the previous night the cake box had become empty so I also needed to refill this. As you will know, I try to keep the cake box stocked so my husband can easily find himself something for afters. To add to the need, my husband was due to be working a long day Thursday (today) and needed to take with him all the food he would need to keep him going. This meant that whatever I made for the cake box also needed to be robust enough to go in a packed lunch/tea the following day.

So, to recap, I needed to make something quick, requiring very little effort and that could go in a lunch box. There really was only one answer - Honey and Vanilla Flapjacks. Dead simple to make, very tasty, always popular and hold together well. So I whipped up a batch of these in between meat processing.

That night, as we watched TV my husband didn't battle hard with will power and ate through 6 flapjacks! So agogged was I that I commented on this feat on my Facebook page. Instantly, several friends commented back wanting to know when they would get a taste! No luck for them, Steve took the remaining 6 flapjacks with him in his lunch box the next morning.

So with the cake box empty and friends disappointed I quickly made another batch of flapjacks and when I went to collect my girls from school later in the day I handed foil wrapped parcels of flapjacks to my friends. And you know what... it really brightened up their day, as did it mine!

Honey and Vanilla Flapjacks

4 oz (110g) butter
4 oz (110g) soft light brown sugar
1 dessert spoon of honey
A few drops of vanilla extract
6 oz (170g) oats

Preheat oven to 150°C (gas 3). In a large saucepan, gently melt the butter with the sugar, honey and vanilla. Add the oats and stir thoroughly until evenly coated. Grease a small baking tray and spoon the mixture onto it. Spread out and press down with wetted fingers. Bake for 25 minutes until gold. Cut into flapjacks whilst still hot then allow it to cool in the tin.

Grandma's Buttons

When I was a child my brother and I used to spend every school holiday at our grandparents' house, either my dad's parents or my mum's parents. Both were happy to have us and used to spend a lot of quality time with us. They would take us out to various places and we would also spend a good deal of time indoors making things. Funnily enough, one of our favourite activities was sorting out my grandma's button collection. She was from the wartime make do and mend generation so not only did she make a lot of her own clothes (and ours!) but she would reuse bits of old clothes wherever possible. This recylcing nature would be highly admired in today's culture. It meant that buttons, zips and other fastenings were snipped off old clothes and stored in an appropriate old margarine or ice-cream tub. As a result of years of this she had accumulated several hundred buttons, some individual, other in matching sets, and all jumbled together in a yellowing ice-cream tub. I don't know how she ever found the button(s) she needed for the clothes she was making!

So, every now and then, my brother and I would sort the buttons out - usually by colour - inspecting and admiring each of them as we did. We had our favourites, of course. And when the job was done we would put them all back into the ice-cream tub in a big muddle, ready for the next rainy day. After years of doing this, and with the wisdom of age, we decided that once we had sorted them out we ought to keep them sorted. So we tied matching sets together on pieces of thread and we put buttons of each colour into separate plastic bags. And that was that. Never again did the button collection need sorting.

When I was 18 years old my grandma died and one of the things I inherited for her house was a drawer. In the drawer was a lifetime of sewing thread and her button collection, still individually bagged by colour. Since having my own house this drawer has lived on a shelf in my garage and occasionally I use some thread out of it. Then, this weekend I decided to make some sock glove puppets with my children and I knew that I would find the perfect buttons for the job in my grandma's button collection. At first I only brought out one bag of buttons but so intrigued was my eldest daughter by the buttons that she asked me to bring in the whole collection.

She studied the buttons with fascination, just as I had done, holding up some to show me... the same ones that had been my favourites. The smell of my grandma's house still clung to the buttons and added to my memories. As she sorted I emailed my brother to tell him what she was doing. "Awesome," came the reply, "what fun that was!". Then, over the next half hour, the button gradually become more and more muddled up as she opened bag after bag. And then by bedtime the buttons were in a big heap, the plastic bags (mostly with holes in due to age) discarded to one side. I fetched an empty metal biscuit tin from the kitchen and we scooped them all into it. And there they shall remain, in a big muddle, until the next rainy day when two little girls will ask if they can sort out my button collection!

Dealing with duck

As I have said before, duck is my favourite meat but it is expensive. It is also surprisingly lacking in meat when compared to a chicken of the same size. Nonetheless, when I buy duck I like to make the most of it in order to get good value for money. For a start, when Lidl's have them in I buy frozen whole duck from them as this is the cheapest way I have found to buy it. It doesn't come with any cooking instructions but I know by now that from thawed it will take 2 hours as 200°C. Before hand I push some sage, onion, celery and maybe a mushroom or two into the cavity to add to the flavour. It is also brilliant to cook roasted potatoes under a duck because the duck fat is so tasty. The trick here is to have the duck on a rack out of the fat and to allow the potatoes to cook in the fat but to drain the fat off (into a container to keep!) when the duck is taken out to rest. Return the potatoes to the oven for 10 minutes to crisp up.

We usually eat the two breasts with a roast dinner. If you can manage it, try to cut the breasts off whole, rather than slicing them as you would for chicken. A breast each for an adult is great but we have two small children so we usually cut some of each breast off to give to the children so it feeds all four of us. What we'll do when the children are bigger I'm not sure.

So after a roast dinner we still have both legs and wings left. Later this week I striped the meat off the remaining bird and boiled up the carcass and stuffing to make stock, which I jarred and stored for later use. The meat I divided roughly in half. One half of the meat we cooked up as a Chinese-style meal last night for my husband and me. Whilst I prepared vegetables for a stir fry he concocted a sauce to go with it. I don't know exactly what went into the sauce but it was loosely based around oyster sauce. The stir fry contained leek, shallots, carrot, celery, mushrooms and some large slices of root ginger. Then, once the vegetables were just about cooked, we threw in the duck meat and finally added the sauce. This was served with some plain boiled rice.

Earlier that day I had used the other half of the duck meat to make some duck rolls. These are loosely based around duck spring rolls but to be honest I have tried making that pastry spring rolls usually come wrapped in but have never succeeded. I think the problem lies in them needing to be deep fried and I don't own a deep fat frier and I'm too frightened of a fat fire to do it on the hob. I have tried filo pastry too, which is fiddly to use and has a tendency to shatter in the freezer. So now I use puff pastry, which is not only very tasty, but is easy to use and freezes well. To the duck meat I added one large closed cup mushroom, very finely chopped and some grated carrot. I make these for my children so I like to get a few extra vegetables on their plates without them realising! Finally, I added a tablespoon of hoi sin sauce and mixed it all up. Then I rolled out half a block of ready made fresh puff pastry and cut it in half. Then I dolloped the duck mixture all along it. Using milk to stick it together, I rolled the pastry over as if I were making sausage rolls. Finally, more milk was used as a glaze and then they were cut into sausage roll size lengths. This makes about 12 rolls, which will feed my two children 3 times. I froze the lot. They can be cooked from frozen at 200°C for 25 minutes until golden. Last night I served them with some rice, a few noodles and some carrot and cucumber sticks and they were eaten with enthusiasm.

So from a whole duck costing approximately £8, we had a roast dinner for 4, two adult Chinese-style meals, 12 duck rolls, a tubs of duck fat and several jars of stock. OK, a chicken would have been cheaper but I don't think that is too bad for the money.

Cranberry Flapjacks

Next month the soft fruit will be ready for harvesting again and that means a return to jam making season. So this month I need to try to clear my backlog of homemade jams and preserves.

There is only so much jam you can eat on toast during any given week so I do try to find ingenious ways to incorporate jam into recipes. With this in mind, I managed to invent a cranberry flapjack using up stocks of homemade cranberry sauce. Brilliantly simple because the sauce is both a fruity flavouring and a source of sugar so no need to add extra.

Cranberry Flapjacks

4¾ oz (135g) margarine or unsalted butter
4 oz (110g) cranberry sauce
2 oz (55g) golden syrup
8 oz (225g) oats
¾ oz (20g) sunflower seeds
1¾ oz (50g) raisins

Preheat oven to 190° C (gas 5). In a large saucepan, gently melt the margarine or butter with the sauce and syrup. Removed from the heat then add the remaining ingredients. Spoon the mixture onto a small baking tray and press down with wetted fingers. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes. Mark out the flapjacks before allowing it to cool in the tin.

Tiffin

If there was ever a good way to make use of leftovers then tiffin has got to be it. Take some stale biscuits, add a few stock cupboard ingredients and a bar of chocolate and hey-presto you have transformed something inedible into something delicious! It is very rich so not so great in terms of nutrition but brilliant in terms of food waste, especially as it keeps for ages. Horrah! Let's eat tiffin and save the planet!

Tiffin

8 oz (225g) stale biscuits

4 oz (110g) butter

1 good tablespoon golden syrup

8 oz mixed dried fruit

2 oz glace cherries, chopped

200g milk chocolate

Place the biscuits in a bag and bash with a rolling pin until crumbed. Melt together the butter and syrup in a pan over a low heat. Combine the biscuit, butter mix and fruit and stir well. Grease a suitable tin and press the mixture into it and level. Refrigerate for at least half an hour until solid. Melt the chocolate over a pan of hot water then spread over the biscuit base, level out and return to the fridge. Once solid, cut the tiffin into small squares and transfer to an airtight container. Keeps well.

A friend's visit

The lemon and sultana cake lasted impressively until Tuesday, by which point it was on the verge of being stale anyway. Now my husband has started measuring his waistline once a week and he's been getting more out of his gym membership for the past fortnight! So last night when confronted with a box of carrot and orange muffins he tried very hard to limit himself to just one. He nearly managed it too but succumbed to another later in the evening. Maybe eating them a couple of hours apart helps to lessen their effect!

Today a friend of mine came over to buy a few jars of homemade jam from me. Whilst here I offered her a drink and a muffin, which she accepted. The drink she chose happened to be a glass of homemade blackcurrant cordial. She enjoyed both her drink and her muffin and went home with 4 jars of jam too! It doesn't often work out like that but it was nice to have my homemade products appreciated!

Carrot and Orange Muffins (makes 10)

4 oz (110g) light muscovado sugar
5 fl oz (125ml) sunflower oil
2 eggs
7 oz (200g) plain flour
2 oz (55g) wholemeal flour
½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 orange
6 oz (170g) carrot
4 oz (110g) sultanas

Preheat oven to 200°C, gas mark 6. Mix the oil and the sugar together then beat in the eggs. Sieve the dry ingredients into the oil mix. Grate the peel off the orange and add that to the bowl then squeeze the juice from the orange and add that. Grate the carrot and fold that into the mix, along with the sultanas. Spoon into cases in a muffin tin. Cook for 20 minutes and test with a skewer. Cool on a wire rack.

My husbands fat tummy!

Every night when my husband is getting ready for bed he catches sight of himself in the mirror. This causes him to stand up straight, draw in his breath and suck in his tummy. Then he pats it, says, "I must get rid of this." He's not particularly fat, you understand, he just has a mental image of himself as a fit 18 year old and the sight in the mirror always comes as something of a surprise!

Whenever he talks about dieting he always sees having "afters" as either the biggest problem or perhaps as the easiest area to tackle. He likes to have something sweet after dinner, as is so often the case, something we seem to get trained into somehow. I know that after dinner he will go looking for the cake tin to see what delight I have cooked up today.

At first sight it would appear that if I stopped making cakes, flapjacks and biscuits for him he would stop eating them and this would help his belly. As obvious as it seems, that solution doesn't work. I know, I've tried it! Instead, when he finds the cake tin empty he opens the food cupboard and sees what else he can find. This often results in him eating something a good deal more fattening than the relatively health bakes I make, such as shop bought shortbread fingers.

I have pointed out to him that what I make is supposed to last 4 to 5 days not the usual 2 to 3!This week we have agreed upon serious rationing - just 2 flapjacks a night. He did well, managing to eek out the batch of flapjacks from Monday to Thursday.

So today the cake tin stands empty again and this afternoon I have friend popping over for a chat. So at the moment the appetising smell of lemon and sultana cake cooking fills the air. I wonder how long the cake will last?

Lemon and Sultana Cake

1 lemon
4 oz (110g) sultanas
5 oz (145g) caster sugar
3 fl oz (85ml) corn oil
2 eggs, beaten
7 oz (200g) plain flour
2 oz (55g) wholemeal flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
Pinch salt
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
2 tablespoons oat bran

Preheat oven to 180°C (gas 4). Grease and line a loaf tin. Place the sultanas in a bowl and cover with the juice and zest of the lemon, made up to 6 fl oz (170 ml) with warm water. Set aside. In another bowl, sift together the flour, salt and raising agents. Make a well in the middle. To the fruit mix, add the sugar, oil and eggs. Carefully stir the wet mix into the dry mix. Add the oat bran and combine well. Spoon into the loaf tin and bake for 55 to 60 minutes and test with a skewer.

Friends after school

My daughter invited a friend over after school this afternoon. It was arranged before the Easter holidays so she has been looking forward to it for about 3 weeks. She was quite clear that she wanted some cakes to share with her friend. Certainly not a problem in our house so this morning I made a batch of orange choc chip muffins. To add to the interest, I also whipped up a bowl of orange butter icing and got out the last of the mini eggs left over from Easter. So when they got home, I shared out 12 cakes between 3 girls and they dolloped on butter icing and finished off with a mini egg. OK so the Easter theme was a bit late but they were pretty little cakes. The girls enjoyed the activity as well as eating a cake there and then and my daughter's guest had 3 cakes to take home to Mum too.



Orange Choc Chip Mini Muffins

(makes 12-16)


110g (4 oz) self-raising flour
25g (1 oz) wholemeal flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
55g (2 oz) caster sugar
Grated rind of 1 orange
1 egg
150 ml (5 fl oz) milk
2 tablespoons juice from the orange
60ml (2 fl oz) oil
25g (1 oz) chocolate chips
40g (1 1/2 oz) butter or margarine
55g (2 oz) icing sugar
Rind and juice from half an orange
12 Mini Eggs

Preheat oven to 200°C. Sift together the flours and baking powder then stir in sugar and orange rind. In a separate bowl, mix together the egg, milk, juice and oil. Combine the dry and wet mixes until just mixed then stir in the chocolate chips. Spoon into fairy cake cases and bake for 15 to 20 minutes. Cool on a wire rack. In the meantime, cream together the butter and the icing sugar in a bowl then add the orange rind and juice and stir well. Add butter icing and one mini egg to each cake.

Too many bananas

Bananas are a funny old fruit. I don't like them as it happens, which I often regret. I find myself every now and then wanting to eat a banana. They are the perfect snack - wrapped in a colour-coded skin that lets you know exactly how sweet it will be, an individual portion of high energy, high fibre nutritious food. If I'm starving hungry just before dinner I think to myself how perfect a banana would be - an energy boost to get me through the food preparation without it spoiling my appetite. Nonetheless, whenever I try them I only confirm that I don't like the texture nor the flavour. What's funny is, I like banana flavoured things such as milkshake, and I like bananas in food such as banana cake.

So the ever present bananas in my fruit bowl are there for my children and my husband and so whenever any of them say, "I'm hungry," I can reply, "Have a banana." But I find that some weeks they snaffle the lot and in other weeks they slowly turn brown without even a sniff of interest. Apparently you have to be in the right mood for a banana.

Last week was a definite 'off' week and when we set off to Granny's for the Easter weekend there were 6 bananas in the fruit bowl already showing their first flecks of brown. When we arrived at Granny's we discovered that she too had filled her fruit bowl with a fine hand of bananas. Despite the occasional nibble over the course of the weekend, by the time we were packing the car Monday morning there were still 4 bananas left. As always Granny busied herself with loading a bag full of various bits and pieces of food from her cupboard (she hates to think we might go hungry!) and I knew it was likely the bananas would find their way into the bag too. But as it happened just before we left I was met with calls of "I'm hungry!" and you can guess what I suggested!

Back home the 6 bananas in my fruit bowl were very definitely ripe and I figured if they stayed there much longer the fruit flies would start to circle! So the next day when I went shopping I bought some extra thick double cream and by the afternoon 3 bananas were magically transformed into banoffee ice-cream.

Banoffee Ice-cream

1½ oz (45 g) brown sugar
1½ oz (45 g) butter
2 tablespoons of golden syrup
3 large over ripe banana
7½ fl oz (210 ml) milk
10½ fl oz (300 ml) double cream

In a saucepan or in the microwave, melt together the sugar, syrup and butter then set aside to cool. In the meantime, blend the banana with 100 ml of the milk in a food processor until smooth. Pour this mix into the remaining milk, add the toffee mix and the cream and stir well until fully mixed. Pour into suitable containers and place in the freezer for 2 hours. Remove from the freezer and beat then return to the freezer. Repeat every two hours until solid.

By the next morning the remaining 3 bananas had been used to make a banana loaf. What a fantastic fruit the banana is - a handy snack and a versatile cooking ingredient.

Banana Loaf

7 oz (200g) plain flour
2¼ teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
Pinch of salt
¾ ground cinnamon
4 tablespoons wheatgerm or oat bran
2½ oz (70g) margarine
4 oz (110g) caster sugar
3 ripe bananas, mashed
2 eggs, beaten

Preheat oven to 180°C (gas 4). Grease and line a loaf tin. Sift together flour, bicarbonate of soda, salt and cinnamon. Stir in the wheatgerm. In another bowl, cream together the margarine and the sugar until light and fluffy. Add the mashed bananas and eggs to the creamed mix and stir well. Add the dry ingredients and blend evenly. Spoon into the loaf tin. Cook for 50 to 60 minutes and check by inserting a skewer. Cool in the tin.

Making Easter Eggs

Easter can very easily turn into a choc-fest. Chocolate Easter eggs are everywhere and ridiculously cheap so it is very easy to end up with a multitude of the things. When my two girls were little I asked their relatives not to buy them chocolate eggs at Easter because little children really don't need to eat chocolate and certainly don't miss what they have never had. I don't buy them sweets either. It's a tricky position to take but if you are fairly relaxed about it it can work out well. When they go to parties their party bag will inevitably contain a few sweets so on those occasions they will eat sweets and sometimes they are given sweets whilst at friends' houses. This attitude means that sweets are not a forbidden fruit (and consequently even more desirable) but they do not expect sweets from me nor every time we go into a shop, and I have never been nagged to buy any. I'd much rather buy them a magazine instead and they are happy when I do.

When chocolate Easter eggs are not an option it makes you more imaginative about Easter gifts but to be honest there are so many other things available at Easter time that it is easy to find something else that does not involve chocolate. Cuddly toys, craft kits, clothes etc.... Tomorrow I shall be doing an Easter Egg hunt with my girls with lovely fluffy bunny baskets and plastic eggs filled with little toys and craft items, and they are really looking forward to it.

Still, I did end up with some Easter egg moulds that I got off Freecycle with a collection of other things, including egg wraps that shrink around eggs when you boil them (looking forward to trying them out). So today we made chocolate rice crispie cake mix but rather than putting them into paper cases, we filled the Easter egg moulds instead. When they were set we put the two halves together and wrapped them up in a piece of attractive foil. Now they both have chocolate Easter eggs but, with the chocolate padded out with puffed rice, they are unlikely to get through them at a rate of more than a quarter of an egg at a time.

Easter biscuits for granny

We're visiting Granny over the Easter weekend so today I have been helping my girls make Easter biscuits as a gift for her. Making biscuits is always fun but I think it is important that children grow up learning that it is nice to make gifts for family and friends.

Once we had made the biscuits, we converted an old tissue box into an attractive basket for the biscuits. We cut the top off then covered it with pieces of patterned paper, stabled on a piece of patterned cardboard for the handle and lined it with tissue paper. So simple yet very affective and bound to be appreciated.

Traditional Easter Biscuits

4 oz (110g) softened butter
3 oz (85g) caster sugar
1 egg, separated
5 oz (145g) plain flour
2 oz (55g) wholemeal flour (or a total of 7 oz, 200g plain flour)
Pinch of salt
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground mixed spice
2 oz (55g) dried fruit such as currants, sultanas and/or raisins
1 oz (25g) chopped mixed peel
Some milk
A little extra caster sugar or coloured sugar (for decorating)

Preheat oven to 200°C, gas mark 6 and grease a baking sheet. In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar then beat in the egg. Sift in the flours, salt and spices, then add the dried fruit and peel. Carefully add just enough milk, a little at a time, to bind the mixture into soft dough. On a floured surface, roll out the dough until 5mm (¼ inch) thick and cut out using a pastry cutter. Transfer the biscuits onto the greased baking sheet and bake in the centre of the oven for 5 minutes. Remove them from the oven, brush with the egg white and sprinkle with some caster (or coloured) sugar. Return them to the oven for a further 5 minutes or until golden brown. Transfer the biscuits onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Leftovers for lunch (again!)

As you'll have guessed by now I'm very keen to avoid food waste and to use up leftovers. As a result I tend to have a variety of things for lunch, which is no bad thing and certainly beats the repeative limp ham sandwich.

Yesterday my girls and I did the supermarket shop just before lunchtime and we couldn't resist picking up a French stick. Once home (and the frozen food put away) I sliced the bread, buttered it and served it up with soup and a few slices of mature cheese. Yummy!

As a result of this I had a good length of stale French bread leftover today. Great! French bread pizza for lunch, using up some of the pizza base tomato sauce that I had lurking in the fridge too.

French Bread Pizza

A piece of French bread
Tomato pizza base sauce, or pasta sauce.
Ham
Cheese

Slice the French bread in half and if necessary trim a bit off the top to make sit level. Toast the bread under the grill then spread the tomato sauce over it. Scatter over pieces of ham and grated cheese. Grill until the cheese is melted.

Fish Pie

I made fish pie yesterday. Whilst browsing the fish counter at the supermarket I spotted a pack of "fish pie mix". This was 320g of pieces of fish - salmon, cod and smoked haddock for £2.99. With enough fish to make 4 individual pies, that works out about 75p per pie.

Fish Pie (serves 4)

1lb 8 oz (700g) mashed potato
2 carrots
1 clove garlic
2 cm root ginger (or 2 shallots instead of garlic and ginger)
1 sachet miso soup making 160ml (or fish stock)
4 fl oz (110 ml) white wine
250ml single cream (or soya alternative)
1 oz (25 g) butter
1 oz (25 g) flour
320 g fish pie mix

Sprigs lemon thyme (or parsley)

Grated Cheddar cheese
Two slices wholemeal bread, crumbled
Black pepper

Make the mash potato in your usual way and leave to cool. Peel, finely chop and cook the carrot until tender then leave to cool. Peel and chop the garlic and ginger then fry in a little oil for 2 minutes. Pour in the wine and heat for 5 minutes until reduced by half. In the meantime, make up the miso soup then dilute with 140 ml water. Add the soup and 150 ml of cream to the wine and heat for 10 minutes until reduced by half. In the meantime, make a roux by melting the butter in another pan, stirring in the flour and gradually pouring in the remaining cream. Pour the soup mix into the roux and cook for 5 minutes until a thick, smooth sauce is made. Leave to cool completely. When everything is completely cool assemble the pies in 4 individual dishes or foil containers. First divide the fish mix evenly between the dishes then sprinkle over the lemon thyme and carrots. Pour over the sauce and stir. Layer over the mashed potato and level. Sprinkle over the cheese then the breadcrumbs and finally grind over black pepper. The pies can now be frozen. To cook, thaw completely then bake at 200°C, gas 6 for 20-25 minutes until hot through and golden. Serve with seasonal vegetables.

Hot Cross Buns

The Lakeland catalogue came through my letterbox the other day. I find it best not to look in it because I know that I will be tempted by their lovely stuff and then once I've got started I have to find enough stuff to get free p&p and before I know what happened I'm placing another £50 order! However, the envelope it came in had a plastic window so I had to open the envelope to remove the window before I could drop it into the recycling. Once open, of course, I had to have a quick flick. Oh dear... where's my credit card...

Anyway, next to a listing for a square baking tin (phew... I have one of those already so I'm OK) was a recipe for hot cross buns http://www.lakeland.co.uk/090326-hotcrossbuns?src=email&email=090326eastereditorial

Now, when you come across a recipe for something that is readily available in the shops you have to ask yourself exactly why you should put in the effort to make it instead of just buying it. Sometimes it is a matter of cost - after all when you can make flapjacks for 6p each why spend 99p on a box of 6? Sometimes it is a matter of flavour - what do they put into cakes to make them taste so weird? Sometimes it is to have control over the ingredients and sometimes it is a combination of several things.

With hot cross buns, the only reason I could see for trying them was to shear challenge of it. So I've just given it a go. It is certainly one of those recipes you need to do when you are going to be in the house with other things to be getting on with. There is a good deal of rising and resting involved. But, what do you know, they came out looking like proper hot cross buns. I'm proud of my buns!

It started with a chicken...

There is a lot of stuff being said at the moment about the amount of food that is wasted each week by the average person. It is somewhat shocking that not only is food going to waste but most of it ends up in landfills. There is talk too about the "make do and mend" attitude evoked during World War 2 and the absolute need not to waste food generated by rationing. It certainly made people more careful and, perhaps, more inventive about the way they used what was available. And now people talk about the credit crunch, food miles and being eco-friendly, all of which benefits from not wasting food. I think I’m pretty good at not wasting food and being generally eco friendly so this week I challenged myself to a zero food waste week and it all started with a very large chicken.

Sunday night we sat down to our usual Sunday roast. I suspect that in some households this would be something of a rarity in itself. We sit down as a family for every mealtime – it is a pledge that we made when we had children. It’s not always easy and it does mean that we all eat at 7pm, which many people may argue is too late for small children. But that’s what we have always done and the children don’t think anything of it. A traditional roast is less popular now than it used to be because it takes effort and some cooking skills. But it works out well for me because I can get the meat and potatoes in the oven then go off and get me and the children bathed before it’s time to cook the vegetables. And it is a meal that the whole family enjoys without having to prepare different stuff for different people.

So Sunday night I cooked a huge chicken, roast potatoes, roast parsnips, leeks, broccoli, carrots and ready-made Yorkshire puddings for the children. The chicken and potatoes had been part of a special offer meal sold by Marks & Spencer for Mother’s Day – a meal for 4 deal for £15. As the chicken had cost £11.80 (it was BIG!), the potatoes, two bottles of elderflower presse and the stack of porfitarols had only cost £3.20. However, I did feel that I had to make really good use of that chicken for that price. Of the vegetables, the parsnips and leeks had come out of the garden so were especially eco-friendly (as well as extra tasty!).

For the Sunday roast I had used one full leg, one drumstick and most of one breast to feed two adults and two small children. So lots of leftovers. I also deliberately made extra gravy so I had some of that left over too.

For lunch on Monday I enjoyed a warm roast chicken, roast potato and gravy sandwich. Monday dinner was lamb chops out of the freezer, boiled salad potatoes, the last of the carrots and broccoli and the remaining mushrooms. For the children I made pizza pockets using the last pizza base mix, some left over pizza tomato sauce, the last of the ham and some loose sweetcorn.
During Monday I received an email from Ocado offering me £15 off an order of £85 or more for delivery Tuesday or Wednesday. So on Monday afternoon I sat down and worked out my order. I didn’t need £85 of stuff from them but I added some bits that wouldn’t go off in order to make up my order and to take advantage of the money off. Delivery was booked for between 10 and 11 Tuesday morning.

The remaining part of the chicken leg was devoured by my hungry husband on his return from work Monday evening.

On Tuesday morning, with an imminent food delivery due, I needed space in the fridge so I removed the chicken from the bone and decanted it into a food bag. I then boiled up the carcass and stuffing for an hour in order to make some chicken stock. This I sealed into warm jars and once cooled I put them in the fridge.

The shopping arrived shortly before 11. Everything was there as ordered but after the delivery man had left I discovered that one bottle of cider was smashed and cider had leaked into one of the bags of shopping. It had soaked into a pack of envelopes and a pack of sleep pants which fortunately has stopped it making a mess of my kitchen floor but did mean that I had paid for a bottle of cider, a pack of envelopes and 16 pants that were ruined. I would have to request a refund later but that did mean a waste of envelopes and pants that would be going straight to the landfill.

After getting the shopping put away I had to go out to Tescos to get the remaining stuff that Ocado don’t sell. It wasn’t a bother because I had already planned to go to the library and there are in the same shopping centre. It also meant that I could take all the Tetrapak cartons to the recycling skip. Libraries are the ultimate in reusing and definitely eco-friendly!

After lunch I broke a chicken breast into little pieces and cooked some leek. This I mixed with a tin of condensed mushroom soup and the leftover gravy to make pie filling. I cut a pack of ready roll puff pastry in half and cut out lids for 4 pies. I spooned the filling into 4 foil pie cases and put on the lids. These all went into the freezer.

For dinner that night I made chicken pasta bake with more of the chicken and that fed all 4 of us.

Chicken Pasta Bake (serves a family of 4)

Cooked chicken
170g wholemeal Penne pasta
295g tin Batchelors cream of mushroom condensed soup
225ml chicken stock or milk
Loose sweetcorn
Leek
Mushrooms
2 slices of wholemeal bread made into crumbs
Grated cheese

Preheat oven to 200°C, gas 6. Break the chicken into small pieces. Boil the pasta according to the instructions on the pack. Boil the leek and fry some mushrooms. Pour the soup into a large pan. Pour the chicken stock into the empty soup tin and then add this to the soup in the pan. Add the chicken and sweetcorn to the pan and bring to the boil. If all the family like leek and mushroom, add these to the mix in the pan too, otherwise put them into one ovenproof dish and have another ovenproof dish for those who do not like these vegetables. Once the chicken mix is thoroughly hot, transfer it to the ovenproof dish(es). Add the pasta and mix thoroughly then sprinkle over the breadcrumbs and the cheese. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until golden and bubbly. Serve immediately.

On Wednesday I needed to tackle the two packs of pork mince I had bought the day before because they had been on special offer. One pack I turned into 8 pork and apple burgers (using up 2 old apples and 2 slices of stale bread). These I froze. The other pack I made into meatloaf (using up 2 more slices of stale bread, and some shallots and garlic from the garden). I had never made this before and I wasn’t sure that we’d all like it. As it happened, neither of the children did like meatloaf so it was just as well I still had some chicken left over so I could quickly replace the meatloaf with cold chicken for their dinners.

On Thursday I used the last remaining 85g of chicken, some less than perfect vegetables and some of the chicken stock to make 3 portions of chicken soup. Then on Friday I used up the other half of the ready-made puff pastry to make two leek and potato pasties for dinner.

Creamy Chicken Soup (serves 3)

Oil
3 small carrots
2 shallots
1 leek
1 stick of celery
1 clove of garlic
2 small potatoes
½ pint chicken stock
Salt & black pepper
Sprig thyme
250ml single cream (or soya alternative)
85g cooked chicken

Peel and chop the vegetables and fry them in oil in a stockpot for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Add the stock, seasoning and thyme and simmer for 10 minutes until the vegetables are soft. Blend this mix into a smooth puree in a food processor. Return the puree to the stockpot and add the cream and chicken and bring back to the boil, stirring constantly. Taste and add more seasoning if necessary. Serve hot was crusty bread.

So what food did go in the bin during the coarse of this busy week? The chicken carcass went in eventually, after being boiled up for stock first. A bit of leftover meatloaf went in too, although I suspect I could have thought up some use for it if I had been inspired. A few leftover scraps from the dinner plates also went in. All the vegetable peelings and trimming went into the compost bin, as did the eggshells and the remains of the out of date salad. All the cardboard food packs went into the children’s junk modelling bag and went off to their school for all the children to use. Yoghurt pots, plastic bottles and trays were kept for gardening purposes. Plastic film from food packaging had to go into the bin. Still, I managed to go from Tuesday morning to Friday night without emptying the kitchen bin (and it’s not particularly big).

I’m glad I made good use of the chicken and I feel I got good value for money out of it, having got 8 adult dinners, 6 children’s dinners and 5 lunches out of it! And my freezer is well stocked with food for another day. Using up leftovers is not difficult but it does take a bit of thought, imagination and forward planning, particularly as often other ingredients are needed to turn the leftovers into something else and these may not necessarily be ingredients you happen to have in cupboard. So the next time you buy a chicken think about how else you may use it and also buy the other necessary ingredients at the same time.

On Friday night my husband came home from work, having detoured to Marks & Spencers on the way. He’d been looking for a nice bottle of wine but had got side-tracked by their latest meal deal and you’ll never guess what he came home with… yep, another chicken!

Red Nose Day Biscuit Success!

I'm knackered now! I've spent the day making Red Nose biscuits at school. This morning we made 45 biscuits with Year 1 pupils and this afternoon was another 45 with reception children. Yesterday the nursery made 60 biscuits with their children and tomorrow Year 2 need to make theirs.

The recipe works really well - nice and simple so the children and helping parents can make the biscuits easily and successfully. A satisfying day all round and let's hope it helps raise money for Comic Relief.

Red Nose Day Biscuits

Sometime in January at the last PTA meeting at my children's school I happened to ask if the school was planning any fundraising event for Red Nose Day on 13th March. I suggested that maybe the committee should run one of their always successful cake stalls but somewhere in the following discussion it was decided that a few volunteer parents would go into school and help the children bake a cake or biscuit with a red nose theme instead for a 50p donation by each child for their cake/biscuit. "I'm up for that!" I replied but little did I realise that with that statement I had somehow volunteered to organise the event too!

Several weeks of thinking followed. It is a fairly tricky thing to do when you start to give it some thought. I had to come up with a recipe for something simple enough for volunteer parents to help children to make ranging in age for 3 (nursery) to 7 (year 2) years old and within a timescale that would fit all the children in using 2 ovens. My first biscuit idea failed to match the criteria when I trialed it at home because the biscuits were too brittle so likely to crack and cause tears and it involved making the biscuits at one point then having to come back later to decorate them; an organisational nightmare. I toyed with the idea of mini pizzas with cherry tomato noses but decided that the ingredients would be so expensive that there would be little left to go to charity.

In the end I fell upon the idea of a fruity face biscuit. Beautifully simple to make and made and decorated all in one go. So now all I have to do is time table in 8 volunteers, buy the ingredients and turn up on the day to help out. I'll let you know how we get on!

Fruit Face Biscuits
(makes 6 biscuits)

4 oz (110g) self-raising flour
2 oz (55g) margarine or butter
2 oz (55g) caster sugar
A few drops vanilla extract
1 fl oz (2 tablespoons) milk
3 glace cherries
12 raisins
2 dried apricots

Preheat oven to 190°C, gas 5 and grease a baking tray. Sift the flour into a bowl then rub in the fat until it feels like breadcrumbs. Stir in the caster sugar then add the vanilla extract to the milk and use it to bind the mix into a soft dough. Divide the dough into six balls. Roll each ball in your hands then flatten. Press two raisins into the biscuit to form eyes, half a glace cherry for a nose and a thin slice of dried apricot for the mouth. Bake for 20 minutes until risen and golden. Cool on a wire rack.

Nutty flapjacks

Because nut allergies have such an alarming reaction, my children's school has a blanket ban on anything containing nuts in lunch boxes. This isn't a particular big deal as they can always have nutty snacks when they get home from school. However, it does tend to mean that during term time I don't make nutty cakes and bakes because I'm busy making non-nutty things for their pack lunches.

Anyway, it's been half-term holiday this week so a good excuse to make some nutty flapjacks.

Seed and nut flapjacks

4 oz (110g) butter
4 oz (110g) golden syrup
2 oz (55g) light brown sugar
6oz (170g) oats
2 oz (55g) pumpkin and/or sunflower seeds
1 oz (25g) desiccated coconut
1 oz (25g) plain flour
2 oz (55g) chopped dried apricots
2 oz (55g) crunchy peanut butter
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 160°C (gas 3) and grease a suitable tin. Place the butter, syrup and sugar in a large pan and melt together over a gentle heat. Add all the other ingredients and stir until well combined. Press into the tin and bake for 15 to 20 minutes then cut into slices before cooling.

Lemon biscuits

I'm in the process of writing another Wholesome Home mini recipe book at the moment. There are quite a few of these now - chutney, jam, soup, cakes, muffins, flapjacks, special occasions etc. What is clearly missing is a book on biscuits. This is missing because I didn't think I made a big enough selection of biscuits to warrant a recipe book. But in fact when I sat down and listed my favourite biscuit recipes I quickly came up with a list of 12 - enough to get started - and I have been adding more as I remember old favourites.

It doesn't take a particularly long time to type up a recipe but compiling the books is a lengthier process than you might imagine because I like to check all recipes as I include them in a book. The only way to check the recipe is to make up a batch, of course - something my family don't complain about, but even so there are only so many biscuits they can eat in a week so it can take weeks to check all the recipes. At the same time, I take a photo of each finished biscuit - a real photo of the real biscuits in an ordinary situation - not a perfect biscuit in a staged setting that is no longer edible by the end of the photo shoot.

So a very biscuity season is install for my family for the next few weeks. At the moment they are all enjoying my lemon sandwich biscuits.

Lemon Sandwich Biscuits

4 oz (110g) butter
2 oz (55g) caster sugar
1 lemon
3 oz (85g) plain flour
2 oz (55g) wholemeal flour
1 oz (25g) oat bran
¼ teaspoon baking powder
1 oz (25g) butter or margarine
¼ oz (6g) corn flour
2 oz (55g) icing sugar

Preheat oven to 180°C, gas 4 and grease a large baking sheet. Cream together the butter and the sugar until light and fluffy. Add the grated rind of the lemon plus the juice from half the lemon to the creamed mix and stir well. Add the flours, oat bran and baking powder and combine to form a soft dough. Roll out the dough on a floured surface and cut into squares 3 cm by 3 cm. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes until golden brown then cool on a wire rack. In the meantime, cream together the remaining butter/margarine with the corn flour, icing sugar and the juice of half a lemon. Once the biscuits are cool, smear the cream mixture onto a biscuit and stick another one onto it. Repeat until all the biscuits are paired.

Home made ready meals - part 2

When I was in the supermarket earlier this week I spent several minutes trying to decide whether to buy 6 eggs or 12. I figured I needed more than 6 but I didn't want as many as 12. I picked up a dozen in the end and it was just as well as now I only have one egg left in the fridge. It's been a busy week for baking.

Yesterday I continued my theme of home made ready meals by making two potato and leek pasties and a quiche. All, bar one slice of quiche (irresistable!), went into the freezer. If you have only ever tasted shop made quiche you would be forgiven for thinking you didn't like the stuff. It has a weird flavour but it is nothing like the delicious version you can make at home. I was fortunate enough to be brought up on my mum's home made version so I have always loved quiche. Unfortunately, in recent years I have developed a dairy intolerance which has stopped me eating it. Luckily, my discovery of soya alternative to cream has put quiche back on the menu. It tastes just the same and I figure with a lower saturated fat content, it is healthier too.

Making a quiche from scratch is fairly time consuming but the pastry is much better if home made. Of course, like pizza, there are any number of different versions depending on what ingredients you add to it but here's my favourite recipe.

Ham & Mushroom Quiche (serves 4)

4 oz (110g) plain flour
4 oz (110g) wholemeal flour
4 oz (110g) butter or margarine

3 oz (85g) smoked gammon or 4 rashers of smoked bacon, finely chopped
2 oz (55g) mushrooms, chopped
2 oz (55g) tinned sweetcorn
Grated Cheddar cheese
250ml soya or single cream
2 eggs
Black pepper

Sift the flours into a bowl and mix in the butter/margarine until it has the consistency of breadcrumbs. Splash in a little cold water until it is wet enough to bind the mixture into dough. Wrap in Clingfilm and refrigerate for half an hour. Preheat an oven to 190°C and grease a suitable tin or pie dish. Roll out the pastry on a floured surface and line the tin with the pastry, trimming to fit. Cover the pastry with greaseproof or baking paper and weight it down with baking beans. Blind bake the pastry for 15 minutes.

Put the ham, mushroom and sweetcorn into the pastry case and grate in some cheese. Beat the eggs with the cream and season then pour this into the pastry case. Level out the filling and grate a little more cheese over the top. Bake for 30 minutes until the filling has set. Serve hot or allow to cool, cut into portions and freeze. Thaw and reheat in the overn or microwave.

Home made ready meals

I love making home made ready meals. On the surface it seems like a strange concept. Surely the whole point of a ready meal is that there is no cooking involved? There are problems with shop bought ready meals, not least that they often taste nasty. They also have a huge carbon footprint and come with masses of packaging. That's not to say that I would never use a ready meal. They have a place in my lifestyle when we go away on a self-catering caravan or cottage holiday where the kitchen is basic and where, quite frankly, I'm on holiday and would rather not cook and wash up every day!

So how does a home made ready meal work? It is perhaps a bit ridiculous but if you make something one day then put in the freezer for a week, a month or whatever then heat it and eat it another day the separation between the effort and the eating makes it feel as if it were effortless. I have all sorts of things in my freezer that work like that: home-made chips from home grown potatoes, similarly, roast potatoes, various pasta meals, humus, pate, pies, pizzas etc.

One of my stock items is sausage rolls. My girls love these and there are so easy to make that it is slightly mad to consider buying them. Half a block of ready made puff pastry, a pack of sausage meat and some milk or egg to stick and glaze. Cut them up and freeze them on a tray then the next day dispense them into a bag. 10 minutes job done. Cook from frozen for 25 minutes at 200C.

Today I'm making crispy duck legs. Duck has got to be my all time favourite meat but it is more expensive than chicken so either I have to wait for it to be reduced or I have to make sure I make a lot of use of whatever I buy. This week duck legs were reduced by 50p so I bought two packs of two legs. There is a fair bit of preparation involved but most of it is time where you can leave it and get on with the rest of your life. Firstly arrange the legs on a tray and sprinkle with salt, pepper, five spice powder and a bit of brown sugar. Cover with Clingfilm and refrigerate overnight. This helps extract water out of the skin. Now wash off this curing mix and pat dry with kitchen paper. Leave the legs out, covered with kitchen paper for about an hour to dry the skin further then sprinkle on some more salt, pepper and five spice powder and cook in the oven for an hour and a half at 160C, basting once. Pour off the excess fat into a suitable plastic container and refrigerate. This fat can be used to cook roast potatoes or to make bird cakes to feed the birds. Cool the legs on a rack then freeze in pairs. When ready, thaw the legs and cook at 200C for 20 to 25 minutes. Serve with a stir fry and rice.

Proper snow

It was nice to have some proper snow today for a change. If it is going to snow and cause problems it might as well do it in a big way so that you can make a decent snowman. It took an hour for me to get home with my girls after picking them up from school. Not because of traffic chaos or unpassable roads but because we took our time. We walked home, stopping to throw snowballs at garden walls and school friends, to make footprints in fresh snow, to make snow angels, snow castles and a snowman. By 4 o'clock the cold had crept through our soggy gloves and hats and it was time to go indoors. A house that had seemed chilly when I left it now felt warm and cosy. We stripped off our snowy clothes and snuggled up in fluffy dressing gowns and blankets. By now the girls were thirsty and hungry. I asked them what they wanted to eat and was somewhat surprised by the unanimous reply of "ice-cream!"

Lunch box preparations

It is a common misconception that a weekend is 2 days long. It is in fact only a day and half long because Sunday afternoon is spent preparing for Monday morning, to be ready for school and work. In my case, some of Sunday is spent making up lunchboxes but before this I like to make some nice things to go into the lunchboxes. Yesterday, I made the spiced seeds and today it was fruit salads and biscuits.

I returned from the supermarket with some fresh and some tinned fruit and after lunch I put together some little pots of fruit salads for my daughters. Something like 3 cubes of melon, a grape cut in half, a slice of tinned peach, cut into smaller pieces, and 3 chunks of pineapple. It's enough to give them a portion of fruit but not so much they don't fancy eating it. I made 8 pots and stuck them in the freezer. Now all I have to do is put one in the lunchbox when required and it will be thawed by lunchtime.

That done, I made a batch of Nig Nogs. Nig Nogs are something from my childhood that hold fond memories. I don't know where my grandma found the recipe or why it was named such but once she had introduced us to Nig Nogs they soon became a essential requirement for every visit. After she died, I took charge of her recipe books and soon resurrected this favourite biscuit. I fiddled a little with the recipe (I can't help it), reducing the sugar and adding oat bran but they have now become a firm favourite with my family. Firm is a good word too because they are robust enough to withstand a morning in a lunchbox, yet with a deliciously soft centre.

Nig Nogs (makes 10-12)

3½ oz (100g) plain flour
3½ oz (100g) oats
2¾ oz (75g) dessicated coconut
2¾ oz (75g) light muscovado sugar
1 oz (25g) oat bran
4½ oz (125g) margarine or butter
1 tablespoon black treacle

Preheat oven to 190°C (gas 5) and grease a baking tray. Add all the dry ingredients to a bowl and stir. Pour the black treacle into a saucepan or microwaveable bowl and add the margarine or butter to it. Either over a low heat or with 30 seconds in the microwave, melt together the margarine and treacle. Pour this mixture over the dry ingredients and stir well until fully combined. Using your hands, pull out small quantities of the mixture at a time and form into a ball size of a small egg in your palm. Flatten the ball slightly and place it on the baking tray. Continue to do this until all the mixture is used. The biscuits do not spread so there is no need to leave space much between the biscuits. Bake in the centre of the oven for 15 to 20 minutes until golden brown. Remove from the tray and cool on a wire rack.

Spiced seeds

Spiced seeds are a lunchbox essential for my husband and a batch lasts a week. So a weekend job is to make a new lot for the week ahead. They are dead easy to make and it takes less than 10 minutes so it's not that big a deal. The most time consuming part of it is trying to figure out which spice is which in my food cupboard as they all have the same black lid.

Spiced seeds

100-150g mixed seeds (pumpkin, sunflower and pine nuts)
A pinch of celery salt
A pinch of cumin
A pinch of turmeric
A pinch of paprika
Freshly ground black pepper
Salt
Olive oil

Place the seeds in a bowl and add all the other ingredients except for the oil and stir. Put some oil in a frying pan and heat. Add the seeds and stir. Fry for a few minutes until the pine nuts begin to brown and the pumpkin seeds begin to pop. Line the same bowl with a piece of kitchen towel and tip the seeds into the bowl and leave to cool. Store in an airtight container and eat as a snack.

All gone!

Saturday evening and all the shortbread have been eaten! What shall I make tomorrow?

Rapidly disappearing biscuits

At the beginning of this week I made a batch of shortbread as a gift for a friend. I didn't count how many biscuits it made but I gift wrapped 20 of them and put the remaining ones, maybe 14, into a box for my husband and two little girls to enjoy. They love my shortbread. A while ago I read in a magazine that you could make melt in the mouth shortbread by substituting the cornflour for custard powder. I had custard powder in my cupboard because I use it when making trifles so I tried it and it really worked! I don't know why it should work because the ingredients of custard powder are cornflour, salt and natural colour and flavourings, pretty much the same as the usual ingredients in shortbread.

Anyway, when the girls got home from school they each had a shortbread and then in the evening my husband sat down in from of the TV with the box and ate 5. The next morning the girls discovered the box next to the sofa. First they were shocked that Daddy had eaten in the living room (strictly forbidden since we had a new carpet laid at Christmas!), and then they noticed the lack of biscuits left in the box. "Greedy Daddy!" they exclaimed. Not to worry, I reassured them, when they run out I can make some more. It was the day after this that I had to make some more. So after school yesterday afternoon I made another batch of shortbread whilst the girls played mummys in the living room with a box of baby dolls. This time I informed them that there were 36 biscuits so even if Daddy did eat 5 there should be plenty left. But they were not reassured and insisted that I divided the biscuits into two boxes, one for them and one for Daddy because they thought it highly likely that Daddy would probably eat 8! Daddy doesn't know how many he ate last night because he wasn't counting but I don't expect them to last beyond the weekend.

Melt in Your Mouth Shortbread

4 oz (110g) butter
2 oz (55g) caster sugar
4 oz (110g) plain flour
2oz (55g) custard powder

Preheat oven to 180°C (gas 4). Grease a baking tray. In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Sift over the flour and custard powder then use fingers to combine until it forms a soft dough ball. Roll out the dough and use pastry cutters to cut out biscuits. Place the biscuits on a baking tray and cook for 15 minutes until golden brown. Cool on a tray.

Doughnut substitute

Trying to have a healthy diet is all very well but sometimes I just fancy a doughnut. It's a funny thing really because most doughnuts are so, so horribly sweet that wanting to eat one is better than actually eating one. Nevertheless, the first bite is usually a pleasurable experience. Of course, the very best ones are those freshly cooked ones you can sometimes buy on markets; even better on a cold winter's day. Maybe it's the rarity of this experience that makes it so special. Anyway, if you'd like to recreate the warm, freshly cooked doughnut experience at home and not feel too bad about it, try this...

You will need a brioche roll (readily available in supermarkets), a jar of hazelnut chocolate spread (Green and Blacks is best), and a microwave. Slice the roll in half across the middle then reclose it. Place it in the microwave for 15 seconds. Open the roll up and let the steam disperse for about 1 minute then smear it was chocolate spread, close and eat. It's handy too because microwaving the brioche revives it no matter how stale it has gone. A delicious, indulgent mid morning or afternoon snack.