Di's Broadcast to the nation!

My daughter had to produce a podcast for part of her Uni course - and I was roped in! I thought you might like a laugh!! Thank goodness my kitchen looks OK as I look a wreck - and I had made an effort at that!! (although trimming my own fringe minutes before filming might not have been the best idea!!). I only did it on the proviso that she photoshop me to look like Audrey Tatou. And "one of your fruits a day" has become another one of my sayings that gets repeated in mocking tones on a regular basis! We did film a complete meal, but the podcast had only to be 2 minutes, so you only see the pudding.

It was really hard to do - and as you will see, Delia and Nigella can rest easy - they certainly have no competition. x

PS My now almost completed wombled and credit crunched kitchen features many of the beautiful gifts that have been bestowed upon me by my equally beautiful "blends" (bloggy friends). Don't they look fab! xx

Babycham Cheesecake

As promised, I had a go at making a cheesecake type pudding to serve in the Babycham glasses. I discovered Babycham for sale in Asda at £2.35 for 4 small bottles.

You will need:

1 small bottle of Babycham

Juice and zest of 1 lemon

2 x 200g Extra Light Philadelphia soft cheese

300ml whipping cream

2 dessertspoons caster sugar

A few plain digestive biscuits - crushed

Whip the cream in a large bowl until it is stiff. Whip in the sugar, lemon juice, zest and cream cheese.

Add the Babycham a drop at a time until you have the consistency you want - we added too much and it went a bit runny.

Pour into glasses and serve on its own, or with crushed biscuits on the bottom or top,
and always with a cherry and umbrella!
It tastes like a cross between cheesecake and syllabub. You can add any kind of flavouring to this cheesecake - rum and lime is very nice!! And you could also sprinkle a crushed flake on top too.

Colour

The weekend was very dull - infact outside on Sunday at mid day, it was as if the world needed its lights switching on! But there was plenty of colour to be found inside my home.

Ingredients ready to be oven roasted to make Ratatoulle and Pasta Sauce for the week ahead. I'm trying to eat more fruit and veg and lose a few inches too!

And this little beauty bought for £1.99 on my local market - promising to burst into full colour any time soon.

Yorkshire Parkin

Recipe from my old school cookery book.

4oz (100g) Medium Oatmeal
2 oz (50g) SR Flour
small teaspoon of ground ginger
2 oz (50g) soft brown sugar
4 oz (1oog) Golden Syrup
1 Desertspoon black treacle
1.5 oz (40g) Marg
3.5 fl oz milk

Method

1 Grease and line a 7" square tin
2 Melt sugar, syrup, marg and treacle - do not boil. Stir in the dry ingredients and then stir in the milk. The consistency should be that of a thick batter
3 Pour into tin and bake in oven at 160 degrees C or Reg 3 for about 25 mins.

Home Baking

I have an acquaintance who is exactly the same age as me - but we couldn't be more poles apart. When I talk about what I have cooked or baked, she almost smirks! I can tell that she thinks I'm some sad old, mad old lady who's ready for a Shackletons high chair and a blue rinse!

Her standard reply when I bake is "but you can buy that in Morrisons!". Her hubby argues often with her about how much she spends.

My Yorkshire Parkin is baked using my old school cookery book recipe. It fills the house with the most gorgeous aroma of ginger. The recipe says to leave it a week to go sticky - it never makes it past the next day.
My Apple and Blackberry crumble is made with berries that hubby and I picked on a late summers day and froze. We "scrumped" the apples from a tree that was on the old colliery site. They are very sweet eating apples, a really old variety and so tasty. The berries and the apples are free. So for a few pence I am able to make the most scrumptious crumble to warm our cockles on a winters eve.

(If you look very closely, one apple has the worlds tiniest snail on it! It didn't make it into the crumble! Hows that for organic! )

And when hubby walks in from work, and can see that Ive made the effort to make him his favourite pudding, the smile on his face is priceless.

Now you don't get that shopping in Morrisons, and we never argue about how much I spend.

When Mr Darcy comes calling.

I had a very busy Sunday planned - lots to do, but was almost thwarted when I discovered "Pride & Prejudice" the tv series featuring Colin Firth was being shown back to back on "Yesterday" channel first thing in the morning.

However, I still managed to turn a bag of these - 29p(??!! - who decides the pricing policy?) for a full carrier bag from the garden centre....





into these. Green Tomato chutney with ginger and chili added - just to spice it up a bit.

And this - bargain at 30p (from my special shop and its not Waitrose)........

into Delia's Chicken Liver Pate. Totally delicious. You'll never buy Pate again if you make your own. I used red wine instead of brandy.

And with help from this - much cheaper (and easier to use)than Farrow & Ball

I turned this - used to be in my daughters bedroom but has been in the garage for the last 7 years, unloved and battered .......

into this - now destined for my bedroom I think.

But I didn't get time to turn this - a bargain at only £3 from John Lewis, and there's plenty of it
- into cushion covers. So I'll have to make time later on.

After all - when Mr Darcy comes calling one has to make the most!

Cheesecake

One of the dishes we made at the Milestone Cookery school was a very easy cheesecake. In the class, we made it in individual glasses which looked really sweet. At the weekend, in an attempt to get some fruit down the Dancing Queen who was home to do her Saturday and Sunday job, I made this cheesecake.

The basic recipe is :
Crushed Digestive biscuits for the base - no butter to hold it all together - it doesn't really need it and it saves on the calories.
Equal measures of double cream (whipped) and Philadelphia cream cheese (I used extra light) whisked together with a little sugar.

You can flavour the cheesecake if you like - on the course we did this with Spiced Jamaican Rum and lime zest, but I didn't flavour this one.

I then just added as much fruit as I could. It was delicious.

The Milestone Cookery Class

So on Saturday, I attended a "Fabulous Fast Food" cookery class at a local gastro pub,

The Milestone. The Milestone chefs incidentally are featured on the new series of Gordon Ramsey's Best British Restaurant. The restaurant is situated in the old industrial area of Sheffield, near Kelham Island and is an old "works" pub.

This is what the area used to look like - these days its trendy apartments and bars.

I love places like this that use local butchers, and local produce. Apparently they get a lot of their vegetables from 5 retired blokes that still work allotments in the city, but cannot possibly use everything they produce.

The style of the place is very pared back and simple. Its always very busy (this was taken very early as I was the first one there).

The classes are limited to 8 participants. They don't have brilliant facilities for the cookery school at the moment, but they are in the process of kitting out a new place out that will be open in the new year. Throughout the day, we made:

Lamb Koftas with Fruity couscous

Homemade Zingy Burgers

Chickpea and Spinach Curry with Sea Bass (which we ate for lunch)

Moules Mariniere

Salmon with Bean Ragu

Chicken, Goats cheese and Courgette Tagliatelle

Mohita Cheesecake

All of which we prepared on a 1 ring cooker, and took between 10-15 minutes to prepare and cook (ideal for camping!!!!) and all utterly delicious! We got to bring everything home much to hubby's delight.

It was great for inspiration - and a fun day out too. I'm going to take a look at what else they do when they open up the new place.

Chilli Jam

I'd never heard of Chilli Jam before, but started to read that lots of you were making this and so I thought I would have ago.


I found a recipe here.


Oh my! Its gorgeous and totally addictive! I gave all but one jar away to friends, so now I need to make another batch. I can safely say its the tastiest thing EVER to come out of a jar. I cooked a piece of ham just to have with it and its perfect with cheese.

I'll have to take another visit to Joanna's blog and see what else I can find.

John West - take note!

The tinned fish that I brought home with me from France, not only taste delicious,

but look very decorative on my kitchen shelves too.

Savoury Quiche...

or is it?
It was the W.I.'s silver anniversary and they were having a party. We all had to put down what we would make for the buffet - I volunteered my signature Savoury Quiche (school recipe!).

So I made my quiche, at the same time as I was making a Tarte Tatin (aka Rotherham Tart - previous post) as multi tasking is always the order of the day in my kitchen. However, whilst frying my bacon and onions, I decided to use the leftover butter that was in the pan that I had fried the apples in. Great idea, except that this also had SUGAR in it!!!!
So what could I do? - I could throw it away and start again - but I don't like waste, or I could continue and pretend I had used caramelised onions (as they are very sweet aren't they!).
So I made the shortcrust pastry base, continued frying the chopped onions and bacon - adding these to the base. Then I grated cheddar cheese on top and added egg, milk and a few chopped herbs - decorated with sliced tomatoes and put in the oven (at 200 degrees c)for 20 minutes, before reducing to to 160 degrees c until it was cooked.

So then I took it to the W.I. untasted!! I know how to live life on the edge!

Once the buffet opened, I dove in for a taste (if it was dire, I was going to remove it from the table!!) but discovered it was pretty good - yes you could taste the sweetness and it was a bit unusual, but good never the less! However, if you have a go at it, I'd omit the sugar and stick to salt and pepper.

A Rotherham Tart

Now why doesn't that conjur up the same image as "A NormandyTart"?


Inspired by the wonderful apple tarts that we have consumed in Calvados country, and delighted to find my own apple tree bearing so much fruit, I decided to cook up a treat.

Put the oven on at 200 degrees Celcius and pop a baking sheet in.

Peel and cut into chunks around 1 kg of apples

Pop 100g of butter and 150g sugar into a frying pan and cook apples in here into they are staring to get fluffy. You can add a splash of Calvados at this stage if you like.

Pour into a flan tin, or pie plate and top with ready rolled puff pastry.

Pop in over for around 20-25mins




Voila!!! Just add ceam, creme fraiche or custard and imagine you are in France.

Bon Apetite! xxxx

Another Tart!

The young man made this fabulous tart in his school cookery lesson. It was so delicious, I thought I would share his recipe with you.

Pear and Chocolate Tart
Ingredients:
Shortcrust Pastry (8 oz Plain flour, 2oz of marg and 2 oz lard)
125g ground almonds
2 large eggs
125g butter
95g sugar
185g dark chocolate - melted
3 conference pears, peeled, cored, quartered
Creme Fraiche to serve

Pre heat Oven to 190c/375f/gas 5. Roll out pastry (half cm thick) and line tart tin. Rest lined tart tin for 20 min in freezer.

Bake pastry blind for 10 mins, then remove, set aside and reduce oven temperature to 170c/325f/gas 3.

Mix almonds, eggs, butter and sugar and stir in melted chocolate. Pour mixture into pastry case and press the pears into the mixture.

Bake for 45 mins until pastry is golden brown and the chocolate and almond mixture is firm.

Serve warm or cold with creme fraiche. Delish!!

You may be wondering why the pastry weights are in imperial whilst the rest of the weights are in metric. When I was at school, you had to make your own pastry, but his recipe said to take in ready made shortcrust pastry. I decided that he needed to know how to make pastry, so I used my old school recipe book for this.

A fast economical tart!

No - not me!!



I made a mediteranian tart for lunch boxes. The packet of Puff Pastry (15p from my super special little shop which ive still not told you about!) was spread with a little pesto made from a huge bunch of Asda "whoopsed" Basil (20p), sliced "whoopsed" tomatoes and red peppers (60p for a great big bag), dotted with Mozzerella and even more Basil, and cooked to perfection.





Pass me a glass of Chianti!

Moonshine

From this,



to this,

and finally this.

For the price of 4 lemons and a bag of sugar, several litres of Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's (stop your sniggering Lisa) Elderflower Champagne. Perfect for quoffing on a hot summers day.

Rosti Topped Turkey & Tarragon Pie

I am enjoying the challenge of throwing something together to eat from whatever I have got in the freezer, fridge or larder - it makes me more imaginative.
Tonight, I needed to use up a packet of frozen diced turkey (which was an Asda "whoops" at £1 for the packet).

I fried the turkey in a little oil, then added chopped carrot, leeks and celery, and a little water - popped the lid on and cooked it for 10 mins. I then took the lid off and continued to cook until the liquid had reduced.

I then made a white sauce using the roux method, and added some dried Tarragon. I made the sauce fairly thick as when you add it to the turkey and veg, the liquid already in here makes the sauce a bit thinner. The whole lot got popped into an oven proof dish.

The rosti potato top is made by part cooking some jacket potatoes - don't cook fully. Then grate these onto the top of the pie. I sprayed with a little oil (or you can use butter) and cooked it in the oven (at 200 C) until it was browning nicely on top.


I have made this with cooked turkey in the past, and I have also added ham or bacon too. Its also great with chicken, and its even good as a vegetarian dish by just omitting the meat. The Tarragon, carrot, leek and celery combo works really well I think.

A family favourite (except the young man picks the celery out!!!)

Salad Days

I'm having a week where I am emptying the freezer to defrost it, emptying the fridge to give it a good clean, and emptying the cupboards because hubby says some of the tins say "Give the Kaiser Hell" on them! They are so old!!

So when it was hot, I made us a massive salad. I used lettuce, tomato and cucumber for starters, but added cold boiled new potatoes, chopped boiled eggs, croutons made from some gorgeous fancy bread sticks that had fennel seeds on, but had gone rock hard in the freezer, but with a quick spray of olive oil and 5 mins in the oven, they crisped up. I topped it off with a couple of tins of Mackerel and Tuna, Basil leaves and a dollop of Pizza Express Light Caesar Dressing (my current favourite).


So was it Nicoise, Panzanella or Caesar? Who cares - it was very tasty.

Fast Food

My kids and hubby say that I am a perfect cross between the two mothers on Gavin & Stacey. Like Gwen, I make a cracking Omlette - my favourite fast food. This was made using leftover boiled potatoes, chorizio sausage, mushrooms, cheddar cheese and lots of fresh basil.



Like Pamela, I get lairy and tend to burst into spontaneous song when I have had Gin!

Asian Cookery

I haven't blogged recently about cooking, as I often find that we are too quick to eat, and I end up not getting any photos. However, I can assure you that I have been doing plenty! Ive been experimenting with making my own curries with really great results. This "Very simple Lamb Rogan Josh" recipe was a real winner with the family, especially as it was accompanied by "Oven baked onion bhaji's" So simple, cheap and delicious I will never buy them again!! I had to use ordinary flour the first time I made them, and these were OK, but since, I have found Chick pea flour in an Asian supermarket (which was like an Aladdins cave!!!!). I also made a huge vat of this Chicken Byryani for Hubbys party and it went down a storm. The first time I made it, I used my own paste concoction - similar to the Rogan Josh one, but for his party, I used Pataks paste and it was lovely too. I used dried apricots instead of sultanas, and any leftovers can be served cold next day mixed with a dollop of mayonnaise to make a Coronation Chicken type dish - delish. I was desperate to try Nigel Slaters Noodle Soup, after seeing this on tv the other week ( I have a bit of a thing for Nigel Slater - and no idea why!! and his kitchen and garden are gorgeous too). I can tell you that this is now a firm favourite in the Heart Shaped household and its so simple and cheap top make. It makes a superb vegetarian dish, I added Spring onions , baby corn, green beans and mushrooms (I also added a real onion when making the paste as I have found with Indian cookery that this is slightly like adding water, but more flavour). Last night I added strips of leftover ham too. It is really filling and so so tasty.



Give it a go

Saturday and Sunday treats

As part of my ongoing 50th Birthday celebrations (I told you that they would last all year!!) my best friend took me for lunch to the home of celebrity florist Carl Wilde and his partner John. Carl and John have been opening their lovely home for a "restaurant in my living room" experience since Carl overspent on his lovely garden in 2003 and needed to recoup some of the costs!! Some of you may remember Carl from his appearances on "This Morning" . My friend is in the WI and so I tagged along with them. John greeted us with Warm Winter Pims, then Carl appeared (made an entrance!!) in his trade mark Vivian Westwood outfits. He has a stunning collection of Vivian Westwood clothing, and they do a day when you get to rifle through his collection.

Their home is a fairly typical detached house on a normal little estate in Birstall - just south of Leeds, but you can tell straight away which is their home!! I didn't get a photo of the front door, but this too received a very similar treatment which I am going to try and copy.

Inside the decorations were really lovely.

John does the cooking, and we had smoked haddock chowder, chicken Chasseur, Christmas pudding followed by mince pies and coffee. All really tasty and accompanied with copious amounts of red and white wine. Some ladies of the WI were very tipsy!!

We were allowed to wander on the terraces of Carl's very expensive terraced garden. I thought it was a great idea to put the tree outside, where it could still be seen through the patio doors, but where it made no mess and didn't take up room in the house. It looked lovely when it was lit. It was a great afternoon, and I can highly recommend the experience.

On Sunday, we ventured into the old Industrial heartland of Sheffield, to visit the Christmas Fair at Kelham Island. Kelham Island is now an Industrial museum housing some fascinating relics from when Sheffield was a manufacturing centre of excellence. The river Don was its power source, and as we walked to the museum, we noticed that it was flowing really fast - no wonder!!!

The old industrial units below the bridge are fairly derelict at the moment.

But to the north of the bridge, the lovely old buildings have been converted into stunning looking loft type apartments.

I love the little old houses in the middle . These too are now lived in.

Its really sad to see all the old workplaces that once employed so many Sheffield people making high quality goods .

I think that this old workplace is in danger of being pulled down. Its criminal really. A lot of these places were still manufacturing during my kids lifetime. I'm sure politicians and "greedy captains of industry" will one day realise that we shot ourselves in the foot by sending our manufacturing bases abroad.

Kelham Island has only just reopened after being seriously flooded in 2007. The old buildings are lovely.

Here is the Bessemer Converter that they used to smelt the steel - I always think it looks as if it should be in "Star Wars". Its massive and I would have loved to have seen one in action.

The old river Don engine is an amazing piece of kit. It is the most powerful engine of its kind in existence. They have it working sometimes. Ive heard it, and it is a bit noisy, and it feels like someone is pounding on your chest!

They have one of the surviving "Simplex" motor cars that was commissioned by Earl Fitzwilliam (of nearby Wentworth). I believe that there are only 2 or three of these left now. They attracted the rich and famous when they were made - it said on the info board that the Tsar of Russia had several!!! It was a great thrill to see this as I didn't know that they had one.

The WIP floor was fascinating with lots of objects waiting to be restored.

Interesting facts about what we have made in Sheffield - I worked for 10 years in the offices at "IZAL"!! It was owned by an American Pharmaceutical company when I worked for them, but we still sold the "greaseproof" type toilet rolls!!!!!!!!!!

Another current feature of Kelham Island is that it is home to Kelham Island brewery - a fabulous little micro brewery - and the wonderful Fat Cat pub. The wording underneath the cat says "Ferociously Independent" and it truly is.

I think this pub is like a museum inside and outside. Its how "works"pubs used to be and I am so glad it seems to be not only surviving, but thriving!

I noticed the "Flood " markers on the side of the pub. Gosh! we thought it was bad enough in 2007!!!

We finished off our day with a swift pint and a half in the Beer Garden. Hubby's pint was a Kelham Island Pale Rider, and mine was called "Chritmas Lights" and very nice it was too.

A brisk walk around some industrial heritage, lovely blue sky, and a half of real ale has put me in a great mood for the week ahead. Hope your weekend was lovely.