Cake! Everybody loves cake!

A couple of days ago I rescued a pair of sad brown bananas, destined to be chucked out, from a friend's fruit bowl and yesterday evening I made Banana Ginger Cake from the Australian Woman's Weekly Cakes and Slices Cookbook.

Banana Ginger Cake

90g butter

2 tbsp golden syrup

1/4 cup caster sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 egg

2/3 cup mashed banana (two bananas)

1 1/2 cups self raising flour

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

2 tsp ground ginger

1 tbsp milk

Lemon Frosting

1 1/2 cups icing sugar

30g butter

approx 2 tbsp lemon juice

1/4 cup chopped glace ginger

Grease a 20cm ring pan, line with paper and grease paper.

Cream butter, syrup and sugars with electric mixer until light and fluffy.  Add egg and beat until combined then beat in banana.  Stir in sifted ingredients and milk.  Pour into prepared pan and bake in moderate oven 180 or gas mark 4)  for about 45 minutes.  Stand for 5 minutes before turning out onto wire rack to cool.  Spread cold cake with frosting and sprinkle with ginger.

Keeps for two days.

Lemon Frosting

Combine icing sugar and butter with enough lemon juice to mix to a spreadable consistency.

Ok, with my customary randomness I didn't entirely follow the recipe to the letter!  ;o)  I couldn't find my round cake tin so I used a rectangle one instead, probably about 10" x 6", consequently as it was shallower the cake only took 30 minutes to cook.  I mixed by hand as I don't have an electric mixer.  For the icing, I didn't have a lemon so I used lime juice instead and I didn't have glace ginger so I substituted stem ginger instead.  Creative baking in action!  lol  My husband had two slices of cake last night so that's a thumbs up from him!

Playing Catch Up

It's been soooooo long since I've done any foodie blogging!  ;o(  In between rehearsing & performing, illness and work I just haven't found time to even do much cooking much less blog about it!  Booooooo!  Anyhoo, I'm here now and hope not to have such a lengthy gap between posts again!

Today I made a big pan of tomato and veg soup.  ;o)  It's a good hearty beast of a soup with a plethora of veg....onion, mushroom, carrot, potato, celery and cabbage and plenty of tomato juice.  I picked up a soup book from the library this afternoon and there's some interesting soups in it, new and different recipes to try out.  Yum!

At the weekend we had a lovely roast chicken dinner, haven't had a roast in a while and I did the full shebang...roast chicken, roast potatoes, pigs in blankets, cauliflower & leek cheese, sage & onion stuffing, sweetcorn and gravy.  Mmmmmmmm!  It's been too long!  The chicken was an organic one from the supplier I get my organic veg box from (they started doing meat earlier this year) and when I unwrapped it I was surprised to find that it had giblets!  Shock horror!  I can't remember the last time I saw a chicken on a supermarket shelf that had giblets.  Years ago you used to have a choice when buying a chicken, with or without giblets but nowadays giblets aren't on offer at all.  A friend suggested to me that it's because most people don't know what to do with them and, sadly, I'm inclined to agree.  Anyway, I used said giblets to make some extra yummy stock and it's now residing in my freezer and will be the basis of some proper f**k off gravy at Christmas.  ;o) 

I'm easing back into baking regularly too which always makes me happy even if I can't partake of the end product!  ;o)  Last week I was in London for a couple of days and bought some star shaped silicone cake cases.  I have several sets of ordinary round silicone cake cases which I use all the time.  I'm not really sure of the ethical or health implications of cooking with silicone (I really should check that out!) but I do use my cases alot and the only down side is that my husband moans like billio about washing them!

Recently I've been looking through the wad of recipes I have torn from magazines, photocopied from books or scribbled onto random scraps of paper and wanting to try some of them out.  ;o)  I have a huge variety of things to try out, watch this space!

Lastly, if you haven't already tried out the Supercook website, as plugged on The Gadget Show, I can recommend giving it a whirl!  Bung in some ingredients and it'll search for recipes using said items, great fun!

Slow Cooking

I'm not sure if I've said before (probably have!) but I'm a big fan of slow cooking.  ;o)  Even if I'm at home all day I still like using my slow cooker as it gives me the chance to work knowing that dinner is sorting itself out.  I have been sorting through recipes recently (I have a penchant fro ripping them out of magazines and printing them off the Internet or scribbling them on envelopes!) and have come across a fair amount of slow cooker ones to try out.  ;o)  I think cheese stuffed onions might be my next experiment.  ;o)  At the weekend we had slow cooker macaroni cheese for the first time this autumn.  It's not really macaroni cheese since it doesn't involve cheese sauce but it's yummy and stands alone as it is.  ;o)  It's a recipe I do a fair amount over the winter months and I try to have the ingredients in over Christmas as it's a lovely sit in front of an open fire lazy evening type of meal!  I think I found the recipe on one of the many Yahoo groups I used to belong to but I can't remember where so I can't credit whoever posted it unfortunately but here's the really easy recipe....

Slow Cooker Macaroni Cheese

2 cups macaroni
2 cups cottage cheese
2 cups grated cheese
2 cups boiling water

Layer the ingredients in the slow cooker in the order they are written.  Cook for 3 hours.  Stir well.

It doesn't look ultra appetising but bear with it!  You need to give it a really good stir when it's cooked.  The more you stir it the better it will get!  It sometimes comes out a little stodgy and I think the answer is just extra liquid.  I've used milk instead of water and that makes it creamier.  Give it a whirl, it's great comforting winter fare!  We ate ours in front of our first open fire of the year which makes it taste even better of course!  ;o)

One size fits all

I made pizza for dinner this evening.  ;o)  We three have different wants when it comes to the perfect pizza so a bit of creativity is required on my part!  My daughter doesn't like too much tomato topping so her third of the pizza has a very thin layer of said tomatoey goodness, my husband likes anchovies so I added some of those to his generously tomatoed section, and I am on a bit of a health kick (45lbs lost so far) so I have yummy goats cheese on my bit.  ;o)  Everyone's a winner!  For anyone who's interested, I use scone dough for my pizza base instead of the more traditional bread dough.  It's quick and easy and makes for a nice deepish, soft and yummy pizza.  I make my own tomato topping by reducing tinned tomatoes (although this time I used home grown from our garden) with herbs, onions, mushrooms and sometimes carrot or anything else lurking about in the fridge!  Whizz it all up and hey presto, pizza topping!

Food spending today - £2.76 (£1.73 for 4 pints organic whole milk and £1.03 for vanilla rice milk)

Funny fish and kitchen goings on

River cobbler......who's heard of that?  I certainly hadn't when I spied it in the fish section in the Devil's Supermarket a while ago.  I wanted smoked haddock but the shelves were bereft of it so with a bit of daring do I plumped for giving smoked river cobbler a whirl instead.  When I got home I was really cross because I then spotted that it was from Vietnam!  I have nothing against Vietnam but I do have a thing about the air miles that food travels and had I realised earlier I wouldn't have bought it.  So, I lobbed it in the freezer in disgust and there it languished until this week.  I used in a rice dish with some veg and topped it with hard boiled eggs, none of us were keen on it's "fishiness", if you know what I mean, and I wasn't struck on the texture much either.  I wouldn't buy it again but I was interested to know what it was so after a bit of a Google I discovered that Pangasius Hypophthalmus, as it said on the packaging, is iridescent shark catfish.  You live and learn!  ;o)

As I type I have some little chocolate buns cooling on a rack and I shall be going to ice them when I finish rambling here.  I'm thinking of making some icing that features maple syrup since I have some in the fridge to use up.  ;o)  Elsewhere, I have made lentil & bacon soup this morning, using up the four bacon rashers I had lurking in the fridge and red lentils.  I'm holding out as long as possible before I cave in and put the heating on so a nice warming soup for lunch will be good!!  I've also cooked up the pile of home grown tomatoes I had and bunged them through the sieve.  The resulting passata will probably morph into pizza topping with the addition of onion, mushroom, carrot and a few herbs. Might be pizza for dinner today then!  ;o)  I've also chopped up the kale (which patently isn't kale but I can't work out what it is!) to blanch and stick in the freezer.

I neglected to mention a few things yesterday in my yawningly long food list....I have eggs ~ I always have eggs since we have chickens ;o) ~ and cereal and bread.

Challenge Time

Periodically I have a bit of a personal challenge to use stuff up instead of shopping regardless and I'm embarking on a bit of one this week.  Finances aren't brilliant and besides I want to work through some of the stuff I have in the freezer and pantry so I can make some room for yummy goodies as we head towards....well, the C word!  My usual premise is that for as long as possible the only things I buy are milk and fruit & veg and then this gradually extends to what I consider basics such as butter, cheese, flour etc.  So, for your delight or boredom here is the contents of my fridge, freezers and pantry:

Freezer
banana ½
black forest gateau
breadcrumbs x 2
brown soup x2
cheese & tomato flatbread
chick pea pasta
chicken carcas for stock
chicken drum sticks
chicken stock x 4
chicken thighs x 2
chopped parsley
felafal
filo pastry x 2
fruit loaf ½
garlic bread slices
h/m baked beans
h/m beetroot soup
h/m braised red cabbage
h/m broccoli soup
h/m butternut squash soup x 2
h/m hummous x 2
h/m parsnip soup
h/m pastry
h/m savory mince
h/m squash soup
h/m tomato sauce
hummous
lamb mince
lamb shoulder steaks
leeks
naan bread x 4
oven chips
pain au chocolate x 2
pate x 2
peas
pork loin
prawns
puff pastry x 2
Quorn cocktail sausages
Quorn fillets
raspberries
redcurrants x 8
runner beans
rye bread
shortcrust pastry
sloes
soya beans
spinach
squash puree
sweetcorn
trout x 6
white wine (small pots of leftover) x 2
whole chicken

Fridge

apple sauce
Apericubes
bacon
bbq sauce
blueberry conserve
brown sauce
butter x 2
condensed milk
Elmlea double cream x 2
extra mature cheddar
feta cheese
garlic & herb soft cheese
goats cheese
h/m pineapple chutney
h/m rhubarb chutney
Halloumi
hummous
lemon curd
maple syrup
maraschino cherries
margarine
marmalade
mayonnaise
milk
mustard
pickled beetroot
pickled cucumber slices
pickled gherkins
pickled onions
raspberry salad dressing
salad cream
sauerkraut
seafood sauce
soy sauce
tartare sauce
tomato juice
tomato ketchup

Pantry

Basics & baking

carob powder
chocolate chips, white & milk
cocoa
cooking chocolate
crystallised ginger
demerara sugar
dessiccated coconut
dried apples
dried apricots
figs
glace cherries
gluten free bread flour
golden syrup
gram flour
granulated sugar
icing sugar
Marmite
marzipan
millet flakes
oatbran
oatmeal
oats
peanut butter
polenta
prunes
self raising flour
skimmed milk powder
spelt flour
sugar cubes
sultanas
teabags
treacle
wholemeal semolina
 
Drinks

brandy
cherry liqueur
grenadine
h/m wine x 3
mead
pear cider
port
red wine x 3
sherry
sloe gin
white wine x 2

Grains & pulses

alfalfa
beluga lentils
brown lentils
brown rice
cous cous
dried black beans
dried cannellini beans
dried chick peas
fenugreek
green split peas
jasmine rice
millet
pearl barley
pudding rice
red lentils
yellow split peas

Herbs & spices

allspice
bay leaves
Chinese five spice
cinnamon
cloves
cumin
curry powder
ginger
mint
mixed herbs
mixed spice
nutmeg
onion granules
pizza herbs
sage
smoked sea salt
turmeric
vanilla pods
vanilla extract

Miscellaneous

anchovies in oil
blancmange x 1
breadsticks
cider vinegar
coconut milk
condensed milk x 2
crackers – Ryvita, oatcakes, teriyaki rice cakes, Tuc
creamed coconut
custard powder
few odd bags of crisps
flan case
jar of assorted sweets
lasagne sheets
malt extract
malt vinegar
mango slices
Marmite rice cakes
miso
nori
paella mix
pasta
pineapple slices
popcorn x 3
poutine mix
ranch dressing mix
sage & onion stuffing
salad seasoning
seri haya
sour cream & chive mashed potato mix
stock cubes
taco mix
tahini
three bean salad
tuna x 2
vegetable bouillion powder
white wine vinegar x 2

Nuts & seeds

brazil nuts
chestnut puree
hazelnuts in shells
macadonia nuts
mixed nuts
pine nuts
sunflower seeds
walnuts
whole chestnuts

Preserves

cocktail onions
h/m orange mincemeat
h/m piccalilli
h/m redcurrant jelly
h/m rhubarb chutney x 4
h/m rhubarb relish
mango chutney
mint sauce
pickled cucumber slices
plum chutney
stem ginger

Fruit & Vegetables

apples
bananas
broccoli
cabbage
carrots
celery
corn on the cob
leeks
lemon
lettuce
mushrooms
onions
potatoes
red Russian kale
tomatoes

Just a few extras to add....
All the meat is organic.
I've worked to move away from ready made stuff over the last couple of years but there is still some stuff I'd rather not have but in my waste not want not mind set I can't just lob them!  I have several packet mixes, which I don't go near usually, but I received them from various swaps on Swap-Bot when I was in swapping mode. 
I have an organic veg box most weeks and supplement it if needed with organic stuff from the supermarket if I have to.  I try to eat what's in season fruit and veg wise as far as possible.
 
Ok, if you're still awake at this point, this evening's meal for the troops was cheese & bacon pasta.  ;o)  Money spent on food shopping today was £2.06 on milk.

Onion Soup & Barbie Bread

Soup has to be one of my all time favourite comfort foods, what better to feed the troubled soul with than smooth, silky butternut squash soup laced with cumin or steaming chunky vegetable soup or indulgent creamy mushroom soup, mmmmm.  I always have home made soups in the freezer and I love making them.  Yesterday, looking for something to use up some onions, I decided to make some cream of onion soup in the slow cooker.  The recipe is from a book I picked up recently in a charity shop, Slow Cooking Properly Explained by Dianne Page, after a friend recommended the recipes in it.  I love using my slow cooker, there's nothing better than driving home smug in the knowledge that dinner is all ready and waiting!  So, onion soup....here's the recipe:

1 1/2oz butter
1lb onions, finely chopped
2oz plain flour
1 3/4 pts chicken stock
salt and pepper
1/4 pt double cream
chopped chives, to serve

Heat the butter in a large saucepan, add the onions and cook gently, stirring occasionally, until softened but not browned.  Stir in the flour.  Remove from heat and gradually stir in stock.  Season lightly with salt and pepper and then bring to boil.  Transfer to slow cooker.  Put the lid on and cook for 6 to 10 hours on low, stirring in the cream for the last 30 minutes.  Adjust seasoning to taste and serve sprinkled with chopped chives.

Now to illustrate just how religiously I follow a recipe!  ;oD  To start off with I used oil instead of butter to cook the onions.  It doesn't mention a type of onions but I used red onions as I had some that required urgent attention!  I didn't use pepper and I added some nutmeg.  And I didn't use double cream.  I do actually have some double cream in the fridge but chose instead to use evaporated milk.  And lastly I whizzed the soup to sexy smoothiness and couldn't be arsed to go into the garden for chives to sprinkle about!  So, my soup probably wasn't anything like what the industrious slow cooking author intended but it was lovely and here it is served with wholemeal toast and Jarlsberg cheese sprinkled with my current fave spice, smoked paprika.

I was also on a mission yesterday to use up some rapidly squishying beetroot from last week's organic veg box and decided to plump for using them to make what is affectionately known as Barbie bread chez Savill!  ;oD  Barbie bread is otherwise known as beetroot bread which I make in the breadmaker and it makes for a pink culinary experience as you can see!  It doesn't taste overtly beetrooty but it is yummeeeee!

                                    

A little bit of baking

I love to bake, I find it very therapeutic.  ;o)  This afternoon I developed a headache that wouldn't go away so I headed into the kitchen this evening to soothe my troubled brow by flinging a few ingredients in a bowl and getting mixing!  Given my lack of brain power at the time I didn't make anything too challenging just....

                                     

...some flapjacks....

                                    

...some vanilla cakes with chocolate icing and....

                                     

...some peanut butter biscuits.

The troops are happy and, hey presto, my headache has gone!  ;o)

Pantry Passion

I make no bones about it, I love my pantry!  It was a long time coming and was worth the wait as far as I'm concerned!  Bit of background for you....I live in two former railway cottages which we've knocked into one.  The half we lived in originally had been treated to lots of "improvements" but the newer half was pretty much original when we took it on.  The opposite number to what is (at least for the moment) my airing cupboard was originally a pantry.   Having always operated in a small fitted kitchen I couldn't wait to have my very own pantry.  It was finally completed last year and I have loved it with a passion ever since.  ;o)  This week we repainted the pantry walls, after a slight issue with mould last year left some horrid marks in a few places, and I thought I'd share a few pics now it's all up and running again. 

My pantry door.  ;o)  I picked up the shabby but lovely fingerplate at the local junk shop and knew it would work perfectly for the pantry.  My lovely brass pantry sign was made by my husband (he worked as a etcher) as a surprise Christmas present when I was in plaster after breaking a bone in my foot.

                                    

We wanted to re use the original terracotta tiles from the pantry and I love the way they look.  They vary in colour and the floor isn't perfectly level but they are perfect in my eyes!

My meat safe was in the pantry originally and I wanted to keep it.  It needed a bit of repair and sprucing up with a lick of paint but it's a sturdy fella an holds lots of tins, jars and packets.  The wire crate next to the meat safe came from my father in law's and acts as my bottle store!  Sloe gin, home made wine, ruby port, grenadine and more.....yum!

                                   

A view of the bottom two shelves.  I'm working on collecting interesting tins and glass jars.  You may have guessed by now that I want a vintage flavour to my pantry.  ;o)  The cream and green enamel bread bin  belonged to my great grandmother (known as Big Nanna).

                                     

 

The top shelf here is mainly baking ingredients - did I mention I love baking??  The enamel sugar tin was inherited from my mother in law and I found the matching flour tin at a car boot sale.  The Radiance Toffee tin was a recent 50p bargain!

Look I have space on the top shelf, wonder how long that'll last?!  The middle shelf here houses lots of grains and pulses in Kilner style jars. 

                                     

                                    

A couple of closer shots of the tins.  The cake patterned tin was a recent junk shop find, full of sewing stuff!

                                                 

And lastly a shot of one of the glass jars that we've been experimenting on with a labelling idea.  My husband came up with the idea of trying blackboard paint on the jars so that I can use chalk on them and change them as and when I need to.

There we go, a whistle stop tour of my pantry!  ;o) 

Squash Soup

For lunch today I had some of the aforementioned squash soup along with tomato and cheese flatbread.  The soup is super (ha ha!) easy to make, I just fried an onion in a little oil until softened and then added the chopped squash and some cumin and enough stock to just cover.  Cooked it until it was soft and then added some milk and whizzed it to the sexy smoothiness you see here.  ;o)  I'd like to say the flatbread was home made too but alas, it isn't!  I like to have a variety of bakery stuff in the freezer and would like to have more home made than shop bought so need to work on that one.  I have a breadmaker and make 90% of the bread we eat and even though I always mean to make and freeze loaves, rolls etc it rarely happens!
As an aside, I love these soup dishes with plates.  ;o)  They were a present from a lovely aunt of mine and with my soup obsession (Oh, didn't you know?  It will become evident as I continue to blog!   LOL) they get alot of use.  ;o)   

Starting out...

I've long wanted to start a little food based blog and, inspired by reading Julie & Julia, I've finally taken the plunge!  ;o)  I'm not a foodie, I don't have bags of food knowledge but I like to cook and I love to bake, I want to learn, expand my cooking skills, try new foods and new recipes and share it all on here.  ;o) 

My husband likes to garden.  ;o)  Earlier this year he saved some seeds from a squash I'd had in the box of organic veg I have delivered every week.  He planted some of them and after some due care and attention a lone baby squash appeared and grew into a monster!  I wasn't sure what sort of squash it was but, with a little research, I have discovered that it's a Turks Turban squash.  Apparently they're often grown as ornamental squashes but I can attest that they're good to eat!  ;o)  I peeled and chopped some squash and roasted it in a little oil with chestnut mushrooms and smoked paprika, yummmmeeeee!  Here it is:

I need to find some more squash recipes to try as this squash is a huge beast and even though I made some cumin laced soup with it yesterday (squash makes the most velvety sexy smooth soups!) I still have more than half of it to get through!