August 8th, 2007

Brian is finally feeling much better thanks to the meds and all the smoothies. The latest smoothies have been extra cold!!!! And extra fruity!!! The last trip I had to the grocery store I picked up some Scottish strawberries and they really did smell like proper strawberries and some lovely big red raspberries and some blue berries. Once i got home I separated them out into 4 containers with a mix of each berries. Then froze them. I pull out one container of frozen berries and put them in the blender then add a banana, and a nectarine and since the Cranberry blueberry juice was on sale I picked up loads of that too and put a bit of it in the blender. Then whizz up and if needed more ice cubes and some lemonade for a bit of fizz. They have been really tasty!!!! They were very cooling for the few days we had of hot weather.

This was yesterdays lunch. Smoothie and a salad. I picked up some lovely Belgium ham from the deli counter and decided to have it with some melon and a nice slice of brie on a bed of lettuce.


German cooking magazine recipe....


My German recipe translation is just a little better than my French. And this recipe you could almost figure out just by looking at it.
Take a plate and line with lettuce leaves some tomatoe slices and a sprinkling of sliced onion. (I added some blanched green beans too!!)
Take some tuna filets and marinate in the juice of 1/2 lemon, some olive oil, zest of lemon and some chopped parsley. I added a splash of terryaki sauce, pinch of salt and some fresh ground black pepper.
Heated up my cast iron grill pan till it was smoking hot and then seared the tuna on each side. Cook to desired doneness and drizzle with a dressing of lemon juice, olive oil, lemon zest and chopped parsely. Very nice and light for a hot summers evening. You can substitute chicken, pork chops, or swordfish for the tuna. And other ingredients can be added to the salad. I made chicken and added some boiled potatoes the next night.
Here is the German version
Tunfischsteaks mit Zitronenhaube
Zutaten für 4 personen:
4 Tunfischsteaks (à ca. 150g)
Saft und abgeriebene Schale von 1 unbehandelten zitrone
3-4 EL Olivenöl
Salz, weisser Peffer
1 Bund galatte Petersilie
1 TL grobkörniges Meersalz
1 Römersalat (ca. 300g)
3 Tomaten (ca. 175g)
1 mittelgrosse zwiebel
evtl. zitronenespalten
zum Garnieren
1. Tunfisch mit zitronensaft beträufeln. 2 Esslöffel Öl in einer Pfanne erhitzen. Tunfischsteaks mit Küchenpapier abtupfen und im Öl von jeder Seite bei mittlerer Hitze 3-4 Minute braten. Mit Salz und Pfeffer würzen.
2. Petersilienblätter abzupfen und fein hacken. Mit Zitronenschale und Meersalz mischen. Salat in mundgerechte Stüke schneiden, Tomaten in Scheiben und zwiebel in Ringe schneiden.
3. Eine grosse Platte mit Römersalat, Tomaten und Zwiebelringen auslegen. Steaks darauf anrichten. Mit der Petersilien-Zitronen-Mischung bestreuen und alles mit 1-2 Esslöffel Öl beträufeln. Nach Belieben mit Zitronenespalten garniert servieren.

Not sure I have said this before, but I really do love my new stove!!!!
When we had the new stove installed the installer said our extractor fan was too close to the top of the stove so it had to go. Brian and I had put the new one in and it just about covered the hole from the old extractor fan that wasn't working. So I came up with a brill idea to get a stainless steel backsplash to cover the tiles and the gaping hole. I was lucky and found one for sale on Ebay. It arrived the other day and we also bought some industrial glue off another person on ebay. These things can run rather expensive in the shops and I priced one for around £100. in the local shop. But mine only cost £40.00 and that included the glue, which we have loads left to fix one or two other things around the house with. And I think it looks darn good for a Pat and Brian DIY project.

Before (Big gaping hole!!!)

After (Nice and shiny!!! No ugly gaping hole!!!)

The night before last I used my wok again. Boy does the wok and wok burner ever cook quick!!!! I now have to make sure that I start the rice and it is done before I cook the other dishes.
This is a super quick and really yummy stir fry....

Szechuan Chicken - serves 4
2 chicken breast skinned and boned
pinch salt
1/2 egg white lightly beaten
2 tsp. cornflour(starch) paste(mix with a little water)
1 green pepper, cored and seeded
1 chopped chili pepper(optional and use the one you like most or even part of one)
4 tablespoons peanut(groundnut) oil
dried chili flakes
1 to 2 spring onions chopped into 1 inch pieces
small piece of ginger peeled and chopped fine
1 to 2 tablespoons bean paste or hoisin sauce
1 Tablespoon dry sherry
1 Tablespoon Terriyaki sauce
115 g roasted cashew nuts
few drops of sesame oil
Cooked rice.

First make sure the rice is cooked and hot. Roast the cashew nuts. I did mine in a dry nonstick pan on the hob.
Next chop your chicken breasts up into small cubes about the size of a lump of sugar. Mix in a small bowl the chicken, salt, egg white and cornflour paste.
Cut the green pepper into chunks about the same size as the chicken pieces.
Heat the groundnut(peanut) oil in a preheated wok. Stir fry the chicken cubes for about 1 minute or until the colour changes. Remove from the wok with a slotted spoon and keep warm. Add the green pepper, chillie flakes spring onion and ginger and stir fry for about 1 minute. Then add the chicken, bean paste, Terriyaki sauce and sherry. Blend well and cook for 1 minute more. Finally add the cashew nuts and sesame oil. Serve over hot rice.
(you can add chili peppers if you like it spicier)
I also served it with some stirfried beansprouts.
Take about two good handfulls of beansprouts, 2 to 3 chopped green onions and stir fry in some peanut oil for a couple of minutes. Toss in a teaspoon of brown sugar and a few drops of sesame oil. Serve. And yes it is that quick.



Today's Lunch

Today's lunch is thanks to another fellow Food blogger....Thyme For Cooking It is their Caprese Pasta salad with Salami scroll down through the pasta recipes for this one. It really is tasty and just the right recipe for todays lunch!!! Thanks!!!

August 4th, 2007

Sorry for taking a while to post again. Been a bit hectic and busy here. First off it is summer break from school(my place of employment) Anyway break starts out okay and I have a few days of rest.... then we decided to do a bit of DIY. Thought hmmmm we will do the bathroom as that is the smallest room in the house.... Ended up taking at least two days before it was finished!!!! Then my stepson and his partner were coming for lunch on the weekend so I had to decide what to cook and start cooking. Sorry but I just didn't take any photos. I went Carribean for the meal. Well tried to. My starter the one I had posted earlier of Avacado mousse and prawns, I did modify and added crab to the mousse along with some chopped red pepper. It was much better.
Then I fixed redbeans and coconut rice and a tropical veg ratatouille and we had baked spicy halibut and swordfish with a mango salsa. By that time we were stuffed!!!! But I had made them their fav biscuits(cookies for the Americans) Snickerdoodles and also made some Zucchini(Courgette for the Brits) Bread. They were well impressed with the bread. I will need to make some more and post the recipe for all my British friends who have never tried using Courgettes as a sweet. It is such a versatile vegetable and I have lots of different recipes for using it. Guess that is why it is one of my favourites.
Well anyway it was either the same day or the day after, Brian said he wasn't feeling well. We had thought he had pulled a muscle while painting or gardening and he said he thought he had a cold. By the next day we both were feeling like we had colds and a bit on the fluey side. Then he got a bit of a rash. Well off to the docs..... I wasn't sure if I had poisoned him or not. LOL I made him take an echinacea pill to help make the cold easier. I took one also....but didn't get a rash. Anyway come to find out it wasn't the pill, thank goodness it was Shingles!!! Neither of us has dealt with this before and it really does hurt and makes you listless and tired. Along with the rash turing to blisters. Well after about 4 or so days he is doing a bit better now. And I didn't have any time to be ill. Just got on with things. So that is why I haven't been posting lately.
I did look up on the internet some things that can help with this illness. Vitamin A, C and E and chocolate.... Sooooo I bought him some Kitkats for the chocolate part and I have been making him Smoothies for the past few days to help with his vitamins. And he is on a meds from the docs and has his calamine lotion. He asked the doc what he should avoid (thinking about wine and the likes) and she says Pregnant women. I told him he couldn't have any of them anyway.


Here we have a Tropical smoothie in the making!! In the blender went 1/2 papaya, 1/2 mango, 1 banana, 4 strawberries, juice of a lime, 1/2 tin pineappler chunks and a bit of juice and some orange juice, a tray of ice cubes and about 3 tablespoons yougurt. Whizz it all up and enjoy!!!


My friend Fiona (Cottage Small Holder) and I were having a little chit chat about Chips. I love chips probably almost as much as her Danny. These are the ones I make from scratch when I don't have any frozen ones in the freezer. You can use any oil you like and can either spray the chips with it or put a glug in the roasting tin and then toss the chips in the oil. I take a couple of potatoes and wash them and cut into half lengthwise. Then cut each half into four. Either spray with oil (Olive or rapeseed) or toss in oil. I have two very huge lovely rosemary bushes that are growing in my front garden so I just pick a couple of sprigs and tear the leaves off and sprinkle over the potatoes. (I do wash the sprigs off first) then you can either toss in some whole unpeeled garlic cloves or peel and slice. Depends on my mood which I do.

Bake in a 200°C oven for about 20 to 30 minutes until brown. Depends on how crispy you like your chips.

Ohhh getting hungry now!!!

Savoury Cake
Okay I have done it again. I have attempted to make the French savoury cake recipe again. Mine still doesn't quite look like the one in the photo of the magazine I have. I will post both my recipe and the French version too, so that anyone that can translate may tell me what I am not doing quite right.
Courgette and Ham Cake with a Lemon Yogurt Sauce.
(I didn't make the lemon yogurt sauce, just the cake)
150 g ham chopped fine
400g courgettes grated
250 g plain flour
1/2 pkt yeast *****UPDATE (This should be Baking Soda as per an anonymous comment below) Thanks!!!!
1 Tablespoon mustard (optional, only because I forgot to add it this time)
100 g grated emmental or cheddar cheese
3 eggs
100 ml olive oil
salt and pepper
Lemon zest
200ml yogurt separated into 100 mls
1/2 onion chopped fine
1 large garlic clove
2 teaspoons dried oregano
First mix your flour, yeast, and salt (I added about two teaspoons of sugar this time to help the yeast) in a large bowl. Mix eggs, 100ml yogurt and the olive oil together and add to the flour mixture.

Let this set for about 20 to 25 minutes to let the yeast work a bit.

Meanwhile grate the courgette and squeeze out as much moisture as you can. I bet I got about 1/2 cup or more from this amount of grated courgettes. I didn't save the liquid, but I bet it would be good in a soup or something like that.


Chop the ham up into a fine dice and I added the oregano to this.

Next sweat off the onion and the minced clove of garlic. And then add to the ham mix.

After the 20 minutes or so, mix in the ham mixture, the grated cheese (I used Cheddar this time round) and squeeze out the courgette and add this all to the flour mixture and stir till blended.
Preheat oven to 200°C. Put mixture into a greased and floured loaf tin and bake for 45 minutes. Turn down heat to 180 °C and bake for another 10 minutes. If it starts to brown too quickly you can cover with foil. Serve with Yogurt and lemon zest.



It was a bit salty tasting this time and not as wet as last time. It is sort of a cross between a souflé, a quiche and a bread. Very hard to describe. Can be eaten warm or cold.

Okay here is the French version in French of course!

Cake aux courgettes et au jambon, sauce au citron
Pour 6 à 7 personnes
La veille. Prépartion: 35 mn. Cuisson: 45 mn
Le jour même. Finition: 5mn
1 talon de jambon blanc de 150g
400g de courgettes
250 g de farine
1/2 paquet de levure chimique
1 c. à soupe de moutard forte
100 g d'emmental râpé
2 yaourts nature
3 oeufs
8 cl d'huile d'olive
sel
poivre du moulin
le zeste d'1 citron
La veille: laver les courgettes, en réserver une. Râper les autres grossiérement. Les mettre dans une passoire., les saler et les laisser dégorger 20 mn. Couper le jambon en petits dés.
Dans un saladier, verser la farine en fontaine avec une pincée de sel et la levure. Ajouter au centre les oeufs, 1 yaourt et l'huile d'olive. Mélanger progressivement à l'aide d'une cuillé-
re en bois jusqu'à l'obtention d'une préparation homogéne. Ajouter la moutarde, le fromage, les courgettes râpées dégorgées. Saler et poivrer. Bein mélanger.
Préchauffer le four à 200 °C. Verser la pâte dans un moule à cake antiadhésif et mettre au four pendant 45 mn en baissant la température à 180 °C au bout de 10 mn. Laisser tiédir le cake avant de le démouler. L'evelopper dans aun papier d'aluminium jusqu'au lendemain.
Le jour Même: à l'aide d'un Économe, prélever de larges bandes dans la courgette restante. Les blanchir 30 sec à l'eau bouillante salée puis les fafraîchir et les égoutter. Mélanger le dernier yaourt avec le zeste du citron. Saler et poivrer. Décorer la sauce d'une bande de courgette et disposer les autres en accordéon sur le cake. Le trancher et le déguster à l'apéritif (dans ce cas, le couper en petits dés), lors d'un pique-nique ou bien en hours0d'oeuvre avec la sauce.

I have several French cooking magazines and there are different versions of this cake in some of them. All of which look really appetizing. If I can perfect the actual bread like cake bit to this recipe I would like to try different combinations. But at the moment the experiments are rather tasty!!!!

July 5th 2007

My new friend at Little Foodies blogspot was asking about what to cook as they were learning about America and with yesterday being the 4th of July.... I had mentioned Southern Fried Chicken and boy did their chicken make my mouth water. I remember when we would be having picnics and how my mom and my grandmother would be frying chicken in big huge skillets. And the lovely smell of the chicken frying and the poping of the hot fat sizzling away. And if I was lucky I would be allowed to pinch a bit of the brown crunchy bit to gobble down hungrily. I could hardly wait for the picnic as the tables would be laden with fried chicken, baked beans, potato salad and all sorts of salads and vegetables like corn on the cob and juicy fresh tomatoes, then there would be desserts.... My grandma was excellent at making pies.... we would have chocolate, butterscotch and lemon merringue pies and then there would always be a banana cream pie too and the fruit pies.... Apple, cherry, blueberry and peach.... The whole family would get together with kids running and screaming and playing and having a great time the men would all be huddled together in one area drinking a beer and the women would be together laying the tables with all the food and chatting. I do miss those times when we would all get together to have fun and enjoy good home cooked food. So thanks Amanda for reminding me of one of the foods that brings back fond memories of my life.





Smoothie

I am getting better at this smoothie making.. This one was really yummy!!!
Into the blender went some fresh blue berries and red raspberries some frozen fruits of the forest mixed fruit, a fresh peach chopped into chunks, a banana sliced, some strawberry yogurt, ice cubes and some orange juice ohhhhh and some fresh from the garden red currants. Very nice, but you did need to watch out and not bite down on a currant pip.

No-Bake Peanut Butter Fudgies
Talking about being nostalgic... here is another recipe that brings back lovely memories.... I used to make this for the boys when they were growing up. (Actually I think it was more for me than it was for them, but used them as a good excuse to make them.) They are quick and easy to make and very very bad for you, except for the oats and the fruit if you add that. Guess maybe there is a bit of calcium from the milk and butter and protein from the peanut butter. So maybe they aren't that bad after all..... and isn't chocolate supposed to be a super food???

No-Bakes
2 cups sugar/400 grams granulated sugar
2 1/2 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup milk/125 ml
1/2 cup butter /113.5 grams
1/2 cup peanut butter/113.5 grams
2 cups of porridge oats the kind that are whole round flake things. (I won't give this to you in grams as it will vary and I think you will need to pour in a bit more so use a large mug)
In a large saucepan, combine the sugar and cocoa powder and mix together kind of getting rid of some of the cocoa lumps.

Next add in the milk and stir till it is a smooth paste.

Add the butter.

Now bring to the boil over high heat. Once boiling turn down to a rolling boil and stirring all the time for 2 minutes. (this is important make sure it is a good boil for 2 minutes) But don't let it over boil.

Remove from the heat and working kind of quickly stir in the peanut butter and the oats. If the mixture looks a bit wet add more oats but don't put too many in or they won't hold together and you will have chocolate covered muesli.

Drop by teaspoon fulls onto waxed paper or a silicon sheet. Cool thoroughly. Makes about 3 1/2 dozen.

Now you can vary these a little by what you add to them. I like raisins or sultanas in mine and you can add nuts, marshmallows at the very end or dried fruit bits or???

Enjoy!!!!!!! Recipe can be cut down in half if you are really watching your weight.

Other dishes....
Some of my other dishes this past week have been.....
Rhubarb Crumble thanks to my friend Linda for the lovely Rhubarb!!!
A tip for all you crumble fans out there... while making the crumble bit add a bit of vanilla extract or fresh vanilla or some vanilla sugar to the crumble part. Ohhhhh was it ever nice!!!!



Brian and I ate it with some lovely vanilla ice cream that comes from Scotland. The only ice cream here that I really like.

I also made some Pistou soup. It is a bit like bean soup and minestrone mixed together. And very very garlicky!!!

And to go with the soup I made some French sticks which we then made Garlic toast as if the soup wasn't Garlicky enough.


And my courgette plants were still producing an abundance of male flowers so.... we had some more deep fried goats cheese and spinach stuffed flowers this week. The poor plants aren't doing so hot now with all the rain we have had lately. I have a major case of mildew on them at the moment. Trying to clear it up, but not sure how it will go.


And another lovely garlicky meal was some quick roasted vegetable pasta.

June 22nd 2007

Okay I am back to finish what I started. The Lemon and Lavendar cake. As I said it took an hour and a half in the oven to bake. And it smelled yummy!!!

After it had cooled I made a lemon glaze to go over it and then sprinkled on a few more lavendar buds.



Now yesterday you could definately taste the lemon and the lavendar in the first bite, which was a bit unusual. But after the initial bite, you didn't taste the lavendar only the lemon.



And today the cake has had time for the flavours to meld together and you really don't taste a strong lavendar taste at all. It did turn out very nice and moist even for that long baking time..

And here is the recipe....

Adapted from the American cookbook The New Pillsbury Family Cookbook 1975. This was my first cook book I ever owned or rather a copy of the first one as my son has my original copy. I have since found this one on the internet and had it shipped over to the UK. Anyway here is the recipe and my additions.
Lemon Lavendar Pound Cake
2 1/4 cups plain flour
2 cups sugar
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp grated lemon zest ( I used the zest of a whole lemon)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup butter softened
1 cup yogurt
3 eggs
And my addition of 2 tablespoons of fresh lavendar flower buds.

Preheat the oven to 325°F (I used fan at 170°C). In large mixing bowl combine the sugar and the butter just till mixed, then add all the other ingredients and on low speed until blended of an electric hand mixer. This is a really heavy batter. Beat for an additional 3 minutes at medium speed scraping the bowl's sides several times. Pour batter into a greased and floured 9x5 inch loaf tin. Bake for about 1 hour and 3o minutes. Until golden brown and when a tooth pick inserted into centre comes out clean. Cool for 15 minutes then remove from pan. Cool completely befor icing the cake.

Lemon glaze icing...

Well this is my own and there are no measurements. Just till it looks right.

Take a small bit of butter and melt into a measuring jug. Add a tablespoon at a time of sifted icing sugar and mix. When thick then add a little vanilla extract and the zest of 1 lemon and the juice of 1/2 of a lemon then start adding more sifted icing sugar until it is of a fairly thick, but also runny consistency. You can make it as thick or as thin as you want by adding either more sugar or more liquid (lemon juice or milk). Now spread onto cooled cake and I sprinkled about a teaspoon of more Lavendar flower buds.

It was and is an interesting cake. If you want what we Americans call a pound cake just leave out the Lavendar buds and there you have it. It is very similar in texture to the British Maderia cake, but the flavour is different. My work colleague liked it and is taking some home to her husband to try. My hubby likes it too.

Smoothies

We have been having the occasional smoothies still and Hubby really likes them. I did and will admit to having one that we both didn't really care too much for and it is this one. I put the oranges in whole and the skin didn't blend up as much as I had hoped, so well.... let's just say it wasn't as smooth as it should have been.

But to make up for it this one here we both gave the thumbs up!!!
A handful of fresh blueberries, 1 banana, 1 mango, about 5 large strawberries, juice from 1/2 lemon, two heaping teaspoonfuls of yogurt and lots of ice cubes all in the blender and pulse till smooth.... This one was very creamy and very cold too!! Excellent for the hot summers day we had after the cooker arrived.


Last night's supper meal 2 from the new cooker.

Okay I wanted to test out different parts of the new stove so looked for a recipe for grilling... Take a Chicken breast and cut a pocket into it. Stuff with goats cheese and some fresh thyme leaves and seal with a wet cocktail stick. Coat in honey and sprinkle on some paprika (I used smoked paprika, have you lot tried this stuff it is lovely!!!!!) Place on a preheated grill pan and grill for about 7 minutes per side. I had to turn my grill(broiler for the Americans out there) down. It was rather hot. In the meantime I sauteed some potatoes and with a griddle pan cooked some sliced onion and peppers that were tossed in some olive oil and some thyme leaves. The broccoli is frozen I just cooked quick in the microwave, thought we needed something green to eat. It all turned out lovely and actually quite quick again to cook. Guess this is the biggest difference between the old stove and this new one, the timing of the cooking. This one is like a super powered high performance machine and the poor old cooker (it did serve us well for over 15 years) was like an old sedan. We are going to be cooking a roast this Sunday and I will let you know how that gets on....

June 17th 2007

The other day I decided I wanted a salad of sorts for supper, and so we had this I sometimes over do things and probably could learn to simplify things a little. But it was rather yummy!!!
I started out pan frying some butternut squash and boiled some salad potatoes and about 10 minutes till they were finished threw in some fresh trimmed green beans just till they were blanched. Drained the potatoes and beans and placed in a bowl with the squash, Some halved cherry tomatoes and a tin of mixed bean salad. Tossed all together with a little fresh lemon juice and some olive oil, Fresh ground black pepper and served on a bed of rocket leaves. Sprinkled on some cubes of the Comte cheese and there you go.... Supper. Served with the remaing tomato bread that I toasted under the grill...



COOK BOOKS!
Something about me maybe some of you don't know. I know that anyone that has visited my home knows.... I collect cookbooks... Some people say ' you can't cook every recipe!!!' I know that. Some folks read novels, I read cookbooks. I may not follow the recipes in them to the letter, but they do inspire me to cook and to experiment with food. And I love them all and can't bring myself to part with any of them. Even the one Delia cookbook I have put in the loft. She isn't my fav chef at all. Sorry to the Delia fans. I have some very old ones that you would need to visit an antique shop to buy the equipment that they suggest you use.... I have some of my American ones, which I shipped over when I came about 10 years ago and some that I have bought and had shipped over since. Like one of my old favourites that I left behind... the 1975 yellow binder Pillsbury cookbook. That was my first cookbook and I left it with my son Dan when I moved here. I love my French, German, Belgium and Austrian cookbooks as they are what inspire me to learn their secrets by learning to translate them. It takes alot longer to cook from them than the others, but when I visit these countries I know what to order from the menus. I have a whole set of Australian Womans weekly ones. I have celebrity chef ones..... AWT,Gary Rhodes, Robert Carrier, Madhur Jaffrey, Pat Chapman, and Jamie Oliver to name just a few. Not got a Gordon Ramesey one yet or a Keith Floyd. But there is still time. The problem is space...

I have a couple of shelves in the dining area...

A whole bookshelf that is bowing from the weight!!!

And I have moved into the Living room and upstairs too in the computer room, bed room and some are actually in the loft. Now you would think with this many cooking books that every possible recipe that has ever been cooked would be in them.... But you know what there are still more possibilities out there....... It is just fascinating that people write so much about food!!! And now there are blogs with recipes on them. Amazing! But not sure what it does for an obsessive collector like myself. It means not only will I be filling my shelves with recipes, but my computer will be filled with them too!!!! It is probably a good thing I haven't figured out how to use an Ipod or it would be filled with recipes too.....Just learning about podcasts here....I found this lovely site while surfing and it has video recipes....Video Recipe site.
Am I the only one with this obsession or are there more out there just like me???????

Smoothies

After visiting Borough Market and buying a smoothie to help quench our thirst, Brian has decided he would like to have some made here at home. So here is our first one! Take a couple of handfulls of red seedless grapes, some pitted fresh cherries, two apricots, 1/2 grapefruit, 1 banana and some ice cubes a bit of orange juice and a dribble of leftover lemonade all in the blender and Whala!!!! Smoothie!!!Now I think we have had our 5 a day in one drink!!! So anything else is a bonus, right? Will be trying other smoothie recipes out... I did manage to find a whole bunch of smoothie recipes on the net. But again will only be using them as a starting point for our own concoctions.

Classics
Okay I cook, but I don't always follow recipes. I like to use them as guides. And recently I have been thinking I need to probably start learning some of the classics of cooking such as sauces. And I came across this recipe and decided I had all the ingredients to make it. And it is something I have never done before.... So it is the start of my learning the classics.... a Sabayon.
Take 2 egg yolks in a bowl, finely grated rind of a lemon and 44 grams of caster sugar.. and mix on high for about 8 minutes.

Must be pale in colour and thick. Now heat up100 ml of a dry white wine just until it is almost boiling. And then pour the wine into the yolk mixture while beating on low until mixed. Then put all back into the pan on a very low heat and stirring with a wooden spoon for about 4 minutes until it is thickened and coats the back of the spoon. Don't over heat or it will curdle the recipe says. Well I didn't so was rather lucky there. Now place into a bowl over ice and stir occasionally until it is chilled. Now if this was to set, it didn't but instead was really light and airy. I served it over some fresh cherries and mandarin orange segments.

It was a definate thumbs up from hubby. My changes next time would be to possibly use canned cherries or maybe even some fresh peach slices. Or strawberries... It is one to use for when my step son comes for a visit too as it has no dairy in it.


Last nights Supper

I have more sunblushed tomatoes still from the trip to Borough Market and I am trying desperately not to let them go off. Not just because I love the taste of them, which I do... So I made some Focaccia with them. Take210 ml warm water and place in the bread mixer pan, add in a couple of tablespoons of tomato purree, 1Tablespoon olive oil, then ontop of this add in 350g strong bread flour(I used 100g of spelt flour and 250 of strong white) place 1/2 tsp of table salt in one corner and 1tsp sugar in another and 1 packet of yeast in the middle. I put it on the dough setting again and when it knocked to add in the nuts or what ever I added 1 cup full of chopped sunblushed tomatoes, 1 chopped onion, some dried oregano, fennel seeds, chopped fresh rosemary and some pine nuts. Let it go through the cycle and then once it is done then put on board and knead with a little flour. It was a bit on the sticky side. Put into a square 9x9 cake tin that has been oiled well and poke holes into it. Cover with plastic wrap and a tea towel and let stand for about 30 minutes till it doubles in size. Preheat oven to 200°C. Poke holes again and drizzle with olive oil, and top with your fav toppings. I added mor sunblushed tomatoes, poked down into the bread, some onion slices, fresh rosemary and some fresh grated paremsan.

Let sit for 10 minutes and then bake for about 20 -25 minutes. This turned out alot more flavoursome than the tomato bread of the other day.



Now I told you I get ideas when cooking. This one tasted really yummy, but my presentation leaves alot to be desired. I wanted something like Tuna Niscoise, but wanted pasta too. So here is my creation....

Spaghetti ala Tuna Niscoise, minus the anchovies(don't like those!)

I took two frozen tuna steaks and defrosted them. Put into a dish some olive oil, juice of 1/2 lemon, some white wine. Chopped fine 1 clove of garlic, some fresh rosemary, dried oregano and basil, some chopped fresh marjoram and then marinated the tuna in this for an hour or so in the fridge. Turing over once or twice and spooning on the mix.
Cooked some wholemeal spaghetti in one pan of boiling water and in another boiled some potatoes, right before the potatoes were finished I added some fresh green beans and some asparagus. In a large frying pan I sauteed 1 chopped onion then added and in another smaller frying pan, pan fry the tuna on both sides. Add the drained vegetables to the large pan and toss well with some olive oil, chopped tomatoes(4 plum) and some sliced black olives. Drizzle with lemon juice and heat through. Drain pasta and put on plate, top with the veg and at the last minute add the marinating liquid to the tuna pan. Top veg with tuna and spoon over the sauce. Freshly grated parmesan and a sprig of basil. Oh and dress with two hard boiled eggs cut in quarters (these I boiled first and had on hand). I know it looks a bit of a mess, but it was really tasty!!!!