Yummy fish dish

Despite the diagnosed and continuing diverticulitis which I have had for maybe 40 years or so...I needed to eat something like this!

In a large frying pan with lid heat 2 tablespoons olive oil. 
Add one or two crushed / chopped garlic cloves and a teaspoon of Aleppo pepper (chilli flakes). Cook, stirring often, until fragrant for about three minutes or less.
Add smashed canned whole peeled tomatoes or chopped fresh ones with tomato puree, a splosh of white wine, bay leaves, a pinch of saffron previously soaked in boiled water.
Bring to boil and reduce heat.
Simmer for about 5–7 minutes.
Stir to blend during this time to prevent stickiness.
Season with salt and pepper.
Add two or four skinned cod fillets or steaks on top ... depends how much sauce you have made.. Cover with lid and steam for another 5 -7 minutes... basting fish as you go! 
Use fish slice to serve sieved tomatoes onto centre of plate, then cod, then sauce, then sprinkle with rocket, served with one or two tiny new potatoes cooked in the microwave and a few broccoli trees.
DIVINE!  but I needed to have reduced my sauce more!

Ah-mund-buns

Last week I baked little cakes for little people with this recipe doubled:
Almond Buns
180g caster sugar and the same of butter beaten together until creamy then 4 eggs whipped in with 80g flour and a sprinkle of baking powder plus 150g ground almonds.  You could do 230g ground almonds for gluten free!  Then mix in more or less 100g marzipan cut into small lumps. Add milk if necessary. Beat well. Spoon into cases and add whatever dried fruits you have. Unfortunately I didn't have any blueberries / bilberries / myrtilles and I wasn't sure if the kiddies liked ginger, so I used expensive dried raspberries and mini-smarties! mmmmmmmmmmmmm but avoided M&Ms a fave of mine! Peanuts!  Bake, 180C,  but my oven is just HOT... one stat without a timer...  hence one batch got double baked as I gave the buns just a few more minutes (ahem) forgetting they were on the bottom shelf!!!!!!!!!!!! Their daddy said,  after I had cut off the paper and we were all enjoying the twice baked cakes, they would be good with custard. I agree! But then they were gone!

Mix up the mixture

Spoon into pretty baking cases

Decorate with crystallised raspberries and smarties

or cranberries

Four of the not baked twice buns gifted to each twin

My-made cards for twins

We played Connect, magnetic shapes, Kerplunk bees in the tree...drank copious cups of tea.

Chocolate, Apple and Vanilla Cake

“Yummy Chocolate, Apple and Vanilla Cake”
for Teddy Bears Picnic Cake
for the Cardinal
at the Clandestine Cake Club

This recipe has been created from inspiration in my favourite cake cookery books and from recipes on the internet.  The quantity of ingredients and actual ingredients are not quite the same as any of the recipes that I studied ... I like to tweak culinary ideas! 

Cream together 225g butter and 225g light brown sugar until creamy. Then beat in 4 eggs previously whisked separately. Add and fold in 200 or 225g sieved plain flour with a large teaspoonful of sieved baking powder or bicarbonate of soda, with 50g unsweetened cocoa powder plus vanilla powder or essence according to taste.  Add 100g small pieces of dark black chocolate. I used POULAIN Noir Extra. Add one and half or two dessert apples, which have been cored, peeled and cut into small pieces. Fold in and beat to a firm batter consistency. You may need to add a little milk. Pour into two Victoria sandwich tins oiled and coated with a layer of flour. Bake in a medium to hot oven for 20 minutes but check and take longer at a cooler temperature if necessary. My oven temperatures are not indicative of others! When cool sandwich together with chocolate butter icing.

The theme of the event was: Picnic Cakes... so the fun parent-teacher part of my past thought that A Picnic Cake has to be for teddies!  So.. what kind of cake shall I make? A brown as the earth cake. A green as the grass cake without colourants! Rummaging in my cake decoration collection there is a green ribbon with clover, and look, here are the teddies - mummy, daddy, older teddy with his dog and younger teddy with his book.  A French fêve from an Epiphany cake models Pain du Miel (honeycake) and three bees amongst the daisies with a couple of fir trees in te background could tell the story! The idea of a tartan ribbon blanket disintegrated, so French squared paper and a red felt pen created the perfect picnic rug... but as it was sticking to the squidgey sponge I found the correct size of laminated card... perfect as the models stood or sat in place. They behaved impeccably whilst Great Granpa Bear removed himself from the piano to oversee the event and to present two chocolate liqueurs to 'a happy couple' who will be wed in two weeks time!

 And it wasn't all eaten!!!

Tartiflette

Last week I was sustained by this wonderful heaven.
The poor person's version is to buy a round of Tartiflette rather than the more expensive pukka Reblochon from Haute-Savoie, which I have to divulge is infinitely superior especially with a local white wine.
Anyway, not being on the ski slopes........
In a pan sautée onions and just before they are ready add lots of crushed fresh garlic to golden up.
In a pan cook until just soft some sliced Cherie or other variety of waxy potatoes with skins on.
Now in my version for the very first time I sautéed aubergine finely chopped.  Trés originale je pense!
Layer all the vegetables in a pan that you have oiled. I added dried sage and seasoning between the layers. Press down. Pour in a dash of white wine.  Cut the round of cheese horizontally through the centre and position the gooey side down onto the potatoes. Now, if you have another round of cheese you could quarter one, to position it onto any potatoes that won't get a slurp of cheese!  Bake in a reasonably hot oven but if cooking too quickly turn the heat down and wait a little longer!
N.B. Basically, it is a cheese and potato pie so you could try any melting cheese but nothing replaces the smell and taste of Alpine comfort dairy food!

Date and Pineapple Oatcake Slice

  

I put about 200g stoned dates with a little water in a pan and then used the potato masher to bash into a puree. After that I added about a quarter of a large finely sliced fresh pineapple which I'd bought just before Christmas for 1.50 euros and kept it in my cold pantry to ripen.

In a bowl weigh 350g s.r. flour and 350g oats with 250g brown sugar and 250g butter, a large pinch salt and a large pinch vanilla powder. Crumble together with the fingers.

In a greased tin... sprinkle and pat down just under 1cm thick crumble...then spoon the date and pineapple mixture over the crumble pressing smooth, followed by a final layer of crumble. Press with your fingers or a spoon.
Bake in an oven about 190 / 200C for about 20 to 30 minutes...when the oaty mixture is golden and not white looking.   Slice whilst still warm and serve with crême fraîche.

 

There was more pineapple and more crumble. So I made a further dessert with only pineapple in the centre which I shall eat for breakfast as well as dessert... and a smaller sized pineapple-upside-down with a crumble instead of a sponge!!!! Deeeeeeeeelish!

My friend doesn't often make desserts so it seemed a fair exchange for table talk with 5 adults, 3 kiddies, champagne with salmon canapés, Chinon rouge and roast chicken with vegetables, goats cheese with a red Bordeaux, a sweet 2005 Bergerac with my dessert, black coffee and then I watched the 2013 movie "Frozen" with the little ones until the sun had almost set!  Ah....... I am alive!

An Epiphany cake

I was inspired by a reference to an Epiphany cake by Nigel Slater.  He advocates using a machine but making it without is much more fun.  In fact I started it yesterday afternoon but finished it today lunchtime!  I noticed how many this serves but I advise you to make it anyway and freeze half if there is any left!

It’s an enriched yeasted dough with icing or glacé fruits. I didn’t have any, so used dried fruits (I was thinking of les mendiants)  and honey and served it with thick cream.

My own addition of raisins and spices was spurred by the thought of Hot Cross Buns!

If you compare with Nigel’s recipe you can see I have adapted it a little.  Here’s my version.

RECIPE:

200ml water
160ml milk  I used 200ml but this was a mistake making the dough too wet and needing more flour! See below.
one Clementine, tangerine or small orange    I didn’t have any so used orange flower water and orange juice
lemon 1  the zest and juice of one lemon
125g butter
125g sugar
2 eggs
600g plain flour – actually probably about 800g if you add extra milk (see above)

nutmeg, mace, cinnamon  ( my addition)
2 teaspoons dried yeast  I used 2cm cube of fresh yeast.

Pinch of sea salt

A handful of currants or raisins (my addition)
beaten egg mixed with a little milk ….. I forgot
whole crystallised fruits  or dried fruits cut into small pieces as necessary and runny honey.

I used cranberries, raspberries, crystallised ginger, pineapple, papaya, mango, cherries, pear, apricots, cut mixed peel, I nearly added a few nuts but then felt it was already rather crowded on top!

For the Chantilly cream:
mascarpone 250g
whipped cream 200ml

METHOD

§  Put the water and milk into a saucepan with the grated zest of citrus fruits then bring almost to the boil. Remove from the heat and leave to infuse until warm.  

§  NB I added orange juice to the flour and yeast mix to avoid curdling the milk. Again this was too much liquid!

§  Meanwhile, cream butter and sugar until soft.  Beat in the eggs.

§  In a separate large bowl, mix yeast and salt with the flour.  Then add the warm milk mixture, beating the liquid into the flour with a wooden spoon.

§  At this stage I let the yeast mixture rise in a warm place. Put a damp tea towel over the top of the bowl. It will take time. 

§  Then when it is nice and warm and showing evidence of rising beat it into the creamed butter, sugar and egg.  Give it a good knead and return to the large bowl. Again leave in a warm place for a few hours to rise to about twice its original size. 

§  Knock it back and at this point I placed it in the fridge overnight in the covered bowl.

§  The next morning after I’d warmed it up near the woodburner it had a beautiful elasticity once it had risen again. 

§  Onto a floured board I kneaded it again.

§  Cut it into two halves and rolled each half into a sausage shape.

§  Then each one was formed it into a ring on its own flat, oiled baking sheet.

§  I could have brushed the dough with a little beaten egg and milk but I was inventing so drooled runny honey around the top of each ring. Then I stabbed the fruit into the surface of the dough.

§  Back to a warm place to rise for about 15 minutes. 

§  Then bake in a HOT oven for 25 minutes or until a knife in the dough comes out clean.

§  Cut into slices and serve cream. It was DELICIOUS.   Won't be any left for the freezer!

Unfortunately, some of the dried fruits got a bit blackened but didn't taste unpleasant. All very yummy for a return to work day when temperatures are falling and we need comfort food. 

For lunch I followed a Prue Leith recipe for fish curry, did my own dry fried turmeric potatoes and invented a carrot ribbon, mint and creme fraiche accompaniment.

Black Banana Bread

with thanks to Nigel Slater for inspiration. However, my version is slightly different:

• 180g brown sugar and the same of butter 
• 3 eggs  
• 180g flour with a teaspoonful of baking powder
• one old banana at least a month old. For about two years, I haven't felt inclined to eat bananas, because they don't seem to have the correct taste, texture and ripeness.  This one was left in my cold larder when a visitor arrived at the end of October. 
• a handful of salted almonds (you could use walnuts)
• a large handful of chocolate GOJI berries
• a handful of oats
• drops of vanilla essence

1. Preheat a HOT oven and an oiled loaf tin or line with a baking paper container.
2. Beat the butter and sugar. 
3. Add eggs to butter and sugar mixture, then mix in toasted crushed ground almonds, flour, baking powder, vanilla extract, mashed banana and goji berries.
4. Mix well and pour into the tin. Dust with demerara sugar. Bake for about 1 hour.

It was intended to be a light lunch!

Four arrived to chat whilst nibbling smoked almonds with cashew nuts to complement bubbling Cremant de Loire.  Two woodburners kept my L shaped ground floor cheerful against the rain. Lunch was served:
Leek & Potato Soup
Cut lengthwise 3 or 4 leeks, wash to remove all dirt, then cut horizontally into fine ribbons. Into a large saute pan add a large shaking of olive oil, the leeks as well as 4 cloves of crushed, chopped garlic.  Add 800 to 1kg of peeled potatoes chopped into small cubes, with one litre of chicken or vegetable stock. Season with bay leaves. Simmer until soft. Use a potato squasher to squash some of the cubed potatoes. If you prefer fewer lumps you could whizz half of the quantity in the blender.  Add one pint of milk. Season to taste with more salt and pepper and I also added fennel seeds.  You could add a large dollop of sour cream or creme fraiche or add a spoonful to each bowl of soup which I think looks prettier.  Sprinkle with dill, paprika and black pepper.
Fish Lasagne served with Riesling
Prepare:
1. Saute onions and garlic.
2. Separately saute chopped chunks of red pepper and tiny chopped sweet chilli style pepper.
3. Make cheese sauce with a roux of flour, milk, cheddar cheese.
4. Cook diced carrots.
5. Cut filleted and deboned hake/pollack/colin fish (lieu noir) into large cubes.
6. Part of a inexpensive packet of smoked salmon pieces.
7. Packet of tomato puree.
8. Seasoning, herbs plus paprika.
Contruct:
1. Oil a lasagne dish. Scatter cooked onions onto base. Place 3 leaves of Lasagne pasta.
2. Scatter more onions, red peppers, carrots, seasoning, fish, tomato puree + 3 leaves pasta.
3. Repeat 2.
4. Cover with runny cheese sauce. Grate cheese on top. Sprinkle with paprika.
5. Bake in a hot oven for apx 20 to 30 minutes.  It can be left to cool but cook for another 15 minutes.
6. Serve with Mesclun salad or broccoli florets. 
St Maure de Touraine Goats Cheese with Mesclun.  
We donned wet gear to walk to Witches Rock. On our return we enjoyed 
Spicy Ginger Pear Roulade with Earl Grey Tea
1. Peel and core 3 or 4 large Conference pears. Dice into a saucepan, add 30g butter plus 60g sugar and simmer gently until soft but pears still in their shape.
2. 120g plain flour, teaspoonful bicarb or baking powder, spices of ginger, cinnamon, allspice, mace, nutmeg, tagine mix as you wish.
3. In a pan melt 30g butter plus 1 large spoonful golden syrup and the same of black treacle. Beat in one egg and juices from pears.
4. Mix 2 and 3 together... beat hard...
5. Pour into a rectangular Swiss roll tin lined with baking sheet paper twisted at corners which has been scattered with sieved icing sugar.  Bake in a hot oven for 15 minutes or so. Leave to cool for a few minutes and roll the paper and sponge cake. Unroll. Add pears (use remainder for breakfast!) and thick cream spread over the top... use the paper to help you roll. Keep wrapped tightly and put in the fridge or a cold place. Decorate with sieved icing sugar. Serve alone or with extra cream but that WOULD be naughtily over indulgent!!

NB  Mesclun is a  Provençal salad.  Mescla means "mixture".  The salad should include chervil and  rocket,  lettuces and endive in equal proportions, but the modern version may include spinach, Swiss chard, mustard greens, endive, dandelion, lamb's lettuce, radiccio, sorrel  or other leaf vegetables.

I have a problem loading photographs because Google tells me that Picasa wishes me to purchase more space... I am going to have to work on this because it appears that some photos on my blogs are too large... Oh tedium!!!!!! I do not like Picasa but I suppose I need it! 

UPDATE:

I received two suggestions but cannot find the 'purrfect' one that Ron Ron made.

Almost Midnight

......and savouring the first glass of red as I look at the first ever attempt at making a

"Tarte aux Pommes Classique"

Yes, of course I have made many an apple pie that might even have looked me in the eye like this one....... but...... this has had to be special because it is for a competition. It will be my first ever "concours" if I can get it to the destination intact.  The weather is forecast with an ORANGE alert meaning that there are going to floods and floods means RAIN RAIN RAIN... We've already had 18mm in 24 hours and before that 60 mm since Sunday evening. 
It will be scrutinised and tasted by French experts!  I don't favour my chances but everyone who enters gets something, so that in itself will be a reward.  I am doing it for the fun of FIRSTS.  I don't fancy being a judge. They are going to have to taste quite a few tarts!  If there is part of my tart looking still edible, then I am allowed to collect it after prizes have been distributed! 
I WOULD LIKE THE MIDNIGHT FEAST NOW!
Eventually after much decision making I decided not to add lavender to the pastry and not to add cinnamon to the apples.  I thought the taste and texture should speak for itself.
Cheers... I deserve this glass of red!
It's been a wet and whiney day! 

A Bilberry Cake

.Life is not exact nor is the weight of these ingredients!

Preheat the oven to about 200C but all ovens are different.

My inherited ancient oven has no temperature .. just numbers!!!!!

So keep an eye on the cake, adjust temperature and timing as necessary.

I used a springform cake tin greased with butter or oil.

 

Cream together 150 g butter with 150 g sugar. Beat in 2 or 3 eggs with a large dollop of crême fraîche or milk. Add 1 or 2 teaspoons of vanilla or lemon essence.

In another bowl mix 150g ground almonds with 150g rice flour, spelt or wheat flour.

Add about 2 tsp baking powder and 200 grams bilberries.

Fold the wet mixture into the dry mixture and add extra milk if required to make a loosely thick batter that holds together....  The bilberries can be folded in after the flour but for me that would be two lots of folding in!   Pour the gloop into the tin and bake for 30-45 minutes until the cake is done. 

Once cooled, the cake could be covered with lemon icing but my palate is rather tired of such frivolous sticky messes and so a spoonful of crême fraîche or ice cream may suffice or nothing at all does suffice.  I tried two dollops as biscuits and mighty good they were.

Date and Almond Buns or Slices

• Rub 110g butter into 225g flour sieved with 1 teaspoon of baking powder and the same of salt. 
• Add 110g or just less of brown sugar 
• plus 85g chopped dates (in France buy a paste of dates) 
• plus 85g almond slivers (substitute walnuts)
• Mix all with one egg and a slosh of milk to get the required consistency to form sticky balls.
• Place on a greaseproof sheeted tray or spread into a circular Victoria sandwich tin.

It's all very simple... bake in a hot oven for about 15 minutes....smelling to assess if it is ready!!!!!!!
YUM... Photos were not taken!!!!!!! Next time j'ajouterais.........

Gingerbread Parkin and Raku pottery

In the last few weeks I have indulged in making three batches of this winter cake: Gingerbread Parkin

I have a wonderful book called “Talking about Cakes” by Margaret Bates. It has an emphasis on Irish and Scottish tastes. This was published in 1964 and she died in 1968.  I bought it in 1973 and has been such a mainstay that the pages have come adrift from their sewn binding and the pages are brown.  It should go with me to my grave, but not before I have passed on several of my favourite recipes and this was another….. a prelude to flapjacks.  The recipes have to be converted to metric but that’s easily done.
Yesterday I went to a Raku course given by my pottery teacher. I’d already modelled several things which needed glazing but during the morning I made two more items. They’ll wait for the next Raku firing as they have to be dried, I think!   It is rather challenging to listen to French people for a two hour lunch and later to get into trouble because although I know I shouldn’t, I HAD managed to cover my fingers in oxide glaze! 

 Well, I digress, as usual!  Even though I am ‘off task’ from domestic cleaning tasks, I am attending to two admin tasks:

1.   Provide the recipe for the RAKU group. They think they can substitute the golden syrup for honey or maple syrup!  I know this will not be the same but actually I should try it and see.  

      I have to translate the recipe into French!

2.   Provide the posting for this blog site.

PARKIN  comes from the North of England especially in the Leeds region.  It is a form of gingerbread and is best kept for up to a week but fresh from the oven it is delicious with stewed apples and a clod of cream.

So here we go:  Mix together the following dried ingredients:

225g flour

225g oatmeal

100g sugar or 110g if you prefer it sweeter

2 tsps baking powder

2 tsps ginger or I use 1 of ginger and 1 of cinnamon

In a pan warm and melt together 55g butter, a very large dollop of golden syrup and the same of black treacle. The recipe says 165g of each but it’s messy weighing it out! Add some milk, beat well and remove before it starts to get hot. 

Mix with the dry ingredients, add more milk if necessary until it is a pouring consistency. Pour into a greased shallow tin and bake in a hot oven for about 20 minutes or so. Keep an eye and remove when golden brown and firm or bouncy to the touch. 

First Tuesday Salad Days

Two beautiful songs to celebrate the first Tuesday moving stone, sand, gravel, garden pots then clearing and sweeping the courtyard now that the drainage solutions are complete.  

Another load for the déchetterie.  

Another fine lunch: different salads with fresh smoked mackerel from the fishmonger - a whole fish which I skinned and deboned, flaked with aioli and served on toasted 'sweet chestnut and fig' bread from the local bakery.   

In French markets and supermarkets, cooked "betterave" is often a long variety. I love the way the crunchy, darkened, brown skin can be pulled off.  A favourite salad is to chop beetroots, garlic, leeks, cooking/eating apple, then mix with sultanas or raisins, mayonnaise or aioli, lemon juice/rind and season to taste.

The whistling wind arrived late afternoon and so it was to batten down the hatches,  keep warm by the fireside with less physical activity.

First of all, The Moody Blues and Tuesday Afternoon 1967

followed by 

The Rolling Stones and Ruby Tuesday 1967

 

 

She would never say where she came from

Yesterday don't matter if it's gone

While the sun is bright

Or in the darkest night

No one knows

She comes and goes

Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday

Who could hang a name on you?

When you change with every new day

Still I'm gonna miss you...

Don't question why she needs to be so free

She'll tell you it's the only way to be

She just can't be chained

To a life where nothing's gained

And nothing's lost

At such a cost

Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday

Who could hang a name on you?

When you change with every new day

Still I'm gonna miss you...

There's no time to lose, I heard her say

Catch your dreams before they slip away

Dying all the time

Lose your dreams

And you will lose your mind.

Ain't life unkind?

Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday

Who could hang a name on you?

When you change with every new day

Still I'm gonna miss you...

FRENCH LANGUAGE:

betterave /bɛtʀav/ feminine noun =  beet ~ rouge beetroot

aioli = garlic mayonnaise

ail  pluriel = l'ails or l'aulx /aj/o/ masculine noun = garlic 

poireau, pl ~x /pwaʀo/ masculine noun  = leek