Spicing up my cooking

I love Indian food. It is one of the first things I learned to cook from scratch properly beyond the standard things that my parents cooked. They are pretty easy as they are reasonably forgiving. They can take a bit of time though and when I plan meals now, I have to be mindful of cooking time and not making anything too hot so that the children will eat them. Occasionally, I dip into the world of curry paste but I never use cooking sauces. It goes against my nature. Call me a food snob if you like. 

I always marvel at how quickly they can make the dishes in restaurants and take aways so when Living Social invited some bloggers including myself to Dilli restaurant in Altrincham to join one of their cookery classes, I made sure I could get there and see how they do it. 

You notice I've not mentioned "curry" so far. As we were told by one of the two chefs that taught us, curry basically means "gravy". And masala? "Sauce"!

At the start of our day, we were shown how to make onion bhajis. Apparently, the key is to leave your onions mixed for a while to draw out some of the water as this makes the onions crisper. We got to sample them with a tamarind dip and a mint dip, both totally unlike the stuff you usually get with it. They also made potato and onion bhaji which was not made into balls, so it was a bit like eating spicy fries! 

Less Stepford Wife, more Slummy Mummy

I've realised looking through my blog posts, that if all you knew of me was from reading them, you might think I was a bit of a Stepford Wife. Well, apart from my really rubbish photography; I fear there may be no hope for me on that front. I remembered a post from my lovely blogger friend Rachael on her blog about this very subject - although she aspires to a Martha Stewart existence, even if the reality doesn't live up to the picture in her head.

On the face of it, my Stepford credentials seem impeccable. In recent years, I have started to make stuff that most people of sound mind prefer to buy in a supermarket - like bread, jam (not always that successfully), and chutney from time to time. I bake cakes or make puddings. I plan weekly menus in advance, cook from scratch and try new recipes every week. All I need is twinset and pearls, kitten heels, and shampoo and set and my transformation would be complete, like this lovely lady. So you would think.

The reality is somewhat different. This may come as a shock, but my Slummy Mummy credentials are far, far more impressive. If there was an interview for the position, I would surely ace it. Here's the supporting statement I wrote for my application.

• I frequently do the school run wearing my gym gear. I fall out of bed, throw on some trackies and a t-shirt, put a fleece or coat over the top and off I go. And that's the afternoon. Classy and stylish, it is not.
• I am rubbish at stacking the dishwasher. At least that's what my husband says. This normally means he does it wherever possible. I like this.
• I don't iron. Well, sometimes I do, but they put the flags out to mark the occasion.
• I don't paint my nails. Painting nails is something I class as a "craft activity" which means it is Something I Am Rubbish At, so I don't do it.
• On a similar front, I rarely wear make up. I forget to do it quite a lot. I wear it for special occasions. 
• And don't talk to me about eye-liner or mascara, we're back to craft activities.  The effect is more panda bear than sexy siren. 
• And hair? I have straighteners. I have hairdryer. I'm lucky if I use either. 
• The only designer clothing item I own is my wedding dress. As that is not really suitable for everyday use, I own no designer clothes at all, unless you count George as a designer.
• I don't wear matching underwear. In fact, I'd go so far as to say I am deeply suspicious of anyone whose bra and pants always match. What's that about?
• Put me in high heels and I waddle like a duck, before adopting a fetching hobble after walking approximately 0.125 miles. Killer heels? Yes, if you count my feet and ankles. 
• I don't think I could pipe swirls onto cupcakes to save my life. Making any cake look pretty is a tough call for me; yet another craft activity. Piping is likely to be a step too far. I may give it a whirl at some point, then take pictures so you can all laugh.
• And whilst I'm on craft activities, I can't sew, paint, knit or crochet. Let's not go there. The only hand-crafted gifts you are likely to get from me are food-related, and then they'll be misshapen.
• I am a messy cook. By the time I've finished, all the cupboard doors are open and there's barely a worktop unmolested by the detritus of my cooking. Thankfully, if I set my mind to it, the kitchen is usually found underneath the mess after some not inconsiderable effort.
• I have children so I am adept at turning into Shouty Mum when stressed.

So, don't let me fool you. I am far more Slummy Mummy than I am Stepford Wife. Read my posts with that in mind. Imagine the mess that went to create the culinary disasters delights, imagine the children that go unwashed whilst I blog or tweet, and you won't go far wrong. 

Mum's cooking... Coffee Cake

I'm writing this post in response to a new challenge out there in Blogland called Oui Chef! on the Beckicklesie blog, written by the lovely Beckickles and her other half, Cheffy Daddy. It's a challenge about, obviously, food, and entrants earn points to ascend through various levels.

This month's prompt is "Mum's Cooking". Now, this is not that straightforward for me as my mum is not one of the world's great cooks. If anyone did "proper" cooking in our house, it was my Dad. Mum did the basics but didn't really like cooking. It stemmed from a thyroid condition that she had before I was born, which took away her appetite. She found it easier to eat if someone else cooked for her so Dad did. By the time I came along, my Dad often worked late into the evening to repay a loan so Mum had to cook. Nothing fancy - mostly mince in its various forms, the odd roast, rissoles and stuff out of packets like fishfingers.

There is, however, one thing that Mum could make. She wasn't a big baker but she made coffee cake from time to time. It was just a Victoria sponge with coffee added, with coffee buttercream icing. As kids, we would obviously get to lick the bowl and the taste of the sponge mix with coffee added was divine.

I decided to recreate mum's sponge on a whim this evening but I decided to do it the quick way as an all in one sponge. For each large egg, you need 2oz (55g) of soft butter, self-raising flour and caster sugar. To make an 8-in sandwich, you need about 3 eggs, so you need 6oz (170g) of each. After sifting flour in to a bowl, adding in a rounded teaspoon of baking powder and a couple of teaspoons of instant coffee, you add all the other ingredients to the bowl and mix, preferably with an electric hand mixer. It takes about 1 minute, longer if you are having to use a manual whisk or spoon . If the mixture easily drops off a spoon, its fine, but if it's too stiff, add in a couple of tablespoons of milk or water to loosen it until that consistency is reached. Then divide the mixture between two greased and paper lined sandwich tins, level the tops and bake at 170 C / 325 F / Gas mark 3 for 30-35 mins until the mixture springs back when lightly pressed. Leave them in their tins for 5 mins before removing and leaving to cool on a rack completely.

I tasted a bit of the cake mix when I was making this, and was transported back to my mum's tiny kitchen - it tasted exactly the same. This cake must have been my first experience of coffee as a child, and I just thought coffee was sweet like the cake mixture. Well, I guess it was in those days - everyone had sugar in their coffee!

Onto the icing. I dissolved a couple of teaspoons of instant coffee in a little bit of hot water whilst the cakes were baking so that it could cool down to use in the icing. Then I just mixed 4oz (115g) of softened butter and 8oz (225g) of sifted icing sugar together then added the coffee mixture. Half was used to sandwich the cakes together and the rest spread on top of the cake. Mum used to add walnut halves sometimes but I hadn't got any in. Excuse the picture - I took this on my phone, which has no flash. Yeah, yeah, I know - rubbish blogger.

My verdict? Just like Mum used to make! This is pretty close to her version. Whenever I have coffee cake, as it's an option I frequently choose, it always reminds me of my childhood. This is Mum's cooking.

Kids food - Quick Quesadillas

Wraps. My kids love them, but they haven't worked out the right way to eat them so they make the unholiest of messes, particularly as they like cheesy beans in them. When they want wraps, and I have leftover stuff to use, I offer them quesadillas because it's a cross between wraps and pizza - which they also love - and makes less mess (nothing my kids eat makes no mess).

Pretty much anything that can be chopped up and cooked in a pan can go in the filling. I add chicken, sometimes minced beef, but frequently, it's just veg and cheese. It helps get certain veg down them that they sometimes won't eat in other things. Beans are a a nice vegetarian addition to make it more substantial.

How much this feeds will depend on the size of the wrap you use. This time, I used Asda ones which are small so it fed 2 but the Discovery ones are much bigger; you need a lot more filling and I can feed 4 small children with those. Alternatively, make your own. My children are quite good with spices as long as they are not too hot. Rein back the spices as you see fit.

Here's the recipe for the specimen as featured on this post. It takes 15 minutes to do so great if you're short of time.

Quesadillas

Ingredients

2 wraps
1 tbsp oil
1 clove garlic, peeled and crushed or chopped
1 red onion, halved and thinly sliced
1 tsp mild chilli powder
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
Large handful of button mushrooms, sliced
1 small red pepper, deseeded and sliced into strips
1 small courgette, halved then sliced
1 tbsp tomato puree (optional)
1-2oz cheddar cheese, or to taste (I use extra mature)

Method

Start by turning your grill onto medium high.

1. Heat the oil in a frying pan or wok. Add the onion and garlic and fry until softened. Add the spices, and stir for about a minute. Stir in the veg, allowing the oil and spices to coat everything and cook for up to 5 minutes. Add the tomato puree and cook for another minute. Taste and season.

2. Place one of the wraps on a baking sheet. Spread the veg mixture evenly across the wrap and grate over two thirds of the cheese. Place the other wrap over the top, and grate over the rest of the cheese.

3. Place under the grill until the cheese is melted and slightly golden; this rarely takes more than a couple of minutes so keep an eye on it. If you have a griddle pan big enough, you can place it in a hot griddle pan for a couple of minutes per side. I don't bother as it involves turning the whole thing over but it does mean you get those pretty griddle lines on it.

4. Remove from the grill and cut into wedges.

I like to do carrot sticks, cucumber sticks and cherry tomatoes for the children to eat with it but as you can see, we only had cherry tomatoes in the day I made this! Don't make the filling too wet and work fast once you put the veg on the bottom wrap otherwise it can go soggy. Using a griddle pan would probably solve this but it's too fiddly for me - I reckon the filling would fall out turning it.

If I do add chicken and using raw meat, I slice it thinly and cook it through before the onions,  remove it and add it back in with the veg, which is the same point at which I would add cooked chicken or other meat.

Feel free to make up your own variations. Have a go and I'd love to see your efforts if you try. Happy cooking!

Chicken Pie!

Pie is not often on the menu in our house due to my husband's wheat avoidance. He was reacting to wheat and has avoided it for around 8 years but recently, has eaten some things with wheat in and not suffered any reaction so he has been widening the range of foods he now eats.

I have really wanted to make a chicken pie for a while so last weekend, I bought some ready rolled pastry. I don't generally do pastry and most recipes just recommend buying it, so that's what I did. I hunted around for a decent recipe and found this on the BBC Good Food website, which is a source I use quite a lot for simple but nice recipes.

I liked this because it included vegetables so it meant everything cooked together. We actually just had mash with this - I was running out of time to do veg, the children were "helping" me, I decided to make it today quite late on and that required a quick trip to the supermarket. This would be great made with leftover roast chicken as you start with cooked chicken.

Crumbly Chicken & Vegetable Pie
Serves 4-6 (you'd have to be pretty hungry for it to serve 4)

Ingredients
1 onion
40g butter
100g button mushrooms
40g plain flour, plus extra for dusting
400ml milk, warmed
1 chicken stock cube or 400ml fresh chicken stock
pinch nutmeg
pinch mustard powder
1 bay leaf
250g cooked chicken
200g mix of vegetables - sweetcorn, peas, carrots, broccoli, peppers chopped or any veg you have
250g shortcrust pastry
1 egg beaten or milk, for glazing

1. Heat oven to 200C/400F/Gas 4. Peel the onion and chop as finely as possible. Melt the butter in a pan over a medium heat. Add the chopped onion and leave to cook for about 5 mins, stirring occasionally. Finely slice the mushrooms and add to the pan.

2. When the mushrooms and onions are nearly cooked, add the flour to the pan and stir to make a roux. Crumble in the stock cube and stir well for 2 minutes to cook out the flour.

3. Slowly add the milk to the pan, stirring all the time. (I didn't warm the milk and it didn't seem to matter). Then add the stock, season and add the nutmeg and mustard powder. (It doesn't mention what to do if you're using the stock cube, so I just used more milk to get the right consistency) Add the bay leaf and bring to the boil, stirring all the time to stop it becoming lumpy.

4. When the sauce has thickened, place on a very low heat. Chop the chicken into even sized pieces and add to the sauce. Stir in the veg and pour into the pie dish. (I used a deep but small lasagne dish).

5. Put the pastry on a clean, floured surface. Dust a rolling pin with flour and roll out the pastry until just a bit bigger than the pie dish. Lift the pastry onto the dish. Trim the edges hanging over the edges. Press the outside edge of the pastry with your fingers or a fork.

6. Brush the top of the pie with beaten egg or milk. Make a small hole in the centre to allow steam to escape. Left over pastry can be used can be used to decorate the top. Place the pie in the oven for 25 mins. It will be done when the top is golden brown.

I made a few changes to this. We got a bay leaf from the garden as we have a tree but then it disappeared. So I added some chopped fresh tarragon as it is a favourite of mine. And because I had ready rolled shortcrust, I just unrolled it and put it on the top of the pie dish and it just about fitted. No faffing with rolling pins - result! (Why am I so bad at rolling out pastry and how do I get better at it? Answers on a postcard.) The veg I used were - peas, sweetcorn, carrots, and courgettes.

The children were very excited when I told them I was making pie. Missy Woo butchered the mushrooms and the courgettes for me. Then she had a go at peeling potatoes as did Monkey - and he got very good at it. That's one more job I don't have to do! And then they devoured the pie with enthusiasm. The carrots were quite crunchy so I think they need to be cut up quite small - or you could use leftover cooked ones. I loved the tarragon flavour, and no-one else complained about it and it was lovely and creamy.

It would definitely feed 6 people easily. This is most definitely NOT a small pie and the veg helps to bulk it out. I have to admit, I always thought that making a pie was more difficult than it was for some reason. I guess ones with a pastry base probably are but this was very simple. And everyone just loves pie, don't they?

I did take another pic of the pie cut open but on looking at it, it's not very good quality so you'll have to make do with just the pic of the finished pie as it came out of the oven. Yes, I know - my food blogging is very amateurish but I never said I was a professional, did I?! Trust me when I say this was good, and you should try it too.

A jam packed day

We have this blackcurrant bush in our garden that was bought last year, I think. I am fairly sure that it was reduced from either Woolies or B&M which has replaced it in the local town. I noticed a few weeks back that it was heaving with ripe blackcurrants and hatched a plan to make jam with it. I've made jam once or twice before and found a recipe in a book on jams I have that was basically blackcurrants, sugar and water.

I was not expecting the odyssey that it became to make this bloody jam.

Monday - I go to the shop and buy a big bag of caster sugar with the weekly shop. On getting home,  I decide I will go pick the blackcurrants once the shopping is packed away. I am about to start when I notice it has started raining. I decide to wait until it stops as it looks like a lot to pick. It is still raining 9 hours later.

Tuesday - it's raining when we get up, but after clearing up the kitchen after school run, I notice it's not too bad, and head outside. It is now 10am. I figure it's going to take me half an hour. After half an hour, there's still loads to pick on the bush. I tell myself I'll stop, at the latest, at 11am. By the time 11am rolls around, I feel like I've just got a few more to pick so I tell myself I may as well finish clearing the bush as more rain is forecast and the berries might rot. I finally finish at 11.20am with a huge bowl of blackcurrants to show for my labours.

Fresh from the garden

I get inside and it starts to rain again about 10 mins later and doesn't stop for the rest of the day including some complete deluges triggering flash floods. My timing, it would appear, was apt - for a change.

I wash, pick over and weigh the blackcurrants. Nearly 2kg! The recipe I have is for 1kg. Simple, I think - I'll just double the recipe. I have a large stockpot I've used before now. The recipe states a lot of water (and I think I'd add less definitely in future, as from what I know of jam-making, you need to cook the fruit and reduce it to an extent for it to be the right pectin level to set. Too much water is going to slow down how long this takes). So, I think my first mistake is to blithely double the amount of water needed to the pan.

Noon - The blackcurrants need to boil and soften apparently before the sugar is added so the pan goes on the hob. And I wait. My problem is that the stockpot is so big that leaving the lid off means it doesn't boil properly, and putting it on means it boils over too easily. And that amount of blackcurrants and water take a looooooong time to get up to boiling point. It's nearly 12.20pm by the time it starts boiling when I encounter aforementioned problem with keeping it boiling. More than once, the pan boils over and makes a mess of the hob. The recipe says boil for 15 mins but I easily leave it for double that to ensure it has boiled enough. Whilst this is happening, I wash the jars I am going to use and place in the oven to sterilise.

1pm - I finally add the sugar and start to stir, to dissolve it. It takes about 15 mins of stirring to dissolve the sugar completely and I turn up the heat again. Obviously now, there is even more in the pan and boiling over is an even greater likelihood. I resolve to watch the pan but yanno, I have things to do and I'd already made and let two cups of tea go cold. Again, the recipe says boil for 15 mins before starting to test for a set but it keeps boiling up, I have to take the lid off or risking it boiling onto the hob, then take the lid off and it stops boiling. I then double - again - the length of time I need to leave it cook because of this, and also because I have to keep skimming the scum off the top, which means leaving the lid off.

2pm (ish) - it looks like I could start testing for a set but the first couple of goes show it needs to cook for longer. At least the jars will be well sterilised by now - they've been in the oven for nearly an hour and a half, but only need about 15 mins. Finally, the test shows it's starting to set, so I leave it a few minutes to go and make an important call because I'd had someone on the phone hassling me about something.

The call takes a bit longer than planned but no more than about 5 mins and I go back into the kitchen and OMG! Boiling over is probably a euphemism for what has occurred - there is a river of jam on my hob. The lid was on, wasn't it?

2.30pm (less than an hour till school run) - I hastily put all the jam into jars, and start the process of clearing up the hob, the burners, everything and bunging anything that is removable into the dishwasher. After a LOT of scrubbing and scraping, I finally get the hob clean.

Lots and lots and lots of jam.

3.10pm - FINISHED! I look at my watch and think it's time to leave for school. And all I have to show for my day is a few jars of jam. But the jam, the jam is fabulous - and all the more satisfying because the fruit was free and really fresh when I made the jam. Intensely flavoured, still slightly tart, but with enough sweetness to balance it out. I made so much, I gave away 3 jars as presents and still left us with about six months' supply of blackcurrant jam. It is not a stiff set so it is lovely with natural yogurt and I think it would be nice on ice-cream too.

I noticed that the jam recipe says it takes an hour to make. Ha, I started at 10 and finished past 3. I make that 5 hours (although admittedly, the recipe doesn't expect you to pick your own first!) and counting. As my plan was to make jam AND chocolate cake during the day whilst the children were out, my evening was somewhat filled with cake making and icing.

Next time, I will make smaller batches of jam though most of the recipes online seem to use the amount of blackcurrants that I had. Maybe I just need special jam-making equipment. Or maybe I just need to concentrate more.

Sausages in Onion Gravy - a slow cooker treat!

I never had a slow cooker until last Autumn when I was trying to trim some pennies from the family budget and wanted to have a way to make nice food that didn't involve me doing lots of work or jars of sauce. I never use them, for the record. I am the woman that makes makes nearly everything from scratch without jars, packet mixes or the like. I make an exception for pesto though I do make that occasionally too.

In my local Asda, I found a bargain. A full size slow cooker for £7. I snapped it up. Since then, I've been experimenting with it and have had some hits and misses. One thing is for sure, I still need to get the liquid side of things right. I have ended up adding what feels like half a packet of cornflour just to thicken recipes to an acceptable levels as I hate really thin sauces. It's not helped that the one thing the slow cooker didn't come with is a recipe book so largely, I am feeling my way. The internet has been a great source but I do like my recipe books.

For Easter, I got a slow cooker recipe book. Yes I know, but I don't really do chocolate, me and anyway, I'm trying to be good. It's called "200 slow cooker recipes" by Hamlyn. Now, I dont think my quest for the perfect slow cooker book is out there but it does contain some nice things. I've already made Baked Ham in Cola from the book which was a big success, but another that caught my eye was Sausages in Onion Gravy. Now, I'm normally a grill them or casserole them kinda girl so I thought this would be nice as a change, particularly as I don't really do gravy well; at least, I don't think so.

The thing I have definitely learned from this book is that if you add liquid to a recipe, it must be hot. Now I know why many's a time I've had to turn it up to High at lunchtime to ensure it cooks properly in time for our evening meal. But no recipe I'd seen until now actually mentioned it so perhaps it fell into the category of "Unwritten Rules Of Slow Cookers That Nobody Talks About Because Everyone Knows Them. " Or not, or perhaps just me. Still, it's made a difference. I do have to remember that I'm cooking in the morning but the feeling that it's all under control and sorted when you get to the end of the day, particularly if the children are being, erm, challenging.

Here is the recipe. It suggests "gourmet" flavoured sausages but I just used a pack of decent quality sausages that were in my freezer. By decent quality, I mean ones that didn't shrink down to half the size and fill the pan with grease when I browned them. In fact, the ones I've used barely rendered any fat at all so you do need to add the oil to get some colour on the sausages.

Sausages in Onion Gravy

Serves 4

1 tbsp sunflower oil
8 sausages such as Toulouse or Sicilian
2 red onions, halved and thinly sliced
2 tsp light muscovado sugar
2 tbsp plain flour
450 ml / 3/4 pint beef stock
1 tbsp tomato puree - plain or sundried if you're fancy
1 bay leaf

Preheat the slow cooker if the instructions tell you to. Heat the oil in a frying pan, add the sausages, and fry over a high heat for 5 minutes, turning until browned but not cooked. Transfer the sausages to the cooking pot.

Add the onions to the frying pan and cook over a medium heat for about 5 minutes until softened. Add the sugar and fry, stirring, for 5 more minutes until the onion slices are caramelised around the edges. Stir in the flour, then gradually add the stock. Add the tomato puree, bay leaf and some seasoning and bring to the boil, still stirring. Pour over the sausages, cover and cook for 6 to 8 hours or until the sausages are tender.

The recipe says serve with sausages spooned into large Yorkshire puddings with steamed carrots and broccoli or mash. We had the mash option as the Yorkshires weren't an option for us due to husband's wheat avoidance. So mash it is. It's actually skinny mash so the potatoes still have skins on them, which of course is better for everyone - nothing to do with me being to lazy to peel the spuds, oh no. ;-)

This was delicious. I had a quick taste as the gravy went into the pot, and thought it might turn out too sweet. Over the cooking time, however, the juices from the sausages ran out into the gravy and added enough savoury flavouring to soften the sweetness. The sausages were really tender - easy enough for a 3 year old to cut easily with a plastic spoon - and nicely flavoured by the onion gravy. They looked like the gravy had seeped into the sausages if that makes sense.

My only criticism was there wasn't enough gravy but that's probably because I made it with 12 sausages, not 8. The gravy was just right in terms of thickness, a nice coating consistency but not so thick that it came out of the pot in dollops.

Given how little effort this was, I will definitely make it again. Sausages being a kids' favourite, I expected it would get a good response. They didn't let me down. Monkey and Missy Woo ate it all without question or complaint, always a bonus.

I think we can consider it a hit. Simple food, made simply, tasting really good. What else do you need?