mumblings

There is a favourite drink at Eat which I love called Peach and Mint Blast and I tried to recreate it in my jam.

10 peaches, cut up into small pieces
3 tablespoons Courvoisier
1 orange, juice and zest
Sachet of pectin
1 kg sugar
Fresh mint sprigs to taste

Placed chopped peaches, Corvuosier, orange juice and zest in jam pan and bring to the boil then simmer for 15 minutes. Add sugar and pectin and stir until dissolved.

Add chopped mint and bring to rolling boil. Check for set using cold plate method – it took me 10 minutes to get mine to set. My peaches were ripe but not overripe. I found the pectin helped the set as I’d made some peach and rosemary jam which was a bit runny a while back.

(Optional) Play fetch with cute kitten whilst waiting for jam to set.

Enjoy!

4 Comments »

I was inspired by Rachel Eats to try making some pasticcini di mandorlo. They remind me of the ricciarelli my student days in Siena – a bit of a sad time as my mother had died earlier in the year but also full of good memories of big church meals together on Sundays and contrade parades. There was a shop on the Via di Citta where I lived the first month which sold these and I remember my first taste of these and marvelling at how different they were from the kinds of biscuits we had in England. Nowadays, we do have them almost readily available here in the UK but it was nice to find a recipe to make them myself and re-create that heady smell of cooking almonds in the house.

Here is my take on her recipe:

300g ground almonds
200g icing sugar (plus more for dusting and rolling out)
2 eggs
Zest of 1 lemon
1 tbsp Amaretto Disaronno
Flaked almonds to decorate

Preheat oven to 180C.

Mix ground almonds, sugar, eggs, lemon zest and Amaretto together in a bowl. With your hands covered in icing sugar, roll out mix into balls.

Press an indent into each ball and place a flaked almond into the indent.

Bake in oven for about 15 minutes until brown.

Rachel says they should keep in an airtight tin for a few weeks but round here a few days will suffice

particularly when there are kittens who might be really attracted to the mix.

10 Comments »

(adapted from Banana Bread in How to be a Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson)

175g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
150g caster sugar
125g margarine
2 eggs
1 tsbp Southern Comfort
60g pecans, chopped
3 or 4 bananas crushed (about 300g)

Mix together flour, bicarbonate of soda and baking powder together.
In a separate bowl, cream together sugar and margarine until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time. Add pecans and stir in bananas and Southern Comfort. Add flour mix a third at a time and spoon into loaf tins lined with baking parchment or nifty liners like the ones I buy from Lakeland.

Bake in oven for an hour or until tester comes out clean.

Prevent greedy little kittens from scoffing the lot in one go.

6 Comments »

There is a lovely tea room in Canterbury called Tiny Tims which I like to visit on occasion and they make these amazing scone/cake things called Plump Pilgrims. We were having visitors on Sunday and I thought it would be nice to have something with our cup of tea.

I found the recipe for these Yorkshire Fat Rascals in English Traditional Recipes which sounded similar. Replacing the butter with margarine seems to have made them lighter. I’d run out of cherries so I substituted chopped apricots which were a nice addition. I also left out the almonds. There is an alternative recipe on the Waitrose website Mine didn’t have any spice in but I bet they would be nice with spice.

B brought these gorgeous roses from her garden. They smelt amazing!

Talking of rascals, Merlin could teach the kittens a thing or two. He is looking old next to those young ones.

4 Comments »

Susie came round last Sunday night and we had a go at making some coconut creme croquembouche. The coconut creme was rather fiddly to make so I was really glad that Susie was here to help as you really did two pairs of hands to make sure things were added and didn’t curdle. She did a lot of stirring of the choux pastry. We went through a lot of eggs!

The method described of piping lumps of choux onto parchment didn’t seem to work so I got out some eclair pans which I’d gotten in a sale once. A friend of mine told me yesterday that our mixture should have been a lot stiffer so we’ll bear that in mind for next time.

I know now that they rise quite a bit so will just make half the mix next time.

They looked mishapen but were utterly delicious when they were filled with coconut creme and drizzled with chocolate. I used some Supercooks chocolate cake covering which seem to be very nice with the coconut creme.

Tamyra slept through the excitement but was quite interested in the coconut creme.

7 Comments »

Sorry, I went a bit AWOL the last fortnight and I can’t tell you about one of the big reasons why until after tomorrow. It has been an emotional couple of weeks, a friend of ours died very suddenly and it felt like her life had been cut off in her prime and it brought back a lot of feelings I had as a daughter losing her mother at the age of 20. I went to her funeral earlier this week and felt so sad for L and P as I know exactly what they are going through. It just makes you think that life really is too short

I did miss the party that I’d made this cake for but I’m glad not to have missed her funeral. There were a bunch of us who relate online and we said how sad it was the only time we really got together in person was when someone got married and now sadly when one of our number dies. I’d made a carrot cake – something I’d not done for a while and I used the recipe in the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook. I was impressed by the recipe and made several versions since I had bought quite a lot of carrots. I have a carrot loaf in the freezer for a rainy day.

I found it hard to sleep til a normal hour this morning so got up just before 3am and made two cakes. The one on the left is a cherry madeira cake (recipe from How to be a Domestic Goddess) and the right one is a cranberry and apply cake. The cranberry one is an experiment based on a recipe from the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook.

I started on some Garlic and parsley hearthbreads as well also from the How to be a Domestic Goddess book which I finished off to eat with some chicken for a light supper.

Is that Santa Claus stuck in my chimney?

10 Comments »

Thank you ever so much for all your comments and emails about Ophelia. I have read each and every one several times and they have been such a comfort when I feel very empty. I always knew it would be very difficult when she died but it is still very very hard nonetheless. I feel quite sad still and thought I’d share my Green Thai Curry recipe.

500g pack of turkey thigh pieces
1 tbsp plain flour seasoned with salt and pepper
Olive oil
250ml chicken stock
50g green thai curry paste
1 can coconut milk
3 medium-sized potatoes, chopped into small cubes

Coat turkey pieces in flour mixture to coat and fry in olive oil until browned.
Place turkey pieces in slow cooker on high. Add chicken stock to pan to de-glaze and then add coconut milk and thai curry paste. Stir together and add to turkey pieces.

Two hours before serving, add potato cubes. I cooked this on low for about 4-5 hours and it was deliciously tender.

Serve with jasmine rice and green beans.

Phoebe is trying to comfort me when she can. She, too, is very very old and I know she finds climbing the stairs hard work. She likes to get up on the sofa arm and purrs at me.

4 Comments »

Thank you for all your kind words about Ophelia. We don’t have any news apart from the fact the vet is keeping her another night and his wife said she is a bit brighter today. Hopefully we’ll collect her tomorrow. I’m not really sure what to think of that but am trying to remain positive. I do miss her so very much – it is really odd not having her around. She normally follows me up to bed and sits around whilst I fall asleep and then greets me when I wake up in the morning.

I made scones on Sunday as Sirius was having visitors. Sirius is adding sous chef to his under gardener role.

Sirius’ visitors brought home-made macaroons. I think I’m going to have to try and make them next – they were delicious.

6 Comments »

Yesterday was really a beef in beer day. It was bitter cold – the sun was shining but the wind was biting. I threw in a few things I had to hand but it is a really tasty dish – even tastier the day after when the flavours have developed.

450g stewing steak
1 onion, chopped
3-4 rashers smoked bacon, chopped (can be streaky – whatever you have)
1 can beer (I used Wadworths 6X – this isn’t a dish to cook with beers such as Budweiser – use proper beer such as an ale, failing that Guiness would do )
1 dessertspoon tomato chutney (tomato puree would also be ok)
8-10 mushrooms, halved
1 carrot, chopped
Handful of fresh thyme leaves
Beef stock
Pinch of pepper

Brown off beef in small batches in a frying pan and add to crockpot. Fry chopped onion and bacon in the pan with the crusty beef bits in it and add to beef in crockpot. Add rest of the ingredients and leave to cook for several hours until tender. Serve with rice or mashed potato and veggies. You can add dumplings 30-40 minutes before serving.

I was really touched to have been given this lovely hand-made merino/alpaca mix scarf today by a lovely Norwegian lady called Ingunn. It is so pretty and warm. I am very lucky!

7 Comments »

I made some lemon and lime curd this morning and it is so sunny and happy – just the thing to lift you out of the throes of wintertime. I followed the microwave instructions but was disconcerted by the pieces of egg white floating in it so I had to strain it before jarring. Maybe it was due to me not cutting the butter into pieces and leaving it in as a lump? pao thought it was odd that I was using a tea strainer to sieve it but it is just the thing for the kilner jars. Even so, it tastes lovely.

I might try this recipe next time as interestingly it recommends cooking it on medium in the microwave.

Doesn’t it look like a ray of golden sunshine? Better get out in the garden before the sun that has just come out goes away again!

4 Comments »