Honey oat biscuits

I made these the other day and they turned out quite nicely. I got the recipe off the internet, but modified it a bit, because it didn't have nearly enough honey. One of the drawbacks of internet recipes is that they are sometimes written by people who still measure in cups (and presumably live in caves or something), but I've done my best with it. It makes about 30 biscuits.

Ingredients:

• 125g butter or margerine
• 125g sugar
• 4 Tbsp honey (or more)
• 125g flour (I used plain flour)
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp ginger
• 135g oats

Method:

•  Preheat the oven to 180 C and line baking trays.
• Cream butter, sugar and honey.
• Mix in flour, baking powder and spices.
• Mix in oats. You'll probably want to add a bit more honey at this point. 
• Roll mixture into balls and place on trays. Flatten with a fork.
• Bake for 15 minutes or until golden.

They don't spread out too much while baking, so you can fit quite a few on each tray.

Cherry and walnut cake

Yesterday, Rainbow Fish and I baked this very tasty cake. (The rentals are back in Rosyth for a flying visit, but are heading off on their cycle tour of France later today.) It was very nice, so I decided to share the jealously-guarded family recipe.

 

 Ingredients:

• 225g self raising flour
•  50g wholemeal flour
• 175g light brown soft sugar
• 225g soft margerine
• 3 large eggs
• 1tsp baking powder
• 2 tbsp milk
• 150g glace cherries
• 75g walnut pieces
• grated rind of one orange

Method:

• Grease and line tin (27x17.5cm) and turn oven on to 180 C/GM4.
• Beat all ingredients (except cherries and walnuts) together in a large bowl.
• Stir in cherries and walnuts.
• Pour mixture into tin, level, an bake for 45 minutes.
• Turn onto cooling rack and (if you want to make it fancier) paint with a mixture of orange juice and icing sugar while still warm.
• Eat!

 

I think the wholemeal flour gives it a nice texture, not too fluffy. If you want to be decadent, put in extra cherries and walnuts. 

It went down very well, as you can see.

Steak and chocolate

As we were in a carnivore's paradise, we had to have steak. Last night we went to Brad's Grill for a meaty feast. I had a lamb shank - delectable and falling off the bone, but the rest of the party had steak with a chocolate and chilli sauce. It sounded odd to me, but the combination really worked! The plates went back to the kitchen absolutely clean!

Comfort food

After a stressful morning, the call was for comfort food. H had been craving macaroni cheese for days, so when we saw a recipe in the newspaper for the ultimate mac cheese, we had to make it. It was more work than the usual recipe, but it was worth the trouble. The clan gathered around the glorious pasta dish and there was much hilarity.

Hot salad, cold wind

First up, a really quick recipe for a hot salad I had the other night. It's tasty, easy to make, and healthy without being boring.

 

 The only things you have to cook are some new potatoes and an egg or two. While these are boiling, put tinned tuna, lettuce, cucumbers and any other vegetables you fancy on a plate. Then slice the potatoes and eggs and eat with the dressing of your choice (or just lots of pepper).

I was raised on tinned tuna, as most of our family recipes involve it in some way. One of my university friends, investigating my kitchen cupboards and finding tins and tins of it, accused me of being a cat in disguise.

 

The sky is really lowering this evening, so I took a picture. It's actually quite chilly, with a fairly strong wind, but I like this kind of weather. It took quite a lot of manoeuvring to get both the bridges into the picture but not the conservatory! The thing I like most about Rosyth (apart from being able to spend lots of time with my wonderful family, of course) is how big the skies are here. Being in a city means your horizons are very closed, so I think we have the best of both worlds here.  

It is tough trying to blog when one is only intermittently online! I can assure you that silence does not mean that we are not eating well!

Pan-fried haddock

This is an incredibly simple (but tasty) meal which I made the other night. We are lucky enough to have a fish man who comes around in his van every Tuesday evening, so Tuesdays are usually fish nights.

The potatoes were slightly mashed when Blistering Barnacle tried to drain them and dropped them all in the sink, but still tasted good!

The fish is very nice with boiled new potatoes and steamed broccoli (which is even tastier with lemon butter drizzled on top). 

Before I fried the haddock (in butter, which Rainbow Fish recommends (and which makes it really delicious)), I patted it dry on some paper towels, then rubbed in a bit of olive oil and sprinkled each piece with oregano before dipping it in flour and frying. It doesn't take very long at all, and the hardest part is getting it onto the plates without it falling apart (which, as you can see, I rather failed at).

That's all for now, as the sun looks like it is finally going to come out after several hours of heavy mist.

Tuna pasta bake

I made this yesterday for Blistering Barnacle and his girlfriend (OK, mostly for myself). It's quite simple, but you have to do lots of things at once towards the end so you need to be good at multitasking. It's also very easy to adapt to whatever vegetables you have lying around.

Ingredients:

• One onion, chopped
• One pepper, chopped
• Some celery, chopped
• Some mushrooms, chopped
• A glug of olive oil
• A tin of tomatoes
• Some tomato purée
• A tin of tuna
• Some pasta shapes
• A knob of butter
• A couple of tablespoons of plain flour
• Some milk (about a glassful (a reasonable-sized glass))
• Some cheddar, grated
• A pinch of cayenne pepper

Method:

• Soften vegetables in a reasonably big pot with the olive oil.
• Add the tinned tomatoes, adding about another half-tinful of water and some tomato purée.  Leave to simmer for a while as you grate cheese and switchon the kettle
• Put pasta on to boil and switch on oven. GM7/200 C is OK.
• Melt butter in a separate pan and add flour. Stir together and gradually add the milk to make a white sauce (PRO TIP: warm the milk first to avoid lumps). Slowly add the grated cheese and allow to melt into the sauce. Stir in the cayenne pepper.
• Add the tuna to the tomato sauce and stir in well.
• Assemble! (I put pasta in an ovenproof dish first, then add the tomato sauce and stir it together a bit, then add the cheese sauce and sort of fold it in so there are cheese-saucy pockets in places. Then sprinkle the rest of the grated cheese on top (see below)).

•  Bake in the oven for at least 20 minutes.
• Eat!

 I was a little bit too enthusiastic about the last step, and only just remembered to take a picture of the finished product!

We have spent most of this evening watching clips of comedians on youtube (I recommend the Australian Adam Hill!) so I am going to go to bed now.

Beautiful braai

Rainbow Fish posting from Cape Town. Had a wonderful braai with the ab fab sister yesterday! Sadly no photographic evidence, but we had gammon and a chicken done to perfection on the Weber and washed down with a v fine red. I was too busy talking to note the name, but it was smooth and full-bodied as the b-I-l always selects for us! Heaven!

Home-made pizza

 

On Friday night, we made pizza. There is something about home-made pizza, loaded with all the toppings you can fit on it and hot out of the oven, which beats takeaway and restaurant pizza every time.

As far as recipes go, it's a bit DIY. Make the pizza dough (we use our bread machine for this, which saves a lot of effort), cook up a very tomato-y sauce and chop up whatever vegetables and meat you fancy. I can heartily recommend using thinly sliced chorizo.

 

 The important thing is to make sure you have lots of mozzarella, and to have everyone assemble their pizza at the same time, so no one hogs all the toppings.

Then just pop into the oven to bake, and test your endurance as the delicious smells start to fill up the house.

 

 We also had a go at making fruit brûlées, with strawberries, a peach and a nectarine with a good dollop of crème fraîche and a thick layer of brown sugar on top.

 

 The trickiest part was covering them in sugar without also covering the kitchen in sugar. This was not helped by the fact that as soon as you'd finished on one, the sugar started to sink into the crème fraîche.

 

 We spent a while working out how to make our oven's grill work, then shoved them under it to caramelise. A blow torch would have made this a lot easier. We ended up leaving them under the heat a bit too long, which slightly cooked the fruit inside, but the result was still delicious.

I think the main thing is to be able to crack the top with a spoon.

In other news, my brother (aka Blistering Barnacle) and his girlfriend are here this week, so hopefully they can be persuaded to share some recipes of their own. It's completely grey and misty today, so I am dreaming of spicy stews.

Chicken & chorizo jambalaya

I made this recipe a few days ago and hadn't got around to posting it yet, which is a shame because it was actually very tasty. It was a modified version of this recipe on BBC GoodFood, which doesn't have nearly enough chilli in it for my taste. Also we didn't have any peppers but we did have some celery which was looking rather the worse for wear and needed eating.

Ingredients (in units of 'some', 'a bit' and the occasional 'dollop'):

• Some chopped chicken breasts, cut quite small (1 per person is quite generous)
• A medium onion, chopped
• Some celery, also chopped (or you could use peppers, or both)
• A handful of jalapenos, chopped
• Chorizo, cut into quite thin slices
• Garlic, crushed or chopped small
• A good glug of olive oil
• A dollop of lazy chilli/chilli paste/chilli powder (I use lots, but you may value your sinuses)
• Basmati rice (enough to feed everyone who will be eating)
• Boiling water or vegetable/chicken stock (1 1/2 times as much as rice, roughly)
• A tin of chopped tomatoes
• Red wine, if you have it
• Frozen peas

Method:

• Chop everything (you can do this as you go along, of course, just make sure you don't forget!) 
• Cook chicken in olive oil, then turf out into a convenient receptacle when cooked through. I added some paprika while cooking, but you don't have to.
• Fry garlic and chilli in olive oil left in the pot for a few seconds (until it smells delicious but before it starts to burn), then add onion.
• When onion is softening, add celery and jalapenos.
• When vegetables are mostly cooked, push to one side of pot and put the chorizo in the other side. Let it cook for a minute or so, until it starts releasing oil, then stir it all up together
• Add the cooked chicken and a glug of red wine. Enjoy the fumes. When the wine has reduced a bit, stir in the rice and leave it to soak up oil while you boil some water.
• Add stock and the tin of tomatoes.
• Cover the pot and let the rice do its thing. When almost soft, stir in some frozen peas. If not spicy enough for your tastes, add half a bottle of Tabasco.
• Serve!

The rentals are en route to not-so-sunny South Africa as I type, which of course means that it has briefly stopped raining. I'm off to have some delicious cold pizza now, of which more anon.

Queen of Fishcakes!

It is official: Clever Kelp is the queen of fishcakes. We arrived home late, after end-of-term concert etc, to find her at the stove in her cute apron, frying her spicy tuna burgers. These were served with sweet chilli sauce, boiled potatoes and a crunchy salad and made the hungry rentals purr!

The recipe is very simple. Boil two small potatoes until very soft, then mash them with a bit of butter. To this mash add:

• Two tins of tuna, drained
• One small onion, finely chopped and fried
• One small egg, beaten
• Plenty of paprika
• Tobasco if you like things spicy

Mix well, form into burgers and roll in plain flour. Fry them quite soon after making, as otherwise they get sticky again. 

Instead of dessert, we used up the ripe apricots that had been lurking in the fruit bowl, along with a mango, a couple of bananas and a generous helping of apple juice to make smoothies. They were rather delicious, as well as being very thick.

It is a good thing that we have been eating so well, as the weather has been RUBBISH! So much for it being summer!

Introducing Rainbow Fish

Rainbow Fish here. I am pleased to report that the state of cooking in Scotland has not yet reached the point where we need to be concerned. Came home to find a pot of chicken and chorizo jambalaya made by Clever Kelp. 'Twas brillig!

Welcome to the Kitchen

Welcome to Kitchen of Doom, a blog about cooking in Scotland, and probably various other places as well. This is the place where I, and most likely various other members of my swashbuckling family, will share recipes, life skills and rambling anecdotes. Come for the linguine, stay for the llamas.