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.