Roast Chicken, Provencale Potatoes and Melting Moments

Ah, what a long day. I bought three pairs of shoes, two nail varnishes, and took part in some filming. And all before baking and cooking! What fun.

Came home from successful shopping trip to find husband and friends heading out for the £4 all day breakfast that the cafe opposite does so well. Alas, they were back in 5 minutes - the breakfast not being as all day as they had hoped. So, I scrambled together a tortilla/omlette affair and toast. And when I offered a round of toast and jam for pud - it went down very well! Am concerned that my culinary reputation has been lost by showcasing this classic dessert!                 

 Back to the day's baking! Whipped up some Melting Moments, chosed by the husband from a book recently sent to me by my new mother-in-law.  A lovely easy mixture, similar to a rock bun, rolled into balls, and rolled in coconut and oats - before popping a bit of cherry on the top and baking. They have a nice little crunch on the outside and are soft, sweet and buttery on the inside. Just right with a cup of tea!

During my first week at a new job, I was taken to The Fox, (near Old St), and had a whopping meal, consisting of a black pudding starter, and then 1/2 a chicken with the yummiest of potatoes. So, thought I would try and recreate the dish for Sunday supper. Large chicken legs are just right for two, and the potatoes make a great alternative to roast, or dauphinoise - and are nice and healthy!

First I set the oven to 200. This was probably a bit high for the potatoes - which would be best having a long, slow cook at a lower temp - but I wanted the heat for the chicken.

Next, in a bowl I mixed, olive oil (a good few glugs), salt, pepper, a good shake of dried herbs, 3 crushed cloves of garlic, an onion (chopped roughly but quite small), and a large tomato (again, chopped into a rough, large dice).

Having mixed this up together, I chopped 5/6 potatoes, into thick (1cm ish) slices. Skin on. These go into the bowl with the tomato mixture and shake around to get a good coating on all the potoato slices of the oil and herbs and garlic. Shake the whole mixture into a roasting dish, so that the potatoes can spread out (a rough layer of 2 thick should be fine). Cover with foil and put in the oven.

I gave them an hour or so in a hot oven, but they would be good cooking slowly underneath a whole chicken.

With the chicken, I rubbed some butter, salt, herbs and pepper under the skin and some more salt on top. These had half and hour in the oven with foil on the top, then half an hour without it.


When I took the chicken out, I let it rest covered with the foil and made gravy from the juice. And we had a little kale too - just for greenery.

2012: Biscuits galore!

Happy New Year! A new rolling pin, spatula, citrus juicer, hand electric mixer, book of baking treats, and ceramic baking beans for Christmas heralds a lovely year of baking and cooking. During my two weeks off over the festive period I did hardly any baking, as I was just enjoying doing nothing. I did host a party over New Year and made a dinner of Steak and Ale Pie, Pork and Cider Cobbler, Mash and Carrots, followed by a gooseberry cheesecake - which were a steaming success, and the recipes may follow - if I can one day remember what I did.

But back to today, have tried again with Jamie Oliver's Ginger biscuits, which have come out beautifully, recipe here. However, I forgot the bicarb, and used 1tbs golden syrup and 1tbs treacle, as it is far too much faff to measure the sticky stuff. I also added some crystallised ginger. They are sill cooling but I am excited about the results!

Also on the menu, is Cottage Pie - no recipe yet as I haven't pefected the recipe....

Pumpkin Soup

This is my first attempt at pumpkin soup, and I'm only halfway through so no news yet on how it's going. I've started with spices, cumin, corriander and cinnamon, salt & pepper, and a bay leaf. I warmed these in some oil and added two chopped onions. I sweated these until the onion was soft and translucent, and then added peeled and copped pumplkin. Once mixed and warmed through, I added chicken stock, to which I had also added the juice from half an orance. It is bubbling away and smelling delicious, but only time will tell....

It's a success. Once pumpkin very soft and squashable, I turned the heat off. Then I broke up the chunks of pumpkin with the back of a spoon and took out the bay leaves. Then, I added a good slurp of milk and blitzed it till smooth and creamy. Then, back on the heat for a final warm through, and it's ready to serve.

Meanwhile, I've made a basic biscuit dough, split it in half, and made two types of biscuit - lemon drops and jam swirls.

For the lemon drops I made a sausage out of the dough, about 1 1/2 inches accross. Then, sliced it into 1cm rounds. Then, I placed these on a baking tray, they need to be well spaced as they spread a little. Then, I made  well in the centre of each with my finger, and put a little drop on lemon curd in each one. These went into the oven for 15 minutes, they are still soft when they come out, and harden as they cool. Mr Me has eaten two already....


For the jam swirls, I rolled the pastry into a rectangle, keeping it at least half a cm thick. Then with the longest side towards me, I spread the dough with jam - I used gooseberry, but you could use just about anything (I have mincemeat in mind for christmas..). And then roll... Start by gently rolling the closest edge, and gradually roll until then end, don't push down too hard as you roll, or you'll squash the jam out! Again, slice the biscuits into rounds and place, well spaced on the baking tray. You'll have to wipe the knife with each slice or it'll all get very sticky.

Yum!

New Year New Recipies!

With one thing and another I have been completely distracted from this - but now with a new year and new foody books, and a little less work - I can return to Culinary Deliciousness!

For Christmas I was given a Food Thesaurus. It's written by Niki Sergent and is brilliant! All flavours covered, and well written too. Recipes galore and all sorts of combinations to try out. And that's what I've been doing today.

I love cardamom, so I looked it up and saw that it might be combined with coffee - so I've made some muffins.

Coffee and Cardamom Muffins.

For a basic muffin mix make 9oz plain flour, 2tsp of baking powder, and 30z sugar. Then in another bowl whisk an egg and add 9 floz of milk. Add 3floz or 3oz melted butter to the liquid. Mix these together and pop into muffin cases. 200 deg C for about 25 minutes.

I added cardamon and coffee to this mix by making a little very strong coffee (I used a percolator but I'm sure istand or an expresso could be used). I took 6-7 cardamon pods and crushd in a pestle and mortar to get the seeds out. I crushed the seeds to a very fine powder and added them to the dry ingredients mix. Then I put the empty pods in the coffee to stew. When it was cool I added the coffee to the milk mix then went on as usual.

They came out of the oven after 25 minutes risen up and golden brown on top!


I also made triple ginger biccies today! Inspired by a recipe from Jamie Oliver but tweaked by me these come out like crunchy toppped gingerbread biscuits. I took the basic reicpe, flour, sugar, butter, ginger etc - but added treacle, golden syrup, stem ginger (preserved in syrup). Took 15 minutes in the oven and come out gooey and cool to a soft biscuit. Recipe needs some tweaking so watch this space for a recipe!