Give us this day, our daily rosemary loaf

It must be the weather, or the time of year, or something.  Blue Monday has been and gone.  Whew!  Over for another year.  I try to ignore it when the media exhorts us all to feel dire. Weather is rubbish, credit card bills from Christmas all due, no sun, no warmth (well, OK it's been mild for winter but not warm, precisely), no holidays in prospect and the grey skies and damp air are enough to affect even the relentlessly cheery.  We want to hibernate, crank up the  heat and turn to comfort food at the very least.  I begin to feel all 'mumsy' and need to make hearty stew or soup and now, it would seem, bread!  OMG.....

A few years ago I went out and got myself a slow cooker for the stews and I'm happy to report it was not one of those things that got used once then sat in the cupboard gathering dust for eternity.  I have used it a great deal:  in fact, I got so enthusiastic about crock pot cooking rediscovered that I went and bought a better one with an insert pot that will brown the meat on the hob and then goes into the heating element to spend hours lazily cooking to perfection .

A few years before that, it was a bread maker, prompted by a craving for fresh bread that Kit could eat without fear of allergic reaction from any stray nuts or nut products in the bakery.  This, too, has been an appliance hit and I apologise to those of you who make it from scratch and have the time and patience to knead and wait and knead and wait.  I've been there, done that and even, in my youth, attempted croissants and braided egg bread and all kinds of weird and wonderful yeast-based carbs when I got onto a break-making kick in my teens.  Now, however, I prefer to leave the hand kneading to those who enjoy it while I simply plug in the trusty Panasonic and let it get to work.

Today is definitely a bread day.  Yesterday's yummy-sounding post had to do with another antidote to the January blahs and I considered a few alternatives for my own panacea, then hit on bread, more precisely rosemary bread.  And this is why:

Last Saturday, David and I drove down to Tunbridge Wells, a place we used to visit a great deal but which, now we have Europe's largest (and, we think, best) shopping mall almost on our doorstep, has fallen by the wayside.  There are fewer shops, no free parking and it's not all under one elegant atrium roof.   But we spent a couple of nostagic hours revisiting old haunts and noted the demise of some shops and the birth of a couple of others.  We even bought a bed.  But I digress.

  There is a little bakery, Flour Power City Bakery, on Monson Road and David nipped in and bought a loaf of rosemary bread for our lunch.

It was wonderful and,quite simply, one of the best breads we've ever eaten.  It's not something one would toast for breakfast, necessarily, but with soup, or cheese, or any savoury, it was a perfect accompaniment and oh, so moreish.  

So I offer my own version now, which is adapted from my other recipes for the bread machine with the addition of the necessary herbs.  It works. 

Into the loaf pan of your bread maker, measure out

1 tsp fast-acting yeast
1 tsp white or golden caster sugar
1 tsp salt
pinch (good-sized if you like herbs) Italian seasoning
2 tsps dried rosemary
pinch ground black pepper
320 g bread flour (I used half white, half granary on this first try)

Pour 170 ml water on the top and 2 tbsp olive oil

Set on the 'basic' or 'white' bread setting and let 'er go!

The result was exactly what I hoped for.  The bread was soft and 'herby' and went very well with the leftover chili and rice from last night. 

Resolve Crumble

So, you know when you're having a really, really terrible week, and you have these four aged apples gazing forlornly up at you from the fruit bowl (because you buy apples sometimes even though actually you've been on a mango kick for, like, four years) and you need something to do to make you feel like you have something - anything - to contribute to society at large? No? Ok, well, how about you want/need to bake something and Apple-and/or-any-other-kind(s)-of-fruit-really Crumble sounded nice? Jolly good.

The fantastic thing about crumble, aside from the fact that you get to play the part of an honest-to-goodness culinary goddess while making it (blending the flour sugar and butter by hand - the only way to do it - will make you feel like you're part of some secret order of bustling but warmhearted kitchen matriarchs. Even if you're a guy. I swear.), is that it's incredibly versatile: I'm not kidding when I say that any kind of fruit (possibly not bananas), in more or less any quantity, will do. By "any kind of fruit", on this occasion, I mean the cranberry sauce that no one ate at Thanksgiving, as well as some raisins and the aforementioned forlorn apples (Granny Smiths, which I don't recommend if you're actually planning this ahead of time, but with some sugar and/or another less tart variant mixed in will do splendidly in a pinch).

I did this with no measuring whatsoever (I also did all the mixing in a saucepan. I mentioned the terrible, terrible week, right?), but my old reliable crumble recipe, perfected when I all-too-briefly lived in a house with both an apple tree and blackberry bushes in the garden, goes thusly:

300g + 1 tbsp flour
225g sugar
200g butter (left to soften at room temperature)
Unspecified quantity of fruit (today I used four apples and a couple of handfuls of raisins and that comfortably filled the pie dish you will see below, the specific size of which is unknown to me)
Pinch of cinnamon

Rub the 300g of flour, 175g of the sugar and the 200g butter together by hand until fully blended. Don't melt the butter first - if you didn't leave it out to soften, just cut it into small pieces and it'll mix in soon enough. Make sure you've mixed it thoroughly before you try to adjust the ingredients, and err on the side of too much butter rather than too much flour or sugar if you're not sure - it will not be good if it's too dry, whereas if it's too soft you can just cook it for a bit longer.

Mix the remaining 50g of sugar, the tbsp of flour and the pinch of cinnamon into the fruit.

Spoon the fruit mix into the dish (shallow if you want the emphasis to be on a deliciously crispy crumble top, deep if you're all about the gooey fruity goodness).

Layer the crumble mix over the fruit, without mixing, and pat down. Stick a fork in a few times to create steam vents to prevent boiling juice explosions.

Bake for about 40 minutes at 180.

Now, the thing is, I did almost none of that. 

I added a lot of ginger and a bit of nutmeg (as well as the cinnamon and an indeterminate quantity of sugar) to the fruit, but not the flour, because I was worried it wouldn't interact well with the cranberry sauce.

I made the crumble mix by sight, and with margarine, and a pinch of salt, because everything needs a pinch of salt.

I baked it at 200, for the amount of time it took me to do a lot of washing up (about 20 minutes) and then turned the grill on to achieve maximum golden crispiness.

And so because I was kind of nervous about my improvised result, I made a test portion.

(Incidentally, tomorrow I am buying all the tiny ramekins I can find and henceforth doing all my baking in individual portions because HOW CUTE IS THIS?). And I tried it, because friends don't feed friends experimental cooking without a safety net.

And it's very gingery, and probably a bit too sweet, but I don't feel ill or anything, and so off I go with my heavy ceramic dish on the DLR, joy, because if surprising people with a lovely baked treat doesn't make you feel at least a little bit useful, then nothing will.

ETA: The entire thing was gleefully dispatched in about half an hour, which was very gratifying - several people pointed out that this particular fruit and spice combination tasted like mince pie filling, which is very true, although wholly unintentional. Also, I feel a bit less rubbish now, so it worked :)

Easiest butter and jam cake

As a companion to the most recent post, here is the dessert that followed!  Although I enjoy experimenting with new cakes, I tend to fall back to old standbys for birthdays.  Pound cake is a family favourite, even though I have spent years trying to work out how to make it as light and fluffy as my grandmother's version.  But this year, Kit said to surprise him with something new.  So...I made him what turned out to be the world's simplest cake.  It is literally a vanilla sponge with jam in the middle and I almost felt embarrassed to put it on the table.  But it was so delicious that I soon got over that feeling.  I think the lemon extract is the key - it gives it a hint of something exotic.  I would also suggest using an interesting jam for the filler.  We had some Tiptree rhubarb and vanilla jam at home which worked very well indeed.

Plain And Simple Jam-Filled Butter Cake

(Adapted from Flo Braker)

1 3/4 cups sifted cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup (4oz) unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp lemon extract
1/2 tsp pure almond extract
1 tsp vanilla
2 large eggs
1/2 cup milk
1 cup jam of choice
1/4 cup icing sugar

Before starting, adjust the rack to the lower third of oven and preheat to 350°. Grease and flour a 9-inch round springform pan and insert a round of parchment or waxed paper in the bottom.

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl and set aside.

Using an electric mixer, beat the butter in a large bowl at medium speed until it is smooth and creamy.  Maintaining the same speed, add the sugar in a steady stream. When all the sugar is added, scrape the mixture clinging to the sides of the bowl into the center of the bowl and then continue to cream at the same speed for 3 minutes, or until the mixture is light in color and fluffy in appearance. Add the extracts in the final moments of beating the butter and sugar.

With the mixer still on medium speed, add the eggs, one at a time, incorporating each one thoroughly into the mixture before adding the next. When the mixture appears fluffy, reduce the mixer speed to low. Add the flour mixture in three additions alternately with the milk in two additions. Scrape the sides of the bowl occasionally, and mix until smooth after each addition. Spoon the batter evenly into the pan.

Bake for about 40 to 45 minutes, or until a skewer inserted in the center comes out free of wet batter. Place the pan on a wire rack to cool for 10 minutes. Carefully release the springform and remove the metal ring from around the cake. Cool completely before removing the cake from the metal form.

Using a long serrated knife, cut the cake layer in half horizontally. Set the bottom cake layer on a serving plate and spread the jam over the cut surface. Place the top portion of the cake cut-side down on the jam-covered layer.

To decorate, sift icing sugar over the top. Or if this is really too plain, do as I did and make some buttercream icing to go on top.

 Happy (belated) birthday Kit!

Steak Marsala

Happy Birthday Kit!

It's only taken us two weeks to get the family together to formally acknowledge your 25th.
Having a birthday exactly two weeks after Christmas is not ideal.  People tend to overlook it in the wind-down from Christmas, but we finally got there this evening and tried a slight variation on an old fave for you.  It's something even you could do quickly and easily. 

We know you love fillet steak and you like it best from the barbecue, but this time I wanted to add a special twist to acknowledge the occasion.

I have several recipes in my file for steak Marsala.  I think of Marsala as a cloyingly sweet wine, the stuff of Zabaglione which I have never tasted but I do vividly recall the 'older' generation making it at Christmas in the 60s, and it ruined perfectly good eggnog as far as my 10-year-old taste buds were concerned.

My taste buds have changed though, and tonight's steak with Marsala was very easy and extremely good.  So good in fact, that we have steak left over but none of the Marsala sauce!  And I've changed my mind about Marsala.

There are many far more complicated and time consuming recipes but the end result is about the same even if you're lazy like me and do it this way.

4 - 6oz fillet steaks or any good cut
45g butter
140g sliced mushrooms
180 ml Marsala wine
60 ml balsamic vinegar
25g thinly sliced green onions

Prepare the steak in whatever way you choose, either pan fry, grill or barbecue (our favourite).

Melt 15g butter in a pan.  Add mushrooms and cook until softened.  Pour in the Marsala and allow to heat to almost a boil before pouring in the balsamic.  Simmer, stirring now and then until the liquid is reduced by a half then remove from heat.  Stir in the green onions and ladle over the steak.

Make a bit more of the sauce if you've got big steaks or people who are going to drown their meat with it.

Superfood Chocolate Mousse

I was invited this week to a dinner party where we all had to take one or two dishes each. The lady who was hosting is a Health Coach (http://vitalityandfood.com/) and so the 'rules' for the dishes were:


"nothing processed, refined or that can't be found in nature. (That means mainly no msg, gmo, white flour, margerine or sugary products, etc.)"


I had no idea what I was going to do, seeing as I always default to making puddings as I love to bake.


I remember seeing recently though, on River Cottage 'Everyday Veg', some raw vegans making a chocolate avocado tart, so I got searching for a recipe. 


I was extremely excited, but a little apprehensive too...turns out there was no need to be - it was delicious. Happily it also went really well with the other dessert, made by the host herself, which was....wait for it....seaweed cake (actually called Pumpkin-Chocolate Cheesecake).  http://www.purejoyplanet.com/recipes.php - which was AMAZING!!


Here is how to make the Avocado Chocolate Mousse:

Ingredients:
3 ripe avocados
1/2 cup of soya milk (although you can use whatever you milk you like - coconut milk might be nice)
1/3 cup pure maple syrup (the real stuff too, because my cousin brought it all the way from his home - Canada!)
1/3 cup dark cocoa powder
Pinch of cinnamon to taste (to bring out the flavour of the chocolate)

Method:
Chuck it all in your food processor and whizz up until completely mixed. Done!

You may be unsure about this recipe but please give it a go. There are no refined sugars and it is packed with goodness! Avocados provide nearly 20 essential nutrients, including fiber, potassium, Vitamin E, B-vitamins and folic acid. They also act as a "nutrient booster" by enabling the body to absorb more fat-soluble nutrients, such as alpha and beta-carotene and lutein, in foods that are eaten with the fruit. All of that in a pudding! - why wouldn't you give it a go!?!

Five-confession baked potato soup

Soup’s on!

But it comes with a few caveats.  Ready? 

First one:  I’m not a fan of soup.  I acknowledge that it’s hearty, healthy, filling and warm.  The accompanying soft rolls or bread or, as it is tonight, warm ciabatta are usually the best part for me.  I grew up in a house where there was often a stock pot on the hob or stove, boiling the hell out of the bones – chicken, lamb or beef – from the last roast.  And one of our cats only ate chopped boiled liver so I have a vivid memory of that simmering alongside (in a different pan of course!), and can still visualise the pan and smell the contents if I close my eyes.

Confession two:  soups R not Alison.  I don’t tend to make or eat them.  But now and then, at lunch, usually at a National Trust property, I will eat a bowl of soup (as a main, never ever a starter) with the necessary and more enjoyable crusty or fluffy carb accompaniment.

My family loves soup.  I love my family.  The tinned variety (soup, not family) is full of salt and some include nitrites.  There isn’t much of nutritive value in the varieties that fill the shelves in the supermarkets.  Messrs Baxter and Campbell take note.

Deep breath……………… please don’t judge me but I asked for (here’s the third confession) a soup maker for Christmas.  It does everything from frying the onions through mixing, boiling simmering, stirring at the press of a button and then blending to finish.  It’s the lazy woman’s soup companion.  It’s my new best friend.

So I’m putting it to good use and trying a recipe that Alex passed on which is originally from Smitten Kitchen and which I offer as my first attempt at making soup for pleasure (I’ve done the duty variety before).

Oh, and better get that fourth confession out of the way now:  although the title is ‘baked potato’ soup, the potatoes are not, in fact, baked.  They are boiled.  I have since found a recipe which requires them to be baked first and I will certainly try that but I think the idea here is that one puts toppings on the soup, of the kind that one might put on a baked or  jacket potato.

1 head garlic (I gulped and then shuddered when I saw this but it’s for flavour, not for chopping and including and hopefully we’ll all keep our friends in the coming days)

3 tbsp unsalted butter (olive oil works just as well)

2 medium leeks, washed and chopped into rounds which then become individual circles as the leeks cook

1litre chicken or vegetable stock (I always use vegetable so that the chicken doesn’t overpower other flavours unless it’s a chicken dish of course)

2 bay leaves

dash of salt (although most stock cubes, gels, powders have enough salt to see you through so really not necessary)

2 ½ lb (1 kg approx) russet potatoes cut into ½ inch cubes.

100 ml sour cream or crème fraîche   

I couldn’t find russet but any baker will do and I’m using Albert Bartlett Rooster potatoes.  I reckon the rooster is the russet.  The fifth and final confession (in this recipe) is that I can’t follow any recipe exactly.  I add subtract and substitute at will but for this blog I’m staying within the limits of the suggested ingredients and amounts.  You will be able to chop and change no doubt.  I will give recipes as written and my own suggestions as well. 

No more diversions and here is the rest of the recipe if you’ve not opened a tin of ready made by now!

Rinse the head of garlic to remove any grit.  Chop off top third and then peel down to the cloves, leaving the whorl intact. 

Melt butter or oil over medium heat.

Into melted butter put the leeks and cook until soft but not brown (5 minutes will do it).  Add the garlic head, stock, bay leaves, and a dash of salt if you want it.  Reduce heat and simmer until garlic is soft and the cloves are beginning to separate (perhaps 25 minute)s.  Add potatoes and continue to simmer for a further 15 minutes until potatoes are soft. 

Remove bay leaves and garlic head and discard.  If you want an extra garlic boost, mash a couple of the cloves and return to the pan.  Add sour cream and cook for another 2 – 3 minutes. 

Now remove a couple of ladlefuls of the chunky bits and put aside.  Blend the remaining mixture in blender in batches or with a hand blender until smooth.  Return the vegetable chunks to the mix to give it texture.

Serve in big bowls and offer a variety of toppings:  snipped chives, more sour cream or crème fraîche and chopped and fried bacon bits for authenticity.   Or simply eat it unadorned and enjoy.

  

Roasted mushrooms

One of the few things to be said of the government-regulated monopoly that controls alcohol supplies in our province, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, is that it publishes an excellent magazine called Food & Drink. I was browsing the winter edition and found a wonderful new recipe for risotto by Leeanne Wright.

Now, normally, risotto is something I make instinctively, using whatever I have on hand. I can make it in my sleep, and it is possible that I have done so, on occasion. So it’s unusual that I would pay attention to a formal recipe.

What got my attention were the words “Roasted Mushrooms” in the heading. I’ve never considered roasting mushrooms. And the recipe further called for roasted sweet potatoes as well. I love roasted veggies, and I love risotto. Combining them seemed an inspiration.

My tweak on the recipe is that I used both sweet potatoes and yams (since I had one of each).

Risotto with Roasted Mushrooms and Sweet Potato

Olive oil

1 yam

1 sweet potato

About a dozen large cremini mushrooms (they will shrink, so the larger the better)

2 oz (60 g) pancetta, chopped up in cubes

2 shallots, diced

½ cup  (125 mL) dry white wine

3 cups (625 mL) chicken or vegetable stock

1 cup Arborio rice

Several sprigs of fresh thyme, chopped up

Parmesan cheese

Optional: toasted pine nuts

Preheat oven to 400°F (200°C).

Cover a baking sheet with aluminum foil, and spray it lightly with olive oil. Stab the yam all over with a knife and put it on the sheet. Peel the sweet potato and cut it into small cubes. Put the cubes on the sheet. Slice the mushrooms and spread them on the sheet too. Spray the sweet potato and mushrooms with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Put them all in the oven.

The recipe said they’d need 50 minutes or more, but the sweet potato and mushrooms didn’t need that long in my oven. So keep an eye on them. Remove the mushrooms when they are curly and caramelized, the sweet potatoes when the corners are browned. You will want to eat them both like candy. Resist.

Warm the stock in a saucepan or the microwave. Heat up some more olive oil in a large saucepan and throw in the pancetta to cook. Add shallots and let them go limp. Add the rice, coat with the oil and stir until it is shiny. Add the wine and stir and then slowly add the stock. If you run out of stock and the rice is still too hard, add water.

Meanwhile, the yam should be done by now. Take it out, peel it and mash it. If you want to use the pine nuts, put them in the oven briefly to toast (this happens quickly, so pay attention).

Add the mashed yam into the rice mix. Keep adding more water if need be. Stir in the thyme. Finally, when the rice is getting close to being ready, stir in the sweet potato cubes and the mushrooms (if you haven’t eaten them all by now), as well as some grated parmesan. Stir through. Serve with pine nuts on top. Try not to eat in one sitting.

We are now so fond of roast mushrooms that I’ve used them in several other dishes since, including pasta. I may put them on ice cream one day.

Pumpkin muffins with maple-cream cheese frosting

So I've been telling friends at work about my culinary project for the year.  Everyone has been very interested and enthusiastic, and I'm hoping to get some people contributing.  However, I think they're mostly excited about the fact that I'll be bringing my baking experiments into the office to avoid eating everything I make and gaining 200 pounds.  This recipe caught my eye when I was browsing the Smitten Kitchen website, and since I am a sucker for anything containing maple syrup, thought it would make a worthy blog recipe.  I think it could do with even more pumpkin than the ingredient list calls for, since the muffins ended up tasting like slightly pumpkin-y carrot cakes.  But the maple cream-cheese frosting is divine.  And they disappeared pretty quickly at Sunday lunch and then the next day at work around elevenses time, so I'd say they are a keeper!

Pumpkin Muffins With Maple–Cream Cheese Frosting
Taken from the Smitten Kitchen (note: this is an American recipe so be careful with the quantities)

4oz unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup firmly packed dark-brown muscovado sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
2 cups cake flour (you can use plain flour as a substitute for cake flour, taking away 2tbsp per cup)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 large eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk mixed with 1 teaspoon vanilla (if you don't have buttermilk it is easy enough to make)
1 1/4 cups canned pumpkin

For the frosting
16oz cream cheese, softened
4oz unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups icing sugar
1/4 cup pure maple syrup

Preheat the oven to 350° (175°C).

First, beat the butter and sugars on medium speed until fluffy (about 5 minutes). Meanwhile, sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, salt, and pepper into a medium bowl.

Add the eggs 1 at a time to the mix, scraping down the sides after each addition. Alternate adding the flour and buttermilk mixtures, beginning and ending with the flour. Beat in the pumpkin until smooth.

Scoop the batter into muffin cases until they are about 3/4 full. Rap the filled pans once on the counter to release any air bubbles (no seriously, do this - I forgot, and my cupcakes ended up with quite a lot of air inside them!). Bake the cakes until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean (about 20 to 25 minutes). Cool on a rack completely before frosting.  Recipe should yield about 18 muffins.

For the frosting, beat all the ingredients together until fluffy.  I'd suggest making half what the recipe calls for, since I ended up with way too much icing for 18 cupcakes.  But don't be stingy with the maple syrup - it absolutely makes the recipe.

Take a tin of tuna

No, take two actually, but before you do, please thank my sister Philippa for sending me this.  I believe she culled it from a book of recipes using canned fish of various types.  I might be wrong and she can correct me if so.  But she tried it last year and described it to me, it sounded great and I asked her to forward me the recipe which she duly did.

Since this is old hat to her and new to me, I'll put it here for both of us.

Tonight was one of those nights when nothing was planned: we'd been away for the weekend, got home mid afternoon and inspiration simply wasn't striking, or not hard enough to make a dent in my thoughts for an evening meal.  It was too late to defrost anything, there were no leftovers with which to get creative and I sifted through my 'Recipes Pending' file, the one that started in a small clear folder and now spills all over the floor beside my desk and spawns offshoot piles in other rooms.  I can't keep up, truly I can't.  I am addicted to collecting them all:  clippings from newspapers and magazines, emailed suggestions from kind friends and scribbled notes on the back of old envelopes.

I came across the following one close to the top of the pile closest to me.  Aha!  This is both recent and untried by me and will tick a couple of my personal boxes now.  My sister is a most creative cook, as you'll have discovered if you've followed the blog.  Lack of inspiration and a bare cupboard do not unsettle her.  She simply makes do with what's there.  She may have to rush out for tinned tomatoes now and then but usually she can can cobble together a wonderful meal from a few bits and bobs.

I offer you................ um, I'm not sure what it's called as it's a rather nice variation on tuna casserole and there is no pasta to sully the mix.

Let's just say Sweet potato, tuna and red pepper bake.

1 red onion, thinly sliced
2 sweet potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced or diced, whatever comes naturally and if you like squash then substitute an equal amount of squash for one of the sweet potatoes
1 red pepper, seeded and diced or (I had to do this) 1 roasted red pepper from a jar, chopped roughly
1 tbsp chopped fresh basil or 1 tsp dried

Mix the veg together in an ovenproof dish and drizzle with a combination of 2 tsp each olive oil, lemon juice and balsamic vinegar

Cover with foil and roast at 180º for about 20 minutes.

While this is all cooking merrily, make a cheese sauce.  Everyone has their own proportions but I find that a roux of 25g each butter and flour to thicken 300 ml milk is a decent and not-too-runny version.  The amount of cheese depends on taste and the dish involved, but 100g grated cheddar, mild or sharp, won't overpower anyone or anything.

NOW you take your two tins of tuna, drain well, flake with a fork and place on top of the roasted veg.  Pour the cheese sauce over all and return to the oven for another 15 minutes until top is nicely browned and bubbling.

This recipe is enough for two very hungry people.  I'd add more veg rather than tuna to extend it a bit further.  And if you put some soft rolls or crusty bread with it, you might feed three very nicely indeed.

We washed it down with a white wine from Rhodes.  We were there in October and found one one very palatable local one and brought a bottle back duty free so no point in me telling you what it was as it's not available here.  But any nice light white will do.    

Of cabbages and kings

Kale. Not a vegetable I was familiar with before stumbling across this recipe on my favourite cooking blog sometime last year. I even had to google it to find out which vegetable family it belonged to (most closely related to the cabbage, in case you wanted to know). I made that Orangette recipe once or twice and enjoyed it, but then kind of forgot that kale existed again. Until this week. Now that I'm getting into cooking in a big way I've started perusing the blogosphere again, and on the front page of one I found a recipe for kale and winter squash salad which sounded delicious.

Well, I made this salad for myself earlier in the week, tested it out on some friends tonight, and plan to make it for dinner with the family on the weekend. I'm not often moved to make the same recipe three times in one week, but this is just so good that right now, I want to eat it every day. Very simple to make, but the combination of flavours elevates it into something special. I promised lots of recipes involving cheese on this blog, and this fits the bill (and forget about the half-fat mild cheddar for this one - it needs something crunchy and sharp to cut through the caramelised sweetness of the butternut squash).

Kale and butternut squash salad
(Adapted from Northern Spy's kale salad)

1/2 cup cubed butternut (or other winter) squash (I also added some sweet potato)
salt and freshly ground pepper
2 1/2 cups curly kale
1/4 cup pine nuts
1/4 cup crumbled or grated cheddar cheese
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp olive oil
parmesan, for shaving (optional)

Heat the oven to 425° F. Toss the squash cubes in just enough olive oil to coat, and season with salt and pepper. Spread on a baking sheet, leaving space between the cubes. Roast in the oven until tender and caramelized, about 40 minutes, tossing with a spatula every 10-15 minutes. Toast the pine nuts on a baking sheet in the same oven until they start to smell nutty, tossing once, for about 10 minutes. Leave to cool.

In a large bowl, mix the kale, pine nuts, cheddar cheese and squash, and toss in approximately 1 tablespoon lemon juice and 2 tablespoons olive oil. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Garnish with shaved parmesan cheese and serve. This should do for about two people as a main dish, but will serve more as a starter or side salad.

Best served with champagne and enjoyed with friends on a good news day, which was what today was for me!

In praise of tinned tomatoes

Tinned tomatoes belong to that category of things that you take completely for granted. You always have at least one tin in the cupboard somewhere, don’t you? Everybody does.

Well, I thought I did. It was mid-afternoon, and I’d been working to a deadline and hadn’t really spent much time thinking about dinner. I knew I had some frozen cod fillets that represented potential protein, and turned to a cookbook standby—Off the Shelf, by Donna Hay. It’s a book about cooking with what you have on hand.

I glanced through the recipe and thought, “Perfect. I have all I need,” and set out the cod to defrost.

A couple of hours later, I came down to get started. I went to the cupboard where I keep the tins to get the tomatoes the recipe called for—and nothing. Chickpeas: yes. Lentils: check. Tuna: enough to feed an army. No tomatoes.

Fortunately, there is a 24-hour convenience store at the end of the street. Most of the merchandise is heavy-duty junk food made from edible oil by-products sold at exorbitant prices, but they have a tiny shelf of real (albeit packaged) food, hidden at the back. I threw on a coat, ran down the street, and wonder of wonders, there were two tins of real tomatoes on that shelf. Evening saved.

I’ll get to the recipe in a minute.

The experience got me thinking. What are the absolute staples that I should always have on hand, no matter what? I did an inventory, typed up the result, and I plan to tape it to the inside of my pantry cupboard door. Next  time I am heading out to a supermarket, I will check to make sure that I actually have the things on that list, and if not, I will stock up.

The list was surprisingly long, and in certain categories there are several items (you can’t get by with just one type of vinegar, for example). So…what’s on your standby list? What has to be there to make you feel that you are ready for a siege? What are the must-haves versus the nice-to-haves? In what category do you put mustard? Artichokes in a jar? Tarragon vinegar?

All contributions welcome. Here’s the recipe, modified to suit my non-exacting standards.

Tomato and basil poached fish

A puddle of olive oil

2 onions, chopped anyhow

Garlic

3-5 thinly sliced potatoes (I leave the peel on and use a mandolin to slice them)

½ cup fish stock

2 medium-sized tins whole peeled tomatoes (but diced is OK too)

2 firm white-fleshed fish fillets, enough for two people

Basil pesto, or fresh basil chopped, if you have it

Heat a deep frying pan. Add some oil, the onions and as much chopped garlic as you think is reasonable for two people. Cook the mixture until the onions wilt. Add the potatoes, stock, and tomatoes. Cover. Give it another 5 or so minutes.

Remove the cover and stir to break up the tomatoes a bit if you are using whole tomatoes. Let it reduce and thicken – this takes maybe 5 minutes. Maybe more. Put the fish on top. Give it a few minutes each side. When it starts to fall apart a bit, it’s ready.

Take out the fish, and stir the pesto through the tomato mixture. Put the tomato mixture on the plate and put the fish on top. Serves 2.

Florentines

Hello! My name is Emily, and Alex, who runs the show around these parts, is one of my best friends. I'm lucky enough to be one of her regular cultural, creative and culinary co-conspirators (try saying that three times fast), and I promise I'm not just co-operating with the blog so she'll let me eat all the amazing food she writes about on here. I'm not a vegetarian, but I almost never cook with meat, and I tend to specialise in comfort food and/or the kind of thing you'd prepare for a big celebratory get-together. Speaking of which...

On the 12th Day Of Christmas, I was baking like a maniac.

Many mark Epiphany with 'King Cakes' - the French side of my family indulges in the traditional frangipane galettes (one of my favourite things ever) every Sunday in January - but as alas pastry is NOT my forte (note that I've never tried the recipe linked to here, it's for explanatory purposes only). But to me, January 6th is really mostly the day before my Grandmother's birthday, and this year, Granny specifically asked for Florentines.

Granny's a pretty picky eater, and her memory isn't quite what it used to be, so the fact that she remembered something I've made before and liked it enough to ask for it is a high honour indeed! And so of course, I postponed all the other fairly important things I needed to do, like apply for a new job, proofread someone's PhD thesis, do my current job, and sleep, and got my year in cooking started in spectacular fashion by thoroughly laying waste to the kitchen into the wee small hours of the morning.

I couldn't find the recipe I'd used before, so I started with Delia, and adapted from there.

Festive Florentines
I doubled Delia's recipe because I have many relatives and adjusted the ingredients based on what my unglamorous local supermarket had to offer:
Baking paper (Non-essential, but dramatically speeds up the process if you're baking in batches, which, let's face it, unless you have an industrial kitchen, you pretty much will be.)
300g dark chocolate (Unless you have a REALLY sweet tooth, I'd advise against substituting milk or white chocolate here - after all, you want to be able to scoff as many of these as possible without lapsing into a sugar coma.)
50g salted butter (I always use salted butter to add flavour but if the idea of salt in sweets really squicks you out, there's no reason why you can't use unsalted.)
150g caster sugar (I typically reduce sugar quantities and/or substitute ground almonds in almost every recipe I try, but in this case, you're essentially making caramel, so it's all about proportions. Don't let that intimidate you though! And I don't usually have a qualifying paragraph for every single ingredient, so don't let that intimidate you, either.)
20g plain flour
130ml double cream (I accidentally dumped the entire 150ml tub in with no adverse effects, my earlier point about proportions notwithstanding.)
200g flaked almonds (Delia's recipe calls for slicing and 'blanching' half the almonds yourself and just... no. Life's too short, and I don't really know what blanching means, anyway. As a compromise, I bought one bag of toasted and one bag of untoasted flaked almonds, but I honestly don't think it makes the blindest bit of difference.)
100g candied peel
100g glacé cherries, chopped (If by some miracle you can find these ready-chopped, DO IT. Hang the expense. Chopping glacé cherries is gross.)

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees (gas mark 5). Line your baking trays with baking paper. (Note on baking trays: I have used muffin/bun tins (the ones with round indentations) to make these before, and my aunt - who is, like, a proper catering cook - mentioned the other day that she does that too. It makes for nice uniformly round florentines, but it does mean they can be thick and therefore chewy rather than crisp. If you do go that route, or opt to use flat trays but no baking paper, make sure you grease them thoroughly as this mixture will stick to EVERYTHING. Letting the mixture spread on flat trays can get a bit messy if they blend together into one giant florentine, but if you use baking paper you can actually cut them with scissors before they set, and I think they're nicer that way)

Prepare the almonds (in whatever format you've plumped for), candied peel and cherries so they're ready to be stirred in to the mixture with a minimum of faffing later in the process. If you do need to chop the cherries, aim for pieces about a quarter of the size, but not a lot of precision is really required.



Stick the butter, flour and sugar in a pan (big enough to eventually hold all the ingredients) on low heat. Stir continuously until they've blended together smoothly, then slowly add the cream, while still stirring. As the cold cream hits the warm mixture you might end up with little hard flecks of caramel. Don't worry about those, they'll blend into the mixture with no adverse effects, but resist the urge to fish them out and eat them, as they'll be HOT and REALLY STICKY and that will be PAINFUL.



Once again, stir until the mixture is smooth and uniform. Add the nuts, etc.

Stir thoroughly.

Spoon onto baking trays/tins. A not-too-heaped teaspoonful of mixture will produce a roughly small-biscuit-sized florentine (are florentines biscuits? I've never been able to decide. Do let me know what you think, not that it matters - they're yummy :)). If you want the shape to be nice and rounded leave plenty of space between each one so they can spread without overlapping; if you're less worried about overlapping (and using baking paper) then don't worry about that as you can separate them by cutting them before they set.

And into the oven they go!

I found 11 minutes to be the optimal cooking time but keep an eye on them as your mileage/oven may vary. If you've got several batches on more than one shelf, swap them halfway through so they cook uniformly.

Note that they won't be hard when they come out, so don't wait for that to happen.

Here's where the baking paper comes into it's own: you can just (carefully) lift the whole thing off the baking tray and set it aside to cool, line the tray with a fresh sheet, and start over. And like I mentioned above, if the florentines have spread too much and overlapped, at this point, you can just cut them out with scissors (you want to do that now before they set).

Onc you're close to being done with the baking of the last batch, it's time for the fun part: melt the chocolate. Delia goes on about bowls and water and not touching the sides or something but let's be real: microwave. (If you don't have a microwave, I'm guessing you know how to melt chocolate without one; if somehow you've gone through life without ever melting chocolate in a microwave - less than a minute will do it, it won't look melted when it comes out, but mix it and it will).

Coat each florentine by pouring a spoonful of chocolate onto each piece. Spread it out with the spoon. I'm not personally a big stickler for it being all that even, but yet another advantage of the baking paper is that if you want to get every last corner of them, you can go over the edges without making too much of a mess.

Delicious, gooey fun.

And you're done! Stick them in the fridge until the chocolate sets. If you're not going to serve them within a day, I'd peel them off the baking paper after a few hours, and store in something airtight.

These have never lasted long enough at my house for me to have a good sense of how long it is before they go off.

Autumn Vegetable Stew (Poroto Granados)

It had to happen. In fact, my family is wondering what took me so long to post my first ‘bean’ recipe. It is a well known fact that I’m fond of beans of all types and tend to throw them into stews and casseroles even when they don't figure in the recipe. Alex was offended to find beans in her lasagne at one meal, so I’ve not tried that trick again. But I love beans, and their nutritive benefits are impressive.

The original recipe for this came from a superb cook, my dear friend Lyn. She makes it all look ridiculously easy, can feed hordes at a moment’s notice with seemingly no effort (claiming how simple it is, and perhaps it is for her) and she doesn’t flinch when she has several days on the trot of a half a dozen or more around her table at every meal. However, she’s aware of my culinary limitations and has kindly produced many straightforward and wonderful recipes which are now firm favourites in my permanent collection. Perhaps it’s cheating, slightly, to include this one here since it’s not, strictly speaking, a brand new effort for 2012. However, this version is new as it’s a variation on Lyn’s original handwritten contribution to my files. The master chef didn’t give precise amounts for every ingredient. She knows exactly how much of each so on my first run, I had to take (as it turned out) a good guess. Now I will write it down in detail and add the few variations I made but, essentially this is her recipe with my light stamp on it.

Poroto Granados is, basically, a Chilean stew, popular in late summer or early autumn when the harvest is gathered and the tomatoes, corn and squash are at their best. The cranberry bean is used in Chile but since my local supermarket doesn’t extend quite that far (no doubt they would be available in a specialty shop in London) I’ve used borlotti, as those, according to my research, is what is closest to the shape, size, colour and texture of the cranberry bean.

If you like beans, you should like this. I think the smoked paprika is what makes it for me. And I submit it with grateful thanks to Lyn for her inspiration.

2 tbsp olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped
1 or 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 tsp sweet smoked paprika (very important for the flavour)
handful of oregano and marjoram, chopped, or 1 tsp each, dried
400g tin borlotti beans, drained and well rinsed
1 litre vegetable stock
1 bay leaf
750g squash, such as butternut, cut into 2cm chunks
200g French beans, trimmed and cut into 2cm pieces (frozen works equally well)
200g frozen corn or tin of sweet corn, drained
Salt and pepper

Heat the oil in a large saucepan or casserole over a medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and sauté gently for about 10 minutes. Add the paprika, marjoram and half the oregano. Cook for another few minutes.

Add beans, stock and bay leaf, bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 10–15 minutes until the squash is just tender. Add the French beans and corn kernels and simmer for another 5 minutes.

Remove bay leaf.

Season well – and stir in the remaining oregano.

Go on, get organised and, earlier in the day, make some crusty brown bread to serve with this. I did - well, in a machine of course! Failing that, buy some or use what you’ve got on hand.

Serves 4.

Bacon and leek quiche

I was looking through the freezer this week - partly because it is in desperate need of being cleaned out and defrosted, but partly looking for ingredients that might inspire a new blog post.  At the back was an ice-encrusted quiche from Sainsburys, stored in there for a night where I didn't really feel like cooking.  Quiche is one of those things - like pastry and yoghurt - that I used to think life was too short to make from scratch.  Well, I've started making my own pastry and aim to try yoghurt at some point this year, so why not quiche?

This recipe was given to me by my grandmother (on my father's side) - an excellent cook all her life, notwithstanding her habit of buying beautiful cuts of meat and then broiling the flavour and texture right out of them!  It comes from the bottom of a pie plate she had bought years ago, but she swore it worked well.  And she was right - I can tell that I'll be making quiche rather than buying it in the store from now on.  Wish I could call her tonight and thank her for it.

(Grandma's) Quiche Lorraine

For the pastry:
6oz (175g) plain flour
4oz (110g) butter, cubed
pinch of salt
a little cold water to mix (4-5 tbsp should do it)

For the filling:
2 eggs and 1 yolk
3oz (75g) bacon, diced
5oz (150g) cream
2oz (50g) grated cheese (the recipe called for gruyere but I used cheddar)
1 small onion (or 2-3 spring onions), chopped (I had leeks that needed using up so I substituted these for the onion - it seems like the kind of recipe that you can add or subtract all manner of ingredients to depending on preference)
1/2oz (10g) butter
seasoning, to taste

Store-bought pastry works just fine, but if you feel like making your own (and it really isn't as daunting as it seems!), sift the flour and salt into a bowl. Rub the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.  Make a well in the centre, and add the cold water a tablespoon at a time, stirring until the mixture forms a dough.  Knead it lightly until it is smooth and then wrap in clingfilm and chill for at least 20 minutes.  Roll the pastry out into a crust and place in a (9-10") pie dish.

Make the filling by beating the eggs and the extra yolk in a basin, and then adding the grated cheese, cream and pepper and salt.  Melt the butter in a pan and add the bacon and onions.  Cook slowly until onions are translucent and then turn into the egg mixture.  Mix and pour into the pastry case.  Bake at 375-400F (190-200C) until firm and golden.  This should take about 40 minutes.

The quiche can be eaten hot or cold (looking forward to using up the leftovers in my packed lunches this week!) and goes nicely with a green salad.
 

Aubergine and Tomato Bake

I've always had an ambivalent relationship with aubergine (or eggplant as I knew it in Canada). What a singularly unromantic name for such a beautifully-coloured vegetable. Part of the problem is that so many recipes require the chef to slice, salt and press between dinner plates with kitchen towel to absorb the 'bitterness'. I've never had a bitter aubergine that I'm aware of, even the ones not salted and squashed.

About 30 odd years ago, a vegetarian friend of David's served us a wonderful tomato and eggplant casserole in which the eggplant was boiled and mashed with tomatoes, eggs, breadcrumbs etc. That dish became a stock favourite of ours for a long time. Then I rather fell off the aubergine circuit when mangetouts hit the scene.

However, I'm fond of them still, have revived my affection in fact, and Alex has been using them to great advantage recently in several recipes, so tonight I decided to take the plunge:

2 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed (I never ever use more than one, and if we have to be in circulation the following day it really isn't fair on the general public!)
2 x 400g tins chopped tomatoes
150g quinoa
1 tbsp tomato paste
large handful of basil, roughly chopped
2 medium sized aubergines, cut into medium sized chunks
50g parmesan, grated (I often use grated low-fat cheddar to reduce the fat content for the cholesterol-conscious! )

Preheat grill to medium. Heat half the oil and gently fry the onion for about 5 or 6 minutes. Add garlic and fry for a further 2 minutes. Add tomatoes, quinoa, tomato paste, and 300ml just-boiled water. Simmer for 20 minutes until quinoa is tender. Stir through most of the basil and season.

While this mixture is simmering, heat the rest of the oil in a frying pan and fry aubergine on a low heat for about 15 minutes until softened. Add a little water to the pan when the oil is absorbed, as it will be and very quickly too!

Spread quinoa and tomato mixture on the bottom of a two litre casserole. Top with the aubergine and sprinkle the cheese on top. Grill for about 5 minutes until the cheese melts and bubbles and the dish is piping hot.

Garnish with a few basil leaves and serve at once. Crusty bread goes well with it and you will get 4 very good-sized servings from this recipe.

And two days later, the reheated leftovers are amazing.

Braised celery

This is a very minor experiment, more of a variation than a truly new recipe, but here goes. A couple of nights ago, I had a nice little steak perfect to be shared between the two of us, and some fingerling potatoes. But the only available green was a rather dispirited bunch of celery. After glaring at the pale green stalks for a while, I went in search of my Nigel Slater collection (most of it courtesy of Alison over the course of several birthdays and Christmases). A bit of rummaging yielded the inspiration I needed: BRAISE THEM.

Lightbulb moment. I turned to my other trusty ally in the kitchen wars: Clothilde Dusoulier, and her quirky little Chocolate and Zucchini cookbook. I have long been making her braised fennel recipe – why not do the same thing with celery?

I replaced her lime juice with white balsamic vinegar (ever since a friend of mine went to Modena and learned about Real Balsamic Vinegar, I have become terribly snobby about this substance), and omitted the rosemary, but otherwise, this is Clothilde at her best. I leave the quantities up to you, depending on how many mouths you have to feed.

Celery stalks

Olive oil

Vegetable stock

White balsamic vinegar

Chop the stalks in half so they will fit into the pan. Heat the olive oil in a skillet and add the celery. Shuggle the skillet around from time to time so that the celery doesn’t stick, but otherwise, let the celery go limp and even brown a bit. This takes 5 to 10 minutes. Add the stock to cover and add a generous dash of the vinegar. Let the broth reduce until it is syrupy, by which time the celery are delicious.

As it happened, after putting the celery on the plate, I added the remaining liquid to the cognac-and-peppercorn reduction that I was creating after removing the steak from another skillet. Magic.

Well, I was all set to go with my pasta toss this evening. It's a variation on lasagne with sausage and penne pasta in the sauce and filling. I also put in cottage cheese but shhhhhh - no one in the house likes cottage cheese except for me. Kit got on the 'wrong train' tonight and found himself in Greenwich when he was intending to return to Sevenoaks (go figure) and David is on the train they agreed on. We get so few weeknight meals together. So it's adding insult to injury that my 'new' recipe is not really worthy of publication but I made it in with last night's. At least I think I did.

I'll aim to get another one in by week end. I do have standards and I have to keep up with the younger generation and the better cooks. Sigh and aarrgghh!

Red, yellow and green risotto

I had intended to post my first recipe tomorrow. It is chosen, the shopping list is made and I am ready to roll - tomorrow. But the appalling weather kept me at home until it was too late to get out to the shops and so this evening I had to be inventive with what I have here which, after the New Year, is not much. I'm planning pasta for tomorrow, there are no potatoes in the house and few veg and nothing defrosted so it has to be risotto, a standby. But hey I thought, why not make something new and untried, something to post to get my own ball rolling? So I created this one and David deemed it worthy of posting.

~ 1 litre vegetable stock, in a pan on the hob on a low boil
1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
300g arborio rice
50ml white wine
12-15 cherry tomatoes, quartered
150 - 200g frozen sweetcorn
60g grated parmesan
a handful fresh basil leaves, finely torn
seasoning to taste

Heat oil in large pot and cook onion and garlic together until soft but not brown. Add rice, stir to coat the grains (about a minute) and then add the wine and bubble until it evaporates.  Spoon in the stock gradually, one ladle at a time, stirring between each until the liquid is absorbed. After about 15-18 minutes when rice is soft but not soggy and there is one ladle of stock left, add the corn, tomatoes and stock and stir until the risotto is firming up but not dry. Remove from heat and add the cheese and basil, stirring it all in to melt cheese.

Serve with crusty bread if you wish, but it's very good as a stand alone.

OK, let's get started!

My daughter certainly didn't inherit my culinary genes, fortunately for her! She and I have a very different approach to our cooking which keeps life interesting in the Glennie kitchen! Perhaps after decades of doing, literally, the meat-and-potaotes-grind on weeknights for school-age children who wanted it quick and uncomplicated, and with Kit's allergies locking off a whole arena of food choices, my meal preparation was dictated by what was fast, easy, nourishing and palatable, although this last one was fairly far down the list. I never fell into the fish fingers and chips hole though, as food can be fast without being 'fast food' and I have always refused to serve up the latter. OK, well maybe I cheated with the odd Kraft Dinner or take-away pizza in our Toronto days, but generally I have made a meal most nights in the week when at least one of the family is at home. I do not, however, cook when I'm alone (perhaps this is why cooking wouldn't be listed as one of my hobbies) and exist on salads and fruit when there is no one else to feed.

However, I do enjoy food preparation when it ticks all my boxes and I have a stash of saved but untried recipes which fill a box file and lie in piles in various corners. It was only when doing a clear out of all these piles after Christmas and almost getting to the point of throwing them away that Alex and I came up with the idea of trying one new recipe each week of the year and sharing them. Project 52. Alex ran with that and turned it into a blog and why not? Hopefully other friends and family will share their 'new' cooking experiences this year. Oh, I guess they can be the tried and true ones too but all that I post will be new ones for me. It will be fun to sort through the many scruffy bits of paper with combinations that looked like a good idea at the time and discover which actually are the better ones in the lot!

Please join us with your thoughts and feedback but more than that, send us your gastronomic discoveries for 2012. The diversity will be the fun part, that and knowing each time we experiment in the kitchen, we can share our trials and tribulations.

Keeeeeep cooking!

New year's resolutions

Hi, and welcome to Eat and Two Veg: the start of a year of culinary experimentation. A long Christmas break (spent lazing and cooking most of the food in the known universe) has given me a good chance to think about goals and potential projects for the new year. In 2011, I signed up for the 365 project and took a photograph every day for 365 days. Not always as easy as it sounds, but good fun and I'm already feeling slightly bereft at the loss of my daily challenge. Hence this blog, in which I'll be able to combine my love of photography and cooking. Unless otherwise credited, all photos in my posts will be taken by me.

The idea is to spend a year searching out and trying new recipes - at least one new one a week - and then posting about the results here. A 'Project 52', if you will. They won't always (or even usually) be incredibly complicated, since the best food is often the simplest. Can you really beat a good plate of macaroni and cheese, after all? But I do hope it will give me the chance to learn some new techniques and experiment with different flavour combinations. I'm also hoping that family and friends will sign up and help me out - whether on a regular or occasional basis. By the end of 2012, this should produce a collection of great recipes to share around.

To start off in style, here's a cake I made for New Year's Eve. And yes, technically that was last year and shouldn't count, but it's my blog and my rules. Slightly labour intensive, but well worth the effort, especially if you love coconut. And while this could be done with dessicated coconut, I'd recommend trying it with a fresh one. The taste is more intense, and it's fun breaking into it with a hammer! Recipe provided by Delia Smith, and given a twist of lime.

Fresh Coconut and Lime Layer Cake

(Adapted from Delia's Vegetarian Collection)

Ingredients

For the cake:

3 oz (75 g) finely grated fresh coconut

6 oz (175 g) self-raising flour

1 rounded teaspoon baking powder

3 large eggs at room temperature

zest and juice of 2 limes

6 oz (175 g) very soft butter

6 oz (175 g) golden caster sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the coconut frosting:

1½ oz (40 g) finely grated fresh coconut

9 oz (250 g) mascarpone

7 fl oz (200 ml) fromage frais

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 level dessertspoon golden caster sugar

Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 3 / 325°F / 170°C.

Preparing the coconut is the first step, which isn't as difficult as it sounds. First push a skewer into the 3 holes in the top of the coconut and drain out the milk. Then place the coconut in a polythene bag and sit it on a hard surface – a stone floor or an outside paving stone - and give it a few strong blows with a hammer. As my friend Birgit discovered, this was the best part of the process!

Remove the pieces from the bag and prise the top of a knife between the nut and the shell. You should find that you can force the whole piece out in one go. Discard the shell and take off the inner skin using a potato peeler. The coconut is now ready to use. The best way to grate coconut flesh is with the grating disc of a food processor, but a hand grater will also work. Let the grated coconut soak in the juice of the limes until you're ready to add it to the batter - it cuts the sweetness a little and is a nice addition.

To make the cake, sieve the flour and baking powder into a large bowl, holding the sieve high to give them a good airing. Now add all the other ingredients apart from the grated coconut to the bowl and combine everything with an electric hand whisk until you have a smooth mixture,which will take about 1 minute. If you don't have an electric hand whisk, use a wooden spoon.

Finally, stir in the 3 oz (75 g) finely grated coconut and the lime juice and zest, and divide the mixture between two eight inch (20 cm) sandwich tins with a depth of at least 4cm - lightly greased and lined with parchment paper [note: you can also make this as a solid cake by cooking it in a single deeper tin].

Place the tins on the centre shelf of the oven for 30-35 minutes. To test whether the cakes are cooked, lightly touch the centre of each with a finger: if it leaves no impression and the sponges springback, they are ready. Next, remove them from the oven, then wait about 5 minutes before turning them out on to a wire cooling rack. Carefully peel off the base papers, and when the cakes are absolutely cold, carefully divide each one horizontally into two halves using a sharp serrated knife.

Make up the frosting by simply whisking all the ingredients together in a bowl to combine them. Next select the plate or stand you want to serve the cake on – you'll also need a palette knife – then place one cake layer on first, followed by a thin layer of frosting (about a fifth), followed by the next layer of cake and frosting, and so on. After that, use the rest of the frosting to coat the sides and top of the cake and finish by covering the whole thing with the rest of the coconut. Et voila. It should look something like this - a bit messy but delicious nonetheless:

Here's to a year of good cooking and good fun!