sausage-hotpot

s a u s a g e - h o t p o t
I bought a brilliant turquoise casserole dish with a lid last year which looks perfectly at home in my kitchen. It usually sits on a shelf surrounded by my cute little, charity shop bought, cups & saucers and my mum's old milk jug... but that's not really the point of it I suppose! After deciding I should do more cooking with it (and mostly because I realised I had sausages needing used up), a sausage hotpot seemed like an obvious choice!

So for the recipe:
6 sausages of your choosing (I used pork & red onion sausages but it definitely works with Quorn sausages too); 2 carrots; 1 leek; 1 courgette; 4 chestnut mushrooms; red wine (some for cooking, the rest for drinking); chutney; red onion; Worcestershire sauce; tin of baked beans.
Cook the sausages in the casserole dish with a chopped red onion, 200ml (ish) of red wine, a 'glug' of Worcestershire sauce and 2 tablespoons of chutney. Whilst the sausages are cooking, parboil the carrots and have a glass of wine. After about 20 mins of the sausages cooking, cut them into smaller chunks and add the remaining ingredients (chopped leek, parboiled carrots, chopped courgette, sliced mushrooms, baked beans). At this point I added a little water and another tablespoon of chutney - because it's just so tasty. Cook on a lower heat (about 120) for a further 30 minutes until everything is bubbling away in the casserole dish.


I served it with mashed potatoes (which I mash with olive oil & a tiny bit of paprika to give them a deep, nutty taste with a bit more colour) and I'll admit the portions were slightly out of control...the recipe would comfortably serve 4 but it seemed to be finished by the two of us!!

winter-cakery

w i n t e r - c a k e r y
Like a grit bin, I'm made for winter really. A 'Celtic' transparent & freckly complexion lends itself well to being wrapped up in a hat and coat on winter nights with the steam of a cup of mulled wine keeping me warm!
Warm, spicy and tasty are the results I aim to produce when I bake during Winter.
I can throw together a Marieke Cake pretty quickly & add a dusting of icing sugar with some Christmas-related greenery in the middle. Alternatively, I cook some gingerbread biscuits. Gingerbread biscuits are so easy to make in all different sort of shapes and sizes (man/woman/star/heart/bell).

So for the recipe (which makes about 30 decent star shapes):
350g plain flour; 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda; 3 tsp ground ginger; 1 tsp cinnamon; 125g butter; 175g brown sugar; 1 egg; 4 tbsp golden syrup
Mix the flour, bicarbonate of soda, ginger and cinnamon (or other spices) into a bowl. Add the butter and blend together until the mix resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar.
Gently beat the egg and syrup together and add the the dry mix until combined. Tip the dough out and knead it until it had turned smooth. Wrap it in clingfilm and leave to chill for 15 minutes.
Roll out the dough to a £1 coin thickness and use cutters to cut out your gingerbread shapes. Place on a baking tray and bake for 12 minutes at 170 degrees. Transfer to a cooling rack once cooked so they can begin to harden.

plenty more fish...

p l e n t y - m o r e - f i s h . . .
I was told by a former colleague that salmon is too common and, in many ways, I think I agree; Every restaurant you go to now has at least one salmon dish but I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing. I am aware there are plenty more fish in the sea, metaphorically and literally I suppose, but I really do love salmon (particularly a giant bit of smoked salmon if anyone is thinking about a good Christmas present).
 

My Dad is brilliant when it comes to flavour combinations; He has great taste in wine and is my kindred spirit when it comes to sharing a giant pot of raw garlic in oil and polishing off a kilo of Roquefort in 20 minutes! And as much as garlic, wine and French blue cheese feature heavily in his (and my own) life he also creates some other amazing concoctions in the kitchen - one incredible salmon recipe in particular which he has shared with a few people, and it now comes recommended by their local fish man (someone who, I imagine, is not like this...)!

Salmon in marinade

So for the recipe:
For the marinade – 1 ‘glug’ soy sauce; 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar; 1 ‘glug’ white wine; 3 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced; 4 chopped spring onions; ½ inch ginger, finely sliced; ½ chilli, finely sliced.
For cooking – 1 ‘glug’ white wine; 1 tbsp olive oil; 2 tsps honey; 1 tsp dried tarragon

Cover the bottom of a dish with the soy sauce then add the other marinade ingredients. Place the Salmon steaks on the marinade with the skin side up, cover and place in fridge for at least 6 hours.
Cover the bottom of a dish with olive oil, remove the salmon from the marinade and place skin side up in the dish and rub some olive oil on the skin. Cover with tin foil and bake for 25 to 30 minutes at 180C.
Pour the left-over marinade into a pan, add another glug of white wine, some olive oil & slowly heat the mixture. When hot add 2 tsps of honey and keep stirring until the honey is dissolved. Add a teaspoon of dried tarragon and let mixture simmer until reduced slightly.
When the salmon is cooked, serve with the cooked marinade mixture poured over the top. I usually serve it with spring onion & crème fraiche mash and a glass of the remaining white wine which seems to compliment it pretty well!

Eat Mair Pie is a lovely recipe blog which has my dad’s salmon recipe on it too.
And Vince – maybe have a go with this salmon recipe...it’s not that common and "Hugh’ll" probably be impressed!!

Baked salmon with 'nomathon' mash

recipes

r e c i p e s . . .
The last time I followed a recipe exactly I think I was doing a badge for Brownies and needed to make meatballs – I don’t believe it was a meatball-specific badge, probably just a cookery badge!
The whole meatball-making process started after school about 4pm and the food wasn’t on the table until 6.30pm! By this time I had to go to Brownies so I think I had a jam sandwich for my dinner that night (which tasted much better than my attempt at meatballs)! My unlucky brothers were the recipients of what was probably described as “another one of Laura’s cooking attempts” ... around the same time I burnt potatoes when boiling them, couldn’t use a tin opener and tried to pass off porridge oats and raisins as home-made muesli!

Things have progressed since then, I learnt to follow recipes and then I learnt not to follow recipes.

For me, there are times I need to follow recipes – making pastry

And there are times when I don’t – making anything other than pastry

As a Disney pirate once said “the code is more what you’d call ‘guidelines’ than actual rules” and this is perfectly applicable to recipes too!

So substitute away, probably within reason, and if you need any more encouragement to ditch the coriander* and try something different then have a look at The Flavour Thesaurus. It’s an inspired book about flavours that go and flavours that contrast & compliment. Really well written and easy to reference if (like me) you don’t have everything in your cupboards that a recipe suggests. 

*NB – I would like to take a moment to point out that I don’t have anything against coriander as an ingredient in recipes!

pistachio-joy!!

p i s t a c h i o - j o y ! ! . . .
Now I’ve showed you what I think are my standard cakes (carrot cake, vegan chocolate cake, Marieke cake), I can move on to my favourite cake...

I could eat an entire one of these cakes in one sitting....partly because I love cake but mostly because I LOVE pistachios!! It would make more sense for me to just eat a bag of pistachios but it’s not really the same!!
The most laborious part of making this cake is shelling the pistachios so you should either put some time aside to do that or get some recruits (even Niall helps with shelling pistachios for this one and it’s rare that he will help with anything baking related given there is no reward for him – he doesn’t really like cake...I know, weird!!).

I'm surprised there are pistachios left on the top!

So for the recipe:
125g butter - soft; 175g caster sugar; 3 eggs – beaten; 125g plain flour; ½  tsp baking powder; 100g(ish) pistachio nuts – chopped; 1 lemon – juiced & zested
Cream together the sugar and butter until fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Add in the flour & baking powder. Stir together until combined. Stir in most of the chopped nuts and finally add in the lemon juice & zest. Bake at Gas Mark 4 for 20 – 30 minutes, until the top of the cake is golden and it bounces back up when you press it gently.

To ice it I just sprinkle it with some icing sugar – you really don’t need anything more than that...the pistachios do all the work.

I did once end up with hardly any pistachios in my cake as I’d eaten so many in the baking tasting process. I tend to cook with some at the side now!!

carrot-cake-collection

c a r r o t - c a k e - c o l l e c t i o n . . .
I love the texture of carrot cake, even when it's being cut, it has a different sound and feel to it (sounds weird but it’s true!).
I’d been watching Cook Yourself Thin a while ago which was a completely genius show that made me think a bit differently about what I put into food. They used sweet potato, beetroot and other root vegetables in cakes & desserts to make them more moist and, I think, replace some of the processed sugars or at least take out some of the calories... I don’t really like beetroot but one of my friends had made beetroot chocolate brownies and you really can’t taste the beetroot when it’s grated through (and probably the fact that it's mixed with chocolate)! The courgette in the carrot cake is the same...grated up you can’t taste it at all but it really adds to the texture of the cake. The mixture isn’t very cake mix-ey and looks more like a smoothie when you’re adding all the ingredients, but once it’s cooked it really is fab.

juicy carrot & courgette cake

So for the recipe:

100g butter; 220g dark brown sugar; 2 eggs; 175g self-raising flour; 1tsp cinnamon; ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda;  ½ courgette; 1 carrot; 1 tsp orange extract.
Cream the butter and sugar together. Add the eggs one at a time and beat. Sieve in the flour, cinnamon, orange extract and bicarb. Wash and peel the carrot and courgette and grate into mixture.
Pour mix into tin and bake for 20 minutes at 180C. 

I made the recipe in cupcake form too - topped with orange icing (icing sugar, orange juice & a little cream cheese) with orange rind and walnut to decorate for an afternoon tea...and wine (obvs)... with some friends. Nom nom!

smaller-scale carrot & courgette cupcakes

chocolate-orange

c h o c o l a t e - o r a n g e . . .
My flatmate loves orange flavour in baking so I’d made these for him mostly (but also for me because they taste pretty good).
I make these quite a lot....in about 40 minutes start to finish (sometimes including washing-up time). The smell when you're baking them is impressive and they're great if you had told someone you'd bake for them and then totally forgot until just over an hour before you need to leave...not that I've ever left anything that last minute!!

The recipe is really simple and if you want to add a little extra something to the muffins, put half the mixture into the muffin cases, add a little bit of chocolate spread and then cover with the rest of the mix.

I find that the trick to making these muffins is to only just combine the ingredients...and add a spoonful of natural yogurt at the end if the mixture is getting too sticky!

So for the recipe...

Chocolate Orange Muffins

150g butter (melted); 175 ml milk; 1 egg; orange rind (grated); 1 tsp orange extract; 375g self-raising flour; 2 tsp baking powder; 100g chocolate chips; 50g caster sugar; 50g brown sugar.
Mix together butter, milk, egg, orange rind and orange extract. Sift flour & baking powder into a bowl & stir in chocolate chips and sugars. Add the milk mixture to the dry mixture and stir briefly until only just combined.

Spoon the mixture into the paper muffin cases and pile it up a bit more in the centre.
Bake in a pre-heated oven (190C/Gas Mark 5) for 15 – 20 mins.

I also make batches of lots more mini-muffins by using smaller cases and this will only take 12 - 15 minutes in the oven. They're better for taking to work (to share obviously) as people are much more likely to take a "wee bit" of a treat rather than having "a huge muffin" (although I don't think muffins are that huge)!!