Trying to make Beetroot Hummus

Posted on August 11, 2019August 11, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Beetroot, Beetroot hummus, Bread, Cooking, Food, Garlic, Lime juice, Meal, Olive oil, Potato, Recipe, Tasty, Walnut halvesLeave a comment

Tried to make this from just a list of ingredients.

Beetroot, potato or brown bread, garlic, a little olive oil, walnuts, cider vinegar (I only had malt vinegar). You can substitute bread for potato.

Method.

I peeled the five Beetroot and two Potatoes , chopped them, put them in a pan to boil for half an hour.

Then I took four cloves of Garlic and crushed them in a pestle and mortar. Then crushed the Walnuts and mixed them with the garlic. I added a little olive oil to help.

Watch the Beetroot and Potato and when you can push a knife into them and they are soft, drain off the water.

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Allow the Beetroot and Potato to cool, then add the crushed Walnuts with the garlic. I had to add a bit more to improve the consistency. I also added the juice of half a lime to give it a kick. _20190811_224230

I mashed the Walnut and Garlic into the Beetroot mix.

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The final result, in a covered bowl in the fridge. _20190811_231423

Meal, jacket potato with coleslaw, chopped tomato, Beetroot hummus and sausages (apologies to vegetarians and vegans). I could have used a food blender, but decided its easier not to have to clean it and waste electricity.

Art lunch.

Posted on August 8, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Art lunch, Colourful, Cooking, Food, Party, Tasty, VegetablesLeave a comment

I still feel ill but I was pleased to go to the Art Lunch held at the Etruria Warehouse today.

A lovely lunch was organised by my friend Chris, with mostly vegetarian options. One thing that was really unusual was beetroot hummus. This was made with boiled beetroot and potato with walnuts, all whizzed together with garlic and a bit of vinegar. You could use lemon juice instead.

Sitting in the sun listening to musicians, with a beautiful lunch. Lots of cups of tea. Birthday cake because a friend is due to celebrate his birthday. Plus drawing some of the people who came. It was great fun. Both of us have come home exhausted but I’m glad we went.

Comfort food

Posted on August 5, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Banana, Blogging, Comfort food, Cooking, Custard, Eat, Heat, Milk, Recipe, Sugar, Table spoons, TastyLeave a comment

What’s your favourite comfort food.

Mine is simple, banana and custard…

Recipe, to make two portions.

1 large or 2 small bananas per person.

2 heaped table spoonfuls of custard powder.

2 flat tablespoons of sugar (but I use 1 flat table spoonful of sucralose based granulated sweetener)

1 pint of milk.

Method,

Chop the bananas to bite size pieces and put aside in two bowls.

Put two heaped table spoons of custard powder in a mixing bowl. Add sugar (or sweetener). Use less for thinner custard and less sugar for less sweetness.

Add a small amount of milk to the powder to make a thinnish paste.

Put the rest of the milk in a pan and bring to the boil.

Pour the boiling milk onto the custard paste and mix till the custard has dissolved into it.

Pour the mix back into the pan, bring to the boil and continue to boil for a minute or till the custard has thickened. Once it is ready pour over the bananas.

Eat! Don’t forget to wash up.

Dinner time

Posted on July 13, 2019July 13, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Cooking, Evening meal, Food, Glass noodles, Jasmine rice, Lettuce, Sawadee Thai taste, Scallops, Sea bass, Staffordshire, Stoke, Stoke-on trent, Thai restaurant2 Comments

Scallops on lettuce with glass noodles.

Queen scallops on lettuce with glass noodles, and Seabass in a rich sauce.

We also had pork and pak choi with noodles and spicy sauce. When you are too tired to cook after a long day this is heaven. My hubby was so tired he almost fell asleep after the food, but we had a brisk walk home as there was quite a chilly breeze. For once it was great to sit down and watch some TV.

Now its three hours later and I’m off to bed for a rest. Goodnight.

Babka rose

Posted on July 12, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Babka, Bread, Bread in common, Cooking, Folded, Food, Hartshill, Poppy seed cake, Risen cake, Stoke-on trent, Tasty, YeastLeave a comment

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There is a place in Hartshill in Stoke-on-Trent that opens on a Friday and they sell Babka’s.

It’s called Bread in Common and they bake delicious bread but also babka buns, tea cakes and other delights.

I’d never tasted a babka before, they are apparently made in many places, as far apart as Poland and Israel. They are folded in layers and rise because they have yeast in them. The ones we bought have a sweet mixture including poppy seeds folded into them. They are cooked in little tin trays and when they come out of the oven they have swollen and spread out so that they are a spongy, bready consistency. They are delicious.

I broke the oven?

Posted on July 10, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Baking, Blogging, Bread, Cooking, Double oven, Fun, Humour, Learning, Life, Mistake, Reflections, Timer2 Comments

When I got in from choir last night my hubby was standing in the kitchen looking perplexed. He had some bread dough in a tin because he’d decided to make a loaf. He had attempted to light the oven but it would not light. It’s a double oven with a small oven/grill at the top and a main oven. He was convinced we would have to contact the shop we got it from or get hold of a repair service. I said let me have a look…

What I saw was an egg timer symbol and another one of a casserole dish. I tried pressing the ignition. Nothing happened. I looked again at the clock display. It was several hours out? Something was clearly wrong. I asked him if he had pushed any buttons? Yes to set the timer. I looked again and realised there must be a delayed start on the main oven as it showed a casserole dish shape with a little clock face on it. I dialled that down to zero, and the egg timer down to zero. Then I tried the ignition again… It lit! I checked why the top oven was blowing out hot air… He had the grill on with the door closed and he had thought the heat had been from the main oven, so he didn’t understand why the bread hadn’t started to cook. Finally he put the dough back in the oven. The resulting loaf (which is nice and tasty) is in the photo…

Cheese (chayse) Oatcakes (owtcayks)

Posted on July 9, 2019July 9, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Bacon, Blogging, Cheese, Cooking, Food, grill, Microwave, Oatcakes, Staffordshire, Staffordshire oatcakes, Stoke-on trent, TastyLeave a comment

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Fast, old fashioned food.

The Staffordshire oatcake (words in brackets are my attempt to write it in a Stoke dialect).

Oatcakes in Staffordshire are thin, lace like and tasty. Unrolled they fit on a small dinner plate. They can be eaten with various fillings including savory ones like cheese, cheese and bacon, cheese and sausage (I feel a theme developing). Or you can have them sweet with jam or marmalade which is probably unacceptable to traditionalists. Oatcakes are food or ‘snappin’ to be eaten for breakfast with a strong cup of tea. They are tasty and if you are lucky to have an oatcake shop nearby they are delicious hot from the griddle.

They are an inexpensive meal and can be filled with your own fillings, perhaps chilli con carne or crispy duck? I guess you could even cook them with stewed apple and cream.

I cooked mine in the microwave rolled with grated cheese and added brown sauce. If you grill them you are better heating them flat to make them hot and crispy. Then sprinkle your filling all over like on toast so that the edges don’t burn. They can then be folded in half and finished under the grill. You can eat them with a salad garnish or coleslaw.

You never know you might enjoy them.

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Cooking