Apple and custard treat

Posted on November 13, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged apples, Boiled, Cooking, Dessert, Food, Ginger beer, Ingredients, Milk, Sugar, Sweetner, Tasty, Water2 Comments

I had leftover cooking apples from this years crop that were starting to go soft. I didn’t want to cook a cake so I decided to poach them, with a twist…..

Ingredients:

2 or 3 cooking apples

A half cup of diet ginger ale/ ginger ale or water and a couple of teaspoons of sugar or a small amount of sweetner.

Custard powder

Milk

Sweetner or sugar

Method:

Cook the chopped apples with the diet ginger ale (or ginger ale or water and sugar), choose which you prefer, the ginger ale does give the apples sweetness and a bit more of a bite.

The apples will soften and as they do will give off liquid, stop the cooking when they are still slightly firm.

Put into serving dishes.

Mix up the powdered custard as described on the pack. Substitute the liquid from the apples for some of the milk that is needed for the custard. Top up with milk to the desired amount. (I add less for thicker custard). Add sugar or sweetner to taste.

Once the custard mix has been boiled to the right thickness pour over the apples

Serve

Result, a tasty treat for tea. The ginger ale does add an extra bit of flavour.

You could probably make further substitutes to create a vegan treat.

Beefburgers in Yorkshire puddings

Posted on November 3, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Basil, Beefburgers, Chilli, Cooking, Evening meal, Food, Garlic, Sautéed vegetables, Sweet peppers, Yorkshire puddings2 Comments

What to cook for tea?

Beefburgers, roasted in the oven because my grill is broken and I didn’t want to fry them. Chilli pepper, garlic, a sweet pepper, an onion, all chopped up and sautéed. Then I added half a tin of tomatoes, some fresh basil and a stock cube. In the last four or five minutes I popped the store bought Yorkshire puddings into the oven to heat them through. I put the veg inside the puddings and put the burgers on top… The only thing missing? No mustard!

Another cake?

Posted on November 3, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Apple sauce, apples, Cake, Cider, Cooking, Cream, Dessert, Food, Ripe, TastyLeave a comment

I really want to make another apple cake but I keep getting distracted. I have paintings to take to a gallery who are going to try to sell them on line for me. I have to get my cats flea treatments from the vets. I have online lectures to attend. I don’t know how much longer the apples will last. Yesterday I used a large one to make apple sauce. I added cider instead of water and cooked the fruit slowly over a low heat v gradually mashing down the apples. Delicious with cream.

Hot chilli

Posted on October 23, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Burning, Chilli, Cooking, Food, Hand, Hot, Ouch, RandomLeave a comment

I just decide to add a couple of medium chillies to my curry. I remembered to deseed them and chop them up finely. Put them in the curry and then finely diced an onion…. Oops I’d forgotten to rince my hands, now they are burning! Note to self, rinse or ouch!

Forgot

Posted on October 9, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Cooking, Flavour, Food, Garlic, Gas ring, Ignition, Mushrooms, Not lit, Salmon, TastyLeave a comment

While the salmon and courgette with pasta sauce was cooking on the stove the mushrooms with garlic remained still and solid? It was only after ten minutes of stirring them with chopped garlic and olive oil that I realised that the gas hadn’t lit, even though I’d switched it on! Luckily it didn’t take too long to heat them through once I did ignite the gas.

I also added some tiny pasta flower shapes into the sauce to thicken it slightly. It ended up very tasty with the pasta being slightly aldente. It was good to have the mushrooms seperate. I would normally have just thrown them into one pan, but I wanted to seperate the textures and tastes. It was a good meal when I finally switched on the gas ring!

Baked pear and apple with a pastry top

Posted on October 6, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged apples, Baked fruit, Bit of water, Cooking, Gas mark six, Lemon juice, Pears, Recipe, Sweetener or sugar, Tasty, Use for glut of fruit4 Comments

I made this today to use up some of the glut of pears and cooking apples we had in.

Ingredients:

1 large cooking apple

2 large pears, both sliced and de-cored

A knob of butter,

Lemon juice

Sweetener or sugar to taste

A little water

Shop bought ready rolled pastry

Egg to brush the top.

Method:

Butter a Pyrex glass dish or flan case.

Bakethe pears and apples with a bit of lemon juice and water, add a sprinkling of sweetener, or a tablespoon of sugar over the fruit. Gas mark 6 for twenty minutes in the middle of a heated oven.

Remove from the oven with oven gloves (it will be hot)

Add the ready made pastry to the top, cutting round the shape of the flan dish. Cut two small holes at the centre of the pastry and put the rest back on the fridge to use at a later time. Brush the top with egg and if you are using sugar sprinkle another teaspoon or so on top.

Cook in the oven again on gas mark 6 (just about a middle hot oven) for around twenty more minutes, till it goes golden brown.

Remove carefully from oven and place the flan case on a wire rack to cool. If using sweetener sprinkle it on the top now.

Serve and enjoy on its own or with custard, icecream or cream.

Note: ready made pastry will probably contain WHEAT unless otherwise stated. Always check for allergens. Egg and sweeteners may not be suitable. Use what is OK for you.

Enjoy x

Too much fat in my pear cake

Posted on September 28, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Baking, Butter, Cake, Cooking, Eggs, Flour, Food, Gas mark four, Pear cake, Pears, SweetenerLeave a comment

Tasty but a bit too greasy.

I decided to make a pear cake with a couple of large pears off the tree. I didn’t have a recipe to hand so followed the one on the back of my bag of self raising flour.

The ingredients were:

150 grams each of self raising flour, butter and sugar.

Three medium eggs

A small amount of water

This was to make a Victoria sponge. I decided I would add raw sliced pears into the base of my glass flan dish (I don’t have a cake tin or grease proof paper).

Method. It said cream butter and sugar together till its light and fluffy, then add the eggs and a bit of water. Then gently fold the self raising flower in.

Problem. I can’t eat sugar. So I used sweetener that you can bake with. The amounts were questionable. 150 grams when you don’t have scales. So I guessed the amounts and I think I put about 200 grams in. The sweetener said 200 grams was five tablespoons, so I used four instead. Then the eggs? I used three, but they were large. Finally I guessed a mug full of flour would be about right….

I creamed the butter and sweetener together and made it softish and fluffy. Then I slowly added the eggs. The mix started to curdle. I tried adding a bit of flour and it started to look like undercooked scrambled eggs! I got my hand whisk out and tried to beat some of the lumps out. Then I folded in the flour, I made a batter, but still saw flecks of butter in the mix.

So I spooned the mix over the pears in a well greased Pyrex flan dish. I put the cake in the oven on gas mark 4 (medium heat) initially for thirty minutes. When I checked it, there were bubbles of gas coming out of it and it was still pale. So I put it on for another twenty minutes. The bubbles were still happening but the surface felt fim and was golden brown. When I tapped it, it sounded hollow, and when I pricked it with a knife that came out clean.

I eased the cake out of its case. Some of it broke up because it had stuck in the dish. It was greasy, but I cut a section out and it held its shape.

It tasted eggy but nice. The pears had cooked through.

Next time I might start making it with flour, then rubbing the butter into that till its like breadcrumbs, adding sweetener, then making a hole in the flour before adding the eggs. I wish I’d remembered that before I made this cake.

Hubby making apple bread?

Posted on September 25, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Apple bread, Baking, Cooking, Flour, Food, Hubby, Loaf, Oats, Random, Rye flourLeave a comment

An explosion in the kitchen? No hubby making apple bread. There was flour over the draining board, the crockery drainer, in the sink, on the floor. He got me to scrape the dough off his hands it was so sticky. He had added oats and rye flour to a bag of breadmaking flour which had added yeast. It wasn’t rising very well but he added cooking apples to the loaves.

Now they are in the oven, cooking, I wonder how they will turn out? In half an hour I will know.

Pineapple

Posted on September 22, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Cooking, Cream, Custard, Food, Fruit, Fun, Juicy, Life, Poem, Poetry, Short poem, Taste2 Comments

A pineapple

Spikey

Neither apple nor pine

Grows on a bush

Causes a hush

When you see it

Juicy and sweet

Packed with yellow pulp

Delicious with cream

Or in an upside down cake.

Pineapple sponge

And custard

Delicious.

Just out the oven

Posted on August 23, 2020August 23, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Baking, Bran, Bread, Bread and cheese, Cooking, Eating, Home made bread, Loaf, Oats, Oil, Water, YeastLeave a comment

It’s looking OK. Bread made from a kit, added a few rolled oats and a bit of bran.

I used oats on the outside once it had proved and been knocked back. When I took it out of the bowl to put into a Pyrex flan dish it had trebled in size. It only shrank slightly when I put it in the dish. The kit I had used contained yeast and had mixed seed in it. It was cooked on gas mark eight (high heat) for twenty five minutes. Now it needs to cool. The loaf needs turning ouf of the flan dish but it’s too hot at the moment. I don’t have any oven gloves so will use a tea towel. Will have a bit later on with bread and cheese if it’s OK?

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Cooking