Memory from seven years ago on Facebook. Hubby decided to bake some Chestnuts- but they were not cooked so he put them back in the oven- 10 minutes later- BANG! One had exploded, he was shouting ow- so I came down to find him taking the roasting dish out of the oven- and using my jumper as an oven glove, he proceeded to try and break them open first with the garlic press, then with the nutcrackers- the chestnut did not pop- it exploded all over the work surface, I grabbed some kitchen towel and we used that to wrap the superheated chestnuts to break them open….
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.
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.
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!
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!
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.
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.
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.
Mallaband-Brown 