Tag: Food

Lots of mistakes

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Write about your most epic baking or cooking fail.

I guess the worst thing I ever did was to burn a cake! I took the risk of making it up as I went along, but I didn’t think of the oven temperature. I set it at has mark 7 and cooked it for an hour. More than slightly crispy even after I cut the outside layer off.

That’s why it’s good to follow a recipe. You can learn from your mistakes. But once you have the basic idea THEN you can add your own twist. But remember not to over spice things. Especially if you know nothing about chilli and the varying types that you can get. I also didn’t know about deseeding them and not to touch your eyes if you have chilli on your hands!

One meal I wasn’t responsible for was a chicken casserole. I left my hubby detailed instructions and friends came round to enjoy the meal (not). I didn’t realise that he would translate my clove of garlic into a BULB of garlic. Not a pleasant meal!

Cake

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What are your favorite types of foods?

I am not allowed much of this delectable delicacy. But it has to be my favourite. I usually say trifle but that’s like a squidgy layered cake. I like individual cakes, chocolate éclairs, apple turnovers, Eccles cakes.

I could list more. I can make a good Victoria sponge, but I would use sweetener instead of sugar to try and make it healthier. I sometimes make marbled cake, that’s where you make the cake batter up then add cocoa or chocolate to half of it. You then gently stir the two halves together so that the colours mingle but don’t mix. When it’s cooked you can see a pattern of marbling in it.

To be honest I didn’t know I knew so much about cake, but it’s not an obsession. I just enjoy it as a treat.

Poor pears

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Some years the pears set, the tree is well watered and we get many pears off our tree. But it’s looking sad as the wind blew it over at an angle a few years ago. We had to support it on blocks of wood.

As the branches are horizontal that usually encourages fruiting. But both the pear and cherry trees flowered but we’re caught by late frosts and then strong winds that blew the blossom off. The cherry only managed half it’s crop and now the pear is even worse. A few pears had a fungal infection and had to be thrown away, you can’t compost them as it encourages the fungus to spread. So we only have a few pears to show this year. Here are three. The little one is going squishy so it’s getting thrown out.

Pears are funny, they stay unripe for ages. Then seem to ripen overnight. We will just eat these, as there is not enough for a chutney.

Turmeric?

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Weird thing! The gin my hubby bought me has infusions of cardamon, turmeric and dried mandarin… I just wanted a normal London dry gin. It had ice in it with tonic water, but that melted in the heat.

He also bought golden milk ice cream which also has Tumeric in it. Why? What is the point? I would not eat it, I told him I did not want any. CURRY flavoured ice-cream, I love curry, but not as a dessert.

Flavours are personal, if you’ve ever tried something it’s good to give it a try but not turmeric. No.

Plum side salad

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I just wanted to make something for tea and I had a small pork pie to use up. I decided to put a small salad together.

We had a couple of very ripe plums in the fruit bowl so I chopped them up. To this I added a large tomato and some cucumber also chopped.

I have new jars of silvers skin pickled onions and baby gherkins. I really struggle to get the lids off. I saw online a way of releasing them. You tap the side edge of the lid with a wooden spoon. Tap and turn the jar until you hear air suck into the jar with a pop! It actually works, just don’t bash to hard!

So I added sliced gherkin and little pickled onions. Then I drizzled light mayonnaise over the top.

It was nice to eat a slightly sweet salad with natural fruit instead of sweetened pickled onions which I really don’t like.

Pizza with leftovers

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A Marghereta pizza for tea was a bit boring, so I got some leftovers out of the fridge…

1 large sliced mushroom

1/8 of a large onion

A couple of pieces of garlic sausage

2 slices of ham

A 1/4 of a red chilli (deseeded)

A few green olives sliced up

Some leftover hard cheese

Chop it up, add it to the top.

Cook on gas mark 7 for 15 minutes instead of 11 which was the time for the normal pizza so that everything was piping hot.

Added gherkins which were left in a jar to add a bit of sour taste (umami?) to the meal.

Flying squirrel

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I just looked out of the window as a squirrel came flying past! I just saw the fluffy tail as it jumped from the fence onto one of the hanging basket brackets, then up onto the kitchen roof.

Why is it visiting us? WALNUTS! We have a walnut tree that we planted 25 years ago and it GREW. It must be 60 to 80 feet high. For years now we know when autumn is getting here when the squirrels arrive. Then they go on the a rampage and bury the walnuts. So sooner or later we have baby walnut saplings springing up all over the place. I don’t begrudge the squirrels, we have said we want a wildlife garden, and it is.

Sherry Trifle

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What’s your favorite recipe?

Trifle, my favourite treat.

A layer of jelly, a layer of blancmange or custard and a layer of whipped cream.

I make up a sachet of sugar free jelly with three quarters of a pint of boiling water and a quarter of a pint of port or sherry. I add that to large bowl and add chopped strawberries or raspberries or blueberries to make the jelly stronger when it sets (I don’t use trifle sponges as they are full of sugar) once cooled I put it in the fridge to set.

When the jelly is set I mix up a pint of blancmange with boiling milk (you can use custard) this comes in a variety of flavours. I use a sweetner instead of sugar in the mixture, one that doesn’t have an aftertaste. Once the liquid has been boiled and thickened I put the saucepan in a larger one filled with cold water. The blancmange cools enough so that it doesn’t melt the jelly when you add it to the top.

Once the middle layer is set I take a large tub of double cream and whisk it till it is stiff and makes peaks. This is spooned onto the trifle.

You can add decorations such as sprinkles (hundreds and thousands) or glacé cherries, grated chocolate or chopped strawberries etc.

I make it as sugar free as I can, but it is high in fat. You could use skimmed milk for the middle layer.

This is a Christmas or Easter treat in our house. And sometimes I make it for birthdays instead of cake.

Podding peas

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Have you ever podded or shelled peas?

When I was little we used to sit in the back yard and shell the peas dad had grown.

The garden was on the other side of a path that ran behind the houses. The yards were covered in slate blue coloured bricks. I would sit with my mom and siblings, she would hand out peas in the pod. I remember you pressed along one side of the peapod, the seam of it split and a row of beautiful peas sat along the other edge, then you hooked them out with your thumb. Sweet green peas falling into the bowl. Many peas didn’t go into the bowl, but into my mouth instead. It was a pleasure to eat them. They never tasted sweeter and fresher.

Other things that went on in the yard? I remember it snowing in February. Mom collected fresh snow off the yard wall. She used the water to make her pancake mix for Shrove Tuesday. I think she thought they tasted better than using “corporation pop” ( tap water). Probably because of chorine in the tap water?

Memories, they spring to mind without volition.