Lemon & Almond Buns - A Random Recipe

There always comes a time when there's a change of routine when you need to bring out the big guns. It's a watershed moment that can be easy to spot if you've experienced it a few times. 

Things are different, no-one's really settled into whatever the change is. Comfort and indulgence is the order of the day to get everyone over the hump and get on with the rest of whatever it is.

Comfort came bun shaped today

I've observed this on Scout Camp the last few years. usually around Day 3. That's when we pull out the biscuits and the hot chocolate at bed time, do some mass jollying along.

Here in the RJ household, we had our own jollying along moment on Sunday morning.

The Husband headed off last Monday for what is probably the longest time he's been away from us since he left the Army. While he's sitting in the desert, surrounded by 'MaMBA' (No, not snakes, Miles and Miles of Bugger All), posting the occasional photo of a lizard on Facebook, Blue, Pink, Fred the Dog, the chickens and I have been trying to sort out a new modus operandi, not required for the shorter trips he's often making. There has been a Daddy-less 7th birthday and a couple of late nights because somehow things have slipped. There has been fractious bickering, there have been tears. The kids are responsible for feeding the chickens and watering the greenhouse - I am responsible for making sure they remember they are responsible. There has been an angry moment (mine) with the lawn mower (don't go there), and more tears (the kids) when the internet occasionally fails to allow Skype to work for the brief period of time when a conversation with Daddy is appropriate.

When I selected my Random Recipe for Dom's challenge for this month -  'Bread' , I wasn't really sure when I'd get round to baking and entering the challenge. My selection of bread baking books and bread baking sections of books included the Sweet & Fruit breads chapter in 'Short & Sweet' by Dan Lepard, and this recipe was where my page flicking ended up. Lemon & Almond Buns - "... a lemon flavoured butter dough that bakes like brioche around a gooey core of marzipan..." Delicious, sure, but a month full of camping, working out my notice at work and preparing to go freelance, sailing the ship on my own, I wasn't sure that there would be time.

Well, may be there wasn't time, but what became apparent over Saturday was that time or not, the kids needed some indulgence. This would normally have been a cinammon bun moment, but instead, the moment for Lemon & Almond Buns arose.

Now, having already fallen foul of Mr Lepard's rather zealous business manager in the past check out the comments), I am not going to even begin to repeat the recipe here. However for those of you wishing to recreate these beautiful buns, you will be pleased to know that they were published in the Guardian Online in 2006 and you can find the recipe here.

Pretty straightforward, although you need to start the night before to get a rough dough into the fridge, and if you want them for breakfast before about 9, you need to be up just before 7, which is fine unless you've had more than a couple of glasses of morale boosting wine with your lovely and supportive neighbours after you've manhandled the kids into bed, tears wiped, stories read,  in which case you might end up having breakfast a little later on...

It's an enriched, lemon scented bread dough which needs little kneading.

From this...

You roll it out into a 70cm by 10cm rectangle, 

to this

then put a sausage of marzipan into the middle of the rectangle and seal the dough over it before slicing into pieces, proving and baking.

The only thing that I can tell you about the recipe is that I had no flaked almonds in, so instead of brushing the cooked buns with melted butter, sprinkling with toasted flaked almonds and dredging with icing sugar, I made up a runny lemon icing using the juice of a lemon (the zest had already gone into the dough), and then sprinkled with poppy seeds.

What can I say? The lemony brioche type bread was light, lemony (as promised) and delicious. The marzipan was oozy and heavenly. The kids LOVED it, and have requested a repeat performance next week, and the next. And strangely enough, everything calmed down today. 

10 days to go...

Creamy, Sweet Chilli Salmon Pasta

What! Another guest post - I hear you cry? Well, frankly yes. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to share this quick easy comfort food type of meal. Elle at Nutritionist Resource approached me and asked if I'd be interested in sharing the recipe on my blog, and so here it is. Quick, easy, comforting and yet low on calories. 


Creamy, Sweet Chilli Salmon Pasta
When you've had a busy day and you're overtired, overworked and underfed, you need some comfort food. Now, I am not talking about fatty pies in buttery pastry or your usual from the local Indian takeaway. I am talking about a meal that is so quick, easy and comforting that you will have made it, eaten it and washed up in the same time it would take you to wait for the takeaway delivery. Plus, it is a fraction of the calories and price – win win! To make one meal, you will need:

• 1 salmon fillet
  
• Around a tablespoon of Light Philadelphia
  
• A glug of sweet chilli sauce (no time for measurements when you're this hungry!)
  
• A portion of pasta
  
• A large handful of mangetout
  
  
  
  
  
  1. Preheat your oven to meet the needs of your salmon. (For the purposes of this recipe, mine was at 180°C) and bring a large pan of water to the boil.
     
  
  
  2. Drizzle some sweet chilli sauce over the top of your salmon, pop it into the centre of the oven and set your timer (15 minutes for mine). Add your pasta to the boiling water and cook according to packet instructions. When it is about three minutes from being cooked, add your mangetout to the pasta. You want these to still have a little bit of bite to them so be careful not too overcook.
     
  
  
  3. Drain your pasta and mangetout and toss in boiling water to get rid of any starch. Add your Philly to the pan with a glug of sweet chilli sauce and start simmering on a low heat. Just before your salmon is ready, chuck the pasta and mangetout into the warm Philly mixture and whack up the heat.
     
     
  4. Take your salmon out of the oven and keep going back to the pasta to give it a good stir. Use a fish slice to remove the skin from the salmon in the baking tray, check your pasta and sauce is hot enough and pile it all on to your plate. 
     
     
  5. Ta- daa! All done! This recipe took me twenty minutes to make including the time it took to preheat the oven. 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     Creamy, tasty comfort food at just a snip of the calories!
     
  
   Tips and Variations
  
  • You could try other tasty seafood such as trout or prawns or even go for chicken pieces.
    
  • I used fresh rigatoni in this recipe as it's so quick to cook but feel free to use your own personal preference. If you want to be really healthy and smug, use wholemeal pasta.
    
  • I really like mangetout but brocolli, sugar snap peas, frozen peas, green beans, sweetcorn, pretty much anything works with this. Just use whatever you have in the fridge/ cupboards.
    
  • The ratio of philly to pasta may look a bit mean in the pan but please trust me, you really don't need a lot. I thought I'd try and be really greedy once and just add loads in but it was far too rich.
    
  • You could try any of the philly flavours or keep the original one and add diced fresh chilli for a real kick.
    Double, triple or quadruple this recipe till your hearts content but please check on the cooking times for your salmon. Different sizes and quantities will mean different time frames.
    
    You kind find out more about Nutritionist Resource on their website - here

Random Recipes - Lemon Layer Sponge

I can't tell you how much my mum means to me. And I am not always grateful to her - I'm sure I don't always show it. But if I can be half the mother she is to me - or half the granny she is to my children, I will be doing OK, because she is truly fabulous.

On leaving an impromptu gathering at my Godmother's on Boxing Day, I heard my father mentioning my blog and saying that there would often be some 'horrid remark' about 'her mother' (that is, my mother). Now, I don't think this is true. Have I said bad things about my mum on these here virtual pages? I may have made a joke at her expense, but horrid? Really? If I have, please strike me down, and Mum, if I have, I am sorry, because you are wonderful and I love you.

Anyway, that over, it's time to move on to the point which is that Dom's Random Recipe Challenge this month on Belleau Kitchen is inspired by his visit to California (I am soooo jealous) for his father's 70th, and looking around his stepmother's recipe collection he came up with the following challenge:

" i've asked my step-mum Jette if I could choose my random recipes from her cookbook collection this month and i'd like you all to do the same... no, not from her collection but from someone else's kitchen... you all must have a good friend or a neighbour, or even your parents or grandparents who must have the most interesting collection of books... and you can be as random about it as you like... perhaps ask them what their favourite book is, or get them to do the selection for you over the phone and read out the recipe... however you do it it should throw up some interesting recipes..."

Well, it was obvious that I would ask my mum. She has a massive collection of recipe books - we cross over a lot at the Nigella/Jamie/Hugh FW end of the scale, but she has some real great ones by people like Claire Macdonald, that I am always diving in to when we are staying there. She has more Nigel Slater than me, too, and a much bigger selection of back issues of Good Food magazine, so I thought she'd be the perfect person to ask.  I might have misread the rules - or miscommunicated them - as she has sent me her favourite recipe, but this is just as likely to have turned up from an entirely random selection from her hugely random cookery book collection. And as I had absolutely no hand in choosing the recipe, it's probably more random than it might otherwise have been, so I'm hoping it will qualify.

Within a couple of days, she'd written me down her selection and sent it to me in the post, and I can do no better than repeat her letter:

"From Good Housekeeping Recipe Book 1972 ! 

Lemon Layer Sponge (for 4)

This is my favourite because it is the ultimate comfort food - very light sponge with thick lemon sauce underneath. First had it when staying with favourite Aunt (Atholl Crescent trained and an examiner for Eastbourne School of Cookery). She used to produce breakfast, lunch (she used to go home to cook lunch) and supper for her husband and 4 children and any one staying, every day of the year and both lunch and supper were two or three courses. I look back with amazement at how she did it especially as I work on the basis that I married my husband for better or worse but certainly not for lunch!

This is a totally delicious recipe!

Juice and grated rind of 1 lemon (make sure 3tblsps juice)
2 oz butter (softened)
4 oz sugar
2 eggs, separated
1/2 pint milk
2 oz self raising flour

oven temp 400F/mark 6/180C

Add lemon rind to softened butter & sugar & cream the mixture until pale & fluffy. Add the egg yolks and beat well. Stir in the milk, lemon juice and flour. Whisk the egg whites stiffly and fold in and pour the mixture into a failry large ovenproof dish - about 2 1/4 pints. Stand the dish in a shallow tin of water and cook for about 45 mins or until the top is set and firm to the touch!"

Yum. Sweet, warming, lemony. Just about the perfect thing for a miserable January day.

Everything tastes better with bacon - sausage casserole, pasta bake and the promise of soup

So, we're well into Austerity January, and so far, so good. The freezer has lots of stock in it - good for soups, and also lots of left overs from pre-Christmas bulk cooking: I know there is a venison casserole in there waiting to liven up a Sunday sometime soon. There's some ham and turkey, and a whole load of lamb, but I'm also trying to use up as much as I have accumulated in the cupboards in my subconscious hibernation/'what if there's a nuclear winter' strategy that I seem to have inherited from my mum. Shelves are there to be filled, and while it's nearly all in date (bar a tin of pineapple slices that I can't bring myself to either open or throw away), the cupboards are groaning. There are lots of pulses and tinned tomatoes, and I have jars of olives that I forgot I'd bought - plenty of stuff to make good meals out of, and to keep the post-Christmas shopping bills down.  Even more exciting, this week things have been livened up by the last pack of streaky bacon which has been lurking in the back of the fridge since Christmas, and was just about to go over.

The thing about bacon is that it's just so tasty. The Husband is of the 'there are only 2 food groups: bacon and everything else' school of eating, and I have to say that he has a point: Bacon always comes at the top - or near the top - of things most likely to make a vegetarian falter. For me, it's not a camping trip without a bacon sandwich to wake up to - preferably with a cup of a coffee and a blinding view, but even without the coffee (packing fail) and when the rain's sheeting down (or, more soul destroying, when faced with persistent drizzle), there's nothing more likely to lift the spirits. I went to school with a lot of kids from the Jewish community in Leeds, and they were always off to Macdonalds for Bacon Double Cheeseburgers (ssssh! Don't tell anyone). There is just something about bacon.


We had a sausage, bacon and split pea casserole which I managed to get in the slow cooker one lunch time, and by bulking up a pack of sausages with some bacon, along with the pulses and veg, I made enough casserole to feed us for 2 meals. I can't now recall exactly what I did, and I didn't take any photos of it (to be honest it didn't look very interesting), but it was mighty tasty. I did have to plan ahead and soak the peas over night, but that used up the end of a bag that would otherwise have leaked all over the cupboard until the next time I want to make pea & ham soup. It was also dead easy, and you could cook it on the stove top - or in the oven - if you didn't have a slow cooker: I sweated some chopped onion, celery and carrots before adding them to the slow cooker, and tipping the split peas (these had been soaked over night then boiled rapidly for 10 minutes) on top. I cut the bacon into pieces and each sausage into 3 (I find they go further cut up - if you leave them whole, people know for sure how many sausages they've had, and one is never enough), then fried these off and drained off excess fat. Chucked all that into the slow cooker with a bunch of thyme, then deglazed the frying pan with a slosh of red wine, a can of chopped tomatoes and some stock - probably about 2 tsp of stock powder made up in the tomato can to swill out the last bits of tomato. Poured into the slow cooker, stirred around and cooked on high for 4 hours. Perfect with rice for tea.

Yesterday, we had bacon and leek pasta bake which is one of my regular meals. It is very quick to make, and by baking it at the end, it gives you the option to make it in advance - otherwise it's just cold pasta, isn't it, and frankly, who wants to eat that? This way, if you want, you can make it earlier in the day, then put in the oven with some cheese on the top at teatime and bingo - delicious and comforting. I should 'fess up and say that Blue is ambivalent about it, mainly because he doesn't like the 'crunchy bits' (strange child) but everyone else loves it and it's one of the few meals that Pink will ask for seconds of.  Last night it was extra specially good because there was some left over double cream in the fridge that needed using up. Marvellous. When I made it last night, I actually concentrated on what I was doing and how much I was using, so I can share a recipe with you.

Creamy Bacon & Leek Pasta Bake - serves 4

woops! nearly all gone before I took a pic!

300g pasta
15-20g butter
3 leeks, cleaned and sliced fairly finely
200g streaky bacon, derinded & chopped into fairly small pieces
2 tbsps plain flour
2tsp stock powder
approx 30ml double cream (optional but lovely)
salt & pepper
grated cheese (I failed to weigh out how much I used, sorry - but you  know, you just need enough)

Cook the pasta according to the packet instructions. While you are doing this, melt the butter in a pan, and add the leeks and bacon and cook for 5 minutes or so till the leeks have softened and the bacon is looking like it's on the way to being cooked. Chuck in the flour and stir in so that you can't see any left. Cook it out for a minute or so. If necessary remove from the heat till the pasta is cooked. When you drain the pasta, reserve the cooking water and mix approx 400ml with the stock powder. Put your leeks & bacon back in the heat and slowly stir in the pasta water/stock till you get a smooth, thickish sauce. 

Depending on how thick or thin you like sauces in these kinds of dishes, you may want to use less than the 400ml or more to make a thinner sauce. Pour in the cream if using, and grind in some salt and pepper, then allow to cook for a couple of minutes. Tip the pasta into an appropriately sized oven proof dish and stir the sauce through it.

Cover the top with grated cheese and bake at 180C for approx 20-30 minutes (depending whether you need to avoid 'crunchy bits' or not - in a rare display of patience, last night I actually left a corner of the dish un-cheesed to reduce crunchy bits, but I'm not often that tolerant of foodie foibles!) 

The last of the bacon then, will go into what I hope will be a particularly satisfying soup for this evening. I was on one of my rare forays to a supermarket the other day and walking down the soup aisle, noticed a pot proclaiming bacon, red pepper and lentil. Mmmmm. In an uncommon display of harmony, the kids both chose today for their school lunch this week. As I know they are both having a hot meal (fish and chips) I can be a bit more relaxed about what to give them for tea, although the Husband has only had sandwiches.... We have lots of red lentils knocking around, and there's most of a red pepper needing eating up, so bacon, red pepper and lentil soup it is.This soup (in my head at least) seems to be a good solution to how to feed everyone this evening. We'll see!

I'm linking this up to a new blog event 'Credit Crunch Munch' hosted by  Helen at Fuss Free Flavours and Camilla at Fab Food For All. This is all about creating delicious food for less, and I think both the casserole and the pasta bake fit in with that idea. And I'm liking the logo a lot!

Bubble & Squeak, Nigella style

Yes, yes, I know I implied that I wasn't going to post for the next few days, but I just can't stop myself. I hope you've all had a lovely time.

The brilliant thing about hosting Christmas Day is that I usually hang up my apron around 2 in the afternoon to rapturous applause (well, perhaps not quite, but some fairly gratifying noises of satisfaction as the table groans under the weight of all that has been laid upon it) and a glass of something, and then I don't have to do more than whip out leftovers in various guises (or soup from the freezer) for about 3 more days. 

This year has been no exception. We had a really great Christmas Day, nothing out of the ordinary food-wise (the usual turkey etc) but it was all utterly delicious, and although I say so myself, I probably managed to make the best gravy I have EVER made, borne out by the fact that there wasn't much left to have on Boxing Day with the Bubble & Squeak.

I'd opened Feast at the appropriate page just to remind myself generally how Nigella does B&S. My Father in Law saw it and remarked that he wouldn't have imagined that people would have a recipe for it, it was just a question of bunging all the left over veg in a frying pan... To an extent (although it pains me to admit it), he is right, but since reading how Nigella does it a few years ago, I have always taken this approach to B&S. It still doesn't fall into the category of 'cooking' in my book, although to be fair, it does involve slightly more than getting everything out of the fridge. But the oven was on anyway to warm up the mince pies, and this really does work better than just bunging it all into a frying pan.

So basically you take all your leftover cooked veg - yesterday there were about 12 chantenay carrots, a good couple of handfuls of sprouts, and about 4 baby leeks - all of which had been steamed, and then from the left over roasties, a good load of celeriac and parsnip and a few potatoes. I had to save some of the roast potatoes to be straight up fried in a pan.

Put all your veg in a food processor with an egg and whizz up to a chunky puree.




 Heat some oil in a large-ish frying pan that you can put in the oven and pre-heat the oven to about 180-200C. Make sure the oil has covered the base of the pan to prevent sticking, then scrape the veg puree in and spread it out. 

Fry for a few minutes, then bung it in the oven for about 20 mins till it has browned on the top.

Remove the pan from the oven (remember that the handle will probably be hot so you will need an oven glove. You don't need to ask why I'm reminding you of that) and invert over a plate so the cake hopefully comes out in a beautiful whole, ready to be sliced and served with the leftover gravy - which may or may not be warmed, according to taste!

 .

I am linking up to Maison Cupcake's Forever Nigella event, hosted this month by Laura on her blog lauralovescakes . Enjoy!

Braised Mince lives again - Chilli

Here it is again - remember that braised mince I was telling you about. So far it's turned up as lasagne and cottage pie in the last few weeks, and here it is again, this time as chilli.

This is a hottish version - if the kids were going to eat it, I'd use plain old smoked paprika, and probably a little less of it.

As well as your portion of braised mince (see the link above), you will need:

1 onion, chopped
1 clove of garlic, ditto
2 tsp hot smoked paprika
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1 cinammon stick
2 glasses of red wine
1 can chopped tomatoes
splash of mushroom ketchup (or Worcestershire sauce)
250g chestnut mushrooms, wiped clean and sliced
1 400g can of kidney beans
250ml stock

First, heat a splash of olive oil in a pan and fry the onions and garlic till softened. Stir in the smoked paprika, cumin, coriander and cinammon stick and cook for a minute or 2 before tipping in the red wine. Bring to the boil and simmer till the wine has reduced by about half.

Add the chopped tomatoes and mushroom ketchup, and simmer for a couple more minutes, then add the braised mince, mushrooms, kidney beans and stock, and then simmer it all gently for about 45 mins till it's thick and rich.

Serve as you like - tortillas, chopped avocado, grated cheese, soured cream all go down well as accompaniments . Or, if, like me, you'd forgotten that you were going to have chilli, some rice, salad and creme fraiche that was left over from the weekend's pudding will do. And the rest of the wine.

Chicken Pie - because real men (and boys) don't eat couscous

Normally, when the Husband is away, I descend pretty quickly to the "can't be bothered" level of cooking. Why his presence or otherwise should matter, and what that says about me is probably something I should spend some time considering, but not here. The kids are happy to eat pasta till it's coming out of their ears, and I'm happy to oblige, supplementing it with various cheap and cheerful vegetable combinations with the occasional bit of left-over meat or, prize of prizes, some bacon. If he's away for a long time, I might offer some mood boosting fajitas mid-week to lift the gloom, but like my housekeeping generally (which is scratchy at the best of times) it can pretty much all go to hell in a handcart, there's so much else to get done when it's just me at the helm. I salute people who do this on a more permanent basis for what ever reason.

Normally he's only away during the week which means there are the easy distractions of school and other activities. However, he snuck off at 6 on Sunday morning this time leaving me with a whole day of them potentially dwelling on his absence. With the help of some friends, we got through most of it, and I headed off the late afternoon melancholy that I was fearing with a DVD session and roast chicken. Desired effect (happy children) achieved, it has also meant I have had superior pickings in the fridge to see us through the beginning of the week.

The kids were out on Monday anyway, and so last night, armed not only with some left over chicken, but also some chorizo, I put together a particularly tasty version of my cold chicken standby. This is basically a one pot meal - dry couscous, cold meat, chopped tomatoes, frozen peas, whatever you have to hand, to which you add stock flavoured with ground coriander, ginger and smoked paprika (because I didn't have any harissa), cover the whole lot with foil and bung in the oven for 30 minutes. I didn't have quite enough couscous, so supplemented the carbs with a can of chick peas. Pink loved it - she can be fickle and picky but I have never seen a plate clear so quickly. Blue, he of the bottomless stomach and hollow legs, picked out the meaty bits then started pushing it around his plate, trying to engage me in ever more spurious conversations. Then we got the 'If I don't finish this, do I get any pudding?' - this when he still had half a plateful left. He ate on, reluctantly, and we eventually compromised at '9 more mouthfuls' (it would have been 8, but he was 9 on Saturday so the number of mouthfuls goes up!).

"Please tell me you will never cook that again" he said.

I was tempted to tell him we were going to have it again this evening, but without the chorizo, but I refrained. Instead, I stripped the chicken carcass, made stock with the bones, and got the little darlings into bed as soon as I could manage...

Anyway, the Husband came back this afternoon, a day early. Instead of rushing round tidying up the house and doing other wifely things, I focussed on the most important issue - how to use up the last of the chicken in a manner that would please everyone. In view of the available ingredients - cold chicken, the stock, a couple of leeks and some lovely thyme in the garden, I  made a chicken pie inspired by a recipe in Jamie's Dinners, a book that I picked up by chance this morning. I get a little annoyed when famous chefs start name-dropping about the tips they've had from other famous chefs/foodies, but in this case, I'm feeling fairly sanguine about it. I mean, if Fay Maschler, the food writer, suggested adding little balls of sausage meat to a chicken pie, who am I to argue?

Jamie uses raw chicken to start with, so I've added my cooked chicken at a later stage in the process and using the lovely stock instead of wine and milk. I've got less chicken than him, so I've added in extra veg, and probably a little more sausage...

Chicken & Sausage Pie

olive oil
2 leeks, cleaned and sliced
3 carrots, peeled and chopped
leaves from a handful of thyme
2-3 tbsps flour
1tsp dijon mustard
approx 1 pint of stock
200g cold cooked chicken
1 small can of sweetcorn
200g frozen peas
4 sausages (300g)
500g pack puff pastry (you may have leftovers)
1 egg

Pre-heat the oven to 220/200 fan

Heat a lug of olive oil in a parge pan or casserole, and add in the leeks, carrots and thyme leaves. Cook, stirring for 10-15 minutes, then increase the heat, stir in the flour and keep stirring for a minute or so. Add about a wine glass or so of the stock, stirring as you slowly pour it in to the pan to incorporate it with the flour and prevent lumps, then stir in the rest of the liquid, the mustard and grind in some salt & pepper. Bring to a simmer then cover and cook for 30 minutes or so, stirring every so often to stop the mixture catching on the bottom of the pan.

If the sauce is too loose for pie, you can mix up a little more flour with some of the sauce in a separate bowl then tip it back into the pan and stir - don't just sprinkle in more flour as it will just lump up.

Mix in your cold chicken, sweetcorn and peas to the sauce, and tip into your pie dish.

Squeeze the sausagemeat out of the skins, and divide up into 12-16 balls. heat some olive oil in a small frying pan, brown off the sausagemeat balls, and scatter over the top of the chicken mixture, then top your pie with the puff pastry. I don't have what I'd call a 'proper' pie dish, so I rub some water round the rim the pyrex dish I use, and put some strips of the rolled pastry on first before laying on the proper sheet of pastry.

Once you've laid the top sheet of pastry on, trim and crimp the edges down so they look pretty, and beat the egg and brush it all over the pastry. Bake the pie for 30-40 minutes when the pastry will be golden brown and flaky and the filling piping hot. There was so much veg in the pie, I only needed to boil some potatoes.

Clean plates all round.

This month's Herbs on a Saturday is hosted on Blue Kitchen Bakes for Karen at Lavender and Lovage and I'm linking up because of all the lovely thyme that went into this pie. 

I'm also linking to the Season of Soups and Stews hosted by Lancashire Food. The requirement is to use stock in your recipe - I made my own chicken stock for this pie.

And last, but not least - This post is part of the #FaveFamilyRecipes Competition with BritMums and Tilda Rice. Every pack sold will provide a meal to an expectant mum in need in support of the World Food Programme’s Mothers Helping Mothers initiative in Bangladesh.

Chocolate Malt Cake

Another Children in Need Day, another evening spent making fairy cakes with wholemeal flour because I forgot and was too late to get to the shop. Ditto, contemplating whether I could use cornflour to bulk out the fast disappearing icing sugar (ditto) and make it stretch to the 11th and twelfth cakes, on the basis that if I threw on enough sprinkles, no one would notice. These and other less creative thoughts were running through my head at 10.30 p.m. last night, but it's not my substandard fairy cakes that I want to share with you this morning.

No. What I want to share with you is the chocolate malt cake that is most definitely staying, selfishily, at home for my own purposes. For some reason, this cake popped into my head yesterday morning and wouldn’t leave. I’m not sure I’ve ever made it before, but I knew I had it scribbled down somewhere. Not just chocolate, but Ovaltine too. I’m not sure why I have such a fondness for Ovaltine – it’s not something that I remember as particularly featuring in my childhood, the whole ‘Ovaltiney’ thing being before my time, but somehow it’s there. In this cake, it adds a malty undertone to what is essentially a chocolate cake, but it’s a very welcome undertone.  

Dusted with icing sugar, still warm from the oven - a warm blanket of a cake, which was just what I needed last night, what with IT Support the Husband still away. So what if the Children in Need cakes were iced in a sub-standard fashion...

And although I've alluded to it just now, I must stress that if you can get your hands on this cake before it has completely cooled from the oven, it is well worth it...

Chocolate Malt Cake

350g plain chocolate, chopped (or use buttons/drops of cooking chocolate – Bloc is good)

200g unsalted butter

7tbsp Ovaltine

150g light muscovado sugar

3 large eggs

2tsp vanilla extract

160g wholemeal self raising flour

Icing sugar for dusting 

Grease and line a 20cm square tin, and pre-heat the oven to 180⁰C. 

In a pan, melt 200g of the chocolate and the butter, remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly, whileyou blend the Ovaltine with 2 tbsp water, and then, in a large bowl (using a mixer if you have one), beat together the eggs and sugar till light and foamy. Beat in the Ovaltine mixture, then the melted chocolate & butter, and the vanilla extract. Stir in the flour, then fold in the remaining 150g of chocolate pieces. Scrape the batter in to your prepared tin and bake for about 40 minutes till risen and just firm. 

Allow to cool (but not too much) on a rack, then dust with icing sugar and cut into squares. 

Not that you need to put it on a plate, you understand...

Pancetta and Pea Carbonara - to lift the mood

I'd like to think I'm not one to moan too much - that I can at least reflect on the lighter side of whatever the disaster was. Disasters usually offer the opportunity for comic observation, but a run of little 'things' offers less humour and more moan fodder. So I'm going to try and keep things light, but I'm warning you now, it may spill into a bit of a wallow. In which case, I'm enticing you to keep reading with the promise of the meal that lifted all our spirits this evening.

We had a fantastic bonfire night at school, Saturday. The skies cleared, the mulled wine flowed, the BBQ sold out and we sold more glowsticks and strawberry chewits than you could believe possible. I was looking forward to Remembrance Sunday - church parade followed by friends for lunch. I love Remembrance Day. Regardless of your views of war - both past and present, I firmly believe that it is important to remember those millions of people who have died in the course of war. 

Sunday dawned blue and clear, but I spent the day in bed, crippled by some foul 24 hour sickness bug. For anyone that thinks this is a euphemism for hangover induced by too much mulled wine, let me tell you that the Husband was also struck down early evening on Sunday resulting in the kids getting rushed through the bath at 6 p.m. and told to turn their lights off at 7.30. It was that bad. Come Monday, the weather reverted to miserable drizzle. The Husband was still suffering, so being 12 hours ahead of him on the bug front, I had to get up, sort the kids and get them to school. This morning, to put the final nail in the mood of the day, we had to say goodbye to the Husband who, now recovered, is spending up to the next week in Crete. I'm not sure if I'm more upset that he's gone and I'm missing him, or that he's getting some sun. He travels a bit, and never for very long. Linking back to the Remembrance Day theme, I have friends whose OHs are away in far more dangerous places for far longer, so I can't complain, but the kids find it very hard (I do too, but he was in the Army when we met, and I've had the best part of 20 years to get used to it) - even for one night. This trip is worse because we don't actually know when he'll be back - it could be the weekend, could be next week...



I collected them from school today, and they were both pretty flat. Pink's having 'friends' issues which seem to be getting her down - she's been creeping into our bed of late, which is very unusual, and being generally needy. After we'd done homework , she tearfully asked if we could do something fun together "...like play Operation, mummy". I could hardly refuse. Blue is knackered, despite half term, and I couldn't get the new TV to work in the way he wanted it too... What to give them for tea? Well, the answer in these circumstances is often pasta, and so today was no exception. The Husband had cancelled the Sunday lunch party on account of my being indisposed, and had frozen most of the food that we'd prepared, for Sunday lunchtime, but not the cream to go with the pudding. Spaghetti, cream, pancetta, some frozen peas. A recipe for comfort food par excellence, and easy to make while playing Operation.

Pancetta and Pea Carbonara

for 3 gloomy souls in need of cheering up

220g spaghetti, 100g pancetta cubes, 1 clove garlic, 2 tablespoons double cream (well, I didn't eat anything for 36 hours, so it's fine), 50g grano padana, parmesan or other hard cheese, 2 eggs, 180g frozen peas

Cook the spaghetti in a big pan of boiling, salted water. Fry the pancetta in a pan with a crushed clove of garlic till cooked and crispy. In a bowl beat together the eggs, cream and cheese along with a good grind of black pepper. When the spaghetti is nearly cooked, tip in the peas - they need 2-3 minutes, then drain the spaghetti and peas, return to the pan and put back on the heat. Tip in the cooked pancetta/garlic, then tip in the eggs/cream/cheese mixture, stirring till cooked and coating the spaghetti. 

Serve immediately - this is not a meal to keep sitting around. Watch the mood improve with the consumption of delicious carbs.