Chocolate orange profiteroles & sibling rivalry

So here it is - or there it was - Christmas is over and the New Year nearly upon us. A time of reflection and anticipation etc etc. It's been an important year in the Recipe Junkie household on many levels - the big move west in February and all that's brought for us, Blue getting the big all clear from his leukaemia in the summer, 5 years after the end of his chemo, and yes, I've mastered choux pastry.

Not perhaps as significant as the other 2 major highlights of the year which have impacted in a major way on all of us, but as a personal highlight, it ranks pretty highly (and who am I kidding, the mob are pretty chuffed that these are now no longer a dessert dream, but a very real pudding possibility).

Another major milestone was my parents' celebrating a milestone birthday in March, which saw all of us (my parents, me, my brothers, our spouses, children and Fred the dog) gathered at a rather luxurious barn conversion outside Bristol for a long weekend. Significant in itself that we were all together in the same place which is at best an annual event these days, it was lovely to spend time with my parents and brothers, all of whom I love very much and don't see enough of, and to see the cousins getting on so well. It was also endlessly entertaining watching Fred the dog do his best to catch one of the Koi carp that floated langorously in a pool outside...

The barn had the most amazing kitchen with the most enormous AGA I've ever seen - I suspect you really needed a licence to drive it - and plenty of gadetry, but astonishingly hardly anything to actually cook with or on, pans and tins-wise. We who had elected to cater had to be inventive. My contribution to proceedings was a massive Sunday roast, with one of my brothers knocking up dessert.

And knock up he did - profiteroles, just like that. Choux pastry made with no scales or anything. As far as I could work out he just did it by eye - and this from the bloke who's spent a significant part of his adult life mapping jungles in Africa (or something). To say the man has hidden talents would be an understatement.

And while I was, as you'll understand, delighted not to have had to make a pudding, having slaved over roast pork for 12, that little corner of my soul reserved for sibling rivalry that we all like to pretend doesn't exist now we're all grown ups and can put the the irritants of childhood behind us (yeah, right), was definitely awakened, agitated, and up for the challenge.

Or not - because at least once a week since Easter, I have thought to myself, right, choux pastry. And then thought - may be not, After all, it's quite decadent once you fill everything with cream. And the leftovers will only get left in the fridge and I'll just eat them. And we're busy this weekend... Nervous? Afraid of failure? Too worried about whether I'd be unable to better (or frankly, even equal) the brother's efforts? You bet. Sibling rivalry sucks...

But no longer, I have broken by choux pastry duck thanks to the magic of Vicky North and her nascent Vic North Cookery School (runner up in the Best New Cookery School of 2014, doncha know?!) nestled in the beautiful North Pembrokeshire countryside not very far from here. A day of pastry included sweet, savoury, puff and choux. Inspiring and practical, I am no longer scared of making pastry, and am now fully equipped to make profiteroles, much to the delight of my family.

These are filled with a mixture of the orange curd I made the other day and softly whipped cream and topped with the most divine chocolate 'ganache' which is not ganache at all in the conventional way, but made with coconut oil, cocoa and honey. A complete revelation. You should try it.

And in a break from tradition, I made sure everything was ready before I began. Another revelation...

Chocolate orange profiteroles

Makes many

125g plain flour,
225g water (yes - weigh it!)
60g unsalted butter
1/2 tsp salt
4 eggs

300ml double cream
jar of orange curd (or whatever you fancy - or not at all)

60g runny honey
30g coconut oil, melted
20g cocoa
pinch of salt

Pre-heat your oven to 180C.

Sift the flour into a large bowl, and put the water, butter and salt into a pan.

Put your eggs by your mixer, K beater/paddle attachment fitted, and get a piping bag ready with a large nozzle.

Line 2 baking sheets with greaseproof paper - I usually secure it with clothes pegs for the piping part but remember to whip them off before putting them in the oven.

Ready to go? 

Bring the water butter & salt to the boil.

Tip the flour into the boiling water, reduce the heat and beat the mixture as vigorously as you can with a wooden spoon for 4 minutes. It's a killer, but worth it.

When the mixture is glossy and comes away from the sides of the pan, tip it into the mixer bowl and beat for a minute.

Keep the beater running then add the eggs one at a time. You may not need all of them - keep an eye on the mixture. You're aiming for a smooth glossy mix that will hold its shape when being piped.

Dollop this into your piping bag and do the thing. I'm no expert piper - you could also dollop the mixture out using spoons I think. Leave space between your mounds of paste to allow for rising during baking.

Bake for 15-20 minutes till puffed up and golden. When the buns come out of the oven, immediately make a small slit in each one to let out the steam and stop your buns going soggy.

Leave to cool.

Whisk the cream up with half a jar of orange curd if using and pipe that into the buns - easier said then done - I made a bit of a mess if we're honest, but the cream tastes darn good, and really is anyone going to mind??

Mix together the honey, coconut oil and cocoa, and working quickly, smear on the buns and chill till required.

So it just remains for me to wish you all Happy New Year. Thanks for following my blog this year - looking forward to 2015. xxx

Christmas Curd

For various reasons including a vomiting child and a cancelled party (both the child and the party being my responsibility), I found myself at a loose end and with excessive amounts of oranges to hand earlier today. 

What to do? 

My eyes strayed to the eggs, and I started to think curd. Specifically, orange curd, having a number of oranges available that were intended for the vast vat of mulled wine I had planned for aforementioned party...

Then I began to wonder if you could lace in that quintessential aroma of Christmas - cloves - into the curd. Such is the way my mind works.

I was making bread sauce in advance of Christmas Day last week, and that smell of clove-y, milk-y, onion-y bread is inextricably linked to this time of year for me, Combine clove with orange and it reminds me of my Granny, who always had a pomander knocking around, Christmas or not, and it reminds me of mulled wine. I mean really. What's not to like?

Since we've moved, one of the things I have definitely missed is the chickens. Our old ladies were unlikely to have made the journey down the M4 and beyond, so we re-homed them, and I have been buying eggs ever since. I was aware that the current stash of eggs were getting on, but marked with the British Lion Egg* logo and a date, I was confident that they would be OK - a change from the hastily scrawled dates I used to add to the eggs of our own chooks as I collected them.

Curd is one of the great things you can make with eggs, although if you're not confident that you have mastered how to boil an egg, you might want to do that first, but then curd has to be one of the things you must make with eggs. You just have to remember that it will take a long time. And during that long time you have to be prepared to stand, stirring, ever-vigilant to avoid turning your fragrant pan-full into lemon (or lime, or orange, or whatever flavoured)scrambled eggs, rather than a deliciously rich and smooth custard. And it simply isn't worth turning the heat up either, for the same reason.

If you're used to sharp lemon or lime curds, this is quite a different animal. Sweet, but not overly so and with a hint of those delicious seasonal flavours, it's almost almondy. In fact it would be delicious with a frangipan topping in a tart (thinking out loud, note to self etc etc) 

Christmas Curd

Makes one delicious jarful

75g butter
50g caster sugar
125 ml sweet, freshly squeezed orange juice
3 large eggs
a couple of pinches of ground cloves and of ground cinammon

Melt the butter in a heavy bottomed pan over a gentle heat, then turn the heat down as low as you can and add in the rest of the ingredients.


Stir continuously with a wooden spoon until a smooth custard forms which will coat the back of a spoon and allow you to draw a line through it with your finger.

Allow to cool slightly then decant into a 350ml sterilised jam jar.

Hide at the back of the fridge and don't tell anyone else you made it.

*This post is sponsored by British Lion Eggs

Stollen

What a difference a day - and a trip to the shops makes. Presents have been purchased, the tree is up and there is food in the fridge.  The Husband is returned from his last week away of the year. And lo! Christmas can begin.

I'm not a huge Christmas fiend in the way that some people are - seeing Christmas adverts in September makes me groan, and I can't get worked really up about it  - piling too many expectations into one day is a sure fire recipe for disaster. But I do like having time to be with family, to catch up with friends, to switch off. I love a good carol, a 'Christmas film' - either one that's themed around Christmas, or failing that, the Sound of Music. As the kids have grown older, we're developing our own traditions - different from those of the Husband & my own childhoods (the Husband was never going to let me maintain the tradition of not opening 'main' presents till AFTER the Queen's speech, which is what happened in our house when I was a child...) 

But I don't think of myself as a Christmas purist - more a bit of a Christmas pirate, and I'll pick and choose from new ideas, mostly happy to go with the flow, and frankly, when the traditions of other Christmases are so tasty why wouldn't you? In the interests of making sure we have the means for a bit of a party next weekend, I have been trying out various drink options of the mulled variety (hic), and I made a stollen.

Stollen is, I think German/Austrian in origin but for the opportunities it presents for Marzipan, it's a winner for me. I've never made one before, and only occasionally eaten it (there's lots of other things to eat at Christmas, aren't there?), but having had a go, I can see this becoming a bit of a fixture. I mean what is not to like? Enriched bread dough, all those Christmassy spices and of course, marzipan... I ate it unadorned for breakfast this morning in a quiet house (the Husband took the kids off kayaking) with a cup of coffee. The marzipan melted into the dough, a sugary hit from the icing sugar drenched over the rop, plenty of dried fruit, turning it immediately into a health food...Bliss.




I wouldn't begin to suggest this is an authentic recipe - I started off with a Paul Hollywood version and went from there - but I think in terms of flavour and sheer Christmassy food joy, it hits the spot.

Stollen

250 semi-skimmed milk
150g unsalted butter, at room temperature, cut into cubes

500g strong white flour
100g caster sugar
10g dried easy blend yeast
10g salt

400g dried fruit (I used a bag of luxury dried fruit mix left over from the Christmas cake)
130g marzipan, grated
2 good shakes of ground all spice
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp almond extract

To finish
25g unsalted butter
1 tbsp icing sugar
a good handful of flaked almonds

You'll need a lined baking sheet and a seive to sift the final icing sugar over the hot loaf.

Warm the milk in a small pan then remove from the heat and add the butter and allow it to melt in to the milk.

Combine the stong white flour, sugar, yeast and salt in a bowl, then gradually incorporate the milk/butter mixture. Once combined into a rough dough, knead until you have a smooth dough (I did this in a food processor with the dough hook)

Combine the dried fruit, marzipan, all spice and vanilla & almond extracts in a bowl.

Flour the work surface (again if you kneaded by hand and it's necessary) and pat the dough into a rough rectangle, then carefully tip the fruit mixture onto it and knead it all together. You may think the fruit will never incorporate into the dough, but it will - just go steadily!

Once the fruit is incorporated into the dough, place the dough in a bowl, cover with cling film and leave to rise for 1-2 hours or until doubled in size.

Pre-heat the oven to 190C (170C Fan). Tip the dough onto a floured work surface, form into a rectangle, about 30 cm by 20 cm, then roll tightly into a sausage shape, and place on the lined baking sheet. Cover with a tea towel and leave for 30 mins-1 hour. 

Remove the tea towel, put the loaf in the oven and bake for 50 mins-1 hour. Keep an eye on it and cover with foil if it looks like it's catching.

Just before you take the stollen out of the oven, melt the final 25g of butter. Remove the stollen from the oven, brush it with the melted butter then chuck the flaked almonds over it, then sift the icing sugar over the top and leave to cool completely.

Christmas? Bring it on.

Turkey melts

Yes, another post about what to do with the leftover turkey. Not from me - this is the first time I've posted since Christmas, but just generally, there are tonnes of ideas about what to do with the leftovers. And rightly so. Even having reduced my Christmas food shopping list to a minimum, bearing in mind that we weren't entertaining anyone on Christmas Day itself, my fridge is groaning with food.

I weighed up the pros and cons of buying a truly local bird, or getting a free range Copas turkey from the local butcher. In the end, the butcher won. I like buying meat from him. It's always great, he gets great fish for me too, and what's even more valuable, he tolerates my indecision when I have failed to meal plan, sympathises with me generally about life, and occasionally allows me to owe him if I've forgotten my purse. For all these reasons, he wins out when such choices have to be made.

I ordered the smallest turkey I could - which still ended up being 4.8 kilos. Very tasty it was, if I do say so myself. There seems to have been a mind shift about cooking turkey - gone is the requirement to be up at 5 a.m. to 'put the bird in', leaving it to cook for hours on end. I stuffed mine with a made up mix of sausage meat, grated onion, finely chopped parsley and the zest of 2 lemons, covered the breast with streaky bacon, and sat it all on some roughly chopped onion, bay leaves and rosemary which all helped to add flavour to the gravy. It took less than 3 hours, and sat comfortably under some foil while I sorted the rest of the meal out. Marvellous.

The Husband and I agreed that we would take a practical approach to the leftovers this year. As the big move draws ever nearer, there's no room to be stashing things away in the freezer - I'm meant to be emptying it - so we decided that we would keep the leftover meat in the fridge, and if it didn't get eaten in a few day, well, we'd just (gulp) throw it away.

But strangely, I've been even more zealous in my attempts to use it up than I would normally have been.

We had the traditional cold version of the turkey dinner on Boxing Day with my father in law and his partner: cold turkey, cold sausages, cold cranberry sauce, cold gravy - but hot bubble & squeak (yum).

Yesterday, turkey sandwiches for lunch.

Today, turkey melts. This idea came to me while I was writing an online article about using up turkey, and I thought I'd give it  go. Turns out, it was definitely a good idea.Not only was it a slightly different way to eat up a bit more of the turkey, it also used up some of the cheese. Now, as an aside, while the concept of 'too much cheese' is not one I am necessarily familiar with, it would be fair to say that there is currently rather a lot in the fridge.

8 soft tortillas
250g chopped turkey meat
4 spring onions, finely chopped
grated chedder, crumbled blue cheese, whatever you have

Heat a non stick frying pan, and lay a tortilla into it. Sprinkle some chopped turkey, spring onion and cheese over half the tortilla

 and fold the other half over the top of it. You should then be able to get another on in alongside depending on the size of your pan and the wraps you are using.

Warm till the underside is toasted brown, then flip over and toast the other side till the cheese is melted. Leave to cool a little, then serve.

I can also recommend making this omitting the spring onions (and, if you've run out the turkey)  including any cranberry saauce you happen to have lying around. Spread your half tortilla with the cranberry, and sprinkle over some turkey and crumbled/slice cheese. Camembert is good for this, as is Cambozola.

Toast on both sides as before, then devour. Mmmmm.
 

As a result, we're now down to one dish of leftover meat. And tonight - it's turkey pie. At this rate, we may avoid curry altogether.

Pork & lemon meatballs - because we don't need to think about the turkey till next week...

You'll have noticed that there hasn't been much about Christmas here. 

It's not that I'm not bothered, not excited, but I'm not planning to do anything different or fancy, and as it's just us here for Christmas Day, and I don't want to have the place groaning with leftovers, I have tried not to over-cater or over-engineer anything.

I'm also quite fancying the approach Alexander Armstrong and Giles Coren took in their '12 Drinks of Christmas' programme that I happened to watch last night - line up 12 festive drinks, and let everything else take care of itself. I won't of course, but it did cross my mind...

I never really read the Dr Seuss books when I was growing up, but the Husband did, and his mum introduced them to our kids - Blue in particular - and there's a bit in How the Grinch Stole Christmas that I really love. It's this bit ('it' being Christmas):

"It came without ribbons. It came without tags. 

It came without packages, boxes or bags. 

And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore. 

Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. 

What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. 

What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.” 

I've been concentrating on getting the exhausted children through the last few weeks of school - there have been projects to finish, carol concerts, school discos, the usual end of Autumn term madness - and what with everything else that's been going on, I haven't really had time to think about anything other than the basics, even less blog about it.

 

So on the catering front, at least, I'm taking the 'Grinch' approach. Or perhaps not the Grinch's approach, but that of the Whos - whose Christmas the Grinch was trying to spoil. 

It will be Christmas whether I manage to make cranberry sauce or not. 

Whether the mince pies have homemade mincemeat in them - or the mincemeat from the jar I found at the back of the cupboard which looks perfectly edible but has a use by date of 2009 on it (may be I'll pep it up with some brandy...). Indeed whether the mince pies are homemade in the first place ("Recipe Junkie in bought mince pie shock..." I can see it now).

Whether the Christmas Cake looks like something Mary Berry would be proud of - or not - thanks to Pink's enthusiastic marzipan modelling last night.

Particularly loving Pink's attempt to turn a polar bear into a reindeer...

We will be together, at home, and we will have a lovely time, whether we eat like kings, or not.
 
And anyway, all of that stuff isn't till next week. 

For now, we need to eat normal food; food to keep us going as we wade through the end of term. It would help if I'd been meal planning, but that's gone by the wayside too, so yesterday I was scrabbling around in the freezer and found some pork mince. It's ages since we had meatballs, and the kids love them, so with a little help from Nigel Slater, meatballs it was.


Pork meatballs with mushroom sauce

4 anchovy fillets
450g pork mince
65g breadcrumbs
zest of a lemon; juice of up to 1 lemon (see Method)
handful of flat leaf parsely (leaves only especially if stalks are a bit woody), finely chopped

2 tablespoons (about 15g) grated parmesan
plain flour for dusting/rolling in (the meatballs, not you)
40g butter
olive oil
4 largeish chestnut mushrooms, peeled if necessary and finely chopped
200ml chicken stock
50ml (approx) cream

Mash up the anchovy fillets in the bottom of a large bowl, then mix in the pork mince, breadcrumbs, lemon zest, parsley and grated parmesan and mix together, adding the lemon juice as necessary to bind it all together.

Cover a plate with plain flour.

Using a tablespoon as a rough measure, make your meatballs - I got 14 out of this mixture - flatten slightly, then put in the flour, rolling around to coat lightly.

Heat the butter and oil in a large frying pan, then brown the meatballs on both sides for about 4 minutes - I did this in batches. Once browned, set the meatballs aside, then chuck the mushroom into the pan and cook for a few minutes, then return the meatballs to the pan and cook for another 5-6 minutes, turning occasionally.

Tip in the chicken stock and bring the pan up to bubbling, scraping any bits off the bottom of the pan, then drizzle in a bit of cream. I just had some in the fridge, and I didn't measure it out, but it wasn't much - just enough to turn the sauce from 'stock' to 'sauce' if you see what I mean.

When everything's hot, serve. We had it with a mixture of wild and red rice (cupboard clearing) and some steamed kale.

 And in case I don't get the chance again, 

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

 

Of changed plans, wet walks, recipe fails and socialising with children

New Year's Eve 2012.

It's been a good year on every level, and here we are celebrating the end of the old and the dawn of the new. Before I get distracted on my usual ramble, I'd like to get a little sentimental here and say how much I've enjoyed my time in the blogosphere - it's been brilliant, and I'm hoping for plenty more in 2013. Obviously, it's an outlet for my culinary meanderings, but what has really made it so great has been meeting lots of fantastic people (both virtually, and in a couple of cases, in real life), the comments, the tweeting. Thank you for reading my blog.

And now the ramble. Get on your glad rags and your gaiters - have you seen what the weather's like out there?

New Year's Eve is probably my worst night out. From when I can remember, I always wanted to go to a glamorous party, everyone in cocktail dresses (well the ladies) having a sparkling and sophisticated time. The party in When Harry Met Sally - that type of thing - the one where Harry ends up running through the streets of New York to find Sally and tell her that actually he really does love her. Sigh.

I have never been to a party like that.

Not that I have had many bad New Year's Eves, but there seems to be this massive pressure to have absolutely the best time ever on this one night. I've spent New Years Eves in clubs and at parties. I've spent them at home on the sofa, toasting the New Year early and going to bed at 10.30 with a warm cup of cocoa and (skip over this part, Mum) on one occasion, had to leave the festivities early after a mortifying "being sick in the street between pubs" incident in York. Let's draw a quiet veil over that one, shall we, particularly the bit where I tried to argue with the bouncer on the door of the second pub (who had witnessed everything) that I was completely and utterly sober and had every right to be in his establishment? It was a long time ago.

The best times have been those spent with one or two good sets of friends - drinks, dinner and low key amusement. Particularly since the arrival of Blue and Pink, and with babysitters at a premium on NYE, something at home, has been the order of the day. This year, we were supposed to be spending this afternoon and evening in the company of old and dear friends who we haven't seen much of this year. Unfortunately, norovirus on their part has put paid to that, so our celebrations this year kicked off with me and the children "enjoying" a particularly wet and miserable dog walk while the Husband enjoyed an even better (and wetter) wade through the mud 'run' with a group of friends from the village where we live. 

Can we have some haribo NOW??

I tell you, there is nothing more dispiriting on a wet and windy afternoon than bribing 2 bedraggled and reluctant children with haribo to walk just a bit further...

the dog enjoyed it, though

We regrouped for mulled wine and mince pies, walks and runs over, and discussed plans for the evening. You see, having postponed our low key dinner with friends, I threw myself on the mercy of another friend who had previously invited us to their big party. Turns out it is likely to be THE party locally this year. The invite I had previously declined.

We have done more and more socialising with the children as they have got older - particularly parties where we all start out at, say, 6, and then end up carrying the home around 9.30. This has worked pretty well. We do most of our 'going to parties with children' in the village so there will usually be friends for them wherever we go, and the usual form is that the adults cram themselves into the smallest room possible and talk loudly and raucously, then, perhaps, dance, while the children rampage, Lord of the Flies style, around the rest of the house. We tend to not then see the kids apart from the occasional raiding party made up of the smallest, sent in between the legs of the adults, to swipe food and bottles of whatever fizzy drinks (the soft ones) are on offer.

Actually going out at 8, which is now the order for this evening, is new for us. As I type, the Husband is trying to keep them amused, but I know they are tired. They've had a busy day, to be fair - the first day of that holidays that I actually wanted them to be up and out so we could brave the shops early for supplies for the dinner we were supposed to be hosting, and they actually slept in - and I'm not sure if they will stay the course. Still, given how foul the weather is, I can confidently predict a duvet day tomorrow whatever happens this evening. 

Before the plan changed today, the Husband and I made soup and cooked chilli, and, spurred on by the overall success of the roulade I made a few weeks ago, I had another go, this time a chocolate sponge type one. All went well until, buoyed up on the post walk mulled wine, I set to, to make the final ganache.

Don't you hate it when a recipe is either wrong, or misses some crucial aspect out? I'd based my pud on one from an issue of  a Woman & Home publication: "Feel Good Food Christmas", although had decided to change the filling swapping raspberries for chestnut puree. The sponge cooked brilliantly, and rolled up

 and then rolled out perfectly.














I filled it with whipped double cream swirled with raspberry coulis, rolled it up and started on the ganache. A water ganache - where you melt the chocolate by pouring boiling water on to it and whisking furiously. Well, I don't know what happened, but I just ended up with chocolate water. I whisked and whisked but nothing. There was nothing in the recipe about cooling or whisking - the implication was that once the chocolate was melted and smooth, the whole thing would be spreadable.

It wasn't.

I added more chocolate. No luck.

I tweeted and googled, and the lovely Slice of Barnes confirmed something I'd read - whisk it madly and refrigerate. The whisk again.

Success.

I'm not going to add the recipe here because it's time for me to get on my glad rags and some make up (it does happen sometimes) and head out with the Husband and the children to the party. I'll take some time tomorrow to tell you how I did it, but for now, feast your eyes, my lovelies:

I wish you all a very happy New Year. xxx

[Update: here's the link to the recipe!]

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!

The Sunday Bake Off - the Festive Episode & Christmas Cake Part 3 - The Icing

So here it is - pretty much. Christmas 2012. 

We had our annual outing to the panto yesterday (Oh yes we did!) - Aladdin at the Theatre Royal in Winchester with my mother in law who buys us the tickets as a Christmas present, and then went out for a pizza before returning home. I'm not a lover of panto, but I like the one at Winchester. This is the third year we've been. A lot of the actors are the same every year, and the dame is always exceptional. This year there was much heckling from the junior members of the audience and as a result, much improvisation from the cast, which is always a good thing. We had a good meal, and despite the unseasonally mild, wet and windy weather, Winchester looked beautiful with the lights illuminating the high street. Actually, I watched the Wartime Farm at Christmas the other day, and was very interested to learn that the myth of our 'white Christmases' is almost entirely down to Charles Dickens who experienced the frost fair years of the early 19th century and perpetuated the idea that it is always a white Christmas, frosty, glorious in his novels. But I digress.

I was up early this morning. There's no denying that I am a 'lark' and I consider the early morning at the weekends to be 'my time'. The kids have unfettered access to the TV, the Husband sleeps, and usually, I will be out walking the dog. The dog has been staying with mum for the last 10 days, so this morning, I had a rare opportunity to potter in the kitchen.

First up was a mushroom and bean casserole to go in the slow cooker for lunch. My mother in law is a vegetarian, and this seemed to be a likely candidate for an easy lunch, out of a book by Rose Elliot which my mum gave me as an early Christmas present - quick vegetarian meals: a kind of 30 Minute Meals for veggies. Obviously, by adapting it for the slow cooker, I extended the cooking time somewhat, but the principle was the same - easy and tasty. Necessary food sorted, on to the good stuff.

Cranberry Bakewell Tart. I made cranberry jam yesterday, and the pastry (left overnight in the fridge), so it was a matter of lining the tin with the pastry, spreading in the jam and making the almond sponge topping. The pastry was direct from the recipe in Feast - it's a great pastry: including ground almonds, clementine zest and icing sugar with the flour - but you could use shop bought. The quantities in Feast are for a 26cm loose bottomed tart tin. Mine is smaller than that so I had the opportunity to make more mince pies.

The sponge is made by beating together 125g of caster sugar and ground almonds with 3 eggs, and then mixing in 125g of melted slightly cooled unsalted butted. Once it's all mixed, pour it over the jam, sprinkle over some flaked almonds and bake at 180 for about 45mins. You might want to check after 20 minutes and if it's looking like it might brown too much on top, cover with foil.

Just before serving I made a runny icing using the juice from half the clementine and drizzled it over the top of the tart. Nigella goes for a full on covering of royal icing and golden stars, but I've got wise to her sweet tooth, and the clementine-tinged drizzle was enough.

 With the left over pastry, I made some more mince pies. The ones I made a couple of days ago were OK but this pastry was much better, and if I get a chance tomorrow, I may make some more. I used the Cherry & Almond Mincemeat I made a few weeks ago.

 
















Once the tarts were in the oven, I got on with some bread. I have been neglecting my bread making, but re-enthused by the River Cottage course, I've had a sourdough starter up and running and it's now ready to use. I mixed up a 'sponge' last night (using a third of the flour, dried yeast and liquid I was intending to bake with), and then made my full dough this morning, using the sourdough starter as part of the liquid content, as well as the 'sponge'.  There's going to be a lot more of the bread in the New Year, so for now, you'll just have to be satisfied with a photo. 

good & "rustic"!

Last but not least, I iced the Christmas cake. In the end, Dr Oetker answered all my decorating needs. I came across a can of silver shimmer spray in the Co-Op yesterday when I was supposed to be buying a paper, and was irresistibly drawn to it. I already have a pack of ready to roll white icing in the (beautifully ordered) cupboard, so in the end I went for the path of least resistance. After a minor panic when I couldn't remember where in the beautifully ordered cupboards the box of decorating bits had gone, including the heirloom Father Christmas and Polar Bear, all was well, and I went for marzipan and icing stars, all sprayed liberally with silver shimmer. Marvellous.

All in all a very satisfying potter. 

After all that, the mother in law enjoyed her casserole and left with a big slice of the Cranberry Bakewell, and my parents have arrived, bringing the dog back. We've been out for a long walk to gather in holly, the tree is up, the presents are bought and wrapped. We have a full house till Friday, my parents, one of my brothers and his wife, then my father in law. On Saturday, we're off to London to see some fabulous friends, then we're back to host more fabulous friends here for New Year. It will be busy, foodie and fun. So now, with the scent of clove and onion infused milk wafting from the kitchen, ready for the bread sauce, I am setting down the lap top for a while, but I'll be back in 2013, refreshed and ready to blog.  

I wish you all a very happy and peaceful Christmas.  Enjoy!