J is for Joy

Everyone needs joy, that little something in our day that fills us up with a warm fuzzy feeling that reaches all the way to your toes.

Joy can be found in the smiles of your children, watching a loved one win a race, for some people it may be an afternoon in the garden and whilst all those things are perfectly wonderful and true...there is nothing that brings me so much joy as to see my dear husbands face when he realises I have made something sweet to eat, particularly if that something is chocolate based.  What is even better is that the Two Monkeys also want in on some of the cooking action and The Bug loves to put on his apron and become my assistant chef. His words "I have a taste...purrrleeease" melt my heart and I cannot help but indulge him.

Chocolate & Hazelnut Fudge

Now I know that I already covered off how to make fudge in this post, my chocolate fudge is from a slightly different recipe (found here), with dark chocolate and nuts stirred in as the mixure cooled. Today I wanted to share with you a recipe that has given me little bits of joy since I was a child which should be perfect for this overcast July afternoon.

The recipe is called Biscuit Crunch and is taken from the Winnie the Pooh Cookbook as originally printed in 1979.  It is essentially a type of fridge cake which is great for making with little people as there is plenty of opportunity for spoon licking and was always affectionately known in our house as "Pooh Crunch"

Ingredients:

• 1/2lb rich tea biscuits
• 4 oz unsalted butter
• 3 tbsp cocoa powder
• 2 tbsp caster sugar
• 1 tbsp golden syrup
• 4 oz chocolate - plain or milk or a mixture of both (depending on taste)

Instructions

• Grease a 20cm (8') dish or tin, it can be round or square
• Measure butter or margarine, cocoa powder, sugar, syrup into large saucepan. Place on low heat and using wooden spoon stir until ingredients have melted. Take pan off heat.
• Crush biscuits up coarsely in a bowl (this bit is great to do as a little person) and pour over melted ingredients. Use a fork to blend ingredients and coat biscuits. Spoon mixture into cake tin, spread level and press mixture firmly into tin
• Break chocolate into bowl and melt over saucepan of warm water . Pour melted chocolate over biscuit base and spread evenly. Place in fridge until set

Extras : Should you wish to make your dish a little bit more exciting you can add in dried fruit such as cranberries, or nuts, or chocolate chunks into the mix once you have added the melted ingredients.

I is for...

...inert, idle, immobile, inactive.

All these words could be used to describe the state of this blog. And yes, if this post seems familiar it is because I wrote something incredibly like this in October last year but it got deleted and no other posts followed on. Life got in the way - which is no bad thing! Being a stay-at-home-mum has, and continues to be, a lot of fun...even if it does mean I am constantly on the go.

When I started this blog I had fully intended to write about my experience of weaning The Bug, and our journey discovering food together. I had envisioned that I would write the alphabet series over 26 weeks and be done with it before moving onto another title sequence. Only problem them is that The Bug is just about to turn three and eats pretty much anything and everything we put in front of him.

Not only that but in the intervening years The Bug's little brother the Little Giant arrived (as you may have guessed from previous mentions of The Two Monkeys) and is also completely weaned and has a more voracious appetite than his brother. So I can't talk about his weaning journey either. Talk about blogger fail.

What's worse is that I have plenty of material to hand. I have meticulously photographed my baking and epic cooking achievements but they just sit idle on my laptop gathering digital dust.

So where does this leave me now? Playing catch up for the most part...but that is OK as my family (and cooking for them) come before my writing, or my crafting, or anything else really. Part of me wishes my writing could come before housework but invariably that also wins out too. But I am going to try and post every Friday from this point on for the remainder of 2014...I even have it scheduled in my diary.  In the meantime, if you want to read a real foodie blog, pop over and visit my friend Lucy at The Pie Patch as she is fairly awesome and is also into all sorts of crafty things that I like too.

'H' is for Hot Pie

OK, so I have kinda skewed the title of this post to make it fit the topic that I want but who can blame me? After all it is British Pie Week and therefore it is most appropriate to write about the British passion for pastry encased yumminess.

I mean, who ever came up with the idea for pies deserves an award for services to humanity and doing the world a huge favour. I mean there are chunky meat pies, then potato topped pies, little tarts and then fruity pies, cobblers and hot crust pies.

It makes my mouth water just thinking of it.

The alternative for 'H' is homemade, which is also (in part) what this post is about. I can honestly say that making a pie from scratch beats a store bought one of the same flavour (and I can say this as I bought one at the weekend) because you stir in that extra ingredient...love. (Smell the cheese of that last sentence there) But seriously, it does taste a whole lot better and you know exactly what goes into it. And most people will shrug off looking at the label but when it comes to feeding The Two Monkeys, it really does matter to me how much salt is in something and what additives it may have.

Having been inspired by the Hairy Bikers cookbook I was given for Christmas 2012 (as mentioned in an earlier post), I made my dear husband pick out a recipe for me to have a bash at for dinner one night.  My only previous pie attempts have been a fruit filled pies or a very lovely and sweet "Pumpkin Pie" from the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook, this would be my first foray into the world of savoury pies and I was a little nervous.

However, I want to make it perfectly clear that making pies really does take baking to a whole new level. It's more than just a mixture in a cupcake case, it is a process that leads to combining filling and pastry and doing your best to avoid a "soggy bottom"

So today I set about creating the "Creamy Chicken, Ham and Leek Pie" that my dear husband had selected, if you're interested in trying it you can find it here. The prep for the filling took me just under an hour, which was good as I could fit it in whilst my Little Giant had an afternoon nap and The Bug played in the room next door.  From there on in it was just a case of making the pie prior to cooking.

Interestingly enough, the shortcrust pastry for this recipe differs from others that I have previously made in that it uses an egg rather than just water.  If anything it created a smoother dough that I could use instantly rather than needing to let it rest.  I also made a point of using cold and cubed butter to make the pastry which I haven't  done in the past and it worked much better.

So we sat down to a very lovely hot pie for dinner tonight and enjoyed every last bite.  There was even some pastry left over for me to make some mini chocolate tortes for pudding.

G is for Gravy

Yes, you heard me, gravy.  There are certain dishes out there that are just not complete until you add this, the most wonderful and versatile of all sauces.

Sausage and mash. Pie and mash.  Actually, lets make that anything with mash.

A roast dinner (of any kind). Toad in the hole.

The americans even have a thick sausage gravy they eat at breakfast!

The great thing about gravy is that it can be made to match whatever you are eating and there is no firm rule about what goes in it. You can thicken it...or not. You can add onions...or not. Each batch is unique and in our family my dear husband is the king of gravy makers (and roast dinners). You can drench your dinner in it or (in the case of a certain friend) drink it straight from the jug.

You can try and dress it up and call it a jus but really it all boils down to the same thing (quite literally in fact.)

But for me, the most bizarre thing about gravy is that while I am now more than happy to wax lyrical about its many and marvellous uses... I used to despise it as a child. You make think that despise is rather a strong word but I couldn't stand to have any gravy pass my lips, any meal with said condiment would be rejected. Or very grudging picked at because I was generally a good child who did as they were told.

I am sure my mother must have despaired.

It sounds odd but I decided at about the age of 5 or 6 that I didn't like "wet food" and avoided it at all costs.  I have to add that I also liked to keep all the different foods separate on my plate but that is probably another story and one that I am sure some psychologist would have something to say about.  But back to the story in hand, I would refuse gravy on any and every meal, my especial fear was that it would turn my potatoes to mush.  This strong aversion of "wet food" extended to include brothy stews, custard and pouring cream....all things I now eat in abundance.

So lets give it up for gravy...I know I will be having a double helping next time it is on the menu.

'F' is for Fudge

And fudged fudge at that...well, my first attempt didn't exactly go to plan and set with the consistency of sorbet.

Still, every cloud has a silver lining and it tasted great and worked even better heated up poured over bananas for pudding. Or, in my dear husband's case, vanilla ice-cream and bananas.

By now some of you may be spotting common theme appearing in my blog...well that is all down to the fact that my dear husband has a taste for all things sweet and chocolatey and who I am to deny this? Instead, I get to be the wonderful wife that can cook and create things to indulge his sweet tooth and mine...because lets be honest here I like sweet stuff too.

So anyway, about two weeks ago I set about the task of making some fudge as a valentines gift for my dear husband. I found a great recipe for vanilla fudge with evaporated milk that was based on timings rather than temperature, which was a good thing as I don't have a sugar thermometer. 

Now I know that traditionally many people would have opted for the condensed milk over the evaporated milk but this wasn't a planned concoction rather I was being sponatneous and using what I had in my cupboard.  Should I ever revisit making fudge I will try it with condensed milk.

At this point a few of you are thinking, hang on, if it was for a valentines gift how can it have been spontaneous? My answer is simply this; I am a stay-at-home-mum on a budget and I didn't have time to knit him anything.

My first attempt was made with granulated sugar which, although part of the recipe, is where I think I went wrong. When I repeated the recipe later on in the week I changed this for caster sugar and got (as you can see) fantabulous results.  I know it tasted good as this box lasted less time than the aforementioned fudged fudge.

*Edit* this fudge does have a more toffee like consistency rather than one that melts in your mouth

'E' is for eggs

Eggs are just wonderful things. So yummy. Often quick to cook. And lets not forget...so good for you!

Robust enough in their own flavour that you can eat them alone in so many ways - it's amazing.  Just stop and think about it...boiled, fried, poached, scrambled. Then there are numerous dishes in which they can be used, I certainly get through boxes of them when baking...especially birthday cakes but that is another post entirely.

Now when it comes to The Two Monkeys (who are currently 2 and a half-ish years and nearly 1 years) then eggs do actually prove a bit problematic. They will devour eggy bread in minutes but give them a fried or boiled egg and its picked over or pushed aside or ignored. Their most favourite form of egg is an omelette or frittata which I fill with shredded veggies and cheese...just typing this is making me hungry!

And sizes, eggs come in all sorts of sizes. Now I have held (and stood on) an ostrich egg and it is really huge, an omelette made from one of those would be the equivalent of 22 chicken eggs.  On the other hand quails eggs are tiny, and while they are not my favourite to eat they are very pretty to look at. In fact we have a carved ostrich egg that we put a light inside of and use as our Christmas tree topper, and lets be honest painted eggs at Easter hanging on twisted hazel can be so beautiful... so yet another use for them, home decor!

I mostly buy chicken eggs but I know duck eggs are particularly good for baking with and I have made a point of using them to make things when cooking for a friend who cannot eat chicken eggs.

I cannot imagine a culinary world without the humble egg and so I would like to raise my glass to the most versatile of all cooking ingredients.

An ode to eggs

Not only are you curves beautiful
       as you lie there in your carton.
The hue of your shell is alluring;
       duck blue, white, brown but not tartan.

You are the epitome of yumminess
         and can be used in all sorts of ways.
When removed from the fridge for lunch,
         my stomach will never be dismayed.

'D' is for "Doh!"

In the immortal words of Homer, who loves doughnuts more than any other (and my dear husband's favorite character)... 'D' is for "doh" as this post was orginally published, quite mistakely, in the wrong order but this has now been corrected.

But 'D' was meant to be about doughnuts...the glazed ring of deliciousness or a jam filled ball of delight.  Not that I have ever had a go at making these myself, I just like to eat them  :)

Now there are the super sticky ones covered in icing and sprinkles that The Two monkeys love to buy from the baker at the Monday Market we have discovered in our new town. Or there are the melt in your mouth smoothly glazed Krispy Kreme ones that are out of this world and are finished far too soon and if you have more than about 3 you'll be sick. And then there are the super fresh ones you find by the seaside.  I have vivid memories as a teenager of going to Brighton Pier and the smell of the hot dough would make your mouth water and it was futile to do anything but buy one...or two...or a bag.  For sharing of course!