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Sunday, 30 March 2014

Hi there its ME...on Mothering Sunday Simnel & Panettone - 30th March 2014...

There's just been too much cooking and eating with very little time-space for writing and keeping in touch!
My new writing space!

So...here's my catch-up communication for Mothering Sunday and....I'm simply longing to tell you all about my Simnel cake baking for this special day and my trialling the Panettone recipe of Paul Hollywood from BBC Food - bbc.co.uk/food and my second attempt at a recipe from "Bread" by Anne Sheasby - ISBN 978-1-84899-189-7 - of her Panettone on Page 161.



Making breakfast drop scones / pancakes with my grandsons, trying to answer the question - "so what's the difference between the two?  Then what makes American Pancakes "fluffy" or about Pikelets, Blinis etc. and the inter-connecting frisson between all of these!!!


Oh and what about breakfasts, hey?  So many differently delicious ideas, suggestions, ideas for this terribly important meal; why is it so many of us eat a daily bowl of cereal or slices of hot buttered toast?


Pancake Stack with lemon curd



Now I'm in favour of both these options but I want to explore others, starting with pancakes/drop scones to croissants, the Continental breakfast of cold meats, cheeses and fruit with coffee which we had in Salzburg and so on!

My father loved a huge rare steak with eggs "sunny-side-up"  - wonderful...and fried cold potato slices, halved tomatoes, kidneys and bacon and liver and bacon...!

Potted foods - vegetables, pounded or blended meats, happily sealed with melted butter, 'fridge-stored and just waiting to be added to jacket potatoes, pasta, hot buttered toast or crisp savoury biscuits.


Potted Beef

Strong White Sourdough Starter Bread
Breads of all sorts and gluten-free bread product alternatives.....!  Just love the whole idea of bread in all its fascinating stages, themes and ideas; the very essence of this essential food fires my imagination, making me yearn to try my hand at everything bread!!!   I wonder how far I'll get with the comfort
 crumb?

White Sourdough Starter Ripe Dough


Supper calls...let's chat later!!!

Daisy

Friday, 21 March 2014

IMG 5231 Potted Turkey Pate Part 2 - 14th March 2014 (+playlist)

Hi there its ME.....on Sourdough Bread - Thursday, 20th March 2014.

I've been very busy these last two days making my sourdough starter bread; four loaves on Tuesday - two Wessex Mill Spelt Wholemeal flour loaves and two Allinson Strong White Bread Flour loaves.




Spelt Wholemeal Bread Flour from Wessex Mill


Two further loaves of the strong white bread flour loaves had to sit in my 'fridge overnight, but that didn't prevent them baking well on Wednesday, for it was just too late to go on waiting to see if they would prove any further!!






Sourdough Bread with Allinson Strong White Bread Flour 

So they were baked on Wednesday, and I just love eating slightly cooled bread, straight out-of-the oven, spread with either lemon curd, marmalade or my home-made turkey pate or potted beef.

That's what I've also cooked this week, Potted Beef, setting it into ramekins, and sealing it under a lovely crust of melted butter...just great for warm bread, jacket potatoes and swirling into hot, buttery pasta!



My just-potted-up Potted Beef

Then cooked beef into meat and vegetable turnover, and a pie of meat and roasted vegetables and potato chunks under a melting pastry cover.....hmm! it wasn't bad!  Certainly food to eat and enjoy but, there's always the opportunity for improving, for making things even better, and that's so much of what I enjoy about the whole process of creating good food to eat, testing and tasting and trialling new recipes, new ideas, new foods and new methods and preparations.




My beef and veggie turnover

Lovely hot white Spelt Sourdough Bread




And then...I also cooked Spaghetti Bolognaise, sausages and onions and tonight, Thursday, I made my first ever Panettone - de-licious!!!

Daisy

Saturday, 15 March 2014

Hi there its ME......on Potted Turkey Pate - Friday, 14th March 2014.

My second sourdough starter batch is coming along famously, the first trial failing at the eleventh hour because of lack of time, forcing me to discard half of the quantity and then begin another 7-day feeding frenzy, with half of the original amounts.

This second starter begun on Tuesday, 11th March, is now bubbling beautifully, on its fourth "cooking" day - see for yourself -


my starter is bubbling away, just as it should be, and it ought to be ready for using on Sunday but, trying not to cook too much on a Sunday, the starter will need to be 'fridged 'til Monday to go into a bread recipe - how exciting!

Today, I've been turning the roasted turkey leg meat into a potted turkey pate, for eating with hot jacket potatoes, hot buttery toast, on plain crackers or even with a dish of piping hot gluten-free or regular pasta!  Add whipped cream or double cream to enrich your pate.

Cook your cubed turkey meat with vegetables, seasoning and herbs and stock to moisten, as necessary.  Clean and sterilise a small quantity of ramekin dishes, melt and clarify your butter, if giving a jar of pate to friends and blend your meat and vegetables to your desired texture.  Carefully and smoothly fill your ramekin, levelling the surface and pressing the mixture down to leave a small space for the butter to completely seal  the pate, then pour  over a quantity of hot butter, filling the ramekin up to its brim.

Set aside until completely cold, then 'fridge and when the butter is completely set and firm to the touch, cover with cling film, label and store for future use.  Keep the little ramekins in a cool pantry, if you are lucky enough to own one, or store in your 'fridge where it should keep for up to two months.

You must use butter to seal the ramekin for its flavour and setting quality and, if you need to, you can remove the butter from the pate below, before spreading or adding it to a food item, should you not wish to eat the butter but, for me, the butter crust is one of the high joys of eating a ramekin of pate!



Here I am beginning to make my simple pate!

Daisy














Thursday, 13 March 2014

Hi there its ME...making my Sourdough Starter Wednesday, 12th March 2014

Kitchen trial - sourdough starter 23rd February 2014 - and then.....the story starts from here -

I'd bought a large bag of Allinson Strong White Bread Flour, fully intending to make bread and my special scone recipe, when I discovered the bag carried a recipe for a sourdough start and, not having made one before, thought I'd give their recipe and instructions a go...I do enjoy the whole process of trialling  recipes and ingredients!

I'm also following the sourdough starter recipe from - http://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-your-own-sourdough-starter-cooking-lessons-from-the-kitchn 

The most wonderfully bubbling mixture has developed in my kitchen over the last week, in two x 1 ltr. Kilner jars, one filled with Allinson Strong White Bread Flour and warm water, and the second with Wessex Mill's Spelt Wholemeal Bread flour.

From Sunday 23rd February to Saturday, 1st March and now, a few days later, one is still going strong and well but ...the other one has died a bit.....the Allinson flour sourdough starter.  Why this happened I'm not sure.....so!

nothing daunted, I've just given it a good stir-up and I'm waiting to see if it will get going again!
Well, it did indeed and that was jolly good.  I also left off the lid of the jar, allowing the mixture to benefit from the air-borne yeasts which are a constant presence in the air about us and which assist the starter to work.  Whether it would have re-activated itself with the lid on, I'm not sure.

So I have two different flours and two sets of instructions, making the whole process rather heady and exciting!

Here my plans to make a sourdough loaf falter, having run out of time, and failing to make time for bread making.  Following instructions from thekitchn I restart my "starters" by discarding half of the resultant mix and begin the feeding process again, using half of the original quantities.  This feeding continues until I have sufficient mix for my needs to make a loaf of bread, when I use the required amount of "starter" and begin the feeding process all over again.  Otherwise storing the left-over mix in a box, in the 'fridge, for future usage (once I've prepared it for storage with a thicker flour and water combination).

And here I am today, Wednesday 12th March - just beginning the second phase of my sourdough starter trial.  My left-over starter has now been fed twice and I plan to keep this feeding going over the next five days, and see what happens then!  Hopefully I shall have the means to make a loaf of sourdough bread.

If I do, I shall use the recipe and instructions of theKitchn  their "Beginner Sourdough Sandwich Loaf".  I can hardly wait for my starter to "cook"!


Daisy





























































































































Sunday, 9 March 2014

Hi there its ME...on Chicken - Saturday, 8th March, 2014.

I  had one small Sainsbury's chicken, about 1.35 kg and it was my plan to make a variety of dishes and have a fun day in my kitchen.

I had also planned to make a potato salad and it had been my intention to make sourdough bread, with the starter I began about ten days earlier.  Unfortunately, my starter had gone over by a couple of days and, apparently, the only way to save the situation is to discard half of the starter, and begin feeding it again.  So that's what I'll do ....!

The chicken had gone into the oven, for forty-five minutes at 70 C. and it cooked perfectly in this time.   I had browned the skin a little, to begin with, in a medium-sized fry pan with one small chopped onion, and then cooked it in my covered casserole, on a bed of vegetables left over from cooking a leg of turkey earlier, knowing they would provide a good flavour for the cooked bird; I also added two well-chopped sticks of celery.

I skinned the cooled bird and jointed it, giving me two breast meat portions, two large thigh joints and the small meat pieces picked off the bones, and those collopy bits on the underside of the carcase.

I decided to cover one piece of breast meat with a tarragon and mayo white sauce and serve it on a bed of my brown vegetable rice, also made today -


My Tarragon-mayo sauce on chicken breast with my brown vegetable rice



 and to cover, with a Sharwood's Butter Chicken cooking sauce, prior to grilling, the second piece. This is something my family cook in Australia and it sounded rather nice.  A decoration of flaked almonds was added to the grilled dish.



Sharwood's Butter Chicken Cooking Sauce smothered chicken breast with almond flakes


I shredded the thigh meat to make up three separate items. The first was a creamed mushroom and chicken mix with celery and spring onions, sautéed together, then blended to a fairly chunky texture with mushroom ketchup, and this is for eating with jacket potatoes, with hot pasta or on crackers or hot buttered toast, possibly without the extra butter, as the mixture is quite rich from the cooking olive oil and butter!




My creamed chicken and mushroom mixture for filling and spreading!

With the second amount of shredded butter, I mixed together a hot mushroom, onion and celery  mix, also adding more of the Sharwood's Butter Sauce with the chicken -


Mushroom onion celery and curry sauce with shredded chicken


and used this with some of my brown vegetable rice, to make a filling for my proposed gluten-free pancake stack -


Brown vegetable rice


My gluten-free pancake stack with chicken, mushroom, brown rice vegetable and almond flake filling


The third amount of chicken went into my risotto of Morrisons Arborio Rice, chopped red onion, peas, home-made chicken stock, all finished off with a small amount of coconut cream, black peppercorns and a little sea salt.

My chicken risotto!

That was quite a day of cooking, with the potato salad and a batch of American Fluffy Pancakes made to a BBC recipe, found on the internet, which I altered a little by using buttermilk.  For the buttermilk, I made up dried milk powder and water, using a new product found in a local health food store, Flour Bin Buttermilk Powder - www.flourbin.com  I see this as a useful product to keep against an occasion when I need buttermilk in a hurry and find myself unable to dash to Sainsbury's or Tesco, to buy fresh buttermilk.  Here are my pancakes, perfectly delicious and voted top cooked item of the day by the dear SO!

Our top-favourite bake of the day!!!

I wonder how you cook chicken in your kitchen?

Daisy



















































Wednesday, 5 March 2014

Hi there its Me....on Pancakes Wednesday, 5th March 2014

Oh what fun I had yesterday  making pancakes!  Not the mass of those made when cooking for others - then about eighty to one hundred - per session!  Enough though for pure fun and enjoyment and, historical relevance and tradition.

I've always enjoyed that, the generational connection provided by food and its importance, its necessity to ourselves and times, economy and continuation...

I made a stack of pancakes, layered with lemon curd, dusted with caster sugar and cut, like a sponge cake into small wedges for the enjoyment of....and goodness me, we did!

Pancakes, cooled and layered with squares of greaseproof paper, for warming in a just turned-off oven, while we enjoyed our creamy chicken chunks and mushrooms, nestled under a thatch of potato mash, enriched with parsley butter from last summer's herb garden...

Flipped and turned, juiced and sugared, golden pancakes, hot and delicious and a treat to be enjoyed and savoured.

OK so they were not gluten-free, my pancakes, for we were not eating gluten-free, but they could so easily have been made with gluten-free flour; so easy are they to prepare and make and so useful for a variety of food stuff - not just sugar and lemon, or Maple Syrup and Bacon - yummy!  Stuffed and filled with creamed this and that - chicken + veggies + cheese + plus ham, or bacon or salmon or practically anything your heart could possibly desire - just glorious!  The possibilities are endless!!!

My Pancake Stack!


Positively drooling with lemon curd!!!!


OK so this is not the last word on pancakes for today but needs must do other activities immediately and then add videos plus...more cooking at some point!

See you soon, Daisy xxx



Tuesday, 4 March 2014

Hi there its Me...on the comfort of chicken soup - Tuesday, 4th March 2014.

Home from my Rosemary Conley exercise session and hungry for lunch and, what do I find in my 'fridge, a tub of my home-made chicken soup made last night, when home from our Book Club meeting.

At the weekend, cooking chicken in the pressure cooker and braising a turkey leg in the oven, giving me the opportunity of making a few great meals to keep us both going!

So what did I make - well, chicken and pasta salad, chicken risotto and chicken veggie soup and here's my soup, dressed with ground black peppercorns and Parmesan cheese -





Also made last night, a quick white sauce, which will be mixed with nice pieces of chicken and mushroom, then covered with a layer of creamy potato mash for supper with friends tonight plus a dish of freshly made and flipped pancakes, served with lemon juice and sugar!!! Mmm!

I've just discovered a dish of "Layered Pancakes" in a family owned cook book, Good Housekeeping "New Picture Cookery"  ISBN 0 85223 079 6 of 1966, a stack of pancakes with whipped cream and jam between the layers - ooh! it looks kinda awesome!  Not sure really if I would do this today but it does look gorgeous.  Perhaps put together with fresh berries and Fromage Frais or even fresh berries and a little ice-cream or good home-made custard, with a dusting of vanilla sugar for a dinner party dessert!  To serve, cut into small wedges and prepare a light fresh berry coulis to dribble over as desired!!!

Must get on with my pancake batter and cook my chicken for tonight!

Byeee! for now, Daisy






IMG 5127 Kale-kooking-licious and more besides!

Monday, 3 March 2014

Hi there it's ME again....on Foodiness! - Monday, 3rd March 2014.

I have been experimenting with the last of our home-grown garden kale, putting it into a coleslaw and a potato salad, plus making Welsh Cakes and Spelt cookies.

St. David's Day on Saturday, 1st March should have seen us eating fruity Welsh Cakes but it was not to be!

So today,  I managed to cook a batch of gluten-free Welsh Cakes, using a recipe from Elizabeth David's book - English Bread and Yeast Cookery - ISBN 0 7 139 1026 7 - and making them with Doves Farm Gluten and Wheat Free Plain white flour blend, with dried mixed fruit and mixed spices.

I finished up with a plate of very light, short cakes, for breakfast -





 
 
 
 
For lunch scrambled eggs with shredded kale, red onion and Parmesan cheese!
 
 
A nicely busy day I think!
 
Daisy
 
PS - What shall I have for supper?