Marmalade. Again.

Marmalade time again, and quadruply so this year as we've decided to have little jars for our wedding favours. Suffice to say, I'm very glad the final batch has had its lids screwed on and there will be no more chopping and boiling for a while. Especially as I don't even like marmalade...

But Nick does, so I made him a Valentine's card to match last years' recipe birthday card. 

Feed Me!

Organised, domestic goddess types have probably made their Christmas cakes already and have devised a schedule to regularly feed them with brandy, ensuring they're* properly tipsy by Christmas Day. 

I don't tend to do that... I  like fruit cake, but firmly believe marzipan was created by someone attempting to replicate ear wax as a viable food source. So I just make an easier version nearer the time. This year I think I'm going to go for Nigella's Chocolate Fruit Cake (you can't really taste the chocolate, it just adds a little bit of depth) so made a trial run at the weekend. It tastes like Christmas pudding, is perfect without marzipan, and is much less demanding the the traditional sort...

* Cakes, not goddesses.

Beetroot Brownies

I'm sure I've posted about my favourite chocolate brownie recipe before, but I can't find it. Anyway, it's this one from Apple and Spice which I think I found via Allie's blog.


It's a favourite because it's super-easy, and uses cocoa instead of chocolate which means I almost always have the ingredients in the house. Chocolate doesn't tend to last that long.


I'm telling you about this today because I discovered an amazing thing at the weekend. You know there are recipes out there for chocolate beetroot cakes? Well there are, and they are good. And I had some beetroot in the veg box this week that seemed to want to be a cake.


But I had no chocolate (see above) so decided to try the brownie recipe with beetroot replacing the butter. I was not confident it would work; I rather suspected I would end up with a tray of what could best be described as sweet borscht.


So, full of no faith in my own abilities, I tried it anyway. And it worked! The end product was cake!

The eagle-eyed amongst you might spot that it's rather more cakey than brownie-y. You'd be right. Because of the borscht-fear I added a little more flour than the original recipe suggested (100g instead of 80g) and half a teaspoon of baking powder. It's still brownie rather than sponge, but not so fudgey. I'm now quite confident it'd work without added my added raising extras though, so I'll try that next time and report back.

I'm not going to go so far as to proclaim these healthy brownies, as there's still a fair whack of sugar in there. But there's no fat and you get an added extra of vegetable which can only be a good thing.


Anyone who wants to try this at home, I recommend you boil your beetroot until they're soft and blend into a puree. Then add the sugar and cocoa to the blender to get to the consistency suggested in the recipe before adding the eggs.

Marmalade Season

That time of year again. So the jam pan was dragged down from the top of the cupboards, the orange squeezing thing (what's it called? it's not a juicer, as that seems to be a machine...) was bent back into shape and Nick came home with as much sugar as he could carry.

Much boiling, and a rather sticky kitchen, later and we have twelve jars of marmalade. One a month... sounds about right.


The recipe's here (from last year) if anyone wants it, although I think it's a bit late for Seville oranges now. Ours have been sitting in a bowl, frowning at me, for weeks.

All-the-chocolate cookies

I don't know why I don't bake cookies more often. (Well, I do. I'd end up the size of a house because I'm not so good at resisting temptation when it's in a tin in my kitchen.) I always spend ages trying to think of new and interesting things to bake when really, chocolate cookies are always a success, considerably easier than pie and everyone likes them.


This is my default cookie recipe. It's a favourite because you can include whatever mix of chocolate you have lying about (or even dried fruit, if that's your thing). Nick was pleased as it doesn't include any strange ingredients or hidden vegetables.

All-the-chocolate cookies

(loosely based on the Australian Women's Weekly recipe for trip-choc cookies)

125g butter, chopped

1/2 teaspoon of vanilla essence

250g brown sugar (any sort - the darker it is, the deeper the flavour of the cookies)

1 egg

185g plain flour

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1/2 teaspoon of baking powder

35g cocoa

About 200g* of whatever chocolate you have, chopped into small bits. I used a mixture of dark chocolate, white chocolate and two Curly Wurlys snipped into bits. 

Preheat oven to 180 and line and grease two baking trays

Beat the butter, vanilla, sugar and egg together with an electric whisk, or by hand, until it's just smooth. Sift in the dry ingredients then stir in the chocolate.

Form the dough into little balls - about ping-pong ball sized - and place on your baking trays leaving lots of space of them to spread. If you're using something that will go quite liquidy when it melts (like Curly Wurlys...) be prepared that they will spread more.

Bake for ten minutes until they look like cookies and are cracked on top. Leave for five minutes before transferring to a rack to finish cooling.

*You can use more chocolate/other things if you want. I wouldn't go above 300g though, as there won't be enough cookie to stick them together.

Day of the Pancakes

Yes, I should have posted this yesterday. But I didn't make the pancakes till supper time, and that's far too late for blogging in my (frequently revised, rather unauthoritative) book.


No one needs a recipe for pancakes, do they? And I don't have one to give you, anyway. I put flour in a bowl, add two eggs and milk and whisk until it looks like the right consistency. Admittedly sometimes it's not and the first pancake is more of a slab of stodge, but it's easy enough to remedy that with more milk.

Nick's something of a pancake purist, so had the classic lemon and sugar combination. I had those too, but also a couple with Nutella and Greek yoghurt. They tasted a lot better than these photos suggest...

I was going to ask if anyone else had pancakes, but actually did anyone not? My facebook feed was full of pancake pictures last night, and I sure I kept smelling them wafting out of peoples' houses on the way home.

Remember, remember...

Pleased to report that the 17th century supper was a success. It was very definitely historically inspired rather than accurate though, as Tooting Sainsbury's is not well known for stocking usefully obscure products. 


(They do sell jellied eels though. Just FYI.)


All my recipe inspiration ended up coming from the same website, the marvellously named Seat of Mars, except for the dessert which I made up a bit. Links below to the original recipes along with anything I changed.

Spicy Pork Ball Soup

This should have been mutton, but I wanted to do lamb for the next course so went with pork instead. The flavour was amazing... we all thought it reminded us of something but couldn't figure out what. Still haven't.

Oyster Lamb Casserole 

Spinach and Date Fritters

Red Coleslaw

You can get tinned oysters. Did you know? Very useful here. And artichokes in jars, too. The recipe for the spinach fritters misses off the amount of spinach and eggs, but a full bag of spinach and two eggs seemed about right. Oh, and use dried breadcrumbs, not fresh.

The red coleslaw I made up as I thought we needed something a little bit fresher and lighter. I figured 17th century people probably would have had red cabbage, purple carrots and beetroot. If not mayonnaise...

Cider Syllabub

I felt that cider was more authentic than sherry, so went with that. It was supposed to have been served with gingerbread  but that... was not a success. So I grated some ginger Green and Blacks on top instead. Cocoa had just about made it to Europe, right? 

Cider Syllabub

300ml double cream
rind and juice from half a lemon
50g caster sugar
125ml cider
15ml sherry


Mix everything except the cream together in a bowl until the sugar has dissolved. In a separate bowl, whisk the cream until it forms stiff peaks then slowly fold in the liquid. Divide into four bowls and refrigerate until ready (a couple of hours, at least).

I think the most revelatory thing about this meal was that everything tasted amazing! I'm not usually a fan (at all) of fruit in savoury dishes, and would never have dreamed of cooking with oysters, but everything got eaten and enjoyed. It was a really good experience in stepping outside my comfort zone, both in terms of ingredients and style of cooking.

Playing Trivial Pursuit later, however, taught us a different lesson:

Double-Decker+ Mud Cake

This year*, some mysterious how, all my school friends and I are thirty. 

Thirty. Actual. Years. Old.

Thankfully, this does mean we've had at least twelve years to practise partying (read: drinking) and dancing like loons.

And all these parties justify cake.

So, for one of the parties this weekend I attempted this double-decker mud cake from an Australian Women's Weekly book. (I love these books, and have lots. Why isn't the UK Women's Weekly anywhere near as good at recipes, I wonder?)

As there were going to lots of people celebrating this birthday I decided to double the recipe. The vague aim was therefore to end up with a quadruple-decker mud cake.

My oven disagreed. Despite putting four tins of identical cake mix in the oven, only one of them rose enough to be sliced in half. I have a feeling this might have been due to something of an inaccurate eye when dividing the cake mix into four, and an equally slapdash approach to knowing what size my cake tins are... This theory is backed up by the fact that all the layers were the same consistency and ready at about the same time.

Undaunted, I powered though and the final cake had five layers. It also required a little bit of trimming to get all the layers the same diameter, but I consider this a vital part of baking: you get to test the trimmed bits and check it's not horrible. I've not yet made a horrible cake, but I always think it's wise to check.

Yes, it is a bit wonky. But I decided that added to its charm and, anyway, I was serving it to drunk people. There was no way they'd notice.

Because of its remarkably height, it looked a bit... boring just covered in icing. So I stuck some grated white chocolate to the sides. If you do this you will have to tell every single person you offer it to that it's not coconut. But just consider that a useful icebreaker.

(Also: sticking grated white chocolate to the sides is nowhere near as easy as it sounds, gets a lots of mess in a lot of places, and may result in having to eat the left-over chocolate and icing from a saucer with a spoon to unstress afterwards.)

Due to the aforementioned drunkenness of all parties at the, um, party I didn't manage a decent picture of the inside of the cake. But I'm so proud of my achievement I want it recorded for posterity and am going to post rubbish ones anyway.

(Oh yes, there wasn't a big enough knife so I had to cut it with a butter one. Which was pretty much consumed by the cake.)

This cake was possibly one of the best-received I have ever made. This may be almost entirely due to the quantity of alcohol all the receivers had consumed, but I'm pretty sure all the bits I tested (when sober) were also delicious. Consequently, I think this may be a new favourite recipe; it's clearly impossible to screw up regardless of how slapdash or inaccurate you're feeling.

*Academic year, of course. Hence the thirty-parties only starting now. 

No eggs required.

In need of chocolate mousse?


Can't be bothered separating and whisking and faffing with eggs, to doubtless be left with  a sad bowl of yolks you'll forget to use and which will then turn into strange orange cement in a tub in the fridge?


Thankfully, the ever-goddess-like Nigella has the answer in her instant chocolate mousse which uses melted marshmallow instead of eggs and takes about ten minutes to make.

And if you feel like you've been overindulging a little recently and that a bowl consisting entirely of cream and chocolate may not be the wisest choice, I can happily confirm you can replace the double cream with Greek yoghurt (I used Total 2% - the 0% fat stuff might be a step too far - it is chocolate mousse after all) and still end up with a delightful result.

Perfect. Save the eggs for baking. Or French toast. Or something.

Cabbages and Kings

First: Purple carrots. They're orange on the inside, but purple on the outside. 

Apparently orange is a mutation from an original carrot-hue, so these are perfectly natural and normal rather than the result of some sort of terrifying aubergine/carrot hybrid.


They taste just like orange ones. They would also be very good as Hallowe'en snacks.


Second: Cabbage parcels.


I made stuffed vine leaves once, ages ago, for a Greek party. They tasted amazing, but took forever and a faff to make. These are much easier for very similar results.


One nice big cabbage
One onion, chopped
About a cup of couscous
Vegetable stock 
Halloumi, cut into 1cm chunks
Tin of tomatoes


Boil the kettle.


Peel off the outer leaves of your cabbage and cut a v into the bottom to remove the thick white bit. Put them in a pan with some of the boiling water until they soften, about ten minutes. 


Put the couscous into a large bow and stir a heaped teaspoon of stock powder (about half a cube?) through. Add the rest of the hot water and cover for at least five minutes, until it's soft.


Pop the halloumi and onion in to a frying pan and sizzle until the onion's soft and the halloumi starts to brown.


Add the tomatoes to a saucepan and add half the onion. Leave to simmer 'til you want it (with any other tomato sauce ingredients you like: sugar, carrots, Worcestershire sauce, cinnamon?)


Stir the rest of the halloumi and onion into the couscous.


Lay a cabbage leaf down on the worktop and put tablespoonful (depending on the size of your cabbage, of course) just above where you cut the bottom. Roll up into a parcel, tucking the sides in as you go.


Place the cabbage parcels join-down into a casserole dish and keep going 'til you run out of leaves and couscous.

Pour the tomato sauce over the top and pop in the oven for ten minutes or so, just to make sure it's all hot through.

Obviously, this recipe is endlessly adaptable - change the couscous for another grain, add more veg to the filling, use meat instead of halloumi, add raisins for a more Moroccan flavour?


(There are no kings in this post. Apologies to anyone who feels cheated.)

Bailey's Chocolate Not-Quite Cheesecake. And a fox.

Tofu is a strange beast. It's taking me a while to get it figured out, and I can quite understand why some people don't like it. It's wibbly and doesn't taste of much.


However, due to the marvel that is pinterest I recently discovered this recipe for dairy-free chocolate pie that uses tofu in the filling. I duly made it and fed it to Nick without telling him what was in it (but obviously letting him know there was a mysterious ingredient and staring at him like I was an insane person whilst he ate it). Now, bearing in mind he's a man who would sooner chop off one of my legs than give up cream, we can be safely assured that the fact that he liked it is a resounding vote of confidence for its deliciousness.


It was, in fact, so delicious that I failed to take a photo of it before it all got eaten.


The idea of tofu to make a moussey-creamy filling stuck with me. Firm silken tofu really doesn't have much flavour of its own, so happily ends up tasting like whatever you add to it.


Like Bailey's.


Obviously, I have now completely defeated the dairy-free point of this sort of dessert. But never mind. Bailey's Chocolate Not-Quite Cheesecakes (a catchy name, I'm sure you'll agree) are also delicious.

It was also super-easy to make and only needs a couple of ingredients. What's not to like? I'm not going to write up a proper recipe because I think it'll depend entirely on what size pot you're making it in, and the consistency you prefer, but here's vaguely what I did...


(Incidentally, I used the ramekins you get with Gu puddings and then don't want to throw away 'cause it seems like a waste. These quantities will fill two.)


- Three chocolate digestive biscuits smashed into crumbs and put into a pan until the chocolate melts. Divide between ramekins and squish down so it goes nice and firm. Pop into the fridge to chill.


- About 150g firm silken tofu into a food processor and whizzed until it's smooth. Add just enough honey (less than a tbsp) so it's sweet and then start adding your Bailey's. You don't need much, and you don't want it to go too runny, so just add a little bit at a time 'til it's a double-cream sort of consistency.


- Pour into ramekins and put back into the fridge to chill through.


- Sprinkle with a bit more smashed biscuit if that takes your fancy. Consume.

I reckon this comes in at about 250 calories per pot which, compared to the Gu chocolate and vanilla cheesecakes at about 430, seems a pretty good exchange. And you made these yourself. And they cost less. 


(And if you make too much you have a spare one in the fridge to eat the next day 'to give you energy to go dancing'.)


Next I'm going to invent a lemon version. Oh yes.


Other news: I have a fancy dress box. For a while it lived in my mother's garage/outhouse/shed/thing and, whilst there, a fox did a wee on it. 


Very distressing.


For some reason, I decided this weekend was the time to put all the fancy dress through the wash. Despite the fact that my flat's for sale and this endeavour means that the house a) smells of fusty clothes and fox wee and b) is festooned with drying fancy dress outfits. 


And it looks like my washing line is attempting an am-dram production of Wicked...

I'm going to fashion Vince some wings so he can be a flying monkey. He's very excited.

Cold August. Hot Salad.

So, that was August. Apparently the Met Office officially summed up the month's weather yesterday with the word 'changeable'. It didn't seem to manage to change to summer at any point though, did it? Oh well... on to autumn with conkers and hats and bonfires and pumpkins and much more seasonably reliable weather.

This driserable* August has made it hard to decide what to eat. It's summer, and there are lovely salady things everywhere. But I've got ski socks on and am wrapped in a quilt. Conundrum.

I have compromised with what I always call (in my head) a hot salad. Bear with me...

I know it looks like soup, and I guess it sort of is, but it always seems more salady to me because you don't cook any of the component parts.

It was inspired by the miso soups you can get that have things floating in them, and in particular the seven vegetable one they sell in Itsu. (I work above an Itsu and its constant sushi-temptations. Interesting fact: it's the one where that poor chap got polonium-ised. Doesn't seem to have had much of an impact on their sales...)

It's also, as is often the case with my recipes, a useful way to Use Things Up and, as such, doesn't have a proper recipe:

1. Empty fridge of random bits of vegetable. (Mine have so far included carrot, mushroom, cabbage, beetroot, beetroot leaves, anything else leafy, spring onion, green beans, tomato and courgette. The only thing that I'm not sure would work is cucumber...)

2. Chop them in to bite-sized bits.

Feel very welcome to use a clean carrot. I obviously prefer mine grubby for added grit.

3. Add some chopped tofu or halloumi or cooked chicken if you want to up the protein.

4. Put it in a saucepan.

5. Boil the kettle and, in a jug, make up some stock/broth/soup to a quantity that would cover the veg in the saucepan. I use Marigold Bouillion powder, but I'm sure lots of other things would work as long as you like the taste. Miso soup is the obvious choice...

6. Pour the stock over the veg and pop it onto the heat very briefly. You don't want it to boil or cook the vegetables, just to make sure it's hot through and to start to wilt the leafier things.

7. Slosh into a bowl (I always end up having to use a small mixing bowl as I make too much) and douse liberally with soy sauce.

8. Eat and feel virtuous.

*A useful word to describe the British weather, being a portmanteau of miserable and drizzly. Possibly the Met Office should have plumped for that one instead of changeable. 

Apples. Again.

More apples, I'm afraid...


Weekends are about indulgence. Of course. But that means that weekdays have to be a bit more restrained, to prevent constantly having to buy bigger frocks.


So, despite the fact that cooking apples are pretty much designed to go with sugar and butter, I've been trying out recipes that manage without them.

Two crumbles, one made the usual way and one that was sugar-free. 

This was the tradition chap, apple and blackberry with a sugar/butter/flour crumble topping. He definitely needed sugar as both the apples and the blackberries were rather sharp.

And here's the sugar-free one. This was apple and plum, with a muesli topping. The plums were very ripe so added the much-needed natural sweetness to the apples and the muesli contained dried fruit so that bumped up the sweetness there, too. To try and make the muesli topping a similar texture to a butter and flour version, I soaked half of it in milk for a while before layering it onto the fruit, and then scattered some more over the top to crunch up.


No real recipes for either of these, as I find that crumble quantities really depend on what you're making your crumble in. My usual method is to chop fruit and throw it in the crumble-receptacle until it's full (bearing in mind it'll squash down a bit when cooked). Cook the fruit in a pan with a bit of water (if needed, depends how 'wet' your fruit is) and add sugar to taste. Then pop butter and flour into a bowl (you need slightly more flour than butter but, again, how much depends how big your crumble is and how deep you want the topping!) and rub together 'til it's breadcrumby and fork through a few spoonfuls of sugar before scattering over the fruit. 


Um, that was rubbish. Here's a proper recipe.


I've also made more Dorset Apple Cake. Following an interesting theory, based on the fact that apple sauce often replaces butter in vegan cooking, I tried one with some of the apple sauce I'd made earlier.

Success! Still needed the original amount of sugar, so I wouldn't say this was healthy, but no fat and added apples definitely count in its favour. It was a bit heavier than the original, possibly more of a pudding you'd serve with custard than a light sponge, and needed longer in the oven to cook through. But it used up half my jar of apple sauce and must count as one of your five a day now!


Only about five apples left now...

Apple Day(s)

This week, I have been mostly cooking with apples. Because my kitchen is full of them.

My friend A (he of the unseasonal cake) has an apple tree in his garden which has brought forth unquantifiable bounty. Unfortunately, this results in unquantifiable wasps which prevent them from going out their back door unless the apples are picked up and disposed of. 


They're cooking apples and really very sharp, so can't just be eaten willy-nilly.


Being a generous sort, I offered to take a load of them off their hands and see what I could do with them.


(Note: Apples are heavy. If you fill your backpack with them and try to cycle home, things can get a bit imbalanced.)


Lots of apples. Precariously balanced and tumbling all over the kitchen at a moment's notice.

So far I have made a massive jar of apple sauce, just by peeling, chopping and throwing them in the slow cooker for a few hours with a little bit of water and lemon juice. I didn't add any sugar or seasoning as I figured I could pop that in when I use it, if needed.


That cleared enough apples to be able to see the kitchen table.


I've also made a spiced apple cake, with a sticky honey glaze. This is a good one as it'll last a few days, if you happen to be feeling a bit full of appley products...

and two Dorset apple cakes. (I'm from Wiltshire, but it's close enough...)

I couldn't find my big baking tray (it later turned up lurking in the bottom of the oven) so made it in two round sandwich tins instead and it worked perfectly. Also made me think about making it into a sandwich cake with some sort of creme patisserie in the middle... 


The Dorset cake is possibly my favourite; sharp apple, light, vanilla-y sponge and a crunchy sugary topping.


I still have about the same number of apples to get through, so any more apple-recipe suggestions would be very welcome!


(Apple Day is actually a thing, and on October 21st. I'm just a wee bit ahead of the game.)

Rather British Meatballs

I fancied meatballs the other day. What's more, I fancied cheese stuffed meatballs. A quick google suggested they should be stuffed with mozzarella. That sounded great, but I didn't have any and I currently have a Grocery Policy which involves not going to the supermarket until there's nothing left in my cupboards except dry crackers and a shrivelled potato.


I did have some (rather old, in need of shaving) mature cheddar. So I decided to go with it.


In my mind, meatballs generally seem Italian. Or American. Or, of course, IKEA'n. Cheddar is none of these things. So I started thinking about British meatballs. 


(If you ask Wikipedia it suggests the only British meatball is the faggot. Now... I like faggots. But they're a very different kettle of fish. Or offal.)


Anyhoodle, due to the cheese being quite old and strong I felt they needed some fairly robust seasoning. So I embraced the Britishness and added Worcestershire sauce as well.


And they were good. Very good.

Rather British Meatballs


500g beef mince (could be replaced by pork, turkey or (probably) any other mince)
1 egg
3 tbsp breadcrumbs
1 small onion, chopped up as small as possible
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
Salt and pepper, to taste
Cheddar cheese, cut into 1cm cubes


This is really very easy... Put everything except the cheese into a nice big bowl and mix until it's combined, first with a spoon then with your hands.


Once it's mixed, form into small balls in the palm of your hand and poke a square of cheese into the middle. Squidge the meatball shut around the cheese so it shouldn't be able to melt out.

I made twelve, but that will obviously depend a bit on both the size of your hands and your cheese chunks.


Brown the meatballs quickly in a hot frying pan with a tiny bit of oil to stop them sticking. I like to serve mine with tomato sauce*, in which case I drop them into a pan of sauce and let them float about for fifteen minutes to make sure they're cooked right through. If you're serving them 'dry' make sure they're cooked before the come out of the frying pan!


*My tomato sauce is just softened onions/garlic, a tin of chopped tomatoes, can-full of water, tbsp of vegetable stock powder, grated carrot, and a pinch of sugar left to simmer in a pan for as long as everything else takes to cook.


Serve with pasta or, as I did, a strange colcannon-ish mix of potato and cabbage.

The eagle-eyed among you may have noticed that I have, as promised, added an About Me page, and another new one for all my favourite links (the Oh, Look!). I've even now got a fancy contact me button, if you'd like to Tell Me Something. Please feel free to use them and tell me what you think!