Dauphinoise Potatoes

I've had enough of roast potato's (I don't think this feeling's going to last for long!) as I feel like I've over indulged on them recently, so when faced with a roast chicken I decided to pair it with Dauphinoise Potatoes and a Slow Cooked Red Cabbage dish. Yum.  

Dauphinoise Potatoes (my adaption on the original) is simple to make; just layer your potato's and add a little onion, garlic,butter, herbs, olive oil and seasoning until you have filled up the dish, then add the cream and milk and top with cheese. Bake in the oven and your left with a golden crusted creamy potato heaven!!

Pullet Eggs...

A couple of weeks ago I managed to catch an episode of 'Friday Night Feast' presented by Jamie Oliver and Jimmy Doherty. They did a feature on Pullet eggs, which are the first few eggs that a hen lays when starting her egg cycle; resulting in a slightly smaller than average egg. The programme visited a free range egg farm in Sussex which like other farmers has to either throw away or sell the "mini eggs" for a very small amount. Jimmy Doherty stated that: "every day in the UK more than 1.5 million small eggs are thrown on the scrapheap or sold for peanuts to be turned into liquid egg,” I (naively) had no idea that this was happening in the UK and also I suppose the whole world. With so much food poverty in our country and more food banks than ever being used, it is as Jimmy states 'unthinkable'. Although in a society that throws away more than 'fifteen million tonnes' each year, maybe this is not much a surprise? Anyway fast forward to the next morning where I woke up and fancied an egg for breakfast (laid by our lovely young ladies who have just started laying this week, pause for a celebratory clap!). I realised when taking an egg out of the box that these fine eggs where 'pullet eggs', which if we were commercially producing, would be thrown away. But instead I poached my pullet egg, and it was DELICIOUS! A Pullet egg has a firmer white and yolk so should be considered as a "premium" product. As you can see in my picture of the poached egg, there is no excuse for these to be chucked away.

Thanks to influential individuals such as Jaime Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, we are able to highlight wastage like this, and prevent it from happening.

Morning Pullet Omelet

Star Anise and Cinnamon Biscuits

I've been craving cinnamon this week (I reckon I'm having withdrawal symptoms from Christmas!) and I had an urge to make some biscuits but chose to make a slightly healthier version by using olive oil. So I went ahead and found this recipe and made them! However, the recipe called for aniseed's, and living out in the middle of nowhere means that when we run out of an ingredient, we really have run out! So I used Star Anise and Cinnamon instead.

Instead of brushing the biscuits with egg white and sugar, I baked them first for 10 minutes and then brushed them with honey, sprinkled with granulated sugar and cinnamon and cooked for a further 5 minutes, until really crisp! I found that the star anise worked really well with the flavour of the olive oil and baking them for that little bit longer gave the biscuits a satisfying crunch!

They are a rather different to 'traditional' biscuits, but I and my family rather loved these!

Squidgy Gooey Chocolate Cake

 I have to say that this really is one of the most delicious chocolate cakes I've ever eaten! It's so easy and can be cooked to your liking on the day. Here I cooked the cake for 35 min for a slightly gooey, but fudge like texture. But it can be taken out of the oven at 20 min and you get a delicious chocolate sauce like center. I have already had birthday requests for this cake, so I think it's a keeper!

Ingredients

90 grams of Butter

40 grams unsweetened cocoa powder

185 grams Muscovado sugar

36 grams of plain flour

36 grams of rice flour (can use plain flour instead making it 72 grams)

2 eggs

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180c or Gas Mark 4.

2. Line a cake tin (I used a 12inch).

3. Melt the butter and mix all ingredients together in a bowl.

4. Pour the mixture into a cake tin and bake for 20-40 min depending on the texture you want.

5. Take out the oven and leave to cool for 5 minutes and serve warm.

If you can possibly restrain yourself from eating it or have some left over, the cake is equally delicious when cooled!

Caramalised Onion Soda Bread and Apple and Date Soda Bread

I really loved the Soda Bread I made last week so I decided to make some more! This time I split the recipe and made two mixtures: A Caramelised Onion one for the days I feel savoury and a Apple and Date one for when I'm feeling sweet! I have to say that this bread is SO quick and easy to make and is utterly delicious, and both these flavours turned out to be winners!

Apple and Date mixture

The milk once the lemon juice is added

Onion mixture

The bread before it's baked

The Best Gluten Free Apple Crumble!

We had a great crop of Apples this year, resulting in us making an abundance of crumbles, pies, chutneys and cider! We then wrapped the rest in newspaper, and most of them are still in great condition. So today I decided to use some of the ones which were in not so good condition by making a good old fashioned crumble, but being on my Gluten Free diet (or reducing gluten diet I should probably say!) I wanted to make an equally delicious or even more delicious alternative. So I substituted plain flour for Ground Almonds and Rice Flour, and the result was a delicious crisp topping complementing our autumn apples! I used a mix of Bramley apples (cooking) and Cox apples (eating), in order to have the texture of the 'melted' apples as well as having small chunks.

Ingredients

For the base:

2 Cooking apples
1 Eating apple
1 tbs of honey

For the topping:

2 part of ground almonds
1 part of rice flour
butter
honey
brown sugar for the top

Method

I think most people know how to make a crumble, so I'm not going to go into much detail!

First I chopped the apples up and added the honey, I then cooked it in a pan for 5 min and then put in in my oven dish.
I then put the ground almonds and rice flour in a bowl, with enough honey to sweeten and then added enough butter to make the mixture resemble bread crumbs, and stuck that on top of the apple.
I then sprinkled a little brown sugar on the top and baked until golden!
I served it with a little Greek yogurt and a few frozen raspberries (from our summer crop!)

HomeMade Paneer (South Asian Cheese)

This is one of the most satisfying recipes to make! It is SO easy and takes very little time and results in your own homemade cheese! Usually when I look up recipes to make yogurt or cheese products, the recipe requires specialist equipment or specialist ingredients; which I never have in the house. However for this recipe you only need everyday ingredients! Yay!

Paneer is traditionally eaten in South Asia and can be used in curries, stir-fries or even grilled.  I suppose it can be used in a similar way to halloumi.

Right so let's get to the recipe!

Ingredients- As usual I haven't specified amounts as it depends on how much Paneer you want to end up with!

Full fat milk

Lemon or a white Vinegar (I used Rice vinegar)

Some sort of strainer, e.g. a cheese strainer, clean tea cloth...

The milk starting to separate as I add the vinegar.

Serious Curd and Whey action happening here!

The slightly odd shape that I decided to form my Paneer into!

 Method

1. Heat up the amount of milk you would like to use until it softly boils.

2. While the milk is heating up, set up your strainer cloth on top of a colander

2. Then add your acid until the milk separates (you will know when to stop adding as the milk will turn into two separate forms, the curd and whey)

3. Pour your separated mixture onto the strainer and let the liquid seep through as the solids are left.

4.Squeeze any remaining liquid and form it into a shape you would like and put weights on top and put in the fridge for 30min.

5. Take off the strainer, and you will be left will the hardened cheese that you can now use in your cookery!

*If you would like a harder version of Panner whisk a tbs of flour into the milk before adding the acid.