Author Archives: bev

Rum Ganache for Breakfast

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Feeding the Family aired today at 1pm so at 9am I was busily prepping rum truffle mixture with David Greenwood-Haigh’s wonderful Haitian Rum.  It’s not actually David’s rum but David, who is the chocolatier at Divine Chocolate, does a lot to raise money for Haiti and he kindly brought me back this fabulous rum.  As David was coming on my show today I thought it only polite that I’d make up his Rum Truffles so we could try them on air.

To make sure I had the right quantity of rum I had to try the mixture (well, it would be rude not to) and it took me back to skiing, days before children, when we’d stop mid morning for a hot chocolate and rum. Actually rum ganache goes really well with porridge, with porridge in one hand and the spoon to lick out the bowl of ganache in the other it went down a treat.  A little dubious about rum at 9am but the sun is past the yard arm somewhere in the world and as long as I pretend I’m there it’s OK.

David was a fabulous guest as always, and give us insight in the invention of truffles and ganache by the world’s first celebrity chef, Augustus Escoffier, if you’d like the hear the show and the wonderful story of truffle invention and where the word ‘ganache’ came from you can listen again to the show on BBC Oxford

My edible Christmas recipes are up on the site too to download, I’ll be making some more of the savoury spicy nuts for a do tomorrow night, they’re yummy.

 

 

 

 

 

Foodie Advent Calendar

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Splat Cooking have just launched a Foodie Advent Calendar, from 1 December they’re going to be putting up a different recipe a day for the 24 days running up to Christmas. The recipes will be related to Christmas and could fall into the following categories:

  • Edible Christmas presents
  • Christmas tree decorations
  • Nibbles and canapes for Christmas entertaining
  • Edible table centrepieces
  • Lovely Christmas food
Splat Cooking are looking for people to send in their favourite recipes for adults and for children to make and are running a competition to award a bag of Splat Cooking goodies to their favourite adult and children’s recipe so please start sending, you can either tweet to @splatcooking using the hash tag #foodieadventcalendar or email to info@splatcooking.com or post on Splat Cooking’s facebook page http://www.facebook.com/splatcooking.

Croque en Bouche

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My big girl (15 years old) has just made croque en bouche as part of her Food Tech GCSE practical.  First time attempting spun sugar and she’s done a marvellous job, in fact, her little brother thinks she’s an absolute star as he’s got to eat the left overs – I hope his dentist isn’t reading this (!).

The photos tell the story and she did say that her profiteroles have never turned out as well as they did tonight – that’s an AGA for you.  She’s now realised that spun sugar isn’t difficult, it’s not even that fiddly but you do have to work quickly and you need to keep it company but at the end you have a real show off dish.  Wonder if I can get her to do pudding for New Year.

The profiteroles are filled with a blackcurrant cream and drizzled with blackcurrant coulis and chocolate shavings.  It tasted heavenly too.

Stir Up Sunday – Traditions

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The term Stir-up Sunday comes from the opening words for the day in the Book of Common Prayer of 1549.  The collect is the prayer of the day that ‘collects’ up the themes of the readings during a church service.  The original prayer used to start:

‘Stir up, we beseech thee’, - hence the term Stir Up Sunday.

‘Stir-up Sunday’  is the Sunday before Advent – the end of November – and everyone in the family takes a turn to stir the pudding with a wooden spoon from East to West (clockwise) in honor of the three Kings making their journey, with their eyes closed whilst making a secret wish.  The sprig of holly is a reminder of Jesus’ ‘Crown of Thorns’.  Holly also was supposed to bring good luck and is said to have special healing powers.

Another custom is to put silver or gold items into the pudding; each has a special significance:

-    Silver coins are supposed to bring luck to whoever finds them in their slice of pudding on Christmas Day.

-     A gold ring signifies that the finder will be married before the year is out.

-     A silver thimble or button signifies that the finder will never marry and remain a spinster or bachelor forever, or if people didn’t want to upset whoever pulled out the thimble the meaning was changed to ‘having a lucky life’.

There should be 13 ingredients in the pudding to signify Jesus and his 13 disciples; my recipe has more ingredients because I think it tastes better.

Legends surround holly go back much further into human history.  It’s one of the few evergreen trees abundant in England in the winter and as such was considered magical as remained green and bore fruit throughout the darkest, coldest season.  The Druids believed that it kept it’s leaves and shiny red berries to help keep the beautiful throughout winter when the sacred oak lost it’s leaves.

It’s Stir Up Sunday today so gather the family together and make your Christmas Puddings and Mincemeat, I have some lovely recipes on my recipes pages, so check out

Chocolate and Ginger Christmas Pudding

 

 

Classic Christmas Pudding

Cranberry and Orange Mincemeat

Traditional Mincemeat

 

 

 

 

 

Pumpkins, gingerbread and book signings

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Pumpkin roasting in the oven to make soup for lunch, shedloads of gingerbread made in the fridge.

I’m doing book signings at Waterstones, the Eden Centre, High Wycombe for my new book 500 Baby and Toddler Foods from 2pm tomorrow, Saturday 5 November.  Just about to start making lots of gingerbread biscuits for little ones to decorate while their parents are buying the book (I hope) and about to roll out lots of gingerbread to make the biscuits.

Only problem is that now the kitchen will start to smell heavenly and I’ll be in Christmas mode wanting to put the tree up and the fairy lights on and I’ll have a very grumpy husband as he doesn’t think Christmas should even be mentioned until 24 December. Once the smell of gingerbread permeates the kitchen I’ll find myself emptying the cupboards digging out cloves and resisting the urge to stick them in oranges.

So if you’re around in High Wycombe tomorrow please do come and see me, I’ll be in Waterstones with lots of books and gingerbread from 2pm, if not I’ll be in Oxford next Saturday 12 November from 12 noon-2pm doing the same.  It would be great to meet you so come along have a chat, buy the book and eat delicious gingerbread.

 

Savoury Muffins in 11 minutes – Philips Airfryer

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I’ve been testing out the Philips Airfryer, this fabulous kitchen applicance produces my healthy, amazing muffins in super quick time.  My Small Boy was off on a school trip and as usual I hadn’t got my act together to sort him out a packed lunch.  He hates sandwiches so it’s always a challenge, anyway, cheese and sun-dried tomato muffins it was.  It was 7.10am, he was leaving at 7.30am – stress city.

It took 3 minutes to heat up during which time I made the muffins, I admit that most people would probably take longer to mix up the muffins but I know the recipe off by heart as I wrote it and it’s in my new book 500 Baby and Toddler Foods. By the time the Airfryer was ready the muffins were in their cases and took only 8 minutes to cook, you can only cook 4 at a time but that meant total cooking time of 24 minutes plus 3 minutes to warm up so much quicker than heating up your oven.  Small boy left the house munching on one savoury muffin as second breakfast (it’s 7.30am) with two in his lunchbox for his school trip – day saved, massive points scored on the Perfect Mum scale.

I was quoted in the Daily Mail on Saturday talking about this great piece of kit, check it out.

Daisy the Tandem – uncovered

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It’s October 2nd, 28 degrees outside, I have a bikini on – this is amazing for October in England, it’s pretty amazing for anytime in England.

We’ve decided to have a clear out, our lovely shed from those fabulous shed people over at Ted’s Sheds has moved from the allotment to our garden and is about to become the bike shed.  Haven’t yet decided it will be painted as a ‘tree’ house, ie pale green with trees all over it or as a contrasting surf shack to go with the ex playhouse which is now the main surf shack.

We needed somewhere to put all the bikes as the children can’t get into the surf shack and it’s been getting a bit silly.

Daisy the tandem has been residing in the barn/warehouse much to the warehouse team’s annoyance for the past few years.  This morning Pete and I brought her out into the sunshine for the first time in ages.  Let me give you some background.

Days before Children, Pete and I used to compete in a mountain bike orienteering 2 day race called the Polaris Challenge, big girl is now 15 years old so it’s going back a while. Pete took part in this with some mates initially and I wimped out and did the summer challenge which involved staying in a lovely hotel overnight between the sessions, the serious challenges take place in October and March usually the same weekends the clocks change and involve locations such as Scotland, Exmoor, North Yorkshire Moors, The Peak District – anywhere high, remote and very cold.

After a few years of this I decided I wanted to have a go and prove that I could be as good as the boys – stupid girl! We decided to buy a tandem as the power to weight ratio was greater and it was probably fairer than me having to wait for Pete on the hills and him having to wait for me on the straight – yes, seriously.

We traipsed over to Lambourn to rent a tandem for the day with a view to buying one, while cycling past a pub on a lovely warm summer’s day someone was playing a piano, saw us on the tandem and started up with ‘Daisy, Daisy’ – the whole pub joined in so we bought the tandem and she was named Daisy.

In July we competed in the summer challenge in the North Yorks Moors, staying at my Mum’s in Guisborough.  This was around 20th July and it snowed and hailstoned on us, we ended up covered head to toe in mud and gave up early deciding that this wasn’t fun, stripped off to our underwear – we were that muddy – and drove back to Mums calling ahead to ask her to put the hot water on, her neighbours still remind her of the day the two of us ran up her drive with muddy hair in our underwear.

In the October we drove to Llanwyrtd Wells in deepest, darkest Wales to do the proper Polaris, with Daisy, our friends Pat and Lisa and all the camping gear that we had to carry on our backs.

Pete and I were doing fabulous time when hurtling down a mountain doing around 40 mph he saw a rock in the middle of the track and had the choice of hitting it or attempting to bunny jump – you can’t jump on  a tandem especially when there’s a sheer drop on one side.  We hit it, I came off the back of daisy, crushed my helmet on a rock (I always wear a helmet, it’s not worth the risk) and broke my right arm.

Pete took the skin of most of his left hand side, I didn’t realise I’d broken my arm – actually fractured it just below the elbow, it hurt so I tucked my arm inside my t-shirt, got back on the bike and cycled one handed another 4 hours to get back to the hotel.  I ran a bath for Pete, bathed his wounds, got him a curry and the next day drove him to the nearest hospital in Bluith Wells to get checked out (remember – I have a broken arm!).  Pete had to change gear for me as I couldn’t hold the steering wheel with my right hand, but he couldn’t put any pressure on his right leg so couldn’t use the brake.

Doctors examined him, he’d strained the ligaments in his right knee and had lots of cuts and bruises.  They asked me if I was OK, explained about the helmet being a right off and my right arm hurt.  Immediate panics, mobile xray unit called out, broken arm detected, concerns about concussion and I’ve been running around sorting Pete out with a bruised knee and cuts and bruises.  Yes, I am still dining out on this story around 17 years later.

Well, the point of this is that we got Daisy out of the barn, pumped up her tyres and I did have a few tears, it was like welcoming a very old, dear friend back into the family.  I feel awful that she’s been neglected for so long.  We had a child seat for big girl on her and used to go all over, but once medium sized girl came along we couldn’t get them both on so she hasn’t really been used for a long time.  She will be soon.  Medium sized girl can actually fit on the back so I think we ought to get her back into the swing of things again. It’s amazing how many memories are captured in one inanimate object, even Pete got a little teary.

Daisy and Medium Sized Girl

Thame Food Festival – Beef Stroganoff from 500 Baby and Toddler Foods

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I had a great day last Saturday ‘being’ Tom Kerridge.  Tom couldn’t make it so I was asked to take his slot and be the ‘big name’ for Saturday afternoon – no pressure.   This went some way to make up for the fact that I was due to do book signings there but my lovely book wouldn’t arrive in time – another missed opportunity.

So with less than 24 hours to shop and plan I chose two recipes from my book 500 Baby and Toddler Foods - Beef Stroganoff with fresh noodles and Drop Scones with Blueberries,  suitable from 9 and 12 months respectively.  Went down a storm, tasted fabulous too and I had my glamourous assistant up on stage, Olivia, who comes to Saturday morning cooking club was dragged out of the audience to help, she was wonderful and we got her a huge round of applause at the end.

500 Baby and Toddler Foods has it’s own facebook page so please check it out, comment on it and ‘like’ it.

Does that sound like baby food to you?  That’s how it should be, the whole idea is that the recipes are for the whole family to eat, yes you would need to puree it for little ones but they can still eat the same food so you’re not cooking different meals for the whole family. Life is too short, as a new Mum you need sleep, not stress.

 

Lemony garlic chicken

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This lemony garlic chicken is one of the easiest and cheapest dishes for supper. Work on the basis of 1 chicken thigh per child and 1-2 per adult depending how hungry you are.  If you have an AGA then blast the dish in the roasting oven for 20 minutes before transferring to the simmering oven for at least an hour or it’s fine to stay in there for 2-3 hours, you may need to add a little more wine or stock if it starts to dry out.

This is a great family staple, it’s cheap – £2.50 for 6-7 chicken thighs, 30p for a lemon and similar for the garlic, use the bottle of wine you have to drink from.  I am making an assumption that you do drink white wine, if not, use stock as it would be shame to buy a whole bottle of wine that would get wasted.  You could always send it over to our house, it certainly wouldn’t get wasted here.  Actually, just realised that’s what’s missing, it’s gone 8pm and I don’t have a glass of wine in my hand, this is so wrong.

This dish you can pop into the oven at around 2pm and it will be ready when the children get in from school, serve it with some rice or mashed potato and veg, you could always adapt it for a supper party version and serve it with a big green salad and lots of fresh crusty veg.  Serve it in the roasting dish as the juices caramelise at the bottom of the pan and cry out to be mopped up with lovely bread.

The skin becomes lovely and crispy and the garlic softens as it roasts meaning that you share out the cloves, squeeze them out of their papery skins over the mash or crusty bread, smear the roasted lemon on top, dunk into the lovely juices collected into the pan and stink of garlic for at least 24 hours.  Do you know what, it tastes fantastic so just make sure that anyone you want to kiss also eats the roast garlic.

 

 

An arachniphobes nightmare

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It rained last night and there was a heavy dew this morning in the woods, as I turned a corner the cobwebs on the plants were lit up in sunlight coming through the trees and sparkled with dew.  I realised with quite a shock just how many spiders and cobwebs there are in the woods.  There was nothing on the actual path but either side on every bush, shrub, branch or clump of grass were cobwebs.  Normally you wouldn’t see these unless there had been a haw frost and that happens maybe every 2-3 years so this was quite amazing, if a little scary.

Walking down the path between hundreds of cobwebs, and yes, it was literally hundreds, was like walking through an enchanted forest where you know you have to keep to the path as the path is magical and keeps you safe.  This morning would have been a nightmare with anyone with arachniphobia, I saw no spiders just realised that we are frighteningly not alone on this planet even if we cannot see the life around us and the insect world, it’s there, very, very close and there is

photo
a lot of it.