One a penny, two a penny

Have been very slack with the updates recently, but we should assume that this is a good sign as it means I have been working on my thesis. As well I should: T-16 days. Yikes!

So, don't expect much in the way of culinary adventurism between now and then. Some recent notes though:

Made the marshmallow slice again, this time with actual mini marshmallows, so it went a lovely bright pink colour. However, may have messed up the quantities, or some other stage of the process, as the end result, while delicious, had a weird elastic quality, which meant that when you cut it and pulled a piece away, the bit left behind kind of sprang back into shape. Weirded the neighbours right out.

Used a large quantity of par-boiled potatoes leftover from Easter Sunday lunch at the Stav to make Sunday Potato Cakes again on Easter Monday. Added bacon. Delicious, but lunch and dinner on the same day was a bit much.

Have made another recipe from the pyramid scheme: stuffed eggplants, courtesy of my mum's lovely softly-spoken boyfriend, Jim. They were simultaneously scrumptious and oil-tastic. Pictures and recipe to come.

In the meantime, here's some Hot Cross Buns to keep you going. Yes, I made them!

(Note the basil plants in the background of this picture. Two for two pounds from Sainsbury's Kidlington!)

Sunday Potato Cakes, eaten on Thursday, blogged the next Sunday

Poverty is over! Simultaneous paydays mean our kitchen is now a positive cornucopia overflowing with delicious ingredients. Overflowing also because we lost our fridge, Tricity Bendix, to an icebox catastrophe this week. She has been replaced by "Coolzone", a decidedly uncool substitute, who is not only huss, but has considerably less storage space. Boo, hiss.

A mourner who enjoyed Tricity's hospitality for a time in November sent us this epitaph:

Sweet Tricity Bendix
You left me
chilled, crisp and condensated
I want to warm your heart
but you are a box of ice...
no love for me

No love for me.

RIP

Today's recipe wasn't actually part of the pyramid scheme, but it was sent unsolicited by gorgeous Golden Crocodile so seemed worthy of a write-up. It's for using up leftover mash, and we wanted to make it so much that we actually engineered to have vegetarian bangers and mash the night before. I've been housebound all week writing a draft of my thesis, so I whipped this up for lunch for myself on Thursday, and saved the rest of the mixture for a pre-dinner snack for Dave later in the day.

Here is the recipe in Polly's own words:

Sunday Potato Cakes

These savoury cakes are an excellent way to use up leftover mashed potato. I had a bowl of leftover mash from a dinner where it accompanied vegetable gratin along with venison and red wine sausages (surprisingly well priced at Pak n’ Save). The basic idea is you bind the potato with egg, a little cheese and the flavouring of your choice. I think herbs are nice to add a bit of colour to the cakes – but it really depends on what you have available. I served these up for a Sunday snack with a terribly trashy sauce of Greek yoghurt mixed with sweet chilli… It was quite satisfying.

2 ½ to 3 cups cold mashed potato

2 eggs

Fresh flat leaf parsley, chopped (any fresh herb will do)

1/3 cup grated cheese (parmesan is nice if you have it)

Splash of vegetable oil

Turn your oven on to 150C. Slightly beat the eggs and add the salt, pepper, cheese and herbs. Stir in the mashed potato only until the mixture is the consistency of very thick porridge.

Heat up a small amount of oil in a saucepan and drop big spoonfuls of the batter into the pan. Wait until they are bubbling on the sides and a little set on the top and then, using a small fish slice, flip them over. This is quite tricky if you are a hasty person – you must be patient and wait until they are cooked enough on one side to withstand the flip. When they are golden brown pop them in a pan in the oven to keep warm while you fry the rest. You may need to add extra oil between batches, and it definitely helps to use any oil but olive oil or butter, as these types burn easily. Serve with whatever sauce takes your fancy.

I imagine that these cakes would also be good with fish stirred though the batter and a squirt of lemon juice on the top.

NB If, after you fry the first cake, you find that the mixture isn’t binding, feel free to add a couple of tablespoons of flour. I didn’t have any problems but some people have odd things happen to them in the kitchen.

I had half a can of tuna in the fridge so I took Polly's advice and mixed it in, which worked very well. I didn't have any fresh herbs, so I chopped a few spinach leaves and mixed them through for colour, and added a few dried mixed herbs for flabour. There was no sweet chilli on hand for the terribly trashy yoghurt dip, so I spread each cake with a little sweet lime pickle, which is delicious on pretty much anything. Dave was very pleased with his post work snack, even if he did suspect me of more procrastination, and the daylight savings springtime sun streaming through our window bathed them in beautiful golden light for the photo.

Ahhh.

Poverty Lentils

We're flat broke at the moment. In fact, we have one lonely 5 pound note sitting on the kitchen counter which has to last us until Wednesday (1 April) when we both get paid. Oh, and a jar of 1 and 2p coins, but they're no use to anyone.

However, this weekend, we were able to combine our complete lack of funds with one of the recipe suggestions to come out of the pyramid scheme: one of Dave's family friends refused to participate, but suggested, in lieu of a recipe, that we visit the Cuisine site and use their meal maker. This is a very clever little device which allows you to enter up to 4 ingredients you have in your cupboards and comes up with recipes that utilise them. Our insolvency means we have only basics at the moment, so the ingredients we tried were:

Puy Lentils
Spinach
Tomatoes

And lo and behold, it came up with this:

Ottoman Lentils

125g Puy or other French green lentils
4 tablespoons olive oil
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 onion, sliced
1 teaspoon cumin seeds, crushed
1 teaspoon coriander seeds, crushed
1 teaspoon minced chilli
4 medium carrots, halved lengthwise and cut into 6cm lengths
1/2 cup red wine
400g can tomatoes, chopped
1/2 cup chicken or vegetable stock
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 teaspoon sugar
sald and freshly ground black papper to taste
2 cups chopped spinach leaves
1/4 cup fresh dill, plus extra for garnish
1/4 cup Greek-style yoghurt
extra virgin olive oil to drizzle

Rinse the lentils with water then place in a saucepan and cover with plenty of water. Bring to the boil then reduce to a simmer and cook for 15 minutes. Drain and set aside.

Heat the oil in a heavy-based saucepan over a medium heat. Add garlic, onion, cumin, coriander, chilli and carrots and cook, stirring, for 3 minutes. Add the wine, bring to the boil and cook until almost evaporated. Add cooked lentils, tomatoes, stock, tomato paste and sugar.

Bring back to the boil then reduce to a simmer and cook for 15 minutes. Just before serving, season with salt and pepper and stir in the spinach and dill. Divide among 4 bowls and top with yoghurt, a little extra dill and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. Serves 4.

This was brilliant, as we had all the ingredients (except dill, for which we substitued chopped flat leaf parsely), it was quick and easy to make, and it was filling, tasty, and healthy.

Dave had fun crushing the cumin and coriander seeds by making a little tinfoil parcel and smashing it with the bottom of a jar.

Not keen on swimming in olive oil (plus trying to conserve the last of our precious Italian stash until our supplier returns from Bavanga) we didn't drizzle the stew with olive oil, and only used 2 tablespoons in the cooking, and this seemed to work fine.

Cuisine suggests serving this with "Simit Sticks", but we weren't up to baking, so we served it with rice. Couscous would have been better, but we discovered late in the game that we don't actually have any. Another thing to go on the "when we get paid" shopping list.

Served with the rest of the wine and eaten in front of several episdoes of The Wire, this was a perfect tonic for our "we're poor and its the weekend" woes.

Lemon muffins

So the early rush of activity has inevitably given way to a lull. It was bound to happen. Plus, we can't cook all these recipes at once, we'd run out way too soon.

However, we did find time for a little procrastinatory baking. This recipe for lemon muffins was an obvious next choice because we already had all the ingredients. Except the muffin tins. Fortunately, the neighbours were able to help, and were paid in muffins for their troubles.

Here's the recipe:

Lemon Muffins

For 12 medium-sized muffins:

2 cups self-raising flour
3/4 cup sugar
75 grams; 2 1/2 oz butter
1 cup milk
1 egg
Grated rind of 1 large lemon

Measure flour and sugar into bowl.

Melt butter, add milk, egg and lemon rind. Beat together well

Add liquid to dry ingredients and fold together until dry ingredients are lightly damp but not thoroughly mixed.

Divide into 12 medium muffin pans (or more smaller or less larger - they are very adaptable)

Bake at 400f for 10 mins. May need longer - touch top and should feel firmish.

Take out of oven and while still hot pour over 1/4 cup lemon juice and 1/4 cup sugar - not dissolved.

Enjoy.


400 fahrenheit is 200 centigrade, or near enough. While I was assembling the ingredients, I found some dessicated coconut, and thought this would make a good addition, so I added half a cup or so. Surprisingly, even with this addition, the mixture seemed very liquidy, but the finished products were perfect, nice and fluffy but with good weight as well.

We ate them hot with the lemon syrup for dessert and they were delicious. The neighbours got some, and so did the porters at Rhodes House, in whose good graces it always pays to be.

Best Ever Corn Chowder

Someone's lovely mumfairy contributed today's recipe for corn chowder. The best ever corn chowder, if you believe the hype. I'm not going to lie, it was pretty good, especially for Dave, who was rather cold when he got home. He got lost in Botley shopping for thesis aids (a skype microphone to enable me to interview Steve Maharey, very belatedly, and a thermos so that I can still drink coffee when the Rhodes House common room is closed tomorrow but I'm still dedicatedly working away in the bunker. I digress). The point is, while it may be spring, you still need gloves when cycling at dusk. And corn chowder is a good restorative.

This is probably the first recipe that actually fits the criteria of being quick and easy and made from readily available ingredients. It was so easy, in fact, that we were able to watch a a guilty episode of Gossip Girl (ITV Player! Why didn't I know about this sooner?) during the cooking process.

Best Ever Corn Chowder

1. saute 2 large onions or a large leek finely sliced and 2 cloves garlic in butter/olive oil until caramelised

2. add 2 large or 4 small peeled cubed potato/kumara, stir for 5 minutes until starting to clarify

3. add 2 tablespoons stock pwd with 2 cups water or 2 cups concentrated stock

4. cover and simmer for 15 minutes.

5. add 2 reg cans creamed corn and 1 litre milk and raise heat gradually. Don't boil.

6. taste, and add pepper, salt, curry pwd to your preferred taste.

If you are being posh serve it inside a hollowed out baked crusty loaf, otherwise just with fresh crusty bread,and parsley sprinkled on top.

If you eat meat, you can add bacon or chicken at the beginning.


We used a couple of leeks and the potatoes left over from Friday's gnocchi efforts. Next time I think I'll add some salt and other flavour aids at the saute-ing stage, as it needed loads of salt, pepper and a few pinches of pepperoncino (the chilli powder we got in Italy because we thought it was smoked paprika, whoops) later on.

The chowder was a bit more liquidy than I would have liked, so next time I'll either add less milk (a litre does seem like a lot) or bulk it up with chicken and maybe some carrots. This would also be good if you have an anti-soup bias (it's not a proper meal!) like me. Still, I'm bound to say that with some grilled ciabatta this was a very satisfying dinner.

Key tip: make sure you leave yourself enough milk for a cup of tea, as this was very good washed down with a strong Earl Grey and a piece of marshmallow slice. And another episode of Gossip Girl. I know, I know.

Marshmallow slice

The chain letter that prompted all this suggested that the recipe you contribute "should preferably be something quick, easy, and without rare ingredients. Actually, the best one is the one you know in your head and can type right now! Don't agonise over which recipe. Think of the recipe that you can make when you're short on time and don't want to go to the supermarket - that's the one to share!"

Which begs the question: homemade gnocchi? Really?

But then, I sent a recipe for pavlova, so I'm in no position to judge.

This next recipe also makes me concerned about the mealtime habits of Polly, aka The Golden Crocodile, who contributed it. But it's so freaking amazing that I'm prepared to overlook the fact that she might be eating marshmallows for dinner.

It's also quite a weird recipe, for which we apparently have Nigella to thank. But it was a LOT of fun.

Marshmallow Slice

300g mini marshmallows (I ripped long thin ones up and ate quite a few in the process)
45g butter
180g rice bubbles (about half a big bag)

Melt butter in a heavy bottomed sauce pan over a low heat. Add in marshmallows and stir constantly until mixed into a big gooey mass. Take off the heat and stir in rice bubbles. This is quite full on as the marshmallow goes all sticky and stringy and looks fantastic. Smush the mixture into a pan (32cm x 23cm - but it doesn't really matter) that has either been well greased or lined with baking paper

You may have to use your hands to press it all down (I tried this, but it made a giant sticky mess, so I licked my fingers and used the back of a spoon instead). Leave to cool and then cut into squares. It smells exactly like those Kelloggs LCM bars (yes it does).

Polly blogged about this recipe herself here.

I think I'm still recovering from the resultant sugar high and crash. Fortunately we took Pedro and Felicity out for a long ride along the canal to Kidlington today (to shop at the giant Sainsbury's), so we earned some sweet, sweet goodness. We also palmed some off on the neighbours as a kind of peace offering for the gloopy gnocchi.

Now, let's not get too far ahead of ourselves, but this would be a great recipe to make with kids. I'm just saying. And I know what I'm taking if I get invited to a 5th birthday party anytime soon.

Hello, have some Sweet Potato Gnocchi

Well hello there. Welcome. Sorry about the blog name.


A little while ago, we participated in one of those really naff email pyramid schemes. You know the ones, where you send a recipe to someone, forward the email to 20 people, add your email address to a list at the bottom, and wait for the flood of amazing recipes to appear in your inbox. 36, according to the email, although we worked out that if everyone actually participated, you would get 4000. Fortunately, not everyone actually participates.

However, with two of us participating, we did get a pretty decent haul. I don't know if we ever really intended to make them, but we felt so guilty for subjecting people whose respect we covet to a pyramid scheme that we thought we'd better at least try them all. And then we thought, why not blog about them. So here we are. We're also quite enamoured of our bicycles (Pedro and Felicity) at the moment, so expect them to make cameos from time to time.

Not doing things by halves, we opted not only to start with a challenge (home-made gnocchi), but also to feed it to guests. Sorry guys. They were very sporting.

Here's the recipe:
Sweet Potato Gnocchi in Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

250g sweet potato
350g potato, peeled, cut into chunks
1 egg yolk
60g grated parmesan cheese
1 cup plain white flour
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
300g tinned chopped tomatoes
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 cup fresh basil
Instructions

Preheat oven to 200 degrees C (how do you make the little degree sign?). Place the sweet potato on a baking tray. Cook for 40 minutes or until soft.

Meanwhile, cook potato in boiling salted water for 20 minutes, or until tender. Drain and return to pan. Place over a very low heat for 2 minutes, or until dry.

Squeeze out flesh of sweet potato from skins and add to potato. Mash well. Add egg yolk, 30g parmesan and three-quarters of the flour. Add nutmeg and season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Scatter half of the remaining flour over a work surface. Shape the gnocchi mixture into a log. Cut into bite-sized pieces - dip the knife into remaining flour so mixture doesn't stick to the knife as you cut. If desired, roll each piece into the back of a fork to make a ridged pattern. Bring a large saucepan of water to the boil, Add the gnocchi in batches. As they rise to the surface, remove with a slotted spoon and set aside.

Meanwhile, place tomatoes and garlic in a saucepan over medium-low heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper. And gnocchi. Simmer over low heat for a further 10 minutes. Top with basil leaves and extra parmesan cheese and serve.

This wasn't the quickest or easiest recipe to start with, but it was pretty fun. We weren't sure how many people it would serve, and, feeding 5, we decided to double it, but this turned out to be unnecessary as there was loads of dough left over. It was good to have slightly more tomato sauce though. Squeezing the sweet potato flesh out of their skins was fun, though it seemed a shame not to eat it then and there, as the taste of sweet potato wasn't super-strong in the finished product. I think it was mainly in there for colour. It would be fun to try this with kumara at home rather than the orange sweet potato which is all you can get in the UK.

It was really hard to know how much flour to add to the dough to get it to the right consistency. It was very sticky, so flour all over everything - bench, hands, utensils - is essential. I suspect our concern about the stickiness of the dough led us to add too much flour to the mixture itself, as some of the finished gnocchi were quite gloopy in the mouth, but it's hard to know without making it several times and experimenting to get the ratios exactly right. In the end, the gnocchi were probably a bit too large and a bit too soft, but our tolerant guests were very polite. The boys polished it all off, so it can't have been too bad.

The sauce was incredibly basic, but made with good quality tinned tomatoes it was deceptively good, especially with fresh basil and parmesan liberally applied. The gnocchi are pretty heavy, so this doesn't need to be served with anything except a fresh green salad. We made one of spinach, cress, and rocket with tomato, red pepper, and spring onions.

So there you have it, our first effort. More anon, as my nana signs off her letters.