A CHICKEN STIR FRY TRAY BAKE

 

I spotted a recipe on FB that looked really easy, quick and very tasty.

The ingredients of a stir fry but baked in the oven.

We had a couple of small chicken fillets in the fridge and all the other ingredients in stock.

We were good to go.  

The recipe included some chilli but we avoid chilli so left it out.

It was still very tasty.

We had ours with plain boiled rice.

It was very tasty, filling, quick and easy.  A perfect weekday dinner.

Ingredients

1 large skinless chicken breast

1/2 a red pepper, seeds removed 

1 small red onion 

1/2 a head of broccoli

1 200g can beansprouts, drained

1 tblsp runny honey

1 tblsp olive oil or a few squirts low cal spray

1 - 2 tsp soy sauce 

1 tsp smoked paprika

Method 

Preheat the oven to 200°C / 180° fan.

Slice the chicken and all the veg into bite sized pieces.  

Tip into an ovenproof dish and drizzle over the soy sauce and honey.  Spray with oil spray or drizzle with the olive oil.

Sprinkle over the paprika and season with salt and pepper.

Toss everything around to coat with the flavourings and bake for 20 minutes, stirring half way through, or until the chicken is cooked and the veg tender.  

(I suppose that if your air fryer basket is big enough, or if cooking for one and you halve the ingredients, you could cook this in your air fryer.)

Serves 2

AIR FRYER HERBY POTATOES and home made one-cal spray oil

When it was a really nice day recently we decided to abandon all plans for chores, gardening and DIY and have a late lunch bbq.

It being still only March we didn't quite feel like wheeling the gas bbq out of the barn and setting it all up which would have taken quite a while.  However, last year we bought a small electric bbq at a brocante for 8€ which has been a huge success so we used that instead.

We did some of our chicken, lemon and thyme kebabs (see here), a carrot and red cabbage coleslaw (see here) and some air fryer herby mini potatoes.  When the gas barbecue comes out for the year we will do our potatoes on that instead as the process is just the same (cooking the potatoes in a foil tray on the bbq) but on this occasion the air fryer came into its own and lunch was on the table (outdoors in the early spring sunshine) within half an hour.

Another thing I have started using recently is home made one-cal oil spray.  This is a tip from Nancy Birtwhistle and it works really well, makes spray oil without any additives cheaply and easily.  I bought a glass spray bottle from Amazon that has liquid measurements on the side and which makes the job of making the oil so easy.

We have found our tiny Instant Pot air fryer very useful for lots of things but wouldn't claim that we can cook everything in it.  We still use our main oven a lot.  I don't subscribe to the theory that if you have an air fryer you can do away with the oven any more than you could manage with just a microwave, or slow cooker.  I have found that different kitchen gadgets are ideal for different things but I certainly don't regret getting the air fryer.  I'm not sure I would attempt to bake a cake in it.  If there are two items that need cooking in the oven we would use that instead of the air fryer.  Horses for courses.

Do you have one and what do you use it for?

Some of the things we find it ideal for are:

Chicken fillets

Salmon fillets

Fish fillets

Sausages, bacon and black pudding

Croutons

Frozen oven chips or sauté potatoes

Baked potatoes

Baked apples 

Frozen croissants

Fish fingers

Roasted vegetables

Refreshing yesterday's baguette

Ingredients for the herby potatoes

2 handfuls of baby potatoes or any small, firm potato, washed and cut evenly to size.

spray oil

salt and pepper

dried herbs of your choice

Method

Parboil the potatoes for 5 minutes.  Drain and tip into the air fryer basket.

Spray with a few squirts of oil (or drizzle with sunflower or olive oil)  

Season with salt and pepper and sprinkle over a teaspoon or so of herbs to taste.

Shake the pan a few times then cook at 180C for 8-10 minutes until knife-tip tender.  Shake the pan a few times during the cooking time.

Serves 2.

To make the spray oil

50ml sunflower oil (or other oil of your choice)

15ml cooled boiled water from the kettle

5ml vodka

Measure the ingredients into your oil sprayer and give it a good shake before each use as the oil and water will separate.  Keep in a cool cupboard, not the fridge.

CELERIAC AND POTATO GRATIN

This is a very easy and tasty accompaniment to serve with any meat, chicken or casserole.  It’s fairly rich but a real treat.  I served mine with my version of coq au vin blanc (see here).

There are numerous recipes for it online and I adapted a Jamie Oliver recipe that you can see here because it looked simple.  I put the dish on the table for people to serve themselves as per Jamie's suggestion.  

It was absolutely delicious and there were plenty of leftovers which I reheated by covering with foil and baking at 180° fan for 15 minutes.

Ingredients 

4-6 medium potatoes 

half a large celeriac 

1 large onion 

2 cloves of garlic 

600ml double cream

75g cheddar cheese, grated

Method 

Preheat the oven to 200°C / 180°fan.

Peel and slice the potatoes into roughly 5mm slices. Put them into a large bowl of cold water to prevent discolouration.

Peel and slice the celeriac, garlic and onion.  Drain the potatoes and put everything into the bowl.  Add about half of the grated cheese to the bowl and mix everything together. 

Transfer the mixture into a gratin or ovenproof dish in layers and pour the cream over.  Sprinkle the remaining cheese over the top and bake for 50 minutes to one hour until the veg are soft (test with the tip of a knife) and the sauce bubbling.

Sprinkle with chopped parsley if you like before serving.

Serves 6-8 generous portions.

LEMON POSSET

We had dinner at a friend’s house one autumn evening last year and for dessert she served lemon posset, something I had never made or eaten before.  It was utterly divine and she served it in pretty stemmed champagne coupes.  

She and her husband are renovating one of those drop dead gorgeous French houses known as a "maison du maître" with large airy rooms, tall, draughty windows and high ceilings.  They still have plenty of work to do!  But the previous owner left behind a vast quantity of old furniture, linens, china and glassware, including the coupes.  Some of it was not to her taste but much of it was real treasure.

This is in sharp contrast to the unattractive furniture and other stuff that the owner of our first French house wanted to sell us.  We were mightily relieved to find it had all gone when we finally got the keys!  The difference is that our friend's house had been a well loved home whereas ours had been a holiday home for generations of a Parisian family who just descended on the place for six weeks every summer!  You can read a bit about that here.

Anyway, at the first opportunity, the next time we had guests for lunch, I decided to make lemon posset myself.  I served it in a hotchpotch of china cups and glasses and it went down a treat.  I adapted a Mary Berry recipe which was a doddle to make and I shall add it to my repertoire of favourite desserts.  It was luscious yet light and very lemony!  It's also ideal for a dinner party as it can be made the day before.

Ingredients

600ml double cream

15og caster sugar

3 lemons, zest and juice

a handful of fresh raspberries for decoration

strips of lemon zest for decoration (optional)

Method

Put the cream, sugar and lemon zest into a wide saucepan.  Bring to the boil over low heat and simmer gently for 3 minutes, stirring all the time.

Remove from the heat and allow to cool until lukewarm.

Stir the lemon juice into the cooled cream mixture and pour into 8 small ramekins, cups or glasses.

Chill in the fridge for at least two hours until set or overnight.

Just before serving, decorate with the fresh raspberries and strips of lemon zest.

Serves 8 portions.

PARSNIP AND ARTICHOKE SOUP (soup maker recipe)

 

As we enjoyed the carrot and artichoke soup so much, I decided to make it again.  That's when I noticed the one large parsnip in the veg drawer and wondered how it would turn out if I used that instead of carrots.

In France there is a chain of greengrocer shops called "Terre Y Fruits".  They sell excellent seasonal fruit and veg, plus some meat and dairy products and other groceries, much of it local.  There I spotted some Jerusalem artichokes that were a much more user friendly shape to peel so I bought some.

It turned out to be a delicious combination.  The soup was a lovely creamy colour and the flavour more delicate than the carrot version.  I will definitely be making this again!

I served mine with some home made air fryer croutons, made from the previous day's baguette.  You can see the recipe/instructions for those in this post here.

Ingredients

1 large onion

1 stick celery 

sufficient Jerusalem artichokes and parsnips to fill the machine to the bottom line, about half and half of each

1 vegetable stock pot 

1 good squirt garlic paste or purée 

1 tblsp dry sherry

1/2 tsp grated nutmeg 

Method

Peel and roughly chop the onion.  Clean and roughly chop the celery.  Add both to the soup maker.

Peel and roughly chop the parsnips and artichokes and add enough to fill the soup maker to the bottom line.  You can vary the proportions depending on how many of each you have but I used half and half.

Add the stock pot, garlic paste and enough water to fill to the top line.  Season well with salt and pepper.

Cook on smooth.

When done, check the seasoning and stir in the sherry and nutmeg.

A tip for grating nutmeg: grate the amount you want onto a chopping board or plate then tip it into the soup. This saves having to go fishing in the soup for the nutmeg when you drop it!

Makes 4 generous servings.  Would serve 6 as a starter.

CARROT AND ARTICHOKE SOUP (soup maker recipe)

Topinambours, the French word for Jerusalem artichokes, are in plentiful supply at the moment and I couldn’t resist a bagful when we breezed through the market in the wintry drizzle the other week. I have made Palestine soup many times (see here) but decided to have a look in my soup book for an alternative recipe.

This book was a charity shop purchase a couple of years ago and appeared to be brand new.  It’s crammed with excellent recipes for delicious soups, most of which can be adapted for the soup maker.  This time added my "secret ingredient" which is a splash of dry sherry and a good grating of nutmeg - a tip I learned from Nigella Lawson's recipe for vegetable soup in her book "How to Eat" (see here).  I have found it enhances the flavour of most vegetable soups!

A carrot and just one knobbly artichoke!

Next time I think I would hand pick my own artichokes.  Those I got from the market were very knobbly and the devil’s own job to peel!

My Morphy Richards soup maker, which apparently "died" in the middle of last year is now working perfectly!  Why that happened is a mystery but I'm happy for now that it’s still going strong!

Ingredients

1 large onion

1 stick celery 

sufficient Jerusalem artichokes and carrots to fill the machine to the bottom line, about half and half of each

1 vegetable stock pot 

1 good squirt garlic paste or purée 

1 tblsp dry sherry

1/2 tsp grated nutmeg 

Method

Peel and roughly chop the onion.  Clean and roughly chop the celery.  Add both to the soup maker.

Peel and roughly chop the carrots and artichokes and add enough to fill the soup maker to the bottom line.  You can vary the proportions depending on how many of each you have but I used half and half.

Add the stock pot, garlic paste and enough water to fill to the top line.  Season well with salt and pepper.

Cook on smooth.

When done, check the seasoning and stir in the sherry and nutmeg.

A tip for grating nutmeg: grate the amount you want onto a chopping board or plate then tip it into the soup. This saves having to go fishing in the soup for the nutmeg when you drop it!

Makes 4 generous servings.  Would serve 6 as a starter.

A PINK CASTLE BIRTHDAY CAKE

A few months ago a friend asked me if I would make a cake for her granddaughter’s fourth birthday.  I sent along some pictures from a book I've had for ages, hoping that something simple like a rabbit or cat shaped cake would be chosen.  The message came back that the pink fairytale castle was the favourite.  Having never, ever made anything like it before I had to put my thinking cap on!

The cake chosen from the book!

I did a mock up of the design using the cookbook as a guide.  Creating the turrets seemed to be the tricky bit.  There were lots of ideas on the internet suggesting using cardboard tubes covered in fondant icing for the turrets but I rejected that idea.  What little girl wants to cut into a cake and find it’s made of cardboard?

My first idea was to bake the turrets in two rings joined together with foil but decided that might not work if they came apart as the sponge mixture rose.  The next idea was to use small pilchard tins but what to do with all those pilchards?! In the end I opted for joining the sponges together with buttercream.  They were then covered in pink fondant icing which more or less concealed any bumps or wonkiness.

The base was a 15cm madeira cake plus a little mixture used for a smaller one for the top .  The turrets were made using a basic four egg sponge recipe that came with the pack of 2” cake rings. As a precaution I used some of that mixture to make some mini madeleines and in the final design one of those was used for the top turret to display the pink number 4 candle.  

The turret roofs were ice cream cones brushed with warmed apricot jam then sprinkled with pink glimmer sugar.  The base cake was covered in a generous amount of pink buttercream, reserving plenty for fixing decorations to the cake.  The turrets were secured to the base with cocktail sticks and after that it was just a matter of chucking as many decorations at it as we dared !!

It was enormous fun to make and took the three of us two hours to decorate!  

BUBBLE AND SQUEAK TWO WAYS

 

Oh, the joy of leftovers!

The first version is simply leftover mashed potatoes and green veg, mashed together.

The mixture was piled into a well greased muffin tin and baked in the oven at 180° fan for about twenty minutes then sprinkled with grated cheese before returning to the oven to finish cooking.  After another ten minutes the cheese was melted.  We had ours with baked beans.  Yum!

For the egg version I used all the leftover veg we had, including carrot and half of a small tin of sweetcorn.  I added some fried chopped onions and leftover spaghetti.  I mixed in a tablespoon of panko breadcrumbs for a bit of texture.

I made depressions in the mixture ready to receive the eggs and baked it for 20 minutes at 180° fan  before dropping an egg into each well.

It was then finished off in the oven at 180° fan for around 10 minutes more until the eggs were cooked but the yolks still runny.  Double yum!

BRIOCHE PLUM PUDDING and is the British pudding becoming extinct?

What do you do when you have over purchased on bakery products?  

You turn them into a pudding!

This "tear and share" style brioche was surplus to requirements but luckily we had friends coming round for dinner so I turned it into a version of bread and butter pudding.

It looks like a batch of cinnamon rolls but is actually fluffy and light brioche dough filled with a vanilla custard.  I was slightly stumped as to what to do with it so as a guide used Mary Berry's recipe which you can see here.  Using a filled kind of brioche bread I decided against buttering the rolls but added some fruit by tucking some of my cinnamon baked plums in between the pieces.  You can see that recipe here.

Another challenge was timing its cooking so as to have it ready to serve warm at the right stage in the meal.  Bread and butter pudding can become a bit stodgy when it's gone cold.  To achieve this I sliced and arranged the brioche in the dish, and whisked up the custard, well in advance, keeping the liquid in the fridge until it was needed.  I did the soaking stage just before serving the starter and had the kettle full and ready for the bain marie, and put it in the oven to bake just as the main course was served.

In France it is traditional to have the cheese course before dessert so it came out of the oven at that point and was still warm and fluffy when it was served.  Result!

It did look alarmingly like toad in the hole when it arrived at the table but in fact was delicious and everyone loved it.  Brioche certainly makes a light pudding and it was so good that I would definitely do it again!

I'm not sure I have seen the exact same brioche product in the UK but if you refer to Mary's recipe you will see that you can simply use buttered slices of a normal brioche loaf.

As it happens, there was a little of the custard mixture left over after filling the dish so I kept it in the fridge for a couple of days and then baked it by itself in a small buttered dish for about 30 minutes at 150° fan.  An added bonus of a baked egg custard!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As an aside, in the news a while ago there was a report of research by English Heritage which showed that only 2% of British households regularly eat a home made pudding as a dessert. Blogger Karen at Lavender and Lovage also posted about this here.

This got me thinking.  Often we have a yoghurt at lunchtime and no dessert in the evening but at least once a week we will have some kind of baked pudding, often just a humble crumble.  We're most likely to have a pudding if we have friends round for lunch or dinner, in which case I nearly always make two different ones so that people have a choice and we have leftovers to enjoy later!  

The writer of the article baked and reviewed ten of the puddings allegedly under threat of becoming extinct and which were:

Jam roly poly, Sussex pond pudding, bread and butter pudding, queen of puddings, treacle sponge pudding, Malvern pudding, flummery, spotted dick, cabinet pudding and rice pudding.  

He reckoned the only one worth saving was the Malvern pudding.  Queen of puddings is something I make occasionally, bread and butter pudding regularly in some form or other and rice pudding is a very special treat.

I have never made or knowingly eaten a flummery, Sussex pond, cabinet or Malvern pudding and it’s a long time since I made a steamed or suet pudding of any kind.  These were served frequently when I was at school and when the school had a real kitchen.  Spotted dick always had the boys sniggering and had a bad press but I loved it and seconds were in high demand at school dinner.  My mum used to make steamed sponge puddings regularly, steaming it for hours on a Sunday morning.  I still remember the sense of anticipation and excitement as the kitchen filled up with steam!  A treacle sponge with Birds custard for "afters" was such a joy!  I think I would be more likely to make a microwave version these days.  

What the article doesn’t make clear is whether most households are skipping dessert altogether or serving shop bought ones.  "Ready meal" versions of numerous old fashioned puddings seem to be in plentiful supply in UK supermarkets; clearly still very much in demand even if people can’t find the time to make them for themselves.  They are also frequently on the menu in our favourite UK restaurants, so they’re not really becoming extinct, just not made at home as often.

Of course, in France the situation is very different. The average boulangerie will have a range of delicious tarts and pastries available every day.  Very tempting and if you turn up in the late afternoon the choice will be limited so that’s clearly the dessert solution in French households!

Personally I feel there is no risk of baked puddings becoming extinct in this house, nor in most where we are lucky enough to be invited elsewhere!  The English, or at least certainly the British ex-pat, love a nice pudding!  The French are fascinated by them too and are always keen to try one!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ingredients

1 brioche "tear and share" loaf 

150g cooked plums

3 tblsp demerara sugar

3 eggs

75g caster sugar

150ml double cream

600ml full fat milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

zest of 1 small lemon

Method

Butter a large baking dish.  Cut each roll from the loaf in half horizontally and arrange them in a spiral in the dish.  Tuck the plums between the slices.

For the custard, put the eggs, cream, milk, vanilla and lemon zest into a bowl and whisk together.  Pour this mixture over the brioche and press down with the back of a spoon.  Sprinkle the demerara sugar over and leave to stand for 30 minutes.

Heat the oven to 180°C / 160° fan / gas mk 4.  Stand the dish in a large roasting tin and pour in boiling water to about half full.  This is called a bain marie.  

Bake for 40 minutes until the brioche is golden brown and puffed up.  It will shrink back down a little.

Serve warm with cream.

Serves 6 generous portions.

TOMATO MINI TARTS FOR APÉRITIFS

 

These little bite sized tarts are so easy to make and work really well as nibbles for a crowd.

Scoring the lines in the pastry is the only fiddly part.

You can get 48 tarts from one sheet of puff pastry!

(Depending on the size of your tomatoes!)

There are endless variations you could do.

Ingredients

1 sheet of oblong ready made puff pastry

A handful of cherry tomatoes, a mix of colours makes the nibbles more interesting 

A handful of grated hard cheese, any type

1tblsp grated parmesan (optional)

1-2 tsp mustard (optional)

1tsp dried herbs (optional)

Method 

Remove the pastry from the fridge 10-15 minutes before using, otherwise it may crack when you unroll it.

Preheat the oven to 200°C / 180° fan.  Unroll the pastry and leave it on the paper it comes rolled in. 

Being guided by the size of your tomatoes, cut the pastry into even squares.  Then mark out border lines just within all sides of the squares but not cutting through.

Smear a little mustard onto each square if using and sprinkle with the grated cheese.

Cut your tomatoes into slices about the thickness of a £1 or 1€ coin and place one slice in each square.  

Lightly grind salt and pepper over the tarts and sprinkle over the parmesan and dried herbs if using.

Transfer the paper loaded with the tarts to a baking sheet and bake for 15-20 minutes until the pastry is golden brown and cheese bubbling.

Makes up to 48 nibbles.

FOCHABERS GINGERBREAD

 

This cake was quite unlike anything I had made before.  It comes from a book by the Scottish food writer Sue Lawrence, Fochabers being a small town in the north of Scotland, not far from Inverness.  The recipe includes dried fruit, black treacle and beer.  (It also includes mixed peel, which I didn't have as all of mine had gone into the Christmas cake, so I added the same quantity of chopped walnuts instead.)

It started when Nick spotted a Nordic Ware tin that was less than half price in a sale in the fancy kitchenware shop in Loches.  Having bought me a lovely new tin I thought he deserved a cake and his favourite is a ginger cake so I looked through my cookbooks for a new recipe to try.

I remembered the rule not to overfill the tin with mixture and made just five little buns with the excess.  Soon after they came out of the oven, we had unexpected visitors, a friend and her two granddaughters, aged thirteen and four.

I pointed out that the cake was probably a very grown up cake with beer and treacle and that the children might not be too keen but I was wrong.  They both loved the little buns and there were barely a few crumbs left.

The cake had a firm texture and would be excellent for a picnic or to be handed round at a gathering as it didn’t fall into a mass of crumbs in the hand.  It was somehow not too sweet, not too gingery but satisfying.   We had the last two slices toasted and buttered.  It was not the sort of cake you might serve at a fancy tea party but definitely worth remembering.  It would be perfect for St Andrew's Day which is on 30th November.

Ingredients

170g unsalted butter, softened

170g light muscovado sugar (or light soft brown sugar)

4 rounded tablespoons black treacle

1 egg

340g plain flour

60g sultanas

60g currants

60g ground almonds

60g chopped mixed peel  

1 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp mixed spice

½ tsp ground cloves

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

142ml (¼ pint) beer

Method

Preheat the oven to 150°C / 130°fan / gas mk 2.  Grease and base line a 20cm square tin or a 900g loaf tin.  If using a Bundt tin grease with cake release paste (see side bar for recipe).

Beat together the butter and sugar until light and creamy.  Heat the treacle gently in a small pan or microwave and add to the mixture.  Stir in the egg and combine well.

Mix in the flour, ground almonds, currants, sultanas, mixed peel and spices.  

Dissolve the bicarb in the beer then beat into the mixture.

Spoon the mixture into the tin, level the top and bake for 75-90 minutes until it passes the skewer test.  (The deeper tin will take the longest time.)

Remove the tin to a wire rack and leave the cake to cool in the tin before turning out.  If using a Bundt tin, turn out after 15-20 minutes.

Cuts into 10-12 slices.

CLEMEMTINE AND ALMOND CAKE

This is one of those cakes that I had the urge to make the minute I spotted the recipe which was in Dom's blog here.  I had made something similar before to a Michel Roux recipe which was a lovely dessert cake (see here) but this one sounded easier.  So, with a number of clementines in the fruit bowl I had all the ingredients needed and decided to give it a go.

Dom mentioned that it's originally a Nigella Lawson recipe so I googled it and it's from her book "How to Eat".  The only tricky bit is that the clementines should be boiled for one and a half hours.  Ah, I thought, I don’t have time for that…..I wonder if there’s another way.  

Sure enough, on Nigella's website (see here) it says that you can microwave them instead, so that’s what I did.  Nigella recommends cooking them in a covered dish with a vent in the lid so I used my lovely old Pearsons of Chesterfield stewpot.

This is a fabulous cake.  Beautifully moist with flecks of the clementine zest running through it and of course it’s gluten free.  It's very easy to make, keeps well, freezes well and makes a delicious dessert.

On another occasion I made the cake in a small Bundt tin.

It was done in just over 30 minutes.

Ingredients

375g clementines

250g ground almonds

225g caster sugar

6 large eggs, lightly beaten

1tsp baking powder

Method 

Preheat the oven to 19°C / 170° fan / gas mk 5.  Butter and line the base of a 20cm springform tin.

Put the clementines into a dish with a lid that has a steam vent.  Add a little water and microwave on high , 800-900W, for 8-10 minutes, turning half way through until soft. Drain and allow to cool while preparing the other ingredients.

Cut each clementine in half and remove the stalk ends and any pips.  The easiest way to do this is to flatten out the halves of fruit and dig out the pips.

Put them all into a food processor and blitz briefly to a rough pulp.  Add all the other ingredients and process until smooth.

Transfer the mixture to the tin, level the top and tap on the worktop to dispel any trapped air.

Bake for 40 minutes until the cake passes the skewer test, covering loosely with foil after 20 minutes to prevent the top from scorching.

Remove from the oven and sit the tin on a rack until the cake is cool.

Dust with icing sugar before serving.

Cuts into 10-12 slices.