Recipes

[LadyA]

I had nine in for lunch yesterday, and made meatloaf so thought I'd put the "recipe" such as it is, on here.

You need roughly 1 to 1/5 kg of minced meat, either all beef or a mixture. I use beef and pork usually. Two onions, finely grated. A handful or two of breadcrumbs. A little tomato juice (or tomato puree and some water to thin it). Mixed herbs, salt & pepper and 1 egg. For the topping, you need 6 tablespoons brown sugar, 1/2 cup ketchup and 2 teaspoons dry mustard powder.

So, soak the breadcrumbs in the tomato juice until they are good and wet. Mash with a fork until they are soft. Add the meat, onions, herbs & seasoning. Mix with a fork until well mixed, and then (this is the bit I hate, but it is necessary to get the right texture!) add the beaten egg, mix it in and then start mixing with your hands, "squidging" the mixture through your fingers thoroughly until it's as smooth as you can get it. put it in a baking tin or casserole dish and bake for about an hour to 1 1/2 hours until cooked through. about half an hour before it's done, spread with a sauce made by mixing the brown sugar, ketchup and dry mustard powder. Drain off the fat from the dish (or lift out the whole meatloaf) to serve.

 

[Icemaiden]

I did enjoy the "We want plates" website. Thanks for that )

 

[LadyA]

Resurrecting this thread, to share my recipe for Banana Bread, which is so easy! I did this at a Women's Group recently, and first of all, the women couldn't believe that you can freeze bananas (so I buy when they are in the reduced bin, peel, and as the recipe calls for three, I put them in the freezer in threes). They do go dark and soft, but that's what you want for banana bread!

2 or three over ripe bananas
75g melted butter
3/4 cup caster sugar
1 beaten egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon bread (baking) soda
pinch salt
1 1/2 cups flour

Oven: 175C/Gas 3

Mix soda & salt well into flour. Mash bananas until smooth. Stir butter, sugar, egg & vanilla into banana. Mix in flour. Add some chopped walnuts, or toasted chopped hazlenuts, or chocolate chips if liked. Put in a lined 2lb loaf tin, and bak approx 45 -50 mins. Cool in tin for ten to fifteen minutes.

 

[Icemaiden]

(on a plate of course - that really would be messy otherwise)

Not going for the fashion in restaurants now of serving food on anything but plates? It's something that really annoys me. There's a website dedicated to it, called wewantplates.com

Oatcakes are traditionally served in a paper bag, freshly made in an oatcakes shop. In the old days they'd be served through a hole in the outside wall of the shop. Now I'm showing my age!!!

 

[Icemaiden]

Thanks Lady A; your banana bread sounds good.

What kind of vanilla do you use?

 

[LadyA]

Thanks Lady A; your banana bread sounds good.

What kind of vanilla do you use?

Organic Vanilla Extract. It's expensive, but there's just no comparison between that and the cheapo vanilla essence!

 

[LadyA]

I came across this recipe, and had to try it. It's just amazing and so simple!

Vegetable Lasagne
Lasagne sheets
Approx 100g new potatoes, sliced
1 courgette, diced
100g fresh mushrooms, sliced
1 red pepper, deseeded and sliced
300g baby spinach leaves
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 small onion, diced
300 ml cream
200g grated mozarella cheese
50g grated parmesan
2 tbs olive oil
Salt & pepper
Gently cook the onion in a (large) frying pan in the olive oil until it's softened and started to brown. Add the garlic and continue cooking on a low heat for a further minute. Add the sliced potatoes, mushrooms, courgette and pepper and continue cooking for a few minutes until the veg have started to brown on all sides. Season with salt & pepper, cover with a lid and cook on low for about 15-20 minutes. Add the cream & parmesan and mix well for a minute or so. Add the spinach, stir well and remove from the heat.
Lightly grease a shallow lasagne dish and cover the base with lasagne sheets. Then, cover the sheets with the the veg/sauce mixture, spreading it evenly. Sprinkly some mozzarella on top, and repeat the process until all the ingredients are used, finishing with a layer of mozzarella. Cover with foil and place in a preheated oven at 180C for 30 minutes. Then remove the foil and cook for a further 15 minutes until the top is browned.

I've used the same sauce for a chicken/mushroom lasagne with carrots & other veg. And also with other pasta dishes. It's such a simple, quick sauce to make, and it tastes so amazing! Of course, you wouldn't want to eat it too often, I'd say. I mean. Cream & parmesan cheese! :mrgreen: We'd all look like blimps in no time! But, for a quick but a bit special meal, how could you go wrong?

 

[LadyA]

We've had a couple of family parties recently, due to visiting relatives and birthdays. Mum and her twin were 82 yesterday, so we had a get together at dau's, which I catered (because dau is pregnant, and can eat as long as she doesn't smell food cooking!). I did, among other things, a load of cocktail sausages, which I first cooked in the oven, and when they were done, I put in the slow cooker on low, to keep hot, and I tossed them in a mixture of: around 1 dessertspoon honey, 1 or two dessertspoons of balsamic vinegar, a good shake of soy sauce and about two teaspoons of ketchup. You need to just dip a finger in to check it's to your taste because both balsamic and soy sauce can vary in flavour. Anyway, mix well, and then stir the sausages around to coat them in the sauce. And leave it. They go wonderfully sticky, and the flavour is amazing!!

 

[Hen-Gen]

Sounds good. I love teriyaki so these sound right up my street.

 

[Tweetypie]

You've saved the day, LadyA. The OH bought some pork fillets and I was at a loss what to make for dinner tonight, so mentioned sweet and sour sauce, but your teriyaki sounds delicious and easy to do. ?

 

[Icemaiden]

For a lazy weekend brunch, I can recommend the exotically named "eggy bread with cheese & mushrooms".
For 1 person:-
Wipe & slice a handful of mushrooms. Fry gently in butter.
Meanwhile crack 2 - 3 eggs into a wide, shallow dish (the lid of a pyrex casserole dish is ideal). Add a handful of grated cheese- stilton, mature cheddar or whatever needs using up. Throw in some chopped herbs to taste if you have any, plus some freshly ground black pepper. Mix together well.

Place a couple of slices of bread into the egg & cheese mixture, allowing it to soak in. Turn the bread over to soak the other side, then transfer it to the frying pan on top of the cooked mushrooms. Add any cheese that's left in the dish.
Cook on a gentle-ish heat until it just starts to brown, then turn it over to cook the other side.

It might not be sophisticated, but it's gorgeous & a great use of eggs! I use my home-made granary bread with pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and walnuts, but any decent bread will do.

Enjoy!

 

[LadyA]

That does sound good, Icemaiden!

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[LadyA]

It's plum glut time! I'm making wine, and freezing lots, but I've also made this cake, which is just delish! I used an 8inch, deep, square pan, which gives a large cake. Lovely served warm, with cream or ice cream!

plum cake:
300g caster sugar
230g soft butter
280g flour (plain)
2 teaspoons baking powder
4 large eggs
good pinch of salt
enough plums, halved, to cover the top of the cake.
about 3 tablespoons of cinnamon sugar (literally, put a spoon of cinnamon into two/three tablespoons coarse granulated sugar and mix well)

Oven: Gas 4/180C

Preheat oven. Beat sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Mix baking powder into flour and sift into creamed mixture. Beat salt into the eggs, and beat into the butter/flour mixture. Mix well.

Put batter into a greased/lined tin (a loose bottomed tin works well for this) and smooth out the top. Put the plum halves on top, (cut side up) to more or less cover the batter. Sprinkle with the cinnamon sugar. Bake on the lowest shelf until a skewer comes out clean. I forgot to time it, but I think it took over an hour.

 

[Marigold]

That sounds delicious. Do you think it would work with blackberries on top instead of plums? We haven't got any plums here but there's going to be a very heavy crop of blackberries this year, once they've had another week to sweeten. Rain early in the year to swell the berries, then lots of hot sun - not like last year when there was a hot drought early on and most of them just never got going.

 

[Hen-Gen]

Both sound good though truth be told I’ve never cooked a plum in my life. Prunes yes. Plums no.
Blackberries sounds delicious. Perhaps bilberries too.
My one sorte into criminality was when as a student I would buy those jars of Krakus Polish Billberries but peel the label off a tin of peaches and stick it on the billberries. Never got caught which made them taste even better!

 

[LadyA]

I see no reason why blackberries wouldn't work. Or raspberries.

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[bigyetiman]

We have a similar recipe that does use blackberries, and also blueberries are suggested

 

[LadyA]

Anyone got any nice recipes for Christmassy things to share? I'm debating what to put in the hampers I give my brothers and dau. I'm going to make Cranberry/orange relish (recipe can be found earlier in this thread, because I'm sure I posted it last year), and Lemon Curd and fudge. Any other ideas?

 

[Margaid]

I used to make petit fours - marzipan fruit and also the cooked almond fingers. Fruits are easy, just need marzipan and food colouring. Cloves make the flower end for apples; two pieces of marzipan, one green one red rolled together in your hands to make a ball. Nutmeg grater makes the dimples on oranges and rolling strawberries lightly in granulated sugar creates the surface effect. I used to add the colouring before I made the fruit so it went all the way through. One pack of marzipan will make 10 - 12 fruits, they don't need to be huge!

Cooked almond fingers/rosettes etc

1 egg white
4 oz ground almonds
3 oz caster sugar
A few drops of almond essence
Glace cherries, angelica doe decoration.

Keep a little egg white for glazing and whisk remainder until stiff then lightly fold in ground almonds and sugar. Add the essence and mix well. Put mixture in piping bag fitted with large rosette nozzle and force into fingers (inch and a half max long) or rosettes on greased baking sheet. Brush with a little egg white and decorate with pieces of glace cherry etc. Bake in moderate oven (350F) for 1 mins. Leave on tray for a couple of minutes to harden slightly then cool on wire tray.

You'll realise this is an old recipe - Good Housekeeping Home Encyclopaedia, 1952 edition!

I also used to make chocolate truffles and a passable Turkish Delight!

 

[LadyA]

I used to make petit fours - marzipan fruit and also the cooked almond fingers. Fruits are easy, just need marzipan and food colouring. Cloves make the flower end for apples; two pieces of marzipan, one green one red rolled together in your hands to make a ball. Nutmeg grater makes the dimples on oranges and rolling strawberries lightly in granulated sugar creates the surface effect. I used to add the colouring before I made the fruit so it went all the way through. One pack of marzipan will make 10 - 12 fruits, they don't need to be huge!

Cooked almond fingers/rosettes etc

1 egg white
4 oz ground almonds
3 oz caster sugar
A few drops of almond essence
Glace cherries, angelica doe decoration.

Keep a little egg white for glazing and whisk remainder until stiff then lightly fold in ground almonds and sugar. Add the essence and mix well. Put mixture in piping bag fitted with large rosette nozzle and force into fingers (inch and a half max long) or rosettes on greased baking sheet. Brush with a little egg white and decorate with pieces of glace cherry etc. Bake in moderate oven (350F) for 1 mins. Leave on tray for a couple of minutes to harden slightly then cool on wire tray.

You'll realise this is an old recipe - Good Housekeeping Home Encyclopaedia, 1952 edition!

I also used to make chocolate truffles and a passable Turkish Delight!

Sounds good, although I know myself well enough to know that I don't have the patience to do the marzipan fruits! Is that correct, Margaid, on the almond fingers, to bake for just 1 min?