Chocolate Crunch! circa 2013!

 

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Chocolate biscuit cake

150g milk chocolate

150g dark chocolate

150g butter

2tbs golden syrup

250g rich tea biscuits

12 marshmallows

Line a 30cmx18cm Swiss roll tin with baking parchment.

Break the chocolate into pieces and put them into a glass or metal bowl.

Put 6 cm of hot water in to a saucepan, put the saucepan on to a low heat and place the bowl on top.

Stir the chocolate, butter and syrup until they have melted together. Turn off the heat.

Put the biscuits into a plastic bowl and crush them with a rolling pin, not too fine leave some large pieces.

Stir the broken biscuits and marshmallows into the melted chocolate mix.

Pour the mixture into the Swiss roll tin and smooth the mixture out to fill the tin.

 Decorate with 50g of melted dark, 50g of melted milk & 50g of melted white chocolate a la Jackson Pollock!

Chill till cold and cut into slices.

Add the butter cut into chunks and the golden syrup. 

Put 6 cm of hot water in to a saucepan, put the saucepan on to a low heat and place the bowl on top.

Stir the chocolate, butter and syrup until they have melted together. Turn off the heat.

Cut the marshmallows into 4 pieces each with a scissors.

Stir the broken biscuits and marshmallows into the melted chocolate mix.

Pour the mixture into the Swiss roll tin and smooth the mixture out to fill the tin.

Stir the broken biscuits and marshmallows into the melted chocolate mix.

Pour the mixture into the Swiss roll tin and smooth the mixture out to fill the tin.

Slightly out of focus!

 Decorate with 50g of melted dark, 50g of melted milk & 50g of melted white chocolate a la Jackson Pollock!

Chill till cold and cut into slices! 

Roll on Summer!

               I made these bread rolls today as an experiment for the Cookery Camps I'll be teaching over the Summer. They are soft 'White Dinner Rolls'. Great with soup, salads or as a breakfast roll.

 

Last of the rolls!

Sesame Bread Rolls

350g plain flour

1 sachet fast action yeast

200ml warm water

1tsp salt

2tbs olive oil

1tbs vegetable oil

beaten egg

1tbs sesame seeds

Sift the flour into a bowl and add the yeast from the sachet.

Dissolve the salt in the warm water and add to the flour and yeast. Add the olive oil and mix it all together to make a dough.

Knead the dough on the table, dust the table with flour if the dough is sticky.

Knead the dough until smooth and springy.

Coat the dough in the vegetable oil and place in the bowl. Cover the bowl with cling film and put in a warm place for 30-45 minutes until doubled in size.

Grease a Swiss roll tin.

Take the dough out and knead again until springy. Divide into 8 or 9 pieces and shape them into rolls, place them onto a Swiss roll tin, leaving space in between them.

Cover with cling film and a tea towel and put them back into the warm place for 30 minutes, until they get bigger and start to touch each other.

Heat the oven to 220˚C, GM 7.

Take the tea towel and film off the rolls, brush the rolls with egg wash and sprinkle on the sesame seeds.

Bake in the hot oven for 20-25 minutes.They will be golden and will sound hollow when wrapped with a knuckle underneath. Cool on a wire rack.

Waste not want not!

       The first of the summer peas are the sweetest, long waited for and very special. Podding them takes time, but it is one job where you have to sit and do it. A cup of tea and someone to help you is pleasant. Or with a glass of wine while someone else prepares the rest of the meal is an excellent way to relax at the end of the working day. Even better & the sun shines and you can sit outside.
     
      As the pile of pods grows the small mound of peas grows too. The mound of peas seems disappointingly small compared to the pile of pods.
      When the peas are cooked and enjoyed, so sweet, so tasty, so quickly gone.
The pile of pods remains. Compost? Give them to the horses or hens?
Or soup?

      Pea-pod soup has a long and honourable history amongst thrifty cooks and it has a sweet refreshing flavour. The mint helps cut the sweetness.
      You can skip the blending part of the recipe, but you must strain the soup through the 'mouli' or a sieve or it becomes a very high fiber soup!
      I've always wondered why we 'eat' soup even though it is a liquid!

 

Pea-pods

                                                       Pea Pod Soup                                                                                    

1 onion chopped

1 stick of celery chopped

1 small clove of garlic chopped

large knob of butter

1 med potato peeled & chopped small

300g pea-pods

3 sprigs of mint

Pepper & salt

1l stock

Whipped cream & chopped mint to serve

Chopped garlic, onion & celery

Chopped potato, mint and stock

Heat the butter in a saucepan over a medium heat and soften the onion celery and garlic in it.

Add the potato, pea-pods, mint and the stock and bring to the boil.

Taste the stock and season with pepper and salt. Turn the heat down and simmer until the pods are soft and the potato cooked, about 10 - 15 minutes.

Simmered!

Turn the heat off and leave till cool enough to blend in a processor or with a stick blender. Blend and then put through a 'mouli' or a sieve, return to a clean pan and reheat.

Serve topped with a dollop of whipped cream and a sprinkle of chopped mint. 

A plate of soup for eating

Finding a box of memories.

        When I was growing up in the kitchen drawer there was a knife known as "The knife"!
It had been a carbon steel dinner knife, but over the years it had been sharpened so much the blade had worn away to about 3 inches. It was very easy to sharpen and when just sharpened you could have shaved with it.
        I had forgotten about it until the other week when I was passing a local second hand shop. There were some boxes outside and one was marked everything '50c'! How could I resist a rummage? So I delved in and found an old carving fork, a carbon steel bread knife with the word "Bread" carved into the handle similar to one that we'd had at home, and then down at the bottom of the box I spotted a bone handle and a blade that looked very familiar. It was a "The knife"!
         Lots of memories came flooding back of home, learning to cook and the wonderful Delia who helped Mum and was always there too. 
         I brought the three pieces into the shop and happily handed over my €1.50.
I've given the three of them a good clean and now the have pride of place in my kitchen drawer.
                                           Did "The knife" sharpen up well? Yes!

"The Knife mark 2"

Cucumber Pickle

Sugar, vinegar, onion, cucumber and salt. All you need for this pickle.

Mary's Cucumber Pickle

Mary works with me in my day job and is a keen gardener growing lots of vegetables with her husband in their garden and poly-tunnel. This pickle is one of her ways of making the cucumbers last longer. It is great with cold meat and salad or with oily fish such as salmon or mackerel.

3 cucumbers

1 large onion

¾ a cup of white wine vinegar

1 ½ cups sugar

2tbs salt

If the skins on the cucumbers are very tough peel them. Slice the cucumbers into rounds or using a swivel peeler shred them into long thin ribbons, discarding the seeds if they are very watery.

Peel and slice the onion very thinly.

In a large bowl mix together the vinegar, sugar and salt add the cucumber and onion.

Stir everything round to mix well. Cover the bowl and leave overnight in the fridge.

Pack into clean sterilised jars the next day sharing out the pickle between the jars.

This pickle will keep for up to 6 months in the fridge.

This is what it looks like 6 months later.

Easter Cake

The top of our Easter 'cake'.

 I finished another icing course just before Easter and here is the 'cake' I decorated. The colours are a bit paler than I hoped they'd be.

The front with a 'run out' swallow.

The swan side.

The butterfly side.

The top showing the cage work.

The view from above.

Wild Garlic

The wild garlic season is here, the leaves have been up for a while and the flowers are just starting to come out. I love having a crop that just appears in our woods and we can use it when it's there. Then it goes and we have to wait for next year. Makes a change from all year round supplies of so many treats these days.
        Don't get me wrong, I really appreciate being able to get so many things all year, but some things just taste so much better in season.
I made the tart for lunch the other day, and the pesto was for a cookery class I gave a week or so back.
       The picture of the pesto is from a teens cookery camp I taught during the Easter break, they also made fresh pasta. That got the biggest wow! from one participant.

Wild garlic & ricotta tart

Wild garlic and ricotta tart

300g  short crust pastry

1 tub ricotta

3 eggs

125g smoked bacon bits

1 red onion sliced

bunch of wild garlic chopped

grated Parmesan to sprinkle over the top

Set the oven to 190˚C, GM 5

Line the large 23cm loose-bottomed tin with the pastry & bake blind for about 20 minutes.

Fry the bacon pieces and onion in a spoonful of oil, until the bacon starts to brown and the onion is soft. Put the onion and bacon into a bowl and add the wild garlic and the ricotta. Mix well and add the eggs and some black pepper and mix again.

Fill the pastry shell with the mixture and sprinkle grated Parmesan over the top.

Bake for about 30 minutes. Check the tart after 15 minutes to make sure the edges of the pastry aren't burning, turn down the heat to 180˚C, GM 4 if they are, or cover them with foil. Pop the plain cold shelf in if using an aga.

Test for doneness with a skewer or knife. the top will rise and go golden.Take out of the oven and leave to cool for about 5 minutes, then remove from the tin and serve with a salad.

Wild Garlic Pesto

60g wild garlic
60g pine nuts

half a tsp of salt

1tbs lemon juice
60g grated Parmesan cheese
extra virgin olive oil

Pound the wild garlic, pine nuts and salt together in a mortar or whiz in the food processor. Stir in the lemon juice and grated Parmesan. Thin the mixture with olive oil to a thick paste.

Pesto making!