Tempting Tuesday: Dumplings

Tempting Tuesday: trying not to kill my family with my experimental cooking.

I make stew on a very regular basis, but I've never made dumplings before. I don't know why. Anyhoo, some random thought led me to google them and I discovered that they are incredibly easy to make.

I was making stew anyway, with what I had in the fridge, which happened to be half a butternut squash, sweet potato, 2 carrots, potato and 2 sticks of celery. I put in a chicken stock cube and a tbsp of onion gravy granules too. Basic I know, but we're living on the cheap at the moment.

I used brown wholegrain flour after the great indigestion battle I fought last week with the pastry, to see if the over processed white flour was the culprit and I can now report that these did not kill me in the same way. Yay!

Makes enough for 4-6 people depending on your portion size.

Ingredients:

250g self raising flour

125g butter

seasoning/herbs of your choice

Method:

Put flour and seasoning into a large bowl.

Grate butter using a cheese grater, straight into the bowl, then rub it all together using your fingertips.

Add tiny splashes of cold water until it all binds together well enough to make little balls.

Form it into 8-12 balls, depending on how many people you're feeding and how large you want them.

When your stew is 20 minutes away from finishing, make sure it's got enough liquid to cope with the sponge like dumplings and that it is boiling, then add the dumplings, pop the lid on and do not remove it for the whole 20 minutes.

Definitely going to always do dumplings from now on. Easy and yummy and filling.

If you like what you see, share it using one of the magic buttons below. 

Leave a comment or even subscribe, it would make my day :)

Tempting Tuesday: Chocolate & Marshmallow Ice Cream

Tempting Tuesday: trying not to kill my family with my experimental cooking.

Warning: this recipe contains raw egg.

Useful info: you do not need an ice cream maker.

My favourite ice cream in the world ever is of course Ben & Jerry's Phish Food, so, after the toffee ice cream success (as in; we didn't die) I thought I'd make my own.

Makes enough to fill a 1 litre tub.

Ingredients:

3 eggs, separated,

75g icing sugar

300ml double cream

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

2 tbsp marshmallow fluff

2 tbsp nutella

chocolate buttons

toffee ice cream sauce

Method:

Whisk the egg whites until stiff.

Add icing sugar a bit at a time, whisking until stiff each time.

In another bowl, whip the double cream until it holds it's shape, but is still a bit floppy.

In a cup, lightly beat the egg yolks with the vanilla.

Add them to the cream along with half of the whites and gently fold it all together.

Being even gentler, fold in the rest of the whites then, just before you transfer it to a plastic tub, slowly swirl in the rest of the ingredients, saving the toffee sauce to squidge all over the top.

Chill overnight, or at least 6 hours.

Can't even tell you how yummy this is...

Free printable recipe card. Just right click & save as.

If you like what you see, share it using one of the magic buttons below. 

Leave a comment or even subscribe, it would make my day :)

Tempting Tuesday: Banana Cake

Tempting Tuesday: trying not to kill my family with my experimental cooking.

This recipe is incredibly easy and marvellous when you've got some bananas going brown in the fruit bowl, especially as you can be pretty certain you've already got the other ingredients in the cupboard. It's lighter than I expected and so fluffy. I bet it would be yummy with custard too (it was all gone before I had a chance to try).

Ingredients:

3 small bananas

1 tsp lemon juice

100g butter

100g sugar

2 eggs

225g self raising flour

 Method:

Preheat oven to 200°C.

Mash bananas with lemon juice.

Blend butter and sugar.

Add eggs, then bananas.

Sift in flour and mix well.

Turn into a greased tin and bake for about 40 minutes.

Free printable recipe card. Just right click & save as.

If you like what you see, share it using one of the magic buttons below. 

Leave a comment or even subscribe, it would make my day :)

Tempting Tuesday: Pear & Cardamom Tart

Tempting Tuesday: trying not to kill my family with my experimental cooking.

My love for a good frangipane inspired this recipe. Think I just love ground almonds, and therefore bake with them as much as possible.

Ingredients:

Pastry case

15 cardamom pods

100g butter

100g caster sugar

Zest of 1 lemon

Juice of ½ lemon

3 eggs

100g ground almonds

35g flour

2 small pears

 Method:

Preheat oven to 180°C (170°C fan).

Crush cardamom pods with a pestle and mortar.

Remove the shells and grind down the seeds. Warning, this is painstaking.

Blend butter, sugar, lemon zest & cardamom seeds together. Add eggs, one at a time, then flour and ground almonds.

Pour the mixture into the pastry case. I made my own (I admit, I'm a bit of snob and have yet to buy a pre-made pastry case, but I kind of suck at making it still).

Peel and core both pears, slicing them into quarters. Score the tops, length-ways to make stripes.

Put pears into a small bowl with lemon juice and mix up so they are all covered in juice.

Arrange the pear pieces around the top of the tart. The original recipe had way more pears, but I couldn't squeeze them all on. It also had three pears which were to be left uncored, with the stalks still on (basically for show) which I was having none of. Can you imagine biting into that? Or at least having to faff with your pudding. No. Just no.

Bake for about 30 minutes, until the middle is almost firm.

Free printable recipe card. Just right click & save as.

If you like what you see, share it using one of the magic buttons below. 

Leave a comment or even subscribe, it would make my day :)

Tempting Tuesday: Orange Butterfly Cakes

Tempting Tuesday: trying not to kill my family with my experimental cooking.

I think I found this recipe in an Asda magazine one Easter. Never tried it until now.

As it stands, it only makes enough for 8 nicely sized cupcakes, which is not enough for my house. I'll be doubling everything next time.

Ingredients:

125g butter

125g sugar

2 eggs

Zest of 1 orange

125g self raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

Curd filling:

Zest & juice of 1 orange

40g sugar

2 eggs

50g butter

 Method:

Heat all curd filling ingredients together in a pan very gently and stir until thick. Just like with lemon curd, do not stop stirring.

Leave to cool.

Preheat oven to 180°C (160°C  fan).

Blend butter, sugar, eggs and zest together.

Then sift in flour and baking powder and mix well.

Bake in cupcake cases for about 20 minutes.

Once cool, cut out the tops, add curd filling and gently place the ‘butterfly’ tops on.

I totally baked mine too hot. The tops burnt before the insides were done. And the curd filling recipe originally had the juice of half a lemon, leaving it super runny, which meant that it didn't sit nicely on the tops.
Also, I decorated mine with candied orange peel, but if you want to do that, for goodness sake just freakin' buy some. I've spent days on a whole batch of the stuff and it's still rather inedible. No idea why.

Free printable recipe card. Just right click & save as.

If you like what you see, share it using one of the magic buttons below. 

Leave a comment or even subscribe, it would make my day :)

Tempting Tuesday: Lemon Curd

Tempting Tuesday: trying not to kill my family with my experimental cooking.

This one took a few attempts. Mostly because I'm really good at getting distracted and if there's one thing you don't want to do when making lemon curd, it's get distracted.
This is what happens...

It was a bit of a catalogue of errors. I hadn't stirred it enough, so the egg white cooked first which left it with some delightful white lumps. I tried to whisk them out (unsuccessfully), but then it was almost a mousse, so I popped it back to the stove, but then forgot about it and ended up with that black mess.

Never mind. Attempt two, with some lessons learnt, was much more successful.

This makes enough for almost two jars. Have them sterilised and ready.

Ingredients:

zest of 1 lemon

juice of 2 lemons

2 eggs, lightly beaten

50g butter

175g castor sugar

Method:

Put all the ingredients in a heavy bottomed pan and heat very gently on the stove, stirring the whole time. A silicone whisk is great for this. 

In twenty minutes it should be lovely and thick. 

Pour the hot stuff carefully into the jars and put the lids on. 

When they're cool, store them in the fridge.

Free printable recipe card. Just right click & save as.

If you like what you see, share it using one of the magic buttons below. 

Leave a comment or even subscribe, it would make my day :)

Tempting Tuesday: Toffee & Nut Ice Cream

Tempting Tuesday: trying not to kill my family with my experimental cooking.

Warning: this recipe contains raw egg.

Useful info: you do not need an ice cream maker.

Being a huge ice cream fan, it's genuinely shocking I haven't tried to make my own yet, but then I don't have an ice cream maker. Thankfully, this recipe doesn't require one - yay!

Makes enough to fill a 1 litre tub.

Ingredients:

3 eggs, separated,

75g icing sugar

300ml double cream

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

75g pecans, chopped

30g butter

100g brown sugar

Method:

Melt the butter in a pan, then add the pecans and stir.

Add the brown sugar and stir until its all melted.

Leave it to cool, preferably on a non stick tray (because it will stick to everything as it sets), then crumble it all up.

Whisk the egg whites until stiff.

Add icing sugar a bit at a time, whisking until stiff each time.

Whip the double cream until it holds it's shape, but is still a bit floppy.

Lightly beat the egg yolks with the vanilla, then add the toffee nut concoction and mix thoroughly.

Then gently fold the toffee/egg mixture and a third of the whites into the cream.

Being even gentler, fold in the rest of the whites then transfer to a plastic tub and chill overnight.

Even my pickiest child helped polish off this yummy stuff.

Uber success!

More flavours to come...

Free printable recipe card. Just right click & save as.

If you like what you see, share it using one of the magic buttons below. 

Leave a comment or even subscribe, it would make my day :)

Tempting Tuesday: Baby Quiche

Tempting Tuesday: trying not to kill my family with my experimental cooking.

Zander approved: 4 stars (tasty, smushable in intrigued fingers, I can do it myself but still not as good as fromage frais).

Perfect for little hands, and yummy for Mummy's in a rush.

If you want to make them for people old enough to have a little salt, they are nicer with (as most things are), but for small people under two, they can be salt free.
You'll need a muffin tray.

Ingredients:
4 slices of bread with the crusts cut off
3 eggs
3 tbsp milk
heaped tbsp frozen peas
heaped tbsp grated cheese
a few broccoli florets, finely chopped

Beat the eggs and milk in a large shallow bowl.

Because I wanted squares and my bread is rectangular, I cut them up so that 4 slices would go into 6 moulds, as you can see in the photo above. The fact that the bread isn't one whole piece for two of the muffin moulds won't make a different once it's cooked.

Dip the bread in the egg, coating both sides, then place each slice in the tray.
Don't worry about leftover egg, we'll use it in a second.

Mix your veggies up with the cheese and left over egg.

Divide it all up carefully into each portion.

Bake them in a preheated oven at 180°C for about 15 minutes, until they are cooked through.

I tend to store them in a tuppaware box in the fridge, where they get eaten in a few days.

I love that you don't have to go with peas and broccoli, you can chose anything; meat/veg or just whatever you have in the fridge, which stops small people getting bored and provides ample opportunity for trying lots of new foods.

Free printable recipe card. Just right click & save as.

If you like what you see, share it using one of the magic buttons below. 

Leave a comment or even subscribe, it would make my day :)

Tempting Tuesday: Caramelised Apples with Cinnamon Rice

Tempting Tuesday: trying not to kill my family with my experimental cooking.

I am 90% certain I cocked this up.

For a start, when I came to make it I found I didn't have any cinnamon so I thought I'd use nutmeg instead, which would have been fine had I not used far too much.

Then, I must've not had the stove hot enough as it took so long to reduce the rice, the orange peel had disintigrated and I had to try and fish out the little leftovers.

When I came to cook the apples I decided to use the last bramley up and I misread 1 tsp as 1 tbsp and ended up with very soggy apples. Though edible, I could tell which apple wedge belonged to the bramley and which did not, despite the overpowering nutmeg.

Ingredients:

rice:

100g arborio or pudding rice

850ml milk

75g sugar

1 tsp vanilla ess

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 strip of orange peel

apples;

25g butter

2 eating apples, peeled, cored and chopped into wedges

1 heaped tsp brown sugar

Put rice, milk, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon and orange peel in a pan and bring to the boil.

Lower the heat and simmer for twenty to thirty minutes until soft and thick. Keep stirring regularly so the rice doesn't stick to the bottom, especially as it gets really thick.

Remove the orange peel and set aside for fifteen minutes.

Melt butter in a frying pan and add the apple wedges.

Sprinkle over the brown sugar and cook on a low heat until the apples are soft and delightfully caramelised.

Serve over the rice.

This is delicious both hot and cold, but personally I prefer it on the warmer side.

Let me know what you think.

Free printable recipe card. Just right click & save as.

If you like what you see, share it using one of the magic buttons below. 

Leave a comment or even subscribe, it would make my day :)

Tempting Tuesday: Rainbow Dream Tart

Tempting Tuesday: trying not to kill my family with my experimental cooking.

We threw Zander's 'Welocome to the World party last weekend so I made this; the rainbow party version of the White Chocolate Dream tart I made a few weeks ago.

I made it three times as large, with each layer a different colour; purple, yellow, then red.

The pastry was much better this time, practise clearly making perfect and it was a big hit amongst our friends.

If you like what you see, share it using one of the magic buttons below. 

Leave a comment or even subscribe, it would make my day :)

Tempting Tuesday: Carrot Drop Scones

Tempting Tuesday: trying not to kill my family with my experimental cooking.

Ingredients:
100g self raising flour
1/4 tsp mixed spice
1x egg
80g grated carrot
4 tbsp plain yogurt
100ml milk

Add all the ingredients together and mix well. 
Fry dollops of the stuff in the pan, make them as big or small as you like (a ladle gives a good amount). Fry on both sides.

You could exchange some of the carrot for grated courgette, that would be yummy too.

Free printable recipe card. Just right click & save as.

If you like what you see, share it using one of the magic buttons below. 

Leave a comment or even subscribe, it would make my day :)

Tempting Tuesday: Homemade Coleslaw

Tempting Tuesday: trying not to kill my family with my experimental cooking.

I love coleslaw but store bought always seems to leave a yukkiness in my mouth so I've always wanted to make my own. Turns out it's stupidly easy. Who knew? Haha.

Ingredients: 

A cabbage (red or white)

3x carrots

1x onion

150ml plain yogurt

4x tbsp mayo

Chop it up, throw it all together. Done.

I only used two carrots,  half a cabbage and half the dressing though, so I should have used less onion. It was kind of tear inducing...lesson learnt.

If you like what you see, share it using one of the magic buttons below. 

Leave a comment or even subscribe, it would make my day :)