Becca Jane St Clair

Apologies for the bombardment of recipe posts recently, but I’ve been getting creative in the kitchen lately and want to share. As I was taking a photo today of my latest creation, I commented to my husband that I “really take a lot of photos of food”. He replied that since food seems to be my latest creative outlet, why not? Of course, this does mean you have to read post after post about food, when you probably want to read other things by me. Sorry! Maybe I should start up a cooking blog after all!

Anyway.

When I was younger, I remember my mom making Pizza Meatloaf, probably because I had seen it in a kid’s cookbook or on TV or something like that. I couldn’t find her recipe, so I created one of my own.

You will need:
500g Turkey Mince
150ml Passata
1 Tablespoon Oregano
125g Bread Crumbs
1 Egg
Mozzarella Cheese (a small block will work best)

Pre-heat the oven to 225C.
First, chop about half the Mozzarella into small cubes and the other half into slices. You also could use shredded cheese if this is easier and divide it in half.
Combine meat, the cubed cheese, HALF the passata, the bread crumbs, egg, and Oregano and mix together well.
Shape into a loaf shape on a lined cookie sheet.
Cook 45 minutes to an hour, or until meat is no longer pink.
Remove from oven and pour over remaining half of passata and top with remaining Mozzarella.
Put back into the oven for 15-20 minutes, or until cheese is melted.

This was really tasty the following day cold in a sandwich with some ketchup!
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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, or the RSS feed(s), please notify me.

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I was going to hold off on this post for a few weeks and get some older (well, a few weeks old) recipes posted, but Michelle’s post on The American Resident about homesickness and making comfort food prompted me to post this sooner.

I think most of us who grew up middle class in America know about Chef Boyardee. Those red cans (I swear, it used to be spelled Boy-R-De) were a familiar food growing up. My favourite was the ravioli, and I detested beefaroni. In addition to tins of pasta, Boyardee also made pizza kits, which became a household staple because it was easy to make, and we could put whatever toppings on it we wanted.

Even as an adult, I continued to buy the Boyardee pizza kits because they were inexpensive, and had everything I needed – crust mix, tomato sauce, and cheese. Of course, we started adding shredded cheese to the grated Parmesean by this point.

I love pizza and I love homemade pizza. Moving to the UK, I’ve struggled a bit in finding a crust mix that I like – a lot of the pre-made mixes don’t cook well or taste too sweet and I just don’t have the patience for making it from scratch. Originally, this recipe was just going to be “Easy Pizza”, but when I bit into it I was instantly reminded of the good old Chef Boyardee pizza mixes. I hope this can comfort another ex-pat the same way it comforted me!

You Will Need:
300g Bisquick mix (in the UK it’s called Bisquick Multi-Purpose Baking Mix and comes in the same size box as a cake mix)
200ml very hot water (I used water from the kettle)
Olive oil (or vegetable oil)
tomato sauce (plain passata)
Parmesean cheese
Oregano*
Basil*
Mozzarella cheese*
Toppings of your choice*

*optional ingredients. The main ingredients are essentially the items you need for a Chef Boyardee kit. Any direction involving optional ingredients will have an * in front of it.

Pre-heat the oven to 225C.
Grease or line a cookie sheet (or pizza tray).
Combine water and Bisquick and mix until it resembles dough. If there is still a lot of powdered mix, add a little more water.
Press dough onto cookie sheet and lightly cover with olive oil (a spray bottle is ideal).
Bake for 5 minutes.
Remove from oven and top pizza with sauce and *sprinkle oregano and basil on sauce.
Sprinkle Parmesean cheese over sauce.
*Top with Mozzarella cheese and your chosen toppings
Return to oven and bake for an additional 10-15 minutes or until cheese is melted and crust is crisp (it took 12 in my oven).

Enjoy!

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, or the RSS feed(s), please notify me.

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I puzzled facebook friends by posting this photo in my “food and recipes” folder:

And captioned it “What did I make with this?”

I made cappuccino mix!

But I should back up a little and tell the story.

The first part of the story is from about 10 or so years ago when my mom and I were looking for something we could make our office friends for christmas that wasn’t going to break the bank, and we discovered a recipe for cappuccino mix. We made it and everyone loved it – my aunt so much that she gave us her empty container and asked us to refill it!

The second part of the story comes from a girl obsessed with Starbucks. Me. When December rolled around, my favourite drink was an iced peppermint mocha or a frappucino. One year, I mentioned to the barista how sad it was that the peppermint mocha was only offered in December, and she told me I could order it regularly and ask for a shot of peppermint. It would cost me an additional fee for the flavour, but I was able to get peppermint mocha year round.

…and then I moved to the UK, where Starbucks does not have peppermint mocha. My mom found an International Coffee powdered version that she sent me and I gobbled it up. She also found peppermint Coffeemate powdered creamer and sent that along. Recently, I’ve been looking at the second caninster and thinking about making something with it, when I remembered the old cappuccino mix recipe. To make it even minty-er, I decided to use mint hot chocolate mix, and to get it to “froth”, I picked Aero hot chocolate. You can make this with regular creamer and regular hot chocolate or any flavour hot chocolate and regular creamer. If you can’t find regular creamer, you can use powdered milk.

So, here’s what you need. I did the measurements for this in Metric, but as long as you get the ratios right, you can use any measuring system you want.

100g instant coffee
200g powdered creamer
200g hot chocolate
50g Splenda (or sugar, but I was trying to make it a little less sugary)

you also will need a plastic zipper top bag, a rolling pin or glass, and some containers to put the finished product in….like the containers you just emptied!

Step 1 – Pour the coffee into the zipper-top bag, squeeze out as much air as you can, and seal it. Gently roll over the coffee with a rolling pin to break up the granules.
Step 2 – Add the hot chocolate, powdered creamer, and splenda to the bag. Seal it up tight and shake it until everything is mixed together.
Step 3 – Pour into containers.

[finished product on the left, it’s inspiration on the right!]

When you are ready to have some, just put 3-4 spoonfuls in a mug and top with hot water. I like to fill my cup about 3/4 with boiling water from the kettle and then top it off with cold water from the tap so I can drink it right away.

This would make a great gift, too!

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, or the RSS feed(s), please notify me.

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One of my favourite Pennsylvania Dutch things is apple butter. Apple butter is best when spread on a warm dinner roll, or a spoonful mixed into some cottage cheese. Trips to Willow Valley always included a spoonful of apple butter on my plate, and trips to Kitchen Kettle were never complete unless I bought a jar.

In the UK however, we don’t have apple butter. We have all sorts of other spread-y type things for your bread, but no apple butter.

For those of you not familiar with apple butter, I need to explain that it is not butter in the sense of a dairy or vegetable based spread you put on toast or use to bake bread with. The best way I can describe it is it’s sort of like applesauce, only thicker, darker, and with spices. It’s tasty and is my favourite topping for toast. It even out-shines Nutella!

With all the wind bringing down the apples on the 20-foot-tall apple tree in the garden, it was time to start doing something with them!

Like last year, I planned on coring and cutting as many apples as I could and dividing them into 500g freezer bags. 500g is just about what will fill up my crumble bowl, and a good way of measuring them out. Plus, it’s how much will fit into a small freezer bag comfortably. To freeze the apples, I leave the skins on and use one of those kitchen gadgets that slices the apple and cores it at the same time. I discard the core, cut off any brown spots, and cut the slices in half. After measuring out 500g, I pop them in a freezer bag and add a teaspoon of lemon juice (to help with discolouration) and give the bag a shake before putting it into the freezer. Last year, I wound up with 6KG of apples in the freezer which really saw us through winter! This year, I’m trying not to put too much in the freezer because we need to defrost it soon and I wouldn’t want to lose anything!

I made apple butter last year, but such a small amount I only had enough for 2 small containers. Since I had to get the apples dealt with sooner than I had planned, I decided to try making a large batch of apple butter and I collected as many as I could that had fallen into my laundry basket.

I started coring and cutting the apples and measured them out in 500g intervals on my scale and tipped them into my large crock pot until it was full — about 2KG of apples. 2KG of apples will yield about 2000ml of apple butter, more if you don’t cook it for as long as I did. I sealed my jars in the oven since I don’t have a large pot for the stove. The USDA does not recommend this method for canning, however there are no such suggestions in the UK, and oven canning is even suggested.

Crock Pot Apple Butter

You will need:

2KG Apples, cored and cut (or however much your crock pot will hold. I used a 6L crock pot)
2 TBS Cinnamon (adjust based on amount of apples)
1 1/2 TBS Nutmeg (adjust based on amount of apples)
1 1/2 TBS Cloves (adjust based on amount of apples)
1 1/2 Cup sugar or Splenda (optional)
Water

Large Crock Pot
Blender (I tried out my new stick blender!)
Wooden Spoon
Sterilized Jars

– Core and cut apples into small chunks. You can leave off the skin if you don’t feel like peeling (I never peel them). Fill your crock pot until it nearly reaches the top. I stopped about three inches from the top.
-Using a measuring jug, add water to the crock pot until the apples are covered. I used 1L of water, but your amount may vary.
-Cook on LOW for 10-12 hours. Overnight is ideal. You want to cook it past the point of applesauce.
-In the morning, turn off your crock pot and use a blender or stick blender to blend the apples until they are smooth. I used my stick blender directly in my crock pot, but if you’re using a regular blender you might have to do it in batches.
-Mix in the spices and give it a taste. If it tastes too tart to your liking, add about 1/2 cup sugar or sweetener. You also can add more spices if you think it needs it!
-Cook on low for about 2 hours. Give it a stir and a taste. Add more sugar/spices if it’s not to your liking.
-Take a wooden spoon and use it to prop open the lid. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT! By venting the crock pot lid, you are letting the steam escape and this will reduce the applesauce down to apple butter.
-I had my crock pot on low for about 12 hours, but this was only because we left to visit friends in the evening and stayed longer than we had anticipated. At a minimum, it can be done in about 8 hours. The longer it cooks, the thicker it will get.

-Sterilize your jars. You can do this several ways including boiling them in water or placing in a hot oven. I sterilized mine in a hot oven by pre-heating the oven to 105C (225F) and placing the jars on a tray. Leave in for 10 minutes, then turn off the oven and let the jars sit in the oven until you are ready for them.

-Give your apple butter a taste again. If it still tastes too tart for your liking, add the final 1/2 cup of sugar or sweetener and blend. You might want to use your blender or stick blender again if your apple butter looks too chunky.
-By now, your apple butter should be a dark brown colour. Turn off the crock pot.
-To make it easier to pour (and to know how much you made), transfer the apple butter into a measuring jug. I had just under 2000ml.
-carefully pour into your sterilized jars, leaving a little bit of room at the top. Wipe the sides of the mouth and screw on the lids.
-Seal your jars in your preferred method. Most people will boil their jars, but as I don’t have a large pot, I needed to use the oven method.

-Place jars on a baking sheet in a cold oven and turn the dial to 105C (225F). Allow the oven to heat up and leave on for 20 minutes. Turn off the oven and leave jars in for an additional 30 minutes. You can tell the jar is sealed if you can push on the top and it doesn’t make a popping sound.

And now you have apple butter to last through winter!

Oh, and to clean out that crock pot after making a mess in it, pour some dish soap in it and fill it up with water. “Cook” it on low overnight with the lid on, and in the morning it should come clean.

In case you were wondering, to make applesauce cook the apples and water for 4 hours on high in the crock pot, add sugar, drain off some of the water, and blend.

[The first batch. I’ve since made a second batch of apple butter and a batch of applesauce….]

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, or the RSS feed(s), please notify me.

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Question: Does England have a Fourth of July?
Answer: Of course it does, between the third and fifth!

Today is Independence Day in the US, the day which Americans celebrate their independence from Great Britain. On July 4, 1776, the second continental congress approved the Declaration of Independence, having officially declared separation from Great Britain two days prior.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

It just turns out that my pursuit of happiness has taken me back to the UK!

Did you know they don’t call that war the Revolutionary War in the UK? It’s actually called the American War of Independence.

I am spending my day, sadly, alone, as Tim has gone back to his training. I DID order in some burgers from Tesco, so I’ll at least have a burger for dinner tonight. I have a sing-out with my chorus tonight, too, but I don’t think I’ll be able to get them to sing any of the “American” anthem songs. I don’t even have any fireworks! I originally wanted to get some back at Bonfire Night when they were selling them and hang onto them until July, but I forgot. I will have to make a note in my diary (US: organizer/date book) this year so I don’t forget.

But it did remind me of one of my all-time American campfire classics, the S’more.

S’mores are a barbecue and campfire classic in America. The melted chocolate and gooey marshmallow make for a tasty sweet treat after all that meat! In the UK, I understand that one thing people like to do here is take a banana and shove chocolate buttons in it and put that on the grill for a sticky, gooey treat. But I’m partial to S’mores.

Authentic S’mores are made with marshmallow, a graham cracker, and a bit of Hershey. All three are a bit elusive in this country, but we DO have marshmallows. Not as big as the Jet Puff ones, but they are marshmallows. Fortunately, my mom sent me a bag of American Marshmallows and I had been holding on to them for an occasion. The occasion turned out to be the first barbecue of the year at my friend N and P’s house back in April, but I was saving on posting about it until today.

For the cracker AND chocolate part, I cheated a little. I bought Chocolate Digestive biscuits so I wouldn’t have to worry about melting the chocolate. It worked well!

You will need, for each person:

1 skewer or stick
1 large marshmallow
2 chocolate digestive biscuits

And it’s quite easy. While the flames are dying on the barbecue, stick a marshmallow on a stick and hold it to the coals. Don’t get too close or the marshmallow will catch on fire! When the edges are crispy, it’s time to take it off. Now CAREFULLY pull the marshmallow off the skewer and place it on top of a biscuit, chocolate side up. Top with another biscuit and there you have it, an improvised S’more!

Edit to add: Ironically, I wrote this and scheduled it for publication today, and as I was going through Google Reader this morning, a post by Michelle at The American Resident caught my attention, as she’s also blogged about S’mores! How funny! So go read her blog if you want another way of making a S’more. Hers even includes indoor instructions!

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, or the RSS feed(s), please notify me.

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Credit for this recipe goes to my amazing friend, Jess P!

[pictured with my homemade strawberry jam!]

I always wanted to make scones. The one and only time I tried was in Summer 2007, and my friend SilverAdept‘s only comment was that they were really dry. And was I sure this was what an English scone was supposed to look/taste like?

I wasn’t sure. The last time I had had a real English scone had been in 1997, and since then I had only had coffee shop versions – that is, probably not authentically English. So I gave up. And then I moved to England in 2010, where scones are a staple of an English Afternoon Tea!

A while back, my friend Jess posted a recipe for very easy scones. I can’t find her direct link, but her recipe came from an Australian recipe website (which makes sense, as Jess is Australian). I was sceptical due to the unusual ingredients it called for, but when I knew I wanted to make scones, I looked up her recipe.

You will need:
1 cup cream
1 cup fizzy lemonade*
3 cups self-rising flour**
salt (just a pinch)

1. Preheat oven to 220C. The Australian recipe measured out in cups, so I used cups. Again, if you don’t have measuring cups, just pull a mug out of your cupboard and use that. Yes, you can measure both liquid and solids in the same cup (however odd you might think that).
2. sift flour and salt together and make a well in the middle.
3. slowly pour in the cream and lemonade. It will fizz when you add the lemonade, so make sure you used a deep bowl
4. mix with a fork until all flour is moistened.
5. Turn out onto a floured work surface and knead dough until it is elastic-y. About 5 minutes will do it, and if you want to be lazy, knead it in the bowl like I did.
6. Use scone cutters (or a glass with it’s edge dipped in flour) to cut out your scones, and place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper/baking paper.
7. Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until golden.

*in the UK (and presumably, Australia) we have a fizzy soda drink called lemonade, which tastes like Sprite or 7-Up minus the lime, so it’s just a lemon soda. I do not know if Sprite would work in this or not! Possibly you could use lemon flavoured soda water?
**I didn’t have self-rising flour, but I learned that you can add 1 1/2 tsp of baking powder and 1/2 tsp salt for each cup of all-purpose/plain flour to make it self-rising. If you do this, don’t add the pinch of salt.

40 scones, ready for our Open Garden Railway day!

I’ve made them twice off this recipe, and I’ll be making another double batch this weekend for a Garden Party at my friend Sylvia’s house. Both times, the scones lost their round shape, but I blame that on my plastic cutters. I’ve since purchased some metal cutters, so I hope they look better!

We served these up with some cream and homemade strawberry jam and they went down quite well! I sent Tim to work with the leftovers, and his co-worker loved them, too.

I will post other photos from the Garden Party, but they’re all on Tim’s camera!

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For the BBQ on Friday at N and P’s (that we wound up having inside due to rain!), I wanted to bring along something for pudding (US: dessert), since we were told we didn’t need to bring any food for grilling. Tim suggested a trifle and I immediately started giggling. All I could think about was that episode of Friends where Rachel made a trifle and it had “a layer of lady fingers, then beef sautéed with peas and onions” because two pages of her cookbook stuck together. Here’s a link on YouTube to watch the clip. Unfortunately, the uploader didn’t have an option to embed it and this was the only full clip I could find, short of splicing it together myself: http://youtu.be/Mx5Wpqf4-OM.

The last time I tried to make one was in 2008 when I was visiting. We bought a boxed trifle mix Bird’s makes, and it didn’t turn out well. We only had a plastic bowl to make it in, and the jelly never quite set, and then the custard was runny and it was just awful. I never tried making one again….until Friday. And it turned out this time! 😀

From what I can figure out through googling, there isn’t really a set way to make a trifle. It basically has four layers – sponge cake, jelly (Jell-o in the US), custard (US: pudding), and whipped cream, but it looks like you can add layers of fruit or jam, and even add multiple layers of the jelly, custard, and whipped cream if you’d like. And of course, if you’re obsessed with Friends, you can add beef and peas, but don’t expect anyone to eat it!

So here’s my version –

You will need:

-Sponge Cake (I used two pieces of leftover sponge from our steam-up)
-Jelly (US: Jell-o, in fact, I used box of jell-o my aunt sent me)
-Custard (US: pudding) (I used instant just-add-boiling-water custard)
-Whipped Cream
-Bananas
-Strawberries
-Chocolate for garnish (I used Buttons)

1. Break up the sponge cake and put it in the bottom of your glass bowl.
2. Cover the cake with your jelly (Jell-o) and set in the refrigerator to set (about 3 hours)
3. Meanwhile, make the custard and cool it off (or it will melt the jelly!) in the fridge.
4. After the jelly is set, spoon custard over jelly. At this point, I decided to add a layer of cut bananas to the trifle to give it more flavour.
5. Whip the cream or make your dream topping and spoon it over the custard
6. Top with strawberries and chocolate

The verdict? Yum.

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, or the RSS feed(s), please notify me.

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A few weeks ago, baked eggs were all over the food blogs. One blog posted about them, then another, and another. Each blog making their baked eggs posher than the blog before. But baked eggs don’t need a fancy French name or fancy bread. Here’s my simple, easy baked eggs recipe.

For each person, you will need:
2 eggs
1 TBS milk
2 TBS cheese
Parsley
Oregano, Basil, or other herbs
Cooked bacon (optional)

A single-serving casserole dish or ramekins.

1 – Preheat the oven to 175C and lightly grease the ramekins with vegetable oil
2 – If using bacon, crumble a piece of bacon in the bottom of each dish.
3 – crack 2 eggs in each casserole. If using ramekins, you might only be able to do one
4 – Spoon over milk, sprinkle cheese & herbs
5 – bake 12-15 minutes or until yolks are set to your preference.

This was something different for Tim and I to have for breakfast, and we both loved it. The eggs wind up nice and creamy and it was a nice treat for us on a Saturday morning.

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, or the RSS feed(s), please notify me.

Seems a bit silly to post this, as it’s not even really a recipe, but I’m really pleased with how it looks and how the photo came out, so I’m sharing it!

Weeks ago, I placed an order with Tesco, as I do every week. If the store doesn’t have what you ordered online, your shopper substitutes an item. If the new item costs more than the one you wanted, you only get charged for the one you ordered. If the new item is less than the original, you get charged the lower amount. Most of the times this means I wind up with a slightly posher brand of loo roll or a different brand of brown bread. But a few weeks ago? I don’t know what was on their mind! I placed an order for a box of Betty Crocker Bisquick – you know, pancake mix – but Tesco sent me a Betty Crocker Carrot Cake mix instead! The driver decided to give me the carrot cake mix and I would get a refund for it. Well, I don’t say no to free carrot cake!

It also gave me a chance to finally try out the bundt pan my mom gave me for Christmas from Lakeland. It’s a terrific pan. You can tell it was made from good quality metal, and as it’s from Lakeland, I can be assured it will last for many years.

I followed the directions on the box and greased the pan with some butter and flour so it wouldn’t stick. The cake came out moist and spongy – just like a cake should. As far as taste…well, there wasn’t much carrot in it. I made a carrot cake from scratch with grated carrots a few months ago, and my cake had far more of a carrot-y taste than this one. My friends I served it to compared it to a spice cake, that was how little it tasted like carrots (but it did get her kids to eat it!)

To jazz it up a bit, I made a cream cheese glaze, which is super simple:

1 pack of cream cheese, left out to get soft
200-300g icing sugar (powdered sugar)

And all you do is blend the two together with a mixer. Start with about 150g of sugar. If it’s not stiff enough or sweet enough, add more, but I wouldn’t add more than 300g, or you’ll wind up with a TON of glaze and be stuck trying to find things to use it with like I was!

Does this count as a recipe post? Sure, why not! I haven’t blogged in a week, so at least I’m getting something out there for you to read!

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, or the RSS feed(s), please notify me.

I thought I’d take a short break from recapping Austria, and show you my latest taste of home creation.

The funny thing is, I rarely ordered meatball subs if we had subs, because I usually went for a chicken cheesesteak hoagie, but I really wanted them after reading a post on a food blog about them. I suppose I could have gone to Subway and ordered one (I assume UK subway has them), but this was more fun.

I bought a pack of bake at home Petit Pans so the bread would be warm and crusty, but obviously, you could use pre-baked rolls. I also used Cheddar cheese because we always have a big block of cheddar in the fridge, but Mozzarella would make it more “authentic”. Finally, I also used turkey mince for the meatballs, but a traditional meatball sub is most likely made of beef and pork.

You will need:

500g turkey mince
1 egg
50g breadcrumbs
4TBS basil
Tomato Passata (plain tomato sauce)
Grated Cheddar cheese, about 75g
4 petit pan rolls, or other rolls

Preheat the oven to 200C.
Combine mince, breadcrumbs, egg, and 2TBS of basil and form into small balls (about an inch to two inches). Line a baking sheet or casserole dish with parchment paper or spray with cooking oil and arrange meatballs in rows. It’s OK if they touch each other, you can cut them apart later. Cook at 200C for 15-20 minutes, or until meatballs are no longer pink and are brown on top. The larger the ball, the longer they will take to cook.
Combine passata and 2TBS basil and heat through. You can do this in the microwave or on the stovetop, whichever is easier.
Slice open rolls and hollow out one side of the roll. Place meatballs inside the hollow you just made, cover with sauce, and sprinkle with cheese.

One word: Yum.

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Tim and I spent this weekend with our friends Nicky, Dave R, and Pete. The five of us have decided to get together at least once a month – they provide the pizza, we bring along a pudding (US: dessert). Last time we got together, I took an apple and blackberry crumble along. This time, I wanted to do something different.

I made a black forest cake (Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte, see? It is related to the Austria/Germany trip!) back at the beginning of August for our friend Dave B’s birthday. It was delicious – we didn’t even have a single piece left of it! Nicky and I were going through my food pics over IM and I said I thought I might make that for this weekend. To make a long story short, her brother (Dave R) made a joke about how I needed to make 5 cakes – one for each of us. Originally I had said that I thought a cupcake version of this would be too messy….but then I had to rise to the challenge, especially after someone on one of the cooking/baking communities I read posted a link to Bake it in a Cake. If that person can bake loads of things into cupcakes….I could do a black forest version. I even modelled my recipe off of their cherry chocolate cheesecake recipe.

The first attempt I made was a half-failure, I’ll be honest. I knew I wanted to take 10 cupcakes with me this weekend (2 cupcakes per person), which meant that would leave two “extra” – just enough for Tim and I to taste test them. The first batch tasted GOOD, but they were too gooey. The cupcakes were spilling out over the top of the liners, the paper stuck to the cakes, and there was just no way that the cupcakes could be eaten without a fork. The filling leaked through the bottom of the paper liner (AFAIK, they don’t sell aluminium liners in the UK) making the liner soggy. I looked back at the cheesecake recipe, and noticed that they gave their cupcakes a crust. Black Forest Gateau sometimes has a biscuit base, so I thought “why not?” and since I had plenty of batter left, attempt number two was made. I am pleased to say that the addition of the bicsuit layer helped to keep it less of a mess!

So, here’s how to make them! This recipe will make 24 Black Forest Cupcakes. I didn’t half the recipe because of the possibility of making a mistake, but when I make these again, I will probably cut the recipe in half and only make 12.

You will need:

200g biscuits (I used 100g plain digestives and 100g chocolate biscuits) (US: cookies)
150g butter, melted

125g plain chocolate (US: baking chocolate), melted*
225g butter, softened
295g sugar
3 eggs (mine were medium sized)
2 tsp vanilla extract
300g flour (I happened to have self-rising, but plain will probably work, too)
4 TBS unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking powder
3 tsp bicarbonate of soda (US: if using baking soda, only use 2tsp**)
1/4 tsp sea salt (regular salt will do fine)
320ml milk
2 tsp cherry brandy (optional)

1 can cherry pie filling
1 jar maraschino cherries
1 packet dream topping/whipped topping (US: Dream Whip or Cool Whip) or cream for whipping if you’re good at that
good quality chocolate, about 25g (for garnish)

cupcake tin
cupcake liners

hint: To melt your chocolate without worrying about it overcooking if you don’t have a double boiler (I don’t!), place a bowl filled with the chocolate in a larger bowl filled with boiling water. Be careful the water doesn’t get in the chocolate.

hint: If you have cookies/biscuits the same size as the bottom of the cupcake tin, don’t worry about the butter. Just place the cookie directly in the bottom of the paper case. An Oreo (with the filling scraped off) might work well!

hint: to make the whipped topping whip better, chill the bowl and the beaters for at least an hour before you make it.

Preheat oven to 175C and put the liners in the tin.
Melt 125g chocolate.

Make the biscuit layer by crushing the biscuits until they are a fine powder. Combine biscuits with 150g melted butter and spoon into cupcake liners. You’ll need about a teaspoonfull per each cupcake. Use your fingers to make sure the biscuit mix covers the bottom of the cupcake liner. This does not need to be super thick.

Cream together sugar, 225g butter, vanilla, and eggs. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, salt, cocoa powder, baking powder, and bicarb. If you don’t have a sifter (I don’t), either mix it together really good or push the ingredients through a strainer. Add melted chocolate to the butter mixture. Alternate adding milk and flour mixture, beating until smooth. If you have cherry brandy, add it at this time. Your batter should look light and fluffy.

(Please note, that picture is from the first batch. DO NOT fill your cupcakes that full!) Spoon 1-2 teaspoon’s worth of batter in each liner and spread the mixture so it covers the biscuit base. Then, spoon a teaspoonfull of the cherry pie topping into each liner (make sure you have at least one cherry in each cupcake). Cover the cherry filling with another teaspoon or two of batter. You shouldn’t be able to see any cherry filling.
Bake 30 minutes and allow to cool completely.

Drain maraschino cherries and make dream topping. Take your 25g of good quality chocolate and use a vegetable peeler to shave it into curls.
Put one spoonful of dream topping on each cupcake – just enough to go nearly to the edge. Top with 1-2 maraschino cherries and sprinkle with the chocolate shavings. There will be plenty of topping left. Just freeze the extra for another treat!

*I used a combination of plain chocolate, 85% cacao “good quality” chocolate, and 5 Cherry Cordial Hershey Kisses
**For unknown (and un-googleable) reasons, UK bicarbonate of soda is not as powerful as US baking soda. I’ve noticed I have to add 50% – 100% more in most of my recipes to get them to rise the same as they would have in the US.

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Every year after a holiday involving turkey, my aunt would make Turkey Tetrazzini and she would always invite my mom and I over for dinner because it “made a lot”. Each time, we’d go and I’d eat it, but I never really enjoyed it. It just never appealed to me, and I can only speculate on why. It had nothing to do with my aunt’s cooking – she’s a fabulous cook, and many of my recipes come from her. The recipe called for tinned mushrooms, and I’m just not a huge fan of mushrooms. Maybe it was the mushrooms that turned me off, I don’t know.

I was flipping through my Betty Crocker Cookbook and I came across the Chicken Tetrazzini recipe, which as far as I can tell is the same recipe my aunt always uses. A lot of my family recipes as it turns out have come straight out of Betty. That’s not a bad thing, it just shows to me that Betty’s recipes really are good. I decided there had to be a way to make this taste good to me, so I set about changing a few things to make it taste better and to make it healthier. The first thing I did was swap out those mushrooms for peas!

So here’s my take on this Betty Crocker classic.

You will need:

200g whole wheat spaghetti, broken into quarters
2 TBS butter
30g whole wheat flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
230ml chicken broth or stock
230ml milk
3 TBS red wine
225g cooked cut-up chicken
110g frozen peas
50g Parmesan cheese
50g bread crumbs

Dutch oven

Preheat oven to 175C. Cook pasta according to directions on packet.
In the Dutch oven, melt butter over low heat (if you don’t have a dutch oven, you will need a regular sauce pan and a casserole dish).
Stir in flour, salt, and pepper and cook until smooth.
Add broth and milk, bring to a boil and boil for one minute. Sauce will be creamy and thick.
Drain pasta and add to dutch oven along with chicken, peas, and red wine. Stir until coated in sauce. If you don’t have a dutch oven, transfer the mixture to a casserole dish.
Combine bread crumbs and parmesan cheese and sprinkle over top of dish.
Place uncovered in oven and bake 30-45 minutes until hot and bubbly. Check your dish after about 20 minutes. If the cheese on top is starting to burn, put the lid on.

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I read a lot of food blogs because I love to try new ideas in the kitchen, and one of the best foodie blogs out there is probably Serious Eats. Some of the posts aren’t relevant to me when they review restaurants across the US, but I still always find it interesting. SE has several recurring serials, including one called “French in a Flash“, a series of easy French recipes.

About a week or so before the super bowl, an entry appeared for Hot Dog Vol-au-Vent. The creator of the recipe describes the dish as similar to Saucisson en Croûte, which is similar to a UK sausage roll. You know what I call it? Posh (American) Pigs in a Blanket.

The reason I add the “American” marker is because UK Pigs in a Blanket are different from US ones. In the UK, most people when they describe making Pigs in a Blanket are referring to sausages wrapped in bacon. I myself made these at Christmas when I had my “rescued Christmas” dinner as they are a staple on the UK Christmas table. In the US, however, Pigs in a Blanket are usually made from hot dogs or “little smokies” and involve a tube of Pillsbury Crescent Rolls.

When I spotted the Vol-au-Vent recipe, I was curious and thought I would give it a go, but the recipe calls for onion (which I’m allergic to) and something called fleur de sel. A quick google search revealed that fleur de sel is French sea salt. I did not have any French sea salt, but I did have a canister of Saxa sea salt, so that would just have to do. As for the hot dog part – please don’t buy hot dogs in a can. At least go for the ones sold in the cooked meats aisle, like Hessey’s.

Here’s how you make my version of Posh Pigs in a Blanket.

You will need:

One sheet of puff pastry, thawed and unrolled (I bought a “light” version from Tesco)
16 pieces of hot dogs (you can cut 8 in half, or cut 5 into thirds and only make 15 – I did this and wrapped up the spare bit of pastry with just some mustard. Yum.)
Your favourite mustard (ours is Estragon Senf we brought back from Austria)
1 egg
poppy seeds
sea salt

Preheat the oven to 200C.
Take your sheet of puff pastry, and cut it in half horizontally (I used my pizza cutter), then cut each half into 8 strips.
Give each strip a dot of mustard (however much you’d like), and then roll each strip around a piece of hot dog. Place the wrapped hot dogs seam side down on a baking sheet.
Give the egg a whisk and use a pastry brush to give the tops an egg wash.
Sprinkle with poppy seeds (I used about 2 teaspoons) and sea salt.
Bake for 25-30 minutes until pastry is golden brown.

My husband enjoyed these so much he informed me that I had to make them again!

When I first visited the UK and heard the phrase “Banoffee”, I thought it meant Banana Coffee, and was immediately turned off by the idea. Then, I found out that the -offee in the name comes from toffee. Again, I wasn’t impressed, as I do not like English Toffee. Over a year later, I discovered that what the US food industry call English Toffee is not what toffee is like in the UK. Most toffee in the UK is more closely related to caramel – I’ve even seen the words used interchangeably. This, I could get behind. I’m not a super huge fan of caramel, but I like it a lot better than English Toffee!

With Tim’s promotion, I promised him any treat he wanted. We don’t do sweet treats often unless we have guests over or on special occasions. Tim picked his all-time favourite pudding (US: desert), Banoffee Pie.

I scoured the internet and my cookbooks and came up with a recipe that is Tim-approved. Ironically, this recipe also has coffee in it!

You will need:

3-4 bananas (depends on the size. I’d start with three, but have an extra just in case)
375ml can condensed milk (or caramel)
150g digestive biscuits (about half a pack)
300ml cream (or a pack of dream topping)
75g butter (melted)
1tsp coffee (instant)
1tsp sugar (I used Splenda)
1 bar good quality chocolate
water

pie plate
vegetable peeler
zipper top bag
rolling pin
electric mixer

Time saving tips:
When you’re doing your shopping, look in the condensed milk aisle. You might see a product called Carnation Caramel Dulce de Leche. Buy this instead of a can of regular condensed milk and save a step.

Pick up a pack of Bird’s Dream Topping (they even have a no added sugar version) instead of fresh cream to save on calories and for faster whipped cream (especially if you have problems with whipping cream like I do).

Directions:

Put your mixing bowl for the whipped cream in the fridge along with your beaters (this will help your whipped cream whip better).

If you haven’t found a can of caramel, you need to make it. Boil a pot of water and put the unopened can of condensed milk in the pan. boil for 3 hours, then let the can cool before you open it.

While that’s boiling, make your crust.

Put the biscuits into a zipper top bag and go over it with a rolling pin until the biscuits are a fine powder. Pour crumbs into the bottom of your pie plate and pour over the melted butter. CAREFULLY (it will be hot!) stir until the crumbs are moist and spread over the bottom and sides of your pie dish. If it looks a little dry, add some more melted butter.

After your can is cooled (or if you bought a can of caramel), open the can carefully and spread the caramel on top of the crust mixture. If you used the boil method, put the pie in the fridge for an hour or so to let it cool before the rest of the steps. You don’t need this step if you bought a can of caramel.

Slice the bananas and layer them on top of the caramel. Add as many bananas as you’d like, saving some to garnish the top.

Next, make your whipped cream or dream topping. Once it’s fully whipped, add in the instant coffee and sugar and mix until blended. Spoon this on top of the bananas.

You can make chocolate shavings to garnish by taking your bar of chocolate and running a vegetable peeler over it or by using a cheese grater. Top with some extra banana slices.

Put the pie in the fridge for at least an hour to get it to firm up.

I made mine with a can of caramel and a packet of Bird’s Dream Topping and put the whole thing together in less than an hour.

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For Christmas, Tim’s aunt gave me a cast iron dutch oven! I’m over the moon, as I’ve wanted one for ages and could never quite justify the price of one. It’s only a small one, but it’s the perfect size for us.

Tonight, I had planned on making Herbed Chicken Traybake, something we hadn’t had for a while and then I was looking up instructions on how to clean some black spots off my Corningware dish and I stumbled upon some cast iron dutch oven recipes, including one for Braised Herbed Chicken Thighs . I thought it was pretty similar to my traybake recipe, so I decided to combine the two recipes.

You will need:

1 large zipper top bag
dutch oven
1 TBS olive oil
2 TBS Flour
2 tsp Paprika
1 tsp Lemon Pepper (if you don’t have lemon pepper, use 1tsp pepper and the zest of one lemon)
2 tsp Thyme
1 tsp Oregano
Jamie Oliver’s Lemon Thyme, Bay, and Salt grinder OR 1 bay leaf and 1/2 tsp salt
skinned chicken thighs (I used 4, but had to cook them 2 at a time)
about 300g vegetables – I used a combination of Swede, Carrot, and Parsnip
400ml chicken broth (or stock)
250ml wine (great way to use up leftover Christmas wine!)
1 TBS corn flour

First things first – remove the skin from the chicken legs. It’s really not too difficult, even if it is gross! I discovered that as long as you can cut the skin at the bottom of the leg, the rest of the skin peels right off. You could probably also leave the skin on, but since the skin is supposed to be bad for you, I took it off anyway.

Step 2: Put the olive oil in the dutch oven, and heat over medium heat. Next, combine the flour, herbs, salt & pepper in a zipper top bag with a few clicks of the JO grinder. If you don’t have the JO stuff, hang onto the bay leaf for now, but add the salt. Add the chicken to the bag and shake until chicken is well-coated.

Step 3: Put the chicken (and whatever remains of the flour mixture) in the Dutch oven and cook chicken for 3 minutes on each side to lightly brown the chicken. Dissolve the corn flour in the chicken broth, and add to the chicken along with the wine and vegetables (and bay leaf, if you need it at this stage). Bring to a boil (with the lid on) and then simmer 30-40 minutes or until chicken and vegetables are done. Remove the lid the last 10 minutes or so to help the liquid thicken.

If I had been thinking when I started this, I would have tossed some potatoes into the oven to have roast potatoes, but instead, I made baked potatoes in the microwave.

I also received a ceramic Le Creuset from Tim (for oven use only), some mini glass pyrex dishes from Mom (perfect for mini pot pies) and a silicone giant cupcake cake pan from my SIL, who has informed me she wants me to bake her a giant cupcake for her birthday in February. Better start practising! Sadly, no one picked up on my hints for a new apron/pinny.

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This is an adaptation of a crock pot breakfast recipe my mom and I always make for Christmas morning, only made in a frying pan in about 20 minutes.

Potato Scramble

This recipe can easily be scaled up or down, depending on how many people you are serving

You will need:

3 slices of bacon per person, diced
1 potato per person, diced
1 small tomato per person, diced
25g frozen peas per person (optional, I really only added it for colour!)
handful of shredded cheese per person
2 eggs per person
splash of milk
oil

I used my wok because it was the largest frying pan I had.

heat oil in a large frying pan. When oil is hot, add potatoes and fry for about 5 minutes.
add diced bacon, fry for an additional 5 minutes, longer if you want crispy bacon (or do in reverse order)
add peas, fry for 5 minutes
add tomato
whisk eggs and milk, add to fry pan and continually stir to scramble egg, about 5 minutes
top with cheese, cook until cheese melts.

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[If a Lincolnshire publication would like to reprint this, just contact me!]

Lincolnshire is famous for several kinds of food. There is Lincolnshire Poacher Cheese – a sharp, biting cheese, Lincolnshire Sausage – a sausage seasoned with herbs, and another famous Lincolnshire food item is Lincolnshire Plum Bread.

No one seems to know exactly when people started making Plum Bread, other than that it is “centuries old”. Several local bakeries that have been in business since the early 20th century claim Plum Bread as one of their first specialities, so we do know that Plum Bread has been around for at least over 100 years, possibly even 200 or 300.

We also know that “plum” doesn’t refer to plum fruits or even to prunes (dried plums). “Plum” simply is a reference to dried fruit, such as calling a Christmas Pudding a “Plum Pudding”. The word “Plum” for dried fruit originated during the Middle Ages, when dried fruit was used to help preserve meat. This type of preservation continued and the recipe was modified into what we now call a Plum Pudding or a Christmas Pudding.

The use of the word “bread” to describe this food item is a bit of a misnomer as well. You wouldn’t want to use this for sandwiches. Lincolnshire Plum Bread is traditionally served at breakfast time or tea time. In medieval England, the words “bread” and “cake” were used interchangeably, and they still are today. Take for example, banana bread. Banana bread is surely more closely related to being cake, yet we call it a bread. Banana bread did not formally enter kitchens until the 1930s in America, though there is speculation that it may have been invented in the late nineteenth century by American housewives. Either way, it’s still a long way away from medieval England when either word could be used.

If Lincolnshire Plum Bread is not a bread and does not actually have plums, what is it? Lincolnshire Plum Bread is a sweet, almost cake-like cinnamon-flavoured bread with dried fruit in it – sultanas, currants, and fruit peel – that has been soaked in cold tea to help the dried fruit “plump” up.

There are several bakeries in Lincolnshire that claim to be “the original”, but perhaps the most famous brand is Myers. in 1977 a loaf was given to the queen at her silver jubilee and Myers Lincolnshire Plum Bread is served on British Airways in their first class cabin. Other brands also exist and the loaves retail for about £2.50. You can purchase Lincolnshire Plum Bread throughout Lincolnshire in small bakeries and at the co-op.

If you’re outside of Lincolnshire, hope is not lost. There are many recipes floating around on the internet for Lincolnshire Plum Bread, and I will include my own recipe, modified for a bread machine, below.

Lincolnshire Plum Bread

First, you will need some cool strong tea. The easiest way to do this is to take a glass measuring cup, put 2 tea bags in it, and fill it halfway with water from the kettle. Then, forget about it for about 5 minutes and let it get nice and dark. Remove the tea bags and add cold water to cool it down quickly.

Add about 300-400g dried fruit (sold in grocery stores as “dried mixed fruit” or use a combination of dried currants, sultanas, raisins, and peel) and let it sit until the fruit is nice and plump.

Meanwhile, get out your bread machine and add to it:

100g butter (melted)
120ml warm milk
2 eggs
450g bread flour
100g sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp allspice
1 1/2 tsp bread machine yeast

Follow the instructions on your bread machine for what order you should add ingredients. Mine calls for all the liquid to go in first, which includes the eggs. I also save time by microwaving the butter and milk together – an extra bonus is it keeps the butter from exploding all over the microwave.

Set your bread machine to a 1KG loaf (2lbs), medium crust, and use the sweet setting (on my machine, this is setting 4).

Start your bread machine.

Follow your machine’s instructions for adding fruit. Most machines will beep when they want you to add fruit, so wait for the beep, drain off the tea, and pour in the fruit. You might need to keep an eye on it for a few minutes and use a spatula to make sure all the fruit gets mixed in.

Let the bread cool in the pan for about 20 minutes before turning out. I find it’s easier to cut the bread if I let it cool completely, but by all means serve it warm!

Traditionally, Lincolnshire Plum Bread is served with butter and cheese. Give it a try, you might like it!

This bread has the seal of approval from several Lincolnshire born & raised men and women! 😀

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When you’re a kid, you don’t really think about where food comes from. An adult (usually a family member) puts a complete meal in front of you, and you eat it. Pretty simple. As you get older, you might even start helping to prepare those meals, doing small tasks like mixing or pouring. You still don’t really give much thought about where the food actually comes from, again, you just eat it when it’s placed in front of you. The same thing happens when you are away at college/university. A cafeteria worker puts food in front of you. You know that somewhere behind the buffet line there is a kitchen and staff who make things, but you hardly give it any thought.

Eventually, you might move away from your family, and into your own home. You’ve entered the “real world” and you’re probably spending too much time at work to really think about preparing food. Purchasing pre-made meals sounds like a good idea. You don’t know who made them, or how much work went into them, but they’re good.

So here I am, married, and for the first time cooking every single day. I don’t use pre-made meals and I try to make most things from “scratch”. Sometimes we buy a loaf of bread, but I most often put to use the bread machine we got as a wedding gift. I make things like spaghetti sauce and sweet & sour sauce from base ingredients. I don’t even buy pre-formed hamburger patties, preferring to mix my own mince and shape the patties by hand.

Tim got this brilliant idea that we should have a burger party sometime and make mini burgers out of all the types I make. Of course, mini burgers require mini buns, and I decided I might like to try my hand at making my own buns. I searched all over the internet, and most of the recipes seemed a bit too involved for a beginner. I don’t count my bread machine as experience at all, and the only other bread items I’ve made on my own have been things like banana bread and blueberry muffins. Nothing that involves kneading and punching and rising at any rate. I did finally stumble on a “no knead” roll recipe that I might like to try, but it involves 12 hours of rising! Which means that I either have to wake up really early in the morning to mix it together, or I need to stay up late at night to mix it together. Neither of which really appeals to me, but I still might give it a go one week when Tim’s on the overnight shift (since I never seem to sleep on those) and I need something to do.

A few days ago I was reading my Betty Crocker cookbook looking for ideas for meal planning and I stumbled on a recipe for regular dinner rolls. Now, this wouldn’t be interesting, except that there were directions for making cloverleaf dinner rolls, and as I looked at the picture in the cookbook I had one of those childhood epiphanies – this is where the Thanksgiving rolls my Aunt Beatie makes come from. Her rolls are slightly sweet, perfectly shaped, and pull apart into thirds giving you extra room for butter. She makes them ahead of time at her house in MD, and then heats them at Aunt Janie’s house before we eat.

Well, I just had to try this out for myself. Since I have a bread machine, I followed the directions for making the dough in the bread machine, and I even left the dough in the bread machine to rise (since it calls for a warm place!). Here’s the recipe. I copied it off of the Betty Crocker website, so it uses US measurements. I keep a handy chart inside my kitchen cabinet for easy converting, but I also keep a set of US measuring cups.

1 cup water [cookbook calls for room temperature]
2 tablespoons butter or margarine, softened
1 egg
3 1/4 cups Gold Medal® Better for Bread™ flour [used regular bread flour]
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons bread machine or active dry yeast [The cookbook only calls for 2 1/4]
Butter or margarine, melted, if desired

1. Measure carefully, placing all ingredients except melted butter in bread machine pan in the order recommended by the manufacturer. Select Dough/Manual cycle. Do not use delay cycle.
2. Remove dough from pan, using lightly floured hands. Cover and let rest 10 minutes on lightly floured surface. [this step was not in my cookbook. Cookbook advised to let rise for 1 hour, then if you could poke it and not have the hole fill in, you punched it down, then did step 3]
3. Grease large cookie sheet with shortening. Divide dough into 15 equal pieces*. Shape each piece into a ball. Place 2 inches apart on cookie sheet. Cover and let rise in warm place 30 to 40 minutes or until double. (Dough is ready if indentation remains when touched.)
4. Heat oven to 375°F. Bake 12 to 15 minutes or until golden brown. Brush tops with melted butter. Serve warm, or cool on wire rack.

For cloverleaf rolls, use a cupcake/muffin pan and divide roll into 45 pieces, then put three pieces in each cup.

Here’s what my rolls looked like:

Not quite as perfect as my aunt’s, but close enough!

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I know I keep posting recipes instead of blog content, but I love to cook and I love experimenting with new recipes and twisting them into my own, so here’s three recipes I’ve been playing with recently – Roasted Tomato & Spinach Quiche, Cranberry Turkey Burgers, and Lemon Herb Chicken Traybake.

Roasted Tomato & Spinach Quiche

I found this recipe on the LJ cooking community, but I modified it slightly…or a lot, depending on how you look at it.

This was enough to make two quiches – one in my quiche dish, and the other in an 8-inch pie plate.

You will need:

300 grams baby plum, cherry tomatoes, or regular tomatoes (if you use regular tomatoes, chop into pieces about the same size as cherry tomatoes would be)
1 package frozen spinach, thawed and drained (I stuck mine in a colander in the sink, then pressed a tea towel over it to push out some of the water)
50g Feta cheese, crumbled (or “reduced fat greek salad cheese”)
300g crème fraiche (or sour cream)
300g milk (yes, I realize milk is a liquid and can’t be measured in grams, but I used the Crème fraiche container to measure the milk)
8 eggs
salt & pepper
2 shortcrust pie crusts

1. Roast the tomatoes – spread tomatoes on a cookie sheet and brush lightly with olive oil. Roast for 15-20 minutes at 200C. When they are done, lower the oven to 190c.
2. Mix together eggs, creame frache, milk, salt, and pepper.
3. line 2 quiche dishes or pie plates with crusts.
4. Divide tomatoes, spinach, and feta between the two dishes
5. Divide the egg mixture as evenly as possible between the two dishes and bake for 45 minutes

My second recipe is for Cranberry Turkey Burgers. Again, I found the recipe online as a link from a blog I regularly read, though right now I can’t remember which blog it was (if it was you, remind me so I can link you)!

So…my version!

Cranberry Turkey Burgers

You will need:

1/2 cup breadcrumbs
1 tbs dried Sage
500g turkey mince (ground turkey)
1 cup dried cranberries
1 egg
Salt & pepper
Handful of grated cheese (optional)

Combine all ingredients and shape into patties. Again, I made them about the size of my palm and got 10 out of the mixture. Grill until done. I did it on a George Forman and they only took about 4-5 minutes in batches of four.

I served it with cranberry ketchup and fresh salad leaves from my garden. The recipe for the ketchup was on the blog I found the link on, and it was quite simple. Just combine equal parts cranberry sauce with ketchup. Again, if it was your blog, please leave me a comment so I can give a link!

And the last recipe was created this morning. I had wanted to make the Spiced Chicken Traybake recipe I clipped out of Prima magazine, but when I tasted the spice mix after mixing it, I decided I didn’t like it, so I created my own spices as I already had everything else ready!

Lemon Herb Chicken Traybake

You will need:

Chicken legs (I bought a pack of 4)
Diced swede (I wound up with a bag of “root vegetables for mash” that also had parsnips and carrot)
Cauliflower
3 TBS olive oil
2 TBS fresh thyme (I used lemon thyme)
2 TBS fresh oregano leaves
1 TBS dried basil (If I had fresh, I’d have used it)
1 TBS dried sage (ditto)
1/2 TBS lemon pepper (if you don’t have lemon pepper, use regular pepper)
1 lemon or lemon juice

1. Preheat oven to 220C. Boil the swede/root veg for about 5 minutes (just to get it slightly tender). If you used fresh cauliflower, boil that too.
2. De-skin the chicken. I didn’t do it this time, but I will in the future as there was a lot of fat in the bottom of the pan, and most of that comes from the skin.
3. Combine herbs and olive oil
4. Spread swede (root veg) in the bottom of your roasting tray and arrange chicken on top. Put cauliflower in the gaps between chicken.
5. Brush oil mixture on chicken and exposed veg, cut and squeeze lemon over dish.
6. Bake for 45 minutes, or until juices in chicken run clear.

Serve with gravy and roasted potatoes. Gives a roast dinner a new spin!

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[This post also appeared on the LiveJournal cooking community]

Tim just called tonight’s meal “The Best Burgers Ever”. He might be biased, of course.

I had a package of pork mince in my freezer. It, along with a pack of minced turkey was supposed to be Swedish Meatballs out of the new Jamie Does… cookbook. BUT, when we had Ben and Marie over for Tea on Saturday, Marie requested spaghetti. Since I made spaghetti with meatballs that night, I decided we probably didn’t want meatballs quite yet. But we still needed dinner.

Turkey mince lends itself to all sorts of other Italian dishes and assorted “hamburger helper” type skillet meals…but I wasn’t in the mood for that. I was in the mood to experiment with the pork. So I asked myself, “what goes with pork?” and came up with – Apples. Porkchops and Applesauce, Pork Stew with Cider, etc. etc. Tim likes pork and apples together. So…here’s what I came up with!

You will need:

500g package of pork mince
1 apple
1/2 tsp cinnamon
handful of fresh parsley
about a half cup breadcrumbs
1 egg
Worcestershire sauce
pepper (I cranked my rainbow grinder about 30 times)
handful shredded cheese (optional, I just happened to have some leftover)
rolls
handful spinach leaves/rocket/watercress/lettuce/whatever
tomato (sliced)
applesauce (I used homemade, I’m sure jarred would be fine).

1) Peel and shred apple, then use your hands to squeeze out as much juice as you can (I squeezed mine into a glass to drink! LOL)
2) In a large bowl, combine pork, breadcrumbs, parsley, cinnamon, the egg, the shredded apple, and the shredded cheese. Season with pepper and add a dash of Worcestershire. Use your hands to really mix everything together. If the mixture feels too wet, add more breadcrumbs (I wound up adding part of a stale baguette).
3) Shape into patties about the size of the palm of your hand. I have small hands, so I made 10 burgers

I cooked these on my George Foreman. Time varied between 6 to 8 minutes, depending on how thick the burgers were. I topped the burgers with the lettuce and tomato, and then a spoonful of warm applesauce along with some HP (aka “brown sauce”) Sauce for Tim, ketchup for me.

I forgot to take a picture of the finished burgers, but here are the six I have leftover to freeze for the future:

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