The One With the Made Up Meals

I’ve been making up a lot of meals in my head recently.

I can’t actually claim to have written any recipes but neither am I following any. It must be something to do with being more right brained than left and not wanting to follow instructions

If I do make something from a recipe book I can’t help ‘tinkering’ with it until eventually it’s beyond all recognition of the original. I rarely look at a cookbook anyway, unless it’s for the proportions for Yorkshire puddings; for some reason I always have to look that up, or buy Aunt Bessie’s, who is known in this house as the patron saint of the roast dinners.

I’ve been creating desserts with bags of frozen berries, making apple and leek stuffing to accompany roast pork and rustling up a sort of bubble and squeak with left over roast potatoes, ham, cranberry sauce and peas. Don’t knock until you try it. Although I’ve had several friends question the existence of a ‘left over roast potato’.

The boy had a run on brioche for breakfast recently. For some reason he called them brioche sausage rolls, (they were rolls but contained no sausage), and it was all he’d eat for weeks, then suddenly he announced there were ‘balls’ in them and he wouldn’t eat them anymore.

No, I don’t know what he means either. I can only assume it was a dry bit or a clump of dough or something, but once he’d found it that was the end of the love affair with brioche.

So when my friend Actor Laddie and his family came for Sunday lunch I had a whole 8 pack of brioche rolls that needed ‘using up’ as my Mum would say.

So I came up with 'White Chocolate and Raspberry Brioche Bread and Butter Pudding'. 

Split a pack of 8 brioche rolls lengthways so you have 16 pieces and butter them.

Arrange a layer of 8 pieces in a deep roasting dish.

Scatter over half a punnet of raspberries and half a 100g packet of white chocolate chips or a white chocolate bar broken into pieces.

Do it all over again with the other 8 pieces of brioche, the raspberries and white chocolate.

Make a custard with 3 beaten eggs, 600 ml (1 pint) of milk and 50g of light soft brown sugar whisked together until the sugar is dissolved and the eggs are incorporated. I added a dash of single cream as well because I had some to go with the pud once it was cooked.

Pour the custard over the brioche and let it soak in for about half an hour before baking at 180C (160C fan) Gas Mark 4 for 40 to 45 minutes.

I did it on 160C for 40 minutes because my oven is fierce and even after nearly a year in this house I’m still coming to terms with how it can burn something to a crisp in seconds. My cake baking prowess is nowhere near what it was because of that bloomin’ oven.

The pudding was declared a success and I would’ve posted a picture but we wolfed it all down before I thought about taking one.

After this makeshift masterpiece I’m going to have a go at something that doesn't sound like a proper recipe but actually is; brussel sprout risotto, which was sent to me by a fellow blogger and Twitter pal. 

There’s a glut of sprouts on the fields round here so they’re going for a song. Well they can be rather a ‘musical’ vegetable…

The One With Christmas in July

There's only 14 sleeps left and it'll all be over.

I'm talking about the big C word.

Yes Christmas! With a fortnight to go things are really hotting up in the run up to the big day. Yet how many times do you hear people say?

‘It'll soon all be over.’

Or,

‘Lets get Christmas out of the way first.’

Or something similar and frankly quite negative.

I on the other hand adore Christmas and never want it to be over. The lead up to it is particularly exciting and my favourite time of the year.

So starting my run up to Christmas in the summer, by being invited to the Tesco Christmas in July launch of their seasonal lines, was a special treat.

Off I went to fancy London to an even fancier 5 star hotel, The Westbury Hotel, which was a beautiful setting (and had Molton Brown hand wash in the loo's – always a sign of quality) to immerse myself in festive fun. The fact that it was 30 degrees in the shade and Andy Murray was in the semi finals at Wimbledon that day didn't deter me.

Walking into the room I entered a winter wonderland. Now I love Christmas but even I had to take a sharp intake of breath at the sight that greeted me. 

These are actually made of meringue 

There was everything you could ever wish for,  decorations, toys, gifts, beauty even Christmas touches for the garden and of course food! Lots and lots of food, which is where I gravitated and pretty much stayed for the whole morning.














Gifts in food are big this Christmas, as well as food where a lot of the hard work has been done for you and you just need to add the final touches at home. This ham with oranges, which serves 20 and you cook in a bag then add the fruit, fills the kitchen with gorgeous festive smells. It tasted yummy too. Oh yes there were samples on offer. 

Or this baking brie where you add the fruit topping.

All the buyers were very knowledgable about their area of food expertise and as you can imagine I was very keen to stand and chat to them for as long as possible, especially when they had samples to taste. Or get all over you. I'd only been there half and hour and somehow I managed to tread on some pate. It's a skill being as messy as I am.

I have to say all the food looked amazing and in the next two weeks it's the busiest time for stocking up the larder, the fridge and freezer for all the roasting and feasting that lies ahead. 

Hoping hubby isn't reading this I fully intend to get him this continental meat platter, which comes with the wooden board, as a stocking filler but what I really wanted to get him was 

the Italian prosciutto 10 months matured ham, which not only comes with it's own stand but it's own carving knife and an instruction DVD! Seriously! 


Unfortunately it was out of my price range at £75 and I'm probably too late to order it in now anyway. However every year hubby and I promise ourselves we're going to buy a 'comedy ham' for Christmas - you know the kind of thing - the sort that looks like Tom is going to chase Jerry with it - with a leg end to hold and a massive white circle of bone running through it. 

This beauty may well be on our Christmas list next year!

Desserts are big this Christmas too, which is a bonus for me. I can just about knock up a trifle but, although I pride myself on being a reasonable cook, if it doesn't start with an onion I'm lost, so I often buy in a dessert.

These boozy jellies flavoured with Bucks Fizz, White Russian and Strawberries and Champagne are perfect for a dinner party with the adults on Christmas Eve after the children have, eventually, gone to bed.

For Christmas day itself this Morello cherry and dark chocolate parcel would be a stunning alternative to a Christmas pud. 

I pretty much concentrated on the food area but in the other areas of the event the styling was wonderful, either pure white winter wonderland or the red and white of Scandi Style, which I have to say is my favourite.

The feel was very traditional with a twist, the twist being that the stylists take on gingerbread houses was to construct them from old fashioned biscuits. The kind that I remember from the 'Family Circle' tin at Christmas. So we had custard creams, nice and jammy dodgers made into elaborate fairytale houses bedecked with red and white striped candy cane roofs. 








I would love to try and replicate this look at home, but I fear my 'styling' skills are more of a case of hope over any actual skill. If I did manage to get my house looking 'on trend' what the boy didn't destroy, the cat would wee over, so I'll be leaving the biscuit houses to the professionals but I have gone all red and white Scandi this year which is so effective but simple to do. 

Some bloggers had brought their children with them to the event, which was lovely to see but extremely brave. My boy would've have trashed the place in 30 seconds flat, and it was a big room!

All in all I had an amazing day out thanks to Tesco. Re-visiting all my notes and pictures this week has certainly got me in the mood for my Christmas food shopping.

If you want more inspiration for Christmas ideas then visit  http://www.tesco.com/christmas and have a very Merry Christmas. 

The One with the Chunky Monkey Cake, the Roast Dinner and the Cleaning

The last couple of weeks have been particularly tough for various reasons. Worries about friends, family, my work, Granddad Ah Oh's work and Hubby's work have all come together like buses. Or Nanu's as the boy would say!


We're coming through it and soon I'll be able to tell you more but what I can say at the moment is that I've been surprised by my reaction to it all.


I've come over all house proud!


I've made a list of all the chores that need doing around the home. Nothing unusual about that. I love a list. But I've actually been doing them! 


Yesterday I swept floors, did the food shopping, threw out dead flowers and re-arranged the live ones, cleaned the kitchen cupboards, surfaces and sink, made a cake and cooked a roast dinner.


Here's the link for the recipe for Chunky Monkey Cake. 


http://www.foodnetwork.co.uk/recipes/yummy-chunky-monkey-cake-ru289832.html


Because I don't think I've ever made a recipe I haven't fiddled with, I replaced three teaspoons of plain flour with cocoa. I only used three bananas, otherwise the mixture is too sloppy. I used milk chocolate chips and instead of walnuts I used dried apricots, but sometimes I use raisins or sultanas, I just didn't have any in because the boy had eaten them all! 

I have a cup of tea and a slice by my side as I type.


The boy helped me. Well in as much as he stood and watched as I explained each stirring, whisking, chopping, bowl scraping process and shouted "cake, cake, cake" at me assuming that it would magically appear like the shopkeeper in Mr Benn. It's very hard to get a 17 month old to understand it takes 45 minutes to cook at Gas mark 5!


After the boy had gone to bed I did roast chicken for mine and hubby's dinner with a very drinkable glass of Pinot Grigio  (or two!)

Bless hubby, after all that activity he washed up what the dishwasher wouldn't take.


I have no idea if this flurry of cleaning, tidying, cooking and general housewifery will last but I'm finding it all very strange.


For Christ sake I even did some ironing!


Things must be bad!