*Mixed spice *Soft Brown sugar *Oats *Oat Bran *chopped nuts *Raisins *Mixed candied peel *Goats milk
Basically I threw it all into the slow cooker and left it to cook on high heat with the occasional stir. We had it christmas morning with special christmas tea that was all cinnamony.
The two worked well together, it was also just the sort of start we needed as it was quiet cold and we had a hectic five hours of cooking ahead of us!
We were rushing about getting those last few Christmas bits out of the way when we happened to visit the new retial/industrial park in Gloucester – mainly I had to pop into Hobbycraft for a few bits which will no doubt appear on Salaric-Craft. We had an hour and a half left before we needed to leave for a tea party with my husbands elderly aunt and we realised that though we had fed Jean we had forgotten to eat anything ourselves and so we decided a nice meal would be a good idea.
No my favourite food ever is Pizza and there was a Pizza Hut there all shiny and new so we thought we’d go in there.
They sat us down and told us someone would be over shortly. Jeany had colouring crayons and was asking when the food was coming. And then we sat, and sat and sat and watched everybody around us being served and then people who had come in after us were served and still no one came.
I then started trying to attract the waitresses attention but they both seemed to be ignoring me and I started to feel most agrieved and angry. To be fair they seemed woefully under staffed but I was famished and I could smell food and Jean kept asking where her food was and she was all excited.
Then I decided I would go to the counter to order but we checked the time and only had half an hour left – eek! We’d waited for about an hour and now there was not enough time to get the food and eat it before we needed to leave.
I’m afraid I went up and told the girl who had seated us this and she apologiesed and I apologised for walking out but we just did not have any time left. It would appear each waitress thought the other was serving us but that didn’t help us and I am really quiet angry about this.
Anyway we still needed to eat so we jogged over to the Burger King that is in the same suite of retial outlets and ordered food to eat on the way home. But they got the order wronge – we were in such a rush we didn’t notice until we were already on the road.
I thought that with all recipies appearing on here with cloves in them that I had better warn everybody that cloves can be poisonous if consumed in large amounts. We learnt this the hard way last christmas and it is documented in detial on our personal blog if you want to learn more.
Make up a jug of slighlty neat ribina blackcurrent cordial, add this and a carton of orange juice to a large suacepan or wok on a medium to gental heat. Add a cinnamon stick, a cup of demeria sugar, slices of orange and apple, a teaspoon of cloves, some ginger and nutmeg in a muzlin bag (or you could use those mulled wine teabag things from the super market).
Stir and once steaming laddle into heat tollerent wine glasses or mugs depending on how elegant you feel like being!
*1 bottle of red wine *1/2 a carton of orange juice *1 cup of brandy (we’ve been using french brandy) *1 cinnamon stick *1 mug of demara sugar (any sugar will do its just this gives it an extra taste that we like) *1 teaspoon of cloves *1 mixed spices in a muslin bag or a mulled wine sachet from the super markets *1 Apple *1 orange *3 small red chillis
Basically put everything into a large suacepan and gently heat, the fruit should be cut into slices and float on the top. You probably want to add the sugar and stir it in before you add the fruit. Top up with water.
You might want to warn your guests first! Unlike my friend Simon who gave me a glass at his New Year party last year:/
I have made a few things from recipes from the All Recipes Website though it did take me a bit of hunting to find how you actually find the recipes:/
There are tabs along the top of the orange/yellow bar which open little sub-windows. Still it is a fantastic resource!
I picked up this strange morrow/squash type thing in a vegitable and flower shop thats connected with Moo Moos a cafe along the Bath road near Cheltenham (it might be part of Cheltenham and it might infact be the Old Bath Road I’m not sure).
Anyway it was like 30p and I was doing a Halloween party and decorating the village hall with a spooky fruit and veg feel. I had no idea what it was and started asking around. It fitted into my hand and had a sort of waxy feel to it. There was no lable on the basket it came from and I asked around – I got some very silly answers – namely ‘pig marrow’ from one of my husbands friends who then confessed he hadn’t got a clue.
Apparently it is a gourd – the sort of thing that used to be hollowed out to make bowls and things in olden times. This would fit with the waxy feel of the skin and the fact that it didn’t go rotten until one of our kitten chewed a corner off of it:/
But if anybody knows anything else about this or anything related please let me know!
Ages ago before we were flooded and I had no kitchen and the like, we were having a loving BBQ with our friend Seth who had come to visit us for the weekend!
Don’t panic its not petrol he’s pouring on the BBQ its just vegatable oil as being a vegitarian BBQ we have issues with no fat dripping down onto the charcoal etc….
We had lots of fun which included using my llechwan (bake stone/piece of cast iron) to cook onions on 🙂 We now do this when ever we have BBQ’s we did it several times this summer, including the end of term Scouts BBQ. However the bake stone takes an age to cool down again – I have been known to accidently leave circluar burn marks in the grass from this – but the fried onions really set the burgers and hotdogs off I have to say and if there’s only on BBQ it gives the veggi burgers some where safe to lurk so they don’t get splashed by meat fat. Also some of the vegitable burgers have a nasty habit of actually falling to pieces on the grills of BBQ’s on the llechwan it doesn’t.
My nan would probably not approve though! Infact I need to do another post on how I came to own this particular bake stone!
For Halloween we had had a two pumpkins and so I scooped all the seeds and fibrous bit in the middle out. I then seperated out all the seeds and laid them on a backing tray. I then put then in the oven at 180 degrees C for about 20 minutes (at least that was the plan I actually forgot about them).
I removed them and they were starting to go a dark brown which gave them a lovely taste. I also ground some sea salt onto them, scooped them all into an oriental style black bowl and put them out as a snack at a birthday party.
You may have noticed that alot of bean hotch potch of various types has been appearing on here recently – this all stemmed from university days and the effort to eat on a budget and being bored of baked beans.
The origonal was baked beans bunged in the wok and pushed around until most of the liquid had gone and the beans were slightly more mushy that normal – value baked beans turned out to be perfect for this. I then found that adding mixed herbs and abit of salt and pepper made a great differnce.
Then at some point I decided to start adding left overs – so cheese and tuna and bacon and chicken and various other things begain to be added – it was then that it became a hotch potch of what ever I happened to have lurking when I made it up. The name stuck.
I always liked to add lee n perrins worchestershire suace to it but when I moved in with my hubby he informed me it contained anchovies and so he couldn’t eat it for the simple reason that he is veggi. So I then turned to tabasco sauce and about 2 years ago discovered you could by fajita seasoning which works well.
My brother makes a version of these baked beans that blows your head off – he calls it Flamey Davies Beans.
Rescently I discovered that there are other typed of bean other than the retched workhorse – Baked Beans. This is a releif as my father will not eat baked beans and so I have had to carfully look around for a version he would eat. The supermarkets currently have a huge cariety of tinned bean and so I have simply gone out and spent £30 on beans, lentils and the like and am happily experiementing.
At some point I will get on to bean salads but for now I will continue recounting how to make various hotch potches!
Hotch potch is a term used in my family to denote a mix and match of things that could be seen as a bit odd or heath robinson or very patchwork and thrown together – not sure if they are real words and don’t really care – enjoy your beans – they are good for you remember! (well it says it all over the tins!).
