My friend Andy sent me these dip recipes.
Mayonnaise Pesto Dip Mix 3 tablespoons mayonnaise with 1-2tsp green/red pesto.
Mayonnaise Sweet Chilli Dip Mix 3 tablespoons mayonnaise with 1tsp sweet chilli sauce.
Mayonnaise Mustard Dip Mix 3 tablespoons mayonnaise with 1-2tsp wholegrain mustard.
Pear Oat Crumble
Another scrummy desert from Becca!
Ingredients
Filling 2 pears peeled, deseeded and sliced 4 tbsp water 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
Crumble Topping 100g rice flour sifted 3 tbsp soya butter 50g dark muscovado sugar 80g oats 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• Put all the filling ingredients into a saucepan and simmer for 10-15 mins untill pears are soft.
• For the crumble topping sift the flour and add chunks or cubes of the soya butter and rub in to make “beradcrumbsâ€. Add the sugar, oats and cinnamon and mix well.
• Divide the pears and juice into 4-6 ramekins, top with the crumble mixture.
• Bake in preheated oven at 180oC for 15-20 mins untill the topping is golden.
Tips • Can use apples instead of pears. Can use plums and nutmeg instead of pears and cinnamon. • Poach the pears in 4 tbsp of cherry brandy or tawny port instead of water. • Add 1tbsp of grated fresh ginger to the crumble topping for extra spice.
*Dash of veg. oil *5 juruselum artichokes *4 potatoes *2 medium onions *4 cloves of garlic *1 teaspoon of turmeric *1 teaspoon of curry spice *1 jar of Morrisons stupidly cheap curry suace in jar – 5p! *5 cardamon pods
Peel the artichokes and potatoes Cut them into chunks Chop and gently fry the onions and garlic (a large wok type pan is good for this) Add the potatoes and artichokes Cover in water and mix in spices The cardamon pods should be in a muslin bag hanging over the side of the pot (we however do not have such a bag and so had to remember how many pods we had put in, in the hope of fishing them out later!) Cook slowely for an hour Add sauce And cook a bit longer on a slightly higher temperature.
To continue on from last weeks post I thought I should mention the other book that I picked up along with the WI Jam book and Food For Free and that is Favourite Country Preserves, Traditional Home-made Jam, Chutney and Pickle Recipes compiled by Carol Wilson.
This contained recipes for things like quinces and medlars which I had previously never heard off but have been subsequnetly given baskets full off – to ‘do something with’. Its a nice little book as far as I’m concerned and I have used it muchly!
Though I haven’t really blogged about it yet I do tend to make alot of preserve, jams and chutneys mainly. This stems from my Dad making red current jelly and the like when I was a child – we also always went blackberring and stuff.
When I first moved to the country I was on crutches and unable to work – not to mention had a new baby so I set my self up with a lovely preserving pan from a Kitchen Shop in stroud I think its called Mills and I ordered some books.
One of them was part of the Best-Kept Secrets of the Women’s Institute called Jams, Pickles and Chutneys by Midge Thomas.
This has proved to be the best companion to my Food For Free book whihc I mentioned a few weeks ago.
I read the whole book from cover to cover and absorbed the information on what makes a good jam, the different methods for assessing weather the jams are ready and the like. This information has set me up well to experiment and alter recipes depending on what fruit appears in our garden (or on the doorstep from various people in the village) and what I can scavange from local hedge rows.
It even has a hedgerow jam which was the first thing I made in my preserving pan. The preserving pan and all the other things I have bought more than paid for themselves within two years of having them 🙂 And this is also the reason why everyone who knows me tends to get some home made preserve for Christmas!
Becca’s Chocolatey Orange and Cointreau Mousse [wheat, dairy and egg free!]
I was craving something sweet and chocolately but didn’t have any pudding so i kind of adapted and merged two recipes together and discovered a gorgeous rich chocoalte mousse. It is also wheat and dairy free.
Ingredients 6oz soya butter 6oz icing sugar 2oz cocoa [though i used ~4 oz cocoa] Juice of one orange [or 1 cup of orange juice] 1 shot (~30 ml) Cointreau
• use a table spoon to mash the soya butter into the icing sugar. Keep stiring untill you get “butter creme†of smooth consistancy
• Stir in the cocoa a fraction at a time. Taste the chocolate mouss and keep adding cocoa untill you have a flavour that you like
• Stir in the orange juice and Cointreau.
• Taste the mousse add a little more cocoa or icing sugar if you want.
Tips This mousse is great served with fresh strawberries and/or rasberries. It can be quite rich so don’t induldge too much!!!
Food for Free is the title of one of the most useful books I have come across its by Richard Mabey and without it I would never have attempted half my recipes – The book goes through the plants, fungi and shell fish that can be found in the UK. It tells you a bit about their history, where they like to be found, how to identify them and often there is a little recipe or tip on what you can substitute it for.
It dates from the 1970’s and when I bought a copy I was informed it was out of print but I have recently seen a brand new version of it in the book shops!
Yellow Split peas soaked as the instructions on the packet suggested poured out the water zapped them in the blender till pulped Add spices to taste: crushed garlic chillis cumin seeds corriander powder
Finely chop fresh lovage and add to the mix – warning this can over power things so you might need to experiement a bit to get the taste you want!
Mixed it all together well formed it inot little cakes about 5 cm across Fry in veggi oil until crisp
I discovered a new food that was YUMMY YUMMY YUMMY last week – me and Alaric were taken to Goldersgreen for dinner and there we discovered the delight of flaffles in a sort of cross between a pitta bread and tortia with some with some really nice humous and other sort of aubagine dip thing.
So yesturday imagine my joy when looking for food for me an Jean I come across a chickpea flaffle, in a medaterrian style flatebread in the first I came across that I could get into easily with the pushchiar (Happened to be a Starbucks so things werent exactly cheap!). Now I knew it wouldn’t be as good but I was severlly disappointed with it so now I’m thinking I have two options – a) hunt around for the best flaffle there is or… b) find out how to make them myself and get good at it? Oh well looks like it’ll be about ten yrs before I get the yummy again 🙁
Still the flaffle tasted very familiar to me which has been puzzling me since I first tasted (Well actually since the second time I tasted it as the first time I’d accidently got Alarics and therefore could taste nothing but chillis!). I think it is a taste remaniscant of something that my nan used to make but I really don’t have a clue.
I’m also awear that I have probably spelt stuff wrong as I’m running on phonetics here!
Origonally taken from my personal blog.
