Lucky dip...baked sea bream

It's been a busy couple of days...we are having building works starting on Monday with a wall being demolished, the kitchen being ripped out (sniff...) etc, so we are having to box everything up. The end result will (hopefully) be a lovely space to cook and eat and we can't wait to have it all finished.  Since Keith the dog will most likely be too keen to help, we have decided to move out for the duration of the works - the builders will be living here in the meantime.

There hasn't been much time for trying out recipes whilst all this has been going on and we've been keeping it simple.  In fact, for the last couple of days we have been having a lot of leftovers from our freezer.  The thing is that I keep forgetting to label my freezer bags and boxes, so now and again we don't know what we will have to eat until it's been defrosted.  I call it lucky dip ;-)  Tonight we definitely were lucky as I knew what was in the package - sea bream.  I simply topped it with a bit of butter and tarragon and put some garlic and chorizo inside (using up some bits and pieces from the fridge before it gets turned off next week) - we then baked it in foil in the oven for 25 minutes at 180 degrees and had it with oven chips and salad.  Simple and delicious!

Of white blossoms and white asparagus

The last few days have just flown by and my mum's visit has come to an end - she's now on her way to London to spend time with my brother and his family.  Keith the dog is wondering where the latest member of his pack has disappeared to :-)  We had a lovely time together and just before she had to leave today, we went for another walk, taking pictures of the beautiful blossoms in the park (my mum uses her photos to make really lovely greeting cards).

I've really enjoyed serving homemade cakes, bread and dinners.  One of the dishes we had was actually one that is very popular in Germany at this time of year: white asparagus, new potatoes and cold cuts (usually ham).  My mum brought local asparagus from the market with her.  I can't remember the last time I had this - it's so tasty and very quick to prepare. 

A great idea for cooking the asparagus:  peel the asparagus and use the peel and some salt water to make a broth in which to then cook the asparagus. It intensifies the flavour.  The asparagus itself needs to be cooked for approximately 10 minutes (longer than the green thinner variety available in the UK).  Serve with boiled new potatoes, ham and a creamy mustard sauce (click here for the sauce recipe) - yummy and for me a real taste of home.




 

Something a bit different...Baba Ganoush

Baba ganoush

Writing about the houmous recipe the other day reminded me of another beautiful little dip/sandwich filling that I love: baba ganoush.  This yummy aubergine (eggplant) dish has a lovely smoky flavour and is great with flatbreads like roti (see the recipe here), as a dip with crudites or in a sandwich.  Makes a nice change.

We are hoping for some sunshine today to show off the best of the Welsh coast to my mum.  Fingers crossed ;-)

Wishing you a lovely weekend - I'll be back next week with some more tasty recipe ideas!

Houmous, hummus, humous?

1952 edition

Mr Happy Larder is on his way to London to collect my mum from the airport whilst I finish making the last preparations.  The house is clean and tidy, there's food ready for when they arrive.  And whilst I am happy and excited, I also know how lucky we are and feel for the people of Oklahoma who have suffered so badly as a result of the tornado - it never ceases to shock me how Nature can be so beautiful and yet so cruel at the same time.

As I was tidying up, I found yet another old cookbook.  This one is a 1952 edition of Duncan Hines' " Adventures in Good Cooking" - it's brilliant and has fabulous recipes as well as lots of little captions which make for very entertaining reading.  Here's a quote that I am sure would not appear in a cookbook nowadays: "A word to dinner givers.  Please have ashtrays larger than thimbles.".  That really made me laugh :-)  I will see if I can find some easy recipes in there that will appeal...

One that definitely appeals to me is this easy version of houmous.  I always used to eat the shopbought version, thinking it would be impossible to make it at home and get it to taste right.  Well, I was wrong - it's super easy and the homemade version tastes delicious.  No need for additives or similar - just a handful of simple ingredients.  This is perfect in salad stuffed pitta bread pockets, as a dip for crudites,...

Food when we were kids - potato roesti

My mum will be coming to visit on Wednesday for a few days and I want to have some nice things prepared for when she arrives.  I made the base for a coffee walnut cake and some jam donut muffins - all safely stored in the freezer now and ready to be finished off when she's here. 

As I was baking, I thought back to when we were kids and how much patience she must have had to bake and cook for all of us.  I thought the same when I cooked dinner last night because it was something she used to make for us (or at least a variation of it): potato roesti.  I am sure she would have made 30 - 40 of these to feed all of us kids and no doubt they all disappeared within minutes.  Her version, the traditional German "Reibekuchen", contains both flour and eggs but the ones I made last night are just potato, onion and seasoning. 

Both types go extremely well with homemade apple sauce or you could top them with a dollop of sour cream and some smoked salmon.  Delicious! 

We had the traditional apple sauce and black pudding (not everyone's cup of tea but we like it, especially when baked in the oven as it's not greasy at all).

I think they make for a very nice change and go with pretty much anything that normally calls for potatoes as a side dish. 

Quick food for busy people

Wanna play a game?

There are days that are really busy and productive when I can't wait to do stuff and others when I find it hard to get going.  Today was a good busy day, hence the late post.  There were chores to be done and preparations to be made for our building works (more on that another time).  Keith the dog tried his hardest to distract me - it was very difficult to resist.

Being busy usually means that food needs to be quick but we still don't want to compromise on taste.  Yesterday, I made a lovely oven-baked fish dish for dinner which I can highly recommend.

 I love food that can be done in the oven and "forgotten about" - mind you, I almost did with this one and the crust turned out to be a little darker than planned.  Anyway, that aside, this easy and yummy recipe with a Mediterranean twist went down a treat and was prepared and cooked in just over half an hour.  Ideal for those busy times during the week.

Have a lovely weekend!

An interesting read

The sun came out a little this morning but still no bees buzzing in the garden.  I am really quite worried, especially after hearing about their decline too in other parts of the world.

We have plenty of flowers and bushes in bloom in the garden and there should be plenty of insect activity but...nada, nothing, zilch.  Mr Happy Larder and I are seriously considering hand-pollinating our apple tree this year which might be ok for us to do on one tree but think about orchards?  And it's not just apples - bees pollinate a large variety of crops including different types of berries, tomatoes etc.  I have found a great report by Friends of The Earth and the University of Reading here in the UK that you might find interesting, even if you don't live in the UK:  "Reviving British Bees - why we need a National Bee Action Plan".


On a more cheerful note, I have found a great recipe that I am going to try out for dinner tonight, so watch this space tomorrow for another (hopefully) tasty supper idea.

Cookie monster

It's been absolutely shocking weather here - yesterday especially we had torrential downpours and temperatures never got over 8 degrees.  Brrrr!  Now, it's not just that I hate getting cold and wet when walking Keith the dog but on a much more serious note I am very concerned about the impact the weather is having on crops etc.  I haven't seen more than a couple of butterflies so far this year and the bees are not really coming out, so how on earth are plants going to get pollinated?

To cheer us up, I made a couple of batches of biscuits (cookies) which turned out rather lovely with a slight crunch on the outside but soft & chewy middle: chocolate chip & hazelnut and cranberry & blueberry oat ones. 

Both were definite winners and replacing some of the flour with oats (as suggested by Mr Happy Larder) gave a great texture to the fruit ones.  I didn't have quite enough dried berries, so used some frozen ones instead which tasted yummy but made for slightly soft biscuits the following day.  I'd recommend using just dried fruit if you are planning on storing these.


A couple of these with a hot mug of tea helped us forget the rainy day ;-)

Cheap & cheerful fridge cooking

I am slowly working my way through the handwritten cookbook I found the other day.  What a treasure trove it is turning out to be!  There are some wonderful ideas in there and one especially captured my imagination: what I would call a "French Toast Quiche" is the ideal meal to use up old bread and other bits and pieces from the fridge and cupboard.  

I made a portion of this for lunch today and loved it!  The bread makes a lovely crispy base, the topping tastes just like a quiche (all without the hassle of making pastry).  Another bonus: the ingredients can be varied according to what you have to hand and served with a simple side salad, this tasty dish won't break the bank either.  Perfect fridge cooking!

Strawberries and cream

When I was a little girl, one of our birthday treats was to choose our the cake for the day.  For me, it was always the same:  a sponge base topped with a light and creamy fruit mousse.  It's called "Mandarinenquarksahnetorte" in German (we like our long words) and still is my absolute favourite. The mousse is made from a mixture of quark (a soft curd cheese very popular in Germany, similar to fromage frais), whipped cream, fruit (mandarin segments), a little sugar and gelatine - it's really easy to make and tastes utterly divine.

At the weekend, I decided to make a variation of the above, using strawberries.  And since the two of us could hardly eat a whole big gateaux by ourselves, we had a couple of little individual ones instead. 

The result was the taste of summer on a plate. :-)

What I love about this recipe is how versatile it is - you can use pretty much any fruit you like (fresh or tinned), change the base to a biscuit crumb one or leave it out completely, serving the topping as a dessert. Or why not fill a Swiss roll (see link) with this?

I had some sponge in the freezer that was left over from my rainbow cake baking (see link), so I used that as my base with dessert rings* (see note) cutting out small rounds and providing the support for the filling.  The base was topped with a spoonful of strawberry jam and I then filled the rings almost to the top with the mousse.  The little cakes rested in the fridge for 30 - 45 minutes to allow the filling to set and were then gobbled up within seconds.

I reckon a birthday cake is good on any day!

PS:  One of the blog readers was after a recipe for a strawberry cake a little while ago - unfortunately, I can't find who it was but I hope this recipe will be useful...