Baked Sweet Potatoes

Hello.  I am still cooking but I just haven't been blogging as of late.  I've been a bit Lidl happy lately; have a look here

I've had baked sweet potatoes before.  It's amazing how vibrant the soft sweet flesh is concealed within the unassuming skin.  I looked at a few recipes and then added some extra time.

Serves 4

Ingredients:

4 Sweet Potatoes!

Method:

1.  Preheat oven to 190 C.  I would advise that you have lined the bottom of your oven with some tin foil or use a tray/put a tray underneath. 

2.  Pierce each potato all over with a fork.  Wrap each potato with enough tin foil to cover.

All dressed up!

3.  Place in oven for 1hr-1hr 15 mins.  I have a potato rack so I thought I'd test it out.  This is where the tray comes in.  The potatoes will release a lot of sugars and they will burn and it will be a nightmare to clean up. 

4.  Serve

With butter and plenty of black pepper.

Review:

These were very soft and sweet.  I think freshly ground black pepper is the perfect accompaniment with it.  You can also have it with cheese or butter as well.  They really fill you up and they are far from mundane.

New Toy!

Impulse buy alert!  It was a very modest silicone flower shaped mould from Lidl.  This is great for eggs and pancakes!  I shall chronicle my journey for the perfect flower egg with a perfectly centred pollen yolk.  This is much harder than it sounds!

My first attempt was so pathetic that I didn't bother to take a picture.  This is my second attempt which was slightly better but the yolk was off centre so I broke it.  It produced a rather lovely marbling effect and looked pretty with my ketchup splodge.  The mould isn't perfect, liquid does leak outside the shape so I need to press it down more or just trim them off.

Fried Egg

Voila!

Quorn Mince

I wanted to make a mince that would go well with mashed potatoes and lashings of gravy.  It was important for me to make it more brown and not red so I avoided using tinned tomatoes in case it was too bolognaisey.  I had to use my arsenal of herbs and spices to make it tasty.  You can make this mix into a Sheepless Pie by putting the mash on top and topping with cheese and sticking it in the oven until bubbly.

I got the idea of using Marmite in cooking from Fiona Beckett.  I remember borrowing her book a few years ago and recently borrowed this one.  Sadly, it didn't inspire me to cook anything new but it did remind me about the Marmite thing.  Beyond Baked Beans Budget Cookbook

Makes 4-5 portions

Ingredients:

2tbsp corn oil
1/2 large white Spanish onion, finely chopped
2 stalks of celery, destringed, finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
3-4 thick slices of root ginger
1/2 pt hot water with 2tsp gravy granules
1 peeled carrot, finely chopped
2 peeled and deseeded tomatoes, finely chopped
1/2 pt hot water with 1/2 tsp Marmite
300g Quorn Mince
1 bay leaf

(season to your taste)
1tsp rosemary
1tsp salt
plenty of black pepper
1 level tsp kalonji seeds
2 tsp Maggi liquid seasoning

Method:

1. Heat a large saucepan/cooking vessel.  Put in the oil and fry the onions until soft and translucent.  Then add the celery, garlic and ginger.  Fry until celery is softening.

2. Put the kettle on and make the gravy.  Add this liquid to the pan and add carrots.

3. Add the tomatoes and the marmite mixture.

4. Add the Quorn mince and a bay leaf.

5. Cook for about 20mins.  Season with the herbs and spices to your taste.

Review:

I ate a portion from just tasting it to see if it was seasoned enough.  I've got some instant mash and Bisto to go with it for those lazy days.  I will report back after the brother test.  I was really pleased with how it looks though.  I refrained from adding Worcestershire sauce in order to keep it truly vegetarian.

Celery Slaw

Cheese and celery dressed generously in mayonnaise and black pepper inside a buttered crusty baguette.  I didn't have any bread so I decided to make a sort of coleslaw with celery.  I have heard of celery slaw but have never made it before so here is something I made.

I just want to thank Sue, my childhood best friend's mum.  She helped inspire me to cook.  Sue put sultanas in her homemade coleslaw and that is the magic ingredient that sets her coleslaw apart from the shop bought kind.

Makes 2 portions

Ingredients:

2 stalks of celery, destringed and chopped
1 large carrot, grated
50g extra mature cheddar, chopped small
A handful of sultanas
A squeeze of lemon juice
3 tbsp mayonnaise (I like my full fat Hellmann's)
A few shakes of kalonji seeds
Black pepper

Method:

Just add ingredients into a bowl and mix.  I was probably too generous with the mayonnaise but adjust to your taste.

Review:

A traditional coleslaw has some onion in it.  I didn't want to faff around crying and chopping an onion so I put in my new fancy ingredient; kalonji seeds instead and it added a nice savoury onioniness to the salad.  I ate this for two lunches in a row served with some Choice Grain crackers.  The carrots made the mayonnaise go an orangy colour which makes it look like you made the dressing yourself :)

Chickpea Salad

Salads needn't be boring.  I haven't had one for a while but I was determined to use things lying about the place and not buy anything in especially.  This gave me a challenge of sorts to use up things that I had.  I was actually inspired by  How to Make Bento The video is sugoi!  It is a bit much for me but I will take on small tips at a time and that video made me salt my cucumber!

I have also taken up Waitrose on their 3 for 2 offer on herbs and spices to try something new.  My cupboard now has kalonji seeds (I first saw this as an ingredient in naan bread) celery salt (I've made a Bloody Mary before without this so I can now make an authentic one) and some garlic granules in order to make some epic potato wedges.

  

This makes 2 portions.

Ingredients:

Salad:

1 tomato, deseeded and cubed

Put as much or as little of the following:

Chunk of cucumber, peeled and cubed

Salt

200g chickpeas (half a tin, drained)

Some cubed carrot

Some cubed red pepper

Some cooked sweetcorn niblets

For the dressing:

Lemon juice

Celery salt

Black pepper

Kalonji seeds

Method:

1. I put the tomato and cucumber in a dish and I ah salted them!  Leave for a bit (I left them in the fridge overnight).  You will get a lovely pool of liquid to pour off.  No more watery salads!

2. Put in the other ingredients in varying proportions.

3. Season with the dressing ingredients to your taste. 

Review:

I really enjoyed making and eating this.  I'm a salad cream girl and I was going to squirt it all over my salad and mix it about but luckily I tasted my food first and decided it tasted good enough without the salad cream.

My Mum boiled some potatoes the next day so I cubed them and added it to the second portion of salad.

I don't normally eat cubed carrots in salad, I prefer it grated but had some leftover carrot sticks with nothing to dip them in.

Hot Cocoa

The reason why I am still awake at 4.15am is because I had a lovely mug of hot cocoa.  I had been working later than usual and ended up eating and leaving late.  Once home, I knew I wouldn't have an early night so decided to have a nice hot cocoa.  I had a hot chocolate recently at a pub and was sorely disappointed. It probably had cow's milk in it but that wasn't the point!  There was an opportunity to entice me with a welcoming warm hug in a mug and all I got was a watery insipid pretender.

This is simple, delicious and even better VEGAN!!!

Ingredients:

1tsp Green & Black's Cocoa Powder
1tsp Unrefined sugar
A pinch of salt
A dash of Vanilla Extract
About 225ml Soya Milk (I used Alpro Blue long life)
A sprinkle of grated G&B 70% dark chocolate*  (optional, see note)

Method:

1.  In a mug, mix the cocoa with a dash of milk to form a smooth paste.  Add sugar, salt and vanilla.  Slowly add the rest of the milk and give it a good mix.  Make sure you scrape all the edges of the mug.

2.  Put in the microwave for a minute (watch carefully after 30s).  Stir and taste.  Nuke in bursts of 30s until desired heat.

3.  Ah!

*I have just checked their website and it looks like they now put whole milk powder in their dark chocolate (they didn't before).  This is a shame since I got into this brand because it doesn't have any cow's milk in it.  I'm glad the cocoa powder is still "may contain traces"

Banana and Peanut Butter Muffins

I was looking for a banana muffin recipe in order to use up excess bananas that were going past my preferred best time to eat stage (still firm and yellow skinned).  I've made banana muffins before but wanted one that had peanut butter in.  Peanut butter and banana is a healthy and flavourful combination from America (they have it in a sandwich)  I can't say this was a childhood favourite (that was PB and strawberry jam sandwiches) but this is an adult favourite of mine on toast.

I already made a batch of muffins using http://uktv.co.uk/food/recipe/aid/573813 which is a Rachel Allen recipe.  (I was looking for a recipe rather than her recipe)
I read the critiques and added a pinch of salt to the mix.  I used smooth peanut butter and sprinkled some sunflower seeds on two of them and they came out well so I put them on all of my second batch.  This is a nice recipe but it needed more peanut butter and banana flavour so here is my slightly altered recipe.

It seems with baking these muffins, I have gotten over my fear of overfilling and these raised beautifully.

Makes 12 Muffins

Ingredients:

275g plain flour
50g oats
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
75g dark brown soft sugar
2.5 ripe bananas (more brown then yellow)
125g smooth peanut butter
250ml soya milk
50ml corn oil
25g sunflower seeds (approx)

Method:

1.  Sieve the flour in a bowl.  Add oats, baking powder and salt in a bowl.  Stir this thoroughly so the baking powder is evenly distributed in the mixture.

2.  In a slightly larger bowl, mash the banana in the bowl (fork will do, use to whisk eggs later).  Add sugar and peanut butter and mix together.

3.  In a measuring jug, measure the milk, add oil and break in the eggs and whisk together.

4.  Add the liquid to the mashed banana mix and stir thoroughly.

En garde!

5.  Set fan oven to 180c

6.  I changed my technique using this recipe.  I added the dry mix to the wet mix!  You get less flour clumps and hand washing up is slightly easier.  I have no spatula or tablespoon so made do with a dessert spoon.

Lumpy is good!

7.  Fill cases to the top and sprinkle some sunshine!

8.  Bake for 20-25 mins.  I tend to test one after 20 and put the rest back in.  Be your own judge!

Missing:  Muffin, last seen 5 mins ago...

Review:

These were much better than the first batch I made.  My brother actually ate one and he said that he could taste the peanut butter but it didn't have enough banana flavour.  I'm tempted to put even more salt but I am worried about the health implications.  Will these breakfast health muffins turn into heart attack ones?!  Funnily enough, I feel a bit scared offering free food to people because they are a bit too healthy.  I think that will be my next thing to work on, being less afraid of poisoning sharing my delicious food with my not quite friends but not quite strangers.