Claire's Cake Bake & Other Foodiness

Yesterday we did our weekly shop & for the first time in a while, nothing on the menu is copied from the previous week/s (which happens quite frequently). This week we have a vegetable chilli (serves 4, so thats two sittings), a spicy lentil bake, gridled chicken salad & some Linda McCartney mince pies & sausages & chips! We haven’t bought chips for well over a year either.

Last night I made the chilli & I am not a big fan of the stuff but Hubby quite likes it so this was really for him.

Ingredients (From Delicious magazine May 07)

• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• 300g frozen quorn (Tescos didn’t have any so I used a 350g box from the refrigerator section but its £1 more expensive!!)
• 2 peppers, chopped fairly small
• 3 cloves garlic, crushed
• 2 teaspoons of lightly crush cumin seeds
• 320g jar of tomato & chilli pasta sauce
• 1 tine of kidney beans

How to Do It

1. Heat oil & cook peppers for 5 minutes
2. Add garlic & cumin seeds & quorn – cook for for 3/4mins
3. Add kidney beans & sauce + a further 160g water – simmer for 20 mins
4. Serve with rice

We also had the suggested sour cream & guacamole.

It was very easy & the cumin really made it for me. For once, I am looking forward to the second serving of this which is sitting in the fridge.

Tonight we used the last batch of my roasted vegetables.

I defrosted the veg during the day & at tea time I slowly reheated it in a pan with a small amount of olive oil. Once warmed through I threw about 200ml couscous in, followed by 200ml of marigold vegetable stock & some black pepper. I left it to soak up & then threw some butter in.

I dished it out & left it to cool slightly before serving with yoghurt & coriander. We had a side serving of garlic bread as we would have only gone to waste (any excuse, believe me!). Anyways, this is how it looked:

Verdict: Very tasty & very quick.

Earlier in the week we used up the second batch of vegetables by heating them through with a tin of chopped tomatoes & hey-presto we had a roasted vegetable sauce & pasta.

We tried to make the most of our last day off work & headed out to Pistyll Rhaeadr – a waterfall near Oswestry. The waterfall is actually higher than Niagara Falls & is quite pretty.

On the way back home we stopped off at the Cheshire Cat in Christleton for a late pub lunch – I had some garlic mushrooms & then an open sandwich of salmon, prawn, creme fraiche & spring onion. It was quite tasty.

After heading back home I heated up the last of the watercress soup for tea – followed by some chocolate of course!

Oh, and here are some of my Easter tulips…

Today was the day where we volunteered to help blow up 1500 balloons for the great balloon race at Zoes Place. I think we did our fair share & managed around 700 – it only took us three hours!!

After 30 mins…
After 3 hours…
And finally they were set free…

I had also invited my mum & dad around for dinner so this morning, before we left for the balloon race, I made a passion fruit & lemon brulee tart. Now I haven’t made pastry since I was a child, nor have I ever attempted a brulee. The pastry was supposed to be made using a food processor – which we don’t have. I was tempted to use the hand mixer with the dough hooks but then decided my hands were just as good! The pastry was surprisingly easy to make into a dough & roll out. My difficulty came in transferring the dough into the dish. The first attempt collapsed dreadfully so I re-kneaded & rolled out again. The second time I managed to get most of the base in, in one piece & some of the sides so I decided to patchwork the rest together.

After baking blind & egg-whiting it the case looked ok…

I then prepared the creme brulee centre & the passion fruit smelled so delicious, I couldn’t wait to try some.

It went in the oven at 100° for 45 mins. The recipe said it should be set but still a little wobbly in the centre. I pulled the shelf out & a tidal wave of filling nearly escaped the pastry case. Set my @*se! As we had the balloons to get to I gave it another 10 mins & then had to leave. It was still very much liquid & I was quite annoyed after spending all morning working on it. I left it in the oven, with the door slightly ajar (after my steaming escapade earlier in the week).

After stopping at Sainsbury’s and buying a vanilla NY cheesecake on the way back, we got home to find one set filling… Surprise!

After eating our main course of lemon marinated chicken with greek yoghurt accompaniment (with spring onion, cucumber, chilli, garlic, coriander & mint) I got round to sprinkling it with icing sugar & starting up my new chefs blowtorch…

It was delicious, tangy & sweet, crunchy but gooey. Very very nice, I have to say!

Ah, a bank holiday means a day off work :) So hubby did some DIY & I did some baking for the open day at Zoes tomorrow – I made some traditional crispy cakes/nests, a malteser tray bake & a rocky road – the latter two being essentially the same recipe -

Some rocky road (this one included a few cherries, marshmallows, left over maltesers & sultanas – oh, & a few mini eggs for good measure!!) *recipe below:

And after a baking morning I put together a ratatouille bake (from Delicious magazine) for tea, so that’s batch one of my Tuesday cook-down used! Served with garlic bread & some nice Italian prosecco…

This was very tasty but the olives we had put in it were the worst we have ever had so we picked them all out!

And whilst I was cooking, Anthony managed to finally put the wallpaper up that we bought some 6 months ago!

On Wednesday I put together a greek salad for tea.

We haven’t had one in ages & its the kind of thing you can eat too often. But once in a while & its really fresh and tasty – especially with some nice crusty bread & butter.

Salad: Lettuce, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, red onion, green olives, feta (was in oil so this was drizzled) & balsamic vinegar.

Rocky Road Recipe:

• 100g butter
• 200g dark chocolate
• 3 tbsp golden syrup
• 225g digestive biscuits (finely crush half of them and lightly crush the other half)
• Anything else you want to chuck in (I threw in some sultanas, cherries, marshmallows, left over maltesers – but they were difficult to cut through & mini-egg – cos it was Easter!!)

All you need to do is melt together the butter, chocolate and syrup in a pan then add all the biscuits and anything else you want to throw in. Mix together quickly then pour into a swiss roll tin that has been lined with cling film then chill till set (though I used a loaf tin)

This is something I’ve tried to do occasionally over the last few months but I either

• never get around to the mass cooking
• forget to freeze the stuff in time, or,
• i forget it is in the freezer , or how long its been there & throw it out!

From now on in I am going to make more of an effort & I started yesterday with a large batch of ratatouille – care of Delicious magazine & some watercress soup care of of Delia (the first batch of which was delicious).

Note to self: next time you do this – do not leave the vegetables to cool in the oven – it gets steamy!

Now I just need to make sure I use it!!