The messiest cake ever

The boy's birthday cake. Three tier lardy heaven, but not easy to cut and keep looking fiiiine.

A good little tip is the glaze for the strawberries... just melt a little jam and water (though I used redcurrant jelly cos it's clear), and then sprinkle in some gelatine powder, warm til it melts and pastry-brush it on. Makes it look double yum even if I do say so myself.

The main was the boy's favourite of mac cheese (he's a scot), and you would've been mightily unimpressed by the photo of that, so cakey-goodness it is.

Fish n stuff...

T'interwebs has gone down at home, so I actually cooked this a while ago, and can't exactly remember the constituent parts... But I think it was oven roasted potato, courgette, onion, and peppers with marjoram, then fresh parsley and coriander stirred in afterwards, and a blue cheese sauce with some kind of white fish. Evidently. It will have been mildly moral though, line caught etc.

Brrrr....

The boiler broke over the weekend, which isn't so bad as luckily we were countryfying it up in sunny Surrey (well, rainy surrey but anything countrysidey feels sunny). Though when we got back and had to break the ice off the washbasin and de-ice the inside of the windows... I realised I wasn't good at extreme cold. So glad I'm off to -15 NYC in a couple of weeks then off to Lewis for Christmas and New Year. Brrrrr.

Better get currying. Without red wine or brandy it's the only way to stay warm. (And eating dinner in bed in my new duck down padded jacket is soooo unbecoming).

So tonight's hot affair was cauliflower, red lentil and red pepper curry. I par boiled the lentils and cauliflower in some weak veggie stock first, while frying onion chunks and garlic with cumin and garam masala. I then added the red pepper chunks to the deep frying pan and added the fresh ginger and fresh red chilli.

After a few minutes and some basmati whacked on the hob with cardamon, I added 4 chopped tomatoes, some finely chopped fresh coriander and a little salt.

When the cauli and lentils were tender, they went into the mix. I put some fancy-pants garlic naan in the oven to warm through, and chopped some more coriander to stir through the curry right at the end. Nice.

Pie 'n' peas.

Midweek pies ey? I must be feeling decadent. Actually, I was feeling stressed, and there's nothing guaranteed to calm me down and chill me out more than a good stint in the kitchen.

I'd inexplicably ordered lots of mushrooms on Monday so had to use them up, so wild mushroom, leek and tarragon pies where order of the day. With runner beans. Yum.

I slowly and gently friend the leeks with garlic, and then the mushrooms in oil and butter, before adding the tarragon, marjoram, some stock, seasoning, english mustard and a little cornflour to thicken. That was spooned into pie tins and shop-bought puff pastry rolled then put in the top. I brushed them with beaten egg yolk for some nice oven-colouring fun.

Pickled Red Cabbage.

Nothing reminds me of home as much as my dad's stew with pickled red cabbage on the top. Not sure if this is a midlands thing, a northern thing or an entirely seal-based thing, but it tastes bloody good. And as I haven't yet decided whether to use pickled or braised red cabbage as part of the main for my supperclub, I pickled some last night in preparation... just in case.

You can't leave it as long as bought stuff (probably something to do with preservatives and me licking my stew spoon before digging it into the jar), but it'll certainly last you through a long winter.

Try it with anything gravy-based, meaty, blandish or in need of a piquant kick. Or even just for a flash of colour. (I'm wearing red slacks today in semi-celebration of the red cabbage).

I have a porchini problem...

I have to admit it. I can't stop using dried porchini mushrooms. Maybe it's their umaminess (I get mixed up between umami and Shooting Stars' uvavu), or the novelty factor, or like capers, they just make everything taste so much better.

Anyway, so here's some mushroom soup.

Re-hydrated porchini (soaking liqour and actual mushrooms)

Field mushrooms

One portabella

One random mushroom for Sainsbury's exotic mushroom mix

Salt

White pepper

Cream

Fry the mushrooms first. Then add the liquid and then cream at the end. I only really sprinkled on some parsley at the end to look a bit fancy.

Victoria Sponge

The boy's favourite cake is Victoria Sponge. So instead of saving that until his birthday, I figured I'd whip one up today and make something more exciting for the birthday cake instead.

I got up early, and without any creaming of butter and sugar faff, blitzed together 8oz of self-raising, 5oz caster sugar, 5oz of butter and three eggs. I couldn't be bothered to look at a recipe, so guessed at quantities following a remembered sponge ratio of 8/4/4/2, but wanted to make this a little richer so upped the fun stuff of eggs, sugar and butter.

It worked out perfectly and I broke my usual moral of only adding jam in the centre and cream on after, because the boy insisted... and it is his favourite after all.

The photo doesn't do it justice, but the taste (having cut a slice just a little bit too big) was scrumptious.

We shall have a fishy...

...in a little dishy, when the boat comes in.

Now in the pie world, or to put it more accurately, the 'enclosed food kingdom', with pie being a species (pasties, calzones etc are other species) then 'potato topped' pies are either a subspecies or genus. Just like the inimitable shephard's (though cottage is just a cow sheep's clothing), the fish pie doesn't fit for some people into the pie species at all. altogether lighter, less carby and less lardy, non-pastry pies are more like serving suggestions for filling than a dish in itself, however... I love a good fish pie.

I once went out with a food snob and being one myself (barring a late night crisp sandwich or occasional McDonalds cheeseburger at 2am) we bantered our way into a competitive corner of mid-week fine dining (at home of course) and cooking clubs. His one guilty pleasure however, was a frozen Mariner's pie. 45 minutes in the oven and contained in the worryingly melted plastic container was his salty sloppy idea of indulgence.

Myself, I prefer to knock a real one up, and no-two have ever been the same.

Yesterday's delish dish was chunks of haddock and prawns (I couldn't be bothered to go to a better/bigger supermaket to find anything more interesting than that), in a cream-cheesey bay leaf sauce with peas and buttery mash. Served with some reduced green beans and english mustard for the boy (put on everything... except cake).

It was nice, but not great. I forgot the capers, still haven't got round to buying a black peppermill so had no pepper, but the creamy sauce (roux, then milk then bay then onion salt then bit of philly) was smashing and with a grated cheese top it was the perfect end to a freezing day.

Turkish...

...is good. Nuff said.

It's about leftovers... it's always about leftovers.

Creamy tomato, prawn and chilli pasta. Last night's pizza base tomato leftovers with leftover single cream, leftover red chilli, and prawns and spinach. With farfalle. The boy's favourite I discovered tonight.

Leftovers can be amazingly tasty and welcome when its late, you're hungry and there's a tube strike on.

A pun about kneeding...

Three ingredients, two evenings, one pizza.

I like pizza. A lot. but I don't like the chicago town, pizza hut, dominoes or pizza smut (there must be a cheap pizza emporium in east London called that, there really must) versions.

The boy's cafe recently got a pizza oven and they do mighty nice pizzas, but I wanted to have a crack myself.

In lieu of a pizza oven, pizza stone or, well, any actual ability, I had a go anyway. I've still not got round to scales, so by eye (and crossed fingers) I measured out 7g of yeast, stuck in some luke warm water, a teaspoon of sugar and a teaspoon of salt (dammit, that's four ingredients if you include water) and waited for the foamy fun to begin. When it was all nice and weird, that was tipped into 500g of flour and kneeded to silky heaven. The dough was left to do it's thing, but that meant overnight for me.

The next evening I rolled and squished the base. The sauce was made from cooking tinned tomatoes, basil, garlic and oregano. Mainly because it's illegal to make a pizza without oregano. And I fried some sliced field mushrooms and red peppers for the top before popping on.

Scandal upon scandals... I forgot to photograph it in a pre-hot oven state. And forgot to photograph it when cooked and whole. So you have to look at the ugly sliced version here.

It tasty smashing. oddly healthy and damn nice. I recommend trying your own homemade pizzas highly.

A pun about funghi...

Working late again but felt like indulging in something creamy, mushroomy, cheesy and unctuous. Soaked porchini, fine-ish-ly chopped shitakes and sliced big field mushrooms were fried in thin garlic slices, butter and oil.

After a few minutes and a little kitchen iPlayer (my latest indulgence), I put the spaghetti on and added single cream leftovers, Philadelphia, some pasta water and the porchini liquor with a bit of seasoning to the melty mushrooms.

I popped the chunks of tenderstem broccoli in a steamer over the pasta and when everything seemed done I mixed the lot together in a the pan. But then you can see that.