Greek Lamb Bake

It's been a really busy week for us, and so we haven't made a huge amount of interesting food but one of my favourite dinners this week is one made by my boyfriend. After going to the Macedonia region of Northern Greece and staying at this beautiful, rural spot (if interested, here's the link to where he stayed. He said it was stunning http://viglatorashotel.com/en.html) and eating rustic authentic food he came back and made me some.

The meal he prepared was lovely and was a really simple bake style meal, but was absolutely delicious and is one of my favourite meals he has made.

Greek Lamb Bake with Pomegranate and Beetroot Salad

4 Lamb Steaks
4 vine tomatoes
2 medium waxy potatoes (important they're waxy to prevent them falling apart)
1 courgette
1 aubergine
2 garlic cloves
oregano
100g feta
Handful of olives (mixture of green and black)
Olive oil
salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 180 fan. Slice the potatoes, aubergine, courgette and tomatoes thinly and arrange in a baking dish. As you layer them in a dish scatter oregano, olives, garlic, oil and feta as you go (if you like more of one particular ingredient, add some more. We love feta, so we had lots in ours but it can be very salty so change to suit your tastes).
Bake in the oven for around 45-50 minutes, uncovered but if they become too brown cover with foil.
At this point they should have released some juice with is good and will help cook the lamb.
Rub the lamb steaks with a little oil and season, then place them on top of the vegetables. Put back into the oven and bake for another 20 minutes until the lamb is cooked to your liking.
Serve with the following salad and crusty rye bread.

So tasty and simple, this is one of my favourite meals. 

On the side we had a stunningly fresh salad. This is quite a bit of effort as we used beetroot roasted 'en papillote' (Raymond Blanc recipe) which is a long process. It does give the salad extra flavour, but for an easier alternative pre-cooked beetroot will do fine. 

1 Round Lettuce, chopped thinly

Pomegranate seeds (from 1 fruit)

1/2 Lemon

Olive oil

Pine nuts (1 handful)

Tzatziki

Salt and pepper

Beetroot (roasted 'en papillote' or pre-cooked)

First, you need to toast the pine nuts. I would do this in a heavy bottomed pan or skillet. Place them in the pan over a low heat and stir until they turn a light golden brown. This will take around 5 minutes, but you need to keep your eye on them as they can turn very quickly, and become bitter. 

For the beetroot, if roasting we used a recipe from Raymond Blanc and it really does give the beetroot a special extra flavour but does take over 2 hours to prep, bake and cool so does add a lot of time to the meal. If you've got the time, I would recommend it. It is worth it. Here's the recipe.

• 
  
• 4 beetroot (about 480g/1lb 1oz), washed and trimmed
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 sprig fresh thyme
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 
  
• For the beetroot, preheat your oven to 160C/325F/Gas 3.
• Lay a double layer of foil (45 x 45cm/17½ x 17½in) onto a baking tray and top with the beetroot, oil, thyme, garlic and salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.
• Wrap the beetroot in the foil to make a sealed package and roast in the oven for two hours.
• Once cooked, remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly before peeling. To peel, wear gloves to stop the red staining your hands. 

To arrange the salad, place the lettuce in a bowl and toss with the lemon, oil, salt and pepper. Place on a serving plate and sprinkle over the pomegranate seeds and pine nuts. Slice the beetroot and arrange around the place. Dollop the tzatziki on top of the beetroot or serve on the side if preferred. 

Sadly I don't have a photo but there is one of this on my instagram account @lucyhenrietta. 

The soundtrack for this meal was one my favourites at the moment, Clean Bandit. I enjoy their whole album A+E and picking a favourite is hard but a couple are the following. 

Enjoy!

Frozen Birthday Party

This weekend my amazing baby turned 3 so we had to celebrate with a Frozen themed party. She loved every second. We had the soundtrack going, build an Olaf activity, Frozen balloons, and of course a Frozen cake. I am not very creative, as I have mentioned before, but I had a good go at doing fondant and some swirly patterns around the outside. To make it special for my girl, and to make my job easier, I bought a Frozen scene made from wafer card that stood up on the cake, which worked surprisingly well. It was an absolute bargain, so if you want a cheap way to excite some little children, I would recommend getting something like that (I got mine from an ebay shop).

As there were quite a few people coming and, therefore, lots of food to make I didn't do anything fancy with the cake, just made a standard chocolate sponge mix with chocolate butter icing. Simple, delicious and easy to make for a large group of people. I'm sure even Mary Berry would recommend a simple sponge for a children's party. So, here it is.

Frozen Birthday Cake
This recipe made a 3 layer cake, so obviously to make a 2 layer just made 2/3rds of the mixture.
Also, I know I usually put recipes in grams but I was always taught to make cakes in ounces by my mum so that's how I do it, and I think it's easier because then all you have to remember is 1 egg for every 2oz flour/dry ingredients.

For the sponge
12oz Butter or baking margarine (Stork is always good)
12oz Caster sugar
9oz Self raising flour
3oz Cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
6 eggs

For the decoration
750g Ice blue roll out/fondant icing
Ice blue food colouring (not liquid, paste or gel is best)
Wafer card cut out
Edible silver glitter

For the butter icing
250g butter
425g icing sugar
75g cocoa powder (this can be adjusted depending on how chocolately you want it, so for less increase icing sugar and decrease cocoa powder weight, and vice versa for more chocolately)

Preheat the oven to 160C fan, and grease and line (with baking parchment) 3 round cake tins (mine are 8in)
This is just a standard sponge with a little extra raising agent to ensure a good rise.
First, in a big bowl, beat the butter and sugar together really well until it's pale.
Then add the eggs, one at a time, and mix until fully incorporated before adding the next one.
Sift the flour, cocoa powder, and baking powder into the bowl and fold in using a metal spoon or spatula.
The mixture shouldn't be stiff, so if it seems too firm add a little milk.
Divide the mixture evenly between the cake tins and bake in the preheated oven for 25-30 minutes, checking at 25 minutes. If they spring back and have slightly come away from the edge of the tin, they're done.
Turn them out on to a cooking rack and leave to completely cool before decorating.

To make the butter icing, beat the butter on its own in a mixer or food processor until it is soft with no lumps, and then sift in the icing sugar and cocoa powder. Mix it for a few minutes to get rid of any lumps and to ensure everything is fully incorporated.
When the cakes are completely cool, spread 1/3 of the butter icing on the bottom layer, and 1/3 of it on the second layer of cake. I think it's easier to do this separately and then assemble.
Assemble the cake and press down on the top layer to make the butter icing come to the rim of the cake.
With the remaining third of the icing sugar, spread this around the sides of the cake, filling in the ridges between the layers to make the outside of the cake smooth. This will help create a smooth base to put the fondant on.

For the fondant/sugar paste/roll out icing, take it out of the packet and knead it. To do this, sprinkle some icing sugar on the work top, and rub some on your hands before kneading it. Keep going until it is soft, then shape it into a ball and roll out to the right size. (For the diameter of the icing = height of cake x 2 + diameter).
Lift up the icing and place over the cake. Rub down.
If you're not confident with fondant (which I am not), there's loads of videos on youtube to show how to do it. A couple of thorough ones I found were:

Once the fondant is on, add any decorations you want.

My finished piece was good. It wasn't perfect and had very amateur silver decoration round the outside but my daughter thought it was amazing, and at the end of the day that was what mattered with this cake. Next time though, I would use a stencil for the painting round the side but generally, everyone was really happy with this cake.

For a kids party, I think it was pretty good.

You wouldn't want a small slice, would you?

The soundtrack for this cake was some old school disco music, which I love and is always a good soundtrack to a long stint in the kitchen.

 

Bigger is better.....

One of the reasons I got into cooking was my love of bread, all bread. It's one of my favourite things to eat and so versatile. It's fantastic in it's basic and simple form, and can be flavoured with nearly anything you like. I have to say I do enjoy traditional flavours in bread. A simple white farmhouse loaf, tomato, olive, caramelised onion, and a rustic granary topped with  a huge smear of butter and pate. You can't beat it.

My friends and I get on well for many reasons, but one is our mutual love of food so whenever we meet we always have a feast. Last week we did absolutely that, each bringing something to devour together. We had crisps and dips, crab pate, vegetable crudites, sun-dried tomatoes, marinated artichokes, a pasta salad of broccoli, garlic roasted courgettes and stilton, and one my favourite bread accompaniments to mezzes like the one we enjoyed, a huge focaccia with tomatoes and olives. 

Focaccia is simple and delicious, lovely to have anything spread on top, and it can be dipped in most things too. My recipe is super simple and perhaps not what Paul Hollywood would be impressed with as the air bubbles weren't as big as I'm sure he would like to see, but it was a hearty and soft result. 

Bigger is definitely better.

I also apologise for the cloth in the bottom right-hand corner, 

but it is important to clear up as you go.....

Not a very good picture, as my flash didn't go off but 

I still think it looked good.

Tomato and Olive Focaccia 

I really do love this, and if you're good at making things look pretty (which I am not) it can work well as a centrepiece for a dinner table. 

The following recipe does make 2 nicely sized focaccias, I just like things big. I cheated with this recipe as I did it in a mixer with a dough hook, but you can hand knead it. It makes a sticky dough, but if you smother your hands and the dough in more oil, it should be fine. 

Ingredients

500g strong white flour

10g yeast

5g salt

1/2 tsp sugar

350ml water (room temperature I normally aim for, slightly warmer, slightly colder doesn't matter)

50ml oil (I used oil from a sun-dried tomato jar to add an extra flavour)

A hand-full of olives, black or green, whichever it available, and some cherry tomatoes.

First, put the flour in a bowl, and add the salt and sugar on one side and the yeast on the other. Pour in the oil and then the water and mix together. 

- If using a mixer, just turn it on a slow speed and leave it mixing for 6-8 minutes until the dough is really stretchy and when the hook is lifted out the dough sticks to it and stretches without tearing. 

- If mixing by hand, mix with a big spoon until it all comes together then tip it onto an oiled surface. It is quite sticky so if you rub oil on your hands and on the dough periodically while kneading it will be fine. Knead for around 8 minutes, or 10 if you can but it does get a bit tiring.

Once kneaded place in an oiled tub for an hour and a half or until doubled in size. Once risen, tip it out straight into an oiled, square baking tin (I actually used a roasting tin for this one as it is so big. If you're making 2, tip it out and cut it with a sharp knife and place the two bits of dough onto oiled trays. Leave to rise again for around half an hour to forty minutes until it has clearly risen. Once risen, you can add your toppings; I just placed the tomatoes and olives in alternate rows, but you can add them in whatever way you like, and grind some sea salt over the top. Bake in an oven at 200C for 20 minutes. or until golden on the top. Place on a cooling rack and serve hot or cold. 

The soundtrack today was just the radio, but the best one I heard that I could listen to over and over again is this great one from Gorgon City ft. Jennifer Hudson - Go All Night.

Homemade Muffin Mistake

It's been the first week back at work and it is painful!!!! Body shock compared to the three weeks I've had off with my lovely family and friends so I haven't been cooking as much as I would like. However, I did have a go at chorizo and cheese savoury muffins which I love and rarely make. I experimented with a new recipe which was absolutely delicious but I made the huge mistake of putting the mixture in muffin cases which they stuck to. When we attempted to get the muffins out of the cases, it ripped off most of the bottom. I have learned my lesson, so next time I will put the mixture in a greased silicon muffin tray which will make it easier to get the muffins out.

Although I had a bit of a disaster with this one, the mixture was so tasty I would recommend making again and I am certainly going to. I had some egg whites left over from making ice-cream and thought I would use them in this recipe as that would make them a bit lighter. I was surprised at how well that worked. If you don't have egg whites though, just use 2 eggs whisked into the milk.

 They don't look like much, but they' are pretty tasty.

Cheesy muffiny goodness. 

If anyone can give me tips on how to photograph food, I'd really appreciate it.

Ingredients
230g Self raising flour
120g chedder cheese, cut into cubes
50g chorizo sausage, cut into cubes
1/2 courgette, grated
185ml milk
5 egg whites
2 tbsp mango chutney
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp bicarbinate of soda

Pre-heat your oven to 170C fan, sift the flour and bicarb into a bowl, then add the spices, cubes of cheese, chorizo and courgette and mix so everything is coated in the flour. Whisk the egg whites until they're fluffy and make peaks. Pour the milk into a jug and mix in the mango chutney, then pour this into the flour mixture and give a could stir with a big metal spoon. Fold in the egg whites until completely incorporated. Spoon into a greased silicon tray, NOT muffin cases, and bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes. Keep an eye on them as they can turn quite quickly.

And the soundtrack for this session was one of my favourite classics, Queen. One that I particularly love is this song, Too Much Love Will Kill You from the album Made In Heaven. Enjoy.

Beer and Stew

A significant lack of cooking took place this weekend as I was in London saying goodbye to a lovely friend who is going off travelling for nine months. To compensate for the lack of cooking, there was an abundance of beer, another one of my favourite things after food, and London does always offer a good pint. A particular favourite of mine from the weekend was Mad Goose, a pale ale brewed by Purity Brewing Co. If you ever see it on a pump, I would absolutely recommend trying it.

Watch out for this on a beer pump.

Delicious pint, and made better by being served in a jug.

The weekend was finished off nicely by having my favourite lamb and potato stew cooked by my mother. I am not normally taken with traditional English casseroles or stews and have preferred those with influences from other countries, and this one has a Greek character. This recipe uses neck fillet, a relatively cheaper cut of lamb, and is flavoured with lemon, herbs and feta. Plus, it's all made in one pot! 

It was hard to get a good photo and, as said previously, I am not 

any sort of photographer. If you like something with a twist,

 I would recommend this as it's easy, warming and tasty. 

Greek Lamb Stew

Olive oil

1.25kg lamb neck fillet, diced

2 onions 

2 garlic cloves

450g Ripe tomatoes (or tinned tomatoes will do)

Half a lemon (or a whole one if you like it really lemony)

1 tsp dried oregano

600ml vegetable stock

750g small new potatoes

200g feta cheese

Preheat the oven to 170C fan then heat a glug of oil in a large casserole pan and brown the lamb (in batches). Once browned, place on a plate while the onions are softened in the fat and brown left by the lamb. Stir in the crushed garlic and put the lamb back in. Add the tomatoes, the lemon chopped up (leaving the rind on), oregano, stock and bring to the boil. Then put the lid on, pop into the oven and cook for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Put the potatoes in and return to the oven for another 45 minutes. Once the potatoes are cooked, crumble the feta over the stew, put the lid back on and leave it to melt for a few minutes. 

Serve with some crusty bread smothered in butter. Yum!

Of course, even though I was not cooking this one, there always has to be a soundtrack and for this it was the music from Frozen as my daughter was watching it while my mother was cooking us our dinner.

You're never too old for Disney.

Happy New Kitchenaid!

Welcome to my personal blog! As you can probably tell from the name, this is all about food: cooking it, eating it, sharing it, my inspirations, and those delicious extras that are so important when exploring food (mainly booze). I absolutely love trying out new things, so this will be treated as more of a personal food diary that I've decided to share, and will include recipes and photos of my attempts at new things, old favourites, and the places, people, and meals that inspire me to try it at home.

Having grown up in the Norfolk countryside with parents that were amazing cooks my love of eating has always existed. I totally admit I am completely obsessed about food and drink. By no means do I think I am any kind of connoisseur or gourmet and do not proclaim to have any technical skills or abilities, just a basic love for everything you can eat. This basic love and grown over the years after leaving home and has become my main hobby. So here I aim to share the real and unadulterated ups and downs, attempts and fails of my cooking and eating infatuation.

So today I have been trying out my new Kitchenaid, an amazing Christmas present, and was tasked with making a pudding for a family meal so decided on salted caramel ice-cream and Kinder brownies. Salted caramel, along with the rest of the world, has become a firm favourite for me and has been used in many dished. however I will admit that caramel is something I have always found hard to make and I usually end up burning it but today managed to avoid that but trying out a different method.

Salted Caramel Ice-Cream

I adapted this recipe from an old Gary Rhodes book (More Rhodes Around Britain, 1995) which has some fantastic recipes in and, personally, I think a great ice-cream base recipe that is easily adaptable to make different flavours. To make this I used an ice-cream maker attachment on my Kitchenaid but it can be done by putting into a freezable container and stirring every half an hour until thick. 

For the ice-cream base:
300ml whole milk
300ml double cream
6 egg yolks
50g golden caster sugar
(1 vanilla pod - optional)

For the Caramel:
280g golden caster sugar
185ml double cream
2 tsp flaked sea salt (can be varied depending on how salty you like it)

I started by making the caramel by placing the sugar in a heavy saucepan and heating for a couple of minutes on its own, then adding the cream all in the go, giving it a good stir and then bringing it to the boil. I left this to simmer while making the ice cream base.

• First, I separated 6 eggs and placed the yolks in the mixing bowl then added the 50g caster sugar and put on a medium speed to whisk them together until the mixture was light and fluffy. While the eggs were mixing, I placed the milk and cream in a saucepan and brought to the boil. (For this flavour ice-cream I didn't add the vanilla pod, but if one wanted to add this as a favour just cut the pod lengthways, scrape it out and put into the milk and cream along with the scraped pod while bringing to the boil. Remember to remove the pod one boiled). 
• I stirred the caramel periodically and when it began to darken in colour, to a darker beige, I added the salt and removed it from the heat. At this point it became a sandy consistency which seemed a bit weird, but actually made no difference to the ice-mixture so it didn't matter at all.
• Once the milk and cream had been brought to the boil, I poured it into the egg mixture, with the whisk going, then added the sandy caramel mixture and whisked for 3-4 minutes to make sure it was all completely incorporated. 
• This then had to be left to cool to room temperature. I found this was speeded up by pouring the mixture into a glass dish and placing somewhere cold (a conservatory in the winter is great at cooling things down). 
• Once cooled, I placed it into the ice-cream maker and churned slowly for around 30 minutes until thick and came higher up the bowl. This was transferred into an airtight container and put in the freezer for another 4-6 hours or over night. 
• To serve, get out of the freezer 5 minutes before dishing up as it will be quite firm. 

Churning churning. You can use this time to wash up or dance

around the kitchen to your favourite cooking playlist. I did the latter.

I'm no photographer but this was the finished product.

Looks pale, but was a deeper colour that what is pictured.

Brownies

Simple and delicious, always a crowd pleaser. The recipe I always use is one I slightly adapted from good food. I use kinder chocolate in this because I love it and it's lovely and creamy.

185g dark chocolate

185g salted butter

85g plain flour

40g cocoa powder

3 eggs

270g golden caster sugar

1 tsp baking powder

100g kinder chocolate bars, chopped

20cm tin lined with baking parchment. Preheated oven to 160C fan.

• Start off by melting the butter and dark chocolate in a saucepan over a low heat. This shouldn't take very long and the heat can be turned off before everything is melted as the residual heat will melt any remaining pieces. Once melted, it needs to be left to cool to around room temperature, it doesn't matter if it's a little warmer.
• While this is cooling, whisk the eggs and sugar together until light and fluffy, and weigh out the flour, cocoa and baking powder into a bowl.
• Fold in the melted chocolate into the egg mixture being careful not to knock out the air, then sieve in the flour, cocoa and baking powder and again fold in. Once incorporated, mix in the chopped kinder, or other chocolate. 
• Pour into the tin and bake for 25-30 minutes in the middle of the oven. I can normally tell it's done if the top of the brownie has cracked a little. It should not wobble.
• Remove and cool in the tin. 

Finished brownies. Yum.

I served these two together, the brownie slightly warm with a dollop of the ice-cream on top, with the chopped strawberries on the side and topped with crushed gingerbread biscuits. 

It doesn't need to look good if it tastes good.

I'm not one for presentation. 

Finally, every good cooking session needs some good background music. Today, the cooking soundtrack was the lovely, and missed, Amy Winehouse.