Well, I’m overjoyed to see that people are finding my site helpful when they search out specific terms. Hello to the readers today who found me using the terms ‘Peggy Porschen’, ‘potato soup’, ‘horrible story’ and, most thrillingly, ‘grey chicken meat’. I hope I was of use!
Fondant flowers… preview
Here’s a sneaky preview of my weekend’s activities… I’ll post a full report tomorrow!
Scattered summer sushi
Late to the party again… here I am with scattered summer sushi in October. To be fair, I did come up with this recipe in May, but also, you can eat this any time of year, whether the weather’s sunny, or not. It’s the kind of dish that works better when it’s hot, but it’s still pretty nice around here even in autumn…
And yes, I did get carried away with decorating this, but it was worth it. So pretty! And not too much hassle to prepare, in the grand scheme of things.
INGREDIENTS
- 2 cups Japanese rice (around 430g)
- 6 tbsp sushi rice vinegar (or check label)
- 1 tbsp sake (optional)
- 1 piece dried konbu (optional)
- 2 eggs
- 1 egg yolk
- 2 tsp cornflour
- Large pinch salt
- Pinch sugar
- Vegetable oil
- 1 Cucumber
- 1 Carrot
- Handful mange tout (cooked)
- 4 tofu pouches (optional)
- 16 large prawns (shrimp)
- 1/2 cup edamame beans (cooked)
METHOD
- Make your sushi rice – I recommend you buy a rice cooker, as it takes all of the guesswork and stress out of cooking rice. Mine cost me about £10 three years ago and is still working fine. Firstly, wash the rice thoroughly and leave it to soak for half an hour. Then, drain and add your sushi rice to the same quantity of water in your rice cooker. Add the sake and konbu if using, then switch on and leave to cook. Once it has finished, leave it to rest for 15 minutes.
- Turn the rice out into a damp, flat container (like a Pyrex oven dish) and add the sushi rice vinegar. Using a damp wooden spoon, turn the rice gently to coat it in the seasoning. At the same time, fan the rice to cool it and help it to absorb the dressing. Continue until no visible steam rises from the rice, and place it under a damp kitchen towel.
- Make thin Japanese omelettes by combining the eggs, egg yolk, salt and sugar in a bowl. Add the cornflour dissolved in 4 tsp water. Heat the oil in a frying pan, and add enough oil to coat the base. Thinly cover the pan with the egg, and heat until almost set. Then, turn the omelette over to finish it off. Do not allow it to colour. Continue until all the egg has been cooked, then roll the omelettes up and shred them finely.
- Prepare the carrot by peeling it and cutting it into thin discs. Then, using a flower-shaped cutter, cut the discs into flower shapes.
- Use your cucumber to make a pretty garnish. A simple method is to cut the cucumber thinly on a diagonal, cut through it to the middle, and then twirl the ends in opposite directions (see picture).
- If you’re using them, drain the tofu pouches and shred finely. Cut the mange tout at sharp diagonals.
- Divide the sushi rice into four bowls. Scatter over the shredded tofu, omelette and edamame beans. Finally, arrange the carrots, cucumber and prawns.
Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me!
It’s a very special day today, readers! That’s right – it’s my birthday! What did you all get me? Something good, I hope!
Thanks to the Royal Mail, it’s debateable whether my pressies will arrive today or not, but I’m sure I can wait a few extra days. My obsession with cake decorating continues, so from my nearest and dearest, I’ve demanded asked for (very nicely) some cake making accessories. (Every girl knows it’s all about accessories, even slobby ones like me.) Cake Chic shall be my bible!
Think Pink!
It’s October, which means it’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month. That doesn’t just mean raising money for breast cancer – that also means learning about it and spreading the word to others. But fundraising is also a pretty important part. For two weeks we’ll be pink at Distracted Gourmet – but then we’re turning all spooky for Halloween near the end.
One good way you can help Breast Cancer Awareness Month reach even more people is to ram it down their throats. Literally! The slogan for this campaign is Think Pink, and if there’s one thing that goes nicely with baked goods, it’s pink.
Take some pink cupcakes into work and share them with your colleagues. If you want to raise money, why not charge a small amount for each cake and give it directly to charity?
These are love buns, which are made with a recipe by Nigella Lawson, originally intended to celebrate Valentine’s Day. But I think you can make them to celebrate your boobs. Or, if you don’t have any boobs, celebrate someone else’s!
These cupcakes are a basic white cake mix with a meringue-type topping that is kind of marshmallowy. Very unusual! I coloured the topping with Wilton’s pink colouring gel, so as not to lose the thick consistency.
I bought my pink sugary sprinkles and pastel pink and blue cupcake cases from Asda – so cheap compared to some of the prices I’ve seen. The cupcake flag is from Momiji.
If you want to join in Breast Cancer Awareness Month and turn your blog pink for October, go to Pink For October for information and resources. There’s also information on there for turning your Twitter background pink, as well as a Facebook group, and a place to register your site. You can also turn your Flickr pictures into Breast Cancer Awareness posters at Bighugelabs, where you can also find more resources for your blog, including ribbon logos.
For baking-related Breast Cancer Awareness stuff, you can visit The Cakes, Cookies & Crafts Shop (UK) and find Awareness Ribbon cookie cutters, cake cases, oven gloves and more.
Egg cup
This is such a simple recipe I haven’t even put quantities in. You can adjust them according to what you like, how many you’re making and so on. This recipe was originally created for the bento box, as you can cook the egg cup directly in a silicone cup cake case, but you could also make this in a frying or saute pan and finish it off in the oven. I cook this at home so often for dinner, only for a main meal, I would add in cooked, sliced potatoes.
Recipe for bento / lunch egg cup
Fry onions, peppers, courgette and peas (or any veggies of your choice) together with olive oil and salt over a gentle heat until softened.
Add mixture to beaten eggs when still hot, then pour into a silicone cup, which has been greased with olive oil. Sprinkle with dried thyme and bake on a baking sheet for 10 mins at 180c. Check the cup has cooked by squeezing it – if it’s firm, it’s cooked. Allow to cool at room temperature, which will help the egg to set.
NOTE:
You can also use this recipe to use up cooked leftover veggies – saute them until they get a little colour and continue as before.
As a general guide, I would estimate one to two eggs to every person eating. The egg isn’t so much part of the meal, but a way of binding the ingredients together.
Frugal Potato Soup
This is one of my most viewed photos on Flickr – I assume people are searching for it for a simple, cheap, potato recipe. Well, it’s certainly that!
It’s a tasty potato soup that in its most basic form only requires five ingredients – potatoes, garlic, onions, vegetable oil and water. You don’t even need to add stock, but seasonings might be needed, depending on your taste. I also added milk and some bacon strips to the top of mine. This soup is also better eaten the next day, and will serve around six.
INGREDIENTS
- 2 white onions
- 3 cloves garlic
- 5 small potatoes
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil
- 1 pint milk (optional)
- Fried back bacon strip (optional)
METHOD
- Finely chop garlic and onions together in a processor, then heat the oil in a heavy bottomed pan with a lid, and add the onions.
- Sweat with the pan covered for ten minutes, then add the potatoes and a cup of water. Bring to the boil, then turn down to simmer.
- Cover again and leave for 20 mins, checking the water is covering the potatoes. If it’s not, add a bit more. Continue to cook until the potatoes are tender.
- Add around a pint of water (around half a litre) and bring to the boil. (Note: if adding milk, reduce the amount of water used and add the milk at this point.)
- At this point, you can whizz the soup down to a fine puree or mash it to leave it slightly lumpy. Taste for seasoning. The soup is now done!
- Garnish with snipped bacon, as in the pic, or maybe with some chives. Or leave plain!
If you eat the soup the following day (recommended, as all soups gain more flavour the day after) then add some more water or milk as the potato tends to make the soup more solid the longer it sits.
Chicken with 40 cloves of garlic
This recipe is one I’ve cooked before, but I wanted to cook it again, partly because it’s good and partly because I wanted to blog about it. I can’t remember the first time I heard about it, but I was definitely in my teens. I also have a copy of French chef Camille le Foll’s book Les Classiques de Camille (available in English as well) with a recipe for it. So I was totally aghast when I was watching an old episode of Nigel Slater’s Real Food (complete with a very young looking Nigella Lawson) with him and a bunch of snobby foodies (one of them was Alastair Little) talking about the dish as though it was a totally bizarre urban legend. You can actually watch the episode here, and they start talking about ‘the myth’ around 11 minutes on. Alastair Little said he never heard of it, so proceeded to make up a version. I’d love to be so smug as to think that just because I’d never heard of a recipe, it must be made up. Maybe one day.
Needless to say, I think Alastair Little is a ponce. Very good at cooking, but every time I see him on TV, I wish I hadn’t.
Anyway, I had heard of chicken with 40 cloves of garlic, and I’ve cooked it, and it is nice. So I thought I’d cook it again. Here’s the costing.
Wallace Red Freedom Endorsed chicken : £4.73
Fresh parsley : £1.19
Bunch sage : from garden
Thyme : £1.19
Rosemary : from garden
Bay leaf : from garden
150ml olive oil : store cupboard
3 bulbs garlic : 89p
Grand total : £8.00 exactly. Spooky. And, shameful, because I grow all these herbs in my garden, but they are sort of dwarf, mini versions I dare not pick any leaves from, in case they die…
So here’s the chicken – no specific type needed, so I thought I’d get this Freedom Endorsed chicken from Sainsbury’s which was on special offer. Sorted.
Next step was to separate out the cloves of garlic – no peeling needed, thank goodness. If you ever wondered what 40 cloves of garlic looked like, this is for you.
Surprisingly few, right?
But still, so good looking. Ah, garlic…
Anything that starts with garlic, herbs and olive oil has to turn out good, right?
Chop a sprig of parsley, sage, thyme and rosemary and sprinkle it over the chicken together with salt and pepper, and cover with the olive oil. A lot of olive oil. Then, pop the bay leaf inside the chicken, and scatter the garlic around the edges.
Then you roast it for an hour and half, either covered with foil or a lid.
Once you take it out, the garlic should be delicious and soft, and you can squeeze it out of its skin… and eat it! Yum. Or spread it on the delicious chicken meat.
Serve it with crusty bread and a green salad. I also made roasted cherry tomatoes from the garden, sprinkled with a little sugar, dried thyme, salt and olive oil.
So, what’s the verdict? Was it too garlicy…?
No such thing.
The scores.
M gave it 8. He likes garlic.
I gave it 8.5. I like garlic too. And, it’s a quick and easy recipe, unusual and very delicious! If you like garlic… you will love this.
The Shocking and Horrible Story of Lisa’s Cupcakes
My good friend Lisa, who lives an hour and a half away from me, and whom I don’t get to see very often, had her birthday a couple of weeks ago, so R and I had the fantastic idea of baking her a load of cupcakes and taking them with us when we went to visit.
So, we got to work. The plan was R would bake the cakes during the day, I would prepare the buttercream and organise cutters, and then we’d decorate them in the afternoon before we drove up.
I made a new recipe for cream cheese frosting, which included delicious shards of caramel, making a great crunchy texture and smooth sweetness to contrast with the cream cheese.
Rachel even made the world’s creepiest and disturbing Care Bear, which to me looks like one of those poignant social services adverts about broken childhoods.
We dyed fondant all kinds of beautiful bright colours, cheerfully telling each other how much Lisa would love to see her gorgeous little cakes, and how much we’d appreciate it if someone made us some kick ass cakes for our birthdays.
Then, when we were halfway through, I remembered something somewhat vital.
Something that, had we remembered before we started, would have been most useful indeed.
The last time we met her, Lisa told us she cannot eat flour.
She’s on a gluten-free diet.
Oh pants.
Sorry Lisa.
We hope you enjoyed looking at the cakes, anyway… Ah, fudge.
Please note, no Lisas were harmed during the making of these cakes, and also note that I did buy her a present she could use, unlike R, who bought her chocolate which now Lisa also cannot eat. We love you Lisa, please forgive us!
Hello autumn!
Autumn feels like my season. Ever get that with a season? Something about it just makes me feel like I’m coming home. It helps that my birthday is in October, but I love the fact that autumn is a real season of celebration. Halloween, harvest, bonfire night, Thanksgiving – even Christmas, although it’s obviously in winter, is ever-present. The crisp air of a sunny, cold day, the colour of the leaves, the smell of bonfire smoke. Ah, I love autumn.
I bought a couple of beautiful sugar pumpkins at the farmer’s market last month – I love having pumpkins and gourds on my windowsill all through autumn and winter, but when I saw this recipe in Good Food magazine this month, I had to eat it. A whole mini pumpkin, stuffed with garlic and thyme infused cream and milk, with a generous helping of parmesan cheese? Yes please!
I ate this for lunch and it was really good, but way too much for me. And I felt like a slug afterwards. But, you know, it was still totally delicious and I don’t regret a thing, except maybe my thighs…
Hello autumn! I’ve missed you!
Food, Fashion and Fitness 