Baked Alaska

I had planned to make this on Christmas day with our big meal but with it being so big we didn't have any room left! So today after we had some more of the leftovers I made it. Usually the meringue is cooked with the ice cream inside however, rob loves crunchy meringue, and so do I, so I had to be a little creative with this one.

Baked Alaska

Serves 6-8

Ingredients
6" wide flan sponge base/victoria sponge
500ml of ice cream of your choice (we chose a local favourite, Pooh Bear from Mauds)
3 egg whites
¾ cup of caster sugar

Recipe
1. Whisk the eggs whites, either with an electronic or balloon whisk until white and stiff.
2. Continue to whisk and add the sugar pinch by pinch. The mixture should become thicker and firmer.

(Rob enjoyed tasting the mix)

3. Preheat oven to 160˚C.
4. Place a small (about 4" in diameter) oven proof bowl on a baking tray and spread the meringue mix over the bowl to cover it. There is no need to smooth the surface, the more peaks the better!

5. Place in the oven for 15-20 minutes.
6. Remove from the oven and gently remove the bowl from inside the meringue. Either place this bowl in the fridge to cool or get another bowl of the same shape and size: (when the bowl is cool) fill with your ice cream.
7. Place the flan on a plate and then tip the moulded ice cream on top. Cover with the meringue and serve.

Christmas dinner

This year, Rob and I celebrated our first Christmas as a married couple and had fun cooking our own Christmas dinner.


For starters we had crispy duck with chinese pancakes, hoi sin sauce and spring onions.


And for our main course we made Turkey, Ginger Glazed Gammon, Stuffing and roast potatoes, carrots and parsnips and had cocktail sausages and yorkshire pudding along with it all.



I even made doggie treats for Stewie
What a fantastic feed! We had a great day!

Christmas roast potatoes, carrots and parsnip

There's something special about roast potatoes at Christmas, I just love them! And I've grown very fond of roast parsnips as I've grown up too.

Christmas roast potatoes, carrots and parsnips

Ingredients
Potatoes, peeled and chopped up into quarters
Carrots, peeled and chopped into chunks
Parsnips, peeled and chopped into chunks
Goose fat
Garlic cloves, just crushed whole with a knife, no need to peel
Rosemary

Recipe
1. Preheat the oven to 190C
2. Parboil your veg for 10 minutes. Drain off water and shake the veg about in the pot to roughen the edges (we didn't peel ours so the edges didn't roughen/fluff up too well).
3. Place the goose fat (as much as you'll need to coat the amount of veg you are cooking) in your roasting tin/tray along with your garlic cloves that (about half a clove for each full vegetable you're cooking e.g. 2 potatoes = 1 garlic clove) and the rosemary (a tsp for each full vegetable). Place the tin/tray in the oven for 1-2 minutes.
4. Remove the tray, add the veg and lightly turn the veg in the tray so they are coated in the fat.
5. Replace the tray in the oven to roast for 35-40 minutes, checking occasionally and basting with the fat.

Delicious! But not to be done too often or I'll end up being the size of an elephant!

My sage, sausage and apricot stuffing

It's only in the last couple of years that I've started to like stuffing and thought I'd give it a go making some and here's my recipe, that was pulled together from various recipes.

My Sage, Sausage and Apricot Stuffing

Serves 3-4

Ingredients
250g sausage meat (I used pork)
25g (about 1 slice of bread worth) of breadcrumbs
1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, crushed/chopped
2 tbsp dried chopped sage
4-5 dried apricots
Salt and pepper to season

Recipe
1. Fry the onions and garlic for 2 minutes, and allow to cool.
2. Add all the other ingredients to the onion and garlic and mix well (best done the messy way with your hands). (This can all be done the night before)

3. You can either put it inside the turkey (or bird of your choice) or make balls in an oven proof dish or spread out into an oven proof dish.

4. Cook in the oven at 190C for 25-30mins

Ginger Glazed Gammon

I had watched Nigella Lawson's Christmas show, "Season's Eatings", and was drooling as I watched her making this ham. However I was worried about this recipe slightly as she had used a 5.4kg ham and I was planning to only cook a 0.75kg gammon, so fixing the times and scaling down the ingredients took some calculation and guesstimation and creativity. And it all turned out beautifully!

Ginger glazed gammon


Serves 2-3

Ingredients
750g gammon
1 litre ginger ale (I used light ginger ale, can never be too careful with the calories at Christmas!)
Marinade
1/4 cup marmalade (65ml)
1 tsp ground ginger
3 tsp whole grain mustard
2 tbsp soft dark brown sugar
a pinch of ground cloves

Recipe
1. Place the gammon in a pot and pour in the ginger ale (you can top up with water to cover the gammon). Bring to the boil, then reduce heat so it will bubble gently for 1-1.5 hrs.
2. In a bowl mix all the ingredients for the marinade (this can be done the day before).
3. Remove the gammon from the ginger ale and place in a foil lined baking tray or in an oven dish. Cover in the marinade and place in the oven at 190C for about 20-25 minutes.
4. Serve hot or cold.

I've had some in a sandwich already, just gorgeous!

PS if you're looking for the difference between ham and gammon, check here

Rob's Christmas turkey

My hubby isn't that keen on cooking, unless it's BBQ or steak, however he decided to take charge of the turkey for Christmas, and I'm hoping it's a tradition that continues!

I thought I'd tell what all he did to the turkey and show the results.

The night before (but it can be done just before putting the turkey in the oven) he mixed herbs (sage and parsley) into some butter and softened it. Separated the skin from the meat on the breast and spread the butter underneath. Rubbed some oil all over the skin of the bird then a little more of the butter mix. Covered the breast in strips of bacon and wrapped the legs and wings in foil.


We peeled and quartered some white and red onions, smashed some root ginger with a knife and placed it all in the bottom of the cooking tray (along with the giblets). Set the turkey on top and roasted for 3.5 hrs (it was a 10lb turkey), rested for half hour, then carved. Delicious and simple!

Our first ever turkey!

Peanut butter doggie treats

I had spotted this recipe on lots of other cookery blogs and decided to give it a go. I was initially a bit worried because Stewie didn't like the peanut butter on it's own but he loves the biscuits!

Peanut butter doggie treats

Makes about 30-35 biscuits

Ingredients
2 cups whole-wheat flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1 cup natural peanut butter
1 cup low-fat milk

Recipe
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. In a bowl, combine flour and baking powder. In another bowl, mix peanut butter and milk. Add wet mixture to dry, and mix well.
3. Turn out dough on a lightly floured surface and knead. Roll out to 1/4-inch thickness and cut out shapes.
4. Place on a greased baking sheet and bake 20 minutes or until lightly brown.
5. Cool on a rack and store in an airtight container.

Creamy mushroom chicken

Based on a recipe from Bean's Bistro.

Creamy mushroom chicken

Serves 2

Ingredients
2 Chicken Breasts, sliced in half to make them thin
1 Can Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup
1/2 C. White Wine (All I had to hand was White Shloer which worked fine)
Garlic Powder
8 mushrooms sliced (optional)
Salt & Pepper
Olive Oil

Recipe
1. Preheat oven to 190 degrees.
2. In a saute pan, heat the olive oil at medium heat. Salt and pepper the sliced-thin chicken breasts and brown on each side, about 2 minutes per side.
3. In an oven proof dish, mix together condensed soup, wine (aka shloer), and some garlic powder. Place chicken breasts in the sauce

4. Bake for about 20 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through.

New blog name

As I mentioned before I wanted to change the name for this blog and just have!

I'm glad to introduce the newly named cookery blog: ruth's kitchen experiments



If you've linked to me somewhere please update the name. Thanks

English toffee

Rob got a notion for some hard toffee recently and today we tried 2 different recipes to work out how to make it the way he likes it.

The first recipe was one Rob found here and didn't turn out too well. Rob's marks out of 10: 4, it was too dark and slightly vinegary still but relatively good toffee.

The second recipe was one I found here and it turned out slightly better. I thought it was about an 8 or 9 out of 10 personally, very tasty but was a little greasy. Rob's marks out if 10: 6, tasted a little like werthers but left a slightly bitter after taste and wasn't as hard as he'd like, a little too crunchy instead.

Well back to the drawing board search engines to find a good toffee recipe.

Meanwhile here's the photos of the 2nd batch of toffee:

Christmas Mince Pies

Thanks Jeena for your mince pie recipe. I had some fun making them and will get them all packaged to give to people as gifts before Christmas.

Jeena's Nanna's mince pies (slightly edited)

Makes 12 pies

Ingredients
8 oz Self Raising Flour
3 oz butter (softened)
1 Tbsp White Sugar
Small Jar Mincemeat
5.5 Level Tbsp Cold Water
1/4 cup orange zest
Plain flour

NB you will need a large and medium sized cookie cutter, as well as a jam tart oven tray

Recipe
1. Place flour, butter, sugar and orange zest in a mixing bowl and rob the ingredients together until it becomes like breadcrumbs in consistency

2. Add the cold water and mix the crumbs into a ball of pastry using a blunt knife or spoon.

3. Using your plain flour, flour a surface and roll out the dough very thinly. Then using your large cookie cutter, cut out 12 shapes and place in your jam tart tray.


4. Add a teaspoon of mice to the middle of each pie

5. Dip your finger in a little water and gently dab the edges of your mince pies to help the lid stick.
6. Roll the leftover pastry out thin again and cut out 12 shapes with the medium cookie cutter. Place the lids on top of the pies and gently press around the edges.

7. Mark a star shape on the lid using the edge of a blunt knife.

8. Place in the middle of an oven preheated to 205˚C and cook for 17 minutes or until slightly golden.


Delicious!!! Thanks Jeena.

Egg fried rice

Had a go at making egg fried rice a few nights ago to go with our sweet and sour pork... it was so simple and really tasty.

Egg Fried Rice

Serves 2

Ingredients
2 cups of cold cooked rice
1 egg
2-3 tbsp soy sauce
oil for cooking
salt and pepper to taste

Recipe
1. Lightly beat the egg with the salt and pepper
2. Heat oil in a wok. When hot add the egg and mix it to scramble (about 1 or 2 minutes)
3. Remove egg and wipe wok clean.
4. Add a little more oil to wok. Add rice and stir fry (use chopsticks or wooden spatula to stir gently), until the rice is heated through.
5. Add the soy sauce and stir for a further minute, then serve.

You could mix in all sorts and make this a dish on it's own. Very similar and versatile.

BBQ sauté potatoes

Well this week I made one of our favourites that I keep going on about... yep, the BBQ ribs and kept the leftover sauce with the idea of using it in another recipe. I used it with some sauté potatoes the day after. I only used 2 tbsp of the sauce so the sauce would have been:
2 tsp honey
2 tsp bbq sauce
2 tsp ketchup
and the tiniest little pinch of crushed garlic/garlic powder


I've wrote out the recipe as I did it for you to see in case you're interested:

BBQ sauté potatoes


Serves 2

Ingredients
About 16-20 mini baby potatoes
1 tsbp butter
oil (for cooking)
2 tbsp BBQ sauce mix (but I'm sure plain BBQ sauce would be fine)

Recipe
1. Par boil the potatoes for 5-10 minutes
2. Chop up the potatoes into little chunks.

3. Heat up the oil and butter in a pan and add the potatoes. Stir fry for 5-10 minutes until lightly browned.
4. Stir in the sauce, mix well with the potatoes and keep them moving for about 5 minutes (the honey in the sauce will make them look burnt but they're just caramelising)
5. Serve.... we had ours with southern fried chicken and some of the sauce on the side... Delicious!

Changing blog name

I used to blog about the site stats. I've decided not to anymore because a lot of the searches that led to here were to do with eggs and really I don't use eggs all that much in my cooking, so to reduce the disappointment I'm not adding the stats anymore. So seeing as I'm still getting a few hits about eggs I think I should really change the name of the blog, but have no idea what to change it to.

Any suggestions are welcome!

Thai red chicken curry

I was planning on cooking some Thai Red chicken curry tonight and was going to do it in the same way as Thai green chicken curry except with red curry paste. However I discovered that Chef Jamie at Dinner with the Bickfords made what looked like a tasty curry using red curry paste. I adapted it slightly and it turned out great! Simply delicious and fantastically easy.

Thai red chicken curry

Serves 2

Ingredients

2 skinless, boneless chicken breasts - cut into cubes
1 tbsp dark soy sauce
1 tbsp all-purpose flour
cooking oil
2 tbsp red curry paste
2 scallions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
1 tsp fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped
1 cup/250ml coconut milk
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp dark soy sauce
1 tbsp white sugar

Directions
1. Toss chicken first in 1 tablespoon dark soy sauce, then add the flour, coating pieces evenly.
2. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Place chicken in the skillet, cook and stir chicken until browned, about 5 minutes.
3. Remove chicken. Reduce heat to medium and stir in curry paste. Cook for 1 minute until fragrant.
4. Stir in green onions, garlic, and ginger; cook an additional 2 minutes.
5. Return chicken to the skillet, stirring to coat with the curry mixture.
6. Stir the coconut milk, fish sauce, 1 tablespoon soy sauce, and sugar into the chicken-curry mixture.
7. Allow to simmer over medium heat for 20 minutes until the chicken is tender and the sauce has thickened.
8. Serve garnished with rice or noodles.

Cooking for the masses

On Saturday afternoon (last weekend) I met up with some of the teenagers from the church I work in and spent the afternoon cooking for about 30. The idea arose last September when I met up with a few of the young people to talk about what we were going to do in youth group, and they suggested we cook dinner for the church elders. So invites were sent out inviting them to an "UnChristmassy Christmas Dinner" and had 20 out of 31 replies saying yes, then also had to count in our young cooks for food as well.

We met up at 2pm and decided to cook 4 dishes and have it as a buffet type night. We headed off to Tesco to get all our groceries, along with party poppers and some Christmas crackers. Then we got cracking with the cooking and by 6pm had made:

• 3 shepherds pies
• A lot of Thai green curry and rice on the side
• A crispy chicken bake
• A load of bolognese with spaghetti on the side
• Green leaf Salad
• Fresh fruit salad (to be served with whipped cream, ice cream and meringue)

And all very well I might add. It was a huge success, my only regret is forgetting to take any pictures. I look forward to maybe doing it again sometime, mind you this Saturday I've to do lunch for about 40 kids who we'll be minding for the afternoon so parent's can get Christmas shopping done, so that might just do me for a while.

New tags

I've added some tags to all the past posts with recipes about the cooking times so it's easier to find a recipe based on what time you have to prepare and cook (note the majority of the recipes that are longer than an hour or 2 are due to marinating time)

Italian meatballs in tomato and basil sauce.

There's been a new addition to the Channel Five line up recently in the form of Cooking the Books. Each episode is themed around the best selling UK cookery books by celebrity chefs, where celebrity chef will cook one of the dishes in the book they have published, the "compete" against another chef at cooking similar dishes as well as teaching another celeb how to cook something new. It's jam packed! And they even keep a blog of the recipes and readers comments.

Recently, Ainsley Harriott was on and cooking Italian meatballs in tomato and basil sauce and I thought I'd give this a go, especially seeing as we've a lot of spare mince to use. The recipe for this on the blog left out a few ingredients in the ingredients list which I've fixed below:

Italian meatballs in tomato and basil sauce

Serves 3
Prep time 10 minutes
Cooking time 35 minutes

Ingredients
Olive oil

Meatballs
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 ½ tsp dried oregano
3 or 4 slices rindless smoked bacon
500g lean minced beef
Finely grated zest of 1 lemon
75g fresh white breadcrumbs (or 1-2 slices bread grated into breadcrumbs)
Leaves from ½ a 20g packet parsley, chopped (or 1 tbsp dried parsley)
1 medium egg, beaten
Salt and pepper to season.

Sauce
A small knob of butter
1 medium onion, finely chopped
200g can chopped tomatoes
350g passata
1 ½ tbsp basil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Recipe
1. Heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil in a frying pan, add the onion, garlic and oregano and cook over a medium heat for 5-6 minutes until soft. Leave to cool slightly.

2. Put the bacon into a food processor and finely chop using the pulse button.

3. Add the minced beef, bacon, lemon zest, breadcrumbs, parsley and cooked onion mixture to a large bowl. Mix together well with your hands.

4. Add the egg, ½ teaspoon salt and plenty black pepper and mix again.
5. Shape the mixture into walnut-sized balls using slightly wet hands.
6. Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in the frying pan. Add the meatballs, a few at a time, and brown all over, then transfer to a flameproof casserole. (Or if like me you dont' have a gas cooker but electric instead, transfer to a large pot)

7. Add a little more olive oil if necessary to the frying pan and, when hot, add the butter, onion and garlic and fry gently until softened. Add the chopped tomatoes, passata, ½ teaspoon salt and some black pepper.

8. Pour the sauce over the meatballs, partly cover and simmer gently for 20 minutes, stirring gently now and then so as not to break up the meatballs. Stir in the basil and serve with some egg tagliatelle pasta or mashed potato.

Beef with Soy Sauce and Ginger

Ages ago Rob read a blog post on "How to Turn Cheap "Choice" Steaks into Gucci "Prime" Steaks" and nearly every time he's cooked steak since (steak is Rob's specialty, I'm useless at it) he's used this method. I decided to have a go at it myself and make a marinade for it, I also decided to be adventurous and have a steak myself. I'm not a fan of it personally, but this was rather nice, however don't think that I'll order steak in a restaurant or anything.

So here it is....
Beef with Soy Sauce and Ginger

Serves 2

Ingredients
2 (8 ounce/ 225 gram) sirloin steaks
Salt
Pinch of mixed herbs (optional)
8 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tsp ground ginger
1 red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
1 garlic clove, finely grated
1 lime, juiced
Olive oil

Recipe
1. Cover your steaks in the salt and mixed herbs. Allow to rest for 1 hour. (See the article for details)

2. Mix the soy sauce, ginger, chilli, garlic and lime juice. Pour over the steaks and allow to marinade for 15 minutes.


3. On a very hot griddle pan, cook the sirloin steaks until medium or to your liking.


We served boiled potatoes and peas with Rob's. Champ and peas with mine.