Blowing Hot and Cold

February comes in like a lion

 At the time of writing, Storm Ciara is raging outside and it feels more like Autumn here.

Nothing to be done, except cocoon myself in the kitchen and do some baking- and whilst we  are waiting for the weather to warm up, a little added spice doesn't go amiss.


Some leftover tinned sweetcorn inspired this first bake. Sweetcorn really doesn't keep well so needs using up pronto. Combined with some Mexican Cheddar, garlic and herb soft cheese and a muffin batter, I made these delicious Chili Cheese and Corn Cakes.

Mmm... apero time

Assemble your ingredients- for the dry part: 220g flour, 1 tsp salt, 3 tsps baking powder, 125 g tinned sweetcorn and 125g grated Mexican Cheddar ( or other strong cheese and some chopped red chillis if you can't get it).

The dry ingredients

For the wet ingredients- 200 ml milk, 125 g soft garlic and herb cheese ( I used Quark ), 75g melted butter and 1 egg.

The wet ingredients mixed

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees and generously grease some mini-loaf or muffin tins.
Mix the wet ingredients into the dry and beat together.

Mix wet and dry

Spoon into your tins and bake for around 15 minutes until risen and golden.

Spoon into muffin or mini-loaf tins

Lovely eaten warm with tomato soup, or with an early evening apéritif.

Chilli Cheese and Corn Cakes

With Easter not that far off, I thought I would have a go at making hot cross buns- but when the dough was ready for baking, I decided at the last minute to put it all in a loaf tin and make a Hot Cross Bun Cake. I was pleased with the result, and we ate it sliced with butter and jam for pretty much the rest of the week! Here's the recipe:

450g flour
pinch of salt
100g sugar
 7g sachet yeast
180 ml milk
1 egg
1 tsp each cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger
180g sultanas ( soaked in tea to plump them up)
70g melted butter
1. Warm the milk to blood temperature and mix in the yeast and  2 tsp of the sugar. Leave to rest 10 minutes.

Warm the milk and mix in yeast and sugar

2. Mix together the flour, salt, sugar and spices. Add the sultanas, tea, melted butter, milk mixture and  beaten egg.

Mix together all the ingredients

3. Knead well on a floured board until nice and elastic.
4.Place back in the mixing bowl, cover with a clean cloth and put in a warm place to rise for an hour or so.

Dough has doubled in size

5. When doubled in size, take out the dough and either make it into 12 buns or put it in a loaf tin.
Cover again and leave for another 30 minutes or so before cooking at 200 degrees for around 35 minutes.
6. When cool, you can either pipe a cross onto the top or glaze with a little icing sugar dissolved in hot water.

Hot Cross Bun Cake ( ready for icing)

Finally-I know it's not baking ( or even cooking ) but I did want to share with you my Instant Ginger Ice Cream- which goes beautifully in a banana split.
I make this now whenever I have half a tub of vanilla ice cream leftover. It is also really good made with soya ice cream for vegans or those on a dairy-free diet.

Just chop up 1-2 tbsp stem ginger in syrup

Chopped stem ginger

and quickly mix in a bowl with your softened ice cream.

Quickly mix and refreeze

When thoroughly mixed, put the ice cream back in the freezer until you are ready to serve.

I served it here with a Banana Split and topped with some of the ginger syrup from the jar or a caramel sauce and some crushed sesame snap biscuits for more crunch.

Banana Split with Ginger Ice cream

So there we are- some spiced recipes to take you through this stormy weekend. 

Next time I write this blog, I'm hoping for some spring weather to make us all feel good.

Yeah!

Runaway Pumpkins!

Lots of things really thrive here in the Auvergne. Swiss chard, courgettes, pumpkins.....And me, of course.

When we arrived back to the Potager, the pumpkins had taken over.
The leeks were frantically waving for help, and the beetroot, celeriac and radishes were all but in invisible under a tangle
of pumpkin leaves and runners.
Some had even made it over the fence into my neighbour's garden.

It is definitely the time of year to dust off my pumpkin, squash and courgette recipes.
See    http://lizsleftovers.blogspot.fr/search?q=smashing+pumpkins
or http://lizsleftovers.blogspot.fr/search?q=harvest+festival+recipes

But first, this year, I thought I would try something new. starting with tackling this giant courgette:

Makes me look tiny! (That's a good thing..)

I tried out a recipe for Courgette and Ginger Jam- and it is surprisingly delicious. The courgettes are a bit tasteless when they get to this size - so provide a good vehicle for strong flavours like ginger and lemon.

Courgette and Ginger Jam

1.5kg of courgette or marrow flesh, peeled, de-seeded and chopped into small chunks

1 kg of granulated sugar

grated zest and juice of 3 lemons ( keep the bald shells in the freezer for adding to marmalades and jams later)

100g of crystallized ginger, chopped

3 tsp ground ginger

250 g pectin

1. Layer the vegetable in a large mixing bowl, sprinkling each layer with sugar and lemon juice until the sugar is all used up.

Sprinkle with sugar and lemon juice

2. Cover and leave for 24 hours.

3. A huge amount of liquid will have come out of the flesh, so drain that off into a preserving pan along with any undissolved sugar.

4. Add the lemon and ginger to the mixture and boil rapidly for 20 minutes or so.

Boil rapidly

5. Add the chopped marrow/courgette flesh and cook for a further 10 minutes until tender, skimming as you go.

6. Use a stick blender to roughly blitz the flesh and ginger into a course puree and then add the pectin.

7. Boil until your jam has reached setting point ( when a spoonful sets on a cold saucer and wrinkles up) and then pour into hot, sterilized jars.

Courgette and Ginger Jam

The medium sized courgettes were made into an old favourite- stuffed with leftover bolognaise sauce and cooked au gratin in the oven:

Stuffed Courgettes/Marrow Au Gratin

And any other assorted overgrown veg from the garden were put together with Moroccan spices, dried fruit, chutney and tomatoes for a tagine:

Veg for a tagine

http://lizsleftovers.blogspot.fr/search?q=tagine

Finally, I am going to use up one of the giant pumpkins to make Spiced Pumpkin Butter ( a bit like a treacle spread for toast, pancakes, waffles etc).

Spiced Pumpkin Butter
2 kg of pumpkin flesh, peeled and cut into cubes
500g brown sugar and 1 tbsp treacle or 600g  brown sugar ( if you don't have treacle)
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp grated nutmeg
6 cloves
finely grated zest and juice of 2 lemons

1. Put the cubes in a steamer over hot water and steam for 10 minutes or so until tender.

Steam rather than boil the pumpkin initially

2. Place in preserving pan and blitz with a stick blender until you have a puree.
3. Add the sugar and spices, the lemon juice and zest
4. Simmer on a low heat for an hour or so until the mixture is very thick. (I am going to use a slow cooker for several hours instead.)
5. When the puree is very thick and leaves a clear channel when a wooden spoon is drawn through- it is ready to be potted up in sterilized jars.

Spiced Pumpkin Butter
(Photo courtesy of Thane Prince)

That takes care of one of the pumpkins. My friends assure me that the rest will keep well in our cool cellar over the winter.

No chance of getting the ones back which have run away into the neighbour's garden anyway- he has placed them under armed guard!

Pumpkin patrol!