Apple-Pay

The crypto-currency of the Auvergne!




Sorry to go on about my glut of fruit and veg this year- but in addition to everything else, it has proved to have a surprisingly good exchange rate. Certainly a lot better than poor old sterling!

So far, I have exchanged my trays of excess fruit with friends and neighbours for : marrows, tomatoes, courgettes, blackberry cordial,  3 dozen eggs, two boxes of jam jars, eau de vie, more tomatoes and 5 tubs of donkey manure. Not to mention bringing a smile to the faces of our wood supplier, boiler service engineer and electrician when presented with gifts of jam.

Thanks for the poo Josephine!

Only a week left before we return to the UK so I will be looking for profitable transactions on my pears, cabbages, chard and potimarrons before I go.

However, I am still using up the fruit that wouldn't fit in the freezer- spreading it over the top of cheesecakes, baking cakes and clafoutis and making chutney.
Here are a few recipes to take you into October.

Apple Clafoutis

2 apples
100g flour
50g sugar
400ml milk
20g butter
1 sachet of vanilla sugar
pinch salt

1. Separate the eggs and beat the whites until they form soft peaks

Beat the egg whites to soft peaks

2. Beat the egg yolks with the sugar, milk and melted butter
3. Beat in the flour until you have a smooth batter
4. Pour half the mixture into a buttered oven dish
5. Add slices of peeled apple
6. Gently fold in the whites into the remaining batter and pile on top of the apple mixture

Mix the egg whites into the remaining batter

7. Bake at 180 degrees until risen and golden.

Apple Clafoutis

Chestnut and Cherry Bars

125g unsalted butter

175g sugar

1 egg

250 g crème de marron

1 tsp vanilla essence

375g plain flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

pinch salt

200ml  cherry jam 

150g roasted peanuts or hazelnuts, chopped

1. Preheat the oven to 160 degrees

2. Cream together the butter and sugar, then mix in the vanilla essence , egg and chestnut cream and beat with an electric mixer for 2 minutes

Cream the butter, sugar, eggs etc with an electric mixer

 3.Sift in the flour, baking powder and salt and mix until combined
4.Grease and line a baking tray or gratin dish and spread 2/3 of the dough along the bottom

Spread two thirds of the dough over the base of the lined dish

5. Spread the jam evenly over the dough
6. Drop blobs of the remaining dough randomly over the top

Spread with jam and the remaining dough in blobs

7. Sprinkle with the chopped peanuts and bake for 45 minutes until golden on top and cooked underneath.

8. Cut into slices when cool.

Chestnut and Cherry Bars

Jam Duffins

We made these little buns at Cookery Workshop this time. I have made them again at home using rice and cornflour mixed to make a gluten free version and they were just as good.
They are a cross between a doughnut and a muffin. What's not to like?

To make a dozen:

150g of flour
2 heaped tsp baking powder
1 pot natural yoghurt or milk
1 egg
40-50g sugar
75g melted butter
2 tsp vanilla essence
jam of choice

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees
2. Beat the egg and the sugar together

Beat the egg and sugar together

3. Add the yoghurt/milk, butter, flour and baking powder and beat well

Beat in the other ingredients

4. Add the vanilla
5. Butter the insides of a muffin tray and half fill the cups with the mixture

Half-fill the muffin cups with batter

6. Add 1 spoon of jam to each cup

Add 1 spoonful of jam

7. Cover  with the remainder of the mixture and bake for 15 minutes until (you guessed it) risen and golden.

Cover with the remainder of the mixture

8. Leave to cool before unmoulding so the jam can soak well into the cakes.

Jam Duffins

And so, if you are looking for a safe investment I can thoroughly recommend Auvergne Apple-Pay. It looks like the best bet at the moment!

Poor old Pound!

A Sandwich Short of a Picnic

What a summer it's been so far for eating al fresco. Whether it's been barbecuing in the back yard, soaking up the sun in Saugues or brunching at Bewl Water, this has definitely been the year when we ate outdoors!

But my first picnic challenge of the year was an interesting one- a picnic guest who was cutting down on gluten and wanted to go breadless.
No more sandwiches, quiches and pizzas- time to get creative with the cool box.



So, on today's picnic menu we have Tortilla, Flourless Mushroom Muffins and Seeded Shards ( for dipping in hummus or guacamole)

The Tortilla is simple- and uses up any leftover cooked vegetables or garden glut you might have. This recipe is for a classic potato and onion tortilla.

Ingredients:
2 large white onions
2 medium sized potatoes
6 eggs and a splash of milk
pinch each of salt, pepper and sugar

1. Finely slice the onions and potatoes

Finely sliced veg ready

2. Put the onions to fry gently in a little vegetable oil- in a large non-stick frying pan.
3. Blanch the potato slices (if you are using raw rather than leftover boiled potatoes) for 5-8 minutes in boiling salted water until tender.
4. Add the sugar to the onions and continue to fry until golden brown
5. Add the blanched potato and continue to fry gently until the potato also starts to brown
6. Beat the eggs with the milk, salt and pepper
7. Pour over the potato/onion mix and continue to heat gently until the tortilla is set underneath
8. Place a plate over the pan and invert the tortilla onto it.

Invert onto a plate

9. Slide the tortilla back into the pan and continue to cook on the second side.
10. Cool, slice and serve.

Potato and Onion Tortilla

Flourless Mushroom Muffins

A bit like tortillas, these little om-cakes are cooked in the oven in muffin cases.

I've used mushrooms and spring onions as the flavouring as that is what I had to hand- but  again you can use any veg you choose (peas, spinach, leeks...)

Ingredients:

4 eggs separated
125g of veg- eg. sliced mushrooms, sliced spring onions
40 g of  grated mature cheddar
25ml milk

1. Line a muffin tin with paper or silicone cases (the latter work best) and pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees
2. Beat the egg whites until stiff
3. Gently fry the mushrooms and onions until just cooked

Fry your filling choice

4. Beat the eggs and milk together
5. Add the  chopped fried vegetables and the cheese
6. Gently fold in the egg whites and spoon into the cases

Fold in the egg whites

Spoon into muffin cases

7. Bake until risen and golden.

Risen and golden!

Flourless Mushroom Muffins

Seeded Shards

50g porridge oats
100g mixed savoury seeds
1 tbsp honey or maple syrup
1 tbsp vegetable oil
2 tbsp approx of water to mix

1. Mix all the ingredients together with enough water to make the mixture soft

Mix all the ingredients together

2. Allow the oats to soak up the moisture
3. Line a baking tin with greaseproof paper and spread out the mixture, pressing down with a spoon

Press into a baking tin

4. Bake at 170 degrees until browned (approx 25-30 minutes)
5. Allow to cool completely and then break into shards
6. Store in an airtight container.

Seeded Shards

Now pack up some salad, some dips and crisps and crunchy veg sticks and plenty to drink.

You should have a picnic that will please the pickiest of picknickers- so what are you waiting for?

Service!

Pumpkin Pasta, Patisserie and Patties

My fellow villagers assured me that pumpkins would keep in a cool cellar from October to February- and of course they were right.
But February has been and gone and it's time for those pumpkins to be used up.
Aside from gallons of soup for the freezer, I thought at least one of the beasts deserved a more noble end and so put it into some more imaginative dishes.


 I cut it in half- one part to be roasted, the other to be peeled and grated.
The pumpkin crescents roast for 20 minutes or so with some olive oil, salt, pepper and herbs in a hot oven. They are then ready for serving up with stews or sausages, or peeling and mashing to use in a variety of ways.

Pumpkin for roasting

 First of all, I made some pasta- 4 eggs, a tsp salt, 250g flour and a glug of olive oil whizzed up in  the food processor and then left to rest whilst I make the filling- 2 tbsp of cooked pumpkin, mashed together with some soft garlic and herb cheese.

Pasta rolling

Ravioli shapes

Roll out the pasta as thin as you can, using a pasta machine and then cut out ravioli shapes using a pastry cutter.

Seal up the parcels

Place a teaspoon of the filling on each round, dampen the edges and press on the lid- making your way round with your fingers to ensure a good seal and pressing out the air.
 I keep a damp tea towel handy, sprinkled with flour, to store the ravioli as I work.

You can cook them fresh or freeze them in a container with tiers of greaseproof paper between them, again sprinkled with flour. They freeze well and can be cooked from frozen too.

To cook, bring a pan of water to a rapid boil, gently add the ravioli and turn down the heat to a simmer. The ravioli are cooked when they rise to the surface and float.
You can serve them with simple tomato sauce, or olive oil and parmesan shavings, or floating in a broth. You can make an easy and delicious broth from 1 tbsp miso paste, 1 litre of  hot vegetable or chicken stock and 2 tsp chopped sushi ginger.
I used the leftover bouillon from our village pot-au-feu.

Pumpkin Ravioli

With the grated pumpkin, I made the following:
- Pumpkin and Sultana Tea Bread
-Pumpkin and Gruyere muffins (Coeur Fondant)
-5 -a-day burgers
- Vegetable Moussaka

Pumpkin and Sultana Tea Bread

200g grated pumpkin
200g light brown sugar
4 eggs (separated)
grated zest and juice of 1 orange
100g sultanas (soaked in a cup of leftover tea)
100g ground almonds
200g self raising flour
pinch salt
1 tsp each nutmeg, cinnamon and ginger

1. Preheat the oven 1o 170 degrees and grease and line a large loaf tin
2.Whisk together the sugar and egg yolks until pale
3.Stir in the pumpkin, orange, sultanas and ground almonds

Add the pumpkin and orange etc

4. Sift in the flour, salt and spices
5. Now whisk the egg whites to soft peaks and then fold carefully into the mixture

Fold in your egg whites

6. Pour into the loaf tin and bake for about an hour until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.

Pumpkin and Sultana Tea Bread

 Pumpkin and Gruyere Muffins (Coeur Fondant)

The secret to these little aperitif cakes is the melting middle- in this case made from a cheese bechamel sauce- but it could be tomato, pesto or just a little mozzarella ball pushed into the centre before baking.
First make your sauce by melting 1 tbsp plain flour with 1 tbsp butter, cooking through and then whisking in a cupful of milk, 1 tsp mustard, a handful of grated cheese, salt and pepper.

Melt together the butter and flour

Whisk in the milk and flavourings

Now pour the sauce into an ice cube tray, allow to cool and then freeze for an hour or so.

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.
Meanwhile make your muffin batter by heating up 150 ml of milk, 30 g of butter and 100g of grated Gruyere cheese. When cheese and butter are melted, add 100g of grated pumpkin, salt and pepper.
In a bowl, beat 3 eggs and add 60g of flour and 1 tsp baking powder.
Now mix in the milk and pumpkin mix and then pour into individual muffin moulds.
Press each 'ice cube' of Bechamel sauce into the centre of the muffin and then bake for around 15 minutes until risen and golden.
When sliced open they should ooze sauce.

Pumpkin and Gruyere Muffins (Coeur Fondant)

Finally I used up the rest of the grated pumpkin in some 5-a-day burgers ( a mix of lentils, spring onions, mushrooms, pumpkin, hummus and garlic). Recipe if you click the link under the photo.
 5-a-day Burgers and Vegetable Moussaka

https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3142271565548915253#editor/target=post;postID=2296409778812253085;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=4;src=postname

The same  mixture goes really well in a Vegetable Moussaka too- just fry it off lightly and mix with some tomato sauce. Layer it along the bottom of a baking dish with sliced potato, finishing off with a layer of sliced and lightly fried aubergine.

Top with Bechamel sauce, grated mixed cheese (Cantal, Cheddar, Emmental and/or Parmesan) and a dusting of nutmeg.

Bake at 170 degrees until brown and bubbling.

Not much left in the garden now- just a few leeks, onions, and chard. 

Time to start planting again!

   

                                                 

 

 Roll on Spring!

 

Savoury Cakes, Muffins, Scones and Tartlets

Scones, butter and a cup of tea...it all helps.

It's been a sad week for me and I haven't felt much like communicating. But friends have said to me that at times like this it is important to do a few 'normal' things and normal for me is cooking and blogging, so I've conjured up this blog from the archives.








There are certain recipes on my blog which have proved much more popular than the rest: a recipe for courgette tart has been shared most often on Pinterest, my recipe for mushy peas (extraordinarily) caused the most controversy and comments on the Guardian website, several other recipes have appeared on other people's blogs - but by far and away the most clicked-on recipe on this blog remains the one for olive cakes.

Olive Cakes

This recipe was given to me by French friends after I'd eaten these delectable savoury muffins at an al fresco lunch in the South of France.

The lunch that launched 1000 clicks

Since then I've made it again and again - as a dinner party starter, smaller versions for a canape at a buffet, or just as a supper meal in its own right.

I've also made lots of variations on a theme and that is what I would like to share with you today on the blog.

First of all, of course- the olive cakes themselves.

Ingredients: (to make a dozen medium muffins)

160 g olives (green or black according to your preference) chopped coarsely

100 g self raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

2 large eggs

1 pot of natural yogurt or 100ml of milk

80 ml olive oil

100g grated emmental or cheddar

1. Sift the flour and baking powder together

2. Mix in the olives and cheese

3. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix until you have a thick batter

4. Spoon or pour into silicone (or paper) muffin moulds

5. Bake at 200 degrees for 20-25 minutes until risen and golden

6. Serve warm or cold with a green salad.

Now that you have the basic mix, there are lots of ways to vary it- experimenting with different flavours: sweetcorn and cheddar, red and green peppers, aubergine 'mud pies' (so called because of their beigy-brown colour!) made with aubergine puree added to the mix,  and here black pudding, apple and cider.

Black Pudding and Apple Muffins

The mix works well incidentally with a variety of different cheeses- so if you are lactose intolerant, you can use goat's cheese or Pecorino, (or indeed not bother with cheese if you don't like it- the other flavours are strong enough to carry the little cakes whatever).
If you are gluten intolerant, then substitute lentil or chickpea flour for a nuttier but equally tasty version (and achieve a similar effect with wholemeal or buckwheat flour too, if you like a denser cake.)

You can also bake the mix as a loaf and slice it to serve. Here I've made Courgette and Pesto Cake which I urge you to try as it was scrumptious!

Ingredients:

150g self raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

2 courgettes

2 tbsp green pesto

juice of half a lemon

2 eggs

200ml natural yoghurt

100ml olive oil

100g grated Parmesan or Pecorino

1 tsp each salt and ground pepper

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees

2. Sift together the flour and the baking powder and salt

3. Add the eggs, yoghurt and olive oil and beat well

4. Wash and grate the courgettes using a coarse grater or food processor.

5. Wrap in a clean J cloth or tea towel and squeeze hard to remove all excess liquid

Squeeze out the moisture

6. Add the courgettes, lemon, pesto and cheese to the cake mix and beat well.

7. Pour into a buttered and lined loaf tin and bake for 45 minutes until golden and when a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean. (Cover with aluminium foil for the last 10 minutes if it is browning too quickly.)

8. Cool on a wire rack and serve warm.

Mix and pour into the mould

Bake until golden

Courgette and Pesto Cake

You are probably thinking of other flavour combinations now to try. Here's a few ideas (which I haven't tried yet- but why not beat me to it!): chorizo and black olive, smoked salmon and dill, bacon and cheese, ham and mushroom, 3 cheese or pine nut and sun dried tomato.

The same principle applies to scones: once you have your basic savoury scone mix (as below) then any of the above flavour combinations will enliven them.

Savoury scones

Cheese Scones:

225g oz plain flour

60 g butter

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

125g grated cheese

1 tsp mustard

150ml milk (approx)

1. Sift the flour, salt and baking powder into a bowl

2. Rub the fat into the flour

3. Mix in the cheese and mustard

4. Add the milk until you have a soft dough

5. Roll out to 3cm thickness and cut out scone shapes

6. Place on a greased baking tray, brush with milk and bake at 180 degrees for 10-15 minutes until golden.

Vary it any way you choose.

 I like spring onion and cheddar, but am also partial to marmite and cheese scones too.

On a cookery course, I took part in a Scon-athon- all of us baking our signature scones and there were so many variations it was like the Galapagos Islands of Baked Goods. (I'm the one hiding in the blue stripey apron. I made sure my scones were at the back).

Zoom in for some scone ideas

Finally, I just want to share some scrumptious tartlet ideas with you.

As an experiment, instead of shortcrust pastry, I used puff pastry (as I had some to use up) as the base for some smoked salmon and asparagus tartlets- and was very pleased with the result.

Salmon andAspargus Tartlets

Here is the recipe:

For 4-5 tartlets

1 roll of ready-rolled puff pastry
10 asparagus spears (steamed till tender)
50g smoked salmon trimmings
2 eggs
100ml milk
salt
pepper






1. Cut tartlet shapes from the pastry, place in tartlet tins and bake blind for 10 minutes or so
2. Lay the asparagus spears and the snipped up salmon equally in the tart cases
3. Mix the eggs, milk and seasoning together in a jug and carefully pour into the cases
4. Bake at 180 degrees for 15 minutes or so until risen, firm and golden.



Again, once you've got the idea then try some variations- smoked haddock and sweetcorn for little chowder pies, or anchovy, onion and olive for Pissaladiere tartlets

Pissaladiere Tart
http://lizsleftovers.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/onion%20tart

- are two that spring to mind.

All of these are great for using up leftovers- just look in the fridge, see what's there and let the ingredients guide you to success.

Sorry it's a short blog today. I hope I'll be back on form soon.