Being Mrs C

A morning in the kitchen

My whole morning has been spent in the kitchen today, sadly not baking, but instead coming up with meals for Little Miss C. Pureed vegetables are nice and simple, but today I branched out a bit and tackled my first Annabel Karmel recipe: Apricot Chicken and Sweet Potato. I'm beginning to wonder if I should have bothered though.

LMC is currently teething and while her front bottom two teeth have come through the gum, I'm pretty sure there's more going on in that little mouth of hers. Not only is she chewing everything that comes into her hands, but she also has moments where she goes off both food and milk. She's also sleeping much more than normal too. Although, annoyingly, that sleeping doesn't always seem to happen at night time. I guess I just have to keep telling myself that this is a stage. Fingers crossed that she does actually like the chicken dish, especially since there are five more portions of it in the freezer!

Homemade pizza

Finally I'm finding the time to catch up with various blog posts that I've been meaning to write for a while. Following on from the various meals that I planned I'm pleased to report that all were a success.

One that we particularly liked was homemade pizza. It seems silly now that we hadn't tried this before now and since our initial attempt we've this weekend enjoyed the second batch.

The recipe that I've been using for the dough is a Jamie Oliver one that I found online. I halved the quantities to make enough dough for just three pizzas (six seemed greedy even by our standards!) and just used strong white bread flour as that's what I had in the cupboard. I also slightly changed the yeast quantities to follow the amount quoted on the packet for the amount of bread flour I used.

 

When it came to toppings we were guided somewhat by what we had in at the time. A tomato puree base benefitted from the addition of some sun dried tomato paste and we then added tuna in sunflower oil, the last cherry tomatoes from our garden, mozzarella and some grated cheddar on top. About 15 minutes in the oven at 240 degrees and it was ready. 

 

It might not be as geometrically correct as shop bought ones, but tasted far better. So much so that I doubt we'll be buying many more.

Meal planning

With a demanding baby in the house (Little Miss C is teething at just eleven weeks old!) the variety of our evening meals has been somewhat lacking of late. I'm hoping that over the next week I can change this a bit and whilst ordering my groceries online I have also been seeking out some new recipes to try. Earlier in the year I also tried to take part in the 52 in 2010 challenge but as expected my participation eased off somewhat once LMC arrived. May be I can get a bit back on track this next week.

Firstly I was drawn in by the Waitrose TV advert featuring Delia's Thai Chicken with lime and coconut and the ease of ordering the ingredients in one go with Ocado means that I really have no excuse for not giving this a go. When we stayed with CompostWoman a couple of weeks ago, CompostMan served up some fantastic home made pizza and it really made us determined to try similar at home with some of our home grown vegetables. I have found this Jamie Oliver pizza dough recipe and I'm hoping that I can make something as tasty as what we had in Herefordshire. Finally I have recently been remembering a very tasty sausage casserole recipe that I used to make when I was a student. I'm sure that I have the recipe somewhere in the house, but seem completely unable to find it at the moment. A search online has found this alternative though and reading the ingredients list suggests that it should be tasty. 

Looking at what we have in the garden I'm also hoping that I will be able to do something with the small damson crop that we should have and also the abundance of cooking apples that our tree seems to be producing. Any recipe ideas gratefully received.

Hummingbird Bakery Chocolate Muffins

Life is greatly improved when you add a chocolate muffin and cup of tea to it! 

Muffins from the recipe in The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook. Slight deviation in that I used chocolate chips rather than a bar of chocolate broken into pieces. Still tasted good though - I just need to learn how to stop the chocolate pieces sinking to the bottom! 

 

A chocolate filled Easter

It's been an Easter weekend that I think I'm going to remember most for the variety of chocolate consumed whilst doing a million and one other things!

There was only time for one bit of baking though which was an opportunity to try out a new seasonal recipe. I've had the card for Waitrose's Chocolate Nest Cakes for years (possibly since 2001 looking at the date on it!) and have only just got round to trying these, although as I needed to transport them to a friend's house in the car I made them into Easter cupcakes rather than nests so that they went in a tin better. The cakes themselves have the rind and juice of an orange in them, and this combined with the use of Green and Black's Maya Gold in the chocolate butter icing gave them a lovely orange tang to go with the rich chocolate taste. Very yummy indeed and another to add into my 52 for 2010 list (which has slowed down a bit of late!)

This weekend has also been the one for really getting organised for Baby C's arrival. Cue lots of traipsing round shops and list after list of what we need and where is the cheapest place to buy it from. I'm pleased to say that the long weekend ended with me ordering the majority of things online based on the research that I'd done in the shops to ensure I got everything at the best prices possible. There are a few little things I still need to go out and get, but nothing too urgent. I've also managed to get a couple of basis moses baskets for free, so now I need to apply my sewing skills to make covers for them both. I managed to pick up some lovely bright fabric yesterday, so possibly today the pattern planning for that will start. I've ordered new mattresses for them both so should be able to make them to look as good as new.

The nursery cross stitch is also progressing well so I should have a recent photo for you later this week and I've also made a start on a hand knitted baby blanket. I'm currently on the third ball of yarn of the thirteen that the pattern says it requires so still a long way to go, but it is starting to take shape at least. Again, photos should follow soon!

Seared Spicy Tuna with Honey Soy Glaze

Anther new recipe for dinner tonight after spotting some tuna steaks in the local supermarket.

Mr C had the idea that he wanted to do something with honey and Soy Sauce and a quick google found me this recipe on Oishii's blog. Fantastically tasty and the chilli flakes in there gave it a lovely warm taste. Easy to make (or so Mr C tells me!) and went great with some couscous and asparagus. Definitely one worth trying again.

Lemon and Honey Chicken

I love it when you discover a new recipe that's completely yummy, but also so easy that you could almost do it with your eyes closed. 

That sums up this recipe for lemon and honey chicken that I took out of 101 Cheap Eats . Less then ten minutes preparation and then an hour in the oven was all that was required before this could be served up. We used whole chicken legs in it and found that the meat stayed beautifully moist and infused with the lemon and honey flavours. These were also carried by the potatoes that cook around it and the time in the oven was just right to get these cooked to perfection.

The added bonus is that there's very little washing up either. What more could you ask for?

This was another in my 52 for 2010 and finding gems like this that must have been hidden on my kitchen bookshelf for years makes it all so worthwhile!

Valentines chilli and chocolate muffins

Valentines day meant something nice had to be made for Mr C when he returned from his usual SUnday morning football. I spotted the recipe for chilli and chocolate muffins in the February edition of Country Living magazine and thought that they would fit the bill perfectly - Mr C being a fan of home baking, chocolate and chilli.

Very simple to make as the recipe only took a few minutes. I did decide not to include the whole bird's eye chillies on the top of each, but otherwise followed it to the letter. I'm therefore not at all sure as to why they rose and spread in quite the way they did in the oven. Most strange! Tasted good though, with a nice chilli kick. One thing we did agree on though is that Waitrose cocoa powder is not a measure on the Green and Black's one that we had been using in previous recipes. The chocolate was just no where near as intense as we might have wanted. Either more cocoa next time, or time to buy some more of the Green and Black's variety! 

The knitted love heart seemed an appropriate addition here and was knitted from a pattern I found on the Children's Society website as part of a sponsored campaign that they are running.

A week of new recipes

Last week I managed to make great headway on my 52 in 2010 challenge with not one, not two, but three new recipes tried during the course of the week!

The first came from the wonderful Apples for Jam and was for a simple beef stew with carrots. Not necessarily the most exciting dish in the world, but a good hearty winter meal all the same. Served up with some home-made mash this was very welcome of a bitterly cold evening. The carrots added a certain something that gave it a slight step up on most beef stews.

After being inspired by seeing Nigel Slater's cookery programme on the TV recently, my next two dishes came from his book Real Cooking which has been on the shelf for a while now with us only having tried about one recipe from it previously. 

 

The first I tried was pasta with spicy sausage and mustard which was very similar, but slightly different, to something that I saw him cook on the TV. This has to be one of the quickest meals I've ever made. Sub fifteen minutes to go from starting to one the table and one definitely worth remembering as a quick thing to do for supper. The dish itself was very tasty with the combination of mustard and chilli flakes giving it a super edge.

I then also tried the one directly below it in the book: pasta with caramelised onions, basil and cream. Again a lovely creamy dish, but despite the lovely caramelised onions this one was lacking a certain something. We served it initially as a side dish with some grilled chicken and it provided a good meal, but with something definitely missing. If I were to do it again I may well look to add some crispy bacon, or possibly (as I did when I had the leftovers for lunch the next day) add in some sun-dried tomatoes. 

My final note on these Nigel Slater recipes is the amount of pasta he suggests using for two people. In both the book says between 250 and 300g of dried pasta, but this seems an awful lot for two people. Saving the leftovers for lunch the next day certainly isn't a problem for us, but it seems strange that so much is suggested in the recipe. Has anyone else noticed similar with any of his other recipes?

(Or, as Mr C thinks, do you think he's actually looking quite Alan Bennett like on this latest TV series?)

Hummingbird Bakery Chocolate Cupcakes

With a craving for something chocolate based I searched all my cook books to find something that would satisfy my sweet tooth. There were plenty of options in The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook but the ones that most stood out were the chocolate cupcakes.

I've made the plain cupcakes from this book before, but that time ate them all before getting round to making the icing. This time I was determined to complete them before sampling, and succeeded. 

The cupcakes are completely delicious; lovely and moist. The chocolate rich, but not too rich. The icing sweet, but not over the top. The word divine might just sum them up!

My fourth from the 52 in 2010 challenge (no your maths isn't wrong, I still have one more to write up). Definitely the kind of challenge I enjoy, and much more fun than a new year's diet!