chewy apple flapjacks

I have been slowly working my way through the load of apples recently given to me by a friend. I’ve made toffee apple crumble, an attempt at a tarte tatin but I burnt my caramel because I didn’t have the patience to cook it slowly so it was rusty-black and really bitter, stewed apples to go in my porridge, and some apple and oat cookie/flapjack cross which I forgot to take a picture of to blog, which is just as well as they were ok tasting but a bit dry.

I think I might have hit the jackpot with these chewy apple flapjacks. If you’d like to make some, here’s how.

You will need
– 80g butter
– 125g brown sugar
– 125g golden syrup
– milk
– 300g oats
– 500g cooking apples
– 25g caster sugar
– 2tbsp lemon juice
– ground ginger (nutmeg, cinnamon, ground cloves and allspice would also work well)
– flaked almonds (a nice touch if you’ve got some but not essential, walnuts would be good with the apples to if they’re what you have at home)

With all baking, step number 1 is to heat your oven – 180 degrees.

You first need to make your flapjack mix:
Melt 80g of butter in a pan with 125g of brown sugar, 125g of golden syrup and 5tbsp milk.

Once all melted, add 300g of oats and mix well – your flapjack mix is ready. Put half of it into a baking tray and cook in the oven for 20minutes.

While it’s cooking, make the apple filling by cooking 500g of cored, peeled and chopped cooking apples in a pan with the juice of half a lemon, 25g caster sugar and 1/2 tsp of ground ginger until they are pulpy.

Spread the apples on top of your baked flapjack, mix some almond flakes into the rest of the flapjack mix and layer on top of the apple pulp (a bit like a sandwich, with flapjack as bread). Put back into the oven for another 20minutes and it is done.

Leave your flapjack to cool before cutting into squares.

onion soup

Taken from Jamie at Home this onion soup (which he makes with British onions, but I don’t discriminate, or grow my own like him) is a really warming and comforting meal for the winter months.

Its made of all different types of onions – basically whatever you’ve got although the more mixed the tastier – ideally red onions, white onions, shallots and leeks.

Put a knob or butter in a large heavy based pan on medium heat and throw in a handful of fresh sage leaves and 4 cloves of minced/grated garlic. While that begins to warm slice up all your onions and put in the pan, along with a healthy seasoning of salt and pepper.

The trick to this soup is to let your onions cook for a long time on a low heat. Once they are all in the pan turn the heat down low, put the lid on with a slight gap and cook for around an hour, stirring every now and again to ensure it doesn’t stick.

After an hour add a litre of chicken or vegetable stock (you may need to add a bit more/less depending on how many onions you used), season again adding a good dash or worchester sauce, bring to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes.

Onions are naturally sweet and I consistently don’t add enough salt to the soup, in order for you not to make the same mistake I recommend you now taste your soup to check the seasoning.

Your soup is then ready to serve, which is extra tasty with some cheese on toast to dip in. (In a moment of patriotism I used a tasty smoked applewood).

Madhur Jaffrey’s Tikka Masala

After watching Madhur Jaffrey’s Curry Nation, our mouths were salivating at her chicken tikka masala, a dish that doesn’t have a lot of respect but I really like, especially with a little extra kick.

The recipe is split into 2; first the chicken tikka, which is marinated pieces of chicken (I used breast) cooked on skewers in a tandoor oven, or under the grill in a normal oven, which is what I did. Ideally you marinate the chicken for 4-6 hours, I prepared mine on Monday night to cook on Tuesday evening.

First, leave the chicken in bowl with 3 tbsp of lemon juice and salt for 20 minutes, then add all the below ingredients and refrigerate until time to cook.

1 tbsp root ginger, peeled and finely grated
2 garlic cloves, finely grated or crushed
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp chilli powder
6 tbsp cream
½ tsp garam masala

I was out of ground cumin so used cumin seeds instead, which were really nice when cooked.

So when I got in yesterday evening I made my massala sauce by warming coconut oil on a medium to low heat and frying sliced onion until soft (around 7 mins). Then I added:
– 6 crushed garlic cloves and 1 tbsp of freshly grated ginger.
After leaving to cook for a minute, add the rest of the spices
– 1 tbsp ground coriander
– 1/2 tsp turmeric
– 1 heaped tsp chilli and a little extra for luck (this turned out to be too much)
– 2 tsp paprika

After a moment of heating the spices, mix in 4 tbsp of yoghurt, 1 tbsp at a time to make sure it doesn’t curdle.

Then, add 2 medium chopped tomatoes (or 2 handfuls of cherry tomatoes), leave in the pan until they soften a little then add 350ml of chicken stock and a little salt, bring to the boil and simmer for 20minutes with the lid on.

In the 20 minutes while the massala is simmering cook the skewered chicken tikka under a grill, with the little sunflower oil brushed on top.

Once cooked, put the chicken tikka in the massala with half a tsp of garam massala and eat.

As I was worried about mine not being spicy enough I deviated from the suggested 3/4 tsp of chilli powder and added 1 heaped teaspoon and a bit, which was way too much. Even after adding some cream to mellow the flavour I was still sweating a little eating this! The learning point is not to be to heavy handed with the chilli powder, keep tasting and only add more if needed – oops!

Lemon ice cream

Although the weather has got colder the ice cream making has not stopped – we love this lemon ice cream because its tasty and fresh and as a bonus pretty simple to make.

It uses a tin of low fat condensed milk (until recently I never thought you could use this for ice cream), half a tub of elmlea double cream (144ml), the juice of 4 lemons and the grated zest of 2 lemons.

Give all ingredients a quick whisk and pour into the ice cream machine for 30 mins, serve whenever you’re ready.

Plum and lavender jam

Apparently jam on toast is the breakfast choice for a lot of professional sportspeople – so after an hours’ brit mil fit class in Admiral’s Park, or before Rich goes on a 50mile cycle what could be better then some home made jam for our toast?

I made some ‘lavender sugar’ a couple of weeks ago but putting a couple of lavender flower heads into a bag of jam sugar – I’m not sure if this is the best way to do it, but you can smell the lavender when you stick your nose in.

After removing the stones from the plums (I used a punnet) and chopping into cubes, I warmed them in a pan with an equal weight of the lavender jam sugar and the juice of 1 lime. Once the sugar melted, I turned up the heat and boiled vigorously for 4 minutes. After a quick setting test, and 2 more minutes of boiling, my jam was ready.

I poured into sterilised warm jars and enjoyed this morning 🙂

apples, apples, apples

One of the great things about having a food blog is that it encourages people to share food with you. Check out all these apples a friend has brought me from her dad’s.

I’m looking forward to get cooking with them this weekend, I’ve got a few ideas of what to make. I also have a lot of apples – so all recipe suggestions welcome! What would you make?

Ice Cream Loving

Although its now Autumn (and some days feels like winter) a couple of weeks ago I got myself and ice cream making machine. I love it!

It took a few unsuccessful attempts, but I’ve now mastered a classic vanilla ice cream recipe, and even got as far as making a strawberry ripple. My main learnings are:

– to make classic ice cream you must first make custard, let it cool, mix it with cream and then put through the ice cream machine (which freezes while churning)
– the ice bucket part of the machine must be properly frozen before you attempt to use it, this takes at least half a day, not a couple of hours
– 30-45 minutes of churning creates the best texture

So here’s the recipe for vanilla ice cream, taken from the Andrew James recipe book I got with my machine.

1. Make custard:
– warm 300ml of milk with a split vanilla pod in (seeds scraped out) until just before it starts to boil. Take off the heat and cover for 20 minutes.
– whisk 3 egg yolks with 100g of caster sugar. Add the vanilla milk to the eggs and sugar, whisk well, then pour back into the pan and remove the vanilla pod.
– warm over a medium heat, stirring constantly, until the custard thickens, coating the back of a spoon.
– leave to cool completely.

2. To make ice cream
– whisk in a 284ml tub of double cream into the custard
– pour into your ice cream machine (turned on) and leave to churn for 30 minutes (it however long your machine needs)

Once done, transfer into a tub and put in the freezer until you want to serve. I found that freezing for an hour after churning helped the ice cream firm up.

To make strawberry ripple, while churning blend strawberries with a couple if tablespoons of caster sugar. Ripple through with a spoon once the ice cream is ready (if you pour it into the machine it will just mix in).

Banana and chocolate muffins

What to do with a lonely, browning banana?

Make a quick mix of 100g flour, 100g butter, 50g brown sugar, some vanilla essence, 2 eggs and a tsp of baking powder. Fold in the chopped banana, a bag or chocolate chips and bake in cupcake moulds for around 15 minutes on 180 degrees.

Top with cream cheese icing (cream cheese mixed with lots of icing sugar) and a sprinkle or poppy seeds and you’ve got some quick muffins.

Chicken liver pâté

Pâté to me is really posh, I guess that comes from fois gras and force fed geese. There is nothing posh about chicken livers, they are cheap to buy and not very pleasant to handle, but with a bit of cooking and a little love can be transformed.

Here’s how you make chicken liver pâté (or parfait? What’s the difference?).

You need a food processor or a hand blender to make this.

Ingredients:
– 400g chicken livers, white an sinewy bits removed
– 150g butter for cooking and blending
– 50g butter for pouring on top
– a clove of crushed garlic
– chopped shallot
– fresh thyme
– a pinch of Chinese five spice
– 2 tbsp double cream

Method:
Fry the liver, garlic and shallot in a knob of butter.

Season with salt + pepper, add the five spice and a sprig of thyme and keep cooking until the liver is browned and firm, still a little pink but not under-cooked.

Transfer to a food processor or blender container. Add the rest of the butter and the cream and blend until smooth.

Put into ramekins, place a little thyme on each. Melt the 50g of butter and pour on top of each pate ramekin.

Put into the fridge for butter to set and when ready serve with toast and onion relish. (my home made relish was a little runny and unsuccessful – another recipe for another day, in the meantime tips are very welcome).

Strawberry Jam

I’ve got a taste for jam making since the marrow and ginger jam, although this time I’ve gone for a more classic strawberry.

To be able to do the cold plate test later, I started by putting a side plate in the freezer.

Then I started with the jam making, putting 400g of hulled strawberries into a pan with 400g of jam sugar (always equal weights of fruit and sugar) and the juice of 1 lemon.

Heat on a low heat until the sugar has completely dissolved, then turn it up and boil vigorously (what a fantastic expression) for 4 minutes and take off the heat entirely and do the setting test.

Setting test: take your pre- prepared cold plate out of the freezer and put a spoon of jam on it – leave for 2 minutes. After 2 minutes, poke the jam – all books tell you that if it had formed a skin then it is ready. I wasn’t sure if mine had formed a skin, but it was definitely a jam-like consistency so declared it ready.

While the jam is still warm, put it in your sterilised, warmed jars.
Some recipes tell you to leave the jam sit for half an hr before you put into jars, as when too hot the fruit rises to the top so leaving it and giving it a stir before decanting (can you say that for jam?) means more equal distribution of fruit in the jam.

This recipe made one large jar with a bit extra – probably good for 2 medium sized jars.