A Change

Decided I needed a new background, and just HAD to have this one - it's called Chocolate is Life!!!! Hope you like it. I lost all my links though, so if I was linked to your page and now I'm not, let me know!

I am a bit giddy with excitement as it is now less than 3 weeks till my trip to Marrakech! This is where we are staying, and that is my bed!!! Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Ricotta and lentil salad

I didn't make this today, but I HAVE made it and it IS lovely! I promised it to someone so thought I'd put it here. It's not my recipe, it's from a newspaper, think it's maybe a Heston Blumenthall one - I can only see 'all' at the top of the page!
200g Puy lentils
1 small onion
2tbsp fresh parsley
juice of half a lemon
1 tbsp capers
salt and pepper
Olive oil 250g ricotta

Put the lentils in a pan with the sliced onion and the bay leaf, and cover with plenty of water. Simmer them gently for about 20 minutes, till their done. The recipe says remove the onions, but I leave them in, just take the bay leaf out or you might choke! Drain the lentils. Add the lemon juice, chopped fresh parsley and capers (you'll probably need to rinse them first, they're usually stored in salt!). Add a good glug of nice olive oil and season to taste. Slice the ricotta onto 4 plates and spoon the still warm lentils over the top. Mmmmmm........

Almond Cake

This seems to have degenerated into simply a recipe blog but what the hell! The Husband had a slice of Bakewell Tart the other day, and it looked lovely, so I decided I would make the filling without the pastry, cos I really didn't want to get into making gluten-free pastry - life probably really is too short! Anyway, I found a recipe for Bakewell Tart in a book, and copied out the filling part. Then I timesed it by half. This cake was incredibly easy and absolutely gorgeous!!!
6oz butter
6oz sugar
6oz ground almonds
3 large eggs
2 or 3 tblsp red jam
some almond essence.
1. Melt the butter.
2. Mix the almonds and sugar.
3. Beat the eggs.
4. mix all together and add the almond essence - I've got the natural one and used probably about 5 or 6 drops - it could have taken more.
5. Heat the oven to about 200.
6. Grease 2 sandwich tins and line the bases with paper, grease that.
7. Pour the better into the tins and bake for about 20 minutes.
8. Remove from the oven and cool for about 10 minutes then turn out carefully. 9. Put the jam in a dish and microwave it briefly (half a minute or so) until it melts.
10. Spread the jam on one half of the cake and put the other half on top. Sprinkle with icing sugar and serve with cream.
The picture isn't my cake, I took a nice picture of mine but then I put the memory card from the camera in the wrong slot on the computer and I can't get it out!

Another lovely Sunday Dinner!

Today we had Spicy Lentil and Sweet Potato loaf with tomato sauce and salad (and the troops had pasta). Someone mentioned lentils earlier (we were talking about the chicken programmes, and how people say they can't afford to buy free range chicken and my friend said just buy some lentils and broaden your mind!). And I thought, mmmmm, haven't had lentils for yonks, and I love 'em!
I put some red lentils (about 200g probably, but I didn't weight them) in a pan and covered them well with cold water. Then I brought them to the boil and cooked them gently until all the water had been absorbed and the lentils were soft - with red lentils that only takes 15 minutes or so.
In the meantime I sauteed a finely chopped onion till it was soft in some olive oil and then added a teaspoon of 'lazy garlic' and a teaspoon of 'lazy chili' and a good shake of whole cumin seeds. I also thinly sliced 3 small sweet potatoes and boiled them till they were nearly done. When the onion and spices were done I added them to the cooked lentils with about a dsp of veg stock powder and some salt and pepper, and a beaten egg.
Then I greased a loaf tin and lined it with greaseproof and greased that. Then I put half the lentil mixture in and then the slices of sweet potato followed by the rest of the lentils, and baked it in the oven for half an hour.
While it was in the oven I tipped a tin of chopped tomatoes into the frying pan I had done the onion in, added a glug of sherry and let it reduce to a nice thick sauce over a medium heat. When it was cooked I added salt and pepper and about a third of a teaspoon of sugar.
I tipped the lentil loaf onto a serving plate, peeled off the paper and spooned the sauce on top. It was lovely!
For pudding we had the most delicious Chocolate and Chestnut Truffle cake, which I have to admit is a recipe from 'somewhere on the internet', which The Daughter found. I don't know where it came from (it's possibly a Nigella?) - if it's yours, tell me and I'll credit you. It was bloody amazing anyway!

"250g dark chocolate
250g unsalted butter
250g peeled cooked chestnuts (I used a 200g vacuum packet of prepared, cooked chestnuts)
250ml milk
4 eggs, separated
125g caster sugar

Melt the chocolate and butter together in a pan over a very gentle heat. In another pan, heat the chestnuts with the milk until just boiling, then mash thoroughly with a potato masher (or process to a rough purée in a machine).
Put the egg yolks in a bowl and mix with the caster sugar. Stir in the chocolate mixture and the chestnut purée until you have a smooth, blended batter. Whisk the egg whites until stiff and fold them carefully into the batter."
The recipe now says to put the mix in a 23cm springform greased and lined cake tin. I haven't got one of those, so I put it in a greased and lined rectangular roasting tray which is about 10" X 6" (I'm guessing, and I don't think it's terribly important to be honest), but it wouldn't all fit so I also put it in 6 bun cases in a bun tray, and 2 small glass ramekins (buttered) - that used it all up!
I baked it in the oven at 170°C/Gas Mark 3 - the buns and 2 ramekins for about 25 minutes and the larger cake for about 35 minutes.
You can either eat it warm as a pudding, in which case it is deliciously soggy and moussey inside, or apparently, if you let it cool, it sets and goes more cakey. Mine hadn't set yet last time I looked so I can't vouch for that. What I can vouch for is the fact that it is ridiculously lovely. I had my portion with a dollop of Total Greek yoghurt and a splodge of Waitrose blackcurrant coulis (which is unsweetened, so lovely and sharp!). Mmmmmmm........

Polenta - I can't live without it!!

Well, as I am intolerant of gluten, and so therefore wheat, and can only eat bread if I don't mind severe belly ache and farting afterwards, I'm always on the lookout for good alternatives. Polenta seems to be my saviour these days! I'm using it for all sorts of things. It makes fabulous cakes, with ground almonds, and my polenta and almond Victoria sponge is almost indistinguishable from the 'real' thing, especially with whipped cream and fresh raspberries in it!!
I've just discovered polenta crackers, which are pretty easy to make. The recipe is from 28 Cooks (as is the lovely picture!!), which is a blogspot blog, so is at www.28cooks.blogspot.com, but as usual I've altered it a little. I've got white polenta at the moment, simply because that's what Tesco had in, and I don't know if it absorbs more water than yellow. I do think perhaps that these crackers would look nicer made from yellow polenta though.
3 and 1/2 cups of water
1 and 1/2 cups of polenta (I don't know what weight this is, I couldn't be bothered to weigh it as I've got some cup measures!)
1 tsp veg stock powder
Plenty of finely grated Parmesan (I used the Veggie Parmesan style one, cos as you all know, real Parmesan and the like are made with animal rennet!).
1 Bring the water to the boil, add the stock powder.
2 Chuck the polenta in and mash it around well with a wooden spoon or even a big whisk to get any lumps put.
3 Cook it for a couple of minutes till it's lifting from the sides of the pan.
4 Add the Parmesan stuff and stir well in.
5 Grease a couple of flat baking sheets well with butter or marg or oil.
6 Turn the polenta out onto the trays and, with wet hands cos it's hot and sticky, squidge it all over the trays to make a thin, even layer, tidying the edges up as best you can. Score it into whatever size slices you want.
7 Put it in a medium hot oven (I do about 220) and bake it for about 25 minutes.
8 Take it out, cut it into its slices and put it on a rack to cool.

You could use mixed herbs instead of the cheese if you liked, or marmite in the water, or tomato puree or whatever flavouring takes your fancy! It's scrummy!




Tortilla Soup

I made this today, and it was so popular it immediately became a family favourite! I got the recipe from a book called Soup Kitchen, can't remember who it's by, but again, I've twiddled it a bit.

1 litre veg stock (I made mine up from boiling water and 5 tsp of stock powder cos I am far too busy to be making proper stock!)
1 onion
3 cloves of garlic
1 400g tin of tomatoes
6 corn tortillas (you can buy gluten free ones but I didn't cos I was in Summerfield and Summerfield is rubbish! But there's not sooo much wheat in them that they've made me fart!).
Oil (olive or otherwise)
Block of feta cheese
1 large ripe avocado
1 lime
Some olives
Half a packet of quorn chicken style pieces (you could even use 'real' chicken bits if you must!)
tblsp of polenta
smoked paprika
some sort of chili element
salt and pepper

1 Cut the onion into 6 wedges, and peel the garlic. Cook them dry in a large heavy frying pan (I used a non stick cos I have trouble with sticky things!) over a medium high heat for about 5 minutes till they go a bit brown.
2 Put them in a blender with the tinned toms and whizz it all up.
3 Put this in a big saucepan (deep is best, it spits like buggery!) and put it on a medium high heat and cook it till it's reduced to a thickish puree.
4 Add the stock and simmer for about 25 minutes. Then season.
5 You need to add your chili element at some point. I've got a dried chili grinder so I added it when I put the stock in. If you're using fresh you can do the chili with the onion and garlic, same way. Whatever.
6 While the soup is cooking, cut the tortillas into little strips about 2 inches or less long.
7. Cut the avo into chunks and put them in a bowl. Cut the feta into chunks (the recipe also says you could use mozzarella instead, so do, if you like) and put them in a bowl. Cut the lime into wedges and put those in a bowl. Put these bowls on the table.
8 Mix the polenta and a tsp of smoked paprika (or some other flavouring if you like) and shake the quorn pieces in it.
9 In 2 large frying pans heat some oil, and in one fry the quorn till it's crispy, and in the other fry the strips of tortilla likewise (half at a time is best as there are lots).
10 Drain the tortilla strips on kitchen roll.
11 Then, in 4 shallow bowls, share out the tortilla strips and the quorn pieces and ladle the tomato broth over the top.
12 People can add the other stuff as they see fit, at the table, the feta, avo and olives, and the lime juice can be squeezed on top (I think it's really the finishing touch!).

It was bloody delicious!