Eton Messing

This is really scrummy and didn't survive very long after Christmas dinner. Fruit Pavlova. Home made meringue loaded with fresh fruit and cream. Complicated and messy but simple and very tasty. As a presentation it has a high Wow! factor.

Baked Apples

Viewed on one level it's like a torture chamber for cooking apples (as in Fig. 1) in the style of Annoying Orange...but if you can forget possible plots for Aggrieved Apples or Apples in Angst it all works out fine. So this tasty and filling desert requires 4 cooking apples, mincemeat, shortcrust pastry and brown sugar. Firstly peel and core the apples (and torture them if you must), stuff the newly revealed  core-void with mincemeat, roll them in the pastry and sprinkle with brown sugar. Bake them in a hot oven for half and hour until golden delicious brown and serve them with cream or creme fraiche. "Yummy!"was what we all said afterwards. P.S. the pictures are of course not quite in the correct order. Just the right meal to discuss your prospective Progressive Rock Cruise venture over.

(PS - Don't forget to inject, at various stages known to only you, secret sloshes of honey mixed with cinnamon and nutmeg. )

Fish & Finger Baps

Fish fingers, rocket, tomato and mayo. You know what to do.

Buffalo Stovies

Forgot to take a photo at the right time, here are the remains however.

Using local buffalo mince produces a nice pot of tasty stovies, here's how:

Grab a pound or so of buffalo mince from Puddledub Farms , brown it in a pot (skim away any fat, there won't be much) and add two chopped onions, seasoning and a couple of spoons of browning and hot water to lubricate the pot. While the mince is cooking chop up about 8 - 10 potatoes and boil them till they are still a bit solid. Drain them and add them to the mince once it's had about 30 mins of simmering. Mix up the mixture and bake it in the oven at 200C for a further 20 mins just to "crust" the top of the stovies. Serve with fresh bread cut in chunks and brown sauce. This amount serves 3, ramp it up for more.

Bit of an experiment

Chicken and Sweet Potato Stew.

Gather together the usual suspects in a deep caserole dish - chopped chicken breasts (4), sweet potato and chopped and diced onion, turnip and carrot. Add in a stock cube, white wine, ginger, paprika, West Country sauce and seasoning and bake for about an hour in a hot oven. Serve with chutney and fresh bread. Verdict: an easy-peasy, labour saving, wholesome if not particularly inspiring chicken stew...we both went for second helpings and there's enough left over to form the basis of a decent leftover curry.

Milk Bomb

A lot of people don't really get this, I wonder why? It's a simple recipe for a quick and tasty pick me up drink that's good anytime. No drugs, no potions, no excuses just lots of processed muck rubbing their atoms together to form a creamy and addictive soup of esoteric and misunderstood mass produced dairy products. So if you get protein cravings but are too far away from a tender steak or a deep fried cod to hold your weak flesh together then this is a good fixation busting alternative.

The raw materials are best mixed 50 / 50 and do it in your favourite glass, accept no substitute. OK, half a glass of blue (fat) milk and a pot of Actimel or Vitality (as illustrated) or whatever cheap stuff you've got in a BOGOF offer. Add the yogurt to the milk to get the full bomb effect - the yogurt descends down through the chemical make up of the milk like a none too polite bomb travelling through the clouds heading downwards to hit it's allotted target. Then glug it over and don't hold back. Cheers! If I do nothing else in life at least I'll be remembered as the inventor and architect of the MILK BOMB. I'll go happy on that one thought - if you're listening humanity.

Fife diet revisited

By now you all (presumably) get the Fife Diet concept, it's a bit long in the tooth but every so often we have a relapse and go local.  So this meal mainly utilises produce bought at the local farm shop which is conveniently situated in the local farm next door; Bankhead Farm. So ladies and gentlemen I give you:

Cockletrees Sausage & Sweet Potato with Cauliflower Cheese.

Boil and mash sweet potato ( 3 good sized ones will do), add a bit of butter for lubrication.

Cook (beef) sausage in onion (add a shot of Bisto) and lay it in an ashet with the sweet potato.

Boil cauliflower, add a cheese sauce, add grated cheese. Bake in the oven until burny burny.

Serve as per the photo above.

For two lost souls you need: 3 sweet potatoes boiled and mashed in butter, 6 beef sausages, 1 onion, Bisto, 1 cauliflower, cheese sauce (?), grated cheese, seasonings.

Ali's verdict - tasty & filling. Yum.

Lessons Learned

The burning pudding

The toasted sandwich

What foodie related things did we learn in 2012? Here's the top ones in no particular order:

Roasted ham with honey and mustard applied is fantastic.
A good turkey sandwich needs to be toasted.
Whisky burns very well on a Christmas pudding.
We need to buy more locally produced meat and vegetables.
Olive bread is great.
Coca-Cola still is the best drink in the world and should really be considered a health drink.
Garlic roasted spuds do the trick.
Salt and sauce or salt and vinegar? We can't quite decide.
French wine every time.
Breakfast biscuits are made by Elves and have magical properties.
Proactive yogurt and fruit smoothie mix well as an invigorating drink.
Dirty carrots are good for you.

Weekend Curry

Adapted from the More with Less Cookbook's "Garden Vegetable Curry"
Serves 7 - 8

Heat some olive oil in a saucepan and add a couple of chopped onions together with a couple of cloves of minced / finely chopped cloves.

Fry lightly for 5 minutes and then add 2 tablespoons of curry powder, 1 teaspoon of turmeric and a teaspoon of cumin seeds and fry for another 3 minutes.

Add a tin of chopped tomatoes and a squeeze of tomato paste and cook for a few minutes until the mixture thickens.

Add a packet of sliced cabbage or cabbage and leeks or greens; 3 diced carrots and 5 small chopped potatoes.  Stir until all coated in the sauce and then add a teaspoon of salt. 

Cover with water and simmer for 15 minutes.  

While simmering, boil half a dozen eggs then shell them.

Add a few handfuls of frozen green beans or peas or both, and a tablespoon of lemon juice, and simmer for another 15 minutes.

Add the boiled eggs (whole) and heat through for 5 minutes.

Serve with long grain rice, cutting the eggs in half for serving and with chutneys, curry condiments and chipatas on the side.

Voodoo Chill Out Rice

A quick and tasty veg stir fry.

You need: A chopped onion, 6 small dirty carrots, 12 chopped mushrooms, a half cup of frozen peas, 6 small plum tomatoes, cooked rice, balsamic vinegar, garlic (as you like it), dried chillies, salt and pepper and oil. Use a well oiled wok or better still something non-stick with a lid and chop the veg to suit.

Fry in the usual stir fry order on a hot hob, that's onions oil and all the additives first, don't be mean. Then add the vegetables finishing with the cooked rice (pre-prepared elsewhere or even leftover). Take away from the heat after about 7 minutes and leave with a lid on for another 5 just to let it all come together. Serve immediately.

You can of course add (cooked) meat or whatever things you like towards the end of the process.