A quick Sunday morning loganberry ‘cheesecake’

Went out to the garden this morning to give it some much needed love. Reports, field trips and end of term events have all dominated my existance for the last week and although I’m not quite on the final leg of term yet…. some garden respite was needed! I was rewarded with amazing produce – no doubt following the wet week that we’ve had. Turnips, potatoes, peas, broad beans, strawberries all came in and I was delighted to see some wonderfully ripe loganberries poking through the leaves in the fruit cage! I decided that we would have them for Sunday lunch, but this was at 9.30…. and time was running out!

Loads of amazing berries to come!

Some of today's bounty - loganberries, strawberries, peas and broad beans

I decided to make up a sort of cheecakey dessert with what I had in the fridge and the biscuit crumbs left over from Jon’s birthday cupcakes (these will be in a later post!). So this is my…..

Quick loganberry ‘cheesecake’ cups – makes 3 – this would work equally well with raspberries

25g butter, melted
1 cup digestive biscuit crumbs and 2 tsp sugar
100g cream cheese (like Philli)
6 tblspns natural yoghurt
3 tsp sugar
3 tsp loganberry jam
16-20 loganberries (or more if you have them)

• Combine the biscuit crumbs, 2 tsp sugar and butter – press most of it into bottom of 3 cups, glasses or small bowls – reserve a little for later
• Mix the cream cheese with the yoghurt and 3 tsp sugar until smooth – split between bowls
• Place a tsp jam on top and gently swirl
• Top with loganberries and a sprinkling of biscuit crumbs
• Pop it in the fridge for as long as you have – I left them for about 2 hours and this was enough…

The finished dessert - pop in the fridge for a few hours (or as long as you've got)

Don’t be a gooseberry – bake a cake and then everyone will be your friend!!

On Sunday, my friend Vic hosted a wonderful 4th birthday party for her daughter, Mia. Vic, being Vic, had totally gone to town, in addition to catering for over 40 hugely excited children. There was fairy crown making, fairy wand making, bee/ladybird/dragonfly making; I was helping children to ice and decorate their own cupcakes and the long-suffering husband named himself the ‘bouncy castle fascist’ – monitoring how many children were on at one time and counting down their bouncing time!

How do you cater for that many children and their parents?? Vic made all children a sausage in a roll, served up veggies with houmous and crisps; finishing up with birthday cake! Parents were treated to a range of homemade cakes made by Vic, family and friends and the cake below was my offering – a gooseberry cake made with the gooseberries Abbie and I found at Groveland farm shop last Wednesday.

My gooseberry cake… – makes a large loaf tin shaped cake – easy for party slicing
280g/10oz self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
75g/3oz caster sugar
100g/4oz demerera – you’ll need an extra bit at the end for sprinkling to make the top crunchy (always do this on my loaf cakes)
100g/4oz soft soya marg
2 eggs
tiny splash of vanilla extract (or use vanilla sugar in place of caster)
1 large punnet gooseberries (sorry I didn’t weigh them) – top and tail

• Preheat oven to 180C. Line your loaf tin with parchment and grease the sides
• Stew the gooseberries by bringing to boil and then simmer for 5 mins until soft and popping out of their skins
• Beat the dry ingredients to combine
• Add marg, eggs, vanilla  – beat lightly until it looks like cake mixture
• Add all but 1 cup of the stewed gooseberries (if you want some for a pudding) – fold in
• Pour in to loaf tin and sprinkle demerera sugar on top
• Bake for 45 mins and check that it is cooked by inserting a skewer into the middle – it should come out clean – if not bake for 5 mins and try again!
• Cool in tin for a little while and then remove to a cooling rack (or take it to the party in the tin as I did and turn it out there!
• Slice and enjoy!

Gooseberry cake, stewed gooseberries and Nigel Slater's amzing mascarpone cream

Abbie was dying to try gooseberries; I think she has had them before, but couldn’t remember – so that was an interesting experiment while we made the cake. Luckily she LOVED them! So I snaffled a few leftover pieces of cake from the party and served it up for our pudding.

I served it up warm with some stewed gooseberries and made Nigel Slater’s Mascarpone cream to go alongside – trust me when I say this is AMAZING!  A no-cook custard which can be whipped up in a few mins.

Beat 2 egg yolks with 2 tblspns caster sugar; add few drops vanilla and 250g mascarpone, beat until smooth and custard-like! If it weren’t for the calories, I’d make it everyday!

Unfortunately I think we will have to rely on Grovelands for our gooseberries – have counted and we have 7 berries on our bush (still in trauma from last year’s frost obviously). I may be back this week!!

Veggie Balti! My favourite at home curry… with veg from the garden!

Abbie’s veggie patch is proving to be a huge success. She loves going out and fetching strawberries which, of course, she is allowed to eat straightaway as they’re ‘from my garden, Mummy!’ She was a little too enthusiastic on Saturday morning and decided to pull up 3 of her ‘Enormous Turnips’ – so we needed to do something with them! This recipe came to mind as we all love it (we put yoghurt into Abbie’s to cool it slightly) and it is something I know that Jon can make while I write a few more reports! It is also really low fat and super healthy, great after my virtuous week – 2 Body Pump classes and my first attempt at Zumba!

The best ever Veggie Balti – adapted from an old Good Food recipe from about 10 years ago!

1 tblsp veg oil
1 large onion, sliced,
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 apple, peeled, cored and cut into chunks
3 tblsp Patak’s balti paste
1 med butternut squash (or the top half of a large one) – peeled and cut into chunks
2 large carrots, sliced
200g/8oz turnips, cut into chunks
1 med cauliflower, broken into florets
400g can chopped tomatoes
425ml/3/4pt hot vegetable stock
Chopped corriander for sprinkling!
Natural yoghurt/mango chutney/lime pickle for dolloping!

• Heat oil in a large, lidded pan – add onion, garlic and apple and cook gently until soft
• Stir in curry paste
• Tip in fresh veggies, add tomatoes, stock and handful of corriander – stir to combine
• Bring to boil, cover, then simmer for half and hour
• Remove lid and cook for 20mins until liquid has reduced – season to taste
• Ladle curry into bowls, top with yoghurt and an extra sprinkling of corriander
• We normally serve ours with warm naans, mango chutney, lime pickle and a cold beer (on offer at Sainsbury’s!)

The finished curry

Curry, naan and Namibia's finest beer - doesn't it just scream Saturday night in!

Does Abbie know where our food comes from??

Where does soy milk come from?

Jon told me a wonderful quote today…. He was having lunch with Abbie and she started talking about where all of her food came from. ‘Pastrami comes from cows, ham comes from pigs.. etc’. Jon asked her where milk comes from.. ‘Cows, silly!’ was the reply – she then went on to add that goat’s milk came from goat’s….

‘Where does Mummy’s soya milk come from?’, asked Jon…….

‘Tescos’, replied Abbie!

Bless her!

‘The Report Buster’ – this cocktail is for all you teachers! …. and any sympathisers who just love a tasty drink!

All over the world at the moment there are teachers writing reports….. writing reports….. writing reports….writing reports. It is fantastic to be able to convey the amount of progress that your students have made in a year, but sit at a computer for a couple of hours a night (after a full day of teaching) writing, writing, writing and you’ll need a drink! So this one’s for the teachers! It is a healthy cocktail because of the fresh fruit, to help our our bodies and brains and a little alcohol to ease the day away! I also used my new Norfolk Cordial – but you could use lime cordial or elderflower cordial.

Sip your reports away!

The Report Buster

1 banana
1 cup strawberries
2 cups Tropicana Tropical Juice
Splash Norfolk cordial Red Gooseberry and Wild Elderflower
100ml White rum

Nice and easy…. Bung all in a blender and whizz up – pour over ice into a tall glass – garnish with a strawberry pushed down onto the rim

Sainsbury’s ‘Feed your family for 50 pounds’ – Meal number 2… Sausage, tomato and cannellini bean pot with mash

Tonight’s dinner came courtesy of the Sainsbury’s ‘Feed the family for 50 pounds’ again. For those who don’t know what this is I have pasted the link for this recipe and the rest of the weekly plan can be accessed from here as well: http://www.sainsburys-feed-your-family.co.uk/MealPlan/Recipe/30
You can also cook along by following @sainsburys on Twitter or putting in #cookwithus and they will explain in real time how to cook the dish for the evening. New plan out on 15th June – can’t wait! This will definitely be a ‘go to’ booklet for the summer holidays.

This was a real winner all round – have to admit I added a bit of maple syrup for sweetness and a tsp of grain mustard at the end for a slight kick! I also added some leftover broccoli to the potato pan in the last 5 mins and then mashed this up as well. I also used sausages from our local butcher (pork, garlic and apple) and potatoes from our garden – but did everything else the same. These recipes create a great foundation for those who like to tinker with meals!

The finished dish!

Two thumbs up from the gril with the new haircut!

One for the punnet… one for me! A pick your own adventure!

On a gorgeous day such as today, we thought we’d make the most of the sunshine and ‘Pick our own’ at Groveland PYO and Farm Shop, Roughton, Norfolk. We were the only ones there which was fantastic as there were thousands of beautifully ripe, super red strawberries. Abbie loved looking for perfect berries and shouting ‘red alert’ when she found one!

Great to have them at child height - makes for easy pickin's

One that had the potential to make it into the punnet

There is much to pick at Groveland and we will be back for the raspberries and tayberries later in the season. Abbie was keen on tomatoes, but these were of course still in the flower stage.

Hunting for tomatoes - may have to wait a while!

We then went into the Farm Shop, which boasts a butcher, fresh fruit and veg, local beers and ciders, local cheese and other dairy products as well as a large organic sections and eco-friendly cleaning product section. You can even fill up your Ecover containers here! They also have a cafe if you are in need of some refreshments after your PYO exertions. Abbie ran around like a child in a sweet shop, but was mostly interested in gooseberries and also insisted that we bought some more broad beans – she loved the ones we had on Sunday. I was interested to see how fat our pods need to be before we can pick our peas – at least another week is needed I think!

In Groveland Farm Shop, Roughton

I love Bottle Green Elderflower cordial and was about to get some more, when I noticed this new product – a vibrant pink cordial; the taste is so summery and I can see it also being used a syrup over ice creams and sorbets. Groveland is a real Norfolk gem; we will definitely be back very soon.

Norfolk cordial - red gooseberry and wild elderflower - makes a great pink fizz with sparkling water!

Garlicky chicken, roast turnips and turnip greens… hooray for the garden!

Abbie was really keen to get out in the garden today after spotting all the strawberries on our plants. Whilst we were there, we thought we would see how our garlic was doing as well as I had heard about ‘green’ garlic, which just means that you pick it whilst the leaves are still green instead of wilted. You can see that our looking turned to pulling!

Ta da!

I separated the cloves from the stems. I put the stems into the cavity of the chicken (instead of herbs)before roasting. I boiled the cloves, with a head of cloves from a garlic I already had, for 5 mins and then put them in the roasting tray for the last 15 mins. Whilst the chicken was resting (I took out the ‘green’ garlic for us to eat), I made a gravy by adding a glass of wine to the roasting pan, squashing the soft cloves into the juices and the boiling to evaporate the alcohol. I then sieved this into a jug, squishing the wonderful garlicky flavours through the mesh! An amazing gravy – no thickening needed.

We also picked some of Abbie’s turnips. I separated the roots from the leaves, discarding the larger, partially eaten ones. The roots, I parboiled with our new potatoes and then roasted with oil and a splash of balsamic vinegar for 20 mins at 200C. The leaves were boiled in a little bit of water for 4-5 mins and then tossed in a little butter. Great use of the whole plant!

Roast chicken with garlicky gravy, roast potatoes and turnips, broad beans and turnip greens

Sundae strawberries! Named and made by Abbie…

Look what was waiting for us on Sunday morning!

I knew that we had to do something special with our handfuls of strawberries and so I constructed this layered dessert ably assisted by Abbie, who also came up with the name ‘Sundae Strawberries’!

Sundae Strawberries – makes 3 martini or wine glass portions

10-15 strawberries (depending on size)
1/2 lemon
Icing sugar (4-5 tsp in total)
2 tblspn thick double cream
2 tblspn natural yoghurt
6 sponge fingers
Lemon curd

• In a bowl, combine 2/3 of you strawberries (sliced) with the juice of half a lemon and 2 heaped tsp of the icing sugar – stir and leave to one side for later
• In another bowl, stir together the yoghurt and double cream with the other 2 tsp icing sugar
• Break the sponge fingers into halves, spread thickly with lemon curd and place 4 of the halves at the bottom of each of your glasses
• Then layer up as shown in the photos below, finishing with the remainder of the strawberries (sliced) and some curls of lemon zest
• Refrigerate for the morning (at least 2-3 hours) and eat for lunch!

Spreading the lemon curd on the fingers....

Starting to layer, sponge fingers first.....

.... then strawberries....

.... letting the lemon berry syrup soak into the sponge...

All done! One 'Sundae Strawberries' ready for the fridge

Demolished in a matter of moments!

What am I going to do with all these potatoes???

We are a potato loving family, but I am now beginning to doubt whether I have enough potato recipes up my sleeve to last us out the summer!  I planted 25 earlies (Rocket variety) which are now ready to eat in 2 week staggered stages and I have also planted about 16 Pink Fur Apple salad potatoes, which will probably be ready in about 3-4 weeks.  That’s a lot of potatoes for a family of 3 and so I need to think about how I can vary how I cook them.

Food Revolution currently have a theme going on, on Twitter, which is to find a great way to cook potatoes…… to steer chip lovers away from their fat laden snack!

So excited about our new pots!

So…. I did something really fantastic yesterday which I have to share with you and it was dead easy.  Boil some water and pop in your new pots with a few cloves of garlic to parboil for about 5 mins – as you do preheat your oven to 200C. When the pots and garlic have had 5 mins, drain them, toss in oil (I use cold pressed rapeseed – high smoke point!), a little Maldon salt and ground pepper, chuck them in a pan with some rosemary over the top (pref fresh) and roast for 20 mins.  A much better alternative to chips to accompany the fantastic ribeye steaks that Jon got from our local butcher!

How’s that for fast, easy food!

Rib-eye steak, garlic roasted new potatoes and salad from the garden