Strawberry Rosé Jellies

This is a lovely light, slightly boozy summer dessert.

Serves 4
Preparation 15 min (plus overnight chilling)
Cooking time 8 minutes

Ingredients

• 4 sheets of fine-leaf gelatine
• 500 ml of rosé wine (reserve the rest of the bottle for the cook)
• 75g caster sugar
• 400g strawberries hulled and halved. (try to get smallish ones)

You will also need:

• 4 sundae cups or large wine glasses

Method

Put the gelatine in a bowl of cold water and leave to soften for about ten minutes.
Pour 100ml of the wine into a small pan with the sugar, stir gently until the sugar has dissolved.
Bring the liquid up to simmering point and whisk in the gelatine and stir off the heat until the gelatine has completely dissolved.
Pour the liquid into a jug, add the remaining wine and leave to cool.
In the meantime arrange the strawberries in the glasses.
When the liquid has completely cooled pour it over the fruit, then put the jellies into the fridge overnight to set.

Dispose of the remaining wine in an appropriate environmentally friendly way.

This recipe with minor alterations comes from The Sainsbury’s Magazine Calender 2007

Maisie’s Baby Courgette Chutney

The original recipe comes from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. He calls it “River Cottage Chutney” but we adapted it a bit and renamed it.

Maisie’s “Baby” Courgette Chutney

Serves Thousands depending on the size of the baby courgette
Cooking time don’t know – my sister made it

Ingredients

1kg Marrow or overgrown *baby* courgettes diced
1kg tomatoes (ripe or unripe)
500g sultanas
500g soft brown sugar
500g apples (either cooking or not too sweet)
400ml white wine vinegar
500g Onions chopped
3 finger chillies chopped finely(optional)
pinch of salt (to taste)

For the spice bag

12 cloves
2 tsp coriander
fresh ginger couple of pieces.

Method

First make up the spice bag by placing the ingredients in an old piece of tea towel or cotton and tying the top with string.
Place all the other ingredients prepared as stated in a large pan or preserving pan.
Bring to the boil to dissolve the sugar and once boiling reduce to a simmer
Continue to simmer till the vinegar is pretty much absorbed and the veg is tender
approx 3 hours stirring occasionally
While the chutney is cooking warm some clean jars in a hot oven to sterilise
Once cooked,discard the spice bag and place the chutney in the jars and cover with lids
Label and date once cooled.
Leave to mature in a dark cool place for 2-3 months.

The full story of the origin of Maisie’s “Baby” Courgette Chutney and why it was given that name is on my main blog.

Goat’s Cheese Salad

A simple but very enjoyable light lunch.

Serves 1
Preparation time 5 min (unless you decide to make your croutons from scratch)

Ingredients
A good handful of salad leaves
Half a dozen cherry tomatoes
Half a Kidderton Ash Goats Cheese (sliced into rounds)
A small handful of croutons
Olive oil (Extra Virgin for preference)
Balsamic Vinegar
A little Parmigiano Cheese (grated or shaved)

Method

Rinse and dry the salad leaves
Toss the leaves, tomatoes and croutons together with the oil and vinegar
Arrange the slices of goat’s cheese in an aesthetic way
Grate the Parmigiano over the salad and serve

I served the salad with a chilled Hoegaarden

A lower fat pasta sauce

To appease my sister who seemed to think that my earlier pasta sauce recipe would quadruple the incidence of heart disease in the United Kingdom.

This is the classic ‘Pomodoro e Basilico’. (Tomato and Basil if you don’t speak Italian), traditionally served with spaghetti or tagliatelle, but it goes with almost any pasta you can think of.

The chilli is optional, but it does give the sauce a bit of a lift, the sugar is there to counterbalance the acidity in the tomatoes.

Serves 6
Cooking time  45 minutes -1 hour

Ingredients

3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
3 x 400g cans of chopped tomatoes
¼ – ½ tsp dried chilli flakes
2 tsp balsamic vinegar
2 tsp sugar
1 large handful basil leaves, torn into small pieces
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Grated Parmesan and/or Pecorino cheese, to serve

Preparation method

Heat the oil in a saucepan and gently cook the onion and garlic until softened. Stir in the tomatoes, chilli flakes, balsamic vinegar and sugar. Bring to a simmer and cook slowly for 45 minutes-1 hour. Stir in the basil and season with salt and pepper. This can be left chunky or blended in a food processor for a smooth sauce.

Serve spooned over cooked pasta with plenty of Parmesan/Pecorino cheese

My Favorite Pasta Sauce – Pancetta & Blue Cheese

This is my favourite, at the moment, recipe for a pasta sauce. I think that it works best with Penne or Fusilli but try it with any other pasta other than possibly the stuffed pastas like Tortellini or Ravioli and it will probably be fine.

I use Dolcelatte cheese but Gorgonzola is equally good. Vegetarians can leave out the pancetta and possibly up the cheese slightly.

It is dead simple to make and can be knocked up not much more than ten minutes
Ingredients (for 2 to 3 servings)

Serves 2 to 3
Cooking time 10 min.

about 100 g pasta per person
100g cubed pancetta
100ml double cream
30 g Dolcelatte cheese

Method

Cook the pasta until it is al dente. The cooking instructions should give you a clue about the length of time that will take, normally about 10 to 15 minutes for dried pasta. Ignore any instructions written in German.

While the pasta is cooking, fry the pancetta in its own fat, add the cream and the cheese stir until the cheese melts. Let it bubble for a couple of minutes, then toss the pasta in it.

Serve with good bread and a cheap Italian red.

Porridge

Winter is the season for porridge for breakfast. Besides all the well touted benefits of eating porridge for breakfast there is something satisfying about making and eating a bowl of porridge for breakfast. It does take slightly longer that pouring out a bowl of Rice Krispies, but believe me you will be a better person, or at least feel like one, for making the effort.

The first piece of advice I will give you is do not make your porridge in the microwave.
I am diabetic. Shortly after the diagnosis I had a talk with a dietician. During the discussion about what were good food choices from the point of blood glucose control, she mentioned that porridge was probably one of the best things I could eat for breakfast. She also mentioned that it could be made in the microwave, but forgot to tell me the most important thing about making porridge in a microwave. My immediate thought was ‘that will save a bit of washing up’. The next morning I proceeded to make my porridge in the microwave.

I measured out my usual recipe,

Serves 1
Cooking time 5 minutes

• a cup of rolled oats
• 1½ cups of water
• a generous pinch of salt

put it all into my porridge bowl, stuck it into the microwave, pushed start and went back to drinking my coffee and reading the newspaper. About five minutes later the microwave went ping and I wandered across the kitchen to retrieve my no effort, no washing up porridge, to discover that the bowl was empty and the microwave was generously coated with porridge. I also discovered that it is much harder to remove porridge from the walls of a microwave than it is to remove it from a pan.

What my dietician forgot to mention is that porridge made in a microwave foams up and boils over. So unless you use a bowl that is at least five times the volume of the liquid to allow for this fact, do not make your porridge in the microwave.

I now always make mine in a saucepan. It is just as quick and I think tastes better. So using the recipe above put all the ingredients into a pan bring to the boil, then turn it down to a low heat and allow it to ‘plop’ away happily for about five minutes. Give it a stir now and then. Traditionally you should use a tapered stick, (usually with a thistle as a handle, because that is the way we made them in woodwork class when I was at school) called a spurtle and stir it clockwise. I find that stirring it with a wooden spoon anti-clockwise also works. I tend to put the salt in at the start, but some people like to cook the porridge the add salt to taste, all I will say is do not neglect the salt, it doesn’t need much but porridge does need some salt.

For Saturday mornings, or if you are a traditionalist, porridge made with oatmeal does have a certain quality that porridge made with rolled oats does not.
The recipe is similar but here are a couple of variations.

Serves  2
Cooking time 30 min

• 600ml/1 pint of water
• 100g/4 oz medium oatmeal
• salt

Bring the water to the boil, add the oatmeal slowly, stirring all the time. Reduce the heat and allow to cook slowly, just giving the occasional ‘plop’, for up to 30 minutes, depending on how solid you like you porridge. Give it a stir every now and again, add salt to taste and serve.

Again traditionally, you should eat your porridge by dipping a spoon of hot porridge into a bowl of cold milk. This is to keep your porridge hot, as adding cold milk to the bowl of porridge will cool it down. Nice though that is I think there are more interesting things to add to porridge.

Here are some of my favourites.

• Honey
• Thick natural plain yoghurt
• Fruit compote
• A tot of whisky and honey
• Cinnamon and chopped and toasted nuts
• Cream

Or of course any combination of them.

Should you make too much porridge, let it go cold and set solid. It is absolutely delicious sliced, fried in a little butter and served with runny honey.

As for washing up the pan, don’t, fill it with cold water and let it soak for a few hours. The porridge sticking to the pan will have come off as a sort of skin which can be scooped up and discarded, leaving a clean and shiny pan behind.