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Saturday, 19 November 2011
'Condensed milk'
The final piece of the jigsaw that is avoiding Nestle products has fallen well and truly into place, so I can cock a snook at them. I have long avoided the company on ethical grounds ( Baby Milk Action and others), but the sticking point recentlyw as condensed milk - I use it for puddings and fudge making, etc. Up until a few years ago, you got a choice of Carnation or Fussell's - then these were both swallowed up by the evil Nestle. I confess I did keep buying the milk - some for using, other for storage for emergencies and prepping.
I scoured the internet and came up with the theory that you can indeed make your own 'condensed milk' - I use the inverted commas as it's strictly a substitute for the real stuff- something that those who post about it don't seem to bother with, but I do. Another gripe with me is that of the recipes I've seen on the net,s everal have no acknowledgement of where they came from - not an easy thing to make up a recipe for this due to getting the proportions just right. A quick copy and paste shows me that at least one blogger has re=posted a method that is not hers, with no acknowledgement, and that makes me cross.
This is the recipe I used:
http://almostbourdain.blogspot.com/2011/01/homemade-condensed-milk.html
I ma delighted to report that it is highloy successful - great consistency (was my worry), tastes just like the real thing, quick and easy to make, and not too hard on the housekeeping money. I haven't used it in mkaing anything yet, it's in the fridge. I think I'll have an investigate into how to store it - might try freezing a little as an experiment, would be wonderful to be able to make a double batch for future use. I wills ave the next tin I open, wash it out and store, so I can get a quick and easy measure for my home made 'milk'. Give it a go, it's one of the more worthwhile things to make at home.
Homity Pie
This is one I make fairly regularly; we all love it, it's quick, easy and cheap, and you can add little bits of leftovers to it, make extra pastry at the same time for something else, make two or more for freezing as it freezes well too.
I make mine in a metal spnge cake tin - it's best for cooking the pastry thoroughly on the bottom - nothing worse than a soggy bottom lol - and it's easy to remove from the tin as it has a loose base.
6 oz pastry (3 oz each white and wholemeal, 4oz butter, 1 egg, water to mix)
3 -4 large potatoes, boiled
2 medium onions, chopped or sliced and fried
1/2 pint very thick cheese sauce
Set your oven to hot, so the pastry will cook quickly, evenly and come out crispy. Make pastry, and roll out half to line the tin; combine sauce with potatoes and onions - I do this while it's still hot/warm. so a speedy dish to make as it's then only the pastry that needs to be cooked. Pile into the pastry shell, dampena round edges with cold water and roll out rest of pastry to make lid. Add holes to allow steam to escape (ensures the top won't be soggy on the underside), and into the oven until nicely browned. Leave to cool a little before serving, nice with roast potatoes and a green vegetable. Also good cold.
You can add all sorts of vegetalbe leftovers into the sauce - mushrooms, cooked vegetables, cooked carrots, boiled eggs, etc.
Sunday, 4 April 2010
Hot cross pudding.............
What to do with any leftover hot cross buns, even if they're slightly stale.
1 bun per person
1 egg per person
butter
milk
1 tbsp sugar
Slice the buns in half, or in three if thick, and spread with butter; cut each slice in half. Arrange on end in a baking dish. Beat the eggs with an equal volume of milk and add sugar; pour over bun slices and into a hottish oven until the custard is set and the bun tops crispy. Serve warm with custard or cream.
Shepherdless Pie
I often make a meatless version of Shepherd's Pie; Bean is vegetarian,a dn it doesn't do the rest of us any harm to have meatless meals a couple of times a week. I occasionally use Quorn mince or similar, but prefer to use vegetables, etc. This is one of my favourite incarnations, using green lentils. Serves 4 with hearty appetites!
8oz or so of green lentils
1 large carrot, diced
1 medium onion, chopped fine
mushroom ketchup
tomato puree
mixed herbs, fresh or dried
4 - 6 large potatoes
milk, butter and seasoning to mash
Put lentils, onion and carrot in a pan, and just cover with water; bring to the boil, then leave to simmer until lentils are tender, when the carrot and onion should be cooked too. Meanwhile, peel and boil potatoes until tender, drain and mash with milk, butter and seasoning.
Add a good spoonful of mushroom ketchup, about a tablespoon of tomato puree and a good pinch of herbs to the lentils, mix thoroughly and put into pie dish. Top with mashed potatoes and bake in a hot oven until golden and crisp on top. If you like, grated cheese can be sprinkled over the potato. A vegan version can be made by using olive oil in the potato instead of butter and milk.
Serve with plain seasonal vegetables - we're having braised leeks tonight.
St Clement's cupcakes with mascarpone icing
Named after the soft drink of the same name, these St Clement's cakes are a nice mix of zesty lemon and orange. Citrus fruits are good prices throughout the winter, and what nicer way to look forward to spring than with a lovely little cupcake?
6oz butter, softened
6oz sugar
3 eggs, beaten
6 oz self raising flour
zest and juice of 1 lemon
milk for mixing
Icing:
1 tub of mascarpone cheese (250g)
icing sugar to taste
colouring if required
zest of 1 large or 2 small oranges
Cream butter and sugar, beat in eggs. Add flour, beat well, and add milk, zest and juice, mix to a soft dropping consistency.
Divide between 12 muffin cases ( or smaller fairy cake cases; mix makes 12 large), and bake in a hot oven until risen and golden, and firm to the touch. Cool on a wire rack.
Icing: beat cheese with enough icing sugar to taste, add zest and colouring as required. Pipe into swirls on top of cakes and decorate with thin strips of zest. Leave to set for a while. Alternatively, spread icing over the cakes with a knife, then decorate.
Goat's yoghurt, blueberry and orange cake
I've been intrigued by the yoghurt cake recipes I've come across on the net recently, so thought I'd give it a whirl, but customised ofcourse! It's the recipe where the ingredients are measured out using the yoghurt pot as a measure. This would be a useful recipe for when you're low/run out of butter. I also think it sounds a bit healthier than usual, especially with the fruit in it; at least it was until MrL decided to change his into a pudding and piled a big dollop of double cream on it!
1 pot of goat's milk yoghurt
2 pots of sugar
3 pots of self raising flour
1 pot of vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 good handful (about 4 oz or so) blueberries
zest and juice from 1 large orange
Mix everything very well until thoroughly combined. Pour into prepared tin and bake in a hot oven until well risen and golden brown. Turn out and cool on a wire rack.
Pancake canneloni
It being Shrove Tuesday yesterday, we had pancakes for supper. I made savoury ones for a change too, using them as canneloni. It's very easy, and a good way, again, of using up wee bits and pieces lurking in the fridge.
Fry some chopped onions in a little sunflower oil, add some chopped mushrooms, other veg, etc and cook until softened. I added a splash of red wine and some herbs; what you want is a good tasty mixture for the fillings. I diced some bacon as well, and added that, but fried separately.
While all that is cooking away, make the pancakes; I just use some flour in a bowl, break in an egg and add milk until it's the desired consistency. This batter was quite thick - the pancakes have to be rolled, so you don't want them too brittle and cracking. Lay the cooked pancake in the baking dish, heap in the filling and roll up - bit like Mexican. You can roll them on a baking tray , then carefully move them into the baking dish too. When they're all in, pour over a tin of chopped tomatoes and top with grated cheese; into a hot oven for about half an hour until golden and bubbly. I served ours with carrot, apple and pine nut salad.
Rather good it was too :)
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Parsnip wine
4lbs or so of parsnips
2 1/2 lbs sugar
2 lemons
1 gallon of water
1 good tbsp dried yeast
Scrub parsnips well; no need to peel. Slice them into a large pan (I use one of my jam pans for this) and pour over the water. Simmer until tender, but not broken up, then strain off the liquid into another large container. I give the cooked parsnips to the chickens, but you could put them on the compost too. Add the sugar to the hot liquid, stir well to dissolve; leave to cool to blood heat, then add sliced lemons and yeast. Stir well again, cover and elave in a warm place 4 - 5 days. Strain into demi-john, fit airlock and leave to ferment out. Rack off after 6 weeks into clean demi-john, then bottle after another 4 weeks. Leave a year or so before drinking (if you can).
Things are going to be a little different with my radical change in lifestyle (see Radical Homemaking) but I will still be cooking and baking, preserving and brewing all sorts of things like I always did, so expect some out of the ordinary things. I want to get some sort of outdoor cooking area set up and running, ultimately with a woodfired oven/cooker contraption. As they say, watch this space...............
Off-grid blueberry and honey fridge buscuits
Going off-grid shortly (I hope), I'm scouting about for recipes that will be suitable for cooking and eating without conventional power/oven, etc. So, I devised this biscuit recipe - cup of tea without a biscuit? Unthinkable!
16 rich tea biscuits, crushed
3 oz butter, softened
3 tbsp honey
handful of blueberries
large bar of chocolate
Place the honey and butter in a bowl, and break up the chocolate into pieces and place in a second bowl. Put both bowls into a hot and sunny greenhouse for a couple of hours (could take more, could take less, depending). When melted, stir the honey and butter well to mix, and add to the crushed bisuits and fruit. Mix thoroughly (I use my hands for this bit), and press into a baking tray, flattening and smoothing
it down. Pour over the melted chocolate to cover and leave in a cool place to set.
Et voila! Off-grid, solar powered biscuits.
Next step is home ground flour from home grown wheat, home churned butter, honey from hive and fruit from the garden (rasps would be nice, or blackcurrants).Still working on the chocoalte production, but the bisuity bit is really nice without it too.
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MrsL's honey fudge
Feel free to share the recipe if you like :))
1 tin condensed milk
1 lb demerara sugar
4oz butter
2 tablespoons honey
whole milk
Place the honey in a saucepan or ovenproof jug and put on a low heat until liquid; make up to 1/4 pint with milk. Place all ingredients in a large saucepan and place over a low to medium heat until butter melted and sugar dissolved. Put pan on high heat and bring to a good boil, and boil until soft ball stage is reached. Remove from heat and leave for ten minutes or so, then beat steadily until the fudge becomes grainy. Turn into prepared tin and leave to cool, then mark into small squares. Enjoy.
