Good Morning!

 Good Morning to you.  It's late July, I should be coming to you from a sun-drenched kitchen, fresh from a weekend of adventures and ready to cook.  

I'm ready to cook, for sure.  Cooking is one of those soothing activities that is (99 times out of 100) fortifiying in itself AND has the added bonus of producing a beautiful result to be enjoyed.  But my kitchen is a little gloomy today because the heatwave gave way to blustery chill dampness again, and the weekend was not one of adventures, sadly.  It's been a summer of family un-wellness, broken bones for one, and unexplained fever and pain for the other. Oh, and an utter beast of a tooth for me. 

So rituals like the one above are getting me through, alongside cooking the veg box to nourish the poorly ones back to health.

What are your comforting culinary rituals?

Bone Broth

I'm serving the broth with spring onions, garlic, a touch of chili powder and some chopped mushrooms, and some crusty cheese bread. Another time I might add noodles. 

Meanwhile, here's how I do the broth:

Ingredients :

4 beef marrow bones, or 3 beef knucklebones

A slosh... Oh alright, let's say

2 tablespoons of Cider Vinegar with the Mothers

2 Bay leaves

Cover with water

You could leave it here (I do) 

Or you could add peppercorns, herbs like rosemary or sage, juniper berries. 

Method:

Roast the bones until cooked, 200 c in a fan oven for 35 minutes 

Place bones into slow cooker

Pour in the cider vinegar

Cover with water

Add any additional ingredients 

Bring to the boil

Simmer for at least 24 hours

Cool

Strain into a bowl

Refrigerate. 

The broth will cool to a jelly, covered by a thick layer of white fat. The fat is lovely for roasting potatoes.

I wasn't going to make broth, but Jack popped by for a socially distanced walk and we ended up, via the fields, in town in the butchers. Jack used to be a butcher and a chef, so can't resist popping in for nice fresh sausages, and he bought me a couple of knuckle bones! We also met Noo in town. How strange it is to be meeting up outside in winter, rather than cuddling indoors, but there ye go. 

January days (Tuesday 26th)

Lockdown sucks for our youngsters doesn't it. ( "I hate coronavirus" said Sofia, 10 years old, quietly but with immense feeling) 

A picnic in the pouring rain means that we get to see each other, take our exercise and have a laugh together. 

All the same, I was so glad to get back in to the warm and dry. 

I've been doing a lot of exercise recently, combined woth some late night/early morning postnatal doula work in the form of online support, and its left me feeling tired.

I try to savour every day of my life, recognising how precious it is, but as today draws to a close I have allowed myself to think 'good, one day closer to spring!' 

I made the granola this afternoon, check it out x

Granola

Well this won't last 5 minutes, in fact it'll be lucky to reach the tupperware before it gets demolished by every passing person...me included. 

I took Claire Thompson's recipe from her Instagram actually, I don't know of it appears in any of her books. I fiddled around with it a bit, partly out of necessity and the result is lovely. 

Ingredients

500g oats

2 bananas

3 tablespoons coconut oil

200g Muscovado sugar

A pinch of salt

2 tablespoons honey

2 tablespoons pumpkin seeds

2 tablespoons sunflower seeds

Handful of dates

Handful of currants

1 teaspoon fennel seeds

1 teaspoon caraway seeds

Method

Blitz the bananas, sugar and coconut oil together

Pour the mixture over a mixing bowl of the oats. 

Add honey, seeds and nuts

Mix together and tip out onto a lined baking tray

Cook at 150 deg c fan oven for 25 minutes

Remove from oven after 25 minutes and leave it to cool without disturbing the clumps of granola. 

When it's cool and clumpy, store it in an airtight container. 

Soft-centre Chocolate Brownies

Let me say right off the bat that these beauties demand an extortionate amount of butter and chocolate to be melted together in a pan. When not one, but two packets of butter have to be opened and no less than FOUR bars of chocolate... we know we're in for a treat. 

Not to mention a whole packet of caster sugar.  If you're trying for weight loss and healthy goodness this January you may just wish to scroll on by!   If not, here it is, a modified Nigella recipe:

Ingredients:

375g butter

375g dark chocolate 85% (70 will do but no less) 

6 large eggs

500g caster sugar

225g plain flour

1 tablespoon vanilla essence

1/2 teaspoon salt

100g chopped dates

Method:

Line a shallow baking tray with kitchen paper. I use two 9cm square tins. 

Heat the oven to 180c fan oven gas mark 6

Melt the chocolate and butter together in a bowl above a pan of water on the hob

Add salt to the flour

Whisk the vanilla essence into a jug with the eggs and add the sugar to this. 

When the chocolate and butter have melted and cooled a little, add them to the eggs and combine

Add this liquid loveliness to the flour and stir together. 

Stir in the dates

Pour into your trays

Bake for 25 minutes

If you test for 'doneness' as you would a cake, the knife should come out rather stuck woth gooey mixture, which for a cake, would require further cooking, but in this case, does not! 

I bring them out and with my knife I cut the squares right there in the tray. Then I place a cooling rack on top and turn the whole thing upsideown. I remove the baking tray, but leave the paper still clinging for a while. 

Juicy morning - post-workout rehydration

Celery is the number one plant when it comes to rehydration and I'd say cucumber is probably the second. 

Turmeric (whilst I have to be very mindful of staining... sink, shirt, lips) is an antioxidant and spinach and broccoli are packed with goodness. Lime gives a nice refreshing sharpness and flavour. 

I admit that whilst Dave had worked out, I had not. It being a chilly Sunday, and putting my slippers on and making it from bed to kitchen WAS my morning workout! 

But this juice makes me feel virtuous all the same! 

Lasagne, Bolognaise, Chili. 4 people, for 3 days. That's half the week's cooking done.

 This feels like such a cheat, but I make no apologies. The feeling, before coffee, on a Monday morning, of having three family evening meals under my belt is like no other.

The initial outlay is of around 15 minutes of chopping and frying off, and then a further 20 minutes of simmering (during which time I wash up anyway) and then you'll need to attend to the cooling of the rather substantial pan, and it's subsequent storage in the fridge. I have a small fridge, so I have to consider these things, but if you have room for a large bowl of bolognaise, so much the better.

This buys you two lazy evenings where you could instruct someone helpful and old enough to simply ladle enough into a pan for the number that you're feeding and then the spaghetti/rice can be as simple or complicated as you want to make it.

The lasagne will require a little more of your time what with the making of a cheese sauce from scratch and assembling the dish, but sometimes just knowing what you're going to make for dinner that night and having half of it already prepared really makes me feel ahead of the game.

So, without further ado, lets get you started.

Ingredients for the basic bolognaise

• 750g Lean Steak Mince
• 1 large onion, diced
• Half head celery, diced
• 3 bell peppers, sliced
• 2 courgettes, sliced into discs
• 485g chestnut mushrooms, diced
• 4 tomatoes
• 142g tin tomato puree
• 2 glugs of olive oil
• 1 clove of garlic, sliced
• 1 teaspoon molasses
• 2 anchovy fillets
• 500ml stock (I use my home made beef bone broth, or if I haven't made any, Marigold vegetable bouillon, but use whatever you usually have to hand) 
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 teaspoon white pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon dried Italian herbs (mixed herbs will do fine too)
• 2 bay leaves

Method

• Heat the olive oil in a large pan
• sweat off the onion and celery for a couple of minutes, stir to prevent sticking 
• add the peppers and cook them off for two or three minutes, stirring
• add the courgettes, mushrooms and garlic. If your pan isn't huge, you can always lightly fry these off in a separate pan to achieve a nice light browning of the ingredients, rather than the soggy mess that will result from overcrowding the ingredients. 
• In a separate pan, heat a glug of oil, and seal off the mince. This simply means to lightly fry the mince until it's all brown, which usually takes just a few minutes.
• Combine everything into one large pan
• add the tomatoes, the puree, the anchovies, molasses, seasonings and herbs and stir everything in together
• cover the ingredients in the hot stock. Adjust stock amounts if necessary, so that the ingredients are just covered.
• simmer for 20 minutes.
• at the end of the 20 minutes, allow it to cool and transfer it to a bowl, cover and store in the fridge.

So when, on Monday, you have ladled out four helpings into a pan to heat through until it's bubbled for several minutes, made spaghetti in what ever form you enjoy (sometimes I have fresh spaghetti on hand, if not, there's always a packet of dried in the pantry) and enjoyed a delicious easy supper, how do we proceed on Tuesday?

Lasagne extra requirements

• Lasagne sheets...you'll only need a few from a packet of dried, or a standard pack of fresh
• A deep oven proof dish, big enough for four helpings.
• Cheese sauce. My recipe is here, or you can buy a jar (eeww) or fresh (nicer) or a sachet (not sure how it would cope with the second cooking, and really, probably just as easy to make your own and I'm sure your own will taste worlds better than a packet sauce could ever)
• A big handful of grated cheddar
• teaspoon smoked paprika
• accompanying vegetables, we had uncooked spinach this time.

Method

• Spoon a third of the bolognaise mixture into your dish, unless it's quite shallow when you may only get two layers out of it. You may even go for four...use your judgement and preferences here.
• Layer the sheets of lasagne to cover the bolognaise
• Pour half/third/quarter of your cheese sauce on top, depending how many layers you've decided to go for
• ladle another layer of bolognaise
• lay another layer of lasagne sheets
• top with sauce
• Finish on a cheese sauce layer, and top that with the grated cheddar
• sprinkle the smoked paprika on top
• refrigerate if you're not eating yet
• Cook at 200c Fan oven/220c/425f  or gas mark 7 for 25 minutes or until the bolognaise is bubbling to the top. 

I serve this with an accompanying vegetable or two because I personally don't eat much meat and like my greenery.

On to Wednesday, and Chili.

I transform Bolognaise into Chili by stirring into it a paste of my own making.  The bolognaise needn't leave the fridge for this, so you can do it in advance.  You could even do it whilst you assemble the lasagne, come to that.  I find that flavours develop beautifully whilst chilled, so without further ado, this is how I make my Chili paste.

Ingredients

• 1 small onion, finely diced
• 1 chili pepper, finely diced and deseeded (I'm a wimp) or if I am feeling exceptionally wimpy, I use 1 tsp hot chili powder or a tablespoon of mild.
• 1 tsp smoked sweet paprika
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• about 2 inches of tomato puree from a tube
• 1 crushed garlic clove
• 1 tsp molasses
• 1 can kidney beans, drained
• 1 glug of olive oil
• 1 tablespoon warm water

Method

• In a small pan, gently heat the oil and sweat off the onion and chili pepper if you're using a chili
• stir in the crushed garlic so it fries very lightly...we don't want horrid brown bitterness here
• sprinkle in your cumin and sweet paprika, and chili powder if that's what you're using for the chiliness 
• stir in the puree and the water
• add molasses
• add the beans and stir it all through
• take the pan off the heat, and spoon your paste into the bowl of bolognaise from the fridge. Make sure it's well stirred in and return it to the fridge unless it's tea time.
• When it is tea time, just heat the chili gently in a pan until it bubbles, and let it bubble for 15 minutes
• Serve with the rice of your choice.  Sometimes I use the slow-cook method on the hob, other times I dream of a rice cooker whilst opening a couple of Tesco sachets of ready cooked ( some evenings are like that aren't they)