What's cooking......

Nooooooooo,this is not a thread about rads… Was just thinking that maybe there are a few foodies and cooks out there that would like to swap recipes/ideas,and maybe tie in with the gardening thread for ideas on what to do with a glut of home produce.Also find it helpful to have easy peasy tried and tested recipes,and am in favour of tasty “cheats” dishes anything you like really…

Finished my rads in May and as a result of having a rethink about what road to take post dx,decided to start up a home baking stall at local market/carboots.Been a great success,but got rained off today so have 15x 2lb gingerbreads in my freezer as well as a humungous load of scones.So it’s sticky dark gingerbread with custard for pudding tonight and before that we are having chicken with lime and ginger.

Chicken with lime and ginger.

grated rind and juice of 1 lime
1 inch piece fresh root ginger
1 garlic clove crushed
2 tbsp oil
1 tbsp soy sauce
4 chicken breasts

mix together all ingredients in glass bowl and marinate the chicken,turn to coat and leave for at least 4 hours or up to 12(I make this up in the morning to cook in the evening)

preheat oven to 190 degrees c,place chicken in baking tray,pour over marinade and bake for about 30-35mins turning once. Once cooked serve with salad or on a bed of noodles with a sauce made from the marinade juices,add cup of water and tsp cornflour or gravy granules to thicken.

Anyone else having something to tickle their tastebuds tonight?

Sandra x

Great idea Sandra and I must try that chicken recipe.

Another easy one, which takes hardly any time.

Cut a pocket in the back of a chicken breast, pop in a slice of Stilton and wrap the whole thing in a slice of ham. Secure with a couple of cocktail sticks, drizzle with a little oil and bung in a moderate oven for about 20 minutes. Lovely with home grown potatoes, runner beans, broad beans, peas or whatever.

HI Sandra
very interested in what your doing, my daughter and I live in Somerset and we were thinking of baking (as we are both keen cooks)
Please could you tell me if you have to have any sort of licence to sell cakes etc at car boots and markets. Hope you are well.

Hello Sal
hope your well, I will do your chicken dish as I love stilton.
take care
Libby xxxxxx

I love cooking,will really enjoy this thread

A really quick tomatoe sauce.
2 tins toms
2 cloves of garlic
1 onion
1 tea spoon of dried oregano
half tea of sugar
s and p
olive oil,to taste.(I like about half a cup)
Blitz all in food processor.
Tastes really fresh ,dont cook too long

I love cooking as well as I like to be organised and have nice meals in the freezer. I’m hoping to be doing my own website/food blog in the autumn as a work project. I’m always jotting things down in little journals which I keep in the kitchen drawer and I still use an old cake recipe book published by the Co-Op back in the 50s that belonged to my mum.

My husband does the cooking here ! I do however love baking and find is very soothing - I do great chocolate brownies,shortbread and a ginger cake with stem ginger in it- and puddings too…yum

that CO Op book reminds me of my husband’s Be Ro cookery booklet his mum gave him when he went to university !

Brilliant thread, Sandra - thanks for starting it - my contribution is my take on Spanish Omelette.

(I love this recipe because:

Provided you have eggs, potatoes and onions, you can always make a basic or veggie version if you haven’t got the other ingredients to hand.

It can be made more or less in one pan.

You can easily make it go further by adding a couple more eggs and serving with French bread).

Ingredients
(serves 2-4)
8 oz small potatoes (or left-over roast potatoes)
4 eggs
7 oz smoky bacon (or lardons) or chorizo sausage or chopped ham – whatever pork product you like, the more strongly flavoured ones seem to work best

Vegetables – 1 red onion (essential)
Garlic (optional)
1 courgette (not too big, unless you’re really keen on it. Or try cooked French beans, add at step 7)
1 red pepper (tinned can be used, if so add at Step 7)

About 2 tbs olive oil or sunflower oil

Method

  1. Cook the peeled potatoes in simmering (salted if you want) until tender.

  2. Drain and cool under running water.

  3. Crack eggs into a basin and beat lightly, adding salt, pepper and fresh or dried herbs if you fancy them.

  4. Dice courgette and red pepper and soften in frying pan.

  5. Add chopped onion and garlic (if using) and carry on cooking until vegetables are slightly cooked.

  6. Cut bacon into matchsticks (other meats into slices or small cubes), add to pan and fry until crisping up.

  7. Add potatoes and mix all ingredients together thoroughly.

  8. Set grill to medium.

  9. Lower heat slightly and pour in egg mixture.

  10. Continue cooking until the eggs are almost set. If you like pepper this is a good time to grind some over the top of the omelette.

  11. Place frying pan under grill and cook until the egg mixture is set and the vegetables at the top of the omelette are going nicely brown.

  12. Remove from grill and cut into wedges to serve with salad Enjoy!

X

S

Brilliant that we have got some recipes coming in already will be trying them out soon, was told when I was in hospital that you have got to eat to heal, sounds good to me !

Talking of old cookbooks I often use the Lofty Peak Flour one that my mum used,great for baking,though must admit I’m a big Mary Berry fan too.

Libby, I used to work in environmental health so know a bit about what I should be doing but did want to try out my idea of a baking stall to see if it was feasable before taking the jump,it all depends on how vigilent your local authorities are if you can take this approach.However, it has been a huge success and would thorughly recommend it,the profit margins you can make on products are quite substantial. So for me I have decided to go “legal” and register with the local authorities as a food premise,this will involve an inspection of my kitchen,it is risk based and the products I make are low risk,ie don’t need to be under temp control and I only bake once a week .However, still have to comply with the food safety act and have fixtures and fittings fit for purpose etc. Have got my form to send off so will keep you posted on future developements.

Sandra x

Be Ro - omg how old is that? My Co Op one is Lofty Peak.

Does anyone have a sloe gin recipe please? I’ve found loads and am about to start picking as they’re ripe now so need a recipe.

Thanks

Made this today for first time. Got recipe from daughter in France. MOIST APPLE CAKE. 8oz sifted SR Flour, 4oz Butter, 8oz caster sugar, 3 Pink lady apples ( didn’t have any so used Bramley apples), 2 eggs beaten, 1 tablespoon Vanilla Essence. Sift flour, rub in butter until like breadcrumbs, mix sugar and diced peeled apples together and then add to butter/flour mixture, make a well in centre and slowly add the eggs and vanilla. Slowly blend ingredients together. Pour into greased lined cake tin and cook about an hour at 190. If browning too much too fast cover top of tin with tinfoil or baking paper. It should have uneven crunchy top and be moist in the middle. Allow to cool in tin then remove from tin on to a cooling tray. Husband and other daughter said it was delicious. Hope you do too. Love Val X

Bumping this up for slo gin recipe, love junieliz

found this recipe,let us know how it turns out…

Sloe Gin

Wash 1lb sloes
prick their skin with sterilised pin
add to sterilised jar with tight fitting lid
add 8oz sugar and 1 n 3/4 pint gin
shake every couple days to dissolve sugar,for 2-3 months
when ready to drink,strain,put in clean bottles and sloes can be added to stews.

Schools are back here today,hurrah ! My exertions today will be confined to making a “first day back at school” cake,has become something of a tradition. Think it will be a chocolately concotion with a bucketload of smarties for decoration.Might have it eaten before they get home ! Lol.

Sandra x

Anyone got any good veggie recipes.I’ve stopped having meat since op tried to reduce dairy too. But I do like nice tasting food. Boy this may be hard to keep up.

Congratulations! I also love cooking and one of my worries is how I am going to lift pans with my now nodeless arm… this summer I made less jam than I would have liked due to my dx and op…anyway I am newly operated so we’ll see.
A couple of years ago I wanted to open a stall at the local Farmers Market where I was planning to sell a couple of South American organic products and home made cakes and they drove me mad! They wanted me to get a commercial insurance for a ludicrous amount and other bureocratic and costly issues. Did you have to go through all that?
Anyway, here is a small contribution. It is a very easy and tasty recipe. I have not kept the quantities but you can play it by ear, according to how much you make:

Grilled marinated Lebanese chicken
Skinned chicken breasts
Marinade: olive oil, lemon juice, crushed coriander, garlic, salt.
Sauce: boiled potato, tahini, garlic, lemon, salt to taste.

Marinate sliced chicken breasts for a few hours or overnight. Grill on BBQ or grill and dress with a sauce made in the blender with one boiled potato, lemon juice, tahini paste and one or half a clove of garlic, crushed.

I’m making blackberry whisky - bit like sloe gin but with … yes you guessed it… blackberries and whisky.

copied from bbc.co.uk

You will need:

* 600g (21 oz) Blackberries
* 300g (10oz) Raw Cane Sugar
* 1 litre of Scotch Whisky

Blackberry whisky is most commonly made with Scotch whisky, although you may like to try making it with Bourbon if you prefer it. There is little value to be gained by using the most expensive whisky so go for a cheaper brand but, as for sloe gin, if the alcohol content of your whisky is lower than 40%, your final product will not be as intensely flavoured. It is therefore best to aim for a low-cost but not watered-down product.

Raw (unprocessed) cane sugar is best because it contains no chemicals and has a natural flavour. The recipe can be scaled up or down according to the amount of whisky available. If you picked too much fruit, buy more whisky!

Method

The method is the same as for sloe gin:

  1. Wash and dry the blackberries.
  2. Put the blackberries, whisky and sugar into a large jar or demijohn.
  3. Shake until the sugar has dissolved or until your arms start to ache.
  4. Put the lid back on the whisky bottle and keep it to one side - there’s no need to wash it out.
  5. Keep the container in a cool place out of direct sunlight.
  6. Shake once or twice a day for the first two weeks then once a week for six to eight weeks in total.
  7. You can then decant the liquid back into the original bottle - it is best to strain it through a piece of muslin cloth or kitchen towel using a funnel.

We live near a lovely park which overlooks the seafront here and it is absolutely teeming with blackberry bushes, so I am picking them at every available opportunity. This week we had a gorgeous blackberry and plum crumble (twice!) and I also put some in the bottom of some little sugar free jellies as a low cal treat with squirty cream.

I’m going to pick loads over the weekend and have a go at making jam with them, I might also freeze some as I am planning to cook and freeze the last of the rhubarb from the garden over the weekend.

Sandra

when you’ve finished with the sloes you can also use them to make yummy sloe gin chocolates - use very high quality dark chocolate, melt with a little butter/cream and add the sloes and shape into chocolate shapes - very nice. Don’t let the gin soaked sloes go to waste.

Hope this ones useful soon for bonfire night

4oz Butter
8oz caster sugar
4oz treacle
4oz golden syrup

Put butter into pan (make sure its a large one as the mixture expands to 3-4 times its starting volume while cooking)

Once melted stir in the sugar, treacle and syrup.
Bring to the boil and continue to boil steadily, without stirring, until the mixture reaches the “hard crack” stage when tested in cold water.
Pour into a tin/tray greased with butter or oil and when set cut into pieces

this type of toffee is best wrapped in waxed or greaseproof paper

If you can keep it long enough that is