Spanish Chicken

I made this really easy Spanish Chicken dish on Sunday. I saw it in the BBC Good Food mag, but you can get the recipe HERE You just mix all the ingredients together and stick it in the oven, it was really tasty.
I had these courgettes in the fridge (they were on special offer in Tesco), so I made a courgette risotto and threw in a few cherry tomatoes. The whole thing was delicious.

The Pudding Challenge!

I do like a challenge, so when I saw this challenge on the UK Food Bloggers Association, I jumped at the chance to create something different with this delicious pudding. I love Christmas Pudding served in the traditional manner so, of course, I had to have a taste before deciding how to use this pudding to create a dish that was worthy of this delicious pud. The kind people at Matthew Walker provided me with a couple of free puddings, why not visit their site to find out more about 'The Pudding'.

Here is the information on the challenge:

The Pudding Challenge
To spice up Christmas, we’re urging all UKFBA food bloggers to use ‘The Pudding’ and create some cracking alternative Christmas fare to get ours, and your readers’, taste buds tingling! The blogger who conjures up the most creative cuisine will win a top of the range camera along with a one-to-one session with a respected home economist, to help make those foodie photos.

and here are my recipes:

Roast Shoulder of Lamb with Matthew Walker 'The Pudding' Stuffing

Ingredients
300g Matthew Walker 'The Pudding'
25g butter
125g onion, peeled and chopped
125g celery, roughly chopped
25g pecan nuts, roughly chopped
2 tbsp chopped parsley
1 egg yolk
salt & pepper
1.4 kg boned shoulder of lamb
2 tbsp oil
350g shallots or button onions peeled
300ml lamb stock
1 tbsp redcurrant jelly

Melt the butter in a frying pan , add the chopped onion and celery and cook until soft. Crumble 'The Pudding' into the pan and mix with the onion and celery, add the chopped nuts and season with salt and pepper. Leave to cool, then add the egg yolk to bind the stuffing together.

Stuff the bone cavity of the lamb with 'The Pudding' mixture and tie up with string or secure with cocktail sticks. If there is any stuffing left over it can be cooked separately in an ovenproof dish.

Heat the oil in a roasting tin and brown the lamb on all sides. Add the shallots to the tin.
Roast at 180C (375F) for about 1 1/2 hours for pink lamb, 1 3/4 hours for well-done meat.
Transfer the lamb to a warm platter, cover with foil and leave to rest in a warm place.

Put the shallots, lamb stock and any juices from the lamb in a small pan and puree with a hand blender, add the redcurrant jelly and warm through.
Carve the lamb with 'The Puddding' stuffing with roasted vegetables and the shallot & redcurrant jelly gravy.

Matthew Walker 'The Pudding' Cheesecake

Ingredients
200g Matthew Walker 'The Pudding'
8 digestive biscuits
50g butter, melted
600g cream cheese
2tbsp plain flour
175g caster sugar
2 eggs, plus one yolk
142ml creme fraiche or sour cream
1 tbsp of icing sugar

Heat the oven to 160C. Crush the bisucuits in a food processor (or put in a plastic bag and crush with a rolling pin). Mix with the melted butter. Press the crumbs into the base of your tin, I used a square pan which is about 18cm square because it doesn't have a removable base, I lined it with baking parchment. If you use a 20cm springform tin you don't have to line it. Bake the base for 5 minutes and then leave to cool

Beat the cream cheese with the flour, sugar, eggs , the yolk and the creme fraiche or soured cream until light and fluffy. Crumble 'The Pudding' and distribute it evenly across the biscuit crumb base. Pour the cream mixture over the base and 'The Pudding'. Bake for about 30 minutes and then check, it should be set but slightly wobbly inthe centre. Leave in the tin to cool.

Remove from the tin, as my tin was square, I served the cheesecake in rectangles, dusting the top with icing sugar.

The expert tasting panel, my husband and my mother-in-law, really enjoyed both of these dishes, but the "Roast Shoulder of Lamb with Matthew Walker 'The Pudding' Stuffing" was definitely voted the top recipe.

Hello Cupcake!

If you haven't visited The Imperfect Housewife, you haven't lived! I love the posts on this blog, they make me laugh and echo many of my own views on life and family. Anyway, there's a giveaway on this bloggie of a cool book called 'Hello Cupcake' along with some cupcake related goodies. Here's to Imperfection - I'm all for it myself.

Home and Freezer Digest - December 1988

I am a recipe hoarder, I admit it! However, this is the only copy I now have of a great little magazine called Home and Freezer Digest. I used to have dozens of copies in their binders. I think I started buying it in about 1981, but eventually I gave them to a charity shop. However this one escaped, probably because it had that great 'Snowman' cake in it, and I found it the other day lurking in one of my folders.
I have to say that I certainly never made this very 'green' popcorn ring - yuk!
And here is a feature on coffee filter machines. I did get a filter machine as a wedding present and we only replaced it last year (27 years of service), but they were still not that common in 1988. One of the best things the US exported to us has to be the coffee house habit, whether Starbucks, Costa or any other name, good coffee is now available everywhere. I realise I'm rambling now, so I'll stop there.

Pot Roasted Brisket in Beer with Parsnips and Mushrooms

This is a really delicious recipe from BBC Good Food website. Easy to make, lots of long slow cooking and the dark beer with the mushrooms makes a rich and tasty gravy.

I used an Orkney Beer called Dark Island

Julie & Julia

I wasn't quite sure what this film was going to be like. I knew that it was a true story, I knew it involved Julia Child and cooking, but I was not prepared for just how entertaining it was going to be.

I went to see it with my friend in our local Film Theatre, which is very small, it was sold out. The audience was mainly women of middle years, with just a few men joining us. What can I say, we laughed, groaned and generally were drawn into the lives, and cooking triumphs and disasters, of these two delightful women and their equally lovely supportive husbands.

I cannot reccomend this movie highly enough. I'm going to buy the DVD when it comes out so I can see it whenever I need to lift my spirits.

Chocolate Muffins - this time they're real!

I made my friend a book of 50 treats for her birthday in April, you can see it here and she is calling in some of the treats as she has her neice and nephew visiting.

She got 6 chocolate muffins

The recipe is one by Delia Smith from the Comic Relief 'Delia's Red Nose Collection' from 1997. Delia made these as mini-muffins, I doubled up the mix and made mine full size.

5oz (150g) plain flour
2 level tbsp cocoa powder
1 level dessertspoon bkaing powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 1/2 oz (40g) golden caster sugar
4 fl oz (120ml) milk
2oz (50g) butter, melted and cooled slightly
2oz (5og) plain chocolate drops

Preheat the oven to gas mark 6, 400F, 200C

Start off by sifting the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt into a large bowl.. Then in a separate bowl mix together the egg, sugar, milk and melted butter. Now return the dry ingredients to the sieve and sift them straight on to the egg mixture (this double sifting is essential becuse there wont be much mixing going on). What you need to do now is take a large spoon and fold the dry ingredients into the wet ones - quickly, in about 15 seconds. Don't be tempted to beat or stir, and dont be alarmed by the rather unattractive, uneven appearance of the mixture: this, in fact, is what will ensure that the muffins stay light. Now fold the chocolate drops into the mixture - again with a minimum of stirring, just a quick folding in.

Divide the mixture between the muffin cups about 1 heaped teaspoon in each, and bake on a high shelf in the preheated oven for 10 minutes, until well risen. Then remove the muffins from the oven and cool in the tins for 5 minutes before transferring them to a cooling tray.

She also got 6 fruit scones, just a very basic scone recipe with some dried fruit added.