Dare to bare...your kitchen cupboards!

In an effort to give us an easy time for the busiest month, Dom has decided, that for our Random Recipes, we should open our larder and cupboard doors and show everyone what is inside!  Now I like a nicely ordered cupboard, but my good intentions don't seem to last long and everything always ends up shoved in.  I've tried using tubs and jars to decant my ingredients, but it just doesn't seem to work for me.  I do have some little baskets to try to keep the little pots and jars in, but it could all do with a tidy up again.

Anyway, here goes:

I have a big double, floor to ceiling, larder unit and this is the shelf with all the random spices that don't fit on the spice rack on the inside of the other door.  At the front cinnamon, Colman's mustard powder, La Chinata sweet smoked paprika, black peppercorns, a herb/spice rub and some beef oxo cubes.

In the shelf below I have more of the baking ingredients, that tub of Food Thoughts cocoa shouldn't be in that basket, but has obviously been shoved in as I couldn't get it in anywhere else.  There are some bottles of food colouring, a jar of crystalised ginger and, over on the right, baking powder, cake release and vanilla extract.

This is the worst cupboard, pasta, rice, beans and a giant bag of granulated sugar I bought in my online shop without realising it was so big!  The green box sticking up is vegetarian suet that I used for my mincemeat.   I do have to say that there is not much in the way of out of date goods, I had a good clear out not that long ago.

I hope you enjoyed a look into my larder,  if you'd like to join in pop in to Belleau Kitchen to find out more about this excellent blogger challenge.

Labels: Belleau Kitchen, cupboards, dare to bare, pantry, Random Recipes

posted by Janice @ 21:40 8 Comments

Crunch-Topped Cod - A Random Recipe

I've missed a couple of months of Random Recipe posts, the blogger challenge run by Dom at Belleau Kitchen.  It's a lot of fun to take part, however due to impending work on my kitchen I've had to clear all my cookbooks away into bags and boxes, but I came across a pile of old Bella Cookbook magazines to which I applied the standard Random Recipe formula!

My random choice was January/February 2004, goodness nearly 10 years ago!  I did love this magazine, looking through these copies there are loads of recipes that I have made and must revisit.

However, Random Recipes is about making recipes you have overlooked and never made so my random pick is Crunchy Topped Haddock Cod, or other white fish of your choice.  I used frozen cod because it was what I had in the freezer.

Crunch-Topped Cod
Serves 4
4 (175g/6oz) pieces of cod fillet (or other white fish)
4 small tomatoes, sliced
2 tbsp olive oil
1 garlic clove, peeled and sliced
2 (250g) bags spinach, rinsed and drained
1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 (250g) tub mascarpone cheese
75g/3oz Cheddar cheese, grated
1 (30g) bag plain crisps, lightly crushed

1. Preheat the grill to high.  Place the cod on a foil lined grill pan. Season with salt and pepper.  Top with tomato slices. Grill for 3-4 minutes until the fish is cooked through. 
2. While the fish is cooking, heat the oil in a large pan.  Fry the garlic of r1 min.  Add the spinach. Cover; cook over a medium heat for 3-4 minutes until wilted.  Draini n a sieve, pressing out the excess liquid with the back of a spoon. Season with nutmeg and freshly ground black pepper.  Keep warm.
3. Apread the mascarpone over the tomatoes an fish.  Top wth Cheddar chees; season.  Grill for 2-3 minutes until melted. Scatter over the crisps; gril lfor 1 min until golden. Serve the fish with the warm spinach.


I made some mashed potatoes and served them topped with the spinach and cheesy fish.  The from fish fillet flaked easily and the combination of the creamy mascarpone, juicy tomatoes, sharp Cheddar cheese and crunchy crisps was a total delight.

Labels: Belleau Kitchen, cheese, cod, crisps, Mascarpone, Random Recipes, spinach, tomatoes

posted by Janice @ 20:50 7 Comments

Rhubarb Frangipane Tart from Belleau Kitchen to Farmersgirl Kitchen

As soon as I saw the Rhubarb Frangipane Tart that Dom had made at Belleau Kitchen as his entry for Dish of the Month (Cooking Nigel Slater recipes) I knew I had to make it.

These are the first stalks of rhubarb I have pulled in my garden.  It was slow to start this year as it's been really cold, but as soon as it started to rain and warmed up slightly, the rhubarb just burst through and now it's gone slightly mad!

Dom poached his rhubarb in red wine, but I decide to do mine in orange juice with the zest of the orange too.

Here is the rhubarb after it had been poached, I slightly under poached it as it has to go back into the oven on top of the frangipane.

I served the tart with Madagasgar Vanilla Icecream and the juices from the poached rhubarb reduced and poured over the tart.

As I bookmarked this recipe from Belleau Kitchen I am entering it for Bookmarked Recipes hosted by Jac at Tinned Tomatoes.

Labels: Belleau Kitchen, Bookmarked Recipes, Dish of the Month, frangipane, Nigel Slater, rhubarb

posted by Janice @ 21:00 10 Comments

A cup of coffee and a Treacle Bite!

It's time to 'Get Random Baby' or so Dom at Belleau Kitchen tells us.  Yes, it's time for another Random Recipe, this time using the Random Recipe Generator thingummydoodah, a technical term I'm sure.

It still required the dreaded counting of the cookery books as it grows every time I look, anyway my random choice was The Dairy Book of Home Cookery by Sonia Allison for the  Milk Marketing Board, originally published in 1968, this edition published in 1977.  The book belonged to my Mother-in-law and has retained it's place on my cookbook shelf as it has some good recipes in it.

And so to the opening of the book in a random fashion...it opened at a double page of biscuit recipes - RESULT!  There were many to choose from: Currant biscuits, Cherry biscuits, Spice or Cinnamon Biscuits, Chocolate Flake Biscuits, Jam Sandwich Biscuits and on and on... However,  I decided to go for Treacle Bites as I have a bit of a glut of rolled oats.


Treacle Bites (makes 24)

100g/4oz self-raising flour, sifted
75g/3oz rolled oats
25g/1oz desiccated coconut
100g/4oz butter
125g/5oz caster sugar
2 level tbsp treacle
1 level tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tbsp milk

1. Combine flour with oats and coconut
2. Put butter, sugar and treacle into saucepan, very slowly bring to the boil, stirring all the time.
3. Remove from heat. Add bicarbonate of soda dissolved in milk.

This is so much fun, it puffs up like puff candy!

4. Pour hot mixture on to dry ingredients.  Mix thoroughly.  Leave on one side for 30 minutes or until firm.
5. Break off 24 pieces of mixture and roll into marbles.

Rolling the biscuit mix was easier than I thought, not too sticky, they do spread a lot and I would probably make mine smaller next time as my 'marbles' were more like 'walnuts'!

 6. Transfer to buttered baking trays (leaving room between to allow for spreading), Bake in centre of moderate oven 180C for 15 minutes.
7. Leave on trays for 1 or 2 minutes before transferring to wire cooling rack.  Store in an airtight tin when cold.

Treacle Bites Printable Recipe


The verdict: FANTASTIC!  I think these are some of the nicest biscuits/cookies I have ever made and I will be making them again, I would also try making them with golden syrup as I think that would work well too.  Now I must confess that I only had 15g of coconut so used some mixed seeds to replace it, so this is obviously also an adaptable recipe and if you don't like coconut, you know that you can replace it with small seeds, like sesame seeds.

And now for the well-deserved cup of coffee.  As my regular readers will know, I've reviewed quite a few different ground coffees recently.  Just before I went on holiday, I was sent some coffee by Aromo.  Aromo is a company run by three ordinary guys who simply live and love espresso and the mystic of coffee.  The main focus of their business is espresso coffee in single serving pods, but as I don't have a pod machine, I was sent the Aromo Bounce 100% Arabica ground coffee which retails at £4.00 for 250g.

We realy enjoyed this coffee, not being espresso fans we made our coffee in our filter machine and it was excellent, a really smooth rich blend at a very reasonable price and went very well with the Treacle Bites.  If the pods are anything like as good as this, then they are well worth trying.  Aromo coffee is available as ESE Coffee Pods   Senseo Compatible Coffee Pods   Nespresso Compatible Capsules

Labels: Aromo, Belleau Kitchen, biscuits, coffee, cookies, Random Recipes, The Dairy Book of Home Cookery

posted by Janice @ 21:23 18 Comments

Rice Pudding with Butterscotch Apples

Random Recipes is now going into it's third year and to celebrate Dom at Belleau Kitchen is kindly allowing us to choose our book our own way.  We still have to pick a random recipe from it to celebrate our love of recipe books and those wonderfully talented people who write them (with apologies to Dom for paraphrasing!).


The book I chose for my Random Recipe was The River Cottage Year by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.  I picked this up  recently for £2.99 in a discount book shop.  The randomness of my recipe choice is relative since I decided to go with the chapter for February, on the basis that the recipe was likely to be suitable for this chilly time of year, but I promise that I did choose the recipe in the February chapter quite randomly, just by identifying the beginning and end of the February chapter and then opening the book randomly to find...

Rice Pudding with Butterscotch Apples 

Serves 6
For the rice pudding
50g unsalted butter
100g pudding rice
500ml whole milk
500ml double cream
50g caster sugar
Fresh nutmeg (optional)
For the butterscotch apples
4-5 firm, tart, eating apples (about 400-500g)
50g unsalted butter
50g light brown sugar

Heat the oven to 140C/gas mark 1 and butter a deep ovenproof dish. Melt the butter in a saucepan over a low heat and add the rice, stirring until coated with butter (it shouldn't fry or even sizzle).
Mix the milk and cream together and add to the saucepan. Stir in the sugar until dissolved.
Transfer to the ovenproof dish, grate a little nutmeg over the surface (if using) and cook for 3-3½ hours. Every 30 minutes, stir gently from bottom to top to separate the grains and work the surface skin back into the pudding, until the rice has expanded to fill the dish and is quite tender (2½-3 hours should do it). For the last 30 minutes, leave to cook without stirring so a golden-brown skin forms, turning the oven up to 170C/gas mark 3 for the last 10 minutes.
Peel and core the apples and cut them into 1-2cm dice. Melt the butter in a large frying pan and fry the apples very gently. After 2 minutes, sprinkle with the sugar then gently toss and fry for 12-15 minutes, until tender and glazed. Serve immediately with a  generous dollop of the hot rice pudding.

 I'm sure my regular readers will not be surprised to learn that I made a few changes!  I buttered the dish, put all the rice pudding ingredients into the dish including the knob of butter  and baked the pudding in the oven for the required time.  I also used a little more milk and a bit less cream.  

This was undoubtedly a treat, the butterscotch apples were gorgeous and a perfect foil to the rich creamy rice.

I am also entering this recipe for Tea Time Treats as the theme for Feburary is 'pudding' and it's being hosted this month by Kate at What Kate Baked as I think Karen at Lavender & Lovage is lying down in a darkened room to recover from the massive round up of Tea Time Treats from January!

Labels: Belleau Kitchen, Lavender and Lovage, Random Recipes, Rice Pudding with Butterscotch Apples, River Cottage Year, Tea Time Treats, What Kate Baked

posted by Janice @ 08:30 14 Comments

Delia's Christmas Dried Fruit Compote

Over at Belleau Kitchen, dear Dom has challenged us with his usual Random Recipe teaser.  However, in my haste, I misread the challenge and instead of choosing a recipe from a cookbook that I received as a gift last Christmas, I thought we were to choose a 'Christmas Cookbook'.  Doh!



I don't have too many Christmas cookbooks, just a couple of Delia's and the Home and Freezer books that I blogged about last week.  The original Delia Smith's Christmas was the one that came to the top of the pile and I opened it randomly and was delighted to find myself looking at 'Christmas Dried Fruit Compote'.This version of the fruit compote isn't on Delia's website, but I found it published in the Telegraph online.



When I went to my larder, inevitably, I didn't have everything I needed for the recipe, so substituted some different dried fruits.  No figs and no prunes, I could have sworn I had some prunes but must have used them in the instant mincemeat.  I had some lovely Medjool dates from the hamper I got from Olives from Spain and some dried mandarins and cranberries, all lovely Christmassy flavours.


The original recipe calls for a liberal dose of Port, well my husband can't drink Port, it gives him migraines, so I used a couple of tablespoons of Amaretto, one of my favourite liqueurs.  In the book Delia suggests that the fruit compote is served with flaked almonds, well I didn't have any of those either, so for this, by now VERY, Random Recipe, I used some nice green pistachio nuts to add to the festive colours.


I made the compote last night and was sorely tempted to have some on my porridge this morning, but remembered just in time that it was full of booze and I had to drive into town to the hairdressers!  We had it this evening served with Greek yogurt and it was delicious, would be great with vanilla ice cream too.  All in all I'm rather pleased that I misread the challenge as I wouldn't have come across this recipe otherwise.

I put up the Christmas tree today, it lives in the kitchen between the cook books and the stove, and is decorated with an eclectic mixture of totally uncoordinated baubles and pretty things I have been collecting since 1980 when we bought our first flat, indeed the coloured lights were a flat warming gift from a friend and they are still working.  I used the tree and lights as a background behind the first photo of the Dried Fruit Compote.  In the spirit of the Random Recipe challenge, here is a Random Christmas decoration from my tree.

Labels: Belleau Kitchen, Christmas, dates, Delia Smith, dried apricots, dried cranberries, oranges, pistachio nuts, raisins, Random Recipes

posted by Janice @ 21:25 11 Comments

Watercress Open Sandwich with Coconut

As usual Saturday lunch was a a bit of a forage in the fridge.  I sliced a couple of very thin slices of sourdough bread and spread them with lighter than light Helmann's mayo, then piled up a mixture of watercress and baby salad leaves.  Some slices of red pepper and tomatoes topped it off.


No Croutons Required is hosted alternately by Lisa from Lisa's Kitchen and Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes

Labels: AlphaBakes, Belleau Kitchen, coconut, Lisa's Kitchen, No Croutons Required, Tinned Tomatoes

posted by Janice @ 22:16 4 Comments

Chicken Marsala - A Random Recipe

from Betty Crocker Cookbook (Tenth Edition)

3. Add chicken to pan.  Cook about 8 minutes, turning once, until brown.  Add wine.  Cook 8 to 10 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink in the centre.



The recipe suggests serving this with pasta, but I served it with mashed potatoes and cabbage and it was very good.  I did use rather more mushrooms than in the recipe and didn't have any Marsala so used white wine instead.  I felt it needed a bit more seasoning but my husband thought it was fine just as it was.  The bonus is that this is a low fat recipe!

Labels: Belleau Kitchen, Betty Crocker, Chicken, marsala, mushrooms, parsley, Random Recipes

posted by Janice @ 19:54 6 Comments

Double Bubble Easy Tomato Soup!

Yes, indeed!  It's a double challenge this time because Dom from Belleau Kitchen and Jac from Tinned Tomatoes have got together to run 'Random Recipes does No Croutons Required'.  As these are two of my regular challenges I just had to join in.

There weren't any real instructions as to how to choose your Random Recipe this month just that it should be a soup or salad to meet the requirements of No Croutons Required.

Labels: Belleau Kitchen, challenge, No Croutons Required, potato, Random Recipes, Rose Elliot, Soup, The New Vegetarian Cookbook, Tinned Tomatoes, tomato

posted by Janice @ 19:45 10 Comments

Seared Ginger Beef and Mushrooms - Random Recipes

Seared Ginger Beef and Mushrooms (serves 2)


4. Add the mushrooms and bamboo shoots and stir-fry for 1 minute, then tip in the sauce ingredients, stir well and cook for a further 2 minutes, stirring continuously.  Serve immediately with thread egg noodles or rice.

 Overall it was a nice combination, I had some pak choy so added that with the broccoli and doubled up the ingredients to make enough for four. I think it would have benefited from some chilli or a bit more black bean sauce as we had to add some extra soy at the table.  But that my just be that I like a bit of a kick to my food.

Remember to check out Random Recipes at Belleau Kitchen.

Labels: Beef, Belleau Kitchen, Ginger, mushrooms, Ramdom recipes

posted by Janice @ 21:51 4 Comments