Royal Wedding

I know that today we are probably celebrating their 4 month aniversary but since my blog is even newer than their marriage I just had to add this in!! I woke up for the Royal Wedding and even a little extra early just to finish off the likes of my English themed early bird's breakfast! I made homemade cheddar and panchetta or Italian bacon scones with three different sauces. The first was a crème fraiche chive sauce, the second was a honey condiment and the third was dijion mustard. Sounds pretty European to me! I also produced a cheese and salumi plate with fresh fruit and nuts, fresh crusty french bread, BACON!,  pims cups for my mom and her friend and english tea for me!

                                                        Can't we all be royalty??

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Cod

I made this dish in which the fresh cod was poached in a sauce of white wine, fresh tomatoes, onion, garlic and parsely! Pretty light yet cozy.

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Apple Strudel

My friend and I decided to reenact one of the dishes we made at our cooking class. We did this at a sleepover. Here is how we made it.

This makes 2 small apple strudels or one big one. Depending on the size of your filo dough.

I made 2 small ones.

Take out a box of frozen filo dough.

Melt two sticks of butter.....

ummm thank you Paula Deen

                                        

Then peel four granny smith apples. Grannies are commonly used in desserts for their not to sweet but sturdy taste.

Take out the core and seeds. I find that by using a melon baller it gets rid of the core without taking too much of the sweet, tart felsh with it.

Then cut of the top and bottom stems. In this picture I am yet to take off the top.

Slice the apples into slices about this thick: Next cut them down the middle and toss into a bowl with lemon juice. Adding lemon juice or any citrus fruits to fruits and veggies that oxidized is a very common thing to do. I mean how often do you find a banana or avacado you just opened turn brown?? Pretty often! Therefore by throwing on a splash of citrus juice it slows down the process. However this method in baking is pretty controversial because by baking fruits like apples they will get browned anyways and all the lemon juice will do is just flavor the dessert. However I like the taste of lemon juice so I kept it in the recipe but know, that this is an ingredient you can use to your liking.

 Soak a cup of rasins in 2 tbs. warm water and  2 tbs. rum....if of age. However since we are not we just soaked it in 4 tbs. of warm water. This awakens the rasins and makes them nice and plump.

Then once soaked, add the rasins to the apples and add 1/4 cup sugar and 1 tbs. cinnamon, mix together and saute in a pan until your apples are soft but NOT overcooked and mushy because it will be cooking inside the filo dough. By cooking them ahead of time you give the apples a head start so that they won't be crunchy and not fully tender by just baking them. Also this allows the flavors to get ahead start in meeting each other.

Now take a cookie sheet lined with parachment paper and add the apples. This is to help cool down the hot apples. And just like how on a hot day you don't want to be in a crowded area spread out the apples with a wooden spoon and allow them to relax.

Now pop them in the freezer for a quick summer time cool down. Allow them to be in there for about 15 mins.

Filo dough is a pastry dough that is used commonly in the Middle Eastern and in Greek cooking and baking. The main tips on working with filo is to .....

• Be Gentle! This dough breaks easily. However if you do get a tear here and there just try to mend it with a little bit of our first step....the melted butter!
• Work quickly! Filo dries out easily so besides acting like a glue to hold all the flaky layers, the butter helps to keep it moist. 

THIS IS WHY YOU HAVE TO BAST EVERY BIT OF FILO WITH BUTTER. To do this use a pastry or cooking brush.
                              Add one piece of filo on to a parachment piece of paper covered table. Then add the butter. And start your process over again with another piece of filo. Do this until you have five layered filo dough pieces.

Let it sit for a couple of seconds while you get your baking sheet ready. Then take the filo and butter marriage off the parchament paper and on to the baking sheet I find that the easier way to do this is to take a knife and were you find them sticking together, lightly drag your knife along the edges to pull the edible and nonedible apart.

Put on the baking sheet and leaving about an inch of space from the end add about 1/4 cup of bread crumbs. Smoothing it out into one not to wide layer. Now I know, I know. Your probably thinking WHAT?? BREAD CRUMBS?? However they are not there for taste. They are there to kind of give support to the apples (just like humans do) and most importantly mop up their juices or tears so they don't spill out all over the place (just like humans do.) In the end you don't even taste the breadcrumbs, rather you taste the plump apples perfumed with lemon and cinnamon.

Now because I am making two smaller apple strudels I am using half of the apples for this one and half for the other. So take half of the apples and but them on a thin line directly on the bread crumbs. 

Then roll like a burrito and tuck in the ends like a present. Lightly make a small line incisions with a knife along the pastry this is called scoring. This acts like a vent and allows the pastry to let out some of its hot air while cooking, instead of steming it.  Brush with butter and add to a 400 degree oven for 15 mins. and then lower to a 375 degree oven until it is golden brown. (Oven times and degrees may vary for different ovens.) Then make your next one with the remaining apples and other simple steps.

Then.....about 7 hours later we woke up and made.......

 Homemade pancakes and some scrambled eggs!! I hear the rooster already.

 Happy Eatings!!

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Grandma's Cooking Class

Who knows best?? Grandma and Nana!! Whether its Nonna, Grams, Gam Gam or Mamie she is one special lady! Not to mention a great cook!! Yesterday my grandma came over to teach me how to cook. Here are a couple of favorites we made together:
                            

Grandma's Baked Eggplant

Grandma's String Bean and Potato Salad

Grandma's Pasta with Marinara Sauce

And a little extra sauce for some scarpetta or bread dunking!

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Cod Wrapped in Potatoes

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Delia Smith vs Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

You see, the reason I can't abide Delia Smith is all about pastry. Yes, she's patronising and moves around her kitchen like a thunderbird, but her recipes do work and she has doubtless got many more people cooking than otherwise would, and for that I forgive her much. But have you read what she wrote in 'How to Cook - Book 1' about making pastry?

"If you can't make pastry, or don't even know where to start, the very first thing you need to do is forgive yourself and not feel guilty - please understand it isn't because you're born inadequate or not born to such things, it's probably because no one's ever actually taught you how"

Now I take issue with this on many levels - why would any one feel guilty that they can't make pastry? - but basically, I can't make pastry. And it's not because I wasn't taught either. My mum is a fantastic cook and she showed me on many occasions how to make pastry. I just don't seem to be able to do it. But every time I think of these words, I feel my blood boil. You see, my name is Sally and I can't make pastry.

Not that it has ever stopped me trying. Whenever the pastry gloves come out, my husband retreats to the bottom of the garden with the children to avoid the flying rolling pins and the language. I had moderate success with some suet pastry for a steak and kidney pudding, but that is an entirely different animal. However, all the attempts have done is made me adept at patching up cracked pastry either by using left over uncooked dough, or by the scrape technique, whereby I use the end of a knife to scrape the pastry surface to make crumbs and then stuff them into the cracks. I have also been known to line the bottom of a pastry case with cheese slices. Or alternatively, find me in the chiller section of the supermarket surreptitiously stuffing jus rol into my trolley.

Or at least that used to be the case, until I read River Cottage Everyday. Hugh has a recipe in there for a poached leek & blue cheese tart which I thought looked fairly fabulous, and I gave the husband the requisite 24 hrs warning that a pastry attempt was in the offing. But it wasn't necessary - what do you know - it worked! Not only did the dough come together easily, but it rolled out fabulously, lined the tin easily and baked like a dream.

I am writing about this now because Recipe Junkie is smugly sitting here with her morning cup of coffee while yet another pastry case bakes blind in the oven ready to be turned into quiche. 'Horribly smug' in fact - but mainly because she has turned disaster into triumph. Having done the weekly internet shop I opened my notebook on Saturday (the one where I do meal planning on one side and the shopping list on the other side) to find that I had planned not one meal for this week. Strange that I had managed to spend £75 on groceries all the same, but there we go. I think the idea was to use up stuff in the freezer before we go on our hols but I had failed to carry this through and actually check out what was in the freezer to eat up. A quick ferret round and I find a pack of bacon lurking at the bottom of the freezer drawer. 'Quiche' I think; 'pastry' I think, and there we have it. Dough knocked up and in the fridge before I set off up to school with the kids (yes - they are still at school - one more day to go) Now I just need to hope that the chickens aren't on strike today and lay some eggs. 

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Missing my dog

I am missing my dog.

Fred arrived as a cute bundle of springer spaniel puppiness on 15 May 2010. As he trotted down the garden after the small son that first sunlit afternoon, I felt an overwhelming sense of well being. "My life is complete" I thought, "and I never even knew I was missing something".

That was before he playfully sank his razor sharp teeth into the small son's calf, and then, while small son was wondering how something so soft and cuddly could inflict so much pain, Fred bounced him, tigger-style and knocked off his specs.

Those first few weeks were fairly traumatic. I had grown up with dogs but never been responsible for one. In fact it had been my husband who had for many years gone on and on about how having a dog would be so great. He grew up with cats. He used to be in the Army. Before we had children and we lived in Army land on the edge of Salisbury plain, I commuted daily up to London. "It'll be great" he would say. "I can take the dog in to work with me. Everyone does". I gently reminded him that he wouldn't be able to take a dog to work when he was in Afghanistan but he tried to shrug that off as a minor detail.

Fast forward a few years and the opportunity to acquire a springer puppy came up. Small son had been in remission for a year and at school. Smaller daughter at playgroup, I was working from home, the time just seemed right. Strangely, the husband didn't seem so keen, but I didn't really hoist that in. Fred was sooo cute, with a perfect little liver spot on the top of his head. I was in love and I had to have him.

I knew I was in touble when, a few days after Fred's arrival, with the children terrified of another of Fred's 'playful'ambushes, and the husbands best shoes in tatters, the husband said "Well, the thing is, you said 'no' for so long that I thought you meant no for ever". This is husband speak for "This is all your problem, do not involve me".

We went to puppy classes, Fred stopped savaging the children, the husband, me, the furniture, the shoes... finally we had an almost civilised (well, for a springer) dog.

And then tragedy struck. October 2010, during a stay at my parents, Fred ran off a 30 ft drop and broke his back left leg. If I had been blogging at the time, I could have recounted in detail the trauma, the anguish, the months of the poor animal hauling round a load of metal work in his leg, the slow rehab walks and then further disaster when he ran off after a hare and came back limping badly. Subsequent xrays showed that the leg had never truly healed, and the fracture site was by then a total mess. We decided to have the leg amputated.

It was an awful decision, but from Fred's point of view, I am convinced that it was the right one. Within a few days he was completely comfortable on 3 legs. We had a couple of awkward leg cocking moments, but he has sorted that out, and now the only noticeable issue he seems to have is when his left ear is itching - cue smothered hilarity as the poor chap tries to bend round far enough to scratch while the stump twitches furiously. Awful but horribly funny.

And if you look closely - you can see the stump. But honestly - who needs 4 legs?

He does seem to be rather accident prone though. 3 weeks after being back on his feet following the amputation, I was running with him 4 or so miles a day, when one night I noticed 3 huge gashes under his front right leg - in the 'armpit'. There had been no blood, and no indication at any time that he had hurt himself in any way. He needed stitches, so £250 later, we were back to short walks on the lead etc. 10 days later, back to the vet for the stitches to be out at 09.00 and I made some smart alec comment on Facebook about opening a book on how long he could stay injury free. 2 p.m. that afternoon I was back at the vets after he had stuck his head in a patch of nettles and stung his eye so the whole of the right side of his face had swollen up....

And why am I missing him? Well, on Friday (29th July) we are heading off in Daisy our VW camper for 10 days at the Haarlem Jamborette (http://www.haarlemjamborette.nl/2011/) with our local scout troop (husband is a Scout Leader) followed by 4 days in Paris ("1 day at Disneyland Paris and 3 days in REAL Paris" as the small daughter will tell you). Last weekend we were headed up north, leaving the kids with my parents while we attended a civil partnership celebration, and as mum is having Fred while we are away, it seemed the most sensible thing to do to leave him then rather than making a seoncd trip this week. But just because it's sensible doesn't mean it was easy. The children cried most of the way down the M1, and the small son cried at bed time for at least 3 days afterwards. "Fred" (my mum) has since written to the children telling them about what he's been getting up to on his holidays - mainly pricking his nose on hedgehogs, barking at his reflection in Mum's greenhouse window and digging holes in her veg patch (he clearly does have a death wish - or at least a very reduced sense of self preservation) and they seem OK now, but I am still missing him.

Still, he'll be back soon and I'm sure I will be blogging about what scrapes he has got himself into and what a nonsense he is, but the truth is - I MISS MY DAWG!!

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