Foodie Pen Pals and Fruit Bread

It’s the end of the month so it is Foodie Pen Pal Parcel reveal day. This month I sent a parcel to Charley of Charley’s Kitchen, and received a lovely parcel from Alice who is from Denmark so the parcel was packed full of lots of lovely continental treats.

And the parcel contained;

Mashed potatoes with mushrooms – a camping favourite of Alice and her family, I haven’t had a chance to try this yet and may have to save it until the next time I am off camping too to keep with tradition!

Muesli bars – I have already munched through these (one just before I took part in a recent bog snorkelling challenge) and both were really yum.

Candied rose petals – a great baking ingredient that I hope to use in something pretty soon.

Sahefest – This is a special little ingredient to add to cream before whipping to help it hold its shape, another useful store cupboard ingredient.

Kinder Bueno – This didn’t last long!!!

Lemon Muffins – Made from a German recipe and absolutely delicious.

Bread Spice – A little pot of bread spice and three bread recipes (one of which includes the spice) to make.

So thank you Alice for a lovely parcel full of some great things that I haven’t come across before. I haven’t had a chance to make the spiced bread that Alice included a recipe for yet but I have made the fruit bread which is delicious, and I have included the recipe below with a few minor changes (the recipe called for ALL BRAN but I didn’t have any so swapped this for oats instead. The original recipe from Alice also only included dried apricots but I threw in some dates as well and the result was really good.

INGREDIENTS

240g flour

260g brown sugar

130g oats

50g dates

50g dried apricots

300ml butter milk

Pre-heat the oven to 225 ° C

Mix all of the dry ingredients together in a bowl.

Add the buttermilk and stir until well combined before pouring the dough into a greased loaf tin.

Bake in the oven for 40 minutes until golden brown.

Lemon Curd Ripple Ice Cream with Lemon and Basil Syrup

This blogpost marks a rare occasion, an occasion when I am posting an ice cream recipe (which isn’t particularly rare) when the sun is actually shining (which is!!!). It seems to have become a common practise to nip out of work at the end of the lunch hour to feed my ice cream addiction. And with this zesty recipe I have been further feeding my habit out of my own freezer at home.

Some left over lemon curd in the fridge inspired the lemon curd ripple ice cream (which is adapted from the lemon and poppy seed ice cream cake recipe from the Guardian). Another condensed ice cream recipe, I love these because they are so easy to make, require no churning and don’t contain any eggs!!

The accompanying basil and lemon syrup was inspired by my bumper basil crop. I have always attempted to grow my own basil from seed, and have always failed miserably. But this year, thanks to the wondrous appearance of a golden ball of warmth that seems to be permanently visible in the sky, my basil is blooming! And so I thought I would experiment a little, so that I could enter my ice cream recipe into this months Bloggers Scream For Ice Cream challenge over at Kavey Eats…..the theme for which this month is herbs.

The basil syrup is rather subtle but makes a really fresh syrup to accompany this zingy ice cream. And as suggested by Kavey I have also entered this recipe into the cooking with herbs challenge as run by Lavender and Lovage.

FOR THE ICE CREAM

2 lemons

1 tin condensed milk (397g)

150ml plain yoghurt

250ml double cream

100g lemon curd

Zest and then juice both lemons.

Put the condensed milk into a large mixing bowl and stir in the lemon juice and zest until combined. 

Then stir in the yoghurt.

In a separate bowl whip the cream until soft peaks are formed. Fold the cream into the condensed milk mixture.

Transfer the mix to a freezer-proof container. Finally Dollop the lemon curd on top of the ice cream mix and ripple into the mixture using a ford until distributed throughout the mixture.

Transfer to the freezer until frozen (I left mine over night before tucking in!).

FOR THE SYRUP

A large sprig of basil

Peel and juice from 1 lemon

75g caster sugar

100ml water.

Peel the lemon using a vegetable peeler before juicing the lemon. Add the juice and peel into a small saucepan with the basil, sugar and water. Place over a low heat and allow the sugar the dissolve.

Increase the heat a little and allow the mixture to gently bubble until reduced to a syrup.

Pass the syrup through a sieve to remove the basil stalks and lemon peel, allow to cool and spoon over the ice cream to serve.

Pear and Frangipane Tart and MasterChef Ireland

I love a good foodie programme on TV and am a self-obsessed MC (a.k.a MasterChef addict)!!! I love MC in all its varieties whether the contestants are professionals, celebrities or general members of the public. I also enjoy watching the numerous versions of this TV show that are filmed elsewhere in the world. Australian MacterChef takes the show to a whole new level with teams and egg breaking challenges accompanied by a judging panel who have a complete inability to eat food off of the same plate so all dishes cooked up by the contestants have to be meticulously divided between plates for them before tasting can begin (there’s no Gregg just digging straight in and indulgently liking the chocolate fondant off the back of his spoon).

Now that I live on the other side of the Irish Sea I’m also aware of MasterChef Ireland, for which applications are now open for the new series. So if you think you have what it takes to be the best chef in Ireland and be in with a chance of winning €25,000 go apply.

As much as I like to think I am a little Master Chef in my own kitchen I don’t think I am quite ready to take on the challenge of MC….but in recognition that applications for MC Ireland are now open I thought I would attempt to make a recipe from the last series. I went for what was originally a peach and frangipane tart made by Fidelma Boyce.  Frangipane is a great tart filling for anyone who is lactose in tolerant as it is naturally dairy free unlike things like creme patissiere. By substituting the butter in the pastry of the original recipe with a dairy free spread I made this recipe suitable for anyone who is dairy free. (I also didn’t have any peaches so swapped them for pears, but it turned out great!!)

INGREDIENTS

FOR THE PASTY

180g plain flour

120g dairy free spread

1 egg

Zest  1 lemon

70g icing sugar

FOR THE FILLING

150g icing sugar

180g ground almonds

3 eggs

60 g plain flour

4 pears

Mix the flour and icing sugar for the pastry together in a bowl and stir in the lemon zest. Rub in the spread until fully combined with the mixture resembling breadcrumbs. Then add the egg and bring all of the ingredients together using your hands until a ball of dough is formed.

Wrap the pastry in cling film and transfer to the fridge for an hour to allow to cool.

Meanwhile pre-heat the oven to 180°C and grease a loose bottomed 30cm diameter flan tin with dairy free spread.

After an hour roll the pastry out on a floured surface and carefully line the tart tin with the pastry gently pushing it down into all of the edges.

Line the pastry case with greaseproof paper and fill with baking beans (or uncooked rice) and blind bake for 12 minutes. Then remove the baking beans and paper and return to the oven for another 5 to 10 minutes until the pastry is golden brown.

Next place the icing sugar, almonds, eggs and flour into a bowl and beat until well combined. Spread this mixture evenly into the pre-baked pastry case.

Core and slice the pears into 2cm thick slices and arrange on top of the frangipane until the case is full with pear slices. Put the tart back into the oven for another 20 to 25 minutes until the frangipane is firm.

Once the tart is removed from the oven you can use a little fruit jam to add a glaze to the tart if desired.

Then allow to cool slightly and tuck in!!

THE SEARCH IS ON TO FIND IRELAND’S NEXT MASTERCHEF!

Are you an amazing amateur cook with a passion for food?

Do you dream of pursuing that passion and possibly changing your life?

Have you got what it takes to impress in the MasterChef kitchen?

If so, we want to hear from you!

Don’t miss out, APPLY NOW for the chance to become the next MasterChef Ireland Champion and win a cash prize of €25,000!

Application deadline is 22^nd July 2013

For more information and to apply go to:

www.rte.ie/masterchef

Ninja Bread Men

I’m (once again) a little bit late with my foodie pen pal post for this month. I’m actually still waiting for my parcel, although it is on it’s way, so a post regarding it’s content should be following shortly. But in the meantime I thought I would post the recipe for the goodies that I made for Ioanna in Greece. I sent Ioanna a package full of trears from Ireland and England and thought I should make something suitably traditional. Having just received a set of ‘Ninja’ Bread Men cookie cutters for my birthday gingerbread men seemed the obvious choice. I then stumbled across this recipe for Vegan Guinness Gingerbread over at No Meat Athlete. Having no egg replacer handy I actually turned these into a non-vegan treat by adding a couple of eggs but the original vegan recipe can be found here. And below can be found the recipe with my slight alterations, so not vegan, but still dairy free!

INGREDIENTS

235 ml Guinness

80 ml vegetable oil

100g icing sugar

60 ml molasses

250 g flour

½ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

2 teaspoons ground ginger

Put the Guinness into a small saucepan and simmer gently until reduced by half.

Sift all of the dry ingredients together into a large bowl.

In a separate bowl mix together the molasses, oil, eggs and 60ml of the reduced Guinness mixture until well combined.

Stir the wet ingredients into the dry until a firm dough is produced (you will probably need to get your hands dirty to bring the dough together).

Wrap the dough in cling film and place in the fridge for an hour.

In the meantime pre-heat the oven to 180°C and line a baking with non-stick baking parchment.

Roll the dough out on a well floured surface until about 2 cm thick and cut out in your desired shape (it doesn’t have to be a ninja!!). Transfer to the baking tray and bake for approximately 10 minutes until golden brown.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly before removing from the tray.

Vegan chocolate pudding

I seem to have been extraordinarily rubbish at blogging this month (this is my first recipe for June) but there have been a number of things that have got in my way over the past couple of weeks.

Firstly at the beginning of June the weather was exceptional, for over a week we had sunshine, no wind, no rain….not even a little bit of cloud. To some this may be an automatic description of summer, but I live in Northern Ireland, and getting 3 hours of consecutive sunshine is a rarity so a whole week of being able to see the big golden ball of sunshine is the sky is just unheard of. So surprisingly enough during that week I spent a lot of time outside and not a lot of time by either my cooker of my computer and so the blogging lapsed.

The second thing that got in the way of my blogging was a case of an AWOL recipe scribbled down on the back of an envelope somewhere! I had been playing around with the use of tofu rather than eggs in quiche and came up with a fairly decent little vegan recipe…but can I now find said recipe? No! I’m still searching but I may have to experiment again before I can get that recipe out onto the world wide web (tofu quiche will turn up eventually though I promise).

So there are my excuses all lined….apologies for the lack of blogging. And to kick start the blog again a really easy vegan chocolate pudding recipe. This concoction arose after I had a rather large bunch of bananas on the verge of going a little too squishy. But with the sun shining and me not wanting to be chained to the oven rather than making the default banana bread I chopped up the bananas, stuck them into a plastic tub and bunged them in the freezer for later use (yes you can freeze bananas). They are then there ready for future banana bread making or for bunging into milkshakes or smoothies or for making this quick and easy pud.

INGREDIENTS

100g frozen banana

1 tablespoon cocoa powder

60ml coconut milk

1-2 teaspoons caster sugar (to taste)

A little dark chocolate for decoration

This recipe really couldn’t be any simpler. Just bung all of the ingredients into a food processor (minus the dark chocolate) and whizz up until a smooth mousse like consistency is produced. Start with a little sugar and add a little more as required (depending on taste). Then transfer to a bowl and decorate with a little grated dark chocolate. Et voila……simple hey!?

Foodie Pen Pals – Gluten Free Sweet Potato Crackers

This month’s foodie pen pals parcel was an absolute delight to open. As soon as I tore through the packaging the beautifully rich aroma of coffee hit my nose.  The smell of freshly ground coffee beans is one of life’s little pleasures and I immediately knew this month I had received a great parcel. I was already excited before the parcel had even arrived as this month I was paired up with Saidas and Rita from Lithuania. I don’t know an awful lot about Lithuanian cuisine so was really excited to see what exotic treats I might receive.

As you may have guessed from my initial description my parcel had a distinct coffee theme. This was because when Saidas and Rita first got in touch they asked what food thing I could not live without. My immediate response was coffee. Now I’m not a total caffeine fiend and I rarely drink more than one coffee a day (I can quite happily live for days without a coffee) but I really appreciate a good cup of java and honestly don’t think I would be able to live without it! So my foodie pen pals took the hint and sent my some lovely coffee related goods.

There was of course coffee! The little sachets of Gurmans Kava are apparently a popular brand in Lithuania and I have already sampled one of these and can see why as it really was a delicious coffee.

Coffee chocolate – This is dark and rich and perfect for after dinner snacking (I have ‘snacked’ my way through most of it already

Coffee sweet – These have taken up residence in my desk at work providing much needed afternoon treats!

Dried cottage cheese – Apparently this is great enjoyed with a cold beer, I haven’t had the chance to try it yet but is certainly something different.

Pumpkin crackers – A perfect accompaniment to the cheese.

So a great package that will provide me with a good few caffeine fixes over the next month or so! Thanks Saidas and Rita.

It was also quite a coincidence that I received cheese and crackers as these were two of the items that I sent to my foodie pen pal this month. Teresa (who has a lovely arts and craft blog at Rockspring Crafts) confessed to loving cheese and trying different varieties so while on a work trip to Wales earlier this month I picked up a local one for her. And I don’t think cheese should really be eaten without biscuits so I made these gluten free crackers for her to enjoy.

INGREDIENTS

100g sweet potato

15ml olive oil

100g gluten free flour mix

1 tsp xanthum gum

Lots of black pepper (to taste)

Pre-heat the oven to 220°C and line a baking tray with non-stick baking parchment.

Take the sweet potatoes and zap on full power on in the microwave for 5 to 7 minutes until cooked through. Allow the potatoes to cool before peeling and mashing (I used my ricer at this stage to produce a smooth mash).

Mix the potato with all of the other ingredients in a large mixing bowl until combined into a smooth dough.

Dust the work surface with a little flour and roll out the dough until about 1/2cm thick. Cut out rounds using a biscuit cutter and transfer to the baking tray.

Bake for 8 to 10 minutes until golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow to cool before enjoying with cheese.

Frappuccino Ice cream and edible Hazelnut-Chocolate bowls

I recently had an ice cream crisis….the crisis being I had run out of ice cream. This is never a good thing in my life and so I thought the best way to solve this problem (rather than go out and just buy ice cream so that I could immediately cure my cravings) was to root around my cupboards and decide I would make my own. A rummage at the back of my cupboard revealed a tin of condensed milk, which is a great base for a no-churn ice cream, and a box of Ferrero Rocher (I have no clue where these had come from but they may have been a left over from Christmas!!!). So I decided to combine these ingredients together with some strong black coffee to make a devine after dinner style concoction that ended up tasting like a Frappuccino, perfect for a sunny afternoon.

I then noticed that this months ‘Bloggers Scream For Ice Cream’ challenge, as run by Kavey from Kavey Eats, was to make edible ice cream containers (whether that be a cone or bowl) and so I decided my Frappuccino ice cream needed a suitable edible housing. Taking inspiration from the chocolatey hazelnut chunks provided by the crushed up Ferrero Rocher in the ice cream I utilised another store cupboard find (a jar of Nutella) to make gluten free chocolate-hazlenut tuille baskets, and I have to say I was rather pleased with the results.

FOR THE ICE CREAM

250ml strong, freshly brewed coffee

1 tablespoon caster sugar

200ml full fat milk

250ml whipping cream

1 tin condensed milk (397g)

10 Ferrero Rocher

Take 250ml of freshly brewed coffee, add the sugar and stir until dissolved then add the milk and place to one side to cool.

In a large clean bowl whisk the cream until it becomes thick and starts to stiffen up forming soft peaks.

Fold the coffee and condensed milk mixture into the cream mixture before chopping up the Ferrero 

Rocher into small chunks and folding these into the mixture as well.

Once the chocolatey chunks are evenly distributed throughout the mixture transfer to a freezer proof container and bung in the freezer overnight.

Then scoop into a bowl and enjoy.

FOR THE CHOCOLATE HAZELNUT BOWLS

50g caster sugar

40g butter

125g Nutella

30g ground hazelnuts

1 egg

Pre-heat the oven to 220° C and line a large baking tray with non-stick baking parchment.

Beat the sugar and butter together until smooth. Then add the remaining ingredients and mix until a smooth batter is formed.

Take a spoonful of the mixture and dollop onto the baking tray then using the back of a spoon or a palette knife spread the mixture out into a thin disc shape.

Repeat with a few more spoonfuls (but leave space for the mixture to spread out further on the baking tray).

Place in the oven for 5 minutes. Then when you remove the tuiles you have to move fast!!! Have a couple of small bowls turned upside down, using a spatula remove one of the tuiles at a time and place over the bowls so that they take on the bowl shape before they cool and harden. Repeat with the rest of the tuiles.

Then repeat the process until all of the mixture is used up.

Et voila….an edible Ferrero Rocher inspired bowl for the Frappuccino ice cream to sit in.