Becca Jane St Clair

Tim and I were shopping at the co-op a few weeks ago, when he spotted some pre-made potato skins in the refrigerated items section. The container had 6 potato skins in it, and the co-op wanted over £3 for it. I told Tim not to buy it and that I knew I could make this at home quite easily.

Homemade Potato Skins

You will need:
-Potatoes (I used 3 and Tim and I each had 3 skins)
-1 slice of cooked bacon for every potato
-grated cheese

Preheat your oven to 200C. Slice each potato in half horizontally and place skin side up on a lined baking tray (or spray it with oil). Brush olive oil on the skins. Bake for 30 minutes.

Remove from oven. Wearing an oven mit, pick up each potato half and using a large spoon, scoop out most of the inside. You won’t need it for this recipe, but you can save the insides for mashed potato at a later time. You should be left with a mostly hollow shell. If you scooped too much out, you can put a little of the potato back inside the skin.

Crumble the bacon and sprinkle it over the skins. Top with grated cheese.

Put the potato skins back into the oven for 10-15 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and bubbly.

Just as good as store bought or restaurant made for pennies!

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Yesterday I did something I never would have done living in America. Tim and I were out on an exploration. Armed with Ordinance Survey maps of the county that Tim had drawn blue and red lines on, we were off in search of our fictitious railway. We had a good time. I’ll write more about the search for our railway in another entry and post some of the photos later.

We were stopped somewhere along a narrow, winding back country road between farmer’s fields. We were stopped to take pictures of where a level crossing would have been and I was walking back towards the car when I spotted something round a red growing on one of the trees alongside the road. I paused and discovered that I had found a wild apple tree. Curious, I picked an apple and bit into it. It was the tastiest apple I have ever tried! The apples were redish pink at the top fading down to a yellow shade of green. We don’t know what kind of apples they were, but we sure didn’t waste any time in picking as many as we could fit into a bag!

Now all I have to do is figure out how to store them…these are too good to cut up and freeze!

We often go foraging for blackberries – brambles, as they get referred to here. Brambles seem to grow everywhere in this country. We find them growing alongside the many public footpaths we frequent, branches dipping into canals, and we even find them growing alongside railway tracks. This year, we ate most of the blackberries right away, but last year I had a bagful in my freezer that lasted through the winter.

I love free food. I won’t go dumpster diving or anything crazy like that, but if mother nature wants to give it to us, we’ll take it!

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It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

Have you ever had a week where your cooking was just off? That was me week before last. I ruined three meals and I still don’t know how I pulled it off. The first meal was a root vegetable soup. I had it going in the crock pot and about 2 hours before we were going to eat, I could smell this awful smell coming from the kitchen. I headed in, thinking I’d find something left out on the counter or something like that, but there was nothing except for the crock full of soup. I lifted the lid and was horrified at the smell.

This isn’t the first time I had a problem with the Tesco pre-made bags of cubed root vegetables, so perhaps they just aren’t made for real cooking and should only be used as mash. They wound up in the bin, and we ordered Chinese food.

A few days later, I attempted to make Pesto Chicken Parmesean. The recipe looked super easy, so I blindly made it and pulled it out of the oven after the alloted 20 minutes. I neglected to cut into the chicken though, and when we went to eat it were met with undercooked meat. Not willing to make us sick, it got thrown out and we wound up at Asda that evening and picked up some hot dogs and buns for Tea.

The last messed-up meal was on the Sunday. I was trying to make sausage and sauerkraut in the crock pot with some of our favourite pork and apple sausages. This meal wound up in the bin because the sausage just disintegrated into the sauerkraut and we’d have each been eating a plateful of sausage flavoured sauerkraut. We had pizza that night.

So I took it gentle the next week, and I feel ready to share another week of meals with you.

Monday – Traditional Fish Pie
Tuesday – Vegetable Soup
Wednesday – Chicken, Potato, and Veg Bake (Combining 2 recipes from two different Good Food magazines)
Thursday – Mint, Peas, and Pasta
Friday – Chicken stir-fry
Saturday – Full English Breakfast
Sunday – Meatball soup

Saturday is our wedding anniversary, but Tim has to work 2-10 (plus be on call all night) and I have a chorus workshop from 9-4, so we are having a nice breakfast together in the morning. We’ll celebrate with a meal out while we’re in Edinburgh the following week.

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Yep, more recipes. This one was inspired by a recipe in the September issue of Good Food.

As the frost approaches, you might be left wondering what to do with all those tomatoes you need to bring inside. Here’s a recipe for roasted tomatoes, followed by tomato soup in the crock pot.

You will need:
12 vine ripe tomatoes (if you have to, get them from the shops, but make sure they are vine ripened)
4 Tablespoons malt vinegar
3 Tablespoons olive oil
Dried Basil
Salt & Pepper

Pre-heat oven to 175C
Line a baking dish or a deep cookie sheet with baking paper or give it a few sprays of olive oil. Cut each tomato in half and arrange tomatoes skin-down in dish. Sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper.
Combine oil and vinegar and brush mixture onto tomatoes. Sprinkle with Basil.
Bake for 45 minutes.

You can use them as a side dish, or create tomato soup with them.

Roasted Tomato Soup

You will need:
Roasted tomatoes
1 can crushed tomatoes
1 potato, halved
water, tomato juice, vegetable stock, or chicken broth
Basil

Combine roasted tomatoes, potato, and tin of crushed tomatoes in crock pot. Pour liquid into crock pot until tomatoes are covered, Sprinkle with basil. Cook on low for 6-8 hours. Fish out the potato (it was in to absorb the salt from the roasted tomatoes). Use an immersion blender or regular blender and blend until smooth.

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, or the RSS feed(s), please notify me.

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Apologies for the bombardment of recipe posts recently, but I’ve been getting creative in the kitchen lately and want to share. As I was taking a photo today of my latest creation, I commented to my husband that I “really take a lot of photos of food”. He replied that since food seems to be my latest creative outlet, why not? Of course, this does mean you have to read post after post about food, when you probably want to read other things by me. Sorry! Maybe I should start up a cooking blog after all!

Anyway.

When I was younger, I remember my mom making Pizza Meatloaf, probably because I had seen it in a kid’s cookbook or on TV or something like that. I couldn’t find her recipe, so I created one of my own.

You will need:
500g Turkey Mince
150ml Passata
1 Tablespoon Oregano
125g Bread Crumbs
1 Egg
Mozzarella Cheese (a small block will work best)

Pre-heat the oven to 225C.
First, chop about half the Mozzarella into small cubes and the other half into slices. You also could use shredded cheese if this is easier and divide it in half.
Combine meat, the cubed cheese, HALF the passata, the bread crumbs, egg, and Oregano and mix together well.
Shape into a loaf shape on a lined cookie sheet.
Cook 45 minutes to an hour, or until meat is no longer pink.
Remove from oven and pour over remaining half of passata and top with remaining Mozzarella.
Put back into the oven for 15-20 minutes, or until cheese is melted.

This was really tasty the following day cold in a sandwich with some ketchup!
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I posted this photo to Facebook yesterday, and my friend’s husband said “That’s not a hoagie, that’s a sub”. He may be right, but for being 3,000 miles away from Philadelphia, it’s not too bad.

Serious Eats posted this top 10 list of Philadelphia hoagies in September and my only comment about it was that it made me hungry for a hoagie…but the closest we really get here in the UK is Subway.

I knew what basically went into a hoagie, so I started looking around Sainsbury’s for appropriate substitutions. The batons sold fresh in the bakery section are about a foot long and soft, making a great base for my hoagie. I haven’t yet found Provaolne cheese, but I picked a mild Edam instead. For meats, I went with ham and German salami. I wanted a third meat, but I couldn’t decide what would work well, so I kept it with the two.

For me, what makes a hoagie is the dressing and the oregano. I sliced my tomatoes thinly and shredded the lettuce, putting both in a sealable container. I then tossed on top of the tomatoes and lettuce 6 tablespoons olive oil, 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar, and one tablespoon Oregano, sealed up the container, and gave it a good shake.

I went against tradition and put a little bit of mayonnaise on the roll, topped it with the cheese and meat and then the coated lettuce and tomato.

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I was going to hold off on this post for a few weeks and get some older (well, a few weeks old) recipes posted, but Michelle’s post on The American Resident about homesickness and making comfort food prompted me to post this sooner.

I think most of us who grew up middle class in America know about Chef Boyardee. Those red cans (I swear, it used to be spelled Boy-R-De) were a familiar food growing up. My favourite was the ravioli, and I detested beefaroni. In addition to tins of pasta, Boyardee also made pizza kits, which became a household staple because it was easy to make, and we could put whatever toppings on it we wanted.

Even as an adult, I continued to buy the Boyardee pizza kits because they were inexpensive, and had everything I needed – crust mix, tomato sauce, and cheese. Of course, we started adding shredded cheese to the grated Parmesean by this point.

I love pizza and I love homemade pizza. Moving to the UK, I’ve struggled a bit in finding a crust mix that I like – a lot of the pre-made mixes don’t cook well or taste too sweet and I just don’t have the patience for making it from scratch. Originally, this recipe was just going to be “Easy Pizza”, but when I bit into it I was instantly reminded of the good old Chef Boyardee pizza mixes. I hope this can comfort another ex-pat the same way it comforted me!

You Will Need:
300g Bisquick mix (in the UK it’s called Bisquick Multi-Purpose Baking Mix and comes in the same size box as a cake mix)
200ml very hot water (I used water from the kettle)
Olive oil (or vegetable oil)
tomato sauce (plain passata)
Parmesean cheese
Oregano*
Basil*
Mozzarella cheese*
Toppings of your choice*

*optional ingredients. The main ingredients are essentially the items you need for a Chef Boyardee kit. Any direction involving optional ingredients will have an * in front of it.

Pre-heat the oven to 225C.
Grease or line a cookie sheet (or pizza tray).
Combine water and Bisquick and mix until it resembles dough. If there is still a lot of powdered mix, add a little more water.
Press dough onto cookie sheet and lightly cover with olive oil (a spray bottle is ideal).
Bake for 5 minutes.
Remove from oven and top pizza with sauce and *sprinkle oregano and basil on sauce.
Sprinkle Parmesean cheese over sauce.
*Top with Mozzarella cheese and your chosen toppings
Return to oven and bake for an additional 10-15 minutes or until cheese is melted and crust is crisp (it took 12 in my oven).

Enjoy!

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, or the RSS feed(s), please notify me.

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I watched Extreme Couponing a few nights ago via my friend’s Slingbox. And I just had to share the moment that made me laugh.

The first woman was shopping at a store that “prices matches” with fliers from other stores. A lot of places do this, and even the shops here in the UK will do it, too. But this woman truly went to the extreme. She had a flier that marked down cereal to less than $2, when her store charges over $5 for the boxes. That’s awesome. But what really made me laugh is the woman drove over 30 miles to get the flier. Uhm, hello? That 30 miles of driving probably cost you more than you’ll save on that box of cereal!

Tim and I worked out that we can go approximately 4 miles for each pound (£) of diesel we put in the car. A 30-mile trip would cost us about £7.50. £1 = around $1.50 currently, so if she could go 4 miles for every $1.50, that means she would have spent over $11 on fuel to pick up this flier. With the price difference being around $4, she had to buy 3 boxes before she even began to break even on the deal. Of course, she probably bought something like 10 or more boxes, I really didn’t pay attention to the number of boxes. BUT, she also didn’t include the $11 in petrol in her savings.

I still think the extreme way of couponing isn’t as glamorous as it looks. Looking at some of the stockpiling you have to wonder how much money do these people spend maintaining their stock? If they have multiple freezers, surely the cost of running them has to be calculated into their total savings? Or the shelving units they purchase to store it all on, the extra rooms they have built onto their homes. What about the wear and tear on their $30k vehicle because it has to sit in the driveway through all weather since the garage is full of their shopping? Or the sheer amount of TIME it takes for them to go through the coupons? Some people on the show boast that they spend 40+ hours/week clipping coupons and looking for deals. Do they calculate into their savings when they purchase coupons on eBay? How about the paper, ink, and electricity they use to print off on-line coupons? What about the time lost with their family because they are too busy searching for coupons and deals? Several episodes back there was someone who drove 100+ miles for something cheap, yet they didn’t calculate their travelling into their savings. One woman boasted that she couponed while on a family vacation because there were different stores than the ones she shopped at at home!

I know that pre-packaged food tends to have long expiration dates, but I also worry that the food will go bad before they use it – Sometimes when my mom or I would clean out the kitchen cabinet (our “stockpile”), we often found things way at the back that had expired without us realizing it. I couldn’t imagine keeping track of expiration dates on some of the huge stockpiles we see on that show. I have a hard enough time keeping track of the food in my small fridge, let alone if I had three refrigerators full of food.

And I’ll say it again… a lot of what they buy is JUNK. Candy, sugar cereals, soda, ramen noodles (sodium), etc. Even tinned vegetables still aren’t as healthy as fresh. And tinned fruit tends to be in sugary syrup. How can you stay healthy and eat that stuff? What do you need 200 bottles of laundry soap for? A bottle probably lasts at least a month or two, so you have enough detergent for how many YEARS of laundry? What happens if you move? Will you pay a moving company to shift your stockpile? What about insurance on it in case your basement floods, your house catches fire, or someone breaks in and steals things? would you even know if someone had stolen something from your stockpile? If you don’t own pets, why do you have 100 packets of cat treats? You’re past the age of having babies, and your own children are in primary school, so why do you have all those jars of baby food, diapers, and wipes? What’s the use in having a 20 years supply of feminine products if you are male and don’t have a female partner or family member to use it? Sometimes, I even wonder if the people actually eat and use the things they buy or if they just like looking at their “collection”, because they seem to do these huge shops weekly!

I’m still quite satisfied to see myself saving £10 off a £50 order. Some weeks I fail at saving money (this week, I’ve only saved about £2). Other weeks, I go for gold and can save over £10. It all evens out for me and I would never purchase something purely based on the fact that it was on special offer or if I had a coupon for it. Everything I purchase gets used within a reasonable amount of time, unless it’s part of our “Winter Kit” (which I’ll explain in a later post)

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, or the RSS feed(s), please notify me.

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I puzzled facebook friends by posting this photo in my “food and recipes” folder:

And captioned it “What did I make with this?”

I made cappuccino mix!

But I should back up a little and tell the story.

The first part of the story is from about 10 or so years ago when my mom and I were looking for something we could make our office friends for christmas that wasn’t going to break the bank, and we discovered a recipe for cappuccino mix. We made it and everyone loved it – my aunt so much that she gave us her empty container and asked us to refill it!

The second part of the story comes from a girl obsessed with Starbucks. Me. When December rolled around, my favourite drink was an iced peppermint mocha or a frappucino. One year, I mentioned to the barista how sad it was that the peppermint mocha was only offered in December, and she told me I could order it regularly and ask for a shot of peppermint. It would cost me an additional fee for the flavour, but I was able to get peppermint mocha year round.

…and then I moved to the UK, where Starbucks does not have peppermint mocha. My mom found an International Coffee powdered version that she sent me and I gobbled it up. She also found peppermint Coffeemate powdered creamer and sent that along. Recently, I’ve been looking at the second caninster and thinking about making something with it, when I remembered the old cappuccino mix recipe. To make it even minty-er, I decided to use mint hot chocolate mix, and to get it to “froth”, I picked Aero hot chocolate. You can make this with regular creamer and regular hot chocolate or any flavour hot chocolate and regular creamer. If you can’t find regular creamer, you can use powdered milk.

So, here’s what you need. I did the measurements for this in Metric, but as long as you get the ratios right, you can use any measuring system you want.

100g instant coffee
200g powdered creamer
200g hot chocolate
50g Splenda (or sugar, but I was trying to make it a little less sugary)

you also will need a plastic zipper top bag, a rolling pin or glass, and some containers to put the finished product in….like the containers you just emptied!

Step 1 – Pour the coffee into the zipper-top bag, squeeze out as much air as you can, and seal it. Gently roll over the coffee with a rolling pin to break up the granules.
Step 2 – Add the hot chocolate, powdered creamer, and splenda to the bag. Seal it up tight and shake it until everything is mixed together.
Step 3 – Pour into containers.

[finished product on the left, it’s inspiration on the right!]

When you are ready to have some, just put 3-4 spoonfuls in a mug and top with hot water. I like to fill my cup about 3/4 with boiling water from the kettle and then top it off with cold water from the tap so I can drink it right away.

This would make a great gift, too!

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One of my favourite Pennsylvania Dutch things is apple butter. Apple butter is best when spread on a warm dinner roll, or a spoonful mixed into some cottage cheese. Trips to Willow Valley always included a spoonful of apple butter on my plate, and trips to Kitchen Kettle were never complete unless I bought a jar.

In the UK however, we don’t have apple butter. We have all sorts of other spread-y type things for your bread, but no apple butter.

For those of you not familiar with apple butter, I need to explain that it is not butter in the sense of a dairy or vegetable based spread you put on toast or use to bake bread with. The best way I can describe it is it’s sort of like applesauce, only thicker, darker, and with spices. It’s tasty and is my favourite topping for toast. It even out-shines Nutella!

With all the wind bringing down the apples on the 20-foot-tall apple tree in the garden, it was time to start doing something with them!

Like last year, I planned on coring and cutting as many apples as I could and dividing them into 500g freezer bags. 500g is just about what will fill up my crumble bowl, and a good way of measuring them out. Plus, it’s how much will fit into a small freezer bag comfortably. To freeze the apples, I leave the skins on and use one of those kitchen gadgets that slices the apple and cores it at the same time. I discard the core, cut off any brown spots, and cut the slices in half. After measuring out 500g, I pop them in a freezer bag and add a teaspoon of lemon juice (to help with discolouration) and give the bag a shake before putting it into the freezer. Last year, I wound up with 6KG of apples in the freezer which really saw us through winter! This year, I’m trying not to put too much in the freezer because we need to defrost it soon and I wouldn’t want to lose anything!

I made apple butter last year, but such a small amount I only had enough for 2 small containers. Since I had to get the apples dealt with sooner than I had planned, I decided to try making a large batch of apple butter and I collected as many as I could that had fallen into my laundry basket.

I started coring and cutting the apples and measured them out in 500g intervals on my scale and tipped them into my large crock pot until it was full — about 2KG of apples. 2KG of apples will yield about 2000ml of apple butter, more if you don’t cook it for as long as I did. I sealed my jars in the oven since I don’t have a large pot for the stove. The USDA does not recommend this method for canning, however there are no such suggestions in the UK, and oven canning is even suggested.

Crock Pot Apple Butter

You will need:

2KG Apples, cored and cut (or however much your crock pot will hold. I used a 6L crock pot)
2 TBS Cinnamon (adjust based on amount of apples)
1 1/2 TBS Nutmeg (adjust based on amount of apples)
1 1/2 TBS Cloves (adjust based on amount of apples)
1 1/2 Cup sugar or Splenda (optional)
Water

Large Crock Pot
Blender (I tried out my new stick blender!)
Wooden Spoon
Sterilized Jars

– Core and cut apples into small chunks. You can leave off the skin if you don’t feel like peeling (I never peel them). Fill your crock pot until it nearly reaches the top. I stopped about three inches from the top.
-Using a measuring jug, add water to the crock pot until the apples are covered. I used 1L of water, but your amount may vary.
-Cook on LOW for 10-12 hours. Overnight is ideal. You want to cook it past the point of applesauce.
-In the morning, turn off your crock pot and use a blender or stick blender to blend the apples until they are smooth. I used my stick blender directly in my crock pot, but if you’re using a regular blender you might have to do it in batches.
-Mix in the spices and give it a taste. If it tastes too tart to your liking, add about 1/2 cup sugar or sweetener. You also can add more spices if you think it needs it!
-Cook on low for about 2 hours. Give it a stir and a taste. Add more sugar/spices if it’s not to your liking.
-Take a wooden spoon and use it to prop open the lid. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT! By venting the crock pot lid, you are letting the steam escape and this will reduce the applesauce down to apple butter.
-I had my crock pot on low for about 12 hours, but this was only because we left to visit friends in the evening and stayed longer than we had anticipated. At a minimum, it can be done in about 8 hours. The longer it cooks, the thicker it will get.

-Sterilize your jars. You can do this several ways including boiling them in water or placing in a hot oven. I sterilized mine in a hot oven by pre-heating the oven to 105C (225F) and placing the jars on a tray. Leave in for 10 minutes, then turn off the oven and let the jars sit in the oven until you are ready for them.

-Give your apple butter a taste again. If it still tastes too tart for your liking, add the final 1/2 cup of sugar or sweetener and blend. You might want to use your blender or stick blender again if your apple butter looks too chunky.
-By now, your apple butter should be a dark brown colour. Turn off the crock pot.
-To make it easier to pour (and to know how much you made), transfer the apple butter into a measuring jug. I had just under 2000ml.
-carefully pour into your sterilized jars, leaving a little bit of room at the top. Wipe the sides of the mouth and screw on the lids.
-Seal your jars in your preferred method. Most people will boil their jars, but as I don’t have a large pot, I needed to use the oven method.

-Place jars on a baking sheet in a cold oven and turn the dial to 105C (225F). Allow the oven to heat up and leave on for 20 minutes. Turn off the oven and leave jars in for an additional 30 minutes. You can tell the jar is sealed if you can push on the top and it doesn’t make a popping sound.

And now you have apple butter to last through winter!

Oh, and to clean out that crock pot after making a mess in it, pour some dish soap in it and fill it up with water. “Cook” it on low overnight with the lid on, and in the morning it should come clean.

In case you were wondering, to make applesauce cook the apples and water for 4 hours on high in the crock pot, add sugar, drain off some of the water, and blend.

[The first batch. I’ve since made a second batch of apple butter and a batch of applesauce….]

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, or the RSS feed(s), please notify me.

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Question: Does England have a Fourth of July?
Answer: Of course it does, between the third and fifth!

Today is Independence Day in the US, the day which Americans celebrate their independence from Great Britain. On July 4, 1776, the second continental congress approved the Declaration of Independence, having officially declared separation from Great Britain two days prior.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

It just turns out that my pursuit of happiness has taken me back to the UK!

Did you know they don’t call that war the Revolutionary War in the UK? It’s actually called the American War of Independence.

I am spending my day, sadly, alone, as Tim has gone back to his training. I DID order in some burgers from Tesco, so I’ll at least have a burger for dinner tonight. I have a sing-out with my chorus tonight, too, but I don’t think I’ll be able to get them to sing any of the “American” anthem songs. I don’t even have any fireworks! I originally wanted to get some back at Bonfire Night when they were selling them and hang onto them until July, but I forgot. I will have to make a note in my diary (US: organizer/date book) this year so I don’t forget.

But it did remind me of one of my all-time American campfire classics, the S’more.

S’mores are a barbecue and campfire classic in America. The melted chocolate and gooey marshmallow make for a tasty sweet treat after all that meat! In the UK, I understand that one thing people like to do here is take a banana and shove chocolate buttons in it and put that on the grill for a sticky, gooey treat. But I’m partial to S’mores.

Authentic S’mores are made with marshmallow, a graham cracker, and a bit of Hershey. All three are a bit elusive in this country, but we DO have marshmallows. Not as big as the Jet Puff ones, but they are marshmallows. Fortunately, my mom sent me a bag of American Marshmallows and I had been holding on to them for an occasion. The occasion turned out to be the first barbecue of the year at my friend N and P’s house back in April, but I was saving on posting about it until today.

For the cracker AND chocolate part, I cheated a little. I bought Chocolate Digestive biscuits so I wouldn’t have to worry about melting the chocolate. It worked well!

You will need, for each person:

1 skewer or stick
1 large marshmallow
2 chocolate digestive biscuits

And it’s quite easy. While the flames are dying on the barbecue, stick a marshmallow on a stick and hold it to the coals. Don’t get too close or the marshmallow will catch on fire! When the edges are crispy, it’s time to take it off. Now CAREFULLY pull the marshmallow off the skewer and place it on top of a biscuit, chocolate side up. Top with another biscuit and there you have it, an improvised S’more!

Edit to add: Ironically, I wrote this and scheduled it for publication today, and as I was going through Google Reader this morning, a post by Michelle at The American Resident caught my attention, as she’s also blogged about S’mores! How funny! So go read her blog if you want another way of making a S’more. Hers even includes indoor instructions!

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Credit for this recipe goes to my amazing friend, Jess P!

[pictured with my homemade strawberry jam!]

I always wanted to make scones. The one and only time I tried was in Summer 2007, and my friend SilverAdept‘s only comment was that they were really dry. And was I sure this was what an English scone was supposed to look/taste like?

I wasn’t sure. The last time I had had a real English scone had been in 1997, and since then I had only had coffee shop versions – that is, probably not authentically English. So I gave up. And then I moved to England in 2010, where scones are a staple of an English Afternoon Tea!

A while back, my friend Jess posted a recipe for very easy scones. I can’t find her direct link, but her recipe came from an Australian recipe website (which makes sense, as Jess is Australian). I was sceptical due to the unusual ingredients it called for, but when I knew I wanted to make scones, I looked up her recipe.

You will need:
1 cup cream
1 cup fizzy lemonade*
3 cups self-rising flour**
salt (just a pinch)

1. Preheat oven to 220C. The Australian recipe measured out in cups, so I used cups. Again, if you don’t have measuring cups, just pull a mug out of your cupboard and use that. Yes, you can measure both liquid and solids in the same cup (however odd you might think that).
2. sift flour and salt together and make a well in the middle.
3. slowly pour in the cream and lemonade. It will fizz when you add the lemonade, so make sure you used a deep bowl
4. mix with a fork until all flour is moistened.
5. Turn out onto a floured work surface and knead dough until it is elastic-y. About 5 minutes will do it, and if you want to be lazy, knead it in the bowl like I did.
6. Use scone cutters (or a glass with it’s edge dipped in flour) to cut out your scones, and place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper/baking paper.
7. Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until golden.

*in the UK (and presumably, Australia) we have a fizzy soda drink called lemonade, which tastes like Sprite or 7-Up minus the lime, so it’s just a lemon soda. I do not know if Sprite would work in this or not! Possibly you could use lemon flavoured soda water?
**I didn’t have self-rising flour, but I learned that you can add 1 1/2 tsp of baking powder and 1/2 tsp salt for each cup of all-purpose/plain flour to make it self-rising. If you do this, don’t add the pinch of salt.

40 scones, ready for our Open Garden Railway day!

I’ve made them twice off this recipe, and I’ll be making another double batch this weekend for a Garden Party at my friend Sylvia’s house. Both times, the scones lost their round shape, but I blame that on my plastic cutters. I’ve since purchased some metal cutters, so I hope they look better!

We served these up with some cream and homemade strawberry jam and they went down quite well! I sent Tim to work with the leftovers, and his co-worker loved them, too.

I will post other photos from the Garden Party, but they’re all on Tim’s camera!

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For the BBQ on Friday at N and P’s (that we wound up having inside due to rain!), I wanted to bring along something for pudding (US: dessert), since we were told we didn’t need to bring any food for grilling. Tim suggested a trifle and I immediately started giggling. All I could think about was that episode of Friends where Rachel made a trifle and it had “a layer of lady fingers, then beef sautéed with peas and onions” because two pages of her cookbook stuck together. Here’s a link on YouTube to watch the clip. Unfortunately, the uploader didn’t have an option to embed it and this was the only full clip I could find, short of splicing it together myself: http://youtu.be/Mx5Wpqf4-OM.

The last time I tried to make one was in 2008 when I was visiting. We bought a boxed trifle mix Bird’s makes, and it didn’t turn out well. We only had a plastic bowl to make it in, and the jelly never quite set, and then the custard was runny and it was just awful. I never tried making one again….until Friday. And it turned out this time! 😀

From what I can figure out through googling, there isn’t really a set way to make a trifle. It basically has four layers – sponge cake, jelly (Jell-o in the US), custard (US: pudding), and whipped cream, but it looks like you can add layers of fruit or jam, and even add multiple layers of the jelly, custard, and whipped cream if you’d like. And of course, if you’re obsessed with Friends, you can add beef and peas, but don’t expect anyone to eat it!

So here’s my version –

You will need:

-Sponge Cake (I used two pieces of leftover sponge from our steam-up)
-Jelly (US: Jell-o, in fact, I used box of jell-o my aunt sent me)
-Custard (US: pudding) (I used instant just-add-boiling-water custard)
-Whipped Cream
-Bananas
-Strawberries
-Chocolate for garnish (I used Buttons)

1. Break up the sponge cake and put it in the bottom of your glass bowl.
2. Cover the cake with your jelly (Jell-o) and set in the refrigerator to set (about 3 hours)
3. Meanwhile, make the custard and cool it off (or it will melt the jelly!) in the fridge.
4. After the jelly is set, spoon custard over jelly. At this point, I decided to add a layer of cut bananas to the trifle to give it more flavour.
5. Whip the cream or make your dream topping and spoon it over the custard
6. Top with strawberries and chocolate

The verdict? Yum.

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I love meal planning. And I honestly DO meal plan every week….I just don’t always post it to my blog.

Here’s this week’s meal plan, along with Tim’s work schedule:

Monday, Early Shift – Roast Chicken, Roast Potatoes & Parsnips, Yorkshire Puddings
Tuesday, Early Shift – Toad in the Hole with Lincolnshire Sausages. Probably peas & leftover roast potatoes
Wednesday, Early Shift – Oriental Turkey Burgers (making this up as I go along, will let you know how it goes!)
Thursday, Off, Steam-Up – Chicken Tacos in the Crock Pot. I make this everytime we have a steam-up, because it feeds a crowd and is super easy to make. Frozen chicken + taco seasoning tossed into the crock pot for 6 hours on low. I probably got it from crockpot365 at one point.
Friday, Training in York – I’ll be going with Tim as long as it’s not pissing down rain to wander around York, so we’ll be having chicken sandwiches when we get home or possibly frozen pizza. Something fast and easy, unless we decide to grab dinner in York.
Saturday – Steak and chips, because I promised Tim a steak.
Sunday – Chicken Tetrazinni with Monday’s leftover chicken.

So, there you have it. Things will probably change along the way. They always do.

[Image at top courtesy of I’m an Organized Junkie]
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A few weeks ago, baked eggs were all over the food blogs. One blog posted about them, then another, and another. Each blog making their baked eggs posher than the blog before. But baked eggs don’t need a fancy French name or fancy bread. Here’s my simple, easy baked eggs recipe.

For each person, you will need:
2 eggs
1 TBS milk
2 TBS cheese
Parsley
Oregano, Basil, or other herbs
Cooked bacon (optional)

A single-serving casserole dish or ramekins.

1 – Preheat the oven to 175C and lightly grease the ramekins with vegetable oil
2 – If using bacon, crumble a piece of bacon in the bottom of each dish.
3 – crack 2 eggs in each casserole. If using ramekins, you might only be able to do one
4 – Spoon over milk, sprinkle cheese & herbs
5 – bake 12-15 minutes or until yolks are set to your preference.

This was something different for Tim and I to have for breakfast, and we both loved it. The eggs wind up nice and creamy and it was a nice treat for us on a Saturday morning.

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Seems a bit silly to post this, as it’s not even really a recipe, but I’m really pleased with how it looks and how the photo came out, so I’m sharing it!

Weeks ago, I placed an order with Tesco, as I do every week. If the store doesn’t have what you ordered online, your shopper substitutes an item. If the new item costs more than the one you wanted, you only get charged for the one you ordered. If the new item is less than the original, you get charged the lower amount. Most of the times this means I wind up with a slightly posher brand of loo roll or a different brand of brown bread. But a few weeks ago? I don’t know what was on their mind! I placed an order for a box of Betty Crocker Bisquick – you know, pancake mix – but Tesco sent me a Betty Crocker Carrot Cake mix instead! The driver decided to give me the carrot cake mix and I would get a refund for it. Well, I don’t say no to free carrot cake!

It also gave me a chance to finally try out the bundt pan my mom gave me for Christmas from Lakeland. It’s a terrific pan. You can tell it was made from good quality metal, and as it’s from Lakeland, I can be assured it will last for many years.

I followed the directions on the box and greased the pan with some butter and flour so it wouldn’t stick. The cake came out moist and spongy – just like a cake should. As far as taste…well, there wasn’t much carrot in it. I made a carrot cake from scratch with grated carrots a few months ago, and my cake had far more of a carrot-y taste than this one. My friends I served it to compared it to a spice cake, that was how little it tasted like carrots (but it did get her kids to eat it!)

To jazz it up a bit, I made a cream cheese glaze, which is super simple:

1 pack of cream cheese, left out to get soft
200-300g icing sugar (powdered sugar)

And all you do is blend the two together with a mixer. Start with about 150g of sugar. If it’s not stiff enough or sweet enough, add more, but I wouldn’t add more than 300g, or you’ll wind up with a TON of glaze and be stuck trying to find things to use it with like I was!

Does this count as a recipe post? Sure, why not! I haven’t blogged in a week, so at least I’m getting something out there for you to read!

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About a month ago, Tim had a trying day at work. He found out that the May training class he was supposed to be joining for his new job was full and he was bumped to June. He came home and was really upset, so I decided to cheer him up by making him a chocolate cake in a mug!

You will need:

4 tablespoons flour
3 tablespoons cocoa powder (not hot chocolate)
2 tablespoons sugar (use Splenda for a sugar-free version)
1 egg, beaten (beat it before you put it in the mug)
3 tablespoons milk (skim for less calories, but any milk you have will do)
3 tablespoons butter/margerine/olive oil spread (or vegetable oil)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla ( I didn’t measure this, I just used the lid of the small bottle to measure the vanilla out)

1 large mug
microwave

It honestly couldn’t be easier. Put all the dry ingredients in the mug and mix together, then stir in the egg, milk, butter, and vanilla. That cute little whisk for hot chocolate I picked up at a jumble sale was perfect for mixing this. Obviously, if you don’t have one just use a small spoon. Make sure you mix it well, or you’ll get a corner full of flour. Microwave on HIGH for 3-5 minutes, depending on how high your microwave’s wattage is. Ours is a 750, so it took about 4 minutes. You’ll know it’s done when you can smell the chocolate and the top of the cake springs back when you gently press it. You can tip it out onto a plate or just eat it straight from the mug. It’s about the size of one and a half cupcakes or two fairy cakes.

My photo shows the cake partially eaten because I forgot to take a photo when it came out, but the cake had risen up above the top of the mug, which is why I recommend using a large mug! Also make sure your mug doesn’t have any metallic paint on it, or it will throw sparks.

To make it extra chocolatey, add a handful of chopped dairy milk or other form of chocolate (if you use bitter chocolate, you will want to add extra sugar)

Want some frosting for that mini cake? Mix together 4 tablespoons icing sugar (10x/powdered sugar) with 1/2 tablespoon water. Add more water if your icing is too stiff, more sugar if it’s too thin.

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[adapted from a recipe in Jamie Oliver’s Ministry of Food]

While I’ve been typing this, I swear I posted this before….but I can’t find it on my blog!

You will need:

75g pasta per person
1 package bacon lardons or one pack of bacon
1 bunch fresh mint
50g frozen peas per person
300g cream fraiche (US: Sour Cream)
50g parmesean cheese (or other grated cheese)
50g bread crumbs

Wok or large frying pan

-cook pasta according to directions on pack.
-add a little oil to the wok and fry the bacon lardons. If using regular bacon, cut the bacon into smaller pieces first.
-reduce temperature and add frozen peas, cooking for about 5 minutes
-chop the fresh mint and add to wok
-add container of cream fraiche and stir. If you need more liquid, add some milk. turn up the heat and cook until bubbling
-drain pasta and add to wok, stirring pasta to coat
-sprinkle cheese and bread crumbs over top and stir until pasta, mint, and peas are coated.

This would make enough to serve 4 people as a main dish, more as a side. The beauty of this recipe is that you can add more bacon if you want, different vegetables, different kinds of pasta, and even different cheeses. I’ve made this with penne, sausage, and cheddar cheese (it didn’t taste as good with sausage!).

This meal takes about 20 minutes to prepare, too, especially if you start the pasta before you start cooking the bacon, so it’s easy to throw together at the end of a busy day. It also tastes good cold, and makes for a really good pasta salad for picnics. To convert this to a cold salad, don’t add the parmesean or breadcrumbs until after the pasta has cooled.

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The general consensus about Jamie Oliver seems to be either you are firmly in the “love Jamie” camp, or you detest him. Very rarely have I met people who are in the middle – that is, people who like most of what Jamie does, but not everything.

I probably fit some place in the middle, but close to the “love him” side.

I first “met” Jamie when I was visiting Tim in 2008. I arrived in mid-October, and was looking for something to watch on TV. I stumbled on “Jamie’s Ministry of Food” and enjoyed the episode because the food looked easy to cook. I wasn’t a completely new cook, but I hadn’t cooked a whole lot on my own – even when I had apartments and things, most of my cooking was really simple. I had never cooked anything like a whole chicken on my own before. I liked how Ministry of Food eased people into cooking.

I started watching Jamie whenever his shows were on as repeats and online on 4OD. Tim bought me the Ministry of Food cookbook for Christmas 2009, and I dove right in. I learned how to make a perfect poached egg without a fancy pan and how to create two British Roast Dinner staples – roast potatoes and Yorkshire puddings. One of our favourite 20-minute meals has become a pasta dish of Jamie’s with mint, peas, and bacon (I can’t believe I never blogged that recipe!).

I tend to read my cookbooks from cover to cover when I get them, but I don’t read word-for-word. I look at the pictures and titles of recipes, and then if something looks good, I’ll read the recipe. If I think it’s something I’d like to make, I stick one of those Avery tabs on it for later. I used to do one new recipe each week, but as we’ve gotten busier, I haven’t had time (or energy), but hopefully, I’ll rectify that soon.

I borrowed Jamie’s America from the library alongside Cook with Jamie, and I have both those on my wishlist now. I found a great (though time consuming) recipe for barbecue ribs in Jamie’s America (which again, I apparently never posted).

I was very disappointed with Jamie Does. I enjoyed the series, but not so much the cookbook. As a matter of fact, since I got it when it came out (on a pre-order from Waterstones), I think I cracked it once until a few weeks ago when I finally sat down and looked at it again. A lot of the recipes I probably will never try, but both the Italy and Sweden section took a hammering with tabs, and I even marked off a few recipes from his more exotic locations.

Jamie’s latest book and series is 30 Minute Meals. He has been getting a lot of press for this book/series, both good and bad. I love watching Jamie cook and I could happily sit and watch 5 or 6 of these episodes in a row. He teaches a lot of tricks, and he isn’t afraid to purchase a few pre-packaged goods in the name of saving time. The bad press comes from his meals taking people longer than 30 minutes to cook. One article complained about the list in the front of the cookbook listing all the items you “need” to create the recipes in the book and accused Jamie of being flippant about spending £300 on the items.

The thing you have to remember, is that if you don’t have all the proper tools Jamie recommends, it will take longer. Watch the show. Jamie uses a food processor in nearly every meal – the slicer attachment to easily slice handfuls of mushrooms, a mixing attachment to whip up a sauce, a paddle attachment for batters. I don’t own a food processor (though it’s on my wish list to buy used), so when I create a 30-minute meal, I automatically know it will take me longer than 30 minutes if the recipe tells you to use a food processor.

To me, £300 is a decent amount of money to spend on outfitting your kitchen. I don’t think I will ever spend £300 all in one go (unless it’s on a major appliance), but I’m sure if you add up all the little things I’ve purchased for my kitchen, the total would be shocking. Especially if you add in the value of items I’ve received as gifts, like the bread machine or George Foreman grill we got for a wedding gift. I also don’t always buy new, and I ask for things on gift-giving occasions. I received both a Le crucet ceramic casserole and a dutch oven for Christmas this year. The ceramic casserole was purchased at TK Maxx of all places (US: TJ Maxx) for £20 (retails at £60), and the dutch oven was purchased months before Christmas at a stock clearance sale at a local cookery shop. I recently picked up a set of four ramekins at a charity shop in Newark for £2 (when typically you have to pay £10+ just for two). I check charity shops, jumble sales, table top sales, car boot sales (US: flea markets), and freecycle regularly for items I want. I seriously regret not picking up a food processor at one of our recent village jumble sales. They were selling them for less than £5, and I haven’t seen any at the jumble sales since!

Before you even start your 30-minute meal, Jamie expects you to have all your tools out, all the ingredients together, have your oven pre-heated, your pots and pans pre-heated, and a freshly boiled kettle of water ready to go. Depending on your kitchen, getting things together and pre-heating can take 20 minutes. IMHO, this does not mean the 30-minute meal has now taken 50 minutes though, as those things are prep work, not recipe work.

You also might run into other problems. For example, if I have my oven on, I can only use one burner of the two-burner hob. Some of Jamie’s meals require you to have a (standard) 4-burner hob with all four going plus the oven on. I know this meal will take me longer than a half hour simply for that reason. Because of the way the burners are set, I can’t do anything that involves putting a roasting tray over two burners. This isn’t a fault of Jamie’s, but rather a fault of my own kitchen.

I also don’t think people are reading the recipe’s before they start a meal. I’ve read several complaints that the recipes are “confusing”. This is probably because it doesn’t lay out each component of the meal in one straight recipe, it lays everything out according to the timeline. Each 30-minute meal creates a main, a side, and a pudding (US: dessert). Your first task might be to start to cook your meat, but the second task might be to start working on making a base for a tart – it all depends on where each task fits in within the timeline of 30 minutes. I can see where some of this might get confusing for people, but again, I point to reading the recipe first. Each recipe is separated into sections, so you know which part of the meal you are working on at any given time, and if you want to isolate part of the meal (like I tend to do), you can pull out those specific instructions easily.

I do have to admit, when I first had a read through of the book, my initial thoughts were that this book was just as bad as Jamie Does and I was beginning to worry that I was falling out with Jamie. But then I started to watch the series on Channel 4, and I decided I wanted to try making some of the meals, or at least parts of the meals. Out came the plastic tabs, and I think I now have at least 20 tabs in 30-minute meals, though I do admit most aren’t for the full meal. On the show, Jamie made roast beef with potatoes and Yorkshire pudding (link to YouTube). I know, it sounds incredible, but he really did do it in the 30 minutes. Now, I’m not a beef person, but Tim and I both love Yorkshire puddings. What I never liked about making them from the original recipe was the part where you had to let the mix stand for 30 minutes, pre-heat the tin, and then pre-heat the oil in the tin. It took ages to make them, and sometimes I’d have 20 minutes left for my roast before I would remember I had wanted to make them. We had many a meal that was Yorkshire-less, or even served with Aunt Bessie’s pre-made yorkies we purchased at the Spar shop, but not any more. I just use Jamie’s recipe, where he even simplified measuring by telling you to use a regular coffee mug for the measurements. Through trial-and-error, I learned that I need to use a largeish mug to be able to fill my tin, since mine is obviously larger than the one Jamie uses, but it now only takes 20 minutes total between mixing and baking, meaning that if I’ve forgotten them, it’s fairly easy to add them in!

Okay….so I guess after this post you can firmly plant me in the “love Jamie” category. Heck, I even purchased some of his branded spice grinders from Fiddes Payne (for cheaper than the shops wanted, though). But I won’t purchase his expensive line of cookery, because I think there are plenty of good quality items at far less prices, even if I do like the looks of some of the items he has branded!

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I thought I’d take a short break from recapping Austria, and show you my latest taste of home creation.

The funny thing is, I rarely ordered meatball subs if we had subs, because I usually went for a chicken cheesesteak hoagie, but I really wanted them after reading a post on a food blog about them. I suppose I could have gone to Subway and ordered one (I assume UK subway has them), but this was more fun.

I bought a pack of bake at home Petit Pans so the bread would be warm and crusty, but obviously, you could use pre-baked rolls. I also used Cheddar cheese because we always have a big block of cheddar in the fridge, but Mozzarella would make it more “authentic”. Finally, I also used turkey mince for the meatballs, but a traditional meatball sub is most likely made of beef and pork.

You will need:

500g turkey mince
1 egg
50g breadcrumbs
4TBS basil
Tomato Passata (plain tomato sauce)
Grated Cheddar cheese, about 75g
4 petit pan rolls, or other rolls

Preheat the oven to 200C.
Combine mince, breadcrumbs, egg, and 2TBS of basil and form into small balls (about an inch to two inches). Line a baking sheet or casserole dish with parchment paper or spray with cooking oil and arrange meatballs in rows. It’s OK if they touch each other, you can cut them apart later. Cook at 200C for 15-20 minutes, or until meatballs are no longer pink and are brown on top. The larger the ball, the longer they will take to cook.
Combine passata and 2TBS basil and heat through. You can do this in the microwave or on the stovetop, whichever is easier.
Slice open rolls and hollow out one side of the roll. Place meatballs inside the hollow you just made, cover with sauce, and sprinkle with cheese.

One word: Yum.

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