Now that the weather is so much colder I’ve found myself wanting stews and dumplings and crumbles and lots and lots of hot custard! The slowcooker has certainly been earning its keep and after some luck at the supermarket I picked up a reduced piece of beef and made a simple barley and beef stew Saturday.

It was not a hit with the family.

Personally I felt it could have done with a little more depth but honestly, it was a decent enough stew and now I had enough for four more meals….well, it was portioned up and popped in the freezer. Throwing food away is wrong.

Fast forward to today and I’ve experienced the luxury of an actual day off with zero commitments. I blitzed the house (we are still doing really well on not letting it slide into an utter mess) and after the Halloween cookie success made another batch, this time with shortbread.

So the oven’s on and I have a brainwave – I can make pastries with the unloved stew!

I whipped up a pastry with 125g butter, 125g lard*, 500g plain flour made into breadcrumbs with a splash of cold water.

After chilling I made the simplest form of pastry – proper Cornish pastries have the crimping at the top I’m told – where I popped a spoonful of cold stew in the middle of a circle of pastry and sealed it up with the help of an egg – to make it stick – and a fork to ‘prettify’ the edges.

After baking at 180 till golden they were devoured. And I mean DEVOURED. The unloved stew was transformed to “the best dinner ever mummy“,** “can I have another one please” and my favourite “you can definitely make these again“.

Not bad, eh?

 

*I have a habit where any usable fat from cooking is kept in a jar in the fridge. Used when cooking it adds amazing flavour and doesn’t go to waste. I have rendered pork fat in the past to make lard…..the smell has thus far put me off from doing it again!

**I promise we didn’t just eat pastries for dinner! There was lots of veg and super thick gravy to go with them, have to get some vitamins and minerals in the kids.

Good mornings, just feast your eyes on our gingerbread cookies. We had so much fun making them and well, doing various taste tasting and licking of fingers. It’s been a busy few months and what better way to get back into blogging than to say HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

I was very impressed by the ginger biscuit recipe I found on allrecipes.co.uk I had all the ingredients which is a must when baking with the kids.

Here you go:

• Heat oven to 180
• 50g plain flour, 100g butter, 5 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger, 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon, 1 teaspoon bicarbonate soda – breadcrumb.
• 175g light brown soft sugar, 4 tablespoons golden syrup, 1 medium egg – mix into breadcrumb mixture
• Roll, cut and bake for bout 12 mins

It was such an easy recipe to follow, especially as the kids lost interest in less than 5 minutes (after pestering me to make cookies for ages) I had a quiet hour in the kitchen baking batches as the mixture made 5 trays of cookies – maybe I have small trays – and then wandered in little hands and open mouths as the warm ginger scent wandered through the house.

After a clean up, biscuit and milk I then had a little help making the icing and decorating the biscuits, with surprisingly little mess!

 

Have you been baking or making crafts this Halloween?

Fresh, warm, crunchy bread, doesn’t it just make your mouth water? That sound when the knifes cuts through and you slather it with butter, just to taste test it obviously. If it is as tasty as it looks, smells and sounds then I applaud you if you only eat the first slice… that’s some serious self-control you have right there!

But where there’s bread making there’s kneading and kneading is a skill that I don’t have or have the inclination at the present time to work at. In fact, the last time I tried to make bread by hand I got so sticky and there was so much flour involved it actually looked as though Dr Who had run through the kitchen in pursuit of a flour monster.

However I’ve recently found a no knead bread recipe which has become a firm favorite in the house. “Crunchy bread pleeeeease” ask the kids as it’s a dense, crunchy loaf that takes 5 minutes to make, an hour to prove and then…here’s the magic… 3 minutes in the microwave to cook!

It’s so easy! 1.tsp yeast dissolved into 150.g warm water plus 1.tsp salt and mix in 200.g bread flour. Either quick rise for an hour or overnight in the fridge and micro-zap for 3 minutes. I do like to crisp it up in the oven though and as I have silicone bowls I do all of this in them so the absolute minimum of faffing is required.

What have you made this weekend?

I hope that everyone has had a great day and as much fun as us making pancakes.

We’ve been traditional today with lemon and sugar pancakes, how did you enjoy yours?

“Best Chicken Ramen ever!” say Hubby and the Boy.

Well label me super happy and while the monster was less vocal she ate an impressive amount. We have a habit of popping into Wagamama’s when we’ve faced the gauntlet of shoe shopping and their kids ramen always goes down a treat. But it’s pricey (after you add drinks, pudding and the sides*) and so after a particular request for “that noodle place” I went a-hunting for recipes.

Turns out Wagamama themselves share some recipes like their chili chicken ramen and I also found a kids chicken ramen recipe too from Truly Madly Kids. So I kinda combined the two with ingredients that I already had being:

• Marinated chicken with garlic and ginger.
• Chicken stock and added miso.
• Egg noodles.
• Spring onion, carrot and sweetcorn.

**The kids like it just as while I added chili sauce to mine and hubby added chili AND soy sauce. I actually feel like the kids ate a whole meal and there’s enough to reheat for lunch another day too.

 

 

*God, I love their crispy prawns and pork buns!

*I’m going to guess that you can figure out how to cook the ramen but if not give me a shout and I’ll add step by step instructions.