This said, I have very fond memories of sitting in cafe's with my mother and her friends hoofing down slices of homity pie at any available opportunity. As comfort food goes for me rates alongside date flapjacks and natural peanut butter on toast. No I agree none of that sounds comforting, but if you were raised by a vegetarian who disapproved of putting chemicals in her children you'd have some similar associations. Which just goes to show whatever you feed a child when they are happy they will come to love. There is nothing special about chips and chocolate.
I actually have *no* idea where the recipe I have been making comes from. I have a feeling the pastry is from an ancient copy of Good Housekeeping that my Mother had and the filling is probably closest to the Cranks Family/Nadine Astur. I've been pretty much making the same pie since university - because apart from the great virtue of it being very cheap and very tasty, its also quite a stable filling so you don't need a pie dish or tin or anything like that to make it... great if all the cooking equipment you own at the time is a baking sheet.
The weights come in lb&oz because that is how long ago I learnt them... http://www.wolframalpha.com/ will save you if you are all modern it converts anything to anything.
( Recipe under cut... )
- Mood:
calm
Not the traditional time of year for Pumpkin Pie I must admit, but there are pumpkins to be had at almost every time of year, and this one was actually made with a squash - No idea what variety, it was just sitting there looking good at the market. So it came home with me and got pureed.
This is an american recipe I have been using and adapting over several years, hence all the measurements are in US cups.
To be fair as far as I can tell this is a Spiced Pumkin Custard Tart - but apparently they don't do tarts in the US.
Special Equipment
1 x 2pint, 9" pie dish
Ingredients
- 1 Recipe of Shortcrust Pastry - made with 250g of flour, or shop bought
- 1 1/2 cups of Pumpkin Puree or canned pumpkin*
- 1/3 to 1/2 cup of golden caster sugar (according to your taste)
- 1 scant tsp cinnamon
- 1/4 scant tsp clove
- 1/2 tsp mixed spice
- 1/2 tsp ground ginger
- 1/2 scant tsp allspice
- 1/2 tsp of mace or grated nutmeg
- 1/2 tbs vanilla essence
- 3 large eggs (take one of these and separate the yolk from the white - keep both in little cups)
- 9floz / a scant cup of double cream, coconut milk, milk, soy milk or carnation milk (whatever you prefer)
1. Make or otherwise aquire your pastry. Some may prefer a sweet shortcrust (patee sucre) or flaky pastry. Line your dish and blind bake the case (** full details below). Use the well beaten egg white to glaze you case and let it dry out. This will seal your case and make sure it does not become soggy from the filling.
2. Mix all the remaining ingredients (including the spare egg yolk and white) in a large mixing jug (or if its easier mix in a bowl and transfer to a jug, depends how much washing up you like doing). Whisk well, if it looks a bit lumpy blend it till smooth. You are basically at this point making a spiced pumpkin custard.
3. Set the Oven to 180/Gas 6 place the blind baked pie on the rack and pull half out. Carefully pour the custard mix into the case till it is at least 3/4 - you can fill it all the way up if you like. Bake for 15mins at 180/Gas 6 (fan assisted) and then lower the temperature to 150/Gas 2 (fan assisted) and bake for a further 35mins. Test the pie by sticking a clean knife into the center, when it comes out clean the pie is done. Depending on your pumpkin/squash variety, water content and definition of 'scant' when it comes to cream it may take up to 60 mins to set. But check regularly from 35 mins. Before removing the pie completely check the base through the glass, it should be nice and golden too before you take it out. The surface of the pie should be soft and springy to the touch. If you err, go for slightly overdone to underdone.
NB. The Pie will rise during baking but then sink back to the level you poured it into. Any leftover mix can be baked alongside in little ramekins as well - essentially making baked pumpkin custard pots. These freeze well and have been known to magically silence toddlers.
** Blind baking - in full: Line the pie dish and let the excess pastry hang over the sides. Its easiest to line the dish if you roll it out to about 1/4 inch thick between double sheets of strong cling-film or using teflon baking sheets. This way you can lift and adjust the pastry using one of the cling-film/sheets and avoid rips and tares. Carefully remove your sheet/cling film. Then crumple up a bit of baking parchment and unfold, line the pastry case with it and fill it with baking beads or dried pulses. Bake for 10-15 mins usually at around Gas6/180. Remove the beans and paper, trim the pastry and once cooled for a few mins wash with well beaten egg white. Return to the oven for 3-5 mins until dry. Then either remove, cool and freeze for later use or move on to use straight away.
- Mood:
hungry
I have several patterns and recipes that I want to post. So why haven't I? Well back in April I got a new job - and quite frankly its taken me out side and given me a good kicking. I am currently working silly hours and have barely had time to cook, knit or hook anything! Added to this I decided that doing an MA would be a great idea - and so when I do have time I tend to be doing academic work.
Still it is my new years resolution to make at least one recipe post and one fiber post every month.
Lets see how that goes eh?
Merry christmas!
- Mood: cold
The Cheat is a Microwave... I know - terrible isn't it? Not very foody is it? I should have fiddled around with a pan and bowl risking 3rd degree burns for my art... I should have stood there for 25 mins beating slowly over good honest steam & to add insult to injury, I should have only used egg yolks, not whole eggs.
Call myself a food blogger do I?
Well actually no I don't... I call myself a woman with a fruit bowl full of near dead lemons and limes with 15 mins on my hands with a definite "Thing" for citrus curds...
What worries me more than radiating my food (because I honestly cannot tell the difference between this way and over steam) is why I always seem to have 2 lemons and 2 limes slowly committing themselves to a hydrophobic death in my fruit bowl. It points to some kind of terrible compulsion to torture fruit. I am not even sure what I cook on a everyday basis that requires citrus fruits on hand at all times.... given the slow wrinkly deaths most meet in my fruit bowl the answer would appear to be 'not much'.
Curd though - that is an everyday obsession: curd tarts (better than jam), meringue pie, curd on tea bread, cake, yoghurt, ice cream, toast, crumpets, pancakes, drop scones, hot cross buns, used instead of jam in bread and butter pudding...
In fact most things you use jam for you can use curd - and make it 20x better by doing so... My favourite icing in the world is simply curd beaten together with enough icing sugar to make a paste.
I use lemon and lime here - but any combination or single choice of citrus fruit will make a nice curd. End of season clementines, satsumas, oranges etc - all will do the trick.
Lemon and Lime Curd
Makes 1.5lb
You will need:
2 Large Lemons & 2 Limes
(to give 3tbs of grated rind and 150ml of strained juice)
4 Large Eggs
220g of Caster Sugar
(If you like it sweeter than me go for 250-280g, if you add much more, you will need more liquids, I've dropped it as low as 190g of Sugar for very sweet fruits before I had to adust other quanities)
120g of Unsalted Butter, cut into small cubes
3 x 8oz Jars - Sterilised in an Oven at 170 degrees Celcius for 10mins. (Just wash them well and lie them on their sides directly on the oven shelf)
3 x jam jar lids - steralised in boiling water
wax discs, stickly lables & cellophane covers (if you wish)
Preheat the oven and put the jars in and over the lids in boiling water BEFORE you start to cook the curd. Make sure you have all your canning stuff set up - because its a pain hunting for things when you have sticky hands.
To make the Curd:
1. Combine all the ingredients into a microwave proof bowl (I prefer a plastic ones because they do not get as hot as glass/pyrex) Stirr till the sugar has disolved.
2. Place it into the microwave on the highest heat setting for 1 min. Take it out and whisk well. Put it back in for another min.
3. Repeat, whisking well in between each min till the curd thickens enough to coat a spoon. Depending on the power of your microwave it will take between 4 and 8 mins.
4. Once thickened beat for a min or two so it cools a bit.
5. Pour hot curds into hot steralised jars - cover and seal.
I am told it will keep as well as any jam. But it never has been kept more than 3 or 4 months before being eaten round here.
- Mood: calm
The husband has been after Old School computer game character amigurumi's. Whilst I managed to find patterns for lemmings and pac man ghosts the purple tentacle eluded us both (strangely). These are dead simple to make and take little to no effort.... unlike lemmings with their mop of hair...I made these two out of aran cotton I had lying around, I will say I won't be doing that again, as good as it looks and as well as they came out it was painful to crochet, very stiff and tight. But then the beauty of dealing with that pain is it translates into very neat tentacles that can endure frequent cat attacks! I think though wool or acrylic would look good and be a bit easier on the hands!
The arms by the way are the same length, its just that the arm is pointing back at the green tentacle!
Hook: 3.5mm (E)
Yarn:
10-15m of Main Colour - I used Texere Yarn Double Top Cotton
2-5m of Contrast Colour - I used Pisgah Yarn - Peaches and Creme
Colours as pictured depending on the Tentacle you are making.
For the Purple Tentacle miss out any Rows marked 6a and 12a - these add the bends for the Green Tentacle.You only need to make arms for the Purple Tentacle as they are the scurrilous signs of his devious mutation! Likewise the dastardly eyebrow.
( Pattern under link )
Day of the Tentacle(s)! by Riasaakshi is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.
- Mood: amused
It appears if you have yarn then you make cozies. DS, Phone, Mp3 player, notebook, Mug, Needle case, Lipstick even Condom Cozies - we appear to be mildly obsessed with covering everyday objects with yarn... & I am no exception. They make good gifts, they are a good way to use up leftover yarn and material scraps (always good when you are trying to tighten belts!) and they protect phones and other expensive gadgets from the horrors that seem to lurk in the bottom of my bag scratching everything up.But some patters are very bulky & I am not a big bag kind of person & also most patterns are very specific to the item which occasionally irrtates me when pattern hunting, I rarely have the exact object they do and the pattern never tries to accommodate that.
So I am in the process of designing a cozy recipe that will tackle all of these problems. So far I have identified the perfect stitch - The trinity stitch - it has great elastic properties in both directions and gives a lovely textured finish that looks great in nearly every yarn you can crochet with.What I present here is not so much a pattern & complete directions as much as a detailed outline which shows how to create your own case.
Eventually I will work this rough pattern into a proper cozy-recipe - but that will require some jigging. In the mean time it should serve to cozy anything that is essentially a square to rectangular box!
This project took me a day and half from start to finish. This includes crocheting the cover and straps and lining the case. I am a exceptionally slow crafter and I was designing as I went along... so I expect that most people could get this done in a evening or two.
Yarn used
Case:Twisted Fiber Arts: Kablam in Ravelry colourway (Merino, Nylon & Bamboo). Fingering weight aprox 133 tp 200yds used.
Straps (Optional): Sirdar, Snuggly DK in Black (Nylon & Acrylic). DK weight - couple of yards.
Substitutes: Any sock weight yarn for case which contains wool or synthetics; for the straps any DK weight yarn preferably made of elastic synthetics.
Hook
3.5mm (E) Crochet Hook
Other Materials (Optional)
20cm x 30cm piece of Sari material for lining (max size needed, I actually used 19 by 32)
20cm of 0.8mm copper wire & round nose pliers (for catch on case) OR a ready made hook & eye catch
Cotton thread (match colour to your lining) & embroidery needles
Pins
Scissors
Steel ruler
Gauge
The trinity stitch creates almost square clusters they are easier to count than fiddling around with where each stitch starts and finishes... I was working to approximately 3.5 clusters per inch. Gauge is not really that important as you will be working to measurements, but I have provided it here for people who would like to convert their measurements to stich counts.
Finished dimensions
For case & trim: Strecthed to fit DS = 15cm wide by 25cm long (give or take a cm for the single crochet trim) Maximum Stretch 17cm by 28cm. Unstretched 13cm by 22cm.
Straps: 21cm long (7cm to join) - unstretched length
Lining: cut to 19cm by 30. Hemmed to 17cm by 28cm (the maximum strech limmits of my case)
Key
sc Single Crochet
ts Trinity Stitch: if you don't know this stitch here is an excellent video tutorial The Art of Crochet: Trinity Stitch Video & a good picture tutorial Yarn Tomato's Trinity Stitch Tutorial
ch Chain
st Stich
( Directions under this link... )
Rectangular Multi-Cozy by Riasaakshi is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales License
- Mood:
artistic
She's not bad eh? For a days worth of learning at least! I am very impressed with Inkscape - for a free program its very very good. One of the most intuitive packages I have ever gotten my hands on.The tutorials I used are as follows:
Shows you around Inkscape quickly
Shows you how to make a kokeshi doll design
Shows how to create a hibiscus flowers
... the rest I figured out myself :) All three tutorials are great learning exercises, very easy to follow and take you through useful features of the program.
- Mood: excited
A complete meal in one very large baking tray. Use any vegetables that you have really, a very minimal version could be simply sausage, potatoes and onions and would still be fabby. You can also swap eggs for sausages if you want a vegetarian version (or don't have that many sausages to hand) - they bake very well just use a smaller roasting tray and when the veg is mostly done make little nests amoungst the veggies to crack the eggs in and return to the oven until they are done. For those who hate the idea of the eggs spreading amongst the veg you can line the nests with sliced ham - and that makes a damn fine version too.I am also including a spicy Creole-style remoulade which makes a nice accompaniment and a change from gravy, tomato ketchup, mayo or other dressings. (A change if you are UK/Euro based, possibly not a change if you are from a Southern state of the USA). Its a bit sharper than it is sweet, so if you prefer things smooth rather than piquant use less lemon juice, ditch the cayenne and add a pinch of sugar.
Sausage and Vegetable Bake with Creole-Style Remoulade
For the Bake:
Quantities subject to what you have and want, just make sure you get one even layer over the roasting tin.
6-8 Sausages - big fat ones are best
Bell peppers - mixed colours look nice
Red onion
Potatoes
Garlic - sliced thickly
Salt & Coarse Ground Black Pepper
Oil spray / any oil
1. Cut the potatoes(and any other root veg used) into wedges and par boil for 10mins. Leave to steam dry on a rack or in your colander for 10mins afterwards.
2. Lightly oil or spray a roasting tray. Cut the other vegetables into chunks similar size to the potatoes. Arrange all veg and sausages on the tray, spray with oil or cover with a light drizzle of oil, season, throw over the garlic and roast in a hot oven (around 200oC) until the sausages are cooked and the potatoes browned.
For the Creole-Style Remoulade:
Mix together the following in a bowl...
- ½ cup mayonnaise
- Half a stick finely diced celery
- 3 finely diced spring onions
- 1 crushed clove of garlic
- 1 tbs of Wholegrain mustard
- 2tbs finely chopped parsley
- 1tbs Ketchup, or to taste
- ½ tbsp lemon juice
- 1 tsp, scant Worcestershire sauce
- A good dash of Louisiana Pepper Sauce
- Cracked black pepper to taste
- 1 small finely chopped Gherkin
- Good dash of Cayenne
- Mood: hungry
As much as I love Snow I am not quite sure how to react when it starts messing with my dinner. We can't drive out to the Supermarket until Monday, because that is when they will start gritting the roads again. The Council won't grit over the weekend because there is only 3 days of grit left and they want to save it to help people get to work; which is nice. Unfortunately I work on Monday, so I can't go shopping - and the fridge is looking empty and has been dwindling for days. So this recipe and the ones that follow are what I have dreamed up that use what I have to hand and what I can get from the local Co-op (which is out of fresh veg as it can't get supplies in either).
Hopefully with a bit of wrangling they will be of use to people who are also looking for Mother Hubbardesque inspiration. Also I hope non-Indian cooks will forgive the fact that I keep Fenugreek (Methi) in the Store cupboard in seed and dried leaf form. But to be fair you could leave them out and it would still be good (I'd up the cumin powder and lemon juice a tsp or two to compensate)... whilst you are at it you might want to forgive the fact that I always have Dhal in the freezer and a 10Kg bag of basmati rice in the cupboard to go with it.
And yes with all that stuff I had in the cupboard I still consider the house to be running out of food... If I can't feed a passing army with the contents of the Kitchen I get twitchy Ok?
Pork and Chickpea Curry
Serves 6
450g Pork Mince
1 can of Chickpeas
2 Onions, Sliced
3-5 cloves of Garlic
3-5 Green Chillies, minced
2" Ginger, shredded (subs: lazy ginger or 1tsp dried)
1 Bay leaf
2-3tbs Cumin seed
1tsp (heaped) Cumin powder (subs: if you don't have both just use powder or seed to taste)
1tbs Coriander powder
2tbs Fenugreek Seeds (Optional)
3-4tbs (dried) Fenugreek leaf (Optional)
2tbs Paprika
1/2tsp Tumeric (Optional - its just for colour)
Salt
Course ground Pepper
2tbs Lemon juice (subs: bottled lemon, 1tsp of any light/fruit Vinagar)
Coriander leaf, chopped (optional garnish)
Veg Oil
1. Fry the onions gently until they start to brown then add in the Bay, Garlic, Ginger, Cumin seed, Chillies & Fenugreek seed and fry till fragrant (a few mins or so).
2. Add in the Cumin powder, Coriander powder, Paprika powder & Turmeric and fry for 1min or so.
3. Add in the Pork and Chickpeas coat well in the massala - keep frying till the pork is white / just starting to brown. Add in 1/2 cup of boiling water and the Fenugreek leaf, mix well and season - cover and cook for 15mins on a medium low heat.
4. Remove the lid, turn up the heat and reduce the sauce until the curry is almost dry. Add in lemon juice just before serving with the coriander leaf.
- Mood: cheerful
This is an adaptation of Delia's mincemeat. It was created mostly to deal with several issues I have about both modern and traditional mincemeat recipes. The first is the hating of all things peel; peel is the dried leavings of Satan's own satanic bunny farm. The second is the fact that without peel mincemeat does not have quite the right smell and taste, and in this I am very conflicted... but happily I have found that Clementine peel is nowhere near as offensive as orange or lemon peel. I have also found if you shred the peel very finely it melts into the mix leaving nothing but a nice smell and a good flavour behind.
The third is the need for a vegetarian basis. Previously to ensure veggies could happily munch away I would leave suet out of the recipe. But last year I tried to bottle (can if your american) the recipe and the result was exploded jars everywhere! It turns out an apple heavy recipe leads to excess juiciness when kept and this apple juice ferments with ease. So this recipe uses vegetable suet for an added barrier against oxygen and juice leakage. Attora make a good Vegetarian suet if you are looking for one.
The fourth issue is simple; I never make it far enough ahead in advance. Every November I think about it, and by the time I get to December I still have not bought everything... So this recipe is ready for use in a week, but will keep for a year or so if canned under sterile conditions... and this year I am making 3 batches so there will be some for next year, and hopefully we can get a rolling program going.
The last thing is not really an issue, it’s just a preference. Far too many recipes call for mixed spice and I just don't think it tastes as nice as a good 1:1 mix of your four basic medieval spices... You don't taste the pepper by the way, it’s just adds a certain something, another cut against the very sweet mixture along with the Lemon and Clementine.
( Recipe Below )
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ria_saakshi- Ria Saakshi
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