Rotolo, a new way with pasta by Jamie Oliver..

Rotolo inspired by Jamie Oliver

When I saw Jamie Oliver making this  in his new series "Save" with Jamie, I drooled so much, that I knew I had to make it.  He did make it look easy and the recipe is described as "moderate" in level of difficulty, but there are one or two pitfalls to be aware of. 

It is basically a form of canneloni or rolled up lasagne with a vegetarian filling of butternut squash and spinach.  It does not contain the amounts of cheese that are normally found in Italian food either, so it comes in at a moderate 430 calories per portion, again surprising for a very filling pasta dish.  

The recipe can be found here.  I have to admit that his looks better than mine, but it was really tasty nonetheless.  

Firstly, you must remember to roast the butternut squash when you have the oven on already for something else.  I roasted mine a couple of days early, scooped it out and mashed it up.  It sat happily covered in the fridge for a few days.  Then the spinach must be cooked until quite dry, mine was a little wet and did not help with the rolling up process.   Jamie does advise you to work quickly or the pasta sheets will dry out, and even though I thought I was as quick as I could be, having everything ready, my pasta sheets did dry out a little and the resulting 'roll' was more of a three sided triangle, especially for the last three (of six).

  

This did not affect the flavour though, and it made a really hearty dinner with just a side salad.  Even though the finished product looked a little dry on the plate, it did not seem dry while eating it.  For the reheating today I have bought a little more passata to pour over it though.  Maybe 5 minutes less in the oven would have been better!

Oat and raisin biscuits

Healthy Oaty Biscuit for man heading up a mountain

My man is heading up a mountain for a sleep out with a group of young adults.  He does this every year and each year the weather seems worse than the last.  He has had wind, thunder, lightening and this year extreme cold to contend with.  He always comes back smiling and says what a great bunch he has been out with.  He needs to carry calorie dense foods with him to get him through the day and night he will be out, so, I being the kind wifey I am decided to bake him some oaty biscuits to pass around the camp fire.  Duty done, then I can toast my feet by the fire at home and consider having a nice glass of red.  More my cup of tea, so to speak.

I adapted a recipe I had to make it into a tray bake.  Then it cuts into easier slabs and does not break up as much.  It is very easy to make, melt the butter in a saucepan, mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl.  Lash in two eggs and press into a tin. Bake. Hardly rocket science.  So this is what I did.

Pre heat the oven to 180c/350f/gas 4

6oz/180g melted butter or margarine

9oz/260g soft brown sugar

10oz/270g wholemeal flour

6oz/125g oats, either flaked oats or a mixture of pinhead and flaked

bare level teaspoon bread soda

4oz/125g raisins

2oz/55g chopped cherries

2 eggs, lightly beaten

Line a swill roll tin 13 x 9 or 33cmx23cm with parchment paper.  Melt the butter gently and leave to cool.  Place all the dry ingredients in a bowl and mix well.  Make a well in the center and add the melted butter and the beaten eggs to form a soft dough.  

Press the mixture into the lined tin and flatten evenly.  Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes, until nicely browned.  Allow to cool before marking into slices.  

Shoulder of lamb with cumin and yoghurt

When I go to the butchers shop,  I always hope there is a long queue in front of me, to give me time for a good look round and decide what to cook.  I hate it when confronted with a smiley "What can I get you?" two seconds after I get in the door.  Relax, let me enjoy myself for a few moments, planning the weekend meals.  Shoulder of lamb is a cheaper cut than leg and good for low and slow cooking.  Plan on 3 to 4  hours in the oven, a lazy way to spend a Sunday, as it takes little of no attention, and gives you the perfect excuse to do nothing.

I loved the look of this Paul Flynn recipe as soon as it popped up on my google search.

Paul always adds a few ingredients that make you say "Really?  That's one I would not thought of!"  This time it was feta in the dressing and orange peel on the lamb skin.  But hey ho!  I have given up questioning his recipes and now do as I am told!  So off I started at 3 o clock one Sunday afternoon, hoping to present something like this:

So I started with considerably more than 3lbs of shoulder, but i did the incisions of garlic as he said and rubbed it all over with ground cumin, olive oil, salt and pepper.  Here it is ready for the first 3 hours in the oven, rosemary sprigs on top as described.

It gets 3 hours under foil, before you remove the foil and add the vegetables.  Now, I was going to add potatoes at this stage, cut into pieces the same size as the vegetables but when I saw the amount of veg in the recipe, I knew that there was no room for anything extra in the tray too.  Couscous at the ready!

All organized for the home straight now, honey to glaze the skin, orange peel to grate over it  and a glass of wine for the chef!  So the veg went in around the meat, and I turned the oven up a little from 160 to 175 to cook the veg and crisp and caramelize the skin.    For the yoghurt dressing it was only a matter of whizzing everything up in the food processor or with a hand wand.  I though it tasted a little sweet, because of the addition of the mint jelly, so I sprinkled it with some more ground cumin and added more salt.  

I made the couscous without the lemon syrup, by adding equal amounts of couscous and boiling water together and allowing it to soak while covered.  When all the water was absorbed, I added olive oil, lemon juice, lemon rind and a healthy dose of chopped mixed herbs (mint, parsley and chives ) with some salt and pepper.  

TAA DAH!  

Mine looked like this

    

Ok, a bit generous on the yoghurt, but not unlike the first picture methinks!  It was delicious, the combinations of all the flavours, sweet lamb, sticky skin, herby couscous and refreshing yoghurt, too good to be true!  AND piles of leftovers to stuff into Lebanese flatbreads for dinner tonight - result!

PS I am a little bit in love with Paul Flynn xx

Cooking the Christmas Turkey

Cooking the Christmas Turkey

My darling daughter is afraid that I will somehow leave her without clear instruction on how to cook the Christmas turkey.  She will then be faced with the massive disappointment of trying to fill her mother's shoes and letting everyone down!  She does not realise that she has at least 20 more years of constant instructions, nagging, eye rolling, and general help before I even consider handing over the reigns.  

I use the "tenting" method of cooking turkey ie, I cook the bird in a tent of foil to keep the moisture in and protect the bird and only remove the foil and increase the temperature for the last 40 minutes or so.  This means that the moisture I put in at the start, braises the bird during its long cooking and leaves me with lots of tasty stock with which to make gravy.  I heard of this about 25 years ago and have always cooked the turkey this way and it leaves you with juicy breast meat, and not overcooked drumsticks.  No dry turkey meat in this house!

To start, you need to buy the best turkey you can afford, free range full of flavour.  I spent €55 on a 15lb turkey this year, not bad value as it would produce about 15 portions of meat, and then stock for soup.  And it is Christmas after all.  Make your stuffing the night before as it will then be cold going into the turkey.  If your stuffing is hot and you fill the bird and leave it sitting around for a while, well, you are asking for trouble.  It is better to be safe than have a house full of ill guests.  Also, while I do agree with putting stuffing into the turkey, do not pack it jam full of stuffing.  Insert just enough for the Christmas day dinner and cook the extras on the side.  That way you are not overfilling the cavity and blocking up the airflow through the turkey which helps it cook more evenly.  So I make lots of stuffing, but only put some of it inside.  The extra is for the turkey/stuffing/cranberry sandwiches on the following days.

Turkey roasting times are pretty hazy  But here is a chart.  It says my 15 pounder should roast for between 4 1/2 and 5 1/2 hours.  That was a bit too much leeway, I though, but I erred on the lower side, at least that was my intention until someone opened Champagne.  So we ended up at the higher end of the scale, but that's fine too.  Its Christmas, not a Cookery Competition!  My own mother need to do her share of eye rolling as well.

So start by putting an apron over your dressing gown, because 5 hours of cooking, plus a half hour of preparation, plus an hour of resting from when you want to eat equals some godawfull time of the morning when your eyes are hardly open.  Now you know why I said to have the stuffing prepared. 

Preheat the oven to 190C / 380F.  Turn it down after the first 45 minutes of cooking to 150C / 300F 

Get out your biggest tin and check it will go in the oven.  No use having it all ready for the oven, if the tin won't fit.  Been there, done that!  Peel and slice a white onion thickly for the turkey to rest upon.

Then place your turkey in this tin and half fill it with stuffing

Close up the cavity with some cocktail sticks, but I don't like to truss it up to tightly as it cooks better like that.  Put the rest of the stuffing in an oiled dish.  

Cover and leave aside until later.  It can go into the oven when the turkey comes out.  Rub lots of salt, pepper and olive oil onto the turkey breast.  I have been known to layer smoked streaky rashers of bacon over the breast and this is good too.  

Wash your hands well. Add a good glass of white wine (not a glass of good wine!) to the tray and about half that amount again of water.   Then cover the whole dish with a double layer of tinfoil, first going lengthways and then going sideways, until you have a well fitting lid keeping all the cooking juices in. I like to put a little pleat in it to leave room for the steam, and so it does not rest directly on the breast.  That way, the skin of the breast does not get removed by accident when you are taking off the foil.  Place the turkey in the oven at the higher temperature of 190C / 380F, and turn down after 45 minutes to 150C / 300F.  

About 45 minutes to an hour before the end of the cooking time, take the turkey out of the oven and remove the foil.  Increase the temperature of the oven, and drain off all the liquid from the roasting tray.  

Put the turkey back in the oven until the breasts are golden and the turkey is done.  The legs will move freely from the body and the wings should pull off easily as a cook's treat!  

Rest the turkey for at least an hour under foil and two teatowels, for at least an hour.  Am I repeating myself?  Resting is a very important step.  It also frees up the oven to cook the roast potatoes, the rest of the stuffing and anything else you might need it for.  

And there you have it!  My perfect roast turkey.  

Christmas Pudding, sort of Delia Smith

My daughter asked me to blog all about Christmas, so that she can do it exactly like I do.  Sweet!  But hardly likely to happen!

I guess this is my recipe now that I have made all the additions, but it did start out as a Delia Smith recipe from her wonderful web site.  She has the best cookery web site around with recipes that really work, and a wonderful style that lets you know she loves cooking and is not just in it for the money.  You can access it by clicking here, but only if you have an hour to spare!  Its impossible not to get dragged in to marvel at the lovely photos and recipes.  All Delia's recipes work, and she is especially good for Christmas recipes when you want old fashioned recipes for the nostalgic Christmas season.  So her pudding recipe is a good place to start.

I added dates and apricots and changed her barley wine for Guinness.  It would not be Christmas if there wasn't Guinness in the pudding, half for the recipe and half for the chef!  That's me.  Hic!  Its best to start the day before and leave the mixture overnight to soak up the liquid.  This makes one 2lb pudding for Christmas and one nearly full 1lb pudding to eat before Christmas if you like, or to keep till New Year.  I cook it fully and re-heat it in the microwave, coz i just can't be doing with an extra saucepan on the hob that day.

Christmas Pudding

4oz/110g shredded suet, (beef or vegetarian) or frozen butter grated

2oz/50g self-raising flour

4oz/110g white breadcrumbs

1 teaspoon mixed spice

1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg

8oz/225g soft dark brown sugar

20oz/565g mixed dried fruit, any combination you like

2oz/50g chopped dates

2oz/50g chopped dried apricots

1oz/25g flaked almonds (or any other nut you fancy)

1 small Bramley apple, pealed and grated

grated zest of half an orange and half a lemon

5 fl oz/150 ml Guinness

Tablespoon of whiskey

2 large eggs

Take you largest bowl or a clean washing up basin and add everything one by one, ticking off your list to make sure you have not forgotten anything.  Mix everything together very thoroughly.  Invite everyone to have a stir and take a wish.  The mixture will be quite sloppy.  Cover the bowl and leave overnight.  You have enough work done today!

The next day, it will be less sloppy, and the liquid will have soaked into the breadcrumbs and dried fruit.

Fill your 2lb pudding bowl first, to almost the top and press down lightly.  Tip with a circle of silicone paper and seal with cling film.  Put the plastic lid on top and pop into your steamer, or directly into a pot with an upturned plate at the bottom.  The plate will keep the pudding off the direct heat, and fill the saucepan to half full with boiling water from the kettle and steam for 8 hours for the large one and 41/2 to 5 hours for the smaller one.

Watch the water does not boil away and keep topping it up as necessary. Then your pudding will be ready for Christmas day.  Store in a cool, dry place, away from light. 

Christmas Mince Pies

Making the mince

You have to take a long run at Christmas to be relaxed and produce great food over almost a full week to a house full of people.  Its all good fun and adds to my enjoyment, but it does not happen by accident that the house is full of good thing to eat and there are wonderful smells coming from the kitchen where the oven is rarely turned off.  

I like to start by making the mince for the pies, the pudding and the cake by the end of November, early December.  Today I mixed the mince for the pies.  This is based on a recipe from the original Myrtel Allen book, "The Ballymaloe Cookbook", one of the first books I owned and I have made almost every recipe from it.  Yes, Darina Allen was a great cook and now, Rachel Allen too, but it all started with Myrtle and her gentle writing and encouragement that two good free range eggs boiled, served with homemade brown bread was a far better supper than anything reheated from the supermarket.  

I have added a few extra bits to her recipe, as I like a few glistening red cherries in there too, I like a few toffeeish dates, and a handful of nuts, but it is her addition of a tablespoon of orange marmalade that turns a bowlfull of dry ingredients into a beautiful moist mass of juicy fruity lovelyness.  I don't know why a tablespoon of one ingredient can do this, but it does.  I like packing it away into a few jars and looking at it in the back of the cupboard in the smug knowledge that I can whip up a dozen mince pies at twenty minutes notice.  This recipe will make about 30 pies, enough for my family over Christmas.  

Christmas Mince

1 lemon, rind and juice

1 cooking apple grated into the juice

1lb/450g dried mixed fruit, any combination you like

2oz/55g chopped candied peel

2oz/55g flaked almonds

2oz/55g chopped cherries

2oz/55g chopped dates or apricots

1lb/450g moist brown sugar

8oz/225g chopped suet (I used Atora vegetable suet)

3fl oz/90ml whiskey or brandy or any spirit over 40% proof

1 tablespoon of orange marmalade

Mix everything into a bowl and stir thoroughly.  When it is very well mixed, put it into jars (mine filled 3x12oz jam jars) and cover closely.  Make sure you pack it down tightly.  When you are ready to use it, tip it out into a large bowl and stir well again. 

It makes a lovely present too if you want to give any of it away!
...............

So, this is what I did with it over Christmas.  I was busy and did not have time to make individual pies, so I made one large pie in a rectangular tin to cut into slices.  I often do this with mince pies as I like more filling and less pastry.

I added a layer of apple, a sliced Brambley, to add a fresh zing to the mince.

 When it was cooked and sliced, it looked like this

The sweet pastry is the same as from the Lemon and Lime pie recipe here.  It was lovely, rich, biscuity and very Christmassy!  I does not need to be baked blind, just rolled out and filled.

Nature Wedding Cake

Back to Nature Wedding Cake

So, we, Sorcha and I, were heading off to Vancouver for Cian and Lynnes Ring Ceremony, with a very basic idea for a cake in our minds.  Sure, it would be allright on the day and we would be inspired when we got there.  We slept easily on the plane over.  We had a couple of days to spare before the ceremony and there would be nothing else to do!

Yikes!  Wake up!  Lynne’s “simple” “back to nature” wedding involved making everything from scratch, foraging, borrowing, washing every plate and glass in one sink and a million other tasks I have barely wiped from my mind.  Thankfully it also involved champagne, Barry’s tea and lots of time together with her friends.  What was scraped was time in the hot tub and lazy morning sleep ins, but, well, I have to admit it, it was all FUN.

Cian’s all time favourite cake is chocolate, so that was an easy decision, no messin’ there.  Just make a recipe that has chocolate in it, on top of it and with chocolate chips too if possible.  No worries!  Sorted!

I bought two deep tins, one 10inch/25cm one 8inch/20 cm.  Then I made the same amount of mixture in each tin to make one cake flatter and one cake taller to represent the shape of two cut logs.  I used

1lb/450g butter

1lb/450g castor sugar

8 eggs

1lb/450g plain flour

4oz120g cocao powder

4oz/120g chocolate chips

and the usual method of beat the butter with the sugar, add the eggs and some of the flour, fold in the rest of the flour and the chocolate chips.  For more detailed information, google “madeira cake”.

I made two types of butter cream, one large amount of chocolate butter cream and one smaller amount of white chocolate butter cream.  Both butter creams had melted chocolate of the correct colour added in.  This helped stabalise it and made it easier to mold to the correct shape. I used dowels to stop one cake collapsing into the other and balanced the top cake at the back of the bottom one.  I piped melted chocolate to represent the rings of the tree and Sorcha  added the decorations of blueberries, blackberries and mint leaves, having much more patience than me with the final decorating details.

We were rather pleased with ourself, but the stunning display cake stand that Brad Siebler made was so amazing and set it off so well, that it was, well, “the icing on the cake!”

Oh!  A great deal of help came from Sorcha, especially the decorating. In fact, that is her hand getting the bark effect on the icing.  She has endless patience for the finer details.  X