Honey and peanut butter cereal bars

This is based on Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's honey and peanut butter cereal bars, the recipe of which seems to have disappeared from Channel 4's site. Anyway, I've been trying to fine tune it to reduce the sugar content, and it's still a bit of a work in progress...

This makes about 8-12 bars.

60g unsalted butter
40g soft brown sugar
30g chunky peanut butter
20g honey
100g porridge
75 g dried fruit
60g mixed seeds and nuts (almonds or pecans?)
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 160C and grease approximately a 20"x10" tray. Melt the butter, sugar, peanut butter and honey in a pan. Once it's all melted stir in the oats, dried fruit, seeds, nuts and cinnamon. Pour this mixture into the greased tin and bake for around 30 min at 160C. Remove from the oven and leave to cool. Turn out from the tin and cut into squares.

Mr Mann's exceedingly good Icelandic Waffles

Courtesy of my soon-to-be father-in-law, the marvellous Mr Mann...



Recipe of Ingredients (handed down and modified for countless generations):

Makes about 10, depending on your waffle iron.

2 cups plain flour
1 cups cornflour
2 tbsp caster sugar (though the original recipe is without this)
1/2 cup (150g) margarine (full fat version only - low fat types are useless) or butter
~450ml cold milk - actual volume dependent on cup size
1/2 tsp baking powder - fresh!
1/8 tsp bicarbonate soda
3-4 drops vanilla essence - to taste
1 egg

These quantities are roughly in the correct proportions but can be modified to get a good batter mix. To create the batter it is important to first mix the flour and margarine so that it forms a 'peak' when you pinch the mixture together. Another tip is to add the milk gradually to make sure the mixture doesn't get too thin, if it does just add more flour.

Premix all the dry ingredients together.

Cut the margarine into the flour, baking powder and bicarbonate soda mix using the well established and highly acclaimed 'Mann method' of two table knives.

Keep cutting and simultaneously coating the lumps of margarine until they have disappeared and the mix is 'fluffy'. The mixture should stay together after pinching, otherwise there is not enough margarine and the waffles will not be crisp. (A food processor can be used towards the end of this process, but not too soon or the margarine coats the blades!)

Place the mixture in a food processor for the next stage - add some of the cold milk slowly to the batter mix whilst the processor is on. Slowly add more milk as the flour is incorporated. Once all the flour mix has been
incorporated into most of the milk, add the egg while the batter mix is still too thick. Then add enough milk so that the batter mix reaches a nice gloopy consistency - thicker than pancake batter, then add the vanilla essence.

Beat like crazy for a few minutes - if you haven't already done so!



Traditionally the mixture should then be left for 30-60 minutes at room temperature before use, although no-one seems to know why, but it also works straight away!

1) Wipe the waffle iron with a smear of margarine on both plates.
2) Heat the waffle iron until it starts to smoke the margarine slightly on opening.
3) Pour in about a soup ladle full of batter, close & cook (about 3 minutes in our waffle iron).

DISCARD the first one with all the old rancid oil traces incorporated.

Keep the heat on continuously and repeat steps 1) & 3)

Serve hot with blueberry jam and fresh, whipped cream. (Alternatively, Maple syrup, Chocolate syrup, or favourite jams can be used!)

Then, sign up with Waffles Anonymous - 'cos they're habit forming!!!!

As they say up North, "Verði ykkur að goðu" (bon appetit)

Amaretti biscuits

Partly from Antonio Carluccio's A-Z of Italian Food and partly from other sources this recipe makes the soft-centered kind of almond Amaretti biscuits.

Makes 20-30

220g ground almonds
110g caster sugar
2 egg whites
Rind of 1/4 lemon
15ml Amaretto liqueur

Lightly beat the egg whites and carefully fold the sugar into them, then add the ground almonds, Amaretto and lemon rind (less if you want) and fold them in. Antonio says you should pipe the mixture onto a buttered baking tray, I just use a couple of teaspoons to make small mounds. Sprinkle them with some demerara sugar and place in a preheated oven at 190C and bake until just brown - about 15-20 minutes. Maybe for Christmas?

Cheese on toast

I was eating lunch today and chatting about what this site is for and why I hadn't posted any new recipes for so long. I came up with some criteria for recipes along the lines of 1) it requires a recipe, so no improvised tomato and pasta dinners, 2) I have to make it regularly, 3) it's good or 4) it's my or my family's recipe. At which point I realised my lunch met at least three of these criteria. So here it is, humble cheese on toast. I'm not sure how widespread this method is but it comes handed down from my Mum. I'm also wondering if it's a Northern recipe (she's from Lancashire) because you need to use Lancashire or Wensleydale cheese.



Makes a few

2-4 slices of bread (brown or white)
Wensleydale or Lancashire cheese - enough to cover the toast with thick slices. A small-ish block is more than enough for 4 slices.
A couple of tomatoes
A splash of milk
Black pepper
Paprika

First, toast your toast. Meanwhile slice up the cheese, crumble it into a bowl and add a splash of milk, not much though, and a bit of freshly ground pepper. Then put it in the microwave for a minute to a minute and a half until it's melted, though preferably not boiling. Slice your tomatoes.

When the toast is done and the cheese has melted butter the toast, put a couple of slices of tomatoes on each slice of toast and spoon the melted cheese over. Sprinkle with paprika and then pop under a hot grill until the cheese has started to bubble, but before the edges of the toast start to burn.

That's proper cheese on toast. It always amazes me how the humble Wensleydale is transformed into something so gorgeous just my melting it.

Chocolate brownies

This one's from the Guardian...

Jane Asher's American brownies

Makes 10

200ml vegetable oil
150g golden granulated sugar
100g dark brown soft sugar
2 tsps vanilla extract
3 medium eggs
60g cocoa powder
100g self-raising flour
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp sodium bicarbonate
100g chopped hazelnuts or walnuts (optional)

Preheat the oven to 180C (165C fan-assisted) 350F, gas mark 4. Prepare a 20 x 25 cm (or 23 cm square) baking tin. Put all the ingredients into a large mixing bowl and beat well together. Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 25-30 minutes, depending on how chewy you like your brownies. Let the brownies cool in the tin, then turn out and decorate.

For my latest batch I replaced some of the hazelnuts with chopped up good-quality dark chocolate and some raisins.

Risottos

Two risotto recipes for today's post.



The first one is my regular recipe for risotto and comes from Nigel Slater's "Real Food".

Leek and Taleggio Risotto

Serves 2 generously
50g butter
2 large leeks, chopped and rinsed
2 large cloves of garlic, peeled and sliced
a little dried oregano
225g arborio rice
900ml hot vegetable stock (though I usually find this a bit too much)
225g taleggio or other soft, creamy cheese such as Camembert, cut into thick slices

"Put the butter into a shallow, heavy-bottomed pan and add the leeks and garlic. Cook over a moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until the leeks are soft. Don't hurry this; let the leeks cook slowly for about fifteen to twenty minutes, but stop cooking before they colour."

"Stir in the oregano, a teaspoon or so will do, and the rice. Pour in three ladles of hot stock and stir. Leave to simmer gently, stirring regularly, until the stock has almost all been soaked up by the rice. Add more stock and leave to cook once more, at a gentle pace, then add more when that too has gone. It will stick if you forget to stir it. The rice will be plump and tender after about eighteen to twenty minutes. Taste it to see if it is done to your liking; it should have a bit of bite left in it but should be quite tender."

"Stir in the cheese at the last minute - it will melt creamily. Check for seasoning; it will need both salt and black pepper."

My notes:

I use this recipe as my staple risotto recipe - basically I use it for the amount of rice and stock but with various different flavours. Typically I'll use some onion as the base, rather than the leek, and often a good portion of grated pecorino or parmesan or even cream rather than the taleggio. Then the main part - mushrooms, prawns, asparagus, tomatoes...y'know, whatever you like. For mushroom risotto, use some fresh mushrooms and some dried porcini - soak the porcini first and use the remaining liquid in the stock.


The second recipe is slightly different and comes from Matthew Fort's "Eating Up Italy", in which he samples food while riding around Italy on a Vespa.

Risotto Con La Zucca

Serves 6 (probably more like 4 as a main)

50g butter
1 litre vegetable stock
1 small onion
1 stick of celery
400g pumpkin
400g risotto rice
Grated parmesan

"Melt the butter in the pan in which you are going to cook the risotto. Bring the stock or water to the boil in another pan. Finely dice the onion and celery and saute in the melted butter. Add the pumpkin, cut into chunks, and the rice. Turn in the butter for 4-5 minutes. Pour the boiing stock into the rice and pumpkin pan all at once. Lower the heat to cook the rice slowly. Do not stir. Cover with the lid and cook for 15 minutes. Remove the lid. The contents should be perfectly cooked, and quite dry. Beat in plenty of grated Parmesan."

This made one of the best risottos I've done, but we were in a flat in Tuscany at the time, which might have had something to do with it. It's a bit simpler as you don't have to add stock and stir as you go.

Visiting the celebrity chefs

Well, we didn't actually see any of them, but when we recently spent a week down in Cornwall I made it my mission to go Rick Stein's Seafood Restaurant in Padstow and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's River Cottage Store and Canteen in Axminster.



We were staying near Padstow so it was pretty easy to go to the seafood restaurant though I guess you might need to book fairly far ahead. We chose the tasting menu which consisted of five courses of seafood, from lobster salad to escalopes of halibut. It was good but I could have done with a bit more variation and excitement. However I did like the smart and relaxed atmosphere at the restaurant. Rick Stein also owns four or five other cafes and restaurants in Padstow, which is only a small fishing town. But having walked five miles to get to his fish and chip shop for lunch one day we weren't best pleased to arrive at 2:31 and discover it closed at 2:30.



The River Cottage Canteen isn't on the farm you see on the TV shows, it's in the centre of Axminster, but that makes it a good stopping off place for lunch on the way down to Cornwall. There's a shop with local food for sale and a cafe/canteen at the back with a small-ish menu - it was pretty good food though a bit pricey for lunch. We liked it so much that we stopped there on the way down and the way back.