BILL GRANGER'S HOLIDAY

On the now defunct forum  Nigella.com, they had a cookbook review each month, I have to say that none of the books selected really grabbed my attention until Jutta chose Holiday by Bill Granger - it was a book that I had owned for a while but hadn't used, and I will be forever grateful to her as I have found winner after winner in this book, actually out of all the recipes I tried (and there were many!!) there was only one that we weren't mad about - not bad going.  The review has carried onto the replacement forum Through The Oven Door, which is a wonderful alternative set up by Jutta among others. (Although that said I'm having problems with it at the moment - I'm blaming all the new spyware we have installed!).

Place of honour goes to this cherry tart which beside tasting excellent has the easiest pastry of all time - no rolling out needed (yahaa!!!), I'm going to be using this time and time again. (recipe below)

 

 The Green Ratatouille, with some obvious replacements!!!  I'm not a big fan of green peppers, and I happened to have yellow courgettes (zucchini) in the house, it was a lovely vegetable dish pretty and tasty - works for me!!

 Crispy Skinned Salmon with Tamarind Caramel Dressing, the tamarind was a revelation to me, I have had some in the cupboard for some time and hadn't gotten round to trying it - boy am I glad that attempting this recipe introduced me to this wonderful flavour - a subtle bitterness, that doesn't cause the "sour lemon" face (!!) but still has that sour hit - I used the leftover dressing in a bowl of rice the next day (strange but delicious!)

This is the Never-Fail Birthday Chocolate Cake, before I added the Chocolate Icing, without doubt the least successful of all the recipes I attempted, its biggest failing was that there wasn't nearly enough chocolate in it - a "mortler" in my book!!  (A "mortler" being our childhood term for mortal sin, ie. a biggie!!!)

 Sweet Potato with Coriander and Preserved Lemons, an unusual combination I know but it really works.  The left overs were wonderful in soup. 

 A pretty awful picture, but this Leg of Lamb with Indian Flavours was as far from awful as you could get!!  A delicious combination of flavours served with the sweet potatoes (above) and the turmeric potatoes (below).

We're Irish, we eat potatoes by the sackful!!!  Any new ideas for potatoes are always welcome, this one particularly - it tastes great and with turmeric being sooo good for you, they are actually health food!!

 Flourless Chocolate and Hazelnut Cake, this is the cake to give as a gift to someone diagnosed with gluten intolerance - it will make them feel a whole lot better about a life without flour!!  The cake was moist and full of nutty chocolaty flavours, it went down really well when I served it to visiting relatives, worked well with all ages.

 Bills Garlic Mushrooms were probably nothing you wouldn't do anyway (I get really annoyed with cookery books that contain really obvious recipes - ham sandwich anyone? - you know the sort of recipes I mean!!!) he just added some chili to the usual mushrooms, olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper.  To give him his due these excessively easy recipes were few and far between.

 The Roast Chicken with Coriander Chili Stuffing and Coconut Gravy, was a real departure from the norm for me, and it was a welcome change - although it in no way replaces my usual roast chicken with lemon and garlic in my affections!!  As you can imagine chicken stuffed (under the skin) with chili, coconut, coriander, ginger, lime and sugar is jam packed with flavour and it really works.  This dish made for wonderful leftovers - I heated up the leftover chicken meat in the coconut gravy, added this to pasta - mighty good I have to say!!!

 Chocolate Chip Ice Cream, it was great to try out my new ice-cream maker with this recipe, although nice it didn't reach the dizzy heights of the Raspberry Yoghurt Ice Cream - that said it was demolished in no time!

How pretty is this dish??  Poached Salmon and Risoni Salad was really tasty (and would be a great way to use up leftover salmon) I used some chard (from the veg box) instead of the specified spinach, and I think that the rougher texture of the chard worked really well, another one on the "make again" list.

Oh man oh man, this stuff is beyond good, and couldn't be easier!!  All you do is whisk 100g of sugar into 500g of greek yoghurt, tip into an ice-cream maker add a punnet of raspberries and  hay presto, fantabulous Yoghurt and Raspberry Ice-Cream.                                                                                  



Cherry Tart

Pastry

125g (4 1/2 oz)        butter, melted and cooled

90g (3 1/2 oz)          caster sugar

175g (6 oz)              plain flour

pinch salt

2 tbsp                      ground almonds

Filling

170 ml (5 1/2 fl oz)     cream

2                                eggs, lightly beaten

2 tsp                           vanilla extract

3 tbsp                         caster sugar

2 tbsp                         plain flour

550g (1lb 4 oz)           cherries, halved and pitted (Bill says fresh are best, I used frozen!!)

Preheat oven to 180 C/350 F

Grease a 24cm (9 1/2 in) round loose-bottomed tart tin.

To make the pastry, stir the butter and sugar in a large bowl.

Add the flour and salt and combine to make a soft dough.

Press this dough into the tin as evenly as possible with your fingers.

Put the tin on a baking tray and bake for 12-15 minutes, until the pastry is slightly puffy.

Remove from the oven and sprinkle with the ground almonds.

Now for the filling, whisk the cream, eggs, vanilla and sugar together.

Add the flour and mix well.

Strew the cherries, slightly overlapping over the pastry base then pour the cream filling over the cherries.

Return the tart to the oven for 40-50 minutes until the filling is firm.

Remove from the oven, and allow to cool.

Serve with cream of ice-cream.

Enjoy.

SEMIFREDDO

I love to have something special hidden away in the freezer in case of unexpected guests - or even expected guests and no time!!  I wholeheartedly recommend this semifreddo for such an eventuality (or for any eventuality, or even "because we're worth it"!!).  It is really scrumptious!

This recipe originated in Catherine Fulvio's delightful new book Catherines Italian Kitchen, the photo looked so appealing  that I had to give it a go.  Then a little light pinged in my head, and I thought of the wonderful  Choclette and her pal Chele's new competition We Should Cocoa - where they asked us to come up with dishes containing chocolate (of course) and this months special ingredient Raspberries.  Bing, bang, bosh with some changes to the original (which is titled Limoncello, White Chocolate and Cherry Semifreddo) I have come up with this recipe - somewhat lower in calories than the original, but really, really good despite this!!


Raspberry, Cherry and White Chocolate Semifreddo

100g          raspberries  (fresh or frozen)
50g            cherries       (fresh/frozen or tinned)
85g            caster sugar (divided in two)
290 ml       double cream
400ml        yoghurt (I used Greek)
4 tbsp        Lemoncello (or Framboise would be good too)
100g          white chocolate chips or a bar chopped up


Line a 1kg/2pint loaf tin with cling film.

Chop up the cherries and place in a bowl with the raspberries and half the sugar.
Whisk the cream and the other half of the sugar until soft peaks form, stir in the liqueur and the yoghurt.
Fold in the fruit and the chocolate.
Pour into the tin  and smooth the top, cover with more cling film and freeze.
The semifreddo should be frozen for at least 6 hours and for up to 3 weeks.

When ready to serve make the coulis:


Coulis
100g cherries (I used  frozen)
150g raspberries (I used frozen)
3 tbsp caster sugar
1 tbsp Lemoncello or Framboise

Place the fruit, liqueur and sugar in a saucepan and heat gently until the sugar dissolves.
Allow to cool.
Blitz with a stick blender (if you wish)
Press through a nylon sieve to remove the pips.


Remove the semifreddo from the freezer an hour before serving - keep it in the fridge.
Remove the cling film and drizzle with the coulis.
Serve and enjoy!

THE PERFECT BREAKFAST?

Could this be the perfect breakfast? Organic raspberries (from the box scheme), Glenisk organic Greek Yogurt, (I am so delighted I discovered this product) super healthy raspberry muffins, good coffee and a great book, eaten outside on a warm, sunny morning.

Regular readers will be aware of my ongoing mission to add more fruit and vegetables to the diet of son #2 (the veg phobic one!!), and to this end I recently bought a new cookbook (like I needed an excuse!!) Harry Eastwood's "Red Velvet Chocolate Heartache", in which she replaces the fat in recipes with vegetables (!).  I reckoned that if they tasted good, we would all be winners, and I also hoped that there would be plenty of recipes to use up the courgette glut (there are always loads of courgettes in the weekly box, and I'm the only one here who likes them!).

I have to say that this books reads very well (not the silly introductions to the recipes - the recipes themselves) and I was really looking forward to getting my teeth into it (sorry about the pun ;-{),  there are 20 recipes using courgette (roll on the glut!!).  As I am having a bit of a raspberry muffin thing at the moment, I honed in on the "Lemon, sunflower seed and blueberry muffin" recipe and then proceeded to change it!!  I replaced the lemon zest with orange (I already had two naked lemons in the fridge - didn't need any more!!) and the blueberries with raspberries (they are what I like, and I have plenty in the freezer).  I also added some lime extract (to explain the little green flecks in the muffins - clever or what!!!)

The muffins are delicious (although haven't been tried by the intended target yet!) there is no hint of the vegetables within,  the sunflower seeds make a nice change to nuts, but could easily be replaced with whatever nut you fancy.  The orange zest and raspberry are a great combination, and the texture is just about right, slightly drier than a fat filled muffin, but only very slightly, and that's a price I'm willing to pay.

Orange, Sunflower Seed and Raspberry Muffins

160g            caster sugar
3                  medium eggs
250g            finely grated courgette
zest from 1 orange
180g           white rice flour*
160g           ground almonds
2 tsp           baking powder
1/4 tsp        bread (bicarbonate of) soda
1/4 tsp       salt
60g            sunflower seeds
150g          raspberries

Line a 12 hole muffin tray with cases
Preheat oven to 180 C.

Beat the eggs and sugar until light, pale and creamy (will take about 3 mins with electric whisk)
Add the grated courgette and orange zest.
Now with a spatula add the flour, ground almonds, baking powder and bread soda and working as quickly as you can combine gently (keep in the air that you have beaten into the egg mixture).
Add the sunflower seeds and raspberries as quickly (and gently) as you can.
Divide the mixture between the muffin cases (Harry says that you get 8 muffins from this mixture, I got 12 (happy days!)
Place the muffin tray in the center of the oven - here she emphasises that it is really important not to faff about at this stage as you don't want the oven temp to decrease - you need a hot oven to "encourage them upwards as soon as they enter the heat"
Bake for approx. 30 - 35 minutes.
Remove from oven when a skewer comes out clean.
Cool on a wire rack.

*I only had 120g of rice flour so added 60g of ordinary flour.

                                            This week's basket of wonderfulness!!!

MUFFIN Vs MUFFIN

I was wondering would a raspberry muffin count as one of your "five a day"?  I'm desperate here folks!!!!!

Seriously though, there is something about a fruit laden muffin that makes them feel like a (slightly) virtuous treat - think of all the vitamins!  I have been on a bit of a fruit muffin quest of late and have two of my current favourites to offer to you*.  The ones above are from Nigella.com by Casey, they are really easy and make up a good big batch (they also keep very well), they were originally banana muffins but I think the raspberry works particularly well with raspberries.

I came across the second of my recipes on Chef Dennis's blog and had to give them a go the minute I saw the recipe - which called for blueberries (I thought I had a box of blueberries in the freezer, but they somehow morphed into raspberries!!!) Dennis called these the best muffins he had ever made, so you'll know why I had to try them.

You are probably wondering why I am giving two recipes for the same confection - I have found it handy to alternate between the two recipes, depending on what is in the larder and fridge.  More importantly they are both excellent - too hard to choose between them!!




Casey's Super Moist Muffins

3           cups self raising flour
1 1/2     cups caster sugar
3 tsp      baking powder
2           eggs
1           cup vegetable oil
1 1/2     cups natural yogurt
1           cup fruit (mashed banana/raspberries/etc)

Preheat oven to 160 C
Prepare muffin tin with paper cases (I made 12 mini muffins and about 8 medium sized ones)

Mix dry ingredients
Mix wet ingredients
Add the wet ingredients to the dry - as always don't over mix.
Spoon into the prepared muffin cases.
Bake at 160 C for 20 - 30 minutes (until a skewer comes out clean)





Chef Dennis's Blueberry Muffins

2            cups flour
1            cup sugar
1/2 tsp   baking powder
1/2 tsp   bread (bicarbonate of) soda
1/2 tsp   salt
2 cups   blueberries (or raspberries) fresh or frozen
3           lightly beaten eggs
1           cup sour cream/Greek yogurt
1/2        cup oil
1 tsp     vanilla

Preheat oven to 200C
Prepare muffin tin

Mix dry ingredients
Add blueberries and toss.
Mix wet ingredients.
Add wet ingredients to the dry ones, barely mix.
Pour into prepared muffin tin.
Sprinkle with sugar.
Bake for 20 - 30 minutes.

Enjoy.

*These muffins probably retain top billing, but then there is chocolate involved!!!!

RASPBERRY MOMENT

I have an obsession with keeping a full freezer (and larder),  the snow earlier in the year has just given me   vindication (couldn't get out to shop, but it didn't matter we had plenty!!!)  This obsession slapped me in the face when I tidied out my freezer recently and discovered that I had seven packets of raspberries.  I couldn't have that - they were taking up space that I could have used for my  uncooked cookies!

I searched through the usual cookbooks and  these muffins jumped out at me, (from Nigella Lawson's How to be a Domestic Goddess)  they were just what was needed.  Of course I had to do a bit of tweaking, originally they were Lemon-Raspberry Muffins, but I changed them to White Chocolate-Raspberry Muffins and they were really good, so good that the first batch was eaten so quickly that I had to produce a second batch immediately! 

Here goes:

White Chocolate and Raspberry Muffins

60g        butter

200g      plain flour

2 tsp      baking powder

1/2 tsp   bicarbonate of soda (bread soda)

150g     caster sugar

1           large egg

150g     raspberries

100g     white chocolate - chopped

105ml   milk

1 tbsp   lemon juice

Preheat oven to 200 C

Line muffin tray with 12 paper cases

Melt butter and set aside.

Using a large bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda.

In a measuring jug pour in the lemon juice, then add milk to reach the 200ml mark. Don't worry if it curdles.

Beat in the egg and melted butter.

Pour this mixture into the dry ingredients and stir briefly.

Add the chocolate pieces and raspberries,  stir just enough to combine.  The less you stir the lighter the muffin.

Divide the mixture between the cases and bake for about 25 minutes.

When cooked the tops will spring back to your touch, and a tester will come out clean (unless you hit a raspberry!!)

Allow to cook in the tin for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Enjoy!