WITH SO MUCH GRATITUDE

It's been six months, six long, slow, heavy months since my sister, friend, confidant, rock, comrade-in-arms, died.  Six months when every little thing takes twice the energy it used to.  Six months when sometimes I catch myself laughing, and I wonder why and how.  Six months when sadness is my constant companion.

But it has also been six months when my relationship with her children has blossomed - I love those kids with all my heart.  Their successes are mine too, they make me so proud, they are beyond wonderful.

It has also been six months of getting to know my sister's dear friends,  they say that you get the friends you deserve, and in my sister's case this is certainly true.  Her friends are wonderful, kind and good people (and great craic too!!).  Sadly Pauline has had to head back to the States, we miss her kind and strong presence, her stories of my sister when she lived in New York, her companionship and understanding, her cooking!!  Clare has been my rock, she has helped from the very beginning in the most practical ways, she sees something that needs to be done, and just does it - no questions asked, no praise looked for. And finally Fiona who gave my sister such joy, (she would return from coffee with Fiona and regale me with all the funny anecdotes - for hours!!!).  Fiona brings a wave of good will with her wherever she goes, she is a powerhouse of enthusiasm and kindness, she has enveloped my niece and nephews in her warmth and love, she has brought my sister's fun side back into their lives.

The  Random Bakes Of Kindness from my last post reminded me of all the people to whom I owe so much gratitude.  I want to take this opportunity to say thanks a million to you all, and particularly to Clare and Fiona.
 

To Fiona, thank you, thank you for giving them a wonderful holiday, a fun filled time when they were too busy to be sad.  Thank you for sharing your beautiful daughter, giving my precious Princess a much needed older sister.  Thank you for cheering us up, time and time again.  Thank you for showering the Princess with kindness (!).  Thank you for seeing each child's individual strengths and fostering them.  Thank you for your time, for M's time and for bringing C into my life.  Thank you for the coffee mornings - our chance to regroup, to reminisce, to chat, to organise.  Thank you for being there - always.

To Clare, thank you for your support, your hugs (you give the best hugs!), your understanding, your always being on my side.  Thank you for all your hospitality to the kids - they always return from your home snuggled in your love and caring - and that bit happier.  Thank you for your generosity in everything you do.  Thank you for washing away our anguish (!).  Thank you for sharing your (gorgeous) family, your energy, your enthusiasm, your hard work, your warmth.  Thank you too for our coffee mornings - you know how much they mean to both myself and Mum.

These women deserve so much more than cake - but it's a start!!! 

We are meeting to reminisce and cry and laugh today, and I am bringing some muffins along.  September is not just back to school time, but also back to some sort of eating properly time - slimming clubs have more start-ups in September than in January.  With this in mind I borrowed Rits's Applesauce Muffin Recipe, (made a few very small changes) cooked up a batch, and am bringing them along.  Some guilt free treats for some people who need cheering up.

Rita's Applesauce Oat Muffins

1 cup                   oats
1 cup                   skimmed milk
1 cup                   whole wheat flour
1/2 cup                brown sugar*
1/2 cup                applesauce (I made this with 3 small apples a tsp cinnamon and a tiny amount of water)
2                          egg whites
2 tsp                    baking powder
1/2 tsp                 bread (bicarbonate of) soda
1/2 tsp                 salt
1                         curly wurly bar (similar to heath bar)
2 tsp                   cinnamon
1 tsp                   sugar

Makes 12 muffins


Soak oats in the milk for 1 hour.
Preheat oven to 180 C
Line muffin tins
Combine the oat mixture with the applesauce and egg whites and mix.
In a seperate bowl measure out the dry ingredients (including 1 tsp cinnamon) and mix.
Chop up the curly wurly bar and add to the bowl.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry and combine - without mixing too much to avoide tough muffins.
Spoon into the prepared muffin cases.

Combine one spoon of sugar with a spoon of cinnamon and scatter ofver the muffins before you pop them into the oven (I forgot this part - but won't next time!)

Bake the muffins for 17 - 25 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean.
Remove from the pan and cool.

*To make these even more healthy - next time I think I'll add a super ripe banana instead of the sugar.


These muffins - while not the prettiest to come out of my oven are really tasty and well worth a go.  Thanks Rita at Sage Cuisine.

RANDOM BAKES OF KINDNESS

It's back to school time here in Ireland - and it made me think "who dreads going back more - the kids or the teachers??"  At least the kids have all their friends to sweeten the pill, but the poor teachers, back to the grindstone after 2/3 months of freedom!!!!

Vanessa has introduced a wonderful new challenge called Random Bakes Of Kindness (what a genius idea!) whereby you gift a batch of your baked beauties (!) to someone who goes the extra mile in your life.  I decided the the teachers at my niece and nephew's school would be the ideal recipients for a "first day back at school cheer me up" - they have been so good to the kids over the past few months, keeping their school lives as even and calm as possible.  Who better to receive an injection of sugar (and thanks) with their morning coffee.

I was up with the birds on the day they were going back, and so decided to whip up Coby's Banana and Yogurt Muffins - Coby has a fantastic blog (which she shares with a great group of bloggers) you'll be delighted when you visit - it's a font of ideas and mouth watering recipes and photos, but most of all it's a beautifully written blog - you share in all their lives.  I whipped up the muffins when I got up, and they were still warm when I popped them into a tin for the kids to bring to school.  Brownieville Princess and Boy #4 weren't too anxious to bring in the gift, so I dropped it into the office on my way out - and seemingly they went down a storm - some warm, fairly low fat goodies on the first day back to school - I hope they brought a few smiles to the staff room!!

The recipe is over on The Clayton's Blog - the only change I made was to use peach instead of passionfruit yoghurt, and sunflower instead of olive oil, they were light, fluffy and brim full of flavour.

Thanks a million to Vanessa for this excellent idea - it is really good to spend time thinking of all the people in your life that you need to be grateful to - there are so many.

A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME

This month's We Should Cocoa challenge was to create something lovely using both rose and chocolate. Choclette really does like to keep us on our toes!!

My first thoughts were to team the rose with some white chocolate - there is something so delicate about a rose (and rose water) that I immediately thought to pair it with the subtle vanilla sweetness of some good white chocolate.  White billowy meringues, perhaps?  But then life got in the way (as it does), I was getting short on time and I needed a kid friendly, throw it all together type bake.

The kids are not great fans of white chocolate - milk chocolate gets the vote every time!  So I decided to play around with one of my stock recipes - add some rose water and see what happens!!

I had a hit and a miss - the cake was very popular, the hint of rose being very subtle, gave an extra dimension (just a little something that stopped you wolfing down a slice and encouraged you to nibble it thoughtfully), it married very well with the milk chocolate, one flavour not overpowering the other.  The icing on the other hand was not popular (even with me!!) Firstly the cake was sweet enough and did not need the extra sweet injection of the icing.  Secondly the rose and orange flavours (which I thought would be fantastic together) just didn't jell, and thirdly it was all just too much when combined.  Luckily I only iced a small section of the cake - so there was plenty of happy munching!!


Chocolate Rose Cake

200g               butter
200g               caster sugar
200g               milk chocolate
250g               self raising flour
1.5 tsp            rose water
3                    eggs, beaten.


Prepare a 24x33cm (13x10inch) tin by lining with baking parchment paper
Preheat oven to 180 C

Melt the butter and 75g of the chocolate.
Add the sugar and combine.
Gently stir in the flour.
Chop up the remaining 125g of chocolate and add to the batter.
Add the eggs, stirring gently.
Pour into the shallow tin.
Bake for 20 - 30 minutes.

Icing (though I wouldn't bother!)

100g     icing sugar, sieved
1 tsp     rosewater
orange juice to get to correct texture.

Combine.

Enjoy!

CAKE SLICE BAKERS

After a long absence, and with apologies to my fellow Cake Slice Bakers, I am back for the penultimate cake from Lauren Chattman's "Cake Keeper Cakes",  this month the bakers voted for her Hungarian Coffee Cake (aka Monkey Bread) - a coffee free cake (I'm always caught!!) rich in cinnamon (well my version was anyway!) and fun to make.

I was excited to bake my first "Monkey Bread", but found this cake to taste much more like scones coated in a buttery, sweet cinnamon glaze - delicious, but not what I had expected, and not really pull-apartable!

We really enjoyed this cake on the day it was made, but it doesn't  belong in a book with "keeper" in the title as on the second day (like scones) the cake had dried out and lost it's lovely soft texture - nice but not nearly as nice as on day one.  This cake would be perfect for a coffee morning with a gang of friends - just make sure you invite enough to eat it all in one go!!!!

The recipe as I made it:

Hungarian Coffee Free Coffee Cake

Topping

1/2 cup (110g)    butter, melted and cooled
3/4 cup                light brown sugar

Cake

1/2 cup               granulated sugar
3  tsp                  ground cinnamon
9 tbsp (117g)     chilled butter - actually frozen is best.
3 cups                plain flour
1 tbsp                caster sugar
1 tbsp                 baking powder
3/4 tsp                bread (bicarbonate of) soda
3/4 tsp                salt
1 cup                  buttermilk (maybe more)
1/4 cup               pecan nuts

Preheat the oven to 180 C/350 F
Butter and flour a non-stick bundt cake tin

Whisk the melted butter together with the light brown sugar and put to one side.
Combine the granulated sugar with 1 tsp cinnamon in a plastic bag.
Grate the frozen butter with a coarse grater.
Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt,2 tsp cinnamon and 1 tbsp caster sugar in a large bowl.
Add the grated butter and combine with a spoon.
Stir in the buttermilk, adding more if necessary to combine.
Scoop up small balls of dough (slightly smaller than a golf ball) and toss in the sugar cinnamon mixture.
Layer the balls of dough in the bundt tin, scattering in the chopped pecan nuts as you go.
When all the balls of sugared dough are in the tin, pour the cooled butter and sugar mixture over them.
Bake in the oven for 35 - 40 minutes or until firm to the touch.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the tin on a cake rack for 10 - 15 minutes.
Invert onto a serving plate and serve at once.

Enjoy.

A CLEAN(ISH) CONSCIENCE

I have an admission ........ I cheated ........ but then I felt so guilty that I uncheated - I hope that Dom can forgive me - but at least I did the right thing in the end!!!

You see it was like this .... Dom over at Belleau Kitchen had challenged us to randomly choose a cookery book from the shelf/pile and then to choose a random recipe from said book and then to cook/bake it - no messing.   Wellllllllllllll, I closed my eyes and grabbed Nigella Lawson's "Kitchen" - so far, so good (I had neglected this book and was pleased to give it a go), but then I randomly chose her Marmalade Pudding Cake - yuk, I really don't like marmalade, nobody in the house eats that type of cake.  I decided it would be a total waste (I don't like marmalade), it would end up uneaten in the bin (I don't like marmalade)- I just couldn't do it (I don't like marmalade).

I closed the book, closed my eyes and fanned through the pages and came to .....Indian Roast potatoes ...... Result ...... I love potatoes (well I know stereotypes are often untrue, but I AM Irish) and I love spice ..... Happy Days, Indian Roast potatoes it was.

They were a perfect choice, you just chop up your unpeeled potatoes into cubes and toss them in a plastic bag  to which you have added oil and spices (turmeric, fennel seeds, cumin seeds, nigella seeds, black mustard seeds, chilli powder) some garlic, lime juice and salt - toss the potatoes about until fully coated, roast for an hour and then serve with a chopped red onion as garnish.  I played about with the spices (just a bit) left out the raw onion - and they were delicious, and really popular.

BUT I just couldn't do it ..... I couldn't pretend that they were my random choice ..... I had to bite the bullet .... I just had to .... didn't I?...... I had to ..... my conscience demanded it!!!!!!!!

So Marmalade Pudding Cake it was, on the plus side it was easy to throw together, you just dump everything in the food processor, a quick whizz and it's ready to go in the oven, stress free really. 

As for the result, well - I thought it was OK. (which isn't bad as (you might not know but) I'm not that fond of marmalade!!), Brownieville Man loved it and Brownieville Physical Magician (aka my friend Amo, who gives me life saving massages) ate 5 slices in one sitting (slight exaggeration!!).  All in all - worth giving a go.


Marmalade Pudding Cake


250g           soft butter (plus some to butter the dish)
75g             caster sugar
75g             light brown muscovado sugar
150g           marmalade, plus 75g  marmalade for the glaze*
225g           plain flour
1/2 tsp        bread (bicarbonate of) soda
1 tsp           baking powder
4                 eggs
1                 orange - zested and juiced. (keep half the juice for the glaze)


* I used a jar of three fruit marmalade that I had left over from a Christmas hamper recieved the year before last!!!


Preheat oven to 180 C
Butter a 24cm sq Pyrex (or actually any) ovenproof dish


Prepare the glaze by putting 75g of marmalade and the juice of half the orange in a small pan and put to the side to heat later.
Put all the remaining ingredients into the food processor, and whizz.
Pour the batter into the prepared dish.
Bake for about 30 minutes, although could take 40 minutes.
Check it is done by inserting a piece of raw spaghetti to see if it comes out clean (if there is batter on it - it needs more time)
Heat the glaze over a medium heat, when melted, pour over the hot cake.
Serve while still warm with cream or custard.

Enjoy (if you like marmalade!!!)

VIRTUOUS BUT GOOD!

I promise I haven't had a blow to the head (!!) but I had a yen for some healthy, bright, crunchy food - something that yelled "summer" - a salad obviously, but not a claggy mayonnaise laden one, something much fresher.

Never one to do things by halves, I went the whole hog with this one - not even a smidgen of oil in there, but brim full of flavour - try it - you'll forgive me the virtuousness!!!




Carrot and Coriander Salad

6        organic carrots
2        handfuls of coriander
2        limes juiced


Grate the carrots - you really do need to go with organic ones, they have a much stronger flavour.
Chop the coriander stems very finely and the leaves roughly.
Combine them both, and add the lime juice to taste.
Allow flavours to combine for a half hour or so.
Enjoy.

MESSED UP MUFFINS

I haven't blogged in ages, and now I have to come back with an unmitigated failure!  These apricot and chocolate muffins were just nasty, the actual muffins were rubbery and the apricots therein had an unpleasant jammy texture.

When I read Chele's challenge for this month's We Should Cocoa, I feared that I would be unable to source any fresh apricots, but as luck would have it there were some delicious specimens in the shop the very next day.  Murphy's law being what it is, everyone who visited over the next couple of days, spotted them, and said "you never see fresh apricots, may I take one?" and the punnet disappeared in no time!!!!  Fortunately I managed to get the last of the apricots the next time I went shopping, and even more fortunately (or not when you consider the way the muffins turned out!!) I managed to hide three of them to use for the challenge. 

I won't bother giving you the recipe* - why would I when this recipe is a million times better.  As for the apricots - they are just so nice when fresh and ripe (and so hard to locate) that I will stick to dried or tinned for my baking in future.  I have a lovely recipe for an apricot tart which uses tinned apricots - I must bake and blog it soon.

As I tell the kids, your mistakes are just as important as your successes, so I'll put this one down to furthering my culinary education!  They did look nice though!!

*All I'll say is that Ms Smith isn't totally infallible.