VEGETARIAN VALENTINE!

Tiffany and Noah came for dinner last night. It was a multi celebration, both their birthdays were in January and mine was a few days ago, what to cook??
I got a Kitchenaid standing mixer for my birthday, long overdue, in fact most of my 'cooky' friends can't believe I have not had one for years! My wonderful husband added Thomas Keller's 'Ad Hoc at home' to the birthday gift so I had to find something to use both of my new toys, and of course satisfy vegetarians and carnivores.
Leek Bread Pudding served with Slow Roasted Tomatoes was the answer.  Here is the tomato recipe as I cannot find link and it was pretty easy:

• 12 plum tomatoes
• few sprigs thyme
• Half cup extra virgin olive oil
• Salt & pepper

Heat oven to 200 degrees F.  Line baking tray with foil.  Skin tomatoes (he suggests coring then making a long cross on other end, worked really well) by plunging into boiling water; as soon as you see peel coming away put them into water bath to prevent cooking and cool enough to handle and peel.  Cut in half length ways. Put cut side up onto tray, drizzle oil over them, making sure oil goes into crevices in tomoatoes; scatter thyme and season.  Bake for 5 - 6 hours depending on size.  My tomatoes were pretty large so I did them for 6 hours and honestly, although they were delicious I think they might even have improved with more time.  Do not be tempted to over-season, the long cooking time concentrates the flavours. These will complement all kinds of dishes, we are planning to use the leftovers with some steal tonight.
The Leek bread pudding was absolutely delicious.  I could not find brioche or a pullman loaf the recipe called for, so used challah, which I have used before in bread pudding.  It was very light and pretty rich.  Only thing I would say is that, next time, I would prefer this as a smaller part of the meal rather than the star.  I also thought there could have been more leeks, recipe called for 2 cups, I would try 3 next time. And the last thing is that it is difficult to distribute the leeks evenly when you mix with the bread as per the recipe. I will add the leeks when you do the layers with the bread and cheese next time, I think, put a layer of leeks under the cheese.
I added some roasted vegetables and chicken thighs to the menu.  More of that in next post!

PERFECT LEMON BARS!

Thanks to Elizbeth, she posted this on her blog and she is right, this is the best Lemon Bar Recipe, from Ina Garten. She does a different crust which I also copied and it is excellent. Here it is, with a couple of modifications, sorry we all have our tried and trusted methods! 

    * 2 cups whole wheat flour (this makes it nutty and interesting)

    * 3/4 cup confectioners’ sugar, plus more for dusting

    * 1 tsp salt

    * 2 sticks butter, at room temperature but cool

Pulse the flour and sugar in a food processor and slowly add the butter until crumbly, not quite holding together.  Pat into a 9×13 pan,  put in freezer for about 20 mins, then bake at 350 for 20 minutes or until the edges started to brown. Pour Ina’s filling onto the warm crust and return to the oven for 20-25 minutes.  Cool completely, dust with powder sugar and cut.  I find the few mins in the freezer makes the crust crumblier and more delicious, and does not add time as the filling took about 40 mins to make.  If you are a quicker baker than me then adjust the time in the freezer accordingly!

These freeze really well for 6 weeks or so, max. MIne never last that long! T

STEW FOR A CHILLY WEEKEND!

Have to admit this dish was made a couple of weekends ago when it was really cold, Beef Stew with Herbed Dumplings. I had made this some years ago and lost the recipe then came across it by chance recently, tucked into a cooking book! It was a little more trouble than I thought it was going to be, but worth every minute, it was really excellent. Did enough for 2 meals, of course, as usual it was even better the second time around. Couple of tips for the second meal, the dumplings did not re-heat well, do enough to eat with the first meal only. Make sure the portion you keep to re-heat has a bit more juices/gravy than you would normally have as it does seem to disappear.

BANANA BREAD

This has been a family favourite for a while. Had a glut of bananas recently (Alan and I really should talk to each other when we both food shop!) and decided to try a different recipe. Leelee had mentioned that she had made Banana Bread and it was fantastic and I always think mine is pretty good, not fantastic! So, went to my usual source, Epicurious.com and found this recipe with rave reviews. Sorry Aunty Elaine who supplied the passed down, family recipe, I think I am going to be making this new one from now on!

UPDATE: Having made this many times now I have a few notes:

• It is really important to have really ripe bananas and to mash them, not just chop them.  I have learned the hard way!  I found it affects the cooking time a lot if the bananas are not ripe enough, the less ripe the bananas are the less cooking time you need. Once I realised this is seems pretty logical as the riper they are the moister they are.

• Even if you have overripe bananas, you need to cook it for less time than the recipe says.  Hard to say exactly how much less as my 2 loaf pans are both a different size from what this calls for, but probably at least 15 minutes before the given time I would take it out and check it.

• the order of the recipe annoys me.  First, turn on the oven, immediately put the walnuts in to roast.  Then whisk the eggs and sugar which takes 10 minutes,  during which time you can be sifting the flour etc.
• I added an improvement by accident one day!  I had mashed the bananas in 2 bowls, I think Joseph was helping when he was little.  Anyway, once I had put the mixture into the loaf pans I spotted the bowl with half of the bananas that I had not yet added.  Improvising, I added them at that point, scattered them across the top of the loaf and used a knife to mix them in as best I could.  The whole family LOVED these loaves, they had extra gooey bits of banana through the middle and that's how I have made them ever since.  I have often wondered how many wonderful dishes have been created or improved by accidents.

Apart from that it is still my go-to banana bread recipe!

BEFORE THE CAKE......

Harlan's party was at lunchtime and I made 2 chillis, meat and pinto bean. They were fine, I asked Dave to do a salad to go with and he came up with this spectacular and delicious one which was devoured pretty quickly.

ROAST BEETROOT SALAD, WITH APPLES, ARUGULA, GOAT CHEESE AND SPICED PECANS.

We roasted the beets the night before in a little orange juice. Peeled, cored and sliced the apples then did this fancy trick: bring pan of water to the boil, add a pinch of saffron, it will turn water bright yellow. Cool water right down then marinate apple slices for about half an hour. Does not affect flavour much but turns them a gorgeous light yellow and stops them from turning brown between making and serving the salad, genius! He roasted the pecans in honey, 350 degrees for about 12 mins (watch them, they burn easily!), prepared a largish bowl with some sugar and cayenne pepper to put nuts into immediately when they came out of the oven. Tossed them in the sugar and pepper. The dressing was simple too, olive oil, white balsamic, little honey and salt and pepper. It was so good I did a version of it 4 days later on Christmas Eve........

HARLAN'S FIRST BIRTHDAY!

Pros and cons to everything: having Harlan's birthday on the 23rd Dec means that they were visiting for Christmas and we could celebrate together. Chelsey did a great job with a 'Were the Wild Things Are' theme. She found a cake on a party website that was easy enough and I offered to make it. Have to admit I used Duncan Hines mix, Devils food cake, I think. Have been using this for years, started when I asked a friend and excellent caterer for a chocolate cake recipe (I found that the English cake recipes I had seemed not to work so well over here????!!!!). Anyway, knowing it was for Joseph's 5th birthday party she recommended Duncan Hines and I have used them many times since. His birthday is a couple of days after Christmas, another excuse for using a shortcut! The frosting (icing to me!) is the recipe my mother used when I was little, start with soft butter and beat in confectioners sugar til it tastes right, add flavouring and colouring as desired. I was pretty happy with how it turned out and Harlan seemed to enjoy his first birthday cake.

ANNA'S FAVOURITE APPETISER

We are lucky enough to be included in the L'Archevesque family Thanksgiving celebration. This year it was hosted by Lee and Anna, who used to do it until Kara took it over a few years ago. Anna was very clear with my task, Savoury Cheese Palmiers with Ham. This is in the Delia Christmas book and I have been making them for years as I like them too, and so does Joseph! They are really a fancy version of cheese straws with the addition of Parma Ham. This year for the first time I did some with black olives too for the vegetarians. I was pretty pleased with them and I could have made more, the carnivores liked both versions! I have not yet found the recipe on Delia's site, I will keep looking or write it out myself, the recipe part is easy. Putting them together is a little fiddly and have to admit, time consuming. But enjoyable for me and satisfying when I get lots of compliments on them!