A Spoonful of Sugar

Apologies for the lack of entries recently; I haven't felt like cooking anything new or inventive! We've been relying on old favourites that I can cook without having to actually employ any brain-power. One such recipe is my favourite: meatballs!

This recipe started life as a WeightWatchers recipe, and it's still fairly healthy despite some tweaking by me. I'm not sure how authentic it is, but it certainly has all the boldness of flavour that I'd expect from a proper Italian recipe. I decided to try adding some parmesan to the meatball mixture (in addition to the copious amounts that we sprinkle over the finished dish) and was pleasantly surprised at how well it worked out. The cheese flavour wasn't overly pervasive; just nice and subtle and really worked well with the meat.

I've tried numerous meatball recipes in a rather circular quest for the perfect meatballs. This recipe was the first one I ever tried and I was certain that there had to be even better meatballs out there. After trying recipes from Cooking Light, Epicurious, various obscure cookbook from my bookcase and even Marcella Hazan's I think I can safely say that these are my perfect meatballs!

Every November we go to a Firework Party at a friends house. It gets crazier and crazier each year; this year the highlight was an immense 150-shot firework which seemed to light up the entire city. It was probably best viewed from several miles away.... Next year we really should rent a field or something.

As we don't bring along fireworks (we really couldn't compete!), I usually bring along dessert. In past years I've brought brownies, tiffin, and my ultimate chocolate chip cookies. This year I wanted to do cookies again, but I was a bit bored with my usual choc-chip ones, so I thought I'd try something new. Jeanne made White Chocolate & Macadamia Nut Cookies for the first Sugar High Friday event which looked gorgeous. The recipe size was a bit too big for me though, so I made my own version based around the amount of butter I had in the fridge. I didn't use any brown sugar as I wanted a very blonde cookie with both the chocolate and nut flavours standing out. This made for a crisper cookie (adding brown sugar to cookies is a great way to ensure that they're chewy). I also added extra chocolate chips as I'm greedy.

The cookies were a big hit! We left with a box of twenty-five cookies and came back home with four. Alas, I forgot to take a picture of the big mound of cookies (it really was very impressive). Now I need to start thinking about holiday cookies for the next IMBB...

I've had a pack of pistachios lying around since the time I got an urge to make pistachio gelato (which came to nothing as I couldn't find a good recipe). Anyway, whilst flicking through Sally Schneider's "A New Way To Cook" yesterday, I came across a section on Nut Cakes. A pile of lovely, fragrant pistachio cakes suddenly seemed like a good idea.

Sally gives lots of potential variations for nut cakes in the recipe ranging from the obvious one of varying the nuts (she also recomments almonds, pecans, hazelnuts) to adding wet and dry flavour enhancements (liqueurs, essences, zests, cocoa powder, espresso powder etc etc). I'm thinking that an almond cake with some orange zest and a drop of orange oil would be really, really nice next time....

I chose to add some cocoa powder as I really like the combination of chocolate and pistachio. The cakelets turned out really well. Both flavours came through really well but I think they would have benefited from the addition of some chocolate extract. I rememebered about the bottle in the cupboard just as they went into the oven! Don't expect the cakelets to be fudgy though, they're fairly dry due to the low fat levels. Still yummy though!

It's time for another edition of "Sugar High Fridays", the sweet-toothed sister event to "Is My Blog Burning?". This month's theme is very seasonal, apples!

My first thought was baked apples stuffed with mincemeat (I'm still working my way through a huge jar), but then I remembered coming across an article on Amish Apple Dumplings which sounded both simple and delicious. The apples are filled with a mixture of butter and sugar, then baked within the confines of a pastry shell. I suppose it's rather like an individual apple pie.... Dave was quite keen on the idea too, so that settled it.

There are quite a lot of recipes for baked apple dumplings online; after looking at a few it all got rather bewildering. So, I made up my own.

The apples were gorgeous; really sweet, buttery, juicy and spicy. The pastry kept almost all the juices in and surprisingly it didn't go soggy! I don't think there was quite enough spicing though, so next time I'd probably up the spice mix to a full teaspoon. We ate the apples with plenty of single cream, but it would be equally as nice with vanilla ice-cream, maple syrup or a butterscotch sauce. I'm looking forward to investigating the possibilities!

I'm playing catch-up again; I made this yummy pizza for dinner a few weeks ago. The recipe comes from The Surreal Gourmet, who is indeed, very surreal. If you haven't heard of him, check out his site for delights such as Dishwasher Poached Salmon with Piquant Dill Sauce....

Once the dough is made, this pizza is really quick and easy to assemble. I really liked being able to just slosh some hoisin sauce onto the crust instead of slaving over the stove making tomato or BBQ sauce! Using ready-cooked chicken was also a real time-saver. If you were to use ready-rolled pizza dough then this would make a perfect week-night dinner.

We both really liked the pizza. The hoisin sauce combined with the chicken and the veggies gave it a real sweet & sour flavour. I'll definitely be making it again and again.

I'm a huge fan of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, and so, when "Nanny Ogg's Cookbook" was published in 1999 I squealed and jumped around madly. Nanny Ogg is simply wonderful. I want to be just like her when I grow up; sitting around watching my daughters-in-law doing all the housework, making endless double entendres out of anything, drinking scumble (mostly made from apples) and singing very ribald songs.

Nanny Ogg has (with some small assistance from Messrs Pratchett, Briggs, Kidby, and Ms Hannan) produced a lovely cookbook in the grand tradition of Mrs Beeton. Following some select recipes (including Dwarf Cookery - not cooking actual dwarves, I hasten to add), there is a substantial discourse upon ettiquette. Essential reading for all; in particular, the love letters section contains some very sage advice. Alas, it lacks any advice on housework. I'll just have to ensure that future daughters-in-law are particularly talented in that area.

Despite owning this marvellous tome since it's publication day, I've only cooked one recipe (until today of course; now it's two [proving that I can indeed count]): Sergeant Angua's Vegetable Stew with Dumplings. I remember this as being excellent. And so it should be, afterall, a vegetarian werewolf who likes to cook, would (I imagine) spend hours in the kitchen tryin' to make something tasty enough to tempt her wolf side away from humans....

Today's Howondaland Curry was a real success. (For the uninitiated, Howondaland is vaguely Africa/south India when compared to Roundworld (i.e. Earth).) It looked like curry, it tasted like curry (with lots of coconut flavour) and I particularly liked the adjustable heat from reserving some chopped chillis and stirring them in at the end. We both had seconds, which was really rather greedy as it was supposed to serve four.

Enthused by this success, I'm now planning to make "Strawberry Wobbler" (guaranteed to raise a laugh), "Nanny Ogg's Maids of Honour" (take your eyes off 'em and they end up as tarts) and "Klatchian Delight".

If you haven't encountered PTerry's books before, then I highly recommend them. Most folks say to start with "Small Gods", but I reckon they're best read from the beginning with "The Colour of Magic". "Nanny Ogg's Cookbook" should suit any cookbook lover with a good sense of humour or love of the kitsch.

I made this cake on Sunday as a way to finish off the ginger I had left-over from the Howondaland Curry. The recipe comes from Epicurious.com, and I've had it stored in my personal recipe box there for quite a while as it seemed like a promising taste combination.

Alas, this just didn't work. I should have thrown it away after the batter seemed to curdle irretrievably after stirring in the blended ginger-sugar mixture. Things went further downhill once the lemon juice was stirred in. Astonishingly, neither the lemon nor the ginger flavour came through properly. An entirely new flavour seemed to have been created, and I'm not sure that I like it.

The texture was a problem too: crumbly with coarse crumbs rather than the fine, dense crumb that pound cake should have. The glaze was the best thing about the cake, although, how wrong can you go with icing sugar and lemon juice?

I'm probably being overly harsh though. Dave says that he really likes the cake and he didn't have any problems with any lingering aftertastes or the texture. Maybe I should have sent him off to work with the remainder!

On Saturday I made a huge bowl of hummus, and promptly amazed myself with how gorgeous it was as compared to shop-bought ones. I always intend to make it myself but never seem to get around to it.... This time, however, I was determined!

The recipe I used came from Sally Schneider's "A New Way To Cook" and is a slightly reduced-fat version of traditional hummus. (This recipe makes loads, by the way.) Alas, once I'd finished blitzing it in the food processor I decided that it wasn't quite to my tastes and wound up processing in more lemon juice and some extra-virgin olive oil to create a thick, tangy puree.

I'll definitely add toasted cumin and coriander when I next make hummus, but I'll probably improvise all the other quantities. I'm thinking now that there's little point in having a rigid recipe for hummus - everyone seems to like it made in different ways. A vague method would be much better!

I eat a lot of ice-cream (a slight understatement, you understand) but I rarely get around to making my own. In fact, my poor ice-cream machine has been shoved to the back of a cupboard since we moved house in March! Earlier this week I decided to sort through the freezer and make some room for the ice-cream machine (the amount of freezer space needed for the cannister is another reason why the machine has languished in the cupboard)....

Of all the various types of ice-cream the world has to offer (sorbet, water-ice, granita, parfait, kulfi, French ice-cream, Italian gelato etc), my absolute favourite is gelato. Gelato is best defined by Marcella Hazan, who states in The Essentials of Classic Italian Cookery,

[...]to me it is hardly density that characterises it, but lightness and freshness of flavour. There is far less far, less cream, fewer eggs and no butter in gelato. It is never oversweet or overrich.

This really does sum-up gelato in my opinion. Technically it is denser than classical French ice-cream, but due to it's simplicity and fresh flavours you never notice this denseness. It sings upon the tongue.

Marcella's Banana-Rum Gelato is the easiest and quickest gelato in the world. Due to the richness of the bananas, you can get away with using skimmed milk which makes this quite suitable for dieters. I always add a teaspoon of lemon juice so that the banana doesn't darken during churning. If you're very keen you can halve the bananas length-wise and scoop out the seeds with a teaspoon to ensure that the ice-cream isn't speckled.

I had a disastrous cooking session on Thursday when I decided to make my cookies for this month's IMBB (hosted by Jennifer, she's having a busy month!). I had decided to make some German Cinnamon Star Cookies from a recipe that I'd clipped out of a magazine a couple of years ago. The recipe looked quite reasonable (and beautiful - the cookies were supposed to have a snowy white baked meringue topping) and I couldn't see any reason why it shouldn't work, so I hunted high and low for some star cutters (this is a tale in it's own right, and a lesson as to why you should call shops before you set out on a cold day) and went for it.

Alas, my cookies looked decidedly amaturish. I think a toddler could have done a better job - I bet the points wouldn't have fallen off their stars.... The meringue topping was supposed to develop a crust which would allow you to cut the cookies cleanly; however, after letting the dough sit on the counter for the maximum of 3 hours my dough wasn't exactly crusty. I let it sit for as long as I dared before giving in and just cutting it. The cookies looked thoroughly miserable, sitting on the baking sheet with trailing lines of meringue everywhere.... I had to stick the points back on the big stars I'd cut, and the shooting stars looked more like palm trees. At least the holly leaves looked vaguely recognisable.

The cookies did taste good once baked - there was a very strong cinnamon flavour in the base, toned down slightly with ground almonds and candied citrus peel with a lemon-y meringue on top. However, they just looked plain awful. Especially the ones that scorched in the second I looked away from the oven. And even worse than their looks, was the mess they left behind in the kitchen.

So, yesterday I decided to make something else. Something much less fiddly that definitely didn't involve cutters. I wound up making "Phoebe's Fabulous Oatmeal-Raisin Cookies" from the Friends Cookbook. If you've forgotten the episode (or have just never seen it), here's what Phoebe has to say about her cookies:

Last Wednesday I visited our local Farmers Market with my friend Sarah and came back laden down with goodies. Our village has a Farmers Market on the second Wednesday of each month and sometimes we get a visit from a travelling French Market. I was sad to hear that the French Market won't be back before Christmas; I wanted to stock up on Fleur De Sel.

Our first stop was the Olive & Things stand. They have a fantastic range of marinated olives as well as sundried tomatoes, giant butter-beans in a thick tomato sauce and pickled garlic. I ended up buying a small tub of pickled garlic which has a nice sweet and sour tang to it, as well as a fantastic crunch! I haven't decided what I'm going to do with it yet, so suggestions are very welcome!

We then pottered around the corner to a stall run by our local beekeeper. This was a surprise as I had no idea we had one! I suppose I should feel bad about swatting so many bees this summer.... They had a wide range of honeys, some infused with sprigs of herbs and others with walnuts or almonds. I was more interested in their selection of jams and jellies though.

After sampling lots of different plum jams I settled upon one infused with all the lovely flavours of mulled wine. Very seasonal. I also picked up a jar of apple jelly (amazing on ordinary toast and sublime when spread on cinnamon raisin bread!) and also a jar of quince jelly. Quince is still a novelty fruit for me; I've had Membrillo (Spanish quince paste) which I adored but I've yet to actually find any of the fruit on sale anywhere.... I'm beginning to think that it's a mythical fruit.

Whilst Sarah sampled chutneys I strolled over to Antonio & Co's stand to taste their olive oils. After a very involved conversation about the evils of Bertolli and receiving numerous assurances that their olive oil was really from olives grown in Puglia and processed there too, I bought a largeish bottle of organic extra-virgin. They have a wide range of oils; from organic first-pressing extra-virgin oil to some nice light oil for every-day cooking.

For the past few months I've found myself staring in some considerable perplexion at a large can of crushed pinapple in my larder. I had no idea when I bought it, let alone why I bought it. This week I finally found a recipe to use it up: Pineapple Muffins. They sounded a bit odd but turned out to be absolutely gorgeous!

The recipe comes from Susan Reimer's "Muffins: Fast and Fantastic", one of the best single-subject cookbooks around. Due to the thorough draining that the crushed pineapple needs, the recipe is a little more time-consuming than normal. It's definitely worth the additional work. I tossed about 30g of dessicated coconut into the batter as I can't resist trashy flavour combinations....

I've never made such tender muffins before. Using half milk/pineapple juice created a really tender crumb. The pineapple flavour wasn't overwhelming, despite the large amount used. The best bit was definitely the top crust where there was a strong pina colada flavour. Bliss. The muffins kept spectacularly well; two days on and they still taste just as good. Quite astonishing for muffins!