Pea and lettuce

This is a Jamie Oliver dish and it is surprisingly yummy. I say surprisingly because I was not sure how cooked lettuce would taste. Turns out, it tastes mighty fine. Jamie's recipe called for gem lettuce (which I think is baby cos lettuce) - but all I had was iceberg and it worked nicely. Jamie has other versions of this approach on his site - ie braised peas with spring onion. I'm also thinking that when summer comes along doing this with fresh peas, and adding in some fresh greens from the garden would also be pretty cool - there could be endless tweaks to the flavour. Imagine this with lemony sorrell and some fish... mmm yum - there will be experimentations I am sure!

Ingredients

a knob of butter
1 tbs flour
300ml chicken stock
400gm peas and 1 tbs mint leaves OR a 400g bag of mint peas
3 handfuls of finely sliced lettuce

Method

put the butter, flour and stock in a pan and stir until it makes a bubbling golden sauce. Add in the peas, mint, and lettuce, and cook until the veggies are tender. If you see your sauce drying up reduce your heat and add a splash more stock.

Easy peasy!! (yes, I went there!)

Monte Carlos

Love love love these biscuits! The recipe I used didn't specify how big to make the biscuits, so we ended up with rather large biscuits - but they tasted great nonetheless.  I was a bit worried they might have been a bit dry, but they were perfectly cooked & with a lovely soft melt in the mouth crumble. Next time I shall make try to make them in teaspoonsize balls. We used my homemade raspberry jam for this, which is tarter than store bought jam, and the tart fruitiness of the jam worked beautifully against the smooth creaminess of the buttercream and biscuit.

Ingredients

185g butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 1/4 cups self-raising flour
3/4 cup plain flour
1/2 cup coconut
raspberry jam

Filling

60g butter
3/4 cup icing sugar
vanilla
2 tsps milk

Method

cream butter and sugar until fluffy, add egg and vanilla. Add sifted dry ingredients and coconut, mix well. Roll into balls, place on lightly greased tray, and roughen surgace with a fork. Bake in a moderate oven 10-15 minutes. Remove to cool.

Filling

cream butter and blend in remaining ingredients, using just enough milk to make mixture spreadable.

To assemble

spread one biscuit with jam, the other with buttercream filling. Sandwich together. Serve with tea or milk, and sigh with happines!

Roast Beef with Yorkshire Puddings

Last night I made roast beef with yorkshire puddings - mmmm - it was very yummy. I had made roast beef before, but had never made Yorkshire puddings. When I saw the recipe for them on the  Jamie Oliver site, I knew I had to try them. I'm glad I did because, like all of his recipes (or at least the ones I have tried), they are delicious!!

Roast beef
Get a 1kg piece of roasting beef
Slather it in mustard
Chop up some chives, rosemary, and roll the roast in it. Preheat oven to 240°C . Place the beef in theheated oven, reduce heat to 200°C and cook for an hour for medium beef. Cook another 15mins for well done.

If you want roast veg, you can cook them with the beef.

Yorkshire puddings
2 large free-range eggs
100g plain flour
100ml milk

Put a muffin or cupcake pan in a 200°C oven.
Mix the ingredients to a runny batter.
Take out the hot pan from the oven. Drizzle some olive oil (or you can use the fat from roast beef etc if you have some and aren't making gravy) into the pan, then fill each about halfway with the batter. Place back in the oven and cook for 15minutes.

Gravy
Once you have removed all the meat and veg from the roasting pan place it on the stove at low heat. Add a dash of water to deglaze the pan, and a tablespoon of cornflour and whisk until the gravy is the consistency you desire. If you need more water you can add it at any time. Note - you can also use wine or brandy to deglaze the pan.

Rose Cream

I admit it - I made cupcakes from a cake mix. I did, however, top them with a wickedly delicious rose cream made out of my very own roses. It had such a lovely taste - creamy, and slightly turkish delighty. Very nice. I think this would make a delicious pannacotta too - one day I might get around to trying it.

Ingredients 
2 handfuls rose petals
125g sugar
500ml cream

Method
In a mortar and pestle pound the rose petals and sugar together until they form a paste. Add to the cream and beat until firm. Top your cake/cupcake/pudding with the cream and enjoy.

NB: You can add a bit of food colouring to make the cream look pinker if you wish. If you don't have any rose petals, or you want a stronger taste of rose, a few drops of rosewater will add more flavour.