Croutons

Its lad again, I got in from school and decided to make dinner. I made a simple stuffed jacket potato meal with a salad. So to make the salad have a better flavour and texture I just made a few croutons. These are very basic to make but some people find them a bit dull so i decided to add interest to them as detailed below.

All you need is;

• A couple of slices of bakery style bread
• 2 cloves of garlic
• Couple pinches mixed herbs
• olive oil

Then to make them you simply;

1. Cut the bread into equal bite size pieces.
2. Heat oil in a large frying pan.
3. When oil is slightly hot add the garlic, it can be crushed or sliced, and it should start to sizzle.
4. Add the bread and it might stop sizzling so turn it up a bit so it sizzles again, add herbs.
5. Wait for them to crisp and brown and serve on top of the salad with a nice italian dressing.

Sauce Anglaise

The real way to make the best custard! Take the time to master this classic sauce, it really is worth all the effort.

Ingredients


3 Egg yolks
65g Caster Sugar
250ml Milk
Half a Vanilla pod

Method

1. Pour milk into a pan on a gentle heat, scrape out sticky centre of the vanilla pod and add to the milk along with the outer pod casing.
2. Place egg yolks and sugar in a bowl and beat until creamy in colour and thickened to leave a "ribbon" trail.
3. When the milk and vanilla mix is just coming to a simmer, remove from heat.
4. Gradually pour a small quantity of the milk onto the egg mixture and beat in thoroughly.
5. Continue to add the hot milk gradually until all is incorporated.
6. Pour the complete mix to the pan, and stirring continuously return to the heat.
7. Keep stirring until the mixture begins to thicken and coats the back of the wooden spoon. DO NOT ALLOW TO BOIL.
8. When the mixture shows the first sign of coming to the boil, remove from heat, keep stirring and pass the sauce through a sieve into a clean cool bowl.
9. Keep stirring until the sauce stops steaming, cover and place in fridge until needed.

Serve cold with a range of desserts to add a light but rich elegant and complimentary taste.

Rinse the vanilla pod casing, allow to air dry for a couple of days and place in your caster sugar container to make vanilla sugar.

Home made vanilla ice cream

Forget tubs of insipid synthetic tasting ice creams when you can recreate the taste of real dairy ice cream using just a few basic ingredients. We were inspired to make this when we found an ice cream maker on offer locally at a price too low to refuse! You will need to master the skills involved in making a sauce anglaise first but once you have done this you have the base on which to make memorable ice creams with the added benefits of having a sauce that is delightful to use in its own right.


Ingredients


1 Quantity of Sauce anglaise (see sauce anglaise recipe)
250 ml Double Cream

Method

1. Follow instructions for your ice cream maker. The one we used needed the bowl to be frozen for 24 hours first.

2. Set up ice cream maker and switch on. When paddle is turning pour in the sauce anglaise.

3. When this begins to freeze and thicken lightly, pour in the cream. 

4. Continue churning until the ice cream is thick and frozen. 

5. Remove ice cream from machine. Place in plastic container and put this in the freezer.

6. If ice cream has been frozen for some time remove

 from freezer for approx 15 minutes before use.

ENJOY

Cannelloni and Wild Garlic

Hey its Lad here, i got in from a pleasant day at school and decided I wanted to make a pasta dish. So before Dad arrived I started making a 3 egg pasta recipe. Then Dad arrived with a bag full of wild garlic he was given and took some pictures. I then thought as I had the pasta I may as well use it so I thought humm.... Love cannelloni but never made it lets have a go. So found a brilliant recipe for cannelloni. To make it we got all the ingredients prepared.  I started off making a Béchamel sauce which was just the basic sauce but I added some nutmeg for extra flavour. Then when that was made I made a sauce using passata, the wild garlic we were given, and some cheese. We then put the pasta through the pasta rollers, cut it into lasagne sized sheets, topped with the filling of ricotta cheese, sun dried tomatoes and more garlic, then rolled it all up into a classic cannelloni shape. It was then simple we put the cannelloni in a casserole dish, added about half of the béchamel sauce and then passata sauce then add the rest of béchamel sauce on top. Then simply top off with parmesan shavings and a splash of olive oil, place in the oven and cook until golden, and serve. Enjoy.

As we made home made pasta we had some left over, rather than wasting it we decided to make tagliatelle as you can see from the pictures. So expect a recipe with tagliatelle soon...

The bag of wild garlic had barely been touched and the gentle aroma of the early spring  in the lakes was filling the kitchen, so a quickly chopped onion or two sauté in some butter along with grated potato gave the perfect base to a wild garlic soup. Once softened, the garlic leaves were chopped and added, then covered with chicken stock to cook out. A quick whizz in the blender, a splash of milk and boom.....the perfect spring soup

How To Chop An Onion

The Onion and The Knife

Here is another video tutorial, it is just on how to chop an onion as onions are in pretty much every meal we have. Again it tell's you the instructions as you go along so you can cut while listening. Hopefully this will save many a tear in your preparations!

            

Broccoli

Is it two c's or is it two l's it makes no difference when your broccoli is fresh from the garden and in season. What can make a difference is perhaps the way we cook it so here we offer a few simple ideas to add extra interest without compromising the fresh taste of the broccoli itself.

Our Home Grown Broccoli

Simply boil your broccoli in salted water for 1 minute then drain. Heat a wok and add a little sunflower oil, toss in some sliced garlic cook for about 10 seconds then add the hot broccoli and toss together for about 15 seconds then serve and enjoy.

For other options just repeat the above but use a finely chopped, fresh ginger, or red pepper, bacon or chilli to taste.

Risotto

This is our first recipe for you, a very tasteful risotto. Once you master the basic principles of risotto you can easily vary the outcome by simply changing a few ingredients, for example the meats, vegetables or herbs to suit what you have to use.  This gives a great meal in about 40 minutes. The recipe we have used here has a good balance of ingredients resulting in a creamy, mild and satisfying herby risotto.

Ingredients-Serves 4

1 Onion

2 Sticks Celery

Our Risotto

2 Carrots

2 tbsp Olive Oil

4 Rashers Back Bacon or 50g Pancetta

60g Chorizo, thinly sliced

250g Arborio Rice

2 cloves Garlic

Approx 1lt Chicken Stock

40g Peas 

40g Broad Beans

20g Button Mushrooms

30g Butter

40g Grated Parmesan

A good bunch chopped fresh herbs

Salt and Pepper

Method

1. Weigh out frozen items, peas, broad beans and prawns place in separate containers.

2. Chop onion, carrot and celery into small dice. Peel and slice garlic thinly, slice mushrooms. Place into separate containers ready to use.

3. Peel chorizo and slice. Cut bacon into small pieces.

4. Heat oil in a deep pan, add chopped onion, garlic, celery and carrot. Allow to cook gently for 2 minutes, do not colour.

5. Add bacon and allow to cook until pink and sealed. Add chorizo cook for 1 minute.

6. Add the rice, cook for about 2 minutes stirring with a wooden spoon, until the rice becomes  opaque, do not allow vegetables or rice to colour.

7. Add mushrooms and cook for 1 minute to soften. Add enough stock to just cover rice, bring to boil and turn down to simmer.

8. Simmer gently and cook until stock is absorbed, add more stock to just cover rice again. Stir continuously. Repeat as needed until the rice expands and you have a glossy, sticky sauce and the rice has lost its chalky texture.

9. Add your broad beans cook for 1 minute, add peas and prawns and cook out for 2 minutes. 

10. Check that the rice has become tender and a sticky sauce is in evidence.

11. Put pan to one side, add the butter, herbs and Parmesan, allow to melt and stir into risotto. Check seasoning add salt and pepper if required.

12. Serve on warm plates and enjoy.

Dad and Lad

Welcome to our first blog.