Mmmm... Muffins

I used to love a bit of cake but these days I can sit and watch the family tuck in without a twinge of jealousy. Honest. But today I found a recipe in a cutting my mother sent me years ago, when I was looking for a proper muffin recipe - not a fairy cake/cupcake-like textured cake, but a cake with the soft, yumminess of a good old-fashioned muffin. The kind our grandmothers may have had lurking in a tin for when we came in from play. I'm going to test it out on my grandchildren soon, but I'm going to do a small gluten free batch, too. Nostalgia got me!


So blueberry muffins it is.

I bought blueberries from A**a the other day. What a disappointment. They're too big, they lack 'bloom', has but a hint of blueberry flavour and they don't stain your fingers, lips and teeth! What's the fun in that?
Perhaps tinned ones will have more authenticity about them? I'll try those first, and report back. Failing that, dried ones - or frozen. Or I could nip over to Norway in season and find one of my old blueberry patches - or perhaps not. That's taking it a bit too far, I suppose.

For the gluten free recipe, you'll need:

200 g margarine or butter
250ml sugar
3 eggs
400 ml all purpose gluten free flour
1 tsp Xanthan Gum (gluten replacement)
1 1/2 tsp gluten free baking powder
15 ml single cream
Fresh, frozen - or dried blueberries

Paper cases

Whisk margarine/butter and sugar together until the mixture is light, then add the eggs, one at a time, so the mix becomes light and fluffy (not at all like my 'chuck everything together and whisk it up, is it?). Add the dry ingredients - sifted if you want to do it as most recipes will tell you (I never do as I'm told, then stir in the cream.

Fill the paper cases 3/4 full and sprinkle blueberries on top.
Bake in the middle of the oven, in pre-heated oven 225 C, or 200 C Fan assisted, for 10 minutes.

Place on tray and keep the little fingers off until they are cool enough to eat - and serve with homemade cordial. Or the shop kind in a jug, and pretend you made it.

PS Himself suggested that we grow our own blueberries. Watch this space.

More to come, very soon

More to come very soon. I'm working on soups. The stomach problem means blended soups are the best food,and a glut of certain garden vegetables dictates the recipes - and not a potato in sight. Delicious.

Time to Catch Up and Post up The Christmas Menu (in April!)

I had Christmas recipes to post up, but got waylaid, and once Christmas was over, an attack of Gastritis put me right off course. This is me catching up, posting the Christmas Menu that was published in The Writelinker Magazine in their inaugural issue. Each of the recipes can be used at any time of year anyway. In fact, I use the starter recipe regularly as a main course for myself, as I can only take small portions. Yummy.

A Simple Light Starter for the Christmas Menu

We didn’t have Starters back home – at least not in our house. I’m sure my parents – or at least my mother – would enjoy the full three course meal at the Bank functions they had to attend a couple of times a year, but it never filtered through to our more simple and homely menu.
We don’t have starters as a rule here in Church House either, and there’s never room for pudding till much later in the day – and by that time it’s time for the next meal – so the pudding gets left behind. My other half often enjoys his Christmas pudding at the end of the Christmas season, rather than on Christmas Day itself. However, with a lighter choice of menu – such as this one – I think there’s ample room for both starter and dessert.



Portobello Mushroom with Spinach Starter

This recipe serves 2. Just double the quantities to serve 4.
2 Portobello Mushrooms (make sure they’re nicely rounded)
1 white or red onion, finely sliced
Enough finely chopped spinach for two mushrooms. If you use frozen spinach, use 3 ‘portions’.
40 g (1 ½ oz) grated hard, creamy goats cheese
Parmezano (lactose free version of Parmesan cheese) to sprinkle
A little lemon juice
Seasoning to taste
1 tsp sugar

Remove stalk from mushrooms. Steam spinach till softened, or add a little water and cook for 4 minutes on full power (from frozen) in the microwave. Make sure you squeeze the spinach well to get rid of excess water, before adding a dash of fresh lemon juice to taste – and seasoning if required (I didn’t add any).
Fry onions until tender in a little olive oil. Add 1 tsp sugar and continue to cook until slightly caramelised.
Divide the caramelised onion between the two mushrooms, followed by the spinach. Top with grated goats cheese and sprinkle with Parmezano (or Parmesan).
Place in oven proof ceramic dish in pre-heated oven. 180C if fan assisted. Cook until cheese is lightly browned.
A light and tasty starter, leaving ample room for the Main Course.

Tip: A muffin tray/pan is just the right size if cooking 4 mushrooms.

Did you know that… Portobello Mushroom is just the mature version of the common closed cup cultivated mushroom, after it has turned brown and opened up?
Another interesting fact, and one to note, is that edible mushrooms, when raw, contains certain carcinogenic properties/derivatives. These compounds are fortunately reduced significantly when cooked.
A daily portion of fresh, cooked mushrooms have also been shown to reduce the risk of developing breast cancer (despite the above statement), and also to have possible immune enhancing properties.



A Tasty Main Course for the Non-Meat Eater: The Nut Roast

The Nut Roast may seem like a fairly new arrival on the menu, but it’s not as new as all that. Growing up in a mainly vegetarian household, you’d have thought I would have been aware of this culinary delight – but not so. My mother could make wonderful dishes with the more common vegetables, but my father’s first taste of nut roast was on a visit to us, here in Wales. Here he had his first vege burgers, too, and cauliflower grills, but it wasn’t long before they became commonly available back home, too.
So when did Nut Roast enter the scene? I have tried to trace its roots (picking the odd ground-nut as I did!), but I can’t find any references to it beyond a century or so ago. I’m sure if I dug deeper, I would find some reference way back in history – at least I would be surprised not to – but we have to suffice with the knowledge that it became a common dish because of rationing, and the lack of meat – as well as little money – after the First World War.


Nut Roast

1 onion, finely chopped
1 tbsp butter or margarine
1 small courgette, finely chopped
1 tomato, finely chopped
1 tbsp tomato purée
1 ½ tsp brown gluten free flour, or rye flour
150 ml (1/4 pint) vegetable stock
1 ½ tsp yeast extract (such as Marmite)
2 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
75g (3 oz) ground almonds
75g (3 oz) cashew nut butter (or peanut butter)
100 g (4 oz) gluten free bread crumbs, or gluten free oat flakes
Season if required. I don’t think it’s needed, because of the strong taste of the Marmite.

Preheat oven to 180C (fan assisted). Grease a 1 lb loaf tin (line if not non-stick).
Melt butter in medium sized, thick bottomed saucepan. Gently fry onions in butter until softened, then add chopped courgette and tomato. Continue to cook until the courgette begins to soften, too. Add tomato purée, stir. Sprinkle on flour, cook while stirring for a further minute, then add stock and bring to the boil. Stir, then simmer until the mixture thickens nicely. Remove from heat and add the rest of the ingredients, combining well.
Turn into the greased loaf tin and bake for 45-60 minutes, until firm when the top is pressed, and slightly crisped on top. Done!
Tip: Add an egg to the mixture and use to make nut balls for spag bol dishes. The nut loaf is delicious cold, sliced and used with tomato sauce atop a slice of home made gluten free bread.
It also makes a great addition to the traditional Christmas Dinner, as a portion of alternative stuffing, as my family can attest to.

Did you know that… John Kellogg (one of the brothers Kellogg of Kelloggs Corn Flakes fame) believed that nuts would save mankind as food supplies dwindled? Some of the food products they sold included nut cutlets and nut-based roasts.
Did you also know that… George Bernard Shaw turned vegetarian at the age of 25? Until he was 42 (in 1848) he survived on the vegetable side dishes served with his mother’s meat dishes, which couldn’t have been very inspiring. But – in 1848 he met and married Charlotte Payne-Townshend, who for the next 45 years prepared wonderful vegetarian meals for him, including nut cutlets and nut roasts.
‘The strongest animals, such as the bull, are vegetarians,’ Shaw said. ‘Look at me. I have ten times as much good health and energy as a meat eater.’
When Shaw was 87, Charlotte died, but Charlotte’s nurse. Mrs Alice Laden, stayed on as his housekeeper. In 1971, 21 years after Shaw died, Alice Laden and R J Minney published The George Bernard Shaw Vegetarian Cook Book.
I’d love to get my hands on a copy.

…and then for some Mulled Wine

I’m a not quite teetotaller. At Christmas I like a little something, and what’s more Christmassy than a glass of mulled wine? A little snow on the ground outside, happy voices and children playing, and Christmas is complete.
Take one bottle of Red Wine (a cheap one will do)
100g (4 oz) brown sugar
Juice of two oranges, plus the peel (wash oranges first)
2 cinnamon sticks
½ tsp nutmeg
1 apple (red) sliced in thin slices
A drop of water
In a thick bottomed pan (not aluminium!), bring sugar, orange juice and peel, cinnamon, nutmeg and a drop of water to the boil and simmer gently for about ten minutes. Add the wine and the apple slices and bring back to the boil. Remove from heat and serve hot.

Cheers!



Christmas Day Dessert: A Taste of Nordic Tradition

Back home in Norway we had a particular dessert every Christmas. Not for us the British Christmas Pudding, but the much lighter Rice Cream (not to be confused with creamed rice). The tradition is to make rice porridge the day before Christmas Eve – the day of the Norwegian celebration - and to make a generous portion. One portion for the Christmas dessert and one generous helping for the resident ‘Nissen’ (every farm had one living in their barn), who according to old folk lore had to be given his fair share or he’d turn evil and create havoc and cause bad luck for the farmer and his family. So a big bowl of rice porridge would be left on the step outside the barn, and as they say – the proof of the pudding is in the eating – or the proof that ‘Nissen’ was real, was that the bowl was found licked clean the next day!
You’d never get away from ‘Nissen’ – he’d hitch a ride with your belongings if you tried to move.
‘Nissen’ goes way back in old literature, and was probably originally and elf and part of mythology. At some time during the 19th century he became part and parcel of Christmas and has stayed so ever since. It’s surprising how many non-Christian traditions have become part of the modern Christmas. The Vikings decorated a tree outside their homes at Winter Solstice, long before the country was converted to Christianity.
We didn’t have a farm, or a barn, or a resident ‘Nissen’ to be appeased, but my mother still made rice porridge the day before Christmas Eve – just enough for the dessert after Christmas dinner. I have made this recipe up to serve 4, with a moderate portion for each. My mother served hers with homemade raspberry syrup – I decided to update it and use caramelised pineapple.
So, what’s the difference between rice porridge and rice pudding? Rice porridge is made in a saucepan on the hob and is not as stodgy as rice pudding, but I suppose it’s just a matter of different culinary traditions.




Rice Cream Dessert

Serves 4
Tip: make it the day before Christmas, to save time on the day.
Preparation time negligible. Cooking time: 15-20 minutes.

1 cup pudding rice
3 cups semi-skimmed milk
Sugar to taste

For the Cream: 200-250 ml (1/2 pint pot) of whipping cream
4-5 tsp sugar


To decorate:
4 pineapple rings
Demerara sugar
A little butter or margarine

Bring rice and milk to the boil, turn down heat and simmer for about 15 minutes – or until rice is tender – before adding a little sugar. Don’t make it too sweet, as there is sweetness in the cream and the fruit, too.

Tip: use a larger saucepan than seemingly necessary, to avoid it boiling over if you’re distracted for a moment. It happens!

Set aside to cool, and then chill overnight.

Another tip: sprinkle a little sugar on the top to avoid a ‘skin’ forming, and cover.

On Christmas Day Morning, whip the cream with the sugar till it forms soft peaks (too little whipping and it becomes too runny, too much and it will resemble butter) and put in the fridge to chill, then fry the pineapple rings slightly in the butter/margarine before adding about a tablespoonful of Demerara sugar, sprinkling it over the rings. Continue to fry gently, turning frequently until the rings are nicely caramelised. Cut into small pieces and set aside. For a richer, more decadent flavour, add more butter/margarine and Demerara sugar to the pan and make a caramel sauce to pour over the dessert. Too rich for me, but very nice.
Just before serving give the rice porridge a good stir before carefully combining whipped cream and porridge. Spoon into serving dishes, sundae glasses – or as I did, into red wine glasses – and top with the chopped pineapple.

Serve and enjoy!

Pickled Pumpkin Preserve

It’s Halloween and Pumpkin time. Seeing the photographs of carved pumpkins on a friend’s blog reminded me of my grandfather’s Pickled Pumpkin Preserve. I used to wonder how a pumpkin could be transformed into this delicious accompaniment to cooked meals, but was too young to think of asking for the recipe (he died when I was 12). I have searched for the recipe for years, and now, at last – here’s something akin to the recipe Morfar (Grandad) used to make, if my memory serves me right.

My sister tells me that it was at our other grandparents’ we had pickled pumpkin preserve, and she may well be right. I know Morfar grew pumpkins, and seem to remember eating the preserve with steamed cod at their flat in Oslo, while it was served with cooked ‘gravy’ meals and sometimes used in place of cranberry sauce at our other grandparents’ house. The jury remains out – but the memory of the flavour remains – and I suddenly want some! With oven baked salmon, please.




Pickled Pumpkin Preserve

1 kg (2.2 lb) Pumpkin flesh, cut into pieces 2.5cm cubes (1”cubes)
400ml (15 fl oz) spirit (clear) vinegar
750 g (ca ¾ lb) sugar
50g (2 oz) whole ginger

Cut pumpkin in half and remove all seeds and scrape back to the flesh. Cut into smaller segments, peel carefully and cut into cubes. Peel ginger and chop into a few pieces. This can be removed when the preserve is done.
Bring vinegar, sugar and ginger to the boil and add pumpkin cubes. Simmer till the pumpkin pieces are tender and shiny. Ladle pumpkin into sterilised jars, simmer the vinegar and sugar for another 10-15 minutes, until the mixture thickens. Pour over pumpkin, cool and seal.

How long can I keep it before eating it, I wonder? I reckon Christmas time might be good.

Tip: Pickled Pumpkin Preserve should be kept in a cool, dark place.

Did you know that… the original name for pumpkin was the Greek word ‘pepon’, which means large melon? It then mutated to ‘pompon (French) and ‘pumpion’ (English), before the American colonists changed ‘pumpion’ to ‘pumpkin’. Perhaps it was just the matter of illegible handwriting!

When Shakespeare referred to ‘pumpion’ in ‘Merry Wives of Windsor’, he was referring to ‘pumpkin’ – but you all knew that, didn’t you?

But did you know that... Native Americans dried strips of pumpkin and then wove the strips into mats?

And then of course, when the tradition of Jack-o-Lanterns were brought over to America, the colonists found the native pumpkin to be ideal for making their own version.
The tradition began in Ireland, I believe.

Marit’s Gluten Free Version of Paola’s 5-4-3-2-1 Apple Cake

It’s more to converting a recipe to gluten free than merely replacing ordinary wheat flour with the gluten free kind, so being a little inventive is par for the cause.
In making up this recipe I did have to add a little extra milk, as gluten free flour absorbs liquid quicker than wheat flour. Paola suggested that we could replace some or all of the sugar with honey, or add some pureed apple to the cake mixture. I’ll try that out next time I make the cake.
Paola is right in pointing out that it is a fool proof recipe. I didn’t make any mistakes, and it was so good that I had to make it two days running, to make sure everyone got a taste.

Gluten Free 5-4-3-2-1 Apple Cake

5 tbsp gluten free self raising flour (if you’ve only got plain flour, add an extra 1 tsp of baking powder and 2 med eggs, rather than 1 lge)
4 tbsp Demerara sugar
3 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp semi skimmed milk
1 lge egg
1 tsp baking powder
1 pinch cinnamon
The original called for a pinch of salt, but I avoid using salt in cakes, so omitted it.

For the Topping:

1 apple, peeled, cored and chopped finely (or you could use thin slices)
A little sugar and cinnamon to sprinkle on top of the cake – but be sparing.


Put everything in a bowl and beat well, then pour into an 8”-20cm sandwich tin (greased and dusted with a little gluten free flour). Bake at 180C (fan oven) for ca 25 minutes.


Tip: Use a loose bottomed sandwich tin as this cake is very light and needs to be turned out gently.

Did you know that… The English word ‘cake’ can be traced back to the 13th century and that it derives from the Old Norse word 'kaka' (modern Norwegian = kake).

Gluten Free Banana Loaf with Lemon Icing

Banana Loaf with Lemon Icing

1 cup corn flour
1 cup plain white gluten free flour
1 cup (approx. 5 good tblsps) softened margarine
1 ¼ cup Demerara sugar
2 medium, ripe bananas
3 lge eggs
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla sugar

For the Icing:

4 tblsps icing sugar
Lemon juice to mix (about 1 tblsp)

Cream margarine and sugar together and stir in mashed bananas. I use a good sized mixing bowl, so just mash them against the one side before mixing it all well. Add a little of the flour and stir in the eggs, before adding the rest of the flour together with the baking powder and the vanilla sugar.
Pour into a large, greased 2 lb loaf tin (I like to grease and flour even non-stick tins) and bake at 180C for 1-1 ¼ hour, or until the cake is just firm, and a knife or skewer comes out clean.

Cool for a little while before turning out and mix and add the icing while the cake is still warm.

Tip: For a crunchier icing, use ordinary granulated sugar – or caster sugar - instead of icing sugar and apply to cake while still hot.
This cake is quite fragile, but since making it I have sourced gluten free self raising flour, which have xanthum gum added. This gives the mix back some of the elasticity lost with the removal of gluten. If using self raising flour, just add 1 tsp baking powder instead of the stated 4.

Did you know that… Sir John Mandeville (14th C.) referred to bananas as Apples of Paradise and Long Apples in his manuscript Travels?

A Light Lunch/Cucumber Salad

A Light Lunch/Cucumber Salad

My light lunch did not consist of just cucumber salad. That would be taking the eating snack size meals a bit too far! I did however decide that a light lunch was the order of the day, after last Sunday’s disastrous attempt at eating a nigh-on normal meal. The pain was not going to feast on my stomach again.

I sought out a cucumber salad recipe, as I was having a piece of baked salmon (with a little olive oil), and the two make a very good combination. Besides, four small cucumbers were left on my wall outside the front door the other day, and needed using. My neighbour has kept us in cucumbers for what seems like months. The only time we grew them, they were big and beautiful, but totally inedible. They were bitter, and we don’t know whether it was because of over-feeding – or for not cross-pollinating. No bees in the old greenhouse to do the job – and we were just ignorant first-timers. We haven’t grown them since.

The recipe is a variation on my mother’s recipe, but how much of a variation I don’t know. I have tried to remember what my mother did, but my last attempt at making it went very wrong. I sprinkled the thinly sliced cucumber liberally with salt – a little too liberally as it turned out. I left it in the brine overnight, then rinsed it off the next day, and added cider vinegar as a dressing. It was saltier than the old briny itself.

So here’s my variation:

Cucumber Salad a la Norway

1 large cucumber (or equivalent)

For the dressing:

5 tbsp vinegar (cider vinegar is best, but I used ordinary malt vinegar)
5 tbsp water
1 tsp sugar
A pinch (!) of salt and a little white, ground pepper

Mix the dressing and set aside.

Wash cucumber and cut off any blemishes, but do not peel if the skin is okay. Slice thinly. I use a Norwegian cheese-slicer. It’s ideal for slicing cucumber thinly, peeling carrots – and cutting the cheese in nice thin slices. It’s available here in the UK now, but mine was bought in Norway many years ago, and still going strong, despite being in daily use.

Pour the dressing over the cucumber slices, then set aside in the fridge until cold. Nice with fish, but also with a mixed salad, or as part of a buffet.

Did you know that … the green cucumbers we eat are actually not ripe? The ripe, yellow cucumber is generally too bitter and sour.


Health Benefits:


Despite the cucumber containing mostly water (96 %), it also contains a lot of beneficial vitamins and minerals. Its alkaline-forming minerals represent 64.05%, against 35.95 % acid forming minerals and this ratio apparently means that the cucumber is very good for us. Never mind the doc who said cucumbers are nothing but wind and water!

Eating cucumber regularly is supposedly good for maintaining the alkalinity of the blood, as well as being a natural diuretic.

Surprisingly (to me, anyway), the juice of the cucumber is excellent in treating gastric and duodenal ulcers, as well as hyperacidity.

Combined with carrot, beets and celery juice, cucumber is also beneficial to those of us suffering from arthritis and rheumatic disorders, such as Gout, as it reduces the level of uric acid in the body.

Besides several other benefits (it can be used in the treatment of cholera and urinary disorders), it is also very good for treating ‘skin eruptions’. To speed up its healing effect,it’s best mixed with carrot and lettuce juice.
Regular use of grated cucumber as a face mask will prevent pimples and blackheads, and we all know of its cooling effect on tired eyes.

But did you know that… regular use of cucumber mush on the face can also prevent wrinkles and dry skin? And that cucumber juice promotes hair growth (hopefully not on the face after repeated face masks!), because of its high silicon and sulphur content? This is particularly helpful, apparently, if mixed with lettuce, spinach and carrot juice.

Tip: The vitamins and minerals sit close under the skin, so the cucumber should be eaten with skin intact, if possible.