Mushroom and Rice One Pot

Tuesday, back to work after the long weekend so an old quick, easy favourite for dinner, mushroom and rice one pot.  

American One Crust Spiced Apple Pie

Another apple post as I am still trying to get through the mountain of cooking apples that Mr VST brought home from work. I love this pie, it's very easy to make and very tasty, once again the most annoying part is peeling, coring and chopping the apples. I am getting very tempted by one of Mr Fry's top gadgets, an apple peeler! 

It's a Delia recipe so, of course, I didn't follow it to the letter, not least because she says to use lard in her pastry. I used half vegetable fat, half butter and made it in the food processor not by hand and still made lovely, light and crisp pastry.

So you mix the apple, sugar, raisins and spices together and lay them on top of the pastry and just gather in all the edges as roughly as you like (my kind of recipe).

You are then supposed to use crushed demerara sugar cubes on the top. I used the sugar, not from cubes and it still creates the same crunchy topping.

Then you bung it in the oven and bake and hey presto, a lovely apple pie.

Crumpet Success

I had nearly given up on making my own crumpets following the previous two efforts. The first was an absolute disaster. The second attempt was better, in fact I finished off a couple of those crumpets today (they had been in the freezer don't worry!), but still not quite right. 

I continued in my search for home made crumpet perfection and having seen the Hairy Bikers making them on you tube I thought that the recipe might actually work. Here is is if you're interested.

I followed the recipe to the letter, including using whole milk and not filling the crumpet rings up all the way.

I did have to help some of the bubbles to pop but then so did the hairy bikers.

Look! A home made crumpet with holes in!

It takes ages to cook a whole batch of crumpets, I made about 16 or 17 out of this recipe. I think it took me over an hour to cook them all. They cook better at a medium to low heat otherwise they burn on the outside before cooking in the middle. Also the last batch wasn't as holey as the first, I think this was because the bicarbonate of soda effect had worn off due to the time, I'd probably split the dough next time and add the bicarb in two goes to ensure all crumpets were as holey as they should be. Very glad to have finally had some true success with these. They are so light and fluffy and not at all rubbery like the ones you buy. 

American Pancakes with Maple Syrup and Bananas

Mr VST made an unusually good request last bank holiday Monday, pancakes to go with the maple syrup we bought. I asked whether he wanted English or American. He said that he wanted pancakes like my Aunty had made us when we stayed with them shortly after they had returned from Canada. I worked out that he wanted American pancakes and googled for recipes. I came up with this one from BBC Food.

I set about mixing the batter, all very simple, I do love the simplicity of pancakes.

They fluffed up lovely but I think I might have made them a bit too big as I only managed to get four pancakes out of the batter.

We did, of course, have them with maple syrup and bananas.

They were eaten pretty quickly......

 

Spinach Pie

On Sunday Mr VST made his now famous spinach pie with feta. He was ambitious with the amount of spinach this time and so it was a little bit too wet. Still tasty though. 

 Served with some salad, including a few leaves from the garden.

Portobello Mushroom Burgers with Home Made Ciabatta

Back at the beginning of June for Mr VST's birthday we had a barbecue on the beach and I made some delicious portobello mushroom burgers but as we were busy eating and chatting on the beach I forgot to take a photo, I made sure I remembered this time!

Mr VST made some pesto from his own home grown basil plant (which may not recover this time the poor thing!). I mixed this with some mayo to spread on my home made ciabatta....

The homemade ciabatta was especially sloppy this time as you can see, I couldn't exactly get it to the 'slipper' shape it should have been.

I sent Mr VST outside to roast up the mushrooms on the barbecue along with some haloumi, peppers and courgettes.

So I put them all together and made the most delicious burger. I served it with some beetroot coleslaw.

Original recipe here.

Bramley Lemon Curd

As part of my plan to get through the cooking apple mountain I decided to make some Bramley Lemon Curd from the River Cottage Handbook on Preserves. It is a fairly straight forward recipe which of course starts with peeling, coring and chopping apples. I've been through a good few kilos of apples this summer so far and so this was what I thought was going to be he worst bit. 

So you cook the chopped apples with 100ml water and the grated rind of two lemons. 

Then you put the sugar, butter, and some lemon juice into a bowl above hot water with the apple puree and wait until the butter is just melted.

At this point you check the temperature carefully and add 200ml of beaten egg. I was very careful and added the eggs as I was supposed to.

It's supposed to take about 10 minutes to get up to temperature and thicken. I waited about 20 minutes and it was getting nowhere near so I put the mixture into a saucepan and heated it up some more, got it up to temperature and it still didn't thicken. I frantically googled lemon curd recipes and came up with nothing. I added some liquid pectin, nothing and so resorted to some cornflour which did work. 

I have to say despite the difficulties with the recipe this tastes amazing. It is like eating apples and lemon custard. Any tips for thickening lemon curd would be gratefully received.