Daring Cooks' June 2013 Challenge - Meatballs Around The World

I'm hoping, that if post scheduling is my friend and cooperates nicely, this post will magically pop up on the 14th June...

And by that point it will be Daring Cooks' challenge posting time again!

The June Daring Cooks' challenge sure kept us rolling - meatballs, that is! Shelley from C Mom Cook and Ruth from The Crafts of Mommyhood challenged us to try meatballs from around the world and to create our own meatball meal celebrating a culture or cuisine of our own choice

So I went for Hawaiian (pizza, rather than the country) inspired Ham and Pineapple Meatballs. These were super easy to make, and really tasty.

We heart meatballs!

Mr E was also in on the meatballing this month, and he also went bacony. Hmmm the red squiggles whilst I'm typing suggest that neither meatballing or bacony are words, which is a shame - I think they should be, and shall use them anyway...

His post should also be up at Hell Yeah Four Ingredient Recipes, where you can see the four ingredient Bacon and Sauerkraut meatballs he cooked up.

My Hawaiian meatballs also ended up being four ingredient creations - bacon, sausages, pineapple and breadcrumbs. I had been intending to use pork mince but our local ASDA does not stock such weird and wonderful ingredients (I'm not joking. Lots of cola, pizza, pot noodles and ready meals though... and quite often fights in the aisles which always makes shopping interesting!). I'd probably recommend using pork mince, since sausages are generally already fairly highly seasoned with sage and other savoury spices which overrode the pineapple a little. I went with the highest meat content sausages I could find which also happened to be gluten free ones.

Just 4 ingredients - quick and easy (although not especially healthy...)

Hawaiian Meatballs (makes around 40)

• 180g bacon (I used a 6 rasher unsmoked pack)
• 454g sausage meat or pork mince (if you're using sausages chose the highest meat content you can)
• 1 small tin of pineapple
• Dry breadcrumbs - I used about 3 tbsp

Preheat the oven to 180C (160C fan) and line some baking sheets with parchment or foil.
Drain the pineapple (drink the juice if you're so inclined - I always am!).
Slit the sausages from their skins and tip into a food processor along with the drained pineapple and bacon (trim off the fat with scissors as you're putting them in).
Add 2 tbsp of dry breadcrumbs the blitz until combined. Add another tbsp or two of breadcrumbs as needed to reach a soft but rollable consistency.
Shape into balls and place on the prepared trays.
Bake for around 20 mins until cooked through in the middle and golden on the outside.

Rolled and ready to bake

And 20 mins later... voila

These were fab. We enjoyed them a whole range of ways - as part of a picnic, chopped up in pasta salad, in sweet and sour sauce and alternated with veg for BBQ kebabs. Only the sweet and sour was snapped though!

Sweet and sour meatballs with cashews, cauliflower, broccoli and carrots

Thanks for a tasty challenge :-)

Random Recipes #29: Squidgy Spiced Date and Fig Cake

I'm out of the blocks early this month, as I wanted to get some blog posts done and dusted pre-holiday. We're hitting the road and heading for France at the weekend, so based on our usual luck with the weather, the good people of Brittany should be expecting snow by the middle of next week!

I made this cake last night and took it into work today, where it went down a treat. In fact I'm fairly sure some folk had it for breakfast, because they couldn't wait until coffee time!

High class crockery as always chez Makey-Cakey... plastic toddler plates ahoy!

I'm making it for June's Random Recipes challenge, masterminded and hosted as ever by Belleau Kitchen, and the theme for June is Healthy. Whilst I'm not claiming that on balance this cake is health food, I'll perhaps instead just suggest that is marginally better for you than, say, a 1kg bar of Dairy Milk, or some supermarket cake full of all sorts of weirdness. It has fruit, and nuts in abundance in it which at least means it has some nutritional content, and that's probably about as much you can hope for in a cake!

Cooled, cut and ready to go into the tin

It is inspired by / adapted from my current favourite cookbook - The Intolerant Gourmet by Pippa Hendrick. In fact I bought it for myself last week, after repeatedly renewing the library copy up to my limit! So I was very please when I found a recipe I could use from it to fit my chosen healthy ingredient of figs (which had been lurking in abundance at the back of the cupboard for quite a while. Can figs breed when left abandoned in the dark forgotten extents of the kitchen? Perhaps that is what happened - I'm sure the jar wasn't that full the last time I checked!). After deciding it was time to reduce the fig population, I started browsing through books until I found a suitable recipe, and I was very restrained - I didn't dive straight for my new book. It was the third I got to, although perhaps the first two were subconsciously chosen based on their unlikeliness of containing fig recipes: River Cottage Veg and The Polish Kitchen!

Digression over - back to the recipe. The book has a recipe for Sticky Apricot Slice which is amazing - I have made it before and it bowled me, and everyone who tasted it over. If you have Gluten, or egg, or dairy free friends - make it for them. They will love you forever and ever - it really is that good. I decided it was time to try substituting the apricots for figs and dates, then realised I didn't have light brown sugar, or a GF flour blend, or rice milk - so I went a little off piste as usual.

Squidgy Spiced Date and Fig Cake (Serves 12)

• 100g soft dried figs
• 75g dried dates
• 175g soya margarine
• 175g dark muscovado sugar
• 3 tbsp water
• 2 tsp mixed spice
• 1 tbsp almond milk
• 3 tsp egg replacer powder
• 5tbsp water
• 1/2 tsp xanathan gum
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 100g brown rice flour
• 225g ground almonds

Chop the figs into quarters and put in a medium saucepan along with the dates, margarine, sugar and 3 tbsp water.
Allow the sugar and marge to melt over a low heat, then bring up to the boil and boil for 5 minutes.
Take off the heat and allow to cool.
Preheat the oven to 150C (140C fan) and grease and line a 9" square tin.
Once cool, tip into a mixing bowl (unless you're using a big enough pan).
Add the mixed spice and almond milk, and breathe in the sugary, dried fruit, spice smell - it is amazing!
Whisk up with egg replacer with the 5 tbsp water as specified on the packet then mix that in to.
Next add the flour, xanathan gum and bicarb and beat well.
Stir in the ground almonds, then tip the mixture into the tin - it will be more like a soft dough than cake mix but that's OK.
Bake for around 30 mins until risen a little, golden on top and firm to the touch.
Allow to cool in the tin for 5 mins then carefully turn out onto a rack and allow to cool completely.
I wrapped mine in clingfilm and left it in the fridge overnight before cutting it the next day which helped get neat slices.

Squidgy date and fig close up

Pass around the tin and enjoy :o)

And just to help assuage the cake related guilt, I stuck the ingredients into an online nutritional analysis package, based on a 12 serving cake, and each serving will provide around 10% of the recommended daily intake of Vitamin A, 5% or iron, 6% of calcium and 16% of dietary fibre. Win!

Unassuming exterior concealing hidden awesomeness

Guest Bean Burgers

I have a rather ambitious pre-holiday blogging to-do list,  and since it's now raining outside after a few days of glorious sunshine, tonight seemed a good evening to tackle it!

So assuming no laptop disasters, or anything really riveting on the TV, this will be the first of a few posts.

I'm starting off with an easy one - and by that I mean one I don't really have to write myself, since it was written for my by my sister, the lovely Auntie L, as part of the Spring Surprise Ingredient Swap I rounded-up back in April.

She bucked the sweet trend and made some burgers... bean burgers to be precise.

She says:
"I'm not sure what to call this burger… I guess bean burger?  It was based on a falafel burger recipe but I didn't have chickpeas so ended up with this.  You might ask why I picked a recipe in which I don't have the main ingredient… Hmm… not sure."

It's obviously a family trait - not having any of the right ingredients has never deterred me either.
She goes on to say:

"Here are two photos from my ingredient swap.  Don't feel you have to put in the chopped up veg one… that was just because I was pleased with my fine chopping skills having spent an excessively long time on it due to a power cut!"

Jeeps! If I had to chop all the veg to that size by hand rather than bunging it in the food processor and blitzing it to pieces, there is a high chance I'd not be typing this now... or at least not with all 10 fingers!

Bean Burgers

• A LOT of red onions, maybe about 6 or 7 (finely chopped) 
• (that's in the onion bowl and this gets softened first!)
• half a bulb of garlic (pressed)
• about a tablespoon of ground cumin
• QUITE a lot of carrot, about 6 or 7 but I think some of mine were diddy
• parsley (a good handful, chopped)
• chilli peppers (about 2 or 3 dried ones, chopped, depending how spicy you like it)
• (that's in the orange bowl and this gets added to the onion to cook a little)
• 1 tin of cannellini beans, drained and mashed
• half a tin of baked beans, mashed
• third of a jar of tahini
• handful of pumpkin seeds
• 1 cup of flour
• (that's in the mashed up bowl and this gets added to the vegetables)

Once you've cooked the various bits, mix it all together and make into burgers and fry!  Easy peasy and actually pretty unattractive to look at as I realised later, hence why I have attempted to spruce it up with some peas and chips I found in the freezer :o)

And what did it taste like... she rated it 'quite decent' but I think that's stinting praise - they sound yum!

Daring Bakers' May 2013 - A poor and distant relation of Swedish Princesstarta!

Late again, but hopefully still better than never! Yep - it's Daring Bakers' posting time again, where I generally blog something that bears only a very tenuous resemblance to the challenge recipe, after having substituted here and there to make it dairy free, and often turned the ambition factor down a little in the name of actually getting it made at all. And this month is no exception...

Korena of Korena in the Kitchen was our May Daring Bakers' host and she delighted us with this beautiful Swedish Pricesstarta!

Here's her description... "Layers of light sponge cake, raspberry jam, and a vanilla custard/pastry cream, topped with a mound of fluffy whipped cream, covered in green marzipan, and garnished with a marzipan rose"

Messy cross-section - food styling is not my forte - but you get the idea!

Shall we go through that list?

• Light sponge cake - nope (mine was rather dense due to completely winging the recipe, and only having one egg, so not bothering whisking!)
• Raspberry jam - nope - I've only just realised that I forgot this. The only blooming bit that was actually dairy-free to begin with, and I missed it out - oops!
• Vanilla custard/pastry cream - nope although I did use soya custard in the sponge to make up for the lack of eggs.... that's got to count for something, right?
• A mound of fluffy whipped cream - nope - no mound and no whipped cream. I did mix thick coconut cream with strawberries and stick it in the middle, so there was at least a slightly creamy element.
• Covered in green marzipan - nope - I didn't have enough, so it was most definitely not covered, rather perched on the top
• Garnished with a marzipan rose - Check!!!!

So basically, I made an entirely different cake, and stuck a rose on top. Princesstarta in disguise, or the opposite, whatever that is called!

But the resulting cake was tasty and pretty - and that's really the key competencies in any cake's job description, with the former generally taking precedence over the latter. 

Trying to look hard like a Princesstarta

Of course, if you'd like to see what it should have looked like, take a look at the slideshow on the Daring Kitchen website and see what everyone else has created - there are some real stunners there!

No recipe today - my cake was a bit of an ad-hoc experiment, however I shall attempt to repeat, improve and record it, because a cake you can make with a box of ready made custard rather than fresh eggs is always useful... you know, for all of those frequent occasions where you find yourself with an abundance of one and none of the other (it could happen?!).

Although I have to say my favourite thing about this cake was that we ate it outside, in the garden, post BBQ and paddling pool session - which makes any food immediately taste a million times better than it would indoors. Particularly in Scotland when such days are rare - especially in May!

Cake - in sunlight!!! (This may be the only post this year where the two coincide)

Date Stuffed Porridge Muffins - Pantry Party!

A very quick post - my alarm is set for 05:50am tomorrow, and it's already 9:30pm - I need to get to bed sharpish, otherwise tomorrow is going to get off to a very groggy and grumpy start...

But I also wanted to write down the recipe for these before I forget, since they are a result of the 'chucking things in as you go' variety of baking.

I've made porridge muffins a few times recently because they're healthy, filling, and great for mid morning snack at work when breakfast and lunch seem equally far off in different directions, or for the always hungry Mini-M.

Porridge as portable finger food!

In honour of the Pantry Party blog challenge, hosted at The Law Student's Cookbook I've jazzed them up a bit (and made them slightly more random...) The idea is to make something on a theme (which for may is 'Stuffed') that uses one of the ingredients lurking at the back of your pantry.

My chosen ingredient is Grape Nuts - I've had a box open forever and we're all too scared to eat them for fear of our fillings - they are seriously crunchy! So I thought they would be ideal candidates to add to the oat mix, since it soaks for an hour before baking. And to tie in with the 'Stuffed' theme, I stuffed with with dates, by adding half a stoned date to the middle of each muffin.

Date Stuffed Porridge Muffins (makes 12 small muffins)

• 1 cup pinhead oatmeal
• 1/4 cup Grape Nuts cereal
• 1 cup almond milk (I used unsweetened)
• 1/3 cup fruit puree (I used a pot of baby food - apple banana and peach flavour this time!)
• 1 egg
• 2 tbsp self raising flour
• 6 stoned dates, halved

Mix together the oatmeal, Grape Nuts, almond milk and fruit puree then leave to soak for around an hour.
After the soaking is finished, preheat the oven to 180C (160C fan) and grease a 12 hole bun tin.
Add the egg and the flour to the oat mixture and beat well to combined.
Dollop a tsp of mixture into the bottom of each but tin, then add half a date. Cover with the remaining mixture.
Bake for around 25 mins until slightly risen, golden brown and firm to the touch.
Prise carefully from the tins and cool on a wire rack.

Looking unassuming, keeping their date centres secret

These keep well in an air tight tin - although we generally get through a batch in 3 days, so I can't comment on longer than that!

I'm looking forward to my early breakfast now... I suspect I'll be grabbing one of these as I rush out the door.

Hello breakfast - you'd probably go well with a coffee - I'll probably not have time to drink one!

We Should Cocoa - Mango and Orange 4 Ingredient Chocolate Brownies

I should be writing this recipe as a guest post for Mr E's  4 Ingredient Recipes site... but I'm keeping it for myself, since it's a good one!

Sometimes you want healthy, sometimes you want challenging, sometimes you want pretty... sometimes you want very easy, very quick, decadent, no scales involved and great for gift giving, still warm from the oven. This falls into that latter category (and definitely not the first!).

Smudgy lens (courtesy of Mini-M's sticky fingers) = unintentional soft focus!

Recipes that involve 1 bowl and no scales are onto a winner when life is busy and time short. Add to that that they only take 20 mins in the oven and they tick even more boxes.

You could use any chocolate spread to make these. I used Plamil Organic Orange Chocolate Spread, with a little reluctance in my heart... I shall explain: I'd bought myself a jar to have in the cupboard as a dairy free treat (and putting chocolate spread on toast or bread is a sure fire way to make it instantly unappealing to Mini-M who's still resolutely a chocolate hater). But when I opened it was super runny. Delicious, but it would lead to soggy sandwiches. So I decided to use it to make these brownies for my lovely sister-in-law's birthday, and I have it on good authority that it worked - and she's a chocolate connoisseur! However my secret chocolate toast supply has been somewhat diminished!

Mango and Orange Chocolate Brownies (Makes 8 small / 4 medium brownies)

• 1/2 cup chocolate spread
• 40g dried mango
• 1 egg
• 5 tbsp self raising flour

Grease a small baking dish, or some cupcake moulds, and preheat the oven to 180C (160C fan).
Chop the dried mango into small pieces.
Add the chocolate spread and mix (or beat until softened depending on the consistency of your chocolate spread to begin with).
Crack in the egg and beat again.
Lastly, sieve in the flour and mix until well combined.
Pour into the prepared dish and bake for around 20 mins, until risen and cracked on top, but not too firm - you want to leave a gooey brownie centre too.

I'm submitting these for May's mango-themed "We Should Cocoa"challenge which is hosted this month by Shaheen at  Allotment 2 Kitchen, and masterminded by the Chocolate Log Blog and the Chocolate Teapot.

Daring Cooks: En Croute!

Whilst I was typing the post title, my choice of punctuation made me think of a little line of chefs being shouted at by a bossy head chef, and all brandishing their kitchen knives like battle is about to commence. It made me smile, so I thought I'd share!

But now back to the matter in hand (since I've already deviated before I've even started) - the May Daring Cooks' Challenge.

Our lovely Monkey Queen of Don't Make Me Call My Flying Monkeys, was our  May Daring Cooks' hostess and she challenged us to five into the world of en Croute! We were encouraged to make Beef Wellington, Stuffed Mushroom en Croute and to bring our kids into the challenge by encouraging them to create their own en Croute recipes!

Well, I have to confess, I abandoned the instructions almost at the outset - I didn't want to make the Beef Wellington since doing it properly is quite a lot of work and expense. The mushroom one sounded good but unfortunately cheesy, so I decided to class myself as a kid and create my own instead.

And so, we ended up with Lentil and Beetroot Loaf En Croute. Which was cheap, fairly easy, moderately healthy and really tasty.

I concocted the loaf recipe myself, then used a cornmeal crust I'd saved from a magazine clipping (minus the butter and cheese).

Lentil and Beetroot Loaf En Croute (Serves 6)

The Loaf

• 100g buckwheat groats - preferably toasted (you can get them in most Polish shops - they are called kasza gryczana)
• 1 small onion
• 4 small beetroot
• 4 leaves wild garlic / 1 clove regular garlic
• 150g red lentils
• 1 pint vegetable stock
• 1 tsp Marmite
• 1/2 tsp dried thyme
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1/4 tsp grated nutmeg

Peel and finely chop the onion and beetroot.
Wash and thinly slice the wild garlic
Heat the oil in a medium saucepan, and sauté the onion, garlic and beetroot for a few minutes.
Add the rest of the ingredients and bring to the boil.
Simmer for 30 mins until the liquid is absorbed.
Preheat oven to 180C (160C fan).
Tip the mixture into a loaf tin (or mini loaf tins) and bake for about 30 mins until firm to the touch and browned on top.
Allow to cool and turn carefully out of the tin.

The Cornmeal Pastry

• 2 cups plain flour
• 1 cup medium polenta
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2/3 cup dairy free margarine
• Cold water to mix

Mix together the flour, polenta and salt, then rub in the margarine until mixture begins to look like coarse breadcrumbs.
Add the cold water a 1tbsp at a time until the mixture can be formed into a coherent ball.

Assembly

• 1 egg beaten

Roll out the pastry thinly (I was trying to get it less than 1/2 centimetre and that seemed to work well).
Use it to wrap your loaves (big or small), just like a birthday present. Re-roll the trimmings.
Place seam side down on a greased baking sheet, and decorate as you choose, then brush with the beaten egg.
Bake at 180C for about 30 mins until pastry is golden.

We ate our with broccoli stir fried with smoked garlic, chilli and sesame, plus some gravy!

Thanks for a very tasty challenge :-)

PS - Mr E took up the en croute challenge too - it's been a pastry-wrapped month for us, chez Makey-Cakey. He made... squirrel en croute. No, really. (And it was tasty!) He went with Mini-M on a squirrel procuring mission to a local Sunday market and on their return, Mini-M excitedly told me Daddy was going to be cooking squirrel, asked what the squirrel's name was, and whether Daddy was going to cook it's eyes ?!?!?! At least she didn't seem too fazed by the concept...