Roasted butternut squash and things

1 butternut squash
3 biggish carrots
2 smallish red onions
3 cloves garlic
Half a teaspoon or so of dried thyme
100g feta (or low fat Greek salad cheese, to cut the calories)

Cut squash into 1 inch chunks. Halve carrots lengthways and then into 2 inch lengths. Cut onions into quarters, leaving each quarter joined together at the root. Peel garlic but leave cloves whole. Spray baking tray with oil, add veg, sprinkle on thyme, spray again, then roast for about 30 mins at about 200 degC. When the veg is soft and beginning to colour, throw the feta over and give it another 10 mins or so.

We had it with jacket potatoes and salad. I blitzed the leftovers with a bit of baby veg stock to make soup for lunch tomorrow.

Blueberry Cookies

We had some slightly elderly blueberries, and I found this in a book called "Baking with tiny tots" by Becky Johnson. It's been adapted slightly...

75g butter or margarine softened
125g soft light brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
175g self raising flour
Grated rind of an unwaxed lemon (didn't have one, left it out)
125g blueberries

1. Line 2 baking sheets with baking paper, preheat oven to 180degC/gas 4
2. Beat together butter and sugar until creamy
3. Add egg and vanilla essence and beat again
4. Sift in the flour, add lemon rind and mix.
5. Stir in blueberries, breaking them up a bit in the process
6. Place dessertspoonfuls of the mixture onto the baking sheets (spread the mounds into rounds to get flat cookies, we left ours in mounds because spreading didn't seem like a good idea with a toddler... One giant, but very thin cookie, anyone?). Leave space between them to allow for spreading.
7. Bake for 12-15 mins until pale golden, remove and allow to cool a little before transferring to a cooling rack.

#dietfail

Carrot Cake

I have baked this Mary Berry cake with both ordinary self-raising flour and gluten-free self raising (just add slightly extra baking powder), and it's gone down really well with everyone. The original recipe calls for 100g of grated carrot & 2 ripe mashed bananas, but I prefer to increase the carrot & reduce the banana otherwise the carrot flavour is overwhelmed by the banana.

We prefer to top with a vanilla buttercream icing, because you just can't beat it but the original recipes suggests a cream cheese frosting.

Ingredients:

225g self-raising flour
2 level teaspoons of baking powder
150g light muscovado sugar
50g chopped walnuts
125g grated carrots
2 small/1 large ripe banana mashed
2 large eggs
150ml sunflower oil

For the cream cheese frosting:

175g full-fat soft cheese
50g softened butter
100g sifted icing sugar
a few drops of vanilla extract
walnut halves to decorate

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180 F/Fan 160 F/Gas 4. Grease a 20cm deep round cake tin and base line with baking parchment.

2. Measure all the ingredients for the cake into a large bowl and beat well until thoroughly blended and smooth. Turn into the prepared tin and level the surface.

3. Bake in the pre-heated oven for about 50-60 minutes until the cake is well risen & shrinking away from the sides of the tin. Leave to cool in the tin for a few minutes, then turn out, peel off the parchment and leave to cool.

4. For the topping, measure all the ingredients except the walnuts, into a bowl or food processor and mix until smooth. Spread over the top of the cake and decorate with walnut halves.

5. If using the cream cheese frosting, chill a little before serving, and store in the fridge.

Noodles / Noodle Soup

Very basic, very quick lunch for a cba day...

Stock cube (any)
Frozen prawns (optional)
Water
Rice noodles (any noodles will probably be fine)

Put as much or as little as you want of the above into a saucepan, heat through.

Excellent for the diets (the soup). Excellent for the toddlers (the noodles).

Fruit crumble slice

This is an adaptation of a recipe for 'Tropical crumble slice' from the Tesco recipe app. Halfway through cooking it, I realised it was a variation on date slice. Last time I made date slice (home ec lessons at school), I broke my Dad's tooth. Check for stones.

Bottom:
90g butter
180g plain flour
90g caster sugar

Middle:
400g dried fruit (I used a mix of raisins, apricots and dates, Tesco suggests 300g of Island Mix and 100g of dried mango)
1 tbsp sugar
200ml water
half to 1 teaspoon of mixed spice (optional)

Top:
90g butter
90g plain flour
4 tbsp light brown sugar
45g oats or muesli

Preheat oven to 190 degC, gas mark 4. Line a 20cm / 8in tin with parchment.
Bottom: Melt the butter and mix in the flour and sugar, press into the tin to cover the bottom evenly. Bake for 15 mins until golden.
Middle: Put the ingredients into a pan and simmer for 10 mins so the fruit plumps up.
Top: Rub together the butter and flour. Stir in the sugar and muesli.
Spoon the fruit onto the base and scatter over the crumble. Bake for 25mins until golden.
Cool in the tin, then cut and eat.

Picture to follow.

Scones - Sweet or Savoury

I thought it was about time I contributed to this blog, so I've chosen something simple and versatile. Something my children enjoy making and eating!

Basic Plain Scone Recipe:
8oz Self Raising Flour
Pinch of Salt (optional)
2oz Butter
1oz Caster Sugar
150ml Milk

For a sweet variation, add 1oz Raisins/Dried Fruit (Glace Cherries work well)
For a savoury variation, omit the sugar and add 1oz Cheese or 1oz Walnuts.

Preheat oven to 220'C.

Mix together the sifted flour and salt and rub in the butter. Stir in the sugar if you're making the sweet variety.

Add your sweet/savoury ingredients (Dried Fruit/Cheese/Walnuts).

Add the milk and mix to form a dough - it's really important not to knead the dough like you would bread. Try to handle it as little as possible.

Turn out onto a floured surface and roll out to about 3cms thick. Cut out circular discs of about 6-7cms diameter.

Place on greased/floured baking tray and brush with egg or milk
Oven cook for 12 - 15 minutes.

To serve: Slice in half, add butter to the cheesy or walnut ones. Serve the sweet ones with whipped cream and strawberry jam.

Delicious!

Mince Pie Muffins

300g Plain Flour
1 tbsp Baking Powder
115g Caster Sugar
1/2 tsp Ginger (I would say optional)
1/4 tsp Grated Nutmeg (I would say optional also, but thats because I didnt have any!)
175ml Milk
2 tbsp Grand Marnier (Optional as I didnt have any!)
1 Beaten Egg
115g Melted Butter
Finely Grated Zest of 1 Lemon (surprise.... didnt have any!)
About 6 tbsp Luxury Mincemeat

Preheat oven to 200'c /400'F/Gas 6. Grease or line a 12 hole muffin tin.

Combine flour, baking powder, caster sugar, ginger and nutmeg and sift into a large bowl.

In a seperate bowl or jug, combine the milk, Grand Marnier, egg, butter and lemon zest. Pour into the dry ingredients and stir together until just combined. Half fill each muffin cup with the mixture, top with a heaped teaspoon of mincemeat, nestling it down into the mixture, then top with another dollop of muffin mixture to cover.

Bake for about 20min until risen and golden. Leave to cool in the pan for a few minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool.

To serve, dust with icing sugar, decorate with a holly leaf and sprinkle with a little silver glitter.

I would add that you need to try and judge where the very middle of the mixture will be as if the mixture is seen above the top of the mixture it can be charred when being cooked. So ensuring that it is quite far down, but yet not too far down as I guess it might come out the bottom?

'Baking Magic' by Kate Shirazi