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On Sunday, I made Bill Granger’s banana and butterscotch pudding. Okay, so I admit, I left out the ‘banana and’ bit when I was telling #2 what it was, but he sussed right away. As I was making the custard I was mulling over what gorgeous stuff custard powder is. Remember those yummy rhubarb and custard sweets? So then last night, as I was lying in bed (I know, I know…) I thought ooh, I wonder if you could make rhubarb and custard muffins? But not having any rhubarb handy, I settled on pears. And the result is pretty darn good, even if I say so myself.

So remember, as usual, the Golden Muffin Rule: get your ingredients ready before you start, and don’t over mix. If you can still see a teeny bit of flour, it’s just right.

8 oz plain flour
2 tablespoons custard powder (not instant custard!)
1 tablespoon baking powder
Pinch of salt
4 oz caster sugar
2 oz brown sugar
6 fl oz milk
½ tsp vanilla essence
1 egg, beaten
4 oz butter, melted
1 large ripe pear: peeled, cored and diced into teeny squares.

Sieve the flour, custard powder, baking powder and salt, then add the sugars (as usual you can use any sugar you like, I like the toffeeness of brown sugar in it). Just melt your butter in a jug in the microwave, then mix in the milk, vanilla and beaten egg and stir into the dry stuff. Don’t forget to add in your diced pear here (remember the GMR – a lighter hand gives a lighter result). The smell of the custard powder when you’re mixing is just gorgeous. Divide into 12 large muffin cases. It’s also quite nice if you sprinkle the tops with crunchy sugar, but I forgot.

Bake for about 15 – 20 minutes, depending on the size, at 200 degrees, then serve warm to fully appreciate the moist custardy interior studded with little pearly bits of pear….mmmmmmm.

So me Mam’s visit all passed in a happy blur. Oh, apart from the bit when Bertie disgraced himself by eating her knitting needles- sorry Mam. Oh, and that other bit where Bertie disgraced himself by hopping into her bed and frightening her silly when she returned from a nocturnal trip to the loo – sorry again Mam. And yesterday I found myself dropping her at the airport again.

Still, no point dwelling on the negatives so I took myself off to the Pavilions in Swords. It’s not huge, but I like it because of TK Maxx. What an excellent shop. It doesn’t matter if you don’t feel in the mood for trying stuff on (I was eating a Creme Egg at the time – ‘tis amazing the amount of men that stare at you when you’re trying to get the last bit of gooey stuff out of the bottom of the egg) because there are all sorts of other rubbish to rummage about in: kitchen stuff, books, cushions, you name it. I came away with a lovely lime green Le Creuset jug, a Typhoon vintage pink pie dish, a pink enamel storage tin and a very handy stainless steel strainer (small enough holes to keep at least some of my rice from ending up in the sink), plus change from thirty Euro. Not bad eh? I dropped into Dunnes on the way back and got some of their nice frozen prawns and their free range chicken (well done Dunnes – excellent selection!!) along with some baguettes. Hubby’s mate, J, is still staying (Bertie’s biscuit pusher) and I thought I’d do a couple of nice things that we can bung into the baguettes with some rocket. First up will be the yummy little chicken cakes that I always do (heaven with some nice sweet chilli sauce and SO easy, and also I’ll do some tamarind prawns:

Chicken Cakes

Couple of raw chicken breasts or prawns (must be raw or you’ll get a big wet mess)
1 medium red chilli, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 large spring onion, chopped
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tbsp cornflour
2 tbsp Coriander leaves, chopped
Pinch of salt

So basically, whiz all the ingredients in a blender. I reserve the cornflour until last so you can see how thick it is – it’s amazing how it differs between batches – you need it thick enough to stay together in hot oil. So you can either make patties or just dollop tablespoons of the mixture into a half inch of hot oil until golden. This works just as well with prawns when you can also spread it onto toast, press on some sesame seeds and fry until the prawns are pink and the sesame seeds lightly tanned.

Tamarind Prawns

1 pack prawns, defrosted, or fresh ones if you’re that lucky – the bigger the better
2 cloves garlic, grated
1 red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
Juice of ½ lime
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp brown sugar or honey
1 tbsp oil
1 tsp tamarind paste

So pop the prawns into a bowl with the rest of the ingredients so that they marinate for a while, then bung them straight into a hot wok until they’re pink and gorgeous and the sauce is reduced and sticky. Heaven sprinkled with sliced spring onion on noodles, rice, or just wodged into a baguette with some mayo a la English Towers. Excuse me while I wipe my drool from the keyboard

There are some days when I practically sprint into the kitchen first thing in the morning, then have to be wrestled out again last thing at night. I’ll often be found in the nice, sunny spot at the kitchen table reading recipe books, or pottering about watering my herbs or baking something fattening. Today though, has not been a good day and the thought of making a roast dinner made me feel more ‘ugh’ than ‘wehay’. At my base level I’m a lazy cow and although I hesitate to call this a recipe exactly, it’s an easy way to get Sunday lunch on the table with very little effort (God I’m sounding all ‘Nigella Express’ – I’ll be pouting at the camera and licking my fingers next). I did cook a lemon drizzle cake for pudding, but that’s just because I’m greedy.

4 large chicken breasts
2 red onions
2 large parsnips/carrots/turnips/whatever
4 or 5 large baking potatoes
1 lemon
Couple of fat garlic cloves
Olive oil

Basically then, just peel the potatoes, parsnips and whatever other stuff you have lying around. Quarter the potatoes (or smaller if they’re enormous) and cut the other stuff into roughly the same sized chunks. Put them all in a large pan on the hob in some salted water and bring them to the boil. Meanwhile, get out a large baking tray and drizzle in a generous glug or two of oil before bunging in your chicken breasts, red onions, garlic cloves (don’t bother to peel them) and half the lemon (I used a whole one but the kids said it was too lemony). Leave this to one side until your veg has had time to parboil (about ten minutes), then throw it all in the baking dish, mixing it up with the chicken breasts, etc with a couple of wooden spoons.

Bung in the oven at 190 degrees (what’s that, gas 5?) for 30 to 40 minutes. Transfer the chicken and vegetables to a serving dish, then put the tray on the hob, adding a pint of stock and a sprinkling of flour. Whisk and bubble until your gravy is slightly thickened then serve with the chicken and vegetables. Oh and frozen peas if you can be bothered. Bribe children to wash up and retire to sofa with crossword and stupid dog.

Well after all that roasting, basting and stuffing, I chilled today and made a yummy toad in the hole with some nice fat herby sausages. I’m not sure if I’ve given you my tried and tested batter recipe, but here she blows:

4oz plain flour
Pinch of salt
2 eggs
300ml (10 fl oz) Milk
Fat slice (about half oz) of butter
olive or sunflower oil
Pack of sausages

So - get a deep sided baking tin or lasagne dish or something rectangular but not too big and cover the bottom (generously) with oil. Get it into the oven now as you want it really hot (gas 8 or 230 ish). If the sausages are thin I don’t cook them first, but if they’re fat, you might want to put them in the oil now to start cooking.

Put the milk in a jug, carve a nice fat slice off your block of butter, and microwave it until the butter’s just melted. Sieve the flour and salt into a mixing bowl, bung in the eggs, whisk, and then pour in the cooled milk/butter mixture, whisking so you get a smooth runny batter. You can make the batter beforehand and keep it in the fridge.

Right, so now you can carefully pull the oven shelf out with the hot oil (and sausages if you put them in ten mins early), place your sausages in, then pour over the batter. Take care not to get splashed with the hot oil and drop the whole shooting match like I did on Sunday. The oil should be hot enough that the batter starts to bubble up. It’ll probably take about 20 minutes and will rise up all puffy and lovely round the sausages. Yum!!

For the onion gravy, slice a couple of onions, cook them gently in some butter or oil (heavy based pan, people!) until soft and translucent, then add a pint of beef stock and reduce to thicken. If it’s not thick enough for your taste, you can fish out the onions with a slotted spoon and whisk in some plain flour, bubbling and whisking until it’s all cooked out, then add back the onions. Okay so it’s not New Year calorie-counted but sod that, eh? Enjoy!!

So J, C and little C finally came up for their long-awaited visit. Hubby and I made a special trip to Flood’s the butchers in Oldcastle to get a joint of their fantastic beef. It’s a very busy place which is always a good sign in my book, and they have all the details about where their meet comes from (even the abbatoir if you’re that interested) up on a blackboard in the shop. The chap brought out a whole bloody great wodge of cow so we could choose a nice cut for our roast dinner. Small distractions like me dropping the entire tray of Yorkshire puddings mid-pour, and leaving the potatoes so long that they turned into mash and I had to do some more for the roasties did nothing to dampen our spirits. J & C came armed with so many pressies you could hardly see J for the piles of boxes. I got the most AMAZING Le Creuset bean pot in the same blue as my Denby Jetty that I shall be salivating over for years to come (Hubby and C just didn’t get it).

Bertie went mental as soon as he saw C, his favourite person in the whole world. A quick check-up indicated that we’re doing well – lovely coat, just the right weight, but claws a bit too long (uh oh, I hate doing those), and Bert even got to show J & C his favourite route past the cows and sheep down the boat road. He was a happy boy. Later, when C was lying on the sofa, Bertie gingerly climbed up on top of C and perched, happily if a little guiltily, until told to get down. It’s love, pure and simple.

Later we made cocktails, which descended into throwing everything you could possibly imagine into the blender and seeing what the result was. J’s masterpiece was this, a slightly spicy strawberry number that, quite frankly, will blow your hat off. Woohoo!

Death By Strawberry

Tin of strawberries
Morgan’s Spiced Rum
Absolut Kurant
Lime juice

So add a few spoonfuls of the tinned strawberries, along with a splosh of juice. Add a shot glass full of Morgan’s and another of Absolut. Squeeze in the juice of half a lime and a handful of ice. Blend until smooth. Drink until giggly.

I know, I know… but I’ve got half a bird clogging up my fridge and Hubby and #1 are mad for a curry. I got Anjum Anand’s wonderful ‘Indian Every Day’ for Christmas and she has this brilliant idea for a basic curry paste that, once you’ve knocked up a batch, you can keep in the fridge (or freeze in little portion sizes in an ice cube tray) so I’ve used this, but hey, there’s always Sharwoods. I was also desperate to make Naan breads and she has a recipe for these (I’ve just kneaded the hell out of them and they’re currently resting, so I’ll let you know how they turn out). Here goes then…

Easy Turkey or Chicken Curry

Big glug vegetable oil (oooh, about 3 tbs?)
2 red onions
1” chunk of ginger
2 cloves garlic
3 tablespoons curry paste
Half an enormous child-crushing turkey (or 4 chicken breasts, cubed)
Tin tomatoes
Tin coconut milk

Right, so heat up your oil in a nice heavy based pan and add the chopped red onions and the grated ginger and garlic. Cook on low until the onions are browned. Add your cooked turkey (or raw chicken/prawns/whatever) and the curry paste. Stir around so the meat is completely covered and if you’re using raw chicken, until it’s pale and not translucent.

In a blender, whiz the tin of tomatoes with half the tin of coconut milk and add to the meat. If you like it less creamy you can substitute chicken stock for the coconut milk. Bubble away on a low flame (or put a lid on and bang it in a low oven) for around 30 – 45 minutes. If you want to leave it a bit longer (say if you’re using lamb), watch the liquid, you may need to add more. Because Hubby is asbestos-stomached, I cook it like this, and then after I’ve dished Hubby’s out, I add the final half of the coconut milk for #1 and me.

And that’s it. Serve with rice and your lubly home-made peshwari naans (clever, me.).

Happy Boxing Day! Or Happy St Stephen’s Day, depending on where you reside. I hope, dear reader, that your Christmas Day was as happy and mad as ours. The smalls didn’t get up until 8am (very satisfying, especially as Lou next door was up at 5am – no, of course I’m not smirking). Hubby and I had next door round for drinks and proceeded to get very happy (proof in itself that you can leave a turkey for an hour and a half in foil with no ill effects – it was certainly rested), ending in an unfeasibly giggly Christmas dinner that was enjoyed by all (oh, apart from the chestnuts but that’s another story). I got some lubly presents, including a beautiful heart necklace from Hubby with a pink diamond in the middle, and more cookery books than you can shake a stick at. Small Eric Clapton and Smaller Slash got the guitars of their dreams. The rest of the day passed in an ear splitting blur of riffs and jagged feedback. Bliss.

Anyhoo, digressing. To the baked salmon. There’s a great fishmonger near us (bit of a rarity these days I’d say) who’ll cut you the biggest fleshiest chunks of salmon that make perfect baked parcels. We usually wrap them in baking paper or foil, but if you’re feeling flash, you can wrap them in pastry too and they’re divine.

For the salmon:

4 large chunks of salmon fillet (boneless)
½ pack butter
1 fennel bulb
Dill
1 onion
Salt and pepper

Preheat your oven to 200/gas whatever (6?). So slice your fennel and onion very finely, melt a large knob of butter in the pan, add a pinch of salt and some ground black pepper and cook them slowly until they’re translucent (they don’t need to be done, they’ll get another 20 mins in the oven). Cut four large squares of greaseproof paper or foil, pile a spoonful of the onion/fennel mixture into the middle of each square, then plonk your salmon on top. Add a sprig of dill and an extra knob of butter, maybe a bit more seasoning, then fold up into a parcel and plonk onto a baking tray. Bake for 20 – 30 minutes (depending on the thickness of your salmon) and serve, with a flourish, still in the parcels, so your guests get treated to a lovely fenelly facial sauna as they open their parcel.

If you’re feeling flash, knock up some pastry:

9 oz plain flour
5 oz cold butter, cubed
1 egg, beaten

First, mix the flour and butter in a food processor, slowly adding the egg until it comes together (or do it the tried and tested English Mum way, which is to shove it all in then add the whole egg and hope for the best – if it’s a bit sticky add some more flour). Or to do it the old fashioned way, rub the butter in to the flour, and bring together with the egg. Squish your pastry into a flat lump and cool in the fridge for half an hour (or however long – it’ll keep in there). Then just roll out your pastry, cut into squares, then dollop your mixture in and wrap your salmon with the pastry as you would a parcel. One word of warning – if you opt for the pastry version, be less generous with the knob of butter on top or you’ll end up with a very soggy bottom (and who needs a soggy bottom eh?). After I’ve done the first wrap, I roll the edges with the rolling pin and discard any extra before bringing them to the top, which both seals them and ensures they’re not too thick. These will take about half an hour. Serve and bedazzle!

Oh, and me and me Mam were reminiscing about this little beauty. It was a Christmas tradition in our house and it may sound weird but it tastes bloody fab.

1 packet ginger biscuits
Sherry or orange juice (ooh, or Morgan’s Spiced Rum would be great)
Double Cream, whipped
Dark chocolate

So take each biscuit individually and then dunk it in the sherry (or orange juice if you’ve got kids eating this and you don’t want them staggering around telling dirty jokes). Sandwich them all together into a long roll (don’t dunk too many at a time, you’ll get mush) with a splodge of cream. Then cover the whole thing in the whipped cream and then completely cover in shaved (or grated) dark chocolate. It looks very chocolate-log-like and festive. Stuff a bit of holly on top and Bob’s your Auntie. Oh and leave it overnight in the fridge to get even more soft and delicious. Yum.

You know when you were little and your Mum used to make stuff that you liked so much it stuck in your memory? With me Mam, it was Sunday lunch – well, not so much the actual lunch as the pudding, which could be proper steamed treacle or jam sponge, or a yummy rice pudding that she used to bake slowly in the oven…mmmmm.

Anyhoo, digressing. Apparently when Hubby was little, his Ma used to make these things that they called pastry-jammy-cakey-things (I know, imaginative title). These were basically jam tarts with a sponge top. Hubby and I were chatting last night over a cup of tea (oh yes, after the spectacular failure of the every other day AFD, alcohol has been banned on week nights – it’s nearly killing us) about such things and Hubby came up with a spectacular idea – ‘ooh, I know’, he said ‘what about pastry-jammy-cakey-mince pies?’

So I had a fiddle, and here they are. Beware, they are severely moreish.

Pastry Mincey Cakey Pie Things

For the pastry:

9 oz plain flour
5 oz cold butter, cubed
3 oz caster sugar
1 egg, beaten

First, mix the flour, butter and caster sugar in a food processor, slowly adding the egg until it comes together (actually, this is a total lie – I just bung it all in, then add the whole egg and hope for the best). Or to do it the old fashioned way, rub the butter in to the flour, add the sugar and bring together with the egg. Squish your pastry into a flat lump and cool in the fridge for half an hour (or however long – it’ll keep in there).

Then, when you’re ready, take half the pastry (save half for another day), roll out quite thinly (pound coin width isn’t it?) and cut with a cutter into discs to match your muffin tin (best with a nice deep one). Line each little hole with a disc of pastry and blind bake them in a 200 degree oven for about 5 minutes. You can do all that baking bean stuff but frankly I can’t be arsed. Then take them out and let them cool while you whip up a boring old cake mix:

4 oz butter
4 oz caster sugar
4 oz self raising flour
2 eggs

Cream the butter and the sugar, then add the eggs one at a time and finally the flour until you have a nice smooth mixture.

Take about half a jar of mincemeat and mix with a splosh of Morgan’s Spiced Rum (optional, but fabulous). Dollop a teaspoonful of mincemeat into each little pastry case and cover with a tablespoon of cake mix. Back into the oven for about 12 – 15 minutes until risen and golden (watch carefully for the last few minutes) and there you go. They’re ridiculously difficult to get out of the tin, but they taste divine so who cares?

As to the name, well, they can’t be pastry-jammy-cakey-things any more as they contain no jam, but pastry-mincey-cakey-things doesn’t sound right. So how about Christmas Mince Pie Cakes? Ooh, or how about just Christmas Pies? Pah, whatever.

Okay, so I’m not exactly a web expert, but having tried, and failed, to find my brownie recipe in my book of random scribbles (for J & C’s visit) I’ve found that I can’t just look back on all my old recipes in one place, which is a bit of a blow. So I’m going to have a fiddle and see if I can get them all on one page. Wish me luck.

Stealth-health White Chocolate, Almond and Date Cookies

Foolproof pastry and Sausage and Egg Pie

Flapjacks with Added Healthy Bits

Frozen Strawberry Daquiris

Easy Children’s Spaghetti Carbonara

Cheat’s Thai Prawn Curry

Lemon Cake

Non-authentic Irish Stew

Frittata

Chocolate and Banana loaf (for Nick - stop moaning now)

Five Spice Chilli Cashew Nuts and Teriyaki Chicken

#1’s Chocolate Cheesecake with Raspberry Purée

Pistachio and Dark Chocolate Brownies

Watermelon Martinis and Tropical Daiquiris

Raspberry and White Chocolate Muffins

Welsh Rarebit (ish)

Double Chocolate and Toffee Muffins

Fragrant Chicken Soup

Tamarind Chicken Noodles

Mini Fruit Soda Breads

Disgustingly Fattening Chocolate Fudge Brownie Cake

The Fluffiest Yorkshire Puddings Ever

I’ll keep adding as I remember. Happy cooking! xx