Susan's Light Scones

Popping this recipe here so I don't lose it.  My good friend Susan sent two of these scones round the other week, oh my, they were the best scones I have ever had and she has kindly let me have the recipe.  I must have a go!

• 200g (8oz) Be-Ro self raising flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 50g (2oz) margarine
• 25g (1oz) sugar
• 50g (20z) currants or sultanas (I’ve also used glace cherries rather than the small fruit)
• 1 egg beaten with a little milk (when I double the recipe I use 2 eggs with a dash of milk)

• Oven temprature 220C, 425F, Gas Mark 7
• Bake for 1o minutes

1. Mix salt and flour, rub in margarine
2. Stir in sugar and fruit
3. Add egg and milk, reserving a little to brush the tops
4. Kneed slightly on a floured surface and roll out and cut out
5. Use left over bits and re roll and cut out
6. Place on a greased baking tray and brush the tops
7. Bake in a hot oven 220C, 425F, Gas Mark 7 for about 10 minutes

This is the love heart ones she made for her husband on Valentine's Day.

The Be Ro Flour Website

1 Women, 1 Kitchen, 1 Big Mess!

Well I was making cupcakes for a party, the mixture in the bowl went crazy, as you can see from the stat of my KitchenAid ... flour, icing sugar, you name it went everywhere!  I had the wash all my tiles down afterwards, it was like a bunch of kids had been cooking in my kitchen.  It was good fun though =P

Pasta Parcels

These are so easy to make with a KitchenAid.

Ingredients:

• 300g of 00 flour
• 3 eggs
• tbsp of olive oil

Bung it all into the mixer, mix with the K beater, switch to dough hook and kneed on speed 2 for 8 minutes.
Wrap in cling film and rest it in the fridge for 1 hour.
Cut into 4, roll each a little out with a rolling pin, then make pasta sheets with the KitchenAid pasta attachment.

Cut out circles with a tart cutter or an upturned glass and add some filling, I used: mince steak, mushrooms, green pepper, mustard seeds, cheese, salt and pepper.  I blended it in the mixer after it was cooked to to make it a bit more combined.

Next I folded the circle in half over the filling and sealed the edge, then putting my thumb on the fat bit I folded the two corner bits round my thumb and pinched them together.

Added some sauce and away we go, they was lovely!!!

New KITCHENAID Pasta Attachment!!!

We as you know my dog died on Valentine's Day, my husband bought me a Chamilia bead for my bracelet, the limited edition one of a heart.  He said it was from Chelsea (my dog) as she gave up her heart for me on Valentines day, it was so touching and I will treasure it.

Really unexpectedly, he had also bought me the KitchenAid pasta attachment (costing £78, I know caz I've been eyeing it up for ages).  Well I was so broken hearted over Chelsea that I've not had the passion to cook this last week and I was so looking forward to getting one, any other time I would have been jumping up and down, but I just smiled, thanked him and put it in the cupboard.  I think he understood, anyway I tried it out for the first time today.

Well it was amazing!!!  I cannot believe has fast and easy it is to make pasta.  Needless to say I will be making lots of fresh pasta from now on and it is really good for losing weight as pasta fills your belly and is not full of fat.  About 80g worth of flour makes a lot of pasta that would fill you up and there is not many calories in 80g of flour.

Jazmine's Tortilla Wraps

Well school have sent home some recipes for my daughter to be cooking, as she is being home schooled this year.  The first one she has choose to make is tortilla wraps.

Recipe to come....

Making the bread tortilla dough

Jazmine chopping the salad and filling

Dry frying the wraps to cook them

The finished product, YUMMY!

My dog Chelsea has gone to heaven

Chelsea was a dog like no other, a legend in her own right.  She has given so much to me and my family over the past 16 and a half years and she will never be forgotten.

She died on Valentine's Day in my arms as we wept and sang her songs.  My husband keep telling her Mummy and Daddy's here and we told her not to be scared.  She took her finial breath and fell asleep for ever.

My heart is breaking and I just feel like the air has been knocked out of me, I have never cried so much in my entire life, but even though it hurts so bad, it was so worth it to have all the happy memories and love that she gave us.

Banana Loaf

• 100g butter
• 140g light muscovado sugar
• 2 eggs
• 3 large bananas mashed (I used 5 small ones)
• 150ml butter milk (I had none so I used ginger beer)
• 280g plain flour
• 1 tsp bicarbonate soda
• 100g of nuts and raisins (I used a nut, seed and fruit snack pack)

Cream the sugar and butter, then ad the eggs, bananas, butter milk (or beer).
Sieve in the flour, bicarb and add your nuts, seeds, dried fruit then fold in until mixed.

Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes, then drizzle with icing.

Cottage Pie

This dish was amazing and it was one of them "Throw what ever is left in the cupboard together for dinner".

The mash was done in my KitchenAid and I added, boiled potatoes, milk, butter, mustard seeds and turmeric, with a bit of cheese on the top.

The filling was minced steak, carrots, onions and beef stock.

Pizza Dough

• 350g strong white plain flour
• 7g easy blend yeast sachet
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 225ml (8 fl oz) blood warm milk (or water)
• teaspoon of sugar or honey
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt

Put the flour and salt in the mixer bowl, put the rest in a jug and mix.  Add the liquid in the jug to the flour in the mixer bowl, use the dough hook and mix for about 10minutes until a ball of dough.

Rest and rise for 1 hour, roll out onto trays.  Prick all over, cover and rest and rise again.  Add toppings!

Garlic Nan Bread

This is about as close as you are going to get to making garlic bread without a tandoori oven.

• 225g strong bread flour.
• 1 teaspoon dried yeast. 
• 1 teaspoon sugar.
• 1/2 teaspoon salt.
• 1 fluid ounce natural yoghurt or yoghurt based dip.
• 4 fluid ounce warm water.
• Oil for brushing. 
• Melted butter with finely chopped garlic in, crushed sea salt any fresh herbs (put in what ever you fancy).

1. Put the sugar, warm water and yoghurt in a bowl and mix until dissolved and leave your yeast to do it's thing.
2. Put everything in the mixer with the dough hook and leave until like a dough, then leave to kneed for 5 minutes.
3. Cover with cling film and a tea towel and leave somewhere warm (but not too warm) for an hour.
4. The put back on the mixer and let it kneed again for about 1 minute.
5. Roll out on to an oiled baking tray and brush on top with your garlic butter topping (or what ever you have chosen).
6. Grill on both sides on a very high heat until just browning the edges.

LOVELY!!!

Grain Rolls

2½ hours | 20 min prep

12 rolls

• 1 & 1/4 cups warm milk
• 2 teaspoons dry yeast or 16.5 grams of fresh yeast
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 1 teaspoons salt
• 1 egg
• 3 & 1/2 cups grain flour
• Melted butter and poppy seeds for glazing

Note: Due to its sticky nature, this recipe is best made in a standing mixer with a dough hook; the truly persistent could probably make this by hand with a bowl and a wooden spoon-- these rolls are worth the extra effort.

1. Sprinkle the yeast over the warm milk and let sit for approximately 5 minutes to proof.
2. Add sugar, 1/4 cup melted butter, salt and egg; mix well.
3. Add the grain flour and mix well.
4. Blend at medium-low speed for about 5-10 minutes, scraping down if needed.
5. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and a towel; let rise in bowl about 1 hour or til doubled.
6. Remove the towel and plastic wrap and turn mixer on low to"punch down" the dough.
7. Remove the dough from the bowl and divide into 12"plops" for burger size rolls or 20 or dinner size rolls; The dough will be very sticky.
8. Place"plops", edges just touching, in a buttered 9x13 baking pan; don't bother trying to smooth out the"plops"-- they will smooth out as they raise.
9. Cover pan with plastic wrap and let rise til doubled, about 30-40 minutes.
10. Melt the glazing butter and drizzle over the top of the rolls before baking.
11. Bake at 400°F / 180 for 10-15 minutes or until golden.

These rolls are heaven!

Cupcake Practice Stage 1 - PASS!

I cannot believe how easy this was (see the video link):

Italian Meringue Butter Cream Frosting for cupcakes.

If you have a KitchenAid or stand mixer, you will find this a doddle. First make some simple cakes, I put some chopped cherries in mine too.

• 115g soft unsalted butter
• 115g golden caster sugar
• 115g self raising flour
• 2 eggs
• 1tbsp of milk

Stick the butter and sugar in the mixer and cream until it whitens.  Add the eggs a little at a time, so it doesn't curdle.  Fold in the sifted flour and then finally fold in the milk.

• 300g Butter
• 3 egg whites
• 180g caster sugar
• 60ml of water

The hardest part (first 3 minutes):
Put the 130g of the sugar and water in a pan, put on a high heat and whisk until all the sugar is dissolved. Using a pastry brush, wet it with water and brush down any sugar or sugar solution from the inside of the pan (if you don't it will burn on later and make your syrup a golden colour).  Once boiling leave it for 3 minutes and do not stir.

The easy part (after 3 minutes):
Whisk the egg whites in the KitchenAid stand mixer for 2 minutes until stiff, gradually add the remaining 50g of sugar.  Take the syrup solution you have just made and pour slowly into the mixer bowl while it is still whisking the egg whites.  Leave to whisk while it cools down for about 5 - 7 minutes.

Then gradually add the butter in large cubes, once all whisked in smoothly, add your colour and flavouring. Plop it in a piping bag and swirl it all over your cupcakes.

Cupcake Frosting Tutorial Video

OK so I have found a frosting recipee, I didn't want to do just plain butter cream, as it is very sickly. So here we go...

Italian Meringue Buttercream

Cupcakes Glarlore! Learning the Art of Cupcaking

I don't know what it is about cupcakes, but in the last 12 months there has been a bit of a crazy about them in the UK.  We used to call them fairy cakes, which was smaller and flatter and had runny icing on the top and maybe a few sprinkles.

Now all of a sudden, there is this big thing about cupcakes with a big mound of swirly icing.  Honestly, I have no idea how some of them are made, they are like little bundles of art inside a little paper case.  I have got to get into this, they are soooooOOO impressive.  Surly I cannot become a 'real' housewife until I can take impressive cupcakes to parties or family celebrations.

WoW how much has the humble cupcake evolved!

Just in case you are thinking 'hurrmmm might try that', they are a plant pot, with plastic drinking cups fixed together inside to make little holders for the cupcakes, then decorate to hide any ugly bits, insert your cupcakes and away we go!

Cooking on Crutches with a Puppy Chewing your Toes

Imagine, when you use your legs...you can't use your arms and when you use your arms you can't use you legs.  That's what it is like trying to cook while you are on crutches.  It's a pain in the ass!

I'm hobbling around a bit more now though, so at least I can do a little cleaning and the bungalow has been spotless since my little breakdown =)

Now me and my husband had this bright idea to get our daughter a puppy for Christmas to keep her company, trying to walk around is hard enough as it is, without a 5 inch high puppy with teeth like needles clinging on to your sock on your good foot with every step you take.  If I need to carry her, I have to put her in my top as I don't have any hands free...what a commotion!!!

I take my hat off to people who live permanently in a chair or on crutches etc.

Chese n Onion Pie & Butter Pie

Pastry experiment 2

Well the pastry on the last pie was too thin, so I made this one 'slightly' thicker...OK so it turned out too thick!  It was still good though.

Pastry:

600g of 00 plain flour

300g of Trex fat (lard or butter)

Bit of salt

Filling:

1 sliced potatoe

1/2 an Onion

Handfull of gratted cheese

Salt n Pepper to season

(for the butter pie just swap the cheese for more potatoes and about 50g of butter)

Hotpot Pie with Shortcrust Pastry

Shortcrust Pastry (makes enough for a large pie, top and bottom)

• 500 grams of Plain Flour
• 250 grams of Butter
• 1/4 Cup of Ice Water

Sieve the flour into the mixer bowl.
Add the very cold butter cut into large cubes.
Use stand mixer on 3 speed with the flat beater (or food processor or by hand) until crummy.
Switch to to dough hook on you mixer (or by hand) and keep adding water until it start to bind together into a dough.
Once bound together, leave to knead (or knead by hand).
Split into two balls, wrap in cling film and refrigerate.

I did have a pastry blip though, I chucked my ceramic pie beads in the pie without lining the base first. Took me ages to pick them all out after blind baking the base...then I read the instructions and it said the line the base with tin foil first DOH!

Hotpot Pie

Brown some cubed beef in a pan, add 2 onions, 4 carrots, 6 mushrooms, 3 potatoes in a pan.
If you don't like any of the above just substitute them for other vegetables.
Add salt, pepper beef stock and fresh herbs.
Simmer for 30 minutes until stock has thickened slightly.
Chuck it in the pie dish and add a crust, or a pie dish with a pastry top and bottom.

Dinner Rolls

2½ hours | 20 min prep

12 rolls

• 1 & 1/4 cups warm milk
• 2 teaspoons dry yeast or 16.5 grams of fresh yeast
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 1 teaspoons salt
• 1 egg
• 3 & 1/2 cups flour
• Melted butter for glazing

Note: Due to its sticky nature, this recipe is best made in a standing mixer with a dough hook; the truly persistent could probably make this by hand with a bowl and a wooden spoon-- these rolls are worth the extra effort.

1. Sprinkle the yeast over the warm milk and let sit for approximately 5 minutes to proof.
2. Add sugar, 1/4 cup melted butter, salt and egg; mix well.
3. Add flour and mix well.
4. Blend at medium-low speed for about 5-10 minutes, scraping down if needed.

1. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and a towel; let rise in bowl about 1 hour or til doubled.
2. Remove the towel and plastic wrap and turn mixer on low to"punch down" the dough; if you wish, you can let the dough raise a second time as it makes for a more flavorful roll.

1. Remove the dough from the bowl and divide into 12"plops" for burger size rolls or 20 or dinner size rolls; The dough will be very sticky.
2. Place"plops", edges just touching, in a buttered 9x13 baking pan; don't bother trying to smooth out the"plops"-- they will smooth out as they raise.
3. Cover pan with plastic wrap and let rise til doubled, about 30-40 minutes.
4. Melt the glazing butter and drizzle over the top of the rolls before baking.
5. Bake at 400°F / 180 for 10-15 minutes or until golden.

The finished article!  It was so easy, this is the first bread I have EVER made.  It was kind of creamy tasting and a touch sweet.  But very very nice.  They would be delicious with jam on.

The KitchenAid Candy Apple Crazy Arrival

I had been tracking my parcel with DHL and it got into Manchester, UK at 5am.  I only live 10 miles outside of Manchester, so I was certain it would come today.  I sat all day on the sofa looking out of the window for the delivery man and I had a hospital appointment at 3pm to have my stitches taken out.

It didn't come =/ So I left for the hospital.

The stitches really hurt when they took them out, which surprised me, but they had been in 3 weeks and 1 day, so I think they had started to irritate. It was 4:30pm be time we drove back from the hospital, it was dark and I was losing hope of getting my mixer today.  As we got to Lowton, my home village, my husband says "KT, there is a DHL van behind us".  At first I thought he was teasing me, but no!  We drove home and so did the DHL van behind us, along with my mixer!  I was so happy I could have kissed the delivery man!

I was dancing on my crutches (well poorly attempting to), Ste had to unpack it for me and take it through to the kitchen.  Where he proceed to install a power point where I wanted it to go.  The first thing that hits you when you see it is the colour, it's so glittery and shiny.
























So, I had two positive things happen today, my stitches out and my KitchenAid delivered.  Now the thing is both of these things represent a path in my story.  My stitches are part of my disability / career halt and the KitchenAid is part of my housewife trial.  Funny that at this point things have come together.

Well here she is, what shall I call her?  Something to do with red, candy apple, KitchenAid, 90...I don't know.  I'm thinking of calling her Stitches, for obvious reasons, well it happened on the same day and my stitches are pretty red and memorable.  Or do you think that is too gory?  I supose if you didn't know about my stitches the name wouldn't seem so bad, as normally stitches is associated with making or fixing something.  Well with the help of my KitchenAid I will be making food and fixing me in the process =)

So the next step is what do I make?  It had to be something quick as my foot was hurting and swelling. Roll on the dinner rolls!

The KitchenAid is Coming!!!!

Yes you heard right, my KitchenAid mixer has been dispatched!

The shop emailed me:

Thank you for your email. We had originally hoped to despatch your mixer on Friday but unfortunately due to the snowy conditions it was delayed in reaching our Wimborne warehouse. However it will definitely be going out today and you should have it tomorrow or Wednesday.

I am so happy, I even went to Asda and asked for my free yeast at the baking counter using the old bread law.

Post Operation Blues...What a Mess!

I have been lying here now for three weeks on the sofa with my leg up in the air with this stupid Aircast boot. Dreaming about my housewife delima and getting a KitchenAid mixer to cook up a whole verity of home baking produce.  Leaving my husband (who works 9-1 on the road, then 2-5 works from home) and teenage daughter to run the home.

Well I don't want to sound ungrateful, even though it will come across that way anyway.  But!  I took a walk around the bungalow today on my crutches and I could have cried =/.  I am a house proud lady, so even seeing one thing dirty upsets me.

In a 5 minute walk this is what I found:

Curry in my brand new Tupperware containers that I have not yet even used!

My Brabantia filthy.

You can't really see this well on the photograph, but yes that is dried dog wee =/ (we have an 8 week old puppy who is learning).

My store cupboard.

Jazz's school room.

My daughter's bedside table.

I really need to get back on my feet and put this home back in order, either that or get the cleaner back in here.  I'm getting really frustrated now, I feel like I have been given this chance to try out my housewifing and yet here I am stuck on the sofa =/.

Filling the Kitchen with Housewife Essentials

So if I'm going to give this housewife thing a try, I may as well do it properly.  Not sure what a housewife requires cleaning, sewing and baking stuff I am presuming.  I have a sewing machine, even got it out and repaired the sofa covers that was splitting.  I have plenty of cleaning stuff and an excellent hoover, although I could do with a carpet cleaner as well.

Items bought so far:

• Full new pan set
• Storage containers for ingredients
• Silicone / metal / pyrex baking dishes
• Bowls and pie dishes
• A little ceramic pie blackbird
• Ceramic pie beads
• KitchenAid Artisan Mixer
• Flour cups
• Measuring spoons

Not sure what else I will need, but it's certainly a good start!