Weekend

Weekend so far has consisted of:

 

 

 

Obsessing over my latest 100drine boxes. I now have 7

 

 

and shoo-ing Charlie cat away from my newly tied craft cupboard and brand new footstool

(£30 from TK Maxx, god I love it!)

 

You?

 

 

Chicken and Tarragon Pies

Everyone has a go to dish that you know can be relied upon to impress. For me it is absolutely my Chicken and Tarragon Pies they are amazing!

 

Recipe makes 4 pies

 

I started by softening 6 baby leeks and 1 large onion in a saucepan. When really soft add 4 skinless and bonesless chicken thighs chopped into quarters, add 175ml of white wine (nothing fancy) and leave until reduced by 1/3, add 200ml of hot (really important!) chicken stock and leave until reduced by 1/2, this should take about 10 minutes on a low heat……

 

…pour 150ml double cream into a jug, add a handful of roughly chopped tarragon and season, add to the pan, bring to the boil and then simmer for 6 minutes.

 

Transfer the mixture into ramekins and leave to completely cool, add your pastry lids (remebering to snip a hole in each one to let the steam escape) glaze with milk and bake at 220 for 25 minutes. ENJOY!

 

 

 

 

 

By Royal Appointment

At work my team consists of 8 ladies aged 20 (me!) to 47 so it's fair to say that food is mentioned quite a lot! We have got into the habit of having a themed 'buffet day' once a month which is a great opportunity for us to show off our baking skills and also to stuff our faces! Last month for example was Dip Day! Cue lots of hummus, carrot sticks, Doritos and chocolate fondue!

This month's theme is Around The World. We all picked a country to represent and I chose England. I thought I would share my contribution as I'm quite proud of it! I made a simple 3 egg sponge base, and sandwiched it with home made raspberry jam.

After leaving it to cool I cut out a template of the queen's head that I found online and pinned it to the cake, dusted it with icing sugar and removed the paper. I then found a spare bit of Union Jack ribbon (amazingly lucky find!) and pinned it around the base. Voila!

Time for tea

Dinner today is roasted quail with Laverstoke farm smoky bacon, and chorizo (to be served with buttery olive oil mash)

And today I've been eating non stop these tasty little morsels. Canned chickpeas, drained and dried, oven roasted for 10 minutes with rapeseed oil, cayenne pepper and chilli powder. A great desk snack, that's full of healthy fats and fibre!

What have you been upto?

Firstly, I'm sorry for neglecting you. Life is a mile a minute at the moment, but it's Saturday afternoon, I'm nice and cosy,  I've just had a Strawberry lemonade and a Yum Yum. 

I've got a cup of tea and I'm sat in front of The Good Sheperd (amazing film) so I'm ready :)

 

My mum's 53rd birthday is this coming Monday, but we as ever do things a little differently in our house, so yesterday when my sister got home from Uni it was cake and presents day. My mums cake is HUGE, it's a victoria sponge (with the most amazing plum jam) it's covered in green fondant icing and the top is then decorated to look like her allotment. It was supposed to have a shed but we just ran out of time - it took 3 days! She loved it though and that's the main thing :)

 

 

 

 

 

As for presents she got a really good haul! I got her 2 pairs of earrings (silver swallows, and orange gems) a goat's cheese making kit, a masons traditonal mixing bowl (hers broke a few months back) Paul Hollyood's 'How to Bake' a zebra print scarf, 2 gorgeous smelling soaps, and Paulie on DVD. My oldest sister brought her two trees for her (real!) allotment, a Mandarin and a Lime Tree. My other sister got her a nail varnish, notepad, chocolates, sugar mice and phone cover.

Tomorrow my nan is coming over for lunch - Roast Rib of Beef with all the trimmings and Cherry Pie.

 

In amongst the present wrapping I have found time for a little cross-stitch, something I haven't done for a while, and I'm really pleased with the results!

 

 

Before!

 

 

After!

 

In case you hadn't guessed it's Dorothy and Toto from the Wizard of Oz. Not sure what I'm going to do with it yet but just pleased to have finished!

 

Now that mum's birthday is out of the way Christmas has officially started in our house, the tree and decorations are all up and any leftovers were taken to work to decorate our office, we're getting a tree on Monday so the best is yet to come!

 

 

Most cluttered desk in all the land!

 

 

When I get home from work I've been obsessing over No Angels - it's a brilliant comedy drama set in a hospital that was on Channel 4 back in 2004, and the first series has now been added to 4OD. The soundtrack is so good I had to buy the CD, lots of Diana Ross and Aretha Franklin.

 

 

Now if I'm not making a cake, decorating something, sewing or watching No Angels, the chances are I'm probably shopping - here are my favourite purchases so far this month

 

Glass Dish - £2.49 - Vintage fair

 

 

 

Teacup and Saucer - £3.50 - Vintage Fair

 

 

Hair Clip, Collar Necklace and Heart Earrings - New Look - £10.45 (3 for 2!)

 

 

And my secret santa present for work - A gorgeous green scarf, a can of gin and tonic, a lindt chocolate bear and an aero christmas tree. Not bad for a fiver! I tried to make it look a bit more interesting too with ribbons and Crafy Creatives jingle bells!

 

 

 

And if I'm not doing any of that I'm continuing my Pinterest addiction and day-dreaming over pictures like this

 

 

What have you been upto?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Recipe: Chicken and Tarragon Vegetable Pie

As the winter draws in and the nights get colder there can be only one solution: Pie.

When it comes to pies, it has to be savoury for me, and the king of one pot dinner pies is surely the classic Chicken and Tarragon. Here's how I made mine.

 

Chicken and Tarragon Vegetable Pie (Serves 2 hungry adults) You will need:

 

 

 

• 4 medium skinless and boneless chicken thighs (you can use breast but it tends to be quite dry when cooked for so long)
• 4 medium celery sticks
• 5 baby leeks - don't use normal leeks they're too tough
• 1 small onion or 3 shallots
• 1/2 a small pot of double cream
• baby chantenay carrots - about a 2/3 of a standard packet
• Handful of English Tarragon
• Chicken Stock (I use a cube made up with water)
• 1 sheet of pre made and pre-rolled puff pastry (unless you're feeling brave) I used a 'light' reduced butter version which made me feel better about the cream!
• 1-2 cloves of Garlic
• Salt and Pepper to season

Start by chopping - once you have started this off it moves quite quickly so chop your celery, carrots, leeks and onion/shallot into casserole sized chunks (nothing fancy) and the same with the chicken.

 

Take your largest saucepan and heat about a tablespoon of non flavoured oil - vegetable is fine but rapeseed is better. Once the oil is hot add in your chicken and cook for about 4 minutes, moving it round constantly (the oil will be really hot and the chicken will stick)

 

 

Once the chicken is mostly white (but not cooked through) put into a bowl and put to one side.

 

 

Without cleaning the saucepan - very important. Add in all of your veg, the garlic, salt and pepper and sweat for about 5 minutes.

 

 

Add the chicken and leave for a further 5 minutes

 

 

Pour in the stock, cream and the tarragon - leave to simmer for 10 minutes.

 

 

Once 10 minutes has passed transfer your mixture into a suitable sized glass or ceramic ovenproof dish. Set aside and leave to cool completely to room temperature.

 

When the mixture is totally cool, roll across your puff pastry sheet and squish the sides down under the lip of your dish. Decorate as you wish or not at all.

 

Bake at 200 degrees for 30 minutes - Do not leave in the oven for 30 minutes without turning the bugger on as I did!

Remove once golden brown

 

 

Devour

 

Bonus - Leftover carrots make an excellent emergency snack once you've run out of halloween sweets.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Halloween Bake

This is the Chocolate fudge cake with ghost meringues I made as my contribution to our work Halloween buffet. Chuffed is not the word!

Simply Italian - Pasta Making

After discovering Michela Chiappa's Simply Italian programme at 3am on 4OD I became obsessed with the idea that I too could be an authentic italian chef. Michela makes everything look so neat and easy and trouble free that I couldn't not give something a go and Pasta was first on my list to try.

 

 

 

The basics of pasta making are really easy to remember and there are 3 golden rules.

1) 100g of '00' grade flour and 1 egg per person (you can use plain baking flour but 00 flour is much finer and therefore easier to work with)

2) If your mixture is too dry, add olive oil and knead - repeat until it combines. If your mixture is too wet add flour

3) Never use flour to stop the pasta sticking to your work surface, it will make the dough too dry and will also make the end result pasta taste odd.

 

So starting with your 100g of flour tip into a mountain shape onto a dry wooden board. (It's really handy to find a cup or mug that you know is 100g so you don't have to measure each time)

 

 

 

 

Make a well in your mountain (so it looks like a volcano!) and crack one egg into the hole.

 

 

 

Sprinkle salt over the egg and then using a fork mix the egg with the flour and once it's mostly combined get your hands dirty and start to combine and knead. This is the only difficult part, it's tricky to get the mixture not too wet and not too dry, I found the key here to be the egg - it needs to be a really fresh, and very large egg. If you only have small eggs do not make pasta!

 

The difference is quite drastic, my first attempt with a small egg is on the left, it was too dry so I added oil (you can see its much yellower as a result) and then the dough wouldn't combine and just crumbled, the second attempt on the right was with a large egg and it worked perfectly!

 

 

Once your dough is combined cover with clingfilm and rest for 30 minutes.

 

Once rested, squish the dough out so it's flat and then with your rolling pin work the dough so it's about the thickness of 1-2 playing cards. Remember, do not flour the board or the rolling pin!

 

 

Once the right thickness, use a knife or pastry cutter if you have one to cut small rectangles (this is for farfalle, if making another type of pasta, cut to the corresponding shape!)

 

 

 

 

Get your rectangle and pinch the top and bottom sides together to make a bow shape..

 

 

 

Put your bows to one side and leave to dry for 15 minutes. Michela recommends using semolina to stop them sticking, I didn't have any so just left them as they were and they were fine!

 

 

 

Once dried you can either cook immediately or store in an airtight container for upto 2 months.

I cooked mine straight away, 1 litre of salted boiling water for 5 minutes..

 

 

 

In summary; it was good fun and i'm pleased I did it, but I only would make pasta again for a special occasion. It was just too time-consuming! But thank you Michela for the inspiration and I will be making more of your recipes soon.