Happy Valentine's Day*

Here's the Tana Ramsay recipe I used to make these nummy jammy dodgers. They turned out pretty swell, but I don't know what the fuck Mrs R was thinking when she wrote that you need to chill the dough for five hours. Could I be arsed to wait that long? No, I could not - and I can't see what the difference could be. Also she LIES about how many this recipe makes. I got 15 (or, at least, that's what I'm telling Matt).

Still, they're something for you to bear in mind for next year...

*For those of you in a slightly different time zone.

Pickled stink

Barry Norman, he of Film YY fame, has decided to do a Loyd Grossman and launch a food product bearing his name.

And why not?

I'll tell you why not.

BECAUSE NOBODY ALIVE IN THE UNIVERSE HAS EVER ASSOCIATED GOING TO THE CINEMA WITH A FUCKING JAR OF PICKLED ONIONS.



If this wasn't bad enough, here's the URL, which he clearly thought up before doing anything else.

www.pickleodeon.co.uk

"Chickleodeon... Sickleodeon... Dickleodeon, whoops, no we can't have that, ha ha..."

I hereby declare a rubbish celebrity food endorsements amnesty (Rustie Lee and her table salt need not apply). Send me the unappetising horror!

Pumpkin risotto

What's that you say? You want me to post another recipe? You don't? Oh. Well you can have one whether you like it or not. Norks to Nigella Express - here's something quick and easy that you can knock up to impress in a jiffy...

Chop up a small pumpkin, season it, then roast it in a high oven for 15 minutes or so.

Meanwhile, fry a chopped onion - chop it however the eff you like, I know I'm too Nigella-ly busy to bother doing it finely - in some butter and some olive oil until softened, then add two or three crushed cloves of garlic (mmm, garlic). Then throw in some chopped sage and 200g of risotto rice and start stirring.

When the rice is coated in the oil, add a glass of wine and stir until it's all been absorbed.

Then - and this is where it all goes a bit Finneganesque - throw in a big slug of gin (and then put a straw in the bottle, etc).

When that's also been absorbed add 750mls of vegetable stock, one ladle at a time, while stirring constantly.

And when there's no liquid left, add the pumpkin and a couple of handfuls of parmesan. Stir again and serve with some sage leaves quick-fried 'til crispy in a decent olive oil (it takes seconds).

Serves a hungry two.

Ta-da!

I don't have a picture, but here's one of some pumpkins wot Katherine took.

White chocolate cheesecake

Oh dear. No posts for almost a month. I am ashamed. And stuffed full of figs. Yum yum yummers.

But never mind that. Here's a recipe for white chocolate cheesecake. Look!



It's very loosely based on Ruth Watson's recipe for New York-style baked vanilla cheesecake, from her wonderful book Something For The Weekend. However it's not so much the ingredients as Ruth's technique that makes it such a success. Listen and learn mes amis. Listen and learn...

250g plain digestives, smashed to buggery in a plastic bag
75g unsalted butter, melted
50g golden caster sugar
300g white chocolate (go for G&B's - I wouldn't want you to waste the recipe on Milkybars)
800g Philadelphia
300ml double cream
2 large eggs
Splash of vanilla extract

Mix the crushed biscuits and melted butter together, possibly while stuffing an intact digestive into your craw, then press it into the bottom of a 22cm springform cake tin. Put in the fridge to cool.

Heat a pan of water and crumble the chocolate into a bowl placed above it (trying not to steal too many squares as you do so). Stir it until it's completely melted, using a wooden spoon, then remove from the heat and stir in the cream.

Add the sugar to the cream cheese, and then mix it on your machine's lowest possible setting. (Very important, this - if you get any air in the mixture, it'll come out of the oven looking like the little pot that wouldn't stop and your heart will be broken. You'll also be straight up to Sainsbury's to see what Entenmann's have been up to recently.)

When the cream cheese is lump-free, slowly add the eggs, melted chocolate, and a couple of drops of the vanilla extract. Keep the mixer going until the mixture is smooth and thick.

Pour the mixture over the biscuit base and then pop it in the oven at 160°C (a lower temperature than many recipes - including Ruth's - call for, but it saves it from going too brown on top). Around 45 minutes later, or as soon as it starts to go golden, whip it out and leave it to cool in the tin before putting it in the fridge overnight. Yep, for some reason it's even better the next day. What a shame, then, that I'm rarely able to wait that long...

I hope it won't take me 30 days to come up with another blog entry. But I hope this keeps you occupied until the next one...

No knead

Occasionally, I get an urge. An urge usually brought on by what must be either a lack of oxygen to the brain or a Finnegan-sized hangover. And this urge compels me to go to the kitchen and leave it looking as though Windy Miller's been round and had some kind of floury, plasticine fit under my flickering striplight.

Yep, sometimes I decide that, despite all my previous failed attempts, it would be a really good idea to have a crack at baking a plain old loaf of white bread. I try a different recipe each time, knead the dough to the letter, put more effort into raising it than people do with their children... and then, 40 minutes later, I end up taking the missing Blue Peter tortoise out of the oven.

For years I've never known what I've been doing wrong. Until today - this sweet sweet day - when I decided to put the KitchenAid to proper use. And, baby, it's all about the dough hook. It did all the kneading for me. It's a fucking genius.

OK, so the loaf I made could have risen a little higher, but it came out a damned sight better than my previous efforts. And I actually managed to slice off a nice doorstep without having to nip outside and ask one of the tarmackers if I could borrow his jackhammer.

I, for one, hail my new mechanical overlord...

And now my only urge is to make some toast.

Be afraid

It's baking day...

More later.

What's in a name?

I started a new job today. Yes, yes, all very nice, and good, and well done me, and that.

However, I'm not sure I'll be eating in the work canteen. Because today's menu featured something called "Provincial Chicken Salad".

Now I'm imagining a dish that wears a smock and points at those giant metal birds in the sky when it comes to London...

I hope tomorrow's menu is a little more appetising. If Chicken Licken features again I'm sure I'll keep you posted.