General Chat

Good morning! Well it is 00.12 hrs here in Spain, time has passed so quickly today, oopps that should be "yesterday"

I am making a slightly different cake for Christmas and I will add it on here tomorrow, Have the fruits in Vodka right now and it cannot be looked at for 2 whole days so have hidden it in one of the bedrooms which are not used very often!!

Listening to Johny Cash at the moment, makes me have some great memories of old times.

Bridget :-)

Green Fingers

I thoroughly enjoy cooking good but cheap food so your recipe has enticed me....we will try this today or tomorrow and I will make a comment on here.

OH has suggested that we do not have our Christmas Cake covered in marzipan or icing this year, and in fact wants a Guiness cake instead. So am giving the one year old cake to our "local" where we have Christmas lunch and will make the cake this week if the oven is working ok.
Has anyone cooked or have a Recipies for a boiled fruit cake?? Or have suggestion(s) for an alternative.

I would like a special meal for two people on Christmas Eve, can anyone help?

Any suggestions re any meal, cheap meals, average meals, special meals and maybe some new twists on everyday food.

Foreign food seams lacking at the moment.........so again, should we try to add so e more.

Looking forward to the responses


:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D

under the inexpensive recipes

BEAN AND SAUSAGE HOTPOT

Serves 4-6

Preheat oven to 180oC. In a frying pan fry 1 medium chopped onion until soft.Under a grill brown 8 sausages. remove, then grill 8 rashers of bacon, lightly. Cut sausages and bacon into bite size pieces. Put all of these into an oven proof dish Add two large tins baked beans, OR 1 tin kidney beans in chilli sauce and 1 tin baked beans.. Heat up for at least 15-25 mins, stir occasionally

Now I have typed up, I think it would also come under somethiing to throw together when people come....so always keep some sausages in the freezer !!

Fairways
Thanks for your Recipies. We leave Holand tomorrow morning and should be home in two days so will add more a few days later.

Bridget :-)

Have just read through the past pages this is an economical recipe. A sort of frittata.

Baked egg spinach.

1/2 kg fresh spinach or silverbeet ( dark green curly leaves with a white stalk) you may have another name for this. Really easy to grow.
1 tsp dill, Pinch grated nutmeg, 2 tsps oregano. (The recipe saus fresh but I use dried)
2 tbsp butt or margarine
4 eggs and 1 and a half cups of milk
1 and a half cups grated cheese
Salt and black pepper to tasts

Wash and shred spinach or cut out the white stalks of silverbeet and blanch the green leaves in boiling salted water for 2 minutes.
Drain thoroughly and chop up with the edge of a saucer.
Fry lightly in butter or margarine with spices and place in an oveenproof dish.
Beat together eggs,milk, salt, pepper and half the cheese.
Pour over the spinach and allow the spinach to float to the surface. Sprinkle the rest of the cheese on top and bake in a moderate oven for 30 minutes or until set.
This is plenty for two and quite filling.

A recipe for Spanish Eyes who wanted to know what to do with cumquats some time ago..
I have just found the recipe for Cumquats in Brandy in a 1987 Magazine.

500g. cumquats
1 and a half cups of water
1 and a half cups brandy

Wash cumquats and prick each one several times with a fine skewer or needle.
Heat sugar and water slowly in a saucepan until the sugar has dissolved.
Continue to boil for approximately 10 minutes.
Add cumquats to syrup and simmer for about 5 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and place in warm,dry jars.
Add brandy to the syrup and just bring to the boil. Pour over cumquats. Seal and store in a cool dark cupboard for several months before use.

Although you can only buy Seville oranges around January time you don't have to use them straightaway. They freeze well. I take them from the freezer in small amounts and make about 5lb of marmalade at a time. I found this recipe in a magazine donkey's years ago and it always seems to work well. I think it was one of Mary Berry's recipes.

This amount makes about 10 lb:

Put 3 lb (1.5 Kg) frozen Seville oranges, 2 large lemons and 4 pt (2 litres) cold water into a very large pan. Bring to the boil, cover and simmer gently for about 2 hours until very tender.

Transfer oranges to a colander placed over a bowl to catch the juice. Cut fruit in halves. Remove all flesh and pips and place in another pan with 1 pt (500 ml) cold water. Bring to the boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 15 min.

Slice fruit skins thinly. Add to large pan with juice from the colander bowl and 6 lb (3 Kg) granulated sugar warmed in a clean roasting tin in a low oven. Strain in liquid from the simmered pith and pips.

Stir over a gentle heat until sugar is dissolved, then boil rapidly. Test for setting after 10 min (mine always seems to take about 25 min). Pour into hot, clean jars, cover and label.

Enjoy!

I am sure you know, but a lot of people don't seem to, that seville oranges,the ones suitable for classic marmalade,are only available for a short time around the end of January.

Sharron

Thanks for the recipe and the delightful description of your father making the marmalade and enjoying it. In a couple of weeks I shall be at home and almost back to normal, whatever that is, and I shall try this out.

:-D

For marmalade,first you need my dad. It was one of the things I made him do when he came home after his stroke.

I would cut a couple of pounds of sevilles in half.He would juice them on the food processor and then I would change to the slicing attachment and he would put the orange halves through there.

I would tip it all into the preserving pan with a bit of water so it was just about covered and hang any pips from the juicing attachment in one of those bags that come with washing tablets.

When the peel was soft I would tip a couple of pounds of sugar in and he would stir it until it melted. Then I would boil it up until there was a ring of jelly round the pan just above the preserve.That is when it seems set to me because I have never mastered testing set.

It would stand on the stove top overnight.That way I could really be sure it had set.

We would wash the jars and put them in the top oven to do the potting after I had come back from wherever I was going.

I would come home from wherever I had been to find some marmalade in jars,some in the sink,some on the floor and plenty on my dad.

Yummyyyyy

I may try this when I am at home. Do you have any special marmalade recipes? There will be an abundance of them in my garden when I get bak home.

This year the figs were delicious and I kept picking them and just eating them...maybe next year I will try to preserve them if we have not moved back to the UK. Sales are going lowere and lower so could do with comfort food which is not too rich in calories.

I will ask my friends whose house we are in for a few of their Recipies, the hudband is an excellent cook!!!

Well. this is none of the above but, having had blackberry blancmange last week, I am in the process of making blackberry ice-cream today and being rather pleased the blackberry season is coming to an end!

We don't have an ice-cream maker but I have found a recipe in a Jocasta Innes book for making vanilla ice-cream in which you make an egg custard and fold in lightly whipped cream which you freeze,taking it out and beating it every half hour for three times.

I have made the egg-custard by making up thirty fluid ounces of liquid with milk and the pulp of blackberries I have stewed and put through a sieve. Scald it and tip on to four eggs plus four yolks that have been beaten into the amount of sugar or sweetener that tastes about right.

You are suppose to strain it into a bowl but I couldn't be arsed,I just tipped it in, over a pan of hot water to make the custard where you stir it until it thickens up.

The water under the pan boils.Last time I did it I thought I should not let it gt too hot and spent a couple of hours stirring until I finally tried turning it up! Der!

Anyway,today I put 15 floz of double cream in and do the beatings.

Then I tell them they won't like it and eat it all myself.

Now there is a question? What sort of recipes do we want?

My thoughts were
1. Something not to expensive
2. Some that could be cooked as a single dish or which could be made in bulk and frozen.
3. With winter heading in my part of the world something wholesome.
4. Something I could quickly put together for those good friends who turn up unexpectedly.
5. Christmas food which is just that bit different??
6. Christmas food with a surprise being "outside the usual " but still special.

Slow cookers. As many Recipies as possible, please.


Now I feel hungry!!

What sort of recipes do people want ?

Glad you are OK Bridget

Thank you all for your comments re my eye. I saw the consultant and learnt that this is not an uncommon condition but there is no cure! I have to learn to live with it and ensure that I use the drops three or four times a day. It is also likely that it will affect the other eye as well!

When I am back home about the end of next week I will tell you how I am progressing. Today for example I do not have any pain at all.

Meanwhile I hope that you are all well and add some new Recipies.

Bridget :-)

Good luck Bridget. Hope all goes well for you.

Bridget, good luck tomorrow, hope it is not as serious as they think.

Jubz, you could get tipsy reading the recipe :-D

Hope you get on alright on Thursday,that was a quick result

Jdubz

I will enjoy making this as soon as I get home.
B

And with christmas just around the corner, I have started my festive booze collection.

Half a kilner jar of your favourite fruit, ( blueberries, blackberries etc)
cover with sugar and fill the remaining half with a nice tipple either vodka, brandy or whisky.
Add more sugar if you like depends on taste.
filter off just before christmas into sterilized bottles, and the fruit is also nice as a boozy desert.

Another nice one is papaya with white rum. Same recipe but less sugar. ;-)