pineapple upside down cake

This always seems to me like a very 80s thing, and indeed I got the recipe from a cookbook printed in 1977 (The Dairy Book of Home Cooking). We had half a pineapple left from making pork and pineapple, and decided an upside down cake would be a good thing to do with it.  It…

apple and pear sponge pudding

This is a generic sponge topping – you could put it over any fruit. 100g butter or marge 100g caster sugar 2 eggs 1 teaspoon or so of vanilla essence 140g self raising flour (or plain with a teaspoon of baking powder). I just bung it all in the food processor and whizz it up. …

a plum and apple pudding

using up: four plums and a wrinkly cooking apple Peel and core the apple, and cut into chunks.  Set in an ovenproof dish. Cut the plums in half, and remove the stones.  Set cut side down in a shallow pan, and add about 1/2″ of water, two star anise, and half a cinnamon stick, and…

plum (and pear) crumble

Using up: plums and a pear As I’ve mentioned before, we’re not good with fruit.  we buy it, and are full of good intentions, but somehow we don’t actually *eat* it when we should.  So there was a punnet of six lovely golden plums sat by the fruit bowl, *looking* at me.  And a lone…

apricot, almond and lemon sponge pudding

As always, I was looking to use up something; in this instance, a bowl of apricots that were going a bit wrinkly – I sometimes think this blog should be subtitled “reactive cooking”.  In fact, I think I will do just that! [later] And I have, if you look at the address bar! A bit…

rhubarb crumble

As always, bits of this are fairly random.  Serves 4 if they’re not overly greedy. Take 3 good sticks of rhubarb, clean, trim, and chop into chunks.  I do mine in different sizes so you get a different texture when it’s cooked.  Some might say this was accidental, but it’s not.  No really. Put into…

upside down pear pudding

Peel core and quarter 3 or 4 pears – enough to cover the bottom of a 20cm/8 inch cake pan. I use a silicon one, but if not, grease it well, and I’d line it with baking parchment. In a food processor, combine 175g of butter and 175g of caster sugar until fluffy and soft….

Sunday supper

As previously noted, we picked up the first local asparagus of the year on Saturday; with it, we cooked one of our favourites – asparagus stir-fried with ginger and red chilli. It sounds a terrible thing to do to fresh asparagus, I know, but trust me … it really is glorious. We followed this with…

sometimes simple is good

There was a rather tired cauliflower in the fridge. So I made a cauli cheese, with breadcrumbs on the top. This is probably what posh people call “au gratin”. We had it with spuds roasted in goose fat. Food fit for the ghods! Oh, and more plum crumble. Groan. All gone now, however.

weekend 19/20 april

We didn’t set foot out of the house. Made a batch of bananananana muffins on Friday night, and then we ate far too many of them, and both had a nasty sugar hit overnight. Serves us right. Saturday, made soda bread for lunch, which we had with the previously mentioned chickie! soup. Supper was pork…