A couple of posh deserts

Here we are at the end of week 9 and heading into week 10. I know it sounds odd but the weeks seem to have marched along but that may be because I am a keyworker and still going to work. I know there have been days when D has asked me what day it is as they are all starting to merge into one.

There are a lot of us celebrating birthdays and anniversaries during lockdown and although it means we can't celebrate the way we normally would it doesn't mean we can't make the effort and have a nice meal. If folk are dressing up to take the bins out then there's no reason why you can't get dressed up and have a nice meal in the comfort of your own home especially if the weathers nice as you could always eat alfresco.


I had a desert like this in a restaurant many years ago and thought I was really decadent.  I then saw something similar again in a magazine and I thought I'm going to have ago at doing that can't be that difficult can it??

On my second attempt I cracked it and boy doesn't it look posh.  

Now I have to tell you apart from the getting the angle bit right the actual ingredients and the are not that difficult to come by.

Have you guessed what it is yet??

Well let me tell you. It is pannacotta  and raspberry jelly.   My pannacotta receipe you can find here and the raspberry jelly, couldn't be simpler it is of the cubed variety which thankfully isn't on the rare breeds list at the supermarket.

Of course the most important piece of equipment and crucial for the success of this recipe is the humble egg box.

I tried other ways of balancing the glasses but this turned out to be the most effective way of getting them at the right angle and preventing them from moving and they will fit in your fridge whilst everything sets.

I tried adding the jelly first which worked and set but when I added the panacotta is wasn't quite cool enough and we had a bit of a lava lamp situation going on with the jelly.  Whether you put the jelly in the glass first or the pannacotta the key is that everything is cold before you add it to the glass.

You only need to have it balanced at an angle with the first addition once this is set you can stand the glasses up right to add the second half and then put the glasses back in the fridge to set. You can then go on to decorate the top if you want to by adding some berries or a sprig of mint or lemon balm if you have some in your garden. I'm thinking it would be nice at Christmas as an alternative to my usual mum's trifle. You could even add a few berries to the jelly and possibly a little edible glitter and really make it sparkle. I found the way to make this work was to make the pannacotta the night before and add the jelly the following morning so it has time to set between each addition..  It will depend on how big your glasses are as to how many servings you will get.  Mine are a medium sized wine glass and I got 3. Of course you don't have to use wine glasses you can use any glass as long as you can get it to rest at an angle.


My second posh desert is a butterscotch tart and whatever the occasion this is definitely something you can make in advance as it goes in the freezer until needed. It looks a little like a cheesecake but actually its more like a butterscotch ice cream sitting on top of a biscuit base.











Ingredients needed are:

For the base

150g/5oz ginger biscuits crushed.
50g/2oz unsalted butter melted

For the filling

300mls/1/2 pint evaporated milk
150g/5oz dark muscavado sugar
1 egg white
150mls/1/4 pint of double cream

Place the crushed biscuits in a bowl and add the melted butter and mix together until all the biscuits are coated in the butter.

Add the mixture to a loose bottom cake spring clipped cake tin and place in the fridge until needed.






For the filling

Whisk together the evaporated milk and dark muscovado sugar in a large bowl until the mixture becomes pale and thick

In a separate grease free bowl, whisk the egg white until stiff.

In a separate bowl whisk the double cream until it forms soft peaks.

Using a metal spoon, fold the cream into the evaporated milk mixture then the egg white. Pour the mixture over the biscuit base. Cover and freeze until needed.


When ready to serve take out of the freezer and release the spring clip and allow to stand for 5 minutes before trying to remove from the cake tin.






So there we are two delicious deserts both calorific of course but hey there has to be some treats during this time doesn't there.

Enjoy

Mx

Oh for the love of gluten free quiche & other ramblings

Good morning lovely blog land friends. Here we are again coming to the end of week eight of lockdown and about to approach week nine.  We all seem to be doing pretty well with all this apart from starting to get a little desperate to get my hair cut as I'm starting to look a little bit like the hag in fairy tales and D is starting to look a little like Father Christmas with his grey hair and beard. I think if it does go on much longer that I may have to get D to attack  mine with the garden shears.

So what have I got to tell you this week.  Well at this time of year I am a bit of a lover of quiche. and I have lots of variations of fillings and I have three gorgeous alternative pastries I use as well as the traditional short crust pastry.

Now when it comes to pastry what I do have to tell you is that my friends who are wheat free or Ceoliac have been trying the cheese pastry and the potato pastry and using gluten free flour and find that the potato or cheese bind the dough together and make it much easier to use and they have been sending me photographs of their achievements and here are the results of their labours.

I think its great when you can share a bit of know how with others. One lady said she loves quiche but hadn't had one for five years since she was diagnosed as ceoliac. She also said it was a lovely thing to make with her two boys as part of their home schooling which I thought was fabulous.  Now they tell me its a bit like playing with play dough but it does work especially if you roll it out between two pieces of cling film.



Which ever pastry you decide to try you will find them both here


Most of my fillings are made up of

300mls of  double/heavy cream
4oz cheddar cheese
3 eggs
1 small onion
seasoning


When your are ready to bake your quiche preheat the oven to 180/350/Gas Mark 4 not forgetting to put a baking tray in the oven at the same time so that its nice and hot when you add your quiche.  This will help cook the bottom of your quiche as there is no pre baking.

Having added your pastry to the quiche tin/flan dish  keep it to one side and don't trim the edges at this point.

When you're ready to add your filling prick the bottom of your pastry case with a fork as this will help make sure it is cooked all the way through during baking.

Now back to your filling start by sweating off the onion in a little butter until it is translucent and then put in a sieve over a bowl and put to one side to drain to make sure any residual butter has drained off or this will affect your filling when you come to bake it.

In the meantime you can grate your 4oz of cheese and put to one side. Make the custard by adding the three eggs to 300mls of cream and whisking together

Once your onion is drained add to the bottom of the pastry case
Sprinkle the grated cheese over the onion
At this point I normally add a little cracked black pepper over the cheese.

Now you can keep to the traditional quiche and just add the custard at this point or you can add an extra topping.










At the moment its a bit of a
ready steady cook in our house and I tend to look and see what is left in the salad draw.

Sometimes I will add tomatoes halved.





This time I have made an asparagus one using the cheese pastry , just remember to snap off the woody ends, and bell pepper using the potato pastry


Whatever you choose place it on top of your cheese and then pour the custard mixture over the top

Now you can trim off the excess pastry and you're ready for the oven. At this point I will grate a little nutmeg over the top of the mixture but this is optional I just like the taste.

Place your quiche on the preheated baking tray and bake in the oven for 25 -30 minutes until it is golden brown and the filling is just set but with a slight wobble. 

Remove from the oven and leave to go cold in the the tin.  When you are ready to serve if you have used a loose bottom tin you can remove it and put on a fancy plate if you so wish, cake stands are not just for cakes. 

As with all the quiches I make they are great made as an individual quiche and you can freeze them or you can reduce the quantity of ingredients so if you are the only gluten free member of the household you can still enjoy a delicious quiche the same as everyone else.    You just follow your recipe as described but add to individual tart cases and reduce the baking time to 15-20 minutes or  until golden brown. 

And remember these pastries are not just for quiche they work equally as well as a pie crust.

Take care one & all

Mx

VE Day & other Ramblings

Well hello. What a change in the weather after a week of sunshine.  Here we are about to enter into week 8 of our lockdown and how are you all getting along?  Could any of you make sense of the latest information from the PM yesterday or are you as confused as the rest of us. I think we are going to continue as we have been until things become a little clearer



Every Christmas our Estates Department at the hospital puts Christmas decorations around the perimeter of the hospital.  They have set this display up outside in support of our colleagues and it looks amazing when you pass it in the evening.



This is our lovely postie who after much cajoling from the village residents decided to take part in the fancy dress at work which some postie have been taking part in around the country to cheer people up on their rounds.

He always has a hello and smile as he makes his deliveries and keeps a check on residents he knows lives alone.  At the last minute he set up a sponsorship page with all proceeds going to the NHS Charities and raised an amazing £1,320.

Well done Rob.





Did you all manage to put up your bunting and enjoy the VE celebrations?  We didn't put up bunting as we live so far away from anyone or anything that nobody would of seen it, and as we live up on a ridge I don't think it would have lasted too long with the winds we get here.

We were lucky enough to have the red arrows fly over on their way back to base at Scampton but boy do they move fast blink and you would miss them. The best way to view the video is to click the full screen square at the bottom of the video.

My daughter lives in Lincoln and as you can see she got a really good view of them as they set of their smoke to signal that they were home. 

We did however observe the one minute silence at 11am to remember all those we have lost not just in the war but also in our current war against Covid 19.

We did enjoy an afternoon tea in the garden with freshly baked scones, fairy cakes and sandwiches and raise a glass.

And lastly, last week I showed you the flower pot people that a local farmers children had made and set up at the bottom of the track to their farm.  This week they have added a sunflower which really did remind me of Bill and Ben the Flower Pot Men and Little Weed.  Anyone under fifty may have to google them to know what I am talking about.

Well that's it from me for now. 

I think the new slogan should of been 'Keep calm & remain safe'

Mx

From cushion covers to reading pillows & other ramblings

Hello my blog land friends and how are you all doing as we enter into week 7 of the madness that is our world.   

Everyday I take the same route to work at the hospital and as you are all aware the clapping for keyworkers has been taking place every Thursday at 8pm. This week I took my usual route and look what the children of the local farmer has made. Aren't they fabulous. I love the fact that they are obviously an old pair of their wellington boots and have the R & L written on them so they knew which foot to put in which boot when they were little. It seems the sign of the times that they are dressed in their masks and gloves ready to clap. 

Thank you all for the lovely comments here and facebook and instagram about my sewing journey. Today I thought I would show you a few of the things I have been making since I first sat at the sewing machine two months ago. 

I was advised to start with small projects and if you're going to sew you are always going to need a pin cushion aren't you. I use the top one everyday when I sew. The bottom one went to a friend for her birthday. 

One of the reasons I wanted to get behind a sewing machine was to learn to make cushion covers. Ours are in desperate need of replacing.  I'm not quite at the stage of putting in a zip by myself although my friend tells me that's lack of confidence on my part not my lack of skill. Not sure I agree as she helped me to put the zip in the Let's Sew cushion, baby steps as they say so these were all made using the envelope finish.  I am my mother's daughter for cutting out by eye with a little help from a tape measure.  The two tartan cushions are now residing on my sofa but the third cushion in the patchwork fabric was made for another friend's birthday. 

At the beginning of my sewing journey just two months ago I said I wasn't quite at the stage of making a reading pillow. Well in just two short months that has all changed and I can tell you there is no one more surprised or proud of my achievements than me. There have been a number of birthdays in the last eight weeks and this reading pillow was the latest present to be gifted.  The pocket is made from a cross stitch by Anchor from the Newton's Law collection, called 'Keep calm at all times' and as the the recipient is a nurse it felt it was most in keeping considering where we are.  I had already decided on the cross stitch as her gift but hadn't quite got as far as how I was going to finish it off and present it. I did consider framing it within an embroidery hoop or making it into a cushion but then the idea came to me to try and make it into a reading pillow.  After face timing with my sewing guru she convinced me that if I had been making cushion covers for my sofa that I would be able to make a reading pillow I just had to remember to make sure everything was facing the right way when I sewed everything together.  I have to confess it took me the best part of the day to pull it all together. I think I was so nervous that I was going to make a complete hash of it.  But I worked my way through each stage, from adding interfacing to the cross stitch to protect it and then adding lining to reinforce the inside of the pocket so that when books were put in the pocket it gave that extra layer of protection.  Believe it or not the rose fabric used to be part of a duvet cover and what was left has made a number of scrubs bags and the calico coloured fabric was purchased for £1 from a fabric sale that I attended at the beginning of March and has made several projects so that was definitely £1 well spent.  Needless to say the nurse in question was over the moon with her present and hadn't even noticed that the wrapping albeit gold with white stars was leftover from Christmas as I didn't think popping out to buy wrapping paper would be considered an essential journey.  The photograph is one she sent me when she got home so I could see that it now resides in pride of place alongside the Winters Tale throw I made for her birthday last year.

and of course with all these birthdays you have to have cake don't you?  And nobody even noticed that the board was from Christmas and so far has been used for all three birthdays of late.

I don't think we have any birthdays in May but I don't think you ever really need an excuse to eat more cake do you.

Well that's me for another post.  So it just remains for me to say, look after yourselves and stay safe.

Mx

April Reads

Denise - Married to Ray, her first and only love, Denise has never for one moment regretted putting the husband she idolised on a pedestal above everyone and everything else. But, after forty years of marriage, he has gone, leaving Denise to discover that their perfect marriage was fatally flawed. Now she faces a future alone, but first she must face the betrayals of the past. 

Claire - The estranged daughter of Denise, the woman who put her husband before her children, Claire took the opposite path and devoted her life to raising her family, sacrificing her marriage along the way. With her teenage sons about to flee the nest, she realises she may have left it too late to find her own happy ever after. 

This is the story of two women, both alone, both cautionary tales of one of motherhood's biggest decisions. 

Who is more important, your partner or your children? And what happens if you make the wrong choice?

Denise idolised her husband Ray putting him first above everything and everyone especially her children and family.  When Ray dies Denise is left alone alienated from her children she has one of two choices to try and rebuild the relationship with her children or spend the rest of her life alone. Ray was the most important person in her life but when Ray dies the secrets and the lies come out and Denise is left wondering whether she really knew the man she was married to for forty years.

Claire is Ray and Denise's daughter. She is the complete opposite to her mother and always puts her children first. This eventually puts a strain on her marriage beyond repair.  As her children grown up and get ready to make their own way in life Claire is left wondering whether she has left it too late to find her own happiness.

When her father dies Claire and Denise are brought back together.  When the secrets and lies of her father's life start to be revealed , can Denise and Claire rebuild the relationship that was so badly damaged all those years ago.

...............................................

I had never read a book by Shari Low before. It came up as one of the kindle deals whilst I was searching around for a book to read.  Sometimes these incidental findings are the best kind.  It was definitely a thought provoking book that made you wonder how you would deal with situations both these women found themselves in.  We can all have our opinions about whether someone should stay in a relationship but its a very true saying that you have to walk a mile in someone's shoes to see what they see.  Not sure I agreed with Denise's behaviour and possibly this was reflected in the way Claire was with her own children.  I will definitely read more books by this author and would recommend This is me and it is still on the kindle deals at 99p.

Cornelia Blackwood lives a quiet life. When she goes to the corner shop to buy milk, people whisper behind her back. Her one constant, her rock, is her husband. But when he doesn't come home from a work conference, she is left alone to try to pick up the pieces. And before long, the secret he has hidden from her for all these years is laid bare. 

Everyone knows what Cornelia did all those years ago. 

But no one knows what she will do next.

Leah always thought she knew her husband. They didn't have secrets they had been through so much in the time they had been married. When Adrian dies in a car crash when he should of been at a business conference Leah is left reeling, it didn't make sense why was he on that road and where was he going.  Over the coming months Leah discovers Adrian's secret but what will she do with this knowledge.

...........................................

Having been left a little disappointed with the last novel I read by this author I wasn't sure what to expect from this one.  I have to say I wasn't disappointed at all and it was a stark contrast to the previous one. We all like to think we know our partners and husbands and like to think they don't have secrets from us well not really important ones, but what would you do if you found out that your husband had, had a relationship with someone else resulting the one thing you wanted to have in your life. I have read all the novels by this author and none of them disappoint. As with a lot of authors some of their books are better than others.  This one was definitely one of the better ones and I would definitely recommend it.

What have you been reading this month?

Mx