Cannibalistic kitchen capers

Tell your children you found an intruder in the house, cut off his fingers, gouged out his eyeballs... and that's what they're going to eat.

Dead man's hand

Dead Man's Fingers

Frankfurter sausages
Finger rolls (ha ha ha)
A radish or 2
Ketchup
Heat the frankfurters (microwave, or in a pan of boiling water), cut each roll in half and poke a hole in the non-cut end with the handle of a wooden spoon. Squirt in some ketchup and insert half a frankfurter. Cut a little bit off the end of the sausage to make a bed for the nail which you will have fashioned from a slice of radish.

Eyeball cakes

Eyeball cakes

I took 2 eggs and weighed them - 130g. I creamed together 130g sugar and 130g margarine, added the eggs, and folded in 130g self raising flour and a bit of vanilla extract. I baked them in bun tins for about 30 minutes at 180/gas until perfectly cake shaped and smelling delicious. Allow them to cool. Meanwhile, mix together some icing sugar and a little bit of hot water until you have a paste. Spread it on the cakes, draw veins with red writing icing and put a chocolate button in the middle.

Antidote to overpriced & underwhelming restaurant food

It's half term! Cooking has taken second place to entertaining the children, and we have been eating on the hoof: Rubbish food, mean portions, and dirty, shabby premises yesterday; clean with a great view today but a big slimy slab of institutional lasagne served with naked lettuce... It all leaves a bad taste in the mouth as well as a hole in the pocket.

By contrast, I made a generous (and distinctly lo-effort) dinner for all four of us tonight for £6.75 - meatballs and pasta - comprising 250g wholemeal spaghetti (50p) and 24 meatballs (£4.00) which I cooked and drained of fat before adding one jar of Dolmio sauce £1.75). I let them simmer for about an hour, before serving with 50g grated Grana Padano (50p). Best of all, when I went to the loo afterwards there was no alien urine on the seat!

You can make it a bit healthier by adding chopped fresh tomatoes and a clove or two of crushed garlic.

In a desperate bid to use up some more apples, I also made a

Toffee Apple Ginger Pudding

Ginger sponge on a toffee-apple base

Base layer:
4 apples, peeled and sliced
A small knob of butter
A teaspoon or 2 of lemon zest (completely optional)
5 tablespoons Carnation caramel/Dulce de Leche

Sponge topping:
100g margarine or butter
100g light brown sugar
2 eggs
100g self raising flour
1 heaped teaspoon ground ginger

Pre-heat the oven to 190/gas 5. Place the apples, butter and a couple of tablespoons of water in a bowl and microwave for 2-5 minutes to soften. Add the lemon zest and caramel to them and spread in the base of an ovenproof dish. Beat sugar and margarine/butter together until light and fluffy, add the eggs one at a time, and fold in the flour and ginger. Spread over the apples and bake for about 40 minutes until the sponge is golden and well risen.

I didn't measure my apples as I already had a vat of cooked ones, but just spread them out in a generous layer on the bottom of the dish and stirred in the caramel. I usually use butter (favouring it as a more natural product), but used Stork today for speed and lightness of sponge.

More leftovers

Leftovers... Seems like I'm always using that word in my blogging. I am happy to waste money on all kinds of fripperies, but like to run a very tight ship (or fridge) in the kitchen. Today was rather a challenge, as I had half a pack of beef mince and a fillet of haddock to work with. A packet or jar of carefully blended seasoning or sauce can disguise a lot, but nothing can marry together a fish and a cow. On another shelf was the remains of yesterday's lunch, a chicken, leek and mushroom crumble, bought from the local farm shop. I balked inwardly at the price when I purchased it (£20), but it has now yielded 10 portions so really not bad at all.

The downside (or upside) was that we had savoury crumble followed by apple and blackberry crumble.   I have already given you the recipe, but to save you scrolling back, here it is again. It contains cholesterol-busting oats (as well as quite a lot of butter to redress the balance).

Blackberry and Apple Crumble

Blackberry and apple crumble

Whizz together 5oz butter and 6oz plain flour until they look like breadcrumbs, add 3oz sugar and 4oz oats and blitz for a few seconds until everything is combined. Spoon over the top of fruit and bake at 190 degrees/gas 5 until golden brown. This makes enough to serve six, but I usually eke it out for two crumbles. Put what you don't use first time into a container and keep it in the fridge for a couple of weeks.

Sunday afternoon tea

Lots of visitors this weekend but everyone's gone now. We've lit a fire, battened down the hatches and and are having a good old-fashioned Sunday tea, just like the ones we used to have in front of the children's drama on telly on Sunday nights. Do you remember them? - The Secret Garden and the Wolves of Willoughby Chase (which gave me a terror of wolves lasting well into adolescence).

Assemble some crumpets and muffins, toast them gently in the kitchen then finish them off on a toasting fork in the fire. Spread liberally with butter and Marmite, snarling warnings to the children about the dire consequences of getting either on the designer cushions. Add several cups of tea and some leftover

Chocolate Cake with Vanilla Buttercream Filling and Chocolate Buttercream Icing

Before decoration

After decoration by 8 year olds

Sponge:
300g caster sugar
300g softened butter
6 eggs
225g self raising flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
75g cocoa powder, sieved

Vanilla buttercream filling:
250g icing sugar
80g softened butter
25ml milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence

Chocolate buttercream icing:
125g icing sugar
60g softened butter
25g cocoa powder mixed with a little boiling water

Heat oven to 170/gas 4. Grease and line 2 x 20cm tins. Cream butter and sugar together and beat in the eggs one by one.  Fold in the flour, baking powder and cocoa powder, divide between tins and bake for about 30-40 minutes until the sponge has risen and a cocktail stick comes out clean. Cool in the tin for 10 minutes before turning out onto a cooling rack.

To make the icings, mix together the ingredients in a food mixer or using an electric whisk. Start very slowly and keep on going until light and fluffy.

I used Chocolate Buttons to decorate. The giant ones would have been better, and brown and white chocolate fingers are good to stick around the outside of the cake. Or you could go really retro and use a cake frill. Yes, you can still buy them!

Fishing for compliments

Fish is so quick and easy to cook, but my children moan like anything when presented with it in its non-battered, non-fingered natural state. So tonight we're having it in soup - more of a stew really -

Creamy Smoked Fish Chowder

Chow down

Get started by frying a large onion (finely chopped) with some bacon (also chopped). I used 4 thick rashers. When the onion is soft add some chunks of potato - new ones are best as they hold their shape and don't tend to fall apart (I used 7). Stir them around for a minute and then pour in a litre of cold water and half a vegetable stock cube. Bring to the boil and simmer for about 10 minutes. Add 400g coarsely chopped smoked haddock and a salmon fillet, a handful of frozen peas and a more generous handful of frozen sweetcorn (or a small tin). Bring to the boil and simmer for 5-10 minutes until the fish is cooked through. Stir in some double cream, add salt and pepper and serve.

Banana Chocolate Muffins  

Bananas rotting in your fruit bowl? Transform them into 12 delicious muffins:

Banana-chocolate muffins

2 ripe bananas, mashed

80g white/brown Chocolate Buttons
350g plain flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

100g caster sugar
115g melted butter
2 eggs
300ml milk
1/4 teaspoon salt

Pre-heat oven to 200. Combine flour, baking powder, sugar and salt in a bowl. Whisk eggs, milk and melted butter together and fold into the dry ingredients, adding bananas and chocolate. Divide between 12 muffin cases and bake for 20 minutes, until golden. Best eaten warm, while the chocolate is still gooey.

Bulging Greek pockets

Warm pitta bread stuffed with flash-fried lamb steaks or lamb burgers, oozing with houmous and tsatsiki, served with a crunchy carrot and peanut salad.

A kebab by any other name...

Carrot and Peanut Salad

Combine 4 grated medium size carrots with 2 tbsp red wine vinegar, 2tbsp olive or vegetable oil, a couple of drops of sesame oil and 80g peanuts.

To follow, we had sore-throat-slushy-smoothies, made by blending together some orange juice, pear juice, a squeeze of lime and a big handful of frozen strawberries.  The frozen fruit is essential for texture and temperature, but try using any combination of juice/tinned fruit/fresh fruit.

No sweat soup

Most soup recipes will tell you of the importance of sweating your vegetables to develop a deep, rich taste. But - shh, don't tell the children - rules are made to be broken and you can save precious minutes of prep time by simply putting some roughly chopped raw veg in a pan, adding water and a stock cube or 2 and boiling until everything is soft. Then blend and add something fattening like cream, cheese, bits of bacon etc.

From sad...

I have just made soup this way, using an old cauliflower, two onions, a clove of garlic, a potato, two stock cubes, and 50g Stilton - added at the end.

...to glad

This was eaten with yesterday's baguette.  To revive old bread (not sliced), run the loaf very quickly under cold water and put it in a hot oven for about 10 minutes.  Eat straight away.

Last night I spotted 4 pears in the fruit bowl that were 'on the turn'.  I peeled and sliced them, put them in an ovenproof dish, covered them with chocolate sponge mixture and baked for about 30 minutes at 170/ gas 4 until 'set' (see note below). Result - chocolate pear pudding, served hot with cream or cold in slices.  

Note: Don't wait for the middle bit to set or the sponge around the edges will be dry. The middle is therefore the best bit, kind of chocolate-saucy and rich.

Chocolate sponge:
100g caster sugar
100g butter
2 eggs
75g self raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
25g cocoa powder

Cream the butter and sugar together and fold in the dry ingredients (you may need to sieve the cocoa powder).