Showing posts sorted by date for query sandwich. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query sandwich. Sort by relevance Show all posts
My latest recipe has just been published on the Chef Knives Expert Site. This week I am sharing a delicious recipe for Cheesy Burrito Melts!
This fabulously tasty hot sandwich melt uses simple ingredients you probably already have in your kitchen. Toasty English Muffins, kidney beans, sweet green bell pepper, tomato salsa (you choose how spicy you want it!), some minced spring onion, a few herbs and spices and rich cheddar cheese!
They go together in a flash. You can have them made and on the table in less than half an hour tops. They make a fabulously nutritious lunch which is a great source of protein (something we are all trying to get into our diets these days!) as well as being high in fibre, iron and calcium!
They are great for game nights when you are enjoying the latest match with your family, or for students who are up studying and need something quick and easy. You can bake them in the oven or in a microwave oven! They can also be easily assembled ahead of time and refrigerated, ready to pop into the oven 15 minutes or so before you want to eat! These are quite simply fabulous! You can find the full recipe and instructions on Chef Knives Expert!
I did have an internal debate with myself on whether to share these sandwiches with you or not. Lets face it they are not very attractive.
They kind of resemble a hot mess . . . but sometimes that can be a good thing. Sometimes the hotter and messier, the better!
I am enjoying a quiet Saturday as I sit and write this. Usually at the weekends, I like to bake a cake or some such.
Sometimes it will be a fancy cake, especially if we are celebrating something. More often than not it is a Victoria Sandwich Cake. This is quite simply, the best.
In all truth our favourite cake is the simple Victoria Sandwich Cake. That is the one we enjoy eating most of all, and the one I enjoy baking most of all.
I know I have shared it with you before, but can you ever share something that you love too many times? I think not . . .you can never have too much of a good thing!
My mother always filled our cakes with jam. With jam in the middle a cake needs no other adornment. Especially if you use really good jam. And I always do.
My father always loved cake with jam in the middle and it was something we all enjoyed. My jam of choice has always been Bonne Maman. It just has the nicest consistency and the right amount of fruitiness!
Jam is a very versatile ingredient. You can change the flavour of a plain cake such as this just by varying the type of jam you choose to use.
But it must always be a good jam. Homemade is good of course, but if you are buying your jam, make sure you get a quality one.
More often than not I will use strawberry jam. That is my favourite, along with raspberry which follows a close second.
These are what are the most traditional for this purpose. Any red jam looks great actually.
Here are some suggestions to shake it up a bit. Add a bit of lemon zest to the batter before baking and fill it with some wild blueberry jam.
You have yourself another tasty combination. The flavour of lemon and blueberries together is unmatchless.
If you add some freshly grated nutmeg and a bit of vanilla. Fill it with peach or apricot jam and your cake is lifted to an entirely different level.
Or you could fold raspberries into the cake and fill it with peach jam. Voila, a sort of a peach melba cake!
And don't get me started on lemon curd. Lemon curd in the middle is another favourite of mine. I completely adore Lemon Curd.
I could eat it with a spoon. Shhh . . . don't tell, but whenever I use it I always eat a cheeky spoonful. That's yours and my little secret now.
In the summer filling this cake with a layer of whipped or clotted cream and sliced strawberries turns this cake a beautiful indulgence . . .
You cannot get much better than a cake filled with softly whipped cream and berries. You do have to eat the whole thing on the day, but that is so not a problem!
This is a cake that can be as simple as you wish. It can also be as elaborate as you wish. It suits all occasions.
It is the Birthday cake of choice in this house and so quick and easy to whip up. You can seriously have one of these on the table in less than an hour, tops and that allows for cooling.
It is perfect for cold and dismal, rainy autumn afternoons near the end of September. A day when all you want to do is hunker in with a good book and a hot cuppa.
A day when you can pull a blanket over your knees and just hunker down. A day when you are wanting comfort of the utmost kind.
If ever there was a cake that you could consider to be a comfort cake, this is it. Comfort, pure and simple and most delicious.
Yield: Makes 1 7-inch cake
Victoria Sandwich Cake
Popular during the reign of Queen Victoria, this cake remains popular to this day, which is a huge testament to it's taste and ease of baking!
ingredients:
- 170g of butter (12 TBS,)
- 170g caster sugar (3/4 cup)
- 3 large free range eggs, beaten
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 170g self raising flour (a scant 1 1/4 cups)
To finish:
- strawberry or raspberry jam
- caster sugar or powdered sugar to dust on top
instructions:
How to cook Victoria Sandwich Cake
- Butter and base line two 7 inch sandwich tins. Set aside. Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4.
- Sift the flour together with the baking powder.
- Cream the butter and sugar together until light in colour and fluffy. Gradually beat in the eggs, a little at a time, beating well after each addition. If the mixture begins to curdle, add a spoonful of the flour.
- Fold in the flour with a metal spoon, taking care to use a cutting motion so as not to knock out too much of the air that you have beaten into the batter. Divide the batter evenly between the two cake tins, levelling off the surface. Make a slight dip in the centre of each.
- Bake on a centre rack of the oven for about 25 minutes, or until the sponges have risen well, are golden brown, and spring back when lightly touched. Allow to cool in the pan for five minutes before running a knife carefully around the edges and turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
- Once cooled, place one layer on a cake plate. Spread with raspberry jam. Place the other cake on top, pressing down lightly. Dust with icing or caster sugar and cut into wedges to serve.
If I am lucky this will last us several days, but since it is a favourite of both of us, I don't expect that it will be around much longer that. Quick, easy and delicious. Qualities that are pretty hard to beat!
Up Tomorrow: Fried Egg Sandwiches (brought forward from the other day)
Its my husband's 81st Birthday today. Its also the anniversary of the day we first met in person. I always tease him and tell him I am the best Birthday Present he ever received. Most of the time he would agree with me . . . unless we are in the car. Then it becomes quite debatable. He says he doesn't drive. He just steers.
Two of Todd's favourite things are Victoria Sponge Cakes and Raspberry Jam Tarts, well any jam tart really . . . he just loves anything with jam in it.
You know how you create ideas in your mind of things you want to do . . . and you picture them all out and in your mind they come out looking fantastic . . . but in reality, they don't even come close to touching what you had envisioned them as being?
This is one of those things. Every time I look at it I laugh. In my mind I saw this beautiful Victoria sponge with two layers of butter cream along with a layer of sweet jam in the middle. ✓✓
Two ticks . . . one for the Victoria Sponge . . . two for the butter cream . . . and wait a third . . . ✓ for the jam, raspberry jam. Bonne Maman, only the best for my man.
Normally I don't put butter cream on top of a Victoria Sponge, just in the middle. The top is usually dusted lightly with either icing sugar or caster sugar . . .
But today I had the idea in mind that I was going to decorate the top with raspberry jam tarts, again Bonne Maman ones (I could have made from scratch, but was stretched for time). I wanted to put a layer of vanilla butter cream on the top as well, to hold the jam tarts in place.
I decorated each jam tart with a small dollop of butter cream and a sprinkle of hundreds and thousands cake sprinkles . . . and then placed them lovingly all around the outside of the cake. I had an extra one and so I cut it up into little bits to decorate around the candle in the middle of the cake.
I just used one big fat candle in a tiny Bonne Maman jam jar as a holder. (Bonne Maman figured big in my cake plans today!)
You would have to have a really big cake to sport 81 candles, so I reckoned one big fat one was as good as 81 smaller ones.
Its not the prettiest Birthday Cake in the world. Not near as pretty as I had envisioned when I was dreaming it up . . .
But it didn't really matter because Todd loved it . . . two of his favourite things . . . plus all of the love I put into it. He was quite happy with it. He's not hard to please.
The cake itself is a really good cake, with a lovely moist crumb and beautiful texture . . .
Homemade Vanilla Butter cream Frosting? You can't go wrong. Its delicious too . . .
Bonne Maman Jams, next to homemade, they are the best in my opinion . . . .
And their jam tarts on their own are also rather moreish . . . not sure if it worked all together. I dare not hazard a taste because the sugar in all of this would send me into a Diabetic coma, but my dear husband was one very happy Camper, and that's what counts.
Yield: 8
Raspberry Jam Tart Birthday Cake
This is the kind of cake you bake for someones birthday when their favourite things are a Victoria sponge and raspberry jam tarts!
ingredients:
For the cake:
- 170g butter (12 TBS)
- 170g caster sugar (1 cup)
- 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
- 3 large free range eggs, beaten
- 170g self raising flour (a scant 1 1/4 cups)
For the butter cream:
- 225g butter, softened (1 cup)
- 390g icing sugar, sifted (3 cups, confectioners, powdered)
- 1 tsp vanilla essence
- 1 to 2 TBS double cream
To finish:
- 6 TBS of raspberry jam
- 8 raspberry jam tarts, plus one crumbled if desired
- hundreds and thousands cake sprinkles
instructions:
How to cook Raspberry Jam Tart Birthday Cake
- Butter and base line two 7 inch sandwich tins. Set aside. Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4.
- Cream the butter, sugar and vanilla together until light in colour and fluffy. Gradually beat in the eggs, a little at a time, beating well after each addition. If the mixture begins to curdle, add a spoonful of the flour.
- Fold in the flour with a metal spoon, taking care to use a cutting motion so as not to knock out too much of the air that you have beaten into the batter. Divide the batter evenly between the two cake tins, levelling off the surface. Make a slight dip in the centre of each.
- Bake on a centre rack of the oven for about 25 minutes, or until the sponges have risen well, are golden brown, and spring back when lightly touched. Allow to cool in the pan for five minutes before running a knife carefully around the edges and turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
- For the butter cream, beat the butter and sugar together on low until well blended and then continue to beat on medium for another few minutes until it begins to become fluffy. Beat in the vanilla and 1 TBS cream, only adding the second one if needed until you have a frosting of spreading consistency.
- Pipe a tiny bit of butter cream in the centre of each jam tart and sprinkle with the cake sprinkles.
- Place one layer of cake on a cake place, top side down. (I like to anchor it in place with a bit of butter cream. ) Spread with half of the butter cream you have left. Spoon the jam over top of the butter cream and spread it out a bit with the back of a spoon. Top with the other cake layer, bottom side down. Spread the top of the cake with the remaining butter cream. Place raspberry jam tarts decoratively around the top edges of the cake and sprinkle the centre of the cake with some more cake sprinkles and some chopped jam tart if you wish.
- Serve cut into wedges.
Happy Birthday Todd. I am going to be spoiling you all the day through with little things. We doing his proper celebration on Wednesday next when Tina and Tony are coming over for a slap up roast dinner.
Up tomorrow: Homemade Gingernut Biscuits/Cookies
When I was a young newly-wed, I relied a lot on magazines and newspaper clippings for new and delicious recipes to cook for my husband and growing family.
I did not own many cookery books at the time. I had The Fanny Farmer Cookbook, and several volumes from the BHG Cooking Library.
There was no Internet to source recipes from. Half the time recipes did not even have photographs to go along with them.
You really didn't have much of an idea of how they were supposed to look when done, or how they were going to taste.
Another way of gleaning tasty recipes was to have them shared with you via family and friends. Those were the best recipes of all.
You knew that if they were tasty enough for people to want to share them with you, then they were tasty full stop!
This recipe comes from my ex MIL, Elizabeth. She also gave me my basic fried rice recipe, which was one she had gotten from one of her neighbours when she was living in Winnipeg.
Both recipes used prepared minute rice, which was (I'm ashamed to say) pretty much the only rice that we used back in the day.
I didn't grow up in a household that served rice. The only rice I had ever eaten came from Chinese restaurants, so minute rice was my bar of experience.
Thankfully I have grown tons since then and now I would rather die than serve anyone minute rice.
This recipe I am sharing is for a delicious casserole type of side dish. Country Style Casserole. The card on which it is written is yellowed with age and stained.
It is one of my tried and true treasures. It is a recipe which has withstood the test of time.
Cooked rice is mixed with grated carrots, almost but not quite in equal measure . . . and sliced spring onions . . . the original recipe only called for one, but I think two is better.
I love recipes that you can tweak a bit here and there to make them your own.
Added to the mix is a good quality mayonnaise. I have my favourite, and you probably have yours.
If I am not using homemade, I am using Hellman's. It is the best in my opinion, but I am open to trying new things.
Mom always used Miracle Whip. I still miss Miracle Whip . . . it was the best on a fresh Tomato Sandwich, in the summer, fresh tomatoes from the garden, on soft white bread, with salt and black pepper.
To me this is the taste of summer. A fresh tomato sandwich with miracle whip. I think mom had a tomato sandwich for lunch just about every day of her life!
But I digress . . . along with the mayonnaise you will need one large free range egg, lightly beaten. I only use free range, rspca approved (if I can get them) eggs. I like to think I am eating happy eggs from happy chickens.
If I could, I would have my own chickens, and they would all have names. Names like Ditsy and Fluffybutt, and Little Red. They would be like family.
Along with the egg, carrot, mayo, and onion there is also cheese, whole milk and seasoning. Remember cheese is salty. I use a good old strong cheddar as it has a beautiful flavour and I choose un-dyed white cheddar.
There is enough orange in there from the carrots. Poured into a baking dish, tightly covered and baked, this casserole is really delicious and goes well with just about everything. Its even great on it's own.
A sprinkle of chopped parsley and voila! A delicious side that doesn't cause you to break into even the least amount of a sweat.
Country Style Casserole
Yield: 6
This deliciously easy casserole goes together very quickly, especially if you use a ready cooked pouch of rice. Gleaned from a magazine ad, the original recipe used prepared minute rice, which I might have used once upon a time, but would never use now. Instead I like to use brown rice. I have been making this tasty side dish for years!
ingredients:
- 320g cooked rice (2 cups) (Use your favourite, long grain, basmati, brown)
- 165g peeled and grated carrot (1 1/2 cups)
- 120g grated strong cheddar cheese (1 cup, old cheddar) (I like the white)
- 110g good quality mayonnaise (1/2 cup)
- 80ml whole milk (1/3 cup)
- 1 large free range egg, lightly beaten
- 2 spring onions (scallions) thinly sliced
- salt and black pepper to taste
- chopped parsley to garnish
instructions:
How to cook Country Style Casserole
- Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4. Butter a 1 litre/4 cup casserole dish.
- Mix together all of the ingredients, seasoning to taste with some salt and black pepper. Pour into the buttered casserole dish. Cover tightly and bake in the preheated oven for 40 to 45 minutes.
- Remove from the oven, uncover, sprinkle with parsley flakes and serve immediately!
We enjoyed this with a Costco rotisserie chicken and some runner beans from the garden. It was a quick, easy and quite enjoyable meal. If you have a vegetarian in your life this would make a great main dish, especially if you add some toasted nuts.
This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at: mariealicejoan at aol dot com
Thanks so much for visiting. Do come again!
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