Sometimes the nicest things drop through my mailbox, and certain times of the year it gets more exciting than ever.  I was especially excited the other day when I opened a box to find this tasty treat inside!

 

It was a personalized stocking, just for me and filled with lots of little packages . . . but what could they be.  Why cheese of course and a very timely arrival as well!  As we all know there is nothing tastier or more welcome during the holidays than a deliciously appointed cheeseboard to share with your guests!

I am no stranger to the wonderful cheeses which are produced by Castello Cheese.  I often buy their Danish Blue, which is one of my favourites when it comes to blue cheeses.  Here is what I found inside all of those lovely little festive packages . . .



Not one, but two packages of their lovely Danish Blue . .  the Traditional and the Extra Creamy.  A creamy blue cheese, bursting with flavour and thick with blue veins.  This has always been my choice when making my homemade Blue Cheese Salad Dressings . . . and an absolute favourite with my Baby Gems Salad.





*Little Gems With a Blue Cheese Dressing*
Serves 4
Printable Recipe

This is one of my favourite salads. Simple ingredients, complex flavours. It all adds up to a truly delicious salad. Just perfect for these warmer days.

2 TBS cider vinegar
2 TBS heavy cream
3 1/2 ounces extra virgin olive oil
2 ounces blue cheese
2 fat little gem lettuces
2 spring onions, thinly sliced on the diagonal
1 TBS sugar
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Whisk the vinegar and cream together with a little seasoning. Whisk in the sugar until it dissolves. Gradually whisk in the olive oil. Fold in the cheese.

Wash the lettuces and dry them really well. Cut the lettuces into wedges lengthwise and fan them out on 4 chilled salad plates. Drizzle over the dressing, dividing it equally amongst the salads. Sprinkle evenly with the spring onions. Serve immediately.



*Blue Cheese Salad Dressing*
Makes 10 servings
Printable Recipe

One of my favourite salad dressings is Blue Cheese.  You can't get a decent one in the shops and so I prefer to make my own.  Marks and Spencer used to do a really good one, but you can't buy it anymore, well, at least not around here anyways!  Plan ahead as this tastes better upon sitting overnight.

1 cup good quality Mayonnaise
1 cup sour cream
1/2 to 3/4 cup buttermilk
1/2 tsp ground white pepper
2 TBS grated onion
4-5 drops of Tabasco sauce
1 TBS lemon juice
1 tsp Worcestershire Sauce
1/2 tsp salt
a dash of cayenne pepper
1 clove of garlic, peeled and minced
2 tsp white sugar
6 ounces blue cheese, crumbled

Whisk together the mayonnaise, sour cream and buttermilk, adding as much of the buttermilk as you need to give it a good consistency.  You want it to be pourable.  Whisk in the remaining ingredients.  Mix thoroughly.  Cover and chill for 24 hours before serving.  You may need to add a bit of regular milk if it is too thick.  Taste and adjust seasoning before serving.



Castello Creamy Blue . . . Sharp and salty this blue is perfect with salty nuts, crisp digetives and sweet fruits such as sweet cherries, figs,  juicy grapes . . .



Castello Creamy White . . . a cheese which has a wonderfully creamy texture and buttery taste, not unlike that of Brie, but unlike a traditional Brie, it has a consistently soft texture.  Oh so good . . .



Included as well a lovely little Castello Pineapple Halo.  Filled with alluring chunks of pineapple and chopped papaya and rolled in toasted almonds, this is lucious and almost incredibly impossible to resist, spread upon a crisp cracker, or onto sticks of crisp celery.  Delicious!

 

The Toddster insists that no good cheeseboard would be complete without a nice slab of cheddar, and I would have to agree.   Included in my lovely stocking was a nice package of the newest member of the Castello family . . . Tickler Cheddar!    This is an award winning extra mature cheddar with a sweet, strong and tangy taste which is bound to impress any cheese connoisseur.  With it's distinctive taste and slightly crumbly texture  this was the real prize in my stocking!  Produced at the Taw Valley creamery, Devon and matured for up to 18 months, this was fabulously tasty and the one I find myself slicing a little sliver off of each time I pass the refrigerator.   It's a good-un!



I prepared and served a lot of cheeseboards during my stint as a personal Chef down South.  Every dinner party ended with a delicious cheeseboard after their dessert.   Here is what I learned through my experiences and my top tips for you to have the best cheese board ever.

1.  Make sure your board includes a nice variety of cheeses.  A good cheddar is a must, as is something creamy for spreading . . . a nice blue, something fruity, something sharp, something smelly and covered in ash for interest.  Just don't over do it.   Three or four different cheeses is a perfect balance.

2.  Allow all of your cheeses to come to room temperature before serving.   This helps to bring out the very best of their flavours.

3.  A bit of fruit is always welcome . . .  quartered figs and sliced crisp apples and ripe pears,  sweet grapes in more than one colour.  (Be sure not to forget your grape scissors to your guests can clip off their own little clusters.)

4.  Something salty . . . smoked almonds, roasted cashews, toasted walnut halves . . . all great.

5.  Something different to jazz things up . . . crystalized ginger, some honey comb, pickled walnuts.

6.  A nice variety of crisp breads and crackers.  There are so many nice ones out there today to choose from.  Don't forget the Digestives either . . . these are usually the ones which disappear the fastest!  You can get then in finger shapes, which are a really good size and not as crumbly as the big round ones.

7.  Have fun!

Many thanks to Castello Cheese for sending me this lovely assortment of cheeses in it's fun stocking!  To find out more about them and see their whole range and to find out more about stockists, be sure to check out the Castello Home Page.   

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I am rather fond of cherries . . . when we lived down South in Kent, during cherry season the roads and byways were filled with local sellers plying their wares . . . fresh English cherries, served up warm in paper bags.   I could never get my fill.  Half of each bag purchased always disappeared in the car on the way home . . . as if by magic.



Normally I would only eat these tasty little babies in season . . . I am a lover of seasonal eating, because usually these types of things really only taste wonderful when they are in season . . . the way they were meant to be eaten.   But when I received the latest and last installment of the  Ultimate Cookbook from the Sunday Times, I couldn't resist one final foray into cherry-indulgence for the year.   The Cherry Clafoutis recipe by Gordon Ramsay (from his book, Sunday Lunch) was screaming my name and I just had to make it.



Over the past three weeks, and finishing this week, The Sunday Times has been  publishing a pull out Ultimate Cookbook as part of the Incredible Edibles Food Series, dedicated to food and dining.   This final week's focus is on the Dinner Party,  and you can get your copy of The Sunday Times Ultimate Cookbook:  Dinner party this weekend, on Sunday the 8th of December, featuring a wonderful variety of the finest and most delicious Dinner Party recipes brought to you by a great ensemble of celebrity chefs and restaurants from  here in the UK.



I love Dinner Parties.  They are the perfect opportunity for you to really bring your culinary and entertaining skills to the forefront!  This lovely little pull out cookery book is filled to overflowing with delicious recipes . . . impossible to resist . . . and for the most part simple to prepare, because as we all know, part of the fun of entertaining is being able to enjoy the evening with your guests in comfort, knowing that you have done your best to plan and provide for them a delicious repast, from beginning to end . . . free from stress and pressure.



You can pick from such tasty delights as Rowley Leigh's Parmesan Custards with Anchovy Toasts and Gizzie Erskine's delicious looking Beef Wellington, which is not as difficult to make as one would imagine!  Each recipe looking more fabulous than the last, it was really difficult for me to choose just one to prepare to show you . . . but I do have a rather sweet tooth and so the Cherry Clafoutis won out!



Preheat the oven to 190*C/375*F/ gas mark 5.  Butter four individual oven dishes, or one large shallow oven dish, really well.   Dust the base and sides with icing sugar.   Scatter the prepared cherries amongst the dishes, dividing them equally.   Give the chilled batter a stir, and then pour it over the cherries in the dish(es).  Stand the dish(es) on a baking sheet and bake in the preheated oven for 20 to 30 minutes, until golden brown and risen.  Check to be sure the clafoutis have set in the middle.  If they haven't, then bake them for an additonal five minutes.   Allow to stand for 5 to 10 minutes before adding a dusting of icing sugar and serving warm. 

Don't forget to pick up your copy of The Sunday Times Ultimate Cookbook:  Dinner |Parties this weekend, on Sunday the 8th of December 2013, the final installment in a four-part series.  Featuring a selection of the finest recipes of the celebrity chef era.  The Ultimate Cookbook is part of  The Incredible Edibles Food Series dedicated to food and dining.  Many thanks to The Times for allowing me to participate in presenting this fabulous series to you.

Visit thesundaytimes.co.uk to subscribe and to find out more details about exclusive Times + chef events hosted at some of the country's best restaurants.

 

The code is TASSIMO45 

To get in on this great deal you simply need to go to www.costatassimo.co.uk and enter the code to redeem.  You will need to act quickly however, as this fabulous deal ends tonight!

My friend Elly has the most beautiful recipe for Parsnips that I have been using for many years, Parsnips with Gorgonzola.   It always turns out delicious and it is something which I frequently  served with roast beef when I cooked at the manor.  They loved it.  It's a dish that always goes down really well.



It makes a fabulous side dish for dinner parties or the holidays.  I charged it up a little bit this time when I made it by adding some toasted walnuts and using leeks instead of spring onions.  It turned out  to be just gorgeous. 



 You get the  buttery almost sweet creaminess, with caramlized edges of the parsnips . . . then the sharp herbiness of the leeks, the toasty crunch from the walnuts, and then that rich creamy tang from the gorgonzola cheese.  All making happy noises and feelings in your mouth.  So much tastiness!



The only way they could even possibly be any tastier would be if you drizzled them with some honey perhaps . . . oh, boy.  I'm going to do that next time, I am, I am!  Enjoy!



Cook the parsnips, leaving them whole if possible, in lightly salted water until tender.  (I had to cut mine into equal sizes ad they were on the large side.  Just cut in half  width wise, then cut the larger bit into quarters and the bottom thinner bit in half.)  This should take 10 to 15 minutes depending on the size of your parsnips.  Drain well.  If you have left them whole, cut them in half lengthwise.

Melt 2 TBS of the butter in a large skillet.  Add the parsnips in one layer and lightly brown them on all sides.  Arrange them in a lightly buttered baking dish, fitting them in snugly.  Wipe the pan out and then melt the remaining butter and heat until it begins to foam.  Add the sliced leek and walnuts.  Cook, stirring frequently, until the leeks are soft and the walnuts lightly toasted.   Scatter this over top of the parsnips in the dish.   Crumble the gorgonzola over top.  (This much can be done ahead the day before if you wish)

When you are ready to cook them, preheat the oven to 220*C/450*F/ gas mark 8.  Pop the dish of parsnips in and bake until the cheese is very lightly browned, 10 to 13 minutes.


 

This recipe gave me the perfect opportunity to use some of that Divo Italiano Cubed Gorgonzola P.D.O.  Piccante that I was sent.    It has such a nice bite and beautiful creaminess.  It was a Gold award winner at the Nantwich International Cheese Awards 2013, a P.D.O. Italian blue cheese without any rind which means nothing goes to waste. Packaged in a convenient pre-cubed format, it is the first to market in this format for Gorgonzola cheese. It is matured for up to 90 days in natural caves in Northern Italy to give it a sharp, spicy (‘piccante’ in Italian) flavour and creamy texture. It makes a delicious match with ripe pears and walnuts tossed into rocket leaves, melted on pizza, or used to make an indulgent cooking sauce.  You can buy it at Morrisons and via Ocado.

 I love food this time of year . . . I know I say that all year round, but this is the time of year that we really start to get stuck into comfort foods . . . winter warmers . . . rich soups, stews, casseroles and bakes.



Food that, with the exception of a few small prep details, pretty much cooks itself.  Simple and wholesome ingredients, but let me tell you . . . more often than not there it nothing simple at all about the flavours!  Most pack a very delicious punch!



I've always been the kind of person that has been able to put things together and come up with something satisfyingly delicious . . . things like this Chicken, Bacon and Leek Casserole I am showing you here today.



It's simple.   It uses stuff you most likely have in your fridge, larder and freezer right now.  It tastes fabulously delicious, and it basically cooks itself.  I like to serve it with some fluffy mash. 




The Toddster is a real mash lover.  I like to cook some greens on the side as well, just for some colour and vitamins.  Today it was sprout tops.  I do hope you will give it a try., and when you do that you'll come back and tell me how much you loved it!  It may not look very exciting, but dull this isn't!




Heat the oil over medium heat in a medium sized flame and oven proof casserole dish.   Add the bacon and chicken and cook, stirring occasionally until golden.  Stir in the leeks, carrots, celery and parsnips.  Cook for several minutes, stirring occasionally.  Add the summer savoury and thyme, along with some salt and pepper to taste.    Grind over a bit of garlic powder. 

Add the wine and chicken stock.  Bring to the boil.   Reduce to a simmer and stir in the flour/water mixture.  Cook stirring until the mixture begins to thicken.  Cover tightly and then transfer the casserole to the oven.   Bake, covered, for about 45 minutes.  Uncover and bake for 15 minutes longer, until the chicken and vegetables are very tender.

Serve hot with some mashed potatoes and crusty rolls.

 

When I was a very young bride, many moons ago the old Italian mother of a friend of mine taught me about making slits into pork and beef roasts and inserting slivers of garlic to add fabulous flavours to the meat.  It made such a wonderful difference I have been doing it ever since.   And it doesn't take a lot to add a real flavour boost.



Honey is another thing which goes really well with pork, and garlic for that matter.   Pork is naturally kind of a sweet meat, and very rich.  Honey helps to accentuate that richness very well.   Think honey garlic spareribs . . .but there is no soy in this recipe.  Not needed. I use orange juice instead, because you know pork is also a meat that goes very well with fruit . . .



A lot of the flavour comes from the rub mixture of salt, pepper, paprika and thyme.  It's such a simple way to get extra flavour and colour.    The combination of the rub, the sauce . . . heavenly.



A bit of chicken stock in the bottom of the tin helps to keep the meat moist and along with frequent basting ensures that you will have a beautifully flavoured, coloured, succulent and tender roast.   A few slices of this with some of the pan juices spooned over top and you're in heaven.   Fabulous contrast of flavours that marry together in bliss!



Slice the roast to serve with some of the juices spooned over top.

First make the dumplings.   Preheat the oven to 200*C/400*F/ gas mark 6.  Line a baking tray with some baking parchment.

Unroll your puff pastry.  Cut out 4 3-inch squares and place them each on the baking tray, leaving plenty of space in between.  Cut out 9 to 12 small pastry leaves.  (You can just cut another 3-inch squares into four triangles each and score lightly to resemble the veins in leaves.)  Cut the remainder of the pastry into 1/2 inch wide long strips.  

Core the apples and peel.   Mix the sugar with the cinnamon and roll each apple in this mixture to coat. Brush the squares on the baking sheeet with some of the beaten egg.  Place each cored apple on the centre of a pastry square and fold the pastry up to fit around the apple base snuggly.   Fill each core with an equal quantity of mincemeat.   Brush the pastry strips lightly with some of the beaten egg and apply them to the apples, covering them all the way around, working your way up from the bottom and slightly overlapping them over each other, egg wash side in so that they stick to each other.  Do this until the apples are all covered with the exception of the mincemeat hole in the middle.   Brush the leaves with some egg wash, and apply around the holes, again leaving the hole open.   Brush the outsides of the pastry covered apples with some more egg wash and then sprinkle with demerara sugar.

Bake in the heated oven for 25 to 30 minutes, until the pasty is golden brown and crisp and the mincemeat is bubbling and the apples are cooked.  Remove from the oven and allow to stand while you make the creme anglaise.

Heat the cream with the vanilla in a saucepan until you see bubbles around the edges.  Whisk together the egg yolks and sugar until smooth.  Slowly pour half of the cream into the egg yolk mixture, whisking constantly.   Return this mixture to the remainder of the hot cream, again whisking constantly.  Return the pan to the heat and cook, whisking, until the mixture thickens slightly and coats the back of a metal spoon.  Remove from the heat and whisk in the spices. 

Place one fourth of the cream anglaise in each of four dessert bowls.  Top each with one of the baked apples and serve immediately.  Delicious!

Note - This will make a lot of chocolate sauce, but no worries as it keeps well in the fridge.  Just reheat gently to use.

I do get sent the nicest things.   This week I got this handy candy apple red Kitchen Aid Mezzaluna from the people at Red Candy.   If you aren't familiar with Red Candy, it's a company which specializes in all things red!  If Funky Home Accessories and ravishing Red Kitchen Accessories are your cup of tea, then this is the place for you!



The Kitchen Aid Mezzaluna is a fine edged stainless steel cutter.  You cut things merely by rocking the sharp fine edges stainless steel blade over them.     It has a comfy red sure grip handle which feels really comfortable in the hands and comes with a matching red blade cover which helps to protect the blade from scratches and you from getting cut when you reach into the drawer. It's also dishwasher safe.



I've been using it all week for chopping all sorts . . . onions, carrots, herbs, etc. and it has performed very well.   It also comes with a one year hassle free replacement and Lifetime Limited Warranty.  It's ace, which is just what you would expect from the Kitchen Aid brand.

£28 at Red Candy.

Many thanks to Red Candy for sending these to me!




Something else which I received which is really nice are the Holy Lama Spice Drops.  I was send an assortment of five different ones  . . . Garlic extract, Peppermint extract, Garama Masala Extract, Tea Massala extract and Cinnamon extract.



Holy Lama Naturals "Spice drops" are a natural transition from powdered or whole spices to easily soluble &  longer lasting, liquid spices!

• Highly concentrated extract of the natural spice
• 3 years shelf life
• Consistent in every drop
• Easy to blend
• No artificial colours, flavours or preservatives!
• Easy to store
• Easy to use and handy time saver
• Ready to use combinations like mulled wine spices, spiced tea, etc.



Each comes in it's own eye dropper bottle, easy to store and easy to use. No more crushing or grating.  A drop is all you need.  It is recommended that  you add them just at the end of your cooking time, so that doesn't make them very good for baking with, but I have been using them all week and found they added a nice natural flavour to my curries and stews. I especially like the garlic  You can find out more about them and where you can buy them on the Holy Lama Page.  They come in quite a few different varieties.  Many thanks to the Holy Lama people for sending these to me.  I will certainly be using more of them. I especially like the cinnamon, mint and the garlic.  The cinnamon is great in hot drinks, as is the mint (think hot chocolate here!) and the garlic was excellent when added to my soups and stews.