We love potatoes in this house. In fact I would hazard to say that for both of us, the potato is our favourite vegetable!
I was looking for something quick and easy to make for our tea the other night. I needed to go grocery shopping and there wasn't a lot of fresh things to choose from. I always have a pretty well stocked store cupboard and so I dug into that for some inspiration.
On Sundays if I am really on the ball, I like to throw something into
the crockpot before I leave for church so that dinner is ready and
waiting for us when we get home. We're usually starving by that time. I
am much less inclined to munch on something I shouldn't if dinner is
ready and waiting! I reckon I am not alone in that!
I normally like to pull out all the stops for breakfast at the weekend. A leftover from my working days I suppose.
I didn't have a lot of time during the week to make much of a cooked breakfast, so Saturdays usually meant I would do us something special. I hear we are supposed to have some nice weather this weekend as well. I am loving these longer, brighter and warmer days!
These Blueberry Breakfast Buns fit the bill perfectly. They are like blueberry cinnamon rolls no yeast involved. I suppose you could also call them a blueberry sticky bun!
Retirement means that every day is a bit of a holiday it seems, although
in truth I don't know how I ever got everything I had to do done when I
was working full time.
My retirement time seems to just evaporate
into thin air! I still reserve goodies like this for the weekend
however . . . old habits die hard.
I saw something similar to this on Pioneer Woman Cooks a couple of years back, but you know . . . yeast breads are truly not my forte, and
I am rather lazy on top of it all, so I never did anything about it.
I
got to thinking though, I could really actually do something similar using a
buttermilk scone dough . . .
And so that is what I did. I created a flaky and light buttermilk scone
dough, flavoured with a bit of fresh lemon zest . . . I rolled this
out flat into a rectangle.
I then rubbed butter, sugar and more lemon
zest together until it was a bit crumbly. I sprinkled this over top of
the dough . . .
I scattered fresh blueberries over top and rolled it all up tightly and
cut it into thick slices which I placed into a butter glass baking dish.
I brushed them with some more butter milk and then baked in a hot oven until
the scone dough was all puffed up and golden brown and that lucious
lemon and blueberry filling was just slightly oozing.
Slathered with a
lemon buttercream drizzle hot out of the oven it made a GORGEOUS
breakfast bake.
And to think . . . it didn't take hours of waiting for
dough to rise or any such thing. Almost instant, pure taste
gratification.
You can spell that SCRUMMDIDDLYUMPTIOUS! That's almost
like supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, except its a whole LOT better.
☺ Tastier too!
*Lemon & Blueberry Sweet Rolls*
Serves 8
A delicious breakfast bake with
tender buttery lemony scone dough, spread with a scrummy lemon sugar,
sprinkled with blueberries, rolled up, cut and baked, then slathered with a delicious
butter lemon icing when done. Served warm, this will have your family
oohing and ahhing and thinking about it all day.
For the scone dough:
250g of plain flour (1 3/4 cup plus 1 TBS)
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
finely grated zest of 1/2 lemon
pinch of salt
3 TBS caster sugar
40g unsalted butter, softened (3 TBS)
1 large free range egg
75ml of butter milk (1/3 cup)
(may need more as needed to create the perfect dough)
To fill:
12 TBS caster sugar
4 TBS butter
the finely grated zest of one lemon
250g of fresh blueberries (scant 2 cups)
a bit more buttermilk for baking
For the glaze:
195g of icing sugar, sifted (1 1/2 cups)
the finely grated zest 1/2 lemon
the juice of 1/2 lemon
1 TBS softened butter
Pre-heat the oven to 200*C/400*F/
gas mark 6. Butter a deep oval baking dish really well. (Mine is about
12 inches long at it's widest and 8 inches across at it's deepest, and
about 3 inches in depth.) It's important that you butter it well. Set
aside.
Sift the flour and baking powder
into a bowl. Whisk in the lemon zest, sugar and salt. Drop in the
butter and then rub the butter into the flour mixture with your
fingertips until you get a mixture resembling fine bread crumbs.
Beat
the egg and buttermilk together.
Stir this into the flour mixture using
a round bladed knife. You made need to add a bit more milk if the
dough seems dry. Knead gently and turn out onto a floured board. Pat
out into a rectangle measuring roughly 8 inches by 12 inches, and about
1/2 inch thick.
Rub the lemon zest, sugar and butter
together for the filling. Sprinkle this evenly over top of the patted
out dough. Scatter the blueberries over top evenly, pressing them down
lightly into the dough.
Starting from the long end, roll up the dough
to make a fat roll, trying to roll it as tightly together as possible,
and keeping as much of the filling intact as you can. Press the ends
gently to firm up. Using a very sharp knife, cut into 8 evenly sized
slices.
Place the slices into the buttered dish. I used a very large
sharp chef's knife to cut the slices and then let them fall on top of
the knife and used the knife to move them to the dish.
Take any bits
of berry or sugar that fall out in the process and stick them back in
once you get them into the dish. They will be a fairly snug fit, but
not to worry, this is the way it should be. Brush the top of all with
some more butter milk.
Bake in the preheated oven for 20 to
25 minutes until well risen and golden brown on top. It should look
dry and beginning to just turn brown on the bottoms, which you should be
able to see if you have used a clear glass dish.
While the buns are baking whisk
together the icing sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice and softened butter to
make a smooth somewhat thin icing. As soon as you take the buns from
the oven slather this delicious icing over top of the warm buns to cover
them all. Let it settle in a bit and then serve warm, separating the
rolls and placing each onto serving plates for eating.
I really hope you will give these a go this weekend and that if you do, you enjoy them as much as we did. Happy Saturday. Hope the sun shines on you also. Bon Appetit!
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!
Quick baked chicken recipes like this delicious Honey & Soy Baked Chicken are great recipes to have in your recipe repertoire. Everyone needs a tasty recipe like this up
their sleeves!
It is so simple and so delicious and uses things I
always have in the house, and I am betting that you do too! Finger licking good!
It's as simple to make as combining a few
marinade ingredients in a heavy zip lock bag. You then add some chicken,
smushing it around a bit in the bag.
After you let it sit in the refrigerator
for several hours, you dump it all into a baking dish and bake it until it is deliciously meltingly tender.
I always buy my chickens whole when there
is a deal on them. I then bring them home and cut them up, repackage them in serving size packs of legs, breasts, thighs, wings,
etc.
I then bang them into the freezer. That way I not only save money,
but always have a variety of chicken pieces at my finger tips ready to
use. I freeze the backs and necks for soup as well. It's win/win all
around!
On this particular day I used a mix of drumsticks and thighs. I guarantee you will
love this marinade/sauce. I
t's filled with lovely oriental flavors .
. . soy, honey, garlic, ginger . . . which bakes into a finger licking
sticky glaze.
Wings would be really good done in this sauce as well. I wouldn't do breasts, however, as the long cooking time would dry them out too much.
Chicken
breasts are not really suited to this type of dish at any rate. You
want a nice piece of chicken meat which gets succulent and tender under a
long slow cook period that allows the marinade to cook down into that
delicious rich and sticky glaze.
*Honey and Soy Baked Chicken*
Serves 4
Serves 4
salt to taste
Mix
the olive oil, soy sauce, honey, garlic, ginger, pepper and salt
together in a large plastic food bag with a zip lock top. Add the
chicken pieces and smush them around a bit to coate well in the bag.
Close the bag and place in the refrigerator to marinate for half an hour
to an hour. (Obviously the longer you leave it the more the flavours
permeate the chicken.) Give it a smush every once in a while.
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.
I love puff pastry. Well, I love any pastry actually. I am a pastry afficionado from way back and the butterier and flakier the better! I am a very good pastry maker if I don't say so myself, must be all the years of practice I have had. One thing I don't do however is make my own Puff Pastry from scratch. Call me lazy or whatever. It is very time consuming and the end results are not much better than a good quality all butter puff pastry you can buy in the shops.
I forget where I was, but it was a couple of weeks ago now, I was visiting with someone and they mentioned baking a quiche for supper a few nights before that.
I remember thinking to myself, I have not baked a quiche in a while and my appetite for having quiche was immediately whetted and I thought about nothing else for a few days!
Have you ever done that?
The shops here in the UK are filled with a variety of Quiches, but I have always found them largely disappointing.
Too much crust (yes, I, a crust lover, did say that!) and not enough filling.
I love crust, but there has to be an perfect balance of crust to filling to make my taste buds tingle. Store produced quiches are always sadly lacking in filling.
Too much crust and not enough filling, just doesn't do it for me, which is why I never buy ready made quiches. To me, they are a huge waste of money.
Why pay hard earned money to be disappointed. It doesn't make sense.
I used my Butter/Lard pastry recipe for this, and it was just the right amount of flaky and savoury. It also meant I had an extra crust to do something tasty with at a later date.
If you have never made the butter/lard pastry, you really need to. Once you try it you will never want to make any other kind.
I also chose to make a Salmon and Broccoli filling. Salmon and broccoli are a beautiful flavour combination.
Those two are a marriage made in heaven and something which we both enjoy together, especially when accompanied with copious amounts of tasty cheese!
And I used three kinds of cheese in this. A nutty Gruyere. A sharp Cheddar and a creamy Red Leicester for colour.
The whole thing was gorgeously tasty and we both fell in love with it. My appetite for a Quiche was sated and my husband was a happy camper also.
I love simple meals like this. Store cupboard ingredients. Easy to make. Delicious. What more could a person ask for?
*Salmon, Broccoli and Cheese Quiche*
Makes one 10-inch quiche
Makes one 10-inch quiche
This is a simple quiche with classic flavours. Salmon and broccoli go together like peas and carrots.
1 unbaked 10 inch pie crust (your own recipe or a good storebought one)
4 spring onions, trimmed and chopped
105g of cooked salmon, skinless and boneless, flaked (1 cup)
375g of grated cheese (I used Strong Cheddar, Red Leiscester, and Gruyere) (3 cups)
6 large free range eggs, beaten
6 large free range eggs, beaten
225ml of evaporated skim milk (1 cup)
salt and black pepper to taste
1/4 tsp dill weed
Pre-heat your oven to 190*C/375*F/gas mark 5. Line your pie dish with the pastry, fluting the edges as desired. Set aside. Place a baking tray in the oven to heat.
Place 240g ( two cups) of your cheese in the bottom of the crust. Sprinkle with the spring onions. Lay out the broccoli florets and scatter over the salmon decoratively. Sprinkle wth some salt and black pepper and the dillweed. Beat the eggs and milk well together. Season to taste with salt and black pepper. Pour this over your vegetables and cheese. Sprinkle the remaining cup of cheese over top.
Place on the heated baking tray and then bake for 50 to 55 minutes, until nicely browned and a knife inserted near the centre comes out clean. Let sit for 10 minutes before cutting into wedges to serve.
We both had our fill over the next few days, enough so that we were satisfied and it will be a while before I bake one again. I have never frozen a quiche, so I am not sure if it freezes properly or not. Have any of you? Bon Appetit!
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Skillet Chicken and Spinach Bowties. Today I bring you a pasta dish which is not only quick and easy to make, but quite, quite
delicious!
With it's fresh flavours and pretty colours, this is sure
to please almost anyone and is a great way to get the kids to eat their
spinach!
I love easy recipes like this that are not only quick and simple to make, but also incredibly tasty! Don't you?
It uses simple ingredients such as lean chicken breasts, which you slice
and then brown off in a bit of butter, until cooked through.
I love cooking with chicken breasts. They are so incredibly versatile, adapting themselves to many tastes, cuisines and flavours!
Once browned, you scoop the chicken out and keep them warm. Some garlic is then added to the pan.
Once the air is filled with it's lovely smell, cream is added along with lemon zest and lemon juice to create a delicious light Alfredo type of
sauce!
Make sure you have your pasta cooking while you are making the sauce. If you do that the recipe goes together very quickly.
Once the pasta is cooked
you simply drain it and then return it to the pot along with the
spinach. The heat of the pasta wilts the spinach perfectly.
After that you simply stir the sauce, chicken, some cheese and a bit of
the pasta water into the pan along with some of the cooking water from
the pasta and your dish is ready to serve pronto!
It is every so quick
to make and let me tell you, it pleases this pasta loving heart of
mine!
Chicken, pasta and spinach in a creamy garlic and lemon sauce,
with the crunch of toasted pine nuts. What's not to like?
*Skillet Chicken and Spinach Bowties*
Serves 4
This
quick and easy dish is alive with fresh flavours . . . lemon, spinach,
parmesan, garlic . . . and cream. With butter browned chicken bits
and crunchy toasted pine nuts, it is a feast for all of the senses!Serves 4
4 small boneless skinless chicken breast halves,
cut into slices crosswise salt and black pepper to taste
2 TBS butter
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and minced
120ml of double cream (1/2 cup heavy cream)
2 tsp freshly grated lemon zest
3 TBS fresh lemon juice
500g dried Farfalle (1 pound, bow tie pasta)
160g bag baby spinach (about 6 ounces)90g freshly grated Parmesan Cheese (1/2 cup)
40g toasted pine nuts (about 1/3 cup)
Season the chicken with salt and pepper. Melt one TBS of the butter in a pan. Cook the chicken pieces, in two lots, adding the remaining butter with the second lots, and cooking until lightly browned and cooked through. Remove from the pan and set aside. Keep warm.
Add the garlic to the empty skillet. Cook over medium heat until fragrant. Add the cream, lemon zest and lemon juice. Simmer until the sauce thickens slightly. Remove from heat. Cover and keep warm.
Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil.
Cook the farfalle in the boiling water until al dente. Reserve 1/2 cup of the cooking water and then drain the pasta well. Return it to the pot. Add the sauce, cooked chicken, spinach, cheese and pine nuts. Toss together, adding reserved pasta water as needed. Season to taste with more salt and pepper and serve.
My husband, even though he isn't really fond of pasta, doesn't seem to mind this too much. I think it is really just spaghetti he doesn't like because he finds it hard to eat.
In any case I think this is something you will enjoy! Bon Appetit!
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Thanks for visiting! Do come again!
Puy lentils, grown in France are just wonderful in soups. They thicken
without turning to sludge. They don't break down like other lentils
and keep their lovely little shape, giving any soup which is made with
them a bit of a bite, a very delicious bite!
As you know I've been working really hard on my cookbook. There hasn't been a lot of cooking going on these past few days as I am down to the crunch. I hope you will forgive me for re-posting these lovely slices from a few years ago. They are delicious, so I am sure you won't!
I wanted to make my husband my Irish Apple Cake for Saint Patricks Day. He loves apple anything.
I have been wanting to re-do some of my earlier recipes and take new photos of them, so today, in honor of Saint Patrick, I re-did my Irish Apple Cake Recipe.
The original photos are not so great as it was about 5 years ago now that I first posted this recipe. The dough for the cake is very similar to a scone type of dough.
You rub the butter into self rising flour, just like you would for a scone. It is a bit damper however.
This gets spread in the bottom of a tin with a removable bottom. I like to make an edge all the way around to encase the sliced apples.
Use a good cooking apple that will hold it's shape. This gets tossed together with some brown sugar and cinnamon.
Pop that into the centre of the cake base. Don't slice the apple too thick or it won't cook.
You want it cooked through but not falling apart, if you know what I mean.
My original recipe had you divide the cake dough in half and put half on top and half on the bottom. Today I chose to put it all on the bottom and up the edges.
The original version was nice, but I wanted to improve upon it if I could and I had seen other Irish Apple Cakes done this way.
I also created a streusel topping to scatter over the top instead of a crust like the original one. I thought it would update it a bit and be like a cross between a cake and a crumble.
I do love an apple crumble, don't you? Serve this warm with either some custard or a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Todd likes his custard. Both are good. You can find my custard recipe here.
*Irish Apple Cake*
Serves 6 to 8Printable Recipe
A delicous version of an apple cake, baked with tasty apple slices sandwiched in the centre. Serve warm with or without custard.
280g self raising flour (generous 2 cups) (You may need extra
so don't put the flour away just yet)
125g butter (1/2 cup)
1 large free range egg, lightly beaten
100g caster sugar (1/2 cup)
80ml milk (1/3 cup)
Filling:
2 cooking apples, peeled and sliced
1/2 tsp cinnamon
60g soft light brown sugar (4 1/2 TBS)
Streusel Topping:
105 g plain flour (3/4 cup)
20g old fashioned oats (1/4 cup)
100g sugar (1/2 cup)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
6 TBS butter, cut into bitsYou will also need:
Icing sugar to dust, warm custard to serve or a scoop of ice cream (optional)
Pre-heat the oven to 180*C/350*F. Butter a deep flan tin, with a loose bottom, roughly 9 inches in diameter. Set aside.
Make the Streusel. Measure the flour and oats and sugar into a bowl. Stir in the cinnamon. Drop in the butter. Rub together with your fingers until it clumps together and you have a crumble mixture.
Place
the flour and butter into a large bowl. Rub the butter in with your
fingertips to form a breadcrumb texture. Stir in the sugar. Add the
beaten egg and milk and mix together with a round bladed knife. If the
dough seems a bit too sticky add a bit more flour. You want a soft
dough.
Spoon the dough into the prepared pan, making it higher around
the edges, about 1 inch into the centre with a hollowed out space to put
the apples. Spread
the apple slices evenly over the centre of the base. Press them down
lightly.
Sprinkle with the soft light brown sugar and the cinnamon.
Sprinkle the streusel over top. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes,
until well risen and golden brown.
Let stand in the tin for about 10 minutes before removing the sides.
Place the tin on top of a jar
and push the sides of the pan down and remove. Place the cake on a
wire rack to cool to warm. Dust with icing sugar before cutting into wedges to serve, with or without ice cream or custard.
Happy Saint Patrick's Day! May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind always be at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face, and rains fall soft upon your fields. And until we meet again, May God hold you in the palm of His hand. Bon Appetit!
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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