There are normally only two of us eating in this house and so I normally
try to cut recipes in half for us, or create dishes which are simple
and make just enough for two. It's not that hard to do really. And
you can normally multiply up with no problems at all.
I found myself with an abundance of cherry tomatoes on Saturday last and
so I decided that I would incorporate them somehow into our supper. I
also had chicken breasts. Chicken and tomatoes go really well
together. One only need to look at delicious recipes such as Chicken
Cacciatore or Chicken Parmesan to see that this is true.
This recipe goes together very quickly so I would suggest you have all
of the ingredients ready and hand before you start. The chicken breasts
are cut into two escallopes horizontally which makes for quick cooking .
. .
The cherry tomatoes are cut in half as well, for quick cooking. I saw a
really interesting and helpful little video on how to that really
quickly the other day. You can see it here. It's a slap on the forehead, why didn't I think of that kind of a thing! (It really does work!)
The tomatoes are quickly frizzed in some olive oil along with some
garlic. You dust the chicken pieces with some flour and salt and pepper
and then brown them in the same pan, along with some sage. It
doesn't take very long at all as they are only half as thick as they
normally are.
A splash of white wine, a few capers . . . . bubble bubble bubble, a
handful of chopped parsley and presto chango, you have tender moist
chicken with a delicious sauce of cherry tomatoes and capers, that will
please any meat loving man. The Toddster loves this. I always serve it
with some boiled new potatoes. It goes down a real treat, and goes
together lickety split. If you are looking for a quick, easy and
delicious supper and are feeling a tad bit lazy, this is your perfect
meal! Looks like you slaved all day, but took literally minutes.
*Chicken with Cherry Tomatoes and Capers*
Serves 2
Serves 2
through the middle into two escallopes (4 pieces in total)
salt and black pepper
I guarantee you will love this. You may even want to double it anyways! Bon Appetit!
The Victoria Sponge is one of my absolute favourite of all the cakes. There is nothing fancy about it. It is just a plain simple sponge, which when mixed and baked properly, results in a fine cake that everyone loves. If I had to choose between this and a chocolate cake, I would choose this every time. I know . . . I'm not normal, lol.
Two buttery layers put together with jam and vanilla buttercream, and then dusted on top with confectioners or caster sugar, this is the quintessential "Tea Party Cake."
It's popularity was achieved during the reign of Queen Victoria, which is probably why it is called a Victoria Sponge Cake! The ingredients in a traditional Victoria Sponge, sometimes called a Victoria Sandwich cake, are eggs, flour, sugar, and butter, and should be of equal weight; the eggs are weighed in their shell.
Truth be told however, it began as a "Nursery" cake during the reign of Queen Victoria when it was believed that children would perhaps choke on the dried fruit of a traditional fruit cake which would have been served for tea. An inventive baker came up with the Victoria Sponge for a children's teatime treat, and eventually the cake made its way to the adult tea table and the rest is history.
*Victoria Sponge Cake*
Makes one 7 inch cake
Printable Recipe
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!
Printable Recipe
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!
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 1/2 cups)
To finish:
3 TBS raspberry jam
buttercream to fill (optional)
icing sugar or caster sugar to dust the top
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, leveling 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 and buttercream (if using). Place the other cake on top, pressing down lightly. Dust with icing or caster sugar and serve.
Alternately you can bake the batter in a mini cake tin. I have a tin that allows you to make six individual cakes. Just butter, line the bottoms and bake for 15 to 20 minutes. Split and fill the finished cakes as above.
HANDY TIP ALERT!
For an easy way to cut small cakes, or large cakes for that matter,
perfectly in half horizontally . . . cut yourself a nice long piece of
dental floss (preferably not flavoured) that fits around the cake with
enough over hang to grip decently. Place it around the centre of the
cake, crossing the floss ends over each other in front.
Easy peasy lemon squeezy.
Bon Appetit!
We had a lovely weekend weatherwise last weekend. Salad weather. Well, I thought it was salad weather anyways. Todd was not so sure! It was nice to have drier, sunnier days however, and to me that spells Salad weather! I do love my comfort food in the Winter, but long about this time of year I start to craving salads!
This simple and easy to make salad encompasses all of the things you love about the classic BLT Sandwich.
With lovely chunks of ripe tomato, bits of crisp bacon, and crunchy romaine lettuce, chopped red onion, all mixed with some cooked pasta and a fabulous punchy lemon mayo dressing. Some crunchy croutons (I used bacon flavoured ones this time) are it's crowning touch!
*BLT Salad*
Serves 8
black pepper to taste
100g of dry pasta shapes (3/4 cup)
1 (20g) pack of crisp bread croutons ( about 1/2 cup)
Note - If you wish to make this ahead, leave out the lettuce and the croutons until just prior to serving. Bon Appetit!
If you are like me, you will hate waste. I hate throwing away food. My mother was the same. I learned my food thriftiness from her I guess. In any case, there are people who won't eat leftovers, but they don't live in this house and never have! I have a way of making leftovers taste even better than the original meal!
This is a simple casserole that really is tasty and so very simple to
make. If you can boil water and have been thrifty enough to save some
meat and some of that fabulous gravy, you can make this!
It is an adaptation of a recipe I found in a very old cookery book of mine entitled "Twice is Nice" by Edna K Damerall. I adapted it to use the leftovers I had with most delicious results!
Cooked elbow macaroni is seasoned with some herbs and then layered in a
casserole dish along with chopped leftover roast beef, sliced onions,
leftover gravy, cream and cheese.
You bake it for a little while and then you lay some sliced tomatoes on
top and sprinkle on some herby buttered crumbs and bake it for a little
while longer, with the end result being something which is very tasty,
not to mention visually appealing and quite economical.
*Macaroni Roma*
Serves 6
I hate waste. This is a most delicious way to use up some of the leftovers from your Sunday Roast!
1/8 tsp garlic powder
2 cups of diced leftover cooked beef
Cook
the macaroni according to the package directions. Drain well. Return
to the pot and toss together with the pepper, salt, garlic powder,
oregano and basil.
Mix the gravy and the cream together.
Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4. Butter a 1 litre casserole dish. (1 quart)
Layer in the dish as follows: 1/2 macaroni, 1/2 the beef, 1/2 the onion, 1/2 of both cheeses, 1/2 the gravy/cream mixture. Repeat the layers. Loosen the mixture gently with a knife so that the sauce filters down through the layers. Bake for half an hour in the preheated oven. Remove from the oven and lay the sliced tomato on top. Melt the butter and mix together with the bread crumbs and the thyme. Sprinkle this mixture over top of the casserole and bake for 10 minutes longer, until golden brown.
I hope that you will give this a go. I imagine you could also make it with cooked ground beef and gravy mix and it would also be quite good. Bon Appetit!
Don't you just love vanilla? I do. Just the smell of vanilla can get my tastebuds tingling and never more so than when it is being baked into a lovely, dense and moist cake such as this one!
This lovely loaf cake gives you a triple vanilla whammy! First, there is vanilla in the batter. I like to use Vanilla paste because of the lovely flecks of vanilla seed that it scatters throughout the loaf, but feel free to use regular vanilla extract if you wish. Just make sure it is pure.
Once the cake is baked, you get a second dose of vanilla by basting the still warm cake with a vanilla syrup, which gets soaked into the cake . . . kind of like a lemon drizzle, but its vanilla not lemon . . .
The third layer of Vanilla comes from the epic vanilla glaze icing which gets spooned over top of the vanilla soaked and cooled loaf . . . making for triple Vanilla yuminess!
It goes lovely with a cup of tea, herbal or otherwise. You can enjoy this beautiful loaf any time of day. I've even been known to have it for breakfast with some fresh fruit on the side. Great for elevensies, or coffee break, in lunches, or just because. You are going to love this . . . . whenever. Its quite simply gorgeous!
*Vanilla Yogurt Cake*
8 to 10 slices
1 1/2 TBS milk
1 tsp vanilla paste
Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4. Butter an 8 1/2 inch by 4 1/2 inch loaf pan. Line with baking paper. Set aside.
Sift
together the flour, baking powder, and salt into one bowl. Whisk
together the yogurt, sugar, eggs and vanilla in another bowl. Slowly
whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until incorporated.
Fold in the vegetable oil until it is well combined. Pour into the
prepared baking tin and bake for 50 to 60 minutes, until a toothpick
inserted in the centre comes out clean.
While the cake
is cooking, whisk together the first glazing ingredients in a saucepan
over medium heat, stirring until the mixture is completely clean. Set
aside.
Allow the cake to cool in the pan for 10
minutes. Tip out onto a wire rack and while the cake is still warm,
pour the glazing mixture over top allowing it to soak in. Cool
completely. (You may want to have a piece of paper underneat the rack to
catch any drips and make clean up easier.)
Combine
the icing sugar, milk and vanilla paste for the final icing glaze and
pour over the cooled cake. Allow to set before cutting into slices to
serve.
I like to use the loaf tin liners that you can buy at the bake shop. They make things a lot easier. Kind of like muffin tin liners, except they are large enough to line a loaf tin. Bon Appetit!
When I first moved over here to the UK, I knew I wouldn't be able to bring any of my cookbooks with me at that time. (IS it possible that it was almost 17 years now!
My time does fly when you are having fun!) Instead I took a small notebook and wrote down all of my favourite recipes and tried and tries that I didn't want to leave behind. It was a lot easier to carry a notebook with me than a bookcase. 😏
Golden Harvest Muffins was one of the recipes I had written down in that book. Adapted from a recipe which had been published in a Taste of Home Magazine, it has long been one of our favourite muffin recipes!
That says a lot as I have been baking muffins for quite a few years now. I do sos love muffins.
No surprise there! It is stogged full of lovely things. Not on but two flours.
There is a healthy combination of white and whole wheat flours, means that they contain an extra bit of healthy fibre.
Grated carrot and apple help towards your five a day . . . (don't burst my bubble, lol)You can't beat getting in a bit of extra fruit and vegetables really.
And what a way to get some of them in!
With grated coconut, and chopped toasted walnuts for a bit of crunchy, moreish nuttiness. I like to toast my nuts first. I always do that when baking.
Toasted nuts just taste nuttier. It is a simple thing to do. Just pop your nuts onto a baking sheet and toast them in a hot oven (190*C/375*F) for about 8 to 10 minutes. They will smell nice and nutty when they are done.
These are studded with sticky raisins. These lovely muffins are little powerhouses of flavour and texture!
Filled with scrumptiously tasty goodness!
They are moist and filled with delicious! The recipe does make a lot (36) but no worries, these are perfect for sharing.
Of course they freeze very well. Just pop them into an airtight container and pop it into the freezer.
These are perfect for keeping in the deep freeze. Wrap them up individually and then pop them into a hard container. Then you can take one out as and when you want it.
These are the perfect portable for your tea or coffee break. They make a nice addition for your lunch also, just add some carrot and celery sticks and Bob's your Uncle!
*Golden Harvest Muffins*
Makes 24 large muffins
350ml vegetable oil (1 1/2 cups)
120ml milk (1/2 cup)
4 tsp vanilla
3 large free range eggs, beaten
Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4. Butter 2 large
muffin tins really well, or line with paper liners, buttering the top of
the tin. Set aside.
Bake in the preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes until well risen and a toothpick inserted in the centre of one comes out clean. Store in an airtight container.
Hearty, simple to make and most delicious! What more could a person want?
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!
In my previous marriage, we used to spend a lot of time on Prince Edward Island in the summer. Although I was born on the Island, it was only an accident of birth, because that was where my father was posted with the Canadian Airforce at the time. My ex-husband's family, however, had a long history there, going back to some of the first Scottish settlers on the Island, back in the days when the Island was nothing but trees and native North Americans. The Ramsays ended up on the Island when their ship, The Annabella, was ship-wrecked in Malpeque Bay. The Annabella had been heading for the Virginia Colonies when a storm blew it off course and the rest is history. It is said that the survivors would have starved or frozen to death that first winter, were it not for the Natives who so generously helped them out.
My late father in law came from a very large farming family, consisting mainly of girls. I think there were only two or three sons. He was the baby of the family. Most of his sisters, with the exception of one, had moved down to the Boston, New England area before and after WW2. The same thing happened in my own family. There was a lot of prosperity in America as compared to the Maritimes, which was than and still is a somewhat economically depressed area.
The old gals (as we called the sisters) used to come up to their cottage on the Malpeque Bay every summer, where they would spend a couple of months taking in the sea air and re-connecting with their roots. The air rang with the sound of hearty card games and raucous laughter. I think the game was 45's but I can't say for sure, because I have never been a great card player. I'm too slow.
I loved to watch however, and many an afternoon was spent watching the cards being dealt and listening to all the war stories and family tales. The Sister that had stayed back on the Island used to do all the cooking. She would bake these Bannocks frequently. Her name was Rita. She was like a little bird. I loved her to pieces. She was a really kind and caring woman.
Ever the foodie, I would watch her making these. All of the ingredients used to get measured right out onto the counter-top, her quick hands deftly managing them into a dough that was then cut and baked into these beautiful light and oaty bannocks.
I can still remember the first time I saw her making them, I thought it was cheese she was mixing in, but it was cold butter which she had grated. I tend to cut the butter into bits and rub it in with my fingertips. Both ways work well.
Don't be tempted to use old fashioned oats in these, unless you blitz them in a food processor for a few seconds to break them down. This is one time you want to be using the quick oats. Old fashioned oats are too coarse.
Aunt Rita cut hers into squares, whereas I cut them into rectangles. Not a scrap of the dough is wasted. With a light touch, and no re-working of scraps you are rewarded with a dozen light as air golden brown slightly nubbly/nutty textured scones. Because that is really all a Bannock is . . . a Scottish Scone. But shhh . . . don't tell anyone I said that. I wouldn't want to start a War over it or anything.
What a wonderful time those years were, spending those summer afternoons out on the bay. The air was cool,because we were right on the water. The children and I used to walk up and down the sand and grasses, picking wild rhubarb that I would then make into pies and jam. Good times!
I don't know how the rhubarb ended up growing there but it worked kind of the same as wild strawberries do . . . it was thinner, smaller, and filled with a lot more flavour than the regular stuff.
In any case, I hope you will bake these lovely Bannocks, and when you do, please raise a nice hot cuppa to Aunt Rita and the old gals . . . and hot summer afternoons spent playing cards and picking wild rhubarb on sands of Malpeque Bay . . .
*Malpeque Oat Bannocks*
Makes 12
60g cold butter (1/4 cup), cut into bits
180ml whole milk (3/4 cup)
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