The other day my next door neighbour send me over some apples that she couldn't use. I already had a few apples of my own so I decided to combine the two and make a tasty dessert that both of us could share. (I broke it up into two baking dishes.)
I love cooking with apples and apple desserts. One of my favourite apple desserts has to be Apple Crumble. Or Apple Crisp as it is also called!
My neighbour was happyher apples were going to be used. Todd was happy he was going to get an apple dessert. It was a win/win.
Apple desserts are Todd's favourite desserts of all time. He just loves it when I make him an apple dessert.
When it comes to an apple dessert you can't get much better than an apple crumble. I like the ones with the Oats in the crumble most of all.
For some reason they seem more wholesome, and almost healthier . . . although they really aren't. Sugar is sugar. But we won't think about that right now.
Ingredients are being rationed in our house at the moment. Things like flour and sugar are in limited supply and I am not sure when I will be able to get more. Thank you Pandemic 2020.
Any dessert or bake where I can cut the use of the flour down by mixing it with oats is a good choice for us. Who knows how long it will be before we can get some.
I don't know about you, but when it comes to a crumble its all about the topping! That streusel topping is what makes the whole dessert!
I love the crisp butteriness of them. I love the chewy bits on the edges. I love that wholesome flavour of the oats. There is just nothing about the streusel topping that I don't love!
I have to say I prefer streusel toppings that contain oats more than the plain ones. They are just more toothsome and have an almost nutty flavour!
When I was child my mother could not get me to eat oatmeal for breakfast. Not for love nor money. Clearly she should have been trying to get me eat streusel with oats instead of oatmeal! She might have had more success!!
That's my story and I'm sticking to it! To me enjoying an apple crumble is having a tasty oatmeal cookie crumbled over a delicious fruit filling.
Who can possibly resist that? Not me, that's who! And I won't be lying to you. My hips know it.
You want to use a really nice flavoured apple in this dessert. Today I used a mixture of Pink Ladies, Granny Smiths and another eating apple. They worked together beautifully!
They were a lovely mix of sweet and tart. Normally for baking tart apples work the best because they break down the best, but this is a great combination also.
You want to use apples that are going to maintain their integrity in the bake. You don't want apples that are going to lose their texture completely.
At the same time you want apples that will cook through and not be hard. Its nice to have some chunks, but not hard chunks. You want your teeth to be able to melt down into the chunks if that makes sense.
The use of orange and lemon zests adds an additional layer of flavour to the filling along with their juices. This helps to keep the colour of the apples pure as well.
Not that I am bothered about seeing brown apples in a crumble. Its really the taste of them that matters most.
There is also some cinnamon and nutmeg for additional flavour. All of these flavours go very well together.
Lemon, orange, cinnamon, apples. The combination makes for a very delicious filling indeed. I just love it.
What you serve it with is up to you. All we had on this particular day was cream. You can also enjoy this wish warm custard sauce, or scoops of vanilla ice cream (my favourite!).
Todd is a fan of the custard sauce or cream. I do have to say that most warm desserts here in the UK are served with the option of both or one or the other. I thought it was really strange when I first moved over here, but it is an option I quickly warmed to.
Yield: 6
Oaty Apple Crumble
This is an amazingly delicious apple crumble. With its crisp oaty topping and cinnamon apple filling, this crumble is everything a good apple crumble should be.
Ingredients:
For the topping:
- 105g plain flour (3/4 cup)
- 75g granulated sugar (1/3 cup)
- 80g soft light brown sugar (1/3 cup)
- 40g porridge oats (1/2 cup)
- 120g butter, chilled and cut into cubes (1/2 cup)
- pinch salt
For the filling:
- 2 1/2 pounds well flavoured apples
- 1 tsp lemon zest
- 1 TBS lemon juice
- the zest of 1/2 orange
- 1 TBS orange juice
- 50g granulated sugar (1/4 cup)
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
To serve: (Optional)
- pouring cream
- custard
- vanilla ice cream
Instructions:
How to cook Oaty Apple Crumble
- First make the crumble topping. Measure the flour into a bowl along with both sugars and the oats. Stir in the salt and drop in the butter. Rub the butter into the flour mixture until you have a coarse crumbly mixture. Alternately you can blitz in a food process until you have a crumbly mixture with bits the size of small peas.
- Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4. Butter an 8 inch square deep baking dish.
- Peel the apples, core and cut into wedges. Put them into a bowl along with the remaining filling ingredients. Toss together to coat well. Pour into the buttered baking dish. Sprinkle the crumble topping over top evenly.
- Place on a baking sheet and bake in the preheated oven for 45 minutes to an hour, until the apples are soft and bubbling around the edges and the topping is golden brown.
- Serve warm, spooned into bowls along with some cold ice cream, pouring cream or vanilla custard.
Well, this is a different Easter weekend than we all planned on having this year I reckon. At least the weather is nice. Don't let that tempt you to go out travelling however.
Lets all be reponsible and stay home so that we can help our Health Care System out. I know that we are all a bit bored now with this staying home lark, but trust me, it will be worth it in the long run.
This won't last forever and before too long (God willing) it will be nothing more than a bad memory. Stay home. Stay safe. Stay healthy and Happy Easter.
Saucy Pasta Hoops. Did you used to like Spaghetti hoops when you were a child?
Did your children like them? I recently got myself a new cookbook.
I know. I have plenty of cookbooks, but this one appeared to be filled with delicious looking simple recipes.
Half Baked Harvest Super Simple by Tieghan Gerard. So far I have not been disappointed. Every recipe I have tried from the book has been excellent. I highly recommend.
So good I am tempted to also buy her other one. She is a real talent when it comes to cooking and presentation.
This is a recipe which really intrigued me. Not only was it pasta, which I love, but it was a rif on those tinned spaghetti hoops that children love.
With one exception . . . it is a more grown up version. How could I not try it???
It is also perfectly sized for two, which meant that I got to enjoy some on the day and then enjoy a second feast on it the day after.
I cooked something else completely for my husband. As you know he is not overly fond of pasta, although he does like tinned spaghetti. Go figure. Some things just don't make sense.
The cookbook author used anelli for hers, which are a type of hoop pasta. I didn't have anything like that to use, what with lock down and all.
I used what I had, which was a mix of ditalini and small elbow macaroni. I didn't have enough of either one to make up the full amount.
As you can see, however, it worked perfectly. This was absolutely delicious.
I think any small size of pasta would work fine. Hoops, shells, etc. Just pick a pasta that will cook in the alloted time for the recipe.
It was also incredibly simple, using very little in the way of ingredients. It does use fresh rosemary, which I happen to have in the garden.
I wasn't too sure about that, as rosemary is kind of a strong flavoured herb, but it totally works. I am not totally enamoured with rosemary actually, but this it was really good here.
Olive oil is flavoured with first garlic, and then the rosemary and some crushed chili flakes, which provide a bit of heat to the dish.
I don't like my food too spicy, so I only used a pinch.
Once the oil has heated and flavoured, you add some tomato puree (tomato paste.) You need to whisk this in carefully off the heat as it will splatter if your oil is too hot, so don't let your oil get too hot.
Also use a good Olive oil.
I used Peranzana Extra Virgin Olive Oil - Azienda Agricola Ramieri Rosanna - which I got from Cibilia. It is a beautiful premium olive oil, pure Italian and has a really nice flavour.
If you are making a recipe with so few ingredients, it helps to use the very best of them that you can, and this is fabulous! Mono arietal Peranzaa from Apulia produced using only Organic Olives, this olive oil is harvest on the family estate of Ramiri Rosanna.
The Rosanna family has a real passion for agriculture and it shows in their products!
Another ingredient you will need to use is Tomato Puree (Tomato Paste). You need to whisk this very carefully into the oil mixture. If your oil is too hot it will spatter and could burn you.
I favour the Cirio tomato products. Yes, I can be a bit of a tomato snob, but in a dish where tomato is the prevailing flavour, why not use the best!
Once you have done that, it is a simple matter of adding a quantity of water, bringing it to the boil and then stirring in your pasta.
Dry pasta. Yep, the pasta cooks in the garlic and herb tomato water.
This means that the tomato flavours really penetrate the pasta intensifying the flavours beautifully.
That's basically it, other than some seasoning and a bit of grated Parmesan cheese that gets stirred in at the end.
This was incredibly tasty. I fell in love with this, totally, and I think you will too.
Saucy Pasta Hoops
Yield: 2
Delicious and super simple to make. Adapted from a recipe in the Half Baked Harvest Super Simple Cookbook.
Ingredients:
- 3 TBS extra virgin olive oil
- 1 fat clove of garlic, peeled and crushed
- 2 tsp fresh rosemary, finely chopped
- a healthy pinch of chili flakes (crushed red pepper flakes)
- 3 TBS tomato puree (tomato paste)
- 600 ml water (2 1/2 cups)
- 90g short tubular pasta (I used ditalini and tiny macaroni) (3/4 cup)
- fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 55g grated Parmesan cheese, plus more to serve
- Fresh basil leaves (to garnish if you have them)
Instructions:
How to cook Saucy Pasta Hoops
- Heat the olive oil and garlic in a medium sized saucepan with a heavy base over medium low heat. (Make sure the garlic doesn't burn.) Cook, stirring, until very fragrant, only a minute or so, then add the rosemary and red pepper flakes. Cook for about a minute longer. (Again, don't let it burn.)
- Take off the burner and whisk in the tomato puree. Then whisk in the water. Return to the burner and bring to a boil. Stir in the uncooked pasta. Season with some salt as desired and cook at a slow boil, stirring frequently until the pasta is al dente, about 12 minutes.
- Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the Parmesan cheese. Taste and adjust seasoning with salt and pepper.
- Divide between two heated bowls and pass more parmesan for shaking over top. If you have fresh basil, you can tear some over top.
This was pure and simple comfort food. Perfect for these days in two ways, one it satisfies your need for comfort and two, it uses only a few ingredients.
A great wine to serve with this would be this Barbera del Monferrato - la Tridesca 2018. It has a bursting fragrance, vinous, full of freshness and hints of red fruits; a lively flavor and great freshness, with a cheerful and indomitable character.
This is Gianluigi, the maker of this fine wine. He plays with his surname ‘Orsini’ which in Italian means ‘little bear’ and in fact the logo of his micro winery company is a bear. Also, he likes to call himself bear justifying the fact that he’s not a social person at all.
He’s not on any social media and he will never be. He enjoys to make a super good wine because the wine he makes is the wine he drinks.
Gianluigi retired from his office job quite a while ago and has been making wine for the last 35 years always keeping the quality very high and I can guarantee you he makes wine for passion and he doesn’t care at all if his wine sells or not. The important for him is to drinks his own wine and enjoy it just for the sake of it.
I think its really nice to know the face behind the things that we use, don't you? You can purchase this wine at Cibilia. Purveyors of fine Italian foods.
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One thing I always have plenty of in the freezer are sausages. I buy them in large packs at Costco and then break them down into 8 sausage packages, packing them into double freezer bags, ready to cook whenever the mood hits. Costco has really good sausages, both Italian and regular.
School dinners were not part of the school day when I was going to school. We had to bring our lunch from home, and so it was always cold sandwiches. Todd, however, was always privy to School Dinners. In fact his parents relied upon them to make sure he had a decent hot meal every day.
He says he always loved them. I have heard tales from both sides of the coin. Some people loved them, others hated them. I think I would have come from the love camp.
Curried sausages is not something I would have ever thought of making prior to coming here to the UK. We didn't do curry very much at all, but it was something we enjoyed occasionally, usually made with chicken.
Here in the UK it is almost a National Dish, right up there with fish and chips! People just love their curries. You can get them at every chippy and there is always a curry sauce option for pouring over your chips.
I confess I have not tried that yet. Looking at it, it is always a really bright yellow colour, probably from lots of tumeric . . . I'll take ketchup thank you very much!
Curried Sausage is something which Todd enjoys from his school days. He loves his bangers and mash anyways, usually with an onion gravy, but he also really loves them with a curry sauce. And yes, also with mash.
These are actually very, VERY good. And yes, with mash.
I remove the sausages from their skins before cooking, rolling them into balls as best as I can, so that they brown more evenly. You also add a quantity of onion and garlic.
Use the best sausage your money can buy. I use a good meaty sausage without a lot of fillers. I hate cheap and pasty sausages. There is only one word to describe them. YUCK. You get what you pay for.
I like to add some vegetables to the sauce. Normally I cook carrots just until crispy tender and add them to the sauce along with frozen peas. I thaw the peas first. I dare say that the ones Todd had in his school dinners were probably well over cooked . . . most vegetables were back in the day.
These are lovely and fresh, crispy tender. The peas are frozen, thawed, and basically just heated through for a few minutes so they retain that lovely colour. Altogether this is delicious!
School Dinner Curried Sausages
Yield: 4
Such a simple dish, but oh so tasty. Makes a real change from regular sausage and mash!
Ingredients:
- a splash of oil for frying
- 8 plump pork sausages (use the best you can afford)
- 2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
- 1 medium onion, peeled and chopped
- 2 medium carrots, peeled and sliced into coins
- 1 TBS medium curry powder
- 3 TBS plain flour
- 480ml hot chicken broth (2 cups)
- 1 TBS mango chutney
- salt and black pepper to taste
- 150g frozen peas, thawed (1 cup)
- hot mashed potatoes to serve
Instructions:
How to cook School Dinner Curried Sausages
- Put your carrots into a saucepan of boiling water and cook until crispy tender, about 8 to 10 minutes. Drain well and set aside.
- Remove the skins from your sausages and discard. Cut the sausages into 4 to 5 bits, and kind of roll the bits into balls.
- Heat about 1/2 TBS of oil in a large skillet. Add the sausage balls and brown them all over on all sides until cooked through. Scoop out onto paper towels to drain while you make the sauce.
- Add the chopped onion to the drippings in the pan. Cook over moderate heat until translucent. Add the garlic and cook for about 30 seconds longer. Stir in the curry powder and cook until fragrant. Stir in the flour and cook for a minute. At the end of that time whisk in the chicken broth, whisking constantly. Cook until the sauce bubbles and thickens. Whisk in the chutney. Taste and season with salt and pepper to taste.
- Return the sausages to the pan along with the cooked carrots and frozen peas. Cook and heat through until everything is bubbling.
- Serve hot and spooned over mashed potatoes.
You could also serve this with rice if you so wish. Its a great meal either way! Enjoy!
One thing I love to do is to come up with delicious ideas for using things that I have in my fridge and larder. This weekend I cooked us a small roast dinner for our Sunday lunch.
Not something we have very often. I had a quantity of leftover cooked roast beef and so today I set out to cook us something tasty using that and what I had to hand.
I cut my beef up into small bits and fried it off together with some diced frozen peppers from the freezer and chopped onion.
I also added some spices and chopped black olives that were languishing in the bottom of a jar in the refrigerator.
Next I added a portion of refried beans that I also had in the freezer, along with some tomato sauce (and I don't mean ketchup), some water along with a splash of Worcestershire sauce and heated it all through.
Finally I added a generous handful of crushed tortilla chips that I had in the cupboard. I wanted to use them up before they got stale.
They also served the purpose of adding a bit of crunch and thickening it up a bit more.
I used taco sized wheat flour tortillas. I like to toast these over an open flame on the top of my stove. I just use a pair of tongs and hold them over the flame, first on one side and then on the other.
If you fold them in half right away, they stay like that, which makes them perfect for tacos. Not hard like the crisp ones, but not entirely soft either. My husband doesn't like really hard things.
I rooted through the refrigerator and found some tasty things for garnishing. I had some sour cream, in the bottom of a pot that needed using up.
I also had some spring onions that I chopped up. They add a nice touch of sharp earthy flavours and crunch.
I shredded up the last of my lettuce to use, but you could also use finely shredded cabbage if you have it. Red or green, they taste the same.
I grated a small chunk of sharp cheddar cheese and then chopped a few green olives that needed using up.
Finally I garnished with a few more crushed tortilla chips.
I was really, REALLY pleased with the end results. These were very tasty. My husband even had one for breakfast!
It made a great use of odds and bits from my refrigerator and freezer. Of course if you have fresh peppers, onions, etc. you can use them.
Its nice to know, however, that frozen work well also.
I didn't have any salsa or fresh tomatoes left, but either one would also make a great garnish.
This recipe is all about showing what you can do with very little.
This situation we are all living in right now is a great opportunity for us to really stretch the boundaries of our cooking, to think outside the box as it were.
Its also a wonderful opportunity for us to decrease our waste. To make do and use it up. Something which we should always be doing anyways.
Tijuana Tacos
Yield: Makes 12
How to make something delicious from seemingly nothing at all.
Ingredients:
- 225g chopped cooked beef (can use leftover roast, or mince) (1 1/2 cups)
- 225g of refried beans (1 cup)
- 120ml tomato passatta (1/2 cup tomato sauce)
- 90ml water (3 fluid ounces)
- 1 small onion, peeled and chopped
- 1/2 green pepper, trimmed and chopped (can use the equivalent in frozen chopped peppers)
- 3 TBS chopped ripe olives
- 1 tsp mild chili powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp black pepper
- 1/4 tsp garlic powder
- 1/4 tsp smoked paprika
- dash each celery salt and ground nutmeg
- splash or Worcestershire sauce
- a generous handful of tortilla chips crushed
- 12 taco sized soft tortillas, toasted
You will also need to garnish:
- 1/4 of a head of lettuce, finely shredded
- chopped spring onions
- chopped fresh tomatoes (if you have them)
- 2 ounces grated strong cheddar cheese
- a handful of chopped olives
- sour cream
- additional crushed tortilla chips
- Green Tabasco
Instructions:
How to cook Tijuana Tacos
- Spritz a large non-stick frying pan with some spray oil. Add the onions and peppers and cook over medium heat until they start to soften. Throw in the chopped beef. Cook and stir for a few minutes, then add all of the spices. Cook and stir until quite fragrant, then stir in the tomato sauce, refried beans, olives and water. Bring to a simmer and heat through.
- In the meantime, heat your tortillas as desired. I like to hold mine over an open flame and toast them on both sides, folding them in half when heated. Keep warm.
- Make sure you have all of your toppings ready.
- Crush your tortilla chips. Stir them into the meat mixture, reserving a few for garnishing if desired. Divide the mixture between the toasted tortillas.
- Garnish each with some or all of the suggested garnishes. I sometimes like to add a splash of hot sauce. (I like the green tabasco.) serve immediately and enjoy!
These were really, really good. It makes me feel good knowing that I can use up all my leftovers. It also makes me feel good that I can create something so tasty out of very little, and just what I have on hand.
What's the most creative thing you have come up with when using up what you need to use up food-wise in the house? Care to share??? Don't ask me why I called these Tijuana Tacos. It just sounded Mexican. LOL
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