We literally almost had a meltdown in our freezer the other day. (Yes, in addition to the actual melt down we had a few weeks back.) This time it was my fault.
Let me begin by saying we have 3 small freezers, each with 3 drawers, which store altogether about as much as a medium sized chest freezer would store.
Because of my arthritis and the fact that I am quite short, I was finding it difficult to navigate our chest freezer so we got rid of it a few years back. Anyways, the other day I put something into one of them and did not quite get it closed. DUH!
Thankfully I went to get something out the day after and noticed it before we had lost everything. (again) Anyways, All we lost was a tub of ice cream. Some of my beautiful fish had just about thawed out however.
I had just gotten a delivery from Seafresh the day before. Beautiful North Atlantic Cod Loins (thick, firm and delicately flavoured), Salmon Fillets (which are centre cuts and gorgeous), King Prawns (peeled, deveined and ready to cook), and fabulous Sea Bass (boneless and sustainable).
Thankfully all that was affected was half of the cod. It did still have ice crystals in it, but not enough that I felt safe re-freezing it.
Seafresh is an on line fish monger, which sells quality fish, seafood,
poultry and meat. They have access to some of the best quality products
from Britain and around the world.
This is largely due to the good relationships
they have fostered with their suppliers since 1996, when they began
with the very simple concept of selling high quality frozen foods to
their customers right in the comfort of their own homes.
I've been enjoying their fabulous products for over a year now and I have to say I have never been disappointed.
They have been a real God-send throughout this pandemic, with their fast and reliable and efficient delivery and quality products. I have always been able to depend on them.
So anyways, although I had not planned on serving fish mid-week, I ended up cooking us some lovely Cod for our dinner that day.
There is nothing more delicious on earth than a beautiful, fresh piece of Cod and theirs is some of the best I have tasted. We have never been disappointed.
I chose to cook it very simply. This is one of the easiest ways of cooking fish and yet one of the most delicious.
It turns out perfectly every time.
Dusted with flour and seasonings it is simply pan fried in butter along with several sprigs of fresh thyme and marjoram.
You cannot get any easier.
It cooks for two to three minutes per side until golden brown and perfectly cooked. I then squeeze lemon juice over top.
The lemon juice both flavours the fish and then mingles with the delicious juices of the fish in the pan and the butter to create a lush sauce which is beautiful spooned over the finished dish.
You really don't get much better than this. On this particular day I also sprinkled the fillets with some roasted tomato seasalt that I had gotten with my tomato order.
I thought it would go well with fish and I was right. Especially Cod. It was a delicious addition.
In any case we enjoyed our fish with a simple side salad and some boiled new potatoes. We felt like we were dining like Kings. What could have been a tragic accident turned into an unexpected mid-week pleasure!
Pan Fried Cod
Yield: 2
Meltingly tender and sweet cod, cooked in butter with the addition of several fresh herbs. Simple, quick and delicious!
Ingredients:
- 2 thick Cod loins (thawed if frozen)
- 2 sprigs of fresh thyme
- 2 sprigs of fresh marjoram
- Some flour for dusting
- fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- ground sweet paprika
- knob of butter
- the juice of half a lemon
Instructions:
- Dry your cod loins very well with some paper kitchen towelling. Dust each loin lightly with some salt, pepper and paprika. Roll them in the flour, patting lightly on both sides to help it adhere and shaking off any excess. Set aside.
- Melt a knob of butter in a large skillet over medium high heat, along with the springs of thyme and marjoram. Once it begins to foam, add the fish, presentation side down, and cook for 2 to 3 minutes on one side, until golden brown. Flip over and cook for a further 2 to 3 minutes, until browned and the fish is just cooked through. (The edges should flake easily with teased with the tines of a fork.)
- Squeeze the lemon over top and remove immediately from the heat. Swirl the pan to amalgamate the juices of the fish, lemon and butter.
- Divide the fish between 2 heated plates. Spoon some of the butter from the pan and herbs over top of each portion. Serve immediately.
Just look at how nicely cooked that is. This was one very beautiful piece of fish, thanks to Seafresh.
A few things about Seafresh:
- Same Day dispatch on orders received before 1 PM.
- All packages are carefully hand packed.
- Free delivery on orders above £50, £8 on orders below that amount.
- Responsibly and sustainably sourced.
- Air Blast Frozen at source within 4 hours of being caught.
- Wide variety to choose from.
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Today I small batched one of my favourite cookie recipes, Loaded Cowboy Cookies.
With there only being two adults in the house these days I don't find as much use for baking as I used to when I was raising five children.
Back then my biggest complaint was that I had to bake almost every day as everything got swallowed up. These days if I bake a full recipe of anything, dollars to donuts it gets wasted or given away.
But store bought cakes and cookies are never on par with the ones you make yourself. That's why I prefer to bake my own everything if I can.
Home baked goods just taste better and I can actually pronounce and identify everything that is in them.
I remember first baking these cookies when my middle son was in nursery school. He's turning 39 in November so you know I have been baking these cookies for a very long time.
The original recipe came from a church cookbook.
The ladies guild of the church I was attending at the time published one and these were a favourite of ours from that book.
And no surprise there, they are delicious. I baked them for my son to take for his turn to bring a snack on snack day and they proved so popular that the teacher asked me for the recipe.
I cannot imagine a parent being asked to bring in homebaked goods anymore. There are too many children with allergies, etc. these days.
Things have surely changed since then.
I cut the original recipe down by 2/3 so that it makes only one dozen (LARGE) cookies.
They are lovely, crisp edged and nice and chewy in the middle.
Filled with toasted pecans, chocolate chips, sweet flaked coconut, old fashioned oats . . .
Perfect to be enjoyed with a glass of cold milk while you are in the throes of a colouring fest . . .
Or with a nice hot cuppa when you are taking a well deserved mid morning break.
They are actually pretty perfect any time of the day. I think so at any rate.
You could make smaller cookies, in which case you would get perhaps 2 dozen. I would scoop by heaped tablespoons and bake for 10 to 12 minutes in that case.
Loaded Cowboy Cookies
Yield: 12 large cookies
Crisp edged, chewy in the middle, incredibly moreish cookies stuffed with chocolate chips, oats, coconut and toasted pecans.
Ingredients:
- 140g plain flour (1 cup)
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- pinch salt
- 120g unsalted butter, at room temperature (1/2 cup)
- 95g granulated sugar (1/2 cup)
- 100g soft light brown sugar (1/2 cup, packed)
- 1 large free range egg
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 180g chocolate chips (1 cup)
- 80g old fashioned oatmeal (1 cup)
- 60g flaked sweetened coconut (3/4 cup)
- 60g toasted chopped pecans (1/2 cup)
Instructions:
- Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4. Line two large baking sheets with baking paper. Set aside.
- Sift together the flour, soda and baking powder. Stir in salt.
- Cream together the butter and both sugars until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg and vanilla. Stir in the flour to combine. Stir in the coconut, oats, chocolate chips and toasted nuts.
- Scoop by 1/4 cup fulls, shaping each into a ball and place 3 inches (at least) apart on the baking sheets.
- Bake for 15 to 17 minutes until the edges are lightly browned. They will be chewy in the middle. Let cool on the baking sheet for several minutes before scooping off to a wire rack to cool with a metal spatula.
- Store in an airtight container.
What was the favourite cookie that you used to bake for your own children when they were growing up? I sure wish I lived close enough to my grandchildren that I could bake for them these days. That would be a real treat for me!
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My favourite kinds of desserts are the old fashioned ones. Crisps, Cobblers, Buckles and Brown Betties. These are the kinds of desserts which have stood the test of time.
There is nothing fancy about them and yet they are some of the most delicious desserts you can bake. Lemon Raspberry Buckle is a real favourite of mine.
What is a Buckle you ask? Well in this case it is not a shoe or belt fastening.
Here you have a fabulously rustic cake type of dessert, with a lemon batter studded with plenty of fruit and topped with a crisp crumb topping.
In this case the fruit is raspberries, but you can easily substitute chopped strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, any kind of berry for them if you wish.
A Buckle is cakey and fruity both at the same time and incredibly moreish, especially when you top your serving of it with lashings of cold cream or ice cream . . .
They are not the most beautiful dessert, no matter how you try to dress them up, but whatever they lack in beauty they more than make up for in taste!
I have a memory to share here. When I was ten years old we found our family moving into new house. Our father was in the airforce.
We had been living in a flat atop my grandfather's house for about a month or so waiting for our furniture to arrive.
On the day of its arrival my father went to await for the truck with the instructions that as soon as it arrived he would come back for us.
My mother didn't feed us lunch, thinking my father would be back any minute. We were starving.
My sister and I found some raspberry bushes and we gorged ourselves on them. (I am sure the owner of the bushes must have been quite annoyed.)
My father finally did show up mid afternoon and we set off to the new house.
Have I ever mentioned that I get incredibly sick in the car? And never more so than when I was a child.
I was sick, sick, sick . . . raspberries all over the carpet in the back of the car before my dad could get the car stopped and let me out.
My mother was hoovering raspberry seeds from that carpeting for a very long time and it was years before I could look at a raspberry without feel queasy. YEARS!
Happy to say that is no longer the case. I adore raspberries now.
Today I used the last of our frozen ones from last year to make this buckle, in preparation for getting in a new year's crop.
Too much for the two of us of course, so my next door neighbour was the happy recipient of at least half of it, if not more.
Some other raspberry desserts you might enjoy are:
Gingered Pear and Raspberry Pandowdy - There is something about this combination that is comforting and incredibly moreish. Pears and raspberries are a fabulous marriage . . . and the candied ginger in the topping is this dessert's crowning glory.
Raspberry Peek-a-boos - A delicious cross between a muffin and a pastry. Stuffed with fresh berries and glazed with a sweet glaze, these always go down a real treat!
Have I ever told you how delicious something like this can be for breakfast? Beats the heck out of oatmeal . . . .
Lemon Raspberry Buckle
Yield: 10
Fruity and cakey at the same time. Serve warm with cream or ice cream. Delicious!
Ingredients:
For the topping:
- 100g soft light brown sugar (1/2 cup packed)
- 50g plain flour (1//3 cup)
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 3 TBS cold salted butter, cut into small cubes
For the cake
- 8 TBS salted butter, sofened
- 145g granulated sugar (3/4 cup)
- 315g plain flour (2 1/4 cups)
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 1/2 tsp fine sea salt
- 240ml buttermilk (1 cup) (see note)
- 1 large free range egg, at room temperature
- the finely grated zest of one lemon
- 2 1/2 cups of fresh or frozen (unthawed) raspberries
Instructions:
- First make the topping. Put all of the ingredients into a bowl and cut them together using a pastry blender or two knives. The mixture should look damp with no pieces larger than the size of a pea. Chill until ready to use.
- Preheat the oven to 180*C.350*F/gas mark 4. Butter a 9 by 13-inch baking dish. Set aside.
- Rub the sugar together with the lemon zest until really fragrant. Add the butter and cream together with an electric whisk until light and fluffy. Sift together the flour, soda, baking powder and salt. Whisk togeher the buttermilk and egg in a measuring cup. Add one third of the flour mixture to the creamed mixture, mixing briefly. Add 1/2 of the egg/ buttermilk mixture. Blend. Add another third of the flour mixure, and then the remaining egg/buttermilk mixture. finish with the remaining third of the flour, stirring all together just until combined.
- Spread into the buttered baking dish. Sprinkle the raspberries evenly over top and then sprinkle the chilled crumble topping over all.
- Bake until golden brown and the sides are just beginning to pull away from the pan. A toothpick inserted in the centre should come out clean. This will take 35 to 40 minutes. Cool on a rack for about half an hour and then spoon into bowls and serve warm with pouring cream, ice cream, custard sauce or clotted cream.
notes:
If you have no buttermilk, add 1 TBS of lemon juice or white wine vinegar to a measuring cup and add milk to the measure you need. Let stand ten minutes in order for the milk to clabber.
If you have never made a Buckle before, now's your chance! Once you taste this version you will become a fruit Buckle Convert.
You could seriously use any fruit in this . . . peaches, pears, apples, cherries, plums . . . or even a combination of fruits.
The important thing being to make sure there is no more than 2 1/2 cups fruit. Chop the larger ones and stone fruits into 1/4 inch bits. Let your imagination run wild. Deliciously wild! (Mmmm . . . peach and raspberry!)
One of my favourite things to eat during the summer months is Potato Salad. More often than not I will make my Mom's Potato Salad.
This is because I think it is the best potato salad and nothing else comes quite up to it. Occasionally though I do like to make a different one if I find a recipe I think might be a good one.
This recipe for Dill Potato Salad is just such a one. I found the recipe in a small book I have by Murdoch Books, entitled salads. I loved the simplicity of it.
Creamy Dill Potato Salad. Just the title alone has you smacking your lips. Or it does me at any rate!
One thing I loved about it was that it doesn't take a multitude of ingredients. I also just happened to have some fresh dill in the house.
Add to that the fact that my next door neighbour had sent over a bag of salad potatoes she couldn't use. The timing was perfect.
I also loved the fact that you make your own creamy mayonnaise for this salad.
Homemade mayonnaise is so very easy to make. Especially if you have an immersion blender, and I do.
It comes together literally in seconds. A blitz up and down in the container and your mayo is done! You couldn't get much faster or easier than that!
And the flavour is always amazing . . . lemon, dijon, egg yolk, light olive oil, seasoning.
Simple really. You just can't get much easier or tastier.
The potatoes are simply boiled in the skins, adding some eggs for the last ten minutes of cook time, so everything ends up done at the same time.
If you peel them while they are still warm, the peel slips right off of those potatoes. Easy peasy.
Just peel them and cut them into 1 inch chunks and then chop up the eggs and throw them into a bowl with the potatoes.
It does use some chopped shallot.
Thankfully I usually have shallots in the house. They look like baby onions but have a beautiful mild flavour, not quite as sharp as raw onion.
They work beautifully in this as does the dill. Dill weed is one of my favourite soft herbs. It adds beautiful flavours to things like salads and salad dressings and if you are worried, don't . . .
I can promise you that it won't taste like a dill pickle. The flavour of dill weed is very mild in comparison to the seeds.
Add the homemade mayonnaise and fold it all together gently and your salad is done and ready to enjoy! It truly needs nothing else.
Perhaps a bit of seasoning, but that is a very personal thing. Just do it to your own taste, fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.
Dill Potato Salad
Yield: 4
This is a simple and delicious potato salad with a homemade mayonnaise which goes together very quickly with the use of an immersion blender.
Ingredients:
For the salad:
- 600g salad potatoes (1 1/2 pounds)
- 2 large free range eggs
- 2 TBS finely chopped dillweed
- 1 1/2 TBS finely chopped peeled shallots
- fine sea salt and black pepper
For the mayonnaise:
- 1 large free range egg yolk
- 2 tsp fresh lemon juice
- 1 tsp Dijon mustard
- 100ml light olive oil (3 1/2 fluid ounces)
- pinch of salt
Instructions:
- Place the potatoes into a large saucepan and cover with water. Bring to the boil and cook for 20 minutes, until tender, adding the eggs for the last 10 minutes. Remove the potatoes and eggs and allow to cool.
- Peel the potatoes and cut them into 1 inch cubes. Peel and chop the eggs. Put the potatoes into a bowl along with the dill, eggs and shallots. Season to taste.
- Place the egg yolk, lemon juice, Dijon mustard and salt into the tall cup of an immersion blender. Drizzle in some of the olive oil and blitz, drizzling in the remaining olive oil until the mixture immulsifies and thickens. (Alternately you can do this in a regular blender, drizzling the oil in through the hole in the cap.) Taste and adjust seasoning as required.
- Using a metal spoon, gently combine the potato mixture with the mayonnaise. Serve immediately or cover and chill until needed.
We enjoyed this with our Pork Chop Sandwiches yesterday. Oh boy but they went some good together! Unbelievably tasty!
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