Junior Duke Leek and Potato Soup

Ingredients

3 fat leeks
1 small onion
4 large potatoes
1 tablespoon butter + 1 tablespoon olive oil
4 cups chicken or vegetable stock.
generous grinding of fresh pepper
cream and/or full fat milk

Equipment needed:  vegetable peeler, knife, cooking pot, blender.

First wash the leeks -- make sure to get rid of all the dirt.

Then trim off the outside leaves, roots, and dark green leaves.

Slice the remaining leeks.

Peel and slice the onion.

Put leeks and onion into pot with butter and oil.  Put the heat on low.

Wash and peel the potatoes.

Chop the potatoes.

Add to pot.

Add stock.

Grind pepper in.

Cook until potatoes are soft.

Puree with a blender.

Add cream or milk to taste and enjoy!

Bread and Butter Pickles

One of my favourite pickles, and one of the first we made when we started pickle making.

500 grams pickling cucumbers, sliced into rings 

2 medium sized onions, sliced into rings

1/4 cup /50 grams salt

Put cucumbers, onions and salt into a bowl.  mix well.  Leave for 2-3 hours, with a weight on top.  Rinse and drain well.

Boil together:

2 cups / 500ml vinegar

1 2/3 cup/ 350grams  granulated sugar 

2 tablespoons white or yellow mustard seeds

2 tsp celery seeds

1/2 tsp turmeric 

1 teaspoon black peppercorns

Add drained cucumbers and onions.  Bring back to the boil. 

Spoon into warm sterilised jars.  Seal and store for 2-3 weeks before eating. 

Crunchy Granola

In the 70s, one of many reasons my family was considered weird was that we ate homemade 'Crunchy Granola'. I gather it's trendy again. Which is good, because I've discovered it tastes good too. 

Mix together in a large bowl:

2 cups rolled oats 

1 cup spelt flakes

1 cup barley flakes 

1/2-1 cup coconut flakes

1/4 cup sunflower or pumpkin seeds

1/8 cup sesame seeds 

chopped or flaked nuts to taste/budget 

Mix in a measuring cup:  

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup honey 

Add honey and oil to large bowl and mix well.

Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper and spread out the mix out well. 

Bake at 170C for 20 minutes or until golden brown; stir once during cooking. 

Cool. Add raisins or other dried fruit (optional).  Enjoy. 

O Christmas Tree!

This was a big hit with the family.

The mould is from Lakeland. The recipe is from their blog, but it has some incorrect measurements that I've corrected below:

Preheat oven to 180C

Butter mould well and lay on a cookie sheet.

Add 60g butter; 60g dark muscovado sugar; 50g treacle and 50g golden syrup to a small saucepan and warm until ingredients melted and combined.  Cool.

In a medium sized mixing bowl combine 120g self-raising flour, 1 teaspoon ginger and 1 teaspoon mixed spice (or a combination of cloves, cinnamon and allspice). 

Combine sugar and butter mixture with dry ingredients. Add in 1 beaten egg and 60 ml milk.   Mix well. 

Pour into mould and bake 20-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the biggest segment is clean when removed.

Let cool before removing the sections.  Trim them flat if they've risen too much. 

Assemble, using a stiff icing in a piping bag.  Try a blend of 200g icing sugar; 2 teaspoons orange essence and 2 teaspoons water.   It should be quite stiff.  Add the icing generously. I was too stingy above and had lots left over.

If decorating with sparkles etc add them right away, as the icing hardens quickly. 

Bella's Birthday Brownies

For the chocolate base 

150g unsalted butter

200g dark chocolate broken into pieces

250g caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

3 medium free range eggs

100ml espresso

100g plain flour

For the Marbling

150g full fat cream cheese

60g caster sugar

1 medium free range egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

You will also need

20cm cake tin, greased and lined with non-stick baking paper

Method

1. Heat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan/gas 4. Melt the butter and the chocolate in a large heatproof bowl set over a pan of barely simmering water, stirring occasionally (don’t let the bowl touch the water). Remove the bowl from the heat and cool slightly.
2. Stir the sugar, vanilla, espresso, eggs and a pinch of salt into the chocolate mix, then beat in. Then stir in the flour. 
3. For the marbling, beat the cream cheese in a mixing bowl until smooth, then mix in the sugar, egg and vanilla. Spoon the coffee chocolate mix into the tin, then pour over the marbling mix and use a knife to cut through both mixes for a marbled effect.
4. Bake for 30 minutes, but keep an eye on the brownies as you may need to cover the tin with foil for the last 10 minutes of cooking if they start to brown too much. Cool in the tin, then cut into 16 squares.

Sadza nenyama

It's been a long month in Zimbabwe, and although I wasn't there, I've been rather distracted.  So when my kids asked for sadza, I had to agree.  This was my best effort yet at beef stew, so am writing it down.

(with very non-zimbabwean plantain)

Beef stew

Finely chop and sauce 3/4 large onion in a heavy bottomed pan, with 1 stick celery finely chopped and two cloves garlic chopped or crushed.

remove sautéed veg from pan

dust 1 kg beef shin / hock in seasoned flour (salt, pepper, montreal steak spice, Schwartz chicken spice, whatever)

turn heat up in heavy pan and brown meat.

return sautéed vegetables to the pan and add chopped other veg -- carrots, turnip, green pepper.

add beef bouillon (i used one of those little bouillon pots, with about 2 cups hot water)

add chopped tomatoes or puree tomato (not too much).

Make sure meat covered with stock - add more water if needed.

Cook on low heat, in oven or slow-cooker (crockpot) until meat is tender and stock reduced and thickened a little.

Sadza:  buy white mealie meal at a 'halal shop' or African grocery shop.  Cook according to this recipe: https://www.zimbokitchen.com/how-to-make-plain-sadza/

Vegetables:  this is a classic way to cook zimbabwean greens  https://www.zimbokitchen.com/how-to-prepare-muriwo-werape-and-having-it-crisp/  I like to add tomatoes and onions, and sometimes peanut butter.

Poached pears

We have lovely friends who often invite us over for Persian/Iranian food on New Year's Day.  I always bring desert.  This year, things are a bit hectic, so I made the one desert I used to make when I was first living on my own: my mother's poached pears. Pretty much any pears are good in this, but juicy flavourful ones will always be best. It doesn't matter what they look like though, so choose them by smell, not appearance.

Combine 200gr granulated sugar and 500 ml water in a medium sized saucepan and bring to the boil.

add:

1-2inc piece of cinnamon stick
3-5 whole cloves
2-3 1 inch strips of orange and/or lemon peel.

Add:

3-6 peeled, quartered and cored pears.

Poach for 15 minutes or until soft.

Serve slightly warm.