Easy Lasagne

I blogged a while back about making the perfect bolognaise recipe and I have used it again here in lasagne.  I made a really simple, and I think more traditional, Italian Lasagne.  Any lasagne I've eaten in Italy has been relatively firm and thick in its texture and this is what I hoped to re-create.  I cannot stand sludgy, over sauced mess and very often lasagne in restaurants resembles this very thing. 

I serve mine with a very simple iceberg lettuce salad because, quite frankly, that's what my mum used to do.

Serves 4 or 3 greedy people

1 batch of bolognaise recipe

10 lasagne sheets

1 pint of milk

1 tbsp plain flour

1tbsp butter

cracked black pepper, lots of it

large handful of Parmesan

large handful of mozzarella

1. Heat the bolognaise sauce in a pan if it not already hot.  Spread little spoons of this underneath your first two sheets and then continue to layer up with small spoonfuls of sauce with pasta sheets in between.  Making two nice stacks side by side in a large ovenproof dish.  Ensure there is about an inch in between the two and a nice bit  space around the pasta.

2. Pour the white sauce over the top when this is done (made melting the butter over a gentle heat and adding the flour until a smooth paste and then adding the milk bit by bit, incorporate all of the cheese bar a little handful of the Parmesan- reserve this for later)

3.  Add loads of black pepper and sprinkle the Parmesan cheese.  Place in an oven at 160/gas mark 4 for thirty five minutes or until the lasgane feels soft with a knife and the top is lovely and brown.

What a way to follow low fat soup!

I thought after my soup recipe two days ago that I should blog about the delectably and indulgently rich chocolate cake I made for my partner's birthday. I had forgotten to mention it in my previous blog and yes, I do realise the irony of blogging about healthy eating alongside pure greed but there it is.  Everybody likes chocolate and if you can have it in moderation then you are on to a winner.  So that means one slice instead of four... And possibly a long strenuous walk afterwards!

 It went down a storm at his work and I think its probably my favourite recipe for chocolate cake.  The sponge is light and I have put a butter cream filling to sandwich the two sponges together and then used a ganache to cover the cake with.  Its a relatively easy recipe as well, which makes it even more appealing.  I like to use a massive bowl and get involved with the whisk to get a really decent cake batter; fantastic for those bingo wings.

Cake Recipe

225g Self-Raising Flour

3 tbsp organic cocoa powder

2tsp baking powder

225g margarine

225g caster sugar

4 medium eggs beaten

10 tbsp whole milk

1. Sieve the first three ingredients in a bowl and then add the margarine, caster sugar, beaten eggs and milk and beat until combined.  This is easily done with an electric mixer or with a kitchen Aid.
2. Tip this mixture into two well greased and lined 8in baking tins.  Bake at 150 degrees for 50 minutes.
3. Test these sponges with a skewer and when they come out clean the cake is done.  Leave to cool completely before starting with the icing.

For the butter cream

85g butter softened

170g icing sugar

25g cocoa powder

1tbsp hot water

1. Sift the icing sugar into the butter and add the cocoa powder, also sifted.  Then add the boiling water and beat again until well blended.

Chocolate Ganache

230g double cream- basically a medium sized pot from a supermarket

200g dark/ milk chocolate depending on your preference

1. Heat the cream and chocolate gently and whisk until blended and very smooth.  Transfer to another bowl and place into the fridge until it reaches spreading consistency.
2. To assemble the whole cake add the butter cream to the sponges and gently spread to the edges.  Ensure the layer is even so that when they sandwich together there is some uniformity ready for the ganache.  Add the ganache to the outer cake.  Ensure the ganache is cool enough to stay put but flexible enough to be spread easily.
3. And there you have your indulgent chocolate cake.

Grow your own... lettuce?

I mentioned a few entries back, that I wanted to really concentrate on sourcing where my ingredients come from and find out a history, a story or a background on my meats.  Well I thought the answer might be for my to get a little green fingered and grow my own food.  Whilst I can't start a mini farm in my little yard I can use the space I currently have, while I wait for my allotment allocation, to grow a few veggies or something resembling an edible product. 

Obviously, I'd have to start small as up to now the only thing I've ever been known to grow is mold in my room at University.  Its a shame really because my upbringing involved being around a lot of home growing, in particular my grandad took me to his allotment where he grew raspberries, strawberries, carrots, onions, peas, broad beans, potatoes; both new and larger varieties and an array of salad ingredients and in truth this doesn't cover the other things he has grown over the years. 
Essentially, he could grow enough to provide meals, fair enough they would be minus meat, but they could provide meals from their allotment alone. 

This sustainability is an essential part of not only knowing where your food comes from, the bottom of your garden in this case, but it is vital for us to play a role in our food preparation right from seed. 

So I've started with lettuce; can grow within two weeks, is easy to plant, can be put into my yard and was the only thing I really trusted myself to grow.  Would you believe that after two weeks I could see little green shoots and I'm not sure what my neighbours thought when I was jumping around after having actually being able to grow something.  As you can see I need to leave it a bit longer before using it but its looking healthy right now.

I'm not suggesting that I'm helping sustainability just by growing my own lettuce because its really a big task and you have to be prepared to make big changes if you are to encompass what we mean by sustainability.  These changes could be sourcing British produce, growing your own food, having an allotment, not using plastic bags or purchasing food with immense amounts of packaging and that's just the start. 

So I'll let you know how I get on but hopefully this is just the start of my talents.

Stuffing: Cavity or no cavity- that is my question!

On making my chicken dinner today, based on Heston Blumenthal's four step process as demonstrated yesterday on saturday kitchen. I made some yummy stuffing but approached the question in my mind. Do we stuff in the cavity or not. I decided to approach this dilema through the medium of two lists. A pro list and a con list. This is sad foodie action at its best.

Pro to stuffing cavity:
1. saves on washing up
2. Can give the chicken the aroma from the stuffing
3. Cooks really well alongside the chicken and remains moist and flavoursome

Cons to stuffing cavity:
1. Messy to stuff
2. Slows down cooking time signficantly
3. Does not allow you to shape them and create a lovely crust on the outside

I didn't stuff my cavity and I reckon it was a good decision especially since the Heston recipe requires 41/2 hours cooking without stuffing as it is cooked at 60 degrees. The link to watch it is below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41AHxTR1MqQ

I hope I return this week with some more lists!

A feast Indeed...

Its been some time since I visited my blog and for that there is no excuse however I have been off on holiday discovering more foodie delights to enhance my appreciation.

I attended just this weekend the Conwy Food Feast in North Wales and was not let down by its culinary genius with tasty samples of some of the finest foods from in and around the North Wales area. I watched some of the local food heros make some homely recipes with their traditional and more importantly, local ingredients.

A few stood out from the crowd and I'll let you in on what was in my shopping bag. I purchased some fantastic fudge produced in the Conwy area, some Halen Mon sea salt. This is fantastic sea salt which melts beautifully into sauces and is produced in the Anglesey area of North Wales. Daring to be different I bought the celery seed sea salt. This I will try with some pork fillet as it was demonstrated. Its flavour can be surprisingly subtle, although undoubtedly its scent is powerful and a quick dab on the finger can produce an overwhelmingly liquorice taste. Nevertheless I am in love with the salt!

Other purchases were smoked garlic from a local farm also producing various other types of garlic including elephant and pink varieties. I also indulged in some smoked chicken from the LLandudno smokery. This is a fantastic product and very , very tasty. It can certainly brighten up a salad but its exceedingly good when served with some decent pasta.

Besides this I was literally wowed by the variety of people producing food which had so much dedication to producing the best quality and finest representation of North Wales.

The overall message of the weekend was that of buying your local ingredients and investing in food which is of good quality and, if you can get it, produced on your doorstep.