Month: September 2021

Pears poached in red wine

  • 250ml red wine
  • 110g caster sugar
  • 2 pears
  • Greek-style yoghurt to serve

Preparation method

  1. Peel and quarter the pears
  2. Place them in a saucepan, ideally sized so that they all fit on one level, covering as much of the bottom of the pot as possible
  3. Sprinkle 2-3 teaspoons of sugar over the pears
  4. Add red wine – not so much that they are covered – maybe 1-2 cms deep.
  5. Poach the pears gently for at least 20 minutes or longer if time allows, until the pears are soft.
  6. To serve, reduce the poaching liquor until slightly thickened to form a sauce. Spoon the sauce into a serving bowl.

Serve with Greek-style yoghurt

Popeye Dip

This dip also works really well mixed with penne pasta, and apparently also works well in a cold roast-chicken sandwich, or tucked into a chicken breast before wrapping in bacon and roasting.
Anyway, we tried it with pasta and as a paste on crackers with walnuts and sun-dried tomatoes.
Serves 2-4

  • 1 garlic clove, crushed.
  • 2-3 handfuls of fresh spinach leaves (trim the stems if necessary; we didn’t bother)
  • 200-250g Welsh goat’s cheese
  • 1 lemon zest and juice
  • A little bit of parmesan, finely grated
  • Freshly ground black pepper

Method

  1. Splash a bit of olive oil in the frying pan and saute the garlic until just soft.
  2. Add the spinach and pinch of salt (doesn’t have to be too much, as the cheese will be plenty salty). Stir it around the warm pan just until it wilts down.
  3. Tip into a colander and gently press and squeeze out some of the water.
  4. Finely chop the spinach, and mix it with the goats’ cheese.
  5. Add lemon juice and zest, parmesan, a good bit of pepper and a glug of olive oil.
  6. Fold together.
  7. Try adding some chopped walnuts to the mix.

Should keep in the fridge for 2-3 days.

Carrot Soup

Serves 2 reasonably generously as long as you have plenty of bread to go with it

Ingredients

  • 360g carrots, peeled and finely chopped
  • 80g onions, finely chopped 
  • 15g root ginger, peeled and chopped
  • 280ml chicken stock
  • 175ml water
  • 150ml whipping cream
  • Juice of 1/2 lime
  • Salt and coarsely ground black pepper

Tip: Root ginger is freshest when its skin is smooth, silky and a light cream colour. To make it easier to peel, try and buy a piece that doesn’t have too many knobbly bits.

Method

  1. Heat the pan and add a little vegetable oil. Add 260g of the carrots, the onions and ginger and cook for 5 minutes.
  2. Pour on stock and water and cook for 10 minutes.
  3. Puree soup with hand blender. Add remaining 100g carrots.
  4. Stir in cream, lime juice and cook for 5 minutes.
  5. Season with salt and pepper.

To make your soup extra special

Adding a dollop of creme fraiche or Greek yogurt makes this soup more indulgent, whilst adding a slight sharpness to the well rounded flavours. Always add the freshly cut chives at the last moment before serving so they retain their fresh flavour and texture.

Hot Cakes

More than generous for two adults.
Double for four or five.

  • Pour 1 cup boiling water over 1 cup of rolled oats and mix
  • Add
    • 1tbsp golden syrup
    • 1 cup of milk
    • 2 eggs
    • 1 1/2 cups self-raising flour
    • 1/2 tsp baking soda
    • 3 tbsp melted butter (melt in the frying pan that you will use to cook the hot cakes)
    • Vanilla and cinnamon to taste

Use electric hand mixer to combine then add optional extras

  • Extras
    • Frozen raspberries
    • Blueberries

Moving Flats

Don’t do it! Don’t move house. Don’t move flat! It’s so painful!
In particular, don’t leave rented accommodation. Everyone knows that estate agents are sharks – estate agents and used car salesmen: they’re as bad as each other.
Our experience of leaving Marina Heights, where we spent 9 happy months:
We vacated the place on Monday 7th December. Our contract said that we needed to return it cleaned to a ‘professional standard’. We’re not sure exactly what that means but we spent the preceding Saturday and Sunday cleaning the place like it had never been cleaned before. It was immaculate – which is more than can be said for the state of it when we arrived. The check-in report for when we entered the place indicated that one of the toilets still needed cleaning, several light-bulbs needed replacing. It failed to mention that the oven needed cleaning – as we discovered about a week later with smoke pouring into the room and setting off alarms.
Anyway, on the day we left, an ”independent” inventory agent inspected the place (yes, technically independent as in not working for the same company as the estate agent, but employed by the estate agent, and knows where his next meal is coming from). After commenting on microscopic scratches you could just see if you got your head right down to the table at the right angle in the right light (a really crappy table too – worth no more than 5 pounds at a car boot sale) he directed his attention to the mirror in the hallway and, again by getting the angle just right, was able to see some smudges on the glass. When we said that these were hardly relevant, he just held up his hands and said that he’s independent and “just reports what he sees”.In short, he was looking for problems.
The report that we received a couple of days later highlighted various such things – none of which compared with the diabolical state of the carpets that desperately need replacing, the cracks in the walls that need attention, the toilet seats that our incoming report said were in desperate need of replacement.
Anyway, the letting agent then sent us an email asking us for the invoice for the professional cleaning which we got done. This was an issue as they still had our 2000+ pound deposit, and the contract we had signed said that if they needed to get someone in to clean the place, the minimum fee was going to be 235 pounds. We responded that the contract didn’t require us to pay someone – it merely said that we should ensure that the place was cleaned to a professional standard, and that we would dispute any claim they made.
Now, here’s the bit you need to know for when you vacate your own apartment: In the UK, under the Housing Act (2004) landlords are required to return the tenant’s deposit or indicate to the tenant that they wish to claim some of it within 10 working days (or perhaps 14 calendar days – I found references to both) of the tenancy being terminated. So, after our initial response to the estate agents saying that we would dispute any charges, we didn’t contact them again, and hoped that they would forget about us. The 10th working day (we left on Mon 7th Dec, so Mon 21st Dec) was a bit exciting, but passed without them contacting us. So that night, we sent them an email as follows:

It has now been more than 14 days since we vacated the property and we have received neither our deposit nor notification of your intention to claim any of it. As you are doubtless aware, under current legislation the landlord is required to either return the deposit or notify the tenant of any intention to withhold the deposit within 10 working days of the tenancy being terminated. Those ten working days expired on Monday 21st December.

The return of our deposit is now overdue. Please return it forthwith to the bank account nominated in our previous email.


We sent this on the Monday evening. It didn’t get a response on Tuesday. On Wednesday morning we faxed a copy of the same email to them (point of faxing: we want a record of every correspondence so that if this ever goes to court or arbitration we can prove our side of the story). We got our deposit back the same day.
Lessons from this story:

  1. Estate agents and landlords are bastards
  2. Landlords do not have a right to your deposit. That means, if they want to keep some of it, they must put in a claim for it and justify it. You can argue against it.
    The dispute process appears to be genuinely impartial (thus landlords don’t want to go to arbitration) – they probably wouldn’t have been able to claim their 235 pounds under arbitration anyway, as it would have been considered unreasonable for giving a mirror another wipe.
  3. Remember the 10 working day rule. Don’t rush them to give you your money back, but on the 11th working day you can jump on them and demand it immediately.
    Ensure all correspondence with the landlord is recorded.
    It’s worth checking that your landlords have put the money in a tenancy deposit scheme. If they don’t prove this within five(?) days of you giving them a deposit, then they are liable to pay you a penalty of three months rent (I’m a bit hazy on this particular rule; the basic idea is right, but I’m writing it based on distant memories)

Carrot Cake

This is an absolute winner!

If doing double-layer, do 50% more.

Ingredients

Base

  • 2 eggs
  • 175g muscovado sugar
  • 200ml sunflower oil
  • 200g grated carrot
  • 225g wholemeal flour
  • 1tsp baking soda
  • 2tsp cinnamon
  • 1tsp nutmeg
  • 115g walnuts

Topping

  • 115g half-fat cream cheese
  • 4tbsp margarine
  • 100g icing sugar
  • 1 tsp grated lemon rind
  • 1 tsp grated orange rind

Method

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 190c.
  2. Beat the eggs. Add the sugar and oil. Add the carrot.
  3. Sift in the flour, baking soda, and spices, then add the walnuts. Mix.
  4. Put it in a well-greased baking tin and cook for
  5. If using one baking tin, 40-50 minutes
  6. If using two tins, 30-40 minutes
  7. Let it cool for plenty of time before you add the topping
  8. For the topping, mix all the topping ingredients together. Put on the cake when it has cooled completely.
  9. We think that to put a layer of (best quality) lemon curd between the two layers of the cake makes it heavenly

Salmon-Leek Pasta

This is an ultra-cheap, easy, yet surprisingly tasty recipe. We seem to have this at least once each week.

Ingredients

For four people you’ll need:

  • Penne pasta (one very large handful per person -try pouring the pasta into your hand until it overflows … oh go on, add one more handful just for luck)
  • 2-3 leeks, chopped into about 1cm thick slices.
  • 200g salmon, thinly sliced tiny pieces (this can be ultra cheap, e.g. salmon trimmings
  • half-fat creme fraiche/sour cream
  • Lemon juice
  • Pepper

Method

  1. Boil your pasta. About 3-4 minutes before it is completed, drop your leeks into the pot as well. Everything should be ready at the same time if you get this right.
  2. Drain your pasta/leek mix.
  3. Drop your salmon and creme fraiche into the pasta pot.
  4. Add plenty of lemon juice and pepper. Mix it all up.

Total time from start to finish: about 2 minutes more than the time it takes to cook the pasta as you can do most of the preparation while the pasta is cooking.

Chocolate Orange Cheesecake

This is a fantastic unbaked cheesecake.
To be honest, it’s a bit boring to make because it’s so easy, but on the plus side … it’s so easy!

Ingredients

Base

  • 250g Digestive biscuits (finely crushed)
  • 100g (6tbsp) butter (melted)
  • 3tsp cocoa powder

Cheesecake layer

  • 750g full-fat cream cheese
  • 250g low fat cream cheese
  • 200g icing sugar
  • 1 orange
  • 200g dark chocolate (melted)
  • 2tbsp brandy

Method

Simple instructions

  1. For the base, mix all the base bits together in a bowl, then put them in the cake tin.
  2. Repeat for the cheese-cake layer.
  3. Put it in the fridge for four hours.

Detailed instructions

Base

  1. Finely crush the digestive biscuits. A good way of doing this is in a blender. If you have a slicing tool then that can be a good starting point to get all the biscuits into quite small pieces. Then use a mixing blade to get them much finer.
  2. Melt the butter in the microwave in a microwave-safe bowl. Remember to cover the bowl to avoid splatters. It will take about 30-45 seconds.
  3. Mix with the crushed biscuits in a large bowl.
  4. Add the cocoa
  5. When it is all mixed, pour the breadcrumb base into a ~22cm cake tin. Use a rubber spatula or a large spoon to push the crumbs down firmly to make a smooth flat base. It should no longer look like crumbs but like a single flat chocolatey disk. Use the spatula to clean out the bowl thoroughly.

Filling

  1. Using the same bowl that you just used for the base, which should no longer have more than one or two crumbs in it, but may have buttery cocoa around the sides …
  2. Add all four tubs of cream cheese. Notice that we’re using 3 full-fat and one low fat. Using only low-fat makes the cake too runny, and if you use 4 full-fat it is a bit too solid. 75% full-fat seems to be the right mix, but you could also try 50/50.
  3. Add the icing sugar
  4. Melt the chocolate. Melting this in the microwave doesn’t really work that well – Google it if you’re interested in why. A better method is to break the choc into small pieces (single lumps) into a small bowl that fits inside a saucepan. Add some water to the saucepan, then put your small choc bowl in. i.e. the small bowl of choc is having a bath in the saucepan of water. Now you can melt the choc on the stove.
  5. Add the chocolate to the cheese and icing sugar.
  6. Clean the skin of your orange to remove any nasty chemicals, then use a zesting grater to take the outer 1mm of skin from your orange. Add that zest to your bowl. Taste a tiny bit – it’s super orange-y, but not sweet. Kind of odd!
  7. We need the juice of half your orange. Only use half the orange for juice because too much juice will make it difficult for the cake to set.
  8. [optional] Add two caps of brandy
  9. Mix it all together using an electric whisk. If you haven’t got one you can use a spoon, but you’ll need strong arms!
  10. Use your rubber spatula to pour all of the filling into the cake tin. It will likely just be a big pile in the middle and won’t be smooth. You can settle it down by jiggling the cake tin.
  11. Cover it in cling film then put it in the fridge for 2 hours.

Extreme Chocolate Cakery

The trick with chocolate cake, and our excuse for making more of them, is experimenting with how much of the flour can be replaced with cocoa without the cake losing structural integrity.
In principle, the cake is just a version of a standard Victoria Sponge cake (equal weight of egg, butter, sugar, and self-raising flour). Now, your average chocolate cake maker will foolishly suggest adding a tablespoon or two of cocoa powder. We have found that replacing more than half of the flour with cocoa and you’ll start to have problems (think about it – flour mixed with water has a very different consistency from cocoa mixed with water), but you can just about get away with that – certainly a third of the flour can be replaced with cocoa although you might need to add a bit more baking powder to replace the self-raising flour.

Victoria Sponge Cake

Ingredients

  • 4 eggs
  • 200g margarine
  • 200g sugar
  • 200g flour

Method

  1. Blend the margarine and sugar together, then beat in the eggs.
  2. Finally fold in the flour.
  3. Bake for 20 minutes at 180 C.

Extreme Chocolate Caking

Additional ingredients

  • 70g cocoa
  • 2 tsp baking powder (to replace the 70g flour
  • banana
  • jam
  • walnuts – chopped
  • Anything else that takes your fancy – a splash of kahlua?
  • MORE CHOCOLATE! You’ll need about 375g more maximum-cocoa (e.g. cooking) chocolate

Method

  1. Once you’ve got your basic cake mix (i.e mixed your flour/cocoa, eggs, butter, sugar) break up about 125g of chocolate into smallish lumps (half single squares) and mix that, walnuts, kahlua, etc into the mix.
  2. Bake in two dishes for 20 minutes or so. Note: because of the additional chocolate, it won’t firm-up in the same way as your average cake.
  3. After cooking, let it rest for a while on a couple of wire racks. When it has cooled a bit, put one of the cake halves on a large plate and generously spread it with jam, and cover in slices of banana.
  4. Melt the remaining 250-ish grams of chocolate in a saucepan with a tablespoon or two of water (better still: brandy!) on a very low heat. This should give you a fantastic replacement for boring conventional chocolate icing.
  5. Spread a layer of your melted chocolate over the banana/jam then plant your second cake-half on the first. cover the whole thing melted chocolate.
  6. Welcome to the world of extreme chocolate-cakery!