No-Knead Bread

I've seen this no-knead bread knocking around in the blogosphere for a while now, but for some ridiculous reason, only tried it last weekend. I have made it almost every day since. Oh my goodness, this bread is amazing! It is so easy, a preschooler can do it. It takes very little 'hands on' time. 5 minutes prep (including washing up!) then into a warm place for 15-20 hours. Another 5 minutes, then leave for half an hour. Then into the oven, for half an hour. How easy is that? And it's the most delicious bread ever!

A quick google search reveals that this bread originated from the Sullivan Street Bakery in New York, and was subsequently printed in the New York Times. Since then, it has been all over blog land, but I was most recently reminded of it by Lucy at Attic 24. If you fancy a more detailed, picture by picture account, head over there, because she does a great job of explaining it step by step. Check out her blog properly while you are there, because it really is filled with lots of lovely yarny crafty inspiration.

Anyway, back to the bread. Here's what you need (but don't knead. Ha ha. Sorry)

3 cups bread flour

1/2 teaspoon easy bake yeast

1 teaspoon sea salt

1 1/2 cups tepid tap water

All you do is mix all of the ingredients together in a medium sized bowl. Cover it in clingfilm and put it somewhere warmish. I put mine in the airing cupboard, but a warm kitchen, or by a radiator would be fine. Then leave it, for anywhere between 10 and 20, even 24 hours. Certainly don't clock-watch, this is really easy, no stress bread.

When you're ready for bread, you need to find yourself a casserole type pot, with a tight fitting lid, that is oven proof at high temperatures. I have used a cast iron Le Creuset (I wish) style casserole, and I have also used a ceramic Pyrex with a glass lid. I didn't find any difference, apart from a slightly different shape.

Preheat your oven to 230c, 450f, Gas 8. Yes, hot! Put your pot in there to heat for 30 minutes.

WELL flour your work top. I mean it, loads of flour. This dough is very sticky. Use a spatula or dough scraper to flop the dough out on to the work surface. Then just really gently, with floured, or wet hands, shape the dough in to a rough ball, the size of your pot. Now cover it with cling film (loosely) and leave it for the 30 minutes it takes your oven and pot to heat up.

Once the oven is screaming hot, take your pot out carefully, and line it with a folded strip of baking paper, about 1 1/2 inches thick. This just makes it easier to get the bread of a red hot pot when it's done.

Now put your dough in the pot, put the lid on, and bake for 30 minutes. Take the lid off, and bake for another 5-15 minutes - depending on how brown and crispy you like your bread.

Take the bread out, put it on a cooling rack and try to resist cutting in to it immediately. Go on, I challenge you. I'm not sure I've ever managed it!

Slather with good butter, dip in oil & balsamic, or just rip it off in chunks and devour. If it lasts beyond a day, it makes delicious toast.

 

Treats for the Weekend

My brother and his lovely girlfriend, who live in Manchester, are coming to stay with us this weekend. We are going to take them to the MK Handmade and Vintage fair, because I think they will love it (and I love an excuse for a good browse around this fab fair!)

In days gone by, I would then have found a lovely restaurant or foodie pub to take them to in the evening. But that was the pre-kids era. Nowadays, when weekend evenings are all about cosying up in front of the tv, weekend visitors means cooking up a lovely dinner at home. I haven't decided what to make for dinner yet, but in true to me style, I have thought about desserts and treats.

Some of the old favourites have already been prepared and stashed away. Nigella's Pistachio Fudge is a firm favourite in this house. It's a great little treat to have in your repertoire, because it's so ridiculously easy to make, can be stored in the freezer (in fact, we think it tastes better straight from the freezer) and everyone loves it.

Next on the list is Chocolate Macarons, or Macaroonies, as Evie calls them. I was lucky enough to have a day out with a good friend, to London, a couple of years ago, to attend the Macaron course, run by lovely Caroline Hope of www.teaandscones.co.uk. If you have even the slightest interest in making macarons, I thoroughly reccommend this course, as it takes all the mystery out of them. You get to spend a lovely morning in Caroline's kitchen, learning all about macarons and the art of tea making, and come home with a little moc of macarons to show for it. Treat yourself!

But back to my macarons, I have followed Caroline's recipe ever since, varying it to make all kinds of different flavours, and have had great success. I love making macarons and they are another great thing to be able to make for treats, or as gifts. They take quite a bit more effort than the fudge, but they can be made in stages, and they are always really well appreciated. Chocolate macarons, filled with chocolate ganache and a 'surprise' centre of strawberry syrup are the firm favourite in this house. They can also be frozen, either just as the shells, or as the finished, filled macaron, but they never last long enough in this house, to make it to the freezer.

Finally, a twist on another Nigella recipe. It's based on her No-Churn Margarita Ice Cream, but uses a liqueur of your choice instead. This time, I used some lovely Bramble Liqueur, which had been purchased at Wrest Park, a lovely local English Heritage property. Equally yummy unfrozen, as a kind of syllabub, or frozen, as ice cream. Either way, add a couple of amaretto biscuits and you're in heaven! If you're serving unfrozen, this takes literally moments to make, so is perfect for an impromptu dinner party.

Ingredients:

150ml Bramble Liqueur

100g Icing Sugar

500g Double Cream

Method:

Put the Liqueur and sugar into a large bowl and stir to dissolve the sugar. Add the cream and whip to the soft peaks stage. Pour into serving glasses if you're serving it unfrozen, or into a freezer proof container and place in the freezer, to make ice cream. Easy as that.

I have made variations of this with Limoncello and with Chambord (lemon and raspberry liqueurs) and all have been delicious. I implore you to have a go at this with your own favourite liqueur. I promise you won't be disappointed. Especially if you serve it in these gorgeous Alessi ice cream bowls!

So that's the sweet stuff sorted. Now I suppose I should think of something savoury to eat first!

What are your go-to recipes for easy entertaining?

 

Easy midweek dinner recipe: Pork and Spinach Lasagne

When I started this blog, I didn't think it would include recipes. After all, I just follow other peoples recipes, so why not just link to them? But then the other night, while I was preparing dinner, I realised that actually, I quite often have two or three recipes open at a time, using elements from each, and then adding some other bits that have just come from my head, in a trial and error fashion.

This usually means that if I come up with something really yummy, I'll often be unable to replicate it exactly. So, this time, I decided to take notes, so that if this turned out well, I could share it with you, my lovely blog readers.

As it happened, this lasagne was yummy. My family wolfed it down and scraped their plates clean. I had made some for friends that are having a tough time too, and they asked for the recipe. Chuffed, I declared the recipe a success and therefore I'm sharing it with you. Give it a go. And if you do, please tell me what you think!

 

Pork and Spinach Lasagne

Meat Sauce Ingredients:

2 cloves garlic

1 onion

1 red chilli

1 tbsp tomato purée

77g pancetta cubes/bacon lardons

300g pork mince

400g tin chopped tomatoes

100g frozen spinach

Mushrooms/peppers (optional)

Method:

Gently fry the onion, garlic and chilli in a little bit of olive oil, so that they soften, but don't go brown. I'll let you in to a secret here. I use frozen onions and chilli, and 'lazy garlic' from a jar. You can use fresh if you like, of course, but if like me, you've got two kids pulling at your legs the whole time you're cooking, really, take every shortcut you can!

Next in the pan is the pancetta. I get those little packs of lardons and keep them in the freezer. As with the onions and chilli, just shove them in frozen. They will defrost in seconds in your pan and be fine. Because who can remember to take things out to defrost?

Next, add the mince. I would defrost this first if it's frozen, but a burst in the microwave will be fine. Once this is looking mostly cooked, you can add the tinned tomatoes, tomato purée and frozen spinach (again, shove it in frozen) bring it all up to a simmer and let it blip away for a bit, until the spinach has fully defrosted and mixed in well. At this point you can add some herbs if you like, and some extra veggies in with the spinach if you're trying to sneak them into the kids. Some peas would be nice, or mushrooms. I put some sliced mixed peppers in. Season with pepper (not salt - there's enough in the pancetta) and set aside while you make the cheese sauce.

Cheese Sauce Ingredients:

4 tbsp olive oil

4 tbsp plain flour

1/2 pint milk

1/2 pint plain yoghurt

1 cup grated cheese, plus more for sprinkling on top

Method:

Put the olive oil and flour in a small pan over a medium heat and whisk continually for about a minute, until it starts to froth a bit. Take away from the heat and add the milk and yoghurt, whisking well. Put back on the heat and cook, whisking all the time, until the mixture starts to thicken. Just as it looks about to boil, take it off the heat and add the cheese, salt and pepper. You can make this sauce healthier, by using skimmed milk and fat free yoghurt (which I did) and using low fat cheese. Use a bit less cheese if you like too - it's a really flexible recipe. Use what's in your fridge.

Make the lasagne:

This is the fun bit, and kids might like to help here. You know how to layer a lasagne, but here's how I do it. I put a little bit of meat sauce on the bottom. Squeeze the ladle into the sauce so that you've got mostly sauce, not meat, if that makes sense? Then a layer of pasta (I use dried lasagne sheets, the no pre-cook kind), meat, then cheese sauce. Keep going until you get to the top of your dish. We like a crispy topping on our lasagne, so finish with pasta sheets and then a really small amount of cheese sauce, that doesn't reach the edges. Cover with as much grated cheese as you like on top. I always put too much on for my non-cheese-loving husband's liking.

See those bits of lasagne sticking out at the sides? They will be the yummy crispy bits everyone fights over!

Bake in the oven at 180c for about half an hour, but keep an eye on it and take it out when it looks right to you.

Tuck in. Yum yum. This made enough for 6 good portions. 4 for us and 2 to pass to a friend or freeze for later.

 

100 Happy Days

Have you heard of 100 Happy Days? 

I've seen people using the hashtag on Facebook and Instagram posts for a week or so, but just got involved yesterday.  You can sign up via www.100happydays.com  if you fancy joining in. The idea is to take a photograph every day, for 100 days, of something that makes you happy, and post it via your social media of choice.  I joined in on Instagram and here are my first two posts:

Oops. Hadn't really noticed they were both alcoholic!  That doesn't look good, does it?

I really like these little challenges. I've joined in with 'photo a day' challenges (usually via Fat Mum Slim) a couple of times, where you get a daily word prompt and submit a word on that theme.  I find that they really make you stop and notice things a bit more. You know, if you're looking for something yellow, you might notice, and pause to look at, some pretty flowers that you would ordinarily have walked straight past.  My problem with the daily word prompts was that I would get 'stuck' on a day.  I wouldn't be able to think of anything to photograph, but wouldn't want to move on to the next day leaving one out (no no no, far too messy for my OCD tendancies :-) and then I'd give up on the whole month, because I'm competitive, in that bad way that means as soon as I realise I'm not going to 'win' at something, I give up and/or loose interest.  I know, it's not one of my best traits!

I'm hoping that, like this blog, I keep it up with 100 Happy Days. I think it's an excellent prompt, just to take a moment at the end of the day and have a think about what made you happy. As a mum, there are many moments during the day that make me happy, that involve my children.  Watching my beautiful girls play together, having funny little conversations with Evie, or seeing Lola understand something for the first time, but these 100 things are for me, and are not likely to feature the girls. Partly because we have a 'no pictures of the kids on the internet' rule (I make the odd exception for showing the back of their heads, or similar restricted views, in the name of showing off crafts!) but also because I think it's important as a mum, especially a 'full time stay at home' mum, to remember that your life is not just about the kids.  That can be so easy to forget sometimes, when you're caught up in the seemingly non stop 'Cook, feed, tidy, shout 'no', repeat' cycle of daily life with toddlers.  It's easy to forget who 'you' are, outside of mum, and what makes you happy as a person.  I really struggle with this sometimes, so hopefully 100 Happy Days will help me with that.  

Sign up, see if it helps you too.  And if you do, let me know so I can check out your photos!