Recipes you love to cook

[bouncebounce crunch]

I really enjoy cooking and baking at home. I lived on a farm as a downtrodden 14 year old apprentice that called my boss Master and his wife Maam.

Maam cooked food the farm dogs walked away from, so i wanted better and this sticks with me today.

33 years later Cakes, Apple crumbles, Cheesecakes, Stews where leftovers become pies, pasta, pizza doughs and barbeques are part of my home cooking enjoyment .

any good recipes you would like to share.

[John F]

Some of my annual staples are apple cakes and I make my own jam from an apple base every year.  I like a nice pumpkin pie as it is something I discovered whilst working with an American chap and uses all that wasted carvings.  I now grow a few each year on my allotment to have a stock of cooked pumpkin in the freezer.

If I didn't make the jam the fruit that our large 100+ year old apple tree would be largely wasted, although it might have to go as it is becoming increasingly hollow.

Pumpkin Pie:

700g cooked, mashed and drained pumpkin (squeeze out as much water as you can get otherwise it tastes watery)

Mix with 1 tin (410g) evaporated milk, 2 eggs, 175g soft brown sugar, 1/2 teaspoon each of cinnamon, ground ginger and nutmeg.

Pour into a blind baked 20cm pastry case, bake for 40 mins at 200 degrees or 180 degree fan oven.

It is nice for me as it is not too sweet, almost savoury, yet will satisfy a sweet tooth. Lovely on it's own or with ice cream, cream or yoghurt.

Edited By John F on 21/03/2017 11:05:16

[bouncebounce crunch]

John i will give your Pumpkin pie a go this weekend. Down in Oz we have very few pumpkin types on shelves. Kent, Grey, Butternut are the common. so i will give Butternut a test first, not a lot of moisture in the butternut.

already licking my lips.

[John F]

I would probably say that the Grey or Kent Pumpkin would be better than the butternut squash as it is slightly easier to get soft but once cooked, either roasted, microwaved or gently boiled it will yield loads of water when squeezed. It will still work though.

Good luck.

[Peter Miller]

I enjoy cooking too, even some quite complicated recipes at times. though most of mine are done in the 3/4 ro 1/2 hour time scale.

I have one very easy and tasty one. which has the advantage that you can add and remove anything that you want to suit your own taste.

Cook Spaghetti or rice if you prefer.

Fry sliced onion and mushrooms in (olive) oil.Add Oregano and basil (dried is fine) add chopped tomato and chopped up bacon. You can substitute Spam for bacon, then you can add baby courgettes if you like add garlic as well.

The frying up takes about as long as the spaghetti so the whole thing can be done in less that half an hour and as I said add anything you like to taste

[ken anderson.]

my wife can burn water......she makes cakes and throws out the crumbs for the bird's...they throw them back.

ken Anderson................ ne..1 ...bake off dept.

[Andrew Price 2]

Signing in, with interest

[Steve Houghton 1]

I love to cook and bake, whether it be British, European, American or Far Eastern cuisine. I guess my signature dish would be duck with a Port & Morello cherry sauce.

And my son is a chip off the old block and working as a chef at the St Moritz Hotel in Cornwall. I always get fed really well when I pay him a visit.

[Plummet]

I am the main cook in our house. I am in the middle of baking bread at the moment.

Indian food is a speciality. We live near Bradford so getting good cheap spices is easy. We would NEVER buy spices from a supermarket. They are ridiculously expensive and often lacking in flavour.

My most regular recipes are Bengal Potatoes - potatoes cooked with a mix of whole spices. V. Easy.

Pakoras. Soaked red lentils, drained and whizzed up to make a thick creamy paste. Add spices and chopped veg to taste and fry globs of the stuff. Costs pence to make. I laugh when I see the price of them in the shops.

As for baking - A favourite that I invented ...

To simple four egg victoria sponge mix add a pear or two, peeled, cut off the core bits and coarsely chopped, and a couple of Mars Bars. These have been kept in the fridge so that they too can be cut into cubes. Stir and bake.

Steak and kidney pies, with loads of onion and some spud and other veg so the filling is rich and thick and unctious.

If anyone is going camping to the LMA do at East Kirkby they will probably see me in action in the Sunday Catering tent.

Plummet

p.s. Yes, I am overweight!

p.p.s  PM me if you want detailed recipes.

Edited By Plummet on 21/03/2017 13:17:09

[Don Fry]

Peter Millers recipe, if you take out the bacon, and add anchovy, capers, and olives gives a dish named, in translation from Italian, as "lady of the night". Who would not want to eat a dish so named.

I have this morning baked bread, and helped with the heavy bits of SWMBO's production of a huge batch of meatballs, to freeze, and tonight with paprika sauce and pasta.

but a favourite is what can I do with this soup. Old vegetables, carrot tops, leek tops, bits of bacon, nettles, nasturtium leaves, hawthorn leaves, sprouts, broccoli stems, mix and match

Chop an onion, sauté in butter for a few seconds, and then add the other chopped bits, lid on, sauté 10 minutes, no colouration. For a thicker soup, I can't remember the English word, here it is a pottage, add a chopped floury potato.

Add chicken stock, or one of those jelly stock pots, or water, season, and boil, to cooked through. Wizz it in a stick blender, perhaps through a sieve, perhaps add cream, soured cream, créme fraishe. The cabbage varieties go with bits of blue cheese floating on top.

Costs nothing, delicious, and is good training in sorting out what flavours work together. Today I had cauliflower and potato, with tarragon and something sweet like basil in the background. The freezer pots have basic labels only, no detailed ingredients.

[Peter Miller]

Posted by Donald Fry on 21/03/2017 13:38:09:

Peter Millers recipe, if you take out the bacon, and add anchovy, capers, and olives gives a dish named, in translation from Italian, as "lady of the night". Who would not want to eat a dish so named.

Hey, I like that, I will give it a try! Just added them to my shopping list for tomorrow

[Andy Green]

Cant beat a Victoria Sponge. All in one bowl, none of this creaming fat and sugar.

Often take on to the patch to make friends.

Andy

[Colin Carpenter]

Beans on toast !!😀😉 MMM !!!! Colin

[john stones 1 - Moderator]

Give over you're making me hungry

I used to make cakes and bread every Friday, too lazy now though, smell/taste of home made bread

[Andrew767]

Farmhouse cake

Four,four,four,two mix. So 4oz each of butter,sugar and S/R flour.Two large eggs. One level Tsp baking powder. One heaped Tsp each of ground ginger, mixed spice and ground cinnamon. Up to 150g dried fruit (Sultanas and raisins). Then just bung it all in the Magimix ( ...you could use a Kenwood or a Braun but then you won't get that smug feeling!!). Into a 23cm tin and sprinkle the top liberally with demarara sugar. Then into your oven at 150deg fan for 50 mins.

Regular bakers,ignore my temp and timing 'cos you know your own oven!

Andrew

[FlyinBrian]

I enjoy cooking but do not have any "signature" dishes. I particularly like roasts and stews, also Spag Bol and Chilli. Curries and Stir frys too.

[Mike Etheridge 1]

Nobody has mentioned that us aeromodellers should only use plane flour!

I did the cooking tonight as my wife was busy at her tutoring role at a college. Often when our boys were young I would be faced with cooking for them especially when I was self employed and worked at home . None of the family liked set menus for the week so I was often faced with complaints. Tonight's meal has been banned in the past, it was Mary Berry's Tuna and Spinach Linguine. The recipe includes garlic,shallots, anchovy fillets red chilli,baby capers and cherry tomatoes apart from the spinach,tuna and linguine. It was served with lemon juice and Parmesan cheese.

My wife's speciality when we were first married was soot pie!

[Ben B]

My current favourite are my Salted Caramel Rolos. Not the easiest and requires careful temperature control and piping. That or water bath venison. Basically if it requires a thermometer and lots of gear it's my kind of cooking. The venison is great for dinner parties though - it can sit at temp for hours with a quick blowtorch to finish it off. To be fair though most Sous Vide recipes are just slow oven recipes....

[scott finnie]

I add steak strips to the slow cooker. 160ml red cola, 4 tablespoons of castor sugar, sugar snap peas, babycorn and 2 bottle of regga reggae bbq sauce. cook on low heat for 5 hours and ahh bisto you have melt in the mouth steak perfect with mashed tatties or cous cous

[zz]

Hey BBC,

In Australia we don't have pumpkin pie. We have Gramma pie, which is made with a pumpkin. May be a regional thing as where a joey can be a young marsupial or a snake, Depends on where you come from. Anyway, Gramma pie, that is what I have always known as a pie made from pumpkin, since long before I was able to reach up to the bar and grasp a schooner. Never heard it referred to as pumpkin pie. Pumpkin pie - just another Americanism, in my opinion..

[Charles Pic]

Posted by Plummet on 21/03/2017 13:02:12:

<snip>

My most regular recipes are Bengal Potatoes - potatoes cooked with a mix of whole spices. V. Easy.

Pakoras. Soaked red lentils, drained and whizzed up to make a thick creamy paste. Add spices and chopped veg to taste and fry globs of the stuff. Costs pence to make. I laugh when I see the price of them in the shops

Hi Plummet. I know you said PM for your recipes, but if you would be willing I'd really love for you to post your Bengal potatoes and pakora recipes to this thread. I have a feeling they will be right up my street and I have a cupboard full of spices including panch phoran and whole garam masala. Pakora is something I've enjoyed at Indian restaurants but never known how to make. Both are veggie of course, which will go down well with the missus

[John F]

Posted by kooka on 22/03/2017 05:41:45:

Hey BBC,

In Australia we don't have pumpkin pie. We have Gramma pie, which is made with a pumpkin. May be a regional thing as where a joey can be a young marsupial or a snake, Depends on where you come from. Anyway, Gramma pie, that is what I have always known as a pie made from pumpkin, since long before I was able to reach up to the bar and grasp a schooner. Never heard it referred to as pumpkin pie. Pumpkin pie - just another Americanism, in my opinion..

Indeed, regional variances are quite funny. You call 'em schooners yet away from the South most other places in Oz call em a pot or a middy.

[Plummet]

Posted by Charles Pic on 22/03/2017 07:11:44:

Hi Plummet. I know you said PM for your recipes, but if you would be willing I'd really love for you to post your Bengal potatoes and pakora recipes to this thread. I have a feeling they will be right up my street and I have a cupboard full of spices including panch phoran and whole garam masala. Pakora is something I've enjoyed at Indian restaurants but never known how to make. Both are veggie of course, which will go down well with the missus

Oh well ... OK ...

First things first. Spices. In almost every case we buy our spices whole and grind them, in a coffee grinder reserved for the purpose - in small batches. Spices bought ready ground are poor relations in flavour.

For my cooking the most important are cumin, coriander, chilies, and turmenic - which is an exception because we do buy turmeric ready ground. The chillies we buy are the big dried dark red ones that are sometimes called Kashmiri chillies. These are not too hot, but do have lots of flavour.

Panch Poran (spellings vary) is an Indian five spice mix - equal parts of mustard seed, fenugreek seed, fennel seed, cumin seed, and kalonji. Kalonji is either onion seed or nigella seed depending upon where you look.

Chillies - wash your hands well after handling or cutting them. Do not touch your eyes or other delicate places - be warned!

Fresh Coriander - you can buy this as small expensive bunches in supermarkets or in large cheaper bunches from ethnic shops.

If you can buy from an indian or pakistani shop - do. You will save a fortune over supermarket prices.

Pakora ...

Use ordinary split red lentils, a.k.a Mysore or Massoor Dhal, Put perhaps a mugful in a bowl and generously cover them with cold water. Leave them to soak for at least 30 mins, preferably an hour or two.

Drain off the excess water. Either use a stick blender in a suitable container, or a liquidiser to convert the lentils into a thick creamy pale pink goo. Add a bit of water if needed. - you can add it but not the opposite.

The pink goo is the basic pakora mix. (I have seen recipes that use various flours to make the mix, but this is my recipe.) Now add flavour. The mix soaks up flavour, so don't be miserly.

Incidentally - the pakora mix is a bugger to clean off things if it dries. Get utensils, bowls etc. in soak asap.

Flavours ...

Start with lots of ground cumin and coriander seed. For one mugful of lentils I would add about a desertspoonful of each - perhaps more.

Chilli. Obviously, to taste. You can add ground red, or finely chopped fresh green (perhaps two or three - depending on their power) or both.

Garlic and or onion - chopped - add plenty.

A bit of salt depending on your sense of taste. I don't bother with it.

Mix it well.

That will do - but ... read on.

Heat some oil in a fryer or pan or wok. When it is hot drop desertspoonfuls of the glop into the oil and let them fry until crisp and brown. (Hint - black is overdone. )

When you have made a few plain ones you can start to play. You can add all sorts of stuff, and coat vegetables in it.

Chopped fresh coriander

Florets of cauliflower

Mushrooms (I always add some crushed black cardamom seeds with mushrooms.)

Shreaded cabbage

Slices of potato (use a lower heat but for a longer time to make sure that the spud cooks, or steam the potatoes first.)

Oh ... Whatever you have - experiment.

That's enough for this message. Bengal spuds later.

Plummet

[Plummet]

As promised - bengal potatoes.

Ingredients

Potatoes (Duh!)

Panch Poran - see my previous posting. I have seen a little jar of it in the supermarket containing 25 gm, (I think) for £2.85 ish. We buy bags of 250gm for perhaps £1.25. (Guesswork)

Ground dried red chilli powder

Ground turmeric

Ghee or (second choice) vegetable oil. Ghee is butter with the water taken out. You can buy it in tins and it keeps forever in the fridge.

You need a heavy pan with a well fitting lid. We often cook then in an aga oven, so a pan that can go in the oven is good. Equally we cook them outside on a camping stove.

Scrub and de-grobie the potatoes, but do not peel them.

Chop them into largish chunks.

Put a dollop of ghee or oil in your pan and heat it.

Add panch poran seeds. Perhaps a desertspoonful or two.

Let the seeds heat and sizzle and start to pop.

Add the potato chunks, and stir to coat them in the ghee (oil) and seeds.

Add turmeric (1 tsp) and dried red chilli (1/2 tsp +?)

Stir again to distribute the spice.

Put on the lid and cook them on a medium heat in their own steam until they are cooked through. Stir occasionally, but try not to waste the steam. (30 mins or more. Different potatoes cook at different speeds. Size also matters.)

There is usually no need to add any water, but if you have problems getting them to cook through you can add a spoon or two of water to make some more steam.

That's it.

Plummet

[Charles Pic]

Thanks Plummet I will save both these recipes and definately try them, although it may take me a while to get around to it. In the pakora recipe the coriander seed is ground, just as the cumin is?