Apple sauce and fudge snickerdoodle bread

The term bread in the name of today's recipe most certainly refers only to the shape of the thing, as it's most definitely a cake. I don't mind at all! And you could convince yourself to think it's almost healthy. It has some whole meal flour after all. And the butter is replaced by apple sauce and oil. So yes, let's all stick our heads in the sand and pretend it's healthy, because I bet you can't stop at one slice. Or maybe you can, which means to say you are more disciplined than I am. But then again, that's not much to brag about as my self control is non-existent. Especially when it comes to carbs. And in this case, the carbs are accompanied by delicious apple sauce, fudge, sugar and cinnamon. It must count as one of your five a day because of the apple, right?

This recipe is directly copied from This Gal Cooks. When this bread came up on my blog feed I immediately pinned it to bake as soon as I made a batch of stewed apple. I assumed that would work to replace the apple sauce, which it did very well.  Also, I'm not quite sure of the difference between butterscotch and fudge chunks, I couldn't find the former, so I'm assuming it's about equivalent with the latter. Probably a US vs. UK thing.  

Apple, fudge and snickerdoodle bread (makes 1 loaf):
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup wholewheat flour
3/4 cup caster sugar
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp apple pie spice (I don't have any, so I added some cinnamon, nutmeg and ground cloves, would have added some ground ginger as well, but had just run out)
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup apple sauce (I used our home-made stewed apple)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup water
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup fudge chunks (or butterscotch chips)
(1 tbsp flour)
1 tbsp light brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

The howto:
Preheat oven to 175 degrees C (350 degrees F). Prepare your loaf tin by buttering if needed. I used my trusty silicone loaf tin which I never butter, and everything always pops out perfectly fine.

In a bowl, mix together the flours, caster sugar, baking powder and spices. In another bowl, mix together the apple sauce, oil, brown sugar, water, eggs and vanilla extract. Combine the dry ingredients into the wet, mix as little as possible. If you want to, coat the butterscotch/fudge chunks in flour (I skipped this step) and mix into the batter. Pour into the loaf tin. Mix the tbsp of brown sugar with cinnamon and sprinkle on top of the bread. Bake for about an hour, until a cake tester comes out clean. If the top gets too dark, cover with foil. Let cool completely before cutting.

The Verdict:

I have eaten three slices of this bread for breakfast. 'Nuff said.

Apple cake with brown butter frosting

I had a big bunch of juicy apples and needed something to use them for. Of course I went looking for a cake recipe, and found this apple cake recipe from Cookies & Cups that I had pinned earlier for and emergency like this. I mean, those apples would have gone bad very soon, I'm convinced of that. And eating them as is just seemed a bit.... too healthy I guess. So obviously adding lots of butter and sugar was the only possible solution to my dilemma. 

At this point I also owe the food blogging community a grand apology. I have not jumped on the browed butter trend before, as I have thought it can't anything too exciting. I mean butter is butter, right? I love butter, of course, but I really didn't think there would be such a big difference. And then I made the frosting, and had a taste... And realised why browed butter is such a huge trend. Just take my word for it, if you haven't jumped on the browed butter bandwagon yet, quickly quickly grab that butter and chuck it in a saucepan. You won't look back!

Apple cake with browned butter frosting (from Cookies & Cups):
225 g unsalted butter at room temperature
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup caster sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla paste (or 2 tsp vanilla extract)
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
2 1/2 cups flour
3 cups cubed apple (about 3 large apples)

Browned butter frosting
110 g butter
3 cups icing sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla paste or 1 tsp vanilla extract
1-2 tbsp milk

The Howto:
Butter a bundt cake pan. Peel and cube the apples. Preheat oven to 175 degrees C (350 degrees F). Cream together the butter and sugar. Add vanilla and the eggs one at a time and keep whisking for a bit longer. In another bowl, mix the baking soda, salt, cinnamon and flour. Mix the dry ingredients into the butter and sugar mixture. Fold the apples into the mixture. Transfer to cake pan and bake for 55-60 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean. Let cool in the pan for 10-20 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool. 

To prepare the frosting, melt the butter in a saucepan and brown until gently browned. Remove from the heat and add the icing sugar and vanilla and mix using an electric whisk. Add milk until the frosting is your desired consistency. Frost your cake while trying very hard to resist the urge to eat the frosting right then and there with a spoon right out of the saucepan.

The Verdict:
This cake is great as it's very quick to prepare. The only problem I had was to get it out of the pan. It certainly didn't come out nice and clean, but then again that's what you have frosting for, to cover up the tears and cracks.

The cake is lovely and moist thanks to the apple pieces. But now, let's talk about the frosting. No, wait - let's just sit down and be quiet for a minute to contemplate the awesomeness of the frosting. It's so hard to believe that it's nothing but butter, icing sugar and vanilla. Well, it's not just butter, it's browned  butter. And that makes all the difference. It's like maple syrup and caramel fell in love and had a baby. The most beautiful baby in the world. If all food bloggers in the world are raving about something, it must be something special. Like browned butter. I can't believe I have lived without it for this long. But now I have seen the light.

Pork chops and apple

Have you ever been really upset by something you have been watching on TV? We have been watching Breaking Bad (I know, I'm very late with it, but as it was such a phenomenon, now that I finally broke down and got us Netflix I thought I would check it out). And it has upset me to no end. I used to have quite a high tolerance of TV violence and cruelty. I don't know if it's just me getting older, or if it's because I didn't have a TV for many years and I wasn't exposed to any of it, but I find I get very upset by the violence these days. I keep bursting out in tears mid-show, and having terrible nightmares. I'm happy we only have one episode of the show to go, as it upsets me so badly. From now on I have decided to avoid TV as much as possible, apart from a few very gentle shows like Downton Abbey, Great British Bakeoff and such. I just think there is plenty of cruelty and violence in the world without having to expose myself to made up violence also. I'm just rather surprised at how strongly I have been reacting to it all. But it just seems so incredibly over-indulgent. 

Anyhow, amongst all of my emotional turmoil over made-up stories, it's nice that I have been treated to delicious food. Today's recipe is another Culinary Consultant original. Seems like it's mostly his cooking keeping this blog alive these days. I do cook a little bit, but he has been in charge of most of the everyday cooking. I mostly prepare salads for work lunch. They consist of pretty much the same thing every day - lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes and sweet peppers along with either chicken or eggs, and maybe some avocado if I'm really treating myself. That doesn't much of a blog post make. So luckily the Culinary Consultant has a newfound interest in creating new and exciting dishes so I can mostly focus on baking to keep feeding my carboholicism.

Pork chops with apple (serves 6):
6 pork chops
100 g (1/2 jar) sundried tomato paste
2 large cloves of garlic
1/3 cup olive oil
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup Henderson's Relish (or replace with Worcestershire sauce)
1/2 large cooking apple

The Howto:
Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Finely chop garlic and mix with tomato paste. Place pork chops in an oven proof dish. Spread the tomato and garlic paste onto the pork chops. Season with salt and pepper. Drizzle balsamic vinegar, relish and oil over the chops. Decoratively place sliced apple onto the chops (this is a direct quote from the Culinary Consultant). Cook in 180 degrees C for about 45-50 minutes until the pork chops are cooked through. 

The Verdict:
This was another Culinary Consultant success story. The combination of sundried tomatoes and the sweetness from the cooked, mushy apple go perfectly with the pork. If you caught the Culinary Consultant's Pork and Chorizo stew earlier, you know I'm not a huge fan of pork. However, as we have been trying to be sensible about our grocery shopping and grab onto a good deal when we find one, we have bought a pack of pork here and there. And just like the stew, I found this so delicious I didn't mind the fact that it was pork at all. It's so great when someone else is cooking, they come up with different flavour combinations than what you would use yourself, and food cooked by someone else always tastes better than if you cooked it yourself. Ok, that is not always true, but it is in this case.

Blackberry and apple jam

One of the benefits of living in the countryside is that we have loads of blackberries growing along most of the paths and small roads. Back home raspberries grow like that, almost like a weed, on roadsides and along fields. Here, I haven't seen much wild raspberries, in fact I don't think I've seen any at all. But instead there are blackberries as far as the eye can see. When I was working my previous job (yes the one that shall not be named) I used to walk about half an hour every morning as we did a car share with the Culinary Consultant who worked in the next village over and during September the road was lined with blackberry brambles and I couldn't help myself and used to snack on some berries on my way to work. A few weeks ago I came home from work to a massive load of blackberries, courtesy of the Culinary Consultant. I had never seen so many blackberries in my entire life. And he did a repeat performance, so we had our freezer stuffed full with almost 6 kg (13 lb) of blackberries. Then, the other day we went for a bike ride and our route took us past some very prolific and new (to us) blackberry pastures. What else is a girl to do than return with some containers the next day? The first brambles closest to the village were all picked clean, but just another 10 minutes or so down the road we found brambles which had huge, juicy fruit in copious amounts. So in less than 2 hours of picking we added another 2.8 kg (6 lb) of berries to our stash. However, a word of warning. Although it's free food, it doesn't come easy. I thought I was well prepared with long sleeves and trouser legs, but I still managed to get endless cuts on my hands and legs, not to mention the fact that nettles easily seem to burn through sports clothing, so next year I need to prepare by buying some military grade clothing to escape the torture of multiple nettle burn. And just as a friendly hint, you don't want to cook anything that involves squeezing lemon juice for a few days afterwards. It may not look like you broke the skin on your fingers, but you did. In multiple places. Trust me.

Although I'm perfectly happy to eat all those lovely little black gems as they are, we thought we should make something out of them (and partly because we simply couldn't fit all of them in the freezer). As jammin' seem to be the theme of this fall, we thought why not look up a nice and simple blackberry jam and try our hands at it. And the interwebs, in their great wisdom came up with Easy blackberry and apple jam from Fab Food 4 All. We doubled up the recipe as we had so much berries. And I can't help but to feel very smug about our hard work, as it equates to over £100 worth of blackberries (based on the cheapest price for fresh blackberries on the Tesco website). And I bet ours are better as they are sun ripened and only picked fresh and ripe and put straight into the freezer (or in this case, jam pot) so they have maximum flavour.

Simple Blackberry and Apple Jam
600 g blackberries
500 g cooking apples (we used a mix of cookers and sweet apples, as we used windfall from our neighbours tree that had landed in our garden)
1.1 kg sugar
300 ml water
1 cinnamon stick
(10 g butter)

The howto:
As with any other jam, prepare your jam jars by washing them in hot soapy water. Shake to remove excess water, but don't dry. Place the wet jars and lids on an oven sheet covered with newspaper making sure they don't touch each other. Put into oven, and turn oven on to 120 degrees C. Leave jar in the oven until they have been at least 10 minutes in 120 degrees. Leave oven on and the jars to wait in the hot oven until you are ready to use them (they should be hot when you pour the hot jam into them so the glass doesn't get damaged).

Peel, core and cut apples into small pieces. Add apples with the water and cinnamon stick into a large saucepan, bring to a boil and let slowly cook for about 10 minutes. Add the blackberries and simmer until soft (about 15-20 minutes). Add the sugar off the heat, stir until dissolved. Bring back to a rolling boil, and let cook until jam has set (reached 104 degrees C). You can also test setting point by placing a few small plates in the freezer before starting the jam making, and when you think the jam is done, drop some jam onto a cold plate and let stand for a minute. If you push the jam with your finger and it wrinkles it's done, if it remains liquid, let boil for 3-5 more minutes and test again. Remove excess froth with a ladle. The original recipe suggested to then stir in the butter to remove the rest of the froth, but I don't like the idea of putting butter in my jam, so I just accept that there will be a few remaining bubbles in the jam. The jam seemed rather runny when I poured it into the jars, but it did set nicely. Apples have quite a bit of pectin so it will set although you think it won't. 

Ladle the jam into jars, and put some parchment paper over the jar opening before securing the lid. I store all my jam in the fridge to make it keep longer, but so far everything has been eaten before it has gone bad.

The verdict:
Of all the jams we have made so far, this is the sweetest one. I don't consider that a bad thing, but if you aren't into sweet jams keep that in mind. It's always a tradeoff as the sugar helps keep the jam for longer but at the same time a lower sugar jam does have more fruity flavour to it. But you do feel the wonderful flavour of the blackberries. As the apple cooks it will turn into complete "mush" so it does give a slightly different texture from a pure berry jam. I really liked how the jam turned out, but it does taste more "sugary" sweet than the other jams we made (plum jam here and fig jam here). On Saturday I will show you one fabulous way of using the jam, although plenty of it has also been devoured on toast and mixed in my morning oatmeal. And maybe a spoonful or two has been eaten straight out of the jar (but remember to only put clean spoons into the jar, if you have licked it, it shouldn't go back into the jar. This will help keep the jam for longer).

Pork and chorizo stew

Culinary Consultant week continues here on the blog this week. This recipe was created and cooked by him with very little contribution from me, apart from taking the photos and typing up this post (although I do take credit for the suggestion of adding chorizo to it). This stew was waiting for me when I got home from work the other Friday. He is much better at cooking healthy food than I am, he seems to naturally gravitate towards rather wholesome home cooked basic food. I'm more about carbs and cheese and chocolate. To be honest, I do wish I didn't have all these crazy cravings all the time and would be happy to just eat basic healthy food. But don't worry, I will be back with some of my very unhealthy carb and sugar loaded recipes soon! To be honest, I may just extend Culinary Consultant week for one more post to show you he does cook puddings as well. 

Back to the star of the day. The combination of sweet and spicy paprika gives the stew just a little bit of a kick, without being too overpowering and the chorizo and red peppers bring lovely flavour. As it's about time to admit it's no longer summer, evenings are getting colder and darker a hearty stew is very appropriate. We enjoyed it with a glass of cider. This makes quite a big serving, but it can easily be frozen for later, and it only gets better when re-heated so a few days in the fridge will only improve it further.

Pork and chorizo stew (serves 8):
2 parsnips
4 carrots
10 medium potatoes (we used Red Duke of York grown in our own potato patch)
1 kg (2.2 lb) pork steaks
1 tbsp olive oil
black pepper to taste
1/2 + 2 tsp sweet smoked paprika powder
1 + 2 tsp hot smoked paprika powder
about 100 g chorizo 
2 medium onions
3-4 cloves garlic
1 sweet pepper (eg. 1/2 green and 1/2 red)
1 sachet of Schwarz Summerset Pork Casserole spice mix (or some other spice mix you like)
1/2 cup dry apple cider 
2 apples

The howto:
Peel and slice the parsnips, carrots and potatoes. Cut the pork into slices. Heat the olive oil in a skillet and cook the pork on medium heat until cooked through. Add a grind of black pepper, about 1/2 tsp of sweet paprika and 1 tsp of hot paprika powder to the pork while it's cooking. When pork is cooked, transfer to a bowl and pour any juices in the pan into a jug. Slice the chorizo and sweet pepper, finely chop onions and garlic. Slowly heat chorizo in a pan until it starts to release fat into the pan, add the peppers, onion and garlic. Cook for a few minutes until the onion starts to soften a little. Preheat oven to 190 degrees C (375 F)

Layer the root veg, pork and chorizo/onion/pepper mix in a large oven proof dish (we used a 4.5 litre Pyrex casserole dish) with a lid. 

Boil a kettle with about 1 litre of water. Add the sachet of spice mix to the jug with the pork juices, and add 2 tsp sweet and 2 tsp spicy paprika powder. Add 500 ml of hot water and mix well. Pour the apple cider and spice mix over the casserole. Add hot water from the kettle until all ingredients in the casserole dish are covered. 

Cook in the middle of the oven at 190 degrees for about 2 hours with the lid on. Peel and slice the apples, layer on top of the casserole and return to oven for another 1/2 hour, again with the lid on.

The verdict:
The Culinary Consultant is a big fan of casseroles (not least because they make a large serving with no need for cooking for days) and he cooks them from time to time. Usually they are made with beef, but I think this is the first one with pork. I thought it was a really tasty and hearty casserole with very well balanced flavours. And I'm not a very big fan of pork, so that should tell you something. I think the sweetness from the apples and the sweet peppers compliment the lovely full flavours of the pork and chorizo very well. This is also turned out to be a rather frugal recipe, we got the pork on a great offer of £5 for a kilogram, the apples, onions and potatoes were from our own garden. The apple cider we used was a ridiculously expensive one (in my defence, I didn't buy it, my Mum did). If you used regular cider, that would take the cost down even more, but I worked it out that the total cost of ingredients (excluding what we got for free from the garden and the spices and olive oil), it came to a total of £9.66 or £1.20 per serving.

Pot roasted chicken with apples and cider

Sometimes I get myself into the most ridiculous situations. A few nights ago, the road I usually drive to get home was closed. I still don't know the roads around here very well, and there aren't too many route options to take to get home as we live pretty much in the middle of no-where. So I had carefully looked at the maps and planned my alternative route home. It was past 9pm in the evening, I was exhausted after two classes at the gym. And when I get to the roundabout where the road was closed, and I was going to take my alternative route, that too was blocked. No pre-warning whatsoever. There was only one way I could go at the roundabout which was completely the wrong direction. To make a long story short, about 40 minutes later I made a damsel in distress call to the Culinary Consultant who came and rescued me. We drove back home on some teeny tiny things which were supposed to resemble roads. I was so happy when I finally made it home about an hour and a half after first heading off home from the gym. Goes to show it might be good to have a bit more local knowledge. As a thank you for dragging my poor man off the sofa late on a Friday night, I wanted to cook something extra nice for him.

We eat a lot of chicken at the InvisiblePinkHouse. I dread to think how many chickens have given up their lives for our dinners. The Culinary Consultant really likes his chicken. I don't mind it. I always used to cook only chicken breasts, but then we started experimenting with roasting whole chickens. After doing it a few times, it became routine, and it's a really quick and easy way to prepare a nice Sunday roast dinner and at the same time have plenty of leftovers for the following week. I like to use the chicken for my packed lunch salads. And there are endless options for using up the leftovers. Chicken soup, pie, enchiladas, fajitas, sandwiches... When I saw this recipe for pot roasted chicken in cider on one of my favourite food blogs, The English Kitchen, I knew I wanted to try it. The fact that we still have plenty of apples from our own apple tree stored in our conservatory made it even more appealing. 

I have made some minor adjustments to the original recipe, but please hop over to the English Kitchen to check out the original blog post. Also, the pictures are much better than mine which once again were taken in the dark and turned out really bad. But trust me, no matter how it looks, it tastes amazing and is well worth the prep time!

Pot roasted chicken with apples and cider:

1 tbsp oil

1 medium sized roasting chicken (mine was just over 2 kg)

200 g bacon lardons (original recipe said 175 g but the pack I bought was 200 g so used all of it)

1 large brown onion, peeled and coarsely chopped

8 small cloves of garlic, peeled and thinly sliced

2 fresh sprigs of rosemary, leaves stripped and roughly chopped

250ml apple cider

150ml chicken stock (5 fluid ounces)

4 small apples

25g butter

2 tsp caster sugar

freshly grated nutmeg (I only had dried nutmeg)

1/4 cup water

2 1/2 tsp corn flour

fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste  

The howto:
Preheat your oven to 190 degrees C. Start by seasoning your chicken outside and inside with salt and pepper. Heat the oil in a flame proof casserole or roaster if you have one, or in my case, a big frying pan, and brown the chicken on all sides. Transfer the chicken to the side. In the same casserole or frying pan, cook the bacon lardons until starting to brown. Add the onion and cook until it starts to soften. Add the garlic and rosemary and cook for another few minutes. Add the apple cider and cook until the amount of liquid has reduced by about two thirds. The place the chicken on top of the sauce (or transfer the sauce from the pan to the casserole and the place the chicken on top), cover with aluminium foil and a tightly fitting lid. The original recipe suggested to roast for an hour. I have always trusted the formula on the wrapping for the chicken: Cook 45 minutes for each kilogram plus add 20-30 minutes. For my two kg chicken this meant roasting for two hours. 

While the chicken is cooking, prepare the apples. Peel and cut them into chunks. Cook on medium heat in a frying pan in the butter until apples start to soften a bit. Add the sugar and nutmeg and cook for a few more minutes. Let cool. When the chicken is ready, remove from oven and place on a carving tray, cover with aluminium foil and let rest for about 10 minutes. Pour the contents of the casserole into a saucepan and let cook and reduce for about 10 minutes. Mix the water and corn flour and add to the sauce, let boil for a few minutes to thicken. Taste, and season with black pepper and salt if needed. I found no salt was needed. Add the apples to the sauce. Carve the chicken and serve drenched in the apple sauce.

The verdict:
I chose to cook this recipe as the apple and cider combo sounded delicious, but also because it was a different method to how I usually cook chicken. Although this method doesn't produce nice, crispy skin which the Culinary Consultant loves, the meat was really moist and juicy. And then there is the sauce. The sauce with the bacon lardons and apple chunks is simply amazing. Beyond a doubt one of the finest and most tasty sauces I have ever managed to make in my entire life. The original recipe suggests to thicken your sauce with a butter and flour mixture which I am not very fond of, so I decided to stick with my trusty cornflour. The original recipe also suggests adding cream to the sauce, but I didn't have any at home and didn't want to buy a whole tub just to use a tablespoon or two so I left it out and it still turned out really good.

The recipe is really convenient to cook in one pot most of the way if you have a roaster or casserole which can also handle cooking on the hob. As I have an induction hob in my kitchen and no induction compatible roasters I did the preparation steps in a big frying pan, then transferred everything to the roaster, and again transferred the juices back to a saucepan when it came time to prepare the sauce. A bit more work, but not too bad. And definitely worth the yummy result.

Card of the day:
As you may or may not have noticed, my cards now have a blog of their own. So please, head on over to InvisiblePinkCards to take a look, I think the card blog will be updated a bit more frequently than the food blog, as I have quite a bit of backlog of crafting projects to publish. But don't worry, the food blog will also go on as usual. If you want to be kept up to date with new blog posts on both blogs, you can like the InvisiblePinkFacebookpage.

Pear and apple butter

I can't believe how much food we have already received from our garden in the short three months we have lived here. First there was the cherries and raspberries. And then of course the tomatoes, which still haven't quite finished, although these days we get one or two tomatoes a day compared to dozens and dozens at peak season. Then there were the gooseberries and of course all the herbs. And plums, some of them ripening so fast we missed out completely. There has been the odd fig and a few strawberries. And the wonder of growing our own cucumbers, that was such a thrill for me. We also managed to rescue a few courgettes from the greedy mouths of the slugs. And did I mention the grapes? The grapes are so good, really sweet and juicy. We need to read up on what to do with the vines though, as they didn't produce that many grapes, maybe we didn't take care of them correctly. And now we are moving towards the last of the garden produce for the season, the apples and pears. The pear tree is literally heavy with fruit, and what beautiful fruit! All perfectly formed pears, the kind you see in the store. Large, juicy and flawless. Unfortunately the apples aren't doing quite as well, they have clearly had some disease or parasite as almost every apple is full of dark spots and the insides of the apple have gone bad. 

I have been agonising about how to store all our produce as we were completely out of freezer space. We ordered a new freezer over a month ago, but it was out of stock with the manufacturer, so we had to wait for quite a while. Luckily it arrived last weekend, right towards the end of the plum season, so we got a small bit of the plum crop stored in the freezer. This weekend, after some rather heavy wind, we had a lot of windfall, both from the apple and pear tree. The culinary consultant brought quite a pile of fruit into the kitchen. Although our apples don't look very good, we decided to rescue what we could from them and use all the good bits for some apple and pear butter. I decided I want to store my butter in the freezer, that way it will keep for quite a few months, and you don't have to worry about canning and sterilising jars and other fuss like that. It was actually much easier than I had expected, with minimal fuss apart from the time-consuming peeling and dicing the fruit.

Pear and apple butter:
1 kg fruit (I used about half pears, half apples)
1.5 cups water
1/2 cup sugar (or to taste)
1 cinnamon stick
8 cloves
(the second batch I made also had 2 star anises to mix it up a bit)

The howto:
Peel, core and dice the fruit. Combine all ingredients in a large saucepan, cover with a lid and bring to a boil. Cook for about 15 minutes until the fruit starts to soften, and then remove the lid. Let cook for 1-1/2 hours, using a potato masher to mash the fruit while it cooks. Cook until the butter has reached your desired consistency, taking care to stir more often towards the end of the cooking time as the butter starts to thicken. I also kept gradually turning the heat lower and lower as the sauce thickened. Let cool, and pick out the cloves and cinnamon stick. If you want a smooth butter, use a food processor. Dispense into containers. Freeze. In my hands, this recipe was enough to fill 4 small and 2 medium freezer jars with a cup or so left over to enjoy immediately.

The verdict:
Given that I had no real recipe and made everything up on the spot, the product turned out not only good but really delicious. I spooned quite a bit of the butter right into my mouth while cooking it. The amount of spice is just right, enough to give a bit of complexity to the flavours but not too much to overwhelm the apple and pear. And the scent was fantastic, all that apple and pear and spice. Although this will keep for a few months in the freezer, I don't think it will stay there for that long. I can imaging this would be perfect with oatmeal or yoghurt in the morning or with ice cream as pudding. This is a really efficient way to use up a large amount of fruit and still store it without taking too much space, while retaining and concentrating all those wonderful flavours of the sweet fruit.

Card of the day:
I made these cards a while ago, but they seem very autumn-y to me, so I thought they would be perfect for this post. I started by inking the background with Tim Holtz distress inks using ink blending foam. I used the Tim Holtz script stamp and stamped several times to fill the card using Walnut Stain Distress ink. I then stamped the Hobbycraft Tree or Thistle stamp in Black Soot in the middle of the card. I finished by spraying with Perfect Pear mist and matted onto random scrap pieces of paper or cardstock I had lying around and then attached to kraft cardstock. I really like the tri-coloured backgrounds, I think they turned out really nice.

Braised cabbage with apple

I should have called my blog Ugly Food. Not only do I not have the time, the patience or the daylight to set up my food nicely for beautiful pictures. I also don't have an eye for aesthetics at all, unfortunately. So I'm guessing you are not reading this blog for the pretty pictures. I have been feeling very guilty about the crappy pictures on the blog. But then I decided I would stop stressing. This is what the food actually looks like in my kitchen. This is what I eat when I desperately need some food, any food, when I get home from the gym and am starving. For beautiful food pictures, there are so many other blogs. And I do appreciate them, oh so very much. But until I live in an apartment where it's at least theoretically possible to take pictures in daylight (and when I have a job which doesn't keep me away from home for all daylight hours and then some), the pictures will be what they are.

Still, even given the horrible quality of the pictures, this food is really not one of the pretty ones. Maybe I should set up a Pinterest board of my most disgustingly looking foods. This sweet potato and lentil stew would be one of the top contenders, as is today's recipe of braised cabbage with apple. But you will have to trust me when I say, whatever all my foods lack in beauty, they most certainly make up for in flavour. Otherwise they would not be here. I have given up so much in the way of food, to try and live a more healthy life. I have (almost completely) given up bread, pasta, rice, cheese, sugar, chocolate, well... pretty much everything good. So one thing I'm not willing to compromise is the flavour of the foods I'm cooking. I'm always browsing Pinterest and food blogs for new flavour combinations I wouldn't think of myself, and this recipe certainly is one of those. I would never think of putting that much cider vinegar into anything I cook. But I had to give it a try, although I was a sceptic. And evidenced by the admittance of this recipe into my blog, you can probably guess that it turned out a winner.

I have talked about food kismet before. That feeling of the world just klicking into place when you happen upon a recipe for something you have all the ingredients for in your kitchen. And I'm on a mission to try and use up as much of my stockpiled food as possible.  I don't want to end up in three years time with a truckload of tins which are out of date. I hate wasting food. That's what I learned at home. Don't throw food away. Ever. Leftovers can always be re-used in some dish or another if you are clever. So I absolutely hate it if I have to throw away anything that has once been edible. It just takes a bit of planning ahead. I feel like I've failed badly in my planning if things go to waste. Obviously, if I had a somewhat bigger freezer, things would be much easier as most food freezes quite well. I like to cook big batches of food, and freeze individual servings, so that they are easy to take away to work for lunch or leave in the fridge in the morning for a quick home-cooked microwave dinner. Anyway, my point, which I almost lost in all that pointless jabber, was that this recipe was really the right recipe at the right time. It seems like a head of white cabbage has lived in my fridge for way too long, and I have been meaning to use it up but never quite found the right thing to cook. Then bang! There it is, in my blog feed. Braised cabbage with apple from Little B Cooks. I even had a left over Granny Smith apple, which also needed to be used up asap. And I had a can of apple cider which has lived in my kitchen so long I almost tend to think it has always been there. I wouldn't dare drink it anymore, but figured it would still do for cooking.

This recipe is copied almost unaltered from Little B Cooks, so please head on over there to see the much prettier picture, and to check out the great blog. The original says this recipe serves four, which maybe it does when it comes to normal human beings, but for me this was only enough for two sides. And also, half of the recipe only contains 170 kcal, so I say, go for it.

Braised cabbage with apple from Little B Cooks (serves 2):
10 g butter
1 big onion
1 big apple (I had a Granny Smith lying around)
1/2 medium head of cabbage (I ended up with 266 g of cabbage in the pan)
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup apple cider
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
Salt and pepper for seasoning

According to my estimate, one serving (half of the recipe) contains 170 kcal (4g fat, 28 g carbs (of which 17 g sugar) and 2.6 g protein).

The howto:
Finely slice onion, apple and cabbage. Heat the butter in a big skillet or saucepan, and cook onion until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the apple slices, and cook another minute or so. Add the cabbage, and give it a good stir and let cook for minute, and then add the apple cider vinegar and cider. Let cook until cabbage is softening, and almost all of the liquid has evaporated. For me this took about 20 minutes, as I had sliced the cabbage quite fine. To finish, add balsamic vinegar, and season with salt and pepper. Stir to combine, and let cook for a final few minutes. 

The verdict:
I was a bit sceptical about the whole thing when I chucked in the entire quarter of a cup of cider vinegar. I was certain the dish would turn out weird and vinegary and a bit bitter. But I was so very, very wrong. When I had my first taste, I was completely sold. I love the sweet and sour combination, and that was certainly what this dish was all about. The lovely sweetness from the onions, apples and the cider, and the tang from the vinegar. It was really good. If, for some crazy reason, you happen not to be a huge fan of cabbage, I think this is a great recipe to get into cabbage. It doesn't taste very cabbage-y, so it's a bit of a soft start into the world of cabbage. Cabbage is so great, it has beta-carotene, vitamin C and fiber, and it's really cheap and low calorie food. Just remember to cook it properly to avoid problems of the windy persuasion. 

I served the cabbage as a side with fruity pulled pork. And felt very German, eating pork and cabbage. But it is a great combination. And my fruity pork is rather sweet too, as it has pineapple in it. It's a bit like this recipe for fruity pork, but I left out the raisins, and instead of cooking pork cutlets, I used a big chunk of pork loin. Then everything gets to hang out in the crock pot over night, and out comes this amazingly delicious and super tender pork.  I thought the combination was really good, if I say so myself. But I am a big fan of sweet food. And I like it that I can cook lots of sweet dishes without adding any sugar, but just by using the natural sugar from the fruits. This is a dish I will most certainly make again, probably pretty soon as I still have the other half of that cabbage in my fridge...

Tarte tatin

If you happened to read my recent post on kale frittata, you know I finally bought myself a cast iron skillet. It's one of those things I have dreamed about for a long time, but it took me  a long time to buy, as I thought I wouldn't have room for it. And to be honest, I don't have any extra room anywhere in my apartment. But I bought one of the small ones, so it doesn't take up that much space. And even if it does, who cares, because it's so cute and pretty and shiny. And above all great for cooking. Best steaks ever. The brand of the skillet is Lodge, and on my recent trip to SF, I found so many different types of cast iron cookware from this manufacturer that I would have loved to bring home. Particularly, I fell in love with their handle-less skillets, which were about single serving size and would have been great for direct to table cooking. Too bad the airlines pose weight restrictions on the luggage, otherwise I would have bought a few of those to take home with me. So I comforted myself by thinking I would get some from Amazon. Turns out I can't find that specific skillet anywhere online, not even on the Lodge website. So now I'm a little bit heartbroken.

My true inspiration for buying a cast iron skillet was my desire to make Tarte Tatin. I watched the bakers on the Great British Bakeoff making more or less successfull Tarte Tatins, and I really wanted to try it out. Despite the more exotic variations out there, such as banana or tomato, I decided to go for a traditional apple and pear variety. Partly because I wanted my first Tarte Tatin to be a classic one, and partly because I still had a bunch of apples and pears left over from my grocery delivery extravaganza a while ago, which really needed to be used up asap.

I have read from several blogs how hard the Tarte Tatins are to make, so I was feeling very insecure embarking on my TT journey. I read all the recipes I could get my hands on and all the comments sections if there were any. The recipes I ended using as a basis for my attempt were this one form BBC food and this one from Jamie Oliver. And the recipes from the Great British Bakeoff cookbook. You can actually find a few of the GBB recipes here if you want to have a look at them. And looks like I wasn't the only one inspired by GBB to make some TT, here is the blog of a fellow inspired baker. She even made her own rough puff, which I am very impressed with.

In theory, making a TT sounded really easy. Just add sugar and water, cook it without touching it at all, dump on the fruit and pastry, and bake. Ok, I guess I can do that, although the instructions for making the caramel were in general very vague. "Cook until a beautiful golden colour". Ok then, thanks for those specific instructions. Also, "don't stir the caramel while cooking as that will make it crystallise". Ok, fair enough, but how am I supposed to mix it when it only turns out golden in one quadrant of the pan? Given that I really had no idea of what I was doing, the end result turned out really great. I suggest you go through the process in your head once or twice before starting though. Just so that you have figured out each step in advance. And make sure you have all your ingredients all measured up and chopped and ready to go. Then just do it! I did cheat by using ready made puff pastry, as I thought the stress of making your own caramel would be enough of a challenge for my first TT.

Tarte tatin for a small (20cm) cast iron skillet (serves 6):
100 g caster sugar
3 tbsp water
1 apple
1 pear
1 lemon
1 tsp vanilla syrup

50 g butter
250 g puff pastry

The howto:
Preheat oven to 200 degrees C. Roll out the puff pastry and cut a circle which is a bit bigger than your skillet. I used a plate which is slightly bigger than my skillet as a template. Slice the pear and the apple (peel first if you like). Grate the zest from the lemon, and also squeeze any juice you can get from it. Mix the fruit with the lemon juice/zest mix. Add vanilla syrup.

Make the caramel: put water and sugar in an oven proof skillet and heat on low until the sugar has dissolved into the water. Increase temperature to medium and cook until caramel turns golden brown. Watch it closely, as it will turn from light brown to burned very quick. Don't stir the caramel while it's boiling as this will cause it to crystallise.

Take the skillet off the heat, and add the fruit to the pan, making a beautiful pattern of the layer of fruit which goes on the bottom. Be careful, because the caramel is extremely hot! The rest of the fruit wont be visible, so you can just pile it on without arranging it. Cut butter into small pieces and add on top of the fruit. Cover with puff pastry, and tuck in the edges of the pastry to the edges of the pan, but be careful as the pan is really hot. Make a few holes in the pastry with a fork, and bake until puff pastry is golden, about 25 minutes. The caramel and fruit juices will bubble around the edges of the puff pastry while baking. Let cool for a few minutes in the skillet, then turn over onto a plate which is bigger than the skillet. Place plate against the skillet, and press the plate against the skillet when turning the plate-skillet combo. All recipes suggested wearing heat proof gloves when turning the tarte, as the caramel is really hot and can burn you if you get it onto your skin. I didn't have any problems with any overflowing or exploding caramel, but I guess it's a better safe than sorry moment.

Water and sugar added to the pan.

When the sugar has melted, up the temperature to medium,
and the mixture will start bubbling like this.

The caramel is starting to turn golden. This was when I ran into trouble,
as my cooker clearly has uneven heat distribution, and particularly
the lower left hand quadrant turned very dark quickly whereas other parts
of the caramel were still white. And I wasn't allowed to stir the caramel
so that it wouldn't crystallise. Quite a pickle. I took the caramel off
almost immediately after this picture was taken.

Add fruit and chunks of butter.

Last but not least, add the puff on top, and tuck in the edges.

The verdict:
The tricky part about a Tarte Tatin is the caramel. I seriously had no idea what I was doing, but I knew I wasn't supposed to stir it while it was cooking as this could cause it to crystallise. In all episodes of GBB, they cooked the caramel until it was quite a dark golden brown. My caramel cooked very unevenly as you can see from the pictures, and it started to get a funny burned sugar smell in one part of the pan while still too light elsewhere. I figured some sort of compromise was in order and took it off before the burnt part got too dark and bitter smelling. Also, if I wasn't imagining it, the caramel did crystallise a bit when I added the fruit on top of it. However, clearly baking it in the oven did something to return the caramel to a smooth state, there were no crystals anywhere to be seen in the finished product. And after letting the tarte rest in the skillet for about 10 minutes after baking, it turned out very beautiful, and didn't stick at all. Might be beginner's luck, as I have read many bitter comments about TTs that have refused to get out of the pan when turned. I guess if you burn your caramel that is what happens. Also, some of the tips said you shouldn't let the tarte cool before turning it, as the fruit will stick to the pan. 

Interesting enough, it looks like there are two methods for making caramel. One is the water and sugar method I have used here, and which has been demonstrated by Mary Berry in the GBB. And if Mary says so, that's what I'll do. But some recipes seem to use another method, where the sugar is melted into butter. I have read quite a few comments about people having trouble with that method, but also seen several very successful results, so I guess both methods are perfectly valid. Not sure if I'll ever be brave enough to try the other one now that I know I can make this one work. Now my mind is just jumping from idea to idea what other flavours to do next.

Baked autumn apple oatmeal

Last week, instead of going to the grocery shop, I ordered delivery. That's one of the things I consider an absolute luxury in this country, ordering groceries to your front door and only paying a few quid for it. Obviously the delivery price varies depending on your time slot. Fortunately the cheapest ones are the ones late in the evening, which is the only time I am at home anyways. So delivered groceries always mean too much groceries. As I don't have a car, weekly grocery shopping for me literally means some heavy lifting. So when I'm ordering online, I tend to pile on anything stockable. Beans, chickpeas, tinned tomatoes, flour... If it keeps, I will order it.

Sometime (ok, ok, every time...) I go a bit overboard with my grocery delivery orders, just out of the joy of not having to carry it all home myself. Currently my kitchen is stocked with several kilograms of flour, several kilograms of chopped tomatoes, half a dozen packs of chickpeas. And right now, also at least three weeks worth of eggs. I mistakenly ordered two 15 egg cartons, when I was going to buy two 10 egg cartons. So right now I'm trying to come up with lots of recipes which require eggs. For some strange reason I only come up with super-unhealthy foods... Pasta carbonara, meringues, custard, lemon curd, macarons. I also managed to completely overdo the fruit order this week. A big bag of pears, apples, bananas and two big bags of satsumas. The bananas are no problem, I will ignore them until they are over-ripe, at which point there is only one alternative left - banana bread! But the apples and pears... They will keep for a while, but I'm trying to use them up as much as possible. I would love to bake something and pop it in the freezer, but my tiny little freezer is packed to the brim with salmon and chicken from said grocery delivery. And my slow cooker is loaded with mustard and chilli flavoured pork loin with pineapple, vinegar and onions. It will be slowly bubbling away all night, which means that when I wake up in the middle of the night to my inevitable leg cramps, I will also have to fight the urge to pick up a fork and just start chewing away on that lovely smelling porky pork.

And off I went on a tangent again. Back to the apples and pears. I've been working hard trying to get rid of them, I made a wonderful apple and pear crumble for two and some pear and chocolate scones. But there was still more. And I have been wanting to make baked oatmeal for quite a while, ever since the almighty Pinterest threw this recipe at me. It's a recipe for almond and blueberry baked oatmeal and it's from a blog called Healthy Food for Living. I don't like almonds, and I don't have blueberries, but I do love the idea of baked oatmeal. It's almost like a healthified version of my earlier crumble. And I got another chance to use my lovely pink single serving ramekins, which I love love love.

Baked apple oatmeal (serves 2):
50 g porridge oats
1 cup milk of choice (I used skimmed, although I guess almond or rice milk would also work)
1 egg
2 tbsp maple syrup (can be halved or omitted if you want to be super healthy)
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1 apple

The howto:
Preheat oven to 200 degrees C. Mix oats, milk, egg, maple syrup and spices. Chop the apple into small cubes and add to the oatmeal. Divide into two single serving ramekins and bake for about 20 minutes.

The verdict:
I try not to eat oatmeal too often, as I'm trying to minimise the amount of grain in my diet. But I absolutely adore all forms of porridge. I love rice porridge, semolina porridge and oat porridge. And this is definitely pimped up oat porridge. Baking it in the oven, and adding egg really gives it a wonderful texture. Also, this is much easier to make in the morning, as regular oatmeal needs stirring while it's cooking (unless you use those pouches of microwavable oatmeal, with all that added sugar and whatnot) but this just needs a quick whisk and can be left in the oven while doing whatever it is you do in the mornings.

The spices and maple syrup gives the oatmeal a wonderful flavour that complements the apples really well. And the apple goes lovely and soft, but still retains a bit of chewiness giving the dish a wonderful texture together with the soft oats. I will definitely be making this specific oatmeal again, and also develop other flavour combinations. Blueberry, strawberry, pear, possibly even banana (although I'm slightly suspicious about banana, but will probably try it at some point). Maybe banana and almond butter? I think berries probably release enough liquid to justify decreasing the amount of milk a bit to make sure the oatmeal it doesn't get soggy. Next week I'll probably do an pear and vanilla variation. Oh and maybe at some point do a weekend version with chocolate chips. There we go, chocolate is back in my thoughts. But I'm quite proud of myself, I think I made it through several posts without a single mention of chocolate. Could I be starting to heal from my chocoholism? Meeeh... not going to happen. Ever!

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Portion control crumble

Crumble is one of those things which you just can't stop eating. I simply cannot make a full size serving of crumble, because I will just eat it all. Last fall when I was visiting my sister, she made a huge serving of apple crumble with frozen yoghurt, and we ended up eating it all. It's the perfect autumn pudding. First of all, fruits are at their best. And it's cold enough outside to warrant a warm dessert. And the combination of hot crumble and melting, gooey vanilla ice cream is divine. Funnily enough, a friend of a friend has this thing that you just can't mix hot and cold components in a dessert. I wholeheartedly disagree. I love how the ice cream becomes almost creamlike when it melts onto the hot fruit. You could serve it with warm custard if you prefer. I recently went (on two consecutive weekends) to this amazing restaurant which is a mere five minute walk from my place called The Oak Bistro. Definitely one of my favourite restaurants in Cambridge. So far everything I have eaten there has been absolutely top notch, trying to pick my personal favourite between lobster pasta and pan fried scallops with celeriac purée. I can't make up my mind which was better. But after these two gems, my second favourite was the blackberry and apple crumble. Which was served with warm custard. Very good. But I think after all, my favourite combo is crumble and ice cream. And for once, and I do feel very weird saying this... It has to be vanilla ice cream. Obviously a good brand real vanilla one. Chocolate ice cream has it's place (mostly in my stomach I would argue...) but on this single occasion I will always opt for vanilla ice cream. And the good thing, vanilla ice cream is something I can actually keep in my freezer, as I am very unlikely to eat it all in one sitting. Whereas a tub of Ben and Jerry's has never seen the inside of my freezer, I will eat it from start to finish, as soon as it enters my apartment. And no, I'm not talking about the small single serving tublets. I mean the proper half liter tub. I have absolutely no problem whatsoever to eat it all in one sitting. I do have problems with NOT eating it in one sitting. Well, actually I don't think I have ever even attempted that. If I sink so low that I buy a tub of B&J, I have accepted the ugly truth that it will all be eaten in an instant. Ok, end of confession now. I guess I have quite a few Hail Marys to do after that. Or should I say Hail Ben&Jerrys...

For this crumble, I decided to forgo the usual cinnamon - nutmeg - ginger spice combo, which is absolutely everywhere right now. Yes, obviously a wonderful spice mix which just screams fall and apples. But this time I went for what I think possibly are the two most amazing spices in the whole wide wold: cardamom and vanilla. Vanilla and pear go so well together. Pear is actually such a great fruit, it is so good to eat just as is, it is great in puddings, but it also goes great with savoury dishes, such as this pear, apple and goat's cheese salad. And I wouldn't be surprised if there would be a pear related Friday quickie coming up sometime in the near future (if I happen to have any Fridays off to myself in the near future...). Ok, after yet another absolutely useless ramble about absolutely nothing of substance, finally on to the good part.

Apple and pear crumble (serves 2):
15 g muscovado sugar (I used dark because I love the molasses flavour)
25 g rolled oats
15 g wheat flour (I used whole wheat)
22 g butter (1.5 tbsp)
1 apple
1 pear
1 tsp ground cardamom
1 tsp vanilla paste

Pear, apple, vanilla and cardamom. Mmmm, you
 already know this is going to awesome.

The howto:
Preheat oven to 200 degrees C. Start by making the crumble. Melt butter, and mix with the oats, flour and sugar. Chop apple and pear into small pieces. I couldn't be bothered to peel them as the peel goes nice and soft during the cooking, but you can obviously do that if you prefer. Divide fruits into two single serving ramekins, sprinkle half a teaspoon of cardamom and half a teaspoon of vanilla paste on each of the ramekins and mix. Spoon crumble on top. Bake for about 30 minutes. Serve warm with custard or ice cream.

The verdict:
There is one single secret to a good crumble in my humble opinion. Butter. You need to have enough butter in the crumble mix. There is no point in trying to make it healthy by making it low fat, as the crumble just won't get that nice crumbly texture. And crumble without crumbly crumble on top is obviously quite a disappointment. I rather cut down a bit on sugar and make it more healthy that way. After all, it's not fat that makes us fat, it's sugar that makes us fat. I guess with the sweet apples and pears combined with the wonderful warmth of the vanilla and cardamom, you could probably even make the crumble free from added sugar. But not fat free. And the only fat that will bring not only the right texture but also the right flavour is definitely organic butter. No substitutes. I have started to always buy organic butter. I keep imagining it tastes better and behaves nicer when baking than regular butter. It's probably an illusion, but I use so little butter that the difference in the price is not a dealbreaker for me. In general, I try to buy as much organic as possible. Very unscientific, I know, as there are no scientifically proven benefits of organic produce versus non-organic ones, and the amounts of nutrients in the food are the same in both groups. But somehow it just makes me feel like it's cleaner food. I guess I'm one of those suckers who have fallen for the brainwashing campaigns. Although I have to admit, also the price of food makes quite a difference to me, so it's the difference in price between an organic product and it's non-organic counterpart which in the end determine which one I'm getting.

This pudding was something I whipped up last Sunday night when I was craving something sweet, but didn't have enough calories left in my daily allowance to make it something really unhealthy. It was super-quick to prepare and absolutely delicious. After having quite a bit of puddings with warm fall spices like cinnamon and ginger, I thought the vanilla-cardamom mix made a nice change. And as I already mentioned, they are probably my two favourite spices in the whole wide world. Ideally I would always use vanilla bean seeds when cooking, but for financial reasons that's just not viable. But I have found a great substitute which I like very much, it's a thick syrup type of thing called Vanilla Paste. Of course it's not perfect as it has some ingredients I would prefer to avoid, but I'm rationalising it as the amounts of paste I'm using for any single dish is very small. Also, the paste has some added sugar so it's great for baking and desserts. But I'm very jealous of how people who travel to exotic countries (wherever vanilla beans grow, I have to admit I have no clue) and bring back huge containers full of vanilla pods that they bought for virtually pennies. I wonder if that is just urban legends, or if such places actually exist. And if they do, I hope I will get to travel there some day, as the price of vanilla pods is just ridiculous. Especially for someone who wouldn't mind using it in the quantities that I like. Actually, I don't I have bought any vanilla pods since I discovered the vanilla paste. That's how good it is.