Slow Food: Braised Lamb in Cider with Apple and Pear



This is a recipe I was asked to create as part of a campaign around “living slow”. This campaign couldn’t have come at a better time as I really do need to take time to slow down.

 

I’m always busy at work – my workload has at least doubled in the past year for various reasons -  I have a long and stressful commute (thank you, Southern Trains) and when I’m at home I'm running the house. I’m lucky to be able to afford a cleaner but between meal planning food shopping, cooking, tidying up, laundry, dishwasher, and all the little things – sending someone a birthday card, replying to emails, choosing a restaurant to go out to etc – I never seem to have any time to relax. On top of all that we are planning a wedding (there are so many additional things for the bride to think about than the groom!)- and linked to that, I’m now getting up even earlier before work to go for a run as I’m trying to lose weight for the wedding.

 

I’ve also found out recently that I have high blood pressure – some days it’s been extremely high. So I’m looking into ways to deal with that (including possibly medication) – but one thing that I know is important to reduce high blood pressure is to eat healthily, in particular eating less salt, and to do more exercise.

 

I took part in a ‘mindfulness’ session recently which was very relaxing – mindfulness has been shown to reduce stress and even mean employees take fewer sick days off work. But since then I haven’t felt like I’ve got the time to sit down and be mindful, even just for ten minutes – I am literally constantly on the go, and even when I am watching TV in the evening with my fiancé I am multi-tasking replying to emails or cutting out paper hearts for our wedding.

 

So before I keel over from stress I think it definitely is time that I ‘slow down and smell the roses’. I was asked by Simply Beef and Lamb to create a recipe for either beef or lamb, on the theme of ‘live slow’. You might already be familiar with their Red Tractor logo, which means you can find quality assured beef and lamb in the supermarket.

This doesn’t simply mean cooking something in a slow cooker – as well as being easy, one pot meals, it should be value for money and affordable, and reflect the ethos of ‘live slow’: stop living life in the fast lane and take it slow for a change.

 

That can relate to all aspects of our lives, whether that’s not rushing around trying to fit a million things in; spending time in nature or with friends; working on something handcrafted; travelling closer to home and enjoying the journey itself; sewing to repair or make your own clothing or being creative; and even spending your money wisely on things that really matter.

 

When I do feel able to push the ‘to do’ list to one side, I love to handmake greeting cards. I think (or hope) people really appreciate receiving something handmade as they know time and effort has gone into it. I also find it helps me switch off as I’m focused on cutting or stamping, and I enjoy feeling creative.

 

I also travel by train a lot – to work as I already mentioned, and when I’m lucky enough to get a seat I always read. Losing yourself in a good book is a great way to start the day or unwind after a day of work. I’m still a relatively new and pretty nervous driver, so when I have to travel longer distances on my own, I prefer to take the train. So again that gives me a lot of time to read; mobile reception is sometimes patchy so I resist the temptation to go on Facebook or reply to emails and instead pick up a decent-sized book I’ve been meaning to read but don’t want to carry on my daily commute (I do have a Kindle as well, but prefer actual books!). Recently I’ve been going to Salisbury by train a lot as it’s where my family live and also the nearest station to our wedding venue, and I always feel happy and relaxed to see the rolling Wiltshire countryside and the lovely views as we pull into Salisbury station. I’m sure that does help my blood pressure!

What does #slowliving mean to you and your family and what do you do to relax?

 

So finally onto the recipe. I was thinking about what slow living might mean in terms of cooking and came across the Slow Food movement, which promotes using local produce and eating less but better quality meat.

 

Thinking about what was local, I started with my own garden. I’m hoping to get a small vegetable patch started (I was growing peppers last year but slugs ate them all) but at the moment don’t have anything other than herbs. But what a good starting point for a recipe – I have rosemary and a lot of mint, and mint is of course well known as a pairing for lamb.

 

So that was my starting point: making a recipe with lamb and mint. I decided to braise the lamb, as that is a slow method of cooking that is fuss-free, but obviously there had to be more to it than that. Apples are abundant in a lot of areas – my late grandmother had apple and pear trees in her garden – and cider is very English (and to some, slow living might mean relaxing in the garden with a beer or cider…). Apple and mint does apparently go together – I found several mojito recipes online using those flavours! So my recipe was starting to take shape: spring lamb, mint, rosemary, apples and pears, cider. I used Pear cider in this recipe, and decided that because lamb is quite expensive I would go with a cheaper, bulking out ingredient: pearl barley. So you don't even need to serve this with potatoes as it's really filling and tasty.

Making the apples and pears at the start takes a little while but you don't need to do much; then you bung everything else into one casserole dish, put it in the oven and that's it - leaving you more time to relax and take it easy! This is what I came up with: I hope you enjoy it.

Braised lamb in cider with apple and pear - an original recipe by Caroline Makes

To serve 2, you need:

1 tbsp. butter
2 apples, peeled and chopped
1 large or 2 small pears, peeled and chopped
3 tbsp. sugar
3 tbsp. raisins or sultanas

4 lamb rump steaks
500ml cider
half an onion, peeled and cut into chunks
100g pearl barley
half a leek, trimmed and sliced
sprig of fresh rosemary
handful of fresh mint

First make the apple and pear accompaniment and pre-heat the oven to 180C. Melt the butter in a pan, add the apple and stir. Cook for 5 minutes until it has started to soften then add the pear and the raisins. Add the sugar and 50ml water; stew, stirring occasionally, until the water has evaporated and the fruit has softened. This can be made in advance and kept in the fridge or made at the same time as the meal.

Rub the bottom of a casserole dish with a little oil and place the lamb in the dish. Cover with cider and add the onion and leek, pearl barley and herbs. Put the lid on the casserole dish and put in the oven for 1-1.5 hours, until the liquid has been absorbed and the lamb is cooked through.

Serve with the apple and pear mixture on the side.

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The apple, pear and raisin mixture



The ingredients for the casserole

Ready to go in the oven

Just cooked



Close-up

Served with the apple and pear on the side

 

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Chocoholic Birthday Cake with Cadbury Twirl

My fiancé is a total chocoholic so for his birthday this month I wanted to make him an awesome chocolate cake. I have a lot of baking books and they pretty much all have chocolate cake recipes - so where to start?

I realised I hadn't baked anything from my Outsider Tart book, Baked in America, for a little while. Outsider Tart is a bakery in Chiswick that is meant to be amazing, though I've never actually been there (even though I live in a different London borough it would take me about an hour and a half to get there - but I'm starting to think it might be worth the trip!). The bakery is run by two Americans who have brought a lot of new techniques to their baking and new ideas to 'bridge the culinary divide'. What they have also done is provide some amazingly decadent, delicious recipes that approach baking in ways that you wouldn't necessarily have thought of.

The cake I made is called "Coke layers" and is on p175 of their book Baked in America. I know that it's possible to reproduce a recipe on a blog, because the original author can copyright the ingredients but not the way they have described the method, but in a way this cake is as much about the method as the ingredients so I wouldn't feel quite right reproducing it without their permission (if I get around to asking and getting permission I will update this post!). After all, have you ever made a chocolate cake using buttermilk, oil, AND butter and 5 eggs.... but more to the point, using marshmallows and Coca-Cola?

I'm going to share with you some of the process I went through. The recipe makes three layers of cake, and half way through adding the ingredients I realised I was going to end up with a LOT of cake -far too much in fact as I was only catering for a meal with my fiancé's parents, not a huge party (that will come next year, when he's 40!).

Starting off by melting butter with the Coca Cola

adding marshmallows and chocolate

Mixing the sugar, oil and vanilla

Here it is after adding the eggs - all 5 of them

Now adding in the cooled chocolate mixture

Two layers about to go in the oven

After baking - three giant layers of cake!

I made a ganache from melted chocolate and sour cream and spread it between two layers

I spread more on top and decorated the top with Twirl Bites

I then decided it needed ganache around the side and more Twirl Bites on top!

I actually ended up with all three layers of the cake baked and decided it was just too big and put one layer in the freezer! I also used self-raising flour rather than plain flour and raising agents, and milk chocolate rather than plain - which would have made the cake sweeter but actually it wasn't an incredibly sweet cake in itself, but the icing was. Mmm, the icing....

I made the chocolate sour cream fudge frosting from the same book to spread in between the layers and on the to, then ran out of sour cream so made a chocolate ganache with double cream which I spread around the sides. I then decorated the top with Cadbury Twirl bites as they were the perfect little chunks of chocolate - slightly unevenly shaped and 'rock' like which appealed to me for this cake.

My fiancé absolutely loved the cake and said it was one of the best I've ever made and I'm inclined to agree. It was light and moist; the cake itself wasn't too sweet but the icing was deliciously decadent.

As I used Twirl on top I'm sharing this with Alphabakes, the blog challenge I co-host with Ros of The More Than Occasional Baker as the letter I've chosen is T.

I'm also sharing this with Love Cake, hosted by Ness at JibberJabberUK. Her chosen ingredient this month is things you can drink, and this cake includes Coca-Cola.

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Restaurant Review: Dog Eat Dog, Islington

Working late in Islington one night I didn't leave the office until nearly 9pm and knew I couldn't wait until I got home (nearly two hours as I wasn't in my regular office) to have dinner and didn't really fancy what I knew was on offer at the train station.

I'd earlier spotted a new restaurant just a few doors down from the office I was in (I go there once a month and this place wasn't there last time) called Dog Eat Dog - a fast casual hot dog restaurant. I'd wanted to go to Bubbledogs for ages after it opened as I loved the idea of gourmet hotdogs, but the only time I was in the area, the queue was out the door (they didn't take bookings) so I decided not to bother.

So when I was leaving the office in Islington - not my usual place of work, as I was spending the day with an agency - and saw Dog Eat Dog I decided to go in for a quick bite. I ordered at the counter and sat at a high table on a stool - I think there were booths too but it seemed the sort of place you'd have a quick meal or go for a drink with friends. Dog Eat Dog is owned by bar chain Brewdog and offers craft beers alongside the hot dogs, but as well as the extensive drinks menu one of their USPs is that they source a lot of their ingredients (including the meat and the bread rolls) from local London suppliers.

This is definitely casual dining – the hotdogs are served in cardboard boxes – but they have more than a casual approach to the menu. Flavour pairings seem well thought out and quite adventurous – for example, Voodoo Cajun sausage with pineapple salsa and spicy mustard, or Tandoori chicken dog with mango chutney and mint raita.

 

I had the former, but it was a bit too spicy for me. The hotdog had so many toppings that it was pretty hard to eat and I had to scrape some of it off, and then the bread roll started to break down so I had pieces of bread coming off. It ended up falling apart and I got quite messy!

 

 

It wasn't something I'd eat again mainly because the Cajun sausage was a bit too spicy but I thought it was a really good concept - so I'm surprised that in the couple of months it's taken me to post this review, Dog Eat Dog seems to have closed down. There's talk online that it's a temporary closure while they "re-evaluate the concept" but it's been a while now. I did ask Brewdog on Twitter if it had closed but I haven't had a response yet, so if anyone knows I'd like to find out!

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Roast Cauliflower, Sumac and Rocket Salad

Now that the weather is nicer (and I have ten weeks and counting to the wedding) I'm starting to want to eat salads but in the evening also want a more substantial meal. This recipe is really good as it's chunky - cauliflower in a salad is a lot more filling than just cucumber - and it's also a very 'clean' recipe with simple flavours that makes you feel quite virtuous.

The recipe came from YOU magazine in the Daily Mail - I love the magazine so my parents keep it for me every week as I don't buy the newspaper. The recipe is also available online here.

To serve 4, you need:

500g small cauliflower florets
1 red onion, peeled and sliced
5 tbsp. "good olive oil"
sea salt
1 heaped tsp coriander seeds, coarsely ground
sumac for dusting
2 handfuls rocket

Preheat the oven to 210C/ 190C fan. Spread the cauliflower and onion out over a roasting tray and drizzle over 4 tbsp. olive oil. I used this one my fiancé brought home from me, which is made from olive groves owned by the man who owns the company he works for - very nice!

 

 


Season with salt and scatter over the coriander seeds. Roast for 30 minutes then leave to cool.

Dust the cauliflower with sumac - a Middle Eastern spice - and mix with the rocket. Drizzle over another spoonful of oil and serve.

I'm sharing this with No Croutons Required, hosted by Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes.

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Crumpet Pizzas

 

I really thought I had blogged about these before as I've made them several times, but can't find any mention on my blog so I'm sharing the idea with you now. It's more of an idea than a recipe; a quick and easy weekend lunch and something that I imagine might be fun to make with children. I usually use normal-sized crumpets but have also tried with Warburton's giant crumpets which work brilliantly!

Lightly toast your crumpets under the grill and spread each one with about 1/2 tsp tomato puree. Top with cheese - either grated or thinly sliced, or a processed cheese slice (eg Kraft). Other toppings are optional - here, I did some with ham and pineapple. Return to the grill until the cheese is bubbling and enjoy!

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Pastel Tattered Lace Shoe Birthday Card

I made this card using my Tattered Lace high heel shoe die, a frilled edge circular die and a Sizzix butterfly die, in complementary pastel colours.

The backing paper is also various shades of pastel, from a pack of cupcake and related printed papers. I used the dies to cut the shoe and butterfly out of purple card and the circles from pink card and mounted the shapes on top. The topper that says 'to a wonderful friend' is from a little pack I bought from Ebay; this sort of thing isn't hard to make yourself but I never seem to have time!

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Meal Planning Monday Week 15

Breakfasts this week will be yogurt mixed with protein powder or yogurt with fruit, and for lunch now the weather is nicer I'm going to start eating salads.

Monday
Dinner: tuna and vegetables for me, chicken and mashed potato for him

Tuesday
Dinner: spaghetti Bolognese

Wednesday
Dinner:  fish en papilotte with spiralized butternut squash for me (Inspiralized p174), chicken en papilotte for him, based on this recipe (on meal plan for last week but didn't make)

Thursday
Dinner: out after work for drinks so will get something to eat on the way home

Friday
working from home.
Lunch: Hawaiian pasta
Dinner: Slow cooked gammon with cider from Slimming World Extra Easy all in one p198

Saturday
Early lunch as I'm meeting my friend and her daughter to go bridesmaid dress shopping : bacon sandwich or cheese toasties or crumpets if we have no bread
Dinner: something easy from the freezer my fiancé can cook in case I'm back late

Sunday
Lunch: Out at an Aston Martin day at Beaulieu. Might take a picnic, will depend on the weather
Dinner: might be back late so something easy from the freezer

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Chocolate Truffle Making with Farfetch

Photo courtesy of Farfetch

When a company called Farfetch invited me to a chocolate making evening I assumed they were a confectionery company, or perhaps one that ran different 'experience days' for hen nights and parties. So I was a bit surprised to find out that Farfetch is a luxury designer fashion retailer with an interesting USP - they bring together over 400 fashion boutiques from around the world onto one website, but rather than hold any stock, when you order your items are delivered directly from the boutique.

 

Fashionistas obviously do eat chocolate because they invited me and a group of other food bloggers and lifestyle bloggers to a chocolate truffle making lesson in their beautiful offices. I've made truffles several times before and even went to the Chocolate Hotel in Bournemouth for a chocolate weekend so I pretty much knew what I was doing but it was still a fun experience.

 

The lesson was taken by Lisa Marley of the Cocoa Box, who was a great tutor. She explained how chocolate is made and got us to taste different pieces before we sat down to the task of truffle making while drinking amazing chocolate martinis.



Photo courtesy of Farfetch

I was paired up with Vicky from Being Tilly's Mummy (which was funny as my cat - my own little baby - is called Tilly) and we decided to flavour our chocolate truffles with alcohol (I think it was brandy), the other option being mint which I don't like.

 

 

We added cream to chocolate that had already been melted and found that even after just a minute of stirring, the mixture had already become very thick and stiff. We spooned it into large piping bags - this is much easier to do in pairs - and piped it out into thick lines which made some people giggle!

We were advised to cut the lines into pieces and roll each piece between our fingertips to make a ball, rather than rolling in the palms of our hands as this would melt the chocolate. I found that I didn't need to roll it at all and instead could just shape it into a ball by pressing gently.

We made quite a lot of mess!

We decorated our truffles in different ways, dipping into melted chocolate, or rolling in cocoa powder, chocolate vermicelli or raspberry flavour sprinkles. The Cocoa Box provided us with a selection of bags and boxes to take our truffles home in, just in time for Easter!

I'm sharing these truffles with Alphabakes, the blog challenge I co-host with Ros of The More Than Occasional Baker, as the letter I have chosen this month is T.

Thanks to Farfetch for inviting me to the event

 

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Restaurant review: Villagio, Andover

Living in Surrey and getting married in Wiltshire, where I grew up and my family still lives, I was worried that I would be making endless journeys backwards and forwards to visit suppliers. Luckily that wasn’t the case – our wedding venue came complete with caterer and we were able to combine meeting the photographer with a meeting with the venue event coordinator before Christmas. There was no need to visit bakeries and taste wedding cakes because my sister and I are doing my wedding cake together and I happily booked us into a hotel for our wedding night just from seeing the website.

 

I did want a hair and makeup trial though, because I know my hair and it never holds a style for long as it’s so slippery (the nice term is silky!) and fine. On the wedding day, the hairdresser and makeup artist will come to the hotel where I’m getting ready, but for the trial, I had to go to them. They both work from home or are mobile, though are attached to the same salon, and they agreed that I could go to the hairdresser’s house, a beautiful cottage in Dorset, for the trial.

 

I took one of my bridesmaids to make a girly day of it and really liked what they did with my hair, though the curls fell out within two hours and the front section looked terrible, so I’ve told the hairdresser she will have to come up with something different for the big day!

 

I spent the rest of the day with my bridesmaid and we drove back to Andover where she lives, and went to a restaurant in the town centre for dinner. Villagio is inside the Guildhall so the setting is impressive; I wondered whether the food would live up to it.

 

Villagio describes itself as a “convenient, modern Italian restaurant with a classic family menu”. It’s a chain, with a few locations around (mainly) Hampshire that says it offers live music in the evenings – but looking at the website, every single thing they have between now and Christmas is either a Frank Sinatra or a Michael Buble tribute act. So if you don’t like that sort of thing it may not be the best choice!

 

The menu is quite broad as it offers most types of Italian dishes – pasta, risotto, pizza, meat, fish. I love calzone pizza and don’t have it very often, so was tempted by the seafood ravioli on the specials board but plumped for the pollo calzone, containing chicken, pepperoni, pancetta, roasted peppers, tomato sauce and mozzarella instead (£11.50). My friend did ask for the special ravioli, but the waitress returned to our table to say they had run out – surprising as it was only 6pm but I guess they must have served a lot at lunchtime.

 

My pizza was very good – nice dough and stuffed full, with a side salad to accompany. I did think it was a bit expensive for what it was, but maybe the location puts this restaurant at the top end of the town centre choices in Andover. We shared a mozzarella garlic pizza bread as a starter, which was pretty average – I’ve had very similar and often better versions of this in other Italian restaurants. Overall though it was a nice meal with friendly and speedy service and made a nice end to a memorable day.

 

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