MiamMiam Musings

MiamMiam

Musings

Welcome to MiamMiam Musings, or – I'm fed up with being confined!

Not sure how this will go but for the moment I'm winging it.

I don't mind my own company but, as is always the way, when it's enforced it's a different kettle of fish – you know what I mean – you decide to give up cheese or chocolate and immediately you crave whichever is your guilty pleasure.

Here are my musings to date … I'm sick of food – having to queue to buy it and then to cook it – every day, it's enough to send a person doolally tap (translated - “to lose one's mind from boredom”).

For me it's one shopping trip each week – M&S Food and then Waitrose. M&S is great at 8.30a.m on a Wednesday – Waitrose thereafter sometimes good, sometimes not.

I've gone back to basics and actually it works. I write my menu for the week and then paper clip it to my wall calendar – a glance in passing each morning tells me if I need to pull anything from the freezer or for that matter any prep that's required. The point being it's done, dusted and organised then move on!

From my wall menu I make my weekly shopping list – for once I pay attention – I've no intention of going out more than once so it's worth a few extra minutes and checking the store cupboard. Here's my menu for this week :

Prawn and smoked salmon salad – my “salad” is

a mixed bag of cabbage, carrot, lettuce, pepper and sweetcorn -

baby silverskin onions, beetroot, boiled eggs, grated cheese, tomatoes and

part-baked sourdough bread (and butter of course)

Lamb fillet, already cooked, from the freezer

Parrots – leftover carrots and parsnips, mashed and seasoned

Sautéed cooked, baked potatoes

butter beans

Redcurrant jelly

Ham hock

poached egg

Seasoned potato wedges

The ham hock came from the Waitrose shop this morning – not been able

to get it for ages – one pack for tonight, the other into the freezer!

Sweet and sour chicken

Rice with vegetables – frozen from M&S

Slob night – Croque Monsieur – minus

meat for me with a side of fries

beetroot relish

Chicken pie – made from slow cooked chicken

already in the freezer and a mushroom sauce, again the base

is in the freezer – haven't decided yet whether it'll

be a pastry top or a sliced baked potato version

Prawn curry with

rice and flat breads

At the bottom of my menu for the week I've written three ideas for next week – if I don't write stuff down I'll forget – if I decide to cook something else who cares!

At this moment in time I'd kill for fast food – in particular a veggie burger from McDonald's or, the best, a Mexican Bean Burger from Burger King. At a push I'd even settle for Fish and Chips – it has come to this. Believe me when I say I'll be at one or the other when they re-open. In the meantime I'm treating myself to a pizza – that I haven't had to make!

Now for my “rant of the week”.

I know we've all suffered with “loo roll gate” and “who stole all the tinned food” not to mention “where did all the flour go” - thankfully the Supermarkets have now taken some control, after making a shedload of even more profit – I digress – here comes the rant.

It's confession time - since I was a teenager I've loved salad cream and always put it on chips – once a slob … it was years before I discovered that the Belgians invented it – with posh mayo of course! I had salad cream on my list last week – imagine my surprise, she says light heartedly, to find the entire shelf empty in Waitrose. To say I was “cross” puts it mildly.

All was not lost … I've had deliveries from Derbyshire and Southport – needless to say I have enough salad cream to sink a battle ship with a great lifespan. It gives me great pleasure that I will not be lining Waitrose's pockets any more than I need to since now I have my own personal salad cream supply.

I feel so much better for that!

That's the end of my musing for this week but before I go a reminder – check your store cupboard, your fridge and your freezer – you'll have forgotten what's in your freezer already – then decide on your menu and then make your list! Not forgetting a bottle of your favourite tipple – a person has to have a treat!

I hope my musing has made you smile, stay safe and well.

With love xxx

The nugget and burger sides

The list is endless!

Make your own coleslaw – see the Salad label 15th April 2017 for The coleslaw conundrum – the raw slaw principle.

Make your own mayo – see the Sauce label Matt's mayonnaise - Stick blender mayo recipe 7thSeptember 2019.

Do you like heat – if it's a yes then you might like this onion salad. You can make it as per the recipe below or slice the onion into thin rings, combine the ingredients marked * then coat the rings and leave to marinade.

Here goes :

2 medium onions, finely chopped -

weight 150g per onion approximately

*celery salt and black pepper

*2 tbsp fresh orange juice

*1 tbsp lemon juice

*1 tbsp tomato paste

*pinch of chill powder or chilli flakes

Place the onions in a large mixing bowl. Add the remaining ingredients and mix well.

Place the salad in sealed airtight containers and store in a cool place.

The secret to this side is that you should not serve it for at least a day, preferably two after making it. It's important that the orange and lemon juice and the tomato paste are allowed to “mature” - leaving it to infuse takes away any harshness from the onion and the tomato paste. If you're an onion fan this side is perfect to serve with strong cheddar cheese and cold meats too.

There are the old favourites of course, fresh shredded lettuce, sliced tomato and a burger bun of your choice – in my case brioche, lightly toasted.

Now back to my recent mission – to produce another cake without flour …

The nugget alternatives!

There are other alternatives that spring to mind – for the grown-ups you could have a whole breast per person - prepared in exactly the same way as the nuggets i.e. bashed flat and coated. This version is called an escalope and is traditionally made with veal.

Here's my useless bit of information for the day … the technical culinary term for coating with breadcrumbs is “pané”. If you like extra crunch you can use panko crumbs and blitz them so you have a finer texture and then “double pané” your coating.

If you want extra flavour, try adding a seasoning to your crumb – as a guide – roughly speaking a tablespoon is equivalent to 25g ergo the 4 tablespoons of breadcrumbs mentioned in the original recipe is approximately 100g. Add a tablespoon of seasoning to 100g of breadcrumbs for extra zing. Tip the crumb into a food bag, add the seasoning and shake to combine.

The other alternative is to make chicken burgers, coated in the crumb. They don't have to be a perfect circle, random and rustic is good, think of it as serendipity – a happy accident! Slice a chicken breast in half, place between two sheets of cling film and then bash and turn as you go.

There's another benefit here – all that bashing is a stress buster releasing the lockdown frustrations.

I can't leave this without giving a veggie option and in fact my own weekend treat. Check out the Mushroom label for the Miso Mushroom Burger 9th September 2018 using Portabello mushrooms – yum!

Then there's the sides …

Chicken nuggets … a step by step guide

Before we begin, the same tip as always – set your stall out, get all your ingredients ready – if you're organised it'll be fun :

Step 1 :

Pat the chicken dry with kitchen roll. Place a sheet of cling film on your board. You can place the chicken breast whole and cut afterwards or cut into small nugget sized pieces before you begin bashing – bear in mind that the chicken is to be flattened and will therefore be larger than the cut piece. Try and keep the nuggets a similar size. Arrange on the cling film making sure you leave sufficient space between the nuggets. Cover with another sheet of cling film and bash with a kitchen mallet (or rolling pin) to flatten. Set aside.

Step 2 :

Place the flour, egg and breadcrumbs in the foil trays.

Step 3 :

A tip before you begin – make sure you have a baking tray lined with kitchen roll ready to receive your breaded nuggets.

Now for the production line and another tip - wear gloves!

Step 4 :

Coat each piece in flour, then coat in beaten egg and finally in breadcrumbs.

If you are cooking the nuggets later, cover with more kitchen roll and then double cling film and “fridge” until required.

When ready to serve you have two options :

Pre-heat oven 180fan/200c/Gas 6.

Heat a glug of rapeseed oil in a large frying pan on a moderate heat. If you wish to check whether the oil is ready to use drop a breadcrumb into the oil – if it sizzles and begins to colour you're ready to roll. Seal the nuggets on both sides and transfer them to a baking sheet and bake in the oven for 15 minutes or you can continue on the hob – turn the heat down low and turn the nuggets frequently until cooked through and golden brown. This will not take more than 15 minutes since the chicken is bashed thinly. If you want to be certain take one and cut it in half, it should be thoroughly cooked before serving.

As a guide you should get 4-6 nuggets per breast depending on how large you want your nuggets – it's not an exact science.

Coming up – other alternatives!

Are the kids fed up yet ...

… are they suffering from fast food withdrawal?

Staying with the “time on your hands” mantra and may be even answering both of the above, here's a weekend treat for the kids – big and little alike and they can help too!

One of their favourite fast food choices has to be chicken nuggets, here's my version :

Chicken Nuggets

but not as you know them

4 chicken breasts (weight 500/600kg)

Cling film

Kitchen mallet or other suitable implement

for bashing i.e. rolling pin

3 x foil trays

kitchen roll

2 tbsp plain flour

1 egg, beaten

4 tbsp/100g breadcrumbs

You can use ordinary breadcrumbs or use Panko

crumbs if you can get them – they are larger – blitz

them for a finer texture

A “double whammy” - getting the kids involved and supper ready too!

Next - a step by step guide and some “variations on a theme” of the chicken nugget.

Time on your hands – cheap & cheerful – Big Soup!

You can never predict the weather. It's Easter and Easter weather is fickle – it's warm and sunny, thank goodness, at the moment – I've known it to snow, more than once!

It was cold when I decided to use up my “past their best veggies” and make my favourite soup, Carrot, Coriander and Chickpea. There was only one small problem – no chick peas, eek! A search through my store cupboard yielded a box of Quick Soak dried peas – only two hours, a rinse and then twenty minutes gentle boil and hey presto a batch of mushy peas. Then I found a bag of Margheritine soup pasta too – result, or rather two results.

I used my normal soup recipe – check out the soup label for the original recipe - 3rd February 2019. I've always got half a dozen or so Charlotte potatoes, a couple of carrots and an onion. After I'd added the diced potato, brought the soup to the boil and simmered for 10 minutes (as per the recipe) I added 125g of the soaked and rinsed dried peas, brought the soup back to a boil and then simmered gently for twenty minutes to cook the peas.

The other plus – I cooked the remaining peas and turned into “mushy peas” used some and another box went into the freezer – they freeze well by the way!

Back to the soup. The peas thicken as they cook so no need to thicken the soup although you could blitz a ladle or two and add back if you wanted it thicker still.

The soup pasta only takes ten minutes to cook so I added 50g when I wanted to heat the soup ready for serving later in the day – check out the photos :

Quick Soak Peas – just so you know what

you're looking for

Ditto for the soup pasta

Big Soup!

Even though I say so myself it was delish – you

can loosen by adding a little water, to suit your personal taste

Coming next … are the kids bored?

Time on your hands … another Spie alternative!

There's a Spie for everyone! Here's the chicken or turkey version :

Chicken or turkey Spie

Serves 4

500g chicken or turkey breast mince

1 medium onion, finely chopped

glug of rapeseed oil

2 chicken stock pots

1 tsp garlic paste or 1 garlic stock pot

2 tbsp tomato paste

2 dessertspoons small chunk Branston

glug of Worcestershire Sauce

celery salt and black pepper

250g passata

2/3 jacket potatoes, baked, peeled

if you wish, sliced thinly

50g each of Mature Cheddar and Red Leicester cheese

grated and mixed together

Pre-heat oven 180fan/200c/Gas 6.

Heat the rapeseed oil gently in a large frying pan. Add the chicken or turkey mince ensuring that you break it up – fry for 2/3 minutes to seal properly and then turn it, repeat. Add salt and black pepper.

Add the onion and garlic and fry for 2/3 minutes, stirring to combine.

Add the tomato paste and the chicken stock pots, followed by the Worcestershire Sauce, stirring to combine. Finally add the Branston and stir well and simmer for 5 minutes. Leave, covered until you're ready to roll.

If you're using a hob to oven frying pan then arrange the sliced potato over the base and then sprinkle with cheese. Cook for 30 minutes.

If you are using an ovenproof casserole or a foil tray then transfer the base and finish as above.

Both the chicken and the turkey breast mince are low in fat.

Check out the Beef label on the blog, 28th January 2018 Saturday night supper – A Shepherd or a Cottage – for entertaining the “Grumpy Old Men” which gives another variation of the “Spie”, using Madeira and Ruby Port with Worcestershire Sauce which also gives a description of “puddles” - describing the consistency of the filling – not too dry but not too wet!

There's SPUD too – on the same label 16th September 2018 – Shepherd's Pie Upside Down which uses braising steak instead of minced beef if you'd like a posh option.

A WARNING – if you are using a frying pan that is suitable to transfer from the hob to the oven please be careful when removing the pan and remember to wear oven gloves when serving! If you'd prefer to use a foil tray, they measure 23x23 cms approximately so perfect to serve four - if you want to know where to get them, try Wilkos.

You could decant into small foil “takeaway” type trays (with lids) and then freeze in portions if you don't need the whole batch.

Fancy a bowl of soup?

Time on your hands … variations on the Spie theme

There are, as always, variations on a theme for the “Spie”. If you'd like a veggie version you can use Quorn mince. If you'd like a version that doesn't use red meat but poultry you could use chicken or turkey mince.

To save you time, here's the original “Spie” recipe, followed by a chicken or turkey mince version.

Spie

Serves 4

500g minced steak

Celery salt and black pepper

Drop of rapeseed oil

2 tbsp tomato paste

2 Knorr beef stock pots

2 tbsp small chunk Branston pickle

or Branston sauce

2/3 cooked Jacket potatoes, sliced thinly

or leftover mashed potato

Two handfuls of grated cheese – whatever you've

got in your fridge, Mature Cheddar, Red Leicester or

Gruyere work well – or even a little of each

Using a large frying pan, brown the minced steak thoroughly in a drop of rapeseed oil and season with salt and black pepper. Add the tomato paste and stock pots, when cooked through and melted, add the Branston. If the mixture is too stiff add a drop of water. It should not be sloppy. Cook on a low heat for 10/15 minutes and set aside.

Take your potatoes from your baked stash, slice thinly (or add leftover mash) and arrange on top of the mince mixture. If you haven't any ready to use baked potatoes you can always microwave them although the flavour is not as good as oven baked. Finish off with grated cheese.

To serve pre-heat your oven to 180fan/200/Gas6 and bake for 30 minutes.

Serve on its own, with steamed vegetables or, if you like hot with cold, try a beetroot relish and or a coleslaw!

Next up … a poultry alternative

Time on your hands … cheap & cheerful

I'm keeping an eye on the contents of my freezer, making sure I use everything in there. Yesterday I took out minced steak, ready to morph into something good today.

Keep the same eye on the perishable veggies in your fridge too!

This morning I made a Spie base – well a Cottage pie base actually – I'm stating the obvious I know that a Shepherds Pie is made from minced lamb and a Cottage from minced beef. It's just me being lazy, the truth of the matter is when I'm boxing meals and labelling ready to freeze I get writer's cramp from a full title x four so “Spie” is a catch-all term identifying the ready-meal!

My “Spie” base is ready to top with leftover mashed potato from last night's supper. In my fridge I found a bag of grated cheese and the remains of a box of bacon bits so it's ready to assemble!

Here are the photos :

individual foil trays are ideal for

portion control

stacked and ready for the oven

from the oven – meaty, mash, then cheesey and

topped with crispy bacon bits

ready to eat!

Next up … variations on the Spie theme

Time on your hands … what to do …

… with that jar of preserved lemons and black olives! This recipe is a Middle Eastern “hat tipping” to the wonderful tagine, cooked in stages for convenience. You could slow cook the dish altogether if that's better for you so – Plan A or Plan B!

Chicken and Preserved Lemon Tagine

Serves 4

2 tbsp of olive oil – or rapeseed

125g diced chorizo - 225g

1 medium onion, peeled and finely chopped

sweet baby peppers, de-seeded and finely sliced

30ml – 2tbsp preserved lemons – rinsed and

chopped

400g passata

60ml medium white wine

500ml chicken stock

black olives

2 cloves of roasted garlic or 2 cloves

peeled and finely chopped

15ml sweet paprika

salt and black pepper

4 medium chicken breasts

Plan A

Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan and gently fry the garlic paste, onion and paprika until soft – 10 minutes. Add the chorizo and fry until crispy. Add the wine and simmer until reduced – 5 minutes. Add the passata, stock and slow cooked chicken breasts and simmer gently, lid off, for about 20 minutes.

Add the olives and preserved lemons and season well – taste and adjust!

I'd slow cook the chicken breasts the day before required, using the 500ml of chicken stock in the recipe and then set them aside to cool, box and fridge. You can make the “sauce” when it suits you too. Complete your “tagine” adding the chicken breasts to the sauce and finish off as above, heating through gently on the stove.

Plan B

You could slow cook this recipe all together, completing the dish with the olives and preserved lemons either as you're re-heating or for the last 10 minutes of cooking time if serving straight from the slow cooker. If you're using this method then I'd slow cook for three hours. If you prefer your chorizo crispy I'd leave the chorizo until the last 20 minutes of slow cooking time then fry until crispy and add, with the oil, to your tagine, together with the preserved lemons and olives.

If you'd like a veggie version, use Quorn fillets.

What to serve with?

Keep it simple - new potatoes – boiled or steamed and or even roasted in their skins. Mange tout – sliced lengthways and stir fried.

Yum – now back to the cheap & cheerful!

Time on your hands … the extra bits for the Gateau a l'Orange

This cake is moist – moist is good but, to use the northern vernacular, it can be “claggy”. I would, and do, make extra “drizzle” to serve with a lemon drizzle cake – here's an orange version that is perfect to serve with the Gateau a l'Orange.

Orange Drizzle

200g icing sugar

250ml orange juice – no bits

Put the sugar and orange juice in a small saucepan and heat gently so that the sugar dissolves. Bring to the boil and then reduce the heat and simmer on a low heat for 10 minutes.

P.s. I love what we always referred to as “useless bits of information”. I've only ever heard the word “claggy” in the North West of the UK. To set the record straight it means “sticky” and apparently is Scandinavian in origin – you live and learn!

This cake is also large – I love large cakes – this version freezes perfectly, as does the drizzle. Cut into quarters, wrap in foil and freeze what you don't use for another day!

My final suggestion is to serve your cake with the drizzle and vanilla ice cream. Last week I used up a large pot of double cream, added vanilla bean paste and a tin of condensed milk from my store cupboard and made a batch of vanilla ice cream.

Vanilla ice cream

Prep – 5 minutes

Total time – 5 minutes

plus freezing at least 6-8 hours

or until firm

Gives you 1.6 litres of ice cream is equal

to 18 scoops

1 x 397g tin sweetened condensed milk

1 x 600ml double cream

2tsp vanilla bean paste

Put the condensed milk, cream and vanilla into a large mixing bowl and beat with an electric hand whisk until the mixture is quite thick and stiff, like pipeable whipped cream. Spoon the mixture into a lidded freezer-proof container

(or use smaller containers if more convenient)

and freeze for at least 6-8 hours or until firm.

Three elements – the cake, the drizzle and the ice cream. If you can't be bothered to make the ice cream then serve with a spoonful of clotted cream. Alternatively serve the cake warm with custard – it's whatever floats your boat!

If you'd like to see a photo guide for the cake, check out the Oranges label 6th May 2018.

Back to store cupboard stuff and something special.

Time on your hands … have you ever noticed

… when you get the urge and have the time to bake a cake … you can't get an essential ingredient like flour!

Here's my answer – bake a cake without.

The following recipe is already on the blog – I make no apologies for repeating it – it's delicious and there are extra bits too.

Gateau a l'Orange

(Orange Cake)

Serves 12

2 medium oranges, preferably naval

6 large eggs

250g sugar

2 tbsp orange blossom water

1 tsp baking powder

250g ground almonds

Wash the oranges and boil them whole for 1 – 1½ hours or until they are very soft, or see below for a quicker method.

Beat the eggs with the sugar. Add the orange blossom water, baking powder and almonds and mix well. *Cut open the oranges, remove the pips and purée in a food processor. Mix thoroughly with the egg and almond mixture and pour into a 23cm cake tin – lined with baking parchment, preferably non-stick and with a removable base. Bake in a pre-heated oven 170fan/190c/Gas 5 for an hour. Let it cool before turning out.

Believe me when I say that I stared at this recipe for years. What put me off baking this cake was the boiling of the oranges for the time allotted, an hour and a half is too long for me watching oranges and it's so easy to become distracted - before you know it you have a burnt saucepan and the rest, as they say, is history.

Where there's a will there's a way - instead of boiling the oranges, microwave them for 8 minutes on high.

Pierce the oranges with a paring knife – carefully and microwave for 4 minutes then turn and repeat. Make sure your fruits are in a covered vented microwave container. Continue with the recipe marked * as above.

A useful tip. Microwave the oranges ahead of making the cake so that they can cool, it will be much easier and safer to prep them, ready to pulverise.

Extra bits up next …

Time on your hands – time to think outside the box – or actually inside your store cupboard

Up to now we've rummaged in the freezer and in the fridge too, now for the store cupboard or pantry if you prefer.

Do you have a store cupboard or is it a cupboard for stuffing random purchases that seemed like a bargain at the time? Do you know what's buried at the back? You know what's coming next – time to sort it out! It's no good relying on a store cupboard if you don't know what's in it.

If you have a reasonably well stocked store cupboard then you'll be able to plan your meals more easily, it will save you time and money. My pantry is one extreme to another, from the usual staples - tuna, small chunk Branston, tomato paste, stock pots, cornflour, passata, suet Worcestershire Sauce, noodles and orzo – to name but a few - to what some may call the more “out of the ordinary” ingredients, a small tin or jar of black olives, a small jar of capers, Grapeseed oil for stick blender mayo and lets not forget the preserved lemons!

I've had a lot of practice planning meals. Three hours a day commuting to London every day before the advent of home delivery shopping taught me that life was too short to wing it. I planned weekly meals on the train and then made my shopping list. The earlier I made my weekly plan the better – it gave me an opportunity to check my store cupboard for the bits and pieces I'd forget about – you know seasoning, stock pots, condiments blah, blah. I gained valuable weekend time, was definitely less stressed and saved dosh too!

I can hear you saying so what?! If you're taking this current situation seriously then you won't be going shopping every day, you'll be staying at home as much as possible. It matters not whether you have to go out to shop or whether you have a home delivery – you still need to be organised.

Bear in mind too that now we're pretty much confined to barracks we won't need the volume of food (or calories if you like) that we've been used to when more active. Good luck telling your brain! If you want help balancing your diet and would like more information you can download the Eatwell Guide – GOV.UK which gives you chapter and verse on recommended portions.

Coming soon, a recipe using ingredients from my pantry that doesn't include a tin of tuna, but just before we continue with the something special and the cheap & cheerful ideas, I'm interrupting myself with a cake you can bake!

Time on your hands - a variation on a theme …

Most of us have tuna in our store cupboard – are you bored by the same old tuna pasta bake?

I've used the following recipe for years and it never fails. I have used it as a canapé to serve with drinks and known friends who “don't like fish” inhale them. They are also great as a snack or with other stuff for a weekend “picky bits” grazing style supper.

Here it is :

Tuna and Parsley rolls

200g/7oz tin tuna in oil

1 onion, chopped

100g/4oz cheddar cheese, grated

2 tbsp chopped flat leaf parsley

salt and black pepper

1 tsp wholegrain mustard

1 puff pastry sheet

1 egg, beaten

1 tbsp poppy seeds

or Nigella seeds, see below

Pre-heat oven 180fan/200c/Gas 6

Drain the tuna, reserving 1 tbsp of the oil. Pour the oil into a pan and cook the onion for 5 minutes until softened. Remove from the heat and stir in the tuna, cheese, parsley, seasoning and mustard until well combined. Allow to cool.

Roll out your pastry sheet and cut in half lengthways.

Divide the filling between the two rectangles, laying it in strips down the centre of the pastry.

Brush one edge with beaten egg and carefully roll up to create two long tubes. Cut each into 12 rolls. Brush with egg and put on a baking tray. Sprinkle over poppy seeds and bake for 15-20 minutes. Serve hot or cold.

You can make these rolls as large or small as you like, they don't have to be bite sized.

If you wanted an alternative to poppy seeds use Nigella seeds instead, also known as Black Cumin they have a delicious onion flavour and work well with this recipe.

This is an economical, easy but most of all tasty recipe and makes use of your store cupboard. If you're able to buy a puff pastry sheet, that's great – it's difficult to predict what will be wiped off the shelves at any given time. The fact that the sheet is a perfect emergency freezer item makes me think they may be as rare as hens' teeth – good luck and if you can't buy a sheet make your own.

Since none of us can guarantee what ingredients we're able to buy I'm going for both ends of the scale – something special and more cheap and cheerful ideas too – the common denominator - they use store cupboard items or ingredients you may have in your freezer … watch this space!

Time on your hands - the photo guide for the Tiddy ...

… made from leftovers taken from my freezer

the filling – finely diced

the baking sheet, lined and “glued” with parchment

and one strip of pastry

the filling in the middle of both strips of pastry

the pastry brought up to glue to the filling

freshly baked from the oven

bite sized pieces

a tasty morsel!

If you like the idea of the Tiddy, there's another variation using your store cupboard up next.

Time on our hands – the Tiddy filling

Since you probably won't have the box of filling leftover in your freezer, it occurs that you might like to make a batch to create the Tiddies so here's the recipe :

The Cheese, potato and onion Tiddy filling

or Serves 2 as a pie

2 medium sized baked jacket potatoes

approximately 400g – peeled and cut into cubes

measuring 1.5cms/½”

1 medium onion, finely diced and

sautéed with a knob of unsalted butter and

a drop of rapeseed oil until softened – 5 minutes

add 1 teaspoon of Dijon mustard to the onion

150g of grated cheeses – 50g each of Mature

Cheddar, Red Leicester and Gruyere

You could do worse than make a batch and divide and freeze in quantities to suit – a pie or tiddy pastries – both delish!

If you'd like to see what the pie looks like, there's a series on the blog beginning with A Christmas Gift with a difference - giving a complete photo guide too – Cheese label15/12/19.

Photo guide for the Tiddy up next!

Time on your hands and in the face of adversity …

… desperate times call for desperate measures! I don't mean to sound like a drama queen but may be we should be paying a little more attention to food that we waste – or more to the point, now more than ever, trying not to waste.

Do you know what's in your freezer? I think I have a rough idea but there's always a surprise or two if you dig deep enough. I have a habit of always prepping too much which, by definition, means I create leftovers.

I found a box of filling left over from a cheese, potato & onion pie I made recently. I'm about to show you that it can come in handy. There wasn't a huge amount - 270g ish – another rummage, this time in the fridge, produced a nugget – not of gold – but as good as – gruyere which, grated, gave me a grand total of 330g of filling. The only other ingredient required is a beaten egg.

Perfect for a Tiddy – a small pastry.

Okey dokey – I have the filling – what's next?

In the spirit of desperate measures and the crazy behaviour at the moment in the supermarkets I think it's time to make your own – in this case puff pastry – from scratch. Check the Pastry label for the Fast flaky pastry recipe. This is not difficult and it freezes well too so you can make it when you've a spare ten minutes and that's all the time it takes. All you have to remember is to weigh, wrap in foil and freeze your unsalted butter ahead of the game to give it time to chill.

When you've made your batch of pastry shape it into an oblong, then chill or freeze. Line a baking tray with baking parchment. “Glue” the parchment to the tray by greasing each corner lightly with a butter wrapper – I always keep one in the door of my fridge!

When you're ready to begin, flour your surface and roll out the pastry – take care to roll in the same direction to prevent stretching, otherwise the pastry will shrink, keeping the oblong shape or lengthways if you prefer! Cut into two strips - you're aiming for each strip to measure 30cms or 12” long and 8cms/3” wide, approximately, then lift each strip onto the lined baking tray.

Tip the filling and the added Gruyere into a medium mixing bowl and mix. The original filling contained small cubes of potato which were too big for this idea. I used an ordinary knife and fork and refined the size of the filling.

Divide the filling between the two strips placing it in the middle of each. Egg wash each edge and pinch the ends together. Lift the pastry edges to the filling, creating a sort of open “sausage roll”, egg wash the sides and ends of the pastry.

Fridge until you're ready to bake, together with the remaining egg wash.

Pre-heat your oven 180fan/200c/Gas 6.

Egg wash again and then bake for 30 minutes.

Voila – Tiddy pastries!

Just in case you haven't got a box of leftover filling in your freezer ...