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Pip’s Beef Cannelloni
My children have never been particularly forthcoming with praise in regard to anything that requires cooking on a hob or in the oven. This Cannelloni, (I never knew how hard it was to spell this pesky word, 3 n’s and 2 l’s) brings out utterances of pure pleasure from them. Which is saying something, because they are usually monosyllabic until around 5 pm. Drum roll….. Ingredients: 1 tablespoon of oil 400g beef mince 1 large onion 2 garlic cloves 2, 500g cartons or jars of passata 1 dessert spoon of sugar dried cannelloni tubes to line your dish Topping: 50g butter or margarine 50 g plain flour 600ml milk 140g…
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Madeira Cake
After we’d chowed down this Madeira Cake, I had a urge to reaffirm in my middle-aged brain that in fact all of my reasonings on the origin of Madeira Cake were true. That it did originate in Madeira, and I was always correct in my answers to pub quizzes, (oh, the pub! it’s been 18 weeks since I stepped inside one), anyway, I was wrong all along. The cake was named after the Madeira wine from Portugal, which from the 18th century onward, was drank alongside the cake in the afternoon for tea. Hence, the name. So now I know! I love plain things like rich tea biscuits, scones, shortbread…
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Annarita’s Spaghetti Bolognese
I have a friend, an Italian friend. In fact, she’s as authentically Italian as you can get. She came from a town in Italy on the heel of the boot. Have a look on a map for the location of a place called ‘Brindisi’, that’s where she was born. In fact, it looks so beautiful there that at some point in my life, I’d like to go there. So I felt it to be very important, a couple of years back, to ask her a most intelligent question about Italy’s architecture and culture, recipe for spaghetti bolognese. “It’s all to do with slow cooking,” she said, “And celery, you must…
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Chocolate Chip Muffins
Ingredients: 250g plain flour 100g sugar 3 teaspoons baking powder pinch of salt 175ml milk 75ml vegetable oil 1 egg Half a teaspoon of vanilla extract 125g chocolate chips ( I only had 100g, as someone in my house had been sneaking into the cupboard in the middle of the night and pinching handfuls of the things when everyone was asleep. That’s why mine look a bit inadequately chocolate chipped!) Method: Preheat the oven to 180 C / Gas 5. Put paper cases onto a tray. I used silicone ones. Sift into a bowl the flour, sugar, baking powder, chocolate chips and salt. In another bowl, mix together the egg,…
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Food for Moods
I’ve been a bit of a naughty girl tonight and feeling totally down in the dumps. You know how it is sometimes; nobody loves me, I really am a fat doughnut, I try and try and get nothing back, blah blah blah. So last week I lose 8Ibs because I was going to a wedding and I was adamant the dress I bought was going to fit, and now tonight I’ve gone through a bit of a meltdown and consumed a whole bar of dairy milk chocolate, a bag of wotsits, a bottle of Dr Pepper, a pain au chocolat and 2 Weetabix. I’ve not eaten a proper dinner, I’ve just felt…
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Chocolate Flutterby Cakes
I know these are meant to be called ‘Butterfly Cakes’, but I call them ‘Chocolate Flutterby Cakes’. It is a name given to them by my youngest son, when we made them together once when he was about 5 years old, and he said, “These butterfly cakes will flutterby”, and I said yes my sweet, butterflies really do flutterby don’t they. So the name has stuck. Shakespeare made up his own words, so he can too 🙂 Ingredients 4oz margarine 4oz caster sugar 2 eggs 3oz self raising flour 2 tbls cocoa powder 1 tsp baking powder 1 tbls milk Butter icing 2 tbls margarine 4oz icing sugar Method Preheat…
