UK Amazon Kindle Forum discussion

I added orange essence to some of that milk choc truffle mix too. Those are divine and taste like they cost the earth.

Ooh! I love the milk when it's flavoured with orange.

Hopefully tomorrow, I'll be able to implement the section on my website for readers to add photos and tips.

This book is coming out in paper form isn't it?
It's just I think I've at least two daughters who'd want it as a present :-)

I hope so, Jim. The pictures are sumptuous!

Yes!

good
Is it too early to discuss pricing :-)

Food, glorious food!

Please don't forget the plum bread recipe for me, Kath!

And while I'm here...

The world's yummiest chips!

Peel and slice a few spuds in the usual chip way.

Toss in olive oil (not the good, expensive sort. Cheap stuff with a higher flash point)
Toss in copious amounts of crushed garlic. If you're feeling lazy, use dried garlic. The oil will rehydrate it. Toss in a bowl, not the baking pan or they'll stick like year old gum on the underside of a little chef table.

Oh yeah. While you're preparing the tatters, preheat the oiled baking pan in a hot oven. Gas mark I dunno. 6? 7? You know your oven better than I do. I'd just smile vaguely at it if I passed it on the street...

Dump the oily, garlicky carbohydrate sticks into the smoking pan and push it back into the oven. When they smell like they're ready, be disappointed that they're not and stir them around a bit. Don't stir them round too soon nor too much or they'll break into bits.

When they're golden brown and delightfully crispy, serve with a side dish of blue cheese or ranch salad dressing for dipping. Yes! Salad dressing!

If you're having something with salad dressing, you're having salad!

Enjoy!

Plum Bread

8 oz pitted, ready-to-eat plums, roughly chopped
2 oz currants I used raisins - currants are nasty, pippy little things)
2 oz sultanas
5 fl oz tea
1lb strong plain flour
4 oz butter, melted
4.5 fl oz milk
6 tbsps soft brown sugar
2 eggs
sachet of yeast
1 heaped tsp mixed spices. I also added a good shake of ground cloves (smells of Christmas to me) and a couple of shakes of cinnamon.

Put fruits into a bowl and pour over the tea. Stir them occasionally and allow to soak - I left them about an hour

Grease and flour a 2lb loaf tin.

Mix the melted butter with milk and beaten eggs. Add the flour, yeast, fruit and spices. This is a sloppy mixture. You can't knead it but you have to beat it to stretch the gluten. I used my Kenwood.

Leave to rise until double - may take a couple of hours in this weather.

Beat again and scrape it into the loaf tin. Spread it evenly and wait for it to rise above the top of the tin.

Heat over to Gas 5 or 190C

Bake for 40 - 50 mins. You may need to use the skewer or knitting needle test to be sure it's cooked through.

Leave to cool completely in the tin.

Slice and serve with butter. And another slice!

Measurements in Imperial because it's an old English (Lincolnshire) recipe.

Sounds yum! I'll let you know how I get on with it.

Thanks!

Just tried this lovely ADSA recipe as an accompaniment for lunch.

Roast parsnips with maple syrup & mustard

What it takes

6-8 parsnips
4 tbsp sunflower oil
3 tbsp maple syrup
1 tbsp coarse-grain mustard

How to make it

Pre-heat the oven to 200C/180C Fan/Gas 6. Peel the parsnips and cut into even-sized pieces.

Put in a pan, cover with cold water and bring to the boil, then simmer for 4 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat the oil in a roasting tin.

Drain the parsnips and pat dry. Toss in the heated oil and roast for 20 minutes.

Drain on kitchen paper and freeze for up to a month.

On the day, put the frozen parsnips in a lightly greased roasting tin and bake at 200C/180C Fan/Gas 6 for 20 minutes.

Mix the maple syrup and mustard, drizzle over the parsnips and turn until well coated.

Cook for another 10 minutes.

I've got everything except parsnips.

My friend is going vegan for a month (she's a veggie) and I said I would join her in becoming veggie for a month (partly because of charity, partly because I feel like the biggest hypocrite). I was a veggie for close to two years when I was younger but had to give it up as I was struggling with getting enough iron. As someone who now actually likes her veggies and won't bawk at the idea of eating a green leaf I am hoping I will succeed this time healthily.

In saying that - I've completely forgotten how to eat veggie.

Help groupites, help!

I'll help by taking care of your bacon.

Sheep manage it, it cannot be too difficult ;-)

Really helpful, thank you Patti........ :p


And did you just call me a sheep?

Vegetables are unhealthy, have you seen the life expectancy of animals that live on them?
Vegetables are that food eats :-)

Will you eat fish, Elle?

Jud (Disney Diva) wrote: "Will you eat fish, Elle?"

Highly allergic :o So no. aha

Ah yes, probably best not to :o)

I had a yummy and super easy pasta dish on Friday.

Pasta (obvs)
pesto
pine nuts
spinach
chopped cherry tomatoes

Drain the pasta and mix it all together in the pan over heat to wilt the pasta and warm the tomatoes, optional extra is to add a dollop of cream cheese as well. I quite often use veggie recipes and then add meat to them so when I think of what they are I'll let you know :o)

Sounds absolutely yummy, thank you! :-)

Super easy dahl.

Wash about a cup of red lentils. Add twice as much cold water.
Add one finely chopped onion, half teaspoon tumeric, half teaspoon garam masala, dried hot chilli to taste. If you don't want it too firey, 1/4 teaspoon or so. A few curry leaves.

Bring to a boil, then simmer until gooey. Add a bit more water if it gets too thick. Serve over rice.

When eaten with rice, it makes a complete protein.

Oh sounds yummy Patti, will try asap!

The pot I made yesterday was a bit tasteless, Peanut, so I added an oxo cube. You could pump up the flavour by using a nice vegetable stock instead of water.
I know you spend your weekends tying up bouquet garni and simmering stock...

Another thought.
Get yourself to an Asian market and pick up a couple pots of curry paste. Lots easier than buying loads of spices separately.

Easy to cook, too. Just fry up the curry paste with some onion, garlic, ginger, dump in a tin of coconut milk (or make up your own coconut milk from coconut milk powder. It's cheaper and you can control how rich you want it), throw in chopped veg, cover and simmer until tender.

Quick, easy meal.

Oh, and I buy squeezy tubes of garlic and ginger. Can't be arsed faffing with peeling and chopping. Works out to be cheaper than buying fresh, too, as there's no waste. The tubes keep forever.

You can also buy bags of frozen chopped onions but I do them myself. Get a bag of onions and chop them all up. Put them on a baking sheet and freeze them. Once they're frozen, put them in a resealable bag then you can just grab a handful from the freezer as you need them. If you don't freeze them on a baking sheet first, they'll freeze in a clump, which doesn't work so well.

Awesome, thank you Patti.
Will need to look out for coconut powder, never seen it before. Plenty of asian stores around my way so will need to go there.

I use squeezy tubes too, very lazy ;) also been known to squeeze garlic right into my mouth. NOM *awful*

Coconut milk powder!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Maggi-Coconut...

Curry paste!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Grocery-Panan...

Elle wrote: "...I use squeezy tubes too, very lazy ;) also been known to squeeze garlic right into my mouth. NOM *awful* "

How to make friends and influence people lol

One of my favourite recipes is to make chile but with those big browny green lentils instead of minced beef. Also works well in the "bolognese" layer of lasagne. Just need to cook the lentils first - boil them for twenty mins or so (they don't smell very nice whilst doing so but not as bad as giblets!) drain them and then add tomatoes, onion, garlic etc etc.

MARINATED COD, FRIED IN TOMATO LEMON AND GARLIC SAUCE

My own recipe, made it last week; it's a lot easier than it sounds!

Recipe is for 2 good portions so main ingredient is 2 nice fillets of cod.

Marinade ingredients:

1/2 a fresh red chili, no seeds (don't want it to be too hot)
3 cloves garlic
2 large, or 10 cherry, tomatoes, skinned
juice of 1/2 lemon
2 good pinches of sea salt

Other ingredients
75 ml of Noilly Pratt (white wine if no Noilly)
125 ml of seafood stock (fish stock if no seafood stock)
3 tbs of plain white flour
25gm butter
2 handfuls of shelled cooked small prawns
3 tbs of good olive oil
3 tbs Fresh Chervil chopped, or Parsley if no Chervil

Make marinade with pestle & mortar (use blender if little time or no pestle and mortar) by adding garlic, chilli and salt and mashing to a paste, then chop tomatoes and add. More pounding to mix well in. Then add lemon juice and mix in well.

Put fish in shallow bowl and rub thoroughly all over with marinade. Leave skin side down, then drizzle 1 tbs of olive oil over, leave in fridge for 1 - 3 hours.

Heat medium sized frying pan to medium heat.
When hot, add butter
When melted add cod, skin side up, fry 3 - 4 minutes until golden brown.
Turn fish and add Noilly Pratt and seafood stock, the rest of the marinade and the prawns, swirl round the fish gently and bring liquid to the simmer.
Sprinkle flour all over liquid (keep off fish as much as possible), shake pan every few minutes to stop lumps forming, swirling the sauce round the fish every couple of minutes, for 10 minutes. Sauce will gradually thicken.

Serve onto warm plates, spoon sauce over, sprinkle Chervil over and enjoy!! Goes really well with plain mashed potato.

Warmed plates???

Skinned tomatoes???

Chervil???

There's posh! ;)

Patti feels that putting a dressing gown over your nightie to go down to the chip shop is posh :-)

Nightie?

Gingerlily will be along with a picture any minute now!

Just digging through my photos from Dubai....

I've discovered a lovely, quick veggie pasta dish.
Roast veg (whichever ones you fancy)
Cook pasta and mix in an appropriate amount of garlic and herb (or similar) cream cheese and a little water
Add veg to pasta and enjoy!

Sounds like something I do on a regular basis Claire but I normally use normal cream or something else instead of cream cheese, have done cream cheese with spinach and tomatoes before though, v yummy.

Picked up coconut powder & curry paste from Morrisons today! Had to really hunt for curry paste as a lot of them had some sort of fish paste/sauce in it also. Will try these ones out and then go searching for a proper version at a later date. Also got some lentils. Don't think I have ever had lentils in my life before so should be interesting. Got some soya protein rice as well after my vegan/veggie friends keep telling me to - apparently it just soaks whatever flavours you put in it and is a great source of protein!

Oh, yeah. I suppose a lot of the curry pastes have shrimp paste in them. Sorry, didn't think.
Glad you found a fish free one.

When we were in Sri Lanka we did a home stay. Amazing food. We asked the guy if we could watch him cook and ended up having a great, laugh filled cooking lesson. He made his own curry paste. He'd spend one day a month just making pots of it. Wonderful stuff.

I suppose you could make your own.

Yeah definitely an option! I do love curry but it's not something I ever think to make as I always go the pasta route.

I'm so jealous of your travels!

Plenty of time for you to travel, Peanut.

Very true!

Here's the chickpea salad recipe.

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/29...

I fried the slices of eggplant in olive oil instead of grilling them. Used less oil in the dressing as I used the yummy oil from the frying pan. I also added some dried chilli flakes. Yummy and the leftovers are even better today after it being in the fridge over night.

I'm going to make stuffed peppers and tomatoes today. I made the stuffing yesterday as I was frying mince for the chilli anyway.

The stuffing is yummy.

I threw together some fried onions and garlic, some mince, some cooked rice, tomato paste, basil, oregano, bit of chilli, and a dollop of ketchup cuz it was a bit dry.
It's been in the fridge overnight.
I'll stuff it into the veg later, before I pop them in the oven.

Yesterday, I also did a few stuffed mushrooms. Super quick and easy.
I used big button mushrooms.

Pop the stems out but keep them back. They're nice with eggs and whatnot in a fried breakfast.

I wash fresh mushrooms really well as they're grown in shit.

The stuffing was dead easy.
I just chopped up some sundried tomatoes, crumbled in some goats cheese, bit of dried basil and dried garlic flakes. Mixed well then stuffed it into the mushrooms.
Put them on a baking tray and drizzled olive oil over them.

Bake about ten minutes in a hot oven,

Gorgeous.

Help, please.

We've had a bag of mixed seafood in the freezer for months and I want to use it up before the summer.

I don't want to make a curry or a pasta dish with it.

Anyone have any ideas what I could do with it?

Fish pie
Paella
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/96...

"nestle the fish chunks" I find that curiously amusing. Not quite sure why

Rosemary what's that coming over the hill wrote: ""nestle the fish chunks" I find that curiously amusing. Not quite sure why"

It sounds vaguely naughty!

Yep, that's probably why!

Dave sez forget fish pie. It's his least favourite dish.

The seafood is mussels, prawns and calimari.

Suppose we could do a paella. Seems a waste of seafood, though.

Fish pie? Personally I like to use my seafood in a risotto on a Saturday night. Proper comfort food with a glass of wine and a movie :)