Crispy Plastic Duck

16 May

Proper, almost, disaster this week!
As a treat I bought a huge tray of crispy duck. I love this stuff, I order it from Chinese restaurants and adore the supermarket versions you can bake at home as a mid-week indulgence.
They come complete with little packs of pancakes, chopped cucumber, spring onions and sachets of hoisin or plum sauces, that you take out of the tray and put to one side before cooking the prepared duck.
It’s so simple, you just take out all the accompaniments and bake the duck for nearly and hour and then serve with the bits and pieces, that you have taken out of the baking tray before putting in the oven.

Once you have cooked your duck you can prepare all of the little bits and pieces that you have taken out of the tray previously and put it all together into delectable crispy duck pancakes. How lovely.

Well, you can see where I am going with this… Duck happily in the oven, my little packets of cucumber and pancakes are on the side waiting to be rolled up. But there is a smell in the air, a black acrid smell of something dangerous burning. Duck must be ready?

Well yes, it was ready, but the little plastic sachet of sauce I had left under it had melted into a hellish pit of bubbling black goo. The kitchen filled with possibly toxic smoke. Brimstone Takeaway anyone?
duckAs you can see we ate it. We haven’t died.
But there might just be some melted plastic reforming inside me somewhere…
Sometimes I can’t believe I am allowed to use an oven.

For more dangerous cooking courtesy of me, please see here.

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Mummy Pig Bakes Cakes

13 May

I’m not a fan of Peppa Pig.
It’s nothing personal and I think Daddy Pig is quite cool, I just can’t bear her terribly squeaky voice and the fact I had to sit through hours of her shows for years. She’s no where near as bad as that awful Lola though from Charlie & Lola, what a selfish sister she is? Totally ruined Charlie’s birthday party.
Anyway, I digress, my son used to be a big fan of Peppa and her family, and as you know is also a big fan of making cupcakes, we do it often.  So when we saw this kit in the supermarket I thought it was worth a go:
909I’ve had some reasonable success before using kits like these and thought to myself, really just how hard can it be? They are meant for kids. Well they turned out to be quite a faff actually.
See those muddy puddles made out of liquid chocolate on the top? A faff! Believe me.
910They look terrible don’t they? Didn’t taste too great either and my son looked like he really had been dipped in a muddy puddle after.
I wonder if Charlie & Lola Cupcake Kits are available?

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My Carboot Kitchen

2 May

Come on, who doesn’t love going round carboot sales and picking up cheap oddities and towels made of fleece? Gotta love a bargain right?
I like nothing more than subjecting my family to two hours of standing around in a cold, windy field on a Sunday morning so that I can rifle through boxes of books and vinyl just to hold items aloft and shout:
“I used to have this”
And then buy it again…

There is always plenty to be found for the kitchen – including fascinating, old written-in cookery books. We also have super cow-shaped gravy boats, two chipped little Homepride Flour men and plenty of Coronation plates and mugs.
Here are a couple of my favourite purchases:
EggChickenMagnificent isn’t it? Look at my noble chicken, far too good to use and fill with eggs. This is getting dusty on a shelf in my kitchen with some paperclips and a safety pin in it. Oh yes, worth all of the £3.50 I paid for it. (Yes that is a Fairy tin in the background, no you can’t have it for your dishwasher tabs, that what I use it for)

And what about this beauty:
HF1An actual menu chalk board, like they use in a pub.
I knew this had to be mine the moment I saw it. It’s on the wall in the kitchen now, we use it to scrawl messages to each other, or yes sometimes I optimistically write out what I’m meant to be cooking that evening… sometimes it gets wiped off before I’ve served up just so there is no come back if it all goes wrong.

I’m looking for a pink glass cake-stand next if anyone has one going cheap?

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No Words Necessary

23 Apr

This has happened:
burntdinnerDon’t you wish you were married to me?

 

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Surplus Chocolate Cupcakes Success

18 Apr

Sometimes things go right, but also sometimes too right…

We had loads of chocolate left over from Easter, and as none of us are great chocolate snackers so I thought I would make cupcakes out of the remaining eggs. Even if they were inedible at least my son and I would have some fun and he’d get to see the food being used up.

I used a basic cupcake recipe and because I was expecting the inevitable disaster (as can be seen here and here) decided to quarter the ingredients so we only had six to ruin.

I let my son scatter the mix with some buttons from his little kiddy eggs. I melted the rest of the chocolate into a liquid using my own cobbled together version of a bain-marie:
cake1I know, but it works!
While the mix baked in the oven into our choccy button cupcakes, son and I folded this melted chocolate into butter and sugar to make the icing. I still wasn’t holding out much hope at this point but hey, it was the Easter holidays and the weather was bad.

Without really thinking about it we pulled the cakes out of the oven, let them cool, watched a DVD, went back to swirl on the icing and decorated with some remaining buttons.
Well blow me down they were fine, in fact they were great. Tasted good, looked fab. Like proper little chocolate cupcakes. Maybe that’s the trick with cooking? To not worry or expect too much?
cake2Son and I couldn’t believe it.
In fact the only tragedy was we had only made six of them.

 

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Don’t Play With Your Food, Or Do

10 Apr

Just a little update on my son’s recent meals, since my last post about them (do go back and read it if you want to know how to boil hotdogs or create seaweed from cheese).

Purists will be glad to know that I have managed to source and slice some buns for those easy dogs:
kids1Looks like a proper meal almost now doesn’t it? He still picked the sausages out of the rolls and discarded them. Oh well, he’s used to them without.

And recently we had some quorn meatballs in the freezer, unsure on how to incorporate them into an edible pasta dish for him I fried them. Then realised he’d need something other than just meatballs, maybe a sauce?
But what do you give a 5year old who won’t entertain anything tomatoey?
Well tomato sauce of course. So here I give you my meatballs fried in ketchup:
kids2It worked too!

And inspired by my recent underwater scenes created lovingly out of cheese, peas and fish dippers we have taken our skill out of doors and created this little pile of loveliness in a noodle restaurant.
My boy loved it. I was trying to win a trip to Japan:
kids3

 

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Hot Cross Rock Cake Drop Scone Buns For Easter

2 Apr

Easter. Another excuse to make and eat lots of things that you wouldn’t any other week of the year.
Such as Mini Eggs, Simnel Cake (what is that anyway?) and hot cross buns!
I’ve never made hot cross buns before, and after this week I probably never will again…
I had seen others touting their seasonal wares on my various social media outlets and thought I should give it a go too. So Easter Saturday my son and I set to in the kitchen using a recipe posted by Nigella. I promised him by that afternoon we would have some lovely hot, fragrant steamy buns to break over our tea time drinks.

I started off following the recipe to the letter, infusing warm milk with cardamom and orange zest (although I had forgotten the cloves – so maybe not exactly to the letter) and then adding it to eggs, flour and dried fruit to make a dough.
Eas1And here is where I became really excited because I got to use the dough hooks on my hand-held mixer, previously untouched I thrust them into my mix and gave it a good whizz. BAM! After I had cleaned myself, my son, the kitchen and dog up – wow that floury mixed fruit really does get everywhere doesn’t it? – I turned the settings down and set about turning the mess into dough in a more methodical matter. It grew and it grew.
Eas2It kept climbing up the hooks and trying to get out of the bowl. It was turning into a bit of an arsey bastard if I’m honest. After battling for a few minutes the dough pulled them hooks right out of the mixer and into the mixture! Scary.
Eas3I thought about leaving them in there for a bit, before releasing them and carrying on by hand. I eventually tamed the dough into a suitable ball and excitedly informed my son we could now start forming our buns. I referred back to the recipe.
“Put the dough into the fridge overnight to prove” What? Overnight? We wanted our buns today.
This is where I remembered that you MUST ALWAYS READ THE RECIPE IN FULL BEFORE YOU START TO COOK!
Oh well, sorry son, we’ll have to wait. He hates waiting.
I didn’t have any clingfilm so put some foil over the top and hoped for the best. I went out that night and my son went to bed.
The next morning, tired and hungover I found this in the fridge:
Eas4Oh yes, hot cross buns, must get those done. It was now mid way through Easter Sunday morning and we’d soon be out of the accepted window in which we could eat them.
Son and I continued, our enthusiasm slightly dampened and my brain slightly less capable of deciphering the recipe.
Right, pinch off some balls and form into a bun shape, pop on a baking sheet and score with crosses. AND THEN COVER WITH A TEATOWEL TO PROVE FOR ANOTHER HOUR. What? Really? What else does this stuff have to prove?
OK fine, sorry son, still no buns.
After the elapsed time (cup of tea and a bath) I went back to them – nothing had really changed and they certainly hadn’t risen anymore (I have previous with expecting Easter related things to rise and not) but I ploughed on applying a little mixture of flour, sugar and water to make the crosses on top.
Eas5It’s a bit cack-handed I know, but you can make out a cross on some of them. I had flirted with the idea of putting on little initials and symbols but as you can see a simple combo of two straight lines is beyond me.
Finally they went into the oven, only a day late, but I was quietly confident and excited. My son had lost interest and disappeared off.
I called him back to see the final result and when he saw these he disappeared again, quite disgusted he had wasted quite so much of his time on them.
Eas6OK, they don’t exactly look like hot cross buns, they looked like rock cakes when they came out but soon deflated into drop scones, but they did taste like they were meant to. So I present my hot cross bun flavoured rock cakes cum drop scones. Voila!

These were taken round a friend’s house for Easter Sunday lunch that day, most people tried them and declared they actually weren’t too bad. However I feel they all might have been so drunk they weren’t sure what they were eating or were probably just being nice.
I have yet to try one, it’s not Easter now so I don’t really fancy a hot cross bun or anything remotely like it.

Hope you enjoyed your Easter spread and ate loads. You might have even enjoyed a hot cross bun?
I’m buying mine next year. It’s quicker. x

UPDATE: I tried to toast the last remaining buns today for my son’s tea and look what happened… Sake!

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Burnt Leaves (not a Sausage Casserole)

27 Mar

Life is all about learning… and I have recently learnt that you can’t bake kale. Well not unless you like crispy black leaves.
Here is my signature thing going in:
saus1This mix of meat and things includes fresh kale, it looks great doesn’t it? It’s got a potential sausage casserole vibe going on right?
Here it is coming out:
saus2I feel kale needs more of a delicate hand than the one I used on it. But as I say, life is all about learning.
Crispy black leaves anyone?

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Mother’s Ruined!

13 Mar

Well after last weeks exposé on the terrible dishes I serve to my son, I myself was served this for Mother’s Day on Sunday:
BE-680CCYAA-3BEIsn’t it wonderful? Laden with gifts and gorgeous food, beautifully presented and thoughtful. Boy did I feel small, it’s a far cry from hotdogs on a plate right?
OK he had some help from his dad but still… sheepish mother must try harder with her presentation.
And yes that is a room service bell – I was allowed to use it all day for cups of tea any time I liked. I know.

But my favourite gift had to be this little beauty:
mugAin’t that the truth!?

Hope all you mums got to ring your own bells this weekend x

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Cooking Is Child’s Play

7 Mar

Regular readers will know I cook a lot with my son, sometimes successfully, usually unsuccessfully.
Of course being a mother means having to create bespoke meals for fussy eaters, or as I like to call it ‘putting something on a plate he’ll put in his mouth’.
Sometimes this does not include the prerequisite fruit and veg – mothers that are able to do that ‘hiding vegetables in food so they don’t know they’re eating it’ thing, I salute you. And sometimes it means serving up Dairylea Dunkers for breakfast.

Yes, prepare to be shocked, or prepare to be relieved that someone else does this… here I present some my most terrible, most favoured and most easiest (I can say ‘most easiest’ because it’s my blog grammar hounds) kids dishes:

EGG SANDWICH SOLDIERS
I am quite pleased with this, because it looks normal right? But don’t be alarmed, it’s not quite right. Those eggs are rock hard of course. I have taught my son that the soldiers are NOT for dipping but for making little sandwiches out of the spooned out egg. If he ever came for tea round your house and had boiled eggs and soldiers, this is what he would do. He wouldn’t expect a runny egg or know what to do with one. My cooking has ruined his childhood.
kids4UNDER THE SEA
Yes, I too understand the importance of presentation in food. If I don’t make a picture out of these ‘fish dippers’ he won’t eat them. And no those aren’t carrot sticks, it’s red cheese. As I say it’s about putting something on a plate that he’ll put in his mouth. Cheese trumps carrots. Please note use of both brown and red sauces. I thank you.
kids1PRETEND PUDDING
I do love that story from the author of the Charlie & Lola books… about how her mother would add some red food colouring to milk and call it ‘Pink Milk’ (Charlie & Lola’s favourite drink). It’s about adding glamour to the ordinary. My son prefers not to eat his fromage frais straight out of the pot as it’s not special enough. So now I decant it into a glass bowl, add in some jam or mashed fruit, spray on some ‘bumpy cream’ (aerosol) and chocolate sprinkles. Et voila, your finest trifle sir.
kids2WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS
Hotdogs. On a plate, with sauce. No really, I do serve this up. Don’t call Social Services, they’re vegetarian.
kids3

Yes I do own the Annabel Karmel cookbook, no I’ve never opened it.

Thankfully my son is tall, robust, rarely troubled by illness and always gets a funny note in his lunchbox from me so I don’t have sleepless nights.
And besides, he loves telling his teachers that his mother can’t cook.

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