The trouble with meringues

Problems with meringues

Those of us that have made meringues know what a pain they can be.  They can crack, burn on the outside and be soggy on the inside or just be pale, soggy and uninteresting.

At work we used to make probably 100 at a time and we didn't even use an oven.  We had a large hotplate cupboard and we left them in there to dry out for more than 24 hours.  That is probably the key to a good meringue, low temperature for a long time, if you wnat them powdery and crumbly and not chewy on the inside. If the temperature is too hot the outside will be hard and brown but the inside will still hold too much moisture and so this will make your meringues soggy again by the time they are cooled. The next thing is is once they are dry they need to be kept dry, or again they will go soft.

When making meringues you need to make sure that all equipment is squeaky clean, any trace of fat and the egg whites will not whip up to stiff peaks.  To make sure the bowl is clean you can wipe everything with lemong juice to make extra sure all traces of fat have gone.

When whipping egg whites you need to take them to a point where the peaks will stay up when the whisk is taken out of the bowl and the bowl can be turned upside down over your head without you getting covered in egg whites!

To be perfectly honest there are loads of recipes for meringues out there, and even I use websites to find ones that work the best, so here's my tip for a wbsite with a decent recipe.

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2445/ultimate-meringue

The BBC good food site is a good source of inspriation for a lot of the basic recipes you will need and I am a member and I save my recipes in the recipe binder on there.  If something works, why not use it I say!

Let me know what you think :o)

Happy cooking x

Easy Fat Free Basic Tomato Sauce

This is a basic tomato sauce you can use as it is for pasta or transform with additions, but best of all it's tasty and fat free.  Everyone has different tastes so you may need to adjust to your own taste.

Can be frozen in batches.

Recipe

1  400g tin chopped tomatoes
1 tin of water
500g passata (1 carton)
1 medium onion chopped
1 crushed clove garlic
1 stock cube
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1tbsp tomato puree (optional)
1tsp sugar or artificial sugar
Salt & Pepper to taste
Method

1.Put all the ingredients except for the sugar in to a large pan, bring to the boil and simmer until onion is soft and desired thickness is reached.
2. When cooked add the sugar.  The sugar just takes away from the acidity of the tomatoes and balances the sauce.
3. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Note: If it becomes too thick during the cooking process then just add more water.

Additions added at the beginning of the cooking process

1/2 - 1 teaspoon of chilli powder or to taste
1tsp of dried herbs of your choice.
1 chopped pepper
8 chopped mushrooms
2tbsp Balsamic vinegar.
You can add any vegetable of your choice to the mixture, up to approx 500g.
You could also replace some of the water with your favourite wine for a more luxurious sauce.

Use the basic sauce for the following.

Sweet and sour sauce - add 50ml vinegar and 4 tablespoons of sugar.
Bolognaise sauce just add to lean minced meat or quorn.

Easy Gingerbread biscuit recipe

This is the recipe I used to make my gingerbread house, but it can be just as easily used to make biscuits of any size or shape, including the traditional gingerbread men/women.

Recipe

100g caster sugar
125g butter/marg
25g Golden syrup
325g plain flour
4tsp ground ginger
1/2tsp ground cinnamon
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 eggs beaten

Baking trays lined with non stick silicone paper
Pan

Method

1. Preheat your oven to 160^oC, Gas mark 3, 140^oC fan oven.
2. In the pan put the caster sugar, butter, and golden syrup and heat until all the sugar has dissolved.  Only heat it until the sugar has melted, don't allow to boil.
3. Sift the bicarbonate of soda, ground cinnamon, grounf ginger and plain flour in to a bowl and add the melted butter mixture and the beaten eggs to it.  Mix until you make a stiff dough.  cover the bowl and leave to cool for 20 minutes.
4. Roll out the dough on a floured surface, to about 4mm thick, cut in to what ever shape you want to make it, place on the lined baking trays and bake for 10 minutes.
5.  Leave to cool on the trays for 5 minutes so that the gingerbread becomes more solid.  Then place on a cooling racj to fully cool and hard.
6. Decorate with icing or melted chocolate and any other decorations you fancy adding.

Enjoy!

Tip

For funky gingerbread men ideas, I purchased a book "Dress your gingerbread men" by Joanna Farrow.  ISBN:978-1-84601-369-0
Lots of cool fun ideas and some more recipes.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year folks

What will you be cooking this year?  Mine has started off like a lot of you I guess, trying to find interesting recipes that will help me lose the Christmas pounds and yet still not leave me reaching for the post Christmas horde of chocolate.

There are some simple things you can do that don't actually mean you have to alter your recipes.  The first thing is actually making the food yourself, not buying it.  Those jars of sauce you can buy are packed full fat and sugar and the sauces are so easy to make yourself at home and once you have made them you won't go back, especially when you find out they are much kinder on the pocket, as are most home cooked food.  You also have total control on amounts of fat, salt, sugar and nasty preservatives, which can't be bad can it!

I'm going to add recipes of some of the things we have to eat over the coming weeks and I would really like to hear about what you are cooking or requests for recipes you would like to try.

Happy cooking.

Merry Christmas - that's it all over!

Merry Christmas all

I hope you all had an enjoyable day making and eating lovely food, I know we did.  Christmas can often be a stressful time when making food, often for a large number of people.  It doesn't have to be that way however, a little preparation beforehand and Christmas day can be spent with family and friends and enjoyed, not being imprisoned in the kitchen whilst everyone else enjoys the day.



In future blogs I am going to let you in to my secrets, how I spent Christmas Day, or any other festivity day stress free and prepared.
If you have any specific problems, feel free to email me and we can discuss them.
Happy cooking x

Pauline's Lemon Freeze Dessert

Warning - contains raw eggs

Recipe

12 Digestive biscuits, crushed
75g/3oz butter
397g/1 small tin condensed milk
2 lemons
2 eggs
5floz Natural yogurt or Double cream

 

Method

1.  Line a 2lb loaf tin with a double layer of cling film, making sure it overlaps.
2.  Melt the butter and add the crushed digestive biscuits.
3.  Spread half of the bisuit mixture over the base of the lined tim.
4.  Separate the eggs.
5.  Beat the egg whites until stiff.
6.  Mix the egg yolks with the condensed milk, yougurt, grated lemon rind and the juice of the lemons.
7.  Fold in the beaten egg whites until no white remains and pour on top of the crumbs.
8.  Sprinkle the remaining crumbs on top of the mixture.
9.  Freeze for a minimum of 3 hours or until solid.
10.  Serve sliced.

Pork pies made easy

Pork pies may look complicated but they are really easy and are always better than the shop bought ones that are all too often too peppery and leave you wondering what's in them, apart from the high fat content.  I have tried various recipes in the last few years, but here is my favourite.

Makes 2 medium or 1 large Pork pie.  Using a food probe will take the guess work out of measuring the temperature.

Extra large family pork pie

Recipe 

For the hot water crust pastry

450g/1lb Strong plain four

Extra flour for rolling

150g/7oz Lard

50ml/2fl oz Water

Inside the small pork pies

50ml/2fl oz Milk

Salt & Pepper

1 Egg, beaten.

  

For the filling

 300g/10oz Shoulder pork - chopped into small dice

50g/2oz Bacon chopped

Small and medium pork pies

50g/2oz minced pork

50g/2oz sausage meat

50g/2oz Sage and onion stuffing mix

1 Small onion finely chopped and cooked

1 Garlic clove crushed

Salt & Pepper

For the Jelly

Easy pork pie roll.

1packet/6g Vege-Gel

200ml chicken stock

  

Method

Pastry

 1.  Put milk, water and lard in to a pan and heat until all the lard has melted.  Do not let the mixture boil.

2.  Add salt and pepper to the flour and add to the liquid.  Mix until all the flour is incorporated.  Add a little more water if needed.

3.  Knead pastry until it all comes together.

4.  Wrap in cling film and leave to rest, use when warm or just cooled.

Filling

1.  Mix all the ingredients in a large mixing bowl until well mixed.

2.  Season with salt and pepper.

Assembly

 

1.  Line a 2lb loaf non stick loaf time with a strip of baking parchment.  Make sure it is a lot wider than your loaf tin, you will use this to lift out the pie.

2.  Take off a 1/4 of the pastry and reserve for the lid.  Roll out the pastry to a thickness of of about   1cm and line the tin with the rolled out pastry.  Leave the excess pastry on the edges till the lid is put on.



3.  Fill the pastry case with the meat mixture.  Pack down well.

4.  Roll out the remaining pastry as a lid. 

5.  Paint egg all around the edges of the pastry base and put the pastry lid on top of the mixture.

6.  Trim the pastry and crimp all around the edges.

7.  Use any remaining pastry bits to decorate the top of the pie.

8.  Make a 1cm hole in the middle of the lid and paint the whole of the top with the beaten egg.

9.  Place in the oven preheated to Gas 4/350degf/180degC and bake for 2 hours.  An inserted knife in to the centre should be really hot when touched on your lip, or be over 80degC.

10.  If the pastry is starting to brown too much cover with greaseproof paper to prevent further Browning, until the pie is cooked.

11.  Leave the pie to cool slightly.

12.  Make the jelly as per instructions on the pack of vege-gel, using stock as the liquid .

13.  Remove the pie from the tin using the parchment paper

14.  Add the jelly liquid to the pie through the hole, fill until the liquid comes out of the top.  You may have to do this more than once as the liquid seeps in to the meat inside the pie.

15.  Leave to cool then refrigerate. 

16.  Refrigerate until the jelly has set.

To make the easy pork pie roll - roll out the whole of the pastry to 1cm thick.  Put a line of meat mixture down the centre, leave a gap at each end of 2cm.  Paint egg on all edges of the pastry.  Bring one side of the pastry over the meat mixture and then the other.  Bring the ends up to the top then place with the seal on the bottom on to a baking sheet.  Make a hole in the top, brush with beaten egg and bake for about 1 hour, at gas 4.  As before the temperature inside should reach above 80degC.  Add the liquid jelly as before and when cooled, refrigerate.

I think I have covered everything, apologies for any mistakes.  Any questions or queries, just message me. :o)

Enjoy