Time to use one of my Christmas presents. A potato ricer!
Potato Ricer
How did I live without one of these? Lumpy mash is no more in the Hungry Hyde Household! It looks a bit odd but it is so simple yet amazing, boil your potatoes and when they are done pop them in the ricer and press down the handle. Then you are left with lovely fluffy mashed potato.
I suppose you could add butter into the ricer if you wanted to; I found these lovely just on their own stirred and plated.
The best tea ever. The great north south divide depends on what you call your evening meal. Living in the north east it has to be ‘tea’ . Dinner is what you have around 12 noon and evening meal is tea!
Toad in the Hole
So when asking the hubby what he fancies for tea thinking he will have an exotic idea, he comes out with Toad in t’ ‘ole (Toad in the hole). He is a Yorkshireman born and bred so Yorkshire puddings have to be impressive to satisfy him! I class this as a good old fashioned tea, I love trying new recipes and new ingredients but sometimes a good old fashioned tea is what hits the spot!
Its so simple to make, either a large one for a family to share or individual ones. I like to use Cumberland sausages or any different flavours my butcher has to offer, the pork and leek he has are also amazing.
Toad in the Hole
Cook the sausages to your liking, heat either a large or individual baking tins in the oven on its highest setting with a good dollop of lard. You can use other oils but lard is much better in my opinion. While the lard is heating make the batter mix. Once the oil is smoking, take out the tins and add the batter mix and the sausages. Cook for around 20 minutes and you should have the most amazing Toad in t’ ‘ole!
I usually serve it with mash and veg, oh and gravy, northern boys love gravy.
The batter mix recipe for Yorkshire Puddings can be found Here.
Ingredients:
Yorkshire Puddings
100g plain flour
1 egg
Pinch of salt
300ml milk
Method:
Mix flour and salt and add the egg. Stir the mixture adding the milk gradually until all the flour is mixed in. Beat it well.
Put a small amount of lard into each section of the muffin tin and put in the oven until it smokes. Take the tins out of the oven add the batter mix and get back in the oven as quickly as possible so as not to lose any heat. About 20 minutes later you should have light fluffy Yorkshire Puddings.
If there are any puddings left after a Sunday dinner we would use these for Yorkshire Pudding Sandwiches, these are not quite how they sound. Cut the pudding in half and put leftover stuffing and meat inside and close. Perfect!
Both of my grandma’s were really good bakers, a weekend visit was always full of culinary delights. Although they both had all the recipes in their head and rarely needed a cookery book, my grandma always had the ‘Home Recipes from Be-ro’ book, commonly known as the Be-ro book, in the kitchen.
Even now when I see recipes for pastry or short bread I compare them to the god old fashioned be-ro book. I usually find the Be-ro ones are better. Recently I tried a recipe from the Hairy Bikers’ for Millionaire Shortbread but preferred it the second time I made it using the shortbread recipe from the be-ro book!
I currently have the 39th edition priced0.99p and noticed that the most recent edition is available to buy from the website (http://www.be-ro.co.uk/) . As previous updates, I can’t imagine the recipe content is any different only the illustration.
This recipe is the one my Grandma always used and worked well, I tend to stick by it too!
Ingredients:
100g margarine
100g caster sugar
100g self raising flour
2eggs
(for chocolate cake exchange 25g of flour for cocoa powder)
Method:
Heat the oven to 180ºC, Grease two 18 cm sandwich tins.
Cream margarine and sugar, beat in eggs, one at a time.
Gently fold in flour.
Place in tins and bake for 20-25 minutes.
Simples!
Pulled pork with a bit of a kick. Perfect for a crowd!
Asian Pulled Pork
We knew we were getting visitors but unsure exactly what time or how many there would be. As we both love this dish we knew any leftovers would be well received for baits during the week.
Start with a 3kg boneless shoulder of pork; I always remove the skin and pop it straight in the oven to get crackling, it’s my favourite part of pork and would be such a waste to bin it!
Smother the pork in the marinade and pop it in the slow cooker for 6-8 hours. After this, I take out the juices and reduce them to make a sort of gravy then add to the pork once it has been ‘pulled’.
This is a great dish as it makes loads and it can be served simply with coleslaw in a bun or with chips/roast potatoes as a side. It does have a quite a kick, if you’re not so keen on spicy food, reduce the chilli powder by half, if not it leaves a tingly tongue!
Ingredients
5 tbsp soy sauce
4 tbsp mild or hot chilli powder
3 tbsp five spice powder
2 tbsp light muscovado sugar
2 garlic cloves finely chopped
4cm fresh ginger 4cm piece, peeled and finely chopped
3kg boneless pork shoulder, rind removed
Method
Mix the soy sauce, chilli powder, five spice, sugar, garlic and ginger and rub it all over the meat. Place it in the slow cooker and cook on low for 8-10 hours or until the meat is tender.
When the pork is ready, shred it using two forks and its ready to serve. The cooking juices can be put into a pan and reduced for about ten minutes then poured over the pulled pork to give it a sauce.
This recipe serves around 12 people, it is easily halved for a smaller portion. Enjoy!
I love pintrest and often find new food ideas on there. I noticed a version of a McDonald’s breakfast and decided I had to try it! I only saw the picture not the recipe but thought it should be fairly simple so I tried it yesterday and Wow!
It was surprisingly simple to make so I made a couple of extra ones. These have been frozen and I will defrost the night before I want them and heat them in the microwave, a great breakfast to take into work.
Thinking of what they are, I reckoned an easy way to replicate would be to buy muffins, sausage meat, cheese and eggs. The muffin pack consisted of four muffins so that was how many I would make!
After I made them I realised I’d probably only used half of the ingredients I bought so I worked out if I had bought two packs of muffins rather than one including the pack of 8 pork sausages, 10 cheese slices I bought in Aldi and the fresh farm eggs in the cupboard, the whole lot of 8 sausage and egg muffins worked out at £4.16 which is 52p each! A significant saving of the cost at the restaurant and just as convenient!
Fresh farm eggs are always superior to shop bought eggs and a guarantee that they are genuine free range eggs. Always a better chance of getting a double yolker and the colour of the yolks are much more natural.
Ingredients for 8 make ahead muffins
2 x four muffins
1 pack of 8 pork sausages
Pinch of salt and pepper
8 fresh eggs
Pack of cheese slices
Method
Half the muffins and toast them, remove the meat of one sausage, add salt and pepper and shape onto a patty equivalent or slightly larger than the muffin. Grill both sides of the patty until browned, place on top of the muffin, add a slice of cheese. Fry the eggs in a metal ring again to comply with the size of the muffins. Once cooked add onto the cheese, put the top of the muffin on and there you go!
Once cooled wrap in parchment paper and pop in the freezer. When you want them, take them out to defrost overnight and put them in the microwave to reheat for 1and a half minutes!
When the cold weather arrives I like to stock the freezer with soups, broth and hash. It’s ideal to take out on a night and take to work for bait. I’ve fancied making a minestrone soup for some time but never found a recipe that suited me so I thought I’d wing it!
The recipe below is what I used but next time I think I’ll swap the courgettes for either spinach or kale as I wasn’t keen on the texture. We have a few keen gardeners at work and on occasions can find the canteen strewn with lovely veg they can’t use, so that’s an ideal time to make this dish.
The dried pasta I use is a tip I picked up a while ago. I have an empty coffee jar that I put in all the little bits of pasta that are left in the bag at the end and bits of spaghetti that get broken. Perfect!
Ingredients
4 rashers of smoked bacon chopped
2 red onions peeled and finely chopped
2 chopped carrots
2 sticks of celery chopped
3 cloves of garlic peeled and finely chopped
2x400g tins of tinned tomatoes
1 glass of red wine
2 small courgettes quartered and sliced
½ cabbage chopped
1L vegetable stock
55g dried pasta
200g cannellini beans
1 bunch of basil leaves
Method
Fry off the meat in a bit of oil along with the onions, carrots, celery and garlic. Sweat slowly on low, for about 15 minutes until soft. Add the tomatoes, courgettes and red wine and simmer again for 15 minutes.
Add the cabbage, stock, pasta and beans. Stir and simmer until the pasta is cooked. You can continue to reduce if you like it thick or add more stock for a runnier soup. Add the torn basil leaves, season and serve.
Add a sprinkle of Parmesan when serving to give a different dimension!
After a a lazy morning watching James Martin on Satuday kitchen (hey, you gotta have one secret addiction!) I decided to try out his Hollandaise sauce although I’ve never even tried it.
As I’d had a bad bag of asparagus from asda the other day, I’d returned it, got a full refund and a replacement product so had some hanging around, I thought I’d better use it. I decided we would have asparagus, poached eggs and Hollandaise sauce.
Poached eggs are also something I’d not made before, and just to test me even more I was making them in advance and reheating them for the hubby coming in from football. I cooked them in boiling water for two minutes then placed them in a bowl of iced water and popped them in the fridge until I needed them.
I gathered together the few ingredients for the hollandaise, surprisingly I had all of them and didn’t have to substitute any for a change, and started my masterpiece. It was so simple, egg yolks, melted butter and white wine vinegar in the blender and there was my sauce! I naughtily (I blame James Martin) cooked my asparagus in butter, popped the eggs in boiling water for a minute, then placed on top of the asparagus, added the sauce and a sprinkle of crispy bacon bits and spring onions and voila!
The end result!
Ingredients:
12 asparagus spears, trimmed
25g butter
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
4 eggs
For the hollandaise sauce:
2 egg yolk
2 tsp lemon juice
2tsp white wine vinegar
Place the asparagus in plenty of boiling water for 3-5 minutes (depending on the thickness of the spears).
Bring a pan of salted water to the boil and add the vinegar and make a whirlpool. Crack an egg in the middle and simmer for 2-3minutes, remove and either keep warm to serve immediately or if making in advance, place in iced water in the fridge (place in boiling water for one minute when ready to serve). Repeat with the other eggs.
Make the hollandaise by putting egg yolk, lemon juice and vinegar into a blender. Slowly pour in the melted butter and it’s ready.
Place half the spears of asparagus on the plate then top with 2 poached eggs. Spoon on the hollandaise sauce and serve.
My first attempt at making a Christmas Ham.
As my fridge and freezer were a lot lighter after the Christmas Dinner, I thought it needed a bit of a boost so I made honey and mustard glazed ham. The honey was a Christmas present from my bee keeper brother in law. It turned out great!
We used some of the sliced ham as a meal for us with chips and sent a few slices over for my mam. We used some for a couple of sandwiches and After I used some to make a ham, leek and chicken pie, there was still some left. I decided to make a broth with it, using the stock I kept from when I first boiled the ham.
A visit to the supermarket whoopsy aisle proved worthwhile with a pack of diced carrot and swede reduced to 10p (so I got two) and a packet of leek and potato soup mix reduced to 25p. I had celery in the fridge and broth mix in the larder so two pans of broth cost me 45p! 😀
Hungry Hyde Household 