Wild Garlic and Cheddar Scones

Wild garlic is plentiful at the moment; we are lucky enough to live near a huge supply. I’ve tried a few recipes using it, wild garlic puree and garlic mash, I decided to try it in something different.  I love Cheese scones and usually put mixed herbs in them but I substituted the herbs for chopped wild garlic.  After the shock of how green the dough looked, I cooked them anyway, once cooked the colour calmed slightly and they tasted amazing!

I think the next batch I make will put on top of a beef casserole as beef cobbler.

Ingredients:

175 g Be-Ro Self Raising Flour

20g wild garlic, chopped

25 g margarine

75 g cheese, grated

1 egg

2 tablespoons milk

 

Method:

 

Heat oven to 220ºC and grease a baking tray.

Rub together flour and margarine. Stir in cheese and wild garlic.

Mix to a soft dough with the egg and milk, save a little for glazing.

Roll out and cut out the scones.  Place on the baking tray and brush with egg and milk and sprinkle with cheese.

Cook for about 10-15 minutes.

Saturday Night Fake Away

Saturday night is usually take away night but last night we decided to put one of Mr Hyde’s Christmas presents to use, the pizza stone! So Saturday fake away it was, home made Pizzas.
We used Jamie Oliver’s recipe for the dough (Link is here)  and added stuff we had in the house along with mozzarella. It only took minutes to cook and was bloody lovely! The dough does take an hour to prove so handy to start before you’re really hungry.

    

Roux

A roux is a mixture of equal quantities of melted butter and flour that is cooked in a pan and used as the base for thickening sauces such as béchamel.

A basic white sauce an be used for loads of recipes like béchamel sauce for lasagne, parsley sauce for fish or my favourite, cheese sauce for macaroni cheese.

Ingredients:

60g butter

60g plain flour

600ml milk

Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

1 bay leaf (optional)

Method:

Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat. Stir in the flour then whisk in the milk a little at a time, stirring constantly until you have a smooth, slightly thick sauce.

Remove from the heat; season with salt and pepper. For additional flavour I like to add garlic, onion and a bay leaf, removed before serving.

Shortcrust Pastry

Another baking basic is shortcrust pastry,this is used in a few of my blog posts. As of most of my basics they come from the use of my Grandma’s Be-Ro book. It is so easy to make and much cheaper than buying ready made stuff.
Ingredients:
225g plain flour
Pinch salt
50g margarine
50g Lard
2 tablespoons cold water
(25g caster sugar if you are making sweet pastry)

Method:
Mix flour and salt in a bowl and rub in the fat, mix with cold water to make a stiff dough.
Knead lightly on a floured surface then roll out as required.

On a lazy day I have tried just bunging all the ingredients in the food processor and that has worked too!

Yorkshire Puddings

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!

Be-Ro Recipe Book

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 39^th 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.

Basic Sponge Cake

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!