Rhubarb, Orange & Prosecco Jam

Well, it's been several months sinced i last posted, but it's time to get back into the kitchen & feed the houseboy up for winter. The summer has been filled with weddings (including our own wonderful day) an amazing Italian honeymoon, parties, hen do's & weekends away which have all been brilliant fun, but it's secretly quite nice now it's all calming down.

 

This time of year is great for jam making & due to our amazing (& very surprising) British summer there is an abundance of deliciously ripe fruit available. This is a recipe from a Jam & Preserves book i've had a while but never used - the recipe actaully calls for plain old boring water, but i thought i would liven it & add some prosecco & it works very well. The ginger isn't too overpowering & the orange really enhances the flavour of the rhubarb. It's quite a sweet jam (more so than say a raspberry jam) so would work well with desserts like greek yoghurt.

 

Ingredients:

• 1.5 kilos of rhubarb
• 50g of fresh root ginger
• pared rind and juice of two oranges
• two lemons
• two pints of prosecco (its just shy of a bottle - top up with a little water)
• 1.75 kilos of sugar
• 15g butter

Method:

 

Slice the rhubarb & add two thirds to a large heavy based saucepan. Finely grate the fresh ginger, zest & juice the oranges & juice the lemons. Add these to the rhubarb along with the prosecco and the two half's of lemon shell (the pectin in the lemon helps set the jam). Bring the mixture to the boil & simmer for around 45 minutes to an hour with the lid off so the fruit has reduce by about half. Allow to cool & remove the lemon shells. Add the remaining rhubarb & gently simmer for about 5 minutes until the fruit is soft. Gradually stir in the sugar over a low heat until fully dissolved, bring to the boil and reduce to a gentle simmer until it reaches setting point. Take off the heat, stir in the butter and skim the scum off the top. Pour into clean and warmed jam jars, top each with a disc of waxed paper & allow to cool completely before screwing on lids.

 

The Wedding Day

Rocky Road Biscuits

I had a lovely start to the week with a very impressive lunch in Battersea Park with Dr Feggetter & Lesley. The ladies brought the most amazing array of Smoked Salmon, Prawns, Fillet Beef, homemade Chocolate Mousse & Strawberries. After all that food & two glasses of wine, the rest of the afternoon at work was a complete right off, but well worth it. It was a slow start to the week on the cooking front, but it accumulated at the weekend in a marathon session of jam jars, sugar & puff pastry & chocolate. Happy days.

The Houseboy has been in Australia for the last two weeks celebrating his dad's 60th & this has brought some interesting points to light. Firstly, the flat has never been so immaculate, secondly i've not tripped over a pair of socks in days & thirdly as much as i love cooking, i've realised that for me its all about cooking for other people. Don't get me wrong, i still ate (the end of the world would not prevent me from eating) but i pretty much lived off veg stir fries, cheese & Merlot. I'ts just so much better when you have someone to show off to. He's back tomorrow morning (yay) & i have already prepared one of his favourite meals for tomorrow evening, Lamb Shank in Red Wine Sauce. 

Rich Tea Biscuits

On Saturday morning i had a jam making session (therapy for nearly dying at spin class again) i starting off with my Chili Jam recipe which i love making, it literally goes with everything & then had a crack at a sweet jam. About 18 months ago i tried my hand at making Bramble Jam for the first time. It was an unprecedented disaster & very disappointing. I ended up with a jam so thick you could cut it into cubes & was so sweet that one mouthful would have your teeth begging for mercy. When the lovely Rosie & i were moving my belongings across London in a van, i accidentally dropped a jar on the pavement. The jar shattered but was almost perfectly held together by the super glue jam. A fail of epic proportions.  Anyhoo, we all have the odd off day in the kitchen so i gave it another go & this time it was a success! I stuck with plain old raspberry & it turned out nicely. I'm already coming up with different ideas on unusual combinations. Rhubarb & Ginger Jelly anyone?

Toasted Hazelnuts

Sunday afternoon was spent with the ladies at a baby shower for Mrs Philips. Everyone brought along delicious dishes & it was my favourite kind of afternoon, a good chat, lots of yummy dishes & champagne. I made homemade Sausage Rolls with honey mustard & finely chopped apple & the biscuits below. The Houseboy & i found amazing little baby booties with the Union Jack flag on them. He's going to the best dressed baby in London!

Baby Shower Fare

This is a recipe from a great little book titled 'Cookie Magic' by Kate Shirazi  i thought it looked fun & a little different. I made a few changes, by toasting the hazelnuts & adding a few sultanas. They are very sweet but incredibly moreish. 

Ingredients:

• 225g plain flour
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 75g caster sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 175g unsalted butter
• a wee bit of milk

•  300g milk chocolate
• 200g mini marshmallows
• 100g hazelnuts
• 100g raisins (optional)

Method:

To bake the Rich Tea Biscuit base start as follows. Place all the dry ingredients in a bowl, add the butter & rub it using your fingertips until you have a consistency like fine breadcrumbs. Add enough milk (a dessert spoon at a time) until you have a firm dough. Roll out on a lightly floured surface, try to make as thin as possible. Cut with circular cutter, prick all over & place on a lined baking tray. Bake for 8-10 minutes until golden. 

Making the topping is a bit messy but great fun. Start by toasting the hazelnuts either in a hot pan or in the oven. Take the chocolate & break it up into little pieces in heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water. Make sure the heat isn't too high, you don't want to burn the chocolate. That would be mean & disappointing. Once fully melted add the hazelnuts, marshmallows & raisins & mix in well. Gently spoon the mixture on top of the biscuits (make sure the biscuits are cool) The chocolate is a bit like glue so you can pile it up nicely. Try and leave an edge round the mixture. Leave to set fully in the fridge before getting involved. 

The Jams

Sweet Chili Jam

WOW I'm feeling guilty....its been two weeks since my last confession blog update & people are starting to bug me about, which i think is a good sign. It's nice to think that people actually read my ramblings, apart from Mrs Rhodes who likes to point out my spelling mistakes (thanks mum) So, food wise...its been busy as usual, cooking, eating, having people over, going out. We had friends over for dinner one evening which was lovely. I tried my hand at Thai Fish Curry, which was fairly successful, although next time i would pay attention when buying the ingredients and not buy smoked haddock! Thai food is something i don't cook at home often which is silly given it's possible one of my favourite cuisines to have when out. We started out with a cheese & meat platter which was pretty far removed from the main, but nice nevertheless.

Mid Week Dinner

Mid week we hosted a wee birthday party for Mr Brown before he and the wify head off traveling round Europe, it was a great evening & the houseboy cooked up a storm producing two  shoulders of lamb which were excellent. Cooked slowly all day and marinated in garlic, lemon juice & rosemary they were delicious and there was not a bit left. Served along with potato salad, sausages, cake & lots of red wine it was a fun catch up for everyone. We also spent a fun evening with Mr & Mrs Philip & JJ (due July 20th eeek!) in which we recreated last years 'Pie Off' (Everyone cooks a course & it has to be a pie) (now limited to 2 course & we take turns- three pies in one meal was waaaaaay too much!) This round featured Mr Philips' Lamb Shank pie which was brilliantly done, and the Houseboy answered back with a tasty Pumpkin Pie. My contribution was letting the Houseboy loose with the Kenwood....

Party Canapes

Last weekend saw me attending my first ever baby shower for the lovely Rosie who is expecting twins (!) in May which is very exciting. Apart from my slight panic over helping the hostess - which resulted in me purchasing prizes for the games more suited to a hens party, it was a fantastic afternoon. I'm just glad they weren't needed in the end! I made Strawberry Cheesecake Cupcakes from the Hummingbird Cafe Cook Book, and they worked really well, very sticky & rich but well worth the effort. There are lots of babies due in the next few months and i'm planning on getting my sewing machine out to make some wee nursery cushions.

Strawberry Cheesecake Cupcakes

After the baby shower i shunned a quiet night in & heading to the 02 Arena to see Kylie in concert. It was a great night & she is brilliant to see live - best moment...? Without a doubt when she sang Locomotion... it was so funny to hear it, it brought back hilarious memories of  me at primary school discos, wearing a tartan dress with a lace collar & shuffling my feet around. The 80's were so cruel but so amazing. There were a LOT of men there (at Kylie, sadly not my school discos) & most were better dressed than us and word perfect on all the songs. Mr Brown was in fear of his virtue, but we protected him. The Browns cropped up again this week when we said a final farewell (well until we see them in France & Portugal) at the Prince Bonaparte in Bayswater. A lovely roomy pub, the menu reads excellently, the Houseboy had a delicious River Trout with Mint Gnocchi, but i won best order (again) with a Pappardelle and Rabbit dish which was served with Roasted Garlic Aioli. Apart from the pasta being a little soft, it was a winner of a dish, very filling and a good start to the week.

This is an incredibly simple recipe, with great results. Again as previous posts have proved, a food processor makes this job much quicker. You don't necessarily need to buy a big expensive one a  Kenwood CH180 Mini food Processor is small but fantastic for chopping herbs, garlic etc. Granted chopping all the peppers in this isn't possibly the fastest process- but the results are good. You can alternatively just chop all the ingredients finely. 

 

Ingredients:

• 8 red peppers
• 10 red chillies
• 8 garlic cloves
• 1 inch lump of fresh ginger
• 450g cherry tomatoes 
• 750g caster sugar
• 250mls red wine vinegar

Mince the peppers, chillies, garlic, ginger & tomatoes. Add to a pan along with the vinegar & sugar. Simmer for 50mins - an hour. Spend the last 10 or so minutes stirring to make sure it doesn't stick. there is no exact science here, sometimes it takes longer. Just keep an eye out as you don't want to burn it or let it get too thick. 

As with the Beetroot Chutney (my first post), make sure the jars are clean & warm. See back on how to do it. 

Flowers In The Park