I Feel the Need...

... the need for CHEEEEEEEEEEEEESE!

I shall start by confessing that the idea for this blog was hatched in my head yesterday morning, but now I'm not really in a cheerful and chatty mood because one of my beloved furry kitty children is missing. He didn't come home last night and based on his normal behaviour, that means that something is deeply wrong. I'm staying hopeful that he will come home, but in the meantime, you can imagine that I'm in a really heart sore state. It's times like these though that the subject of my blog can be eerily accurate.

You see, when you're sad or miserable or even just had a crappy day, there is nothing quite like a bit of comfort food and if you were raised in the Western World, a "go to" comfort food is Mac & Cheese! I mean, if you live in India, it'll most likely be something else (most likely involving curry) and in the rain forests of the Amazon it may be bat or bug, but for most of us... mac & cheese! Now, there are many perfectly good "cheats" out there... microwave meals that will get you comfort in mere minutes, but if you have the time... I highly recommend making this one from scratch. Yeah, I know... I'm confusing you all, but I said you could cheat, I didn't say you always should :-)

Now... I'm not going to tell you how to boil pasta. At least, not today. I'm fairly sure that there's an entire blog in that one! So - suffice it to say that you should boil pasta and don't underestimate things and only cook a small amount... you're going to want a second helping (and possibly a third!). So while the past is cooking you need to gather your cheeses of choice. I say "cheeses" because although this can be made with just one cheese - a strong cheddar for example - it is far more fun to play with the flavour and use more than one. I confess (reference store cupboard cooking) that I don't keep varieties of cheese in my fridge, so I bought some specially. I can't really afford some of the more exotic cheeses, but you should experiment with your favourites and try some new flavours and you could be very surprised at the result. I already had cheddar (the big red thing), so I bought some mozzarella (the pale stuff) and a teeny tiny bit of blue. It's pre-packed small like that for lunchboxes and picnics, but works just as well for only needing a tiny bit for cooking :-). NOT pictured is the cream cheese. He was particularly shy and lurked out of camera shot... mostly because he was too heavily branded to appear in the shot!

Now you start your sauce by making a basic roux. What? No. Not a baby kangaroo.... Unless you are a kangaroo yourself and are married to a kangaroo, there is no way you could make a baby kangaroo. And certainly not in your kitchen... with cheese. NO - I will NOT entertain the idea of a turkey baster.... Do you mind if I climb out of the hole of kangaroo genetics and head back to the kitchen? Oh thank you. So as I was saying... you start with a roux. This is flour and butter (or marg or oil). Melt the butter in a pot and stir in some flour until you have a thick paste. Now start adding milk to the mix until your paste has become a thick sauce. Now, you add your grated cheese while keeping the mix on a low heat and stirring continuously. I used about 200g of plain cream cheese to add some richness, about 10g of blue cheese to add a bit of tang and "lots" of cheddar and mozzarella. For the quantity I was making, I also added 1.5 - 2 teaspoons of Dijon mustard as well as black pepper and salt to taste.

By now, your pasta should be cooked (but if not, it's not serious... just wait for it to get done). Drain it and then stir the sauce into the pasta (not the other way around, just in case you have too much sauce and not enough pasta lol). Then transfer this to your ovenproof dish of choice, coat liberally with cheese and oven bake for 20 - 40 minutes or until the cheese is a bubbly golden brown.

Now - there are some fun things you can add to this dish. You can fry up some chopped up onions and bacon and mushrooms and stir that into the mix. You could add just about anything to the dish to turn it into a solid and filling meal. Personally though I think that it's good just the way it is.

Unfortunately, it was sooooo good, that it's all gone now. I had some and shared some with my folks and I have to confess that I definitely didn't make enough :-) So. As I don't have any comfort food here to see me through my worry, I'll settle instead for a cup of hot chocolate drunk next to a crackling fire!

Until next time...

Cheat 'n Eat

This isn't a commentary on diets and eating plans, nor is it a suggestion that you go out for dinner with partners other than your own... Far from it. In fact this is about it being ok to "cheat" to get to the food you want to eat :-) The idea came from Ruby, although indirectly to be honest. You see, she has this itty bitty wand with bigga lotta power and when she feels like it - which she often does - she uses her awesome powers to grant me shortcuts around the kitchen! No, unfortunately it isn't as spectacular as going to sleep with the kitchen looking like a bomb hit it and waking up to a perfect and sparkling one. What she does is make sure that stubborn, baked on food washes off quickly or she stops the oil from spattering all over the stove. Little things that make a big difference!

It got me thinking about cooking and shortcuts in the pursuit of food. Let's be honest... unless you're home like Miss Twinset or have staff like the Other One, the chances are that many of us are out at work all day and coming home hungry and hurried. Yes, I can cook a meal from scratch, but if there are shortcuts that exist... why not use them to cut down on the time it takes to get rid of the "hungry" part of my day? Before you all gasp in horror... I'm not suggesting that we live on take-away food (although there is some good stuff out there), what I'm suggesting is that we make use of all those wonderful cook-in sauces & premixed packs (you know the ones... just add 400g of chicken, some milk and an onion). Even frozen pastry or oven chips are a shortcut to getting a meal done!

You see, a real chef would tell you that you should make pastry from scratch because it's simple and it tastes better, but it also takes a while! Yes, you could peel potatoes and cut them up into chips, but that also takes time. When you need to get a hot, tasty meal on the table, there is nothing to stop you from making use of these "time saving devices". Yes - technically it's cheating - but it works!

So - thanks to a mischievous and mostly good natured red sparkly kitchen fairy - the "Cheat" is officially on the list of things TO DO!!

Until next time...

A Wonderful Winter Warmer!

It's a truth that cannot be denied... I am a Winter person! Now, I can hear many of you poo pooing the idea... (What? Of course I can say that. It's a real saying and nothing to do with something yucky and deeply personal... go back to your martini and be quiet)... where was I? Oh yes, with many of you not agreeing with me. You see, I don't like being too hot and after all, even if you're starkers, you can still be totally too hot! Not. That. I. Will. Be. Getting. Starkers. I'm sure that some well-meaning nature types may try to protect the rare albino specimen that will be my untanned self!! But enough about that. Basically, in Winter, you can always grab a warmer jumper (sweater) or sit next to a roaring fire and then there's all the yummy food and drink... like hot chocolate and mulled wine - that got the Other One's attention! Even with rain or snow, it's a far more personally comfortable time of year, but that's just me. If you're a Summer person, you'll have a whole slew of reasons why that is and that is good too. For the record... I like ice-cream in Winter 'cos it doesn't melt so fast :-)

Anyway, this wasn't just an opportunity for me to tell you dodgy personal things or my theories on weather, but actually about food. In particular, a particularly good Winter Warmer that you'll always find in our home throughout the season. Hearty Vegetable Soup! Now... there are some cooking shows that will claim that you can make this by using up whatever is in the crisper of your fridge, but I can tell you for free that I wouldn't recommend trying it with the contents of MY crisper (chocolate, garlic butter and an ostrich egg. It's a long story. No. I said no.). To be honest, I use up my veg for my meals or I freeze the extras, but if you're the kind of person (yes YOU Miss Twinset... I've seen your OCD fridge!) that regularly has these things in your fridge, you'll save yourself the step of going out to buy the ingredients (or defrosting them). For the rest of us and in particular, the Other One, we'll need to go and buy the ingredients. Now, as you can see, they don't look like much, but for those of you who know the story of "stone soup", you'll know that you can make a lot with very little. In particular, we're going to make a delicious and nutritious meal out of just the simple ingredients you see above. Yes, you could use celery instead of the celery leaves, but it's all the same in the end.

What you need to do is peel and chop all the veggies to about the same size. I'm not suggesting that you measure them and draw attention to the under-achieving bits, but as long as they're roughly the same size then it'll all cook at the same speed. Heat up a little oil in a large pot and start by frying the onion. How large? Well, my darling Miss T, that depends on how much soup you intend to make... I use a 5litre pot and make about half. Now, back to the onions. You want them to be "sweated down", but as my Dad often says... if it's brown it's ok, if it's black ... it's buggered! So preferably, before they get brown and definitely before they go black! When the onions are ready, add the carrots, potato, turnip etc and fry them up for a bit. Add the tomato towards the end of your frying period and don't worry if the veg are still crunchy. After all, it's a soup and you're going to be cooking it a bit to get all the flavour to mature (and to give the veg time to soften lol).

Now at this point, it's important for me to make sure that the Other One doesn't chuck a quart of vodka into the pot. I know that many soups and stews incorporate alcohol and I have every intention of trying a few this season, but vodka is NOT an ingredient in my veg soup... although I'm touched that she was willing to sacrifice some of her stock for my meal :-) Anyway. While the veggies have been frying, you need to prepare your stock. You can use fresh or powdered - whatever you prefer. In fact, you can choose beef stock or chicken stock or vegetable stock according to your personal taste. I use a veg stock cube infused with olive oil and black pepper and mix (roughly) as per directions. Pour this into the pot and add tomato paste which will enhance the taste and give it a great colour, along with fresh cracked black pepper, seasoned sea salt, garlic salt and any other herbs or spices that you'd like to add. Just remember that the flavour will mature as all the ingredients cook up, so don't over spice at the beginning of the cooking process! The final touch is to add the celery leaves (unless you used celery, in which case it's already in) and an ingredient that has recently been introduced to the recipe... corn! You can either cut corn off of a fresh cob or you can do like I do and buy a tin of fresh corn and chuck it in! Less clean up :-)

It's important to taste the soup regularly and add more salt or pepper if necessary and equally important to remember not to leave the soup to boil for too long. You bring it all to the boil and then turn the temperature down low and let it simmer gently for a few hours until the veg is soft and the soup is just right. You may ask what you can do while you're waiting for the soup to cook... well, with the Tipsy Tarts around, this is never a question I have to ask and I can almost guarantee it's going to involve alcohol in some form or other. In Winter, a great red wine is never far from Miss Twinset's hands, although she likes to indulge in a warming sherry (or 10). The Other One swears by her spirits (and not the ones that go bump in the night), but she's intrigued by other options like Gluhwein or Irish coffee and the only way to get her to be quiet was to promise to try them with her... so keep a look out!

Ok, so when you've staggered from the drinking side of the kitchen back to the stove and discovered that the soup is ready, dish yourself a large bowl full, grab some home-made seed loaf and curl up next to a roaring fire. Enjoy a little Winter Warming!

Until next time....