Categories
Sweet Treats

The best ‘Everything but the Kitchen Sink’ Cookies

Right off the bat, I have to admit, baking isn’t my strongest point… but I stand by these ‘Everything but the Kitchen Sink’ Cookies being worth your time. They’re light, chewy, and soft, with added sweetness and crunch from the oats, nuts and chocolate chips. All in all, they’re pretty simple to make, and are very adaptable depending on what you have on hand.

The ‘Everything but the Kitchen Sink’ Cookie isn’t that revolutionary to be fair, but they are exactly what I want on a cosy Friday night. And they are the perfect level of effort to feel like I’ve done something productive and non screen related with my evening, without taking the entire night. Plus at the end of a couple hours you have cookies for the night and the entire weekend. Wins all round.

I make the cookies my favourite way because, I don’t love overly sweet desserts, and I like texture and crunch. The best thing about a cookie though is how customizable they are. You could swap things out for whatever you like, mini marshmallows and chocolate chips, or fudge chips and pecans for a pecan pie cookie.

Jump to Recipe

Ingredients

There are no strange ingredients here, the only one that is potentially slightly unusual is some natural yogurt, and I add that because I like the texture it adds to all bakes, a more springy chewy texture. It’s like a baking failsafe i find, it just seems to make all my baking work out well.  But I will say these aren’t standard cookie texture because of it.

The actual cookie dough is vanilla flavoured with some good quality vanilla extract. I also use salted butter in my baking with no additional salt added. Mainly because unsalted butter is not a favourite of mine, so it’s never in the house. I will make the occasional exception, but not often. If you use unsalted butter, then you’ll need to add a generous pinch of fine sea salt.

In terms of the extras I add in, there are some oats for texture and white and milk chocolate chips for some added sweetness and chocolatiness. A cookie without chocolate is always a tiny bit disappointing, no matter how sophisticated they sound. Finally some pecans and almonds for crunch and flavour. None of them are overly strong flavours so the cookies still firmly taste very vanilla-y. I also don’t pack the cookies super full, so they aren’t overwhelmed by the extras.

Other options of things to add include; crushed pretzels if you can’t do nuts for some crunch, mini marshmallows, raisins or dates, fudge chips or peanut butter chips.

Prep and Baking the ‘Everything but the Kitchen Sink’ Cookies

As I said earlier, these aren’t difficult to make. Cream the butter and sugars, make sure you have room temperature butter, then in a separate jug whisk the egg, yogurt and vanilla together. Beat the egg mixture well into the creamed butter and sugar, if it doesn’t quite seem to mix don’t worry, once you add the dry ingredients it will combine completely. I give mine a final whisk to make sure it is all combined. It ends up the texture of soft scoop ice cream and tastes like perfect cookie dough.

Then add all the fun stuff, stir it all through so its evenly distributed. The final frustrating step is to chill the cookie batter, so patience is required! The butter needs to re-solidify before baking so it doesn’t just leak out of the cookies when baking. This also isn’t the firmest of mixes so needs a bit of chill to keep it bound together before you bake. It’s a vital step, so I really wouldn’t advise skipping it. Scoop heaped tablespoons of the mixture onto a lined baking sheet and bake at 200°C for 12 minutes for a crunchier cookie, or 180°C for 14 minutes for a softer texture.

Final Notes

I am a bit hesitant to share these cookies, as they are very much Fern biased, but I hope you like them as much as I do. I suppose that’s the thing about cooking for yourself, you end up always making exactly what you like! Good for me, not so good for anyone else I cook for. Hopefully everyone likes my style of cooking as much as I do.

I’ll rate these cookies as a success though because when I finish one, I think about eating another. Which is unusual for me. They’re not too big and claggy and they aren’t overly rich and sweet. I think these ‘Everything but the Kitchen Sink Cookies’ are perfectly balanced.

As much as I love them, I can’t eat twelve cookies in 3 days, so bake as many as you want for the first batch, then you can scoop the rest onto a lined baking sheet and freeze it before baking it. Once the cookie batter is frozen take them off the baking sheet and transfer to a freezer bag. Then you have cookies ready for whenever you fancy. Simply take as many as you want out of the freezer and bake for 15 minutes.

‘Everything but the Kitchen Sink’ Cookie Recipe

Makes 12 cookies – 25 minutes prep / 30 minutes rest / 12 minutes cooking – Scale & Mixing bowl & Baking sheet

Ingredients:

100g butter
100g caster sugar
25g soft brown sugar
1 egg (make up to 125ml with plain yogurt, approx 75g)
1tsp vanilla extract
100g plain flour
1tsp baking powder
50g oats
50g choc chips
50g chopped nuts

Method

Preheat oven to 200°C

Cream the butter and sugars.

In separate jug crack the egg and make up to the 125ml mark with plain yogurt. Add the vanilla extract and whisk together.

Beat the egg mixture into the creamed butter and sugar.

Add the flour and baking powder and whisk until smooth.

Stir through the oats, choc chips and nuts until evenly distributed.

Chill the cookie batter in the fridge for at least half an hour, ideally an hour.

Line a baking sheet with baking paper.

Once chilled, scoop heaped tablespoons of batter onto the lined sheet.

Bake for 12-14 minutes.

Cool on a wire rack so that the cookies don’t sweat in their own steam.

Enjoy!!

Categories
Blog Posts

Welcome to November – Meal planning with style and substance!

Welcome to November! In my opinion a very solid month. It’s slightly more difficult to stay motivated with its dark nights and mornings, but it makes up for that with the cozy comfort factor. It also has the added perks of lots of beautiful sparkling lights going up everywhere.

According to the national trust website (https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/discover/gardening-tips/guide-to-seasonal-food#rt-november) things in season include;

All perfect for vitamins and keeping the immune system healthy in the winter months. And actually, some of my favourite vegetables to cook with. I’m excited to use them as much as I can!

November for me

For me it’s going to be a month of economising. I have a trip planned at the beginning of December, and I want to be able to buy some new clothes before I go and lots of amazing food while I’m out there. So, this month will be about lots of cheap eating, but make it delicious.

My plans for keeping the costs down mainly centre around bulk cooking cheaper meals. You would think cooking for one person would be cheap, but for some reason it still seems to be super expensive. That is life these days I suppose. So to bulk cook you need to have a solid meal plan that works for you.

I generally don’t plan my meals; I enjoy the search for inspiration on what to cook. I am by nature quite an emotional eater, and although I’ve mainly conquered the eating my feelings side of that, I still eat depending on what my body and mind seem to crave at that time. Which makes meal planning a bit of a hopeless endeavour for me. I always go off what I planned to eat a week ago.

So, I don’t know how this is going to work out for me, but I’m determined to do it so I can save some money. In fact I’m going to give myself a challenge and try and document my progress on the blog.

The Challenge

My challenge on paper doesn’t sound like much of a challenge, but for someone who loves food and variety, it will be. It is going to be to spend £100 on food for the entire month of November. That’s 30 days, so 90 meals and some snack and sweet treats.

If I’m not going to give up on this 10 days in, it will need to include varied, balanced and filling meals. I could eat porridge for breakfast, lunch and dinner for 30 days, which would probably only cost me £20, but I’d hate my life. And as November is a good month, I don’t want to ruin it with rubbish meals.

The plan will be to buy as many of the staple ingredients as possible in the first week, and then have a small surplus left to but some weekly fresh ingredients. But the more I enter into the supermarkets, the more I’ll be tempted to buy, so we’ll try and keep it to a minimum. Should save a lot of time in my life, but I anticipate some days will be a real struggle.

Once I’ve finalised my meal plans and done my initial shop, I’ll let you know what the months eating will look like. I’ll also share with you the recipes I use, and some more hacks to keep meals interesting and how to use the same base in different ways.

When I’ve been trying to make my lists and plans, I can’t lie, I’m scared. I did a trial online Tesco shop and it really was tight. I’m hoping with a shop at Lidl or Aldi I can cut costs further, but I think I need to shave some things off to keep it down. I really want to make sure that I have balanced and nutritious meals, so that means ideally 5 a day, a solid amount of protein to keep things filling and as much plant varieties as possible for optimal gut microbiome health.

Anyway, hopefully I’ll smash the challenge and save myself some money! I won’t tell you how much I usually spend on food shopping, as I think it might horrify some people. Nice food is my main treat to myself, so I feel justified in the amount I spend. It makes me happy.

Have a great month!

I hope that you have a great November, and that you get to eat lots of great food! I’m hoping to post soon the next in the ‘One-person Roast’ series, and a post on planning and cooking for a dinner party. I am hosting a dinner party, but I won’t be including it in my challenge amount. A dinner party for 8 doesn’t come cheap, even when you do cook a more budget meal. Hats off to all the big families who feed 6 people every day. It could never be me!

I will leave you with my drink of the month, which is in fact, just the drink I keep making myself at the moment. It’s a Rum and Tonic, which sounds weird, but tastes great. Having been to the Caribbean twice this year (big flex) I have a surplus of rum. I’m not one for drinking neat spirits, although the Angostura 1919 rum doesn’t need a mixer, so I do save that for the neat spirit drinking, and to impress anyone who comes over. But the other ones I’m happy to use as a mixer in other drinks.

I’m keeping that island life alive with this drink, its long and refreshing, the perfect aperitivo. I think when you mix citrus and alcohol, you’re supposed to shake it with ice, but I don’t bother here because I’m lazy, and normally just want the drink asap.

Trini Tonic Recipe

Add ice to a glass, pour over two shots of rum (spiced if you want).

Squeeze in half a lime and drop the rest of the lime into the drink.

Top up with tonic water.

Add a generous dash of Angostura bitters and stir through.

Categories
Mid-week Meals

No Stress Herb Crusted Hake

Midweek meals aren’t always inspiring and creative dishes. Time and energy are not always on your side. Every so often though you feel ready to make something fun! This Herb Crusted Hake is ready for those times. It might sound overly complicated, but it is dead easy. It takes about 10 minutes to put together, is filled with flavour and vegetables and tastes amazing.

As you might expect it’s a one-person recipe, everything you need to have a balanced and tasty meal ready to eat in 40 minutes. It’s easy to scale up to more people, just multiply everything by the amount of people you’re serving. Timings would be exactly the same.

Jump to recipe

Ingredients

I’ve chosen hake here, because it was cheap in the supermarket, but this dish would work with any white fish. I probably wouldn’t use salmon or smoked haddock as they have stronger flavours and the herby crust is slightly more subtly flavoured so wouldn’t stand up to it. In terms of herbs I went for mint and parsley for a really fresh flavour that everyone can enjoy. It also has a slight chilli kick with a green finger chilli. I don’t think it was too spicy at all, but it depends on your tolerance and how spicy the chilli ends up being.

To bulk out the herbs I use a mix of bread and almonds. Bread keeps everything bound together, where possible use white crusty bread, or stale bread. Preferably not sliced bread as it tends to not make breadcrumbs as well. Almonds add some crunch, flavour and they also release their oils when they are whizzed up and help to stick everything together. If you are allergic to nuts, you can leave them out, and add slightly more bread or substitute with sunflower seeds.

For the rice and vegetable side dish, I roasted some vegetables alongside the fish. Mainly to save on dishes to wash up, and because I think roasted vegetables taste the best. As for rice, I had some red rice, which goes perfectly with fish, it’s a firmer textured rice and has a nutty flavour to it. For this side dish a firmer rice works better, so a brown basmati or red or wild rice is actually preferable. White rice would be fine, but I’m not the best at cooking rice, and I find it a bit temperamental. Whereas with firmer rice varieties, you can bung in a ton of water, and the rice doesn’t seem to overcook. But it’s up to you. Whatever is to hand is the rule of midweek cooking.

Prep & Cooking

The handiest of all cooking gadgets is the blender, especially when chopping feels like too much effort. The herb crust will take longer to make without a blender to be honest, you can chop everything with a knife but you’ll be there a while. A blender saves on time when you want to eat quickly. Stick everything in and blend. You’re done in 2 minutes.

Everything else is super easy as well! It’s a very low effort meal. Which is exactly what you want on a Monday night. Roast everything for the same time as the fish. I used mushrooms and cherry tomatoes because they’re quick to cook. I also used cabbage, as I had one leftover from last week that needed using. Roasting cabbage is so easy and tastes amazing. I quartered the cabbage and cut out the tough stem and put it whole on the roasting dish. Then when it came out the oven, I simply sliced it into one-inch sections and added to the rice with the mushrooms and tomatoes.

If you’re going to use different vegetables, like aubergine, carrots, peppers etc. you will need to cook them for longer, 50-60 minutes. So, cook them separately from the fish. Adding the fish in for the last 25 minutes.

Final notes

Midweek meals can be tasty and low effort. This Herb Crusted Hake is fresh, with a Mediterranean feel, but it suits a grey day that needs brightening up. It’s hearty and filling enough to be a solid autumnal recipe too!

Enjoy the fish with a spoonful of natural yogurt mixed with some lemon juice as a slightly sour little sauce on the side.

If you wanted to turn this into a meal for when you have guests, multiply the herb crust recipe by 4 and use a whole or side of fish as a centrepiece for your meal, and serve it with a lemon sauce, roast vegetables, salad, and crispy shallot rice with butter.

But it’s just as impressive serving one person on a Monday night. Here is the recipe!

Herb Crusted Hake – Recipe

Serves 1 – 10 active minutes / 30 minutes cooking – Blender & 1 ovenproof dish & 1 saucepan

Ingredients

Herb crust:

Small handful of mint

Small handful of parsley

1 Green chilli

15 Almonds or a tbsp sunflower seeds

Crusty end of baguette

1 tbsp lemon juice

1 tbsp Olive oil

Rest of ingredients:

Hake fillet

Handful of mushrooms

Handful of cherry tomatoes

Quarter of a sweetheart cabbage

1/3 cup of rice (I used red rice, but you can use any rice)

20g butter

2 tbsp natural or Greek yogurt

1 tsp lemon juice

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C

In a blender add all the herb crust ingredients and whizz up until you get a breadcrumb consistency.

Oil the hake and put on in an ovenproof dish, pat the herb crust all over the top of the fish, covering as much as you can of the edges.

Wash the vegetables, and add to the ovenproof dish with a tiny drizzle of olive oil.

Bake for 25-30 minutes

Cook rice to packet instructions.

Remove the fish and vegetables, drain the rice.

Add the vegetables and the butter to the steaming rice and stir until the butter has melted.

Serve the fish and vegetable rice with lemon slices and the yogurt mixed with the lemon juice.

Once you’re done, check out my other recent posts! Don’t forget to leave a comment!

Categories
Friday Night Dinners

Easy One Person Pork Belly Roast

It’s Sunday night and it’s the first day of October that’s under 10°C, I’ve done nothing all day but cosy up inside. Now it’s time for dinner and the only real option is a roast. If you live on your own or have ever lived on your own, you know a roast can just feel so out of reach. Too many dishes, too much food, too much effort.

I’m here today to tell you, it’s possible! I successfully made a perfect pork belly roast for one person, and it was rich, warming and comforting. Most excitingly, it took hardly any effort on my part. If you’ve made a standard roast for a family of four or five, you know the hardest part is the timing and oven space. When you’re cooking for one, space is really not an issue. Timing is of course important, but I’m about to take all the guesswork out of that.

The Meal

Sunday dinner – Slow roast thyme and garlic pork belly slices with roasted autumn vegetables and creamy mashed potatoes.

My recipe for slow roast pork belly is adapted from my brother’s pork belly roast he made for the family last year. The trick was to seal, the meat part only, firmly in foil so that it cooked in its own fat and juices and stays moist and flavourful, leaving the skin and fat on the top exposed. The crackling on top becomes nice and crispy instead of staying gelatinous and sad (unless you like this, in which case, cover the pork belly entirely). Roasting vegetables at the same time as the meat maximises oven usage and means less dishes to use. I went for some mini squash, leek and onion.

Normally I’m firmly in the roast potato camp, however, there isn’t anything much in the way of juices to make gravy with pork belly. I could have made an onion gravy, but that felt too much like effort, so to have a more smooth or a different texture I went with creamy cheesy mashed potatoes. It went together excellently, I cannot tell a lie!

Jump to Recipe

Ingredients

So for this I used Lidl pork belly slices, it came with 5, and the roast was so good I did it on two nights, and had two on one night and three on the other. Off the top of my head it was around £4.50 for the pack, so whilst not cheap, for a splurge Sunday meal, not extortionate. You want to make sure they have a nice layer of fat on the top for maximum crackling and flavour. To cook, salt all sides of the pork. Then I had a piece of foil, with a piece of greaseproof paper over the top. I laid out two peeled whole garlic cloves on the paper, and some thyme stems, and then bunched the pork slices together on top. Then fold the foil and paper around the pork so its secure and as little juice as possible can escape. Leave the fatty tops exposed. Finally, score the fat on top and sprinkle with flaky sea salt. I had a roasting salt mix from the Cornish Salt Company which was perfect. I also drizzle a little olive oil, but that’s probably unnecessary. Put the foil parcel in a dish, or on a baking sheet, because each time I’ve tried this it does still leak, and no one wants to clean that off of their oven.

I also had a Lidl mini squash and leeks. Mini squashes are super cute! I just cut mine into quarters and scooped out the seeds of one quarter to roast, you don’t even need to peel it, you can then scrape the cooked squash flesh out when you eat. Peeling squash is painful and feels like a recipe for cutting yourself, so I just don’t bother. I also sprinkled it with smoked paprika and drizzled in olive oil.

For the leek, I chopped the top couple of inches off, and then in half, so I was left with a 6 inch (ish) or 15cm piece of leek. I then peeled off the first couple of layers of the leek which is where dirt tends to hide, then I roasted the whole thing. When it’s done, you can peel off the next couple of layers, and you’re left with buttery soft leek. It’s the easiest and best way to cook them in my opinion. The only thing to mention is, you probably need quite a substantial leek. A thin one won’t survive you peeling off so many layers.

Pork Belly Roast Timings

As previously mentioned, the timing of a roast is imperative. So, I did an hour slow cook with the pork on 150°C and then the last 30 minutes on high temp, when I also popped the vegetables in the oven. While the pork is slow cooking you can prep all the vegetables, but there was barely any as I went for big chunks to minimise preparation time. I also peeled and diced my potatoes and left them in a saucepan of cold water. Then you can go and chill for 45 minutes whilst the pork slow cooks. Once your hour is up, bung in the veg and up the temperature to 200°C for 30 minutes.

When you have 10 minutes to go, boil a kettle, drain the cold water off the potatoes and get them on a boil. As long as you’ve diced the potatoes quite small, think 2cm chunks then they’ll cook pretty quickly, 10 minutes or so. If you wanted some green vegetables like broccoli or beans, I stick them in with the potatoes for the last 5 minutes because I don’t want to use another pan. Once you can smush a potato chunk with a spoon against the side of the pan, they’re good enough to mash. Drain them all, separate out any veg if you have it and get to mashing. Or whisking in my case as I don’t have a potato masher. Make sure to add generous amounts of butter and milk for optimal richness.

The pork can do with a bit of a rest before you eat it, so I’d suggest taking it out just before you mash the potatoes, this will give it time to reabsorb some of the juices it lost when cooking and makes sure it’s nice and moist. I’m sure a professional chef would say it needs resting more, but then it’s cold. Around 2-5 minutes is good as they’re such small pieces of meat. I did also pour over the leftover liquid once I’d plated up, but I’m 99% sure it was pure fat so that might ick you out. Up to you on that one.

Final Notes

Honestly this was a revelation. You need to try it! It was so super easy, and I had the nicest meal. To be honest, once you’ve mastered it, the whole meal scales up really well. You’ll just have to google cooking times of the meat with a big joint, because it would take at least double the time.

I’ll have a chicken, lamb edition coming soon. I haven’t figured out a one person beef roast yet, but we’ll make it happen don’t you worry!

Recipe – Pork Belly Roast

1 Hour 45 minutes – Serves 1 – 1 x Baking sheet & 1 x Saucepan

2 or 3 pork belly slices

2 Garlic cloves

5 sprigs of thyme

Sea Salt Flakes

¼ of a small squash

½ a big leek

1 Onion

1 tsp Smoked Paprika

2 medium potatoes

50ml Semi Skimmed Milk

20g Butter

20g Cheddar Cheese

Preheat the oven to 150°C

Salt the pork slices with fine salt.

Lay out a piece of foil and greaseproof paper the same size on top, both big enough to fold around the pork and seal tightly.

Peel two cloves of garlic. Lay on the paper and foil, add the thyme stems. Put the pork on top, fat side up.

Fold the foil and paper around the pork so its tight to the pork, leaving the tops exposed.

Score the fat on top lightly, drizzle with a tiny bit of olive oil and sprinkle with a tiny bit of sea salt.

Put on a baking sheet, or in a mini baking dish. Put in the oven for an hour.

Prep the Squash, Leek and Onion. Scoop the seeds out of the squash and sprinkle with paprika. Peel the outer couple of layers off the leek and chop the onion in half with the skin on.

Peel and chop the potatoes into 2cm chunks and put in a saucepan with cold water.

When the pork has been in an hour, turn the temperature up to 200°C and add the squash, leek and onion to the baking sheet the pork is on, or on it’s own separate baking sheet. Make sure the onion is skin side down. Add a tiny bit of olive oil if desired, but it’s not necessary.

Cook for 30 minutes at the high temperature.

10 minutes before the meat and vegetables finish, boil a kettle, drain the cold water off the potatoes and boil them for 10 minutes. Drain the water after 10 minutes, or once a potato chunk smushes against the side of the pan with only a little pressure. Let the potatoes steam off in the saucepan.

Take the meat out and let it rest.

Add butter and milk to the potatoes. Mash. Add the cheddar cheese grated, and mix in until melted.

Take the vegetables out of the oven, plate up and enjoy!!

Love Fern

See my other recent posts

Categories
Blog Posts

Welcome to October!

One of my favourite months of the year is finally here. It has that lovely autumnal feeling of crisp mornings, darker evenings and the unique autumn smell I’m not sure I could pin down. Damp leaves and soil mixed with the soft smell of dew maybe.

I live by a park overrun by squirrels, and they are loving life as much as I am. I heard them chirping away to each other even today with their full cheeks. I imagine I’ll be much the same throughout the month to be honest.

Most importantly though, a new month brings a renewed passion for cooking, different ingredients and more warming hearty dishes! So, what have we got on the table?

October Vegetables & Flavours

I checked out Abel & Cole’s All British Veg Box https://www.abelandcole.co.uk/british-vegetable-box for some extra ideas of what’s in season this month, listed below are a few of the key ingredients I’ll be cooking with.

  • Apples
  • The last few blackberries
  • Brassicas – Cabbage, Cauliflower, Broccoli
  • Leeks
  • Potato
  • Squash
  • Pumpkin
  • Kale
  • Chard
  • Marrow
  • Cavolo Nero

This is a really fantastic selection of vegetables, lots of varieties and lots of nutrients. My personal favourites are Cauliflower, Leeks and Cavolo Nero. Think my French Cauliflower Cheese Pie, leek and potato soup. Or last year I discovered roasted leeks, where you peel of the crispy outside layers to revel super tender and soft inside layers that melt in the mouth. And the Italian classic Cavolo Nero cooks down much more easily than traditional kale, so I find really easy to cook and eat.

I really wanted to go apple picking this year and have been desperately trying to find some pick your own farms, but they are surprisingly few and far between. Lots for pick your own pumpkins, but hardly any for apples. If anyone knows of any good ones, please leave me a comment below! I found a few based around Kent, but that’s not exactly nearby me. So, I think I’ll be resorting to scrumping when I see a heavily laden tree, within reach of a public space of course. Surely the owner isn’t going to eat them all!? I’ve also been rather curtailed in my activity because unfortunately I ruptured my Achillies Tendon playing netball and am hobbling around in a rather fetching black Velcro boot that has a permanent high heel. One leg is now longer than the other, so my lopsided gait is most unbecoming.

Of course, who can forget the rise of the squash, from long forgotten vegetable to one that is found everywhere. I have a personal preference for the little, tiny squash you find now. Aldi always have a great selection of them this time of year. Although I suppose you could have them for decorating purposes, I’ll be eating mine every which way. Roasted, stuffed, mashed, in soup, until I have squash coming out my ears.

What about the flavours I’ll be cooking with in October? For me, autumn/winter vegetables go with quite strong flavours. Ones that warm you up from the inside out, so lots of chillies and spices, curry powders and cumin, smoked paprika, ground coriander and coconut milk. Alongside those, we have the other more British ingredients of cheeses, dried fruits and chutneys.

More robust alcohols like Rum and Stout really come into their own in October, adding a darker element to drinks and cooking. A stout stew or hotpot, and a rum flavoured dessert go down a treat, especially after a good walk round the park or woods admiring the trees with their ever changing leaves. Unless of course you too have the dreaded black boot permanently attached to your foot…

I also find that Autumn is a time for dessert. I don’t have a particularly strong sweet tooth, beyond an unhealthy addiction to chocolate, but I can appreciate the need for a good dessert or pudding, especially when shows like Bake Off are back on our screens. Pie specifically I would say in autumn. Pecan pie, apple pie, even pumpkin pie, any pie!

What’s on the blog this month?

There are lots of plans and ideas floating around in my little brain and I can’t wait to bring them all to you. I’ve got a series starting this month with one person roasts. Think one person English Beef Roast! With, of course, all the trimmings.

I’ll have some warming soups for an autumnal lunch, perfect for taking to the office or enjoying at home. And a great way to use up some leftovers. Plus, perfect pastry for my Mum’s pecan pie recipe!

But for now, I have my drink of the month. A pumpkin spice latte Martini.

Recipe

Serves 1 – 10 minutes prep (24 hour inactive) – Cocktail Shaker & Glass

1 Scoop / 1 tbsp ground coffee

1 cinnamon stick or 2 tsp ground cinnamon

½ Nutmeg or 1 tsp ground nutmeg

1 tsp vanilla extract

50ml Vodka

25ml Kahlua

1 tsp single cream

Ice

To make the coffee base we’ll make a cold brew coffee, in a mug mix one scoop of ground coffee smash up the cinnamon stick and nutmeg, and add to the mug with the coffee.

Fill the mug with water. Leave in the fridge to infuse for 24-48 hours.

Add ice to a cocktail shaker.

Strain the coffee through a strainer if you have one, or a makeshift kitchen towel filter if not, into a shot measure or jug. 50ml or two shots of the coffee should go into the cocktail shaker.

Add vanilla extract, vodka and Kahlua to the shaker and shake for 30 seconds.

Strain into martini or coupe glass.

Pour the single cream over the back of a spoon onto the cocktail to make a cream float.

Dust with cinnamon or garnish with a cinnamon stick

Enjoy your autumnal drink!

I’ll speak to you all again very soon with my first recipe of October. Enjoy the month and don’t let shorter days get you down, make the house as cosy and welcoming as possible and get out in the fresh air when you can!

Lots of love,

Fern

Categories
Entertaining

French Cauliflower Cheese Pie

Written in my baby book, that my mum started and never really finished, is my favourite food; Cauliflower Cheese. To this day, it remains one of my all time favourite dishes, it’s less about the cauliflower and more (read all) about the cheese sauce. Butter, milk, cheese… not for the vegans or dairy free of us out there I’m afraid. Not if you want the real deal anyway. It’s rich, creamy and decadent. The perfect autumn winter dish.

Then in the middle of the night because I had been woken up by a storm outside, a genius idea came to me. Cauliflower cheese crossed with fish pie! It needed refining from my midnight hazy dream, so I decided to ditch the fish and make the cauliflower the star. I think this is the perfect addition to a roast chicken or a tray of sausages, for all your sides in one easy dish. This one serves two people, but could easily scale up to 4 or 6.

Jump to recipe

Ingredients

Solid dependable British ingredients are what you need here, cabbage and cauliflower. Not much on their own, but they let the cheese and garlic really shine. That is why broccoli cheese isn’t the same. Broccoli tries to steal the show, and its fronds are just a bit too wilty when confronted with sauce. Cauliflower is beautifully sturdy and stands up to the thickest of cheese sauces.

I’ve added cabbage for an extra vegetable element here. When I’m cooking for just me, I can rarely be bothered to make two separate vegetable dishes. I do however know that I should be eating a variety of vegetables to aid my gut microbiome and have my five a day and all that. So as I had some to hand I added cabbage. You could leave out or replace for the less robust broccoli if so desired.

Calling this dish French is a stretch, but it contains white wine, cream and garlic, and feels slightly like a dish you’d eat in some alpine chalet, so I’m sticking with it. Your white wine does not have to be French though. If you wanted to, you could add a French hard cheese here such as Comte or Gruyere. Cheddar cheese, the backbone of my childhood cauli cheese is my preferred choice.

Prep & Cooking

This couldn’t be simpler to make. Slice your cabbage in around 1cm lengths, and chop your cauliflower into similar sized florets. Finely dice the garlic. You’ll want to pre-cook the cabbage and cauliflower so boil for 3 minutes or so, until you can easily stab the stalk of a cauliflower floret with a knife.

Making the sauce includes making a béchamel and then adding some extras. Once you know how to make a white sauce, the world is your oyster. Melt your butter, and add the garlic to cook. Then add the flour. Stir the flour and butter together and then let them froth up. This cooks off the flour, so it doesn’t leave a raw flour taste in the sauce. Slowly add the milk, whisking as you go. I generally find a whisk is the best to break up the lumps of the sauce. I like to add the milk stir until smooth and thick, add more milk stir until smooth and thick and so on, until its the consistency I want. It means I don’t get a runny sauce, but it does mean a lot of whisking out lumps. Once all the milk is added and you’ve stirred out the lumps add the cream, cheese and white wine, and whisk to combine. Then leave to simmer on a low heat for around 5 minutes.

Lastly peel and chunk your potatoes. As you’re mashing the potato, make the chunks small and it will cook quicker, eliminating any lumpy mash! Boil in water for 10 minutes. When you stab a chunk of potato it should break apart. Strain off the water and add back to the hot saucepan with the lid off to steam off the rest of the water. Because the sauce is so rich I only add milk to the mash. I also don’t actually own a potato masher, because every time I make mash I realise I don’t have one, only to forget as soon as I finish making the dish. However, a whisk with well cooked potato works just as well! So whisk your potatoes with the milk and a teaspoon of salt.

You’ll add the veg to your ovenproof dish, then pour over the sauce. Then with your whisk you can pick up blobs of mash and add to the top! Pop on a baking sheet, because it will bubble over, and cook in the oven for 45 minutes.

Final Notes

This is honestly a triumph. Its warming and garlicy with a beautiful crispy potato top. I can’t state enough how much you need to try this!

It reheats well in the same ovenproof dish, although any scrapings along the bottom of the empty part will burn, just be aware. Nothing a good soak can’t solve though.

Make this for everyone, I promise you, you won’t regret it.

Recipe

Serves 2 – 30 mins – 1 saucepan & 1 small ovenproof dish

Half a cauliflower

1/4 of sweetheart cabbage

3 garlic cloves

25g butter

25g flour

250ml semi skimmed milk

25ml single cream

splash white wine

30g cheddar cheese grated

2 Maris piper potatoes

Chunk the cauliflower and slice the cabbage into 1cm ribbons

Finely dice the garlic cloves

Add the cabbage to a saucepan and top with the cabbage. Add boiling water so it covers the cauliflower. This steams the cabbage and boils the cauliflower. Boil for 5 minutes.

Drain vegetables and add to your ovenproof dish.

Melt butter in the saucepan.

Add garlic and cook over a low heat until fragrant.

Add flour and stir in, let cook for 2 minutes

Add 1/4 of the milk and whisk, add the next 1/4 and whisk.

Add final 1/2 of the milk and whisk until all lumps are gone

Add cream and white wine and cheese and whisk

Let the sauce simmer for 2 minutes.

Pour the sauce over the vegetables

Wash up the saucepan

Preheat the oven to 200C

Peel and chunk the potatoes into small pieces and add to the saucepan

Cover with boiling water and boil for 10 mins, or until you stab the potato and it breaks apart.

Drain the potatoes and add back to saucepan to steam off.

Add milk and salt and whisk or mash until smooth

Add to top of the vegetables in sauce in blobs until the top is covered.

Put on baking sheet and into the oven for 45 minutes.

Take out and enjoy!

Love,

Fern

Why not try other recipes in my series to find the perfect companion to this dish!
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