Beetroot salad - mustard vinaigrette

Even in the winter, salad is a lovely part of a meal. Some people like pickles with their meals, but I prefer salad. Of course there is no stopping you having both.

Yesterday we had a sit down weekday lunch, one of those lunches where everyone eats something different, even though you’re eating at home.  My plate housed a mixed green salad with avocado, asparagus and watercress using the Long Family dressing, a traditional olive oil, vinegar and garlic dressing. I also put together a quick beetroot salad. I’ve posted the recipe before as one of my hors d’oeuvres posts.

I used to go to the green grocer, and to market stalls and beetroot would be bubbling away on a camping stove

, the earthy smell wafting along the road, drawing me in. Freshly cooked beets were ready to buy, and when you came to use them the dry outer skin could be rubbed off, revealing the rich deep red flesh ready to eat, sweet and cool. The supermarkets sell small versions of the larger lovely beets and both can be wonderfully dressed with a mustard vinaigrette. The onion is essential, and the longer it sits in the dressing with the beetroot the better – but it is still pretty good straight away.

Beetroot Salad Recipe

Four small beetroot or equivalent

One small onion

Mustard vinaigrette

• Slice the beetroot to suit – I like it diced
• Finely chop the onion
• Mix with vinaigrette

Vinaigrette

Large teaspoon Dijon mustard

Large pinch salt

Generous grindings of black pepper

I tbsp wine vinegar

2 tbsp light oil (sunflower or similar)

• mix salt, pepper and mustard
• stir in the vinegar until it is well combined
• stir in oil until dressing looks like a loose mayonnaise

Variations of ingredients and methods

• Walnuts and parsley are delicious additions to the salad
• A little whisk makes combining the mustard dressing easier

Olivia made carrot cake - it must be love

I started this blog so that daughter Olivia could have recipes from home to cook when she was at uni, a little while ago. She's been and gone, got a 1st and returned to the fold. It soon became clear that I was more interested in writing the blog than she was in making the recipes, but yesterday she wanted to make her friend a birthday cake, and turned to cookable. So this is her choice - carrot cake.

I was impressed at the result, but then remembered what a teenage friend said recently 'cooking isn't that hard, really' and of course she is right. Teenagers know everything. Cooking is mostly a matter of paying attention.

This Australian Women's Weekly recipe for carrot cake is easy to make and not as sweet as some, just sweet enough. I boost the spice with extra tsp of cinnamon, to boost the flavour. I like to ice the cake inside and out, and prefer this citrus fudge icing to the more often used cream cheese icing.

'icing just right this time mum' (photo from April)

Carrot cake

Preparation and cooking time – 1hour 35 minutes

1 cup / 250 ml vegetable oil

1 1/3 cups / 250 g firmly packed brown sugar

3 cups / 220 g firmly packed, coarsely grated carrot (about 6 medium carrots)

1 cup / 120 g coarsely chopped walnuts
3 eggs

2 ½ / 375 g self-raising flour

½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

2 tsp mixed spice
1tsp cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 160 C

I use two 23cm tins and bake for 40 mins

• Grease deep 23 cm round cake tin, lining base with baking parchment
• Put carrot and nuts in large bowl,  and sift flour, bicarb and spices together in a separate bowl, keep both to one side
• Beat oil, sugar and eggs in small bowl with electric mixer until thick and creamy. Transfer mixture to large bowl with carrot and nuts, stirring, adding flour mixing well
• Pour mixture into prepared tin and bake cake for about 1 ¼ hours, covering loosely with foil or parchment halfway through cooking, to prevent it browning too much on top
• Stand cake for five minutes before turning it onto a rack to cool

If you can stand it, this cake is better if left for a day to mature.

date and walnut buns

I realise that I am addicted to sugar, come 4pm I started looking around for a sugary fix. It's a dangerous time. A time to eat very slowly.

I stood at the cupboard door and decided today would be date and walnut day. It can make a heavy cake combo, but not this recipe. I think this cake is half and half vice and virtue, and all pleasure. I like it in buns, because cutting a cake with lumps in it can be messy.

So if you want a quick, slightly sticky cake, this could be for you.

Recipe
Enough for 12 large buns - put cases in bun tray.

Heat oven to 200/400/gas mark 6


Ingredients

100g (3 1/4 oz) chopped and pitted dates

100 g (3 1/4 oz) marg or butter

100g (3 1/4 oz) soft brown sugar

2 eggs (lightly beaten)

2 teaspoons golden syrun (or honey)

100g self raising flour

a shake of mixed spice 

100g (3 1/4 oz) chopped walnuts

100g (3 1/4 oz) chopped prunes or raisins

Method

Cover the chopped dates in boiling water and set aside.
Beat sugar and butter together well.
Add one egg at a time, beating all the while.
Add the honey or syrup.
Stir the mixed spice into the flour with a whisk (saves sifting)
Stir in walnuts, prunes or raisins and the drained chopped dates (discard the liquid)
Spoon mixture into cases, filling to just below the top edge.

Cook for 12 minutes.

Turn out and cool on a rack. 

apple cake pictures

I made these vast cakes
with a crunchy sugar topping

I've just found the pictures of my apple cakes. They kept very well - which was only possible because they were really immense. I gave away over half of each.

I need to redo the recipe to make sure it's as delicious as I remember.

chocolate nusstorte

When I rehoused my cookery books, I found myself reading recipes for chocolate cake. I came across this recipe, which intrigued me. It has no flour, other than some crumbled biscuit, and no fat other than the chocolate and cream. It's called a nusstorte, but it's really a chocolate cake, made with nuts. It's actually very dark, and not chewy. The little bit of jam gives it a tang and somehow enhances the chocolate experience, without butting in too much. The covering is mousse like and contrasts well with the cake, and it's a pleasure to eat.

This cake has been reviewed by chocolate lovers and given a high score. It isn't one of those weighty slabs of chocolate cake, it's light, but rich. I like a thin slice with cream. Steve likes a big slice.

It's easy to make - I use the hand blender whisk attachment, two bowls (one for yolks and one for whites. I don't use the highest cocoa content chocolate, as I find it's overpowering and makes the cream mixture almost bitter, as well as so stiff that you have to add milk. You might like the bitter edge, if so, please go ahead, however do add the milk to get the lovely mousse-y consistency to cover the cake.

Recipe

Ingredients

150g dark chocolate

450ml double cream

5 large eggs

175g castor sugar

150g walnuts

25g biscuit crumbs (approx two biscuits)

1 tbsp cocoa powder

1 tbsp powdered instant coffee

a squeeze of lemon juice
2 heaped tbsp of cranberry jelly 

pinch of salt

Set the oven to Gas Mark 4/180C/350F

Method

Butter and flour a 20cm/8" springform cake tin

If you haven't got a springform tin, line the base with baking parchment.

Filling

Break the chocolate into pieces and put it into a bowl with the cream and set over simmering water. Don't let the  bowl touch the water. Stir the cream and chocolate together until the chocolate is melted and they are well mixed and set aside to cool – then put mixture in the fridge.

You can prepare this the day before.

Cake

Grind the walnuts into flour.

Stir the cocoa, coffee and lemon juice into the ground walnuts.

Separate the eggs and yolks into two mixing bowls.

Whisk the egg yolks with the sugar, adding it gradually and whisking until the mixture thickens.

Fold nut mixture into egg yolks.

Whisk the egg whites (using clean whisk) with a pinch of salt, until they are stiff.

Fold egg whites into egg yolk and nut mixture.

Pour cake mixture into the prepared tin.

Bake in the centre of the oven for 45 minutes.

Let the cake sit in the tin for at least 5 minutes before turning it out, and letting it cool on a rack.

To finish the cake

Whip the cream and chocolate mixture, just like cream,

Cut the cooled cake into two.

Warm the jam or jelly and spread over the cut layers.

Spread some of the whipped chocolate and cream over the bottom layer and sandwich the two layers together.

Spread the rest of the chocolate and cream over the top and sides of the cake.

Eat.

chocolate fridge cake

I made some of this over Christmas, in case we got peckish. Hahahahhahahahaha! It was delicious, if I say so myself. And I used salted butter, which I like. I'm not a purist about chocolate though. Oh and I used non wheat biscuits, made with almond flour, and I mixed up the nuts, so my version had almonds, walnuts and hazelnuts.

I made it chunky, which meant it was hard to cut, so remember a small and flat version will facilitate the eating. Not that you'll need any help.

I like it if the two chocolates aren't so mixed up. If you're feeling lazy, just use a few more biscuits and make the milk chocolate one with nuts already in it.

RECIPE

Ingredients

250g digestive biscuits

150g milk chocolate

150g dark chocolate

100g butter

big spoonful of golden syrup (or honey – makes it more sticky)

100g walnuts

50g hazelnuts

Method

o    line an 20cm/8" cake tin or 2 margarine containers with greaseproof paper

o    break up digestive biscuits - I like to smash them in a plastic bag, to contain the crumbs

o    roughly chop the nuts

o    put broken biscuits and chopped nuts into the lined tin

o    melt the chocolate in a bowl over simmering water, with the butter and syrup

o    stir to combine, allow to cool a bit  and pour over the biscuit mixture

o    press in to make sure all the gaps are filled

o    leave to cool

Eat

Goes well with a stiff black coffee.

Remember not to pour hot mixture into a plastic container - you'll end up throwing it away, or eating plastic.

If you don't have greaseproof paper butter the tin or container liberally, refrigerate and when completely set it should pop out like an enormous chocolate ice cube, without the ice.

apple and walnut cake

1 cup butter, softened
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
3 cups plain flour (1/2 wholemeal/1/2 plain white)
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 cups chopped peeled baking apples
2 cups chopped walnuts

In a bowl, cream butter and sugar.
Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Add vanilla.
Combine flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and nutmeg; gradually add to creamed mixture.
Finally, stir in apples and nuts. (Batter will be very stiff.)

Pour or spoon into lined cake tin (20cm) or bundt pan.
Bake at 325° F for 1 hour and 25 minutes or until cake tests done.
Cool for 10 minutes before trying to take the cake out of the tin.