Shepherd's Pie

It's that cosy comfort-food time of year ~ hoorah!

I've wanted to share this recipe with you for a while but thought it might be tricky. This is one of the most bung-it-in dishes I make, I never weigh any of the ingredients, so how can I share it? Then I figured what the hell, I'll just tell it like it is and let you try my way of cooking. Everybody has their own spin on a Shepherd's Pie anyway so feel free to tweak away to your heart's content. Here's how I do it:

250g mince (beef or lamb)
onion
gravy granules
baked beans
peas
sweetcorn
brown sauce / Worcestershire sauce
potatoes
butter
milk

Preheat the oven to 180C / 350F / Gas 4

Start off by filling a pan with chopped peeled potatoes, and boil these until they're cooked.

While the potatoes are cooking, brown the mince. I often cook mine from frozen, flipping the block of meat over as each side browns and scraping the cooked part off with my spoon. So long as you cook all the meat through this is fine. While the mince is browning, finely chop your onion and add it to the pan. Once all the meat is cooked and the onion has softened, drain the excess fat ~ not down the sink!!! It will congeal in the pipes somewhere and cause a horrible blockage! I usually line a bowl with kitchen roll, drain the fat into this and throw it in the bin when it's cold.
Add a mugful of gravy to the meat and onions. I use about 3 heaped teaspoons of beef gravy granules. You want a nice thick gravy because you don't want your meat mixture to be too runny. You can add a crumbled beef oxo cube too for an extra oomph of flavour if you like.
Next I add a handful (yes, literally!) of peas, a handful of sweetcorn, about half a small tin of baked beans, and either a big squeeze of brown sauce, or a generous splash of Worcestershire sauce.

When the potatoes are cooked, drain then mash them with a generous knob of butter and enough milk to make a creamy mash.
Half fill an ovenproof dish with meat mixture then top with spoonfuls of mash, this is easiest to do if you go around the edges first then fill in the middle. You want the mash to be about 4 - 5 cm (1 1/2 inches?) deep. You may well have made more mash than you need but that's ok, homemade mash freezes well and is a godsend to have stashed in your freezer for those days when you're short on time.

Put the pie on a baking tray and cook in the centre of the oven for about 20 - 30 mins until the mash is golden and the gravy is bubbling up around the edges.

How lush is that? Just the thing for a cold autumnal tea. The quantities I listed makes roughly 3 or 4 portions. I usually make one large pie to share then two individual pies for the freezer. Unless I've done a lot of taste testing, then there might just be one individual pie . . .

Oh, and if you're wondering ~ a Shepherd's Pie is made with lamb mince, a Cottage Pie is made from beef.
And they're both delicious.

Cheesy Bacon Loaf

Oh dear, it has been a while hasn't it ~ a whole month! I'm sorry! I blame my lack of ability to take decent photos, I've made some yummy things I'd like to share with you but I've found it really hard to get a good shot now it's getting dark so early.
Well today I decided I wasn't going to let that stop me.
I found this recipe on Pinterest and it looked lush! Except the original recipe had jalapenos in ~ yuk! It was also rather higgledy-piggledy ~ using cups, ounces and grammes. So I did my usual trick of tweaking here and there, and Oh My what a result!

I've made savoury 'cakes' before (cheese and bacon too) and they can be a bit odd ~ your eyes see a cakey texture so your taste buds expect sweet. But this one really worked. It has a gently savoury flavour and a moist spongy texture with a lovely crunchy crust. Give it a go, you won't be disappointed!

Cheesy Bacon Loaf

6-8 slices back bacon (1 x 225g pack)
340g plain flour
2 rsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
4 tsp sugar
150g cream cheese
150g grated cheddar
250ml buttermilk (or 250ml milk soured with 1 tbsp. lemon juice)
2 tsp vegetable oil

Preheat the oven to 180C / 350F / Gas 4

Grease a loaf tin (mine was about 7 x 4")

Grill the bacon and chop into roughly 1cm chunks. If you're not using buttermilk, mix the lemon juice and milk together and let it stand (to sour) while you mix the other ingredients.
Mix flour, baking powder, salt and sugar in a bowl.
In a separate bowl, beat the cream cheese to loosen it a little then mix in the bacon and cheddar, then the buttermilk and oil. Add the liquid to the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Turn into your loaf tin and bake in the centre of the oven for about 45 mins until golden brown on top.
Allow to cool for a few minutes in the tin then turn out onto a wire rack.
Cut a nice thick slice and enjoy!

This would make a lovely breakfast, or a hearty snack. I'm pretty sure the guys at work will enjoy a slice too, if there's any left in the morning!

Neapolitan Core Cupcakes

Last week I hurt my shoulder in a minor DIY mishap involving a bag of sand which turned out to be a lot heavier than expected. As I slumped on the sofa, merrily medicated on co-codamol, a wondrous idea came to me ~ I would make cupcakes the like of which the world has never seen before.

Well, the world may have seen something like this before, but I've certainly never made them. I tweaked and twisted an old tried-and-true recipe and came up with these . . .

 

Neapolitan Core Cupcakes

 

Wanna know how to make these lush babies? Here's how:

185g self raising flour
225g sugar
1/2 tsp salt
40g cocoa
100g margarine
2 eggs
150ml milk
few drops vanilla essence

125g cream cheese
25g butter
325g icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp strawberry flavouring
few drops red food colouring

Preheat the oven to 180C / 350F / Gas 4

Sieve flour, sugar, salt and cocoa into a bowl then rub in the margarine. Beat the eggs and milk together in a jug with a few drops of vanilla essence. Pour liquids into dry mixture and beat well. Fill each cupcake case two-thirds full and bake for approx. 25 mins until risen and springy to the touch.
Allow cakes to cool completely then remove a core using an apple-corer or small knife, don't cut all the way to the bottom but make a nice deep well.

Cream together the butter and cream cheese. Sieve the icing sugar and beat in a bit at a time ~ this quantity makes a fairly loose icing so if you'd prefer it a bit firmer add a little more icing sugar until you get the consistency you like.
Put approx. one third of the icing into a separate bowl, add the strawberry flavouring and the food colouring. Mix well and pipe into the cores of the cupcakes, leaving a small blob peeping out.
Add the vanilla essence to the remaining two thirds of the icing and mix well. Pipe swirls around the top of each cake, surrounding the pink strawberry core. I then piped an extra strawberry rosette on top of the core blob to top it off nicely.

 

Sadly, red food colouring these days is pretty lame (I don't know what they've done to it, but it ain't very red) but it still provides a nice contrast to the white vanilla. If you can't find strawberry flavouring (another thing that seems to have disappeared lately) you can always make a batch of icing from my strawberry clouds recipe. 

 



Lacy Switch Surround

I fitted a new light switch when I decorated my pretty pretty bedroom, but it looked so blank and bare all on its own. There are lots of switch surrounds you can get to help define your switch and protect the wall from grubby fingerprints, but I do so love to find alternate uses for things, and so I set my heart on a paper doily.

I knew the crisp lacy whiteness would look lovely against the dove grey wall, and it ties in nicely with the lace window coverings I mentioned here a while ago. I found these doilies in Lakeland after quite a search for the most perfectly pretty lacy ones.

It goes without saying that you must be extra careful around electricity. I turned off the power at the mains to unscrew the switch from the wall. After cutting out the centre of the doily I was just about able to slip it over the switch. I had to make a little snip in the doily but it doesn't show when pasted down. You can use spray adhesive to mount your doily but I prefer wallpaper paste ~ I find it sticks better, it's repositionable, and it's easy to remove if necessary. But I say again ~ be careful around electricity!!!

Monkey In The Hole!

This is a recipe I've been meaning to make for such a long time and just hadn't got around to it. I'm sure you've all heard of Toad In The Hole, right? That delicious British dish of sausages cooked in a tray of huge puffy batter? Well this is the pudding version of that ~ Monkey In The Hole.

I know, you can thank me later. For now, here's how you make it:

4 bananas
4 eggs
200ml milk
200ml plain flour (about 140g)

Preheat the oven to 220C / 425F / Gas 7

Put a knob of lard (or tablespoon of oil if you prefer) in a small roasting tin and put on the top shelf of the oven to heat up.

Put the eggs, milk and flour in a jug ~ you want equal quantities of each so it's easy to increase or decrease as appropriate ~ and beat thoroughly. You can leave the batter to stand for half hour if you have time but it doesn't matter too much. Peel the bananas.
As soon as the fat is smoking hot put the bananas into the roasting tin and pour the batter quickly over. Bake for about 20 - 25 minutes until the batter is puffed and golden.

Serve drizzled with caramel or toffee sauce, or golden syrup, and a scoop of vanilla ice-cream.

Lovely Lacy Window

When I was designing the look of my bedroom, I did a lot of research for alternative window dressings. There are some beautiful ideas out there, but a lot of them were just impractical for a bedroom. I'm not bothered about blocking light, I rarely struggle to get to sleep, but I do like my privacy ~ bare windows freak me out, but I find net curtains can be a bit frumpy, while plain muslin or voile blocks a little too much light. Then I came across a fabulous idea on Pinterest ~ covering your windows in fabric using only cornflour?!

Yes, that sort of cornflour!

It turns out it's not just for thickening stews and sauces, it's also brilliant for a funky new way to dress your windows! (it also turns out that it doesn't matter if yours is 4 years out of date!)

I didn't know how well this might turn out but for such a cheap and easy project (Ikea do a beautiful lace for only £1.50 per metre) I figured it was worth a try. Fancy giving it a go yourself?

All you need is:

2 tablespoons cornflour
2 tablespoons cold water
400ml boiling water
enough lace to cover your window
a plastic mixing bowl
large paintbrush

First measure your window and cut your piece of lace (or whatever fabric you're using) to size ~ you're better off cutting it a little larger than trying to be exact, you can trim off excess when it's dry. Iron it to ensure you have no creases, you want it to lie flat on the window.

Now mix your paste. Put the cornflour in a large plastic bowl and mix to a paste with the cold water, then add the boiling water and mix well. This made a much looser mix than I expected, about the consistency of . . . um . . . runny wallpaper paste? I don't know, just don't let it worry you, it'll be fine!

While the cornflour mix is cooling, clean your window. Thoroughly. I don't just mean cleaning the glass so it sparkles, make sure you get into all the nooks and crannies around the edges too, because you can guarantee any of those little bits of muck will find their way out when you're painting gloopy cornflour mixture all over.

Now it's time to go for it! Put some old towels down before you start, I had lots of splodges and drips and I didn't want my new carpet ruined before it had been down a week. Paint your cornflour gloop on the window, right into the edges, then place your piece of lace on top and paint with another coat of gloop, smoothing out any air bubbles or creases as you go. Make sure everything is evenly coated right into the edges.

That's it, done! All you need to do is wait for it to dry and trim off any excess with a craft knife. The cornflour gloop gives a cloudy translucent finish to the lace which still lets plenty of light in while keeping my boudoir privacy intact ;-)

I also had enough left over to cover my transom light (I had to look that up, "window-above-the-door" didn't sound very professional!)

I'm quite pleased with the effect, especially as both windows cost me less than £2 to do! But if I wasn't, or if I get bored of it, I can sponge it off with warm water, wash the lace and re-use it for something else.

But you know, I think I'll be keeping it.

Beautiful Budgies

Things have been cra-a-zee round here lately, and I've been very lazy about blogging ~ sorry!

I seem to have been spending every spare minute decorating my bedroom, and yesterday the bulk of the work was finally finished. I'll share some of the more hand-crafted details with you as they get added in, but for now here's a little peek at the view I woke up to this morning: 

Isn't in beautiful! It's Chirpy by Blendworth, a gorgeous wallpaper based on a 1950s design. As soon as I saw it I fell in love, and knew it would go perfectly with my vintage candlewick bedspreads and my love of shabby chic and handmade goodies.

It manages to be crisp and fresh and colourful all at the same time. The tones are perfect, and I love that the budgies are all roosting on blossom branches ~ it lends a tranquil air that is perfect for the bedroom. I've got lots of plans for adding personal touches and accessories, and if they work out as well as I hope then I'll be sure to share tutorials with you.

Until then, I think I might go have an early night ~ it's going to be next to impossible to leave my cosy nest in the morning!