- The Licker Bowler...

Mince Pies (from scratch)...

Mince Pies are Christmas essentials. There's loads of choice out there in the shops; deep fill, luxury, shortcrust, puff, lattice, big, small... However, they just aren't ever quite the same as ones you make yourself. This year I felt inspired to give homemade mincemeat a go, and turned to Delia for a recipe.

I was pleasanty surprised how simple it is, and so tasty too! Everyone should give it a go, you'll never look back.

Mincemeat: I followed Delia's recipe, except using pre-ground nutmeg as I couldn't get hold of fresh. Can't see this being a problem.
I've got some thoughts for variation below though.
This recipe makes LOADS of mince pies, so you'll have them coming out of your ears.

Pastry:
200g Plain Flour
100g Butter
1 Egg
2tbsp Icing Sugar

• Blend (by hand or mixer) the flour, icing sugar and butter to the breadcrumb stage.
• Add the egg to bind it together.
• Chill for an hour or so then roll out, cut into rounds and line a tart tin.
• Fill with a small teaspoon of mincemeat and top with smaller circles or christmassy shapes.
• Bake in a preheated oven (180°C) for 15-20 mins until golden brown.
• Cool on a rack and dust with icing sugar.
(makes at least 20)

Notes:
Potential variation ideas for the mincemeat...
• Add cranberries, should sharpen it up a bit.
• Add chopped dried apricot and use Amaretto liquer instead of brandy.

I first had this cheesecake at some friends' house, and couldn't believe how good it was. So, inevitably I looked up the recipe and have actually changed very little. As it's gluten free in the original I've substituted for normal digestives which I prefer to the chocolatey base. There are loads of potential vaiations to this once you have the basic cheesecake mixture you can just go with whatever you can lay your hands on. This time round I made a simple berry sauce for a topping.

• Melt the butter and crush the biscuits then combine and press into the base of a 20cm tin (ideally with removable base or spring-form). Chill for 2 hours.
• Melt the chocolate and cool slightly.
• Meanwhile beat the cheese, cream and icing sugar in a bowl until well combined.
• Fold in the cooled chocolate thoroughly, then pour over the biscuit base.
• Chill for 2-3 hours to set.

Notes:
• For the berry topping I heated up 200g mixed berries with about the same amount of sugar until it began to thicken. Cooled and then poured over the set cheesecake.

You don't need to say much regarding this dish, it's simplicity and flavour speak for themselves. Thinly sliced potato, baked in cream with onions and garlic... it's probably my favourite way for potatoes.

• Finely slice the onion and crush the garlic.
• Slowly sweat down in a pan with a little butter/oil. Do not burn.
• Meanwhile, finely slice the potatoes and begin to arrange in a dish.
• Every so often add some of the onion/garlic mixture and seasoning before continuing to layer potatoes.
• Thin the creme fraiche with some milk to a consistency like double cream and combine with the double cream.
• Pour the creams over the potatoes and cover with foil.
• Bake in a preheated oven (170°C) for around 2 hours.
• The last 20 minutes should be uncovered to crisp the top up.

Notes:
• You can top with grated cheese (Gruyere/Cheddar) for a lovely cheesy top (see picture).
• My recipe roughly follows that of Leith's Cookery Bible.

This is incredibly simple to put together, but makes a lovely side salad with meats, especially BBQ but great with a buffet too. The basics come together tastily enough, but you can also add basil, finely chopped onion, chopped pepper etc, also leave out the olives if you don't like them.

Ingredients:
These are the rough proportions...
• 500g small/cherry tomatoes
• 100g feta
• 100g olives

if you want to add them...
• about 1 tablespoon of finely chopped onion
• half a red pepper, finely chopped

Chop all the ingredients, crumble the feta into rough cubes, place in a large bowl and mix together gently with a litle olive oil, balsamic vinegar and salt & pepper.
(quantities above will serve 4-6 as a side portion)

I came accross this recipe which in turn comes from here. I then gave it a go, and developed it to vary the ingredients. First of all I didn't feel the squash added much to it, so not worth the extra effort, but I thought there'd be some value in the charred sweetness of roasted red pepper. So, the ingredients picture below is in fact the Spinach & Feta, but the finished article is the Red Pepper & Olive. You need to substitute the spinach for olives and use one red pepper.

Anyway, these are deceptively simple to throw together and cook in no time so you have to give them a try.

• Preheat oven to 200°C and grease a muffin tin.
• Chop the pepper and roast for 10-15 minutes until softened and slightly charred.
• Leave to cool slightly, then place in a mixing bowl with a handful of chopped parsley, a handful of chopped olives, 2 tablespoons of grated parmesan, cubed feta, salt & pepper, seeds and a teaspoon of mustard. Mix lightly.
• Mix the eggs and milk together, then add to the bowl.
• Sift the flour into the bowl and bring together quickly. Don't overmix.
• Place large spoonfuls in the muffin tin and bake for 10-15 minutes.
(Makes 12)

Notes:
• You can set aside a little feta and seeds to sprinkle on top before baking

I’ve been making this for a while now. I can’t quite remember where the idea came from at first, I think I was just looking for something new to do with minced beef.
Anyway, this is what came about. It’s a bit time consuming, but all that time simmering leads to fantastic flavour. I couldn’t believe I’d been living without these in my repertoire for so long.

• Mix the beef, bread (make into breadcrumbs first), herbs, salt & pepper together in a bowl until well combined.
• Fry each one gently to brown the outside.
• Meanwhile, finely chop the onion and garlic, place in a large saucepan and sweat over a low heat in a little oil. Set aside.
• When the onion has softened, add the chopped tomatoes to the pan, bring to the boil, season with fresh herbs, salt and pepper then simmer to reduce the liquid slightly.
• When the mixture has thickened, place the meatballs in the mixture, cover and continue to simmer for 20-30 minutes depending on the size of the meatballs.
• Serve hot spooned over spaghetti with a sprinkling of cheese.

Notes:
• Don’t be tempted to over mix the meat or use a food processor. Smooth textured meatballs are not pleasant.
• You can also add an egg to the meatball mixture, I didn't on this occasion but it can help it bind together.
• This forms the basic recipe, nothing stopping you experimenting with other additions… chilli, pepper, mushrooms etc.
• You can simplify the process by not frying the meatballs first, they’ll still cook through, just without a smoother, paler outside.

This is one of those incredibly simple throw it all in one tray kind of dinners. I kept the flavours fairly simple in this instance and seasoned the meat well.

Prepare the meat a little in advance...
• Place the chops in a bag/bowl with a couple of crushed garlic cloves, chopped mint, salt, pepper and a dash of olive oil.
• Shake it up a little and leave for at least an hour

Later...
• Heat the oven to 200-220°C.
• Chop the potatoes and an onion into roughly inch-sized chunks, coat in oil in a roasting tin and pop in the oven for about 10 minutes.
• Meanwhile, brown the lamb chops on both sides in a little oil in a frying pan.
• Add to the roasting dish, arranging the potates and onions around the chops. Include any juices/seasoning and the garlic from the bag.
• Roast for around 20 minutes or until the lamb is crisping up on the edges.
• Serve with fresh vegetables.

This is a bit different. It's moist like a carrot cake (due to the courgette) and has a lovely tangy lime icing.

• Preheat oven to 180°C. Line a 20x20 square tin.
• Soak the sultanas in a little water and grate the courgette.
• Beat the eggs, oil and sugar until frothy.
• Sieve in the flour and bicarbonate of soda, stir to combine.
• Stir in courgette and drained sultanas.
• Pour into the tin and bake for around half an hour.

Icing:
• Beat the butter until soft.
• Gradually beat in the icing sugar occasionally ading some of the lime juice to keep loose.
• Add lime juice to taste.
• Spread on cooled cake and sprinkle with grated lime zest.

Notes:
• Sultanas optional.
• Adapted from this recipe
• Makes at least 12 slices.

A colleague of mine brought this cake in to work a few weeks back. A few of our more conservative colleagues were not convinced, but I loved it and had a good few portions.
Naturally, I wanted to recreate it so got the recipe from her.

Ingredients:
300g Caster Sugar/Light Brown Sugar
250g Butter
3 Eggs
100g Plain Flour
100g Self-raising Flour
500g Dark Chocolate
1 or 2 medium-sized Chillies
200ml Double Cream

• Preheat oven to 150°C and line a 20cm cake tin.
• Beat the butter and sugar together until creamed.
• Beat in the eggs, one at a time.
• Melt 300g of chocolate, cool slightly and add to the mixture.
• Stir in the flour and finely chopped chilli.
• Bake for around 1¼ hours, leave to cool for 10 minutes in the tin.

Icing:
• Melt the remaining chocolate and mix into the cream. Cool slightly to thicken.
• When the cake is fully cooled, spread the icing on top.

Notes:
• It’s hard to define how much chilli to put in. Chocolate masks chilli quite well, so I added finely chopped chilli to the mixture until I could taste it. The resulting cake has only a hint and a very slight tingle on the tongue. It also takes away the sweetness of the chocolate leaving just the rich flavour.
• Adapted from this recipe
• Makes at least 12 slices.

We rarely buy soup, it seems there’s always some vegetables that have passed their best to create one from for a tasty Saturday lunch. I came up with this purely to use up a very limp cabbage and was pleasantly surprised at its tastiness! I also threw in the green top of a leek which was lying around, and attribute this to lifting the cabbage’s flavour.

Like most soup, there’s not really a definitive way of making it, it’s a bit of an art and you style it to your own tastes/preferences. What is essential is that you serve it with some crusty fresh bread’n’butter.

Ingredients:
Half a Savoy cabbage
Green end of a leek
1 clove of garlic
1 onion
Veg stock cube
Salt & pepper

• Slice the onion and garlic then sweat in butter/olive oil until softened, not browned, in a large saucepan.
• Add chopped leek and cabbage and briefly fry for a couple of minutes.
• Dissolve a stock cube in about 1-1½ litres of water and add to pan.
• Bring to the boil and leave to simmer for about 10-15 minutes. Not too long though, or the cabbage will not be tasty; the liquid should have slightly reduced.
• Lightly blitz with hand blender to break up cabbage, but leave plenty of chunky bits for the bottom of the bowl.
• Season to taste before serving.

Notes:
• Makes 2-3 portions. Just increase quantities for a larger amount.

Great summery dish, with a bit of a ‘wow’ factor too. It’s something of a family favourite, with my mum’s having a very good reputation! I can remember more than a few rows over who’d had the biggest piece or got to finish the extra slice…
That said, I’ve never quite succeeded in replicating the mallow fluffiness of my mum’s, but the results are still pretty good and taste amazing.

• Preheat oven to 150°C and line a large baking sheet

Meringue
• Whisk the egg whites until they are really stiff, then whisk in half the sugar until shiny and stiff
• Fold in the remaining sugar with cornflour, a teaspoon of lemon juice and few drops of vanilla essence
• Spread thickly onto the baking sheet and place in oven for 1¼-1½hours
• Allow to cool for a good hour before topping

Topping
• Whip the cream and fold in a couple of table spoons of crème fraiche.
• Spread over the meringue and top with fruit.

Notes:
• Serves 8-10.
• To whip egg white successfully, you need a totally clean bowl with no drops of water in it and no egg yolk contaminating the whites.
• The addition of crème fraiche tones down the richness of the cream, but it’s optional.
• All summer fruits are excellent additions. You’ll notice I added some kiwi in the final picture.
• As a variation to the usual theme, I've been wondering about trying a kind of banoffee pie/pavlova blend, topping the pavlova with bananas, toffee sauce, crushed biscuit and flaked chocolate. Will let you know if I do.

This is dead simple, but extremely tasty. It is made from a straightforward Victoria sponge mixture, with the addition of lemon once baked.

• Preheat oven to 180°C, and line a standard loaf tin
• Beat butter and sugar until creamy
• Beat in eggs one-by-one with a little flour if looks like might separate
• Stir in flour and lemon zest
• Bake for 45-50mins (or until skewer comes out clean)
• Meanwhile, mix the icing sugar and lemon juice together to make a loose icing/syrup
• Leave in tin and use a skewer or cocktail stick to prick the top all over
• Gently and slowly pour over the icing so that it soaks into the cake and leave to cool in the tin. The icing will form a slight sugary crust and the cake will be intensely lemony.

Notes:
• Serves 8-10.
• No need to make this in a loaf tin, a standard round 20-23cm tin would do the job too.

Usually I make this using raspberries, but as we’d been out picking blackberries I thought some were destined for this cake. It’s great hot or cold, with cream, custard or ice cream.

• Beat butter and sugar together until pale and creamy.
• Beat in the eggs one by one
• Stir in the flour and ground almonds.
• Spread over the base of a lined 20x20cm baking tin.
• Cover the top with small blobs of lemon curd and the blackberries. Nudge the blackberries into the batter slightly.
• Cook in a pre-heated oven (180°C) for 35-40 minutes.

Notes:
• The blobs of lemon curd should be no bigger than half a teaspoon, otherwise they’ll sink and become a sticky mess at the bottom of the cake. If they’re smaller they’ll float midway through the sponge.
• I see no reason why this couldn’t be varied to use other jams/marmalade and different fruit to create a variety of flavour combinations.
• Serves 10-12.

This is really simple and very tasty, I'm sure there are loads of possibilities of what you could add to this. I just approached it as you would cous cous to make a warm salad or accompaniment to meat and was pretty pleased with the results.

• Wash the barley and boil for 30-40 minutes.
• Meanwhile, chop and roast slices of the pepper, courgette and onion until soft and slightly charred. Finely chop once roasted.
• Drain the barley and mix with the copped vegetable, finely chopped chilli, garlic then season.

Notes:
• Great with barbecued meats, along with some green salad.

I’ve spent my whole life enjoying the smell of jam making in summer & autumn and then the taste of home-made jam through the rest of the year. However, until recently I’d been wary of making it as it seemed so complicated.

That’s not really the case, but you’ll need about 2 hours of clear time with no distractions to tackle this. It’s relatively simple really, you just have to keep an eye on it.

• De-stalk the strawberries and chop up.
• Put a saucer in the fridge to chill (1).
• Place the fruit and lemon juice in a large, heavy-based saucepan and simmer until lots of juice has formed and the fruit is softened.
• Remove from heat and stir in the sugar until fully dissolved.
• Return to a very gentle heat (2), gradually bringing to a rolling boil (5-10mins).
• Whilst boiling gently skim any scum from the top of the liquid.
• Taking note of the scum line on the edge of the pan, once you see a noticeable reduction in volume, begin testing whether the jam has reached setting point (1).
• When ready, transfer to sterilised jars, cover with a wax disc or greaseproof paper and leave to cool (3).

Notes:
(1) You use the cold plate to determine whether the jam has reached its setting point.
Place a little of the syrup on your cold saucer and return to the fridge for a minute.
Run your finger through the liquid, when you see a slightly creased skin the jam is ready to be jarred.

(2) Don’t rush this part of the process, If you boil it too quickly you’ll end up with jars of toffee.

(3) To sterilise jars wash with soapy water and then dry in a medium heat oven, or run through the dishwasher.
To avoid the jars cracking when the boiling hot jam is poured in, keep them warm in the oven beforehand.

The basic scone mixture is my Grandma’s tried and tested recipe, although no one can make them quite as well as her! For this variation I added fruit and nuts.

• Preheat your oven to 200°C
• Rub flour and butter together until it resembles breadcrumbs.
• Stir in the sugar, walnuts, raisins and lemon zest.
• Make a well in centre and add the eggs.
• Quickly combine into a soft dough that is just on the dry side of sticky.
• Roll out to ½ inch thick and cut into rounds.
• Bake for about 10 minutes on a greased baking sheet.

Notes:
• I have used ¼ wholemeal flour and ¾ white.
• Anything can be added to the main flour/butter/egg mixture, it's your choice.

This is so simple to make, but perfect with a BBQ or Nachos.
The key to success is the freshest, ripest ingredients you can get.

• Chop the tomatoes, onion, garlic and coriander. Depends how coarse you want your salsa, but I usually chop as fine as possible. You could always use a hand blender if you want a smoother texture.
• Add a small splash of olive oil and season to taste.
• Ideally rest for an hour before serving to allow the flavours to mingle.

Date slice or date crumble has long been a family favourite with my Mum making an excellent example. I felt like giving it a go and thought a slight twist on the classic recipe would be fun so added walnuts and honey.

Dates (300g, stoned & chopped)
Plain Flour (250g)
Butter (250g)
Brown Sugar (50g)
Walnuts (100g)
Oats (50g)
Honey (2 tbsp)

• Place dates & honey in a saucepan over medium heat with a splash of water.
• Stir until the dates have become a thick, paste-like consistency.
• Crush half the walnuts and stir in. Set aside to cool.
• Meanwhile, combine flour and butter to make the crumble mixture (easiest in a food processor). It needs to resemble crumbs, don’t over-do it or it will become a ball of pastry.
• Blitz the other half of the walnuts into the crumble mixture, then stir in the oats and sugar.
• Place half the crumble into a greased 20x20cm square tin to form a base and press down.
• Spread the date mixture over the base and top with the remaining crumble, pushing down lightly.
• Bake for 25-30mins in a preheated oven at 170°C.

Notes:
I used half’n’half wholemeal flour, but it’s not essential.

From River Cottage ‘Everyday’ book in the breakfast section. It’s very easy and very customisable to your own tastes.

• In a large saucepan melt the butter, sugar, PB and honey on a low heat
• Add the zests and the fruit for a bit as it is finishing melting
• Stir in the oats and most of the seeds
• Press into a tin (20cm x 20cm is good), drizzle a little more honey and sprinkle the last of the seeds on top
• Bake at around 150-160°C for about 30 minutes (golden brown at the edges)
• Cool in tin, turn out and cut into slices

Tastes even better the next day if you can wait
(makes about 12-15)

Notes:
• For the fruit and nuts use whatever suits your taste. I used figs, dates and raisins and a bag of sunflower, pumpkin and pine nut seeds from the supermarket. The original recipe suggests apricots, linseeds, poppy seeds.
• The orange zest in this recipe really breaks through the sweetness of the honey and the salty peanuts so unless you can’t stand orange I wouldn’t leave it out. That said I’m sure they’d be tasty either way.

Knocked these up as a quick snack when we had guests coming over.

• Roll out the pastry
• Sprinkle over grated cheese, fold into 4 and re-roll
• Sprinkle over other fillings (onion, seasoning etc), fold again and re-roll to around 3-5mm thick
• Cut into ribbons (approx 2cm x 15cm)
• Twist each ribbon and place on a greased/papered baking sheet
• Brush a little milk or egg wash over the surface and top with some freshly ground salt & pepper
• Bake at around 200-220°C for about 10 minutes (or until golden brown)
• Cool on a rack, or eat warm
(makes about 25)

Notes:
• I happened to have a pack of ready-made pastry available, but would be just as good with a homemade pastry (puff or shortcrust) I’m sure.
• They’re great for using up leftover bits and bobs in the fridge too as you can add all sorts of things. Also made some with a couple of slices of left over chorizo thrown in which tasted great.

The Licker Bowler...

Mince Pies (from scratch)...

White Chocolate Cheesecake with Berry Sauce...

Gratin Dauphinoise...

Tomato, Olive & Feta Salad...

Red Pepper & Olive Muffins...

Meatballs & Spaghetti...

Roasted lamb Chops with Mint & Potatoes...

Courgette & Lime Cake...

Chocolate & Chilli Fudgey Cake...

Cabbage Soup...

Pavlova...

Lemon Drizzle Cake...

Blackberry & Lemon Curd Cake...

Pearl Barley with Roasted Vegetables...

Strawberry & Blueberry Jam...

Raisin & Walnut Scones...

Simple Salsa...

Date & Walnut Slices...

Fruit, Nut & Seed Flapjacks...

Cheese & Onion Twists

Ingredients & Themes...

Links...

Recipes Archive...

About...

Disclaimer...