mmm, chestnuts...

I was only introduced to roasted chestnuts about four years ago, when my hubby (then fiancee) took me foraging for them in Essex - where we lived at the time - and then his mum cooked them for us. I didn't think I'd like them, I believe I was imagining dry roasted peanut flavour when I saw them! But I was pleasantly suprised to find them sweet and soft and delicious. Every year since then we try to collect some, but we hadn't managed to find a spot with a good haul of decent sized nuts, now that we live in Dorset. Until this year.

On Monday we headed for Canford Heath Nature Reserve, where a friend of my husband told him she used to go chestnut collecting when she was young. We wandered around the woods, but could only find empty shells, so we thought we had been beaten to it by the squirrels.

We wandered a bit further, and found ourselves in amoungst pine trees. We didn't think we'd find any chestnuts there, but it was a lovely day, so we continued our walk, and stopped to eat our picnic lunch on the dry, pine-needle strewn, forest ground.

Then my clever hubby managed to find a lonely chestnut tree surrounded by pine trees. Yay! It only had a few nuts left, which we had to reach up and grab from the branches, but hey, at least we weren't going home empty handed. We gathered them up and then fought our way through prickly heather to go back the short way round. My hubby would tell you I was leading him through scathing thorns that stabbed his legs like pin-pricks, but there was a path, really. He'd be exaggerating. Slightly.

We got into the car and headed home. And then, as we were driving along, we saw a huge, bumper crop of chestnuts all over the verge, spilling onto the tarmac, from a dozen chestnut trees in a clearing just off the road! Ooh, we pulled over sharpish, our car tyres cracking some of the precious nuts that had strayed too far. We leapt out and ran like eager children on christmas morning, and grabbed up handful after handful of large, shiny nuts. I was sooo happy! I love gathering food. This is definitely one of the main reasons I love the Autumn!

I'm afraid there's no piccy of where we found the nuts, as I was way too busy collecting them to stop and get my camera out. Instead, here's a photo of the bowful of beauties we collected:

I included a chestnut leaf in the photo, in case anyone who hasn't gathered them before is inspired to go find a tree nearby! This leaf is one from the ground, so is obviously quite brown, the leaves still on the tree were yellowy-green. I can always tell when it's time to collect chestnuts when we drive past a tree and I see the yellow-green leaves!

You should also know, if you want to go gathering, that you need to make sure you're getting sweet chestnuts, not horse chestnuts (which are also known as conkers). You can tell the difference as sweet chestnuts normally have three nuts in a shell, and you only usually find one conker per shell. And sweet chestnuts fall later, and are smaller (in the uk anyway, I don't know about countries with different climates). You should gather chestnuts as soon as possible after they've fallen, otherwise they get damp. And don't pick up ones with little holes in the shell - they might have a little worm inside! The shell shouldn't be wrinkly either - grab the nice smooth ones.

If you then want to roast your chestnuts in an oven, here's what you do. Use a small, sharp knife to cut a cross in the shell:

And put them onto a baking tray, and then into your oven at 200 degrees C. They take about 20 mins to cook, depending on your oven, but you can tell when they're ready as the shell will be peeling back, and the nuts inside should not look too white:

Then you just peel of the shell, and the thinner brown layer of skin, until you have a nice, creamy looking nut all ready to gobble up:

These ones were for my daughter - she loves them too!

As we managed to collect so many, and they only keep for a few days at room temperature, I've also frozen some, both in puree form and still in shells. I'm hoping the frozen ones will taste good cooked around christmas time!

How about you? Do you like chestnuts? Do you gather your own, or buy them (which I also do when I run out of gathered ones)? Do you have any recipes you like to use them in, or do you just love to roast them? Or can you not stand the things?!

Hope eveyone is having a lovely fall! xx

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Let's Eat Blog Hop

Hello! If you're new here and you've found me through the hop then welcome! I bet you had a great time at Mel's place, and I hope you'll enjoy reading about one of my favourite meals. If you're a regular visitor then I'm pleased to see you again, and I hope you like this foodie post.

To start with I'm going to take you back to when I was about 13, and being a difficult teenager by declaring myself a vegetarian. I can't remember what prompted this, it might have been that I was copying a friend, it might have been that I'd just re-read Daggie Dogfoot (a pig story by Dick King Smith), and decided I didn't want to be eating the characters I loved. Whatever it was, I was certain I was a vegetarian from then on.

It lasted about a week. My mum had been quite patient about me eating a lot of cheese sandwiches and veggie pizza etc, but then one night she forgot (that's her story and she's sticking with it), and she cooked my favourite meal. I smelt it cooking from my bedroom, and stomped down to the kitchen to rant at her. My wonderful mum didn't pack me off to my bedroom for being ungrateful, like she probably should have, but instead she offered to cook me something different. But it was too late by then. My mouth was watering from the scent of it, and I knew I didn't have the willpower to turn it down. I really admire anyone who is a vegetarian, as I've tried again since then and something always tempts me back to meat eating.

Anyway, here it is, that tempting meal that threw me back into carnivore status:

Sheperds Pie with Baked Beans

Now, firstly I should point out that this meal uses beef mince, not lamb, and so some people might be confused at it being called Sheperds pie instead of Cottage pie. But I've never called it Cottage pie in my life, so I won't start now!

Ingredients:

-600g White Potatoes
-250g Beef Mince Meat
-Half of a 420g tin of Baked Beans
-One small white cooking onion (optional)
-Large Knob of Butter
-Dash of Milk
-Olive oil
-Pinch of Salt
-Cracked Black Pepper
-Bisto Gravy (150ml)
-Pinch of Salt
-Worcestershire Sauce

Utensils:

-Large Saucepan
-Frying Pan
-Pyrex Dish (big enough to hold at least 2 pints of water—test with a jug)
-Kettle
-Spatula, masher, & large spoon with no slots (to dish up)
-Slotted Spoon
-Jug for Gravy

To Cook:

Fill a large saucepan with water and put it onto boil (on high heat).

Peel and chop potatoes for mash, put them into the saucepan once it's boiling. Put a frying pan on a medium heat hob. Add a small dollop of oil.

Once the frying pan is hot start cooking the mince, using a spatula to break it up. If you are using an onion you can chop this up and add it when the meat is broken up and starting to take a little colour.

Turn on the oven to 200 degrees C to warm up. Don’t forget to stir the spuds.

Make sure the mince is cooked through. There should be no big lumps and it should all now be grey/brown in colour (ie. Not pink). Take it off the heat and transfer to the pyrex dish. If trying to make it healthy you can drain off the excess fat first.

When the potatoes are done take them off the heat and drain.

Boil the kettle. When boiled mix approx 150ml (a quarter of a pint) of bisto gravy - mix it gently with a fork whilst you pour the kettle so you don’t get lumps, mix faster once you’ve put the kettle down until all the granules disappear.

Mix the baked beans with the mince (and onion if using) in the pyrex dish (if the beans have a lot of sauce drain some off first.)

Mix gravy into beans and mince. Add a pinch of salt and pepper and a glug of worcestershire sauce.

Mash the potatoes with a large knob of butter and a little milk (or olive oil if you prefer). Also a pinch of salt and pepper.

Now add the mash in dollops to the top of the mince mixture. Try to do it evenly otherwise you’ll have more mash at one end and the gravy will ooze out the other.

Press down gently to fill in the holes but leave it uneven on top so that you get crispy bits. Your pie will crisp up better if the mash is right at the top edge of your dish, but don't worry if it's not (mine isn't usually).

Put it in the oven on the middle or top shelf, and leave to cook for 20-30 mins. You may want to put a baking tray on the shelf underneath, to catch any gravy that oozes out, mine often does. Also, if you want to give the mash extra crispyness on top you could grill it for a couple of mins at the end, but watch closely so it doesn't burn.

Dish it up, and serve with bread and butter, and/or peas and carrots.

Note: This is for 2 greedy people! It will easily serve 3, maybe even four if you're cooking vegetables with it. Or you could save some and re-heat in the microwave the next day. Also: If you want to increase the recipe for more people you can just add more ingredients (eg. 2 x ingredients for 4 people, 3 x ingredients for 6 people etc, but you will need a bigger pyrex dish, or 2 dishes. This will also increase the oven cooking time, if using 2 dishes it will increase by 5-10mins, if using a bigger dish 15-30mins extra. Just keep checking it!

Hope you don't mind that my recipe is quite rustic. I know baked beans aren't to everyone's taste but I love them!

Your next stop along the blog hop trail is Liberty Cottage. Have a great time! If you get lost anywhere along the way, then head back to Amy's for a list of all the blogs taking part. xxx

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flouring the floor

Yesterday afternoon we baked banana bread, though a lot of the ingredients ended up on the floor or in my daughter's belly! She's getting good at helping though, she squished the butter, broke the eggs, cut (with a blunt knife) the bananas & then mashed them, and mixed it all up. Now I've just got to train her to do the washing up and to clean the floor afterwards too!

The bread got a little bit overdone on the outside, but took ages to cook in the middle. I'm not sure if this was because I was using a silicone baking 'tin', perhaps it took too long to heat up? Does anyone else have any experience with silicone bakeware? I've got fairy cake cases too and not had any trouble with them, so I don't know! It tasted fine anyway!

The weather has been somewhat dissapointing here, on Tuesday it was gorgeously sunny but I had to work. It was suppossed to be sunny for the rest of the week, but has been grey and dismal instead. I bet it will be sunny at the weekend when I have to work again! Still, it hasn't been raining, so we managed to go to Bournemouth beach today with my friend Rosie. We had a picnic and threw stones into the sea - it was nice to get some sea air, but I wanted it to be warm enough to go for a swim!

What's the point of living by the sea if the weather's never nice enough to swim in the ocean? Next time I'll take my wetsuit!

x

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Rocky Road Muffins Recipe

I posted the pic of these muffins last week, and Debs requested the recipe so here it is! It's out of a book called 1 mix, 50 muffins by Susanna Tee; we've tried a few of the muffins out of the book and they've all been delicious, so if you see it - buy it!

These ones go particularly well warm with vanilla ice cream (and if you're feeling extra naughty, squirty cream and chocolate sauce too, mmm!)

The only other thing I will say about the recipe is that it takes a really long time to cut up the 50g mini marshmallows, so see if you can get the super teeny marshmallows instead to save yourself the bother!

Rocky Road Chocolate Muffins

Makes 12

• muffin cases or oil/butter to grease tin
• 225g / 8oz plain white flour
• 55g / 2 oz cocoa powder
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• pinch salt
• 115g / 4oz caster sugar
• 100g / 3 and a half oz white choc chips
• 50g / 1 and 3 quarter oz white mini marshmallows cut in half
• 2 medium eggs
• 250ml / 9fl oz milk
• 6 tbsp sunflower oil or 85g / 3oz butter melted and cooled

1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees centigrade, 400 farenheit or gas mark 6. Prep cases / tin. Sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt, then stir in sugar, choc chips and marshmallows.
2. Lightly beat eggs in seperate large bowl and then beat in milk and oil/butter. Make a well in dry ingredients and pour in beaten liquid ingredients. Stir in gently until just combined - do not over mix.
3. Spoon mixture into tin and bake for approx 20mins until risen and firm to the touch.
4. Leave in tin for 5 mins and then serve or transfer to wire rack to cool.

I have kept these in a large tuppaware for a few days and they still been yummy - especially re-warmed in oven / microwave.

If that all wasn't enough to make you drool, here's a pic of some gingerbread we made this afternoon:

Hope you're all having a lovely weekend!

x

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rainy day baking

My sister Katy has come down for a visit, so I was hoping to spend this afternoon out and about somewhere. But the weather had other ideas as it's been bucketing it down all day, so I've not left the house! Instead we spent the time baking, as Katy wants to learn how to cook more things, and I'm always up for an excuse to cook homemade goodies!

My daughter was very good at helping too, she spilt very little flour and eggs, and made some interesting designs with her dough. Here she is getting messy (and pulling a very strange face while she says 'cheese'!):



Do you like her pink polka-dot apron? I bought it at a craft fair a few days ago, it makes her look like a very cute little chef!

Here's some pics of the bread rolls and rocky-road muffins that we created:

I can tell you that they were very tasty! I'm going to warm up a muffin and eat with vanilla ice cream - scrummy!

I also want to share a pic which my little girl took of me, using my camera. She's getting quite good at pointing at people and pressing the button:

I'm thinking I should have bought her one of those kiddie's hard-to-destruct cameras for her birthday, but I'm not sure how good they are, or whether she'd be able to handle one. Has anyone got one for their kids?

I'm off now to have a glass of red wine and a chocolate-marshmallow muffin.

x

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Lovely Christmas

Hello! Hope you all had a fabulous Christmas and New Year! Sorry it's been a while since I blogged but what with Xmas hecticness and people feeling ill I haven't had time to catch up!

The couple of weeks leading up to Christmas were a flurry of creativity and stress! I was making pressies, painting wrapping paper, and cooking scrummy food as well as shopping for more pressies and more food! The we had an assortment of 'fake' Christmas days with various friends and family members.

Every year we have a Merry Un-Christmas Day (like happy un-birthday in Alice in Wonderland) with our friends Rosie and David, and it always a wonderful relaxed day (or eveing). I spent a couple of days finishing off Rosie's gift, this cute owl cushion. I got the idea for him at a xmas fair and then raided my materials and dusted off my sewing machine. He's called 'Twit-Twoo' (named by my little girl!)


I wrapped most presents this year in wrapping paper which I made by painting shapes onto brown paper. Some were abstract stars or circles, some were baubles, one of my faves was pink reindeer which I stippled through a stencil. I then tied them up with ribbon or raffia (using no selloptape so I could iron the paper afterwards and re-use!) and made my own gift tags, as well as using the crazy snow tags me and my daughter made. I really loved the look of these presents under the tree, and I liked being able to re-use it all, I always hate how spoilt papers get and these ones have stayed relatively intact to be used again next year (apart from the ones my nan kept coz she liked them so much!) Here's a few of them so you get the idea, I never had time to photograph the rest:

We had a really nice Christmas Day with my Dad, Nan and Grandpa. I haven't spent Xmas with all of them since I was a kid so it felt very special and it was good for my daughter to get to know my Nan and Grampa a bit as we don't get to see them often. I think they enjoyed themselves being offered endless cups of pretend tea by my little girl (she got a kitchen, a tea set and pretend food for xmas!) and lots of scrummy real food from me. We had a feast for xmas lunch of turkey with all the trimmings and all had to have a nap in the afternoon! (You can see the toy kitchen in the background - a very girly princess one!)

My daughter had a fit of giggles trying to pick up a pretend sausage with her kitchen tongs, it kept falling on the floor and she'd giggle for a minute and then pick it up, walk two steps and it would fall out again. Kept her going for at least half an hour!

I was determined we wouldn't have any unused leftovers this year and I almost succeded. My favourite leftover recipe was Jamie Oliver's Christmas Pudding Sundae (from last years programme). It has vanilla ice cream, cranberry sauce, fried pudding leftovers and I put crumbled cooked chestnuts on mine (think he used flaked almonds.) Me and hubby had one on boxing day and it was delicious!

Well I think that's enough catching up for one day! I am determined to get some scrapbooking done soon so will be uploading some layouts I promise!

Happy New Year! xxx

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Ooh christmas is coming!

I've been working a month of weekends away, but I haven't got another until the end of January, so now I can get very excited about xmas! I've been in a christmas frenzy: decorating, baking, planning presents and making pictures with my little girl!

Here's some reindeer we made (after seeing the very cool ones my niece had done) - you draw around your foot for the head and your hands for the antlers then stick them together, adding eyes and a nose and drawing a mouth. Quite fun and a good way to record hand and foot size if we make them every year!:

A cotton wool snowman which my daughter had fun making until she got glue and fluff stuck to her fingers - then she started moaning that her hands were messy!:

I have just finished making some mince pies, I made my own mincemeat for the first time which I'm very proud of. The pastry went a bit elastic though - I don't suppose anyone knows what I might have done wrong to cause this to happen? I was following the recipe by the hairy bakers from their xmas special last year. I like their cheeky, laid back approach to cooking and I'm looking forward to this year's xmas special which is on this coming wednesday. Here's the pies:

And finally a shot of our lovely christmas tree with our lovely little pixie in front of it! She loves pointing out all the decorations (penguin, snowman, tigger etc.) and tells me off when the lights aren't on! She is also loving a singing, dancing santa which is driving me crazy! It sings the chorus of 'last christmas I gave you my heart' over and over again. I've had to tell her it's broken a couple of times so that I could switch him off for a bit and get her to stop setting him off (noise activated)!

Hope you're all having fun with your own decorations / creations!

x

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Gingerbread...mmmm!

My little girl and I baked gingerbread today. I haven't made any for years and I really want to make some for Christmas decorations this year, so I decided to have a practice now. Good job too as I rolled them too thin so they got a bit burnt, and I think I'll add more spices next time as they weren't quite gingery enough for me. We had great fun making them though, getting flour all over the dining room when it was my daughter's turn to stir!

When it came to decorating she mostly wanted to eat the decorations to start with (especially the raisins, she was quite possesive about them!), but once she realised what I was trying to do she got in the swing of things! I left her on her own with a few biscuits, some icing sugar and a little pile of each toppings to see what she came up with and I really like the heart she did in the bottom right of the pic above - with a splodge in the middle with one raisin squidged into it. She pushed the raisin in and then shouted 'finished' for me to come and take her masterpiece away! We also made the people look like our family, and our friends Rosie and David. She really liked putting on their buttons and eyes. I'm looking forward to making some more on xmas eve. Perhaps it will become a family tradition!

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