Slow cooked BBQ ribs

Ingredients

3 tbsp hoisin

2 tbsp Soy sauce

1 tbsp Rice wine

2 tsp brown sugar

0.25 tsp Dave's insanity chilli sauce

Pinch of 5 spice

Method

1. Marinade ribs overnight
2. Lightly dust in flour and sear is a hot pan
3. Slow cook with remainder of marinade for 4 hours on high

Points/Notes

I had to add a little water to the marinade to make it go further, this diluted the flavour and so did the the flour, so they weren't as zingy as I would have liked.  I rescued the leftovers by drizzling a honey/chilli/soy mix over them before reheating in a low oven (covered in foil which was removed 5 mins before the end), but for the future I would increase the volume of marinade and go for a bolder flavour with it.

Sweet potato cake, with cherry, ginger and almonds

Ingredients

   2 1/2 cups plain flour
    2 teaspoons baking soda
    2 teaspoons baking powder
    1/4 teaspoon salt
    2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
    2 teaspoons ground nutmeg
    1 cup sugar
    1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) margarine
    1 cup brown sugar
    3 large eggs
    1 tablespoon vanilla extract
    2 1/2 cups mashed cooked sweet potatoes
    1/2 cup crushed pineapple, drained
    *1/2 cup glace cherries (rinsed thoroughly and chopped)
    *1/2 cup crystallised ginger (rinsed thoroughly and chopped)
    *1/2 cup roughly chopped toasted almonds (skin removed)
*mix these three together, use 1 cup of the mix, lightly dusted in flour to stop them sinking, in the cake and retain the remaining half cup for the topping

Icing

140g/5oz butter, softened
280g/10oz icing sugar
1-2 tbsp milk

Instructions

Preheat oven to 175c
Grease and line a cake tin

In a large bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and granulated sugar. Set aside.

In the bowl of a mixer, cream margarine and brown sugar on low speed, and then increase speed to medium and beat until well-combined.

Gradually add the dry ingredients that you set aside and beat on low speed until just incorporated.

Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each egg and scraping down the sides of the bowl after the addition of each egg. Add vanilla, sweet potatoes, pineapple, cherries, ginger and almonds and blend on low speed until thoroughly mixed.

Bake for around 70 mins, till a skewer comes out clean and cool before icing.

Smoked salmon scrambled egg breakfast bagel

Serves 2

1 Bagel, sliced into 16 discs (quarter, then quarter each quarter!)
2 eggs
50g Cream Cheese
50ml Milk
4 slices of smoked salmon, sliced in strips
15g Butter
Salt to taste

Generously spread a thick layer of butter on an ovenproof dish, lay out discs of bagel and sprinkle with salt.  Bake for 8 mins or so in hot oven (about 220c), till golden brown.  Flip half way through to ensure even cooking.

Place cooking rings in centre of serving plates and place 8 bagel slices around each.  Keep warm while you make the scrambled eggs.

Gently mix eggs and milk in jug.

On low temp place salmon strips in frying pan and gently cook, add egg mixture and stir gently till almost firm.  Remove from heat and add cream cheese, use a wooden spoon to scramble the mixture.

Place scrambled egg mixture in cooking ring, remove ring and serve immediately

Slow roasted minted lamb shoulder with apricot and cranberry stuffing balls

1 rolled boneless lamb should joint
1 tsp garlic paste
Handful of mint
Olive oil

0.5 cup breadcrumbs
0.5 cup porridge oats
10 ready to eat dried apricots, chopped
0.25 cup dried cranberries, chopped
Ground pepper
1tbsp dried onion pieces
Hot water to bind

Baby tatties
2 onions, wedged, 1/8th thick
Stick of celery chopped

Mix stuffing ingredients in bowl and add water (just enough to be absorbed), leave to soak.

Split the mint handful in 2.  Strip the leaves from half and finely chop.  Retain the rest.

Score the joint.

Mix garlic paste, chopped mint and olive oil, rub on joint

Please wedges in pot, spread celery on top and place on the rest of mint.  Top with the joint.  Roll stuffing into balls and place around edge of pan interspersed with tatties.

Cook for 25 mins per 500g plus 25 mins at 170c

Remove meat from pot and leave to rest.  Remove tatties and stuffing balls and place on baking sheet, keep warm.

Add red wine to roasting pot to catch juices.  Press red wine and onion, celery and mint stock, through sieve.  Simmer and thicken with veg stock cube to make gravy.

Apricot and Whisky glazed ham with a crushed peppercorn crust

Ingredients

800g Gammon joint - unsmoked: remove all packaging, including any plastic rings surrounding the meat.

Pre-cooking:
1tbsp Ground three-colour peppercorns
Glug of white wine
Cold water to cover


Cooking:
Handful of dried apricots
1 Knorrs Vegetable stock cube, made up as per directions (450ml boiling water)
1 small onion, wedged, outer skin left on
1 tsp Peppercorns


After-cooking:
1tbsp Apricot & Whisky chutney
1tbsp Crushed three-colour peppercorns
1tbsp Manuka Honey

Method


Submerge the gammon in a bowl of cold water, add a glug of white wine and the ground pepper.  Leave to soak overnight to leech out the salt.  Discard the fluid in the morning.


Place the gammon in a roasting pan with the apricots, onions, peppercorns and stock.  Cover loosely with foil and bake for 1 hr @ 190C


Remove foil and drain out stock (retain for soup or gravy).  Glaze joint with Apricot and Whisky chutney, roll in crushed peppercorns.  Give a spray with oil before returning to the oven uncovered for 20mins.


When cooked, remove from oven and drizzle with honey and leave to rest before slicing.

Happy Hogmanay! Start as we mean to go on...

Chicken and Bacon Ballotine with sausage and cranberry stuffing and Sage and onion stuffing

1. Cut open a cheeslets/twiglets tube or a 2l juice bottle lengthways to make a mould and line with clingfilm. Then line with streaky bacon, making sure you have some overhang along the edges from each strip (if your tube is wider than the bacon, create a weave pattern using two strips). 

2. Cut open each chicken breast and fill with sausage stuffing.  Place the breasts into the mould using 2^nd stuffing to fill gaps, once full pull around the overhangs of bacon to complete the joint.  I used bamboo kebab skewers to secure, but if you want to use string, you could lay it along the clingfilm before you put the bacon in.

3. The finished joint  - Weigh it and cook with chicken roasting timings.

The results!

Lemon sizzle drizzle cake with summer berries



Ingredients
225g softened butter
225g caster sugar
lemons , 3 zested and 2 Juiced
4 medium eggs , lightly whisked
200g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
50g ground almonds

Topping
150g summer fruits
100g finest dark chocolate with chilli
25g butter
50g icing sugar

Method

1. Wash and chop fruits, place in bowl with 1tbsp lemon juice and sprinkle of caster sugar, cover and leave to stand.
2. Heat the oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4. Butter and line the base of a 20cm round cake tin. Beat the butter and caster sugar in a large bowl using an electric hand whisk until pale and creamy. Add the lemon zest (reserving some for decoration) and mix well. Whisk the eggs gradually into the butter mixture, beating well between each addition - don't worry if it curdles.
3. Sift together the flour and baking powder and fold into the cake mixture using a large metal spoon or spatula. Add the ground almonds and 3/4 of the lemon juice and fold until thoroughly combined. Spoon into the prepared cake tin and bake for 1 hour 15 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out without any raw mix on it.
4. Put the cake tin on a wire rack to cool

Topping

1. Melt chocolate and butter, spread over cake and leave to set.
2. Place fruit on cake, retaining juice to use in icing.  Place icing sugar in bowl and add enough of the lemon fruity juuice to make a thin icing to drizzle over cake.

Based on: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/3628/lemon-drizzle-cake