Gingerbread

I have spent decades planning to make Gingerbread and never got around to it. This month I decided to take action and the first place I looked was the recipe book I bought in Australia and is produced by Buderim Ginger. It was amazingly simple to make and tasted delicious so I have no need to search for any other recipe. If I can share the love and flavour of ginger then I am pleased to share this recipe. I only made one amendment and that was to add a little extra source of ginger!  I totally forgot to take a photo when I baked it; I was too busy eating it but I did manage a quick photo of the last piece before it was devoured ... oops!

Ingredients:

125g butter

125g soft brown sugar

125g black treacle

125g golden syrup

150 ml full-cream milk

250g plain flour

3-4 teaspoons ground ginger (I used 4 teaspoons as I love ginger)

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1 large egg, beaten

I added one ball of  preserved stem ginger in syrup, finely chopped

Makes 16

Method:

• Grease and line a 20 cm square cake tin. 
• Melt the butter, sugar, treacle, syrup and milk in a saucepan over a low heat, stirring all the time. Remove from the heat and allow to cool until lukewarm.
• Sieve the dry ingredients and stir into the liquid.
• Beat in the beaten egg, mixing until smooth, then spoon the mixture into the prepared tin ( poured it in as too runny to spoon without making a big mess)
• Bake in a preheated oven at 150°C (300°F) Gas Mark 2 for 1 1/4 - 1 1/2 hours until cooked, or when a cocktail stick is inserted and comes out clean.
• Cool for 5 minutes on a wire rack, then turn out of the tin onto the rack and cool completely.
• Cut into 16 pieces and serve immediately or transfer to an airtight tin and eat within 1 week (if you can restrain yourself that long)

I have never considered myself to be a baker and my cakes are never very light; but this is so simple. There is no labour intensive creaming and beating and folding and no opportunity for things to go wrong. Just melt, mix and pour. It has been a great hit with friends and family and was the first baked good to disappear from a sharing cake stand at a social event where this was my contribution. 

Sweetcorn, Jalapeno & Red Pepper Chowder

 This recipe is originally from a Waitrose magazine and I am so glad that I read a copy belonging to a  friend or I would never have discovered this delicious chowder.  It is just like eating a rainbow and I feel invigorated just looking at the colours:

This soup is my all time favourite and I am a great lover of soups. For me it ticks all the boxes as it is full of healthy veg and has a definite kick to it. Perfect for cold winter days but just as good as a light summer snack. If you don't like things too spicy, just reduce the amount of jalapenos. As I've got used to this recipe over the years I have adjusted things a little to suit me on the day that I'm making it. If I haven't got a red pepper I add whatever colour I do have and sometimes even mix it up a bit with a selection of colours. I promised a friend that I would give her this recipe after she tried the soup; and put myself under pressure to make it again in order to take photos. This time I even mixed up the colour of onions. My personal rule is always to follow a recipe completely the first time and then do what you like next time and see what happens.

This recipe supposedly serves 6 but it very much depends how big a portion you want .. and I love soup!

Ingredients:

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 onion, finely diced
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 small red pepper, deseeded and finely diced
• 20g jalapeno peppers, drained and finely chopped
• 2 sticks celery, diced
• 400g Maris Piper potatoes (I use whatever I have), peeled and diced into 1cm cubes (I don't peel mine unless the skins look particularly unsavoury)
• 500g pack frozen sweetcorn (I use a 400g tin as I don't have freezer space to keep frozen)
• 1 litre vegetable stock
• 1 tsp sea salt (I only add a small amount as I find shop bought stock can be quite salty)
• 500ml milk
• 2 salad onions, ,sliced 3mm thick

Method:

1. Warm the oil in a large saucepan over a medium heat. Add the onion, garlic, pepper, jalapeno and celery and sauté for 4-5 minutes, until the onion becomes translucent and tender. Add the potatoes, half the sweetcorn and the stock. Bring to the boil, then cook, uncovered for about 15-20 minutes, until the potatoes are tender. Meanwhile defrost the frozen sweetcorn if using.

2.  Put the defrosted corn in a blender with the salt and milk, then blend until smooth. Add roughly 500ml of the soup to the blender and whizz again until roughly blended.

3. Pour the mixture back into the pan of soup, bring to a simmer, and cook for 5 minutes. Ladle into bowls, then garnish with the salad onions and some freshly ground black pepper.

If you want to make it more of a meal or just fancy some fish add some pieces of fish at step three and cook until fish is cooked through/opaque. 

I sometimes steam a fillet of smoked haddock separately and just break it up into the soup in the final few minutes. But you can add a mix of assorted fish/seafood.