The Ultimate Indulgence

This is a recipe for a very rich and delicious chocolate fudge cake that is so easy to make it's hard to believe.

What's more, you can make this cake as often as you like and still stay healthy.  You just must NEVER eat it!

The recipe was given to me by a friend ages ago and I make it from time to time.  It freezes well.

Chocolate Fudge Cake

Bake at     180 - 200°C
Makes 1 large square cake. Very soft and delicious.

1 2/3 cups plain flour
1 cups sugar
1 cup 32% Drinking Chocolate powder
1 cup milk
1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 tsp. carb. soda
1 tsp. salt
2 eggs
1 carton Yogurt 125ml
1 tsp. vanilla

Put all the ingredients in a blender and whiz on low speed for 1 min. then turn the speed up to high and whiz for a further 3 mins.

Put into a lined cake tin and
bake  at 190°C (375°F)  50 - 55 mins.

May be iced and split with cream , cocoa and icing sugar.

 

Note 32% chocolate powder is a drinking chocolate not cocoa

A  US cup is 250 ml

Scones

I love scones for afternoon tea.  Scones served warm with butter and jam.... Delicious

Here's a very simple recipe which makes the best, yes, the best scones.

You can substitute the flour and baking powder for 3 1/2 cups self-raising flour if you want

Makes 12 scones

Ingredients

3 1/2 cups Plain Flour
7 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup lemonade
200ml single cream

1 cup sultanas (optional)

Method

If using dried fruit, soak in the cup of lemonade

Sift together the flour and baking powder.

Add liquid, (and sultanas)

Mix as little as possible just until it comes into a rough ball. Press out
on a floured bench to about an inch thick  and cut with scone cutter.

Dab tops with milk
Bake at 180C for about 15 mins

Red Lentil Burgers

A lovely recipe for a tasty vegetarian burger.  I love these and often serve them at barbecues for my vegetarian friends

 

Simmer 1/2 cup of red lentils and 1 bay leaf in water for 15 - 30 min

Saute gently, 2 finely chopped onions and 2 cloves of garlic, sliced.

add parsley, basil, marjoram, and thyme to the pan

Add in the lentils, drained.

Tip into a bowl and add 1/2 cup fresj wholemeal bread crumbs, 2 eggs, beaten, 1/2 cup of flour, 4 table[spoons of tomato paste and stir it all together.  If it's too wet add extra bread crumbs

Form into small balls and then flatten and fry in olive or sunflower  oil.

Traditional Burgers (Ian’s Recipe)

 

Serves 4

500gms minced (ground) beef
2 medium Onions
2 good tablespoons of rolled oats
1 Tbls worcestershire sauce 
2 Tbls of Tomato Ketchup
I Tbls Olive oil
a dash of sea salt
a medium egg

Method    In a food processor, mince the onion then add the Worcestershire sauce, tomato ketchup, sea salt and olive oil and mix a little more
Add the beef, oats and egg and whiz a little more to mix thoroughly.
Adjust the consistency by adding more oats if it's too wet

Take a small ball of the mixture and squeeze tight to compress the mixture together.  Flatten with a spatula and fry gently in a little olive oil
Serve immediately
Or allow to cool and freeze until needed

White Fish in a Creamy Sauce

(Cabillaud sauce crémeuse au Vin Rosé)

This is a delicious sauce to use with any white fish or maybe even gammon using 1/3 bottle of Rosé wine. Great with a vegetable such as haricot vert or haricot beurré
The original French recipe, as the name implies, calls for cod…. But any white fish would be excellent.

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS

4 good sized pieces of white fish
2 Onions
3 garlic cloves
250ml Vin Rosé
250ml single cream
Butter
Salt and ground black pepper to taste

METHOD

Cut the fish into large pieces (2”)
Coarsely chop the onions and thinly slice the garlic and then fry in a large frying pan with a knob of butter until the onion is translucent
Lay the fish (upside down) in the frying pan (in amongst the onion and garlic) and cook for a minute or two on a low heat.
Carefully turn the fish over and add the wine.
Reduce the mixture.
Add the cream, salt and pepper and mix gently.
Thicken over a low heat (takes about 4 - 5 minutes)
Serve with broccoli, haricot vert or haricot beurre
.
Enjoy

Oh Dear!

I should have thrown it away and had cheese.

The weather here suddenly changed overnight.

After weeks of temperatures around 30°C (upper 80's F), last night the rain came in and temperatures dropped by about 10°C.   I have to say, going out to the market in the rain this morning it felt more like they had dropped by about 110°C....  but maybe that was just me.   I'm not a great fan of rainy, cold weather!

Walking around a very quiet Villereal, passing large expanses of naked street where normally there would have been all the supporting traders that summer brings, I began to think about lunch.  The cold weather, well, it was about 18°C, led me to thinking about a bowl of soup.

About a week or so ago I defrosted my big freezer....  I have a big old chest freezer and a much smaller combination fridge freezer.   Defrosting is something I should do every year....but I don't and when I finally get down to it I am always amazed at the assembled detritus collecting in the frozen depths.

This session had been no different, turning up a couple of bags of forgotten fruit, some completely lost minced steak and a couple of odd tubs of my home made soup, a true French potage made with whatever vegetables were available at the time I made it.   I had no idea what these soups were as the tubs had lost their labels which, interestingly, were not even still in the freezer!!!   I studied the frozen contents.... both tubs were a small portion of soup, one a simple potage and the other, what appeared to be a potage that had been blended to make it smooth.

I decide that on return home, I would mix the two soups and eat it with some crusty French bread.  Anticipating my delicious lunch I plodded round the half empty, very wet market in somewhat better spirits.

I didn't linger long, collecting the various bits of shopping I needed and popping into my favourite bar for a quick coffee, before heading off to the car park and back home.

It didn't take me long to find the two tubs of soup and, in order to speed things up, I gently warmed them before emptying the still frozen contents into a pan with a little water and started to heat them gently.

By the time I had put the greengrocery away my soup had defrosted and was beginning to warm up.  It smelt delicious as I cleared the kitchen table and got out a bowl and bread basket and, yes, why not, the butter dish!

I turned to stir the soup regularly as the big lumps of frozen goo gradually broke up and eventually, I became able to stir a warm liquid.  Habits are hard things to break and one of mine is to taste everything...taste, taste and taste again.  So I stuck my spoon into the now lukewarm soup to taste.... and was very surprised.

Delicious is not exactly the word....   no....   It was sweet, very sweet.  I could see the vegetables from the potage clearly now but, my guess was the blended "soup" was actually stewed apple.

Now, I should have binned the lot, cut myself some tasty French cheese and eaten it with the bread...  I really should have done that.  But I don't like to be defeated.  I'm nothing if not persistent.... some call me stubborn!   So, I decided to rescue the soup.

There were some nice vegetables in the vegetable rack....  There were one or two rather tired vegetables in the same rack... so I started adding bits...  I had the heart of a celery that had gone a bit limp, I had a couple of potatoes that had started sprouting, I had an onion that had split... and quickly I had a collection of vegetables prepared and boiling into the mixture.  Taste, taste and taste again...  It really was very sweet.   A couple more small potatoes, a tiny bit of salt, some fresh herbs, the end of a Belgian endive all were added to the pan, and finally it started to taste acceptable....

Oh, by now I had also realised that the stewed apple which had caused the problem in the first place, was actually the much sweeter stewed plums!!!

And so, my quick lunch was ready.  It had taken about an hour and a half against my anticipated 10 minutes.  It tasted very nice but not great, it was still quite sweet.  But, it had cleared out two old unidentified tubs of frozen food, a collection of tired vegetables, the remainder of last weeks vegetables and I had not used anything from today's shop.... well, except for the bread!

Like I said, I should have thrown it away and had cheese!

Beef Bourgignon with a few carrots

The French have a gorgeous traditional beef dish from Burgundy, Boeuf Bourgignon.    I've put my own slant on it here to make it "Traditional English cooking in France".  The wine really should be a bottle of Burgundy red..... but I tend to use any good full bodied red wine.

This recipe is so incredibly easy,  and relies on a slow cooker to gently simmer everything for about 12 hours.

I hope you love it as much as I do

Beef Bourgignon

1 tbsp duck fat (use olive oil if you don't have duck fat)
600g beef shin, cut into large chunks
100g smoked streaky bacon, chopped  (Lardon)
2 onions, peeled and chopped
3 carrots peeled and sliced 
4 garlic cloves crushed, peeled and sliced
2 heaped tablespoons Herbes de Provence
1 small can tomato purée
1 tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
750ml bottle red wine, Burgundy is good 
A glass of water

200gms mushrooms, sliced into largish chinks

In the Slow Cooker
Heat the duck fat in a frying pan and brown the beef for about 3 minutes a side.  (cook the beef in batches)  Toss the browned beef in flour then add to slow cooker.   After frying the beef, fry the bacon, onions and garlic in the same pan, adding a little more goose fat if needed.  Add to slow cooker

Rinse out the pan with a little red wine, making sure to get all the lovely juices and add this to the pot.

Reserve out the Mushrooms and put the rest of the ingredients into the slow cooker.  Give everything a good stir

Cook for 4 hours on the high setting and then a further 8 hours on low.

Add the mushrooms 2 or 3 hours before finishing.  (after about 9 hours cooking)

From time to time check the mixture for liquid and give a stir.  If the liquid gets a bit low, just add a bit of water

Oh, one last little thing, I have a friend who lives just down the road from here and owns and runs a "Restaurant Gastronomique". He hails from Burgundy and makes, what I believe is the best Boeuf Bourgignon in South West France.... Please, please, please, I want you all to promise not to mention this cheating recipe of mine, I'm sure he would seriously disapprove! Hervé, I apologise.