... Using Summer Produce: Oven-dry Tomatoes

Home-grown Tomatoes

This seemingly endless summer has been tough on farmers and produce growers. But winemakers are expecting an excellent vintage from this year's grapes, and home gardeners are thrilled with their tomato crops. All that sunshine has made the grapes and tomatoes sweet and delicious.
  I'm growing Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes and a miniature acid-free Italian type. We've eaten them almost every day for months; raw in salads, roasted, chopped up for guacamole, in tarts and cooked in olive oil with garlic and parsley for pasta sauce. We are almost all-tomatoed out! And still the plants keep producing!
  So I decided to oven-dry some and see what they were like. Here's what I did. You don't need to be precise about quantities.

Oven-dried Tomatoes

As many ripe tomatoes (smaller are better than bigger ones) as will fit, halved, on a wire rack
2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
a good sprinkling of fresh thyme (less if you're using dried thyme) or mixed herbs
olive oil

1. Halve the tomatoes & place cut side down on a wire rack to drain. I use the cake cooling rack I have for baking.
2. Leave for about 1/2 an hour.
3. Turn tomatoes cut side up.
4. Mix the sugar, salt and herbs together and sprinkle over tomatoes.
5. Stand the wire rack on a baking tray and bake for several hours at 50 degrees centigrade.

You'll know when the tomatoes are done as they will be shriveled up and almost dry to touch. You want them with a leathery, not crisp, texture.

Layer into sterilized jars and fill with olive oil till the tomatoes are covered.

We really liked these. They give bursts of sweet, concentrated tomato flavour in dishes. Another recipe to add to my tomato repertoire.

... for Easter Greetings

My first attempt at Hot Cross buns

Celebrating Easter this weekend, visiting with friends and baking hot cross buns. I used the recipe from the latest edition of the Australian Women's Weekly magazine. I was really pleased with the way the buns turned out, very tasty and light, but I must say my skills at piping the crosses left a lot to be desired! Maybe I need to practise a bit before next Easter.
  Easter is traditionally a celebration of new life and our family had a wonderful new life to celebrate this week - the birth of my daughter and son-in-law's first child, a girl called Carys, a Welsh name meaning 'Beloved'. 
  So whether Easter for you means chocolate eggs, fluffy bunnies and chicks, hot cross buns or Simnel cakes, or you remember the reason for the season, I hope you have a safe and happy long weekend.

.. Life is Like Baking Cookies

Cookies = Life

I indulged in a spot of whimsical thinking today while I was baking chocolate chip cookies. And I came to the conclusion that daily life is like baking!

• Some days all the ingredients blend perfectly and smoothly to produce an excellent result.
• Some days you may be missing one ingredient so nothing turns out right.
• Some days, no matter how hard you stir, the result will be uneven and full of lumps!
• Some days the mixture may start out fine but crack or crumble at the end.
• And some days, despite all your efforts, the mix will curdle!

So how has your day been today? Smooth, lumpy or turned to custard?!

... Be Very Downton Abbey

Edwardian Yule Pastries

I'm feeling very Downton Abbey today. I was reading some of the research I'd done on the Edwardian Era and came across a Christmas recipe from a women's magazine, 'The Delineator', dated December 1901. It is for Yule Pastries, the early 20th century version of Christmas Mince Pies.
  I can make those, I thought, imagining the scene in the kitchen at Downton Abbey with Daisy helping the cook prepare all the festive food.
  The fruit mince was easy to make; chopped up raisins, glace peel, glace pineapple and figs boiled for five minutes in orange and lemon juice and a little sugar.
   Once that cooled, I rolled out the sweet short pastry. I cheated here - mine was store-bought, definitely not home-made. I used a small espresso cup size saucer to cut it into rounds, piled some of the fruit mince on & folded the pastry over so they were shaped like Cornish pasties.
   20 minutes in a hot oven and they were done. It took me longer to clean the sticky, floury pastry board and saucepan and bench and hands and cupboard door handles! 
   Not sure if they'd pass muster with the Lords and Ladies, but they taste delicious!

... to Cook with Seasonal Ingredients

Asparagus Tart - perfect for spring

There they were, lying in the vegetable shop, waiting for me - the first spears of spring asparagus. They are the taste sensation of the season to me. So this is what we're having for dinner tonight - Asparagus Tart with an avocado, feta and lettuce salad. 
   The recipe is my adaptation of one by Annie Bell, in the Meat Free Monday Cookbook published by Kyle Books.
    
 Asparagus Tart

• 2 bundles of asparagus
• 4 small tomatoes, halved
• 1 block of puff pastry
• 150ml creme fraiche
• 1/2 teaspoon of honey whole grain mustard
• 2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese, grated
• 1 egg yolk
• milk to glaze pastry 

1. Add asparagus to a pan of boiling water & boil 4 minutes. Drain. Run under cold water and drain again.
2. Whisk together the creme fraiche, mustard, cheese & egg yolk till smooth.
3. Roll out pastry to about 40 cm by 20 cm to cover tray.
4. Smooth creme mixture over the pastry leaving a border of about 2 cm all around.
5. Place asparagus spears and tomato halves in rows on top.
6. Brush pastry edges with a little milk to glaze.
7. Bake at 200 C for 30 minutes.

If you like asparagus, give this a try. It's delicious. Must go - time to eat!

... to Make Delicious Hot Chocolate

Thick Hot Chocolate Spanish-Style

Today is such a grey, bitterly cold winter's day that I've been sitting in front of the fire, reading a detective novel and sipping on hot chocolate. 
  This has to be the best hot chocolate (outside of Spain) that I have tasted. In Spain they make the drink so thick you can almost stand your spoon up in it. My recipe replicates that silky smooth consistency. 


Hot Chocolate Spanish-Style

• 2 cups low fat milk

• 1/2 cup drinking chocolate

• 1 1/2 tablespoons cornflour

1. Put all in a microwave jug and whisk to combine. 
2. Microwave on high 2 minutes, stir. 
3. Microwave 2 minutes.

In fact, as I've been drinking this, I've been imagining myself back in Barcelona, sitting in the sun at a side-walk cafe in the Plaza Real, having hot chocolate and churros. Oh, to dream!

... to Cook a Right Royal Meal

A Royal Diamond Jubilee Menu

I've been watching television coverage of Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee celebrations the last couple of days, wishing I was living back in London so I could be part of the festivities. Nobody does the pomp and pageantry as well as the Brits, do they? All the colour, the precision, the spectacle - fantastic!
 I wonder how many state banquets the Queen has been to over the 60 years? Perhaps she sometimes, when faced with course after course of rich food, thinks she'd rather be at home eating bangers and mash and mushy peas in front of the telly!
  So as a bit of fun and to honour the Queen, this is what I'm cooking for dinner tonight - a Right Royal Meal. 

... to cook with Autumn produce

Apple and Pear Jam for Autumn

Today was the day I was going to make orange marmalade. So on my daily walk I called into the new fruit and vegetable shop that has opened in our town. But ... no oranges.
  'We sell only produce grown locally,' the owner told me. There were some luscious looking pears and apples in the store so I changed my plan.
  This is what I made instead, in the microwave. This recipe makes 2 jars of jam.
           
Apple and Pear Jam

• 3 apples, peeled and finely chopped
• 3 pears, peeled and finely chopped
• juice and zest of a lemon
• 600 gm sugar
• 1/4 cup cider vinegar
• 2 sprigs of fresh rosemary, washed

1. In a large microwave-proof bowl, cook apples and pears in a little water until soft.
2. Drain the water off and put the cooked pulp back in the bowl.
3. Stir in the lemon zest & juice, sugar and cider vinegar.
4. Microwave on high for 15 - 20 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes. (Check after 15 minutes by putting a little on a cold saucer to see how it is setting).
5. Pour into sterilized jars.
6. Add a sprig of rosemary to each jar and cover while hot.

This jam goes a lovely golden color when cooked and is not too sweet. The rosemary gives it a subtle flavor that is unusual.

  Give it a try and see what you think!