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Dorset apple cake and disruptive females
I had hoped to find the time to sit down at my computer and write this post before now, but, once again, I’ve been absolutely rushed off my paws. I can’t let Java out of my sight for a minute without her getting up to something unthinkable (three pairs of riding boots and a school bag became history in the space of a week) and Bossy is being almost as troublesome. I suspect they might be in competition; could it be a girl thing? I think Bossy must be a bit vain because she thinks that she is capable of operating electronic equipment sans glasses (did you notice my subtle but appropriate use of a French word there? I am a sophisticated bilingual dog). Anyway, she appears convinced that repeatedly jabbing at every single button on the dishwasher/washing machine/television will help them work. Not so – we’ve been visited by three different men in white vans full of tools during the past few days. Luckily the Tall One seems to find it amusing, although I’m not sure why.
I commissioned my new byline picture from my favourite artist as it looks as though Java is going to become a fixture. I’m very pleased with it because it perfectly portrays my gravitas and her inconsequence. I hope you like it too.
Thank you Hugo for your contribution, although I’m not sure it’s altogether flattering. This simple cake is a cross between a cake and a scone. It’s not too sweet and delicious served warm or cold with some Greek yoghurt or ice cream.
Ingredients (serves 8)
250g spelt flour
Pinch of salt
50g salted butter
50g organic coconut oil
2 cooking apples, cored, peeled and diced
50g sultanas
75g cane sugar
1 egg, beaten
2 tablespoons of milk
Preheat the oven to 180°C. Place the flour in a bowl with the butter and coconut oil. Rub in the fats until the mixture resembles fine crumbs. Stir in the apples, sultanas and sugar, then add the egg and milk and mix to a firm dough. Transfer the mixture to greased, medium-sized loaf tin, levelling the surface with your fingertips. Bake for about 40 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean. -
Homemade harissa and picnic mortification
I wouldn’t claim to be a perfect mother by any stretch of the imagination. The ability to discipline, for example, appears to be something that has completely passed me by; lack of motivation is almost certainly the cause because, unfortunately, mischief amuses me no end. I’m apparently known amongst Léo’s friends as a bit of a pushover and I have, no doubt, the same reputation amongst the animals. A healthy diet for my son though is something that I do usually manage quite well. I had to provide a picnic the other day as he was attending an all-day riding course. Picnics for Léo are an absolute minefield because he doesn’t do, amongst other things, warm cheese, soggy bread, raw vegetables, floppy salad, softened chocolate etc. In other words, he doesn’t really do picnics. He does, however, have a bit of a thing for ketchup so, in an attempt to dilute the menace of the healthier components of his sandwich, I applied liberally. More fool me. When I went to fetch him, he shouted (loudly) in front of over a dozen other people: ‘Maman, you totally ruined my sandwiches by drowning them in ketchup – they were inedible!’. I think in future he’ll either be getting a generous dollop of this eye-wateringly spicy harissa instead, or learning to make his own sandwiches!
Chili peppers contain capsaicin, which gives them their strong spicy pungent flavour. Capsaicin has antibacterial, anticarcinogenic, analgesic and antidiabetic properties. Fresh chilli peppers are also a rich source of vitamin C and contain other antioxidants such as vitamin A, lutein and beta carotene. They also provide reasonable quantities of minerals such as potassium, manganese, iron, and magnesium.
Ingredients
15 chili peppers, rinsed, topped and tailed
1 teaspoon caraway seeds
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon dried mint leaves
3 tablespoons olive oil plus extra for jar
1 teaspoon sea salt
5 cloves garlic
Juice of 1 lemon
Put the chilies into a bowl, cover with boiling water and leave to soak until softened (about 20 minutes). Heat the caraway, coriander, and cumin seeds in a frying pan over medium heat. Toast the spices for about four minutes until very fragrant. Drain the chilies and transfer to the bowl of a food processor with the spices, olive oil, salt, garlic and lemon juice. Purée, stopping occasionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl, until the paste is very smooth. Transfer to a sterilised glass jar and fill with oil until ingredients are submerged. Refrigerate, topping off with a little more oil after each use. -
Celeriac gratin and Hugo the sage
I’m thinking about leaving home. Bossy would obviously try to stop me because I’m quite a catch as dogs go. It’s not that I don’t like it here; the food’s not bad most of the time, the scenery is pretty enough, I’m more or less allowed to do whatever I like (except kill hens, which is very frustrating for me – to the point that I may even be psychologically damaged). I’m just getting a bit fed up of all the baby animals that keep popping up. There have been rabbits, kittens, hedgehogs, birds, foals and now a damned puppy of all things! I suppose I must have been a puppy once, but I’m sure that I would have been an extremely well-behaved one. It stands to reason. Secretly I have to admit that Java’s really rather sweet, but her shenanigans are beyond me. For example, why would you plunge into a ditch that you know you have absolutely no hope of getting out of on your own? It’s just silly of her to try to copy me because I have a magnificently muscular male physique and she is, frankly, just a silly slip of a girl. Maybe I’m going to have to stay after all because someone’s going to have to show her the ropes and I can just imagine the chaos if I leave it to Bossy. One thing is certain: Java’s not going to be helping me to write my column anytime soon because she doesn’t even know how to read and write yet!
Thank you Hugo! I very much hope you decide to stay.
Just as I make use of a large variety of grains, I also try to vary the root vegetables we eat as much as possible. We eat potatoes, for example, quite rarely as there are so many other things to chose from – sweet potatoes, swedes, turnips, parsnips and one of my favourites: celeriac.
Celeriac is very rich in antioxidants and a good source of vitamin K. It also provides essential minerals such as phosphorus, iron, calcium, copper and manganese, as well as B-complex vitamins.
This recipe is adapted from Jamie Oliver.
Ingredients (serves 4)
1 large celeriac, peeled and cut into 1cm slices
2 large potatoes, peeled and cut into 1cm slices
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 chilli pepper, finely sliced
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon paprika
400ml cream
200ml vegetable stock
4 anchovy filets
75g hard cheese (I used Comté), grated
Preheat the oven to 190°C. Place the celeriac, potatoes, garlic and chilli pepper in a large ovenproof dish and season. Add the cream, stock, anchovies and most of the cheese. Mix everything well and then sprinkle the remaining cheese on top. Bake in the preheated oven for 50 minutes until golden brown and bubbling on top. -
Spicy courgette loaf cake and green mane extensions
Top of the class at the School for Extremely Naughty Horses (or bottom really, depending on which way you look at it), Castaño has a multitude of convictions to his name. He was recently detained overnight at The School for extreme insubordination and unusually boisterous and rebellious behaviour. But don’t let’s go there; let’s visit instead our poor trampled-upon vegetable garden. Did he really think we weren’t going to notice the broken gate, hoof prints, missing vegetables and randomly-deposited manure? Just how stupid does he think we are? To add insult to injury, I found the cheeky monster hanging out in the field afterwards as if butter wouldn’t melt, bearing a striking resemblance to a large, hairy bridesmaid. It’s just as well I had picked the courgettes for this cake beforehand or it would have been a no-show!
Ingredients (serves 8)
2 large eggs
125ml olive oil
85g soft brown sugar
350g courgettes, grated
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
140g sultanas, pre-soaked in rum
300g spelt flour
2 teaspoons garam masala (or other mixed spice if you prefer)
½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
85g walnuts, roughly chopped
Preheat the oven to 180°C. Grease and prepare a medium-sized loaf tin. Whisk the eggs, olive oil and sugar well in a large mixing bowl and then add the courgettes, vanilla and sultanas. Sift the remaining ingredients together and then incorporate the dry ingredients into the wet mixture. Pour into the tin and bake for about 50 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. -
New potato oven raclette and a dog at the end of his tether
My patience has reached its limits, especially when it comes to pests with wings. I thought we’d seen the back of the tweeting squatter after I had explained (with my teeth showing) that she had delighted us long enough with her presence. I think that my natural assertiveness must be very intimidating because she flew off that very evening. I thought that was that; alas I was mistaken. She comes back at least once or twice every single day for a bellyful of couscous and special dove grains and a snooze. How can she possibly be so hungry and so tired? It’s not as if she has a proper job like me. What annoys me most is how pleased they always are to see her. She fascinates them so much (why?) that they sometimes forget to give me my camembert after lunch, which makes me feel unloved. And as if all this isn’t irritating and hurtful enough, a large bird with a long neck has also turned up. It’s called a heron apparently and thank goodness it doesn’t come into the house because it’s very big indeed. All in all, I’ve had it up to the back of my impressive canines with anything that flaps or chirps. This raclette dish isn’t my favourite, although they seemed to love it for some reason. The upside, however, is that it contains cheese, which is not at all good for birds, so that can only be a good thing.
Ingredients (serves 4)
225g new potatoes, cooked
1 tablespoon olive oil
100g raclette cheese, grated (although any hard cheese will work)
1 medium-sized onion, finely sliced
4 slices Bayonne ham, roughly cut into strips (or Parma ham)
Sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper
1 teaspoon paprika
4 or 5 leaves of fresh basil to garnish
Preheat the oven to 180°C. Prepare a medium-sized oven-proof dish by greasing with olive oil. Slice the potatoes into pieces roughly 3mm thick and create a layer on the bottom of the dish, sprinkle with cheese, add a few strips of ham and onion and continue layering until everything is used up. Make sure to save a bit of cheese to sprinkle on top along with the seasoning. Cook for 40 minutes, garnish with the basil leaves and serve with crisp green salad. And don’t listen to Hugo – it’s divine!
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Easy crab pâté and independence for bairns
Somewhat symbolically, on the day of the Scottish independence referendum, without so much as a by your leave, little turtle dove reclaimed her freedom. With an elegant and meticulously coordinated flap of her tiny, delicate wings, her bid for independence was successfully completed in under 20 seconds. Poor Alex Salmond’s rowdy, slightly blundering flapping has failed to achieve as much in years! She seemed to know exactly where she was going too: She headed straight for a mid-section branch of the tree where the local turtle dove community hangs out in the evening. I have a suspicion that she’d be planning this mission for a while as she’d been paying close attention to the comings and goings in the tree for the past few evenings. I like to think she was greeted with open wings – there was certainly a crescendo of chirping upon her arrival. In any case, she didn’t come back for the couscous that I had left out in a bowl on the terrace last night just in case. Turtle Dove: 1, Alex Salmond: 0.
Ingredients (serves 6)
400g white crabmeat (I used tinned, in which case make sure it is well drained)
2 tablespoons of Greek Yoghurt
20g butter, melted
1 clove garlic, peeled
2 tablespoons of horseradish
Juice of 1 lemon
1 fresh chilli pepper
1 teaspoons of paprika
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Combine all the ingredients in a food processor until smooth. Chill for at least two hours and serve with either bread or raw vegetables (carrots, celery, fennel…) and a slice of lemon. -
Chocolate beetroot cake and fast food for young birds
We appear to have earned ourselves a bit of a reputation as the go-to hangout for young birds. Word of mouth, or tweet of beak as the case may be, is a very powerful thing. We had another winged visitor this morning, who we discovered perched next to the little turtle dove in the kitchen. They looked as if they were sitting in a restaurant waiting for lunch to be served. Had there been miniature knives and forks to hand, I think they’d have been banging them on the table impatiently. Not wanting to disappoint, I whipped up some quinoa; I’ve been slightly concerned that little TD might not be getting a broad enough range of nutrients on her rather obsessive mono-diet of couscous. Having been quite categorical about not cooking separate dishes for month-old birds, my stance has evidently flown out of the window. I’m absolutely intransigent when it comes to baby animals! I’m now racking my brains as to what I can prepare for them for dinner as, having checked on the Turtle Dove Forum, apparently chocolate cake is a no-no.
Beetroot’s nutritional benefits come from its potent combination of vitamins, minerals, amino acids (notably glutamine), fibre and unique anti-oxidants. Beets are high in vitamin C, B-complex vitamins, fibre and essential minerals such as potassium (essential for healthy nerve and muscle function) and manganese (which is good for your bones, liver, kidneys, and pancreas). Studies have shown the beneficial effect of beetroot juice on blood pressure and suggest that nitrate-rich foods such as beetroot may help in heart attack survival. The powerful phytonutrients that give beets their deep crimson colour may even protect from cancer.
Ingredients
100g spelt flour
75g rye flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
75g unsweetened cocoa powder
80g cane sugar
100g dark chocolate (min. 70% cocoa solids), melted
3 eggs, beaten
250g beetroot, cooked and grated
200ml olive oil
100ml plain yoghurt
Grease a medium-sized cake tin and set aside. Preheat the oven to 150°C. Sift the flours, raising agents and cocoa powder together in a bowl and set aside. Add the sugar, melted chocolate, beaten eggs, grated beetroot, olive oil and yoghurt to a bowl and mix well. Incorporate the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients little by little, mixing well. Bake for 40 minutes or until a fork inserted into the middle comes out clean. Delicious served with vanilla ice cream or Greek yoghurt. -
Lamb, fresh fig and almond tagine and fledgling couscous enthusiasts
We have a young turtle dove in temporary residence at the moment. At least I think it’s temporary. Léo found her nestling in a hole at the bottom of an oak tree and brought her into the house, claiming that she’d fallen from the nest and didn’t know how to fly. He then went on to explain that the hens are ‘blood-thirsty and vicious she-devils’ and Hugo is an ‘irresponsible nutter’ and that she couldn’t possibly be left to fend for herself. In the face of this irrefutable logic, how could I refuse? At first Léo had to feed her himself, but after about a week she learned to peck and developed an absolute passion for couscous seasoned with Ras el Hanout. A neighbour told us that there are lots of Moroccan turtle doves that have settled in the area, which would explain her exotic tastes. This recipe is the result of my searches for ‘things to serve with couscous’ because, gorgeous as she is, I draw the line at cooking separate dishes for a month-old bird. Léo is coaching her in her valiant efforts to fly, and she now executes perfect sorties from her box to the water jug and back (photo below). And she’s apparently a lot more fun than toy helicopters because you ‘don’t have to recharge her batteries’. The jury’s still out though as to which is harder work; you don’t have to clear up helicopter mess innumerable times a day… I’m not altogether convinced that her plan is to put her flying skills to the ultimate test and up and leave, as I suspect she’ll have a bit of a hard time finding Ras el Hanout-flavoured couscous in the forest around here.
Ingredients (serves 4)
85g almonds
1kg lamb, cut into 3cm cubes
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 medium onions, finely sliced
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
3 carrots, peeled and cut into thumb-size pieces
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
1 cinnamon stick
1 tablespoon cumin seeds
2 teaspoons ground paprika
I teaspoon turmeric
1/2 teaspoon saffron threads
2 tablespoons honey
6 fresh figs, cut in half
Fresh coriander, chopped, to serve
Toast the almonds for about 15 minutes in a small frying pan. Chop and set aside. In a medium-sized tagine or covered casserole dish (dutch oven), combine the lamb, olive oil, onions, garlic, carrots and spices, tossing well to combine. Add two cups of water, cover and gently simmer for an hour. Add the honey and figs and simmer for a further 30 minutes, checking from time-to-time that there is still some liquid (add more water if necessary). The tagine is ready once the lamb is tender and most of the liquid has evaporated. Sprinkle with almonds and coriander and serve with couscous or rice (couscous is you have an epicurean turtle dove at the table). -
Salmon with red onion, figs and honey and persecution by toothbrush
I have become victim to relentless persecution by small electronic devices. I was awoken at 4am yesterday morning by the fire alarm helpfully informing me: ‘ba-tt-er-y lowwww, ba-tt-er-y lowwww, please replace the ba-tt-er-y’ (and repeat). After three years’ blissfully silent cooperation, could the battery not have waited another couple of hours? Try finding batteries while you’re half asleep and can’t turn on the lights for fear of waking everyone up and also being attacked by unusually pugnacious mosquitos. This morning, Léo’s electric toothbrush sprung into vigorous and totally unsolicited action at 5am. It vibrated itself off the edge of the sink only to jaunt across the tiled floor towards the bedroom; pure evil (at such an antisocial hour) and hyperactive to boot. I lay in bed fuming, planning ever-spriralling retribution (leaving it to rot in a large glass of substandard cola, tearing out its bristles one-by-one, throwing it against the wall…) while it gained ground. I ended up having to go outside to dispose of it in a dustbin in the grange because it just wouldn’t pipe down. How mad is that? Resorting to moonlit dustbin visits because a toothbrush has got the better of you. And as if alarm and toothbrush angst aren’t enough, my ipad spent the day randomly blurting music from the ’70s. I think I’m going to have to apply myself to that problem though because I’m not throwing my ipad in the bin.
Ingredients (serves 4)
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 salmon filets (about 180g each)
1 small red onion, finely sliced
I chilli pepper, sliced (optional)
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 fresh figs, sliced
1 tablespoon honey
Preheat the oven to 200°C. Drizzle the olive oil into a shallow baking dish, coating the salmon on both sides and place the filets skin side down in the dish. Add the sliced red onion, chilli pepper and Worcestershire sauce and season to taste. Finally place the sliced figs over the filets and spoon the honey over the top. Cook for 12 minutes, or until the salmon is cooked in the middle. Delicious served with perhaps green beans or a salad, but definitely with all small electronic devices in the ‘off’ position. -
Summer fruitcake and a ladies’ dog
When Bossy wrote about my last visit to the vet, it wasn’t very complimentary, so, in the interests of accuracy, I’m doing this one. I behaved beautifully in the car, even though I have never understood why they insist on putting me in the boot. I didn’t even bark or throw myself against the car windows when I saw other animals. When we arrived, I amused myself by playing on the scales. If you stand on them with two legs instead of four you lose weight and if you get on and off enough times you send the electronics doolally and they stop working altogether *very naughty chortle*. Then a bitch arrived and things went downhill. I think it was love at first sight for her because, after just one look at me, she started straining on her lead so much that her owner became quite red in the face and started saying words that I’d never heard before. Although she wasn’t really my sort, I reciprocated by howling like a wolf – a very very loud wolf – to be polite. She obviously saw this as a come-on because she became quite hysterical – so much so that she scared me a bit and I had to hide behind Bossy and Noisy’s chairs. The vet lady came out of her office and told us both off, although it was quite obviously the bitch’s fault and not mine. She was sent off to wait in her car in the end. I think I might have to stop going to see the vet because it’s very tricky and really rather tiring being so irresistible to lady dogs, especially in public places.
Ingredients (serves 8)
400g soft fruit, stoned and cut into cubes (I used apricots, plums and blackberries)
2 tablespoons of honey
100g ground almonds
80g spelt flour
50g buckwheat flour
6 cardamon pods, crushed keeping the seeds
1 teaspoon garam masala
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
80g soft brown sugar
3 eggs
100ml olive oil
150ml plain yoghurt
Preheat the oven to 180°C. Add the fruit and honey to a saucepan and gently heat until softened. Mix the ground almonds, flours, spices, bicarbonate of soda and spices in a bowl and set aside. Whisk the sugar and eggs together until well combined and then add the olive oil and yoghurt. Add the flour mixture to the wet mixture and then stir in the fruit. Pour the mixture into a buttered medium-sized cake tin and bake for 40 minutes or until a fork comes out clean.
