A seriously yummy golden syrup cake

This recipe is truly an accidental success. I was attempting to make Parkin but realised a bit too late that I didn't have oatmeal or treacle and it was just too cold to go to the shop round the corner. Refusing to waste what I had prepared so far I added a bit more flour and more golden syrup to make what I hoped would be an edible cake.

It was great! Sticky, sweet and just plain yummy. I ended up taking some into work and decided that I didn't want to share and ate the lot for breakfast. I did feel slightly sick afterwards proving it doesn't pay to be selfish. It even got a comment of 'good bake' from a world renowned Chocolatier who just happens to be my Matey's boss. (Yes my husband works in chocolate and no I don't get loads of free chocolate!)

Unsure whether it was a one off success or if I could replicate it I decided to have another bash this weekend.

Ingredients:
130g self-raising flour
2tsp ground ginger
A good pinch of mixed spice
A pinch of salt
175g dark brown sugar
100g butter
160g golden syrup
3 tablespoons milk
1 large beaten egg

Method
1. Pre-heat the oven to 175C/gas mark 4.
2. Sift the flour, spices and salt into a bowl.
3. Melt the butter, golden syrup and sugar over a low heat, keep stirring, then remove from the heat and leave to cool a little.

Top tip: Boil some water in a saucepan and put the tin of golden syrup in it for a few minutes. It makes the golden syrup a lot easier to measure out.

4. Mix into the flour mixture with a wooden spoon, then beat the milk and egg together and stir into the mixture until well mixed.
5. Pour the mixture into a greased loaf tin, and bake for 45-50 minutes. The cake will be slightly soft to the touch but a knife will come out cleanly.

Leave to cool or just dig in.

We ate the lot in 2 days. My favorite part is the slightly chewy crust on top. It's like cakey toffee.

Easy peasy caramelised onions

Caramelised onions are possible one of my favorite foods. A dollop will cheer up a boring sarnie, give a cheeseboard a bit of oompf and is the basis for many tasty things. The snag is that most recipes take forever to cook and need to be stood over slowly stirring the onions lest they burn. This recipe evolved from laziness and having too much to do.

Ingredients
700g red onions
1/4 pint water
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons olive oil

Method
1. Slice the onions as thin as you can be bothered too. It is worth taking a bit of effort over, unless they make you cry in which case just do what you can bear to do.
2. Put the sliced onions into a large saucepan and add the water, sugar, balsamic and oil.
3. Heat till boiling then turn it down to simmer for around half an hour. Aside from the odd poke you can pretty much leave it alone now. The water isn't 'correct' but it helps the onions to soften without you having to keep watching them.
4. After half an hour the onions will be soft and the water pretty much gone. Turn the heat up and keep stirring till there is no more liquid and the onions look pretty caramelised.

Top Tip: If you find it a bit too sweet then add a squeeze of lemon juice and mix in thoroughly. keep adding until it suits your taste buds.

Put into a jar and allow to cool. Store in the fridge. It will keep for at least a week. To be honest I've never tried eating it later than that as it usually goes really fast.

Top Tip: If you put the top on the jar while the onions are still warm you will get a vacuum effect which will help increase the shelf life a bit before it's opened.

Cost: about £1

Time taken: 45 minutes but you can cook supper at the same time.

Pork, apple and mustard in cider

Having returned home to the freezer breaking down. I have spent most of the evening trying to rescue as much food as possible.

This is another very quick and simple make-it-the night-before-in-the-slow-cooker recipe that I do all the time. It also freezes well, if your freezer works, so I make loads. This does for 6 good sized portions. It also proved impossible to take a tasty looking photo of, so here is a nice Bramley:

Ingredients
800g Pork, I go for the cheaper cuts as they are going to be slow cooked.
400g Bramley apples. I'm not too fussy about the quantity here and go for 2 large ones or 3-4 small.
1 Onion
880ml cider.
2 tablespoons of wholegrain mustard.
Salt and pepper to taste

Method
1. Chop the pork into cubes, a nice mouthful size, and brown them off in a frying pan. Place in the slow cooker or casserole dish.
2. Finely chop the onion and brown off in the frying pan using the fat from the pork. Plonk in the dish.
3. Peel, core and chop the apple and place in the dish with everything else.
4. Pour on the cider, ad the mustard and seasoning.
5. Leave cooking in the slow cooker overnight or while you are at work. If you don't have a slow cooker put it in the oven on 200C for 6 hours. (Keep an eye on it and add more cider if needed.)
6. If using the slow cooker pop in the oven on high for an hour to reduce the juices down and make that bit yummier. You don't have to do this but I find it makes a worthwhile difference.

This goes well with mashed, new or baked potatoes and crunchy green vegetables.

Cost: About £8.

Time taken: Around half an hour plus cooking time.

A weekend away with Winnie the Pooh

This weekend my Matey and I had a very rare weekend off so we went to Sussex. I grew up there so it was a bit of a trip down memory lane for me.

We decided to splash out and head down there on the Friday night so we could make the most of the weekend. It may be an extra night to pay for but it does mean that you can get up and do something properly on the Saturday. (We might have sneaked a few sarnies into the hotel room with a bottle of wine. I love drinking wine out of water glasses in hotels. I think it's the combination of saving a few pennies, being slightly naughty and it has an edge of bohemian incorrectness. The better the wine the better the feeling!)

Saturday dawned to snow. This was not on the schedule but as it was fairly warm we headed off the Ashdown forest a.k.a Winnie The Pooh country. I haven't been there since I was a Girl Guide on an orienteering trip and my Matey had never ventured so far south.

The weather really was mad. We seemed to go through just about every season in course of our 4 hour walk.

Heading to 100 Acre wood we were in blizzard conditions:

What is wonderful about Ashdown forest is that it really does look like the illustrations in the book. Even though there are not many 'attractions' and they are a bit far apart to visit all of them in one wintery day you do feel that you are in Winnie the Pooh country. Traipsing across a blustery field I  felt a bit like this:

By the time we got to the Poohsticks Bridge it was positively spring.

My Matey won! This is not the original bridge which was a victim of it's own success and was damaged by too many Poohstickers. Replaced in 1999 with a bit of help from Disney it is a close reproduction. (I am quite pleased that I can claim to have have played Poohsticks on the original bridge when I was a nipper.)

We then headed back to the car via the Heffalump trap and The Enchanted Place:

With cold noses and toeses we felt we had earned our dinner.

My new bits and bobs box restoration- Part 3, a mini update

Don't worry! We are very nearly there. This is more of a reminder post while I wait for the materials to finish it all off.

A lot of grime has been removed and a lot of elbow wax has gone into the wood which is really starting to glow. I used a layer of Liberon wax to give it a nourishment and to help bring the colour back up. I was going to use a layer of Briwax on top to bring it all to a shine. Unfortunately when I opened the tin I discovered that the small amount I had left had almost totally dried out. I ended up melting it in an old bowl over a saucepan of boiling water and adding some equally old beeswax. The whole lot was then poured into an eggcup lined with clingfilm and left to harden. This left me with a rather handy crayon of wax which went on beautifully. A starter blast of polishing with a drill attachment did the lions work and a final hand polish did the tricky bit.

While all this was happening I was soaking the rusty lock in white vinegar. A few hours later and a bit of a scrub it went from this:

 

To this:

 (Note the shiny wood please!)

Having done all this, the tray which some clever person had carefully made was starting to look a bit rubbish next to the newly shiny wood..................

........................so I bought a little matchpot and painted it:

 Next stop the fun fabric bits.

Me and my vintage Singer sewing machine.

Everybody assumes I have a fancy sewing machine. I don't. I have the oldest most basic sewing machine possible. It's the kind of sewing machine that gets used for props in vintage inspired events. Given to me by my Grandma for my 18th birthday I think it was it was her Mothers. I can't work out exactly how old it is. Instinct says it is 30s though so let's stick with that.

I had a dreadful accident with it the other day. I was taking the machine out from its cupboard when I missed the handle and it slipped. Being so heavy it crashed and broke it's box. I felt so bad. It's been around for at least 80+ years and I destroy it.

I decided to leave it for a bit before trying to fix. I felt so bad I was getting all emotional and I needed to be rational to fix it. Finally I sat down to sort out the mess. It really wasn't that bad in the end and a few carefully placed pins solved the problem.

Guilt mainly assuaged. I did discover that the hook on the faceplate had been bent in the accident and, although usable, is rather fragile so I need to keep an eye out for a replacement.

Excitingly I discovered that the box had a hidden compartment with a load of  attachments and the original manual. I am now on a mission to learn how to use the new bits and maybe reading the manual will help.....I will admit right now that I am rubbish with manuals and have a bad habit of jumping right in and using the manual to sort it out when I get into a total mess. I also blame the manual for my getting into a mess in the first place.

An easy chickeny honey and mustard winter warmer

I may have already mentioned that the humble slow cooker is AMAZING! Few things beat coming in from the cold to a house full of warm cooking smells. I  usually prepare everything while cooking the night before to keep the work level down.

This chickeny, honey and mustard winter warmer is absurdly easy for something that tastes so good.It also freezes well so I always make loads. This is for 4 servings

First brown off the chicken in a frying pan with a small slug of oil. I always use legs and thighs. Cheap enough to be able to buy happy chickens and full of flavour. put in the slow cooker or casserole dish.

Then fry up some onions using the fat in the pan. I reckon on one ordinary sized onion per 3 servings. When they are nicely brown put them in the dish with the onions. Add a two tablespoonfuls of mustard and honey and enough chicken stock to cover everything. Season with black pepper.

I switch the slow cooker on before going to work, setting it for 9 hours. It can also go in the oven on a mid heat for around 4 hours.

I get home from work and it looks like this:

Beautifully cooked but a but watery so I shove it all in a casserole dish and put it on a high heat to reduce everything down. I usually put a few jacket potatoes in to make the most of the heat. When the potatoes are ready (about 90 minutes later) the chicken will look a bit like this:

Served with potatoes and some veggies (I like mange tout) it is flipping fantastic.

Time taken. About 20mins plus cooking time.

Cost: Around £5