Sunday 2 September 2012

Ossibuchi con piselli

So I planned to do an amazing barbecue this weekend for my dear friend who was flying in from Oz... the weather was meant to be sunny and 24. But this is England, and it wasn't sunny, and it wasn't 24.

Instead, in summer, I resorted to a wintery stew. Only in England.

On the plus side, we have an amazing new butcher (find them on twitter https://twitter.com/ManorMeats) who gave me some great ideas for non-barbecue related dinners. 

So here is my slightly altered Silver Spoon recipe of Osso Buco with peas. Slightly altered being: I used beef, instead of veal, red, instead of white wine, frozen instead of fresh peas and added a random yellow thing (which I think was zuccini/courgette), just to use it up!

Recipe ingredients used differ slightly from the ingredients stated in the recipe...

After eight hours slow cooking (well I did go to the hairdressers, then the pub!)
No complaints, it went down very well.

Monday 21 May 2012

Ciambella alle carote

When my sister and I agreed to do a baking stall for my local fair I thought I'd delve into the Silver Spoon for a recipe to attempt! Carrot cake it was and it went down a treat - it sold out!

You can read more about our baking havoc here on my other blog!

But for now, here's my attempt at carrot cake - the green rabbit was just a silly addition to the pics, but then he came with us to the stall and quite a few people wanted to buy him!

Clockwise from top left: Recipe found; ingredients and bunny; bunny eyeing off the mixture; the stall - carrot cake on right; and stirring in the mountains of carrot

Sunday 20 May 2012

Biscotti alla cannella

We've had a busy few months and my poor Silver Spoon blog has taken a little bit of a back seat to our flat renovations (see them here). But in the midst of the reno's I did manage a very quick afternoon of baking... an attempt to entice my builder away from rich tea's to biscotti alla campella or cinnamon biscuits.

These are made with oil, not butter

Really difficult to mix together - I added more oil than the recipe said

Sprinkle sprinkle

And they're done
After putting the biscuits out, next to the tea, they remained untouched - ahh well, rich tea's won over in the end! But L and I managed to devour them though - they were awesome!

But success a few weeks later, I made banana bread, which won over the rich tea's!

Sunday 5 February 2012

Torta al cioccalato

So I have to confess... I've cooked this one before. It's the only recipe I'd ever cooked out of this book before I started this blog! It's tried, and tested and it's really yummy.

I cheated cause I needed a cake... and fast! My lovely friend and very talented hairdresser, was coming over, to work on my garden on his birthday! So of course I had to make him a gorgeous cake! My Friday evening on which I had planned to bake an extravagant, multi-layered cake, had been spent at the hardware store (excitement plus!) shopping for reno materials (see more details here if you want to see...)

So in between meeting someone about some freelance work, and climbing up into our disgustingly dusty loft, I whipped up this old faithful chocolate cake (sans dust I promise!) - which never fails to disappoint!

Ready to go... please excuse the dead plant!

Stirring out the lumps...

The best bit!

Cooling... almost ready for eating!

Monday 16 January 2012

Maionese (ricetta base)

A very last minute Silver Spoon recipe on a Sunday afternoon cooking for friends. I bought what I thought was horseradish sauce from the divine Blackheath farmers markets (along with organic beef and vege) for a rather particular horseradish connoisseur. Luckily (for my blog!) it turned out to be fresh grated horseradish - sans sauce - so what better way to impress the horseradish connoisseur than to make it from scratch!

I started with a basic mayonnaise recipe and after an hour of whisking drops of that oil, and vinegar into egg yolks (with a blister to prove it was hand made) I stirred in the one tablespoon of suggested rafano (horseradish). The rather particular horseradish connoisseur then made me keep adding tablespoon, after tablespoon, after tablespoon... til the whole jar was in the mayonnaise.


And he was spot on... it was perfect.

Ingredients...

Please... not another Silver Spoon fail!

   
The most perfect Horseradish mayonnaise ever (if I do say so myself!)
And if you're curious how the rest of the meal turned out. Check out my hugely talented photographer friend, Helen's, blog post about the day here (and she laughed at me making mayonnaise!)

Panna cotta caramellata

What a disastrous attempt at this Caramelized panna cotta! I was rushed, I curdled the cream mix, my caramel seized and I burnt myself! The recipe said it served 4, so I doubled the quantity - for the 8 people I was cooking for - it would have served about 20! 

Luckily though, after making a new caramel and much whisking of the cream (when it said "fold") it looked half decent and I got it in the oven.

So much for an elegant, refined dessert!


And in the end it did turn out onto plates ok... but not ok enough to take a picture for my blog! I'm embarrassed! 


The cream mixture and the doomed caramel

In the oven... hoping for the best!