Churros and Hot Chocolate

This is something I have been wanting to make for ages, but hadn't got my butt in gear and got on with it. Then last week I get home and Stokesy has pulled it out of the bag.......Churros and Hot Chocolate on the table................wahoooooooo! And check out the vague heart shape....aaaah....there goes his reputation.....sorry Stokes!

Anyway, I am pleased to report that they were absolutely delicious. Nice light churros (dinky doughnut) and thick, rich hot chocolate with a hint of chilli.

So Men I suppose you'll want to know how to make them for your ladies

Serves 4 - Ready in 20 minutes

For the chocolate
225g plain chocolate, with at least 60% cocoa solids, broken up
800ml full-cream milk
Large pinch chilli powder (optional, but recommended)

For the churros
Sunflower oil, for deep-frying
100g plain flour
150ml full-cream milk
2 medium eggs, beaten
50g caster sugar
3/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1. In a large, deep pan, heat the oil for deep frying the churros to 190°C or until a piece of bread takes 30 seconds to colour. Preheat the oven to 150°C/fan130°C/gas 2.
2. Bring the milk and 150ml water to the boil in a pan, add the flour and beat vigorously with a wooden spoon until smooth. Cool slightly, then gradually beat in enough egg to make a smooth but stiff, glossy mixture.
3. Roll the batter into your desired shapes. Bust out the hearts, you know you want to! Fry for 4-5 minutes, turning occasionally, until crisp and golden brown. Lift out with a slotted spoon onto a baking tray lined with kitchen paper. Mix the sugar and cinnamon and toss with the churros gently until lightly coated. Pop in the oven to keep warm while you cook the rest.
4. Bring the milk to the boil in a small pan. Add the chilli powder, then take the milk off the heat and allow to cool slightly. Then add your chocolate, stirring until completely combined. I used my little cappucino frother to get some foam going. Stokes used it to spray the walls with hot chocolate, oops! Pour into hot mugs.
5. Dunk churros into hot chocolate and sink into sugar induced warm snoozy feelings

© delicious. magazine

Philly mush rump rice

Yes, as you can tell from the title this is a dish of my own creation, a taste explosion borne from an exploration of the nether regions of my fridge.

Left over rice was transformed into........Philly Mushroom Rice. We had some lovely short grain brown rice in the fridge from yesterday's curry. Finely slice mushrooms, and fry in garlicky butter until browned, chuck your rice in the pan and heat through very thoroughly (no food poisoining for me thank you), the rice can even brown a little bit too. Then take it off the heat, dot with blobs of cream cheese (must be full fat!) and add a handful of chopped parsley.

We had this with rump steak and stir-fried brussels, but I reckon it would make a nice light meal just on it's own.

BBQ Ribs - Take 2

Having loved the Jamie Oliver ribs soooo much we had another go at them. This time I cooked them under foil and added a big splash of water to the roasting tin, in an attempt to keep them extra juicy. Then I went out and left Stokesy and his ma to do the rest! Hahaha the best type of cooking......when someone else does it for you. When I got home they had added the marinade (honey, beef stock cube, sugar, butter, salt) and the ribs were out to rest. The meat looked even better than last time. I spotted there was loads of sticky beef fat (mmmm sticky beef fat) left in the pan so used it to do these mini roasties.
In a very small nod to the health of our arteries we served up with stir-fried brussels. Dee-licious!

And the winners are.......

The cookery school and Butlers Choice ran a joint competition over the summer to win either a special edition Global knife or a day at Relish Cookery School. The comptition had over 2000 entries from the agricultural shows and Food and Drink Festival. And the lucky winners were.....Kirsty Barber and Paula Elliott

Kirsty Barber, from Ballaugh, won the limited edition Global knife. Paula Elliott, was over from Ireland visiting family in the South of the island, won a day at Relish Cookery School.

Well done Ladies! I hope you enjoy your prizes

Sticky beef ribs *drool*

Reports from London will be heading your way shortly, as soon as I find the right cable to connect phone to PC! In the meantime I've not been slacking........having taken delivery of my Jamie's America book it was time to try out the BBQ beef ribs.

Simply get a huge hunk of meat from your friendly butcher. I used beef short ribs (they are dirt cheap yippee), covered them in a mix of chilli powder/mustard/black pepper/oil/salt then cooked them at 140degrees for about 4 hours. They should fall apart pretty easily after that. Then mix your marinade, into saucepan goes honey/brown sugar/butter/beef stock cube/a splash of water, heat that lot up then pour over the meat. Give it a good massage while you're at it! Jamie's recipe says to return it to the oven for 45min, but I just gave it a short 15 mins.

JO also said to cook it uncovered the whole time, but I think you'd get a better result if you covered your roasting tray in tinfoil. We had it with coleslaw and jacket potatoes. Nice!

Bread Making - Bertinet method and Lebanese flatbread

So we're back from London, I'm sad because we had such a great time and really treated ourselves to loads of gorgeous meals. Now it's back to the grindstone!

In her Bread Making class last week Liz recommended Andrew Whitely's 'Bread Matters' as essential reading so I got a copy from the library last week. The combination of better knowledge of what exactly goes into a commercial loaf plus Liz's tuition making it look so easy has made me more motivated to make bread for home.

Luckily for me Stokesy Jnr and Snr got rained off at work so I had an assistant in the shape of Stokesy Snr. First we made a 500g batch of 1:1 white:wholemeal using the Bertinet method. Then we had a go at lamajun, a lebanese flatbread I had seen in the Ballymaloe cookbook awhile ago and had been lingering on my must-do list. I'm sure you all have a must-cook list on your kitchen wall?? Oh just me then. Once I've got my new magazines/books in I run through all the cookery literature I own and pick out loads of new things to make over the month. What a thrilling life I lead!
The flat bread was simple: 275g white flour, 225g natural yoghurt mixed together to form a soft dough. I added a little extra water as ours was too dry. Portion into 50g chunks, then roll each chunk out til about 10cm across, you'll need plenty of flour on your worktop. Then dry fry your flatbreads on both sides in a preheated frying pan.

Once then are golden on each side you add this lovely topping: 1tsp thyme leaves, 2 tbsp toasted sesame seeds, 1/2tsp sea salt, 2 tbsp olive oil. Mix the topping in a little bowl then use a pastry brush to brush over each flatbread. We dunked ours in hoummous but all agreed that it would be nice Italian style with garlic butter and tomato sauce. YUM!

Stokesy Snr just called back round to shape the loaves with me, I'm just waiting for them to prove for the 2nd time......hang on.....they're in the oven now. Woohooo! Lovely bread in 20-ish minutes :o) There they are up at the top of this post

Sunday brunch @ The Tapa Room

This was meant to be Sunday brunch at Lantana, but when we got there it was shut...boohooo. So we headed over to Marylebone High Street and The Tapa Room which I had seen recommended on the Time Out website. We had to queue for 25 mins just to get a seat. My brother having the perfect timing, arriving as we sat down! Hmmmm.....but would it be worth the wait?

Apologies for the single (and quite frankly rubbish) picture. We were starving and I totally forgot, by which time we had all shared out our dishes. You can even see my brother's fork diving in for more....get back!

A quick look at the menu indicated that this would be a very very very good brunch. Loads of Aussie-style dishes, man those Aussies can dish out a killer brunch! Since my return I have learnt that the head honcho there is a guy called Peter Gordon (he's Kiwi...sorry!) and he had an article in the December 09 issue of delicious magazine. So there you go.

We had......Paprika roast potato, sweet potato, caramelised onion, feta, and edamame tortilla with salsa rossa, Greek yoghurt and greens
Sweetcorn and blueberry fritters with avocado, tomato and rocket salad
Hot-smoked salmon, two poached eggs and spinach on walnut toast with yuzu hollandaise

Accompanied by cake, smoothies, hot chocolate and a very strong Bloody Mary.....YUM!

This place tied with No.10 as our best find of the weekend........a return journey will definitely be scheduled. Their lunch menu looks amazing too :o)