A cherry cheesecake.

What would cause these cracks in the cheesecake, I do not know. Even more annoyingly, it turned out that I had the base of the springform tin upside down, so the cheesecake was very difficult to slide off it. Still, I managed to do that without too much damage.
I feel quite guilty that I just made do with a tin of cherry topping. It’s not too bad, but a lot of it is cornflour and sugar. Maybe next time I’ll do something a little more authentic… 









Anyway, I have tasted it, and enjoyed it enough to have another slice.

Lessons learned: assemble the tin correctly, try not to get too much air in the cheesy mix, and now go for a long, long walk.

Risotto, and a dessert.

Nearly ready!

Last night’s risotto, which I made with arborio rice, red onion, garlic, white wine, vegetable stock, parmesan, fresh parsley, dried porcini, dried mixed mushrooms, and fresh shiitake mushrooms. 

When it was finished, it looked like this. It was really quite good, as my wife said so.
I‘ve only just noticed that the spoon in the parmesan is one that was given to our son when he was a baby.

Yes, I really did make a dessert!

Nothing particularly fancy, really. Orange ice cream from a recipe by Nigella Lawson. One of Mr Tesco’s meringue nests, and some tinned mandarin segments.

Sausages!

This is the recipe in one of my two sausage making books, that I just finished making. There seems to be a different Loukanika recipe for every Greek village, perhaps every house in every village. I was a bit surprised this one didn’t have paprika in it, but I resisted the temptation to meddle with it. This time…

Here we go! The meat has been in the freezer for an hour. You do that so it is cut up without all the juices escaping when you mince it. I don’t have any pictures of the mincing happening, as I really didn’t want to get raw pork all over my phone, but I promise you the mincing did happen. The garlic went in at this stage, to save the faff of crushing it separately. The box with the yellow lid contains the zest of two unwaxed oranges. Once the meat and garlic were minced, I added the herbs, zest,  spices and salt. I very nearly forgot to add the red wine! Some days I worry about my sanity. All that gets thoroughly mixed, and the human hand is the best tool for the job. You can see the actual mistake I did make, in this next picture. That is a small sausage funnel, suitable for use with sheeps’ casings, but I’m using hogs’ casings, which are quite a bit bigger. Rather than shifting the casing to the right size funnel, I just held the casing back a bit more than usual, until the meat filled it.

And here are all 18 of the sausages, along with a little bonus. The last of the sausage meat doesn’t emerge from the nozzle, once it has passed the end of the helical thingy, it doesn’t advance any further. I took it out, and made it into a patty, and fried it. It was delicious. I’m really looking forward to sausages for tea…

Pickled herrings, part 1.

I forgot to take a picture until I had already gutted and filleted the first four of the eight herrings I bought.

The plan is to make a jar of pickled herrings. I hope they will be tasty, because it’s a lot of work for such little fishes.

They have to be salted for a week, before they go into the spicy vinegar. I’m using two plastic boxes, having made a few holes in the inner one for drainage purposes. 


By the time that’s done, they will be even smaller and thinner than they already are.






Here is a sensible loaf of white bread, to make up for the bizarre one I posted the other day. 

I’ll show them who’s got guts!

It’s ages since I made any sausages. The first step, getting some casings, has been accomplished. I got these bits of pig gut online, at www.sausagemaking.org/

Easy ordering, and quick delivery. If you are not in the UK, you’ll just have to Google for a nearby supplier.

There’s enough here to make five batches, I think, so the four lots in the blue bags are currently frozen. They keep indefinitely when frozen…


I rewarded myself for this short step on the road to juicy sausages by having a nice, tasty, warm pastrami sandwich. The bread’s made with spelt, not rye, but was still enjoyable.

I‘ve put pork on the shopping list. Scary pictures, in due course…

Feet of clay. or perhaps dough?

Oh, look! 

It’s another of those marvelous looking artisan sourdough loaves. Or is it?
What can this mystery object be? It looks like a closeup of part of Mr Sasquatch.
When you have a sudden attack of clumsiness, as you are putting your dough onto your baking stone, and fail to keep it all on the stone…

You can end up baking something pretty bizarre. This has been a public service message, to show you that I can’t make great bread every time.

A little something from the Canary Islands.

This is almost certainly the smallest cookbook we have. It contains recipes for some amazing sauces that are popular in the Canary Islands, and I brought it back from Fuerteventura a few years ago.
I wanted very much to make Almogrote Gomera, a cheesy, garlicky dip, but didn’t have the necessary beef tomatoes. I decided to use red pepper instead, as we just happened to have one handy. As you can see, here, I’ve scorched the skin to get the peel off. To do that, once it is nicely blackened, it goes into a plastic bag to cool down.

Once it is cool, the skin can be scraped off with a knife, to reveal the cooked interior. The stem, seeds and any big pithy bits are disposed of.
The grated cheese, crushed garlic (lots), salt, pepper, well soaked dried chillis, and  olive oil just need to be mixed to a paste with some suitable device – here is our trusty Bamix.
I also made some papas arrugadas, which translates as wrinkly potatoes. There is so much salt in the water that the potatoes actually float! Cook for about 25 minutes, tip almost all the water away, and heat gently, shaking the pan, to crystallise the remaining salt on the potatoes.
Snack attack! Papas Arrugadas with Almogrote Gomera. Surprisingly, the potatoes are not as salty as you would expect. As soon as I can get hold of some more dried chillis, I intend to make my favourite Canary Islands mojo, which is mojo picon.

It was very quiet. But I’m back.

I managed to mess my main computer up, to a colossal degree, a few days ago. The recovery seems to be working, touch wood.

Here is the pork pie I made. There are minor technical faults, for instance, I should have domed the meat, to make it easier to fill it up with jelly where the meat has shrunk away from the sides. But I’m very pleased with the pastry, the delicious flavour of the meat (perhaps ever so slightly too much nutmeg), and the appearance of the thing.
As you can see, that gap at the side should have been filled with yummy jelly, which would have helped it to keep longer. But then, as it is all gone now, I can’t see a problem with that.

Next time, I think I will attempt a raised pie, cooked without the benefit of a tin to support it. And I will probably use different meat and flavourings. Some duck would probably be good.