May Cookery Book

Hello there, it's been a while since Penny at The Homemade Heart ran her Cookery Calendar Challenge. I'd fully intended to carry on with it regardless but... I didn't. Strangely I've missed the challenge of finding 2 meals to cook from a cookery book each month. So I thought I would dust off some of my forgotten cookery books again and see which ones inspire me to 'have a go' and which ones I'll be sending to the charity shop.

Whilst testing food on the Fodmap diet, I've been put me off baking and experimenting with new meals lately. With tomato seeming to be an issue still, I've decided to 'try' and embrace change. I may not be able to eat all that I want but I can eat more than I thought.

So on 'my' continuing mission, these are the voyages of my celebration of food, its continuing mission to feed my family, to seek out new ingredients and enjoy long forgotten ones. To boldly go where I've not been for a very long time.

Unlike Star Trek, I won't be exploring the galaxy, instead I'll explore the pantry and bookshelf. I'll be using the above cookbook which the teens bought me last year for Mother's Day. I should point out that though it says Grandma's Cookbook, I am not a Grandma. It is a lovely book but I confess, I've only chosen one recipe to cook this time. I've found a few others that I'd like but as yet I've not made them.

Banana and Poppy Seed Muffins

To get me started I chose a recipe from the breakfast section - Banana and Poppy Seed Muffin. I made mine with gluten free flour, a mixed blend from Doves flour. I have some in the pantry still and I've become accustomed to the texture, though it can be grainy and dry, it's not sticky like regular flour can be. People who don't eat cake will often say that it's the stickiness around their teeth that they dislike.

Apart from pastry, I prefer the non-stickiness of gluten free baking. I appreciate that Coeliacs and other restricted diets don't have a choice and have to stick with a gluten free diet. People sometimes chose - 'opting' for certain diets such as gluten free, vegetarian or vegan which unfortunately can be contentious in restaurants or social gatherings etc but we are free to chose and that's got to be good. 

I'm not sure if these are classed as healthy muffins, the fat is an oil. I'm assuming the more liquid the fat, the healthier it is. Baking for dairy free friends last summer, I substituted butter in some cakes for dairy free fat. I suppose you can swap things around however you need to. They taste delicious in a small dish with natural yoghurt and would equally be nice with a soft cheese icing - such as the topping on a carrot cake.

You do need 3 well ripened bananas, which the recipe requires you to mash first before adding to the rest of the ingredients. Did I do this... no. I simply broke the banana into chunks and tossed them and all the other ingredients in my Braun Multipractic Food Processor. Placing the bowl on the scales, I weighed everything with the blade in place. Then attaching it on the base, processed everything until smooth.

Delia Smith (love her cookery books) would probably be screaming nooo! as she advises lots of air to be incorporated in cakes. As long as it mixes well and preferably doesn't curdle, all will be well. I tend to favour the all-in-one method and always make pastry in my Braun mixer too.

Bacon and Mushroom Quiche

These quiches weren't in the book but I simply fancied cooking them for dinner. Maybe they aren't the sort of thing that Grandmas cook, I'm not sure? Anyway I love making quiche and though I always make variations upon quiche lorraine, I'm constantly improving them all the time. I resent paying for small tasteless things from the supermarkets. I've tried baking the pastry blind and using beans (clay ones) on the base, in the past. This time was ok, no leaks but my pastry base was a bit raw! Any advice would be appreciated.

My quiches are baked in large 12" tins, I always bake two as it's convenient for tomorrow's dinner. These are made with regular flour, in a preheated oven with the tins placed on top of metal trays to make the bases hot. I painted egg yoke on after 15 mins but then sprinkled grated cheese on before the other ingredients.

The fillings are:- (shared between both) - Grated cheese, cooked streaky bacon cut small, a drained tin of mushrooms, black pepper, herbs, double cream and 4 eggs plus 2 extra yokes whisked together. The pastry was shortcrust using 1 lb plain flour, 8 oz fat (I used half cookeen and butter) and cold water to bind into a dough. We cooked the quiche for tonight's dinner, one with chips and a salad, tomorrow we'll eat the other one with a jacket potato and salad.

QT would like to thank you for reading about his life during May. He received a surprising amount of lovely comments which he felt he should respond to purr-sonally. He's quite the little superstar, though as a Maine Coon cat he is slightly larger than your average sized domestic cat. He is quite long and stands tall on his long legs. He's been taking your advice this week, including more rest time in his busy retirement schedule of  'plenty of sleep.'
We love him to bits and think he's worth it.

What do you like to cook that you won't purchase ready made?
Do you have a recipe that you are hoping to improve on?
Do you do batch baking and if so what?

Bye for now
Cathy x