I've always been partial to a drop of the old BBQ sauce - its sweet, smoky, spicy, sticky and any number of other delicious 's' words. I've never found a recipe that I really liked though...until now! The Hairy Bikers (of whom I am also rather partial) provided the basic recipe but then I've adapted it and now have a mighty fine sauce.
Now according to the Hairy Bikers, this recipe makes enough for 2 kg of ribs. I find that I use all the spice rub but only half the sauce. It keeps beautifully in a sterilised jar in the cupboard and makes a great dip or sauce for another BBQ dish.
First off, make your spice rub:
25 g light soft brown sugar
2 tbspns Old Bay seasoning (in the UK you can get this from our friends at Amazon, otherwise use paprika)
1 tbspn salt
2 tsp cajun seasoning (I use a mix that I buy from a deli but use any that you like. Alternatively, use 2 tsp cayenne pepper)
2 tsp mustard powder
2 tsp mexican oregano (in the UK you can get this from delis that sell the 'Cool Chile Co' products. Alternatively use regular dried oregano)
So if you're making ribs - you mix this spice rub together, reserve 3 tbspns and then use the rest to marinate the ribs. For the sauce, you take the reserved spice rub and put it in a pan with:
200 ml ketchup
100 ml water
75 ml red wine vinegar (or cider vinegar)
150 g light soft brown sugar
3 tbspn runny honey
2 tbspn Worcestershire sauce
3 garlic cloves - I just lightly bash them and throw them in to infuse, so I can fish them out later without needing to strain the sauce. If you really love your garlic then you could crush it and leave it in
This lot needs to get warmed through until the sugar has melted and then bring to a simmer for around 5 minutes to get it slightly thickened.
You can then brush this over ribs, chicken pieces, sausages, prawns or even steaks and grill to get them really sticky and sweet. You probably want to cook or at least par-cook things like the ribs and chicken first because otherwise the glaze will burn before the meat is cooked.
So go on, make some BBQ sauce - lots of ingredients but so quick to put together and so delicious and versatile!
Miss E xxx
Wednesday, 22 January 2014
Tuesday, 21 January 2014
I didn't have enough of X so I used Y
I tried a new recipe out the other night - well I say I 'tried it out', what I actually did was: choose the recipe, buy half the ingredients and then bake something that pretty much resembles the original but isn't quite what it was meant to be...
It's called 'Fruity Cardamon Flapjack Shortcake Tart' - I know, world's longest name right?! Basically imagine a shortbread and a flapjack had a little patisserie baby - got that image in your head? Cool.
So the original recipe requires:
115 g butter, melted and mixed with 1 tsp vanilla essence (so far, so good - I had all of that)
150 g dates and 50 g dried apricots, all finely chopped and cooked with the zest of an orange and 100 ml orange juice (this is where things started to go wrong as I didn't have an orange, but did have some rather wrinkly looking tangerines left over from Christmas - its amazing how long those bad boys last!). You cook this for about a minute just to get the fruit plumped up.
Then you mix 4 oz wholemeal flour (well all I had was white flour) with 4 oz of oats (at this point I discovered I only had 3 oz of oats left, so topped up with ground almonds) and 3.5 oz of light brown sugar (I had 2 oz so topped it up with light muscovado sugar), 40 g of sunflower seeds, 40 g pumpkin seeds (I forgot to buy pumpkin seeds so used more sunflower seeds), 1/2tsp cinnamon and 1/2tsp cardamon - you guessed it, I didn't have cardamon either so in went a bit more cinnamon! I apologise for suddenly switching to imperial measurements - even though I know you're not supposed to mix metric and imperial measurements, I always do as I'm terribly old fashioned and insist on weighing flour, sugar and butter in ounces - its the product of being a child of the 80's and learning the metric system but having a mother and granny who still used imperial!
Anyway, so you mix the butter in with the dry ingredients and make a fairly sticky shortbread-flapjack mix.
Half of this mix gets pressed into a 7", lined tart tin. The fruity concoction goes on next and then the rest of the shortbread-flapjack mix. This gets baked for about 30-35 minutes until slightly golden. You need to leave it to cool before cutting it into pieces. I cut this into 8 pieces and 1/8th is quite filling because of all the oats and seeds.
So here's the final baked version (minus a small bit that I cut out to taste to see if it was any good!)
I have to say, it really is lovely - it makes a great breakfast/brunch/elevenses snack.
Enjoy!
Miss Ellie xxx
It's called 'Fruity Cardamon Flapjack Shortcake Tart' - I know, world's longest name right?! Basically imagine a shortbread and a flapjack had a little patisserie baby - got that image in your head? Cool.
So the original recipe requires:
115 g butter, melted and mixed with 1 tsp vanilla essence (so far, so good - I had all of that)
150 g dates and 50 g dried apricots, all finely chopped and cooked with the zest of an orange and 100 ml orange juice (this is where things started to go wrong as I didn't have an orange, but did have some rather wrinkly looking tangerines left over from Christmas - its amazing how long those bad boys last!). You cook this for about a minute just to get the fruit plumped up.
Then you mix 4 oz wholemeal flour (well all I had was white flour) with 4 oz of oats (at this point I discovered I only had 3 oz of oats left, so topped up with ground almonds) and 3.5 oz of light brown sugar (I had 2 oz so topped it up with light muscovado sugar), 40 g of sunflower seeds, 40 g pumpkin seeds (I forgot to buy pumpkin seeds so used more sunflower seeds), 1/2tsp cinnamon and 1/2tsp cardamon - you guessed it, I didn't have cardamon either so in went a bit more cinnamon! I apologise for suddenly switching to imperial measurements - even though I know you're not supposed to mix metric and imperial measurements, I always do as I'm terribly old fashioned and insist on weighing flour, sugar and butter in ounces - its the product of being a child of the 80's and learning the metric system but having a mother and granny who still used imperial!
Anyway, so you mix the butter in with the dry ingredients and make a fairly sticky shortbread-flapjack mix.
Half of this mix gets pressed into a 7", lined tart tin. The fruity concoction goes on next and then the rest of the shortbread-flapjack mix. This gets baked for about 30-35 minutes until slightly golden. You need to leave it to cool before cutting it into pieces. I cut this into 8 pieces and 1/8th is quite filling because of all the oats and seeds.
So here's the final baked version (minus a small bit that I cut out to taste to see if it was any good!)
I have to say, it really is lovely - it makes a great breakfast/brunch/elevenses snack.
Enjoy!
Miss Ellie xxx
Thursday, 9 January 2014
Time for an Overhaul
I've been thinking about changing a few things about the look of this blog so I've had a bit of a play around with the background etc. I hope you like it!
I made myself a promise that this year there would be no New Years Resolutions and then I found myself saying "this year I will...", so I thought I would stop fighting it and accept that these are essentially New Years Resolutions. Top of these is to put more effort into getting Miss Ellie Creations up and running as a full-blown business. This Christmas, I took orders for Christmas cakes and they were really successful. Its made me hungry (pardon the pun!) for more - more baking, more selling and more working for myself.
So, watch this space - I'm going to be working really hard over the next few months to get things sorted out and of course my progress will be documented on here for the world to see!
Onwards and upwards!
Miss E xxx
I made myself a promise that this year there would be no New Years Resolutions and then I found myself saying "this year I will...", so I thought I would stop fighting it and accept that these are essentially New Years Resolutions. Top of these is to put more effort into getting Miss Ellie Creations up and running as a full-blown business. This Christmas, I took orders for Christmas cakes and they were really successful. Its made me hungry (pardon the pun!) for more - more baking, more selling and more working for myself.
So, watch this space - I'm going to be working really hard over the next few months to get things sorted out and of course my progress will be documented on here for the world to see!
Onwards and upwards!
Miss E xxx
Tuesday, 2 July 2013
Holidays in Secret Gardens
Mr Ellie and I have just returned from a lovely holiday camping in the New Forest - not your back-to-basics camping but none of this 'glamping' malarky either! I do require a nice clean shower/toilet block but I'm happy to leave the designer gear at home...I say that as if I have any designer gear but quite frankly fashion is one of life's mysteries to me (as my fashion designer sister frequently reminds me!).
Anyway, if you've never been to the New Forest then you are missing out on one of the World's most beautiful places - in my humble opinion a place that should be one of the Seven Wonders of the World. There are areas of woodland interspersed through vast plains of moorland that stretch as far as the eye can see and in between, tucked away are little villages of thatched cottages with quintessential English country gardens full of lupins and roses around the door. Roaming free throughout the area are the beautiful New Forest ponies - hardy, stocky but graceful beasts. Some of the ponies clearly descend from Shetland stock and there are even some 'wild' donkeys who frequent the local fish and chip shop and loiter hopefully next to people on their lunch-break, hoping for the occasional salt-and-vinegar crisp to come their way.
Of course no visit to the New Forest would be complete for Mr Ellie and I without copious cream teas (lets face it, we can't go anywhere without seeking out an obliging tea shop and indulging in a scone). Now we have been to the New Forest twice before so have tried out a few different tea rooms. However, we had managed to miss out on a real gem - until now!
The Secret Garden in Brockenhurst is tucked away behind the main parade of shops which means that as soon as you enter, you feel like you are in a different world. It is exactly the feeling that I imagine Mary to have felt when she entered her own Secret Garden. The tea 'room' is in the gardens of a hotel in which they have erected a couple of marquees and picnic tables:
Everything is decorated in vintage style with a 1940's theme and from a vintage-style radio, 40's music plays quietly across the garden. It is a place to linger and relax whilst drinking tea from the eclectic assortment of tea service. There is something about tea from a pot that is just so much nicer than tea in a mug. Of course, if it was me, I'd have loose-leaf tea, bone china tea cups and sugar lumps with a set of beautiful victorian sugar tongs but then I'm old-fashioned when it comes to tea!
The flowers planted around the garden scent the air with their perfume and birds hop around scouting for crumbs, of which there are not many because I can honestly say the scones here are up their with the best I've ever had...buttery, buttery and more buttery, so short they are almost shortbread like and covered in a rich crust of sugar adding a delicious crunch and sweetness. They are served with strawberry jam in tiny jam jars and fresh clotted cream, decorated with a ripe English strawberry.
Mr Ellie and I loved the Secret Garden so much that we visited three times!! First time we had the cream tea (also on offer is a strawberry tea - scone with cream and jam and a bowl of strawberries) and the second and third visits were for High Tea.
High Tea, as you can see, consists of sandwiches, hot buttered crumpets, scones with cream and jam and cakes. It is an indulgent, carbohydrate-laden dream!
The sandwiches are from a selection of cheese, egg mayo or ham and the cakes are from the daily selection of home-made cakes. The cakes are delicious - like the scones, they are made by someone who loves their baking! Light victoria sponge, buttery sweet flapjacks, deep chocolate tiffin and crunchy lemon drizzle were all eaten up to the last crumb. The menu clearly states that everything is made with real butter - a philosophy which I whole-heartedly embrace as, quite frankly, cake made with anything else is just not cake but a mockery of cake, a fraudulent imitation that will never stand up to the real thing.
The bread for the sandwiches comes from the local bakery 'The Bakehouse' which is another treat for any visitor to Brockenhurst - try the freshly made doughnuts or the custard slice, you won't be disappointed!
Miss E xxx
Anyway, if you've never been to the New Forest then you are missing out on one of the World's most beautiful places - in my humble opinion a place that should be one of the Seven Wonders of the World. There are areas of woodland interspersed through vast plains of moorland that stretch as far as the eye can see and in between, tucked away are little villages of thatched cottages with quintessential English country gardens full of lupins and roses around the door. Roaming free throughout the area are the beautiful New Forest ponies - hardy, stocky but graceful beasts. Some of the ponies clearly descend from Shetland stock and there are even some 'wild' donkeys who frequent the local fish and chip shop and loiter hopefully next to people on their lunch-break, hoping for the occasional salt-and-vinegar crisp to come their way.
Of course no visit to the New Forest would be complete for Mr Ellie and I without copious cream teas (lets face it, we can't go anywhere without seeking out an obliging tea shop and indulging in a scone). Now we have been to the New Forest twice before so have tried out a few different tea rooms. However, we had managed to miss out on a real gem - until now!
The Secret Garden in Brockenhurst is tucked away behind the main parade of shops which means that as soon as you enter, you feel like you are in a different world. It is exactly the feeling that I imagine Mary to have felt when she entered her own Secret Garden. The tea 'room' is in the gardens of a hotel in which they have erected a couple of marquees and picnic tables:
Everything is decorated in vintage style with a 1940's theme and from a vintage-style radio, 40's music plays quietly across the garden. It is a place to linger and relax whilst drinking tea from the eclectic assortment of tea service. There is something about tea from a pot that is just so much nicer than tea in a mug. Of course, if it was me, I'd have loose-leaf tea, bone china tea cups and sugar lumps with a set of beautiful victorian sugar tongs but then I'm old-fashioned when it comes to tea!
The flowers planted around the garden scent the air with their perfume and birds hop around scouting for crumbs, of which there are not many because I can honestly say the scones here are up their with the best I've ever had...buttery, buttery and more buttery, so short they are almost shortbread like and covered in a rich crust of sugar adding a delicious crunch and sweetness. They are served with strawberry jam in tiny jam jars and fresh clotted cream, decorated with a ripe English strawberry.
Mr Ellie and I loved the Secret Garden so much that we visited three times!! First time we had the cream tea (also on offer is a strawberry tea - scone with cream and jam and a bowl of strawberries) and the second and third visits were for High Tea.
The sandwiches are from a selection of cheese, egg mayo or ham and the cakes are from the daily selection of home-made cakes. The cakes are delicious - like the scones, they are made by someone who loves their baking! Light victoria sponge, buttery sweet flapjacks, deep chocolate tiffin and crunchy lemon drizzle were all eaten up to the last crumb. The menu clearly states that everything is made with real butter - a philosophy which I whole-heartedly embrace as, quite frankly, cake made with anything else is just not cake but a mockery of cake, a fraudulent imitation that will never stand up to the real thing.
The bread for the sandwiches comes from the local bakery 'The Bakehouse' which is another treat for any visitor to Brockenhurst - try the freshly made doughnuts or the custard slice, you won't be disappointed!
Miss E xxx
Monday, 13 May 2013
Worth the wait...
I can't begin to tell you how excited I was on Thursday morning - I woke up, full of anticipation and got myself dressed before racing downstairs to check my phone....Text message: 'Hi, this is to remind you we'll be delivering your order today between 15:40 and 19:40...' Crushing disappointment followed - delivery between 15:40 and 19:40??? You mean I would have to wait at least 10.5 hours???? (Yes, I was up at 5am and yes, I was technically on holiday but that's not the point).
Somehow I managed to make it through the day and, as if reading my mind, the delivery drivers turned up at 15:40 - in the back of the truck was the most gorgeous, shiny, beautiful brand new cooker...and it was heading into my kitchen!
Now I realise that to most, this wouldn't be worth the level of build-up and excitement (let alone the 5am wake up call - certainly Mr Ellie wasn't too fussed on that bit) but then clearly most people haven't had to deal with my old cooker, with its broken handles, no working ignition switch meaning I had to take my life into my hands every time I needed to light the oven, sized so that no normal baking tray would fit and with a variable attitude towards 'cooking' (two settings - cremated or raw). Plus, it had about 20 years of grease and muck build up that even the most determined Mr Muscle failed to defeat.
So you can see why the arrival of my brand new cooker caused such a level of excitement!
I managed to wait until Friday before embarking on the inaugral cooking marathon, but then I cooked my little heart out and now the freezer is full of lamb curry and curried meatballs (both recipes courtesy of Anjum Anand's Indian Food Made Easy), goulash soup (thanks Hairy Bikers!), bolognese (Mr Ellie's own recipe) and there are jars of strawberry jam and rhubarb chutney on the shelf ready and waiting for the Weardale Show in August. Mr Ellie is very happy at the prospect of so many tasty delights for dinner this week.
Sadly that means I won't need to cook on an evening, which means no more excuses for leaving the ironing...Still ironing means I get to watch Food Network and the joys of Amazing Wedding Cakes and Ultimate Sweets - bring on the cakey goodies!
Miss Ellie xxx
Somehow I managed to make it through the day and, as if reading my mind, the delivery drivers turned up at 15:40 - in the back of the truck was the most gorgeous, shiny, beautiful brand new cooker...and it was heading into my kitchen!
Now I realise that to most, this wouldn't be worth the level of build-up and excitement (let alone the 5am wake up call - certainly Mr Ellie wasn't too fussed on that bit) but then clearly most people haven't had to deal with my old cooker, with its broken handles, no working ignition switch meaning I had to take my life into my hands every time I needed to light the oven, sized so that no normal baking tray would fit and with a variable attitude towards 'cooking' (two settings - cremated or raw). Plus, it had about 20 years of grease and muck build up that even the most determined Mr Muscle failed to defeat.
So you can see why the arrival of my brand new cooker caused such a level of excitement!
I managed to wait until Friday before embarking on the inaugral cooking marathon, but then I cooked my little heart out and now the freezer is full of lamb curry and curried meatballs (both recipes courtesy of Anjum Anand's Indian Food Made Easy), goulash soup (thanks Hairy Bikers!), bolognese (Mr Ellie's own recipe) and there are jars of strawberry jam and rhubarb chutney on the shelf ready and waiting for the Weardale Show in August. Mr Ellie is very happy at the prospect of so many tasty delights for dinner this week.
Sadly that means I won't need to cook on an evening, which means no more excuses for leaving the ironing...Still ironing means I get to watch Food Network and the joys of Amazing Wedding Cakes and Ultimate Sweets - bring on the cakey goodies!
Miss Ellie xxx
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