Key Lime Pie

Key lime pie is the easiest pie ever, I always feel like a total cheat when people go on about how good it is, it's my husband's favourite and I don't think he will be too impressed when there's none left for him tonight!

This is a standard recipe that is in most cookbooks, I add lime zest for added tang and because I can't get graham crackers in Ireland I use a pack of Lincoln biscuits. Easy peasy and done in no time.  It's much better chilled, so bake the night before if you can!

Ingredients:

• 1 pack lincoln biscuits (shortbread will work too)
• 3-4 tbsp melted butter
• 1 can sweetened condensed milk
• 4 egg yolks
• 1/2 cup (4 fl. oz.) fresh squeezed lime juice
• zest of two limes
• Whipped cream to garnish
• Lime wedges, to garnish

Pre-heat oven to 175C / 325 F

Use a food processor to blitz the biscuits into crumbs (a bag and rolling pin will also work). Add the melted butter and press into a pie dish.  Bake for 15 minutes.

Lightly beat the egg yolks and add the condensed milk, lime juice and lime zest.  Whisk until combined, it will thicken.

When crust is done, allow to cool for a minute or two and pour in the filling.  Bake for fifteen minutes.  Remove and allow to come to room temperature.  It will get more solid as it cools.  Refrigerate for 6-8 hours or overnight.

Whip cream and spread on top, garnish with lime wedges and additional lime zest if wanted.

Chicken and Black Bean Burritos

This is a delicious and super easy Tex Mex meal that can be whipped up in no time. Serve with salsa, sour cream and shredded lettuce for a delicious healthy meal!

Ingredients-
- 1 onion, diced
- 2 cups shredded cooked chicken
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1 tbsp cumin
- 1 tsp chilli powder
- 1 tsp smoked paprika
- 2-3 tbsp salsa
- 1 can black beans, drained
- 1 large handful coriander (cilantro) chopped
- 2 cups shredded cheese
- 8 flour tortillas
- butter for frying

Melt a tablespoon if butter in a small skillet. Add onion and sauté until softened. Add in chicken and spiced and stir in garlic until fragrant. Remove from heat and stir in salsa, beans and coriander. Season to taste. Depending on your taste you may want to add a teaspoon of sugar to counteract the salsa.

Split the mixture onto the 8 tortillas. Top with 1/8 of the cheese and fold into a little envelope.

Fry in butter until browned and pop in oven to keep warm while you do the rest.

Serve with salsa, guacamole, sour cream and some shredded lettuce. Enjoy!

Vanilla Puff Pancake

This is one of the kids favourite weekend breakfasts. It's absolutely a cinch to make and such a treat.  It's got a big protein punch too.

To increase the portions just add another 1/4 cup milk and flour plus an additional egg and tablespoon of sugar per person, the recipe below serves four and a baby, although everyone usually wants seconds! :)




Ingredients:

• 1 cup plain flour
• 4 large eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• 1 vanilla bean, seeds scraped
• 4 tbsp butter
• Powdered suggar to serve

Preheat oven to 200C/400F.

Get a large casserole dish and place the butter in it. Pop into the oven while you prepare the batter.

Mix the flour and eggs (don't ask, just do, it seems to make sense that the milk would be a better option, but that makes lumps) when the eggs and flour form a thick paste whisk in the rest of the ingredients and vanilla seeds.  Whisk until well combined and no lumps remain. 

Allow to stand as long as you like but at least 5-10 minutes.

When oven is pre-heated and butter melted, take out dish and swirl the butter to coat the entire dish.  Pour in the batter and pop back into the oven.

Cook for 15-25 minutes or until it's beautifully risen and golden and the middle is cooked.

Once done remove and quickly dust with powdered sugar and serve at once.  It will fall once it's out, but it will still be delicious!

A savoury version of this recipe can be easily made omitting the sugar and vanilla and adding some mustard as in yorkshire puddings or heating sausages in the butter first to make toad in the hole.  It's extremely versatile and fruit can be added as well to great affect.  I often add apples and the sugar to the butter and let them begin to caramelise with a pinch of cinnamon before adding the batter and the result is sublime!  A real winner! :)

Sweet Baby Carrot Cake

I love heady textured carrot cake as much as any other person but sometimes the occasion calls for something more feminine and elegant. Enter the sweet baby carrot cake!

This cake (a Paula Deen recipe I believe, copied it down from a magazine years ago) is originally made with jars of baby food carrot purée but I just puréed half a pound of boiled carrots. Baked in layers with a lusciously light cream cheese frosting the cake turns out delicate and moist and stays tasty for days. Perfect for a baby shower or just having the girls round for coffee. People who don't normally like carrot cake (aka my kids) adore this cake.

It's very simple too I just dump everything in the food processor that I puréed the carrots in, easy peasy and no mess!

Ingredients:

For the cake-

• 2 cups plain flour


• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 2 cups sugar
• 1.5 cups vegetable oil
• 8 oz puréed boiled carrots
• 4 large free range eggs
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp mixed spice
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• Cream cheese frosting (follows)
• Pecans to garnish, if desired.

Preheat oven to 170C/325F.

Butter and flour three 9 inch round cake pans.

Beat together or food process all ingredients.

Divide evenly between the three pans.

Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Cool for five minutes or so in pans and then turn out onto a cooling rack. Do not frost until fully cooled.

Frost liberally the top of the first cake and place the second layer on top. Repeat with the third layer.  Put an extremely thin layer over the sides and top of the cake, paper thin, this is known as the crumb coat and will prevent crumbs from getting in your frosting.  Allow this to set for 30 minutes or so, popping in the fridge to speed up the process if you would like.

Once the crumb coat is set frost top and sides liberally with an offset spatula and decorate as desired.

For the Frosting-

• 8 oz cream cheese, at room temperature
• 2 oz / 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 1lb of icing/powdered sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Beat cream cheese and butter together and slowly add powdered sugar.  Add vanilla and beat until smooth and creamy and there's no trace of graininess from the sugar.

Cheater's Sushi Stacks

I had the girls around on Friday night for Wine and hors d'oeuvres and had a terrible hankering for sushi.  Living in the Midlands, that's generally impossible to satisfy without driving to Dublin.  Even to make my own I would have to be extremely confident in the freshness of the fish and being so far inland and having only access to one fishmonger who I don't particularly care for means I won't be making sashimi at home any time soon.  I decided to use some gorgeous Irish smoked salmon instead. I was slightly pressed for time, so didn't want to mess with vegetables and rolls, so I made stacks!  This is super easy and very appealing to sushi newbies with all the ingredients available at Tesco!

Smoked Salmon Sushi Stacks

• 1½ cups sushi rice 
• 2 cups water
• 3 tablespoons rice wine vinegar 
• 2 teaspoons sugar 
• 2 teaspoons mirin 
• 2 teaspoons sake (can use water)
• 1½ teaspoons sea salt 
• 4 sheets toasted nori 
• 1 tsp wasabi 
• 3 tbsp mayonnaise
• 8 ounces smoked salmon
• Pickled ginger, soy sauce and wasabi to garnish and serve

Bring rice and water to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until water has been absorbed, about 15 minutes. Meanwhile, mix rice wine vinegar, sugar, salt, mirin and sake in a small saucepan and cook until salt and sugar are dissolved. 

When rice is cooked, mix in vinegar mixture and spread out on a clean surface to cool.

Mix mayonnaise with wasabi until combined and light green.

Lay one sheet of nori on a clean surface and spoon 1/3 of the rice on top. Spread out over the nori using wet hands and press down to seal.  Top with a layer of smoked salmon. Using a pastry brush, brush with a thin layer of mayonnaise. Top with another sheet of nori and press down frimly to seal. Repeat twice more finishing with the fourth sheet of nori, shiny side up.

Wrap the square in plastic film and refrigerate for a few hours.

When ready to serve, get a very sharp knife and run the hot water.  Wipe and run the knife under the water before each slice using the wet blade to cut the stack into one inch pieces.  

Serve topped with pickled ginger and leave out soy sauce, wasabi and some extra wasabi mayonnaise for people to add as desired.

Submit to: Recipe Sharing Monday

Messy Tasty Kiddy Fun: Making Truffles

"I'm bored" and "I'm hungry" seem to be favourite sentences around here of late.  I decided to tackle both problems when the girls had some friends over.  I let them make truffles. Pretty gourmet for kids, but this easy recipe is so simple that it's perfect for kids to have some fun with. You can play around with flavourings too adding orange or raspberry extract for fruity versions and you can definitely experiment with toppings. I asked if they wanted coconut but got a resounding "ewwwww!"  For adult versions you could add some grand marnier.



Easy Cream Cheese Truffles

• 8 oz full fat cream cheese
• 12oz dark chocolate, melted
• 3 cups icing sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• Cocoa, icing sugar, sprinkles, coconut etc to decorate

Beat the cream cheese with a spatula until softened. Add in sugar and vanilla and beat until combined.  Stir in chocolate, it should start to thicken right away.  Once combined, refrigerate for 20 minutes to an hour.

Use a teaspoon and scoop out a spoonful of truffle mixture and roll into a ball in your hand.  Roll in topping of choice, eat immediately or refrigerate until serving. Enjoy!

Foolproof Beef Wellington

You know that one dish that never ceases to please just about everyone? Well, this is mine.  This is our Christmas dinner every year and also tends to crop up for other special occasions.  We do it for Christmas because with Paul being American we celebrate Thanksgiving and a full turkey dinner twice in a month is just too much for me!  This is a very traditional recipe with a beautiful mushroom and shallot duxelle and cheaters (store bought) puff pastry*.  Serve with some pan gravy, roast potatoes cooked in goose fat, some trimmed asparagus drizzled in lemon butter and roasted beetroot for an amazing luxurious (and easy, but no one will be able to tell) dinner!  Apologies for the poor photos, I only had my iPhone at the time.

Ingredients:

• Olive oil
• Salt and pepper
• 2-3lb beef or venison fillet, trimmed
• 8oz cremini (chestnut) or wild mushrooms, finely diced
• 2 shallots, finely diced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• butter
• 1/2 cup dry white wine or brandy
• 2-3 sprigs fresh thyme, finely chopped
• 2-3 sprigs fresh parsley, finely chopped.
• 1 tbsp Dijon mustard
• 15 slices of prosciutto or serrano ham
• 1 package of puff pastry*
• Egg wash**

Heat a large skillet and add a glug of olive oil.  Season the trimmed fillet with salt and pepper and sear each side until browned, about a minute a side, longer if you want your finished fillet to be cooked more than medium rare.  Remove from heat, set aside. 

Add butter to skillet and allow to melt.  Add shallots and cook for a few minutes until softened.  Add mushrooms and cook until liquid has evaporated.  Add white wine and cook down until liquid is gone.  Stir in the garlic and herbs, cooking for a minute.  Remove from heat. 

Unroll a large piece of plastic wrap, thick enough to wrap around the fillet.  Lay out the prosciutto, slightly overlapping on the cling film.  Spread the mushroom duxelle over the prosciutto leaving about an inch at the edges. Coat the fillet with the dijon mustard. 

Place the fillet on top of the duxelle and prosciutto then use the plastic wrap to bring the prosciutto up and around the fillet. Roll the fillet up tight, twisting the plastic wrap at each end tightly to form an even cylinder. Pop in freezer while you prepare the pastry.

Roll out the pastry sheet so that it is large enough to enclose the fillet.  Brush the edges with egg wash and wrap fillet up sealing the edges.  Use any extra pastry to make a decorative topping for the wellington.  Brush the pastry with egg wash and bake for 25 minutes at 200C/400F for medium rare and 30 minutes for medium. Allow to stand for ten minutes before carving.  Enjoy!

* Aldi are doing a butter puff pastry in their chilled section now and I have to say it's very good and much better value than the branded stuff!

**1 egg plus a teaspoon of cold water

Linking up to: Recipe Sharing Monday,

Lettuce, Spring Onion and Cheese Tart

"Cooked lettuce?!?" he asks incredulously.

"No judging til you try it, I promise, you'll love it," I assure him and I was right. He did and so did everyone else who tried it.  This incredible tart is another recipe from The River Cottage Veg Cookbook.  I knew as soon as I looked at it that it would be a winner and it was.

Because I was lazy, I didn't make the pastry from scratch, but instead used the shortcrust pastry from Aldi, which was surprisingly delicious!  I followed the rest of the recipe to a T, adding just a pinch of grated nutmeg.  The result was sublime; a soft buttery velvet custard with caramelised spring onion and baby gem.  Perfect served warm or cold, alone or with a nice salad - this will be a staple for my weekday lunches!

Ingredients: 


For the Pastry-

• 250g plain flour
• pinch of sea salt
• 125g chilled unsalted butter, cut into chunks
• 75ml cold milk

For the filling-

• 1 tbsp rapeseed/olive oil
• 4 little gem lettuce hearts, trimmed and quartered
• 15g butter
• 2 bunches spring onions, trimmed and cut into chunks
• 100g Lancashire, medium cheddar or hard goat's cheese
• 2 large eggs
• 2 egg yolks
• 200ml double cream
• 200ml whole milk
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

To make the pastry, sift flour and salt together, or blitz in a food processor.  Add the butter and blitz or rub until it resembles breadcrumbs.  Mix in the milk little by little until the pastry comes together.  Turn out onto floured surface and knead briefly to bring into a ball. Wrap and chill for thirty minutes.

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F.  Roll out the pastry on a floured surface and use it to line a 25cm tart tin.  Line with foil and rice or baking beans and bake blind for fifteen minutes.  After that time, remove foil and beans and bake for a further 10-15 minutes until starting to colour.  

To make the filling, heat the oil in a frying pan over a medium heat.  Add the quartered lettuce hearts, sprinkle with slat and pepper and cook for about 5 minutes, turning once or twice until the cooked surface is golden brown.  Add the butter towards the end, letting it melt then spooning it over the lettuces. Arrange the lettuce in the pastry case.

Reduce heat in pan and add the spring onions.  Saute gently until just softened and scatter over lettuce in the tart case.  Crumble or grate the cheese on top.

Lightly beat eggs, egg yolks, milk and cream and season generously with salt and pepper.  Pour the mixture over the tart filling and bake for about 35 minutes until golden.  Serve warm or at room temperature. 

Mama's Power Brekky - Curried Pea Frittata

Being eight months pregnant, I've found that I need to eat a high protein nutritious breakfast to ensure I have enough energy to get through a day of small child wrangling, school runs, cooking, cleaning, errands and managing to look somewhat sane and possibly even awake when hubby gets home after ten.  Eggs are a fabulous way to start the day and ensure your energy level remains high for quite some time. Add that to two servings of veggies and you're really off to a good start.  Peas are a great source of ALA and phytonutrients and topped off with some homemade beetroot relish I have a breakfast that any midwife would approve of. This is so easy and so delicious and is a truly fabulous start to the day!

Curried Pea Frittata for One

• 2 tsp olive oil
• 1/2 red onion, diced
• handful frozen peas
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp curry powder
• salt and pepper, to taste
• beetroot, tomato, salsa or other fresh relish to serve

Heat the olive oil in a frying pan and sauté the onion until just softened.  Add the peas and cook until warmed through.

Meanwhile whisk eggs with salt, pepper and curry powder.  Pour over pea and onion mixture and allow to gently cook.  Lift sides with a spatula to allow egg to flow underneath.  Cook through, or pop under a hot grill to finish.  

Serve hot with relish or mango chutney.