Toffee made in Yorkshire on that important day – 5 November

455 grams Demerara sugar or soft brown sugar
190 ml cold water
60 grams unsalted butter
1 level tbsp golden syrup
1 level tbsp black treacle
1 tsp malt vinegar

Lightly butter a square shallow baking tin (or two if you prefer it to be quite thin)

Put all the ingredients into a strong saucepan over a medium heat – while stirring – until the sugar has dissolved.
Bring to the boil, reduce temperature and cook slowly, while stirring.
Drop half a teaspoonful into a cup of cold water, if it is still chewy, continue cooking, if hard – it is fully cooked – while you are testing, remove from the heat.
Pour into the tin/s and allow to cool a little, mark into squares when it has partially set.
Remove from tin and break.

*I like this toffee chewy – so I stop cooking when it is not quite hard when tested. Watch the fillings.

Just a note of caution – protect your hands and arms when making toffee – this is not a recipe for children to prepare!

1 x 250 to 300 gram floury potato per person (King Edward or Maris Piper)
Olive oil and sea salt flakes
55 grams unsalted butter
Salt and freshly ground white pepper
Rarebit – for 2 to 3 people
90 grams mature Welsh farmhouse cheese or mature white Cheddar
75 ml Welsh stout or ale – warmed
12.5 grams unsalted butter
12.5 grams plain white flour
1/4 teaspoon mild mustard – ready prepared not powder (I use Dijon wholegrain)
1 large egg yolk, lightly whisked

Preheat oven to 180ºC

Wash the potatoes under cold running water, pat dry with kitchen paper towel then allow to dry at room temperature before baking.
Prick the skin several times with a fork or fine skewer.
Rub the skin with a little olive oil then sprinkle with sea salt.
Put them onto the middle shelf, bake for between up to 60 minutes.

Rarebit

Put the cheese and warmed ale into a saucepan, warm gently over a low heat, while stirring, until smooth then mix the flour and butter together, stir into the cheese mixture.
Bring to the boil while stirring constantly, reduce heat to low and cook for two minutes.
Remove from the hob, stir in the mustard and season to taste, allow to cool for 5 minutes.
Whisk in the egg yolk.
When the potatoes are ready, halve the potatoes and scoop out the flesh leaving an half centimetre layer.
Mash the potatoes with butter, lightly season and return to the skins.
Top with the rarebit, return to the oven for 20 minutes, or until lightly browned.

Just an idea for either Halloween or Guy Fawkes night for the children – young and not so young. Make either square – same shape as the puffs (or round). For a quick treat – buy frozen mini meatballs and ready made sauce plus ready rolled puff pastry.

Mini Turkey Burgers or Meatballs
900 grams fresh turkey mince
20 grams fresh breadcrumbs – either wholemeal or white
1 French shallot, peeled and finely diced
1 small egg white, lightly beaten
1 tbsp finely chopped flat leaf parsley leaves
1/2 small garlic clove – peeled and puréed
Pinch fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Sauce
Either buy ready made, or make your own using your favourite recipe.
Method
Put all the ingredients into a bowl.
Mix until thoroughly combined, either using the hands or tines of a fork.
Shape into 32 mini burgers or meatballs.
Fry in olive oil over a medium-low until lightly browned on both sides.
Pour the tomato sauce into a large frying pan, add the burgers in one single layer, place over a gently heat, cover with a lid, simmer gently until the meatballs are cooked through.
Either put into a very low oven to keep warm, or turn the heat down to its lowest setting while you make the puffs.
While the meatballs are cooking, make the puffs.

Puffs
2 sheets ready rolled puff pastry – about 490 grams
32 turkey mini burgers
180 ml prepared sauce – or use basil pesto (green or white)
Italian Asiago d’allevo cheese, grated (Pecorino or Parmesan if not available)
Heat the oven to 200°F
Lay each pastry sheet onto a lightly floured work surface, cut each into 16 x 2.5 inches or 6.25 cm squares.
Transfer to 2 prepared baking sheets (lined with greaseproof paper).
Bake for 15 minutes in the preheated oven or until puffed and light golden brown.
Allow to cool. for 5 minutes on the sheets then split each pastry into two layers, keeping the two halves together.
Spread one tablespoon of your favourite pasta sauce onto the bottom of each pastry.
Top with 1 mini burger and any other toppings of your choice – thin onion rings, rocket, pickles.
Top with cheese and replace the top onto each pastry.

If you do not fancy the Italian cheese, try replacing with English Cheddar, Wensleydale or Lancashire.

After having one of our sites attacked over a period of 2 to 3 days (all 24 hours) – not sure which it went on for so long. I wonder … who has the time to spend doing these stupid things. His reason for attacking one of our sites is not clear as it is not one of the top sites on the web. My daughter tells me it isn´t personal, it´s automated (whatever) … when someone does this to my site (my favourite site), when a person wastes my precious time doing stupid things, then it becomes personal.

We know who the person is; we know in which town he lives; we have server information and believe it or not – an email address. Though when he (and I am sure it is an “he”), finally realised we were on to him, he tried to cover his tracks. He failed, though of course he could be guilty of identity theft which is a different ball game!

Last comment on this ever … this man really needs to get a life, find something useful to do that will benefit society, find a girlfriend or partner, sell his computer.

I used Google to search for a lamb recipe, something just a little bit different from our lovely British recipes. I found one that pleased – I was asked “This page is in Portuguese”. “Would you like to translate it”? Buttons for – “Translate”, “Nope”, “Always Translate Portuguese”. So I clicked “Translate”.

My daughter came into the computer room in haste when she heard me laughing.

There were some really interesting ingredients – so I changed it back to Portuguese and translated them myself with the aid of a dictionary. Then back to English.

Onto the method – I finally got the gist of the first line that caused me amusement – after mixing some of the ingredients it came up with “Arrange the lamb and spread it with the porridge” – as I had just mixed herbs, onions wine and so on – I assumed this was the “porridge”. Simple, so onto the next stage.

Some more instructions followed which were fairly easy to understand, then another line “The next day, sprinkle the lamb with the remaining wine and white around the potatoes cut into available rooms”.  I can make a guess and peel/chop the potatoes, but the exact meaning really is unclear, isn´t it?

Tip – this translation software – or whatever deals with the translation – urgently needs more work folks.

I am stressed – so what do I turn to to help combat my stress level – chocolate cake, more precisely chocolate fudge cake. This one will seriously affect the size of my bum but frankly, who cares.

Cake
125 grams unsalted butter, room temperature
225 grams natural brown sugar (process in a blender until similar to caster sugar)
2 large fresh eggs, room temperature
140 ml crème fraîche
100 grams plain white flour
75 grams wholemeal cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
50 grams organic cocoa
1 large orange – finely grated zest only
20 ml fresh orange juice
Frosting
200 grams Lindt Excellence Orange Intense
2 rounded tbsp cocoa powder
150 ml double cream
To serve
Sliced fresh strawberries and crème fraîche

Pre-heat the oven to 180ºC, 160ºC fan assisted, 350ºF, Gas 4
Grease and line two 20 cm sandwich tins with greaseproof paper

Cake

• Cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
• Beat in the eggs – one at a time – beating well between each addition.
• Beat in the crème fraîche.
• Sift in the white flour, wholemeal flour, BP, bicarbonate of soda and cocoa, add the orange zest – fold in until combined.
• Divide the mixture between the prepared tins, bake for between 30 to 35 minutes – insert a fine skewer into the centre of the cake, if it comes out clean the cake is ready.
• Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Frosting/filling

• Melt the chocolate in a bowl set over a pan of hot water, stir until smooth.
• Sift the cocoa into a bowl, add sufficient water to form a smooth paste.
• Stir into the melted chocolate.
• Gradually add the cream, whisk until well combined and fluffy.

To finish

• Sandwich the cakes together with a third of the filling.
• Ice the cake using remaining frosting/filling.

Serve with fresh berries and lightly whipped cream/crème fraîche

I am told my “rants” are famous but I doubt it, but what the hell, here I go again.

I had a lovely recipe, handed down through generations – well two at least for this simple filling for light sweet bread rolls that were topped with zesty lemon icing. I lost it! Why – because some stupid person who has nothing better to do decided to send a bug or Trojan horse or virus or whatever to our computer which somehow managed to get through several levels of security and took said computer over – I lost about 20 of my very old and treasured recipes, my books are still in the UK, at least I hope so.

Now -after searching the Internet for two hours, all I can get is the French version. It isn´t as simple and it isn´t as tasty as the one my old Mum and Grandma made.

So I am having a b****y paddy about it.

Going off at a tangent, why is it that many of our lovely old recipes that are not so famous are being “reinvented” by “celebrity chefs” and given French names. Is it because our “chefs” are so into naming all our dishes in “French” to make them sound just that little bit “posh” and different, more sophisticated even? It seems that all our food hailed from France (maybe I exaggerate just a tad), then we just gave said dish an English name and claimed it as our own.

I mourn the loss of my recipe, but I will not use crème patisserie, which is absolutely lovely in its place – but its not in my light fluffy British sweet bread  roll with Confectioner´s Custard or Cream (the British version) with lovely zesty lemon icing.

Rant over, for the time being. Looks like I need to hunt down an old British cookery book for baked goods, preferably from someone who was “born and bred” in the county of my birth – Yorkshire!

And then there are people who insist on calling our “pouring custard” by the French name “Crème anglaise”  - even when they do not speak French and are not French and reside in the UK. Please save me from the pretentious i****s amongst us.

This is a dream found in another of my recipe books from 2011, the night of 15 February.

A colleague (Jean) and I were passengers in Graham´s car. We approaching a steep hill in the village where I lived as a child. A plane was coming in to land on one of the “hanging landing pads”. The plane has thrusters used when landing – underneath, both sides and rear – the main engines were turned off.

It missed.

The “landing pads” were hanging shelves, one on top of the other.

The pilot tried to ascend, but failed – the aeroplane turned over onto its back and crashed. It started to slide down the hill, approaching the car, we were under the wing before it stopped.

When looking through an old recipe book, I found a brief description of two dreams – the first on 24 January 2010 the second on 2 February 2010.

My daughter, mother, father and myself were sitting in the living room of my childhood home. A helicopter was coming towards the house, behind the helicopter a futuristic craft – silver, a non reflective dull colour. My daughter, in answer to a question from myself, replied that she thought it was a modern craft undergoing testing. Next, a large number of tiny oblong craft, no wings or visible means of propulsion. Then various types of craft, larger – these appeared to be carrying heavy loads. The craft themselves were silver with the exception of one type which was slate grey with ugly contours. I commented “we should have left the planet when we had the chance”. My mother queried why we hadn´t. I replied, “my daughter did not want to”. Adding – “I knew something would go wrong when we didn´t go. It started to snow heavily, inches in seconds. I asked “do you think they will let us live”. There was no reply.

The second dream, which appeared to be a “follow on” from the first started where we were sitting in a shallow cave near the top of a mountain. Very heavy snow was coming towards us and from behind a strong wind. Within the snow cloud were large slate grey craft – enemy soldiers were being transported to the ground to find the last pockets of resistance. A group of aircraft flew over us, approaching from behind – the others rose, shouted and cheered. I said “we should be quiet”. The others replied “we should cheer our men on”. My daughter said “we need to stay quiet, they will hear us”. We had no food, water or means to light a fire. Calm restored, we watched the enemy approach.

I have no idea of the meaning behind these dreams and the research I have carried out does not give a logical answer to my queries.

When is a sandwich not a sandwich – when it is to all intent and purpose, a pie! This was served when I was young for school dinner, I “begged” the recipe from the cook, cos I loved it so much. I haven´t made it in years. Obviously the quantities have been reduced.

Fork Mix Pastry
8 ounces self raising flour
1/2 level tsp fine salt
2 tbsp plus 2 tsp cold water
4 oz trex or lard (I freeze a mix of lard and butter for about 15 minutes)

Sift the flour and salt into a bowl, add remaining ingredients, mix with a fork for about two minutes until a dough ball forms. I now wrap in clingfilm and chill before rolling out.

Grease a 7 inch sandwich tin – they used lard for this as butter was too “precious”
Preheat oven to 400ºF

Filling
8 ounces sausage meat or pork mince
1/4 tsp dried mixed herbs (or half a teaspoon of fresh)
2 shallots or small onions, peeled and finely grated
Salt and pepper

Mix together the meat, herbs, shallots and seasoning.

Roll out two thirds of the pastry, use to line a buttered oven proof dish. Fill with meat. Roll out remaining piece of pastry, place on top of the filling. Seal edges, cut two vents in the top to allow any steam to escape. You could brush with milk or egg wash, but the cook didn´t.

Bake for 30 minutes in the centre of the preheated oven, or until the meat is cooked and the pastry lightly browned.

Serve, while hot, with gravy, mashed potatoes and fresh garden peas or carrots.

Buttery Mashed Potato

Clearly these are not the mashed potatoes we were given at school – if we were lucky, they were mashed with some hot milk. Certainly not cream or butter.

2 lbs King Edward or Maris Piper potatoes
Butter and milk or cream
Salt
White pepper – optional

Place the potatoes into a large pan, cover with cold water and bring to the boil, add salt to taste (about 1 tsp) and boil for about 20 minutes or until soft – test with a knife to ascertain if cooked. Warm the milk or cream and butter in a small saucepan. Mash the potatoes until all the lumps are removed, add the butter/milk mixture and whisk to combine. Mash thoroughly and place in an oven to keep warm until ready to serve (cover with aluminium foil).

Tips – sour cream and chives, for an extra rich mash add a lightly whipped egg yolk