Sun Dried Tomatoes

It's a nice sunny day for a change so I've decided to construct a solar dehydrator.

I'm awful at DIY so I'll be drawing on a childhood of Blue Peter and Art Attack. My materials are a cardboard box, some muslin, cling film, a large bowl and plenty of Sellotape.

I start by cutting off the wings of the box, then half way down one of the sides and cutting a slope to face into the sun.

I need ventilation to remove the moisture but I hate insects, so I've use the off cut wings, cut 2 squares, cut holes in the squares and stuck some muslin to them and sealed all round with Sellotape.

Then I cut 2 holes in the sides of the box to stick my vent covers over.

Next, I stretched muslin tightly over the bowl and secured with string.

I stuck the vent covers go on the sides and the bowl goes inside.

Now for the food bit. I used 5 tomatoes that had been ripening on my windowsill for a couple of weeks. I find that shop bought tomatoes are generally not worth eating until they've had a week at least of sun ripening. I cut them into quarters, skewered them, arranged them on top of the bowl and seasoned with a couple of pinches of light brown sugar, 2 or 3 generous pinches of garlic salt, a little pepper and fresh chopped basil.

I stuck a sheet of foil to the back of the dehydrator to reflect as much sun in as possible and dehydrator Mk.I was complete!

Finally, I stretched cling film over the top, sealed carefully all round with Sellotape and placed it outside in the middle of the garden, turning a couple of times to directly face the sun.

After about 6 hours the sun was getting low, the temperatures beginning to drop and the effectiveness of the sun was wearing off so I brought them in. But they certainly looked the business!

I tried a basil bud I had placed at the front. It was completely crispy, perfectly dried and hot with flavour. The tomatoes were still a little juicy though so I gave them another 2 and a half hours in the oven on a dehydrate setting. They didn't look massively different after that to be honest.

They did taste amazing though. I jarred them in olive oil with a little rapeseed oil.

A few things to improve on for Mk.II:
More foil
Get them outside earlier
Make a tray rather than use the bowl (I was in a rush)

Basil Oil and Bread

I love having my mighty basil plant in the kitchen. I'm so proud of it growing up all big and strong from seed.

Any good basil gardener will tell you that to make a strong basil plant you must pinch off the tips of the stems before they flower. This results in two branches shooting off from where you pinched out, giving you a sturdy basil bush. It also leaves you with lots of little basil buds and sweet tender baby leaves.

I can't bear to throw away something so perfect so I've stuffed them into a bottle and covered them with a good olive oil to infuse in the sun on the windowsill.

It makes an intense basil flavoured oil and I had the perfect use for it when I came up with this recipe (if you want to try this but don't have any basil oil use the best olive oil you can get your hands on):

Soft brown basil bread

Ingredients
350g strong white flour
100g brown bread flour
200ml water
100ml milk
2 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar
2 tsp dried yeast
Basil oil
Basil leaves

So, as you might expect, put all the flour in a mixing bowl, put the salt and sugar at separate sides of the bowl and sprinkle the yeast in. Add the milk and water and mix together until you have a good, stodgy, but moist dough mix.

Now, take your basil oil and pour some on your work surface. Kneed and work the dough in the oil. It will become rich and coated in basil infused oil and even squidgier.

To get that silky smooth perfect dough sprinkle a handful of white flour on a clean part of the surface and work the dough a bit more in there.

Use a little more oil to grease a mixing bowl and leave your dough in the bowl to double in bulk. About an hour and a half I would guess.

Knock back the dough, tip it out and work it for a couple of minutes. Now spread it out to a roughly inch thick rectangle and lay on top some tender, fresh basil leaves. Space them evenly but be as generous as you like. I'm a massive basil fan so I go for it.

Roll up your dough and fold round the edges to make a baton. Use more oil to oil a loaf tin and drop the dough in to second prove. In about 45 mins to an hour it's ready for the oven. More oil on the top and some salt sprinkled over, then into an oven at 190degC for about 40 minutes.

The bread is rich and moist and its a favourite in our house.

Delicious on its own with butter, my 18 month old daughter loves it on its own, and if you want a real treat use some of my pizza sauce recipe on it with some mozzarella and pop it under the grill for a bit.

Treats from Amsterdam

The title of this post will no doubt lead to numerous disappointments.

Look past the reputation Amsterdam has earned for drugs, brothels and stag parties from the UK and you'll find there is a food and drink scene that is unique not just to Holland but to the city itself. Rather boringly that is the main reason I keep going back there. A while ago I did a guest post on Beers I've Known with some very amateur beer and cheese pairings. One of the pairings I spoke of was Old Amsterdam and Brewerij ‘t IJ Natte. Sadly I was limited to what was available in the local off license and the supermarket for the beers that day and I settled for a glass or Pauwel Kwak. Last week my parents made a trip to Amsterdam and asked if there was anything I would like brought back, so I put in a request for 3 simple ingredients which they kindly delivered.

Brewerij ‘t IJ Natte - the fantastic sweet dark beer brewed in a converted windmill. May I suggest you check out to this place if you ever find yourself in Amsterdam, it's a keen walk from the town centre or a short tram ride. Last time I went for a couple there I ended up losing an afternoon. As I've mentioned before my Dad is a keen IPA fan and he brought me back one of the Brewerij ‘t IJ ones to try for the first time. I enjoy IPA, but not usually on the level that I enjoyed this one. It had a much smoother characteristic to it than the bitter hop bombs you occasionally encounter in your search for a good one here in England.

Old Amsterdam - The aged cheese that is delicious either as a table cheese or grated over food. Even aged and hard it still has a melt in the mouth quality to it. I adore gouda, I think it is a superbly textured and flavoured cheese that is suited perfectly for continental beer pairings and Old Amsterdam just takes a good thing a little further.

Ossenworst - I've never heard or seen this outside of Amsterdam. It's a speciality sausage particular to the city and as with most of these things if you want the good stuff you have to go back to its home to get it. Essentially it is a seasoned raw beef sausage. The seasonings, saltiness and texture again make it a superb bar snack. I notice now that there is finally a Wikipedia article for it, previously I've wondered whether I dreamt eating it!

To complete my snack I reached into the cupboard and pulled out a few cocktail gherkins and some Dijon mustard. Full sized pickles and Bavarian sweet mustard would have been preferable but you have to work with what is available sometimes.

A delicious snack bringing back some very fond memories indeed. However, I feel another trip will be in order again soon if I am to complete the experience and try out a few more of the delicacies Amsterdam has to offer. Including pickled herring, trappist cheese pie, hemp seed chocolate and some extremely good coffee (an advantage of being a sea port). Also there is no substitute for a beer lover to sitting in a traditional "brown bar" with a trappist beer and a plate of cheese and mustard and nothing much better to be doing for the afternoon.

Chilli, Coriander and Lemon Oil

I've had this chilli plant on the windowsill bringing a bit of colour to the living room for a few weeks now. For the chilli geeks it's a Tabasco.

Unfortunately it appears that we're not the only ones that like chilli plants.

I'll figure out what to do with the aphids another day, but for now I'll harvest the chillis rather than risk losing them.

I'll be honest, we don't do a great deal of cooking with fresh chillis. These would be put to better use preserved for later on.

I've also been growing some coriander on another windowsill in the kitchen so whilst I'm at it I may as well use some of this.

I decided last minute to chuck in some lemon rind too. My girlfriend came up with the name "traffic light oil"

I sterilised a bottle and washed and chopped all the ingredients. I crammed them into the bottle and topped up with some half decent olive oil.

I sat the bottle in some boiling water for 5 minutes in a half hearted attempt to pasteurise and more to kick start the infusion. All done and I have a nice homemade bottle of Traffic Light Chilli Oil ready for some bread dipping in about a month or so.

Just need to remember to give it a shake every now and then to move the ingredients around the oil and help the infusion.

Beetroot Nuggets with Orange Dipping Sauce

On Sunday I made carrot and beetroot cake again and it reminded me how much I love beetroot, so I decided to get creative last night with some of the leftover beets.

I also made this sesame loaf, basically it's a standard white bread made with sesame oil and topped with sesame seeds.

I took a slice of the bread and used a blender to make it into crumbs which I toasted in the oven at 150degC with a few more sesame seeds for good measure. Then I dug out the rest of the ingredients for making the nuggets.

I peeled and chopped the beetroot into quarters and put it on to boil whilst I set about designing a dipping sauce.

I had in mind a sort of sweet and sour type thing, but a bit fruitier than the usual Chinese takeaway style ones. I figured orange would be the way forward, with a bit of ginger thrown in for some kick.

After much faffing about the final list of ingredients to make my sauce was:
The juice (including bits) of 2 Oranges
1tsp Orange Zest
1 tsp grated Ginger
3 tsp Mirin (optional)
1 tbsp Black Rice Vinegar
2 tsp Caster Sugar
and I did add a dash of lemon juice but in hindsight I think it made the sauce a little too sharp and could probably be cut out.

I put it on to reduce next to the beetroot which by now was about ready to go, as in I could easily stab through it with a fork.

I drained the beets and let them rest until cool enough to handle. Then I rolled them in plain flour seasoned with salt and pepper, dipped them in beaten egg and rolled them around in the toasted breadcrumbs so they were evenly coated. I baked them at 190degC until the breadcrumbs had turned crisp and golden brown.

My sauce reduced down to a syrupy consistency and turned out great! I was actually pretty impressed. The beetroot nuggets came out well too - tender and full of beetroot flavour but with a good savoury note from the sesame and a nice crunch from the breadcrumbs.

Together they both came through in equal amounts and complimented each other well.

It was a fun experiment for me, I haven't gotten creative like that for a while. I'm glad I did though as that could turn out to be a great veggie starter one day if I ever need one.

Tapenade

I've been quite slack lately. It's not that I haven't been cooking, it's just that I've been a little pre-occupied with job interviews and much needed family time. I use the blog as a sort of on-line scrap book I guess and there’s been a couple of things that I really should have put up.

Anyway enough rambling, tapenade! Quick, simple and very tasty.

Ingredients
100g of good quality Black Olives
50g of Capers
6 Anchovy fillets (I bought ones preserved in olive oil and used the oil)
100ml Olive Oil
3 cloves of Garlic
Black Pepper

Even though I'm a massive kitchen geardo I don't possess a food processor so I made do with a hand blender. If I didn't have that I'd have chopped the olives painstakingly by hand separately and then used a pestle and mortar for everything else. My result was a very smooth tapenade, which wasn't a bad thing, but I'd like to make it again a bit coarser next time I think.

So I roughly chopped the olives and added them, the capers, anchovies and crushed the garlic into a beaker and hand blended until smooth and blended. Then I added the olive oil bit by bit, blending between and seasoned to taste with the pepper.

Supermarket stuff really doesn't touch this, there’s simply not enough garlic or pepper. This was just right, surprisingly it didn't overpower the olives at all and the capers really shone through as well.

I now have a pot in the fridge for toast or crackers as a snack. Although this would be amazing served up on some fish.

Even healthier breakfast muffins

Since making my first batch of muffins I have decided to adapt my recipe slightly. Not that there was anything wrong with the first one, I just thought making a totally fat free version might be a laugh. I sit at a desk all day, my body has no use for fat. So I subtituted the whole milk for skimmed, used fat free yoghurt and instead of oil I made some apple sauce and added 2 tablespoons of that. My top tip for making any baking recipe fat free is to directly sub the fat for apple sauce, but dont make the same mistake I did. Adding the apple made the mixture go browner whilst baking and the muffins appeared to be burning, leave them in for the full amount of time or they'll be stodgy.

The new muffins did taste just as good as the last ones, although they were a little more chewey, like brown bread. So I probably prefer the whole milk with oil version (I'm not one of those annoying people that refuses to admit that healthy food is not as tasty as fatty food).

Then I thought it might be interesting to break down what you actually get per muffin. Every morning now my breakfast basically consists of:

Half a slice of toast and 1/6 of a boiled egg

16.5g porridge in 20ml of milk, sprinkled with 6.25g sugar and a pinch of cinnamon

and 22g fresh fruit with a teaspoon of yoghurt

Which is actually a fairly well balanced healthy breakfast! Enjoy your guilt free morning cake.

Breakfast Muffins

I'm not really one for rushing, or doing pretty much anything fast, and the idea of wolfing down breakfast at 6:00am before I leave for work doesn't appeal to me. I prefer to take breakfast at my desk whilst checking my emails just before my working day begins. At the moment this consists of a banana, which is hardly ideal, so I've decided to make up some breakfast muffins to have as my fast food on the go.

Ingredients
200g Plain flour
200g Porridge oats
75g Caster sugar
1 tsp Cinnamon
3 tsp Baking powder
1 tsp Salt
2 Eggs
250ml Milk
2 tbsp Natural yoghurt
3 tbsp Vegetable oil
150g Blueberries
100g Blackberries

I switched on the oven and pre-heated to 190degC (200 if you don't have fan assisted). To start with I sieved all the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and cinnamon together into a mixing bowl and made a well in the centre. Then I separated the eggs, reserving the whites, and added the yolks along with the milk and yoghurt. This all mixed up into a batter, it doesn't matter if it's a little lumpy.

Next I poured in the oil and stirred fast until it was fully incorporated into the batter, then added the oats and mixed them in before add in the fruit which a carefully stirred in to avoid damaging the berries.

Finally I whisked the egg whites until they were light and fluffy and formed peaks and folded them in with a metal spoon.

I divided the mixture evenly over 12 muffin cases...

... and baked for about 30 minutes until they were nicely brown on the top and when I poked them with a skewer it came out clean.

I haven't made them terribly sweet because I don't have much of a sweet tooth, especially first think in the morning. If you'd like them sweeter then just up the sugar to suit your taste or sprinkle some over the top of each muffin just before baking.

Please consider your IT departments before eating and try not to get crumbs in your keyboards.