This is a seriously easy to make aioli, I found it in the revive cookbook. There is no getting away with the fat content, but you can get rid of the sugar, stabilisers, egg and any other additives you find in the shop bought stuff. This will keep in the fridge for a month. You can thin it down with warm water to make a dressing. Continue reading “The Red Folder”
There are just some things that beg for a good tomato ketchup. Popular brands contain lots of sugar, so when tomatoes are cheap, I make my own, working with the vinegar makes my eyes water and the children complain but it is easy to make. I use Heinz ketchup at home and this sauce is very close to this flavor. I pour my sauce into the brand bottle and do not tell the children, as they would reject it on principle. They have not caught me yet! Gary Rhodes put this together.
A healthier alternative to anything I have found to buy. For example the brand I have just picked up contains 25.5g of sugar per 100ml, if you use all the sugar in this recipe then you reduce that to 16g and 8g per 100ml if you half sugar, half honey, as I do.
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Red Folder recipe – Almond Danish
Yes, you too can make Danish Pastry without the dreary butter layers that need rolling and turning and putting in a bag with refrigeration after each roll. This is so fantastically easy and makes such a professional pastry, people do not believe I have just made them. You do need a food processor and have to start the day before, but I just make the mix quickly after dinner is over with. When the children know I am making them, they fist pump and are happy to do the dishes, while I perform the magic! It really is no trouble, there is a rise time of an hour and a half, all good things come to those that wait.
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Basically, you can stuff your pasta with anything using this recipe and it will taste yummy. Just remember to have 1. A protein. I am using Tofu here, but cottage cheese, ricotta, raw egg mixed into breadcrumbs are all good alternatives. 2. Add a crunch. Lentils for me this time, but pinenuts, nuts, raw celery or seeds will work. 3. Choose a veggie. In this recipe, I will use mushrooms but you can swap it out with spinach, pumpkin, beetroot (with feta) these are only a few options, go wild. For the tomato sauce either used a good quality jar brand pasta sauce or make you own quick cheat sauce. See below. Continue reading “The Red Folder”
Red Folder Recipe – Teacakes
MARSHMALLOW TEACAKES
Chocolate, soft marshmallow and vanilla biscuit, this teacake deserves a plate, small fork and fifteen minutes of your unadulterated time. I will confess that it is messy and makes my arm burn with the 10-15 mins whisking by hand, but that is all forgotten and forgiven in the eating.
I have been making a version of this for years, a young Chef shared both a teacake and a jaffa cake recipe with me once. I came upon the below recipe in Peyton and Byrne’s British Baking book. I had borrowed it from the Library looking for a good fig roll recipe, so to find this was a gift. I pass it on now. This version is a wobbly replica of the silky smooth domes, wrapped in red foil I loved as a kid. Enjoy.
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Best Ever LasagneI have made so many versions of Lasagne, large catering trays full of the ever popular dish have punctuated my life. Search the internet and there are pages and pages of lasagne recipes, so I feel that it should not be necessary to include this. It is however in the Red Folder and shall be included for that reason, it is the one I use at home. Mum gave me this and I think Delia gave it to her, I have changed it slightly, to suit my family. Tasters always say it is the best they have tasted, creamier somehow, but they would say that, they are at my table. You decide. Continue reading “The Red Folder”
Red Folder recipe – Chocolate Brownie with no nuts.
As everyone, I have many version of this bake. I go back to this one again and again, and it is the one I give out if asked. It is quick, simple and never lets me down. Brownies are super rich, they should be light and crisp on the outside, but soft and fudgy on the inside. If you want crunch, add 100g of chopped pecan, brazil or wallnuts, it will not change how this cooks. My children pick the nuts out so I bake without, they are definitely better with them in though. This will give you 12 large pieces, like the pictures I have taken, but I normally cut again into triangles so we do not die of clogged arteries. Continue reading “The Red Folder”
Red Folder recipe – Choc Chip Cookie – the most requested biscuit
Cookies, this all American biscuit has thrown away it’s visa and become a Citizen of the world. The chocolate chip cookie is the poster girl, gooey, sweet and rich. Here is the standard recipe I used for years, but beneath it, a new improved version, that is so addictive, I actually have to limit how many are eaten in my house, or 36 cookies disappear in a day. 
I don’t know why they are so drug like, the proportion of fat to sugar is pretty standard, and the method virtually the same. Perhaps there is just something special and comforting about eating freshly baked, still warm cookies straight from the tray. Even better, stolen from the jar when mum wasn’t watching! Continue reading “The Red Folder”
Tofu is basically curdled soybean milk. It is made the same way as we make cheese, separating the curds from the milk and then pressing them into a block. It is high in both protein and calcium, therefore as a vegetarian, it provides a handy ingredient for me.It is relatively mainstream now, and I can pick it up in my local veggie shop, but it is interesting that most of my cooking books go from toffee to tomato. Three of my Vegetarian books barely pay homage to this versatile little block of white. The word TOFU actually makes some people shiver involuntarily and it is passed over by chefs in favor of goats cheese 9 times out of 10.
freeze your tofu first, it will transform your cooking.
Good reading if you want to know more about this unassuming ingredient Continue reading “The Green Folder”
Red Folder recipe – Chocolate bowlChocolate, I love it, and will sneak in any excuse to eat or cook with it. Want to upgrade ice cream? Find an extra 15 mins to do this, a very quick chocolate bowl, the hardest thing about it, is blowing up the balloons.
Cocoa beans are dried, roasted and ground to form a thick paste called chocolate liquor, made up of cocoa solids and a light yellow fat called cocoa butter.
Use no less than 300g of chocolate, it does not matter really what you use, I just used open packets of buttons and some left over dark block, which I chopped. Chocolate chefs use couverture, which has a 35-50% cocoa butter content because it melts easily and is very smooth. Use this if you are a purest, but honestly, most people are just impressed and do not look for the finished shine! Continue reading “The Red Folder”
Crowded Mind 