Toffee Apple Bouguet

Yesterday we've been busy in the kitchen making toffee apples.
It seemed like a wonderful idea at the start; they are easy enough
for kids to make, they looks lovely and yum, kids just can't resist to
have their mouths wide-open crunching into them. Soon after, our
work top was cluttered up with tools and ingredients, the air was
penetrated with sweet and delightful sensation, laughter and excitement
roamed across the rooms downstair. However, our kitchen floor ended
up covered with sticky toffee as a result..
(and it took me nearly an hour to clean up. )

After all, the job has beautifully done and our items were sold in munites
at the fundraising event. Melony and Glen were happy and very proud
of their work. Mission completed.






To make toffee apples:

12 fun size apples or 6 regular size apples (on sticks).

Ingredients for the coating:

250g light brown sugar
1 tbsp cider vinegar
2 tbsp golden syrup
1/2 tsp red food dye


Mothod:

Gently bring all the ingredients to boil in a small pot, dip the
apples in one by one until it's fully coated. Rest the apples on
a tray for about an hour before dipping them into "hundred and thounds".

Peachy Mousse Cheesecake

This light and fruity summer cheesecake has won praise from my neighbours and put a smile on my face.

We're not Australians and we don't live at Ramsay Street, but we do have lovely neighbours who enjoy BBQs very much. Every year, at the end of May we join our neighbours at the neighbourhood BBQ which is held at the bottom of our garden. Although the weather wasn't great this year it was still nice to see the friendly faces, enjoy a few glasses of wine and some warm chats. Kids couldn't resist starting a water fight despite the cold. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw Melony running about with only her swim suit on while grown-ups were hanging on to their jackets. Glen, who was following Melony everywhere like a sheep, occasionally showed up beside the dessert table trying to stuff yummy desserts in his mouth before running back to his sister again.


To make peachy mousse cheesecake ,

Ingredients:

For the base:
5 digestive biscuits, crushed.
70g almond or hazel nuts, finely crushed.(Optional)
50g butter, melted.

For the filling:
200g soft cheese
150g full fat plain yogurt
90g light brown sugar
1 tbsp peach jam or apricot jam.
Juice and zest of half a lemon.
Egg white from two eggs, whisked until stiff.
4 leaves gelatin, soaked in cold water until soft.
400g tin peaches in juice, drained and roughly chopped.

For the peach jelly topping:
400g tin peaches in juice, thinly sliced or diced.
100cc juice from the tin peach.
1 leaf of gelatin, soaked in cold water until soft.


Method:
1.Mix the ingredients for the base. Press the mixture into the base of a loose-based 20cm cake tin and chill for 20 minutes.
2. Whisk the egg whites until stiff, set aside.
3.In a large mixing bowl, beat the soft cheese, yogurt,sugar and peach jam until smooth.
4. Drain the gelatin, add juice from half a lemon and cook in the microwave for 20 second to melt the gelatin. Quickly stir the gelatin mixture into the cheese mixture.
5.Gently fold the beaten egg white into the cheese mixture, keep folding until smooth.
6. Stir in the chopped peaches and lemon zest. Pour the mixture over the biscuit base and chill for at least 5 hours.
7. Once the cheesecake is set, arrange thinly sliced peaches on top of the cheesecake.
8.In a small sauce pan, gently heat up 100cc juice from the tin peaches and the gelatin until the gelatin has melted and combined. Pour mixture evenly over the arranged peaches and chill for at least another 2 hours.


A dessert that will brighten up the day!



Neighbours started to gather in the bottom of our street.

A table full of yummy treats!

Roast Leg of Lamb with Fruity Topping

Happy Easter Holidays!

Everytime when I cook a leg of lamb, I can't help but laugh about something that Melony told us three years ago (she was only 3 then).

It was Easter Sunday morning. I took out a leg of lamb from the fridge, rubbing it with herbs, trying to get our easter dinner prepared before we went out to visit my mother in law. Melony asked curiously : "Mummy, what are you doing?"
"I'm seasoning the lamb because we're going to have lamb for dinner." I replied.

Later, on the way to my mother in law's, we droved pass a farm where Melony and Glen saw some little lambs running across the field. Melony shouted: " Look! It's baby sheep!"
" Melony, do you know how to call baby sheep?" I asked.
" Dinner!" Melony replied with a cheeky smile.

Roast leg of lamb with lemon and apricot topping
Serves: 4-6

Ingredients:

1.5kg Leg of lamb (on the bone)

For the topping:

Zest of a lemon
4 dried apricots
2 cloves of garlic
25g butter (melted)
2 sprigs of rosemary
1 rasher of bacon
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground black pepper

Method:

1. To make the fruity topping, put all the ingredients for the topping in a food processor and blend them finely.
2. Use a small sharp knife to carefully make 15-20 holes on the flesh of the lamb . Work the topping mixture into the hole and spread the rest of the topping evenly on the lamb.
3. Leave the lamb to marinate for at least 30 minutes.
4. Preheat the oven to 200c (190c fan oven).
5. Place the lamb in a roasting tin, cover loosely with foil and place in the preheated oven.
6. After 30 minutes, turn the heat down to 170c (160c fan oven) and continute to roast for another 2 hours.
7. Remove from the oven and let it rest for at least 1o minutes before serving.

Time to serve!

Melony drew this lovely sheep to wish everyone a happy Easter. ^_^~

Feel Good Butternut Squash Soup (Served With Cream Fraiche)

Is it Spring... yet?

I feel totally confused. With the sunshine beaming through our windows, after the rock solid snow from the harsh winter had finally melted. I was so excited to see the sky change to that cheerful baby-blue again. At last, spring has found its way to Edinburgh, I thought. So I couldn't wait to dump my big woolly coat and walk out the door with a light jacket on. Standing in front of Melony's school gate shivering, a friend walked toward me. Before I said "hello" to her, she said to me with her pitiful voice: " Iris! You need a thicker jacket! ". Yeah, I know...

I've been living here for 7 years and I still don't understand British weather... =_=~

Anyway, no matter it's rain or shine, a bowl of hot and tasty soup can always cheer me up. ^_^~

Pumpkin Soup served with Cream Fraiche

Serve 4-6

Ingredients

1kg butternut squash or pumpkin (skined, deseeded, and cut into big chunks)

1 medium size carrot (roughly chopped)

2 celery sticks (roughly chopped)

1 onion (roughly chopped)

2 cloves of garlic

2 tbsp olive oil

1000cc chicken or vegetable stock

Salt and pepper to taste

Cream fraiche to serve

Method
1. In a large pot, heat the olive oil , stir fry the onion until it's soft and starts to turn brown.
2. Add the rest of the vegetables into the pot and keep stir frying for 10 mimutes.
3. Pour in the stock, cover the lid and leave to simmer for an hour.
4. Season and blend until smooth.
5. Serve with a tbsp of cream fraiche and sprinkle with some finely chopped fresh sage or parsley.

In Love with Spring and Snowdrops!

Winter Treat: Apple Crumble Muffins

This fruity and fluffy muffin with crunchy crumble topping was so irresistible that I couldn't help but snacking on it.


This winter has been so terrible and seems to last forever! If it wasn't snowing, it was raining (and freezing, of course). Last month, a part of Melony's home work was to look at the moon and draw it on a piece of paper everyday. Only 5 out of 28 days was she able to see the moon. Yes, the weather was really that bad.

But it's OK. While I enjoyed my tea, treating myself with this delicious muffin, I looked out the window and saw daffodils in my garden have come out of the ground. I guess Spring is near!


To make 12 apple crumble muffins (in 7cm height 5cm diameter cases):

Ingredients

for the crumble topping :

50g cold butter, cubed.
70g plain flour
3 tbsp brown sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 pinch of salt

for the muffin:

350g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
220g caster sugar
3 eggs
50g unsweetened natural yogurt
100cc milk
120cc veg oil
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 medium size apples (cored and diced)



Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.
2. Rub all the ingredients for crumble together to make crumble. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl, add eggs , yogurt, vegetable oil, sugar and mix well.
4. Sieve the flour, baking powder and ground cinnamon into another bowl. Add the dry ingredients into the egg mixture. Stir until all the ingredients are combined.
5. Toss the diced apple in a tbsp flour to prevent them sinking to the bottom. Gently fold the apple into the muffin mixture. Spoon the mixture into the muffin cases (only fill up to 70%), sprinkle the top with crumble. Place the cases on a oven tray and bake for 25-30 minutes until the crumble turns golden brown.

A snow plough got stuck in the bottom of our garden yesterday.

Blueberry Cupcakes for Melony's 6th Birthday

I made these blueberry cupcakes to give away at Melony's birthday party. Pink ones for girls, green ones for boys.

I can't believe that our sweet little girl is already six!

Last Friday, Melony bounced into our room at 5:30 in the morning cheering, "I'm six! I'm six!". Being the youngest child in her class, she has been waiting for this day for so long. At the moment she is happy being the same age as most of her classmates, but her friends will start turning seven soon.

Anyway, we promised her a big celebration when she's six. Eager to show us her growing confidence, she tried to be involved as much as she could. She got to choose the venue for her party, made her own guest list and told me her idea of a perfect birthday cake.

Voilà! Here is Melony's dream birthday cake. A blueberry cupcake (muffin) with pink sparkling icing , marshmallow and her face on top.

To make 25 blueberry muffins (in 7cm height 5cm diameter cases):

Ingredients

2oog unsalted butter, melted.

60cc vegetable oil

8 eggs

200g whole fat natural yogurt

400cc milk

320g sugar

1 tsb vanilla essence

850g plain flour

8 tsb baking powder

1tsb fine salt

500g frozen blueberries

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.

2. In a large bowl, add the egg , melted butter, vegetable oil, yogurt, milk, sugar, vanilla essence and mix well.

3. Sieve the flour, baking powder and salt into another bowl. Add the dry ingredients into the egg mixture. Stir until all the ingredients are combined.

4. Toss the blueberries in a tbsp flour to prevent them sinking to the bottom. Gently fold the berries into the muffin mixture. Spoon the mixture into the muffin cases (only fill up to 60%), place the cases on a oven tray and bake for 25 minutes.

They taste best when slightly warm. I usually keep them in the fridge and microwave them for 20 seconds before serving.

Happy birthday girl!


Melony and Glen.


Make a wish..

Merry white Christmas!

The giant snow Christmas cake in our back garden.

We built a snow robot using cardboard boxes. Glen even managed to find some icicles as its arms and aerial.

Gingerbread house

Two weeks ago I took Melony and Glen to the Christmas German market in Edinburgh where they saw gingerbread houses on a stall selling beautiful gingerbread Christmas decorations. Melony and Glen didn't ask me to buy one for them but asked me to help them make one instead. It took us nearly all afternoon last Sunday to make this! Even Gary was so excited and happy to help because he's never made one before. It was slightly tricky trying to put the roofs on due to their weights but we managed it anyway.

Melony and Glen were thrilled to see it completed. I told them that they could knock it down and enjoy it on Christmas Eve (tonight! ) but they prefered to keep the way it is. ^_^

Merry Christmas !

Heritage Potatoes and colourful crisps

The most amazing and beautiful crisps you've ever seen?



Those beautiful and tasty crisps were made of these jewellery-like heritage potatoes harvested in my vegetable garden.


I started to grow these funny colour potatoes as an experiment last year because I wanted to write an article about Scottish heritage potatoes. The result was great! Not only that lots of delicious potatoes were harvested, my article was published both on a Chinese newspaper in the UK and in Taiwan. Someone told me that I even caused a small stir in Taiwan because after the article, people started looking for red and blue potatoes from their local supermarkets (and got frustrated, of course. )

Anyway, it is definitely worth growing your own potatoes, as it is one of the easiest vegetables to grow and they taste so much better than those available from the supermarkets.


Home-made Crisps

Ingredients

Potatoes, thinly sliced to 1-2mm (use a mandoline to achieve the best result) .
A lot of vegetable oil for deep frying.

Method

1. Heat oil in a deep-fryer to 185C. Fry potato slices in small batches. Once they start turning golden, remove and drain on paper towels. Continue until all of the slices are fried.
2. Pre-heat the oven to 130C.
3. Spread the crisps out evenly on a baking tray. Place in the oven and bake for 10 minutes.
4. Leave the crisps to cool on the tray before putting them in a container. The crisps will stay crispy up to 3 days.

Highland Burgundy. They are definitely my favorite! Their firmness and sweetness make them ideal for roast potatoes or crunchy crisps.

Blue Salad.

They were first grown in Scotland in 1900s. They are purple when raw and will turn blue once cooked. The texture is quite fluffy. Great for making scary-looking blue mash or gnocchi.


Blue crisps.

"Normal" Crisps made from Charlotte potatoes.

Mr. Potato Man

Meet the Mr. Potato Man!!! ^_^~





Actually, this is a funny shape potato (Blue Salad) I just dug up from my vegetable garden today.
We just couldn't stop laughing when looking at it. Therefore, we decided to have a wee play with it and took some photos before it became our dinner.

I can't wait to eat you, Mr. Potato man.

It's so cute!!

Blackberry Jelly (served with custard)

Last Autumn, we picked tons of blackberries from the woods, made them into jam and my kids loved it. Since then, Melony and Glen have never forgotten to check the blackberry bushes everyday when we walked through the woods to our house after picking them up from school. Last Thursday, Melony and Glen cheered with joy on finding lots of blackberries that have changed their colour to glossy luscious dark purple. They couldn't wait to fill their empty lunch boxes again with wild blackberries. Eventually they walked home with a content smile.

Hand picked wild blackberries. This time, they wanted to turn the blackberries into jelly.

Blackberry Jelly

(Serves 4)

Ingredients

400g Blackberries

300 cc water

Juice of half a lemon

1 tbsp honey

2 tbsp sugar

5 leaves of leaf gelatine

Method

1. Soak the gelatine in cold water until soft. Meanwhile, put all the other ingredients in a pan and bring to the boil. Continue to simmer the blackberry mix for about 5 minutes until the blackberries soften.

2. Push the mix through a sieve to get rid of the blackberry seeds, add gelatine and stir until all the gelatine has dissolved. Leave the mix to cool down a bit before pouring it into the jelly moulds.

3. Chill the jelly in the fridge for more than 5 hours before serving.

Melony and Glen gave me a hand in the kitchen.

Blackberry jelly best served with chilled custard.

Yum...

Breakfast for my toddlers

Does it look too good for kids to eat? :P

I woke up in a funny mood this morning and decided to make my children's breakfast look as serious as French cuisines. Gary thought I was insane. Ha~ha!

A part of it was actually my mate's fault because she wouldn't be quiet about her wonderful experience of eating in a 3 Michelin stars restaurant in Edinburgh when she came to our house yesterday. I was so jealous! Maybe Gary will take me there for my birthday if he does read my blog. :P

Cranberry and ginger shortbread

It's time to embrace the Christmas spirit and warm the house up with cheerful Christmas atmosphere by doing some home baking. My 3 year old son Glen promised our dearest old neighbour Nev that he would make something special for him this Christmas. Nobody took it seriously, but Glen did.^^

Therefore, Glen and I made a batch of delicious Cranberry and ginger shortbread and gave away to our neighbours with our best wishes.

This fruity , light and crumbly biscuit can be a good replacement for gingerbread biscuit if you find gingerbread biscuit too heavy .

Ingredients (Make about 50 of 3cm diameter biscuits )


350g plain flour, plus extra for dusting
250g Butter, at room temperature
80g caster sugar
100g dried cranberries
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp fine salt


Methods

1.Mix all the dry ingredients well in a large bowl. Cut the butter into cubes and mix all the ingredients together by using your fingertips to rub the butter into the flour. As the mixture turns to crumbs, press it gently to form a dough.
2.Shape the dough into a long tube. Wrap it up with cling film and place it in the fridge to chill for at least two hours.
3. Before baking, unwrap the cling film and cut the dough into 1cm slices. Place them on a non- stick baking tray.
4. Preheat the oven to 180c /gas 4 and bake the biscuits for 12 minutes. Remove from the oven but do not remove the biscuits from the tray until the biscuits are cool.


材料:
350g 中筋或低筋麵粉
250g 奶油 (使用前放置室溫軟化)
50g 白砂糖
100g 蔓越莓乾
一茶匙薑粉 一茶匙肉桂粉 半茶匙香草精 半茶匙細鹽

作法:
1.將乾燥的材料先在大碗中用湯匙攪拌混合, 奶油切丁放入大碗中,用指尖微搓的方式將奶油與麵粉混合搓揉成黃豆大小顆粒狀. 在輕輕地按壓讓麵糰成型.
2. 將麵糰捏滾成長條狀.再用保鮮膜包起放進冰箱冷藏至少兩小時.
3.待麵糰變硬後從冰箱取出,拆開保鮮膜將麵糰切成約一公分厚的片狀.整齊地排放在防沾烤盤上.
4.烤箱預熱 180C, 將餅乾送入烤箱烘烤12分鐘即可.
5.從烤箱取出烤盤後,須等待餅乾放涼後才從烤盤取下哦!




Slicing the dough.

It smells so nice! I can't wait to try it!

It makes a great Christmas gift as well. *_^~