Domestic Goddesque » yummy recipes

Slow Cooker Pulled Pork

Domestic Goddesque — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:09:46 +0000

I am new to slow cooking. In fact my mantra of late has been fast cooking: the kind of cooking that can be whipped up in twenty minutes from when I come downstairs having ~~left The Girls screaming~~ put The Girls to bed to when DH walks through the door. My life involves short-cuts and cheats (hence the -esque in the blog title, in case you were wondering).

Now what better cheat could there be than to take a bunch of prepared ingredients, shoving them into the cooker and leaving them for eight hours. Seriously? Why has it taken me so long to get behind the slow-cooker movement?

Anyhow, back to Tescos last week. I saw the hugest ~~lump of meat~~ joint of Pork on special offer. I bought it because it was on offer, not having the first clue what to do with it, but when you are buying over 5kg of meat for a tenner, you know you’ll be able to find something. And I did:

Pulled Pork in the slow cooker

The recipe called for pork butt, not that I have a clue what that is, and I had shoulder, but I figured it would work anyhow.

The recipe also called for Diet Pepsi. I didn’t have that, so I used Diet Coke.

The recipe called for Barbecue Sauce. Nope, not that either. HP Fruity.

It’s kind of pathetic when a recipe calls for three ingredients and you have to use a substitute for every single one.

And do you know, it was awesome. So awesome that we are still eating it. So let me tell you a few things that you can do with 5kg of delicious pulled pork:

Freeze it, in batches. A little goes a long way.

Serve with mashed root vegetables, broccoli and some of the reduced sauce.

Slap in a bun with a dollop of applesauce.

Spoon over rice with a side of stir fried vegetables.

Make pulled pork tortillas with avocado, refried beans and some sour cream.

Put it between two tortillas, sprinkle with grated cheese and microwave for a minute or so.

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Valentine’s Rocky Road treats

Domestic Goddesque — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:35:01 +0000

I found the most wonderful heart-shaped foil cases recently and really wanted to use them for something. Then Anchor Butter got in touch about their Bring Back Elevenses Campaign, and the first thing I thought of was Rocky Road. Others may like a crumpet, or a wedge of cake at 11am, but I want a morsel of chocolate.

Elevenses never really went anywhere, it’s just been a little forgotten.

We want to empower people who feel the need to have a nice little sit, with a cup of tea and a nibble at around 11 o’clock. The kids are at school, you’ve made countless packed lunches, the dog’s been for a walk and before you start your day (as if it hasn’t already been going for hours!) you need a bit of a recharge. Maybe put your feet up, give your mum a ring or check your Facebook page; it really doesn’t matter just as long as it restores the calm in your head and heart. You might call us crazy, but we find that a buttered crumpet or slice of cake at this time of day is just what’s needed. We want people to embrace this mid morning snack, in all its glory and we want you to join us!

Anchor Butter is a heritage brand, which has been loved by families for generations. Providing people with a proper butter, for perfect puddings and really good roasts.

I remember when we first moved to our current house, there was a weekend of celebrating marriage at our local church. As we were having our daughter christened that weekend, I wanted to offer something to the cake sale that accompanied the exhibition. Knowing that the established community would have cakes totally sewn up, I thought I’d play it safe with a no-bake offering. It got a suitably luke-warm reception when I placed it on the table, told the ladies what was in it and left them to it but was delighted to find that it has almost all sold by the time I returned. DH was furious that there wasn’t more left for him. I felt that I had been welcomed into the church!

When I was growing up, Rocky Road used to be called Fridge Cake and was made from stale Digestives and sultanas. I am not entirely sure when it morphed into Rocky Road, but I love it. I love that you can dress it up or down, depending on the recipients: for adults I use pistachios and pecans, cranberries, blueberries and Goji berries; for the children, I dice dried apricots, sultanas and add a big handful of Shreddies.

Whether I make it for big or small, I do use good quality chocolate and butter (and Golden Syrup) to make it. I tend to use St Nigella of Lawson’s recipe to make it, or at least as a starting point.

Once you’ve made your Rocky Road, ~~shove~~ encourage it into the heart-shaped containers with the back of a spoon and press down. Then, melt a packet of Red Candy Melts, and add a layer of the red chocolate-esque goo to each heart-shaped wedge. Then sit down with a cuppa at 11am and feel the love for Elevenses.

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Simple Chicken Chop Suey

Domestic Goddesque — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 22:39:58 +0000

DH tells the story of when he first went to university clutching a copy of Grub on a Grant, not knowing how to cook. University suited him well, as did the cooking: his divine peanut chicken thing won me over on our first Valentine’s together and I always get quite sentimental when he cooks it. But it is the chop suey recipe that he first mastered, primarily I presume because one of the ingredients is his condiment-of-choice: Tomato Ketchup.

It’s such a simple recipe, it sticks in the mind long after the book (and University Grants for that matter) has left the building. The key to the sauce is three things:

ketchup
honey
soy sauce

in equal measure. Got it? I’ll ask questions later.

And so, to make quick and easy chop suey, take a packet of instant noodles and cook according to the instructions (I used Supernoodles and left out the sauce.) Meanwhile, finely chop 1/2 red pepper, a handful of green beans and a small onion. Fry together in a pan for a few minutes then add a handful of frozen peas and a handful of cooked chicken, finely chopped.

Add 1 tbsp each of the three key ingredients and stir. Pour over the cooked drained noodles and mix well. Serve with a smile.

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The Advent Adventure Continues: only two days to go!!

Domestic Goddesque — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 00:05:19 +0000

Today will be an odd day. DH is finally home for the holidays, and we are off to the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway for our (now-) Annual Santa Special trip. We’re all very excited about it, since it really marks the start of our family Christmas Celebrations. Sadly, though, it is the first Anniversary of the loss of my Gran. I’m finding it challenging to juggle the range of emotions that these things make me feel.

I have been focussing on the season, and the children, though. Last night we all camped out under the Christmas Tree, an idea I saw via twitter from Dinosaurs and Octopuses which I just knew that The Girls would love. And they did: no doubt they’ll still be talking about it next year (as will my middle-aged bones)!

gratuitous photo of my festive sweater

Today we made a beautiful snowflake wreath, an idea I’d seen on pinterest from a few cupcake liners. I did the cutting and they did the glueing but I think they did a great job.I’ll have to remember the cupcake liner trick for next year: way easier than cutting up squares of paper.

We also made snickerdoodles from a recipe that Me, The Man and The Baby directed me to on Two Become Four, although to be honest it was inspired by Barbie: A Christmas Carol rather than the fabulous red glitter. Barbie movies have become the ‘new big thing’ in our house, and the mere mention of Snickerdoodles being a British girl’s favourite ‘cookie’ in Victorian England, makes me giggle, but heigh-ho. They did taste yummy.

And, after seeing a few shop assistants who were dressed as Elves, and reminding my Girls that Santa is still watching them, we thought we’d offer the Elves a sweetener in the form of Elf Wands.

Just pop a marshmallow onto a lollipop stick (you could use a candy cane but I used all mine up on our Christmas Cake) dip in melted chocolate, then dip again into a bowl of festive sprinkles. Leave to dry and put a couple out each night in case the Elves feel a little peckish. I confess I did give them a potted version of Tara’s heart-breaking post on why Santa won’t be visiting her daughter in the hope that keeps them on the straight and narrow.

And in other news, I finally finished the wrapping presents and the Christmas Cake decorating. Now you know why we had no candy canes left.

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Very easy Peppermint creams make excellent last-minute gifts

Domestic Goddesque — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 04:05:58 +0000

Here’s the super-quick scoop. It’s embarrassingly easy. Had I known, I wouldn’t have spent years messing with actually making them from scratch and then trying to keep The Girls from eating the raw-egg-laced dough (hence my embarrassment).

You need:

1. Leftover fondant icing from icing your cake

2. Peppermint oil or flavouring

3. Optional: food colouring

Mix colouring and flavouring into your icing, by kneading until combined.

Roll out. A top tip I learned from the #DrOetkerBaking twitter party is to use cornflour rather than icing sugar to stop your icing getting all sticky.

Cut out shapes.

Optional: you can dip in melted chocolate (dark works best) or get the children to create artistic drizzles across the tops of your Peppermint Creams.

Package and present to awe-struck and super-grateful neighbours!!

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Quick and easy Christmas Pudding biscuits

Domestic Goddesque — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 09:41:24 +0000

I love it when your child announces that they absolutely must take ‘something yummy into school today, Mamma’ on the very day that said item is required. There’s nothing like a flat-out impending parent-fail to make your creative juices flow. It also helps if you have what could be described as a ‘sprinkle fetish’. Thus I found myself with a packet of Chocolate Digestives, a bar of white chocolate, some jelly diamonds, red chocolate buttons and a plan.

Step 1: open biscuit packet. Spread biscuits on flat surface or cooling rack.

Step 2: melt chocolate. I used my fancy-schmancy new double boiler but you could use a microwave.

Step 3: prepare sprinkles. This is crucial because once you are ready to go, you will be sprinkling like mad and trying to stop small people from eating all the sprinkles before they hit the biscuits. Cut your green jelly diamonds in half length-wise. Seeperate out red (and pink at a push) buttons from other colours.

Step 4: Smear melted white chocolate over the top of your digestive in manner of Christmas Pudding.

Step 5: plonk on a couple of chocolate buttons for holly and a pair of jelly diamond slivers for holly.

Step 6: repeat. Cool. Eat.

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Kick-start Christmas: how to make mince pies and an Amazon Giveaway

Domestic Goddesque — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 21:19:22 +0000

It’s day of the Kick-Start Christmas Giveaway and I’m sitting watching Barbie The Nutcracker with The Girls. I can feel stirrings of something approximating Christmas spirit, despite the early hour. Which makes it the perfect time to tell you about today’s Giveaway.

It couldn’t be simpler: I have a £25 Amazon voucher. No tricks, no plugging. Yours for a comment telling me what you’d buy with it. And if you are feeling generous, you might want to like the Domestic Goddesque Facebook page.

This competition is now closed. Congratulations to Laura from Cupcakes for Clara.

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There are things that are synonymous with Christmas aren’t there? Over on Facebook I’ve been asking for favourite Christmas film suggestions. For me, there is nothing that says Christmas more than the smell of mince pies baking. It’s the hot spicy citrus smell, I suppose.

I don’t remember not making mince pies. I learned long ago on some foreign shore when the arrival of the mincemeat in the NAAFI was a sure sign that the festive season was underway. Of course that was back in the days when The Mothership made her own pastry. I remember making insane quantities of bases and lids, but I could just be imagining it.

These days, particularly with little helpers, I prefer to use ready rolled shortcrust, because I can and because it saves a couple of steps. One sheet makes about 10, annoyingly, since most muffin trays hold 12.

In addition you need:

jar of mincemeat, home-made or shop-bought (I like to use shop and mix half-and-half with my cranberry sauce. But don’t tell anyone.)

beaten egg

water

caster sugar

1. You need to cut the bases. For this you will need a cutter that is larger than the diameter of your muffin ‘hole’.

2. Cut the corresponding number of tops using a cutter that is the same diameter of the ‘hole.

3. Press down the larger disc of pastry into the muffin ‘hole’ carefully but firmly, leaving the very edges draped over the rim.

4. Add a teaspoon of mincemeat to each pie.

5. Dip a finger or pastry brush in the water and brush around the rim of the base.

6. Add the pastry top, and press firmly in place. Neaten edges if necessary (I used a crimped cutter for the top layer for the purposes of the pictures.)

7. Brush the tops of the pies with beaten egg and sprinkle with sugar.

8. Bake at 180C for 20 minutes or so until golden brown. Cool on a baking tray. Serve with (optional) brandy butter and (imperative) Mulled wine!

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Angelic Christmas Cookies in a Jar

Domestic Goddesque — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 08:13:50 +0000

I’m probably going to curse myself now, but I seem to be doing reasonably well with my Christmas preparations. That said, things have been slightly complicated of late by the fact that the Dimpled Assassin, who is famed for her bad sleeping habits, has adopted the guest bedroom as her bedroom of choice. She spent the night there recently when Lord and Lady M to stay, and had a miraculous night’s sleep. DH and I have since embarked on a test-run to see if she does actually sleep better there than in her current bedroom.

I’m delighted to say, with fingers crossed and simultaneously touching wood, that things do seem to be improving. I’ve yet to establish why she prefers the room. Facing the garden, the guest room is quieter, so that could well be it. But then I wonder whether she likes the weight of the double duvet on her as she sleeps. The overriding advantage is that, should she wake in the night, I am no longer forced to sleep on the floor at her side, shoulders wedged between bed and wardrobe. Instead I crawl between the covers next to her and get a more comfortable night than I would otherwise.

The complication with this development is Operation Christmas, which traditionally operates out of the Guest Room. There is a mini Everest of plastic bags, each relating to a person or group of people, holding gifts which need to be wrapped and distributed. The problem is that the room is out-of-bounds every night, so the production line I usually have throughout December will not be operational this year. Minimalist wrapping may be the way forward.

Thus my keen-ness to find home-made gifts that need little fancifying. I’ve spent a lot of time looking at cookies in a jar recipes online, after a recent trip to Ikea saw me bring back a dozen Kilner-style jars (does anyone ever go to Ikea and not buy a whole bunch of stuff they hadn’t planned to?) The recipes are mostly American and involve cups, and invariably call for different sized jars that the ones I have committed to. So I had to mix and match a few recipes until I found something that worked. The cookies are so delicious, I suspect I will feel a pang of regret giving them away to friends!

Little Big Girl named the cookies: she saw Dimples playing with the flour that had been liberally sprinkled across the kitchen (that’s cooking for children with you) and remarked that it looked like Angel footprints. I like to think that it’s because they are a taste of Heaven too!

For each jar of Angelic Christmas Cookies, you will need to layer the following ingredients into the jar*, packing them down firmly as you go:

150g plain flour
1½tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
75g oats
75g smarties or m&ms (or chocolate chips)
50g soft brown brown sugar
50g caster sugar
50g chopped pecan nuts (optional)

Once you have packed all the ingredients into your jar, put the lid on firmly and decorate with ribbon. Don’t forget to attach a recipe card so that the recipient can make them!

For the recipe card:

Put the contents of the jar in a bowl and add:

1 egg
80g melted butter
1tsp vanilla extract

Stir ingredients until thoroughly combined. Pinch off walnut-sized pieces of the dough and roll into a ball, then place on a baking tray and flatten slightly. Bake at 180°C for 10 minutes until golden brown. Allow to cool, if you can wait that long.

*my jars are 1/2 litre or 1 pint.

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Reindeer Cookies and Gingerbread men

Domestic Goddesque — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 10:24:00 +0000

I bet you didn’t know what you get if you turn a gingerbread man upside down (and no, it’s not a smutty joke.) I didn’t either until I was cruising pinterest one day. Invert a gingerbread man and you get a very convincing reindeer cookie. Allow me to demonstrate.

First, you will need some gingerbread men. Although I made a dozen ginger-free men.

Once your men are baked and cooled, turn them upside down. The head is still the head, it’s just at the bottom of your biscuit, rather than the top. The two arms will be ears, which leaves the torso and legs to become antlers. Making sense yet?

Cover your Reindeer in brown icing. Mine is chocolate-flavoured. I used a knife to ‘drag’ antler spurs from the main body of icing. If you had more time and less chocolate-crazed children screaming at you, you could take your time, pipe nice outlines and then flood the outline as I did in my Union Jack biscuits.

Once your icing is done, cut a white jelly diamond into quarters, and put one quarter onto each ear.

Next, use a red mini-chocolate as a nose.

Finally, using white icing, pipe two eyes. You can also add black dots. And a bit of white icing ‘snow’ to the edges of the antlers.

Or you could just make Gingerbread men.

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Cranberry and Chocolate Croissant Pudding

Domestic Goddesque — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 22:03:38 +0000

Do you ever have that moment of panic when you realise that you are leaving for a friend’s house in 45 minutes and you are meant to be bringing dessert. Except you haven’t bought or made one. There’s nothing like that kind of pressure to get your adrenaline pumping. Lets just say I have a better understanding of the phrase “necessity is the mother of invention.”

Fortunately for me I had been making my annual batch of Cranberry Sauce earlier in the day, and a vague memory of once making Nigella’s Croissant Pudding.

For Cranberry and Chocolate Croissant Pudding, you will need (all amounts are approximate as I made it up as I went along):

6 stale croissants

400g chocolate

200ml each double cream and milk

4 eggs, beaten

half a jar of cranberry sauce

6 stale croissants

Firstly, tear up your croissants and arrange in a large ovenproof dish.

Next, pour over the cranberry sauce.

Put to one side, then break your chocolate ( I used one bar of dark and one of milk) and put into a pan with the cream.

Warm over a low heat, stirring constantly, until melted and glossy.

Remove from the heat and slowly add the milk until you have the best hot chocolate you will ever taste. Resist the temptation to consume it all by quickly mixing in the beaten eggs.

Pour the gloopy mixture over your be-jewelled croissants as evenly as possible and leave to soak for ten minutes or so.

Cook at about 180C (I’m particularly vague on this bit because it was cooked at the house where we were eating, by the hostess.) for about 30 minutes or until the top is crispy and set.

Enjoy with a large dollop of ice-cream.

Note there are no ‘after’ shots: it went very quickly!!

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