Three Bean and Spinach Stew

My internet's been down for a while which is why I've not being posting the past couple of weeks, but the recipe I'm about to share with you more than makes up for my disappearance.

Not only is it not full of sugar and chocolate, which is quite unusual for me and my sweet tooth, but it's actually really quite healthy. Don't let that fool you though, this is a really hearty, stick-to-your-ribs stew, which could stand up to even the coldest, rainiest of days.



Three Bean and Spinach Stew
from Olive Magazine- Feb '08

1 Large Onion, finely chopped
1-2 Cloves Garlic, crushed
Olive Oil
1 Tbsp Ground Cumin
400g tin Chopped Tomatoes
200g tin Kidney Beans
200g tin Cannellini Beans
100g Green Beans
100g Spinach, roughly chopped

Cook the onion and garlic in a little olive oil until softened. Add the cumin and cook for a minute. Tip in the tomatoes, plus a cup of water and simmer for 10 minutes until thickened. Add all of the beans and cook for 5 minutes. Add the spinach and cook for another 5 minutes.
Serves 4

Christmas Cake

The presents have been torn open, the crackers pulled and the Christmas pudding set alight. Christmas day is over and now it's time to cut a nice, big slice of Christmas cake, sit back and relax.



I made this back when I made my Christmas pudding but it came out the oven burnt, dry and bearing no resemblance to the picture in the magazine. Despite having low expectations for it I put it in a tin and brought it out once a week to give it a generous splash of brandy. Then, on Wednesday, I got it out, cut a tiny slice of it and hesitantly took a bite, being sure it would taste something like burnt cardboard.

I was so wrong.

The brandy had made the cake go from dry and crumbly to dreamily soft. All the flavours had mellowed and melded. And even though it's so burnt round the outside you have to cut off a good half centimetre, I have to say, this cake is pretty good.

Chocolate Gingerbread

This cake is no beauty, I'd be the first to admit that, but sink your teeth into a fat, sticky slab of it and I promise you'll be ready to forgive it anything.

Hidden beneath the sugary, crackly glaze is a dense, fudgy cake flavoured with cloves, cinnamon and a hefty dose of ginger. The chocolate chips add texture and make what is already a fairly delicious cake even better.

I can definitely see this becoming a Christmas tradition.



Or maybe even a weekly one.


Chocolate Gingerbread
from Nigella Lawson's Feast

Makes about 12 slabs

For the Cake:
175g unsalted butter (I used margarine)
125g dark muscovado sugar
2 tablespoons caster sugar
200g golden syrup
200g black treacle or molasses
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 1/4 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda (aka, baking soda)
2 tablespoons warm water
2 eggs (I used flax seeds to replace these)
250ml milk (soymilk)
275g plain flour
40g cocoa
175g chocolate chips

For the Icing:
250g icing sugar
30g unsalted butter (margarine)
1 tablespoon cocoa
60ml ginger ale

Preheat the oven to gas mark 3/170° C and tear off a big piece of baking parchment to line the bottom and sides of a roasting tin of approximately 30 x 20 x 5cm deep.

In a decent-sized saucepan, melt the butter along with the sugars, golden syrup, treacle or molasses, cloves, cinnamon and ground ginger. In a cup dissolve the bicarbonate of soda in the water. Take the saucepan off the heat and beat in the eggs, milk and bicarb in its water. Stir in the flour and cocoa and beat with a wooden spoon to mix. Fold in the chocolate chips, pour into the lined tin and bake for about 45 minutes until risen and firm. It will be slightly damp underneath the set top and that's the way you want it.

Remove to a wire rack and let cool in the tin. Once cool, get on with the icing.

Sieve the icing sugar. In a heavy-based saucepan heat the butter, cocoa and ginger ale. Once the butter's melted, whisk in the icing sugar. Lift the chocolate gingerbread out of the tin and unwrap the paper. Pour over the icing just to cover the top and cut into fat slabs when set.

Mince Pies

I really love mince pies. It's not just the way they taste (though there's certainly nothing wrong with that), it's the way that suddenly, when you whip up a batch of them, it changes from being a cold and miserable winter day to being something just a little more like Christmas.

Apple and Blackberry Crumble

"Catherine, you're coming round tonight aren't you?" My friend Daisy asked. "There'll be pizza."

Never one to pass up an opportunity, especially not an opportunity involving pizza, I agreed straight away.

"And we've got some blackberries too. We could make a crumble or something?"

Even if the offer of pizza hadn't been enough, that would've certainly done the trick.






(We didn't really make enough crumble topping)

Stir-up Sunday

The Christmas decorations are up in all the shops, I've already received a few cards from my more organised friends, and people are asking me what I want. It seems like Christmas is really here.

Ugh, but Christmas?! I mean, where did November go? A quick check of the calendar told me that, yes, we really have got to the end of November, Christmas is just round the corner and that it's time to start baking.

Stir up Sunday is the day that you should traditionally "stir-up" your Christmas pudding. It falls on the Sunday before the first Sunday of Advent, and that's today.


ingredients


dried fruit


"the zest and juice of 1 orange"


the "stirring-up"

Tradition states that every member of the family (my mum in the above picture) should stir the pudding, in a clockwise direction, with a wooden spoon whilst making a wish.


in the pan ready to be steamed for EIGHT hours


messy kitchen


and a slightly blurry picture of the final outcome

AND, I was really excited to be tagged earlier this month by Rosie from Rosie Bakes a 'peace' of cake (thanks!). So here goes:

These are the rules:1. Link to your tagger and post these rules.2. Share 7 facts about yourself: some random, some weird.3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them).4. Let them know they've been tagged by leaving a comment at their Blogs. Here are seven random facts about me.

7 facts about me:
1. I'm really not very good with my words! It usually takes me forever to write blog posts because I just can't decide what to write. (I aspire to be like Nigella Lawson, or Molly from Orangette both of whom write fantastically). This was also why I did terribly at English and History at school, I just could not write essays.
2. I'm pretty tall at 5'11", but I have really, really short legs.
3. I'm a sucker for a nice pair of shoes!
4. I pretty much live off pasta because most of the time I'm too lazy to actually cook.
5. I must be a boring person because I'm finding it incredibly difficult to find 7 things to write about myself!
6. I would love to live in New Zealand someday, it's one of the most beautiful places on this earth.
7. Until I turned vegan I was a really, really fussy eater. I'm still quite fussy now but back then I would only (and I mean ONLY) eat cereal, peanut butter sandwiches, chips and baked beans. Going vegan is what made me so interested (erm...obsessed)with food.

So whom do you tag?
(I'm not sure who has done this and who hasn't but I'll try not to tag anyone who's done it before.)
Laura of Eden in the Kitchen
Amy of Iron Chef Vegan
Veglicious
And erm, I'm not really sure who else!

Bread

I can't help but to love making bread. It always feels a little bit like magic, the way you start off with a sticky mess of dough, but then after kneading it for about 10 minutes it transforms into a smooth, elastic ball. And, as it that wasn't enough magic, you then leave it for an hour and when you come back it's doubled in size.



And how about the way it fills your house with that fantastic bready smell? If there's any one thing that makes a house a home it's the smell of baking bread.



Then when you take it out of the oven it's risen even more, with a big crack down the middle and you feel ridiculously proud that you turned flour, salt, water and yeast into a crusty, warm, soft loaf of bread.