Back in the saddle

So, after 8 months of looking after Ricicle, She Likes Her Food again! I have finally got to grips with finding time to look after a little fella and cook, so keep checking every week for new recipes, new restaurant reviews, and a new section on baby-led weaning tips and recipes too (more of that later).

She likes her maternity leave

I am delighted to annouce that there has a been addition to the Rice family, meaning that She likes her food is on maternity leave. Please check back in the spring when the Rices will have got to grips with nappies, feeding and sleeping and She likes her food will have had enough sleep to get back to recipes, cooking, eating and blogging!

Fish and Pecorino lasagne

 

Fish and pecorino lasagne

 

It might sound odd, but it tastes absolutely delicious. If you like fish pie and you like lasagne, you will love fish lasagne. It was supposed to have cheddar and parmesan, but I picked up pecorino cheese by mistake. Not one to trudge back to the shops, I decided to give it a go, and it worked brilliantly. The cheese sauce gives the whole dish an extra kick, and the crunchy cheese topping is the icing on the cake, so to speak! Use whatever combinations of fish and cheese takes your fancy.

Recipe for Fish and Pecorino Lasagne

1 pint skimmed milk
2 bay leaves
1 garlic clove
40g butter
50g wholemeal plain flour
1 tsp English mustard
salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 fresh lasagne sheets
100g smoked haddock
150g cod fillet
200g prawns
50g sweetcorn
50g wholemeal breadcrumbs
300g cheddar cheese, grated
200g pecorino cheese, grated

Heat up the milk, bay leaves and garlic in a pan over a medium heat and warm to just before boiling point, then remove from the heat. Then slowly melt the butter in a separate pan and stir in the flour carefully, stirring all the time. Take the bay leaves and garlic out of the milk, then gradually add a little of the milk to the flour and butter mixture. Add the milk bit by bit, stirring all the time until you have a thick, smooth sauce. Once all the milk is added, bring the sauce to the boil, add the mustard, salt and pepper and then turn the heat off. Put enough of the cheese aside for a generous topping, then add the rest to the sauce and stir until it’s melted. Add all the fish and the sweetcorn to the sauce, then put a quarter of the mixture into the dish, followed by a sheet of lasagne and so on. Mix the breadcrumbs with the remaining grated cheese, and cover the top of the lasagne. Cook at 180°C for 45 minutes, or until the top is golden and the sauce is bubbling. Serve with garden peas and garlic bread.

© Katheryn Rice 2008

Honey and ginger pork with parsnips

Like many red-blooded males, Mr Rice likes to eat his fair share of red meat, so I decided to treat him to some tasty pork chops for sunday lunch.

Honey and ginger pork with parsnips
2 large pork chops
3 parsnips
1 onion
1 orange, zest and juice
8 tbsps clear honey
¼ tsp ground ginger

Heat the oven to 180ºC, line a baking tray with foil and add a knob of butter, then melt for a few minutes in the oven. Meanwhile quarter the parsnips and slice the onions thickly. Then add them to the baking tray and coat with the butter. Mix the honey and ginger with the orange juice and zest and pour half of it over the contents of the tray, then cook for 45 minutes, turning a couple of times.

Meanwhile, quickly brown the pork chops on each side and set aside. After 45 minutes, add the chops on top of the vegetables and pour on the rest of the sauce. Turn the oven up to 220ºC and cook for 15 minutes, turning once halfway through.

The parsnips and onions will have caramelised and soaked up the juices, which will have reduced, and the pork chops will be nicely browned.

Serve with vegetable mash and celeriac dauphinoise. 

Mr Rice often insists on having his roast dinner served in a giant Yorkshire pudding, and this was no exception…

 

© Katheryn Rice 2008

Banana bread

Wholesome comfort food.

Recipe for Banana Bread

4 bananas*
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
200ml vegetable oil
180g wholemeal plain flour
100g plain flour
½ tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
85g dark brown sugar
2 tbsp clear honey
100g pumpkin & sunflower seeds

Mash the bananas add them to the bowl of a food mixer with the eggs, vanilla extract, honey and oil and beat until smooth. In another bowl, add the sifted flours, salt, baking powder and brown sugar and stir gently to combine. Then add the banana mixture to the flour mixture and fold carefully together. When it is almost combined, add the pumpkin and sunflower seeds and finish mixing.

Transfer to a lightly oiled 750g loaf tin and cook for 55-60 minutes at 160ºC. The cake is ready when a skewer comes out clean. Let rest for ten minutes, then run a knife around the edges and carefully turn out. Slice and eat warm or keep in an airtight container for up to 5 days.

It was a lucky coincidence that Mr Rice had just bought a tub of Nutella, so after we had feasted on a delicious, warm slice of the bread, we devoured another one, slathered with the rich, hazelnut chocolate spread – sunday afternoon perfection!

*You can use defrosted frozen bananas in this recipe.

© Katheryn Rice 2008

Cocktails at Brooklyn Social

This has to be one of the most effortlessly cool places to drink in Brooklyn. 

Low lighting, slow ceiling fans and a dark, mysterious exterior, Brooklyn Social perfectly recreates the Italian Social Club it used to be in days gone by. Screaming subtlety and effortless coolness, it is a superbly relaxed place to sit and chill out, drinking some superb cocktails at the bar, whilst listening to Ella Fitzgerald.

© Katheryn Rice 2008

Swede, kale and potato cakes

In Mr Rice’s absence I found myself with a vegetable surplus. I made soup with the leeks and potatoes, and pasta sauce with the peppers and tomatoes, but I was still left with kale, an onion, some small potatoes and a swede. I toyed with the idea of more soup, but we now have something of a soup mountain in the freezer so I decided to think more creatively.I used to love potato cakes when I was a child – made from leftover mashed potato with a little flour added and fried, then slathered in butter – the ultimate comfort food. So, on a gloomy sunday afternoon I decided to recreate this with the vegetables I had left. It worked really well, although it took a while, the final result was exactly what I had hoped for. 

 Recipe for Swede, kale and potato cakes

500g potatoes
1 swede
1 medium onion
2 tbsps golden caster sugar
4 kale sprigs
1 egg yolk
100g hard cheese, grated
25g butter
splash of olive oil
2 pinches of sea salt
25g wholemeal flour

Wash or peel the potatoes (I don’t peel potatoes much these days, I like to keep the fibre of the skins), then peel the swede and slice into chip-size pieces and steam for 20-25 minutes, or until they are soft and come apart easily in your fingers.

Meanwhile, heat up half the butter and a splash of olive oil in a frying pan and dice the onions, then slowly fry them until soft and translucent. Then add the sugar and stir well, then turn the heat down and cover, to let them caramelise. About five minutes before the potatoes and swede are cooked put the kale on to steam and remove the cover from the onions. It’s important that the onions are caramelised but don’t have any excess moisture as this will cause the cakes to be less firm, and therefore more difficult to fry.

When the potatoes and swede are cooked, drain them well and heat them up in a pan to get rid of any excess moisture. Start to mash them and then add the onions and the steamed, drained and chopped kale. Mash and combine the mixture well, then add salt and pepper to your taste, remove from the heat and add the grated cheese, and finally the egg yolk.

Dust your hands with a bit of the flour then shape the mixture into 8-10 cakes, put them on a plate and then chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Then heat the remaining butter and another splash of olive oil and gently fry the cakes until browned on both sides. Be very careful when turning them over as they can be fragile!

Serve immediately with salad and houmous.

Make sure you when you fry the cakes that you leave plenty of space in the pan so you can turn them easily.

© Katheryn Rice 2008

Potato and Kale Soup

Another interesting vegetable came from Abel & Cole this week: Kale.

Soup’s a real comfort on a cold day, and making on a chilly afternoon is soothing and satisfying. I’ve made potato and leek soup many times, so what’s to stop it working with kale?

Mr Rice can be a little suspicious of my vegetable soups, but he loved this one as much as me, and I think it’s the best soup I’ve made.

Recipe for Potato and Kale Soup
3 medium potatoes
300g kale
1 stick of celery
½ onion
500 ml vegetable stock
1 bay leaf
3 tbsp creme fraiche
1 pint of milk

Heat a dash of olive oil and a knob of butter in a large pan, then finely chop the onion and add to the pan, cooking until the onions are turning translucent, then finely chop the garlic and cook with the onions for a few minutes. Chop the celery into thin slices and add to the pan, and cook for another five minutes. Meanwhile, scrub the potatoes (peeling is optional) and cut into 5mm slices, then add these to the pan, stir it all together, then cover and cook for ten minutes.

Roughly chop the kale and add this and the bay leaf to the rest of the ingredients. Give it a good stir, then cover for five minutes, then add the stock, bring to the boil, and cover and cook for 40 minutes.

Once everything has softened, remove the bay leaf, add the creme fraiche and half the milk and stir roughly, to begin breaking everything up. Next, you have to blend it all together, so remove the pan from the heat. I use a hand blender and gradually work my way round the pan until it is all liquidised and smooth. You can also transfer it into a blender in batches and then back into the pan, but this takes a little bit longer.

Once you’re happy with the texture, return the soup to the heat, and stir in the rest of the milk until you get a thickness you are happy with. If you want a thinner soup, or want to make it go further, add more milk. Just keep tasting it to make sure you don’t dilute the flavour too much.

Tips

• The butter and creme fraiche are both optional, but help to give the soup its rich taste
• Leeks and cabbage can be substituted for the kale. Add the leeks after the onions, or the cabbage at the same time as the kale.
• Skimmed, semi-skimmed or full fat milk can be used
• Grate some cheese onto the soup when you serve it for extra richness

© Katheryn Rice 2007

Chocolate brownies & white chocolate blondies

Chocolate brownies and white chocolate blondies

This mountain of chocolate brownies and white chocolate blondies (brownies made with white chocolate) is one of a trio of the best desserts I have made so far. They were as crunchy, chewy, sweet and chocolatey as they could be and they went down very well indeed.  

I have already posted my healthy chocolate brownies recipe, but this is the full fat, full sugar version, which my eating companions insist I post, so here it is:

Recipe for chocolate brownies
1 pack of dark chocolate drops
50g dark chocolate (minimum 70% cocoa)
110g butter
2 eggs
50g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
200g brown sugar
25g demerera sugar
¼ tsp salt

Melt the chocolate and butter in a large glass bowl over a pan of hot water (a bain marie). Make sure the bottom of the bowl stays out of the water, so the chocolate doesn’t burn. Stir it together until it is all blended, then simply add all the other ingredients and stir again until completely mixed. Finally, add the chocolate drops, give a quick stir and then transfer to a square silicon tin and cook at 180 degrees for 25-30 minutes.

To make white chocolate blondies, just replace the 50g of dark chocolate and packet of chocolate drops with white chocolate.

When it’s cooked it will be springy to the touch, but remember that the skewer test does not apply here, as you want the end result to be sticky and moist, not clean and dry like a cake. They will be crispy on top and gooey inside. Let the brownies cool a bit in the tin, then cut into pieces – as small or big as you like.

There are so many varieties of chocolate brownie recipe around that much as I love this recipe, I have decided to try some of the others I have come across. Keep an eye on my new ‘chocolate brownies’ category for my latest brownie experiment.

© Katheryn Rice 2007