Longwood

Ginger Beer Plant
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Ginger Beer Plant

This is for Patrick. Thursday Mary used to tend our Ginger Beer Plant, kept in the cupboard in the corner of the kitchen, with the fuse box. I recall it was a particularly tangy beer, nice and sparky.

Patrick – I hope you can follow this recipe. Can you let us know how your propagation goes? And I hope there’s not a sticky explosion, as per the Elderflower Cordial incident.

If anyone has any tips on how to start and maintain a ginger beer plant, please comment below. Especially, if you have troubleshooting tips and a recipe using fresh ginger.

Cheers.

UPDATE: 11 December 2016

Thanks to the callout via Facebook, Di Ingelse recommended the CWA (Country Women’s Association) recipe via Burke’s Backyard. This looks like a goer to me. I recommend reading some of the comments, and as my sister-in-law says, “Take cover” when you store and bottle this – it can be quite explosive!
Let me know how it works (or not) for you.

gingerbeerplant

Cut and Come Again – easy and flexible cake recipe
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Cut and Come Again – easy and flexible cake recipe

I try, but don’t always manage it, to make a cake on a Sunday for afternoon tea but also to pad out the school lunch boxes during the week. I think this recipe may have come out of a Country Living magazine way back when. It’s so easy to remember (175g is the main amount) and is super quick to make. It’s not a gourmet cake by any means – just an everyday cake!

The basic recipe is for a plain cake using olive oil with some lemon zest & juice for flavouring. You could use a regular sunflower oil if you prefer. I have adapted the recipe many times – adding cocoa, seasonal fruit, coconut, muesli, bananas – whatever takes my fancy really or whatever needs using up. Recently I’ve taken to making it as an upside down cake. Yes, it’s more butter and sugar – but this adds an extra richness – and makes the cake a perfect pudding too.

I call this cake ‘Cut and come again’ – just because it’s easy to keep cutting another slice to have with another cup of tea, but also because it’s so quick and easy to make. Traditionally it may have been the name of a fruit cake – but I also like to think of The Magic Pudding – who really was a cut-and-come-again puddingy cake of a fellow!

Olive Oil Cut and Come Again Cake

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For the basic recipe…

Whizz together:
3 large eggs
175ml light olive oil
175g caster sugar
(1 tsp vanilla)

Mix in:
175g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Juice + zest of a lemon.

Pour batter into a greased 9 inch round cake tin and bake in the oven for 40 minutes at 180 degrees C.

When warm you could  pour a mixture of dissolved sugar in lemon on top (as per a regular lemon cake) or just sprinkle with icing sugar.

Adaptations I have tried (& which actually worked out ok!):

  • Fruit: simple cut some fruit (I’ve used apples, cherres, plums, tinned peaches) and place on top of the batter before putting in oven.
  • Upside down version: cream together approx 75g butter and half a cup of brown sugar and spread this on the bottom of your already greased tin. Place cut fruit on top (I’ve used plums, apples, pineapple). And then pour the batter over the top. In the picture above left, I have also added 2 tbsp cocoa powder as part of the 175g flour. If you want a deeper toffee-type topping, just cream more butter and sugar!
  • Banana & Muesli: I usually have quite a lot of black bananas piling up in the freezer, so I add 4 squishy bananas to the wet mixture and after adding the usual dry ingredients, I add about a cup of muesli, which absorbs the extra moisture from the bananas. If this isn’t enough, I add a handful of shredded coconut or half a cup of coconut flour. (NB coconut flour is amazingly absorbent and will densify any pudding or cake, or so I’ve found anyway.)
  • Coconut: I haven’t tried this yet – using coconut oil instead of olive oil or maybe half and half.

Please let me know how your experiments go with this recipe. Comment below and post your photos too 🙂

[Health warning: many of the recipes on this site contain flour & sugar. I always recommend organic, single origin ingredients, preferably unbleached, and will endeavour to offer alternatives. As we so very painfully know, cancer cells love sugar – so please moderate your sweet treats.]

Colin’s pudding
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Colin’s pudding

Lynne Lowrie from Blegbie in Humbie has sent through this recipe for a quick pudding option.

Quite often Pamela and Ross would team up for casual dinner with neighbours Colin and Lynne. There were always plenty of cooking apples from the small garden orchard to be used up and Pamela liked to indulge Colin’s penchant for puddings. A hard working farmer can certainly be allowed to partake in as much cake and pudding as he likes!

The derivation of this recipe is a bit iffy, but our guess is that it is another Ida Wilkie / Pamela Flockhart ‘throw it altogether and bung it in the oven’ type of affair.

Apple and Almond Cake
Serves 4

12oz apples, peeled and chopped
6oz sugar
5oz butter or marg
2 eggs
½ tsp almond essence
8oz S.R flour
1 ½ tsp baking powder
Milk for consistency (Lynne to confirm?)
Sprinkling of flaked almonds, brown sugar and cinnamon

Turn on the oven and heat to 325°F or 160°C. Grease a 9 inch tin.

You pretty much mix everything together, but I find this sequence the most efficient unless of course you have a super dooper food mixer.

  1. Cream the sugar and butter (or margarine).
  2. Beat in the eggs and the almond essence.
  3. Add the dry ingredients (flour and BP) spoon by spoon and mix,
  4. Add some milk until the mixture is a heavy batter. (Is that right, Lynne? Other
    wise the mixture is very thick.)

Place half the mixture in a 9 inch tin or baking dish, cover with apples and top with remaining mixture. Sprinkle with the almond, cinnamon and sugar topping.

Bake for 1 ½ hours at 325°F or 160°C. Serve with ice-cream or natural Greek yoghurt.

To make this recipe for 6 people just use one and a half times the ingredients.

My photos aren’t the best but hopefully you get the giste.

[Health warning: many of the recipes on this site contain flour & sugar. I always recommend organic, single origin ingredients, preferably unbleached, and will endeavour to offer alternatives. As we so very painfully know, cancer cells love sugar – so please moderate your sweet treats.]

Quick Apple and Almond Cake in a bowl

Colin’s Pudding

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The Lowrie Family

Thank you Lynne!

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Grandma’s Fish Pie

This recipe takes a bit of coordination but it’s very easy. Prepare all the elements and then put it all together. The sink may fill with dishes in the process but the saving grace is that once the pie is constructed you can wash all the pans and there will be little to do after dinner!
[Please send me your tips, memories and heritage recipes too.]FishPiePrep01 FishPiePrep04FishPiePrep05

INGREDIENTS (serves 4-6) – (I’ve included some variations at the bottom of the page.)

  • SEAFOOD (all skinless, choose what’s best value at the monger, chop each into cubes)
    1 salmon or ocean trout fillet
    1 fillet of smoked cod or haddock
    3 medium fillets firm white fish (I’ve used Basa)
    Can also include a handful of peeled prawns, scallops, calamari
  • MIX INS
    1 onion, chopped
    2 eggs, boiled
    fresh corn, cut off the cob
    frozen peas
    Can also use celery, leek, runner beans (I like veggies that add a bit of crunch)
  • WHITE SAUCE
    40g butter
    1/3 cup plain flour
    500ml milk, with some extra if needed
    salt & pepper to taste
  • POTATO TOPPING
    5 medium potatoes, washed, chopped into quarters & boiled
    knob of butter
    parsley
    dash of milk
    salt & pepper to taste
  1. Put the potatoes and eggs on to boil, in separate pans, until cooked. Drain. Peel eggs, cut into quarters lengthways and put aside.
  2. In a large skillet or frying pan, saute onion in a splash of olive oil. When silky, mix in the chopped seafood,and cook for only a minute.
  3. Prepare your veggies – cut corn off cob, wash and chop celery, douse frozen peas with hot water in a bowl & drain – put all aside.
  4. Turn on your oven to 180 degrees.
  5. Make your white sauce by melting butter in a small saucepan, add flour and stir to combine, allowing to cook a little. Add milk or stock little by little, stirring all the time with a small whisk to knock out any bumps and until the sauce is smooth (it will keep thickening until it starts to bubble). Add salt & pepper to taste. Let sauce bubble for about a minute and then take off heat. The sauce should thickly coat the back of a spoon but be pourable.
  6. Either mash potatoes in the pan with butter, milk, parsley, salt & pepper OR whizz til chunky or smooth mash (your preference) in your food processor.
  7. Now you are ready to assemble the pie!
    Mix the veggies and sauce into the seafood mix and then pour into a baking dish (I’ve used a 11×8 inch oblong Ikea dish), place in your egg quarters and then spread the mashed potato on top. Either fork or use your spatula to create wavelets across the potato surface – these will catch heat and brown nicely in the oven.
  8. Place in oven and bake for approximately 40 minutes. (if the top hasn’t browned – pop it under a hot grill just for a minute.)
  9. Serve with a crispy green salad or your favourite steamed green veggies.

VARIATIONS:
LOWER CALORIES: use no fat or low fat milk, a butter substitute such as Nuttelex or sunflower oil or don’t use any sauce at all! Use stock instead of milk in sauce (it won’t be as white but it’s ok for the lactose intolerant.)
SAUCE: add in a tsp of curry powder or dijon mustard for added flavour.
SEAFOOD: use a marinara mix, but if its frozen make sure your sauce is thick, as water from the fish will dilute it somewhat when cooking and you’ll end up with soggy pie. Same goes if you are using any frozen fish and veg straight into the mix.
TOPPING: Use puff pastry instead.
INDIVIDUAL ONES: make small ones in ramekins or little pie dishes. Kids love these and they’re also handy to put in the freezer for when you are home alone or stuck for a kids dinner when you are leaving to go out.

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In loving memory of Pamela and Ross

Longwood logo-02Sadly my Dad, Ross, recently passed away, so I am now dedicating this blog to both my parents. They were an incredible team.

Mum’s wholesome home-cooking was the complement to Dad’s perspicacious dining table discussions.

Dad also assisted in the bakery – rising at the crack of dawn to knead dough before putting on his suit to go to work in Edinburgh as Director of SCVO.

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My, oh, my! Sugar high!

Thank you, Moi, for handing me the recipe card that you found recently (see pic). In Mum’s hand, is the recipe for Caramel Sauce. This one, though, is not to be confused with the Linda Landers Caramel Sauce recipe. The former could be termed the ‘lite’ version but as both contain vast proportions of sugar, it really doesn’t matter! Having just tasted a wee swirl atop my ‘lite’ frozen yoghurt, I am definitely soaring in the heady stratosphere of a sugar high. I have very fond memories of scraping the last remnants of melted ice-cream and caramel sauce from my dessert bowl at Sunday lunch (no rude comments, please, about where that led me!).

CaramelRecipeCardCaramel Sauce (lite version!)
Good on ice-cream and keeps soft form in a jar to use as a cake filling or a spread. (Also good for surreptitious larder snacks – eaten by the teaspoon from the jar!). This recipe (thankfully) only makes a small amount (approx. 120g).

Boil 1 cup of light brown sugar with 2 tablespoons milk and 1tablespoon butter for 4 minutes.
Take off fire, add 1 teaspoon vanilla essence and a good squeeze of lemon.
Beat until thick.

Linda LandersLinda Landers’ Caramel Sauce
Truly divine and decadent on vanilla ice-cream. Forms an increasingly gooey thick toffee coating atop the cold ice-cream, and can become hard, depending on your cooking technique.

Bring slowly to the boil: 2 cups packed brown sugar, 2 tablespoons golden syrup, 2 tablespoons butter, 1 cup whipping or double cream.
Boil for 5 minutes. When off the stove beat in 2 teaspoons of vanilla essence.

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CaramelRecipeCard