Half term baking - Valentine's cookies

It's half term here and with the weather looking decidedly bleak the obvious way to kill a few hours is with some home baking, Valentine's day is a obvious theme right now. Cut out cookies it was to be but the 'problem' with cut out cookies and children is that children love to 'play' with their piece of dough. It gets rolled, shaped, crumpled up, re-rolled, re-shaped and so on after a while it becomes tough and inedible - for the children - personally I don't eat the re-rolled creations, I simple admire the work of my little angels.
In my quest to find a good workable, child friendly dough I tried a much recommended one from Martha Stewart, her sugar cookies. This dough was great, I found it a little wet to start with and added a extra 3/4 cup of flour but apart from that it was a dream to work with. We started off with heart shaped cookies, moving onto champagne flutes - quite fitting for Valentine's day, before long my son was cutting out palm trees and flamingos - wishful thinking for a drab and dreary February.


Sugar cookies
from The Martha Stewart cookbook
Makes approx. 2 dozen cookies

2 cups of all purpose flour (I needed a extra 3/4 cup)
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 pound butter, softened
1 cup of sugar
1 egg
2 tbsp brandy - I swapped for milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Sift together the dry ingredients. In a electric mixer, cream butter and sugar until light; add the egg, brandy and vanilla and beat well. Add the dry ingredients a little at a time and mix until well blended
Wrap and chill the dough for at least 30 minutes before rolling.
Preheat the oven to 400f. On a lightly floured board, roll out one third of the dough at a time. Roll to about 1/8inch thick and cut out with cookie cutters. Put shaped on parchment-lined baking sheets and bake for 10 minutes. Do not allow to burn. Cool on racks.

Decorate as your children choose to do so.

This dough was incredible, very robust but still came out of the oven light and crisp, they went down a storm, a great recipe.

Oat, seed and raisin cookies

There is nothing flash or fancy about oat and raisin cookies, indeed I'd go as far to say that they are home baking at it's best. Simple, wholesome ingredients, yet still deliciously addictive.
I have been baking oat cookies for my kids for years and years and everyone loves them, this slightly healthier version proved just as delicious.
This recipe, from Annabel Karmel (fabulous kids food expert) includes sunflower seeds alongside the oats and raisins. It's a great way to get extra seeds into the children's diet, they didn't realise the seeds were there at all and really enjoyed the cookies.
I have to say I loved the addition of the seeds the cookies tasted very much like Hob-nobs and to say there is relatively little sugar in the recipe they taste as though the have been drenched in syrup.
Chewy, crunchy and (sort of) good for you....what more could you wish for in a cookie.




Oat and raisin cookies

75g butter
85g golden caster sugar
1tsp vanilla extract
75g raisins
50g sunflower seeds
50g plain flour
1/2tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2tsp salt
40g porridge oats

Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Stir in all of the remaining ingredients until completely combined.
Shape into walnut-sized balls and flatten slightly by pressing in the centre with your fingers.
Place in an oven pre-heated to 180c for 12-14 minutes until golden.
Cool on a wire rack.

Makes 12-15 biscuits.

Pacific lime chicken

I wasn't going to blog about this chicken dish, mainly because I find it impossible to take a half decent picture of chicken portions, I don't know why, I just can't make them look nice, I really need to work on my plating up skills, lol. However as soon as I tasted this dish I knew I had to post about it as it is, by far, the most delicious chicken recipe I have tried in a long while.

The recipe comes from Diana Henry's Cook Simple, a fantastic book that I have lusted over for months and finally picked it up. I have heard many good things about this book from other bloggers and on foodie forums and new this would be a great book for me, I'm not disappointed, in fact it is one of the few books I own that I could quite easily cook everything in it.

This is the very first recipe in the book and as I had everything to hand I gave it a go, so glad I did, everyone raved about this chicken, in fact my son and I resorted to spooning the leftover cooked marinade out of the dish stove-side, we couldn't get enough. I have mentioned before of my love of sticky chicken, this is super sticky and the limes really come though, I find that a lot of marinades don't really penetrate the meat, this really did and I only left it a few hours, overnight marinating would be spectacular.

Pacific lime chicken - serves 4

8 chicken thighs, bone in, skin on

wedges of lime, to serve

Marinade:

5 tbsp runny honey

5tbsp dark soy sauce

juice of 4 limes

3tsp soft brown sugar

3 garlic cloves, crushed or grated

leaves from 5 sprigs of thyme

black pepper


Mix all the marinade ingredients together. Make incisions in the underside of the chicken and pour the marinade over it. Cover with cling film. If you have time, leave the chicken to marinate - anything from 15 minutes to the whole afternoon - in the refrigerator, turning the chicken pieces every so often.

Lift the chicken out of the marinade and put it in a small roasting tin or shallow gratin dish; it needs to lie in a single layer. Roast in an oven preheated to 190c/ gas mark 5 for 35-40 minutes, basting every so often with the leftover marinade and cooking juices until cooked through. If it gets too dark in colour, cover the dish with foil. The finished dish will be sticky and glossy. Serve with fresh limes, cut into wedges or halves.

Luscious lunch

I am not a girl who can skip lunch, or any other meal for that matter, I need breakfast as soon as I wake up and then spend hours dreaming of lunch time. This recipe comes from the first Cook yourself thin book and it is meant to be a tasty side dish, but it's great for cabbage lovers (like me!) as a really quick cook lunch. The original recipe is shredded savoy cabbage with toasted pine nuts and crispy prosciutto. I often chop and change it, any green cabbage will do and the prosciutto is often swapped for Serrano ham, as I used today, or my favourite, crispy pancetta....drool. The only thing I never change is the toasted pine nuts, I adore pine nuts and often I'm so hastily wanting to eat them I don't toast them properly, as in the picture, lol.









Shredded savoy cabbage with toasted pine nuts and crispy prosciutto



250g savoy cabbage

20g pine nuts

35g prosciutto - or other continental meat

1/2 tsp olive oil

2 sage leaves, finely chopped - I omit these

salt

1/4 tsp white pepper - I prefer to use black

Serves 2 - as a side dish

150 calories per serving



Take the outer leaves off the cabbage from the outside in and, using a sharp knife, remove the core. Roll the leaves up like cigars and slice into thin ribbons. Give them a quick wash under the tap and set aside without bothering to dry them too much.

In a large dry frying pan, toast the pine nuts over a medium-heat until golden. When toasted and lovely, remove them from the pan and set aside. Next add the prosciutto, laying it out flat in the bottom of the pan for 4 minutes until it has shrunk slightly and gone crispy. Set aside with the pine nuts.

Heat the pan up and pop in the olive oil, sage and cabbage. Stir-fry this mixture for 5 minutes, then put in 1 teaspoon of water, turn the heat off completely and place the lid on for another 2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, then add the prosciutto in little shards and pine nuts before serving.