Jottage from Lancaster - making my own pizza

Heather mentioned to me that she made her own pizzas so that was enough to throw down the challenge to me to have a shot at it. I decided to make the Magic Bread as the basis but because I was in too much of a hurry, I chucked the ingredients into the bread maker to let it mix it all up rather than go to the effort of kneading it myself. Lazy, I know, but I ended up with some nice stretchy stuff that I suddenly realised would have to rise for an hour or so before it could be made into pizza. So I postponed the idea of having pizza and put the covered dough into the fridge in the hope that it would be OK to use tomorrow. 


Now tomorrow has turned into today and that bowl brimming over with risen dough seems to be filling the fridge so this morning I took it out and next I had to work out how to make a thin circle. In River Cottage Veg Hugh seems to make out that you can just roll it out very thinly but the dough seemed to refuse to roll and stubbornly stuck to the rolling pin or just shrank back to its original size. Suddenly I remembered a silicone roller I had bought from Lakeland in a sale and I threw the ball of dough on to the baking sheet and eagerly rolled it into shape. It seemed to obey and obligingly stayed in shape.

Nice rolling thing

I then slathered it with a layer of passata, cut up a red pepper very thinly and layered on peperoni, mozzarella and a little grated cheese. I was very spare with everything making one little ball of mozzarella do 2 large pizzas and barely used an ounce of cheese on each. I had put the oven on to very hot, threw in the 2 pizzas (I had enough dough left over to make a plain flat bread-y thing which I'm not sure what to do with yet) and this is what came out:

Now this may not look that appealing or professional - but it tasted wonderful - much tastier than anything shop bought and I would say barely a quarter of the price. Success, I think!

Jottage from Lancaster - Brussels sprouts, Apple and Cheddar

We have been geocaching this morning and having made the trip out, it seemed a good opportunity to buy some veggies on the way home. I tend to buy whatever veggies I fancy these days - and lots of them. I use raw fruit and veggies for a big salad that I make for lunch every day, and for anything else I buy, I find some nice recipe from River Cottage Everyday or Veg. 


On the basis that they just looked nice and crunchy and fresh I bought some Brussels sprouts and was pleased to find a lovely salad in River Cottage Veg which would both use them up and be a variation on my usual crispy lunch. 


It wasn't just the sight of the Brussels sprouts that made me think of buying them. We have just got back from a trip to Chicago with my sister and her husband and we went to a restaurant called The Purple Pig (cheese, swine and wine). They had a couple of items with sprouts - one with raw shredded sprouts and one with fried. I had some of the raw sprouts (very finely sliced with parmesan) and loved them. I'm not a great sprout lover - I understand it's genetic - but I adored these. So when I saw them in Booths I was reminded of a happy lunchtime all together on North Mich.

The Purple Pig

Book shopping, Chicago 

So this was my lunch - brussels sprouts, apple and cheddar (actually Red Leicester) with a few walnuts and a slice of my home made wholemeal bread, finished off with a jar of homemade yoghurt. What could be better for me than that???

Jottage from Lancaster - Chicken, Cheese and Ham

Buying ready meals has changed for me from becoming the norm to something I have done maybe only once or twice since that day in Axminster when we had our encounter with Hugh. It was something that had been on my mind - saving the money that most of us are keen to do at the moment - so it struck at exactly the right time. When we were going down to Deborah's for a few days (Deborah being my other daughter, Heather's sister), I stopped off at Waitrose and bought a packet of chicken breasts with cheese and ham which I thought might be palatable and easy to cook (and ease and speed was what I was after as with 2 rambunctious grandchildren to look after for the day I didn't want to come back and start to prepare food). 

Amelia and Ethan - Tristan's cousins

It was nice to be able to throw the packets into the oven with minimum of fuss. I had even bought a packet of mashed potato to cook up with it and ready-cut veggies. And it was nice - really nice. When you're hungry and have little time, it works really well. But as my mother used to say (or at least I think she might have done at some time) - everything is just time or money - and in this case it was quite a lot of money, but only a little time. I'm not going to tot up what it actually cost, but if the hens had been hand reared on dew-picked corn, the cheese from cow grazed on the finest Alpine grasses then tenderly brought down to the valleys and lightly slaughtered - well, you get my meaning. If it had been the highest quality food then it may well have been worth the cost. As it is, the manufacturers knew I would pay up for the ease of throwing a meal on to the table in super-quick time and charged me accordingly - not for the quality of ingredients used.


I think I have talked about this before here - but I do enjoy buying really nice ingredients and making up a meal which even so is still lots cheaper than buying it. Whereas my shop bought chicken meal was all eaten up, it's nice to have leftovers for the next night when you cook up from scratch. They then become a ready meal of their own - just as easy and convenient - but much, much cheaper and much, much nicer.

Jottage from Lancaster - Spinach, Penne and Cheese Spouffle

Although I had bought some nice whiting to eat tonight, I just couldn't resist making Spinach, Penne and Cheese Spouffle. It took a lot of saucepans - I think I used 3 or 4 in the end, as well as a bowl and numerous ladles, spoons and knives, my electric mixer and a cheese grater. It was one of those things that are described as 'simple' suppers but which take quite a bit of preparation. The recipe in Veg Everyday was for 4 portions so I halved it and somehow the ingredients looked very sparse. Just 37g of cheese, 50g of pasta and 25g each of butter and flour. I couldn't see it ever making anything substantial. Even half a packet of spinach wilted down to a little bit at the bottom of the saucepan. I was convinced that somehow it wouldn't come out to much. 


Optimistically I prepared it and put it all into a nice Laura Ashley oven proof dish and popped it into the oven. After 30 minutes it came out and looked just lovely. It was just a bit brown on the top and creamy and delicious in the middle. And it tasted wonderful. And even though there wasn't much of anything in it, it felt like a good meal. This picture makes it look almost like an omelette but in fact it was quite deep and there was easily enough for 2 of us.

It all took a little longer to make as I was totting up calories as I went along. I reckon this was 430 calories per portion. For such a nourishing and sustaining meal I think that's quite good. This is a recipe that I think I will return to again and again. In the book, Hugh gives an alternative with courgettes and I can't wait to have a go at that.

Jottage from Cambridge - Soggy Weetabix or How to Start Weaning

The word ‘weaning’ in the context of babies is incredibly annoying. It seems to imply that they’re coming off something, so you could easily assume that, sometime between four and six months, you should stop feeding them milk, and exclusively offer solid food. Nothing could be further from the truth. Milk remains the most important source of

nourishment for babies until they’re at least a year old, and probably even beyond. So, when Tristan was five months old and I decided to start weaning I didn’t confine my feeding bras to the back of the wardrobe, but rather thought more carefully about the best time to
give Tristan milk feeds so that he was hungry enough to eat three meals a day too.
If you haven’t waited until the baby is six months old then you’re bound to start them off on baby rice and pureed carrot or, if you’re feeling really adventurous, both mixed together. There was quite a build-up of excitement to giving Tristan his first meal, and my husband and I both eagerly awaited his reaction as we launched the
Tommy Tippee spoon into his mouth. When I put the first spoonful of carrot in his mouth he gave me a terrified look, certain that this orange coloured mush was going to poison him. However, somehow the second spoonful wasn’t quite as bad as the first, and an ice cube sized portion of carrot was demolished within a few minutes. Of course the same meal took much longer the next day, but that’s just how weaning goes. Some days your baby’s inner Popeye comes out and he can’t get enough spinach, and then you’re worried that he’ll only ever eat mangos which are a particular shade of yellow. 

Overall my experience has been very positive though and Tristan, so long as he’s not too tired (note that overtiredness is the reason why most babies start yelling and arching their backs at the first sight of a spoon) eats pretty much everything, with the exception of lentils which, quite understandably, he absolutely loathes. The ice cube trays so beloved of Karmel and co. have now been replaced with little pots
(note that all the mummys in the know get their Tupperware from Poundland), and generally Tristan eats good sized portions. Within a few days I had moved on from carrots to butternut squash soup (with
extra cumin to give it a nice warm flavour), and really any combination of the following: spinach, potato, sweet corn, courgettes, baked beans, peas, and peppers, mixed up with meat or fish. So, now at
just over seven months, a typical day looks like the following:
7am: milk
8am Breakfast: Bowl of porridge mixed with grated apple or mashed up
banana, or Weetabix with milk. For us breakfast is always the easiest
meal, mainly because Tristan adores porridge. Weetabix, which I used
to dread having to eat as a child, I now consider one of the greatest
inventions of the last century.
10am: milk
11.30 Lunch: I generally do baby-led at lunchtime which is usually
something on toast, such as cheese and apple, (see Baby & Toddler
Cookbook p.175) sardines, cream cheese or baked beans. Unless you
weigh the food before and after your baby has spent time with it
(Hugh’s advice is that meals should last no longer than half an hour
which I think is just about right) it’s impossible to know how much
they’ve eaten, and indeed it’s incredible where you find half-eaten
bits of bread. Therefore I often give Tristan banana mixed with
full-fat natural or Greek yogurt afterwards just to make sure that
he’s eaten enough.
4pm milk
5pm Teatime:  I used to make a special meal for Tristan, but now I try
and give him the leftovers of whatever my husband and I have eaten the
night before. The only real no-no for babies (besides honey which is
the latest fad thing to avoid as it’s been associated with botulism,
and certain types of fish which contain lots of mercury) is salt
(sugar too isn’t allowed). Low-salt stock cubes are the answer (I
apologise Hugh but, however much time I might have to spare, I will
never bring myself to make my own stock), and unsalted butter. So
Tristan happily eats minced beef, risotto and any kind of meat stew
for his dinner. If the latter is a bit watery, which it often is after
a spell in the freezer, I add baby rice or baby pasta to thicken it
up.
7pm milk

Despite eating all this food and, since you’re no doubt wondering, I’ll tell you that Tristan still doesn’t sleep through the night, but demands a couple of night feeds, usually around 11pm and 3am. However,
although I moan all the time about the fact that my baby still isn’t sleeping through, there is something quite nice about touching base with Tristan during the night. We snuggle up together while everyone else is sleeping and think about all the lovely things we’re going to eat in the days ahead.

Jottage from Cambridge/Lancaster

We just thought of it - one Friday night; to write a blog about our experiences cooking using the River Cottage Everyday recipe book and the River Cottage Baby and Toddler Cookbook.


How this came about and our thoughts and experiences along the way will be the subject of this blog and we are just writing it for our own amusement.


Firstly Tristan's lunch of cheese and apple on toast....

and Tristan eating it...

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Cromwell Rd,Cambridge,United Kingdom