Yesterday was cold - cold and a bit cloudy. Just the day to sit by the fire watching daytime TV and not doing much at all. Suddenly I had this thought that I had some carrots that needed eating up. And some eggs with a 'sell by' date a few days ago and a 'use by' date imminent. What made me put the 2 together and come up with carrot cake I don't know, but a River Cottage Everyday 'Treat' felt just right so I padded off away from the fire into the kitchen to seek out the recipe and make it.
I whisked up my just-in-date eggs with granulated sugar, as I didn't have caster. Then I added the oil and made this gorgeous frothy pale yellow concoction. Next I had to find the flour and to my dismay I hardly had any white self raising flour - least of all wholemeal. So I used the rest of the white and added some organic wholemeal plain flour and a couple of teaspoons of baking powder (out of date by some 2 or maybe 3 years...). So far so good. I had this thing that carrot cake should by spicy so I gaily sprinkled in plenty of mixed spice. Then I grated up the 3 carrots that had been languishing in the fridge and threw the lot into the oven and went off to watch an episode of Spooks that we had on DVD. The cake and Spooks ended at about the same time. Just perfect...
This episode made me think about the difference between home made and shop bought cakes. I'm sure that if I made this cake again it would be subtly, in not totally, different. And this one is interesting to eat. When it's cooked you pour melted honey on it, rather like a lemon drizzle cake, and this leaves it with a glazed and slightly sweet top. The cake itself isn't very sweet but is moist but with this little kick from the sweetness and slight crunchiness on the top. So every mouthful is unlike the last one. Shop bought cakes tend to be uniform and everyone you buy is just like the last one. You may love it once, twice, even three times, but then it gets just too samey.
This is a really easy cake to make - I don't think it can fail, even with the wrong sugar, the wrong flour a few changes to the ingredients and some sadly not too fresh eggs and carrots. Only when I glanced at the recipe to find out how long it would take to cook did I notice that it was a cake for 12-14 servings. Whoops - there are only 2 of us!
I never got round to making the blue vinny and leek tart. Somehow other things took over. But I had another go at making the chicken and mushrooms which was nice, but somehow not quite as nice as when I first made it. And then I made the curried fish pie. Heather's version of this was stunning - gorgeous crispy pastry and a delicately curry flavoured filling. Mine wasn't like this at all. I had been up in the morning early to make the filling. In a fit of wildness and haste I made the bechamel sauce by guessing the quantities (mistake no 1). It was clear almost immediately that if I added the milk to it to make a smooth sauce it would create enough Bechamel to float a battleship. Instead of just throwing away some of the roux and then adding the milk I just kept adding milk but in the end I didn't feel I could keep on adding it - so I ended up with a sauce that was just too thick (mistake no 2).
We went out for the day and when we returned I put the puff pastry on the top and cooked it. I forgot the bit about brushing it with egg (mistake no 3), and I put it in the oven to cook. But instead of letting it cook properly, I took it out of the oven too early (mistake no 4) and the pastry wasn't quite done and a bit soggy underneath. So the lovely crispy topping wasn't really crispy but the fishy bit was nice enough. I was - I am - quite disappointed with myself.
Today I am going to keep to the recipe, keep to the cooking times, and keep my fingers crossed!
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This spicy North African pepper and tomato stew with eggs baked on top makes a lovely, lazy brunch or supper"
If you are feeling a bit queasy after one of those 24 hours bugs then something tasty and delectable is just what you need. So a bit of left-over Chachouka in the freezer with an egg seemed exactly right for lunch today. Heather has talked about Hugh making you feel that you can be free and adaptable with his recipes, and with this chachouka I was careful with the spices but reckless with the amount of veggies - just using what I had waiting to be eaten up. I didn't have a chili but everything else was there to be chopped up and the cooked and eaten. I even used up the rest of my 5 year old saffron. I don't suppose it had any saffron-like qualities left - but I threw it all in anyway.
The thing that has really impressed me about the River Cottage Everyday book was that somehow I could make things and they came out like the pictures.
So here is Chachouka from the book...
and here is my lunch (cooked, incidentally, on the top of the wood-burning stove)...
Actually, I think mine looks even better!
