Vinegar

I'm a fan of all things vinegar.  I don't know when that happened it just did.  One day I was looking in my kitchen cupboards and I discovered that I had about nine bottles of the stuff.  All different types. And actually weirdly, none of it the malt vinegar I had always considered to be the only kind of vinegar there was.

I use white vinegar a lot for cleaning.  I also use vinegar a lot as a salad dressing, a touch of balsamic over an avocado and tomato salad is delicious.  I use vinegar in sauces, especially if I don't have an open bottle of wine to hand.  There are a couple of places that I never really expected to use vinegar.  Firstly I never expected to make a drink out of it, but a year or so ago someone told me about a way to make alcohol free Pimms.  Even though the ingredients sounded a little crazy I had to have a go.  All you need is a drop of balsamic vinegar and some lemonade. I add a dribble of vinegar to the glass first, just enough to cover the bottom of a tall glass and then add the lemonade on top.

In my mind, what make s a Pimms delicious is all the trimmings, particularly the mint.  I love to add a few leaves of fresh mint, a slice or two of cucumber and some citrus-y fruit.  It even looks like you're drinking Pimms.  Sounds weird I know, but totally worth a go.

So when I saw a Pin for Vinegar Pie I just had to have a try.  I made a pie crust, and then added the filling.  I only used 3 cups of water, and I didn't have any maple extract, so I used vanilla and no cinnamon.  Also I couldn't find my whisk, so I just used a fork. Oh, and I'm lazy and couldn't be bothered to wash up the sieve that would be needed to strain the mixture, so I just hoped for the best and poured it into the crust.  Also, I got a bit bored about 5 minutes into the boiling process, and the mixture was definitely coating my spoon, I decided enough was enough and my arm was hurting anyway!

It looked way too liquid-y as I poured, and I figured that I had probably just wasted a load of time, ingredients and energy.  Very frustrating.  I put the whole thing in the fridge and hoped that time would work its magic.

And it did!  It tastes like a custard pie and even managed to hold together my very dodgy pie crust.  Result.  Another win for vinegar related recipes.  The Husband enjoyed his pie, but the kids refused to eat it.  Some guests and one of their children did enjoy it (hopefully they weren't just saying that) too.

Yorkshire Puddings and Pancakes - My Kind of Recipe

I'm not very good at following recipes, in fact I rarely follow one exactly, even if I'm planning on it.  Everyone's the same, right?

I have a terrayaki Chicken recipe which I've only every used on pork and salmon for example.

But I do love Jamie Oliver's recipe for Yorkshire Puddings - I think it is because it is pretty vague anyway:

• 1 mug of flour (Plain/All Purpose)
• 1 mug of milk (I've used powdered, semi-skimmed and full fat)
• 1 egg (I buy mixed sized eggs, so this will work with any size)

Put the oven on high (200 degrees) and put some oil in muffin trays (just a dribble in each).  Let it heat up while you make the batter.  I make the batter by adding the milk to the flour and whisking them together before adding the egg.  Pour into the muffin trays with hot oil and cook in the oven for about 20 minutes, or until golden and puffed up.  Delicious and no measuring.  Yay.

For pancakes I use the same recipe, but add about an extra 1/2 cup of water to the batter, until it is a slightly sloppier consistency - heading more towards double cream consistency.  I add a little oil/butter to a medium hot pan  and then enough batter to cover it.  You'll be able to see it change colour as it cooks.  One the colour has changed all over turn the pancake over - flip if you're brave,  I'm not and just use a spatula.  From one egg's worth of batter I get about 10 pancakes. This is 2 egg's worth of batter made into pancakes.

The rules in our house are that you have to have two savoury pancakes before you're allowed a sweet.  My favourite savoury is garlicky mushrooms with a little creme fraiche.  Delicious.  Sweet has to be lemon juice and sugar - yum yum!

We'll be having pancakes for tea next Tuesday (not these - they've already gone!) on Pancake Day!  They won't last long...

Zombie Brains

So, we had Zombie Brains last Sunday for tea.  The recipe was from Save with Jamie and involved roasting a celeriac with thyme, garlic, seasoning and bay leaves and serving with pearl barley and a creamy mushroom sauce.

As I mentioned here, the Husband and myself are not keen on celeriac and consequently have never given it to the kids before.  The Husband would also prefer not to eat pearl barley, ever.  You can imagine how much he had been looking forward to this meal!

My son was quite looking forward to the idea of eating Zombie Brains (all in the name I think). Every time I mentioned it to my daughter she just made a face, although said she was willing to try it even if it sounded gross!  Normally when trying new things with the kids I include something in the meal that I know they will like, so in this instance I would normally have served the roasted celeriac with rice, potatoes, pasta, basically anything else. As I was pretty sure that I would never get the opportunity to try this again I just went for it.  I did however have some leftover pancakes from lunchtime and some leftover fresh pasta (not home made) in the fridge on stand by.  I was hoping their love of all things Minecraft (ie the Zombies) might see them through the tastes they were unfamiliar with or didn't actually like.

My son's reaction to the dish was  "Mummy this is definitely.  Disgusting".  So after that praise for the meal I asked my daughter.  "The best part is the celeriac, which I didn't think I would like, so I said it was horrible when I first tried it".  Mmm, so not a total hit there either then, especially when coupled with "and the mushrooms are terrible".  I did know she didn't like mushrooms, so no surprise there.  In the end both standbys were used.  I'm pleased the kids tried it and both made sure they didn't like it by having a second bite of everything.

The Husband's response was actually pretty positive "It isn't as bad as I thought it was going to be", but "we're never having this again!"

I actually quite liked it, though I think I would have preferred the Zombie Brain element as more the main part of a vegetarian roast meal.  It looked like you were carving a joint (only a lot easier).  We've been trying to work out what the roasted celeriac tasted like, and suddenly I realised it tasted a bit like Jerusalem Artichokes.

I feel bad giving a bad review for this, because we have tried a lot of Jamie Oliver's recipes and normally they are a hit with us all, which I think is why I went for it.  Our favourite being his Yorkshire Pudding recipe, which is a total hit with the kids and pretty much every friend they've had over for tea!