'Findus' style ham and cheese crispy pancakes

When the frozen food company Findus was implicated in the horsemeat scandal, all I could think about (since I don't eat their frozen lasagnes anyway) was how much I loved their crispy pancakes as a child. They were a regular feature of Sunday tea - folded over pancakes with a golden crispy coating with ham and cheese inside. Apparently they also came in other flavours but these are the only ones I remember eating.

I looked on the internet to see if I could find any recipes to recreate these and found this wonderful blog post at Warm & Snug & Fat - I strongly encourage you to check it out. She made pancakes with a chicken and sweetcorn filling but I wanted to make ham and cheese. I ended up not actually using her recipe but just getting the basic idea for how to go about this - which is actually really simple.



First you need to make your pancake mixture - there are different recipes and methods you can use for this, but I tend to do it this way: To make two pancakes, break one egg into a jug and beat. Add an equal quantity of plain flour to the egg and beat well. Add an equal quantity of milk to the flour and beat again. In other words, in my jug the beaten egg takes up about 100ml so by the end I have 300ml of liquid.

Make two pancakes from the mixture. I'm sure everyone knows how to make pancakes, but just in case: Heat a little oil in a frying pan, pour in the pancake mixture and allow to cook for a few minutes. Turn with a spatula or, if you're brave, toss the pancake, and cook the other side.

You also need to make a cheese sauce and there are countless recipes you can use - but your sauce needs to be quite thick. I cheated as I was short of time and used a packet mix.

When your pancake has cooled slightly, add some ham. You could use cubed pancetta (fried) but for the more authentic taste I used a tin of Ye Olde Oak ham which I cut into cubes. Sprinkle over half of the pancake.

Now pour half your cheese sauce over the pancake - remember it needs to be quite thick.

Break another egg into a shallow bowl and beat. Fill another bowl with golden breadcrumbs (from a packet - I was trying to recreate the Findus pancakes after all!). I did a bowl of flour as well but decided I didn't need it.

Carefully fold your pancakes in half and dip in the egg and the breadcrumbs.

Heat a centimeter or two of oil in a pan - you can use the same pan you made the pancakes in if it is deep enough. When the oil is hot carefully slide in the pancakes and fry on both sides.

They turn a lovely golden brown colour

Lunch!

When you cut into the pancakes the cheese oozes out.. these were delicious and I've already made them twice!

Restaurant Review - The Sun, Carshalton, Surrey

Restaurant name: The Sun
Location: North Street, Carshalton, Surrey
Description: Pleasant pub that is known for its weekly quiz and good food.
Reason for visit: Taking part in the pub quiz. It's free to enter, has some unusual question rounds (such as one where you gamble points) and prizes vary from a £200 bar tab to a forfeit. I've done this quiz three times and the first time we won - you choose an envelope at random to select a prize and I picked the £200 bar tab :-)
I ate: The Sun Beef Burger with cheese, £13
My companion(s) ate: it was burgers all round!
The food was: Delicious! The burger was massive and came with a small ceramic pot of chips. It was one of those burgers you have to cut in half to eat and even then struggle to finish.
The atmosphere/service was: service is quick and friendly and the atmosphere on quiz night is great, there's a mixture of regulars who take it quite seriously and people there just for a bit of fun.
Price range/value for money: Not cheap as far as pub food goes but worth it
Would I recommend it? Yes, the quiz is great fun and the food is excellent

Penne al arrabatia

This is a very simple recipe but I wanted to put it on my blog as I haven't ever actually made it properly following a recipe before and it might be useful to other people searching for how to make penne al arrabatia.

I've also just learnt that arrabbiato means 'angry' in Italian - the name of the sauce comes from the heat of the chilli in the recipe!

For two people, finely chop half a red chilli and one clove of garlic - or more if you prefer a more spicy taste

Heat some oil in a frying pan and cook the chilli and garlic for a couple of minutes. Add some basil leaves and allow to wilt.

Add a tin of chopped tomatoes, 1 tsp sugar and a sprinkle of salt. Cook over a medium heat for about ten minutes

Meanwhile bring some pasta to the boil - fresh penne is good for this recipe

Here's the cooked and slightly reduced sauce as I started to spoon it out of the pan

Serve over the pasta with some grated or flaked parmesan on top.

 I'm sending this to Pasta Please as this month they are asking for vegetarian pasta recipes using chilli. The challenge is hosted this month by Allotment 2 Kitchen and is also run by Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes.

Pitta Pizzas Toaster Pocket

I wanted a snack recently after coming home late from a choir rehearsal (and having skipped dinner) and remembered I had bought these "Toasta bags". They allow you to toast filled sandwiches without the filling spilling out and the packet also suggests you can toast (presumably to reheat rather than cook) fish fingers, pizza slices, french fries and even baked beans! I think I would probably draw the line at that but I did decide to use them to make a variation on a cheese toastie - a pitta pizza pocket.

Simply split a pitta bread and spread tomato puree inside.

Then fill with grated cheese - you can also add other fillings but this was a last-minute snack based on what I happened to have in the fridge.

Place the pitta into the toaster bag, and put it in the toaster

Not the best photo but you get the idea - the cheese has melted while the pitta hasn't gone soggy (like the time I made this and heated it in the microwave) and slightly toasted on the outside. I'd definitely recommend this as a snack!

I am sending this to Credit Crunch Munch hosted by Helen at Fuss Free Flavours and Camilla at Fab Food 4 All
as this is a cheap and cheerful snack you can make with odds and ends in the fridge.

 

Mom's Apple Cake

I made this cake a little while ago as a thank you for my neighbours for feeding my cat while I was away on holiday. The recipe is from Outsider Tart's Baked In America (and "mom's apple cake" is the name they gave it - it's not from my mum!) but I adapted it a little and have written the recipe out in my own words according to the method I used.

You need:
For the apple layer:

6 apples, peeled and thinly sliced
6 tbsp granulated sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
grated zest of one orange
For the cake:
450g plain flour
450g granulated sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
240ml vegetable oil
4 eggs
60ml orange juice
1 tbsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 190C. Grease and/or line a 10 inch round cake tin depending on preference.
Slice the apples

Mix the apples, sugar, cinnamon and orange zest in a bowl and leave to rest.

In another bowl, mix all the dry ingredients for the cake. In a separate bowl, combine the oil, eggs, orange juice and vanilla. Slowly mix into the dry ingredients and stir well.

Spoon half the cake mixture into the tin and arrange the sliced apples over the top.

Then spoon the rest of the cake mixture over the top and bake for 60-90 minutes. After about 45 minutes cover the tin with foil to stop the top from burning, and test regularly after 60 minutes to determine when the cake is cooked.

I didn't try any of this cake as I gave it to my neighbours but it looked like a sort of fruit cake texture-the kind of cake that tastes better a day or two later. I might have to make it again so I can try it myself!

I'm sending this to Alphabakes, the blog challenge I co-host with Ros from The More Than Occasional Baker, as the letter she has randomly chosen this month is A.

I am also sending it to the No Waste Food Challenge, hosted by Elizabeth's Kitchen and Kate from Turquoise Lemons as the ingredient they are encouraging us to use up this month is fruit. This cake is a great way to use up apples that are getting past their best or that have been bruised as you can cut those parts out when you slice the apple.

Restaurant Review - Kakslauttanen Igloo Village, Lapland

I spent a fantastic few days in Lapland with my boyfriend last month; we didn't get to see the northern lights but we went husky sledging and snowmobiling and had a great time. The food, however, left a lot to be desired.... so much so in fact that I felt my restaurant reviews had to go international so I could share it all with you!

We stayed at the Kakslauttanen Igloo Village about half an hour from Ivalo airport in Finland. Our accommodation was great - a cosy log cabin, with plenty of room between each one so you could almost imagine you were the only ones there. We also spent one night in a glass igloo which was really cool.

There was a main building which housed the reception, shop and restaurant and the package we booked on was half board. My boyfriend is very picky so I'd checked in advance what the options were; I was told that there was only one choice each day for the set menu but that we could order from the a la carte menu as well at a discount. I wasn't convinced there was a great deal he would like on the set menu but that seemed the best we were going to get!

Aside from the accommodation and activities, which I highly recommend, we weren't impressed by the restaurant, in terms of the quality of the food or the service.

On our first night I saw an A4 laminated page on our table advertising a special starter - arctic crab, for 17 euros. I ordered it and really enjoyed it - huge pieces of crab on a bed of lettuce, though the crab was quite cold and made me wonder if it had been frozen then defrosted (nothing wrong with that but since we were within the arctic circle I had hoped it might have been caught fresh). But then when the bill came, I was charged 18 euros rather than 17 for it, then spotted it was on the main a la carte menu as a normal starter anyway, and the A4 laminated sign advertising it as a special starter remained on our table every night of our 5-day holiday!

My main course that day was white fish and boiled potatoes in a dill sauce, which was simple but really tasty - I don't have a photo but I did enjoy it.

The next night I decided to have the set menu; the starter was described as prawn cocktail and this is what I got:

About a dozen small prawns, some iceberg lettuce and sweetcorn, with a little cocktail sauce on the top. Quite disappointing really.

Then the main course for the set menu was sweet and sour chicken. The chicken was a boneless thigh and the sauce tasted a lot like a cheap ready meal. And do you see the vegetable selection on the side - a mixture of chopped peppers, courgette, carrot and I forget what else - we had exactly the same vegetable accompaniment with every meal.

The dessert with the set menu that night was nice - a waffle with berries and cream and some sort of creamy sauce (or a thin custard perhaps) over the top.

My boyfriend didn't like the main course offered with the set menu on any day while we were there, and as he didn't like much from the a la carte menu either he had steak twice. Funnily enough these two meals were supposed to be exactly the same:

Steak and chips #1

Steak and chips #2

He asked for the steak without any vegetables both times; the first evening he got the same vegetable selection that I did but the second time they got it right. He also asked for no sauce on the second evening, after discovering the first time the steak came with a sort of hunter's/ meaty sauce poured over it. On the second evening, they served the sauce and some ketchup (which he wasn't offered the first time) in two small pots, which I thought was a nice touch. He also said the steak was far better cooked the second time; it was strange how ordering exactly the same thing twice gave two fairly different meals!

One night I decided not to eat the main course on the set menu - which our waiter simply said was "pork" - as I wanted to try reindeer meat. I ordered from the a la carte menu and had pieces of reindeer meat in some kind of meaty sauce, and potatoes in a blue cheese sauce to accompany it. And can you see the standard vegetable selection as well? I did wonder if they just took it out of a packet in the end as it was exactly the same every time. In my opinion the reindeer tasted a lot like beef and it wasn't bad though I wouldn't necessarily bother ordering it again.

Dessert that night was chocolate ice cream with a squirt of cream and sprinkles. Which tasted OK but was nothing special.

The service was not particularly good, which was strange as it wasn't a big restaurant - they seemed to have about four waiters for no more than 20-25 tables, but we regularly had to wait half an hour for a drink, and sometimes much longer for our food to arrive. They didn't seem to remember how we had ordered our food (e.g. without the vegetables) and we heard someone else say they had to send their steak back three times as they wanted it well done and it came rare then medium rare then medium. We overheard a Frenchman actually shouting at a hapless waiter one evening demanding to know why he had waited so long for his food. It was a shame because the place itself was so lovely, I felt they were let down a lot by the service and quality of the food.

Breakfast every day was a continental buffet - sliced bread that always seemed a bit stale (maybe it was meant to be that way), nice little bread rolls, a selection of hams and cheeses, plus smoked salmon, pickled herring and a few other things that looked similar but I didn't fancy trying. Though by the fifth day it was a shame there wasn't anything different or any sort of hot option (or even any pastries) as we did get a bit bored of eating the same thing. We had hot chocolate with breakfast which was nice, and a glass of the most watery orange juice I have ever tasted.

We didn't have lunch there, but there was only one option at lunchtimes - soup of the day, with bread, which at 11 euros seemed pretty pricey. We had lunch included on our excursions (which funnily enough was salmon soup both times) and one day went into the next village and had a pizza, which after my boyfriend's steady diet of slightly disappointing steak, was like manna from heaven!

But then as I said at the beginning, we didn't come here for the food....

Food From Fiction- Revenge: Chocolate Mousse with Chambord Black Raspberry Liqueur with Bols Foam

I generally don't pay much attention to the brands that sponsor television shows these days but one keeps grabbing me. My Monday night ritual is coming home from my choir rehearsal and settling onto the sofa just in time to watch Revenge. It's cheesy and trashy and has that sort of Dynasty-glitz about it, but I love it. The show is sponsored by Chambord black raspberry liqueur, which I'd never heard of before, but the advert is genius - the purring voiceover wouldn't sound amiss coming from Victoria Grayson as the female voice suggests "take pleasure in the delicious darkness of revenge, sponsored by Chambord French black raspberry liqueur."

When I came across a recipe for another Food from Fiction post I wanted to make, which required raspberry liqueur, I decided this was a great excuse to buy a bottle of Chambord. It's not cheap - about £20 for 70cl - but comes in a very ornate round bottle complete with a recipe leaflet full of cocktail ideas. I'll definitely be trying out one or two of them!

There's something about Revenge, with its decadence, luxurious lifestyles and dark secrets that made me think of chocolate mousse - and with a kick of black raspberry liqueur I think this dessert would be perfect for Emily Thorne.

I got the basic chocolate mousse recipe and an idea to use sponge fingers from Josie's Kitchen but also adapted the recipe and the way the dessert is served it to fit another idea I'd had. Check out the way Josie has made hers with fresh raspberries though (something I don't like) - it looks great.

These quantities serve two but make a relatively small portion.
For the mousse you need:100g dark chocolate
1 egg, separated
1 tsp vanilla flavouring
1 tbsp granulated sugar
1/2 cup whipping cream
2 tbsp Chambord black raspberry liqueur

To assemble you need:
3 or 4 sponge fingers
2 tbsp Chambord black raspberry liqueur
Bols Foam - cassis flavour. Read on for an explanation...

Whisk together the egg yolk, vanilla flavouring and sugar

 Melt the chocolate in the microwave or a bain marie

 Stir in the cream

 Next stir in the egg yolk mixture. At this point I was starting to think I should have used a bigger bowl.

In a separate bowl, whisk the egg white until stiff

Fold in to the chocolate mixture - I added the chocolate to the egg white rather than the other way round as the egg was in a much bigger bowl.

You end up with a lovely glossy chocolate mousse

Here's the Chambord black raspberry liqueur, which I hadn't tried before but now I'm a big fan! (No this is not a sponsored post....)

Add a dash or 2 tbsp of the liqueur to the chocolate mousse.

Break up the sponge fingers in the bottom of two individual serving dishes. Pour 1 tbsp raspberry liqueur into each dish and leave the sponge fingers to soak for a few minutes.

Spoon the chocolate mixture on top. This is when I decided I should have used smaller serving dishes or doubled the recipe!

Now for something a bit different. I ordered my bottle of Chambord from an online drinks distributor (as I couldn't find it in my local supermarkets as they are quite small shops). While I was on the website, I noticed this:

I've bought Bols products several times in the past, as they make some nice flavoured liqueurs and triple sec and so on that are good for cocktails. This is something new I hadn't come across before - a liqueur that turns into a foam!

The box comes with a small-ish bottle of Bols - I chose cassis flavour as that was the closest they had to raspberry - and a small pump.

Simply open the bottle, screw in the pump and you're good to go. The website shows the foam being served on the top of a cocktail which I think looks quite fun, but in this case I decided it would be the perfect finishing touch for my dessert.

Just give the  bottle a couple of pumps and the foam comes out - here you can see it sitting on top of the chocolate mousse. It gave a very unusual and I think enjoyable topping to the dessert and the flavours worked really well together. You can taste the alcohol in the foam as well which is fun!

My obsession with Revenge also ties in nicely with this month's Baking with Spirit, hosted by Janine at Cake of the Week, as the ingredient this month is raspberry liqueur.