Orange and Honey-Glazed Ham

I've been meaning to share this recipe for a while, since I made it for dinner when my boyfriend's cousin and her husband came over. In fact he was her boyfriend at the time and they've been married for two months, so that shows how long ago this was! Unfortunately I can't remember the exact recipe I used, but this is pretty easy to make.

You need a large gammon joint, and a pan big enough for it to sit in. Some recipes suggest soaking the ham or gammon in water to remove the saltiness, but these days the method used to cure the meat means it isn't as salty as it once was (at least, that's what I read online). I didn't soak this and it tasted fine. Stud the meat all over with cloves.

Cover the ham with water, bring to the boil and then reduce to a simmer - how long it will take depends on the size of the meat. A lot of the fat will come out which is why the water in this picture looks cloudy. Some recipes suggest cooking the ham in orange juice, then using that to make a sauce, but I prefer to discard the cooking liquid as it gets quite oily and salty.

In a small bowl mix the juice and rind of one orange, with 2 tbsp honey

When the gammon is almost cooked, make some small cuts and pour the sauce over, so it penetrates the meat. Spoon the orange rind over the top, then cook in the oven for 20 minutes on a medium-high heat to glaze.

Slice and serve with mashed potatoes.

Restaurant Review: Harry Ramsden's, Brighton

Brighton pier

Restaurant name: Harry Ramsden's
Location: Brighton seafront
Description: Seaside fish and chip restaurant chain that was founded more than 75 years ago
Reason for visit: My boyfriend and I decided to drive to Brighton one evening after work and had a walk along the seafront, dinner at Harry Ramsden's and doughnuts on the pier. We chose Harry Ramsden's because of its location and also because my boyfriend had never been to one (and we wanted chips rather than anything fancy!).

I ate: A sort of 'surf and turf' of chicken and scampi in breadcrumbs with chips
My companion ate: sausage and chips

The food was: My chips were flaccid and pale - I think they were undercooked. The scampi and chicken was just as I expected - nothing fancy but tasty.
The atmosphere/service was: Service was friendly and fast, but the place had no atmosphere. The decor reminded me of a greasy spoon and the local radio station was playing in the background (complete with irritating DJ patter). It's fine for a quick meal but not somewhere you want to hang around.
Price range/value for money: Not bad, though I feel like I could have the same standard of food for a couple of pounds from the van on the pier. At least we got to sit down and use the toilets.
Would I recommend it? Not particularly - it's OK but nothing special, and I think next time I would just get a bag of chips on the pier. I do recommend driving from London to Brighton on a hot summer's evening if you can though - it only took us about an hour to get there and we had a lovely evening.

Summer Berry Cake with Stencil Decoration

I made this cake for an afternoon tea team-building event at work, based on a Peggy Porschen recipe I found online. It also gave me the chance to try out some cake stencils I got for Christmas.

Peggy Porschen has a cake shop and baking academy in Belgravia near where I used to work - I often used to walk past the shop, which is pink, though I never really found an excuse to go inside and have cake on my lunchbreak or the way to work! Peggy also featured in the finale of the last series of the Apprentice, giving advice to aspiring baking business owner Luisa Zissman. I thought it was quite funny that "Peggy Portion" was trending on Twitter; a lot of people seemed to think her name was spelled that way and that it was perfect for a cake maker!

The recipe that I used is here, though my cake unfortunately turned out nothing like the picture!

You need:

200g butter, softened

200g caster sugar

pinch of salt

seeds of 1 vanilla pod or 1 tsp vanilla flavouring

4 eggs

200g self-raising flour

For the buttercream:

250g butter, softened

250g icing sugar

3 tbsp mixed berry jam plus extra to fill the cake

Preheat the oven to 175C and grease and line a cake tin. Cream the butter and sugar with the salt and vanilla. Then mix in the eggs.

Fold in the flour.

Bake in the oven for about 30 minutes until a skewer comes out clean.

You're supposed to slice the cake into three - or make three separate cakes - but I made one and sliced it in half.

Spread one layer of the cake with mixed berry jam.

Make buttercream by creaming the butter and icing sugar, then mix in 3 tbsp of the jam

I got this pack of cake stencils for Christmas and hadn't used them yet. There are a selection of designs and you just sprinkle cocoa powder or icing sugar over the top.

First spread the buttercream on top and around the sides of the cake, using a cake smoother or spatula to smooth the sides. Then place the stencil on top and sprinkle over the cocoa powder.

Carefully lift the stencil off and you should be left with the pattern. I think I used too much cocoa powder here. Also, the instructions said to grease the underneath of the stencil so it would catch any excess rather than letting it fall onto the cake and I stupidly skipped this part - I was doing this at 7am before work, as I thought if I put the cocoa on the night before it might sink into the buttercream. I will follow the instructions properly next time - has anyone else tried to use a stencil on a cake before?

I am sending this to the No Waste Food Challenge - I don't eat jam so whenever I buy a jar it's usually for a cake, and then I have to find something else to use it up in, so this cake saved me from having to throw the jar away! The challenge is hosted this month by Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary on behalf of Turquoise Lemons.

Meal Planning 2013 - Week 32

I weighed in on Wednesday last week as I was away at the weekend, and lost half a pound, which was good as it had only been three and a half days since my last weigh in. But I had a bit of a blow out at the weekend so will probably have put it back on by next Saturday!

Monday
Breakfast bagel
Lunch sushi
Dinner pasta

Tuesday
Breakfast yogurt
Lunch fish in breadcrumbs in tortilla wrap
Dinner out with my boyfriend - hopefully at Shake Shack if the queues aren't too long

Wednesday
Breakfast cereal
Lunch fish in breadcrumbs in tortilla wrap
Dinner Jamie Oliver's Swedish-style fishcakes and roasted baby new potatoes - Jamie's 30 Minute Meals p.148

Thursday
Breakfast yogurt
Lunch out with my boyfriend
Dinner After work drinks, so will want something quick when I get home (or may eat out depending on how late I stay in the pub) - possibly leftover fishcakes

Friday
Breakfast cereal
Lunch baked sweet potato with Slimming World coronation chicken from the Little Book of Lunches p.57
Dinner pork chop and crushed potatoes from Jamie Oliver's 30 Minute Meals p. 240

Saturday
Breakfast yogurt
Lunch tuna melt bagel
Dinner  Spanish paella from this recipe, apple crumble

Sunday
Breakfast cereal
Lunch out with my boyfriend? TBA. He wants to spend most of this weekend at his house as from next weekend.... he will be living with me! Or leftover paella if we don't go out
Dinner Depends what we do for lunch - possibly roast lamb leg steak with mint sauce followed by
ginger peach crisp.
I'm also planning to make my Random Recipe today and also a macaroni and broccoli bake for lunches next week.

Battenburg and the inaugural meeting of the Sutton Clandestine Cake Club

I've wanted to go to a Clandestine Cake Club event for a while but could never make any of them. When I read that a new CCC had started in Sutton, just a couple of miles from where I live, I decided I should really make the effort - and I'm glad I did!

The theme of the cake club was "vintage". First I thought of flowers and chintz but then realised that vintage could also mean retro; essentially anything old. When I was a child in the 80s I remember having battenburg cake (shop-bought) for Sunday tea, and always eating the pink squares before the vanilla ones. I've never made a battenburg so thought it would be a great opportunity to try. I used the recipe from the official Clandestine Cake Club cookery book as well - I won it in a competition a little while ago and hadn't baked anything from it yet, and this was the perfect occasion.

The CCC was really fun and the organiser Hayley did a really good job- though it was a shame not many people came, hopefully there will be more next time! The venue was a pub conservatory where we had bunting across the windows and a table laden with cake stands and fresh flowers - it was lovely. Hayley made a red velvet cake with buttercream frosting, Maureen made a passionfruit and strawberry cake and Gemma made a lemon meringue pie cake. I was really impressed by all three cakes; the textures were incredibly light and the fillings delicious. I don't think my battenburg looked all that great in comparison - the hot weather had made the marzipan split - but it was definitely in keeping with the theme, and seemed to go down well!

Battenburg recipe, by Sally Harvey from the Clandestine Cake Club cookbook. The description of the method is my own, as I didn't follow the instructions given in the recipe, which involved folding a piece of greaseproof paper to cook the yellow and pink layers at the same time - I decided this was too complicated for 9pm on a Friday night so I made the layers separately.

Ingredients

175g butter, softened

175g caster sugar

3 eggs

125g self raising flour

1 tsp vanilla flavouring

1/4 tsp almond extract

50g ground almonds

pink food colouring

apricot jam

500g marzipan

icing sugar to roll out the marzipan

Cream the butter and sugar and add the eggs

Fold in the flour and the ground almonds. Add the vanilla and almond flavourings.

Separate the mixture in two, and spoon half into a greased and lined loaf tin.

Cook at 175C for about 20-25 minutes.

Then add the pink food colouring to the other half of the mixture (I always use a gel colouring) and spoon that into a greased and lined loaf tin.

The pink cake keeps its colour really nicely even after it is cooked

I had to level the tops of the cakes a little so they would be flat.

Slice each half down the middle and place a pink strip on top of a vanilla strip. Next to it, place a vanilla strip on top of a pink strip.

Use apricot jam to sandwich all four strips together.

Roll out the marzipan and cover the whole cake. I found this really hard - I think because of the heat, as no matter how much icing sugar I used, the marzipan kept sticking to the worktop and I found it unmanageable. In the end I split the packet of marzipan in two, rolled out each part and covered the cake in two sections. It was a shame as you could see the join but I don't recommend working with marzipan when it's a really hot day!

When you slice the cake through, you can see the checkerboard effect - just like the battenburgs I used to have as a child!

Restaurant Review: Burger & Lobster

Restaurant name: Burger & Lobster
Location: St Paul's, London
Description: There are only two things on offer at this restaurant: burger and lobster. Actually there are slightly more than that but they are all variations on a theme. You can have a burger or cheeseburger, and a steamed lobster, grilled lobster or a lobster roll. Everything is priced at a round £20 and comes with fries and a small salad. It's that straightforward that there isn't even a menu.
Reason for visit: To celebrate my boyfriend getting a new job - and because I love lobster and wanted to go to this place since I heard it was opening.

I ate: steamed lobster with fries
My companion ate: Cheeseburger with bacon and fries
The food was: I haven't eaten lobster enough to know when it is especially good but I really enjoyed the meal. My boyfriend said the burger was very good but not really worth £20.
The atmosphere/service was: The tables were very close together and we felt a bit cramped, though the service was good. I had booked a table, having heard tales of long queues and I'm glad I did as there were a lot of people waiting when we left (there are four branches and some only take reservations for large groups but the City branch reserves tables of two). Because the restaurant doesn't have to cook many different dishes, there is very little waiting time and we went from being seated to paying the bill in just 45 minutes - which is good if you haven't got much time but it left us wondering what to do with the rest of the evening!

Price range/value for money: I think the pricing structure is a little odd, as £20 is quite good value for lobster - almost every single person in the restaurant was eating it - and a lot for a burger. The cocktails aren't cheap either, but I'm glad we tried it.
Would I recommend it: Yes, it's definitely worth going to try the lobster, but that's not the sort of thing I eat very often and it's not worth going there just for the burger, so I'm not sure whether I will go back.

Sprite Apple Pie A La Mode: Food From Fiction - When Harry Met Sally

This month I'm hosting Food 'n' Flix, a blogging challenge which is based on recreating dishes inspired by different movies. Whether it's cooking a meal that actually appears in the film, or making something loosely based on the theme or plot or location where the film is set, the possibilities are almost endless. I've taken part a few times and made food from the Hunger Games,  Jiro Dreams of Sushi, Delicatessen, Practical Magic and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.

I'm now guest-hosting the challenge for the first time and the movie I have chosen is a classic: When Harry Met Sally. Read on (or scroll down) for details about how you can take part; but first here are my reasons for choosing the film.

It's the story of how a friendship over many years turns into love - but to many people, When Harry Met Sally means just one thing - the "I'll have what she's having" scene. It's the most memorable moment in the film, and comes about because Harry (Billy Crystal) insists he's never been with a woman who has faked an orgasm and that he would be able to tell - so Sally sets out to prove him wrong. She very loudly fakes an orgasm in the middle of a deli (Katz's in NYC). When she's finished, a woman at the next table tells the waiter "I'll have what she's having!".

The themes of food, eating and restaurants occur again and again in the film, even at the very beginning, when Harry and Sally car share on a trip to New York, Harry offers Sally a grape and she says "No, I don't like to eat between meals" - this is just the first indication of her rigorous and rather picky attitude to food. Not long after, we see them in a restaurant, and Sally - without pausing for breath - orders "Chef's salad with oil and vinegar on the side and apple pie a la mode, but I'd like the pie heated and I don't want ice cream on the top I want it on the side and I want strawberry and vanilla if you have it and if not then no ice cream, whipped cream, but only if it's real, if it's out of a can then nothing, just the pie but then not heated." She is certainly a woman who knows what she wants!

Later when they are travelling on a plane Sally is just as specific when it comes to how she wants her drink served: "Here's what I want, regular tomato juice filled up to about three quarters then with a splash of bloody mary mix, just a splash, then a little piece of lime on the side."

The restaurant culture is also very important in the film; as Sally's friend Marie points out, "Restaurants are to people in the 80s what theatre was to people in the 60s".

Food is such an important element of the film that it even features again at the very end; [spoiler alert!] Harry and Sally are married and looking back on their time together, telling an unknown interviewer about their wedding day. Sally says their wedding cake was a "tiered coconut cake with a rich chocolate sauce on the side" - of course it was on the side!

I didn't fancy making a coconut wedding cake for the Food 'n' Flix challenge so instead I decided to go back to Sally's apple pie a la mode. I'd love to see what this film has inspired you to cook - whether it's a meal from the film itself, something typically New York, or whatever you think Sally might have been eating in the deli in that scene. While another customer says "I'll have what she's having," you never really see what Sally is eating - so what do you think she might have ordered? Do you have a recipe that makes you almost orgasmic?!

Sprite Apple Pie
This recipe was inspired by the Coca-Cola Cookbook that I bought when I was in America.

To serve 1-2 you need:
100g plain flour
100g marg
50g caster sugar for the pastry
handful of butterscotch drops (optional)
2 apples
100ml Sprite
50g caster sugar for the apples
double cream to serve

MIx the flour and marg until you have breadcrumbs (using your hands is easiest for this) then mix in the sugar.

I bought these butterscotch drops when I was in America and added a handful to the pastry crust. You can also put them inside the pie, but I forgot.

Knead the dough

I bought this apple mould in the Lakeland sale a while ago but hadn't used it yet. I'd forgotten that it was a plastic mould so I couldn't use it in the oven, just to shape the pie before it was cooked.

Roll out the pastry and press into the mould. You can use a pyrex dish or make this freehand.

Stew the apples with some sugar and Sprite until the apples have softened

Fill the pastry case with the apples

Close the pastry mould - or place your pastry lid on top of your base.

Cook in the oven for about 20 minutes

Serve with double cream. I doubt Sally would have been happy with this - she seems the kind of person who would want a very neat triangular slice of pie - but it does have whipped cream (the real kind!) on the side.

Here's how you can take part in the Food 'n' Flix challenge:

You can draw inspiration from a town or a setting...from a memory or a reference...from a color or a building. I see food in everything - usually where others do not. Sometimes you have to draw inspiration from the tiniest of a spark. What we head into the kitchen to make inspired by a film does not have to come directly from the screen."  ~Heather (creator of food 'n flix)

1. Watch the chosen film for the month.  Buy it, rent it, borrow it...that matters not.  Just set aside a couple of hours a month to sit back, relax, and be inspired!  If you've seen it before, that's okay...watch it again.

2.  During the movie...take note (mentally or physically- whatever works for you) of what inspires you.  

3.  Cook or Bake up some food that was inspired by the movie.  How did it make you feel...did it invoke memories...or longing...or did you see something in the film you just had to have?  ...and take photos.

4.  Blog about it!  Talk a bit about the movie...how, what, why it inspired. Did you enjoy the movie...  Your take on it and your food.  Doesn't have to be long...just share w/ us in a blog post your thoughts and your dish. 

5.  Include a link back to the CURRENT HOST (that is, me) and Food 'n Flix somewhere in your post.  Either the current FLICK post or the main page or this page. Grab the logo and use it if you'd like.

6. Send in your current entry by the 28th of August and then watch for a roundup at the hosting site at the end of the submission period. Please email your submission to caroline@carolinemakes.net. If you'd like to tweet me @Caroline_Makes I will retweet all the ones that I see, but please do not treat this as a method of submitting your entry as I can't guarantee I will see it.

7.  You must post during the month of the chosen film. And please, PLEASE do not link up if you don't even mention the chosen film in your post.  We're watching the movies and cooking/baking from them...so tell us your inspiration for your dish!

8.  HAVE FUN!