Feeling Fruity!!!

Lemons!
Quite possibly the most useful fruit on the planet and the subject of my current fruit obsession (frobsession? frubession?).
We're having a bit of an Indian summer here in the UK and everyone's desperate to hold on to the sunshine for as long as we can. Well you can't get sunnier than the good old lemon.

 Some of the best treats are lemon flavoured and the big favourite in our house is lemon curd. My boys would eat a whole jar if I let them!
To keep things fresh and to prevent them from a lemon overdose I've developed a quick and easy recipe for Fresh Lemon curd that's worth adding to your recipe book.
Fresh Lemon Curd ( makes one small jar)
Ingredients:

• Juice and grated Zest of 1 large or 2 small unwaxed lemons
• 1 1/2 tsp Cornflour
• 85g Fruit/preserving sugar ( Jam sugar works well here)
• 70g margarine

1. Dissolve the cornflour in a little of the lemon juice leaving it quite runny.
2. Put the remaining ingredients into a small pan and heat until the sugar dissolves, stirring all the time.
3. Once the sugar has dissolved remove from the heat and gradually add the cornflour mixture stirring thoroughly.
4. Return to the heat and bring to the boil, still stirring. Once the mixture coats the back of the spoon remove from the heat and pour into a warmed jar.

This preserve will keep for up to 3 weeks in the fridge. If you want to make more you can double the measurements.

If you're looking to add a little sunshine to your lunch box then you can't go wrong with my Lemon and Coconut cake bars.

Lemon and Coconut Cake Bars

Ingredients:

• 100g sunflower seeds
• 100g millet flakes
• 75g sultanas
• 100g dessicated coconut
• Zest of one lemon
• 150g margarine
• 2 eggs
• 25g fruit sugar
• 4 tbsp of Agave syrup
• 150g gluten free flour.

1. Add the millet flakes, sunflower seeds, sultanas and dessicated coconut to a large bowl.
2. Stir through the lemon zest until evenly distributed.
3. In a small saucepan melt 50g of the margarine together with the Agave syrup and then pour into the dry mix. Stir well to coat all of the dry ingredients and leave to cool.
4. In a separate bowl mix the remaining margarine and fruit sugar until light and fluffy. Mix in the flour alternately with the eggs and beat until to get a cup cake style batter mixture.
5. Fold the dry mix into the batter carefully and then transfer to a greased and lined square cake tin. Bake at Gas mark 4 for 30 minutes or until the top is golden and a skewer comes out clean.
6. Allow to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before slicing into bars and transferring to a wire rack.

These will keep for a week in an airtight tin.

That's my dose of sunshine for this week, I hope it's sunny where you are!

Herbs and spice and all things nice.

Work is back in full swing now and at home we're busy trying to get the house and garden ready for the winter. I love autumn as most of the plants and flowers are still in colour and this year at least, we're still having summery weather.
As always my mind has turned to the seasonal change in cooking and how best to use some of the lovely things I've got growing in the garden.
 When we moved here 5 years ago we brought with us all of the herbs we'd been growing from seed. I'll be honest they'd been really neglected and the sage we had was on it's last legs so to speak. True to form, Hubby suggested we just plant them and see what happens, now 5 years later they're well established and in the case of the sage they're HUGE!!

I always give away quite a lot when I cut it back and this year as well as cooking with it, I'll be stringing it into bunches to hang up in our Iron Age room at work. Hubby will save some little bits to burn on the fire on November the 5th as it always makes the place smell lovely too.
Herbs are always part of my favourite autumn recipes and I add them to most of my cooking. My favourite by far is for  gluten free dumplings that I add to casseroles and soups. They add a bit of body to one pot meals and are really handy if you've ran out of gluten free bread!
Herby Dumplings
Ingredients:

• 125g/4oz Fine cornmeal
• 100g/31/2 oz of gluten free flour
• 2 tsp of gluten free baking powder
• 1 tbsp of chopped fresh thyme ( you can use dried if you don't have fresh)
• 40g/1 1/2 oz chilled butter or baking margarine.
• 250ml water
• Salt and pepper

1. Mix together the cornmeal, flour, baking powder and seasoning until evenly combined.
2. Grate the butter into the mixture  and add the water. Mix to a thick paste, adding more water if necessary.
3. Using 2 dessert spoons roughly pat the paste into 8 rounds. Spoon the rounds into the soup or stew you are serving them with. Cover and simmer gently for about 10 minutes until the dumplings are light and puffy.

* These can be added to a slow cooker at least 30 minutes before the end of the cooking time.

These dumplings go really well with any soup, stew or casserole and even my boys who are not gluten free enjoy them.

As well as adding to my herb store from my garden during autumn I always make sure I have plenty of spices in my cupboard too. We get through quite a bit when "porridge season" comes and the boys want a hot breakfast in the morning. This has led to some interesting combinations such as chocolate spread and

black pepper on toast ( not my invention!)

 I do use quite a bit of spice to jazz up our winter vegetables and I use copious amounts in soup especially my faithful freezer stand by, spicy root soup.

Spicy Root Soup

Ingredients:

• 200g carrots grated
• 200g parsnips grated
• 1 onion finely chopped
• 1 tsp group coriander
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1/4 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tbsp oil
• 1 litre of vegetable stock ( you may want to use more or less depending on how thick you want the soup to be.)

1. Place the grated vegetables and onion in a large saucepan with the oil. Fry gently over a medium heat until they begin to soften.
2. Add the spices to the vegetable mixture and fry gently for a minute to release the flavour of the spices.
3. Add the stock and bring to the boil. Once boiling reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
4. Once the mixture has cooked remove from the heat and allow to cool before blending with a hand mixer or food processor.
5. Serve with gluten free rolls and swirl in some cream if desired. This soup freezes brilliantly.

I'll be batch cooking soup all this week as well as a few other things to stock up my freezer, so they'll be lots of other recipes for autumn coming your way!

 Enjoy!!