Ham, Leek, and Pasta Bake and an Award

This is just going to be a quickie post today as I have an award to give out. Hurray!


Many thanks to Cheryl over at: http://cookingdunkinstyle.blogspot.com/

Cheryl cooks up some fabulous recipes, as well as giving us weekly money saving tips, and allowing us an insight into the life of her pampered pooch, Martha Anne. If you’ve never visited her, I suggest you get your arse over there right away, if not sooner.

The rules for this award are:

1. Put the logo on your blog or post.
2. Nominate at least 10 (like Cheryl, I am doing 5) blogs which show great Attitude and/or Gratitude!
3. Be sure to link to your nominees within your post.
4. Let them know that they have received this award by commenting on their blog.
5. Share the love and link to this post and to the person from whom you received your award.

Pause for a drum roll, the lucky winners are:

Beth at http://jamandclottedcream.blogspot.com/ I have been following Beth’s blog since she first started blogging. She’s a lovely lass and a great cook.

Jan at http://whatdoiwant2cooktoday.blogspot.com/ Jan loves Greek food, but also likes to put a new spin on many classic British dishes.

Sara at: http://saraskitchen.blogspot.com/ Sara creates some wonderful dishes, and her presentation always looks so professional.

Lynda at: http://lyndasrecipebox.blogspot.com/ I have only just discovered Lynda’s blog, and it turns out we live quite close by each other. She has only been blogging for a few months, but she already has lots of tasty treats on her site.

Jo at http://lifeinwindermere.blogspot.com/ This isn’t a cooking blog, which is perhaps as well as Jo is on a diet at the moment. But her blog isn’t all about dieting, Jo is one busy lady, and is lucky enough to live in one of the most beautiful areas of England, the Lake District.

Check them all out, you’ll be glad you did.


Okay dokey, without further ado, I’ll get on with the recipe. The picture doesn’t do this dish justice as it was really rather yummy, and a great way to use up leftover ham.

Ham, Leek, and Pasta Bake




Ingredients:

8 ounces penne pasta
2 - 3 leeks, white and pale green parts only, sliced
1 cup chicken or vegetable stock
2 tablespoon butter
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 cups of leftover ham, diced.
1 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon ground mustard
Black pepper, to taste
1 cup sharp cheddar, shredded
½ cup Italian style breadcrumbs

Note. Leeks have a bit of a gritty texture, but if you prepare them this way that won’t happen. Top and tail your leeks - just use the white and pale green flesh - then slice them down the middle length ways, but don't cut them right through, then rinse them under running water for a minute or two and they'll be great.

Directions:

• Pre-heat oven to 350°F
• Add pasta to a large pot of boiling water, reduce heat to medium high, boil gently for 5 minutes, drain and set aside.
• Meanwhile, back at the ranch, sorry I couldn't resist. Put stock in a medium saucepan and bring to a gentle boil, reduce heat to simmer and add the leeks. Simmer for about 3-4 minutes until leeks are tender. Drain and reserve stock in a jug.
• Mix leeks and ham together in a 9 x 11 inch baking dish and season with fresh cracked pepper.
• In same pan, melt butter over a medium heat. Remove pan from heat, stir in flour and mix to a smooth paste. Return pan to heat, and gradually add stock, stirring continuously. Add mustard, cream, and half the cheese, stir until thickened.
• Add pasta to the sauce. Pour mixture over ham and leeks, top with remaining cheese, and the breadcrumbs, and bake for 30 – 40 minutes.

P.S. For those of you following the ongoing saga of my dental dilemma, on Wednesday, I progressed from the liquid diet onto a soft foods diet. Yay! Incidentally, my first meal was poached eggs, with soft bread and butter. I’ve never been so pleased to see a poached egg in my life. But it’s back to the dentist on Tuesday for yet more tooth grinding. (Sigh)

Apple Crumble with Custard Sauce

I made this pudding (dessert) a few weeks ago, but as I am only eating soups at the mo, I thought I’d post it now. As you have all probably realized by now, I eat very little sweet stuff, which is perhaps as well considering my present dental predicament, but apple crumble (I also love this made with rhubarb) is one of my favorite puds, surpassed only by jam roly poly. In England, both these puddings would be called "nursery food," as only children, and adults who have never grown up, enjoy them. :-)

I have included a recipe for custard sauce, which I have made before, but on this occasion I cheated and used a pack of Bird’s instant custard. The homemade stuff is much better, although I do like Bird’s custard powder, if I can get hold of it. You can also serve it with fresh cream or vanilla ice cream if you prefer.

Apple Crumble



Ingredients:

3-4 apples, I used Granny Smith’s
1 tablespoon sugar
Juice of ½ a lemon
1½ cups all-purpose flour
¾ cup sugar, I used ½ a cup as I don’t like it too sweet
¾ cup butter, softened

Directions:

• Pre-heat oven to 400°F.
• Grease a 9 x 11-inch baking dish with butter. Peel, halve, core apples and cut into wedges. As each apple is cut up, layer in baking dish and sprinkle with a little lemon juice to prevent browning. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of sugar over apples, you can also add 1 teaspoon of cinnamon at this stage, if you like the stuff.
• In a large bowl, mix together flour and sugar, then rub in butter using tips of fingers until mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
• Add crumble mixture to dish, and bake for 30 – 40 minutes, until top is golden brown.
  

Custard Sauce

Ingredients:

2 cups milk
3 eggs
3 teaspoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

• In a medium bowl, mix cornstarch with a little water to form a smooth paste. Add eggs, 4 tablespoon of the milk, and whisk together until smooth.
• Put remaining milk in a medium saucepan and heat to just below boiling point. Pour hot milk into bowl with egg, cornstarch, milk mixture, and whisk together.
• Return custard to pan and heat gently over a medium low heat, whisking constantly until thickened. Stir in vanilla extract.

Serve hot over apple crumble.

Look what my Sweetie Pie got me for Valentine's Day.

Dental Dilemma

Well folks, it’s been fun and games around here these past few weeks. To say I’ve been having a few problems with my teeth would be putting it mildly. Although it’s not so much the teeth that are the problem as the gums. Apparently, when you get to my age it’s not tooth decay you need to worry about, but rotting gums.

It’s my own fault, since moving to the US I’ve been very erratic about dental visits, back in England, I used to go religiously every six months. But here it’s just so bloody expensive, even when you have insurance. Hell, you need to re-mortgage the house just to get your teeth cleaned. Mind you, sad to say, I hear things have gone much the same way in England. What’s the National health Service coming to, I wonder?

Anyway, when I began experiencing some discomfort in an area of my gums, I thought, uh oh this feels expensive. But I did go and get it checked out – even though I did have to wait five weeks for an appointment. They took a whole bunch of x-rays, and scared me to death by telling me I definitely had something going on back there, but they didn’t know what. Of course, in my mind it had to be cancer of the jaw, at the very least. They also said I had lost quite a bit of bone around my teeth, so they were referring me to a periodontist. Needless to say, the nearest one was 50 miles away in Joplin, Missouri. (Sigh!)

To cut a long story short, it turns out my bite was out of line and needed correcting, and I had gum disease which was causing the bone loss. This resulted in spending four (yes, 4 hours!) in the chair on Tuesday, having my teeth sandblasted, sorry, deep cleaned and ground back into place. By the time I staggered from the office, my jaw felt like I had gone ten rounds with Mohammed Ali.

But it gets worse, she put all this packing around my gums, and put me on a liquid diet for a week, and soft foods for a week after that. "What about my blog?" I wailed, "my readers don’t want to look at a can of Ensure." It was to no avail, so I told Mick to get extra wine in, and resigned myself to my predicament. ;-)

Fortunately for me I have lots of tomato and basil soup in the freezer, thanks to Cheryl’s lovely recipe, and you can find more yummies here http://cookingdunkinstyle.blogspot.com/ It’s also a good thing that it’s winter, and I can still make soups, and pop them in the blender.

But if any of you have any recipes that require zero chewing for this week, and little chewing for next week, I’d be much obliged if you’d pass them along.

I’ll be back later with something I prepared earlier, in those halcyon P.D. – Pre-dentist days.

Cheers.

Cheese Board and Onion Tart

This was another recipe from good old Auntie Beeb. It’s supposed to be a way to use up left over cheeses from the festive season, but I ask you, who ever has any left over cheese? I know we don’t. And while we’re on the subject of cheese, I must tell you about some delicious English cheese I got from Sam’s Club, in Joplin, Missouri. It was Wensleydale cheese, layered with Stilton, and what a fantastic combination it was. I have to say, this was the best cheese I’ve tasted since the last time I went back to England.

Anyway, on with the recipe. I have dispensed with the pastry making instructions, because as you all know, pastry and me don’t get along, but by all means make your own if you’re that way inclined.

I also made a few other changes, I thought two eggs was a bit on the stingey side, so I used four. I also chucked in a few chives for good measure. The recipe also called for the pastry to be cooked before adding the eggs, but whenever I make quiche I just bung everything in the pie, and stick it in the oven, so that’s what I did here. The oven temp also seemed a bit low at 320F, so I upped it to 375F, the edges of the crust did get a bit well done, but what the hell, it still tasted great. Hubby said he’d let me make this again. He’s just too kind. :-)

Cheese Board and Onion Tart


Ingredients:

1 Pillsbury dough pie crust
2 onions, sliced into rings
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 eggs
1 cup heavy cream
3 ounces each, Stilton, Brie, Sharp Cheddar
Black pepper, to taste
1 tablespoon chives, chopped

Directions:

• Roll out crust and place in a pie dish, trim any excess pastry from edges.
• Pre-heat oven to 375F
• Heat oil in a large skillet over a medium heat, add onions and cook until golden, approx. 10 minutes.
• In a large bowl beat eggs and cream, season with black pepper, and stir in the chives.
• Chop the soft cheeses into small pieces, and shred the cheddar.
• Scatter the cheeses in the pastry case, top with the onions, and pour in the egg mix. Bake for 35 – 40 minutes until set and golden brown.

Allow to cool for 10 minutes before serving.

Szechuan Beef and Broccoli Stir-Fry

Another big freeze has hit the mid-west. The freezing rain began yesterday afternoon, continued into the night, and started again this afternoon. As of now, it is not as bad as last winter’s ice storm when we lost several trees, and other trees suffered a lot of damage. Today’s high was 21°F (-6°C), with a forecasted low of 13°F (-11°C). There is also snow forecast for tonight, which on top of all this ice will be treacherous.

We Brits are often accused of being obsessed with the weather, and it’s true, but that’s because the weather in Britain is awful most of the time. Oklahomans are equally obsessed with the weather, but that’s because we seem to suffer such extremes of it. Baking hot and humid in the summer, and perishingly cold in winter, with tornadoes an ever present threat in spring and fall.

Also, Oklahoma seems to grind to a halt in snow or icy conditions, as they don't bother gritting/salting or plowing the road. Well, not round here they don't. And to make matters worse, the power seems to go out at the drop of a hat, though that hasn’t happened yet. Fingers crossed.

Anyway, I’ll type faster, just in case. So what’s the recipe for today, Jan?
Hubby’s company gave him a box of steaks as part of his Christmas bonus, and to be honest, neither of us are huge fans of steak. Most of them will be chopped up and included in other recipes, such as this one.

Breaking News - In the time it's taken me to type this, it's begun snowing, very heavily. Brrr.

Szechuan Beef and Broccoli Stir-Fry


Ingredients:

2 steaks, cut into thin strips
2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped, divided
1 broccoli crown, cut into florets
1 onion, sliced
1 tablespoon water
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 beefsteak tomato, cut into wedges
½ cup Szechuan sauce
¼ cup water

Directions:

• In a wok or large skillet, heat 1 tablespoon of oil over a medium-high heat. Add steak and half of the garlic, and stir-fry for 5 minutes. Remove beef and garlic from the pan, and keep warm.
• In same wok/skillet, heat remaining oil over a medium heat. Add onion and stir-fry for 1 minute. Add garlic, stir-fry 1 minute. Add broccoli, 1 tablespoon of water and 1 tablespoon of soy sauce. Cover pan with foil and cook for two minutes.
• Add Szechuan sauce, ¼ of a cup of water, tomato wedges stir-fry for 2 minutes. Return beef to pan and stir-fry for a further minute.

Serve over Basmati rice.

London Particular

Once again, apologies for not posting in eons, I will get my act together one of these days. :-)
Last week I was interviewed by Pam at http://pamokc.blogspot.com/ So, on the off chance that any of you might want to know more about the reluctant cook, you will find the interview on my other blog here: http://grandlakeink.blogspot.com/

Lately, I’ve been reading a lot of posts about all the high-tech kitchen gadgetry other food bloggers have received at Christmas, and thought I would share my latest gadget...


...no batteries or electricity required, this baby is powered solely by elbow grease.

Anyway, without further ado, on with the recipe. You’ve probably gathered by now that we had ham at New Year – don’t worry it’s not still hanging around. I made this a couple of weeks ago, but am only now getting round to posting it, damned shirker that I am. In Victorian London, this soup was known as London Particular as its name derives from the thick fogs, known as pea-soupers, that were around at the time..

Pea and Ham Soup




Ingredients:

1 ham bone with a decent amount of meat still on it
1 large onion chopped, divided
4 cups of chicken broth/stock
3 cups water
Cracked black pepper, to taste
2 bay leaves
1 lb. dried split peas, rinsed and drained
3 carrots, sliced
A handful of chopped parsley

Directions:

• Place first four ingredients in a large saucepan or soup kettle (use half of the onion), and bring to boil. Add bay leaves and season with pepper, reduce heat, and simmer covered for 1 hour.
• Remove ham bone from pot, allow to cool, and shred meat from it. Retain all stock in pan.
• Re-heat stock to boiling, add split peas and remaining onion to the pan. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 30 minutes.
• Add carrots, parsley, and return ham meat to pan. Adjust seasoning if required, and simmer, covered, for a further 30 minutes.

Serve immediately with warm crusty bread.

Roasted Roots

I’m busy , busy again, this time getting my contest entries ready for the Oklahoma Writer’s Federation annual writing contest. It’s been really difficult to get myself kick-started after a long lay off due to the cat bite, and then Christmas and New Year getting in the way. It’s an up-hill struggle, but I am now editing and revising some old material, and trying to write a new short story. Wish me luck.

Today’s recipe is another one from good old Auntie Beeb at www.bbcgoodfood.com I am really into their recipes at the moment, and receive a weekly newsletter from them. I did change it up a little bit, but not too much.

This recipe was in their Christmas edition, and the roots are supposed to be cooked in goose fat. I didn’t have a goose, so I just used vegetable oil, and they turned out great. The best thing about this recipe is all your veggies cook in the same pan, and you know how much I like easy. I served these alongside some leftover ham from New year’s Day.

I always love roast potatoes, but I really loved the roasted parsnips. Parsnips have been a sadly neglected vegetable at my table, but no more, they also add an excellent flavor to soups and stews. The recipe also called for celeriac root which I didn’t have, so I substituted rutabaga. I would have used some homegrown kholrabi, but we’d eaten it all. Note to Mick, we need to grow more of them next year.

Roasted Roots

Ingredients:

4 medium sized russet potatoes, peeled and chopped into large chunks.
1 small, or ½ a large rutabaga, peeled and chopped into large chunks
2 large carrots, scraped clean, and chopped into large chunks
2 parsnips, peeled and chopped into large chunks
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
Fresh ground pepper to taste

Directions:

• Pre-heat oven to 375°F
• Put all veggies into a large pan of cold water and bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium high and boil gently for about 5 minutes, or until veggies just begin to soften slightly.
• Drain into a colander, and allow to cool for about 10 minutes.
• Sprinkle veggies with flour and black pepper and toss well to coat.
• Heat vegetable oil in a roasting pan. Add veggies to pan and toss to coat with oil.
  Roast until crisp golden brown, approx. 45 minutes, turning them half way through cooking.