Pumpkin Dump Cake

It's dangerous using the internet to look up recipes. It's one of the most addictive, timewasting activities there is. One of my favourite websites is She Cooks: here is a great recipe:

Pumpkin Dump Cake

Ingredients:
30 oz can pumpkin pie filling or mix - plain pumpkin mixed with sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves.
18.25 oz box yellow cake mix
1 stick butter (not margarine) (that’s 1/2 cup for my friends in Canada )
1/2 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped pecans (use walnuts if you prefer them to pecans)
whipped cream,  nutmeg (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 13×9 inch baking dish with non-stick cooking spray.
Spread the pumpkin pie filling/mix evenly in the bottom of the baking dish. Cover with the cake mix. Sprinkle the cake mix with the chocolate chips and the pecans.
Cut the butter into small cubes and evenly “dot” the top of the cake.
Bake for 40-45 minutes or until golden brown. Serve with whipped cream sprinkled with a light dusting of nutmeg if desired. (Also good plain or with ice cream.)

Cannelloni? Those large pasta tubey things filled with sauce...

I subscribe to a couple of blogs: She cooks and Can't Cook a Lick. Both about cooking. Both fun. I was reminded of a recipe I've long wanted to try. But haven't. It's quite complicated. But here it is anyway: thank you, LeAnn! I'll tag this entry with 'things to try'. Watch this space...

Cheese Filled Manicotti with Meat Sauce

Sauce:

• 1 1/2 lbs ground beef
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• onion, chopped (optional)
• 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes (or more to taste)
• 2, 26 oz jars marinara sauce (no sugar in the ingredients)
• 1 teaspoon dried basil
• dash or two of cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon sugar

Filling:

• 2 lb container ricotta cheese
• 1 cup shredded 5 or 6 cheese Italian blend (whichever your grocery store stocks)
• 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 2 eggs
• 1 box frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed to remove as much liquid as possible
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh Italian flat leaf parsley
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• dash nutmeg

To assemble and serve:

• 8 oz package manicotti noodles
• 2 cups shredded Italian cheese blend
• Grated Parmesan
• Fresh torn basil leaves

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray 13×9 baking dish with non-stick cooking spray and set aside.

Prepare sauce:

Brown ground beef in a dutch oven over medium to medium-high heat. Add garlic, salt and pepper. If using onion, add at this point. Stir in red pepper flakes, marinara sauce, dried basil, cinnamon and sugar. Reduce heat until sauce is softly simmering.

Prepare manicotti shells as directed on the package. Be careful not to overcook. Drain and set aside. (Prepare the filling while the pasta cooks.)

Prepare the filling:

Combine all filling ingredients in a large bowl, stirring well.

To assemble:

Spoon about 2 cups of the sauce into the bottom of the prepared pan. Fill the cooked manicotti shells with the ricotta mixture using a pastry bag, a small spoon or your hands (I use my hands… it’s just easier.) If a shell splits while you are filling it don’t worry about it. You can place it seam side down in the pan and no one will notice 

As you fill each shell, lay them over the sauce in your prepared pan. Once all have been filled, top them with more sauce. You want to pour the sauce down the center of the shells, leaving the ends exposed so they will get a little crispy as they bake. And… because it just looks prettier and that’s important too.

Sprinkle the two cups of shredded cheese over the sauce. Bake in preheated oven for 25-30 minutes or until hot and bubbly and the cheese is starting to brown a bit.

Remove from oven and let sit for 15 minutes before serving.

To serve, place one or two (most people will go for two) filled manicotti shells on dinner plate. Spoon a little extra sauce over the manicotti. Sprinkle with additional grated Parmesan cheese and fresh torn basil leaves.

I'm already wondering about using fresh lasagne and simply rolling it up around the filling...or tortillas...or making a pasta layer dish...or...

Gilly's Flapjacks

My friend Gilly is just so much fun. I knew her when she was still a parent, before she became a  valued teaching assistant. She' supposed to be in charge of Healthy Eating at school, and she does a marvellous job. She has been expertly running the school cookery club for years.  This flapjack recipe is the best - and, I have discovered, the most foolproof (I have a long history of failed flapjack, which sounds like a contradiction in terms but in my case isn't).

I've messed it around a little, but the first four measurements are accurate and essential. Leave out the flour for a crisper end product. As for the dried fruit... hmm, could even add chocolate. Or nuts. Or all kinds of seeds....

Ingredients

125g (4oz) butter
125g (4oz) sugar
125g (4oz) (6 tablespoons) golden syrup
225g (8oz) porridge oats
60g (2 oz) self raising flour
70g (2oz) sultanas or raisins or possibly even any other kind of dried fruit. Who knows?
25 - 50g sunflower seeds.

Melt first three ingredients gently together. DO NOT BOIL. Stir into remaining ingredients, mix well.

Put the mixture into a greased baking tray, pressing down evenly with the back of a spoon or the flat of a wet hand.

Bake at 160 degrees C for 15 - 20 minutes until golden brown around the edges.

Cut into squares while still warm. Leave to cool, then mark out squares again and ease out of the tin. It will be deliciously sticky and glue-like.

Grace's ginger cookies

This is a fascinating recipe on many levels. It is fascinating because it varies so much, depending on the type of fat used. It is fascinating because of its personal history...

Grace Biffen was matron of Nairobi Hospital before and after the birth of my children. Not difficult, as she was there over 20 years and was awarded an MBE (or OBE - can't remember!). We were privileged, not only to count her as a friend but to be part of the same Bible study group. The end of every discussion was marked with the serving of tea or coffee in elegant thermoses, accompanied by her trademark mayonnaise chocolate cake or ginger biscuits. The chocolate was delicious, but a waste of good mayonnaise, so here is the biscuit recipe.

These are, quite simply, the best ginger biscuits EVER.

Mix together 
1lb flour
1 lb sugar
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
2 tablespoons ground ginger
half a pound of margarine,
1 large egg
2 tablespoons of Peter Paterson's honey.  (Peter is Jonny's godfather. He is an expert beekeeper. His honey is the most delicious we have ever tasted. It's not possible for us to get it any more, so golden syrup is an acceptable substitute.)

The mixture seems very dry, but does eventually allow itself to be squeezed into a soft dough. Form marble-sized, or larger if desired, balls.

Place on a baking tray at least 1 inch apart. ("They spread," said Susanna Church, Grace's niece. "All that fat!")

Bake in a hot over (say 180 - 200 degrees C) for 10 - 15 minutes until well spread and GOLDEN brown. NOT dark brown.

Loosen carefully from the tray, leave for a few minutes to cool slightly and ease off carefully onto a cooling rack. (Too rough, and they become dreadfully hurt and misshapen.) When cool, they are wonderfully crisp.  Make miniature versions, with double the amount of ginger, for ginger nuts.

So, how are they fascinating?  /It all depends on the fat. Use soft or spreadable margarine (which has a far lower fat content than hard margarine), and the dough is impossibly soft and greasy. It will need a lot more flour added to it and the resultant biscuits are more like cookies - slightly cake-like and soft.

Add crystallized or stem ginger to larger balls of dough, baking only until pale golden for softer cookies.

Tiffin - aka 'Chocolate Stuff'

My mother used to make this – it was my all time favourite as a child. Even now. She called it ‘Chocolate Stuff’. Enid Craxton – my mother’s contemporary, mother of Julian, my brother Simon’s childhood friend, and wife of our dear friend Robin – used to produce it every time I visited her for morning coffee. Long, elegant fingers, covered with a delicate layer of milk chocolate.

It’s different whatever way you make it. But this is the basic recipe:

Ingredients

110g (4 oz) butter
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons golden syrup
4 teaspoons cocoa
225g (8 oz) biscuits, crushed
1 handful of raisins/chopped cherries, apricots or dates
Chocolate – preferably cooking – up to 225g (8oz). The minimum you can get away with is half a 100g bar...

Preparation method

1. In a saucepan, melt the butter, sugar, syrup and cocoa. Add the biscuits and raisins when melted. Stir to combine.
2. Pour mixture into a swiss roll size tin and press down. Melt chocolate and pour over the mixture in the tin.
3. Pop the tin into the fridge – or freezer, if you are as impatient as I am - and leave for about 1 hour to set. To serve, cut into about 20 pieces.

Tip
Melt the chocolate by microwaving at 30 second intervals, with a teaspoon or so of butter and similar of hot water. Stir in between, till melted. But be careful not to scorch the chocolate! Otherwise, melt in a double boiler.

This recipe came from this website but do look at this tiffin site as well - fun!

Karyn's deep dark chocolatey chocolate chocolate cake

My friend Karyn comes from South Africa. I met her in Guernsey. A decade and a half younger than I am, she has been something of a spiritual mentor in the last 6 years. Focused on God and full of wisdom, as is her husband Garth. She is wonderfully bubbly, exuberant, outgoing, caring, friendly...yet listens with intent. (Garth, on the other hand, is quietness personified. He can go a couple of hours in our Bible study group without uttering more than a word or two. Yet when he speaks, we sit up and take notice. Pearls, rubies and emeralds of wisdom scatter the atmosphere. Precious beyond measure.)

Sometimes Karyn would come to afternoon tea - or, as she preferred, afternoon coffee (or morning tea) - and bring a cake with her. Her hot spicy ginger cake was a marvel.  But this chocolate cake is the one which produced cries of excitement....

Chocolate Cake / Brownies

Switch oven to 180C

2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
Salt
125g butter or marg
1 cup water
½ cup oil
½ cup cocoa powder
2 eggs
½ cup buttermilk (or teaspoon vinegar and milk)
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

Sift flour, add sugar and salt.
Put butter, water, oil, cocoa powder into bowl and place in microwave until the butter melts. Mix together and add to dry ingredients.
Break 2 eggs into a cup, mix and add to other ingredients.
Spray and cook two round cake tins or flat large casserole dish (for brownies), add grease proof paper if required.
Mix milk and vinegar (or buttermilk) in cup and add bicarb, then add to other ingredients. Mix all ingredients with a wooden spoon (or electric beater) and then pour into cake tins or casserole dish.
Bake for 35 – 40 min if in two cake tins or for about 70 min if in casserole dish. Check to see if cake is rising and starting to break away from the edge of tin or dish.
Ice as required. I use quite a lot of cocoa powder in the icing.

Breakfast: Savoury Cupcakes

Cupcakes are something of a mania at the moment. This recipe is really a MUFFIN recipe. I’m not sure I know the difference. Somehow, there is something unattractive about the name ‘Muffin’. There was Muffin the Mule, the television character, who was around just before my family had a television. So I don’t remember seeing him but I do recognize the name.

Yet ‘cupcakes’? I don’t know. I’d almost rather make these as savoury scones…but you can’t eat scones for breakfast. You just can’t. Scones are for TEAtime.


Wow, am I getting hung up on names!

Savoury cupcakes

Makes 9 - 10

100g cooked and finely chopped bacon, pancetta or ham
300g (10oz) self raising flour plus 1 teaspoon baking powder
50g (2oz) grated Parmesan or other cheese
Up to 200 ml (7 fl oz) milk: try with less first.
1 beaten egg
1 tablespoon mustard

Stir flour, ham and cheese together.
Beat milk, egg and mustard.
Add to flour mixture gently until only just combined.
Divide into 9 – 10 paper cases in muffin tins, top with a chunk of chopped bacon if wished.

Bake in a preheated over, 200C/400F/gas mark 6 for 15 – 20 minutes until pale golden.
Transfer to a wire rack – serve hot or cold.

Variation:

Chopped mixed herbs instead of bacon.
Sage with Double Gloucester
Chives with cheddar
Cream cheese, yogurt or sour cream instead of milk.
Rosemary with chopped sundried tomatoes.