Slow Cooker Rice Pudding

I was getting my breakfast yesterday when I noticed the milk looked a little odd. So I went through the whole ‘The milk’s turning!’ rigmarole, swilled it about in the bottle a bit, sniffed it, checked my tea looked and tasted ok…. it was fine, just 4 days past the date on the label. I decided there and then that rice pudding was definately in order. Here’s the recipe.

1 oz sugar

2 oz pudding rice

1 pt milk

a pinch of nutmeg

Butter the inside of the crock pot, and tip in the sugar, rice and milk. Give it a stir, then sprinkle a pinch of nutmeg over the top. Cook for about 6 hours on low, or 4 on high. If you like the skin, just leave it to it’s own devices, if you’re not so keen, give it a stir half an hour before serving. You may want to add a bit of extra milk, depending on how thick you like it. If you’re out all day it won’t come to too much harm if it’s left longer than the 6 hours, but make sure you put some extra milk in, and bear in mind the rice will disintegrate slightly. It still tastes good though! Serve plain or with a dollop of jam, syrup or honey.

Scotch Eggs

Easy peasy, and really versatile, you can serve these hot with chips/potatoes and beans, or cold with a salad, or even as part of a packed lunch. The only thing to watch out for is timing the eggs. I walked off and forgot about them, about half an hour later I went to the kitchen and wondered what the noise was. It sounded like a heavy duty gate hinge in the washing machine. Then I remembered and ran for the cooker, where the eggs were bouncing around in about an inch of water. Ooooops!

4 hard-boiled eggs (15 minutes should do the trick), cold and peeled

1 pack of sausagemeat (400 – 500g)

2 slices of bread, crumbed

And that’s it. The sausagemeat I used on this occasion had herbs ready added, but you can mix in some herbs and pepper if you want extra flavour. Split the sausagemeat into 4 equal pieces. Here comes the messy part. Flatten a portion of the sausagemeat, then wrap it around an egg, pressing and rolling until the egg is evenly covered. Next, roll the sausage-coated egg in the breadcrumbs, pressing them on well. Place on a baking sheet, and do the same with the rest of the eggs. Bake for 20 – 30 minutes  at 180°C. Simples!

These can be made in advance and kept in the fridge, either on the baking sheet if only for a few hours, or in an airtight tub, then cooked from chilled.

*Variation: Crumble a couple of slices of black pudding into the sausagemeat and mix in well for a tasty alternative.

Lemon Blueberry Loaf

Last week I bought a packet of blueberries because they were reduced due to having reached their sell-by-date. I have kept them in the fridge for 7 days and when I sorted through them today I found one that had gone bad. One! And they would have been thrown out a week ago! Sorry, Hubby confiscated my soap box a couple of days ago when I went on a rant about something else. Anyway, at risk of the rest going bad, I decided I had better get on and use them. And what better way to use up blueberries than in a Lemon Blueberry Loaf? Answers on a postcard please.

1/2 cup (4 oz) butter

3/4 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup milk

1 1/2 cups plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tbsp lemon zest

1 cup blueberries

Cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl, beat in the eggs one at a time, then add the vanilla. Now add the flour and baking powder in three batches, alternating with the milk. Add the lemon zest and mix well. Fold in the blueberries (if you have a problem with them sinking once cooked, toss them in a bit of the flour before adding) and scrape the mixture into a lined loaf tin. Bake at 180°C for an hour, or until fully cooked.

2 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp lemon juice

Mix glaze ingredients together and cook either on medium heat in a saucepan, or for about 20 seconds in the microwave, until sugar has dissolved. When the loaf comes out of the oven, pierce the top with a toothpick (a fork would work) and spoon the glaze over the top, letting it all soak in. Let it cool for about half an hour before removing it from the tin and cooling it completely. Best served while it’s still warm, but cold is good too.

*Cook’s notes: I was a bit slap-dash with this today, as I couldn’t be bothered with too much measuring, but it still turned out extremely well. One of my eggs happened to be a double-yolker, and I just zested about half a lemon straight into the bowl. I also over-vanillaed, as there was only a teensy weensy bit (ok, half a teaspoon) left in the bottle. When you bake, just relax and have fun, it usually turns out well!

Slow Cooker Pork Chops with Apple

First, let me apologise once again for the terrible picture. I really do need to work on my photography skills, as I don’t imagine you are all that eager to cook and eat what is in the picture. It really tastes good, honest!

Ok, so this is really quick and easy, it takes about 15 minutes to prepare. Here goes.

1 onion, sliced

1 apple, cored and sliced

4 pork chops

1/2 pt vegetable stock

Fry the onion and apple until it is nicely browned, then set to one side. Brown both sides of the chops, and place them in the bottom of the slow cooker. Arrange the fried apple and onion on top, pour in the vegetable stock, and cook on low for 8 hours. And there you have it. I fried some potatoes in the same pan, to give them extra flavour, but any type of potato would be good with this.

*Early preparation tip: To save time later on with the potatoes, I peeled and par-boiled them while I was preparing the pork. I then drained them and left them in the pan for the afternoon. When I was ready to serve dinner, I sliced them and put them straight into the hot frying pan. By the time the veg was boiled, the potatoes were ready too.

Where, oh where, has my little cow gone?

This weekend Hubby and I had a weekend off work. These only roll around once a fortnight so we have to make the most of them. This usually means that weekends are just as busy as regular working days, the only difference is we get a few extra hours in bed in the morning. We end up rushing around catching up with family, shopping, maybe have a day out walking or photographing the countryside, and on the very rare occasion, treat ourselves to the cinema and dinner out. This weekend was no exception, but we were home early enough in the afternoons for me to make a pork roast dinner on Saturday and Pioneer Woman’s Chocolate Chocolate White Chocolate Chip Cookies on Sunday. The roast dinner was a treat as I don’t often have the time to oven roast a full meal, and the cookies were so good they should be illegal!

Anyway, as I didn’t try out any new recipes to share, I thought I’d tell you a bit about what I do at work. One of my many tasks is to ‘check stock’. In the summer months the heifers and young stock live outside, and making sure they stay where they’re put can be a near impossible job. A couple of times a week I go round and check on each field of cattle, counting them to make sure they are not wandering the back lanes, having a secret rendezvous with the nearest bull or attempting to drown themselves in a ditch. These scenarios all happen at least once every summer, often more than once. Last Friday was slightly more tricky than usual.

In order to keep track of how many head of cattle are in which fields, we keep a list in the farmhouse kitchen. I check the list to make sure it hasn’t altered since last time I looked, jump on the quad bike (and try to remember to check I have fuel and 4 fully inflated tyres) and set off. On Friday I came to a field which should have had 25 calves in, but was empty. I checked all the other fields round about, found 1 extra in one of the fields, but couldn’t see any sign of the rest. So I had to find one of the bosses and ask what had happened to them. He told me where they were, so off I went again. When I got to the field, there was one missing. I found it two fields away, as close to a field of milk cows as possible, practically touching noses through the wire. As they were all accounted for, I went on to the next lot, 60 black and white Holstein heifers. When you are surrounded by a herd of heifers, all trying to lick you, and the bike, jostling and milling about, with their black and white patches making one cow merge into the next, you very quickly end up frustrated and bog-eyed. Today, this wasn’t a problem. They weren’t there. It was like a game of hide and seek, looking in each field as I rode past. To be fair, it is hard to lose 60 heifers, so it wasn’t too long before I found them, and luckily for me, they were all spread out across the field making it pretty simple to count them. Having finally accounted for them all, I just had to go back, update the list and head home for a much needed cup of tea!

Country Chicken Casserole with Sour Cream Scones

First of all, I would like to apologise for this picture. I am not a professional photographer as I’m sure you can tell.  A girl can’t be good at everything!

This is what we had for tea last night. A slow cooker favourite, it doesn’t require much preparation so it’s pretty quick and easy. Here goes.

1 large onion, finely sliced

2 carrots, peeled and cut into strips

8  oz bobby beans, cut into 1-2 inch lengths

* 1/2 pepper (not necessary, I just needed to use it up and found it really added to the flavour)

4 chicken portions (I use breast, but thigh will work just as well)

10 fl oz chicken stock

Fry the onion in a little oil. I treated myself to a cast iron skillet and this was the first time I used it, I don’t know why I didn’t get one sooner! (I also treated myself to some books, but shhhhh!) Prepare the vegetables and put them in the slow cooker. Once the onions are browned, add them to the slow cooker and brown the chicken in the pan for about 5 minutes. When the chicken is done, place it on top of the vegetables and onion, pour in the chicken stock, and cook on low for 4-6 hours. This can be served with mashed potato, but my current favourite accompaniment to casseroles and stews are buttermilk biscuits. Unfortunately, I had no buttermilk, but I did have some sour cream left over, so I made sour cream scones instead.

8 oz plain flour

3 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp salt

2 oz butter

5-6 fl oz sour cream

Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl and cut/rub in the butter until it looks like fine breadcrumbs. Stir in enough sour cream to make is hold together in a ball. Turn out onto a floured surface and gently knead for 30 seconds. Pat it out to about 1/2 inch thick and cut out using a cookie cutter. (I used a small cutter, about 2 inches diameter, you could cut into squares or triangles if you wanted.) Place them on an ungreased baking sheet and bake for 12 – 15 minutes at 230°C. As soon as they come out the oven, split and butter them. Serve immediately.

The great thing about scones or biscuits is that you can bake up a batch and freeze any extra. When you want to use them you can pop them straight into a warm oven from frozen for about 20 minutes, either on a baking sheet or wrapped in a tea towel (don’t burn the towel, I speak from experience!)

Sour Cream Substitute

I don’t usually keep sour cream to hand, I just buy it in if I plan a recipe that needs it. But every now and then I come across a recipe that I really can’t wait to try, so postponing it until I get into town to buy sour cream is not an option. I came across a substitute that is fine for baking with, but which you wouldn’t really want to use as a dip or side dish. (I apologise for my grammar, I’m not fully concentrating!) You need a container with a lid, I favour a jam jar, but a bottle would work too. Put 1/2 pint (1 cup) of milk and 2 tablespoons of lemon juice in the jar, put the lid on and give it a good shake. I try and make this at least an hour before I use it to give it time to react, but when it starts to curdle and thicken it’s good to go. I don’t know what the shelf life is, I always use it the day I make it. At the end of the day I’m not too worried if I have to throw a bit of it out, it’s only milk! If it’s left to stand a while it will separate and look kinda gross, but just give it a good shake. And there you have it, cheap, simple, and great for things like Lemon Cupcakes, Sour Cream Scones or Crazy Crust Chili Pie.

Lemon Cupcakes

Ok, so here’s my first proper recipe. And it goes like this:

For the past week I’ve been thinking about making something lemony, maybe a pudding, maybe cake, I wasn’t sure. But I was sure enough to buy a couple of lemons last time I went shopping. And they have been sat there like, well, like lemons, ever since. Yesterday I decided I wanted some nice, light, fluffy lemon cupcakes with fluffy buttercream icing. The problem was, all the recipe books and recipe sites I use don’t have such a cake. They all offer recipes for heavy lemon pound cakes with glacé icing drizzled over the top. So, armed with a recipe for guidance, and the knowledge that even if it didn’t turn out right, it was still cake, so it was still good, right? I set out this afternoon to concoct my own lemon cupcakes. Here goes.

4½ oz butter

4½ oz sugar

2 eggs

4½ oz plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

2 tbsp sour cream (see post on substitute sour cream)

zest of 1 lemon

Beat the butter in a bowl to soften it, then add the sugar and cream together. Beat in the eggs one at a time until they are well mixed. Add in the flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda and mix well. (You can sift the flour if you want, but I’m more of a ‘dump it in’ kinda girl.) Stir in the sour cream and lemon zest. Now, I call these cupcakes, but when I say cupcakes I mean muffin sized cupcakes. So I use a muffin tin and muffin cases. Divide the mixture between 12 cupcake cases (a well rounded dessert spoon in each case), and then bake for about 20 minutes at 180ºC. Once cooked, leave them in the tin for a few minutes before putting them on a cooling rack.

The icing was the really experimental part, and I ran out of icing sugar, but it worked, so I’ll tell you exactly how I did it!

11 oz icing sugar (it really is a good idea to sift icing sugar, especially if it turns into solid lumps  like mine always seems to do!)

5 oz butter

juice of ½ lemon

Beat the butter to soften it a little, then add the lemon juice and about half the icing sugar. If you don’t want the icing to be too lemony, then just add a couple of tablespoons of juice instead of all of it, but once the icing was on the cake it tasted perfect. Keep adding icing sugar as you stir, until it’s all used up or it feels thick enough. If you think it’s still a bit soft, you can either put it in the fridge for a while or add more sugar. Once the cakes are cool enough, spread the icing on them. Now try to resist tasting!

Introductions

Hi!!

This is my first ever attempt at blogging, so I guess I’ll learn as I go along. Anyway, here goes.

I am a 26 year old farm worker/housewife living in Lancashire, UK with my 26 year old farm worker husband. Besides loving animals, hence my job, I enjoy reading, cooking, eating my cooking, and just chilling with Hubby and Dog. Anyway, due to my job, which is mainly caring for and milking 500 sheep (yes, I can see you giving me that funny look and asking if I meant cows. Don’t, it gets old after a while!!) I work morning and evening shifts, which means that on a normal day I am home for a few hours in the afternoon but then don’t get back home again until 6-7pm. Cooking an evening meal in order for it to be eaten before 8pm is a challenge, so I am always on the lookout for meals that I can either prepare in the afternoon, or that are really quick and easy. Therefore, I do my best to be an organised, prepared housewife. HA!

Between January and May the 500 sheep I care for all lamb. We have a break of 3-4 weeks around February/March, but it’s a fairly busy and at times, intensive couple of months. As of about an hour ago there is 1 ewe left to lamb. Yes, I am a sheep midwife, and that lamb I just delivered was HUGE. Nearly as big as my dog huge. So big in fact I had to stand up and step backwards to pull it out of the ewe. I think it was slightly overdue. Just slightly :p So anyway, due to being in lambing season and having the extra workload, being an organised housewife is even more challenging than usual. Hence my screen name.

So let’s go back to last Saturday. I planned to do burgers for tea, quick and easy right? As I had to go into town that morning, I bought burger buns and salad stuff. Got home about half 6 that night, with the intention of grilling the burgers for 15 minutes, frying an onion, and putting a bit of salad on a couple of buns. After 5 minutes of rummaging through both freezers, I came to the conclusion that we had no burgers. Annoying, as we were both convinced we still had a freezer bag full of them! So we had to make do with sausage butties instead. I did redeem myself by having made a sticky toffee pudding that afternoon, which I served with ice cream. Amazing 🙂 Which then led to the following exchange.

Hubby (after a couple of minutes of silent concentration on his pudding): Did you make this from scratch?

Me: Well yeah, what else would I make if from!

H: I’m so glad I married you!

Me: Why, because I can make sticky toffee pudding from scratch?

H: Yup!

I will try and get the recipe up at some point so that you can also receive declarations of undying love from your other halves! But in the meantime, the scatterbraindedness (I know that’s not a word, but I think works!) continued. Fast forward about 2 days. I got some goat chops out of the freezer with the intention of slow cooking them and serving them with mashed potato and whatever veg I had in the fridge. My slow cooker was a Christmas present from my in-laws and has proved invaluable. Anyway, I put the chops on to cook at dinner time –

About an inch of hot water in the crock pot, stir in a good teaspoon of mint jelly (or mint sauce) and lay the chops on the bottom of the pot. Cook on low for 4-6 hours.

– and went to prepare the potatoes so I could just put them on to boil as soon as I got home. Surprise surprise, no potatoes. I was sooooo convinced I had half a bag under the sink I didn’t even bother to check before I went shopping. So no potatoes for the next week or so! I ended up serving them with rice (I cooked peas and sweetcorn in with the rice), but as a consolation we still had some sticky toffee pudding left!

So to conclude, you probably think I’m a bit of an idiot, but I am harmless, I promise! I have several recipes planned for the next day or two, so I will post them and let you know they go. I will also try and post any hints or tips for making meals quickly, and would love to hear ideas from you!

Signing out now to go and do some baking (and eating :D).