Patacones con frijoles

AKA a delicious, easy-to-make snack native of Costa Rica. I felt that it was about time that I posted a recipe from my once-adopted-still-have-quite-a-big-link-in-the-shape-of-a-husband country. Costa Rican food is not massively varied, but what they do, they do well. They can do great things with chicken, rice and black beans, especially with the addition of a spot of coconut milk. The national dish is gallo pinto, beans and rice for breakfast, served with sour cream and, ideally, a fried egg or two. I highly recommend it, and will, no doubt, post it one day soon.
In the meantime, when poker night came round, patacones seemed like a perfect snack to keep us going, as well as nice little nostalgia trip for me. They are basically fried circles of plantain and the frijoles are black beans, which you then mush up to make a kind of dip. A really common way to soak up the Imperial beer in the bars of San José. In the end we were stood up for the poker by a young man who's going to receive a big telling off tomorrow, but Mr Splorer, a lovely work chum and I had fun squishing bits of plantain and frying them. Said work chum has promised that next time around she's going to introduce us to a chickpea based bar snack from Sri Lanka - oh, the joys of working with a bunch of ex-TEFL teachers!
Mr Splorer and I reckon we can improve the frijoles bit of the recipe - he's investigating recipes even as I type. But this is what we did today, and it's a good introduction to frijoles. But what you put in can definitely be played with. And of course you can be dedicated and cook your own dried beans from scratch. Although the beans had a big 'Delia cheat ingredient' on them, so I suppose if it's good enough for her...

3 plantains
1 tin of black beans
handful fresh coriander
1 clove garlic, chopped
sunflower oil
2 tbsp Salsa Lizano*

Peel the plantain and cut into slices about 1 cm thick. Heat 1 tbsp of oil in a frying pan and fry the plantain slices for a couple of minutes each side, until golden. Take the slices out of the frying pan and squash them with a glass. Covering the bottom of the glass with a plastic sandwich bag stops the plantain from sticking to the glass. Put the plantain back in the frying pan and fry for another few minutes, until browned.
Put the beans in a food processor and whizz up with a teaspoon of oil. Meanwhile, fry the garlic in another tbsp of oil, then add the whizzed beans and fry for a couple of minutes, then add the coriander and Salsa Lizano, plus salt and pepper to taste.
Serve together, like chips and dip, preferably with beer!

* Salsa Lizano is a yummy, kinda spicy Costa Rican sauce which I've already mentioned here. I reckon that Worcestershire sauce might be a reasonable alternative. Or just leave it out altogether.

Tea party trial

It's all about the photos today. I have spent the weekend at the delightful home of my mate Rosalie, who's quite the queen of the wedding blog world. She's having a tea party style wedding in September, so we had a great weekend testing out recipes. And made some of the best sandwiches I've ever had in my life. She's blogging the recipes for what we made, so head over to Tea and Whimsy if you fancy the look of anything you see below. Or if you fancy looking at gorgeous pictures of people getting hitched.
We made two different types of sandwiches, two different types of cupcake and some cheesecake pops, which are like lollipops made of cheesecake. The sandwiches, as I have said, were fantastic. Pesto butter is destined to be a staple part of my diet. The cupcake recipes were both pretty good, but she still has yet to find just the right one. The cheesecake pops were delicious, but VERY sweet - and a little too much for us after all those cupcakes!

Prosciutto and pesto butter sandwiches (ignore the leaves in there - we decided they were better without!). Absolutely flipping gorgeous. Crusts cut off, of course!

Roast beef, roasted red onion and lemon mayonnaise sandwiches. Yummy.

Melting chocolate for cupcake recipe #1. Is there any better sight than this?!

This first cupcake recipe is actually a brownie cupcake recipe, which can be found here, on a blog post raving about a chef fella by the name of Curtis Stone. Never heard of him myself, but based on this recipe, he might be worth further investigation.

Mmm, chocolatey goodness!

These tasted delicious - very browniey. But they didn't rise in the way we were after, so it was time to give another recipe a go...

Cupcake recipe #2 was from delicious magazine, though it's unfortunately not online. I'm sure Rosalie will post it though.

As you can see, it makes quite a few cupcakes. Which can only be a good thing!

Look at these happy little fellas!

And here they are all dressed up and ready to go, plus vanilla buttercream and chocolates. Rosalie bought special moulds to make teapot and teacup chocolate for the cupcakes. Don't they look great? They tasted pretty good too, but Rosalie is after even more rising.

Next we made the cheesecake pops. To make them you start by making a cheesecake. We went for a Nigella classic (surprise suprise!), the New York cheesecake, the recipe for which can be found How to be a Domestic Goddess, or here. It is a really good cheesecake, although be warned - you have to leave the cake in the oven for a couple of hours and then in the fridge. In fact, we cooked the cheesecake on Saturday night and made the pops on Sunday. It was the way to go, and even then we ended up forced to watch rubbish TV until 1.30 am. Hellish!

Isn't that a fine looking cheesecake?

Destroying the fine looking cheesecake!

You mash up the cheesecake, roll it in balls and stick in lollipop sticks.

Then you dip into chocolate and hundreds and thousands. We think that next time around, it might be better to make them smaller, because they are very sweet. The dipping into chocolate section was a little challenging, so we were trying to think of a way to thin out the chocolate. Cream would make it even sweeter, alcohol's out because there'll be kids eating them - any suggestions?
So, the final verdict was that the sandwiches are total genius, the cupcake recipe search continues and that the cheesecake pops just need a little adjustment. And I am now REALLY looking forward to this wedding. (Not that I wasn't anyway Rose...!)

Rhubarb Cornmeal Cake

This is another oh so reliable Nigella cake recipe. I was provided with rhubarb from big bro's garden, on condition that I make a cake and take it to work (he works there too - it's not just that he has a selfless interest in my workmates!). So, I was hit by a dilemma. Is it better to have another go at a recipe that wasn't that great before and try and make it better or go with an old favourite you know you can rely on? Well, I chickened out and went for the tried and tested Nigella recipe. But I still have high hopes for this recipe. It's got rhubarb, cinnamon, polenta and is a Nigel Slater, so I refuse to believe that it's not delicious. I made it a few weeks ago and it just wasn't that nice, not nearly sweet enough. I can only assume that when I made it I did something wrong. So, I will definitely have to have another go at that one.

But when one's cake reputation is at stake at work, it seemed wiser to play it safe. My one brave move was to add a little orange zest, which was extremely wise, though I say so myself. Rhubarb and orange is of course a popular combo, and that's for a reason - it worked really well. Big bro also suggested the addition of some ginger. He reckons that they work well as a threesome and he may well be right, so I might give that a try some time. But I didn't do too badly - here's a sample of some feedback from the office:
"I've never had rhubarb cake before, but i doubt i could find any nicer!!"
"MmmmmmMMMMmmmmmmmMMMmmmmmmmmmmm"
"Well, it was amazing and very delicious!"

"Very nice cake, lovely and moist."

So, I highly recommend this as the recipe with which to impress workmates, or normal mates, or anyone really. And, as ever with Nigella, it's easy peasy.

500g rhubarb
300g caster sugar
150g plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
155g polenta
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
125g unsalted butter, soft
250g natural yoghurt, preferably bio

zest of half an orange
springform cake tin (23 cm), buttered and lined

Preheat the oven to 180C. Wash and dry the rhubarb if necessary. Remove stringy bits and cut into 1/2 cm slices. Put into a glass or china bowl and cover with 100g sugar. Don't let it stand for more than half an hour. Mix the flour, bicarbonate of soda, salt, cinnamon and polenta. With a fork beat the eggs with the vanilla extract. In a large bowl, cream the butter and the rest of the sugar. Gradually add the egg, beating. Add the flour and polenta alternately with the yoghurt, and then the orange zest. Just combine, don't overmix. Finally add the rhubarb and its juices, folding in. Pour the speckled batter into the prepared tin. Put in the oven and bake for an hour until springy to the touch. You may have to cover with foil after about 40 minutes (I did). Leave to cool in the tin on a rack for a while.

Serves 8-10 greedy workmates.

Watercress, pea and bacon pasta

When I was a kid, my parents used to make pasta from scratch. I remember them laying tagliatelle over the back of the kitchen chairs to dry. Lil sis and I were big fans of the raw pasta dough and we'd make off with little lumps if backs were turned. Now, I have yet to reach such culinary heights, or to get a pasta maker, but when I spotted the idea of buying lasagne and cutting it up to make whatever shape you fancy on smitten kitchen, I thought I might at least be able to recreate that home-made look. And I did rather like the results - uneven squarish shapes, which I mixed with a simple sauce with watercress, peas, courgette, bacon and crème fraîche. Just enough greenery to make you feel virtuous without sacrificing on the deliciousness.

200g lasagne, cut into squares (or whatever shape you fancy)
2 cloves garlic
2 rashers bacon
50g watercress, with big stalky bits removed
half a courgette
2 tbsp creme fraiche
1 tbsp cream cheese
handful of frozen peas
splash of white wine

(I was going to add toasted pine nuts, but I forgot! Think they'd be good, though...)

Cook the lasagne pieces in plenty of salted water. Stir them regularly, because they tend to stick together.
Meanwhile, chop the bacon into small pieces and fry in olive oil for a couple of minutes. Crush and chop the garlic finely and add to the pan. Use a vegetable peeler to slice the courgette thinly and chop into rough squares. Add to the pan. Add the peas with the white wine.
When the pasta is ready, mix with the vegetables, watercress, cheese and crème fraîche. Add salt and pepper to taste.

This recipe was inspired by a recipe from the wonderful website http://www.watercress.co.uk/home/! It is full to bursting of fascinating watercress facts and loads of recipes. You can find out all about the history of the watercress, including Eliza James, aka the Queen of Watercress, and the various properties that have been attributed to watercress through the years. Roman emperors, for example, ate watercress to help them make bold decisions. Well, they did make some pretty bold decisions, so maybe there's something in it ...

Lovington, Somerset

A little break in the recipes for a recommendation! I haven't been doing any cooking this weekend as I have been visiting the grandparents in deepest darkest Somerset. And sleeping in the most comfortable bed ever. As there were four of us going down, my grandmother booked Mr Splorer and I into the local pub's rooms, which turned out to be a fabulous 4* B&B. The room had this fantastic bed, as well as a bath from which you could see the TV (I watched Kitchen Nightmares from the bath - heaven!), bathrobes, all the trimmings. And delicious breakfasts, which were all about local ingredients. And a fantastic Sunday lunch too. So, I just want to say that if ever you are in that part of the country, or want a nice break in a gorgeous area, I can't recommend The Pilgrim's Rest in Lovington highly enough. Lovington is a tiny little village but they also have a factory making Lovington's ice cream, which is also delicious. It's practically a foodie destination!
I also used the weekend as an opportunity to swipe a recipe from my grandmother, to put in my fabulous new recipe scrapbook. Whenever I go, she makes this delicious crab tart for me, so I finally got round to asking for the recipe. It's from a yellowing copy of a book first published in 1961 called 'Mastering the Art of French Cooking', which says in the introduction that it's a "book for the servantless cook". Well, that's me!
The crab bit isn't too complicated but the short crust pastry recipe in the book is incredibly long - I copied it out onto 3 pages of A4! I don't actually think it will take too long. There's just a lot of detail about the consistency and whatnot. But I'm definitely saving that one for a day when I don't have much on, just in case! And then I shall be the queen of short crust pastry land....

Hot cross buns

Hot cross buns! Hot cross buns!
One a penny, Two a penny
Hot cross buns!
I always thought the song made no sense, but having done a little hot cross bun research on the internet, the two prices possibly refer to the version with an icing cross and without. In the course of my research I was also pleased to learn that the hot cross bun is not purely a religious thing. The cross seems represent an infinite number of symbols, including a phallus, with the round bun representing a female to make it a Celtic male and female union symbol! Who knew?!
And there's more. Apparently sharing a hot cross bun with someone should ensure friendship for the year, especially if you say "Half for you and half for me, between us two shall goodwill be." And they are supposed to protect against shipwreck and, if hung up in the kitchen, prevent fires and ensure that breads turn out perfectly.
But I don't think there's any chance that the hot cross buns that I've just made are going to be hung up in the kitchen. Despite the fact that there's only two of us, I think those nine big fat hot cross buns aren't going to last another 24 hours. Because this recipe is fantastic. I spotted it on Apple and Spice a couple of days ago and have been rather excited about it ever since. But even with a few days' build up I was so impressed with them. The apple was a stroke of genius - they are just that bit moister and squishier. God, they are soooo good.
So, get yourself over the recipe here. I know today's officially hot cross bun day but you've still got three days of Easter weekend to make them. And my internet research reveals that crossed buns have long been associated with festivals in general, so there's no reason to restrict them to this one weekend. Just don't make them if you've got to be anywhere at a particular time. All the rising does make them time consuming, but as you might have guessed by my gushing, I think they're totally worth it. And they're not massively hard, although I made a bit more of a mess with the crosses than Katie did!
So, here's what it looks like:

Right, I'm off to have another one!

Chicken burger with orange wedges

Oh, the anticipatory joy of a 4 day weekend! I feel like I should be developing plans for my free time, but so far this is my only plan: apple and cinnamon hot cross buns. Yum, yum, yum. Well, I've got to do something inside, what with heavy rain being forecast. Isn't that just typical?
But anyway, to look on the bright side, I have four long days of holiday and more money in the bank than I thought I did. And I had this for dinner. The situation wasn't looking good when I got home and found the fridge full of things that smelt extremely dodgy. But there was some chicken breast and half a butternut squash that were still edible. And my new inspiration cheat is to put my ingredients into the BBC food recipe search and see what it comes up with. There's bound to be something from Ready Steady Cook, if nothing else! I don't usually follow the recipes, but it's a good kickstart to the imagination. So between the BBC website and a food magazine I ended up with a soft lemony chicken burger with delicious blue-cheesy oniony topping and spicy vegetable wedges.
The recipe for the burgers is from a scruffy old copy of overpriced food mag, delicious. Although now I've discovered that all the recipes are online, I'm never paying that £3.20 again! I made a couple of small changes, adding some hot chilli sauce and Salsa Lizano. The latter is a delicious savoury spicy Costa Rican sauce. According to Wikipedia, there's a story it was an imitation of Worcestershire sauce which members of the Lizano family took back from the UK to Costa Rica after a trip to Europe. So it feels like I'm completing a little circle by using the Salsa Lizano sent by Mr Splorer's mum in my kitchen. I think it's nicer than Worcestershire sauce, anyway.
Now, the wedges, as inspired by the BBC. They are not orange as in the fruit, but the colour. Butternut squash and sweet potatoes with added orange colour through the medium of turmeric. I like the way you can't really tell the difference between them, so you're never quite sure what you're going to get. Exciting, no? (Do I need to get out more?!)
To make them, I chopped up one sweet potato and half a butternut squash into vaguely wedgey shapes. I mixed them in bowl with enough olive oil to cover along with half a tsp each of paprika, chilli powder, curry powder and turmeric and some salt and pepper. Then I cooked them in an oven at Gas 7 for about 15 minutes, turning from time to time. They worked rather well, though I say so myself.

Spaghetti and Meatballs

Maybe this is more of a suggestion than a recipe. Or even a reminder. Because this is one of those dishes that I always forget about. And then am delighted when it suddenly pops into my head. As it did this morning. Maybe it's meatball day, as there's another meatball blog here - must give that one a try too.
In Spain I used to make this a bit more as it was my lazy dish. The local supermarket did good meatballs and mixing them with a box of tomate frito (a kind of Spanish passata - Delia's a fan apparently) and some tagliatelle was easy and delicious. But let me assure you that making them yourself is almost as easy. Especially if you have some equipment for whizzing things up.
So, what I did was have a look at a couple of recipes by Nigella and elsewhere around the internet. And looking for those recipes I've just come across another couple that look pretty good here and here. Anyway, I had a look around and then made it up as I went along. And this is what I did:

I fried up half an onion, 1 clove garlic and 10 chopped tomatoes and cooked them for a couple of hours, only stopping my ceaseless hanging around the kitchen to have a Skype conversation with Argentina and add a few splashes of white wine.
Before the Skype conversation I whizzed up a handful of bread, half an onion and 2 cloves garlic. Then I added 250g minced beef, parsley and salt and pepper and whizzed a little more. I shaped them into small balls which I browned in olive oil with some half a pepper which had been roasted in the oven. I whizzed the sauce and poured over, and cooked for about 10 minutes.

And that's about the size of it. Pour over some freshly cooked spaghetti (or linguine, in my case). Serve with a little glass of wine and a spot of Come Dine With Me. I think I'm going to play about with this and see what other flavourings work well. But it was a pretty good starting point. Just as good as Mercadona's!