Home Made Beef Burgers

Before my brother in law turned vegetarian, he would make this for our family with his daughter. This recipe is from Jamie Oliver and uses Jacob’s cream crackers which i suppose would act like the breadcrumbs to make it crunchy on the outside.This recipe makes 6 burgers but they must be massive ones as i can make about 12 burgers (mini) with this mixture. I would normally wrap them up with cling film and then with foil and put them in the freezer.Ingredients:

• 500g mince beef
• 12 x Jacob’s cream crackers (smashed)
• 8 x springs of fresh parsley (i take out the stalks as i don’t like the hard bit)
• 2 x table spoon of Dijon mustard (optional)
• 1 egg

First, smash up the Jacob’s cream crackers into fine crumbs. Then with another bowl, mix the mince, parsley and mustard. Add the egg to bind the mixture and roll them into a round shape and season with salt and pepper. I like to add some dried herbs like mixed herbs and thyme. Drizzle them with abit of oil and put them into the fridge to firm up. Fry them up when you are ready to eat to how you like your burgers. Put them in burger/brioche buns and serve with chips and or salad or what ever side dish you want!

Party Cookies with the boys!

I love baking and now that the boys are slightly older, I can get them to help out with measuring the ingredients and mixing and rolling out biscuits without them eating all the raw mixture from the bowl if i am lucky! Lock down began for us in mid March and as one of my new goals for 2020 was to bake with the boys once a month! I love this time as i get to see the boys being cheeky with the ingredients such as the toppings or chocolates and the delight on their little faces when they have cut out their biscuits shapes or decorating.

I had this book for over a decade called ‘1001 Cupcakes, Cookies & tempting treats’ by Susanna Tee. There are so many recipes in this book with really simple ingredients and the instructions are easy to follow. I let the boys choose which one they want to bake and this time they have chosen ‘Party Cookies’ on page 113. I can see why they wanted to bake this as they were attracted to the colourful photography of the biscuit decorated with sweeties!

You don’t need anything special ingredients to bake this as you should have them in your store cupboard if you are a baker! Hope your kids don’t eat all the chocolates before you bake them! Enjoy!

Ingredients:

• 100g soft butter
• 100g soft light brown sugar
• 1 x tbsp golden syrup
• 150g self raising flour
• 85g sugar coated chocolates like M&Ms/Smarties/Chocolate buttons etc
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/GM4 and line several baking trays with baking paper. Place the butter and sugar in a large bowl and whisk together until pale and creamy, then whisk in the golden syrup and vanilla extract until smooth.
2. Add 75g of the flour and whisk it in and stir the chocolates and remaining flour so it’s all mixed. Then, with your hands, knead the mixture until smooth.
3. Roll small pieces of the dough into balls to make approx 15 cookies and place them on the baking tray, spacing them well apart as they expand.
4. Bake in the oven for 10-15 mins or until golden brown, leave them on the tray for 2-3 mins and transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.

Vegetarian Dishes 2020 – August

We had some smoked haddock and it’s always nice to cook fish with fresh herbs as it taste better and looks more colorful rather than using dried herbs. The only fresh herbs that I had in my fridge was some chives which I was going to use in another recipe but did’t get a chance to cook it.

I looked online to see what you can cook with smoked haddock and chives and found this recipe from Olivemagazine.com. It was smoked haddock with chives, peas and crushed potatoes. So simple to make and you don’t need lots of ingredients. I find in general that with fish recipes, they are always kept simple with basic ingredients and fast to cook with little prep work!

All you need for this is some smoked haddock fillets, butter, small potatoes halved, a cup of frozen peas, chopped up chives and a splash of wine wine or veg stock. First, you boil the potatoes until tender and then add the frozen peas. Crush it gently and add some butter.

Next, heat the butter in the pan and fry the smoked haddock, add some pepper, i didn’t add any salt because it is already salty. Add the splash of white wine/veg stock and reduce it a little. And, stir in the chives. Then to plate up, put the potatoes and peas on first and then add the haddock and chive butter on top. It was delicious and probably took 20 minutes to cook this.