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The cookery thread


Philo_Vance

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Simple looking peice of lasagne from last night. Chuffed though as I made the lasagne a ocuple of weeks ago and froze it. Missus then just got it out last night and cooked it from frozen for an hour and a half. exactly the sort of change I wanted to make to our lifestyle. Made good use of the freezer and got healthy, home cooked food conveniently.

it was bloody gorgeous too. I didn't bother cooking the pasta sheets this time. last time they stuck together and they expanded so I had to cut them to bits. this time, just chucked the dry pasta sheets in and it came out fantastic so that was a waste of fucking time :)

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Me again. made another batch of Maids of Honour. Did 6 traditional (lemon) and then 6 with raspberry jam and iced them to show the difference. Iced them when still a bit warm but they were still fantastic.

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Here's a bite!

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Made a veggie lasagne for the freezer. Did it the same as my bolognese but instead of mince, I used roasted courgette, sweet potato and carrot. Looking forward to digging this bad boy out.

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Last one. Made these "hidden veg" sausage rolls. They're made with Filo pastry, half low fat sausages and half grated carrot and courgette and lentils. Only 51 calories each (about 5cm long). Fucking disgusting. To be fair, it didn't suggest an egg wash or anything so they look shit too.

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Few bits from me over the last week. Top left is a leek and potato fritatta (with red pepper and feta) that I made for lunches. Next to it is a batch of spinach and ricotta rolls I made. Pre-made puff pastry but otherwise just cooked and cooled the spinach and mixed about 200g (pre cooked weight) with 250g of ricotta, 100g feta and some nutmeg and Italian seasoning. Bit of egg wash and parmesan on the top.

The two bottom pics are home made fudge. My missus loves fudge so I made it for Valentine's day obviously. Was hard work to constantly stir while trying to get it up to 115 degrees c but I was chuffed with the result. It was a bit too sweet in the end and I wish I'd used brown sugar for a better colour but a good effort if i say so myself.

 

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I ordered from a US website called nuts.com a while ago and it's just arrived. I was looking for the mint choc chips to use in cookies and brownies and could only find them in the US. Given the postage was over $10, I thought I'd fill up the order. The balls are Coffee & Cream malted milk balls. They're really good although it's that fake yank chocolate so could be better. Mini peanut butter cups which the kids love. Also got Astronaut ice cream (pic below). That's weird stuff. It's rock hard to bite but then as it melts in your mouth, you get a really authentic flavour. Crazy shit.

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Edited by tiger_rick
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So some of you may remember I got my neighbour to teach me how to make bread, and I posted a pic of the loaf she helped me make in Veganmania.

I tried a couple more bakes unassisted. First one was OK, but I panicked at the kneading stage, seeing it was very dry, so put a little more water in. Bad idea - dough was too gooey, couldn't really knead it, so did a sort of pizza-style thing where I just pulled it and folded it, before thinking "fuck it" and sticking it in the oven. Turned out way better than I expected, but not brilliant.

Second bake went much more smoothly. Put in toasted sesame oil instead of olive oil, and added sesame seeds on top.

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Edited by Carbomb
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Looks really tasty Carbomb. Bet that's great with tons of salty butter too. I'm a little bit in love with your breadboard.

Can I recommend you prove for longer the second time, and make sure it's in a non-draughty place? You need to give that yeast time to expand and trap the CO2, and you'll get a looser, bouncier texture.

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4 minutes ago, Onyx2 said:

Looks really tasty Carbomb. Bet that's great with tons of salty butter too. I'm a little bit in love with your breadboard.

Can I recommend you prove for longer the second time, and make sure it's in a non-draughty place? You need to give that yeast time to expand and trap the CO2, and you'll get a looser, bouncier texture.

Thanks! It's great toasted, with the sesame flavour. That breadboard was my grandma's - she had it since before I was born, left it to my mum.

I proved for about 40 minutes in the proving draw under the oven. To be honest, the yeast was getting a little old, so I probably need to use fresher yeast and, as you say, prove for a bit longer. Thanks for the advice, I was wondering how I could get a lighter, less cakey texture.

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3 hours ago, Carbomb said:

wondering how I could get a lighter, less cakey texture.

That second proving is key to this. That's where the bubbles are formed. You then treat it really gently at this point to transfer to the oven. 

Don't be afraid of wet dough. Wet doughs are an arse to knead but give delicious crispness. French stick dough is incredibly wet and sticky, but it's the rapidly escaping moisture that creates steam, that in turn creates crust. 

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4 hours ago, Onyx2 said:

That second proving is key to this. That's where the bubbles are formed. You then treat it really gently at this point to transfer to the oven. 

Don't be afraid of wet dough. Wet doughs are an arse to knead but give delicious crispness. French stick dough is incredibly wet and sticky, but it's the rapidly escaping moisture that creates steam, that in turn creates crust. 

I've only just noticed you said a second time. I only put it to prove once, I didn't know about a second time. When does one do that? Thanks for all this advice.

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