Tangy Orange Bread and Butter Pudding

Cycling to work this week had worked up an appetite for stodge. I haven't made bread and butter pudding for years but was flicking through Delia's Winter Collection and came across the recipe for marmalade bread and butter pudding and decided to give it a whirl. It was lovely, and smelt so good that even Lex tried it and liked it. Result.

You need:

6 slices white bread
75g softened butter
2-3 tbsp marmalade
3 eggs
325ml milk
grated zest of an orange
3 tbsp demerara sugar

Butter the bread on one side, then spread the marmalade on 3 of the slices. Make 3 sandwiches and butter the top side of each sarnie. Slice into 4 triangles and lay in a shallow baking dish.

Mix together the milk, eggs and orange zest and pour over the sandwiches. Sprinkle over the sugar and leave to soak for 30 mins if you have time. Bake for 30 mins at 160 degrees, make sure you don't over cook it so it gets burnt. Scoff and hide the leftovers from your family so you can eat them all by yourself later on mwahh!

Cauliflower Cheese Soup

I made this on Friday and thought it was worth blogging it to remember for next time I have a surfeit of cauli in the veg box.

Sweat 1 large onion in some butter till soft. Add a head of cauli cut into florets and 900ml light veggie stock. Simmer for 30 mins till very tender and then blitz to a puree. Add some milk/more stock if it's too thick. Re-heat with 100g grated cheddar and season with salt and pepper. Serve topped with nutritional yeast and some chopped chives. And lashings of bread of course.

Blackberry and Apple Crumble

I am not a big crumble fan - I usually like the idea of it more than the reality. But I have to say tonight's offering was lovely. My FIL enjoyed it enough to give me a compliment!

You need:
4 large cooking apples, peeled and roughly chopped
1 tbsp water
3 tbsp vanilla sugar

150g plain flour
75g cold butter
25g oats
75g cinnamon sugar

2 cups blackberries
2 tbsp vanilla sugar

Start by putting the apples, sugar and water into a pan and cooking for 10 mins till soft and fluffy. Pour into a shallow baking dish and top with the scattered blackberries. Add the extra vanilla sugar on to this.

Blitz the butter and plain flour in a food processor until it's like find breadcrumbs. Tip into a bowl and add the sugar and oats. Mix and then scatter over the fruit in the dish.

Bake at 180 degrees for 15 mins then turn up the heat to 200 and bake for another 10-15 mins till bubbling and browned and crispy on top.

Serve with custard for a proper english treat, or mascapone/creme fraiche if you fancy something more continental. Delicious either way. The leftovers will be my breakfast tomorrow.

There's a Chill in the Air...

...and the nights are beginning to draw in and after not wanting winter to come, I am now enjoying cooking with the lovely root vegetables in my veg box and eating carb laden puds!

Tonight we had beef in ale again but I made a few tweaks to make it go further as we were feeding 5 not 3, and also to get over the saltiness we had last time.

I added 500ml water to the stew, and substituted pickling onions for the celery and used leeks instead of onions. It was bloody gorgeous and my meat eating ILs were very happy with the savoury, meaty feel of the stew.

Pudding was crumble which I will blog separately to make it easier for me to find next time.

Roll on real winter!