Jack Pumpkinhead

Straddling the line between autumn and winter, plenty and paucity, life and death, Halloween is a time of celebration and superstition. It is thought to have originated with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off roaming ghosts.

Here in Britain, much like America, Halloween has become very commercialised involving elaborate costumes, themed party food and trick or treaters expecting expensive treats or money. Lots of people are really cynical about Halloween and won't even open their doors when trick or treaters come calling. However, when my Bert was little I loved dressing him up and taking him trick or treating, he would become so excited and thrilled when he returned home with a bag full of apples and penny sweets.

           Bertie in a homemade outfit, before the days of elaborate shop bought costumes.

I posted the next recipe last Halloween and it proved very popular, economical to make, these are a great alternative for trick or treaters and look great stuck in a pumpkin!

Ghoulish cake pops

Recipe
Makes 12

300g sponge cake such as maderia, crumbled
2 tablespoons raspberry jam
300g white chocolate, broken into pieces and melted in a bowl over a pan of simmering water
Writing icing and silver balls to decorate

Mix cake crumbs and jam together in a bowl

Divide into 12 portions and roll into balls, chill for 30 minutes in the fridge

Dip the tip of a cake pop stick into melted chocolate and insert into cake pop (this acts as a glue) keep cake pop upright and repeat

Allow to set for 10 minutes
Dip cake pops into melted chocolate, turning until evenly coated
Allow to cool, then decorate

Happy Halloween

Love Donna xxxxxxxxx

Halloween Fun With Gorgeous Boys

                                                     

                                                   Mark and Ryan gathering pumpkins


Due to it being half term I've spent time this week with friends and their children which I love. It seems like only yesterday that my Bertie was a little boy but as J.M. Barrie wrote 'Young boys should never be sent to bed. They always wake up a day older, and then before you know it, they're grown.'

Of course so many changes have taken place in the last twenty years that childhood is a different place to that which Bert grew up in. The Internet has changed society dramatically, children are hooked on social media and as one friend told me, her child will spend hours sending and receiving banal messages via his phone, not to mention computer games and Facebook. Children feel the need to keep up with their peers and we're all guilty of being spin doctors, posting our lives to show what fascinating things we're doing with wonderful people. The truth is, if we were engaged in such excitement, we would hardly have time to live in this viral world.

I spent a wonderful afternoon with a friend and her two children where we all became absorbed in the activity of carving pumpkins and cooking. Neither child became bored or distracted, in fact my friend rang me later to say how excited the children were to relay their days events to their dad.

                                                Ryan and mummy carving a pumpkin

                              Mark, being very grown up and demonstrating his knife skills

                                                                      Pumpkins complete

                                                          Mark pureeing the pumpkin

                                  Adding the condensed milk, 2 eggs and cinnamon sugar

                                 A joint effort, Ryan sprinkles flour ready to roll the pastry

                                                                           Say cheese

                                                                      Spooky!

                                                           A slice of pumpkin pie anyone?

                                                                    Don't mind if I do

                                                             A very proud young man

Everyone enjoyed the afternoon, not least me. Childhood is so fleeting and I'm a firm believer in spending time with your children doing simple activities such as baking or painting, the only cost is precious time.

'Play is the highest form of research.'
- Albert Einstein

Love Donna, Mark and Ryan xxxxxxxxxxx :)

You Are What You Eat Eats!

For me, bangers and mash has always equated to comfort, the sort of meal you have on a cold autumnal night, snuggled under a blanket while watching TV. For many people of my generation sausages were a staple in our childhood diet as they were an economical meal, we grew up with toad in the hole, sausage casserole and bangers and mash.

However, evidence has been building for decades that processed meat, such as bacon and sausages, are increasing our chances of developing certain cancers. According to research, just 50g of processed meat a day increases the chance of developing bowel cancer by 18 percent.  Any meat that has been cured, salted, smoked or preserved is being classified as being as carcinogenic as arsenic, asbestos and cigarettes and there's a saying: 'every rasher of bacon you eat takes a year off your life.'

Cancer Research have said that a single meat based meal isn't bad for you if eaten in moderation, it's about being sensible and not eating too much, too often. For generations people have bulked meat based meals out with other ingredients, vegetables, dumplings, Yorkshire puddings, pasta, rice......my mother would make a meal for four people with 1/2 a pound of mince.

Increased meat production in recent years has meant that our consumption has grown dramatically, consequently, instead of letting animals graze on the grass that has been their natural diet for fifty million years, we are containing them, exposing them to toxic conditions from decomposing manure where disease is rife, feeding them on an unnatural diet and pumping them full of antibiotics. The animals we are eating are unhealthy and we're eating far too many of them.

The healthiest sausages you can buy are outdoor-bred and organic with a high meat content, that are low in saturated fat and salt, but this doesn't lessen their carcinogenic properties. You are unlikely to find sausages made without nitrates in the supermarket, but local butchers can make them with minced pork, seasonings and casings, without nitrates, like any meat, it's always better to opt for quality over quantity.

 

I like to tray bake sausages with vegetables drizzled in fruit flavoured balsamic vinegar

Delicious served with pasta or sweet potato mash

Drizzling sausages with a little soy sauce and honey or cranberry sauce makes them sticky and delicious (always line your dish with parchment paper) these are lovely with a bean salad

            And the old favourite, toad in the hole, serve with plenty of fresh vegetables

I shall continue to eat sausages and bacon in moderation, what's important to me is the background of the animals I'm eating, if an animal has lived in diseased conditions and been treated cruelly from birth to death (stress is cancer inducing) and pumped full of chemicals, how can anyone conceive that it's ok to eat them? Surely scientists should be looking closely at the way we 'farm' animals now rather than the age old process of curing and smoking meat. And if we weren't intensively farming, people, like my parents generation would eat less of it!

'At home I serve the kind of food I know the story behind.'
- Michael Pollan

Love Donna xxxxxx

Jamie Oliver Takes On The Food Giants

                                         "If it's a plant eat it, if it came from a plant don't"

I've always admired Jamie Oliver, he's principled and spirited and far from resting on his laurels, which he's rich enough to do, he campaigns tirelessly on behalf of our children's diets.

Jamie has yet again waged war on the food industry and the government regarding how many teenagers and children, including those of nursery age, are consuming more sugar than is recommended by the World Health Organisation.

Jamie seems to think that the British public make good choices when they are given good, clear information and that by labelling soft drinks with a symbol showing how many teaspoons of sugar lurk within, they will be shocked!

I hate to pour cold water over this theory, but we only have to look back at his healthy school dinner campaign which saw mothers pushing junk food and sugary drinks through the school fences at lunchtime for their kids. Added to which, it's not rocket science is it, we all know that soft drinks such as Pepsi are full of sugar, and although we have the luxury of running water, which many third world countries don't, we still allow our children to quench their thirst with soft drinks, many of which contain 14 teaspoons of sugar per 500ml.

The big manufacturers don't want us to know that their products are high in sugar, salt and fat, they don't want us to know about the conditions of intensively reared animals which are pumped full of chemicals, they don't want us to know that chemically processed food is slowly killing us. Worse still, successive governments are complicit with these monolithic food corporations. Public Health England, the watchdog responsible for improving the nations health and wellbeing, have drawn up a report and have concluded a tax on sugar would help to curb our obesity epidemic. Apparently, David Cameron paid lip service to the issue in meetings with Jamie Oliver but has ruled out the idea - without even reading the report!

Of course, the majority of the well-off cook from scratch in their luxury, bespoke kitchens, using organic and free-range produce. Cameron and Ian Wright, head of the Food and Drink Federation, who said Oliver's concerns are overblown, wouldn't touch a turkey twizzler with a barge pole and are savvy enough to realise that many ready-meals contain almost twice as much sugar as a can of Coca-Cola. So, the health of the nation is ignored and the masses dine on processed food laced with sugar, salt, fat and a cocktail of chemicals. We happily guzzle a 400g crispy sweet & sour chicken meal from Sainsbury's which contains 15 teaspoons of sugar, washed down with a soft drink containing a further 14 teaspoons of sugar, and that's before dessert!

The problem is, we've handed the control over our diets to the food industry and they've played havoc with it. Obesity is associated with poverty yet a couple of generations ago, poverty kept people immune from obesity. The equation has been reversed and suddenly it seems, the poor can't peel and boil potatoes or drink water, they have to have everything ready-made and soft drinks, which were confined to Christmas or birthday parties when I was a child, are now the single largest source of sugar consumption for children.

Jamie Oliver has asked: 'Who is running this country, the businesses who are profiting from ill-health, or us?' I would say that mothers who are too busy to read food labels or boil carrots and are happy to ignore the obvious dangers of processed food are as complicit as the food industry and the government.

Education is the only way forward, we need to teach children how to cook from scratch, to take back control. The food industry wants us to be confused and unclear about how they are doctoring our food so we will buy more of their products. Surgeons in the UK are currently performing 7,000 amputations a year because of type 2 diabetes, a stark warning that we should stop reading our iPads and start cooking our children's tea!

And finally, I'd like to add that demonising one food is dangerous, yes sugar is in abundance in the processed diet, from cereals to soups and salad dressings, so think about what you can make from scratch. We've demonised fat and carbs in the past but it's not about good food or bad food, if it's natural, there are good amounts and bad amounts and as I said, it's really not rocket science.

Apple crisps

Recipe
Finely slice apples

Preheat oven to 180c-gas mark 4
Place apples on lightly greased parchment paper on a baking tray
Pop in the oven for 20 minutes, turning halfway through
Turn the oven off and leave them for a further 20 minutes until baked dry

Remove, cool and store in an airtight container

'The reliable way out of obesity is via personal responsibility.'
- Michael Prager

'Fat people are funny......until obesity pays your child a visit.'
- Mokhonoana

Love Donna xxxxxxxx

Michel Roux Jnr, Mothers Have Lost Their Cooking Skills.

                                                       
Celebrity chef Michel Roux Jnr has opened a can of worms by declaring mothers have lost their cooking skills.

Growing up, Roux watched his mother prepare meals from scratch, and like so many of us of his generation, has memories of the aromas of pastry baking in the oven and stews bubbling on the stove.

He has said that many youngsters today don't experience similar joys because two generations of working mothers have relied on convenience food. The former MasterChef star said working mothers of today and those before them had failed to acquire cooking skills because their lives now revolve around work rather than their families.

"There have been at least two generations of mothers no longer cooking at home and no longer passing on their basic cooking knowledge," he told Radio Times. The knock on effect is a growing dependency on convenience foods which are contributing to the obesity epidemic, "we should be teaching our children to eat properly."

Of course, you'll already know my stance, I worry that unless children learn life skills, especially cooking, they will continue to eat junk food without understanding the dangers. But for me it runs deeper than that, I have so many happy memories associated with my mothers kitchen, the tastes and smells of cooking, the snug and cosy atmosphere, and the gathering of our family around the kitchen table. Nowadays, families are scattered to the far corners of the home, eating separately whilst watching TV or scanning their computers and there is something intrinsically sad about it.

As you might expect, there has been a backlash to Rouxs' comments from the feminist camp. Journalist Sarah Vine (whom I like and invariably agree with on many topics) has said "It's the laziest cliche in the misogynist rule-book: working mothers are responsible for the obesity epidemic because we don't have time to cook our children healthy, nutritious meals from scratch." Well, hello Ms Vine, firstly I think you'll find Roux Jnr is one of the least misogynistic men you could ever hope to meet and secondly, my mother worked full time but spent her evenings cooking for her family as opposed to being glued to a computer playing Candy Crush or tweeting.

Vine goes on to say "Not all women can afford to stay at home braising lamb shanks all day." Which I will counter with: it's the laziest cliche in the feminist rule-book to belittle stay-at-home-mums, especially when, quite clearly you can very well afford to stay at home but choose not to! The upshot is, people want bigger houses, two cars, state of the art technology, designer handbags, memberships to gyms........Vine has written on many occasions about her nanny and let's face it, you're not on the breadline if you can afford a nanny!

The fact is, many women, like Vine, don't want to be braising lamb shanks all day, they would rather a career, which is absolutely great, but the old chestnut about having to work is starting to wear a bit thin.

Vine said "cooking may be a lucrative business for Mr Roux, but for most of us it's just another chore." That's the sad truth, cooking has become a dirty word and kitchens have become sterile, cold places where cellophane is popped and microwaves are pinged.

As you all well know by now, I actually enjoy being in my kitchen, not tied to the kitchen sink as perhaps my mother was, but, give me a couple of hours in the evening with my fairy lights on, a glass of wine, the aromas of home cooking wafting through the air and the dulcet tones of George Michael in the background and I become impervious to the stresses and strains of the outside world. My kitchen is a sanctuary, a place where people are drawn to, both Glenn and Bert will sit at the kitchen table, talking about their day whilst I peel vegetables and stir gravy, it's the heart of our home, and the added bonus is, we enjoy a delicious meal at the end.

This next recipe is simplicity itself.

Bacon chops

Recipe
2 outdoor bred bacon chops per person
1 tin of pineapple slices
1 large cabbage, shredded
2 leeks, cleaned and shredded
1 tablespoon of oil

Heat oil in a large frying pan
Add bacon chops and fry for 4-5 minutes each side until golden

Plunge cabbage and leek mix into boiling water and cook for 5 minutes

Remove chops and wrap in foil
Remove any excess oil from the pan, add pineapple slices and cook for 2 minutes each side

Remove pineapple slices and cover with foil
Add pineapple juice to hot pan, stir in all the bacon juices at the bottom of the pan, boil rapidly and reduce by half
Drain cabbage and season to taste, pile cabbage on warm plates
Add bacon chops and pineapple and pour hot juice over the top

A little tip, when in season I often add pomegranate seeds on top of the pineapple, they add a lovely flavour and texture

'I've learned that making a 'living' is not the same thing as 'making a life.'
- Maya Angelou

Love Donna xxxxxxxxx

Morals About Meat

                                         A Spanish butcher cutting some meat for me

Readers will know that the subject of eating meat is one I have explored regularly on this blog. As a former vegetarian, I have issues with our relationship with meat and the fact that far too many people in Britain choose to ignore the uncomfortable aspects of eating animals.

Butcher shops as we knew them, with carcasses hanging in the Windows and the smell of blood pervading the air, are no longer prevalent, people no longer want to see the dead animal that their cut of meat is coming from. Rather, we want meat that has been processed, reformulated and reshaped so it's unrecognisable.

With this out of sight, out of mind mentality, we can close the door on the horrors of animals being intensively battery farmed in disturbing conditions and pumped full of antibiotics, because of the confined, diseased conditions they are living in.

What sticks in my craw is the fact that we British keep pets and wouldn't dream of subjecting our dogs or cats to the levels of inhumanity shown to cows, pigs, chickens and lambs. All species of animals have emotions, a dogs fear is no greater than a cows!

In rural Spain and other Mediterranean countries, there is an understanding that some animals are for food, however, the concept of humane regarding the animals they are going to eat is similar to that applied to their pets. The honesty about the animals they are eating can be seen in most Spanish butcher shops.

                                       Pigs trotters are still commonly eaten in Spain

                    Chickens that aren't pumped full of water, additives and preservatives

There has always been fierce debate over the origins of humans eating meat. Evidence suggests that the earliest signs of meat-eating, some 2.5 million years ago, was in the form of raw meat. Use of fire for cooking came much later, about 800,000 years ago.

Extensive studies have demonstrated that it would have been biologically implausible for humans to evolve such a large brain on a raw, vegan diet. Humans have exceptionally large, neuron-rich brains compared with (for example) gorillas, who are three times as massive as humans, yet have smaller brains with one-third the neurons. Why? The answer, it seems, is the gorillas' raw, vegan diet, devoid of animal protein.

The subject of eating meat will always be divisive but one thing's for sure, when we eat intensively farmed animals, however scrupulously the conditions that the drugged, overstressed animals are reared in are concealed, there is still complicity. We have the power to choose and we can stop supporting the big corporations who have no regard for animal welfare. Yes, free-range and organic is more costly, however, if like me you choose to eat meat, find a decent butcher and ask him where the animal comes from, how it was treated, what it was fed on, and quite frankly don't see it as your god-given right to eat meat everyday! Do as previous generations did and have it three-four times a week at most.

Brisket of beef (free-range) is a cheaper cut of meat which requires slow cooking, the result should be meat which melts in the mouth. These types of cheaper cuts are less popular nowadays which hi lights our relationship with meat and our lack of understanding about how to cook it. These cuts of meat can be stretched over a couple of nights dinners when combined with lots of lovely vegetables and gravy and bolstered up with dumplings or Yorkshire puddings.

Rolled brisket with red wine
Recipe

1.2kg rolled beef brisket
3 tablespoons sunflower oil
250ml red wine
125ml water
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

Heat oil in a heavy based pan until very hot
Sear meat on all sides

Place meat in slow cooker
Pour red wine, Worcestershire sauce and water into the hot frying pan and simmer for a couple of minutes, scraping up all the browned bits stuck at the bottom of the pan
Pour wine mixture into the slow cooker and set temperature to low. Cook for 6-8 hours
You can add chopped carrots, onions and garlic to cook with the beef as it will infuse the vegetables with delicious flavours
Remove beef and cover with foil for 20 minutes
Pour liquid from the slow cooker into a saucepan and bring to a simmer, dissolve 4 tablespoons of cornflour in 80ml of cold water and slowly pour into the simmering liquid, stirring until thickened
Remove string from meat and it will fall apart

Serve with the vegetables, mashed potatoes and gravy

'We think of dogs as being more like people than pigs; but pigs are highly intelligent animals and if we kept pigs as pets and reared dogs for food, we would reverse our order of preference. Are we turning persons into bacon?'

- Peter Singer

Love Donna xxxxxxx

Sophie Thompson, My Family Kitchen.

                           My signed copy of Sophie Thompsons' cookbook: My Family Kitchen

Firstly, I'd like you to read a previous post (Sophie Thompson Celebrity Master chef 2014. Scroll down the recipes on the right of my page and click on Creamed Sweetcorn.)

Acclaimed actress, Sophie Thompson has always been a lover of cooking and was the winner of celebrity Master Chef 2014. She has recently published a cookbook and a signed copy was acquired for me by a friend who recently spent an evening with Sophie at The Sussex Produce Company. Sadly I wasn't able to attend as I was in Spain and was bitterly disappointed to miss the opportunity of meeting Sophie. My friend assures me that I'll love the book, full of homely recipes and lovely anecdotal and chatty stories, I can't wait to read it!

Now, many of you will know that I have a bit of a bugbear where 'celebrity' cookbooks are concerned and I've written several posts regarding the, dare I say, deceptive nature of the contents of some of them. Interestingly, I have just read a fantastic article by recipe tester and food editor, Debora Robertson.

Robertson writes: 'Recipe books don't spring flawlessly on to the page. A cookbook (Robertson has worked on recipes for all kinds of people, from models to Michelin-starred chefs) usually involves a group of people garnering ideas, some merely a thought, a simple combination of ingredients to be worked into something you might want for your tea. Then the recipes go through many stages of editing and testing before landing on the page, looking their 'simple' and 'foolproof' best. Some of the chefs are really involved, others make the biggest contribution to their recipes by just reading them.'

Robertson says: 'The job of translating a chef's ideas, to make them suitable for your home kitchen in Doncaster or Totnes, the one with the temperamental oven, can be complex. Chefs often live in a rarefied world. One book I worked on, ostensibly for quick-and-easy weeknight dinners, included a recipe for a terrine which required half a pig's head.'

The article goes into more detail and is really illuminating, it adds weight to my argument that dearest Jamie Oliver et al, aren't realistically conjuring up delicious, foolproof meals in 30 minutes with barely a dirty saucepan in sight!

This all leads back to the premise of Donna's Pink Kitchen. I know so many people who, like myself, have a library of cookbooks but fail to execute the recipes as they appear on the glossy page. My step by step (unprofessional) photos are, I hope, helpful. My recipes are literally food that is being put on the table for dinner, a bit hit and miss sometimes I'll grant you, but very honest recipes.

I imagine that Sophie Thompson has kept her cookbook very real and I shall certainly be trying her recipes and sharing them with you soon.

This next recipe falls into my cheats category. I love Dauphinoise potatoes, a very decadent dish but rather time consuming, all that potato slicing with a mandolin and simmering the potatoes in cream and garlic before transferring into the oven......

This is simply a case of boiling some small potatoes, putting them in a dish (whilst the potatoes are still warm, the skin peels away very easily, however, I tend to leave the skin on) combining some cream cheese and milk and popping in the oven and hey presto, a delicious side dish!

Cheats Dauphinoise

Recipe
1kg of small potatoes
300g garlic and herb cream cheese (I used boursin)
100ml milk
Gouda or Cheddar cheese to grate on top
Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 190c/gas mark 5
Boil potatoes for 5-10 minutes until tender but not too soft

Drain potatoes, then when cooled, slice and place in an ovenproof dish

                           You don't have to be fussy or precise about slicing the potatoes

Combine cream cheese and milk in a blender

Pour over potatoes

Season with salt and pepper and top with grated cheese

Pop in the oven for 30 minutes

Remove from oven, the Dauphinoise should be caramelised on top with a rich melting interior.

Dauphinoise is a delicious side dish with meat, however, I often serve it with baked beans and sweetcorn which is a tasty combination and a very economical dish.

'Cookbooks are almost a substitution for a lost sense of culture. People want some other life than the one they're living, so they buy a cookbook with pictures and imagine themselves as part of that life.'
- Mark Miller

Love Donna xxxxxxx