Mini Lemon Meringue Tarts

I love lemon meringue pie and these tarts are a great little twist – they are bite-sized, quick to make and would be lovely for afternoon tea. I made them when we had friends dropping by a few weekends ago. I used shop-bought lemon curd though you can make your own; for me though the great thing about these are that they are so quick to make.

  

To make about 8, you need:

225g plain flour plus extra for flouring the work surface

110g butter

80g caster sugar

1 egg

8-16 tbsp lemon curd (about half a large jar)

4 egg whites (I used Two Chicks egg white that comes in a carton so I didn’t have yolks to use up)

100g caster sugar

Preheat the oven to 180C.

In a bowl, cream together the flour and butter then work in the caster sugar and egg until you have a dough. Knead on a lightly floured work surface and roll out. Cut out small rounds with a circular cutter, and place in a greased muffin tin. This is the base of the tart; cut a strip of dough and place this around the side of the muffin hole, and press together with the base piece so they are joined. Alternatively if you have a big enough cutter, cut a circle that is large enough to place into the muffin tin so that as well as covering the bottom, it comes up the sides.

Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes depending on the thickness of your pastry. When cool, place 1-2 tbsp lemon curd inside each pastry case.

Beat the egg whites until stiff and gradually add the sugar; continue beating until thick and glossy. Spoon the meringue onto the top of each tart.

You can then either brown these under the grill or use a cook’s blowtorch as I did, to caramelize the top. Allow to cool before eating.

I'm sending these to the Pastry Challenge, hosted by Jen's Food; this month she is looking for pastry-based recipes that are quick to make.

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Meal Planning Monday - week 29

I’ve finished my cake decorating class – the first couple of sessions were great, then I had to miss a few due to holiday and work, then the final few were a bit disappointing in terms of what we covered, but that was always the risk joining a class aimed at all levels (everyone else was a beginner). Even so, I have signed up for another course next academic year starting in September – at least it was meant to start in September, they already called me to tell me that the tutor can no longer do the first few weeks so it’s now  a 5-week course starting in November! Let’s just hope they don’t cancel the course entirely like that particular college has for the last two courses I signed up on.

Anyway, what it means is that Monday nights are my own again – no more rushing out of work and eating a sandwich in the classroom for my dinner! I do enjoy the evening classes but it will be nice to have a bit more time at home. This week I’m not doing much at all but am having a big barbecue/baby shower (for a friend, not for me!) at the weekend. But I've just seen the weather forecast for this weekend and I think we might be eating indoors!

Monday

Lunch: sandwich as I will be on conference calls

Dinner: pizza as we're going to start having a games night - we have all these expensive Xbox games we never play so now that I've finished my cake decorating class, Monday night is games night!

Tuesday

Lunch: watermelon and prawn salad from this recipe

Dinner: BBQ: sausage and kofta kebabs for him, salmon for me based on this recipe followed by grilled fruit and marshmallows from this recipe

Wednesday

Lunch: sandwich or salad

Dinner: My boyfriend is going for dinner at his mum's so I will have some pasta and make extra for lunch tomorrow

Thursday

Lunch: pasta

Dinner: chicken fajitas

Friday:

Working from home – car being serviced

Lunch: salad

Dinner: salmon en croute for me and chicken pie for him

Saturday

Lunch: bacon sandwich to win over my boyfriend as he will have a houseful of my friends this weekend

Dinner: barbecue with my friends

Sunday

Lunch: with my friends who stayed over

Dinner: barbecue leftovers

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F1 Foods UK roundup and the next challenge: Hungary

The latest Formula 1 Grand Prix took place in the UK at Silverstone and was a home-ground victory for Briton Lewis Hamilton who drives for Mercedes. I invited bloggers to send in their British recipes in honour of the race but my challenge wasn't particularly well publicised so there were only three entries.

I made a cake inspired by one of my favourite summer drinks, Pimm's. I filled the cake with fresh cream and decorated it with the fruits you usually get in a pitcher of Pimm's and lemonade.

Suelle at Mainly Baking made these gooseberry and hazelnut slices, after deciding upon gooseberries as a very British fruit and found a recipe that would keep for a bit longer in the hot weather we've been having.

Finally a pork pie from Jane at Onions and Paper. I had a picnic today and thought these would be great but didn't have the courage to try making one as they seem pretty hard! I'm very impressed with the way Jane's turned out.

The next Formula 1 Grand Prix takes place in Budapest, Hungary, on July 24-26. So I'm opening the linky now and leaving it open until August 12th. So that's a whole month to find a recipe - I expect you will all be searching the internet for inspiration for this month's challenge!

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Utah Scones - a different take on doughnuts?

The letter that Ros of The More Than Occasional Baker has chosen for Alphabakes this month is a bit challenging - U. This is the second time through the alphabet in the blogging challenge which I co-host with Ros, and last time around I thought quite creatively and made this Umbongo cake from a recipe I devised myself, which I was really pleased with.

This time my mind went to Utah and my United Cakes of America cookery book, which I haven't used for a little while. I visited Utah as part of a US road trip in 2012 and ate some lovely food. The cookery book didn't let me down with a recipe for Utah Scones - these are pretty different to English scones as they are deep-fried. The book said they were similar to what people call "frybread" elsewhere in the US; as part of the same trip I ate Navajo fry bread in Arizona and these did remind me a bit of that, but they also reminded me of churros (only more dough-y) and also a little like doughnuts. You need to make the dough the day before you want it and be very careful when you are deep frying but otherwise these are pretty easy and taste really good with the recommended honey butter; my boyfriend had them with chocolate sauce and loved them.

This recipe makes about 24 so I'd recommend halving the quantities, though I didn't.
You need:

2 cups buttermilk
7g dried yeast
2 tbsp. warm water
5 cups plain flour
1 tbsp. vegetable oil plus extra for deep frying
1 tbsp. caster sugar
2 eggs
1.5 tsp baking powder

to serve: optional-
softened butter, runny honey
icing sugar
chocolate sauce

Dissolve the yeast in a small bowl with the warm water and leave for ten minutes.

Meanwhile warm the buttermilk and place in a large bowl (or stand mixer if you have one) with all the other ingredients apart from the optional serving suggestions. Add the yeast and water and beat everything together until you have a stiff dough.

Roll the dough out onto a flat baking tray, cover with a clean tea-towel and leave to prove in a warm place for about 30 minutes.

 

 

Punch down the dough, cover with clingfilm and refrigerate overnight.

 

When you are ready to cook the dough, cut into wide strips and then cut the strips into triangles.

Heat about 1 inch of oil in a frying pan and when the oil is hot, using tongs carefully place the triangles into the oil. Allow to bubble and cook on each side for a few minutes until browned, then carefully turn over and brown on the other side.

Remove from the oil with tongs or a fish slice and drain on kitchen paper. Sprinkle with icing sugar, or serve with honey butter (beat softened butter with runny honey to taste) or chocolate sauce.

These are pretty filling and definitely more of an occasional treat but I'm glad I discovered them!

I'm sending this to Alphabakes, hosted by Ros of The More Than Occasional Baker, as the letter this month is U.

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Fennel, chicken, pomegranate and mint salad

This a gorgeous salad that I had for dinner one hot sunny evening; the recipe came from a free newspaper I picked up from Waitrose and it is also available at Waitrose online.

The ingredients are not particularly cheap but I already had half a bulb of fennel left in the fridge from another recipe, and half a pack of pomegranate seeds from something else. I often buy cooked chicken to make easy lunches for work and I'm growing mint on my windowsill.

The recipe instructs you to marinade and then cook the chicken but as I used the pre-cooked slices I just had to throw the other ingredients together, which was great as it was too hot to cook. Slice the fennel thinly and layer on a plate with a bed of watercress on the bottom, then the fennel, chicken, pomegranate and mint. To make the sauce mix crème fraiche, oil, garlic, lemon juice and zest, and a little water so it is thin enough to pour over the salad.

I'm really not a salad person but I thoroughly enjoyed this - it tasted as good as it looks!

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Minions Cookies

The Minions film is out this weekend - I haven't seen it but I loved them in Despicable Me and the sequel, so much so that my boyfriend bought me a cuddly Minion toy and the unicorn (It's so fluffy!) at different times.

I couldn't resist buying this cookie kit for just £1 from Iceland; I don't usually buy packet mixes so I was curious to see how it turned out. You get a bag of shortbread mixture, to which you only have to add 20g butter or marg; a packet of icing sugar that looks white but turns yellow as soon as you add water, and a packet of rice paper decorations - eyes and mouths.

It couldn't be simpler to make up the packet mix, but you only get a tiny amount of dough - enough for just six cookies. I got seven as my cutter was slightly smaller than the recommended size.

They only take 10 minutes to cook in the oven; when they have cooled, decorate with the yellow icing. Mine was ever so slightly too runny so it spilled over the sides a bit. When the icing is still tacky add the edible decorations.

These would be really fun to make with kids and I had hoped to make these with my boyfriend's nephews while we were babysitting but I hadn't realised they were only allowed a certain amount of treats - which they'd already had with their grandmother by the time I got there- and I didn't want to be told off for filling them with sugar! So I made them myself at home and my boyfriend polished them off after dinner. Not quite as grown up as after-dinner mints but a lot more fun!

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Grilled Fish on the BBQ and Greek Pasta Salad

I visited the Greek islands three times in my 20s when a holiday to me meant sun, sea, sand and a bit of sightseeing – but not too much. My first ever package holiday was to the Greek island of Rhodes – it was also my first holiday with my ex boyfriend. I remember going into a travel agent one day during our holidays from university, asking what cheap deals they had, and booking something that left the very next day! Accommodation was “allocated on arrival” which meant we knew nothing about where we were staying, but as a broke student I didn’t really care. We ended up being very lucky having a two-centre holiday, spending a week in Pefkos and a week in Lindos. The accommodation itself wasn’t great – and it was so hot some days, we couldn’t even sunbathe and just lay in our room under the ceiling fan (nothing as fancy as air conditioning for us!).

Crete

Since then I’ve also been to Crete and Santorini – the latter is absolutely beautiful, and the location of the iconic Greek island photo you see all the time in books and on television – even in a recent yogurt advert. Santorini was partly destroyed by a volcanic eruption many centuries ago, creating an underwater caldera (crater); the towns of Fira and Oia sit on the cliff top overlooking the caldera providing a beautiful spot to watch the sunset (if you can get a space amid all the other tourists!).

Santorini - my holiday snap

It's such a shame now to hear about the situation in Greece and I hope that the country is able to get itself back on a surer financial footing - and tourism will no doubt play a part in that.

One of the highlights of my trips as well as the sightseeing – the Santorini sunset, the acropolis of Lindos, the Colossus of Rhodes, a winery tour in Crete - was the food. We would sunbathe all day, go back to our room around 7 and get ready to go out for a late dinner. Every night we ate at a different taverna or beach-front restaurant; the food was cheap and delicious and I ate fresh fish as often as possible.

One day during our trip in Rhodes - at least, I'm pretty sure it was Rhodes but this is going back 15 years - we went on a boat trip that included lunch of freshly grilled fish. It was delicious, so when I was asked by Jet2 Holidays to choose a country from the list and come up with a recipe, with the weather here so hot at the moment I immediately thought of my Greek island holidays.

Rhodes - acropolis at Lindos

This year we bought a Weber gas barbecue and it's so easy to cook on. I bought a whole sea bream from the supermarket as the closest fish to what I remember eating in Rhodes; it was already gutted and I wanted to keep the flavours simple so stuffed the cavity with wedges of lemon and rosemary from my garden. You need to remember to oil the fish on both sides, and preheat the barbecue or grill.

Cook the fish for about 5 mins on each side until you see the flesh turn white. Turn with a metal fish slice.

It didn't take long before the fish was cooked to perfection - it tasted absolutely gorgeous with the rosemary and lemon flavours coming through.


A dish like this takes centre stage but it's nice to have an accompaniment. As the theme is Greece, I made this Greek pasta salad. The dressing is particularly good; I based it on one I found online but is my own recipe

  

Greek pasta salad

To serve 4-6  as a side dish, you need:

About 400g pasta; orzo is a popular pasta in Greek cuisine but is too small for this dish so I used fusilli. If you can get hold of a specialist Greek pasta though then do use it!

Salt for cooking

Half a cucumber, cut into chunky slices and each slice cut in half

300g pack of cherry tomatoes

Half a red onion, thinly sliced

200g olives – black olives would be more traditional but I liked the look of stuffed green olives for an extra punch

200g feta cheese, cubed

240g bag baby spinach leaves

Fresh basil leaves (optional)

For the dressing:

2 tsp Dijon mustard with honey (or regular Dijon mustard)

2 tbsp white wine vinegar

4 tbsp olive oil

Pinch of salt and pepper

Cook the pasta according to pack instructions and allow to cool.

Mix together the ingredients for the dressing in a small bowl.

Toss the salad with the other ingredients, pour the dressing over the top and toss again.

Thanks to Jet2 Holidays for covering the cost of the ingredients for this recipe.

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