Taste of home

Every once in a while I get a huge hankering for food from home. This time for 'corn dogs'. Used a basic corn muffin recipe and added hot dog pieces in it. YUM! Easy as can be but oh so nice. Just a bit of naughty with the nice (and a lot more "nice"* than the originals) *nice as in healthier

Plan on sending these in the kid's lunch along with some ketchup packets.

I also found some American mustard, Root Beer, and Reece's mini cups. Nothing like some old fav foods to remind me of home.

Need school lunch ideas.

Half way through the last semester I took my daughter off packed lunches and put her on school dinners instead. I got tired of the never ending battle of sending her with something only for her to not eat it and then all the way home I got to hear her moan and whine about being hungry and not liking what she had in her lunch box.

I've decided to send her with lunches once again. She seems to be very happy with the idea and has been asking if today is the day she gets sent with sandwiches. I have her paid up until next week so starting next week she'll be having a packed lunch again.

I'm a tad bit worried about falling into 'sandwiches, crackers, and a bit of fruit' that we ended up in that got her burned out on packed lunches in the first place. So I guess I'm looking for inspiration on what I could make her for lunch. Something that could ideally be prepared the night before, and something healthy and fresh, something that would travel well, and can be eaten cold. Oh yeah and more important than anything else something a 6 year old would like to eat. LOL thats not too much to ask is it?

Whats your fav packed lunch?

Snow Day Food

Today has been bitterly cold. I went out to do some shopping and on the way home it started to snow. The type of snow that is like powder. Pretty but oh so cold.

Coming in the house is somewhat warmer, but still so cold. My kitchen and bathroom are at the back of the house and the coldest area. The heater doesn't quite warm it. I figured that its a perfect time to make some jerky. I'll keep the oven opened a bit and make jerky at the same time as warming up the kitchen. This time I'm doing Chicken. I have just salted and peppered ones in currently, but I also picked up some marinate to use, Soy and ginger which sounded interesting and maybe a bit yummy.

Thought I'd have a go at drying some tomato slices at the same time. I have some lovely big beefsteak tomatoes that are sitting there ripe and ready to be used and aren't being eaten. So I sliced them and put them onto the mesh oven tray. I think I'll have to pick up some more of the mesh trays next time I go to poundland. LOL Hubby had talked me into it saying it would be good for chips and I think we have yet to use it for chips. Instead it works perfect to use for dehydrating things.

I think hot chocolate is in order for later. Its just the type of day to curl up on the sofa with a blanket over you, a book in one hand and a mug of hot chocolate slowly being sipped in the other. Curtains opened of course to watch the snow flutter down and swirl about but from the warmth of the home.

What do you do on snowy days? Do you have a warming comfort food?

Jerky making in Gas ovens.

My mom has been on a jerky making kick and I decided to give it a go. I've made some years and years ago using a special 'jerky gun' and a dehydrator and ground turkey. It was easy enough if you had everything and got lean enough meat. I don't have access to all of that unfortunately.

What I do have access to though is the net... and spent a few hours researching things online. It took me a day or so to convince hubby that we needed to give this a try, and off he went to the meat shop to pick up some meat. Chicken was easy enough, he just got several chicken breasts and that was good enough. Beef was a bit different. LOL

He asked in the shop if they had any beef. The butcher pulled out this bag from the fridge full of meat and asked how much hubby wanted. "About a kilo. Do you know what part it is?" Only thing he found out is its cow, and part of the leg.



That's it in all its glory. My 'beef from a cow's leg'. Gotta love Asian butchers.

The first thing you need to do is separate the muscles from each other.


Once split into individual muscles its time to trim off all the connective tissues and fat. Proteins will keep, but the fat is what goes off.


Yes there is a lot that gets cut off. But don't worry, while the trimmings might not be good for jerky making, it's excellent for cooking with. It makes a lovely beef stew or curry. In fact the curry I made from the trimmings this time my hubby has begged me several times to make again.

The best thing to do here would be to put the trimmed meat into the freezer for 2 hours or so until it just starts to freeze. It made cutting so much easier, and thinner. But you don't have to. I didn't this time as I was on a limited time schedule and couldn't spare the 2 hours to part freeze.

You slice the meat as thin as you can. The thinner it is the faster the drying time, the better it keeps. You can slice against the grain or with the grain depending on how chewy you want it. I don't really pay attention to that, just go on what side is easiest to cut and go that way. I don't mind having extra chewy jerky, nor do I mind having jerky that is easier to chew. Either way I'm happy with it.

I lay my slices out on a 'grill' pan with an extra 'cooling rack' over it to make the slots smaller. What you look for is something that will all air to circulate around the meat, but at the same time still keep it flat. I also have a 'oven chip try' thingy we got from poundland. It's a silicone coated mesh tray. Its perfect for laying directly on the oven shelf. It works perfect for drying.

You can use fancy marinades and such. I've tried it both ways and didnt really see much of an improvement by marinating. It seemed like a lot more work for very little flavor. But then again it just might have been me. I might play around with it a bit more. For now I'm contented to simply sprinkle on a bit of salt, peper and garlic powder and pop straight into the oven like that.




















I use the lowest setting on my oven. Its gas mark 1, which equals about 140*c or 275*f. Its a bit too 'hot' to make it properly and the meat does slightly cook while its drying. I leave the door opened but it still gets a bit too warm. But its the best I can do so it has to work. As a bonus my kitchen gets lovely warm on these cold winter days and the house smells of yummy cooking meat.

From there on out you just basically leave it. You can turn it over every so often if you want to in order to assure even drying, but if you don't it wont ruin it.





Leave it dry until the meat is dark and hard. If you can squish it any then it still has moisture in it. You should be able to pick it up and break it and it snaps in to.

Store in plastic zip lock bags or an air tight container. It should last several weeks kept at room temp. If you want to keep longer you can either vacuum pack it, or freeze it. Makes a wonderful snack to put into your bag and carry around. So light and easy to transport, but still tasty and will keep off hunger pains.

To dehydrate? Or freeze?

I have this huge desire to be able to preserve fresh fruit and veg while it is in season and find a way for it to last longer. A few years ago I made several jams and chutneys. It was lovely picking plums with the family and then making jam together. But jam only has limited uses. We can put it on toast... and well that's about it. Not that there is anything wrong with jam on toast, but it didn't really extend our 'harvest'.

I have been 'processing' fresh food and putting it up in the freezer. At the moment we only have the one that comes with our fridge. It doesnt have much space, just 3 small drawers, that are completely filled to the brim. At the moment we have bananas taking up tons of room. I found a smashing deal of 30 bananas for £1 and bought £2 worth. But 50 bananas sliced and put into freezer bags takes up a lot of room. (We kept several out to eat fresh) Frozen bananas unfortunately have a limited amount of uses. I can make smoothies with them. I can thaw them and make muffins and bread or add to pancakes. Anything other than that really wont work. Freezing changes the food and makes them mushier and when they thaw they tend to go watery and brown, which is alright if you're going to bake with them afterwards or include them into a recipe, but not so nice to serve on their own. I think the golden rule is frozen products are used for cooking only. I'm fine with that if that is my only option. But to do this on a full time 'put away for the remaining year' scale that I'd like to be on we'd need to get an additional freezer. Our little one won't hold enough to see use through more than a few weeks.

I've stumbled across some videos on youtube on dehydrating. As soon as I saw it the idea wont leave my head. When I was a kid my mom had a dehydrator. I've done most of the prep that goes with it, I know how it gets stored, I know how to use it, to use the dehydrated food. I have to admit this idea is very appealing. When the food dehydrates it retains its fresh taste, just concentrated. You can add water to the dried food and it returns to something close to the original form. If you're cooking or baking you wont be able to tell the difference. Fresh unless you get the water just right the food tends to be a bit on the wet and slimy side. But you can also eat dehydrated foods in the dehydrated state. Its a bit like crisps/potato chips with out being fried and salted. I also love the idea of being able to put together 'meals' so where all my husband would have to do is open the bag, dump everything into water and 30 minutes later there's a fresh healthy meal ready that is full of fresh veg and lot of love, yet still easy enough for hubby to be able to do.

The cost of getting a freezer is about the same as getting a dehydrator. With the dehydrator I'll have a slightly increased cost of having to get the vacuum sealer and what not to keep the dehydrated food from moisture. But the freezer will use more electric, and will have to constantly use electric in order to work. I think it will come out about even in the end.

Do you preserve food? If so what methods do you use?

Stepping foot pie

This is sort of a family joke that I married into.

Hubby's family often eats sitting on the floor around a table cloth. Think of a picnic but indoors, and pretty much all the time. Also keep in mind that there are 7 children in his family... add the 2 parents and that means there are 9 people sitting around this table cloth on the living room floor. Mum had brought in the lovely flan that she made and she set it on the table cloth. One of the girls jumped up from the floor, jumped over the table cloth to go get something from the kitchen, or use the toilet or well something. In the process of jumping OVER the flan, she managed to jump straight into it. As everyone was already at the table and ready to eat and there was no more prepared food hidden in the kitchen they ended up eating it, but joked the whole time about stepping tiles, and stepping feet. Somewhere during that day the flan got renamed to 'stepping foot pie' and its stuck... many a years later. (some will argue that its really 'step in foot pie' but being as this has only been spoken and never written down I like my version better)

I don't know where this recipe came from. My mother in law has lead an interesting life doing many interesting things in many interesting places. Somewhere along the line she found this recipe and wrote it down. I've seen 3 'copies' of this recipe, and all are different. LOL she changes to depending on who she's sending it to.

My recipe came via text and looked like this. "Make pastry n put in frig. Simmer coverd5oz lentils in 10 fl oz water w bay leaf. chek afta 10 mins 4 sticking. gently fry 1onion 1 clove garlic, n red pepr in butr Add 2 lints plus 4oz cheese.1tb puree.1egg saltNpepr well. pile in pastry. Gas7 aprox25min"

LOL my sister in laws recipe was a bit different. The first step was: "Weight out 5 ounces of lentils picking through the lentils, removing the bad ones and rinsing well in sieve under a cold running water. Transfer lentils from sieve and put into a pan with 10 fluid ounces of water." Needless to say the entire recipe took several pages with very detailed description on how to do pretty much everything.

Me being me had to change it. I didn't mean to, but yeah I did.

For one I was out of red split lentils.









But I did have plenty of Channa Daal instead.


To me the biggest difference between them was the time it took to cook. Split red lentils will take 20 minute to cook total, but the Channa Daal took close to an hour. I did have to adjust the water a bit, because it was a tad bit too dry near the end so I added an extra few ounces of water.

There is a slight difference in the taste of the beans, but I thought they both went well with the recipe. Hubby said it was annoying while he was eating it because there was just that little thing that was different that he couldn't pin point and it was bugging him. Once he found out about the difference in beans he said it clicked. Granted though he's had this pie a few more times than I did.

So onto My recipe for the version I did. (this time anyways)

5 ounces (weight) Channa Dall
12 fluid ounces of water
Vegetable stock cube
Tablespoon or so of sunflower oil for frying
1 onion chopped
2 small cloves garlic diced
Hand full of frozen mixed peppers broken into smallish pieces (very technical terms here)
4 ounces cheese grated
1 egg
1 tablespoon tomato chutney (I'm sure ketchup would work too)
1 roll pre-made all butter pastry
Tablespoon milk (if decorating pastry)

1. In a pan add the stock cube, channa daal and waters. Simmer until soft. After 20 minutes stir every few minutes to prevent sticking. You'll know its done when most of the beans have turned to a mush and the few beans that are whole are soft when bit into. It took me close to an hour to get them like that.

2. In frying pan slowly fry the onions in the oil, cook 2 minutes. Add garlic and frozen pepper and cook until soft. I'd say it took another 5 minutes once everything was in the pan. If they start going brown that's a good time to either take it off the heat or add a bit of water to prevent burning.

3. While everything is cooking take out the pastry crust and lay into pie tin. Trim edges. I used left over trimmings to cut out pretty little hearts to put around the outside.

4. After 1 and 2 finish cooking, leave to cool slightly. (I did the cooking in the morning. It finished just in time to take my son to nursery, so cooled while I was dropping him off and returning home)

5. Preheat oven to 425f = 220c = Gas Mark 7 = Moderately Hot

6. Mix together the cooked veg, the cooked channa, cheese, egg, and tomato chutney. Add all of that into the pastry covered pie tin. Smooth until even and decorate around the edge with cut out hearts. Wash over hearts with a bit of milk to help cook.

7. Bake 25 minutes or until pastry is browned nicely. Allow to cook on rack.


Its lovely hot, but just as nice cold. Works very well having this hot for dinner along with boiled potatoes and cooked carrots, peas and/or corn. Then take the left overs the next day and have cold for lunch.

If you gave it a go let me know how it turned out in the comments. :D