Buffalo Burgers & Gooseberry Crumble
Today has definitely been one of those days.......more like a Friday than a Wednesday...it all started to go to pot when Zosia turned up at work with a bag of lettuces and a margarine tub full of soily gooseberries. At first everyone stood staring at them recounting how much they disliked these strange green, seedy, hairy objects but it wasn't long before we were tucking in they were so sweet and juicy. Things went down hill from there when someone decided that gooseberries were a bit rude, I then enquired over the gender of an overseas associate only to be told "oh he's definitely a man...he has a big, black"...."moustache" thankfully, although not always indicative of male gender but I will take their word for it!
End of month is always a very busy time, so got my head down til home time and willingly took the said pot of gooseberries home to make Lauren a gooseberry crumble. Once in the car they developed a life of their own,I have gooseberries rolling round the car, in my handbag and there was even one in my shopping bag when I got in..I bought shopping and bag in the supermarket so said gooseberry must have followed me round the shop waiting for it's chance.
It was homework night tonight, Lauren had to get started on her term project, earlier this week we attempted to make a paper maché seagull, but it's head went down spelling disaster for that particular project. She's now decided to make a seaside poster and pamphlet. I can never understand why she can get home from school and do the most amazing writing and drawings, but the minute you say it's homework it all goes wrong. So I had to hide in the kitchen and let her get on with it, as standing behind her shouting instructions and holding my head wasn't going down too well...I am a control freak!
So my thoughts turned to tea.
Tonight's choice is just to show that I am not cooking fresh, local produce day in day out, I can resort to packs and precooks at the drop of a hat.
When doing the shopping with Ocado this week, I stumbled across an offer for 2 Laverstocke Park Farm products for a fiver. I decided to try a pack of Buffalo Burgers and some Buffalo Kofta's (tomorrow!).
The burgers boast they are free of gluten and all things artificial, their packet boast a lot of awards but they are still 15% fat, I was expecting lower like ostrich or venison.
As I knew time would be tight I picked up some crinkle cut oven chips from M&S and we had a pre-prepared pack of cauliflower and broccoli in the fridge.
Not the most cordon bleu of teas, to be honest it was all a bit too hard to swallow, the burgers had a meaty, slightly sweet taste but they were dry and dense. The M&S chips were a bit cardboardy, not a patch on their thick cut ones that you can sometimes get on the £10 dinner. Somehow, in between Skyping with my mum and dad, unloading the dishwasher and homework supervision, I managed to round up all the offending gooseberries and make the following
Gooseberry Crumble
Heat oven to GM4 (180C, 350F).
Wash the gooseberries and top and tail them, pop them in a saucepan and simmer them with a good helping of sugar (depends how sweet the gooseberries are and your personal taste, use sweetener if you need to). When they have softened a little take them off the heat and spoon them without too much of the juice into an oven proof casserole, or round earthenware bowl.
Then make the crumble, you can either do it in a food processor or the good rubbing in method, using your fingertips to rub the butter into the flour until you have a mix that resembles breadcrumbs. The rule for crumbles is half fat to flour and then some sugar. I used 6oz flour, 3 oz butter and 3 oz sugar (caster, granulated, white, brown...you can use sweetener but sometimes it goes into funny little lumps). You can also add in nuts, ginger, oats or raisins to make it crunchy or chewy or just extra tasty. I just sprinkled the top half way through cooking with soft dark brown sugar.
Bake for at least 40 minutes, but until the top goes brown and the fruit juices start to caramelise around the edges.
Serve with custard, ice cream or cream or steaming hot and naked (the crumble not you!) like I did tonight....
End of month is always a very busy time, so got my head down til home time and willingly took the said pot of gooseberries home to make Lauren a gooseberry crumble. Once in the car they developed a life of their own,I have gooseberries rolling round the car, in my handbag and there was even one in my shopping bag when I got in..I bought shopping and bag in the supermarket so said gooseberry must have followed me round the shop waiting for it's chance.
It was homework night tonight, Lauren had to get started on her term project, earlier this week we attempted to make a paper maché seagull, but it's head went down spelling disaster for that particular project. She's now decided to make a seaside poster and pamphlet. I can never understand why she can get home from school and do the most amazing writing and drawings, but the minute you say it's homework it all goes wrong. So I had to hide in the kitchen and let her get on with it, as standing behind her shouting instructions and holding my head wasn't going down too well...I am a control freak!
So my thoughts turned to tea.
Tonight's choice is just to show that I am not cooking fresh, local produce day in day out, I can resort to packs and precooks at the drop of a hat.
When doing the shopping with Ocado this week, I stumbled across an offer for 2 Laverstocke Park Farm products for a fiver. I decided to try a pack of Buffalo Burgers and some Buffalo Kofta's (tomorrow!).
The burgers boast they are free of gluten and all things artificial, their packet boast a lot of awards but they are still 15% fat, I was expecting lower like ostrich or venison.
As I knew time would be tight I picked up some crinkle cut oven chips from M&S and we had a pre-prepared pack of cauliflower and broccoli in the fridge.
Not the most cordon bleu of teas, to be honest it was all a bit too hard to swallow, the burgers had a meaty, slightly sweet taste but they were dry and dense. The M&S chips were a bit cardboardy, not a patch on their thick cut ones that you can sometimes get on the £10 dinner. Somehow, in between Skyping with my mum and dad, unloading the dishwasher and homework supervision, I managed to round up all the offending gooseberries and make the following
Gooseberry Crumble
Heat oven to GM4 (180C, 350F).
Wash the gooseberries and top and tail them, pop them in a saucepan and simmer them with a good helping of sugar (depends how sweet the gooseberries are and your personal taste, use sweetener if you need to). When they have softened a little take them off the heat and spoon them without too much of the juice into an oven proof casserole, or round earthenware bowl.
Then make the crumble, you can either do it in a food processor or the good rubbing in method, using your fingertips to rub the butter into the flour until you have a mix that resembles breadcrumbs. The rule for crumbles is half fat to flour and then some sugar. I used 6oz flour, 3 oz butter and 3 oz sugar (caster, granulated, white, brown...you can use sweetener but sometimes it goes into funny little lumps). You can also add in nuts, ginger, oats or raisins to make it crunchy or chewy or just extra tasty. I just sprinkled the top half way through cooking with soft dark brown sugar.
Bake for at least 40 minutes, but until the top goes brown and the fruit juices start to caramelise around the edges.
Serve with custard, ice cream or cream or steaming hot and naked (the crumble not you!) like I did tonight....
Comments
Post a Comment
Please leave a message, would love to hear your feedback and opinions