Come and join me on Facebook!

I'd love for you to come and see me over on Facebook. Search for my email address asliceofcherrypie AT yahoo DOT co DOT uk and add me as a friend!

I hope you all have a lovely weekend.


P.S. Sorry for the strange way I've written the email address, I've been told this helps to prevent 'spamming' engines from finding it. Anything to reduce spam is good in my book!

P.P.S. There's still time to enter 'In the Bag' this month and I'm extending the deadline by a couple of days so you have the weekend to get cooking!

Back down to Earth

I've found myself caught up in a spinning whirlwind of busyness over the last few months. Thankfully it seems to have put me down for a moment so I can catch my breath, and now I feel like Dorothy acclimatising herself to her new surroundings in Oz. Are we really nearing the end of October? Halloween’s coming up? And Bonfire Night? And then (whispers)…Christmas? Where has the time gone?

I hope autumn doesn’t go by too quickly as I’m really enjoying embracing it with my cooking, as you may have noticed! Tonight’s dinner was another celebration of the season using one of my favourite vegetables; the beautiful, deeply golden, nutty and sweet butternut squash.

I wanted the squash to be the centrepiece tonight rather than a side dish and I wanted an earthy dish so I used field mushrooms along with basmati and wild rice to stuff the squash after roasting it. Butternut squash seems even sweeter when you roast it so you really need something to balance it out. The seasoning and parmesan did a good job of that; be generous with both.

Stuffed Butternut Squash

Ingredients
2 butternut squash
2 shallots
2 large field mushrooms
60g basmati and wild rice
150ml vegetable stock
A couple of large handfuls of grated parmesan cheese

1. Cut the squash in half, scoop out seeds and fibres, then place them in a baking tray and drizzle them with olive oil. Season well and roast at 200c for 35-40 minutes.

2. While the squash is cooking, finely chop the shallots and sauté them in a saucepan for a couple of minutes in olive oil. Roughly dice the mushrooms and add them to the shallots. Fry for a few minutes more then add the rice and stir to coat it with the mixture. Add the stock, bring it to the boil, then put on a lid and simmer until the rice is cooked through (about 10 minutes).

3. Once the squash is roasted fill each half with the rice mixture then sprinkle over a good amount of parmesan cheese. Then pop them back in the oven for another 5 to 10 minutes.

Serves 2-4 depending on the size of the squash and how hungry you are!



P.S. How are you getting on with our 'In the Bag' challenge this month? I'm looking forward to seeing all your creations!

Sugar and Spice and All Things Nice…

…that’s what Sundays are made of.

I hope you've all had a lovely weekend. I'm feeling much better after some well needed rest and I've had a nice afternoon flicking through cook books and looking up recipes on the internet for an apple cake, which I fancied making with a few of the seasonal apples sitting in our fruit bowl. None of the recipes I found were quite what I wanted so I took a bit from this one, a bit from that one, played around with quantities, and this is what I came up with. I was pleased with the result, which was lovely and spicy, perfect for this time of year.

Apple and Spice Cake

Ingredients
2 eating apples
200g self-raising flour
125g butter
125g light muscovado sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon of mixed spice
Juice and zest of half a lemon

1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy
2. Beat the eggs together and beat them into the mixture bit by bit
3. Stir in the lemon juice and zest and the mixed spice
4. Fold in the flour. Don’t worry if the mixture seems stiff, the juice from the apples will loosen it up as it cooks.
5. Peel, core and dice the apples and fold them into the mixture
6. Line a small cake tin with grease proof paper and fill with the mixture.
7. Bake at 180c for 40-45 minutes.

The Long Week and The Quick Supper

Thank goodness it’s Friday tomorrow, I’m shattered. It’s been a hectic old week at work and I’ve got a cough, which is exhausting in itself. Still, it’s important to eat when you're busy, busy, and not 100%, even more so in fact. I must confess to a takeaway last night, not the best option but there you have it, and Rob’s been an angel and cooked a fair few times this week, despite coming home late. So tonight I thought I’d better do my bit. It was pretty effortless really, but it was a hot, home-cooked meal and actually rather nice. I’m sure that, and the wine (for medicinal purposes, you understand) will sort me out.

Pork Steaks with a Creamy White Wine and Mushroom Sauce



I started typing up a recipe for this but stopped as I’d feel rather hypocritical specifying amounts of ingredients when in reality I just sloshed in a bit of this and threw in a handful of that. So here is a guide.

Season your pork steaks (or chops) with salt and pepper and fry them in a little olive oil over a medium heat. As they start to cook throw in an onion, halved and sliced, and cook alongside the pork, stirring them round the pan every now and then to ensure they don’t burn. Turn the heat down a little if they start to cook too quickly.

When the pork is about halfway cooked add a handful or two of sliced mushrooms. When they are nicely cooked add a glass of white wine and turn the heat up to let it bubble. Then add about 200ml of double cream. Stir everything well and let it bubble and simmer until it thickens and the pork is cooked through.

If the pork cooks through before the sauce thickens, just remove it from the pan then re-add it afterwards to re-heat it.