Friday Pie-Day: An Ode to Pie 2010

It's the end of 2010, it's a Friday, so what does that mean?

An Ode to Pie 2010 is called for, that's what!

Chilli con carne was twisted to offer a new pie...


This yummy Strawberry Choc Tart was easier on the eye...


Coconut oat pastry was created...


A Not-So Bakewell Tart left me deflated...

(But I'm still glad I gave it a try!)

A spag bol pie was born to fuel a long run...


These tarts laced with Bailey's made for some Christmas fun...


Mango Tarts were not easy...


Peanut Krispie Pies were more breezy...

Now I wish a Hap-pie New Year to everyone!

Pie out.

Read my other Friday Pie-Day adventures. Continue reading this post..

Justified Hungry-ness - or Just Plain Greedy?

When I eat out, I try to order something different, particularly if I'm in a restaurant I've been to before. The only exception to this rule I can think of is when I go to Zizzi's, where I could quite happily devour their delicious apple crumble (or 'Mela Croccante') for all three courses if I could.

Mm, look at that beaut.

You might have read in the past that I'm not the biggest fan of Italian chains like Zizzi's anymore. But when I found myself there the other week, I thought I might as well order it again! Now, it has probably been a good year since I've been there, but what arrived SHOCKED me...

That's right, a distinctly smaller version. (And more expensive too!) The one thing you can rely on a chain restaurant for is that you know what their portion sizes are going to be like. But not any more it seems! Perhaps they are trying to be more economical and less wasteful with their ingredients which is fair enough. But am I just being greedy, or am I justified in feeling slightly cheated (and left Hungry still) with this? Continue reading this post..

Cheesy Anise Chicken

Every now and again, there's a need for you to eat down your fridge, freezer or cupboard food. A few years back, in one of my student digs, I remember me and my other remaining housemate vowing to eat our way through the freezer, a couple of nights before we were due to move out - I'm not sure how much we managed to be honest, but I remember eating sausages, Microchips, waffles, and lots and lots of peas.

In this case, I was getting ready to head back to my parent's for Christmas, and had to use up all the food in the fridge, which resulted in this Cheesy Anise Chicken:

Yeh, it does look a bit odd, but it doesn't sound too random, does it?

Luckily, the ingredients I had to work with were not too alien to be meshed together - chicken, sweetcorn, chopped tomatoes, onion, mushrooms and er, some cheese. I remembered a yummy tomato chicken dish that my sister made a while back with my mum's not-so-secret-now ingredient star anise, and decided to add that into the mix. I was dilly-dallying over the cheese a bit, as it's not something I'd normally add to a rice dish, but after stirring a bit in, and tasting it, I thought, ah, to hell with it, and chucked the rest on top.

And it worked! (Seriously!)

Cheesy Anise Chicken

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For 2:

200g chicken thighs, deboned and chopped
2 tsp star anise, ground
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp honey
200g can of chopped tomatoes
100g sweetcorn
100g plum tomatoes, halved
100g mushrooms, sliced
2 tbsp red onion, chopped
100g grated cheese
A little veggie oil

1) Mix the soy sauce, honey and 1 tsp of the anise with the chicken in a bowl. Set aside for 15 minutes.
2) When ready, heat the oil in a pan and fry the onion and chicken to brown.
3) Add all of the vegetables, plus the remaining tsp of anise, tossing well to get everything piping hot.
4) Take off the heat and stir in the cheese. Serve with steamed rice with some extra grated cheese on top if desired.

More chicken recipes! Continue reading this post..

Friday Pie-Day: Turkey Stuffing Puffs

To make up for my unstuffed stuffing pie mishap last week, I decided to try a turkey stuffing filling again, but this time in puffed-up tree form:

And it worked! (Kinda)

I'm not the best at estimating the amount of filling to make for individual pastries and the like - I usually end up with way too much filling and not enough pastry! As you can see, I ended up with two different versions, but the recipe below is for the bigger trees with some homemade cranberry sauce as 'tinsel' - they are more fiddly to make, but look alot prettier and more Christmassy!

But a word of warning - as with a few of my recipes, I tend to work out the correct quantities of ingredients as I go, because I sort of make it up as I go along. So below is a guesstimate to create 24 tinsel trees - in other words, please don't be angry at me if the pastry to filling ratio is not quite right! BUT, I do have a back up suggestion in the event of you ending up with scraps of pastry and/or filling to use up - just make the open top trees like I did which just contain the filling on top (or any other festive cutters you might have) - see, you can totally just make this up yourself!

Turkey Stuffing Puffs

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Makes 24 trees (using 4" cutter):

300g lean turkey mince
100g fresh cranberries
Juice and zest of 1 orange
1 tbsp honey
2 tbsp red onion, chopped
1 tbsp breadcrumbs
1 tsp sage
375g puff pastry
1 beaten egg
A little veggie oil

1) Gently heat the orange juice, zest and honey in a pan. Add the cranberries, stirring until they start to pop and break.
2) Take off the heat and leave to cool completely if possible, to allow it to thicken.
3) Fry the onion in a little oil, followed by the mince to brown. Stir in the sage, breadcrumbs and most of the cranberry sauce (reserve 2 tbsp). Set aside to cool.
4) Cut the pastry in half and set one aside. Roll out one half to about 1/4" thickness. Stamp out 12 tree shapes. Spoon on the stuffing onto the centre of each tree. Brush the edges with a little beaten egg.
5) Roll out the remaining pastry to the same thickness and stamp out another 12 trees to place on top of each filled tree, pressing the edges together. You may want to roll them out a little bigger after stamping, to make it easier to bind.
6) Brush over the top of the trees with more beaten egg and prick the centre with a fork.
7) Use or a spoon or clean fingers to add the remaining cranberry sauce to decorate the top of each tree as 'tinsel'.
8) Bake at 200 degrees C for about 20 minutes until puffed!

Pie out.

Read my other Friday Pie-Day adventures.

More turkey recipes! Continue reading this post..

Christmas Baking With Love

Argh, it's only 3 sleeps til Christmas! There's always at least one person on your list who proves troublesome to buy for.

The solution?

Get baking!

Here are some cute Chocolate Coconut Sandwich Hearts that are easy to bake, but should easily please. I mean, everyone loves chocolate, right? You can easily replace the coconut with ground almonds instead if the person you're making them for isn't a coconut fan :-)

Chocolate Coconut Sandwich Hearts

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Makes 12 'sandwich' hearts and 12 mini hearts:

225g soft butter
200g plain flour, sieved
100g dessicated coconut
100g dark chocolate
75g sugar

1) Mix the butter with the sugar in a large mixing bowl.
2) Add the flour and coconut, then use your heads to knead into a dough, adding a little water if needed.
3) Wrap and chill for half an hour.
4) Roll out the dough onto a floured surface and stamp out 24 large hearts (4" cutter). Use a smaller cutter to stamp out hearts from the middle of half the larger hearts.
5) Transfer to a baking tray and bake at 140 degrees C for about 30 minutes. They should still be a little soft when you take them out.
6) As you allow them to cool, gently melt the chocolate in a pan over a low heat.
7) Spread the chocolate onto the 12 large hearts, then press the 12 large holed hearts on top to create a sandwich!

Or if you need a nut-free recipe, you could try these Chocolate Shortbread Hearts instead!

See? Christmas baking...with love. You can't go wrong with that :-)

More Hungry Jenny CAKES and COOKIES recipes! Continue reading this post..

Mini Brioche Muffins

A while ago, Beth, one of my good friends, asked if I could make her bread and butter pudding one day, as it's one of her favourite desserts. It's a traditional English dish, and not something I've ever tasted before - my only memory of it is from school dinners, where I'd look at it warily and go for something else instead. The whole concept of bread soaked in milk and egg just seemed odd to me.

But when I was given Beth as my Secret Santa recently, I thought it'd be the perfect opportunity to finally make her wish come true! (Well, something like that)

Bread and butter pudding is not, as you can imagine, something you can easily wrap up (especially if you make the custard as well!), so I decide to veer off course to create something more worthy of a gift.

First off, I got some chocolate brioche because, well, white bread is just not special enough. I cubed it up and left it to dry out and harden overnight. Day-old/dried out bread is best to use, otherwise there will be too much moisture and it won't go nice and crispy when you bake it. And when you come to soak the bread in the milk also, the cubed pieces won't go all soggy and pathetic on you.

The final touch was to add cranberries, instead of raisins (which you normally get in bread and butter pudding) to add an extra bit of Christmas cheer!

Mini Brioche Muffins

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Makes 48 mini muffins or 24 cupcake size:

(I made 24 mini muffins and 12 cupcakes!)

450g chocolate brioche, cubed and dried
200ml milk
2 eggs
50g melted butter
25g sugar
100g dried cranberries
1 tsp vanilla essence
Pinch of cinnamon

1) Put the dry brioche cubes in a large mixing bowl. Add the milk and leave to sit for 10 minutes.
2) Beat the eggs with the remaining ingredients apart from the cranberries.
3) Stir the mixture into the brioche, then carefully mix in the cranberries.
4) Spoon into a lined mini muffin tray and bake at 200 degrees C for 15 minutes until brown.

If you wanted to make cupcake sized ones instead, bake at 180 degrees C for about 20 minutes until brown.

More Hungry Jenny cakes here. Continue reading this post..

Friday Pie Day Faux Pas: The Unstuffed Stuffing Pies

Stuffing? What stuffing?

Exactly. This was a Christmas party treat that didn't quite go to plan...!

The idea behind this was quite simple - turkey stuffing in mini pastry cases as a delicate party treat.

But the thing with baking miniature pies is that it is a very fiddly process and when you haven't quite planned everything out from the start, things can get a bit tedious.

The main issue I was having was making everything small enough. I should have used minced turkey really, instead of trying to chop up a turkey thigh, resulting in large chunks because I got bored of chopping. And because I don't own a food processor and wanted to use fresh breadcrumbs, I was just ripping up a slice of bread, and again, got bored during the process, leaving me with bread chunks rather than bread crumbs! Oh, and I forgot to add an egg to bind it altogether so what I was left with was not turkey stuffing at all, as you can see!

They still tasted ok but not quite the soft delicate treats I was hoping for.

But, as always, I always learn from my Hungry-Jenny-Faux-Pas incidents - I already have a cunning plan for next week's Friday Pie-Day to turn this pie-fail into something that I hope will be alot more successful - wish me luck!

Pie out.

Read my other Friday Pie-Day adventures.

Fancy a laugh at my other Hungry-Jenny-Faux-Pas? Continue reading this post..

Say NO to Takeaway: Sort Out Your Stir Fry Noodle Method Instead!

Now I'm a rice girl, more than a noodle nut, for one simple reason.

Noodles are tricky to get the knack of!

Don't let this put you off, as it's probably just my hap-hazard manner of cooking. But no matter what kind of noodle I use in a stir-fry, I always have the same problems:

1) Noodle breakage whilst stir-frying
2) Noodles sticking together, resulting in noodle clump
3) Noodles refusing to mix with other ingredients, resulting in more noodle clumpage

I decided to face up to my noodle issues once and for all. And it proves what a faff I am in the kitchen sometimes because as it turns out, these 3 problems are quite easily overcome.

Tip 1: Only used cooled cooked noodles. Adding hot soggy noodles to the wok just makes those poor souls weaker.

Tip 2: Before adding noodles to a stir fry, toss them in some sesame oil (or normal veggie oil) whilst they're cooling. This will stop them from sticking later on.

Tip 3: If you have a long handled, round-bottomed wok and decent spatula, you might be able to master the art of tossing the ingredients as you stir-fry. But, if, like me, you don't, try using chopsticks instead - the sure-fire way to make sure your noodles entwine themselves lovingly with the rest of the ingredients.

Erm yeh, so the photo above doesn't quite show the love, but I took the liberty of separating the ingredients from the noodles to try and make for a prettier picture to show what was in it...! Not sure this was achieved, but it was super tasty all the same.

Aubergine Chow Mein

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For 2:

2 'blocks' of dried egg noodles (about 120g) + 1 tbsp sesame oil
100g aubergine, chopped into matchsticks
2 small carrots, chopped into matchsticks and parboiled if desired
50g mange tout
2 small spring onions, chopped
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp honey
1 tsp grated ginger
1 tsp grated garlic
Some fresh coriander and sesame seeds to garnish
Some veggie oil

1) Gently boil the noodles for 5-10 minutes (or according to packet instructions) until cooked. Drain, toss well with 2 tsp sesame oil and leave to cool.
2) Mix the tsp of sesame oil with the balsamic vinegar, honey, ginger and garlic in a bowl and set aside.
3) Add a bit of veggie oil to a hot wok. Throw in the carrots, frying for a few minutes, followed by the aubergine, mange tout and spring onion.
4) Pour in the sesame mix, and stir fry for another minute, coating the ingredients well.
5) Add your cooled noodles, frying for a few more minutes.
6) Take off the heat, stir in the coriander, then dish up with sesame seeds sprinkled over.

If you liked this, you might want to try making these other takeaway alternatives too. Continue reading this post..

Friday Pie-Day: Bailey's Chocolate Swirl Tart

Here is a great dinner party pie to dish up to impress your guests after a meal, a rather luxurious Bailey's Chocolate Swirl Tart...

Also a fab alternative to heavy Christmas pudding too! The best thing about making it - aside from tasting it as you go and er, taking a gently swig from the Bailey's bottle every now and again - is that you can make this the day before you need it. So, worry not about making it on the day and having the risk of it going wrong. And leaving it to set overnight allows the Bailey's goodness to sink in even more. Lush.

You should be able to adapt this quite easily, according to how many people you are serving. In this case, I made it in a rectangular tin, which cuts into 15 squares. I actually then cut those in half to make iddy finger portions, which makes them easier to just pick up and eat.

If, on the other hand, you want to dish up proper pie-type slices, this recipe could probably be done in a round 10" tin, thus giving you about 8 slices. Note the emphasis on 'probably', as it's a rough guess! You might end up with slightly thicker pastry, for instance, to line the tin.

When I tried my first 'test' piece (in other words, I eat a small piece of whatever I have baked to see if it will give me a stomach ache!), I wondered if the Bailey's was perhaps a little too over-powering. Another couple of test pieces later and I changed my mind right back - there's no such thing as too much Bailey's!

Bailey's Chocolate Swirl Tart

Print-friendly recipe

For a 12 x 8" baking tin (15 squares):

3 tbsp Bailey's
600g cream cheese
300ml double cream, whipped
100g dark chocolate + extra shavings to decorate.
75g icing sugar
1 banana, chopped into 15 slices.

250g plain flour, sifted
100g cold butter, diced
2 tsp sugar
Some ice cold water
OR
375g sweet shortcrust pastry

If you're using premade pastry, go straight to step 3.

1) Mix the flour and sugar into a large mixing bowl. Rub in the butter to a breadcrumb mixture.
2) Gradually add a tablespoon of water to knead the mixture into a dough.Wrap and chill for 30 minutes.
3) Roll out the pastry into a large rectangle to line the bottom of your tin, including the sides. Prick and freeze until hard (about half an hour).
4) Bake at 180 degrees C for 15 minutes until just brown.
5) Meanwhile, whisk the cream cheese with the sugar and Bailey's in a large bowl. Fold in the whipped cream.
6) Gently melt the chocolate and swirl into the mixture. Take care not to overdo it, so that you can retain the swirls.
7) Pour the mixture over the pastry, and arrange the banana slices evenly on top. Scatter over extra chocolate shavings and chill for at least 4 hours.
8) Remove from the fridge about half an hour before cutting into 15 squares.

Pie out.

If you liked this, you might enjoy my Bailey's cakegasm too!

Read my other Friday Pie-Day adventures. Continue reading this post..

Doing the Congee Dance for the Winter

The arrival of snow recently led the UK to a bit of a standstill. Shivering souls stranded on railway platforms; crazy helmet-free cyclists (I wasn't one of them, mum) swaggering dangerously down the black iced roads; frustrated cars crawling at a snail's pace as gritters decide to come out at peak times of travel; and then there was me, shuffling through the snow, tripping up every now and again when kicking a kerb instead of what I thought was a pile of snow.

It's probably safe to say that winter has arrived, and if you can't prepare for the snow like the travel networks here, there's only one thing left you can do to prepare for the cold.

Doing the Congee Dance!


The Congee - heartwarming rice porridge ('jook') with Asian flavourings.
The Dance - well, this bit is optional really, as you may not be so inclined to dance around the kitchen whilst you wait for this to cook.

Yes, congee takes a while to make - as you basically need to boil the rice in loads of water for hours! It's really worth the wait though, as it's quite simply the Mother of All Comfort Foods. Comforting when you're cold, sick,

If you can, you should leave the rice to soak in the water overnight. This will save you some boiling time (and also some electric/gas too!) and it will also help you get that soft consistency.

Now, the water to rice ratio for congee depends on your own personal taste (and the size of your pan). I like my congee quite thick so the ratio of water to rice for me is only (!) 8:1, so about 2 litres of water for 200g rice. This makes about 4 bowls (though I ate this myself in the space of two days!)

If you want it to be a bit thinner, just add an extra 500ml and see how you get on.

The version I have done here is quite a basic congee - just white fish, a bit of ginger, soy sauce, sesame oil and fresh coriander. Pork ribs in congee is also a favourite of mine, the meat just slides off the bone, mm!

Fish and Ginger Congee

Print-friendly recipe

For 4 small bowls:

200g rice, uncooked, washed rice
2 litres water
200g white fish, chopped
2 small spring onions, chopped
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
2 tsp grated ginger
Handful of coriander, roughly torn

Some salt and pepper

1) Gently bring the rice to the boil (using the same water that you've soaked it in).
2) Turn down the rice, mix in the soy sauce, sesame oil and ginger, and leave to simmer for 1-1.5 hours until it thickens, strring occasionally. Season to taste.
3) Meanwhile poach the fish in slightly salted water.
4) In the last 10 minutes, mix in the fish and spring onion into the rice.
5) Stir in some fresh coriander to serve.

Continue reading this post..

Hungry Jenny Faux Pas: The Shortbread Stars That Didn't Quite Make It

Oh, bless them, they did try.

The good thing is, they look pretty and they taste nice enough. So, perfectly edible.

The bad thing is, I can't really put a recipe together for it!

I'm always aware of how much butter and sugar is thrown about in general baking, as you might be aware of from my numerous attempts at butter-free and sugar-free cakes.

But I haven't really experimented enough with cookie/biscuit types to make sure the texture comes out right with subtituting the butter and sugar. So I decided to just reduce the sugar and hope for the best...

Well, these Shortbread Stars did still tasted light and crumbly, just like shortbread should, but were a bit too on the crunchy side. I think I rolled the pastry out too thin - I forgot that they would spread and flatten out whilst baking - as some came out rather crisp! They were also left in a little too long in the oven because I er, didn't hear the timer go off. And I had trouble bringing the dough together in the first place and ended up overkneading, which is a Cardinal Sin I know. *sigh*

Perhaps shortbread is just one of those things that won't accept any substitutions or tampering of any nature. No Hungry Jenny freestyling here then.

Fancy a laugh at my other Hungry-Jenny-Faux-Pas? Continue reading this post..

Friday Pie-Day: Teriyaki Turkey Pie with Sesame Mash

Today was a case of turning one of my favourite dinner dishes into pie-form.

I absolutely love the flavour of teriyaki sauce - and it's so easy to whip up yourself - I always make sure I have sake in the cupboard to pull out for my teriyaki cravings such as this Friday's Pie Day.

I wasn't really in a pastry mood but wanted to do something different for such a special flavoured pie. So I carried on the Asian theme and mixed in some sesame oil in with mashed potato and a scattering of sesame seeds on top. The perfect hat for a teriyaki pie!

Teriyaki Turkey Pie with Sesame Mash

Print-friendly recipe

For an 8" pie dish (serves 3-4):

200g turkey thigh, diced
150g aubergine, diced
75g mushrooms, chopped
50g courgettes, diced
2 spring onions, chopped
4 tbsp sake
4 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp mirin
1 tbsp honey
1 tsp grated ginger

700g potato, chopped
2 tbsp milk
1-2 tbsp sesame seeds
1 tbsp sesame oil

1) Mix the sake, soy sauce, mirin, honey and ginger in a bowl. Add the diced turkey and leave to marinate for at least 15 minutes.
2) Meanwhile, bring the diced potato to boil in lightly salted water. Simmer for about 15 minutes until just cooked, then drain and keep warm.
3) Fry the turkey to brown in a pan, reserving half the marinade for later.
4) Add the vegetables, tossing well. Pour in the reserved marinade, simmering for a few more minutes. Take off the heat and tip into your pie dish.
5) Mix the milk and sesame oil into the pan of potato and mash well.
6) Spoon the mash atop your pie filling, and scatter over the sesame seeds.
7) Bake at 190 degrees C for about 25 minutes until the potato looks nice and crispy.

Pie out.

Read my other Friday Pie-Day adventures. Continue reading this post..

Hungry Jenny Faux Pas: Not-quite-like-my-mum's Chicken and Sweetcorn Soup

No matter how much of a novice or expert you are in the kitchen, nothing ever beats your mum's cooking, does it?

I grew up in a household that was not afraid to dish out large quantities of all kinds of foods (majority Chinese dishes naturally), which I proudly claim to be the source of my ever-greedy Hungry-ness.

Last night, amidst the standstill that the UK has come to due to the snow, I thought I'd try making some heart-warming Chicken and Sweetcorn Soup. The result is what you see above, the conclusion is to follow...

Using shop-bought chicken stock was probably a bad idea to begin with, because it always tastes a bit scummy as a soup base I think. And despite constantly mixing in cornflour, it refused to thicken up. The whole egg-drop thing that you get from swirling in beaten egg at the end for those fantastic white wisps to lace the soup just wasn't happening either.

The funny thing is, my mum uses canned cream corn for her version - which should have been a big hint to me that chicken stock on its own just won't do. But it's not readily available in a supermarket near me so I thought this would be alright. It wasn't.

Ok, so it wasn't that bad, but with each spoonful, I was just wishing that I was at home, eating my mum's version instead! Never mind.

Fancy a laugh at my other Hungry-Jenny-Faux-Pas? Continue reading this post..