Journal of Mistress Kat

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This Easter I have indulged in cooking and baking, which I find really relaxing when I have time for it. It’s been nice to do proper food instead throwing something together from jar/freezer as I often do.

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Easter Dinner of Roast Lamb - Roast lamb at Easter has been a regular feature since I first tried it two years ago in the jubilant post-Viva haze of ‘I can do anything!’ So I hemmed and hawed but got a leg of lamb this year too. As usual, I looked for some inspiration from various recipes and then improvised.

( 'Recipe' and photo )


Ex-tempore Easter Roulade - Lol, I really fancied a roulade (roly-poly, Swill roll, whatever you call it) so I decided to do a small one. The base recipe is Grandma’s trusted ‘equal measure of everything’ one, which basically requires you to measure the volume of your eggs (I used two) and then add equal amount of sugar and plain flour to get a basic sponge mix. Easy peasy. Problem is I don’t have a large shallow square tin that I would really need for the base (seriously, I cannot find one for love nor money in England, I’m talking one the width of an oven here) so I had to use a smaller one. Which meant that base was a little too thick to roll properly, which meant it cracked. So, the results weren’t particularly pretty but I covered it with melted chocolates (from like an old Christmas selection box, what?) and sprinkles. Oh and the filling is a mixture of crème fraiche and cloudberry jam but it’s a roulade, you can fill it with whatever you want really. Not the most attractive dessert but very tasty :D

( Photo )


Filo Tart with Seasonal Vegetables and Feta - This was the cover recipe from this month’s GoodFood magazine (see here). I’ve copied the recipe for you below, although for I halved it and made it in a smaller round tart dish as I don’t have a big square one. The recipe calls for the rind of two lemons so I only used one but even that turned a bit too lemony and reminiscent of something sweet rather than savoury so next time I would just skip lemon and add herbs or something. By the time I thought to take a photo it was all gone, eaten with mixed green leaves drizzled with balsamic vinegar. Nom nom.

( Recipe )


Green Chicken Curry Soup - This was a recipe from the latest Good Housekeeping Spring Cookbook and again I’ve copied for you below. And again I improvised slightly. I doubled the amount of chilli and I’m glad I did because the soup still turned out relatively mild though with a good warmth and depth of flavour. If you like yours properly spicy, I’d say put in at least 3 medium sized chillis. I also used tinned sweetcorn, Very Lazy garlic and Very Lazy ginger and results were fine, although be generous with non-fresh ingredients to get more kick out of them. The soup itself was really nice and colourful, drizzled with some soy sauce and fresh coriander, see photo (featuring home-baked bread!). Will likely make the recipe again.

( Recipe and photo )


Parsnip Bread Rolls - I needed a fifth recipe for the post (because exact numbers are important) but can’t provide one for the bread I made this Easter because I didn’t use a recipe or measure anything except the liquid, then just added other stuff on the feel. However, nice as the outcome was, I know that kind of approach to baking is of little use to anyone else. So instead you can have a recipe for parsnip bread rolls I made the previous weekend. This is from a Finnish magazine (Kodin Kuvalehti) that mum sent me, translated for you below. I’ve used mashed potatoes and carrots (and grated raw carrots) in bread rolls before but hadn’t thought of to try parsnip. However, I had some going spare which is why the recipe caught my eye. The results were very nice and would happily do these rolls again. I boiled and pureed more parsnips than needed, and the rest made a rather pleasant base for a vegetable soup :D Nothing wasted!

( Recipe )

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