Tea and sympathy...

Actually, tea and shortbread, but I'm feeling a little bit sorry for myself.  I never really get ill, and if I get a cold I just get on with life and ignore it.  But this week I have been floored by Supercold! I've had no voice, streaming eyes and nose, headache, aching limbs, can't keep my eyes open...generally feeling absolutely dreadful.  It's now Thursday afternoon and I've been in my bed or on the sofa pretty much since Monday afternoon. Rubbish.

And the weather is awful, which makes me feel even worse. Mainly because I have no biscuits in the house and there's no way I'm going out to buy some!!  And let's face it, when you feel rotten and it's pouring rain outside, you NEED tea and biscuits!

So I had a rummage around the kitchen and came up with 1 slightly soft chocolate Digestive (whoo hoo!!), plus some flour, sugar and butter which screamed "MAKE US INTO SHORTBREAD!!!" at me.  Who am I to refuse the demands of 3 simple ingredients when they seem so desperate. (yes, I may have overdone the ibuprofen and lemsips today...)

I dug out my old Great Auntie Jean's book of Plain Cookery Recipes from The Edinburgh School of Cookery and Domestic Economy.  I don't think Auntie Jean actually attended the school, she probably bought or was given the book:

I love reading old books like this! There were also a few recipes cut out of 1950s newspapers tucked in the back for various sweets, jams and marmalades - lovely!  However, their shortbread recipe called for rice flour which I didn't have today so I ended up using an old recipe I have scribbled down that uses 175g butter (at room temperature), 250g plain flour and 75g caster sugar.  I only had 170g butter in the fridge but I'm not much of a stickler for exact measures anyway so just bashed on.

Auntie Jean was the sister of my Gran Blair - Agnes Irvine Blair.  My son has the same middle name as her.  She always appreciated that I had an interest in our family history and in passing things down through generations so she gave me her old cook books amongst other things dear to her,  I still miss the chats we had in front of her old fireplace in Dundee :(

One of my fondest memories of my gran is making shortbread highlanders with her on rainy afternoons whilst the boys were at the football.  So in her memory, that's what I made today.  If you come round for a cuppa and I offer you one, don't worry, I DID wash my germ ridden hands first!

It's such an easy recipe.  Heat the oven to about gas mark 3 or equivalent, so a fairly cool bake. I cream the butter and sugar together then sift in the flour.  Then just get your hands in and combine it all. Use a little drop of milk or water if it's a little bit dry.  I also added a teaspoon of vanilla extract.  Roll the mix into a long sausage about 2" in diameter.  Then put some demerara sugar into a baking tray and coat the whole roll in the sugar, making sure it's pressed in and that the ends are covered too. Pop it into the fridge for about 30-40 mins til it firms up.  Cut it into 1/2" thick rounds, place on a baking sheet and bake for about 15 minutes, or 5 mins longer if you like them darker.  Cool on a wire rack then get the kettle on and make a cuppa!

Even with a runny nose and achey body, who wouldn't feel just a little bit better after a cup of tea and a crisp, buttery shorty highlander?! Thanks to my Gran Blair for the memories xxxxx

A cheeky little tart

Who doesn't love a tart!? Or a pie? There's something lovely and comforting about crisp, warm, buttery pastry and you can fill it with all of your favourite things. Scrumptious!

A while back I decided that I had avoided making pastry for far too long.  I have a nice easy to use silicon tart case and I was determined to overcome my fear of pastry making and put it to use.  Pastry is one of those things that lots of people assume is going to be very tricky and time consuming, so they don't bother doing it. I was one of those people!  However, after trawling the interweb for a while one weekend, I realised that it probably isn't as challenging as I first thought.

I quite fancied making a mainly vegetable based tart and came across this blog post: http://food52.com/recipes/10062_potato_tart_with_gruyere_bacon_and_rosemary#

The recipe uses a butter pastry and I would definitely use it again, it was beautiful.  The key is to keep everything very cold.  I used my shiny new food processor that my brother and his wife bought me for Christmas and this made it super easy.  I weighed out the butter I needed about half an hour before I planned to make the pastry.  I chopped it up into little cubes, put it in a dish, and put it back into the fridge to re-chill it.  I also put a glass of iced water in the fridge so the water I was using would be really cold too.  When I came to make the pastry, I added the flour, sugar and salt into the food processor and gave it a quick whizz.  Then i added the chilled cubes of butter and pulsed the processor blades until the mixture formed crumbs.  I then added the chilled water and blitzed til the pastry mix started to come together in a ball.  Once it's in a ball, wrap it in cling film and chill for about an hour before rolling it out.  Don't work the pastry too much, just roll it then use it and you will get a lovely buttery, short pastry.

Now, the filling.  Honestly, what is not to love about potato, cheese and bacon encased in butter pastry??? Heaven!?  But I thought potato and pastry might be a bit carb heavy together for my personal taste, so although I used the pastry recipe, I tweaked the filling a little.  I opted for sliced sweet potato (counts towards your 5 a day, unlike starchy white potatoes), sliced leeks fried in a little butter with some chopped chives, fried off pancetta lardons, and a mixture of mature Scottish cheddar and Gruyere cheeses.

I lined the tart case with the rolled out pastry and layered all the filling ingredients inside, with a bit of black pepper.  It was a bit hit and miss knowing how long to cook it for.  The recipe called for 45 mins at gas mark 5.  I ended up with it in for just over an hour.  I got a bit impatient waiting for the sweet potatoes to become tender so I ended up drizzling a little olive oil over the top towards the end, hoping it might increase the temperature in the filling a little.  However, this resulted in the tart having a bit of a soggy bottom.    I plan to make it again but will try either roasting the sweet potato slices for a while before layering them in the tart, or possibly par-cooking the sweet potatoes as well as blind baking the tart case first.

Soggy bottom or not, the end result was lovely and the sides of the tart were beautifully crisp and buttery:

Yes, as usual our bellies needed to be filled so badly that I forgot to take a photo of the entire tart before we devoured it!!  But at least this way you can see the layers, and my soggy bottom ;)

So, go on, give pastry a go - and let me know how you get on!!