Stovies

Thanks to everyone who contributed to Saturday's post on Friends. It's good to know we're not alone in our thoughts and is something I'll be coming back to very soon.

Yesterday was a chilly day that called for proper comfort food.  I made a roast beef dinner with all the trimmings on Saturday night for OH and The Teenogre.  I had some beef and roast veggies leftover so added a few raw potato cubes and made Stovies.  Essentially it's a leftovers dish (traditionally made with the leftover meat and gravy from a Sunday dinner) so it's a cheap filling dish. But there are loads of different ways to make it.  And all of them are traditional! 😆 My version is to put chopped up cooked beef, gravy, carrots, onions, potatoes in a big pan (wok!) and simmer together until the potatoes start to break up. Some people use sausages or corned beef. Some people make it in a casserole dish and put it the oven.  It gets a crust on top.  Do you have a version and what do you call it?

On impulse I bought this GF cake mix.  It was amazing!! I filled one sandwich cake tin and 5 muffin cases with the mixture.  You can just see some muffins in the photo above.  We had the cake (no icing) with Alpro custard.  Definitely recommend it for a treat!

Banana Bread

 

The problem with a lot of GF cakes is that they can be a bit dry.  This banana loaf is so moist thanks to the ground almonds.  I can't get the link to the website to work so apologies for not giving credit to the original post.  If you're not dairy and gluten free just use your normal flour and milk.

 

Gluten Free Banana Bread

 

1 and 1/4 cups ground almonds

1 and 1/4 cups oats

1 and 1/4 cup GF flour (I use Doves Farm)

3 and 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1/2 tsp mixed spice (original recipe said cinnamon but I was out)

3/4 tsp sea salt

 

3 ripe bananas, mashed

 

3 tbsp coconut oil, melted

1 egg, beaten

2 tbsp honey

3/4 cup of almond milk

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

 

Mix all the dry ingredients in a large bowl.

Add the bananas then the wet ingredients.

Stir until completely combined.

Bake in a lined loaf tin for 1 hour (or a bit longer depending on your oven) at Gas 5.

 

 

Going into the oven

 

 

And here's what the original recipe photo looked like.  I forgot to photograph mine but it looked the same!  Very delicious and moist.

 

Work on my chicken enclosure is progressing.  Rain stopped play yesterday but we're about halfway there :-)

 

PS. I'm about halfway through Marie Kondo's The Magic of Tidying book.  A lot of things are making sense now!! 

Must do better!

 

Looking back on last week I've realised that I must do better on the money front.  Our forward plans were due in on Friday so every night I was late home from school as I was working on my plans with my stage partner.  Tiredness plus lack of planning always leads to bad food choices and I must confess to one extra late night phoning for pizza despite having food in the fridge that I then threw out yesterday as it had gone off.  And to add insult to injury I dropped a piece of my GF pizza down my only good work skirt.  Despite a quick reaction on my part I haven't been able to remove the big grease stain :-(  So £20 for pizza, good food going to waste and the loss of a good work skirt is just not good enough. 

 

So, with my frugal head well and truly back on, I did a quick pop into Lidl and scored some GF cereal and pasta.  The flakes cost £1.49.  According to mysupermarket.com they can be up £3.52 elsewhere.  The spaghetti was £1.29

A late Sainsbury's visit to the autobank on Thursday night (see told you I was disorganised last week!!) resulted in these lovely bargains.  3 punnets of plums, a bag of lemons and a dozen larger Scottish free range eggs.  We ate a few plums and the rest are now in the freezer for later use.

 

I made a few quiches with the eggs for the Teenager.  He's now on study leave so these have been sliced and frozen for him to have for lunch.

 

Last night I whipped up a quick GF and dairy free chocolate cake.  Last time I made it I thought it was too big so instead of sandwiching the 2 layers together I sliced and froze one of them.  I'll report back on how well it survives.  I also substituted coconut milk for the soya milk as I didn't have any.  It worked out just as well!

 

I'm hoping that work will be less frantic now that all our planning is complete.  It would be nice to come from work at a sensible time and be able to spend some time on my hobbies.  I have lots of fabric (somewhere in the depths of a cupboard!!) so maybe I could make myself a new skirt for work.

 

I'm also spending some time on meal planning today so hopefully a week of better eating and not wasting food or money!!

Hooray!!

Hooray!! I can post photos again :-)  Here's that chocolate cake recipe.  Measurements are in American cup sizes.  I use the Lakeland ones.  I have all these ingredients as part of my store cupboard staples.

Cake:
3 cups of Doves Farm self raising gluten free flour
1¾ cups of sugar
6 Tablespoons of Bournville cocoa powder
2 teaspoons of gluten free baking powder
1 teaspoon of salt
2 cups of Alpro vanilla soya milk
½ cup of vegetable oil
2 Tablespoons of apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Frosting:

½ cup of Pure sunflower spread

2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

½ cup of Bournville cocoa powder

3 cups of icing sugar

½ cup of Alpro cream

 

Instructions

Preheat oven to Gas 5 or equivalent.

Spray two 9" cake pans with cooking spray and set aside.

 

In a large bowl, combine dry ingredients - flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt - and blend.

In a medium size bowl, combine non-dairy milk, oil, vanilla, and vinegar.

Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients.

Stir until smooth, scraping bottom and sides of the bowl. Pour into greased cake pans and place in oven

Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean after inserted into the centre.

Remove from oven and let cool for five minutes then move to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.

 

While the cakes are cooling make frosting.

 

Beat butter until light and fluffy.

Add vanilla, cocoa powder, and icing sugar.

Add Alpro cream slowly while mixing until it's gone.

If you feel the frosting is too thick, add more cream 1 tablespoon at time.

If too runny, add more icing sugar 1 Tablespoon at a time.

Ice cakes after they are completely cooled.

 

I ran out of icing sugar so used a dairy free chocolate spread in the middle.  Next time I'll try freezing one half of the cake before icing as it made a really big cake.

 

Happy Valentine's Day

I haven't made a card for ages but dug out my supplies to make one for my OH.  I really do have a lot of craft stuff!!! I spent a happy hour sorting through boxes of inks, stamps and toppers.  No cost as I had everything. Hope he likes it. With a little bit of work I could save a lot of money by making cards again.  They seem to have shot up in price.  I saw a card of similar size in the shop selling for £3.99!!

I also baked him a cake.  He has a very sweet tooth!  It's a lemon drizzle cake baked in 2 wee heart shaped tins. I used my bargain eggs and lemons ;-)  I sandwiched it together with my home made apricot jam and drizzled the lemony syrup over it.  I also made some heart shaped cupcakes from the mixture for my other sweet toothed guy.

I saw an idea where you put a marble in the tin to create a kinda heart shape.  I used some baking beans.  They came out ok ish.  The hungry Teen won't mind what they look like!!