"Key" Lime Pie and Limey, Peanutty, Sweet Potato Gratin

I was never a massive fan of key lime pie in the past, finding it a bit too sickly sweet on the whole. If I'm going to choose a citrus pie, I'll usually opt for lemon meringue. My North Caroline sister-in-law is different; she is a key lime pie fanatic, happily ordering it night after night when on vacation. So this past summer, when we went to visit her, I thought I should give key lime pie another chance. Costco provided us with a huge bag of limes, and I tried a recipe out of Joy of Cooking. The recipe worked, and what I really marvelled at was its simple list of ingredients, making this a relatively easy recipe to whip up on vacation when you are in a self-catering kitchen (or simply someone else's kitchen) where equipment and ingredients are scarce. It's even easier if you can buy a ready made crust (though it will taste better if you make your own, because then you get to use a more flavoursome oil to bind it than the vegetable oil the ready made crust uses).

So yes, you just make a basic crumb crust with bashed up digestives/graham crackers, depending on the country you are in, sugar, and butter and lazily pat it into the pie plate. I had a toddler on my hip, so my crumbs weren't that finely bashed, but it held up well enough. Aliens provided me with pie crust circles.

Then in bowl just put 4 egg yolks (leaving the perfect number of egg whites to make the macaroons on my imported bag of shredded coconut...or enough to make a meringue on top the pie if you prefer) and whisk them up with...

A regular sized can of condensed milk. Yes, anything with condensed milk is going to be good.

Plus the zest of four limes (or omit this if catering for zest-a-phobes like my SIL, or if you don't have a zester in the kitchen)

Then take your four limes sitting battered on the chopping board, one of which is covered in goop because you dropped it in the bowl earlier...

And juice them to add to the mix.

That's it. You just mix these all together...

Then pour into the crust and bake at a low temp for 16-20 minutes until it jiggles in the middle like jello. Cool it and stick it in the fridge to set further. How easy is that?! Just have some whipped cream on hand to serve it. But, limes, I am not done with you, no no no...

I used them in this baby too. I sliced a kilo of sweet potatoes thinly in the food processor and put them in a bowl with about a cup of cream, a wee bit of oil, a chopped chilli, some garlic, and some salt and pepper. Then I spread half in a roasting tray gratin dish.

Then I put the zest of a lime and a couple teaspoons of its juice along with some crunch peanut butter in globules on top of it.

Then on top went the rest of the sweet potatoes.

And then the cream that was left in the bowl.

Then I baked it up to make a peanutty, sweet potato gratin. Not bad, and it reheats really well too.

So bag yourself a sack of limes today and whip these up. Or just pin this and go order a pizza. Whichever works for you. I wonder if Domino's still does a Wednesday special in Northfield...

Chocolate Guinness Cake

Today we honour St Patrick for ridding Ireland of snakes, making everyone wear green, and for introducing us to chocolate Guinness cake.

Well, none of that may be true, but I feel like I need an excuse to make this cake, and what better reason than St Patrick's Day. It's really not celebrated much here in Scotland compared to the American towns of my youth, though pubs certainly like to advertise specials on Irish beers when this holiday hits the calendar. I feel this is one of those cakes that really does taste as good as it looks. It is rich and damp in texture without being overly sweet or gaggingly rich, and the creamy topping balances everything nicely, both in flavour and in its appearance, bringing out the deep black of the stout infused cake.

And what's even better is that things don't need to be room temperature before you begin, as you just make it all in a pot before pouring it into a springform tin for the oven.

We started with the best ingredients available...yes, no less than Tesco everyday value butter and Lidl's finest plain flour. I am using vanilla paste more than extract lately not necessarily out of any preference for the flavour, but because of licensing laws. You see, here you can't buy alcohol before 10am, and I like to do my visits to the supermarket just after dropping off children at school and nursery, usually around 9am. What this means is that I can't buy vanilla extract at this hour, as it contains alcohol, but I  can buy vanilla paste, which doesn't have any booze. So hooray for vanilla paste.

First I measured 250ml of Guiness. You'll notice my pyrex jug uses Imperial pints.

Into a pot went the beer with some butter. This is not what Harry Potter gets served in Diagon Alley.

Once that was all melted together I added cocoa and sugar.

It was a bit whisk-y, but I did it anyway.

Then I added sour cream, eggs, and vanilla.

And last but not least, the flour and baking soda. As nigella says, it's like a gingerbread without the spices.

All that was stirred up until it looks combined enough to make me happy. Then I carefully poured it into a springform tin I had lined with greaseproof baking paper and put it in the oven. It took a long time to cook.

But eventually it came out looking like this! It did sink slightly, even with the knife coming out clean when I tested it, but I was ready and hoping for that, as it means it won't end up dried out inside. Again, very like gingerbread.

Once it had cooled (a couple hours later) I put some cream cheese in a bowl. Some of it was Philadelphia, the rest was "classic cream cheese" from Lidl.

This is it looking slightly more appetising after meeting my electric egg beaters.

Over it went some icing sugar.

And it was whipped again, just like Devo said to do.

Go forward, move ahead...to the cream.

Until it was "spreadable consistency".

Onto the cake it went. I was tempted to just leave it like this but I couldn't resist using my palette knife.

So I gave it a rough smoothing out before returning my attention to dinner preparations. I'll get back to posting dinner stuff again sometime, but just not today. Because today is St Patmeonthebackrick Day, where you drink green beer and eat chocolate Guinness cake. Really.

And, if you want to recreate this experience at home, just follow these instructions: http://www.nigella.com/recipes/view/chocolate-guinness-cake-3086