Samhain Cake

I've done it! Now that I'm British I've made my first authentic Jack'O'Lantern out of a turnip/swede/rutabaga! 

This was actually my third one, as I carved the first two out at work and even won a prize for one of them! As you may guess, they are a lot more work than a pumpkin, but they aren't so messy either. No gloop!

But that left the question: what do do with all the scooped out vegetable innards???? I could have made soup (the obvious choice) or made haggis, neeps, and tatties (a wonderful choice as well) but I decided to try carrot cake's cousin: turnip cake.

It was, er, interesting and not as bad as one might expect. Everyone who has tried it has been pleasantly surprised, but I don't honestly think it will give carrot cake a run for its money. 

If you wish to give it a shot, the recipe is here (and below).

If not, just enjoy the many faces of my colleagues' Jack'O'Lanterns!!!

Happy Hallowe'en!

Swede (Rutabega) Nutmeg Cake with Brown Butter Frosting and Salted
Hazelnuts
Ingredients
For the cake:
150g (1 cup, packed) raw peeled and grated swede (rutabega)
3 eggs
175g (¾ cup) sugar
100g (½ cup) plain full-fat yogurt
100ml (½ cup) rapeseed or vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
250g (2 ½ cups) plain (self-raising) flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon bicarb of soda (baking soda)
2 teaspoons ground nutmeg
½ teaspoon salt
For the brown butter frosting:
400g (3 cups) powdered icing sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3-4 tablespoons milk
115g (½ cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature
To serve:
30g (¼ cup) salted hazelnuts, chopped
Instructions
For the cake:
1. Preheat oven to 180C/350F. Grease and line a 9” square cake tin with parchment paper.
2. Beat the eggs, sugar, yogurt, oil and vanilla together well. Stir in the grated swede. Sift in the flour,
baking powder, bicarb of soda, nutmeg and salt and gently stir to combine.
3. Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 25-30 minutes or until an inserted skewer comes out clean. Cool
for 10 minutes in the tin and then turn onto a wire rack, removing the parchment paper, to cool
completely.
For the frosting
1. Put the icing sugar, vanilla and 1 tablespoon of the milk into a large bowl. Set aside.
2. In a saucepan over a low heat, melt the butter and continue to heat until it turns brown and smells nutty.
Pour into the bowl of powdered sugar and beat until thick and smooth, adding more milk if necessary.
3. Top the cooled cake with the frosting and sprinkle with the chopped hazelnuts.

Haggis, Neeps, and Tatties...and Kale

It seems a bit ridiculous to post anything about cooking haggis, neeps, and tatties as the directions are basically "boil and serve."  But tourists are always asking about haggis, so I figured North Americans might appreciate the novelty of the menu.

The meal began with a morning's trip to the Farmers' Market.  On my way out, I asked my husband if there was anything he wanted me to get, and he replied "game, maybe?  Perhaps a hare?"

Well, the main game stall that I go to was absent - I think the hunting season is over - and while I was unenthusiastically eyeing the venison I spotted something we hadn't had in ages.  Haggis!  So easy to cook, and the vegetables to accompany it are nearly always neeps (swede/rutabaga) and tatties (potatoes).  Just mashed, nothing special, but together they are wonderful.  So I got some haggis and then picked up the mash veg along with a bag of kale because, well, we all need our leafy greens.  Or purples.

I also remembered that I still owe my friend Maggie a package of veggie haggis in the post, so if you are reading this, Maggie, I will send it one day.  Just not today.

So what is haggis anyway?  Like sausage, it was invented to use up all the innards of the animal, in this case a sheep.  It's a mix of oats, spices, onion, and lamb offal, cooked up in a sheep's stomach.  Getting hungry yet?  Being Scotland, you can of course buy it battered and deep fried at the chippy, but that is not the traditional way to cook it.

First I tackled the Neeps.  Oh, swede, how I hate prepping you, especially when you are covered in soil and roots from East Lothian.

Then the potatoes.

I wrap the haggis in foil to steam them.  This way, if the skin bursts and it all comes spewing out, it doesn't disappear down into the boiling water.

I carefully trimmed and chopped the kale lovingly by hand.

Just kidding, into the food processor it went.

The potatoes went into the steamer too.

Then it all got mashed up with butter, hot milk, and seasoning.  When this was set before me (yes, my husband served up) I was excited.

I immediately went for the haggis, and my disappointment was extreme.  In 13 years of eating haggis I had never before had a "bad" haggis, but I suppose there is a first time for everything.  This was everything haggis should not be: gluey, flavourless, and bland.  I couldn't even taste any pepper.  It was truly awful offal.  

It was a bit like this, only with me, not this lovely model:

So I won't be posting any recipes below, I shall simply say stick with MacSween's haggis...or go to Saundersons at Tollcross, as they do a mean haggis too.  Just do not ever buy one from Peelham Farms.

Root Veg Soup with Bacon and Kale with a side of Play Dough

I opened the fridge today to find a couple of vegetables staring at me: swede (aka rutabaga aka turnip) and kale.  Soup it is, I thought.

I went out to re-stock my fridge with celery and carrots and couldn't resist getting some leeks.  I'm impulsive like that.

So with just the baby for company, I started to get out my ingredients...only...

Where were the celery and carrots???  Oh, that's right, I used the buggy as a shopping bag and they are still under the buggy...at the bottom of the stairs.

There are a few decided disadvantages to living up three tall sets of stairs, and this is one: when you leave something downstairs it is a real trek town to get it.  Usually I bring the buggy up, but this time I didn't and would have to pay the price. And a baby in the flat also throws a spanner into the works in terms of going downstairs too.  So I had three options:

1) abandon the baby in a baby jail (aka playpen) while I quickly ran down for the other vegetables
2) lug the baby down and back up again along with the heavy produce
3) wait until I'm going out anyways and bring the stuff up the next time I come in.  It's cold enough down there that nothing will spoil

That's right, I went for option three.  Sometimes I just don't have the heart to face those stairs.

But I didn't abandon the soup completely yet.  I had that turnip to attack.  I think it may be my least favourite vegetable to prep, especially when it's a local one as they are always still covered in soil.  They are rock hard and require a fair amount of muscle to chop through them.  Did you know the original jack o'lanterns were made out of hollowed out turnips/swedes/rutabagas?  It is no wonder they have now adopted the pumpkin here for their use instead, as it must have taken hours hollow out one of these little &*(£ers.

So now THAT's done, I'll just have a cup of tea and relax...NO BABY, DON'T SMASH DADDY'S WATER GLASS!!!

Ok, later on...

That's a bit better.  So yes, the same kind of soup as my earlier winter veg soup only with slightly different veg and green lentils rather than red.  I prefer the red, as they are less pasty, but I needed to use these ones up.  Oh, and kale went in too, cause it needed to get used up.

I cooked it a long time and then used the hand blender a bit.  and this was the result:

My goodness, does that look foul.  I threw in a bit of sage, rosemary and thyme and prayed.  God answered, and it was good.  Much better than it looks, trust me.  I even got all three kids AND my husband to eat it.  Score.

But we also made something else for the first time: Play Dough!

I realise I probably should have done this a long time ago, but I just never seemed to have enough salt and cream of tartar in the house whenever I felt like trying it.  But today was the big day: I had everything along with a daughter who kept asking for it over and over and over.

At first it did NOT look promising:

It was so gloopy!  But we kept stirring and added some flour and eventually it turned out ok.

My daughter happy played with it, getting out equipment from her kitchen to use.

Then my son came home and they actually played together WITHOUT FIGHTING for well over an hour.  It was bliss.  And the boat model seen here on the other side of the table was not damaged at all either.

RECIPES

Root Veg Soup with Bacon and Kale

Ingredients

4 leeks

1 swede

150 grams green lentils

4 carrots

2 stock cubes

7 leaves kale

2 sticks celery

a few Tbsp bacon bits

olive oil

1/2 tsp each of rosemary, sage and thyme

1.5 litres stock

Instructions

Proceed as with recipe for Winter Veg soup with Bacon, adding kale and herbs with stock

Play Dough

Ingredients

2 cups flour (plus more if needed)

1/2 cup salt

2 Tbsp cream of tartar 

2 Tbsp vegetable oil

1 1/2 cups boiling water

Instructions

Stir dry ingredients together

Add boiling water and stir constantly for a couple minutes, adding flour if necessary, until it cools down and looks like play dough (knead it a few times to check)