Who can resist home-made rice pudding?
This Rice Pudding recipe is super easy, just let the oven do all the work!
Recipe taken from The Dairy Book of Home Cookery.
Tag Archives: Dairy Diary
Rumbledethumps
Rumbledethumps – such a great name! – originates from the Border regions of Scotland and is a fabulous dish at this time of year using in-season cabbage and comforting mashed potatoes.
Preparation time – 15 minutes plus
10 minutes standing
Cooking time – 30 minutes
Calories per portion – 225 Kcal
Fat per portion – 12g
of which saturated – 7.4g
Serves – 4
Suitable for vegetarians
Mashing potatoes, such as Maris Piper 450g (1lb)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Green or white cabbage 450g (1lb)
Milk 2 tbsp
Unsalted butter 25g (21oz)
Chopped chives 4 tbsp
Scottish Cheddar cheese 75g (3oz), grated
1 Peel the potatoes and cut into small pieces. Place in a saucepan with 1⁄2 tsp salt and cover with water. Bring to the boil and cook for 10–12 minutes until tender. Drain well and leave in the colander for 10 minutes to dry.
2 Meanwhile, trim any damaged outer leaves from the cabbage. Remove the core, and then slice the leaves finely. Bring a large pan of lightly salted water to the boil and add the cabbage; cover and cook for 5 minutes until just tender. Drain well, shaking to remove excess water.
3 Preheat the grill to a medium/hot setting. Return the drained potatoes to the saucepan and mash well with the milk and butter. Season well. Mix the cabbage and chives into the mashed potato and place in an ovenproof shallow dish. Sprinkle with grated cheese.
4 Cook under the grill for about 5 minutes until melted, golden and bubbling. Serve in individual ovenproof dishes with grilled tomatoes on the vine, or as a side dish to accompany stews.
Cook’s tips
• If preferred, omit the cheese and serve the mashed vegetables as a simple side dish.
• Alternatively, for a non-vegetarian version, add freshly cooked crispy bacon to the mash and cabbage mixture .
Save £4 when you buy Around Britain Dairy Cookbook
Rumbledethumps is taken from the popular Around Britain Dairy Cookbook which is available for a short period at the incredible price of just £2.99 while stocks last.
Seasonal Garden Ideas to add beauty to your garden
The big news this week is the launch of Seasonal Garden Ideas: a new gardening book that will inspire both novice and experienced gardeners this spring.
Seasonal Garden Ideas is a beautiful book featuring easy half-day projects to add beauty to any garden throughout the year.
Each of the 77 projects is presented like a RECIPE; with ingredients, step-by-step instructions, hints and tips, time required, when to start and aftercare. Now doesn’t that sound simple?
When you turn to a project you will be delighted with how the information is clearly laid out to make the task so straightforward. Each project is illustrated with a beautiful colour photograph.
Excellent value at just £9.75.
Order it from your milkman or online while stocks last.
Celebrate St David’s day with a fantastic Welsh lamb dish
I love Welsh lamb and this Minty Lamb Pattie is the perfect excuse to support Welsh farmers and enjoy one of the best ‘burgers’ you’ll ever taste. Sounds naughty, but this is a nicely balanced meal. Try it and I think you’ll add it to your ‘favourites’.
Save £4 when you buy Around Britain Dairy Cookbook
Minty Lamb Pattie is taken from the popular Around Britain Dairy Cookbook which is available for a short period at the incredible price of just £2.99 while stocks last.
I love pancakes
Hurray, it’s Shrove Tuesday tomorrow and a great excuse to eat pancakes. Although I love them – savoury or sweet – I never think to make them at any other time of year.
My love affair with the humble pancake began on a French exchange holiday when I was fourteen. The family I stayed with were extremely eccentric (half of their home was a ‘Havishamesque’ abandoned theatre/shop, covered in cobwebs and unchanged for decades) but fantastic cooks; making the most amazing crepes.
Although I have never been able to replicate such pancake excellence, I have a go at making a new savoury version each year, finished off with a classic sugar and lemon. I may defy convention tomorrow with these Fruity Coffee Pancakes from Year Round Dairy Cookbook. Incidentally, a contestant on Come Dine with Me will soon be cooking from this book on TV, so let’s hope they do it justice!
As you know the majority of our Dairy Diaries are still sold by the milkmen, so we are firm supporters of this valuable British Institution. Pancake Day has always been a great reason to buy extra ‘pintas’.
For Mark Smith’s (the Guardian) intriguing foray into the world of the milkman see ‘Deliverance: out on a milk round’.
I am sick of diets!
Okay, it may only be the 11th January, but already I am sick and tired of hearing about diets and the latest slimming fads.
Please ignore the word ‘diet’ in my previous blog – I simply meant we would enjoy eating lots of soup rather than copious handfuls of chocolate!
I have just read a very inspiring article about how to be happier, not necessarily thinner. Dr Mark Porter: my prescription for better living in 2010 it contains so much fantastic advice. My mantra in life is probably quite similar (but of course involves food too!):
- A LITTLE of what you fancy does you good.
- Smile and always be cheerful.
- Drink plenty of water (plus an occasional glass of red wine).
- STOP eating when you feel full.
- Be creative and make things.
- Don’t buy sweetner-laden foods (research shows that the sweet taste actually makes your body crave sugar).
- Read the TV guide BEFORE switching on the TV, if there’s nothing on you fancy, leave it off.
- Cherish your friends but don’t waste time on those who don’t cherish you.
- Use the Dairy Diary!
- Cook.
- Snack on healthy foods.
Talking of snacks, don’t forget our poor feathered friends during this cold snap. Our new book Seasonal Garden Ideas (due to launch this spring) has the perfect recipe for them to munch on.
Robin’s Christmas Dinner
Sturdy metal, ceramic or wooden container with a strong handle.
Large double-ended metal hook.
500g (1lb) lard plus mixed birdseed and nuts – try to find a mixture that contains dried mealworms which are a real favourite of robins. You can even find packets of dried mealworms to mix in with the other ingredients.
1 Melt the lard in the saucepan but ensure it doesn’t boil or burn.
2 Carefully pour the melted fat into your container, then stir in a mixture of birdseed and nuts and mealworms. Put aside to cool and set hard.
3 Attach the hook to the branch of a tree, then hang up your fat container from the handle. Try to site it in a reasonably sheltered area, and make sure the hook can’t slide off the branch. It will swing around as the birds land on it, but this won’t deter them – and it may help to keep greedy squirrels at bay.
And for us humans, snack on Cheese Flapjacks from Hearty and Healthy Dairy Cookbook (see below). Or for those lazy days why not visit Graze.com – a mail order company who specialise in delivering healthy snacks to keep your blood sugar at a happy level throughout the day – what a revelation! I’m most excited about my first package due on Wednesday. There’s a voucher for a free sample in the February issue of Delicious magazine.
A Winter Wonderland
Wow, what a beautiful drive to work this morning. The alarm clock may have been something of a shock, as was the need to get dressed within an hour rather than four, but it was worth it for the view alone.
I only wish I had pulled over to take a photograph – it would have made a perfect Christmas card for later on this year (that still sounds strange!) A sugared almond backdrop of milky pink and lilac with the bare trees and plants heavily crusted in frost, sparkling in the sunshine.
Missed out on the Dairy Dairy at Christmas?
The Dairy Diary office has been in a blur all day with us trying to get on top of all the phone calls, emails and letters we have received today and over the holiday. There are always people who expect a Dairy Diary Christmas gift and receive something else yet they don’t want to miss out on their diary! To all who are wondering, yes they are still available and can be purchased at www.dairydiary.co.uk or by calling 0845 0948128.
Of course, New Year’s resolutions are front of mind at the moment, and after the excesses of Christmas my other half and I have decided to opt for a soup diet for the next few nights’ dinner. First on the menu is Spaghetti soup – wholesome, healthy and delicious. I will be scouring all our cookbooks and diaries for more inspiration over the coming evenings. We have also decided to abandon the depressingly bad evening television for more happy entertainment, such as reading, board games and painting – I wonder how long that resolution will last!
Dairy Diary Chat 