Gnocchi on Heaven's door

I may be the only person in our house that likes gnocchi. I'll find out for sure on the weekend when I feed the ones left over from today's lunch to the children on the weekend. Perhaps I'll sneak them into a tomato sauce with sausage chunks and see what happens.I'm a fan of the soft squidginess of them, the slight bite and the comforting blandness. I'm not a fan of the shop bought ones that more often that not are like trying to chew through a squash ball. But these ones, soft and light but with a little resistance are actually squash balls. Butternut squash.It's been hanging around long enough. And to avoid peeling it, I unsheathed my longest and heaviest knife, and smote it, cleaving it clean in two. That is how it happened in my mind. The reality may have been a little different, but what I ended up with was two long halves ready for a roast in the oven while I used the saved time to stare out the window and drink coffee.Well, it makes a change from potatoes in the gnocchi. Potatoes and flour does seem a little bit of overkill, and these are bright orange, slightly sweet and the perfect comfort food when the weather outside has turned from sunny skies into having to use the shipping forecast as a guide to leaving the house.The recipe makes enough for four people. If the other three aren't interested you can blanch the gnocchi quickly in boiling water, then plunge them into cold water, drain and toss through with a little olive oil. Then you can freeze them and use for lonely suppers when your other half has gone out for a fun-filled evening leaving you alone with your worthy subtitled black and white films they never want to watch.Ingredients1 butternut squash, medium size220g strong flour, plus extra for shaping.1 egg, beatenA handful of fresh sage leaves40g hazelnuts, toasted in a frying pan then choppedChilli oil to serve, or olive oil and chilli flakesZest of an orangeSalt and pepper to seasonMethodHeat the oven to 200c/gas 8.Cut the butternut in half lengthways, being careful to not sever your hand.Scoop out the seeds and throw them away. You can spend the next hour trying to separate them from the fibrous strands they are attached to for roasting or toasting, but surely life is too short. They can go in the compost.Drizzle the squash with olive oil, season well and roast for about an hour.Leave to cool, scoop the flesh out into a bowl and blitz to a pulp. Season and taste then beat in the egg and incorporate the flour until you have a sticky dough.Pour a pile of flour onto the kitchen bench and take a tablespoon of the dough. Drop it into the flour roll it into a little cylinder. Squish a dent in it with your thumb and set aside while you repeat with the rest of the dough until finished.Cook the gnocchi in boiling, well salted water for about three to four minutes then drain, drizzle with olive oil and keep warm.Heat a small pan with about a centimetre of olive oil then fry the sage leaves in batches for about five seconds until crisp. Drain on kitchen paper.Serve the hot gnocchi with a scattering of sage leaves, the orange zest, a sprinkle of hazelnuts and a good hand with the seasoning. Finish with the chilli oil.By all means add Parmesan; and if you really fancied it, you could melt some butter, add some chopped sage to it, cook gently for a few minutes before pouring it over with a squeeze of the orange juice.

Meringue, M'Lord?

Although I firmly believe sugar to be the devil, I will occasionally find myself face down in a cake or suchlike. And when I say occasionally, I probably mean more like once a week. Or twice if you count the new 'tradition' I've invented of sharing an entire tub of Magnum almond ice cream with Bee while watching Antiques Roadshow on Sunday evening. That is how we roll round these parts.And yesterday, all I had to eat was two slices of homemade sourdough with a couple of eggs and sliced ham topped with herb salt and pickled sliced cucumber, so today, a little sugar is hardly the end of the world. And really, meringues are mainly air, so I count this as breathing.I first made came up with this recipe on a recent shoot and we eat them with strawberries, a little lemon thyme and a lot of gentle noises, which to the outsider could have sounded pretty rude. Hazelnuts, toasted and sprinkled through and on top of the crisp meringues gently giving way in the mouth to a soft, chewy interior with the sweet and sharp fruitiness of proper balsamic is pretty much the actual best. And it's so easy to make; as long as your equipment is clean, you can almost let the machines do all the work. And sometimes, there's nothing wrong with making life a little easier, especially when the result is quicker and better.Ingredients3 egg whites120g icing sugar60g golden caster sugarGood quality balsamic vinegarA handful of chopped hazelnutsA handful of chopped pistachiosMethodClean your mixers bowl and whisk thoroughly before you start and just give the inside of the bowl a rub with half a lemon before drying it with kitchen paper. This will ensure there is no grease inside which will make your meringues mewrongs.Whisk the eggs until they start to form peaks, somewhere between soft and stiff. With the whisk running, add the sugar a tablespoon at a time until, incorporating well before adding the next one. You can make more mixture if you like, just remember the simple 60g of sugar per egg white and use a mix of icing and caster as I've done, or all caster or all icing. Up to you. Golden caster will give you a more caramel colour and flavour though, so choose wisely.Whisk until all the sugar is in and the meringue mixture is shiny, smooth and stiff. Heat the oven to 100c/gas 1.Using a spatula, gently fold in some balsamic vinegar until you have nice ripples through it then shape four beautiful dollops onto a lined baking sheet.Sprinkle with nuts and bake for about two hours, leaving to cool in the oven.Serve with coffee, or as I did, because there wasn't enough sugar going on some melted hazelnut and chocolate sauce. You can make this easily by melting together 2 large teaspoons of gianduja paste (you could use Nutella if you prefer), 1 tsp of honey and 2tsp of butter until smooth. This, however, is entirely optional and may lead to needing a little lie down.

Nuts in April

 The Easter weekend is coming up, and this year my birthday is sandwiched between death and resurrection on the Saturday. I shall not be doing any cooking for the whole weekend, which will be novel. While the children run around the garden looking for eggs on Sunday, weather permitting, I shall be opening my parent's fridge and raiding their cupboards like a student back from Uni.(I would usually post a bread recipe at this time of year so I can make jokes about knocking the dough back and watching it rise again. I still find it this joke funny after countless repetitions, even if no one else does.)This recipe has nothing to do with dough, but more to do with sugar, chocolate and nuts. While I've bought various eggs for various offspring, I also decided to make a little side treat of chocolate brittle for the adults. For some reason, we had a mountain of nuts and chocolate in the cupboard and using it for this weekend seemed apposite. If you can avoid burning the first lot of caramel so much the better. I'd recommend not leaving its side until it's ready. For example to wander off and read the sleeve notes on 'Sing it Again Rod'.You'll have to work quickly when the caramel is ready and be careful to not burn yourself. Hot caramel is a new kind of pain. You can use peanuts, almonds, pine nuts, pistachios and add salt, chilli, vanilla essence and all kind of things to add variety. This one is a simple salted caramel version. You can also use less dark chocolate and replace it with milk chocolate if you prefer. The children are keen to each have one of these smashed over their Viennetta for pudding this evening, I think that is a cracking idea.Ingredients220g dark chocolate (I used 70% cocoa)30g dark chocolate buttons200g sugar150g hazelnuts, roughly chopped, some left largeA pinch of saltMethodPrepare a large sheet of baking paper on the kitchen worktop and give it a quick spray of cooking oil to help stop the caramel nuts from sticking.Slowly melt the sugar with a pinch of salt in a heavy-based pan, one large enough to fit the chopped nuts in when the sugar has melted. Copper pans are the best for this if you have one.Shake the pan every now and then as the sugar melts, be careful to not let it get too dark and burn. This is horrible and bitter, like Ukip crossed with Heather Mills.When it's melted and a lovely dark caramel colour, quickly pour in the nuts and stir well on the heat until they're all coated. Pour the mix out onto the prepared paper, shape into a rectangle with a metal palette knife and leave to cool.Melt the chocolate for one minute and 20 seconds in the microwave (you could do it the traditional way in a bowl over simmering water if you prefer, but really?).The chocolate should still look as though it's mostly kept its shape. Beat it with a small whisk and throw in the chocolate drops. Keep stirring until they melt and the chocolate is smooth and shiny.Cut the nut brittle into small rectangles or squares and dip each one in the melted chocolate. Sprinkle with some of the fallen off nuts and caramel if you like and leave to set. You can wrap these individually in paper or store in an airtight container until ready to eat/dish out.Happy Easter. 

Here's Some Carrot Cake

The carrots are past their best. No longer firm and snappable, they bend like a theatrical prop. No wonder really, they have been sat outside in the sun on the table for a day and a half. I'd forgotten about them among the tumbling bags of vegetables I'd brought back.Still, that doesn't mean there isn't a use for them. A few made it into my morning smoothie and the rest, determined to make something with them, I turned into cake. Surely bendy and tired fruit becoming cake is like turning base metal into gold. And not only that, I used coconut sugar in the mix rather than cane. So it's almost doubly less healthy. If you don't count the icing sugar mountain that went into the cream cheese icing.As a cake is a treat, let's not beet (sugar) ourselves up about things being unhealthy. It's not as if I had a slice of it for breakfast the other day... But this cake is delicious, moist and with the fragrant scent of orange blossom and clementine zest, is a wonderful moment of calm with a coffee or tea mid-afternoon when spirits are flagging.If you don't hoover the lot up in one sitting (assuming you're sharing) it keeps soft and moist for what seems an eternity as long as you keep it covered. I can't see that happening though.Ingredients225g coconut sugar (or caster sugar if not)225g butter225g self-raising flour with 1tsp baking powder mixed in3 eggs200g grated carrots1tbsp orange blossom waterFor the cream cheese icing175g cream cheese125g soft butter350g icing sugar1tbsp vanilla extractClementine zest and chopped hazelnuts to decorateMethodCream together the butter and sugar. Beat in one egg at a time until well mixed then stir in the flour and baking powder little by little until you've used it all. Try not to over mix it.Stir in the orange blossom water and carrots and mix well, but gently. Divide between two 19cm prepared cake tins and bake immediately at 180c for approximately 40 minutes.Leave the cake to cool completely or it'll be sliding all over the place like a plastic fire guard. Beat together the butter, cheese, icing sugar and vanilla until soft and smooth. sandwich the cakes together with a good load of the icing then coat the top and sprinkle over the zest and nuts. Chill for about half an hour if it's a hot day to give the icing a fighting chance then serve.