Rhubarb, vanilla and honey frozen yogurt

Mr Lancashire Food picked a large quantity of Rhubarb from the garden this weekend, so rather than just freeze it I decide I would experiment. After making a tray of honeyed rhubarb, the ice cream mood took hold, so I came up with a frozen yogurt alternative using items I  had readily  found in  the fridge. This will satisfy any cravings for a sweet cool dessert you have , it would also be great served with hot puddings or fancied up with shortbread or other biscuits.

Honeyed Rhubarb

• 1 kg Rhubarb, cut in small pieces
• Honey - 4 tbsp 
• Orange / lemon - grated zest and juice

Just place your rhubarb in an oven tray, drizzle with the honey and the zest and juice, bake in a 150C oven for about an hour or until soft and slightly golden

Frozen yoghurt

1/2 of a large pot of low fat vanilla yogurt

1/2 pot of low fat creme fraiche

1 tsp vanilla paste

2 tbsp honey

1 ramekin of honeyed rhubarb

Method

• Mix the yogurt, creme fraiche, vanilla and honey in a large bowl
• Stir in the honeyed rhubarb 
• Pour in to your ice cream maker, churn until softly frozen
• If you don't have an ice cream maker then place in a freezer suitable tub in the freezer , remove approximately every half an hour and stir vigorously.
• Store in the freezer until you want to use.
• Serve as you would ice cream

This post is my contribution to Frugal Food Fridays from fuss free flavours and guest hosted by Blue Kitchen bakes this month

Grilled Halloumi and herb salad

I know halloumi isn't made in Lancashire but hey I am allowed to try other classic dishes from other countries. I wanted a cheese that would stand up the robust flavours of a herb salad. I love the way in southern Europe they aren't afraid to use herbs as a salad ingredient, which impart a lovely herbal background to the salad. Absolutely delicious and a salad that will transport to the Mediterranean in moments.

Ingredients

• Halloumi, sprinkled with smoked paprika
• Cucumber - chunky chopped
• Tomatoes - chunky chopped
• Mixed salad leaves - torn into large pieces
• Rocket - torn
• Flat leaf parsley - torn , small handful
• Mint - 10  leaves , each torn into 3 pieces
• Olives - black or green, whatever you have
•  Extra virgin Olive oil or  cold pressed rapeseed oil - 2 or 2 tbsp
• 1 clove of garlic crushed
• Honey - 1tsp
• Lemon juice - 1tbsp

Method

• Assemble your salad in a large bowl
• Mix the oil, lemon juice, honey and crushed garlic in a separate small bowl, this is your salad dressing
• Now grill the halloumi until golden on both sides
• Tosh your salad with the dressing, place on your serving plate
• Top the salad with the halloumi slices

This salad would also be lovely served with lasagne or moussaka.

I am also using this post as my entry for Herbs on Saturday challenge hosted by Lavender & Lovage and this month by guest hosted by Bangers and Mash 

Lancashire Platter @ Dunkirk Hall

As you all know we love our local food here at Lancashire Food and had noticed that a local pub was tweeting about their local special "The Lancashire Platter",  so we had to go and give it a try didn't we.

Dunkirk Hall is very old pub on the outskirts of Leyland which over the last few years has had mixed fortunes, the foodie landlady Donna loves local food and has worked really hard to provide an appealing menu which features some local food, in fact so great is her love of all things local that she has opened a mini tea shop cum deli at the back of the pub, more of that later.

Back to the Lancashire Platter - an attractive alternative to the traditional ploughmans, featured in the platter is Creamy Lancashire Cheese from Dewlay cheese, a fab slice of pie from the Great North Pie company, home made scotch egg, bread from a local bakery, Fiddlers Lancashire Crisps, salad, homemade coleslaw and date and pear chutney from Hawkshead Relish.

All in all a fab platter, it disappeared very quickly. The pie I have to say was the star, but the other goodies were also very tasty.

Little D's at the back of the pub fortunately sells most of the goodies featured in the platter plus Stockleys Old Fashioned Sweeties, Mr Fitzpatricks Cordials, Bury Black Puddings, Agnes Rose Vinegars and Oils and also Ice Creams too. Little D's also has a few outside tables if the pub atmosphere isn't for you where you can take afternoon tea.

Fabulicious Summer Ices - Competition

FABULICIOUS SUMMER ICES - COMPETITION

Its with great pleasure that Lancashire Food launches it first blog link competition, whoo woop !

As summer is really here ! we are launching a fabulicous summer ices competition, for lovely recipes for ice lolly's and ice creams. We are looking for delicious summer ice recipes, you might want to feature seasonal ingredients or you may want to re-create your favourite retro classic , the choice is yours. 

You luck entrants with have a chance of winning a delicious Emma Bridgewater Union Jack cooler bag, great for picnics and days on the beach.

Its so easy to enter, post your fabulicious recipe on your blog mentioning Lancashire Food Blog, using the blog linky tool below link up your recipe post and grab the the fabulicious summer ices badge and put it on your blog post .

Spread the love by tweeting about it if you are on twitter using the hashtag of #fabuliciousices and any I see I'll re-tweet. 

Please also join Lancashire Food on facebook and post your blog post on there too. 

The competition will be open until Friday 24th August , I am hoping to get a local surprise foodie to judge the best ice and their decision will be final. The winner will be announced soon afterwards. Apologies but due to postage costs, the prize will only be posted to a mainland UK address.

The recipe can be your own or one you have seen somewhere else, please be respectful of copyright and give credit where due , please feel free to publish old recipes or old blog posts, but make sure you add the lovely badge( designed by sixesandseven.wordpress.comhttp://sixesandsevenblog.wordpress.com/2012/07/25/new-competition-badge-for-lancashire-food/).

STOP PRESS : AWARD WINNING CHEF Chris Rawlinson of the Red Cat restaurant will be the guest judge 

Green Garden Soup

Well the weather is still not playing ball, its wet, its cool then its sunny, very confusing for the plants in the vegetable garden and very confusing for the cook too, what do you make when its supposed to be summer but some evenings you almost feel like putting the heating back on !

Soup is the answer in this household but not the rib sticking type of winter, something all together lighter using seasonal ingredients of course ideally from the garden and so this soup was born.

A quick rummage in the vegetable garden yielded rocket, peas, broad beans, baby courgettes and lovage, this was supplemented by store cupboard additions of potato, garlic and onion, the resulting soup was delicious, sweet and very moreish.

Ingredients

• Peas (you could use frozen)
• Broad beans
• Baby courgettes - chopped finely
• Rocket - handful no more
• Lovage leaves - couple
• White onion, finely chopped
• Potato- peeled and diced in to small pieces
• Vegetable stock
• Butter 

Method

• Melt butter in a large saucepan
• Add all your vegetable and sweat for a few minutes without browning
• Add vegetable stock until all your vegetables are covered
• Simmer until the vegetables are tender
• Allow to cool slighty, then blend to desired consistency, thinner with more stock or water if needed
• Taste to see if needs seasoning, bring back to gentle simmer, do not boil as it spoils the sweet flavour
• Serve accompanied by great bread

I am entering this post in simple and in season blog challenge on Fabulicious Food, this month guest hosted by homemadebyfleur 

This is also an entry for No croutons Required, July challenge for summer soups and salads, a vegetarian challange co hosted by Tinned Tomatoes and Lisa's Kitchen

Blackcurrant chocolate friands - We should Cocoa

Chocolate and Blackcurrant, gosh thats a difficult one ! This months We should cocoa challenge see the aforementioned combination as the challenge. Lucky for me our new blackcurrant bush has produced a small quantity of juicy berries just in time to take part in this challenge, otherwise I was planning to rummage in the drinks cabinet for some kirsch. Suppose depending on how this goes I might still resort to this !

I decided to not go too complicated and plumped for a delicious light friand with the addition of some juicy homegrown blackcurrants, Blackcurrants add an unusual twist to this homely bake. Most friand recipes use just egg whites but this one is with whole eggs,friands are apparently very popular in Australia and  you can even buy special friand tins if you get hooked.

Ingredients

• 195g icing sugar (sifted)
• 75g plain flour (sifted)
• 30g Cocoa (sifted)
• 155g ground almonds
• 3 eggs - free range, whisked
• 180g butter , melted and cooled
• 100g blackcurrants
• icing sugar to dust
• melted butter or oil spray
• Plain flour to dust

Method

• Preheat your oven to 180C
• Brush your tin with melted butter or spray with oil spray, dust with plain flour. I used a muffin tray
• Melt your butter and allow to cool
• Sift the icing sugar, flour, cocoa powder in to a bowl, add the ground almonds and then the melted butter and eggs.
• Stir until well mixed
• Spoon into your prepared tin and place a few blackcurrants onto the friand 
• Bake until well risen and cooked through, approx 15-25 minutes ( this depends on your tin size)

Blueberry, mango and passion fruit yogurt cake

I love my easy peasy yogurt cake recipe that you can find on an earlier blog post, last night I had a craving for  cake but I had no plain yogurt in the fridge just the remains of a pot of mango and passionfruit, I also had  about half a punnet of blueberries that needed using up, so this how this loaf was born. You could also add chopped mango and passion fruit to plain yogurt, it really is up to you.

Recently I have also be experimenting more with adding a topping to my homely but tasty loaf cakes to add another texture to the cake.I was really pleased with the resulting cake a delicious tender crumbed confection with a crunchy contrasting topping. Bake two, I did !


Easy peasy yogurt cake recipe is here, to add a crunchy topping mix 2 tbsp of demerara sugar with 2 tsp of ground cinnamon. Sprinkle onto the top of your unbaked mixture before baking.