Day 51: Making Good Use of the Oven

This has been a day of triumphant cooking!

Recipes are posted below and above, all very suitably frugal.  But the important thing about this evening's cookery is that I managed to plan things so as to make very good use of the oven. 

The menu was intended to be as follows:

Boston Baked Beans

Oven Chips (fries)
Falafel

Quiche

Focaccia 

Ginger biscuits

Roasted tomatoes

slightly blurred Boston Baked Beans
with foccacia and a sprinkling
of grated cheese.

The Baked Beans were made in the slow cooker, having been soaked all night and cooked for 8 hours on Low from morning through to evening.  This in itself is a massive oven saving: just imagine running the thing for the same length of time!  Oh, and they were amazingly delicious, btw - though with that much bacon, one could hardly go wrong.

The Oven Chips saga began two days ago.  Rather than boiling just enough potatoes for one serving, I stuck five large ones in the pan (unpeeled), and cooked the lot.  One I ate that night, but the other four I stored in the fridge.  So tonight I cut one into wedges, put them on an oiled baking tray, sprayed them with vegetable oil and a dash of Cajun seasoning, and baked for about 20 minutes until they were crisp and brown and lovely.  

The oven chips cooked on a baking tray alongside the falafel, which had been made a couple of days before from the same batch of chickpeas which made the hummus.  These too had been frozen for a few days till I was ready to use them.

The remaining three potatoes I also cut into wedges, spread them out on a baking tray, and froze them for half an hour until solid.  Then I removed them from the tray and put them in a plastic bag, and now I have frozen oven chips in my freezer, all ready to go.

Remember the left-over pastry from the large quiche?  I had lined three ramekins with it, and frozen them.  Now I mixed up two eggs and some milk, popped a piece of frozen cooked broccoli and some feta cheese in each one, poured over the egg mixture, and baked in the bottom of the oven.  Thus was the oven full of chips, falafel, and the little quiches, all of which took about 20-25 minutes to bake at 200C.  (Admittedly, the chips were a bit overdone!)  One of the quiches has gone into the fridge for tomorrow's lunch; the other two are back in the freezer.

Previously in the afternoon, I made the foccacia dough and left it to rise.  I am a bit nervous of making yeast bread, usually preferring to stick to soda bread, but my little sister makes an amazing foccacia, so I thought it was worth a go.  The result is pretty good for a first attempt, although a little harder than I would have liked it.  It was intended to bake this along with a batch of ginger biscuits, 25 in total - but my sister phoned, and they never got made.  So half the oven was, alas, unused.

Then finally, I followed the suggestion of Friend Sharon on Day 41, where she says this:

If you have some supermarket basic tomatoes and want to make them into something gorgeous - cut them in half, place in an oven tray cut side up, sprinkle with salt, a touch of sugar and some dried (or fresh) thyme. A little drizzle of olive oil helps things along. Preheat the oven as hot as it will go...if being really frugal make these after something where you've had the oven on anyway...then put them in and turn off the oven. Leave for about 8 hours or overnight. (This is taken from Nigella's Express book...called moonblush tomatoes...but she uses expensive vine toms to start with). Great in salads, on toast, baked potatoes, chopped and through pasta...just sooooo nice.

So as you can see, all this was something of a complex operation, easily upset by an unplanned (though very pleasant) phonecall.  But in the event, it all worked out well, even if I was a bit hot and tired afterwards.  The oven is a terrible user of fuel, so I have come to a resolution that I will never just use it for one thing.  That meant a little forward planning, but despite appearances, I didn't actually run it like a military operation: I just cooked a bit extra wherever I could and froze it; then on the day looked to see what I had.  So I am all stocked up on main meals the next few days.  Maybe weeks!

Tomorrow, I will be blogging about indigestion.

Boston Baked Beans

serves 4 as a main meal

Ingredients

8oz (250g) dried white haricot beans

1 pint (500mls) water

1 onion, peeled and sliced

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1 bayleaf

1 tsp English mustard

2 tbsp black treacle

1 tbsp dark brown sugar

3 tbsp tomato puree

6oz (175g) bacon bits

salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

1) Soak the haricot beans in water for 8 hours or overnight.  Drain.

2) Put the beans in the slow cooker and mix in the chopped onion and the bacon bits.  

3) Blend the mustard with a little of the water, followed by the black treacle, sugar, tomato puree, and chopped garlic.  Mix with the rest of the water, and pour over the bean mixture.  Season, and add the bayleaf.

4) Cook on low for around 8 hours.  For the last hour, remove the lid and thicken the sauce by allowing some of the liquid to evaporate.  If the mixture is too dry, add some more water.
5) Remove the bayleaf and serve hot, with crusty bread and a sprinkle of grated cheese, if desired.


Notes
This produces beans in quite a watery sauce - it is not thick like a tin of baked beans.  You might therefore want to serve the beans in a bowl.  To accompany it, I used home-made focaccia; or girdle (soda) scones would also work well.

Haricot beans used to be the most commonly available, if my wartime rationing book is anything to go by.  I actually had great difficulty finding them - the supermarkets didn't seem to stock them - but eventually tracked them down to an ethnic food store.  They were quite a bit cheaper than any of the others on sale, at only 78p for 500g.  

I haven't tried this, but it occurs to me that you could make this more of a main meal by omitting the bacon pieces, and instead burying a whole bacon joint in among the beans.  Then remove the joint at the end, carve it, and serve all together with a baked potato or oven chips.

Cheese Pudding

This is really a kind of cheesy-bready souffle.  It is a good way of using up slightly stale bread or tired cheese.
The recipe is adapted from Marguerite Patton's wartime one.  I found this very greasy, however, and also thought that it could use more bread than stated.  So here it is, slightly tweaked, with less margarine and more bread.

serves 2-4

Ingredients

1/2 pint (300ml) milk

1 generous teaspoon butter or margarine

3 oz (75g) breadcrumbs 

1 egg

3oz (75g) cheese, grated

salt and pepper

Method

1) Pour the milk into a saucepan and add the butter or margarine.  Heat until the butter melts.  Remove from the heat, stir in the breadcrumbs, and allow to stand for 15 minutes.

2) Preheat the oven to 190C (170C for a fan oven).

3) Whisk the egg with a fork, and add to the breadcrumb mixture with the cheese and seasoning.  Mix well.

4) Pour the cheese mixture into a 1 pint casserole dish.  Bake for 30 minutes or until well-risen and golden.
Serve hot, with a green salad.

Notes
When this emerges from the oven, it will be the temperature and consistency of molten lava.  I let mine cool a little!
Although the final quantity looks small, it is surprisingly filling.  Marguerite's has less bread than mine, and yet she suggests that it feed 3-4.  Maybe with a large salad, it would!

Broccoli and Feta Quiche

serves 6

The pastry base, uncooked

For the Pastry

2 cups plain flour

4 oz margarine

2 tsp dried mixed herbs (optional)

1/4 tsp salt

1/3 cup milk

1) Add the flour, the margarine, the herbs, and the salt to the food processor and whizz to make 'breadcrumbs'.
2) Gradually pour in the milk, whizzing all the time, until a ball of dough forms in the food processor.  This should not be too sticky: if it is, add some more flour.
3) Remove from the food processor, knead very briefly, then place in a plastic bag or wrap tightly in clingfilm.  Place in the fridge and allow to 'rest' for about half an hour.
4) Remove from fridge, and roll out thinly (about 3 mm).  Line an 8 inch quiche dish, and trim the edges.  (There is no need to prick the base.)

Preheat the oven to 220C (200C for fan oven).

The Final Result!

For the Filling

7 medium eggs

3/4 cup milk

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp finely ground white pepper

1 small head of broccoli, cooked

100g feta cheese

1) Beat the eggs with a fork.  Add the milk, salt, and pepper, and beat well.
2) Break the broccoli into small florets, and arrange on the pastry.  Pour over the egg mixture.
3) Cut the feta cheese into 1cm cubes, and sprinkle over the quiche.
 4) Place in oven, and cook at 220C (200C) for 10 minutes.  Then turn down the oven to 180C (160C), and cook for a further 25 minutes until browned.  Remove and serve immediately, or allow to cool.

Notes

Shortcrust pastry is really easy to make, especially if you use a food processor, which is the method described here.  Alternatively, do it by hand.  The pastry can be made well in advance, and rested in the fridge for anything from half an hour to a couple of days.  (Resting stops the pastry shrinking away from the sides of the dish, and makes it easier to handle.)  Or it can even be rolled out, used to line the quiche dish, and then covered and frozen until you are ready to use it: just add the egg mixture and cook straight from frozen.

There will always be pastry trimmings left over - I used these to line some ramekin dishes, which I have frozen as they are, uncooked.  Then, when I am next using the oven, I can add another beaten egg, etc, to each one and cook straight from frozen. 

The first secret of this quiche is to add more milk than seems intuitive.  This makes more of a soft custard, which sets very flat instead of puffing up.  (And is also more economical, making the eggs go further.)  

The second secret is in the baking.  The first 10 minute blast at 220C cooks the pastry base so that it doesn't go soggy.  This means you don't have to bake blind the pastry, which can be a complicated business.  Then the lower temperature of 180C gently sets the egg.

The filling here is a lovely one - baking makes the feta cheese go all soft and creamy, without actually melting.  I have also gone fancier with this in the past, spreading tomato puree on the base of the pastry and then adding a layer of cooked spinach before pouring on the egg.  But of course, all sorts of other fillings can be used.  The bacon bits, if you fry them first, will make for a classic Quiche Lorraine.  Or fry an onion, add grated cheddar cheese, and then sprinkle some dried mixed herbs on the top.  Voila!  Cheese and Onion Quiche.

This freezes really well, and makes for a good packed lunch.

Cabbage and Pasta Bake

Serves 2-3

Ingredients

150g pasta (spaghetti is cheapest; macaroni or penne work best)

1/4 small savoy cabbage

1/2 leek

50g bacon

splash vegetable oil

freshly ground pepper to taste

1/3 tsp dried chilli flakes (optional, but they add a nice heat)

50g cheese

1 tbsp flour

1/2 cup milk

1/2 tsp dried mixed herbs

Method

Boil the pasta.  Meanwhile, shred the cabbage and chop the leek.  Dice the bacon and throw into the frying pan with a little extra vegetable oil, a few grinds of pepper, and the chilli flakes, if using.  Stir fry for about 4-5 minutes.

Sprinkle the flour into the frying pan, and stir to coat the contents.  Then add the milk and the drained pasta, and stir all together.  The flour and milk will make a light sauce which coats the pasta.

Turn into a casserole dish.  Grate the cheese and sprinkle on top.  Sprinkle the dried herbs lightly over the cheese. Bake at around 180 degrees for 10-15 minutes.  Serve immediately.