Almost there bread rolls and an IOU

Before I begin I should probably just let you know that this post was written on sunday (20th May) and since then I am feeling a little better. Now please continue …

I’m having one of those days…….you know when you wake up feeling wide awake and assume it’s probably around 7am so you start to get up, then you spy the clock out of the corner of your eye and your worst nightmare hits home…it’s 1am and you’ve been in bed for 2 hours!! I then spent the rest of the night waking up every 30 minutes or so and feeling pretty darn sorry for myself the next day.

Then, when it was actually time to get up, a few hours of revision was followed by my attempt to make my own recipe bread rolls. With just an idea and a feeling of adventure I began but very soon my lack of baking knowledge and need for a glass of wine and a nice hot bath took over and by the end I was surrounded by a pile of half decent almost passable but definitely not “shout about” bread rolls and I have tears in my eyes and a sick feeling in my gut. Because that is me out of time for making bread rolls, with a big exam looming and no more fennel I am done!

Now these aren’t a complete disaster, as far as a bread roll goes it is edible, in fact it is quite fine. But my idea as a whole really has not come across well, the flavours are muddled and the beautifully caramelised, sweet and sticky fennel seeds on the top are in fact burnt to a crisp and really better off scraped into the bin! Never the less I have 15 rolls and I am not one to waste food! So I will be eating them of course!

So this post is not just one massive excuse to my offering of a bread roll, this is infact the epitomy of my friday challenges…a chance to learn! Well… I think it started to go wrong when I cooked the fennel in a cup of vegetable stock and began to panic that maybe that would strip all of the flavour out, or make it too soggy. It seemed ok so I left it to cool to room temperature and then made the dough. Before the first rise I scrunched all of the fennel and zest of an orange into the dough and soon had what can only be described as a slimy ball of dough sliding around my kitchen top. I added flour…more flour….more flour untill I felt it was back to a consistency of dough I recognised then I started to shape it into rolls.

In comes Scott “I thought you let it rise once before shaping it”….. Me “No, do you, I don’t know I can’t remember”. Frantic scramble through my Jamie Oliver book. “Oh yeah I do, aahh”. I quickly squished all the perfectly shaped and weighed out rolls back into one big ball and leave it to rise.  One hour later I re shaped them into rolls and then left to rise for a second time. At this point I’m feeling fine and the rolls are looking good!

I dry fried some fennel seeds in a pan untill lightly toasted then added sugar and the juice of an orange. This idea originated from my Braised Cabbage recipe because when I added the fennel seeds and sugar to the cabbage magic happened, I had to stop myself eating it all there and then…caramelised fennel seeds were the bomb!
My fennel seeds unfortunately started to clump together and when I did try and put them onto the rolls they wouldn’t come off the spoon, or my finger and I ended up squashing alot of rolls trying to get the seeds on to them. Never mind I thought, it would still turn out amazing, my faith was still in these rolls!

I followed the cooking method from my LEON Baking book and added ice cubes to a preheated oven and put the rolls in for around 17 minutes. When I took them out the first thing I noticed was that the fennel seeds were black; clumped black little bitter balls of charcoal fury ready to make you wince at every mouthful! (At this point I was on the phone to my mum who sensibly suggested I just scrape them off, but in my over tired bad mood I insisted the whole world was over and this bread was the end of my life, how could I put burnt fennel seeds on my blog!?!?).

I tore one open straight from the oven, burning my fingers and my mouth and of course the inside was under cooked. At this point I should have known this was coming. I popped them back in for 3 minutes then left them on the side to cool down. Later on, me and a very nervous looking Scott decided to try another roll, after Scott pointing out that it’s never an exciting moment when the chef presents you with food and says “This is going to be disgusting, tell me what you think?”. I instantly didn’t like it even with the seeds scraped off. The fennel flavour was lost and a weird texture, the orange didn’t mix well and the bread had an over powering taste of flour!

So I won’t be sharing my recipe this time, but I am giving (promising) an IOU for my own recipe bread roll. Not everything turns out how you imagine and sometimes life can get in the way of even the most dedicated blogger (in my case a rather important exam) but it’s important to remember to laugh about it, learn what you can and move on to the next challenge! Which I can reveal is “Artichoke”, a vegetable I have been dying to conquer for a long time!

Braised Cabbage with Butter Beans: Meat Free Monday

As usual this is a recipe which started with just an image in my mind of the end product but I had no idea how to get there! I love cabbage but I’ve never cooked it in wedges before so I decided to just get all of my intended ingredients out and follow my instincts. I have found on numerous occasions now that actually by working this way and just listening to my instincts and making decisions once I have seen how the dish is panning out I have ended up with something better than I could have imagined….if I may say so myself I think this is one of those times!

I knew I wanted the cabbage to have some colour to it which is why I pan-fried it first and also I knew I’d want to use some sort of herb/ spice mixture so I dived into my cupboards and ended up pulling out my trusted fennel seeds! I think they give the dish a real kick and also add a different dimension to the flavours. I really adore fennel seeds now, especially mixed with a nice rich tomatoey sauce!

If you read my post “A Balanced Diet for a Balanced Well being”you will know that I have been quite high on my carb intake and I want to make sure I am eating healthily with a better balance of protein and carbs. Well this dish is a perfect example of the changes I am making because before I would have made the cabbage with a tomato sauce and then served it with rice however because I’m more aware of my dietary needs at the moment I decided to add butter beans (lima beans) because they are high protein and fiber with a lower more moderate level of carbohydrate. I had this for dinner as a complete meal and felt satisfied! They are also a great source of source of iron, copper and magnesium.

So on to my recipe – as I said I was literally seeing how it went at each stage and making decisions as I went along so if you read this and think I have turned one simple step into 3 or 4 steps then please let me know!

Serves 2

1/2 White Cabbage
1 teaspoon Fennel Seeds
Pinch Sugar
1 Garlic Clove
300 ml Vegetable Stock
1 Can Chopped Tomatoes
I heaped tablespoon Tomato Puree
1 Can Butter Beans (approx 300g)
Large Bunch Fresh Parsley
Salt and Pepper
Spray oil for cooking

I used half of the cabbage for this recipe and kept the other half for a soup recipe. Slice one half of the cabbage into 4 even wedges. Heat some oil in a large deep frying pan on a medium heat and once hot place the cabbage wedges into the pan and cook for 3 minutes on one side. Then sprinkle the cabbage with half the fennel seeds and sugar and turn the wedges over to cook for another 3 minutes on the other side. Sprinkle the other half of the fennel seeds and sugar onto the other half of the wedges.
You can be quite generous with the spray oil at this point as you don’t want it to burn.

Turn the cabbage wedges back over again (be really careful to not let them fall apart) and add the crushed garlic clove to the pan for one minute then add 300 ml of vegetable stock.
Cook uncovered for 15 minutes (let it bubble away slightly) and then turn the cabbage slices over again. You don’t need to turn them more often than I have mentioned as they will begin to fall apart so less touching them the better!

Add the canned tomatoes, tomato puree, butter beans, chopped parsley and some salt and pepper and stir. Don’t worry if the vegetable stock wasn’t all evaporated as that little bit left in the pan will make the sauce nice and juicy! Use a small spoon and stir the tomatoes around the cabbage making sure you don’t disturb the cabbage too much. I liked leaving the pale colour of the cabbage peeking out so I purposefully didn’t coat the cabbage with the tomatoes.

Cook for a further 10 minutes uncovered stirring occasionally so nothing burns or sticks to the bottom then garnish with more fresh parsley and serve!

This was one of the nicest meals I’ve had in ages and I feel like I’m finally getting myself back around to a healthy balanced diet I should be eating! Plus I love butter beans so this was just my cup of tea!