As it was recently bonfire night, I thought in honour of the awesome night I had with an author, a white Labrador and a vampire, I would give a recipe for eggs in the basket. This wont see an odd thing to do if your one of the cool kids who recognises the almost exact quote below:

Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin van-guarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition.

The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous.

Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it is my very good honour to meet you and you may call me V. I also make a fantastic egg in the basket despite my gnarled hands.

Oh V you make the best breakfast

Anyway, back to the recipe:

Ingredients:

• 1 thick slice of bread, preferably white
• 1 egg
• A good-sized knob of butter

Method:

1. Cut a circular hole in the centre of your bread, I find a tumbler glass makes an adequate sized hole.
2. Heat a large frying pan on the hob and drop in the knob of butter
3. Once the butter is sizzling, lay the bread in the pan and break the egg into the hole.
4. Fry for a few minutes, allowing the egg to cook for as long as possible, and flip. Try to use a wide spatula for the flip if you can.
5. Once the under side is cooked, serve to your nearest and dearest anti government friends hiding out in your secret lair.

Mr Josh

Good day to everyone who reads this! unfortunately I haven’t had time to update you guys in the last few weeks so to make up for it I’m going to bombard you with recipes today, doesn’t that sound nice?

First off is the recipe to my mothers fruit loaf, which I found on a very old-looking piece of paper that could Disintegrate at any time. Its a very very quick recipe of basically throw everything in a pan, hope for the best. The one condition of putting this recipe up is to keep it in its ancient measurements, so prepare to get retro.

Ingredients

The ancient document this recipe was inscribed upon

• 1 mug of black tea
• 1/2 mug of white sugar
• 1/2 mug of brown sugar
• 2 mugs mixed fruit
• 4 oz butter
• 1 heaped tea-spoon mixed spice
• 1 tea-spoon baking soda
• 2 beaten eggs
• 2 mugs self-raising flour

Method:

The loaf, its upside down, because I like the pattern, and that's how I roll

1. Preheat oven to 170.
2. Put everything in a large pan apart from the eggs and self-raising flour. Simmer for fifteen minutes and allow to cool.
3. Beat in the eggs and flour.
4. Put in loaf tins and place in oven for 30 – 40 minutes
5. That’s all there is to it, ridiculously easy.

Mr Josh

This weeks recipe I was a little late to come up with, particularly because of new computer parts given by friends. It came to me on a late night drive with a few friends on which I somehow got to the point of saying ‘I’m going to harvest his liver and make a parfait’. So here it is, my parfait recipe made with chicken livers and not a humans!.

no picture of my own yet, but this is what it should end up like

Ingredients:

• 2 x 250g packs of butter
• Olive oil
• 2 red onions, peeled and finely chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely chopped
• A small bunch of  thyme leaves
• 1kg chicken livers, trimmed
• A tumbler full of brandy

Method: 

1. Clarify the butter, do this by putting one pack in a pan on and let it heat until completely separated. The clear oil will separate from the white part in the bottom. Skim the clear stuff off the top and put in a separate pan. Put this on a medium heat.
2.  In a separate pan fry the onion, garlic and thyme in a splash of oil until they are soft and colouring.
3. Add a little more oil to the pan before adding your chicken livers. Cook on a high heat until the livers are cooked. This should take no longer then four minutes, any longer and the livers will turn tough.
4. Keeping an eye on the pan of butter, remove it from the heat when it starts to bubble and fizzle.
5. Add the Brandy to the livers and light it to burn off all the alcohol.
6. Pour everything in the liver pan into a food processor and blitz  until smooth, seasoning with salt and pepper.
7. Keeping the food processor running, chop your remaining pack of butter up and add piece by piece until all combined with the mix.
8. Keep the food processor running for a further 2-4 minutes.
9. pour the mix through a sieve and into whatever your serving it in (individual ramekins work well) and smooth the top down with the edge of a spoon.
10. pour the clarified butter on the top of  the parfait and place in the fridge. the clarified butter will turn opaque and hard in the fridge and acts as a seal for the parfait. The clarified butter also tastes great on toast with the parfait!
11. This recipe will hold in the fridge for a week, and tastes great with some thick crusty toast.

Mr Josh

This weeks recipe is a little late due to some epic dinner party behavior that ran late into the night. I thought i would post recipe for a great banana bread done the way i like it, without any lumps or nuts. the  measurements for this recipe are all American, spoons, cups and the like because i learned and adapted this recipe from an American friend in university and never bothered to change it!

tasty tasty bread

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter (room temperature)
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• pinch of salt
• 1 teaspoon hazelnut syrup
• 2 eggs (beaten)
• 2 cups self-raising flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 3 large bananas (mashed)

Method: 

1. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees and grease a loaf tin with some butter. Personally I use lurepack butter, it even came with a free loaf tin (shameless butter plug I’m not getting paid or recognized for)
2. Cream together the room temperature butter, sugar and salt until blended well. Add the hazelnut syrup and eggs and mix well. I use hazelnut syrup that you get from places like Starbucks to put in your coffee, it gives a great nutty hint without annoying crunchy nuts getting in your loaf.
3. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and mix with the egg mix.
4. Add the bananas you have mashed and stir like its going out of fashion.
5. Pour the mix into the loaf tin and place in the oven for about an hour or so.
6. Check your banana bread regularly, poke the bread in the center with a skewer. If the skewer comes out clear the bread is ready, if it comes out with some mix on it give it another five minutes and check again.
7. remove from oven and remove from the loaf pan, placing on a cooling rack, banana bread slices a lot easier if you allow it to cool to room temperature first.
8. Serve up and enjoy!

Mr Josh

Taken with a phone, unfortunately.

For todays post I give you my dinner party approved linguine recipe.

Ingredients: 

• 1 packet of linguine                     £0.85 per pack
• 2 Salmon fillets                            £4.09 for 2
• 1 pot of pesto (green or red)      £2.00 per pot
• 300ml double cream                   £0.84 per pot

• Total cost for 2 portions            £7.78

Method:

1. Place a large pan of water on the stove to boil, with a pinch of salt and olive oil. The olive oil stops the pasta sticking, unless your Jamie oliver, in which case you just add it because you would bath in the stuff if you could.
2. Once water is boiling, add roughly 200 g of linguine, which is just under half the packet.
3. Place a griddle pan on a high heat, adding about a table-spoon of oil.
4. Rub your salmon fillets with olive oil and a touch of salt, no seduction required, salmon never says no to a back rub.
5. Place the salmon fillets skin side down in the pan. The pan should be hot enough by now for the salmon to start sizzling immediately. If the fillet starts to curl upwards, removed from the pan briefly and leave for a minute, then add back to the pan, it should now cook flat and stay flat.
6. Check your pasta! You don’t want it to be cooked all the way through, you want it at the point just before being cooked through, the pasta cooking will finish in the pan with the sauce. Drain the pasta in a colander and reserve, add a splash of olive oil to stop the linguine sticking together in the colander.
7. Add the pesto to a frying pan and heat, adding the cream and stirring thoroughly. Green pesto will give a lovely nutty flavour while the red is a more creamy tomato flavour.
8. By now the salmon should be ready for flipping, Looking on the side you should find it should be a light pink colour about half way up. Flip it skin side up.
9. Add linguine to the pesto sauce, coating it thoroughly, and heat. This will finish cooking the linguine and infuse it with all those awesome pesto flavours!
10. using tongs serve the pasta in a bowl, resting the fillet of salmon on top. Accompany with some fresh bread and Italian hard cheese.
11. Enjoy!

All prices for this recipe are from Sainsbury’s on 16/09/2011

Mr Josh

photo belongs to Rachel Balota, visit her site

Its time for my first recipe post to the Site! and its a tasty one!.

Ingredients:

• 4 eggs, separated
• 250g Mascarpone
• 200g caster sugar
• 1 vanilla pod
• 1 cup of strong coffee that has been left to cool
• 1 shot of Kahlua, or Tia Maria
• two boxes of ladies fingers or trifle sponge
• A small block chocolate or cocoa powder

Method:

1. Combine the alcohol with the coffee, personally I use a plastic take away box for easy dipping later.
2. Split your vanilla pod in half-length wise. Using the flat of your knife, scrape out the center of the vanilla pod and add the center to egg yolks and sugar in a bowl. Note the left over pod can be placed in a jar with sugar, which makes awesome vanilla flavored sugar.
3. Whisk the egg yolks with the sugar until pale and frothy. Then Whisk in the mascarpone.
4. In a separate bowl, use an electric mixer if you have one or the mighty manual whisk to whisk up the egg whites until soft peaks form. Fold this into the egg yolk and mascarpone mixture. To fold use a large metal spoon and add the mixture slowly, drawing a figure of eight motion until they mix thoroughly, this ensures plenty of air gets into the mixture.
5. Dip a sponge finger into the coffee and Kahlua mixture, and then place it in the base of your dish. Repeat until the base is covered in one layer. Personally I use wine glasses or ramekins to serve this in as its easier and better looking to serve, plus no arguments over who gets the bigger portion!
6. Spoon over the egg-and-cheese mix, filling the glass or ramekins half way. Grate over some chocolate, then make another layer of dipped sponge, and another layer egg mix. Grate the rest of the chocolate over, or dust with cocoa powder.
7. Refrigerate the mix, do a small jig. Jig is optional, refrigeration is mandatory. After four hours you should be all jigged out and they should be set. Alternatively you can refrigerate for a full 24 hours.

And there you have it, a tasty tiramisu. please share your thoughts

Mr Josh