Food and drink

Gran’s Ginger Biscuits

September 19, 2023 by Penny Leave a Comment

It’s nearly 14 years since I first shared this recipe online, but every month when I bake a batch of these for a WI meeting I get people asking for the recipe. As a child these biscuits were a fundamental part of my childhood. Every time that we went to visit my Gran she would produce a tin with some in. It’s over 12 years now since we lost her, but her recipe lives on. Although quite what she would make of the modern day WI I just don’t know!

A selection of home baked Gran's ginger biscuits fresh out off the oven laying on a piece of greaseproof paper

Ingredients

4 oz self raising flour
2 oz margarine
2 1/2 oz sugar
1 level teaspoon ground ginger
1 level teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 tablespoon golden syrup

What to do

Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl.
Melt the margarine and golden syrup very gently in a pan.
Once all liquid, pour into the dry ingredients and mix to make a dough.
Use your hands to make into small balls.
Place the balls on a lined baking tray and press each one down slightly with the back of a fork or spoon.
Bake for 10 – 15 minutes at 180 degrees C / Gas Mark 4.

A baking tray of round mounds of biscuit dough with a fork pressing one of them down before they go in the oven

This recipe makes between 10-12 biscuits. You can easily double up the quantities to make twice as many, but if you use two baking trays on different shelves in the oven, swap them over half way through the baking time to get an even bake.

Why we love Gran’s Ginger Biscuits so much

Not only are these biscuits incredibly tasty, but they’re also very simple to make. I can easily knock up a batch in less than ten minutes, and if you you want to bake with children they love getting their hands in the dough to make the balls.

Lockdown lunch: Pitta Bread Pizza

June 25, 2020 by Penny Leave a Comment

During lockdown I’ve suddenly had to get used to organising lunch for the kids every single day. With a child still at infant school, and so getting free school lunches everyday (and the other one preferring a cooked school dinner over sandwiches) I’ve been lucky until now not having to think about something new and exciting to fill a lunchbox with every day. The problem during lockdown was not just coming up with lunch ideas, but also time to make said lunch whilst also homeschooling them. Hence, pitta bread pizzas soon became our go to lunch option.

Pitta bread pizzas are quick and easy to make, and also something that I could set the kids on to prepare whilst I cleared away the mess of the morning’s lessons.

Ingredients

All you really need are three basic things:

pitta bread
passata
cheese – grated

That really is it for necessities. Yes, you can then go on and add any other toppings you like to your pizza, but that’s really up to you and your kids.

How to make pitta bread pizzas

Firstly – turn the oven on to 180 degrees and send the kids to wash their hands. Whilst they do so get the pitta breads out of the packet and lay them out on a baking sheet.

Grate some cheese – we just used cheddar and if you can prefer you can obviously but it ready grated – and pour some of the pasta into a bowl.

Once the kids return with clean hands get them to choose their pitta and then place a spoonful of pasta on it. Use the back of the spoon to spread the passata around the surface of the pitta.

With the pitta covered with tomato you can then add the cheese. Any other toppings come after that. we had salami slices torn into smaller pieces on some of ours, but you could use anything you fancy really. Tuna, ham, tomato slices, red onion, olives, sweetcorn, peppers.

Bung the pizza in the oven for 6 – 10 minutes. Exact time really depends on your oven and how crispy you like your pizza.

Take out and enjoy.

A wonderfully simple lockdown lunch that can be prepared, cooked and eaten in just 15 minutes. Also, a brilliant way of getting the kids involved and therefore counting as a home economics lesson too!

Observant readers will notice the there’s not a single picture of a cooked pizza in this post. There’s a very simple reason for that. Whenever we make them they’re eaten by everyone (including me!) before I can get my camera out. That’s how delicious they are!

Sweets for My Sweet this Valentines Day with Swizzles

January 29, 2020 by Penny Leave a Comment

Disclaimer: We were sent a selection of Swizzles sweets for the purposes of this blog post. Please see full disclaimer at the end of the post.

Sweets for my sweet, sugar for my honey
Your first sweet kiss thrilled me so
Sweets for my sweet, sugar for my honey
I’ll never ever let you go

I’m not too sure if The Drifters (or any of the other artists the recored this later) were singing about confectionary, but it’s definitely the song that comes to mind when I think about sweets on Valentines Day. A bit of research suggests that the phrase might have actually comes from a line in Hamlet where “sweets to the sweet” is actually;ly referring to funeral flowers scattered on a grave! They always say not to look into song lyrics too deeply and I guess this is an example as to why.

It can be so hard working out what to buy your loved one for Valentines Day, but sometimes the saying that the way to a (wo)man’s heart is through his stomach couldn’t be truer. Especially if your husband has an incredibly sweet tooth as is my situation!

Swizzles have got all the solutions you could possibly need when it comes to sweets for your Valentine. Their online shop is packed full of ideas for all budgets.

Love Hearts

Love Hearts have to be the most iconic sweet when it comes to declarations of love. I’ve heard of marriage proposals via them as well as small packets of them making perfect wedding favours, especially if you personalise them.

This year they are offering a Love Hearts personalised gift tube which contains 25 mini Love Heart rolls. Now, that’s a lot of Love Hearts! I’ve got one of those names that you never find when searching for names in shops, so it’s lovely to see that all names, no matter how unique, can be catered for.

And if normal Love Hearts aren’t romantic enough for you come 14th February, then there are also pink Limited Edition Valentines Love Hearts this year too.

Valentines Hampers

For those sweet toothed Valentines who love more than just Love Hearts Swizzles have hampers that range in price from £2.99 up to £21.99. We were sent one of the 500g sweet hampers (which cost £7.99) and when you see just how many sweets you get in one of those my mind boggles somewhat when I think how much would be in one of the larger hampers. My kids’ eyes nearly popped out of their heads when they saw everything in there – Parma Violets, Rainbow Drops, Squashies, Drumsticks, Fruity Pops, Refreshers and Fizzers.

It’s not just your significant other who may appreciate a Swizzles Hamper this Valentines Day. Kids are now bought into Valentines like never before and mine have both already mentioned that they are looking forward to what they are going to get. What chid wouldn’t be excited to receive a hamper full of sweets? Valentines Day or not!

Leap Year?

Don’t forget that there’s not only Valentines Day in February this year. Tradition says that women are allowed to propose marriage themselves one a Leap Day. I’ll just leave that option there for any traditionalist reading…

15% off – 1st to 14th February 2020

As if all this isn’t sweet enough, Swizzles are also offering a massive 15% off EVERYTHING in their shop between 1st and 14th February 2020. All you need to do is enter the code V15 at checkout. What are you waiting for?

Disclaimer: We were sent all the Swizzles products featured in the photographs in this post for the purposes of writing it.

Quick and Easy Beef Stir Fry with #MeatMatters

March 30, 2019 by Penny Leave a Comment

When challenged to come up with a beef or lamb recipe that can be cooked in less than 30 minutes for the #MeatMatters campaign my brain went into overdrive. I have to admit that we eat quite a bit of meat in this household. The idea of going vegetarian would be met with looks of horror from the kids and my husband! I’m therefore used to coming up with quite a lot of different ways to serve them. I regularly throw them into the slow cooker so that we can have something ready when we get home from work or school. They may take less than 30 minutes of my involvement, but I can’t really class them as meals that are ready in less then thirty minutes.

I put my thinking cap on and was simultaneously trying to think of something for dinner that night which would be very quick to cook as we needed to squeeze a meal in between picking kids from school, my husband getting in from work and then driving to the neighbouring county to drop Little Miss C off at Cub Camp for the weekend. Life in this family runs at 100mph and during the week meals need to be either ready in advance, or speedy enough that the kids don’t raid the snack cupboard whilst I’m getting ready.

A quick stir-fry is often the answer. Incredibly quick to cook, rich in protein from the meat, colourful from the vegetables and yummy to eat too!

That’s why I decided to do a simple stir fry for the #MeatMatters challenge. You really only need a handful of ingredients, and supermarkets make it so easy that even if you’re not a regular cook you can’t muck this one up.

Beef stir fry ingredients

Beef cut into strips (often helpfully labelled in the supermarket as “stir fry beef”)
Vegetables (again helpfully labelled as “stir-fry veg” in many supermarkets, but generally consisting of carrot, peppers, cabbage, red cabbage, beansprouts, onion and water chestnuts)
Egg noodles – straight to wok ones
Stir fry sauce – many different types that you can choose. We went for a teriyaki one when we made this dish, but black bean sauce is also a favourite when we stir fry beef)

How to make your stir fry

It really couldn’t be simpler!

To start, put a splash of oil in your wok and put it on a high heat. Once heated up add the beef to the wok and keep moving it around the pan until it is browned all over.

Add the vegetables and again stir fry in the wok until cooked to your liking.

Add the sauce that you are using and make sure that everything in the pan in covered.

Finally, add the straight to wok noodles. Follow the packet instructions, but these often only take about three to five minutes to cook, depending on the exact ones you are using.

Ta-dah! One bright and colourful, healthy dinner that has only taken minutes to make.

Benefits of meat

There’s so much in the press about the benefits of eating vegetables, but there’s a reason that a balance of meat has been part of our the human diet. Beef and lamb are naturally rich in protein. Beef is also a source of iron, which helps to reduce tiredness and fatigue. I’ve been iron deficient before, during and after pregnancy, and it’s no fun at all.

Beef also provides seven other essential vitamins and minerals that support good health and well-being in addition to the iron – niacin, vitamins B6 and B1, riboflavin, zinc, potassium and phosphorus.

It makes sense to have beef and lamb as part of a healthy balanced diet and it helps when there are so many delicious recipes to create with them too.

This post is an entry for the #MeatMatters Challenge, sponsored by Simply Beef and Lamb. Learn about the benefits of cooking and eating beef and lamb along with recipe ideas and inspiration here: https://www.simplybeefandlamb.co.uk