Today's baking adventure: Cheese and Parsnip Scones

So I love scones and we had a couple of parsnips hanging about that needed using. I'm sure I've seen a recipe for cheese and parsnip scones somewhere before, but when it came down to it I couldn't find one, so I made it up!
This will make 16-20 scones
250g plain flour
1tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
100g margarine
2 medium sized parsnips
Grated cheese to taste - I used about 80g
a little milk

First things first, peel and dice the parsnips. Boil them for about five minutes until they're soft, then mash them.
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius/ Gas Mark 6
Mix together the flour, salt and  baking powder.
Add in the parsnip and cheese, keeping backa little cheese to top them with.
 Mix together the whole caboodle to make a smooth dough, adding in the milk as you go.
Roll out the dough to about 1cm thick on a floured surface, and cut your scones out. I used a dinosaur-shaped cutter.
Bake for 20-25 minutes, topping them with a little cheese around the 15 minute mark.

Serve with butter, cream cheese or sour cream. I  discovered that black pepper Boursin is particularly good for them.

Food history: what might one eat in Shakespeare's Globe?

The BBC has launched its Shakespeare Unlocked season, and as part of it, the British Museum's Director, Neil MacGregor has, in the style of 'A History of the World in 100 Objects', been looking at items from Shakespeare's era.
Last week, the third part of Shakespeare's Restless World (which you can listen to here if you're in the UK) looked at a fork found during an archaeological dig at the Rose theatre (run by a rival of The Bard's own company), using it as a jumping off point to talk about the food of the era, and of course, particularly theatre snacks.

The fork itself was a new arrival to England from the continent. Early adopters of forks were mercilessly mocked by their peers - who, generally speaking, would have eaten with a knife, perhaps a spoon, and certainly their fingers. Even later on, the foreignness of a fork was cause for suspicion, and entirely reserved for the rich. Given the general state of hygeine at the time we can only assume people had far tougher digestive and immune systems than we do today.

So, a little collection of facts about Elizabethan food:
Shellfish, bread, nuts and fruit make up the bulk of the goodies on offer from merchants roaming the auditorium throughout the performance.

Apples were often thrown at the stage when the groundlings (members of the audience on the ground of the theatre, without a seat) got bored or fidgety, or felt the performers were less than entertaining.

Oysters - now seen mostly as a luxury (albeit not by me, I don't really find the idea of seawater flavoured snot appealing) were a staple of theatre nibbles.

Some of the female food sellers made extra money as prostitutes

Water wasn't clean enough to drink, so everybody was drinking ale, beer, wine or mead all the time. Some estimates suggest the population of London got through a gallon of ale each every day.

Potatoes were a novelty rather than an often taken for granted staple in the Elizabethan diet. Brought from America, they thrived in Britain's damp mud, and with a little help from deep-fat frying, this versatile vegetable became utterly ubiquitous.

The British tradition of eating lamb with mint sauce began with Elizabeth I decreeing that lamb may only be eaten with 'bitter herbs' in an effort to discourage people from eating it to help out the wool industry.

The spice trade became a big earner for England at this time, and new flavours were arriving and being adopted all the time. It was also a catalyst for the rise of the British Empire.

Sugar, another new import, was a weakness for Queen Elizabeth herself. She had one hell of a sweet tooth, especially for candied violets, and (despite its huge price - she was queen after all) ate so much sugar that she rotted all of her teeth.

Exploration in America brought a lot to our diets beyond potatoes. Tomatoes, maize, chilli, peanuts, turkey, pineapples, pumpkins, coffee and chocolate also came to our shores from the New World.

Spanokopita (Greek spinach pie) with Abbie

I've been asking for vegetarian recipes and family recipes, and the lovely Abbie (who is writing about music at Music for my Generation) came through with this fantastic comfort food, passed down from her Greek relations.


Spanokopita is a filo pastry pie, filled with spinach and cheese (unfortunately it's not vegan). It's delicious, very filling and can be made in a huge batch then frozen for later, it can be eaten as a meal all by itself or cut into bitesize pieces for a meze platter or buffet.

To make it you will need;
1 large onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 kilo spinach (we used frozen)
1 teaspoon each basil and oregano - these can be dried or fresh
2 eggs (the recipe will work without these if you add more ricotta)
125g ricotta cheese
250g crumbled feta cheese
- it's not in the traditional recipe, but we also added some cheddar
8 sheets filo pastry
olive oil

Lightly oil a 23cm square baking tin

Fry the onion and garlic in a little olive oil until they are soft.

Add in the spinach and cook until it has all wilted. Remove from the heat and allow it to cool.


In a bowl, mix together the eggs, ricotta and feta. Add in the basil and oregano.

It'll look a lot like egg mayo at this point.

Line the bottom of the baking tin with a sheet of filo, and brush it with a little oil. repeat this with the next three sheets. They'll be big enough to overhang the pan, but don't trim them, they're there to keep the filling in.


You can mix the cheese mixture and the spinach together, but we layered them. Spread out about half of the spinach in the pan, layer the cheese mixture on top, and then add the last of the spinach. We then added some more grated cheddar on top of that.

Lay another sheet of filo on top and brush with oil. Tuck the overhanging pastry in to keep the filling in. Repeat with the remaining filo sheets. Top with a little more cheese.


Bake the whole lot for 30-40 minutes until the pastry is golden brown, and serve.


It takes about an hour to put this all together and cook it, but a batch will freeze beautifully, and you can grab a slice and simply microwave it in 2-3 minutes. Because you only need a little piece, each batch will last for ages too.

Vegetarian month: ten vegetarian facts

March is Animal Aid's vegetarian month, an opportunity for them to spread the word about the advantages of a vegetarian lifestyle.
I'm not a vegetarian, and I wouldn't presume to tell anyone else that they should or shouldn't be, but here's some interesting facts about vegetarian diets;

1 - There are lots of different sorts of vegetarian diets. A 'true vegetarian', more usually referred to as a vegan will not eat any animal products including eggs, dairy, and even honey; pescatarians will eat fish (and sometimes chicken); lacto-ovo vegetarians won't eat meat but will eat eggs and dairy.

2 - It's not always obvious what is and isn't vegetarian. Most of the meat flavours of Walkers crisps contain no animal products, but, before a recipe change in 2003 the cheese in their cheese and onion flavour was made with animal rennet - derived from the stomach linings of newborn calves. (the mature cheddar flavour crisps still use animal rennet)

3 - Famous vegetarians include Pamela Anderson, Albert Einstein, Shania Twain, Martina Navratilova and George Bernard Shaw.

4 - Vitamin B-12, calcium, vitamin D, zinc, and iron can be difficult to get enough of in a meat-free diet. Nutritionists recommend lots of leafy green vegetables, supplements, and eating a broad variety of food to make sure you also get the right protein in your diet.

5 - Vegetarian lifestyles are associated with a reduced risk of many chronic illnesses, including heart disease, bowel cancer and diabetes.

6 - There are nearly as many reasons to be a vegetarian as there are vegetarians. Some are unhappy that animals die so we can eat them, or object to the treatment of farm animals. Some choose to go veggie to be eco-friendly, because they believe it's better for them, or just because they don't like meat.

7 - Studies have suggested that as much of 10% Americans are vegetarians, and between five and twelve percent of people in the UK

8 - meat substitutes can be derived from a number of sources. Tofu is among a wide selection of soy-based products, Quorn is made with mushroom proteins and buddhist tradition gives us seitan, made from wheat flour. Lentils, chickpeas, beans and pulses are also sometimes used this way

9 - Animal rights group PETA has offered a million dollar prize to anyone who can create commercially viable lab-grown chicken meat by the end of this year

10 - Vegetarian diets tend to be lower in calories and higher in dietary fibre, but if meat and fish have been replaced with lots of cheese and nuts, they can be higher in fat.

As vegetarian month continues, I will be collecting meat-free recipes that work even for fussy meat eaters (i.e. me) so stay tuned!

Heirloom recipes

Some families pass down rings or watches or grandfather clocks. My family passed down these;




That's a cutter and a griddle who's purpose in life revolves around the third heirloom - my nan's Welsh cake recipe, appropriately for St David's day.
A Welsh cakes are a variation on drop scones. Cooked on the griddle and full of dried fruit, they're a traditional teatime snack. They're lovely with a cuppa, and they're nice and easy to make.

You'll need;
200g self-raising flour
100g butter or margarine
100g sugar
one egg
a little milk
sultanas or raisins - however much you like. I like a fruitier cake
you'll also need a rolling pin, biscuit cutter and a griddle or thick frying pan to cook them on.

Cream together the flour, sugar and butter.

Add in the egg and stir until the mixture begins to clump together.

Mix in the fruit, then add in milk, a little at a time until the dough clumps together.

Flour your surface, and roll out the dough to about a quarter inch thick.

Cut out the cakes. I tend to pile them on a plate, with greaseproof paper between the layers to stop them stcking together.

Grease your griddle/pan with a little butter and put it on a medium heat to warm up.

Place some cakes on the griddle. I tend to put on around five at a time, as more can be difficult to manage when it comes to turning them.

Cook them each side for a couple of minutes, or until they're browned.

Sprinkle your cakes with a little sugar, then serve with tea or coffee.




Do you have an heirloom recipe? I would love to hear about it, and maybe even make it with you - leave a comment!

A short history of the Staffordshire oatcake

Last time, I made some oatcakes, now is the time to talk about them.



This long-standing Potteries specialty has a number of origin stories.
The most likely dates the oatcake at least back as far as the 17th century. Oats were one of the few grains which thrived in north-west England, and the oatcake developed as an excellent way to make use of them. Derbyshire and Cheshire also have their own variations on oatcakes, but the Staffs variety is the best known.

When the industrial revolution arrived and the pottery industry took off, bakers soon cottoned on to the idea selling oatcakes to the masses. Front rooms were turned into shops which served their customers through the window. Everyone in North Staffordshire was eating oatcakes, and everyone had their own recipe for them.
The 20th century brought a decline for the oatcake industry and closed down a vast number of traditional oatcake shops.
In fact, the very last one - the Hole in the Wall in Waterloo Street, Hanley - is set to close down in March this year.

On the positive side, supermarkets now sell ready-made oatcakes, and there are online companies who sell mixes and oatcakes themselves, and are willing to deliver them all over the world.

The Hole in the Wall oatcake shop
Oatcake history on BBC Stoke and Staffordshire

Staffordshire oatcakes, as made in Gloucestershire

After Christmas, my mum generously gave me and my vast quantity of miscellaneous stuff a lift back up to Stoke, and then a lift to Sainsbury's to fill my bare cupboards. While we were there, she picked up a packet of ready-made Staffordshire oatcakes to take home and try.

She liked them so much she decided to try making them at home.

That's a lot. She doesn't like cooking.

So, when I came home this weekend she offered to make some, and I obviously couldn't help getting involved.

The recipe needs
200g fine oatmeal (we made our own by smushing rolled oats in the food processor)
100g wholemeal flour
100g plain flour
1tsp
a pinch of salt
825ml (1 pint) of water

Mix the dry ingredients



add the water and mix until the mixture has a creamy consistency ( we found it took a little more water than the recipe suggested to get a pourable consistency)


Looks a lot like porridge

Then, leave the batter to stand in a warm place for 3-8 hours. When you come back, it'll will be lovely and frothy.

Heat a frying pan with a little oil and pour in a ladleful of batter.



Cook your oatcakes like pancakes, then set them aside with greaseproof paper between each one (to stop them sticking together).


This was my very first one, it did get a little bit broken.

Fill them - we went for cheese and bacon - then you can grill or fry them to warm it all, and serve!



Delicious.

If you try it, let me know how it goes!
Later in the week, I'll be bringing you the history of the Staffordshire oatcake.