Fantasy Veggie Dinner Guests - MOLE AND RATTY

Following on from last year's Christmas meal for Ebeneezer Scrooge, this time Zelda is inspired by another childhood memory, and another episode from The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame (see her meal for Mr Toad). This one occurs when Mole and Rat are out in the snow in December. Mole has been enjoying staying at Rat's house in the riverbank since the previous spring, but a sudden smell makes him yearn for a visit to his own home:

Poor Mole found it difficult to get any words out between the upheavals of his chest that followed one upon another so quickly and held back speech and choked it as it came. 'I know it's a—shabby, dingy little place,' he sobbed forth at last, brokenly: 'not like—your cosy quarters—or Toad's beautiful hall—or Badger's great house—but it was my own little home—and I was fond of it—and I went away and forgot all about it—and then I smelt it suddenly—on the road, when I called and you wouldn't listen, Rat—and everything came back to me with a rush—and I WANTED it!—O dear, O dear!—and when you WOULDN'T turn back, Ratty—and I had to leave it, though I was smelling it all the time—I thought my heart would break.—We might have just gone and had one look at it, Ratty—only one look—it was close by—but you wouldn't turn back, Ratty, you wouldn't turn back! O dear, O dear!

Of course, Ratty does turn back and insists that they find 'Mole End'. 

While they are there, the rodent carol singers visit. 

After some initial concern that there will be nothing to offer them, they manage to serve up:

Captain's Biscuits 
German Sausage 
Mustard
Savoury Comforts 
Beer 
Hot drinks

So, she thought that it would be good, this Christmas (170 years after its publication) to serve up a similar vegetarian meal. 

CAPTAIN'S BISCUITS    (A very basic stand-by. They would be something like this, so let's get them over with first!): 

100g plain flour (+ extra for rolling)
50 ml milk

Mix the flour into a smooth paste with the milk.

Divide it into small balls.

Squash each ball until you have thin rounds.
Place on baking trays. 

Bake at 200°C/ 390°F/ Gas 6 for 10-12 minutes. 

Mine were quite soft and floury, but I gather the idea would now be to store them for weeks until needed. 


Then, I thought we would use a bit of artistic license for the serving of the German Sausage and mustard, by making some buffet-sized treats based on hotdogs. 

MINI HOTDOGS

Makes 8 but can easily be multiplied.

4 slices of cut white bread
4 vegetarian Frankfurter-style sausages, halved
1 small onion, peeled
1tbsp olive oil
squeezy mustard
8 cocktail sticks

Cut the crusts off the slices of bread and then, using a rolling pin, flatten each one until thin and pliable.

Cut two rectangles from each slice, keeping the edges as neat as possible. (Make the width of each just longer than each half-sausage and the length long enough to roll up - you might need to do a bit of trial and error at the preparation stage.)

Prepare a serving plate by creating a design around the edge with mustard.

Slice the onions into sections and peel apart so that you have 'petal-like' pieces. Allow 2 per hotdog. 

When ready, to serve, gently heat the oil and place a pan of water on to boil. 

Put the sausages into the water. Bring back to the boil and simmer for a few minutes. 

Cook the onions until brown and soft. 

Then drain on some absorbent paper. 

Squeeze some mustard onto each bread rectangle.

Place a couple of pieces of onion in the centre of each one. Then top with a sausage piece. 

Roll them up and secure with a cocktail stick.

Kenneth Grahame does not specify what the Savoury Comforts are, so I have used my imagination here:

BRIE AND CRANBERRY SANDWICHES

Cut white bread (allow 2 slices per person)

Brie
Cranberry sauce
Butter or spread

Put spread on the bread and then cover half the slices with the cranberry sauce.
Slice the brie and place on the remaining slices.

Pair them up and cut each round diagonally into four triangles.

ROASTED SMALL POTATOES IN SKINS

1 small bag (about 20) small potatoes
1tbsp olive oil
salt and black pepper

Wash the potatoes and prick with a fork. Then place in a bowl with the oil. Stir to coat and season.

Place in a baking tray and cook at 180C/ Gas 4 for about an hour, but check and turn every 20 minutes. 

SPICY COUS COUS

200g cous cous
boiling water
half a red pepper, de-seeded and chopped
1 small onion, peeled and chopped
1tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp hot chilli sauce
juice of 1 small orange

Place the cous cous in a jug and top up with water to about 2cm above its own level.

Stir with a fork and leave to hydrate. 
Meanwhile, fry the onion and pepper...

...and place in a bowl. 

Add the now fluffy cous cous along with the orange juice and the chilli sauce and stir well.

And to finish, all guests, including field mice, love a cheesecake:

CHOCOLATE CHIP CHEESECAKE

250g digestive biscuits

100g butter

500g soft unflavoured cheese

100g icing sugar

1tsp vanilla extract

200ml double cream

50g milk chocolate

Crush the digestive biscuits, either in a food processor or (as I did) in a bowl with a rolling pin.

Melt the butter and add to the biscuit crumbs.

Place it into the base of a spring-form tin with a diameter of about 18-20cm. Press down well with the back of a spoon so all the crumbs are compacted. 

Refrigerate for at least half an hour.

Mix the cream cheese with the vanilla and sifted icing sugar.

Add the double cream and whisk together.

Finely grate 15g of the chocolate and mix this in.

Spoon the mixture over the base and smooth.

Place back into the fridge and chill for at least three hours.

To serve, remove the cheesecake from the tin.

Use a knife or a large-hole grater to make shavings with the remaining chocolate and sprinkle these over the top of the cheesecake.

Accompany with beer (and wine) and hot drinks such as tea, coffee, hot chocolate etc. for a thoroughly warming treat.

FIVE GO DOWN TO THE SEA - A Meal for a Cornish Holiday

The Famous Five books are full of references to food.

This week, five - four humans and a dog, of course - have gone down to the sea.

It is appropriate, therefore, that we had a meal described in Enid Blyton's twelfth Famous Five novel, from 1953, where they visit Cornwall and encounter wreckers:

The high tea that awaited them was truly magnificent. A huge ham gleaming as pink as Timmy’s tongue; a salad fit for a king. In fact, as Dick said, fit for several kings, it was so enormous. It had in it everything that anyone could possibly want. “Lettuce, tomatoes, onions, radishes, mustard and cress, carrot grated up – that is carrot, isn’t it, Mrs. Penruthlan?” said Dick. “And lashings of hard-boiled eggs.” There was an enormous tureen of new potatoes, all gleaming with melted butter, scattered with parsley. There was a big bottle of home-made salad cream. “Look at that cream cheese, too,” marvelled Dick, quite overcome. “And that fruit cake."

As this is a vegetarian meal, we were never going to eat a ham which 'gleams' like Timmy's/ Archie's tongue. There is now, however, a whole range of vegetarian substitutes. I chose a Quorn roast and some vegetarian ham-style slices.

Hard boiled eggs were easy to include. 

Our usual cream cheese is defined as "a soft fresh cheese made from milk and cream" and from my research it looks as though this was the same as in 1953, although 'Philadelphia' probably wasn't synonymous with it back then, but to replicate the meal Dick described, I placed a wedge of it on the table along with some Brie.

Then I added the same accompaniments as those mentioned in 1953:

FAMOUS FIVE SALAD

green lettuce leaves

2 medium onions

3 medium tomatoes

6 small radishes

1 carrot

handful of mustard and cress leaves

Rinse and dry the lettuce. Then shred the leaves. Place in the bottom of the bowl.

Peel and slice the onion.  Wash and slice the tomatoes and radishes. Mix together and add to the bowl.

Peel and grate the carrot on top.

Sprinkle the mustard and cress over the bowl.

HOME MADE SALAD CREAM

2 free-range eggs, hard-boiled, yolks only

2 tbsp mustard

Juice of half a lemon

1 tbsp caster sugar

3 tbsp white wine vinegar

150ml/5fl oz double cream  

150ml/5fl oz olive oil

Pinch of salt

Take the yolks from the eggs and place in a bowl.

Add all of the other ingredients, apart from the oil and salt, and mix well, passing through a sieve if necessary to remove any lumps.

Then gradually add the oil, stirring well until the salad cream is smooth and emulsified. Then season with the salt.

For new potatoes, all gleaming with melted butter, scattered with parsley, see New Potatoes. When served, place knobs of butter on top and sprinkle over the parsley.

The meal also included fruit cake, so it would be rude to omit it.

FRUIT CAKE

225g/ 8oz self raising flour

110g/ 4oz butter, chilled and cubed

110g/ 4oz sugar

225g/ 8oz mixed fruit

1 egg, whisked

5tbsp milk

Sieve the flour into a bowl and then rub in the butter until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs.

Then add the fruit, milk and sugar and stir everything together.

Place in lined 6” round cake tin and smooth the top.


Cook at 180°C/ 350°F Gas 4 for about 1hr to 1¼ hours. It is cooked when a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

And what did we wash it all down with?

Fantasy Veggie Dinner Guest - WILFRED OWEN

This month we commemorate 100 years since the end of the First World War.

Wilfred Owen died on 4th November 1918, just one week before the armistice. He had wanted to be a poet prior to the war, but after he had almost drowned in mud, held a dugout in an advanced position, seen comrades blinded and killed, been treated for shell shock and been awarded the Military Cross, he had the subject matter to match his talent and ensure his reputation.

Futility

Move him into the sun—

Gently its touch awoke him once,

At home, whispering of fields half-sown.

Always it woke him, even in France,

Until this morning and this snow.

If anything might rouse him now

The kind old sun will know. 

Think how it wakes the seeds,—

Woke, once, the clays of a cold star.

Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides,

Full-nerved—still warm—too hard to stir?

Was it for this the clay grew tall?

—O what made fatuous sunbeams toil

To break earth’s sleep at all?

Food in the trenches consisted mainly of bully (corned) beef, and stews.

Soldiers relied upon packages from home for any extras, such as chocolate. 

TRENCH CAKE

Trench cake was a popular present. The recipe uses no eggs (as they would have been in short supply) and was republished recently to encourage people, and school children in particular, to try it out.
The measurements were given in pounds and ounces, so I have also included modern equivalents which keep the same ratios. 
My cake didn't rise as much as a modern one would do, so I was relieved to see other efforts online which were all of a similar height.

½lb (220g) plain flour

4oz (110g) margarine, cut into small pieces

1tsp vinegar

¼pt milk

3oz (85g) brown sugar

3oz(85g) currants

2tsp cocoa powder

½ tsp baking soda

pinch of nutmeg

pinch of ginger

grated rind of 1 lemon

Grease and flour a cake tin.

Rub the margarine into the flour until it resembles breadcrumbs.

Add the sugar, currants, cocoa, nutmeg, ginger and lemon rind. Stir all together well.

Dissolve the baking soda in the milk and vinegar, and add this to the dry ingredients.

Mix everything together.

Place in the cake tin.

Bake in a moderate oven (180°C/ 350°F/ Gas 4) for about an hour and a half.

Allow to cool a little, then turn out of the tin and allow to cool fully.

CHEESE AND LENTIL SPREAD

This is a teatime dish from the start of the 20th Century. 

It did not specify which type of lentils to use, so I picked red lentils as they are the easiest to cook. 

8oz (225g) cheese, grated 

5½oz (155g) red lentils

3oz (85g) breadcrumbs

4oz onions, chopped finely

1tbsp chopped parsley

salt and pepper

Rinse the lentils and then place in a pan with about 100ml water. Add the onion. Bring to the boil and simmer for about 10-15 minutes, adding a little more water halfway through if required.

Place all the other ingredients in a bowl.

When the lentils are soft and have absorbed the water, take off the heat.

Add them to the bowl and mix well to make a paste.

I have served it here with bread, which would make it more special, as bread had become a luxury item.

This is where the recipe ends. However, as I was making it, I realised that the ingredients were very similar to those for a cheese and lentil loaf bake. So, I thought that it would be even more of a treat for Wilfred if I made him one of those:

CHEESE AND LENTIL LOAF BAKE

Ingredients as above + 1 egg.

Add the egg to the mix.

Grease and line a loaf tin and pour in the mixture.
Bake at Gas 5/ 190°C/ 375°F for about 50 minutes.

Wait a few minutes, then turn out onto a plate.

Can be served hot or cold. 
I allowed it to cool, cut it into slices and served it with some fresh salad.

For an alternative First World War themed meal, see Zelda's choice for Baldrick.