Wednesday Madhouse - Family recipes.

I know a day early but I am busy tomorrow.

This one is tricky. There aren't really any family recipes that I use - especially as M does most of the cooking. The closest I have to it is a family owned cook book that is my bible. It is circa the 70's and is called 'The Dairy Book of Home Cooking'. It is about A5 size and it is my first port of call when I need to refresh my memory of how to cook something or to tackle something I have never cooked before. My scone, cake, crumble, rice pudding, biscuit, pastry and basic stew recipes have all come from there. I am, however, more of instinctive cook than a recipe follower, once I have the gist of how to make something then I tend to make it up as I go along, adding a pinch of this or a dollop of that.

I also have two 80's versions of this book but they are nowhere near as good.

The other thing that makes this tricky is that what we eat now as a family (M, J and I) is very different (most of the time) from what we ate growing up and also how it is prepared and what ingredients are used. Both M and I are from scratch cookers, neither of us like to use packets or prepared stuff. We also both like quite a lot of veggie food and these days 99.9% we eat and cook low fat.

So here is my take on a fav recipe (the original comes from a Sue Kreitzman low fat cook book);

2 or 3 crispy eating apples (washed)
8 floz orange juice
5 tablespoons of soft brown sugar
10 tablespoons of self raising flour
2 lightly beaten egg whites
A goodly sprinkle of allspice and cinnamon

Core apples, chop roughly (leave the skins on). Put apples into orange juice and leave to soak for at least an hour. Line a fairly deep cake tin with baking parchment and preheat oven to about 170c.
Mix all the dry ingredients, sifting the flour and sugar.
Add apples, orange juice and egg whites.
Mix together - it becomes gloopy batter like and sticky.
Splodge into the cake tin and bake for two hours.
Last 30 mins or so - cover top with foil so it doesn't over brown.

Yummy and very, very low fat. It goes well with custard for a pudding too.