Pan de yuca! Ecuador!

I have had that incredible song by SASH! in my head all morning... ECUADOR!!! I'm pretty sure that song is from (cough) 17 years ago when I had by 13th birthday while in France on an activity holiday. I remember ringing my parents from a payphone (remember them?!) on the campsite reporting that I was having the time of my life and definitely was not homesick at all (the first part was true, the second a slight lie) with this playing in the background.

Right, back to floury things. I couldn't find pure tapoica / cassava flour. But I did find Dove's farm bread flour gluten free substitute type thingy, made with potato and tapioca flour. So I gave these little balls a try...

Ingredients:
1/2 cup grated cheese (I used cheddar. Pretty sure this is horrifically unauthentic.)
1/3 cup olive oil
2/3 cup milk
1 1/2 cups said flour
1/2 tsp salt.

Method: Stir together, then give a good blitz with a stick blender (or chuck all in a food processor if you like). Apparently at this stage it can be refrigerated for a couple of days.

I then sprayed a mini muffin tin with olive oil, then put a fat teaspoon of batter into each hole and baked at 220 degrees C for 15 minutes, and...

Little cheesy chewy balls of yum. I have no idea how the Ecuadorians eat these (although I found a lovely piece about these with frozen yogurt which I think could be ace) but being clueless and British I went for a salad. Then realised I had no balsamic vinegar. Naked salad is definitely not the most inspiring side, sorry Ecuador! But lovely cheesy balls :)

JB x

Cheese and wine evening :)

This was the spread for a group of my favourite peeps yesterday - treacle and mustard glazed ham, bread, poppy seed and fennel crackers, cheese, cheese and some... um... cheese. Ruddy lovely. The blue mat in the middle was later filled with a baked camembert but at this point Mrs W arrived with baby Ethan so I was distracted by the most gorgeous little man in the ENTIRE world (IMHO!).

Few tips:
Crackers - easy as pie. No, easier. 250g plain flour, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp spice seeds of your choice, 1/2 tsp small seeds (linseed, poppy etc), mix together. Add 100ml water and 40ml olive oil, mix to a dough, chill for 30 mins in cling film then roll out super thin and bake at 180 for about 10 mins or until browned and crispy. Deeeee-lish.

Ham - Boil your ham joint (off the bone) for 30mins per 500g in water. Then, dredge your ham out, remove any plastic papery stuff or netting. If your ham has a lot of fat, slice most off and score the little bit left. If it's already lean, no problems! Pop it on a baking tray with foil on it to dry off for a few mins while the oven preheats (200C). Mic a teaspoon of english hot spicy nostril stinging mustard and a good tablespoon or two of treacle and rub it all over the ham. Bake for about 20 mins until browned and sticky. Yummers!!!