England

Addie has a sweet PenPal from England named Sophia. She chose England this week in honor of her!
(just a side note, I was really bad at taking pictures this week for some reason. No clue why. Sorry for that!)


SO, England you would think it pretty similar to American cuisine, and it is. There are some differences, mostly in the amount of spices/sugar they use in recipes I found. Personally this was not our favorite week. It could have been the cook's fault, could have been the recipes we chose. I used a SteamFresh bag of green beans, so no recipe for those! The roast was our favorite part, and I will make it like that again. Our neighbors have been sharing in our weekly International Meals and they thought the Sponge was the best part. Try them, and you decide! :)

Menu (for 4-6)

Oven Roast

Yorkshire Pudding

Green Beans

Victoria Sponge

Top Round Oven Roast

1 (4 1/2 to 5 pound) top round roast, rinsed and patted dry
16 cloves peeled garlic
1 tablespoon fresh thyme
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon Essence, (g powder, onion powder)
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
12 small sprigs fresh thyme

Put the roast in a small roasting pan, bone side down. With a small sharp knife, make sixteen 1/2-inch-deep slits in the meaty side of the roast. Insert 1 garlic clove into each slit, pressing into the meat. Pinch with your thumb and index finger to close the openings. Combine the chopped thyme, salt, Essence, and pepper in a small bowl. Slowly stir in the oil to make a paste. Rub the paste on both sides of the roast, and place the thyme sprigs under the roast. Roast for 40 min. Remove the pan from the oven and turn the roast for even browning. Reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees F and continue roasting until an instant-read thermometer inserted in the thickest part of the roast reads 125 to 130 degrees F for medium-rare, about 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and let the roast stand for 15 minutes before carving. 

 

Yorkshire Pudding

2 eggs

1 cups all-purpose flour

1 cups milk

1/8 cup vegetable oil

In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs and milk until well blended. Whisk in the flour until frothy and well blended. Set aside until at room temperature.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

Distribute the oil equally among 6 muffin cups, a little over a teaspoon per cup. Place in the oven for 5 to 10 minutes, until smoking. Remove from the oven and quickly ladle about 1/4 cup of batter into each cup. Place muffin pan onto cookie sheet, so that the run-over of oil won’t burn.

Bake for 30 to 35 minutes in the preheated oven. Serve immediately.

 

Victoria Sponge Cake
3⁄4 lb. plus 1 tbsp. salted butter, softened
3 cups plus 1 tbsp. self-rising cake flour
1 1⁄2 cups granulated sugar
4 eggs
1 1⁄4 cups heavy cream
3⁄4 cup high-quality strawberry jam
Confectioners' sugar

Preheat oven to 360º. Grease two 2"-deep 8" round cake pans with 1/2 tbsp. butter each. Dust each with 1/2 tbsp. flour; set aside.
Beat remaining butter in a large bowl with an electric mixer on high speed for 5 minutes. Add granulated sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Combine eggs and 6 tbsp. water in another bowl. Add half the egg mixture and half the flour to butter–sugar mixture. Beat well for 1–2 minutes. Add remaining egg mixture and flour; beat batter for 5 minutes.
Divide batter between prepared pans. Bake until a toothpick inserted in center of cakes comes out clean, 35–40 minutes. Invert cakes onto a rack, remove pans, and let cool completely.
Beat cream in a medium bowl until stiff (I added sugar, but the recipe did not call for that- Beth). Put 1 cake layer on a cake plate, spread top with half the jam, then cover jam with the cream. Spread top of remaining cake layer with remaining jam and place it, jam side down, on top of cream. Dust cake with confectioners' sugar.

 

That is not my picture, but I had to include one. Basically what my cake looked like. I put the cream on top.