Raisin and honey bars

In the 5 minutes or so that I had to spare on Saturday morning, I threw together some ingredients, and shoved them in the oven to bake whilst I ran around feeding the animals and getting everyone sorted for the day.  These were pretty good and definitely useful to have a little supply with me during the day to feed to hungry posse in between sports matches.
Ingredients:
2 mug fulls of oatmeal (a normal sized mug, holds about 300 mils of liquid)
1 mug full of raisins
1/2 mug of olive oil (about 150mls)
honey (4 tablespoons)
2 eggs, beaten in a cup first

Mix all ingredients together well, spread into a shallow baking tray, bake in a pre-heated medium oven (about 1800C) until golden brown and firm textured.  Remove from oven, leave to cool slightly, then slice carefully into squares.

No roast for the wicked...

I really did not feel like cooking Sunday roast today, so what a treat it was to have supper cooked for me this evening, a joint effort by others in the family.   They also took the photos and asked me to post it up on my blog so here it is!

I have no idea how they did the black and white/colour effect, but I can say that the colour of the eggs, from our very free range chickens, really is that bright.   I should add that these eggs came from our 3 hens who have been laying really well over the past few weeks, not from the new brood that arrived today (see earlier post).
I haven't been given a recipe but it was basically a vast omlette with bacon, mushrooms, red pepper, onions, chorizo and cheese grated on top, served with potato cakes.

New residents...

Three more chickens arrived today-that now makes six altogether, so we will certainly have a really good supply of fresh eggs.  Once they have been accepted into the current brood, they will be free range.

Soup de Poisson (French-style Fish Soup)

I was inspired to cook this because I had fish stock available after cooking the Craster kippers.  I referred to a few of my cookery books for inspiration: Jenny Baker's Cuisine Grandmere,  Arabella Boxer's 'Book of English Food', Elizabeth Luard's 'European Peasant Cookery' and Ortegas' 1080 Recetas (the bible of Spanish cooking).

The version that I made is not identical to any of them, not least because of the very smokey fish that I used for the basic stock.   Anyhow, this is my attempt, and it seemed to work pretty well.

Ingredients
1 onion
7 shallots
1 large carrot
2 sticks of celery
1 leek
2 large potatoes (or 3 medium ones), peeled and diced
parsley
thyme
2 bay
a sprig of rosemary
2 litres of fish stock
250 ml dry white wine (or cider, or half water/half fino sherry)
500gr passata or tomatoes
saffron 5 or so strands
black pepper
olive oil

In a big pan, gently fry the onion, shallots, peeled and chopped carrot, celery, and leek (well washed and chopped) in a little olive oil until the onions are translucent.  Add all the other ingredients and simmer until the vegetables are really soft.

Remove the bay leaves and rosemary stalk.  Liquidize, and serve with a spring of parsley.

I noted that  Arabella Boxer's recipe for 'Bouillon de Poisson' in her 'Book of English Food' (Hodder & Stoughton) suggests that the soup should be strained through a colander or sieve, rather than liquidizing, presumably because that was the traditional English way before the advent of electrical kitchen kit.

Alternatively, it can be used as a base for a much heartier fish stew, and I will be posting a recipe for that in days to come...

Fish stock 1

  I based this on a fish stock, or court bouillon, in another of my favourite recipe books, Jenny Baker's 'Cuisine Grandmère' (published by Faber & Faber).  I suspect that like most traditional staple recipes, the ingredients would vary depending on what is available at the time, and certainly varying the type of fish will change the flavour significantly.  My version here uses smokey fish, with a very strong flavour, which I found makes an excellent base for a French-style fish soup or stew (recipe to follow).

Craster Kippers with cous cous and chickpeas

Craster kippers, believe it or not, come from the village of Craster in Northumberland.  It's almost impossible to describe the aroma and flavour...full of the taste of the sea, almost nutty, certainly wholesome salt-of-the-earth stuff.  Eating these is a bit like putting a conche shell to the ear and hearing the waves: the flavour and aroma if the Craster kipper evokes memories of long walks on wild and windswept beaches, the taste and smell of the sea blowing onto your lips...   They were surprisingly inexpensive too, and another healthy low cholesterol meal to boot.

I am sure there are many very traditional ways of tackling a Craster kipper.. But I decided to improvise with my own ideas. 

This recipe was more than ample for a supper for 4 people.

Ingredients:

2 Craster Kippers

1 small cup of large cous cous (dry weight, then cooked with 3x water, according to packet instructions)

About 6 heaped tablespoons of pre-cooked chickpeas (soaked overnight then simmered, or a couple of cans of chickpeas would do)

1 big onion, chopped

3 garlic cloves

1 green pepper chopped into small pieces

a cup of dry cider

black pepper

olive oil

Fry the onions, garlic and pepper gently.  Whilst those are sizzling quietly in the pan, remove the fish meat from the bones and skin of the kippers.  That is quite a tricky task. I used a very sharp knife to score down the major skeletal lines, then tried to pull away the flesh leaving as many bones as possible behind.  Keep the skin, bones and head of the fish to make fish stock later (recipe to follow).  Add the fish to the pan and heat through slowly.  Then add the chickpeas and cous cous, pour over the cider, add a generous grinding of black pepper, and heat through thoroughly (being careful not to over cook).

This was a really simple dish to make, very quick, with strong, robust smokey-oak flavours.  I had mine with a half (or so..) of my favourite Herefordshire Westons organic dry cider and a hunk of very fresh French bread, but I think it is probably crying out for accompaniment of Northumbrian traditional beer and a bit of a tune on the Northumbrian pipes...

Dad's special mash

As the name of this mash will indicate, I can take no credit for this one, other than thoroughly recommending it, and sharing it with the world.
Ingredients/method
potatoes, peeled, chopped and boiled til soft.
Mash well with the following:
a good lump of butter
a splish of milk
salt
black pepper
a sprinkle of grated nutmeg
a handful of chopped chives
a couple of crushed garlic cloves
half a shredded apple (oh yes, using up the apple harvest again...)

We ate this mash with the Roast Pork Belly with apple and sage stuffing.

Vegetable and bacon tart

Now, this one was an emergency meal, during last week when I was so busy with work that I had no time for shopping, and even less for blogging.  I struggled with a name for it because it is a bit like a pizza, but with a pastry base and no tomato puree, but it's not exactly a quiche either (well, if it is it is a very thin one). So, tart it is then.

Ingredients:
1 pack of ready made 'jus-roll' puff pastry
2 big red onions
2 slices of thick cut, maple cure bacon
sun-dried tomatoes (actually I used my own oven dried home grown ones, which are more or less the same)
about 6 cup mushrooms
some green french beans (from my freezer, last year's garden produce)
fresh basil, chopped
a small amount of grated cheddar
2 eggs
a splosh of milk
salt and pepper
olive oil

Spring is around the corner..

It's not all doom and gloom in the garden and there are definite signs that spring isn't far away.  The green shoots of the onion sets that I planted into raised beds in early January are already peeping through

And there are early signs that the rhubarb will be very good this year:

I love rhubarb, not least because it seems to do really well in my garden, with next to no effort now that the plants are well established.

Today I planted the first carrots of the year ('Early Nantes' variety), in the raised beds.  It is still quite early, but given the mild weather, let's see what happens!

Dig my patch

A little bit of brutal honesty, now...my garden is very far from perfect.  It is very time consuming, and with dark mornings and evenings, difficult to get out there in the week during winter to keep on top of it.  It is a constant battle to keep the weeds down, but this year I am determined to keep the veg patch in good order.  So, the past two weekends I have been out there just digging and digging, which is back-breaking and more punishing than any visit to the gym.  It is still a work in progress and there is much to do...

'Before'...early January...

getting there....

Roast pork belly with apple and sage stuffing

Yes, more apples...I find it is necessary to be quite inventive when it comes to cooking garden produce, otherwise everyone in the family gets very bored of the same old ingredients as I try to use up surplus from a very productive harvest. Luckily, apples are very versatile, and excellent with savoury as well as sweet cooking.

Ingredients:
1.5 kg pork belly
4 sweet apples, peeled, cored and chopped
6 or 7 shallots (or 1 small onion) peeled and chopped finely
3 cloves of garlic
dried sage (about a dessert spoon full, or thereabouts)
olive oil
salt

Spiced apple muffins

We have a large and very productive old apple orchard, with a range of traditional varieties which fruit in succession over several months.  2011 was a particularly brilliant year.  The first apples were ripe and ready during the last week of June, and from then on we had a steady harvest right through into late autumn.  With no hard frosts and the very warm temperatures in October, the harvest just went on and on.  I picked the final load of apples in mid December, since when they have been stored in our cool utility room.  Some are still good to eat as they are, but others are beginning to go over, so time for some cooking!

As ever, time is limited so I opted for a very easy recipe which I tried out last year.  After some trial and error, I think this version works just fine, although that is partly because of the types of apples, which tend not to go squishy when cooked, but stay in fairly firm pieces inside the muffins.  They don't rise too much but the texture is still quite light.  They are pretty healthy too, with only a small amount of oil and honey instead of sugar to sweeten.

Carrot and lentil soup

Another simple and healthy soup which went down well with the tribe.

Ingredients:
4 big carrots, peeled and sliced
1 big onion, peeled and chopped
2 sticks of celery, washed and sliced
1 mug full of chana dal lentils (the yellowy ones)
1 tsp of coriander seeds
10 black pepper corns
1 vegetable stock cube
water

I put all the ingredients in a saucepan and covered well with water (I didn't measure but probably about 1 litre or maybe a bit more than that).  Simmered for about an hour, then liquidized and served with very fresh brown bread.

Soup of Virtue!

By accident (non-planned scavenging for ingredients again) I believe I have invented the worlds most virtuous soup.....

First, I found it to be quite tasty (number one priority).  But it is utterly guilt free because it is low fat, low cholesterol, low carbohydrate, and of impeccable green credentials if the seasonal ingredients are local and organic.  Oh, and could not be easier to make.  What's not to like, I ask?  Bring on the halo!

Ingredients:
1 celeriac, peeled and diced
4 sticks of celery, washed and sliced
chicken stock (or veggie stock cubes)
water
5 black pepper corns (or more for a spiced up version)

Put in pan, simmer gently til soft, liquidize and eat.


PS....For a little guilty garnish, I think croutons, grated strong cheese, or even a few lardons of bacon might wobble the halo to delicious effect.

Red Cabbage

I just love spicy red cabbage...I am never terribly precise about the proportions of the ingredients, so every time I make it the flavour is slightly different, even though the basic ingredients remain more or less the same.  For my latest version, I used the vinegar and spices left over from a jar of home-pickled cucumbers, already infused with shallots, mustard seed and fennel seed, but the recipe below will create a similar taste.

Ingredients:
1 red cabbage
1 big onion
3 or 4 cloves of garlic
2 medium-sized apples
3 or 4 tablespoons of cider vinegar (or more according to taste)
1 small cup of tart apple juice (I use home-pressed apple juice, with quite a tart flavour)
1 heaped teaspoon of damson jelly (or other fruit jelly, such as redcurrant)
 5 cloves
a couple of pieces of blade mace (or grated nutmeg)
half a teaspoon of mustard seed
a sprinkle of fennel seed or caraway seed
olive oil

Optional: a good splosh of red wine or port instead of the apple juice.

Chicken Stock

No time for flim flam, just a few seconds to add my stock recipe to the blog....As with most things I cook, stock ingredients are determined by fridge contents.

This was what went in last night:

Damson and Cherry with Yogurt

Remember the Damson and Sour Cherry drizzle?
Well, here it is topping off some Greek yogurt, for an instant and quite luxurious dessert, certainly good enough for a casual dinner party!

Raspberry Hungry Boy Cake

This cake is a variation on my granny's pudding recipe which she called 'Hungry Boy'.  If we asked her what was for pudding she would always say 'Wait and see!'.  If we ate all our greens, there was sure to be a great treat as 'wait and see' would be revealed.  Hungry Boy was one of the best, right up there with treacle tart.  It consisted of stewed fruit covered with a sponge, usually with custard.   The fruit created a juicy soggy layer at the bottom of the dish, definitely making it more of a pudding than a cake.

Now, my inferior version ranks as a favourite in our house too, which is lucky because I often cook it, especially during the summer and autumn when we have a glut of apples and rhubarb in the garden. It is never, ever anything like as good as my Granny's, but every time I make it, I think of my Gran and it brings back lots of lovely memories.

The freezer is overflowing with fruit from last summer, so I had the brain wave of using some of the frozen raspberries to make a cake-version of Hungry Boy pud.

Should I give up eating sausages and bacon?

I am not a scientist, but I am a rationalist, and for that reason I decided to check out the scientific paper behind this morning's news story which reports a link between processed and red meat consumption and the risk of pancreatic cancer.  This story is being reported on the BBC, which says that researches said that eating an extra 50g of processed meat every day, or 'approximatly one sausage' extra per day would increase a person's risk of cancer by 19%.  The BBC did mention that pancreatic cancer is rare.  A quick google search reveals that the sausages and bacon cancer story is now all over the media.

The BBC report is based on a scientific article titled 'Red and processed meat consumption and risk of pancreatic cancer: meta-analysis of prospective studies', by SC Larsson and A Wolk of the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, published online in the British Journal of Cancer.

Now, I do not eat much meat, and I certainly don't eat a sausage every day.  But should I add sausage and bacon to the list of things to give up this year?  I think that if I am going to deprive myself of bacon butties, I ought to make my mind up in rational way, taking responsibility for my own decisions and actions.  So, I read Larsson and Wolk's article to find out what it says.  Here's what I found out.

Another week, another birthday...another cake?

Yes, that's right, regular blog visitors will recall that only last week I baked a special cake for someone's special day...(Chocolate Birthday Cake).

Well, there is another special person in our family with their special day today, and yes, special mum has to get up super-specially early and pull another one out of the hat before setting off to work.

Easy? watch this space....

Links page

My 'getoily' delivery arrived yesterday (olive oil).  This prompted me to set up a new 'links' page on my blog, where I will post links to some of the web resources that I find useful, and maybe you will to?  Click here to find the links page.

Leek and Onion Risotto

A mid-week frenzy! There is too much to do!

The fridge is a little sparse, and I didn't have time to go to the shops to stock up.  In my dreams, I could have been tempted to call for a take-away to be delivered....but living where we do, that isn't really an option..First, there is the question of when a take out might arrive, as we are miles from urban life.  Secondly,  there is the more serious question of if it will arrive at all: forget the GPS navigator, and even with the best directions, most visitors fail to get here without a wrong turn, so there is a pretty high chance the delivery person could get lost on the way.

At times like this I have to be resourceful and improvise (let's be honest now, that is nearly every day...)

As I said in an earlier post (see here) we do have leeks in the garden, and I have an impressive stock-pile of garlic which I grew last summer and dried.

I had a root around in the cupboard and came up with the ingredients for this risotto.  I cooked it using the basic method for paella (of which, there will be more posts later), but the result is very much like a risotto, and very delicious too.

It is also cheap, healthy, low cholesterol, and low in fat.  For something less austere and non-vegetarian, I garnished it with grilled bacon (maple-cured local bacon).  Cheese on top is good too. The cheese can be whatever is available in the fridge, but any of the following tastes really good with the leek flavour: Parmesan, strong cheddar, Emmental, Gruyére, or blue cheeses such as Stilton.


To feed a hungry family of four....

Ingredients:
3 big leeks, sliced and washed well
2 onions
2 cloves of garlic
olive oil
nutmeg
4 bay leaves
black pepper
a glass or so of dry white wine, or fino (very dry) sherry (sherry is very nice with the bacon/cheese variation)
200 grams Bomba paella rice, or risotto rice
Water

Optional extras for the indulgent and the 'meateors' (as non-veggies are called in our house):

4 rashers of bacon, grilled and chopped into small pieces (or lardons)
some grated or sliced/chopped cheese, according to taste.

The paella method I used is as follows.

Chicken Noodle Soup with ginger and lemongrass

OK, first a little rant.  Radio four this morning: according to the BBC, government advisers say that 'health professionals should take every opportunity to discuss diet, exercise, smoking and drinking habits.' That, in my opinion, is quite intrusive.

Olive Oil....

Olive oil.. I use tons of the stuff, and recently discovered a great company 'getoily.com' which delivers 5 litre cans of high quality stuff right to my door. I use it for cooking every day and also for preserving things like dried tomatoes (the picture, left, is of my home grown tomatoes in olive oil). Yum!

Damson and sour cherry drizzle with vanilla ice cream

The fruit for this recipe came from the hedgerows and plantations around our orchard, picked and immediately frozen some months ago.  Eaten with ice cream, the taste sensation is very tuneful.. first there is an immediate sweet and fragrant hit, followed by a sour sharpness and a lingering bitter tinge.  A really good vanilla ice cream complements and softens the sharp, sour elements.

You could use any number of fruit following this basic recipe, but the taste sensation will be very different for each.  Damsons and sour cherries have an especially deep, vibrant, sharp flavour.

Winter Salad...

Grated celeriac and grated carrot in equal measure, 2 slices of orange, segmented, finely-sliced rings of red onion, and a sprinkle of caraway seeds, lovely with a spoonful of fromage frais or natural yogurt....

Roast venison

Thank you Newitts for incredible venison.

Here's how I cooked it:

No rest on Sunday...

Sunday is about the only day when I have time to get on top of the garden. It's a running battle with the weeds...but worth it, as I am still picking fresh veg. Today when digging over the veg patch I found an entire row of previously forgotten potatoes from last year, mostly healthy, and definitely edible.  Leeks are doing well too:

So, good garden supplies to go with the venison for Sunday supper...

Pork Osso Bucco in Cider

Ingredients:
4 x osso bucco cuts
8 x pig cheeks
3 big onions
3 cloves garlic
olive oil
1 litre dry cider
sage, bay leaves, black pepper
1 heaped tablespoon of plain flour

Other cuts of pork can be used, so long as not too fatty.  I found the osso bucco and pig cheeks at the butcher counter in the local Waitrose.  Even though these cuts were free range and organic, they were very cheap (I think around £3.99 per kilo).  And, cooked slowly all day, were very tender and tasty.

Chop onions and garlic,and half- cook in a very small amount of olive oil.

Cheese Cheats

This is the fastest way I can work out of making 'home made' cheese nibbles, which taste really fresh, and are great with drinks.  It is a cheat, but why not?

Ingredients:
1 packet of ready-made puff pastry ('jus-roll' or similar)
Grated cheese (strong cheddar is nice)
Paprika
Salt
Olive oil

Roll out the pastry very thinly.  Put finely grated strong cheddar (or similar) all over the rolled pastry.  Sprinkle some paprika over it.  Fold in half and roll again, until very very thin.  Cut into shapes with cookie cutters, place on oven tray, brush with olive oil and sprinkle with sea salt.  Bake until golden.

Wholegrain seedy biscuits

These are very easy and quick:

2 x cups wholegrain seeded flour
1 x cup plain white flour
1x cup of olive oil
2 x eggs
salt (vary according to taste preference)
black pepper

Speed cooking...

OK, it was a crazy-busy day yesterday, so the cooking was rapid, and had to fit in around the busy schedule.

A quick stop at the local butcher, Newitt in Thame, Oxfordshire, this morning to pick up some supplies. Venison it is then for the next creation.
Besides selling very good meat, Newitt's also has a small selection of REAL cheese. I picked up some scrumptious Montgomery Cheese .  Wow, it's mellow but strong and smooth....can't wait to tuck into a great big chunk of that with a nice glass of red.
It's going to be a cooking weekend! watch this space...

Chocolate Birthday Cake

So, this morning's priority was to bake a birthday cake before leaving for work.  This is what I did!

For this recipe I use my Kenwood mixer with the 'K' beater.  This recipe is my own version of a basic sponge, with extra eggs, which makes it rich and moist, but takes slightly longer to cook (up to 40 mins).

Back to term time routine today, with an especially early start, to get both the children out of the house well before 7.30.  So, up at 5.50am......leaving plenty of time for child no. 2 to open birthday presents before setting off to school for the new term, leaving me to make a super-fast and super-chocolatey birthday cake before going to work myself.  Recipe to follow in the next post......(or click here)

Well, its been a bit of a learning curve but I think the boring bits of page set up, labels and links on my blog should now be functioning properly, so blogging begins in earnest....

first sowing of the year

 Its ferociously windy and wet today! A good start on planting up new season veg in the raised beds

Watercress and Spinach Soup

Happy new year!  Today the random contents of my fridge and garden included spinach, watercress, onions, garlic, nutmeg, black pepper, cider, vegetable stock and a handful of green lentils (a potato or two would be a good substitute).
The garden is looking a bit neglected but among the weeds I found a good few bunches of spinach and plenty of wild watercress, flourishing in the mild winter.  With high vitamin C and iron content, this is a perfect starting point for a new year 'resolutionary' meal.