More pork

Picked up some boneless pork loin chops after work yesterday and we decided to have them this evening with apple champ and a red wine gravy.  All this has been written about before under various guises so if you fancy having a go then feel free to use the new search feature at the top of the blog.

On this occasion I marinated the pork, for about and hour, in garlic, sage and thyme in seasoned olive oil.  The chops were then seared in a hot pan using no more oil than covered them when taken out of the marinade and popped into a 180* oven for about 40 minutes.  The champ was creamy mash into which was mixed some buttery sautéed cabbage and a chopped apple.

Simples!

Moroccan chicken

We had a couple of poussin which were on offer last week and decided to have them again this evening as the offer was still on when we did some shopping after I picked The Woo up from work.  Sam's in as well so I decided to try something a little different.

I made a dry rub using a couple of teaspoons each of ground cumin and ground coriander.  To this I added about a teaspoon of dried chilli flakes, a sprinkle of cinnamon and a good pinch of sea salt.  This was all mixed together and sprinkled over the poussin which had been placed in a roasting dish on a bed of sliced onions.  The poussin had a slice of lemon and a clove of garlic inserted into the neck cavity and a couple more heads (of garlic not chicken!) were chopped in half and also added to the dish.

Writing this whilst waiting for The Woo to get back from her dad's with some white wine to liberally glug into the dish to get the gravy started!

The ritual glugging should signal the arrival of Yardarm Time at QFK!

The Woo's here with the vino now so I poured half a bottle into the roasting dish and slathered the poussin with runny honey.  This is going into a 180* oven for about 45 minutes and then I'll take them out to rest while the potatoes finish off.

See you in a bit!

Oh, and yes I know there are four of them.  One for me, one for The Woo, one for Sam and one for milady to take to work with her tomorrow!



6PM UPDATE!

The poussin are out of the oven and resting.  The roasties are nearly there and The Woo's going to be sorting the gravy while her biscuits cook.  For the gravy it's a scrummy mixture of the chicken cooking juices with a bit more white wine all reduced down and mixed with some freshly chopped tomatoes, garlic and chilli which I softened up while the meat was in the oven.  She's going to bung in a little cream just prior to serving.

We're having all this with some lovely oily crushed peas.

Busy here at QFK this evening!

The Vineyard, Lamberhurst

We met our lovely friends, Wendy and James, for lunch at this pub restaurant in Lamberhurst.  What a find!  A gorgeous dark panelled dining room, a lovely spot right on the green, great beer (Doombar), beautiful wine (for the ladies!) and some really yummy food.

I had the chicken liver salad starter.  Perfectly pink livers in a well-dressed salad with grapes and walnuts.  It was delicious.  For the main both The Woo and I had a lovely ribeye steak with a blue cheese sauce.  This came with a mushroom and cherry tomato garnish and brilliantly crispy chips that must have been properly twice (or maybe even thrice!) cooked.

The other starters were James' fish platter which, he said, included probably the best prawns he had ever tasted…and this is a bloke who knows and likes his food!  My Woo's and his Woo's pigeon and wild mushroom terrine and spicy parsnip soup were both worth a mention too.

James' main was their burger.  Particularly meaty and with more of those lovely chips.  Wendy had the supreme of chicken with roast veg.  This was done specially for her as the chicken roast wasn't on the menu but it's the only meat she eats.  Kudos to The Vineyard…a proper customer focused restaurant!

On to the puds.  My Woo had the cheeseboard and this was the one disappointment of the meal.  Nice cheese but fairly bulk standard crackers with just a few grapes and none of the celery mentioned in the menu.  Mine and the other Woo's sticky toffee puddings with butterscotch sauce and ginger ice cream were lovely and James seemed very content with his chocolate and orange torte.

A long, long chat over the coffees and it was already dark by the time we left.  Time certainly flies in the right company.  We hadn't seen each other for ages and resolved to meet early in the New Year for a long dog walk and are planning a summer picnic in Kylie Campervan.

Well done The Vineyard for a great meal in a great setting and thank you Wendy and James for a lovely afternoon!

Ribeye leftover night

This evening I met The Woo from her work and we went and got a few bits of shopping at Waitrose.  Whilst deciding what meat we fancied the couple in front of us bought half of the two bone end of a rib of beef.  We decided to take the other half - and the best bit was that with all the other shopping we bought, after my discount, the meat was a freebie!

At home I boned out the rib end and cut the joint into two lovely and thick ribeye steaks.  Don't tell The Woo but I ate the trimmings raw!

The steaks were lightly oiled and pan fried for about two minutes on either side.  Seasoned whilst in the pan and left to rest for a good 10 minutes.  Lovely and pink and juicy!

With this I served complete and utter leftovers and made a sort of garlicky cabbage stir fry which had streaky bacon, chilli, onion and cream in it.  I also braised some large portobellini mushrooms in butter and sun dried tomato paste.  A little cream was added to this as a dressing for the steak.

An indulgent meal but the steak was absolutely delicious and now we have a bit more room in the fridge!

Linguine al granchio

This is a lovely light crab and pasta dish which is brilliantly filling at the same time.

I picked up a reduced dressed crab after work today and decided to cook this dish.  I haven't made it for ages and it varies slightly each time; depending on how I'm feeling and what needs using up in the fridge as usual.

In a large pan in quite a lot of olive oil I softened a finely sliced red onion with a couple of cloves of garlic.  The sauce needs to be oily rather than too liquid tomatoey for the crab to work, I think.  To this I added, in no particular order, three chopped fresh plum tomatoes (you can use tinned but I had these in the fridge and they do add a certain freshness to the finished dish), a teaspoon of sun dried tomato paste, two sliced red chillies, the finely chopped stalks of the parley I used later as a garnish and some salt and pepper to taste.  This was all cooked together until the chillies had softened and for the tomatoes to cook out a little.

Whilst the sauce was cooking I heated up the water for the linguine.  Once the salted water was boiling I added the pasta to the pan.  I think linguine works well with this sort of sauce as it's a little wider than spaghetti and seems to get a better coating.

At the same time I added a couple of handfuls of frozen peas and the crabmeat to the sauce.  The cooking time of the pasta is just long enough for the peas to cook and the crab to warm though.  All stirred together and a large handful of chopped parsley added at the last second.

The drained pasta was added to the sauce and spooned round to give it a good even coating of the sauce.  Served with a garnish of parsley and a good sprinkle of freshly grated parmigiano reggiano.

It went down a treat with The Woo and Sam and there was enough left for her to take to work tomorrow.

Pie and mash

There are at least two things The Woo can do better than me in the kitchen.  The first is her gravy.  She is known within the family as Queen of the Gravy; a well-deserved accolade as those of you who have been fortunate enough to sample it will testify.  The second is her pastry.  It's so short it crumbles to lovely buttery pieces almost the second it reaches one's mouth.

Recently she made a few beef and some chicken pies for us and for her dad.  We got a couple of the beef ones out of the freezer yesterday to defrost in time for supper this evening.

With them we had a pile of mash, a few sprouts (an absolute favourite of mine - I could eat a million at a sitting if I had the capacity!) and some lovely onion gravy.

Lamb with leek and spring onion mash

We do love our lamb in this house so after work I picked up a shoulder for a bit of slow roasting.  This is my favourite way of cooking lamb at the moment.  Don't get me wrong; I love a pink and juicy leg or  a couple of chops but there's something about a succulent shoulder that's a real winter warmer.

It was cold today, too!  I was in at work for 6am until just 11am to cover the baking.  The car took a fair bit of defrosting first thing and it was already starting to freeze over again when I got back to it at about half eleven!

The slow roasted shoulder I've talked about before.  It's the one studded with pockets of anchovy, garlic and rosemary; doused with half a bottle of red wine and with a head of garlic and more rosemary in the juice to get the gravy started.  Three and a half hours slow cooking whilst covered in foil and then left for half an hour to rest - can't fail!


For the gravy I softened a sliced onion and a little garlic in some butter and then added a glass of red wine and about the same amount of vegetable stock.  This was all cooked through and allowed to reduce before adding the juices from the cooking.  A little seasoning and the final touch of genius from The Queen of the Gravy which included some cornflour, odds and ends and a splash of cream and we were ready to go.

The mash was a sort of 'champ' thing again.  Into some really creamy mash I stirred a couple of finely sliced leeks which had been cooked in butter with a few sliced spring onions added at the end.  A delicious and easy way to warm up for the evening.  Not all that expensive either as a shoulder done like this with plenty of mash would easily feed four or more.

On salt

I'm a bit fussy when it comes to using salt in food.  Not in quantity but in type.  I only ever use two kinds; Maldon Sea Salt and Smoked Maldon Sea Salt.  The former I use in everything that needs salting and the latter is great sprinkled over salads etc as a salty bite.

I keep mine ready to hand next to the hob in a lovely little salt pig I bought a few years ago from a pottery shop in Canterbury.

One of my recent charity shop buys is a book by Mark Kurlansky called Salt - A World History.  I'm only a little into it; I've reached the Egyptians so far - but already found out some fascinating facts.

The Latin for salt is 'sal' (which I did know thanks to my O Level Latin!) but I didn't know that this was the root of the words 'salary' and 'salad'.  Salary has its origins in Roman soldiers often being paid in salt; a valuable commodity at the time and already known to be a necessary part of the survival diet.  Salad came about from the Romans 'salting' their greens as a flavour enhancer.

I'm sure this won't be the first time I bore you with some more 'salient' facts over the next few days!

Jack's chicken nuggets

I was off work today and The Woo and I were looking after the grandson for the day whilst Mum and Dad were working.  We picked him up early and dropped Annie off at the station then did a bit of shopping before heading home into the warm.  It was one of those days where we didn't do very much at all; just enjoyed having Jack around and had a bit of 'us' time.

He wanted chicken nuggets and chips for his tea and at QFK we don't go in for the additive loaded pre-packed ones so I made some small, plain ones for him with an adult version for the grown-ups.

So for Jack's chicken nuggets I used thigh fillets.  These are so, so much cheaper than breast meat and, I think, twice as tasty.  I went on a butchery course earlier in the year and part of it was learning how to joint a chicken; cutting away the breasts as supremes and separating the thigh and drumsticks.  The guy running the evening told us that the supremes are such a high markup that they cover what the butcher's shop buys the chicken for at cost price with a bit to spare.  Effectively, the thighs, legs and carcass (for stock etc) are pure profit!

I trimmed and flattened out one of the thigh fillets and cut it into three.  These were placed between a couple of bits of cling film and gently flattened out with a few taps from a rolling pin.  Dipped into a beaten egg and then polenta and pan fried in butter ( with a touch of olive oil) until crisp and golden.  Because they are so thin after being flattened they take literally as long as the polenta takes to go crispy to cook through.  Jack had these with twice cooked 'pommes frites' and 'dippy' (tomato ketchup to you and me!).

The adults had chips as well and we had ours with some lovely oily minted crushed peas.  For the adult nuggets I trimmed up a couple of thigh fillets each and flattened them in the same way.  These were dipped in beaten egg and then into a mixture of polenta and paprika.  Fried in the same way but for slightly longer due to their size.  Jack's had to cool down a bit anyway so they were all done in the same pan.

The chicken stays lovely and juicy because it cooks so quickly and doesn't get time to dry out.  The polenta coating is gorgeously crispy and the paprika gives the whole thing a lovely 'grown up' vibe.

We'll certainly be having these again!

Never too late for breakfast!

Since I moved to Tonbridge to be with my Woo I've met some lovely people.  Some of them were already her friends and others like the lovely Suzannah I met, oddly enough, through the Tonbridge Tweet Up (@tonbtweetup on twitter); a group of locals who meet once a month for a beer and a chat.

Suzannah has previously supplied us with a couple of lovely preserves which have had a well-deserved mention on here before.  Yesterday she dropped in on The Woo and gave her a huge pile of Winter Chanterelle mushrooms which she and her mycologist husband had foraged.  All I can say is that George certainly knows his mushrooms (and probably his onions!).

I was told to be creative.  Having recently enjoyed a lavish breakfast using locally produced bacon I decided on a breakfast/supper sort of thing.  So here's my bacon and eggs with mushrooms, tomatoes, black pudding and bubble and squeak - on toast.

In a pan I softened a finely chopped shallot with a little chopped garlic in a fair bit of butter (with a touch of olive oil to prevent it from burning).  To this was added a couple of teaspoons of sun dried tomato paste, a splash of vegetable stock and some seasoning.  In went the mushrooms for a long slow cook to enable all the juices to be sucked up by the chanterelles.

Whilst this was cooking I thinly sliced some streaky bacon rashers and pan fried them in just a touch of vegetable oil until they were crispy.  Set aside on some kitchen roll to drain.

A few cherry tomatoes on the vine were roasted for about 10 minutes in a hot oven.  They had been drizzled with a little olive oil and seasoned with a fair bit of salt, to bring out the flavour, and a touch of black pepper.

I sautéed some lovely chard in a little butter and half a clove of garlic and fried off a couple of large black pudding slices.

To serve...on a couple of slices of good bread, which were toasted and liberally buttered, I ladled out a good portion of the gently cooked mushrooms.  This was then topped with a poached egg, a healthy sprinkle of the crispy bacon and the roasted tomatoes.  The sautéed chard was served to the side on top of the black pudding and the whole dish was garnished with freshly chopped flat-leaf parsley.

I think it worked.  The chanterelles were deliciously earthy but, really, any dark mushroom such as chestnut or portobellini would work if you're not lucky enough to know a local foraging expert!

I hope I hit the spot with this one, S!

Harvester re-vamp

This is a bit of a re-vamp of two old Harvester favourites; scampi and chips and chicken and chips.  Not a basket in sight, though!

A chicken breast was flattened by beating it half to death with a rolling pin after having been folded in cling film.  This was dipped in beaten egg and then coated with a polenta and paprika mix.  Pan fried in butter until crisp, golden and cooked through; about 4 minutes each side at this thickness.

This was served with buttery new potatoes which had been boiled and then sautéed in garlic and chilli, roasted tomatoes, deep fried scallops (the scampi substitute) and a wasabi mayonnaise on a bed of mixed leaves.  Nice and light - very tasty!

Hardwick Park Farm - farmshop

I recently had a chat with Jill; the lovely lady who sorts out my receipts etc at TBC.  She mentioned a farm shop in Coldharbour Lane, Hildenborough which came highly recommended and which I didn't know existed.  I immediately went on a recce, met Andrea (farmer's wife - luckily no carving knife at hand!) and ended up buying a packet of oak smoked bacon and some sausages.  The sausages are still nestling invitingly in the freezer - I can certainly feel a toad in the hole coming up soon but the bacon we used in a fry up this morning.

I left her my card with blog details on it and must apologise for the late completion of this draft!

We had the bacon pan fried and then with the tomatoes and eggs fried in the residual bacon fat.  The mushrooms were cooked in seasoned butter with a touch of garlic and a handful of parsley to finish off.

A great way to start the late morning - a Sunday lie in, of course - and the gorgeous bacon was most definitely the star.

Felix and Andrea - I will definitely coming back; especially when the mutton or goat is available!

For those of you who are Tonbridge locals - the place is easy to find; just on the right after the sports field.  Their website is www.kentfreerange.co.uk

Pork chops with apple champ

So this evening it was an oven roasted pork chops with apple colcannon.

For the pork chops …I marinated them for an hour or so in olive oil, rosemary, thyme and oregano with a sprinkle of sea salt and black pepper.  These were pan fried to brown on a high heat and then in a 180* oven to finish cooking through for 30 minutes.  It's always difficult, I think, with pork chops to get the balance right between having them cooked though without going dry and having a lovely crisp crackling-like skin.  It's not so bad with a large roasting joint as it takes long enough for the meat to cook through to get the crackling nice and crisp.

It's even worse in this house with lamb chops as we eat them so rare one can still hear the occasional 'baa'!  The trick is in the initial pan fry.  I get the pan good and hot and use only the oil that sticks to the chop from the marinade.  In the pan on one side for a minute to brown the flesh then held upright on the fatty side (using tongs of course!) for another minute to get the fat good and hot.  Back for another minute on the uncooked side and then into the oven.  Works every time!

For the mash...standard creamy mash with plenty of sea salt and white pepper.  Into this was stirred some sweetheart cabbage which had been finely sliced and sautéed in a little seasoned butter.  Finely chopped apple was added just as the cabbage started to soften so both were still the crisp side of al dente.  It worked so well with the pork.

The sauce was a variation of the recently blogged Samuel Pepys recipe with an extra bit of butter and more honey and mustard added.  I reduced the amount of cider vinegar as I didn't was to overpower the apple in the mash.

On tortelloni and olive oil

We were going to have anchovy pasta his evening but when I went to the local Sainsbury's, after my late afternoon dog walk, I noticed some 'Five Cheese Tortelloni' on offer (two for £3) and decided to go with those instead.  I've not had any sort of stuffed pasta for ages but I do know that a heavy sauce doesn't really sit well with them.  I went for a bit of a 'use up stuff in the fridge' thing and opted for a fresh, slightly spicy and very oily tomato sauce.

In a pan I softened a finely chopped shallot in rather a lot of 'Olio del Castella' olive oil.  More about olive oil later on.  Into this went three chopped cloves of garlic, three sliced large chestnut mushrooms, one sliced chilli, five chopped up fresh tomatoes and a good sprinkle of frozen basil.  This stuff is great for this sort of sauce thing; when you don't need the boldness of a 'last second added' fresh herb.  You can keep it in the freezer and it never goes off!  We currently have basil, parsley and mint stocked away for general cooking.

This was all seasoned with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper and cooked together for just about as look as it took the tortelloni to cook in a pan of salted water (about three minutes!).

The pasta was drained and then stirred into the sauce and served with a good sprinkle of coarsely grated parmesan over the top.

Very yummy indeed!

So, olive oil.  I'm no expert but I do know the difference between cheap (everyday) and the more expensive 'good' olive oil.  I'm sure we all have supermarket brand oils which we use for our general cooking needs but I always have a bottle of Olio del Castella for when I want to be a bit more extravagant.  It's only about £7 for a litre bottle (it's the hexagonal one in most supermarkets - you can't miss it!) and it has a really good 'green' flavour which comes through well in oily sauces such as the one I did this evening.  It's certainly the one I use in out anchovy pasta and it's also the one I use for salad dressings or for pouring over something like a mozzarella and tomato salad.

I'm sure there are better (more expensive) oils on the market but this is certainly my failsafe brand when I want the actual flavour of the oil to come through rather than to just use it as a cooking medium.

Lobster Thermidor

We bought a few frozen cooked lobsters from Lidl's recently.  Great value at only £5.99 each.  A couple of them came out of the freezer yesterday for this evening's Lobster Thermidor.

I softened a finely chopped shallot in about 25g of butter.  Once soft I added 100ml of white wine, 500ml of fish stock and about 200ml of double cream.  This was reduced by half on a fairly high heat.

Whilst this was reducing I cut each of the lobsters in half, removed the white meat from the tails and claws and then returned the chopped meat into just one of the halves.  The goo from the head I discarded.

Once the sauce had reduced I added a good handful of chopped parsley, about half a teaspoon of English mustard and the juice of a lemon.  Seasoned with sea salt and pepper.  The sauce was then spooned over the meat in the shells.

A good grating of parmesan cheese over the top and then under a hot grill for a few minutes to turn the cheese golden brown and heat the lobster meat through.

I served it with some frites and minted mushy peas.  Scrummy!

Light supper

Hectic day for us both, today.  I was up early for work and The Woo had all the prep for grandson, Jack's, birthday party.  I popped in to the party for a bit of 'Happy Birthday to you' singing after work and then home to walk the pooches ( a cunning ploy to avoid helping at clearing up time!).

We had planned a sausage pasta tonight but decided to go quick and simple instead.

I rustled up a couple of three-egg omelettes each; made with eggs courtesy of the girls and some grated Dunhay Cheddar that had been reduced at work.  £2.44 (PTD - prior to discount) for a huge chunk - bargain!

Now settling in with a glass or three of wine and 'Strictly' on the telly.  I love my life!!

Shell and sky

Tonight we had a dish that was inspired by our visit to Yo! Sushi on Monday when we had, amongst other things, a plate of deep fried scallops with a wasabi mayonnaise.

We bought four lovely looking pigeon breasts at Tonbridge Farmer's Market on Sunday and I came up with a version of Surf and Turf; which I have called Shell and Sky because, hopefully, I'm marrying the pan fried pigeon breast with some deep fried scallops and using my version of the wasabi mayonnaise as both a dressing for some new potatoes and as a dip on the side of the plate.

First off I made the wasabi mayonnaise.  This was a ramekin full of mayo with a good glug of olive oil bunged in and then wasabi powder added, to taste, and stirred in.  Covered and popped in the fridge to let the wasabi do its job.  Be careful, though…it gets hotter the longer it's left!

Then I softened about 3/4 of a finely sliced small red onion in about 25g of butter, a little olive oil and a touch of seasoning.  To this was added a peeled clove of garlic and a small chilli which had been finely sliced.  Once all was lovely and soft I turned of the heat and removed the garlic as all I wanted was an infusion of flavour and not a massive kick. This was left to rest for the flavours to get acquainted.

I cooked enough Charlotte potatoes for two; about 300g, in some salted water.  The potatoes had been cut into a 1cm dice.  As soon as the water came to the boil I turned it off and let the potatoes slowly cook in the hot water as I wanted to turn them into a sort of fondant for the finished dish.

We bought some lovely small Patagonian scallops from work (Yep!  Half six until half two today!) and these I panéed in flour; into which had been mixed a fair bit of paprika and a little hot curry powder, a beaten egg and a some wholemeal breadcrumbs which had been dried out in a low oven for a few minutes.  These went into the fridge until easy to deep fry.  If you don't know how to panée something it's three easy steps.  Coat in flour…dip in beaten egg…and then coat in breadcrumbs…simples!

Once ready to go I turned the deep fat fryer on to around 185* and let it heat up.  I put a low heat under the oniony, buttery mixture and added the drained potatoes to let them slowly cook and absorb loads of the buttery goodness.

I pan fried the pigeon breasts, which had been rubbed with olive oil and lightly seasoned on both sides, in a little butter on a high heat.  One minute each side and then left to rest in the hot pan.  We like ours really, really pink but if you like them a little more done you can either pop them in a 180* oven for two to three minutes or keep pan frying and basting them for the same length of time.

The scallops were deep fried for a few minutes until crisp and golden brown.

Once cooked through the potato/onion mix was dressed in some of the wasabi mayonnaise.  Turn the heat off first, though, and allow to cool for a few minutes otherwise the mayonnaise will curdle.

The potatoes went onto a plate with some baby leaves.  The scallops were arranged round the plate with a little pickled ginger.  The pigeon breasts went onto the leaves and the last finely sliced quarter of red onion was scattered over the top.  A dollop of wasabi mayonnaise on the side of the plate and it was job done!

The Woo loved it and so did I…try it - it's an absolute winner.  The scallops alone I could have eaten about a hundred of on their own!

Japanese Inspiration

Met The Woo from work today and we went over to Bluewater to get a couple of bits (which we didn't get in the end!) and hit Yo! Sushi for Blue Plate Monday!  Great afternoon and an amazing inspiration for a bit of grub I'll do later in the week.  All will be revealed so watch this space!

Remembrance Day

Bit of a lie in this morning and then up and out to Tonbridge Farmers' Market.  If you live locally and haven't been you really should.  It's on the second Sunday of every month in the car park next to Sainsbury's in Sovereign Way.  Steve Woods has done a great job building it up and it's now a thriving local market with loads and loads of stalls.

Lots of people there this morning and a lovely way to observe the two minutes silence at 11am.  So great seeing the whole place come to a standstill and amazing to share the moment with local people in a genuinely local environment.

We munched on a couple of very tasty sunshine pasties and then stocked up on my favourite Kentish cider; Dudda's Tun from Pine Trees Farm in Doddington.  This along with some lovely looking pigeon breasts, a guinea fowl, some goats cheese with stem ginger and some more with a chilli crust AND, to top it all, a bottle of 'Nip from the Hip' blackberry rum should keep us going for a bit!

Back home and a dog walk over the fields for me while The Woo and Sam had a clean round the kitchen then off to Cathy's house for a gorgeous Sunday roast chicken dinner with her daughters and a mutual friend, Lee, and his girls.

Now chilling out waiting for Countryfile to come on with a glass of wine.  I love my life!

Lamb with orange roasted chantenay carrots

I just love those small chantenay carrots that are around this time of year and am definitely going to grow them on the allotment next year.

This evening we had slow roasted shoulder of lamb and minted crushed peas; both of which I've blogged about before.  There were, of course, the obligatory roast potatoes.  With these I served some orange roasted chantenay carrots.

The carrots were lightly topped and tailed.  I actually didn't bother with the really tiny ones, to be honest.  Washed, patted dry and then into a small roasting dish which had been heated up in a hot oven with a little vegetable oil in the bottom.  The carrots were stirred around until coated with the hot oil and then I sprinkled over the zest of an orange and a little salt.

Cooked for only about 10/15 minutes as they are so small and then I squeezed over the juice of half the orange just prior to serving.  The carrots were sweet and fresh from the zest and the warmed orange juice leached into the gravy and gave it a lovely citrus note to help cut through the fatty lamb.

I sometimes do lamb shanks slow cooked in a liquor to which has been added orange and lemon zest and juice.  This reminded me of that and worked really well.

Baked beans

We love beans on toast in this house and I enjoy making my own version with a rich tomato sauce and a mixture of beans for different colours and textures.  This evening The Woo's out with Annie at a Girlie Night so we decided to have a quick version for supper before she headed off.

This is a great budget meal and really ramps up ordinary baked beans into something a little bit special. You can add more of less of the things you want or, more importantly, if on a budget as a student etc -  whatever's in the fridge or cupboards.  For example, for the chorizo part of this meal I used about a 6" length but just a few slices will give as much flavour if you need or want to stretch things out a bit.

So...I softened a small sliced onion in a little olive oil and added a couple of chopped garlic cloves.  In went a couple of roughly chopped chillies from the garden, the sliced chorizo, a few sliced mushrooms, a squeeze of tomato puree, about a third of a teaspoon of smoked paprika and some salt and pepper.  I also added a small glug of red wine to ours but only 'cos I was opening the bottle anyway!

This was all cooked together until the chorizo had leeched out its lovely paprika oil and then a tin of baked beans was added and stirred in.  Heated until the beans were warm through and then onto some lovely buttered rustic bread.  Topped with grated cheese it certainly hit the spot!

Braised lamb shanks

Dropped The Woo off at work this morning then straight into Waitrose for an early shop.  My meat guru, Cathy, sold me three lovely looking lamb shanks and that was this evening's supper sorted.  We had a few bits in the fridge which, as usual, needed using up so tonight's offering was slow braised lamb shanks with roast potatoes, roasted chantenay carrots in orange juice and a leek and mushroom gratin.

For the lamb I softened a mirepoix of onion, carrot and celery in olive oil and then added a couple of chopped cloves of garlic, a couple of bay leaves, a good squeeze of tomato puree, a few sprigs of thyme and rosemary, about a pint of vegetable stock and about 2/3 of a bottle of red wine.  This was brought to the boil and then turned down to a simmer.  In a separate pan I browned off the lamb shanks in a little more olive oil; seasoning with sea salt and black pepper as I went.  The shanks were added to the pan of sauce and then the covered pan went into a 140* oven for three and a half hours.

The roasties were fairly bulk standard but I had run out of goose fat (shock horror!) so they were done in a half and half mix of lard and vegetable oil.

I topped and tailed the tiny chantenay carrots, coated them in vegetable oil in a small roasting dish, grated the zest of an orange over the top and put them in the oven for the last 20 minutes of cooking everything else.  I squeezed the juice of half the orange and a sprinkle of salt over them about 5 minutes before they came out.

The leek and mushroom gratin was a bit of an experiment that seemed to work really well.  I softened three sliced leeks in loads of butter and a little olive oil in an oven proof frying pan.  To this I added a few sliced mushrooms and some halved cherry tomatoes.  Seasoned with sea salt and white pepper the softened vegetable mix was covered with grated mature cheddar and into the oven until the cheese was golden brown.

The shanks came out of the oven half an hour before serving and left to rest wrapped in foil.  The sauce was strained and then reduced to make a lovely unctuous jus.  The oven was cranked up to 200* for the potatoes to brown off and the carrots and gratin to cook properly.

It worked really well.  A very satisfying autumnal warmer.

Prawns two ways

Yesterday we bought a deep fat fryer which resulted in almost perfect frites to accompany our moules.  This evening I decided to have another play with it as I was so impressed by its performance.

I wanted to do something with tempura prawns and so came up with this.

I a large pan I gently cooked together a finely sliced onion, a couple of sliced chillies,  a few cloves of chopped garlic, a little grated ginger, some halved cherry tomatoes and a couple of teaspoons of sun- dried tomato paste in a little olive oil and then added a touch of seasoning.  All cooked together for about five minutes for the flavours to develop.  This was set aside until almost ready to serve when I then re-heated it, added a few medium sized raw prawns and a couple of handfuls of frozen peas and cooked until the prawns were pink and juicy and the peas cooked through.

This was all mixed in with enough cooked linguine for the two of us and sprinkled with some chopped chives; mainly for colour but also for the light oniony bite.

For the 'two way' prawns I made a light tempura batter using a mixture of two-thirds plain flour to one third cornflower.  This was mixed together with enough chilled soda water to an emulsion paint-like consistency.  It's important not to over work the batter and a few small lumps of unmixed flour add to rather than detract from the finished prawns.  When the prawn sauce was almost ready I dipped half a dozen lovely big prawns in the batter and deep fried them at 180* until crisp and golden.  Out onto some kitchen roll to drain while the linguine was drained and added to the sauce and then served together as a finished dish.

The crunch of the prawns was delicious with the softness of the prawn linguine with a lovely bite of chilli as a back note.

Well worth the effort and expense of the deep fat frier.

Paid gig

Yesterday Alex stopped by on his way from Brighton back to where he is based in Suffolk.  The Woo and I said a quick hello then left him with Sam to chill out with a film while we nipped off to TBC for Kylie's Kitchen's first paid gig.

Despite a tussle with the key safe to get the kitchen keys out all went very well.  The lasagne seemed to go down a treat and the roasted green beans with cherry tomatoes, peppers and aubergine; all prepared by The Woo, was a visual hit!

Back home for our own lasagne and a posher version of the roasted beans with Alex, Sam and the lovely Lydia and then goodbye to Alex as he headed north west ready for an early start at work today.

An evening of red wine and 'Strictly' results curled up on the sofa was a great end to the day.

Today I'm looking after The Jackaman for a bit while his Mum and Dad do a few bits and pieces so we're just about to watch Shrek before he has his lunch.  Later Annie and Ben are back for some of The Woo's moules to celebrate his birthday.

Happy Birthday, Ben!

More paprika chicken

So this evening was a bit of a leftovers night as we had some chorizo, mushrooms, potatoes and cream that needed using up and I soooooooo hate to waste food.  I bought some chicken legs from Haywards for a bit of a family favourite; paprika chicken.  I served it with some leek and sweetcorn mash and a chorizo and mushroom cream sauce.

The chicken I simply marinated in olive oil, loads of garlic, a bit of chilli and half a teaspoon of paprika.  This was seasoned with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.  Pan fried to brown the skin in only the oil from the marinade and then popped into a 180* oven for around 40 minutes.  I basted the chicken pieces twice during cooking to keep them nice and moist and the skin crisp and full of flavour.

For the mash I boiled enough potatoes for the three of us; The Woo, Cath and yours truly.  When done they were well mashed with plenty of butter, cream and white pepper added.  The water was heavily salted so they didn't need any more.  To this I added a couple of sliced leeks which had been softened in butter and a small can of sweetcorn added to the leeks for the last few minutes of cooking.  All mixed together to make a very tasty accompaniment to the chicken.

The sauce was simply the leftover chorizo (about 8") thinly sliced and gently fried in butter and olive oil with a finely sliced onion, some chopped garlic, a little chilli and a few sliced mushrooms added.  The paprika laden juice was slowly cooked out of the sausage and the leftover cream was added at the last minute to make the sauce nice and creamy.

It worked really well.  The chicken was nice and spicy, the mash with leek and sweetcorn worked a treat and went perfectly with the chicken.  The sauce was a revelation, made everything nice and moist and great to mop up with the last bit of mash.

Pickled onions

I picked up three and a half kilos of fairly small organic onions at work yesterday for the princely sum of 50 pence so decided to have a go at pickling them for Christmas.

Yesterday evening I topped, tailed and then peeled the small to medium sized ones and ended up with two and a half kilos of fine specimens.  These I placed in a large bowl and sprinkled over 70g of sea salt; giving the whole thing a good stir round to ensure that the salt was evenly distributed.  I covered them with a clean tea towel and left (well out of dog reach) until I got home from work today.  If you leave them lie this for any longer than 24 hours they will lose their crunch.

Today I put three litres of pickling vinegar into a large stainless steel saucepan and added 12 teaspoons of pickling spice (4 per litre) and 170g of sugar per litre (680g).  I heated this gently until all the sugar had dissolved.  It doesn't take much heat at all but, most importantly, don't let the mixture burn!

Whilst this was going on I sterilised the three (one litre capacity) vinegar jars and one extra jar I had just in case the onions didn't fit.  The sterilisation was simple.  All I did was put the jars and lids on the quick half-hour dishwasher cycle and let them cool down a bit; upturned on clean kitchen roll.

The onions went into the jars (good job I did the extra one - moral of this story is to always have an extra sterilised jar just in case!!) and the spiced vinegar was poured over the top.  The jars were then gently tapped to release any air pockets.  On went the tops and the jars left to cool.  I'll store them out of the light in a cupboard and we'll try the first batch with leftovers on Christmas Day - or maybe Christmas Eve with some wine and cheese!

Dyb Dyb Dyb Dab Dab Dab

This afternoon, after work, we picked up half a dozen dab fillets for well under five pounds.  A packet of samphire was also sitting there reduced so we grabbed that as well.

On the menu this evening was pan fried dab and samphire stir fry, roast potatoes, roasted green beans with vine tomatoes and hollandaise sauce.  This came in at about £3 per person for The Woo, Sam and me; so a bargain, really.

I put the potatoes on first.  Brought to the boil in a pan; drained and then in a 180* oven, dredged in duck fat and left to crisp up for about 45 minutes.

The green beans were topped and tailed, tossed in olive oil and spread onto a roasting dish.  A bulb of garlic was cut in half and bunged in the pan.  Vine cherry tomatoes were arranged on top and the whole lot was drizzled with more olive oil and seasoned with sea salt and ground black pepper.  These were put in the oven for the last 20 minutes of the potato roasting.

The dab took hardly any cooking at all but the fillets were thin and various sizes so I knew they would break up.  I seasoned them with sea salt and black pepper and fried them in butter in a large pan.  As they started to break up I added the samphire and gently stirred the whole lot round for a couple of minutes.  This created a sort of stir fry effect.

All served up with a good lug of The Woo's hollandaise sauce.  Yummy!

Hallowe'en chorizo and potato bake

We were destined for a charity night at The Chaser Inn this evening but The Woo's not well so we cancelled and decided to do a 'whatever's in the fridge and cupboards' night!

This one is dedicated to you, Lydia - budget student food that works out at about 75p per head.

In a pan I softened a sliced small onion in a bit of butter and some olive oil.  You want a fair bit of both/either or else the finished dish would be a bit dry.  To this I added a couple of cloves of chopped garlic, a couple of chopped up chillies and a squeeze of tomato puree.  In went a shake of dried oregano and about 6" of sliced chorizo.  This was gently cooked together until the chorizo had softened and the paprika had infused into the oil.

In a separate pan I had cooked a £1 bag of cheap new potatoes; weighing in at a kilo.  I tipped the drained spuds into an ovenproof dish and gently crushed them with a potato masher.  I poured the oniony, chorizoey mixture over the potatoes and gently mixed them together.  I poured over a bit more olive oil just to keep it all loose and unctuous.  A good lug of mature cheddar was grated over the top and then it was baked in a 180* oven for about 20 minutes until the cheese was golden brown and bubbling.

This would easily serve four hungry students as it is and, with the addition of a few chicken thighs or a pork chop (cheap!), would be a very, very filling meal indeed; a couple of thighs or a chop each and a good spoonful of the potatoes would stretch to six or even eight at a push.


To feed loads just up the amount of spuds and oil...the rest will stretch as it is!

As it stands we did it from the fridge but it works out at approx 75p per person for four.  With the chicken thighs or a good sized chop each; it's probably still less than £1.50 each....bargain!

On your marks!

Get set and GO!!

Just had a phone call confirming my first paid cooking job at the weekend.  It's not massive; just a one course meal for 20 people but it's definitely a start!  Hopefully, they'll enjoy it enough to take a few business cards and spread the word.

Oh, by the way, I'm doing them home-made lasagne, roasted green beans with cherry tomatoes and some garlic bread.

I'm chuffed to bits!

Garlic News

My garlic arrived today from The Garlic Farm so later on this week I'll start planting it out.  Four bulbs each of Solent Wight, Early Purple Wight and Lautrec Wight.  The Early Purple and Lautrec will go in this week and the Solent in December.  If all goes to plan that should result in a harvest about 150 bulbs come the spring - as long as I can thwart the birds, bugs and garlic thieves!

Another day at the office

Spent a few hours down on the allotment again today as the Luncheon Club I usually cook for on a Tuesday were having an away day in the country.  I managed to clear and dig over another two beds; Numbers 4 and 5.  No 5 was particularly claggy and full of clay so I've left it roughly turned over and will wait to see what a few good frosty mornings do to break it down.  No 4 wasn't quite as bad and it looks like a previous tenant has tried to dig some good stuff in to help improve it.  There were the remnants of a half-decent potato crop still in the ground so the soil can't be too bad!

The already infamous No 5

The view south across Marcel

It was an absolutely glorious day out there today, though.  I spent all the time on the plot in T-shirt mode and when I sat down for a coffee break it actually felt like I was sunbathing!

There's also good news on the Kylie's Kitchen front as I may have my first paid gig at the weekend!  I priced it up today and am waiting for a confirmation phone call after work tomorrow.

Supper with a friend

Ross, of Ross and the Wrongens fame, came over for supper this evening.  He is the song writer, lead singer and guitarist for one of the bands for which Sam is the drummer (Ross and the Wrongens if you hadn't guessed already!).  He'd never had mussels so it was time for The Woo to take over the cooking duties and rustle up her usual shellfish storm.

With her moules we had pommes frites, courtesy of moi, and some good crusty bread.  All went down rather well.

Incidentally, Ross and the Wrongens are a great local band.  Have a look for them on YouTube - or even better - fork out some cash and download some of their stuff from iTunes - or even better still - see them live - I guarantee you'll have a great evening!

Update from the plot!

Spent a few hours today down at the allotment.  Dug over No 1 and No 2 beds for the second time and all I have to do now is rake it over ready for the autumn garlic planting.  I've ordered three different sorts of seed from The Garlic Farm on The Isle of Wight and they should be here any day now.

There is a very tired looking and overgrown strawberry bed already established and, according to a plot neighbour, it is the source of some amazing strawberries.  I tidied up the bed and cut back the plants for over wintering.  It looks a bit shabby at the moment but fingers crossed for the summer.  I'm sure once I level it up a bit and bung down some straw to protect the potential harvest it will look ok...the main thing is the crop, anyway...not how it looks!

I have partially dug over the edge of this bed as well and saved a few healthy runners so hopefully I can plant them over the next couple of days and look forward to a bumper crop.  I'm not the world's biggest strawberry fan but it would be a shame to waste what is effectively free food!

Poulet de Karpates

Looking through an old French cookery book this morning for some inspiration and decided to do my own take on 'Poulet de Karpates' this evening.  This is a chicken dish from the Carpathian Mountains region; a range of mountains which runs in a curve from the Czech Republic and Poland in the north, through Romania at it's most widespread point and ending in the northernmost part of Serbia in the south.

 
Geography lesson over and so on to some cooking!

The original dish is a sort of herby, mushroomy, lemony dish which I have used as a base recipe and then added a couple of twists with a creamy white wine gravy packed with whole mushrooms and shallots which have been slow-roasted along with the chicken.  I will, of course, be in close cahoots with The Woo at gravy time as she is acknowledged as the family's Queen of the Gravy!

So into a roasting dish I roughly chopped a couple of onions to act as a trivet for the chicken and to give a good base flavour for the gravy.  Onto this was placed the chicken; weighing in at just under two kilos for the three of us (The Woo and Sam), with a bit left over for late night munchies and maybe an addition to tomorrow's lunch (and of course the picked over carcass for stock or a decent home made soup).  I find that roast chicken is a bit like roast potatoes - it doesn't matter how many you do there's only just about enough to go round when you get down to the eating bit!

The chicken was seasoned inside and out and then coated in softened butter.  Into the dish went some peeled shallots; the larger ones halved, half a dozen large portabellini mushrooms.  A handful each of thyme sprigs and roughly chopped chives were scattered around the bird and then half a lemon was squeezed over the mushrooms and the other half inserted into the chicken cavity.  Last but not least a good lug of white wine around the dish to start the gravy off.

The whole thing was then covered in tin foil and placed into a 180* oven for an hour and then 50 minutes with the foil removed to let the skin crisp up; 45 minutes per kilo plus 20.

And so to the end result.  Once the chicken was cooked I removed it from the oven dish, wrapped it in foil and left it to rest.  I removed the mushrooms and shallots and set those aside also.  The Woo did magic with white wine and cream to make the gravy and then the mushrooms and shallots were warmed through in it prior to serving.

We had ours with roast potatoes, honey roasted Chantenay carrots and baby leaf greens.  A perfect Sunday roast!

'Broyled' pork chops

I have a love of food and cooking as you may have already gathered.  I also love old cookery books and started a small collection a couple of years ago.  One of my first charity shop acquisitions was a book called 'Pepys at Table' which is a sort of catalogue of 17th Century recipes mentioned in Samuel Pepys' diaries.  So far I have only cooked one thing from the book as it was such an instant hit that it has become a firm family favourite.

Pepys mentioned a dish of pork in his diary entry for 4th September 1667 when he dined at Bartholomew Fayre; which is more or less where Smithfield Market is now.  The book records a recipe from the late 1600's which apparently comes close to catching the flavour of the dish as it would have been served to Sammy Boy.  Here it is...

To broyl a leg of pork

Hannah Wooley - The Accomplisht Lady's Delight - 1675

'Cut your pork into slices very thin, having first taken off the skinny part of the Fillet, then hack it with the back of your knife, then mince some Thyme and Sage, exceeding small, and mingle it with pepper and salt, and therewith season your collops and lay them on the Gridiron; when they are enough, make sauce for them with butter, vinegar, Mustard and Sugar and so serve them.'

Got that?

Well this is what I did...

I marinated a couple of lovely thick pork chops from Haywards in a tablespoon each of chopped sage and thyme, two teaspoons of sea salt and one of freshly ground black pepper in a good lug of olive oil.  After an hour or so the chops were browned in a hot pan and then bunged in the oven for 40 minutes or so in a 180* oven.

The sauce sounds odd to the modern palate but bear with me and try it as it has a piquancy that really cuts through the fattiness of the pork in the finished dish.  If you find it too acerbic it's easy enough to adjust by adding less of the vinegar or upping the sugar/butter content.

In a small pan I melted 50g of butter and then added 25g of dark brown sugar.  This was cooked together on a low heat for a few minutes and then I added a couple of tablespoons of cider vinegar and the same of wholegrain mustard.  A couple more minutes of gentle cooking and the sauce was ready to serve.  To make life easier I usually make the sauce while the pork is marinating and then re-heat it when ready to serve.

We  had ours with a sort of colcannon using up some cabbage and leeks that were lying around in the fridge and needed using up.  Usually I do this with roast potatoes and braised red cabbage but it works well either way.

Food heroes

I have just started reading Elizabeth David's 'French Provincial Cooking'.  What an absolute inspiration that woman was!  Born with a silver spoon in her mouth she renounced it all, became an actress and then ran off to Europe with a married man - writing some revolutionary and inspiring cookery books along the way.  More than anyone else she was responsible for educating us into the delights of day to day French and Mediterranean food - kudos I say!!

Even in the introduction she makes sense.  Quoting Escoffier she writes...'two of the most valuable words he ever wrote were these: faites simple.  What a Frenchman intends these words to mean may not be quite the same as what an English cook would understand by them.  They mean, I think, the avoidance of all unnecessary complication and elaboration:  they do not mean skimping the work or the basic ingredients, throwing together a dish anyhow and hoping for the best.  That is the crude rather than the simple approach.'

Buy great ingredients, cook inspirationally and love your food and your life.  Live the dream!

Chilli and potato bake

We're trying to use up some of the older stuff out of the freezer at the moment and yesterday evening I took out some steak mince for supper this evening.  The Woo and I decided on a nice hot chilli.  We also have some new potatoes to use up so I've decided to do a sort of chilli and potato bake.

First I'll talk about the rest of the day.  I did a bit of running around this morning after dropping The Woo off at work then took the hounds or a good long walk over the fields.  The mushrooms are starting to appear all over the place and I have big plans for some of the parasols whose locations I've made a mental note of already.  I keep revisiting the site where I found a lovely puffball a couple of years ago but so far no joy.  Fingers crossed if this weather keeps up as it is!

This afternoon I spent a couple of hours on the allotment.  I have now dug up, root by root, all of the three foot high docks.  The rest I will strim and either compost or dig in ready for next year.  I have a couple of virgin beds that I might try and put a few bits in over the autumn/winter but I'll see what the weather does first. Apparently we're due a fairly harsh frost next week so that should help beak up the soil if I can get it all dug over before then!

The frost is good news on the foraging front, though, as it means I can collect some rose hips and haws for some rose hip syrup and haw-sin sauce.

Now back to the food!

I have made the chilli from all the odds and sods in the fridge.  That's the beauty of food like this; you don't have to rigorously stick to the same old recipe all the time. Tonight it's onion, carrot, celery and garlic softened in a little oil.  Added to this were a few chopped mushrooms, some tomato puree, oregano, half a dozen chopped birdseye chillies and some salt and pepper.  All cooked for a bit then in went a good lug of Dr Pepper (well it's worth a try and there was no wine about!), a carton of chopped tomatoes and the same amount again of water.  In went the browned mince, stirred in the get it all mixed up and then brought to the boil and left to simmer covered for a while.

I often add a lug of balsamic vinegar to mine and then balance the flavour with a cube or two of dark chocolate.  I did this today as there was chocolate in the fridge (Sam's not home!).  It gives the chilli a bit of depth I think.

After it had cooked out for a while I added a chopped yellow pepper as there was one knocking about that needed using and a small tin of cannellini beans.  Any beans will do.  I'm not a great fan of kidney beans as I think they tend to go a bit soft and pappy but this is all about using what's in the cupboard.

Once the potatoes were cooked I crushed then gently into a shallow dish, added a few spots of butter and a small carton of single cream, sprinkled a liberal amount of grated cheese over the top and then covered this with the chilli.  More cheese grated on top and then into a 180* oven until hot through with lovely golden brown melted cheese on top!

This worked really well.  The Dr Pepper gave it a bit of a barbecue back flavour and the potato and bean combination was a good carb hit.  This would be a great dish for bonfire night maybe?  It's good, old-fashioned warming autumnal comfort food.  I think next time I will use pumpkin or sweet potato as a base to make it even more seasonal.

Easy carbonara

Cathy's round for supper this evening.  She's fresh back from a holiday in Italy so we're treating her to an easy but authentic spaghetti carbonara.  Picked up some scallops at work as well so we had them to start with.

For the scallops I made a sort of mushy pea puree.  Enough peas for a good portion each were cooked for a couple of minutes in boiling salted water with a good handful of chopped mint thrown in as well.  Once cooked they were drained, roughly crushed with a potato masher, seasoned and liberally dosed with loads of good olive oil to loosen them up.  The scallops were pan fried in butter for just 30 seconds either side.

I served these with a sauce made from a white wine, shallot and lemon reduction with the scallop roes chopped and added at the last minute.  Seemed to work well.

I've had many a cabonara over the years and, in this country, we seem obsessed with adding cream or some other non-eggy dairy product to make the sauce.  Here's how to make a reasonably genuine version from a recipe shown to me by an actual Italian!

Whilst the spaghetti was on the go in a nice big pan I gently fried about 100g of diced pancetta with a couple of whole peeled garlic cloves in 50g of butter for about five minutes; until the pancetta was starting to crisp up.  I then removed the garlic as it had done its job by infusing the buttery pancetta with loads of flavour.  In then went the cooked pasta with a little of the cooking water.  I did this by transferring the spaghetti with a pair of tongs as I wanted to save the water in case needed to loosen the sauce.

In a bowl I had beaten three eggs and added 50g each of finely grated parmesan and pecorino cheese.  I seasoned with black pepper only as the cheese mix was salty enough already.  This cheesy mixture was added to the pasta/pancetta and the whole lot stirred through to coat all of the spaghetti with the sauce.  I added some of the water from the spaghetti pan a little at a time to make sure the carbonara retained its saucy consistency.

Served with a little more of the grated cheese mixture for sprinkling at the table.

Semplice!

Tabitha

We lost one of our lovely old cats, Mrs Small, last autumn and have had a fairly crap time of it since then as some of you may know.  Recently we've been discussing getting another one to add to our animal collection so yesterday I drove to the Isle of Sheppey to pick up our new kitten.  We've called her Tabitha and she settled right in on her first evening in her new home.  She's eleven weeks old and I'll be adding her to my bloglist.

Sunday roast

Claire and Joe stuck around for food so I decided to do us all some slow roasted lamb shoulder.  Popped to the shops and picked up a carvery joint which worked really well in the end.  It was almost completely boned out and literally fell apart when it came to carving.

With this I did some roast potatoes, yorkshire puddings (always a family ask!) and a version of my creamed leeks with mint and peas added.  This seemed to go well with the lamb in all its anchovy, garlic and rosemary goodness...but I still prefer the sweetcorn version that I do with chicken.

Try them both and let me know your opinion.  The recipe's the same as the sweetcorn version that I've blogged about before but obviously add frozen peas instead!

Cheese and wine

Yesterday Joe and Claire came up for the evening and to stay overnight so we had a bit of an impromptu cheese and wine gathering.  Joe and Lisa came over with their girls as well and there were a few of Sam's mates around.  Dress of the day for those who had them were Shite Shirts; sadly on the night this was restricted to The Woo's brother, Joe, my Joe, Sam and yours truly.  These shirts are amazing and well worth a look at the web site if you're struggling for an unusual gift.

We all posed for the camera so you can get a good view of the shirt backs!
Everyone brought some unusual cheese and the beer and wine were certainly flowing.  Once the drinking games started it all began to get a bit blurry, though, and those of you who know me on Facebook may well have seen the end result!!

Vacherin cheese

Was doing some deli training at work yesterday and tasted the most amazing cheese that had just come in.  It's a French mountain cheese called Vacherin du Haut-Doubs.  It's only available between September and March, apparently, but well worth trying if you get the chance.  It's like a really creamy brie with an almost citrus after taste which is probably down to the fact that it comes wrapped in spruce

 bark.  Be warned though...it's an unpasteurised cheese so should be avoided if preggers etc.  If in doubt maybe try the Swiss Mont d'Or variety.  It's made using the same process (in fact it's the subject of a dispute between the two nations as to who came up with it first!) but the Swiss use pasteurised milk.

Man of all hats today as I started out at 6.30am laying out the fish counter, then another spell on the deli and finishing by doing an hour or two of the baking.  Home and taking it easy now with The Woo and looking forward to some of her mussels later on.  We bought those after I finished work; Scottish rope grown ones which are small, sweet and juicy...can't wait!!

Sunday dog walk

Great night last night at the Black Horse, Pembury for their seafood extravaganza with David and Louise.  Lovely food, lovely wine and spectacular company.  All topped off with the best part of a bottle of Monkey Shoulder as a nightcap!

A long dog walk in the early autumn sunshine/wind was definitely needed to blow away the cobwebs.

Omelettes for breakfast; courtesy of the girls, then on with the wellies and out in the fresh air.  It was a glorious morning; mild and almost sunny with the briefest of gentle breezes.

Perfect weather to get the hounds good and tired for our planned afternoon of doing absolutely nothing!

Freya and Bobby did a fair impersonation of Peppa Pig by jumping up and down in muddy puddles so we headed for a tour round the Bonfire Field for a good swim in the stream.  They had a whale of a time.  Even Flora managed to get more than her feet wet this time!

Not unusually though a certain Miniature Schnauzer is absent from any photo involving proximity to water!!

 It's hard to imagine that our 'pack' have only merged since a little over two years ago.  My Springer, Bobby, was a rescue dog that I promised myself when I first gave up full-time work.  I met The Woo and her pack of girls and my little boy dog act as if they have been together for years.  Freya; particularly, and Bobby are the firmest of friends.

 Home across the muddy fields for a well-deserved cuppa before saying goodbye to the family then off out shopping for me as The Woo has requested her favourite sausage pasta for supper.  Picked up some reduced pig cheeks as a treat for the dogs as well!

A lovely afternoon watching some re-runs of Rick Stein's Food Heroes and a bit of reading before heading for the kitchen to get the sauce on.

A perfect Sunday so far.

Wendy Woo's mutton stew

Tonight we're having a mutton stew that The Woo rustled up for the slow cooker last night while I was busy with my potjie.

She started off by browning about 750g of the mutton in a little oil in a large pan.  It's important when browning any meat not to crowd the pan.  If you do then the meat starts to stew rather than just brown on the outside.  A fast stew like that makes the meat tough so you want a quick brown and then the slow stew afterwards.  The browning process is important as I have mentioned before (Maillard process) as it adds masses of depth and flavour to the finished dish.

The browned meat was added to our slow cooker along with some oregano, rosemary and a seasoning of salt and pepper.

In the meat pan she then softened two large onions which had been sliced, three chopped cloves of garlic and two chopped sticks of celery.  This was added to the cooker along with 250g of baby Chantenay carrots which had been topped and tailed.  In went a 380g carton of chopped tomatoes, half a glass of red wine (you don't need much liquid at all in a slow cooker - as I realised to my cost the first time I used it!) and two teaspoons of vegetable bouillon powder.

This was slow cooked for about five hours at which point a good handful of pearl barley was added.  All cooked for a further hour and then switched off and left until today when I got in from work around 3pm.  I turned it back on low when I got in and about half an hour before serving The Woo added a goodly number of her famous dumplings.

We had this with a pile of colcannon...delicious!!

Potjie mutton curry

At the weekend I had a conversation with Wendy's brother, David, and we got onto the subject of mutton.  He told me of a recipe using mutton and loads of vegetables called a potjie and I decided to do a bit of research.

A potjie is a small, three-legged cast iron pot originally taken to South Africa by the Dutch who settled there in the 17th Century and went on to become the Afrikaaners we know today.  These pots are still used in many South African homes.  Traditionally cooked on charcoal or over an open fire I'm adapting this evening's recipe to an oven top pan.  Watch this space for more...I picked up a lovely couple of kilos of diced mutton from Hayward's this morning and now off to pick up the veg and get The Woo from work before I get cracking!

A potjie

Ok - so in a couple of tablespoons of vegetable oil I browned about 750g of the diced mutton, which I had liberally seasoned with sea salt and ground black pepper, in a large pan.  The meat was then set aside and three small onions were sliced and gently softened in the same oil.  Once soft the meat was returned to the pan, the whole lot just covered with water and then simmered (covered) for an hour and a half.

I then added about 250g of topped and tailed Chantenay carrots and about 600g of new potatoes.

This was simmered for another 45 minutes until the potatoes were cooked through.

Three teaspoons of sugar, one and a half teaspoons of medium curry powder and a teaspoon of turmeric were then mixed with about 125ml of milk and the whole lot stirred in and left for a further 20 minutes.  After this time you can add a bit more water if it looks dry and cook for around 20 minutes more but mine was fine so I upped the heat a bit and did the extra 20 minutes to reduce the sauce a little.

Served with sliced sweetheart cabbage (leftover from last night) which was sautéed in butter with a little chilli, garlic, salt and a good lug of white pepper added.

This is seriously one of the most delicious things I have ever tasted...you've GOT to try this recipe!