Saturday 6 September - Meatballs in Lemon and Wine Sauce

We decided to have an Italian themed meal, mainly because it's fig season and this means one of my favourite starters.

No cooking involved, just fresh figs, parma ham and some walnuts drizzled with honey.

After this some giant meatballs - these were made with veal and pork mince, with some milk soaked bread added for body, and flavoured with garlic, parmesan, nutmeg and parsley. An egg was added to bind and they were formed into large meatballs and topped with a thin slice of lemon.

After baking in a hot oven for 15 minutes they were transferred to a roasting tin, and some more lemon slices, bay leaves and white wine were added. This was all then cooked for two hours in a very low oven.

These were served with potato puree.

For dessert I had come across a recipe for something called Bonet which was new to me -  a sort of chocolate creme caramel but with amaretti bicuits in it.

First of all a rich caramel was made and placed in the tin.

A paste was made from cocoa powder, chopped plain chocolate, rum, espresso, eggs and vanilla, and hot milk was poured onto this.

Into this went crumbled amaretti, which were left to soak before whisking again. This mix was poured into the caramel lined tin, and it was baked in a bain marie

We could only manage a tiny portion of this, it was so rich, and possibly too chocolatey.
It needed cream to make it easier to eat! Interesting to make, but don't think I'll do it again.

Friday 5 September - Goan Chicken Curry

Having made and frozen all that curry sauce last week, the time arrived to use some of it.

We decided on a different curry this week that we hadn't tried before - Goan Chicken Curry, which had the addition of coconut.

First stage was to cook the chicken in the green curry cubes. I used both lots of sauce straight from the freezer and didn't bother to thaw them out.

The green curry sauce cubes were added to some oil and turmeric, and cooked for a few minutes.

Then cubed raw chicken was cooked in this paste for around 20 minutes until cooked through.

For the main sauce first some whole spices were ground up - cumin, coriander, fenugreek, fennel, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves and peppercorns

This spice powder was fried and then salt, chilli and paprika were added along with the frozen tomato sauce.

This was cooked for a few minutes until thickened, and then coconut cream was added.

Finally, the cooked chicken and some tamarind went in and it was all warmed through.

We also served some vegetable dishes with this - Mustard Seed Potatoes and Lentils, and also Garlic Rice and Parathas

Thursday 28 August - Curry Secret Curry Sauce

It's probably pretty obvious that we eat a lot of curry in this house - if George is asked what he would like to eat, he always answers curry, and will always be guaranteed to clear his plate if he's presented with it.

So I thought I'd use my time off work to fill the freezer with Curry Secret Sauce for future use.

The idea comes from this book - which gives away the secrets of British Indian Restaurants

 

 The general idea of this is to make a basic sauce and this forms the basis of many dishes - simply adding meat and spices to the sauce.

Making the sauce is a really unpleasant experience, so I made double quantities and have frozen enough to produce at least 6 meals over the next few weeks.

Stage one is to boil onions, garlic and ginger until they soften ( I bunged it all in whole rather than liquidizing the ginger and garlic as recommended in the book)

This was 4lb Onions and 3 whole bulbs of garlic.

The smell of this lot boiling for 45 minutes is particularly unpleasant!!

Once boiiled it's blended until smooth.

 

At this stage I froze an icecube tray of the blended mixture as it is used to precook meat for some of the recipes in the book.

 

The next stage is to boil a tin of blended tomatoes along with tomato puree and some chilli powder and turmeric. The recipe called for a lot of oil to be added, but I cut this down to a couple of spoons.

Once this had cooked for about 20 minutes, the green onion mixture was added to the tomatoes and simmered again for another 25 minutes.
This needed skimming as it cooked to take the froth that rose to the surface off.

The finished sauce  - ready to be portioned up and frozen.

I've left one portion out, and we will use this tonight to make Chicken Tikka Masala.

Wednesday 27 August - Steak, Mushroom and Stilton Pie

I'm currently signed off sick following surgery,  but starting to get bored with daytime TV. Thanks to a clever purchase from a local charity shop I have a comfy chair that I can sit in at the kitchen table so I can still cook - I shout instructions about washing up to other people so I don't have to move around too much. I'm wondering if I can keep this up for a few months....

The weather is now getting a little bit autumnal, and there are some lovely fruit and vegetables appearing in the shops, so a pie was called for.

I used some braising steak for this   - cubed and fried, and then added onions, garlic, mushrooms and a spoonful of seasoned flour.

For the sauce I used red wine, and a stock pot along with a dash of Hendersons Relish.

I popped the stew in the slow cooker for a few hours until the meat was tender.

I was aiming for a fairly dy pie, so I strained off the gravy which we reheated later on to serve with the pie, and to the cooled meat I added some crumbled pieces of stilton.

I used shortcrust for this pie, but added an egg to the liquid and also a large spoonful of mustard powder went in with the flour. I lined and filled the tin before topping it with more pastry, and glazing with egg yolk.

The autumn veg we had found were a beautiful green cauliflower, and some lovely fresh Kale - the first of the season for us.

The vegetables were steamed, and we also cooked up some of the potatoes from our allotment to be mashed and served with the pie and the reheated gravy.

We also spotted some fabulous British Strawberries and Raspberries in the farm shop, so these were used in a pavlova for afters, along with some nectarine slices, and some passion fruit.

Saturday 16 August - Pork in Red Wine with Pappardelle

Fancied trying something new, so hunted through my books and found a recipe in 'Pig' for pork shoulder cooked in red wine, and served with pasta.

The added advantage of this recipe is that apart from having to buy a piece of pork, we had everything else in - the vegetables all came from our garden - onion, carrot and some rather thin looking celery.

These were all diced along with some garlic, and fried gently.

Then some big chunks of pork shoulder were fried and added to the vegetables.

Then in went some fresh thyme and juniper berries.

Finally some red wine, beef stock and a pack of chopped tomatoes - this was all then transferred to the slow cooker and left to simmer for the afternoon.

Once cooked the meat was shredded and returned to the sauce.

This was served with some home made pasta which we cut into thick strips.

For afters we tried another new recipe - a Hazelnut and Chocolate Dacquoise from Rick Stein.

This was layers of meringue, but with hazelnuts stirred in - Bob made a clever stencil for me so I could get three identical layers. The recipe was for three circles, but I only have two shelves in my oven so in order to fit them in we made rectangles.

The filling was a chocolate ganache made with creme fraiche and double cream and melted chocolate.

This was then left in the fridge for a couple of hours before slicing - we served it with some strawberry coulis and some cream to try and cut through the sweetness a bit.

Thursday 7 August - Shakshuka

Our chickens have gone through a spell of not laying due to hot weather, lots of broodiness and some moulting, but this week seem to have got back into production again - this means a kitchen full of eggs to use up.

I've never cooked Shakshuka, and found a recipe from Yotam Ottolenghi that looked worth a try - the only real change I made was to use fresh red and green chillies for heat, instead of the suggested cayenne.

This recipe was also great to use up some of the tomatoes that we have grown in our new greenhouse.

Onions were fried with some cumin until soft

Then in went red and yellow peppers, some chopped parsley, thyme and coriander along with the chillies and some saffron.

Finally the chopped tomatoes. Once this was fairly 'saucy' in consistency the raw eggs were popped in and it was cooked gently until they were set. We sprinkled feta over the top and served with crusty bread. Not great to look at, but very tasty!

To use up some more eggs an apricot and almond sponge cake.

This was based on a recipe by Diana Henry, and the only change I made was to use almond essence rather than the vanilla essence in the sponge.

A caramel was poured into a cake tin - as I used a springform cake tin I lined it to stop the caramel leaking out - this didn't work so would use a plain cake tin next time.

Halved fresh apricots were arranged over the caramel.

Then a basic sponge made with some ground almonds was made (see below for photo of my favourite bit of kitchen equipment with new glass bowl...)

The sponge was spread over the apricots and then baked.
Once turned out it was brushed with honey, and served with cream. Delicious despite the caramel disaster, but probably would have been even better with more caramel left!