Today we had creamy mushrooms and a couple of pieces of left over chicken in some puff pastry castles, followed by a roast chicken with some garden potatoes, carrots and cabbage, finished with some traditional mince pies with cream.
For the starter, fry a handful of chopped button mushrooms with a piece of leftover chicken, season with salt and ground peppercorns, then add a splash of chicken stock, about a cupful, then half a cup of cream. Leave to simmer until the sauce has reduced and thickened, then leave to cool. I am using some ready made puff pastry castles like these:
My roast chicken was simply seasoned, with an added pinch of paprika on the crispy skin. I added flavour with some thyme stalks from the garden - found this morning when the sun came out and melted away some of the snow. Just pull the skin away from the breast and push the leafy sticks in the gap. Drizzle over a little olive oil before roasting to give your gravy a richer finish.
I am pleased to find that my carrots and potatoes have kept well in their new place in the garden garage rather than in the barn like last year. Although some of my pumpkins are showing signs of rot now, so the chickens got those as a bit of a treat today - did you know pumpkin flesh turns chicken poo orange? Well it does.
Finally we had some mince pies served with a bit of double cream. A rare treat this, and a very traditional finish.
If only.
After mince pies we had choccie biccies with coffee.
Hmmmm - be glad when the snow melts - I think a few 7 km walks before Christmas may be in order to fit into my clothes!
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