Day 8 chicken and pasta in creamy thyme sauce and some elderflower champagne

With the elderflowers finally in bloom, I got my champagne laid up.

The recipe I use is very simple:

Fill the bottom of a shallow bowl with elderflower heads (at least 20), try to have as few stalks as possible as they are bitter.

Cover in a thick layer of sugar, then pour over a litre of boiling water then a litre of cold water.

Add 50g of citric acid and juice and zest of one lemon or the juice and zest of 4 lemons if not using citric acid. Once again I have my lovely North African supermarket to thank for the citric acid - a complete fluke find on the shelf in there one day last year so I grabbed a couple of packets as it is getting harder and harder to get hold of.

Cover the bowl and place in a warm dark spot for 24 hours.

Sieve the liquid and pour off into screw topped bottles, either glass or plastic bottles designed for fizzy drinks, and leave to stand for another 14 days in a warm dark place, until the wine settles and clears. I like to squeeze every last drop from the flower heads, and if the liquid doesn't have that slightly sticky feel to it, I add another tablespoon of sugar to the bottle it is being decanted into.

There is no yeast required as the flower heads provide enough yeast to set the process off.

If you just want cordial, then once bottled, put in the fridge to stop any fermentation continuing.

I like to make up some elderflower ice cubes, and then you can just pop one of those into a glass of white wine, top with some lemonade or fizzy water for a summery spritzer, or add a dash of lemon vodka for a more potent cocktail.

In total 6 litres of champagne bottled up, and another 2 tubs of elderflowers settling for some cordial.


Day 8 - Chicken and Pasta in a Creamy Thyme sauce

Cook some pasta twirls or shells or tubes, drain, rinse with cold water and leave to one side, the cold helps to set the pasta so that it does not go mushy before you come to use it.

Gently fry a couple of chicken breasts in garlic oil, add 500ml of chicken stock, and a veg of your choice, I used green beans from the freezer but anything that you have to hand will do, carrots, peas, broccoli are all good for this.

Once the veg is tender, add the leaves from several sprigs of fresh thyme, as well as 150ml of cream.  I like to use real cream as it is delicate enough for the thyme, creme fraiche has too much of a flavour of its own for me and swamps the thyme.

Cook gently for a couple of minutes, then add the pasta back into the pan.  Stir the sauce through the pasta and there you go.  Another larder recipe.

Only another 2 to go - I am running out of fresh veg and dairy staples now though, may need to go and give the larder a good staring at for inspiration tomorrow.

Day 4 - Stuffed Tomatoes and Ras El Hanout Rice

It was actually dry today so I managed to get some long over due gardening done.

I weeded the greenhouse, and around the outside perimeter too, then transplanted some grown on tomato plants, my two not very happy looking aubergines, and my sprightly pepper plants.  I am so glad we have the greenhouse, it has proved it's value and was well worth the effort of hunting it down in the UK and bringing it with us, even though we did stress over the poly getting damaged before it was erected.

I also managed to plant out my spinach, my purple sprouting boroccoli, and my broad beans.  I did make a start on the weeding, but found that the hunger pangs drove me inside before the storm did.

Tonight's offering is actually a family favourite, another one pot dish (I am such a lazy cook).

Whilst generally I find supermarkets to be akin to the outer rings of hell, I do enjoy specialist shops, and one of my favourites is the North African supermarket in Clermont Ferrand.  This little shop of treasures has all things weird and wonderful, some larder staples and a good range of herbs and spices, one of which is a prepared Ras El Hanout mix for rice.

I have tried to make my own mix, but it can be so difficult to find uncommon herbs and spices in France that it is a false economy to make your own especially as at a bare minimum it needs at least 12 ingredients.

For my stuffed tomatoes then you need some good sized ripe tomatoes, for a main course I serve 2 per person, just 1 for a starter.

Cut the top off and scoop out the centre into a bowl and chop finely, add some minced meat, not much, you only need about 150g for 4 decent sized tomatoes and preferably a drier mince like beef or chicken, add salt, pepper, a chopped garlic clove and a generous dash of paprika and mix together.

Spoon the mixture back into the tomato, top with a slice of mozzarella, and put the tomato lid back on.

Place the stuffed tomatoes in a shallow oven proof dish.

Into the dish add 2 heaped tablespoons of basmatic rice per person, and a teaspoon of Ras El Hanout spice mix per serving of rice, then pour over boiling water until the rice is completely covered and the water level is at least 2 cm above the level of the rice.  Try to use a shallow dish, so that the water does not get deep enough to enter into the suffed tomatoes but sits sort of half way up them.

Bake in the oven for 1 hour covered at 200°C, then uncover and cook for a further 15 minutes.  If your dish is deeper you may need to check halfway through for liquid levels for the rice.

We ate our dinner on our laps in front of the TV, watching Shrek (again), and yet another storm rolled in, and now it is raining again.

Recipe for Ras el Hanout
.

Ingredients:

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon ground ginger

I teaspoon turmeic

1 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper

1/2 teaspoon ground coriander seeds

1/2 teaspoon cayenne

1/2 teaspoon ground allspice

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves