What's for dinner tonight.....

 

Continuing the theme of leftovers this week - poor family, they have been fed a smorgasbord of leftovers this week - old grotty ham from the fridge in quiches, soft squidgy tomatoes in yet more quiches, frozen chilli con carne leftovers in pasties, and limp hot dogs and out of date ready roll flaky pastry for sausage rolls.

But tonight I am going one better, the whole dinner is made up of random leftovers I found when making space in the freezer in the barn, so here goes:

Take a couple of handfulls of frozen cherry tomatoes

About 1 large chopped leek

A bowlful of frozen french beans

and 8 random chestnuts

Unfortunately I did not peel the chestnuts before freezing them, therefore first things first, boil the chestnuts for a couple of minutes then while still hot, peel the bitter skin off, although this does scald your fingers, it is much easier to do while the chestnuts are hot.  Once peeled, roughly chop the chestnuts.

In a large pan, pour in a tablespoon of olive oil, then the chopped chestnuts, a couple of grinds of black peppercorns, and 2 cloves of garlic just smashed up with the blade of your knife.  Fry for a couple of minutes, then add a teaspoon of salt, and a teaspoon of paprika, and a teaspoon of dried chillies.

Add the leek to the pan (no need to defrost), fry until the leek is soft, then add the cherry tomatoes, and continue frying until the tomatoes are soft too.  

Add a litre of chicken stock, the beans and leave to cook for about 8 minutes, until the beans are cooked through.

To finish, a big pinch of dried oregano, stir through and serve as a side to whatever meat you have knocking around, we had ours alongside some beef steaks I bought reduced a while ago.  Mop up the juices with a couple of doorstep wedges of homemade multi grain bread.

I find my family can manage to stomach leftovers if served alongside some good thick portions of quality meat, pork chops, roast chicken legs and beef steaks.

Thank you TV chef - polenta muffins

Today's TV chef to thank is Ainsley Harriot on GMTV.

With Brendan now entering the third week of his supermarket ban I was feeling the pressure. The shopping list pressure that is. The shopping list that he spent an hour compiling last night with glee in the anticipation that I would be going to do some shopping today.

While he has been on his ban I reduced my trip to the supermarket to once a week, which still sounds like a lot but is a real improvement on once every other day.

The major problem with not shopping so frequently is thinking up things to cook and serve - we all get fed up of constantly eating the same things over and over and over again.

While watching TV first thing this morning over my cup of coffee with knitting in hand, I caught with half an ear Ainsley extolling the virtues of cornmeal muffins - cornmeal being polenta.

Now it just so happens that in amongst all the bits and bobs that were carried back and forth from the pantry to the barn and back to the pantry was a bag of polenta. Obviously something I bought in a fit of creative cuisinery inspiration (or madness) then realised that I had no idea what to do with it so relegated it to the box of assorted flours.

One quick search on the internet revealed the recipe and so for lunch (early lunch today due to work commitments) we had Polenta muffins with chorizo scrambled egg.

Muffin recipe:

225g self raising flour (or farine fluide in France)
100g yellow polenta
1½ tsp baking powder - I used one sachet of levure chemique here in France
1 teaspoon sugar
Pinch salt
75g Melted butter
1 beaten egg
175ml milk

Preheat oven to 180°
In a food processor (I know I know very lazy but I was short on time), whizz up the seived dry ingredients with the wet, allowing the melted butter to cool a little, until you get a soft dough. Dollop generous heaped tablespoons into a greased muffin tray, then bake for 20 minutes.

My scrambled eggs are very simple, in a heavy pan fry a chopped onion and some chopped chorizo sausage in a spoon of olive oil. Beat 6 eggs (for 3 people) in a bowl - thank you Edith, Mama Hog, and others for the eggs, add a splash of milk, pinch of salt, freshly ground black pepper, teaspoon of paprika and a tablespoon of dried herbs - normally parsley for me, then pour over the fried sausage and onion, and keep stirring into the centre.

With a full and happy belly off to work I went and then spent some quality time with a friend.

I am also vey pleased to see the amount of blossom now appearing on our plum trees.  We had a disastrous year last year with hardly any fruit at all, so I am hoping that this late bloom after the worst of the frosts and with plentiful pollinating bees around mean I can get some wine on the go for Christmas.

Bouncing Baby Bunnies

After a miserable Friday spent drowning under paperwork and endless calls back and forth to the UK, I was very pleased to see Saturday dawn with some bright sunshine.

With Brendan safetl ensconsed in the pantry and under strict instructions to not come out until the walls had been patched up, Thea and I set to with the rabbits. We currently have 5 babies, one mummy who has just given birth but we don't know to how many babies as they are still buried under straw in her hutch and one pregnant female. A bit of a hutch reshuffle was required to make sure everyone that needed extra room got it and to separate the males out for a bit of a rest so they could recoupe their engergies.

This is Crumble Stud Muffin - so named under the misapprehension it was a male - who later turned out to be a very good mummy indeed, it is her daughters that are pregnant and have given birth recently.

Underneath her is our current stud - Brian Big Nose (from Monty Python's Life of Brian).  They all needed a good clean out and fresh straw so we got started early and soon had a great pile of poo ready to become compost.

As I was so impressed with how well the seedling compost came out, I decided to make some more ready for next year but this time instead of leaving it sitting idle on one side of the garden, I thought I would put the old pantry shelves to better use by making a designated raised composting bed.  These are just some pine floorboards that fit together tongue and groove, to which I screwed a reinforcing bit of off-cut pine  to stop the two planks springing apart, then dug into the ground about a third of the width.  To this pile of rabbit poo will go some fresh Milla manure and some mole cast, and so that it is working for a living - I intend to use it for my pumpkins this year.

I was pleased to see the first cucumber seedlings poking through yesterday.  Every morning now starts with a watering can in the greenhouse and one for the poly tunnel.  With the snow melt still affecting our water table, we have a very full duck pond and an instantly replenishing well, so I have been pumping the well water into all the garden water butts - whilst it has been raining recently, there has not been that much, and I am standing by my conviction that this year will be a drought year. 

Finally with friends coming to dine, I thought I should do a pudding for a change.   I am not a great baker nor pudding maker and all too often I cop out by buying some choccie biccies or asking a neighbour to provide the cake.  This time, inspired by Come Dine With Me, I thought I would have a go at Eton Mess, after all if those guys can whip one up in no time why shouldn't I.  I had bought a crate of strawberries the other day as a family treat at a good reduced price for our tiny budget and with these and the eggs from our chickens whipped up into a meringue with some caster sugar and a bit of double cream - my own Eton Mess. 

Just a quick swirl of a syrup made with the strawberries and a fresh berry to finish.