Another Friday - another dinner party

Tonight's dinner party menu:

Fishy blinis
Rabbit in mustard sauce with garden carrots and 
hedgehog potatoes
Meringue mess

I make my own little blinis in an escargot pan, I remember when I picked it up at a car boot in France, the lady selling it went to a lot of trouble to explain to me how to cook snails, then looked totally horrified when I said that I would be using to make blinis and fry quail eggs in instead.

The batter is a very simple recipe:

1 large fresh egg
3 heaped tablespoons of self raising flour
pinch salt
enough milk to create a thick but still runny batter (thickness of double cream)

To make sweet dipping blinis for chocolate, hazelnut spread and jam, just add a tablespoon of caster sugar and a couple of drops of vanilla extract to the mix.


For the rabbit (this one an even closer to home kill than the wild boar last week as it was in the front garden last year), joint the rabbit, which essentially means separating its back legs from the spine, crack the legs open at the pelvis then cut round with a sharp knife, there is just a thin stretch of muscle then holding them to the spine.  Then with a cleaver, chop through the spine just behind the front legs, cleave in half, then cleave the saddle into two pieces and cleave in half again, you should end up with 8 pieces of rabbit on the bone.

Fry the rabbit in a large casserole dish in a little olive oil with salt and pepper, then add a glass of white wine, 2 large onions quartered, 2 large cloves of garlic, several sprigs of fresh marjoram and a litre of good thick chicken stock - I am using the duck stock I made yesterday.  When this reaches the boil, add 2 heaped teaspoons of whole grain mustard and put in the oven for a couple of hours at 180°C.

An hour before serving add 200 ml of double cream, season again, add a pinch of cayenne pepper and leave to cook in the oven at a low heat for the final hour.

I can not remember where hedgehog potatoes came from but they are really easy and a quick way of making jacket potatoes.  Use a thin skinned potato like a Charlotte, scrub clean and place in a baking tray,  1 large or 2 small spuds per person.  Cut slices along each spud three quarters of the way through, spinkle over sea salt, some black pepper and drizzle with a bit of olive oil, cover with tin foil and bake in the top of the oven for 1 hour at 200°C.

For pudding it was Thea's choice, her favourite and something I only make in the Rayburn because they take a couple of hours to cook, meringues.  A good way of using up surplus eggs too.

I never gave this much credence but having had to make two lots on Friday, I am now convinced that meringues must be made in a metal bowl.  

With an electric whisk whip up 4 egg whites into soft peaks, add a pinch of salt, then gradually introduce 280g of icing sugar whisking continuously to create stiff peaks, then a splash of vanilla extract.

With a metal spoon create separate pools of meringue on some baking paper on a tray, spread well apart.  Bake in a low oven for a couple of hours.

Into these I poured some warmed cherry jam and topped with chantilly cream, then finally a little meringue hat with some melted chocolate dribbled over.

How to make stock..

It is almost that time of year again when I have to start considering the despatch of our birds. This year we have a goose, four ducks and sixteen chickens as well as six rabbits to add to our freezer.

But first I have to somehow make room for them in my two crammed to the gunnels chest freezers. One still contains large amounts of Ernie the lamb, and in the bottom of the other I still have some bits of bacon I made from our pigs in 2007.

Whilst delving around looking for tomorrow's dinner party main (rabbit) I found a couple of bags that I had conveniently labelled 'duck carcasses for stock'.

So in preparation for the dinner party rabbit dish I am making the stock for it today.

Stock is really easy to make but very rewarding taste wise. You can make either brown stock from roasted bones - particularly good with big meaty marrow bones like beef, or a white stock from uncooked bones.

These are uncooked bones leftover from last winter's duck cull, where the breasts and legs have been removed but there are still meaty tendrils on the ribs and the wing nubs.

The basic ingredients for a good flavoursome stock are carrots, onions, bay leaves, garlic cloves, salt and pepper.

This basic stock is ideal in pies, stew, casseroles and gravy.

I make flavoured stocks if I intend them for a specific dish, so if making a curry I will make a stronger garlic stock, or a thyme based stock or marjoram. Just add big bunches of the fresh herbs or a tablespoon of dried to the stock water.

Amounts are always rough because I find it depends on the bones, but at least 2 large carrots peeled and cut into batons, 2 medium onions quartered, 3 bay leaves and 5 cloves of garlic. A generous teaspoon of salt and some black pepper ground in plus 5 or 6 peppercorns in the stock water. Add the bones and leave to simmer for hours on gentle heat.

To preserve, strain the liquid and while it is still very hot, decant into a clean and dry but empty wine bottle, cork and leave in the fridge where it will keep for a couple of weeks. Once opened it does go off quite quickly but a wine bottle (70 cl) is about the right amount of stock for most recipes.

The last green tomato recipe I promise

Green Tomato and Ham Soup

Fry in a little butter:

200g ham or 150g bacon
1 small onion diced
2 cloves of garlic

When the onion is golden and soft add:

1 litre of chicken stock
8 medium green tomatoes
2 medium red tomatoes
1 green bell pepper
salt and pepper to season

Boil it all together for at least 30 minutes, then using a stick blender whizz it up to create a thick green gloopy soup. To finish and just before serving, stir in a dash of tabasco sauce.



It is turning cold here, another ground frost last night, and just a few cabbages left in the garden now, oh and some potatoes to dig up, and some more beetroot - er I think that's it now.

It is heading fast and furiously into fire lighting in the studio and handing out in there time. Hurrah. With the recent amount of time spent gardening and dealing with the harvests I have not had much chance to get any sewing done so looking forward to getting stuck in to some of my outstanding projects.

Yesterday was a lazy day, the puppy went home leaving behind some bereft kittens and a moping Border Collie, we played a game of Monopoly (which Thea won AGAIN) and then a bit of knitting in front of the TV, once again trying to finish off some projects neglected over the summer when you don't much feel like knitting winter woolie hats!

Now it is Monday morning, I have spent it so far dealing with outstanding emails and correspondence from the weekend, a quick stroll with the dog in a minute and then when I get back from work I am shutting myself away with my fire in the studio.

With a helping hand from Ferguson

Today it is lovely and sunny, and rather warm for an autumnal day, which goes some way to making up for the fact that it has dropped below freezing for the last three nights, in fact last night it got down to -5°c.

Meaning of course that things are dying off in the garden, first to go were all the pumpkin plants, all those thick stalks full of water have no chance when it  keeps freezing, consequently no champion sized pumpkins this year, but a plentiful crop nonetheless, now with their backsides drying in the sun before heading underground for winter storage.

The next thing to go were all the tomato plants outside.  Those in the greenhouse are all doing fine, although I am doubtful that they will all go red in there before the heavy frosts start.

And some things are remarkably resilient, have reseeded themselves and are going rather well already - radishes of course.

Took a third cut of my cut and come again broccoli heads today as well, and here are half of them boiled up ready to make a broccoli quiche slice for lunch.

Line a tin with some flan pastry, then add in the cooked florets of broccoli.

Make a basic quiche mix, a good way of using up surplus eggs, I use 5 or 6 eggs, 250ml of cream, 1/2 teaspoon salt, lots of black pepper, a tablespoon of dried herbs usually parsley and 1/2 teaspoon of paprika.  I know that using cream does not make for a healthy quiche, but it does taste lots better.

Add the broccoli - if I had any spare bits of sandwich ham I would have added this too, but as the fridge is bare, veggie slice only on the menu.

Top with some slices of ripe tomato, then bake in the oven for 35 minutes at 180°C.

Serve hot or cold with salad for a tasty quick lunch.

And just to prove how hard my inner nerd worked - here is my wardrobe all aired, refolded, neatened, straightened and sorted.

Standing on ladders in jammies and wellies

Early morning mist after the first real frost of the autumnal season found me clambering up a ladder precariously balanced against the ivy covered trunk of the plum tree in a last attempt to get the few fruit left right on the edges of the thinest highest branches.

Of course the neighbour drove past at that point and of course he stopped to offer his advice.

I mean honestly, clad in my Mickey Mouse jammies, half way up a ladder, in Thea's wellies - did I look like I needed advice?

Plum Cake (with some added blackberries because they were there)


90g softened butter
90g sugar
pinch of salt
teaspoon of vanilla extract
2 eggs
150g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder/levure chimique
750g soft fruit

Preheat the oven to 200°C and grease and flour a pie dish.

Cream the butter and sugar together, add the vanilla, salt and eggs, then sift in the flour and baking powder gradually, whisking continuously.

Spoon out the thick cake mixture into the dish and press your fruit of choice gently into the top, aprictos, cherries and halved peaches all work really well in this, just use whatever fruit you have to hand and in season.

Bake in the oven until golden on top for about 30 minutes.

Turn out onto a wire rack to cool, or alternatively - once again, drive like mad to the place you have been invited to with the hot cake on the back seat of the car and present to your hosts still in its dish, then hope that they will be so entranced with the flavour that they won't notice the unorthodox presentation.

Ate the project before I had chance to photograph it - Blackberry Clafoutis

It was all a bit of a rush this morning.

We were trying to watch Kill Bill 2 and what should have been a two hour film was extended by another three quarters of an hour with phone calls and drop in visitors (at least they bought me a baby to munch, at 3 months old she is just gorgeous and scrummy).

Then an hour before we were due to go out to visit friends for coffee and cake, it occured to me that perhaps I should make the cake!

Enter stage right one of the easiest and quickest, frugal yet delicious cake recipes.

Clafoutis is a traditional French rustic dessert, made from eggs and milk and incorporating any ripe fruits in season.

With Thea despatched to pick the lovely juicy blackberries, I made the basic mix, which is really just a glorified batter.

Blackberry Clafoutis


300ml milk
60g plain flour
60g sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon of baking powder (levure chimique)
pinch salt
3 eggs
enough fruit to fill the base of your baking tray

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Butter then flour a baking tray of your choice, as this cake takes the shape of whatever you cook it in, now is the chance to use all those long neglected heart shaped, crescent shaped and star shaped baking trays stashed at the back of the cupboard.

Whisk together the eggs and the sugar to form a light batter, add the vanilla, salt, milk then sift in the flour, combine with an electric or hand whisker to form a smooth lump free runny batter.

Scatter the fruit into your baking tray, then pour over the batter, you want the tips of the fruit just poking through, don't cover the fruit entirely.

Bake for 30 to 40 minutes until the top is golden brown and firm to the touch.

I would have taken photos but we were running so late that I grabbed the baking tray straight from the oven, threw it on a tea towel into the back of the car and drove away, so had to serve the cake to friends straight from the tin.

If presentation was lacking then at least the clafoutis made up for it in taste.

It is my birthday and I will eat cake for breakfast if I want to

It was just a question of which cake.

Here is an example of the kind of recipe I hate, full of shortcuts like ready made shortcrust pastry - nah can't buy that in my local supermarket, Victoria sponge mix - nada - not in France!

So you take a quick and easy looking recipe like this one and you have to go back to basics with it and it becomes very very long winded instead.

But that was what I wanted to eat for my birthday breakfast.


BLACKBERRY BAKEWELL TARTS

So I started yesterday with picking 3 kilos of blackberries! - also not in this recipe I know, but blackberries are what I've got.

This is my waste not a drop way of using blackberries, which can be quite labour intensive not to mention painful to pick.  We had to squeeze in our picking between storms yesterday afternoon, than a quick run back indoors to light the Rayburn and get on with the cake making.

Start by making sure all the stalks, leaves and bugs have been rinsed off then throw all the blackberries into a large pan, pour over enough water to cover and then a splash more and start simmering.  I left mine for 30 minutes or so while I got on with making the shortcrust pastry.

SHORTCRUST PASTRY

125g plain flour
pinch salt
55g cold cubed butter

rub with your fingers to create breadcrumbs then using a palette knife start cutting through the breadcrumbs as you add 2 or 3 tablespoons of cold water.  

Work it together into a dry dough with cold hands, don't overwork it, you want it stay dry not become greasy, roll into a ball, cover with cling film and throw into the fridge for half an hour.

By this time your blackberries should have cooked down into a thickish stodgy mess but a complete sludge.
 I love my big witch's hat colander - I am sure it has a fancy name, but we call it the witch's hat, the tiny perforations let all the juices through but keep even the smallest pips out, and because it is metal you can bash the fruit against the sides to get every last drop out, not that you need to do this for this recipe, just get the majority of the juice out.

Drain the juice off into a large jug and keep the fruit bits to one side.

While the juice is still hot, add some sugar and stir well to dissolve it, no actual measurements here, just add sugar to taste - then decant into a couple of bottles and add vodka - well, every birthday girl needs a birthday cocktail!

Now take the fruit pulp, stick it back on a low heat and add sugar - again no measurements just add enough to make a sweet mixture.  You are not making jam so no need to watch the temperatures or anything like that, just stir until the sugar has dissolved.

While that is cooking away, take the pastry back out of the fridge and roll out on a floured surface.  Prepare a pastry case with butter and some flour sprinkled in, then add the shortcrust and bake blind for 20 minutes.

A top tip I read recently or saw on the TV, use tin foil instead of baking parchment when baking blind as it makes the pastry crispier instead of soggy.

So while your pastry is baking, and your fruit pulp is cooking, time to make the sponge.

VICTORIA SPONGE


As you can not buy this is in ready made packs here in France, here is a basic and easy recipe.

250g unsalted butter
250g sugar
4 eggs beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
250g self raising flour

Beat the butter and sugar together first, basically this means mash the sugar into the butter with a wooden spoon against the side of the bowl repeatedly until the mixture is soft and creamy, then add the beaten eggs, vanilla and flour.

As this is a bakewell tart and not a victoria sponge, now add the 50g of ground almonds required in the original recipe at the top of the page, ignore the additional egg asked for.

The resulting mixture should be quite dry and not runny.

Take your pastry case out of the oven, remove the baking beans and tin foil and allow to cool.  Use the space in the oven then to sterilise a couple of jars.

As you can see my oven is doing double time here sterilising jars having baked the pastry, and also has a couple of trays of roast patty pan squashes on the go too.  Did not want to waste the oven space so shoved them in quickly.

Why the jars - well we started with 3 kilos of blackberries, and even with having extracted the juice you can't put 3 kilos worth of fruit pulp into a bakewell tart.

Back to the recipe (wow I'm rambling today!).

Spoon some fruit pulp into the pastry case, add your sponge mix on top, then throw on a couple of handfuls of sliced almonds on top to finish.

Bake at 200°C for 25 minutes.

Then eat!

Oh yes and the rest of the fruit pulp, stick it in your sterilised jars ready to use next time as a pie filling.

Couple of days to catch up on here...

... and they centre around the wedding yesterday.

First I had to finish making the gift - which now that it has been given can be revealed as a photo album assembled by me from some handmade paper and cardboard.

Forgot the photo but here are the instructions:

In addition having once again run out of all purpose cards had to make one at the last minute.

Then having had the fashion police dictate my outfit on the day, as we were the witnesses I though it might be appropriate to jazz up my dress with a matching hair fascinator.  Cue a last minute rummage through the boxes of assorted 'stuff' to find some feathers, then some beads then a hair clip to attach them too.

I am pleased with the result though.

Some purple quills, stuck down to a fluffy purple feather horizontally at the base, the beads strung onto a short bit of wire with a dab of glue to hold them in place, then the ends wedged into some polysterene from some packaging waste, and a snip of the purple fluffy feather added at the base to hide the white polysterence, then the quills hot glue gunned to a hair clip and the bead wires added on top.


Right - just 337 photos to sort through now to get a nice commemorative album together, in the meantime, here is a witty ditty...


I'm off to stuff tomatoes
If I wasn't stuffing 'matoes
Where would I be -
Well, I'd be stuffing marrows, see?




Or to be more accurate - patty pan squashes - no need to guess what's for dinner tonight?


I stuffed my tomatoes and the patty pan with the same mix:-

about 250g of pork mince,
a tablespoon of garlic,
couple of inches of chorizio sausage,
handful of fresh basil leaves,
ground black pepper
and the innards of  5 large tomatoes scooped out with a spoon.

Whizz everything up in a food processor or chop finely and stir well together in a bowl.

I sliced my patty pans thinly having scooped out the seeds, lay the empty tomatoes on top, fill with the mix and cover with the top of the tomatoes, then I poured in 1.5 litres of chicken stock to 2 patty pan squashes and threw it in the gas oven for 45 minutes on gas mark 6.

The stuffed patty pan was sat in 500ml of chicken stock on a bed of patty pan squash slices and cooked at 180°C for 1 hour.

Clean plates all round.

Thanks to Celebrity Masterchef (and Christine Hamilton's recipe idea) tonight's dinner was a doddle!

With all those lovely savoy cabbages now ready in the garden, I curbed my first inclination which was to chop them all up and stick them in the freezer, and decided that they would be the basis for dinner this evening, well earned after a very busy day gardening, three wheelbarrows of weeds pulled up and the grass mowed.


First off the chicken legs went into the oven, seasoned then a sprinkle of paprika and garlic on the skins to make a tasty coating.

Then "Chestnut-y Bacon-y Cabbage-y Mess".

In a large pan (that has a lid), start by frying a couple of slices of bacon or pancetta chopped into small pieces in some herby olive oil, I used thyme flavoured oil as I thought this would best marry with the roast chicken.

Then add about 10 cooked chestnuts chopped into small pieces. I am using chestnuts from last year, that were cooked in hot water just long enough to be able to remove their skins then frozen whole.

Finally add a head of savoy cabbage cut into strips, cook everything together for about 10 minutes until the cabbage is soft, at this point I added a little bit of water, seasoned, added some dried parsley then covered the pan for the cooking time.


As you can see - clean plates all round and another very simple recipe to add to my collection.

Molly gets dressed for the occasion and patty pan squashes

Yeserday Molly had her first taste of a working life and got all dressed up to help me alter the length of a friend's party frock.  Apart from posing for my own work in progress top this is the first work she has done in the studio and I have to say it went well, she seems a natural.

I know that I have posted this photo already but I don't have any additional ones, however I do now have 4 patty pan squashes so that's a 200 % inmprovement on last year.

Which of course begs the question of what to do with them, so here are a couple of recipe ideas that I am trying out today.

PATTY PAN AND CHICK PEA SALAD


I am putting my chickpeas in to soak overnight so I can make this tomorrow, but here goes the recipe anyway.

Cut the patty pan squash into its natural segments, drizzle with some olive oil and add a pinch of salt, roast for 30mins at 200°C.

Once the squash is cooked through, allow to cool and then add the soaked then boiled chickpeas, I use 2 heaped tablespoons per person as a portion guide.

For the vinigrette:

handful of fresh chopped chives
handful of fresh chopped coriander leaves
a couple of leaves of mint
4 anchovies
a pinch of cayenne pepper
2 tablespoons of lemon juice
freshly ground black pepper
a touch of oilve oil

whizz everything up together then liberally coat the chickpeas, before adding to the cooked patty pan segments.  This can be eaten hot or cold, a starter or a side dish.


One Pan Patty Pan


(snappy title dontcha think?)

In a large suacepan with a lid, fry a large onion over a gentle heat in some olive oil with a couple of cloves of garlic until soft.

To the pan add some roughly chopped fresh ripe plum tomatoes, and your patty pan squashes, once again cut into their natural segments.

Then add about 10 cm of chorizo sausage, cut into large chunks, season and add a couple more tablespoons of olive oil.  Reduce the heat and leave to cook for one hour, I am using an enamelled pan, that once I have fried on the hob I can put into a preheated oven at 180°C for the 60 minutes required.

Stir in a couple of chopped leaves of coriander to finish.



As my family of meat eaters don't consider that to be enough meat, we are having our patty pans with a pork chop, grilled in garlic oil alongside.

Here are are the next lot of patty pans growing nicely.

Will have to start thinking of savoy cabbage recipes soon too....

....... as well as cauliflower...

 Luckily the grape vine has not managed to dislodge the solar panel for our night time hall and stairs lighting yet, but I will have to think about re-directing it soon.