I thought this would be something fun to try with the courgettes sitting in my fridge - and they're really tasty!
Simply slice a courgette into thin strips using a vegetable peeler then deep fry them at a high temperature until golden. Lay them on kitchen paper to soak up excess oil.
Lemon, rosemary and garlic is a delicious combination and used this way, mixed with olive oil and smeared over, it really infuses the meat. Make sure you have leftovers as this pork is fantastic cold in sandwiches the next day!
For crispy cracking ask your butcher to score the skin of the joint of pork you want to use. Make sure the skin is dry and rub it with salt.
Mix the zest of a lemon, a pinch of salt, 2 crushed garlic cloves, the leaves from a sprig of rosemary and a squeeze of lemon juice with some olive oil. Smear this over your pork joint, massaging it in and pushing the rosemary and garlic through into the meat where you can (make some slits in it if you need to). Peel and quarter a large onion and sit the pork on top of it in a roasting tray. This will further flavour the pork and give you the base for a great gravy.
Put this into the oven at a high setting, around 240, for 20 minutes then turn the oven down to 190c and cook for about 35 minutes per 450g. There should be no pink juices once the pork is cooked.
Chop one or two spring onions and fry in butter for a few minutes. Mix this with cream cheese and season well. You could add a little chopped parsley too if you wanted. Fill large mushrooms with the mixture and drizzle them with olive oil. Bake in the oven at 200c for about 20 to 25 minutes. Great with couscous or rice.
It's fantastic that blogs are being recognised more and more by the media. There are so many talented bloggers out there who put a great deal of time and effort into their blogs and that deserves recognition.
The British Metro newspaper is holiding 'Best of Brit Blog Awards' specifically for 'the cream of the crop' of British blogs. Vote here.
I picked these up from my local farm shop today and had them on toast. This was the first time I’d tried duck eggs and most certainly won't be the last - they are absolutely delicious. They taste richer and ‘eggier’ then hen eggs, and the yolk is larger and more yellow with a creamier taste.
You can use them exactly as you would hen eggs but you should account for the larger yolk in recipes. Also, they contain less water than hen eggs so are more gelatinous with a risk of turning rubbery quicker than hen eggs so be careful not to over-cook them.
I do urge you to try them; you won't be disappointed.
Fattier cuts of meat, such as lamb shoulder, are ideal for long, slow cooking and they have so much flavour. And of course the beauty of a slow-cooked dish such as this, is that it tastes amazing, requires no effort at all and can wait around in the oven until you’re ready for it.
Brown a shoulder of lamb in a roasting tray over a high heat on the hob, with some olive oil. Make sure it is well browned as this adds to the flavour, as well as giving it an appetising colour.
Next, throw in 4 or 5 peeled garlic cloves, a couple of chopped carrots and celery sticks and a quartered onion. Add a bay leaf, woody herbs such as thyme and rosemary (fresh or dried), a litre of chicken stock and a glass of red or white wine. Bring this to the boil then put it in the oven and cook it slowly at somewhere between 120c and 150c, depending on how long you’re going to cook it for, so 150c for about 4 hours, 120c if you’re going to cook it for most of the day. You really don’t need to be exact for this at all. When I cooked this I started the lamb off at 150 then turned it down to 120 when it looked like it was already getting tender but I knew I’d have it in the oven for longer.
Check the lamb every now and then, turning once or twice, and top the liquid up with water if it runs low. When ready to serve sieve the vegetables and serve the cooking liquid as a gravy, reducing it if necessary first by simmering it on the hob.
For this meal I sprinkled over some parsley and served it with buttery mashed potato and spinach.
Here are 5 things you probably don't know about me:
1. I love music and have a fairly wide taste but I’m a rock chick at heart. I particularly love Bon Jovi, who I’ve seen several times live.
2. I was an extra in the film ‘BackBeat’, about the fifth Beetle, Stuart Sutcliffe, when I was a teenager with dreams of the stage. You could just see my arm for a second in a crowd scene. I knew it was my arm because of the brown stripy jumper I put on from the pile of sixties clothes we had to choose from. Hours and hours of waiting around from the crack of dawn for a one-second shot of my arm. God I was proud.
3. I have an irrational dislike of Bagpuss. That cat freaked me out when I was a child.
4. I have some Irish blood in me as my Mother is half-Irish.
5. I was stung on the tongue by a wasp when I was a child when I was messily eating an orange in my school playground. The juices were running down my hands and I remember seeing a piece of orange flesh on one of my fingers which I greedily popped into my mouth to lick clean. Except that it wasn’t a piece of orange flesh, it was a wasp. A bloody angry one at that. I’m too traumatised to dwell on the memory any longer except to say that, apart from blinding tears and pain I can still recall, I was perfectly fine and survived the encounter with no allergic reaction or hospital visit, only a big fear of wasps. And oranges for a time too.
Ros from Living to Eat! tagged me for this - thanks Ros! Now I have to tag 5 bloggers, so I tag:
Cherry at Cherry's English Kitchen
Freya at Writing At The Kitchen Table
Toni at Daily Bread Journal
August Girl at Rock Cakes
Keiko at Nordljus
Shrove Tuesday is a bit of an odd one for me. I feel like I should make pancakes or I’m missing out and yet it’s the only time of the year that I do actually make them. I’ve actually given the whole thing a miss for the last few years; Rob doesn’t eat them anyway so it seems a bit pointless making them just for me.
But tonight I though ‘what the hell’ and made a batch using good old Delia Smith's recipe. I’m very pleased I did too – what fun I had! I managed to toss them and catch them in the pan. Then once I'd finished playing I ate them up. Instead of the English lemon juice and sugar I had mine with a drizzle of honey which was just lovely.
Well, we’re back home now after our break in the gorgeous county of Somerset. We’ve had a wonderful time and have returned feeling relaxed and refreshed. Our week has been extra special and very romantic, not only as it was Valentine’s week, but also because we stayed in a beautiful log cabin in Alpine Grove Touring Park.
We arrived last Friday in rain and thick fog, which we suddenly came upon as we drove further and further up hill. It was literally like driving into a cloud; one minute it was clear, the next we couldn’t see a thing. This atmosphere only added to our excitement at the prospect of spending a week in a secluded log cabin in the middle of a wood, although I have to say the fog brought on a rather spookier feeling than I had anticipated. I was very pleased and reassured to find that the owners of the park would only be a couple of minutes walk away in their house a little way on from the log cabin.
We were given a very warm welcome, which included a thoughtful plate of hot cross buns and butter waiting for us in the cabin, along with two mugs containing tea bags. Isn't food and drink the perfect welcome for any visitor?
As soon as we walked into the cabin we could smell the beautiful wood, this being a solid wood cabin made from logs shipped in from Poland. And there in the living room was the log burner we were looking forward to sitting in front of. The cabin put me very much in mind of a child’s play house, particularly with the pretty tablecloth and embroidered bed linen. I felt very much like I was playing house as I lit the fire and cooked at the stove. We did a lot of cooking, which I’ll tell you about in another post.
We were bordering Devon and spent time there as well as Somerset and saw some of the most beautiful land and scenery in the country. We rode our bikes along the coast, walked through the woods and visited a donkey sanctuary. But mostly we ate, drank and sat in front of that roaring log fire.
We get very excited about snow here in England. It doesn’t snow very often so it’s a big deal when it does. A very big deal. It hits the headlines, closes the schools and makes the transport network grind to a halt. But hey, I’m not complaining, I love the stuff. The child in me loves to watch the snowfall out of the window, then pull on warm boots for walking outside, looking back at the footprints they make as they compress the snow with a crunch. And the foodie in me loves the steaming hot drinks, the soups and the casseroles to come home to.
P.S. We’re off down to Somerset tomorrow for a holiday so I’ll see you in a week!
As we all know, food and romance go hand in hand - a table for two, an intimate meal at home, champagne, and chocolates. Food is seductive and cooks know a thing or two about the art of seduction, as do people in the food industry. Restaurateurs in particular - everything, from the restaurant décor, the name of the dish, the style of the menu to the presentation and ultimately the taste of the food, is all about seduction and enticing you in.
If you’re planning a romantic meal for Valentines Day no doubt seduction is on your mind. You’ll want to excite the senses, so think about not only the taste of the food but also the touch, sight and smell of it. Think sexy food, think:
• Rich and deliciously decadent food – buttery sauces, expensive luxuries, truffles, smoked salmon…
• Finger food for sharing from the same plate, dipping and eating with your fingers
• Naughty food – forget calorie watching, bring on the chocolate
• Meaty food – something you can really get your teeth into
• Creamy, frothy food – whipped cream, mousse, crème brulee, bubbles in the champagne...
Relax and enjoy.
Brown lamb shanks in olive oil over a high heat, then remove them from the pan. Add to the pan 1 stick of celery, 1 onion and 2 carrots, all finely chopped. Sauté the vegetables with 3 crushed garlic cloves until softened.
Stir in a tablespoon of flour then add a tin of chopped tomatoes, 1 litre of beef stock, about a tablespoon of tomato puree and a large glass of red wine.
Put the shanks back in the pan, season well and add a bay leaf and some dried oregano. Bring to the boil then cook for about 2 hours on a low simmer.
Stir in a good amount of chopped flat leaf parsley at the end. Serve with rice and a good dollop of soured cream.
This salad is lovely any season, no matter what the weather. The 5 spice works well with the tangy dressing and all it needs is a plain, crisp salad.
Rub 5 spice over duck breasts and pan fry for about 20 minutes, turning once. You want them pink in the middle. If you’re using breasts with skin on you won’t need any oil, just place them skin side down and they’ll cook in their own fat. You'll need to drain some off it off halfway through cooking though.
While you leave the duck to rest make up a dressing by combining a tablespoon each of soy sauce and rice vinegar with a few drops of toasted sesame oil (this is enough for two salads). Drizzle this over crispy salad leaves then slice the duck and lay it over the salad. Sprinkle over any duck juices and serve.
When I first started this blog I could never have dreamed of how far reaching it would be across the world. Of course I knew the power of the internet makes this possible but I never thought that people all around the world would be interested in what I write on my little blog here in the UK. When I look at my stats tool which shows me where people are visiting from and I see visitors from all over I’m overwhelmed, I really am. And I get excited each time a new spot on the map appears ‘look, look, I had a visitor from Hawaii!’ I tell Rob, with a big smile on my face. Your visits delight me and I’d like to take this opportunity to extend a very warm welcome to you all. We may not always ‘speak’ but I know you’re there and I’m very, very pleased that you are.
Here are some of the places visitors have come from over the last two days:
Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, New South Wales (Australia) ~ Las Vegas, California, Florida, New Jersey, Virginia, Washington, Hawaii (USA) ~ Finland ~ South Africa ~ Spain ~ Canada ~ Slovakia ~ Portugal ~ New Zealand ~ Belgium ~ India ~ Thailand
So there I was pottering around in the kitchen preparing dinner the other night. A nice piece of belly pork was on the menu, lovely. I took it out of the fridge and unwrapped it then placed it in the roasting tray and started to rub it with salt. Then I saw something that stopped me dead in my tracks. Something I hadn’t encountered before and was not prepared for. There, along the belly were the nipples you sometimes see. Bear with me, this was not the part I was unprepared for. I’d come across nipples on pieces of pork belly before and, hey, I’m a grown-up, I can cope with a few animal nipples – just about. But this, this was one step too far. As I ran my eyes further along I saw, just by the nipples........hairs. Several of them. Ewwww, this I could NOT handle. Hence a quick exit from me and a shout to Rob.
Rob offered to cut the nipples and offending hairs off and I readily agreed. I have to say I couldn’t watch though. When Rob picked up the knife and approached the meat I winced and protectively wrapped my arms around my boobs, making another sharp exit. I know, I know, I’m pathetic.
Noodles are perfect for a quick and easy dinner mid-week, and they're quite delicious. I love a big bowlful to slurp up!
I threw this dish together this evening, as you do with stir fries, and although I’ve outlined what I did you really can adjust it as much as you like. Use different meat, or none at all, try different vegetables – mange tout, bean sprouts, mushrooms, egg noodles instead of rice noodles, and adjust the seasoning as you wish.
Chicken Noodle Stir Fry
Heat your wok over the highest temperature until very hot and add some groundnut oil. Add slices of boneless chicken thighs (you could just as easily use chicken breast) and stir fry until white all over. Now add a crushed garlic clove along with a sliced red pepper, sliced curly kale (or similar, such as spinach, broccoli, pak choi) and sliced spring onions. Stir fry everything until the chicken is well cooked and the vegetables are still crunchy. Now add a good slosh of soy sauce and rice vinegar along with a dash of toasted sesame oil. Add rice noodles you’ve already cooked according to the instructions on the packet and toss everything around to coat well. Once the noodles are heated through the dish is ready to serve.
The blog has moved!!! Please visit my blog at the new address www.asliceofcherrypie.com and don't forget to update your bookmarks and links! See you over there x
