Hi there its ME....Phew! Friday, 21st March 2014.

 A full-on week of potting,  baking and a very quick recipe for Spaghetti Bolognaise when the dear SO decided he decided he'd like spaghetti for supper!

And silly me thought he meant a tin of spaghetti!  He has these odd food suggestions at times and, let's face it, it can be seen as a quick snack food item?  One that I've not eaten for years and I do think my tins of mixed beans and red kidney beans might look askance at spaghetti shapes and strands!

However he did not mean tinned spaghetti and, despite the fact of having a meat pie to put together and sausages to cook, off to Morrisons I went for minced beef, mushrooms and a jar of ready made Bolognaise sauce.  This is a shock, of course, for I never use such things because sauces are so easy to make but, time was of the essence, and I had been planing to make a trial bake of a Panettone recipe found in a new bread making book.

The book - "Bread" by Anne Sheasby - ISBN 978-1-84899-189-7 recently found in our nearest TK Maxx Store (a fascinating place for all kinds of interesting finds for everything!).

Of course, my trial did not happen but I did make a delicious and very easy Spag. Bol. for supper and handy left-overs for lunch on Thursday!  I rate that ability very highly for, when you're home and busy with no time to rustle up something good for a working lunch!

It was an inexpensive meal for the meat was on for a "special offer" price of £2.49 for Morrisons British Minced Steak for 675g., the Button Mushrooms on a reduced-price for an immediate date-usage label and cost me just 55p, and for the spice content, a packet of Schwartz Spaghetti Bolognaise Recipe Mix was used.  The sauce was Dolmio's Spaghetti Bolognaise.

Altogether, it took about 20-25 minutes to prepare and cook, as well as the pasta and grating our cheese; cooking the meat and sauce in my Prestige High Dome Pressure Cooker.  It all went down very well, our taste buds relishing the glorious combination of textures and flavours, from a dish we'd not cooked for a long time.  Isn't it odd how one can completely forget a favourite meal, from time to time.

Watch this space for more delicious and forgotten favourites!

And here's my photo-shot of our scrummy supper!

Happy eating

Daisy x

PS I finally baked my first Panettone late last night, after supper!

IMG 5231 Potted Turkey Pate Part 2 - 14th March 2014

ME! on Pates and more besides - Monday 17th March, 2014.

Pates and Terrines or Timbales. 

As so often, the food content names the actual dish but much more likely nowadays, also applies to the dish in which a recipe is cooked, cooled and sometimes, served, such as the Pate, Terrine or Timbale.

Pates, of French origin or paste "from Old French 'pie of seasoned meat'" - Page  1301- Oxford Dictionary of English, Pies and Terrines  and the name of the container used to cook such items, are  mixtures of well flavoured and spiced meat, such as chicken, duck, venison, lean pork with belly pork) plus brandy,Madeira or dry white wine with cream, butter or bacon fat (or even lard - an historic and highly used ingredient, which now would most probably, be refused because of its taste and qualities).  The cooked dish is cooled under a 1 kg. weight, set with a seasoned aspic jelly and served cold, either turned out onto a decorated serving dish, or from the container itself.

A Pate  is  a mix of  smooth to chunky-coarse well flavoured meat (or game or fish) with onions + stock + herbs and seasoning, sautéed and blended; cooled  in a serving receptacle such as a ramekin ( a small earthenware baking dish which was previously a toasted cheese dish, then denoting various filled pastry items); and eaten as a starter with hot buttered toast or perhaps French Toast.  Most often enriched with butter, cream and alcohol – such as brandy, Madeira or white wine, for a rich dish for dinner parties or restaurant dining, with even the simplest pate being regarded as too rich for a regular addition to a person’s weekly diet.

A commercial product is sold in small slabs or shapes, in a variety of different packages, which sells well, and also particularly for festive eating, summer al fresco meals, easy weekend eating and party foods.  European cuisine offers many delicious pates of varying textures, content and flavourings.

My simple Pate uses olive oil to saute and mix, plus stock and herbs + seasoning, with a little melted or clarified butter for sealing, which I eat with plain toast or crackers, of a gluten-free nature....see here!

My Turkey Pate on rice cakes for lunch from its earthenware ramekin

The Pate of French cuisine, denotes a meat, fish, vegetable, even fruit, mixture-filled, oven-baked pastry dish served hot or cold.  The Pate de Terrine is mixture of meat, fish or game, cooked in its own earthenware lidded dish lined with bacon, served in or turned out, from its cooking dish.  The Pate en Croute is a pastry dish of a rich mix of meat, game or fish, and always served cold.

I once tried to surprise my Father with a small cut of meat enwrapped in pastry, for a birthday meal, but I used a boned item, rather than a round cut meat item, which gave him a hearty laugh, noting at once my enthusiastic mistake!

Terrine - a prepared variety of mixtures of well flavoured and spiced meat or game such as chicken, duck, venison, lean pork with belly pork) with brandy, Madeira or dry white wine plus cream, butter or bacon fat (or even lard - an historic and highly used ingredient, which now would most probably, be omitted because of its taste and qualities); lined with thin rashers of bacon or a pastry.  The cooked dish is cooled under a 1 kg. weight, set with a seasoned aspic jelly and served cold, either turned out or from the dish.

Well-known Terrines include Pate Maison (of chicken livers and pork), Terrine de Campagne (of pork) or a Terrine de Canard (duck) and a Terrine de Gibier (of Hare, belly pork, venison and chicken livers) – all wonderfully rich dishes for special occasions.  The English equivalent of the French term Pate is Pie as for a Raised Veal and Ham Pie or Pate de Veau et Jambon en Croute;  and the meat is minced.  An English Pork and Ham Pie with hard-boiled eggs has diced ham and sausage meat, enclosed in a stand-alone pastry case made with lard, and cooked in a terrine.

The Timbale denotes a similar mix of meat, game, fish or vegetables, cooked with or without a pastry case, in a mould, with a rich jelly or sauce, served hot or cold and turned out, with more of the sauce.

A "Timbale" used to mean a mould made from a variety of  both highly decorated or plain metals, the word coming from the Arab for a “metal receptacle for a beverage” – see Page 924 of New Larousse Gastronomique.

I well remember my first encounter with the Timbale, when I cooked a timbale of chicken, where the buttered dish was coated with breadcrumbs and filled with pounded chicken and flavoured white sauce, then steam-cooked and turned out to serve with more sauce.  It was a revelation of texture and taste, a sublime moment in my early days of food and cooking exploration.

And then we have the English Potted meat such as beef etc...but, that as they say, is another blog in the writing!

Daisy

My Reference Sources - 
New Larousse Gastronomique ISBN 0-600-36545-X - Page 924 - 926 and Page 672 - 673
Oxford Dictionary of English - ISBN 978-0-19-957112-3 - Page 1301
Practical Professional Cookery by H.L. Cracknell & R.J. Kaufmann - ISBN 0-333-77890-1 - Page 571 - 581

Chicken Talk! on Saturday, 8th March 2014.

Scratching the Surface of – The Chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus)

Chicks, domestic fowl, chickens, Hen and chickens, roosters, pullets, chooks, yardbird, capon, boiling fowl, poultry……

What a wonderful bird the domestic chicken is, as animal, pet, food source, of historical significance and personality of delight! We have a love–hate relationship with the bird.  It’s a fashion accessory for the new kitchen-gardening-allotment scenario, the self-help and self-sufficiency culture.  The animal is fun to watch, strutting about the garden or roaming over a green field, good to breed and show, good for all to cook, eat and relish.

We all just love enjoying it on high days and holidays and on every other day, too, whenever we can!

My quick chunky chicken soup!

The plucked bird is easy to prepare, cook and enjoy, in such a variety of different menus, ways of preparation, whole or portioned, it’s quite probable one could eat a whole rota of various methods for some period, without any repetition whatsoever!

Busy day lunch - home-made Coleslaw on toasted Spelt Muffin

This fowl has been with us for a very long time and we know it well. We've kept a clutch of chickens in our back gardens, enjoyed or endured their clucking natures about the back door, shoo-ing them outside when they've had the temerity to wander indoors, in search of more food.

Their wandering freely about the garden has been an ongoing problem for gardeners, agonised by the strutting hens, plucking and nibbling on prized plants and flowers, by their messy droppings, stray feathers and general ensuing untidiness.  However, as we discovered, our wandering chickens also decimated the burgeoning slug population when they gobbled up their eggs.  So their mess and detritus was eventually forgiven!

My grandparents kept chickens in a large shed from where they had access to an area beyond this, where they scratched about during the day, in a country home where they were subject to a night-time-prowling fox, if left outside.  Chickens will naturally “put themselves to bed” at the twilight hour, leaving their carer to shut them in, safely, against the night!

My own father kept both free range hens and battery hens, as a hobby and for extra income, as countless others have done, before and since.  The dear SO kept three, much loved, chickens running about the garden and we certainly enjoyed their fresh eggs, delighting in the warmth of a new laid egg, marking each one with its date, before storing them in a small wicker basket.  We even sold a few to friends and neighbours.

Keeping chickens is now all the rage, a fashionable thing to do, going well with the self-help and self-sufficiency culture we all enjoy.  An economic necessity in today’s straightened times.  The keeping of chickens, as pets, in the garden, giving each one an individual name, feeding them by hand, when they have become pests and demanding your attention, has featured in many family situations.  We have even used their discarded tail feathers for decorating play-clothes and headdresses or, using them in artistic displays, or as writing quills!

Where should we be without this bird, this historic fowl?

Our three hens out on a spree!

The chicken is a great bird for all seasons and reasons, for rearing and farming, for their meat and eggs for feeding and enjoyment and, for dear Little Henny Penny’s wanderings about the garden, gobbling up those horrid slug’s eggs –I do so hate slugs, I can’t even bear to leave salt out in the garden to kill them!!!

The great debate between free range and intensive farming methods will continue and is something I am not qualified to comment on here but I have seen, at first hand, the difficulties and problems of both systems.

the hen house!

Rearing chickens is one thing, eating their meat and eggs quite another.  Chicken meat used to be regarded as a luxury item for the Christmas table.  Then it became the “must-have” item for the family delight and budget.  This last Christmas, saw us eating the most expensive chicken my daughter had ever cooked, she told me, as the golden cooked bird was placed before us, a glorious free range bird bought from our local butcher.

It was truly delicious but,  goodness knows, when they got thru’ eating all of that meat!!!

Chicken breast smothered in Sharwood's Butter Sauce, grilled, with a scattering of almond flakes

And I spent the entire yesterday cooking chicken, covering breast meat with tarragon-mayo sauce or Sharwood's Butter Chicken Cooking Sauce from Sainsbury's, making  chicken risotto flavoured with coconut cream, creaming chicken and mushroom with celery and spring onions for a lovely buttery filling for jacket potatoes, crackers or hot buttered toast, adding shredded chicken to a hot mix of mushrooms, onions and  celery and curry sauce; then adding my brown vegetable rice to this chicken-curry sauce, using it between gluten-free pancakes to form a stack to serve, cut into small wedges, as you cut-up a soft sponge cake, to the top of which I added a scattering of almond flakes.

My gluten-free Pancake stack with a chicken, mushroom and almond flake filling

Chicken breast, Sharwood's Butter Sauce and flaked almonds

Buttery Chicken and mushroom filling....!

My potato salad was great, too!

Daisy 

PS My thanks to Wikipedia for the information contained on their Chicken Pages, for which I am most grateful.

Hi there, here's me making Pancakes on Tuesday, 4th March 2014.

I've been doing a little research and found the pancake pages on Wikipedia very helpful indeed!

They give details of pancakes made everywhere, their recipe ingredients - the flours, milk, raising ingredients and serving history.  Also their very many different naming details, their histories and background.   So fascinating and very comprehensive, do look them up to discover all about pancakes.

There is also good pancake coverage in my copy of The Concise Larousse Gastronomique - ISBN 0-600-60009-2 on Page 386 to 387 where the heading is "Crepe", the French pancake.  I remember reading about crepe in The Bobbsey Twins Annual from childhood's balmy days, when the Twins ate them with gooseberry jam on a moonlit beach one summer holiday in France!  How I longed for the same experience myself!  I had to wait until my late twenties to enjoy these crepe, when we enjoyed them, one summer holiday, in the South of France, and oh boy, were they good!  They were worth waiting for!!!

So, here's me cooking my pancakes yesterday, which was great fun -

getting going!

and

finishing off!

I do hope you enjoyed your pancakes, they are so delicious!

Daisy

Foodiness! Saturday, 1st March 2014.

I’ve been hallucinating about food this week, while we’ve been doing other things, such as grand parenting duties and waiting in for people not turning up, shopping or walking Alice.

The grandchildren were lovely and we enjoyed being with them and I have so much enjoyed thoughts of food and the dear SO has been cooking, whilst I have been writing.  It’s good when the words flow and I’m in command of my thought processes!

It must have been the lack of cooking which set-off the food day-dreams.  Suddenly, I could feel the soft chewy texture and the sugary crunch of a sticky jam doughnut.  I could smell and taste the warm jam as if I was indulging in another bite, taste the sugar and the soft dough structure.  It was quite amazing and rather sensational, also rather enjoyable.  I have not eaten a doughnut for a very long time; one would be a very great indulgence indeed, thankfully, I do not venture down that pathway to foodie heaven.  It would be a great occasion even to consider eating one!

Thankfully, my following impressions were of chicken, creamy curry sauces, coconut milk and cream, mushrooms and cooking with my pressure cooker.

Last Sunday, I made more English crumpets and muffins from Elizabeth David’s book – English Bread and Yeast Cookery – ISBN 0 7 139 1026 7 - a sponge cake for tea and biscuits, which all turned out very well.

I had planned to make a sourdough starter for bread making and the experiment began at the end of my Sunday cooking session, using both regular strong white bread flour and wholemeal Spelt bread flour.  These starter cultures should be allowed to prove in the warmth of a kitchen for seven days.  To set one up, you mix an agreed amount of flour with warm water, creaming it well to remove any lumps, pouring the mixture into a 2pt. Kilner jar, leaving the lid slightly ajar for the air to circulate.

My kitchen has not enjoyed great warmth from long daily cooking, apart from the roasted chicken and veggies on Tuesday and Friday’s griddled belly pork, for we have eaten very lightly of soups and one Morrisons Beef Pot meal.  Conscious of this lack of warmth, I wrapped improvised cosies about my jars and hoped for the best, leaving both lids slightly open!

Yeasts are circulating about in the ether which, I presume, help galvanise the mixture into life, for what you are waiting to see, over the course of its seven-day life cycle, is a bubbly, spongy rise of mixture in the warm Kilner jars.

This has happened easily with the white strong flour but less so with the wholemeal Spelt flour but it is still working and I’ve read this lack of bubbly mass, does not automatically mean, starter failure.

It’s the last day of my experiment today, and the last addition of creamed flour and water to my culture and I’m really looking forward to the bread making to follow.

I have a chicken to pressure cook, browning it first in a little hot oil, minus its skin, after which it will be portioned and used in different ways, using the stock for a sauce and soup. Allow the cooled stock to set overnight in the ‘fridge, and scrape off the crust of fat, for a lighter liquid, particularly if you don’t skin your chicken before cooking.  Here I am getting to grips with my bird!

The breast meat will be just perfect on a bed of rice with veggies, whole and lightly sauced, or shredded up and used for a fragrant, herbed, risotto.

Or mixed into a creamed curry sauce served with a crisp green salad and warm baguette, or gluten-free flat breads, and I rather like the idea of melting coconut cream into a dish of hot rice, with shredded chicken and mushrooms!  And, what about creamed mushrooms and chicken, on crisply toasted wholemeal bread, with just a whisker of butter, to add to the flavour?

After sauce making, use the remaining stock for soup, adding the tiny scraps from the bones, fresh veggies, topping up the liquid with boiling water and one or two chicken stock cubes.  I like to blend my cooked mixture for a chunkier texture but you could always serve your soup, as cooked, with the vegetable and chicken as larger pieces.

A bowl of hot chicken soup is so satisfying and a one-dish meal too, so less washing up to do!

Have yourself a little kitchen fun, hey?!

Daisy