Summer rabbit casserole recipe for the slow cooker/crock pot
A few years ago Danny and I went to stay in the Cinque Terra in Italy. This is in Liguria and the five towns are seaside or clinging to hillside near the coast. This is a great region for walking and farming. We’d watch the walkers leave as we enjoyed our breakfast and return when we were lifting the first glass of the evening. We were staying in a small town called Monte Rosso. A beautiful old fashioned seaside place with a truly sleepy feel. Despite this it was packed with good restaurants and shops selling foodie delights. We’d guzzle...
read moreDelicious pork au feu recipe. Slow cooker/crock pot recipe.
Whenever I go abroad to a country with a warmer climate than the UK, I buy herbs to bring home. Somehow these are better than the ones available in the UK – perhaps the drying methods are better? I have an oregano herb mix that I bought in Crete over 11 years ago. It is stored in an airtight container in a dark place and is so powerful that we can only use a large pinch at a time. Sometimes I splash out on bouquet garni on these trips and last winter discovered a stash at the back of the larder. These were from France and were...
read moreRabbit and chorizo casserole recipe. Cooked slowly in the slow cooker/crock pot.
I discovered recently that one of our local butchers sells rabbits that are shot on the local studs. They are cheap too – at £5.00 a pair. Apart from pigeon this probably the cheapest, happy meat that you can buy in the UK. We used to eat a lot of rabbit when I was growing up. A traditional rabbit stew with vegetables. Then I didn’t eat rabbit for years and I know the reason why. Skinned rabbit looks to me a bit like a small, skinned dog or cat. Over the past year or so, I’ve put aside this silly nonsense and discovered the delights...
read moreMixed game casserole with shitake mushrooms recipe. For the slow cooker.
The freezer bit of our indoor fridge freezer has finally died. RIP you temperamental old geezer. You have no idea of the heartache that you have caused us over the years. The fridge is still working, thank goodness and we have a small backup freezer in the barn. So I’ve been cooking up things that used to be in the defunct freezer. Yesterday it was mixed game casserole. The essential ingredient for this, apart from the game element, are the shitake mushrooms. If you can’t get fresh ones use dried ones (10% of the fresh weight) soak and...
read moreNew flavoursome spaghetti bolognaise sauce recipe cooked in the slow cooker/crock pot
Danny is picky about pasta. Won’t eat macaroni and the thought of penne has him panicking that I might actually have finally got up the nerve to cook it for him. “I like linguine, spaghetti, angel hair.” “Tagliatelle?” “Maybe.” I don’t ever mention ravioli since this terrible disaster. We eat a lot of spaghetti bolognaise. Frozen in flat ziplock bags it takes just half an hour max from freezer to plate. We’ve been eating versions of our patent recipe for years and I decided to see if I could make it tastier. I have to let...
read moreSlow cooker chef: Steak, venison and duck au vin recipe
Our fridge freezer has been a bit of a trial for quite a few years now. It has problems coping with external high and low temperatures and generally performs best in the spring or autumn. So it was a bit of a surprise when we found the larder floor covered in dark water. We both assumed that the other had kicked the bacon curing pot. The next day I investigated further and noticed red liquid dripping out of the freezer door. This is no super duper frost free machine. It has to be manually defrosted. If we forget to do this, the ice...
read moreSlow Cooker Chef: Tender pork shoulder braised in light beer, with apple, ginger and honey recipe
Danny bought some pork shoulder steaks this week. He wanted to try out a pork, mushroom and cream recipe that he had found at the local supermarket. “The pork is sautéed in a pan. I don’t feel confident as I reckon that it should be fillet.” He was right – the pork was chewy and disappointing. It wasn’t Danny’s fault. Shoulder was the wrong cut for the recipe unless you really want to put the sharpness of your teeth to the test. He did however make an excellent rice and bell pepper dish to accompany the pork. This was the...
read moreSlow Cooker Chef: Warming Winter Mushroom Soup Recipe
Everyone always says that good soup needs a really great stock. Sometimes I simmer bones for stock in the slow cooker and years ago Fred Fitzpatrick used to give me beef bones which I roasted and then bubbled gently for hours to get a good dark tasty stock. But recently I’ve gone back to using stock cubes out of laziness. This week I decided to experiment with leftovers. We had two meals from the game casserole and were left with a ladle of gravy (about 6 tablespoons) with a few bits of meat and veg. Danny had picked up a large box of...
read more
FD