Easy and deluxe prawn, spinach and gnocchi recipe

Posted in Fish and Seafood, Rice and Pasta | 5 comments

Easy and deluxe prawn, spinach and gnocchi recipe

  I adore prawns. Could eat them everyday. Two favourite recipes are Donagh’s Gambas al pil pil and Clare’s prawn gnocchi. Prawns are expensive but often there are great reductions to be found in the frozen food section of the supermarket. Yesterday I discovered through MySupermarket.com that Tesco Finest Canadian prawns were half price. Perfect. With a limitless budget I probably would have bought uncooked prawns for added flavour but the cooked prawns tasted fine. The beauty of Clare’s dish is that it can be assembled and cooked in 15...

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Roast chicken thighs with summer vegetables recipe

Posted in Chicken | 7 comments

Roast chicken thighs with summer vegetables recipe

  Why chicken thighs again? For one thing, it makes a succulent, tasty and economical meal. Also, Fiona split her jam making over two days, which is a great idea because it is then less of a major task. The house is filled with the aroma from the two jam saucepans. One has wild plum and the other is greengage. I am the unofficial taster and quality assurance agent, apparently. So I am giving her a night off from writing. We had this variation on Shereen’s excellent original already this week. I found a large gammon at the CFC on Thursday...

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Delicious pork steaks recipe: baked with wild plum jelly and blackcurrants

Posted in Pork Ham Bacon Sausages, Sauces Gravy Dressings | 6 comments

Delicious pork steaks recipe: baked with wild plum jelly and blackcurrants

However careful I am about constructing my fruit cages a hungry bird or twenty always seems to crack the code and get in. One year one of our fruit cages was constructed with high security in mind – nothing apart from me could get in or out and it was such a struggle to access that I cursed the plan all Summer.  It seemed to work initially and then deteriorated fast. A  family of wrens had built a teeny nest in the climbing roses at the back of the cage. I didn’t notice them during the construction process and only realised that they...

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Recipe to add zest to boiled rice, frittata and other dishes

Posted in Rice and Pasta, Sauces Gravy Dressings, Vegetarian | 2 comments

Recipe to add zest to boiled rice, frittata and other dishes

Simple boiled rice, such as good basmati, or a dish like frittata can be a joy, especially if you add a little something to lift it above the ordinary. In my wilder years, I learned to cook by trial and error after accepting a position in a Chelsea, London household even though I did not have the foggiest idea of even how to boil an egg. Nowadays I would probably be summarily fired after Day Two but this couple were exceptionally kind people. On this blog I call them Smart Wife and Kind Husband. In England, the term Smart means relatively...

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Veal Schnitzel (Wiener Schnitzel) Recipe

Posted in Beef and Steak and Veal | 6 comments

Veal Schnitzel (Wiener Schnitzel) Recipe

“How about Wiener Schnitzel for supper tonight?” Danny looked unimpressed. Picking through the freezer I had found some small veal escalopes that I’d picked up from the Tesco *CFC a few weeks ago. One was a little smaller than my hand and the other barely reached across my palm. Wiener Schnitzel seemed the sensible option. I had never made schnitzels and was keen to have a go. Danny perked up when I mentioned that I was going to marinade the meat. “Great idea. Veal can be so tasteless.” Between you and me I like the subtle flavour of...

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Store cupboard recipes: spaghetti and veal meatballs in a light tomato sauce

Posted in Beef and Steak and Veal, Pork Ham Bacon Sausages, Rice and Pasta | 5 comments

Store cupboard recipes: spaghetti and veal meatballs in a light tomato sauce

  I had a yearning for spaghetti and meatballs yesterday. I have no idea why as I don’t think that I’ve ever eaten this dish in my life but somehow the combination appealed. I spent a morning in the kitchen creating the sauce. My challenge was to use as many dehydrated ingredients  as possible and some of our home bottled/canned tomatoes from the autumn. Incidentally these are delicious and I will be making much more this year. The meat wasn’t dehydrated - I haven’t tried doing meat yet – but I had found and defrosted some *CFC...

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Slow Cooker Chef: Tender pork shoulder braised in light beer, with apple, ginger and honey recipe

Posted in Pork Ham Bacon Sausages, Rice and Pasta | 19 comments

Slow 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...

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The slow cooker chef: Chicken and red pepper casserole recipe

Posted in Chicken, Kitchen equipment, Save Money | 1 comment

The slow cooker chef: Chicken and red pepper casserole recipe

  The best piece of kitchen equipment that I bought in 2008 was my slow cooker. I found mine in a sale at Tesco and had no idea how much more flavoursome slow cooking can be. So why did I buy one? I had been seduced by Angela and the thought of slow cooked steak and kidney. Initially I reckoned that I would just use it in the winter but it’s used all year round now and saves us lots of cash as the electricity used to run it is minimal. And most things do taste better when they are slow cooked. Now I’ve got to grips with how to cook with...

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Beef stir fry with water chestnuts and black bean sauce recipe

Posted in Beef and Steak and Veal | 0 comments

Beef stir fry with water chestnuts and black bean sauce recipe

  It’s rare for us to eat out these days as it’s so expensive. But I try and cook something a bit special for Saturday night. When I visited The Carter Street Butcher I picked up a 600g piece of organic skirt of beef for four quid – far cheaper than the non organic butchers in Newmarket. I had a longing for water chestnuts and black bean sauce so I added them to my weekly shopping list and glided down to Newmarket in Danny’s car. A lot of people had clearly spent the day decorating the outside of their houses with fairy lights and...

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Other people’s recipes: Diana Henry’s Baked Pork Chops with Pears, Potatoes and Onions

Posted in Pork Ham Bacon Sausages | 0 comments

Other people’s recipes: Diana Henry’s Baked Pork Chops with Pears, Potatoes and Onions

  We had two rather thin pork chops earmarked for supper last night. I thought that they might be good baked with pears so drifted onto the internet for inspiration and found this recipe from Diana Henry. I like her recipes and my copy of  Crazy Water, Pickled Lemons: Enchanting Dishes from the Middle East, Mediterranean and North Africais a well thumbed tome. Her recipe was just what I wanted - throw everything into a roasting pan for about an hour. I didn’t have Roquefort cheese, substituted a teaspoon of dried fennel for the thyme and...

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