Best recipes for leftovers: Spectacular goose, red pepper and tarragon risotto recipe

Posted in Duck Goose and Turkey, Rice and Pasta | 8 comments

Best recipes for leftovers: Spectacular goose, red pepper and tarragon risotto recipe

  “Would you like goose risotto tonight?” “Oh yes please!” We eat a lot of risotto at the cottage. The perfect easy comfort food. What I didn’t mention was the age of the goose. I’d found some last week in our freezer left over from Christmas 2008. It looked a bit stringy and unappetising so I hid it from Danny as it defrosted. Leftover goose – even if it’s been lingering in the freezer for months makes a risotto to die for. It smelt and tasted fine and once it was chopped up and stirred into the risotto it transformed the...

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Mushrooms braised in butter and red wine recipe

Posted in Vegetables and Sides | 2 comments

Mushrooms braised in butter and red wine recipe

  At the moment we are flat out making jars of chutney and Christmas relishes for our garden gate stand which hopefully will be up and running this weekend. So supper has to be quick and easy. The slow cooker is busy bubbling away with meals which are frozen in portions so we can eat well with the minimum palaver. I’ve discovered that freezing in portions of about 2 centimetres deep means that these meals can be heated from frozen very gently in a sauté pan with a lid. We quite often eat steak and kidney pie filling without the pastry...

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Stir fry with skirt of beef, green pepper and spring onion recipe

Posted in Beef and Steak and Veal | 5 comments

Stir fry with skirt of beef, green pepper and spring onion recipe

  Sometimes we need a hefty meat fix. For years it was steak every Friday night, then it was an occasional steak when we found them on sale. Now it will be skirt of beef. Not only is it economical at about £3.50 for 500g it’s tastier than steak and has a wonderful texture. In the UK skirt is generally a largely undiscovered cut of beef.  So thank you Jo and more recently Paula for pointing me in the direction of the broad range of ways to cook this superb cut. Having already made a skirt of beef casserole in the slow cooker I thought that...

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Fried fillets of plaice with a nasturtium and mustard seed cream sauce recipe

Posted in Fish and Seafood | 5 comments

Fried fillets of plaice with a nasturtium and mustard seed cream sauce recipe

  “Do you mind if I experiment with Duncan’s pickled nasturtium seeds to make a sauce for the fish tonight.” I had found some cut priced fillets of plaice on the Tesco CFC. “That’s fine as long as we’ve got some mayo.” What Danny didn’t know was that we’d finally run out of the mayo that Miles and Jocelyn bring back from France. And as I didn’t have time to rustle up some homemade mayonnaise, this had to be a good sauce. What I wanted was both taste and texture that would not overpower the delicate fillets of plaice. The...

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Pamela’s perfect pumpkin soup recipe

Posted in Starters and Soups | 23 comments

Pamela’s perfect pumpkin soup recipe

  “Don’t you just love the look of abject fear that appears on the faces of shop girls or fellow shoppers, when they ask if you are making a lantern for Hallow’een and you reply that you are, in fact, going to eat it!”  Wrote my friend Pamela. “I made soup with half of mine and will be making more with the other half this evening.  Using what I had in – i.e. what was reduced for a quick sale or from the Somerfield basics range – I used spring onions, chilli, garlic, a green pepper, celery salt (which I love in a cheese butty)...

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Best quick and easy chicken breast recipe – cheat method

Posted in Chicken | 7 comments

Best quick and easy chicken breast recipe – cheat method

  Chicken breasts are so fast and simple to convert into a meal. I once had them just sliced and grilled (broiled) for a few minutes, then popped into a toasted sandwich with mustard and mayo to make a deliciously fast supper. The downside is that they are basically flavourless outside of their natural home in a Sunday Lunch whole roast chicken. The trick is to either marinade them beforehand or add ingredients to add some zest. Danny here on Thu evening, giving Fiona a break after her trip to London yesterday. I touched on this in the...

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Pork Chops with Tarragon and Elderflower cordial recipe

Posted in Pork Ham Bacon Sausages | 8 comments

Pork Chops with Tarragon and Elderflower cordial recipe

We don’t drink wine very much these days so we tend not to have wine hanging about in the kitchen for cooking. Danny developed a great pork chop recipe  so as a treat I grabbed a litre wine box in the supermarket. There was a yelp when he finally opened the box and turned on the tap. I had bought red wine rather than white. “Well why don’t you try using some of my Elderflower and Lemon cordial?” He adds this cordial to roast chicken. He created a superb sauce, adding some cream at the end to thicken it. But he forgot to write down the...

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Best Brunch: Herby mushrooms and tomatoes on toast recipe

Posted in Snacks Breakfast Lunch, Vegetarian | 5 comments

Best Brunch: Herby mushrooms and tomatoes on toast recipe

Danny likes a few sautéed mushrooms and a grilled tomato with his Saturday midday brunch. Although they sound tempting they never really appeal to me – I prefer the more conventional home smoked bacon, organic eggs and buttered toast from a homemade loaf. A couple of weeks ago I found some mushrooms and a tomato knocking about in the fridge and decided to experiment. If I simmered them together with a little olive oil, butter and herbs would they transform into something that I would like to eat alongside my bacon and eggs? They smelt...

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Best great budget recipes for 50% or less: Plaice with a creamy prawn sauce recipe

Posted in Fish and Seafood | 12 comments

Best great budget recipes for 50% or less: Plaice with a creamy prawn sauce recipe

We stopped eating fish for a while a few years ago as it was just so expensive. I made a fish pie one Christmas and the ingredients cost over £15.00. Then I realised that there are often amazing bargains on a late Sunday afternoon from the Waitrose fish counter. With these and the regular offerings from the Tesco condemned food section we now have access to quite a lot of great fish and sea food for at least 50% of their normal value. A lot of fish is tossed into the freezer to be turned into fish pies but if we find plaice or sole these...

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Best recipes for leftovers: Baked Portobello mushrooms with ham, parsley sauce and parmesan recipe

Posted in Leftovers, Snacks Breakfast Lunch | 9 comments

Best recipes for leftovers: Baked Portobello mushrooms with ham, parsley sauce and parmesan recipe

We cured and smoked our own ham this year. It was delicious and a proper old fashioned half leg. We were thrilled that it worked out as I had tweaked our bacon cure, upping the salt by 25%. This is still far less than the HFW cure and every other recipe that I’ve found on my researches. We smoked it for a good 24 hours in the smoke chamber above our wood burner. The latter opens into an old chimney, rather than a flue. I had saved some seasoned apple wood for this very special smoke. I finally roasted the joint for us on Christmas Eve and it...

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