surprise breast of lamb

Why “surprise”? Because I thought it was a pack of sausages when I lifted it from the freezer, which rather dashed our plans for Toad in the Hole for supper on Monday night.  I had to rush to the local CoOp and purchase sossidge; the Toad was gorgeous, thanks for asking.

So there I had a smallish piece of breast of lamb, and no plans for it.

First off, we had some broad beans which had got forgotten, so I podded them, and set them to boil.  They had about 35 minutes I think (they were very old and hard).

Into the slow cooker went

one small squash
three small onions quartered
one tired red pepper
two carrots, chopped
about 1.5 teaspoons of harissa (all we had)
a sloosh of honey
a slosh of tomato ketchup
the beans
rosemary, bay leaves and sage from the garden
and, of course the lamb

I switched it on at 8 o’clock this morning, and now the smell is taunting me …

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another lentil moussaka

We’re struggling a bit to keep up with the veg at the moment – really, we need a box two weeks out of three, but Abel and Cole had a special offer when we joined, and there’s a £50 voucher at the end of our first four weeks,  so we must keep going; this week is the fourth, so we can take a breather!

Things are so dire that I took a leek, two courgettes and a load of carrots yesterday, and hurled them in the slow cooker with some veg stock and barley, to make soup, so a heatwave will be approaching as I type.

We had a real courgette glut, so I decided to do a take on moussaka.  We had some lentils cooked with Moroccan spices in the freezer, so I removed that.  Sliced up two courgettes quite thinly, put them on a tray and doused them liberally with olive oil, then baked at gas mark 7 for about 25 minutes, turning them half way through.

Made some bechamel sauce, then layered lentils / courgettes / white sauce twice.  We have a hugely prolific basil plant on the kitchen windowsill at the moment, so I picked a whole load of leaves from that and scattered them over the top, then added cubes of feta.

25 minutes at Gas 6.  Lovely.

Followed it with a bramble crumble with fruit from the garden – nothing like your own produce, even if it is growing wild!  We have 3 lbs in the freezer too, this year, which will give us bramble Stuff through the winter.

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Tescowatch (an occasional series)

George Monbiot writes in today’s Guardian.

I have been writing about it for years. But it’s only now, when I’m caught in the middle of it, that the full force of this injustice hits me. Like everyone else here I feel powerless, unstrung as I watch disaster unfolding in slow motion.

There’s a similar battle going on in Bedminster, about 3 miles from where we live. And Tesco will win. They always win.

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squash, sage and feta risotto

Two small papaya pear squash in the veg box this week.  We chopped and peeled them both on Saturday, and one is in a bowl in the fridge, with some chopped red onion (because Pete chopped a huge one, and it was way too much).

Boiled the risotto squash for about 12 minutes until it was soft.  Drained and reserved the water.  Sautéd the onion in some olive oil until it was soft. The squash water was just about exactly a pint, which was handy; remember – 1 pint water, 5 oz risotto rice for two people.  I put a goodly pinch of Marigold bouillon there to give it a bit of a boost.

Ladled in stock and rice in instalments, added squash and sage when we were nearly done, added cubed feta at the end.  Scoffed.

Then we had a blackberry and apple cobbler.  Nom nom nom.

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lemony coriander chicken

As I’ve mentioned before, our local CoOp is really not bad, and I always take a beak at the reduced section where they put the items that have reached their sell-by date.  About three weeks ago, I picked up two packs of chicken thighs – 11 thighs for £3.30.  I stowed them in the freezer under the stairs, as had no particular plan for them.

Pete came home from his foraging on Saturday with a big bunch of coriander, and so we decided to make lemony coriander chicken.  This is a Madhur Jaffrey recipe that we have refined over the years, and one of our favourites.

I did ours in the slow cooker, but I’ll give you the destructions for the more conventional means.  If you want to use a slow cooker, bung everything in, and cook on low for about 6-7 hours.

Brown the chicken pieces in groundnut oil in a shallow pot, ideally wide enough to keep the chicken in one layer – I usually use a Le Creuset saute pan.  Set the chicken to drain on some kitchen paper.  Keep the oil.

Chop up some garlic small.  Blend some fresh ginger with about 4 tablespoons of water – as much as you like, we use lots, as we like things gingery.  Chop up 1/2 – 1 green chilli; up to you whether you use the seeds or not, depending on your chilli tolerance.  Take some ground coriander seeds, cumin seeds and turmeric, and possibly a pinch of cayenne.  Chop up lots and lots of fresh green coriander.  Halve a lemon.

Re-heat the oil, and add the garlic – stir till browned.  Add the ginger/water paste and stir about for a minute or so.  Add the ground spices, the green chilli,  juice of the lemon, and the coriander.  Stir a bit.

Put the chicken back in; I put the lemon halves in too – shame to waste them.  Bring up to a simmer, put a lid on and cook for about 40 minutes.  Turn the chicken pieces part way through if you feel like it – I don’t generally bother.

Eat with basmati rice – utterly delicious, I assure you.

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an excellent vintage

an excellent vintage, originally uploaded by ramtops.

I have already laid down (!) five bottles of Shiraz (the kits say 6 bottles, but by the time you’ve discarded the sludge, you seem to get 5 red, and 5.5 white). However, the Shiraz came with poncy labels.

This Pinot Grigio kit didn’t, so I printed some off on my trusty Dymo Labelwriter.

I have 1.5 gallons of apple wine maturing in the kitchen, 1 gallon of elderflower (kit), 1 gallon of gooseberry (from the fruit) and 1 gallon of Barolo (kit) on the go in the hall.

Time to write a database to keep track of them, I think!

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veg box 5 August 09

And I completely forgot to photograph it.

Contents:

• big bag of curly kale – I always struggle to know what to do with this. We’ll stir fry half and eat it for lunch with noodles, I think. Will mull over how to cook the rest
• three smallish courgettes
• one cucumber
• carrots
• white onions
• two papaya pear squash
• potatoes
• one ruby grapefruit
• half a dozen pears
• oranges

We also got a rye sourdough loaf (yum) and some toilet roll (how exciting :), and Abel and Cole threw in a free copy of their recipe book, Cooking Outside the Box,  as a “welcome to our new customer” sort of thing.  Which was nice.

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Tescowatch (an occasional series)

Tesco hides figures after missing target to reduce plastic bag usage

Britain’s biggest supermarket chain has published misleading figures giving the impression that it had met an industry target to halve the use of plastic bags.

From The Times.

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weekend activity (including veg curry)

I had a busy day in the kitchen on Sunday – bottled up some white wine, started off some red (this sounds simple, but there’s endless washing and sterilising involved). Made a couple of banana cakes,  cooked mushrooms with cumin and spinach, and fried potatoes with spices, for supper, and hurled a load of veg into the slow cooker to make a veg curry.

Prepped and chopped two large sweet potatoes, half an aubergine (left over from Saturday’s moussaka), one red onion, one red pepper and a butternut squash, and lobbed them into the slow cooker.

Minced lots of ginger and garlic, ground up green cardamon seeds, pomegranate seeds, coriander seeds.  Fried that lot off in a little ground nut oil with some flaked dried chillis.  Added a tin of coconut milk and brought to the boil.

Added this mix to the slow cooker.  Looked at it.  Added another tin of coconut milk, and some salt and pepper.

Switched it on and went to the pub for the monthly quiz (we won!).

This was supposed to be last night’s supper for us, and a couple of tubs for the freezer. However, in an over-wined condition, we invited friends round for bicycle fettling and supper, so it’s all gone now.  But at least I didn’t have to *do* anything.  And there was banana cake for pudding too :)

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a weekend’s shopping

I hate supermarket shopping – we buy a weekly veg box, Pete trundles off to various independent shops on his bicycle most weekends, and the rest is made up from our excellent village CoOp, or from the not so good farm shop.

However, needs must from time to time, and so yesterday I sallied forth to Sainsburys – mostly because I needed some raw turkey for the cats, and some fizzy water (the CoOp’s price for this is larcenous); I’ve managed to restrain myself to just one pint most days, which I take to bed at night, but I still* can’t quite give it up (*apologies for the play on words).

The young lad rang it all through and demanded £63, which I thought was a huge amount, so for my own musings, I’m going to try and remember what I bought:

• 2 organic mozzarella
• 1 lump of parmegiano reggiano
• 2 aubergines (for last night’s moussaka-y thing
• 1 bottle of red wine, half price at £3.99, as a treat for Pete
• 2 packs of sausages (1 Toulouse, 1 Sicilian) on special offer.  They’re always on special offer, as far as I can see, but we love sossidge, and there’s room in the freezers at the moment
• 2 packs prawns, similarly on special offer, for the freezer
• 1 block feta (as I knew I was going to use some last night – they do sell it in the CoOp, but might as well get it while I was there)
• 2 packs chopped turkey for the cats – no turkey mince, woe.  Iggy doesn’t really like it home minced, lord knows why, but I’ll mince it all up today and give it a try
• 1 pack of organic mini duck fillets – I have no idea what “mini” emeans in this context but they’ll make 3 stir fries/risottos, so 4 quid seemed not unreasonable
• 1 large poppy seed bloomer.  Half went in the freezer for another day, and we had toast for lunch yesterday, and for breakfast this morning
• 2 packs of cold meat for this week’s lunches
• 2 packs of waffer thin poultry for the cats – 1 chicken, 1 turkey
• 2 big bags of fair trade golden caster sugar – I can’t get this locally, so was stocking up
• 1 drum of bicarbonate of soda for baking
• 8 bottles of Caledonian spring water at about 30p a bottle.  I do usually get the Asda stuff at 12p, but I simply didn’t have the energy to go and do battle with the Walmatian ones – it’s madness in there on a Saturday, and further to drive3
• 3 packs of plain, own brand bikkits, as I’m not feeling too great right now, and a bikkit is a great sugar hit – fruit shortcakes, ordinary shortbread, custard creams; all great for dunking
• a bag of frozen peas (the only frozen veg we ever have)
• a little oil can, so I can at last get the Luque olive oil out of its bottle with the dreadful “pourer” (which doesn’t pour at all)
• a silicone whisk, something I’ve been after for a while – I only own one non-stick saucepan, which is a small one used for making white sauces, and all my whisks are metal.  I tried it out last night while doing dinner, and it works a treat.

So I suppose there was a fair bit there, but because we do our shopping in dribs and drabs, the bill startled me somewhat.

Pete also went foraging on his bike, and brought back a big bunch of coriander, some blackcurrant juice, shallots, red onions, cucumber, chillis, and two sorts of cereals from the ScoopShop, and cream (the latter from the CoOp later to accompany the blackberry and apple crumble).

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