gammon

I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before, but we often buy a huge gammon from Costco, and cook it up for lunches.  I generally buy one that’s about twenty quid, put half in the freezer uncooked, and then cook the other half.  Then depending on what we’re doing, we might freeze a cooked quarter too.

I experiment with cooking liquors and glazes.  This half was boiled in three small bottles of ginger beer, topped up with water, some star anise, a quartered orange and a cinnamon stick.

When it was done, I cut off the skin, and glazed it with a mix of grain mustard, honey and balsamic vinegar.  Roasted at gas 4 for half an hour, then whacked it up to gas 8 for twenty minutes.

It worked beautifully, and we kept the stock to make this week’s soup, which I shall write up later.

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there will be banana muffins for breakfast tomorrow

I know this because we decided to have chicken and chickpeas from the freezer for supper, as I have to go to a Parish Plan meeting, and it’s a bit early for us to stop and cook for 7 p.m.

I duly removed said tub and set it on the worktop to thaw.  I was quite perplexed to look at it a couple of hours later and see that it bore a label of “banana muffin mix”.  And indeed that is what’s in it.  I’ll bake ‘em for breakfast.

The Remoska is currently thawing the chicken and chickpeas for me.

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last week’s meals w/c 24 nov 08

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my baby Remoska

I’ve been after a Remoska for a while - they look such a great idea, so I’ve been keeping an eye out on eBay.

I really want a big one, but I thought it would be sensible to start with a little chap, not least because we cook a lot of food in our small Le Creuset casserole, and we have to put the big oven on for it.

I picked up a new one for £51 (they are £68 new), and I shall be warming up our chicken and chickpeas from the freezer for tonight’s dinner.  I’m quite excited!

Baby Remoska details here at Lakeland.  I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.

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a blast from the past

I went to a jumble sale in the village on Saturday and, as usual, made a beeline for the book stall.  I picked up three paperbacks, and then … then … I saw it.

A cookery book that was my absolute bible when I was first married, and which has been out of print for mamy years.  My copy vanished when I moved down to Bristol many years ago.

I looked it up on Amazon this morning - it’s the Dairy Book of Home Cookery, published by the Milk Marketing Board in 1979.  Starting price for second hand copies: £15.95.

I paid two quid for all four books!  I’m so pleased to have it again :)

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cauliflower and potato, indian style

using up: cauliflower.

This didn’t go quite to plan, but turned out utterly delicious.  I don’t suppose we’ll ever be able to recreate it, though.

I set a pan of potatoes to parboil, intending to deep fry them later, and put a cut up cauli in the steamer on top.  Pete did Indian spices - coriander, cumin, tumeric, fenugreek, cardamon seeds and allspice - and whizzed up ginger and garlic and a green chilli.  The timer went, and I put the steamer on the draining board while I finished emptying the dishwasher.  And forgot all about it!

When I remembered, the potatoes were pretty mushy.  I turfed them into a wok with some groundnut oil, but they were very soft, and wouldn’t take a crispy edge.  Nothing ventured, nothing gained.  Pete fried off the ginger and garlic, while I added the spices to the potato mush, and then the cauliflower.

We then put a small tin of tomato purée in with the ginger garlic, cooked it down a little, then tipped that into the vegetable mess.  Served it with rice, and it really was lovely - just the sort of texture I like from comfort food!

It made a second tub for the freezer too!

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this week’s soup w/c 24 nov 08

I forgot to tell you about last week’s soup, but it wasn’t very exciting, and involved grated cabbage, so we’ll move on.

I cooked a gammon in coke at the back end of last week (well, half a gammon, to be precise; the other half is in the freezer).  In fact, it was a gammon in half coke, half water, as I didnt have enough coke, but it was none the worse for that.  I kept the stock for … soup.  It went in the fridge for a few days, so we could easily get the fat off the top.

So … soup this week is one parsnip, two carrots, one leek, half a swede, a broccoli stalk (waste not, want not :), and about 1/3 of a cauli that needed eating.  Chopped small in the Magimix, and cooked a bit in some oil.  Then added the stock, about half a pint of last week’s soup, a mug full of barley, and some pepper.  And some chopped dried sage as an afterthought.  No salt, as the gammon stock should be salty already.

It smells nice …

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last week’s meals w/c 17 nov 08

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breakfast today

We were bored with porridge, we had four black bananas, and some milk that needed using up, and so …

I whipped up a double batch of my tried and trusty banana muffin recipe - I was a bit lazy, and put everything in the Magimix rather than do it separately.  Also I left out the sugar, and put in a couple of dessert spoons of honey, because the bananas were very ripe and I thought they’d be quite sweet enough.

They were.  They were gorgeous.  I’m ashamed to say that we ate four each for breakfast [oink].  There are four left, and I put the remaining batter in two tubs in the freezer, so we can have fresh muffins for breakfast again, *providing* I remember to take the batter out the night before.

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this week’s meals w/c 10 nov 08

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