an afternoon in the kitchen

I’ve not written much recently; not because we’re not cooking - we are! But we’re not doing anything particularly new, and I’m sure my reader doesn’t want to read repeats :)

We spent the afternoon in the kitchen yesterday, turning 1.5 kg or so of chicken thighs into some freezer meals, and making this week’s soup.

I’ll write those up later, but I thought for a change you might like to see Lilith, who decided to be helpful and sit on my tagine recipe, goggling all the while.

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veg box 15 oct 08

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this week’s soup

using up: last week’s soup(!), some chicken

The photo was the start - the jug on the left contains the remains of last week’s soup; a starter, if you will.  The jug on the right contains the water I cooked the broccoli in for Friday night’s stir fry.  The chicken is the remains of a chicken breast on the bone that we bought to tempt Bada when she wouldn’t eat. It didn’t work :(

I boiled up the chicken in the broccoli water, and thus obtained broccoli and chicken stock.  This went in the soup pot with the other soup, the chicken meat, some marmelised veg (leek, carrots).  I’d boiled some borlotti beans up for another dish which I shall write about later, so the water from them went in too!  I generally feel “the more, the merrier” with soup.

Then it was seasoned, and I hurled in some barley, mostly because I could.  We had it for lunch today, and it was good.  Tomorrow, in the way of soup, it will be better.

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kiwi fruit and apple crumble

using up: kiwi fruit, windfall apples

The veg box from the week before last (!) included four kiwi fruit.  Neither P nor I are enamoured of these little hairy chaps, and the only things people suggested we do with them were pavlova (Pete doesn’t like meringue) or cheesecake, which I couldn’t be bothered to make.

We still had a fair few windfall apples left, so this is what I did.

Peeled, cored and cut out the worst bruised bits of the windfalls, and put them in a pan with some water, and simmered gently for about five minutes.  I did this because I thought there was too much for one crumble, and I was going to freeze the balance.

P peeled and sliced the green things.  We drained the apple, and put a layer in the crumble dish.  There didn’t seem to be a lot of apple left at that point, so we added the rest (none to freeze).  I grated some fresh ginger over the top, and added a drizzle of honey, then we piled on the kiwi fruit.

Then a crumble mix: 6oz plain flour, 3oz brown sugar, 3oz butter, and about 1oz of hazelnuts went into the Magimix.  Whizzed it to breadcrumb texture, put it on top of the fruit, then into the oven at gas 4 for about 45 minutes.

It was … OK. We ate it, and we will finish the rest.  But we still don’t really like kiwi fruit.

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broccoli and cucumber stir fry

using up: broccoli, cucumber

“Stir fried cucumber?” you cry.  Yes indeed - why not?  It’s only a courgette, almost, and stir fries up very well.

Steam or blanch or whatever the broccoli for a few  minutes, then drain.  I kept the water for next week’s soup - I’m like that.  In fact, I used it to make some broccoli/chicken stock with the remains of a chicken breast, but we’ll come to that later.

Mince garlic and ginger, hurl in the wok with some groundnut oil and sesame seeds.  Add sliced red pepper and cucumber, and chopped spring onions, and stir for five minutes or so.  Add broccoli and soy sauce.  Cook a bit more.  Add some cooked noodles, stir together, serve in bowls.

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season of mists and mellow fruitfulness …

A friend was selling Bramleys from her garden at £0.15 per lb, in aid of the local LibDems.  I said I’d take 6kgs, and she delivered them yesterday, and threw in a bag of windfalls.  I was amused to see the apples delivered in a Louis Vuitton bag - a less Vuitton woman than Deborah is hard to imagine, unless of course it’s me.

So my first foray into winemaking begins.  I’ve chopped up and boiled the windfalls, and the resultant mush is sitting in a bucket with yeast and sugar, and will be put into a demijohn tonight.  It’s really quite exciting!

The rest of the apples will be boxed and put into a cupboard somewhere; they were going to go into the shed, but I’m a bit worried about slugs and snails and so forth in there.

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veg box 8 oct 08

Now we have a new veg box supplier, I plan to record each delivery.

tomatoes, bananas, cauliflower, cabbage, oranges, apples, pears, onions, parsnips, courgettes, cucumber, red pepper, plums.

We still have some stuff from last week’s box: some green beans, half a cabbage, a couple of sweet potatoes.

We also had a cauliflower and a parsnip, so last night we had cauliflower in a cheese and mustard sauce, accompanied by potatoes and the parsnip roasted in duck fat.  Nom nom :)

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stir-fried belly pork

using up: cooked belly pork

Last Sunday, i.e. a week ago, we had roast belly pork with fennel seeds, and very nice it was too.  I wrapped the remains in some aluminium foil and put it in the fridge for later in the week, and then promptly forgot all about it, to my shame.

I remembered it on Saturday, part way through the fish pie frenzy, checked to make sure it was still ok, and resolve to do something with it on Sunday. I wanted something quick, as we were working yesterday, and were due out at the local pub quiz in the evening.

It was alright, thankfully.  In the morning, I chopped it up and set it to marinade in some cornflour, water, sesame oil and a little dry sherry (we are out of rice wine).  Then, when we were ready to eat, we minced ginger and garlic, chopped a red pepper, some spring onions and the last four mushrooms.

I deep fried the pork in batches until it was crispy, and drained on kitchen paper.  I kept the marinade. Then stir-fried the remaining ingredients with some five spice powder,  while we cooked some noodles.  Tipped in the marinade, added the cooked noodles and some chopped coriander.

Apart from the marinading aspect, 15 minutes start to finish.  And it worked very very well.

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cracked …

Nothing much to blog at the moment.  I was out at meetings (school governors, local politics) Monday and Tuesday night, and we have a sick cat so we’re a bit distracted.  We’ve been eating out of the freezer.  We’ve signed up with a new veg box scheme, VegBox2U - their first delivery arrived yesterday, and we’re pretty pleased with it, so normal service will be resumed real soon now!

Last night was lentil lasagne - I suppose, in fact, I was using up half of a huge bag of spinach.  I had the lentils, I had the bechamel sauce made, I had the spinach, the grated cheese, the lasagne … I got the dish out of the cupboard, and WOE!  Big crack, as you can see in the photo; the crack goes right through the dish, and up the side.  No way were we putting dinner in *that* - it would have been dangerous.

But what to use?  We didn’t have another suitable earthenware dish, so I put it in my beloved old white enamelled tin dish with the blue edge.  But it wasn’t really right, because the sides aren’t straight.

And so, I am going to have to buy a new lasagne dish, especially as this is the second one we’ve lost in recent years (Pete left the first one on the gas, which wasn’t all that clever).

Wah …

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do people buy this stuff?

I went to Asda - I hate it, but I needed some fizzy water and some shampoo, and some wafer thin meat for the cats.  I shouldn’t go round the aisles, really; it just makes me cross, and astonished.

I can understand people buying a cake - hell, I’ve done it myself.  I can understand people buying frozen Yorkshire puddings. I guess, although how hard is it to add an egg and some milk to flour and whisk it up?

But I don’t understand why people buy a mix and cook it - either buy the stuff ready to eat, or make it from scratch. I bet you could buy an Asda sponge cake for £1.98.  Perhaps it’s just me …

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