Sunday 30 January 2011

Rosies Roquefort and ham biscuits


I was making some savoury biscuits, I remembered I had a recipe already on my blog for Rosies Roquefort and sesame seed biscuits, so using pretty much the same recipe I've created this, now I haven't used Chillies, I've put finely chopped ham in the mix and sprinkled with the sesame seeds before baking.

Eucalyptus

This is a Eucalyptus tree we have been given.


Its a huge tree, this is just a small amount I've been able to get over to Half Acre Farm, there's more like this and some huge trunk sections that I will need to cut and split before I even think about moving them.

I'm trying to find out if these seed pods are any good, obviously there not ready to drop off the tree.

So I've pulled this lot off, and will dry them a little before trying to grow my own trees.

Saturday 29 January 2011

Confit de Canard

Have you seen these in the shop and wondered what to do with them? Its duck legs in aspic.

Buy a tin and a selection of root veg and leeks.

On top of the ducks legs is a layer of duck fat. Scrape the fat out of the tin into a saucepan, no need to use it all save some for your roast potatoes on Sunday.

Chop your vegetables into good size chunks and fry in the hot fat.


I like to take my duck off the bone, its up to you,
Add about half a litre of stock (or water and a chicken stock cube), enough to cover the veg. Bring to the boil, add the duck and simmer, takes about 1 hour, as soon as the veg is cooked its ready.


If you want to add dumplings now's the time.


Suet free dumplings, Mix flour (use a sachet of levure chimique, baking powder if not using self raising flour), salt, mustard powder (optional) and a little water, mix into a dough, in mine and Paul's opinion these are nicer than suet dumplings.
Add your dumplings, remember they will swell to 2 - 3 times the size so be careful. cook for a further 15 minutes.

Serve, this will feed about 6 people, a lot depends on how much veg you use, or in our house food for 3 days or maybe freeze some, I would suggest that you use up the dumplings and make fresh when you reheat the confit, they can go hard otherwise.

Biscuits

Ingredients

  • 325g plain flour
  • 200g chilled salted butter
  • 125g caster sugar
  • 2 tsp vanilla flavouring
  • 2 large egg yolks


Mix the flour, butter and sugar together
Add the egg yolks and vanilla, bind everything together till its like a bread dough.

Roll it into a sausage shape, how large depends on what size biscuits you want to make.
Wrap in cling film and put it into the fridge to let the butter set and make slicing easier, slice into thin slices and place on foil or grease proof paper and bake at 200c, about 15 mins.
Alternatively slice a little thicker, make a well in the centre and add a dollop of jam.

Why not try these made with coconut, or chopped cherries.

My Duck is such a bully.

Or is my Goose a wimp, not a great video, but its my little semi wild duck seeing my number one goose off.

Monday 24 January 2011

I'm Nearly Famous

About 7 years ago I was on popular TV show "Trading up", a few years ago I was featured in Breton Magazine and interviewed by Author George East, now I've been interviewed for a popular website, no not Taste of Garlic, he makes it all up and gives all the prizes to his best mates, no I've been interviewed by Cooking Manager.com, Click on the Cooking manager logo to read the interview. If you came here via the interview welcome to my life, there's about 460 posts on this blog so you may want to pour your self a glass of wine before you start, please feel free to comment, when commenting please leave a link to your own blog or website.


I've also been "Stumbled" (A member of the StumbleUpon user community added my page to StumbleUpon's index of high-quality, human-curated content), as soon as I work out what there on about I will let you know.

Saturday 22 January 2011

Some New Kenzo Photographs.

How can you guess B'ham city lost and Villa won?






Rosies Rabbit Stew

1 portioned rabbit
Root vegetables, roughly chopped.
4 med sized Potatoes
2 onions, (I used a couple of leeks instead as I was short of veg)
Chicken stock
Optional, Garlic and Chilli.


Roughly chop any root vegetables, keep potatoes separate, I've used Celiriac and carrots, but had I have had any to hand would have added swede and turnip. put them in a good size saucepan (not the potatoes) I also chopped some leeks as well, with a enough chicken stock to more than cover the veg and bring to the boil.
I've used leek in my recipe, but if I hadn't I would have sweated some onions in a pan, add some chopped garlic, and then the portioned rabbit and seal the meat very quickly. You can also add chilli now if you wish.
Put the rabbit in the pot with the vegetables and stock, bring back to the boil.
Simmer for an hour, then add the diced potatoes, simmer for another 45 minutes.
Thicken the sauce by mixing cornflour with a little water then slowly pouring into the stock till its the consistency you want.
Serve

Lunch, Rosies Soup & Bread Pudding

Remember my liver and onions post from yesterday? The left over sauce, vegetables and a tin of peas, blended together, a fresh baguette, perfect winter warming soup.


For this recipe I have used croissants, but is just as good for bread or bread and butter pudding, the drier the bread the better it will absorb the custard, I only used sultanas but you can add any fruit you like, but dried fruits should be mixed in to stop then from going drier or even burnt.

The bag of stale bread I bought yesterday for the poultry, I broke the croissants up into small chunks. For the custard, mix together 5 eggs, 500ml milk, 30gms of sugar and a few drops of vanilla essence. Put the croissants into a pie dish, pour over the custard mix, squeeze the croissants and custard together so the croissants adsorb the the moisture, sprinkle with sultanas then leave for 10 - 15 minutes while you heat the oven to 200c, then bake, about 45 minutes till golden brown.

Friday 21 January 2011

Jamies 30 Minute Meals S01 E01 Pt1 of 2

Jamies 30 Minute Meals S01 E01 Pt2 of 2

Liver , onions, mix veg mash.

€1 kg, bargain, I used pork, but use what ever you want.
Cut into slices, about 1 cm thick.


Sweat down a couple of onions add the sliced liver and some fatty bacon bits.


Brown the meat add some stock and a few dashes of Worcestershire sauce

I boiled celeriac, carrots and potatoes then puréed them together.

Thicken the sauce with cornflour. Serve.

Thursday 20 January 2011

The Next Moon, draft post

Going back to an earlier posting about the book "The Next Moon" , I've started putting photographs together of the area's and places mentioned. Today I wanted to visit the cross and look at the woods and fields surrounding the cross, I've still plenty to do. What I should do is make a list of all the places mentioned in the book in my area and visit them all, but for now here's where I visited today.


The cross to the Parachutists, between St Marcel and Serent






The Mill


St Marcel
St Marcel was completely destroyed by the Germans in retaliation and was rebuilt after the war.


The memorial near the museum


La Nouette, the Pondard farm.
destroyed during the battle for St Marcel rebuilt after.

Surrounding area