Coming soon

Having a house built in France, Why isn't it straight forward? My sons new house in Retier.

Rosies Steak and Kidney Pie

I was in the super market and saw some pork kidneys on special offer, bought them and put them in the freezer, two days later I had to go into another supermarket to buy some meat for a Pot au Feu, the shop had some really good looking stewing steak on promo, so that was it, Steak and Kidney pie, I've mentioned before, I don't make pastry, I can do but I don't, so I bought two ready rolled puff pastries.
The problem was I just got on with making it, forgetting about a blog post, so there is a lack of photographs, and I didn't weigh anything.
I sliced and fried two onions, tossed the thickly cut kidneys and steak in flour and browned the meat in with the onions. I tossed another handful of flour in on top and covered with beef stock, added a splash of Worcestershire sauce and seasoned with salt and pepper , then cooked on the stove top for about 4 hours, till the meat was tender.



I opened the two pastries ( a tip, leave the paper the pastry comes on under your pastry, it makes moving it easier) and lined my dish with one roll, piled the meat into the pastry and a little of the gravy, enough to keep the pie moist without making the pastry soggy, save the rest till later. then cover with the other roll of pastry and press the edges of the pastry together. Egg wash the top if you wish, then bake in the oven at 200c till brown, lift the pie out of the dish using the paper to help lift it, serve with more gravy.

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.

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.

I love this song, I dedicate it to my husband Paul

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.

Some New Kenzo Photographs.

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