Christmas Pudding Stuffing

Last week I got two of Matthew Walker’s Christmas Puddings  sent through the post.

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The company have a competition  to win a camera and a photography course and asked  everyone  in the UK Food Blogger’s Association to have a go and invent something new using their Christmas puddings…

As the company says,

“the original Christmas pudding is based on a traditional recipe that includes 13 core ingredients, which represent Jesus and his 12 apostles.

I travel the globe to select the very finest spirits, vine fruits and seasonal spices, from a stout that is brewed right here in The Peak District to succulent sultanas and currents from Turkey and Greece.

The result is a beautifully moist and fruity Christmas pudding that truly captures the traditional taste of the festive season.”

And what exactly are the ingredients?

  • Sultanas
  • Raisins
  • Demerara Sugar
  • Currants
  • Glacé Cherries
  • Stout
  • Breadcrumbs
  • Sherry
  • Vegetarian Suet
  • Almonds
  • Orange & Lemon Peel
  • Cognac
  • Mixed Spices

Well then. With a list like that of ingredients,  I had better start thinking. I began with the little pudding. I was thinking of trying something savoury, something different….

And then I thought of stuffing. What about some lovely roast pork with crispy crackling? After all apple and apricot are perfectly normal stuffings for pork. When I talked about this at work there was a fifty-fifty split about whether this would work, probably just as there will be amongst those of you who read this.  I thought it would work… sweetly, spicy, savoury stuffing? What’s not to like about that?

The very first thing to do will be to get the oven as hot as possible to make the perfect crackling for that lovely pork… so put it on now to preheat

Then, open the pudding and smell it

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It was rich and dense and spicy and dark – as dark as the devil’s heart as we would say.

 So the next step was to make it into stuffing – first things first, start with the savoury aspect

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Bacon and onion would add a good savoury taste

 

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Gently fry the onion then chop the bacon (or do as I do and use scissors – much quicker)  and add that to the onion

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Make some breadcrumbs  – I have a Bamix and this makes breadcrumbs in seconds

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Cut up the pudding and add it to the breadcrumbs and mix it well. Adding a sprinkle of  some salt and pepper rounds things out

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Some suet.. real suet from the butcher….. just a sprinkle, but imagine how that will make it taste….

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Once the bacon and onion have cooled slightly, stir that in as well

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Then mix an egg lightly

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And add that – this will bind everything together and chill the mix in the fridge. Having it cool will make it easier to roll and it also means you have time to tidy the benches and give things a quick wipe down.

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On to the pork…. make sure the skin is properly scored – if it isn’t already, sharpen a knife and slash it. Remember, the thinner the slashes the thinner and crispier the crackling will be. Massage in some oil and then rub that rind with salt.

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Now, I spotted a problem… I had been going to stuff the pork with the stuffing but it wasn’t the best rolled joint…

Balls, I thought. 

Stuffing balls, I mean, obviously! Straightforward stuffing the joint wouldn’t work, but rolling it into balls and roasting separately might just do it….

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Look how pretty they look

So, put that pork in to sear and blister. Leave that in there on the highest heat till you can see the skin bubbling, then you can turn things down and relax for a while.

I decided some nice goose fat roasted potatoes and the benefit of that would be that I could put those stuffing balls in with them towards the end of the roasting time and they could roll around in the sizzling goose fat so they become crispy on the outside and stay moist and juicy in the middle….

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So, things were progressing well….once the potatoes were starting to turn golden, in went the stuffing balls

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The meat was taken out to rest… look at that crackling

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And then…. put everything together…

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In conclusion? I was right. As a festive stuffing it hits all the right buttons.

The stuffing balls, born from necessity, are probably the better way to go. The outside crisps up beautifully, while the inside stays juicy.

And… this might be noted as a guilty pleasure… I got in from work the following night and nibbled one… even cold it tasted gorgeous!

And the Bear’s verdict? He ate everything and then asked for pork and Christmas Pudding stuffing sandwiches for lunch. I guess that means he likes it too.

Make them, this is a recipe to remember and use.

Oh and thank you, Matthew Walker, that pudding is a real Christmas cracker     😉

Game

I was born and brought up in the North of England in a more rural area than most of the rest of the country. I lived in a small village before I moved to the city. That’s it in the picture, just perched on the hill below the rising sun

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 Shooting is a pretty typical pastime, whether it is clay pigeons or game, in season. And now it is autumn, with its cool and misty mornings…… shooting season begins

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Those of you who disagree with shooting, leave the page now. What follows will only be of interest to those who believe that if you want to eat meat then you take the responsibility of dealing with its death. I believe it is an honest way of getting food.

It is also seasonal, healthy and very tasty. Excellent reasons for getting your own game. If you don’t (or can’t shoot) then support people who do and sell their game on. My brother (he of the ginger beer ham) shoots and, if he is feeling generous towards his big sister, will hand over various birds.

It’s the shooting season now and I asked him to remember me.

He must have been thinking of me because he sent me some photos   (probably the only photographs on this blog that  I didn’t take myself, so full credit to  little brother)  anyway, he took them on his mobile phone while he was out  the other day

Big Little Brother's Shoot

 Fantastic, isn’t it?

And while he was lurking in the undergrowth….look what went past

Bruv's deer pic

No, he didn’t come home clutching a haunch of venison but in the autumn months we are always well supplied with game birds – pheasants, wood pigeon, partridge, wild duck – and they make an excellent addition to autumn cooking.

Big Little Brother's shots!

At the moment, in my freezer, I have woodpigeon and pheasant and I know exactly what I will be doing with most of them. One of the many good things about having a regular supply of game is that you can experiment with new recipes and not just stick to the traditional ones.

Expect more posts on this – you might not have the game but you could replace that in the menu with chicken and you might find new recipes to please you.

Oh, and expect, at some point, to find a masterclass on breasting pheasant  – the world’s best little brother has promised to take pictures to show you how easy it is to prepare a pheasant for cooking! He’s also rather good on recipes…..

Fresh Cheese

When I was young my mother would sometimes make cheese if milk had started to sour. Not a matured cheddar cheese or anything like that but a simple, home-made, fresh cheese, just as people have done all over the world whenever they have had spare or spoiling or leftover dairy products.

It’s easy enough – all you need is some milk or yoghurt, a sieve, a jug, some salt and some muslin. If you want to flavour it, you can mix in some chopped herbs say, or lemon zest, or garlic.. maybe crushed black peppercorns….. anything at all.

As part of the Great Greek Yoghurt Experiment I thought I would use some of the yoghurt to make cheese as I need some for another recipe.

You do need to allow some time for this but don’t worry, it’s not as if you have to be busy with it, hour after hour. Like much else we do, it is a case of starting it off and then leaving it to do its business until we wander back to it.

So, first of all, get your yoghurt

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………and think about what you want your cheese for.

I want to use it in a recipe that will involve roasted game, thyme and lemon so I will add lemon zest and thyme to it. If you want plain cheese then you make plain cheese – if you want something else then you add it. It really is as simple as that.

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My balcony herb box is looking a bit battered now but there’s still plenty of thyme.

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Strip the leaves from it and chop it finely.

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Get a lemon (make sure that you wash it properly – especially if it is a waxed one. You certainly don’t want wax in your lovely fresh cheese! If it is unwaxed then scrub it just as carefully because you certainly don’t want people’s dirty fingers in your cheese either)

Get a lemon zester and get some lemon zest (that was a difficult photo to take… clutching the lemon and the zester in one hand as I leant over to take a shot with the other) and then chop the zest finely

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And now for the important bit – using the yoghurt. This will make lovely, thick, smooth cheese. (If you are using sour milk it will be an awful lot thinner and more lumpy, more like cottage cheese.)

Total Greek Yoghurt is already strained so it is, to start with, thick and smooth.. look at it….

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it’s so thick you almost need to cut it.

Get it into a bowl and then add a pinch or two of salt and the finely chopped thyme and lemon zest

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Mix it all together and then….

…….Get your high tech cheese making equipment together

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You need a sieve and a jug and some muslin, if you have any

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I can’t find mine so I bought some new dishcloths – they are tightly woven and at 3 for 25p, a bit of a bargain. Give them a good wash in plenty of hot water, rinsing well to make sure they are clean

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and line the sieve, which is now placed over the jug

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and then scoop your yoghurty, herby, lemony mix in there.

Technical, huh?

 

Then you put it in the fridge and leave it. You’ll need at least a day, preferably two. I put it in on Friday night and now, Sunday lunchtime, it is perfectly drained. The Total site has a recipe for making much the same cheese – except they add mint and  call it Labna. Just goes to show that wherever you go people make the same food using the same ingredients.

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Even though it is strained, some whey can still come out… there’ll not be much, though and you will see the yoghurt is becoming more dense. More cream cheese like…

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See? It is so dense you can just lift it out of the draining cloth.

And that’s it… you’ve done it. Perfect cream cheese, flavoured exactly as you want it, made with the simplest ingredients.

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It’s ready for you to eat now, just as it is. What could be simpler?

I am going to use this in a couple of things I am making……. and I bet you will want to make them too, so start on your fresh cheese now and catch up with me later!

The Great Greek Yoghurt Experiment

Those lovely people at Total Greek Yoghurt sent me a big delivery of yoghurt so that I could try out recipes…..

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Yoghurt has been made for over 4,500 years and is eaten all over the world  – for many adults, milk is hard to digest and yoghurt is perhaps the only way that milk can be consumed. It is only really the North European who generally escape the problems of lactose intolerance and can drink milk with impunity.

When yoghurt is made, the bacteria in live yoghurt, by breaking down the sugar into lactic acid, makes it easier to digest and even those with lactose intolerance can sometimes eat yoghurt. It’s worth a try if you do suffer….

And there are so many things you can do with yoghurt  – apart from eating it with honey or fruit and nuts, it makes beautiful moist cakes; it can be used in savoury dishes instead of cream… and it is my mission to work my way through  a variety of recipes and really extend my repertoire.

Phase one of my first recipe has already been started and tomorrow, all will be revealed. Then of course there are the other things….

Spiced red cabbage

… glossily red and purpled, subtly spiced and aromatic red cabbage……I love it.noodle prawns, red cabbage, lamb, celeriac 021

It is perfect with fattier meats like pork or lamb as the sharpness of the red wine vinegar that is in there cuts through the richness. Apple sweetens it and the onion gives it savour.

Adding aromatic spices gives it a depth of flavour

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You’ll need nutmeg, cloves and garlic.

First of all, you need to start cutting the cabbage. Cut out the hard core with a sharp knife – it is hard and white and solid… which is not what you want in amongst your lovely bits of shredded red cabbage

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Then slice the rest into thin strips. You’ll also need to slice the onion.

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Rub a bit of butter round an oven proof dish and put half of the cabbage in and add the onion

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Next, peel and chop the apple

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and scatter that on top of the cabbage and onion

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… and then grate a light covering of nutmeg over the top

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Now shake cinnamon over it. I love the smell of cinnamon – it’s perfect at this time of year.

Cloves go wonderfully well with all of this. You can buy ground cloves but it is much better just to grind them yourself and anyway, why would you want to buy an extra bottle of something that will take up space in your cupboard? Put a few cloves into a pestle and grind it. A word of warning though, my brother adores this red cabbage and once rang me up so I could tell him what to do. Well, put on the spot as I was, I rattled off a list of ingredients and, as normal, wasn’t much good at remembering exact quantities. That’s why I show you by taking a picture….anyway, my brother was merrily sprinkling the cloves… sprinkling and sprinkling…….. made it all taste like a dentist’s mouthwash, he said. So, be careful. It will maybe amount to less than a teaspoonsful.

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A light dusting is all you need.. you are building up  layers of  aromatic spices.  Sprinkle some sugar over the top and then.. the secret ingredient. Martini Rosso. Obviously not so secret now………

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I first did it, not with Martini Rosso, but with Dubonnet… I thought the herby red spirit would blend well with the vegetables and the spices. I also had a bottle that I hadn’t drunk and I thought I could start to use it up. Once the Dubonnet had gone I moved on to Martini… and that, I think is even better. Pour some over

 

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then pour some red wine vinegar in as well. This sharpens everything up and keeps the colour a deep purply red.

Put some little knobs of butter over the top and sprinkle more sugar

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Then put the rest of the red cabbage over the top

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Cover it with foil and put it in the middle of the oven at about 160 degrees C. This is going to take maybe two hours or so, so if you are going to cook something else, that’s fine. If the oven needs to be on higher, just move it down to the bottom of the oven and make sure the foil top is on so it doesn’t burn or all the moisture evaporate

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After about an hour or so, look at it… give it a stir. It looks pretty awful till you stir it and see the gorgeous deep colour underneathRack of lamb, finished celeriac and red cabbage 005

What I should have done, of course, was to take it out of the oven dish and make it look attractive. But I didn’t.

 

Tasted great though… you’ll just have to trust me that it looks better than that!

Lamb stew and minty dumplings

While I was preparing to get back to work I went shopping to get supplies in. I saw that the butcher had some stewing lamb and I thought that there would be nothing nicer to come home to, after a day at work than some slow cooked lamb that I could pop some dumplings into, to cook while I got changed and then we could settle down to a hot meal.

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The lovely thing about slow cookers is that you can get everything prepared (and when I say prepared, I am not talking about a huge investment of time… maybe 5 minutes or so?) anyway, you can do that the night before and then start the slow cooker in the morning before you leave for work.

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Fry off the meat (you can see why it is a good thing to do this at night… I certainly wouldn’t want to be frying meat at 6am) until it is browned on the edges. This helps the gravy develop a good colour and a decent flavour.

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While that is sizzling, chop an onion and some garlic and think about the way you want to go with the lamb stew. I thought about using some spices… sort of a tagine feel but in a toned down way. I looked about to see what we had and found a bag of dried peaches. I had thought there might be some apricots but there wasn’t, so peaches it was going to be.

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They are pretty sharp in flavour which is a good thing with lamb as that is sweet in itself . I hadn’t actually used dried peaches before so this really was going to be an experiment.

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Because I was using fruit in there I looked for spices to go with it… and found a tin of tagine spices…

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By now the lamb was browned off and I put it into the slow cooker with the chopped onions.

Then scattered a handful of dried peaches on top

And then sprinkled the spice mix.

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Some stock granules over the top of that and pour in some water.

 

That took just over 9 minutes and that is because I was having to wash my hands in between each step to take a picture. If you aren’t doing that  😉 you can expect it to take a lot less time

 And that’s it for the night. Lid on and leave it unto the morning when you can turn it on before you go to work.

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Set it to Auto and then set off to work.

 

The good thing about a slow cooker is that the Auto function starts it off as high to get things going then goes right down to low to tick over until you get home….

 

What to do with it? When I started out I was thinking of minty dumplings but then I hadn’t thought of the tagine hint….and by the time I got home we had a friend to feed as well. That was good news and there was certainly no problem about that but what it did mean was that dumplings for three people wouldn’t fit in the small slow cooker…

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Anyway, I got in and tasted it.. it wasn’t too spicey… there was a hint of spice, sure enough, but it wasn’t totally tagine. It was a mix of sharpness from the fruit, warmth from the spices and and meaty juiciness. Dumplings would go, after all. Maybe not dumplings poached in the gravy… but they could be baked and then placed on top…

I needed to thicken the gravy slightly – at the moment it was just the slow cooked lamb juices and the water… a delicious stock but it needed to be thicker. mashed celeriac, lamb and dumplings 028 If you take a  couple of spoonfuls out of the pot and mix it with some cornflour, it mixes easily in the bowl you can add it straight back in to the main pot without making it lumpy. Now that is is thickening nicely… on to the dumplings!

First of all, put the oven on, if it isn’t on already. 200 degrees C should do it.

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So, in a bowl put 80g of self raising flour ( add a couple of teaspooons of baking powder if you use plain) and 40 g of suet..

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Chop up some mint

Add that and a sprinkling of stock granules to the flour and suet and then add a couple of teaspoons of water and mix together

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Form into dumpling shapes and put on a baking tray

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Fifteen minutes later… look!

Serve up the lamb and balance the  dumplings on top….

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Oh they were delicious! Light and fluffy with a soft middle and a gorgeously crispy outside…. what a good thing it was that we needed more than could be cooked in the slow cooker.

Sometimes you discover things by accident and are really glad you did.

Celeriac gratin

Celeriac always reminds me of weirdly tentacled aliens from Dr Who. I’m sure there was an alien looking much like this on there once

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Anyway, it is a tasty old vegetable and makes a good change from potato all the time. It does smell of celery but the taste is more subtle. I mash it sometimes but tonight I am making a quick gratin.

First of all peel it. I’m usually very strict about using a peeler to take off the bare minimum of skin because that is where so many of the nutrients lie but in the case of gnarly skinned celeriac, well, I am prepared to make an exception.

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I take a knife and just slice at it. One thing to know about celeriac is that it needs to be cooked, if you are boiling it,  in acidulated water (that is, water that has lemon juice in or, as I tend to do, the squeezed out half of a lemon… moneysaving, eh?) otherwise it starts to blacken. If you are making it into a gratin then just work quickly and expect to see it browning if you aren’t moving fast enough. Get it peeled and slice it….

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Anyway, lightly butter a baking dish and place the slices of celeriac in – half of them at first

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I like to add a thinly sliced onion. It adds to the flavour, I think

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Scatter some salt and a knob of butter, cut into cubes over the slices then add another layer of slices on top

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More onion and then pour some milk over it all – not much, you don’t want to cover the celeriac, just enough to cook it

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I would have used cream but I didn’t have any and that was skimmed milk so I added some Greek yoghurt to give it some richness

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(I make it with EasiYo which is, as the name suggests, an easy way to make yoghurt. I always make the Greek yoghurt with acidopholous in and use it in smoothies and as toppings)

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A quick shake of white pepper and it is ready for the oven. Cover it with tin foil to keep the moisture in on the first half of the cooking process – that will concentrate the flavour

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After half an hour take a look – you will see the celeriac has started to soften. Give it a jab with a knife and you will feel the difference

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and after another hour or so? Looking good. It would have been a lot smoother with cream but as we all know, needs must when the devil drives and the important factor is what does it taste like?

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It tasted delicious. And with a lovely bit of rack of lamb? Well, all I can say is that there was nothing left over.

Chicken soup with rose harissa buns

… nothing better when you are feeling low and ill. And there’s nothing better for your bank balance that making a meal from scraps and leftovers.

It’s flu season and people are dropping like flies. What we need is soup.. chicken soup. Apparently it really does work!

First thing, get your chicken. Now you can do this with a whole, raw chicken, of course, but I use up the carcass of a roasted chicken.

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See, there’s still some chicken on there… there’s the bones and the skin. They are just waiting to be turned into delicious soup to soothe you and make you better.

You’ll need some vegetables for the stock… a leek, say and a carrot or two

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Put them in a large pot and strip your chicken from the bones…. tear off the spare chicken and leave the carcass

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See? There’s a good bowl full of chicken shreds there

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Put the chicken carcass and whatever bits of skin and so on that are left in the pot with the vegetables. add some peppercorns and a some salt and set it away to simmer. After an hour and a half or so, the stock is more or less ready….

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You need to drain it… get a colander or sieve and putting it over another pan (this is SO important…. don’t laugh because in a rush I once forgot and managed to lose a quarter of my stock… goodness knows what i was thinking of! I had a colander with the boiled vegetables and skin and bones and my stock, my delicous stock, was disappearing down the sink!) anyway… make sure you drain it into another pan… If you were doing this for guests and wanted the clearestr stock imaginable them drain it through muslin. I was just doing this for us so I reckoned the colander was fine.

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See those vegetables? Well they have more or less donated their all to the soup.. the leek definitely has, though the carrots may still have a bit of life in them… anyway, with the rest of your leek, slice it very finely and get some pretty baby carrots.. or chop your cooked carots a bit smaller

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And add them to the pot of stock.

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Taste it. Does it need a pinch more salt? Some pepper?

Then add your chicken that you had pulled off the bones earlier

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Let it cook for a while.. not long… those baby carrots, if you added them will need a few minutes.. and then…..

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Chicken soup to soothe your cold… can you see how that could cure you?

Far better than cough and cold medicine. And you were using scraps and leftovers!

Add a couple of little breadbuns and you have a brilliant meal. I used the same recipe for the little loaves but left out the usndried tomatoes and chillies  and added rose harissa to the dough… a chilli, spice and rose scented paste. Not as odd as it sounds and oh, how it livens up the dough!

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You can do it… just give it a go!

Planning ahead

After several weeks away from work because I had an operation on my arm, I will be back at work from Tuesday. That’s good because I need to get back to earning money, but bad because I will be leaving at 7.30 am and getting back after 6 pm.

If  we are to be eating at any kind of reasonable time I need to be organised. I need to plan shopping and ingredients…. I need to plan meals that kind be either cooked while I am out or cooked quickly when I get in.

So from now on there are going to be meals featuring slow cookers or ultra fast put-it-all-together meals.

There’s a couple of things I must do  – first, I really have to sort out shopping lists so I can get things in advance or, at least, know what I am going to grab as I race through a supermarket on the way home after a long day so I will be searching through recipe books and magazines…. oh the work I put into this…

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I might as well relax while I read because, after this, I will be at a desk all day

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Oh, and the other thing?

Without putting too fine a point on things, The Bear and I are no longer the sylph like creatures of our youth…. a diet is called for. Well, not so much a diet as a restriction on the amount of calories we have been consuming. I know the government has said I actually need more than the 2,000 calories they said a normal woman needed but  I really don’t think my waistline was paying attention. For some reason I seem to have…. well, expanded!

Over time I have been collecting and developing recipes that are 400 calories and under as a serving – we shall be going through that file as well. 400 calories for a tasty portion? That should help. Of course you would have to add in extra calories for the side dishes but it HAS to make a difference…….. doesn’t it? Well, it has to.

Salt and pepper prawns

I can always be tempted by salt and pepper dishes from our local Chinese restaurant and when the Bear returned home clutching  raw king prawns and a bottle of rose it seemed that this would be the night to make salt and pepper prawns. I didn’t want to do a deep fried dish (lovely though that is) so I decided on a more or less dry fried way of cooking so I could at least say I was giving a nod towards healthy eating.

The rose went into the fridge to chill – that lovely pink fruitiness goes so well with spicy seafood – and I started on the spice coating.

All you need is salt, black peppercorns and Chinese five spice powder. Well, actually you should use Sichuan pepper as well, but I didn’t have any.

Actually, I didn’t have ordinary salt, either, which meant I had to crush some….

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So, about 2 tablespoons of salt are put into a dry frying pan and toasted…. you will see the salt change colour slightly

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In the meantime, crush a  teaspoon or so of black pepper corns

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And then pour in a teaspoon of Chinese 5 Spice powder and stir it well. If you had the pink Sichuan peppercorns then add a teaspoon of them and grind them

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Once everything is smooth and fine, add the spice mix to the salt and toast. Again you will see a colour change

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You can see it smoking in the pan… a word of warning – aromatic though that is, it doesn’t half make you cough if you breathe it in

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Leave it to cool and then remove it from the pan and get your prawns out. A spring onion, finely chopped and a squeeze of lemon juice will set them off beautifully.

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You can see they are grey and raw…

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put the minimum of oil in and get it hot and then throw them in

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Thirty or so seconds later they are pink and opaque.

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Scatter over some of the salt and spice mix

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………………….then serve with a scattering of spring onions and a squirt of lemon juice

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And the chilled rose is just perfect along side it.

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The Bear, who has always been hesitant about prawns and only bought them to please me… ate his portion with gusto and decided he liked prawns after all. I’m not sure that is such a great result.. on the one hand, it is lovely that we both like prawns but on the other… well, I have had to share!