Christmas time!

   As you've possibly noticed I haven't posted for a couple of months, this is due to being very busy followed by general apathy!
  With unseasonal mildness until two weeks ago we've not needed the woodburners on, but with the cold snap they've been working hard keeping us warm. It's so much more satisfying sitting around a flickering fire, than huddling around a radiator! plus there is always the opportunity for roasting chestnuts and cooking jacket potatoes (wrapped in tin foil) in the ashes.

   With the first hard frosts we've been able to dig up some of the parsnips, always a joy in the dark days of winter. I find nothing more comforting than a bowl of curried parsnip soup and hunk of fresh baked bread after a dark day at work.
   This month I'm on a hunt for a North African maize flat-bread recipe that tastes like the lovely bread I used to eat as a child in Tunisia. I've never found a recipe that quite lives up to my memories, though I've been ferreting out a few over the past couple of months and hopefully the holidays will give time to experiment.

Home Grown Chilli and Apple Jelly

This jelly is perfect for this time of year and stores up the sun ripened goodness of the apples and chillies for the cold winter days.
  It's perfect served with cheese or cold meats, can be added to marinades for stir fried meats...even smother sausages with it before frying or baking them to give a spicy caramelized coating.
  It can be as mild or as hot as you like, depending on the type of chili you've grown and the number you put in.


Chili and apple jelly.

4-5 pounds of prepared windfall apples (i.e the bad bits cut off and the good bits roughly quartered)

8 chillies chopped (I use 8 medium hot chillies but if you use mild chillies you will get a mild jelly and hot chillies will give a hot jelly) (you will need an extra 6 chillies later on)

1litre of water

Put the above ingredients in either a slow cooker or a big jam pan and cover. simmer this until the apple is totally mushy.

Strain this pulp through a jelly bag for a few hours or overnight

Measure the strained liquid.

For every pint of liquid you will need 1/2 pound of sugar

Add the sugar and the liquid to a clean jam pan and place over a low heat, stir thoroughly and leave till the sugar is totally dissolved

Prepare six chillies by removing the green top and cleaning the seeds from the insides. Make sure you wear rubber gloves for this. Then very thinly slice the chillies.

Increase the heat under the jam pan and boil rapidly until setting point is reached.

Remove from the heat and add the sliced chillies. stir in well and ladle into sterilised jars. firmly put on sterilised lids

Boiling water bottle for 10 mins.

Label and enjoy

Home Grown Dried Pears

This is an easy way to store pears and the dried slices make a great healthy snack or can be chopped and added to cakes and muffins as an alternative to sultanas or raisins.

  You'll need two roomy bowls and either a food dehydrator or a load of oven trays lined with greaseproof paper.

Half fill one of the bowls with water and juice of half a lemon

Half fill the other bowl with hot water and the juice of the other half of the lemon and a couple of teaspoons of honey.

Using a peeler or a sharp knife skin each pear and as soon as you are finished peeling each one pop it in the bowl with water and lemon juice.

When you can't put any more in that bowl take out a pear and thinly slice it, dropping the slices into the bowl with water and lemon and honey in it.

Once all your pears are sliced arrange them on the dehydrators trays, or your oven trays, so that each slice has a little space around it.
 Place the oven trays in a very low oven (60 C) and check infrequently till they are leathery
 Stack the dehydrator trays on the dehydrator base and turn on at a low heat.

When the pears are dry and leathery they can be stored in an airtight jar

Home Grown Apfel Streudel

 Whenever my family were having a get together my grandmothers would always serve up this pudding, usually with cream or custard. Both grandmothers had slightly different versions and so this is a hybrid between the two. The pasty is the tricky part as it must be stretched as thinly as possible to give a light and crispy surround to the apple insides.
  This makes a pretty large dish so will provide pudding for a couple of days or a large family get together.

Apfel Streudel

You will need a large baking tray for this

Oven heated to 220 C

Dough

½ lb plain flour

1oz lard

1oz margarine

1/2 cup warm milk (ish)

pinch of salt

1 egg (standard size)

Filling

3-4lb apples

cup ½ breadcrumbs

several tbs of sugar and honey (depending on tastes and how sour your apples are)

cup raisins

1oz lard/butter melted

1 ½tsp cinnamon

 

Method

Tip flour into a heap onto a clean work-surface. (you can use a roomy bowl instead)

Chop the lard and margarine into the flour. 

Make a well in the centre, and pour in the egg and milk

Mix by hand until a soft dough is formed.

Knead with the ball of the hand until smooth.

Leave in a warm place for about half an hour to rest.

Put dough on a floured tablecloth and stretch with a rolling pin and then pull gently with your hands until as thin as paper, try not to tare it at any point.

Brush with melted lard or butter, and sprinkle over the breadcrumbs and cinnamon.

thinly slice your apples and put a thin layer of the apples over the pastry, leaving a gap around the edges of the pasty. sprinkle over the apples some of the sugar and honey and the raisins. layer more apple slices over the raisins and sugar and repeat until all your apples are used up.

Gather tablecloth at edges of pastry and gradually roll up strudel, turning edges as you go. Place in a large baking tray and form into a crescent.

Bake at 220º C for about 25 mins.

Home grown pepper jam

   This is a lovely jam with a tiny touch of heat to have with cold meat and cheese. A great way of cooking up the good crop of sweet peppers we've had this year with the extra long growing season.

Pepper Jam

1kg sweet peppers (for the prettiest looking jam use red or nearly red peppers)

400g sugar

1 chilli pepper (obviously if you don't like things spicy miss this out, or if you like it extra spicy add a couple more)

salt

Remember to wear rubber gloves if you are handling the chilli peppers.

Wash and clean the peppers, removing all the seeds from the inside.

Cut them in pieces and let them reduce with a sprinkle of salt, the chilli pepper and 6 tablespoons water in a non-stick pan at a low temperature.

As soon as the peppers are soft take the pan off the heat, and pass the peppers through a food mill (or rub them through a sieve).

Return the pepper mush to the pan and cook, while adding the sugar, until they are thickened.

Bottle in sterilised jars and seal, and either boiling water bath to store for a while or eat within a few months.
refrigerate after the seal is broken and eat within a couple of weeks.

October

  Having been thoroughly enjoying the sunshine and donning my summer frocks, i suspect for the last time, I've not been in the kitchen too much over the past couple of week to make more than the normal fare. However, last weekend, i was inspired by Chut Fest at Barrington Court, where anyone can go to trade their jams and chutneys. So expect a few preserves this month!

   I'm besotted with my slow cooker at the moment. It's the perfect way to cook up anything that needs reducing down or simmering away for any length of time. It is such an easy way of cooking up a chicken carcass after Sunday lunch to make soup or a few lamb bones to make lamb stock.

  It's been decided that we are going to have a totally local Christmas, getting all the food and presents that we can't make ourselves from the local area, shouldn't be too difficult as we don't have any teenagers to find gifts for!
  
  

Foraged Fungi Rice served with Local Rose Veal Schnitzels

  Happiness in early autumn has always been a long walk with good company on a sunny day, munching on blackberries and the occasional plum as we talk about nothing in particular. Finding the occasional Chanterelle, Cep or field mushroom along the way to pop into a backpack.
  Perfect specimens of young Ceps should be dipped in egg and then fine breadcrumbs and fried in a light oil. Not the healthiest of dishes but very tasty and you will have burned off plenty of calories finding the fungi earlier in the day.
   Mostly, however, they are larger, older fungi when they are found, and Chanterelles are often so scarce as to only find a tiny handful, so adding them to rice is the perfect solution.
  Schnitzels are a simple Austrian dish and can be made with Rose Veal, pork fillet or turkey breast.It uses bread crumbs so you can use up any bread that has gone stale, Simply break it up into smaller pieces and using the blunt end of a rolling pin pound it away to crumbs and roughly sieve it so you have fine crumbs. Great way to get rid of pent up aggression too!

For the Rice
A tablespoon of light oil
A small onion (or half a medium sized one) diced
selection of fungi also diced (you'll only need a handful or two of fungi)
Uncooked Rice (enough for the number of people you are feeding)

Fry the diced onion in oil in a large frying pan that you have a lid for.
When the onion is glossy and translucent add the fungi and fry until they are well sweated and about half the size.
Turn down the heat and add the rice and enough boiling water to cook it in. Stir once.
Cover and cook on low heat until the rice is ready.
Serve.


Rose Veal Schnitzels

Rose Veal Escalope (Westons Farm in Bampton sell fabulous quality veal) you can use turkey breast or pork  fillet
plain flour
2 eggs, well beaten
breadcrumbs.
Light oil for shallow frying

  Find 3 shallow but roomy plastic boxes or metal trays. one each for the flour, eggs and breadcrumbs.
Firstly you need to beat your meat. Place it on a thick chopping board and beat it either with the blunt end of rolling pin or a proper meat beating mallet. don't do it too much so that you end up with holes in it, but it does need to be quite thin so it cooks quickly.
  Take your first piece of beaten meat. drop it into the tray of flour and shake the tray back and forth till it's well coated with flour.
   Take your meat out of the flour tray and drop it in the egg tray. using a fork, turn the meat over so that both sides are coated with egg. take meat out of egg using the fork and let the excess drip off, back into the eggy tray.
  Now drop your meat into the breadcrumb tray and shake well so it's thoroughly coated. put on a plate till you are ready to cook it and repeat the process with each piece of meat.
  Heat up a frying pan with about 1cm of light oil.
  Cook your Schnitzels in batches, frying one side then the other till your schnitzel is golden brown. Put on a sheet of kitchen roll or napkin so the excess oil is absorbed into the paper. If you have lots of them to cook place the done ones in a warmed oven.
  Once all are cooked, serve with rice, salad or green beans.