A mountain of chutney

An unspeakable thing happened a few weeks ago, we ran out of chutney. I made one and a half batches of our favourite spicy apple and walnut chutney. I thought that would be more than enough to see use through. Although I did give some way. Ever since we have had to buy jars from the deli. I recently made some rhubarb chutney but you have to wait 6-8 weeks for them to mature. When we were at the farmers market last week I noticed that the tomato stand had some green tomatoes for chutney making. Unfortunately I hadn't thought about before I left for the market so I didn't know how much I needed. So I went for 2 kilos! When got back I consulted with my WI preserve book and found out that I only needed 1.3 kilo for 6 lbs of chutney, oops!


The recipe was easy to follow, you salt the tomatoes, apples and onions and leave overnight. Unfortunately by the time we got round to making it on Thursday some of the tomatoes had started to redden!

My preserving pan is definitely being well used at the moment. As you can see from the photo this made A LOT of chutney. I think I might be able to give a few jars away too.

This chutney also needs to mature for 6-8 weeks. I really need to calculate the cost of making the chutney. I was shocked when I bought a jar of plum chutney for £3.50. I have no doubt that if we worked out how much it cost to make the equivalent amount of the green tomato chutney it would be much cheaper.

The box arrived on Wednesday. This week we got:

• Courgettes
• Tomatoes
• Lettuce
• Cabbage
• Cauliflower
• Broccoli
• Potatoes
• Carrots
• Onions
  

If at first you don't suceed . . .

When I was at the Farmers Market I saw some smoked mussels. Andrew loves smoked fish, so I bought them. I did have an idea of what I wanted to do with them. The idea was to a tomatoey rice/paella thing. Not exactly clear, I know. But I knew what I wanted to make.

The first time I tried this I used long grain rice and did it on the hob. It was OK, but not how I wanted it. So this time I took inspiration from Bill Granger's Baked Risotto. It turned out much better, just as I had imagined. The Smoked mussels were great too.

Baked paella risotto

• olive oil
  
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 180 g risotto rice
• chorizo, chopped
• 1 tin of chopped tomatoes (400g)
• 375 ml vegetable stock
  
• A couple of handfuls of frozen sweetcorn
• 1 courgette, sliced
• Smoked mussels
  

Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 6

In a casserole dish cook the chorizo in some olive oil until it releases its fat and starts to colour. Add the onion until it softens but doesn't colour. Add the rice and stir for a minute.

Add the stock and tomatoes and bring up to the boil, stir in the sweetcorn and courgette. Cover and put in the oven for 20-30 mins until rice is cooked. Stir in the smoked mussels and serve. We had some creme fraiche on the top.

The Weekend

On Saturday I went to the Farmers Market. I bought some salmon with a specific dish in mind. With the pak choi in the veg box, I wanted to make a Bill Granger recipe. The recipe was taken from Simply Bill, its glazed salmon. Its a simple dish which is served with brown rice and steamed pak choi.

When I went to the Farmers Market I also bought some lamb neck fillet. I had intended to use this to make kebabs, but the weather on Sunday was a bit grim. So I fancied something warming. Andrew had wanted to have Lancashire hotpot for a while. So I decided to use the neck fillet in a hotpot. I have never been to Lancashire, so I have never taste the authentic dish. I am not sure how this measures against it.

I thinly sliced a kohl rabi (leftover from the veg box) and potatoes and covered the bottom of the casserole dish with it.

I then lightly fried an onion in vegetable oil. Once soft I put this on top of the potatoes.

The meat was cut into medium chunks and coated in seasoned flour. This was fried in oil and bit of butter until brown and then put into the casserole dish, I also tucked in some large chunks of carrots. I added some (about 1 tbsp) Worcestershire sauce.

This was then covered with more thinly sliced potato. Vegetable stock was poured over, just enough to cover the top of the potatoes. This was then covered and put in the oven for 20 mins at gas mark 6, then turn down the oven to gas mark 1 and cook for 1 hour. The lid was then removed and the oven was turned up to gas mark 6 and it was cooked for a final 20 mins to brown the top.

We had this with some pickled cabbage. This was bought from a deli and we both really liked this, So I will definitely make some.

This was delicious and I expect that we will make many more this winter.

Ketchup

When I went to the Farmer's Market, the weekend before last, I bought 2 kilos of soup tomatoes to make tomato ketchup with. They had been sat in our kitchen for a week before I had to chance to make the ketchup.

I decided to use Jamie Oliver's recipe from Jamie at Home. The first stage is to cook the aromatics in olive oil, these included fennel, red onions, coriander seeds, 1 red chilli, 4 cloves and ginger.


I then added the 2 kilos of tomatoes, which I had chopped, to the pan.


I also added some water. This was brought to the boil and left to simmer until it had reduced by half.

I then pureed this with my stick blender and passed it through a sieve twice. Red wine vinegar and sugar was added and it was then reduced it until it looked like ketchup. This was then poured into sterilised jars.

We will let it mellow for a while and then we will be eating our own ketchup. Andrew wants to try and make Hugh's ketchup. So he might be making some rival ketchup. Watch this space . . .

Thanks to Stonehead and Thumper

Well this weekend has to go down in history - Serena relinquished her vice like grip on the kitchen and I cooked dinner on both Saturday and Sunday night! After an afternoon rock climbing at the local crag at Dumbarton we returned home and I made Jamie Olivers sweet cherry tomato and sausage bake. I've made this several times now and it lovely, just the sort of cooking that I enjoy - one pot simple cooking with loads of favour. We got the both red and yellow tomatoes from the Partick farmers market as well as a large circular veal sausage. This was British veal produced in a very ethical way.
Just as we were leaving the farmers market we stopped to look at a venison stall. To our joy we found that the bloke was also selling rabbit. We have been looking for a source rabbit for ages. We both first tried rabbit in a recent trip to France and loved it, but haven't seen it on sale anywhere over here. So we headed home with a portioned up rabbit trying to think what to do with it? Serena, being the blog reading fiend that she is remember that there was a recipe on Musing of a Stonehead. So after a day pottering around (I'm sure Serena will post about this later) I made an unprecedented second night return to the kitchen.
Both of us were constantly drooling over the pan the rabbit was cooking. It smelt and looked fantastic.
Thinking the bunny might have been a bit long in the tooth as the meat was difficult to get off the bone, but then I guess that's a risk to take with wild game. Still the taste was great. I think rabbit will be hopping into our bag again. Thankyou Mr Stonehead.

Thanks to Jamie and Hugh

I have to say that I love Jamie Oliver, I have most of his books. There is actually one missing from my collection which I am sure with be remedied at some point. When we went to the Farmer's Market I bought some lamb neck fillet, which was only destined for one recipe: Jamie's grilled lamb kofta kebabs from Jamie at Home. I have made this quite a few times now and its lovely. So thats what was for dinner on Sunday.

There was a difference this time as I also made my own tortilla breads for the kebabs. I used a recipe from Hugh's River Cottage Year. He says its basically a pizza base recipe. I left it to rise for an hour before dividing the dough into 8. I then rolled them into what should have been round flatbreads but they were a bit mis-shapen or rustic. All you do is cook them in a dry frying pan for 2-3 mins the first side, popping any air bubbles and for 1 min the other side.


The kebabs are served with salad, onion which has been seasoned and slighty "pickled" in lemon juice. It was served with homemade chips and washed down with a nice red. Thank you Hugh and Jamie.

A wee tipple before bedtime

If anyone starts reading this blog regularly I'm sure they will start to realise that I really like drinks. I don't have a problem, I just really like the feeling of sitting down with you mates and sharing a nice drink and chat. It does have to be alcoholic - there is after all nothing like a good cup of tea...

Anyway, I've gone slightly off track. At the farmers market at the weekend we finally found some British rhubarb on sale (we couldn't believe when our local grocer seemed only to stocked rhubarb from Holland! I thought that Britain had the rhubarb triangle?). We bought the rhubarb to make some liquor, so last night I start the process off. I used a recipe from a book I bought last year called The Alaskan Bootleggers Bible. This is a great book showing how to make all sorts of home brews - I really want to have a go at making cider, but not having an apple tree or the room for a press makes it something for the future. Luckily liquor require little or no space and equipment.

So I chopped up around four stalks of rhubarb and mixed it with a equal volume of sugar and slightly more vodka. This is going to left to steep for about 4 weeks, being shaken everyday. It will then be filtered and left to mature for another 4 weeks. So I'll let you know in June what its like.

Don't worry its not really blue - thats just the bottle!! Its really a pleasant pink colour.

Roast Beef

During the day we went to try and find somewhere for Andrew to climb and for me to hold his rope. But the place we had in mind, we couldn't find the rock face. Sounds stupid, I know, but it's harder than you would think. Especially in a place with loads of rocky outcrops. We went to a place near Aberfoyle, it was a lovely day and I really enjoyable drive.

When we got back I started to prepare the roast dinner. I had been craving one for ages. So I roasted the topside that I got from the Farmers Market. We had all the trimmings, Yorkshire puddings, roast potatoes and parsnips. For veg, we had cauliflower (well I did, Andrew didn't!), red cabbage braised with apple and carrots. We didn't have lunch that day so this was two meals in one. So we ate 12 roast potatoes and 11 Yorkshire puddings. I know that I could have frozen the Yorkshires but we were hungry!!!!

I know that the French called us "les rosbifs" but I don't see how that can be used as a put down. I love roast dinners, especially beef. It reminds me of being a kid but also growing up and learning how to make the components of the meal. If I was told that I had to choose my last meal, it would be a roast dinner hands down. Not that I don't appreciate other countries dishes. I just prefer a good roast dinner.

Farmers Market at last!

I've been counting down the days till this weeks Farmers Market. We haven't be able to go the market for about a month. The meat drawer of our freezer has been getting low and need of re-stocking. I had a massive list but I had to restrain myself. We got to the market nice and early as you can see from the photo.
The first stall I went to was Puddledub Pork, I bought some bacon, bacon bits, pancetta, chorizo sausages and their dubliner sausages. I bought chicken thighs from Gartmorn Farm, I think these are destined for a curry. I bought some lamb neck fillets to make Jamie Oliver's kebabs. Braising steak and topside for roast tomorrow! Smoked haddock, toulouse veal sausage, arran blue and finally rhubarb which will be used to make rhubarb vodka. Here I am at the front of the queue paying for my rhubarb:

After the Farmers Market, I went over to the lab to try and get some more work done. When I do lab work at the weekend I seem to get so much more done. So I managed to prepare enough samples for the next week.

We had a chilled out afternoon. Then pasta with pancetta, leek and mushroom with creme fraiche for dinner. This recipe was taken from Gordon Ramsay's Fast Food Book. Something simple, before a nice Sunday roast dinner tomorrow.

An easy weekend!

We have spent the last few weekends away from home or with people visiting us. So this weekend we decided to take it easy.

Andrew did some work on his thesis and I made some quick visits to the lab, just a couple of hours. Basically to check that the machines were working and to do a small amount of lab work. On Saturday I came back via Kember and Jones with some bread for a cheesey lunch. Normally we would have this kind of lunch with an nice English cider for example Westons or Dunkertons but we wanted to do some work afterwards. The cheeses were Cornish Yarg, Shropshire Blue, Arran Blue and Somerset Brie. With this lunch we had some fennel salami and hazelnut saucisson, also some homemade spicy apple and walnut chutney and Andrew's mum's spicy pickled onions. Yum, yum, yum. I may have a cheese addiction!


We spent the rest of the afternoon chilling out, looking through our theses (or whatever the plural of thesis is!) and watching Britain winning lots of gold medals in the cycling. For dinner that night we had a beef stew made with Guinness, containing carrots, celery, parsnip and swede. We washed it down with Arran Sunset Ale.


Today I popped into the lab to check that everything was ticking over. Andrew continued to work on his thesis. I am wondering what we will do when we finish our PhD's they have been such a big part of our lives. I am sure that we will find something to fill the gap.I made lunch for the next couple of days, a vegetable broth containing swede, carrot, parsnip, cabbage and pearl barley. All I did was slowly fry the veg for 5 mins then added vegetable stock and pearl barley cooked for one and a half hour, adding the cabbage ten minutes from the end.

Dinner tonight was inspired by a blog I read regularly The Cottage Smallholder. Andrew and I try only eat meat that has not been subject to intense farming. We get the majority of ours from Farmers Markets. This means that we can't afford to eat meat everyday. I personally don't think that this its a bad thing. So I made Delia's (before she went to the dark side) vegetarian shepherd's pie. We didn't have the correct beans so we used a tin of pinto beans and also yellow split beans. It was still delicious. This was accompanied with an onion gravy and purple sprouting broccoli. The onion gravy comes from one of my favourite food writers and possibly one of my favourite cookery books. Its from Kitchen Diaries by Nigel Slater. I love this book some much, when I got it for Christmas I read it cover to cover. Nigel writes so beautifully about food. Its a great book!


By the way we will be creating a separate blog for our climbing exploits, so this blog will be purely about our food.

Something Porky

With a couple of my favourite blogs, Musings from a stonehead and The accidental smallholder recently posting pig and pork related posts. Also with the recent news stories about the plight of pig farmers, I decided to have a look for something porky for dinner in the freezer. I had two pork chops which I had got from Puddledub Pork at the Farmers Market. I vaguely remember a recipe in my cutting folders for pork with red cabbage. Which would use some of the red cabbage from last weeks box. The recipe is from good food magazine.



I also made a batch of Hugh F-W's four root vegetable soup to give me the energy to work on my thesis tomorrow. The aim is to finish the current chapter and move onto the next, fingers-crossed. . .

Thesis Writing and Veg Box Delivery

We have been in Scotland for over 3 years. Andrew doing a PhD in Analytical and Environmental Chemistry in Edinburgh and I've been in Glasgow doing a PhD in Nutrition and Food Science. Last August, Andrew and I moved in together in Glasgow. Before that we had been spending our weekends in both cities. We have always enjoyed going to Edinburgh and Partick Farmers Markets. For a while now we have been buying the bulk of our veg from Bellfields Organics. The only problem with this was that the Partick Farmers Market is fortnightly. So we decided to get a weekly box from Bellfields. Last week was the first week.

Andrew got a job as an environmental consultant in January and has written the majority of his thesis. I am in my fourth year of my PhD and have till the end of September to finish my thesis. So I decided to work on my thesis at home on Wednesdays and be there for the delivery of the box.

So I am sat at the computer eating leek and potato soup with soda bread roll made last night. I have made some good progress with my chapter this morning. So I am enjoying my lunch break and thinking about what to cook with the veg that arrived this morning:

• Spring cabbage
• Beetroot
• Parsnips
• Onions
• Carrots
• Swede
• Celeriac
• Potatoes

Unfortunately, I should get back to my battle with Word . . .