Cherry's English Kitchen

In the Bag November - Chestnut & Chicken Supper

So, once again we have reached the point in the year when there is very little natural light and every picture that I take of food has an orange glow to it. Forgive this, it will be better next April!

My entry for this month's In the Bag food event is this Chestnut & Chicken supper. My parents have a sweet chestnut tree in their garden that is around 500 years old, it produces many, many chestnuts each year which I should have had the forethought to grab and use in this dish as I did last year.

However this year I was in my back garden and not theirs so I had to make do with buying some ready shelled chestnuts form my local Waitrose.

Cherry's Chestnut & Chicken Supper

Serves two

Break up several pieces of day old french stick or chunky white bread and dry fry for two mins on a medium heat. Then place the bite sized pieces in to a large mixing bowl. Drizzle the bread pieces in EV olive oil, mince one clove of garlic on to the pieces and add a few grinds of the pepper mill. Stir well, coating the bread in the oil, garlic and pepper and set to one side.

Gently fry 100g of chestnuts, broken up in to much smaller pieces but not crumbs, 1 red pepper, chopped in to smallish pieces,  50g of sliced chorizo, half a de-seeded red chili (finely chopped ) in olive oil for about 7 mins on a medium heat. Add 50g of pre-cooked chicken that you have shredded with your fingers in to finer pieces. This meal is perfect for a Monday night after you have had a roast chicken for Sunday lunch.

When the oil form the chorizo is covering the other ingredients, the peppers have softened a little and the chicken is cooked through (again) tip the whole lot into the bowl with the previously garlicked pieces of bread. Add 100g of cooked cous-cous  and a small bunch of fresh coriander, chopped with kitchen scissors finely and  mix everything together well.

Place a bed of baby spinach onto a plate, serve the ous-cous dish on top of the spinach and drizzle the lot with my homemade dressing.

A little bit about the dressing.

I use this dressing almost every day and always have a drizzler full of the stuff on the go in my fridge. I simply top it up from time to time depending on what ingredients it needs. Here is a very, sorry, SUPER rough guide to making a dressing that goes with pretty much everything.

Pour three inches of EV Olive Oil in to a receptacle that is good for pouring with ( told it was a rough guide), add two teaspoons of Dijon mustard, one and a half inches of balsamic vinegar, one sugar cube, one clove of garlic (minced) and one inch of lemon juice. Shake well, pour some onto the back of your hand, lick it off and decide whether to add more of something or leave it just the way it is.

Enjoy.

Cherry

Cherry's Christmas Kitchen Cooking - Part One

I found, what I thought, was a super recipe for homemade sausage rolls in a copy of Easy Living magazine. The recipe was by Jamie, whose cooking I love and adore, but as LBH, his mum and I began to put the recipe together this past Saturday we found ourselves going 'off piste' and making our own recipe up. I think this is a good thing to do and something that I think Mr Oliver would encourage. He wants us to be in the kitchen, cooking up delicious homemade treats for our family to eat and not popping down to the local freezer to buy sausage rolls that contain all sorts of nasties and, lets be honest, look like a cat's bottom if you eat them side on!

The one thing we noticed, well LBH's mum noticed, was that after cooking these delicious morsels, there was almost no fat swilling about in the baking tray. I've never had that with shop bought sausage rolls. Bleugh!

Cherry's Version of Jamie's Sausage Rolls

Makes 60 (bite sized)

Chop 1 red onion into very small pieces and soften down in a pan, on a low heat and with a little olive oil for about 15 mins. While you're doing this squeeze the meat out from 1 packet of 6 chunky sausages into a mixing bowl (weight of packet is usually 400 grams). I used Duchy's pork sausages you can see a picture of the exact type I used right here. It is very important to me to use free range / organic pork. The pork industry has been overlooked in the past but I do not want to eat an animal that has been stuck in a concrete pen for all of it's life. Besides, the meat it produces would taste of nothing but unhappiness.

Once you have the sausage meat in the bowl, discard the skins and add to the bowl - 1 teaspoon of ground fennel seeds ( buy the seeds whole but grind them yourself using pestle and mortar), 5 fresh sage leaves (chopped using kitchen scissors into tiny pieces over the bowl), 1 large pinch of ground nutmeg, 20g of white breadcrumbs and 1 large free range/organic egg. Allow the onion to cool slightly before putting into the bowl with the rest of the ingredients. Mix the whole lot together using your hands. Yes it squelches and makes a funny noise but you have to get each and every ingredient mixed well together and bound up. You don't want huge amounts of onion residing in one tiny sausage roll!

Set the bowl to one side.

Take 1 packet of good quality shop bought puff pastry - 500g ( you'll need two and half packets in total). Cut one block in half and place one half on a clean, lightly floured surface. Work quickly, keeping the pastry as cool as possible. Roll the half block out until you have a long rectangular shape that is about the thickness of a dinner plate. Cut that piece length ways until you have two, snakelike strips of pastry. Place sausage meat all along the middle of one length of pastry, ensuring that you don't overload the strip or the meat may squelch out while cooking, be sensible with the amount you put in. When you have done that brush the other strip with beaten egg and place that strip over the top of the strip holding the sausage meat. Wrap it carefully around the meat, sealing it with a fork and manipulating the pastry at the ends so that it is all contained in a neat little, long parcel.

Paint the outside of the long parcel with beaten egg and sprinkle with poppy seeds or sesame seeds. It should look like this.......

Using a sharp, medium sized knife, slice the pastry snake into pieces that are slightly bigger than bite sized and place them on a baking tray in a hot oven ( 200 degrees c) for between 25 and 27 mins, keep an eye on them.

If you want to freeze them for your Christmas Day Supper (as I am) do as Jamie says and place them in the freezer, uncooked, while on a baking tray. Once frozen you can transfer them to a freezer bag while and they will retain their shape. Defrost thoroughly before cooking, mind you!

Enjoy, we did. In fact, I had to make an extra batch on Saturday as our 'tasting' batch seemed to disappear! Hmmmmm, Christmas!

Pumpkin & Pancetta Risotto - which is also heavy on the black pepper

My entry for this months In The Bag - Cooking the month of October food blog event, hosted this time around by the delicious Julia is a risotto. The risotto itself is totally delicious and I am/was very pleased with it. But it appears that I was so pleased with it that LBH and I consumed both portions before I remembered that I had to photograph the beast as proof that I had actually tried the dish. My profuse apologies, but there is no photographic evidence of this dish and it feels like we are going back to the good old days of cookery books with no pictures. I'm convinced that they didn't add a picture of the dish if it didn't work.

Anyway, this risotto did work, I promise and it is my entry for this months event.

Cherry's Pumpkin & Pancetta Risotto - which is also heavy on the black pepper

Serves two

Finely chop 1 golden onion & mince 1 clove of garlic. Add to your risotto pan along with 70g of cubed pancetta and add a tablespoon of olive oil. Heat gently and soften these ingredients down.

Hollow out 1 small or medium sized pumpkin and grate or finely chop the flesh, leaving out the seeds and stringy bits that you are bound to come across. Put the pumpkin flesh to one side.

Chop, using scissors, 10 fresh sage leaves into small pieces over the risotto pan, adding them to the onions, pancetta et al. Then add 250g of risotto rice to the pan, mixing well until the rice is almost glassy in it's appearance, this should take about 90 seconds on a medium heat. Tip in the grated pumpkin at this time and give the whole pan a good stir.

Add 4 ladles of vegetable stock (you will need 600ml of stock in total) and then lower the heat so that your risotto begins to simmer. Add a twist of salt and a whole heap of freshly ground black pepper at this stage, about 8-10 twists of the pepper mill. Continue to add the stock, ladle by ladle, when the rice soaks it up. Test the rice after about 15 mins to see whether it is cooked or still crunchy. Do make sure that you don't let the rice become one big mushy mess by over cooking however! If you run out of vegetable stock before the rice has cooked then simply add tablespoons of water.

When you are certain that the rice is cooked to your liking add 2 heaped tablespoons of freshly grated Parmesan. Mix well and serve immediately, piping hot and straight from pan to plate. I don't add more cheese than this as the sage and pancetta are more than tasty enough so you don't want to mask these flavours with lots of cheese.

Enjoy this risotto, we did! I promise that next time I make it I shall post a picture for all to see.

This has been my entry for In The Bag - Cooking the month of October. Hosted by myself Cherry Menlove, A Slice of Cherry Pie & The Real Epicurian

 

Back In An Abundant Kitchen

 

The gloves are off and I am now back in the kitchen. No longer do I have building, renovating or decorating to hold me back. And, although I have essentially missed the entire Summer and it's produce, I know have the bountiful harvest that Autumn will bring to get my hands, teeth and recipe head around.

The picture above shows only A FEW items from the food shop I did today that are British. The rest I had already put away before remembering to photograph. But, if anybody ever tells you that we have a limited supply of food with which to cook in this wonderful country of ours, you just send them my way. I'll be the one in my cosy kitchen with radio four on in the background. If you see some ugly tiles on the wall you'll know you're in the right place!

Cherry Menlove

In The Bag : July

 

One of my favourite rice dishes in the world is the Thai Green Curry. But, and this is a big but, I am still working on a sauce that tastes as good to me as some of the shop bought sauces.  So when I knew that the ingredients in the bag for this months food event were aubergine (egg plant), peppers & basil I was convinced that I would finally create a sauce that floated my boat. It didn't happen. I have no idea why. Perhaps it's because we have work being done on our kitchen or maybe I am simply not getting the quantities right.

Maybe I can't cook at all but I doubt that very much!!!!!

;-)

So here for you is still a work in progress. I added chicken as I had some chicken that I wanted to use and not freeze but it is still delicious as a veggie option, just add the entire aubergine and not only half of it.

WIP : Cherry's Green Curry
Serves 2

Chop one green bell pepper into tiny pieces and do the same to half a large aubergine. Add to a large pan with some olive oil. Chop two chicken breasts into the pan and turn the heat down low. If you are keeping the curry vegetarian then add the rest of the aubergine but add it in bite sized chunks as opposed to chopping it up super small, as you have done with the first half.

Soften the vegetables and cook the meat without browning it and after about 12 mins add the sauce that you have either prepared (ahem!!) or bought. Place your rice or noodles on the boil and when they are cooked serve on to warm plates with chopsticks.

Before allowing yourself or a guest to tuck in to the curry tear some fresh basil leaves from the plant and place on top of the dish. I kept the basil plant on the table during supper and found my self regularly going back to the plant and ripping leaf after leaf from it. Divine.

I will continue to cook up my own, definitive green curry sauce and shall share it with you as soon as I am satisfied. Perhaps it will come with arrival of my new worktop.

Here's hoping!

Cherry Menlove 

A Hustle & A Bustle

I've been waiting for this and at last it arrived. A full day in the kitchen. A day when dishes were prepared, consumed, stored for later use and the foodie foundations for the upcoming weeks were laid.

It was about three weeks ago that I had this delightful day but I am only just getting around to posting about it. I had to fit it in as soon as I could as we are doing some work on our kitchen and before I know it the counter tops will be wrenched out and who knows when the space will be workable again.

Anyway, it was super day and I can't wait until another one pops it's head around the corner.

We prepped for a mammoth jam making session.....

...using ingredients that have the WI's approval of course......

....while the Strawb's began to ready themselves........

.....LBH's mother very kindly prepped a chicken for me. We chilled or froze the pieces and turned the bones into a stock that would add flavour and depth to a risotto I had brewing in the back of my mind......

......I started on the lunch, using some Scottish lamb from our local butchers......

....and of course this little contraption got lots of use......

....we started on a fresh berry dessert that was meant to be a giant cake of sorts but ended up looking much more like Eton Mess....

.....which reminds me I really do need to get around to ordering a new whisk attachment for my mixer. This way hurts the arm......

 

.....the jam was coming along nicely......

 

....and the stock was ready to be frozen and kept until needed.....

 

....the lamb was finally tender and the lunch delicious. A new recipe of mine that I'm rather pleased with.....

 

.....and so, after all that I knew I had a sofa and a television that was waiting for me to plop down onto and exhale. The carnage can be cleaned up later. The work was done, the food had been consumed. It was now time to rest, it was a Sunday after all.

In The Bag : June

My entry is this fella....

I was having a bake/cook fest in my kitchen with my future mother - in - law on Sunday and as well as stock, desserts and many pots of jam I made this........

I used a pound and a half of cubed Scottish lamb, a large handful of chopped coriander, a large handful of chopped mint, a small punnet of English cherry tomatoes, a few knobs of butter and lots of seasoning. I put it all in to a shallow roasting dish, drizzled it with olive oil and added my broad beans and Anya potatoes. Now I par boiled a large bag of broad beans first and squeezed off the outer pod to reveal the bright green fleshy inside before adding them to the roasting pan and I also par boiled my new potatoes too. I the drizzled 125ml of water into the pan and baked the whole lot in the oven at 180c for one hour and thirty mins. Keep an eye on the dish making sure that it stays moist and that it doesn't dry out. If you find that your lamb is not tender after 90 minutes then simply leave it in a little longer.

And there you have it, what a super round up. We are still discussing what will be in the bag for July but perhaps it should be something veggie or fruity?!?!?!? I'll let you know what we all decide!

Cherry Menlove

Cherry's Fresh Cherry Pie

I have always been rather afraid of pies. Thinking, incorrectly, that they were super hard to make or at least to get right. But I'm discovering that in actual fact a pie is constructed in a very similar way to a stew. Which in my head equates to creating or providing a receptacle for a whole bunch of ingredients that taste wonderful when put together, adding a lid or a top and baking the whole lot in the oven for a certain period of time.

With this in mind I set about making my own version of the classic Cherry Pie. Using fresh cherries and adding crunch and texture by a sprinkling of baked almonds on the top.

Take enough shortcrust pastry (shop bought or home made) to line the bottom and sides of your pie dish while leaving enough to form a lattice pattern on top. I rushed the lattice on mine as I was peckish at the time and really should have made some more pastry. De-stone enough fresh cherries ( a large punnet or a generous sized paper bag full) to cover the bottom of the pie dish, one layer of cherries deep. Add two thirds of a tin of tapioca to a separate bowl along with one tablespoon of caster/baking sugar, three drops of a very good quality almond essence and two drops of a good quality vanilla essence and mix well. Pour the mixture over the cherries and add some semblance of a lattice top (ahem!!). Brush the top with egg and sprinkle a large handful of flaked almonds on to the top of the pie.

Bake in the middle of your oven at 180c for the first thirty mins and 200c for the last thirty mins. Keep a good eye on the pie as you don't want it to burn in the last twenty minutes but at the same time you'll want it to be browned to perfection when you cut through the top of it. You should also keep an eye on the pie overspilling when it heats up and covering your over floor with cherry mixture. It's a pain to have to remove!

Serve with ice cream or cream of a variety that suits your fancy or custard of course. But I prefer to leave custard until the days are shorter.

Pie. It's good for the soul and doesn't last long!!!!!!!!!!

I should remind you that it's the last day(s) of this months In The Bag blog event. Please get your entries in to me by the end of the weekend at the very latest.

Perfection?

There seems to be a great deal of talk at the moment about obtaining perfection in your cooking. That's a tad difficult for me to swallow (pun intended) as food and how it tastes to us as individuals is completely subjective.

So all I can do is to tell you a way of preparing things and cooking/baking them that works for me. That pleases MY taste buds, if you also like the dish then I am glad. But you may have a way of doing things that works much better for you and I would encourage you to stick to it. We need adventure and courage in the kitchen to get us out of the ready meal rut that unfortunately we still languish in as a society. Although it looks like, even in this, that the worm is starting to turn.

So in this post I'll take you through how I roast tomatoes in a way that works the best FOR ME and I can sum it up in one word......slowly!

I put these Vittoria vine toms in to my oven drizzled in EV Olive Oil and a few good grinds of the black pepper mill and left them for about 90 mins on 150c.

I then served them with some baked cod and puy lentils. Now that is perfection!

KIDDING!!!!!!

Today and tomorrow are the last days to get your In The Bag recipes in to me. See the post below this one for all the details!!

In The Bag : Cooking the month of June

Woo hoo, I'm hosting my first ever food blogging event. Yes, it's my turn to have a go at the 'In the Bag' event that myself, Julia & Scott run. In coming up with the idea for 'ITB' all three of us felt that it was important to focus on seasonal and local produce. This does not mean that if you are in a part of the world where one of the chosen foods is not in season that you are excluded. No, no, no!!! Simply substitute it with something as close as you can get to the item that we have chosen.

And now for the items that are in our bag this month.........

Lamb

Broad Beans

Baby or New Season Potatoes

Hmmmmmm, now I know how tempting it will be for us all to do some summer spin off on the traditional roast but lets try and get creative with the ingreeds listed people. It's sometimes harder to come up with a new dish using trusted favourites but I for one am going to give it a go.

Have wonderful fun and please feel free to email me with any questions at cherry(at)cherrymenlove dot com

Entry Details
Send an email with ‘In the Bag in the subject line to cherry(at)cherrymenlove dot com by Friday 29th June with the following information:

• your name
• the name of your blog
• a link to your post
• the name of your dish
• a picture of your dish

Rules
Here are the rather loose rules - remember the objective is to have fun whilst highlighting seasonal food:

1. Entries must use (or attempt to use) all of the ingredients "in the bag" for that particular month. The dish should be based around the seasonal ingredient, rather then just including it as an afterthought.

2. Participants can include any "extra" ingredients that they see fit.

3. Entries should include a link back to the host for that month, and the post should be tagged "in the bag" and "itb". Use of the "In The Bag" logo is allowed (and encouraged) but not required. Please email me at the above address should you like an electronic version sending to you.

4. Entries can be written any time during the month, as long as the URL is emailed to that month's host before the round up date.

5. Participants from outside of the UK are most welcome to join in and substitute an item from their own local seasonal produce if necessary.

That's all! Any deviations from the above are at the discretion of the host. Have fun!

The best thing about hosting the event during this particular month is that I get to announce the arrival of my favorite summertime foodie friend......

Yep, the broad bean is back!!!!!

Long live the bean.....well until August at least!

"In The Bag" is a food even ran monthly by Real Epicurean, A Slice of Cherry Pie, and Cherry's English Kitchen.