Foooooood

Yummy!

We had a visitor for Sunday lunch, and I made the ever-popular Upside-Down Chicken which is basically beer can chicken (I use the AGA recipe I got from the American Grassfed Association, looks like the link is dead at the moment) using a pottery megafter some friends made for us.

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Pioneer Woman posted a recipe for Sweet-Roasted Rosemary Acorn Squash Wedges and she made it sound so nice that I had to try it. Couldn’t find Acorn Squash, used Hubbard Squash instead. ’twas good, but I ended up with quite a bit left over.

Meanwhile, we’re in a USA frame of mind (thinking of visiting) and with Halloween coming up and all, someone mentioned pumpkin pie. So I made pumpkin pie, using the first recipe I Googled across.

And it’s good!

But I suspect Vanilla Basil‘s recipe for A Not-So-Pumpkin Pie might be better.

Meanwhile we’ve been in the house for a year and we still don’t have a door on the master bedroom. Eish. We do have a new front door though.

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2009-10-27 by Foooooood House 0

Chicken-less a la King

… is what happens if you have a vegetarian daughter :-)

A while ago I poached a chicken. Stuck the meat in the freezer. Took it out this morning, figuring it was time.

Started with this recipe. Modified it, as always.

Black pot. Melt some butter, add one chopped green pepper and one punnet of mushrooms, sliced, Wait for it to draw water, add a few shakes flour (’bout a quarter cup, maybe). Add salt and pepper, and about a teaspoon of English mustard powder.

Add 250 ml of cream, stirring all the time. Add a cup of chicken stock (the Ina Paarman stock powder is vegetarian¹), stirring all the time. Add about two tablespoons of cider vinegar.

Mix some cold water with some Maizena in a cup, add to pot while stirring.

Add about four spring onions, sliced.

You now have a nice thick sauce, so go play on the computer a bit while someone else cooks some rice and veggies.

Add half a tin’s worth of pimiento, sliced. Stir through, remove enough for said vegetarian daughter to bowl. Add chicken, sliced into bite-sized bits for people with small mouths. Heat through.

Enjoy.

¹ : And Kosher, Parev and Halaal — and it actually tastes good. It’s a miracle, I tell you!

2009-10-07 by Foooooood 0

On the changing of seasons

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Our lime tree reminds me that we’ve been in the house for almost a year.

Meanwhile, it’s still cold and wet enough for Coq au Vin. My recipe is loosely based on Nigel Slater… loosely. But read what he has to say, it’s gospel.

I use drumsticks and thighs. A big pack, four drumsticks, four thighs, for four people.

For starters, peel about two dozen little onions (pickle onions, or whatever they’re sold as). Stick them on end in a black pot, with a bit of oil, and slowly caramelise. Turn them around, do the other side, etc. Remove to a plate.

Then the mushrooms — fry a punnet of white button or portbellinis in a bit of butter, remove to a plate.

Then fry bacon of some type. I use the thick rashers, cut into thin strips. Remove to a plate.

Now fry the chicken, in batches. I normally pull the skin off the thighs once it’s fried up enough to come loose easily. Remove to a plate.

Meanwhile you had a chance to chop up  a large onion, three or four carrots, and a stick of celery. And don’t forget the garlic. Stick that all in the pot for a while.

By now you’ll have a lot of gunk on the bottom of the pot, so open that bottle of red and deglaze. I like to use a cheap fruity red from the Worcester area — something that would never win awards but goes down well.

Put the chicken back in the pot, pour the rest of the wine in, add whatever herbs you fancy (a bouquet garni is a good idea). I generally find there’s no room for stock in the pot, but I guess you can toss in a stock cube if you want to (this is how I do it, please don’t blame Nigel Slater). Also add the onions and bacon back in at this stage.

When it starts looking almost done, put the mushrooms in.

Serve with mash. Lots of mash.

2009-09-09 by Foooooood 0

Gnocchi

This is a recipe from Jamie, which I scribbled down from a book my mom had. Simple, but great, especially if you have a vegetarian daughter who lurves mushrooms.

Thinly slice a punnet of brown mushrooms, fry in oil, add salt, pepper, maybe a bit of marjoram or rosemary, maybe a bit of chilli powder. Add one cup vegetable stock, bring to boil.

Meanwhile, boil a pot of water with a lot of salt, then slowly (as to not douse the boil) add gnocchi. When they float, remove with slotty spoon, add to mushroom sauce.

And that’s it. OK, you can add a couple of tablespoons of Creme Fraiche if you’re feeling decadent.

2009-08-13 by Foooooood 1

A Tale of two Quiches

On the left, Liz’ Self-Crusting Corn Quiche (thanks, Stuart, appreciated) and on the right, Brigid’s Bacon Cheddar Quiche.

Two quiches, because we have a vegetarian in the family.

For the corn quiche, I used two mielies, microwaved for a few minutes. I also nuked the potatoes at the same time. Next time, I’ll caramelise the onion (make that “onions” — I’ll use two).

Of course, I can’t improve on Brigid’s recipe, what’s to improve on a recipe that uses a pound of bacon and a cup of cream? (I don’t know where to get half-and-half. I had cream left over. So there. Deal with it, arteries, deal). The crust is commercial puff pastry, and it works well.

2009-05-28 by Foooooood 1

Chicken soup with a soul

A.K.A. Mexican Chili, lime and chicken soup, straight from Lex Culinaria.

A while ago (actually, months ago) I cooked up a pot of chicken stock. I’d saved the leftover bones and bits from braai-ed marinaded flat chickens, three of them. Flat chickens are cheap and lekker, and the leftover bits make great stock.

I defrosted the pot (yea, I stuck the whole pot in the freezer, I was out of containers…) of stock, used it for the mushroom soup. There was about a litre left over, so last night I tried Lex’ recipe.

And it rocks.

A while ago (actually, months ago) I bought a polystyrene tray of mixed chillies. Yes, I stuck it in the freezer too. Gotta love a deep freeze. Out of this I pulled what looks a bit like a pimento, but completely round, and a little yellow triangular thing which looks a bit like a Santa Fe, but which might be Praire Fire, according to Chile Head. Gads, I need a book on identifying chillies. I also bought, last weekend, a long yellow something that tastes more like a sweet pepper than a chilli. Anyway, used half of one, half of the other, and the whole yellow thing, because Tanya also wanted some soup, and she’s not as accustomed to the hot stuff as I am. Removed the pips, of course.

For the rest, pretty much followed the recipe.

Now I need to try to propagate chillies from once frozen seeds. Because I really liked the taste of this mix.

2009-05-27 by Foooooood 0

Soup evening

We invited some people over, and with winter fast setting in, soup was on the menu.

Tanya felt like a mushroom soup, and I thought to make Irish Potato Soup with Bacon and Vegetables again (I found some more leftover turkey stock, yay!). But then Viv (visitor from PE) suggested three bean soup. So I climbed into the pantry cupboard and emerged with butter beans, small white beans, black eye beans, red speckled beans, and fava beans. OK, five bean soup then.

Viv having fun.

I made a mushroom soup recipe from RecipeZaar, using brown, portbellini and button mushrooms, and it was good. I also had lots of mushrooms left over, supper tonight is Mushroom Bourguignon (which I’ve made before — highly recommended).

2009-05-25 by Foooooood 1

Sunday at home

Last Sunday I decided that I had to get my lazy bum in gear and finish the kitchen wiring.

Before and after. I built a 3 way multiplug into the appliance garage so we can leave the stuff plugged in, just pull it out to use it.

The plugpoint on the left is special. I originally bought it to use it in the bathroom, because hair dryers etc often have two pin plugs. But Tanya’s hair dryer has the “euro” connector that doesn’t fit into that socket. So I swapped a single socket into the bathroom and put this one here so that I can plug the wall-wart to charge the bamix.

All of this took longer than expected, and since I had been monopolising the kitchen the munchkins were hungry.

So Tamsyn made french toast. Using three eggs per person, so we had scrambled egg afterwards :-)

And we started a batch of ice cream but that will be the subject of another post.

Supper was my stoo on the left and vegetarian parsnip stew on the right. Both were great.

2009-05-19 by Foooooood House 1

Nom!

I’ve made this recipe for “Irish Potato Soup with Bacon and Vegetables” before, and it was great, but the one I made last night possessed some serious nom.

It all started with a R9.99 soup pack from the Fruit & Veg. For those not in the know, this is a styrofoam package containing one onion, one potato, two carrots, one leek, one turnip, one tomato, and a whole bunch of parsley and celery. I think they make quite a good profit on it, but… it’s convenient.

Dragged out my recipe file, found this recipe, made it my way (I hate dirtying more than one pot, thence the sequence).

Fry half a packet of bacon in a black pot until very crispy. And I mean very. Remove bacon.

Fry one diced onion and one leek, cut lengthwise and sliced, in bacon fat. Add some white wine (I used italian bubbly, because it’s too sweet to drink and I didn’t want to waste it) to deglaze the pot. Add a heaped teaspoon “spicy” curry powder. Wait for wine to cook away, remove mix from pot.

Fry about 8 potatoes, diced, two carrots, sliced, and one turnip, diced.

Now this is where the magic started. Last Christmas, I brined a turkey in apple vinegar. This was not that great a success at the time, although the vinegary meat was damngood on sandwiches. I (as always) cooked stock using the leftover bits, and I still had about 500ml of this stock left over. That went into the soup.

I also collect vegetable leftovers into a container, cook stock now and then. I used about 200ml of my last batch of vegetable stock.

And then I just simmered all of this for around an hour, mushing some of it with a potato masher about three quarters through the process.

When I tasted this it was a bit thin, so I added five drops of fish sauce (!) and some garlic salt.

Then the onions went back in, I added 2/3 of a container of cream (left over from a previous recipe) and of course the bacon went in when serving. Didn’t bother with the nutmeg or spring onions.

Some serious nomming of soup and garlic ciabbatas (also from Fruit & Veg) ensued.

Today, I’m poaching a chicken… hafta use the left-over celery.

2009-05-02 by Foooooood 2

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