APPLE STRUDEL

My husband loves any dessert made with apples. Today I made a simple apple strudel. I have made strudel pastry in the past but today I used Filo Pastry for speed. Homemade strudel pastry is time consuming though worth the effort!

INGREDIENTS

Pack of filo pastry

Melted butter

Cooking apples

Caster sugar

Lemon juice and grated zest

Cinnamon

Ground Almonds or breadcrumbs

Sultanas (optional)

METHOD

Prepare the apples and place in a bowl, add the sugar, cinnamon, lemon juice and grated zest. Stir well.

Add the ground almonds or breadcrumbs and sultanas, if using.

Set aside whilst you prepare the pastry.

Melt the butter in a small saucepan and brush the sheets of pastry with the melted butter.

I used a tranche tin and lined the base and sides with three sheets of buttered pastry, leaving the excess overhanging the edges.

Place the prepared filling on top of the pastry and fold the excess pastry over the top.

Butter a further two or three sheets of pastry and fold over the top.

Bake in a hot oven 210C for ten minutes then reduce the temperature to 180C and cover with foil to prevent over browning.

When the apple is cooked (pierce with a skewer to test) remove from the oven and sieve icing sugar over the top.

Serve sliced with clotted, double cream or vanilla custard.

Delicious! Enjoy.

Curried Parsnip and Apple Soup

At this time of year when the parsnips are in season and the apples are at their best,  I love to make a 'winter warmer' soup - curried parsnip and apple.

You need:

Onion
Garlic clove
Parsnips
Cooking apples
Vegetable or chicken stock (Bouillion or stock cubes are fine)
Curry paste (I use Rogan Josh)
A little sunflower oil or butter

Method

Prepare the vegetables and fruit
Heat a little oil or butter in a large pan
Add the onion and garlic and sweat with a lid on the pan
Add the chopped parsnips and continue to sweat for about ten minutes
Stir in a rounded teaspoon of curry paste
Add the chopped apple
Pour over approximately two litres of hot stock and bring to a simmering point
Simmer gently until the parsnips etc are soft
Use a blender stick to puree the vegetables
Stir gently
Serve with a swirl of cream or yogurt

PRESSED OX TONGUE

My local butcher was offering two salted ox tongues for £10.  I thought this was good value and bought two, one to cook and one for the freezer. It is good to revive some of these traditional recipes. Tongue is easy to prepare and cook and tastes delicious.

Method

Wash the salted tongue under the cold tap to remove excess salt.

Ready to Cook

Place in a deep pan with an onion, carrot, bay leaves, celery stick and black peppercorns.

Cover with cold water and bring to simmering point.

Bringing up to a simmer

Remove any scum which rises to the top.

Place a lid on the pan and simmer gently until tender when pierced with a fork.

Ready to remove the skin

Leave to cool in the liquid until cool enough to handle. Remove the string and then peel off the coarse skin and cut away the gristle on the underside.

If you are lucky enough to have a tongue press you can curl the tongue into this.  I like to improvise and use a small saucepan or a small souffle dish.  Curl the tongue into a circle, secure with a small skewer and ease it into your pan or dish.  Reduce the stock and pour some over the tongue.

Curled into a dish

Weighed down to press the tongue

  Place a saucer or plate on top of the tongue and weigh it down with weights to press the tongue.
When cold, place in the refrigerator to chill over night.

The pressed tongue

Turn out on to a serving plate.

You will see that the stock has formed a jelly, remove any excess and the tongue is ready to serve.

Ready to Serve

 

This is delicious as part of a celebration buffet table or served with jacket potatoes, salad and pickles or in sandwiches with mustard.  Enjoy!

Why not be part of this revival of old English dishes?

VANILLA PANNA COTTA WITH POACHED PLUMS

Whilst we were in Dublin we visited a delightful restaurant and enjoyed a wonderful dessert. It was a Panna Cotta with plums poached in spices and red wine.

Today, I made a version of this dessert. There were several elements to it........ panna cotta, poached plums, honeycomb, crunchy almonds and ice cream.  I made a vanilla panna cotta and let it set in individual glass bowls and then added the toppings just before serving.



The honeycomb cooling before chopping



To make life easier, I made the honeycomb and crunchy almonds yesterday and

stored them in an airtight

container.

Crunchy Almonds cooling

I also poached the plums in a red wine syrup with spices and allowed that to take up the flavours over night.



The quartered plums simmering in the red wine syrup






To serve I sprinkled the panna cotta with honeycomb then placed a scoop of ice cream in the centre surrounded by the poached plums. This was topped with the crunchy almonds.

Delicious! Heaven on a plate!

PARSLEY FOR THE FREEZER

I have picked a lot of parsley from the garden and prepared it for the freezer. It will be very useful in the winter to take out to add to sauces, dumplings, fish cakes, stuffings etc.

After washing and removing the stalks of the parsley I packed it into polythene bags, labelled and dated them and popped them into the freezer. 
The parsley can be used direct from the freezer. 

BAKED APPLE

We have a lovely Bramley Seedling Apple tree in our back garden.  I have just picked two large apples to bake.

Method

Wash the apple.
Remove the core with a corer or potato peeler
Cut a ring of peel around the centre
Stuff the core cavity with a mixture of muscovado sugar, raisins, sultanas and cinnamon
Place the stuffed apples in a baking dish
Dot with a generous knob of butter
Put a little water in the base of the dish
Bake in a moderate oven for approximately 30 minutes

The sugar, butter and water will make a lovely sticky syrup during cooking.

The syrupy juice gives the baked apple a wonderful flavour.

Serve with pouring custard, clotted or double cream

Delicious!

BEETROOT

This morning I pulled the last of the beetroot from my vegetable patch. The recent rain has swelled the roots. The size varied from baby beets to large.

Beetroot fresh from the garden

To cook

Wash the roots to remove soil.
Cut off the leaves to within approximately 2 cm of the root (Too close and they will 'bleed')
Pop the beets into a saucepan and top up with cold water to cover.
Simmer gently for about half an hour.
Allow to cool in the pan.
Rub off the skin and remaining stalks.
Slice thickly.

They can be eaten as they are or with a little vinegar.  I find Malt Vinegar is too harsh and prefer to use Balsamic Vinegar.  Serve with salad and/or cold meats and cheeses. 

CURLED PARSLEY

My crop of parsley is prolific. 

Since the recent rainfall it is grown extremely well.  I use it to add to soups, stuffings, dumplings and sauces.  If it is cut regularly it will put out new growth quite quickly.  Tomorrow I will cut back a lot of it to freeze.  It freezes extremely well.

Method

Wash the parsley - put in a colander and run the cold tap through it.

Holding the parsley by the stems, shake it well to remove excess water.

Remove the large stems.

There is no need to chop it.

Pack the parsley in small polythene freezer bags.  Date and label.

Pop into the freezer.

Use

When making parsley sauce, herb dumplings, stuffings etc. just take out the amount you need.  The process of freezing will have broken it up.  Scrunch the bag a little in your hand to make it finer before using.

I hope to have enough fresh herbs in my garden to make the Christmas stuffings but I can always supplement it with the frozen herbs, if necessary.  They retain their flavour and colour frozen this way.

ROAST CORN FED FREE RANGE CHICKEN

For our Sunday Roast I bought a lovely corn fed free range chicken.  It looks so different from the white tasteless chicken you see sitting on the supermarket shelves!  Although it is considerably more expensive than the run of the mill supermarket chicken it is worth every penny.  The flavour will be totally unsurpassed.  For the stuffing I used wholemeal breadcrumbs, chopped parsley and thyme, finely chopped shallot and lemon peel.  I mixed this well with a little boiling water and seasoned with salt and freshly ground black pepper and a good knob of butter.  Rather than stuff the bird, I made stuffing balls to cook separately.

To prepare the chicken for the oven I wiped the cavity with kitchen roll then smeared butter across the breast before seasoning well with salt and pepper. Two rashers of back bacon were laid on the breast to keep it moist and to add flavour.  In the bottom of the roasting pan I placed a quartered onion, clove of garlic, pieces of carrot and celery then placed the bird on top.  This adds to the flavour and will be used to make and enrich the gravy.



The chicken on a bed of vegetables in the oven



When the chicken was cooked I removed it from the oven and left it to rest for fifteen minutes (covered lightly with foil).  This makes it easier to carve.

Remove from pan and leave to rest

To make the gravy.

Pour off the fat and make the gravy
in this pan

Pour off most of the fat from the roasting pan and stir in a tablespoon of plain flour.  Stir over a gentle heat until the flour has absorbed the juices, gradually add hot stock stirring all the time. The vegetables cooked under the chicken can either be removed or mashed/sieved into the gravy.  They give a wonderful flavour as they will have caramelized during the time the chicken was roasting.

I used potatoes, shallot,  parsley and thyme from the garden and  picked the last of the runner beans. It is wonderful to be able to gather the fresh herbs and use them immediately.

Chicken removed from the oven

I served the roasted chicken with the stuffing balls, cocktail sausages, roast potatoes, runner beans and cauliflower. Accompanied by the delicious gravy.

Wonderful!

For dessert I made a traditional Devonshire dish, Junket and Devonshire clotted cream.  Junket is simplicity itself to make. Just heat some milk with sugar to taste until steam rises from the pan, pour into individual bowls and stir in one teaspoonful of rennet*.  Leave to cool and set - about half an hour.  Serve with grated nutmeg on the top and clotted or double cream.  Yummy!

Devonshire Junket and Clotted Cream

* Rennet can be purchased from the Chemist (Stones essence of rennet).  This is what is used to make the curds in cheese making.

LAMB CUTLETS

Arrange the cutlets in a small baking pan along with a finely chopped onion and one or two chopped cloves of garlic. Drizzle with a little cooking oil and pop into a hot oven.  Prepare some potatoes and cut into slices.  Parboil for five minutes and add them to the pan.  Cook until the cutlets are tender and the potatoes are browning. Add some gravy to the pan and allow to bubble and absorb the juices.  Serve with a green vegetable.

I served this with peas and home made mint jelly.

This was a quick and easy meal to prepare whilst I was baking. 

APPLE TART

Our Bramley Apple tree has an abundant crop of apples this year. I have used some today to make an Apple Tart with home made shortcrust pastry.

For the Pastry

400g/1 lb Flour
100g/4 oz butter
100g/4 oz lard
pinch of salt
cold water

I prefer to use SR Flour to plain as it makes a deliciously short pastry. The use of butter adds flavour and the lard gives shortness. You can use all butter, if preferred.

This amount of pastry makes one or two (depends on the size) apple tarts and a large jam tart.

Method

Prepare the apples and pile onto an ovenproof plate or  dish. Sprinkle with sugar to taste and a little cornflour to absorb some of the juice that is generated. Cover the fruit with the rolled out pastry and crimp the edges.  I like to brush lightly with beaten egg.

Cook 180C for ten minutes then reduce to 160C until the apple is cooked. Cover loosly with foil to prevent browning too much.

Serve with clotted or double cream.  Delicious!

Variation:  Add some ground cinnamon and/or cloves for a different flavour.

Apple Tart freezes well so it is worth making a couple at a time. One to eat and one to freeze! Sometimes I make apple pies - these have a pastry base as well as a pastry top. I use non stick sandwich tins and these can be popped into the freezer until required.

When I made the Apple Tart today I also made a large jam tart using some of the gooseberry jam I made in the summer. 


I rolled out  the pastry scraps and used them to make a lattice topping.

TOMATO SOUP

The recent hot weather has ripened the last of my tomatoes so I made a large pan of tomato soup sufficient for a couple of meals and more to freeze.

Ingredients

Really ripe tomatoes
1 or 2 sticks of celery
Large onion
2 cloves garlic
1 carrot
2 litres vegetable of chicken stock - you can use bouillion or stock cubes to make this
Seasoning
Sugar
Cooking oil

Method

Prepare the vegetables.  Wash and halve the tomatoes, run a peeler down through the celery to remove the string. Chop the onion, garlic, celery and carrot.

Place the vegetables (minus the tomatoes) in a large, lidded pan/stock pot and sweat in a little oil until transparent - about ten minutes.

Add the tomatoes and continue to sweat until they break down.

Pour in the hot stock and add the seasoning.

Simmer slowly, stirring occasionally.

When the vegetables are soft and cooked use a blender stick or liquidiser to puree the soup.

Taste and add further seasoning, if necessary.  A small teaspoon of sugar added at this stage will remove any bitterness.

Serve with a swirl of double cream, if desired.

I haven't given exact measurements for this soup as I just used a big bowl of tomatoes from my garden. You will need to adjust the amount of vegetables and stock accordingly.