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.