Sweet chilli sauce

 I tried out a new recipe today to use up the abundance of red chillies from the poly tunnel the 8 or so plants have done well and I had gathered about 50!

The Good Food web site had a simple recipe. 20 chillies, 5 garlic clove, ginger, caster sugar and cider vinegar. 

I strained it to make a dipping sauce consistency. Used some as a marinade for chicken tonight. I usually have a bottle of branded chilli sauce in the fridge and this was just as nice. 

The garden is still giving us plenty of fresh veg though dressing in wellies, thick coat, scarf and hat to go and get things in the damp misty weather is a bit of a pain.  Washing the mud off the carrots using rain water is a cold business so we do it just before coffee time and come back in to warm up.

Autumn Harvest

Gathered the ingredients today for Chilli and tomato jam. Its perfect way to use up late season harvests. I looked up several recipes online and then made up my own as I lacked fresh ginger, star anise and other fancy stuff.

Spent a good half hour (while waiting for parcels from husband's on line spending spree) dicing as much as possible. And washing the neglected jam making saucepan. (Have not indulged in jam making this year as we never finished last years or the years before!).

Put on for a good boil but it did not seem to go sticky? Added some more brown sugar, liquidised and re boiled. 

Ah well. It will still zip up some scrambled eggs over the next few weeks.

I have also been on and off the village Facebook page as I offered these things for FREE today.

We are altering our en suite and took out this perfectly good suite to put in one a tiny bit smaller. The built in "room" by previous owner is only good if you are a stick insect. Seemed a shame to take to tip so I hope someone wants to reuse them.

New daily cooking programme

Lingered in the kitchen and lounge tidying this morning as it was so cold in the brisk north wind and happened across the new Daily Kitchen live on BBC.  For once the concept, the content and the intent was spot on. not too "cheffy"; included doing things frugally; included a bit of grow your own!
Really enjoyed they had Jack Monroe involved too and I do hope it is a sign of our times that some new fresh faces appear with a clear head about costs!

Well done the BBC finally got your act together and produced something for the moment!

So having said that, checked the schedules and content and turned off TV till about 9pm when I think something else new may interest us!! (Except for watching the Daily Doom Update at 5 pm).

Despite the cold weather returning my main task this morning was taking apart the wood burner and getting all the ash out for the summer and finding all the nails down the back from burning scrap wood! We had planned for the chimney flue to be swept after Easter but that has gone on the back burner (Ha Ha) till after Lockdown.  Then I had to wash out the vacuum cleaner as its filters were clogged. No sooner had I done that the husband turned up and started sanding some thing in the lounge. Obviously did not listen half an hour ago when I told him the cleaner was outside drying off!! Men.

Off to put into play a broth idea from this morning's TV as we have a lot of nothing much left for lunches. Tomorrow will be driving to big supermarket for a Click and Collect experience where I have ordered a months' worth of staples since we are failing to get anywhere near a doorstep delivery here.  After that it will be local shopping - butchers, bakers and milk and what ever comes from the garden. Like these cauli and lots of cabbage, spinach and asparagus to keep up our greens intake! We grew the cauli over winter in the greenhouse as an experiment and it worked quite well though we were glad to pull up today as space needed for the many other things coming on.

Draining "board"

When my husband re fitted the kitchen with his bespoke hand made units and thick wooden top round a ceramic sink we could not work out what to do about a draining board.  We have a dish washer but there is always some odd thing to put down wet.  For ages we managed with a plastic box lid but it got scuffed and dirty.

The other day one of those catalogues of household "stuff" and "things" came with the seed order and I saw the answer!

A plastic draining "board" with a lip to run water into the ceramic sink. A tray to hold things up and a cutlery box. It works quite well.  If I had an option I would want it 1" smaller all round as it would fit better in the space.

So those catalogues are not a waste of paper and time after all!

Savvy Shopper cookbook

Book review

I picked this up in the library for a quick browse this week and I quite like its philosophy which is to have a simplified, scaled down approach to shopping, cooking and eating. It is based on using discount stores.

I am not a discount supermarket user, they are simply too far away from home, in a town centre with awful traffic snarl ups and a series of 12 traffic lights to go through!! I will stick to getting groceries delivered once a fortnight for under £2 a time.  Also my meal planning is around what is growing in the garden and ready to harvest rather than what I go our and buy.  But I liked some of the ideas.

• There are lists of regular buys suggested in this book. I have my own  next to the computer for everything that regularly appears in my store cupboard or fridge/freezer. Its a great way to cross check yourself and keep well stocked so you can cook from scratch easily.
  
• I am not a fresh herb user as suggested, even though I have the space and ability to grow them I still reach for dried from choice (a habit?). But Amy suggests a good mix for curry powder you do yourself using all the store cupboard herbs thus saving buying another jar specially!
• I agree with using olive oil. If you get at right price. It cooks better and tastes better.
• Her meal plan is quite simple but mine includes far more soups - they make filling and cheap lunches and use up veg really well.

I enjoyed the recipe ideas. At least 6 were in my own regular dishes book, but there were 12 I was willing to try out like Homity pie, sweet chilli mackerel pasta, sweetcorn soup, vegetable korma.

If you see it then it is worth a peruse.

My other library choice from non fiction side was Beginners Guide to Crochet. I have been promising myself to master this skill for ages. I got a hook on the way home for £1.65. I am not getting on very well at all. I don't seem to have the right kind of hands........

Two good products

I am not paid to endorse products (would not have a clue how to do such a thing) but these two products have sparked my support.

I had a few "not so good" sponge cakes so I tried some different ingredients. Upgraded the basics margarine for Stork and the own brand flour for specialty sponge flour.

The flour has really resulted in a nice texture and taste.  Bit more expensive but for treats worth the extra costs.

I also found my own brand dishwasher tablets had been improved. 

The tablets are now wrapped in something that does not need removing. So no more foil or thick plastic wraps to take off, annoying to handle  and  I don't like getting the dish washer stuff on my hands.  As this is a cardboard box it means the product is 100% recycled. I know the loose powder in a plastic bottle is probably cheaper but then you have potential for spills and another plastic bottle to recycle.

I do product reviews on the supermarket shop and gave good feedback for these. I also joined a customer campaign to get the plastic packaging on own brand porridge replaced with a paper based one. They had about a 100 review comments mainly saying the same thing. Hope it works.

Shin of beef

I discovered this cut of beef a couple of years ago and is now a winter favourite for stews in my slow cooker.  It is always quite a bit cheaper than stewing beef or braising steak and has a very nice meaty taste.
Day 1:  the 600 grams was cooked for about 5 hours in the slow cooker with lots of swede, carrot and celery and onions and in last half an hour topped with suet dumplings. I add a good slug of Worcestershire sauce before adding the gravy which gives it extra richness.

This was day 2 reheated with fresh root veg and some red lentils added and served with cauli and carrots.  I transfer it to a casserole dish and put in the oven so other things can be cooked along side.

The sack of potatoes I brought at the end of  last week have proved very good quality and make really nice roast potatoes.

It is very cold today, although sunny and dry, which is in contrast to the mild days we have been having. Up to 10C, I  have been able to finish the re cutting of the strawberry/asparagus bed.

I have nearly finished the garden flower beds giving them a good tidy, my husband is planning to move things about in the spring, which won't be long as winter things are flowering and various herbaceous are showing growth already.

We went to a Parish Council meeting last night to complain about a 7 foot high sign the have put right outside our window.  We stayed to listen to the rest of the meeting which was ponderously slow and full of muttering which my husband could not hear clearly.  One of the ladies wants me to stand as a Councillor to help her even up the male/female divide which is 5 to 13.  I shall have to read up about it as I am not sure I could bear the months and months it seems to take to do anything. We started complaining about the sign in October!!!

Cheap meals continue

Its turning colder here (5C during today) so thoughts are of warming meals. For Monday and Tuesday I took our a packet of pork sausages costing £1.50 (for 8).  There are cheaper but these are at least a bit "meaty" and don't just lay there limply all pink and flabby! 

Started of with a saute garlic, celery and some whole small onions. The shallot size things were last of our stored crop sculling around in the bottom of the bag. Added some paprika for colour and a few bits of our (hot) chilli to give a bit of internal warmth. Then the sausages to brown with a couple of very hard whole button mushrooms.  I'd defrosted a pack of tomatoe puree from the summer crop and added a good portion of that.  It all looked and tasted a bit intense so I had to water it down a bit.  Slid into the oven for less than an hour with some roast potatoes and parsnips. When it came to dishing up we found 3 sausages with the thick sauce each more than enough with some broccoli and peas brightening the plate.

The two left over sausages and sauce were added to some pasta the next day with a little more tomatoe puree and some sliced button mushrooms. A grating of hard cheese on top lifted the taste of pasta dish nicely.

I'd give you pictures but my food photography is awful.  I understand why there are experts who have all these weird techniques to make the stuff in magazines look good.

Wednesday's meal has been a half a kilo of diced lamb cooked with gravy and lots of root vegetables. It cost around £4 so I have to stretch it out.  When I looked in the pot today all the root veg was gone but the left over meat was tender and there was a nice thick gravy left.  I boiled up some more root veg (swede and carrots) with some lentils to get them going before adding it in to the pot with a chunk of leek.  As the oven is on, there will have to be roast potatoes to go with it besides which the quality of these cheap potatoes is bad and they go to mush if just boiled.

I made a crumble of red gooseberries from the freezer yesterday but as I overly influenced by the news programme on at the time deriding the over use of sugar in the British diet I did not put enough sugar with the fruit, in the crumble or in the custard. It was very tart!!! Ouch. Left over today will have to have over sweetened ice cream with it.

Salmon recipe

Picked up some nice salmon this week at the fish wholesalers this week and tried a new recipe.
For 4 fillets dusted with paprika - in melted 2 oz butter and fried 4 garlic gloves (minced) add.  When browned put in oven. Add -
2 tablespoons of honey
2 tablespoons of soy sauce
1  tablespoons of water

Spoon over fish in oven - looking for a crusty top!

Delicious.

Two fillets left in fridge overnight were flaked and stirred into pasta the next day and were very, very tasty.

I have two nice pieces of smoked haddock in freezer and will be looking for tasty meals at the end of the week.

Freezer Audit

Had to de-frost the freezer yesterday so did a quick audit and repacked in a more sensible way. Result - a third of the space was empty.  Something to be said for neatness, and I could squeeze a bit more in.
My list for the winter is -

• 2 lbs of sliced sweet peppers
• 1 lb of french beans
• 8 lbs tomatoes - various chopped, puree, soup and sauces
• 2 lbs of whole raspberries
• 2 lb of whole strawberries
• 1 lb of blackberries
• 1 lb of blackcurrants
• 10 lbs of gooseberries
• 8 boxes of blackberry and apple pie mix
• 1 Rhubarb
• 7 boxes of fruit puree 

 and      Half a packet of supermarket peas  and 4 slices of bread for emergencies

No meat, no processed food and no ice cream.
We are going to be away later in the month so have had a big clear out of anything near the best buy date.

Last of the summer

Thank you for the encouraging comments on my last blog.

Last blackberry and apple puddings this week. Our thornless blackberry grown on wires is so much easier than going to any hedgerows and gives large berries and super juicy fruit.

Using windfall apples as they occur.  Think husband might be ready for just apple puddings soon as the bramleys are ready as he feels we have had too many red pubs lately. It has been alternating between blackberries and autumn raspberries for the last 3 weeks - sometimes it is just nice to see a plain milky rice pud!

Do you think it is possible to over do a glut and give yourself a food intolerance?  Last week we both had feelings of bloat, bit of diarrhea, acidity, heartburn.  I looked on line and those are the symptoms of tomato intolerance?  We have been hoovering up the tomatoes = lots of fresh tomato soup, sauces with meat for main meals, incorporating them into lunches.  We eased off for a few days and things got better. But we also thought about some supermarket eggs we had for lunch as we both felt a bit funny fairly quickly and they had a funny taste. Marked as British, within date and only purchased last week.

Sweetcorn and onions

Last of this year's crop of sweetcorn.

Plants were slow to start due to cold, never really got any height due to heat; some did not make cobs and some made multiple small cobs that did nothing.  We have eaten more than enough ourselves, gave a box of 16 large ones away and sold about a dozen. 

The onion crop has been drying in the shed for a couple of weeks so I went in to rub off the dirt and loose skins, roots and cut the tops. They now are nice and clean and ready for use- should be enough to last to the New Year.  It started to rain yesterday afternoon so I gathered some of the red onions  and store cupboard ingredients and made a red onion marmalade.

The onion smell was a bit much for me so I did not get the onions really finely chopped so I cheated a bit by whizzing the mix. Only made 3 jars which is enough for us and a small jar which will make an ideal present at Xmas.

I am really looking to make chili jam which I also love.  We have loads of green chili but they are being very slow to go red.   Next week is looking warm and sunny so I am hopeful this last bit of summer will turn them.

Plums

Hi

Isn't this weather lovely?  I think it is my favourite time of year.

Our three plum trees have done a bit better this year. No Victoria plums at all, but a good 2 kg from the yellow plum and the same in Damsons.  I made a pudding or two from them, and we had a few fresh but in the end had to put the majority into jam. We have fresh autumn raspberries and blackberries for immediate puddings.

I split the yellow plums, added an apple but took out the stones which I think was a mistake. I did some reading on the internet and for the damsons I left the stones in and it set much better.

The yellow plum turned a fairly nice colour but is still a little bit sharp.

The damson is very, very dark and really sweet and well set.  I have made a couple of mini jars for Christmas gifts (that is about as far as getting organised in advance I will ever get).

Purple french beans

Grew these this year along side some ordinary green french beans and getting a handful every few days despite the heat and dryness that are stunting growth.

Am I over cooking them? Tried steaming and a light boil with the fresh peas.  But they come out looking green too?  Still they taste nice!

Update

Its been so cold here that it has been difficult to get motivated.  If we turning the house heating on during the day to stop it drifting down to 16 C indoors I find it difficult to justify going to my sewing cabin and putting on the expensive electric fire to try and get it up to 10 C which is just bearable.

So I have been drifting around on this and that. 

Watching the bird population. Its was so cold and ground frozen a pheasant came to find left over bird seed.

The sparrows would not come out while it was there and sat tweeting loudly in the hedge so I had to chase the pheasant off.

Our little open boat down on one of the Fen rivers is a bit smaller than the average so it struggles on the moorings supplied by the Environmental Agency.  We have buoys, some bits of board wrapped in foam, and various ropes but we really needed a small tire, like a wheelbarrow one,  to screw to the pontoon. We started spotting those tires dumped on the roadside - too big, too much steel in the walls, too far into the dyke to rescue, on a main road.  Finally as I went to get some extra milk on my bike I spotted this in the lay by 150 yards down the road.

I have always envied Life After Money's Ilona skip finds but not sure I would have her confidence. No one around when I slipped this over the handlebars and scuttled home. Next warmish, dry day my husband can hang over the pontoon edge and attach it while I hold the boat off.

I have been trying to change our meals around a bit to stave off boredom and came across this on our local CoOp shelves.

Never seen this in a tub before. For £1.50 it was a good stand by as I could make up small servings as needed.

Mostly I have been using my Xmas present of Ancestry and spending hours building a family tree. Looking at census to see where people lived and their jobs is the most interesting for me. Occasional stories present themselves.  Distant cousin of husband's went of Chicago from Kent, then had to serve in American Civil War and later owned a very large farm in Ohio. Another went to New Zealand and became a Governor of Christchurch.  My grandmother's brother went to India in 1939 as a policeman, married and had children, he brought them back to my hometown in 1947, after his wife died, and then he went back to India 6 months later and stayed there till he died aged 90.  I can see why people people become obsessed.  I fully expect not to touch it once the weather improves and I can get out gardening!  I really enjoyed the BBC4 programme on the history of a house in Liverpool recently - it was a great way to see how the house and society changed.

Stretching the money

After Xmas expenses it is time to find some cheap and filling meals. 

Reading another blog I was inspired to retry a soup I did in November. Tomato and lentil soup.  I had a pack of tomatoes in the freezer which I dug out and used with 2 oz of lentils. Plenty of spices and onions and a quick buzz with the blender.  Its a good filling soup

For a warming lunch I boiled lightly two large potatoes thickly sliced.  At the bottom of an oven proof dish I put some diced onion and bits of cooking bacon. Laid the potatoes on top doused in a thick cheese sauce.  I had brought some heavily discounted cheese in the local supermarket last week so this week the sauce was rich with oak smoked cheddar and the top was thickly covered with crumbs of Stilton. Baked till the potatoes were soft and the top brown. Yum.

I also had some odds and ends of milk I threw in the freezer as we departed to London for Xmas.  Cheap pudding this week was to defrost these and had a baked milk rice pudding. These were easy to cook along side the two roast chickens I got of £7 in the local Co-op. Good offer as the chickens provided us with 8 generously full meals for the two of us.

Obviously we are not in the weight loss regime just yet.  Unlike the TV which has so many diet programmes that it is getting boring.  Plenty of chores like bringing in wood for the fire and clearing the fallen twig bits off the silver birches in the front garden after the recent windy days. Let alone having a good tidy up!

Next bit of kitchen

Kitchen was disrupted again for 2 days while the husband fitted the kitchen hood. Luckily I was able to switch the menu to meals that needed little prep or cooking - risotto which is all cooked in one pan and fresh fish fillets quickly rolled in golden breadcrumbs with a few chips.

More trailing wires and plug swapping until the electrician comes in the New Year.

Not a great Friday

Its cold, but dry and sunny so I should not have had a rotten day compared to all those suffering in the snow. But the deep back filling done on 31 October had popped off.  I have suffered through terrible dentists in the 1960/70s  and absolutely hate the whole process. Not even the young Italian dentist who is very gentle can make up for having to go again so soon.

Make it worse.  After a run of very poor cake making (read inedible) I finally got my Bake-off mojo back  and there was a lovely carrot cake languishing in the tin as my tooth went ouch with every sweet thing.

I use the Mary Berry recipe from BBC Good Food and I can recommend this.  I have learnt the first step of combing the oil, sugar and eggs really well until it thickens is essential.  Here cream filling/topping with this  recipe is lovely.

Own brands and quality

I depend a lot on supermarket own brands to keep the cost of food/household goods down.  Some branded things I can't give up simply based on taste - cornflakes, tea bags, custard powder.  But other things if the product OK; its OK. I'm not fussy.  But this own brand kitchen foil has changed and is now a joke item. The one on the right.  It sticks to meat, tears easily and is thinner than foil round mints!  I brought the one on the left in Wilko for 80p and is 4 times thicker.

So disgusted went on supermarket on line shopping and gave it a very poor review. I found 20 other poor reviews made recently.  I do hope they take notice and re-instate their previous standards.

Talking of standards did you see that ITV report on a chicken packing factory last week?  Yuk Yuk Yuk.  I'm sticking to getting local meat from our local butcher - more expensive but we eat a little bit less and enjoy the really good meat supplied.

Cabbage in curry sauce

Yes, really - this is a very tasty way to have cabbage!  I found it in an 1980s Readers Digest coffee table book called Farmhouse Cooking. The recipe starts with cooking 1 to 2 lbs of cabbage which is far too much for us so I have adapted it a bit.

Slice up cabbage leaves and simmer to tender with half an onion with a couple of cloves pushed in and a small  bay leaf and a garlic clove. Add a stock cube. Drain (remove onion etc) and put the liquid aside.

I know, it sounds weird - but keep going!

I usually have quite a bit of liquid left - I keep it for other dishes.

Meanwhile, melt a knob of butter, a dessertspoon of plain flour (or cornflour), a good teaspoon of curry powder (I have Madras and used that). Add the liquid to make a stiff sauce. Put the cabbage in the sauce and let it infuse gently. Add a little paprika to taste, if wanted (does taste good without).

The curry sauce is a bit like you get in chip shop sauce, I think? 

The cabbage tastes lovely and is tender and juicy.  It goes really well with any dry or bland meat or plain meat.  I have made it twice now and I think we ate more cabbage than we would have done just plainly boiled!