Best great budget recipes for 50% or less: Continental style warming winter pie recipe
I woke this morning with one eye puffy, bloodshot and streaming. It was agony. What had happened during the night? Danny was alarmed. “You can’t decorate with just one eye. Your painting will be asynchronous.” “What on earth does that mean?” “It’s an IT term. Meaning intermittent amongst other things.” He explained. Past caring I crawled under the duvet as he shot down to Newmarket to ask the pharmacist’s opinion. He returned with a small bottle marked Red Eye Drops. I applied the potion and snoozed in...
read moreThe slow cooker chef: a great slow cooked spare rib recipe
To celebrate Jalopy’s heroic performance passing her M.O.T. with flying colours, I ordered an organic belly of pork from The Carter Street butchers in Fordham. I also remembered to ask for the bones. Daniel, the butcher does not ‘bone out’ the joint but slices them off as a rack of spare ribs. What could be better than sticky sweet and sour ribs for Saturday night? As I was working that day I decided to try and find a recipe that could bubble away all day in the slow cooker/crock pot. I found Lyn Utsugi’s tempting recipe for...
read moreSecret slow baked pheasant recipe for lazy chefs
We’ve had a pretty good season game wise. I have quite a few clients who shoot and are generous with their bounty. I also offer a plucking and dressing service. The fee is a bird for each bird plucked. This guarantees a steady supply of game when I’m not working on a bountiful estate. The Min Pins always goggle when I step into the kitchen with a brace of pheasant slung over my shoulder. I can almost heard them thinking “Finally, she has done a proper day’s work.” In a mild winter I’ll hang the bird for three days in our cold...
read moreBraised celery and broccoli (calabrese) recipe
The benefits of celery are enormous. Celery is thought to possibly reduce blood pressure, help combat cholesterol and even cancer. Leving these aside, braised celery can be a superb and delicious vegetable. This recipe makes it easy to include in any well balanced diet. I’m always attracted to the heads of celery in the supermarket and often eat celery and carrot sticks with hummus for a lunch time snack. In the past D would welcome a bowl of winter celery soup and that was it. He woud never, ever ask for celery as a veggie with his...
read moreDelicious cheese, potato and parsley frittata recipe
We left the Pickled Walnuts Challenge evening with a box of beautiful blue and greeny blue eggs laid by Magic Cochin’s Spice Girls. “I think that those eggs are destined for a frittata.” Smiled Danny as we drove away. Our hens have not yet started laying again. I check the nesting box every morning. Our Senior Girls are now into their fifth year, so it will be a slow start. Peace and Hope should be laying by Easter. So a present of fresh, free range eggs is treasured. We haven’t had a frittata for ages. My favourite is the simple...
read moreBest great budget recipes for 50% or less: Plaice with a creamy prawn sauce recipe
We stopped eating fish for a while a few years ago as it was just so expensive. I made a fish pie one Christmas and the ingredients cost over £15.00. Then I realised that there are often amazing bargains on a late Sunday afternoon from the Waitrose fish counter. With these and the regular offerings from the Tesco condemned food section we now have access to quite a lot of great fish and sea food for at least 50% of their normal value. A lot of fish is tossed into the freezer to be turned into fish pies but if we find plaice or sole these...
read moreEasy chic recipes: Duck breasts roasted on a bed of apricots
We are lucky to know a few people who regularly travel outside our county. Jocelyn and Miles to France and Tessa and Colin to Cornwall and Belgium. J and M bring back fresh garlic, Lesieur mayonnaise (thank you Amelee!), garlic granules (these are much stronger and better than the ones available in the UK. They also will buy wine and tobacco. Real contraband. T and C visit Cornwall every month and bring back superb spicy beef sausages and fat duck breasts from Trago Mills. Cornish delights that they yearn for from their small East Anglian...
read moreBest recipes for leftovers: Baked Portobello mushrooms with ham, parsley sauce and parmesan recipe
We cured and smoked our own ham this year. It was delicious and a proper old fashioned half leg. We were thrilled that it worked out as I had tweaked our bacon cure, upping the salt by 25%. This is still far less than the HFW cure and every other recipe that I’ve found on my researches. We smoked it for a good 24 hours in the smoke chamber above our wood burner. The latter opens into an old chimney, rather than a flue. I had saved some seasoned apple wood for this very special smoke. I finally roasted the joint for us on Christmas Eve and it...
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