Passata and rice water can remove the metallic tang of leeks in a dish
I’ve discovered that using non slow cooker recipes in the slow cooker enhances the flavours. This is generally great except in the case of onions and leeks. The quantities of these ingredients need to be halved. I’ve tried reducing them by a third and then had to battle with making the dish palatable. Earlier this week I tried making our conventionally cooked oxtail recipe in the slow cooker. I halved the oxtail and made up the weight with shin of beef. I cut down the onion and leeks by a third. I was planning a thick soup rather than a...
read moreBest ever cauliflower cheese recipe
Ten years ago I cooked a rather poor cauliflower cheese for Danny. His response was lukewarm. “If you make this again it would be great with a baked potato.” He was never a great one for suggesting a baked potato meal. Potatoes are important and for him and shine as a side dish. He didn’t mention the watery sauce. Or the flabby cauli. And he didn’t help himself to more. Making a great cauliflower cheese that would not need a baked potato became a secret challenge. Over the years I have progressed and now make a cauliflower cheese to...
read moreBest budget recipes for 50% or less: Sam’s perfect oven chips. Best homemade oven chips recipe
Danny has cut our potato bill from around £4 a week to 80p a week. Our cold dark barn is the perfect place to store spuds. He was horrified when he discovered how much that we were spending on potatoes. The price rose steeply last winter. The past warmer winters meant that most UK spuds were susceptible to blight – harvests were small and prices shot up. Since then he has been looking out for marked down spuds in the supermarkets. Generally he finds them for 40p for 2.5 kilos. They are hung in the dark barn in thick Hessian...
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 moreBest potato cakes with parmesan and smoked paprika recipe
“I’ll cook this evening. We’ll have the pork hock dish from last night. There is loads of mashed potato left over. How about potato cakes?” Mondays are always busy for both of us. A simple meal seemed perfect. But returning home I discovered that we had no eggs. So I pulled out all the stops and made a new potato cake recipe. If you have an egg to coat the cakes before rolling in flour, it would probably be even better as the cakes would retain their shape. Meanwhile our cakes spread a bit in the in the frying pan but they were...
read moreJo’s braised Winter Celery recipe
Celery had never been a great love until I discovered Winter Celery. I thought that it was just celery cleverly rebranded. When I tasted it, I was stunned by the flavour and texture. Intense and crunchy in a way that makes ordinary celery seem very flat. So I made our oven baked celery soup and took some round to a vegetarian friend. She was smiley and polite. A few hours later she telephoned. “Where exactly did you get the celery? The soup was sublime.” Like me, she hadn’t heard of Winter Celery. Since then, the flags have gone up...
read moreEasy creamed potatoes
One of our first culinary clashes was over mashed potatoes. “To be good, they need to be hugely unhealthy with lashings of cream and butter,” Danny announced as he searched the fridge shelves for double cream. “I like them made with a dash of milk and a large knob of butter.” “Milk?” His eyes rolled. We did agree on one point. White pepper is essential. I had always used black pepper but Danny introduced me to the subtleties of white on eggs, swede and potatoes. So we have a small oak peppermill filled with white peppercorns that...
read moreSweet, spicy, slow baked beetroot recipe – the perfect accompaniment for roast lamb
Danny’s face fell ten years ago when John Coe stepped proudly into the cottage with a carrier bag bursting with home grown beetroot. Later he admitted that he hated beetroot. He imagined that beetroot had to be transmogrified to that vinegary stuff in jars. I made him beetroot soup and he loved it so much that we overdosed. Many beetroot free years have passed since then. To my surprise and delight D returned last week with a small box of “Sweetfire” beetroot from the “condemned food counter” in our local Tesco. This is wonderful...
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