Chicken and Sweetcorn Soup

A must do soup in the Brode household from stock created from the carcass of a roast chicken.

First make chicken stock: put carcass of chicken (stripped of most of the cooked meat) into a large saucepan and cover, just, with water (include vegetable cooking water and any left over gravy of making from a roast chicken). Bring to boil then simmer for about an hour. Longer is even better. Strain off the stock. Leave the carcass to cool and pick off any remaining meat to add to the soup.

For basic soup simply add the pieces of chicken to the stock, add a tin of sweetcorn (preferably one that it is in just water, no salt or sugar added) and briefly blend. Do not blend until smooth. The aim is to have recognisable bits of chicken and sweetcorn.

Favourite is to also add chopped spring onions (aka scallions), simmer for at least 5 minutes, the briefly blend.

If you like a thicker soup, blend cornflour with the contents of tin of sweetcorn before adding (ie with the water in the tin) before adding to stock and chicken. Stir until soup has thickened. Blend further if need be.

Ideal seasoning for this soup is a dash of soy sauce.

Menu for w/c 12th Oct

Roast chicken for Sunday lunch and some cooked gammon in freezer leading to a couple of supper/salads

Suppers

M Spag Bol
T Baked baby squash
W Chicken, Gammon and Egg pie. No pastry involved will make onion sauce, stir in cubes of cooked, chicken and gammon, sliced boiled eggs. Top with a mix of cornflakes and grated cheese and crisp under grill
Th
F From freezer: Pork with mushroom and cream sauce

Lunches
Egg salad
Spicey marinated Prawn salad (not sure what in marinade just yet!)
Coronation chicken salad

Soup - has to be a batch of Chicken and Sweetcorn!

Pork and Apple Bake

Another good recipe for the remainder of a Pork roast

Preheat oven to 180C
Finely chop 2 medium onions
Cut 2 medium carrots into fine (julienne) strips
Cook onions and carrots in rapeseed/sunflower oil over medium heat until onions are transparent.
Cover base of baking dish with the onions and carrots
Thin slices of cooked pork (about 8oz) and arrange in layer ontop of the carrots and onions
Peel, core and slice a cooking apple and arrange on top of the pork.
Pour over enough cider to a level just below that of the layer of apple
Sprinke soft brown sugar (about 2tbsp - less if you use a dessert apple) over the apple

Bake in oven for 20-25 minutes

Serve with mashed potato and a green vegetable

Menu for w/c 5th October 2009

Pork roast today. Fresh coriander in the reduced cabinet at the supermarket yesterday so a batch of carrot and coriander soup made as well (some for the week, the rest for the freezer).

M Quiche (Gammon and Onion)
T Pork and Apple Bake
W Chicken stir fry and ChowMein
Th C Pie
F Pizza

Salads
BBq pork and coleslaw
Cottage cheese with toasted pinenuts and chopped spring onion
Quiche

Sloe Gin

Never made it before, but the sloes are also cropping well in the hedgerows this year!

Combination of recipe here and input from a friend who makes sloe gin annually:

Fill a container a third-half full of washed and pricked sloes - I am using a 4l plastic bottle (used to contain water) - add some sugar (about 500g) then fill with gin. Agitate bottle once a day for a week then once a month for 2-3 months. Decant! Making it end of Sept/start October means it should be ready to drink this Christmas.

Nuts

Carrying on the foraging theme - good crop of cob nuts from the hazels lining the various fields and bridle paths around here. A number of recipes out on the 'net that I was going to try with them, but they are being eaten as a snack by themselves even though they are 'green' (Mr B reckons they taste like chestnuts).

The walnut tree that overhangs the garden also has a good crop this year.

Maybe I'll have some left of each type in the bowl at Christmas!

Rosehip and Apple Jelly

The autumn foraging has been good this year. Have been picking rosehips from the wild rose bushes over the last few days when out with the dog.

Basics for any fruit jelly are:
- cover fruit with water and simmer until soft
- mash lightly if needed (as is the case for rosehips)
- pour into a jelly/muslin bag hung over a clean bowl and leave to drip overnight. You must NOT prod the mixture or bag otherwise you will not have a clear jelly at the end.
- measure the resulting liquid and put into preserving pan/large saucepan
- for each pint of liquid add 1lb of warmed sugar
- bring to boil, stirring until sugar is totally dissolved
- boil vigorously until set (number of websites that tell you how to test for this. If one of my children don't remember how to do this - shame on you!)
- pot into hot sterilised jam jars and seal (everything you use should be sterilised -again look up tips on this on websites)

For this jelly the quantities of fruit are twice the weight of apples (cooking, crab or dessert) to the weight of rosehips. No need to peel the apples, just chop. I am told, that you can also use fallers - would remove any bruises etc if you do. Rosehips take longer to cook than apples so give them a good 30 minutes of simmering prior to adding the chopped apples. Otherwise follow as above!

This jelly goes well with meat.