Gooseberry cordials

Glut of gooseberries from our one bush. 12lbs so far. Two cordials made - lemon balm is favourite so far, although yet to try them with Prosseco!

Gooseberry and Lemon Balm cordial

Bring 400g gooseberries (washed - no need to top and tail), 280g caster sugar, 2 handfuls lemon balm leaves lightly crushed, one tsp citric acid, juice and zest of an unwaxed lemon and 1 litre of water to simmering point. Simmer for 10 minutes. Mash gooseberries against side of pan. Remove from heat and leave to cool.

Strain through a jelly bag or a piece of muslin over a sieve. Squeeze - this isn't for a jelly so I do mean squeeze - to get the rest of the juice etc out.

Pour into sterilized bottles (winebottles with screw tops that have been through a dishwaher cycle work well)

Serve diluted (not by too much) wth water, sparkling water or Prosseco. The recipe this is based on also suggest using as a marinade for mackerel.

Gooseberry and Elderflower Cordial

You might spot a theme here!

Bring 400g gooseberries (washed - no need to top and tail), 280g caster sugar,  one tsp citric acid, juice and zest of an unwaxed lemon and 1 litre of water to simmering point. Simmer for 10 minutes. Mash gooseberries against side of pan. Remove from heat and after 45 mins add 5 large heads of elderflower (shaken to remove bugs various) and leave over night.

Strain through a jelly bag or a piece of muslin over a sieve. Squeeze - this isn't for a jelly so I do mean squeeze - to get the rest of the juice etc out. 

Pour into sterilized bottles (winebottles with screw tops that have been through a dishwaher cycle work well)

Serve diluted (not by too much) wth water, sparkling water or Prosseco. 

Oven baked potato croquettes

We bought the Hairy Bikers Eat For Life book last weekend. Highly recommend it - we've had many meals this week from recipes in the book. This included Rich Beef in red wine and Quick Chicken Cordon Bleu (I can't find these online). Mr B made third quantities of the former and it still fed 3 of us with some left over including some of the Colcannon. With a single chicken portion left over as well, we had a tapas meal yesterday evening!

On the tapas 'menu':

Chorizo and cherry tomatoes - slices of chorizo each with half a cherry tomato on top.
Rich beef in red wine
Baked leeks topped with slices of the chicken 'cordon Bleu'
Oven baked potato croquettes

All baked/reheated in hot oven. Served with green salad.

Oven baked potato croquettes
Heat oven to 200C
Mix any seasonings or additions (eg finely chopped cooked veg, meat, fish) with mashed potato. Add splash of milk to get creamy consistency. With your hands form into walnut sized balls
Put layer of breadcrumbs on a plate.
Dip the potato balls into milk and toll in breadcrumbs to coat. Put on lightly greased baking tray and cook for 20 minutes, turning at least once, until golden on outside.

Depending on what you add to the potato, these are a low fat alternative to the normal fried variant.

Portuguese chicken soup

Made the Hairy Bikers piri piri chicken for supper on Monday. Two further meals from it, a chicken and salad wrap and this Portuguese chicken soup.

Portuguese chicken soup
Make stock from carcass of chicken (the piri piri one adds an extra flavour). You need 1 pint.
Finely chop 1 red onion and gently fry in a small amount of oil until translucent. Add a crushed clove of garlic towards the end. Add the stock and 2 oz rice. Bring to rapid boil then cover tightly and turn off heat (or simmer until rice is cooked if you prefer that method). 5 minutes before serving add up to 8 oz shredded cooked chicken and juice of half a lemon. Heat through. Season to taste. I included a couple of dashes of tobasco.

The traditional recipes I found all have chopped mint in them. One variant to try when the mint is growing again.

Chicken enchiladas with salsa verde

Picked tomatillos - the paper cases masked the small size of many of them so didn't have as much as I thought. Made green salsa from it and chicken enchiladas for it go with (froze surplus of the former for future use).

Green salsa
250g tomatillos sliced
finely chop half an onion, 1 green chilli and handful coriander leaves
Put all into saucepan with 1tsp cumin, juice of half a lime, 250ml of water. Bring to boil then simmer for 10 minutes.

Chicken and sweet corn enchiladas
Heat oven to 180C
Chop two onions, fry over medium heat in tbsp of oil until translucent. Add two tins of chopped tomatoes and simmer until slightly reduced.
In the meantime in a separate pan fry 500g cooked chicken in tbsp oil with 2tbsp fajita spice mix (half a packet if bought by the packet!) for a couple of minutes and then add large tin of sweetcorn and fry for further couple of minutes.
Layout 8 tortilla wraps on a board. Put a couple of spoons of tomato and onion sauce down the middle each. Put the chicken and sweetcorn mixture on top. Wrap each one and put into a baking dish (lasagne dish). Cover with remaining tomato and onion sauce. Grate gruyere or cheddar cheese on top. Bake in oven for 20 mins or until cheeses is bubbling and browning.

Courgette and Feta Salad

Post Open Gardens BBQ earlier this month had a number of salads being brought along to go with the Pulled Pork and obligatory burgers and sausages. This is the one we were all asking for the recipe for. So courtesy of Anita - and based on original in Sainsbury's magazine:

5 medium courgettes thinly sliced lengthwise (original recipe had a medium aubergine in place of 2 of the courgettes). Toss in olive oil to lightly coat
1 tbsp dill (or fennel leaves) and 2tbsp flat leaf parsley chopped
Juice of a lemon
2tbsp extra-virgin olive oil from the jar of sunkiss tomatoes (below)
100g feta
30g sunkiss tomatoes roughly chopped
25g lightly toasted pine nuts

Griddle the courgettes - in batches - for 2-3 mins on each side until lightly charred and tender. Transfer to a large bowl and leave to cool slightly. When close or at room temperature, toss in the herbs and then arrange on a large platter. Crumble the feta and scatter over the courgettes along with the tomatoes and pine nuts over.
Whisk together the lemon juice and oil with some freshly ground black pepper and drizzle over.

If not served as part of a mass BBQ this salad is great with a green salad and hot pitta breads

Swiss chard Saag Aloo

The Swiss chard last year is still producing leaves so adapted a Saag Aloo recipe to use it (Kate came round for supper yesterday evening rather than us meeting for a drink at the pub, so needed an additional dish to go with the Chicken Tikka Massala we had got out of the freezer for just Mr B and myself!) Serve with mint and cucumber raita and naan bread.

2tbsp oil
1 onion finely chopped
1 heaped tbsp minced garlic and ginger
500g potatoes peeled and chopped into 2cm chunks
1 red chilli finely sliced (remove seeds if you want this to be mild - I didn't)
half tsp black mustard seeds
half tsp cumin seeds
half tsp turmeric
250 g swiss chard - stalks chopped, leaves roughly torn

Fry the onion in a frying pan that has a lid. Add the garlic and ginger and spices after 2 minutes. After a further 2 minutes add the potatoes and chilli cook for 5 minutes. Add couple of tbsp of water and the chard stalks, cover and cook until the potatoes cooked (upto 10 minutes). When they are add the chard leaves. Recover and gently cook until leaves have wilted. Season with salt and serve.


The recipe this was based on suggested addition of a can of chick peas to make this into a vegetarian meal for two. Might try this at some point

Roast Lamb and Boulangere Potatoes, Lamb Stock, Pearl Barley Soup

Roast Lamb

Three constantly hungry young men to feed today along with Mr B so tried out James Martin's roast lamb with boulangere potatoes rather than battle with a mountain of roast potatoes. In my oven, for when I next cook it - which is a definite - the first 30 minutes should be at 220 and then the hour with the potatoes at 200. I didn't cook the peas and onions that Mr Martin has accompanying the lamb - other steamed veg instead.

All comments were very positive - nothing on lack of gravy as there was just enough juices in the potatoes!

Lamb Stock
I made Gordon Ramsey's Lamb Stock a couple of times last year using the bones from the whole lamb we purchased. Delicious! Thought I would see if I could get a reasonable stock from the bone left from todays roast using the pressure cooker. Not as tasty but will be good base for soup later this week.

400+g bone from roasted leg of lamb (with at least some scraps of meat left on it) split into two at the joint
Roughly chopped small onion
Roughly chopped carrot
End of celery sticks and leaves or roughly chopped half stick of celery
half teaspoon of garlic puree
1 tbsp olive oil
half teaspoon tomato puree
half glass of dry white wine
1 litre of water (I used water from cooking vegetables earlier)
1 bay leaf
2 peppercorns

Gently fry the vegetables in the oil in pressure cooker. When lightly golden add the garlic and tomato puree and cook for a further 3 minutes. Add wine and reduce by half. Add rest of ingredients, adding extra water if needed to cover everything, and bring to H pressure. Cook at H pressure for 30-45 minutes (I cooked for 30 minutes and will try 45 minutes next time). Take off heat and leave until back at room pressure. Strain into bowl. Pick meat off bones. Pass veg through sieve. If soup is intended use then add sieved veg and the meat to the stock. Either way leave to cool and skim off fat before use.

Hearty lamb and barley soup
When making Lamb Stock from bones from whole lamb there was plenty of meat that could be added to this soup. This week with less meat from the bone, I'll be experimenting with something like butternut squash with the pearl barley, root veg and stock. Will come back and update!

Busy day in many ways. Cheese on toast for supper and cooked by someone else methinks!