Narcotic Bread

Ok Ok don't get too excited.. This isn't as "bad" as it sounds.. although you will fail a drugs test for opiates!

Anyway here goes:
Basic Bread Recipe with extras.

300g Flour
7g (1 1/2 tsp) Yeast
220 ml warm water
4 tsps (2 tablespoons) sugar
1 tsp (1 tablespoon) salt
100 g Poppy Seeds
Careful here.. technical bit.. Handful of Pine Nuts (oh I do love technical bits).

Switch oven on, gas mark 1 or 120C

1) Add yeast and sugar to warm water and leave until nice n frothy.
2) Add flour and salt to bowl or breadmaker
3) Add yeast and water to bowl or breakmaker (and set to dough setting and start). or kneed until firm and bread dough like.
4) By Hand, leave to rise, knock back
5) Add poppy seeds and pine nuts and kneed for a few mins until ingredients evenly distributed
6) Put dough into bread tin or make into balls
7) Put in oven for (another technical bit) about an hour.
8) Check bread to see if risen then turn up oven to gas mark 3 (140C ish I think).
9) Leave for another 1/2 hour and check again.
10) Repeat step 9 but in 15 min increments.
11) Remove from oven and devour.

Note:
Due to the large amount of poppy seeds, you are 95% likely to fail a drugs test for opiates. If you get drugs tested at work or for any other health reasons, I'd advise checking with your practitioner or employer before eating any of this.

Ideas

Sorry guys, using this to note things down, new ideas heard at weekend:

• Beef Wellington, fillet steak with pate on top, then a whole cooked portebello mushroom cap over the top, wrapped in pastry
• Rump steak topped with pate (or maybe garlic mushrooms better) and a stilton crust

Apple, plum and ginger chutney

Goes really well with the Chicken Liver Parfait!

• 75g fresh root ginger
• 1.4kg plums stoned and roughly chopped
• 1.4kg Bramley apples, peeled, cored and chopped
• 2 red onions, chopped
• 250g sultanas
• 350g light brown sugar
• 2tsp salt
• 1 clove garlic
• 400ml distilled white vinegar (or cider vinegar)
• 1 tsp ground allspice

Peel and finely chop ginger and place in a heavy bottomed or preserving pan with the chopped plums, apples, onions, sultanas and garlic.

Mix in remaining ingredients and bring slowly to the boil, stirring frequently. Reduce heat to gentle simmer and let the chutney bubble, uncovered for 90-120 mins, stirring frequently until the chutney has a thick pulpy consistency.

Preheat oven to 180 degrees (gas 4) and put jars into oven for 20-30 mins to sterilise. Spoon chutney into jars and cover immediately with vinegar proof lids. Label and store in cool, dark place for at least 2 month before eating.

Keep unopened for 1 year from bottling and eat within 1-2 month from opening, keep refridgerated.

Plums with Gingerbread Crumble and Black Treacle Ice-cream

This tastes amazing, very reminiscent of parkin with the ginger and treacle flavours.

• Enough plums for 2 per person
• Packet of ginger biscuits crushed
• Plain flour
• Demarara sugar
• Butter
• 500ml whole milk
• 250ml whipping cream
• 140g black treacle
• 6 egg yolks
  

The ice-cream must be made 12-24hrs in advance to ensure it's set in time. Pour the milk and cream into a pan over a gentle heat. When they are warm, add the treacle and stir until dissolved. Add the egg yolks and whisk to make a custard base.

Bring the temperature up a little for 3-4 mins to pasteurise the ingredients, don't overheat or eggs will cook. If you have time leave ice-cream to chill overnight, take less time to churn and infuses flavours better.

Once cooled transfer ice cream to an ice cream machine and turn on. Usually allow to churn for 40-60mins. Transfer to freeze proof container until needed.

Can also do without a machine by placing mix into freezer for an hour, take it out and stir well, place back into freezer to freeze again and repeat 4-5 times.

Preheat oven to 180 degrees.

To prepare the crumbles, cut each plum into halves and remove the stones. Make up the crumble mixture using 1 part of each of the ginger biscuits, plain flour, butter and sugar e.g. 50g of each or 100g of each. Rub all ingredients together until they form a breadcrumb like consistency.

Lay the plums skin side down in a baking dish and then cover the tops with crumble.

Cook in oven for around 15-20 mins or until golden brown on top. Serve on dish, each person having 4 plum halves and a scoop of treacle ice-cream.

Provencale Beef Daube

Delicious magazine recipe

Serves 4

• 1 large celery stick
• 2 bay leaves
• 7 sprigs fresh thyme and parsley plus handful fresh parsley leaves for persillade
• 1kg lean braising steak (or venison)
• 4 tablespoon olive oil
• 225g thick cut rindless streaky bacon cut into strips
• 3 onions, halved and thinly sliced
• 6 fat garlic cloves, thinly sliced, plus 1 fat clove, sliced for persillade
• 600ml red wine
• 200ml beef stock
• 350g carrots cut into chunks
• 400g can chopped tomatoes
• 2 salted anchovies rinsed (optional!!)
• 3 large strips pared orange zest
• 20g softened butter
• 20g plain flour
• 100g small black olives (optional!!)

Make a bouquet garni by cutting celery in half and sandwiching the bay and herb springs in between. Tie everything into a tight bundle with some string.

Cut the steak into large chunky pieces. Heat 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a large casserole over a high heat. Brown the beef in batches until well coloured all over. Season. Add the bacon to the pan and fry until golden brown. Set aside with the beef. Add the reminaing oil and the onions to the casserole and fry for the 10-12 minutes until richly browned. Add the garlic and fry for 1-2 minutes more. Add the wine and simmer vigorously, scraping the base of the casserole to release the caramelised juices, until the liquid has been reduced by half.

Preheat oven to 150 degrees (130 if fan and gas 2).

Stir in stock, then return beef and bacon to casserole with carrots, tomatoes, anchoives, orange zest, bouquet garni, season. Cover with foil and tight fitting lid and cook in ove for 2 hours or until meltingly tender (I found cooking for 2 hrs, drinking some passionfruit martini's and forgetting it for another 2 hours worked wonders!).

Shortly before it is ready make the persillade garnish by chopping together the parsley and garlic. Mash the butter and flour together to make a thickening paste (beurre manie).

Remove daube from oven, uncover and skim off any excess oil. Discard the bouquet garni and orange and bring to gentle simmer on the stove. Whisk in beurre maine paste (if needed) a little at time until thickened. Stir in olives. Simmer for 5 minutes, then sprinkle with the persillade garnish. Serve with honey roasted carrots and parsnips and new potatoes.

Passionfruit (Pornstar) Martini's

• 1 part vodka (vanilla vodka if available)
• 1 part passoa (passion fruit liquor)
• 3 chunks lime
• 1/2 passion fruit
• 2 parts passion fruit juice (or orange and passionfruit juice)
  

Put the limes into the bottom of a cocktail shaker with the seeds of the passionfruit and crush using a muddler or stick.

Add the vodka, passoa and passionfruit juice and ice and shake well.

Pour into Martini glass and serve.

Camembert Fondue

Great for parties or snacking in front of the TV :) Blue brie would also be lovely for this if you like blue cheeses.

• 1 crusty loaf from supermarket fresh section
• 1 whole camembert
• 1 splash of white wine
• 1 garlic cloves very thinly sliced
• Olive oil

PReheat oven to 180 degrees

Slice the top off the loaf and scoop dough out of the inside leaving a rim of around 1/2 inch to make a bowl shape, with a lid.

Rub the inside of the bowl and the lid with olive oil.

place the whole camembert inside the bowl, score across the top with a knife. Push the slices of garlic into the cheese and then throw on the splash of white wine.

Put the lid on the bowl and wrap in tinfoil.

Cook in oven for 25-30mins, checking every now and again. It is ready once the cheese is molten.

To serve, put on plate and cut lid up into a few fingers to get people started. Once all the fingers have gone, start tearing into the bread bowl to scoop up the cheese.

Beef Carpaccio

Don't be put off by the fact that this is raw steak, if you like you steak medium rare you will love this, it is very very thinly sliced and the acidic quality of the dressing helps as well! It looks very impressive for a dinner party and is really easy to make.

• 1 very good quality fillet steak per 4 people (remember you are eating it raw, so the leaner the meat the better)
• 1 tsp dried rosemary or oregano
• pinch dried chilli
• 1 tsp peppercorns
• 1 tsp rock salt
• 1 bag rocket leaves or spinach, watercress and rocket
• fresh parmesan block
• salad dressing of choice (see later in instructions)

Crush in a pestle and mortar the rosemary/oregano, chilli, salt and pepper. Sprinkle it onto a plate and roll the sides of the fillet steak in it so it is encrusted and the top and bottom.

Heat up a heavy based frying pan so it is smoking, and very carefully press the encrusted sides of the steak onto the pan for 30 seconds each until it is seared all round. You just need to quickly colour the outside, do not cook the steak for long.

Wrap the steak tightly in cling film and place in freezer for 30 mins to an hour until it is firm (makes it easier to slice thinly) but not frozen.

Spread the salad leaves onto a plate and prepare your dressing. On the pic above we made a dressing by boiling 2 parts red wine vinegar and shaking it up with 1 part oil and 1 part lemon juice. But other dressing which go well are mustard or horseradish based e.g. 2 egg yolks in a blender or with a hand whisk, slowly add 100ml olive oil, then juice of 1 lemon and 1/2 tsp english mustard.

Take the steak out of the freezer, sit it on a chopping board and starting at one end and using a long very sharp knife, cut slices as thinly as possible (like parma ham).

Mum tip :) Once sliced, lay the steak on a piece of cling film and cover with another piece and then roll over the top with a rolling pin to make the slices even thinner.

Peel back the cling film and lay them on top of the salad leaves.

Drizzle with dressing and shave parmesan over the top to serve.

Roasted Honey Ham

I love making this, it's my mum's and Aunty Heather's recipe, isn't difficult at all and makes great moist ham to have in the fridge at home for making sandwiches with. Tastes a millions times better than the plasticky stuff from the supermarket and you get to cut it as thick as you want it ;)

• Gammon joint (any size, I have done it with huge joints for over xmas and parties and small joints like the one above just to use)
• Whole cloves (optional)
• Honey (smaller joint will only need 1 bottle of honey, a larger one would need 2)

First soak the joint in water (removes some of the excess salt and makes the meat more tender) preferably overnight.

Preheat oven to 200 degrees.

Remove joint from water and pat dry.

Take a piece of tinfoil and fold it double, it needs to be bigger than the joint so it can eventually cover it, place it in a roasting tin. Put some honey in the middle of the foil where you are going to rest the ham. Put the ham on the foil skin side down (if you have a skin) and cover the ham with half of the honey (I pierce the ham with a knife as well at this point so some of the honey can penetrate into the joint)

Seal the tinfoil but not too tightly and put in oven for 20min per pound/450g (-20 mins) e.g. for a 3lb ham joint you would cook it for 40mins.

After the cooking time uncover the joint, turn it over, take the excess skin off and score the fat (again if there is any), use the whole cloves to stud the top of the ham. Cover ham with new foil and fat side up in roasting tin, cover with rest of honey.

Turn oven up to high and give it another 30mins cooking time.

Uncover and serve hot or cold

Garden Week 30th Jan

Tried to start a bit earlier this year!

Planted my January seeds in sets 2 weeks apart and so far have growing - tomato roma and tomato moneymaker, cauliflower all year round, oregon mange tout and onion rijsberger.

Got the wood ready for the two new beds, one on the left near the swing for kitchen and medicinal herbs and the other in front of the new greenhouse for the courgettes and squash.

Seed potatoes have arrived and are in the garage waiting, and bought a womery and a new composter for the season, looks like we are all ready to go!