Rabbit Pie

Even with our gargantuan appetites, the rabbit casserole had us defeated.   There was quite a bit left in the pot, and we were considering leftover ideas.  Pasta?  Some kind of paella-y rice dish?  Then B turned to me and with great seriousness pronounced that the only acceptable dish would be a rabbit pie.  So that was what we made.

Behold.

Doesn't the sight of that just make your heart feel happy?  And do you notice my artistic efforts with the pastry rabbit?  Because I really have too much time on my hands?

We picked all the meat from the rabbit bones (which are small and fiddly, and not welcome in a pie) and strifried it with a chopped carrot, a couple of mushrooms and some shallots.  A slug of milk at the end helped it all come together.

This mixture then got spooned into a Jus-Rol jacket.  (There was some nonsense from B about making the pastry from scratch.  He insisted that it was worth the time and effort, until we got to the supermarket and saw that the ingredients together would cost more than the ready-done Jus-Rol.  And then he changed his mind. Ahaha.)   The pie got brushed with milk, and popped into the oven at 180 degrees for half an hour.

Just gorgeous.

There was just enough pastry left over to make us each a little jam tart.

Any meal that features pastry in both the main meal and the dessert is sure to be a winner.

Rabbit Braised in Cider

Woohoo! It's Thursday, which means it's downhill from here to the weekend. It can't come quickly enough for me - does anyone else feel like it's got colder and darker recently? Boo to winter. Anyway, it's hard staying on the healthy wagon when all you like doing is burying yourself head-first into a mountain of mashed potatoes, but I've been doing my best.

We spotted rabbit on sale in The Ginger Pig over the weekend, which was good for several reasons:

1.) It's yummy. Not a lot of people seem to know this. Is the cuteness of Peter Rabbit to blame? (And obviously Peppa Pig is not proving to be a similar deterrent to bacon.)

2.) It's inexpensive. It was waaay less spendy than any of the beef or lamb cuts also on sale that day. 

3.) It's the kind of meat that tastes its best when whacked into a casserole and forgotten about - in other words, my kind of meat.

Rabbit Braised In Cider With Bacon & Onions (serves 4)

You need:

1 rabbit, jointed and chopped into pieces (ask the butcher to do this for you)

2 large onions, chopped

6 cloves garlic, chopped

100g smoked bacon, chopped, or bacon lardons

330ml cider, as dry as you can find (we used Aspalls, because I like to support my Suffolk homeland)

Olive oil

2 tbsps plain flour

Salt and pepper

2 bay leaves

You do:

On the hob, heat 2 tbsps olive oil in an ovenproof casserole dish.  Dust a large plate with the plain flour, and sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper.  Roll each rabbit piece in the flour until coated, then lower into the casserole dish.  Let the pieces colour until golden brown, and then turn each piece over with a pair of tongs.  Let them colour on the other side too, then remove from the oil and lay on a clean plate.  Now add in the chopped onions and garlic, and let them soften in the remaining oil.  Once they are translucent and smelling yummy, add in the bacon.  Next, pop the rabbit pieces back into the dish and pour in the cider.  It should smell absolutely divine by now.  Add the bay leaves, more salt and pepper, and turn up the heat under the dish.  Warm until the cider is bubbling, then turn off the heat, put the lid on the dish, and put the whole thing in the oven at 180 degrees. 

Go away for an hour and fifteen minutes, and do something interesting that will distract you from the deliciousness wafting from your kitchen.  After this amount of time, your casserole should look something like this:

The green you see is half a bag of spinach, which we added on top of the casserole and let wilt for about five minutes.

We also made some baked potatoes to have alongside, which were lovely, although if you are less lazy than us I bet mash would be awesome too. 

As you can see, the cider cooks down to a thick, not-too-rich sauce that tastes absolutely amazing with the smoky bacon and mild gamey rabbit.  OM. 

You know what's even better?  This dish would serve four, but B and I are only two.  You know what that means?  Leftovers, oh yeah.

Stirfry With PSB & Peanuts

Can we have a word about purple sprouting broccoli?  Thank you.  Firstly, it's called PURPLE sprouting broccoli.  Purple!  Purple isn't a colour you would readily associate with vegetables.  Or really, any foodstuff.  Can you name any other foods that are purple?  (Apart from these, yum).  Secondly, there's also the word SPROUTING in the name.  Sprouting!  With its connotations of Brussels sprouts, that most hated vegetable.   So, I really think we ought to rename PSB for its own sake. (Also, it isn't really that purple).  Let's call it something like Smaller Yummier Broccoli, or SYB for short.  Because it is both smaller, and yummier, than your common-or-garden broccoli.  Thank you for your time.

PSB/SYB is a rare find in our veg box, so I don't like to play around with it much when we do get it.  This time, we stirfried it for a couple of minutes, and served it on top of some soy-sauce-drenched noodles and some crushed peanuts.  Yom. 

Back on the wagon, you'll notice.  Sigh.

Off The Wagon....

....SAUSAGES.

Oh - um - yes, now that you mention it, those are my festive pyjamas that you can see in the photo above.  There is nothing wrong with eating sausages and mash in front of the telly whilst wearing your Christmas pyjamas.  Nothing at all.

Roasted Squash Salad & Homemade Houmous

Hi! Happy Wednesday! How were your weekends? We had B's parents staying for a couple of days. We made this, followed by this.  A bit unadventurous, I know, but both winter-warming, crowd-pleasing dishes.  We used an enormous Crown Prince squash from our veg box for the risotto, and even serving four of us we had more than half left over. 

So I put my thinking cap on and wondered what a person could possibly do with half of a roasted squash.  And I came up with this.  It's pretty beautiful, I think you'll agree.

Roasted Squash Salad (serves 4)

Half of a huge squash, chopped into chunks and roasted until soft - or use a whole small butternut squash

1 small white onion, chopped

1/2 dried chorizo sausage, chopped

Olive oil

A couple of sprigs fresh sage, chopped 

150g cous-cous

Salt and pepper

Make up the cous-cous in the normal way in a large bowl and set aside.  Soften the onion in olive oil, then add in the chorizo.  After about 5 minutes, tip in the chunks of squash and stir so that everything is coated with golden, paprika-y goodness.   Add to the cous-cous, season well, and add the fresh sage.  Drizzle over the dressing from this coleslaw (thanks, Nigel) and mix, mix, mix until all the ingredients are thoroughly combined. 

 

Serve with homemade houmous (I'm a convert to the Vefa way of making houmous - chickpeas, lemon juice, oil, tahini paste and a garlic clove, blitzed until smooth) and pitta breads.   They can even be wholemeal pittas if you're on some silly health kick like us. 

Parcel-Baked Trout With Three Root Boulangere

A strange by-product of this healthy eating malarkey is that it seems to be generating longer, fancier post titles by the day. Look at this one! Boulangere, if you will! Soon I'll be dishing up flambees and jus (hopefully not together, although you never know) like nobody's business.

This meal came about because we had some leftover celeriac after we'd made winter coleslaw, and I wanted to do something other than just mash it with obscene amounts of butter. I turned to Hugh, and Hugh kindly told me to turn it into a baked dish of boulangere-y goodness. So I did. This isn't as time-consuming as you might think, and it's satisfying in a way that only oven-baked carbs can be.

Three Root Boulangere

(Serves four, or two people on the first day and then, reheated, one greedy person (me) on the second day)

You need:

A little butter, or olive oil

2 small white onions, peeled and chopped

2 clove garlic, peeled and chopped

About half a decent-sized celeriac, or one small one, washed and peeled

2 large potatoes

2 large parsnips

2 tsps dried herbes de provence, or anything similar you have to hand

1 litre vegetable stock (if you happen to have fresh vegetable stock, by all means use it; I never do, so I use bouillon, and it is perfectly fine)

Salt and pepper

You do:

Soften the onions and garlic over a low heat in a little butter or olive oil.  They will only need a couple of minutes as you don't need them to cook completely.  Take off the heat and set aside.

Take a big ovenproof dish and drizzle the base with olive oil.  Next, make up your vegetable stock and set aside.

Now you can get slicing - you want all the vegetables in evenly-sized slices, about 3mm thick, if you can be that precise.  Layer the sliced celeriac into the dish, salt/pepper/herb it generously, then spread over half your cooked onions.  Layer the parsnips on next, followed by the remaining onions, and top with the potatoes.  Pour over the vegetable stock, put a lid on the dish, and put the whole thing in the oven at 180 degrees for about 45 minutes.  After that time, take the lid off the dish and return it to the oven for a further 15 minutes so that the potatoes on top have a chance to crisp up (yum.) 

In defiance of Hugh's all-veg ethos, we served this alongside some parcel-baked trout, which was simple to make (since the oven was on anyway) and made for a lovely, light accompaniment to the rich boulangere.  We simply tucked a couple of lemon slices, a couple of chorizo slices, and a ton of salt and pepper, into the fish, wrapped them in foil, and Bob's your uncle.  We put them into the oven for 15 minutes when we were taking the lid off the potatoes, and that was all they needed. 

The next day, I reheated the leftover boulangere with a dash more stock, and ate it from the dish with a spoon.  It's even nicer on the second day. 

Roasted Stuffed Peppers & Winter Coleslaw

OK! That's Christmas done with. Let's get back to some regular postings about, you know, actual meals, rather than just a festive yet waistline-damaging parade of cheese, cake and chocolate.

As always, one of my New Year's resolutions is to eat more vegetables and fewer oven chips.  I started this resolution in style by making stuffed peppers and a huge bowl of winter-y coleslaw to have alongside.  On the plus side, this meal contains ONE HUNDRED of your five-a-day.  On the minus side, it also requires ONE HUNDRED hours of chopping.  So don't attempt this on a night when there's anything good on telly.

Both of these recipes are based on ideas in this mouth-watering food bible, which my favourite husband gave me for my birthday. 

Roasted Stuffed Peppers (serves 2)

You need:
Two nicely-sized red peppers, sliced in half and stalk/seeds/strange white bits removed
Olive oil
Roughly eight tablespoonfuls of cous-cous
1 onion, chopped
50g pine nuts
Handful parsley, chopped
Handful coriander, chopped
Zest and juice of half a lemon
1 tsp smoked paprika

You do:

Firstly, prepare your cous-cous by following the packet instructions.  Next, toast the pine nuts in a dry pan until golden and smelling delicious.  Soften the chopped onion in a little olive oil until translucent.  Stir in the lemon zest, chopped herbs, and paprika, and then tip in the pine nuts.  Empty this mixture into your bowl of now-ready cous-cous, and add in the lemon juice and plenty of salt and pepper. Stir thoroughly. 

Drizzle a little olive oil over a baking tray, and set your pepper halves on it, cut side up.  Spoon in the cous-cous, filling up the peppers as much as you can.  (Any leftover cous-cous is delicious as a salad the next day.)  Drizzle over a little more olive oil, then loosely wrap the tray in tinfoil.  Slide into the oven at 180 degrees and leave to cook for 45 minutes.

While your peppers are cooking, you can make your accompaniments.  Warning - more chopping ahead! 

Yogurt Sauce for the Peppers

You need:

6 tablespoonfuls natural yogurt

A few sprigs chopped parsley

A few sprigs chopped mint

1 tsp smoked paprika

You do:

Stir all ingredients together until combined.

Winter Coleslaw

You need (coleslaw):

Quarter of a good-sized celeriac, washed and peeled

Two large carrots, scrubbed

Quarter head of green cabbage

2 tablespoonfuls sunflower/pumpkin seeds

(dressing)

1 tbsp red wine vinegar

2 tbsp olive oil

pinch sugar

1 heaped tsp Dijon mustard

Firstly, toast the sunflower or pumpkin seeds in a dry pan, just until they warm through.  Take off the heat and put aside.  Slice the celeriac and carrots into bite-sized batons, and slice the cabbage into ribbons.  Put all the vegetables and seeds in a bowl, and toss until combined.  Mix up the dressing ingredients, and pour over the salad.

Here are the finished peppers, all warm from the oven and looking like health on a plate:

You can pour the yogurt sauce over the peppers, and the coolness of the yogurt against the warm peppers and the crunch of the pine nuts is really, really, good.  And so healthy!  New Year's resolution, day one, done!

The Twelve Yums of Christmas: Part Twelve

Detox, detox, detox.

The Twelve Yums of Christmas: Part Eleven

Does Santa have shares in Cadburys, do you think?  It could explain why he always seems to bring mountains of chocolate every year.  He was particularly generous to the Plum household:

If I have chocolate in the house, I will eat it.  It's a territorial thing - me and chocolate just can't share the same space.  So, I have to hide it from myself in hard-to-get-at cupboards, and try to trick my mind into forgetting it's there.

Oh, and I use the odd stern post-it to myself as well.

Anything to get my work clothes fitting again.

The Twelve Yums of Christmas: Part Ten

Talking of Christmas presents, this was given to us by my lovely in-laws.

A bottle of pond scum?  No no, my friends!  It's samphire soup, all the way from the Baie de Somme.   When we opened it, the conversation went something like this:

Plum and B:              "...?!"

Father-in-law:           "Well, you two will try anything unusual."

Haha.  I'm so intrigued, and can't wait to try it.  According to the website above, samphire contains calcium, magnesium, iron, and zinc, amongst others.  Who knew?  I'm going to drink this soup and turn into superwoman. 

The Twelve Yums of Christmas: Part Nine

Cheesemas, part deux. 

This was our present from my brother and sister-in-law.

I think they know us quite well.

They also gave us a guide to the different cheeses:

...as well as this adorable utensil set to eat them with.

Best present ever?  It's going to take some beating.

The Twelve Yums of Christmas: Part Eight

My mother-in-law makes her own Christmas puddings.  Isn't that impressive?  I'm pretty sure that until I met her, I didn't think that they could be made at home.  I thought you needed...I don't know actually, but possibly an industrial pudding vat?  And definitely acres of obscure ingredients, like candied peel and suet. 

I'd love to share my mother-in-law's recipe with you, but unfortunately I can't.  Not because it's secret or anything, but because I literally can't read it.  It's captured in biro on the back of a Christmas card, and has gone through so many alterations, crossings-out and re-writes that I can't make head nor tail of it.  So I'll just have to leave the pudding-making to her, and concentrate on the pudding-eating instead.  No problem.

Yom.  We're going to keep this bad boy well-wrapped in paper and string and eat it when our bodies have gone into Christmas withdrawal and we have the shakes for brandied fruit.   

The Twelve Yums of Christmas: Part Seven

Ooof.  What a Christmas! We ate A Very Great Deal.  We had to walk it off on the beach.

Then we tried to be healthy...

...but we ended up here again.  Ahem.

The Twelve Yums of Christmas: Part Six

Cheesemas.

The Twelve Yums of Christmas: Part Five

Merry Christmas!

Yo ho ho!  We've reached Christmas day, and here's our dinner table looking lovely and festive.

We had a simple starter (to ensure maximum space for the next three courses).  We wrapped wedges of a super-ripe Galia melon in some wafer-thin Parma ham, and served them alongside a sprinkling of lettuce and Parmesan.  One melon served all seven of us perfectly.

Cheers!

We don't ever have turkey at Christmas, because nobody really likes it.  (Do you?  Be honest.  I'm convinced turkey is the chicken's poor cousin, and people just tolerate it at Christmas.)   This year we had a rib of beef from the local butcher, plus a million and one Yorkshire puddings.  Yes please.

My mum roasts her potatoes in lard, which makes them taste unbelievable.  None of this new-fangled olive oil nonsense round our way.   

If you care to count (and why wouldn't you?), you'd discover there are nine different types of vegetable on that plate.  Because that's how we roll at Christmas time.

The Twelve Yums of Christmas: Part Four

Every year, my mother makes a huge square Christmas cake.  It's my job to ice and to decorate it, and it's a responsibility I take very seriously.

Some of the cake decorations are more than twenty years old, and really, they look it.  So you have to be tactical with your placement - for example, burying Bambi in an icing snowdrift so you can't tell that he's got no legs.  (What do you mean, Bambi isn't festive?  He's a deer?  Which is a bit like a reindeer?  Hello?)

As you can tell, I have shunned the less is more approach.

The Twelve Yums of Christmas: Part Three

On Christmas Eve, it's nice to have something special for supper, don't you think?  It's a way of kicking off the festivities early, and also of lining the stomach in preparation for midnight mass or the annual festive pub crawl, whichever way your preferences lie.

This year, we made fondue.  Because the 1970's were an inspirational decade. 

Cheese Fondue (serves 6)

You need:
1 clove garlic
500g Gruyere, chopped into small pieces
500g Emmental, chopped into small pieces
350ml white wine (such as Sauvignon Blanc)
Juice of half a lemon
3 tbsp kirsch
2 tbsp cornflour

To serve:
Lightly steamed vegetables (we used potatoes, cauliflower, broccoli and cute baby carrots), cut into manageable pieces
Crusty bread (slightly stale is perfect, since it keeps its shape), cut into cubes

Method:

Peel the garlic clove and chop finely.  Put it into your fondue pot and set over a medium heat.  Add the wine and leave until warmed through.  Start adding your cheese, handful by handful, stirring continuously as it melts.  Add the lemon juice (the acid helps the cheese to break down).  As the cheese melts, add in more until all the cheese has been used.  This should take about twenty minutes. 

In a small bowl, mix the cornflour and kirsch until combined.  Stir into the cheese and take the pot off the heat - the mixture should be thick and smooth and smelling divine.  Transfer the pot to the burner on the table, set out your dipping bits, and get a-going.  Fondue purists will tell you that you should swirl your fork in a figure-of-eight motion (to keep the cheese from sticking).   I would say, do whatever gets the most cheese on your fork. 

I meant to take a photo of the completed fondue, but I was too eager to eat it.  So here's a picture of the empty pot.

For pudding, my sister-in-law made profiteroles, with the best chocolate sauce ever.  It doesn't actually contain any chocolate, but it does contain cream, cocoa, butter and sugar.  Yes yes yes!