Cooking Rabbit

Rabbit Pie - ready to bake

I promised in an earlier blog to look at this wonderfully versatile , cheap  and healthy meat and I would like to share my all around approach to cooking it. Rabbit can be quite dry and the amazing reason for this is that the animals are so lean they are relatively fat free. That makes it a healthy and efficacious meat but can also make it difficult to keep moist through the cooking process. So I cook all my rabbit in a way that gives you many options concerning the final result but ensures that the meat stays juicy and moist while it's being cooked

Rabbit, jointed

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So here is the way I tackle my rabbit cooking and in this instance I made a couple of pies from the cooked meat. 

Ingredients

At least a couple of rabbits, jointed

A couple of finely chopped onions

two or three cloves of garlic finely chopped.

Some bacon chopped finely - about four slices

A sprinkling of plain flour

a glass of red wine

a couple of springs of fresh thyme

two bay leaves

a nob of butter

a couple of tablespoons of olive oil

A good tablespoon of plum/blackcurrant/redcurrant jam or similar

chicken stock to cover the meat in the pot (or just water/vegetable stock)

Salt and pepper

To Turn the rabbit into a pie

A sheet of puff pastry

an egg lightly whisked

a couple of chopped carrots

a couple of potatoes chopped to about a couple of cms square

You'll need quite a large pot that can go on the hob and in the oven (set at about 180 degrees)

Melt the butter in the pan with the olive oil and sear the meat until it is lightly brown. Put to one side.

Add some more oil if needed, then add the bacon and the onions and saute these until they are translucent   and soft and the bacon slightly coloured. The bacon adds more fat to the rabbit. Now add the garlic and after a minute or so add back the rabbit, sprinkle with flour and stir in until all these lovely ingredients are amalgamated.

Now add the red wine and the stock to cover all the meat and top off with a good sprinkling of salt and pepper, the thyme sprigs and the bay leaves. leave to simmer away for 5 or ten minutes and then put the pot in the pre-heated oven for an hour or so.

You'll notice that my instructions are not exactly precise, but I think feel and taste is much more preferable than exact measurements and timings...

Now when the meat is cooked, take the joints out of the pan, leaving the sauce and put them on a separate plate. Also remove the thyme and bay leaves.

Here's the clever bit:

You can now:

 Put the rabbit away in the fridge (when it has cooled) to use later

Serve with chips and vegetables of your choice and some of the sauce on top

Cover the joints (when they have cooled) in egg floured breadcrumbs and shallow fry until golden

Or shred the meat from the bone and ......

Add back to the sauce with the carrots, potatoes and some peas and make a casserole, or top with mashed potato to make a Poacher's Pie or cook further until most of the sauce has been reduced to make a pie with a flaky topping.

A rich, unctuous casserole

For the latter, once the potatoes and carrots are cooked, but not mushy, (this is why I add them later) pour the contents into a pie dish and ALLOW TO COOL. This prevents a soggy pastry. 

Roll out you pastry until it is large enough to cover the pie dish and place on top AFTER you have egg washed the edge of the dish. Cut around the tin, removing the excess pastry and crimp the pie to the dish using your finger and thumb. Using a fork, make a couple of holes in the top to allow the steam to escape, egg wash the whole lot really well and put in a 180 degree oven until the pastry is cooked a nice golden brown.

That's it - a way of cooking rabbit to keep it moist and then the choice to do as you wish with it after. This recipe also works with pheasant.........and squirrel!

Potatoes

An assortment of potato growing recepticles....

Everybody likes potatoes don’t they? And they are rather an adaptable vegetable that can be eaten as a side dish, main dish, starter or dessert.

Yes, dessert…you heard.

Anyway, I’m not going to talk about cooking with these wonderfully versatile tubers – I’m going to look at how easy they are to grow.

Most of our potatoes are turned into that mainstay of modern gastronomy – the chip, French fry or wedge…but, they are so adaptable, such an all round, flexible vegetable that the uses of it are far too numerous to explore.

So why don’t we grow our own more?

Because they are cheap?

Because they are difficult to grow?

Because we don’t have space?

I don’t know, but I think that the first answer is probably the most correct. Why bother growing your own when they are relatively inexpensive to buy? Well, bread can be cheap, but until you’ve tasted a loaf from the oven – sliced within minutes of being baked, warm enough to melt the butter spread upon it and experienced the taste and smell of really fresh bread – you can’t really understand why home-grown vegetables taste better than shop bought ones, why just picked raspberries are more succulent, more alive with flavour than supermarket fruits. Or why fresh potatoes – of a variety that you chose, chitted, planted and harvested yourself – taste much better than the run of the mill, limited variety potato from the Supermarket. Washing, peeling and cooking a spud just minutes from the earth is a whole different experience than using a potato that has been scrubbed and denuded of all the goodness from its skin, packed in a plastic bag, and hauled miles through heavy traffic to your shop – but maybe the real reason they taste so very different is that you grew it yourself!

And yes, that can make a real difference.

So how easy is it to grow your own?

Well, try this:

Find a large-ish pot.

Start to fill it with earth from somewhere until it’s two thirds full.

Place 3 – 6 old potatoes on top

Fill it with more earth

Water it occasionally

Wait

Once the greenery has flowered, wait three more weeks, longer if you can

Empty the pot

Eat all the potatoes within, at your leisure, in any way you wish.

It really is that easy, some magazines sell kits of seed potatoes, bags and earth – DO NOT BUY THESE KITS! They are a rip off, seed potatoes are just potatoes gone to seed…

You can also plant potatoes in the ground if you have the space….No, really.

Three or four potatoes planted could easily produce a couple of kilos of spuds within a couple of months.

There are over 4000 varieties of potato, so which one to choose?

Well, Pink Fir Apple is fun, tasty and waxy, Charlotte is large and multi functional, Anyas are great, but why not try a few different ones? Supermarkets sell Red Roosters – a popular line now -  and I have found these to be easy to grow, high yielding and tasty. Experiment, try various types that you like...

Have a go at growing your own potatoes – they are easy and great for kids to get involved with – all kids love potatoes – but so do most adults…

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Chips, jackets, mash, sautéed, dauphinoise, creamed, rosti, roasted, boiled, curried, crushed, Boulangere...just to start with. They’re fun to cook with too..

Reclaimed woodland - with potatoes coming up...

Enriched Doughs the Easy Way...

Completed cinnamon rolls...

Enriched doughs are normal bread doughs but with the additional ingredients of melted butter and sugar. These doughs are used to make bakes such as Belgian buns, Chelsea buns, pastries, danishes and cinnamon rolls...

Making these doughs the easy way is to use a bread machine on its dough setting to mix the ingredients and give them their initial proving. It takes the time element required to mix and kneed the dough away and, as most people have a machine but seldom use the dough setting, it might help make more use of a semi redundant machine and your time. 

By using a bread machine you can bypass much of the work, especially the kneading, by pouring the ingredients in a specific order into the machines pan.  This order ensures that the mix is not jeopardised by having the yeast and salt too close together and also ensures that the dough is well kneaded and given its initial rising in a safe and warm environment

Covered for the second proving..

You can then decide what to make,  a decision which don't I have used it to make a perfect cinnamon buns with a additional cinnamon and sugar added to the rolled out pastry here on the list of ingredients

Ingredients

150 mls semi skimmed milk
3 medium eggs beaten
75 grams butter, melted
450 grams strong white bread flour
2 tsp salt
50  grams caster sugar
1 sachet of fast yeast or 7 - 10 gms
100 grams of sultanas or raisins
50 grams of fine soft brown sugar
cinnamon powder to sprinkle over
Icing sugar and water to make glacé icing or use fondant icing

Ok, the ingredients go into the bread pan in this order:

The milk, the whisked eggs, the melted butter, allowed to cool slightly, then half the flour.

Now add the sugar, the salt and the rest of the flour. Top of with the yeast and start the machine.

When the dough program has finished, remove the proved dough and knock it back before rolling it out on a lightly (bread) floured surface. roll it out gradually until it's about 1 cm thick and forms a nice rectangular shape - you are going to roll it swiss roll stylee later - and sprinkle it all over with the sultanas, sugar and cinnamon - you can be as frugal or as extravagant as you wish with this part.

Roll the dough up and cut the roll into sections - about 10 large buns to about 15 or 16 small ones.

Place on a tray and cover with oiled cling film and leave to rise until they are light and fluffy and sticking together.

Place into a pre-heated oven (190 - 200 degrees) and bake for about 20-25 minutes until they are well baked and a lovely golden brown colour.

Mix your icing sugar with just enough water to allow it to be barely drizzled over all the buns, thickly. Or warm up the fondant icing and pipe over the buns.

Enjoy. 

Veggie Jobs For June

Adding straw to strawberries helps protect the fruit

Well the unsettled weather looks to be settled in for June (!) according to the Forecasters, it's unfortunate that we can't seem to put together a string of sunny days that would allow the plants to gather up the warmth and convert it into growth, everything still seems a little spindly and undernourished.

There are jobs that need doing though and one that is often overlooked is to keep the area around your precious crops well hoed and weeded. There is a good reason for this - the nutrients in the soil are for your plants and if you share that goodness with a whole variety of unwanted weeds then the goodness is dissipated among them all. Keeping the areas well weeded, and dug over ensures that the soil is light and well drained. Ideally, in a perfect world, you should be able to bury your hand up to the wrist in it without digging- it should be that well tilled.

Broad Beans are in flower...

Earthing up potatoes is useful. As the first shoots of greenery come through, pile on more earth, this encourages the production of more potatoes and enhances the crop. You will see the old hands at the allotments leave soil piled up alongside the potato runs to facilitate this. 

Tumbling toms can be grown in hanging baskets

Tomatoes should be fed while they're in flower and remember to remove the shoots growing between the stem and the main leaves. Tumbling toms can be grown in hanging baskets but they will definitely need more water and feed. 

I planted my leek seeds in an old length of plastic guttering and just last week transplanted them into the outside vegetable bed. As they grow I will thin them out, but not until they are mini leeks and edible, much like a spring onion.  Lovely in salads as well as casseroles. 

Strawberries should have straw placed under the flowering plants to keep the drooping berries from the damp earth, keeping them clean and dry.

My beans are slow, but remember peas and beans always establish deep roots so while it may seem that not much is happening above the surface, the work is advancing underneath to set the foundations for good plants. Patience is required. 

Courgettes and sweet corn have been translocated from the poly tunnel into the outside beds - in full sun, if possible - but most vegetables want as much sun as they can get.  Give courgettes a go if you can, they are easy to grow and can be put in large pots. They don't need much work and pretty much look after themselves. Courgettes are always useful - and if you have any spare - well you could add them to a chutney...HERE

Remember to Keep your beds clear and clean - your vegetables will be much better for it. Just five minutes a day can keep all your beds weed free throughout the season.

Simple veggies like radishes should give early start to home grown salads

Hoisin Belly Pork and Noodles

Belly Pork slices....

This is one of my favourites. I love belly pork if it's cooked right and, for me, the wonderful Chinese flavours of this dish means I cook it regularly. 

Hoisin sauce can be bought in a jar or packet and enhanced, or it can be made from scratch. I do both and sometimes I just use the jar with no enhancements but I do look for a ready made sauce with no silly ingredients like MSG or E numbers. That's not as easy as it sounds but I'm going to assume that you'll be using a bought sauce with perhaps a few extras:

Other Hoisin sauces are available - but not as good!

INGREDIENTS

Sliced Belly Pork (enough for however many people you are feeding)

A jar or packet of hoisin sauce

Medium Egg Noodles. Enough for the serving

Sweet or normal soy sauce

Chopped spring onions

Chopped chili

Chopped garlic

Chopped coriander

Star anise (one or two pieces) 

First, I like to cook the belly pork on its own for about half an hour or so in a low oven - 150 degrees or so, covered, on an oven proof dish. This allows you to pour off some of the excess fat, which can spoil the dish if not removed. 

Then I add the hoisin sauce, completely emptying the jar by swilling a splash of water around, and completely pasting it onto the pork. Add your extras if you wish at   this stage and then re-cover and place in the oven for another hour or so. That's it for the pork, except that I uncover it for the last 10 minutes, which allows it to crisp up a little. 

Put the noodles into boiling water with plenty of salt until they are soft and then drain them thoroughly before serving on a dish.  At this stage I add a dash of sweet soy sauce, but you can use a normal one if you wish. The pork is served on top but I often stir in some cooked peas too, to give a little colour and freshness.

I hope you like this one as much as I do.

Serve on a bed of noodles..

Morel Mushrooms (Morchella)

Growing on a bed of bark chippings....

There are a few variations of these Spring Wonders - they are polymorphic in appearance and therefore vary in colour and shape, but with the honeycombed cap they are readily recognisable. There is one mushroom that could, in theory be mistaken for a morel - the false morel, but it is rather obviously different. It is very poisonous, though this toxicity is greatly reduced by cooking thoroughly, but, as always, please make sure that you check before you pick.

However, the True Morel is delicious, but even it should be cooked completely as it contains small levels of hydrazine which can cause tummy upsets. It's easy, really - don't eat Morels raw. But then why would you? - they are delicious sautéed in butter with a handful of chives and the tiniest dash of lemon at the end. or shaved thinly, shallow fried very gently and sprinkled onto scrambled eggs.

One more warning - due to this honeycomb like structure of the cap - they should be tapped out when cut, brushed and sliced carefully to allow all extraneous wildlife to vacate their newly found habitat, before eating.

Please take my word for it - this mushroom is worth all the trouble. Its nutty flavour is unique and redolent of misty, musty spring mornings, as the sunshine filters through the verdant green of early spring foliage and a pheasant coughs and stretches its wings, shaking off the light dew of a clear night. One can almost taste the woodland.

Trout Fishing - The Recipes - Trout en Croute

The disadvantage of catching lots of trout lies in the search for interesting ways of preparing them other than the standard recipes. I thought I might share some of those that I come across and hope that you may find them tasty, interesting and adaptable.

Not everyone likes trout, not all of us catch them, but it's a lovely, firm fleshed fish that can be caught or bought almost everywhere. It's worth looking for it in the Fishmongers as it is usually a farmed fish and therefore relatively inexpensive.

This dish sounds difficult but is, in fact pretty straightforward. Here are the ingredients:

Two fillets of trout if quite large or 4 medium ones

A packet of ready rolled puff pastry

200 mls double cream

A large double handful (football sized) of fresh baby spinach, blanched in boiling water for a minute and refreshed in ice cold water, then squeezed dry in a clean cloth and finely chopped.

A handful of chopped chives

One free range egg, beaten

First the trout: Half will be used as whole fillets and half will be "moussed" by blending it with the double cream, chives, salt and pepper. Add the double cream until a paté like consistency has been achieved. Skin the remaining fillet/s and make sure there are no bones in situ.

Add some light flour to a surface and lightly dust your rolling pin just to roll out the puff pastry to the thickness of a pound coin. Remembering that the pastry has to cover all the fish and its toppings, place a layer of cold, dry spinach onto it, the the fillet/s of trout with a seasoning of salt and pepper, then coating of the mousse and add another layer of spinach on top of that before folding the puff pastry over and crimping all the edges. You can do this so that it resembles a large Cornish Pasty or you can cut the puff pastry so that it has a base and a cover as I have done in the photo above. Now brush the beaten egg all over and place the whole thing on a baking tray covered with parchment paper or a silicon sheet and place in a pre-heated medium oven (170-180) for about 30 minutes or until the pastry is a lovely golden brown.

You can then serve it hot with vegetables of your choice or cold like a pie or pasty

Chickens

A Big....Rooster!

It's been a while since we had a chicken update and quite a lot has changed over the winter, not least our two new additions. We have obtained a couple of hens from Annie, my sister in law; Dilly Dilly - a lavender bantam who has so far laid one egg, and Flo a white, daily layer. So we're now getting, on average, four eggs a day - which is useful - but hardly a money earner! However, we don't buy eggs now, so that saves us about a fiver a week, but food costs us about £4 per week. Oh well.

I have also obtained a larger coop and a covered area with it, so the hens are a little more comfortable in all the wet weather we've been having, and it also gives them a larger area in which to run.

A very tame Pheasant....

...also eating me out of chicken feed....

We have a tame pheasant who comes right up to the run when I'm feeding and watering the chickens, and he now has two women whom I also have to feed..but it is handy having all the eggs we need for cooking and breakfast, so I have absolutely no regrets.

The Bread Making Popular Front - The Cake And Bake Show at Manchester

A Wonderful looking loaf (Thanks to Debi Davis)

Whilst attending this show with my wife, Frankie, one thing became quite obvious to me over and above the popularity of the Cookery phenomenon that is the Great British Bake Off and the appeal of "Celebrity", and that is the growth of interest in bread making. There were easily half a dozen or more Flour companies at the show in one form or another together with another half a dozen artisan bakeries selling baked breads directly to the public. There was huge interest and attendance at the Bread Baking Demonstrations with people like Paul Hollywood and Dan Leppard extolling the virtues and the ease of baking your own loaf.

You could buy the kits with all the ingredients in one bag, or you could buy artisan flours, nutty flours, Canadian Extra Strong flours, quick yeast, bicarbonate of Soda, seed additives, crunchy additives and plain or self raising flours.

You could easily obtain eight or nine different loaf tins including a really shiny Hovis Tin I had my eye on all weekend - for £32 - a price I couldn't justify, even after winning second prize on the Traders' Grand National Sweepstake, run by my friend, the incorrigible Barry Davies (Also inspired to bake his own bread this weekend). There were spatulas, stirrers, slicers and peels - and, naturally, there was advice on how to use all of the above. I was really very happy to see so much variety and expertise available and I know of many people who were encouraged to bake their own loaves who perhaps wouldn't have been minded to before hand.

It's the enthusiasm that I enjoyed much more than the commercial aspect of the show. Look at the photograph at the top of this piece, kindly loaned to me by Debi Davis (@debidavis1) who was obviously inspired at the show - and she bought one of those lovely looking tins - and you can see just how bread could be inspirational - what a fantastic looking loaf. That one photograph encapsulates everything about the show for me - Bread, Shiny Tin and Atmosphere. People are really and genuinely interested in baking bread at home for the health aspects as much as anything else.

Including water, there need only be four ingredients in bread, three if you make a sourdough starter, so next time you go to the Supermarket and buy bread in a bag, check how many ingredients are listed, if its more than 4 or 5 then it ain't healthy and it ain't real.

I encourage you to try baking your own - it's easy, it's healthy and it's fun....

GBBO stars Cat Dresser and John Whaite

Wild Garlic Chicken Kiev

Spring's arrival starts for me with Wild Garlic

For the last couple of years I have been banging on about Wild Garlic and the wonderful things you can do with it and as Spring wades through streams of excess rainfall in an effort to arrive, like a soggy cousin from hotter regions unaccustomed to the British climate, I thought I might share a recipe that has been naturally adapted by me but widely recognised as a Classic.

First, though, you may wish to read my previous ramblings about this wonderfully evocative spring plant, found widely and usually discovered by its smell rather than by the sight of its verdant green leaves.

They are HERE and HERE. It is the botanical precursor to the bounty that each year brings, the start of the foraging year 'proper'.

An iconic 70's dish, along with Scampi in a Basket and Black Forest Gateaux, Chicken Kiev is, I suppose, usually bought already packaged and ready to cook or re-heat. Making one from scratch allows a certain amount of latitude to experiment, enhance and improve on the original recipe and the use of foraged wild garlic certainly changes the dynamic of this dish in a dramatic way.

Ingredients

Two skinless chicken breasts

Half a dozen or so wild garlic leaves

Breadcrumbs

1 large egg

50 grams plain flour

50 grams butter

Salt and Pepper

I lemon

Make pockets in the breasts

First you will need to make pockets in the chicken breasts with a knife. Finely chop the wild garlic, mix it with the butter, some salt and pepper and a squeez of lemon and push half of this mixture into each chicken pocket.

Chop the garlic

Dip the breasts in well seasoned flour, then the egg - and then do that again - flour then egg, and coat them with the  breadcrumbs nice and thickly! This double coating of flour and egg helps prevent the butter leaking during cooking, and seals in the flavours and moisture, and is quite important. You might even find that you need two eggs. Remember too to make your own breadcrumbs - don't buy them!

I then put the coated breasts into the fridge for half an hour or so or until needed later in the day. This sets the covering. Gently shallow fry the breasts on all sides in a light oil until both are a lovely golden brown colour and then place on an oven proof dish in a medium oven for 20 - 25 minutes, until cooked right through. Serve with vegetables of your choice.

Basic Apple Chutney

Unctuous and fun...

If you're going to start making chutneys then a basic recipe for a classic all rounder seems a sensible place to start. This recipe is popular, easy to make and pretty much eponymous. It's what chutneys are all about. You could just make apple chutneys for ever, varying the recipe, changing the spices extending the variations from a near Apple Sauce to a spicy, hot Indian pickle with plenty of chilies, mustard seed and even curry powder. It can be thick and unctuous, gloopy and sticky; it can be great with cheese, pork chops, mackerel and could even be used as a sweet pie filling.

My jolly useful apple peeler and corer...from Lakeland

Producing, peeled and cored apples by the dozen

So the thing about chutney is that it doesn't just use sugar to preserve it, it also uses vinegar and this adds oodles to the flavour too. My best tip for the actual cooking of the ingredients is to cook fast. The sooner you can turn the component parts into an unctuous, thick chutney, the more flavours will remain in the sauce. I use a pan that gets hot quick and stays hot, holding the heat well, then fast boil AND KEEP STIRRING.  Do not let it burn on the bottom of the pan as the burnt taste will permeate the chutney, spoiling it. Once your wooden spoon can be drawn across the bottom of the pan and the sauce stays apart for a moment, like the red sea just after Moses had made it across, but before the Egyptians arrived, it's ready for jarring, (see HERE for sterilising jars) and it's better eaten after it has been allowed to mature for a month or so, although often I can't wait that long....

So, ingredients:

Apples (Obviously) about 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 kilos, peeled, cored and chopped not quite roughly but not too finely either!
Cider Vinegar 500 mls
Onions about 600 grams finely chopped
Sugar 400 grams
(Here's where it gets interesting: try different sugars. Lighter sugar produces a lighter chutney, dark molasses sugar produces darker, richer, caramelly chutney - then there's everything in between!!)
1 Tspn Salt
juice of 1 lemon and some zest too.
Sultanas 300grams

DO NOT ADD WATER, you will only have to cook it out and this will take longer.

That's it, if you like. It will be bland, but it will keep and it will go well with pork etc, and depending on how fast you cook it, you should get 4 or 5 jars from this amount.

However, here's where it becomes interesting. In MY basic recipe I also add:

1 heaped dessert spoon of ground ginger
1 heaped dessert spoon of ground cinnamon
a couple of finely chopped garlic cloves

BUT you could add:
Cloves - ground up as finely as you can
Chili
Allspice
Cumin
Turmeric
Mustard Seeds
Garlic
Raisins
Currants
Dried Apricots
....and anything else that takes your fancy....

....and you can of course, experiment with the amounts to suit your own taste, but beware the stronger spices....

This is a fun recipe to learn about mixing sugar with vinegar and fruit, combining your own flavours and suiting your own tastes and needs. Apples are cheapish, so it won't cost the earth if it all goes horribly wrong, but the even better option is to wait until apples are free - then it's really fun....

Fast, Not Street Food

Street Food in Madeira

With the continuing focus in the National Press on the food we eat it's becoming apparent that not is all as it should be. Obviously we have had the Horse Meat Scandal recently, but in this morning's papers and on the TV news are more articles about processed meats such as cheap bacon, ham and some mince and the health risks inherent in some of them.

It must be remembered that the constitution of processed meats has been tampered with, especially the cheaper range that some supermarkets provide. In an effort to give longevity, additives are included and in an effort to make up the weight, water is added. It's not difficult to assimilate - if it's cheap, it's not necessarily good and if it has been processed, it's not necessarily the natural product you thought it might be.

On a recent trip to Madeira I noticed that many teenagers, young adults and more generally, the native population steered clear of the Burger King outlet and made for the Street Food counters selling baked bread, and the local favourites, the equivalent to British Fish and Chips I guess - and while Fish and Chips is not a meal to be eaten everyday due to the high fat content, one might hope that the ingredients are at least fresh and unprocessed.

I don't understand why Brits head straight for the McDonalds, KFC or Pizza Hut "restaurants" rather than cook a meal from scratch, perhaps it stems from a lack of parental education; if your parents took a box out of the freezer and called it "Dinner", perhaps their children will as well. As I said in a previous blog, one can only hope that from the recent discussions of food origins will come a better awareness of what we are eating and where it is sourced.

But street food is not necessarily fast food and in Madeira it mostly was NOT fast. The Bolo de Cacao, a bun made with sweet potato flour was cooked in front of you while you waited and if you wanted a burger with it - well you waited for that too. No Bacon sandwiches here, but the local ham is well regarded and expensive, not filled with water and chemicals, just naturally cured and tasty.

It's the "fast" that causes problems really; frozen foods re-heated, reconstituted and served quickly; foods manufactured to make its preparation quick and 'convenient', or modern, chemically enhanced food items. The best recipes are those that have been around a long time, the best foods, those that have been prepared with time and care and the best methods, those that have been in use for centuries.

Bread has been made for millenia, yet to make bread only TWO ingredients are required; flour and water, to make leavened or risen bread you'll need to add yeast, and to make a tasty risen bread you might want to add salt. All natural, all cheap, all healthy and all have been around for a very long time.

The final ingredient though, the one that causes all the problems, the one thing that makes food really healthy, tasty and appreciated? 

Take a guess....

Cold Snap

Formed around a dripping hose...

First, I made some soup. I'd already made bread, but I thought if we're going for a walk in this we'll need something warm and substantial on our return. My basic vegetable soup recipe is HERE. That done we dressed up so warmly until we looked like unfashionable Michelin Men and tying boot laces became a laborious task. then we sallied forth.

It's been very cold for a week or so now. This time last year we were languishing in dry, unseasonably warm weather, there was a hosepipe ban in the southern counties and it was due to be very dry into April. Little did we know what was to follow or that our summer had pretty much happened.

Early primroses are showing...

My wife and I just had to get out for a walk though, cold or no cold. We had been working away indoors at the NEC and were suffering from Cabin Fever. It was just 1 degree outside, but a bitingly cold north easterly breeze made it feel more like -5 or so.

Bracket fungi ....

My iPhone captured some of the frozen sculptures that could be found with a watching eye and as you can see from the icicle around the blue hose, it was jolly cold. There was still some life working its way through though; early primroses and hazel catkins were abundant, but the Bluebell buds that were very obviously coming through last year, are pretty much conspicuous by their absence today.

hot soup and warm bread in front of a wood fire was a wonderful treat when we got back home and our faces were soon glowing as we drank our tea and relaxed on the sofa.

But it was good to get out, even in the cold.

Homemade soup and bread

Horses and Rabbits

There were a lot of these doing the rounds...

There is nothing wrong with eating horse meat intentionally, of course - the French enjoy it occasionally and so do many other nations; Britain's disdain of some meats is probably a frequent topic of conversation over a local glass of red in France and I sometimes despair at the attitude many Brits have about the absolute necessity of Supermarket shopping. I understand that local grocers, butchers and fishmongers can be a little more expensive, but I'm afraid that extra expense is almost always offset by our propensity to 'over-shop' at Tesco or Morrison's because of all the enticing offers that tempt us into buying non essential items that weren't on our original shopping list, or two for one offers that languish in our freezers for months...

....see...?

Buy local, buy healthy foods, not boxed processed meals and you will be certain of what you have. You will eat healthily, and probably eat less. You will certainly know what is in your meal because you will have put it there yourself. It doesn't have to be difficult or too time consuming to cook from fresh. There are so many fast meals and snacks that can be prepared and cooked in 20 minutes or so if you are in a hurry, even if you have children, however I believe we have become a little lazy in our eating habits in recent years but if something else takes the place of a healthy diet, perhaps it's that something else which needs looking at carefully.

We have been lulled into a false sense of security, we have become too trusting of our Supermarkets and too reliant on their manipulation of the food chain. If this whole Horse Meat Fiasco achieves anything, I sincerely hope it will be to make us think a little more about cooking from fresh, buying fewer processed meals, and having a little less faith our local supermarket's concern for our welfare over and above their need for increasing profit. It sounds simplistic, but it really needn't be complex. Eat simple, eat fresh and eat healthily.

Why Rabbits in the title?

Well, I have about six jointed rabbits in the freezer. I have tried to give them away, offered them to friends, but many noses have wrinkled, many eyebrows have raised and many looks of mistrust have been thrown my way.  So I shall be using them myself in the next few weeks and posting recipes on here in the hope that rabbit, a much loved meat on the Continent, may become a little more popular in Britain. As a lean, healthy meat it has  few competitors, it's cheap, it's abundantly available and it's delicious.....any takers?