You get your Menu Plan all organised - and suddenly, it's Christmas!

Here's the state of this week's menu plan :

That is how much we've had to double-back on what we had planned to do (which was all very nice, but will now have to wait) in favour of working our way through a Foreman & Field Seasonal Gift box, which was very kindly supplied by Knorr.

Stuffed full of goodies!

For all that I was expecting to receive the gift box on Wednesday, I wasn't expecting it to weigh the same as a ten year old boy - nor be bigger than my available worktop!  That white, paper-wrapped lump on the right hand side was a Kelly Bronze Turkey.  The box basically contained everything for a Christmas dinner, plus everything for a Turkey curry on Boxing Day - following a recipe from Marco Pierre White, who is currently working on the "Best of British" campaign with Knorr.

I have been privileged to receive the box in return for cooking with the ingredients and blogging copiously about it.

Incredibly exciting, absolutely amazing and so much fun!

So, following a bit of radical re-evaluation, the week's menus now look like this :

Tues : Son - Pizza, Adults - King Prawn Frittata

Wed : Sausage Casserole

Thur : Scotch Broth with crusty bread

Fri : Fish in batter, hash browns (baked sweet potato for me), peas & baked beans

Sat : High Tea

Sun : Roast Turkey Christmas Dinner

Mon : Turkey Curry á la Marco Pierre White.

The Turkey theme is likely to run over into next week too, as I've plans for a Turkey Leftover Pie, plus soup using the Turkey stock I'll be making.  Well, it was an enormous Turkey - and I'm never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, so I'll be making it go as far as humanly possible!

Getting back to real life (well, it does seem somewhat surreal to have Christmas arrive suddenly like that!), hubby is the man responsible for Tuesday evening's King Prawn Frittata - and it was one of his truly top-knotch ideas.  Bless him, he's trying to think along the lines of "things that will be good for Jenny's Anti-inflammatory diet" (which Turkey isn't - sssshhh!) which (basically) means ruling out lots and lots of carbohydrates and odd things like raw tomatoes.  This Frittata was really - and I mean really - good.  I'll be blogging it very soon.

So difficult to make this look appetising!

Next on the list was the Sausage Casserole.  Now we've been making Sausage Casseroles for as long as we've been together, hubby and I - and probably even earlier than that.  However, this Sausage Casserole is an adaptation of a Hairy Bikers' recipe for their "Spicy Bean HotPot".  When I first saw it, I liked the spicing involved in it but wasn't keen on the hotpot top of sliced potatoes.  I figured that, if I included some sausages and some mushrooms, it might very easily pass for a spicy Sausage Casserole - and it did, quite beautifully too!  This one will be blogged very soon as well.

My version - hubby's isn't finished yet!

Now we come to tonight's Scotch Broth, which is another of hubby's ideas.  He's taken some details from my Scotch Broth recipe, but is doing his own take on the dish.  He's in the process of making it right now, as I type, so I can't give you any clues as to how it turned out just yet!

We're having fish on Friday for once, but purely co-incidentally, as we're trying feverishly to reduce the amount of things that are roosting in the freezer and make room for the Turkey!  This is the fish in batter that we should have had last Monday, but it got elbowed out of the way by something else.  Still, it'll be nice to have a plain old easy "after school" dinner for once.  I'll be making myself a baked Sweet Potato to have instead of the potato hash browns, and be having peas instead of the baked beans - which is something else that is oddly inflammatory.

From here on in, we're into the Knorr Seasonal Box!

Just how much does that Stilton make your mouth water?

Saturday's High Tea is going to be a tongue-tinglingly, tongue-tastic array of smoked salmon and salmon caviar done three ways (on blinis, as a mousse on pumpernickel and in pinwheels), along with some spectacular Colston Bassett Stilton with grapes, Fenland Celery and crackers.  We're also going to provide some tasters of other cheeses for son & heir who is still undecided as to whether he's a Stilton fan or not.

Dessert will be a lemon & raspberry tart with cream.  All of which is designed to form the type of buffet you might be lucky enough to be presented with on Christmas Day evening.

Is that a Turkey leg, I see peeping out?

Hubby has very generously offered to run the cooking of the "Christmas Day Dinner" on Sunday, which has relieved me of lots of worry as to how the heck I was going to do it.  Apparently I'll be allowed to sit and direct operations plus do whatever can be done sitting down.  It'll be a team effort - which Christmas Dinners often are, if you're lucky!

Monday's dinner will be the first after-Christmas Turkey Leftover Curry I've ever cooked.  Most leftover Turkey in my house, gets used up in copious amounts of sandwiches - so it'll be fun to see what can be done with Marco Pierre White's recipe!

I doubt very much that I'll be sticking to his recipe, as it really doesn't sound like our type of curry at all, as it contains both apple and banana.  Plus, the curry powder that has been supplied, although it smells beautifully fragrant, doesn't give the impression of having much chilli kick.  Hence, I'll be using the ingredients as a base and freestyling thereafter to try and tweak the curry towards more of a genuine curry, as opposed to a curry-flavoured Turkey stew.  Fingers crossed!

So, there you have it.  I doubt very much that I'll be doing any other incidental bits of cooking in the meantime, as I'll be too busy cooking and blogging about it!  As it is, I've had to wade through the backlog of blogs that were waiting to be done, while hubby took care of the cooking, so as to get up to date for the approaching Knorr blogs!  Don't, for a second, think I'm complaining - far from it - it's fun to be busy.  Cooking and writing about it is, after all, what I enjoy doing.

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Bournemouth Echo "Taste" Blog : From Bowls to Bikkies

FROM BOWLS TO BIKKIES

We have been exploring, just lately, the idea of "main course soups". That is, a soup which is man enough to have as a main course, i.e. will deliver all that's required to satisfy you and leave you feeling as though you've eaten something.

Now soups like Tomato & Basil, are pretty darned gorgeous but even with the addition of crusty bread they still feel like an entree, as opposed to a main course. My Smoked Haddock & Sweetcorn Chowder - now that's a main course soup. I have to ration the crusty bread, in order that our son & heir will finish his soup! Too much dipping equipment and he's too full up to do justice to it.

Scotch Broth : cannot be eaten in a hurry!

So, the other Sunday when I was pondering over what to include on this week's menus, hubby suggested we try making Scotch Broth. Aha! It so happens that I have an olde-stylie recipe for just that in my “Farmhouse Cookery – recipes from the Country Kitchen” (Readers’ Digest) cookbook. I looked it out and apart from the fact that it recommends the use of an entire kilo of scrag end of neck that requires 2-3 hours of cooking, it certainly looked do-able. The scrag end of neck was a non-starter, basically because I have two fat-phobic people to cater for and lamb is one of those meats that starts their alarm bells ringing. They would countenance lamb mince however, as I could easily cook it off and remove almost all the fat. I’m okay with that, as low-fat meals are right up there on the desirable front.

I’ve detailed the recipe here should you fancy having a go at it.  Do bear in mind that the list of vegetables aren’t carved in stone, any vegetables you’ve got handy will do.

We ate it for dinner with some crusty bread and it went down a treat. I was just glad that it was a drizzly miserable grey day, as it is definitely the kind of soup that demands you hunch over the bowl, soaking up the goodness of the soup both from the spoon and through your pores!

Cinnamon & Raisin Bagel

Now! I wrote last week about hubby’s adventures in Bagel baking. Since then, he has embarked upon the new challenge of flavoured bagels, with unparalleled success. Firstly came the cinnamon & raisin, which we considered to be suitably yummy but no, they weren’t yummy enough for the Bagel Baker – who shall henceforth be known as the Artisan Bagel Baker. Enter Mk.2 of the cinnamon & raisin bagel, produced in much the same way as a Chelsea bun and using some gorgeous flame raisins. Dear god, but they were good – just add butter and enjoy. You’ll notice the past tense, as they didn’t last long.

Sundried Tomato & Olive

However, all this pales into insignificance beside the glorious sundried tomato & olive, with a sprinkling of parmesan cheese. Toast it, butter it, add cream cheese and be transported to heaven. Truly, they are amazing. Son has welcomed them as an alternative to supermarket bread in his lunchbox, and considering they are low fat, that’s a thumbs up from me!

Whenever I’m planning the meals for the coming week, I always make sure to ask the family whether there’s anything they particularly want to be included on the menu list. Son’s answers are always a) pizza and b) high tea.

This week, we opted for the high tea, as it gave us an opportunity to enjoy the plum chutney I’d made and also an opportunity to make some biscuits. But tell me, are we the only people to enjoy a high tea at the weekend, or is it just something that’s so part of the fabric of life that nobody mentions it? It seems to go right back to my childhood as being, traditionally, something we’d have had on a Sunday evening – usually sandwiches, cheese with biscuits and pickle, followed by cake and biscuits. Hubby recalls enjoying Sunday high teas right back into his childhood, too. However, I rarely see them mentioned in food blogs, or in recipes aimed at producing goodies for tea time. Perhaps it’s another casualty of the fractured nature of family life these days.

We opted for the pork pie version and I was indeed correct in my thoughts that the plum chutney would match up well with the rich savoury flavour of the pork pie. So that now means that I’ve got to have a go at making my own pork pies, one day. LOL

The biscuits I decided upon were adapted from the recipe for Be-Ro’s Rich Biscuits. I was curious to know how gram flour would bake up in a sweet context, and didn’t have much ammunition in the store cupboard for any terribly exciting biscuits, nor – as it turned out – did I have a spare lemon for the recipe. What I did have, were a few leftover clementine oranges, one of which got pressed into service. The end result was crisp, light and very lovely. The recipe is here.  So that just leaves the clearing up and then put the kettle on! Perfect!

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The original blog posting can be viewed on the Bournemouth Echo's "Taste" pages, along with my other blog posts for "Taste", at http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/blogs/taste/profile/35696/

Scotch Broth

I won't wax lyrical about this soup, as I intend writing about it in my blog post for the Bournemouth Echo's "Taste" pages and don't want to bore you by repeating myself, as happened last week.

Suffice to say, that this soup was a considerable experiment which worked brilliantly!

I adapted the recipe from a Readers' Digest tome - "Farmhouse Cookery - recipes from the country kitchen".  I will add that I didn't take 3-4 hours to make mine, as I didn't use a kilo of scrag end of neck!  *chuckle*

SCOTCH BROTH

Ingredients :

(In truth, apart from the lamb, pearl barley and onions, I bet you could make this with any vegetables you have to hand.  However, I followed the recipe as closely as I was able - so here it is.)

500g lamb mince (you could easily use casserole lamb, just cook the lamb with the onions and stock for around 1hr or until it is fairly tender, before adding the vegetables.  I used mince, as one member of my family is fat-phobic).
1 litre lamb stock
125g pearl barley
125g peas (the recipe recommends dried peas, soaked overnight. I used frozen.)
Bouquet garni
Salt & pepper
1 large leek, cleaned and sliced
1 small potato, peeled and diced
1 onion, finely chopped
A half a medium Swede, peeled and diced
2 large carrots, peeled and diced
125g cabbage, finely shredded
1 tbsp parsley, finely chopped
Cornflour, as necessary.

Method :

1.  Dry fry the mince until starting to frizzle and caramelise, drain the fat, remove and set aside.

2.  Fry the onion in a little of the lamb fat, until softened.

3.  Re-introduce the mince, then add the stock, barley, bouquet garni, leek, swede and carrots and simmer for as long as it takes for the vegetables and barley to be cooked.  (10+ minutes, for the barley).  Skim off any fat that rises to the surface.

4.  Add the cabbage and peas, adjust seasoning (I found it needed quite a lot of salt and pepper) and continue to simmer until the cabbage is cooked.

5.  Thicken with cornflour.

6.  Garnish with parsley.

Serve with crusty bread and a lot of time to eat it in.  You can't hurry the eating of this soup and it would be perfect for bonfire night when you're outdoors and need something hearty and warming.

Son's review is : "It was all good, except for the pearl barley".  But then, this was his first go at Pearl Barley!