FFS!!! SLEEPY HEAD AND THEN FEELING ROUGH

A bit higgledy-piggledy this week as shifts swapped at work so worked Wednesday and Thursday instead of Tuesday and Thursday and ended up feeling rough towards the end of the week.  Was rather nice to have a couple of days off at the beginning of the week and the plan was to spend some time in the kitchen getting ahead, but that didn’t happen as I’ve gone into hibernation mode and am struggling with sleep and then not waking up and then was ill from Thursday with stupid viral thingy which made me freezing cold and headachy.  Hopefully within the next few weeks this will all rectify itself and I’ll be full of the joys of Spring, haha.

Forgot to mention last week that we had snow!  Well, a few centimetres of snow anyway, but it did make everything sparkly and pretty for an evening and half a day.  Brought everything to a standstill as usual although have no idea why as it was hardly anything and other places manage to keep going through masses of it on a daily basis.  Come to the conclusion that we South Englanders are pretty naff when it comes to snow.

Snow in Gillingham. Picture: Alan Spoore

Kent Online

This week I had two boxes delivered as they had an offer on ‘pick me up’ foods (quite funny considering I had no ‘up’ to be ‘picked’ by Thursday) so took a nosey in the cupboard and what was available and did a little order which included my blood oranges (yay), watercress (mmmm, soup!), venison mince and pigeon breasts (both now in freezer) and yogurt (I get through rather a lot as have it with my gluten free oats for breakfast instead of milk/water).  The veg box was quite standard as it would be at this time of year but I was able to double up on the broccoli meaning we had a decent amount.

Menu plan for the week is as follows:

Monday – broccoli and butterbean bake.  Was a lot better than I was expecting as I’d chucked it all together and laid slices of emmental on top; got eaten though and there was enough left over for me to have at the weekend instead of chips.

Before the slices of Emmental were added

Tuesday – Game pie with mash potato, the remaining broccoli, Brussel sprouts and carrots. Luckily pie was already made and in the freezer, so just an easy job of removal and allow to defrost before ensuring heated through in the oven.

Luxury Game Pie

Wednesday – Teriyaki quorn chunks in the slow cooker.  Hmmm, must use less Tamari next time.  Used the same amount as the note said for soy sauce, but the tamari was quite strong, so probably will halve it next time.  They all ate it though, so can’t have been that bad.

Thursday – After shoving flour, oil, water, yeast, sugar and salt in the bread maker before going off to son’s trampolining class, I made pizza.  Dough was good and I covered it in tomato sauce (ketchup), chopped onions, sliced mushroom, pepperoni, ham and cheese.  Made two of the paninis in the fridge into garlic breads for them and a bowl of salad to go with it.  Unfortunately I was starting to feel pretty crap by the time I got back from work, so the couple of slices of pizza they had left me were enough.

Pizza before cooking

Spent Thursday night, all day Friday and Saturday wrapped up in layers of clothing and a blanket whilst drinking plenty of tea, water and vitamin C drinks and reading a book.  Partner cooked for them and I ate sarnies and the broccoli bake as really wasn’t that hungry.  Luckily Sunday morning I woke up feeling rather a lot better.

RECIPE:
Mixed Game Pie with Sausage meat-stuffing balls
Serves 4 or 3 if you're piglets, which we are.

Sunflower oil
knob of butter
approx 600g mixed game (mine was venison, pheasant and partridge)
about 4 rashers of smoked bacon cut into chunky strips
1 medium onion, chopped
thyme springs (I used 4, but this is to preference)
400ml of stock (I used veg)
A good glass of port
1 tbsp of redcurrant jelly (although I used my Hips and Haws jelly so you could use cranberry or any other jelly to be honest)
3 bay leaves
couple of carrots, diced
couple of celery stalks, sliced
heaped tbsp of flour for thickening

Brown the meat in batches in the oil and butter and set aside, then brown off the bacon and set that aside.
Cook the onions, added a glug more oil if needed, with the thyme until soft and lightly browned. Stir in the flour and gradually add the stock, port, jelly and bay leaves. Bring to the boil and return the meat and the bacon and allow to simmer, covered, for about an hour.
Gently sweat off the carrots and the celery in another glug of oil and butter and when browned add to the meat dish and simmer, again covered, for another 15 mins until veg is soft.

Meanwhile make the sausage meat balls:
150g sausage meat (mine was, of course, gluten free)
2 rashers of bacon, finely chopped
Approx 50g of nuts (could be walnuts, hazelnuts, chestnuts; I used hazelnuts), chopped
grated zest of a lemon
20g of breadcrumbs (mine obviously gluten free)
chopped thyme to taste
salt and pepper.
Squidge all of the ingredients together and form into walnut sized balls.
Fry them off until brown all over and set aside.

You will also need 250g of shortcrust pastry (either bought of homemade.  You could use puff if you can make it or find it gluten free or use normal if you aren't gluten free)

Transfer the meat and veg from the game mix into a pie dish and reduce the cooking liquid to approx 350ml or slightly under.  Pour this back over the meat and arrange the sausage meat balls on top and leave the whole thing to cool.

Roll out your pastry and cover your pie and if you have a pie funnel use it, but I don't and just made a couple of holes in the pastry top.  Cook this 30-35mins in an oven of 220C/Gas 7 until pastry brown and filling it bubbling.

NB: It's a long winded recipe and I've tweaked the original a fair bit. This isn't something I would do on a weekly basis, but would use for special occasions.

BIT LATE! KITCHEN DAY ON 19TH DECEMBER

Well the week started better than last week that’s for sure.  Woke up after a proper night’s sleep; first one since last Tuesday, and didn’t have a headache!!!!  So an afternoon in the kitchen was called for.

Barmbrack needed to be finished so mixed the dry ingredients into a bowl, added the egg, mixed as best as possible and poured the now well soaked fruit into the mix and stirred it all together with a wooden spoon.  Transferred to loaf tins and baked for an hour and fifteen minutes until knife came out clean.  Smelt beautiful and I much prefer this to a Christmas cake.

Barmbrack recipe (this makes one loaf tin, I doubled to make two):

375g dried mixed fruit

50ml whiskey

250ml cold tea

225g plain flour

2tsp baking powder

125g soft light brown sugar (although I use Sainsbury normal caster sugar as it’s sugar beet and not sugar cane and therefore grass free)

½ - 1tsp of mixed spice

1 large egg

Mix the cold tea and the whiskey in a jug and pour over the dried fruit in a large bowl.  Leave overnight to soak.  The following day mix the flour, baking powder, sugar and mixed spice into another large bowl, beat in the egg and the liquid from the soaked fruit a little at a time to form a soft dough consistency, then stir in the fruit.  Because of the type of flour I use, I tend to just tip the fruit and the liquid all in at the same time as the flours do absorb quite a bit.  Turn into a loaf tin, I think mine is a 2lb one but you’ll know what size tin it will fit into, and bake in the oven at 170C for 1hour or until knife/skewer comes out clean.

This should be kept for at least 1-2 days before eating and can be sliced and eaten as it is or spread with butter.  I love it and you may have noticed that there is no fat used in it.

I wrapped one in foil and put in tin for Christmas and the other was wrapped and frozen for later.

I also indulged in a rather extravagant game pie recipe that was in my Farmhouse Cookery book.  I made one large one for us to freeze for later and a smaller one to give as a present to someone who has been dropping hints ever since I mentioned I’d made a game pie a few weeks ago.

Also made Brownies using Chilli Chocolate so I had something to give to a couple of people and some left for us.