Sourdough Tutorial Part 3 - picture heavy

Ok, so your starter is ready for action, bubbling and frothy, so we can get on with making a loaf.  Please be aware that amounts and timings are very variable, it can change every time.  It's all worth it, I can promise you.

So the first step is making a leaven or sponge....that's a small amount of dough made using some of your starter, it contains all the yeasts from your starter and is used as the raising agent.  Here's my starter this morning:-

Using the bowl of your stand mixer, or a large mixing bowl if you're doing it by hand, put in a couple of tablespoons of strong bread flour, then 4 tablespoons of your starter, followed by a splash of lukewarm water....mix it together, adding more water if necessary, so it becomes the consistency of double cream:-

Cover it with a teatowel and put it in a warm place for an hour - a sunny windowsill is fine, it doesn't have to be the airing cupboard.  After an hour or so, it should be looking bubbly again, it'll then be ready for the next stage....adding the rest of the flour etc.

Now comes the imprecise bit (sorry Joy!).  Add another 400g strong flour - what type you use is up to you, all white is fine, or some white/some brown, I use 300g white and 100g dark rye.  Then add 1 tsp each of salt and sugar, a tablespoon of oil (I use rapeseed), and some lukewarm water - start with about 150ml first, but be prepared to add more, or more flour.  Set your stand mixer going with the dough hook on a slow speed....leave it going for a couple of minutes but watch it to see how it's doing.  If it looks very wet still after a couple of minutes, add a bit more flour, if it's looking a bit 'raggy' and dry, add a splash more water.  You will almost certainly need to add one or the other.  Don't be too eager to add anything extra after each addition though, leave the machine going and watch it for another minute or two, it may sort itself out without the need for any more flour or water.  You'll know when it's ready, it will all come together into a firm, smooth looking dough, leaving the sides of the bowl fairly clean:-

Nearly ready, I gave it another 20 seconds or so.  When it looks smooth and the bowl is clean, at that stage you can either leave your machine going for another couple of minutes to finish the kneading, or you can do as I do and take it out to finish it by hand.  I pull it out onto a floured work surface and do a bit of stretching - I like getting my hands into it, I can feel the texture of the dough and know when it's ready for proving.  

Shape it into a nice round ball, dust the bowl with flour and put the dough back in for the first prove.

If you don't have a stand mixer and want to do it all by hand - add the 400g flour, salt, sugar, oil and water and mix it with a wooden spoon, then turn it out onto your heavily floured work surface and knead by hand.  It will be very sticky at first (this is where the plastic dough scrapers come in useful), and you'll need to knead it for a good 10 minutes or so (a good workout!), and probably adding a bit more flour, or possibly water, until it looks firm and smooth like the pic above.  At this stage, put it back in the bowl.

However you've kneaded it, now cover the bowl again and put it in a warm place to prove.  I leave it for about an hour - the time is flexible though, it may well take longer - until it's risen quite a bit.  I then take it out, knock it back briefly, shape it and put it into a banneton.  

A word about bannetons - I have 2, one round and one oblong, made of cane.  They're a bit like a new cast iron pan in that they need seasoning to prevent the dough sticking - to do this you spray them lightly with water (or use a pastry brush), then liberally dust them with flour.  Do this every time you use them, so the flour coating builds up each time.  Don't wash them in between....unless after a few months they start to look disgusting, in which case simply soak them in plain warm water - no detergent at all - scrub them off with a brush and leave them to dry naturally.  It's what commercial bakers do with theirs!  You don't need to use a banneton for proving, you could just leave the dough to prove in your mixing bowl and then put it on a baking tray to bake it.  I use them because I got them years ago when I was really into sourdough making and I like the ringed pattern they give to the finished loaves.  Oh, and just to be clear, you don't bake the bread in the bannetons, they're just for proving.

My floured bannetons.  The oblong one is the one I'm using today, the round one is pictured after I took last week's dough out of it.

If you're not using a banneton, leave the dough in your bowl to prove until it's doubled in size - this could take several hours, it's slower than yeasted bread.  And the slower it is, the better the taste will be.  If you will be using a banneton, after you've knocked back and shaped the dough and put it in, again leave it until it's doubled in size.  Cover the bowl or banneton so the dough doesn't dry out.

When the dough has doubled, either tip it carefully out of the banneton onto a floured tray, or just take it out of the mixing bowl, shape it quickly into a nice round or oblong and place it on the tray.

The dough after proving.

Turned out onto the baking tray...slash the top (however you like, 1 long cut down the centre or several smaller ones), this is to allow room to expand, if you don't slash the loaf it may split at the sides during the initial rising in the hot oven.

Bake it in a preheated oven at 200 deg C, 400 deg F or Gas mark 6 for the first 10 mins....my oven is a fan one, so I guess if yours isn't you'll need it to be slightly higher.  After 10 mins, turn the tray around and turn the temp down to 180 C, 350 F or Gas 4.  Leave the bread in for another 30-40 minutes.....check it after 30, turn it upside down and tap firmly on the bottom, if it's cooked it should sound distinctly hollow.  It should also be a nice golden brown and feel crispy.  If not, leave it in for another 5 or 10 minutes.

The finished loaf, it's a darker golden brown than the photo shows, colour doesn't show up very well on my phone.

Sorry it's such a long post (for those of you who haven't given up by now!)...I wanted to give precise details and plenty of pictures, as I've had several people asking, both in comments and via email, how I do it.  I hope yours works out as well, please do let us know.

Sourdough Tutorial - Part 2

Firstly, to answer some questions on the sourdough:-

Chinadogs (welcome, by the way), you asked about using your bread machine....if you mean making the sourdough loaf entirely in your breadmaker, sorry but I have no idea if that would work.  But if you mean just mixing and kneading it in the machine, then taking it out to prove and bake in the oven - yes I'm sure that will be fine.  I use my big electric stand mixer to mix and knead the dough using the dough hook, then finish the kneading off by hand - purely because I like to do it by hand.  Toni, I know you're a bit worried about doing it by hand - you don't have to, you can let your stand mixer do all the kneading work.

Doing the mixing and kneading entirely by hand is certainly possible, but it will be very sloppy and sticky at first.  It would help to have a couple of dough scrapers, like this:-

I got these from ebay a few years ago, they cost about £2 for the pair.  I also have this one:-

Again I've had it a few years, bought it from a cookware shop, it cost a lot more than the plastic ones hence why I only bought one!  It is, however, very useful for cutting up dough when I'm making rolls.  You use the scrapers to lift up the very soft and sticky dough at the sides and fold it into the middle, it just makes the job easier and less sticky on your hands.

Eloise, sourdough bread is nothing like soda bread, it has a completely different taste and texture.  Soda bread is quite 'cakey' (I make it often) and crumbly, sourdough is proper bread.  It has a crisp crunchy crust and open, holey and very chewy inside, it has an amazing depth of flavour with a distinctive slightly sour tang.  It looks and tastes like expensive artisan bread from a posh bakery.  Well it is artisan bread from a posh bakery....your own!

Joy, yes, sourdough making is quite unstructured - the starter is ready when it's ready (bubbling and frothy), the making of the dough isn't that precise either - you start off with a (roughly) set amount of flour but will probably need to add a bit more, and then a bit more still, and the amount of water is the same thing, you might need to add more.  It's a case of trial and error and adapting as you go along, I'm afraid - which is exactly what makes it interesting for me!  It is actually easier than it sounds - if you've made bread before you'll know when the dough is ready to stop adding flour and water and stop kneading - it'll be firm but quite soft and smooth and no longer sticky.  You don't want it too soft or it won't hold its shape when baking, it'll collapse and spread and end up looking more like a pizza, as it's baked not in a container but simply placed on a baking tray.

I suppose you could bake it in a bread tin - I'm sure it would still taste like sourdough, it just won't look like sourdough.

I'll stop here and get onto the actual making of the loaf tomorrow.

Dentist

Apologies - posted on the wrong blog, with my brain befuddled by drugs this morning.  Nobody wants to read about dental stuff when they're expecting to read foodie stuff do they?!

Apologies...

...for not doing the follow up Sourdough Tutorial Part 2, the making of a loaf, yet.  Events with my mouth problems have taken precedence, I've even neglected my starter (shoved it in the fridge, it'll be dormant and fine for a few days).  I'm not eating much either, just soft nursery food  really, normal service will be resumed in a day or two, hopefully, when I'm fixed.

A sourdough tutorial - Part 1

Some of you have asked about the sourdough starter, so I thought I'd do a post (well, 2 actually, I'll finish it off tomorrow) about it.

Firstly, Briony, don't worry, sourdough is a very slow process, from start to finish....it'll be a week or so before you see any action from your starter!

It's nothing to be scared of either, sourdough is not difficult to make.  It's not an exact science though and results aren't 100% predictable, it depends on so many things - atmosphere, temperature, type of flour used....and pure luck!  What I do may not be the 'correct' way to do it (like professional bakers do it, for example), but it's what I do and it's been fairly successful for me.  I can't guarantee it will be successful for everyone else though, so please don't shoot me if it doesn't work for you 😉😁

I used to make sourdough years ago and then stopped, I can't remember why.  This time around I'm doing it slightly differently and the first loaf I've made is really successful.  Years ago I used to take out some of the starter and throw it away every day, before adding more flour and water....I was following directions in a professional baker's book.  Now, I don't do that, I'm doing what a fellow blogger, Julie who used to blog as LovelyGrey but now blogs as https://makesmedotdotdot.com/?cat=6 , does.

So, for the starter - I'm using a Kilner jar....it doesn't have to be, you could just use a bowl or jar or plastic container....whatever you use, it needs to be a few inches deep though.  Start off by putting a couple of tablespoons of flour in, and enough water to make a runny paste, sort of double cream thickness, mix it well, although a few small lumps don't matter.  The flour I use is ordinary bread flour and rye flour - you don't have to use rye, I just like the taste of rye bread and happen to have some rye flour in the cupboard.  Leave the lid off the jar, it needs to capture the natural yeasts that are present in the air for it to start working.  Leave the jar out on the worktop, you don't need to keep it in the fridge....in fact, the fridge will slow it down considerably.  

Every morning, stir in a heaped teaspoon of flour, and a little splash of water.  For the first few days it won't appear to be doing anything much, and will just smell like flour.  After a few days though, you'll look at it one morning and it will be bubbling nicely and will start to smell distinctly 'beery' - it smells really nice actually, sort of fresh and fruity.  You may get a layer of golden brown liquid appearing on the top...don't worry about it, it's fine, just stir it back in with the flour.  Once the bubbles start appearing, then you can put a lid on the jar - if it's a Kilner jar then take the rubber seal off so the jar's not airtight when you close the lid.  If it's a plastic Tupperware-type container, don't put the lid on tightly, if no lid for your container or jar, just cover it with a teatowel or piece of muslin.  

After another day or two (or three or four!), your starter will be a mass of bubbles and quite frothy.....this is when it's ready to start making a loaf.  I'll post about that tomorrow.

Years ago I sometimes added yogurt, sugar or even a few raisins or sultanas to my starter....this time around I'm just using flour and water, and it seems to be working just fine.  My starter is now 2 weeks old, and this is what it looks like this morning, after taking some out the other day to make my first loaf, and adding a teaspoon of rye flour this morning:-

Taking some of the starter out kind of upsets the balance of it a bit, and it'll take a few days of daily feeding for it to get back to a frothy state.  It's a living thing and can be a bit temperamental!

Amazing bargains and sourdough success

Husband needed to get a couple of things in the town this afternoon, so we popped into Morrisons whilst we were there to pick up some dog food, there's a particular one Betty really likes.  I managed to get some excellent YS (yellow sticker) bargains....amazing, we don't often find really good bargains as we never seem to be in the shop at the right time.  They'd reduced a lot of fruit and veg, I got a net of satsumas for 30p, 3 punnets of chestnut mushrooms for 20p each....on date but still looking perfect, and a bag of 5 avocados for 60p!  Gobsmacked!

The mushrooms I shall put in an oven dish, dot with butter/oil and parsley and roast, then freeze them.  A couple of the avocados we'll have for lunch tomorrow, I'm thinking of making chocolate brownies with the rest, I vaguely remember seeing a recipe some time ago, will have to google for it.  The satsumas will just be eaten as is.  

My sourdough - oh I'm so pleased with it, considering it's my first one in 2 or 3 years.  The leaven I made with some of the starter mixed up with the flour into a lovely smooth dough, and it rose beautifully - I left it overnight and baked it this morning, after kneading and proving again in my banneton.  It baked well, rising again in the oven, and looks and smells fantastic.  The proof will be in the eating, of course - we'll have some tomorrow for lunch topped with some smashed avocado, bacon and a poached egg.

The dough after proving for a couple of hours in the banneton.

The baked loaf.  It's darker in colour than the photo - colours don't show up very well on my phone.

I've asked husband to buy me a Stanley knife, so I can make better cuts on my breads...he offered to fetch me one of his from the shed, I politely declined 😁

Tonight we're having a beef stirfry, another leftovers meal from the freezer.  I shall add a chopped yellow pepper and small head of broccoli to it, both going soft in the fridge and needing using today.  We'll have it with a ping packet of egg fried rice.  Easy meal as I've been gardening today and my back is murmuring.

Spag bol, sourdough loaf and a soapbox moment

Thank you for comments....Eloise, £120 p.w. for two people!!  Blimey!  And Janice and Gemma's P, thank you.  I just enjoy being inventive and experimenting, although haven't always been like that....when I was working full time, we had a lot of ready meals and takeaways.  I've always liked cooking and the odd bit of baking, but it was only really when I was in my 40s and started working part time that I started proper cooking, as it were.

I can only assume that people whose shopping costs that much must have a lot of ready meals or big brand items, or just buy whatever takes their fancy on the day.  I bet they have a lot of waste, too.  On the subject of which, somebody told me something the other day which made me gasp - they said when they have a roast chicken, they only eat the breast and throw the legs - well, all the rest of the bird - away!  I was staggered.  I think we owe it to ourselves, the environment and the animals whose meat we eat (if we are carnivores) to use up all the food we buy and cook.  Throwing perfectly good food away is criminal, the way I see it, as well as being stupidly expensive.

Right, that's me off the soapbox now....each to their own, I guess.

The slow cooker mince yesterday made 6 double portions to freeze, as I expected.  Well, 5 to freeze, we're having one (a smaller portion) as spaghetti Bolognese today.  The others I am sure will do us for 2 meals each, once I do something else with each of them.

A couple of years ago I used to make sourdough bread regularly, I had a starter on the go for several months.  Can't remember why I stopped.  Then recently one of the bloggers I follow, Julie who used to have the LovelyGrey blog but now blogs as https://makesmedotdotdot.com/ mentioned her sourdough starter, which made me want to do it, so a week or so ago I started up a starter again.  The past couple of days it's been bubbling away nicely and having that lovely fresh 'beery' smell, so I'm using some today to make my first new sourdough loaf.  Fingers crossed, I'll let you know how it goes.  Must have a look for my banneton (cane proving basket) in a minute, I think I know where it is...

Fishcakes, savoury mince and cauli cheese

Marlene and Joy, thanks for your comments....yes, I'm actually quite surprised how well we've done with the £100 monthly shopping budget, it's been relatively easy.  That's mainly because we do have a lot of food in the freezers/larder and I've been making a conscious effort to use that, rather than buying more food indiscriminately.  We have friends who've recently said they cannot get their WEEKLY food shop below £100 - admittedly, there are 3 adults in their household, plus a dog, but I'm sure they could spend less if they put their minds to it.  They are quite fussy eaters too, which I suppose makes it more difficult.

Today I'm using the slow cooker to make a large quantity of savoury mince, using 2x500g packs of minced beef, mixed veg (a third of a kilo pack of peas, sweetcorn, diced carrots and green beans), mushrooms and red onion, all from the freezer.  I'll add 2 tins of chopped tomatoes, 2 or 3 handfuls of red lentils, beef stock cubes, splash of Worcestershire sauce, big squirt of tomato puree, water from the rinsed out tomato tins, a spoonful of Vegemite dissolved in hot water, mixed herbs and seasoning and a handful or two of oats to thicken (thanks for reminding me, Joy).  It'll be portioned up when cool and frozen, to be used in the future for cottage pie, spag bol, lasagne, mince & dumplings, or chilli with the addition of kidney beans, smoked paprika and chilli powder.  I'm expecting it to make at least 6 portions for the two of us and, depending on what I do with it, each portion will probably make 2 meals for us.  So the minced beef, bought on special offer from the butcher at £1.69 for 500g (I got 10), will stretch to make numerous extremely economical meals.

I'm making fishcakes for lunch, using leftover mashed potato from Sunday, quite a lot of it (the potatoes were sprouting so needed to be used up).  I was going to use a tin of pink salmon and tin of tuna, but when I went to get the salmon out of the cupboard yesterday, realised I hadn't got any pink left, only a tin of red.  Well, I don't want to use that in fishcakes, as I love red salmon in a sandwich, so instead I'm going to use a couple of jars of cheap salmon paste along with the tuna.  Husband discovered yesterday that my pot of parsley in the garden is growing again, I really thought winter had killed it off completely, so I can use fresh parsley instead of dried in the fishcakes.  We'll have a couple with salad for lunch, I expect there'll be several to freeze as well.

For dinner tonight we're having cauliflower cheese, using a bacon, leek and cheese sauce I'd previously made double of and froze the other half.  We'll have it with sautéed courgettes and yellow peppers.

So from the freezer today:-

2x500g packs minced beef
Mixed veg
Mushrooms
Red onions
Bacon, leek & cheese sauce

But...several mince meals and fishcakes will be going back in!

Another out of the freezer meal, and 3rd shop

We did our 3rd shop from this month's £100 food budget, it came to £21.85.  Running total £77.84, leaving £22.16 for the final week.  I think we're doing alright, I know we won't need much so should stay within budget.  Next week in our Lidl they're giving away a 200g jar of coffee as part of their 6-week opening offer freebies, handy as we'll need coffee by then!

Today we're having leftover cottage pie, previously made and the leftovers frozen 2 or 3 weeks ago.  There's not a huge amount of the cottage pie, enough for a small portion each, but we have loads of veggies to go with it....Savoy cabbage and roasted carrots left from yesterday's dinner, frozen green beans and peas.  We also have mashed potato left from yesterday, I shall make fishcakes with that for tomorrow's dinner, using tinned salmon or tuna (or both).

Tomorrow I'm going to use 2 packs of minced beef from the freezer (500g each) to make a big quantity of savoury mince and veggies in the slow cooker.  It'll be portioned up and frozen for Bolognese, cottage pie and lasagne, and kidney beans/spices added to some for chilli.  With 2 tins of chopped tomatoes and plenty of frozen veggies cooked with it (diced mixed veg, mushrooms and spinach) and some red lentils, it should make a lot of portions.

Backache and bangers

Thanks for the comments on our Valentine's meal.  It is nice to go out for a meal occasionally.

As I'm out of commission at the mo (terrible backache), husband cooked the dinner.  We had sausages, spicy wedges and baked beans with onion sauce out of a packet....you know what, it was blimmin' lovely!  

Sometimes I get so focused on cooking from scratch and coming up with creative meals, it's easy to forget that simple bung-it-in-the-oven type meals taste just as good.  Especially when somebody else cooks it!  
(and he'll even do the washing up.  What a treasure.)

Gemma's P, Marmite is generally on the shelves where the jams (jellies?), marmalade, peanut butter, etc are.  I hope you find some.  And that you like it!  As I said before, it is most definitely a love it or hate it thing.

Valentine's dinner review

I'd been warned by a friend who'd eaten at the pub last year, along with his wife, and didn't like it...in fact his wife was ill afterwards, he said.  I did worry about that before we went...but we'd already paid half in advance, so we were going no matter what.  Well, I'm pleased to say the food was fine, as are we.  One or two things could have been better, though.

My starter was chicken liver pate (they called it parfait...pretentious, it's a local village pub in Somerset, not some minor celebrity chef's place on the banks of the Thames) and plenty of it, with a heap of very colourful salad, homemade red onion marmalade and toast.  The pate was delicious, as was the relish (husband ate my salad).  2 things let it down - the toast was 1 slice of ordinary cheap white sliced bread, and the dish was served on a piece of black slate.  A pet hate of mine - what's wrong with plates?!?!  Husband had 'sautéed scallops served with roasted cauliflower, pancetta lardons and cauliflower puree'.  When it arrived, his face was a picture - 3 small scallops with 3 tiny, I'm talking miniscule, florets of roasted cauli, a teaspoonful of lardons and a few dots, my smallest fingernail sized, of cauli puree.  He liked it all but said there was barely enough to taste, hence why he ate my salad and some of my pate and relish - there was too much of mine!

For my main I had 'serrano wrapped chicken stuffed with mozzarella, pesto and sun blush tomatoes in a tomato and chilli sauce', it came with new potatoes (plenty of them) and a massive amount of French beans.  The chicken, a large breast, was lovely and moist, the stuffing delicious, my only complaint being that the serrano ham was overdone, crispy and dry.  Fortunately, there was plenty of the sauce, which had large pieces of sun blush tomatoes in it and wasn't too spicy, it was really nice.  The potatoes were overcooked though, but the beans were underdone.  

Husband, bless him, had obviously drawn the short straw again with his choice of main course - 'slow roasted pork belly with fondant potato, black pudding, apple crisp and cider sauce'.  He also had French beans, although not as many as me.  The pork belly was 3, I kid you not, 3 one-inch sized cubes, with 2 round brown things which we first thought were miniature pork pies - they turned out to be the fondant potato.  One disc of black pudding, he didn't even notice the apple crisp (if there was one) and a tiny amount of sauce which he said tasted of nothing much.  Again, he ate quite a lot of my main course, there was too much of everything for me.

Oh, I forgot to mention the best bit....after our starters, we had a gin & tonic sorbet served in sherry glasses.  It was absolutely gorgeous, I could happily have eaten a whole big bowlful of it.

For dessert, I had crème brulee with a homemade shortbread biscuit.  Now, I like crème brulee, I've had it several times over the years, it's always been a very smooth, very creamy custard with, of course, the caramelised sugar topping.  This one, although very nice tasting, wasn't smooth or custard like - it was more like rice pudding!  Not smooth at all, a bit lumpy and quite solid, but as I said, it did taste quite nice.  I think the chef must have been distracted when he was making it.  The shortbread biscuit, which was clearly homemade (by a child, by the look of it), tasted of nothing, however.  Husband had cheese and biscuits with grapes - fine, nothing remarkable but nothing to complain about either.

In conclusion, on the whole we both liked the food, with a couple of reservations, husband's gripe being there just wasn't enough of it for him.  However, I do think that I could have cooked it better myself (and cheaper, and enough of it to satisfy husband) at home.  But it's nice to have dinner cooked for us and not have to wash up afterwards, and we enjoyed the evening with our friends, who are good company.

Oh, we also had a complimentary glass of Prosecco with a fresh raspberry in it upon arrival, which was a nice touch.

No cooking day

Gemma's P, you did make me laugh saying you thought Marmite sounded like an animal!  Sorry, I assumed everyone in the world had heard of it.  Have you heard of Vegemite, or Bovril?  Similar things.  Marmite is a brown sticky spread for toast or sandwiches, very salty and deeply savoury, it's yeast extract, a by-product of beer making.  You either love it or hate it (that's the slogan they use!) - I love it, having been brought up on it, husband hates it.  Well, actually, to tell the truth I prefer the Aussie version, Vegemite, nowadays (don't throw stones at me for betraying my country!! haha).  The texture of Marmite has changed in recent years, it seems to be softer and runnier than it used to be, whereas Vegemite has a firmer texture which I like and a slightly different taste.  Bovril is beef extract, in case you didn't know, it's generally used more for gravy or as a hot drink.  I hate that, whereas husband really likes Bovril!!  Go figure!

Something light for lunch today....husband will probably have the last of the roast beef in a sandwich, I might just have a slice of the banana and cinnamon cake I made yesterday, with a coffee.

No cooking....we're going out for dinner, a 4-course meal for Valentine's Day, a very rare event!

Smoked mackerel pasta salad and no cook dinner

Not much in the way of cooking today, as it's mostly ready cooked things from the freezer.

For lunch I'll do a smoked mackerel pasta salad - there are 2 packs of smoked mackerel in the freezer that were bought when they were reduced a lot.  I'll cook some wholewheat pasta twists (well, it's hardly cooking!) and mix with some veggies....sweetcorn from the freezer, sliced gherkins and spring onion, with a horseradish mayo stirred through.  Served on some salad leaves.

Dinner will be a different thing each.  There's a single portion of leftover chicken stew in the freezer, and one of beef curry....I'll have the chicken.  We'll have them with brown rice, again a previously cooked tub in the freezer, enough for two.  They'll all be thoroughly reheated until piping hot in the oven, I'll put a banana cake in there too, as there's a couple of bananas going brown.  

I forgot to mention this week's shopping out of the £100 food budget.  Went to Morrisons this time, as I needed a few things that I can't get in Lidl or Aldi, like Marmite rice cakes (love them) and some dog food that Betty particularly likes.  Spent £33.68, giving a running total of £55.99, leaving £44.01 for the rest of this month.  That will do fine, we still don't need much.

From the freezer today:-

1 pack of smoked mackerel
Sweetcorn kernels
1 portion chicken stew
1 portion beef curry
Cooked brown rice

Anonymous comments

I'm starting to get a lot of anonymous comments now, some of which are clearly spam, some which just say things like 'I love your blog!!!!!', which I'm not inclined to believe are genuine - too many exclamation marks for a start.

If people don't have a Blogger account but still wish to comment, then please add your name at the end of your comment, it only has to be a first name or whatever you wish to be known as, just so I know you are a genuine reader.  It's only polite, after all.  Otherwise, I'm afraid I won't be publishing them.

Continuing with freezer leftovers

Yesterday's food pics:-

Hummus, had it for lunch today as well.

Cheesy French bread toasts....delicious, they all got eaten yesterday.

The beef and veg pie.  We were going to have the other half for lunch today, but changed our minds....it's been frozen for a dinner another day.  There was so much hummus left, we had that with crackers and some olives instead.

For dinner tonight, it's cauliflower & broccoli cheese - made a double portion of it about a month ago and froze the other half.  I've also taken out some jacket potatoes I'd cooked and frozen previously, I'm going to cut them into wedges and dust with spicy Cajun seasoning before reheating in the oven.  We'll have some frozen veg too, so it's a meat-free day today.

From the freezer today:-

Cauli/broccoli cheese
Jacket potato wedges
Peas and sweetcorn

But half the meat pie from yesterday went back in! 

Hummus, cheesy toasts, beef & veg pie

It feels like we've had weeks of heavy rain (well, it's been heavy showers, not continuous rain, but enough to have standing water and thick mud in the fields and partially flooded lanes) and very strong, bitterly cold winds.  To be fair, there has been some sunshine too, just in very short bursts most of the time.  Well, today has dawned with a mostly blue sky, no rain, a lot less cold and not much wind, and it's forecast to be like this all week.  Marvellous!  Just to qualify....when I say not much wind - it's always windy here, there's nothing much between us and the Bristol channel which is only a couple of miles away as the crow flies, but it's just normal wind, not the kind that brings tears to your eyes and practically blows you off your feet.  So we might actually be able to get out in the garden to start tidying up, pruning and weeding, and preparing for the year's food growing.  Well, husband does the food growing, I do the pretty flowery stuff in the front garden.

So this week we're eating out of the freezer every day, I've done an inventory and week's menu plan.  I'm specifically talking about using up all the odds and ends of leftover meals, cooked veggies, etc, that have accumulated in the freezer, not shop bought packs of veg, meat, fish fingers and the like.  Not wanting to waste anything, I always freeze the leftovers of meals and veg, but it means we end up with numerous pots and bags of stuff that languish in there forever and take up space.  So I've devised a week of meals that'll use up as much as possible of the oddments and leftovers.

Today for lunch I'm making hummus using a pot of frozen chickpeas (I cooked a whole bag of dried chickpeas at once weeks ago, freezing them in portions, there's just one left).  We'll have it with cheesy French bread toasts - a brown French baguette that's been in the freezer for ages, sliced thinly and topped with grated cheese, sliced spring onion and mayo, then baked in the oven.

For dinner it'll be a pie using homemade shortcrust pastry from the freezer, filled with diced beef left from yesterday's dinner, a mix of chopped veg both from yesterday and some from the freezer, and leftover horseradish gravy.  I made enough gravy yesterday purposely to use some in the pie.  The pie will make 4 portions, we'll have the remainder for lunch tomorrow.

From the freezer today:-

Chickpeas
Small brown baguette
Pastry
Leftover cooked veg

Freezer week and answers to comments

This week I really must try to use more stuff out of the freezer....whilst we have had a few frozen things recently, I've also batch cooked and added more stuff to the freezer.  Doesn't really help in the short term, when there's so much in it already that I have a job finding anything.  So it's going to be a week of taking out at least one (preferably more) frozen item each day, and not putting anything back in.  If we have any leftovers from a meal, I'll incorporate them into the next day's meal or have them for lunch, rather than shoving them in the freezer as I usually do.

Roast beef today, a small joint that we managed to find a couple of weeks ago, reduced to half price.  There will be leftovers, I'm sure, so a beef pie or curry tomorrow.  Probably a pie, I have homemade pastry in the freezer so that's one thing I can take out tomorrow.

The scones - well, they were so light and fluffy, I'm definitely going to use all yogurt in them from now on.  Janice, the idea of using flavoured yogurt in sweet scones is brilliant.  And Gemma's Person, I bet pecans in scones are delicious, I love pecans, must try that.  Your cinnamon rolls and savoury rolls sound wonderful.

I'd forgotten about the Lime Drizzle Cake, TA, I'm glad you liked it.  Goldensunflower, happy birthday for Tuesday....yes go on, make yourself a cake!  You know there's no calories in birthday cakes, don't you?! ;-) 

Eloise, parsnip with apple and onion sounds great, I'd not thought of that.  Joy, yes I use yogurt for soda bread too, I make one every week (well, husband makes it sometimes) for an elderly neighbour who has various dietary issues and can't eat yeasted bread.

The mystery rissoles we had the other day....when they were defrosted it still wasn't obvious what was in them, I just couldn't remember how I'd made them.  I was a bit concerned that they might not be very tasty, hence why they'd been languishing in the freezer for several weeks.  So when reheating them (I did them in the oven, along with jacket potatoes), I put a sun dried tomato and some grated cheese on top of each one, so at least they'd have some taste!  They turned out to be sausagemeat with onion, tomato, rice and herbs, they were actually quite nice.  Does anyone remember the rissoles from years ago, frozen, made by Birds Eye or Ross I think?  We had them as children quite often, not totally sure what was in them but I think it was sausagemeat and chopped cooked egg, they were formed into patties, covered in breadcrumbs, Mum shallow fried them and served them with chips and beans usually.

Marlene, that's a really nice thing to say, thank you.  I love to cook and my imagination runs riot when I'm making something, I quite often do something different on the spur of the moment, thinking 'Oh I know, I could add...whatever..., that'll be good'.

Parsnip & bacon frittata, cheese scones, chowder

I had a large wrinkled parsnip that needed using up yesterday, not used it in a frittata before but thought it would go well with bacon for lunch.  So I peeled and grated it, then fried it gently along with 2 bacon rashers cut up small, and a couple of sliced spring onions.  Added 5 beaten eggs and some grated cheese, cooked it for a couple of minutes until it was set on the bottom, then finished it off under the grill.  We had it with tinned tomatoes, it was lovely, the parsnip made it taste quite sweet and creamy, even.

Made cheese scones to go with the chowder for dinner.  I usually use yogurt and milk mixed together for scones, I sometimes add an egg, sometimes not.  This time I did use an egg, but all yogurt instead of half yogurt, half milk, because I had some Greek yogurt that was past the use by date (it smelt and tasted fine, it lasts for ages anyway) and I wanted to finish it up.  The scones were yummy, probably the lightest ever, even husband commented on them.

I had a nice chunky piece of smoked haddock in the freezer (which turned out to be smoked cod but no matter!), so decided to make chowder....we were going to have creamy smoked mackerel pasta but I didn't fancy pasta yesterday.  So I diced a large potato and chopped up a leek (still from the garden, there are still loads there), frying them in a large pan.  Added some chicken stock, along with Italian seasoning (husband spoke to me as I was shaking it in, so rather more than I anticipated went in, it still tasted fine, if a bit herby, but was a nice shade of green!) and some pepper.  Threw in some frozen sweetcorn and peas, simmered it for about 20 mins, then added some milk.  Meanwhile, I microwaved the cod for a couple of minutes, then flaked it up when it had cooled a bit....I always flake fish by hand as it's the easiest way to feel for any bones.  When the veg in the chowder was cooked, I stirred in the fish and a big splash of cream, heating it through again gently.  Yum.

Sorry I didn't take a photo of the frittata, completely forgot.  My photos, taken on my phone, aren't brilliant anyway.

Salmon dog biscuits and Lemon Drizzle cake

Goldensunflower asked for my recipe for salmon dog biscuits.  It's dead simple, it's basically just short crust pastry with a 75g jar of salmon paste added, plus some salmon oil.  We bought a 500ml bottle of salmon oil from the Approved Food website, but you can get it in pet shops.

So it's 225g flour (I use plain), 50g butter, margarine or lard or a mixture of them, the jar of salmon paste (you know, the jars of sandwich paste from a supermarket), and a tablespoon of salmon oil.   I put it all in my food processor and whizz it up to breadcrumbs, then trickle in a little cold water, just a bit at a time, until it suddenly all clumps together.  Take it out and knead very briefly, just to amalgamate it into a ball.  Flour the work surface and roll the dough out to about the thickness of a pound coin.  You can then use a cutter of your choice to cut it into shapes, or do as I do and just cut it across into strips about an inch wide.  Dc had a good suggestion, to use a pizza cutter - great idea, but mine broke a while back and I've never got round to replacing it.  Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment and bake in a medium hot oven until golden brown, about 10 to 15 mins or so (can't be more precise than that, it depends on your oven).  Put them on a cooling rack, then break up into appropriately sized bits when cool.  Store some in a tin, enough for your dog to eat within 3 or 4 days, freeze the rest.

Before they went in the oven

Instead of salmon paste, you could use another flavour if your dog isn't a fan of fish.  Or peanut butter, Marmite or cheese spread, or grated cheese....Betty likes all of these.  If you haven't any salmon oil, you could use the juice out of a tin of salmon, or sunflower oil from tinned tuna.  Or just leave it out, in which case you'll probably need a bit more water.

Cooked - they're actually darker golden brown in real life

As to the cake....I'm sure everyone has their own favourite recipe for Lemon Drizzle cake, here's mine.  Again, it's dead simple - I go for simplicity every time!  It's more or less just a Victoria sponge batter, with a couple of variations.  And I use old Imperial measurements, simply because I've been making this cake for years and years, and have just never bothered to change it to metric measurements.

6oz butter or margarine
6oz ordinary granulated sugar (I reduce it to 5oz)
6oz self raising flour (or plain with 2 tsp baking powder)
3 eggs
Zest of 1 large or 2 small lemons

For the drizzle:  Juice of the lemon/s, 3 or 4 heaped tsp white sugar

For this cake this time, I also added a tablespoon of orange marmalade.

Beat the butter and sugar together (I use a hand held electric mixer) for several minutes, until well mixed and fluffy.  Crack in 1 egg at a time, with a tablespoon of flour, mixing well before adding the next egg.  Along with the 3rd egg and spoonful of flour, add the lemon zest and marmalade, mixing well again.  Then add the rest of the flour, don't use the electric whisk though or the flour will fly everywhere, just mix in carefully with a large spoon until no flour remains in sight.  The batter should be a soft dropping consistency, if it's a bit stiff, add a few drops of milk.  

Scrape into a loaf tin (preferably lined, unless your tins are super non stick ones, not battered old ones like mine) and bake in a medium oven for about 3/4 hour or so.  Sorry about the non precise times, I just basically cook things until they're done!  To check it's done, either press on the surface with your fingers, it should feel firm to the touch, or stick a knife or skewer in - there should be no cake mix on it when you pull it out.  

Whilst the cake is in the oven, make the drizzle - simply mix the sugar and lemon juice together in a cup or small jug, the sugar doesn't need to dissolve.

As soon as the cake comes out of the oven, make a load of holes in it whilst it's still hot - use a skewer or bamboo stick or something similar, I use a 2-pronged metal meat fork.  Then spoon the drizzle over the surface of the cake - leave the cake in the tin to get cold.  Job done.

Making the holes

With the glaze added

Chicken & roasted veg, Jacket spuds, beans and mystery rissoles

Yesterday I did a tray of roasted Mediterranean veggies...red and yellow peppers, courgette, aubergine, mushrooms and our last home grown butternut squash.  I added 2 sliced chicken fillets and tossed it all with Cajun seasoning, olive oil and a splash of balsamic vinegar.  When it was nearly cooked, I crumbled over some feta cheese.  We had it with some roasted Kalettes….have you seen them?  They're like mini kale-type cabbages, I suppose, or Brussels sprouts that have blown and not formed hearts, Lidl sell them, other supermarkets probably do.  I don't actually like kale (or most dark green veggies, come to that), but husband fancied trying them (he'll eat anything).  As the oven was on, and we like roasted sprouts anyway, I put them on a tray, sprayed with oil and roasted them - they do very quickly.  They are, surprisingly, delicious.

Today we're having an easy meal - jacket potatoes with baked beans and grated cheese, plus some homemade rissoles I found in the freezer.  They're just labelled rissoles, I do have a vague memory of making them weeks and weeks ago, but cannot for the life of me remember how I made them or, rather, what's in them.  I hope they're nice!

While rooting around in the freezers, I also found lots of odds and ends - tubs or bags of leftover cooked veggies, single portions of leftover meals...chilli, stew and the like.  Next week I shall do 2 or 3 days of freezer meals - meals made up of leftovers.  Pastry or sauces may need to be involved, to stretch things or make them into a more cohesive meal.  That should get my imagination working, as well as creating more space in the freezers.

Thank you for comments....Goldensunflower (lovely name) I'll post the recipe for the dog biscuits tomorrow.

Faggots (meatballs!)

Yesterday I made faggots - for overseas readers, faggots are the name given to large meatballs made from offal, usually pork, with other meats and a filler of some kind added.  It's a cheap but very tasty meal and the quantities make a lot of faggots, so plenty to freeze.

I started off by blitzing a whole pack of cooking bacon (600g) and pack of pigs liver (about 550g) in my food processor, until they were chopped small.  I tipped it into a large bowl and added a whole pack (500g) of minced pork, along with 2 x 170g packs of sage and onion stuffing - the dry mix, I didn't make it up with water.  Used my hands to squish it all together - messy, but hands really are the only way to go with this, it's so much easier than using a spoon or fork, say, and much more efficient at mixing everything well together.  And of course hands are the original implement!  You could use breadcrumbs instead of the stuffing mix - you need something dry to bind it all together, as it's a very wet mixture - but we love the flavour of the stuffing mix.  I put the bowl in the fridge for an hour to firm up the mixture.  

I then took lumps of the mixture and rolled it into balls, about the size of a satsuma....you need to squeeze them quite firm, otherwise they'll fall apart when cooking.  It made 22, it would of course make more or less depending on the size you make them.  I put them in a couple of roasting tins (they need to be deep ones, not flat trays, as you'll be adding gravy later) and part baked them in a medium oven for 30 mins.

  

Meanwhile, I made onion gravy - a lot, about a litre per tin.  I fried off quite a lot of red onion (it was about 3 large ones, I guess - I buy a big bag of pre-sliced fresh red onion from the supermarket), then added 2 litres of thick gravy made with granules, with tomato puree, balsamic vinegar and a splash of Worcestershire sauce added, along with some dried rosemary, oregano, parsley and garlic granules.  I took out the two tins, poured in the gravy, covered the tins with foil and returned them to the oven for another 30 mins.  

We had 2 faggots each with mashed white and sweet potato and buttered Savoy cabbage, mushy peas also go well with the faggots.  The rest of the faggots when cool were put into bags, along with some gravy, and frozen.

They're absolutely lovely, filling and cheap, loads of meaty texture and taste miles better than the readymade frozen Brains ones.  We had some of those last year, having not had them for years, and weren't impressed at all - they had a strange very soft mousse-like texture and tasted of nothing much.  

Thank you for the comments, particularly those suggesting I write a cook book!  I won't be, but thanks for the vote of confidence.  I just love to cook and experiment.

Meat-free Monday - Feta salad, Veg hash with eggs

This should have been posted yesterday, but I got sidetracked ;-)

Incidentally, I have no (nearly said beef but that's not very appropriate under the circumstances!  haha) grumble, quarrel, problem etc with vegetarians or vegans, each to their own.  As I said, we do try to have vegetarian meals a couple of times a week (yesterday being a case in point)….we probably don't have many vegan meals though, unless it's by accident.  So vegetarians and vegans are welcome on my blog, but only polite comments will be published.

Anyway, yesterday's lunch was salad, as it was a warmer day.  It was mixed leaves with cucumber, cherry tomatoes, peppers and grated carrot, topped with crumbled feta and a blob of mayo.  Ok but a bit boring, to be honest - I'm not really a salad lover, but husband is.  I'd have liked some olives but didn't have any, and husband's not a fan of those anyway.

For dinner, I did a sort of veg hash thing.  Had some roast potatoes and parsnips left over from the Sunday roast, I diced them, along with a small orange pepper, some mushrooms and a large courgette.  I fried them all in a little oil in a non stick pan, then made 4 dips in the mixture and cracked an egg into each dip.  Cooked for a minute on the hob, then put the pan into the pre-heated top oven for another couple of minutes.  Pulled it out and sprinkled on some grated Cheddar, returning it to the oven for another 5 minutes.  Lovely.  

Today I'm making faggots (sort of large meatballs made from pork, liver and bacon all minced together - I whizz it all up in the food processor - and mixed with dry sage & onion stuffing).  The mixture should make a lot, so plenty to freeze.  We'll have them with mashed white and sweet potato, Savoy cabbage and the onion gravy that I'll be cooking the faggots in.

We did our first shop for this £100 food shop challenge yesterday, went to Lidl and spent £22.31, which I was pleased with.  I discovered they do boxes of 40 Redbush teabags, which is my favourite tea, for 75p - amazing price, it's usually £1.80-£2.15 in other supermarkets...different brand admittedly, but I expect it tastes much the same.  I got 2 boxes, which was all they had....I'd have bought more if they had them.  They're doing 6 weeks of opening offers (the store is a new one which opened around last Christmas), you get a free product every week for the 6 week period if you spend £20+.  We missed the first 2 weeks as we didn't know this offer was on...it hadn't been publicised anywhere, well, not that we'd seen.  The free thing this week was a 1l bottle of olive oil, price £2.89 - I use olive oil often for cooking so was happy to be given that.  Next week it's soap powder, apparently.

Thank you for the comments on my last post.  

A genuine vegan? I don't think so

I want to say something, to make it clear and remove any doubt (as if there was any!):-  

Husband and I are carnivores, we eat meat and fish.  I've mentioned it in my blog header, so it's not like I'm hiding it - and of course I write about meat and fish meals I make.  We do have 1 or 2 vegetarian days a week.....for cost and health reasons.  We will never (or it's highly unlikely anyway) give up eating meat and fish, for the simple reason that we like the taste of them.

The reason I'm saying this is because I had an extremely rude comment (anonymous of course - why is it that nasty comments are always sent anonymously?  Because they're COWARDS, that's why!) over the weekend, from someone who made all sorts of nasty vindictive personal remarks about our meat food choices, and professing to be vegan.  

Now, I don't believe they are actually a genuine vegan, for a couple of reasons:-

1.  Why read a food blog written by someone who clearly states they eat meat, who gives a meat-containing meal in the title (the comment came on my Beef Curry post) if you're so dead set against meat eating that it riles you up so much?

2.  Why do it anonymously?  If you're a genuine vegan, why not be out and proud about it, like I am as a carnivore?  What have you got to be ashamed about?  Why hide behind your keyboard, anonymously spewing bile?  Because you're not a genuine vegan are you, you're just a common or garden troublemaker who just wants to make waves and stir things up, one of the rent-a-mob brigade who turn up to anything controversial, who want to get on telly but hide their faces with hoodies and scarves or masks because they're too COWARDLY to own up to who they are, and the fact that they're just a stirrer!

I have no problem whatsoever with anyone's food choices - it's a free country and we have freedom of choice, and it would be a very boring world if we were all the same.  I may not like the idea of the way somebody else eats (or rather, what they choose to eat/not eat), but I respect their choices and would never dream of making nasty comments about it, especially anonymously - how rude is that?  (And how COWARDLY!).

You needn't go to the trouble of making any more comments, because they won't be published - you will NEVER be published on my blog, because you're a COWARD and a troublemaker.  And no you didn't shock or upset me with your comments, I just laughed!

Low spend food month, beef curry

We have a few things coming up that we need to save money for, so have decided that we'll try and keep our food shop to £100 for February.  I've taken the cash out and will keep it in a separate compartment in my purse, and when it's gone it's gone.  In theory it shouldn't be hard to stick to that at all, after all, it's £25 a week and we have plenty of food in the freezers and larder cupboards, loads of dog food and toiletries/cleaning supplies.

In fact, the only things I can think of that we will need are soya milk (they had none in the supermarket when we went on Thursday), fresh veg and fruit and possibly some cheese and butter (possibly?!  Who am I kidding, we always need cheese!).  Oh, eggs as well, I expect, we get through a lot of eggs.

For dinner tonight I'm making beef curry.  An easy meal, I like to have an easy day on Saturdays.  It's the last of the beef we had at Christmas, some pre-sliced red onions, mushrooms and peppers, and a bought jar of jalfrezi sauce.  I buy the onions and peppers and sometimes the mushrooms ready sliced in Morrisons, it's what they use for their in-store pizzas and salads, they sell the leftover veg in huge bags for £1 at the end of the day sometimes, I always grab a bag if I see them and freeze them.  We'll have it with plain brown basmati rice.  I thought (for a split second!) about making flatbreads but decided against it....don't want the extra carbs and can't be bothered anyway, haha.  It's one of those days today.

Tomato & lentil soup, apple galette, chicken pasta bake and snow

Couple of recent photos:-

The quiche from Wednesday, with homemade coleslaw and fat chips.

Last night's savoury mince with Yorkies and roasted sprouts.  Rather than 2 big Yorkshires, I ended up making a dozen smaller ones in my muffin tin.  3 for husband, 2 for me, the rest frozen.

Today I'm doing dog biscuits, her favourite salmon pastry ones.  Bought some sweet potatoes to make her tuna, veg and brown rice food too.  

For lunch I shall make a tomato and lentil soup, I took some cheese dumplings out of the freezer, they'll be lovely reheated in the soup.  Chicken pasta bake for dinner tonight.  

Rather than making a cake with the disappointingly soft Cox apples, I've decided to do an apple galette instead (thanks for the idea, Gemma's Person!).  Will make suet pastry, as husband likes it and it's so easy.  

I'll be in the kitchen most of the day, but as it's cold and snowy out, best place to be!  Not nearly as cold and snowy as it is where some of our American friends are though....keep safe and warm (and preferably indoors) won't you?

And finally, a shot of our front garden this morning, with a blurry Betty who absolutely loves the snow:-