Roasted pumpkin with macaroni goat’s cheese - Orange food part one

I love autumn. There’s something about kicking crisp honey-coloured leaves on a sunny morning, the smell of damp leaves on a rainy day and curling up with hot spiced apple juice by a log fire that means autumn is here. I also start to crave orange food: pumpkins, squash, carrots, oranges etc.

The sweetness of squash is something that goes wonderfully well the saltiness of goat’s cheese, which gave me the idea for this recipe. Also, I was inspired by 5 Star Foodie’s challenge to make macaroni cheese with a twist. Until now, I’ve only ever made a pretty straightforward macaroni cheese, so I was a bit sceptical setting-out on this!

During an action-packed afternoon off from work, in between trying to speed-read a book for our book group meeting, taking the kittens to the vets and rescuing various bits of furniture from the exploring kittens, I also made this:

Roasted pumpkin with macaroni goat’s cheese recipe

• 300gr of squash, peeled, cored and cubed. (I used pumpkin, but I think it would be better with butternut squash)
• 1 tbls olive oil
• A pinch of paprika
• A pinch of chilli flakes
• A pinch of cumin
• 1 cup of macaroni
• 25gr butter
• 25gr plain flour
• 1/2 pint milk, warmed slightly
• A grate of nutmeg
• 80gr hard goat’s cheese (this was all I had, it would be better with more!), grated

1. Preheat the oven to 220 degrees Celsius and put a oven tray in to warm-up. Put the pumpkin in a pan of boiling water. Boil the pumpkin until it starts to soften slightly, about 5 minutes.
2. Drain the pumpkin and put the oven tray with the olive oil, the chilli, cumin, paprika and a good grind of black pepper. Roast for about 15mins, or until the edges are crisp.
3. Meanwhile, boil a pan of water and add the macaroni, cook according the instructions.
4. In another pan, melt the butter, add the flour and cook for a minute or two. Remove the pan from the heat and slowly stir in the milk.
5. Return the heat and gradually bring to a simmer, you will need to stir frequently. When it has thickened, remove from the heat and add the cheese and nutmeg.
6. Put the sauce and macaroni in a dish and stir to make sure they are combined well. Add the pumpkin and stir lightly so as not to turn the pumpkin pieces to mash.
7. Turn the oven down to 180 degrees Celsius and place in the oven for 10 mins.

This a great dish to, but I would definitely use butternut squash in future and more cheese, just to really bring out the flavours.

This recipe is also being submitted to 5 Star Makeover: Macaroni and Cheese.

How to skin a pheasant

I never thought I'd be writing on this topic, let alone doing it myself!

 
I enjoy eating meat, so given an opportunity to prepare our own I was determined not to bottle it. Vegetarianism would have been next if I'd found I couldn't stomach it. But, I did it! I'm so chuffed I managed to do this that I can't resist writing a small piece about it! If you think you'll find this offensive, please look away now.

I was slightly apprehensive before we started this morning, the pheasants had hung for three days so this morning's job was skinning and gutting. I'd been assured by a friend (who has prepared pheasants, ducks and geese before) that pheasants were easiest. I wasn't convinced.

Nick found a video on the internet (the obvious place to look!) about how to skin a pheasant, it was excellent. I would thoroughly recommend Mark Hinge's video to anyone else who has never done this before.
Feeling slightly strange about handling a dead animal for the first time (not counting the mice that the cats have brought in) we started by removing the wings, feathers, tendons and head. Amazingly, I was OK until this point. Next came removing the skin and innards. I hadn't expected the smell at this stage. It was awful. Having said that, I did get used to it and turning on the extractor fan helped!

The first one was completed as a joint effort between both of us; I tackled the next three by myself. We now have four pheasants sitting in the freezer, I can't quite believe it!

This probably sounds quite dippy to anyone who has done this before , but I was surprised at how different each bird was. Young, old, male, female, etc, all seemed to affect the colour and texture of the flesh as well as the weight of the animal. Why it shouldn’t, I’m not quite sure. I think I was just more aware it because of the close contact with the birds.

Now I'm not quite sure what to do with them, I'm thinking of a pie...

Tail and pheasants

Tail between my legs. I feel rather sheepish.

I can’t believe I haven’t written a post for nigh-on six months. Shame on me. I’d love to use the excuse that I’ve been too busy, but isn’t everyone?

More honestly, the problem has been in my head. The blog was so enmeshed with my PhD that when it was over I reacted quite strongly against anything to do with the thesis. Even things which I loved, namely reading books (even novels) and writing Springtime. There was no real reason, other than I needed a break. However, the letter arrived on the mat last week saying that it has all been officially accepted (corrections as well)! That flimsy piece of paper with the University’s hologram shimmering in the corner actually means, ‘Life may now continue’!

I won’t give a long and tedious update on what I’ve been doing, but needless to say, it’s been foodie related. I have a whole host of posts that need to be written, starting with the plastic sack containing 4 recently dead pheasants that I came home to yesterday…

Blog Event – English Wine Week

English wine is something that I was introduced to a few years ago, ever since then, you can almost always guarantee that if we’re invited to dinner we’ll arrive with a bottle of English wine. This may seem rather monotonous, but this is definitely a product that needs to be known about far and wide! An astonishing number of people have never come across it, let alone tried it.

My favourite is Parsons Leap from the Three Choirs vineyard  (I buy mine at Morrisons), although I know very little about wine – I know I love this! It’s dry and tastes of elderflowers. Of course, a sommelier may wish to disagree with me!

Just taking a quick peak at the news page on the English Wine Producers website shows how successful English vineyards are across the world, after all, they are producing a world-class product. If this is the case, why, when I went in to my local Sainsbury’s store was I told, ‘We don’t have the demand for it’? This is a real shame. With the drive for locally-produced food sweeping across the country, why aren’t we demanding more English wine? Not only does it taste just as good, or in my opinion, better than, other wines, it saves ‘wine miles’.

To help raise awareness of this wonderful wine, I thought it would be fun to host my first blogging event around it. English Wine Week is held in the last week of May (23rd – 31st May), providing a perfect deadline for entries!

 

Here’s the challenge:

1) Find some English wine (take a look at http://www.englishwineproducers.com/WhereToBuy-Multiples.htm for your local supplier). Three Choirs can be found at Tesco and Morrisons for around £6.99 I believe.

2) Blog about a recipe that a) uses English wine, or b) goes extremely well with English wine, before the 30th May 2009.

If you don’t live in the UK, I would love to know if you have come across English wine in your local wine store (I know, this goes against the ‘less wine miles’ idea – but interesting nonetheless!). If not, and you would like to enter the event, just submit a recipe using a wine from your local vineyard, I’ll collate these separately.

3) Send an email to craftycat01@googlemail.com with:

• a link to your blog post
• the wine you used and where you bought it
• a photo.

I will collate all the entries on the last day of English Wine Week (31st May).

4) Have fun!

Out-and-About

It’s been a while since I’ve written a post, life has been a bit hectic! Despite the constant bustle, we managed to get out-and-about over the bank holiday weekend - in between the occasional downpours on Saturday and the constant heavy drizzle on Monday.

Driving home this evening, I started to mentally analyse the contents of the fridge. What needed using up? Various scrummy cheeses, a little bit of gnocchi, some salad and not much else! Remembering an old recipe of a goat’s cheese and spinach gnocchi bake, I tried a slight twist on the recipe (in the absence of any spinach).

Wrapping-up in my long wax jacket and wellies I went out into the the lane in absolutely-bucketing-down-rain and picked some nettles. After washing and blanching the leaves in boiling water I mixed these with the cooked gnocchi and a basic white sauce, with tons of grated cheese and a little nutmeg added to it. The mixture was split into  individual casserole dishes with a little more grated cheese sprinkled on top along with a few walnut pieces. These dishes were put in a hot oven for 25 mins and then served with a small salad and grilled pesto bread spread with a little wild garlic pesto.

This was good mid-week supper for using up leftovers and free food. However, I would definitely recommend using a strong cheese, like a goat’s cheese or a good blue cheese.

Victoria Sponge – how hard can it possibly be?

Sometimes there are days when everything works out, and occasionally there are days when everything goes wrong. This was one of those days – the later sort.

A box of duck eggs had been sitting on the counter for a couple of days, just asking to be used. Then I remember a comment by neighbour’s husband, ‘they make a wonderful Victoria Sponge’. After a quick phone call to my mum to get her recipe, I set about making my sponge. First problem – how many duck eggs are equal to 4 hen eggs?

Visiting my neighbour to ask her opinion resulted in me leaving with a fresh goose egg to use instead (and apparently 3 duck eggs = 4 hen eggs). Goose eggs were even more unfamiliar to me, but the prospect of cooking with one was quite exciting! Armed with the knowledge that a goose egg is equal to 3 hen eggs and the advice that I would really need to whack the shell to get it to break, I hurried back to the kitchen.

If 1 goose egg = 3 hen eggs, then by my calculations I would need a hen egg too. In my haste to get started, I mixed the beaten egg with the butter. This was the source of my second problem. I should have creamed the butter and sugar, not the egg, I must have written it down wrongly. Luckily, I saw the magimix at this stage so the egg, butter and sugar, were duly blitzed. The third problem, was slightly more serious: an absence of self-raising flour. OK, this should have been easily remedied, I just needed some plain flour and baking powder, easy when you’ve got plain flour (how could I possibly be this disorganised?). A root-around in the cupboard and I found some local stone-ground flour - great! After sifting the flour to remove some of the coarse bits and adding the baking powder, I was back on-track. Making a cake really shouldn’t have been this difficult. The mixture rose wonderfully, but then I couldn’t get the sponge out of the tins, why had I even started baking this morning? I’d greased them thoroughly, but next time I’ll use greaseproof paper in the bottom.

The stone-ground flour gave the sponge a coarser texture than usual and I felt the sponge was a little too dry and crumbly (I think I may have cooked it for a few minutes too long). The result was certainly not the prettiest of cakes I’ve ever made, but it tasted good. With the number of things which wrong, I couldn’t really have ask for anything more – especially as most of my problems were brought on by me, and me alone! (You’ll be glad to know I’ve now stocked-up on both plain and self-raising flour).

Apart from the sugar, all of the ingredients turned out to be Cumbrian: the butter and the damson cheese were bought from local producers at Damson Day, the eggs were from the hens and geese behind the house and the flour was from a local mill. This wasn’t the original aim of making the cake, but it was a wonderful side-product of my comedy of errors!

Ingredients

8oz butter (at room temperature)

8oz sugar

8oz self-raising flour

4 hen eggs (or one goose egg + one hen egg)

2oz butter (at room temperature)

4oz icing sugar

a few tbsp of jam

Method (this is what I should have done – thanks mum!)

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
2. Cream the butter and sugar together, add half the egg and a tablespoon of flour.
3. Then fold in the flour, this is important as it keeps the sponge fluffy.
4. Split the mixture between two sponge tins (lined with greaseproof paper) and put in the oven until risen and firm to touch, about 20-25 mins.
5. Turn out onto a wire rack and allow to cool.
6. Make the butter icing by mixing the remaining butter and the icing sugar.
7. Smooth the butter icing onto one half of the sponge, spread the jam on top of the icing, and then place the second half of the sponge on top. Dust with a pinch of icing sugar.
8. Enjoy with a cup of tea.

Garlic Day – Wild garlic pesto recipe

Following on from Damson Day, today marked Garlic Day. Wild garlic is just starting to come into flower, and like Damson Day, Garlic Day seems to celebrate the beginning of the season. We have many pockets of wild garlic, in slightly damp, wooded areas in the lanes around us. One, which is just off of the route I drive through each day, is ideal for stopping at on my way home to grab some leaves to add to a salad.

Using the wild garlic l gathered yesterday, and some from closer to home, I made a super-quick wild garlic pesto. I made this pesto into a creamy sauce, added some left-over chicken and served it between homemade sheets of pasta with the wild garlic flowers pressed in dough. A very ‘garlicky’ meal to celebrate the day!

Pesto recipe

Ingredients:

15gr wild garlic leaves

5gr fresh basil leaves

15gr parmesan, chopped into small cubes,

15gr pine nuts

70ml olive oil

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method:

1. Roughly chop, or rip, the garlic and basil leaves.
2. Put the cheese and nuts in a magimix for a few seconds until both are chopped.
3. Add the leaves and blitz until all the ingredients are combined.
4. Add the olive oil and the salt and pepper and blitz for a few seconds.
5. Using a spatula, transfer the pesto into a jar and top up with more oil so that mixture is covered.