Let's Eat Bloghop....................

Welconme to Somerset, your next leg of the bloghop itinerary. You should have travelled about 75 miles West from the lovely Anne who not only is a fab cook but is cooking her own little ''bun in the oven''.............she's having her first baby in January, awwwwww. 3 cheers for her and her hubbie.

So hope you enjoyed your food over there. We are making something from leftovers on our blog as it is part of my family makeup. When I was a child, the Sunday roast always denoted what our meal would be on Monday and probably Tuesday if the mear stretched. If it was roast beef then it was Cottage pie if it was Lamb Shepherd's pie, if it was pork I cant remember, but if it was chicken it was always Chicken rissoles. I can remember my mum cooking these as if it was yesterday so it is her recipe book I have raided for this old family treat.

Chicken or turkey croquetttes

Ingredients:

225-275g/8-10oz cooked chicken or turkey

1 small onion

25g/1oz plain flour

salt and black pepper

25g/1oz butter

125ml/1/4pint chicken stock or milk

1 egg

toasted breadcrumbs

Method:

Chop finely or mince cold chicken or turkey. 

Peel and finely chop the onion. 

Melt butter in a saucepan and add onion.  Cover and cook gently for 5 miinutes (don't allow to brown).

Stir in flour and cook for 2 minutes.  Then add stock or milk and bring to the boil, stirring all the time to make a thick sauce. Add salt and pepper.

Take pan off heat and beat thoroughly to get a smooth mixture.

Add chicken/turkey and mix well.

Separate egg and add yolk to mixture.

Cover pan and set aside until cold.

Take tablespoons of mixture and with wetted hands form rounds about 1/2inch thick

Brush with egg white and roll in breadcrumbs.

Fry in a little butter or olive oil for 5-8 minutes, turning once.

Favourite with children.  Freeze well
Noiw my mum used to do a dip into egg then flour rather than breadcrumbs and we had them with mashed potato and peas,.........mmmmmmmmmmmmmhhhhhhhh. I hope you enjoy them as much as me. 


I love cooking myself and still cling to my childhood faves like the one above. My mum still has the old mincer she put the beef into to make Shepherd's pie and the same cookbook she was given back in the 60s. They do say the oldies are the best. I hope that my recipe favourites stand the test of time and get passed down to my friend's children and so forth.


So the next person to visit is the lovely Debs  who resides just north-easterly about 100 miles plus from here. Lets see what she has on her menu today shall we.......................

Merry Xmas everyone!!!!

.............I know it's a day early but I will probably be off the radar for the next few days as my parents, although having a computer etc probably won't be too happy if I keep asking to check my blog. So I hope you all have a wonderful time at your various Xmas parties and events and I will look forward to catching up when I get home on Sunday.

I would also like to introduce this young lady to you all...............


oops I can't turn her round, anyway she's me and it's my birthday today so I'm sending you all a cupcake to say thanx for visiting.
Finally for Amy the recipe for Hokey Pokey..............

4 tablespoons of golden syrup
200g castor sugar
1 tablespoon of bicarbonate
Melted dark chocolate, optional.

1. Mix the sugar and golden syrup together
2. Heat on a low heat until simmering and then heat for 3-4 minutes until the mixture looks like rusty caramel
3. Remove from heat and quickly whisk in the bicarbonate of soda...............it will froth up like mad so be careful as it's hot.
4. Pour the mixture into an oiled, foiled tin and leave to set.............mine took about 2 hours.
5. If desired, pour melted chocolate over the top to make it like a crunchie bar!
6. Once ready, bash it with a rolling pin and eat. YUMMY!!!!!

Enjoy,

Christmas baking lesson 1

................so here as promised is phase 1 of my christmas cake cookery session. In the spirit of e-learning and as someone who thinks baking is an art everyone can partake in, I am doing this blog in the form of a lesson.
So get your notebooks ready, pens and pencils sharpened and filled and get ready for the bestest fruitcake recipe in the world.

So to begin you will need, big drum roll, the recipe:-

MRS ROBIN'S FRUIT CAKE

(from The Complete Farmhouse Kitchen Cookbook, Ed Mary Watts, 1988, Guild Publishing, London, UK).

125 grams/ 40z margarine ( or butter if u have no artery concerns)
175 g/6 oz of dark brow, light or white sugar ( I have used dark brown muscovado as it's for Xmas)
175 g/ 6oz currants
175g/6oz sultanas
50g/2oz chopped cherries/candied peel (if you like them, I substitute extra fruit normally)
225 ml/8 fluid oz water
1 level teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 heaped teaspoon of mixed spice.
To make this extra special I have also added in:-
the juice and cut halves of 1 lemon
1 cinnamon stick and
............half a bottle of rum/brandy mixed (only because my mum brought over a bottle oh I'll explain later).

So once you have ur ingredients for phase 1 together you will need to get yourself a large saucepan, a mixing spoon, and a hob/aga/electric cooker ring.

The next phase is the nice putting it together part:

Firstly measure out your water in a clean jug

pour this directly into your saucepan........

Next measure out all the dry ingredients in your scales......



The sugar and margarine/butter



The dried fruits including cherries chopped and candied peel


Next put all the dried fruit into the saucepan and add in your lemon juice and peel, spices and cinnaman stick and also your bicarbonate of soda.......


The next job as this is for Christmas is to add some merry and bright to the equation and add the alcohol.......


now alcohol is a personal choice and I asked all you friendly bloggers what you would choose. The winner by a margin was brandy. Now u are asking why is there a bottle of rum in this photo, well it's because I asked my mum to bring some over from their alcohol cabinet and she got a wee bit confused bless her and put the brandy in with a little left over rum. She assures me she hadn't tasted it beforehand!!!!!!!!! Anyway I put in the whole lot so the brew will be hiccuping nicely!


Next turn on the heat.......



Get your Whittards Easter bunny mixing spoon and put the pan on the heat and stir.......



Bring the mixture to the boil and simmer for 1 minute

Now it will froth up, that's the bicarbonate, but that's meant to happen. Keep stirring until the sugar and marg are melted down and the mixture is lushcious. It smells gorgeous and if there was blogging smellivision you'd agree. Once it's simmered for 1 minute, pop the lid on and leave the mixture to cool.

There endeth lesson 1 and you can now put your feet up until tomorrow when the fruit will have absorbed all the yummy goodness and swell up ready for phase 2 - the flour, eggs and bakey part.