Salaric Cooking

Though I haven’t really blogged about it yet I do tend to make alot of preserve, jams and chutneys mainly. This stems from my Dad making red current jelly and the like when I was a child – we also always went blackberring and stuff.

When I first moved to the country I was on crutches and unable to work – not to mention had a new baby so I set my self up with a lovely preserving pan from a Kitchen Shop in stroud I think its called Mills and I ordered some books.

One of them was part of the Best-Kept Secrets of the Women’s Institute called Jams, Pickles and Chutneys by Midge Thomas.

This has proved to be the best companion to my Food For Free book whihc I mentioned a few weeks ago.

I read the whole book from cover to cover and absorbed the information on what makes a good jam, the different methods for assessing weather the jams are ready and the like. This information has set me up well to experiment and alter recipes depending on what fruit appears in our garden (or on the doorstep from various people in the village) and what I can scavange from local hedge rows.

It even has a hedgerow jam which was the first thing I made in my preserving pan. The preserving pan and all the other things I have bought more than paid for themselves within two years of having them 🙂 And this is also the reason why everyone who knows me tends to get some home made preserve for Christmas!

Becca’s Chocolatey Orange and Cointreau Mousse [wheat, dairy and egg free!]

I was craving something sweet and chocolately but didn’t have any pudding so i kind of adapted and merged two recipes together and discovered a gorgeous rich chocoalte mousse.  It is also wheat and dairy free.

Ingredients  6oz soya butter 6oz icing sugar 2oz cocoa [though i used ~4 oz cocoa] Juice of one orange [or 1 cup of orange juice] 1 shot (~30 ml) Cointreau

• use a table spoon to mash the soya butter into the icing sugar.  Keep stiring untill you get “butter creme” of smooth consistancy
• Stir in the cocoa a fraction at a time.  Taste the chocolate mouss and keep adding cocoa untill you have a flavour that you like
• Stir in the orange juice and Cointreau.
• Taste the mousse add a little more cocoa or icing sugar if you want.

Tips This mousse is great served with fresh strawberries and/or rasberries.  It can be quite rich so don’t induldge too much!!!

Food for Free is the title of one of the most useful books I have come across its by Richard Mabey and without it I would never have attempted half my recipes – The book goes through the plants, fungi and shell fish that can be found in the UK. It tells you a bit about their history, where they like to be found, how to identify them and often there is a little recipe or tip on what you can substitute it for.

It dates from the 1970’s and when I bought a copy I was informed it was out of print but I have recently seen a brand new version of it in the book shops!

Yellow Split peas soaked as the instructions on the packet suggested poured out the water zapped them in the blender till pulped Add spices to taste: crushed garlic chillis cumin seeds corriander powder

Finely chop fresh lovage and add to the mix – warning this can over power things so you might need to experiement a bit to get the taste you want!

Mixed it all together well formed it inot little cakes about 5 cm across Fry in veggi oil until crisp

I discovered a new food that was YUMMY YUMMY YUMMY last week – me and Alaric were taken to Goldersgreen for dinner and there we discovered the delight of flaffles in a sort of cross between a pitta bread and tortia with some with some really nice humous and other sort of aubagine dip thing.

So yesturday imagine my joy when looking for food for me an Jean I come across a chickpea flaffle, in a medaterrian style flatebread in the first I came across that I could get into easily with the pushchiar (Happened to be a Starbucks so things werent exactly cheap!). Now I knew it wouldn’t be as good but I was severlly disappointed with it so now I’m thinking I have two options – a) hunt around for the best flaffle there is or… b) find out how to make them myself and get good at it? Oh well looks like it’ll be about ten yrs before I get the yummy again 🙁

Still the flaffle tasted very familiar to me which has been puzzling me since I first tasted (Well actually since the second time I tasted it as the first time I’d accidently got Alarics and therefore could taste nothing but chillis!). I think it is a taste remaniscant of something that my nan used to make but I really don’t have a clue.

I’m also awear that I have probably spelt stuff wrong as I’m running on phonetics here!

Origonally taken from my personal blog.

Recipe: Honey Roast Lamb Shank

From Becca

2 Portions

Ingredients: 2 Lamb shanks 2 cloves garlic cut into slivers 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon 1/2 tsp ground cumin or tumeric 1/2 tsp ground ginger1/4 tsp ground cloves 1/4 tsp ground pepper 2 tsp salt 1 tbsp olive oil 6 tbsp honey

• Preheat oven to 160 oC (Gas mark 3)
• Pierce gashes into the meat and place slivers of garlic inside
• Mix all the spices, pepper and salt in a bowl then pat the mixture all over the shanks
• Heat the oil in a pan, once hot sear the shanks on all sides to seal the flavours
• Place each shank on a piece of really thick foil and drizzle 3 tbsp honey over each. Wrap up the meat within the foil and place the parcels on a baking tray/roasting dish to catch juices that spill out
• Bake in oven for ~2hours for really tender meat

Recipe: Chuncky Split Pea Soup

From Becca’s site

4 Portions of filling tasty soup!

Ingredients: 225g yellow split peas 1 wheat/yeast free vegetable stock cube 1tsp wheat/yeast free bullion powder 1 onion finely chopped 2 sweet potato peeled and diced into chunks 4 carrots peeled and sliced 1/2 tsp cumin

• Soak the split peas in cold water for 12 hours or over night
• Rinse the soaked split peas well and place in a large saucepan. Add 1.5l water, the stock cube and the bullion powder. Bring to the boil then lower the heat and simmer for 25 mins. Skim off any scum that rises to the surface.
• Add the onion and veg, simmer for 15-20 mins. Serve.

Tips: • Use Butternut squash aswell as or instead of sweet potato. • Allow to cool then blend using a hand blender for a smooth consistency soup – though i personally prefer chunky veg soup • Chopped parsnip goes well in this soup as well

Yellow Split peas soaked as the instructions on the packet suggested poured out the water zapped them in the blender till pulped Add spices to taste: crushed garlic chillis cumin seeds corriander powder

Ripped up lots fresh sage leaves and add them to the mix

Mixed it all together well formed it inot little cakes about 5 cm across Fry in veggi oil until crisp

Yellow Split peas soaked as the instructions on the packet suggested poured out the water zapped them in the blender till pulped Add spices to taste: crushed garlic chillis cumin seeds corriander powder

Mixed it all together well formed it inot little cakes about 5 cm across Fry in veggi oil until crisp

Scrub artichokes Boil them until they are soft Blend them Add stock and milk, heat up