Gosh, where did the time go?

I cannot believe that it has been so long since I last posted!

I think I will restart with a recipe for my grandmother's chicken in lemon sauce. Unlikely to be a traditional Polish recipe, but will be based on French food from her childhood. 

This also means that when I forget, I will find it here!

Chicken in Lemon Sauce

Chicken portions (quarters are best, skin on, and on the bone)

Onion

Carrot

Celery

Bay leaves

Bouquet Garni of herbs

Water to cover generously

Salt & pepper

Cook the chicken with all the above ingredients for about an hour, with the intention to use the stock in the lemon sauce.

Sauce:

Melt butter and add flour (2-3 tablespoons, depending on amount cooking) to make a roux. Carefully add stock, ladleful at a time. Simmer until it has a consistency like double cream. Add juice from 1-2 lemons, a teaspoon or two of sugar (to take away the lemon sharpness a little but not to make it sweet). Put in the lemon halves from the squeezed lemons, bring to the boil and switch off and leave for about half an hour to infuse. Remove lemons so as not to make the sauce bitter.

When ready to eat, reheat and serve poured over the chicken (generous with the sauce) on a bed of rice and with a salad.

We have elderflowers!

Elderflower and lemon cordial has been created!

Having another go this weekend, with less lemon and more elderflowers.

Mmmmm :)

Don't mind if I do!

Cheeky little ice cream enjoyed yesterday in the shadow of Haytor on Dartmoor. Yummy!

Marmalade... no, not the cat!

I've always loved the colour of marmalade: gorgeous tones of orange ranging from silken yellow through vibrant ginger on to scrumptious sienna. Perhaps that's why I adore George so?!


I decided to try my hand at making some Seville Orange marmalade recently, never having made use of my preserving pan in the 4 years I've owned it, I thought it was high time. I've come across a fabulous book from the River Cottage handbook series focusing purely on preserves. This is a great source of information and recipes for all kinds of jams, pickles, sauces... and fruit liqueurs (including my beloved Sloe Gin) so I think I will need to buy my own copy of this and hand this one back to the library for somebody else to enjoy!

For my first attempt I opted for the sliced fruit method where all the chopping is done at the start of the process (squeeze the juice from 1kg of oranges and slice the peel including all the pith). The peel is then soaked overnight in the juice plus 2.5 litres of water and then simmered in the preserving pan until tender: about 2-2.5 hours (until pan contents are reduced by about a third). Add 75ml of lemon juice (I cheated and bought bottled) and 2kg of demerara sugar (although white sugar will do, I like the darkness the demerara brough to the mixture). Simmer until all the sugar has reduced - if you don't the sugar will stay granular within the marmalade I am expertley informed - then boil rapidly until setting point is reached (about 20-30 minutes but could be more). Et voila - marmalade.





And it tastes yummy :-)

I then went on to try the whole fruit method where the chopping is done after you have simmered 1kg of fruit for a couple of hours. But I made the mistake of trying to cook Sunday lunch at the same time and missed the setting point and ended up with a preserving pan of black treacle which had burnt to the bottom. Not good. I've soaked and soaked the pan, to no avail, Steve very kindly used his engineering prowess to sand it all off and regain a nice shiny bottom (the pan of course... not me!). I was going to add some whisky to this second batch but I may drink it now instead as I think I may have missed the Seville season now for this year. Well, there have to be some perks!!

Drink for Lily the Pink!

Silly ditty going through my mind now :-)

I finally got round to rebottling the sloe gin I made way back in 2004 into some fab bottles purchased from Lakeland which are perfect to give as gifts (or just look good in the drinks cupboard!). I added some supar syrup as it tasted a tad sharp - and it was only when being organised and writing down the recipe in my new drinks book that I realised I had actually blended sloe gin with damson gin by mistake! Ho hum, I won't tell if you wont?

I also decided to make a raspberry gin out of our newly discovered loganberries - ready in 3 months time, great! Recipe is:

600g loganberries/raspberries
660g granulated sugar
4 x 75cl bottles of gin

All into a demijohn (cos I have loads now thanks to my mum and a kind soul in the town down the valley who wanted to pass on their winemaking equipment) and wait.

Sloe recipe is also simple, but need to find it - so will post this another day (I have over 1kg in the freezer from last autumn to bottle so it won't be long).