Cooking with Herbs - September 2015

Its with great excitment that this month we are hosting this month's Cooking with Herbs, whilst the lovely Karen is away travelling in Canada (lucky lady), hopefully she has left it in safe hands whilst she is away

As the new series of Great British Bake Off for this year is well underway and as always the bakers are being ccreative with their flavour choices. I thought it would be fun to theme this months linky to baking, cooking with herbs in Breads, biscuits and cakes. Please join in the fun as I am looking forward to seeing all your lovely baking creations, as I know we have lots of talented bakers out there.

You find the roundup if last months linky here - the theme being Herbal Flowers

So if you fancy joining the baking fun just follow the instructions below

September Cooking with Herbs

Bread, Biscuits & Cakes

Guidelines how to enter:

1. Post your recipe url to the Linky at the bottom of the appropriate month’s challenge, including your email and the title of your recipe or post.

2. Display the Cooking with Herbs badge (as shown above and below) to the relevant recipe post, with a link back to the monthly challenge post.

3. Add as many recipe links as you like, there is NO limit!

4. If you tweet your post, please mention #cookingwithherbs and @KarenBurnsBooth in your tweet – I will retweet all that I see. If a guest blogger is hosting, please add them into the tweet too! So for this month please tweet @LancashireFood 

5. The recipe can be one of your own or one you’ve seen elsewhere. You are welcome to republish old recipes/posts but please add the information about this challenge as listed above with the Cooking with Herbs badge.

6. If using a recipe from another person, book, website, chef or blog, you must link back to the original recipe and not reproduce the recipe in full in your post. You must also use your OWN images for the recipe and not the original images, unless you have permission to do so, with appropriate links and any other information requested by the photo’s owner added to the image.

   

    An InLinkz Link-up

   

Lancashire Hotpot - made with love and a perfect winter dish

I love Lancashire hotpot and as a born and bred Lancastrian so I should, its the perfect frugal comfort food which will happily blip away in the oven whilst you get on with other things. Requiring minimal effort you can still deliver a wow dish for your supper (or in a Northerner case tea) table.

I decided recently to experiment with different ways of cooking the dish and in my opinion this is the best method so far, ideal served with a green vegetable or just the traditional accompaniments of pickled beetroot or red cabbage.

What you need

• Diced lamb pieces (ask your butcher whats the best and cheapest)
• 3 large white potatoes 
• 1 large white onion - peeled and roughly chopped
• 3 carrots - peeled and chopped
• Lamb stock ( I use essential cuisine - the best in my humble opinion)
• Splash of Worcestershire sauce (use gluten free brown sauce if necessary)
• Cornflour
• Thyme and rosemary - finely chopped
• Salt and pepper
• A little rapeseed oil

What you do

• Pre heat the oven to 160c
• Heat the oil in cast iron casserole dish
• Fry off the lamb pieces in batches until lightly caramelised
• Remove from pan to plate
• Fry in the same pan the onion and carrot until slightly golden, add the lamb back to the pan and add a tablespoon or so of cornflour.
• Stir and add the herbs and sauce, remove from the heat
• Stir again and top the vegetable and lamb mixture with potato slices
• Pour enough lamb stock to just be visible on the top of the potato topping, put lid on casserole dish and place in oven for 1 hour and 30 minutes
• Once the time has passed the vegetables with be tender and the meat cooked, remove the lid and place back in the oven for another 15 -30 minutes until the top is golden and slightly crispy.
• Serve immediately with a green vegetable (cabbage / kale is nice) and traditional hotpot accompaniments

Rustic courgette bake

This weekend we have finally pulled up the last courgette plant of the season, as part of the tidy up a couple of large courgettes were discovered in the undergrowth. So this recipe makes the best of the last of this seasonal bounty, with its roots fairly in the Mediterranean this dish gives a heavy nod towards Lancashire too as its features lots of local produce.

I love dishes like this where everything is placed in one pot and the oven does all the work, if you haven't got some homemade tomato sauce to hand then a jar of quality passata works great. I also raided the herb garden for my herbs, selecting sage, rosemary and thyme and a little oregano to be added to the dish.

What you need

• Couple of courgettes, washed and sliced length ways into strips
• 1 large red onion - peeled and sliced into finely fine halves (local grown)
• 1 jar passata or similar quantity of homemade tomato sauce (homemade)
• Selection of fresh herbs - rustically chopped (homegrown)
• Salt and pepper
• Local Cheddar cheese - coarsely grated (local)
• Yogurt - thick Greek style (local) about 200 ml
• 1 egg - free range (home laid)
• Large cast iron skillet / ovenproof dish
• Oil (olive or rapeseed)

What you do

• Preheat the oven to 200c (fan)/ 220c (non fan)
• Add a little oil to pan and gently saute to courgette strips and onions.
• Now layer up with tomato sauce on the base, courgettes and onions, herbs, and then repeat.
• Mix the yogurt and egg together, top of the dish and then finish with grated cheese
• Strew with more herbs
• Bake for 20 - 30 minutes until golden and bubbling and the courgettes are meltingly soft
• Serve with crusty bread for mopping up all the lovely juices

                         

We are linking up to Cooking With Herbs - who's theme this month is Scarborough Fair. This dish contains Sage, Rosemary and thyme, created by the lovely Karen over at Lavender and Lovage and hosted by her too this month.                                        

                                                               

We are also linking up to Extra Veg hosted this month by A Mummy too

                                                      

And finally Simple and in Season created by Reb Behan and hosted this month by her too.

                                                            

Mediterranean vegetable and herb quiche - gluten free

I have been secretly working in the background perfecting a tasty gluten free pastry that is suitable for using as a quiche base. If you make pastry with just standard gluten free flour its rather tasteless and very crumby and grainy, I have made gluten free pastry using cheese to help bind it and create flour but was looking for something a little less cheesy (pardon the pun) so I thought I would experiment with mixing buckwheat flour with normal GF flour and voila it works, creating a more wholemeal style pastry which is tasty when used as a quiche base.

I decided to make a filling using the ubiquitus courgette, pimped by the addition of a little chopped sun dried tomato and some garden fresh herbs

Excellent hot or cold this quiche it makes a great family meal, also would be ideal in a lunch box with some salad.

What you need

• 100g plain gluten free flour
• 100g buckwheat flour (ensure gluten free - not all is)
• 125g salted butter - cold
• Few sprigs of fresh thyme - chopped finely
• 4 - 6 tbsp cold water
• Egg - beaten 
• A loose bottomed quiche tin - about 24cm across - Lightly brushed with oil

For the filling

• 3 small courgettes - topped and tailed and chopped into thin slices
• 2-3 shallots - peeled and finely chopped
• Chopped sun dried tomatoes
• Thyme, oregano and rosemary - chopped
• Olive oil
• 300ml creme fraiche
• 3 eggs
• Freshly ground Pepper
• 100g cheddar cheese - coarsely grated

What you do

• Pre heat the oven to 190c
• To make the pastry its easiest by food processor, add the flours, thyme and cold butter, blitz until its a rough breadcrumb texture.
• Add the cold water little by little with the processor running until the pstry just starts to ball
• Tip onto a lightly floured surface and form a ball
• Place in the fridge for about 30 minutes before rolling to  fit your quiche tin.
• Chill again for about 10 minutes or so before baking the case blind for about 15 minutes, remove your baking beads (rice works well)
• Brush with a little beaten egg and then bake again for 10 minutes, remove from oven.
• Now we will make the filling , fry off the shallots and courgettes until softened, add the chopped sun dried tomatoes and herbs to the pan, allow to cool slightly.
• Add the vegetables to the quiche base, place on a baking tray ready to fill with the egg mixture
• Mix the eggs and creme fraiche together and pour over the vegetables, top off the quiche with the grated cheese.
• Bake for 35 minutes or so until golden and just a little wobbly in the middle.
• Serve slightly cooled or cold

I'm linking up to Cooking with Herbs - the theme this month being mediterrean food, this post contains thyme, oregano and rosemary. Hosted this month over at Lavender and Lovage.

And also to Tea Time Treats which is sharing the same theme as Cooking with Herbs, hosted this month by The Hedgecombers.

Lastly to Simple and in Season hosted this month by Franglais Kitchen.

Cooking with Herbs - June 2014

We are really excited to be hosting Cooking with Herbs this month for June 2014, as you may know this is one of my favourite blog challenges and is probably the one I join in with most. 

Created by the lovely Karen across at Lavender and Lovage this challenge is all about cooking with herbs in their many forms. I really love herbs and have a beautiful raised herb garden surrounding my patio where I can easily get to from the kitchen to snip seasonal herbs and to add a final flourish to a dish.

I don't really have a favourite herb as they are all have their unique characteristics which make them invaluable in the kitchen, I am also fascinated with their medicinal properties as well.

Cooking with Herbs (which used to be known as Herbs on Saturday) is a Recipe Sharing Blog Challenge……a simple and easy way to share recipes throughout the month and also a chance to learn new ways to cook with herbs, as well as discover new blogs and blogger chums!

All you have to do to enter is add your ANY recipe that you have made throughout the week, or indeed the month, to the linky below, its really that simple.

Guidelines how to enter:

1. Post your recipe url to the Linky at the bottom of the appropriate month’s challenge, including your email and the title of your recipe or post.

2. Display the Cooking with Herbs badge (as shown above and below) to the relevant recipe post, with a link back to the monthly challenge post.

3. Add as many recipe links as you like, there is NO limit!

4. If you tweet your post, please mention #cookingwithherbs and @KarenBurnsBooth @LancashireFood in your tweet – we will retweet all that we see.

5. The recipe can be one of your own or one you’ve seen elsewhere. You are welcome to republish old recipes/posts but please add the information about this challenge as listed above with the Cooking with Herbs badge.

6. If using a recipe from another person, book, website, chef or blog, you must link back to the original recipe and not reproduce the recipe in full in your post. You must also use your OWN images for the recipe and not the original images, unless you have permission to do so, with appropriate links and any other information requested by the photo’s owner added to the image.

The challenge opens on the 4th June and the round up from last month will be on Lavender and Lovage shortly. 

Slow Cooker Chicken and Mushroom Hotpot

At this time of year all you want to eat is comfort food, warm cosy bakes, stews, casseroles and the like. The sort of dishes that create a warm pleasantly scented fug in your kitchen, dishes that thrive on neglect, not in the flavour stakes but in the cooking,quietly simmering in the background to slowly create multi layered dishes of delight.

Chicken is a popular meat which doesn't really need the slow cooker treatment as it cooks pretty fast but sometimes you just need the convenience of being able to put all your ingredients in the cooker and leave it to get on with cooking whilst you get on with your life. Yesterday was one of those days, wild wet weather and lots going on, so I popped this dish on around lunchtime so that it would be ready for supper.

Christened a hotpot as it bears a passing resemblance to that old faithful Lancashire Hotpot.

What you need

• 2 Chicken breast fillets, chopped in to bite sized chunks
• 6 -8 button mushrooms, sliced
• 5 small onions (pickling size or shallots)
• 1 stick of celery - chopped
• 1 large carrot - peeled and chopped
• About 400ml Chicken stock 
• Fresh thyme 
• Couple of bayleaves
• Splash of Worcestershire sauce
• 1 heaped tsp grain mustard
• 1 tbsp cornflour - slaked with a little water
• Salt and pepper
• 4 large potatoes - peeled and sliced thinly
• Olive oil

What you do

• Preheat your slow cooker, whilst you fry off the chicken pieces in a little olive oil in a frying pan
• Once they are lovely and golden , add all the vegetables except the potatoes to the pan and cook for a few minutes, to soften slightly.
• Now add the stock, mustard, herbs, Worcestershire sauce to the pan, give it a good stir and let simmer for about 3 minutes, then add the slaked cornflour. This will thicken the sauce.
• In the slow cooker layer the potato slices with the chicken and vegetable mixture, topping off with potatoes. Add a little boiling water if the dish looks dry.
• Cook on high for at least 4 hours until the potatoes are cooked and the chicken is tender. Season and serve on its own or with your choice of green vegetables.

This post and recipe was created in association with Schwartz  for which I have been compensated. This recipe is my original work.

Lamb Chops with roasted garden vegetables

As you have most probably gathered I love local and seasonal produce,in fact its one of the main reasons I have a blog after all. So I was really pleased to spot a new blog challenge from Elizabeths Kitchen Diary  to become involved in, the "Shop Local" campaign is all about sharing the love of local producers. This dish couldn't be any more local, it uses Lamb chops sourced from the farm just up the lane from where I live marinated in a chutney from a great local producer FATJAX  and served with  roasted vegetables all sourced from our very own garden.

The dish is as easy of falling off a log and unlike most of the other methods for cooking lamb chops doesn't fill your kitchen with acrid fatty cooking fumes, everything is cooked in the oven so its an easy week day meal.

Whilst any North West England based readers will be able to get hold of Fatjax chutney at various outlets in the area, my local farmer doesn't sell to the public, but any good local lamb should work in this dish.

What you need

• Lamb chops - I used Barnsley chops
• Couple of tablespoons of Fatjax sweet onion and chilli chutney
• Selection of peeled and roughly chopped vegetables ( I used golden beetroot, courgette, patty pan, red onion and red pepper)
• A little olive or rapeseed oil
• Salt and pepper
• Thyme - sprig picked over

What you do

• Pre heat your oven to 180c
• Whilst your heats up rub the chutney and picked thyme into the lamb chops, put to one side
• Prepare your vegetables, toss in a little oil and season with salt and pepper and place in an oven proof dish ( I use my Pampered Chef stoneware dish)
• Place the vegetables in the oven for 10 minutes and then pop in your lamb chops to bake for 35 minutes or so
• When roasted until crispy and the vegetables caramelised serve to your hungry hoards.

Chive flower vinegar

At this time of year the garden is bountiful, full of promise and flowering its heart out. I have always had a passion for herbs considering them some of the most useful plants in the garden, as they combine culinary and medicinal uses with great texture and form and in the case of chives stunning flowers too.

Chives, spikey pinky purple flowers erupt from the top of the plant, they are attractive to insects and attractive to me. The flowerheads are a great addition to a salad, but to capture their lovely sweet spicy oniony essence for a little longer you need to make chive flower vinegar. This lovely light vinegar is ideal in salad dressings, with fish or just to ring the changes and its such a gorgeous colour.

All you need to do is collect enough chive flowers to lightly pack your chosen jar and then select your vinegar, white wine or champagne vinegar works well as it allows the lovely flower colour to be extracted to create a pinky hue to the condiment. You leave the flowers steeping until the vinegar is your desired hue and has the required level of chive flavour. You could also make this with wild garlic or garlic chives but the resultant vinegar wouldn't be such a beautiful colour.

I am also adding this to the lovely Lavender and Lovage's Cooking with Herbs challenge 

                                       

Herb roasted pork tenderloin with roasted summer vegetables

I recently attended a Pampered Chef party hosted by fellow cake clubber and food blogger Kate Ab and I secummed to the temptation of their legendary stoneware, no its not cheap but given the evangelical way my friend Jo preaches about her stoneware I bought a medium pan.
So far I have been impressed with it non stick features and ease of cleaning and its definitely growing on me. This recipe is a favourite in the Lancashire Food household and uses that undervalued cut of pork - tenderloin and was supplemented with lots of vegetables from the garden.

Ingredients

• 1 pork tenderloin - trimmed
• Zest of lemon
• Fresh Rosemary- finely chopped
• Fresh thyme - finely chopped
• Sea Salt
• Freshly ground black pepper
• Courgettes - chunky chopped
• Olive oil
• Red pepper - chunky chopped
• Red onion - peeled and cut in to chunks
• 2 garlic cloves - roughly chopped

Method

• Preheat the oven to about 170C
• Rub the tenderloin with a little olive oil and roll in the lemon zest, rosemary, thyme and salt and pepper
• Place the tenderloin on the cool stoneware pan
• Place in the oven 
• Meanwhile toss the onion, garlic, courgette and red pepper in olive oil until coated
• Once the tenderloin has been cooking for approx 15 minutes , surround the pork with the vegetables
• Continue roasting until the pork is cooked and the vegetables are slightly charred
• Remove from oven, allow the pork to rest for a few minutes before carving

As this recipe features a great herb combination I will be including into Herbs on Saturday hosted by Lavendar and Lovage