Hi to all my lovely readers out there.  It has been an awfully long time since I last wrote and posted anything on my Blog.  Due to my ill health, from my injury done in Dec 2012, things mentally and physically began to worsen towards the back end of last year.  I won’t go into any details, but what I will do is apologise to anyone who I lost track with, i.e reviews, write ups or just in general etc… 
  I am still suffering however from my accident but I am fighting fit more than ever this year and plan to show my passion for food and drink as much as I can.  I am hoping that 2014 is going to be a good year.  I feel it is already from having a very nice phone call today.  So please watch this space for lots of catch ups on recipes, old and new, projects and so forth.  Oh, and HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! 

I have recently been in contact, quite often to a lovely woman named Julie Woolley who is the Secretary of The British Tomato Growers Association. 
 We were sending emails over about certain topics surrounding believe it or not, tomatoes!  When Julie then Suggested to myself about a certain type of tomato that I had never heard of.  You readers out there may have, but I hadn’t and so suddenly I was excited about this little tomato that was compared to the piccolo that I had certainly heard of and tried.  This little Gem is called “The Sophie Jane”.
  Julie then began to tell me that this juicy little tomato was grown in Sussex and by a man named Chris Wall AND was sold in Sainsbury’s! Even better! I was thinking to myself, could I get hold of this? , thus being in Leicester? So that weekend the first task was to find these little gems!

 As My Partner and I scanned the Fruit and Vegetable aisles of Sainsburys, I hear from my Partner in the distance, “its here! and its the last one!” (A smile appeared on my face like a child in a sweet shop!)  Now you do pay a little more for these but every so often we have to have treats like this, especially being British produce! And trust me, If you are a tomato fan of eating, growing or both? such as me, you will experience the burst of lovely sweet pips spraying out of your mouth as you try this little lovely, as My parnter and I did, tasting them on their own.  Corny as it sounds we then did that “look” (with the eyes) Hmmmm Lush!  And then suddenly as with most “Foodies”, Chefs, Cooks, you get this burst of Brain energy that ultimately wonders what you can come up with?…

  I Had done the first part of trying it on its own. I then thought of slightly roasting the tomato as that will give an intense flavour of what it’s about. 
 It was a warm Sunday afternoon and I decided to make a tart, potato salad and have the roasted tomatoes with it. keeping it simple first.  The Tart I have to admit wasn’t my best of Tarts but the “Sophie Janes” went very well with it.  I felt like I was on a picnic 🙂

 The second time I used these tomatoes, I again tried to keep things simple as I didn’t want to spoil this sweet delicate but yet amazing flavour… So I love creating pasta dishes and I LOVE seafood. So I thought I’d combine the two for a quick meal for myself that evening. Unfortunatley I had no white wine, Damn! But I plodded on with the recipe and used lemon juice instead and turned out great! Really fresh and vibrant.  These are always the best recipes, when you least expect its going to be great when it’s so simple! 

Spaghetti with King prawns and “Sophie Jane” Tomatoes.

Just to mention, I won’t be too specific on amounts as it was just for one. But any questions, please contact me 🙂



Recipe:

                                                                         Spaghetti                                                          
                                                                         King Prawns (cooked) However many you want! 
                                                                         Chopped Garlic (as fine as you can) a small clove
                                                                         2 Chopped Spring Onions 
                                                                         Red chilli (Half a cm’s worth) fine diced
                                                                         Fish stock or veg stock or even chicken stock just 
                                                                         go easy on it. (for one person if a cube, use no 
                                                                          more than 1/4 of it.(about 200ml water with it.           
                                                                         Cracked Black pepper
                                                                         Basil, Parsley , Lemon juice and Garlic micro
                                                                         chives to serve also with some lemon.

This is a simple recipe but with a very tasty outcome 🙂

Fry off the onion, garlic and chilli, add some lemon juice, then add the stock ( about 250 ml of it ) reduce down, then add the tomatoes, cooked spaghetti, king prawns, and when almost cooked add the herbs and serve with grated parmesan, garlic chives and a squirt of lemon! If you feel you want to add salt then you can when you try at the end.
                                   
                                                                         

So here are some of my little seedlings coming along just lovely! These photo’s were taken  at the very end of April, so as you can see my Tomatoes are ready for planting into bigger pots now to keep sturdy.  Im very proud of them so far this year as last year my Tomatoes  were not a great success so keep your fingers crossed for me?!! 
 I will add some more posts as quite a bit is happening in the little Kitchen Garden here.  Now that the sun has made his presence, things are moving quite fast.  Exciting though.  Cannot wait to start eating my own grown grub! … Nothing better.

 Steak in Ale pie:

Now of course, most Pie recipes are all going to be very similar or even the same.  But one thing I do know is that with my Pie or pies they are always bursting with intense flavour and very rustic.  (As you will see by the picture).  I also love Puff pastry on most of my meat pies, So I have to admit, I always buy in my Puff pastry.  Shortcrust and sweet pastry is a different matter for me.

Recipe: Pie mixture:

Olive oil
Plain Flour (1-2 tbsp’s)
400g of Diced Beef (chuck, shin or just stewing beef)
1 white onion diced, half into 1 cm diced and the other half left quite chunky but no bigger than the meat.
1 Tsp Garlic powder
1/2 Tsp Mustard Powder
Beef Stock 1 or 2 cubes depending what you have with about 250ml water
400 ml Ale ( I used Newcastle Brown Ale)
1 tbsp Tomato Puree
A good splash of Worcester sauce
A Sprig of Fresh Thyme and 2 bay leaves strung together
1 slice of smoked bacon
1-2 carrots depending on how big they are
1/2 stick of celery
2-3 chestnut mushrooms
1/2 mushroom stock cube (porcini)

So the very first thing you must do is dry off your meat first. I.E pat the meat with kitchen cloth and coat the meat in Flour.  This will help Brown the meat better and lock in the flavour.
 Fry off the meat until Browned in colour. Fry off the Chunky diced onion with the beef until the onion slightly softens.  Add the fresh herbs, Tomato puree, Worcester sauce, mustard powder, garlic and of course the Ale! 
 You will need to cook the meat for a good 1 and a half hours until almost fully tender.  you may need even longer. 
 Turn your oven onto 180 c gas mark 4.
 Now what I usually do whilst this is cooking nicely, I chop up the rasher of smoked bacon and fry off just until cooked and place onto a plate or bowl.  Then dice up the carrot, celery and the other half of the onion finely and fry off until soft… in the same pan will be fine.  Again add the mix to the bacon. And finally chop the mushrooms as you require and fry off also.  Add the mushroom stock cube to the pie mix and all other vegetables.  Now if this isn’t thick enough you may need to add a little bit of gravy granules and also season to taste. 
  Flour your surface ready for your pastry and You just need to roll it out to about 1/2 cm thickness.  Place mixture into a pie dish (suitable for the oven) and place your pastry on top.   This part is totally up to you of how neat, rustic you want it to be?  Let the pastry hang over the edge and just use a knife to slice it off around the edges and press down to the dish.   Just don’t forget to egg wash the pastry to give it a lovely golden colour. 
 Bake for about 20-30 minutes.  If you try this recipe maybe on a Sunday instead of a roast… just promise me you will have it with Mashed Potato?! 
  

At this time of the year, there is nothing better than a bit of Spring Lamb.  As you can see, in this Recipe was the leg. ( I got a good deal from a local butcher 🙂 )

 Im my mind, It just has to be Uk lamb.  The More local the better in my eyes!  No offense to My Foreign Readers if I may have any in New Zealand!

  Now this marinade will Blow your Socks off if you marinade it for a good time…overnight even, if you can? Like all Marinades, the longer the better. Make sure you rest that lamb onto lots of lamb bones, Carrots, onions and celery to make a lovely stock for gravy. You can even  every so often splash some wine in the bottom, white, red or even a bit of both! 🙂 if you want less alcohol, use water.

Marinade Recipe:

I firstly put knife holes into the lamb to allow me to put in garlic and rosemary. And also to allow the marinade to really get in there and do its work!
                                                           4-5 cloves of Garlic in the holes 

                                                           along with a good sprig of fresh rosemary.

                                                           1 tbsp of Soy sauce ( preferably dark)

                                                           1 tbsp of Worcester Sauce,
                                                            A good handfull of fresh Mint.
                                                            1 tsp of jarred mint sauce as gives acidity, some people 
                                                            use red wine vinegar etc…

 

                                                        1 tbsp of honey,
2 tbsp’s of tomato puree,

3 Anchovies finely chopped ( yes fish! ) or a couple more again depending on the size of your meat and this is to add a lovely saltiness to the lamb and succulency.

Black cracked Pepper to season…No salt as you have the Soy and the Anchovies remember!

Turn your oven up to 220c gas mark 7 and blast it for about 20 mins or 30 if you have a whole leg of lamb. Then turn back down to 180c gas mark 4 for a further 45-60 minutes and If I remember rightly I think it is roughly 20 mins per 450-500g and cook for a further 20 minutes ish again depending on size and also how pink you like your lamb.

 Now I have a quick confession…My personal taste, I love pink lamb, but I had too much wine cooking this and thus cooked for longer, oops! but however it was Moist and very tender from the marinade. Lush!
One thing I will add though with this recipe is that there are so many versions out there of Leg of Lamb recipes that I have just taken bits of each that I think work and adapted it to my taste 🙂

Oh and if you haven’t figured it out…that was the wine we had with 

                                    the dinner.