Happy Bank Holiday - did you do something nice? When we were working, we often took time to be with each other at home and just pootle around doing this and that - still my favourite thing to do!
Back to Ashdown Manna
What a lovely day I had yesterday! My grand daughter and I went back to Ashdown Manna for another day packed chock full of wonderful recipes - Southern Italian with chef Stephano Imperiale this time.
There were only five of us altogether this time and 2 of them were a couple of men who were obviously long term friends and were joshing each other all day.
The first thing we made was Mozzarella in Carroza. A sandwich made with mozzarella, anchovies and basil, then breadcrumbed and deep fried. We had that with a very flavoursome tomato and chilli sauce to dip the sandwich into. My goodness was that ever delicious! Problem was, we had that at 11:00am, the first thing I'd had to eat that day. Oh no - I had a cup of red bush tea and a chef made biscotti when we arrived.
Anyway, it was really filling and neither Jodie nor I wanted anything else at all that day. So all the other things we made, we had to save and carry off home.
The two chaps ate everything - goodness only knows how they managed that!
So in total, we made all of these
- Almond biscotti - made by the chef and enjoyed by us before we started the course, with a hot drink
- Mozzarella in Carrozza, eaten at 11am
- Tomato and chilli sauce - some eaten with the sandwich
- Sea Bream in Crazy Water. This is the fish floured and fried, then olives, capers, cherry tomatoes, a little wine and lots of parsley are added. The crazy water part comes from adding a little water which jumps and sizzles in the pan.
- Puccia with black olives. This is a traditional Southern Italian bread which lasts a long time and can be dipped into that chilli and tomato sauce.
- Peperonata alla Salentina. Peppers of all colours in long strips and cooked in olive oil. Then garlic, tomatoes, capers, black olives and oregano are added. That is served with the sea bream.
- Orecchiette with spicy sausage and broccoli sauce. We made the pasta by hand. It was made with all semolina which I haven't done before, I've added a little semolina to pasta with wheat flour, but never done any using just the semolina, and I've certainly never made orecchiette. It was much easier than I thought to shape the pasta, I had a feeling it would be a knack made to look easy by the chef, but it wasn't, just took a little time. The pasta took about 10 minutes to cook, which is much longer than fresh wheat flour pasta which you basically just bring to the boil.
- Sausages were made into tiny balls, pan fried with shallots, and then pre-cooked broccolini was added and the whole sprinkled with pecorino. That was our lunch but it was only the men who ate it, everyone else had a small spoonful to try. Gorgeous! In fact, I've just had the rest of it for lunch, with masses of an oriental green, not sure which one, from my last Oddbox.
- After lunch we made Melanzana all Parmigiana. This was made in a long foil container to take home, which was just as well as I think I would have felt nauseous at the thought of eating anything else! We sliced aubergine very thin, coated them in flour, then deep fried them. I thought deep frying would mean that the aubergine would soak up much too much oil. But the chef assured me the flour made a barrier, and although the flour seemed to disappear, the cooked aubergine slices weren't excessively oily. I tried a very small piece and I would be very happy with just those on a plate, with something green and a tomatoey sauce to dip. I think I'm going to try that and use my cast iron frying pan to shallow fry them in as I don't have, and don't want, a deep fryer.
We layered the fried aubergine in the foil dish with thin slices of mozzarella,
passata, pecorino and basil leaves. Very simple.
- At the end of the day, chef made a ricotta and lemon cake while we watched.
Everything was full of flavour and utterly delicious and I want to make everything again! The only thing I wasn't that keen on was the ricotta and lemon cake. It didn't have much flavour which was surprising as it had the zest of 3 lemons and lots of lemon juice in it. Still I don't really want to bake as I don't want to eat those kinds of things, so I'm not that fussed about that one.
Just to make sure we got the complete foodie dose, on the way home we stopped at the Groombridge Farm Shop for a look around. This started life as an open air stall for the local asparagus farm and I've been swinging by there for over 30 years for asparagus on my way to work.
It says on their website that they've been a farm shop for 12 years, but I've lived in Heathfield for over 17 years and I was buying asparagus there for many years when I lived in Penshurst and it was on my way to work!
I bought 2 chicken Kiev's and 2 fish cakes both for the freezer, a huge bag of kale, some posh chocolate for my husband, an apple pie for him, a huge bulb of fennel and some lovely long bright red chillies to make that chilli and tomato sauce with.
And the next Oddbox is coming at 1am tonight, so we'll have loads of lovely fresh veg. I'll show you the box contents on FB tomorrow.
The Tomatoes and Runner Beans Are Out
The runner beans are out in the garden and climbing up the poles. They don't like being in pots much and always leap up once they've got their feet in soil. Those bamboo poles are stems cut from the invasive bamboo my neighbour planted and I'm constantly cutting down. At least I get that use from the flipping things.
I've grown three kinds of tomatoes again this year. A big beefsteak type heritage one, Brandywine, a cherry tomato and an ordinary Moneymaker.
The ones outside I grow in cattle water troughs as the sunniest place doesn't have any soil.
They do very well there.
I also grow nine tomato plants in the greenhouse. I have started putting pots in containers and it's so much easier to keep them well watered and fed than in the grow bags I'd been using previously. I copied the idea from a friend.
Beside the troughs is a big pot with three pumpkins in, Crown Prince. They will climb up their poles and I'll train one across the front of the tomatoes, and the other two on wires higher up above the tomatoes where the pumpkin and tomatoes will mix.
On the other side of the troughs is another very large pot with two baby courgette plants in.
Last year I did the same, but made the mistake of adding a supermarket parsley plant in there as well. The parsley completely took over the pot and shaded out the courgette.
That parsley plant has just finished. It was still very healthy, but was going to seed. I've planted some parsley seeds, but I think I'll get another plant as well.
Recipes This Time
Easy Orange Cake
When I’ve zested and juiced a lemon, or eaten an orange, I stash the peel in the freezer. When I want some, I simmer it in water until tender (takes a good half an hour) then whizz to a purée with a stick blender. Or sometimes, I’ll cook a batch of peel, purée it and store in small quantities in the freezer.
The cake is light, tasting a little like a marmalade cake, and generally citrussy. The amount I used was a guess and it’s just about right.
Make a sponge cake using pureed orange and lemon carcasses kept in the freezer. Love your leftovers!
Tuna & Pasta Salad
From Meal Plan 9. On the meal plan, this salad is used as a lunch, but it could just as easily be a dinner
Very variable, here are just some of the changes you could make
- use either the black or the green olives, they are the same price.
- add seasonal leaves from the garden if you have any, or a nice ripe tomato.
- swap and change the veg: finely sliced fennel would be lovely,
- or beetroot from the vacuum packs,
- a few peas,
- some baby broad beans,
- a few french beans.
- swap the pasta for boiled potatoes and add an egg and you more or less have a niciose.
- add an anchovy fillet or some vinaigrette dressing.
- add a few green, brown or puy lentils, or rinse off some value baked beans and use those.
- replace the pasta with couscous, or rice.
- a half dozen crunchy croutons scattered across the top would be lovely, sliced, or otherwise,
- or maybe a tsp of pumpkin seeds.
Vegetable Crumble
The girls liked it when they were still living at home, and my husband loves it, he’ll always enjoy it whenever it’s on offer. Made using ordinary root vegetables with a really lovely topping.
I have made many variations of savoury crumbles. They are filling and sustaining, they do have slow release oats in there after all. Packed full of vegetables in a way that children, and other veggie-phobes may enjoy. It is a tasty mix that most people seem to like.
This can be made vegan be simply omitting or substituting the cheese.
Want a gluten free crumble? Just use a gluten free flour, and check your oats.
Chole Masala
I love this recipe, chickpeas in a tomato sauce. It can be spiced in any way you like, with whatever you have, and served with fresh cooked, fluffy nan. It won’t be as authentic if you use different spices, but sometimes, you just have to use whatever you have! It’s very tasty just as it is.
I published an ebook for meal plan 1 in August 2021 and am delighted that many people have thought it was worth getting. I repriced it again in June 2022 and it was still holding on, even in these scary times. Now we are in September and prices have shifted again and I've managed to get my head around WooCommerce so I can feature it on the blog and you can find it here.
I was busy recooking, photographing and updating the recipes for Meal Plan 2 and putting them into an ebook as well. The meal plan was first written in 2013 and still prices up, which is fabulous and that is finally complete. The book is done now too, prices seem to be stable enough to do it.
I've finally completed the e-book from the Stretch A Chicken To Last A Week series. Took me absolutely ages to finish it off!
Do come and say hello on the Fantastically Frugal Food Facebook group, or the Sensational Slimming Sustenance group. I'd love to see you. Lots of useful tips, recipes and ideas. The over 17,000 membership are brilliant, brimming with talent.
And don't forget Thrifty Lesley, where there are 800+ recipes of fantastically frugal food and many weekly meal plans. And Cheap Family Recipes where you can find all kinds of delicious things that don't cost much, with two family monthly meal plans.
I've also got a few YouTube videos up, not many yet, but I'm planning to do more. I've done a couple more, need to edit them now. So much to do, so little time!
With all best wishes, until next time
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