Harvest Braised Steak

This is a precious hand-me-down from my paternal grandmother.  My beloved Granny gave this recipe to my darling Mum, who cooked it often during my years at home, before writing it out for me.  Now I pass it on to you, for fear that this delicious recipe will otherwise, one day, be lost forever.  It's a brilliant one-pot dinner, quickly prepared but slow to cook; ideal for a rainy Sunday in autumn.  Food like this just feels so right at this time of year, familiar and warming but not flash or fussy.  It's a completely self-contained meal as well, no bits and pieces or side dishes required, so very little washing-up to be done before the mad weekly rush to get the children's things ready for school tomorrow, lay out uniforms for the morning and get my babies off to bed, ready for the last week of school before half-term (and, blimey, hasn't that come around quickly!).

Harvest Braised Steak

2 tbsp oil or dripping
1 onion, chopped
4 carrots, chopped
600ml beef stock
20g cornflour, dissolved in 100ml cold water
500g carton passata OR 400g can chopped tomatoes
200g mushrooms, chopped roughly
320g can sweetcorn, drained
handful of uncooked  macaroni
800g braising steak, cut into portion-size pieces

Preheat the oven to 150°c.  Heat the fat in a large casserole pan on the hob and cook the onion and carrot until softened.  Pour in the stock and the cornflour mixture.  Add the tomatoes, mushrooms, sweetcorn and macaroni and stir well.  Lay the pieces of braising steak on top and transfer the pan to the oven.  Cook for two hours, checking occasionally that it is not becoming too dry.  Top up with a little water or stock if necessary, then serve straight from the pan at the table.

Cath xx

BBQ Beanfeast

I  wrote recently about my culinary experiments with American-style pulled pork and ever since, the flavours have continued to fascinate me.  The flavour rub for that recipe has found its way into several dishes since and a keep a jar of it, ready mixed, in one of my kitchen cupboards.  Tonight I used it yet again...


Basic BBQ Rub


6 tbsp paprika (regular, not smoked)
2 tbsp flaky sea salt 
2 tbsp freshly ground black pepper
4 tsp garlic powder
4 tsp English mustard powder


Stir all ingredients together. Keep in a (labelled!) jar in the cupboard.


This is the sort of easy dish that we all love; something like a chilli con carne, actually, but sweeter and with less spicy heat.  It is very forgiving as regards side dishes as well, I prefer to serve it with rice, but it also works well with soft flour tortillas or potatoes (jacket spuds and potato wedges, especially).  Frankly, a little salad and  a chunk of crusty bread to dunk is all you really need.


Beef  &Bean BBQ Pot


I mainly use the ordinary HP barbecue sauce, but I occasionally dally with another brand.  Just use your favourite.


2 onions, chopped
120g smoked bacon chopped
300g minced beef
3 tbsp BBQ rub (and see above)
1 red pepper, halved, de-seeded and sliced
400g tin of mixed beans, drained
400g tin chopped tomatoes
bottled barbecue sauce
dried oregano


Heat a little oil in a casserole pan and fry the onion until soft.  Add the bacon to the pan and cook through, then put in the beef and brown it well.  Sprinkle the BBQ rub in as you brown the beef, then add the strips of pepper and mix through the meat and onions.  Tip in the beans, then the tomatoes. Fill the empty tomato can half-full with water and add a good squirt of bottled barbecue sauce.  Stir well and add this liquid to the pan.  Sprinkle dried oregano into the pot and stir again. Cook, covered, at 160°c for 20 minutes, then remove the lid, stir again, and cook for 15 minutes more to reduce the sauce.  Enjoy!

 Cath xx

P.S. Blogger formatting has gone insane, it seems.  No matter.

It's Leeking again!

I love cooking with leeks.  It feels right, somehow, using them as often as I do when I live in Wales, but I suspect that I would use them almost obsessively wherever I lived.  They give a delicacy of taste that onions, however useful (and they are) in cooking, simply cannot provide - leeks are, to me, definitely the blushing ingénue to onions' dashing cad.   They go particularly well with chicken, cheese (ooh, leeks and blue cheese...) and ham or bacon, but I also love them with black pudding and with salmon.  Mustard is another friend of the leek, and this wholegrain mustard-spiked chicken dish is a great favourite of ours.


Chicken with Wine and Mustardy Leeks


8 chicken thighs
5 leeks, halved and sliced
200ml white wine
2 tbsp wholegrain mustard
200ml chicken  stock
15g butter


Heat a little cooking oil in a casserole pan and brown the chicken well all over.  Remove to a plate and set aside, then put the sliced leeks into the pan and cook, stirring, until soft.  Add a splash of boiling water from the kettle to help scrape up any chicken bits from the bottom of the pot as you stir.  Stir in the mustard and add the stock. Bring to the boil, then remove from the heat and stir in the butter until it melts.  This will help to emulsify the saucy leeks a little.  Put the chicken pieces back on top of the leeks, pop the lid on and transfer the pan to the oven.  Cook at 160°c for 30 minutes, then remove the lid and cook for another 5 to 10 minutes to crisp the chicken skins and reduce the sauce a little.


I served this with a pan of brown rice, and we had pre-dinner munches on root vegetable crisps (with a cheeky G&T for me!)

Cath xx

One Pot Wonder

I love a meal that cooks in one pot... Not only is it easy to serve but, happily, easy to wash up after.  This is something that was quick to throw together with ingredients that, bar the chicken, I always have in the cupboard.  As for the chicken, thighs are always a sensible option, easily portion-controlled and much, much tastier than all the skinless breast fillets you can throw at me!  I usually have these in the freezer so it was an ideal meal to make when we are snowed in.  The Jamaican spice blend can be any of your choosing, bringing a hint of sunshine and warmth to what is - essentially - a very simple meal.

One-Pot 'Jamaican' Chicken with Rice and Peas

3 tbsp dripping or oil
1 large onions, peeled and chopped
1-2 tbsp Jamaican or jerk seasoning
8 chicken thighs (skin on)
350g long-grain rice
1 litre chicken stock
400g can red kidney beans, drained and rinsed well

Heat the fat in a large pan and lightly brown the chicken pieces on all sides.  Remove from the pan and set aside.  Fry the onion gently until soft.  Add the spice mix, then tip in the rice and cook for 1 min, stirring all the time. Stir in the kidney beans and then add the chicken stock.  Lay the browned chicken pieces, skin-side up, on top.  Bring to the boil, then turn the heat down, cover the pan and simmer for 40 minutes or so until the chicken is cooked through and the rice is tender.

Cath xx

Delicious Autumn

"Youth is like spring, an over praised season more remarkable for biting winds than genial breezes.  Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits."  ~ The Way of All Flesh, Samuel Butler

Autumn.  It may be  cold and dark (and, for us in West Wales at least, misty and extremely damp), but it does have its plus points.  Roaring open fires, hot chocolate, snuggly sweaters and beautiful colours on the trees.  All these, and cooking lovely, warming casseroles like this one.  It truly is food to warm your heart and soul.  Even more so when it comes with a baked potato; crunchy-skinned without, fluffy and buttered within,  on the side... just pop your pricked spuds in the 160°c oven as you begin to prepare the casserole and everything will be, perfectly, ready at the same time.

Casseroled Pork Chops with Cider and Mustard

4 pork chops, bone in
2 tbsp dripping or butter
1 large onion, halved and sliced thinly
2 eating apples, cored and cut into wedges
500ml cider
2 tbsp Dijon mustard
2 tsp cornflour, mixed with 1 tbsp water
salt and pepper
chopped fresh parsley

Melt the fat in a large, deep pan which has a lid.  When it is hot, quickly brown the pork chops, then remove them to a plate.  Add the onions to the pan and fry until soft and golden.  Pour in the cider and add the mustard and slaked cornflour, stirring well to combine everything, before adding the apple pieces and returning the chops to the pan.  Cover and bring to the boil.  Transfer the pan to a 160°c oven for an hour, then check the seasoning and correct it to your liking.  Stir in the parsley and serve with baked potatoes.

Cath xx

Casserollin', rollin', rollin'!

Apologies to Limp Bizkit, there...  Casseroles of one sort or another are a real regular favourite in this house;  Christopher, especially, when asked what he'd like for supper, invariably requests a casserole.  Sometimes, though, one wants to feel that the finished dish is somewhat more than the usual bung-it-all-in-and-see; more of a classic dish that happens to be a little bit like the good old cass.  Chicken Chasseur is much maligned by packaged 'recipe mixes', purporting to recreate this classic dish (just add chicken, onion, mushrooms etc.).  It is, in fact, hard to see how following the instructions on one of these packets is , realistically, any easier than making it properly.  There are no strange, recherché ingredients here, just a short list of, well, real food.  The only, perhaps, slightly specialist item you need here is a large plastic bag...

Chicken Chasseur

I keep some of those small 200ml bottles of wine in my kitchen cupboard to use in cooking; if I open a 'big' bottle just for a little bit, I inevitably drink the rest, so better safe...


8 chicken thighs
plain flour
salt and pepper
20g butter and a splash of oil
1 onion, sliced
200g mushrooms, sliced
200ml white wine
200ml chicken stock
a bay leaf
parsley, to finish

Put some flour a a large plastic bag and season it well.  Chuck in the chicken pieces and toss them well in the flour to coat them thoroughly.  Shake off the excess flour and ditch the bag.  Heat the fat in a large casserole, then brown the floured chicken pieces well and set them aside for a moment.  Fry the onion until soft and golden, then stir in the mushrooms and cook, stirring, until they  absorb all the fatty juices and start to 'squeak' a little on the pan.  Reduce the heat, then pour in the wine and stock and bring to a low simmer.  Add the bay leaf and return the chicken to the pan.  Cover and cook for 10 minutes, then remove the lid and simmer for another half an hour.  Turn the heat up a lttle towards the end, to bubble the juices away just a little.  Throw over a handful for chopped parsley, for pretty, and serve.

Tonight, we ate ours with mashed potatoes and a dish of leeks in cheese sauce, but it's equally good with a bowl of rice or some plain steamed potatoes and peas.  Quite frankly, bread and salad is more than enough... Enjoy!

Cath xx

A Very Porky St. Patrick's Day

James and I had a lovely St. Patrick's Day lunch today, cooked for us at the Aberystwyth family centre by some Irish friends.  Coddle is not so very dissimilar to the Welsh favourite, cawl;  a casserole of bacon and sausages cooked in stock with potatoes, parsnips, swede and carrots.  Served with some gorgeous soda bread it was, truly, a meal to make you sit up and beg!

Wanting to offer the rest of the family a little of the culinary comfort they had missed out on at lunchtime, tonight I opted for an easy midweek roast; potatoes, parsnips and (unpeeled) carrots, chopped up and roasted with a small, 1kg joint of pork loin.  I added a glass'-worth of chicken stock (as I had no pork stock) and cooked it all at 200°c for an hour.  Served with some stuffing balls and some steamed broccoli (plus the inevitable sweetcorn), it made a meal with very little work on my part. Result!

Happy St. Patrick's Day, Cath xx

Taking It Easy

Those after-school dinner decisions are tough, Aren't they?  Even if you make meal plans, sometimes life kicks you to the kerb and you have to come up with something fast and filling for the family.  Something you can cook easily while dealing with the aftermath of the school run and children tired and fractious after a busy day.  Not for nothing do I (only half-jokingly, sometimes) refer to this time of day as 'the suicide hour'.

Now, baked beans are not something that I would ever choose to eat in the normal run of things, but they can occasionally be a useful ingredient in cooking and this is one of those times.  Likewise with stock cubes; I only rarely use them but when you are cooking with minced meat from the supermarket, rather than the butcher, they can add an extra boost of flavour.

Easy Home-From School Hotpot


Obviously switch the lamb mince and stock cube for their beef equivalents if you'd rather...


3 or 4 large potatoes, sliced thickly
1 onion, sliced
500g lamb mince
1 lamb stock cube
420g can baked beans

Put the sliced potatoes into boiling, salted water, return to the boil and cook for 10 minutes until just tender in the centre.  Drain carefully (i.e. don't break them up!). Meanwhile, heat a littl oil in a casserole pan and fry the onion until softened.  Add the mince and brown it, then crumble in the stock cube.  Cook for a few minutes, then remove from the heat and stir in the baked beans.  Lay the slices of potato on top in a spiral fashion (see picture), drizzle with a little melted butter and transfer to a 200°c oven for 15-20 minutes to brown the top.

Cath xx

Call this cold? Well, yes, actually!

The cold weather has really brought us round to stews and casseroles again.  Milder winters in recent years have meant less of a marked change in our diet from one season to the next but this year I am really feeling wintry and more in need of hearty, rib-sticking dishes to warm my chilled marrow right through.  Originally, when planning supper for tonight, I thought of Goulash, but the lack of beef available in my freezer, and the need to use up a surfeit of pork, meant that this has ended up more like the equally appealing Pörkölt. 

For the accompaniment, first I thought rice, then I thought noodles (for which read tagliatelle), then I wondered about couscous.  Then it came to me, as obvious as it should have been all along... DUMPLINGS!!!  Called knedlíky when dishes not dissimilar to this are made  in Czechoslovakia, my dumplings immediately felt 'right' with this dish.  We all love dumplings anyway, so nI wonder what was wrong with me not to think of them straightaway.  No matter, this was especially lovely with a glass of robust Shiraz.

Slightly Slavic Pork Stew

Incidentally, the dumpling 'recipe' can be used to bulk up any stews or casseroles - and add any herbs or spices you feel would enhance your meal.  I prefer them plain and unfettered with a highly-flavoured stew like this one.



25g butter and a little cooking oil
1 large onion, halved and sliced
700g lean boneless pork, cut into cubes
2 tbsp smoked paprika (I use La Chinata, which seems quite widely available)

1 red pepper, deseeded and cut into chunks
1 yellow pepper, deseeded and cut into chunks1 green pepper, deseeded and cut into chunks
100g mushrooms, cut into chunks
400g can chopped tomatoes
1 tbsp tomato purée

For the dumplings:


150g self-raising flour
50g suet
salt and pepper
milk or water to bind to a loose dough

Heat the fat and fry the onion until soft.  Add the pork and brown it a little, then mix in the vegetable chunks.  Pour in the tomatoes and half a can of water with the tomato purée, and cook at 160° for 1 hour 15 minutes, then, if you like, mix the ingredients for the dumplings together, form into half-a-dozen small balls with wetted hands and add them to the pan, cooking the uncovered stew at 180°c for a further quarter of an hour.

Cath xx

Lazin' on a Sunday

With our little mini-summer (at last, is all have to say...) still going strong, today was a day for just chilling out. The children and I had a late breakfast of Eggy Bread ( the Girl Guide in me will never call it French Toast), followed by a lot of messing around in the garden, before I headed inside to get this little beauty into the oven for our supper. Days like today are just made for this sort of dinner; a little bit of none-too-taxing preparation and a long, slow cook which allows for knitting, reading and running round the garden with the kids, while they hold plastic swords aloft and scream "By the power of Grayskull!" at the tops of their voices. Blame my sainted brother's 1980's He-Man collection, or blame my recent LoveFilm rental of He-Man Vol. 1, but they are currently OBSESSED with everything Eternia...

Shin of Beef with Mushrooms & Chestnuts

Phenomenally long recipe, but very little actual work...

2 or 3 tbsp oil
800g shin of beef, cut up to your liking
2 tbsp plain flour
1 onion, peeled and sliced
2 sticks celery, sliced thickly
2 cloves garlic, minced or finely chopped
250g mushrooms, halved
240g can vacuum-packed chestnuts
a large glass of red wine
a little tomato purée
500ml beef stock
splash of Worcestershire sauce
few bay leaves

Put the flour and some seasoning into a large plastic bag. Add the beef and toss it around to coat it in the flour. Heat 2 tbsp oil in a large casserole and brown the beef in a couple of batches (this keeps the heat up and ensures a good sizzle to really brown the meat). Remove to a plate and set aside.

Add another tbsp of oil if you think the pan need it, then chuck in the onions, celery and garlic. Fry these until soft. Add the rest of the seasoned flour from the bag and mix well. Throw in the mushrooms and chestnuts, then add the wine, stirring up any and all sticky bits from the bottom of the pan. Squidge in a little tomato purée and stir well to mix (this is not so much for flavour as to correct the purple colour brought by the wine). Pour in the stock and the Worcestershire sauce, bung in the bay leaves and bring to boiling point. Cover the casserole pan and transfer it to a 180°c oven for 1 hr 30 minutes. Check it at 1 hr 15 minutes; if it seems to 'wet' for your liking, cook it uncovered for the last quarter of an hour. If not, leave it be for the rest of the cooking time.

Serve from the pan with whatever vegetables you fancy. I personally think that the chestnuts make potatoes de trop, but you may feel differently. Anyway, sweetcorn is such a favorite with the males of the house as to make it an unavoidable, inevitable inclusion, but I have to say that good old Savoy cabbage is always a favourite, and definitely my first choice here!

Cath xx

Summer Lovin'

This is an ideal basis for supper on one of those days when it's hot and you want supper to be summery and perhaps a little Mediterranean, but have minimal access to shopping or exotic storecupboard paraphernalia.

Quick Lamb Stew with Summer Flavours

olive oil
1 aubergine
1 onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
500g minced lamb
1 glass rosé wine
400g can chopped tomatoes
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp ground cumin

Slice the aubergine and brush the slices with olive oil. Place on a baking sheet and bake for 15-20 minutes, turning once. Meanwhile, heat a very little oil in a largish casserole and fry the onions until soft, then add the garlic and cook until its fragrance wafts up enticingly. Brown the lamb mince, then pour in the wine. Cook briefly to sizzle off the alcohol, then add the tomatoes, oregano, cumin and plenty of freshly-ground black pepper. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer, uncovered for 10 minutes. Roughly chop the baked aubergine slices and add to the pan, then cook for a further 10 minutes.

You can, of course use this stew in the same ways that you might use any meat ragú; with pasta, with baked potatoes, to form the basis of a pie - but for this sort of meal you can really go to town on the whole 'taverna' idea and serve flatbread, chunky salad, olives and a dish of crumbled feta cheese with fresh oregano stirred through. I have fresh oregano in the garden at this time of year, so this is not out-of-the-ordinary for us, but if you don't have any (please do consider the idea, though) just season the cheese with a little pepper. The dried stuff will just about do, but only if you combine it with some other fresh herbs (mint, parsley, basil are all good, severally and together).

Dearth (of ideas) Row

Sausage Casserole. Not necessarily an imaginative dinner, but a good one nonetheless. Ever since we had a sausage casserole like this at my parents' house a few weeks back, Christopher has been obsessed with it; in fact it feels like nearly all questions of "what would you like to eat?" have been answered with "that sausage casserole with potatoes on top like Granny makes" ever since. When he doesn't want "fish and chips" or (whisper) "sweets", that is.

It's hardly rocket science, and I feel kind of daft even typing it out as a 'recipe', but them's the breaks, kiddo. So here's what I did tonight to get supper on the table...

4 medium potatoes (child's fist-sized?)

1 onion, halved and sliced

8 sausages, your choice

2 x 400g tins chopped tomatoes

butter

Slice the potatoes (I can never be bothered to peel them for this) and put them in cold water. Bring them to the boil, then drain. While that's going on, fry the onion, in a little oil, and brown the sausages. Tip in the tomatoes, and one can of water, and bring to the boil. Top with the drained sliced potatoes, cover the pan and bake in the oven at 180­°c for half an hour. Go and see what the kids are doing. Watch 'Superted' on YouTube (Christopher's new black) with them. When time is up, remove the pan's lid, dot the potatoes with a little butter and return to the oven (still uncovered) for a further 30 minutes. Set the table, referee a fight over a half-deflated balloon, trip over the cat (again) and get drinks for everyone. Serve the casserole straight from the pan at the table, with some green veg on the side - frozen peas, for sanity's sake.

Pulse Rate

Lentils are so useful in the kitchen. I add the little red split ones to all sorts of things to bulk them out, stretch them further or just to add a different dimension of texture. A spoonful or two in a stew thickens the gravy nicely as it cooks, without the need for any artificial jiggery-pokery, and you can stretch a small quantity of minced beef further if you add half the quantity of lentils to whatever you're cooking and simmer with some stock. Pulses are cheap, especially if you buy the bags of dried ones which you soak and cook for yourself. More and more, too, I find that my children adore pulses of all kinds and will enthusiastically devour just about anything that is accompanied by lentils, chock-full of chickpeas or studded with red kidney beans.

For a meal or side dish, though, you'd be hard pressed to beat the beautiful, pebbly, French lentilles de Puy. Once a recherché resident of upmarket and continental grocers, they can now (thanks largely to Merchant Gourmet) be found in even the smaller supermarkets. This little one-pot meal shows them off to their best, cooked simply with sausages for an unfussy, but still somehow rather special, family supper.

Sausage & Lentil Braise

The pork chop was added really because I had one that needed to be used; you could easily leave it out, though I do think it adds to the flavour of the juices and to the 'feastliness' of the meal as a whole.

1 leek, shredded

fresh thyme

50ml vermouth (or white wine)

250ml Puy lentils

1 or 2 pork chops, bone-in please

6-10 coarse pork sausages

Heat a little fat in a flameproof casserole and soften the leeks with some finely chopped fresh thyme. Add the lentils to the pan, stirring to coat them in the fat, then pour in the vermouth or wine and allow the alcohol to bubble away. Pour in 500ml water, then lay the pork chop and sausages in the pan. Bring to the boil, then cover the pan and simmer for 20 minutes. Serve straight from the pan, possibly (if you can stand the extra carbs) with some nice bread for mopping up the juices.

Sunday Girl

We woke up this morning to every child's (and my husband's) dream - a half-decent covering of snow on the ground. Christopher was barely able to contain his excitement during breakfast, then he was straight out into the garden to throw snowballs and (inexplicably) carry small buckets full of snow from one side of the garden to the other. James was intrigued by it all, though rather suspicious and apt to break down in tears if any snow got too close to him!

I really started cooking again today, having had the best part of two weeks off family meal-duty (what with all our various gallivanting around). A Sunday dinner was a good place to start, and really, what could we want more on a cold evening than a warming chicken stew with lemon-spiked dumplings and a chocolate pudding to follow?

I can't really bring myself to type out a 'recipe' for this stew; as you do with stews, I just threw it all together. I browned some free-range, corn-fed chicken legs, added leeks, carrots and potatoes, then cooked it slowly, for a couple of hours, with a splash of vermouth and some chicken stock. My recipe for dumplings is here, though today I added the zest of a lemon, used its juice to bind the dough and used fresh parsley instead of the dried herbs. Half an hour before we ate, I threw in some halved green beans and added the dumplings to the pan.

Now, this pudding I'm very proud of. Chocolate puddings can be a real problem, balancing richness with a need to stand up again and sweetness with wanting the children to get some sleep tonight. This pudding fulfils the brief well, as most of the really sweet and rich part comes from the accompanying Choco-Fudge Sauce. The ginger may seem unconventional and, it's true, the pudding doesn't taste much of ginger - but it does have an indefinable warmth that a pudding without the added spice lacks.

Choc-Choc Pudding with Choco-Fudge Sauce

I cook this in my pressure cooker but, if you don't have one, steam the pudding for an hour and a half.

100g butter
30g golden syrup
100g light muscovado sugar

Melt together in a pan, then remove from the heat and allow to cool to blood temperature.

150ml milk
1 egg
200g self-raising flour
25g cocoa powder
1 tsp ground ginger
pinch bicarbonate of soda

Mix the dry ingredients together, then beat the milk and egg into the cooled butter mixture. Add the flour etc., to the pan and stir throughly until everything is well combined. Pour the mixture into a well-greased 1.2 litre pudding basin, cover with foil and tie tightly. In a pressure cooker, steam for 10 minutes, then cook for 25 minutes. Otherwise, steam over hot water for an hour and a half.

As I've mentioned above, the crowning glory of this pudding is my Choco-Fudge Sauce. I make this, rather lazily, by melting three Mars bars with 150ml double cream. It's extremely good for dressing up this rather plain chocolate pudding (and others), for pouring over ice-cream or for dipping fruit and marshmallows into as a 'chocolate fondue'. Not that children, in my experience, need much encouragement to eat fruit, but sometimes it's fun to get in a mess just for the sake of it. Anyway, you know by now that I'm a hands-on sort of girl, don't you?

Worry Beans

Well, tonight's was the last family meal I shall have to cook for a few days; tomorrow the boys and their Dad set off for Yorkshire to visit Grandma and Grandad (and to give me a break, phew!). I'm simultaneously really looking foward to being completely independent for a few days and worrying about what on earth I'm going to do with all this time, without my babies to fill it for me. At the moment, plans haven't got much further than the vague 'sleep and clean' (though I've already mentioned my lunch date for tomorrow). I will almost certainly be enjoying some shellfish (Hubby's bête noire) for dinner at some point and hope to have a good 'booty trawl' around the local charity shops. I love charity shops, anything of that kind, and some of my favourite things are second-hand or vintage. Top of the pops at the moment are a 1970s brown felt hat from eBay and a gorgeously gaudy flower-power-patterned glass jug from the Barnado's shop.

This chicken and beans 'thing' was a half-formed idea that came together very well as I cooked it. A simple one-pot dinner is always good for a family; fewer pots to wash (and therefore fewer to argue about?). I did have a bottle of wine open, but I keep a bottle of vermouth, for little bits like this, by the stove as (1) it's a screw-top bottle and not all the wine I like is, and (2) I don't drink much vermouth (you only need a whisper in a Martini) so I can rely on always having some. Hubby doesn't like it at all, so he doesn't nip into the bottle as he is wont to do with other thing.

Chicken and Bean Casserole

1 onion, haved and sliced
4 rashers of bacon, chopped
2 x 400g cans mixed beans, or your choice of pulses
6-8 chicken pieces (thighs and drumsticks)
4 bay leaves
75ml vermouth or white wine
300ml chicken stock, hot

Gently fry the onion with the bacon in a lidded casserole until softened. Add the drained and rinsed pulses to the pan, then tuck in the bay leaves. Lay the chicken pieces on top and season to your own taste. Pour the vermouth or wine into the pan, letting it boil briefly before adding enough hot chicken stock to come about halfway up the chicken. Cover the pan and transfer it to a 180°c oven for 30 minutes. Uncover the pan and cook for a further 10 minutes to crisp the skin of the chicken.

Stewing Bee

I would describe myself as a happy, healthy omnivore; we all four enjoy eating meat, and I make sure to buy as much as I can from the local butcher or direct from the producers at the farmers' market. What I don't like is the term 'carnivore' being attached to those of us who choose to eat meat; we almost invariably enjoy more than just meat in our diets and so, pedant that I am, I prefer the correct term to be used. If I'm going to be labelled, I want it done accurately!

Having said that, however, I love vegetables and enjoy the challenge of cooking a meal with nothing but veg, especially with the beautiful produce we get in our weekly organic box. Vegetables give the cook such a wide palette of flavours, colours and textures that I can't imagine life without them; nor could I enjoy eating wholly without meat and its by-products. Tonight I made a really hearty vegetable stew, though I admit the dumplings on top weren't 100% vegetarian-friendly; I can't resist a dumpling made with proper beef suet. If your tastes differ, substitute vegetarian suet (whatever that is) or vegetable shortening (something like Trex; chilled in the freezer and then coarsely grated). A touch of spice livens up the starchy roots no end, and pulses bulk it out perfectly.

Chunky Root Stew with Dumplings

I used ground de arbol chillies from Mexgrocer, which are very hot - use your favourite and adjust the quantities to your taste.

1 onion, peeled, halved and sliced
2 tsp ground coriander
2 tsp ground cumin
pinch ground chilli (and see above)
4 potatoes, peeled and chopped
3 parsnips, peeled and chopped
4 carrots, peeled and chopped
400g tin chickpeas, drained and rinsed
80ml/⅓ cup split red lentils

Heat a little butter and oil in a large casserole and gently fry the onion with the spices until softened. Add the vegetable chunks, chickpeas and lentils and pour in enough cold water just to cover everything. Bring to the boil, then transfer to a 180°c oven and cook, covered, for 30 minutes, while you get on with the dumplings. God, I love dumplings - even the word itself is comforting.

150g self-raising flour
50g suet (and see above)
1 tsp mixed dried herbs
salt and pepper
milk

Stir the suet, herbs and seasoning into the flour, then add milk to bind to a sticky dough. Divide into eight ball-like lumps and drop into the top of the stew. Cook, this time uncovered, for a further 15 minutes. If you like your dumplings less crusty on top, either baste them with some of the juices from the stew, or cover the pan completely for a really soft dumpling. I do them this way on top of stews in the slow cooker, too - which works really well. Just plop them in for the last half-hour before you want to eat.

I steamed some broccoli for a bit of 'green', but it was more because we had it left in the fridge from this week's box; the children and I are going away for Easter tomorrow and somehow I can't imagine Hubby cooking broccoli for himself while we're away...

Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Sant

Yes, it's the 1st of March - St. David's Day. Christopher has been full of excitement for it, having done various activities and crafts at school this week. He even had me on the floor earlier, attempting to make a Welsh dragon out of red building blocks. Not so good, however I was very pleased with my Lego Daffodil!


For our supper tonight there was only one choice. Cawl is peasant food; good food to warm the cockles on the coldest night and has, beyond a doubt, the right to be called Wales' national dish. As it is proper home food, recipes vary hugely - as I found when I picked the brains of the other ladies at our W.I. cawl supper the other night. Opinion is divided between whether cawl should be made with beef or lamb; I've eaten both and lean towards the beef versions (cawl cig eidion), as does one of our near neighbours, who also introduced the notion of the lentils to me.

Cawl

I like shin of beef best for stewing, but chuck or skirt would do very well too. Replace the beef with lamb, if you fancy a cawl cig oen more


25g beef dripping or other cooking fat
1 onion, peeled and chopped
400g stewing beef (and see above), cubed
4 medium potatoes, peeled and chopped
1 swede, peeled and chopped
3 carrots, peeled and chopped
100g split red lentils
knob of butter
3 leeks, sliced
parsley

Melt the fat in a large casserole and fry the onion until softened. Brown the meat, then add the chopped vegetables and lentils and turn them in the fat. Pour over 1.2 litres of water and bring to the boil. Scoop out any scum that rises to the top as you can, adding a knob of butter to disperse any that remains. Transfer the pan to a 160c oven and cook for an hour, then add the sliced leeks to the pan and cook for 30 minutes more. Swirl in some roughly chopped fresh parsley just before serving.

The only accompaniment you need is bara menyn (bread and butter) a caws (and cheese), and perhaps (if you feel like going really Welsh) some Bara Brith for pwdin.

In a Stew

This week so far (she says!) has been one of those "look in the kitchen and see" times, as far as meal planning goes. On Sunday, I used the Swiss chard that came in last week's vegetable box to make a risotto, adding the chopped stems early on and the shredded leaves towards the end of cooking. Risotti are a great way of making a hearty meat-free meal, especially good for us as we often get just a small amount of a reasonably unusual vegetable in the weekly box. Not enough to be a side dish, but just enough to play the lead in a risotto or pasta sauce. Last week I made a variation on my Broccoli and Blue Cheese Pasta, using a titchy head of Romanesco, or Fractal broccoli (a name I adore), for the boys' and my lunch.

Today, with Chris at school, James and I were in town visiting a friend, so before we went out I got a stew together in the slow cooker. There was a lovely 450g piece of braising steak still in the freezer from my trip to the farmers' market in Aberystwyth so I defrosted that last night.

Beef Stew with Bacon, Red Wine and Rosemary

450g braising steak
2 onions
200g bacon
leaves from a large sprig of rosemary
red wine, 600ml or so
6-8 mushrooms (optional)

Peel, halve and slice the onions. Put them in the bottom of the slow cooker. Chop the bacon, slice the beef and add to the pot. Scatter over the finely chopped rosemary and add seasoning. Bring the wine to the boil on the hob and pour it over the ingredients, then put on the lid and slow-cook. I put it on MEDIUM just before lunch, then we had dinner at six. Slice and add the mushrooms an hour or so before you want to eat (or leave them out entirely if it's easier, timewise).

I made some mash with half potatoes, half parsnips and steamed the rest of the winter greens. To be honest, the stew would be fab with some thick slices of bread, but my Hub is a bit of a meat and two veg man, and especially likes a trad plate of stew, mash and greens.

Mutton Dressed As...Mutton, actually

Today was Karl's day off work. For a family dinner that was low on effort but high on enjoyment, I decided to do a warming mutton stew, which I could leave in the oven while we got on with all those little jobs that inevitably get left until we're both in the house. I defrosted some organic shoulder of mutton that I bought from Elan Valley Mutton at the farmers' market in Aberystwyth, then cooked it with rosemary and red wine; good, gutsy flavours for good, gutsy meat.

Mutton with Red Wine and Rosemary

I know the wine quantity is a little vague, but this is always the way I do stews and things; one for me and the rest for the pot. Some chopped bacon, fried with the onions before browning the mutton, would also be nice, if you've got 100g or so in the fridge.

2 onions, halved and sliced

650g mutton, diced

leaves from a large sprig of rosemary, finely chopped

75cl bottle red wine, less one large glassful

Heat some oil (garlic-infused, if you've got it) in a large casserole and fry the onions until soft and tinged with brown. Add the mutton and brown it well, then stir in the rosemary and pour over the red wine. I used a fairly basic 'French Country Red'. Bring to the boil, then cover the pan and transfer to the oven. Cook for 2 hours at 150°c.

The obvious accompaniment to a stew, for us at least, is mashed potatoes. I steamed them for half an hour, then mashed them with a (huge) lump of butter - in for a penny, in for a pound I say - and served huge dollops to slowly soften in the gravy as we ate. We had some carrots too, just steamed and scattered with parsley. No pudding was really necessary after that lot, but the boys like to have something, so they shared an orange, which squirted juice in my eye, the git.

Mulling It Over

It's been a really busy weekend for us; my parents came to visit and, as we won't see them over Christmas, I wanted to give their stay a bit of festive spirit. We went to Aberystwyth on Saturday afternoon and visited the Christmas market; Mum and I both bought some mutton for the freezer and I also brought home some big slices of Welsh Black braising steak. We nipped into Ultracomida to get some cheese before driving home. I was able to pick up my annual cheese treat, a Vacherin Mont d'Or.

Mulled wine is a Christmas favourite, so a good home recipe is helpful if you want to avoid buying the supermarket alternatives of ready-mulled bottles, or teabag things purporting to be an 'easy option'. If you want to take a shortcut (always useful at this time of year), I would suggest the cloth-tied mulling bundles available from Julian Graves. What I would do without JG at this time of year I really don't know, a big sortie for snack foods and spices is de rigeur. This year we are mostly eating their gorgeous (and very moreish) Garlic and Herb Grissini.

Mulled Wine

This makes a lot, but you can use half of it for the chicken recipe below (which freezes very well). Nor do you have to drink all of it in one evening (ahem). If you strain it into a jug it will keep in the fridge for a couple of days to be reheated. You can even microwave it by the mugful if you like... Please don't try to use cheap nasty wine for this, you need something halfway decent or it will just be foul.

2x 75cl bottles red wine
500ml water
1 lemon, sliced
1 orange, sliced
inch of root ginger, sliced (no need to peel)
2 cinnamon sticks
pinch of whole cloves
pinch of whole black peppercorns
1/2 nutmeg
50ml brandy
50g caster sugar, or to taste

Bung everything into a big pan. Bring to boilking point, then turn the heat down and keep the wine just below simmering point for about 20 minutes. Either dole it out straight from the pan, or decant into a punch bowl if you have one (we were lucky enough to be given one as a wedding present). Either way, serve in heatproof glasses or nice chunky mugs. Mulled wine and good cheese is a great combination on a cold winter's night.

This chicken casserole, which we had for dinner on Saturday night, is something that I first made a few years ago when Hubby's parents came to visit just before that Christmas. Most of the work can be done a day or two in advance, then finishing it off takes only about ten minutes of hands-on work and half an hour in the oven, making it ideal if you want to spend time with your guests rather than your stove.

Mulled Wine Chicken

half-quantity of mulled wine recipe above
5 rashers streaky bacon, chopped
6 small onions, quartered
400ml hot chicken stock
6 chicken legs

Boil the mulled wine, reducing the quantity by half, to concentrate the flavour. Heat a knob of butter and a drizzle of oil in a large casserole and fry the bacon and onions until just browning. Add the hot stock and the (strained) wine, bring to the boil, then lay the chicken legs in the liquid. Cover the pan and transfer to a 200°c oven for an hour.

*At this point you can quickly cool and then chill the chicken for two days, or freeze it for up to a month. Defrost thoroughly, bring to the boil and then proceed as below.*

250g chestnut mushrooms, quartered.

Stir in the mushrooms and return to the oven for 30-40 minutes. Serve with steamed potatoes or rice and some green vegetables. We had broccoli and sprouts from this week's veg box.

Pudding was another Christmas favourite of ours; Mincemeat Meringue Tart. This is my bastardisation of Michael Barry's 'Mince Pie Royale' from his lovely Radio Times Cookery Year. I make an almond pastry for the base, top it with my homemade mincemeat and then pile on meringue made according to the original recipe in the book. Dust it with icing sugar and serve with dollops of thick cream.