Homemade baked beans recipe

A couple of weeks back I got a phone call from my boyfriend whilst he was at work. Nothing unusual there you might think but he was ringing to tell me he had bought half a lamb from a work colleague and could I find room in the freezer for it. His colleagues brother has his own farm only 30 minutes from where we live and was selling half lambs and with the memory of the Lancashire hotpot still fresh in his mind my boyfriend jumped at the chance. You can't get much more local!

Now we don't have a chest freezer or anything like that, just your average tall fridge/freezer, so creating room for a half a lamb would be no easy task. We decided the best thing would be to split it with his parents, leaving us each with a quarter of a lamb. I set about sorting through our well packed, mostly unlabelled freezer (I know, I know I should label things but only one mystery item was unearthed). I managed to empty one and a half drawers and luckily it all fitted in one draw in the end. The only problem we had when the meat arrived was that none of it was labelled with the cut! Thankfully my boyfriends mum was able to identify it all and we labelled it all up and split the lamb between us. So expect plenty of lamb recipes over the coming months.

First up I decided to slow roast the shoulder of lamb over the Easter weekend. During the week leading up to Easter I saw an episode of Market kitchen where they cooked Sheppard's pie with homemade baked beans. The baked beans looked really easy to make and from the comments the dinners were making they sounded delicious. I've been meaning to make my own bake beans for some time but never quiet got round to it and on top of that I had an unopened bottle of pomegranate molasses waiting to be put to good use. The recipe was easy, the beans were delicious (perhaps a little too sweet for my liking so will tweak the recipe a little next time) and worked perfectly with the slow roast lamb and crusty baguettes still warm from the oven. If you thought there was no point making baked beans think again! these have a million times more flavour than any you can find in a tin.

Homemade baked beans
serves 4

100g lardons bacon
2 shallots, chopped
150ml tomato ketchup
100ml beer
50ml pomegranate molasses
1 tbsp dijon mustard
1 tbsp dark brown sugar
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp soy sauce
2 x 400g cans haricot beans, drained and rinsed

fry the bacon and shallots in a large pan over a medium heat for 3-4 minutes, or until golden-brown. Add all of the remaining baked bean ingredients and bring to a simmer. Transfer the mixture to a baking dish and bake for 1 hour, or until the mixture is thickened.

Lancashire hotpot recipe

I've been full of cold and generally feeling under the weather for the past week or so (hence the lack of posts on either of my blogs). I haven't felt up to cooking much but once I started to feel better this weekend I have been planning what to cook and craving good homely comfort food. This dish fitted the bill perfectly. Lancashire hotpot is a traditional British dish which is essentially a lamb stew topped with sliced potatoes on top. Its simple to prepare and the flavours are delicious. But not the easiest dish to make look pretty!
Lancashire hotpot

Serves 4
1-2tbsp olive oil
500g Lamb neck fillet, diced
4 medium carrots, peeled and cut into 1cm thick discs
1 onion, diced
1tbsp plain flour
250ml lamb stock
1tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1tbsp dried thyme (or a couple of sprigs of fresh thyme)
2 bay leaves
4 baking potatoes, peeled and cut into thin slices
few small cubes of butter (optional)

Preheat the oven to 170C
Heat the olive oil in a cast iron casserole dish over a medium heat. Add the lamb and carrots. Stir occasionally until the meat has browned and the carrots softened slightly. Set aside on a plate.
Sweat the onion in the meat juices (add more oil if necessary) for a couple of minutes.
Add the flour and stir well.
Add the stock, Worcestershire sauce, thyme and bay leaves and stir until the flour mixes into the gravy.
Make a layer of potatoes under the gravy (place in the gravy and use your wooden spoon to push them under the surface. Add the meat and carrots back to the gravy.
Arrange the remaining potatoes over the top. Add some small butter cubes around the top.
Put the lid on and cook in the oven for 1 hour with the lid on and 20-30 minutes at the end without the lid until the potatoes are golden.

Lake district foodie finds and wedding planning

Last week we went to Keswick for a couple of nights during which my boyfriend proposed. I have set up a separate wedding planning blog, somewhere I can bookmark and save ideas and inspiration for the big day. You can read all about the proposal here.

We are currently looking in to getting married in Tuscany, Italy. We do not know anyone else that has done this so if any of you do and you have any advice to share with us please contact me, I would love to hear from you.

Anyway back to foodie talk! I wanted to share with you a few foodie finds in Keswick. First up there was the B&B we stayed in - Howe Keld. It has won awards for it's breakfasts and it wasn't hard to see why. Check out the menu here. There was fresh smoothies every day, a great selection of cereal, yogurts, fruit (fresh and dried), nuts and seeds to start. Then wholemeal bread, banana bread or malt loaf (all home made). Cooked breakfast choices included a locally sourced full English (with a vegetarian option), smoked salmon and scrambled eggs or pancakes with maple syrup. The rooms are also very well decorated/designed and the staff friendly and helpful.

Next up was a little cafe/deli called good taste cafe. This cafe is run by a chef and the food is excellent. There are daily specials as well as a regular menu. I can highly recommend the pork and fennel seed meatball with mozzarella panini. On Saturdays the shop window is full of home baked breads which all look fantastic. Upstairs in the seating area there is a warming wood burning stove tables and chairs, comfy sofa's and books shelves stuffed full of cookbooks! They also run a selection of cookery classes which are listed on their website with everything from bread making to butchery (and a Tuscan inspired Italian class that sounds right up my street).

Finally I want to share with you a great restaurant in Keswick called Morrels. I had the Chorizo, Smoked Bacon, Peppered Salami & Tomato Risotto to start followed by Rump of Lamb with Minted Lamb Sausages, Boulangere Potatoes, Redcurrant & Thyme Jus. Finished off with a bramble, apple and flaked almond clafoutif. The lamb was perfectly cooked and all the dishes were delicious and flavoursome.

Whats in season - January

Happy new year!

My first post of 2010 is a whats in season guide to January. January is the heart of the winter months. It's cold and often snowy so comforting pies and stews are often on the menu. Christmas has led most of us to over indulging and the new year for many brings new years resolutions to eat healthy, lose weight or to eat more seasonally. So I figured today I would continue my whats in season series and also sit down with new and old favorite cook books to plan some comforting, seasonal and healthy meals for the next month.

I compiled this list using:
Eat the seasons
The river cottage year, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
River cottage seasonal guide - The Guardian
What's in season?

January

Vegetables: Beetroot, Brussels sprouts, Brussels tops, cabbage (red, white and various greens), carrots, cauliflower, celeriac, celery, chicory, greens (spring and winter), Jerusalem artichokes, kale, leeks, onions, parsnips, potatoes, purple sprouting broccoli, shallots, swede, turnip

Fruit: apples, pears, forced rhubarb, mandarins, oranges, satsumas, tangerines, Seville orange, blood oranges, pomegranate

Fish: cockles, cod, crab, mackerel, mussels, oysters, pollack, salmon, scallops, whiting

Game: Duck, hare, partridge, pheasant, venison

Christmas pudding challenge

A few weeks back I saw a competition posted on the UKFBA website. The competition was to come up with an alternative way of using a Christmas pudding. The competition is being run by Mathew Walker who have been making Christmas puddings in Derbyshire since 1899. Mathew Walker generously sent all bloggers wanting to enter the competition a 100g taster Christmas pudding and a full size (454g) Christmas pudding.

So I started to think of recipes using Christmas pudding, specifically leftover Christmas pudding (yes, I believe it does happen in some households!). I wanted to create something simple that could be used as a desert on boxing day. The final recipe I settled on was to replace meringue with Christmas pudding in a twist on the traditional Eton mess - a Christmas mess!

I still wanted there to be a mixture of textures as well as flavour so I decided to include broken up pieces of brandy snaps in the cream mixture. The hardest part was deciding what fruit to put in it. Cherry's soaked in kirsch? cranberry sauce? mandarin segments? I think all would work well. In the end though I found a tub of pears in cranberry juice which left them a beautiful pink/red colour. The dish tasted delicious. all the flavours blended together well (helped by the Christmas pudding being so delicious and flavourful) and I enjoyed the mixture of textures. The brandy flavour in the Christmas pudding infused through all the cream making it all lovely and as my boyfriend called it "Christmas in a glass".A Christmas mess is the ideal desert for boxing day. Its quick and simple to prepare (exactly what you need after all the preparation and cooking on Christmas day), uses up any leftover Christmas pudding, includes many of the traditional flavours of Christmas and tastes fantastic. Leftover Christmas pudding can be included cold or reheated (and then cooled slightly before adding to the cream). You could heat by frying lightly or in a microwave. The quantities are a bit vague allowing you to customise the recipe to your families tastes.

Christmas Mess
Serves 4

200g leftover Christmas pudding (or as much as you have/like).
400ml double cream or whipping cream
4-6 brandy snaps
Tub of pears in cranberry juice (tinned pears in natural juice would also work or any fruit of your choice)
Icing sugar and coco powder for dusting.

• In a large bowl softly whip the cream until it is thick and soft.
• Gently stir in most of the bits of brandy snap and all the Christmas pudding.
• Put a layer of pears in the bottom of 4 glass dessert bowls (I used wine glasses).
• Spoon the cream mixture on top.
• Decorate the tops with the reserved brandy snap shards.
• Dust with icing sugar and coco powder.
• Serve.