Chicken Stew, my version of Nigel Slater's Chicken stew and mash, Kitchen Diaries.

Chicken thighs, 8

Olive oil - 50ml, plus extra

Balsamic vinegar - 50ml

garlic - 4 cloves, peeled

Dried herbs - an Italian mix

bay leaves - 4 or 5

pared rind of a small orange

leeks - 3 or 4, thickly sliced

Put the chicken in a bowl (not plastic). Pour over the olive oil and a couple of tablespoons of balsamic vinegar, tuck in the bay leaves and garlic cloves, a scatter of dried herbs, salt and pepper and the orange rind. Leave overnight or for at least four or five hours.

Set the oven at 200ºC. Heat enough oil in a shallow pan. Shaking each piece of chicken (the marinade will spit in the hot pan), fry each piece until golden brown on each side. Transfer to a casserole dish with a lid. In the same pan, fry the leeks over a low heat until they soften - not too hot or they will colour too much and become bitter. Add the garlic, the marinade, the rest of the balsamic and a litre of water. Bring to a boil and pour over the chicken, with the bay and orange rind. 

Put in the oven for 2 hours, checking partway through that there is enough water to cover the chicken. Add salt, pepper or a little balsamic if you wish. Serve with mashed potato.

I needed something low stress for supper tonight, but i didn't expect anything so pretty (or quite as delicious). If you're going to make it, use buffalo mozzarella, so exquisitely soft and creamy. The children asked for second helpings.

6 eggs beaten, a packet of mozzarella and mortadella, chopped. A little grated parmesan, chopped parsley. Beat. Heat butter in a 25cm pan with handle until it sizzles. Cook egg mix for 5 minutes without stirring. Finish under a hot grill.

The best recipe for Patatas Bravas, also found here

900g firm flesh potato ((i used Wilja)

5 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon tomato puree

2 large garlic cloves

1 teaspoon paprika

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

salt

• Preheat the oven to 180ºC
• Steam potatoes over boiling water for 5 minutes until barely tender.
• Drain and spread out to dry on a clean tea towel for a few moments, then put into a large bowl.

• Combine the remaining ingredients, pour over the potatoes and toss gently to coat.
• Put the potato cubes in a roasting tin, spreading them out in a single layer (you don't want them to steam).
• Roast in the preheated oven, tossing now and then, for 25 minutes until slightly blackened around the edges. 

A mexican ragu (via Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's Meat Book). Olives and raisins and all things nice. Try it as a refreshing change to a tomato-rich herby bolognese.

250g minced beef
250g minced pork
1 tablespoon wine or cider vinegar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
black pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 finely chopped onion
1 finely chopped red pepper
1 or 2 fresh chillies
50g raisins
50g stoned green olives (pimento-stuffed for preference), finely chopped
250ml beef stock
135ml chopped tomatoes or a tube of tomato puree



Put the meats in a large bowl and season with the vinegar, salt, sugar and pepper, mixing well together. Leave to stand.



Heat the oil in a large pan and sweat the onion, garlic, red (or orange) pepper and chilli for about 10 minutes until the onion is soft and lightly browned.

Add the meat to the pan and cook hard until well browned all over.

Add the rest of the ingredients (and 50g flaked almonds, if you wish) and mix well. Bring to a very gentle simmer and cook, partly covered, for about an hour, stirring occasionally. Add a little water if mixture is looking dry, but don't let it be too saucy.

Be sure to make enough that you have some to put aside for a day or so and gently reheat. Serve with whatever you fancy .. soft tortillas, guacamole, salsa, sour cream and grated cheese or rice, or potatoes or pasta or bread and butter; it is all good.

I made these: Bittersweet Biscotti (or so i named them) with walnut, spice & white chocolate. They are gluten-free, which makes them a little crumbly but the chilli hit is slow and luscious in combination with the darkest, bitterest chocolate that i had in the cupboard.

The original recipe came from here, but i adjusted with a little less gluten-free flour, walnuts instead of almonds and a majority of dark 70% chocolate, with white chocolate chips for contrast.





Oh, and i also made this: Rick Stein's Fennel Sausages with lemony potatoes and bay. Delicious.

... as easy as pie.

Eat hot, warm or cold as a stolen slice straight from the fridge. This is comfort food that is easy on effort, so very simple, and fills little and big tummies equally happily. I added sharks to my pie crust; a pie without frivolous embellishment is somehow naked.

Sophie Grigson's Sausage and Apple Pie

Take a 450g packet of ready-made puff pastry (if you will. Make your own if you have the urge). Cut the block in half and roll one piece to generously line a shallow 9 inch pie plate.

Take a quantity of good sausage meat (a 450g packet of fat sausages cut from their skins is an excellent choice) and spread evenly across the pastry sheet. Season with pepper, nutmeg andfresh chopped sage (3 or 4 leaves). Peel, core and slice 2 large eating apples and arrange the slices evenly across the sausage meat. Season again with pepper and nutmeg.

Roll out the remaining pastry to form the lid. Beat an egg yolk with a tablespoon of cold water and brush the edges of the pie pastry with the egg wash and lay the lid on top. Press the edges together to seal, and trim the excess. Make a hole in the centre of the lid to let the steam out, and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Put a baking tray in the oven and preheat the oven to 220ºC.

Brush the pastry with the egg wash (after adding fish or otherwise-shaped motifs) just before popping in the oven on top of the baking tray so the base gets an instant blast of heat. After 15 minutes, reduce the heat to 180ºC and cook for another 30-40 minutes until the apple is tender.

I liked this. I LOVE potato dauphinoise and jansson's temptation but all that cream .. oh la la .. it is not good for my butt. I needed an alternative and this works well. It looks great too (i forgot to take the final photo) and tastes wonderful at room temperature, with ham.

Thinly slice 3 large baking potatoes (about 900g) - thin as you can, with a sharp knife or a mandolin grater. Put the slices in a bowl and season with salt, pepper and grated nutmeg.





Stir in 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped, then add 115g grated Gruyere cheese. Turn to coat as evenly as possible.

Layer the potatoes in to a generously buttered shallow gratin dish. Pour over approx 400ml chicken stock, just to cover the surface. Dot the top generously with butter and bake at 190ºC for an hour or so.

Hot, bubbly golden goodness (you'll have to imagine that part).

Browsing in my local bookshop in the few minutes before it shut tonight i found a Tamasin Day-Lewis cook book that i didn't already have on my bookshelf. Her cooking style suits me; sophisticated enough to be a challenge but never fiddly, it is the sort of food i would like to put on my table every day.

I particularly like Tamasin's use of more unorthodox vegetables. I am not silly enough to try the curried cream of artichoke soup (well, maybe), but the spicy celeriac and coconut milk soup is high on my list to try, along with celeriac, thyme and potato gratin, once the winter vegetables start appearing in my veg box.

My reminder list, for slightly cooler evenings:

• Sweet-sour roasted parsnips with sweet potatoes.
• Veal ragu
• Parsley and horseradish dumplings
• Beef Daube, flavoured with Rum

For some time, very soon:

• Summer Lemon and Raspberry cake
• Blondie (date brownies)
• A gluten-free almond and blood orange cake
• Lemon Devil's Food cake.

First of all i am set to try an alternative to my poached ham; a Baked Gammon with Parsley Sauce, for the boys' supper tomorrow.

I also browsed some unknown cook names, and spotted an idea i have to try: Rocky Road made with turkish delight and pistachios.


The Juiciest Meatballs



500g minced pork, a little finely chopped bacon, a crushed garlic clove, grated zest of a lemon and a handful of torn basil leaves; blend with your fingers and roll into walnut-sized balls. Flatten slightly as you cook them briskly in a pan with a little heated oil. Make sure they colour well to a crisp and caramelised finish - cook for 2 or 3 minutes on each side and check one to see they are juicy but not pink.

The children and i eat a great deal of gluten-free meals together but sometimes they need a dish that will stick to their ribs. Even in the summer they will eat Toad in the Hole (adapted from Nigel Slater's Real Food); a dish of perfectly puffed, crispy batter above dense, satisfactory pancake, studded with pork and herb sausages. I don't have to cook potatoes to go along side - they will fill up on a glory of stodge.

Mix 2 eggs, 125g plain flour, 1 tablespoon grain mustard, 150ml milk and 150ml water with a whisk or wand blender until the consistency of double cream. Leave (to allow the gluten in the flour to swell) for about 15 minutes.

Heat 3 tablespoons of sunflower oil (goose fat or lard is preferable, if to hand) in a oven proof pan. Add 6/8 sausages and allow to brown for 10 minutes in a very hot oven (220ºC). When the fat is smoking pour the batter around the sausages in the pan and put straight back in the oven for 25 minutes 'til golden brown.

For mummy, a quick and simple salad; a fistful of green beans cooked as you like them and drained well. Finely chop half a garlic clove and 3 fresh mint leaves. Add to a bowl with 2 tablespoons of olive oil and a tablespoon of fresh lemon juice and mix until well combined. Put beans in the dressing and season with salt and pepper. Crumble 70g of firm goat's cheese over the beans, and add 2 tablespoons of pine kernels (first toasted in a dry frying pan).

From Buonissimo! by Gino D'Acampo.

A simple yet delicious burger*

500g minced beef (or lamb/pork)
2 roasted red peppers (i keep a jar in the fridge), finely chopped
chilli flakes to taste
1 tablespoon of tomato ketchup
4 tablespoons of chopped parsley

Put all the ingredients in a large bowl, season with pepper and mix to combine (i always use my hands). Divide into four balls and shape into 3 inch thick burgers.

Heat a little oil in a pan and cook burgers for 6 minutes on each side for medium rare beef, or 8 minutes for well-done pork

A good minced beef burger is a robust dish and doesn't need bulking out with binding agents or fillers to ruin the light texture. The roasted peppers keep these patties wonderfully moist, with a touch of sweet and heat. I prefer not to add uncooked onion or pepper to my burgers - use either or both if you wish but i recommend cooking until onion is soft and pale before adding to the meat.

*Adapted from Gino D'Acampo's Buonissimo!

I can't fully describe the satisfaction of having a batch of home cooked baked beans filling the kitchen full of savoury bliss with almost no effort on my part. I was driven to regular stir (and test) the transforming stew and can testify that the sweet herb/pork/tomato combination is irresistible, the anchovy is negligible but adds an level of intensity, and the final amount is never quite enough. I don't suppose that leaving out the pork would diminish the overall moreish effect - add some dijion mustard instead, perhaps.

Exceedingly simple, they keep for several days in the fridge, although my first batch was eaten for supper (with cold ham) and the remainder devoured for the following breakfast (with hot toast) with relish by children who usually refuse the tinned variety.

I tried a variation from here combined with this which works well.

Soak 375g of haricot (or cannellini, or navy) beans overnight in plenty of cold water, drain.

Chop and cook in a little olive oil: one onion, a large carrot, a celery stick, a large sweet pepper, and a small fresh chilli until onion is soft. Add 4 rashers of chopped bacon (or 100g pancetta, if you insist) and cook until slightly crisp. Add 2 cloves of garlic, crushed, 2 anchovy fillets, chopped, and a pinch each of dried thyme and oregano. Cook and stir for a minute.



Add 2 x 400g chopped tomatoes and the drained beans and sufficient water to cover all the ingredients. Bring to a simmer, then transfer the pan to an oven at 180ºC and bake for 3 hours until beans are tender. Stir hourly and add extra water if needed.



A drizzle of maple syrup and chopped parsley to serve is an extra flourish that you may or may not consider necessary. Don't add salt until the dish is about to be served.

A platter of summer vegetables (carrots, fennel, butternut squash, turnips, peppers), whole garlic cloves and fresh basil, a big glug of olive oil.

Half an hour in a hot oven and the edges of the vegetables are soft and charred.

A kilo of unsmoked gammon, poached for an hour in pineapple juice.
Leave to cool in the stock.
If serving hot, drizzle with maple syrup with a dusting of english mustard powder.

Bake in the oven (with tray of vegetables underneath) until glaze is dark and smokily caramelized; approximately 40 minutes at 180ºC.

For supper i have the remains of yesterday's roast chicken which became a paella with plenty of green pepper, fine beans and chorizo sausage. i used the dark, sticky gravy saved from the roasting pan for stock - the stripped chicken carcass simmered to make another stock for tomorrow.

Last night's supper, eaten with jersey royal potatoes and buttered marrow.

A simple marinade for chicken (adapted from Nigella Lawson's Buttermilk Roast Chicken):

Into a plastic bag pour 300ml buttermilk with 30ml olive oil, 2 crushed cloves of garlic, a big pinch of salt, lots of ground pepper, 1 teaspoon of ground cumin and 1 tablespoon of maple syrup. Add approximately 500g of chicken - breasts, thighs or drumsticks - and massage gently. Leave overnight or for a few hours in the fridge, or for an hour or so at room temperature just before cooking. Shake of excess marinade, drizzle with a little extra oil and roast in a hot oven. Serve with coleslaw and a new potato salad.

Dusting bookshelves this morning i noticed that my husband is removing cookbooks. There are odd gaps in lines that used to be packed tight; the bookshelves bulged fit to burst with 500 volumes, but now spines sag crookedly. This dissolving of the household is inevitable, but i am determined not to fight over possessions, particularly when books are so replaceable. It does, however, encourage me to explore some of the titles that i don't usually pick up.

It is hard to read these books and see my husband's writing - he always made notes about recipes in the margin of books, and often added whether i enjoyed the dish.



I found a little volume of Pennsylvania Dutch Cooking ("a plump wife and a big barn never did any man harm"), full of recipes which are characteristically short and often sweet. There is a recipe for Rivel (crumb) pie, with 3 simple ingredients of flour, sugar and fat, also Sand Tarts and Flannel Cakes. I am tempted to try Spaetzle, which i recognise from my time as a swiss housewife.

From Lindsey Bareham's Just One Pot; Aromatic lamb curry with spinach (with personal adjustments).

For a marinade; 5 tablespoons of plain yoghurt, 1/2 teaspoon of ground cumin and 3 cloves of garlic and a finger of fresh ginger (5cm), peeled and finely chopped. Add 500g of diced lamb steak and stir.





Peel and chop a large onion. Cook on a high heat for a couple of minutes, then sprinkle with a little salt, another 1/2 teaspoon of cumin, 1 tsp of ground coriander, a big pinch of chilli powder, a bay leaf, 4 cloves, seeds from 4 cardamon pods. Stir well and cook gently for 10 minutes.





Increase the heat, add the meat and marinade. Cook briskly to brown the meat; the sauce will thicken. Sprinkle with a pinch of sweet paprika and add a tin of chopped tomatoes. Simmer for 30 minutes. Just before serving add a bunch of chopped and blanched spinach and heat.

There are countless recipes for fish stew, but this was my version from last night. It filled the house with a perfect combination of sweet tomato and the sun-drenched aroma of dried herbs to drive off the chill of a wet spring evening.

A large, solid pot, a little heated oil. Two fat leeks and a green pepper, sliced, 2 diced courgette and a couple of large garlic cloves, crushed: soften gently without colouring. When the vegetables are sweetly melting together add a tin of chopped tomatoes and an extra half pint of water, a bay leaf, a little dried thyme, fennel seeds (i was generous), and a few strands of saffron (first moistened in a ladle of the liquid). I would have added a curl of orange peel, if i had had one to hand.

Then peel and slice 4 potatoes into 1cm thick rounds, add to the pot with extra water to fully cover. Simmer until potato is almost cooked, then add fillets of firm, white fish .. maybe some shellfish if you have some to hand. It will take only a couple more minutes on the heat to finish off.

*

Today i tackled some *husband* jobs - clearing the shed of broken toys and cobwebs, cutting grass, taking rubbish to the tip. My 8 year old showed me how to empty the grass cuttings from the lawnmower; we made a good team.

Next i shall start with the power tools.

You are at home with just a few roots vegetables and some feta in the fridge; do not despair. This is a favourite dish of mine and beautifully simple to put together, even while chatting enthusiastically with a friend. Just remember to switch on the oven if you want lunch to be on time ..

Peter Gordon's potato, celeriac and leek gratin with sage and feta. It uses the excellent celeriac root, which i love for its delicate aniseed flavour, and the whole dish is cooked to succulent, salty, creamy goodness with just the addition of a little boiling water - no heavy cream overload.

If, however, you have forgotten to turn the oven on .. try Peter Gordon's curried pumpkin and swede soup with feta and caramelized red onion (also from his book Vegetables) instead for a quick alternative, or for supper later. I have been eating bowlfuls, and varieties of, all week, and can't get enough of the cheerful heat and comforting silky texture.

If i am in a hurry i forgo the garnish (try a spritz of balsamic vinegar instead) and blitz to a puree rather than letting the vegetables disintegrate to a melting softness. In extremis, (like tonight, arriving home cold and tired to a half-full tureen) i added a spoonful of cottage cheese instead of feta.

Tonight will, most probably, be the last night that a child of mine will sleep in the wooden cot upstairs. My youngest is suddenly too long, his toes absurdly tucked into the end of the bed with the blankets. Tomorrow i must move him to the bottom bunk under his brother; a nursery no longer.

A chopped onion browned sweetly sticky in a pan, then added to a bowl of ground lamb, plenty of chopped mint and parsley and ground pepper. I always add a grated apple to my burgers because i can't use breadcrumbs for bulk, and also because the fruit adds sweetness and moisture (and the pectin helps to keep their shape although i also added an egg today). I might have added pinenuts, too, if i had thought about it at the time.

I use my fingers to mix and squidge, and then little patties are dropped back into the shiny pan that the onions were softened in. Briefly browned, then the whole pan goes into a hot oven for 10 minutes to finish them off. Served with new potatoes and green beans.