In My Kitchen

I love to cook, good food is really important to me.  If you are anything like me you spend a large amount of your life in the kitchen preparing good nourishing food to eat, so this is what has been going on in my kitchen this month.  If you would like to join in you would be most welcome.

I have fallen in love with a new ingredient this month, I bought it in error.  I use paprika quite a lot at this time of year in stews and sauces but the smoked version is just wonderful and so much better.  It brings a very different flavour with it, as you would expect, one with such depth but not over powering.  If you haven't tried it before I can really recommend it.

I get most of my veg delivered to my door from a local farm share I buy into.  Once year I get a kohlrabi bulb, an unusual looking vegetable that looks like a wrinkled turnip or a rather solid cabbage, which is what it is.  It tastes like a cabbage but has the texture of most root vegetables.  I love trying out new ingredients but it does take me a while to find the best combination of flavours, it is hard to form that kind of relationship with a vegetable that we only eat once year.  I have been unable to buy it anywhere else so I guess it will remain as a once a year pot luck meal!

I was really lucky to get a lovely new kitchen appliance for Christmas.  I have wanted a new blender for a while my last one, a wedding present, packed up a few years ago a stick blender sufficed for soup making but nothing else.  I was given the money from several family members so I had a good pot, I didn't have the time for any research prior to Christmas so in a quiet moment in January I found what I wanted.  I have been getting to grips with it this month, having not had one for a while I have forgotten what I can use it for, this one has many different settings the most used one so far has been smoothies.  Every night I throw a handful of oats and a glass of water to soak, in the morning they are whizzed to make oat 'milk' for Alice's breakfast.  I have attempted a few smoothies with mixed success, the best combination so far has been banana and blackcurrant with oat milk and a dash of yogurt.  If you make smoothies I would love to hear what you put in yours, especially vegetable based recipes.

I have had some nurturing to do this month, one of my sourdough starters was looking and smelling a little neglected.  I buy my flour direct from a local mill, my last order didn't include any rye flour so when I went to make a loaf back in December I was a bit surprised to find I had nearly run out.  I decided to use the little bit I had left to keep my starter going, feeding it every week until I needed to order some more flour.  The mill is not somewhere I go past very often and I didn't want to make a special trip for one bag even though I buy 6kg at a time!  Despite my occasional feeding, the starter wasn't looking too healthy when I finally had the flour to make some more bread with it.  I threw half of it in the compost bin and fed it with one tbsp of flour and one of water for a few days and then made a loaf with it.  As with all new starters the first few loaves were a bit strange but it is now back to normal and making delicious rye sourdough loaves again.  I have not been baking with sourdough starters for very long but I have loved how in a short space of time I have gained the confidence to know what to do by the look, smell and feel what I am doing.   That doesn't mean that I make completely successful loaves every time, but you can always make breadcrumbs from the failures so nothing goes to waste.

We have been cooking for our feathered friends this month.  The end of January and February are always the coldest months of the Winter here, it often snows and food is hard for the birds to find.  We feed them all year round with scraps from the kitchen but at this time of year we make them food.  Using lard as a basis we make two different types, one for the seed eaters which is full of seeds and breadcrumbs, the other for the insect eaters with meat scraps (if we have any), oats, cheese and sultanas.  I melt the lard, mix in the ingredients, leave them to cool in bowls, before scooping them out and leaving them for the birds to enjoy.  If you have the book All Year Round there are recipes on page 207-8.

Whilst the birds might enjoy that recipe it doesn't sound the least bit appealing to me but we have been enjoying stews this month especially if they include dumplings.  I always throw whatever vegetables I have to hand in my stews, leeks, carrots, swede, potatoes, sweet potatoes are favourites here.  The flavourings are always the same, my favourite combination is a pinch of cayenne and a tbsp of smoked paprika added with 2tbsp of flour and stirred into the vegetables thoroughly before adding the liquid, stock with a dash of soy sauce.  The dumplings are added after cooking the vegetables on their own for about ten minutes.

Cheese and Herb Dumplings

This makes eight dumplings you can increase or reduce the quantities to make more or less, they don't reheat well.

100g Wholemeal Self Raising Flour*
25g Butter
50g Grated Cheddar Cheese
3tbsp Chopped Parsley
50 - 75ml Milk

Rub the butter into the flour until it resembles fine crumbs
Stir in the cheese and parsley.
Add just enough milk to make a firm dough.
Divide into eight and shape into balls.
Add to the dish, cover tightly and cook for 20-25 minutes on a low heat ensuring the dumplings don't catch on the bottom.

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* If like me you don't buy self raising flour, just use the same weight of ordinary flour with 1 level tsp of baking powder.