The house-hunting/buying season has arrived with a vengeance!
I've just waved good-bye to Anne & Bob...... ex-B&B's and now they are our new neighbours! They have bought an old farmhouse along the chemin, en-route to Asnois where, for the next few months, Bob has a full-time renovating job!
They stayed with us for 4 days..which meant organising dinner every night. I haven't done a lot of cooking this year, and these days I find it very easy to get out of practise.
On the whole it all went quite well. We have a lot of fruit and veg from last year's garden produce, whilst fresh produce at the moment is only leeks and parsnips.
The 7-month old sheepdog pup(not ours!) who has been running around the farmyard across the road, chased one of my 2 surviving chickens, caught....and destroyed it, leaving the old red hen, who then survived all the cold weather on her own, only to be found dead beneath her perch a couple of weeks later. I don't know whether, at 4 years old, she died of old age, loneliness or boredom....but no more homegrown, free-range eggs until we get some more!
Anyhow, back to my suppers!
The first night I made a huge tagine of pork.... a sweet (dates & apricots) and mildly spicy dish, which I love. There was sufficient to freeze the leftovers for another supper ....always handy when people ask to stay for dinner at short notice. For pudding I used up some of last year's peaches in a crumble with creme anglaise. I'm not too impressed with frozen peaches. The are a bit insipid, so I added a small amount of crystallised ginger to pep up the flavour. Freezing is a simple way of preserving excess fruit, but I think I'll try bottling some of the peaches this summer.
The following night we started with home-made parsnip soup, garnished with grated apple..as instructed by Delia! Then we had confit de canard.... and I was chuffed to find a sauce recipe..50% mustard mixed with 50% grape jelly. I made grape jelly in 2009. It is too runny, never set properly, but ideal for a sauce. It also made a great substitute for orange sauce that one usually does with duck ( & Geoff dislikes!)
Roasties cooked in duck fat are also dead yummy!
Thursday's supper started with fishcakes. I adapted the leftover grape/mustard sauce with some mayonnaise as a dressing! This was followed by chicken pie with leeks and cauliflower and dessert was elderflower jelly with some of last year's cherries..these do freeze well!
The final supper started ok with deep-fried calamari, but, after that wasn't quite so inspired as the previous nights! The main course of shepherd's pie was followed by creme caramel on a bed of meringue! It sounds ok, but the creme caramel should be turned out onto a flat plate in order to hold its shape. With hindsight, I also realise that I was too faint-hearted when making the caramel. In being afraid of burning it, I took it away from the heat too soon. Some of the sugar hadn't completely caramelised and ended up sticking to the mold! This meant that, what with fighting with the caramel & then landing on broken pieces of meringue, it rather landed on the plate with a 'splat'...not a good look!
Oh well, I shall do better next time!
More house-hunters expected next week...it's not helping the 'regime'!