There are occasions when I open the fridge and realise that I should have gone shopping…today was one of those days! But the weather has been pretty rubbish and I didn’t fancy going out, so I decided to cobble something together with what we had. What we had turned out to be a couple of leeks, some potatoes, some mushrooms and a bit of bacon, which could only mean one thing: SOUP! You could make this without the bacon for the traditional potato and leek soup and it would be great – either way, it tastes even better with a bit of homemade bread.

Ingredients

2 leeks, chopped
5 rashers of streaky bacon, cut into medium-sized pieces (optional)
8 small/medium-sized potatoes, chopped (I left the skins on, but peel if you prefer)
700ml boiling water
1 vegetable stock cube (I used a heaped tablespoon of Bouillon)
A teaspoon of mixed herbs
Black pepper
A small handful of mushrooms, chopped

Method

1. Heat a small amount of olive oil in a large pan and add the leeks (and bacon if your wish). Leave to cook for a few minutes before adding the potatoes.

2. Add the stock cube to the boiling water and stir well before pouring into the pan. Add the mixed herbs and pepper and stir well, before leaving to simmer for a few minutes (I didn’t add salt because the Bouillon is quite salty, but you could add some if you wish).

3. Add the mushrooms and stir again, cover the pan and leave to simmer for around 15 minutes (or until the potatoes are soft).

4. Blend a little before serving if you prefer, or leave chunky. Serve with some freshly made bread and enjoy!

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I’m using one of my current favourite ingredients again for this recipe! I found the original recipe here, and as usual there are a few minor differences – the biggest being that the original recipe serves 8, but the amounts given below will serve 4.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil
600g diced venison
2 tablespoons plain flour
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce (I used Henderson’s Relish)
1 bay leaf
1 tablespoon of freshly chopped thyme
1 tablespoon salt
450ml boiling water
3 small potatoes, peeled and quartered
3 carrots, peeled and chopped

Method

1. Put the plain flour into a bowl and coat the venison. Heat oil in a large casserole or stockpot and brown the meat. Add onions, garlic, Worcestershire sauce, bay leaf, thyme, salt and 750ml water. Stir well.

2. Cover the pan and simmer for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, or until meat is tender.

3. Stir in potatoes and carrots and cook until tender (you could parboil them first to make this a little quicker if you wish). Remember to remove the bay leaf before serving!

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If you’re looking for a bit of sweet comfort food, then look no further! This recipe is from the BBC Food website and serves 6, but we just halved the amounts here (and left out the raisins because Tom doesn’t like them!). We had a huge batch of cooking apples from our neighbour, so I made a big pan of stewed apple and froze the rest of it, so there will be plenty of Eve’s pudding (and crumble) for us – yay!

Ingredients

6 large Bramley apples, peeled, cored and sliced
200g/7oz unsalted butter, softened
110g/4oz brown sugar
2 tbsp golden syrup
large pinch ground cinnamon
140g/5oz raisins
200g/7oz self raising flour.
4 free-range eggs
vanilla ice cream, to serve

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4.

2. Grease a large serving dish with 25g/1oz of the butter then scatter in the apple slices. Sprinkle over one or two tablespoons of the brown sugar, the golden syrup, cinnamon and finally the raisins.

3. In a mixing bowl, beat together the remaining butter and sugar with a wooden spoon until pale and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then use a large metal spoon to gently fold in the flour.

4. Spoon the batter over the apples and gently even out with the back of the spoon.

5. Bake for 45-50 minutes, or until golden-brown and cooked through. Serve warm with ice cream.

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Venison is such a lovely meat, and I recently discovered that they sell it in our local supermarket. It’s a lean and tasty meat, and as I’d found some diced venison I decided to try out making a pie with it. I found the original recipe for this on allrecipes.co.uk but that one serves 10 people, which is a bit much for just me and Tom! So I’ve adapted it here, adding a few of my own ingredients too.

Ingredients

300g diced venison
2 rashers unsmoked bacon (you could use streaky bacon if you wish)
1 medium brown onion, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
about 500ml beef stock (you need enough to cover the meat in the pan)
1 medium potato, diced
2 small carrots, diced
3 mushrooms, chopped
220ml (1/2 can) Guinness
1 sheet puff pastry
Flour to dust the pastry and venison

Method

1.Heat the bacon in a dry frying pan to render the fat. Remove and set aside.

2. Cook garlic and onions in the bacon fat until caramelised. Remove from pan and set aside.

3. Dredge venison with flour and brown in a hot pan. Return onion, garlic and bacon to the pan. Pour in stock, stir and bring to a very slow simmer. Let simmer for 1 hour.

4. Add vegetables and simmer until tender. Remove from heat and pour in Guinness, stirring well. If the gravy is too thin, thicken it with a little cornflour mixed with water.

5. Transfer contents into a baking dish and cover with puff pastry. Pierce a few steam holes in the pastry (there were holes in the side of mine so I didn’t bother – but I did put a pastry deer on the top!).

6. Bake at 180 C / Gas 4 for 15-20 minutes or until the pastry is golden and puffy. Serve with some green vegetables and enjoy!

I like this picture – he looks like he’s coming out of a forest!

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This does make an excellent mid-week meal and you could also use pasta instead of pastry to make a yummy, creamy pasta bake. And it won’t break the bank either! The recipe below is my adapted version of Jamie’s recipe.

Ingredients

4 x 180g skinless chicken breasts

A knob of butter (leave this out if using bacon or chorizo – see optional ingredients)

Olive oil

A bunch of spring onions

150g button mushrooms

1 heaped tbsp plain flour, plus extra for dusting

1 heaped tbsp low fat creme fraiche

300ml chicken stock (I use a stock cube)

A few sprigs of fresh thyme (or a tsp of dried mixed herbs works well too)

1/3 a nutmeg, grated

1 sheet pre-rolled puff pastry

1 egg

Optional ingredients: 2 rashers smoked bacon/100g chorizo, chopped into small pieces/1 leek instead of spring onions

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200°c/400°F/Gas mark 6. Cut the chicken into chunks (I use my kitchen scissors for this – so much easier!). Put a lug of olive oil and butter into a hot, large pan. Add the chicken and cook for a few minutes until sealed. If adding bacon or chorizo, wait until the chicken is sealed before adding to pan.

2. Meanwhile, make the stock and then wash and trim the spring onions (or leek) and slice. Cut the button mushrooms in half before adding to the pan with the onions. Leave for 2 minutes before adding 1 heaped tbsps of plain flour and creme fraiche. Stir well.

3. Add the chicken stock and stir again. Add the herbs and the nutmeg, and season. Leave to simmer for 5-10 minutes or so.

4. Pour the mixture into an oven proof dish. Roll out the pastry (luckily, my dish is just the right size for the pastry so I don’t need to do any rolling out) and place on top, tidying up the edges. Add a little decoration if you like! Beat the egg and brush a little over the pastry.

5. Place in the oven and cook for 15-20 minutes, or until the pastry is golden. Serve with some steamed vegetables and enjoy!

Post updated 24th June 2016.

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