Tuesday 14 January 2014

A TALE WITH TWO RECIPES & A STORY ABOUT TUSCAN BREAD.

Here WE are folks.. goodness ME, SHE was very tired when SHE came home yesterday. 

All SHE said was "bags".. that word may not mean anything to YOU but I knew that it meant that there had been another very busy day sorting through the donations.

WE had an early and very light supper of Spaetzle together with some of 'Zaira's Tomato Sauce'. 

I have given YOU both of the methods of making these in previous posts but I have not written out the recipe for Celeriac Soup, so here it is.

This quantity feeds six normal people or four greedy folk!

Celeriac Soup.

25g unsalted butter.
500g of peeled, chopped celeriac.
125g peeled, chopped potatoes.
2 garlic crushed cloves of garlic.
600mls vegetable stock.
1 tbs lemon juice.
300mls milk.. WE use full fat Goat.
Salt and pepper.

Gently cook the celeriac, potatoes and garlic for about 5 minutes. Do not allow them to get brown!
Add the stock & lemon juice & bring to a slow boil, then simmer slowly until the vegetables are tender, allow to cool, then blitz in a blender until they are smooth, return to the pan and add the milk and taste for seasoning.

Next up is a taste of summer for winter eating! A chicken leg for each person please.

Grilled Chicken Legs.

4 chicken whole legs.
2tsp of a mix cayenne pepper & sweet paprika.
8 sprigs of fresh rosemary.
Salt.
Place a rack on the top rung of the oven. Preheat oven to 450F.
Make 3 deep diagonal cuts down to the bone of each leg.
Rub the cayenne mix allover the legs and especially into the cuts. 
Take little sprigs off the main sprig of the rosemary and tuck these into the cuts.
Salt the chicken well.
Place skin side up on a baking tray.
Bake for 45 mins. 
Allow to cool for a few minutes before serving.

Why Tuscan Bread is different.

Are YOU a 'student' of History? WE do not mean are YOU at college studying it, WE mean does it interest YOU.

For the reason that Tuscan bread is different goes back to the medieval age of the 12th century. 

There was a bitter dispute between Florence and the Marine Republic of Pisa, which resulted in the blockade of Salt to the landlocked state of Tuscany.

The Florentines, therefore, resolved to make their bread without salt! The taste is totally different!

And this is how SHE makes OUR bread and SHE has fashioned an excellent and very old fashioned way of keeping it fresh.

Taking two pure linen cloths (old fashioned drying up cloths), she sewed them together and pop, in goes the bread, plastic bags make bread sweat and go mouldy and who wants mouldy old bread?

There YOU are, two recipes, a very short Tale and a tip! Now SHE is off, with old wicker, to Catford. Catford? I hear YOU say, what goes on in Catford? 

WE have spoken before of Catford, it is where Phoebes are, an excellent nursery garden. SHE has need of things which SHE knows they will have in stock.

As it is a sunny day, SHE will go by bus, which will trundle trundle up hill and down dale, past St.Dunstans, the wonderful Horniman Museum and a short walk brings HER to this family run business. 

With nice, helpful staff and good quality stock, trips to Phoebes are classified as treats and everyone enjoys a treat now and again, don't WE!

I have a treat, it is a new un-beaked box, which will amuse ME until HER return.

GeeGee Parrot.
January 14th, 2014.

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