Sausages, homemade in seconds.

Possibly the easiest sausages in the world. Buy minced meat, add herbs of your own choice and allow to 'steep' (which is a Scottish word for marinate or infuse). We love sage especially with pork so its a good job we grow lots.

We often do these with pork and chopped sage, but any meat and any herb that you love will work.

The 'steeping process' - it aint pretty. Once 'steeped' brace yourself and form golf-ball sized delightful little lumps. This process is sticky and messy, unless you use an ice-cream scoop. Flatten and 'dry' fry in a pan a couple minutes on each side.

Absolutely delish, no fillers, no crap just sausage with herbs. Nice on a bun (muffin) with a poached/fried egg and a slaither of cheese. You know someone should really look into that. Be an awesome breakfast sandwich I think I'll call it the McMuffin, a Sausage and Egg delight.  Genius. Oh dear I might have had this idea before.

Link here - http://orkneyflowers.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/great-mcmuffin-swindle.html

Also good with chicken/turkey and cajun or smoked paprika spices, beef and italian spices, fish minced with bacon is good, and 'sage and onion stuffing' also make a nice veggie version or cold rice and beans mashed together with some paprika. The list is endless. No cases, no faffing just lovely homemade sausages in seconds.

Until next time, how many types of 'well know fast food' can you save a fortune by ripping off (erm I mean being inspired by) and cooking at home? -  Happy Scoffing.

[Probably] The Best Shortbread In the World

[Probably] The Best Shortbread In the World

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus more for greasing the pan
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon caster sugar (powdered sugar)
2 scant cups flour, sifted, plus extra for dusting
2/3 cup semolina or 1 scant cup cornflour

Preheat the oven to 300 o F, 150o C. Butter a tin. Cream butter and sugar together with a wooden spoon until pale, light, and fluffy. Add the flour and semolina or cornflour. Mix lightly until you have a smooth dough.

Press the dough into your pan, poking it into the corners with your fingers – don’t worry about it having to look perfect. Prick the dough all over with a fork and bake in the preheated oven until slightly golden – 50-60 minutes. While warm, sprinkle with a generous dusting of sugar. Allow to cool slightly, then cut into chunky fingers.

 

Looks great, we had to try one piece, you know, um, what do they call it, lack of control? No that's not it, its, called quality control. Honest.

Perfect recipe for shortbread as intended to be by Jamie Oliver in 'Cook with Jamie: My Guide to Making You a Better Cook' which looks a bit like this. Why not borrow it from your local library?

Until next time - Happy Shortbreading.

Frog in the bog

The rescue hens tucking into a rainbow petal snack. I didn't know hens ate petals, but they do. Fabulous.

It's a mainstay in our lives 'Frog in the bog' traslates into 'Toad in the hole' is a large savoury yorkshire pudding with sausages dropped into it. Scrummy sausages, spongy and yet crunchy Yorkshire pudding mix. Potatoes and a richly flavoured gravy always accompany.

OK so I've noticed most of our 'mainstay meals' are 'winter-ish fodder'. And with the new hens laying 5-6 eggs a day, we always need ideas with eggs! Sometimes we make 'chicken in a ditch' which is a variation using chicken dropped into yorkshire pudding mix, but dear hearts, please don't tell the lasses, ever.

And so, Frog in bog (toad in hole) is one of our favourites, so if it ain't broke, don't fix it. What's your favourite comfort bite?

Until you share.....Happy Scoffing!

Did you miss me, (yeah) when I was away.......

Apologies for the lack of food updates. Its not like we've not been eating, we've just moved house to rural Fife. Sad goodbye to Orkney and a big hello to Fife! We're in the lands of the Kingdom of Fife where the larders are full from farm, seas and shoreline. And a fair few food festivals about too. So lets face it, we'll not starve chaps. And yup in good old Nigella style I asked for the lobster carcass home to make stock later with. I don't mind indulging in a wee sea side treat and some grand nosh but I'm certainly not missing out on some stock because of geography. So home it came and into the freezer it was lobbed.

Well if its good enough for Ms Lawson, is good enough for us!  It was retreaved to make a decent stock for a risotto for visitors last week. Much nicer than a stock cube when you can. So what else has been happening, um, I've started a mini-veg patch for this year and its yielding some grub. 

We've also invested in some rescue hens and are beginning to be rewarded by home produced eggs. 

I do love a good boily egg.

The current cheese mountain of the East Neuk of Fife also increased as the visitors arrived too-ing and fro-ing over the summer since we've been here.

So I've missed you too and lets make sure we keep updating where we're at.

Until next time, hope you find lots of good grub to eat in new or old places. I'm off to find a map of the area and start munching my way round the Kingdom!

Happy Scoffing.

The Creel, Orkney - just perfect.

St Margaret's Hope, Orkney - the view from The Creel kindly lent by Mr Wiks.

So in keeping with birthday traditions, we headed doon the isles of Orkney to St Margaret's Hope to our favourite Orkney restaurant, The Creel. I've blathered on about this exceptional place before, so to find out about it please pop over here.

As always, they don't disappoint, its truly one of the best places to eat in Scotland.

Baskets of warm flour and bere bannocks, arrived as if by magic (and magically refilled).

Crab salad with pickled cucumber and an avocado salad (beautiful).

Tusk and scallops (oh my).

Lemon tart looked gorgeous we were so full at this point we didn't indulge, but happily chatted and laughed quite comfortably until we wanted to leave, no rush, just a lovely quiet comfy sit.

Very happy folks, very happy tummies. 

Huge thanks to Alan, Joyce and their lovely team.

If someone asks you where to eat in Orkney, for a special meal, the answer is only going to be -

 The Creel.

(And, this tummy's eaten a lot of lovely grub, at home and away)

Measuring Cups

I use measuring cups alot. I think I have three sets all used for different things. These unused in my jars.

How about you? What's your favourite kitchen aid.

Until next time, happy scoffing!

Perfect puckle of peedie pakoras

Perfect puckle of peedie pakora's - using leftovers

So, last week when out at a work Love Food Hate Waste event we had a few leftovers - we were feeding a bunch of rather un-hungry teenagers. Now not one for liking food waste, (I mean do any of us?) I took everything left home in a wee tub. A wee mix of cooked ham, sausage, onion and pepper which had been leftover from a 'lobbing on home made pizzas' session, an hour or so before.

Now I can't say there was a HUGE amount left over, we're usually really canny with our workshops - but there was enough to half fill a wee box. Not enough for a stew, enough for a tasty snack. To me having seen that lot chopped up so beautifully (thank you Mary) and with the onions shredded so fine, the only thing that came to my mind was 'pakora'.

So as its officially 'egg season' in Orkney everyone I know with eggs is overrun with them and often we end up with a free half dozen or so. Therefore rather than a straightforward omelette with this lovely mix of leftovers, I decided a wee batter mix (1 cup of SR flour and an egg) would bind this lot nicely into pakoras - whilst there wasn't enough for a tasty meal for more than a mouse, there was enough to make a peedie puckle of tasty pakoras for a few hungry folks to snack on. Now we could have done this without the egg, merely water but an egg just gives it some 'ploofiness'. And, ploofiness was required after a long day. 

It literally took seconds to mix this lot up. I do prefer mixing with an old fashioned bone handled butter knife - I think all those lessons at school have left their mark. We often mixed with a butter knife, not an 'eating knife' which is sharper - I found some butter knives in a charity shop and snapped 6 of them up for about 50p - they're so useful. Anyway back to my mix. So the puckle of leftovers were coated nicely with a layer of the eggy/flour batter - enough to smother them but not to drown them, if you catch my drift. You could still see the 'components' of the mix rather than just a swimming pool of batter.

A dessert spoon full of mix was gently dispatched into a small wok of heated cooking oil. And they sizzled away for a couple of minutes on each side.

Now, whilst the wee half box of leftovers would have hardly fed a mouse - we shared a peedie puckle of these tasty treats with a wee bit of a dipping sauce at the side. We could easily have made an omelette or a wee stew or just a sandwich filling with a bit of mayonnaise mixed around the leftovers but I thought about pakora's for a change.

Next time you've a few wee bits leftover I wonder if you'd prefer to pluck up the courage to make a perfect puckle of peedie pakoras too?

So what's your favourite quick leftover idea? If you need some inspiration - why not check out Love Food Hate Waste and see some of their great ideas.

Until next time, happy leftovers and happy scoffing.

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