Fennel harvest (and fennel crackers)

Fennel flower and ladybird

We’ve a huge fennel plant growing in our garden….we didn’t plant it I think it self seeded from next door. Anyway we kind of ignored it but now its time to tidy the garden so I decided to harvest the seeds before we up rooted it and find a few uses for them.

A bit of googling told me that they aren’t really seeds they are teeny fruits,and that instead of taking nice photos of ladybirds clambering over the yellow flowers earlier in the year I should have been harvesting the pollen as this is the most sought [...]

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Making paneer

Cheese and Whey

I LOVE cooking curry,its so much better when you make it yourself. And it also means you can use an ingredient I don’t think you see enough of in menus and that’s paneer.

Better still paneer is really easy to make yourself so you can feel super smug home-made curry AND home-made paneer.

Panner and whey

So last time I fancied curry I decided I’d do some paneer. I got a bargain carton of proper whole milk in the supermarket reductions and I was away.

Paneer (makes enough for 1 main dish curry for 2-4 depending on what [...]

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2011 bread experiments #1

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So what was loaf one then and how did I select it? I used a random number generator which lead me to Dan Lepard’s The Handmade Loaf p161,which has a picture on…so i flipped forward to the first recipe after that to find on p163

WHITE LOAF WITH GRATED CHESTNUTS

Sounded yum. It uses the usual Dan Lepard low knead technique that I’m a big fan of and have written about here.

It was pretty easy to make and came out with a lovely soft crumb. It made fantastic cheese sandwiches and wonderful toast.

Definitely one to [...]

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2011 bread experiments ‘the rules’

In my last post I talked about some of the bread I made in 2010 and said I was going to challenge myself to make a different loaf each week in 2011. To make its a bit more fun I decided to select two of my bread baking books and I’m going to bake my way through them both but in a RANDOM manner.

Here’s the rules I’ve set myself:

I must select the bread to be baked randomly,using either a random number generator or by asking for numbers from people on Twitter. If the selected page doesn’t have [...]

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Many loaves

Bread composite

I’ve been making my own bread since I went on a Dan Lepard course in 2009 and I’m a real convert to his low knead method of making bread. This year I found out about his quick loaf recipe and blogged about it here. I started making it and varying it:100% white,50:50 white/wholemeal,100% wholemeal,30:70 rye/white.

And so on,and on,and on.

Here’s just some of the ‘quick’loaves I’ve made this year.

And for 2011 I’ve decided I’m going to carry on experimenting and make a different loaf each week. Proper bread is [...]

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Festive menu,part 3 (all about chestnuts)

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Yesterday I told you about the cheese terrine we had for starters today its all about the chestnuts…mainly so you can make the chestnut stuffing from my festive menu but also so I can share my most recent blog for Francoise Murat Design on Christmassy foods and which also includes a fab chestnut jam and a chocolatey chestnut cake…so here it is….. (first posted 8 December the cakes are actually made now!)

One of the wonderful things about Christmas is the fact that there are lots of chances to cook up delicious meals and food gifts for [...]

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Fresh from the oven:Turkish Pide

Turkish pide and spicy kebab

I’ve been a bit remiss on contributing to the Fresh from the Oven challenges of late,I missed out on doing croissants and pizza,both things I really fancied trying. Well i did do the pizza but I forgot to blog in in time,oops!

So this month I got well ahead of myself and made the challenge almost week for the deadline instead of on the day!

The bread we baked was Turkish Pide and the challenge was hosted by Mrs Ergul.

I had a bit of fun with the US measurements getting muddled and almost using a [...]

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ideas…

cheese leftovers mayo breakfast curry stock challenge Dan Lepard asparagus #livelocal rhubarb quick lunch salad foraging competition blogging bread english summer beef mushroom soup/stew chutney lamb spring toast chocolate lemon seasonal wild garlic pasta pork garden sourdough british roast chicken salmon chicken tomato potatoes twitter herbs sandwiches suffolk
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