My husband's making a yummy raspberry roulade* this week, so it'll be my task to use up excess egg yolks (some people actually throw them away!):

I often put extra egg yolks into scrambled egg or omelette which is really indulgent.  Sometimes I make peanut biscuits or a rich sponge pudding on top of fruit, using two egg yolks for each egg in the recipe, or am going to try: 

http://www.fortysomething.ca/2010/04/recipes_to_use_up_extra_egg_yo.php


Mincemeat Whirlygigs


Squares of puff paste, each 15cm x 15cm
cut diagonal
put on spoon of mincemeat to which have been added port, orange zest and vanilla.
egg edges, fold in, start on top in middle.
Cook, maple syrup on top whilst still warm.

Another idea is to use the extra egg yolks to make Bread and Butter Pudding.

I love a good curry but it's difficult to get one down here in Devon.  So today I made a Keema, a recipe given to me by Ruckshanda, a friend from Pakistan, many years ago:


KEEMA
3 tbsp Oil
2 medium Onions, slices
1 lb mince Meat (beef, pork, lamb according to taste)
1 cup Beans or 1 cup Peas
4 tsp Ginger and Garlic mix
2 tsp Salt
2 tsp Chilli powder
2 tsp Tumeric
4 tsp ground Coriander
1 tsp gr Cumin
2 tbsp Coriander leaves and 2 tsp Garum Masala (add at end)
1 tin Tomatoes

1. Fry mince and set aside
2. Cook onions in oil, then add spices, ginger and garlic.
3. Add tomatoes and mince meat
4. Add beans (if peas add later)
5. Cook
6. When cooked add gm and coriander leaves.

About the time I was enjoying Ruckshanda's cookery classes, we had a university-student lodger from the Gujerat who was really encouraging with my cooking.  Every Sunday when Jatin returned from the weekend home with his family, he brought with him a small gift from his mother of samples of what she'd cooked for the family that day. Yum yum!

I'd also been given one of Madhir Jaffray's cookery books (see: http://www.madhur-jaffrey.com/), which contains what became firm family favourites.  The book's packed away at the moment but when we eventually move I'll put some of the recipes on this site.


Later, when we moved up to Leicester, I was introduced to Patak's (http://www.pataks.co.uk/) and found their pastes extremely useful.

Today, as well as the Keema, I plan to make a vegetable curry and also some dahl.  It's important to only use ingredients already in the house as we're trying to run down kitchen stocks before moving.

This looks like a good dahl recipe: 

COCONUT DAHL
250g red lentils
400ml coconut milk
a handful of curry leaves (or coriander)
2 medium onions, one finely chopped, one sliced
2 medium tomatoes, chopped
1tsp Tumeric
2 -3 long pointy green chillies, sliced
2 tsp black mustard seeds
flat bread - to serve

1. Put the lentils, coconut milk, the chopped onion, tomatoes, chillies and turmeric in a pan with 300ml water, season and simmer for 20 minutes, until the lentils are tender.
2. Fry the sliced onion in 4 tbsp oil until crisp, add the curry leaves (or coriander) and mustard seeds and sizzle together.
3. Pour over the lentils. Serve with flatbread.

Here are other vegetarian recipes which look worth trying:
Creamy Egg Curry:  http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/3214/creamy-egg-curry
Spiced Vegetable Biriani:  http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1397/spiced-vegetable-biryani
Vegetable Curry for a Crowd:  http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/775646/vegetable-curry-for-a-crowd

Today I bought some mixed beef and pork mince (no horse that I know of) to make some burgers.  As I couldn't find a recipe so made one up:

Beef and Pork Burgers

• 1 lb (500g) mince
• 1 small onion, chopped finely
• 1 egg
• 2 slices of bread, made into breadcrumbs
• seasoning - today I used thyme and a little garlic, salt, pepper mix.

Mix all this together and make into eight burghers, then cook on griddle.  Any unused will happily freeze.
(Note: They fell to pieces a bit on the griddle, so may use two eggs next time)

tiny lean-to greenhouse

We've just put an offer on a wonderful house - with a minute, north-facing garden. So perhaps it'll soon be time to get a greenhouse.  The side of the house, by the back door, faces west, so may well be an ideal spot for a lean-to glasshouse.



According to the paper, with the right growing techniques an unheated greenhouse can be a productive, pollution-free garden asset all year round.  After all, it's difficult to square using precious energy to raise, by a few degrees, the temperature of a terribly inefficient at heat-holding structure during the coldest months.



Ideal, beg, borrow - or spy an unwanted greenhouse in someones back garden - and bring it back to life with loving care.  But, failing that look at some good websites such as http://www.summergardenbuildings.co.uk/GREENHOUSES/LeanTo?gclid=CJn1zInG27UCFabLtAod8nEAYA


What, no propagator?

Firstly, many seeds germinate quite readily, albeit more slowly, in the fluctuating temperatures of a sun-powered greenhouse.  Plastic compost bags, put pots and trays inside the bag and put them on a sunlit piece of staging.

If you sow a lot of seeds, split the bags open and lay them over the pots, black side up (they also preventing compost from drying out too quickly).  Seeds that need a warm and constant temperature can come indoors for a bit of pampering.

A window sill in the most inhabited room or the boiler/airing cupboard is ideal (evict the towels!).  Check regularly for signs of life then get them into the light straight away.


Freeze and thaw

To guarantee fresh pickings in deep mid winter, you need to stay ahead of the frost game.  Once a spell of prolonged freezing weather sets in, and crops have turned dark, sagged and the compost/soil is frozen solid, it's impossible to harvest them until they thaw (they'll snap if you try).

If falling temperatures are forecast, cut some of what you want and store it in the fridge, or move pots of winter salad leaves to a frost-free place indoors.

Covering crops with multiple layers of horticultural fleece (two or three at least) will give extra frost protection, but remove it straightaway once a thaw sets in.


During milder spells, harvest at will, but keep the vents open and the air moving to deter fungal diseases like grey mould (botrytis). Keep crops on the dry side and only water, sparingly , when they just begin to wilt.

Five to sow now:

Late winter isn't just for gazing at seed and plant catalogues.  The following are best sown in pots or trays and, unless the weather's mild, brought indoors to germinate.  There's no need to thoroughly soak the compost after sowing (which we went to do for spring and summer sowings), just moisten it lightly.
Once germinated, move seeds back to the greenhouse,k only bringing them indoors on very cold nights.  Don't expect them to romp away  as they would in spring; growth, depending on the weather, will be slow but steady.

** Salad leaves:  aim to sow at least one 12 cm pot of salad leaves every week and get two or perhaps three cuts per pot.  Right now, the hardier oriental brassicas, green in the snow, komatsuna, mizuna and red mustard can be germinated indoors and will be ready, depending on the weather, in around six weeks.

** Mangetout Peas: 'Oregon Sugar Pod' stands low temperatures better than others.  Sow four seeds to a 10cm pot.  Pot on into 30cm pots when around 15cm tall and support with 1.2m long twiggy sticks, or plant in soil beds.

** Sweet Peas: Try and remember to sow in October, if not then November, December or January/February will ensure flowers weeks ahead of spring-sown plants.

** Broad Beans: sowing now produces young plants for early spring, planting either in beds (near the door so bees will find and pollinate them) or outside.  sow one seed to an 8cm pot.  'Aquadulce Claudia' is reliable.

** Early-pull carrots: 'Amsterdam Forcing' and 'Early Nantes' do well from late-winter sowings in a 30cm pot.  By spring there'll be tender young roots to pull.

Year-round Schedule

Winter: bring pot-grown strawberries into the greenhouse in January (they flower and fruit best after being frosted). Remove dead leaves and repot in fresh peat-free compost.  You are their pollinator: dust pollen between the flowers with a small brush, then enjoy the rewards from May.

Spring: It's all systems sow as your greenhouse captures increasing amounts of sunshine.  slugs will thrive in ever-wetter summers,so start plants in pots or multi-celled trays to give them a head start when planted outside, aided by some organic slug pellets.


Summer:  Make the most of warmth-loving crops.  Indoor tomatoes, peppers, aubergines, cucumbers and melons all need the raised temperatures of a greenhouse to succeed.

Autumn: Use the warm, rain-free space of your greenhouse to store/ripen onions.  Lay trays in full sun to skins bake and ripen fully.  Ditto with pumpkins and winter squash.

When I was growing up in the 50s white bread was popular and no-one fancied eating the brown variety.  White bread was thought of as more pure, more high class.  Traditionally, only the poor ate brown bread and they didn't always know whether it was adulterated with sawdust, chalk - or worse.


But I was one of the few, especially children, who preferred brown bread.  White seemed to end up like lumps of cotton wool in my mouth and at least brown bread stayed dry and crumbly.

So I really enjoyed it when my grandmother made Brown Bread Ice Cream.  Here's a grown-up version of the recipe, taken from the Good Food Magazine of December 2002:

Brown Bread Ice Cream

100g granary or wholemeal Bread
50g light muscavado Sugar
handful of chopped mixed Nuts
300ml double Cream


Coulis:
340g pack grozen Fruits of the forest
1 - 2 tbsp Sugar, to taste
Creme de Cassis liqueur

1. Preheat the grill to high.
2. In a food processor make the breadcrumbs.
3. Add the muscavado sugar.
4. Place in a foil-lined grill pan with the nuts and toast until crispy and golden.
5. Turn onto a baking sheet and leave to cool
6. Whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks.
7. Whisk the double cream until thick.
8. Fold the bread mixture into the cream, then lightly fold in the egg whites.
9. Spoon into ramekins and freeze overnight.
10. Make the coulis.  Heat the fruit in a saucepan with 1tbsp sugar and creme de cassis.
11. Taste and add more sugar and creme de cassis if you wish.
12. To serve: turn out the ice cream and drizzle the hot coulis over the top.

Coffee

When I was about 14 I discovered the delights of drinking coffee. In those days it was laced with sugar but I soon realised that the taste was much more intense without the sweet stuff.   

In the Guardian this week under the delightfully-named Flavour Thesaurus I discovered even more gems of wisdom about this popular beverage:

Roasted, the coffee bean contains notes of blackcurrant, clove, vanilla, chocolate and nuts, all of which make great flavour companions -

Coffee and Beef: Caffeinated red meat. Something to serve your most militantly health-conscious friends! Why not add a garnish of lit cigarettes?  Coffee is used in the southern US as a marinade or rub for meat.  It's also been spotted in fancier restaurants, perhaps because there's a well reported flavour overlap between roasted coffee and cooked beef.  But beware, this can give the beef a gamey flavour.

Coffee and blackcurrant: A mysteriously good pairing that often crops up in wine-tasting notes.  Captured in a vacherin - layers of meringue , blackcurrant sorbet, whipped cream and coffee ice-cream with a sprinkling of toasted almonds - it's absolutely delicious.
  
Or you could try a variant of pavlova - coffee-flavoured meringue with cream and a blackcurrant compote.  Or even blackcurrant jam in a coffee gateau.  This sounds akin to our old favourite, Black Forest Gateau (cherries and chocolate).

Coffee and hazelnut:   If you find yourself at an ice-cream parlour in France or Italy and you suffer an attack of selection anxiety, remember coffee and hazelnut is pretty good.

Tiramisu - garnished with coffee beans and basil leaves

Coffee and orange: Breakfast companions.  What about orange and coffee marmalade?  or burnt orange and coffee ice cream?  Also orange and coffee tiramisu is nicer than it sounds.   This could be made with the recipe for orange and coffee-bean liqueur (see below).

Coffee and Chocolate: Forget hot drinks.  Coffee and chocolate work much better in mousses, truffles and cakes.  Or use them as uncredited flavour boosters.  A little coffee flavour in chocolate dishes can make them taste more chocolatey - and vice versa.

Coffee and Cinnamon: Cinnamon has the strength and sweetness to cope with coffee flavours in baking.  In many places cinnamon is sprinkled or stirred into coffee.  Tastes good!

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Orange and Coffee-Bean Liqueur - the '44' recipe:
Take a large orange and make 44 slits in the skin, then put a coffee bean into each orifice.  Put 44 sugar cubes in a jar, position the orange on top and pour over 500ml brandy, rum or vodka.  Leave to steep for 44 days, then squeeze the juice out of the orange, mix it back into the alcohol, strain and pour into a steralised bottle.

Steak in Ale
1 lb Beef

1 garlic clove
1 oz flour
1/2 tsp dried thyme
6 oz onions
1 tbsp oil
1 bay leaf
1/2 pt ale




Coq au Vin
4 chicken joints
6 oz bacon, diced
6 oz mushrooms
6 oz tiny onions
1 pt red wine
1 tsp cornflour
a bay leaf
1 tsp thyme
1 tbsp oil
s&p