1 tblsp oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 lb minced beef
Salt and pepper
1 tblsp soya sauce
1 tblsp tomato sauce
1 large squash, peeled and chopped into 1 inch square chunks
2 medium potatoes, washed and cut into 1 inch chunks
½ tsp salt
1 tblsp butter
Put the potatoes on to boil with the salt – after they have simmered for 10 minutes – add the squash. Cook for a further 10 minutes by which time the potatoes and squash should be soft.
Drain and mash with the butter.
Whilst the potatoes are cooking, heat oil and fry onion until soft, add minced beef and salt and pepper, stir until browned then add soya sauce and tomato sauce.
Put mince into casserole dish, then spread the mash on top. Cook in oven for 30-40 minutes at 180 C.
Every year I end up with too many courgettes and don’t know what to do with them – so this year I have tried out a few innovative recipes:
Nearly marrow sized courgettes can be cut into one inch thick slices and baked in a little oil for around half an hour at 180°, turning occasionally, until soft. (I use a mixture of sunflower, olive, groundnut and sesame oils but any mixture is good.) Liquidise and use in curries instead of tinned tomatoes. You might need to add a little more spice than usual to give more flavour – but my family never noticed the difference.
Grate courgettes and add to salads (don’t overdo it else they do get noticed!)
I have also added grated courgettes to spaghetti Bolognese, stir fries and pasta dishes.
Brush whole baby courgettes with oil and barbecue alongside sausages.
Freezing mint ready to make mint sauce later in the year.
There’s nothing like fresh mint sauce, made with freshly chopped mint – and freshly frozen mint is almost as good. If your mint bed is is thriving, now is a good time to pick some and freeze it. Just chop it and seal it in plastic bags. You can do the same with parsley ready for parsley sauce. I also freeze small quantities of basil, oregano, marjoram, coriander and tarragon for adding to meals like spaghetti bolognese and curries.
I have two varieties of mint in my garden, apple mint (on the left) and spearmint (on the right).
I find apple mint is the best variety to add to early potatoes to get that ‘new potato taste’ and to make mint sauce. Spearmint leaves are delicious with Pimms, mixed with lemonade, lemon slices, cucumber slices, strawberries and ice.
To make mint sauce:
Mix together in a jug:
1 tblsp chopped mint leaves (fresh or frozen)
1 tblsp malt vinegar
hot water (ideally cabbage water)
1 tsp sugar
20 large elderflower heads
2 lemons- rind and juice
2 pints boiling water
2 oz citric acid (available from Healing Thyme, Whitchurch High Street, SY13 1AZ www.healing-thyme.co.uk)
2 lb granulated sugar
1/2 Camden tablet*
Sterilised bottles (stand in oven for 10 minutes at a temperature of 140°C and use whilst warm.)
You will need 2 large clean 5 pint containers – one to make the cordial in and another to strain the cordial into.
Remove flower petals from elderflower heads (just rub the flowers off the stalks – it’s not critical if some stalks get in as well) and put in a bucket with rind and juice of 2 lemons.
Pour over boiling water and stir well.
Leave overnight to infuse.
Strain through a stocking held over a sieve or colander into the second bucket.
Add sugar and stir well.
Add citric acid, stir.
Leave 24 hours.
Bottle in screw top bottles.
And it’s ready to drink. To serve, dilute to taste.
Elderflower cordial tinkling with ice is the best summer drink ever – on rainy days you can close your eyes and imagine the sun shining on the elderflower petals, blackbirds serenading from the topmost branches, sunshine, rainbows and summer strawberries – the magical taste of summertime.
*For years I made Elderflower Cordial with this recipe with no problems, then, this year, it went fizzy. The solution is to add one Camden tablet per gallon which kills any wild yeast – thank you to www.ashridgetrees.co.uk for this solution.
For this recipe, add 1/2 crushed Camden tablet (dissolved in a small amount of hot water) per half gallon, stir, leave for an hour then stir again to make sure Camden tablet has dissolved properly, then bottle.
Storage:
With no acids or tablets – 3-4 weeks in the fridge. Freeze in plastic bottles for longer storage.
With the citric or tartaric acid it will keep for 3-4 months in the fridge.
With the Camden tablets, elderflower cordial keeps almost indefinitely in a cool, dark place.
Midsummer – time to make Elderflower Champagne – which is not champagne – or alcoholic – at all – but, according to my family, is every bit as good as champagne:
Elderflower Champagne
4 large elderflower heads
2 lemons – rind and juice
2 tblsp white wine vinegar
1 lb 8 oz of granulated sugar
7 pints cold water
You will need 2 large clean buckets – one to make the champagne in and another to strain the champagne into.
Remove flower petals from elderflower heads (just rub the flowers off the stalks – it’s not critical if some stalks get in as well) and put in a bucket with rind and juice of 2 lemons.
Add water and vinegar and stir well.
Leave for 2 days, stirring night and morning.
Strain through a stocking held over a sieve or colander into the second bucket.
Add sugar and stir well.
Leave 24 hours then bottle in screw top bottles. (Plastic pop bottles will do fine.)
It should be ready to drink after about a week.
If not drinking straight away you will need to release the tops of the bottles regularly so they don’t explode – or you can use old port bottles with corks.
2 tsp of dried mixed herbs or, ideally, chopped fresh herbs as follows:
1 tsp basil
1 tsp parsley
½ tsp thyme
½ tsp oregano
½ tsp marjoram
1lb rough puff pastry (frozen or you can make your own)
Flour for rolling out pastry
1 egg, beaten
Poppy or sesame seeds
Thoroughly mix the sausagemeat, onions, mushrooms and herbs.
Sausage Rolls Roll out the pastry to an oblong about 5 mm thick. Spread the sausagemeat in a long roll down the centre of the pastry. Brush one edge of the pastry with beaten egg, fold over the pastry to form a long roll.
Cut the roll into 35mm lengths and place on a baking sheet lined with baking paper. Brush the rolls with beaten egg.
Cut small slits in the pastry with scissors and sprinkle with poppy or sesame seeds.
Sausage Plait Roll out the pastry to a rectangle. Mark into thirds lengthways. Spread sausagemeat evenly over middle third.
Cut pastry either side into strips (see photo) and fold strips alternately over sausagemeat to form a plait. Seal ends with left over strips, brush with beaten egg and sprinkle with seeds.
Bake in oven 230C (220C fan oven) for 10-15 minutes until the sausagemeat is cooked (maybe a little longer for sausage plait).
Pastry:
8 oz (250g) flour
6 oz butter or butter/lard
Water for mixing
Rub 4 oz of the butter into the flour until it looks like breadcrumbs.
Add water and mix to rolling out consistency.
Roll out pastry to a strip, mark into 3 and spread rest of fat on one third in small pats. Fold into 3, roll out gently to a strip again and fold into 3, then roll out to the shape required.
Any sort of rose hips will do – all are edible – but I used all wild rose hips. Cultivated roses have bigger rose hips. You can pick rose hips in batches and freeze them – in fact, tradition advises gathering rose hips after a frost. The reason is that the frost breaks down the cell walls of the fruit, thereby giving more liquid once the fruit is cooked. But hips are much easier to pick when they are hard – not squishy – so freezing them for 24 hours is a much better idea.
Rose hips contain a lot of vitamin C – but this is easily destroyed by heat so most recipes suggest cooking the hips/pulp twice over for a very short amount of time.
(1 kg) rose hips, minced (I chopped them in batches using the chopper/grinder device with my mixer).
(3 litres) water
500g sugar – brown or white
Mince rose hips then put immediately into 2 litres of boiling water. Bring to the boil again then remove from the pan and leave for at least 15 minutes. Strain through a jelly bag/muslin/linen (I used an old cotton pillow slip placed in a sieve over a bowl). Leave to allow most of the juice to drip through.
Reserve juice and put pulp back into the saucepan with 1 litre of boiling water. Reboil briefly and then leave to stand for 15 minutes – as before – pour into the (same) jelly bag and leave to drip through.
Because rose hips have fine hairs that are a serious irritant, I always strain again to make absolutely sure I have removed them all. So strain again through a clean piece of muslin or pillow slip folded over in a sieve.
Pour the strained rose hip juice into a large saucepan, add 500g sugar, heat slowly and stir until dissolved. Bring to the boil and boil for 3 minutes. Pour into warm sterilised bottles* and seal and label.
Use within 4 months and refrigerate once opened.
*To sterilise bottles and tops, wash in warm soapy water and rinse well, then put on a tray in a low oven (120°C Gas ½) to dry out and heat up.
Rose Hip Syrup has a unique taste – described as ‘warm, floral and fruity’ on the River Cottage website. I quite like it poured neat onto ice cubes – like a liqueur. It’s also good with lemonade and as a hot toddy diluted with hot water. It’s very high in vitamin C (rosehips contain twenty times more vitamin C than you find in oranges) – ideal for keeping winter coughs and colds away. During the war – when there were no oranges – children were given rose hip syrup from the Ministry of Health and even after the war, as a child, my mother gave me a teaspoonful of neat rosehip syrup every day.
Ingredients:
50 g (2 oz) butter
1 kg (2 lb) squash (or pumpkin) peeled and diced
2 medium onions, chopped
1 large potato diced
1 tin chopped tomatoes or 4 large tomatoes, skinned* and chopped
2 large apples, peeled, cored and chopped
2 level teaspoons of sage (fresh sage** is best)
1 level teaspoon of thyme
2 pints stock (vegetable or beef – stock cubes are fine)
Salt and black pepper to taste
*to skin tomatoes easily simply put in a bowl, pour over boiling water, leave to stand for about a minute, plunge into cold water, and the skin just rubs off.
**Sage is a perennial so it grows all year but is better picked during the summer. For ease of use I pick lots in the summer and freeze in small quanities in plastic bags, or chop it and freeze in ice cube trays. Then it’s all ready to use for sage and onion stuffing in the middle of winter.
Method:
Fry the onion in the butter gently until soft,
Add the squash and stir for a few minutes,
Add the potato
Add the tomatoes
Add the stock
Stir in the sage and thyme
Add salt and pepper
Bring to the boil, cover and simmer for 20 minutes
Add the apple and cook for another 10 minutes
Cool slightly, puree in a liquidiser or food processor.
Add a sprinkling of black pepper and serve.
Ingredients:
50 g (2 oz) butter
1 kg (2 lb) pumpkin peeled and diced
2 medium onions, chopped
1 tin chopped tomatoes or 4 large tomatoes, skinned* and chopped
2 pints stock (vegetable or beef – stock cubes are fine)
Seasoning:
½ tsp chilli pepper
½ tsp cayenne pepper
½ tsp allspice
1 level tsp cumin
1 level tsp cloves
1 level tsp thyme
If you like a spicy soup you can add more chilli, cayenne and allspice but I find this is tasty but mild enough so even little children enjoy it.
*to skin tomatoes easily simply put in a bowl, pour over boiling water, leave to stand for about a minute and the skin just rubs off.
Method:
Fry the onion in the butter gently until soft,
Add the pumpkin and stir for a few minutes,
Add the tomatoes
Add the stock
Stir in the seasoning
Bring to the boil, cover and simmer for 30 minutes until the pumpkin is tender.
Cool slightly, puree in a liquidiser or food processor.
1 tblsp oil
