Anglesey Eggs (alternate version)

I came across a cauliflower variation on the classic Anglesey Eggs in a very old recipe book recently, with a little bit of tweaking to suit my tastes I rustled up this little beauty in next to no time.

This version lends itself very well to leftover cookery – especially if you cook surplus to make sure you have ‘leftovers’ (please tell me I’m not the only one who does that?!).  With a bit of forward planning and cheating this is really nothing more than a quick assembly job.

Quantities very much depend on your appetite and the number of people you are cooking for but the ingredient list for one, is :

1 cup cauliflower – par-boiled for a few minutes

The green part of a small/baby leek, halved and cut into fine half-moon slices

1 hard boiled egg cut into halves and then quartered, or chopped – as you prefer

½ cup or thereabouts of cheese sauce

Salt and pepper to taste and a scant sprinkle of cayenne pepper

Grated cheddar to scatter generously over the top

Layer the sliced leek at the bottom of an oven-proof dish, arrange the cauliflower florets on the top and poke the slices of egg among them, or scatter the chopped egg over the top and around the cauliflower.  Season with salt, pepper and cayenne pepper.

Cook in a hot oven for about 30 minutes until bubbling nicely and the cheese topping is browned.

Bacon Hotpot

I first encountered this lovely dish on holiday in Newquay many years ago and had completely forgotten all about it until our recent trip to my old family homeland of Cardiganshire! 

It’s one of those lovely dishes that sits quietly in the oven taking care of itself, after some very basic preparation – and it’s a very frugal dish too.  It really sums up the best of traditional Welsh cooking, like the Italian Cucina Povera.  You can make it with some rashers of bacon, or use up the last ends of a bacon, gammon or ham joint.

 For one person I used :

 1 small onion

4 rashers of back bacon (I used up some cooked ham from the freezer)

2 -3 baby potatoes

Just under 250ml chicken stock*

 Melt a knob of butter in an oven-proof pan while you peel and slice the onion, then sauté the onion in the butter for a few minutes.

 Coarsely chop the bacon or ham and add to the cooking onions, then thinly slice the baby potatoes and add three quarters of those to the pan too.  Season and give everything a good stir before pouring over the stock, then top with the remainder of the sliced potatoes.

Simmer gently for 10 - 15 minutes, until the potato slices are cooked through and the stock is reduced.

 *  Knorr have recently introduced ham stock cubes, if you can get hold of these you could use one instead of the chicken stock.

Anglesey Eggs

This is such a lovely dish and well worth making, despite being quite labour intensive!  It involves one pan to cook the leeks, another for the potato, another for the eggs and yet another for the cheese sauce – BUT, there are corners that you can cut and it freezes like a dream so you can bulk cook for the freezer.  If you do that, to ring the changes, you could add some grated cheddar to the mashed potato and leek to make a cheese and potato pie for the freezer (link to recipe below)

 To make things simple, I cooked the eggs the day before I wanted to make it and used a ready-made tub of cheese sauce.  It’s a dish that you can prepare well ahead of time, as long as you don’t put the cold eggs and cold cheese sauce onto the hot mashed potato it will come to no harm.

 Quantities will depend on the number of people you are serving, but for four serves I used :

 3 large potatoes

4 small leeks

A generous knob of butter for the leeks

4 hard boiled eggs

 1 x small tub of ready-made cheese sauce

 2 oz or so of grated cheddar for the topping

 Salt and pepper to taste

 Peel and boil the potatoes.  While the potato is cooking clean and dice the leek and sauté in a generous knob of butter.  Grate the cheese for the topping.

 When the potato is cooked drain and mash then and add the buttery leek, combine together before turning into an ovenproof dish. 

 Peel and coarsely chop the hard boiled eggs and distribute evenly over the top of the mashed potato.  You could slice the eggs if you prefer.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.

 Pour over the cheese sauce into a thin layer and then top with grated cheddar cheese

 If you are eating straight away simply pop under a pre-heated grill until the cheese sauce is heated through and the grated cheese is golden and bubbling.  If it has been prepared ahead and is cold it will need about 30 minutes in a hot oven.

 http://thehappyhousewife12.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/cheese-and-potato-pie.html

Thick Country Vegetable Soup

It’s been growing increasingly autumnal here so I thought I’d treat us to a good thick vegetable soup.  I managed to pick up some nice soup mix from Sainsbury’s recently (a mixture of dried peas, lentils, beans and barley) which made a good hearty soup.

It’s difficult to give exact quantities, because much depends on appetite and how many serves you want.  Similarly, the actual ingredients can be varied to your own personal taste.  I bought as many different kinds of root vegetables as I could lay my hands on at the time!

For three or four serves I used :

1 medium leek

½ a medium swede (rutabaga)

1 large carrot

2 small turnips

2 ribs of celery

½ large celeriac (celery root)

1 large parsnip

100 g soup mix

Vegetable (or chicken) stock

Seasoning to taste

If you are going to use the soup mix, you will need to give it an overnight soak.  Then simply drain and cook according to the instructions.  Mine needed a good 10 minute boil and then 40 minutes rapid cooking.  I started cooking it while I prepared the root vegetables.

Halve the leek and then cut the halves into slices.  Peel and dice the swede, carrot, turnips, celeriac and parsnip.  Chop the celery ribs into rough pieces.

When the soup mix has had the required cooking time add the prepared vegetables to the pan and top up with boiling water if necessary.  Add the stock cube/pot/powder to the water and stir, season to taste with salt and pepper.  Cook the vegetables gently for 30 minutes or so (depending on size), until cooked through.

This was good on the first day, even better on the second.  Sadly, there wasn’t a third day!

Sausage and Chicken Pie with Sage and Onion Stuffing

This pie is pretty much Delia Smith’s recipe from the Complete Cookery Course.  I added some leftover sage and onion stuffing and adjusted the sausage layer slightly!

This is a lovely way to use up leftover cooked chicken and stuffing, and stretch the dregs of Sunday’s roast dinner one more day.  If you don’t have any leftover stuffing, you can make it fresh – the method I give below is the way my friend’s lovely late mother-in-law used to make it.

For the stuffing :

3 or 4 thick slices of bread, crusts cut off

½ small onion

2 generous handfuls of fresh sage (or 1 dsp of dry)

Salt and pepper to taste

Simply pop everything into a blender or food processor and blitz.  Heat a little goose fat, duck fat, chicken dripping (or olive oil!) in a frying pan and sautee the stuffing for a few minutes until it becomes slightly crispy.  Set aside to cool.

For the pie :

1 pack of shortcrust pastry

8 good meaty sausages

Appx 1 cup of leftover cooked chicken

Appx 1 cup of leftover stuffing

¼ tsp ground mace

½ tsp sage

Salt and pepper to taste

The dish I used is a 7” diameter quiche dish.

Skin the sausages and place into a large mixing bowl as you go.  Season with salt and pepper, add the sage and mace and then mix together with your hands.

Roll out your pastry and line the base of your dish, spread half the sausagemeat over the pastry, then add half the stuffing, all of the chicken and season with a little salt and pepper.  Add the rest of the stuffing and finally the remainder of the sausagemeat.  Roll out a pastry lid and top and finish your pie.

I cooked mine at 180^oC / 350^oF / gas mark 5 for an 45 to 50 minutes.  If the pie begins to brown too much pop a folded sheet of greaseproof paper on top.

Sausage and Leek Pie

The idea for this delicious pie was given to me by my Mother, who saw a TV chef (I think she said it was Phil Vickery) make it on television.  I couldn’t wait to try it out.  As my husband loves sausages in all shape or form I knew it would be a winner with him!

This is what I did, it will serve four people, or two people twice!

1 pack of ready-made shortcrust pastry

8 good quality meaty sausages

1 leek

1 knob of butter

1 bunch of herbs to your personal taste, I used sage and rosemary from my garden

Freshly ground black pepper to taste

1 egg (optional) 

Simply clean the leeks, halve lengthways and slice.  Sweat gently in the butter until the leeks have softened. 

Skin the sausages and place in a mixing bowl, add the chopped herbs and season with black pepper.  Mix thoroughly with your hands. 

Line a pie dish or plate with the pastry, keeping enough back for the lid. 

Add a generous layer of sausage meat to the bottom of the pie, top with the sautéed leeks and then a final layer of sausage meat.  Add a pastry lid to the pie and brush with beaten egg (or milk if you don’t want to waste a good egg washing pastry!). 

Cook at 150^oC / 300^oF / gas mark 2 for an 1¾  to 2 hours.  If the pies begin to brown too much before the end of the cooking time simply cover with a folded sheet of greaseproof paper to protect them. 

This pie will be delicious with a generous dollop of either tomato ketchup or your brown sauce of choice!

Egg & Bacon Flan

Over the years I have made many, many quiches with all sorts of ingredients and a quiche remains one of my favourite comfort foods.  In recent years I have re-discovered the classic quiche Lorraine, or egg and bacon flan as my Grandmother used to call it!

It’s a very simple dish, using refrigerator staples – bacon, eggs and cheese and really quite a frugal dish.  But such a classic combination and it can be taken to all new levels of tastiness by using really good quality ingredients.  Make it with best quality, oak or applewood smoked bacon, really strong cheddar and what I call proper eggs (from properly free-range hens) and you have yourself a real treat.  Nothing, but nothing can bring cheer to the weary soul like a very good, very simple quiche. 

The method below is pretty much the basic one I’ve been using for umpty tumpty years and will never let you down.  The only adaption I’ve made is to incorporate Delia’s tip of using a little parmesan cheese just before it goes into the oven.   

Like all my recipes, this is far from set in stone.  You can, of course, vary the basic recipe with whatever assortment of meat, fish or veggies takes your fancy. 

A small flan for two people : 

Grease and line a small flan dish with pastry.  The one I used was 7" in diameter and produced a nice deep quiche.

2 eggs

½ pint of milk (you can use a mixture of milk and cream for very best results!)

2 or 3 oz of good cheddar cheese (Welsh by preference please!!)

Salt and pepper to taste

4 slices of bacon, cooked and cut into strips

1oz or so of parmesan cheese 

Simply grate the cheddar and add to the bottom of your lined flan dish.  Add the cooked and chopped bacon.  Beat the eggs and add the milk (or milk and cream mixture), seasoning to taste.  Gently pour the egg and milk mixture onto the bacon and cheese and add a final grating of parmesan cheese. 

Cook at 180^oC / 350^oF / gas mark 4 for 35 to 40 minutes, until the quiche is golden and set.

Liver with onions and gravy

I have to share this lovely dish with you all.  Liver is so inexpensive to buy, yet so full of iron that it makes a very nutritious frugal little meal.  It’s also very easy and quick to prepare, even though the onions do take a little while to cook down.   

I always serve it the way my family always have, with what we call potch – a mixture of mashed potato and swede (rutabaga). 

For two people I used : 

2 medium pieces of lambs liver

3 large onions

½ pint beef gravy*

1 tb olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste 

Firstly, peel and halve the onions, cutting the halves into half-moon slices.  Fry gently in the olive oil, at the very lowest simmer possible, for approximately 45 minutes – until the onions are softened and browned. 

While the onions are cooking cut the liver into thin strips and prepare the beef gravy.  You could use leftover gravy from Sunday lunch, or make instant gravy as I did! 

When the onions are cooked, push them to one side of the pan and add the liver, tossing it around until it is cooked to your liking – it will only take a few minutes.   

As soon as the liver is cooked, pour in the gravy and let it simmer in the pan with the liver and onions for a few minutes, seasoning with salt and pepper to taste.

* For my American readers the gravy I used is the brown gravy we make using meat juices from a roast joint, or instant gravy.

Beef and cannellini bean stew

The weather here has been so wet, cold and miserable that we’ve turned to cheering ourselves up with lovely casseroles and stews again!  After a few particularly miserably wet days I thought this delicious stew would be just the ticket to bring some much needed warmth to our bones and put a smile back on our faces! 

This is real hearty fare, and a complete meal in itself.  It takes no time to put together, and will require nothing more from you than an occasional stir while it sits in the oven for four hours.  It’s another one of those lovely frugal meals, the beans bag out the meat to stretch it further and uses one of those cheap cuts of beef that respond so well to long slow cooking. 

You could begin, as you would with other casseroles, by browning the meat and the vegetables; but to be honest there is so much flavour in this with the Guinness and the long slow cooking that if you skip that step, you won’t miss it. 

The quantities I give below will feed four people, generously.  You can either halve it for two people, or make the whole amount and keep half of it back for another day.  It won’t freeze very well because the vegetables will become too soft, but it will sit in the fridge for a day or two without coming to any harm.  

4 oz/1 cup of dried cannellini beans

2 baby or 1 large leek

½ a large swede (rutabaga)

2 medium carrots

1 stick of celery

1 medium turnip

1 medium potato

½ lb shin of beef (or any suitable casserole/stewing beef)

1 440ml can Guinness

1tb Worcestershire sauce

1 tb tomato puree

1 sprig rosemary

2 bayleaves

1 pint beef stock

1tb flour

Salt and pepper to taste 

Starting the night before you want to make your casserole, soak the cannellini beans in plenty of boiling water, with a pinch of bicarbonate of soda to soften the skins. 

Prepare the vegetables by washing and peeling and then start dicing the leek, chopping the stick of celery quite small, chopping the carrots, swede and turnip into quite big chunks and adding to a large ovenproof casserole.  Cut the beef into big pieces and add to the vegetables.  Add the tablespoon of flour and mix well with your hands.  Chop the rosemary and add that to the pan, together with the bayleaves and season to taste.  Pour in the Guinness, Worcestershire sauce, stock and then add the tomato puree.  Cut the potato into big pieces and add that, together with the drained cannellini beans and then give everything a good stir.  Put a firm fitting lid on and pop into a low oven to cook for 4 hours.  I cooked mine at 160^oC (300^oF / gas mark 2).  Stir it from time to time, and add some more hot water if it seems to be drying out at all before the cooking time is up. 

Best served on one of those days when the rain is lashing the windows, a gale is howling and with a good helping of freshly baked bread!!   

A brandy sipped quietly by a roaring fire would finish it perfectly; but we can’t have everything can we!

Dinner in a Yorkshire pudding!

This has been one of my standby meals for more years than I care to remember!  It truly is a dinner in a dish, as it all cooks in one casserole in the oven.  The vegetables bulk it out and can help stretch a little meat quite a long way so this is quite a frugal little dish. 

On working days this is something that could be put together the evening before and left to simmer quietly in the oven for a few hours, needing absolutely no attention from you at all.  All you’d need to do after work then is make the Yorkshire pudding and re-heat the filling in the oven at the same time. 

For two of us I used : 

½ lb (250g) minced beef

½ a swede (rutabaga)

1 medium carrot

1 onion

1 large potato

1tb flour

2tsp Worcestershire sauce

½ tsp mixed herbs (sage, thyme, rosemary etc)

¾ pint of hot beef stock

Salt and pepper to taste 

Firstly peel and dice the onion, sweat gently in a little olive oil.  Peel and dice the carrot and swede, and add to the onion.  Sweat gently for 10 minutes.  Remove to a dish. 

Add the minced beef to the empty pan and brown, then return the vegetables to the pan.  Add the flour, herbs, Worcestershire sauce and gradually the beef stock, stirring to eliminate the risk of lumps forming.   

Peel the potato and cut into big chunks, and add to the minced beef in the pan.  Stir, bring to a simmer and then pop into a low oven for 2 hours.  I cooked mine at 160^oF (300^oC / gas mark 2). 

To make the Yorkshire Pudding I used : 

1 x 8” sandwich tin 

3oz plain flour

1 egg

3 fl oz milk

2 fl oz water

Salt and pepper to taste 

Place the flour in a mixing bowl and season, make a well in the centre and add the egg, milk and water.  Beat well so that there are no lumps whatsoever in the mixture.  Traditionally it’s made the night before and left to sit, the longer you can leave the batter mixture the better. 

When you are ready, grease the sandwich tin well and heat in the oven (it needs to be very hot), pour the batter mixture into the tin and cook for 25 to 30 minutes at 220^oC (425^oF/gas mark 7). 

(I made mine before making the casserole and just re-heated it at the last minute when we were ready to eat)

Corned Beef Pie

This is a classic hand-me-down recipe here in the Valleys, and almost every family has its own version.  Traditionally made on an enamel pie plate, or old dinner plate, it is incredibly versatile and can be fancied up (!) by making it in a deeper pie dish (quantities adjusted accordingly), or even in a big tin for feeding larger numbers at buffets etc. 

As simple as this pie is, it is such a well loved one in my family.  Not a gathering is complete unless we have a ‘corned dog pie’! 

Some families include carrot in their recipe, others tomato or brown sauce.  This is the version that my family makes.  The quantities below will make either a generous plate pie, or a standard Pyrex quiche dish pie.   

I used : 

1 tin corned beef

2 medium potatoes

1 medium or 2 small onions

2 tsp mixed herbs

2-3 tsp dried sage 

1 packet of shortcrust pastry

1 egg to glaze 

First, peel and cut the potatoes into small pieces and then boil them.  Dice the onions and add to the boiling potatoes to cook. 

Cut the corned beef into chunks and add to a large mixing bowl.   

When the potatoes are cooked drain and mash them with the onions.  Add to the bowl containing the corned beef and mix everything together.  The heat from the potatoes will soften the corned beef and make the mixing easier.  Add the herbs and give it another good mix.  I like my pie to taste quite herby so I’m generous with the herbs.  If you prefer, just add a teaspoon at a time and taste, adding more until you like the flavour.  Season to taste with salt.

Roll out your pastry and line the plate or baking dish.  Add the corned beef mixture to the dish and cover with a pastry lid.  Brush with beaten egg and bake in a hot oven until the pastry is golden. 

I'd like to dedicate this recipe to my first husband, who always loved my corned beef pies!  With much love and affection, and thanks for all the happy times.