Recipes Collection

I was inspired by a recipe for a Lighter Chicken Pot Pie on The Bite Me Kitchen Blog. I cant remember the last time I made I made Chicken Pot Pie, but I do remember the first time I had it. My dad worked for a US company and often went to California and Arizona on business. The first time he was able to take my Mum with him was in 1975 when I was 16, it had been arranged for me to go to Belgium to visit friends there for my holiday and my older sister was working during vacation from university. When Mum returned she brought with her an American Cookbook and this was one of the recipes she made from it that we all loved and became a familty favourite.

I decided to make it yesterday, because of a mix up over whether my MIL needed any supper on Friday, I thought she didnt and apparently she did! So I used one of the chicken breasts that I had planned to have on Saturday, this left me with less chicken so I used the idea from The Bite Me Kitchen of bulking it up with lots of veg. I didnt however, go for a pastry topping, but the biscuits as per the original recipe.

I have actually got my own copy of the book Mum brought back from the states (I bought it in 1979 when I first went to California), but it was jammed in behind the new kitchen units, so I just made a basic unsweetened scone recipe. OMG it was good though, the biscuits were soft and deliciously buttery (that would be the butter lol!) and the chicken and veg were sweet and tender in their luscious gravy.

When the kitchen is finished Ill dig out the book and post the recipe but it is really just chicken, onions, carrots and peas thickened with flour and sauced up with chicken stock, then the biscuit/scones on top.

I had some plums left over from last weeks plum crumble and they needed used up. I poached them with some sugar and cinnamon then added a raspberry jelly (jello), topped up to 1 pint with orange juice and let it set. Served with Greek Yogurt (sorry Vegboxboy - no cream again!)

Stone bramble berries have a somewhat bitter flavour that goes well with lamb and all kinds of game, for example reindeer and wild goose.

I can usually only get a very small amount of them, but I often mix them with redcurrants to get a very nice, beautifully red jelly.

Pick stone bramble berries. It takes a considerable amount of berries to get a good amount of juice, but I cant tell you exactly what amount of berries will yield what amount of juice.

Flush the berries with cold water and put in a cooking pot. Bring to the boil on low and cook gently until the berries burst and release their juice. Pour the berries and juice into a cheesecloth strainer and strain away the juice. The cheesecloth may be squeezed to extract more juice.
 
Measure the juice and put it in a cooking pot and bring to the boil. Remove from the heat and add 1 kg of sugar for every litre of juice (if it’s less than a litre, then add 100 grams of sugar for each 100 ml of juice). Stir to dissolve the sugar. The juice must not boil after the sugar has been added.

Pour into sterilised jars while still hot and close the jars immediately.

Preservative may be added.