Mutton hotpot and a breakfast of leftovers

Hot (pot) to trot

Like Lancashire hotpot, but without the kidneys. I'm pretty good with offal nowadays but kidneys...well, I've had some unpleasant experiences with kidneys. Maybe one day...

Mutton hotpot


Loosely based on a recipe for Lancashire hotpot by James Martin, available here: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/9099/lancashire-hotpot


Serves 3 (The Bear and I had this for dinner one night, then he took the leftovers to work for his lunch the next day.)


500g diced mutton
olive oil
a small knob of butter
1/2 an onion
2 small carrots
1 tsp dried thyme
s + p
1 tsp marmite
2 tbsp plain flour
1 mug of chicken stock
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
about 500g potatoes


Preheat the oven to 140 degrees C.


Brown the mutton in a large casserole pan (one which can go in the oven and has a lid) with the olive oil, seasoning and butter. Finely chop the onion and carrot and add these to the pan with the dried thyme. Fry for about 10 mins, then add the flour. Finally add the chicken stock, Worcestershire sauce and marmite. 


Slice the potatoes into roughly 2cm slices and arrange on top of your stew. In between layers of potato add seasoning and a few blobs of butter.


Put the lid on your casserole dish and bung in the oven for one and a half hours. Remove the lid (don't forget to use oven gloves!) for the last 1/2 hour or so of cooking to crisp up the potates. We ate ours with some leeky greens made by sauting some leeks in butter and adding to some boiled savoy cabbage. T'was yum.

Dinner is served...

On another note, we had a lot of leftovers hanging around our fridge, so I turned them into a rather lavish breakfast: leftover savoy cabbage,  roast potatoes, carrots and parsnips became bubble and squeak - perfect with a squirt of brown sauce and topped with a poached egg - and leftover sharon fruit compote got whizzed up into a sharon fruit and banana smoothie. A pretty good start to the day if I do say so myself.

"How do you like your eggs in the morning?" With bubble and squeak. And brown sauce.  And smoothie. And NOW.

Sharon fruit compote with vanilla yoghurt

The socially acceptable way to have the contents of a wine glass for breakfast.

Sharon fruit is a type of persimmon. I must admit, this is the first time I have ever tried one. It's a bit of a funny fruit really...the closest thing I can compare it to in terms of taste would be an apricot; in terms of texture, probably a tomato, but minus the seeds.

I got the idea for this layered compote / yoghurt thing from a recipe on the Abel and Cole website for a similar thing using plums. Having tried and enjoyed the original plummy version, when trying to work out what to do with my recently acquired sharon fruits, I figured it too could benefit from the same treatment.

It was very nice. In future I think I might peel the sharon fruits though - although this wasn't a major problem I think it might improve the overall consistency.

Sharon fruit compote with vanilla yoghurt

Serves 2

3 sharon fruit

1/2 an orange

1 tbsp honey

1 pot vanilla yoghurt ( I used an incredibly delicious one from Brown Cow Organics)

 Chop the Sharon fruit into small pieces and put in a saucepan with the juice of 1/2 an orange, the honey and a little water. Simmer for about 20 minutes, adding more water if necessary, until the compote is nice and thick and most of the fruit has disintegrated.

Behold the compote!

Allow the compote to cool down completely then layer in a wine glass (or any other vessel you fancy). Chill in the fridge until ready to serve. Breakfast done!

You got nommed.

Berry bircher muesli

Wakey wakey, rise and shine!

“A healthy breakfast that tastes decadent enough for a Sunday morning?” I hear you cry “And it actually tastes nice you say? What madness is this?!”

No madness friends, no madness...just the gorgeous oaty flavours of my berry bircher muesli.

Yeah, so you have to remember to soak the oats overnight, big deal. Other than that it is easy as pie. But infinitely better for the waistline, natch.

Berry bircher muesli

Serves 2

100g oats

100g Dorset Cereals Berries & Cherries muesli

Enough apple juice to cover the oats and muesli

Raspberries

½ a grated apple

Greek yogurt

Put your muesli and oats into a large bowl and pour in enough apple juice to cover. I used Copella’s cloudy apple juice for this as it tastes LUSH. Leave overnight to soak.

In the morning, mix your soggy oat/muesli mixture with smushed raspberries, the grated apple and some greek yogurt. Top with more (unsmushed) raspberries and retreat back to bed to eat.