Rosies tomato and mozzarella flan

Rosie's Chicken Stew and Dumplings.

Real poor man's fare, I'm sure you all know why the "upper crust" are called that, for those who don't most bread was made in a cottage loaf style, after baking the upper crust was pulled out including the soft middle, leaving a bowl shaped lower crust, possibly very thin, maybe a little burnt.


As part of my winter food recipes I wanted to do a typical peasant dish, Paul killed two old chickens and removed the breast and the legs, these went in my slow cooker with onions, potatoes, leeks and carrots, I added half a bottle of wine (but this is optional) then topped up with stock till everything was covered, then cooked for 12 hours, After cooking I pulled the legs out and the meat fell off the bone, I then transferred everything into a large saucepan, made my dumplings from flour, baking powder, dried mustard powder and enough water to bind it together and put them in the stew, I also added some tinned peas I had left over in the fridge, some thyme, garlic and seasoning, I simmered it all till the dumplings looked cooked.
I had just been to the bread shop to pick up a sack of stale bread from the bakers, as usual it wasn't stale but would be no use to the shop the following day, amongst all the usual breads was 2 cottage style loaves, I hollowed these out and used them as serving bowls.

Rosies recipe, Confit de Canard, out of a tin.

Confit de Canard

Have you seen these in the shop and wondered what to do with them?

Buy a tin and a selection of root veg and leeks.

Scrape the fat out of the tin into a saucepan, no need to use it all save some for your roast potatoes on Sunday.

Chop your vegetables into good size chunks and fry in the hot fat.


I like to take my duck off the bone, its up to you,
Add about half a litre of stock (or water and a chicken stock cube), enough to cover the veg. Bring to the boil, add the duck and simmer, takes about 1 hour, as soon as the veg is cooked its ready.

If you want to add dumplings now's the time.

Suet free dumplings, Mix flour (use a sachet of levure chimique, baking powder if not using self raising flour), salt, mustard powder (optional) and a little water, mix into a dough, in mine and Paul's opinion these are nicer than suet dumplings.
Add your dumplings, remember they will swell to 2 - 3 times the size so be careful. cook for a further 15 minutes.

Serve, this will feed about 6 people, a lot depends on how much veg you use, or in our house food for 3 days or maybe freeze some, I would suggest that you use up the dumplings and make fresh when you reheat the confit, they can go hard otherwise.

Rosies Bicuits

Biscuits

Ingredients

• 325g plain flour
• 200g chilled salted butter
• 125g caster sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla flavouring
• 2 large egg yolks

Mix the flour, butter and sugar together

Add the egg yolks and vanilla, bind everything together till its like a bread dough.

Roll it into a sausage shape, how large depends on what size biscuits you want to make.

Wrap in cling film and put it into the fridge to let the butter set and make slicing easier, slice into thin slices and place on foil or grease proof paper and bake at 200c, about 15 mins.

Alternatively slice a little thicker, make a well in the centre and add a dollop of jam.

Why not try these made with coconut, or chopped cherries.

Rosies Rabbit Stew

1 portioned rabbit
Root vegetables, roughly chopped.
4 med sized Potatoes
2 onions, (I used a couple of leeks instead as I was short of veg)
Chicken stock
Optional, Garlic and Chilli.

Roughly chop any root vegetables, keep potatoes separate, I've used Celiriac and carrots, but had I have had any to hand would have added swede and turnip. put them in a good size saucepan (not the potatoes) I also chopped some leeks as well, with a enough chicken stock to more than cover the veg and bring to the boil.

I've used leek in my recipe, but if I hadn't I would have sweated some onions in a pan, add some chopped garlic, and then the portioned rabbit and seal the meat very quickly. You can also add chilli now if you wish.

Put the rabbit in the pot with the vegetables and stock, bring back to the boil.

Simmer for an hour, then add the diced potatoes, simmer for another 45 minutes.
Thicken the sauce by mixing cornflour with a little water then slowly pouring into the stock till its the consistency you want.

Serve

Rosies croissant pudding.

For this recipe I have used croissants, but is just as good for bread or bread and butter pudding, the drier the bread the better it will absorb the custard, I only used sultanas but you can add any fruit you like, but dried fruits should be mixed in to stop then from going drier or even burnt.

The bag of stale bread I bought yesterday for the poultry, I broke the croissants up into small chunks. For the custard, mix together 5 eggs, 500ml milk, 30gms of sugar and a few drops of vanilla essence. Put the croissants into a pie dish, pour over the custard mix, squeeze the croissants and custard together so the croissants adsorb the the moisture, sprinkle with sultanas then leave for 10 - 15 minutes while you heat the oven to 200c, then bake, about 45 minutes till golden brown.

Rosies Apple Crumble Tart

Rolled pastry, (I buy ready made)
5-6 Apples (sliced),
Jam
Chopped Almonds

For the crumble;
Flour
Sugar
Butter
Just put the lot together and mix till you end up with a bread crumb like texture.

Line a flan dish with the pastry, put a thin coating of jam over the pastry, arrange your sliced apples, sprinkle the almonds on top and cover with the crumble mix.


Bake at 22c till the golden brown, about 25 minutes. Serve with Ice or Chantilly cream.