Rosies Courgette cake

150 g flour Self raising or use levure chimique
200 g bacon bits
100 g chopped Chorizo
400 g grated skinned courgette (Peeling them is up to you, but I did)
1 Carrot
1 sliced onion
3 eggs
2 tablespoons of oil
2 or 3 tablespoons of milk
100 g grated cheese (Cheddar, Gruyère or Emmental)

Grate all the vegetables

Fry the onions and meat, empty on to kitchen paper to soak up the fats.

Squeeze a lot of the water out of the veg, wrap in a tea towel and twist.

Put the flour in a large bowl with a pinch of salt and a pinch of pepper.

Make a well in the middle and put the oil and the eggs in. Mix slowly until you obtain a smooth mixture. Add the milk and mix again. Add the grated courgette and carrot  gradually while you keep on mixing. Finally add the meat and  the onion followed by the cheese.

Put in a greased loaf tin

Bake at 180c, for about an hour

Ideally serve warm not hot, but just as tasty cold.

Rosies Nettle Soup

Collect a good pile of nettles, take the younger top leaves.

Wash them well

Fry an onion in oil then add nettles, a few stalks aren't going to do any harm

Add chopped up potatoes ,and garlic cook till the leaves wilt, about 5 minutes.

Add about 600ml of milk and 300ml of stock*

Blend, adjust seasoning.

Serve

Rosies Stuffed Marrow

Cut into thick slices. Press out the seeds then use a knife to tidy the slice up

Stuff as you like, I used mashed potatoes and black pudding.

Preheat oven to 200c

drizzle with olive oil and wrap in foil, bake for 45 mins

Remove from oven, here I have added Gruyère cheese and smoked Ham,Leave foil open and bake for a further 15 mins

Serve

Stuffed Tomatoes and soup

Some large firm tomatoes.

Turn upside down and slice of the bottom.

Scoop out the insides, but leave the flesh intact.

I boiled up some rice in water with curry powder, then used sausage meat and chorizo, I fried the meat with a little curry powder, when cooked added the cooked rice and mixed it together will a little of the chopped tomato pulp, just enough to make it moist.

I then filled the tomatoes with the rice sausage mix, and put the "lids" back on.

I also stuffed a few tomatoes with mozzarella, basil and a little of the tomato pulp.

I put Olive oil and the tomatoes in a roasting dish and gave the tops of the tomatoes a spray of basil flavoured extra virgin olive oil. These went into the oven at 180c.

The rest of the pulp, some courgettes and a parsnip were used in a soup,then I followed my soup recipe HERE

Steamy picture.
After making the soup , blending it.

After blending you can add any rice left from the stuffed tomato recipe.

Checking my recipe

Check your tomatoes after 15 minutes and every five minutes, you want them cooked without collapsing, it will depend on how soft your tomatoes were before you started.

Serve with fresh bread and a rosé

Veroniques Galettes.

750 ml water
3 egg
3 grams sea salt
250 grams buckwheat flour (farine noir)
50 grams all purpose flour
50 grams melted butter or olive oil

Whisk 250 ml of the water with egg and salt to combine.
In a separate bowl, mix both flours together. Make a well in the centre. Gradually whisk in water mixture. When you have a smooth paste, whisk in remaining water to make a thin batter. (The consistency similar to 35% cream.) You may not use all 500 ml . Set aside at room temperature for 2 hours.
Stir melted butter or oil into batter when ready to cook galettes.

Filling.
Make a bechamel sauce and add the ingredients you want, bacon, boiled potatoes, sausage, or vegetables. Try a full English breakfast on/in a galette, or a Toulouse sausage with ketchup wrapped as Breton hot-dog.

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.