Having prepared two fairly large roast dinners over Christmas, I found myself with a fair amount of leftover cooked vegetables. Recipes like this are a doddle, and a great way of using up some of that excess!

 

I had leftover roast potatoes, leftover cooked carrots, cooked Brussels Sprouts, cooked swede/rutabaga and cooked sweet potatoes. I also had a few leftover rolls and some Yorkshire puddings, plus a variety of meat.  We had ham on one day and beef on the next.

 

One of the great things about meals like this is that you can tailor them to however many people you are wanting to feed.

 

I plan on 1 small onion, peeled and chopped, one small Yorkshire pudding or 1/2 dinner roll and 1 cup of vegetables per person. 

 

I melt a knob of butter in a heavy skillet.  A knob of butter is butter about the size of a whole walnut, or a heaped TBS.  

Once that is melted and is foaming hot, I drop in the chopped onion and the dinner roll which I have cubed.  I just stir them around until the bread starts to crisp up and the onion is beginning to soften.

 

That's when I throw in the rest of the vegetables that I have prepared.  I will cut the potato (s) into cubes, along with the parsnips, the carrots can be left the size they were when you cooked them, or if very large, also cubed. 

 

I quartered the sprouts . . . mmmm . . .  sprouts fried in butter, you can't go wrong! 

 

A smattering of seasoning to taste . .  . take it easy on the salt, and add as much pepper as you like.  We like pepper, so probably use a fair bit of that.

 

I also like to add some herbs.  Dried thyme, marjoram . . .  sage, rosemary . . .  they are all favourites, and go very well in things like this.  You don't need a lot, just a touch . . . 

 

You just cook and stir it all in the pan with the butter, onion and bread . . .  until the veg starts to gild a bit  . . .  crisp in spots here and there . . . 

 

You want it well heated through  . . .  but you don't want it over-cooked. I like to maintain a bit of the crispy crunch of the sprouts and carrots  . . .  it is a matter of taste I suppose! 

  

I had leftover ham, which I just sliced and cooked in a bit of butter on the side . . .  until golden edged.  I also had some mashed swede that I heated up.  Altogether this was deliciously satisfying! 

 

I think meals made with leftovers are my favourite kinds of meals.  I am the Queen of using up leftovers!  I took these photos with my new camera. Its a Canon. My very first Canon. The jury is still out at the moment on this.  Bon Appetit! 

 

I like to pull the stops out a bit at the weekend and bake a treat for my husband.  To be honest, I don't bake much during the week because it gets in my mouth too easily and I need to really watch it.  

My husband shouldn't be punished for my transgressions however, so at the weekend, I always like to do something special for him. 

 

He really loves the Bakewell Tarts you can buy in the shop.  Small short crust pastry tarts filled with jam and an almond sponge and then topped with a sicky sweet icing and half  of a glace cherry. 

 

They really are sweet however  . . .  and nothing tastes better than homemade anything, so this week I decided to bake him some Bakewell Slices, which closely resemble the tart but I think are a lot nicer. 

  

Bakewell is a town in the Peak District here in the UK.  

It is located on the River Rye and is quite well known for its traditional and original Bakewell pudding, which boasts a pastry base topped with jam and an almond custard. 

 

And then there is the Bakewell Tart, which is similar.  The pudding uses Puff Pastry and the tart . . .  short crust pastry.  

The pudding has a custard topping and the tart . . .  an almond cake topping.

  

Both are equally as delicious.  My recipe today favours the tart in that it has an almond cake topping

 

The pastry is a very simple short crust pastry.  You will want enough to fill a 12 by 9 inch traybake tin. 

I roll it out fairly thin and bring it 1/2 inch up the sides. (I hate it when jam touches the sides of a tin and sticks.  It is much easier to remove the finished bake if jam hasn't baked onto the tin.) 

This is the tin I use.  It has a bottom which slides out, which makes it really easy to remove the cake. 

   

You spread the jam over top of the pastry base.  You want to be somewhat generous with it, in that you want the jam not to be lost in everything else.  

The base is not sweet in the least and so a nice layer of jam is a must.

 

I use raspberry jam, but some people prefer strawberry jam.  Both are equally as delicious.

 

A simple almond sponge batter is spooned over top of the jam.  It can be a bit fiddly to spread this batter out.

 

What works for me is to dollop the cake batter over top of the jam in small dollops all over.  Then I just spread it out with the back of a spoon.

I  then use a fingertip to make sure it gets right to the edge of the pastry. 

 

The top is covered with a nice layer of flaked almonds.  They toast while the cake is baking to a lovely golden brown.  

Yum . . .  I do so love toasted almonds.

  

To finish them off I have drizzled a thick almond drizzle over top. Not as sicky sweet as the tarts that you buy, but just perfect.  

It dresses them up nicely and adds just a hint of sweet on an already perfect slice.   You can of course leave this off entirely! 

 

These really are nice and go down wonderfully with a nice hot cuppa. 

I can't think of a better way to enjoy a break on a weekend afternoon, than a hot drink and one of these as I sit at the table  with paper and pencil, looking out at the garden and pondering my plans for it in the coming months.

 

Sausage wasn't something I enjoyed very much when I was growing up. I am not sure why.  I never really began to enjoy them at all until I was a grown woman and cooking my own.  I liked them almost burnt on the outside with catsup for dipping. My father enjoyed them dipped in mayonnaise.  As a child growing up in Canada, in my experience at least, there was only one kind of sausage.  Ordinary breakfast sausage, long thin cylinders of meat, stuffed into skins, fatty and flavoured with nutmeg and poultry seasoning. That was it. Growing up in the 50's /60's and early 70's in small communities meant that we were not exposed to outside flavours or choices.  We had what we had, and that was that.

It was not until I was an adult that I experienced another kind of sausage. My sister-in-law who lived in Toronto had studied at the Cordon Bleu and was considered to be an expert in cooking.  We spent the weekend at hers once, and she cooked sausages for us for breakfast.  These were not the sausages of my childhood, they were plump and fat and had a fabulous flavour.  She simmered them slowly in lemon water first and then browned them off in a skillet.  That is when I learnt to love sausage, and in the intervening years have come to enjoy all sorts and varieties.  What she served us that weekend were British Butchers Sausages and they were quite simply gorgeous in my opinion.

One of the most exciting foods I was introduced to moving over here to the UK was the great British Sausage, or Bangers as they are also lovingly called, and let me tell you, they have about as many different kinds as they do areas and counties here, a whole cornucopia of wonderful flavours, some of them quite spectacular. I have my favourites. 

 

The word "sausage" comes from the Latin, "salsicius", prepared by salting, which in turn comes from Salsus, meaning "salted."Sausages have been produced, eaten and enjoyed in Great Britain since Roman times. The Anglo-Saxons developed their own varieties and the Normans brought French ideas into the mix, including pure pork sausages, black puddings (made with blood) and the andouille, an entrail sausage known in England as chitterlings. 

You will find sausages in just about every country in the world, each with their own spin on this meat, fresh, dried and everything in between. What is it that makes British sausage stand out from the rest?  What is it about British sausage that makes it so great?  

For one we have such a wide variety to choose from . . .  Yorkshire, Oxford  . . . Cambridge, Cumberland . . .  Country Pork, and those are just the basics.  We stuff them with leeks and cheeses, spring onions, caramelised onions, mustard, honey, etc.  We enjoy them for breakfast and we enjoy them for lunch.  We love them for teatime, or high tea, and dinner.  We eat them in baguettes and rolled up in puff pastry.  Here in the UK, we just love our sausages, full stop!

In days of old they would have been dried and salted, perhaps even smoked, for preservation. These days for the most part however,  with the modern wonders of refrigeration, we tend to enjoy them fresh.  You can find them in other countries, but I have heard again and again how much people miss British Sausages where they live and how they can't find them, so first up I am going to give you a recipe which you can use to make your own homemade Basic British Pork Sausages 

Note - you can replace the shoulder and cheeks with 2 1/2 pounds of pork belly, reducing the amount of pork fat by about 1/3 of a pound.  

My absolute favourite of all the sausages has to be Cumberland sausage.  It is said to be the meatiest of all the sausages and has a very distinctive peppery flavour that I really enjoy. At one time they used to be made from a special breed of pig, which unfortunately died out back in the late 50's/early 60's. 

One of the most recognisable features of Cumberland sausage is that it is not twisted into links, but rather long length are shaped and rolled into a "Catherine Wheel" shape.  Some of them can be quite long and in Cumbria you actually buy the by the length rather than the weight.  We have had some really delicious ones when we have been staying up in Cumbria, that I have never been able to find anywhere else.  Traditionally they are flavoured with a mix of cayenne pepper, white pepper, ground nutmeg and salt, a combination which I find extremely delicious. Its nice and peppery.  If you want to have a try at making your own (and I hope that you do), it is best for you to just pipe the meat into two or three long sausages and then coil them into Cumberlands when done. You can then pan fry, grill or roast them as desired.  

TOAD IN THE HOLE - a British Comfort-food Favourite

A delightful and tasty comfort-food-recipe I discovered shortly after I arrived here was a lovely dish called Toad in the Hole. I had often heard about this British delicacy but had never had any idea of what it was let alone ever had the chance to try it. I soon learnt that it had nothing to do with holes, dirt, or even toads for that matter!

 

Sausage with Autumn Mash. 

 

Orchard Pan Roast with Sausages. 

 

Sage Roasted Bangers with Mash and Onion Gravy.  

 

Sticky Bangers with Chive & Buttermilk Mash. 

 

Sticky Sausage Tray Bake.

 

Dublin Coddle. 

 

Herby Sausages with Parsnip Mash and Stir Fried Cabbage. 

 

Cider and Honey Braised Sausages.  

 

Sticky Maple Bangers with Irish Champ.  

And there you have it, all I know about sausages.  How to make your own British Sausages, and a few ideas on how to cook them once you have them made!

Up Tomorrow:  Crispy Herbed Potato Rosettes.