[Making Cheese]

Have you tried making yogurt? It's super easy and you can eat it as is, strain it for a couple of hours to create a thick, 'Greek style' yogurt, or strain it over night to make a simple but very yummy fresh/curd/cream cheese which is great eaten sweet or savoury.

My favourite ways to use it are, savoury: mix with a little salt and olive oil, drizzle a little more olive oil over the top, and then just dip into it with fresh crusty bread (this is really moreish ).

Or, for a sweet take on it, simply spread as is on bread/toast/bagels etc with jam or honey - since it is simply super-strained yogurt, it retains the ever-so-slightly sour tang of yogurt, which makes it perfect with sweet stuff, and a great thing to have on the breakfast/brunch table. As a kid, this was one of my favourite breakfasts, and it still is.

Oh, and you can use up the whey that results from all that straining in bread/bagels etc. Yum!

pigeonpie

[USP Mineral Oil for chopping boards]

The simple fact is, olive oil does not have an indefinite shelf life, after a while (approx 18 months in ideal storage circumstances (dark and cool), considerably less in typical kitchen surroundings) it will start to deteriorate, with both the colour and flavour being affected adversely

If you want to put something on an item which has as close a contact with your food as a chopping board does, that you know for a fact is going to sooner or later impair the taste and quality of food placed on that board, then go ahead, I wouldn't dream of stopping you.

If you've been doing it for 5 years and still haven't noticed a problem, then carry on, your palate is obviously too far gone to worry about.

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Sure, olive oil has a shelf life that is much shorter than that of my chopping board, but the surface of my chopping board gets cleaned rather more frequently than ever 18 months, every time I use it, in fact, which means daily as a minimum. Which means, I find, that I have to re-oil it lightly perhaps every couple of months to replace the surface-level oil that has been removed by repeated washing.

So, whilst quite possibly the oil that has made it deep within the fibres of the wood could theoretically have gone rancid (though without much/any contact with air, I find it hard to see how) the stuff on the surface which actually comes into contact with my food never hangs around long enough to get rancid.

[USP Mineral Oil for chopping boards]

I've always just used olive oil too - and never any problems with boards going rancid. People have been using the stuff on chopping boards, wooden pestle and mortars, etc in the Middle East for just about as long as they've had olives, so I've always figured if it ain't broke ...

[10 Organic Lemons]

Okay, recipe for lemon mousse:

3 eggs

juice and zest of two lemons (80ml of juice)

200g sugar

1 sachet of gelatine

500ml double / whipping cream

vanilla essence

Separate the eggs and whisk up the yolks with the sugar until they go all fluffy and pale.

Dissolve the gelatine in about 2 tablespoons of warm water, let it cool slightly, and add the lemon juice to dilute the gelatine further. Whisk this in with the sugar/egg yolks mixture, along with the lemon zest and a few drops of vanilla essence.

Whisk the cream separately, then fold that into the mixture. Finally, whisk up the eggwhites until they're stiff and fold them in.

You then need to let it chill in the fridge for a few hours so that it 'sets'. After that, all you need to do is eat it!

[10 Organic Lemons]

How about lemon mousse? It's super easy to make and tastes fantastic - kind of rich, light, sweet, tart, creamy, and ever so ever so lemony, all at the same time. I have a recipe culled from a newspaper column somewhere - I seem to remember that the woman whose recipe it was made it each day to sell in her shop, and sold so many she bought a holiday home in Italy on the proceeds. Now that's a pretty cool thing to do with a few lemons ...

Shout if you want the recipe.

[Venison]

I had some chunks of venison which made a great pie the other day - I thought of doing pasties first, but went with the pie option cos it was quicker, but the principle is the same. And root vegetables definitely work well - I threw in chunks of swede and the combination of flavours and textures were great. I used crushed juniper and thyme, along with a splash or three of red wine, a spoonful of mustard and lots of freshly ground pepper to help the gravy along, and a good chunk of butter to make up for the lack of fat.  Served with some quick-steamed cabbage with apple and nutmeg. Yum! It was really good!

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I'm not a real big venison eater, but that sounds like damn fine fare to me!

SB (but, what do we call "swede" here in the Colonies?)

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Ha ha, we all think we speak the same lingo - I searched about and it turns out that what I (in the UK) call 'swede' is what you guys call rutabaga. And I'd always vaguely wondered what rutabaga is. Now I know. Goes very well with venison though, whatever you call it

[Venison]

I've got more venison steaks than I know what to do with (from the pro butchered one), and I'm thinkint stir fry.

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Venison Pasty?

You might combine the venison with pork, or at least add some pork fat, but I think the flavor would go well with pasty's root vegtables.

SB (and a real lard crust)

PS: You could make little dough antlers for decoration!

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I had some chunks of venison which made a great pie the other day - I thought of doing pasties first, but went with the pie option cos it was quicker, but the principle is the same. And root vegetables definitely work well - I threw in chunks of swede and the combination of flavours and textures were great. I used crushed juniper and thyme, along with a splash or three of red wine, a spoonful of mustard and lots of freshly ground pepper to help the gravy along, and a good chunk of butter to make up for the lack of fat. Served with some quick-steamed cabbage with apple and nutmeg. Yum! It was really good!