jackal10

I press the crushed ice button on the icemaker built into the refrigerator

I like my fools made with condesed milk...

Jam or jelly Fruit fool

Rattatouille with the onions, zuccuni and onions..to go with the sausage, and maybe some rice, or you can make hand-cut pasta. EEither roast the chicken and make soup with the carcass, or boil the chicken, and use the meat (more pasta, and cream sauce?) and use the stock another time. Smoothies with the bannana. Almost anything (pie, souffle, summer pudding, cobbler, etc) with the raspberries, or just eat them with the heavy cream...

Long cooked pork (or bacon) hock in a casserole would go well with the lentils, and cheap too. If you are constrained to be veggie then a roulade (spinach/tomato sauce or mushroom/goats cheese) might work.

I use the food processer (steel blade) normally for pastry. However recently I've been using the melted butter verion of the oil-based pie crust (recent thread here), which just needs a bowl and a spoon.

Not as rude as the late Squire Tickell of the Tickell Arms, outside Cambridge "No trainers, tee shirts, long haired lefties, no CND badges, no earrings on men, no waistcoats unless under jackets..." He was a delightful man mostcharming and courteous, played Wagner loudly, and served good ales and wine, and reasonable staightforward food.. A former famous rude publican was John Fothergill (1920s, landlord of the Spreadeagle at Thame - I have a signed copy of his cookery book, and also his book "An Innkeepers Diary". Avant-garde, he was painted by Augustus John, amongst others.

I'm sure you could use gooseberries, if you cooked them first. Might be a bit pippy though, which is why the traditional thing to do with goosberries is pie or even better gooseberry fool. I like mine made with condensed milk...

This was a large about 4pt size. I used about 2lbs of raspberries, 1lb or currants, 8oz sugar, a few stoned cherries, and a whole white loaf. It does mostly hold together when sliced, but not neat slices, The bread sort of merges into the fruit. If you want restaurant desert neatness make indiviual portions, but then the ratio of bread to fruit changes unless you use very thin bread. I tried to get pictures of it cut, but I only had my cellphone and they came out very blurry - too blurry to see anything.

Signs of climate change: Tea is now grown in England http://www.tregothnantea.com/tregothnan_tea_story.asp

Slightly stale bread adsorbs moe of the delicious fruit juices Pudding, as turned out Pudding, napped with the reserved coulis, as part of the bring a desert buffet (cell phone pix)

I used about the same volume of golden sugar as that of redcurrants, so roughly a third of the fruit. However the amount of sugar you need will vary depending how ripe the fruit. No substitute for tasting. You can use any fruit in season, of course. If you can't get red currants then just use raspberries. Strawberries don't work well, they tend to go slimy. Autumn pudding uses apples and blackberries, winter pudding dried fruits. Other variations are Dr Johnson's Pudding, which is rhubarb and custard filling, Het's Purple Mountain (blackcurrants, sponge cake, topped with whipped cream snow), and Wyvern (Colonel Kenney-Herbert writing in Culinary Jottings from Madras (1881) reccomends plantains with raspberries or manges and pineapple. I have a theory (written up in "Wilder Shores of Gastronomy", edited by the late Alan Davidson and published by Ten Speed Press ISBN: 1-58008-417-6 http://www.tenspeedpress.com/catalog/all/item.php3?id=1479) that its derived from the Charlotte style of puddings - for example apple charlotte is apple puree in a bread cofyn, then baked (butter the bread). Very good it is too. The earliest mention of Summer Pudding is around 1900, and before that it seems to be called Hydropathic or Malvern Puddding (Malvern being a hydropathic spa), for which there are published recipes going back to about 1840. Charlottes are older, Queen Charlotte was the wife of Queen George III in 1761, and fruit baked in bread cofyns go back to the earliest cookery.

Its Julyand in the fruit cage the raspberries and the redurrants are ripe and ready to pick: Yellow raspberries (Fallgold, not pruned); red raspberries (Glen Moy - early) and that means SUMMER PUDDING! Summer Pudding is one of the best and easiest English Puddings. I think Summer Pudding should be just raspberries and redcurrants, although I will allow a few black cherries since they add a certain stickiness to the juice. Only heathens add blackcurrants. Gently stew the fruit, about twice as many raspberries as redcurrants, and as much sugar as needed, until the juice runs, but a lot of the fruit is still whole. Meantime line a large pudding basin with thick cut white bread (a cofyn). About the only good use for the white spongey stuff supermarkets sell. You will need a whole loaf. The glory of the pudding is the juice soaked into the bread Pour in most of the fruit mixture, and encourage it toi soak into the bread. Doesn't matter of there still white spots - we will pour coulis made from the remains of the fruit over it before serving. The rest of the recdurrants will turn into redcurrant and port jelly, later. Put a bread lid on it, press down then put it in the fridge overnight to set, under some weights. A bowl to catch the overflow saves mess and waste Tomorrow I'll turn it out, pour the reserved coulis made by whizzing and sieving the remaining fruit, decorate and serve with heavy cream or icecream...

Bavarian Leberkase (No liver or cheese; Atkins friendly) 600g Pork mince (or shoulder) 200g Bacon 2 onions 2tsp salt 1/2 tsp saltpetre/Cure #1 (optional) 1/2 tsp white pepper 1 tsp dried Marjoram 1/2 tsp Nutmeg 1/2 tsp clove 2 cloves garlic (or more) 2 eggs Grind together everything except the eggs, then add the eggs. The original recipe said put it though the fine plate of the mincer twice, then emuslify in a food processer in small batches Put a a greased loaf tin and steam for 90 minutes, then bake for 15 in ahot oven to brown the top Not as successful as I would have liked. Anyone have a genuine recipe? You find good Leberkase all over Germany, and especially in Munich, where its a standard cheap lunch item. Anyone know how its made?? I think less cloves next time - my hand slipped a bit. Its not as pink as the originals I remember, which were ham coloured - maybe more saltpetre. However the main problem is the texture which is still not fine enough, despite food processing for 10 mins. The original is more like a continuous slightly spongy texture, rather than very fine mince. I didn't mince it, just used the food processor, and maybe it does need to mince it first. Maybe also I should have used pork shoulder rather than pork mince. Also it contracted rather than exanded during steaming. Maybe not hot enough.

Can get up to around 8%. If you make applejack (freeze and drain off the alcohol) can get up to 25% or so. Very easy, just ferment fresh apple juice. No need to add yeast. Just leave the juice in a barrel fitted with a fermentation lock in the shed for a few months. May need to add some sugar initially to bring the hydrometer reading up to 1.050, and stop the fermentation early by filtering or adding campden tablets if you like a sweeted cider. Many resources on the web, such as http://homepage.ntlworld.com/scrumpy/cider/ However the difficulty is getting proper cider apples. They have wonderful names like Dabinette or Kingston black, and are divided into Bittersweet, Sharp and Sweet. The high level of tannins make them not cery nice to eat, but wonderful for cider. Cider made from ordinary eating or cooking apples tends to be insipid.

Then there is Newts St George Another confusion is "a wee dram of whisky" Dram means a small whisky..

I made my standard wholewheat sourdough with added walnut pieces and some walnut oil. In Bakers Percentages (by weight relative to the total flour) Starter Flour 15% Water 15% Sourdough mother yeast 3% Ferment at 85F for 4 hours Dough All the starter 33% Wholewheat flour 60% Rye flour 12.5% Spelt flour 12.5% Water 70% Walnut pieces 30% Salt 2% Walnut oil 1%

Not much you can do besides jam or jelly; they don't freeze or can well. Not even that good preserved in alcohol like a rumtopf Dry in a dessicator or very low oven is one way; fruit leather another along the same lines

I'm concerned about all that fried and sweet food, though none of you are obese. How do you do it?

No one has yet made Leberkase, the Bavarian meatloaf, that incidently does not containe either liver or cheese. I think its the nicest form of meatloaf, with a unique texture. Might make some in the nextg few days, if anyone wants.

Alas its nearly the end of the Asparagus season here as well. Fabien (fabienpe) served for lunch last Sunday a fabulous dish of asparagus (properly peeled), with morels, demi glace and sauce mousseline. Elegant, seasonal and divine. We drank a Gewurz (Trimbach 2000 I think) with it. (Talking of divine, Sauce Divine - Mousseline with sherry - would also work)

In the US coffee tends to be made much weaker than in Europe. Coffee varieties may also be different. Currently I'm drinking an Java/Mysore mix. 3 Tbs to a medium size french press. Main difference I've found is in the milk. European milk (especially UK) is different to US: different fat content, different grazing, diiferent pastaurisation.

None;any herb will overpower the asparagus. Just a little lemon will do nicely. Puree some aparagus if you need it green,

Let me plug Dan Lepard's latest book "The Handmade Loaf" ISBN 1-84000-966-7. The recipes are interesting (e.g. Cucumber pickle juice rye loaf), well researched, with excellent pictures of technique, but also I feature on page 160...

Sauce Nantua or Sauce Mousseline http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=27189