Posie’s Place

I spent yesterday morning at a Guy Demarle presentation at a  friends house in France.  During the course of a couple of hours the woman demonstrating the products baked bread, made the most amazing chocolate cake, beautiful little almond shells in which she served a really tasty raspberry sorbet and then some little Goats cheese and tomato tartlets.

I was really blown away by the tartlets, they were really quick and simple to make and tasted wonderful.

I didn’t have the actual recipe but thought I’d give it a try today and I was delighted with the results!

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Since we’re all still in the hold of this Global recession everywhere you look there are recipes for using up leftovers and ideas and tips on how to get the most for your money.

A new show which has been very popular on the BBC recently is Economy Gastronomy. It features money saving ideas to allow families to cook tasty, healthy and nutritious food on a budget.

One of the main cornerstones of Econonmy Gastronomy is to have a bedrock recipe which you use as the basis to create multiple meals for the week.

Our bedrock recipe this week was a roast chicken  and in order to use up the leftover roast chicken Arruzo con Pollo was the next recipe in the chain.   The recipe said it serves 4 but it’s 4 huge portions so I would say it feeds 6.

Here’s the recipe, enjoy!  We certainly did.

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This is another rather unorthodox recipe from Sue Style and her great book Eat and Two Veg.  I must apologize to the purests among you but I’m no food snob and I like to experiment so I thought I would give this a try.. and what do you know, we loved it!!

See what you think..

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This recipe is based on one from Eat and Two Veg by Sue Style.  Sue is originally from England but has lived in Spain, France, Switzerland and Mexico and this is really reflected in the her cookery.  The  choice of ingredients and combinations are refreshingly innovative.

SPICY CHIPOTLE MUSHROOM AND COURGETTE BURRITOS WITH FRESH TOMATO SALSA (Serves 2) Continue Reading »

It’s grill season and so it’s time for me to dust off my favourite summer cookbook – The Great Big Burger Book!

For anyone who loves BBQ’s this is an essential piece of kit.

This recipe is based upon one from the Great Big Burger Book but it’s not exactly the same so I give you my version:

TEX-MEX CHEDDAR CHICKEN BURGES WITH CARAMELIZED ONIONS (makes 3 large burgers) Continue Reading »

I’ve never made Mince Pies before but this year I thought I would make some to give as a gift and to enjoy at home.  When I tried to get the right size cutters I drew a blank so they’re not as neat as I’d hoped they would be but I guess that just adds to the rustic homemade charm.

I looked at several different recipes and this is the one which I liked the sound of the best, it’s from Ainsley Harriot and I found it on the BBC food website.  It’s a little bit cheaty since it uses shop bought mincemeat, but I decided that conquering the shortcrust pastry was enough of a challenge for this year so maybe next time I’ll try making the mincemeat too!

According to Ainsley this makes 18 but I think my muffin tray must be much deeper than his as I only got 12.  I also refridgerated the pastry overnight in a zip lock bag and that may have contributed to my pastry cracking quite alot.  All in all though I thought it was a pretty sucessful first try.  Give them a try and see what you think.

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This Nigel Slater recipe came from his show called a Taste of My Life.

I’ve been looking for a more authentic recipe to try and since my son adores pasta I thought this would be ideal for a nice relaxing family meal.

I was right, clean plates all round!  It was delicious, rich and filling, perfect!

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This recipe comes from the New Covent Garden Soup Company’s  – Soup & Beyond book.  I can really recommend the Covent Garden cookbooks as I have a couple and so far all the recipes I’ve tried have always been delicious.  They saved my bacon on Christmas Day when I had a soup disaster and found I had all the ingredients for the Lentil and Bacon soup in the cupboard!!

Anyway, back to the risotto.  We were shopping at a local farm last weekend, at this time of year the local produce is amazing and they had some really great looking green and yellow courgettes so we bought a load and then weren’t sure what to make with them.  Mid week Stewart was looking through the cookbooks trying to find inspiration and the Covent Garden book fell open at this page and he decided to test it out. It was simply divine!  Really tasty!  Matthew loved it too as he had a little bit for lunch the next day!

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This is a really side dish which I came across a few weeks ago and we’ve had it as quite a few times since.  It’s really great with grilled chicken or anything off the barbeque.  The recipe appeared in a show called Food Poker and the chef was Lawrence Keogh.

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I really adore Spaghetti Carbonara and it’s one of Stewart’s favourite’s too!  We’ve been looking for a simple and authentic recipe for a while and this one ticked all the boxes.

This recipe comes courtesy of Nigella Lawson’s Feast.

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