In My Kitchen – August 2015

I have been busy restocking my freezer and cupboards over the last few weeks, as I relied heavily on them during a recent illness. So In My Kitchen this month is much homemade chicken stock. I freeze this in one litre containers for soups and risottos, and in smaller sized containers for adding to sauces and stews.

Whilst ferreting around in the freezer, I uncovered a frozen container of lime juice.  As we had an overabundance of eggs, it appeared time to make lime curd. I did also make a batch of barley pancakes to eat with the curd, but they barely made it out of the frypan before they were scoffed, so there are no photos of these.

The Princess has been moaning that there is nothing for her to put in her sandwiches for lunch.  There is now a new batch of chunky spinach and basil dip in the fridge, although I don’t hold out great hope that this will allay the moaning.  I spread a thick layer of dip and tucked some cheese into a toasted sandwich for my own lunch recently.  It was delicious, so I shall be repeating that experiment.

My peak preserving time in the kitchen is normally summer.  However as I become more interested in fermenting, I find I am busy all year round preserving seasonal produce.  Winter is the ideal time to prepare ferments, as the cooler weather slows down the fermentation process, leading to crunchier and more flavourful pickles.  In My Kitchen this month I have the first small batch of radish kimchi, made from our own homegrown radishes.  I love this kimchi with sushi.

The lemon tree is loaded at the moment, and for some reason it has many small lemons that happen to be the perfect size for preserving.  I have made one large jar of preserved lemons, which are also a fermented product.  I now need to convince Mr Grumpy to harvest the lemons out of my reach so I can make more.  Preserved lemons pair well with chicken and lamb, and are a key ingredient in my Slow Cooker Moroccan Chicken Tagine so I like to have a lot on hand.

Over one weekend in early July, a small group of us made 55kg of Italian sausages at my parent’s farm.  I did keep a small amount of the fresh sausage meat for pasta sauce, but most of my share of the sausages have been hanging in dad’s shed to dry.  They are almost done, and In My Kitchen are two testers.  I really like these dry sausages on pizza, or grilled then squeezed with lemon, so I look forward to them being ready.

That is about it for my kitchen this month. Short & sweet. Don’t forget to head over to Celia’s at Fig Jam and Lime Cordial to see what is happening in other kitchens around the world.