Spicy stuffing with chorizo recipe

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 7 December 2010 in cooking, recipes | 0 comments

At the end of last week, we bought a chicken. We don’t eat that much chicken really and when we do, we tend to get on-offer pieces so I’ve probably only roasted whole chickens a dozen times or so and they’ve been ok, good even, but not great.

This time I decided it was going to be great. I decided I was going to try one of those “stuff a lemon up it” recipes but when it came to it, I didn’t actually have a lemon – and was too tired, post-dog icy walk, to go to the shop to get one.

So, I thought, what else can I STUFF in there instead? What do other people use to STUFF chickens? What sort of things do people use for STUFFING chickens? I think my brain was having a bit of a lazy Sunday afternoon because it took me ages to realise what I was asking.

There are loads of recipes out there for sage and onion stuffing – the good old failsafe – but as I said, I wanted it to be great so that wouldn’t cut it. As may not be a surprise to the observant, we were going for a spicy rub for the chicken and I wanted a stuffing to complement that. This is what I came up with.

Chorizo and chicken go really well together. There isn’t enough chorizo in it to overwhelm the meal but enough to give it a delicious, smokey taste. The pepper adds sweetness and the chilli, unsurprisingly, adds spicy heat.

John said it was the best stuffing he’d ever eaten. The chicken was pretty ace too – a longer marinading time would have added to the flavour but it tastes good and was wonderfully moist. Basically, WIN.

Frugal, cooking, growing and making link love

Posted by louisa on Friday 19 November 2010 in chickens, cooking, frugal, growing, meta, wood stuff | 2 comments

It’s super foggy here this morning so I need some ace inspiration to get going – and I thought you might need some too. Here are some of my favourite reads from the last few weeks…

• Ana White makes things that always excite me – demystifying woodwork and creating fab bits of furniture cheaply and easily. I think her old Knock Off Wood blog was the site that most inspired me to pick up a saw and screwdriver – and I just love her most recent side-table – and her “paint it bright” philosophy!
• One thing I was missing when I made my meal from just things I’d grown/caught/foraged was salt – now thanks to ManUpATree, I’m inspired to try making some myself – just got to find some clean enough sea water…
• Gillian of My Tiny Plot neatly summarised Which? Gardening’s heritage versus hybrid veg article – very useful info, thanks Gillian!
• Damn the Broccoli gave us some useful tips on staying warm but keeping the heating bills low…
• Compostwoman of The Compost Bin has been writing about… composting. Specifically, how she does it – and a very seasonal post on how to make leaf mould.
• And finally, Little House in the Suburbs recently ran a seven part series asking their community about lots of aspects of chicken keeping. I’ve contributed a number of times and loved reading what other people had to say – lots of very good advice and suggestions.

(For anyone who cares, the first is from the top of our garden, looking into the woods next door/at the bottom of the garden – and our chicken coop is in the bottom right; the second is the bandy trees at the bottom of our garden, just behind the chicken run; and the third is over our wood pile to the north, we can’t see our neighbour in that direction in the summer – or when it’s foggy!)

Spicy pickled eggs recipe

Posted by louisa on Thursday 18 November 2010 in cooking, preserving, recipes | 5 comments

Keen to preserve some of the summer glut of eggs and add to the super-spicy items in our store cupboard (we never have enough!), I’ve pickled a few lots of eggs over the last few months.

We finally cracked open the spicy batch earlier this week – yum! Between the tart vinegar and the spices, they’re really quite strongly flavoured – but good. We had them with bread & cheese, instead of a chutney, and they were perfect for adding a bit of bite to the proceedings.

(Apologies for the not great photo – the full jar looked ace but then we ate half of them!)

Have you made this? What did you think? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Quick Spicy Tomato & Lentil Soup recipe

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 9 November 2010 in cooking, recipes | 1 comment

Spicy tomato and lentil soup is a great, hearty soup, which can be made quickly & simply – and from cheap, store cupboard items. As a result, it’s one of my favourite emergency soups when we need something quick and warming – it only takes about 30mins from start to finish.

The observant may notice a pattern with the things I cook. What can I say, we love spice-inspired endorphins. ;) Again though, like with the spicy butternut squash soup from a few weeks ago, for us, this is more flavourful than highly spiced – easy to add more for head-exploding spiciness though.

Week off continues – baking and making, oh my

Posted by louisa on Thursday 28 October 2010 in cooking, making, meta | 2 comments

My week off is racing by and I’m trying to stay off my computer as much as possible because it’s like a black hole for my doing stuff energy…

Yesterday was less productive than Monday & Tuesday – a long-long-long-awaited trip to the hairdressers (which made me feel more detached from mainstream society than ever!) and then into Bradford city centre to go to the wonderful Texere Yarns & around the charity shops at Ivegate. I bought some band-less but otherwise perfect balls of tweedy yarn from their £1 bin – and started to turn it into a pair of slippers last night. I’m about three-quarters of my way through my first one at the moment – can’t wait until they’re finished as they already feel snuggy and warm!

Today I’ve mostly been playing with water and flour – I started making a papier mache chicken shaped moneybox this morning (hopefully will be dry enough for a second layer this evening) and this afternoon, I’ve been baking, including making Atomic Shrimp’s Honey-glazed Fennel Seed crackers. They’re currently resting before baking – another “can’t wait until they’re done”, they smell ace! I’ve had a lot of fun making them too – will definitely make them again and post my own recipe variations here soon.

Spicy butternut squash soup recipe

Posted by louisa on Wednesday 27 October 2010 in cooking, recipes | 2 comments

I made this spicy butternut squash soup for lunch for John, Strowger and me yesterday; Strowger liked it so much that he wanted the recipe so I thought I’d put it on here :)

For us spice fiends, it’s more flavourful rather than head-exploding spicetastic – if you’d prefer the latter, just add more dried chilli flakes. The flavour comes more from the cumin & ginger than from the chilli.

If you don’t have a blender or stick blender, using a potato masher to squash the … squash when it’s ready. The resulting soup won’t be quite as smooth but it should break down easily to give a chunky soup consistency.