Savoury rice

This goes very well with sausages or pork tenderloin. It is a good supper party dish, has a bit of bite and always goes down well. The example below feeds four.

Pour a good slug of olive oil into a medium saucepan, put on a medium heat. Skin and chop an onion. Crush and skin a couple of cloves of garlic. Put into the saucepan and stir until the onions go translucent. It doesn’t matter if the onions brown, they will add a certain sweetness to the final dish. Once the onions are soft, translucent and a little browned turn the heat down to medium and add a tin of chopped tomatoes. Rinse the tin and pour the extra bits into the pan. Now add a teaspoonful of oregano, salt and pepper, tomato puree (a good squeeze) and a generous tablespoon of medium curry powder.

Mix the ingredients together and simmer gently. Then add a large tablespoon of home made chutney (branded pickle doesn’t do the same thing), or more to suit your taste buds. Let the mixture simmer away while you cook the rice.

Bring a large saucepan about one third full of salted water to boil. Then add four cupfuls of rice, ideally basmati, and bring to the boil. Simmer for around 7 1/2 minutes. Drain. Get rid of the excess starch by rinsing the rice in your colander with cold water. The rice won’t be entirely cooked, this doesn’t matter as it will be cooking further with the tomato sauce in a minute.

Add the part cooked rice to an oven proof dish then mix in the tomato sauce, grate a liberal amount of cheddar cheese over the top, then mix that into the rice. Grate over more cheddar so you get a crunchy crust.

Bung it in the oven at 180C for around 30 – 40 minutes. Serve when it bubbles and the crust is crunchy. Pork tenderloin, bashed and fried and a fresh green salad go so well with this rice.

Chutney

Lorna makes the best, from the simplest recipe in Constance Spry, lauded by Audley (acupuncturist).

Am fed up with all the plastic packaging that comes with our food at supermarkets etc, not just cellophane, but all the trays etc. Surely we can minimise this.

Just had cheesy potatoes for lunch, with ham and cold lamb (and aforementioned chutney). Put a large potato, scrubbed and pricked in the oven at 200 - 220c for up to an hour (no fan, 45 mins with fan). When done take out of oven and carefully slice the tops off the long face of the potato. Scoop the potato in a bowl and add lots of grated cheddar and parmesan, butter, milk and salt and pepper. Mix with a fork until fluffy and smooth, then fill the potato cases you have put to one side. Grate more cheese over the top and return to the oven for 10 - 15 mins until golden brown on the top.

Onions

Useful links about onions:
http://www.onions.org.uk/
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/content/knowhow/glossary/onion/

France, October, 2009

As October drew to a close the weather was sensational, beautiful light, warm, sunny. Heaven on earth. These are some of the images that try to capture these last few days of Autumn. They are taken in Northern France in and around Saulchoy, Quend, Fort Mahon and Argoules.