How to joint a rabbit

If you’re waiting for ‘a week of…’ post you’ll have to wait until tomorrow – sorry, just to many parties 🙂

Instead let’s have a tutorial.  Please note: not a vegan or vegetarian tutorial!

A few weeks ago I showed you that I bought a rabbit from the Farmer’s Market.  Don’t worry, it hasn’t been sat in my fridge all that time, I just haven’t gotten around to writing the post.  Plus I’m sort of afraid my sister will find out I cooked a rabbit.

She doesn’t read my blog though 🙂

Rabbit is a healthy meat – It has been said to be the healthiest meat known to man.  I wouldn’t necessarily say that, but it is low in fat and cholesterol, but high in protein and a very good source of vitamin B12.

I had been told that rabbit does better in a stew rather than roasting it, so I needed to joint it first.  I was a bit intimidated by it to be honest.  But I took a Sunday afternoon, and got to jointing it.

There are plenty of online tutorials, try this one from Jamie Oliver (because I have a bit of a crush on him.)

But it wasn’t easy to watch a video and work at the same time – you can’t really press pause when you have your hands in a rabbit (sorry).  So I read and watched a few online tutorials, and then got on with it.

jointing a rabbit

You can see how nervous I look!

Gram flour dumplings; vegan, gluten free

I’ve probably mentioned before that we have soup on Wednesdays.  This time I wanted something a bit different with my soup – I thought I would try dumplings!

Ben likes dumplings but invariably they are made with suet or a butter dough.  Add to that the refined white flour and..well, I’ve not had dumplings for myself for years.

I have in the past had disaster dumplings. There was one time at home with my Mum and brother when I made a lemon sauce for chicken, and the dumplings absorbed the flavour and ended up sour.  Another time – again with Mum and Josh – I made beautiful suet dumplings, they came out looking perfect.  BUT, when they tasted them they were awful!  I checked the packet on the suet – it was seriously out of date. That promptly went in the bin!

But when you get it right with light, fluffy dough flavoured with gravy on the bottom, slightly crisp and crunchy on the top – Mmmm, perfect.

I was making soup and intended to have a socca on the side.  But on the spur of the moment I added a couple of dessert spoonfuls of the mixture on the top of my soup. To give it a go try my usual go-to socca recipe: 50g gram flour, pinch of bicarbonate of soda, water (about 100ml I think) and seasoning/herbs of your choice. I placed the lid on the saucepan and simmered the soup for about 10-15 minutes just until they had set.

These are more dense than your typical suet or bread dumplings, but I was really impressed with how they turned out.  When I popped them out of the soup the bottoms were just what I wanted.  The gravy had stared to seep in and the veg was sticking to the bottom of the dumpling.

I made a mozzarella socca with the remaining mixture – just in case it didn’t work – but next time I might just make dumplings.

Tell me about a time when you were pleasantly surprised by an idea in a kitchen which worked. On the flip side, tell me a time when things REALLY didn’t go to plan 🙂

 

White Food

We are forever being told to avoid white food, but in my fitness magazine I saw an article discussing the benefits of white food.  Ok, ok, not your overprocessed, white bread, pasta and the like.  But I got on board with it.  In particular: parsnips, cauliflower and new potatoes.

Health and Fitness Magazine: November 2013

Bring on Two Soups (anyone else thinking Acorn Antiques – if you don’t know what I’m talking about YouTube it!)

Using up pumpkin: recipe roundup, vegan, gluten free

It’s October now so you might be considering buying and carving a pumpkin soon.  But what do you do with the leftover flesh?

For years when I was growing up it just went in the bin – I don’t ever remember cooking with it.

BUT, NO MORE!

Pumpkin is really good for you, as I outlined in my post on Marrow and Pumpkin Soup.

For a quick recap, here is the lowdown:

Healthy Food Guide October 2013

Or you could try carrot, pumpkin and coriander soup

carrot and coriander soup

But other than soup what can you make?

I had this uber-breakfast of pumpkin overnight oats and pumpkin eggs, with a dash of sriracha sauce

It kept me full for hours!

If overnight oats aren’t your thing, stir your pumpkin into your porridge.

Of course, there’s always the pumpkin smoothie if you like something lighter in the mornings

had to add a little flag

Or change up my marrow and pecan cake with pumpkin instead of marrow.

What’s your favourite way of using up pumpkin?

Carrot, pumpkin and coriander soup with vegan cheesy courgette; gluten free, vegan

I’ve seen lots of pumpkin posts coming up in my blog feed.  Particularly those bloggers from USA and Canada.  Living in the UK, pumpkin isn’t such a big thing, so I had no problem eating a pumpkin smoothie on the 4th July, and then again on my birthday 🙂

But now it’s starting to feel like autumn (but what’s with the heat???  Grey skies: check, drizzle; check 19C heat – what’s that all about, people were putting their heating on a couple of weeks ago)

Anyway, I was lulled into a false sense of autumn, so I made some soup.  I had some carrots, and some left over coriander, so I thought, perfect – carrot and coriander soup.

But, even better, I also had some pumpkin open (still on the tinned stuff I stocked up on when it was in on a special USA deal – what will I do when it is gone???)

I served my soup with nutritional yeast courgette crisps – which were great.  I wasn’t sure it would work, but I was pleasantly surprised.

The calories came out so low on this tasty soup, I was able to serve it with Breadshare bakery oatcakes that I got from Real Foods.  By the time I had finished, I was stuffed!  Healthy and satisfying – perfect!

carrot, pumpkin and coriander soup

For the purposes of a review – I really liked the oatcake.  It was flavoured with Irish Dulse.  I was impressed by the simple ingredients list: oatmeal, water, rapeseed oil, Seaveg seaweed (3%) and made with organic oats and rapeseed oil.  I would have just liked to know the nutritional information, as I had to find a comparable product in MyFitnessPal.  Because they are handmade, they vary in size, but I hope they will be able to get information for 100g for example.

The website states that the Irish dulse variety has a mild but distinctive taste – I would testify to that.  Ben didn’t like them, but as a lover of sea vegetables, I liked the taste, and the buttery crumbly texture.

Breadshare Bakery Oatcakes

Now to the soup:

Carrot, Pumpkin and Coriander Soup
Serves 1

• 100g carrots, peeled weight, chopped
• 100g canned pumpkin – use fresh if you have it
• 40g red onion – 1/2 small, 1/4 large, chopped
• 150ml unsweetened almond milk
• 10g fresh coriander
• 1 tsp coriander seeds

For the courgettes

• 80g courgette – or more if you want lots
• 10g nutritional yeast
• apple cider vinegar

1. I started by making the courgettes.  Preheat oven to 200C.  Sliced the courgettes into rounds about 1/4 cm thick.  You could use a mandoline to help you do this.
2. One at a time dip the courgettes first into the cider vinegar to make them wet, and then into the nutritional yeast to coat.  Place onto a baking tray, spaced out.  Repeat until all courgettes are coated.
3. Put in the oven for about 30 minutes until brown and crispy.
4. Meanwhile make the soup
5. Heat a non-stick frying pan over a medium hob.  Once it is warm add the coriander seeds. Toss them around for 1-2 minutes, or until they begin to look toasted and start to jump around in the frying pan.  Remove and crush in a pestle and mortar.
6. Add the onions to your pan, and allow to soften for 5-10 minutes.  Add a splash of water if they start to stick.
7. Add your chopped carrots and enough water to gently steam – about 1/2 on the bottom of the pan.
8. Once the carrots have softened, add the almond milk and pumpkin.  Stir back in the toasted coriander seeds.
9. Once everything is cooked blend the soup with a hand/stick blender – adding the fresh coriander at the end and giving it a good whizz.
10. Add stock if the soup is too thick for you.
11. Serve the soup topped with the courgette slices and with oatcakes.

What is your favourite winter soup?  I think Carrot and Coriander has got to be up there for me!

Marrow and Pumpkin Soup, gluten free, vegetarian, vegan option

I have been thinking of ways of using up my marrow that I bought from the Farmer’s market.  The first thing that jumped to mind was a stuffed marrow – but that is a lot of stuffed marrow for one Emily!

I found a recipe for a marrow cake, but had no one to help me eat it.

That left only one idea – soup!

It’s been getting a bit more autumnal here in the UK so a bit of soup was welcome!  You know what they say – “Red sky in the morning, shepherds warning”

sunrise

I’ve seen pumpkin recipes start to pop up on the blog-o-sphere so it seemed like the perfect combination.

I had an article on squashes/courgettes/marrows in my Healthy Food Guide.

Healthy Food Guide October 2013

Pumpkins are rich in carotenoids such as beta-carotene, beta-cyptoxanthin and alpha-carotene – basically vegetarian Vitamin A (sort of) which is good for maintaining a healthy immune system – perfect now the autumn sniffles are on the rise in the office.  They are also good for maintaining healthy skin and protecting against free radicals.

An interesting point raised in HFG is a research study that showed beta-carotene supplements increased the risk of lung cancer in smokers, but when packaged in real foods with other nutrients the same carotenoids protects health.

Nutritious and delicious, pumpkins and marrow are low in calories and fat but contain Vitamin A, C, E folate and potassium.

Marrow and Pumpkin Soup
Serves 1

• 100g marrow – skin removed
• 100g canned pumpkin (use fresh if it is in season)
• 40g red onion
• 60g haricot beans
• 10g nutritional yeast
• 20g babybel cheese (optional)
• garlic granules or fresh

1. Optional Step 1: grill the marrow and onion on a health food grill until soft.  If missing this step, soften in your pan.
2. Add all ingredients (except cheese) to a food processor – or blend in a pan with a stick/hand bender
3. Add water or stock to taste.
4. If using, serve with the cheese melted on top (optional)