Sunday Musings

Sunday

Sorry I did not post yesterday but I was busy in the kitchen for most of the afternoon cooking up a storm for our tea.  A proper Sunday Roast, a piece of Brisket, which had been found at the local shop reduced from £10 to £6.  The Brisket was cooked gently on a bed of  medium sliced onion, with white pepper, mixed herbs, added to the water.  The onion slices elevating the Brisket off the bottom of the pan allowing the meat juices to flow into a little water, to keep the joint moist; this forms the basis of the gravy for the whole dish.  The onion flavouring also goes into the jus!  I could not locate my pan lid yesterday so I covered it in foil. Do not want the meat drying out.  I tend to cook most of my Beef joints this way, but Brisket tends to do better at a slower lower temperature.  I initially popped the joint on to cook at Gas Mark 4.  I check every so often how things are doing and if there is a lot of moisture that has come off the meat, I drain this into a "gravy" jug for use later on.  I then pop the meat in for another half an hour without any foil on to brown the meat off a bit.  It is then left to stand on the side under foil until it comes to slice for serving.

I also prepared roast potatoes, roast onion and roast parsnip. I always "blanch" them for a few minutes before putting into a pan of hot fat to roast.  Any veggie juices go into the "gravy" jug. I made more than needed as can be used in other meals planned for this week i.e. a duplicate of tonight's tea for tomorrow.  In the end I made enough to cover two meals. I am also making a meal out of some of the pasties I made the other day, serving with fresh cooked shredded cabbage, carrots, and kale (the last of the veggies will be used plus any roasties left over).  Saves a ton of cooking and frees up a little time pocket for me.

I served finely shredded and steamed buttered cabbage, Broccoli, Carrots, and Kale with the meal.  Home made Yorkshire puddings were also made.

Mindful of the fact that it has been a few days since we had a pudding of any sort, I then set too and made a Homemade Rice pudding using up the remnants of some cream I had in the fridge instead of a little tin of evaporated milk.  I then added about an ounce of sugar. I used dried milk made up to a pint for this as I did not have enough fresh milk and it works well.  Grated fresh Nutmeg is then added to the top with a few little blobs of butter added on top to create the skin.

I then set too and made an Apple Crumble.  I have been craving one for a few days and I have "preserved" Canned/Bottled Apple Slices and Apple Sauce on the Pantry shelf. As I was using a large pudding dish, I used two pint jars of sliced apple and one jar of my Apple Sauce, straining off the syrup before decanting the apple into the pie dish and then mixing to amalgamate the different jars.  I did not add any additional sugar here as the apple had been preserved in a light sugar syrup.  The recipe called for 150g of sugar to be added to the crumble mix and also the zest of a lemon.  Unusually I did not have any lemons in, but I did have my Lemon Sugar that I popped up for Christmas. I am finding this so useful in baking.  I therefore used 100g of this sugar to add to the crumble mix.  We found last time that 150g was too much sugar for us.  It may be that 100g is still too sweet, but I can reduce this down again to suit our tastes if necessary. The crumble mix was quickly made up in the Stand Mixer. There is now another pudding for another day.  It is lovely to be able to make  up a pudding literally within 15 minutes.  All I have to do for this is to make up some custard.

I had also planned on making Coconut Tarts and individual Bakewell Tarts, as well as some Flapjacks, Scones, a Quiche, an Egg Custard and some Chocolate Muffins.  Unfortunately with doing everything else, I did not quite make this, but there is always tomorrow to do some cooking.

Update

Dinner went down very nicely.  I had been looking forward to this as it has been a few weeks since we had a proper roast dinner.  I was not disappointed the flavour was lovely.  

Brisket is a cheaper cut, but if cooked properly is such a lovely flavour.  It can if cooked on too high a temperature go rubbery and tends to do this after it has been cut.  However, what I do once the meat is cut into slices is to pop the meat into a tray and then add a load of gravy which keeps the meat nice and moist, especially important if the meat is going to be warmed up again.    Veggies are left to cool and then popped into a container and popped into the fridge as does any leftover gravy. 

When I have a freezer, I tend to buy a larger joint than what I really need (sometimes you get better prices and also the meat cooks that much better in my opinion) and then slice and cook the meat up either in slices in gravy, or as individual meals.  My Mum and I used to do this for my Nan as she did not like the OAP frozen meals.  She was more than happy though with homecooked meals from Mum and I.  Another way of showing family love.  I always did this as well so that we could have proper meals in a hurry i.e. still being able to eat properly for times when  you are in a hurry, or unwell or other issues arise.

Brisket is a cut that my Nan favoured and often used to put in an appearance at family lunches.  It is a cheaper cut but I think is well worth it.  We certainly liked the price of this particular piece.

Monday - well that's another day.

Catch you soon.

Pattypan

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