Saturday Night Comfort Food -Toad in the Hole

 ...the first of the autumn style meals to hit here.  More about that in a moment though.  

The past week has involved a couple of medical appointments,.  I have one further one to arrange (my eyes need to be tested again) and then hopefully that will be everything done and dusted.  I have also managed to sort out the front garden out to make sure it is all nice and tidy again. G does the cutting of the bushes down - I get to do all the sorting out and tidying.  The hedges have had necessary haircuts and the remnants of G cutting an Elder plant down which was dealt with a couple of weeks ago and (which he had conveniently left on the gravel and which had shrivelled up) has now been removed from said gravel.  It was a bit of a mess and took some time to painstakingly remove, along with prickly Holly leaves which were also hidden in the gravel.  I have also this week for the first time since just before the first real hot spell, have been waking up with a bad back, and my joints tight, hurting and complaining.  I have on the positive side as a result of the hot weather had a good summer, although I do not do the heat well.  It has kind of been liberating not to be like the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz all stiff and creaking.  We are now slowly sliding into the "er" months and the darker nights.  That in itself gets me a little down.

In an effort to cheer myself up, I decided that a comfort meal was in order, one in its simplest form. Just good ingredients and hardly any accompaniments.

I started off by preparing some fried onions in a pan until golden brown, and then added in stock, herbs and a little water.  I then left that on the side to cool down and allow the flavour of the onions to macerate and give the gravy a bit better flavour.  The rest of the gravy will then be made after the potatoes have been cooked.

I then set too and started off the Yorkshire Pudding mix, using two eggs, a quantity of flour and some milk and then using a whisk beat them altogether.  I then let the mix stand for about 20 minutes until the mixture had thickened up and then I beat again with the whisk, putting to one side once again.  I then  used some of the Pork dripping I had made from last week's roast pork dinner, dragged out the base of my oval roaster, put the oven on high (Gas Mark 6), added the Pork dripping to the roasting pan and let it melt.  I then prepped up some good sausages and once the fat had melted added them to the roasting pan together with some chopped raw onion.  These were then cooked until the sausages had gone brown on the top.  My attention then turned to the Yorkshire Pudding mix.  Before adding the Yorkshire Pudding mix to the pan, I turned the sausages over with the uncooked side now being on top.   I ran the whisk through the batter again adding in some more mixed dried herbs and then added a little vinegar to the mix and then got it straight into the very hot roasting pan and then popped the pan into the hot oven again. Once the Yorkshire Pudding has risen and the tops of the sausages are nicely browned this will then be ready for serving.

My attention then turned to the potatoes, which were prepared by peeling, adding to a little salted water and then boiling until the potatoes are soft.  I then drain off the vegetable water and put to one side to use in the gravy.    Once this point is reached the potatoes are then mashed and a little butter, salt and milk are then added to the potatoes.  They are then put to one side to keep warm whilst the rest of the meal is completed.

Turning back to the gravy mixture, I then add in some of the potato vegetable water and make sure it is well mixed in with the base ingredients.  I then to check to see if the gravy is thick enough and if not add in some slaked cornflour until the mixture is cooked and the gravy as thick as is needed.

Once everything is prepared and ready, I then plate up.  Good old fashioned comfort food, Toad in the Hole served with a pile of mashed potatoes and onion gravy is one of the best comfort foods going and certainly went down very well tonight.  

We tend to have a lot of veggies here, but in their simplest form meals from my childhood probably amounted to two veg to accompany potatoes on a plate for our evening meal.  We tend to have a choice of more on the veg front as I cannot always make my mind up as to which veg I want and we do love our veggies in any event.  They are very important.  I do eke my vegetables out quite a lot though and get at least two three meals out any one purchase.  I do tend to keep most of the veggies in the fridge (not swede or pumpkin) but everything else.

For tomorrow night's tea or Sunday dinner (ours happens in the evening), I have dragged out one of the boxes of Roast Beef in gravy that I had popped up.  Will then add some veggies in including some roast potatoes and that will be a relatively quick meal for tomorrow night with me only having to see to the veggies.

There are also a couple of foodie things I have to do tomorrow and I also want to prep up some Leek and Potato soup and some French Onion soup for having during the week.  I am one for a lot of homemade soups.  Soup for me is very much a meal in a bowl.  It can also be made with the remnants left over from a Sunday dinner as well.  My Nan used to do this quite regularly and that soup was so good.

G is fishing on Sunday and I hope to make use of the time to get some more preserving done.  If I do not manage it on Sunday will definitely get done on Monday.

Hope everyone has a lovely weekend.

Catch you soon.

Pattypan

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