Saturday Dreams of Sunday – Day 4 NaBloPoMo 2017

04 Nov 2017 Leave a comment

by Debra Manskey in Biography, Cooking, Urban Farming Tags: , , , , , ,

Self care takes many forms and Sundays in spring are pretty wonderful things. The one I’m writing about turned out to be pretty exceptional.

A few weeks ago, when Daylight Saving had just started and I’d had some fairly intense bouts of hay fever, I still felt quite discombobulated by the whole affair and my sleep cycle was utterly out of sync. With the added pressure of work and study, I felt I’d been neglecting two important things that matter to me – being fully engaged in getting the yard prepared for summer crops and making interesting food with top quality local ingredients (those I’ve grown myself or can clearly identify where they’ve come from).

So, after wandering around the yard trying to focus on pulling weeds and preparing beds, I decided to make that night’s Sunday roast a memorable one. It wasn’t a particularly special occasion, no birthday or anniversary of anything but in my household I like to think every day is a day to celebrate good food.

Around the corner from my workplace is Ziggy’s, the smallgoods manufacturer, which I’ve written about before. I was lucky enough to pick up a couple of small local free range chickens a few weeks ago when I was buying sausage and liverwurst. They disappeared into the freezer for a day just like today. Also in there were chestnuts from my yard, cooked, shelled and frozen in small batches back in late autumn. And finally, there was part of a gloriously unctuous, earthy truffle I bought from Perigord Truffles in winter. The last piece was lovingly wrapped, sealed and frozen for a day like this.

Roast Chicken with Chestnut & Truffle Stuffing (Serves 2-4)

A small whole roasting chicken

200g chestnuts, cooked, shelled and chopped fine

1 small onion, chopped fine

1 clove garlic, chopped fine

2 tabs fresh herbs, chopped fine (chose from Italian parsley, thyme, sage, French tarragon, rosemary or any combination that takes your fancy)

1 tab shaved black truffle (fresh if you can get it)

2 teas butter

A grate of nutmeg

Salt & pepper as required

1 egg, beaten

Method:

Wash and clean the chicken out thoroughly, pat dry and put to one side. Put the finely chopped chestnuts into a large bowl with the onion, garlic and fresh herbs. Season with salt and pepper, grate in a little nutmeg and mix thoroughly. Add the beaten egg and mix to combine. Finely shave the truffle and reserve two pieces. Fold the rest of the truffle gently into the mixture and carefully stuff the chicken.

Take a teaspoon of butter and place a reserved truffle shaving on top. Carefully place this under the skin on one side the breast. Do the same for the other side.

Butter and truffle slices inserted under the skin

Cook in a roasting pan as per usual, serve with roast or steamed vegetables. If like me, you have a slow cooker, make a trivet of a carrot cut length ways and halved, some celery leaves, a bay leaf, an onion halved and some more of the fresh herbs used in the stuffing. Place the chicken gently on top, pour over a half cup of dry white wine. Cook for about three hours on low and finish off for about 20 minutes in a hot oven.

The finished bird, complete with truffle “eyes”

It’s a little more work, but the results are stunning, and the stock that remains at the bottom of the slow cooker makes a wonderful base for a truffle-infused sauce. I served this as an intimate dinner for two, with roast potatoes, carrots and parsnip, all covered in that amazing sauce. With steamed vegetables, this could easily stretch to feed four – we were being piggies! The chestnut stuffing is surprisingly light but intensely flavoursome and a wonderful texture with the succulent meat.

 

You’re all very welcome and please let me know if any of you make this one!

As I write on Saturday night here in Tasmania, I’m also really looking forward to a special Sunday lunch I’m attending tomorrow at MONA – but more about that tomorrow 🙂

Take care lovelies ❤

Rainy Day Self Care – Day 13 NaBloPoMo

13 Nov 2016 1 Comment

by Debra Manskey in Biography, Chickens, Cooking, Preserving, Produce, Rabbits, Tasmania, Urban Farming, Vegetable Gardening Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

I’ve been really struggling today, feeling physically unwell but also quite inexplicably sad since I woke this morning.

Perhaps it’s the weather. It’s been very wet and bleak almost all day, so I didn’t have much chance to be in the yard. I’ve become very aware of how sensitive I am to such things. So I decided to remain as positive as possible, do things that made me feel better and generally engage in some self-care.

I got out my uber-fabulous rain jacket, found a beanie and went to splash around, feeding the hungry hordes and finding little things to photograph – something that always makes me feel good.

First stop after feeding was to check the greenhouse. Usually by November I need to water fairly thoroughly in there but today it was so damp it wasn’t necessary. I did find breakfast though 😀

img_20161113_095718

I only picked the one on the right and while it was lovely, we really haven’t had enough sunny days to encourage fructose production. I’m concerned the raspberries will be the same too but it’ll be at least a couple of weeks before they start producing significantly. And surely the sunshine will be back by then!

Of course, the best way to cheer me up is to see new things happening and I was very pleased to discover several flowers on the Cayenne chillies this morning. I really love these long, thin skinned chillies. They are great fresh but dry easily and they have a light and bright flavour, that lifts all manner of dishes.

img_20161113_095923

Meanwhile, I decided to make a really hearty slow-roasted organic chicken for tonight’s dinner so I headed for the French Tarragon patch, which is booming at the moment.

This is my take on Tarragon Roast Chicken.

I had some chestnuts left in the freezer that I dry roasted and shelled back in autumn. They were chopped up finely with a couple of the small garlic heads and the Tarragon and thrown in a bowl. I beat in an egg and a little olive oil, and mixed in about half a cup of fine sourdough breadcrumbs to help bind it all together.

In the slow cooker I made a trivet of a halved onion, some small carrots, a few celery sticks from the garden that were too big for using in salads, a few more little garlic heads and the rest of the Tarragon. I put the stuffed chicken carefully on top of the vegetable trivet, seasoned it and poured over about a cup of white wine. Then I put it on low and forgot about it for a few hours.

After some quiet time reading, watching trashy Sunday afternoon television and a long luxurious shower, we prepared potatoes, parsnips and carrots for roasting. Now, this is totally decadent but it was a household decision to add some home made garlic butter to the roasting pan – because fresh garlic!

After the veggies were starting to brown, the chicken was carefully lifted and finished off in the oven with all those lovely vegetables. I decanted off about 3 cups of rich liquid from the slow cooker as a sauce base and made a cornflour roux. A tablespoon of homemade mushroom ketchup and a dash of cream finished off the sauce.

img_20161113_191814

This was utterly fabulous. The Tarragon and garlic shone through without overwhelming, the chicken was succulent but cooked through, vegetables crisp on the outside and fluffy inside, and the stuffing was nutty and rich but not stodgy.

I’m now going into a food coma – but feeling much better than I was earlier in the day 😀

And to finish, here’s Bernard Black Bunny, telling me to “go away woman, can’t you see I’m eating?”

img_20161113_101116

Take care friends, and don’t be shy about looking after yourselves ❤