100g of butter, into a bowl, with some freshly cut herbs (thyme is good, but we only had marjoram growing well at this time of year), some crushed garlic and a good handfull of sea salt. I tend not to give exact amounts because it really is down to personal taste.

Squish this all together. Then smear the outside of the plucked and cleaned cockerel. Be generous.

Place the baking tray in a hot oven. I roar up our wood stove before putting the cockerel in, then allow it to cool, as you want up to an hour hot, then longer, depending on the size of the bird, cooler.

After an hour of hot, I moved the tray into the bottom cooler oven. Then parboil our potatoes ready to go into the hot oven.

The chicken needs to be basted regularly with its own juices and the melted butter.

After 3 hours, as this old boy was big and quite old, in the slow oven, he was ready. The spuds had been roasting for just over an hour, the carrots and cabbage had come to the boil on the top of the stove, and I had made leak and wine gravy….

A wonderful evening roast, with some friends, a few glasses of vinho tinto and a session of the clicker game – practising clicker on humans. Well funny.

Charyn, our current wwoofer, picked and chopped and cooked the quinces. My mum, who’s visiting at the moment, helped to hang the jelly bag above a big bowl.

The fruit was left in the bag (improvised out of an old muslin curtain) to drip into the bowl overnight.

This morning Charyn boiled up the resulting liquid with sugar and lemon juice … for ages!  It didn’t look like it was ever going to set.  Oh no!  We decided (after looking at Wendy’s slightly-more-complicated recipe – which is why it had been rejected in favour of Sarah’s) that we needed more sugar.  I added – ahem, rather a lot – more sugar and yay! setting point was reached.

We now have 7 jars of the most beautifully coloured and wonderfully flavoured jelly.  I shall be making it again!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyagLY1Nem8

“You’ll never look at dinner the same way”

http://www.foodincmovie.com

Further Reading:

Can’t wait until we get our bread oven built, it was waaaay too hot to be cooking them in the gas oven in the kitchen!

Here the recipie (for 5 people):
500g potatoes
1 egg
170g flour
30g butter
oliveoil to fry the slices

How you do it:
Cook the potatoes, peel and mash them. Let the mash cool down, put the melted butter, the egg and the flour in. Knead it to a smooth pastry.
Form small balls and flatten them to small slices (you may need some more flour to not stick the slices to the ground).
Heat a pan up, put in pleanty of oliveoil and put the slices in. Fry them on both sides until they look lovely brown.

Potato slices are traditional served with jam. They taste also good with cheese and salat.
Enjoy your meal! Or as it is said in Austria “Guten Appetit!”

Inga Marén

100g butter
100g flour
2 teaspoons carob powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
65g sugar
50g dessicated coconut

Sieve (or whisk, saves time!) together the flour, carob powder, and baking powder.
Melt butter over a low heat.
Add all other ingredients and stir well.
Gently press into an 18cm (7″) sandwich tin.
Bake at 190c (375f / gas 5) for 25 mins (it will seem uncooked in the middle, but it will set as it cools).
Allow to cool, cut and serve.

225g broad beans
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 small onion
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
2 talbespoons tomato paste
pinch stock powder
paprika

Cook the beans in boiling water until tender.
Saute the onions and garlic in the olive oil.
Add tomato paste and stock powder and stir for a few minutes over low heat.
Mix in the beans and puree in a blender.
Cool and sprinkle with paprika before serving.