Bonfire Night and Meat and Potato Pie

An American arriving in England on November 5th could be forgiven for thinking the Brits had taken leave of their senses. For on that night, throughout the realm, bonfires blaze, effigies are burned, and fireworks illuminate the night sky. And this has been happening every year since 1605. We do this to celebrate a foiled terrorist attack which would have blown up the Houses of Parliament, killing our King and his government.

On November 4th 1605, Robert Catesby and twelve other conspirators planted 36 barrels of gunpowder in the cellars of the Palace of Westminster. A fellow collaborator, Guy Fawkes, was left behind to light the fuse when King James I and his government entered the Houses of Parliament the following day.

Somehow the King discovered the plot, and in the early hours of November 5th, Fawkes was caught red handed and imprisoned in the Tower of London. His fellow conspirators were quickly rounded up, and all were later tried, convicted, and executed (they were hung, drawn and quartered), for the crime of high treason.

When the public learned of the thwarted plot, they lit bonfires to celebrate the King’s safety, and the event has been commemorated ever since.

Because of the Gunpowder Plot, the reigning monarch only enters the Houses of Parliament once a year, at the State Opening of Parliament. And prior to this event, the cellars of the Palace of Westminster are still searched by the palace guards.

I have many fond memories of Bonfire Night.

"Remember, remember, the fifth of November.
Its gunpowder plot,
We never forgot."

So went the rhyme my friends and I sang in childhood, usually in an effort to raise money for fireworks. The other tried and trusted way of obtaining firework money was to make a “guy” ― which usually consisted of some old clothing belonging to one of our dads, stuffed with newspaper. This dummy represented Guy Fawkes, who we would then wheel around in an old pram asking, “Penny for the guy.” Later we burned the guy on our bonfire, which was made from wood, old furniture, and any other combustible material we could find. The bonfire was always situated on some waste ground in our neighborhood.

It wasn’t until the actual night of November 5th that adults would become involved in the proceedings, with dads setting off fireworks and supervising the bonfire, and moms making all sorts of goodies to eat. My mother always made a big meat and potato pie, parkin, (a sweet, sticky cake), and treacle toffee, (a dark caramel candy), or plot toffee as we kids called it. And when the fireworks were gone, and the bonfire had died down, we would bake potatoes in the fire’s embers.

Bonfire Night was a real community affair and went on the length and breadth of Britain. Nowadays, for safety’s sake, the trend is more towards organized firework displays, and, sad to say, the event is rapidly loosing its appeal.

Now, whenever I make meat and potato pie, while the pie bakes, the rich aromas still evoke fond memories of my childhood and the wonderful Bonfire Nights we all shared.

Below is my mum’s recipe for meat and potato pie, although, unlike me, she did make her own pastry. If you make it, try to imagine a land ablaze with bonfires and a sky alight with fireworks, smell the wood smoke and the gunpowder and, "Remember, remember, the fifth of November."

Meat and Potato Pie



Ingredients:
1 lb. stew beef
¼ cup all-purpose flour, seasoned with cracked black pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 cups beef broth/stock
1 large onion, divided, half chopped into big chunks, the other half just chopped
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
2 bay leaves

1 rutabaga peeled and cut into bite-size chunks
4 carrots, sliced
4 large potatoes, peeled and cut into bite-size chunks
1 refrigerated pie crust (or make your own if you prefer)
1 egg, beaten
1 tablespoon corn starch
2 tablespoons cold water


Directions:

• Put flour in a Ziplock bag, season with cracked pepper, add the beef stew meat and toss until coated.
• In a large soup pot, or Dutch oven heat olive oil over a medium-high heat. Add the flour coated beef to the pan, season with more black pepper, and sauté until lightly browned. Add the large chunks of onion (reserve the smaller pieces to go in with the veggies) and sauté for a further minute or so. Add the beef broth/stock to the pan, and bring to boil. Add Worcestershire sauce, bay leaves then reduce heat and simmer covered for 1 hour.
• After 1 hour, throw all remaining veggies into the pan. Return to boil, reduce heat, and simmer covered for about 30 minutes.
• Using a slotted spoon transfer meat and veggies to a pie dish. Get all the meat out but you will have some veggies left over, you can serve these as a side dish to the pie. Allow filling to cool for about 20 minutes before topping with the pie crust. Meanwhile pre-heat oven to 400°F.
• Add crust to pie, brush with beaten egg, cut a couple of slits in the top to allow steam to escape, and bake for 35-40 minutes or until crust is golden brown.
• About 15 minutes before pie is ready re-heat stock and vegetables. For a thicker gravy mix 1 tablespoon of cornstarch with a little water and add to stock. Serve the veggies and gravy with the pie.
  
  
  

Cajun Chicken Burger

This has been another favorite grilling recipe this summer, these burgers have a lovely mild curry flavor.

Cajun Chicken Burgers

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon ground coriander
1 tablespoon paprika
Black pepper, to taste
2 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
3 slices bacon, cut in half
2 slices Swiss cheese
2 Kaiser rolls
Mayonnaise
1 avocado, peeled, pitted, and sliced.
2 handfuls of mixed greens

Directions:

• Pre-heat BBQ to low
• On a small plate mix together cumin, coriander, paprika, and black pepper.
• Brush a piece of heavy-duty foil with a little olive oil. Cover chicken with plastic wrap and beat with a meat mallet or rolling pin until slightly flattened. Brush chicken with olive oil, and dip in the spice mix until coated, then place on foil.
• Take another piece of foil, fold up the edges to make a small baking tray and add the bacon.
• Put chicken and bacon on grill and cook for about 15 – 20 minutes, (grills vary so cook to desired doneness), bacon should be cooked until crisp.
• Place cheese slices on top of chicken until cheese begins to melt. Toast buns at the same time.
• Spread buns with mayo and top with the cheesy chicken and bacon. You can also add the salad greens and avocado to the buns if you like, but I prefer my salad on the side.
  

Caesar Salad with Chicken and Bacon

Do you ever have one of those weeks? - I know you have - where if something can go wrong, it will. First of all the vacuum cleaner started making the most bloody awful noise, then the fridge gasped its last and gave up the ghost. So, then you’re waiting for the third thing to go wrong, because we all know these things happen in threes, right? In our case the third thing was the chainsaw, so then we heaved a sigh of relief because at least one of the cars didn’t conk out. Suffice it to say that the local Lowes store did very nicely indeedy out of us.

Anyway, enough of that! I know I’ve been very lackadaisical (isn’t that a lovely word?) over the past few months, but I do have a couple of recipes I want to share with you before I wave the summer goodbye. Not that I’m sorry to see the back of it – as you all know, I hate the hot, humid weather. Now that it’s turned cooler I will be seeking out the heat of the kitchen, and curling up with my computer while we get down to some good old comfort foods.

But before that, a farewell to summer. The first recipe is a Caesar Salad with chicken and bacon. This has been my absolute favorite salad this summer, and I’m sure it will be making a few encores over the winter. The second, which I’ll post tomorrow, is a Cajun Chicken Burger, it’s a BBC Good Food recipe that I adapted to cook on the BBQ.

Caesar Salad with Chicken and Bacon

Ingredients:

For the croutons
½ a French baguette torn into bite size pieces
3 tablespoons olive oil
A sprinkle of sea salt, to taste. (I know I never use salt but I do here).

For the rest

3 slices of bacon, cut in half.

1 tablespoon olive oil
2 skinless, boneless chicken breasts, cut into bite size chunks
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 romaine lettuce, torn into large pieces

For the dressing

½ cup Parmesan cheese, shredded + 2 tablespoons for topping
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
6 tablespoons mayonnaise
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
Black pepper to taste

Directions

• Pre-heat BBQ grill to low.
• In a medium bowl mix bread chunks with olive oil.
• Take a large piece of heavy-duty aluminum foil and turn up the edges to form a small baking tray. Brush with a little olive oil, place bread on foil, crust side up, in a single layer. Sprinkle with sea salt and set aside.
• Make another small baking tray from foil and add the bacon.
• Cook croutons and bacon on BBQ for approximately 20 minutes, or until both are crispy. Turn bacon and croutons halfway through cooking. Remove both from grill and allow to cool, drain bacon on paper towel.
• Meanwhile, (back at the range), heat olive oil in a large skillet over a medium-high heat and add chicken. Sauté until no longer pink, reduce heat to medium and continue to cook for a further 5 or 6 minutes until golden brown. Add garlic and sauté for a further minute. Remove chicken and garlic to a plate and allow to cool.
• While everything cools, wash, dry, and tear lettuce and add to a salad bowl.
• Also prepare dressing. In a small bowl, mix mayo, white wine vinegar, garlic, black pepper, and Parmesan. It should look about the consistency of yogurt, if it’s a bit thick, add a few drops of water.
• Top lettuce with half the chicken pieces, half the croutons, and crumble over half of the bacon. Toss with ¾ of the dressing. Scatter the remaining chicken and croutons on top, crumble over the bacon, drizzle with the rest of the dressing, top with 2 tablespoons of shredded Parmesan, and serve. YUM!
  
  
  
  

Lemon Chicken Chow Mein Salad

I’m sorry to have caused concern and consternation, amazingly, the way things have been going this year, I have not been ill, just busy with other things. My good friend Vicki (see Victoria’s comment on the last post), called me the other day and told me I needed to get back blogging as you guys were missing me. I’ve missed y’all, too, so thanks for the kick up the bum, Vicki. :-)Anyway, we have a long weekend coming up, and I have nothing planned, so I’ll be visiting with you real soon.

In the meantime, I'll leave you all with this scrummy salad recipe, and hope you all have a fabulous weekend.

Lemon Chicken Chow Mein Salad


Ingredients:

2 chicken breasts
Juice from ½ a lemon
Black pepper, to taste
A drizzle of olive oil
1/2 a package (about 3 ounces) chow mein noodles
A handful of sugar snap peas, (about 4 ounces) halved lengthways
½ yellow (red or orange) pepper, thinly sliced
A handful of beansprouts
A couple of sprigs of fresh basil, leaves removed and torn

Salad Dressing

3 tablespoons olive oil
Zest and juice of ½ a lemon
2 tablespoons mayonnaise

• Pre-heat BBQ grill to low.
• Brush a large piece of heavy-duty foil with olive oil. Place chicken on foil, drizzle with the juice from ½ a lemon, and add a couple of grinds of black pepper. Seal foil loosely around chicken.
• Place chicken on BBQ and cook to desired doneness. Remove from foil a few minutes before end of cooking time and brown a little on the bars.
• Meanwhile, cook chow mein noodles according to package directions, transfer noodles to a colander, rinse under cold water and allow to drain.
• While noodles drain, prepare the dressing. In a small bowl mix all ingredients together and whisk lightly with a fork.
• Divide noodles between 2 bowls, throw in the sugar snap peas, peppers, bean sprouts and basil. Pour a little of the dressing into each bowl and toss lightly to coat.
• Slice the chicken breasts and arrange on top of the salad. Drizzle with remaining dressing and serve.
  
  
  
  
  
  

Potato Salad

I haven’t been around much this past couple of weeks, largely due to being glued to the tennis at Wimbledon. Needless to say, the token Brit, Andy Murray, got knocked out in the semi-finals. (Sob!) It’s something like 72 years since a British man won the singles at Wimbledon. And the last British woman to win was Virginia Wade back in 1977, which incidentally was also the year of the queen’s silver jubilee. Anyway, better luck next year, Andy.

Also, I want to thank Pam at http://fortheloveofcooking-recipes.blogspot.com/ for kindly allowing me to use her recipe for Portabella Burgers in my recent article about a mushroom farm. If you’re interested you can find the article and Pam’s recipe here: http://www.ok-living.coop/Feature1.php

This recipe for potato salad features baby red potatoes from our garden, which were absolutely delish – still are in fact, as we haven’t used them all yet. Tragically the plants did die, but we were able to harvest a decent amount of new potatoes before they finally popped their clogs. Fortunately, however, our robust russets are robust and thriving, so many more spuds to come.

Potato Salad

Ingredients:

2 lbs. red potatoes, unpeeled
1 rib celery, sliced
¼ of a red onion, sliced
3 hard-boiled eggs, sliced
¼ cup plain yogurt
¼ cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
Black pepper, to taste
Dash of paprika

Directions:

• Cut potatoes into halves or quarters depending on size, place in a saucepan and bring to boil over a high heat. Reduce heat to medium-high and boil gently for 10 – 15 minutes until potatoes are slightly tender. Don’t overcook or you’ll end up with mashed potato salad. Boil eggs while potatoes cook.
  
• Allow eggs to cool in cold water. Drain potatoes, and leave to cool for 10 – 15 minutes.
  
• In a small bowl mix together yogurt, mayonnaise, vinegar, mustard, and black pepper.
  
• Put potatoes in a salad bowl with the celery, onions, and eggs. Add the dressing and toss gently to coat. Cover and chill in the refrigerator until ready to serve.
• Before serving sprinkle with a little paprika.
  

Amalfi-Style Shrimp

Many moons ago, I had a fabulous vacation not too far from the Amalfi area of Italy, staying in a lovely place called Sorento. While there I had the opportunity to visit many historic places such as Pompeii, Herculaneum, Monte Casino, and even revisited one of my favorite cities, Rome, for a weekend. I also went to the top of the still active volcano, Vesuvius, and to the island of Capri, so I have many happy memories of this region.

On a less happy note, it’s been sweltering here this week, we’ve been melting in 100°F temperatures, which were further compounded by high humidity. Even at night, temps have been in the low 80’s so it’s been thoroughly unpleasant.

Anyway, it's no use moaning, 'cos I can't do a damn thing about it. Today’s recipe is another one from good old Auntie Beeb and another winner. As usual I changed it up a bit, the recipe said to marinate the shrimp for 1 hour, but I thought that was too long as I felt the mint would completely dominate the flavor of the shrimp, so I only did them for 10 minutes. Personally, I thought that was just right, but by all means marinate them for longer if you like.

I highly recommend this dish, the shrimp were finger-licking good. Also, they only took 5 minutes to cook on the grill, so poor old Mick didn’t have to spend too long sweating over a hot BBQ. Try these, you’ll be glad you did.


Amalfi-Style Shrimp





Ingredients:

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2-3 sprigs of mint, (about 15 leaves) finely chopped
Black pepper, to taste
25-30 large uncooked shrimp
¼ cup Italian breadcrumbs

Directions:

• Peel shrimp, but leave tails on.
• In a medium bowl combine the olive oil, garlic, mint, and black pepper, add the shrimp and toss to coat. Cover and marinate in the refrigerator for 10 minutes.
• Pre-heat BBQ to low.
• Thread 5-6 shrimp onto skewers, (I used metal ones, but if you use bamboo you’ll need to soak them in water for a few minutes).
• Place the breadcrumbs on a plate then press the skewered shrimp into the crumbs.
• Brush a piece of heavy-duty foil with olive oil. Place the skewers on the foil and grill for about 2 minutes a side, until shrimp have turned pink, and breadcrumbs are golden.
  Serve with lemon wedges.
  
  
  

Parmesan Chicken

It’s 95°F here today, and as humid and sweaty as an old sock, despite this we are still being battered by severe thunderstorms on a regular basis. Last week we had a particularly bad one with straight-line winds that brought down one of our persimmon trees.

We had a really nice grouping of three of these trees, when they were all in leaf they looked like one magnificent tree. These trees have had an unfortunate year; one was struck by lightning and will have to be cut down – now this.


The remaining one looks totally forlorn without his chums. But on a brighter note, we have had a bit of a tree planting frenzy this spring, and have put in 14 new trees. Admittedly, they are not much more than twigs right now, but one-day. :-)

Anyway, on with the food. We have finally had some luck with some salad greens. Yay! We’ve tried growing lettuce and spinach before with very little success. The weather here in Oklahoma changes from warm to baking hot so rapidly that the plants always bolted before we had a chance to eat them. This year Mick planted some mesclun greens which did very well indeedy, in fact, they grew back almost as fast as we could pick them. Mesclun mixes vary, ours was made up of arugula and dinky little spinach leaves. Although they kept us in salads during the spring, that avenue of pleasure is now closed, as they too have bolted in the heat. Oh hum!

To this mix of salad greens, I added a few baby Swiss rainbow chard leaves from our garden, some chopped tomato, a drizzle of olive oil and red wine vinegar, a dash of cracked pepper, feta cheese. You can also add a few toasted slivered almonds for a little extra crunch. I served this salad with the Parmesan chicken. This chicken is light but full of flavor. We cooked it on the BBQ, but you could do it in the oven at 350F, for about 10-15 minutes.

Parmesan Chicken


Ingredients:

1/3 cup Italian breadcrumbs
1/3 cup Parmesan cheese, shredded
Cracked black pepper, to taste
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 skinless, boneless chicken breasts

Directions:

• Pre-heat grill to low, or oven to 350F
• Mix Italian breadcrumbs, Parmesan cheese, and a dash of cracked black pepper on a plate.
• Beat egg in a shallow bowl.
• Slice chicken in half into 2 flat pieces.
• Dip chicken in egg, then into parmesan/breadcrumb mix.
• Place chicken in an ovenproof dish, or if grilling, on a double sheet of heavy-duty foil, greased with olive oil. Grill or bake for 10 – 15 minutes.