Sausage casserole

This is an incredibly easy and tasty dish for chilly winter days, serious comfort food.

I came up with this when I was about to sit down with Sam Gray's delightful book "Doing it in Wellies", as I knew that once I started, I wouldn't be able to put it down.

In fact the combination of the book and the slow cooker struck us as such a good idea, it is listed as one of the inspiring combinations in the Shropshire Creatives section of our website.

8 sausages, browned in a frying pan or the slow cooker bowl
2 onions, sliced and browned
4 carrots, chopped
1 butternut squash, peeled , de-seeded and chopped in chinks
2 tomatoes choped
1 red pepper, de-seeded and chopped
400g chopped tinned tomatoes
250ml stock
Thyme and marjoram

Buy the very best sausages you can - it really does make a difference and this is just as true of veggie sausages as it of pork sausages.

Place the slow cooker bowl on a medium heat and add a little oil.
Brown the sausages - they do not need to be cooked through, this is just to make the finished dish look even more appetising.

Add all the other ingredients - I picked some fresh thyme and marjoram from the garden, but dried herbs will work as well, just don't overdo it!!

                                                  

Place on the heater base and cook on LOW for 4 hours or 8 hours on Keep Warm.  Serve with buttery mashed potatoes.

Can be adapted as a vegetarian dish using veggie sausages.

© Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2015

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk

Caramelised onion risotto

This is a warming Autumnal risotto, made using store cupboard ingredients - the caramelised onions giving it a rich flavour.

3 onions, chopped
Bunch of fresh thyme
2 tblsp rapeseed oil
50g butter
1 dstsp honey
70ml dry sherry
300g Arborio rice
200g green lentils
1.5 litres stock
Parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper

Put the stock - chicken or vegetable - in a saucepan and heat til simmering.  Keep on a low heat.
Put the butter and oil in a large pan - our casserole dish is ideal and heat until the butter is foaming.
Add the onions, honey and thyme.  Cook over a moderate heat for 5 minutes and then put on the lid.  Continue cooking until the onions start to caramelise, they should be soft and silky and take on a golden colour.  This will take around 30 minutes.

Remove the lid and increase the heat.  Add the sherry and stir well.
Add the rice to the pan and cook, stirring continuously until it is opaque.  Add the lentils.

Start adding the hot stock, one ladle at a time and stir the rice until the stock is absorbed.  As each addition is absorbed by the rice, add he next until the rice is cooked and creamy and the lentils are soft.

Stir in as much grated Parmesan as you fancy and season to taste with salt and pepper.

This is fabulous served as a vegetarian main course with a green salad, but goes equally well  with pan fried pork and apple or some really good, spicy sausage.
Alternatively, stir in some peas or broccoli and cook for a further 5 minutes

Vegetarian/gluten free/can be adapted as vegan, simply omit the butter and add a little more oil

© Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2015

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk

Malt loaf

This is a recipe from my 1979 Good Housekeeping Home Baking book - a well used and mixture spattered tome that I go back to again and again.

I'm posting it up on here, as I really love this recipe and have added pictures to our Twitter account, prompting people to ask to share it.
And in an update to the original post, we have now launched our beautiful black iron loaf tins - perfect for this recipe

25g fresh yeat
350ml tepid water
450g plain flour
1 tsp salt
45ml (3tblsp) malt extract
30ml (2 tblsp) black treacle
25g butter
225g sultanas

Glaze
1 tblsp sugar
1 tblsp milk

Grease two loaf tins.

Blend the yeast with the water.  Warm the malt extract, treacle and butter until just melted - of course, our saucepans are perfect for this
Combine this with the yeat mixture and mix with the flour and salt in a large bowl.
Stir in the sultanas and beat thoroughly for about 5 minutes.
Divide between the two loaf tins and cover with a damp cloth or oiled cling film
Leave in a warm place to rise for around 45 minutes.
Bake in the oven at 200ºC / Gas mark 6 for around 40 minutes.

To make the glaze, dissolve the sugar in the milk by heating gently in a pan.
Brush the glaze over the warm loaves.

Serve sliced with plenty of butter.

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk

Bootstrap Black Oi'd Peas

This was cooked up on Hallowe'en in readiness for a day at Bootstrap Artisans in Wolverhampton. Update: sadly this shop is no longer open

We have known Ange, one of the leading lights and creative thinkers behind Bootstrap, since she ran a craft shop at Apley Farm, just up the road from us and she has been a great and generous supporter of what we are doing.
So, as small recompense, we agreed to do our bit to help them by spending a day at their new premises, demonstrating our wares.  Since they sell a wide selection of products from our range, it seemed only right that we should create them their very own recipe to share with friends, collaborators and shoppers.

We also wanted to show off the fabulous collection created for us by Rachel Frost, one of the Shropshire Creatives

As Wolverhampton is home to a wide diversity of cultures, I wanted something that everyone could try, which is one of the reasons for creating a vegetarian dish.  another reason was to demonstrate that there is far more to slow cooking than a traditional stew - delicious though those can be.

As it turned out this was a hugely successful dish - there was certainly none left!!

The principal ingredient of this dish is black eyed peas, but the "oi, oi, oi" reaction of one of our tasters led to the renaming of the dish as Bootstrap's Black Oi'd Peas - which rescues us from any embarrassing comparisons with Will.i.am and Fergie :-)
I made huge quantities for the shop- but have scaled down the recipe to serve 6 people.

4 onions, quartered
3 tsp cumin,
12 cloves,
1 dried chilli,
10 black peppercorns,
2 tblsp desiccated coconut
300g sweet potato, pumpkin or butternut squash
2 tins black eyed peas
1 tin chopped tomatoes,
250 ml water,
1 cinnamon stick
2 chopped red peppers

Toast the coconut over a medium heat until golden brown and set aside to cool - the crepe pan is perfect for this
Dry fry the cumin, cloves, chilli and peppercorns - one of our 8" frying pans is ideal - until the chilli darkens and you can smell the aroma from the spices.
Remove from the heat and allow to cool.
Grind to a powder

Heat 2 tblsp of oil in a cast iron casserole bowl and add the quartered onions.

Fry until soft and translucent.

Add the spice mix, stir thoroughly and cook for 2 minutes.








Add the sweet potato and stir again.
Add all the other ingredients, EXCEPT the red peppers and mix well. Cover with the cast iron lid.

Transfer to heater base and cook on LOW for 4 hours.



Add the red peppers , turn up to HIGH and cook for another 40 mins.
Season to taste.
Vegetarian/vegan/gluten free

These were served up with sweetcorn pancakes, cooked in a crepe pan on the Kitchen Companion heater base.

8oz self raising flour
4 eggs
Approx ½ pt milk
Salt and pepper
1tsp paprika
1 tin sweetcorn.

Place the flour, eggs and half the milk in a bowl with the seasoning.
Mix well.  keep adding milk and whisking until you have a thick batter.

Heat the crepe pan slowly on the Kitchen Companion or on the hob and add a knob of butter.
Drop dessertspoons of batter in to the hot pan.
When the bubble rise to the surface, turn the pancakes over and cook on the other side until golden brown.

Also delicious with grilled bacon and tomatoes.

Vegetarian

© Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2015

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk