MrsEarles Chicken( thank you Mrs Earle) and strawberries grown at waist height

Cooking Mrs Earles chicken tonight for our very dear neighbours, the Unsworths, who moved in 6 months before us, 30 years ago.. You get to know people after all that time. For pudding, strawberries from Farndon Farm shop. These are grown on platforms about 4 feet above the floor. Just let the slugs try and get them-no way.
Mrs Earles Chicken


Ingredients



25g butter

1 tbsp oil

5 boneless skinless chicken breasts, chopped

5 bacon rashers rinds removed, chopped

2 large garlic cloves, finely chopped

2 celery sticks chopped

1 leek, sliced and rinsed

25g plain flour

150ml milk

150ml chicken stock

25g button mushrooms, wiped and quartered

Bunch of flat leaved parley, finely chopped

Salt and pepper

For the topping

55g fresh breadcrumbs

55g grated cheese



Method



Preheat oven to gas mark 5 190 degrees

Heat butter and oil in a large pan and brown chicken pieces (takes about five minutes)

Add bacon and garlic to pan until bacon becomes crisp, and then add celery and leek until they soften.

Then lower heat, add flour and cook for a few minutes. Then add milk gradually, and then chicken stock, to make a smooth sauce. Add mushrooms and parsley.

Tip the lot into a large oven proof dish and smooth the surface.

Then mix crumbs and cheese together and spread over the top of the chicken and veg mixture.

Bake for 20 minutes or until the topping is crisp

Serves five people

Redcurrants, final chapter, hot and cold tips

Ok, 25 lbs of wobbly clear jelly, with half a pot for eating this afternoon. Tips.i Cover kitchen with old newspapers.ii Do not read them or you will never get the jelly potted. iiiGet rid of small children.-not for ever, just for the jelly duration Hot jelly and little ones are a bad combo.iv. Only one person per kitchen to pour hot jelly into jars.v No running.vi No domestics until all jelly is potted.vii writung labels is a special job for a  special childviii Get toast or scone(or toast and scones) ready soon.

Redcuurant Jelly, Female Finace Ministers and The White Tiger

Picked 16lbs of redcurrants for jelly-backbreaking, and my most successful gardening trouseres are now covered in squashed currants. I have others in a less advanced state of decay that I can recycle It is most satisfying to turn this sticky mass, slugs taken out of course, into wobbly dark red deliciousness.
In th Guardian today, a photograph I never though to see, the Finace Ministers of three countries -Denmark, Finland and Austria-all women. Margrthe Vestager, Jutta Urpilainen and Maria Felcter.
And my daily reading has been The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga-a tale of coruption and amorality in modern day   India. With just a little rewrite it could equally be about the UK  A rattling good read though.

Leathers(fruity) and Julian Barnes

Fruity Leathers-I had forgotten about these until I saw Aylestone allotmenteers giving away samples at the Leicester Botanic Gardens open day. I think leathers originate in America, when a surplus of fruit and a shortage of sugar led to  fruit leathers, cheeses and butters. I have had great success with damson cheese, less so with apple butter. M has leathers in the oven now.   Leathers reamin liqiud and the kitchen smells of burn.  I  fear and smell failure.
Julian Barnes was born in Coalville. His essay-" My life as a bibliophile"- in last Saturdays Guardian-was a real treat ." When you read a  great book,you don't escape from life, you plunge deeper into it. There may be a superficial escape-into different countries, mores, speech patterns-but what you are essentially doing is furthering your understanding of lifes subtelties, paradoxes, joys, pains and truths.. Reading and life are not separate, but symbiotic."   And he wrote Arthur and George .So thank you Coalville

Gardening in the Rain( again)

Good things about gardening in the rain? The weeds come out very easily. Tha bad news? There are loads of them and they get bigger-not by the day but by the minute. I grew verbascum from seed-a mixed packet. They are huge, but far from mixed. All the same soft yellow, and huge floppy silver leaves, nicknamed beggars blankets . So  will have hollyhocks in flower soon backed up with verbascum.
Eating the last of the first sown lettuce, first of the  baby broad beans, Charlottes, redcurrants and 13 raspberries. Picked 6lbs of gooseberries. Time for the gooseberry fool( from the French verb fouler-to crush-it does not mean someone foolish and feckless enough to put 1 pint of cream into a pudding)

Restarting my blog

Many thanks to grandson Nate for getting this blog going again-I hope to post every two days or so. Watch me on Wednesday