Frozen Planet

That's it.  The party's over.  After three years in my first ever flat in London, I have left Bermondsey for Balham.  Farewell to the rooftop garden, venue for last year's New Year's Eve party, complete with Chinese lanterns that threatened to land in the street; farewell to an ensuite bathroom, decorated with Fifties ladies for inspiration; farewell to the farmers' market down the road, home of Ted the Veg; farewell to the kitchen, witness to so many rushed and so many lazy breakfasts, the new-discovered joy of freelance lunches, solo, romantic and weekend guest dinners.

But hello to a garden with a veg patch, with the promise of summer parties and barbecues; hello to an attic room, destined for writing in fingerless gloves whilst eating apples; hello to a new farmers' market, waiting to be explored; hello to a kitchen with marble surfaces, ideal for pastry, a whole cupboard to myself and a conservatory for nurturing seedlings and tender herbs...

The move was blissfully simple, thanks to a strong new housemate to lift boxes and drive a car.  Indeed, the only challenge was to eat up all the bags of miscellaneous items in the freezer beforehand - chicken stock, lamb stock, half a wild boar belly, lamb mince, one egg white, breadcrumbs and some sweetcorn (yep, more sweetcorn).

Chicken stock was the base of a thank-heavens-it's-finally-cold-enough-for-soup soup, flavoured with butternut squash for a velvety bowl of winter:

Lamb stock and lamb mince joined together in an intensely lamby shepherd's pie - the photos looked a bit dull, so I'll show you a cottage pie in my next post.  I couldn't possibly put it in this one, no no, wrong theme innit?  However, I can definitely say that it is worth making your own lamb stock.  It's just as easy as making chicken stock, just save up and freeze any bones from lamb chops or cutlets until you have a decent amount to flavour a broth.  It made the mince taste even lambier, and I imagine that it would make a fabulous gravy too.

The wild boar demi-belly was a leftover from an attempt earlier in the year to make a 'fashion' Cornish pasty, i.e. any pasty that isn't properly Cornish and that faffs about with fancy ingredients.  The pasty turned out ok, but chopping up the belly was a fairly rank experience.  Raw wild boar absolutely reeks, and sawing through the fat was not a pleasant job.  The memory of this caused me to put off cooking the rest of the belly for six months - how could I get rid of that smell still lingering in my mind's nostrils?  But needs must, so I prepared it as quickly as possible, just seasoning it and whacking it in the oven:

Served with roast new potatoes, mashed carrot and a dollop of wholegrain mustard, it was a delicious mini-roast for one.  And the smell totally disappeared after cooking, much to my relief, leaving just a rather gamey pork flavour.

Inexplicably, I STILL had yet more flamin' sweetcorn to deal with, albeit removed from the cob before freezing, making it marginally more useful.  Another hunt through the recipe books uncovered a little dish from Rose Prince in 'The New English Kitchen', which is a good book for lots of recipes involving leftovers and making food go further.  As it also involved breadcrumbs, two bags were dealt with at once, providing me with a simple and quick supper of sweetcorn fritters:

Slightly 'caramelised', but still perfectly acceptable when wolfed down with some ketchup.

However, I was most pleased by what came out of that single, lone egg white.  Stirred, not whisked, with ground almonds, almond extract, a smidge of flour and some sugar (from Nigella's How to Eat) produced these beauties in less than twenty minutes:

Macaroons.  A comforting taste of childhood and just the thing to nibble on as a reward after packing yet another box.

So, that's one freezer and another year dealt with.  I look forward to seeing what another of each may hold over the coming months.

Merry Christmas dear reader, and a very Happy New Year.  May your fridge, and indeed your freezer, overflow with good things!