The Heath Croft Kitchen

We've been on our holidays this week exploring some of the west coast of Scotland. We visited Oban and had to try some of the seafood!

I got the langoustines which were simply boiled and served and Tara got the biggest Scallops we have ever seen in a garlic butter sauce! Both went down a treat and will be trying to replicate the Scallops and sauce when back at our kitchen.

Its amazing the difference in food when you have it so fresh and so simply prepared. The seafood in the places we have visited have been on another level and has been a joy to eat!

Not off to a bad start in our food journey but a long long way to go!

So proud of our herb butter roast chicken.

We made a herb butter full of Thyme, Rosemary, Tarragon, Garlic and Lemon Zest. Once combined we placed it under and on the skin.

We roasted it for 110°c for 1hr10mins and then at 200°c for 10 mins to brown up the skin.

It was so delicious and tender, it was a happy house after dinner last night!

My first attempt at Pretzel Burger Buns.

We had these at our local pub during the euros with their burgers and thought they were gorgeous, never been a fan of Brioche and thought this was such a great alternative!

Some lessons learnt from V1 and looking forward to making them again.

One from a few weeks ago, Tara made this gorgeous goats cheese and mushroom tart!

Our slow roasted leg of Lamb.

We made this for Taras birthday Sunday dinner and it came out beautifully.

We made a marinade of Rosemary, Oregano, garlic, lemon zest and juice and good Olive Oil.

I crosshatched the lamb and poured the marinade all over and left in the fridge overnight.

The next day we roasted it at 120 for 6 hours, with lemon slices going on for the last 30 mins.

Went down a storm!

Spaghetti Carbonara.

Lovely eggs, loads of Parmesan and even more Black Pepper! Heaven.

White Strawberries are unlike anything you have ever tasted, track some seeds down!

We got given some and they are biding their time until next spring when we will plant them.

We had the most amazing look around The Pigs kitchen garden on Monday afternoon, the range and quality of the produce they grow blew our minds.

Here our some of their tomatoes that are growing currently, firmly putting my little set up to shame! I will share some more of the images over the next few days.

The Heath Croft garden will look like this one day!

Roast Beef!

We spent the weekend in Newquay and cooked a roast dinner for the Jakemans! We sealed off the Beef in a hot pan, covered in Mustard and then covered in Rosemary, Thyme, Salt and Pepper and roasted at 120°c for 4 hours.

The joint was lovely and tender and had a really nice background heat from the Mustard!

Gnocchi, Green Pesto, Peas and Mint!

Harvested our first batch of Peas from the garden and wanted to make something super fresh!

After boiling the Gnocchi its always great to pan fry them to give them a crispy exterior.

Absolutely delicious!

Look at those beauties!

Harvested some Carrots last night for our dinner, within two hours they went from in the ground and onto the plate!

Also harvested all of our peas last night and have replaced them with Fennel for the autumn.

Doughballs and Wild Garlic Pesto Butter!

Made these as a little starter ahead of the pizzas I posted yesterday.

Doughballs were the same recipe as the pizza dough, rolled them at 50g balls and placed them in a cast iron to prove.

No pictures of them cooked becsuse they were an absolute DISASTER! The Ooni was to hot so burnt the top whilst the bottom was still doughy, always learning.

We had to Wild Garlic Pesto in the freezer so melted that into some nice butter to combine and then firm back up in the fridge.

After 15 mins in the oven the Doughballs were still edible.

Mushroom, Anchovy and Mozarella pizza from the Ooni last night.

Speading some time in the front garden today and pulled out a Carrot to see how we are getting on, by the looks of it they are doing really well.

Courgettes are starting to flower, wildflowers are being planted all around to help rewild. Also turned one side of the garden into a Mint/Sage/Rosemary bush.

Garlic fresh from the garden, we started growing this for as a bit of an experiment back in early spring and they have come out lovely!

This was the first thing we planted and now half the conservatory and front garden have all sorts growing in them.

Learnt some lessons from this time to carry forward to next season!

via .app

Fennel and Nduja Spaghetti.

This is a super simple pasta dish we had on Saturday after the Tomato and Mozzarella starter.

To make it.

Slice one who Fennel into long thin pieces, add to a pan with Olive Oil and two cloves of Garlic and cook for 10 mins on a medium heat to soften.

Drop your chosen pasta into boiling salted water and cook as per packet instructions.

Whilst your pasta is on add your Nduja, as much or little as you like, break it up with your spoon to release all of the fat and spices onto the Fennel.

Reserve some pasta water before adding your pasta to the Fennel and Nduja pan, add some starchy water to help bring it all together.

Serve with Parmesan and some sprigs from the fennel!

Molto Bello!

The finished dish from last night!

Slow roasted Tomatoes, Mozzarella, Basil and the oil from the Tomato pan to dress the plate.

You can see how we made the Tomatoes in the previous post, besides that all we did was dry some Mozzarella in some kitchen roll for a while to remove any excess liquid.

Some slow roasted Cherry Tomatoes from today.

We roasted these for four hours in an oven at 100°c with two cloves of Garlic, Olive Oil and Salt.

Absolutely gorgeous!

The Soffritto from yesterday!

We made a lovely Lasagne with a slow cooked Ragu, Guanciale, basil and Mozarella.

It was divine! Will share some images of the Lasange tomorrow along with our recipe.

This one is from before our move to The Heath Croft Kitchen.

We made this lovely Strawberry Tart with Creme Fraiche and Basil in the height of summer last year and safe to say it went down a treat.

Would post the recipe but cannot for the life of my remember.

One from a while ago. After making our Butternut Squash Risotto we decided to make these Arancini.

With homemade breadcrumbs and a mozarella centre they went down a treat!

Our Mussel dinner from Saturday night, these were super easy to prepare.

We cooked down some onion, garlic and chilli flakes, added a good glass (or two) of white wine, added the mussels until they opening and then stirred in some lemon zest and fresh parsley.

Heaven!

These pods seem to have grown out of nowhere! Not long until we can start eating the first bits from our veg patch!

Our carrots in the other box are doing really well and a courgette plant I killed seems to have come back to life!

Our dinner last night!

We picked up some Mussels from for our dinner!

The quality was so much better than the ones we usually get from the supermarket!

We have these cooked with garlic, chilli, white wine, parsley and lemon zest, with some crusty bread to mop up the sauce afterwards!

Perfect Saturday dinner!

Our Butternut Squash and Sage Risotto, this was so fresh and summery!

Recipe - serves 2
150g Arborio Rice
1 small Onion
1 clove Garlic
1l stock - we used Chicken
Half a Butternut Squash
A handful of Sage leaves
1tbsp Butter
50g Parmesan

1. Chop your Squash into cubes, we leave the skin on, drizzle in Olive Oil and a pinch on salt and then put into an oven at 200 for 20 mins.
2. Dice your onion as fine as you can, cook that down in a pan with butter and olive oil until the onions go translucent, not looking for colour. Add the Garlic for the final minute or so, again, no colour.
3. Add your Rice, cook it all together for a minute or two until the rice is nicely toasted.
4. Slowly add your stock to the Rice pan, a ladle at a time, stirring continously. This should continue for around 18 mins, adding stock each time the pan goes dry.
5. Add your roasted Butternut Squash and stir in with a generous helping of Parmesan.
6. When all cooked together, dice half of the Sage and stir into the risotto.
7. Plate up then dress with the other half of sliced Sage and some more Parmesan!

Enjoy!

One last one from a weekend of making pizzas with friends!

We went through a small mountain of tomato sauce and mozarella but was worth it!

Tonight we are making a Butternut Squash and Sage Risotto, will post some pics and recipe tomorrow.

A White Boule from a few weeks ago.

I was playing around with creating some Bigas for my Focaccia and had some left over and tried it in a standard white bread recipe.

Was chuffed with how airy and light it came out, now that the daily bread baking is over it feels nice to bake bread again!

Will start posting recipes for all of these soon!

**a

In our happy place!

We cooked with some of our closest friends last night to make pizzas in our oven!

We are getting better each time with them but after the amount we had last night we may need a bit of a break!

Everyone seemed to enjoy the food but the washing up pile was daunting! Somehow Tara slept through the clean up which seems convenient!