Slow-cooked Turkey Drumsticks

Here they are. A pair of shrinkwrapped turkey drumsticks. Yet another cheap cut for which the supermarkets insist on giving inappropriate roasting instructions on the label.

Guess what - this is another slow-cooking joint! This time you will need a large oval slow-cooker.

When choosing which model of oval slow cooker to buy, I went to my local huge Tesco's and took a shrinkwrapped turkey drumstick from the meat section over to the homewares section and tried it for size in the bowls of the models they had on display. Turns out some of the models of oval slow cooker on sale are too small for turkey drumsticks.

Samak bil Tahini

And now for a quick evening meal, using white fish fillets from the freezer.

Samak bil Tahini is a Lebanese dish of white fish baked with onions and a garlicky tahini sauce.

Chocolate Cucumber Cake

In today's exciting episode of "Argh! Not MORE Cucumbers!" we resort to baking them into cakes.

Courgette / zucchini cakes are widely-known-to-exist, and there are a few Cucumber cake recipes out there to be found. The similarity of ingredient proportions suggests that you can directly substitute cucumber for courgette / zucchini in a recipe and it should work.

Time to find a suitable recipe to try.

Rice Cooker Casserole

I have had a rice cooker for many years now - in fact I am on my second one. In that time, a "Rice Cooker Casserole" has become my standby thing to do when tired, or busy, or just when I have smallish quantities of leftover scraps of cooked meat and vegetables in need of using up.

It's all very simple. Measure the dry rice and cooking liquids into the cooker pan in the normal ratio, then pile sliced/diced or frozen veggies, and / or diced leftover meat / ham or frozen cooked prawns and the like on top of the rice. Add some herbs / spices / seasonings, put on the lid and switch on. And forget about it for a bit.

Slow-cooked Beef

Doesn't look very appetising, does it? One of those cheap, value beef roasts, the kind with reformed extruded fat on top. They are far cheaper than a decent piece of beef, but if you've ever tried roasting one, it turns out tough and flavourless. That's because it isn't a roasting cut of beef!

This is a slow-cooking cut of beef. After 8 hours in an electric slow-cooker with a few condiments, it will be soft, moist and flavourful. Trust me on this.

Pimms Jam

During my earlier Cucumber Lime Jam with Vanilla experiment, it occurred to me that an alcohol-favoured cucumber jam might work.

When it comes to cucumbers and alcohol, the first thing that comes to mind is the classic Pimms cocktail, in which Pimms No.1 Cup is combined with lemonade, cucumber, strawberries, oranges and garnished with fresh mint.

And so this is a jam made from that combination of fruits, and a generous slug of Pimms. With a little help from my other half for the orange wrangling.

Porridge Oat Pancakes

With all the homemade jam piling up in the cupboard, its time for a sunday morning batch of pancakes. I don't mean the paper-thin crepe style of pancakes though. To me, pancakes are what the English call Scotch Pancakes, or Drop Scones.

These are very filling, packed as they are with slow carbs and fibre. They also freeze well, so its worth making a big batch on a slow Sunday morning and bagging some up for quick weekday breakfasts.

Cherry Plum Jam

There is a hedgerow along a cycle path beside a light industrial estate near here that is full of Cherry Plum trees. It's getting on for the right time of year for fruit, so we wandered past there last night on the way home - and found that the fruit was ripe and ready. After a quick trip home for buckets and a stepladder, we picked several kg.

This morning's first job was washing and picking over the fruit, which left us with 6.5kg for jam-making.

Pressure Cooker Chilli con Carne

In the interests of completeness, here is my basic chilli recipe that I've been cooking on a regular basis for a very long time now. The presssure cooker shortens what would be a long slow simmer to a few minutes, making this doable for a work day evening meal without keeping everyone starving til after 8pm!

Baked Chicken Wings and Potatoes

Oh look, another throw-it-all-in-the-oven after work meal! I do cook stuff other than bakes on week day nights sometimes, honest!

The packet of chicken wings had been bought with a view to making something else that never happened and was lurking in the freezer needing using up, so I decided to turn them into an easy evening meal. This would also work with chicken thighs or drumsticks.

Sausage, Potato and Vegetable Bake

Another weekday evening, another throw-it-all-in-the-oven-and-forget-about-it meal. Homegrown green beans needed eating, and the potatoes had just been dug.

Carrot and Coriander Omelette

A quick, healthy, vegetable and herb-laden lunchtime omelette in a vaguely Persian style. Serve hot or cold, cut into wedges, with ketchup and salad.

Cucumber Lime Jam with Vanilla

Despite eating lots of Cucumber Raita, we still have a huge pile of cucumbers that need eating. This calls for desperate measures, namely googling to see if Cucumber Jam is a thing. And apparently it is indeed a thing.


The search turned up a couple of interesting recipes: this Vanilla Cucumber conserve recipe and this Cucumber Jam one.

Based on these starting points, I decided to try making a Cucumber Lime Jam with Vanilla.

Achaari Murg

To eat with the raita, an easy chicken curry.

Cucumber Raita

So we're back from holiday and of course the vegetable plants have been busy whilst we were away.

*Ten* large cucumbers in need of eating.

So here's one way to use them up...