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| Vanessa Kimbell |
The Winter months can be a bit quiet for many of us
Artisan Food producers, so this is a good time to try to generate a bit of publicity. So I was delighted when Vanessa Kimbell invited me to join her and presenter Kevin Saddington for their live radio show, "Kitchen Garden" on
BBC Radio Northampton on Sunday morning.
We had a jolly good discussion all about the
history of Womersley, the
making of our fruit vinegars and a couple of recipes too, below. I "met"
Vanessa on Twitter and have corresponded with her for many months, finally meeting her properly at the Real Food Festival at Earl's Court last year. I can still picture her first approach to our stand, beaming smile and enjoying all the food treats in the hall. Sure enough, we had a jolly good chat and I discovered Vanessa was once a grower of lavender but, as can happen when handling plants with strong essential oils, she suddenly became so sensitive to it that she can no longer use any at all....which is a shame, since my favourite vinegar dressing is our Lime, Black Pepper and Lavender! The Orange & Mace proved a real winner with Vanessa, though, as you can hear on our
soundcloud widget, here:
During the show, Kevin played some appropriate Sunday morning tracks (and Abba's Dancing Queen!) while we all had a taste of our sausage casserole recipe (using our Blackcurrant and Rosemary) which we'd had at home for supper the night before as well as our own Lemon Drizzle cake recipe using our Lemon, Basil, Bay & Juniper to make it really moist and delicious...
Sausage Casserole with
Womersley Blackcurrant & Rosemary Dressing
SERVES 4
Takes 25 minutes approx.
Ingredients:
·
1 tbsp Vegetable Oil
·
8 Thick Pork Sausages
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1 Medium Red Onion, cut into thick slices
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2 Braeburn or other eating apple with the skin
left on, cored and each cut into wedges
·
1 ½ tbsp Womersley Rosemary Jelly
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300ml/ ½ Pint Chicken Stock (can be made using a
stock cube)
·
1 ½ tbsp Grainy Mustard
·
2 tbsp Womersley Blackcurrant & Rosemary
Dressing
Method:
·
Heat the oil in a large frying pan, add the pork
sausages and fry for about five minutes, turning them so they brown all over.
Add the onion slices and continue to fry until the onion and sausages have
turned a dark gold, stirring occasionally.
Turn up the heat,
add the apple wedges and stir them in carefully until they have glazed in the
pan juices.
·
Stir the Rosemary Jelly into the chicken stock
until it is dissolved, then add the Blackcurrant & Rosemary Dressing and
mustard. Pour this in to the pan and cook on a high heat for 5 minutes.
·
Reduce the heat and leave to simmer, uncovered,
for 10 minutes until the sausages are cooked and the liquid has reduced to a
syrupy gravy.
Serve
with your choice of rice or potatoes and veg
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Sausage Casserole with Womersley Blackcurrant & Rosemary Dressing
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Lemon Drizzle Cake
with Womersley Lemon, Basil, Bay & Juniper
Vinegar Drizzle
Ingredients for the cake:
125g butter
75g caster sugar
2 large eggs
Zest of one lemon
175g self raising flour
Pinch of salt
4 tablespoons milk
Ingredients for the Drizzle:
2 tbsp lemon juice
100g icing sugar
2 tbsp Womersley Lemon,
Basil, Bay & Juniper Vinegar
Method:
- Pre-heat oven to 180°C/ gas mark 4
- Butter and line
a loaf or cake tin (make sure the lining goes well up the sides of the tin)
- Cream together butter and sugar, add eggs and lemon zest and beat well
- Add flour and salt, folding gently until mixed
- Add milk and mix in
- Spoon cake mix into prepared tin
- Cook for 45 minutes until golden and skewer comes out clean
For the Drizzle:
(Make just before the cake
is due out of the oven)
- Put icing sugar, lemon juice and Womersley Lemon,
Basil, Bay & Juniper Vinegar
into a small saucepan
- Heat gently until the sugar is dissolved and the
vinegar has reduced the mixture to a viscous drizzle
-
When cake is ready,
take out of the oven and pierce it all over with a skewer. Pour the drizzle all
over. Make sure the cake is totally cooled before taking out of the loaf
tin or it will crumble.
Note: For a Gluten free
cake, use Gluten Free flour and add extra milk.
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| Lemon Drizzle Cake (right) with the rest of the day's baking |
