As the twelve days of Christmas come to and end, I'm sure there are lots of bits and pieces of food that people have lying around which get made into something much more appetising. Many of them will involve herbs for one reason or another. Can you share your secrets with us?

Yesterday I spent a large proportion of the day making two different kinds of soup to finish off the turkey carcass.

Stock

You can make stock from any bones. It's very important for any kind of nourishing broth for people with digestive difficulties or those recovering from viral infections.

Cover the bones in a large saucepan with water. Add anti-viral herbs e.g. rosemary, thyme, sage, bay. Peppercorns for flavour. Onions and leeks for pre-biotic stimulation of good gut bacteria. Celery sticks (at least 3) for prevention of gout and help with arthritic/inflammatory conditions. DON'T ADD SALT. Bring to the boil and simmer for at least one hour. If you are using large mutton or beef bones put aside 3-4 hours making sure the liquid level doesn't drop too much.

Strain the stock and use to add a mixture of vegetables or vegetables and meat. If the bones have meat left on them, use it in the soup.

The soups I made yesterday were a) mushroom - I added about 1lb mushrooms to around 4 pints of liquid with all the vegetables (onions, leeks, celery) retained from the stock preparation. I added salt, cooked for a further 40 minutes then whizzed in the liquidiser. It tastes wonderful and has very few calories!

b) turkey and vegetables - I added, about 1lb leftover turkey meat, 2 potatoes, 5 carrots and 1/2 lb of mushrooms to about 8 pints of stock. Simmer for 20 minutes with a little added salt then liquidise. This made about 8 pints of thicker soup. (It was a large amount of stock because we had an 18lb turkey!)

Both soups are gluten free because they have no added thickening from flour, white sauce or cornflour. They're not suitable for vegetarians, but you could make up a vegetarian stock by simmering the herbs and pre-biotic vegetable mixture for an hour and then adding other vegetables and probably some lentils for increased protein content. You could also add dried or fresh nettles to any of these to increase the mineral content and provide a tonic effect after all the season's excesses!

What have other people been making?

Sarah

Hello Sarah,

We had chicken (from our local butcher)this year so a little less to cope with. The remaining meat plus a few odd veg went into an ear-flapper of a curry and the bones plus usual veg made a couple of containers of good jellied stock which now resides in the freezer. Found a recipe for chestnut soup the other day in an old book, will let you know how it turns out. Won't inflict it on any one until then.

Jane

I've never actually tried chestnut soup, I've never been brave enough, do like roasted chesnuts though. Please let us know how the recipe turns out Jane and share the recipe if its yummy.

We didn't have much in the way of left overs this year, so I can't be much help, we got a medium corn fed chicken with it being just the two of us. What was leftover made some sandwiches for lunch the following day and a lovely cold chicken waldorf salad. One of the few times I eat mayonaise!

Leftover Cold Roast Chicken (Diced)
2 Red Delicious Apples (Cored and diced leaving skin on)
3 Sticks celery (chopped)
50g Green Grapes (chopped in half)
Handful of raisins
Large handful walnuts
Juice 1 lemon
3 dessertspoons low fat mayonnaise
1 dessertspoon low fat garlic and herb dressing either homemade or shop bought if you’re pushed for time.
2 Dessertspoons freshly chopped chives
Salk & Pepper

Method - Put the chopped celery and apple in a bowl and add the lemon juice, stirring to ensure all the apple is coated in the lemon juice. Add the grapes, raisins and walnuts and stir.

Next add the mayonnaise and the garlic and herb dressing and stir through so everything gets evenly covered with the dressing. Season with salt and pepper and add the chives stirring through again, place in the fridge until ready to serve.

We do have a lot of things like mince pies and biscuits left, but I think either the birds will get them as I have no intentions of eating them. We bought less this year than previous years, which is why we didn't have much leftover. Your soup sounds yummy Sarah, we don't often have turkey though, I'll give the mushroom soup a go next time we have chicken and I have spare stock

Debs 

Has anyone come across a magazine called Country Kitchen?It is about cooking with traditional,seasonal and healthy food.There is therefore,quite a lot of herbs and spices used.it is a monthly publication and costs aprx £3.I found it originally in my local newsagents,but interestingly,I`ve never seen it in WH.smiths

We used to live in the far north of Scotland on a 6 acre smallholding.One of the crops my husband grew was Jerusalem artichokes and I remember my first taste of them--I thought they were vile and so havn`t cooked with them since.However,seeing some in the grengrocers recently,I felt my concious being pricked and so bought some,and wrapped them up together for a voucher for a"soup of your choice" and gave it to my husband as an extra xmas present!

Linda

Hi Linda

So did the hubby ask for Jerusalem artichoke soup? I couldn't help but grin when I read how you'd tasty once and never cooked since, the same happened in this house with brussel sprouts YUK!

As to the Country Kitchen mag, I'm certain someone else may have mentioned in on this thread, if not then its one of the other forums I belong to. Anyway I've found their website for those that are interested http://www.countrykitchenmag.com/next_issue.html. The next issue, which is due out today (4th Jan 08), has an article in it called "Paul's Herb Journey", no idea who Paul is, or what his journey involves but I've half a mind to find out! Not sure about taking out a subscription though at £32.40, but I will see if I can pick up this one as a one off. I'll check out the local newsagent first, if not then town at weekend.

Debs

I ventured out into the murk of central Birmingham this lunchtime to search WH Smith for Country Kitchen as I'm always interested to see what people write about herbs.

"Paul's journey" refers to the freelance journalist Paul Peacock, who lives with his wife and three children in Greater Manchester living as much of a life of self sufficiency as he can given his busy work schedule. Apparently he once kept bees and owned a pig on a friend's farm. This gave him the knowledge to write "The smoking and curing book" and "The book of sausages" together with biographies of the self sufficiency guru John Seymour (I bought his book as a teenager and dreamed of having pigs to dig my fields - my father soon enlightened me about the realities of such a proposal!) and Jack Hargreaves, the presenter of "Out of Town".

He is known for writing a gardening column in the Guardian and edits "Grow it" magazine. He has also become the presenter for "Out of Town 2" produced by the The Country Chanel, which is apparently available on the Internet and Sky TV.

Unfortunately his vast journalistic expertise in the gardening arena does not extend to herbs. I'd love to know which books he read to produce his "A-Z".

The opening title got my hackles raised ".. not many people have bothered to name herbs with a V but Paul has managed to find a few."

He then went on to say that valarian and lemon verbena were poisonous in large quantities and shouldn't be taken by expectant women or anyone with high blood pressure, kidney or liver disease. The message is obviously "don't take these herbs you might die". Not something I've ever seen discussed on a herb list! I guess Christmas cake could kill you in large doses.

He then goes on to make a quip about the Romans being wusses because they made a nervine tonic out of valarian, verbena and lettuce seed - obviously scared to death after all their conquering. Maybe he ought to learn the difference between a nervine tonic and something to help you sleep since the three herbs together would be for a sleeping draught rather than anything else (unless you're like Debs and valarian sends you into overdrive!).

The best bit came at the beginning of the next paragraph on violets. "Sweet violet is a lovely plant and is also known as heartsease". He recommends it for high blood pressure. It was then I went totally apopleptic and put together a letter to the Editor which I shall send tonight when I've calmed down a little.

For that article Paul Peacock will have been paid between £50 and £200 per single 500 word page - providing he actually wrote it and didn't just give his name to the article. Whatever the cost, you would think he'd have learned by now to get his facts correct before it's published.

The pictures are pretty, but I don't think I'll be making his version of vanilla custard. I have better things to do with nine egg yolks and a pint of milk!

Sarah

Hi Sarah,
I too bought a copy of Country Kitchen,and am also very cross about the info in the article on herbs by Paul Peacock,especially as I recommended it in the first place!
I would like to take this opportunity to correct the misinformation in the article.
1)Valerian is one of the safest and most gentlest herbs that we have,and as well as its relaxing and sedative properties,it is a an excellent anti spasmodic,which makes an exceptionally good remedy in the treatment of high blood pressure. It is quite safe for pregnant woman to take.

2)Heartsease and Sweet violet are two very different herbs and it is to avoid this type of mistake that medical herbalists always use the Latin name of plants.
Heartsease (Viola tricolor)and sometimes known as wild pansy
This herb is used mainly in the treatment of skin diseases and is rich in zinc.

Sweet violet(Violet odorata)
Known for it`s anti-neoplastic properties and can be used either topically or internally.It also is used in cases of bronchitis.
neither of these herbs are used in the treatment of high blood pressure.
On an historical note--the Romans used Borago(Borago officinalis) as an adrenal stimulant to give them courage before going into battle.Throughout history this herb has been assosiated with courage an d in medieval times the Knights would have the flower embroidered on their surcoats.

I will be writing to the magazine as well and it will be interesting to see what replies we get.

Re.artichokes--I`ve just realised that I missed the vital bit of info on my posting ,that the reason for my guilty feelings is due to the fact that my husband really loves them!
Linda

Ladies I wholeheartedly agree with you being cross at Mr Peacock, I agree with all the points you've both made and would just like to add my gripes....

 

Mr Peacock doesn't give latin names as Linda pointed out, and therefore isn't defining which verbena he's talking about, is it vervain (Verbena officinalis). Or is he referring to Lemon Verbena (Aloysia triphylla). We know which one he's referring to, but would the normal Country Kitchen reader? I don't mean to be insulting when I say that, just the magazine is more about cooking and not everyone is herb savvy.

 

You're absolutely right to correct the Sweet Violet/Heartsease error, once again if they'd used the latin names there would have been no confusion, but he's stating that two very different plants are the same thing! I didn't spot the fact that neither SV or H are used to treat high blood pressure, but I did spot that he stated they were the same. Which is stupid, yes they belong to the genus viola but that doesn't mean they're the same plant. And Heartsease has NO scent!

 

His description of candying violets is awful as well! Using his method, I think you'd end up with a soggy mess lol! I prefer the dipping in lightly beaten egg white then castor sugar to candy my violets and repeat until your happy with the result.

 

But what really got my goat.... "Candied violet leaves are sweets known as parma violets" Ummm I don't think so! Candied violets were and for those of us that still make them ARE the fragrant flowers petals or whole flowers if they don't fall apart on you which mine do often, and NOT the leaves! And today's parma violets have never had a leaf in them and they don't have any real violet in them either!!! Rant over

 

As I said to Sarah, if this is what the V is like I dread to think what will happen to X, Y & Z and what was the rest of the alphabet like!

 

Debs

Herb Society Webmistress

As you know, I wrote to the Editor of Country Kitchen and got a reply back yesterday. This is what he said:

Thanks for your letter/email.

Certainly I have to agree with you on a fair few of the points raised, although you have to remember we are creating a magazine which means we are also in entertainment business as well as providing clear and accurate information. With that in mind headlines designed to capture your attention don't always appeal to everybody.

But as I said, Paul does appear to have been slightly too easy-going in his approach to the letter v in his most recent herbal offering and we'll have a word. I'm 100 per cent sure he knows this as he has a degree in just that subject so ordinarily his word certainly is correct! He does, of course, realise he is working to a very tight space, but I think on this occasion reviewing the piece it's probably just down to a lack of clear planning on our part; perhaps we should have allowed more room?

Can I conclude by saying we most definitely are interested in readers' feedback; how else could we put the magazine together? Many of our features are generated by readers asking for certain recipes. We don't have a letters page because we don't get too many comments either way, which means it would be a rather bland page and we'd much rather supply an additional recipe or two. That said, readers have been sending in recipe ideas in their droves for the Crock Pot competition so we're pleased to see feedback is really kicking off in that department.

So, thanks again for your comments. Please keep an eye on us; without analysis like this we'd be stuck in a rut.

Paul Larkins
Managing editor, Country kitchen

I'd love to know which particular degree Mr Peacock obtained and whether it had anything at all to do with the medicinal use of herbs!!

Sarah

update on the Country Kitchen magazine
I wrote to the editor,correcting the absolute howlers in it about the medicinal properties of the herbs. I had a very positive and what I feel is an honest reply,in which he says;
"Sadly I can`t disagree with anything you`ve noted or really create much of an counter argument" He goes on to add "As you are obviously aware it`s quite a specific area and usually we can rely on him(Paul)100%,not this time though.I`ve had a word with him and all I can say is he is most apologetic as we are"
I ve since had a chat with the editor and as a result,I have been asked to write a couple of articles for the magazine.Will let you know when it is out.
Linda

That's brilliant news Linda!!! Such a wonderful outcome, nice that they will have someone who knows what they're talking about, at least readers won't get told things that are inaccurate or not true. If it isn't too cheeky or giving away secrets what will you be writing about?

Don't forget to let us know when the issue with your article in is out in the shops, so we can go buy it

Debs

Well done, Linda!

Getting commissioned to write articles is really difficult, so they must have realised how valuable you are!

As Debs said, let us know when they're going to be published!

Very best wishes

Sarah