
Contrary to popular belief Will Keith Kellogg did not invent Peanut Butter. It was actually a Canadian chap called Marcellus Gilmore Edson. But he didn’t have an early autumn glut of Hazelnuts. We do!
So we thought we’d have a pop at Hazelnut Butter…..
Ingredients:-
Hazelnuts
Oil
Salt
Method:-
(1) Shell the Hazelnuts. If you don’t nave a nut cracker you could aways use a kitchen cloth and rolling pin on a hards surface. Our neibours will again think we’re up to some dreadful DIY gig, or worse!
(2) Heat the oven to 180c and roast the nuts for 15 minutes.
(3) Allow them to cool to room temperature.
(4) In a food processor add a teaspoon of Salt, depending on the amount of nuts you have. It wants to be quite salty without being overpowering.
(5) Blend the roasted nuts until you get a bread crumb consistency.
(6) In a bowl add oil a little at a time until everything will fold together in a firm dough. Check for salt and add a little extra to suite your taste if required.
(7) Spoon into a jar and store in the fridge.
I’m not expecting our trial batch to last long. But there’s a high risk that I’ll be making a much bigger batch when I’m next not supervised!

As part of one of Sue’s birthday presents we have received some dried Porcini mushrooms. We’ve foraged quite a haul of Hazelnuts, it’s been a great year for them. We’ve also picked some fresh Sage. So what to make? We’ve a Sunday afternoon off and we seldom actually have a roast dinner on a Sunday. What’s good with a roast? Stuffing. What’s better with a roast? 80% foraged Gluten free stuffing balls to your own original recipe obviously!
The quantities were just guessed but it really doesn’t matter….
Ingredients:-
Foraged Hazelnuts, de-shelled (Our neighbours probably hate me as I did ours wrapped in a T-towel using the rolling pin in the kitchen!)
Dried Porcini Mushrooms
Fresh and dried Sage
1 Egg
Bread ( Gluten free in our case )
Butter / Margarine
Salt & Pepper
Method:-
(1) Sweat the finely chopped Onions in a little Butter / Margarine , Salt & Pepper, dried Sage and set aside.
(2) Using a blender, crumb the Bread, Hazelnuts, Porcini and dried Sage.
(3) Beat the Egg.
(4) Allow everything to cool.
(5) Combine all the ingredients and form into balls.
(6) Place in the oven with your roast of choice for the last 20 minutes in a separate tray.
Best served with a roast dinner. But if you have real issues I guess these (Might) work with grass and seaweed ice-cream. Please if you do try this we don’t want to know!

The deep fried Beef strips were inspired by the Kazakhstan recipe we did back in February. We had a piece of top side Beef in the freezer which I found in the discount fridge a month or so ago and Sue’s birthday seems a good excuse.
The ingredients in the fried rice are pretty much up to you. As long as you fried them with grated Garlic and Soy Sauce added at the end before stirring into your Rice, it will have a reasonably Chinese style flavour.
Chilli Sauce.
Ingredients:-
1 Tin of chopped Tomatoes
2 tsp hot Chilli flakes
4 dried red Chillies
1 tsp Soy Sauce
1 tsp Sugar
1 tsp Oil
Method:-
(1) Mix all the ingredients in a pan and bring to the boil.
(2) Turn the heat down and simmer for half an hour to reduce.
Battered Beef strips.
Ingredients:-
1 Top Side steak, cut into strips
1 Egg
Cornflour
Juice of a Lemon
Water
Salt & Pepper
Method:-
(1) Mix all the ingredients and add water if the batter seems too thick. You are looking for a very thin batter consistency.
(2) Flour the Beef strips in Cornflour to help the batter stick.
(3) Deep fry in batches until the batter is crispy.
(4) Keep warm under the grill until ready to serve.
We plated ours with the fried Rice at the bottom, the Beef strips next and a little Chilli sauce over the top. Some of the remaining Chilli sauce can be used as a dipping sauce.

We had some filling left in the freezer from our Pastrogi experiment. So last nights feast consisted of Dill infused Meatballs stuffed with Blue Shropshire Cheese, tomato based Italian style sauce, on a bed of Gluten free pasta.
Oh and as we had Luxury Cheese for £0.64 from the discount fridge Sue grated some over the top and melted it as well….
The Meat ball ingredients are here - Ingredients
The Tomato sauce is pretty much Bolognaise sauce without the mince - Ingredients
Very tasty it was too…...

Discount fridge special
Turkey thigh and drummer - £3.33
Brie - £0.70
Gammon end - £1.78
We only used half of the Turkey and Gammon and we’ll be having a cold meat feast today, so we’re well within budget!
We slow roasted the Gammon in oil, salt & pepper. Allowed it to cool and sliced it. We then wrapped the Brie in gammon, boned the thigh and stuffed it.
Slow roasted and served with a vegetable tray bake this was a pretty hearty and tasty treat.
Sue is presently straining the stock she made with the bone…...
© 2025 Eat Well on UC