The nights are drawing in, the days are getting colder its time to warm the soul!

Firstly sorry for slacking past week or two life had taken over but good things are well on the horizon. Autumn is well and truly upon us ladies and gentlemen, the swift temperature drop capped off with the nights drawing in very rapidly indeed! There's nothing better than getting home after a long day to sit down to some proper hearty food, for me I'm a big fan of your traditional stews and casseroles whereas others aren't as keen so in the post I'm going to be showing and writing some alternatives as well as the traditional. Whether its beef stew and horseradish dumplings or a good old fashioned pie the British are built food the cold weather food, the north of England is a prime example of this where the heavier and more stodgy food is in abundance, I for one love the northerners take on comfort food, the legendary Lancashire hotpot has got to be one of the absolute greats with its meat stock base, flavorsome autumn vegetables and falling apart melt in the mouth tender lamb all topped of with sliced crispy potatoes I think this is a good start to give a recipe on as its very simple to make and you can even prep it up in advance to whack in the oven at a later date!

Lancashire Hotpot - Serves 4

1 diced lamb neck around 1 kg (half inch dice)
2 large onion - thinly sliced
3 carrots - peeled and roughly chopped
1 garlic clove - thinly sliced
good sprig of rosemary & thyme
3/4 large Maris Piper potatoes peeled
plain flour
vegetable oil

Lamb stock

3/4 lamb bones - veal bones if lamb isn't available (easily accessible from your local butchers)
1 large carrot (roughly diced)
1 white onion (peeled and quartered)
2 garlic cloves
sprig of rosemary & thyme
1 bay leaf
1 tablespoon of tomato puree

Preheat you oven to 200ºc / gas mark 6. Put lamb bones into a roasting tray to be lightly browned off.
Meanwhile for the stock cook off the carrot, onion and garlic in a heavy based pot just lightly brown the vegetable off with a touch of veg oil. Add in the herbs and a pinch of salt then stir in the tomato puree and allow it to cook out for a little while. Add in the roasted bones and top the pot up with about 2 litre of water. Bring to the boil, allow to simmer for an hour or so, making sure you skim off the fat that will rise tot he top of the stock. After an hour or so pass the stock through a sieve into a clean pan and reduce further until you've got about a litre of liquid left. Turn you oven right down to 150ºc / gas mark 2.
Hotpot - With your diced lamb dust it in some plain flour and quickly fry in a little bit of vegetable oil until lightly coloured on all sides, remove from the pan and put it aside. In the same pan add in the onion, carrot and garlic and lightly brown off.
Put the cooked off lamb and vegetables into a heavy casserole dish, filling it up but leaving about 1/2cm at the top, season the mixture and add in the herbs making sure you remove all the woody part so you're only left with the leaves. Pour on your reduced stock.
Evenly slice your potatoes to about 1mm thick and arrange neatly all over the top of the dish. If you wanted to add a few knobs of butter on top of the potatoes feel free - season the potatoes and cover the whole thing with a tightly fitting lid, Put in the oven for 1 and half hours. After which remove the lid and continue to cook for 40 minutes, and serve straight from the oven in the casserole dish, making sure you've put a heatproof mat underneath. This goes really well with some really crusty bread.

As I mentioned earlier my love for hearty food another prime example is Eastern Europe with the famous Hungarian Beef Goulash or the more flavour complex Bigos(Hunters Stew) which is my feature picture at the top of the page. The whole feeling of comfort food is to be warming on the inside it doesn't have to be all heavy and fattening there are plenty of healthy eating alternatives which I shall link a few recipes in as well to look at. As I sit here writing with an Olympic swimming pool sized cup of black coffee I get the sense of warming about writing about the autumnal foods, In Britain now I think were so culturally diverse that we have all ingredients at our disposal - from the more old school farmers vegetables to the imported more exotic meats. There's all one thing in common that is food is key, In my recent post I said about not everyone's taste being the same so you'll always look for a more suitable ingredient/meal. The joys of being a chef is the fact you never stop learning or developing and honing your skill set, I love to work with chefs from all different cultures and countries as they bring their own inbuilt knowledge to the dish. I've had the absolute privilege to work along side some amazingly inspiring chefs in my years and feel like I've always absorbed as much information as I possibly could, hence adding to my own knowledge. A long time ago I was working in a hotel in Southend-on-Sea with a decent young team of chefs but being a hotel we had people from all different countries working there as well, there was a small group of Hungarian housekeeping who were all food obsessed which was great as they would sometimes request things to be made for staff dinner. One time one of the girls went home for a short while to visit family etc and upon her arrival back she brought me a bag of goodies which consisted of some amazing spices and purees, which is where I decided to return the favour and try to cook a Hungarian goulash. It was well received by all which was a brilliant feeling as it was the first time I had made it, which then led onto me exploring more and more Eastern European dishes and they're perfect for autumn and winter, some are basic and simple and some are a lot harder and more complex nether-less I always welcomed the personal challenge. Autumn has got to be one of my favorite seasons as we still have the end of summer produce like spicy chillies and soft herbs but we tend to have them all year round due to the way we import a lot of our food now, Fair enough its cheaper but I tend to prefer the authentic produce for the certain dish I'm making. Curries are a great winter warmers as the ingredients are readily available to us all year around and they're reasonably healthy as well so I'm going to give you a quick and easy Chicken Jalfrezi.

Chicken Jalfrezi

6 long green chillies
4 chicken breasts
2 tbsp vegetable oil
2 garlic cloves finely chopped
3 ripe tomatoes chopped
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tbsp garam masala
1 tsp ground turmeric
1 tbsp caster sugar
2 tbsp natural yogurt
1 white onion roughly diced
2 green bell peppers roughly diced

Split open the chillies and deseed if you require (add less chillies if you like milder food) and roughly chop the chillies, not to fine as you want the be able to see them still in the food. Dice up the chicken roughly 2inch would be fine.
Heat vegetable oil in a non stick frying pan over high heat, add in the onions, garlic, chillies and bell peppers until slightly softened be careful not to burn the mix as it won't give you a great end product.
Add in the chicken to lightly seal, stiring all the time making sure you're not burning the vegetables. Then add in your cumin, garam masala,turmeric, sugar and a pinch of salt, once all the ingredients are in the pan stir gently turning over the mixture, add in the chopped tomatoes.
Once the mixture starts to dry out a bit add in about 150ml of water and the natural yogurt. Making sure you're stiring consistently, don't worry about any separation from the yogurt as that should all blend in as the dish cooks out. Reduce the heat and allow to simmer for about 8 minutes. Once the dish has simmered, raise the heat up slightly to get a rapid bubbling effect then serve immediately with some white rice. Nice, Simple and reasonably healthy.

Soups are also a great way of feeling great and healthy, With unlimited possible flavour combinations. Recently I did a live stream via Facebook on how to make a beautiful sweet potato, spinach and coconut soup with a light spice, It was my first live cooking demonstration I had done for a very long time, but I felt comfortable and at home talking and explaining what I was doing and why I was doing it. I'm considering doing another live cooking demonstration in the not too distant future! I also have some brilliant news as I've been picked up by a digital media marketing company called One Versus Zero Digital they're a great company and really know their stuff when it comes down to marketing so please look them up if you're planning and websites or trying to build up a fan base, Gary is a true professional and has a very vast knowledge of how to get the most out of advertising. I look forwards to working with OvsZ and believe they'll really help me get my content seen by the right people. I'm also having some artwork created for the blog as I type by a very good friend of mine which will all be reveled soon. Also I must say that all pictures are taken by another good friend of mine Steven Crammond. The future is looking bright on all sides at the moment which is a great feeling and its really encouraging me to explore more into different aspects of the catering industry, I'm thinking on doing a local based 'meet the chefs' idea soon where I interview chefs from my local town and help them have their own voice as well so if you're interested or know anyone who would benefit from this please get in touch with me via the links at the bottom of the page. I feel that writing for me is a good escape from routine and taking the necessary time to sit and write without the pressure is great. I know its been awhile since my last post but I've had a bit going on and haven't found the time which is unfortunate but this blog wasn't far from my mind at all as I want to make sure I'm getting my words out correctly, As I did say in my first post on the page I'm aware that I'm not a professional writer and my grammar might not be up to par in some instances but I am trying and learning as I go so please bare with me on this. I'm always working on content and I have quite a vast list of posts that I aim to release in due course its more about finding the right time to sit down and tap it all out. Thanks for taking the time to read my rambling on I hope you are enjoying my blog so far. Please don't forget to share this post via suitable media outlets it would be greatly appreciated.

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JoeChef