Bubble and Squeak

I've had a bit of a bizarre day. We have had to move the chicken coop to make way for our new guest bedroom in the barn.

Now chickens are creatures of habit. Every evening as it gets dark they take themselves off to bed. But they are also rather stupid so when their coop was no longer there they tried to go to roost on a patch of now coop-less ground.

We do have a nightly visit from a fox so we needed to get them into the coop.

If you've ever tried catching a chicken in 2 acres of land you'll know it's not easy - the large fat ones will usually give themselves up but we have some lightweight hens that make you realise exactly where the expression flighty comes from.

However what you may not know about chickens is that once it gets dark they stop moving around and fall into a sort of torpor - it's why a fox in a coop at night can kill so many. So as they slowed down my daughter and I were able to catch all 22 chickens and take them to their new home.

After 40 minutes of chicken re-locating in the freezing cold I am not in the mood to cook. So it's bubble and squeak and sausages for tea - perfect warming winter comfort food and great for using up leftovers from Sunday dinner.

Leftover cooked mash potatoes

Leftover cooked cabbage ( or sprouts or leeks )

Onion

Butter

Thick Sausages

Gravy

Put the sausages in a small roasting tin with a bit of oil and put in the top oven of the AGA ( or a hot oven at about 220 degrees C ) for 20 minutes.

Saute the onions in butter in a small frying pan until soft and translucent. Add the potatoes and cabbage and fry over a medium heat until golden brown on one side. Flip over and cook on the other side.

Serve with the sausages and lashings of gravy ( bisto will do fine - we're not being posh here )