Pea, mint & chilli dip - what a low calorie winner!

Fresh, sweet, hot and minty gorgeousness - that's good for you!

We appear to have developed a routine in our house, whereby on a Friday evening the two chaps (hubby and son & heir) pull out a bag of Sensations crisps and some flavour of Dorito (respectively) and get tucked in to half the bag, along with some sort of beverage or another (age dependent, usually!).  The other half disappears on the Saturday night.

I found myself slipping into this routine initially.  I'd get myself a bag of Pretzels (as they were baked, not fried, it felt better), but soon I'd have moved on to a bag of Kettle Chips (totally gorgeous - but oh, so bad for you!).  All this had to stop.

However, I felt left out.  There I'd be, surrounded by munching and crunching people all devouring snacks that I liked and - obesity aside for a moment - I'd have been very happy to have joined in with the devouring.

Pitta bread - add olive oil & sea salt & bake in the oven

So I decided I'd have to find something else other than opening a bag of crisps or corn chips.  I've been through the hummus, taramasalata (didn't realise quite how fattening THAT was!), tzatziki list and paired them up with crispbread, carrot, apple, pear, celery, cauliflower, cucumber - anything that it's possible to make a crudite out of, I've done it.

This last weekend, I realised that we had a pack of pitta bread too many and remembered the Cheesy Pitta Breads that I made just recently.  Hmmmn.  If I didn't sprinkle cheese all over them, but just sprinkle with a little olive oil and sea salt, they wouldn't be too bad calorifically.  What I needed to find, was a super-low calorie dip to go with them.

Enter the Pea, mint & chilli Dip.  Using fat-free natural yoghurt, this dip is so innocent it almost has a halo around it.  In fact, if it wasn't for the natural evilness of the red chilli involved, I am sure the halo would be a definite.  Again, it is a recipe from the BBC Good Food magazine, that I can't seem to find on their website.  However, the magazine gives the calorific value as being in the range of 70 calories per serving - which is just brilliant.

Now, I love every ingredient in this dip (which always helps).  I used petit pois (tiny baby peas, for those as don't know) as that was all we had at the time and I am sure it was improved slightly for their use.  Petit pois are so intensely sweet, that they provide a fine foil for the dairy yoghurt, the fresh mint and the heat of the chilli.

I divided the end product up into two helpings - one each for Friday & Saturday - and didn't feel left out at all.  In fact, son & heir was very definitely coveting my snacks and managed to whoofle off with more than one of the pitta dippers, duly dipped!  The dip didn't object to being left until the following day (sometimes they can split slightly, or noticeably deteriorate in other ways) and was just as fresh and lovely.

Eaten with vegetable and fruit crudites instead of the pitta bread, I reckon this one is a total winner for anyone who wants to nibble whilst watching a film - or even healthy nibbles for a party.

PEA MINT & CHILLI DIP   (makes sufficient for two helpings over two days)

Ingredients :

200g defrosted petit pois or ordinary frozen peas
50g fat free natural or greek yoghurt
juice of half a lemon
half a tsp ground cumin
1 tbsp mint leaves
half a small red chilli (or more, depending on the heat of the chilli & how hot you like it), chopped finely.


Method :


1.  Place the peas, yoghurt, lemon juice, cumin, mint and chilli into a food processor.


2.  Whizz until the dip achieves the texture you prefer.  You can add more yoghurt, lemon juice, mint or chilli at this stage.  Add a little salt & pepper half way through.


3.  Taste for seasoning and if you're happy with the results, decant into a bowl.


4.  Select your choice of dipping material (carrot & cucumber batons, apple or pear slices, wedges of pitta bread), sit down and be smug as all around you wish they had some too.


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Sweetcorn & Chilli Soup - making soup for teenagers!

In the latest Good Food Magazine, I spotted a particularly scrummy looking bowl of soup.

Now I completely love sweetcorn in all its incarnations - from corn on the cob through to polenta.  I have also recently discovered how well sweetcorn goes with chilli - and this soup looked to be just perfectly put together.

You know how you read some recipes and you've got a vague idea how it's going to taste, but you're not quite sure?  This recipe was one that you could almost taste the soup as you read down the list of ingredients - basically, because it is little more than onion, chilli and sweetcorn in vegetable stock.

I knew I'd have two teenagers to feed on Saturday lunchtime and this seemed to me to provide perfect teenager-filling ammunition.  I know that son & heir loves sweetcorn, but wasn't sure about his friend, D.  One thing I did know about D though, was that he has eaten absolutely everything I've ever put in front of him in the past - so I was fairly hopeful.

I purposely didn't tell them that I was making the soup for them.  I've found that if you tell them you're expecting them to eat what you're making, it's tantamount to saying "diss my soup, why don't you?" and they'd have banana sandwiches or some such.

I was hoping that the smell of it cooking would be sufficient to get their taste buds interested - and so it proved.

I opted for extra parsley, instead of double cream

I was tucking into my bowl of soup when they emerged from son & heir's recording studio (a.k.a. his bedroom) on the prowl for lunch.  "There's soup in the saucepan, if you want some", says I.  The sound of the lid being taken from the top of the saucepan is testament to a certain degree of interest, then the question "what is it?".  Having told them, the next sound was that of soup bowls being marshalled.  Success.

I can't begin to tell you, how completely and utterly chuffed I was, to have provided them both with a home-cooked lunch.  Quite ridiculously so.  After all, the soup really took no time at all to make, it's only a wonder I haven't managed it previously.

Anyway, getting back to the soup itself, the flavour (even though I used frozen corn, instead of fresh) was sweet and richly corny, with the fruity hot flavour of the red chilli warming the back of your tongue and the parsley providing that tiny sense of freshness that kept the taste buds interested.  I'll definitely be making this one again.

One note to bear in mind, is that when feeding teenagers, the estimated number of servings needs to be downgraded.  The recipe said "serves 6".  In fact, it served four and a bit - but then they are growing boys!

A second thing to bear in mind is the salt contained in whatever stock you choose to use.  I always opt for a low salt version and add salt to taste, however, you might want to hold off on any additional salt until you can taste to check, in the case of a standard stock cube.

ADDENDUM!  :  It is now April 2014 and I have come to make the soup again.  This time, I included a finely chopped leek instead of the other onion (simply because I had one looking for a home to go to) - and I do believe it improved the depth of flavour of the soup.  Hence, I have changed the recipe to reflect this.

One other change I made to this evening's soup (we ate it as a main course, with cheese scones for dipping) was to add a teaspoonful of Essential Cuisine's cheese stock powder.  Now I do appreciate that not everyone will have access to cheese stock powder, but if you do - it is very well worth including it.  Simply mix it in with the stock when you make it up, but don't change the liquid quantity.  I think this also served to create another dimension to the flavours of the soup.

It's just getting better and better!

October 2014 : Yet another change to the soup recipe - and for the better, we all think.  I included some chopped bacon and a small sweet potato, cut into chunks - just to bulk up the recipe and make it more filling as a dinner, main course soup.  Guess what?  I've included the changes in the recipe.  ;)

SWEETCORN & CHILLI SOUP   (feeds 4-6)

Ingredients :

4 rashers smoked back bacon, diced small
25g butter (I used goat butter, which I recommend!)
2 tbsp rapeseed oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 leek, finely chopped
1 small sweet potato, peeled and diced small
½ red chilli, finely chopped

800g sweetcorn niblets (frozen, fresh or a combination of both)

1 litre vegetable stock (I used Essential Cuisine's vegetable stock powder with 1 tsp cheese stock powder mixed in, however the cheese stock is optional)

1 tbsp lemon juice

a handful of fresh parsley, chopped

2 tbsp double cream.

Method :

1.  Heat the oil in a large saucepan over a medium heat and add the bacon.  Fry until the fat has rendered and the bacon is beginning to caramelise around the edges.  Remove the bacon with a slotted spoon and reserve.  Sweat the onion off in the bacon oil for 5 minutes or so, then add the butter and leek and cook for around 5-10 minutes - until nice and golden but not caramelised at all - stirring occasionally.

2.  Add the chilli to the pan and continue frying for about 5 mins, stirring occasionally.

3.  Add the corn, sweet potato, the reserved bacon, stock and some salt and bring to the boil.  Reduce to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes, until the corn is tender but still crisp.

4.  Transfer two-thirds of the soup to a blender and whizz to a coarse puree.  Add this back to the pan and stir in the lemon juice and parsley.
  

5.  Bring back up to temperature, taste for seasoning and adjust if necessary.

6.  Serve with a swoosh of double cream and a sprinkle of parsley.

Printable version

Lemony Prawn & Chorizo Rice - a fab quick one pot supper

Just before Christmas I took out a subscription (very nearly put "prescription" - totally different thing!) with the BBC's Good Food Magazine.

Now I know that the majority of the recipes that appear in the magazine also appear online, but I just enjoy having the pictures right there - up close and in front of me - when I am sitting in the living room and there's something dull on the t.v. (or there's nothing on the t.v. - which is more like it, these days!).  No, I'm afraid I don't possess a laptop - it's a desktop or nothing, for me.  Comes of being a very swift touch typist - I really hate the restriction of a laptop's keyboard.  Either that or I'm just plain old fashioned - which could easily be it, I'll admit.

Anyway, back to the magazine.  To save having great teetering piles of magazines lurking around the flat, I've taken to cutting out the recipes that attract my attention and keeping them in a concertina file.  I'll then consult the file when I'm putting together the week's menu's - and a very good system it has proven to be.

All of which was a fairly long-winded way of saying that this recipe originated in the BBC Good Food magazine for February!

Hubby loves chorizo, all of us love prawns and son & heir particularly enjoys one pot, no side dishes, type meals.  Add to those good points the extra positive point that it is relatively low in fat, which is something I'm very keen on, these days and you've got a winner of a dish.

Mmmn, yummy! Who'd have thought it'd be good for you?

I tweaked the original recipe a little, adding twice the amount of chorizo (which apparently still wasn't enough - hubby could have had lots more!) and using vegetable stock instead of just water for the rice.  I also used cooked peeled prawns instead of raw, basically because they're easier to get hold of and cheaper.

I also tweaked it slightly in retrospect, as both chaps found the lemon to be too dominant.  Now I like lemon in this context, but it must be a girl thing, as neither of the chaps do.  Hence, if your family like lemon then add the zest as well as the juice and maybe increase it back to the one lemon in the original recipe.

I found the dish to be lovely and light, with plenty of interest from the mix of chorizo and prawn.  It also contains turmeric - and any dish that does that, is immediately in my good books.  Son & heir completely cleared his plate, which was something of a surprise as I'd expected to at least find strips of red pepper left.  From that, I'd say that you could class this dish as being "teenager friendly", if nothing else!

Edited to say : time has moved on and it's now 10 April 2013.  I've just made this recipe (see photo above) and swapped out the vegetable stock for the beautiful Essential Cuisine fish stock.  I also added two chestnut mushrooms, sliced.  The end result was really, really good and I recommend it to you. 

LEMONY PRAWN & CHORIZO RICE    (feeds 3)

Ingredients :

1 tbsp olive oil

1 onion, sliced

2 small red peppers, deseeded and sliced

100g chorizo, thinly sliced

2 garlic cloves, crushed

1 red chilli, chopped & deseeded if you don’t like it too hot

½ tsp turmeric

250g long grain rice (I used Basmati)

500ml boiling low salt vegetable or fish stock (I use Essential Cuisine stock)

200g cooked peeled prawns, defrosted if frozen

100g frozen peas

juice of ½ lemon.

Method :

1.  Heat the oil in a shallow pan (or frying pan) with a lid.  Add the onion, peppers, chorizo, garlic and chilli and fry over a high heat for 3 minutes.

2.  Reduce the heat to medium, and add the turmeric and rice, stirring to ensure the rice is coated in the cooking juices.

3.  Pour in the stock, stir then cover and cook for 12 minutes or until the rice is nicely al dente.

4.  Uncover and stir in the prawns and peas.  Add a splash more water if the mix is looking a little dry and cook for as long as it takes for the peas to defrost and cook and the prawns to be heated through – around 2 minutes or so.

5.  The rice should now be tender, so stir in the lemon juice and serve.

Printable version

Beautiful burritos - more please!

So tell me.  Where did the last ten days go?  Did anyone notice them flashing past at a rate of knots, because I didn't.  One moment it was Wednesday of the week before, the next moment it is today and we're here wondering what happened.

Well, in fact, I know what happened.  It went like this (in chronological order) :

- son & heir's Jazz Band night at school;
- lunch with my parents at their place (we had some gorgeous lamb shanks. Such a treat!);
- son & heir's friend came over for the afternoon;
- we all went to see Mike Dawes & Amy Turk perform at the Bournemouth Folk Club (they were majestically awesome);
- son & heir's Rock Band School night;
- son & heir's Jazz Band night at school;
- a sudden desire for fish & chips;
- my Dad's 80th birthday party at my brother's place (his wife made Beef Stroganoff which was delicious and Coq au Vin which looked delicious!  I made him a Beetroot & Chocolate Birthday cake which I hope I can show you, when my niece emails the photographs to me).

So, one way and another, you could probably sum the last ten days up with "guitars & good wishes".

I didn't even get to post the week's menu up for last week, such was my distraction.  However, it's probably just as well I didn't - as if you read this week's version it's got a lot of what should have happened last week (and didn't) in it.  Fingers crossed for this week!

I did manage to make one nice dinner last week, which was the Tave Me Presh (or Baked Mince with Leeks).  Because, this time around, I'm steering clear of carbohydrates as much as possible, I didn't indulge in much more than a forkful of mashed potato.  Son & heir loves mashed potato, so I made some for him and stole a forkful.  I filled the potato gap with some sauteed courgettes & mushrooms which were a real treat.


Tave Me Presh is one of my very favourite dishes, I've decided.  The ingredients seem to be so simple that it sounds highly unlikely that they'll taste good together.  In fact, it is one of those dishes that the act of cooking just makes magic happen.  The leeks and the lamb combine to make a gloriously buttery collaboration that it is hard to imagine that butter wasn't involved somewhere along the line.  The sweet peppers have just enough sweetness to take away that rough edge that leeks can bring, plus they add a welcome shot of colour.  If you like leeks and lamb, do try it.  I'm sure you'll like it.

Hubby had a flash of inspiration over one of his dishes.  He had dreamed up a dish of corn tortillas, interspersed with a hot chilli con carne mixture, which would be baked in the oven.  Named the "Mexican Wheel of Pain" it would all be topped off with avocado and was specifically designed to appeal to my anti-inflammatory diet's requirements.  However, as the time drew near for him to create this marvellous recipe, he was running out of inspiration and energy (you just wouldn't believe how often that happened to us both, last week!).  To save the dinner from disaster, he decided to downgrade his plans and instead made Burritos.


Now I have a marked partiality for Burritos, which was caused by my local Spar shop - approximately 20 years ago - selling the most fabulous Burritos from their delicatessen.  I would drive from the horses' field (where I spent all the time I wasn't asleep or at work) 2 minutes up the road, pick up a Burrito and a coffee, drive back and sit munching happily whilst watching the horses doing their thing around the field.  Happy days!

Hubby has made Burritos in the past, but I wasn't terribly struck on them.  This was because we habitually used flour tortillas which I really don't like very much at all.  They always taste of some preservative or another, which I find distinctly yuk.  Now because wheat flour is out, but corn is okay (according to the anti-inflammatory diet), we swapped to corn tortillas.  Wow!  What a difference!


I absolutely loved these Burritos.  They were as close as you could get, to those yummy Spar Burritos of days gone by.  The chilli mixture had been reduced as far as you could go and was just moist, rather than running out the end of the tortilla wrap.  Also, hubby had used a fraction of smoked paprika, along with some smoked streaky bacon, to develop and deepen the flavours.  Once again, this was such a simple recipe - but one I'd be happy to eat again and again.


BURRITOS  (makes 6-7 burritos)


Ingredients :


4 rashers streaky bacon, sliced finely
1 onion, chopped fine
1 clove garlic, chopped fine
2 long red chilli, chopped fine (seeds discarded if you prefer your chilli cooler)
500g minced beef
400g tin chopped tomatoes
2 tbsp tomato puree
1 flat tsp smoked paprika
half a tsp dried sage
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
400g tin red kidney beans (I recommend Bonduelle - in which case, 2 x 200g tins)
pack of 8 corn tortillas (soft versions)
a handful of grated cheddar cheese.


Method :


1.  Pre-heat your oven to 180deg C/350deg F/Gas 4 and prepare a flat baking tray.

2.  In a deep frying pan, dry fry the bacon pieces until the fat runs and the bacon is beginning to get crispy.  Remove and keep warm.

3.  Fry the onion in the bacon fat until softened, then add the garlic and chilli and continue to cook for another 2-3 minutes.  Remove and keep warm.


4.  Fry the beef until all the moisture has been removed from the mince, the beef is completely browned and the fat has separated.  At this stage, you can drain off the fat if you're conscious of your weight.


5.  Return the bacon and onion mixture to the pan and mix to combine.


6.  Add the tomatoes and tomato puree, then the paprika and sage.  Season to taste and add a teaspoon of sugar if the tomato sauce seems too acidic.  If your chilli hasn't added enough kick at this stage, add some dried chilli flakes to pep it up a bit.


7.  Add the kidney beans and stir through.  Bring to a simmer.


8.  Simmer the mixture (stirring occasionally) until it has reduced to a point where there is no discernible runny sauce.


9.  Allow to cool slightly, then fill each tortilla wrap with the chilli mixture and roll it up.


10.  Place each roll onto the baking tray and, once all are assembled, sprinkle the lot with the cheddar.


11.  Place into the oven until the cheese has melted, the chilli has reheated and the wraps are turning crispy.


12.  Serve with a layered salad plus a dollop of soured cream.


Delicious!

Inflammation factor : +76 (approx) per serving of 2 burritos minus salad.

Beef Rendang - the slow cooker version

Beef Rendang, Saag Aloo & white rice : double yum factor!

I'd had this recipe, the original of which was put together by the wonderful Atul Kochhar - and who we have to thank for the inspired spicing of the dish - in my "to do" folder for some weeks.  I'd been waiting for a moment when I felt brave enough to tackle it, you see.

Having done so, I really don't know what I was worried about - as it was the easiest recipe to follow (even with my deviation into cooking with the slow cooker and taking two days over it).  The "two day" thing was purely by accident.  However, I really think that I might do that again with a curry, because they seem so much nicer the day after.  The spices all seem to mellow out beautifully the longer you leave it.

So what were my concerns?  Well, firstly, the recipe demanded fresh lemongrass which (*blush*) I hadn't ever cooked with before.  Add that to the fact that lemongrass isn't my favourite flavour - nor is it hubby's - and you can probably understand that concern.

Secondly, the recipe demanded Kaffir Lime Leaves - another ingredient that would be a first for me.  I was fairly confident that we'd enjoy the inclusion of these, however.

Thirdly, as the recipe was for a Beef Rendang I had the problem of how to cook the beef well enough to ensure that it didn't retain any "bounciness" (hubby hates chewy meat), whilst not racking up the electricity bill by using the cooker for hours on end (which sometimes is unavoidable, but can be offset by the meals around it being easy on the electricity consumption), and working out how to use the slow cooker (the best way to ensure non-bounciness and economy) to advantage, without spoiling the recipe.

Well, I'm very pleased - nay, relieved - to say that I achieved it.  Even with the deviation from the plan which was caused by hubby spotting a Flying V Guitar for sale in the local small ads, (which son & heir would have given his eye teeth for) then ringing up for it and arranging to go and view, which meant we would have to have had dinner half an hour early - which as you know, is impossible when the slow cooker is involved!  

Click to open the picture up - it's worth it!

So we made the executive decision to leave the curry until the following day (but let it do its slow cooker thing, then refrigerate until tomorrow) and have a Tuna Pasta Bake instead.  Of course, as sod's law would dictate, having made that decision we got a phone call from the seller of the guitar, saying "terribly sorry, but someone's bought it already".  *sigh*  C'est la vie.

Hence the two days' preparation.

The following day, while I was cooking the Saag Aloo (see next blog posting!) to accompany the Rendang, I separated the meat from the sauce and reduced the sauce by simmering it until it achieved the desired consistency.  I then added the meat - which served to dilute the sauce a tad as the juices combined - and continued to reduce as the meat warmed through.  I was a bit worried that the meat would begin to fall apart as the sauce reduced, which is why I separated the two to begin with.

That plan of action worked perfectly and we were left with a beautifully soft, mysteriously spiced, deep and rounded curry with wonderful flavours.  The lemongrass just disappeared into the general melange (I suspect that the blitzing it received in preparation of the original paste helped with that) and even the blisteringly hot bird's eye chilli that I used along with a red chilli, was tempered and controlled by the sugar and sweetness of the coconut milk.

The recipe I detail below is the recipe that I prepared - using the slow cooker.  If, however, you don't have one or alternatively don't want to use yours, then the original recipe can be found on the UKTV Food website here.  I also used a piece of galangal (who thinks of these names?) in my version of the recipe, purely because it came with the shallots and lemongrass.  I tasted it beforehand and it seemed to have a similar effect to ginger, so I halved the amount of ginger and included the galangal.  Certainly didn't do the recipe any harm!  If you don't have galangal, just double the amount of ginger you use.

BEEF RENDANG  (feeds 3-4)

Ingredients :

3-4 large finely diced shallots
1 stem of lemongrass, chopped
3 cloves garlic, cut into halves
a thumb-sized piece of Galangal, peeled and chopped roughly (optional)
3 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tbsp red chilli paste - or 2 red chillis, chopped finely (I used a red chilli and a green bird's eye chilli)
1½ tsp muscovado sugar
2 cm piece of ginger, peeled and finely shredded (I used ready-prepared ginger - 1 tsp)
1½ tsp turmeric
800g beef brisket, trimmed of all fat and cubed
3 Kaffir lime leaves
400ml tin of coconut milk.

Method :

1.  Put the shallots, lemongrass, garlic and galangal into a small food processor, add a splash of water and blitz until a paste.

2.  Heat the vegetable oil on a frying pan and fry the shallot mixture for about 5 minutes or until you can catch a fragrant toasted garlic and lemony aroma.

3.  Blitz the chillis in the same way and add them to the pan, along with the sugar.  Continue frying for another 5 minutes or until the mixture darkens and the oil separates from the paste.

4.  Add the beef and cook until lightly browned, taking care not to let the spice mix catch on the bottom of the pan.

5.  Add the ginger, turmeric, lime leaves (crushed lightly) and enough water to half-cover the meat.  Cook, uncovered, until the masala clings to the meat.

6.  Decant into the slow cooker and turn on to High.

7.  Add the coconut milk and stir to combine.  You may need to add a little more water at this stage as the sauce shouldn't be covering the meat, but be very much in evidence.

8.  Leave to cook for a minimum of 3 hours.  If cooking for longer, turn the slow cooker down to medium.

9.  It is at this stage that you can leave the curry until the following day.  Simply refrigerate once it has cooled down.

10. Remove the meat using a slotted spoon and retain.  Decant the sauce into a frying pan and bring to a simmer, stirring occasionally.

11.  Simmer until the sauce has gained the desired consistency - one of thickened double cream.  Return the meat to the sauce and continue to simmer so as to heat the meat through and reduce the sauce back to the desired consistency.

12.  Serve.

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Spicy chicken & bacon pasties .. or tarts, in this case.

Why "tarts", you may ask?

Well, it's because the art of pleating a pasty completely deserted me.  Four times over.

Exhibit A

Normally, I'm pretty good at pleating a pasty - although I usually do sideways pleats, as opposed to "straight across the top" pleats.  I think, next time I make these pasties - and there will be a next time - I'll stick to what I know and go for sideways pleating.  Oh, and I might very well remember to cut my fingernails next time too.  How anyone with long fingernails ever gets pastry to stay together without their fingernails cutting half moon shapes into the pastry, is beyond me.  I certainly can't!

As a consequence, my pasties burst asunder in the oven and turned themselves into boat-shaped tarts.  See Exhibit A, alongside.  Fortunately, it didn't matter overly much (perhaps a little dry in places) as the contents began life fairly moist and the risen edges of the pasties obviously protected the contents from over cooking.

The original recipe (which you can see here) called for a ready cooked chicken breast, but I didn't have one of those.  I did, however, have a raw chicken breast so I pan-fried it and left it to cool before doing anything else.  Personally, I think that this approach saved the chicken component from being over dry, as I stopped cooking the chicken just slightly before I would ordinarily have done.  This left the meat still slightly pink, which was obviously cooked out by the baking that the pastry received.  Ingenious, eh?

Well they didn't look too bad ...

In addition, I also tinkered about with the original recipe in that instead of using three spring onions, I used half a sliced leek and one small shallot.  I suspect that doing this gave a lot more moistness to the mixture (from the leek) and boosted the gentle onion flavour (care of the shallot).  Sometimes I find spring onions to be a bit harsh.

I also put way more bacon in than the recipe said.  After all, two rashers of streaky bacon rather depends on how big your rashers are, doesn't it.  Mine were teensy wee little things (supermarket bacon, in this instance), so I wound up using half a pack.

As a consequence, I suspect I had rather more "middle" to my pasties than was originally intended.  However, I reckon that the next time I make them, I can easily make five out of the same ingredients, so that's the way to go.

I served ours, as you can see, with a salad.  I'm not entirely convinced that a salad was the right thing for them, as they seemed to need something more robust.  I might try them, next time, with baked beans and something like Nigella's Rapid Roastini's or maybe hash browns or sweet potato wedges.  They do need something juicy (which the baked beans would provide), but because of the complex nature of their contents, need something fairly bland beside that.

So that's a work in progress - and if you try this recipe, perhaps you could report back on what you served them with and how well you feel they went together.  I'd be interested to know, as this is definitely one of those recipes that doesn't suit what immediately comes to mind!

As for the flavours, well they're very acceptable indeed.  Hubby wasn't too keen on his to begin with, but the flavour develops as you eat your way through the pasty and, by the end, he was ready to demolish the leftover one.  Now, if I tell you that he didn't get to eat it all on his own, but son & heir had the other half, that will indicate just how nice these are.  I suspect they'd be perfect picnic food and will behave in exactly the same way that a Cornish Pasty does - except with more chilli!

SPICY CHICKEN & BACON PASTIES  (serves 4, with one each)

Ingredients :

1 skinless & boneless chicken breast

1 tbsp olive oil

125g streaky bacon, chopped

1 large potato (about 250g total weight), peeled and sliced on the mandolin

1 small red chilli, deseeded if necessary and finely chopped

a small, or half a, leek - sliced

a small shallot, sliced

sea salt & freshly ground black pepper

375g pack ready-rolled puff pastry

2 tbsp milk or 1 beaten egg.

Method :

1.  Heat oven to 200deg C (fan).

2.  Place the chicken breast in between two pieces of cling film and bash it with something heavy (a rolling pin, for ease!) until it is thin and flat.

3.  Take a large frying pan, add the olive oil and fry the chicken breast, seasoning each side as you go.  Remove from the pan when there is still a little pinkness left in the middle of the meat.  Set aside to cool.

4.  Fry the bacon over a medium heat until it starts to release its fat.

3.  Add the potato, turn up the heat and fry, stirring occasionally, until the bacon is crisp and the potato just underdone.

4.  Add the chilli, leeks and shallot and cook and stir until the leeks are softened and the shallot transparent.

5.  Season with pepper and add a pinch of salt, then set aside to cool.

6.  Take the chicken and shred it into long thin strips.  Once the bacon mixture is cool, add to the chicken and stir to combine.

7.  Roll out the pastry until you can cut 5 tea plate size rounds from it.

8.  Lift circles onto a baking tray.

9.  Spoon the filling into the middle of each circle.  Brush the edges of the pastry with the milk or egg, then bring the sides up to the middle (or one side to the other, if you prefer your pasties laid on their sides), pinching the pastry together to make a pasty.

10.  Brush with a little more milk or egg and bake for 15 minutes until golden.

Serve.

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Sweet chilli chicken stir fry - better than the stuff from a bottle!

Having slipped one stir fry past our son, I thought it might be worth a go to see if another might work.

It took a fair amount of encouragement for the vegetables in his meal to go, but a good 80% of them eventually got eaten.

Now I know of the young teenager's caution at everything green, added to the young male's predictable caution at anything vegetable, however, I have to admit that I just don't understand it.

To me, vegetables are the most glorious ingredients, which should be looked at with almost as much enjoyment and anticipation as a nice piece of beef, or a plate of sausages.  After all, there are just so many of them!  If you were to take me to a greengrocer's shop and ask me to name what of his produce I didn't like, I doubt I could name anything.  Yes, garlic has an uncomfortable effect upon me (makes me itch!) when eaten either raw or in quantity, and yes, I used to be allergic to all forms of onion (before I became pregnant - fine afterwards!).  These are just vegetables that I have a sensitivity to, rather than being actively disliked by me.

However, hubby doesn't like potatoes, peas, broad beans, green beans, most forms of cabbage - including brussels sprouts, any type of cauliflower, marrow - and the list goes on.  It seems to be a texture thing, as well as an odour thing, with him.  If something is of a squishy texture (i.e. overcooked cauliflower, or marrow) or smells of the compost heap (i.e. overcooked cauliflower, or cabbage), then he can't face it.  To give him his due, some of these things he will eat, but without enjoying the experience.

Son & heir seems to also be going down the texture route - as in his dislike of mushrooms and courgettes.  However, he also dislikes anything dark i.e. aubergine.  Interestingly, he won't eat anything remotely caramelised such as the chicken in this stir-fry dish, declaring it "burned".  It makes me wonder whether the "burned" thing subconsciously applies to the aubergine skin, too.  He won't eat a fried or baked tomato, but will happily eat a raw tomato.  He hates sliced onions being apparent in his food, but if you cook them until they disintegrate and are hardly visible, then that's okay.  I could go on.

Hubby reckons that females are the waste disposal units of the human race.  He reckons that a female will eat something that a male will think twice about (stop giggling at the back!) because of procreation.  He figures that females are hard-wired to be in top baby-carrying condition i.e. carrying lots of fat, so as to keep baby well fed until birth and even after, if you take breast-feeding into account - and I think he may have a point.

As someone who has her likes and dislikes - but none of the dislikes would actually prevent me from eating anything - I find it unfathomable that the chaps can be so picky.  Everything out there is just so exciting!  I look at an ingredient, be it a pepper or a pea, and immediately I'm considering what it would go with, what it's flavour is likely to be and how I could present it.  I guess that's what marks me out as a Foodie!

SWEET CHILLI CHICKEN STIR FRY (feeds 3)

Ingredients:

3 skinless boneless chicken breasts, cut into thin slices
1 red chilli, chopped
1 garlic clove, grated
2 tbsp runny honey
1 tbsp olive oil
half a pack of egg noodles
1 tsp sesame oil
vegetable oil
vegetables for stir-frying (buy a pre-prepared pack, or select your favourites which should be sliced finely)
1 tbsp Mirrin (or rice wine)
1 tbsp light soy sauce
2 tbsp Oyster sauce
juice of half a lemon.

Method :

1.  Place the chicken, plus the chilli, garlic, honey and oil into a plastic bag and massage to make sure the chicken is covered.  Leave to marinade for as long as you've got.

2.  Heat a frying pan until quite hot, then tip the chicken and marinade into it.  Try not to let it poach by keeping the temperature up.  Turn the chicken regularly, until you achieve a golden to dark brown colour and they become glazed.

3.  In the meantime, place the noodles into a large bowl and cover with boiling water.  Cover the bowl and leave until softened.

4.  In the additional meantime, heat a wok or deep frying pan until roasting hot.  Then add the vegetable oil, swiftly followed by the stir fry vegetables.  Add the mirrin, soy sauce and oyster sauce and stir fry until the vegetables are wilted and softened.

5.  Next, drain the noodles & add the sesame oil, giving a light stir to ensure each noodle is covered.  Add them to the vegetable pan and toss the stir fry vegetables through them, coating them in the oyster sauce mixture.  Spoon out onto warmed plates to form a bed and nestle the chicken pieces into bed.  Serve!

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Oriental Beef with Butternut Squash and Special Fried Rice

You remember how keen I was on the shin of beef dishes I've made just recently?  Or perhaps how excited I was about the Pot Roasted Brisket?  Well, this one surpasses all of those.  Truly!

I kept a little secret from the boys about this dish, which was that it originated from the Weight Watchers Oriental Express recipe book!  Anything that has "healthy" or "low fat" in its title always engenders much suspicion in a chap's breast, it seems.  So, I figured it was better that they didn't know, right up until such time as I could commit the big "reveal", or admit it was another failure.  Whichever was appropriate.  In fact, as I didn't have any low fat cooking spray, I substituted olive oil where that was required but used it sparingly.  I also tweaked the quantities of orange juice to water, winding up with a little more of the juice than the water, largely because two oranges came to 150ml, once juiced, and I wasn't prepared to find a home for the extra half - so used it.

I had scheduled this dish for a Sunday evening when, normally, we'd have some sort of Sunday roast.  I reckoned it wouldn't hurt us to not have a traditional Sunday roast - and as it used almost as much beef brisket as had the previous Sunday's meal, it was almost a Sunday roast - just prepared differently.  In truth, I think I was justifying it to myself as I really don't suppose the boys care whether we have a Sunday roast or not - so long as something yummy turns up for dinner each day, I doubt they consider it much further than that.

I had liked the sound of the recipe at the first read-through, plus it also had the benefit of my having just about everything in the fridge or spice cupboard already, barring the meat and the butternut squash.  This made the purchase of these two more expensive ingredients rather more affordable.

The 800g of brisket was a lovely piece of meat.  It took just a little trimming on one side to remove some short runs of gristle, plus a bit of a trim of the fat on the other side.  I didn't remove all the fat, as I knew it was going to be cooking for some two and a half hours and fat doesn't usually survive that!  Dustbins 1 and 2 were in attendance, of course, and soon took care of any offcuts.

Where the rice was concerned, on the previous day we'd been shopping - doing a top-up shop for the weekend and the beginning of the following week.  I always like to have a cruise (don't forget, I use a disability buggy) down the world foods aisle where, to my surprise, I found a bottle of authentic oyster sauce.  At £2-odd, it was a little pricey when I didn't have anything in mind for it - but too good to leave there, so I bought it.  Only as I was assembling the ingredients for the special fried rice, did I remember the oyster sauce.  Using authentic soy (Yellow Plum brand), authentic fish sauce (Squid brand) and the authentic oyster sauce, put the tin lid on our attempts to make an authentic-tasting special fried rice.  I thoroughly recommend you put together some authentic ingredients like these, when you have a go at the rice recipe - they make all the difference.

ORIENTAL BEEF WITH BUTTERNUT SQUASH  (feeds 3-4)


Ingredients :

800g lean beef brisket, visible fat trimmed & sliced
olive oil
2 onions, sliced
1 star anise
1 tsp Chinese 5 spice powder
5cm (2") fresh root ginger, grated
150ml fresh orange juice
250ml water
4 tbsp dark soy sauce
1 red chilli, de-seeded if you prefer, and chopped
400g butternut squash, peeled, de-seeded and chopped into 1cm pieces
salt & pepper

Method :

1.  Heat a large lidded saucepan or casserole dish - one which will go in the oven.  Pre-heat oven to 190deg C.


2.  Add a little olive oil and half the beef strips.  Sear until browned all over, then remove and sear the remaining half and remove.

3.  Add the onions to the pan with a little more olive oil if necessary.  Fry over a medium heat for 4 minutes, stirring occasionally. It doesn't matter of some onions take on some colour, but you're aiming for them all to be softened.

4.  Add the star anise, 5 spice powder, ginger and chilli and stir fry for a minute.


5.  Pour in the water, orange juice and soy sauce.  Stir and ensure that you have de-glazed the pan, getting up all the lovely baked on flavour and stirring it in.  Re-introduce the beef and stir to combine.

6.  Bring to the boil, cover and then place in the oven for 2 hours.

7.  Remove from the oven, stir and add the squash, stirring to combine.  Replace into the oven for 30 minutes or until the squash is tender.  You probably won't need to cover the pan at this stage.

8.  If the sauce remains too watery, add a little cornflour and stir to combine until the favoured consistency has been reached.

Serve with Special Fried Rice :


SPECIAL FRIED RICE (feeds 3-4)

Ingredients :



a knob of butter
1 tbsp olive oil
2 eggs
a bunch of spring onions, trimmed and chopped finely
a small piece of ginger, shredded finely
2 mushrooms, chopped finely
a small handful of frozen peas
a small handful of frozen sweetcorn
1 tbsp dark soy sauce
1 tbsp oyster sauce
2 tsp fish sauce
2-300g long grain rice, cooked and allowed to cool.

Method :



1.  Heat the knob of butter and olive oil in a deep frying pan or wok.  Add the beaten egg one by one and cook to form an omelette.  Place both omelettes somewhere to keep warm.


2.  In the remaining butter/olive oil mixture, stir-fry the onion, mushroom and ginger for around 2-3 minutes or until the onions are appearing softened.


3.  Add the peas and sweetcorn and continue to cook until they are tender.


4.  Add the soy, oyster & fish sauces and stir through on a low heat.


5.  Add the cooked rice and stir through gently on a medium heat or until the rice is heated through.  Add the shredded egg omelettes - and serve.


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A magnificent Chilli con Carne

Slow cooked, oven baked, Chilli con Carne

You'll recall from my last post, my dilemma in the butcher's when they didn't have any ham hocks, so I rapidly changed tack to Beef Shin.

At that stage, I didn't really have any idea what I was going to do with it - I just knew that the ingredients for the Ham Hock dish were fairly compatible with Beef Shin in one way or another, so I didn't need to buy anything else.  Which is good on two counts - one because I could do without spending more money and anyway, my back had run out of it's ability to support me when standing up.  So, having limped back to the car, I began to work on what I could use the shin for.

Shin of beef : before trimming

We'd had various stews of one sort of another just lately and I didn't really want to conjur up another stew-type thing (although the idea of dumplings did occur to me and, tempting as they are, were rejected on the "too much fat" front).

It was when the beans came to mind, that I considered doing a Chilli con Carne.  I knew that I had a tin of red kidney beans in the cupboard, chilli powder in the spice rack together with crushed red chillis and in the fridge, fresh red chillis.  I also remembered that I'd bought two tins of cherry tomatoes on the offchance that I'd need them.  It's always good to grab a couple of tins when you see them, as they are quite the best tinned tomatoes, I've discovered.  Yes, chilli con carne was the way to go.

We'd been wanting to try the more authentic way of making Chilli con carne - that is, with pieces of meat, rather than with mince, for a very long time - so this was my chance.  I even had a block of dark chocolate in the fridge, specifically for this sort of recipe.

Shin of beef - after trimming

Being shin, the meat would require long slow cooking in order to render out the fat and have it tender enough to be cut with a spoon.  The only sensible way to do this was to oven cook it in a casserole dish.  Now, I've done oven cooked chillis and bologneses this way in the past and find that the sauce tends to amalgamate better with less likelihood of it splitting, so that all made sense.

So having sat and thought about the recipe for a while, I set to with making it.

Dustbin 1

The shin really is glorious stuff, but it is essential that you have a sharp knife (and two eager hounds to act as dustbins) when trimming it up.  Without a sharp knife, I dare say I'd have lost patience with it and a good percentage of it would have gone into the dog, rather than into the casserole dish.


It's not difficult to trim of its fat and gristle, it's just a wee bit fiddly.  Still, you can see that once trimmed, you still have a good quantity of meat left from your 700g - and two happy dogs.

Dustbin 2

I began by sweating down one large chopped onion, the garlic and the chilli, then setting aside to keep warm, whilst I sear the meat.  That's the opposite way around to most people, but I think that the flavours of the onion, garlic & chilli get into the meat before they've all been introduced, that way.

It didn't take long to assemble, then it was into the oven, back out to be stirred and the moisture levels checked - I had to add a little water later on in the cooking - and add the beans at the last minute.

I served up with white rice and a dollop of greek yoghurt because it really was blisteringly hot flavour-wise.  The yoghurt isn't traditional but it was there as a survival technique for both son and myself.  We also like to sprinkle on a little grated cheese and some sultanas - but then I think we may be bit weird that way.

Searing the beef

Hubby's verdict, after the second mouthful, was that it was a magnificent chilli.  In my opinion, I'd consider it to be the best chilli I have ever produced - which considering the amount of chilli's (in their various forms) I have produced over the years, is definitely saying something!

Ready to go in the oven

SLOW, OVEN-COOK, CHILLI CON CARNE  (serves 4)

Ingredients :

2 tbsp olive oil

700g beef shin, trimmed and cubed

1 large onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, grated

1 red chilli, chopped, seeds left in

2 tsp hot chilli powder

tin cherry tomatoes

2 beef oxo cubes

200ml water

half a tsp of dried sage

1 tbsp tomato puree

1 tbsp tomato ketchup

1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

salt & pepper

can of beans of your choice, red kidney or haricot are good

1-2 squares of very dark chocolate

Method :

1.  Pre-heat oven to 140deg C.

2.  In a deep sided frying pan, fry the onion in a tablespoon of olive oil until softened.  Add the chilli and continue to fry gently until the onion is beginning to brown.  Add the garlic and fry for another minute.  Keep aside in a warm place.

3.  Heat the remaining olive oil until very hot and gradually introduce the meat, until it is all seared and brown.  Remove to a casserole dish and replace the onions in the frying pan.

4.   Add the chilli powder and fry for a minute or two, stirring, to ensure it is all mixed in and moistened.

5.  Add the tomatoes (and turn the heat up), oxo cubes, water, sage, tomato puree, tomato ketchup and Worcestershire sauce and stir until all is combined.

6.  Taste for seasoning – you may need to add a little salt.  Restrain yourself from adding any sugar at this stage, for the chocolate (which is added later) may well do that job for you.

7.  Add to the casserole dish and cook at 140deg for 2 hours.

8.  After the hour, add the beans and chocolate – stir gently until the chocolate is dissolved – then replace and cook until the meat is butter-like and tender which should be around a half hour to an hour later.

Serve with white rice, grated cheese and sultanas over.  If particularly chilli-hot, serve with an additional tablespoonful of greek yoghurt.

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