Easy peasy rice pudding

Well hello one and all!  I'm sorry for abandoning you all for so long - I have no excuse, other than sometimes the demands of finding time for blogging in amongst everything else are just too much.  So, we'll skip lightly over that and be happy that here I am again!

Now then.  What has brought me back to you all?  Well, something unusual for me - a dessert.  I wasn't anticipating blogging it, so didn't take many pictures.  D'oh!  I will admit that I'm not a great one for cooking desserts.  They are largely really bad for you calorie-wise and often require cooking at the same time as the main course is being cooked.  Well once upon a time I could multi-task, but it would seem not so much these days.  ~shrug~  Can't be helped - it's just one of those things that are sent to try us.

However!  This dessert - the humble rice pudding - is one of those lovely things that costs very little, takes the work of minutes to prepare, then can be left to chuckle along in a low oven for hours until done.  Perfect.

Another reason for liking this rice pudding recipe is that if you follow the straight, as published, recipe you wind up with a delicious, creamy, comfort food dessert.  However, it shows all sorts of promise for being dolled up in all kinds of directions, if you want to.  For instance, you could simply add a little cinnamon and some sultanas for a bit of a different slant, or serve with some baked apple, or melt chocolate into it, or take it down a Chai route with the appropriate spices.  Maybe even swap out the cow's milk for coconut milk.  I do love an adaptable recipe.

Looking good at half-time!

I had been wanting to make a rice pudding for the longest time, but it wasn't the right time of year (best made in Autumn/ Winter) and I hadn't found a recipe that I was entirely happy with.  Some recipes have the most ridiculous amount of steps in them for what seemed to me to be the easiest of things.  Then I tripped over a "cook with the kids" feature in my local Asda's magazine, which included a recipe for rice pudding.  (See here : http://recipes.asda.com/Recipes/classic-rice-pudding).  It involved rice, milk, evaporated milk and sugar.  Well that sounded a whole lot more like it!

Having decided to make it, I then had an internal argument over whether to use cow's milk or goat milk.  The cow's milk won on this occasion, as I felt it was better to go with the recipe 100% as it was something new to me.  Save the tinkering about with it until I'd cooked it once!  I was just crossing my fingers that the sudden intake of cow's milk wouldn't affect my tummy adversely (which, it would appear, it didn't - thank goodness).

If you, like me, have memories of your Mum making rice pudding and the kitchen filling with the most lovely smell of baking milky nutmeg - then you just have to make this.  It took me straight back to being a young teenager again.  Yes, it is a wee bit heavy in calories at 272 (reference : Calorie Counter) for a serving (a quarter of the pudding) - but it could be a whole lot worse!

CLASSIC RICE PUDDING (care of Asda's Recipes)  Serves 4

Ingredients :

15g unsalted butter 
75g pudding rice 
50g granulated sugar 
170g can Carnation Evaporated Milk 
530ml whole milk
Pinch (or more, to taste) ground nutmeg.

Method :

1.  Using a little of the butter, grease the inside of the baking dish.

2.  Mix together the rice, sugar, evaporated milk, milk and a dash of the nutmeg in the dish.

3.  Place into a pre-heated oven at 150degC/300degF/Gas 2 for 30 minutes.

4.  Remove, stir the contents gently and dot the remainder of the butter over the surface.  Grate on the remainder of the nutmeg.

5.  Replace into the oven to bake for another 2 hours.  You may need to turn the heat up for the last 30 minutes if you prefer your rice pudding top to have a darker hue.  I turned mine up to 180degC/350degF/Gas 4 and the top was perfect.

The pudding can wait in the oven (make sure to turn it off!) whilst the family eat their first course.  It is also fabulous cold, the following day.

Calories per serving : 272

Printable recipe
  

Chicken and chorizo Jambalaya

Before we go any further, I have to put my hands up and admit that the bulk of this recipe came from the Slimming World online recipe book - and you can see the original recipe here.

However, having got that out of my system, I can tell you that my version of the recipe is heaps better.  LOL  No, seriously!

Okay, it doesn't accord with the Slimming World ethos - but then it was never meant to.  What I was after, was to take a recipe that had been produced with slimming in mind - and gee it up a bit with additional flavours and textures.  The end result should be that it remains a healthy meal, but has all the good things that an ordinary (a.k.a. not diet) meal would have, such as variety, flavour, texture and substance.

Well, blow me down with a feather, but it only worked.

I'm not sure how much of a "Jambalaya" it was - never having had a strictly traditional Jambalaya - but it had rice, tomatoes and chicken, not to mention heat from spice and full bodied character.  What a result.  Even better was that I liked it - which doesn't happen often with Cajun or smoked paprika dishes.  It has been a while since we've had anything with chorizo in it - and I've found myself lusting after meatballs in tomato sauce with chorizo sizzling alongside, which I took as a hint that maybe I'd come round to the idea.  While I was slicing up the chorizo - as is required of the chef - I had a little taster to establish just how spicy/hot the flavour was.  I could easily have carried on and eaten best part of the entire sausage, it was that good.  Who knows, maybe my taste buds have matured where smoked paprika is concerned!

I knew that hubby would require his Jambalaya to taste Cajun - so added the pinch of red chilli flakes, the smoked paprika and ordinary sweet paprika.  I also wanted the dish to be substantial, so added the cherry tomatoes and mushrooms.  The biggest change was the addition of the chorizo.  I just couldn't imagine a Jambalaya type dish without something big to hold it all together - and the Quorn sausages in the original recipe just wouldn't do it for me.  Not to mention that I think Quorn is disgusting.  (Sorry Quorn manufacturers!).

The final dish was really tasty - and worked out to just under 500 calories per portion - so I didn't do too much damage to the original recipe with my additions!  Whether on a diet or just plain hungry, I recommend this one to you.  It'll keep the wolf from the door, that's for sure.

Now there's a couple of "cook's tips" for you :

-  make sure you start off with an enormous, deep, frying pan.  I used my 22" Ceracraft pan and only just managed to get everything into it.  If you have something deeper but that is reliably non-stick, I'd advise using it!

-   you need your pan to be non-stick, as when it comes to the point of putting the lid on and letting it chuckle for a while, it does have a nasty habit of trying to burn the underside of the food.  Hence, a non-stick pan helps no end with reducing the likelihood of any burning - but do remember to stir and turn the contents regularly!

- using a powder chicken stock is by far and away the better approach.  A chicken stock cube will do the job, but in 200ml of water it can have problems dissolving.  A teaspoonful of chicken stock powder, however, can go into the pan with 200ml of water without any trouble whatsoever.  I recommend Essential Cuisine's chicken stock powder - it's only £3.99 a tub - and the tub last for ages.

So there we have it!  This dish would be perfect for cooking in advance, then heating up in the microwave for Bonfire Night.  I can just imagine being out in the garden with the fireworks, keeping my hands warm around a mugful of this Jambalaya and oohing and aaahing in between forkfuls.  Perfect.


CHICKEN & CHORIZO JAMBALAYA  (serves 4)

Ingredients :

1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, finely sliced
100g chorizo sausage
a pinch of red chilli flakes
2 sweet peppers, your choice of colours, deseeded and roughly chopped
1 courgette, quartered and diced
4 cherry tomatoes, halved
2 large mushrooms, sliced
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp sweet smoked paprika
half a tsp paprika
zest and juice of half a lemon
400g can chopped tomatoes
250g long grain rice 
200ml low salt chicken stock
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
a handful of fresh parsley, chopped.

Method :

1.  Heat the oil in a huge deep frying pan (it needs to be big, because there's a lot to fit into it!) and fry the chopped onion until softened, with a pinch of sea salt to bring out the moisture.

2.  Increase the heat under the pan and add the chicken, chorizo and chilli flakes. Cook until the chicken has lost all evidence of pinkness.

3.  Add the thyme, smoked paprika and paprika and stir to combine.

4.  Add the peppers, courgette, cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, lemon juice and zest. On the same high heat, cook but stir gently so as not to break up the vegetables, until the vegetables have begun to soften and reduced in size.

5.  Add the tinned tomatoes, stock cube and 200ml of water. Stir to combine and bring to the boil.

6.  Add the rinsed rice, stir through and bring back to the boil. Place a lid on the pan and reduce the heat to a simmer.  Cook gently - stirring occasionally to prevent any burning underneath the mixture - until the rice has cooked and is tender.  Taste for seasoning and adjust if necessary.

7.  Sprinkle with chopped parsley and serve.

Printable version

Stuffed Peppers

I'm not quite sure which came first in my mind, the stuffed peppers or the Ottolenghi Fennel gratin, but they seemed to be compatible, so that's what we had.

I have tried making stuffed peppers in the past - a long, long, time ago, so long in fact that it could well have been in another life.  These attempts weren't terribly successful, as they involved a Bolognese-type mince mixture stuffing which turned out to be quite one-dimensional.  I'd since given the idea up as lost, however just recently the germ of an idea had been growing in my mind.  This time, I'd go for a relatively dry stuffing mixture - one involving rice, still with beef mince however this time mince which had been caramelised to promote that lovely beefy flavour.  Beyond that, I ran out of definite ideas.  All I had was an impression of how I wanted the flavours to be.

So, I reached for my computer keyboard and consulted t'internet.  Various stuffing mixes floated past, each one had its merits but wasn't the one I was looking for.  I liked the goat's cheese versions, but that didn't help with my desire to include beef.  Then, I lit upon a recipe for stuffed butternut squash - which didn't include beef but sounded so wacky, it had definite potential.  So thankyou, Foodista, for the original idea - here's what it turned into.

I recommend you do all the chopping and vegetable preparation before you get cooking, as everything happens fairly quickly.  Oh, and many apologies - like the Ottolenghi Fennel dish, we were too keen to get tucked in and completely forgot to take a photograph.  Next time!

STUFFED PEPPERS (feeds 3-4)

Ingredients :

3-4 big fat red or yellow peppers, top removed and bottom levelled

400g beef mince

2 celery stalks, chopped fine

1 medium leek, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

3-4 mushrooms, diced

2 cups cooked white rice

2 cups crisp breadcrumbs

handful of raisins or cherries or cranberries

1-2  tsp Worcester sauce

1 full to heaped tsp dried sage

olive oil

 Method :

1. Pre-heat the oven at 190deg C.

2. Put the mince on to brown in a deep frying pan, using a teaspoon of vegetable oil, to prevent sticking.

3. Meanwhile, rub some olive oil inside and out of the peppers, season and place in a roasting dish.  Bake for as long as it takes to prepare the stuffing mix.

4. Sauté celery and leek until soft.

5. Add garlic and mushrooms and continue cooking for some 5 minutes.

6. Add rice, breadcrumbs, raisins, Worcester sauce and sage and mix to combine.

7. Stuff and bake for 30 mins turning once or twice to ensure even baking.

Chilli Chicken Curry with Courgettes

The recipe for this curry has changed quite a bit since I first decided to include it on the menu list for this week.  The first big change came when I reviewed the recipe and noticed that it included potato.  This is a big no-no, as hubby has decreed that potato is the no-legged spawn of the devil and if he eats another one, it will be far too soon.  So, I try to avoid the little chaps - which is tricky as I'm a complete potatophile.  So that explains why they keep on appearing!

So anyway, the potato was out and I wanted to find something that would be nice to include in a curry, but wouldn't cost the earth.  Enter one courgette (zucchini).  So that was change no. 1.

Change no. 2 came about in the supermarket today when we discovered that a huge pack of fresh curry leaves were less than a pound in price.  Because the recipe I'm using on Sunday - the Spicy Lentils - include curry leaves we got them.  This, of course, meant that I could play with them for the first time ever, in tonight's curry before committing them to the Ottolenghi recipe on Sunday.

Change no. 3 came about when I realised that the curry recipe I had dealt in chilli powder, rather than fresh chillis - which are always my preferred route.  So chilli powder was out and fresh chilli was in.

Change no. 4 came about when I realised that we had no brown sugar in the house with which to sweeten the tomatoes.  Rather than use the relatively flavourless granulated sugar, I opted for honey instead.

Change no. 5 came about when, after tasting the sauce, I realised that it was a little "light" and needed something to give it a richness and depth.  After a bit of pondering, I opted for two tablespoons of double cream.

So hence, the recipe we wound up eating bore very little resemblance to the one I intended to start out cooking.  Still, the end result was worth it.  Chillibob declared that it was very, very close to "the perfect curry" - and that is quite some accolade from him!

CHILLI CHICKEN CURRY (feeds 3)

Ingredients :

To make the paste :

2 medium onion , quartered

1 cm root ginger, quartered

2 garlic cloves, halved and green shoot removed

1 red chilli, quartered and seeds removed.

A knob of butter

a tbsp olive oil

a courgette or 2 baby aubergines

1 tsp cumin seeds

14 curry leaves

½ tsp turmeric

230g can chopped tomatoes

500g boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into 3cm chunks

½ tsp garam masala

2 tbsp chopped fresh coriander

2 tbsp double cream

2 tsp runny honey

METHOD : 

Slice the courgette into fairly chunky slices, melt the butter in a deep frying pan and add the oil, heat until the courgettes sizzle when you put them in and fry until browned, then set aside.

Meanwhile, make the paste by blitzing in a food processor the onion, ginger, garlic and chilli to a fine paste.

Fry the cumin seeds and curry leaves in the leftover oil from the courgettes for a few seconds.

Add the onion paste and brown over a medium heat.

Add the chicken and brown (or “white”) for a few minutes.

Sprinkle in the turmeric and garam masala.

Add the tomatoes and fry for 5 minutes. Add a little water to promote the creation of the sauce.

Season and allow to simmer for 30 mins or so.  Add the honey to taste and the double cream, continue to simmer for as long as it takes for the sauce to reduce to your liking.

Finally, and at the very last minute, add the courgettes and the coriander and stir through.

Serve with white rice.

Chorizo & Red Pepper Risotto

The kitchen lights have lent it a rather more orange glow than in actuality!

I have to say, right from the start, that this lovely risotto recipe is one conjured up from the creative mind of my dear hubby.  Well, he is - after all - the Risotto King (not just the Artisan Bagel Baker), in this house.

There we sat, debating what to put on this week's menu list, when we both had a Risotto thought.  Mine went along the lines of "risotto .... mmmmn, good idea!", hubby's went along the lines of "what if we had a risotto ... with maybe chorizo ... and red pepper ... and probably peas ... and ..." and so the Chorizo & Red Pepper risotto was born.

The added benefit to this lovely risotto is it's extreme child-friendliness.  If your child is old enough to chew chorizo pieces, then they're going to love this risotto. 

CHORIZO & RED PEPPER RISOTTO (feeds 3)

Ingredients :

500g Arborio rice
1 litre pork or vegetable stock
2 large shallots, diced small
1 red pepper, finely sliced
25g butter or olive oil
1 level teaspoon smoked paprika (or more to taste)
20g grated Parmesan (with shavings to garnish)
225g thinly sliced Chorizo
200g frozen peas, defrosted and warmed
1 small wedge of lemon.

Method :

1.  Gently cook the shallots and red pepper in the butter (or oil) for five minutes or until the shallots are soft, but not browned.

2.  Add the smoked paprika and chorizo and cook for a further few minutes before turning up the heat and adding the rice.

3.  Once all of the grains of rice are thoroughly coated in the spiced oils and the pan temperature is high, add a splash of stock to 'release' the pan.

4.  Continue adding the stock, a ladleful at a time in the usual risotto method until it has been absorbed, the rice is cooked and the risotto is 'oozy'.  A little extra boiled water or stock should be kept on hand in case the rice is especially thirsty.

5.  Stir in the warmed peas, grated parmesan and a small squeeze of lemon before removing from the heat for a quick rest (the risotto, not the cook).

6.  Serve in warmed bowls, garnished with the parmesan shavings.

Note:  Do not add frozen peas, as this will kill the cooking process and make the ooze go all runny!

Accompany with warmed bread or a side salad.  Delicious!