Turkey & pesto meatballs in tomato sauce

Rarely has one dish so split the audience!

So if you're looking at this blog post and thinking "ooh, my husband/son would love that!", I advise you to go carefully - as I have a suspicion it may very well be girl food.  Reason being that I absolutely loved this dish (as it stands), but hubby hated it and son & heir wasn't all that keen.  Hubby did say, though, that the flavour of the meatballs was good - it was just the wine that I'd put into the tomato sauce that he disliked intensely.  Where son & heir is concerned, I think it was the indignity of having to have vegetables instead of pasta to accompany it.

Personally, I absolutely loved it and would happily have the same again tonight.

So, I decided to blog the recipe as without the wine in the sauce and served on pasta instead of with mashed potato and vegetables (although I'd be tempted to include the carrots & broccoli in the tomato sauce, on the pasta!) I think it would have been a lot better received.

Hence, it's up to you.  Go with the wine in the recipe if that's what you like.  Serve it with mashed potato and vegetables if that's what everyone likes.  Or you can go down the pasta route, if you think the potato/veggie combo is too "out there" for your tastes.

Of all the turkey meatball recipes I've made just recently, this is by far and away the easiest.  Simply mix the minced turkey with three quarters of a grated onion and two heaped teaspoonfuls of pesto (green or red - I used green).  Mush it all together and roll some meatballs.  So long as the turkey is straight from the fridge (i.e. extremely cold), the mixture will be very soft, but will hold together if you treat the meatballs gently.

The recipe did a very good job of using up the turkey mince that I had in the freezer, plus it made a large dent in the jar of pesto.  A few pasta lunches should see off the remainder!

Oh, and incidentally, I was looking today for some inspiration where cooking turkey was concerned, and tripped over this website Lean on Turkey.  As I'm quite keen on turkey as an ingredient (I think we could all do a lot worse than to eat more of it), I thought I'd pass it on!

TURKEY & PESTO MEATBALLS IN TOMATO SAUCE  (feeds 3)

Ingredients :

500g minced turkey
1 onion, peeled and grated
2 heaped tsp green or red pesto
1 tbsp olive oil.

For the sauce :
1 onion, chopped fine
1 clove garlic, grated
2 vine ripened tomatoes, diced small
1 glass red wine (optional)
1 tbsp tomato puree
1 tbsp tomato ketchup
a large pinch of dried oregano
an even larger pinch of dried basil
half a tsp paprika
1 tsp mushroom ketchup or Worcestershire sauce
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper.

Method :

1.  Take a large bowl and add the turkey, grated onion and pesto to it.  With your hands, squidge the meat together with the onion & pesto until evenly distributed.  Pinch off pieces to roll into meatballs, around the size of a walnut.  Should make 16-17 meatballs.

2.  In a frying pan, heat the olive oil until really quite hot - enough to make the meatballs sizzle as soon as they connect with the pan.  Add the meatballs and gently turn them after 30 seconds cooking.  This will "set" the outside shell of the meatball and prevent them from falling apart.

3.  Reduce the heat to medium and continue to fry the meatballs until coloured on all sides and firm to the touch.  Remove to an oven-proof dish and keep warm.

4.  Switch the oven on to pre-heat, at 180degC/350degF/Gas4.

5.  Without wiping the frying pan, add the onions to the remaining oil and cook on medium until softened.  Add the garlic and cook for a minute or so.

6.  If you are opting to use the red wine, add this now and bubble it until it has reduced by around half.

7.  Add the tomatoes and cook until they are softened, then add the tomato puree,
tomato ketchup, dried oregano, dried basil, paprika and mushroom ketchup or Worcestershire sauce.  Give everything a good stir and allow to simmer for 10 minutes or so.


8.  Taste and adjust seasoning with the sea salt & black pepper.


9.  Pour the sauce over the meatballs, then add to the oven and cook for 30 minutes or until bubbling.


10.  Serve, either with mashed potato & vegetables, or with pasta & vegetables (which could be added to the sauce before serving).


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Bockwurst & Bean Pasties : a Germano-Mexicano-Cornwallo fusion!

Okay, so - think of a Cornish Pasty.  Now instead of the usual filling, when you bite into this pastie, you get a rich combination of baked beans, red kidney beans, black eyed beans and pinto beans, plus slices of Bockwurst, all carried by a gently barbecued, tomatoey sauce that has a hint of chilli warmth.

Doesn't sound quite so odd now, does it?  Or does it?

I'll be perfectly honest with you and say that I was extremely dubious about this one.  Extremely dubious.

To begin with, it committed the most heinous of crimes which is to include something else with a Bockwurst other than a kartoffelsalat.  Now that is a cardinal sin, in my book.

Secondly, it put Bockwurst with baked beans.  Now that is getting way too close to "Heinz Beans & Sausage" territory for me.  Not that I dislike said beans and sausages, I just have to be in the right mood for them - and it rarely happens.

Thirdly, it involved a barbecue sauce.  Now I'm not the best person to be faced with a barbecue sauce.  Take Macdonalds barbecue sauce - I dislike it intensely.  Hubby loves it.  I have yet to enjoy any of the "cook-in" sauces that involve barbecue and actively dislike Heinz barbecue baked beans.  So maybe you can understand my caution.

However - and prepare to be as amazed as I was - I really liked these pasties.  I know!  Who knew, eh?

In making the contents of the pasties, I took a large can of the abomination that is Heinz Barbecue Beans and added a half a can of chilli bean mix (not one that was in sauce).  I heated this combination up and included a knob of butter (which hubby reliably informs me, creates a "refried beans" type of texture), a half a teaspoon of smoked paprika, a good quantity of freshly ground black pepper and a flat teaspoon of chilli powder.

Once all those flavours had married up, I added the Bockwurst slices and hoped for the best.

The end result tasted (amazingly) as though I'd added a heaped teaspoonful of ground cumin - but I hadn't, honest!  In the saucepan, I continued to be extremely dubious about the wisdom of this combination but hubby seemed content with the flavours (although he did comment that I'd been a bit heavy handed with the cumin!  See?  I told you it tasted like I'd added some!).

So, once it had all cooled down a bit, I sallied forth and put the pasties together.

Ready for baking - awsome egg colour!

As you'll see from the "ready to bake" photograph, the egg yolk that I used to glaze them with was an amazing colour!  You honestly would think that I'd used a Burford Brown or other exotic breed of egg, but no.  The egg came from the box of 24 free range eggs of mixed sizes that all the other (normally coloured) eggs came from.  The shell gave no indication that it would be so glamorous, either.  I can't wait to see whether there are going to be any others like that in the same box!

The pasties baked up beautifully and we served them with some shop bought potato wedges, for simplicity's sake.

It's only a shame that I forgot to get a photograph of the filling for you to see, which would have given you a far better idea of how the combination worked.  I'd made sure that the sauce was quite thick before using it as a filling, so there wasn't runny sauce escaping everywhere.  The pastry seemed to mute the barbecue flavour a tad, but the Bockwurst was still able to be heard, in amongst all the other flavours.

On the whole, I'd make these again.  Maybe not on a regular basis (after all, just look at the amount of pastry involved!) but when we've got a Bockwurst glut, they'll definitely feature.

Oh, and speaking of pastry - have you seen how much the price of pastry has escalated just recently?  Unreal!  We found the two packs of puff pastry that were required in the money off section for 60p each as they were about to go out of date - the same amount in frozen pastry would have cost a quite ridiculous £2.25.

I can't help but think we're going to have to learn how to make rough puff in the future!

BOCKWURST & BEAN PASTIES  (makes 3-4, depending on size)

Ingredients :


1 x 390g can of Baked Beans in barbecue sauce
half a 400g can of mixed beans in water, drained
a knob of butter
half a tsp of smoked paprika
a good quantity of freshly ground black pepper (to taste)
a flat tsp of chilli powder
5 Bockwurst sausages, sliced
1kg puff pastry
an egg, separated, yolk retained - for glazing.

Method :

1.  Into a small saucepan, empty the barbecue beans.  Add to them the half a can of mixed beans and stir to combine.

2.  Begin to warm the beans through, on a low heat.

3.  Add the knob of butter and the smoked paprika, black pepper and chilli powder and stir gently to combine.

4.  Add the sliced Bockwurst and continue to heat and stir.

5.  Do not let the mixture boil, but if it appears very juicy, simmer until the consistency is correct as a pasty filling.

6.  Allow to cool while you sort out the pastry.

7.  Pre-heat your oven to 180degC/350degF/Gas4.

8.  Divide the pastry up into four (or however many you want) evenly sized pieces, then roll each out until 2mm thick.  You will probably find it easiest to do the next few stages individually, rather than try to deal with them all at once.

9.  Cut a circle out the size of a tea plate (I use a tea plate and press it into the pastry to give me the shape).


10.  Brush a little egg around the edge of the pastry, then place spoonfuls of the filling into the centre.


11.  Quickly fold one side of the pastry over the filling and press down around the edges to create a join and prevent any filling from escaping.


12.  Either run a fork around the edge, pressing down, so as to "cement" the join, or crimp the edges as you would for a Cornish pasty and cut two lines into the top, to let out the steam.

13.  Place onto a baking tray and brush each pasty with some egg wash.

13.  Bake for 30-40 minutes, or until the pastry is puffed and golden.

Serve.

Chicken & bean enchiladas : the best enchiladas ever!

Which was how these enchiladas were described by both hubby and son.  In fact, hubby was even heard to mutter "eat your heart out, Thomasina Miers!" - which I take to be quite a compliment.

I can't take full credit for the recipe though, as the original version came from a BBC Good Food magazine - and you can see the original recipe online here.  For all that my version of the recipe is very similar, I did opt to develop my own spicing for them and, instead of using roast chicken legs, I cooked off two raw chicken breasts that had been lurking in my freezer, looking for something to do.

In fact, I am jolly pleased with this recipe. To explain, our butcher sells chicken breasts as 5 for £5. Ordinarily, I'm preparing a breast for each of us, which leaves the odd number of two. Invariably, these get added to the freezer and we buy another 5. So, to have a recipe that uses just two chicken breasts across a meal that satisfies 3 people, is marvellous.

As for the spicing, well, I object to having to pay 85p and upwards for a sachet of spice mix when I've invariably got exactly those spices - but individually - in my cupboard.  So, I had a good old look at the ingredients list on three different sachets and discovered that there was nothing involved in the pre-prepared spice mix that I didn't have.  I knew I had to provide a tablespoonful of fajita seasoning and I have had fajitas previously so I knew the sort of balance of flavours I was after.  My spice mix consisted of a flat teaspoonful of smoked paprika, three quarters of a teaspoonful of hot chilli powder, a rounded teaspoonful of ground cumin, a third of a teaspoonful of thyme and the same again of ground black pepper.  Having mixed all those in, the chilli effect wasn't quite as pronounced as I wanted, so I added a pinch of dried chilli flakes, plus some salt.  Perfect!

Ready for the oven

This really is simplicity itself to make.  I whipped up the enchilada filling before collecting son & heir from school, then when we returned, I filled the enchiladas, covered them with grated cheddar - and by the time I'd opened the sour cream, the salsa and made a little salad, the enchiladas had ten minutes left in the oven.  It really couldn't have gone any better.

If you're planning on cooking these for younger children who can manage a knife and fork but who don't have the track record of being able to cope with chilli, you can easily leave out the chilli flakes (which makes them mediumly spicy) and/or the chilli powder (which renders them mildly chillified).  The beans come in a chilli sauce which is very mildly spiced - so the enchiladas can be adjusted up or down, according to taste.

I enjoyed this dish very much.  For us, the spicing was perfectly balanced and could be adjusted up or down as you ate them by the addition of the spicy salsa or alternatively the sour cream.  I was initially sceptical about the inclusion of the kidney beans in spicy sauce, but I will admit that this ingredient made the dish.  Something else that made the enchiladas both interesting and added a slight crunch, was the addition of the sweetcorn.  I really liked the textural changes it brought and the additional little shots of sweetness.

Both hubby and son & heir were quite upset when they'd finished their two and half enchiladas - and were begging me to make them again, and soon.  The next time I have two chicken breasts looking for a home to go to, I think I will!

This blog post has been submitted to Ren Behan's "Family Friendly Fridays" competition :)

CHICKEN & BEAN ENCHILADAS  (makes 7-8)

Ingredients :

1 tbsp olive oil
a red onion, chopped finely
1 garlic clove, grated

a flat tsp smoked paprika
three quarters of a tsp hot chilli powder
a rounded tsp ground cumin
a third of a tsp thyme
a third of a tsp ground black pepper
a pinch of dried chilli flakes (optional, for chilli heat)
a pinch of sea salt
2 skinless chicken breasts, diced finely
2 x 350g tins of red kidney beans in chilli sauce
198g tin of sweetcorn
corn wraps
100-150g grated mature cheddar

To serve :
200ml hot tomato salsa
150ml soured cream
some mixed salad.  

Method :

1.  Pre-heat oven to 180degC/350degF/Gas 4.

2.  Pour the oil into a frying pan and add the onions.  Cook on a low-medium heat for around 5 minutes, or until softened and beginning to caramelise.  Add the garlic and continue to cook for another minute or so.

3.  Add the spices and salt and stir to combine.  Cook them, stirring all the time, for a another couple of minutes or until they begin to become fragrant.


4.  Add the chicken breast pieces and increase the heat slightly to prevent them from poaching.   Keep stirring and turning the chicken until it has all coloured.


5.  Add the kidney beans and sweetcorn and stir to combine.  Allow to simmer for 5 minutes or so, to reduce the sauce slightly and allow the flavours to mingle correctly.


6.  Place a corn wrap flat onto a chopping board and add the chicken mixture horizontally along the centre line.  Take the side closest to you and wrap it over the filling, tucking it under the other side of the filling and so creating a filled tube.  Roll the wrap away from you, then lift it carefully into a baking dish, placing it with the join as the underside.  Continue until all the filling is used up.  Don't be worried about squashing them in!


7.  Sprinkle the top surface of the rolled wraps with cheese and place into the oven for 25-30 minutes.  Test that the centre wrap is hot enough, by piercing with the tip of a knife, then (carefully) hold the knife against your top lip.  You should not be able to leave the knife in contact with your lip for very long at all, if the Enchiladas are heated through properly.


8.  Serve with a hot tomato salsa, some soured cream as a coolant and some fresh salad.


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Stilton, bacon & maple pear tart - utter gorgeousness

Where do you do the majority of your food dreaming?  We do ours in the car - usually when we're waiting for son & heir to come out of school.  Maybe you don't dream up recipes at times like these, but instead dream of beach holidays, or a fine bottle of wine!  Well, this tart was dreamt up (mostly) when we were sat in the car waiting for son & heir.

I had the streaky bacon in the fridge already, as I'd bought it with a view to wrapping the chicken with it on Sunday last, or at the very least using it to contribute some flavour to a chicken and cider casserole.  However, neither of those things happened and instead we had a lemon & thyme roasted chicken - which was okay, but nothing to write home about.

So our starting point for the tart was the sole sheet of puff pastry that was lurking in the fridge.  I'd very nearly turned it into an apple pie, only to be thwarted by the sudden onset of chauffeuring duties, so it lived to fight another day.

Hence, we'd got the pastry and the bacon - so what went with those, that we hadn't already made?  Hubby came up with the pear idea and I embellished it with the Maple syrup.  We then needed something to hold everything else together - and a blue cheese seemed the obvious choice.  Because of the bacon having the potential to be salty we decided against a creamy Danish Blue as they are often so very salty.  A nice piece of Stilton seemed the obvious choice thereafter.  

Now, what to serve with the tart?  We figured that, as the tart itself would be really quite rich, perhaps a salad would be a good idea - and opted for a mixed salad with walnuts and a walnut vinaigrette.  It sounded as though that would complement the ingredients in the tart quite nicely - and so it did.  The vinaigrette was a simple matter of crushing 4-5 walnut halves in a pestle & mortar and adding Extra Virgin Olive Oil, some of the gorgeous Maille Cider Vinegar, plus sea salt & freshly ground black pepper.  Powerful stuff - but very effective.

This isn't a meal to serve to young children, as the flavours are incredibly adult and the juxtaposition of the sweet pear, salty bacon, rich cheese and dry, earthy walnuts is not for the faint-hearted.  I was pleased that son & heir managed the whole very well, albeit he opted not to have the vinaigrette.  He did have some walnuts on his salad, though.  As a 13 year old gastronome, I think he's showing promise.  His comment was that the tart was lovely, but the sweetness of the maple pears was a bit too much for his taste.

I know that, next time I make this tart, I'll abandon the idea of the Maple syrup even though it accentuated the flavour of the pear beautifully.  Maple syrup seems to have an unwanted effect upon me, much the same as Asparagus does.  'Nuff said. Still, I don't think that the tart will notice the lack of Maple syrup.

Just look at that expanse of melted Stilton .. mmmn!

The pear I used was a Comice - an enormous Comice - which was slightly under ripe.  Owing to the fact that it was quite hard, it pan-fried perfectly.  I wouldn't want to try pan frying a ripe pear, as I suspect you'd wind up with pear mush rather than discernible slices!

As I said previously, I love making tarts - and this one was no exception.

STILTON, BACON & MAPLE PEAR TART  (serves 4)

Ingredients :

250g smoked streaky bacon, sliced into small pieces

1-2 Comice pears, peeled, cored and cut into slices 2-3mm thick

1 tbsp Maple syrup (optional)

160g sheet of puff pastry, ready rolled

170g Stilton cheese

Method :

1.  Pre-heat your oven to 190degC/375degF/Gas 5.

2.  Take a frying pan and add the bacon.  Dry fry over a medium heat, to render the fat out of the bacon and until it has just begun to crisp.  (Don't cook until crisp, or the bacon will overcook in the oven).  Remove and set aside to cool.

3.  In the bacon fat, place the slices of pear and cook over a high heat until caramelised.  Don't keep turning the slices - just leave them where they are, but check the underside until it has reached a nice golden colour - then turn.  If you are using the Maple syrup, drizzle it over the pears after you have laid them into the pan.

4.  Once the pears are done, turn the heat off and begin to assemble the tart.

5.  Take a large baking tray that is bigger than your sheet of pastry.

6.  Lay the pastry onto the baking tray and make sure it is evenly flattened out.  Then taking a sharp knife, score - without cutting through - a line 1" inside the edge to demark where the tart crust should be.

7.  Taking the pear slices, lay each one onto the middle of the tart in a pleasing and even arrangement.  Do not be tempted to pour the pan juices over, or the tart will become too greasy.

8.  Next, sprinkle the bacon pieces evenly over the pear slices, remembering to leave the crust edge uncovered. 

9.  Crumble the Stilton cheese evenly over the bacon.

10.  Place into the oven and bake for 25-30 minutes, or until the crust has risen and browned to a deep gold.

11.  Remove from the oven and leave for 5 minutes or so, just to settle, before slicing and serving.

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Two taste tests : Blue Dragon Laksa Curry Paste & Asda Meatballs

Not both at the same time, I hasten to add! 


First of all, I have to tell you that neither of these items involve any sort of sponsorship.  I obtained the paste from an online offer that was open to all and I bought the meatballs.

So - the Blue Dragon Laksa Curry Paste.

Now this is an interesting curry paste, as it is more Thai than Indian.

However, in the "recommended recipes", it involves Madras curry paste - so I was a bit confused.  However, the paste itself turned out to be a light, lemongrassy, gingery kind of paste that indeed required some extra "oomph" to make a flavoursome curry.  To my way of thinking, a curry was never meant to be one-dimensional or bland.  However, even with the help of some star anise, madras curry powder, coconut milk, additional chilli and seasoning, this curry stayed fairly two-dimensional.

In fact, towards the end, I had to bail out as I began disliking the flavour intensely.  As I said to son & heir (who enjoyed the curry), when something is starting to make the skin of your back crawl, it's time to stop eating it.

Hubby thought the end result was okay - nothing to write home about.

Looked (and smelled) very promising, at this stage!

I think, if I were ever to try this curry paste again, I would leave out the coconut milk and the madras curry powder and perhaps aim for a lightly flavoured, but quite intensely chilli hot, prawn curry.  I think that the curry powder and coconut milk made it very difficult for the paste to shine through and overpowered the sweet flavours that it contained.  A shame, considering it was one of the "recommended recipes"!

As for the Asda Meatballs, if I ever see one of those on my plate again, it will be far too soon.

Hubby took charge of this one and baked the meatballs in the oven, before including them in a rich red wine and tomato sauce, over spirali pasta.  The sauce was divine - but the meatballs were, to coin hubby's phrase, "meat porridge".  Bleugh!  I'm afraid I like my meatballs to be firm, not squishy.  The flavour wasn't bad at all as they do contain 80% beef, the killer was the texture.  I just thank goodness that he oven baked them and didn't decide to cook them in the tomato sauce - in which case I suspect they'd have dissolved.  ~shudder~  Never again.  

Beautiful sauce - shame about the meatballs!

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Leftover lovelies - this week's meal plan plus news of a competition!

Can't .. be .. bothered .. to get up!

Well, last week's plans couldn't have gone any more awry if they tried.  I put it down to a large cloud of ennui (also known as "I can't be bothered") that seemed to settle over the entire place.  I think we must be suffering from the end-of-winter-blues, or something fairly catastrophic, as we're not normally this lackadaisical about our menu!

I won't go into the details of what we didn't cook and what we did cook instead - suffice to say that three meals stayed the same, the remaining four got thrown up in the air and came down in a totally different order, with different ingredients and very differing results.

So, this week we're going to have another go at it and hope to do better.

Here's what's on the menu :

Tues : Maple pear, bacon & blue cheese tart with walnut salad

Weds : Chicken enchiladas with salad

Thurs : Bockwurst and bean pasties with potato wedges

Fri : Turkey pesto meatballs in tomato sauce, with mashed potatoes, carrots & peas

Sat : Chickerone soup with cheesy pitta breads

Sun : Steak & kidney pie with carrots, swede & broccoli

Mon : Fish fingers and potato wedges.

Now, the theme that pulls every dish (excepting Sunday's pie) together is that they each contain something that has been left over from a dish we thought we'd make, but didn't.

So, to kick us off, we've got one of my great loves - a tart.  This is using up a leftover piece of puff pastry that's been roosting in the freezer, looking for a home.  I'm quite excited about this recipe - which we dreamed up in successive car trips.  It involves caramelising some sliced pear in bacon fat and a drizzle of maple syrup.  The tart filling will comprise the sliced pear, cooked bacon and crumbled stilton - all served with a mixed salad that's dressed in a walnut vinaigrette.

The next leftover to be used up is a bag containing two chicken breasts.  Our butcher sells 5 chicken breasts for £5, so we often wind up with two leftover.  So to make the two stretch around three people, I thought I'd include them in an Enchilada recipe.  This recipe was supposed to have been cooked a couple of weeks ago - so we still have the corn wraps and chilli beans in the cupboard.  Add to that the salsa that we bought for the chicken kebabs (that didn't happen) and we're all set for Enchiladas.

Thursday has a variation on a Bockwurst theme.  We bought quite a few jars of these (once we found them) and so I indulged in a glorious lunch of Bockwurst with baked beans.  This sparked off hubby's imagination and between us, we dreamed up a recipe for the Bockwurst & Bean Pasties.  It remains to be seen how they turn out - but I'm hoping that as it contains Bockwurst, it can't be bad!  Oh, and do pasties qualify for Pie Week?  Maybe?  If you close one eye and concentrate on the pastry?

Yay!  You knew we couldn't get through a week without a meatball recipe, now didn't you?  Well, you were right.  This time, I'm using up the turkey mince that we bought for the Enchilada recipe, plus three quarters of a jar of pesto.  I'm also soothing son & heir's terrible mashed potato drought, which I hope will take his mind off of the carrots and peas that will accompany it.

Sort of like this ...

Saturday is another "created at home" recipe, which is a main course soup based upon a Minestrone recipe.  In this one, I'm using up another bag of two chicken breasts that we found lurking in the freezer - hence Chickerone.  I'll also be using up a bag of pitta breads that we bought as part of the chicken kebab idea that didn't happen.  I'll split them into triangles, cover with grated cheese and bake in the oven until melted and crispy.  Mmmmn, gorgeously perfect dipping material!

For all that the Steak & Kidney Pie is booked in for Sunday, I'll actually cook the steak & kidney on the Saturday, using the slow cooker.  I find that the flavours develop overnight and, with a similar pastry to the Kate & Wills Wedding Pie, it should be a cracking pie to honour British Pie Week.

Good old Monday hoves into view and we're slumming it.  I always think of Monday as being a "catch your breath after the week" day, when we want a super-easy meal that (preferably) uses up something that's leftover from the week prior.  Well, we'll have leftover potato wedges and we've two boxes of Fish Fingers that we picked up because they were on special offer.  I might even butter some bread and have a fish finger & wedge sandwich - ooooooh, the decadence!

So that's the planned meals.  Where extra cooking projects are concerned, I've just bought a whole shedload of peanuts with which to make my own peanut butter.  The recipe is incredibly simple and promises that if you can master the plain peanut butter, then the recipe for chocolate peanut butter will be a natural progression.  Sounds good to me!

I still haven't made the Dorset Apple Cake.  ~hangs head in shame~  I know, I don't deserve to exist.  There's six lovely Bramley apples waiting to have something done with them in our kitchen and I.Really.Must.Bake!

You could win one of these - although I doubt it will be full!

As for what's planned for Rhubarb & Ginger here, well, exciting news!  I'll be hosting a competition which will launch in the next few days, sponsored by Crock Pot U.K., in which the first prize will be a beautiful new Crock Pot (or slow cooker).  You must keep an eye out for further details, because if I didn't already have an almost brand-new slow cooker, I'd be busting to enter!

Oh, and just before I go, two items of lovely news which made my respective days - firstly, I won £25-worth of Takeaway curry from our local curry house - the Heart of India.  With hubby's birthday coming up - 14th March, if you want to send him congratulations - I know when we'll be using our vouchers!

Secondly, I won the Family Friendly Fridays competition on Ren Behan's gorgeous "Fabulicious Food" blog.  I entered my Turkey & Chorizo Meatballs on Pesto Spaghetti recipe and was absolutely chuffed to little tiny pieces to win.  Thanks Ren!

 

 

I hate to do this, but ...

Pwease?

... if you run a blog - and you like what goes on here on Rhubarb & Ginger enough - would you please consider including me on your Blogroll?

If you let me know, I'll be happy to include you on the Blogroll here on Rhubarb & Ginger, in return.  :)

I know, I'm a big gurly wuss about asking - but it makes such a difference where getting the word out about the blog is concerned.

One last thing, while I'm here, all you people who have Facebook accounts - did you know that Rhubarb & Ginger has a Facebook page?  It's here - come and say hello! 

Bockwurst und Kartoffelsalat (or German Sausage with Potato Salad)

I may have mentioned in the past, my enduring love for Bockwurst und Kartoffelsalat.

When my Dad was in the Army (Royal Engineers) and we were stationed in Germany, whenever we went out to eat anywhere I would immediately scan the menu for Bockwurst und Kartoffelsalat.  Thus began an eduring love affair with potato salad - but if I could ever lay my hands on any good Bockwurst, then it just didn't get any better than that.

Now, what makes a good Bockwurst good?  Well, for me, it is the complete lack of whatever it is that the manufacturers put into hot dogs, that makes you feel nauseous after eating two of them.  I never feel nauseous when eating Bockwurst - and to my shame, could happily down an entire jar full in one sitting, without any ill effects.  The same could never be said for hot dogs!

For all that they are similar to hot dogs, a good Bockwurst has a more robust texture and a milder flavour.  You know how, if you cut through a hot dog with a fork, it doesn't put up a fight but just kind of mushes beneath your fork?  Not so with a Bockwurst.  It should resist the fork - not as much as a pork sausage would - enough to let you know that this sausage is firm.

Now as for cooking them, I admit that such is my keenness to get them down my throat, that I haven't ever done anything more than pop them into a saucepan of simmering water for as long as it takes to assemble some cooked potato in a potato salad.  However, I gather that they are lovely griddled - and knowing how much I love my griddle pan, I can see how that might be.

We found our Bockwurst in our local Aldi store.  I am sure a good Delicatessen would also be able to source them for you.

As for the potato salad, well, I gather that a true Kartoffelsalat falls into two camps depending upon where in Germany you are.  If in northern Germany, you can expect your Kartoffelsalat to be dressed with mayonnaise.  However, if in southern Germany, it takes the form of a vinegar dressed salad, with accompanying smoked bacon pieces.

All I can say, is that I only ever experienced the mayonnaise version.  Although, I have to say that the vinegar version sounds interesting!

Where serving the dish is concerned, I can remember sitting down to an enormous sausage on a plate with a mountain of potato salad - and that's it.  However, hubby seemed appalled at that idea (can't imagine why! *chuckle*) so we also had some mixed salad with the sausages. 


The "Jelly" potatoes from Greenvale Farm Fresh (which I have used up and had to go out and buy some more), are particularly brilliant for this dish.  Being a lovely combination of 80% waxy and 20% floury, they are able to be boiled without fear of their dissolving, yet they retain a lovely tender texture that goes so well in a salad.

I think that the recipe for my Kartoffelsalat might not be strictly true to the original, but it is certainly how I remember the potato salad tasting - which is all that I was interested in, in this case!

BOCKWURST UND KARTOFFELSALAT (or German Bockwurst sausage with potato salad)

Ingredients :

A jar of Bockwurst or two (a jar usually contains 5 sausages)
4-5 waxy potatoes, peeled and cut into quarters or less ("Jelly" is a brilliant type for this)
2 tbsp greek yoghurt
2 tbsp mayonnaise
2 tbsp fresh chives, snipped
1 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped fine
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.


Method :


1.  Bring a large saucepan of salted water to the boil and add the potato pieces, which should still be in large chunks - you will cut them to salad size once cooked.


2.  Allow the saucepan to simmer in lively fashion until the potatoes easily accept the point of a knife.


3.  Drain.


4.  Turn the potatoes onto a plate and allow to cool completely.


5.  Half fill a saucepan with water and bring to the boil.  Once boiling, turn the heat right down until at a gentle simmer.  Add the sausages from the jar, discarding the brine.


6.  While the sausages are heating up, take the cooked, cooled potatoes and cut into small dice.  Add them to a large bowl.


7.  Add the yoghurt, mayonnaise, chives and parsley and mix gently, to combine.


8.  Add some freshly ground black pepper and salt to taste.  Mix again, lightly, to combine.


9.  To serve, remove the sausages from the pan and place onto kitchen paper to drain.  Add them to your plate, together with the potato salad - and some additional mixed salad, if you so desire.


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Almost-instant Raspberry Ice-cream

Dear hubby has been perfecting his technique at making Almost-Instant Ice-cream, using frozen bananas.

I do believe he cracked the formula with this last lot - so I asked him to write a guest post, telling you all about it :

Now, this ice cream recipe is very flexible. It's possible to use more cream, less yoghurt, more fruit, different fruit, booze, anything really (not too much booze though or it won't freeze). The only crucial ingredient are the bananas, which must at the very least, be fully ripe or even overripe. This is a fantastic way of using up bananas which otherwise would have ended up in the dusty bin.

The other optional element is the ice cream maker itself. It's perfectly fine to not use one at all but I do because I own one and I have to justify its existence :-)

The banana base is almost infinitely adaptable and is hugely better for you than a litre of double cream and eggs. It tastes fantastic and at less than a quid for four bananas, it's very cheap to make - gowon, give it a go. Oh, by the way, if you have any of those plastic moulds (molds?) then this type of ice cream would make brilliant and healthy lollies for the kids - even the worried looking kids with the mortgages and the cash guzzling cars.
 
So, to make 1 litre of scrummy RASPBERRY ICE CREAM you will need :

A 1 litre plastic lidded tub
A full sized food processor
An ice cream maker (optional).

Ingredients :

4 ripe (or even overripe) bananas
290g tinned raspberries in fruit juice (not in syrup)
50g double cream (optional)
150 - 200g of Greek yoghurt (or any other natural yoghurt).

Method :

1.  The first step involves freezing the bananas in small, bite sized chunks. I do this by peeling and chopping them, then laying each piece onto a baking sheet and laying the sheet flat in the freezer overnight. There are probably other ways to do it but you must ensure that the chunks are separate and frozen very solidly indeed.

2.  The next morning, get the bananas and drop them, chunk by chunk into the food processor (which should be switched on!). The food processor will make an ungodly racket at first and will need hanging on to as it will try to throw itself around the worktop a bit. 

3.  After you've added half of the chunks, drop in the cream, yoghurt and the juice from the tin of raspberries. Things should be a lot calmer now so you can go ahead and add the rest of the banana chunks.

4.  The mixture should quickly become smooth and resemble very soft ice cream. Now is the time to transfer it to the ice cream machine or, if you're omitting this step, into the plastic tub. If you're going down the tub route, add the raspberries now and mash them into the ice cream with a fork, to whatever consistency you require. If, on the other hand, you have an ice cream machine then churn the mixture for 15 - 20 minutes, adding the raspberries just before the end and then decanting the lot into your plastic tub.

5.  Place the tub into the freezer.  If you've not used an ice cream machine then you'll need to get it back out of the freezer every hour or so and give it a good mix with a fork to break up any ice crystals.  Even if you have used an ice cream machine, do this every two hours.

6.  Assuming you've done all of this in the morning, the ice cream should be ready to eat after dinner on the same day.  Serve into bowls, drizzled all over with raspberry syrup, chocolate sprinkles or whatever takes your fancy.  Crushed nuts you ask? No ma'am, it's just the way I walk :-)

Wrassling with Rissoles

Hubby will say that the Rissoles just aren't worth writing about.  However, I disagree.

I do so because of one simple reason - a photograph.  It is quite the best photograph (taken by hubby - the Blog Photographer) of its type, I have seen in ages.

So - the rissoles.  Well, they were (in my opinion) around 50% successful in that they had an interesting flavour and a surprising texture.  However, from hubby's point of view (who was attempting to re-create a flavour from his childhood), they failed miserably.

Before cooking

The mixture of lamb, onion and parsley all combined very well and apart from their drying out in the cooking procedure, they were really quite nice.  I even didn't object to their dryness - which wasn't intended, but resulted in a certain crispiness that was flavoursome and very savoury.

However, they weren't right - so I haven't blogged the recipe, but if you like "as it happens" photographs of food cooking, get a load of this one :

A rissole, frying madly in amazingly frothy (why did it do that?) oil.  Love it!

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Leftover couscous for lunch

You might recall the Winter Couscous that I made the other evening to go with the smoked mackerel.  Well, there was (inevitably) some left over.

Hooray!  Almost instant lunch for the following day.  All I had to do was soft boil an egg and slice up an avocado, then sit down and tuck in.

The couscous had soaked up the juices from the chargrilled veggies and was a little bit dry, so I cheered it up by running a little more olive oil through it, then added a sprinkle of cider vinegar (Maille Vinaigre de Cidre is my current favourite - I could drink it by the shot glassful).

With the addition of a sliced avocado and the gorgeous yolk from the egg running through, it made a perfect lunch.  Hooray for leftovers!

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Gammon, pot roasted in Cola

I was having trouble, just then, working out whether to call this "Gammon, pot roasted in cola" or "Pot roast cola gammon" or even "Cola braised Gammon ham".  It's a tricky one.

Either way, what it was trying to convey is that this blog post is all about a boneless smoked gammon joint, that was cooked in a saucepan of cola drink, celery, onion and carrots.  You can make your own mind up as to what to call it.  I call it yummy - but a terror to clean up afterwards!

I had been pondering over what to cook the bacon joint in - or whether to just pop it in the oven and roast it - for some time before hubby mentioned that we had a spare bottle of cola that I could use, if I wanted.  Having already made a ham cooked in cola (albeit a much bigger one, the Christmas before last), I thought it would be interesting to see how it translated to a much smaller piece of meat.

Has definitely succumbed to the "cola" effect!

The joint I had was around 800g, so just a little fellow - but just enough for a Sunday dinner, with a little left over for sandwiches the next day.

As is my habit, I soaked the gammon overnight to reduce its salt content.  It smelled lovely when it went into its chilly bath (I just used water, as I was only interested in getting rid of the salt, rather than getting additional flavours into the meat) and I was quite hopeful of a good dinner the following day.

I roughly chopped up the two carrots, an onion and two sticks of celery and used them to create a trivet upon which to put the meat, as I've known the bottom of a piece of meat become quite scorched when cooked this way.  In went the gammon and I poured the cola in until just covering the top of the meat, whilst still leaving a gap at the top of the saucepan.  I didn't want it boiling over - not with cola involved in it, anyway!

I left the gammon chuckling away on a low simmer for approximately an hour and a half.

What I didn't think about though, was that as the pot simmered the steam gathered under the lid and ever so slightly lifted it.  Enough for a splurt of cola/steam mix to decorate the top of my cooker, the buttons on the front of the cooker, the saucepan, the worktop to the side - and anything else that wanted to get in the way, with a sticky dark brown goo that was extremely hard to remove.  Oh - and the goo that had managed to creep in between the saucepan and the hot plate and then burn, was virtually welded on.  *sigh*  I'll have to think of a better plan, if I'm going to do this again in future.

I had used a big jam cauldron for the Christmas piece that I cooked in this way, and it obviously didn't have the same effect between steam and lid, as this hadn't happened then.

Served with roast potatoes & parsnips, creamed leeks, cabbage and carrots - delicious!

Still, the end result was worth all the mopping up and cleaning.  The ham emerged looking pleasingly dark and, when cut, demonstrated a lovely distinction between the cola-flavoured outside and the pink, succulent inside.  Between the soaking and the cooking, the ham had wound up delightfully moist and very acceptably mild in flavour.  There wasn't a very distinctive difference in flavour between the inner and outer, which is nice because you don't really want a strong cola influence in your roast dinner.

Roasties close up - no dribbling, now!

I had used the gorgeous Greenvale Farmfresh Jelly Potatoes for my roasties and can report that they are utterly perfect when used in this way.  I par-boiled them - at which they behave impeccably, not collapsing, or dissolving, or remaining bullet-like - and roasted them for the prescribed 45 minutes at 200degF.  The end result was a perfect, crispy, gently potato flavoured roastie, which we all agreed was one of the nicest roast potatoes we'd had in a very long time.

Next on the list for these potatoes is to try them in potato salad, after which I'm sure will come some mashed potato.  I can't see son & heir letting me get away without mashing them, for very much longer!

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