Feeding the post holiday blues

It’s a while since my last post, but that’s because we’ve just come back from an amazing holiday in Istanbul. I’d highly recommend it! There was so much to see, we ran out of time even though we had a full week.  We also spent our time eating bread with sheeps cheese, kebaps, baklava, fresh fish and drinking loads of tea (and not particularly good Turkish red wine).  

Basically a week of over-indulgence. It was brilliant.  And now we’re home wading through about four loads of washing and facing slightly unhealthy bank balances, my plan to tackle this is to cook, cook and cook some more.  So here we go, three recipes in one blog:

1.  The slightly luxurious, drink it with wine, pretend you’re still on holiday meal:  Asparagus Risotto.

Anyone who has lived with me will know I make a lot of risottos.  I love risottos, and they’re pretty easy, just keep it constantly on a lowish heat.

Fry finely chopped onion, celery and garlic in a little butter and oil so it goes slightly translucent but doesn’t colour. 

Add the risotto rice, and cook for about thirty seconds so all the grains are coated in buttery goodness. Add a decent glassful of white wine, give it a stir and let all the wine cook down.

Snap the woody ends bits of your asparagus and chop the rest into chunks about a couple of centimetres long. Add these, and a ladleful of stock, and keep stirring. 

Gradually keep adding stock about a ladleful at a time and regularly stirring for about fifteen minutes, until the rice is cooked. It should still have a little bit of bite.

Stir in a good handful of grated parmesan, a knob of butter and a squeeze of lemon juice. Have with salad and cold white wine…

  

2.  The store cupboard, cheap and cheerful, batch cooked meal: Chorizo and bean stew.

I split my life between Hull and Leeds, and struggle sometimes to keep eating healthy tasty meals while away.  To rectify this, I made a VERY easy stew to last me a couple of nights.

Fry some chopped chorizo in a little oil, until the oil starts to turn red. 

Add a chopped onion, some chopped celery and some garlic and chilli. Everything should keep a bit of an orange tinge. Then add some extra paprika and chilli flakes, stir in, before adding loads of veg. For me, this was peppers, courgettes and mushrooms.  

Add a tin of beans, I used borlotti, and a tin of tomatoes.  Add some tomato puree, Worcestershire sauce and top up with water. Let it bubble down for quite a while (probably about half an hour) and continually check for seasoning, it’ll take quite a lot of salt and pepper.

If it tastes too spicy or too sharp, add a little sugar to take the edge off it. Stir in some spinach at the end.

Done! I’ll be eating this with some cous cous. 

3.  The post-holiday diet starts today, healthy vegetable-tastic soup: Sort of Thai vegetable and noodle soup.

Blitz up a decent amount of garlic, chilli and ginger, and fry it in some oil with some sliced onion.  Add a spoonful of Thai curry paste. And fry a little.

Then add a load of veggies, for me this was sliced pak choi, thinly sliced carrots, mushrooms, and green beans, and a few halved cherry tomatoes. 

Add some stock, and allow it to bubble away but not for too long (best if the veggies retain a little bit of bite) Add some lime juice, and plenty of Thai fish sauce (to taste) at the end, as well as some chopped fresh coriander.

Meanwhile, cook some noodles separately.  I was looking for rice noodles, but they were sadly lacking from my supermarket so I ended up with udon noodles. When they’re cooked rinse them with cold water to keep them separate.

Because I was taking this to work for lunches, I let it cool in separate containers, then added the noodles to each one.

I made this with home made chicken stock, but if you were going to be making a veggie version just use vegetable stock and soy sauce instead of Thai fish sauce.