Three course extravaganza.

I have spent all weekend eating. Or that’s what it feels like. Amazing. Last night we had an extremely good value Moroccan meal at Sami’s in Chapel Allerton; £12 for three courses. Ridiculous. It’s a bit basic but still tasty, and very, very cheap! (and bring your own booze, happy days)

Today I was cooking as, not only was it Father’s Day, but yesterday was my Mum’s birthday. So I decided to make something a little bit special. However, I was also conscious that it’s Sunday night, so it couldn’t be too heavy. The menu went like this:

Grilled asparagus and halloumi starter; Cod with creamy leeks and peas, pancetta and Jersey new potatoes; then chocolate brownies with raspberries and vanilla ice cream.

The key is to be prepared… I managed to spend the whole day reading papers and hanging out with my folks then pull it all together.

Yesterday I made brownies according to this recipe: My earlier blog with a brownie recipe

Then this morning I made a dressing for the asparagus starter, by blending together 6 olives, the juice of half a lemon, some olive oil and some salt and pepper.  Pop it in a jam jar, so that later you can just give it a shake and it’s good to go.

For the starter I coated the asparagus in a little olive oil and cut the halloumi into big chunks. Then shove it all on the griddle pan. 

Stack a few asparagus spears, with a big chunk of griddled halloumi on top, then a handful of rocket. Drizzle over some dressing. 

In advance I griddled the pancetta until it was crispy and part cooked the leeks and peas. Whilst preparing the starter I got the potatoes on. 

I’m a bit gutted, I forgot to take a picture of the potatoes, and after they were cooked I tossed them in some butter with chopped parsley and chives (from my garden!) They were lovely.

In defence of the use of cod, my Dad offered to get something for the meal and I went to two supermarkets and was so unimpressed by the selection I asked him to get the fish. I asked for a more sustainable alternative, but the fishmonger convinced him that line caught North Atlantic cod is sometimes ok. And according to http://www.fishfight.net/ that’s true, so I went with it.

After the starter it was a case of reheating the leeks and peas whilst the cod was pan frying over a high heat. I added lemon juice and a touch of cream to the veg as well as plenty of black pepper.

Then stack them up too. Toss the pancetta in a hot frying pan to reheat a little bit and put a bit on top. Yum.

I'm really annoyed I didn't notice the two runaway peas when I took this picture - they've ruined the presentation!

Then for pud I just zapped the brownies in the microwave for a minute, then served with fresh Scottish raspberries, and some nice vanilla ice cream. 

Whilst making this I was mostly listening to: Fleet Foxes. 

Apologies if this is full of mistakes; quite hastily written as I'm shattered! Ready for an early night before work tomorrow. Rock. And. Roll.

One for the hippies and veggies: Potato and Chickpea curry

It’s the weekend before payday, which means I’m putting off buying nice ingredients and I’m determined to use up whatever I’ve got in the fridge/cupboards. Thankfully, you can make a decent curry out of just about anything, and it’s perfect for using up veg.

So I had: a few potatoes, some green beans, half a pepper. Thankfully, we almost always have garlic and ginger in. A quick raid of the tin cupboard and the freezer and we’re sorted.

The first thing is the spices; we have a cupboard full of them (largely thanks to Joe going on a spice buying spree) but if you want to cheat, I won’t hold it against you. Every spice cupboard should have cumin, because it’s ace and brightens up a stir fry or a curry (or a boring lentil soup) no end. Every spice cupboard should also have a decent curry powder as a massive cheat, and some chilli flakes for times like this when you’ve run out of fresh chilli.

First toast some mustard seeds, fennel seeds, cumin seeds and the inside of a couple of cardamom pods until the mustard seeds started popping. Just put them in a dry pan over the heat for a bit. (skip this if you’re not doing the whole individual spice thing) Then grind them up in a pestle and mortar.

Fry a sliced onion in a little vegetable oil, then add the ground up spices along with some turmeric, ground coriander, garam masala, and more or less any other suitable curry-ish spices. 

Blitz up a couple of cloves of garlic, and a decent chunk of ginger in your mini-food processor and then add this and a good pinch of chilli flakes. 

Add your chopped potatoes and veg. Give it a good stir so that everything is coated in spices.

I’ve mentioned before my issues with the price of coconut milk, so this time I tried coconut cream, which came in a big block. It looks slightly odd at first, but it melts down pretty quickly. Add half a block, and your tin of chickpeas. Then top it up with hot water, it should be nearly covered, and allow it to bubble away to cook the potatoes.

Put on your rice, you’re nearly done. (I always have brown rice, as I prefer the taste, so it takes a while to cook)

As ever with cooking, taste it as you go along. It may need a touch of sugar if it’s too spicy and you want to calm it down, and I added plenty of salt and pepper.

I always have spinach in the freezer as it’s really handy, and I love spinach in a curry, so I added some of this towards the end of the cooking. Done and done! Healthy, tasty and, most importantly, really cheap.

This weeks soup: Turkish lentil. I had this in Istanbul, loved it so came home and worked out how to make it. It involves paprika, lemon juice, bulgur wheat (I'm a little obsessed with this at the moment) and mint. Cheap and very tasty.

Fancy barbecue in the rain

When I originally decided I wanted to have a barbecue, the forecast was much nicer. As soon as I’ve decided on something I’m going to cook, I tend to think about it a lot and formulate a plan. So when the weather looked fairly rubbish this weekend, I had planned too much to change my mind.

As well as this, my parents had given us a barbecue ages ago and I’ve been itching to use it. I put it all together this morning, and only had a few bits leftover when I’d finished!

Now there is no need for a barbecue to be like this, last time we had one we just had burgers, but I spent all today doing boring jobs and was ready to hang out in the kitchen for a while.  Plus, inspired by our trip to Turkey I had an urge to cook meat on sticks.

So the menu is: Halloumi kebabs, lamb and aubergine kebabs, tabbouleh, and watercress and carrot salad. Poncy, eh?

First, prep the lamb. Lamb is really expensive at the moment, my butcher actually apologised for the price! But like I said, my heart was set on it, and it was a one off. I made a little rub for the cubed lamb, with pepper, cumin, paprika, chilli flakes and salt, mushed up in a pestle and mortar. You don’t need loads of it.

Throw it in a freezer bag and put in the lamb. Tie the top and give it all a squidge round so all the lamb gets some of the coating. Leave this out of the fridge to get the flavour into the meat, for at least half an hour.

Next I made the halloumi kebabs by chopping into big chunks the cheese, some courgette and some peppers. I skewered all this with a little bit of basil on the cheese, than drizzled it with a bit of olive oil and black pepper.

The irony is, after spending a small fortune on the lamb, we both actually preferred the halloumi. I think that’s probably just because halloumi is absolutely amazing stuff.

Then I made the tabouleh (out of interest, how do you pronounce this, TAB-ouleh? Tab-OU-leh?) Cook bulgur wheat according to the packet instructions (I think it varies slightly depending on the packet)

I would normally say that life’s too short to peel tomatoes unless they’re going in a sauce so you really need to get rid of the skin. However, today I was quite happy listening to music and pottering in the kitchen, so I though I may as well. Slightly score the skin, then pour over boiling water. Leave it a few minutes, but no more or they’ll start cooking. Then run under cold water. The skin should come off really easily. Then pull out the stalks and the seeds and finely chop.  

Finely chop red onion, mint and parsley, then mix it all together with the cooled bulgur wheat. Add the juice of at LEAST half a lemon, a really good slosh of olive oil and some salt and pepper. 

Once the lambs been sitting in the rub for a while it’s good to go. Put it on some skewers with some big chunks of aubergine and rub a little oil on to help prevent it sticking.

The watercress salad is just loads of chopped up salad stuff with some grated carrot, and a quick balsamic dressing. (one part balsamic to two parts olive oil and a little salt and pepper). Ours had watercress, cucumber, celery, spring onion and a handful of mixed seeds. Because I’m a hippy.

I also threw some asparagus on there, because I find it completely impossible to see half price asparagus at this time of year without buying it. Just toss it in a little olive oil and salt and pepper, it only takes 5 – 10 minutes on the barbecue so put it on last.

Prep done! A couple of top tips for barbecuing I heard on Woman’s Hour the other day (so rock and roll):

- Make sure all the coals have gone grey and there are no flames.

- Make sure the meat is at room temperature; it stops it from being too tough when it gets the shock of going on the heat.

- Don’t turn things too much, as you risk losing a lot of the juices which keep the meat moist.

My own tip is just to work out how long things need so you put it on in the right order, and not play with it too much. Our new barbecue has a lid, which is really handy for more even cooking.

So for this I put the lamb on first. They don’t take that long, about 5 – 10 minutes on each side. Then the halloumi, and finally the asparagus.

Frankly, yum!