Smoked Mackerel Chowder

We've been very busy the last few weeks and I've not really been keeping on top of things in the kitchen. This includes buying food. Joe has been a legend and has done the shopping, but that can mean we have an awful lot of some random things. Often it means we have a lot of booze and meat. Strangely, this time, we have a lot of celery and potatoes.

I'm not very good at cooking for one. I tend to make big pots of stuff and really struggle to downsize. Normally when I am on my own I make a stir fry or noodle soup. This time I fancied something different, but I still wanted to use up some stuff and avoid going shopping. I found a solitary smoked mackerel fillet in the freezer so I thought I'd make some sort of chowder. (I defrosted some prawns so I had a bit more meat) I did buy some soda bread to go with it.

Ingredients (to serve one very hungry person) - 

 

One smoked mackerel fillet, with the skin peeled off and flaked into chunks

Three/four big prawns, uncooked and chopped into 1cm chunks

Two medium potatoes (or three small ones), peeled and diced into 1cm chunks

One stick of celery, finely chopped

Three spring onions, sliced into 1cm pieces

Half a small tin of sweetcorn/three or four baby corn sliced into chunks

A small handful of frozen peas

A bay leaf

A quarter of a pint of milk

Two teaspoonfuls of crème fraiche

A quarter of a pint of vegetable stock

A handful of fresh spinach

Melt a little butter with a spoonful of vegetable oil over a low heat then add the potatoes, celery and spring onion with a pinch of salt. Fry slowly until they soften a bit. Then stir in the crème fraiche.

Stir in the milk, vegetable stock and bay leaf, simmer for five minutes then add the peas and sweetcorn and smoked mackerel. Keep the heat low and simmer for another five-ten minutes until the potatoes are completely cooked. 

For the last minute or two add the chunks of prawn and the spinach until they cook. If you happen to have chopped parsley or chopped chives add some finely chopped at the end. I didn't have any. 

Serve with big slabs of brown soda bread spread with butter.

This was great. Cheap and really tasty. It would be better with smoked haddock, because that would flavour the soup more, but still, this did the job.

I'm aware posting this means I've done two soup recipes in a row but I think this is more of a stew... later in the week I'm going to make a really easy pie. Maybe I'll put that one up here to remind you I do eat solid food occasionally.

Home comforts and cheap eats.

This is a rare post about soup. I make it almost every week but rarely put the recipe up, as it took me years to convince people that it wasn't the only thing I ate. But now, with autumn well and truly here, it is the perfect time for soup. It's healthy, cheap and very very easy. Make it now. Freeze some of it. Have it on night shifts when you're cold and sleepy. 

Split pea and ham soup

My mum used to use ham hock in soups all the time, but I don't remember them being enormous. I don't know if hock is just the Scottish phrase for it but never mind. My conversation with the butcher went like this:

Me: “Have you got any ham hocks?”

Him: “Do you mean ham shank?”

Me: “Is it the same thing? It's for soup”

Him: “Yeah it's good for soup.”

(produces a ham shank the size of my head)

Me: “Jesus it's enormous!”

Him: “Yeah you're going to have a lot of soup.”

And yet, it was only £2.80. And I go to a good butcher, where the meat is free range and brilliant. £2.80. Amazing. So I'm now concocting other recipes for this rather ugly but totally delicious cut of meat. Honestly, I don't buy cheap meat, but cheap CUTS of meat are the way forward.

So with some split peas from the back of the cupboard and the cheap meat this probably works out at about 35p a portion.

Ingredients:

a ham hock

half a pack of green split peas, rinsed

a carrot, scraped and roughly chopped

a couple of onions, peeled and roughly chopped

a clove of garlic, peeled and sliced in two

a couple of bay leaves

lots of water

pepper

normally I would have a couple of roughly chopped sticks of celery

too, but the celery in our fridge had gone bendy

1. I boiled the ham for a short blast on it's own before cooking as it's an insanely salty piece of meat. Some ham hock recipes I've seen say you should soak it overnight for this reason. That would require planning though. Put it in a soup pot, surround with water and bring to the boil for ten minutes. This helps to take away some of the saltiness, and any scum from the ham (no one wants scum).
2. Pour away that water and put the ham to one side. Wipe any scum from the pan.
3. Fry the onions garlic and carrots on a low heat in a little vegetable oil, then add the ham, bay leaves and split peas to the pan
   
   

   

   Ugly, isn't it?

4. Top up with a full kettle full of cold water. Probably a couple of litres. Bring it up to the boil, then lower the heat stick a lid on and leave it to simmer for ages, depending on the size of the ham. At least two hours but probably more.
   Go with your instinct on this. I did it for two and a bit hours but then we were due to go out for dinner, and I didn't feel like the ham was quite falling apart enough. We do have a rubbish electric hob though, which takes an AGE to cool down, so I just switched the hob off and left it while we went out. I would guess it probably bubbled away for about two and a half in the end.
5. Remove the ham and bay leaves and blend the rest of the soup. When the meat has cooled remove the skin and bones, tear up the meat and add as much of it back to the soup as you like. Use the rest for sandwiches or something. I've frozen some so next time we have chicken I can make a chicken and ham pie.
   
   

   

   A dinner plate full of ham!

   
   

   
   
6. DON'T ADD SALT. It won't need it. Even for a salt fiend like me.

The enormous piece of ham was a revelation. I'm already plotting recipes which involve ham hock and pearl barley.

A friend and fellow food blogger has just mentioned lamb breast as an equally delicious cheap cut of meat. Any others that I don't know about and should be cooking? It might just be the theme for this winter...

A bit of batch cooking - sausage and lentil stew

Autumn is my favourite season. Every now and then you get those really special autumn days where the sky is bright blue, it's a little bit cold but crisp and clear and all the leaves are changing colour. Those are the best kind of days. My pasty white skin is more suited to jeans and boots, jumpers, big coats, and scarves. And I get to make lovely casserole type things, and stews, and it's the best time of year for soup. I love soup.

Today is not one of those special days... it's one of the other type of autumn days where it's cold and grey and drizzly and a bit rubbish. Perfect for batch cooking some stuff to last me the next few days at work. It'll save me from living off ready meals and stuff with bread from the canteen.

Today's batch meal is sausages with green lentils. The traditional recipes for this sort of thing would use Puy lentils but I didn't have any and they're more expensive. I do have lots of green lentils, so I used those.

Lentils go really well with the salty/savoury flavours of pork. They're great with things like ham hock etc. I used sausages because they're brilliant comfort food. It's also nice to have this one pot dish with all the vegetables included – it makes it easier to freeze portions of it and then microwave it at work.

Ingredients:

6 good sausages (my butcher has a decent range – choose one you like. I got Cumberland)

200 grammes dried green lentils, rinsed

3 rashers of smoked streaky bacon or some smoked pancetta/lardons

2 onions, finely chopped

2 carrots, peeled and finely chopped

3 sticks of celery, finely chopped

3 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped

a tin of tomatoes

a good glass of red wine

a pint of chicken stock

two bay leaves

the roughly chopped leaves of a few sprigs of rosemary and a small handful of thyme

1. Heat up some oil in a large pan and brown the sausages well, before removing them from the pan. They don't need to cook at this stage, just get a good colour on them and make the pan porky.
   
   

   

   One of the sausages was enormous. It ended up at the front of all the photos

   
   

   
   
2. Slice the bacon into small pieces and fry until browned. Try not to eat them all straight out of the pan. Nothing is better than fried crispy bacon.
3. Lower the heat and add the onion, carrots, celery and garlic then fry until softened. Minus the garlic, these three vegetables form the basis of most good stews/casseroles/bolognese etc.
   
   
   
    
4. Add everything else to the pan, give it a good stir, season with salt and pepper. Bring it up to the boil and boil for ten minutes. 
5. Turn the heat down and put the sausages back in. Shove a lid on and simmer for twenty minutes to half an hour until the lentils are cooked. It depends how long they've been kicking around in the back of your cupboard. (Packets of green lentils are the kind of thing that lurk at the back of cupboards) 
   
   
   
   
   
6. Serve as is, or with some greens on the side (kale/cabbage/cavolo nero or similar) and a big dollop of dijon mustard. 
   
   
   

Really easy, and utterly delicious. This was supposed to be just for planning ahead, and I was going to have risotto tonight but I couldn't resist and had this for my tea. I'll have risotto tomorrow.

Not quite perfect pizza.

After a week in food heaven (Andalucia; amazing tapas, dirt cheap and lots and lots of ham) we're going to be staying in a bit for the next while... which might mean more blog updates. This post is a total cheat. I'm sure you can all follow someone else's recipe but hell, it's the first proper cooking I've done in a while and I'm quite excited about it.

Tonight's weekend treat was pizza and a film. I've always loved pizza. When I was growing up frozen pizza was our Friday night tea, when my mum had been working all week and couldn't really be bothered to cook. To this day it's the only ready meal type thing I really have in the freezer. I've made my own pizza a few times, but always found that the base was a bit bread-y (it's a word) and doughy, and time consuming. I haven't quite worked out how to avoid that yet.

Then I watched Lorraine Pascale and she made a basic bread dough and used it almost straight away. I thought this could revolutionise pizza making in my house! Her recipe is here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/pizza_expressed_three_77124 and I used that for the base. But I'm still not sure this nails it. I think it needs to be left to prove then just be rolled really seriously thin, but that's for next time. This was still good, just not as bubbly and crispy as I would have liked.

I've made my own pizza sauce, my own toppings, and two tasty salads to go with it.

Before you do anything, put your oven on to preheat as high as it will go. It's the only way you'll get anything resembling crispiness.

The salads:

Spinach salad with tomatoes, cucumber, peppers and toasted pine nuts. I made a lemon-y dressing:

- one part lemon juice

- two parts good extra virgin olive oil

- plenty of salt and pepper

- half a teaspoon of grain mustard

I'm sad enough to keep jars specifically for making dressings in. Give it all a good shake about, then dress the salad just before serving.

Bit blurry. Sorry about that, I was really hungry.

The second salad had beetroot (because it was reduced), grated carrot, spring onion and celery. Autumnal, eh? It would have been REALLY good with some feta in it, but I decided two types of cheese in one meal was probably enough. Two go with this I made a balsamic dressing:

-  one part balsamic vinegar

-  two parts good extra virgin olive oil

-  plenty of salt and pepper

- half a clove of very finely grated garlic

And again, dress it just before serving.

  

The pizzas:

First make a pizza sauce, I like to keep it fairly basic.

- some passata/seived tomatoes (I used a whole carton, as it's going to be pasta sauce later)

- a clove of garlic, finely chopped (or a clove and a half if you've got a random half clove of garlic after making the balsamic dresing)

- a splash of red wine vinegar (a teaspoon?)

- salt and pepper

- a handful of fresh basil

Fry the garlic in a little oil on a low heat for a minute or two. Don't let it colour. Then add the passata and red wine vinegar, season and let it bubble away for a little while before adding your chopped or torn basil. You could add some thyme, or some chilli or whatever you like really. That's it. Let it cool a bit before you use it.

For the pizzas you want the sauce to be a very thin layer so it's not too gloopy. Any leftover sauce can be used in pasta/with chicken or whatever during the week.

Follow the base recipe as above (or leave it to prove for an hour then roll it). Without a pizza oven or even pizza stone it's always going to be difficult to get a really crispy base. You just need to make it as thin as possible and hope for the best.

I'm not sure about pizza “expressed” three ways in Lorraine Pascale's recipe, I made two different types.

Of course you can add whatever you like. I made one with goats cheese and red onion. Just thinly slice a red onion, put it on top of a thin layer of sauce then add big chunks of torn up goats cheese. Season it well. 

The other was a more standard pepperoni and mozzarella. A thin layer of sauce, then a load of pepperoni (try not to lay it flat so some of it goes crispy) then some proper mozzarella torn up over the top. Season well. 

When you've put the toppings on your pizza shove in the hottest oven you can for ten minutes. That's it.

Don't pile the toppings up too high, remember it's all going to melt and go everywhere anyway.

We had it with artichoke hearts in olive oil, lots of olives, and the salads. And some wine. Happy days. 

This week's soup: Celeriac. It was reduced. With some home made stock, white wine and parmesan in there it's pretty tasty.

Whilst making this I mostly listened to: Fleetwood Mac – Rumours on vinyl, then 6music. Because it's brilliant.

Two more curries

I'm genuinely enjoying the Olympics. I'm not into watching sport as a rule, but it's won me over. The opening ceremony was brilliant, and I've just been to London. Not for any events, I mostly watched bits of it in the pub/on a big screen in Greenwich etc. Not the healthiest approach to an enormous festival of sport, but one that I enjoyed.

Right, now on to the recipes. When I'm craving healthy stuff I will almost always make a curry. In fact, so much so that this blog is full of curry recipes. See here:

http://idontjustmakesoup.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/three-curry-feast.html

and here:

http://idontjustmakesoup.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/one-for-hippies-and-veggies-potato-and.html

But these are different recipes, and you can never have too many curry recipes up your sleeve. I like to make two at a time, so that at least one of them is veggie. 

A note on spices: I think it pays to invest in a load of them, as you will never be far from a really tasty meal and you will always be able to tart up the cheapest ingredients.

Curry one: Prawn with Spinach and Peas

Ingredients

an onion, sliced

a red chilli, including seeds

three cloves of garlic

an inch of fresh ginger, peeled

a teaspoon of mustard seeds

½ teaspoon of turmeric

4 cardamom pods, smashed a bit with the back of a knife

1 cinnamon stick

2 bay leaves

¼ teaspoon chilli flakes (leave out if you don't like spicy food, it had quite a kick)

a tin of coconut milk

a packet of prawns (peeled)

a good few handfuls of spinach or some frozen spinach

a small cup of frozen peas

1. Make a rough paste by blitzing together your chilli, garlic and ginger in a hand blender with a tablespoon of water.

2. In the meantime heat some oil in a large pan, then add all the spices and fry for a couple of minutes. Keep a close eye on them, they're easy to burn!

3. Once the mustard seeds start to pop, add the onion, fry for a minute or two before adding the chilli/garlic/ginger paste. Turn the heat down, and fry for ten minutes before adding the coconut milk. Simmer for five minutes before adding the peas and spinach.

4. Add the prawns towards the end, and give them a few minutes to heat through

Curry two: Chickpea and Peppers

Ingredients

an onion, sliced

a pepper sliced

a tin of chickpeas, drained

a clove of garlic and an inch of fresh ginger, peeled and blitzed together with a little water

½ teaspoon cumin powder

½ teaspoon coriander powder

¼ teaspoon of turmeric

¼ teaspoon of dried chilli flakes

¼ teaspoon of garam masala

half a dozen cherry tomatoes, halved or one whole big tomato

1. Fry the sliced onion and pepper in a little oil for a few minutes in a medium – high heat then add the garlic and ginger paste

2. Add all the spices and fry off for a few minutes, before adding the tomatoes

3. After another few minutes add the chickpeas and half a can of water, then let it bubble away for 15 minutes, squashing a few of the chickpeas as you go along to thicken it up a bit.

Serve with some brown rice, some yoghurt or raita and naan bread if you've got some.

Herby roast chicken with aubergine parmigiana.

How many times can you put roast chicken on a blog? It's my ultimate comfort food. After a hectic couple of weeks and a traumatic trip to the Trafford Centre I needed it. (Honestly, I hate shopping malls, but I needed clothes and it's just up the road.)

In the last couple of weeks I have had the most horrendous diet... shift work + travelling + wedding buffet + takeaway chips for tea on the way to the pub. As usual, for me, that means craving vegetables.

All of this means that on my first normal day at home I made roast chicken with aubergine parmigiana. The aubergine parmigiana is an amazing veggie meal if you're that way inclined.

First the chicken:

Herby Roast Chicken ingredients

-  A decent chicken. I've mentioned this before, but try and get one that hasn't had a hideous life. I'm prepared to pay a little extra and get a free range one from the butcher. Buy as big as you can afford, chicken leftovers can ALWAYS be used.
-  About 50grammes of butter, at room temperature makes it easier to use
-  Some herbs – I used rosemary and thyme as that's what I have
-  a couple of cloves of garlic
-  a lemon
-  salt and pepper

For all chicken timings (and roast times in general) you can't beat Delia. http://www.deliaonline.com/how-to-cook/meat/roasting-times.html Ignore the other instructions about bacon etc. but follow her temperatures and timings.

1. Finely chop your garlic and herbs together (taking the leaves of the rosemary and thyme and discarding the stalks) then mash it into the butter with some salt and pepper using a fork.
2. Using your hands separate the skin from the breast meat. It sounds gross, but get your finger underneath the skin at the gap above the breast and move it around to make a little pocket of space. Put half of the herby butter in that pocket.
3. Smear the rest of the butter over the rest of the chicken, and make sure there's a good blob in the joins between the legs and the body.
4. Squeeze the juice of half a lemon over the top, and put the squeezed out lemon inside the bird.
5. A bit more salt and pepper over the top, then cook according to Delia's timings, basting regularly. Don't forget to leave it to rest for a bit after.

Aubergine Parmigiana

This might all seem a bit faffy, but it's really nice. It works as a vegetarian dish if you serve it with crusty bread and salad. (and use veggie friendly cheese)

You can do all this while the chicken is in the oven.

Ingredients:

-  an aubergine
-  a couple of cloves of garlic
-  an onion, finely chopped (I'd run out and made it without, so it's not completely necessary)
-  a tin of tomatoes
-  a teaspoon of red wine vinegar (or balsamic)
-  a small handful of fresh oregano (or a teaspoon of dried)
-  a small handful of basil leaves
-  fresh parmesan (or alternative Italian hard cheese, parmesan will taste best) Finely grated.

First you have to make a sauce. This would work equally well as a pasta sauce/pizza topping if you wanted.

1. If using onion, fry gently for a couple of minutes until it softens. Finely chop together your garlic and oregano then fry (with the onion) on a low heat for a few minutes to help it release all the lovely flavours.
2. Add the tin of tomatoes, red wine vinegar and some salt and pepper. Leave it to bubble away and break down the tomatoes for a while. Fifteen minutes ought to do it.

 The aubergine:

1. Slice into centimetre thick slices.
2. Fry on a dry pan for a few minutes on each side to soften it and brown it a little. You'll probably need to do it in batches.
3. Erm, that's it.

Then build it up in layers: sauce, parmesan, aubergine, sauce, parmesan, aubergine etc. Finish it with sauce and plenty of parmesan. You could add mozarella if you wanted too, particularly if you were doing it as a veggie main course.

Shove in the oven for half an hour.

We had this with some roasted spuds and some steamed broccoli. And it was good. 

The rest of the chicken will be a curry/stir fry/sandwiches.

Chicken tagine

I have issues with sweet things in hot savoury food. I don't like apple sauce with my pork and I definitely don't like pineapple on a pizza, it's just wrong. I think tagines are the exception to the rule, I've had some amazing lamb tagines with prunes and lovely ones with chicken and dried apricots. However, if I'm making my own I am still more likely to make one stuffed full of olives instead.

So this is a distinctly savoury chicken tagine, full of spices and lemon and the only bit of sweetness comes from a dollop of honey. Pretty much tailored exactly to my tastes.

This was made to serve four, or as we're having a friend over, three, and a couple of night shift break times next week. I'm sure it's totally normal to eat tagine at 2.30 am.

Ingredients (it looks a lot, but it's really easy):

Four chicken legs separated into thighs and drumsticks
a tablespoon of flour (seasoned with half a teaspoon of paprika and some salt and pepper)
Spices: a teaspoon of ground cumin, ½ teaspoon of turmeric, 4 cardamom pods (cracked with the back of a knife) a cinnamon stick
four cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
about three centimetres of fresh ginger,  peeled and grated
two onions, sliced
ten green pitted olives
a tin of chickpeas
a squidge of honey
a lemon
an aubergine chopped, quartered and sliced

First, put your seasoned flour in a freezer bag with your chicken pieces and give them a good shake. Heat up some oil in a pan, then brown it thoroughly all over in a very big pan, before putting it to one side.

Fry your onions for five minutes on a medium heat until they start to colour a little, then add your spices, garlic and ginger and fry for another few minutes before adding your aubergine, chickpeas and olives.

 Add the juice of the lemon and the zest...

A note on the lemon: all the recipes I read called for preserved lemons. I think that's a bit of a niche ingredient. I have a small kitchen, and don't have the space to keep lots of things like that. Instead, I used a potato peeler to take the zest off a normal unwaxed lemon in a couple of really big chunks then halved it and juiced it. It might not be authentic, but it worked for me.

Put your chicken back in the pan and add water... probably about three quarters of a pint. Cover it, turn the heat right down and leave to simmer for a good hour. It's very forgiving, you can leave it until you've had a gin and tonic and a bit of a catch up with a friend and it'll be grand. 

I served it with cous cous. Cook it according to the packet instructions. I then stirred through some toasted pine nuts and a big a slosh of extra virgin olive oil. More authentic would be toasted almonds. But I didn't have any.

We followed up with strawberries and cream, with a bit of dark chocolate grated over the top. Scottish strawberries. Awesome.

(A few things about the blog: I finally have a fancy new smartphone so have taken the pictures for this one using Instagram. What do you think? Everyone uses instagram these days, so I'm not sure if it's actually become a bit boring... still the food looks nice. Also, I've decided to write this one in a more conventional recipe type format than my usual ramblings. Feedback welcome.)

Monday roast.

The thing about shift work is that your weekend is not necessarily at the weekend. This week, my weekend falls on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. And, after a few days of sandwiches, leftovers etc. at work I want proper food.

So today I have slept in, mooched about, and made a roast. Well, it gave me something to do while the football's on.

Still, it would be over the top to do full on roast potatoes, roast veg and Yorkshire pudding. It's supposed to be June after all. So here it is; belly pork, cooked simply, with steamed greens and new potatoes.

I have done a belly pork blog before, but I really don't think you can go wrong with it as a cut of meat, and that was a much heavier wintry dish.

First: Get your butcher to score the skin of the meat, because it's a right faff to do it yourself. Pour some boiling water over the skin of the meat then dry it with some kitchen roll and leave it out to dry out for about twenty minutes, while you put your oven on to preheat to it's very very highest heat. 

Then season the underside, and rub lots of salt, pepper and thyme leaves into the skin, particularly in the scores. Now shove in the oven for half an hour, before turning the heat down to about 180 degrees. Leave it in there for an hour.

Boil your new potatoes in well salted water, and steam some asparagus, broccoli and spinach to go with it. Toss the veg in a little extra virgin olive oil, lemon juice and plenty of salt and pepper.

To make a light gravy (jus? Or maybe a reduction?) Take the pork out of the oven and put it on one side to rest. Pour away all of the fat, then stick the pan over a high heat and add a small glass of white wine. Start scraping up the tasty bits from the bottom and let it simmer away the alcohol for a few minutes. Then add half a pint of vegetable stock. Turn the heat down and reduce for about five – ten minutes while the meat rests then serve. 

Must remember to take more than one picture of the finished dish for blog purposes.

Whilst making this I mostly listened to: Match commentary. 

Now if you don't mind, t'other half has taken a few days off to enjoy my non-weekend weekend with me, so we're off to the pub.

The Perfect Hamburger

Well I was going to do a vegetarian tapas thing this week. Honestly, I promise I was. But I have to work part of the Bank Holiday weekend so we have decided to treat ourselves to tapas out on Sunday night to make up for it. And although I seem to be craving a holiday in Spain (I've never been) tapas two nights running seemed excessive. So another day I will do a veggie extravaganza and make my own tortilla and buy manchego and make a couple of lovely salads etc.

I decided to go to the other extreme and make burgers. This wasn't supposed to be a fancy dinner, just a Friday night tea, so you might find it all a bit less hard work than usual. 

NB. There seems to be an unintentional American theme in these last two posts, I'm not sure why.

Burgers:

I have an enduring memory of reading “The Perfect Hamburger” by Alexander McCall Smith with my mum when I was wee. I loved it, and I asked my mum if we could make the perfect hamburger. My mum's a primary school teacher, and it turns out when she read this book to her class, they'd all made burgers afterwards. She had the mince ready, that night we made our own burgers for tea. Anyway, enough reminiscing, in all seriousness my burger recipe today will not differ wildly from the one I made with my mum when I was about seven. Two things I have decided to add are: some very finely chopped streaky bacon to give it an extra layer of fat and salt (healthy) and some finely chopped fried onion to add a bit of sweetness.

First, shove on your oven to preheat for your wedges. They'll take half an hour, so they want to be in the oven before you put your burgers on.

Finely chop and fry on a low heat in a little butter to soften. Let it cool a bit. Take a load of mince (I had about 400g for three big meaty burgers... too much really) add the onion, some very finely chopped unsmoked streaky bacon (I had three rashers) and an egg. Mix it up with plenty pepper. If it's a bit wet add some breadcrumbs. (Take the end bit of your normal loaf that never gets eaten, blitz in food processor, you've got nice fresh breadcrumbs) I've read recipes that say absolutely no to the egg, but it helps it stick together. And my mum always added egg. It doesn't taste of egg, so I have no problem with it. Anyway, mix it all together with your hands, or if you don't like touching raw meat a spoon, but it makes life much more difficult.

Heat up your griddle pan to a medium-high heat. Shape them into really fat burger shapes, as you want them to be quite thick so they don't dry out. Rub some oil on the outside of them, and salt the outside. And griddle. Put them on then turn down immediately to a medium heat, and don't touch them for at least five minutes. Turn them as little as possible, and cook for about 7-10 minutes on each side, depending on the size of your burger. You want a nice crust on the outside (that's where the flavour is). If you want to put cheese on, put it on when you've just flipped them. You might need to stick it under the grill to melt it properly for the last thirty seconds. 

Put it aside to rest for a few minutes while you shove your rolls on the griddle to soak up any remaining juices and get a bit crispy.

Potato Wedges:

You see this is almost a healthy meal, as we're not having chips. It feels a bit ridiculous putting a recipe up for potato wedges. (Cut potatoes into wedges, add stuff you like, shove in oven) Here goes anyway.

Cut potatoes into wedges. Toss in sunflower/vegetable oil (don't bother with nice fancy olive oil, there's not much point. Season really generously, and shake over some paprika and chilli flakes. Shove in oven at 180 degrees for about half an hour, or until cooked. It depends how fat your wedges are.

If you want to speed this process up, you can parboil the wedges, then add the oil and seasoning and whatnot, then shove in the oven for 15 – 20 minutes, or as long as it takes to cook a frozen pizza. (ahem.) 

Serve the whole thing with salad, and top with anything you like, I like mustard and ketchup. Joe hates mustard. Add gherkins if you're a fan of things that are pickled, etc. The home made coleslaw from last week's post would, of course, have been brilliant with this. (see here: http://tinyurl.com/ck2mahj) but I'd done that. Plus we struggled to eat an entire cabbage worth of the stuff this week, so I've gone and bought coleslaw from the shop.

It's not fancy, but it is lovely. In all the meals I've cooked and blogged, Joe seemed the most delighted with this one. Seriously.

A picture so good I put it in twice (didn't take many pictures)

In other news: I have just read an article which says that British asparagus season is delayed. I'm gutted. The shops are still full of Peruvian stuff. I'm hoping this will change soon as I love asparagus. Click on the link to the right for some of last year's asparagus season cooking. Maybe when I'm doing my veggie tapas feast I'll do something with asparagus too...

Sort of ribs, slaw, stuffed skins and corn.

Hello. It’s been a long time since I last updated it, and I’ve genuinely missed my blog. I’m sorry for my absence (in case any of you missed it!) But it has been an absolutely insane few months. 

To summarise I have:

• Got a new job
• Left the old job
• Gone on holiday to Berlin, eaten lots of pork and drank a lot of beer
• Lived in someone else’s house in London for three weeks (thanks Lisette!)
• Started a new job
• Moved back to Leeds
• Found a house, packed up a house and moved to Manchester all in the space of a week

You know, amongst other things. So my culinary inspiration has been low. I have managed to make normal food and real meals more often than not, but it hasn’t been new or interesting or novel, it’s been something that I’ve made before and is probably on this blog already. (or it has been a stir fry. I've had a lot of them)

So I had to ask for help for this one. When asked what kind of meat I should buy for this weekend, my other half said “It’s a while since we’ve had a chicken” and that wasn’t what I was looking for. I wanted to cook something different and that I don’t cook all the time. I asked a friend for inspiration for what to do with beef, as I hardly ever cook beef and she suggested Beef Short Ribs. (suggested reading, her blog http://megabekatron.com/) Finally I was getting inspired. I started to think about home-made coleslaw with chilli and coriander. And corn on the cob, with butter. And salads. And potato wedges? Or stuffed skins? Oh, the list is endless. Brilliant. 

You've got to have time for this, although there isn't that much to do and it's not difficult it just takes absolutely ages. Lazy rainy Saturday afternoon ought to do it. 

Beef Ribs, with stuffed potato skins, corn and coleslaw.

Cue lots of confused conversations with my butcher (have found a new butcher now I've moved). Lots. Short ribs is an American name for the cut, and we talked at cross purposes for much of the week, and I'm still pretty sure I don't have short ribs, but you know what? There's meat, there's bone and sod it I might as well just give it a good go. 

Some recipes advocate boiling them first to help keep them tender. I thought this seemed like a good idea as surely the by-product is basically stock? I could always use stock, and lovely beef stock would make an amazing soup. 

So I put the big hunks of rib into a pot with two chopped onions, some celery and a few cloves of peeled garlic as well as some bay leaves, peppercorns and salt. I then just covered with water and simmered for about an hour, occasionally skimming scum off the top. 

I didn't take any photos of this, because it has scum. That's not very photogenic. 

In the mean time shove some potatoes in the oven to bake. And you can probably make your coleslaw at this point too... the recipes are below.

For the marinade: 

Rub the cooled ribs with some cumin, coriander, paprika, salt and pepper. Cover and put in the oven for an hour at about 160 degrees. 

Big hunks of meat rubbed with spices

I mixed two tablespoons of tomato puree, one tablespoon of soy sauce (ours is really good dark stuff from the Chinese supermarket, use more if it's not), two tablespoons honey, and three tablespoons of bourbon. Mix thoroughly with a good pinch of salt, some chilli flakes and salt and pepper. And a splodge of ketchup. Thoroughly coat the ribs in that, then put them back in the oven covered for another hour. 

Uncover them for the last half hour, then whack up the heat to 200 for the last 15 minutes. Add a bit of water to the pan if they look like they're getting dry.

Potato skins

Once your potatoes are baked take them out of the oven and let them cool for a bit. Then cut them in half, scoop out the insides and mix with spring onion and cheese, and salt and pepper.

Put the mix back in the potato skins and put in the oven for half an hour. You could pile more cheese on top, and this is hardly a healthy meal, but I decided enough was enough. Serve with a big dollop of sour cream.

 NB. if you weren't having such a ridiculously meaty meal you could fry/grill some bacon and add to these.

Coleslaw

Mix two big teaspoonfuls of good quality mayo with some lemon juice. You could make your own mayonnaise, but I had enough to be getting on with. I have done it in the past though, look! 

Slice some white cabbage, a carrot and a red onion as finely as you can. (I ended up grating the carrot) A mandolin would be good for this, but I don't own one. It's on the list of things I covet for my kitchen, but the other half thinks I'm being ridiculous. 

Mix it all together with the mayo, a handful of finely chopped coriander, and some finely chopped chilli. Season. 

Boil your corn in plenty of salted water, then toss it in some butter. And you're there.

This is not a healthy meal. And it's not really the meal I was intending to make, and it was the wrong cut of beef, but my word it was tasty and tender. As usual I made far too much, but I'm going to shred the rest of the meat and have it in sandwiches with leftover coleslaw with some leaves.

Whilst making this I was mostly listening to: Giles Peterson on 6music. Good stuff.

This week's soup: will be something involving beef stock. Suggestions welcome.