Courgette tart and a bonus recipe…

We’ve gone a bit domestic. Owning a house means we are now doing VERY exciting things at the weekend, like decorating and making multiple trips to B and Q. This weekend we painted our kitchen. It’s almost exactly the same as before, but without the damp patch above the sink from a leak, the random screws in the wall from fixtures that left with the previous owner, and a massive circular mark because their kitchen clock was bigger than ours. Not very exciting, but it made me happy. It did mean we were without a kitchen for about 36 hours, which meant pie in the pub, a bacon sandwich and a take away pizza. Today I have been craving vegetables…

I still wanted to make a nice Sunday meal though, so I went to a (very little) bit of effort. There are lots of different versions of this sort of tart on the internet; this one is mine.

A note on pastry – life’s too short to make puff pastry, so I have chosen not to bother. 

Courgette tart with chilli and garlic roasted broccoli

Ingredients

For the tart:

1 packet of ready – rolled puff pastry

1 large onion, sliced

A clove of garlic, finely chopped

Two courgettes, sliced into discs about 5mm thick

About 20 grammes finely grated parmesan (basically that’s all I had left)

A tablespoon of crème fraiche

Two tablespoons double cream

For the broccoli:

A head of broccoli

A really good slug of olive oil

Half a red chilli, finely chopped

A clove of garlic, finely chopped

Juice of half a lemon

Plenty of salt and pepper

Stick the oven on to preheat at about 200 degrees.

Prepare the broccoli by cutting into florets, and tossing it in all the other ingredients. You want it to be reasonably well coated in the oil to avoid it burning. Put on a baking tray in one layer.

Over a low heat melt a knob of butter and a drop of vegetable oil. Add the onions and a good pinch of salt, give them a stir to coat them in the butter and oil, and cook, occasionally stirring. You want to give them about 15 – 20 minutes, so they slowly caramelise and go quite sweet. Add the garlic for the last ten minutes.

While that’s cooking, lay your pastry out on a buttered baking tray, and use a sharp knife to mark a border about two centimetres in around the outside. You don’t want to go right the way through, just score it. Inside that line, prick the pastry all over with a fork. Shove that in the preheated oven for about five-ten minutes to crisp up/start to rise. The middle will still puff up, but you can just squash it down with a spoon.

Take the onion/garlic mix off the heat, then add the cheese, cream and crème fraiche, taste and add more salt and pepper if needed.

Not pretty, but damn tasty...

Spread this mix in a thin layer over the pastry (within the border) and then put the courgettes on top. 

Put both the broccoli and the tart in the oven for about fifteen-twenty minutes until crisped up. I turned up the heat too much on mine because I was getting impatient, but it was still fine. You might want to give the broccoli a stir around half way through.

We had a tomato salad with it too – but if you feel that you need something a bit more substantial you could do some buttered new potatoes.

BONUS RECIPE

It’s not that we currently have a glut of courgettes, but seeing as I’m writing about them anyway, here’s a recipe for one of my favourite quick dinners.

Put enough spaghetti on for one hungry person.

Grate a courgette and finely chop a clove of garlic. Melt a good sized knob of butter in a frying pan over a low heat, then add the courgette, garlic a good pinch of salt and a pinch of chilli flakes. Fry slowly – the courgette pretty much disintegrates into a sauce. It takes as long as it takes for your pasta to cook.

Squeeze in the juice of half a lemon and a generous tablespoon of half fat crème fraiche.

Drain the spaghetti, reserving a little bit of the water it boiled in, and add to the courgette mix. Stir everything through and cook for a minute or two in the pan so the spaghetti is well coated and has picked up all the flavour.

Eat!

Butternut squash and cauliflower curry

Joe did the shopping this week, and I'd put cauliflower on the list. I don't think he's ever bought cauliflower before. It was giant. He bought the biggest cauliflower in the shop. Seriously, it was bigger than my head. After a massive cauliflower cheese bake, there was still half a cauliflower left, and I didn't have many ideas that didn't involve more cheese sauce. Then I saw one of Jamie's 30 minute meal programmes on repeat and he turned it into a curry. He massively cheated and used store bought paste, which I never have in, so I made up my own version. It took maybe 45 minutes.

I've written up a lot of curries on this blog, but I love them, and I love making them. They're also a brilliant way of using up stuff. The following recipe makes an awful lot of curry. It fed us tonight, then another pot of it to freeze so we can have it another night, then three portions for me to take to work. 

Giant pot of curry

This would be good with fresh coriander in both the curry and the raita, but I didn't have any.

Ingredients:

2 red chillies, in big chunks

5 cloves of garlic, peeled

a piece of ginger the size of your thumb, peeled and in big chunks

3 onions, sliced

a butternut squash, chopped into rough chunks

a normal sized head of cauliflower / half a giant head of cauliflower, cut into florets

half a bag of spinach

tin of tomatoes

tin of coconut milk

a tablespoon of cumin

a tablespoon of coriander

teaspoon of turmeric

teaspoon of mustard seeds

half a tablespoon of garam masala

half a teaspoon of cayenne pepper

Raita ingredients:

I make this every time we have curry, and it changes every time. It just depends what I 

have in. It's not authentic raita

half a big tub of natural yoghurt (I used low fat)

a couple of inches of cucumber, grated

a couple of chopped spring onions

juice of half a lemon/lime

plenty of salt and pepper

1.  Fry the onion on a medium heat in some vegetable oil with a pinch of salt for about five minutes, then add the butternut squash. Fry for another five/ten minutes. It's ok if it starts to brown, just don't let it stick or burn.

2.  Meanwhile, put the chilli, garlic and ginger in a hand blender and blitz it.

3.  Add the spices to the vegetables, stir and fry for another minute or two, then add the chilli, garlic and ginger. Fry for another few minutes, it should start smelling amazing.

4.  Add the tomatoes and coconut milk, plus half a tin of water. Shove a lid on, then leave it to simmer for fifteen/twenty minutes.

5.  Now make the raita, by mixing all the ingredients listed above.

6.  After fifteen minutes, the squash should be nearly cooked. Taste and season if it needs it. Stir in the cauliflower, and cook for another ten minutes, adding the spinach towards the end.

That's it, serve it all with rice.

Whilst making this I listened to 6 music. And drank wine. I needed a bit of time out.

In which I follow a recipe and don't write about it, and write two other recipes instead

Happy New Year! Hope you've had a fantastic Christmas/New year. I thoroughly enjoyed my Christmas, which contained lots of food, booze, a backing track of Peppa Pig (thanks to my two year old nephew) and a lot of trips up and down the M62. My Hogmanay was spent on a night shift at work but never mind. We celebrated in the office with cheese and party snacks.

After all the excitement of the festive season, I am now in the process of using up a load of leave. That means some time at home, cooking, cleaning, relaxing, and recovering from all the excesses of the last month. I should probably do some exercise too.

I didn't get as much cooking related stuff for Christmas this year as my tiny kitchen is already full to overflowing. I did get Nigel Slater's book Real Food, so in a rare break from tradition I'm going to follow a recipe. I think Nigel Slater's style of cooking is amazing, and I love his food writing. One of my greatest charity shop finds of last year was a very very old copy of Real Fast Food for about two quid, which I proceeded to read from cover to cover without actually cooking anything from it. Anyway, this time I toyed with the idea of coq au Riesling but decided it was a bit excessive for a Thursday night and made Roast Chicken with Basil and Lemon instead. I'm not one for typing out someone else's recipes – buy his book if you want it. But it was very good! It looked like this: 

So what's the point of this post? Well yesterday I inadvertently opened a tin of cannellini beans when I thought they were chickpeas (middle-class woes). I had to think of something to do with them today, and I thought I'd try out a cannellini bean mash to go with this chicken and a massive pile of green stuff. Plus, when I was writing it, I found a recipe on my hard drive for chicken soup which I'd never posted... so I'm putting it up as a bonus recipe. (Yes, I have random recipes kicking around on my hard drive. What of it? I even had a picture of it on my phone. I know, I should get out more)

Cannellini Bean Mash

Ingredients:

a leek, rinsed and finely chopped

a clove of garlic, finely chopped

a tin of cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

a load of olive oil

a dollop of crème fraiche

salt and pepper

lemon juice (optional – I didn't bother this time because of the lemon-y chicken)

On a medium/low heat fry the leek and garlic in about three tablespoons of olive oil with a pinch of salt. Stir it regularly until it all gets very soft – probably about ten minutes. You don't want it to take on any colour.

Add the cannellini beans and heat through for five – ten minutes.

Add a big dollop of half fat crème fraiche and stir through, then season with some pepper. Start mashing.

Add more extra virgin olive oil to get the consistency you want. Because of the leek it won't go completely smooth anyway, I added another three or four tablespoons. Taste it, and add more salt and pepper if required. Serve with whatever you like.

I really enjoyed this as an alternative to potatoes. We've had a LOT of potatoes over the last few weeks... 

Now the bonus recipe:

Chicken soup

This is my rough recipe for chicken soup which I made up after three days of coughing, sneezing and generally being very dopey. It's not authentic Jewish-penicillin-chicken-soup, not least because I'm not Jewish. Maybe lapsed Catholic penicillin?

It's in two stages - first the stock then the soup itself. This probably made enough for three/four portions? You can add whatever veg you have to hand.

Ingredients:

one chicken carcass (or some chicken pieces, three to four bits? wings/drumsticks or whatever)

an onion, peeled and quartered

two carrots, one roughly chopped and one peeled and finely chopped

a leek, take the top leafy bit off and roughly chop then rinse it, finely chop and rinse the rest

3 or 4 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed a wee bit

a quarter of a head of celery, take the spindly middle bits out and roughly chop, then finely chop a couple of substantial sticks of celery

a couple of big handfuls of pearly barley, rinsed (could use a couple of peeled, diced potatoes or some pasta. Some sort of starch anyway)

about a centimetre of ginger, roughly chopped into chunks

seasoning - a sprig or two of thyme, two or three bay leaves, 6/7 peppercorns, two cloves and a good pinch of sea salt

For the stock put all the reject bits of the vegetables (onion, roughly chopped carrot, leafy bit of leek, the garlic, spindly bits of celery and the ginger) and the chicken carcass in a pan with a lid, along with the all the seasoning. Cover with cold water, then bring up to the boil. Skim away any scum, turn the heat right down, cover it and leave it to simmer for about two hours.

When it's done, pour the stock through a sieve and put it back in the pan. Add the pearl barley and bring it back up to the boil before turning it down and simmering for twenty minutes. Then add all the other vegetables – ie. The nicely chopped stuff. Now simmer until everything's cooked. If you did chicken pieces in the stock you can pull off the meat and add it to the soup too.

Then it's done. Eat whilst under a duvet, then go back to bed.

 

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.

Soup recipes

One of my work colleagues is very pregnant (actually a couple of them are), and wants to start filling her freezer with soup for when the baby comes along. I said I'd cobble together some recipes for her and here's the result! I thought I might as well put them up as a bonus post - enjoy! Sorry for the lack of pictures.

All of these can be changed depending on how you like them! Just keep tasting them and season with salt and pepper. All should freezable. All use chicken or veg stock – and the amount stated is just a rough guide. Add a bit more or less if you think it needs to be thicker/thinner. If you don't have a hand blender I'd suggest getting a cheap one from the supermarket, they're a godsend! And if you get one with a little bowl attachment you'll never have to chop ginger and chilli again.

Leek and potato

• peel and slice about five decent sized potatoes
• chop and rinse about 3 or 4 leeks (depends on the size of them)
• fry leeks on a low heat with a chopped onion in some butter and a touch of normal cooking oil
• put in the potatoes and stir around for a couple of minutes
• add a pint and a half of stock (chicken or veg)
• add a splash of milk
• season with salt and pepper
• when the potatoes are soft, add a splash of cream and blitz with a hand blender until smooth

Curried carrot and lentil

• chop an onion and two cloves of garlic and three or four good sized carrots
• fry over a low heat in a little oil
• add half a teaspoon of curry powder and a quarter of a teaspoon of ground cumin. (if you don't have any cumin use a little bit more curry powder instead)
• rinse two handfuls of red lentils and add to the pan with one and a half pints of stock.
• Season it, then when the carrots are cooked and the lentils soft use the hand blender to blitz it

Spicy butternut squash

• you'll need a big sharp knife for this. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees, quarter the squash and scoop out the seeds. Drizzle a little oil over and season them. Shove in the oven for about half an hour or until it's soft.
• Meanwhile fry on a low heat an onion, two cloves of garlic and a chilli (all roughly chopped). You could also use a bit of peeled, grated ginger if you can be bothered. Add a pint of stock.
• Let the butternut squash cool a bit once it's cooked, then take all the flesh out and add to the onion and stock etc. (if there's still a few bits of skin it doesn't really matter, you'll blitz it anyway and it won't do you any harm.
• Add a tin of coconut milk. Blitz. You could add a squeeze of lime juice and some chopped coriander at the end if you wanted to.
• FOR A NON SPICY VERSION: don't use chilli and ginger, don't add coconut milk but use more stock and a touch of cream.

Mushroom

• chop an onion and a clove of garlic and fry over a low heat in a little butter.
• Slice a packet and a half of mushrooms. The normal size from the supermarket. Add to the pan and fry for a few minutes
• add a pint of stock and a touch of milk
• after it's bubbled away for about half an hour the mushrooms should be done
• add a touch of cream and blitz

Turkish lentil

Had this in Istanbul and loved it, so came home and worked out the recipe. It sounds weird but it's really nice.

• fry a finely chopped onion over a low heat in some butter. Add a pinch of chilli flakes and three quarters of a teaspoon of paprika. (chilli flakes optional)
• rinse four or five handfuls of red lentils and add them to the pan along with two handfuls of bulgur wheat and a good squidge of tomato puree
• stir around for a minute or two, then add a pint and a half of stock. Season
• give it a good stir to make sure its not stuck to them bottom then cover and simmer on a low heat until the lentils are cooked.
• Add the juice of half a lemon and a good teaspoonful of dried mint.

Minestrone-ish

Minestrone can be anything with some veggies in it. I tend to make it to use up any old veg I have lying around. You can add anything you like to it. The only problem is because you don't blitz it takes a bit more time to chop it finely! Here's one version:

• Fry some bacon pieces, lardons or chopped bits of bacon
• Add a finely chopped onion, a clove of garlic or two and a couple of sticks of celery over a low heat.
• Add some finely chopped carrots and a tin of rinsed borlotti beans. (could also add some chopped mushrooms?)
• add a pint and a half of stock, season
• bubble away till all the vegetable are nearly cooked, then add some frozen peas and about three handfuls of fresh spinach. After a couple of minutes it should be done – you don't want the spinach and peas to be on for too long.

For a different version – add a tin of tomatoes too. You can add pasta bits but it won't freeze too well. Could add chopped parsley and basil at the end too.

Tomato and basil

• fry a chopped onion, chopped celery and garlic.
• Add two tins of tomatoes
• add a pint of stock, bubble away for twenty minutes
• add a touch of cream
• season, then blitz
• add some finely chopped basil

If you happen to have the rind bit of some parmesan kicking around put that in when you add the stock and let it bubble away for twenty minutes then fish it out. Sounds weird, but adds a nice savouriness to it.

Chicken and vegetable (add any other veg you want – spinach or peas are good to add at the end) – Make it with less stock and it'll be like a stew

• finely chop an onion, some celery, a couple of cloves of garlic and fry on a low heat
• add two decent sized potatoes and a carrot, peeled and diced. (when these cook and break down they'll thicken the soup a bit)
• add a pint and a half of stock. Season
• add a tin of sweetcorn (drained)
• put two whole raw chicken breasts in. Cover, turn the heat right down and let it simmer for about twenty minutes
• after this time the chicken should be cooked, so take it out and let it cool slightly before shredding/chopping and adding back to the soup.

September salad making, and some store cupboard pasta sauce.

Blimey isn't it warm?? In the space of a week I've gone from hearty roast and crumble making to craving salad! So today, on my day off, after hanging out washing in the garden, putting on suncream and generally lying around reading in the garden I decided to make a nice refreshing salad for tea. Chorizo and halloumi salad, here goes.

If you don't love halloumi then, frankly, what the hell is wrong with you? It is amazing stuff.

First chop up some chorizo and fry in a little oil until it releases all the paprika-oily-goodness. Shove that in a bowl, and add the juice of about half a lemon. Rinse a tin of green lentils or puy lentils. Throw them in the bowl. If you want this to be veggie-friendly don't bother with the chorizo, but it is really nice.

Slice some red onion into fine half moons, and chop up a clove of garlic. Add this to your chorizo and lentils. Chop up some tomatoes into big chunks. On the subject of tomatoes, check these out! I grew them myself, from seed. 

I've never grown anything I could actually harvest before... anyway I digress, put these in the bowl too. Now stir through some spinach leaves. Taste the mixture and season; add some olive oil to dress it, and plenty of salt and pepper to taste. Add some roughly chopped parsley.

Chop your halloumi into big chunks and fry in the pan you did the chorizo in.

Serve big chunks of halloumi on top of a big bowl of lentil-ly chorizo-y salad. Yum.

Today's added extra: Home made cherry tomato pasta sauce.

Because we didn't have a heat wave for the first three weeks of this month we haven't been eating an awful lot of salad. This means I have an entire packet of cherry tomatoes that are about to give up. To stop them going to waste, I've decided to turn them into a pasta sauce for another day. Very easy to do, and much nicer than shop bought pasta sauce.

Just finely chop an onion, a stick of celery and a couple of cloves of garlic, then fry them on a low heat until they've gone soft. Add the cherry tomatoes and a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar. Add a teaspoon of sugar and let it cook down for a while. Don't add any herbs, but do season liberally with salt and pepper. This is a good base sauce, and when you go to use it later you can add the herbs of your choice, such as a good handful of fresh basil. (Or some fried chorizo, chilli and peppers, or a good dollop of crème fraiche to make creamy or... the list is endless really)

Keep in a sterilised jar in the fridge, with a layer of olive oil over the top to keep it fresh.

Pasta adventure

I love pasta. I love most forms of carbs, but I almost never get sick of pasta. Even after being a student for five years and eating it at least twice a week. It’s a comfort food, a hangover cure, and so versatile it can be anything.

Right. Got that out of my system.

Despite this, I have never made my own, so today’s the day. My lovely sister and her husband gave me a pasta machine for Christmas, so I’ve been rather lax at trying it out.

I decided to follow Jamie Oliver’s recipe for the actual pasta, and make my own filling and sauce. I don’t use cookbooks often, but I do have a copy of The Naked Chef. He looks about twelve on the front, so God knows how long I’ve had it, and it might be the first time I’ve followed a recipe from it.

http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/pasta-recipes/a-basic-recipe-for-fresh-egg-pasta

(one tip I would say for this, he suggests using either a bowl or a clean board. I used a board and nearly made a right mess. Use a bowl.)

While the pasta dough was resting in the fridge, I started on the filling (spinach and ricotta) and the “sauce” which is a sort of pesto.

I put some spinach on to steam: it takes very little water and no time at all. As soon as it was done I left it in a sieve to drain and cool while I got to work on the pesto.

I then toasted some pine nuts. It always bothers me how expensive pine nuts are, but nevermind. I burnt the first batch, and had to redo them because I wasn’t paying enough attention, so made it even more expensive for myself.

Then I shoved a couple of cloves of garlic, a load of olive oil, and the juice of half a lemon in a food processor with as much basil and parsley as I could fit. 

Pulse it/blitz it until it looks like this:

Normal pesto would have the pine nuts in and some parmesan I think, but I just sort of fancied doing it like this.

Then I made a salad and a dressing. Any salad stuff you’ve got to use up.

The dressing was just olive oil, salt and pepper and some lemon juice, shaken up in an old jam jar. (or mustard jar in this case.) Don’t dress the salad till just before serving.

Chop up the cooked spinach, add a pot (or two) of ricotta, some grated nutmeg, some black pepper and some salt (if you didn’t salt the spinach when cooking it). 

Then I rolled. And rolled, and rolled and rolled. It’s quite labour intensive making pasta isn’t it? 

Then I spooned out the ricotta mixture, used water to seal round the edges and carefully pressed down the edges, trying to get all the air out of the middle. I ended up with loads of ricotta mixture leftover, I’d appreciate suggestions for what to do with it!

 Then boil some salted water in a massive pan. Add the ravioli and cook for a few minutes, then drain carefully and assemble! 

Grate some parmesan over the top, or if you’re too cheap to buy parmesan, grana padano. (it’s a bit cheaper, but not quite so good).

I think it worked out pretty good, but perhaps just a touch too thick. Lesson to learn: roll the pasta to the thickness you THINK you need, then roll it at least one notch thinner.

Whilst making this I listened to: 6Music. Liked the montage of clips of Rebekah Brooks and David Cameron and the Jam’s “News of the World.”

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.