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.

This is not just a stir fry (and Turkish lentil soup)

Last time I bought steak from the butcher, he very kindly gave me some off cuts he had leftover (it pays to go when he's just about to close). They've been sitting in my freezer for some time while I worked out what to do with them – not quite big enough for steak and chips but I wanted to do them justice!

I decided to do a stir fry – but try and make it a bit nicer than my usual chuck everything in the wok and hope for the best.

Bit blurry as I was stirring at the time!

First, do all the prep! It really is the key with stir fry – as it only takes five minutes to cook.

Blitz up a glove of garlic, a chilli, and about an inch of peeled ginger. Crush together some cumin) and some coriander. (All a bit fusion, I'm guessing this wouldn't be that authentic but I love cumin

Finely slice into strips all your veg; whatever you've got really. I used carrots, peppers, broccoli, mushrooms and courgettes.

Prep everything before cooking

Cook your noodles according to the packet! I used rice noodles. When they're cooked rinse through with cold water to keep them separate. Put to one side.

Mix together a teaspoonful of cornflour, with two tablespoons of rice vinegar and a tablespoon or two of soy sauce. I have some new soy sauce from a Chinese supermarket which is INSANELY dark. Really tasty, but turned everything a bit brown with only a few tablespoons of it! If you do live/work near a Chinese supermarket I would recommend buying a big bottle of soy sauce – the little bottles in the normal supermarkets just don't really compare.

Have some finely sliced spring onions at the ready, and some sesame oil. (I'd run out of spring onions unfortunately!)

Season your steak with a little soy sauce, then fry on a really high heat in the wok for two minutes on each side. This is really nice sirloin so I want it to be a bit rare, and it will be heated through at the end.

Put to one side and allow to rest while you make everything else. Heat some oil in the wok (it doesn't need cleaning after the steak) Once it's quite hot throw in your garlic/ginger/chilli mix then the spices. Add all your veg. Stir before adding the soy/cornflour mix. Keep everything moving around, then add the rice noodles. Whilst everything is heating through, slice the steak into strips. 

Taste it – and add more soy sauce if you think it needs it.(depends on the quality of your soy sauce really)

Chuck in the steak, sliced spring onion and a drizzle of sesame oil – and it's done!

This week's soup is Turkish lentil. I rarely put my soup recipes on here, but thought this was good enough to share. When we were in Istanbul we had this and I thought it was lovely, I've since googled, tasted and guessed until I came up with a reasonably authentic version. It's really cheap, and really easy!

Finely chop an onion and cook in some butter on a low heat in an enormous pan until it goes a little golden, but not caramelised. Stir in a good teaspoonful of paprika. Add a small cupful of red lentils, and half a small cupful of bulgur wheat. Stir this around until it's coated with the butter.

Add a couple of tablespoons of tomato purée, and a couple of pints of vegetable stock, and a good pinch of chilli flakes (if you like spicy food). Simmer until all the lentils have broken down (about half an hour). When it's cooked, crumble in a teaspoon of dried mint, and the juice of about half a lemon. Season to taste. It's that easy. And trust me, it's lovely. Eat with pitta bread if you're trying to be authentic!

My packed lunches for the rest of the week

 Whilst making this I mostly listened to: the new Laura Marling album. I think she's ace.

Easiest. Dinner. Ever

Gosh, hasn’t it been a while? My apologies for the lack of recipes lately. August was crazily busy and (mostly) very good fun. Lots of good eating – but none of the cooking was done by me. Fabulous wedding in Ireland with a seven course meal (I think, I lost count), a beautiful tapas meal cooked for my birthday, and a late birthday lasagne and enormous cake. All lovely.

But now it’s time for me to start contributing again. This is a bit of a cheat. Anyone can do this recipe, or variations of it, but the fact is it’s really really nice. And if you don’t already have a version of this in your repertoire, you should, because it tastes much better than you’d expect from just a bit of chopping.

So here’s my recipe for roasted chicken legs with Mediterranean vegetables, and a lemon and pine nut cous cous.

To tart up this dinner I made foccacia earlier today, according to this recipe:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/rosemary_and_sea_salt_12392

But added my own toppings. I made a couple, one with olives and rosemary, another with chopped garlic and basil and some lemon juice. It was all good fun! But I’m not one for typing out someone else’s recipes so click on the link above.

Stick your oven on to preheat at around 190 degrees.

For this you will need a bucketload of Mediterranean type veg. I had a courgette, an aubergine, a pepper, a couple of small onions, a handful of cherry tomatoes and a few cloves of garlic. Chop everything up into big chunks and put it in a roasting tin. Chop the garlic roughly and scatter it over the top, then if you’ve got any basil tuck half a dozen basil leaves in amongst it too. (Rosemary works well with this; the first time I had a variation of this meal at a friend’s house it was made with rosemary and the smells were brilliant).

Now slosh over a good load of olive oil (erm, maybe 6 tablespoons? I have no idea) and about half as much balsamic vinegar.

Now put a couple of chicken legs on the top of it and season liberally – the salt will help the chicken skin to go crispy, but the meat will stay moist because of all the steam from the vegetables. I’m a big fan of chicken legs (or any meat on the bone really) as it is so much tastier than chicken breasts, which go dry very easily.

Shove in the oven for about forty minutes. I lifted the chicken and gave the vegetables a good stir around half way through.

It also helps to baste the chicken with some of the lovely juices from the bottom of the pan – but you only need to do this once. 

You don’t have to have this with cous cous – it’s nice with roasted new potatoes or just steamed new potatoes. But this time we were having easy dinner.

Toast some pine nuts in a dry frying pan (keep an eye on them, they burn easily) and chop some parsley. You’ll be able to tell if the chicken is nearly ready because the juices will run clear when you poke it with a skewer or sharp knife. At this point, cook some cous cous according to the instructions on the packet, then stir through the pine nuts, parsley, the juice of half a lemon, another slosh of olive oil and some salt and pepper. 

A bonus from this recipe is that you will have chuffing LOADS of roasted veg leftover. This makes a lovely pasta sauce for another day. Just cook some pasta, warm the roasted veg, add a dollop of crème fraiche and stir the whole lot together. Again, you wouldn't expect it to be so good, but it’s awesome.

Pork chops with warm bean salad

So the football season’s started again, which means I have significantly more free time of a weekend. Yesterday I took advantage of this by cooking a cracking meal.

Despite the fact it’s supposed to be summer, it’s grey, cold and miserable so I fancied something properly comforting.

First, get a couple of proper meaty pork chops, skin on and bone in. Make up an easy marinade with the grated zest of half a lemon, a finely chopped clove of garlic, some finely chopped rosemary, olive oil and salt and pepper.

 Rub this into the meaty bits of the pork chops on both sides, and leave them to one side to soak it up. 

Get potatoes ready for roasting by chopping them up and boiling them in some salted water until nearly cooked. Then toss them in some salt and pepper with balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Cook them in the oven for a good half an hour.

Make a dressing for your bean salad with two tablespoons of red wine vinegar, four of olive oil, a finely chopped clove of garlic and some salt and pepper.  Shove it all in an old jam jar ready for shaking up just before serving.

Use any old beans for the salad, I had haricot. Shove a tin of beans and some chopped spring onion in a pan with a tablespoon of vegetable oil. Put on a low heat and shove in a good few handfuls of spinach. Put a lid on and leave it on a low heat for five minutes. The spinach should start to wilt down. You can add any old veg to this really, I put in some cooked green beans too. Give it a stir around. And when you’re ready to eat stir through the dressing you made earlier. Don’t leave it on the heat for too long, you don’t want the beans to break down or the spinach to overcook.

I was quite a fan of this, I reckon it would go well with a barbecue too; it’s really tasty and a bit different.

Rub some salt well into the fat and skin to try and encourage it to turn into crispy crackling. 

 

Heat up a roasting dish on top of the hob until it’s pretty hot, and put in a splash of vegetable oil. Put the pork in let it sizzle for a couple of minutes, the skin should start to crisp up. Now flip it and shove it in a really hot oven (about 220 degrees) for about ten – fifteen minutes until crispy.  Turn it once while it’s cooking.

My crackling didn’t work out too well this time, I don’t think my oven was hot enough, so I ended up just taking it off.

Take the meat off the roasting dish and leave it to rest for five minutes. Deglaze it with the juice of half a lemon and a touch of water, and scrape up the tasty bits off the bottom of the pan. It’s not a gravy, but the juices are well worth pouring over the top of the chops. Now plate up!

It was a shame about the crackling, but nonetheless it was a really tasty meal, as well as a welcome distraction from the start of the football season. Expect more regular blog posts for the next ten months!

Whilst making this I mostly listened to: Laura Marling.

Rosemary and Olive Bread

I make a pot of soup once a week. It’s my cheap and healthy lunch for at least three shifts a week at work, and helps avoid inadvertently spending a fiver in M and S food every lunch time. I was trying to change this to salads for the summer, but they don’t keep as well (I’ll often take a few days worth of soup in to work at once) and so just aren’t so easy.  So I go for lighter soups instead.

I try not to have bread all the time, (carbs etc. etc.) but sometimes it just can’t be helped.  I was having a lazy afternoon yesterday so decided to make some bread. It’s a pretty stress free, relaxing process.

The basic recipe I use is the one below, so see that for specific amounts:

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2060/easy-white-bread

It’s nice to make plain bread, but, predictably enough, I like to add stuff. 

Blitz up a few sprigs of rosemary (leaves only) and half a dozen olives. You don’t want a paste, some chunks of olives are nice.  Put this in the bowl with the strong flour, yeast and salt and give it a good mix together.  Then make a well in the centre and add the oil, and the water in a couple of batches. I use my hands to mix it together, as bread dough is like glue so you want to be cleaning it off as few things as possible.

Then on a well floured board knead it for at least ten minutes. Kneading means pushing, squashing, rolling, generally beating all hell out of it with your hands. It’s a messy process, your hands will be covered, but rub them together to get the dough off and try and get it included.  The thing is, a slightly sticky dough will actually rise much better than a dry one. It really is important to knead it for as long as you can be bothered, do ten minutes then add another minute.

It's a pretty messy process

Lightly oil your bowl and put the dough in (by now it should be all in one piece and a bit elastic), and cover with a damp tea towel and put it in a sunny spot for an hour.

 It will start this size:

And end up about double the size:

Now “knock it back” or lightly knead again. I find putting it on the board and punching it a few times to knock a load of the air out of it is a good start. You don’t need to mess around with it for anywhere near as long as before. Then either shape it into loaves or rolls. I decided to go for rolls this time. 

Put on some oiled trays and leave for another hour. (I'm not bothered that they're a bit rustic. They're for dipping in soup)

They should double in size again.

Preheat the oven at 210/220 degrees and then pop them in.  Loaves will take longer than rolls, these were ready in about 25 – 30 minutes.

Test them by knocking on the bottom, they should sound hollow.

Put on a wire rack to cool. I don’t have a wire rack, I do have an oven shelf on a chopping board.

And they’re good to go! I will be making some soup later; just mushroom, so ridiculously easy.  If anyone’s bothered just ask, and I’ll put up that recipe too.

So this week, I will be having mushroom soup with rosemary and olive bread, yum!

In other news, I love this cookery programme and I love Grace Dent’s TV reviews, so I strongly recommend you watch The Good Cook on iPlayer, and read this review:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2011/jul/23/the-good-cook-grace-dent-tv-od?CMP=twt_gu

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.”

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.