RECIPE: Simple corn fritters

There are lots of corn fritter recipes out there but few are as simple as this one. I'm a big fan of tinned creamed sweetcorn as an ingredient, as you may have already realised, and the only other ingredients these need are self raising flour and eggs,  plus oil for frying, so as long as the shopping's going smoothly (not always the case at the moment) I can whip these up from the store cupboard in next to no time.

Ingredients (to serve 4, approx 2 fritters each) 

1 tin (approx 400g) creamed sweetcorn 

2 eggs

self raising flour - about 100g but see below

oil for frying

Tip the sweetcorn into a mixing bowl and beat in the eggs. Stir in enough flour to form what old-fashioned cookbooks call a "dropping" consistency. When you drop a spoonful into the  pan, it should spread out a bit but not run all over the pan, rather like a Scotch pancake. I haven't given an exact quantity because the sizes of corn tins vary a lot, I've had them from 350g to 450g, and egg sizes vary too, especially at the moment when you can't rely on being able to buy a particular size. 

Heat some oil in a frying pan and drop in tablespoonfuls of the mixture. Fry  on a high heat for 2-3 minutes until bubbles start to appear on the surface and the underside is golden, then carefully flip them, lower the heat  to medium-low, and cook for about 5 minutes until cooked through. 

You may need to cook them in batches.  Because there are only two of us, I made 4 fritters from half the batter, and served them with salad and some pepperoni that was lurking in the fridge. I have a couple of spring onions left over from last night's stir fry, so tomorrow I will chop those and stir them into the remaining batter to make corn and onion fritters to serve with sweet chilli sauce. 

I'm sharing this with Kitchen Clearout at Madhouse Family Reviews -  the perfect place to find  and share ideas for making lockdown cooking more interesting! 

 

RECIPE: Summery salads

I hope you are all managing to get hold of food supplies regularly now - whether you are going to the shops or staying at home, supplies still seem to be unpredictable. However one thing we're now doing really well for is fruit and veg, thanks to a local supplier who is delivering boxes to the Fleet, Farnham and Hook area (If you are in that area and want details, drop me an email for details) so that every week we can get something like this delivered: 

Of course unlike a bigger box scheme, we can't choose the contents or quantities, which means  that by the end of the week there are bits and pieces to use up, so I decided to make some home-made burgers and, instead of chips and buns, make a selection of side salads using a mixture of store cupboard items and veg box odds and ends. 

The first salad was a simple tomato salad with lots of chopped chives from the garden - I'm not going to tell you how to do that!  Here is how I made the others - I have not given exact quantities for most of them as it really depends what you have to hand: 

Potato and Hazelnut salad 

I halved about 300g small potatoes and boiled them until cooked, then drained them and while still hot, stirred in 2 tablespoons of hazelnut oil and 1 tablespoon of sherry vinegar, then set aside to cool. Meanwhile I roughly chopped 60g of hazelnuts and roasted them in a hot oven for about 7 minutes, then sprinkled them with salt. I mixed the potatoes and nuts together just before serving. 

Walnuts and walnut oil would work well too, or any nut with a light olive oil. And the sherry vinegar could be any vinegar from your cupboard. 

Avocado, corn and bean salad

Toss together 1 sliced avocado, ½ tin red kidney beans, rinsed and drained, ½ small tin sweetcorn,  drained, and a few leaves of coarsely shredded lettuce. Drizzle with lime juice just before serving.  I added a few black olives too but they really didn't add anything to the dish so I wouldn't bother with them next time. 

This is delicious as a side for chilli con carne. 

Fruity slaw 

Finely shred white cabbage (I used about ¼ of a cabbage), grated or julienned carrot (I used half of a huge one) and enough mayonnaise to moisten,  then stir in a handful of  sultanas or raisins and a small tin of mandarin oranges in juice, drained. 

I made the burgers by mixing minced beef,  very finely chopped onions,  half a teaspoon each of dried oregano, ground mace and ground cumin with enough breadcrumbs to hold the mixture together, shaped into patties and cooked in a griddle pan. 

I am sharing this with Kitchen Clearout at Madhouse Family Reviews. 

Recipe: Sausage and Cider Hotpot

In my recent post about getting hold of food during lockdown, I promised to report back on how we got on with the Morrisons food box. It's gone pretty well so far: Main meals have been Chilli Con Carne,  Chicken Satay with a salad made from the cabbage, cucumber and carrots, and Sausage and Cider Hotpot. Tonight Mark is making pizzas, using the ham and some of the cheese. We could have reduced the pasts sauce to make a topping but the one they sent includes red peppers, which upset Mark's stomach very badly,  so we'll have to use some of our own from the freezer. We've also had lunches of bacon sandwiches and leftovers from the main meals, and toast for breakfast, and the rice, potatoes, tinned soups and some of the cheese are still left to use. Not luxury eating but ideal for the situation. And I've managed to secure a supermarket delivery slot for this weekend so we'll be able to top up on fruit and veg at last!

Anyway, on with the recipe.

The box contained a pack of 6 premium sausages. I had a half-bottle of cider hanging around in the fridge - it had been open for a week but had a bottle stopper in it and was still perfectly fine when I opened it, so I decided to use that as the liquid for a hotpot. Rather than the Charlotte potatoes that had come in the box, I used some baking potatoes we already had, and onions from the box.

Recipe (serves 3, or a main meal plus a leftovers lunch for two)

6 pork sausages
a little lard, butter or oil
3 large potatoes
2 large onions
300ml dry cider (or apple juice)

Set the oven to 160 C, 325 F, gas mark 3.
Fry the sausages briskly in a little fat until browned all over.
Slice the potatoes and onions fairly thinly.

Put about half the potatoes in a casserole dish, then scatter half the onions over. Place the sausages evenly on top of them and season. Layer on the rest of the onions and then the potatoes. Pour over the cider and top with a few scraps of lard. Cover, place in the oven and cook for 1½ hours, then remove the lid, turn up the oven to 200 C, 425 F, gas mark 6 and cook for a further 20-25 minutes until the top layer of potatoes is crispy.

I served this with a mixture of all the odds and ends of veg left in the fridge - a leek, a few sprigs of cauliflower and a couple of carrots -  cooked together and coated with onion sauce that I made from a packet mix that was lurking at the back of a cupboard (the packet was only a year out of date, that's pretty good going by my standards when it comes to convenience foods!)

I am adding this to the special #KitchenClearout lockdown linky at Madhouse Family Reviews 

RECIPE: meatballs in a spicy veg sauce and its infinite variations

This is a useful recipe for the coming weeks when shopping trips may be fewer and further apart because you can adapt it to whatever you have in the fridge and cupboards.

I've given mine a North African feel with fragrant spices and harissa but you could go for an Indian, Mexican, Middle Eastern or Italian flavour  depending on what you fancy and have to hand.

The one essential ingredient is meatballs - the pre-cooked type that you can buy big bags of for the freezer or longish-life chilled packs of from the supermarket. Well, maybe not that essential - you could replace them with hard boiled eggs, or tinned pulses such as chickpeas or red kidney beans. And by varying the veg according to what you have to hand, you can produce an infinite number of different dishes all from this one basic idea.

For my version, serving two,  I used

250ml home made tomato sauce
1 onion, peeled and chopped
1 tbs oil
meatballs - 6-8 per person depending on appetite.
2 carrots, peeled and sliced
a handful of green beans, cut into 3 cm lengths
A small wedge of cabbage, finely shredded
Ground spices: ¼ teaspoon each of cloves and cinnamon, ½ teaspoon each of ginger and allspice, 1 teaspoon of turmeric, all mixed together
1 tablespoon harissa (I love Belazu Rose Harissa, now that's available in the UK I no longer have to stock up on La Cape du Phare when I go to France, which leaves more room in the suitcase for cheese and wine!)

Fry the onion in the oil until soft, tip in the ground spices and cook for a minute longer. Add the tomato sauce and vegetables, bring to the boil, cover and simmer for 20 minutes. Stir in the harissa then the meatballs and continue to simmer until the meatballs are heated through - about 15 minutes.

I served this version with cous cous to keep that North African vibe going.

Variations  

Tomato sauce - could be home made, or out of a jar. Or use a tin of tomatoes, or some passata, or 2 tablespoons of tomato purée mixed with hot water.

Protein - as I mentioned above you could use  hard boiled eggs or tinned pulses. Or brown some chicken thighs before you fry the onions then add them back to the pan when you add the veg.

Veg - whatever you have in the fridge,  tins or freezer. But for a good textured and colourful mixture I like to use one root veg, one from the peas/beans group and one from the cabbage/cauliflower/broccoli group.

Spices/herbs:

For an Indian-ish tasting dish, use curry powder or paste or mix together 1tsp each of ground turmeric, coriander and cumin and ½ tsp chilli powder to add after frying the onions and add 1tsp garam masala and, if you have it, 1 tablespoon of Kasuri Methi when you add the meatballs.

For Mexican-ish, use 1 tsp ground cumin, 1 tsp dried oregano and ½ tsp chilli powder

For Italian-ish,  add 2 cloves of garlic, crushed, 1 tsp dried oregano and ½ tsp chilli flakes after frying the onions then at the end of cooking stir in a few shredded fresh basil leaves and sprinkle with grated Parmesan cheese.

For a Middle Eastern flavour, add ½ teaspoon of cinnamon and 1 teaspoon of oregano after frying the onion and at the end of cooking squeeze in the juice of half a lemon. If you have any feta cheese around, crumble a bit over the top.

Obviously none of these dishes is even a remotely authentic dish from the region but nevertheless will taste good!

Any of these could be served with rice, pasta, cous cous, flatbread, wraps or even mashed potato.

If you are cooking from what's hanging around in the fridge, larder or cupboard, why not join me in linking up to Kitchen Clearout over at Madhouse Family Reviews?

RECIPE - Barley Beef Stew

Now and then I get an urge to use pearl barley - maybe in a lamb and vegetable stew, a hearty soup or a barley "risotto" (have you tried that? it's delicious with richly flavoured poultry like guinea fowl). And then the pack gets pushed to the back of the cupboard, only to either break open and spill all over everything or lurk until it's so far past it's use by date that it would need to cook for months to be soft enough to eat.

Luckily I rediscovered my latest pack just a couple of weeks before it was due to go out of date, so I decided to try something different with it. Further rummaging brought out the tail ends of a jar of redcurrant jelly and one of Dijon mustard.

I also had some  home made chicken stock in the fridge (but if you are using bought stock, use beef stock!) and the remains of a bag of parsley.

Barley Beef Stew - serves 2

350g diced stewing beef
300ml stock
1 level tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 medium onion, chopped
1 tablespoon fat for browning - I used lard but oil or butter would work just as well
1 rounded tablespoon pearl barley
1 level tablespoon plain flour
1 level tablespoon redcurrant jelly
dash of gravy browning (optional)
seasoning
chopped parsley to finish

Set the oven to 150C (130 fan) 300F gas mark 2
Place the beef in a bowl and stir in the mustard to coat evenly.

Heat the fat in a flameproof casserole and tip in the onions and meat - unlike a normal stew, you can tip all the meat in at once: although some of the juices will run out to form the gravy, the mustard will help to hold in the flavour. Toss together over heat until the onions have softened slightly and the meat has changed colour - it won't go a dark brown as it would for a traditional casserole, you just don't want any red showing.

Remove from the heat and dust in the flour, mixing well, then stir in the stock. Return to the heat and bring to the boil, stirring constantly, then add the pearl barley and redcurrant jelly, mix well and taste for seasoning. If it looks a little pale because of the unusual way of starting the beef off (and, in my case, because of the stock being chicken rather than beef), a few drops of gravy browning will sort that out.

Cover and place in the oven for around 2 hours, until the beef is tender and the barley almost falling-apart tender - it makes the gravy rich and unctuous and the pieces of barley give a lovely nutty bite to it.

Sprinkle with chopped parsley and serve with mashed potatoes to soak up the lovely juices and a leafy green vegetable like sprouts or cabbage.

I am sharing this with Kitchen Clearout at Madhouse Family Reviews

RECIPE: Veg rack roast

Yesterday the fridge and veg rack were looking awfully cluttered with odds and ends. I managed to dig out:

2 parsnips
4 very small carrots
a chunk of swede
a chunk of celeriac
one huge potato
and a small Bramley apple

To that lot I added
2 tbs sunflower oil
1 tbs balsamic vinegar
a teacup full of frozen peas, allowed to defrost

I would have added an onion, too, at the same time as all the root veg, but I was planning to serve onion gravy so my onion went in that instead.

Heat the oven to 200C (180 fan), 425 F, gas mark 7

Pour the oil into a large roasting tin. Peel the parsnips, carrots, swede, celeriac and potato and cut into roughly similar sized chunks. Tip into the roasting tin, toss with the oil and place in the oven for 1 hour.

After 30 minutes, drizzle over the balsamic vinegar and  mix in, turning the veg over as you do so. Return to the oven for 15 minutes. Peel, core and slice the apple and add to the roasting tin, mixing in gently as the veg will be soft by now.

Return to the oven for another 10 minutes then scatter the peas over the top. Continue cooking for the final 5 minutes and then serve.

I served this with roast belly pork and onion gravy and there was way, way more than two of us could eat. I'm considering whizzing up the leftovers with stock to make a soup!

I'm sharing this with Kitchen Clearout at Madhouse Family Reviews. If you have a dish that uses up odds and ends that might otherwise have been discarded or left to go out of date, why not join in?

RECIPE: Dirty Hot Dog Fry #KitchenClearout

What's this, two food posts in as many days? I've not done that for several years now. It must be the cooler weather making me hungry.

Our fridge is SO overcrowded at the moment with the lovely veg from the garden, so some decluttering of the odds and ends was in order. A fridge dive yielded

Four frankfurters, a few rashers of bacon, half a punnet of mushrooms and a cold leftover jacket potato.
I added two onions and a tablespoon of sunflower oil.

Slice the onions and mushrooms, chop the bacon and cut the franks and potato into bite sized chunks.

Heat the oil over moderate heat in a large frying pan and fry the onions for about 5 minutes until softened, then stir in the bacon and continue to cook until everything is starting to brown. Add the mushrooms and cook for a further 3-4 minutes until they start to soften. Mix in the potatoes and frankfurter pieces and carry on cooking over a low heat for 5-6 minutes until everything is heated through.

Those few ingredients suddenly look as if they are going to feed a whole army!

To complete the "Dirty Hot Dog" experience I slathered both ketchup and American style yellow mustard over my portion. It was delicious - and a lot less stodgy than a hot dog served in a traditional bread roll.

This is my recipe for the Kitchen Clearout linky at Madhouse Family Reviews - a great place to find and share fabulously frugal food that might otherwise have gone to waste.

RECIPE: Stuffed Tomatoes

It's ages since I posted a recipe, but here's a seasonal one made with some of the amazing tomatoes Mark has grown this year. It's been a bumper year and we've eaten tomatoes with nearly every meal as well as having lots of sauce in the freezer and a fridge full of home made ketchup.

I used some of his Montserrat tomatoes for this dish.

They are the ones in the tray at the front. They are huge - about the size of a large man's fist - and sort-of hollow, with just a small core of seeds that is easily scooped out (but not discarded - the ones I scooped out are currently simmering in the latest batch of sauce). That makes them ideal for stuffing, although of course you can use almost any decent sized tomato if you carefully scoop out the seeds. Well, maybe not cherry tomatoes. Yes, I have made stuffed cherry tomatoes but it takes rather more patience than I can muster on a regular basis.

I had some left over boiled rice in the fridge and was planning a meal of spicy merguez sausages baked with butternut squash, so I wanted to make a suitable accompaniment. In the store cupboard there were a few pistachios and the tail end of a bag of currants - perfect.  To that I added a small onion, a knob of butter and a pinch of cinnamon.

To fill two very large tomatoes
About a mug full of cold boiled rice
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 tbs shelled pistachios, chopped
1 tbs dried currants
pinch of ground cinnamon to taste
a small knob of butter

Fry the onion in the butter until translucent, then add the currants, pistachios and cinnamon and continue to fry slowly for about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool completely. This is important as you are using pre-cooked rice and don't want to warm it up until it is time to cook it.

When cold, mix with the rice, taste and season. Slice the tops off the tomatoes, scoop out the insides and stuff with the rice.

Replace the tops and bake in a moderately hot oven (it all depends on what else you are cooking!) until the tomatoes are cooked and the filling piping hot. Remember when reheating rice it must be fully heated through to destroy any lurking nasties.

The tomatoes don't look quite as spectacular when they come out of the oven because the soft sides might collapse, but oh my they taste delicious!

This is my recipe for this month's Kitchen Clearout link up at Madhouse Family Reviews, where you will find lots of ideas for using up those odds and ends in the fridge and cupboards.

RECIPE : Pork that thinks it's duck that thinks it's pigeon

I'm having a major kitchen clearout at the moment which is resulting in us eating some interesting combinations as I empty the freezer, fridge and tinned stuff drawer. This meal is an attempt to put together something more appetising and possibly worth repeating.  Apologies for the lousy photos - we were keen to get on and eat it as the pancakes stick together when they are cold, so I didn't take much care over them!

I had a rummage and found   

 

Tins drawer: a tin of sliced water chestnuts

  

Freezer: a 400g pack of minced pork and a couple of 6 packs of pancakes for  Peking Duck   

   

Fridge: half a limp cucumber, a wedge of Iceberg lettuce, four tired spring onions, the dregs of a bottle of plum sauce and the last scrapings of a jar of Peking Duck sauce. 

 

This all took me back to my days in Hong Kong many years ago, when some of the restaurants in the New Territories were famous for a dish of minced pigeon cooked with Chinese flavourings and water chestnuts and served with a pile of Iceberg lettuce leaves, trimmed into cups, for diners to roll the pigeon in and eat.    

OK pork isn't pigeon but I thought with the Peking Duck sauce and pancakes I could cobble something yummy if not the least bit authentic together.  As the lettuce was already cut up and wouldn’t make cups, I shredded it to use with the pancakes.    

 

Added ingredients were   

A splash of cooking oil (I used peanut oil)

1 tablespoon each of light soy sauce and Chinese cooking wine, ginger wine or dry sherry

2 cloves garlic

1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger

 

To make   

Finely shred the lettuce and cucumber and set aside along with the Peking Duck (or Hoi Sin) sauce and set aside for serving.

 

Drain the water chestnuts (you could use bamboo shoots or a mixture instead), slice the spring onions, crush the garlic and chop the ginger then put them all on a large chopping board and continue to chop until it's all finely chopped. Ideally you want it all as small as the grains of minced pork but that's just for prettiness.    

Put a pan of water on to boil and have ready a steamer that fits on top of it, with the bottom lined with non stick paper. Put the pancakes in the steamer ready to cook.   

15 minutes before serving, heat a wok with the oil and when it is piping hot, add the pork. Stir fry until no raw bits show then add the chopped mixture.  Stir for a couple of minutes then add the soy sauce, wine and plum sauce (about 2 tbs). Bring to the boil, reduce the heat and leave to simmer,  then put the pancakes in their steamer on top of the pan of water to cook.    

 

Cook everything for about 10 minutes, keeping an eye on the pork, you want the liquid to evaporate but not to boil so dry that the mixture burns.    

 

 

To serve, put all the dishes on the table. Everyone takes a pancake, smears it with sauce, adds a few shreds each of lettuce and cucumber, tops with a spoonful of pork then rolls it up and eats it.    You'll want finger bowls or hand wipes nearby,  it can be quite a messy business, but that's all part of the fun.  

 

Enjoy!  We loved it - I hope you do too.   

 

I am, of course, sharing this with #KitchenClearout at Madhouse Family Reviews -  why not pop over there and take a look at lots of other ideas for using up odds and ends, leftovers and fridge clutter?

 

Two salads for summer

We've had a few warm days this week - in fact mark is already beginning to worry about how dry the garden is getting - and warm days call for special salads.

My first is an American Classic - Cobb Salad. We first had this on holiday in San Francisco, and have re-created it at home many times since.

Underneath all those goodies  there's a very deep layer of shredded Iceberg lettuce, although Cos or Romaine  would be more authentic. It is topped with rows of sliced avocado, cold  roast chicken, lambs lettuce (because we had no watercress), boiled egg, diced tomato, crumbled blue cheese, finely chopped chives and parsley and crumbled crisply grilled streaky bacon.

The dressing, served on the side and tossed into individual portions at serving time, is made from
60ml red wine vinegar
80ml light olive oil
1 tsp Dijon mustard
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
salt and pepper
all whisked together and then 30g of finely crumbled blue cheese worked into it at the last minute.
The high vinegar content gives the dressing a lovely sharp tang although if you are a fan of the classic 3 parts oil to 1 part vinegar dressing it might come as a bit of a shock to the system, so taste it before serving and whisk in more oil if you really feel the need.

Now my second salad, which is a substantial side salad. I served it with a South African curry but it would be equally at home with a barbecue or a Mexican dish.

This was a "fridge raid" salad - I found a stump of cucumber, one large tomato, half a red onion, a rather sad looking lime that was turning brown at the edges and the parsley and chives left over from the Cobb Salad which we'd had the day before.

I chopped the tomato, cucumber, onion and herbs and tossed them with a drained tin of sweetcorn and a small  very finely chopped red chilli, then dressed the whole thing with the lime juice.

I think I'll call this Spicy Sweetcorn Salad and share it at Kitchen Clearout at Madhouse Family Reviews.

Sort of paella-y thing

You may recall that last month we went for a holiday to Spain where it was very cold and poured with rain all the time. However we DID enjoy some delicious meals while we were there, and brought home some tins of pimenton (smoked paprika) from the local market. 

One of the dishes I loved was paella, but I can't make that for Mark as he is allergic to fish and seafood, gets an upset tummy if he eats peppers and doesn't like saffron (unless it's baked into a Cornish saffron cake!). However thanks to a fridge dive, I came up with a dish that most certainly isn't paella but  reminds me of it and is definitely delicious!

My fridge  dive produced

A cupful of leftover roast chicken scraps
Some stock made from the carcase
4 stalks of asparagus
half a tin of chickpeas
a third of a small chorizo
2 tomatoes

To that I added

1 tbs oil
150g paella rice (available from most supermarkets - you could use risotto rice instead but it gives a creamier texture)
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
about 50g frozen peas, defrosted
1½ teaspoons hot smoked paprika
½ teaspoon salt (omit if using bought stock)

This made two very generous servings.

First of all, chop the onion and dice the chorizo into small cubes. Cut the chicken into small bite sized pieced and the asparagus into pieces about 2-3 cm long. Drain and rinse the chickpeas, crush the garlic and chop the tomatoes quite roughly.

Heat the oil in a wide, shallow pan or lidded frying pan. Fry the onion gently for around 5 minutes, until it starts to soften, then add the chorizo and fry for about 3 minutes more until the red colour is released. Stir in the garlic and paprika and cook for another minute.

Add the rice, salt and around 350ml of stock. Bring to the boil and simmer very gently, uncovered, until the rice starts to soften - around 20 minutes. Keep an eye on the level of the liquid, adding more stock or water if it threatens to burn. After the first 10 minutes, stir in the chicken.

When the rice is almost cooked, add the asparagus, peas and chickpeas. Stir well, cover and continue to cook until the asparagus is tender - around 5 minutes (although mine was stubborn and took 10). Finally add the tomatoes and cook, stirring to prevent sticking, for another 2-3 minutes until starting to break down but not mushy. If there is any liquid remaining, give a quick blast of high heat to boil it off.

Serve immediately.

I'm linking up to Kitchen Clearout at Madhouse Family Reviews.

RECIPE - Ham and cheese bites

Hardly really a recipe, more of a simple assembly job, but it used up some odds and ends in the fridge and came out delicious, so I thought I'd share it as my food posts have become very scarce.

You will need
- the left overs from a pack of ready made puff pastry - I used about a quarter of a pack
- 1 slice lean cooked ham, finely chopped
- about 1 tablespoon finely grated Parmesan cheese

Heat the oven to 200C (180 fan), 400F, gas mark 6.

Roll out the pastry quite thinly into a rectangle, scatter with the ham and cheese then roll up tightly and slice into pieces 7-10 mm thick.

Arrange on a baking sheet covered in non stick paper (I gave each one an artistic twist in the middle but they untwisted themselves while cooking, so don't bother being arty)

Bake in the hot oven for 10-12 minutes until well risen and golden. 

Cool (if you can bear to wait) and serve as a nibble with drinks.

No need for any brushing with egg, that would stop the pastry from rising as well, but you may want to seal the long edge of the roll with water - as you can see, I didn't because I thought that twist that untwisted itself was going to hold everything in place.

As this was a real fridge-clearer I'm sharing it with Kitchen Clearout at Madhouse Family Reviews

Recipe - Carrot and lentil soup with sourdough croutons

Yes, you read it right - a recipe! Well this is supposed to be a "food and craft" blog, but in recent months the food seems to have slipped into oblivion for various reasons. However I've just made some really delicious soup that I couldn't resist sharing.

Sorry it's such a rubbish photo but I was in a hurry to tuck in!

The inspiration for this soup was the last few rather limp carrots in a bag, a stub of stale sourdough bread and a half litre tub of frozen chicken stock that fell on the floor when I was getting something else out and the container shattered so it needed to be used. A rummage in the cupboard produced the tail end of a bag of lentils - I didn't weigh them but it looked like about 80g.

So, to make 4 hearty servings you will need

1 medium onion
4 medium to large carrots
80g red lentils
½ litre stock - vegetable or chicken, plus the same amount of water
a knob of butter
your choice of spice (optional) - see recipe
seasoning

and for the croutons

stale sourdough bread (the equivalent of about 2 slices of bread)
1 tbs light olive oil

First start the soup. Peel the onion and carrots and cut into large chunks, then whizz in a food processor until very finely chopped. (If you don't have a food processor, chop them roughly and use a stick blender on the soup when it is cooked.)

Melt the butter in a large saucepan and stir in the carrot and onion mixture, and cook gently, stirring frequently, for about 5 minutes. Then add the spice if you want - I like to add just one spice and ring the changes between cardamom, cumin, ground coriander, ground ginger and chilli - just a generous pinch, to bring out the flavour of the carrots, rather than to add a spicy flavour. Carrots go well with all these spices - or you could omit the spice completely, or stir in some chopped fresh coriander or parsley when serving the soup. Today I used two drops of cardamom scented Spice Drops. Mix in the spice than add the stock and water. Bring to the boil, add the lentils, cover and simmer gently for around 30 minutes until the lentils have completely broken down into the liquid. Don't add seasoning (or use salty stock cubes) until the end, or they may not fall properly.

While the soup is cooking, make the croutons. Heat the oven to 180c (fan) 400F, gas mark 7.
Cut the bread into small dice,  about 1cm cubes,  toss in the oil and spread on a baking tray. Bake for 7-10 minutes until crisp and golden, then tip onto kitchen paper to absorb any left over oil.

When the soup is cooked, taste it and add seasoning. Serve with a scattering of the crispy croutons on top.

By varying the spices this soup can taste different every time - you can travel all around the world in a bowl of carrot soup, adding whatever flavour or spice blend takes your fancy. Or make it taste fresher in the summer by replacing the spice with orange or lime zest and juice. It only costs pennies to make, especially if you get a huge bag of carrots at half price as I did, and buy your lentils and spices in an Asian store or the World Foods section of your supermarket. (Have you ever noticed how much cheaper spices and pulses are in that area than they are in the rest of the store?)

I am sharing this with Kitchen Clear Out at Madhouse Family Reviews

Portuguese Carrots

You may remember that back in June we went on a lovely holiday to Portugal, and of course the local food and drink was a major feature of our trip.

Lots of the restaurants started a meal with optional dishes known as couvert  - for one or two Euros, you are brought bread, olives and other nibbles. Many guide books tell you to avoid them to save money, but we found them to be very reasonably priced and a great addition to the meal.  As well as the ubiquitous bread and olives, many places added other dishes such as thin slices of cheese with quince paste or little bowls of lightly cooked thinly sliced carrots.

We really fell in love with these carrots and since coming home I have researched several recipes and cobbled together ideas from them until I've produced a version we're happy with. They are great to serve with drinks and are far healthier than crisps or nuts.

They will keep in the fridge for several days (if they get chance) and are a great way to use up that bag of tired looking supermarket carrots that you thought was such a bargain at the time but is just cluttering up the fridge. I had such a bag this week - the loose carrots in the shop had been broken and scrappy ones, and the small bags were, strangely, more expensive than the huge ones, so although there are just the two of us it made sense to buy a huge bag. Not being a fan of waste, I made some of them into a batch of these delicious nibbles.

I used

250g carrots, peeled and thinly sliced
1 orange
3 cloves of garlic very finely sliced
2 bay leaves
¼ teaspoon dried chilli flakes
1 teaspoon honey
salt
75ml (approx.) water

Peel several large strips of rind from the orange and squeeze out the juice. Put the rind and juice, along with everything except the salt, into a small saucepan, add about 75 ml of water, cover and simmer for around 4 minutes until the carrots have started to cook but still have some crispness.

Taste and add salt if you wish, then allow to cool. Store in a covered container in the fridge. I store them complete with the liquid and all the flavourings, then lift out the carrots with a perforated spoon (intended for serving olives) shaking off the other ingredients. Actually if you can face eating it it, the garlic is rather delicious!

I am sharing this with Kitchen Clearout at Madhouse Family Reviews 

#KitchenClearout - using leftover pasta

I really didn't think I would manage to join in Kitchen Clearout at Madhouse Family Reviews this month, as we've been away so much that we've been keeping the fridge pretty empty and just buying things on an as-needed basis.

However the recent hot, sticky weather has dulled our appetites a bit and over the last few days the fridge has filled up with odds and ends, so I threw some together to make this dish. Mark asked what it is called, and I said "Pasta". So here we have the highly imaginatively named

 

PASTA

To serve two people I used:

A bowl of leftover cooked pasta
half a red onion
4 rashers of streaky bacon
3 small tomatoes, each cut into 6 wedges
a couple of tablespoons of finely grated Parmesan
a small knob of butter
black pepper and dried oregano

Chop the onion and bacon finely and place in a cold pan. Heat the pan slowly until the fat runs out of the bacon, then increase the heat and fry until the bacon is crispy and the onions soft. Stir in the pasta, pepper, a good pinch of oregano and a knob of butter, reduce the heat and toss everything together for 3 or 4 minutes until the pasta is thoroughly heated. Mix in the tomatoes and Parmesan and continue to cook for another couple of minutes until  the tomatoes have warmed through and started to very slightly soften but not break up.

As we had a few leaves of salad, the remains of some home made quick-pickled red onions and half a bowl of red cabbage coleslaw in the fridge, we served it with those.

Result - a quick, tasty and colourful meal that feels as if it cost absolutely nothing at all - and freed up a whole shelf in the fridge.

A last minute dinner

Yes, I do still eat (all the time, unfortunately!) but I hardly ever seem to post about it these days. But for a change I've come up with something post-worthy and it all came about as the result of a bit of a disaster.

We're having a bit of a freezer clearout at the moment but when it came to preparing the meat we'd defrosted for last night, it was obviously off. I don't know whether it had been bad when we bought it, or had been in leaky packaging, but there was no way we wanted to risk eating it, so it was time to raid the fridge and cupboard.

I came up with:
one skinless chicken breast
a bowl of cooked rice
a stub of cucumber
a small chunk of a head of Chinese leaves
a couple of carrots
one banana
the heart of a little gem lettuce
half a lime
a small pot of peanut sauce - I'd made a double batch when we had satay
a box of eggs

The addition of a few store cupboard basics produced this:

which is Chicken  Sort-Of Nasi Goreng

and this

Which for the sake of argument I'll call Fridge Raid Gado Gado
I cooked a few prawn crackers to serve with it too, and we feasted - we ended up with full tummies and an empty fridge.

So, how to make this? First of all the salad - you will need
Chinese leaves
carrots
cucumber
eggs
peanut sauce (there are some excellent ones in the shops if you don't make your own - or for an almost-instant one put 3 tbs peanut butter, 1 tbs soy sauce and half a cup of water in a small pan, bring to the boil stirring like mad and then allow to cool)

Boil the eggs until hard, crack the shells all over then plunge into cold water and allow to cool. Cracking the shells while hot helps to make them easer to peel.
Meanwhile shred the cabbage and cut the carrots into short batons. Bring a pan of water to the boil. Add the carrots and cook for 3 minutes then the cabbage and cook for one minute. Drain, rinse with cold water and set aside to cool.

When the eggs and veg are cool, cut the cucumber into short batons and mix with the other veg. Top with the quartered eggs and drizzle with the peanut sauce.

Now on to the Nasi Goreng. You need COLD cooked rice for this - freshly cooked rice will go mushy when you fry it. But do make sure you get that rice cool as fast as possible after cooking and then make the cold rice piping hot before serving it - as rice cools, a bacterium can grow rapidly in it, and serving badly reheated rice can cause nasty tummy upsets (In Mark's army days, I knew a Catering Corps chef who managed to poison 600 people at a stroke by leaving his rice to cool in a hot kitchen for too long).

Dire Warnings over, here's how you make it. You need:

one skinless boneless chicken breast (or a pork chop, or some prawns, or a mixture of these)
1 tbs sunflower oil
enough cold cooked rice for 2
2 cloves of garlic
1 red chilli, plus an optional extra one for garnish. You could use chilli paste, hot sauce or dried chilli flakes if you have no fresh chillis. We always have a huge bag of them in the freezer.
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 tablespoon Ketjap Manis (sweet soy sauce) - or use normal soy, dark for preference, and add a teaspoon of black treacle, golden syrup or honey

to garnish:
shredded lettuce
roasted salted cashews (or fry raw cashews in a little oil, toss with salt and leave to cool)
a shredded red chilli
lime wedges
crispy fried onion flakes if you have them (often sold as a salad topper)
1 banana, quartered and fried in a little oil

Dice the chicken into small pieces (about the size of a cashew nut).
Finely chop the chilli and crush the garlic.

Heat the oil in a wok or deep frying pan and stir fry the chicken for about 4 minutes until cooked. Lift out with a slotted spoon and set aside. Add the onion to the pan and stir fry until soft, then stir in the chilli, garlic and ground coriander and cook for another minute.

Mix in the rice, Ketjap  Manis and chicken and continue cooking until piping hot.

Garnish with the suggested ingredients scattered over the rice and serve with the bananas and lime wedges to squeeze over while eating.

I am sharing this with Kitchen Clearout at Madhouse Family Reviews