Stuff yer bake

This recipe is a real favourite of ours for weekend lunches. It is so simple yet delicious and we never seem to tire of it. maybe because they are so versatile and you can put pretty much whatever you like in them. The recipe comes from Jamie’s Dinners and is well worth a try. This time I decided to put some prawns into it and a touch of lime to jazz it up a bit.

Ingredients

Pack of flour tortillas

3 Spring onions

1 red (or any other colour you fancy) pepper, finely chopped

1 red or green chilli, deseeded and finely chopped

zest of one lime

a small handful of raw prawns

1 clove of garlic finely chopped

1 handful of grated cheddar and 1 of red leicester (again you can experiment with different cheeses)

1 little olive oil for frying

Heat a frying pan to a high temperature and add a little olive oil. Throw in the chilli and garlic and stir for a couple of minutes before adding the prawns. Fry until the prawns are pink and completely cooked. Slice the prawns once slightly cooled and add them to all the other ingredients in a bowl. Take a flour tortilla and sprinkle a little of the mixture onto it making sure you don’t add too much filling as the cheese will just drip out once cooked. Top with another tortilla and sandwich together. Warm a dry frying pan over a medium heat and put the filled tortilla onto it. Cook for a minute or so until golden on one side and then flip over to do the other side. Once cooked, remove from the pan, slice into triangles and serve with some bought or homemade guacamole.

I was busy as usual trying to find cheap and quick meals for my food order for the week and this one jumped off the page. It looked tasty, easy, healthy and had only a few ingredients so ticked all the appropriate boxes. I fiddled with the recipe a bit as I usually do because I’m incapable of leaving things alone (as my other half always tell me). I added a little finely grated lemon zest and a bit of grated parmesan in the sauce as well as on top which did give it a bit more depth ( I felt I had to replace some of calories lost with cheese as I used low fat creme fraiche!) It turned out really well, so well done to Good Food magazine this month for making my week of food so tasty. 

Serves 2

200g linguini

1 tbsp olive oil

1 red chilli, finely chopped

1 clove of garlic

2 courgettes, grated

2 tbsp creme fraiche

2 tsp lemon zest

grated parmesan to serve

Put a large saucepan of salted water on to boil and cook the pasta according to instructions. While the pasta is cooking, heat the oil in a frying pan over a low heat and add the chilli and garlic and stir but don’t allow it to brown. Turn up the heat and add the courgette and stir for a few minutes to cook and allow any water to evaporate. Stir in the creme fraiche, lemon zest and season well. Drain the pasta and coat in the sauce adding some grated parmesan and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil to finish. 

One bag of frozen squid is a little much for one person, so as I was on my own this weekend (the other half was living the high life in London for the weekend) I decided to do two different squid dishes, one for Saturday night and one for Sunday night. I had seen a Nigel Slater recipe for squid on TV a few days ago which got me salivating and I thought I’d give it a try. I did my usual trick of just going from memory and not bothering to look up the recipe so I ended up doing it quite differently.

I made up a similar marinade by pounding up zest of one lemon, 2 tsp lemon juice, 1 tbsp thyme leaves, half a small garlic clove, 2 tbsp olive oil, tsp salt and lots of freshly ground pepper in a pestle and mortar. I then cut open about 6 baby squid and scored it as the recipe suggested, dried it thoroughly and fried in olive oil in a very hot pan. It cooked for only a few minutes until slightly golden and then the hot squid was tossed in the marinade. I then put the squid into a bowl with some salad leaves and tomato and tossed them together to coat the leaves and heaped in onto a plate. The other recipe looks good too… maybe I should try it sometime. 

I bought some more frozen squid this week and had two dishes in mind to make with it. The first one is a recipe taken from one of Rick Stein’s book. I can’t remember which one it is as it has been a few years since I made it, but I imagine it was one of his early ones.  I first saw it when he came to a book signing in the BBC shop in Belfast about ten years ago and cooked it for us. That was the first time I had tried squid and have really enjoyed it ever since. 

I found the recipe on line, so here it is. It really is a beautiful and simple dish. I served it with a couple of slices of sourdough bread but a glass of chilled white wine wouldn’t go amiss either. 

I cooked a little squid for Poppy but she sniffed it, poked at it and then walked off. Obviously nothing but prime tuna can satisfy her. 

I still had most of a jar of preserved lemons left after buying them for the cous cous dish I did a while ago and since my other half would happily have pie every day of the week and has been bugging me to do this recipe ever since I got the book, I decided to give it a go.

The book is called Sophie Conran’s Pies and is full of lovely pie recipes to get you salivating.

The recipe serves 4

Ingredients:

Couple of glugs of olive oil

knob of butter

4 leeks halved length ways and sliced thinly

1 tsp ground cumin

4 small preserved lemons, rinsed and roughly chopped

1kg chicken thighs, boned, skin removed and cut into about 1 1/2 inch cubes

2 tbsp plain flour

250ml chicken stock, as good quality as possible

200g green olives, ( I quite like black olives too, but are a bit stronger in taste) stoned and roughly chopped

3 tbsp flat leaf parsley, roughly chopped

300g puff pastry (you can make this yourself if you are feeling adventurous, but I never have)

1 free range beaten egg

salt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat a large casserole on a medium heat and add a glug of olive oil and a knob of butter. Fry the leeks for about five minutes until soft but not coloured. Add the cumin and fry for another minute to release it’s aromatic flavour. Stir in the chopped lemons and leave to one side.

Then heat a frying pan over a medium to high heat and add olive oil. Brown the chicken off in batches, trying not to over crowd the pan. Add the chicken and all the cooking juices to the casserole with the leeks in it and sprinkle over the flour.

Stir in the flour and cook for a few minutes before gradually adding the stock. Simmer gently for about seven minutes and when the sauce has thickened nicely add the olives and parsley. Remove from the heat and allow to cool.

Pre heat the oven to 200 deg centigrade. Once cool,spoon the chicken mixture into a suitable pie dish. Roll out a the pastry so it is large enough to cover the pie dish, brush the rim of the pie dish with beaten egg and place the pastry on top. Press down around the edges with a fork or your thumb and then trim off the excess. Make a pretty pattern with the excess if you like (I made a disabled chicken, do you like it?.. I forgot to brush him with egg though so he didn’t show up too well). Brush all over with the beaten egg and then make a cut in the middle so that steam can escape and help the pastry to crisp up nicely. Place in the oven for about 25 minutes until golden.

You can serve it with whatever you like. We had it with basmati rice, as the author suggested, but it would also be nice with mashed spiced sweet potato.

I sometimes struggle to think of something quick, cheap and yet satisfying for an evening meal during the week. This recipe, although I use ‘recipe’ in the broadest sense of the word since it’s more of an assembly with little effort, definitely fits the bill.

I had a block of puff pastry in the freezer so I dug it out of the deep freeze, let it defrost and rolled it into a centimeter thick rectangle. I then gently carved an indent about an inch in from the edge and gave the pastry a brush over with a beaten egg. I layered a couple of handfuls of spinach over the base then topped with sliced red onions, pitted black olives and crumbled feta, then seasoned with salt and freshly ground black pepper and a drizzle of olive oil. The pastry was cooked in a 200 degree centigrade oven for about fifteen to twenty minutes, or when puffed up and golden brown. Cut into generous slices and serve with a lightly dressed green salad.

This is so versatile as you can put pretty much anything onto the puff pastry, like butternut squash, morels, toasted walnuts and goats cheese or tomatoes, basil, mozarella and pine nuts. Get creative and enjoy.

I had to use up the harissa and the preserved lemons that I bought for the couscous and having seen a few recipes with harissa smeared on various meats and poultry I plumped for a whole shoulder of lamb (bone in for more flavour). Lamb shoulder is a delicious tender cut of meat and is best slow roasted to render out the fat and let it baste the meat.

I simply trimmed off some of the fat and skin and delved my knife into the flesh to make big gashes all over. I then took about 2 tablespoons of harissa and smeared it all over the meat. The meat was put on a rack and roasted in the oven for about four hours at 150 degrees centigrade. It shouldn’t colour too much but if it does just put some tin foil on top for the last part of the cooking time. When the meat has finished cooking, take it out of the oven and leave to rest for up to thirty minutes, then carve delicious thick slices. Serve with roast potatoes and whatever vegetables you like.

A whole shoulder of lamb is quite a big piece of meat, even for the two of us, so with the leftovers I made couscous. Measure out whatever quantity of couscous you want and put into a bowl. Check the back of the packet of couscous to find out what quantity of liquid you need. Measure out some lamb stock (or use whatever stock you wish) and also put a few strands of saffron into it and a handful of chopped dried apricots to plump up in the liquid. Heat the stock with the apricots to boiling point, pour over the couscous and cover with cling film for about five minutes. Chop up a handful of pistachio nuts, mint, parsley and a couple of preserved lemons. Once the couscous has absorbed all the liquid and is tender, break it up with a fork and drizzle a little olive oil over or add a knob of butter, letting it melt into the grains. Finally heat up the leftover meat fully and add along with all the other chopped ingredients. A quick and easy delicious meal.

I have never done one of these things before, but I feel I need to make the effort to join in with the fun so these are my ten best pictures.

Sweet corn fritters with sweet chilli sauce

Christmas spiced shortbread

Maple and pecan pie

Beautifully succulent BBQ chicken

Ripe peaches and raspberries crushed with cold, crisp sparkling wine

Crushed biscuits drizzled with Cointreau, and mascarpone with cream, orange zest and white chocolate mixed with fresh raspberries.

White chocolate and raspberry cheesecake

smoked salmon blinis with horseradish and lemon creme fraiche

Mortar and pestle crushing garlic and chilli

Citrus risotto with garlic chilli prawns.  So there you have it.

Thank you to the Kitchen Goddess for tagging me. I am going to tag

1. Kate 

2. Eoin

3. Kitchen Vixen

4. Donal

5. Rachel

I first had this meal cooked for me when I was in Cumbria and I knew I had to do it again. This is no ordinary couscous recipe, it’s spicy, sweet and full of flavour and texture. The list of ingredients is quite comprehensive but each ingredient adds its own dimension to the rich and full flavour and the spices can of course be used again. The recipe is from the Guardian newspaper’s column “The New Vegetarian” by Yotam Ottolenghi, give it a go.

I have only cooked polenta a handful of times so I thought I’d give it another whirl. It is relatively simple to make as you just add four times the amount of boiling water to polenta and cook over a high heat until firm, about five minutes. You will need to add a good amount of flavouring like olive oil, butter, salt and pepper and Parmesan as polenta is quite bland. Once the polenta is very thick spoon out onto an oiled tray and leave to set. Once it has set, cut into long pieces and fry in a dry grill pan until it has dark grill lines on it. Then serve with whatever you like, but roasted vegetables is what you see it with most often. A healthy meal, made in minutes.