Jam-tastic!

Now this is bit of a revelation.  Homemade ice-cream in five minutes with no cooking!  You need a pot of cream, a jar of jam, a lemon, a shot of some sort of booze and a lemon (and you only need half of that!).  If I can get all of these things in the shop in the village, they are hardly difficult to come by.  True, you do have to freeze the ice-cream overnight, so it's hardly what you could call an instant pudding, but it is so easy that you can almost always have some in to feed the ravenous hordes, whether expected or not...

It does need to be a decent jam though, and I favour the Bonne Maman conserves.I've also had luck with blackcurrant with cassis and apricot with amaretto but I always, always go back to the favourite; strawberry with triple sec.  There's something about the orangey alcohol that just seems to bring out the true flavour of the strawberries and this has been described to me by more than one person as the most strawberry-ish strawberry ice-cream they've ever had.  Not bad for five minutes' work!

Jam Ice-Cream

284ml carton whipping cream
370g jar of jam (and see above)
2 tbsp booze of your choosing (and see above)
juice of half a lemon.

Stiffly whip the cream.  Stir the jam, alcohol and lemon juice together, then fold this mixture into the cream until thoroughly combined.  Pour into an airtight plastic container and freeze.  Transfer the box from the freezer to the 'fridge about twenty minutes to half an hour before you want to serve the ice-cream.  I normally do this as we sit down to eat, which is easy enough to remember.  Dish it out with an ice-cream scoop dipped in hot water for ease.

Cath xx

Posh Peelings

 What a busy few weeks we've had at Distracted Towers! Weekend after lovely weekend we've had friends and family visiting and lots of enjoyably drawn-out suppers around a very convivial table.  My younger son turned five last week and, eschewing a party, announced that he wanted to go to dinner at the local Italian restaurant.  Yes, he's five... and yes, we went and all had a wonderful time. These announcements are getting to be regular occurrences of late; only the weekend before he announced that he wanted mussels to eat.  His beloved, and adoring, Granny dutifully purchased said bivalves and he tucked into them with gusto... I had to snaffle some quickly to be sure of a share!

When Hubby took the boys to see his parents during the half-term holiday, he returned with a rather large bag of apples.  He confessed that he'd accepted them thinking the children would gobble them up before long, before he found out they were, in fact, 'cooking' apples.  So they sat around guilt-inducingly, until today when I finally had time to process the whole sack bag's worth.

I now have four 1-litre bags of stewed apple for the freezer, and a couple of bottles of extremely tasty apple juice.  This may just be my new best thing...

Thrifty Apple Juice

apple peelings
water

Pack the apple peelings into a deep lidded pan.  I had to use my stockpot because I'd peeled thirty-plus apples and had a veritable Mount Peelmore on the worktop.  Pour water over to just cover the peelings and bring to the boil.  Reduce the heat to a very low simmer for a couple of hours, then strain the juice and stir in some powdered sugar to taste.  Let cool before decanting into (empty wine) bottles with a funnel.  Keep in the fridge, or use some to make ice-lollies

Cath xx

Chicken, Chickpea & Spinach Curry

This straightforward dish feels like real cooking, somehow.  Pootling about in the kitchen for a while, wearing an apron; sounds of sizzling and amazingly delicious smells wafting through the house.  Even better, the simmering time is sufficient for me to put two cups of basmati rice and a few cardamom pods into the hallowed rice cooker with some water and switch it on for a perfect, no-tears side dish;  my relaxed raita is easily stirred together, leaving me plenty of time for a cheeky pre-prandial while I straighten up the kitchen.  


Chicken, Chickpea & Spinach Curry


3 tbsp cooking oil
a few cloves
a few cardamom pods
2 fresh or 1 dried bay leaf
1 large onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, peeled
about an inch of ginger root
2 tsp ground coriander
2 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
500g carton passata
150ml carton single cream
400g can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
2 tsp garam masala
500g chicken thigh meat, sliced 
250g spinach leaves, washed


Whizz the garlic and ginger, with about 4 tbsp of water, in the blender to make a runny paste.  Heat the fat in a large pan. Add the cloves, cardamom and bay leaves to the pan and sizzle for a few seconds.  Add the the onion and fry until soft but not coloured.  Scrape the garlic-ginger paste into the pan and stir everything together well, then mix in the spices and cook briefly; the smell really is brilliant!  Pour in the passata, add the rinsed chickpeas and swirl in the cream.  Sprinkle in the garam masala, then add the chicken to the pan.  Simmer gently for 30 minutes, stirring only occasionally, then fold the spinach into the curry until wilted.  Serve with rice and a dollop of  raita.  It tastes even better than it smells, believe me.


This curry really does freeze amazingly well; so much so that I often do a double batch, squirrelling half of it away for a future meal.  It's great when you can just defrost a really nice home-cooked evening meal in an emergency!

Cath xx

Pork Rescue

After a fabulous weekend with friends, the centrepiece of which was surely the 4kg shoulder of pork we roasted on Saturday afternoon, I found myself with a huge hunk of meat still left in the 'fridge.  As pork seems to roast so much better when cooked in a large piece (and anyway, you get more crackling this way), it seems silly not to cook a large piece when you get the chance, especially if the only 'problem' is having meat left over; leftover pork is so lovely, whether you cook it or not , and so versatile when you do. This recipe also, happily, uses up the rogue green peppers so often lurking in my 'fridge; refugees from bargain mixed bags of peppers.  The frozen 'mini rösti' I sometimes use to top this sort of meal are easy enough to get hold of in most supermarket freezer sections;  the usual mashed potatoes for the top are great, but ultimately, on a cold Monday evening, these are the easy option, however lazy it may seem... and, justifiably so, as it's very tasty either way!


Pork Pot (as named by James)

1 tbsp dripping, oil or butter
1 onion, peeled, halved and sliced
1 stick celery, chopped
1 green pepper, de-seeded and chopped
200ml pork gravy (or water)
500ml passata
400g can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
3 or 4 handfuls of shredded cooked pork
frozen mini rösti (12 or so)

Heat the fat in a large casserole and fry the onion, celery and pepper until softened.  Add the gravy (or just some water if you don't have gravy left over, or to hand) and the passata, then stir in the chickpeas and the shredded pork.  Stir well to mix, then turn it all out into an ovenproof dish.  Top with the frozen rösti (and see picture) and cook at 200°c for 25 minutes.  Serve with something a little crunchy, whether salad or vegetables.

Cath xx

Colourful Cookery

Sometimes, changing just one thing can make something rather dull into something really rather fabulous.  On a shopping trip last week, the children and I popped into the local heath food store to buy some spices.  While we were there, we spotted this gorgeous-looking lumaconi (meaning: snail's shells) pasta.  Unable to resist any sort of novelty, we just had to bring some home...

This red-and-white pasta bake is something I have made for the children before,  but trust me, it has finally achieved greatness and become all that it can be with the introduction of the new pasta; the sauces pool inside them, still remaining pleasantly separate and allow the surface to crisp beautifully.

 Red-and-White Pasta Bake

I usually have keep tomato sauce in the freezer in 500g portions, but you could just as easily use 400-500g's worth of some ready-made stuff.

300g lumaconi
500g tomato sauce
25g butter
25g plain flour
1 tsp mustard powder
3/4 pint milk
40g Red Leicester Cheese, grated
80g Cheddar cheese, grated

Boil the pasta in lots of salted water until just al dente.  Meanwhile, put the flour, mustard powder and butter into a saucepan with the milk and bring to the boil, whisking continuously.  When the sauce has thickened, stir in half the Cheddar cheese and set the pan aside.  Mix the rest of the Cheddar and the Red Leicester together.  Drain the pasta into a colander and transfer it to an ovenproof dish (the pasta should, ideally, sit in one layer).  Pour the tomato sauce unevenly over the pasta, leaving some areas bare, filling some of the hollows and not others, etc.  Repeat with the cheese sauce; you should have a pleasant 'patchwork pasta' effect (or something like that, anyway!).  Scatter the mixed cheeses over and bake in a 180°c oven for 20-30 minutes, until the surface is crisp and browned.

The great thing about a pasta bake like this is that you can assemble it, up until the point of baking and then either pop it in the fridge for the next day, or even freeze it.  In that case, I suggest lining the ovenproof dish with a large piece of heavy-duty kitchen foil.  Once, cool, overwrap the food and pop it all in the freezer (only if your dish is freezer-safe; most are, but do check!).  Then, once the food is frozen solid, you can slip the food out of the dish with no difficulty and transfer the foil-wrapped parcel to a big ol' freezer bag.

Cath xx

Oo-er, Saucy..!

Frozen chicken livers.  Not a phrase that immediately suggests anything terribly exciting but, man, I love these babies.  I keep a couple of cartons in the freezer most of the time; quick pâtes, warm salads and this delicious, hearty pasta dish need be barely more than a defrost away.  Satisfyingly, everything else for this recipe is readily available from the storecupboard and the garden so, as long as I remember to take the livers out of the freezer in the morning, supper can be a pretty fast construction, which is always good on a school night, isn't it? As a (slightly defensive) aside, yes, I know that a whole 500g pack of spaghetti is a trifle excessive for two adults and two children but it's lush and we're greedy.  In any case, my hubby can always be relied upon to relish any leftovers for his midnight 'lunch'.  Odd, yes, but this is the life of a night-worker...


Spaghetti with Saucy Chicken Livers

500g spaghetti
20g butter
1 tbsp oil
1 onion, peeled, quartered and sliced
large sprig rosemary, needles chopped
2 tbsp plain flour, seasoned with salt and pepper
2x 227g cartons frozen chicken livers, defrosted
50ml dry sherry
150ml milk
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
handful fresh parsley, chopped

Cook the spaghetti in a pan of salted boiling water.  Meanwhile, melt the butter and oil together in a large pan and fry the onion with the rosemary until the onion is softened.  Toss the livers in the seasoned flour and add all this to the pan.  Fry until the livers are browned, then pour in the sherry.  Sizzle, sizzle, then pour in the milk and stir well to scrape up all the floury bits.  Mix in the mustard and bubble while the sauce thickens.  Stir in the parsley.  Drain the pasta, saving about 100ml of the water.  Toss the sauce through the drained pasta, then deglaze the liver cooking pan with the reserved pasta water and stir this through also.  Serve, without the addition of cheese, I feel.

Now to plan for the May Day bank holiday weekend...  I feel a bit of a kitchen frenzy coming on, hooray!

Cath xx

Nifty and Thrifty!

It's getting to that time of year... The time when I drag my spring clothes out of the wardrobe and wear them in defiant abandon of the weather.  I take my umbrella with me everywhere, but (happily) have rarely had to use it lately. It' the time of year when a rainbow of colour begins to resurface, when chunky costume jewelery sparkles again, when cooking begins to lose a little of that wintry comfort-food edge

At this time of year you can often find over-ripe (albeit imported) tomatoes, bought too early by over-enthusiastic retailers, going for a song because they can't yet be sold to customers still hunkered down against the cold weather.  I spend happy afternoons cooking these fruits into batches of lovely sauce and freeze them, all the better to enrich mid-season meals like the simple tomato-and-mozzarella pasta bake we enjoyed this evening. This tastes sooo much better than jar-sauces and even sauce made with tinned tomatoes (my cold-weather standby); it is totally moreish and takes very little actual work, honest; just be around to 'poke' it occasionally.

Thrifty Tomato Sauce

Obviously adjust this to the quantity of tomatoes you have, but I thought framing the recipe for one meal's-worth of sauce would probably be the most helpful.

3 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped 
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 kg tomatoes (overripe, somewhat squishy is fine. Mouldy, however, is NOT )
1 tsp mixed dried herbs
2 tbsp tomato purée
seasoning, to taste

Heat the oil in a large pan, add the onion, garlic and dried herbs and cook until the onion is soft, but not brown.  Add the tomatoes and crush lightly (with a potato masher or similar) to pop them and release the juices.  Stir in the tomato purée and cook very gently over a low heat for 45 minutes to 1 hour, giving it an occasional spoon-tweak to check it doesn't stick, until the tomatoes are very soft, Purée with a (hand) blender until smooth, then season to taste and cool before freezing.

Cath xx

Chili for the Chilly

On a cold winter's night, thoughts definitely turn to comfort food and in the comfort food stakes, chili con carne rates pretty highly, I think  You can find my tried-and-tested recipe for chili here.

Chili has the benefit of being made largely from ingredients that you can find in most reasonably stocked kitchens, I add cubes of red (or yellow) pepper if I have one to hand, but leave it out if I haven't.  The only fresh ingredients are an onion, some garlic (and I, anyway, keep a bag of Rock frozen chopped garlic in the freezer) and some minced beef.  Having a pack of beef in the sainted appliance was the main reason for cooking this tonight; as I haven't left the house in over a week now, I'm doing my 'food shopping' from the freezer!  Thank heavens for our seemingly weather-proof milkman and my wonderful bread machine; we'd really be having problems, food-wise, without them!.

This is one of those fantastic dinners that is always welcome; one which you can dress up or down, depending on your constituency.  With jacket potatoes and cheese it makes an easy family supper; one which I often turn to if I have a couple of portions of chilli in the freezer to use for a meal.  For guests (often friends arriving late on a Friday evening to stay for the weekend), it can be tarted up a little by providing tortilla chips, grated cheese, sour cream and guacamole in addition to the chilli and a big bowl of plain-cooked rice.

Tonight I planned to find the middle ground with just chilli, rice and a dish of grated cheese, until James decided he fancied some garlic bread too.  Fair enough, says I, and there we are...

Cath xx

There's a Leek in the Pot!

Another day, another quickly assembled pasta meal with whatever ingredients are handy...  This one went down really well tonight and I suspect it will now become one of my regular supper standbys, and a bit of a bargain supper too, really.  We (almost) always have the ingredients in stock, especially now that I have discovered the advantages of keeping a bag of frozen,sliced leeks in the freezer.  I first picked them up as a bit of a novelty purchase (see how rock 'n' roll my life is..!) but am now devoted to them for dishes like this, where you want a touch of allium flavour but not a whole load of onion getting in the way.  For casseroles and such I just bung them in from frozen, but when I cook them in dishes like this, I give them a quick whizz round in the microwave, to just defrost them.  You could just as easily soak them in some boiling water to defrost, refresh them under the cold tap and drain them really well.   A lifesaver, nonetheless.

Mustardy Sausage Pasta Pot

300g pasta

4 sausages (I like Porkinson's), skinned

1 leek or equivalent frozen (and see above)

1 tbsp mustard (use your favourite)
100g créme fraîche
handful of watercress, roughly torn up

50g parmesan, grated

Put the pasta on and heat some fat in a wide frying pan.  Break the skinned sausages into chunks and fry them, with the leeks, until the sausages are browned and everything is nicely cooked through.  Stir the mustard into the créme fraîche and swirl this into the pan with the sausages. Reserve a cupful of pasta water, then bung in the watercress in with pasta, stir and  then drain it immediately.  Return the pasta and watercress to the pan, tip the saucy sausage back in and throw in the parmesan.  Mix well, adding some of the reserved pasta water to keep the sauce nice and liquid, so it clings to the pasta without being 'claggy'.

Cath xx

Freezer Burn

Back in cyberspace again...don't ask. Suffice it to say that my absence has not been entirely down to laziness on my part. But no matter, onwards and upwards!

Keeping the freezer organised can be a problem for me, to often it seems to become a black hole of food amnesia if I don't keep on top of it ALL THE TIME. I have to force myself to use the freezer properly, that being said I do enjoy having it all efficient and fabulous! As well as the inevitable cache of frozen vegetables (so useful, I don't know what I'd do without them), homemade stock and the boines to make it with, I keep hunks of meat bought when there are good deals to be had, and a stash of both sweet and savoury crumble topping, ready mixed to be used from frozen.


I don't very often cook specifically for the freezer, though that time of year when I do is fast approaching. More often what I do is double up on things I'm cooking anyway; pies, casseroles, chili con carne and bolognese sauce (to name a few) are as easily made in double or triple portions as in single and then I've an extra meal or two to parcel away, in anticipation of a busy day.

Today I had a good quantity of leftover meat from a whole turkey leg joint I cooked for our Sunday roast at the weekend so this, combined with a tin apiece of ham and sweetcorn, plus a little leg-bone stock to make a savoury sauce went into two pies. The pie for tonight's dinner is in the oven as I type this, and you can see the other in the freezer picture above. I lined the (oiled) pie tin with some (oiled again) foil, then open-froze it in the tin once I'd assembled it. Once hard, it's the work of a moment to pop it out of the tin and wrap it in more foil. Thus, my pie tin is not buried on Hoth for weeks on end!

Cath xx

Foundations

This is a really useful base for building meals on - so many things seem to start with cooking onions down until soft and flavoursome. More often then not, that's the pain with cooking meals; the time-consuming and tedious bits that seem to get in the way of the enjoyable main event (and I do mean the cooking and not just the eating, honestly). Try this, then. These slow-cooked onions can be used as the foundation for several meals and even kept in the freezer. If you take the package out in the morning to defrost, you can then skip quite a few steps when it's time to prepare supper. Six onions is quite a nice quantity to do - it will easily provide for three or four meals and doesn't take much work from you.

Slow-Cooked Onions

6 onions, halved and thinly sliced
25g butter
200ml dry sherry

Melt the butter and turn the sliced onions in the fat. Bring to a sizzle, then stir well and pour in the sherry. Mix thoroughly and cover the pan. Turn down the heat and cook for an hour or so, stirring occasionally. Remove the lid, turn up the heat and bubble to reduce any excess liquid. Allow to cool, then divide into portions and chill or freeze.


Last night I used a good 400g of the onions to form the basis of a simple onion tart; a ravishing supper for a cold autumn evening. Put your slow-cooked onions into the bottom of an 8" pastry case, then pour over two eggs beaten with seasoning and a small carton of crème fraîche. Bake for 30 minutes at 200°c and serve warm.

Supper in the Garden - just!

Only just, as well - the end of our meal was rudely interrupted by a crash of thunder, so (putting aside any wistful thoughts of a evening spent lingering in the sun with a drink) we rushed the children and the crockery inside before the rain came down. And how it came down!

Never mind, at least we did get supper outside tonight. We've had lunch outside for the last few days, but I hadn't been quite brave enough to go the whole hog until this evening. It was a lovely supper, though; just right for a warm evening and not too many pots to wash up afterwards. We started with chickpea patties and tzatziki. I used to make the patties for the children, when they were babies, as early finger food and I suddenly thought how easy it would be to make them again; to use for ambulant snacks or as part of a first course.

Cheesy Chickpea Patties

Strong Cheddar or Parmesan are my choices for the cheese, however any hard cheese would suffice.

2 x 410g cans chickpeas, drined and rinsed
60g cheese, grated (and see above)
1 egg
1 tbsp flour
1 tbsp tahini paste (if you have it)
2 tbsp olive oil
chopped parsley

Bung everything in the processor and whizz to form a nubbly purée. Scoop out spoonfuls of the mixture onto baking sheets, then bake for 30 minutes at 160­°c until just tinged with brown. Cool on a rack, then store in an airtight box until needed.

To go with, I made tzatziki. For me, it is the apotheosis of hot-weather food and during the summer I make it once a week or thereabouts, as inevitable as the rain which follows the heat. I should own up, here, that I have never been to Greece, but I did know a lot of Greek students at university and something rubbed off, I guess. This is so easy and way better than the dismal stuff you can buy in a tub.

Tzatziki

The easiest way to dry the rinsed cucumber is to put it on a clean teatowel, gather up the corners and squeeze!

1 cucumber
salt
500g tub Greek yoghurt
2 tsp 'Lazy Garlic'
1 tsp lemon juice
chopped parsley

Quarter the cucumber lengthways and scoop the 'seedy' bit out of the centre with a spoon. Chop the cuke and plce in a colander. Sprinkle with salt, mix well then put a plate on top and set aside for 20 minutes or so to draw out excess water. Rinse and dry (see above). Mix the dégorged (for that is what you have done) cucumber with the other ingredients in a large bowl. Serve with, well, anything you like really.

The main course that followed is really simple and well received by all (maybe not veggies). You can, once assembled, freeze this in the dish, if it's freezerproof, then cook it (once defrosted) for 20 minutes at the same temperature given in the recipe. If you aren't prepared to 'lose' your oven dish to the freezer, line it with a big sheet of foil before you assemble the melt. You then freeze it like this and, once solid, simply 'pop' out the foil-bottomed block, wrap it over and return to the freezer. Bingo! I made one of these towards the end of both my pregnancies, to provide sustenance after each of our babies were born.


Tuna Melt

750g potatoes
25g butter, melted
1 small onion, finely diced
1 stick celery, finely diced
2 x 160g cans tuna in spring water, drained
chopped parsley
4 tbsp mayonnaise
150g Cheddar cheese, grated

Peel and grate the potatoes. Line the bottom of an ovenproof dish with the grated potato, press down and brush with the melted butter. Bake at 180°c for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, mix the other ingredients (bar the cheese) together. When the potato-lined dish is ready, spread the tuna mix over the base and top with the grated cheese (this is the point at which to cool and freeze it). Return to the oven for a further 15 minutes.

The Fake Ice-Cream Way to 5 a Day!

Tonight the boys and I were on our own for supper, so I steamed some pieces of rainbow trout, cut from a lovely fillet which Christopher chose off the fishmonger's counter yesterday. 'Steamed fish' sounds so full of self-denial, redolent of all those miserable 'diet' features in magazines but it is actually the best ways to cook a nice piece of oily fish like this; it tastes wonderfully, vigorously, of itself.


To go with, in the streamer basket above that containing the pieces of trout, I steamed some ribbons of carrot and courgette. This is an easy way to make vegetables seem extra special to the children and all you need is the potato peeler - just pare off as many long strips as you can or want to. A tangled heap of vegetable ribbons with a piece of fish perched atop, would be delicious enough, but I added a little dressing for James and myself (Christopher is going through a 'suspicious' phase when it comes to sauces and dressings; his loss!)

Soy & Garlic Dressing

The garlic vinegar is easily made - just poke some unpeeled, fat cloves of garlic through the neck of a preserving bottle and top up with cider vinegar. Leave it to steep, topping up the vinegar as necessary over time. For this precious ambrosia, I am much indebted to the memory of the late Laurie Colwin, from whose book More Home Cooking it comes.

50ml olive oil
2 tbsp dark soy sauce
1 tbsp garlic vinegar (and see above)
pinch ground ginger
good grinding of fresh black pepper

Whisk everything together, then pour or drizzle over your fish and vegetables, or whatever else takes your fancy.

For a little bit of something sweet tonight, I grabbed a box of frozen melon cubes from the freezer and made this impromptu ice. We all love melons, especially for breakfast on warm days (I wish), but there always seems to be a bit hanging around that's gone a bit squidgy when we've had our fill. To save wasting it, I chop it up and freeze it for cocktails, fruit salads or just for little James to munch when he has a tooth coming. By whizzing it in the blender with a teeny splash of water, you get a sweetly perfumed dessert with a kind of 'Slush Puppy' texture, only far less virulently coloured and terrifying. For colour and another taste, I heated a handful of frozen blackberries (any berries, fresh OR frozen, would do) with 100ml water, a tablespoon of golden caster sugar and a teaspoon of ground arrowroot to make a sauce which I left to cool before pouromh over bowls of the melon ice. It went down very well, almost as a party-type treat and - ssshh! - apart from that spoonful of sugar in the sauce, it's all fruit!

Tortilla Filla

After all the drama of my car accident the week before, last week I was nursing a very poorly Christopher who was off school with a terribly upset stomach. Not much time for anything except cuddles and lots of laundry, though I did manage to keep a lunch date with friends to celebrate of of their birthdays. Cooking was limited by the facts of Karl's shifts and Christopher's inability to eat anything, so I used what little evening time I had for rest and relaxation as far as possible. However, I'm now back, as it were, and this week I will try again to get things back to normal again (famous last words...) and for us that started with a family meal. Tonight I cobbled together lots of bits and pieces and made a really good dinner which was so popular I just know I'll repeat it again and again. It started as a way to use up a pack of wholemeal tortillas that Hubby brought home (as they were reduced to the bargain price of ninepence), which had been sitting in the freezer for a while.

Mustering the minute sum of my Mexican cooking knowledge, I came up with this little wonder, which is basically my riff on enchiladas. I made the filling and sauce together, scooping the 'bits' out to fill the tortilla rolls, then used the sauce to moisten the dish before topping it all off with cheese.

Tortilla Bake

If you prefer, use strips of beef or pork instead of chicken. The Mexican Pepper Recaudo is available online from Mexgrocer as Mexican Marinade & Grill Sauce, or you could subsitute the equivalent quantity of some other Mexican-style cooking sauce)

4 cloves garlic, peeled
1 onion, sliced
500g chicken, cut into strips
2 red peppers, deseeded and sliced
400g tin chopped tomatoes
1 x 311g bottle Mexican Pepper Recaudo (and see above)
6 flour tortillas (mine were wholemeal but - meh!)
grated cheese (strong cheddar for preference)


Heat some oil in a big pan and, when hot, fry the garlic cloves until they begin to colour. Scoop them out of the oil and discard them. Drop in the sliced onion and cook briefly to soften, then add the chicken strips and peppers and fry until the chicken is cooked through. Tip in the tomatoes and the Recaudo, then bring the sauce to the boil. Scoop out the chunky chicken and vegetables with a slotted spoon and use to fill each of the 6 tortillas, rolling them up and laying them side-by-side in an ovenproof dish. Pour the sauce over and around the tortilla rolls, then top with plenty of cheese. Bake at 200 for 25 minutes until browned on top, then serve.

We ate ours with a simple green salad; all it needed, really.

Turkey Lurkey

Today I finally cooked some some turkey steaks that were lurking rather mournfully in the freezer. I bought them because they looked lovely; but having any idea what I was going to do with them, I froze them. Fatal mistake; they've been sitting there, mocking me every time I open the drawer, for too long. Combined with some bits and bobs from the vegetable box and a large side of basmati rice (as always, courtesy of the rice machine) though, we had a very nice meal. I won't pretend that this is any kind of stir-fry; for one thing, I did it in an ordinary frying pan on an ordinary hob ring, for another, I only stirred it quite lazily.

The addition of the fresh mint was really quite inspired (she write, modestly). The parsley on the kitchen windowsill was, shall we say, parst it so I used some mint instead. Mint is fast becoming my favourite culinary herb - it's fabulous with tomatoes (for us, it easily trumps basil) and now replaces parsley too. As mint grows like a weed in our garden come summer, I will definitely be trying this substitution in other dishes.

Turkey & Veg Box Fry

garlic-infused olive oil
2 large turkey escalopes
2 thin leeks, halved and shredded
1 red pepper, deseeded and sliced
handful spinach leaves
fresh mint, finely chopped
about 2 tbsp lemon juice

Heat the oil in a large frying pan (or a wok, if you have such a thing). Cook the leeks briefly, then fry the turkey and add the peppers. Pour in the lemon juice and mix well. When everything is almost cooked to your liking, stir in the mint, then toss in the spinach and briefly cover the pan to let it wilt. Serve with rice.

In Dreams

Now, I know this is not the way that normal people do things, but the other night I had a dream in which I was cooking something along these lines, so after a bit of thought I decided to try it out! The dream did also includeC hristopher tap-dancing on the kitchen worktop, but I thought we'd give that a miss - he has school tomorrow and that sort of accident could be hard to explain! I based the recipe loosely on my regular recipe for a Sausage Supper, but tinkered with it a little to get the effect I imagined. I used some cocktail sausages which were still languishing in the freezer after Christmas, but I think next time I'll do this with some well seasoned coarse bangers, perhaps cut into chunks after browning. Regarding the stock, use what you like; chicken, vegetable or beef all work well with the sausage supper, so I should think they'd all be equally good here too. If I have any leftover gravy from a beef stew, I like to save it, and freeze it, to use in dishes like this. It's a big "if", though, having married a man whose familial reaction to leftover gravy is to fetch a mug and a hunk of bread


Sausage Suppertime Bake

1 large onion, halved and sliced
450g sausages
500ml stock (and see above)
mixed dried herbs
black pepper
1 heaped tsp cornflour
4-6 potatoes, depending on size

Heat some oil in a large frying pan and fry the onions over a low heat until soft and just golden. Turn up the heat and add the sausages, browning them a little all over. Pour in the stock and bring to the boil. Add a good pinch of mixed dried herbs and grind over some black pepper, then remove from the heat . Remove a little of the gravy to a measuring jug and blend with the cornflour. Stir this mixture back into the sausage-and-gravy mixture, then transfer it to an ovenproof dish. Cover with slices of potato (I didn't bother to peel them) and bake at 200°c for 30-40 minutes, until the potatoes are cooked through and crisp on top.

It tasted great. I rather love the way it looks, too, with the overlapping potato slices just scorched and crunchy at the edges and the gravy bubbling up around them. The children, particularly, couldn't wait to get stuck in, and I'm pleased to report clean plates all round this evening. We had a big, gorgeous head of grey-green broccoli delivered in the vegetable box this morning - and we all adore broccoli - so I cut that up and steamed it to go with the bake. The cabbage we also got would have been just as good, I'm sure - but I have other plans for that...

Dinner Deception

OK then, this is how to put dinner on the table with no work at all, really. It needs half an hour in the oven, but only five minutes to put it together and get it into the oven can't be bad! James and I had a busy afternoon. We went for a pootle around town while Chris was in school; visiting the library and doing some bits and bobs of shopping, then after we'd collected Christopher we all went over to a friend's house for a drink and a piece of cake, lovely. All this social butterflying meant, however, that it was nearly six by the time we got home. No matter, with some bought filled pasta, plus homemade tomato sauce and cheese, a supper catastophe was averted, and no-one was any the wiser!

I think it's well worth keeping some of these so-called 'fresh' pastas in the freezer; they can be cooked from frozen as easily as from fresh and make a great lunch for the children with a little butter and parmesan. I already had some homemade tomato sauce in the fridge, but if you can plan ahead at all, take a carton out of the freezer in the morning or even the night before. To be honest, if you've got a favourite brand of tomato pasta sauce, you could just use a couple of jars of that.


Cheeky, Cheaty Pasta Bake

I had pesto & mozzarella sacchettini, but any filled pasta will do, I'm sure.

2 x 300g packs filled pasta
800ml homemade tomato sauce
2 balls mozzarella, sliced
40g parmesan, grated

Tip the pasta into an ovenproof dish. Mix 400ml water with the tomato sauce and pour over the pasta. Top with sliced mozzarella and grated parmesan. Bake for 30 minutes at 200°c.

Bada-bing, bada-boom. Dinner is served. If you can summon up the energy, bung some bread and a bit of salad on the table. I think you might even get away with this for 'friends-for-supper' emergencies...

Blwyddyn Newydd Dda!

Or, in English, Happy New Year. I hope that the festive season has been kind to all of you (and not too exhausting). I've been revelling in the fact that since Christmas, the meal planning has pretty much taken care of itself; all those leftovers and the inevitable 'good idea' buys that didn't get used as quickly as I thought.

The relative lack of cooking in recent days has given me time to make a wedding cake for a friend who's getting married on Friday and start my next knitting project; a knitted patchwork blanket. I can knock one or two squares out quite easily in an evening and knitting them corner-to-corner is really quite addictive. My Mum got me into these, she used to knit squares this way as a girl. You cast on one stitch, then increase by one on every row until the 'half-square' is the size you want (for my blanket, that's 15cm in width along the needle). For the other half, you knit two stitches together at the end of each row. A little pile of squares is now growing in my knitting bag and will (eventually) get stitched together into a blanket.

Dinner tonight was good old spaghetti alla carbonara and some garlic bread to go with. I've recently taken to doing garlic bread using those part-baked petits pains you can get in the supermarket. As long as you've made the garlic butter (and I usually have this in the freezer), it's no harder than heating up packaged garlic loaves. Just split the rolls lengthways, spread with garlic butter and bake as per the pack instructions. Lush. Do make the garlic butter good and strong, though, won't you? I would never use less than a whole head of garlic per 250g pack of butter (and frequently use more than that).

I can hardly wait to see what 2008 has in store for us...

A (Cran)Berry Christmas

Cranberry sauce is one of the essential components of Christmas dinner. I know you can buy it in a jar, but it's so easy to make that it would really seem a shame not to take the opportunity for some casual footling about in the kitchen. In fact, Christopher not only helps, but can pretty much make it himself, under supervision of course. What's more, it can be dealt with early in the week preceding Christmas, so I can get another job ticked off the list. As cranberries seem usually to be sold in 300g bags or cartons, it makes sense to cook the sauce in those quantities too. Yes, there'll probably be leftovers but in this house, a turkey sandwich without cranberry sauce is hardly worth contemplating. Cranberries freeze exceptionally well, so I buy early, then use the berries from frozen . Replace the orange juice with a slug of port if you want a more 'adult' edge to the sauce.

Cranberry Sauce

300g cranberries

200g caster sugar

juice of 1/2 an orange

1 cinnamon stick

Put the cranberries in a pan with 175ml water and bring to the boil. Simmer until most of the berries have burst open (I do think the texture and appearance of the sauce are better if some are still intact). Stir in the sugar and stir over the heat until dissolved, then mix in the orange juice and poke the cinnamon stick under the surface. Leave to cool, then transfer to an airtight container and chill the sauce in the fridge. The cinnamon stick will infuse the sauce with just a hint of spicy flavour , but do fish it out before serving, won't you!

Mulling It Over

It's been a really busy weekend for us; my parents came to visit and, as we won't see them over Christmas, I wanted to give their stay a bit of festive spirit. We went to Aberystwyth on Saturday afternoon and visited the Christmas market; Mum and I both bought some mutton for the freezer and I also brought home some big slices of Welsh Black braising steak. We nipped into Ultracomida to get some cheese before driving home. I was able to pick up my annual cheese treat, a Vacherin Mont d'Or.

Mulled wine is a Christmas favourite, so a good home recipe is helpful if you want to avoid buying the supermarket alternatives of ready-mulled bottles, or teabag things purporting to be an 'easy option'. If you want to take a shortcut (always useful at this time of year), I would suggest the cloth-tied mulling bundles available from Julian Graves. What I would do without JG at this time of year I really don't know, a big sortie for snack foods and spices is de rigeur. This year we are mostly eating their gorgeous (and very moreish) Garlic and Herb Grissini.

Mulled Wine

This makes a lot, but you can use half of it for the chicken recipe below (which freezes very well). Nor do you have to drink all of it in one evening (ahem). If you strain it into a jug it will keep in the fridge for a couple of days to be reheated. You can even microwave it by the mugful if you like... Please don't try to use cheap nasty wine for this, you need something halfway decent or it will just be foul.

2x 75cl bottles red wine
500ml water
1 lemon, sliced
1 orange, sliced
inch of root ginger, sliced (no need to peel)
2 cinnamon sticks
pinch of whole cloves
pinch of whole black peppercorns
1/2 nutmeg
50ml brandy
50g caster sugar, or to taste

Bung everything into a big pan. Bring to boilking point, then turn the heat down and keep the wine just below simmering point for about 20 minutes. Either dole it out straight from the pan, or decant into a punch bowl if you have one (we were lucky enough to be given one as a wedding present). Either way, serve in heatproof glasses or nice chunky mugs. Mulled wine and good cheese is a great combination on a cold winter's night.

This chicken casserole, which we had for dinner on Saturday night, is something that I first made a few years ago when Hubby's parents came to visit just before that Christmas. Most of the work can be done a day or two in advance, then finishing it off takes only about ten minutes of hands-on work and half an hour in the oven, making it ideal if you want to spend time with your guests rather than your stove.

Mulled Wine Chicken

half-quantity of mulled wine recipe above
5 rashers streaky bacon, chopped
6 small onions, quartered
400ml hot chicken stock
6 chicken legs

Boil the mulled wine, reducing the quantity by half, to concentrate the flavour. Heat a knob of butter and a drizzle of oil in a large casserole and fry the bacon and onions until just browning. Add the hot stock and the (strained) wine, bring to the boil, then lay the chicken legs in the liquid. Cover the pan and transfer to a 200°c oven for an hour.

*At this point you can quickly cool and then chill the chicken for two days, or freeze it for up to a month. Defrost thoroughly, bring to the boil and then proceed as below.*

250g chestnut mushrooms, quartered.

Stir in the mushrooms and return to the oven for 30-40 minutes. Serve with steamed potatoes or rice and some green vegetables. We had broccoli and sprouts from this week's veg box.

Pudding was another Christmas favourite of ours; Mincemeat Meringue Tart. This is my bastardisation of Michael Barry's 'Mince Pie Royale' from his lovely Radio Times Cookery Year. I make an almond pastry for the base, top it with my homemade mincemeat and then pile on meringue made according to the original recipe in the book. Dust it with icing sugar and serve with dollops of thick cream.