Mondays recipe

My favourite thing to make at the moment has to be... Anything in the slow cooker. I've been a super prepared house wife recently, choosing meals for the week on a Sunday and going shopping. Preparing the ingredients the night before so I can just turn the dial of the slow cooker in the morning and be greeted by it's lovely aromas in the evening. 

My favourites been the pork chips, and I am going to share that recipe today. 

You need: 

2 pork chops

Chicken stock (made per instructions)

A very generous glug of Soy sauce 

Teaspoon of Honey

2 cloves of Garlic

2 teaspoons of ginger

Add it all, Mix it, make sure the chops are covered (add more stock if not), turn it on, enjoy. The flavour is intense throughout and the sauce leftover should definitely be reduced... I was too hungry though! We had it with sweet potato mash and fine beans but you can decide by what you have in the fridge :) 

A dressing

Teehee, for food not for bodies. I had the most delicious Edamame salad earlier and so I noted down the ingredients of the dressing. I'm keen to make it and I thought maybe it'd interest you guys too, so here it goes.

• rapeseed oil
• roasted garlic puree
• tomato paste
• ginger puree
• chili puree
• lemon grass
• coriander
• soy sauce
• coriander
• parsley
• red wine vinegar
• malt vinegar (perhaps not this)
• spirit vinegar (and maybe not this either)
• salt
• black pepper
• sugar
• cornflour
• water

Mmm it was delicious I tell you, but you might have to just trust me on this one.

Monday's recipe: Cashewww

As a followup from the pistachio nut butter I tried making, I attempted cashew nut butter... and boy is it good. I trusted the method more this time, so I thought I'd share with you.

Does anyone else think the work cashew sounds like what you say when you sneeze?

I popped a whole bag of salted cashews in my blender

(salted cause it's cheaper..)

Popped the lid on

Started blending

took a peek, mixed it up, blended some more

took another peek, mixed it again, blended even more

At this point I liked the consistency and decided it was done

A medium sized bag made a rather small pot, which means it's actually quite expensive, unless you can get cashews from a wholesaler I guess! It is super tasty though..

Monday's recipe: Quiche of sorts.

I just made, with no understatement, the best egg dish I've ever eaten. I mixed a couple of recipes together (here, here, and here) to come up with a better one. I'ts kind of a quiche without a base? I guess?

Things you'll need:
3 eggs,
seasoning,
1 tablespoon of mustard (any you have in, I chose English)
1 tablespoon of creme fraiche
a good handful of spinach (or mixed salad greens as I use)
Cheese (of your choice) about three slices crumbled/grated.
2 slices of bacon per ramekin
Ramekin.

How to:

1. Precook the bacon
2. Preheat oven 180 degrees. wilt spinach in a pan (with a little butter if you like, I did), 
1. whilst this is happening, crack your eggs into a cup and stir to scramble
3. take it off the heat and stir in the creme fraiche and mustard.
4. Some people line their ramekins with butter or spray, I didn't and it was fine but you can if you like
5. once the greens mix has cooled, add the eggs to the pan (not to cook, just to mix so make sure it's off the heat), and season
6. add most of the grated cheese to the mix, and stir it alllllll up. 
1. pour it into the ramekin, top with cheese
7. make a ban marie (get a roasting dish, fill it up with water so that half of the ramekin is submerged - this means it'll cook more evenly) and pop into the oven for 25-30 minutes.
8. test if it's ready by sticking a knife in and seeing if the mixture pours out. 

 

If you make it, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did! It's definitely been added to my list of favourites. Other additions I was considering: no bacon or little pieces of bacon cut up in it (cooked prior though) or ham, or smoked salmon!

Every other word is uh huh, yeah okay

I told my sister that I'd stuffed some peppers for dinner the other night, and hip hip hooray she asked me what to do.. that means I have an excuse to share ANOTHER recipe with you (I know, going all out this week). The ingredient list for this can vary depending on what you have - surprise surprise, another 'what ever you have in the cupboards/fridge is suitable' dish (my specialty).

This time round I used (Musts):
2 red or orange peppers (you're gona eat the whole thing so choose your favourite flavour)
olive oil
rice or couscous, cooked in stock (I would use couscous but I only had rice so had to go with that)
onion
salt and pepper
(optional)
Cheese
garlic
salad leaves (I forgot to add mine but really wish I had)
mushrooms
tomato
butternut squash
courgette
carrot
chickpeas or beans
herbs - basil/oregano

First of all, put your rice/couscous on to boil, cut the top of the pepper (nicely, you will be using it as a lid), core it, drizzle with oil and pop in the oven until you're ready (low-to-medium heat). Something to bear in mind with the peppers is that they need to stand so perhaps buy a better standing one, if not, you can always slice a little bit off of the bottom just to promote standing a bit more!

Next, start chopping up all the veggies you've chosen, and fry them off in a bit of oil

once these are cooked, add in the rice and stir it all up.

check on the peppers, if they're half cooked then get them out of the oven and start to stuff them. I add one slice of cheese to the bottom (Broken up) and one to the top (again broken up)

Pop the lids on and return to the oven

As you can see we had ours with sausages, I was also thinking we could have had them with falafel but dad wasn't game for that haha. Depending on the size of the pepper you don't get that much rice so pop some more on your plate if you feel like it :)

Whether I sink or swim, it's you I'm thinking of

I realised this morning how lucky I am to have the life I do. I couldn't decide what I wanted for breakfast. Whether I want to make a fruit salad, to scramble some eggs, have a hot cross bun, make some toast or a bowl of porridge. and what did I want to go with it? tea? coffee? earl grey? fresh juice? water?

I suppose I thought about this more because I'm not at uni anymore, and I actually do have options at home. But even when I'm struggling along at uni, I have enough food to eat, and there are lots of people out there who don't. I'm not actually going anywhere with this, I don't have some great scheme to be a part of and I don't have a charity I want to push, I just thought about it for a bit too long and had to get it out of my head.

Instead today I will bring you a recipe for rice pudding! My friend Kate told me she was making some at about half seven last night and I knew I had the ingredients so I just had to make some too. I'm the worst for sharing recipes, as I never use measurements, but I will try! It is using arborio risotto rice, milk, water, salt, vanilla, nutmeg and cinnamon.

Put a good dollop of butter - perhaps over a table spoon- in a pan and fry off the cinnamon (I used  at least a teaspoon because I love the stuff) and nutmeg (I grated about half of one). Then add the rice in and mix about. Wait until the rice is translucent to start adding warmed milk (I warmed mine in the microwave, I'd say you need at least two cups)

Make sure you don't have your pan on too hot, else the following happens...

and like the general idea of risotto you add a little bit more milk after the last lot has been soaked up, and you keep going like this until your rice is cooked to how you like it.

I like to serve with another glug of milk in the bowl because I like the cold-warm mix :)

So yummy and comforting to eat :) Still waiting to hear from Michael but we had a final phone call last night so I'm not worrying just yet! I am limited in what I can say and know though, so I won't be sharing a lot of what he's doing, just what I am whilst he's gone :)

Sweet Potato and Rosemary Soup

After the hectic weeks I've been having, I chose to have Monday as a day to myself to do things I wanted to do (not just had to). I know I still have work to do, but something has to feel good in my soul and I had enough time between then and my deadline to take a whole day off (take that new years resolution about planning essays earlier!). So I decided to have a well deserved lie in, get up and lounge about for a bit (My favourite pass-time), make soup, clean the kitchen (doesn't sound like a day-off jobby but I was itching to do it), go to work for a few hours and then hang out with some friends.

I browsed my fridge shelf and saw a sweet potato looking sad that it hadn't been made into chips/wedges just yet. I scooped him up and promised him to be made into something delicious very soon.

Ingredient list;
sweet potato
rosemary
garlic
onion (but I didn't have one wahh- to be fair I try and make my recipes without because Michael hates them)
paprika
chicken stock

it's a very simple recipe, you basically just chop and boil up the sweet potato in the chicken stock, chop and add the garlic and onion (I'd have fried these off if I had one), add the herbs and spices and wait!

 

I chose to blitz mine as I'm a fan of a soup like that but you can do whatever you fancy :) let me know if you give this recipe a try!

Beans and a bit more

So Monday's recipe is a day late because I didn't actually plan this, I just fancied them. I'm not a fan of baked beans, I don't know why, it's just the flavour and texture. I do eat them sometimes, when I get a real craving for them. So when I get that craving, I make this little recipe to change them around ever so slightly!

Ingredients;
baked beans (I'm too poor to have heinz, but any brand you want)
Worcestershire sauce
BBQ sauce
Paprika
seasoning
Chicken/sausage/bacon
salad leaves
baked potato

I do not have time to bake a potato in the oven for hours, I know it's super nice, but when I get home I'm usually hungry and want something within 15 minutes. I pierce the potato a few times, whack it in the microwave for 5 minutes, turn it over, another 3-5 depending on how big it is, then coat it in oil and a thin layer of salt and pop it into a hot oven.

Whilst the potato is in the microwave I empty the beans to a saucepan on the hob - I just prefer that to the microwave. Add in the worcestershire sauce (I'd say probs 3 tablespoons but you judge it how you like it), BBQ sauce (again, as much as you'd like) and paprika (at least a teaspoon, but I always add more). Stir this all around and taste, I usually season at this point.

Today I used roasted chicken as I got a bargain from Morrisons yesterday, and I wanted to rehydrate the sometimes dry breast meat, but you can use sausages, bacon or whatever you have lurking about your freezer! Add in the salad leaves after that and give it all a good stir!

Now you just need to prep your potato, butter (I'd also use cheese if I had any but alas, I do not), and serve

Now I'm suitably filled and satisfied, I'm off to read Harry Potter and the goblet of fire. My lectures have started up again now and I have lots of academic reading I need to do but Harry seems so much better, plus I am so closing to finishing the book that I know I will in the next couple of days! How's the start of your week going?

Oh Nigella.

So I was watching Nigellissima on Saturday and there was a recipe that I wanted to try as soon as she said it! My mum likes to host dinners with friends and once previously she had made a pepper dish with anchovies. from then on I wanted to try anchovies again, but needed a recipe too. So here is Nigella's original recipe, but I made many adaptations - no pine nuts, no cheese, brown spaghetti, black olives, no parsley, and only lemon juice no rind.

The outcome was alright - not brilliant - but that's because I've got the hang of pasta portion sizes, but not adapting recipes for a single dinner. There was far too much flavour for my little portion of pasta which was kind of annoying because it would have been brilliant otherwise!

so, group your ingredients

 put your pasta on to boil

whilst that's boiling, chop the garlic, olives and anchovies

as the recipe said to mix them all in a blender, I thought I should pound them in the pestle and mortar for a bit

The pasta was then ready, so I drained it and popped the sauce on (remember to leave a bit of the starchy water in the saucepan)

mixed it in, serve and enjoy :)

Let me know if you try the recipe out!

Florentines

Similar to this post, on the day I was 'house sitting' I decided I also wanted to try making florentines. I was browsing the co-op which prompted me to look for recipes. I had some liquid glucose as I didn't use it in the truffles I made even though a recipe said we should, so I ended up using this recipe:

Florentines 
100gms butter
85gms sugar
28gms liquid glucose
30mls cream
100gms sliced almonds
30gms rolled oats

Bring the butter, sugar, liquid glucose and cream to the boil.
Add sliced almonds and rolled oats and simmer boil for a further 3 mins.
Spread the mixture onto a tray lined with baking paper. Cook at 190 degrees c for 8 - 10 mins or until golden brown. Cool, and while still warm cut into long fingers or triangles. 

I started by amending the recipe, I wanted to use hazelnuts and almonds, not oats. I then started chopping the nuts as I knew these would need to be ready when the mix was boiling.

Next I measured out the butter, sugar, glucose and cream

mixed together and placed in a saucepan

bring to the boil

add the nuts and boil for three more minutes

spread out on a baking tray covered with parchment

make sure it's even

then place in the oven for a further 8 minutes (I checked every two)

I checked it and it scared me! it was all bubbling up!

as you can see, mine got a little burnt, I am sure my mum's oven or trays are wonky

I broke mine up into bite size pieces as I was taking them to a BBQ. I've always been hesitant to work with sugar/glucose as from a young age I was taught that sugar gets very hot and you have to be cautious. I did try and make a tarte tatin one that didn't go well at all, so I think I'll try once more and if not, no more sugar play for me! They are very tasty little bites but they could have gone a lot better in my opinion.