pasta with green beans

This was quick, simple and delicious and we’ll make it again!

I had some green beans from my sister-in-law’s garden; we normally stir fry them with mustard seeds, but I thought I’d be a tad more Reactive last night! Topped and tailed the beans, cut them into chunks,m and simmered until they were al dente – about 7 minutes, maybe.

In the meantime, fried off some chopped garlic and a chopped onion in olive oil, adding some pancetta cubes and chopped sage after a few minutes. Put some fusilli on to cook, then added some cream that needed using up, a dash of lemon juice, some ground black pepper to the pan. Put the beans in and warmed it all through, then added the drained pasta and quite a lot of parmesan. Lovely!

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mushrooms and tagliatelle

We had some button mushrooms and a little cream waiting to be used up, and this seemed an ideal way to do it on a hot day.

Finely chopped two shallots and three cloves of garlic, and cooked them down in olive oil. Added some chopped rosemary and thyme from the herb garden^H^H pots, which are coming along nicely. Sliced the mushrooms and added them to the pan, with a glug of white wine, and let them cook very slowly, while I boiled some tagliatelle.

Added the cream to the mushroom mix and warmed through, then drained the pasta and stirred it in. Ate out of bowls, topped with grated parmesan. Followed by the last of the plum and pear crumble, with ice cream.

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a sort of chicken tagine

I bought a pound of diced chicken last Friday, and soaked and boiled some chickpeas, with the full intention of making a tagine with them on Sunday. Didn’t get to it, due to an unfortunate cycling incident (OK, I fell off), so I stole 30 minutes yesterday morning to make it.

Browned the chicken pieces in olive oil, and put them in the slow cooker. Cut two peppers (one red, one yellow) into chunks, and fried them off until they were just starting to blacken at the corners, added them to the cooker. Hurled in a sliced courgette which was getting a bit tired, a lemon cut into 8, salt, pepper.

Cut a red onion into chunks, and chopped four cloves of garlic, fried them off, added some ras el hanout to the pan and cooked it for a few seconds. Rummaged in fridge for ideas, and found a jar of tomato and pepper relish, so bunged in a couple of tablespoons’ worth, then a squirt of honey and some water. Brought all that to a simmer, hurled it into the slow cooker with the chickpeas, switched on.

The smell drove us demented all afternoon, and we ate some for supper with rice, and chopped coriander sprinkled over the top.

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very quick lentil soup

P and I have been struck down by some summer lurgy, and fancied soup for lunch; it’s a standard comfort food for us. However, we had no suitable ingredients in, and no energy to make it either, so I toiled up to the local small supermarket. We always call it Jacksons, because that’s what it was before Sainsburys took it over about ten years or so ago. God knows why *I* call it Jacksons, because it’s always been Sainsburys to me, but there you go – I’m being assimilated.

Anyway, I digress. They had cartons of fresh soup for £1 each, so I bought a lentil and bacon, which we ate on Monday, and a tomato and basil. Yesterday morning, I put a mug of lentils in to soak in some cold water for a couple of hours, then into a pan went the soup, the lentils, and about 1.5 soup pots of water. Simmered it for about 35 minutes, and while not anywhere near as nice as home made tomato/lentil soup, it really wasn’t bad at all, and there’s enough for today too.

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chicken with blue cheese

I did another stuffed chicken breast on Sunday evening – this time with blue cheese, chopped sage, shallot and some walnut oil. I was going to add pine nuts, but we seemed to have run out, which is very bad planning, I know.

It was delicious – accompanied by steamed new potatoes and asparagus. But I should have used more sage. And it only occurred to me yesterday that it would probably have been far more successful, and much easier to stuff, had I beaten the chicken flat first with my trusty meat hammer, so I shall do that next time.

Next time won’t be far away, as when I sent Pete up to the CoOp to get the chicken, they had a stack on special offer as it was approaching its sell-by date, so there are six more in the freezer.

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Tesco is no champion of the poor

“Forget the eulogies to Sir Terry Leahy. The legacy of Leahyism has been damage to our towns, countryside and environment, and the promotion of a much poorer diet that we’ll all pay for”

Excellent piece by Alex Renton from the Guardian.

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roasted asparagus with pasta

“What’s this?” you cry; “two posts in one day? You’re spoiling us.”

We are going to a meeting tonight at 6 p.m. and thought we’d eat our main meal at lunchtime, and just grab a sandwich before we go out. I bought a bunch of  English asparagus at the greengrocer yesterday – don’t suppose there’ll be much more this year, so must gorge while we can. We have a handful of standard recipes we cook with it, but fancied a change. So:

Trimmed the asparagus and put it in a baking tray lined with foil – I generally do this now, as the washing up is so much easier. Drizzled it with a generous quantity of olive oil, and sprinkled some sesame seeds on it. Pete finely chopped a couple of cloves of garlic, which were duly added, then I mussed it all up with fingers; sometimes that’s the only way to do it.

It went into the oven at 180C for 15 minutes, while I cooked some fusilli to accompany it. Then further inspiration struck, and I whipped up a dressing of olive oil and lemon juice.

Pasta, covered with asparagus, covered with the dressing. It really was rather nice, and there’s still half a bunch of asparagus left!

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sapo in the hole

(sapo is Spanish for toad)

We had some snacking chorizos left from this month’s Discover Unearthed tasting box – they’re the first thing we’ve had from them that we didn’t really like, so after the first taste, we decided to cook something with them. And thus a chorizo toad in the hole was conceived.

I made a batter from 3oz wholemeal flour, 1 egg, good pinch of salt, 5oz of semi-skimmed milk. This batter was in itself an experiment – I’m trying to cut down on white flour – and it worked very well.  Cooked down the chorizos in a little oil on the hob first and drained off the excess, then added the batter, and bunged it in the oven at gas 7 for about 30 minutes – came out lovely!

While it was cooking, I bunged a finely sliced onion in the Remoska with a little olive oil, then at the end turned it into onion gravy with the aid of some cornflour and a beef stock cube. Consumed it all with steamed cabbage.

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pork with leeks, sour cream and cider

I looked in the fridge before we went out yesterday, and found a number of things that needed using up: a head of broccoli, some cooked new potatoes, a rather wizened leek, some cream that had gone over. So I got a pork steak out of the freezer with the intention of cobbling something together with it all.

While hurtling round Asda for bulk supplies of cat food later, I bought a basil plant and was seduced by the thought of a Thai stir fry, but by the time we got home, I’d reverted to Plan A. And here it is.

I cut the pork steak into thin strips (I only used one, because we try not to eat much meat, but you’d probably want one each), and browned it off in some olive oil. Fished out the pork and set it aside (in the microwave, as there were a number of hungry cats marauding thereabouts).

Washed and sliced the leek, and chopped three cloves of garlic, and cooked them down in the olive oil, with a small knob of butter for good measure. Added four chopped sage leaves from the garden. When the leeks were softened, I put the pork back, seasoned it, and added about half an inch of cider, stuck a lid on and put it on a low heat.

Cooked it for about 25 minutes, by which time the cider had evaporated, and the dish had almost caught at the bottom of the pan (horror!) then added a couple of tablespoons of cream, stirred it round, warmed it through.

Ate with the broccoli, steamed, and the potatoes, fried in a little olive oil.  Lovely.

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parathas

We eat a lot of Indian food, which means we eat a lot of rice. And sometimes I just want a change. So we decided to have a bash at some Indian bread last night.

Mixed 250g wholemeal flour, 4 tbsp of gram (chickpea) flour, 1 tsp of salt, and a good pinch of bicarb.  Added 1 tsp of fennel seeds and 1/2 tsp cumin seeds, ground, and 2 tbsp of veg oil, then about 250ml of water to make a dough.  I also have half a bag of spinach, so I finely chopped about 100g of that and bunged it in as well.

It made a very sticky dough, which was really quite hard to work. You’re supposed to roll them out to a 10cm round, brush with oil, fold in half, brush with oil again, then fold in half twice more so you have a triangular sort of affair.  Then roll them again until they’re 15cm across.  This bit didn’t go all that well, but Pete fried them in our cast iron flat pan and they were very tasty. I think I’d add a chopped chili next time.

We had them with an aubergine and potato stew; the mix made enough dough for 12 parathas, so we ate 3 last night, put enough for 6 in the freezer, and will eat the other three for lunch tomorrow, with the rest of the stew (boosted with some chickpeas, which are soaking now, and the last of the spinach).

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