Eat ‘n Drink

I’m not sure if I’ve posted this before but as I’ve just cooked them I thought I’d mention it again. Chicken Enchiladas. Kind of like Fajitas but much more filling!

Per Person:
1 chicken breast, cut into strips
1 red pepper or half red and half green
1 small onion sliced into strips
Schwartz Fajita seasoning
2 Tortillas (old el paso seem the best)
Tub of Salsa
Grated cheddar cheese
Sour cream to cool it down

Fry the chicken on a hot heat until it’s sealed/cooked on all sides, add the peppers and onion and a good dousing of fajita seasoning. Once the peppers start to soften a little take it off the heat.

In a casserole dish curl the tortillas in so that the ends are sticking up (the tortillas need about 2″ of space so that you can put the filling in and then curl the sides over the top of the filling ‘closing’ them). Put the hot filling in. Close the tortillas over and put the salsa on top covering the tortillas. Then put the grated cheese on top.

Put in a preheated oven at 180 deg C for 10-15 minutes. Serve with Sour cream and a cold drink.

For extra oomph add some more fajita seasoning over the top of the cheese or chop up a couple of chilli peppers and add that whilst cooking the chicken.

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Recently we bought some diced Venison to try. It was fairly cheap, about £20 for around 9-10 portions. Venison is quite a lean meat too. The raw smell reminded me of beef to be honest, perhaps just a little stronger/richer in smell. Unfortunately we didn’t have many recipes to choose from for cooking it so we opted for a quick stew with fried rice (left over from Friday night’s takeaway!). Have to say the meal was very nice and tasty. Neither Dave nor I have eaten Venison before and were both quite impressed. I’m also quite impressed with the price and the leaness of the meat too, none of this having to cut fat off or draining oil off after you’ve quickly fried it.

So the recipe, nothing fancy but very nice all the same.

1lb Venison diced
3/4 pint of hot water with 1/2 beef Knorr cube and an Oxo cube dissolved
A good glug of red wine
2 tbl spoons of flour
Onion, diced
2 Garlic cloves, sliced thinly
2 Bay Leaves

Fry the onion and garlic in a little oil until golden, add the venison and brown the meat. Stir in the flour until the meat is coated. Take your stock and wine and pour this over, adding in the bay leaves afterwards. Bring the stew to the boil and then put a lid on the pan and simmer for around 45 minutes.

This can be served with mashed potato, pasta or rice. We did some stir fried baby veg and rice which was quite nice. Potato would be good but it would probably be quite filling, but very warming on a cold night. Pasta is probably a better option for a lighter meal as the meat and sauce is quite rich.

(Sorry I should have taken a photo but I was too hungry! I will next time!!)

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Okay I know, it’s Shrove Tuesday, but to me it’s just simply Pancake day. Gotta say I love Pancakes. The Pancake mix is so general as it allows you to make Yorkshire puddings, ‘Toad in the Hole’ (that’s Sausages cooked in the batter mix for any non UK readers!) and of course pancakes.

When I was younger, when my Dad made yorkshire puddings for sunday dinner he’s always make a bit of the extra batter mix and make us a pancake each afterwards. I was amazed at how the two tasted so different. Of course now when I make yorkshire puddings I don’t have any mix left (and if I did I’d be ordered to make more yorkshires!).

Pancakes are great as they’re made with the most basic of ingredients. Flour, Egg and Milk. Besides your toppings, there’s nothing obscure about what you need and 9/10 times you’ve got the 3 ingredients in your cupboards. There’s been plenty of times when I’ve fancied a good snack and pancakes have been made.

Of course the toppings are important. Today I didn’t have any lemon juice as I forgot to buy a lemon on the weekend (and I even stood and stared at them on Saturday!), and I really noticed it missing Syrup, icing sugar and icecream are all good toppings too, but syrup or sugar with lemon is the best in my opinion. Icecream is hard to eat with a fork and it makes the pancake go cold. However icecream and hot cherries in a pancake is definitely a nice dessert!

I’ve been to a couple of dutch pancake houses in my time (why don’t we have british pancake houses?). One out in the Netherlands and one in Manchester. These places were the first time I’d seen savoury pancakes, almost like a pizza! So anyone who says pancakes are too sweet, clearly haven’t thought about their toppings

Anyhow, the recipe? Very simple:
300ml / 0.5 pint of milk
1 egg
Plain flour (self raising can be used for pancakes but not for yorkshires)

Simply put the milk and egg in a large jug and then mix in flour until it’s the right consistency - thick but running, like a thick double cream. To make your pancakes simply heat a small pan (I go for small pancakes, easier to flip!), add enough oil to grease your pan (too much and the batter will bubble on hitting the pan). Keep the pan on a medium heat and add some batter mix, the amount depends on how thick you want your pancakes - the first usually is too thick! Cook it for about 1-2 minutes on one side, then turn or flip it over and cook it for a further 1-2 minutes on the other side. I tend to keep an oven on low (100 degrees C) to put the pancakes in to keep warm whilst I cook the rest.

The mix above will create between 6 and 8 medium pancakes.

Enjoy

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I had a bash at recreating a spicy mexican rice, the type you can get on the side in a mexican restaurant usually, along with other various restaurants (Chiquitos, Nandos etc). I did a little looking online and found that most recipes seemed to follow a similar pattern of frying the dry rice in butter until golden brown, adding onions, garlic, peppers, crushed tomatoes and chilli, and then adding a stock and simmering for 20 minutes.

I used this method and whilst the rice had a kick and tasted okay it wasn’t what I was after. I know I didn’t simmer the rice for long enough however it was to go with steak and the steaks were already ready. I realise the usual colouring will come from Saffron or Tumeric but if anyone has a good recipe to try that’s a close match to the usual restaurant style I’d love to hear it

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Winter’s kicked in and so has wintery cooking. With the temperature dropping you need to eat more filling foods to ensure your body can generate the heat it needs. So it’s time for soups, stews and hearty hot meals. We’ve recently been trying out some Colman’s packet sauces such as Beef Bourguignon and Chicken Casserole, adding in some extra ingredients of our own (wine, extra stock, herbs etc).

A good meal for lunch times is, of course, soup. The Covent Garden Soup Co produce very good fresh soups available to buy in most supermarkets and some smaller convenience shops as well. Each carton usually serves 2 people so it’s not too badly priced and they’re handy to keep in the fridge. However there’s nothing like homemade soup using the basic ingredients that most people will have in their kitchen.

My favourite soup is Chicken. Whilst you can make this using a stock cube I’d rather get the stock from the left over bones and carcass of a roast chicken. To get a fresh soup simply add 1-2 pints of water in a saucepan with the bones broken up to be submerged, bring it to the boil and simmer for about an hour. Then put the contents through a sieve, add some veg and lentils if desired, and bring back to the boil. I like to add in some egg vermicelli as well to add a little bulk to the soup. Of course it’s best served with fresh bread

Other winter food on the menu at present is
Lasagne
Beef Bourguignon
Chicken Casserole
Chicken Chasseur
Shepherds Pie
Sausages and Mash
Jacket Potatoes
Soup

What wintery meals are you on to now?

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Seeing as it’s been a while since I put up a recipe I thought I’d start with a good winter warmer. Now that the nights are getting cold, salads are really reserved for steaks and fajitas, and warm hot food is craved for more. Stodgier food is also usually a good idea to help you keep warm as your body will use more calories to keep itself warmer (living in extreme cold climates you need to be eating around 5000 calories to maintain your weight and keep warm!!). So a good favourite to start with is Shepherds Pie. I adapted the mince recipe from just a simple farmhouse mince recipe.

Need:
500g Lean Mince
1 tbsp Tomato Puree
Worcester Sauce
1/2 Beef Knorr Stock Cube
1/2 Oxo Cube
Potatoes ready for boiling
Butter
Frozen peas

Method:
Dry fry the mince in a hot pan. Once it’s browned add the tomato puree. Dissolve the stock half stock cubes in a pint of hot water, pour this over the mince. Bring to the boil and then put on simmer for about 15-20 minutes. Add some Worcester Sauce to the mince, suit to taste. In the mean time boil the potatoes.

Once the potatoes are boiled mash them with plenty of butter and a little milk. The smoother they are the nicer they’ll taste! Then once the stock has thickened to a semi thick consistency (gravy consistency), take the mince off the heat, add a handful of frozen peas and stir them in. Put the mince into a large pyrex bowl and smooth the mash potato on top, covering the mince.

Put in a preheated oven at 180 degrees for 30 minutes. If you’re partial to cheese then after 20 minutes you can sprinkle some grated cheese on top as well. This goes great with fresh veg and/or cauliflower cheese.

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I cooked this dish last week and have to say I’ve never tried roasting fish before but it was a nice change to the usual grill or pan fry methods.

Need:
1 fillet of Plaice per person
Half a garlic clove per fillet
Spring Onion
Cherry Tomatoes
Fine Beans
Basil Leaves
Olive Oil
Dry White Wine
Fresh Baguette
Fresh lemon

Wash the plaice and score the skin side 2-3 times diagonally. Place the fillets in a roasting dish. Slice the garlic and sprinkle over the Plaice. Roughly chop the basil and sprinkle over the fish too. Then add the spring onions, chopped, and cherry tomatoes. Add 5 tablespoons of olive oil, and cook in an oven at 180 deg C for 15 minutes. During this time blanche any veg you may wish to add, fine beans and asparagus are good choices. After 15 minutes add the blanched veg and 5 table spoons of the dryest white wine you have (the sweet it is the more you’ll taste it, so this is purely a matter of personal taste, however a dry white wine will usually produce a better result). Roast for a further 10 minutes.

Serve with a wedge of lemon and freshly cut baguette and don’t forget to finish off the opened bottle of wine!

I found that the basil gave the fish such an amazing taste. The basil wasn’t too overpowering at all and really complimented the fish well. Of course this dish can be done with any flat fish such as Lemon Sole.

Diet variations:
Atkins - use the absolute dryest wine possible as this will contain less carbohydrates. Also you may wish to go for something other than tomatoes as these can be quiet sweet and higher in sugar. Red pepper is a good alternative. Of course, omit the baguette.

GI Plan - Similar to the Atkins diet, dryest wine and omit the baguette. Add more veg to it to compensate for the lack of bread.

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So you want a good, tasty lasagne? Lasagne is easy with the right ingredients however the wrong type of pasta or cheese can make a major difference in my opinion.

So first off you need some bolognaise meat. I use my own Bolognaise Recipe and usually pad it out with some extra vegetables such as courgette, asparagus, diced onion and peppers.

You need:
Dried Lasagne sheets. I’ve found that dried Egg Pasta sheets are best. Make sure you can cook them without presoaking (Tescos Authentic Italien Egg Lasagne Sheets are good)
300g Mature Cheddar Cheese grated - Cathedral City is best, but use a low fat cheese if you’re on a diet.
Milk
Butter
Flour
Bolognaise

Method
Create your Bolognaise as per normal. It doesn’t have to be fresh. I often cook enough Bolognaise to freeze some, so a defrosted box of bolognaise is just as good, just get rid of any water that’s accummulated during freezing.

Take a pyrex dish, square or rectangle is the easiest. Depending on how much you wish to make depends on how big your dish should be. I used to use a glass cake dish which did for two people. First sprinkle a little of the cheese on the bottom of the dish, then put in a layer of bolognaise. Then put enough lasagne sheets or parts of sheets (snapping them into perfect squares is the hard part!) to cover the bolognaise. Put down another layer of bolognaise and again cover with lasagne. Do this until you’re either 1-2cm from the top of the bowl or you’ve run out of bolognaise. Remember the meat layer can be thick or thin depending on how much pasta you want to put into it.

Then take the remaining cheese (about 250g) and, using the flour, butter and milk, make a cheese sauce by melting the butter in a pan on low heat, stir in the flour until completely mixed with the butter. Add the milk and heat, stirring constantly, then add the cheese and continue to stir constantly until slightly thick.

Then put this into a preheated oven at 180 deg C for 30-35 minutes. After 20 minutes sprinkle any left over grated cheese on top.

I tend to serve this with a little salad of lettuce, cucumber and tomatoes along with a fresh baguette cut into chunks and buttered. Goes well with wine too!

Variations
For a creamier taste, add some sour cream to your bolognaise. You may need to use some extra tomato puree to compensate this.

For GI Diets - Use Sainsbury’s low fat cheese at 3% fat. Once it’s cooked in a sauce you cannot taste the difference. Add plenty of vegetables to it too.

For Atkins, swap the lasagne sheets for a vegetable such as aubergine (eggplant) to make a beef Moussaka, or use slices of bacon medallions (the top meaty bit) or another vegetable.

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Creative Recipes is a new web site from a friend of mine. It covers all types of recipes and ingredients, with new recipes being added weekly. Have a look around and you never know, you may find tomorrow’s dinner there

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In my opinion, shop bought potato salad is just not worthwhile. The potato seems undercooked and more powdery/bitty than real potato salad should be. So during the summer, when I fancy potato salad I’ll cook up my own. New potatoes are in the shops from around April/May time. The smaller the better but midsize ones are okay too, you just have to cut them down to size. Potato salad is so versatile it goes with virtually everything. I think of summer dinners and I can see a bowl of potato salad on the table. BBQs, Quiche, Steak, Chicken dinners, Fish, and more. In fact potato salad is so good it can just be eaten with some salad.

You need:
New potatoes, baby new potatoes are best but anything small and ideal is fine. Keep the skins on.
Mayonnaise - personally I prefer Hellmans, original or Light goes fine
Some olive oil
A handful of fresh Chives

Method:
Boil the potatoes in water, in their skins. New potatoes do not go as soft as winter potatoes so use a skewer or sharp point of a knife to check on them. When the skewer goes through semi easily then they’re ready. Allow them to cool for at least 20 minutes. You can cook up a batch and leave the rest in the fridge if you wish. Potato salad can be made from semi warm potatoes and cold potatoes. Once they’ve cooled, put the small ones into a bowl and chop the larger ones to smaller manageable sizes and place them in the bowl too. Then chop your chives in 0.5-1cm long sections. Put all of the chives into the bowl with the potatoes. Then drizzle over some olive oil and add a little mayonnaise.

Depending on how many potatoes you have depends on how much oil and mayonnaise you need. Why the oil? The oil means you can use less mayonnaise which can sometimes have an overpowering flavour. You could also mix a little sourcream in with the mayonnaise as this gives a creamier taste.

The chives in this dish really make a difference. I’ve never tried garlic chives in it however normal chives gives a little hint of an onion taste. Perfect for any meal with salad.

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