Basic Beans with a Tomato Bread Salad

300g dried Borlotti or Cannellini beans, soaked in cold water for at least 12 hours
3 cloves of garlic, unpeeled
a few sprigs of fresh thyme
a sprig of fresh rosemary
3 bay leaves
1 stick of celery, trimmed
1 small potato, peeled and halved
2 cherry tomatoes
extra virgin olive oil
red wine vinegar
a few sprigs of fresh flat leaf parsley, chopped

Drain and wash your soaked beans. Place them in a deep pot and cover with cold water. Throw in your garlic, herb sprigs, bay leaves, celery stick, potato, and tomatoes. Place the beans on the heat and slowly bring to the boil. Cover with a lid and simmer very gently for 45 min to an hour, depending on your beans, til soft and cooked nicely. Skim if necessary, topping up with boiling water from the kettle if you need to.

When the beans are cooked, drain them in a colander, reserving enough of the cooking water to cover them halfway up when put back in the pot. Remove the garlic, herbs, celery, potato, and tomatoes from the beans. Squeeze the garlic cloves out of their skins, and pinch the skin off the tomatoes. Put the garlic tomatoes and potato onto a plate, mash them with a fork and stir back into the beans. Season well with salt and pepper, and pour in three generous glugs of extra virgin olive oil and a few splashes of vinegar. Stir in the parsley.

To Serve:
Toast 2 slices of good quality bread, and tear them into rough chunks. Place in a bowl with a handful of chopped tomatoes, some sea salt and freshly ground pepper, a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and a swig of good balsamic vinegar. Spoon some of your beans onto a plate, followed by the bread and tomato mixture.

It says to serve it topped with a slice or two of prosciutto and some baby basil leaves, but I didn’t have any.

This was a Jamie at Home recipe. I made it to use up some beans that I had, which is why there are two differant types of beans in there.

The beans themselves were nice. They had a good flavor, but on their own I would have been a bit disappointed. With the tomato bread salad though, they became a really nice home-y and lovely meal.

I only discovered the idea of bread salads this year, I really like them. It’s a great way to bulk up a side dish to a main dish. Also the balsamic vinegar really livened everything up.

Chips

For the lemon salt:
Zest of 1 lemon
4Tbsp sea salt

Sunflower oil
800g Potatoes, peeled and cut into fine matchsticks
A few sprigs of fresh rosemary, leaves picked

To make your lemon salt, bash and mix together the lemon zest with the salt in a pestle and mortar or Flavor shaker until the salt is flavored, colored and fine. Place in a dish. Whatever you don’t use can be dried out a stored. If it gets hard, crush it up a bit before putting it into a jar.

Heat 2-3 inches of sunflower oil in a sturdy pan and bring to deep frying temperature. You can do this by using a thermometer, or by placing a small chunk of potato into the cold oil before you begin to heat it. When the potato is floating and a dark golden brown the temperature will have reached 180c/350f and you’re ready to begin frying.
Pat the potatoes dry with some kitchen paper to remove any excess starch. Making sure you’ve got a slotted spoon and a big pile of kitchen paper to one side, carefully place some of your potatoes into the pan of oil (don’t overcrowd) for a couple of minutes till golden brown and crisp. Cook the potatoes like this in batches until they are all used up. Add the rosemary for the last 30 seconds. Remove the chips and rosemary to the kitchen paper to soak up any excess oil, and then dust with the lemon salt. Serve straight away.

This is really just a basic chip recipe, but I had never made chips before, or ever deep fried anything at all. I figured it was about time I got over my fear of it, and these chips, because they are the extra thin kind, looked a bit more fool proof then regular chunky ones, therefore, they make a good jumping off point.

It was so much fun. When you drop them in, the oil goes crazy, it’s all crazy bubbles. I could tell the batch was getting close to done when all the craziness died down. I found that I had to stir them a bit when they first went in, otherwise they would stick together a little, but a moving them around some in the first minute or so made it fine.

The Jamie Oliver twists to it (it was his recipe), were the rosemary, which I thought added a nice smell in the kitchen, but I didn’t really notice it in the flavor, and the lemon salt. Lemon salt ROCKS! I tried a chip when the first batch came out, and it was good, I liked it. Then I added the lemon salt and they became the best chips ever! There was a mountain of them and they all disappeared so fast. I liked them so much that I made them again the next day, and I tried using a sweet potato too. It worked just as well, though it took a bit longer to cook.

Make these chips, and do not forget the lemon salt whatever you do!

Venison casserole

3Tbsp olive oil
1kg casserole venison cut into 3cm cubes
2 onions thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves, chopped
2Tbsp plain flour
350ml beef or vegetable stock
125ml port or red wine
2Tbsp redcurrant jelly
6 Juniper berries, crushed
Pinch of ground cinnamon
Freshly grated nutmeg
175g vacuum packed chestnuts (optional)
Salt and pepper
Baked or mashed potatoes to serve.

Preheat to 150c/300f
Heat the oil in a large frying pan over high heat. Add the venison in batches if necessary, and cook until browned all over. Using a slotted spoon, transfer to a large casserole.
Add the onions and garlic to the frying pan and cook over a medium heat, stirring frequently, for 8 min, or until golden. Transfer to the casserole. Sprinkle the meat in the casserole with the flour and turn to coat evenly.
Gradually add the stock to the frying pan, stirring well and scraping the sediment from the base of the frying pan, then bring to a boil. Transfer to the casserole and stir well, ensuring that the meat is just covered.
Add the port, redcurrant jelly, juniper berries, cinnamon, a little freshly grated nutmeg and the chestnuts, if using. Season well with salt and pepper and stir well. Cover and cook in the center of the oven for 2 - 2.5 hours.
Remove from the oven and adjust seasoning if necessary.
This casserole benefits from being made the day before and reheated. Store in the refrigerator over night.

This one was from a Marks and Spencer cookbook. It was the first time I cooked Venison, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. It’s an interesting meat, so dark, it almost looks like liver, and it had a different feel to it too. The flavor is really rich, which I was expecting, but still it caught me a bit off guard.

This was a very Christmas-y recipe. It had the cinnamon and nutmeg and chestnuts in it, I could totally imagine making this around the holidays.

The flavors were so rich and warm. To be honest, it was a bit overly rich for me. It might be nice to serve it with rice or couscous to break it up a bit. My husband didn’t think it was too rich at all, he appreciated it’s richness, but thought it was just right, so it’s definitely a matter of taste. If you like very rich foods, give this one a try. I don’t know if I’ll make this again, but I’ll be sure to try more things with venison.

Chicken in balsamic vinegar with porcini mushrooms & sun dried cherries served with roast garlic potato puree

This picture does not do it justice, there is no way to do it justice, it is too good to be believed!


For the puree:
A whole head of garlic
Olive oil, salt and pepper
1kg floury potatoes, peeled
125g butter
125ml olive oil
125ml double cream

For the braise:
30g dried porcini mushrooms
8 organic chicken thighs, skinned and boned
2tbsp plain flour for coating
125g pancetta or streaky bacon, diced
1 onion, finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
4tbsp dried cherries
250ml red wine
125ml chicken stock
4tbsp balsamic vinegar
400g tin of Italian plum tomatoes, chopped
1tsp arrowroot or cornstarch dissolved in 2 tsp cold water
a handful of fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped for garnish

Roast the garlic. Preheat to 180c slice off the top quarter of the garlic bulb to expose the cloves. Put the garlic on a piece of foil, sprinkle with olive oil, salt and pepper, wrap up and bake till soft and squashy, 35-45 min. Take out of the oven and cool slightly before squeezing out the garlic pulp from the papery skins.
To make the stew, begin by soaking the mushrooms in hand-hot water for about half an hour. Lift them out, squeeze as much water as possible out of them and chop finely. Strain the soaking liquid through kitchen paper.
While the porcini are soaking, flour the chicken by putting the flour and a pinch each of salt and pepper into a plastic bag with the chicken pieces and giving the bag a good shake while holding it tightly closed. In a heavy pan over medium heat, fry the pancetta dice until they crisp and release all their fat. Scoop the pancetta out of the pan, set aside, and put the floured chicken pieces in their fat. Fry until lightly golden on all sides, then lift out of the pan and set aside.
Add the onion and garlic to the pan. Cook until soft and yellow, then stir in the dried cherries and porcini, pour in the wine, stock, vinegar and porcini liquid, bring to a boil and simmer for 5 min. Now add the tomatoes and return the chicken and pancetta to the pan. Turn the heat down to a mere flicker and cook gently for 40 min when the chicken will be very tender and the flavors fully developed. Correct the seasoning – you may want to add a splash of balsamic vinegar. Lastly stir in the arrowroot mixed with water to thicken the sauce to a nice coating consistency.
Make the puree while the chicken is cooking. Put the potatoes in a large pan of cold salted water. Bring to a boil and simmer, covered, until cooked. Drain them, and then put them back in the dry pan over low heat to steam out any wateriness. Using either and electric beater, or sheer muscle power, mash the potatoes to a smooth puree. Then beat the butter, oil, cream, garlic and generous seasoning until the puree is really light and fluffy.

I’ve noticed that a lot of people have the same comment about cooking. They hear about a cookbook, and they say “oh, I don’t use recipes, I just look around and see what looks good together”. This is admirable in a way. It’s very important to have the confidence to cook like this. It’s what turns cooking into a way to express yourself. The thing is though, if it’s the only way that you cook, then you are really missing out horribly. Lets face it, there are people that study cooking for year and years, just to become great at one specific area of cooking. The great chefs are always looking to each other, and to sources that they find interesting, to learn more, broaden their horizons, and think of new wonderful combinations of food. So what makes the average Joe think that they can’t benefit from a new perspective or idea.

I think this recipe proves that point nicely. How many of us would be walking through the supermarket and think to ourselves, “oh, those porcini would be great with some of those dried cherries, and a good helping of balsamic vinegar”? I know I wouldn’t have, and I would have really missed out too, because this is one of the best dishes I have ever made. This was so good, I couldn’t believe it came from my kitchen. I saved the little bit of left over sauce, so that I could make some more mashed potatoes to eat it with the next day, this was amazing!

I got this recipe from Favourite Recipes Books For Cooks. It is an all time great book.

Neil , if your reading this, thank you again for this book, and try this one if you haven’t yet!

The sauce was so rich and beautiful, and the thin coating of flour on the chicken kept the inside tender and gave the outside a sort of thin layer of slight chewy-ness that added the perfect texture.

It was also the first time I tried dried cherries. They were really nice, and the few that were left over made a lovely little sweet snack the next day.

There are not enough good words for this recipe. All the plates were practically licked clean.

Spiced Red lentil soup w/crispy onion garnish

2Tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
2tsp ground cumin
175g red lentils
1 bay leaf
1tsp dried oregano
2 tsp ground turmeric
2tbsp tomato puree
1 liter hot stock or water
salt, black pepper
Juice of 1/2 lemon

For the Crispy Onions:
2tbsp olive oil
1 onion, finely sliced
2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely sliced
1 tsp ground coriander
4tbsp roughly chopped fresh coriander, or flat leaf parsley

4tbsp thick yogurt to serve

Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring until softened, about 5 min. Stir in the garlic and cumin and cook until the onions smell really garlicky and spicy, about 2 min. Then tip in the lentils, bay, oregano, turmeric, and tomato puree, give it all a good stir, and pour in the hot stock or water. Bring to a boil and simmer steadily, stirring every now and then for about 40 min, until the lentils have collapsed to a thick, smoothish puree. Thin with water if necessary, and add salt and pepper to taste.

While the soup is cooking, make the crispy onions. Heat the oil in a non stick pan over medium heat. Add onion and cook, stirring, until thoroughly wilted and browned, about 15 min. Stir in the garlic and coriander, and cook for about 5 more min, to crisp the garlic, and toast the coriander.

Just before serving, stir the lemon juice into the hot soup. Serve with a dollop of yogurt, then sprinkle with herbs and crispy spiced onion.

This dish was gorgeous!

I was looking for a way to use up some red lentils that I had laying around, and I found this in Favourite Recipes Books For Cooks. This book is so good, I’ve not had a bad recipe from it yet.

The soup it’s self was beautifully flavored, similar to the Mulligatawny soup that we used to get at Indian restaurants in New York (it’s not really the same when you get it in London, it’s also harder to find). The texture was very comforting, and the crispy onion garnish really put it over the top.

When I first started cooking I never used to make the garnish on dishes like this, I was under the impression that it was just for show, but the flavor and texture of the herbed darkened onions are very definitely more then just pretty.

I whole heartedly recommend this recipe, even if you don’t have the lentils laying around.

Pork and pepper goulash

2kg pork shoulder off the bone, in one piece, skin off, fat left on
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Olive oil
2 red onions, peeled and finely sliced
2 fresh red chilies, deseeded and finely chopped
2 generously heaped Tbsp mild smoked paprika, plus a little extra for serving
2tsp ground caraway seeds
a small bunch of fresh marjoram or oregano, leaves picked
5 peppers, use a mixture of colors
1X280g jar of grilled peppers, drained peeled and chopped
1x400g tin of good quality plum tomatoes
4tbsp red wine vinegar
400g basmati rice, or long grain rice, washed
1x142ml pot of soured cream
Zest of 1 lemon
A small bunch of fresh flat leaf parsley, chopped

Preheat to 180. Get yourself a deep, ovenproof stew pot with a lid and heat it on the hob. Score the fat on the pork in a criss cross pattern all the way through to the meat, then season generously with salt and pepper. Pour a good glug of olive oil into the pot and add the pork, fat side down. Cook for about 15 min on medium heat, to render out the fat, then remove the pork from the pot and put it to one side.
Add the onions, chili, paprika, caraway seeds, marjoram, or oregano, and a good pinch of salt and pepper to the pot. Turn the heat down and gently cook the onions for 10 min. Then add the sliced peppers, the grilled peppers, and the tomatoes. Put the pork back into the pot, give everything a little shake, then pour in enough water to just cover the meat. Add the vinegar. Bring to a boil, put the lid on and place in the preheated oven for 3 hours.
You’ll know when the meat is cooked as it will be tender and sticky , and it will break up easily when pulled apart with two forks. If it’s not quite there yet, put it back in a while longer.
When the meat is nearly ready, cook the rice in salted, boiling water for 10 min until it’s just undercooked, then drain in a colander reserving some of the cooking water and pouring it back into the pan. Place the colander over the pan on a low heat and put a lid on. Leave to steam dry and cook through for 10 min. This will make the rice lovely and fluffy.
Stir the soured cream, lemon zest and most of the parsley together in a little bowl. When the meat is done, season to taste, break up the meat and serve with the rice and the flavored soured cream, and sprinkled with the parsley.

I have made various different dishes that involved pork and peppers in the past, but this was by far the best. It came from Jamie at Home.

I think that what really does it, is the combination of the paprika, the regular peppers, the chilli peppers, and then the grilled peppers. All the different strengths of peppers are highlighted, and it gives an amazingly well rounded pepper experience.

Also, any time you read that you’ll know when the pork is done because it breaks up easily with a fork, you know you are making something good.

I skipped the rice and served this with some egg noodles. I’m not sure why, but it worked really well.

It’s one of those dishes that takes a long time to cook, but all of the work is up front, then you just go about your business while it sits in the oven. Great for a weekend feast! Try this!

Date filled pastries – Ma-amoul

75g margerine or butter, softened
175gplain flour
1tsp rose water
1tsp orange flower water
4tsp sifted icing sugar, for sprinkling

For the filling
115g stoned dried dates
1/2tsp orange flower water

To make the filling, chop the dates finely. Add 50ml boiling water and the orange flower water, beat the mixture vigorously and leave to cool.
To make the pastries, rub the margerine or butter into the flour. Add the rose and orange flower waters and 3tbsp water and mix it into a firm dough.
Using your hands, shape the pastry dough into about 25 small balls
Preheat the oven to 180c. Press you finger into each ball to make a small container, pressing the sides round and round to make the walls thinner. Put 1/4 tsp of the date mixture into each one and seal by pressing the pastry together.
Arrange the date pastries, seam side down, on a lightly greased baking sheet and prick each one with a fork. Bake for 15-20 min then cool.
Put the cooled pastries on a plate and sprinkle over the icing sugar. Shake lightly to make sure they are all coated.

These were really good. They are interesting because they are cookies, but the dough they use is much more of a pie crust dough then a cookie dough. It means that it isn’t the easiest to work with, and it’s fairly time consuming to make these, but the crispy crusty dough matches this cookie perfectly.

I’ve also been wanting to try orange flower, and rose water for awhile, and this recipe uses both. Orange flower water is way stronger then I expected it to be. It worked really well in taking the edge off the sweetness of the date filling, which means that these are the kind of cookie you could accidentally eat 25 of without realizing because they are not over the top sweet. Actually, the only sugar in the whole recipe is the little bit that you use to dust them with at the end.

I loved these. If you wanted a sugar free cookie, you could omit the sugar dusting and they would still be very good, but I recommend leaving that little bit of sugar in.

Everybody loved these, they were a big hit, and they are really a store cupboard type cookie, as you could have this stuff laying about for whenever you wanted to make them. I would definitely make them again.

Banana and Honey Bread

Use the same basic bread recipe that was used here.
Varied by using:
6 bananas
8Tbsp good runny honey
Optional: 1 handful of almonds, cracked or chopped

Puree your peeled bananas in a blender. Pour into a measuring jug and top up with water till you have 625ml. At stage one of the recipe, use the banana liquid instead of water. Also add half the honey and nuts to dough at this point, then continue as normal.
At stage 5 divide the dough into 10 balls. Pack these next to each other in a flour dusted baking tin, where they will prove together. Before putting in the oven drizzle with the rest of the honey. Bake at 190c/375f for 20 min.

These were Jamie Oliver, so imagine my surprise when they didn’t come out very well. I’d been wanting to make them for a long time, because I love the idea of substituting the liquid in the bread with mashed up bananas, but our bananas always got eaten up before they were ripe enough to use for baking. I finally got a chance the other day, but I messed it up.

Bread making is actually so much easier then people think, but there are a few cardinal rules that you must heed. One is proper rising, and I know that. If you don’t let the bread rise properly, then it will not be good. I don’t know what I was thinking, but the kitchen was cold (no good), and I was short on time (the bread doesn’t care), and I remember thinking that it was really not ready, but I went on with it anyway. The result was really dense kind of hard, and very yeasty tasting rolls. Not what you want to end up with. They were not inedible, but that’s not really good enough is it.

I am sure that the recipe is sound, and I was just being silly, so I am going to try to make this again. I just have to wait for another batch of bananas to avoid my son’s notice long enough to get ripe enough to try again.

In case you are going to try making bread at home, here’s a good tip. Do it on the same day you do laundry. When it comes time for the rising, put the bread in a bowl with cling film over the top (put some oil on the inside of the cling film so the dough doesn’t stick to it). Then put the bowl near the dryer (not on it because you don’t want it to be shaken). The heat, and the cling film will help it rise well and quickly. A cold kitchen is not conducive to good bread.

Ruth’s Mom’s Apple Chutney

2lb apples
1/2lb each of pears, tomatoes, and onions
1/2 tsp each of mace, cayenne pepper, pepper, cloves, white pepper, and ground ginger
1/4lb raisins
1/4lb sultanas
2 pints of vinegar
1 tsp salt
2lbs sugar

Chop up fruit very finely.
Add all ingredients except the sugar to a pot and simmer for 2 hours.
Add sugar till completely dissolved, and boil rapidly till the desired consistency.

I got this recipe from my friend Ruth. She made a batch right before I did, and warned me that hers came out a little liquidy, so I took that into account while cooking it. I’m not sure if it’s the right thing to do, but after the sugar was all dissolved I let it boil and reduce down with no lid for about 30-45 min. It worked like a charm, the chutney came out nice and thick and has a really beautiful flavor.

This makes a big batch, I used about 4 canning jars to keep it all. Ruth gave me a tip about sealing the jars too. She said that when her mom used to make this she would use lard to seal the jars. You melt it down to a liquid, fill the sterilized jars with the chutney, and then pour on a layer of lard, which will harden into an air tight seal (you put a lid on too obviously). From what I understand, jars sealed this way can last years. I was told that Trex would work too, though it won't harden quite as much, but that’s what I had in the house, so that’s what I used.

This was a really fun process, and the chutney is great! If you are reading this Ruth, Thank you!

Lentil loaf

250g red Lentils
500ml stock
1 bay leaf
15g butter or margerine, softened
2tbsp dried wholemeal breadcrumbs
250g grated mature cheddar (sharp)
1 leek, chopped finely
125g button mushrooms, chopped finely
90g fresh wholemeal breadcrumbs
2Tbsp chopped fresh parsley
1Tbsp lemon juice
2 eggs beaten lightly
Salt and pepper

Put the lentils, stock and bay leaf in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Cover and simmer gently for 15-20 minutes, until all the liquid is absorbed and the lentils have softened. Discard the bay leaf.
Meanwhile, base-line a 1kg/2lb loaf tin with baking parchment. Grease with the butter or margerine and sprinkle with the dried breadcrumbs.
Stir the cheese, leek, mushrooms, fresh breadcrumbs and parsley into the lentils.
Bind the mixture together with the lemon juice and eggs. Season well and spoon into the prepared loaf tin. Smooth the top and bake in a preheated 190c/375f oven for 1 hour till golden.
Loosen the loaf with a palette knife (spatula) and turn onto a warmed serving plate. Garnish with parsley and serve with roasted vegetables.

There are countless versions of this, the meatless meatloaf. I have a favorite version that I have been making for years that uses brown rice and nuts, but I figured it was time to try a new one.

I’m glad I did, this was a really nice change. It didn’t have the meaty texture that the rice nut loaf has, but the flavor was beautiful. I used a sharp-ish cheddar, and I would recommend doing that because it seems to be where most of the flavor comes from.

The boys wouldn’t touch it at first, but when we finally convinced them to try one bite, they realized that they actually liked it a lot, and they ate their whole servings.

I liked this, and would try it again. It also made me realize that with all the variety of meatless meatloaves out there, I really need to sample some others.