A Challenge for November

November is a month of challenges. Firstly there’s Movember. What a great challenge and for such a great cause. I’ve been encouraging N to take part for ages but he is surprisingly resistant. Perhaps he’ll read this post and get some motivation! But back to me…

November is NaBloPoMo — National Blog Posting Month —which sets a challenge to post once every day for the entire month of November. No theme, no word count, no rules;  just you, your blog, and 30 new posts. I’ve decided to take on this challenge.  Yes I know it will be a hard push, particularly because I am averaging about one post a month at the  moment and it’s not helped by the fact that it has taken me an hour and a half to update, reboot and generally ‘fix’ my laptop so that I can even write this post - gosh I hate computers sometimes! But if it’s not a challenge then where’s the challenge (if you know what I mean)! So I’m going to do it. And to make sure I don’t wimp out I’ve decided to post for charity. Depending on the number of page views I get per day I will personally donate money to a charity very close to my heart.

As a hospital based optometrist working with children we encounter a number of cases of children with eye cancer. The most common of these is one called retinoblastoma which affects 40-50 newly diagnosed children per year. Sadly if retinoblastoma is detected late it can not only cause the loss of vision but also the loss of an eye and sometimes tragically the loss of a life. However with improved screening an early detection retinoblastoma can often be successfully treated. The Childhood Eye Cancer Trust (CHECT) provides support to families affected by retinoblastoma (Rb), promotes awareness of this rare form of cancer to the public and health professionals and supports research into the disease. For the first 100 page views I receive per day I will donate £1 to charity, for 200, I will give £1.50, for 300, £2, for 500, £3 and for 1000 page views or more I will donate £5 per day to the charity. Please can I ask you to support me in this challenge and help raise money for a worthy cause. Should you wish to you can also donate directly to the charity by going to www.chect.org.uk.

 

So that’s the last you will be hearing from me now till the challenge starts. I look forward to seeing you on 1^st November for 30 days of glorious food!

Finally a great tandoori chicken recipe!

I love it when I get requests for recipes.  It makes me finally put a post on (yes I know it's been a while)! My friend Laura asked me the other day if I have a good recipe for tandoori chicken and I can finally say yes I do! It has taken a while to work this one out. N and I have tried many attempts at every BBQ we've had but it's never right. I think the key thing is making sure you don't use too much yoghurt in the marinade otherwise the flavour gets diluted. And smaller chicken thigh pieces work better than large leg pieces otherwise you will end up with rather bland tasting meat in the centre as the spice won't get all the way through. However the biggest secret for tandoori chicken is to marinate it for as long as possible. 4 hours is a minimum but overnight is preferable. I've tried this recipe a number of times now and it works perfectly every time. Those of you that are particularly observant will notice that the colour of the chicken is a bit less red than the versions you get in restuarants. This is because I have used my own blend of spices rather than a tandoori powder mix, which generally has red food colouring in it. To be honest a tandoori mix would have made my life a lot easier but then where's the fun in that! 

Coming up.... November is National Blog Posting Month and I've set myself quite the challenge. More will be revealed in the next post...

Tandoori Chicken

(Serves 2 | total prep and cooking time approx 1 hour 10 mins + marinating time)

Ingredients

4 skinless chicken thighs 

2 tablespoons natural yoghurt

1 teaspoon paprika

1 teaspoon cumin powder

1 teaspoon coriander powder

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon ginger powder

Pinch of garam masala

Pinch cayenne pepper

Juice of half a lemon

Method

- place the yoghurt into a large bowl and add all the spices and lemon juice to it.  Stir well. 

- remove any skin from the chicken and prick all over with a knife 

- add the chicken pieces into the marinade and stir so the chicken is evenly covered

- cover and place in the fridge for a minimum of 4 hours but preferably overnight 

- heat the oven to 160 degrees fan

- line a baking tray with foil and place the chicken pieces on it

- cook in the over for approx 35-40 mins or until cooked and the top of the chicken looks crispy. Make sure the chicken does not dry out

- serve with naan bread, salad and cucumber yoghurt 

Mum knows best

I often have a few very sad looking bananas on my kitchen work top. I think it's because N and I both prefer them when they have literally just turned from green to yellow, so by the time we are getting to the end of our bunch they just don't look very appealing. So we both avoid the last few until one of us, usually me, gets so fed up we go out and buy some more. And then once the new bananas have arrived the old one just don't get a look in. The question is what to do with these poor bananas which now have so many spots on them that there is very little yellow left to see. I hate waste but sadly due to lack of time sometimes this is the only option. I make myself feel slightly better from the knowledge that they go in the food waste recycling rather than the bin but even still if I can make something out of them I will. My fail safe is my tried and tested banana cake recipe but now, thanks to my mum, I finally have another even quicker option. She suggested making some banana and oat flapjacks that are not only super speedy but also don't even require the oven, they can be cooked in the microwave. The other advantage with making your own flapjacks, or oat bars as I prefer to call them, is that you can greatly reduce the amount of sugar you put in or even avoid it all together. So old bananas rejoice you finally have a fate better than my recycling bin! 

Banana and Oat Bars

(Total prep and cooking 20 mins)

Ingredients

- 2 very ripe bananas - well mashed

- 200g porridge oats

- 100g butter

- 50g brown sugar (optional)

- 2 tablespoons honey

- sultanas, chopped nuts and dried fruit as required

Method

- melt the butter and sugar in the microwave

- stir in the honey and any chopped nuts or dried fruit

- with a wooden spoon stir in the oats and banana

- mix well

- transfer to a well greased microwave-safe dish and level the top with a spoon

- cook in the microwave on high power for approximately 8 minutes until the centre bubbles

- cut into squares and allow to cool

Grow Your Own Crab Cakes

I am by no means green-fingered. Every pot plant I have ever owned has sadly died a death. It's not through lack of love. I diligently water it and even talk to it but I think I just don't understand plants. We're clearly on different wavelengths. So it is with great caution that N has allowed me to be involved in tending our outdoor space. When we moved in a couple of years ago our garden consisted of a patch of grass, a couple of walls and a fence. Now it is a lovely little urban oasis with beautiful wooden furniture, a potting shed and a multitude of plants, many of whose names I forget on a daily basis! Up till now I've quite happily taken a back seat and let N create his dream garden (or do all the work as it could also be described) but my love of cooking inspired me to take a corner of this garden for myself and plant a few bits and bobs I could use around the kitchen. What once started as just a rosemary bush has now become an itty bitty allotment just outside my back door. To keep the rosemary company we have Moroccan mint, a bay tree, strawberries, and a herb trough featuring coriander, parsley, oregano and thyme. Ok I know it's no prize-winning pumpkin but it's a start, and for someone who has never really gardened the fact I now have my own gardening gloves and trowel and know where we keep the slug repellant is a pretty big step. 

But there's no point growing it if you're not going to use it. Which is why it makes me so happy when I'm making a dish that allows me to open my back door and head out armed with my herb cutting scissors. This recipe for crab cakes, inspired by Nigel Slater, is a perfect use of my fresh coriander and is the perfect dish for a beautiful summer evening. Serve it outside with a glass of chilled rose wine for the ultimate in alfresco dining. 

Crab Cakes with Coriander 

(Serves 2 | total prep and cooking time 30 mins)

Ingredients

150g Brown crab meat

150g White crab meat

80g white bread crumbs

Juice and zest of a lime

2 spring onions - finely sliced

1 small chilli deseeded and finely chopped

Tablespoon of chopped coriander leaves

1 tablespoon mayonnaise

Seasoning

Olive oil

Method

- Put the crab meat, bread crumbs, zest and juice of lime, chilli, spring onion, coriander and mayo into a large mixing bowl

- Season with a little salt and pepper and mix thoroughly 

- Take 2 tablespoons of the mixture at a time and make into small patties and set aside

- Heat a shallow film of oil in a non-stick pan. Using a turner gently slide the fish cakes into the hot oil. They should sizzle immediately. Leave them to form a crust and then when golden flip them over to the other side for 3-4 mins. 

- Lift them out very carefully, they have a tendency to break, but they taste good no matter what they look like!

Easy Peasy Sausage Rolls

Although I love them, I pretty much never buy sausage rolls. For starters they're not exactly good for you. But I can't claim to be completely virtuous when it comes to food, although I try to be healthy I eat plenty of naughty things. However, my main reason for not buying sausage rolls is that I don't know the quality of the meat they contain. When it come to buying sausages I am so picky about the pork content. For plain sausages I avoid anything with less than 95% pork and for herbed sausages I tend to use 80-85% as my cut off. Now call me cynical but I think you would be hard pushed to find a ready made sausage roll with that quality meat. So I decided to make them myself. Well I think make might be a little bit of an exaggeration, I carried out more of a sausage roll assembley really. I got the inspiration from a Lorraine Pascale recipe. All you need is a sheet of Jus Rol ready rolled puff pastry, 6 good quality sausages, thyme, black pepper, and a beaten egg! They are perfect for picnic or a party as they can be eaten hot or cold. And although they aren't technically 'homemade' they did feel extra special as I used thyme from my new herb garden.....but more about that in the next post.  

Cook's tip: To guarantee your sausage does not escape its roll during cooking, the sausage ‘skin’ can be slipped off before encasing it in pastry.

Ingredients

1 pack ready-rolled puff pastry

1 free-range egg, beaten

6 good quality sausages, cut in two

freshly ground black pepper

small handful fresh thyme leaves

Method

- Preheat the oven to 200 degrees

- Unroll the pastry sheet and bash the pastry with the rolling pin a bit. Puff pastry is made of fine layers and normally you have to be very delicate with it. For sausage rolls the pastry needs to be slightly puffed, but not too much, so bashing it with a rolling pin reduces the amount it puffs up

-Cut the large rectangle in half lengthways, then cut both smaller rectangles into six equal sections. The width of each rectangle should be about the size of your sausage half. You now have 12 rectangles in total. Brush one end of each rectangle with a little of the beaten egg, lay a piece of sausage at the other end, then season the sausage with freshly ground black pepper and sprinkle with thyme leaves. Roll the sausage up in the pastry to enclose and repeat with all the sausages. Put the sausage rolls in the fridge for 20 minutes for the pastry to harden.

-Once the pastry is hard, remove the sausage rolls from the fridge and score the tops with a sharp knife for decoration, or prick with a fork. Brush well all over with the rest of the beaten egg and bake in the oven for 25–30 minutes, or until the pastry has turned golden-brown and looks crisp. Remove from the oven and leave to cool slightly before serving.

Goodbye winter, hello spring!

Spring is finally here! Our garden is full of beautiful daffodils that N planted at the end of last year. Every time I look out of the window they make me smile and remind me that although a quarter of the year has passed in the blink of an eye, the best is definitely yet to come. But before I start to really celebrate the change in season I felt I needed to say a goodbye to winter. Because apart from the fact I leave home for work when it's still pitch black and it's so cold N forces me to wear a hat (which I hate), I actually quite like winter. Dark cosy evenings, roaring log fires and best of all guilt-free comfort food. As the weather improves I feel obliged to eat more salads or fish and vegetable dishes but the fact remains, I am a glutton for stodge! 

So as a farewell to the winter season I allowed my baked lamb chops with tomato and aubergine to have one last appearance on our dining table. This recipe is inspired by none other than my food writing guru, Nigel Slater. I stumbled across the recipe one evening whilst reading his Kitchen Diaries. He describes it as 'a loud-flavoured plate of (hearty) food...to restore your faith in the pleasures of plain, simple eating'. I think that really says it all. 

Baked Lamb Chops with Tomato and Aubergine

(Serves 2 generous portions | total prep and cooking time 1 hour 20 mins)

Ingredients

4 lamb chops

6-8 new potatoes -halved

6-8 cherry tomatoes - halved

1 medium aubergine - cut into thick chunks 

6 mushrooms - thickly sliced

6 garlic cloves - peeled but left whole

1 medium onion - cut into wedges

1/2 butternut squash (optional) - cut into thick chunks 

2-3 sprigs rosemary 

Approximately 5 tablespoons olive oil

Seasoning

Method

- heat the oven to 200 degrees fan

- place the potato halves, tomato halves, aubergine chunks, butternut squash chunks, mushrooms, onion wedges and garlic to a large shallow oven proof dish

- poor over the olive oil and sprinkle with salt and black pepper

- toss everything together so the vegetables are covered with the oil and seasoning

- tuck in the rosemary sprigs and bake uncovered for 20 mins

- rub the lamb chops with olive oil and season

- after the 20 mins remove the vegetables and place the lamb chops on top 

- return the dish to the oven for approximately 40 mins (or slightly less if you like your lamb pink inside)

- serve as it is or with gravy 

Have your pie and eat it

One of the things I have never attempted to make is pastry. It's always scared me a little as it takes quite a while and it can go so wrong. It's quite unlike me really as normally I am happy to step out of my comfort zone and try something new even if it doesn't quite work out the way I planned. After all, if at first you don't succeed....but for some reason making pastry is one if the paths I have never ventured down. I've always known that ready made pastry is available but it felt like too much of a cheat so I stayed clear. Until I watched Lorraine Pascal. She said that one of the things she rarely makes is pastry as the shop bought versions are so good. Hey, if she can do it so can I! So I bought some Jus Rol puff pastry. Not only can you buy pre-prepared pastry but you can also get it ready rolled. Now that's a shortcut I was ready to try!

Pastry ready and waiting I had one more problem to tackle. And this one was more tricky. N doesn't really like pies! However on further questioning I discovered he isn't strictly anti-pie but rather he has an issue with ready made and restaurant pies as he finds they have the wrong pastry to filling ratio. Most of these pies have a full pastry case making the overall effect very stodgy. Luckily I had some individual pie cases lurking at the back of my cupboard which I was just waiting for the opportunity to use. Using individual pie dishes meant I could just make a lid out of pastry. The end result were a couple of elegant chicken, leek and mushroom pies. To get a neat result I cut round one of the pie dishes before I had filled it and to go that step extra I used a cookie cutter to cut a star out of the excess pastry. They really were comfort food at its best. 

Individual chicken, leek and mushroom pies

(Serves 2 | total prep and hob cooking time 40 mins + 30 mins in the oven)

Ingredients 

- 1 sheet Jus Rol ready rolled puff pastry

- milk to brush pastry

- olive oil

- 1 small onion - diced

- 3 cloves of garlic - finely chopped

- 1 chicken breast fillet - cut into small pieces

- 1 leek - trimmed and sliced

- 5-6 mushrooms - sliced

- approx 300ml chicken stock

- herbs such as thyme, tarragon and parsley

- level tablespoon of cornflour

- black pepper

Method

- preheat the oven to 180 degrees fan

- cut round the top of the pie dishes to make 2 lids. Use a cookie cutter to cut a optional shape out of any excess pastry. Keep these aside

- heat some olive oil in a saucepan

- fry the chicken for approx 10 mins until it looks opaque. Don't worry if it is not completely cooked as it will cook more later. Remove from the pan and set aside

- add some more oil and soften the onions. Add the garlic and fry for a few minutes

- add the leek and mushroom, stir well and cook on a low heat for a few minutes

- return the chicken to the pan and add the herbs. Stir well

- add the stock, cornflour and black pepper

- cook together on a low-med heat for approx 10 mins until the sauce has thickened up. If it is too runny increase the heat until some liquid evaporates. If it is too thick add a little boiling water and stir well

- allow to cool slightly and transfer into individual pie dishes leaving a few millimetres of room at the top of the dish

- brush the edge of the dish with some milk and place the pastry lid on top. Pinch the edges so it sticks to the dish and produces a nice fluting

- brush the centre of the pastry lid with a little more milk and place the pastry shape on top

- pierce a hole in the centre if the pastry lid with a knife or a fork

- brush the top of the pastry with more milk

- place in the oven for 30 mins until the pastry is golden brown