Sunshine Soup

This is a super quick  supper dish, sweet potatoes spiced with Carribean curry and tempered with creamy coconut milk.  Just as yummy on a bright sunny day like today as in the deep dark winter.  It’s really simple to make, have a go…

Ingredients:

2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into about 1cm ish cubes

1 onion, chopped

A dessert spoon of Carribean or Jamaican curry powder

Half a tin of coconut milk ( i used half fat)

2 teaspoons of veg bouillon or a veg stock cube

About 1/2 a pint of boiling water, add more to thin if needed

Salt and pepper

Method:

Soften the onions.  Add curry powder and fry for a min then add chopped sweet potato.  Pour in coconut milk and boiling water to cover, add bouillon or stock cube and simmer for 10 min or until the sweet potato is tender.  Whizz with a hand blender, season genourously and add extra water to thin to desired consistency. Maybe a little cheeky swirl of cream seeing as I was so healthy using the half fat cocounut milk and all and done!

Chorizo Bubble and Squeak

I’m on a bit of a chorizo roll at the moment and I’m loving it.  I had this for lunch today in order to use up a rather forlorn looking cabbage and some of the chorizo used for last night’s tray bake. 

Ingredients:

6 smallish potatoes, boiled then mashed

1 onion, sliced

quarter of a cabbage, savoy, shredded

salt and pepper

olive oil

Method:

Soften the onion in some olive oil then begin to fry with the chorizo until starting to caramelize, add the cabbage and gently fry until wilted.  Mix the onion, cabbage and chorizo in with the mash,season,  leave to cool slightly then form into patties and fry in olive oil.  Served alone or with a fried egg or perhaps a little salad (the sunshine is out after all).

Chicken and Chorizo Tray Bake

 This is one of Nigella Lawson’s recipes, i’m sure it’s in one of her cook books but I stumbled accross it here: http://www.nigella.com/recipes/view/spanish-chicken-with-chorizo-and-potatoes-5160

It was gorgeous and even my fussiest eater (Mr Potato Lover) loved it and trust me this is a hard task as most of my recipes and ramblings on here are ridiculed and nose turned at so I shall be proud in my accomplishment and thank Nigella for her lovely recipe.

Bacon, Spring Onion and Pea Fritatta

Kidney and Baked Bean Burgers

Baked Rice Paper Spring Rolls

I’ve had these rice paper wrappers in my cupboard for ages, when I first realised I was gluten intolerent I thought these might make up for the lack of bread but they’ve been gathering dust for months now and I thought I really must do something with them. 

These little spring rolls make a healthier alternative to the deep fried ones, as delicious as they are, and are pretty straightforward to make.  I went for a veggie option but I’m sure some shredded pork, duck or chicken would go very well in these.

Ingredients:

Makes about 8

8 rice paper wrappers

6 spring onions, shredded

1 carrot, grated

A couple of handfuls of spinach

A teaspoon or two of curry powder

Some soy sauce, I used Tamari

A clove of garlic

About an inch of ginger

A handful of dried vermicelli rice noodles ( the really fine ones)

Some sweet chilli sauce for dipping

Some spray oil

Method:

Grate the ginger and garlic into a hot pan, add the carrot and spring onions, fry for a min or so, add curry powder and soy, fry for a min.  Then add your spinach, cook quickly until starting to wilt then set aside in a bowl.  Soak your vermicelli rice noodles and add to the veg mix.

Preheat your oven to 220 degrees.

Soak your rice paper wrappers one at a time in some warm water for about 10 seconds, I think its easier to do this as you go so they don’t dry out or stick together.  Lay out your wrapper and dollop a little of the veg and noodle mix along the centre, roll and wrap, tucking the ends in as you go and lay on a greased baking tray.

Once they are all rolled and on the baking tray, spray genourously with oil, I guess you could brush some oil on if you don’t have any spray oil.

Put into a hot oven for about 20/25 min until crisp.  They don’t need to brown, mine did slightly but as long as they are crisp they are done so have a little check after 20 min and then decide.

Serve with some sweet chilli sauce.

Retro Saturday Lunch

So I still had some iceburg lettuce in the fridge from last weekend, that stuff really lasts well, and I was thinking what else could I do with it and then prawn cocktail sprung to mind.  I love a nice prawn cocktail and as dated as it might be, done right it is a delicious little starter or light meal.  Easy to make and light and crunchy served with some yummy iceberg and one of my  favourite ingredients the delectable avocado. 

My Marie Rose sauce was made with some creme fraiche, tomato ketchup, a splash of Worcester sauce, a squeeze of lemon and a little salt and pepper.  I mixed it up, defrosted some prawns and mixed them into the sauce.  Served very simply and very seventies styley on some shredded iceberg and some sliced avocado.  Yeah baby!

Pancakes!

Well it is Pancake Day isn’t it?

Right I won’t bore you with a recipe for a pancake batter, if you’ve made it this far I think you either a.  know how to make it or b. can operate a computer well enough to search for a decent recipe on the t’internet.  I thought I’d just share my pancake dinner with you and share my ideas.

I was a little concerned for the potential lack of veg in a traditional pancake supper and seeing as I was cooking for me and my lil lady I thought I would attempt to include a good few of our five a day. So for pancake dinner tonight I made some cheese and vegetable pancakes, that sounds a little dull doesn’t it but I can’t think of a snazzy title right now and they were yummy honest.  Then for dessert we ate pancakes with cinnamon apples and ice cream. 

For the veggie pancakes:

I added a good shake or two of smoked paprika and some garlic salt to the batter ( i made gf but i’m sure you have your own fav recipes).

For the filling I softened some onions, added some grated carrot, a chubby clove of garlic (chopped) and fried in a pan.  Then at the last minute flung in two great big handfuls of spinach and set aside in a bowl.  I then grated some cheese and stirred it into the veg mix,  fried off my pancake on one side, flipped, added stuffing and rolled up in the pan.  You can pop the rolled pancakes into the oven to keep warm whilst you make the rest. 

For pancake pudding, I added a little sugar and some vanilla to a basic batter mix then fried off some apples with sugar, butter and cinnamon and filled the pancakes with them.  I served them up with a squeeze of agave syrup and some vanilla ice cream.

What did you do with yours?

Yuk Sung

I’ve been thinking and googling this alot recently so after finally buying two of the key ingredients (minced pork and iceburg lettuce) yesterday I thought it would make a nice light meal for dinner tonight.  This is brilliant if you love texture and crunch because it is full of it and it’s pretty damn tasty too.  I really just guestimated through this so I’ll give you a list of the ingredients I used but if you search for Yuk Sung you’ll see there seems to be many variations.

Ingredients:

Iceburg lettuce

Minced pork

Celery stick or two, chopped into little cubes

Spring onion or two, chopped up small

garlic and ginger, chopped finely

splurt of oyster sauce

splash or two of soy sauce

a splosh of shaosing wine

a pinch of sugar

fine rice noodles

oil

Method:

First the fun bit.  Heat a pan, add about a cm of oil, heat til hot hot.  Add dried rice noodles and watch as they poof up all frazzled and then drain. 

Fry pork until browned.  Add garlic and ginger, celery and spring onion and fry for a bit.  Add your sauces, sugar etc.  Keep cooking until most has evapourated and you have a stickyish mixture that is wet but not too saucy.  Wash and drain your lettuce leaves.  Serve a spoonful of the pork mixture in a lettuce leaf topped with crunchy noodles, wrap, and if you fancy dip into a little Hoisin Sauce.  Crunch, mmm mmm.

Fish and Grill, Croydon – Review

I don’t really know what to say about this place because they produce good food. It’s simple, well presented and tasty it’s just not different.  If you’re looking for a ‘nice’ place to take someone in Croydon for some well cooked grub then go here.  We had a good meal here Saturday lunchtime.  We ordered from the set menu and ate Moules Mariniere, Plaice Goujons and Chips, Coley and Crayfish Butter and desserts including Chocolate Tart and a Creme Brulee.  The service, was very pleasant but seemed a little slow for a fairly quiet early lunchtime, there were only four other tables filled in the restaurant and what looked like 5/6 chefs in the kitchen but who knows maybe they were having a bad day. 

The moules were big and juicy chaps piled high in a lake of creamy liquer, in fact there seemed more cream than anything else which didn’t really seem entirely necessary.  I ate the Coley for main and it was perfectly cooked with a few sweet crayfish tails strewn across the top and some citrus and butter jus surrounding.  It was good, nothing different but good. My companion had the plaice goujons that were happily shared with our two year old Egon Ronay who dunked away the crispy fingers of fish and very morerish chips in to her little jar of sauce rouge.  We ended with the crispy topped, cuddle in a bowl that was creme brulee, I forgot how much I love this, and done well, like  this was finished the meal off superbly.  Chocolate tart had crisp light pastry and a deep, dark intense baked chocolate filling.  Little M, sorry Egon Ronay jr, devoured the ball of chocolate ice cream and cute sail boat tuille in a matter of seconds. 

So actually after all that it looks like I do know what to say don’t I?! It’s good, try it.

Fish and Grill, South End, Croydon http://www.fishandgrill.co.uk/