Shakshuka

Eggs poached in a spicy tomato sauce




Shakshuka is a dish which originates from North Africa and is now popular all over the Middle East. It is easy to make, good for your belly, really delicious and very filling. We served with toasted pitta bread but it would also go well with rice or even pasta.

Ingredients: (serves 2 - 3)
- 1 onion, chopped
- 3 red chillis, deseeded and finely chopped
- 5 cloves garlic, crushed and sliced
- 1 tablespoon sweet paprika
- 2 teaspoons ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 1 courgette, diced
- 2 tins tomatoes
- 1/2 cup water
- 4 eggs
- Handful fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped
- Handful feta cheese
- Salt, pepper
- Pitta bread

Method:
- Heat a good glug of olive oil in a wide, shallow pan and cook together the onions and chilli for about 5 mins, until softened and starting to colour.
- Add in the garlic, courgette, paprika and cumin and cook for another 3 mins.
- Pour in the two tins of tomatoes and season with salt, pepper and sugar. Add two-thirds of the chopped parsley and 1/2 cup water and simmer for approx half an hour until thickened and reduced, like so:



- Break an egg into a cup and gently pour it on top of the tomato sauce. Repeat for the other eggs (spread them out over the surface of the sauce) and put a lid on the pan. Cook for approx 10 mins until the eggs are cooked through, less if you want gooey yolks.
- Top with crumbled feta and the remaining parsley, and serve with toasted pittas.

Carrot & parsnip fritters

A quick and easy dish that serves as either lunch or dinner.




I realised recently that I hardly ever eat meat these days. I would much rather eat a pile of vegetables than a big hunk of steak. This dish is a great example of how a meat-free dish can be so so good that you won't even realise you're having a vegetarian dinner even if you're a regular omnivore. I served with a simple ceaser salad but this would also be great with big fat homemade chips.

Ingredients:
- 1 large carrot
- 1 parsnip
- 3 spring onions
- 1 slice bread
- 1 egg
- Good pinch salt
- Pinch sweet paprika

Method:

- Grate the carrot and parsnip into a bowl.
- Finely slice the spring onions and them them to the other veg.
- Whizz the bread up in a food processor to make crumbs - this works easiest if the bread is a day or two old. Add it to the bowl with the salt and paprika.
- Chuck in the egg and mix everything together really well.
- Heat some olive oil and a little butter in a frying pan over medium heat. When the oil is hot, form the vegetable mixture into little patties in your hands and place them gently into the pan.
- Saute for 5 - 7 minutes on each side, until golden brown and cooked through.

Falafel

The best dinner in the wide world




Falafel is a Middle Eastern dish made from spiced chickpeas. It is traditionally deep fried but in this recipe I just pop them in the oven to bake. It saves on a lot of fat and stops them being greasy. We served with tortilla wraps, a yogurt sauce called tzatziki (recipe also below), shredded iceberg lettuce and sliced tomatoes. AMAZING.

Ingredients:

For the falafel:
1 tin chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 onion
3 large cloves garlic
1 avocado
1 heaped tsp ground cumin
1 tsp fresh red chilli, deseeded and chopped
1 heaped tsp dried coriander leaf (or fresh if you have it)
Good pinch of salt and pepper

For the tzatziki (yogurt sauce):
Couple of tablespoons of natural yogurt (low-fat works best as it's a thinner consistency)
A few inches of cucumber, grated
1 clove garlic, grated
About a tablespoon of lemon juice

Method:
- Preheat the oven to 160 degrees (180 for a conventional oven).
- Into a food processor, chuck the chickpeas, onion, garlic and avocado and blitz well. Add the cumin, chilli, salt and pepper and mix well. My food processor is on the blink so I use a little mini chopper and then combine all the ingredients in a bowl; works just as well.
- The mix will be quite wet at this stage. Taste the mixture for seasoning and add more cumin or chilli as desired.
- Divide the mixture into 8 and form gently into balls.
- Transfer the balls to a greased baking tray or a muffin tin (I use the latter as it keeps the shape quite well) and bake in the oven for 30 minutes.
- Meanwhile, make the tzatziki by mixing together all the ingredients. Taste as you go and adjust the garlic/ lemon quantities to your taste. Go easy on the garlic at first as it is very hot when raw. This yogurt sauce adds moisture to the dish and cools down any unwanted heat from the chilli.
- Once the falafel is cooked, dish up with some salad and either wraps or pitta bread for a mega amazing feast.

Coleslaw

Crunchy, tasty and healthy; the perfect side dish




Ingredients:

1/2 a head of white cabbage
2 carrots
2 sticks of celery
1 tablespoon mayonaisse
1 tablespoon natural yogurt
Juice of 1/2 lemon

Method:
- Finely shred the cabbage, grate the carrot and slice the celery. Place them in a big bowl together.
- Mix together the mayo, yogurt and lemon juice and add to the vegetables. Mix well and taste; add more lemon juice if desired, or some salt if preferred.
- Serve as part of a salad platter or on the side of your dinner.

Sticky barbeque spare ribs

Like having a really good take-away that you happened to have cooked yourself.




Martin got me a lovely new cookbook for my birthday this year; Mrs. Beeton's Easy Entertaining. I was keen to get cracking on trying out some recipes, so I had a go at making these ribs for my sister and her family. They turned out incredibly good; really sticky and sweet and slightly sour all at once. I will definitely be making these again. They take a while to make, but are not very labour intensive so you can relax and have a glass of wine while they cook away in the oven. The spice mixture and sauce quantities in this recipe will be enough for about 8 ribs - double both quantities if you're making more than this to make sure you have enough.

Ingredients:

- Pork spare ribs - 2 per person if they are big juicy ribs from the butcher

For the spice mixture:
- 6 tbsp soft light brown sugar
- 1 tbsp grated lemon rind
- 1 tbsp paprika
- Salt and pepper

For the barbeque sauce:
- 7 fluid oz tomato juice
- 3 tbsp tomato ketchup
- 2 tbsp worcestershire sauce
- 2 tbsp soft light brown sugar
- 1/2 tbsp wholegrain mustard
- 1 fresh red chilli, as finely choppped as you can manage

Method:

- Heat the oven to about 160 degrees celcius.
- Cut the ribs into individual portions (you can get the butcher to do this for you) and place them in a baking dish in a single layer.
- Mix together all the ingredients for the spice mixture and rub into the ribs.
- Meanwhile, make the barbeque sauce. Put all the ingredients in a saucepan and add about 3 or 4 fluid oz water. Bring to the boil and simmer for about 15 minutes until it starts to thicken.
- Pour the sauce over the ribs, coating them evenly, and put them in the oven.
- After 30 minutes, remove them from the oven and turn the heat up to 180. You will see that the barbeque sauce has thinned as the fat has melted out of the ribs. Pour the sauce carefully into a saucepan and return the ribs to the oven.
- Boil the sauce like mad for about five minutes, then turn it down and let it simmer until it turns into a nice sticky sauce.
- Get the ribs out of the oven again and dab the sticky sauce over the top of them.
- At this point you have two options: either put the oven up on full blast and put the ribs back in for 10 - 15 minutes until they start to char nicely, or put them until a hot grill for the same effect. Grilling would be preferable but we did them in the oven and it worked out fine.
- Remove from oven and serve immediately.
- We served with a nice big pile of homemade chips, which were made very thusly: chop up some peeled white potatoes to the thickness/ size of your choosing (I like a fat chip, me) and toss the chips in a healthy glug of olive oil and paprika until they are all coated and glistening. The chips will take 30 - 40 minutes in a hot oven (about 190 or 200), depending on their thickness.

Cannelloni

Spinach and ricotta for the vegetarians; chicken, leek & mushroom for the meat eaters.



This was our main course for the dinner party. It was a brilliant choice because it could be prepared in advance and then popped in the oven to cook for half an hour before serving. It was also easy to make a veggie dish that didn't make our vegetarian guest feel like they were missing out on anything. We served this with a big mixed salad and a heap of wine. The winning component in this dish is the sauce. It's incredibly rich and decadent - definitely not something you'd eat very often - so it really felt like a treat and a special meal. I found myself scraping leftover sauce out of the dish the next morning in a hungover state, wishing there was more.

Ingredients:

Cannelloni pasta
1 big bag spinach
1 tub ricotta cheese
Breadcrumbs
3 chicken breasts
1 leek, cleaned and finely chopped
Two handfuls of mushrooms, finely chopped
1 tub cottage cheese

For the sauce:
2 onions, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
2 sticks of celery, chopped
2 bay leaves
1 bottle white wine
1.5 pints single cream
1 pint milk
About 1 tablespoon of Herbes de provence (dried)
Salt, pepper

Method:
- Prepare the veggie cannelloni first. In a food processor, whizz up all the spinach until it's very finely chopped. Chuck it in a bowl with the ricotta and add a couple of handfuls of breadcrums. Mix well, and stuff this mixture into the cannelloni. This takes a bit of time, so sit down at the kitchen table with a cup of tea and prepare to get your hands very messy. Place the filled cannelloni in a single layer in a baking dish and set aside.
- Now prepare the chicken version. Cook the chicken breasts on a pan in olive oil until they are done all the way through; this takes 10 or 15 mins. Once cooked, chuck the chicken into the food processor and blend until the chicken is in nice small pieces. Place this into a big bowl.
- Melt some butter in a pan and saute the mushroom and leek for 5 mins, just until the vegetables have softened. Add this into the chicken, throw in the cottage cheese and mix thoroughly.
- Stuff this mixture into cannelloni, and again place it on a single layer in a dish.
- Time to make the sauce, the sauce of which dreams are made. Heat some butter in a large saucepan and add the onions, carrots, celery and bay leaves. Saute for 10 minutes or so, until the vegetables are soft. Add in the whole bottle of white wine and simmer with the lid on for another 10 minutes, to get all the flavours of the vegetables into the wine.
- After 10 minutes, strain the wine through a sieve or colander to remove the vegetables and bay leaves - these can now be discarded as they have given all their flavour.
- Add the cream and milk to the wine and mix gently. Add approx 1 tablespoon of herbes de provence and a good dose of salt and pepper.
- The next step is to thicken the sauce. To do this, take a tablespoon of white flour and a tablespoon of butter. Put them in a bowl and mash them together with a fork to make a roux. Add this into the sauce and stir well; the sauce will begin to thicken as it simmers. Add more roux until the sauce is the thickness you want; ideally you want it thick enough that it will properly coat the pasta and not just drip off the sides.
- Pour the sauce over the cannelloni dishes so that all the pasta is covered.
- Cook in a moderate oven (160 or 170 degrees) for approximately 30 minutes, until the pasta is cooked and the top of the dish is beginning to brown. Serve immediately, to delighted friends.

Sweet potato and chickpea curry

A fiery, easy-to-cook treat for a naughty Monday hangover.



I have had a hankering for a good curry for a while now, so threw this together in a very haphazard fashion this evening and was delighted with the results. It takes about an hour to make as I cooked it pretty slowly but it's worth it. You can serve this with a traditional side of rice, but actually it's very filling as a single dish in itself as it's chock full of potato and beans.

Ingredients (serves about 2):

1 onion, finely chopped
Approx 3 heaped teaspoons garam masala
1 heaped teaspoon cumin
Approx 1 teaspoon fresh red chilli
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 sweet potato, cubed
1/2 courgette, sliced
1 tin chickpeas
1 carton passata or a tin of chopped tomatoes
1 teaspoon sugar
Handful of sunflower/ pumpkin seeds
Salt & pepper
Natural yogurt (optional)

Method:

Heat some olive oil in a saucepan over a medium heat. Add the mustard seeds when the oil is hot. When they start to pop a little, add the onion, garam masala, cumin, and garlic. Stir well and season lightly with some salt and pepper. Cook the onion and the spices for 2 - 3 mins, stirring to prevent burning.

Add the chopped sweet potato and courgette and turn the heat down to medium-low. Cover and cook for 5 mins.

Add in the sunflower seeds and the passata. I prefer to use passata to a tin of tomatoes for the thicker texture it yields and the deeper flavour it provides, but use whatever is knocking about in your kitchen. Add the sugar (it cancels out any bitterness in the tomatoes) and season again with salt and pepper. Add 1 or 2 chillis depending on your preference - keep the seeds in if you want it super hot and spicy.

Cook this uncovered on a low heat for approximately 1 hour. Give it a stir every once in a while to make sure it isn't sticking to the bottom; if it sticks, add a little water to loosen the mixture. Taste well and season again before serving if needs be.

Mine turned out sweat-inducingly spicy as I am somewhat of a novice at cooking with fresh chilli. To take the edge off, I served the curry with a big dollop of natural yogurt and it was delicious.

Vegetable Gratin

Tasty, healthy, quick and wallet-friendly.



I put this dish together after reading a few different recipes for different types of gratins. Oh, I love a conventional gratin, but not the calorific cream that comes with it. This is a healthy take on a version of a vegetable gratin that I found in an old recipe book. I put in some bitesize pieces of chicken (just because I had it to hand) but actually it would be better without, so I've omitted it from the recipe. This will serve 2 people as a side dish or 1 person as a complete dinner.

Ingredients:

1 courgette, sliced
2 tomatoes, sliced
A handful of broccoli florets
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
10 basil leaves, shredded
Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons olive oil
Salt, pepper

Method:
Chuck the vegetables in a bowl with the basil and pour over the olive oil. Season well with salt and pepper and mix everything together with your hands to ensure everything is coated with the oil and seasonings.

Transfer the mixture to a baking dish and grate some Parmesan cheese over the top.

Bake in the oven for 15 - 20 minutes until the vegetables are cooked and the cheese has gone golden brown. Serve immediately.

Bangers and mash

Super duper sausage sensation


Today I got my final results from university, and I was thoroughly exhausted from worrying about them all week. I wanted to celebrate this evening by making something easy yet delicious for dinner, so I whipped up one of my favourite at-home treats: bangers and mash. This has a sweet and tangy sauce which is given a bit of a kick by wholegrain mustard. Conveniently enough, this dish goes very well with a big fat glass of red wine. Job done, Joey happy.

Ingredients (serves 5):

15 pork sausages (preferably nice ones from the butcher)
3 red onions, sliced
1 oz brown sugar
6 dessert spoons worcestershire sauce
3 dessert spoons white wine vinegar
375 ml chicken stock
3 teaspoons wholegrain mustard
(I won't bother including the instructions for mash here, but just have enough made to go round.)

Method:

Heat some olive oil in a pan on medium to high heat, and add the sausages. Cook them until browned and add the sliced onions. Cook until onions begin to soften.



Add the brown sugar and mix well for 1 minute to ensure it doesn't stick. The sugar will begin to caramelise and the ensuing smells will make your mouth water.

Pour in the chicken stock, vinegar and worcestershire sauce and simmer for 30 minutes. After this, crank up the heat to full and stir until sauce reduces and becomes thicker.

Stir in the mustard and serve immediately over creamy mash. Bleedin lovely!