Reciplace

Sweet Potato and Spicy Bean Stew

Surprisingly, one of the best food magazines I've found has been the Tesco Healthy Living magazine that they send me every quarter.  I've tried quite a few things out of it that have been out of this world!  This is one of them.

This stew takes a while, so we normally just make it on the weekend.  The preparation isn't so bad, but it does sit on the stove and bubble away for over an hour.  I love the combination of spicy and sweet in the stew, the refreshing crème fraîche side, and the salty tortilla chips to dip. 

300g sweet potatoes
1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 red pepper, finely diced
25g jalapeño peppers
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tbsp ground coriander
pinch crushed chilli flakes
400g can black-eyed beans
400g can kidney beans
400g can chopped tomatoes
3 tbsp runny honey
3 tbsp white wine vinegar
450ml (3/4pt) vegetable stock
200g can sweetcorn kernels

To serve:
150ml crème fraîche
2 tbsp chopped coriander
juice and zest of one lime
100g plain, unsalted corn chips

1. Carefully chop the sweet potato into 1cm cubes.  Next, pour the extra-virgin olive oil into a large, flameproof casserole dish and heat.  Add the onion and saute for 2-3 minutes.  Then stir in the sweet potato, red pepper, jalapeños, cumin, coriander and chilli and saute for a further 3-4 minutes.

2. Add the remaining stew ingredients and simmer uncovered for 20-30 minutes.  Cover, then simmer for a further 35-40 minutes.

3. While the stew is cooking, combine the crème fraîche, coriander, lime juice and zest and refrigerate until ready to serve.

4. Using a ladle, divide the stew between individual bowls and then top with a dollop of the crème fraîche mixture.  Serve with the corn chips.

Mega Vegetable Stir Fry

A trip to Croydon Market (see my previous post) means stacks and stacks of vegetables in the rack and in the fridge!  There's no point in getting all that lovely veg if you're going to let it go off by the end of the week.... so we made a big huge lovely stir fry with it all.   This requires a big huge wok. 

The key to this dinner is lots and lots and lots of vegetables, and different kinds of vegetables.  For this one we used mangetout, beansprouts, long beans, cherry tomatoes, yellow peppers, green peppers, red peppers, red onions, carrots, broccoli, water chestnuts, spinach, corn, peas and pak choy.  Chopping takes the most amount of time... after that, just throw it all in a hot wok with some sesame oil.   We normally add a chicken or turkey breast and some sesame seeds or cashew nuts. 

When it's all done cooking, stir in some straight-to-wok noodles and the sauce.   I'll admit that I usually use a store-bought stir fry sauce.  Sharwood does nice Kung-Po ones.  If I'm in the mood for making a sauce, I'll usually put soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic, spring onions and honey in a bowl, whisk together and pour over the veg.  It's always nice to sprinkle some seaweed over top in the bowl before you eat.  And don't let me catch you not using chopsticks!

Freezable Burritos for Lunch with fresh Mexican salad

Working in Central London can take it's toll on your wallet. I have to pay *ahem* £4,000 per year on travel, and work worryingly close to Oxford Street and it's tempting wares.  Grabbing a quick bite to eat on your lunch break can cost you upwards of £6/day, which adds up!  We've got a lovely cafeteria in our office building which is a heckuvalot cheaper than eating elsewhere, but it gets tiring after a while, and my manager is convinced the food from there contains worms.  Errr....   

So I like to bring my lunch every day.  But believe me, when you have to leave the house at 7am you do not want to be building sandwiches in the morning!  So what to do?  The answer is making big batches of yummy stuff on the weekends, and freezing it up to take during the week.  Variety is key though, you don't want to be taking the same lasagna every day for a week, or you'll start to resent it and never cook it again (experience speaking here...).   

This is one of my favourite make-ahead lunches.   They are easy to make, make loads at a time, taste fantastic, and stack easily in the freezer without taking up too much room.   They're also good to make when a certain boyfriend (not mentioning any names) has left a weeks' worth of plastic containers at work and you have nothing to put a lasagna in to if you wanted to!

We start by making the burrito filling in the slow cooker.  I usually use a pack of organic lean ground beef (mince), a tin of kidney beans, a tin of black beans, 2 tins of crushed tomatoes, a couple of onions, some carrots, and lots of mexican seasoning such as crushed cumin seeds, hot sauce and chilli powder.   Cook on low for 4-6 hours. 

At this point, I normally refrigerate the mixture for a few hours or overnight, as it becomes less wet and is much easier to wrap in tortillas. 

Put about 4 big spoonfuls of mixture into a tortilla wrap.  Spoon over the top some refried beans, salsa, shredded cheddar, cooked rice, and if you like, some sliced jalapeno peppers.  Roll and wrap tightly, then immediately wrap again tightly in cling-film.  This makes about ten burritos, which you can neatly stack in your freezer.

On the night before you take a burrito for lunch, prepare the Mexican salad.  In a small bowl, mix together a handful of sliced cherry tomatoes, 3 chopped spring onions, half a sliced avocado, a large handful of chopped fresh coriander, a little bit of tabasco and the juice of half a lime.  We normally double this amount so we can both have burritos.  The lime juice helps to prevent the avocado from turning brown in the fridge overnight, but it will still turn a little. 

At work, just unwrap your frozen burrito and put on a plate, heat up in the microwave, and dish out the salad onto the plate when it's ready.  (Hopefully you've got those plastic containers back by now so you have something to put the salad in!)

Blueberry Bran Muffins

I've always loved baking muffins.  I don't have much of a sweet tooth, so baking cakes and pastries has never excited me that much.  But muffins are lovely.  You can have them for breakfast, pop them in your lunchbox, or shove one in your mouth between getting home from work and going to the gym.  The trouble I have since moving from Canada to the UK is getting the flour and the sizes right from North American recipes.  The flour here is a bit different, the altitude is different, and the "paper muffin cases" they sell at the supermarket are the size of a little mouse's hat. 

Some recipes work, some don't.  I tried a recipe a few weeks ago that I found on a US website, that had loads of 5 stars in the reviews.  It left me with 24 little apple flavoured miniature hockey pucks.  I don't know why they didn't rise! 

This recipe, however, is different.   It's moist, the muffins come out big, it's healthy, and maaaaaaaaaan do they taste gooooooood.   I've been having trouble just stopping at one muffin - I could eat about 40 in one sitting.   

Here's the recipe!

Ingredients

2 eggs
215g skimmed or semi-skimmed milk
80g sunflower or rapeseed oil
50g plain yogurt
120g brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
70g oat or wheat bran
200g plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon bicarb of soda
200g blueberries, unthawed if frozen

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 200C; prepare muffin pans by lining 11 cups with paper muffin liners.

2. In a large bowl, beat together eggs, milk, oil, sugar and vanilla.

3. Stir in bran; let stand for 5 minutes.

4. In a small mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda; add to egg mixture, stirring just until combined.

5. Carefully stir in blueberries, being careful not to overmix.

6. Spoon into paper-lined muffin cups, filling right to the top.

7. Bake in preheated oven for approximately 20 minutes, or until muffins are firm to the touch; do not overbake or muffins will be dry and tough.

8. Remove muffins from pan and cool on rack.

Muffin-tastic!!!

Roman Style Pizza

We had some amazing pizza when we were in Rome in November, in a place called Monte Carlo Pizza, near Piazza Navona.  It was recommended to us by someone who is from Rome, and it was fab.  We tried to recreate what we'd had at home - and although it's not exactly the same, it tasted pretty wonderful!

For the base, we used some Turkish Lavish Bread from Taj (an international grocery shop here in Brighton).  It's just a normal flat bread, that comes in long triangles. 

We folded these big triangles into 3-layered squares, and spread tomato pizza sauce on.  Then we sprinkled on some grated cheddar, some salami that the same friend brought back from Rome, sliced cherry tomatoes from the market, some chorizo leftover from the jambalaya last weekend, and some spinach.  I spread some dried oregano over the top, and then we drizzled a little olive oil over the top.  Put them under the grill for around ten minutes, and you've got some delicious and quick homemade pizza!

Croydon Market is Ace!

I always struggle to decide where I should be buying groceries from.  Waitrose is sometimes much better quality, but boy do you ever pay for it!  Somerfield is cheap-ish, and pretty decent.... but something about the store is a little scuzzy and out of date.  Tesco is where I normally buy the basics from because it appeals to my cheapskate nature.... but you really can taste the difference.  In a bad way. 

When The Boy used to work in Croydon, he brought back all our veg and fruit from the market that goes on in the town centre every day except Sundays.  He would come back with bags and bags full of glorious produce, and I would always be amazed at how little he had spent!  He hasn't worked there in almost a year, so we've mostly been suffering through Tesco fruit and veg, with a few things from Taj now and then, and Waitrose when we're feeling flush. 

Yesterday, we decided to make the trek up to Croydon, just for the market.  It was so much fun!  I love all the stalls, and the stall keepers yelling their borderline-unintelligible "Pound of potatoes for a pound!"  It's like something out of Eastenders, and it's so busy down there on a Saturday you can barely move.  But we made out like bandits!  We bought all kinds of things - carrots, peppers, spring onions, courgettes, bean sprouts, coriander, potatoes...on and on and on.   The best deal by far was ten mangoes for £1.50!!!!  Yes you read that right!  We also brought back a few packs of blueberries and strawberries, big juicy ones, not the spindly ones in the supermarkets at the moment.  We got a paper bag full of cherry tomatoes, which were so sweet and juicy that we sat on the train on the way back popping them into our mouths. 

Here's the best part:  6 bags of veg cost us just under £15 at the market.  For interest's sake, I got onto tesco.com when we got back and typed in everything we had just bought at the market into their online shopping.   It came out to £43.  !!!!   The biggest difference was the £14 it was charging for the ten mangoes that we paid £1.50 for.  But even if you take that away, it's still double what we paid.  And the stuff we bought is much better tasting, and more of it is likely to be locally grown.  Not to mention, with all the colourful personalities of stall keepers at the Croydon market, I much prefer supporting them than the disinterested  students working at Tesco!   Croydon market - I love you!!!

Quinoa and Rice Pilaf

I now know how to pronounce this crazy grain....  Quinoa is pronounced "Keen-wa".  I thought so, but didn't want to say it in public in case I made an arse of myself.  But thanks to the lovely ladies at work who do all the writing for our very popular food site, I now have it confirmed in my head.  I think I'll keep calling it quinn-oh-a at home though.  It just sounds less poncy. 

My lovely friend Maggie sent me her favourite quinoa recipe to post here.  I'm going to give it a try this week! It looks like all the things I like in a weekday dinner:  Quick to make, healthy, tasty, and all ingredients I normally have in the kitchen!  Ace!   Thanks Maggs :)

Makes four servings

1 tablespoon (15ml) olive oil 
1 onion, chopped
125g (4oz) brown rice
125g (4oz) quinoa
1 pint vegetable stock
150g (5oz) peas
salt and  freshly ground pepper
a handful fresh parsley, chopped
Squeeze of lemon juice

Place the oil in a large saucepan and add the onion. Allow to infuse for 5 mins.
Add the rice, quinoa and stock and stir well.
Bring to the boil, reduce the heat then simmer for about 20-25 mins until the liquid is absorbed and the grains are tender.
Add the peas and cook for a further 3 mins
Season with salt and pepper. Stir in the parsley and lemon juice. Fluff with a fork.

Fish Cake and Bulgar Salad

It's been a busy week in our house...  getting back from work late, going to the gym (hurrah!) and meeting people out for dinner.  Sometimes you get home late and just want to throw something really quick together with whatever you've got in the fridge that needs using up.  (I call this "Scraps".  As in, "What are we having for dinner tonight?" Answer: "Scraps.")   

Last night we put some bulgar wheat in a big glass bowl and soaked it in boiling water for half an hour.  To that, we added harissa paste (mmm my new favourite sauce), cucumber, cherry tomatoes and spinach.  Meanwhile, we grilled some haddock fishcakes from the freezer.  I love fishcakes.... they taste so naughty, but the nutritional information on the label swears they're not!  When the fishcakes were done, we tossed them in to the veggie/bulgar bowl, and squeezed a lemon over the top.    Lovely!

Veggie Couscous Salad

This is one of my all time favourite meals - we make it once every week or two.  We made it one night a few years ago with some veg that needed using up, and it was so good, we've been making it regularly ever since. If you're used to eating couscous with olives or raisins, this is a nice light alternative, with at least a few portions of your 5-a-day.  It tastes so good though, that it's hard to stop at just one bowl!

1 1/2 cups wholewheat couscous
225g feta cheese
3 tbsp sundried tomato pesto
1 bunch spring onions, sliced
1 cup cherry tomatoes, slice in half
1 baby gem lettuce, chopped
1/4 cucumber, chopped
1 red pepper, diced
1 yellow pepper, diced
lots of course ground black pepper

Pour couscous in a bowl and pour hot boiling water over it, just enough to cover the couscous.  Let it sit for 5 minutes.   While the couscous is soaking, chop up all your vegetables.   After 5 minutes, stir red pesto and feta into the couscous.  Add lots of ground black pepper.   Stir in your vegetables, adding more pepper.  Mix well and serve.

Voila!  Tasty, healthy and quick to make.  Ticks all my boxes!

Rhubarb Apple Crumble

I've never had a sweet tooth.  And I've never been one to whip together a cake or a pie for dessert unless I was having company over.  But once in while I kind of fancy a nice bit of stewed fruit with a crunchy topping.  A crumble is perfect for this!  You can grab whatever fruit is in the reduced section at the supermarket, bring it home, and with not much effort at all, you've got a lucious dessert. 

Last night, the fruit-du-jour was rhubarb and apple - a fine combination.  First, stew the rhubarb with some butter and a little caster sugar.  Once it's soft, toss it with some wholemeal flour, cinnamon, and brown sugar in an oven proof dish.  To make the topping, combine a couple of spoonfulls of soft margarine, brown sugar, some quick-cook oats, raisins, and nuts if you like.   Spread the topping over the fruit in the dish, and put in the oven at 175 degrees for 35 minutes.   

No, I haven't given any quantities... this is the kind of thing that I like to just throw ingredients in, in a slapdash manner.  It's not a fussy recipe, it always ends up tasting good no matter how much I vary the amounts!  Don't forget the custard... I use Birds Light custard from a carton (not a tin).  This would also be great with vanilla ice cream, or just on it's own!  Lush!