Chaat-topping lunch salad

Well, the kitchen is all done, yes I should post some pictures at some point, and I'm getting a lot of joy from cooking and baking again. I started taking lunches to work, and whilst trying to be healthy, I'm also trying to keep my food interesting too.  It's hard to be surrounded by delicious food all day and I'm so hungry by my break that it's too easy to grab something from the shop. 

Lately, I have been making a small layered salad, and adding some flavour pizazz in the form of some Indian "chat" (or "chaat") masala. It's a gently spicy, sour, pungent, punchy powder that gives that very distinctive flavour to Indian snack foods like chaat, bhel puri and many more. Some people add it to fruits, and that makes a very refreshing snack. 

If I'd been more organised, I'd have sprouted some lentils and beans and chickpeas myself, but instead I bought a pack of "salad toppers" sprouted lentils etc and used a third of the pack each time. I put the sprouted lentils in the bottom of my lunch pot, and sprinkled a little chat masala on top. Then I quartered a handful of baby tomatoes and then I added half an avocado, also chopped up. A twist of salt and another sprinkling of chat masala followed by a good shake of lemon juice, and that's the salad done. It's very filling from the lentils and the chewing, and the flavours all make it very satisfying.

No-kitchen cooking - Sausage rice

So as the kitchen has started to come into shape, I started to bring back some of the storecupboard items I'd been missing.

I'd really been wanting to have a comforting yellow khichdi so I planned this, until I remembered the kids aren't desperately fond of it, and I also discovered that I didn't have very much moong daal.  My mother has since told me that actually she makes this with masoor daal, so I'll do that next time.  I don't want too many half used bags of lentils in my new kitchen, I want to streamline my ingredients and stores and make it a much easier place to work in.

Anyway, I had a couple of Bulgarian smoked sausages (something similar would be a Matteson's sausage) left from a packet I'd opened a few days before to make an aubergine pasta sauce with, so I sliced those up into half moons and fried them in a little oil in the IP.   Once they'd coloured a little on the cut surfaces, I removed them, added a little butter and fried some thinly sliced onion.  After these had some golden tinges to the edges, I put back the sausage, and added a half teaspoon of turmeric, a teaspoon of salt, 2 cups of rice, 2 slices of ginger, whatever yellow mung/moong lentils I had left, and 3 cups of boiling water.  I also put in a little garlic and onion salts, and also obviously a little Marigold, and I decided to add some green peas for some colour.

I cooked the whole thing on the IP rice setting and it was done before I had finished clearing up and getting the kids organised!

They definitely enjoyed it, but it did make WAY too much for just us.  We had a whole lot left that easily fed 3 more people.  Most of us ate it drizzled with a little Frank's Hot Sauce, even Tiny!

No-kitchen cooking - macaroni bolognese

All good things come to those who wait. And wait I shall, as we are having a new kitchen fitted. It looks like from ripping out to finished fitting will be 3 weeks, mainly due to the fact that the worktops are fitted by a 3rd party specialist company. 

Obviously, I wanted to try to make it as smooth as possible, so during the week that we packed up the kitchen contents, I tried to plan meals I could make in our kitchen corner in the living room.

Thankfully, we retain the fridge, in the empty, echoing shell of the kitchen room. And of course, regular readers know all about my Instant Pot, (electric pressure cooker) and halogen oven in the kitchen corner. I also moved the microwave into the sitting room so Big'Un can continue to have her beloved porridge for brekkie, and given she has her mocks (practice GCSEs) this week, it seemed only fair.

Monday was actually not that different from a usual Monday. The kids all had small pizzas and Papa and I had leftovers. This is because the girls have their uniformed clubs at staggered times (Big'Un is a Young Leader with Rainbows and Littl'Un is a Brownie.) Of course Tiny doesn't want to miss out on his "pizza da action" so they all have pizza as a treat.

The halogen and the microwave took care of all that.

Washing up in the bathtub is unusual but the addition of a slimline dishwasher when the kitchen is done should help the bathtub washing up memories fade sooner...

Anyway, today I wanted to cook something comforting and familiar, given the unrest at home, so I thought I'd see if it would be possible to make a meaty one pot pasta dish in the Instant Pot. I've made and blogged about oven and hob pasta one pots, and I've made plain pasta (no drain) in the IP, so I felt it must be doable.

I did find plenty of recipes online, but none really have me the method I wanted to try, so I just had a go, and it came out just right. So I felt I must share this joy!!

I used:

500g lean beef mince

A cupful of frozen soffritto.

Garlic to taste

1 tsp cumin powder

1 star anise

2 tsps dried mixed herbs

2 tsps Marigold bouillon

1 beef stock cube

1 carton passatta

Slosh of wine (optional)

400g macaroni or other similar pasta shapes

Method:

Set the IP to saute and then brown the meat first. Once it was browned and crumbly, I added the soffritto and lowered the flame. Now I added the garlic (powder in my case), Marigold, star anise, cumin and the herbs and mixed it all well.

At this point I deglazed the pan with the slosh of wine.

Once I was sure the pan was free of any stuck on bits, I added the carton of passatta and a carton and a half of water also and as soon as that started bubbling I stirred in the beef stock cube. 

Finally I added the macaroni and gave it all a good stir.

I then sealed the pot and set it to manual for 4 minutes. 

When it beeped, I did a quick release of pressure and served it up with grated cheeses of choice. 

It was quick, easy, tasty and very satisfying to cook - even without a kitchen!

roasted cherry tomato pasta sauce

I was given a LARGE box of cherry tomatoes on the same day that I realised I hadn't remembered to take anything out of the freezer for supper.  As Big'Un needed a quick bite before dashing off for rugby practice, I knew I wouldn't have any time to defrost something safely in time.

So I picked up a pack of bacon lardons from our lovely Aladdin's cave corner shop and let the kids pick a pack of their choice of shape of pasta from there too.  Yes, they chose bow ties again.  Because bow ties are cool...

Anyway, the first step was to halve the tomatoes and spread them, cut side up, on a lined baking tray.  I then threw a few unpeeled garlic cloves onto the tray.  Next, I ground a little salt and pepper on them all, and then sprinkled ground cumin, mixed herbs, garlic granules, onion salt and balsamic vinegar on to them.

I then sprayed them with a pure olive oil spray and put them in a hot oven (220 degrees) for 20-25 minutes.  I realised I had a bit  more time, so I turned the oven down to about 190 degrees then and turned the tray around and let them cook for another 10-15 minutes.)

After this point the tomatoes should be soft and slightly shrivelled and sticky.  The ones on the edges might look charred - that's all fine.

Now you need to blitz these into a smooth sauce.  First peel the garlic cloves and discard the skins.  Then scoop it all - soft sticky garlic, tomatoes, herbs, spices etc - into a blender, or pour it into a beaker or bowl and use a stick blender, or even a NutriBullet type blender would work.  Add a little water if you like and blend until smooth.  Make sure you scoop or pour as much of the lovely liquid from the tray into the blending receptacle - it's too good to waste!

While this is all roasting, cook your pasta however you prefer, and also fry the bacon until crispy.  If you are feeling decadent, add the bacon fat to the pasta sauce as you blend it.

I served this so that the plain pasta was served into bowls and the sauce was dolloped or ladeled according to each person's preference, and then the bacon was added almost as a seasoning at the end.  Some of the kids had grated cheese as well, but without the cheese was also very good.

Creamy paprika chicken and rice

Regular readers will have realised I love anything that's sort of creamy chicken with rice.  As a Bengali, I adore rice, and I find a creamy sauce stirred in with rice is a wonderfully comforting and soothing element of a meal.

As I'm working outside the home now, I like meals which I can put together quickly in that short gap of time when the kids are taking a bit of downtime after school, or something I can put on and leave for a bit while I keep and eye on them, and make sure all is well.

This paprika chicken is a bit of both and definitely good for the increasingly chilly evenings.


1 pack chicken thigh fillets
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
1 tbs olive oil
1 tsp tarragon (I only use the dried or freeze dried)
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp Marigold powder
half a cup of boiling water
3 good dollops of soured cream
a handful or 2 of some green veg - I used green beans which were left over from the meal the dinner before.

rice and another veg to serve.


Heat the oil in a saucepan or saute pan and then gently fry the onion and garlic.  While that is softening, cut the chicken thighs into bite-size pieces, and then add them to the pan.  Stir to prevent the onions and garlic from catching, and cook until the chicken is browned and not raw any longer.

Now add the tarragon, ground cumin and paprika, and stir through.  Next, add the Marigold powder and half a cup of boiling water.  If the handful or 2 of green veg you are adding is raw, add it now too.

Now cover the pan and allow to simmer.  At this point, I cook the rice (in the microwave, or in my rice cooker, or the old-fashioned way - in a saucepan!) and also prepare the side vegetable.  On this occasion, I grilled some corn cobbettes.

Once the rice and vegetables are done, the chicken should also be cooked through, so switch off the heat and then add the small amount of green vegetables if they are already cooked as mine were.

Finally, stir through your generous dollops of soured cream and serve with the rice and side vegetables.

more on no-drain pasta - in which leftover chicken is utilised

As I've mentioned before, I have an issue with draining pasta.  This is partly due to the fact that I have problems with my wrists and hands, and lifting and tipping a full pan of water is painful and uncomfortable for me.  But partly I just don't like doing it.  It feels slow and wasteful and somehow just annoys me.

So when I stumbled across this method for cooking pasta in 4 minutes in the Instant Pot (IP) with minimal water - like an absorption method of cooking pasta - I HAD to try it!  And it is fantastic! Admittedly I probably spend as much time using a slotted spoon to scoop out the pasta as I used to do waiting for water to boil etc, but somehow this just makes me less stressed and irritated than the standard method, and that can only be a good thing! In the future I may use this method to cook the pasta in the IP when I can then just stir something directly into the pot and then serve straight out - cream cheese and smoked salmon/ham springs to mind...

Anyway, I started by letting Tiny choose a pack of bow tie pasta from the corner shop, and we used the whole 500g pack in one go.  This gave us PLENTY of pasta - after cooking, I filled a locknlock box with cooked pasta which was a nice quick and easy lunch for Tiny on the weekend - and the rest served 4 of us generously with another couple of lunches.

As the recipe in the link says, we added about 4 cups of water to the IP, so the pasta was just about covered, maybe a few corners poking up here and there.

I then set the IP to cook for 4 minutes on manual.  I had added boiling water so this went even more quickly than normal.

Once the pot has cooked the pasta for the 4 minutes and beeps that it is finished, switch it off immediately and perform a quick release.

Remove the pasta with a slotted spoon and if required box some up for another day.

I then fried some chopped onions and garlic in a little oil straight in the pan I'd just taken the pasta out of, and then I added a chopped up chicken breast left over from a very frugal Lidl roast chicken supper we'd had recently.  Then I added a bag of prepared cauliflower and broccoli florets which I'd bought in Lidl, along with the obvious spoon of Marigold, and a good squirt of mild mustard.  I finally chucked the cooked pasta back in, and stirred through some soured cream which we'd opened for the not-so-chilli recently.

The result was completely delicious and moreish.  The chicken was not dry, the veg was still slightly crunchy, the creamy but tangy sauce was very comforting and the whole meal was filling and satisfying!  The kids all devoured it hungrily, and the 2 little ones both asked for seconds!  Big'Un and I ate it drizzled with Frank's Buffalo Wings hot sauce, and the little ones even had a taste that way too, and really enjoyed the added flavour.  And when I went to put the leftovers into a tupperware, and I picked a box that was slightly too small, Godpapa was more than happy to just eat up what wouldn't fit, straight from the pan!

Papa made not chilli con carne

I was away for the day at a training course, and it was Papa's day off. I wasn't likely to be back in time to cook supper, so Papa decided he would cook, as long as I gave him nice clear instructions.

So over breakfast, I typed a recipe (my style of recipe, of course!) and emailed it to him.

He followed it, and the result was a spectacularly tasty meal.  Maybe I enjoyed it more because I didn't cook it, but I suspect equally because Papa has a very good palate, this was the best non-chilli I've had.

Notes: we call it non or not chilli because it isn't spicy at all, and those that wish it spicier add hot sauce at the table. Tiny and Littl'Un are terrified of spicy heat (to the point that Tiny recently had plain rice in school because he was frightened of the "chilli" that was being served with it...) so I call it this to reassure them.

Here is the recipe as he used it, edited to make it more general.

Heat up a large frying pan with a tablespoon of olive oil. 
Swirl it about to spread. Keep flame medium size.
Add a handful or so of the sofrito mix from the freezer and a small amount of frozen chopped onion and also a little finely chopped garlic fresh or frozen. (Clearly, you can use fresh, but I have all these as time savers, and they made this much simpler for an inexperienced chef!)


Stir and cook until no longer frozen. Scrape to one side, away from flame. Add pack of mince to centre of pan and do not move it until one side of meat is brown, then turn meat and repeat. (We had a pack of 750g beef mince, but 500g would be fine for 4-6 people)

If this seems tricky, brown the meat in the oil first then add the frozen sofrito, onions and garlic to the meat.

Once both sides are brown, gently break up the meat and fry until no pink remains. Mix in the previously fried sofrito, onions and garlic. 
Add the mashed up stewed veg* from the gammon stock and mix well. 
Add a teaspoon of ground cumin and one of paprika. Add 1 tsp salt. Add a heaped teaspoon of Marigold.

Stir well. 

Now add a tin or tetra of chopped tomatoes. Stir well.  Add a splash of red wine or water if you can’t find open red wine. Add a beef stock pot or cube. 

Add the drained and rinsed kidney beans.

Allow to simmer for 15-20 mins or longer if that’s possible.  Cook the rice. (I always only use boil in the bag rice for chilli, but you don't have to!!!)

If it's starting to dry, just add a splash more water while it simmers.

Serve with soured cream, grated cheese and some seasonal steamed veg on the side also.


* I mentioned this stewed veg here recently.  Obviously, if you didn't make a stock recently, you won't have this, but if you do make a stock with some veggies which you then normally chuck away, I recommend mashing them up and either using them in a base like this soon, or freezing for a sort of sofrito or concentrate in the future.  It really boosts the flavour with something many people chuck out.