Veggie Bean Chilli

 

Middle One (our determined bean-hater) has gone off to Uni so this old favourite of mine is back on the cards at last.
It occured to me that as it's such a store cupboard winner, I must write it up - I am amazed to look back on my years of blogging and see that my once tiny people are now big people who have moved away from home and actually request me to blog their favourite meals so they can recreate them for themselves!

It pleases me that their friends also discover mey recipes through my kids, and also get an insight into my family's history!

Bean Chilli

Ingredients:

• 1 onion, finely chopped
• some garlic, chopped (to your taste)
• 1 tsp mixed herbs
• 1 tsp chilli powder or crushed chillies
• 1 tsp cumin powder
• 1 tin white beans
• 1 tin mixed beans (not in vinaigrette)
• 1 tin kidney beans in chilli sauce
• 1 tin chopped tomatoes.
• Marigold stock
• optional splash of wine (any wine is fine)
• 1 tsp cocoa or a small piece of 90 - 100 % cocoa chocolate
• splash of cider vinegar
• salt to taste

To serve:

• Boil in the bag or microwave long grain rice
• soured cream
• plain tortilla chips
• cheese for grating on top (we use medium and mature cheddar)

Fry the onion and garlic in a little oil and butter until soft and no longer smelling raw.  Add the mixed herbs, cumin, and chilli.

Once those are well mixed in, add the tinned tomato and the kidney beans with their chilli sauce.  Add a little water to the tins and swish to get as much of the "juice" from the tins and add to the pan.  

Add the Marigold, and wine if using, as well as the cocoa/chocolate.

Mix well and simmer for a few minutes.

Meanwhile, drain and rinse the other 2 tins of beans, and then add to the pan when the sauce has thickened up a little.

Add salt to taste.

Allow this to simmer while you prepare the boil in the bag rice.  As you know I LOVE good rice, but this is one meal I MUST have with boil in the bag rice.  You don't have that preconception, so go ahead and save time with microwave rice, or just use whatever rice you have. Or skip the rice! It's all good.

Since there's nothing raw here, there's no real minumum time to cook this, so it's done when you are ready for it to be done.

When it's almost done, taste it, and add in more salt if you need to, as well as the splash of vinegar.  Taste again and see how you feel about it.  If you like it, great! If you don't then try and work out what's missing and add it.  It's most likely that it needs either more salt, more acid,  or more chilli.  If it needs more umami, try adding a tsp of Marmite (other yeast extract spreads are available) or dashi stock powder.  Tinkering with flavours is the best way to gain confidence with cooking.

Once the rice is done and you are happy with the flavour of the chilli, serve with a bag of plain tortilla chips, some grated cheese and some soured cream to dollop on (all optional, obviously - but you'll thank me if you do!)

All genuniely ready in under 30 minutes with mostly store cupboard things.

German Potato Egg and Onion creamy bake

I've cooked this many many times over the years, since I first ate and learned it from my Aunt in Germany when I lived with her and my Uncle during my university year abroad.

It's good solid, tasty, traditional food, and I love it, but for a couple of reasons I hadn't made it in a while.

1) the kids only recently really got into actual eggs, like the kind of eggs that LOOK like eggs.

2) Maggi is owned by Nestle, and we don't buy from baby-killers.

Anyway, I was really craving this, and I thought I'd give it a go.

Ingredients needed:

• about a kilo of white potatoes 
• 6 eggs
• 2 - 3 onions
• 300ml cream
• an indecent amount of butter
• something to replace Maggi seasoning - Kikkoman soy sauce along with a splash of worcestershire or hendersons will work, and since you probably don't know what it's supposed to taste like, it won't matter too much!

Method:

Start off by hard boiling the eggs (put in pan, cover with water, boil for 8 - 10 minutes.)

Slice the potatoes into half thick centimetre rounds.  I like to microwave them for around 10 minutes, but you can also boil them in a pan until just done.

Slice the onion into rings and fry slowly in a mix of butter and ghee or oil until soft and a little browned.  Add a little salt near the end.

Now you are ready to assemble.

Butter a dish that will go in the oven, I have a shallow cast iron round pan from Aldi which is a dupe of a popular Le Creuset casserole but honestly, anything will do!

Make a layer of the cooked potato circles using around a half of them.  Salt and pepper the layer.

Now add the cooked, buttery slightly salted onions and spread them over the potatoes.

Now add the hard boiled eggs, sliced into discs also. Spread out in a layer and salt and pepper this layer too.

Finally add the remaining potatoes, season with salt and pepper and dot with more butter.

Now, open the cream, and carefully add 2 - 3 tablespoons of the not-Maggi seasoning, until the cream looks an odd grey/brown and tastes decidedly SAVOURY.

Pour the whole tub gently over the layers, making sure you cover every bit.

Now pop it in an oven for about 40 mins.  You can put a lid on for the first 10-15 minutes, but then uncover it so it dries slightly and goes wonderfully brown.

Serve with green beans or a salad or any other green vegetable you feel like.

Ebly with gammon and cream

 

Our recent quick family weekend in Calais reminded me of how much we like Ebly, which is a part-cooked whole wheat berry and they are delicious, quick cooking and full of fibre and very nutritious.

Serves 4

225g ebly

4 gammon steaks - 150 - 200g each 

2 - 3 shallots

3 cloves garlic

100ml white wine (optional)

1tsp stock powder

1 tsp tarragon

750ml water

1 tsp Dijon mustard

Green beans to serve.

Fry the gammon steaks until browned. Peel, halve and slice shallots and peel and mince garlic.

Remove gammon once browned and golden in places and set aside to cool slightly. Once cool, chop into bite-size pieces.

Add shallots and then garlic to pan, adding ghee, butter or oil to fry.

Fry gently until soft.  Add ebly to pan and stir to coat.  Add wine if using and simmer until almost absorbed.

Add stock powder, tarragon and mustard and stir and mix well.

Then add water and stir well. Bring to boil again and simmer for 10 - 12 mins.

Test a grain, it should feel soft all the way through.

Take off the heat and finish by stirring through 100 -150ml cream. 

Serve with steamed green beans.

Fen-style garlic slow braised aubergines with hand smashed noodles

Inspired by a naughty lunch delivered to my work place from Fen noodles in Old Spitalfield Market, I aspired to recreate their glorious and unctuous garlic aubergine and hand pulled noodles.  One of my vegan pals had really loved it and it was their birthday this week, so I thought I'd have a go at home and bring some in for them.

Serves 4 - 6

Ingredients:

3 to 4 medium aubergines (yes, it's a lot - it shrinks down)

1 to 2 TABLESPOONS of finely chopped garlic (yes, it's a lot, it is honestly not overpowering

1 teaspoon salt (or more to taste)

1 tablespoon lao gan ma crispy chilli oil or chilli bean paste

crushed chillies (optional) 

2-3 tablespoons soy sauce

2 tablespoons Chinese black vinegar, or balsamic vinegar, or rice vinegar with dumpling dipping sauce mixed

2 tablespoons ground nut oil (or more as needed)

some spring onions, finely sliced, divided into white and green parts.

350 - 500g dried lasagne sheets 

Side note about garlic:  I usually buy peeled garlic cloves in bulk from Costco or Booker and then chop half in a food chopper/processor and freeze it and I freeze the unchopped garlic separately also.  If you can be bothered, you can freeze the chopped garlic in ice cube trays initially and then pop them out into bags, but I can't usually be bothered and I don't like the garlic residue on the ice cube trays (yes, I've tried keeping some separate just for this purpose but that really only works if you live alone as no-one in a family or house share listens to these sorts of rules) and I quite like smashing up the frozen lumps of chopped garlic to get however much I need.  It's cathartic.

I start by cubing up the aubergine and heating the oil and frying the aubergine at quite a high heat.  Unless you have a catering size wok, you may need to do this in batches until the cubes are nicely browned on all sides and the skins look browner rather than purple.

Once they all fit in the wok at once, add the garlic, the white part of the spring onion and the salt. and then continue to stir and toss so that the garlic doesn't catch or burn.  Once the garlic is soft, and the aubergine is starting to collapse on itself, add the chilli paste (either lao gan ma or chilli bean paste - I've seen both in supermarkets) and stir well, coating all the cubes with the shiny, red oil with its deliciously savoury chilli or soybean and chilli bits.  You may wish to add some crushed chillies at this point, it rather depends on your tolerance and the fierceness of your chilli paste.

Once it is all nicely mixed, add the soy sauce and vinegar, pouring around the edge and tossing it all well.  

Now, reduce the heat and let the aubergine cook down.

Now for the carb element.  I really liked the hand pulled noodles we had from Fen.  I do not, however, have the time or energy - or even inclination on a weekday - to make hand pulled noodles myself, but I really wanted to get that chewy, irregular pasta/noodle mouthfeel.  Inspiration struck me quite literally when a box of dried lasagne sheets fell out of the larder onto me! I got the kids to break the sheets up into irregular pieces and then I cooked the pieces in plenty of salted water just as I would any other pasta shape.

Once they were done - around 11 mins - I used a slotted scoop and tongs to lift them out of the water and drop them straight into the aubergine (once that was done).  I mixed them all together and scattered the green part of the spring onions on top and served!  If I had needed to, I could have used some of the noodle cooking water to lubricate the dish, but it wasn't needed this time.

Now, it wasn't anywhere near as FIERCELY spicy as the Fen noodles one, but we all loved it, and my pal was over the moon (despite the moderated chilli levels) and said it was an amazing birthday gift!

Traybaked chicken with clementines and courgettes

Traybaked chicken with clementines and courgettes

As part of my quest to find interesting and delicious new meals for the family, I stumbled upon an interesting sounding recipe on the M&S app. It, however, featured fennel, of which I am not a huge fan following overloading via Abel and Cole boxes over the years.  I decided to use celery and courgette instead to up the veggie quotient and I'm happy to say it was a great success.  Ok, Papa still pulled a face, but the kids had no such qualms.  

The M&S app recipe was written TERRIBLY and I've made enough tweaks to say that I've made this my own, so here goes:

1 pack of chicken thighs (6 - 8 thighs in the pack)

3 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp Dijon mustard

4-6 clementines or other small peelie oranges

1 -2 red onions

half a head of celery

2-4 courgettes

4-6 (or more) unpeeled garlic cloves

rosemary or thyme (optional)

a handful or a cupful of frozen peas (optional)

100ml chicken or veg stock (I use the granules in a tub)

Heat the oven to 190 degrees/gas 5

Juice 3 of the clementines and mix with the oil and mustard in a large glass bowl.

Add the chicken thighs and mix well with salt and pepper and leave to marinate for 30 mins if you can spare the time.

While this sits, cut the onions into half moons, and roughly chop the celery and the courgettes. Reserve the celery leaves (also chopped) for a garnish.

Spread on a roasting tray with some rosemary or thyme and the unpeeled garlic cloves.

Add the chicken and marinade on top and then add the stock.

Cook for 45 mins until chicken is fully cooked.

If using the peas, add them to the tray and cook through for another 3 mins.

While the chicken is cooking, slice the remaining clementine(s) and char onto a griddle pan for around a minute until they caramelise.

Use to garnish along with the reserved celery leaves.

Serve with airfried baby potatoes - I like to dress a pack of baby potatoes with salt, pepper, paprika, dried rosemary, olive oil and lime juice and then airfry for 20 mins.
 

Sone's Tandoori lamb chops and Nate's tasty rice

 

As we enter the barbecue season, some supermarkets put together meat packs which can be great value, and Papa managed to score an amazing value lamb pack which happened to include some beautiful lamb chops.  I decided to use my amazing sister (in-law)'s way of tandoorifying food, and so I marinaded the chops in the early afternoon and then cooked them in just a few minutes on the Ninja Max grill.  They were astounding!  I paired them with some steamed broccoli and some tasty buttery pilau style rice using the secret tip imparted by Big'Un's amazing boyfriend, Nate.

As I'm brown, I often get asked how to tandoori things, and I've never really done much this way, so never been able to suggest much other than "buy some tandoori powder?" so I'm really pleased to be able to share this.  I recall I used to avoid tandoori because of the bad colourings used, but it's now pretty easy to find packets of tandoori powder that are safe. Do check the labels!

To serve 4-5 people, you will need:

6-8 lamb chops or cutlets

*about 150g plain yoghurt

*3 tbsp tandoori powder

*salt, pepper

*1 tbsp chaat masala

*about half a cup of onion/garlic/ginger paste (I used 2 blocks of (defrosted) frozen ginger garlic paste, and one small bitzed up onion) 

*a drizzle of oil

2 cups rice

1tsp ghee/butter/vegetable oil

3 tsps Kucharek Polish seasoning

a small piece of cinnamon

3 cardomom pods

1 bayleaf

broccoli

- optional to serve - Costco Jalapeno hummus

To make this:

First, marinate the lamb.  I did this around 4pm and I grilled them at about 6pm.  You can do it for longer or for as little as 30 mins.  Mix all the starred ingredients (these are Sonia's amazing flavour combinations) together and then add the lamb and mix and coat well.  Cover and leave.

When you are 30 mins away from your meal time, heat the ghee (or inferior alternative) in a large saucepan and add the spices (bayleaf, cardamom and cinnamon.) After a few minutes, they will start to release a lovely fragrance.  Now add the rice, and the Polish seasoning, (this is the secret Nate gave me) and stir to coat well.  

A minute later you can add the water, you will need 2 and a half cups of water for this amount (2 cups) of good quality basmati rice. Cover and bring to the boil.  As soon as it boils, turn the flame down as far as possible and let it simmer for 15 minutes.  You know the drill, as soon as the timer goes off, switch off the hob, and then set another timer for 5 minutes and DO NOT TOUCH THE PAN.  When the timer goes off again, then you can lift the lid and gently fluff the rice with a fork.

Back to the lamb.  While the rice is simmering, heat up your grill.  You can use a griddle pan, or a barbecue, or the grill setting of a gas or electric oven, but I used the Ninja Grill Max (which is known as the XL in American and some other countries.)

I heated the grill with the grill plate in to high, and then added the chops well spaced.  I had to cook them in 2 batches , but they didn't take long, so it really wasn't a problem.  I used tongs to lift them out of the marinade and I made sure I didn't drip the marinade all over the  place.  I closed the grill and left it alone for about 4 - 5 minutes to sear and stripe.  Then I turned the chops and closed the lid again.  After another 4-7 minutes depending on thickness of chop and size, they were all charred and striped and really delicious.  

I served the chops with some steamed broccoli, and the rice, and some amazing jalapeno hummus I found in Costco!  If you like some yoghurt and pickles or chutneys could also be nice on the side, or a crisp salad if that's more your thing.  

Air fryer Buffalo wings, with (mild) blue cheese sauce

During lockdown, I jumped on the airfryer bandwagon, and now I seem to have ended up with a Ninja Foodi and a Ninja Grill Max.  They do honestly make some things so crispy delicious and they are much easier to clean up than pots and pans, and they do cook with a LOT less oil or fat.

One of the things everyone raves about is the old Buffalo wings, so here's my version (with some help from Godpapa) which is in part from this BBC Good Food one, and in part from a lot of reading around various air fryer online communities and working out what we liked best.

Buffalo Wings

1 pack of chicken wings

a few tablespoons of self raising flour, or cornflour with gluten free baking powder added.

2 tablespoons of avocado oil

salt and pepper

50g butter

5 tablespoons hot sauce (I prefer Frank's Buffalo Wings Sauce)

1 tablespoon red or white wine vinegar

1) split wings into drums and flats

2) pat dry

3) lightly oil (avocado oil)

4) toss in seasoned SR flour

5) air fry for 20-35 minutes at 200C, stirring occasionally

6) While the chicken is cooking, melt the butter in a pan, and add the vinegar and hot sauce. Stir to emulsify. When mixed, put in the bottom of a large bowl or serving dish.

7) put hot chicken directly into bowl/dish of sauce, toss gently to coat.

Mild blue cheese sauce

Crumble about an ounce of blue cheese into a small dish.  Add 3 tablespoons of plain set yoghurt, 2 tablespoons of soured cream, 1 teaspoon of celery salt and half a teaspoon of paprika.  Stir well

to mix and blend and evenly spread the cheese through the sauce.  

Serve the chicken with the sauce, some potato wedges and some sticks of celery - and plenty of napkins!