Chicken, Chorizo and Courgette 'Chilli'

Sometimes, when I'm writing about something I've cooked, the angle I'll take with it is obvious. Sometimes, it's not so obvious, and sometimes I actually have a choice.

This, then, could be about cooking with the seasonal fruits (well, the veg, actually) from the garden - red onions, elephant garlic, bulbous yellow courgette - all of which I am currently blessed with.







It could have been a debate about what consitutes 'chilli'' given that I seem to apply it to pretty much anything I add kidney beans too, and yet equally, bandy the word around to cover meals that don't even include a sniff of even the mildest chilli or chilli powder in them. 

Chilli for 45 - but no kidney beans. Does that make it tomatoey mince?

Happy 'official' 40th to the Husband 

 

Indeed, I ended up with 8 cans of value red kidney beans and 3 tubs of guacamole, having cooked chilli for 45 for the Husband's 'official' 40th birthday camping & sailing weekend (it's not till December, but no one else wanted to camp/sail then), forgot to add the kidney beans in, and bought too much guacamole. Chilli without kidney beans - and then plenty of kidney beans to use up.


It could have been about how I am progressing with sharing the kitchen with the children, and how Blue chopped up a courgette, worked out how to use the tin opener and threw most of a tin of chopped tomatoes all over his school uniform, and I didn't get cross once (well, may be a little irritated, but, you know, little steps and all that).


Finally,  it could have been about those moments when you look in the cupboards, the fridge and the freezer when you haven't planned anything, wonder what on earth you are going to eat that night, and do it all on the fly with disproportionately pleasing results (always a winner!)

All are equally applicable, and I suppose intertwined, to this, so I leave it to you to decide which angle - or angles -  you'd prefer, and I'll just add that it's probably one of the best received meals I've cooked for a long time.

Chicken, chorizo & courgette 'chilli'

(serves 4)
 
1 large red onion
1 large clove of garlic
olive oil
125g cooking chorizo
2 chicken breasts
1/2 tsp each paprika, ground cumin & ground coriander (I would have used my favourite smoked paprika, but I had - gasp - run out!!)
1/3 large yellow courgette (frankly, how ever much you think you can get away with)
1 400g  can chopped tomatoes
1 400g can red kidney beans
2 tsp veg stock
salt & freshly ground pepper 
guacamole & sour cream to serve

Finely chop the red onion and the clove of garlic. The Husband's elephant garlic is massive, but not as strong in flavour, so a lot goes a little way.

Heat a splosh of olive oil in a large pan and add the onions and garlic. 

Cut the chorizo into chunks and add it to the onions. cooking for 5 minutes or so till it releases its juices. Cut the chicken and the courgette into chunks. Put the kettle on.

Stir in the ground paprika, cumin and coriander into the onions and chorizo, cook for a minute then add the chicken and stir it in, browning the pieces on all sides.

Add the courgette, stir, add the chopped tomatoes, then put the 2 tsp veg stock into the empty tin and top up with hot water. Stir, then add to the pan along with some salt & pepper.

Bring everything to the boil then simmer for 20 mins or so till the chicken is cooked.

Serve with sour cream and guacamole, on rice, and watch with satisfaction as every last bit is licked up off the plate.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Inspired by the Scouts & a little deception - yes really - Courgette Pesto Pasta Bake

Well we're back on the courgettes I'm afraid, after a brief respite over the weekend. Courgettes and weetabix, would you believe.

I'm in school holiday fug, now that scout camp is over and the kids are back home having spent a week at my mum's - trying to juggle work and make sure the kids have a good time as well as getting their dreaded 'holiday scrapbooks' slowly filled up so that they have something to take back with them in September. While I'd like to stand back and just let them get on with it (or not), I know that Blue in particular would leave it all till the last minute and then want to do it all at once, find the task impossible and collapse, sobbing, about how he can't possibly go back to school because he hasn't done his scrapbook. All nonsense of course, but I can't get away from the need to gently (and frequently) remind him that little and often is probably the way to go. Beyond that, of course it's up to them. I am (mostly) way passed the point of it being 'my' holiday homework. 

But back to the courgettes.

I had 3 sneak up on my over the weekend, so took inspiration from a recent Good Food recipe which I saw in the mag, but looking online now, it has 2 fairly damning comments after it. Good job I'd already fiddled with the ingredients and added parmesan into the mix. Garlic would probably be good too, possibly some chilli.It's very, very easy and the kids ate it, which for now, makes it a winner.

The smoke and mirrors involved was rather impressive. "What are we having for supper?" "Pesto Pasta Bake" "??" "Mmm well you like pesto, it's got basil and pine nuts and parmesan in it " (I can rather smugly report that Pink gets very excited about high end ingredients like this). "Ooo goody". Come the actual meal - "Has this got ... COURGETTE in it?" (adopts outraged tone at possible deception) "Ah but it's grated - you like grated courgette." "Oh yes." Eats food. 

The mind boggles.


I didn't have any bread in the house and no breadcrumbs in the freezer so I had to improvise for the crunchy topping. Eventually I was inspired by the scouts. Yes really. One of the activities we run on camp is a 'patrol' Ready Steady Cook night where we give each patrol (that's about 6 scouts) them some basic ingredients, and then a small sum of money (and a trip to the supermarket) to supplement and cook an original recipe which will feed them all. We judge on things like it actually all being cooked and tasting reasonable - nothing higher than that, but we get some really great results. This year, the standard was particularly high (stop sniggering will you) and the overall winner really surprised us by stepping away from the usual stir fry/chilli type meals and making turkey nuggets and chips with a tomato dipping sauce. They were brilliant. The killer ingredient was crushed up cornflakes mixed with some fajita mix to coat the pieces of turkey. Inspired.

I didn't have cornflakes or fajita mix, but I did have some 'whole wheat biscuits' in the cupboard. Great for breakfast and when you're out of superglue, it turns out crushed up, they also make a passable crunchy topping for a pasta bake.

Courgette Pasta Bake

serves 4 hungry people - you coould probably get away with 300g of pasta

400g pasta
250g courgettes, grated
150-200ml half fat creme fraiche
150g pesto
2 'whole wheat biscuits'
25g parmesan or other hard cheese
olive oil

Pre-heat the oven to 180

Cook the pasta in plenty of boiling water till al dente, reserve a ladleful or so of the cooking water and drain.

While the pasta is cooking, grate the courgette, and mix it with the pesto and creme fraiche and plenty of salt and pepper. Stir it all into the pasta with the cooking water, and add a little more creme fraich if you think  it needs it.

Tip into a baking dish, crush the while wheat biscuits over the top, finely grate the cheese over that (or you could crush the cereal into a bowl, stir the grated cheese through and then sprinkle that over the top - hindsight is a wonderful thing)

Drizzle with some olive oil and bake for 20-30 minutes till crunchy on top.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

If it's meatloaf, we must be camping

Well, not always, but meat loaf is fairly synonymous with a camping trip in the RJ household.

This is a recipe I picked up from the Good Food magazine, and the original recipe is on the website: Cold meatloaf with squashed tomato salsa. With the emphasis on the cold. This is what we usually take to sustain us on the Friday night trip, especially if the trip is likely to be a bit longer than average. There's also usually enough left over for sarnies over the weekend too, and the 'chutney'/'salsa' that you make to go with it is a perfect foil for the loaf. It's got lots of herbs in, which count towards your 5 a day, always helpful when camping tends to major on the meat and carb end of the food spectrum.


This weekend we're heading off to Suffolk. It's madness, I tell you, via Farnborough to pick up the Husband who can't finish work till around 5, then the all the joys that the M25 clockwise on a Friday night with a good forecast for the weekend will bring, till we peel off on the M11 or A12 - haven't decided which, and a final obligatory skirmish round the back lanes once we leave the main road. The last thing we need is complicated food. And yes, we could stop and buy tea at a Little Road Break, or wherever, but frankly, a bit of good food, and everyone's spirits are lifted, just in time to fight with the awning and get the cork out of the wine bottle sharpish once we arrive.

There is a perfectly good reason for travelling so far - we're camping with my lovely school friend and her family. Normally there would be a third family camping but my other school friend (mum in said family) has recently had a knee op, so instead of camping somewhere relatively centrally for all 3 families, this time we're going to camp near her house.

I'm very excited. The campsite is in Cool Camping. There's a pizza oven we can use. Camp fires are allowed. Apart from the long journey, it's sounding practically perfect. And then of course, there's the forecast. But let's not tempt fate...

Camping Meatloaf with red pepper and tomato salsa

450g pork sausages
500g beef mince
50g breadcrumbs
1 onion
1 clove of garlic
large handful of flat leaf parsley
3 large stalks of rosemary, leave only
2 eggs
salt & pepper

Salsa
2 red peppers
sprinkle of smoked paprika
2 cloves of garlic
olive oil 
2 tsp sherry vinegar 
1tsp caster sugar

400g cherry tomatoes

Leave plenty of foil to overhang

Start with the meatloaf. Line a 2lb loaf tin with silver foil, with enough overhang to wrap the loaf in eventually once it's all cooked and cooled (you'll thank me for this tip later!!). Pre-heat the oven to 180C/160 fan.



Finely chop the onion, garlic and herbs - I whizz it all up in a food processor. - then split the sausages and empty the meat into a large bowl with the mince and mash it all up together with the onions and herbs and breadcrumbs, eggs and some salt and pepper.


Empty the mixture into your lined loaf tin and squish it in, leaving the loaf mixture nice and mounded on top.





Deseed the peppers and slice them fairly thinly. Spread them out on a baking tray, toss in a tablespoon or so of olive oil and sprinkle over some smoked paprika.

Put the loaf in the oven with the tray of peppers on the shelf below and cook for 30 minutes, during which time, quarter the cherry tomatoes and peel and finely slice the garlic.

After 30 minutes, remove the tray with the peppers on it, stir in the tomatoes & garlic, the sherry vinegar and caster sugar and put back in the oven for another 40 minutes or so till the meat loaf is cooked and hot all the way through (test with a skewer) and the peppers and tomatoes are all soft and squidgy and a bit caramelised.

Pour off any juice that has collected round the meatloaf and leave to cool. Squidge up the peppers and tomatoes and put in a sterilised jar or container suitable to take with you.

Once cool, wrap the meatloaf up in the foil and seal the jar with the peppers. Great in rolls, served with the salsa and with potato salad (which you also made in advance!). And don't forget some good cake...

Dinner sorted (cake included!)

Happy Camping!

The herbs are a great addition to this loaf and add a little extra greenery. I'm linking up to Karen at Lavender and Lovage 's lovely Cooking with Herbs Challenge.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Pasta bake for days that don't quite go your way

There are some days when I almost feel like life is under control, that I know what I'm doing, that I'm parenting brilliantly, everything is running smoothly.

When I say some days, I mean, the occasional day.

Like may be once a year.

More often, I don't feel like that at all. And some days it's worse.

Days when I have to get a trombone, a bicycle and a dog up to school as well as the kids (on foot).

Days when I have no idea how I'm going to fit work in, and end up burning the midnight oil.

Days when I realise that they haven't forgotten, and not one but both children want to enter a Fairtrade cake in the Fairtrade cake competition the following day (and you know my views on such things, having vented here before).

They are BANANAS. OK?.

No, it's a fair trade logo & some bananas not a rampant blue & green Pacman

Days when I realise that the maths homework due the following day isn't a series of 'mental maths' tasks on the computer, but a full on 'investigation' of the type school helpfully expect parents to be on hand for the execution thereof: draw a grid 5 by 5 squares big, and then using 13 coins place them so that there is an odd number in each row, column and the main diagonals. Just try it OK.






Days when I have too much stuff to use up in the fridge.


Last Tuesday was one of those days.







Fortunately, there was a bag of pasta, and the things that needed using up were 2 courgettes &, a head of spring greens from last week's veg box, 4 mini chorizo sausages and half a tub of ricotta cheese. I put the pasta on, almost on auto-pilot, and as icing flew, and coins were placed and re-placed on the grid with accompanying sound effects (I'll leave you to imagine), I  engineered tea.

Having put the pasta on to boil, I fried off the chorizo, till the fat was running, then added the diced courgettes to the pan. Once the courgettes were a bit soft, I chucked in a can of plum tomatoes and a good dollop of sundried tomato pesto. 

Once it had all cooked down a bit, I stirred in the ricotta, stirred in the pasta, into a baking dish grated cheese on top and in the oven for some time. Probably about 20 minutes. And steamed the greens.

Oh did I mention, days when you can't get the photos to rotate and upload properly?

We eat something similar at least once a week. The chorizo could be leftover bacon, or cold meat - or no meat, in which case  I might use garlic and smoked paprika and an onion. The courgettes could be red peppers. The sundried tomato pesto could be tomato puree, ordinary pesto, harissa paste - frankly what ever is in the fridge without mold on it.

There's no recipe, and occasionally it's literally just cooked pasta and a tin of tomatoes cooked down with some garlic stirred through the pasta. 

I commend it to you!

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Why Katie Piper made me cry

Ever since Saturday morning, when I blubbed shamelessly as Katie Piper talked frankly to a packed, and silent, Britmums Live audience, and then even more so, talking to her mum and Katie Hill (teary, tissue-less and overwrought, never have I felt less glamorous, let me tell you), I have been pondering why exactly she made me cry.

It's not just her story - the beautiful good time girl, going places (possibly - she is refreshingly candid about the career opportunities available presenting casino programmes on channel 999 at 2 a.m.) raped and then burned horrifically with acid thrown over her at the behest of a man who couldn't have her.


It's not just the fact that she can - and clearly throughout her recovery, did, laugh at her situation. Not at all of it, but at the comical moments that can often - and almost totally inappropriately -  come in times of great trauma and distress, She tells a cracking story about squirting blackberry juice out of the feeding tube attached to her stomach while wearing a flesh coloured 'morph suit' (her 'earthworm Jim suit' - to stop the burns contracting) - but I guess you had to be there.


It's not just the fact that she has taken what has happened to her and survived in the most inspiring way, turning her experiences into a charity to support others who have been burned, filling gaps in the NHS provision, which, with the best will in the world, public money cannot currently cover.

It's not just that she is so disarmingly honest about the support she received from her family, about how dark the really dark times were, about how cruel people were to her, and about her agoraphobia.

All these things make her a truly remarkable survivor. It puts my life and the things that have happened to me sharply into perspective. But here's the thing. She gets annoyed when people start talking about something bad that happened to them and then they say "Oh but it's nothing like what you have been through". Why does she get annoyed? Well, you see as she puts it - it doesn't matter what 'it' is - if it's your worst thing, then yes it is bad, it is worth getting upset about.

What trauma have I suffered. Well let me tell you - if you didn't know already - my son had leukaemia. My lively 2 year old withered before my eyes, almost overnight. 9 months into treatment, he had no hair, was on the 2nd centile (from 98th when born) and the doctors were talking about feeding tubes. We spent endless hours in hospital. The drugs made him sick. He had blood and platelet transfusions. He had a terrifying allergic reaction to one of his drugs. I thought he might die. My son.

He had the disease. The Husband and I - we dealt with the fall out. And a new baby.

People say similar to me when talking about their children. People who have had what I consider to be equally traumatic experiences, or even people talking about a broken arm. They say "Oh but it's nothing like what you went through". Or they say "I don't think I could have got through what you did". To that I say, firstly, as Katie Piper says, it doesn't matter what it is - if it's the worst that you have had to deal with, then it's bad. It's not a question of degree. It is valid to feel distraught, lost, confused - even if you're dealing with chicken pox. 

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, you do have a choice. You can drown in the injustice of it all, or you can try and work out how to cope and get through it. I know someone whose son was at a similar age, living in the same village who died of a brain tumour when Blue was being treated. She and I were pregnant at the same time and gave birth to our second children within days of each other. She told me once that she thought she was lucky because I still had the uncertainty of whether Blue would survive hanging over me. She knew, so sadly, how her son's story ended, and she thought she was in a better position than me. I have never spoken to her about it, but I suspect this was one of her ways of coping. 

I consider us to be lucky. Not that Blue became ill - I wouldn't wish that on anyone. But he's still here. We just passed the 4 years "off-treatment" point - one more to go before we'll get as much of an 'all clear' as they will give us. I haven't lost a child, been physically attacked or suffered any of the other terrible things that can happen, although if you want dark hours, I can give them to you in buckets. The important thing is that he has survived.

We are lucky too, to have survived as a family. Lots of people don't. Families break up under pressure, and it's hard, so hard to keep lines of communication open when you've been awake all night worried sick about your child, or had to go to work and leave your child as he goes into an operation because of a meeting you can't afford to miss. It's hard because day to day life becomes more difficult on every level physically and financially - do you know how expensive hospital parking is? You have to make decisions you never thought you would be faced with. It's hard but you choose to make those decisions in order to survive.

We had a choice, and what made me cry was hearing someone else who has survived - and is possibly still surviving - talking so eloquently about her choice. Katie Piper demonstrates so simply and so beautifully that you DO have a choice. Even in the darkest hours of your life, you can choose to be beaten by it all, or to fight. It takes a lot of energy and support, and it's not easy, but you can do it, be your injuries physically or emotional, whether you're the person who's been hurt or someone supporting and caring for that person. 

And the relief of hearing someone else say all that made me cry.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Arabian nights - cardamon coffee & dates, and a distinct lack of inspiration

May be it's the fact that for the last week, I haven't actually had to cook anything apart from some bacon sarnies, but I am completely and utterly all out of enthusiasm for my kitchen. A weekend at mum's (from which I have returned with yet another rhubarb cake recipe - possibly the best yet - watch this space) followed by camping with the kids, and I'm back in my house, in my own kitchen and can I think of anything at all that I want to cook? Nope.

So while I'm waiting for inspiration to strike (and it better strike soon or the troops will be mutiny-ing) I'll share a little delight that the Husband treated me to this evening (no not THAT kind of treat - this is a family friendly blog).

The Husband has been off in the desert doing things I do not particularly choose to understand, and which, even if I did, I couldn't tell you about. When not involved in those things, he has been meeting camels, taking photos of lizards, and enjoying the hospitality that is customary in that part of the world. While it appears that much of the food available to him and his colleagues was met at best with unease ('chicken enema' being the least popular dish on the 3 day rotating menu. I say no more), he did enjoy some Bedouin hospitality in the form of cardamon coffee and dates, while lounging about in a carpeted tent. You get the picture. The following day, one of his hosts appeared with bags of Arabic coffee, a bag of cardamon pods and packs of dates and some vague instructions for preparation.

This evening, the Husband cooked pasta carbonara with asparagus from the garden. It was delicious - I meant to take a photo to sing his praises further, but it was too tasty and it all disappeared far too quickly). He then offered to make me Arabic coffee, and Blue, who adores dates, persuaded him to let us crack open the dates.

Dates are a very prized commodity in the part of the world where the Husband was staying, and these are completely delicious. Honestly, you may scoff, but they are almost chocolatey in their texture and ability to satisfy. And this from a confirmed chocoholic. I have no idea, but I'd guess these were up at the top of the date charts.

The coffee - well, the instructions were to make up the coffee, and add 1 part ground cardamom pods to 2 parts coffee used after the water has been added to the coffee.

Apart from the fact that it gave us the chance to use my Granny's coffee jug and cups which I love with a passion, I was really intrigued as to what it would taste like.

Coffee-wise, it's not nearly as strong as you might imagine. I'm no coffee connoisseur, although I definitely prefer ground to instant, and I was expecting some kind of Turkish-so-strong-your-spoon-stands-up-in-it brew, but no, this was much more delicate. The cardamom was the dominant taste, but in a good way, although we erred on the side of overdoing it and added the shells as well as the seeds to the brew. Combined with the dates, it was a really delicious end to a meal - and much grander than the occasion itself.

I'd like to try it with a stronger coffee, and may be leave out the shells, and just go with the ground cardamom seeds. I can also feel the stirrings of a cardamom coffee date cake...

While we were enjoying these delicacies, the Husband shared with us the story that his host had passed on, that all boys in that part of the world are taught how to make this coffeee as one of the first things they do. Blue digested this fact, and then recounted how, in Ancient Egypt, baboons were trained to collect dates. he paused and then went on, with 9yr old glee "And did you know, it was supposed to be really good luck to have dates that the baboons had poo'd on.". 

Thanks darling. Back to chicken enema in one swift conversational move. I really need to get some inspiration quick.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Lemon & Almond Buns - A Random Recipe

There always comes a time when there's a change of routine when you need to bring out the big guns. It's a watershed moment that can be easy to spot if you've experienced it a few times. 

Things are different, no-one's really settled into whatever the change is. Comfort and indulgence is the order of the day to get everyone over the hump and get on with the rest of whatever it is.

Comfort came bun shaped today

I've observed this on Scout Camp the last few years. usually around Day 3. That's when we pull out the biscuits and the hot chocolate at bed time, do some mass jollying along.

Here in the RJ household, we had our own jollying along moment on Sunday morning.

The Husband headed off last Monday for what is probably the longest time he's been away from us since he left the Army. While he's sitting in the desert, surrounded by 'MaMBA' (No, not snakes, Miles and Miles of Bugger All), posting the occasional photo of a lizard on Facebook, Blue, Pink, Fred the Dog, the chickens and I have been trying to sort out a new modus operandi, not required for the shorter trips he's often making. There has been a Daddy-less 7th birthday and a couple of late nights because somehow things have slipped. There has been fractious bickering, there have been tears. The kids are responsible for feeding the chickens and watering the greenhouse - I am responsible for making sure they remember they are responsible. There has been an angry moment (mine) with the lawn mower (don't go there), and more tears (the kids) when the internet occasionally fails to allow Skype to work for the brief period of time when a conversation with Daddy is appropriate.

When I selected my Random Recipe for Dom's challenge for this month -  'Bread' , I wasn't really sure when I'd get round to baking and entering the challenge. My selection of bread baking books and bread baking sections of books included the Sweet & Fruit breads chapter in 'Short & Sweet' by Dan Lepard, and this recipe was where my page flicking ended up. Lemon & Almond Buns - "... a lemon flavoured butter dough that bakes like brioche around a gooey core of marzipan..." Delicious, sure, but a month full of camping, working out my notice at work and preparing to go freelance, sailing the ship on my own, I wasn't sure that there would be time.

Well, may be there wasn't time, but what became apparent over Saturday was that time or not, the kids needed some indulgence. This would normally have been a cinammon bun moment, but instead, the moment for Lemon & Almond Buns arose.

Now, having already fallen foul of Mr Lepard's rather zealous business manager in the past check out the comments), I am not going to even begin to repeat the recipe here. However for those of you wishing to recreate these beautiful buns, you will be pleased to know that they were published in the Guardian Online in 2006 and you can find the recipe here.

Pretty straightforward, although you need to start the night before to get a rough dough into the fridge, and if you want them for breakfast before about 9, you need to be up just before 7, which is fine unless you've had more than a couple of glasses of morale boosting wine with your lovely and supportive neighbours after you've manhandled the kids into bed, tears wiped, stories read,  in which case you might end up having breakfast a little later on...

It's an enriched, lemon scented bread dough which needs little kneading.

From this...

You roll it out into a 70cm by 10cm rectangle, 

to this

then put a sausage of marzipan into the middle of the rectangle and seal the dough over it before slicing into pieces, proving and baking.

The only thing that I can tell you about the recipe is that I had no flaked almonds in, so instead of brushing the cooked buns with melted butter, sprinkling with toasted flaked almonds and dredging with icing sugar, I made up a runny lemon icing using the juice of a lemon (the zest had already gone into the dough), and then sprinkled with poppy seeds.

What can I say? The lemony brioche type bread was light, lemony (as promised) and delicious. The marzipan was oozy and heavenly. The kids LOVED it, and have requested a repeat performance next week, and the next. And strangely enough, everything calmed down today. 

10 days to go...

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Slightly Spicy Mushroom Chard & Chickpea soup

So today didn't get off to a hugely auspicious start, what with being woken at 4.30 to the dulcet tones of Blue throwing up. Never a good way to start the day, let alone the week. I was supposed to be having a 5:2 fasting day, but due to excessive amounts of partying at the weekend (well, excessive for us - 2 dinner parties - practically unheard of social activity for us these days) I was still feeling slightly jaded (shall we say) and not in the mood to face a pink grapefruit, or to forgo milk in my coffee.

Bearing that in mind, for our first 'Fresh Week' breakfast, Pink and I had porridge with stewed rhubarb from the garden.

Blue had some Diaorolyte and the Husband absolved himself from involvement in Fresh Week due to the impending trip, and finished the Weetabix. Not such a hot start, then.

I'd misunderstood when the Husband was leaving for his jaunt to the desert too (he leaves this evening, after tea time), and Pink then decided she didn't want to go on her usual post-school arrangement because Blue wasn't going and the Husband would still be home (understandable really). The usual sort of non-serious muddle that I often find myself in. More importantly, I ended up from planning to feed only myself this evening, to having to find food for all of us.

Cue extraction of a handy shepherds pie from the freezer I made a couple of weeks ago with the leftovers from Blue's 'last meal'. It isn't yet topped with mash, and I used the last of the potatoes up yesterday, so it will be swede and carrot mash. The freezer really is your friend if you want to cook more from scratch. Make things like shepherds pie in bulk and freeze in portion sizes. It might seem like a stress, but it's really not.

Given that everything seems to have spiralled from order to chaos in a matter of moments (does this happen to anyone else? It seems to happen to me frequently), I decided I needed a decent lunch and turned to the last of the veg box and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall for inspiration.

I love chard, and I had a bag of ruby chard - dark green leaves, pinky red stems.

I don't know if you can buy it in supermarkets - we usually grow it so I never look for it, although there's none in the garden ready yet. Swiss chard with white stems, 'bright lights' with orange and yellow stems, ruby chard as from the box. I'd be lying, though, if I said my kids love it - or frankly, that they even tolerate it, with its earthy taste - so this was always (happily) destined for me.

This soup is inspired by one in Veg Everyday "Chickpea, Chard and Porcini soup", but as ever I adapted it to suit what I had - fresh mushrooms rather than dried porcini, and where Hugh uses rosemary, I wanted something a bit more robust so reached for the harissa paste for a chilli kick. You could add more as well - mine was quite subtle.

Slightly Spicy Mushroom Chard & Chickpea soup

rapeseed oil
2 small onions, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic. crushed
1-2 tsp harissa paste
400g chard or spinach, leaves and stalks separated, stalks finely chopped, leaves shredded
100g chestnut mushrooms, sliced
400g tin chopped tomatoes (Fresh Week or not, these will always be in my store cupboard!)
400g tin of chickpeas
500ml vegetable stock (yes, you could make your own from scratch but I used Marigold veg stock powder)
Salt & pepper

Heat a tablespoon or so of rapeseed oil in a large pan and sweat the onions for 10-15 minutes along with the garlic. Chuck in the chopped chard stalks

and the harissa paste for the last 5 minutes, then add in the mushrooms and cook for a few more minutes. Add the chopped tomatoes, chick peas and stock, and bring to the boil, then simmer for 15 minutes or so before adding the chard leaves, and simmering for 5-7 minutes till the leaves have cooked down.

Season with salt and pepper and serve.

 

 

 

I've taken the Tefal Fresh Week challenge to cook fresh food every day from 13th-19th May. You can still join me and make the pledge for a chance to win a Fresh Express Max and a Riverford Organic Veg box. You can read more about that here, where you can also find out how to sign up yourself.

 



reade more... Résuméabuiyad

The Last Meal...

Today, my boy left home.

Not for long, you understand - just till Friday. His class are on the annual Yr 4 residential trip that the school run, spending time at a study centre on the south coast.

An amazing opportunity, he's been so excited about it - but nervous, too.

"I'm going to miss you, Mummy" is nothing to the number of times he has counted down the days, discussed the menu (a stroke of genius, that, sending the menu home a few weeks ago!), wondered about what he would be doing... To say that the moment of departure, of actual separation has been preying on his mind is an understatement - for this is what has been the problem for him. He has stayed away from us before - usually at his Granny & Grumpy's, usually with Pink, but not always. Apart from those times, I have been there when he has gone to sleep and when he has woken up almost every day. And now I won't be. He is going to have to go away. Once he is there, he will have a ball. But leaving is hard.

It's all part of growing up. I know that.

Last night, he sat at the table, and somewhat dramatically announced "This is the last meal I'm going to eat with my family".

I felt a little bit guilty - I had been preparing him for a welcome home dinner to end all welcome home dinners, then realised that our Bank Holiday camper van excursion would put paid to that - hard to prepare a roast on a 2 ring gas cooker... I quickly 'fessed up and offered him the choice of meals before he went.

So what did he choose? 

Roast lamb

Yorkshire pudding (I had to put aside my hang ups about only having Yorkshire pudding with beef)

Roast potatoes crisp with semolina, carrots and leeks.

And pineapple upside down cake.

This morning, there were no tears (from either of us), only far more hugs than I would ever normally get in the presence of his friends, and plenty of excitement. Already, this evening, there are photos on the class pages of his school website which suggest that he is having an 'epic' time - and this evening he is badger watching. In the words of every 9 year old, the country over - 'Awesome'. In the photos, he looks happy and relaxed.

I like to think that his 'last supper' contributed to that.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Pastry - and pasties

OK, so I don't want you to think I'm getting too big for my boots here, but allow me to whisper something

*I may have cracked pastry*

There. I won't say it too loudly, but 3 times in as many weeks, I have made pastry and it's worked out OK.

Admittedly not 'short as short' shortcrust pastry, but pastry nonetheless.

First, I made Hugh F-W's swede and potato pasties from Veg Everyday, which involves his rough puff pastry. A bit of rolling and turning is required, but really, this is very little effort pastry and tastes brilliant.

Then, a rather unusual rapeseed oil and spelt flour affair as part of a leek tart that appears in Rose Elliot's 30 Minute Vegetarian. My mother in law was down for the weekend a couple of weeks ago. She is a vegetarian and this book is a great resource - the meals are brilliantly easy, very tasty and dead quick. Not necessarily a good thing, I'll grant you, if you were hoping to escape to the kitchen for a while - although don't ask ME why you'd want to do that, oh no... But I digress. I'd planned this for Sunday lunch, but she had to leave early, so we spent the day in the garden and I made this for tea. And in case you were wondering, because she'd gone home, I added some ham. 

The pastry literally involved mixing the flour and oil together with a little water, then rolling it out between clingfilm 

 

before lining the tin and baking blind. 

OK, so may be a little patching was required

The Husband thought it was a bit odd - it does have quite a strong flavour - a combination of the rapeseed oil and the spelt flour - and the texture of the pastry, once baked was a little crumbly, but I liked it. Actually, the tart as a whole was pretty good. Pink didn't like it that much, but Blue who I was expecting to wail and moan about it, pronounced it delicious. The filling is what you'd expect from a quiche, but without the eggs. You thicken the filling (cream, leeks, say no more) with cornflour, pile it into the pastry case, and give it a final blast in the oven.

Thus inspired, and hot on the heels of my outing with the kids in Daisy to Bracknell forest last week, we loaded up the van last Sunday, and headed out to a relatively local beauty spot/place of interest called Combe Gibbet (or 'Combe Giblet' as Pink rather endearingly insisted on calling it). As you might have guessed, it's a hill where they used to hang people. Rather a grisly destination, but the kids were pretty delighted by the potential horror of it all, and all things considered, the view was pretty spectacular at the top.

It was quite windy, though!

"All this wind plays havoc with one's hairdo..."

Anyway, an outing requires a picnic, so I used my new found pastry confidence (and the fact that I had no plain flour left in the cupboard, only spelt flour) to adapt the swede and potato pasties from Veg Everyday to make some mini swede, leek and potato pasties.

We ate them with brown sauce, followed by left over chocolate cake. A feast indeed! 

reade more... Résuméabuiyad