Tag: easy recipes

My top 3 Valentines Recipes…

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I think the most important factors for valentines recipes is that they are quick, easy and light on the washing up, not that the washing up should be a factor on Valentine’s Day. It can be taken care of tomorrow.

First recipe up is what I call my date steak. One Steak can feed two generously. A lush juicy steak is given a quick fry then rest in the salad dressing, where it oozes some of it meaty flavor into the dressing whilst also taking on some of the flavors of the dressing. The steak gets sliced finely and then strewn over a messy tangle of salad. Delicious and only moments of work. Steak is always a real treat and even though this recipe takes very little time to make you would never know it. It is a quick feast.

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Spaghetti Carbonara

Again, another quick and easy meal and of course you can have your lady and the tramp moment with this dish. It takes longer to eat than it does to make. By the time your pasta has cooked everything else will be ready to go.

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If you want to get ahead of the cooking then try this Fabulous dessert, strawberries in Prosecco jelly. I make this in champagne saucers and it really just looks like a glass of champagne. It is a gently set jelly, the Prosecco retains the bubbles so the jelly has the most gentle light tingle in your mouth as you eat. To vamp it up even more for your loved one, whip some cream gently, scoop out a passion fruit and fold through the softly whipped cream.Dollop spoonfuls of the cream as you eat your jelly. I laugh at the cheesiness but I call this ‘’Quivering with passion jellies’’ and I think it sums up this day perfectly.

slow cooker sticky toffee pudding

Slow Cooker Sticky Toffee Pudding

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I bought a slow cooker a long time ago and until recently it spent most of its time at the back of a cupboard. It is only recently I have come to get full use of this wonderful piece of kitchen equipment. I must confess however, I know that my slow cooker will inevitably be constrained to the winter and colder months as I find it best suited to braised dishes and that is usually not the sort of food I want to eat in the warmer months. But whilst the weather is cold, I am getting full use of my slow cooker I nearly always cook in large batches when using it when time and energy are in short supply. When I know I’m going to be busy and not have the opportunity to eat I go ahead and stick something in so I know when I get home, I will have a hot comforting meal ready. Most of the time it is only two of us eating so I like to come up with recipes such as my slow cooker ham that do provide several dinners but, the several other new dinners over the next few days come from these. From the leftovers of my slow cooked ham I make ham & Pea potato cake, my egg fried rice with ham or even just some simple stir-fried greens with a hefty slice of ham that is topped with a fried egg, runny yolk a must.

slow cooker sticky toffee pudding
sticky date pudding

I have recently been adapting some of my dessert recipes for the slow cooker, which I will explain. The reason this idea came to meet was recently when at a friend’s house for dinner there was a little bit of a crisis due to the oven being in use with dinner itself and temperatures, which inevitably shouldn’t have been a concern, I would just pop pudding into the oven after take out dinner as I enjoy a little break between courses. This, however, got me thinking of ways of cooking hot pudding or desserts without having to use the oven. What other pieces of equipment are found in most kitchens I thought. Then it hit the ‘slow cooker’, I knew as soon as I had decided on the cooking appliance that it had to be a pudding and I came up with a few but my top favourites were easy and delicious. One my slow cooker STP (Sticky Toffee Pudd) and the other my chocolate pudding. What makes these both great is that they are super easy to make combine wet and dry ingredients and cook it in its own sauce in the slow cooker giving your pudding an incredible sponge much like that of a steamed sponge pudding. I share below my recipe for slow cooker STP.

Check back over the coming weeks for many more slow cooker recipes.

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Roast chicken thighs with braised rice and peas

One pan chicken with Braised Rice & Peas

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A simple meal with delicious and cosy flavours. This one pan recipe is a great kitchen de-stresser, it just requires a little work at the beginning then pop it into the oven to do the rest. The rice is easily fluffed up with a fork and the peas and leaks give a mellow sweet flavour. Cooking the chicken on top of the rice allows the steam given off the ability to create a succulent and moist chicken packed with flavour. It is also as important to remove the lid halfway through cooking so that the chicken skin can crisp up, after all who wants damp soggy chicken skin?

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sweet chilli chicken pasta
Sweet Chilli Chicken Pasta
toad in the hole with onion gravy
Toad in the Hole
with shortcut Onion Gravy
Eggs in Purgatory

Eggs in Purgatory

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Eggs in Purgatory

Eggs in Purgatory are as you might have guessed from the photo and name are eggs that are poached in a fiery tomato sauce. These aren’t the most photographic eggs in the world but what they lack in appearance they certainly make up for in flavour. As a quick shortcut here, I use spicy Chorizo sausage to impart a lot of flavour with very little work. You can if you want things a lot milder use a sweet smoky paprika chorizo instead of a spicy one and adjust heat level with dried chilli flakes and you can also cut out the meat factor altogether by removing the sausage and using just the chilli, garlic, tomatoes and sea salt which is tasty enough.

 I most often make these when I get in and am famished and need something quick. The whole dish from beginning to end only take about 8 minutes. It is so good with hunks of good bread to dip in and scoop out the fiery sauce and runny eggs with. Sourdough, flatbreads or any other favourite will do.

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Duck & Orange Salad

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This recipe consists of perfectly pink duck breast nestled in leaves with a simple fiery orange and ginger dressing spiky and hot that cuts through the richness of the duck.

For anyone who hasn’t cooked duck breasts before watch the video below to see a step by step guide on how to cook duck breast.

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Exciting news upcoming in the next few weeks. I can’t say too much right now but all will be revealed very soon.

Below are a couple of my other favourite recipes. What are you favourite recipes? Leave a comment below.

Warm goats cheese,fig and parma ham salad
Goat Cheese, Fig & Parma Ham Salad
Halloumi, Mint & Pomegranate Salad

Marmite Roast Chicken – Don’t Knock it until you’ve tried it

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I adore marmite and think it is a very under used ingredient. You can do so much more with it than just spread it on toast. I often have it with pasta on days where a big bowl of carbs is required but this is my latest experimentations. Combining it with butter and thyme to create a golden bronzed bird with crispy skin and an almost umami flavoured flesh. When you think of the trendy flavour that is umami, I think of soy-based sauces, the flavour of mushrooms. This is a very simplified but highly rewarding way of getting that flavour with an ingredient that is most easy to find. Even Marmite haters enjoy this chicken so as the title says don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.

I think it is best eaten with noodles or basmati rice and the deliciously sweet and caramelised vegetables that it cooked on.

What is your favourite uses for marmite? Leave a comment below

The Ultimate Sophisticated Amaretto Chocolate Tart

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This is one for all the chocolate lovers out there. It is rich, dark and elegant. It is an easy tart to make as it requires no baking. Instead of using a pastry it has a biscuit crumb base and the filling is a easy chocolate custard using a milk and cornflour mixture to slake it meaning that you don’t have to use eggs, preventing any worries of having a chocolate scrambled egg filling.

Modest slices are adequate when portioning as I have said it is very rich. Serve alongside some softly whipped double cream or crème fraiche.

Warm Goat Cheese, Fig & Parma Ham Salad

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This is so good warm creamy goat cheese, salty Parma ham and voluptuous sweet figs nestled in a beg of green leaves and drizzled with delicious balsamic vinegar. I have specified spinach leaves for this salad however, you may use any leaves you like. I always have baby spinach in the fridge as I think it keeps better than any other packet of leaves.

If you find your figs aren’t as ripe and sweet as you would like them to be you can pop them under the grill, the heat somehow seems to bring out the sweetness.

For a meat free version, I would suggest swapping the Parma ham for some salty black olives. This is so easy it can hardly even be called a recipe, it’s so simple but here it is anyways

For more delicious salad recipes why not check out the following:

Watermelon & Feta salad Halloumi, Mint & Pomegranate Salad

Beetroot, Feta & Basil Salad

A Mid-Week Curry Feast

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Firstly, let me start off by saying that although I call this my Sri Lankan chicken curry it is very inauthentic, and I should probably call it a Sri Lankan inspired chicken curry instead. I sometimes feel that I may be too apologetic about recipes being inauthentic, this is after all what cooking is all about using the ingredients that you have and are readily available to you to create recipes that are authentic to you and your kitchen.There is a lot of ingredients in this recipe, but it isn’t complicated or difficult to make. I suggest reading recipe and gathering all the spices and ingredients together rather than rummaging through cupboards, looking for spices as you are cooking. Admittedly a major flaw off mines in the kitchen.

You can use chicken breast for this, although I highly recommend skinless boneless chicken thighs for one, they are cheaper and secondly, they have so much more flavour a winner on both counts. This is also a great make ahead meal and flavour develops and strengthens over time. This is a hot curry, so if you like it mild ½ the measurements of the hotter spices and for those that like their food fiery, use half the coconut milk and eat the ruby terracotta curry with fiery delight.  

Moussaka – The Perfect Crowd Pleaser

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Moussaka is a Greek dish of usually minced lamb, aubergine, potatoes and creamy sauce that is baked in layers like a lasagne. I really think of this as Greek lasagne and it is every bit as good as that sounds.

 I almost always use minced beef here as it is a dish I cook for a crowd and not everyone seems to be keen on minced lamb. Whichever meat you decide to use know that this will be delicious. It’s a great make ahead meal once put together you can allow to cool then store covered in the fridge and give it the final cooking in a hot oven for a little longer until piping hot within.

The aubergine are usually fried in quite a bit of oil as they are like sponges and it seems no matter how much oil they get they will drink this up and require more it is for this reason I use a non-stick pan and coat in very little oil. You can and sometimes I need to add a little more oil between batches. Aubergines are almost always salted to draw out moisture and make them less bitter. I have never found this step necessary. However, I do salt here only because I want to draw out a little of the moisture in them. It is about the only thing that can ruin this dish is having too much moisture and it being a horrible runny mess although, it will taste just fine.

The bechamel sauce needs to be thicker than normal and also contain egg yolks which make it set like a savoury custard. You shouldn’t require any seasoning as the parmesan should add enough. I love breaking through the very thin cheesy crust that forms on the top of this, it brings me great pleasure like cracking through a crème brulee.

I serve this alongside some roasted baby potatoes which I scatter with crumbled feta and thyme/oregano when they have come out of the oven and a simple green salad.