Roast Butternut Squash with Harrisa

Tweet

Roast Butternut Squash with Harrisa

So I knew there was harissa in the fridge and that was enough to go with. I found a nice recipe for squash roasted with harissa – it looked great – so I thought I would serve it with some bulghur wheat and feta, but I had left over mash – so potato cakes it was again – the three worked wonderfully together – a nice contrast to the sharp feta is the sweet and spicy roasted squash – I just love the colour of squash to, very appetising.

Ingredients

I butternut squash – peeled and cubed 1 inch
2 tablespoon veg oil
1 tablespoon of harissa
Salt & Pepper


Toss the squash in the oil and harissa to coat evenly – bung it in the oven – gas mark 7-8 for about 35 mins. Serve with potato cakes and chunks of feta and some rocket.

Yum

Chilli roasted chickpeas

Tweet

Chickpeas – not just for hummous

More often than not – our tins of chickpeas are destined to become hummous – or maybe an addition to stew, so I felt the time had come to re-dress this balance. I ate these delicious chickpea dish with Farrah and Pam in New York a few years back – and since created my own version. I’ll dedicate this one to Farrah and also to wish her best of luck with the wedding preparations, we can’t wait!

Chili roasted chickpeas

I can of chickpeas rinsed
1 tablespoon of gram flour (any flour will do)
salt & pepper
1 teaspoon paprika
1 large red chili finely sliced – leave out seeds if you prefer it less hot
½ teaspoon of mixed spice
1 tablespoon of olive oil.

Toss everything together and spread onto a lightly greased baking tray – roast at the top of the oven for 20-30 mins at gas mark 7 until golden and toasty looking – serve with a some yogurt and freshly chopped parsley. Makes an excellent side dish for Eastern, Greek or Spanish style tapas food.

Where’s me Rioja?

Bangers and Mash – with roast onion gravy

Tweet

Bangers and Mash – with roast onion gravy

It’s been a long hung-over Friday in work, so what better way to treat it than with bangers and mash and a movie – I won’t bore you with details on how to grill a sausage or mash potatoes – except that Rayne added in some strong mustard which gave it a bit more body. So here’s the recipe for the gravy.

Ingredients
4 med onions, thinly sliced in moons
2 tablespoons of veg. oil
1 heaped teaspoon grainy mustard
1 table spoon of honey
Salt & Pepper
1 servingspoon of flour
1 servingspoon of butter

Coat onions in oil and then mix in salt, pepper, mustard and honey – pop into a hot oven for1/2 hour till they are getting black around the edges – only some of the onions now, not all of them.

Melt butter into a pan – and then stir in the flour – then add in the onions and coat thoroughly. Gradually add water until you get a nice sauce – sirring all the time to avoid lumps. All to simmer gently for a few minutes – taste and season accordingly. It’s incredible how dark the gravy will get with just the natural colour from the browned/blacked onions.

Spoon over of a bed of mustard mash with nice big thick butchers sausages – mmmm mmmm good, as the little Bisto guy would say.


I would say ‘Up yours, Bisto kid’ but they’re too cute

Super-Granola-Food

Tweet

Super-granola-food


I’m now remembering why I started to make my own granola – I’d been reading and hearing lots about superfoods and decided to make a concerted effort to incorporate more of them into my everyday diet…….

So for a month I tried to eat and cook my way through the below list. The contents of which are very much open to debate
• Black Beans
• Blueberries
• Broccoli
• Oats
• Oranges
• Pumpkin
• Salmon • Soy
• Spinach • Tea (green or black)
• Tomatoes • Turkey • Walnuts
• Yogurt
• Wheatgerm
• Tomato paste • Curry ?
• Ginger
• Black Beans • Fresh Herbs
• Dark Chocolate • Olive Oil
• Almonds
• Quinoia
• Seeds

It was quite fun to look at a list of ingredients in incorporate them into meals I already knew or to search out new recipes.

Back to the granola – I was looking for a way to combine a number of these foods so that it would be very easy to eat an amount of them in one go – Granola includes oats, pumpkin (seeds) walnuts, yogurt (to serve) wheatgerm, almonds (pronounced ahhhmint if you’re from Limerick) & even more seeds. Also it’s dead yummy and easy to make. With every batch you make some changes so it’s always different, I have seen some recipes that include cocoa and dark chocolate – so that could be one more off the list included.

Golden Syrup, Hazelnut and Vanilla Granola


Ingredients
This one smells amazing in the oven .
4 cup of jumbo oats 1 cup of wheatgerm
1 cup of hazelnuts & almonds - halved
½ cup of pumpkin seeds
2 tablespoons of sesame seeds
2 tablespoons of poppy seeds
1 serving spoon of unsweetened peanut butter
1 serving spoon of golden syrup
2 serving spoons of water 1 teaspoon of vanilla
1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon

Mix the golden syrup and water over a low heat till dissolved, then stir in the peanut butter, and finally the vanilla essence -remove from heat – don’t worry if the peanut butter remains a little lumpy – it will make some great crunchy pieces in your finished granola. Combine the other dry ingredients in a large bowl and mix thoroughly. Then pour over liquid – mix thoroughly once again – turn out onto a very lightly greased large baking tray, spreading as thinly and evenly as you can. Bake in the centre of the oven – for 30-40 mins mixing every 15 mins or so to ensure even browning. Allow to cool before putting in an airtight container.

Serve with natural or flavoured yogurt, and dried or fresh fruit of your choice. Or raw with a spoon straight from the jar at your desk, if you’re working late…. My secret super-shame!! My straight up peanut butter granola can be found here

Cyprus Salad

Tweet

Cyprus salad
This is the same as a Greek salad, but I went to Cyprus last summer and every restaurant served it and calls it Cyprus Salad. Its lovely and refreshing, and I ate pretty much nothing but this with hummus, pitta bread and grilled haloumi cheese the whole time I was there. Its the best meal that you can throw together in 5 minutes for a really hot day. Its also really satisfying and filling serves 2 1/2 cucumber 1/2 jar black olives 2 ripe tomatoes large handful fresh flatleaf parsley 1/3 pack feta cheese (optional, and if you are going to have grilled haloumi leave the feta out) olive oil, juice of 1/2 a lemon salt & pepper peel the cucumber and slice into thick rounds. Then cut these into quarters. Chop the tomatoes into similar size pieces, and also the cheese if you are using it. put everything into a roomy bowl with the olives and mix. Tear up the parsley a bit and add to the bowl. give it a mix and add a glug of olive oil and the lemon juice to dress. Season with salt and pepper. Serve with hummus in a pitta bread.

Look Shelia and Rayne have located the sun in Cyprus - how clever!

Clonakilty Black Pudding with Apple & Sherry sauce served on a potatoe & chive cake

Tweet

Black Pudding - not just for breakfast

My long lost brother was returning to Ireland from France to celebrate his 30th birthday and I wanted to welcome him home with an Irish feast – so what better way to welcome him home than with some delicious Clonakilty black pudding starter and bacon and cabbage (which was a disaster)

Black pudding – Boudin Noir en Francais – was the source of our first swear word – ‘ca-ca boudin noir’ – which means ‘poo poo black pudding’. This gave us a laugh when me and Marty were little children living in Toulouse. I’ve been wanting to combine some black pudding with a nice apple sauce for a while as I’ve seen it on lots of menus out and about – you could also serve it as a nice brunch, lunch or light supper – Black pudding – not just for breakfast!

One last thing – a small word on black pudding – Clonakilty black pudding is made with the same ingredients – but with that addition of some whole grains, giving it a nutty texture unlike the other more pate types – Shaws of Limerick are also producing a nice version of it - if you
can’t get either of these I just wouldn’t bother – others may beg to differ – but that’s just me!

Serves 4

3 large potatoes – boiled (or left over mashed potato)
1 egg
A nob of butter
Another nob of butter
I teaspoon grainy mustard
A splosh of milk
8 rings of black pudding sliced 1.5cm thick
2 cooking apples – chopped into 1cm cubes
I small onion very finely chopped
2 servingspoons of sherry
1 teaspoon demerara sugar
bunch of chives – 20 stems or so – chopped with scissors is handy

While you are boiling your potatoes (you could also used some left over mashed potato) Fry up the onion in some oil or butter till translucent – turn up the heat and throw in the brown sugar – allowing the onion to brown at the edges, don’t burn. Then when a nice colour is achieved add in the sherry, stir. Then add in the apple and stir to coat – then turn down and allow to simmer gently – it will be a pretty thick mixture so use a non-stick pan.

Make your mash potato with a bit of butter, milk and salt and pepper. Mix in your snipped chives and mustard. Then crack your egg into the centre and mix well –season.

Then pop your black pudding under the grill – turning carefully as it gets pretty crumbly. Allow to brown gently on each side.

Heat a large frying pan and add a nob of butter, drop a servingspoon of potato mixture into the pan – then spread out a little so that it’s about 1-2cms thick – however you’d like them – when brown and crispy turn over. You may need to do this in two batches- pop on plate and put under the cooking pudding to keep warm.

Place your black pudding on top of your cakes and top with a dollop of the apple sauce – add a good grind of thick black pepper and a glass of Guinness and you’re done - welcome home Marty - we missed you Yum

Baked Sweet Potato Falafel

Tweet

Eastern Feastern

This one is especially for Holly who called me at work to ask her to post some veggie recipes - here you go Holly!!

I,ve cut out sugar wheat and dairy for a few weeks in order to fit into last years summer dresses for the big trip to Venice. I'm actually finding it surprisingly pleasant and I'm no where near as hungry as I thought I would be. I think the secret is a nice breakfast (I make my own muesli) then you don't feel too short changed over not being allowed have lovely buttery toast and milky sweet coffee in the morning. Anyway, Lucy sent me a recipe for sweet potato falafel from
Allegra McEvedy's Leon restaurants today, perfect for my silly diet as it has no bad things in it at all. I have changed around the recipe a bit to include white beans and chopped fresh coriander to make it more authentically falafely. I think this might be the ultimate in gluten free, wheat free, sugar free, dairy free food, and best of all, they are baked, not fried. Normal falafel (made with just chickpeas) will be really dry and fall apart if you try to bake it, so this is definitely the ultimate in healthyness, and still most delicious dinner ever. It actually doesn't take that long to make either.

So here goes:


Baked Falafel
1 large sweet potato,
1/2 tin white beans such as butter beans or canellini
1 big handful fresh coriander
2 cloves garlic crushed
1 teaspoon ground cumin
100g Gram Flour (a flour made from lentils available from all good middle eastern shops)
Juice of 1 lemon
glug of olive oil
sesame seeds for garnish

Bake the sweet potato in its skin in a hot oven for about an hour until it is totally soft throughout. mash the beans in a bowl with your fingers, take the cooked sweet potato out of its skin and add to the bowl. Add add the chopped coriander, followed by the rest of the ingredients mix well.


Use two spoons to shape each falafel piece, depositing each one onto a baking sheet covered with greased baking parchment. Sprinkle over some sesame seeds.

Bake in oven preheated to gas 7/220 degrees Celsius for 15 mins or until golden on the bottom and they feel solid to touch. This photo makes them look weird - I'm sorry


We served with:
*Hummus (see previous post) with added harrisa paste
*Natural yogurt with lemon juice, fresh parsley and coriander, salt & pepper
*Cyprus salad (see recipe)
*Chopped beetroot
*Ajvar (Turkish veggie spread made from red peppers great in sandwiches)
*Flat bread (although I didn't have any of this, how good am I?!)

wow! I just saw this video over on Icanhascook - it's brilliant.

Pulse Heavy Vegetarian Chili

Tweet

Veggie Chili – pulse racing stuff

I saw a post on yesterday 101 Cookbooks and as I had just found some pearl barley the week before I was keen to put it to good use. Also I love a big bowl of chili, very satisfying. I love my pulses, especially when they’re accompanied by a good kick of chili

1 huge onion (1cm squares)
Several carrots
3 sticks of celery – finely sliced
1 cup of brown lentils
1 cup of bulghur wheat
1 cup of pearly barley
1 big red chili
1 teaspoon of ground cumin
Several bay leaves
1 teaspoon paprika
Cayenne pepper
1 tin tomatoes
Veg stock
4 cloves of garlic - minced
1 ½ inch of ginger finely grated

Soften the onion and garlic in some oil along with the chili. Then stir in the spices, after 1 min or so, then add in the carrots. Fry off for about two mins before adding the lentils, barley, and tin tomatoes and bulghur wheat, mix thoroughly then add in enough stock to cover entirely.

Bring to the boil and simmer for 35-45 mins until the lentils are tender. Add in some cayenne pepper to taste.

If I was making this again – I’d like to add in a cup full of orange lentils – and maybe reduce the pearl barley a little to possibly ¾ of a cup. Maybe substitute red peppers for the carrots –but alas I had none. This actually produces a HUGE amount of chili – so possibly half the ingredients if you‘re not feeding a small army. The above amounts serves around 6/8

Serve with some grated cheese and baked tortilla chips like these babies

Homemade Jambons

Tweet

Imagine it's your birthday and you're woken with presents, coffee and homemade jambons - wouldn't that be great I hear you say, why yes that's what I thought.

I love jambons - little greasypastriesfromthedelicounterofSpar - they're my hangover treat, and I've been looking for an excuse to re-create them at home.

Thy would have been perfect except I bought the wrong kind of pastry - they still worked out pretty delicious

1 piece of Fontina cheese - grated
2oz Butter
Milk
Plain flour - maybe 2oz or so
Puff pastry (not filo pastry that I bought - oops)
Lardons (bacon/ham whatever you fancy)
1/2 teaspoon of English mustard

Grease a baking tray, and pre-heat your oven to gas mark 6.

Melt the butter over a med heat and sprinkle in some plain flour - enough to turn it into a paste. Then gradually add in a little milk stirring all the time to avoid getting lumps, gradually add the milk until you get a smooth thick sauce. Then add in the grated cheese keep stirring until all the cheese has melted. stir in some salt and pepper and the mustard. Bear in mind you want to keep this pretty thick - if it's too thick just add a dash of milk.

Fry up or grill your bacon and chop into little pieces.


Cut your pastry into 4 inch square pieces, put a heaped serving spoon of the cheese mixture into the centre of each square, and sprinkle on some bacon. Pinch the corners together to form a little rim around the edge.

Brush the pastry with a little mixed egg, and pop into the oven for 15-20 mins - till golden brown and bubbly.Pictured above is the vegetarian option - no bacon just a sprig of parsley

Allow to cool slightly - then devour - yum!

So yes - I did use the wrong pastry - so imagine like mine but puffier - yeah - ok? Great

Migrated Minestrone

Tweet

Butternut Squash & Bacon Soup

This is wonderfully filling soup packed with lots of delicious ingredients - it’s almost a veg stew, or a migrated minestrone (via US, Mexico and the Wales).

I served this up to the Lunch club in work, one of the architects form the office came up with the idea. So a group of 4 of us are cooking lunch for each other on alternate days – what a great idea. The soup went down a treat or so the guys say

Ingredients
1 butternut squash
2 leeks – sliced 1inch sections
2 carrots – small cubes
1 stick of celery
1 cup of corn
3 cups of shredded cabbage
1 cup of bacon/rashers/lardons
4/5 cups of chicken/veg stock
1 stick of celery
2 cloves of garlic halved
4 sprigs of sage (thyme would be better but I didn’t have any)

Chop and skin your butternut squash and remove seeds, pop into pot with the leeks, celery, stock, garlic and sage. Bring to boil and simmer for 40 mins. While this simmers – fry or grill your bacon till crispy and prepare your other veg. After 40 mins – liquidise the soup.

Then add in the rest of your ingredients, return to the boil and simmer till veg is cooked – test the carrots they’ll take longest – about 12-15 mins. If you have a red pepper pop that in too in small pieces. Serve with some fresh bread and butter - Yum

Wafer Thin Fennel Salad

Tweet

With the lovely fennel I bought at the market I found a great Nigel Slater recipe for a nice salad to go with the great sandwich we created. Like most of Nigel Slater's recipes it''s really simple and with good ingredients that's all you need.

1 bulb of fennel
Fresh Parsley coarsely chopped
Baby Sage leaves (the little ones) finely chopped
Good olive oil
Salt & Pepper
Juice of 1/2 lemon

Slice the fennel as thinly as you possibly can. My Dad bought me a great selection of knifes several Christmases ago - and they are possibly one of the most useful things I own (that includes everything I own - possibly second to my computer - but it's a close call)

You can't beat a good chopper - anyway I digress

Scatter onto a plate - scatter over this the sage, salt & pepper, parsley, lemon juice and give a generous drizzle of olive oil. Unlike leafy salad this can stand a little time sitting with the dressing on it without getting limp and inedible.

Yum

Super Natural Food Market

Tweet

Leaving my boyfriends house in Ringend I was cycling down Pearse street when I spotted this out of the corner of my eye.

Sadly I was no well equipped for carrying a lot of stuff home, but I did buy few things I needed for lunch. I will be back one Saturday soon with me saddle bags. Look at the pretty stripey aubergine!

There was a wide variety of stalls, a great selection of fresh veg and cheese. Lots of dried produce. Refillable eco-cleaners and re-fillable olive oil! As well as an Indian food stand, some raw food and juices stand, plans and herbs, baked goods, coffee and a really cool selection of vintage clothes - a really great selection of goods. As well it was not in the least crowded, making for a very pleasurable shopping experience.

Supernatural Loveliness

I took some photos but they don't do it justice better to look at these

1 minute Hummus

Tweet

1 minute is all it takes (if you have a hand-blender that is) and yes we did time it!

Hummus

1 can of chickpeas - retain some of the brine
2 cloves of garlic
Good quality olive oil
Salt & Pepper
Juice of one lemon
Dripping tablespoon of Tahini

Put all ingredients into blender - blend - viola - add in a little of the chickpea brine if it's too thick. Sprinkle with paprika and add more olive oil if desired to serve. I used to use a potato masher to do the blending, and produces a coarser hummus which has equal charms.

To serve - pittas, falafel, cous cous, bulgar and roasted veg, sandwiches, add to vinaigrette to make a tasty salad dressing, carrot sticks, celery salad.... any more suggestions welcome.

I made a very tasty variation a few months back - adding in some roasted red peppers and harissa (a North African hot red sauce or paste made from chili peppers & garlic) - possibly the best hummus ever, quite possibly. The variations are numerous and delicious - yum!

Carrot Muffin Cupcakes

Tweet

Have you see the Muffin Ladies?

190 g Self Raising flour
150 g Sugar
pinch salt tsp
baking powder
80ml Vegetable oil
1 egg
80 ml milk
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 small carrots, grated
1 handful sultanas
8 Dates
1 big handful pecan nuts
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to gas 6/200c Line a bun tray with bun cases or (like we did) squares of baking parchment. Mix the flour, salt, baking powder, sugar and spices in a bowl. In a measuring jug, combine the egg, milk and oil. Whisk and pour in to the flour mixture.


Mix up and add all the other ingredients. using a teaspoon, transfer the mix into the prepared cases. bake for 20 mins.

To make the icing combine 200g low fat cream cheese with 2 tbsps honey. Wait until the buns are cold, then swirl the icing on top of them. Enjoy!

If you leave out the spices, fruit and carrot, you have a basic muffin recipe, to which you can add fruit such a blueberrys, raspberrys etc. Also good is to substitute brown sugar for the sugar, add some rolled oats or bran, some chopped apple and cinnemon and you will have the perfect breakfast muffin. We will post some photos and a proper recipe for this soon!

Easy Half & Half Bread

Tweet

Beautiful Bakers


This recipe comes straight off the bag of flour - they should know! It's a good straight forward recipe, I have used a combination of white and wholemeal flour, this seems to get a good balance. All wholemeal can make it very dense. I always use a food processor with a dough hook. If you have one of these it makes making bread really easy and quick. If not, you'll get nice big muscles from kneading.


1/2 lb/225g strong white flour
1/2 lb/225g strong wholemeal flour
1 tsp salt
1tsp sugar
10z/25g butter
1 sachet fast acting dried yeast
300ml/1/2 pint warm water
Olive Oil

Sieve flour, salt and sugar into a bowl. Rub in the butter with your fingers. Stir in the fast acting yeast and and then add the water. If you are using a food processor with dough hook, just turn it on for 3-5 mins until the dough has all gathered together and is silky and pliable. If you are kneading, knead it until it gets to this stage.

Pour some oil on the dough to coat it and the bowl, cover with clingfilm and leave to rise on a radiator for 1/2 and hour. Knock the dough down (sooo satisfying!) then put in into an oiled bread tin. Cover again and leave to rise on the radiator until it is higher than the top of the tin (about another 1/2 and hour)

Pop your loaf into the oven and bake on gas 8/230c for half an hour. The loaf should have a nice hollow sound when tapped on the bottom. Let it cool a bit before you slice it, it's hard to do when that freshly baked bread smell is filling your kitchen, but resist or you'll have a bit of a sticky mess on your bread knife.

Sprinkle with some poppy seeds before baking, or add some chopped olives, nuts or seeds, to make some interesting variations on this yummy loaf.

Home-made Nachos

Tweet

Saturday Scrabble Snacks

This recipe came from the lovely Miss Anna Sheehy who cooked us up a Mexican feast and served these up as starters, with dips of guacamole and salsa. Great for anyone who like nachos but hates the synthetic taste/colour/staleness whatever of bought nacho chips.

You're about to have an afternoon game of scrabble, you have beer, you have scrabble, but alas no snacks, pop these in the oven and it'll be ready before you're arguing over it's 'wigar' or 'wigger'.

I packet of flour tortillas (the kind you use for making fajitas, the squashy ones)
A little olive oil
Smoked Cayenne pepper
3 cloves of garlic crushed
Mixed Cajun Spice
Salt and lots of pepper

Pre-heat oven to cut your tortillas into wedges – whatever size you like – I went for a bit bigger than regular nachos. Lay onto a lightly greased baking sheet, you may need to use more than one as you need to avoid them overlapping too much to ensure even crispiness. Drizzle with oil and sprinkle over the spices and salt and pepper. Pop in the oven bake for 10-15mins till tuning browning at the edges.

Serve with sour cream, with freshly snipped chives and tomato salsa

1 tin of chopped tomatoes – drained
2/3 spring onions finely sliced
1 teaspoon of oregano dried
1 teaspoon
½ teaspoon sugar
salt and lots of freshly milled black pepper
½ teaspoon dried chilli – fresh if you have it
Fresh coriander

Mix all ingredients together in a bowl, smashing up extra large chunks of tomato as you go. I thought the tesco value tin of tomato we had in the cupboard would be gross but nope they weren’t. it would be nice to have used fresh tomatoes but sadly no were to hand. You can always substitute the dried herbs if you have the fresh variety and you can also replace the spring onion with red onion.

In case you’re wondering ‘dizelmine’ is in the Oxford English dictionary.

Berlin Frankfurter Pottage

Tweet

Anne Wieland’s Soup

This recipe was cooked for use by the lovely Anne Wieland from Berlin who stayed with us at no.7 recently. For her leaving dinner she prepared us this wonderfully simple soup. Delicious, hearty and straight forward it was an instant winner. Here is a photo of her & our other lovely no.7 resident Sarah, she promises to share her recipe for homemade brown sauce soon - oh yeah!!

4 potatoes cubed – cubes 2cms
5 carrots sliced - thinly
Stock (the best you have – good stock cubes will do)
A packet of frankfurters
Parsley
Salt and freshly milled black pepper

Cover potatoes and carrots with stock, bring to the boil and simmer till tender. Meanwhile slice the frankfurters into little slices or chunkier if you fancy and fry in a little oil until the start to brown.


When the potatoes and carrots are done mash them gently with a masher – to get a nice consistency of veg and broth. Add in your sausage and mix and serve, sprinkle with a little chopped parsley, serve with beer, cheese, sourdough bread and a German friend.

Peanut Butter Granola

Tweet

Peanut Butter for Breakfast

2 1/2 c jumbo organic oats
1/2 c wheat germ
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 Tablespoon vegetable oil
3 Tablespoon natural peanut butter
1 heaped tablespoon brown sugar
half cup of pumpkin seeds
half cup sesame seeds

In a large bowl, mix oats seeds and wheat germ together. In a small saucepan, heat up oil, peanut butter, vanilla and brown sugar over medium high heat and let it all melt together. Pour hot mixture over oats and stir well, so that everything is covered. It’s quite sticky at this stage but don’t worry. Spread it out on a non stick baking sheet, and smooth it out a little. The clumps are good as they stick together and make crunchy clusters. Spread mixture on a baking sheet and toast at gas mark 3/4 oven for 30-40 minutes in the middle of the oven, checking on it and stirring it occasionally until mixture is turning golden. When cool, store in a jar.

A recipe I found suggested adding in chocolate, but the best thing about granola is you can add what ever you like. I made a good one recently with toasted hazelnuts and banana chips. Add nuts and seeds into the oat mixture before baking, add dried fruit after when cooled. Some people say that the dried fruit will make your oat mixture soggy, but I haven’t found that, though I haven’t stored granola for much longer then two weeks as it all gets eaten. The peanut butter is optional - but it makes for good clumps.

Pictured is served with yoghurt, raspberries and honey at my desk in the office, no I don’t eat raspberries every day – sadly, normally it’s a banana. I found this recipe a little drier than other recipes, maybe it’s the amount of wheatgerm I hadn’t used that before – or the amount of sesame seeds, I’d have added some sunflower seeds if I had them. I went a little lighter on sugar than recommended and then added honey when serving, yum.

PS a note on food photography - they say it's hard to do and it is. Firstly it's very hard to arrange your food and take pictures of it while it's still hot and you're very hungry. Secondly honey does not stick to rasperries as illustrated in this picture! Any tips greatly appreciated.

Massive Man Curry

Tweet

Well Delo's not massive by any means he is pretty tall and did cook most of this curry so we'll name it after him

Bank Holiday Monday - Beef and Lime Masaman

Oh to follow a recipe faithfully – you never have all the right ingredients – so there was a level of confusion as to how the lime works with potatoes – that is as yet undecided. Though after working late last night, and running out of the office cause I got scared of vampires, I had the leftovers and for some reason they were extra delicious - must be the fear adrenalin

After looking for time some time for some galangal I had found some so I was excited to use it in a recipe.


We had some left over beef from our stew on Sunday that we got from the local Indian (and everything else) shop down the road. I forget the name of it now – hmmmmmmm Poppy’s? Aula? I’ll get back to you on that one, but I love that shop.


Ingredients
Half pound of beef – sliced thinly (the thinner the more delicious I find)
I onion – cut into little moons
1 large green chilli (de-seeded or not)
I red pepper in 1 inch squares
4 potatoes – cut into 2cm cubes
2 inches of root ginger - grated
3 gloves of garlic – sliced thinly as you can
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 ½ teaspoon galangal
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1/2 teaspoon salt
I teaspoon palm sugar
Zest and juice of one lime
Dash of maggi brand seasoning
3 tablespoons of oyster sauce
2 tablespoons soy sauce
¾ can of coconut milk
lots of black pepper

Marinate sliced beef in 2 tablespoons of oyster sauce and half of the soy sauce ( for as long as you can pref overnight though don’t worry if you can only manage to do it for the time you have to prepare the rest of the dinner) Boil cubes of potato until just tender in some slightly salted water.

Fry up ginger, chili and ginger in a small bit of veg oil, over a med-high heat for 2-3 mins then add in the onion, cumin, coriander, turmeric and galalngal till, cook for a few mins till onion starts to go see through – then add in the beef – cook for 3-4 mins, then add in the peppers and coconut milk, palm sugar, lime juice, potato, seasoning, rest of he oyster and soy sauce. Stir well and leave to bubble for about 2 mins.

Serve with a sprinkle of fresh coriander if you have it. If you want to eat it with rice half the amount of potatoes used in recipe – that’ll make it more authentic!



Lovely pictures of curry also with kind thanks to the massive man! Cheers Delo