Filed under: food, recipes | Tags: lime, Patak's Korma curry paste, prawn, prawn and lime pilau, recipe, rice
I resolved to up the recipe count on the blog not two weeks ago, and failed at the first hurdle last week when I was busy being self-absorbed. I shall correct the situation forthwith…
While I love to spend time making curries from scratch, without the aid of a pre-prepared paste, there isn’t always time after a long day at work. This recipe is a great mid-week meal, which is very quick to prepare – it took me less than half an hour to cook and eat! I found it in one of the Waitrose freebie magazines, and it’s also on the website.
Prawn and lime pilau
1 large onion, chopped
2 tbsp sunflower oil
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tbsp Patak’s Korma Curry Paste
250g basmati rice
500ml Cooks’ Ingredients Fish Stock
Grated zest and juice of 1 large lime
20g pack fresh coriander 200g Indonesian cooked, peeled prawns
[I halved everything on this list except the prawns, and that made enough for two as it's quite filling.]
- Gently fry the onion in the oil for 4-5 minutes. Add the garlic and curry paste. Stir for a further minute, then add the rice and mix well.
- Pour in the stock, add the lime zest. Season, then cover the pan. Simmer gently until the stock is absorbed and the rice cooked.
- Stir in coriander, lime juice and prawns. Warm through and season.
Image from www.waitrose.com
Filed under: food, recipes | Tags: BBC Good Food, breakfast, Dorset Cereals, food, granola, recipe
I’ve decided I don’t write about food enough on this blog. Food, as anyone who knows me will testify, is a subject very close to my heart. I am pretty much always thinking about my next meal, get exceptionally grumpy when I’m hungry, and just do not understand people who “forget” to eat lunch. I love cooking, especially for other people, and am happiest pottering about in my kitchen. If I didn’t work in PR, I’d run a tea shop supplying lots of Yorkshire tea, home-made cakes and other yummy snackage.
I am not, it has to be said, particularly creative in the kitchen though. I rarely make up my own recipes, but scour newspapers and magazines for ideas to steal, some of which I adapt as I go along.
So, I’m going to try to share at least one recipe per week, referenced accordingly and with my notes. This week: home-made granola, which comes courtesy from the BBC Good Food site. I discovered this recipe when I realised Dorset Cereals granola costs over £4 a pop and I can easily go down a whole box in a week. By myself.
Good-for-you granola
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil
- 125ml maple syrup
- 2 tbsp honey
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- I also add a couple of teaspoons of spice – e.g. cinnamon, ginger, mixed spice
- 300g rolled oats (I like the jumbo ones that come in big bags in Sainsburys or Waitrose)
- 50g sunflower seeds
- 4 tbsp sesame seeds (I halve this amount, as the end result can be a bit “bitty”)
- 50g pumpkin seeds
- 100g flaked almonds
- 100g dried berries (sultanas work fine)
- 50g coconuts flakes or desiccated coconut (I halve this amount as above)
- Heat oven to 150C/fan 130C/gas 2. Mix the oil, maple syrup, honey and vanilla and spices in a large bowl. Tip in all the remaining ingredients, except the dried fruit and coconut, and mix well.
- Tip the granola onto two baking sheets and spread evenly. Bake for 15 mins, then mix in the coconut and dried fruit, and bake for 10-15 mins more. (I add the fruit right at the end, so as to avoid it drying out). Remove and scrape onto a flat tray to cool. Serve with cold milk or yogurt. The granola can be stored in an airtight container for up to a month (Ha!! like it’s going to last that long).
The end result is incredibly moreish. In fact, the boyfriend pronounced it “better than Dorset Cereals”. Praise indeed.
I did work out the cost, and it came out at around £4 to make 750g. Not that much cheaper than Dorset Cereals then, unless you have a good discount health food store nearby. Which I don’t, that I’m aware of. However, it is very filling – 750g equates to about ten portions (with milk) for breakfast, and staves off the hunger pangs until lunchtime which is nothing short of miraculous. It’s also rather marvellous with fresh fruit and yoghurt as a snack or pudding.
Filed under: food, recipes | Tags: Anna del Conte, food, marmite, Nigella Lawson, pasta
Me on the phone to the boyf this evening (we do talk about food a lot so this is a normal conversation, up to a point):
P: “I’m stuffed – just had round two of the soup I made last night.”
Me: “Nice – I had pasta and marmite.”
P: “Sorry?”
Me: I had pasta and marmite.”
P: “What, together?”
Me: “Yep.”
P: “What were you THINKING?”
Well, what I was thinking when I walked in the door at 8.25pm after British Military Fitness was that I was bloody hungry and I needed to eat within five minutes or I was going to kill someone. I had some fresh pasta, but only root veg which take a flipping age to cook. And I don’t buy ready-meals because I think they’re evil. Then fortunately I remembered reading something by the slight-irritating-but-undeniably-talented Nigella Lawson, recalling a recipe invented by her friend Anna del Conte, the lady she calls the “cook who changed my life”. And this lady used to cook spaghetti with marmite for her Italian-English kids when they were growing up – kind-of based a bit on the Italian habit of using the leftover roast stock a day later as the basis of a pasta sauce.
So, here it is (this is enough for one person). Try it, please…
fresh or dried pasta
25g butter
half to a whole teaspoon of marmite – depending on how much you like marmite. I used half, but will use a bit more next time
parmesan cheese
Cook the pasta according to the instructions on the pack. In a separate pan, melt the butter, add the marmite and a tablespoon of the pasta water. Drain the pasta, and mix into the sauce. Serve, with lots of grated parmesan all over the top.
Ready in five minutes flat. No need for an evil ready-meal. Life sentence for murder averted.
Filed under: British Military Fitness, circuits, food, recipes, running, spinning | Tags: banana and ginger bread, banana bread, British Military Fitness, circuit training, food, Hastings, Pulse8, running, spinning, West Hampstead
I was told off this evening at British Military Fitness for not updating my blog for nearly a week. Ooops. Contrary to popular belief, I haven’t been sitting around being a lard-arse – honest.
- Friday – spinning with Matt at Pulse8. Best instructor there by a country mile, because he really uses the music to motivate the class.
- Saturday – DIY circuit training in West Hampstead. The teenagers doing community service are still painting the railings and they’ve made staggeringly little progress since last time we were there.
- Sunday – down in Hastings, a very uppy-downy four-ish mile run around the cliffs breathing in the sea air. Hard but good.
- Monday – British Military Fitness with Dan
- Tuesday – rest day
- Today – British Military Fitness with Hayley
So, rather than bore you with the finer details of those exploits, I’ll make a suggestion as to what to do with over-ripe bananas. Although I love greeny yellow young bananas, I can’t stand them when they start going brown – they actually make me want to vomit – so I frequently end up with one or two looking forlorn in the bottom of my fruit bowl. Last night I had two manky ones, and time on my hands to do some baking.
Banana and Ginger Tea Bread
- 175g self-raising flour
- 1tsp baking powder
- 40g butter or margarine
- 50g soft brown sugar
- 50g stem ginger, chopped
- 60ml milk
- 2 ripe bananas, mashed
- Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line and grease a 1lb loaf tin.
- Sift flour and baking powder into a mixing bowl. Rub in the butter/marg until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs, then stir in the sugar.
- Add the ginger, milk and mashed bananas and mix to a soft dough.
- Spoon into the tin and bake for 40-45 minutes. Run a palette knife around the edges to loosen them, turn the tea bread onto a wire rack and leave to cool.
Easy peasy. And the result went down a storm among my team-mates at work today.
Filed under: food, recipes, running | Tags: peanut butter, peanut butter recipes, skippy super chunk, what to do with peanut butter
Peanut butter is one of my most favourite foods. I get colossal jars of Skippy Super Chunk (the best peanut butter in the world) from Costco.
The best peanut butter in the world (source: Amazon.com)
Aside from eating it straight from the jar with a tablespoon, peanut butter is a very versatile foodstuff. Here are my top five peanut butter recipes:
1. Spread peanut butter thickly on granary/multiseed toast. A no-brainer. Fantastic carb/protein boost after a run. Can be a bit heavy on the tummy before a run though.
2. Pop a tablespoon of peanut butter into a blender and whizz it up with a banana, a good dollop of natural yoghurt and milk. A good pre-run energy smoothie that beats the living daylights out of Lucozade.
3. Spread peanut butter on think sliced, untoasted bread, and add green salad (leaves of any kind – I rather like peashoots at this time of year but lettuce, rocket, watercress all works. Cucumber is good too) for an interesting sandwich. It took me a long time to try this speciality of Phil’s, but it is lovely and there is a Facebook group to prove it. OK, it’s only got nine members at the moment, but I think more will join if only they would try this delicacy.
4. If you’re coping with the salad thing, try it on toast again, this time with marmite underneath. It shouldn’t work. But it really really does. I used to eat this at my old job where I frequently worked until 8-9pm and needed something early evening to sustain me until I got home for dinner.
5. Use as the basis of satay sauce – mix a couple of tablespoons with sesame oil, garlic, ginger, chili, lemon juice, soy sauce and honey. Add chunks of chicken breast and leave to marinade, ideally overnight. Grill chicken on skewers and serve with rice and/or salad. Thanks to my friend Emma for this recipe.
I’m looking for a peanut butter ice cream recipe now for a good reason to dust off my ice cream maker.
Filed under: food, recipes | Tags: dessert recipe, Hamlyn cook book, lemon flan
I was asked to do this for the umpteeth time by friends on Saturday. Despite its origins in the 1970s (I’ve adapted it from an old Hamlyn All Colour Cook Book which also contains the recipes for sherried kidneys, potted shrimps, aspic chicken and curried egg salad), it never seems to fail to impress. It’s dead easy, so have a go…
Lemon flan
- 5oz digestive biscuits
- 2 1/2 oz butter
- Tin of condensed milk (you can use the light version – every little helps)
- 1/2 pint of cream
- 3 lemons
- good quality white chocolate (Green and Blacks is perfect)
Crush the biscuits, ideally in a food processor – but putting them inside a plastic bag and battering them with a rolling pin will also work.
Melt the butter, and stir in the crushed biscuits. Press into the bottom of an 8″ flan dish or sponge tin – ideally one with a loose bottom. Refrigerate while you make the next bit.
Using a hand mixer, blend the condensed milk with cream and the grated zest of the lemons. Beat in the juice from the three lemons. Leave to set – a couple of hours is ample, but it will keep fine overnight too.
Before serving, turn out of the tin and grate over the white chocolate.
Eat.
I had the novel experience of arriving home at 6:10pm on a school night tonight, and that was via the gym to try to track down my fleece that I left in the spinning studio last Monday. (I was handed the keys to the lost property cupboard where I had to rummage through sweaty trainers, dirty boxer shorts and damp towels to try to locate my brand new top. Obviously it wasn’t there, and has been snaffled by someone who decided they preferred it to their skanky trainers).
Anyway, with the evening stretching out ahead of me, I decided to try something new in the kitchen. While I firmly believe that ready meals are the devil, I do sometimes cut corners on things like curry paste and pesto. Having recently discovered the excellent 50 Great Curries of India by Camellia Panjabi, I know that curry tastes sooooo much better when it’s made from scratch. However, it can be time-consuming to build all the flavours.
Not so for homemade pesto. I consulted my Kenwood food processor cookbook while the pasta was cooking – and chucked it together within a few minutes. At the risk of coming over all Jamie Oliver, the quantities don’t seem to matter too much. So here’s a rough recipe:
Homemade pesto
- Big handful of fresh basil (minus stalks)
- Good slug of olive oil
- Garlic clove (peeled and roughly chopped)
- Handful of pine nuts
- Salt
- Grated parmesan cheese
- A little water
Whizz together the basil, olive oil, garlic, pine nuts and salt. Add the cheese and water and whizz a bit more, until you reach the desired consistency. Stir into cooked pasta and serve with a bit of freshly ground black pepper.
Though I say it myself, it was bloody good. Pretty much as good as the simple but effective sauces that I tasted in Italy earlier this year. So I’m never buying Sacla in a jar ever again. Can’t believe I’ve never done it before. Yum.
