Thursday 20 December - Oiseaux Sans Tetes

Some rather nice looking Topside slices, along with a post on the Food Board about Beef Olives reminded me of this recipe - perfect for a cold, wet winters day - and the first day of the Christmas holidays for me.

The beef was bashed out, and spread with mustard.

This was then topped with a slice of parma ham, some sliced cornichons and some red onion.

 

Rolled up to look like little sparrows without heads, and tied with string.

 

They were cooked in a sauce made from finely sliced leeks, white wine and stock, until tender. The stock was finished with 3% creme fraiche that I mixed with some cornflour to stop it splitting in the hot stock.

These were served with diced potatoes which I cooked for 10 minutes, then tossed with a mix of semolina, chopped garlic and fresh rosemary and then roasted in olive oil

 

 

These came out beautifully crispy, and went really well with the beef.

Saturday 8 December - Mexican Pork and Red Sauce

Pork Loin was Lidls special offer this week, and I found a recipe for pork loin with 'red sauce' so we decided to go with a version of this.

The sauce was tomatoes, onions and garlic which we roasted in a hot oven until blackened, and then whizzed with chipotles, vinegar, oregano and some water. The pork was simply roasted.

We made some tortillas to serve with this - these are just masa harina and warm water then fried in a dry pan.

We also made some bits and pieces to serve with the meat and sauce - black beans, guacamole and some red onions pickled in lime juice.

We probably didn't need the meat, as the rest of the meal was pretty tasty without it!

For desert a chili chocolate fondant - this had some cayenne and also a chopped red chilli added to the mix. Served with some vanilla ice cream. Will be doing this one again - was perfect after a Mexican style main course.

Sunday 2 December - Asian Beef Stew

We spotted this recipe on a Nigella Lawson programme last week, so thought we'd give it a go, but with a few tweaks here and there.

The recipe used beef shin - not easily available round here on a Sunday, so we bought some lean braising steak and cut it into cubes. 

 Onions garlic and ginger were processed, along with some coriander and this was gently fried before the other flavours were added along with some beef stock. We also amended the recipe by frying the beef cubes and adding a bit of flour.

 

The stew went into the oven for about 3 hours and then was served with mashed potato and parsnip cooked with some fresh ginger, and mashed with some yoghurt and a dash of sesame oil, and a crisp salad of carrot, mooli, chillis and spring onion dressed with lime and fish sauce.

 

 

Wednesday 28 November - Mustard Chicken

Lots of the supermarkets have recently started selling sliced chicken breasts, and I'm finding these really useful for midweek meal.

Tonight we dipped them in a mixture of egg, lots of dijon mustard and some dried tarragon

and then into Panko breadcrumbs - they were then sprayed with olive oil spray and baked in the oven.

 

We served these with new potatoes which were crushed and mixed with chopped herbs, olives, capers and some fried shallots, garlic and chilli, and some roasted vine tomatoes.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to taste any of it, due to a rather heavy cold!

Tuesday 27 November - Pie

We had a lot of the ragu sauce left over from Sunday night, so the plan was to make cottage pie. The boys however fancied proper pies, so I made some shortcrust pastry for them, and some mash for my pie.

I used individual enamel pie dishes, and topped the meat with some grated mozzarella for the pastry ones.

Some potato was mashed and added to my portion, it then had butter and milk added for reheating later to be served with the pastry versions

 

I topped the potato version with a sprinkle of half fat cheddar, and just brushed the pastry ones with egg.

These were served with steamed cabbage and peas, along with the buttery mash for those not on low fat eating plans.

Sunday 25 November - Low Fat (?) Lasagne

Todays challenge was to make a Lasagne that was as low fat as possible.

The ragu was a mix of lean veal mince, and some pork loin steaks that we minced ourselves. This was simmered for four hours with white wine, onions and garlic, some minced pancetta and tinned tomatoes.

After frying off the mince, all the fat was drained in a sieve before putting it back in the pan and adding the flavourings.

 

The white sauce was made with skimmed milk, which was infused with bay, onions and peppercorns before making into a very thin white sauce using just a touch of low fat spread and flour. I added a spoonful of parmesan for flavour once it was cooked out.

Finally, the pasta - pasta machines are very easy for lasagne sheets, especially if you make the dough in the food processor. We used these raw in the dish as both sauces were quite thin, so no need to precook.

The finished dish was topped with some half fat cheddar and baked for 40 minutes - served with garlic bread for the boys, and a green salad.

 And, plenty of meat sauce left over for a shepherds pie later in the week

Saturday 24 November - Chicken with Zataar and Sumac

Yotam Ottolenghi currently has a wonderful TV series on, so I was inspired to look through the one book of his that I own, and I came across a recipe for Chicken with Zataar and Sumac. This led to a hasty trip over to Southsea for some ingredients as Zataar probably rather difficult to find round here. I decided to serve with flat bread and some dips.

Babaganoush - I use Sophie Grigsons recipe for this - I roasted the aubergines  and the resulting grey mush was drained and then processed with tahini, garlic, cumin, lemon juice and a spoonful of oil ( I cut down the oil in all the recipes I made for this meal)

I also made Houmus using a jar of chickpeas, and some tzatziki using lebanese yoghurt which is wonderful stuff!

I also used up some of my homemade turnip and beetroot pickle - Torshi Left , and added some lovely flat breads to the meal.

The chicken was breast quarters which were marinaded in stock, garlic, onions, sliced lemon and some spices - sumac, cinnamon and allspice.. This was then sprinkled with the Zataar and roasted before being topped with some pine nuts and served with the dips and bread.

 

Lots of chicken left over, as we must have bought some breasts from the Dolly Partons of the chicken world, but we can use this up in soup this week.

Saturday 17 November - A Bit of a Dinner Party

My lovely brother was down for the weekend, so I decided to cook a bit of a special meal for him.

For starters I played around with chicken liver pate as I had bought a lovely jar I wanted to use.

I cooked the livers with onions, garlic, thyme and brandy, then whizzed in the food processor and forced through a sieve (with a credit card)

I then added a selection of mushrooms that I had fried - I used some girolles, chestnut mushrooms, some frozen ceps, and some dried ceps - these were folded into the chicken livers.

 

Very little butter went into this, and the mushrooms padded it out to keep it lower fat. Then it went into my beautiful jar, and was chilled, then served with home made bread, cornichons and caper berries.

 

Main course was duck breasts - these were marinaded in white wine, before being fried to colour, then finished off in the oven. Served with crushed root vegetables (sweet potato, celeriac and carrots) and potatoes roasted in the fat from the duck. The sauce was the reduced white wine marinade, duck stock and green peppercorns.

 

Next we had creme caramel with some fresh fruit, and some cream for the boys.

Finally we had a cheeseboard and large amounts of port!

Friday 16 November - Greek Patties

Another dish from Skinny Meals in Heels, but with a few changes to it.

I minced up some lean pork loin steaks rather than buy pork mince, and to this added fresh breadcrumbs, lemon zest, an egg, chopped onion and garlic. I couldn't get fresh oregano so used a mixture of fresh parsley and dried oregano.

This mixture was formed into patties, sprayed with low cal spray and griddled for a few minutes each side. They held together very well and no sticking on the griddle!

 

I was rather dubious about the idea of radish tzatziki, but it was surprisingly nice - chopped radish mixed with zero fat yoghurt, chopped dill, garlic and lemon juice. I added a spoonful of sugar as it was all a bit dry and sharp tasting.

 

The other serving suggestion was tomato salad, but I made a basic greek salad - onions, tomatoes, cucumber, olives and some low fat feta - this tastes OK, but you can see from the photo that the texture isn't quite the same as proper feta - it's a pretty good substitute for someone who is really missing cheese though!

I enjoyed this, although I found the patties a bit dry due to the lack of fat in them. George wouldn't eat them though - he thought they were disgusting!

Monday 12 November - Risotto

Last night we roasted a Guinea Fowl - something I'd not tried before. It was roasted with lemon and lots of thyme and black pepper - and the left overs were simmered all night in the slow cooker to make a rather rich looking stock.

This along with a purchase we made yesterday in Morrisons made the basis of tonights risotto.

Morrisons in Gosport has had a rather massive face lift, and now sells the most amazing fruit and vegetables I've seen outside Borough Market in this country. So we purchased at huge expense a small handful of Girolles and a couple of King Oyster Mushrooms. These were padded out with normal button mushrooms.

The base of the risotto was shredded leeks, and the button mushrooms, along with a couple of bits of finely chopped chicken, and some bacon lardons I found lurking in the bottom of the fridge.

 

I chopped the Oyster Mushrooms and Girolles and fried these seperately in a tsp of oil to add once the risotto was finished, along with some more chopped thyme.

 

This was the first time I've ever made risotto using meat, and it was absolutely delicious, and a massive hit with George who cleared a bowlful sprinkled with parmesan very quickly indeed!

 

 

Monday 5 November - Indian Potato Cakes

I've fancied trying to make these for a while, and as I suspected they weren't as easy as the recipes all imply!

I based these on a Sophie Grigson recipe I found online - but adjusted the spices in the filling.

Basically it was onion, carrot, peas and chilli processed together, and fried (although I added water to a tsp of oil and evaporated it off. Then added spices - chilli, cumin, coriander, garam masala and some turmeric, along with ginger and garlic paste.

Chopped coriander and lime were stirred in, and left to cool a bit.

The potatoes were boiled in their skins, then mashed with some flour and salt. Formed into patties with the filling in the middle (this was the hard bit!)

Fried on a griddle which I had brushed with a tsp of oil - the trick seems to be in not fiddling with them and turning them as little as possible.

 

We served them with mango chutney and pickle, and my favourite low fat salad of chopped onion, cucumber and tomato mixed with jarred mint sauce, salt, pepper and lemon juice

Monday 29 October - Autumn Pasta

When searching for a recipe at the weekend, I came across a recipe in a Rick Stein book for Orecciete with Cavolo Nero.
Plenty of kale at the allotment, so this seemed to be an ideal replacement for the cavolo nero.

A very simple dish - garlic, chilli flakes and anchovies cooked in a dash of olive oil until the anchovies 'melt', then cooked pasta and the greens stirred into it, and topped with a sprinkle of grated parmesan.

Despite my hatred of whole, hairy, nasty anchovies, I do enjoy them in dishes as a seasoning, and they worked very well here. I could have eaten twice as much though..

Needless to say, George wouldn't eat this, as it had green things in it, so I did my very unauthentic Carbonara for him - horror of horrors I use cream, and after frying the garlic, I add white wine and reduce it down. It went down rather well though, despite it's deviation from the proper version.

Sunday 21October - Hainanese Chicken

After the excesses of Saturday, something light and very low fat was required. I found this recipe in one of my diety books (Skinny Meals in Heels by Jennifer Joyce), and it looked just the thing.

Chicken poached very gently in plain water. Served with a dipping sauce of Ketjap Manis, mixed with ginger, chilli, garlic, sugar and rice wine vinegar.

 

We added garlic rice as per the suggestion in the book - cooking this in the poaching liquid from the chicken.

We did however mess about with the cucumber a bit, making my favourite Japanese style salad - marinating the slices in rice wine vinegar, sugar, salt and ginger, and dressing with chilli and a drop of sesame oil.

The chicken bones went back into the remaining poaching liquid along with an onion and some chopped carrot, and this is going to be the basis of a soup later in the week.

For desert and for snacks for the boys during the week, I made a plum and almond cake to use up the plums in the fruit bowl, and also a ginger cake as we had been talking about them earlier in the day, and I've never made one. The boys tried these with cream, and I had a tiny piece of each with some low fat custard.