Thursday 31 January - Pearl Barley Risotto

A hunt through some vegetarian books to find something different to eat tonight led me to this Sophie Grigson recipe for pearl barley risotto with mushrooms.

The basis is obviously pearl barley instead of rice, and this was soaked for a few hours, and then simmered for 20 minutes in salted water.

This was finished off much like a normal risotto, but without the need for all the stirring, all the stock went in at once.

Onion was sauteed, then added to this soaked dried porcini mushrooms, sliced button mushrooms and some garlic

The stock was made from the mushroom soaking water, and these stock cubes I found in Waitrose the other week.

Once the vegetables were soft, in went the precooked barley and some marsala

The stock was then poured in and simmered until it was reduced and the barley was tender.

It was all finished off with some parsley and some grated parmesan in the same way as a normal risotto.

Served with a green salad and some homemade bread.

Sunday 27 January - Chicken, Chickpea and Chorizo Stew

I found a chorizo lurking in the bottom of the fridge, that needed using up (just like Nigel Slater, except mine was from Lidl, and wasn't wrapped in brown paper...)

Some chickpeas were quick soaked (boiled for 10 minutes and then left for an hour), then brought back up to the boil and popped into the slow cooker for the afternoon.

I fried some onions, garlic and chilli, along with some pancetta and saffron strands, to form the base of the tomato sauce.

A tetra pack of tomatoes were added to this, along with some chicken stock, tomato puree and the chick peas.

Then some fried chicken was added.

The chorizo was fried until crisp, and then the oil was poured off, it was returned to the pan and a slosh of sherry was added and boiled rapidly, then the sherry and chorizo went into the tomato mix and was simmered for about half an hour.

This was served with some homemade bread  - done in the bread machine as we still have no oven.

Friday 25 January - Burns Night Supper (without Haggis!)

Burns Night, and off we went to Waitrose to purchase a nice Haggis. Disaster - they only had Haggis to serve ten - and only two of us to eat it.

Quick rethink, and a small Bury Black Pudding was purchased as an alternative, to be stuffed into chicken breasts.

 

I chopped this up and fried it in a dry pan,  to give it a lovely black colour, then left it to cool.

This was then stuffed into pockets I'd cut into the chicken breasts

 

and wrapped in parma ham. The chicken breasts and ham required a visit to Lidl as I refuse to pay four times as much in Waitrose for the same product.

I oven baked these - with a bit of trepidation as my main oven is broken, so I had to use my top oven, and was a bit unsure of the temperature range, but it seemed to work ok.

I made a mushroom sauce with the leftover mushrooms from last nights risotto, cooking them with onions, garlic, and white wine, and finishing with 2% creme fraiche and a bit of cornflour to stop it splitting.

We also made some mash, spinach and some swede cubes - made with this swede we found in Lidl that amusingly looked exactly like a hairy arse.

Tuesday 22 January - Vegetarian Shepherds Pie

George is off meat again - this happens every so often, and while I'm happy not to eat it, I find it difficult not to turn to cheese as the main component of every meal - not a the low fat option!

So, today we decided on a Vegetarian shepherds pie, using chick peas and lentils - there was talk of added quinoa, but the bulk wasn't required!

Started off by mashing some chick peas roughly, and adding a tin of lentils (never used tinned lentils before, but found some in the cupboard - a good standby I think!)

 

Next, a standard tomato sauce but starting with onions, garlic, chillies, carrots and mushrooms.

A packet of chopped tomatoes was added, along with chopped parsley, tomato puree and some wine. After a taste a dash of chilli sauce and tomato ketchup was added with the salt and pepper.

Once this had reduced a bit, the pulses were added, and it was poured into the serving dish. Topped with mashed potato, and a bit of grated cheese.

This was then baked until golden, and served with some broccoli and some extra gravy on the side.

Sunday 20 January - Apple Pie

Tonight was Chicken Tagine and Cous Cous, followed by Apple Pie for the boys.

I decided on a completely traditional pie made with shortcrust pastry, and in my book the best shortcrust is made with half lard and half butter.

I rested this in the fridge for half an hour before rolling out and lining the pie plate.

Bramleys are the best apple for pie, and I peeled these, and kept them in water and lemon juice until I was ready for them.

 

I layered the sliced apple with brown sugar, and handful of dried fruit, and a sprinkle of cinnamon.

Topped with pastry, brushed with egg, and sprinkled with vanilla sugar.

This was served warm with custard.

Wednesday 16 January - Chicken Quinoa Balti

The quinoa packet had a very bizarre sounding recipe on the back for chicken and quinoa balti, and something about this idea rather appealed to me.

I did of course make a few changes as normal.

Onions were fried and I added some garlic and ginger paste, before adding cubed chicken. Then I added some spices from my lovely spice box - a bit of everything in there to add some heat.

Then the balti  paste and quinoa were added along with a pack of chopped tomatoes and our home made chicken stock.

 

This was simmered for about 20  minutes - on tasting I felt something was missing, so added a small pack of creamed coconut and stirred until it melted.

The whole dish was finished with chopped coriander and some toasted cashew nuts.

We served this with mango chutney and lime pickle and some chapattis and naan breads - didn't feel rice was necessary. Surprisingly tasty, and very, very filling!

Monday 14 January - Basa Fish Pie

Having always avoided buying Basa or River Cobbler before, I was tempted to buy some this week due to the fact it was half the price of any other fish.

I bought some smoked, and some plain fillets and used half of each of these along with a pack of raw prawns to make a pie with - the remaining fish is in the freezer for another day.

I popped the fish into boiling wine and water and turned the heat off immediately as the fillets were very thin - they were left for no more than 3 minutes, and then removed and split into bite sized pieces.

 

To the mixed fish I added  some white sauce made with skimmed milk and cornflour, chopped soft boiled eggs, chopped parsley, dill and capers and some seasoning.

I layered this in a dish with some lightly cooked chard that I'd removed the stalks from, and topped with mashed potato and a sprinkle of low fat cheddar.

This was baked until golden and served with plain lightly cooked frozen petit pois.

I don't think I'd buy Basa to eat as a fish on it's own, but definitely a cheap option for fish pie, or fish cakes and I'd certainly use it again for these.

Sunday 13 January - Chelsea Buns

As we are trying lots of bready things, we decided to give Chelsea buns a go this afternoon.

The dough was enriched with egg and milk, and a little bit of butter. I started this in the bread machine as it's so cold at the moment that this was a quick way of getting it to rise.

This was then rolled out into a rectangle.

The dough was brushed with melted butter and sprinkled with dried fruit, sugar and cinnamon.

It was then rolled up a bit like a swiss roll.

And cut into slices and placed in the tin, and left to rise again.

It was then baked for 30 minutes and finally brushed with warm honey to glaze the buns.

Saturday 12 January - Magrets de Canard

We had a hunt through some books for something new, as we are in a bit of a rut, and Bob found a recipe for duck cooked in red wine and chocolate sauce which looked pretty good - we had a duck breast in the freezer that was big enough to serve three of us, so we decided to go with this from Rick Steins French Odyssey.

The sauce was made by frying chopped onion, garlic and carrot, then a whole bottle of red wine was added, brought to the boil and the alcohol flamed off.

 

Some bay, thyme and cloves were added to the sauce and it was simmered for another 10 minutes before adding the seared duck breast to it - we cooked this for around three minutes each side, then kept it warm while the sauce was enriched with a square of dark chocolate, then sieved and some soaked prunes were warmed through in it.

The poached duck was thinly sliced.

 

The duck was served with potato puree, green beans with crushed poached garlic and some PSB

For afters, we used up the wonderful Panettone that we were given for Christmas, in the form of bread and butter pudding.

This was sliced and lightly buttered - in between the layers I added some dried fruit which I'd soaked in Brandy. A custard of eggs, single cream, milk and lots of vanilla bean paste was poured over and it was left to soak, before sprinkling with sugar and baking in the oven in a water bath.

This was served with a scoop of vanilla icecream.

Monday 7 January - Soft Pretzels

After yesterdays bagel success, George demanded to move onto New York style soft pretzels.  I had no idea where to start with these, so asked on the food board, and AZCook sent over several links - we used the New York Style pretzels as not much access to lye in Gosport on a Monday evening.

First a basic bread dough was made, and left to rise until doubled in size

This was then expertly shaped by George, and the pretzels were left to rise again.

They were then boiled, in a similar way to the bagels, but bicarbonate of soda and sugar were added to the water. They were then left to drain on a cooling rack - something I would do next time for bagels as this stage seemed to prevent them sticking to the trays.

The boiled pretzels were then brushed with egg, sprinkled with salt and baked for 15 minutes until brown.

Next time I'll start the dough in the bread machine to save on rising time, but overall pretty pleased with these for a first attempt.