It might be a bit late but....

Happy Christmas!

So, I've been AWOL for a while, I guess I got carried away with festivities... not that I haven't been cooking, there's been plenty of that and I even have pictures to prove it! Any visit home means brownie baking, I'm not sure I'd be allowed over the threshold without them. Mum and Dad have a penchant for the white chocolate and my siblings the dark chocolate. This year, I baked them the night before I left and cooled them in the fridge. not only did they travel really well, but it meant I could cut them into cute bite sized pieces too to go into gift bags.


I also want to talk about a pre-christmas dinner I had with friends in early December, what an excellent idea for starting festivities early! I won't go into detail as I'm sure no one wants to see another Christmas dinner for a long time, but I have to say it was amazing! Possibly even better than the main event.


All of my friends are fabulous cooks (obviously) so we each cooked a bit of the dinner - roast pheasant and chickens, roast potatoes, carrots and parsnips, sprouts with bacon and pine nuts, braised red cabbage, gingerbread stuffing. Naturally many recipes from Feast were used but the piece de resistance was a huuge dish of macaroni cheese that embarassingly we managed to pretty much finish off along with everything else! It may sound a bit strange to have macaroni cheese with a roast dinner, but believe me, you haven't lived until you've tried it. I've converted all of my friends!

Of course I got many foodie presents for Christmas, some probably too sad to talk about (electronic scales) but I am currently besotted with my Slow cooker and Global Knife, more on both soon...


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Lamb meatballs and couscous

Nigella comes up trumps again, although I have to say this is from her book rather than the TV show. It seems everyone is quick to criticise anything she does on TV, and while she does verge on the ridiculous much of the time, I think her genuine greed and love of food is really very endearing.

You also cannot escape the fact that she cooks delicious food, every single recipe book is crammed with recipes, all delicous and generally all guaranteed to work. So this is a recipe from Feast (possibly one of my favourites in terms of abundance of recipes, beautiful pictures and a good range of food).

The dinky lamb meatballs are served with the root vegetable stew that I've made many times before and eat happily with some couscous alone. We decided to go the whole hog this time and make the meatballs complete with all of Nigella's suggested adornings, namely pomegranate seeds and coriander.


I piled the couscous and stew high on a plate, with meatballs atop and the pomegranate seeds and coriander sprinkled over. Definitely a dish for bringing forth whilst entertaining. I know some people are not convinced by pomegranate, my dining partner included, but I think they work perfectly as not only a beautiful jewel pink topping that goes particularly well with the vibrantly green coriander, but also as a sweetly sharp contrast in many savoury dishes like this one and this one.

The lamb meatballs were of course delicious, I'm a big fan of using meat like this, i.e. making them into little meatballs and serving with a hearty vegetable stew so that it's healthier but also goes farther. They are also perfect stuffed into a pitta with hummus and salad

Ingredients (adapted from Feast)

500g minced lamb
½ onion, pureed or chopped very finely
½tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp salt
3tbsp breadcrumbs
1 egg, beaten

Mix the onions into the lamb.
Sprinkle over the spices and breadcrumbs and mix well.
Stir in the beaten egg, cover and leave for 30mins to allow the flavours to meld.
Using about ½tsp mince, roll into small balls and drop into a hot pan.
Continue rolling, dropping and cooking, shaking the pan every so often, you want to cook the meatballs for about 5mins until golden on all sides and cooked through (this will depend on how big your balls are).

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Roast Parsnip and Chickpea Salad

A really simple salad I learnt at pieceofplenty that does something a bit different with parsnip and carrots. Yoghurt and parsley goes perfectly with the spicy oily chickpea and roast parsnip salad. Eat with hummus, pitta and some green leaves.

Serves 4 as a side dish

4 parsnips, peeled and cut into chunks (works equally well with carrots)
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2tsp smoked paprika
1tsp dried chilli (depending on how hot you like it!)
3tbsp olive oil
1 can chickpeas, drained
squeeze lemon juice

To serve:
1 bunch chopped parsley, finely chopped
greek yoghurt

• Lay the parsnip out on a roasting try.
• Sprinkle over the garlic, chilli and parpika and season well.
• drizzle over the oil, stir the parsnips and make sure thay are well coated in the oily spice mixture.
• Roast at 200C for 20-30mins until soft and brown around the edges.
• Tip into a bowl with the chickpeas, add the lemon juice ans stir well, you might want to add a little more oil.
• Stir in half the parsley and serve the rest sprinkled on top.
• That's it! eat with a dollop of greek yoghurt

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Seared Scallops with Bean mash, Roasted tomatoes and Crispy Bacon

This is a really old post from my birthday that I forgot to publish!

We decided to forgo a fabulous birthday meal, I got that with my best friend, she took me to Benares - amazing! Instead, we had a wonderful time in Borough Market and bought some beautiful scallops. The recipe below is from Jamie Oliver - The Return of the Naked Chef.

Anyway, this turned out to be an absolute treat, sweet tender scallops, with crispy salty bacon, roasted cherry tomatoes and a bean mash. Perfect indulgence in every mouthful. All washed down with some Moët, naturally...


Ingredients
Serves 4

125g cherry tomatoes
pinch dried oregano
olive oil
4 rasher streaky bacon
1 small clove garlic finely chopped
1 red chilli, finely chopped
3 anchovy fillets
1 can flagelot beans, drained (you could substitute cannellini or butter beans)
6-8 scallops
small bunch parsley chopped

Roast the tomatoes in the oven skins side down for 10-15mins.
Place the bacon beside them and roast for 10 more mins.
Meanwhile, fry the garlic, chillis and anchovies in 1 tbsp olive oil.
Add the beans, and a small glass of water.
Bring to the boil and mash, finish off with some oil and seasoning.
When the tomatoes are cooked, season the scallops and sear in a pan for 2mins on each side.
Serve a mound of the bean mash with the scallops balanced atop, scatter the bacon and tomatoes around and drizzle over some olive oil.

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Rice and Peas

Mmmmmm rice and peas, actually one of my favourite things ever. I am salivating at the thought, my mum is the expert here, family and friends often demand a big pot of this to go with her legendary curries. As with most family recipes, this is impossible to transcribe, I've given below a basic recipe, but in reality my mum just adds a bit here and there of anything she thinks will be nice. An optional extra would be to add a whole scotch bonnet pepper to the rice as its cooking for a bit of spicy flavour, cooking it whole means you get all the flavour without too much spice, watch out if it does split though as it will be HOT!

Eat with Daal, other curries or roast chicken and macaroni cheese for a truly Caribbean feast. This version was made with brown rice simply because I forgot we'd run out of basmati, a little longer cooking time, yes. But, surprisingly delicious, the nuttiness of the brown rice works really well and makes it a lot healthier! As usual, make lots and freeze if you're so inclined.

Rice and peas is basically onions cooked with garlic, chilli and maybe some thyme, then some black eyed peas (my favourite) or gungo peas or plain old kidney beans and lots of coconut milk, you then cook your rice in this rice creamy broth until its all absorbed and you're left with sticky, aromatic, flavourful rice ready to be eaten with anything you'd eat potatoes with really...

My mum is a complete convert to cooking this in the microwave, but I find if you can turn the hob low enough, you can leave it to putter away there.

Ingredients
Serves 4

1 onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, chopped
1 red chilli, finely chopped
1 can black eyed peas, drained
½ can coconut Milk
250g basmati rice*
1 bay leaf
1 stock cube
2 sprigs thyme

• Cook the onion and garlic in 2 tbsp oil for 5 or so mins until soft, add the thyme sprigs half way through.
• Once cooked, add the beans and stock powder and coconut milk
• Tip in your rice and ½tsp salt, stir well.
• Add 250ml water and the bay leaf.
• Bring to the boil and turn the heat down to the lowest setting, cover tightly and simmer for 15mins until the liquid is absorbed (add more water if necessary).
• Remover from the heat and let sit for 10mins before serving.

*If using brown rice, add 375ml water and cook for 40mins. Read more...