Mondays offering

Lately I have been trying to put a little more effort into my weekday evening meals. Laziness and CBA post-gym tiredness had got me into the habit of eating a LOT of stir fry in the evenings. Not that theres anything wrong with stir fry, ad my go-to meal post gym is often brown rice, fish or meat, and veg in oyster sauce. However, after getting a bit run down I've been trying to add some more interesting veg and variation back into my dinners.

Last night I made grilled salmon, with a baked sweet potato and a sort-of ratatouille.

I fried garlic, aubergine,courgette and mushroom, then added tomatoes, an anchovy and a chilli and cooked until nice and thick. It was delicious. (Minimum) Effort paid off.

Lovely Jub(i)lee

I spent the Jubilee weekend at my partners house, which meant I didnt cook as much as I usually do. My partner made an amazing dinner on Friday night, (http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2176636/chicken-and-cashew-curry-with-coconut-lime-noodles) which he served with rice, instead of noodles. It was really tastey, the lime juice added a perfect zing, and the curry itself was really light. Like a lighter satay, and very tasty!

I did get to make a couple of things. I experimented with Rosti's again for brunch. After finally realising how important it is to squeeze the water out of the potato, I feel Ive nailed it! I grated potato, squeezed it out, added black pepper cheddar cheese, spring onion and seasoning. Then I fried them up in a pan, and serve them with diced and fried black pudding and a poached egg. YUM!

I also tried making a baked cheesecake. I havent really done much baked cheesecake before,and was a bit dubious, as in restaurants the ones Ive had always seem slightly curdled. I found a recipe on BBC Good Food  (http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/3842/baked-raspberry-cheesecake). I left out the flour, as we didnt have any.

Instead of raspberries I added some lime zest and cherries, which I cooked in sugar and water. I also poured some of the cherry compote on the top. It was REALLY nice, and definitely not curdled. I'll be having a go at making more baked cheesecakes now, as this has aleviated my fear :).

Odd one out

I had one of those moments the other week when I had a few things to use up and no idea what to make. Seeing risotto rice in the cupboard, I thought I could use up my celery and make a veg risotto. I ended up throwing in quite an odd combination of things, remembering some peas I had in the freezer, some leftover lamb and mint that had begun to wilt.

I sweated celery with garlic, and added the rice, then soaked some porcini in hot water to add later. Once I'd started adding stock I threw in the plumped up porcini, its water, some frozen peas, lamb, and at the end a smattering of mint and parmesan.

The result was a minted pea and lamb risotto. Possibly one of the oddest things Ive ever made, but it was actually really nice. A lot nicer than it possibly sounds anyway :)

Trying new things

There have been a lot of delicous recipes in the various magazines Ive picked up in the last couple of months,and the slight improvement in weather has had me in more of a Summery mood with cooking. The past few weekends Ive been making a bit more of an effort to try something new.

I found an amazing recipe in Waitrose food magazine. Yottam Ottolenghi's salmon curry was light, fresh and absolutely delicious. It was a doddle to make, and the end result was great. The recipe can be found here http://www.waitrose.com/content/waitrose/en/home/recipes/recipe_directory/b/braised_salmon_with_tomato_cinnamon_and_black_mustard_seeds.html Its definitely worth a go. I had it with chapatis and some brown rice, which made it seem almost virtuous to eating it.

I also attended a wonderfully themed party to celebrate my Supervisors promotion. Possibly the best theme ever, actually. It was a cake party, and everyone had to bring some sort of offering. There were scones, lemon drizzle, sticky ginger cake. My insistence that I wasnt going to eat too much instantly went out of the window and it was a wonderful afternoon. I took along a lime and blueberry loaf cake, covered in a cheesecake-like vanilla frosting. The loaf cake itself was a variation on Nigellas Lemon Syrup Loaf, and the recipe I used is below:

125 g unsalted butter
175 caster sugar
2 large eggs
zest of 1 lime
175 g wholemeal flour
pinch of salt
4 tablespoons of milk

Half a punnet of blueberries
Juice of 2 limes
Tablespoon of icing sugar
Nip of cointreau (*optional)

Preheat the oven to 180 C and butter and line a loaf tin. Cream butter, then add and beat in the sugar.  Add eggs one at a time, beat again. Sift in flour and salt, then add stir in the milk to loosen. Add in the lime zest and blueberriesand stick in the over for around 40-45 minutes.

I made a syrup using lime juice, icing sugar and a little cointreau, by heating until syrupy in a small saucepan, and then poured over the cake whilst still hot.

The frosting I made using

A tub of Cream cheese
A little vanilla paste
Some icing sugar
Sour Cream

Beat these together in a bowl until thickened, I give no measurements because I just used what I had in the fridge. When it was done I sprinked some lime zest on top :). Not the neatest pictures ever. I also made some cupcake versions.

I've also tried making a moroccan style mezze. I love houmous, and it tends to be my go to storecupboard lunch, so I decided to make a dinner featuring that, and other moroccan style goodies. I made koftas, using lamb mince, cumin, ground coriander and mint, which I griddled. Falafel, with chickpeas, cumin, ground fresh coriander, mint, parsley and coriander, one egg and some brown breadcrumbs to bind, baked in the oven. I made sweet potato and feta cous cous sprinked with sumac, an aubergine and tomato dip (Roasted aubergine scooped out, fried garlic, ground cumin and coriander, fresh tomatos, YUM) and pittas. It was lovely.

Most recently, I tried making cornbread. I used a recipe from BBC Good Food, the recipe of which is here http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/681654/cornbread-muffins but I added Snowdonia cheese company smoked cheese, which gave it a lovely mellow smokiness. They were very nice warm, with some scrambled eggs and chorizo

I also had a go at making some thai chicken skewers. I'd seen a recipe in delcious magazine for an easy supermarket supper, and decided to have a go at making it from scratch, as opposed to buying most of it ready made.
I marinated chicken thigh pieces in basil, coriander, garlic and yoghurt and then threaded them onto lemongrass stalks to grill. I served it with homemade coconut and lime zest rice.  It was so light and fresh, and the lemongrass permeated the chicken beautifully, definitely one to have a go at making. Would be gorgeous done on the BBQ in the summer!

Boyfriend cooking

My partner his recently moved into his first 'live alone' home, and has been cooking a lot more, which has meant that I've been subject to some really delcious meals that I havent had to make myself. I may have to watch out, if he keeps it up I'll have to up my game.

Scallops with pea puree and pancetta

 Duck with plum sauce

The best thing is though, that we've been cooking together a little. We attempted to make Heston's lemon tart, which turned out pretty well :)

He has yet to outdo my brownies though.....

Creme egg cheesecake

A friend posted a great recipe for creme egg cheesecake (it can be found here http://blog.groupon.co.uk/2012/04/02/creme-egg-cheesecake/ )

I didnt follow the exact recipe, it was by the looks of it, for a much bigger tin than mine. I used about half the cream cheese, and altered the other quantities accordingly. It turned out pretty damn well, if I do say so myself :)

Easter Feasting

Easter bank holiday preed me with a whole world of fun to be had, I had time to spend cooking, and enjoying cooking. I'd found some recipes that I wanted to try, and Easter was the perfect time.

The weekend started early, and so Thursday I decided to make pizza, I really love homemade pizza, and wanted to go all out. The toppings were chicken, proscuitto, chorizo and salami...it was a bit of a meat fest. I made my own tomato base using onions, herbs, anchovies and tomato. The anchovy gave it a lovely salty depth, it is definitely my new favourite ingredient.

It was delicious. :)
We went out for dinner on the Friday, so the fish I'd had in mind was saved for Saturday instead. I had seen a great paella recipe in Olive magazine, from the chef Jason Atheron. The recipe itself can be found here http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2138651/roast-cod-with-paella-and-saffron-olive-oil I used salmon in mine instead of cod, and I didnt leave it to rest inbetween. The result was great anyway, we both really enjoyed it

Sunday was (of course) lamb. I roasted it with anchovy and garlic, and served it with roast veg and gravy. I also made nutella brownies for dessert. A recipe from a friend, and possibly the most simple brownies ever, they consist of

8 tablespoons of nutella
8 tablespoons (or enough to create the right texture) of wholemeal flour or half and half wholemeal and ground almonds
2 eggs

They were really gooey and delcious, AND (if you want to kid yourselves like we do) full of slow releasing energy .