Oh man was I tired on Thursday - I was working from 6am til 10:30, ten it was off to uni for a full day of classes. I came home slightly delirious and in need of food, so my boyfriend made the ultimate in comfort food. Meat and mash. I pretty much passed out s soon as we'd eaten!
Another totally simple meal, but incredibly tasty!
Gammon steaks with carrot mash
2 unsmoked gammon steaks
4 medium or 2 huge carrots, chopped
300g all purpose potatoes, unpeeled
A splash balsamic
Butter
100g Cheddar (we used Arran Cheese Shop's cheddar with chives)
Boil carrots until tender, drain and seta aside. I don't like cooking the potatoes and carrots together, as it's ncie to keep the two flavours separate. Over the drained carrots, add a splash of balsamic to bring out the flavour.
Meanwhile, boil the potatoes. When they are tender as well, drain and toass with the carrots. ROUGHLY mash together with a generous knob of butter; remember, you don't want to mash to finely asn it's lovely to have the texture of the carrots in the mash. Stir in the grated cheddar and spoon into a baking dish. Bake at around 180'C for 45 minutes, until the top is crispy and golden.
When the potatoes are nearly finished in the oven, grill the gammon steaks. Once everything is done and ready to be plated up, open up a jar of pineapple chutney.
Simples!
Showing posts with label storecupboard challenge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label storecupboard challenge. Show all posts
Sunday, 10 October 2010
Healthy lunch - brown rice with mackerel - 6 Oct 2010
It's been a busy couple weeks for me, starting uni and still working at my job part time as well. It's great, don't get me wrong - I love being busy, and it makes me appreciate my weekends even more. Home cooking has taken a backseat though, and we've had a few more takeaways than usual. In fact, it was takeaway fest in our house all week after Em left...yikes!
I did manage to muster up a super-healthy lunch to take with me to uni. It's hard to believe it's been a whole weeks icne I lasted cooked anything in my kitchen! This was pretty basic, filled to the brim with fresh veg, and hopefully went some way to balancing out the week of (slightly) unhealthy eating!
Brown rice with mackerel and veg
75g brown rice, dry weight
1 tbsp rapeseed oil
1.5 cup sugar snap peas, sliced
1 cup cauliflower (I used the lime green version from Phantassie)
10 cherry tomatoes, halved
1 tin Portuguese sardines in tomato sauce
1 small tin sweetcorn
Cook rice according to packet instructions.
In a separate pan, heat the rapeseed oil and sautee the cauliflower and sugar snaps, just until tender. Add the cherry tomatoes. Finally add the mackerel, breaking up the fish with a wooden spoon. The last thing to go in should be the sweetcorn. Season.
Add the cooked rice (drained) and mix well.
I did manage to muster up a super-healthy lunch to take with me to uni. It's hard to believe it's been a whole weeks icne I lasted cooked anything in my kitchen! This was pretty basic, filled to the brim with fresh veg, and hopefully went some way to balancing out the week of (slightly) unhealthy eating!
Brown rice with mackerel and veg
75g brown rice, dry weight
1 tbsp rapeseed oil
1.5 cup sugar snap peas, sliced
1 cup cauliflower (I used the lime green version from Phantassie)
10 cherry tomatoes, halved
1 tin Portuguese sardines in tomato sauce
1 small tin sweetcorn
Cook rice according to packet instructions.
In a separate pan, heat the rapeseed oil and sautee the cauliflower and sugar snaps, just until tender. Add the cherry tomatoes. Finally add the mackerel, breaking up the fish with a wooden spoon. The last thing to go in should be the sweetcorn. Season.
Add the cooked rice (drained) and mix well.
Braised goose - 28 September 2010
Tuesday 28 September
I had friends staying and decided to make a last homecooked breakfast before Em went off on her travels.
In keeping with my "buy nothing" challenge, I used up the fresh ricotta I bought at the Market last Saturday.
I'd brought home two, so one was used for the previous night's veggie pasta bake, and one for ricotta pancakes for the troops this morning.
I've made these before - they're adapted from a Bill Granger recipe. Pretty foolproof, thought I may be a little out of practice at pancake flipping, so they turned out a little misshapen. No pictures unfortunately as I was in a total rush to get these made and get to uni on time! This is the recipe I used.
For dinner we had braised goose. I'm always up for trying new things in the kitchen, and I have never cooked goose this way before. In fact, other than one incident with a roast goose, it's not a meat I'd cooked before at all.
Braised goose (serves 4-6)
4 goose legs
1 goose breast fillet
10 cloves garlic
3 medium onions
1 carrot
Half bottle red wine
Leftover gravy (optional)
Leftover veg (optional, but I used steamed red cabbage and purple cauliflower from Sunday dinner)
2 tins plum tomatoes
Chicken stock
Chop onions roughly and lay on the bottom of a large slow cooker or cast iron oven pot.
Make slits in the goose flesh and push garlic cloves into the holes. Place on the bed of onions. Season. Pour over the red wine and the two tins of tomatoes. Add in any leftover ingredients and maybe some extra veg.
Cook on low in the slow cooker for 24 hours. Alternatively you could stick it in the oven at about 75'C for the same amount if time.
We had this with mash, and I think the meal went a long way to line my stomach before we went out for drinks for Em's leaving night!
I had friends staying and decided to make a last homecooked breakfast before Em went off on her travels.
In keeping with my "buy nothing" challenge, I used up the fresh ricotta I bought at the Market last Saturday.
I'd brought home two, so one was used for the previous night's veggie pasta bake, and one for ricotta pancakes for the troops this morning.
I've made these before - they're adapted from a Bill Granger recipe. Pretty foolproof, thought I may be a little out of practice at pancake flipping, so they turned out a little misshapen. No pictures unfortunately as I was in a total rush to get these made and get to uni on time! This is the recipe I used.
For dinner we had braised goose. I'm always up for trying new things in the kitchen, and I have never cooked goose this way before. In fact, other than one incident with a roast goose, it's not a meat I'd cooked before at all.
Braised goose (serves 4-6)
4 goose legs
1 goose breast fillet
10 cloves garlic
3 medium onions
1 carrot
Half bottle red wine
Leftover gravy (optional)
Leftover veg (optional, but I used steamed red cabbage and purple cauliflower from Sunday dinner)
2 tins plum tomatoes
Chicken stock
Chop onions roughly and lay on the bottom of a large slow cooker or cast iron oven pot.
Make slits in the goose flesh and push garlic cloves into the holes. Place on the bed of onions. Season. Pour over the red wine and the two tins of tomatoes. Add in any leftover ingredients and maybe some extra veg.
Cook on low in the slow cooker for 24 hours. Alternatively you could stick it in the oven at about 75'C for the same amount if time.
We had this with mash, and I think the meal went a long way to line my stomach before we went out for drinks for Em's leaving night!
Monday, 27 September 2010
Spinach, ricotta and mushroom pasta bake
Tonight's dinner is in the oven. In
Keeping with my "buy nothing" experiment, I raided the fridge for ingredients.
This is a pretty basic recipe inspired by a pasta bake served during the field trip last week. Good hearty veggie food.
Spinach, ricotta and mushroom pasta bake (serves 4-6)
About 250g fresh cows milk mozarella (S S bei Naufragati)
1 onion, chopped (Phantassie organics)
1 small punnet mushrooms, sliced
1 bag spinach (Phantassie organics)
1 whole ricotta (S S bei Naufragati)
1 whole smoky garlic cheddar cheese, about 280g, grated (Isle of Arran Cheese)
280g dry pasta (Waitrose - leftover in cupboard from months ago)
Cook pasta in plenty of boiling water. Preheat oven to 180'C.
Sautee onions in a little oil until slightly softened. Add mushrooms and cook for a further couple of minutes. Let cool.
Drain ricotta. Add half the grated cheddar - you could use any strong cheddar, but I like the smoky garlic flavour of the Arran cheddar. It also saves having to chop garlic! Add the cooled onions and mushrooms and mix thoroughly.
Toss cooked pasta and the spinach in the cheese mixture, reserving some to spread on top.
Spread the mixture in a large casserole dish, spreading the remaining cheese mixture over top. Finish with the rest of the grated cheddar.
Bake in oven until the the cheese is melted and golden.
Keeping with my "buy nothing" experiment, I raided the fridge for ingredients.
This is a pretty basic recipe inspired by a pasta bake served during the field trip last week. Good hearty veggie food.
Spinach, ricotta and mushroom pasta bake (serves 4-6)
About 250g fresh cows milk mozarella (S S bei Naufragati)
1 onion, chopped (Phantassie organics)
1 small punnet mushrooms, sliced
1 bag spinach (Phantassie organics)
1 whole ricotta (S S bei Naufragati)
1 whole smoky garlic cheddar cheese, about 280g, grated (Isle of Arran Cheese)
280g dry pasta (Waitrose - leftover in cupboard from months ago)
Cook pasta in plenty of boiling water. Preheat oven to 180'C.
Sautee onions in a little oil until slightly softened. Add mushrooms and cook for a further couple of minutes. Let cool.
Drain ricotta. Add half the grated cheddar - you could use any strong cheddar, but I like the smoky garlic flavour of the Arran cheddar. It also saves having to chop garlic! Add the cooled onions and mushrooms and mix thoroughly.
Toss cooked pasta and the spinach in the cheese mixture, reserving some to spread on top.
Spread the mixture in a large casserole dish, spreading the remaining cheese mixture over top. Finish with the rest of the grated cheddar.
Bake in oven until the the cheese is melted and golden.
Storecupboard challenge
I had a conversation with the boyfriend last night that turned on a couple lightbulbs in my brain. Given, we were pretty knackered, and sometimes I get crazy notions when tired.
We have a lot of food in the house. I don’t just mean fresh or frozen, though we have a ready supply of both of these as well. What we have in abundance is of the non-perishable variety. This idea came into conversation when we had to chuck out a jar of marmalade that had been languishing in the back of the cupboard for at least six months. It takes a long time for preserves to go mouldy, even opened, and he mentioned his gran would have his head on a stick if she ever found out about his chucking food out. Basically, food wastage is bad. We all know that.
We’ve had a few incidents recently which set the wheels moving. We have fair-sized separate freezer that sits in the hall, and which was pretty full of leftovers. Unfortunately, the whole thing went and broke down, so we had to throw out loads of perfectly good food because we couldn’t guarantee it was safe to eat – quite a lot of meat and fish based food was quite frankly not worth the risk. It had iced over to the point the run off damaged some of the floorboards underneath. Not a pretty sight.
Then a friend of ours came to visit, and whilst I was away on a field trip in the Highlands all last week, she and my boyfriend decided to eat their way through the contents of the freezer that could be salvaged. They just chucked in whatever they could find, mixed it with whatever was in the cupboards, and basically lived on meat + veg + condiment stews all week.
It’s led me to have a good long think about what we throw out, and even what we don’t throw out but that never sees the light of day in our cupboards.
I think now is the time to do something about it. I may not be a woman on a mission to change the world just yet, but I can be a woman on a mission to reduce her own damned waste!
So my challenge to myself is to use up all the jars, spices, tins, bottles etc that have sat in the kitchen for almost as I can remember living in that flat. Fresh food is fair game, some things of course can be replaced when needed (redcurrant jelly is a big one, as I put it in almost everything), but new and interesting uses will be found for the olives, jams, jellies, marmalades, marinades, oils, vinegars and sauces we have been up until this moment “saving for best”.
Challenge: To use up our non-perishables, basically we need to stop buying so much food. I plan to do one weekly food shop which will be mostly fresh fruit, vegetables, meats and some perishable items such as cheeses, but we will make use of what we have in our pantry until it is ALL GONE.
Why do we want to do this? To reduce waste and to prove we don’t need to buy all the time to make tasty food.
I haven’t been cooking as much as I’d like recently, and I think this may give me the inspiration I need to do something in the kitchen other than grill a steak or boil some noodles.
Weird and random recipes will surely follow.
We have a lot of food in the house. I don’t just mean fresh or frozen, though we have a ready supply of both of these as well. What we have in abundance is of the non-perishable variety. This idea came into conversation when we had to chuck out a jar of marmalade that had been languishing in the back of the cupboard for at least six months. It takes a long time for preserves to go mouldy, even opened, and he mentioned his gran would have his head on a stick if she ever found out about his chucking food out. Basically, food wastage is bad. We all know that.
We’ve had a few incidents recently which set the wheels moving. We have fair-sized separate freezer that sits in the hall, and which was pretty full of leftovers. Unfortunately, the whole thing went and broke down, so we had to throw out loads of perfectly good food because we couldn’t guarantee it was safe to eat – quite a lot of meat and fish based food was quite frankly not worth the risk. It had iced over to the point the run off damaged some of the floorboards underneath. Not a pretty sight.
Then a friend of ours came to visit, and whilst I was away on a field trip in the Highlands all last week, she and my boyfriend decided to eat their way through the contents of the freezer that could be salvaged. They just chucked in whatever they could find, mixed it with whatever was in the cupboards, and basically lived on meat + veg + condiment stews all week.
It’s led me to have a good long think about what we throw out, and even what we don’t throw out but that never sees the light of day in our cupboards.
I think now is the time to do something about it. I may not be a woman on a mission to change the world just yet, but I can be a woman on a mission to reduce her own damned waste!
So my challenge to myself is to use up all the jars, spices, tins, bottles etc that have sat in the kitchen for almost as I can remember living in that flat. Fresh food is fair game, some things of course can be replaced when needed (redcurrant jelly is a big one, as I put it in almost everything), but new and interesting uses will be found for the olives, jams, jellies, marmalades, marinades, oils, vinegars and sauces we have been up until this moment “saving for best”.
Challenge: To use up our non-perishables, basically we need to stop buying so much food. I plan to do one weekly food shop which will be mostly fresh fruit, vegetables, meats and some perishable items such as cheeses, but we will make use of what we have in our pantry until it is ALL GONE.
Why do we want to do this? To reduce waste and to prove we don’t need to buy all the time to make tasty food.
I haven’t been cooking as much as I’d like recently, and I think this may give me the inspiration I need to do something in the kitchen other than grill a steak or boil some noodles.
Weird and random recipes will surely follow.
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