Showing posts with label basic recipes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label basic recipes. Show all posts

Saturday, 28 March 2020

Pizza!

Over the years, I think that I may have mentioned our annual attempt at growing tomatoes.  We don’t grow a lot, just two or three plants.  Last year, we had a bumper crop so I made several tubs of tomato sauce and shoved them in the freezer.  We used one tub last weekend over pasta, and it was lush!  It was so tasty that I immediately started planning to make pizza for dinner on Friday night.  Since my pizza recipe is straightforward, I thought I’d share it with you.

At it’s most basic, this recipe produces two “Neapolitan Pizzas” of dough + sauce + mozzarella for £1.80 and feeds 4.  It takes 3 hours.

Start with the dough.  This comes from an edition of Self magazine, that I purchased in (probably) 1992.   It is so simple that it didn’t take me long to internalise the recipe.  I have made this hundreds of times.   Please read the notes at the bottom before proceeding.

Pizza Dough - makes 2, 12-inch pizzas (approximate cost 20p)

Ingredients

2.5 cups of flour (yes, two and a half measuring cups)
1 cup tap water
1 sachet or two teaspoons of easy bake yeast
1 teaspoon olive oil (can be left out)
2 pizza trays (or see note 5 below)

Method

  1. Hand method:  Take off your rings.  Place your flour into a large bowl.  Scatter over the yeast, then make a well in the centre and pour in the water.  Coat your hands with the olive oil, allowing the excess to drip into the mixture.  Using your fingers, fold the flour into the water.  Continue until you have a smooth dough.
  2. Food processor method:  combine all the ingredients in the bowl of the food processor and process until a ball of dough is formed.  Turn the dough out into a large bowl.
  3. Both methods:  if the dough is too sticky at this point, kneed in a little extra flour.  If too dry, kneed in a tablespoon or two more water.
  4. Drape a clean tea towel over the bowl, and place it somewhere warm to rise for an hour.  While waiting, make your tomato sauce.
  5. Take off your rings.  Using your hands, knock back the dough.  (Give it a good thump, then kneed for a minute or two.). Cover and leave in a warm place for another hour.
  6. Knock back your dough again then divide it into two halves.  Form each half into a ball. 
  7. Scatter flour over your work surface and rub into your rolling pin.  Place the first ball of dough into the centre of your work surface and roll it out until it is a) circular, and b) fits your pizza tray.  Carefully lift it onto your pizza tray.  Repeat with the other ball.
  8. At this point, put your oven on to preheat at 240C.  Allow the dough to rise for a further 20 minutes, before covering with toppings.  Meanwhile, prepare your toppings.
  9.  Top your pizzas and bake at 240C for 10-12 minutes.  Serve.

Notes:-

  1. You might have noticed, that I keep telling you to take off your rings.  Yeast dough can be incredibly sticky and hard to remove from your hands.  You don’t want it caught up in your rings.  If you do get coated in dough, soak your hands in water and wash well until the damn stuff comes off.  Don’t be tempted to wipe if off on a towel, because it’ll harden to cement.  (I learnt this the hard way.)
  2. To help stop the dough sticking to you hands, drizzle a small amount of olive oil into the palm of one hand and rub over both palms and your fingers.  They will be greasy.
  3. Only baking for one or two?  The dough freezes well.  At the end of step 6, lightly grease the inside of a freezer bag, drop in one of the balls of dough and freeze.  Remember to label the bag first.
  4. No rolling pin?  Use an empty wine bottle or any similar shaped, tall, round, glass bottle.  Remove the label first.
  5. No pizza tray?  Or only one?  You could use a flat cookie tray and form a lip around the edge of your pizza, to keep the toppings inside.  Alternatively, if you only have one tray, you could leave the second half to rise again as a ball of dough, while the first one is cooking, but that will mean a two-part meal.
Now for the sauce.  This is based on one from Delia Smith (aka St Delia of the Kitchen) but it’s not in the book that I thought it came from.  The flour is to stop it separating and to help thicken it.  (Tomato sauces have a tendency to separate and split.). It freezes well.

Tomato Sauce (approximate cost 65p)

Ingredients

1 onion, finely chopped (10p)
1-2 cloves garlic, crushed (5p)
2x400g cans chopped tomatoes (or the equivalent of home grown). (50p)
1 heaped teaspoon of flour
1 teaspoon dried basil
I-2 teaspoons muscovardo sugar
Possible splash lemon juice or vinegar
1 tablespoon oil

Method

  1. In a decent sized saucepan, heat the oil over a low heat and gently fry the onion until it turns clear and glassy.  Stir in the garlic and fry for a minute or two longer.
  2. Scatter over the flour.  Stir well to ensure everything is covered.
  3. Pour in both tins of tomatoes, stirring continuously and bring to the boil. Turn down to a simmer and stir in the basil and one teaspoon of sugar.  
  4. Simmer until very thick. (This may take 20-30 minutes.) 
  5. Taste the sauce.  Is it too sweet?  Or too sour?  If too sweet, stir in a splash of lemon juice (from a bottle).  If too sour, stir in the second teaspoon of sugar.
  6. Allow to cool before spreading thinly on your pizza base.
Note: you may have sauce left over.  Don’t be tempted to pour it onto the pizzas - it will make for a watery, soggy pizza and your toppings will slide off.







Suggested Toppings

Scatter any combination of the following over your pizza:-

2 x Mozzarella balls, grated  (90p)
100g cheddar, grated (34p) - add to the mozzarella
1 can anchovies, drained (70p)
Sliced pepperoni or salami or chorizo or ham
Thinly sliced mushrooms and/or peppers
Thinly sliced olives
Leftover oven roasted sliced veg (peppers, mushrooms, onions)

Once, baked, the results should look like this.  




Yum!!

- Pam

Tuesday, 18 April 2017

Recipe Tuesday: Bread and Cheese Pudding

One of the websites I frequent is MoneySavingExpert.  A couple of weeks ago, their weekly newsletter had a give-away/competition:  win a copy of somebody's new cookbook full of £1 meals.  Sounds great!  Just the sort of cookbook that I'd enjoy reading and stealing ideas from.  Until I read the small print on the blurb at the back of the book....  Each portion of food costs £1.  Then I saw red.

Let me spell it out to you.  Since your average recipe makes four portions of a meal, that means each recipe actually cost £4.  Not £1.

It was a book of £4 dinners, not £1 dinners.  On the basis of this book, any fool can make a beef chilli, using supermarket standard ingredients and have spent less than £1 per portion.  Hell, I can do it using beef from my (expensive) Kosher butcher and have cash left over.  Talk about misleading marketing!  Some poor person, who is struggling to make ends meet, will buy that book based on the title and the fact that it was mentioned in MSE's newsletter.  Instead of getting something that will actually help them save money, they'll just get a cookbook full of all the recipes that don't involve roast dinners.

So in the spirt of "beat them at their own game", I have decided to publish a series of very cheap-to-cook recipes, tagging them as <£2dinners.   Here is the first.  The cost of each item is in brackets after its listing. All items are supermarket cheapest, "value" own-brand.

Bread and Cheese Pudding.

Serves 4.  Total cost £1.89

Ingredients

Four slices of bread, cut in half diagonally (5p)
325g can sweet corn kernels, drained (35p)
200g can tuna, drained (65p)
2 eggs (12p each = 24p)
250ml milk (25p)
75g mature cheddar cheese, grated (35p)

Method

  1. Preheat oven to 200C.
  2. Layer the bread, tuna and sweet corn  in a lasagne dish, so that the bread points stick up and each slice of bread has some tuna and corn between it and the next one.
  3. Scatter over the grated cheese.
  4. In a measuring jug, combine the eggs and the milk and whisk until well combined.  Add a grind or two of black pepper.
  5. Pour the egg mixture over the bread.
  6. Bake for 30-40 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and the egg mixture has set.

Yummy!



(As an aside, Blogger's reluctance to update their App is really beginning to wind me up.   I'm writing this on my iPad, via the web browser.  Uploading the photo for today's post was a nightmare.)

Tuesday, 7 July 2009

Pizza!

A couple of weeks ago, we scored 6 x 100g balls of organic buffalo mozzarella cheese for 70p a ball, approximately half price. My first thought was "pizza!" followed by "lasagna". Four of the balls went straight into the freezer. The other two languished in the fridge until the Friday, when I made my first pizza for nearly 6 years.

That's right. I haven't made a pizza since we moved into this house, mainly because my gas-hob-electric-ovens stove isn't wired in. Our only working oven is a combination microwave-convection oven and I'd never considered it as a pizza oven. With DH's encouragement, though, I thought I'd have a go. After all, what's the worst that could happen? We could always phone out for a takeaway.

Turns out, the dough recipe is engraved on my brain (just as well - I don't have the magazine I got it from). So was the tomato sauce recipe. Even more surprising, the ancient freeze-dried instant yeast still worked (use by date October 2001).

Notes

Make the tomato sauce while the pizza dough is rising. It needs to be cool before you dress the pizza.

Pizza Dough Recipe (makes sufficient for two pizzas)

Ingredients

2.5 cups strong flour (I used wholemeal)
1 cup of tap water
1 sachet instant yeast
Pinch of salt
Olive oil

Method

  1. In a food processor, combine the flour, the salt and the yeast granules.
  2. Through the feeding tube, gradually add the water until the dough forms a ball. Note: you may not need all the water - it depends on the ambient humidity.
  3. Flour a pastry board or the kitchen worktop. Turn the dough out onto the board and knead by hand for a minute or so.
  4. Oil a large bowl. You can use spray oil or pour in a teaspoon or so of oil and swish it round.
  5. Place the dough in the bowl, turning it over until it is covered in oil (this stops it getting hard on top). Cover with a tea-towel and place somewhere warm and draft free to rise.
  6. When the dough has doubled in size (in approximately an hour), "knock it back": punch the middle of the dough to release the accumulated gasses and knead it for a minute.
  7. Cover again with the tea-towel and set the dough aside for its second rising.
  8. Repeat step 6. This time, though, after kneading the dough divide it into two and form into balls. If you are only making one pizza, pop the second ball into an oiled plastic bag and freeze.
  9. Flour your pastry board again and a rolling pin. Roll out the dough until it fits your designated pizza dish (I used to use a rectangular cookie sheet with a small lip, now I have a round one). Gently ease the dough into the pizza dish and leave it to rise for 20 minutes or so.
The dough freezes well. Defrost it in the fridge, then follow step 9 above.


Pizza sauce (makes enough for two pizzas)

Ingredients

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large onion, finally chopped
2-3 cloves of garlic, crushed
2 x 400g/14 oz cans of chopped tomatoes
1 bay leaf
2-3 black peppercorns
1/2 teaspoon of sugar
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1 tablespoon tomato puree/paste

Method

  1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan. Gently fry the onion and garlic until the onion is transparent but not coloured.
  2. Add the remaining ingredients. Bring to the boil and simmer for at least half an hour or until thick.
  3. Remove the bay leaf, switch off the hob and allow the sauce to cool.
  4. If the sauce is too chunky for your liking, liquidize it to suit.
The sauce freezes well and can be used for pasta.

Assembling the Pizza

While the dough is rising in the pizza dish, prepare your other ingredients. We usually use a drained can of tuna, some salted anchovy fillets, sliced peppers and an equal mix of grated cheddar and shredded mozzarella cheeses.

If you like mushrooms on your pizza, you'll need to prepare them a day or two in advance. Slice the mushrooms thinly and let them dry out as much as possible, otherwise your pizza will drown in the liquid they release.

Preheat the oven to 250C.

Thinly spread the pizza sauce on the freshly risen dough in the pizza dish. Layer over your other ingredients.

Place the pizza on the top shelf in the hot oven and bake for 12 to 15 minutes or until cooked.


Serve. Yum!

- Pam

Friday, 15 May 2009

Frugal Friday - the Rice Trick

It's fair to say that we eat a lot of rice. Considering the number of curries I cook, you probably aren't that surprised. (I can hear certain readers of this blog going "Yeah, and....?" even as I type. Bear with me, guys.) Have I ever mentioned the "rice trick" to you before?

The Rice Trick only works with white rice; the variety doesn't matter. It is simple, saves fuel and stops you having soggy rice. You'll need rice, boiling water and a saucepan with a well-fitting lid. This is the Rice Trick:-

  1. Next time you're cooking rice, measure the quantity needed into a measuring cup or jug. Make a note of where it comes on the jug. Tip it into the saucepan and then measure out double the quantity of boiling water, adding that to the saucepan.
  2. Cover it with the lid. Bring it to the boil and, keeping it just below the point where it will boil over, boil it for two minutes. Use a timer.
  3. Switch off the burner and let it sit there for the next 15 minutes. (Again, use a timer.) Do not lift the lid until the timer goes off for the 15 minutes.
  4. Take off the lid, fluff up the rice with a fork and serve.

And there you have it. Freshly cooked rice that isn't soggy. And you've only used a quarter of the usual quantity of gas/electricity to cook it.

Note 1: Always use the proportions: 2 water to 1 rice.
Note 2: This doesn't work with brown rice. Even if you boil it for longer. I think the outer layer is too hard for it to soften sufficiently without the aid of heat.

- Pam

Monday, 31 December 2007

Smaltz and other stories

Where on earth has the week gone? I meant to write on Thursday, then when that wasn't possible, on Friday. Now it's Monday and I'm back at work in two days (yuck!). Don't have much time today, so this may be a bit truncated.

I finally started the "Turkey Production Line" on Friday. After multiple meals, our turkey yielded 3.5lb of meat for future dinners (now in the freezer). The stockpot of turkey stock is currently in the fridge, having simmered most of Friday night. We're away for New Year's, so I'll have to finish it off tomorrow when I get home.

Anyway, while I was pulling apart the turkey, it occurred to me that I never feel closer to my paternal, shtetl-living great-great-grand-mother than when I'm covered in bits of poultry, filling the stock pot with bones on one side and a bowl with meat on the other. Today's post is dedicated to her.

Smaltz/schmaltz/however-you-want-to-spell it

Smaltz is the Jewish answer to lard; rendered chicken/duck/goose fat. In the shtetl, goose was the all-important bird - like the cottager's pigs, they were fed any leftovers going. The goose provided meat, fat, crackling ("gribbene"), quills for writing, down and feathers for warm bedding or clothing.

Like all fat, you shouldn't eat too much smaltz. However, it adds a wonderful depth and chicken-aroma to chicken dishes.

There are two basic methods of rending poultry fat to make smaltz: the top of stove method and the oven method. For both, you need to collect a large amount of chicken skin, globs of fat removed from poultry before cooking, scrapings from the top of your chicken/turkey stock and the fat you drained out of the roasting pan on Christmas Day. (I usually skin my own chicken fillets and dump those skins into a bag in the freezer to await the day I make smaltz.)

Method

Top of Stove. Empty the fat into a deep saucepan, add a cup of water, cover and cook on a medium heat until the fat is melted and the chicken skins are crisp. Approximately 40 minutes.

Oven. Alternatively, if you are using your oven, dump the assorted skin and fat into a roasting dish and place it in the bottom of the oven. Roast for at least an hour or until the fat is melted and the chicken skin is crisp.

Both methods. Line a colander with kitchen paper or muslin/cheesecloth. Place the colander over a deep bowl. Carefully pour the rendered fat, etc, into the colander. It will slowly drain through. When the fat has drained out of the colander, set the bowl aside to cool and then refridgerate it until solid.

The stuff in the colander is gribbene (crackling). Dust with salt and pepper and feed to the hungry hoards.

Okay, back to the fat in the fridge. You are almost done. To ensure longevity, it needs to be "washed". Take the bowl out of the fridge. Turn the fat out onto a board and scrape the bottom of it to remove any sediment. Place it into your largest, heatproof container. (I like deep but narrow for this.) Pour over a kettle full of boiling water and allow to cool. Chill until set.

Lift off the lid of fat from the water and scrape off the remaining sediment. Dump the fat into a saucepan and melt it.** Pour into tuperware container(s) and refridgerate until you need to cook with it (or shove it back in the freezer). It lasts indefinitely.

Uses: frying; any recipe that starts with "fry onion"; roasting vegetables; pastry (it makes a great flaky pastry); roasts; etc.

Next time you see a chef on TV talking about roasting potatoes in goose fat, smile smuggly - you've got your home-made fat ready and waiting. And it didn't cost you a penny.

- Pam

**After I wrote this, I came across a facsimile of a Ministry of Food leaflet from World War 2, "How To Fry". It explains that when you reheat the fat for the last time before storing it, you should simmer it until it stops bubbling (to ensure the fat has lost any residual water content). That will ensure its longevity.

If you are interested in WW2 food, check out Eating for Victory by Jill Norman.

Wednesday, 26 December 2007

Christmas Turkey - Part 2: The Remains

It's Boxing Day, the 26th of December. By midnight tonight, everyone will be sick of the sight (and taste) of turkey. The most fed up will dump the remainders in the bin. The more frugal will resort to the dreaded "Turkey Curry", a phrase that always conjours up visions of the Alconbury's "Turkey Curry Party" from Bridget Jones' Diary. No thank you.

Here's what I do: I start a turkey products factory.

First, get the equipment. Large stock pot. Check. Measuring scales. Check. Supply of freezer bags, pouched open. Check. Bowl for any leftover chestnut stuffing. Check. Dish full of scrapings/bones/garlic paper from plates over Christmas. Check. Freezer bag full of chicken bones from previous meals. Check. Freezer bag with chicken skin and fat from previous meals. Check. Container of fat and juices from turkey roasting dish. Check. Giblets, neck bone, etc, from the turkey. Check.

Now, attack the turkey. I cut off all the remaining meat, in chunks, and divide it into either half pound (250g) or 1lb (500g) freezer bags. Once sealed, I label them with a description, the date and weight of the bag. When all the bags are full, I shove them in the freezer and forget about them for a few weeks until we can face having a turkey-based meal. (See tomorrow's instalment for meal ideas.)

If there are any fatty deposits left on the turkey, I cut them off and put them in the freezer bag full of chicken skin, etc. Scrape off the fat from the congealed roasting dish juices and add this fat to the bag. In due course, this will get made into Smaltz, but not today.

Scoup out all the remaining Chestnut Stuffing and deposit in a bowl. Fight DH to stop him taking the bowl and eating the contents then and there. Save for breakfast and spread on toast. It makes great sandwiches/toast toppings.

Now, make your turkey stock. Dump the turkey bones into your stockpot, together with the plate scrapings, the giblets/neck and the freezer bag full of chicken bones. (Don't worry about any chestnut stuffing residue, it'll just make your stock a little dark.) Pour in the congealed roasting pan juices. Add a small onion, a carrot or two, a couple of cloves of garlic and 3 peppercorns. If you have any, add some tarragon: either a heaped teaspoon of dried or a tablespoon of freshly chopped leaves. Cover with water, bring to the boil. Skim when it reaches boiling point. Simmer for three to four hours (you can start this one night and finish it the next). Allow to cool a little before straining the stock into a deep bowl (I put the bowl into the sink, put a colander into the bowl and then pour in the stock). Save the colander full of bones.


NOTE. If you need to add extra water to your stock pot, DO NOT ADD COLD WATER - it will make the fat disperse throughout the stock giving it a bitter taste and weird texture. Add boiling water instead.

Return the strained stock to your pot and boil down to one-third. Allow to cool and then chill in the fridge. Scrape off the fat that congeals on top and add to your freezer bag of fat. Then re-heat the jellied stock until it becomes liquid again, pour into containers, label and freeze. I re-use plastic soup containers for this, since they fit inside my freezer door shelves. I also make some "stock cubes", pouring a bit of the stock into an ice-cube tray.

This makes a strongly flavoured stock. When a recipe calls for stock, I'll use half frozen stock and half water.

Finally, pick over the bones from the stock and remove any remaining meat. Go carefully, because the bones will have softened considerably and it's easy to get small ones in with your meat. Bag up, label as "stock meat" and freeze. Use in strongly flavoured dishes where you don't really taste the chicken/turkey, e.g. "chicken" vindaloo. Add a chicken stock cube to the dish to enhance the flavour. DO NOT serve to small children or animals because of the potential for small bones to remain in the meat.

Now relax. You've processed your turkey and can forget about doing anything with it for a while.

- Pam (tomorrow: smaltz and recipe ideas)

Sunday, 9 December 2007

Tuna Sorrento

Sometimes I think that someone reading this blog would think that I'm obsessed by food and yarn. The answer is yes, and no. Yes, I'm a foodie and Knitter, but no - I do spend my days thinking about other things and working on other projects.

Having said that, I'm proud of my ability to turn a couple of dull, boring ingredients into a really good meal. Take last Sunday night, when I turned some wizened, forgotten-in-the-bottom-of-the-veggie-drawer parsnips into Parsnip & Lemon Soup. (Having just re-read that post, I realise that I seem to be making a habit of this.) Sunday is the day we usually play role-playing-games at the club DH runs, so food on Sunday night is always rushed and relatively uninspired. Tonight, I made Tuna Sorrento and baked potatoes.

Tuna Sorrento is my take on a sandwich filling from The Sandwich Box, in Warren Street, W1, near where I worked for five years in the mid-1990's. In those days, The Sandwich Box was owned and run by an Anglo-Italian guy, Frank, and his family (his wife, his mother, his uncle). Every year, they'd close for a few weeks over the summer and go home to Italy.

We used to call The Sandwich Box "Frank's". In the days prior to Starbucks, Frank's was one of the few places you could buy a decent takeaway cappuccino in London and for the not-so-exorbitant price of 60p. After a night of little sleep, when I felt almost hungover, I'd pop into Frank's and buy a second breakfast, my "Jewish Girl's Special"; a bagel filled with egg-and-bacon-mayonnaise, topped with extra bacon and sometimes a slice of cheddar as well. (What can I say? I coined the name in a fit of self-mockery.)

My favourite lunch from Frank's was a sunflower seed bap filled with Tuna Sorrento. (A bap is a large bread bun at least 5 inches in diameter and 1.5-2 inches deep.) I'd probably buy it at least once or twice a week before I left Warren Street in 1997.

Frank sold up in the summer of 1999. He'd been mugged a couple of years earlier, fetching cash from the bank, and then the shop was robbed. He told the regulars that his heart had gone out of the business. He'd been there for 15 years. I missed his last day by a couple of weeks; popping in to my old office to meet some friends I saw the "under new management sign". I don't know if the new management ever made Tuna Sorrento nor if they're still there 10 years later.

Tuna Sorrento

Ingredients

2 x 180g/6oz cans tuna in brine, drained
1 x 400g/14oz can cooked kidney beans, drained
2-3 spring onions, chopped
1/4 - 1/3 cup mayonnaise

Method

Combine all the ingredients, beating in the mayonnaise until the tuna forms a smooth paste-like consistency and the beans are a bit mushed up. Grind over some black pepper and use as a sandwich filling, or on baked potatoes, or even stir through some pasta.

- Pam (Frank, where-ever you are, this one is for you)

Thursday, 5 July 2007

Cheese Pudding

I’ve got two egg yolks in the fridge and not enough motivation to want to spend much time in the kitchen tonight, so this is what I plan to make for dinner. (Now to find out that DH is reading this by whatever comments he makes via email.)

This is a savoury version of Bread and Butter Pudding; to accompany it, I’d serve a green vegetable like broccoli and, maybe, some oven roasted cherry tomatoes (put the tomatoes in when there is only 30 minutes of cooking time remaining). The recipe serves 4. If you omit the butter and use skimmed milk, it is 4 WW points a serving. Use 4 egg-whites instead of whole eggs and it is 3.5 WW points a serving.

You can, of course, omit the tuna if you don't like it.

Ingredients

Wholemeal Bread - 4 slices
Butter 1 tablespoon
50g Cheddar Cheese grated
Sweetcorn - 1 cup
1 can Tuna in brine drained & flaked
Eggs - 2
milk - 1/2 pint
3 or 4 grinds of pepper

Method

1) Butter the bread and cut on the diagonal. Arrange the slices in a lasagne dish (approximately 5 x 8 x 2.5 inches or 12 x 20 x 7 cm in size).


2) Flake over the tuna. Making sure that some gets between the slices. Repeat with the sweetcorn and the grated cheese.

3) Beat together the milk and the egg until well blended. Grind over some pepper. Pour the egg mixture slowly and evenly over the bread mixture.

4) Allow the pudding to rest for approximately 10 minutes. I use this time to preheat the oven to 180 C – when it reaches full temperature, the resting time should be over.

5) Bake for approximately 45 minutes or until golden and set.

6) Remove from the oven and allow to rest for 5 minutes before serving.

- Pam

Tuesday, 15 May 2007

Minced (ground) Beef and other possibilities

Today’s recipes are built around basic recipe using that stalwart of the British kitchen, minced beef (a.ka. “ground beef” or “hamburger”).

A word about using spices: mix the spices first in a small bowl (I use the dish from a microwave egg poacher – designed to hold 1 egg). Add a bit of water to make a paste and leave until you need to use them (this will stop the spices burning so easily).

To cook rice: use ¼ cup of rice per person (or double if your DH is as big an eater as mine). Combine the rice with twice as much boiling water – so 2 cups water to 1 cup rice – bring back to the boil, cover and simmer for 15 minutes for white rice/basmati, up to 40 minutes for brown, or until all the water is absorbed.

All variations serve 4-6.

Basic Beef Mixture

Ingredients

250g minced (ground) beef
1 large onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 aubergine (eggplant) - see method, below
100-200g mushrooms, sliced
1-2 carrots, grated
1 tablespoon tomato puree
1 beef stock cube
1x400g can chopped tomatoes
¼ cup split red lentils (optional)

Method:

1. Chop the prickly end off the aubergine, prick it with a fork a few times and zap in the microwave for 10 minutes.
2. Dry fry beef until brown. Add the onion and the garlic and fry until they're soft. Add the mushrooms and fry until the "water" has evaporated.
3. Stir in spices if using (see below). Fry until the aroma rises.
4. Stir in the tomatoes, tomato puree, carrot and stock cube (in that order).
5. Add additional ingredients as listed per individual recipes.
6. Cut the cooked aubergine in half, scrape out the pulp with a spoon (careful it is hot!), then chop the pulp until it has the consistency of mush.
7. Stir the aubergine into the sauce. If using lentils, add together with 1 cup hot water (sauce should be very runny at this stage).
8. Bring to boil and simmer until you can't see the aubergine, the lentils are dissolving and the sauce is very thick. Serve as directed, below.

Beef Chilli

I don’t usually add lentils in a Chilli. Serve with rice.


Spices

1 teaspoon ground chilli or to taste (I like a medium heat)
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon paprika

Additional ingredients

2 x 400g cans cooked kidney beans or black beans
1 cup sweetcorn (optional)

Keema Curry

Good with mango chutney. Serve with rice.

Spices

1 teaspoon ground chilli
1 teaspoon Nigella seeds (also called “black mustard seeds” or Kalonji)
2 teaspoons cumin
1 teaspoon turmeric (careful it stains)

Additional ingredients

1 tablespoon tamarind puree (gives a sweet/sour flavour)
1 cup frozen peas


Spaghetti Bolognese

Serve on Spaghetti. Good in lasagne.

Additional ingredients

1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon soft dark molasses sugar/muscovado sugar
1 glass red wine


- Pam

Tuesday, 8 May 2007

Base

I've decided that Tuesdays shall be Recipe Day.

I'm going to start with a kitchen essential: base. Base isn't really a recipe, it's a time-saving cheat. 99% of my recipes start "Fry onions with garlic, add mushrooms" (if one of my recipes doesn't involve onions or garlic, it's a cake). So what I do when I have time is make up a batch of this starting base, use one portion and freeze the rest. Making base adds about 5 minutes to the time it takes to cook a meal.

BASE

Ingredients

2 extra large onions chopped (I use "Spanish" onions)
500g mushrooms sliced
4 large cloves of garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon olive oil

NB: I tend to clean and slice the mushrooms, peel the garlic, peel the onions, put the oil on to heat AND THEN chop the onions. This minimizes the time available for the onion fumes to make me cry.

Method

1) In a large frying pan or pot suitable for tonight's dinner, heat the oil. Add the onions, cover if possible, and cook over a medium heat until softened.
2) Add the mushrooms. Fry until they make water and the water has evaporated.
3) Add the garlic. Fry for 3 minutes.
4) Divide the mixture evenly between 3 microwaveable freezer containers and a suitably sized bowl, until the pan is empty. (I ladle it out.)
5) Pour the contents of the bowl back into the pan and continue with the recipe for tonight's dinner.
6) Cover the freezer containers and allow to cool. Seal, label and freeze.

To use the frozen Base, either defrost it completely, defrost it for long enough that it'll turn out of the container (20 minutes or so in my kitchen) or zap for 30 seconds in the microwave and use from frozen.

- Pam (who amazingly only started doing this a year ago. It hadn't occured to me until then.)