Apple Custard Cake

While I was rooting around my pantry cupboard looking for some pasta, I came across a tub of custard powder. It's been in there, unused, since Christmas time. It's not often we eat custard, so I started to consider what else I might use it for. A quick Google search offered much food for thought. From tarts to pies, I found plenty of inspiration!

After some consideration, I settled on an Apple and Custard Teacake recipe from a fellow blogger: http://tonicoward.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/apple-custard-teacake.html. It's an American blog, so the first thing I needed to do was to convert the recipe from cups, into grams. This reminded me that I really must buy myself some cups, so I can make American recipes more easily in future!

Here's the ingredients in grams:

For the Cake:

150g butter

168g caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla

2 eggs

312g self-raising flour

300ml milk

3 apples, peeled cored and cut into 1cm pieces

1tbsp demerera sugar 

300ml custard (ingredients and recipe below) 

For the Custard:

2 Tbs custard powder

55g caster sugar

250g milk

20g butter

2 tsp vanilla

And here's how I did it, step-by-step:

1. Make the custard

2. Cream the butter, sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy

3. Whisk in the eggs (add a tbsp of flour, to prevent curdling)

4. Whisk until well combined

5. Spread half the cake mixture into a lined and greased 20cm square cake tin

(the remaining half of the cake mixture)

6. Spread the custard over the cake mixture

7.  Top with 2/3rds of the apple slices

8. Spread the remaining cake mix into the tin

9. Top with the remaining apple slices, and the Demerara sugar






10. Bake it in the oven for (in my case) 45 minutes. The recipe states 1.5 hours, but as you can see, mine was already a little crisp after just 45 mins!

Beef Strogonoff

This week I got some lovely, thin cut sirloin steak on my weekly food shop from Waitrose. I contemplated making a stir fry, but finally decided that what with all this rain and dreary weather, I really needed something more comforting, more creamy. I settled on Beef Stroganoff from BBC Good Food.

It's an easy recipe, it doesn't call for too many ingredients, and I happened to have all of them in my fridge or cupboard. Once everything was chopped, sliced, crushed and measured, it was simple and quick to sizzle it all up in my big frying pan. After around 10 minutes it was all done and on the table.

It looked good, but it was a little disappointingly bland, even though I seasoned generously and went a little overboard with the paprika. Would I make it again? No I wouldn't, I like my meals more flavourful than this was, and I'm not sure there was much I could do to give it more punch.

BBC Good Food - Beef Stroganoff

Chocolate Muffins (Adapted from Hummingbird Bakery recipe)

Another week, another cake to bake! Usually, around 6pm on a Sunday afternoon, I start to ponder the contenders for this weeks cake. I often find myself drawn to tried and tested options like Marble Cake, Lemon Drizzle and Chocolate Cocoa Brownies. But luckily I have you, reader, to motivate me to try something new.

Today, I whittled my shortlist down to Chocolate Muffins ala Hummingbird Bakery, a recipe that often tempts me with its delightful photography, but which, for some reason, I have never got around to trying until now.

So here goes. My experience with Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook recipes has thus far been disappointing. A past attempt to bake their stem ginger muffins (mmm... sounds like a surething, right?) resulted in an utterly depressing yield of lumpy, insipid and bin-worthy blobs of dough. So I was very careful this time to measure accurately, and follow the instructions very precisely (apart from dividing the recipe by two).

Chocolate Muffins (from Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook)

Firstly, I measured out all my ingredients. The recipe yields 12 muffins, but I only needed 5, so I divided the recipe by two.


First things first, I cracked one egg, into a jug with the sugar.


Next, I added the vanilla to the milk, in a separate beaker, and forgot to take a picture, sorry. Please imagine milk in a beaker.

Then, I whisked the eggs and sugar with my Kenwood hand whisk (godsend), for about 3 minutes.











I measured out the dry ingredients (flour, cocoa, salt and baking powder)in a bowl, ready for sifting.

Then I put them in the sieve...

... and sieved them.

Mix it all together, and you get a lovely chocolatey rich looking muffin batter. As always, be careful not to over stir muffin mixture, or they won't rise into those little mushroom domed wonders.

Into the muffin cases, and ready to bake!









I failed to take a photo of the finished product, but I will absolutely ask my other half to photograph one before he swipes the lot.

The final results were pleasing, and I'm happy to say trust in my Hunningbird Bakery cookbook has been restored. These were moist, yummy and chocolatey. Not at all dry, which is often the case with muffin recipes. Fantastic, I recommend you give them a go.

Chilli Con Carne + Cocoa

I received a recommendation recently to try a teaspoon of cocoa powder in my Chilli Con Carne, to give it extra depth.

I'd tried adding a block of chocolate before, but found my Chilli was much too sweet as a result.

This was a great tip however, the chocolate flavour added exactly the depth desired in a good Chilli Con Carne, but the bitterness of my 75% cocoa meant there was no unwanted sweetness.

Yum yum!

Leftovers for Lunch: Chicken and Mushroom Puff Pastry Pie

So, David Cameron "loves a hot pasty", but has introduced VAT @ 20% on these warm lunchbox treats nonetheless. For some, this may be cause for concern, perhaps it may even be the nudge you needed to start considering home-made alternatives?

Inspired, I set out to test a recipe that's been on my to-do list for a while: Chicken and Mushroom Puff Pie, from BBC Good Food.

Rarely does this happen, but I actually followed this recipe pretty precisely, and it turned out great.

All I did differently was:

1. Add 2 chopped leeks I had in the fridge, sliced thinly, and added to the pan just after the onions. Remember, be careful with leeks - unlike onions they do not benefit from browning.

2. Instead of making one large pie suitable for 4, I split it in two, and made one pie suitable for 2, and two personal pasties for (you guessed it) lunch the next day.

The main pie we ate for supper and it was delicious, rich and flavoursome. Surprisingly it wasn't too heavy either.

The pasties however, were not such a great success. i took a bit of a risk here, hoping that the puff pastry would survive being reheated in the microwave. Sadly, it resulted in warm, soggy, deflated and slightly rubbery pastry.

If I made this recipe again (and I would like to), I would make my pie for two, as I did here, but thin down the remaining mixture to make a delicious soup instead.

Leftovers for Lunch: Chilli Con Carne

My first ever exerience of Chilli Con Carne was from a tin. I did not have high expectations. It turned out however, to be absolutely bloomin' delicious.

While I was at uni, my now-fiance and I had very little money, and even a tin of stagg was out of our budget. We tried to make EVERYTHING ourselves, from scratch, to reduce costs. But no matter what recipe I tried, or what combination of spices, I just couldn't capture that depth of flavour needed to make a good Chilli. As a result, Chilli fell out of my repetoire.

That is, until about a year ago, when I came across, completely by accident, a wonderful discovery at the supermarket.

Look in the beans and pulses isle, and you will find Kidney Beans, tinned, in CHILLI sauce. What does this mean, I wondered? Is it a very hot sauce? Is it watery, or thick? Is it smooth or chunky?

So, I bought it, and gave it a try. The 'chilli sauce' is in fact like a delicious spicy barbeque-style sauce. By adding this sauce, along with the kidney beans, to your chilli, you are guaranteed to achieve that smoky, spicy flavour that a proper chilli should have.

So, here it is, my own (almost completely) homemade Chilli Con Carne recipe.

Chilli Con Carne
Serves 2 for dinner + 2 for lunch

Recipe	Ingredients
First, heat the oil in the pan, and then add the onion. Sauté over a low heat until softened and glistening. Add the garlic and fry for a further minute.	1tbsp olive oil
	1 large onion, finely chopped
	1 clove garlic, mashed
Add the minced beef and fry over a very high heat until browned. Reduce the heat and add the dried chilli and chilli powder.	500g minced beef
	1 tsp dried chilli flakes
	1 tsp hot chilli powder (mix of chilli, cumin, cayenne etc)
After 1 minute, add the chopped tomatoes, kidney beans and their chilli sauce and the tomato purée.	Tin chopped tomatoes
	Tin kidney beans in chilli sauce
	1tbsp tomato purée
Simmer for 25 minutes or so, until the tomatoes have disintegrated and the chilli is nice and thick. You'll need to stir regularly, or the chilli will stick to the bottom of the pan. I recommend using a cast iron casserole pan for this recipe, metal pans just don't produce the same result.
You may want to simmer for longer if you have time, to develop the flavours, in which case, check on the chilli regularly and top up with a few tablespoons of water to stop it drying out.
Serve with plain boiled rice. Yum.

When I'm serving this up for dinner, I put 1/2 the rice into two tupperware pots, then top with half the chilli con Carne. Pop it in the f ridge overnight, and then reheat in the microwave for 3.5 mins for lunch the next day. It'll taste even better than the day before, guaranteed!

Re-use a Recipe: Oat and Stem Ginger Cookies / Sweet Oat Biscuits

Has anyone ever had Sweet Oat Biscuits from AMT coffee? They are to die for! Like a hobnob - but not so dusty, more buttery, sweeter, and with a light hint of coconut. Perfect dunked in coffee. Costa's stem ginger cookies are also similarly de-diddly-licious, with gorgeous chewy ginger chunks baked right in. I've searched high and low for a recipe that approximates to these wonderful cookies, but alas, I have yet to find it.

The closest I have come is a slight adaptation of a trusty Anzac biscuits recipe on www.bbcgoodfood.com. This recipe is so versatile that with some minor tweaks, it transforms from Anzac, into a Sweet Oat Biscuit or a Stem Ginger and Oat cookie, with dependable and delicious results.

Oat and Stem Ginger Cookies

Recipe	Ingredients
First things first, preheat your oven to 160C (fan). Grease and line 2 baking sheets.
Mix together the oats, stem ginger, ground ginger, flour and sugar in a large bowl.	125g porridge oats
	35g stem ginger in syrup, approx 2 balls, chopped finely
	10g ground ginger
	115g plain flour
	100g caster sugar
In a small pan (or in the microwave) melt together the butter and the syrup. Then add the bicarbonate of soda, and the boiling water. Stir.	100g butter , plus extra butter for greasing
	1 tbsp golden syrup
	1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
	2 tbsp boiling water
Add the wet ingredients to the dry in the large bowl, and mix to form a dough.
Split the dough into 10 balls and place them on a greased and lined baking sheet (you'll probably need two).
Bung them in the oven for 10 minutes.

Sweet Oat Biscuits

Recipe	Ingredients
First things first, preheat your oven to 160C (fan). Grease and line 2 baking sheets.
Mix together the oats, stem ginger, ground ginger, flour and sugar in a large bowl.	115g porridge oats
	55g desiccated coconut
	85g plain flour
	100g caster sugar
In a small pan (or in the microwave) melt together the butter and the syrup. Then add the bicarbonate of soda, and the boiling water. Stir.	100g butter , plus extra butter for greasing
	1 tbsp golden syrup
	1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
	2 tbsp boiling water
	1/2 tsp vanilla essense
Add the wet ingredients to the dry in the large bowl, and mix to form a dough.
Split the dough into 10 balls and place them on a greased and lined baking sheet (you'll probably need two).
Bung them in the oven for 10 minutes.

Adapted from: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/3803/anzac-biscuits

Leftovers for Lunch: Lasagne

Lasagne is a Sunday night staple in my house. It's oozy, creamy, tomatoey, cheesiness is exactly what I need to prepare me for another week in the office: comforting and nourishing at the same time.

As a result, lunch on Monday is always a slice of the leftover lasagne from the night before.

Lasagne can require quite a bit of time, not to mention a lot of attention, and with a mile-high pile of ironing to do for work, you might be easily put off making a lasagne from scratch. But it doesn't have to be a long and labourious process, over the years I've perfected my own recipe, which is really tasty, not too unhealthy, and doesn't take long too boot

Despite its relative speediness, this lasagne recipe is completely home-made, and involves no "cheat" ingredients whatsoever. Here it is:

Lasagne (pronto)
Serves 4 (or 2 dinners + 2 lunches)

FOR THE MEAT SAUCE
1tbsp olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
500g minced beef
2 cloves garlic, mashed with a pinch of salt
1tsp dried chilli powder
400g tin chopped tomatoes
200ml water
1 beef stock cube
1tbsp oregano (or basil, italian seasoning or similar)
1tbsp tomato puree
pinch salt, to season
black pepper, to season

FOR THE WHITE SAUCE
50g plain flour
50g butter (or margarine)
1 pint milk

Lasagne sheets
Cheddar cheese or mozzarella, to top

Prep: Preheat oven to 190 degrees.

Heat the olive oil in a large heavy pan. Add the onions and fry over a gentle heat until softened and glassy (around 5 minutes). Add the garlic and chilli and fry for a further minute.

Turn up the heat to high, and add the minced beef to the pan. Fry until all the meat has browned.

Add the tomatoes, water, stock cube, oregano, tomato puree, salt and pepper to the pan, and simmer over a medium heat until the tomatoes start to dissolve.

While the meat sauce is simmering, we can make a start on the white sauce. Melt the butter in a pan (make sure the pan is big enough to hold 1pint of milk) over a low heat. Take the pan off the heat then add the flour and stir to make a paste (called a "roux"). Put the pan back over the heat and fry the roux for 1 minute or so. Remove the roux from the pan and place it in the fridge for 5 minutes or so to chill.

After 5 minutes, but the roux back in the same pan, and gradually start adding half of the milk, bit by bit, while stirring continuously with a whisk. The idea here is to get rid of all the lumps! Now add the rest of the milk, and put the pan back on the hob over a medium heat and bring to the boil, stirring regularly. After about 5-10 minutes the sauce will be lovely and thick. Season with salt and pepper.

This whole process takes roughly 20 minutes.

Now that your white sauce and meat sauce are both done, you can start layering them up a lasagne dish. I layer mine up like this:

*1/2 meat sauce, spread evenly
*layer of lasagne sheets
*1/2 white sauce, spread evenly
*remaining meat sauce
*layer of lasagne sheets
*remaining white sauce

Finally, cover the top with some slices of cheese, and bung in the oven for 20 minutes. Go and have a sit down!


One of my favourite things about this lasagne, is that it's so much yummier the next day after all the flavours have developed!

Top Ten Lunchbox Essentials

10. Lock & Lock tupperware

This is the kind of tupperware with 4 clips on each side of the tub. Shake it all about, do the hokey kokey and turn around, and your soup will still be inside the tub, and not inside your handbag.

9. Cling film

Making delicious cakes and cookies for a mid-afternoon pick me up is one thing, keeping them fresh (and in one piece) is another. I wrap muffins, cookies, bars, cake slices etc in cling film as soon as they've cooled to ensure they stay fresh in the fridge until they are needed.

8. Vanilla essense

You want to bake cakes? You're going to need vanilla essence in your cupboard. Just a teaspoon of vanilla and some jam, and you've got a delicious Victoria Sandwich. Vanilla essence is also scrum-diddly-scrumptious addition to a simple apple cake.

7. Cocoa

Like vanilla essence, you need cocoa in your cupboard. Choco-chip cookies, chocolate muffins, marble cake, brownies... the possibilities are endless.

6. Canned tuna

When you really don't want to cook, a can of tuna is a lifesaver. Make a juicy Tuna-Mayo Sandwich, or top a jacket potato with tuna mayo mixed with sweetcorn. Or why not whip up a Tuna Pasta Salad?

5. Banana's

Research shows that banana's are one the very best sources of energy, and they provide variety of essential vitemins and minerals needed to keep you healthy. For those of you who prefer fruit, rather than cakes and biccies, to keep you going through a long afternoon in the office, then you can't go wrong with a banana.

And for those of you who do like a sneaky snack, banana's are really useful for baking once the skins are brown and the banana is soft and sweet. There are hundreds of recipes out there for banana based treats, and any one of them is bound to be fantastic. My fave so far is a Banana and Toffee Loaf cake, but I cannot for the life of me remember which cookbook this heaven sent recipe appears in, but I will hunt it down. When I do, I'll bake it for you some time!

Not to mention, have you noticed how inexpensive banana's are?

4. Apples

An apple a day keeps the doctor away, so they say. Also, you can rely on an apple to arrive at it's destination intact and unsquashed, and for that alone it beats the banana.

Apple's are also rather fantastic in cakes and bakes. Apple-cakey receipes to follow soon.

3. Pasta

Need I explain? When you cannot decide what you have, the answer is pasta.

2. Museli

Why museli, I hear you ask. We're talking about lunches, aren't we? The answer to this mystery is Museli Bars. You could mix nuts and fruit with oats yourself, but why bother? Look in the cereal isle for museli (look for the special offers), and pick a combo you fancy. The results are impressive. Prior to this little experiment, my museli bars were always in the following formula: (Oats + Raisins) + (Sugar + Syrup + Butter) = Museli Bar. But consider this: museli is often a much more complex afair, bringing in seeds, spelt flakes, puffed rice, exotic fruits etc. And it's all put together for you, and it's often cheaper than buying the individual compontents yourself.

1. Fresh or frozen 'soup base' vegetables

A medley of  'soup base' veegtables (including a selection of onions, celery, carrot, swede, turnip, potato...) is a godsend for last minute lunches. Use the veg's as a base for almost any soup you can imagine, or even a stew! For starters, you could try any combination of Vegetable soup, Chicken & Vegetable, Spicy Parsnip, Chilli Veg, Moroccan Chickpea....

The frozen variety is especially useful:
* No waste
* No mess
* Can be used directly from frozen
* Use only what you need, and keep the rest in the freezer for another meal!

Christmas Laziness

My apologies reader, for my short Christmas-induced absence.

December is like a sock drawer when it comes to getting things done. All my good intentions get sucked into an oblivion of laziness. Next year I'm just going to write December off in advance.

I can only hope that you, like me, had the Christmas break off work, and thus required no packed lunches.

New Years resolution - I will make up for lost time. Twice as many recipes in January!

Thermos Adventures, Chapter 1: Soup

Rather naturally I suppose, the first thing I made for the thermos was soup. Seeing as the original function of the Thermos was the transportation of hot beverages, I supposed it would fair well transporting hot soup.

I was feeling a bit chilly, so I decided to go for a warming winter soup: Roast chicken and mushroom. I had a browse around but could not find a recipe that was quite what I wanted, so I concocted my own. Here it is:

Roast Chicken and Mushroom Soup
Serves 2 + leftovers

1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped finely
1 carrot, chopped
1 stick celery, chopped (in place of celery and carrot, I often supplement and/or substitute vegetables like swede, leek, squash etc)
1 tbsp dried rosemary
2 roast chicken breasts (or the same quantity of leftover chicken legs, thighs etc)
150g mushrooms, sliced thickly (I like to use little button mushrooms)
1.5 litres of vegetable or chicken stock (I use bouillon powder)
3 or 4 handfuls of breadcrumbs

Heat the oil in a large, heavy based pan (I use a Le Creuset Casserole) and add the onion, carrot and celery. Gently fry until lightly golden and aromatic. Add the rosemary and the mushrooms and continue to fry over a low heat until the mushrooms start to sweat.

Add the stock, and simmer (careful, you want a gentle simmer, not a hard boil). After 10 minutes, add the roasted chicken, torn by hand into small chunks, and the breadcrumbs, one handful at a time. The breadcrumbs are to thicken the soup, so you may need more or less, to achieve the thickness you desire. Simmer for a further 10 minutes.

Before serving, take a hand blender, and give it a whiz. This will give the soup a creamier texture and a lighter colour.

TIP: separate the soup into 2 bowls, and whizz only 1. This will give you a creamy base, but still some lovely chunks of veg and chicken.

This was DELICIOUS. I actually shocked myself with how good this was.

And, you'll be glad to know, the fiance sat down at lunch to a bowl of lovely warming soup. Amazing.

Hot Packed Lunches without a Microwave: A Solution

I thought it couldn't be done. I supposed that no microwave inevitably meant cold, boring packed lunches. I thought this week would involve a sandwich, a wrap, a sandwich, a pitta pocket, or any of the "variations" in between (not very varied, I know).

I started thinking, there must be some other way to warm food up in the office, besides a microwave? Then it struck me. Change the problem. Instead of "how can I warm this up?", I asked myself, "how can I keep this warm?". I considered the options, and only one presented itself. Thermos. Thermoses can keep tea or coffee warm for hours. But, the long thin canisters designed for hot drinks would be inconvenient for food. I did some research and discovered that Thermos manufacture food canisters as well, with wider bodies and necks so that you can fit food inside, and eat directly from the pot too.

I have ordered one (this one) and shall be testing it over the coming weeks. I'll keep you posted.

Packed Lunch without a Microwave

Disaster! The company my fiance works for have relocated and (rather inconsiderately, I think) moved to an  office in the City which does not have a microwave. When he told me, I took me a second or two to consider the gravity of this change. No more hot packed lunches.

My whole cooking routine revolves around the format of Dinner for 2 & Lunch for 2. For a moment I felt really rather befuddled about how I could possibly re-engineer all of my recipes for this new format: Dinner for 2 & Lunch for 1... for ONE? But then I recovered.

I realised that you, my readers, may also sometimes have need to whip up a packed-lunch that does not require reheating (picnic, school lunch...). You may be bored of the same old sandwich from M&S, but unable to think of anything more insporing to prepare at home. And so, for this period of time while my fiance is sans le microwave, I shall be thinking up, testing out and posting solutions to the microwaveless packed lunch dilemma.

Chicken Scaloppini Metamorphosis

There are some dinners that don't easily transform into a packed lunch for the next day. One such example is my Chicken Scaloppini recipe.

Scaloppini is, according to Wikipedia, an Italian dish consisting of thinly sliced meat (chicken, veal...) that is covered in flour, sauteed, and served in a sauce (perhaps tomato or wine based). I think this is the kernel reason that I love Italian cookery - complete flexibility, without any pretensions. Fry a bit of chicken and put it in a sauce (whatever you have lying around), and *voila* you have a Scaloppini! Bellisimo.

Anyway, my recipe for Chicken Scaloppini hardly follows even these lax rules. I don't flour my chicken breasts before I saute them (mainly to save time). Although, if you wish to, please feel free, I'm sure it would work wonderfully. Instead, I tend to rub the chicken with a little coarse salt and olive oil, and then grill it in my Le Crueset grillit, which produces gorgeous black char grilled stripes, and a delicious flavour.

The char grilled chicken breasts are then placed in individual oven-to-table dishes, in a sea of delicious tomato sauce, and covered with slices of mozzarella and a topping of your choice, then grilled on high until the cheese melts and sizzles.

The trouble with this recipe is that it simply does not work for lunchboxes. How do I get the chicken, the sauce, and the cheese into a Tupperware pot without the cheese getting muddled into the sauce in a higgeldy-piggeldy mess? It's impossible I tell you.

My solution is to make Chicken Scaloppini for my dinner, and a separate, slightly modified lunch of Grilled Mozzarella Chicken with Tomato Pasta.

Chicken  Scaloppini + Grilled Mozzarella Chicken with Tomato & Basil Pasta


Serves 2 for dinner + 2 for lunch

4 chicken breasts, flattened with a rolling pin
500ml jar of tomato and basil pasta sauce, or the same quantity homemade
125g bag of mozzarella
2 mugs of pasta (penne, fusilli...)
Topping e.g. salami, pepperoni, chorizo, peppers, mushrooms, Pepperdew, cherry tomatoes, basil leaves
Pesto (optional)

Begin by heating up your grillit/griddle/frying pan (or whatever utensil you will use to cook your chicken breasts). Next, flatten the chicken breasts with a rolling pin. I do this one at a time, inside a freeze bag to minimise mess. Rub the flattened chicken breast with some course sea salt and brush with a little olive oil. Place each breast in the pan, and cook on both sides, for about 10 mins total (this will depend on how thin your chicken breasts are, so don't forget to check for doneness).

Meanwhile, start boiling the pasta in water (with a little oil and salt added to the water, if you wish). In a separate pan, heat the tomato sauce gently - you want it to simmer, but to never boil.


Slice the mozzarella, and prepare any of the toppings you wish to use.

Place 2 of the cooked chicken steaks into 2 oven-to-table dishes. Cover each in 1/4 of the tomato sauce each. Cover each dish with a layer of mozzarella slices, reserving 2 slices for the other chicken breasts. Place the toppings on top of the mozzarella and place under the grill for 5 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and sizzling.

Spread the two remaining chicken breasts with pesto on one side, and place a slice of the reserved mozzarella on top. Pop them on a tray, and stick them under the grill as well.

Meanwhile, mix the pasta with the remaining tomato sauce. Spoon this into two Tupperware containers. Place the mozzarella chicken on top. I like to add some veg to the tub as well (broccoli florets, peas, french beans, sweetcorn). The veg will get heated up in the microwave with the rest.

Serve the Chicken Scaloppini with some nice veggies.

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In a hurry! Tuna Pasta Salad

Tonight me and the fiance went out to dinner with a couple of friends (had sushi - yum!), which was great, but it's thrown a spanner in my routine, for there are no leftovers for lunch tomorrow! What to do? I decided to solve this by whipping up something ultra quick.

Tuna Pasta Salad 
Serves 2
 2 mugs of penne pasta
1 tin tuna 1 tbsp mayonnaise
1 handful frozen peas
2 tbsp pesto
1/4 red or yellow or green pepper, sliced thinky and diced
a few cherry tomatoes, quartered

OPTIONAL
tsp garlic infused olive oil
sprinkling of oregano/basil/mint


This one is as simple as 'put it in a bowl and stir it'. But for you novices out there, here are the instructions:

Start by boiling the pasta. I add a little salt and a few drops of sunflower oil to the water. The salt speeds up the boiling of the water, and adds a little flavour to your pasta, and the oil keeps the pasta from sticking together (you won't need to watch it quite so closely).

I recommend cooking your pasta to just al dente. You want it to have some bite still, as it will continue to rehydrate even after you have drained the water off - and no one likes soggy pasta in their salad!

Rinse the cooked pasta under the cold tap.

Put the pasta in a bowl and stir in all of the remaining ingredients.

Divide the pasta into two tupperware pots and store in the fridge until you want to eat it.

Leftovers for Lunch - Smoky Chicken and Bean Stew

I get my food shopping delivered fortnightly on a Thursday night, so last night (Wednesday) was one of those empty fridge sort of dinners. A dinner which instead of being premised on 'hmm, what do I fancy...?' was instead decided on the factor of 'hmm, what can I do with this plus that, minus everything else...?) I had run almost completely out of fresh stuff, no cheese, no eggs, no milk, and so I was in need of a store cupboard solution.

After some digging around I found a pack of chorizo slices at the back of the fridge. I knew there was a pack of 4 chicken breasts in the freezer, and I also I found a red pepper which needed to find a home promptly, unless it were to be destined for chez bin-bag.

So, what to make? I grabbed some recipe books and had a browse around some of my favourite recipe websites. I came across a rather yummy recipe called Smoky Chicken and Bean Stew on www.bbcgoodfood.com and rooted around my cupboards to see if I had the other necessary ingredients. I lacked berlotti beans, but I did have a tin of cannellini beans that would do just as well. Everything else, miraculously, I had in stock!

One other thing to mention before I begin, is that this stew calls for only 15-20 mins of simmering once all the ingredients are in the pan. What could be better for a midweek dinner?

And so, to work!

Smoky Chicken and Bean Stew - scaled to serve 4 and slightly adapted

2 small red or white onions, sliced
4 garlic cloves, crushed (I like garlic... a lot...)
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp chilli powder
1 red pepper, diced
4 chicken breasts (or 8 chicken thighs - for a richer flavour), diced
3/4 pack of chorizo slices, cut into strips
400ml chicken stock
400g tin of berlotti/cannellini/butter beans

Pitta or thick crusty bread, to serve

Heat the olive oil in a big heavy pan (a big casserole is perfect), and fry the onion gently until it starts to soften. Add the garlic and continue to cook until the onions are softened and slightly golden.

Add the chilli, paprika and peppers to the pan, and sizzle for 1-2 minutes before adding the chicken and the chorizo to the pan for a further 2-5 minutes until the chicken is sealed.

Next, add the stock and tomatoes, and bring to a gentle simmer. Then add the beans, and allow the whole pot to continue simmering for 15-20 minutes until nicely thickened.


Wow - could any recipe that quick and simple really be delicious? Surprisingly yes! I usually find "30 minute" recipes bland and insipid, but not this one. The addition of the beans meant that the whole thing had thickened up nicely even after just 15 minutes, and it had acquired a real depth of flavour too.

I made scaled the recipe up to feed 4 so that I could take the leftovers to work (if you want the original recipe to feed 2, follow the link at the bottom of the post), and it was even more delicious the next day.

The only thing I might do differently next time (and there will be a next time), is to add some extra water to the leftovers, to turn the 'stew' into a 'soup'.

The original recipe suggests serving this with rice or pitta, which of course you could, however, I think this really belongs with some thick crusty bread for mopping up those juices. Yum.

Ciao.

Recipe adapted from www.bbcgoodfood.com
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/7268/smoky-chicken-and-bean-stew

Leftovers for Lunch - Toad in the Hole

My lunch main courses are (more often than not) leftover whatever I had for dinner the night before. I love this - flavours developing overnight, the guarantee of a tasty aromatic home-cooked meal for lunch, and my colleagues poking their noses in my lunchbox to see what I've bought with me today. Leftovers for lunch has more benefits than I can name, but off the top of my head, I give you:

• It's cheap - ever totted up how much you spend at Pret a Manger per week?
• It's healthy - I guarantee that your homemade lasagne will be less calorific, less fatty and less salty than Marks and Spencers
• It's quick - no separate preparation or cooking
• Saves time at lunchtime - you'll save the 15 mins its takes to walk to the shop and buy your lunch

Friday's lunch was (Thursday's dinner) leftover Toad in the Hole. It was actually the first time in my life I'd attempted Toad in the Hole. Generally I'm not a huge fan of classic British dishes (and it doesn't help that my other half doesn't like potatoes, pretty much an essential ingredient in all British fare) but I happened to have a pack of sausages in the fridge that needed to find a good home, and so I decided it was about time I had a go a the Toad. This recipe is an adaptation of a recipe from Prue Leiths Cooking Bible - which you'll soon learn is my holy grail in the kitchen.

Toad in the Hole FOR THE TOAD 1 pack of sausages Olive oil 5 or 6 cherry tomatoes, halved FOR THE HOLE 110g plain flour Generous pinch of salt 2 eggs 150ml water added to 150ml milk FOR THE GRAVY Half an onion, thinly sliced 2tbsp balsamic vinegar 1tbsp red onion chutney Squeeze of HP sauce 100ml water 1 tbsp plain flour

Start by prepping the batter for the 'hole'. For best results, Leith's Cookery Bible suggests leaving the batter to rest for 30 minutes in the fridge. Letting it rest, Prue says, allows the gluten to develop, resulting in a less doughy final product. Unfortunately I didn't have 30 minutes to play with, so I left mine to sit for 10 minutes, and my final product was not at all stodgy.

To make the batter, you should sift the flour and salt into a bowl, and make a little well in the top. Break the eggs into the well, and start mixing the eggs into the flour gradually to make a paste (I used a whisk). Bit by bit, add the liquid, and keep mixing until combined, but be careful not to over beat it, or it will not rise properly. Pop the bowl into the fridge to rest, and go and have a sit down and a cup of tea while you wait.

5 minutes before your batter is ready, oil the dish you will be using (I used a ceramic lasagne dish, but you could use a pyrex dish, a casserole dish, or any dish that has a large enough surface area to allow you to arrange your sausages with a 1cm(ish) gap between them, and high enough sides to contain the batter (a couple of inches).

Heat some oil in a frying pan and fry the sausages until they a are sealed (don't wash up the pan - you will be using it later). Arrange the sausages in the bottom of the lasagne dish, and pour the batter into the gaps.
Pop it in the oven. After 20 minutes, take the dish out of the oven and arrange your chopped tomatoes skin side up on the top, and place back in the oven for the remaining 20 minutes (by which time they'll have got all delicious and roasted).

Meanwhile, start the gravy. I made a bit of a makeshift gravy by frying up sliced onions in the frying pan I used for the sausages, until the onions were soft and golden. Then I added a tablespoon of red onion chutney, a squeeze of HP sauce, 2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar and 100ml of water. I let it simmer, adding a bit of plain flour, till it was slightly thickened and syrupy. However, you could use Bisto granules, if you have them, or anything else you fancy.

Once cooked, I served up 2 portions for dinner, with boiled peas, carrots and sweetcorn, reserving some  extra veg and popping it into the tupperware tubs with the remaining portions for lunch the next day.

I was a little concerned that reheating the Toad in the Hole in the microwave for lunch might dry the batter out and make it chewy, but I was wrong, after 3.5 mins at 800W, it was prefect!

Waste not want not; an easy Grapefruit Cake recipe

Somehow or another, I've ended up with 3 big juicy grapefruit in my fruit bowl. I don't usually buy or eat grapefruit, so I really had no idea what to do with them. I considered juicing them, but honestly I find grapefruit juice just a touch too bitter to enjoy in it's unsweetened form.

So, what to do with them?

I started by googling (the source of all inspiration) 'grapefruit cake' to see what would come up. I got a lot of results for something I'd never heard of before called Hollywood Grapefruit Cake which seems to be a cake flavoured with grapefruit, and using yogurt and oil instead of butter making it nice and healthy (or rather, heathIER...). Unfortunately however, I did not have any yogurt in the fridge, boohoo.

Before I got too concerned about these 3 homeless grapefruit, it suddenly dawned on me that grapefruit is a citrus fruit just like any other, just a little more bitter. So I decided to take a rather delicious recipe for Lemon Drizzle Cake by Tana Ramsey (Gordon Ramsey's missus), and adapt it to suit this new fruit, and voila, I introduce you to: Grapefruit Drizzle Cake!

I'm going to skip right to the end, and tell you now that this cake is DELICIOUS. I was as skeptical as you, but it turned out like a cross between an orange and a lemon cake, with just a little je ne sais quoi. Give it a try, you won't be disappointed.

Grapefruit Drizzle Cake - adapted from Tana Ramsey's Lemon Drizzle Cake at www.bbcgoodfood.com

FOR THE CAKE
225g butter or margerine
225g golden caster sugar
4 eggs
finely grated zest of one grapefruit
225g self-raising flour

FOR THE DRIZZLE
juice of 1 grapefruit
85g caster sugar

First things first, preheat your oven to 160 degrees (fan) and line a loaf tin with parchment paper.

Get a big bowl, and in it whisk together the sugar and the butter or margarine until light and fluffy.

TIP: I always use margarine because a) it's just so much easier to work with and b) for everyday baking, it's a huge cost saving compared to butter.

Next, add the eggs, one at a time, mixing between each addition (adding the eggs one-by-one stops the mixture from curdling).

Add the flour and the grapefruit zest and mix until well combined.

Pour it into the loaf tin, and bake in the oven for about 45 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the middle came out clean.

TIP: Always trust your instincts when it comes to your oven! For me this sometimes takes up to 55 minutes, but your oven may be a hot-mama and bake it in 40 minutes flat. The skewer test is always the best way to check for doneness and I keep a pack of bamboo skewers (under £1 for 50 skewers) in the kitchen especially for this purpose.

Once the cake is baked, stir the sugar and the grapefruit juice together, and drizzle over the top of the cake.

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/4942/lemon-drizzle-cake

Chocolate Cocoa Brownies

My fiance and I cycle to work every day. It's a 30 minute ride each way, which doesn't sound like far, but crikey, you'd be surprised how loud my tummy's grumbling by 11am! So I think that I deserve a little snack with my mid-morning coffee. And so do you.

Everyone has their own particular preference with brownies; fudgey, gooey, cakey, crispy. I prefer a fudgey brownie in the afternoon, a gooey rich one in the evening, and a cakey one with a crisp crust in the morning (not all on the same day I promise). This recipe will give you a brownie of the morning category, fairly light, not too rich, but still devilishly chocolatey, with a satisfying cakey crumbly texture.

Think brownie, think expensive? This recipe uses cocoa, instead of solid chocolate. Most brownie recipes call for 3 or more eggs, 200g high quality dark 70% chocolate and copious amounts of butter. The use of cocoa in this recipe, instead of dark chocolate (as well as more conservative quantities of butter -phew) however means that brownies can be an 'everyday' treat, instead of a luxury. In fact, I calculated that this recipe costs £2.51! Cut into 12 slices, that's just 20p per brownie.

Another advantage is that brownies are so moist, that they last for ages in the fridge without getting dry or stale. Mine were still fresh and yummy at the end of the week, and I reckon (if we hadn't scoffed the lot) they'd have been good into the next. This recipe will give you 9 big chunky brownies, or 12 more modest portions. That's at least a weeks worth of brownies for two!

Chocolate Cocoa Brownies - adapted from Leiths Baking Bible

115g margarine
45g cocoa powder
2 eggs
225g caster sugar
1tsp vanilla essence
55g self-raising flour (try wholemeal self-raising, for wholesome brownie points)
50g chopped hazelnuts (or whatever nuts you fancy or happen to have in the cupboard)
55g chocolate chips (optional)

Preheat your oven to 170 degrees (fan) and line a 20cm square cake tin with baking parchment.

Melt the margarine over a low heat. I like to do this in the microwave (30 seconds on 50% power) because its fast and results in less washing up! Once it's melted, stir in the cocoa powder to make a chocolatey paste.

Put the eggs and the sugar in a mixing bowl and beat for a minute or so with a hand blender, or for 5 minutes or so by hand. Then fold in the chocolate paste and vanilla essence.

Sift the flour into the bowl, then fold it in.

Pour half the mixture into the cake tin and spread it evenly. Then sprinkle with the chopped nuts and chocolate chips. Top with the rest of the mixture - think brownie-nut sandwich.

Bake for about 30 minutes, or until a skewer comes out damp, but without uncooked brownie bits stuck to it.

Sandwiches Hate Travelling

I can understand why people are put-off packing their own lunch. Despite their reputation as the lunch-box main course of choice, sandwiches are remarkably dissapointing after a jiggly bike ride in a backpack, and are further compromised by sitting in a slightly fusty plastic container in the fridge, waiting to be eaten.

When lunchtime does finally arrive, being greeted by a squished, soggy tuna mayo sandwich (because at 6:30am I can think of nothing more inventive than tuna) is a miserable dissapointment.

But, wait! Sandwiches are not the only answer to the lunch-box dilemma. It's actually remarkably easy to think of and bake new and exciting things for lunch, and you need not have the same thing day in-day out either. Follow my adventures in the kitchen, cooking up delicious lunch-box treats, and perhaps try some of them out yourself.