Spicy Sausage Cassoulet Recipe

This is another recipe my mum used to make us but it is a firm favourite with hubby - he loves it. It's one of those recipes that maybe doesn't look great on a plate or in a bowl but is just so tasty and the leftovers are always great for a lunch or even another dinner.  

The recipe says it serves two but we normally get at least two good dinners out of it and enough for maybe another dinner or a lunch.  I do have a tendency to add a few extra peppers into it but you could do so to taste and if trying to bulk it out add more veg or sausages.

Ingredients

1 Tbsp oil
1 Onion, finely chopped
1 Garlic clove, crushed
1 Red pepper, chopped
2 Sticks celery, chopped
200g Chopped tomatoes
125ml Chicken stock
2 Tsp Dark soy sauce
2 Tsp Mustard
400g Black eyed beans (I always used baked beans - it tastes yummy)
125g Pork Sausages cooked and chopped into small pieces
2oz Breadcrumbs
1oz Grated Cheese
2 Tbsp Parsley chopped

Heat 2 tsp of oil in a large saucepan/wok.  Ensure the pan you use can be put under the grill and won't melt!

Cook sausages on grill, frying pan, actifry - however you like to cook them.

Add onion, garlic, pepper & celery to the pan and cook on low heat for 3-4 minutes stirring occasionally.

Add tomatoes, stock and soy sauce.  Bring to boil, reduce heat and simmer for 15 mins or until sauce begins to thicken.

Chop sausages into small pieces. Add mustard, beans and sausages and cook for further 10 minutes.

Before sauce has thickened

When the sauce had thickened

Mix breadcrumbs, cheese and parsley together and sprinkle over sausage mixture.

Place pan under hot grill for 2-3 minutes until golden brown.

All ready to dig in!

Serve with salad/crusty bread.

Tuna Flan Recipe

This is a dish we would often have at home when I lived with my mum and dad.  It's simple and easy and I love it.  Not being a great fan of fish (only eating tuna or salmon out of a tin) this recipe is great for getting some fishiness into you.

Tuna Flan (Partially eaten - whoops, forgot to take photo before dinner!)

The recipe for the pastry is to the tea as its from my mum.  The filling however will be a little haphazard as it's from me and I've a tendency to add a little here and put a little dash here but if you'd like to try making it here we go....

To make the pastry

125g/4oz Stork Margarine

175g/6oz Plain Flour

1 Tbsp Cold Water

Place the flour in a bowl and rub in the margarine until it looks like breadcrumbs, then add the water.  Blend together.  You can add a little more water if needed but don't make it too sticky (strict instructions from my mum!).

Flour surface and roll the pastry out.  Greases the dish you are using with a little butter.  Place the pastry over the dish and pat into dish to fit.  Trim off edges if necessary.  Once the pastry is in position prick it a few times with a knife to ensure it does not bubble.

Place the pastry in the oven 200oC/400oF/Gas Mark 6 for approximately 25 minutes or until lightly brown.

To make the filling

1 Tin Tuna Chunks

Milk

2 Eggs

Frozen Peas

Cheese for topping

Put tuna in bowl and mash with fork until the chunks are broken up.  Add the two eggs and mix.  Add a handful or more of frozen peas (really add as many as you like and as many as you need depending on how big your dish is).  Add a little milk, until it raised by an inch or two.  Mix until peas are separated and everything is combined.  Pour the mixture on to your pastry base.  Top with grated cheese and cook for approximately 20/30 minutes at 200oC until the cheese is golden brown.

Serve with broccoli or any vegetable, baked potato and lashings of HP sauce (OK so the last one is just a personal favourite).

Spicy Tuna Fish Cakes

Spicy Fish Cakes - yum!

I don't know about you but I'm not a big fish eater.  I would love to enjoy fish more, especially as it's so good for you, but if only it didn't taste so fishy! I only eat tuna and salmon out of a tin (I get mocked that it has to be out of a tin but the fresh stuff tastes, well, more fishy.

My mum used to make salmon fish cakes when we were at home and they were nice.  I've made them since being married but was searching the net for something different and came across these.  The recipe makes 8 fish cakes and so this should serve 4 people depending on how hungry you are.  We found two each was plenty.

Of course you know what I'm going to say, don't you?! This was yet another ad hoc recipe, I had checked the recipe but wasn't buying Dijon mustard just for this and so just used the powdered English mustard that I had in the cupboard.  I didn't add in the onion as I didn't have one to hand and used crushed garlic instead of garlic granules.

When mixing everything in the bowl I was worried if it would taste ok as the mustard smell was very strong but it was surprising how well the flavours blended together.  These were really tasty and I'd definitely make them again, hubby loved them too which is an added bonus.

Ingredients

1 large potato, peeled and cubed
320g tinned tuna, drained
1 egg
1/4 onion, chopped (optional)
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard (or English mustard)
1 tablespoon dry breadcrumbs, or as needed
1 1/2 teaspoons garlic granules (or crushed garlic cloves to taste)
1 teaspoon dried Italian herbs or seasoning (I used mixed herbs)
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 pinch salt and pepper to taste
1 tablespoon olive oil

Method 

Put the potato in a small pot with salted water. Boil until the potato is tender, drain and steam dry for a minute or two then mash.

In a bowl add the tuna, egg, onion, mustard, breadcrumbs, garlic, herbs, cayenne pepper, salt and pepper into the mashed potato until mixed through. Divide the mixture into 8 equal patties.

Heat the oil in the frying pan over a medium heat. Fry the fish cakes until browned and crisp. Approx 3 mins each side.

Smokey Philly Chicken Recipe

Lauren over at You Big Eejit has requested this recipe so here it is. No photos as I haven't made it this week yet but will add when I have.

Ingredients (serves 4)

1 tbsp oil
4 chicken breasts
1 large onion thinly sliced (I dice mine)
2 cloves garlic crushed
1 tbsp plain flour
2 tsp smoked paprika (add more or less to taste)
200ml chicken stock
400g tin chopped tomatoes
120g Philadelphia extra light
Chopped parsley to garish (optional)

Method

Heat half of the oil in a large frying pan with a lid.

Add the chicken and brown for 3 - 4 mins each on both sides. Remove and set aside.

Heat the remaining oil and saute the onion for 2 mins until it starts to soften, then add the garlic and cook for a further minute.

Sprinkle over the flour and paprika and cook, stirring for a further minute.

Slowly pour in the stock, stirring all the time to avoid lumps, then add the tomatoes.

Return the chicken to the pan and simmer, covered for 15 mins until the chicken is cooked through.

Spoon a couple of spoons of the sauce into a separate bowl and beat in the philly until smooth. Add this to the pan and season to taste and cook for a further 2 - 3 mins.

Serve each chicken breast with the sauce spooned over and scattered with parsley.

I serve with broccoli and a baked potato.

Enjoy!

Hairy Bikers Chilli Salad Bowls Recipe

A while back we were flicking through the TV channels and came across the Hairy Bikers Dieters' series.  The episode we happened to stumble upon was them making their chilli salad bowls.  Hubby and I both like chilli and I'd often make it but get bored having it with rice or a baked potato so we were keen to try this out.  We loved it and now if making chilli would have this as our first choice.  I omit a few ingredients and through in also kidney beans and chick peas to bulk it out a bit.

Chilli Salad Bowls' before lashings of sour cream

 Ingredients (serves 4)

300g/10½oz lean minced beef (less than 10% fat)
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander (Optional)
1 tsp hot chilli powder
2 tbsp tomato purée
½ tsp caster sugar
300ml/½ pint beef stock, made with 1 beef stock cube
4 large flour tortillas
1 tsp sunflower oil
1 romaine lettuce or 3 baby gem lettuces, leaves thickly shredded
3 ripe vine tomatoes, sliced
15cm/6in piece cucumber, sliced
4 spring onions, trimmed and sliced (Optional)
½ lime, juice only
40g/1½oz mature cheddar
4 tbsp half-fat crème fraîche
4 tbsp fresh tomato salsa sauce (Optional)
flaked sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
red kidney beans (Optional)

chick peas (Optional)

Method

Put the minced beef, onion and garlic in a medium non-stick saucepan and cook over a high heat for five minutes, stirring with two wooden spoons to break up any clumps of meat. Stir in the cumin, coriander and chilli and cook for two minutes more, stirring constantly. Add the tomato purée, sugar and beef stock and bring to a simmer. Cover the pan and leave to simmer gently over a low heat for 30 minutes. Remove the lid and stir the chilli mixture occasionally.

While the beef is cooking, prepare the tortilla bowls. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Take a sheet of foil about 1 metre/40in long and scrunch it up into a ball about 10cm/4in in diameter. Place it in the centre of a large baking sheet.

Take a tortilla and brush the centre on one side with a little of the oil – this will help prevent it sticking to the foil. Drape the tortilla over the ball of foil, oil-side down, pinching and loosely pleating it to create a bowl shape. 

Tortilla bowls ready for the oven

Bake for five minutes until the bowl shape is set and the tortilla is lightly crisped.

Take the tortilla out of the oven and carefully remove it from the foil – it should be just cool enough to handle. Place the tortilla on an upturned tumbler and press to create a flat base on which to turn the tortilla once cold. 

Moulding on the pint glass to make the bowl shape

The tortilla should still be warm enough to mould to the shape of the glass. Leave to cool while you make the next bowl in the same way. Put each upturned tortilla on a plate as soon as it is ready.

Ready for the filling

Remove the lid from the pan of beef and turn the heat up high. Cook for a further 4–5 minutes, stirring constantly, until most of the liquid has evaporated and the beef is looking fairly dry. Take the pan off the heat.

Toss the lettuce with the tomatoes, cucumber, spring onions and lime juice. Divide the salad between the tortilla bowls and season with black pepper, then top with the hot mince. Coarsely grate some cheddar over each serving and add some crème fraîche and salsa. Tuck in while the beef is warm.

Enjoy!!

Raspberry and white chocolate scones - what not to do

One of my friends I was visiting with recently is taking a cooking/baking course and kindly let me taste some of the goodies.

The goodies on the go this day were raspberry and white chocolate scones. Hers were divine, light, amazingly scrummy and not too sweet. She sent me home with some and hubby and I devoured them. She gave me the recipe so I thought I'd give them a go, after all how hard could it be?

Firstly, (and you'd think this would only be sense) always make sure you've read the recipe so that you have the right ingredients in. Of course, I wasn't this smart! I'd taken a quick glance at the recipe before going out to get the weekly shop and only saw that I needed to get soda bread flour.

I started measuring the ingredients and then suddenly saw that I needed buttermilk..Of course I didn't have buttermilk, it's not something I keep in the house. So online I headed to see if I could make my own (recipe for disaster this especially when the local shop is only 5 minutes away).  I found a website which advised using 1 tablespoon of white vinegar per cup of milk. I thought it was worth a punt so bulldozed on anyway.

Another tip not to do is bake when trying to run a conversation, again something you'd thing is common sense after all you need to concentrate on what you're doing. My lovely mother in law came round and as I'd started baking thought I'd keep going. This of course led to scanning the recipe (I'm not very good at reading and listening at the same time) and throwing in probably a little extra of some ingredients.. This recipe was doomed from the start.

They actually didn't turn out too bad. (rather surprisingly!) After the first batch were cut out of the dough the raspberries started to ooze out when I tried to push the mixture together to get the rest cut out (I guess this is what happens when you put the whole box of raspberries in!) so they turned out a little darker when cooked but once the chocolate was drizzled over them they don't look too bad.

Scones after cooking

The final product

Not a total disaster but not the best attempt in baking at all. If you want to try making these and not making all the rookie mistakes I did here's how!

Ingredients

600g Soda Bread flour
75g Butter
75g Caster sugar
Pinch of salt
Punnet of raspberries (200g - can be less or more depending on how many you like in your scones)
50g White chocolate grated plus a little extra to drizzle on top
325 - 360ml buttermilk (don't let them get too wet or they won't rise)
1 egg beaten with a little milk to brush over the top to glaze scones

Method

Rub the butter into flour and salt until it resembles breadcrumbs, add sugar and grated white chocolate.

Make a well in the centre, pour in the buttermilk gradually and mix to a soft elastic consistency (until it's just damp enough to pick up dry ingredients off edge of bowl, but not sticky).

Put mixture onto a floured surface, gently knead, roll out with floured rolling pin until about 1 1/2cm thick.

Place washed raspberries on half of it and fold other half on top of them.

Level dough out and cut out with cutter.

Place on baking tray with flour on it.  Leave soon between scones.

Brush tops with the egg wash.

Bake in a hot oven 210 oC, 200 oC for fan oven for 15 - 20 minutes.

You know they're ready when you tap the bottom of them and they sound hollow.

Leave to cool on rack before melting a little white chocolate and drizzling it over the top of them.

Hopefully yours will turn out better than my attempt!