'No Worry Curry'

As cheesy as the title sounds this really is a 'No Worry Curry'! Simply heat up your soup/stew and add a couple of tbs of homemade curry powder and a little soy sauce, and hey you have a delicious and easy curry! Serve with rice or naan and a fresh salad. (You can also add some precooked vegetables to the curry to 'bulk it out'.)

Although it may sound strange to use up left over soup or stew, making curry in a Japanese home is not too dissimilar. Usually you would make a soup/stew of vegetables and meat and then add a curry 'stock cube' to the mix. Therefore cooking this way is totally delicious and you won't become part of the population who chucks away left overs!

Roast Ham and Lentil Soup with Stilton and Date Soda Bread

Today we experienced the best of the welsh weather; rain, mist, wind and snow! To counter the cold I made this warming soup, after finding some roast ham (left over from Christmas) in the freezer and surveying the straggle of half used swede, carrots and the last few tiny potatoes (that are always left until the end because no one can be bothered to peel them!) I also added a handful of lentils as I like the creamy texture that the lentils bring which seems to envelop the ham and vegetables and bring the whole soup together. As the wood burner was burning away I cooked it on that and I left the soup to do its thing, while adding more ingredients throughout the different stages of cooking. I also made a super-quick soda bread to go with it to make the meal even more wholesome than it already was!

This soup is border lining into the area of a stew but for me it still classifies as a soup (I'm not sure why, maybe because I started out in the 'soup' mind-set... and for my dad who has been suffering from toothache recently, I removed the ham and blitzed up the rest, and then re-added the ham which resulted in a thick, silky soup which was equally as delicious!

Ingredients

Half a Swede 

2 small Onions

2 Carrots 

6 small Potatoes

handful of Lentils

400 grams of Roast Ham & fat (to fry with)

handful of Peas

5 sprigs of kale 

3 sprigs of chard

handful of land cress

Method

The soup was really easy to make:

1. Chop up all the vegetables and fry them (with fat from the ham) until darkly coloured (for extra flavour), then add the red lentils and top it up with hot water and salt & pepper.

2. When the veg is nearly tender add the chopped ham and garden peas to the pot.

3. At this point make the soda bread (details here). I think dates go so well with the flavour of soda bread and the Stilton complements the sweetness brilliantly.

4. Just before the soup is ready to serve, add the kale and sprinkle a little water cress to add a fresh peppery taste to the dish.

Bulgur Wheat Salad

This is my go to 'Lunch Salad'. It's quick and easy to make and full of flavour. This is a very versatile salad and I usually use what I can find in my fridge and pantry. Here I used Bulgur Wheat but any other type of grain works! I've used rice, quinoa and pearl barley in the past and they were all delicious.

Bulgur Wheat has a mild flavour (similar to rice) and as well as being high in protein and fiber it also has a low calorie count. Having already been precooked before you buy it, it doesn't take long to cook at home.To accompany the Bulgur Wheat I added a grated carrot, finely sliced celery, cucumber and a spring onion. To add a little more flavour I added a few chopped capers and a teaspoon of homemade Tapenade. To finish the salad I squeezed a little lemon juice and a drizzle of Rapeseed oil. 

I also added a few chunks of beetroot and a crumble of Stilton!

Blind Dates (The Chewy Kind)

I cannot overemphasise how brilliant of an ingredient Dates are to use in (processed) sugar free cookery. They are sweet, chewy and sticky in texture and have a wonderful caramel like flavour, making them perfect to use in sweet treats. Although dates do contain a high amount of natural sugar; it does not compare to the negative effects of processed sugar on the body. So to be able to come up with a recipe which is healthy, totally delicious and can be indulged in without feeling too guilty is a triumph!

Yesterday evening I had a chocolate craving, so in the Nigella-Esq way (Que the low lighting and silk dressing gown!), I creeped my way to the kitchen and put a handful of dates, almonds, a few Brazil nuts with a couple of tea spoons of cocoa powder into a blender and blitzed, resulting in a sticky, chocolate, chewy, nutty, brownie like mixture. So leaving the mess behind in the kitchen I took the blitzed up yumminess to the sofa and happily eat out of the bowl, satisfying my sweet tooth!

  

With the remainder of the mixture I rolled it out and sprinkled with desiccated coconut and cocoa powder and left it in the fridge to harden overnight. I also have made them with Pumpkin, Sunflower seeds and peanut butter and they are equally as delicious and slightly cheaper to make.

Ingredients

Nuts e.g. Almonds/Brazil/Pecan/Peanuts...

Dates

Unsweetened Cocoa Powder

Method

Blitz everything up in a food processor until the consistency of the mixture is achieved and put in a baking tray and leave in the fridge to harden, or if you can't wait that long... go ahead and eat it ASAP!

Dauphinoise Potatoes

I've had enough of roast potato's (I don't think this feeling's going to last for long!) as I feel like I've over indulged on them recently, so when faced with a roast chicken I decided to pair it with Dauphinoise Potatoes and a Slow Cooked Red Cabbage dish. Yum.  

Dauphinoise Potatoes (my adaption on the original) is simple to make; just layer your potato's and add a little onion, garlic,butter, herbs, olive oil and seasoning until you have filled up the dish, then add the cream and milk and top with cheese. Bake in the oven and your left with a golden crusted creamy potato heaven!!

Pullet Eggs...

A couple of weeks ago I managed to catch an episode of 'Friday Night Feast' presented by Jamie Oliver and Jimmy Doherty. They did a feature on Pullet eggs, which are the first few eggs that a hen lays when starting her egg cycle; resulting in a slightly smaller than average egg. The programme visited a free range egg farm in Sussex which like other farmers has to either throw away or sell the "mini eggs" for a very small amount. Jimmy Doherty stated that: "every day in the UK more than 1.5 million small eggs are thrown on the scrapheap or sold for peanuts to be turned into liquid egg,” I (naively) had no idea that this was happening in the UK and also I suppose the whole world. With so much food poverty in our country and more food banks than ever being used, it is as Jimmy states 'unthinkable'. Although in a society that throws away more than 'fifteen million tonnes' each year, maybe this is not much a surprise? Anyway fast forward to the next morning where I woke up and fancied an egg for breakfast (laid by our lovely young ladies who have just started laying this week, pause for a celebratory clap!). I realised when taking an egg out of the box that these fine eggs where 'pullet eggs', which if we were commercially producing, would be thrown away. But instead I poached my pullet egg, and it was DELICIOUS! A Pullet egg has a firmer white and yolk so should be considered as a "premium" product. As you can see in my picture of the poached egg, there is no excuse for these to be chucked away.

Thanks to influential individuals such as Jaime Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, we are able to highlight wastage like this, and prevent it from happening.

Morning Pullet Omelet

Star Anise and Cinnamon Biscuits

I've been craving cinnamon this week (I reckon I'm having withdrawal symptoms from Christmas!) and I had an urge to make some biscuits but chose to make a slightly healthier version by using olive oil. So I went ahead and found this recipe and made them! However, the recipe called for aniseed's, and living out in the middle of nowhere means that when we run out of an ingredient, we really have run out! So I used Star Anise and Cinnamon instead.

Instead of brushing the biscuits with egg white and sugar, I baked them first for 10 minutes and then brushed them with honey, sprinkled with granulated sugar and cinnamon and cooked for a further 5 minutes, until really crisp! I found that the star anise worked really well with the flavour of the olive oil and baking them for that little bit longer gave the biscuits a satisfying crunch!

They are a rather different to 'traditional' biscuits, but I and my family rather loved these!