It has been a while…

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…but I had dinner with Tom a couple of nights ago and he told me that he had actually read this blog and used some of the recipes (in fact all of them as it turns out), so it is with renewed vigour and inspiration that I return to have another go at bashing something out regularly enough that I will have the courage to ask someone to start sending traffic this way.

The problem is that my kids (and yours, I might guess) display a somewhat limited sense of adventure when it comes to food and as a result, Friday Night Pasta tends to be the only thing they ask for, regardless of whether it is indeed Friday night, Saturday afternoon or Sunday morning. I just have to be strong. That said, Friday night pasta is a goodie, and one that I don’t think I’ve covered as I always thought it too simple – but it is probably a good way of easing myself back in – I’ll add a photo next time I cook it (next Friday I would imagine), but in the meantime…

Friday Night Pasta
Finely chop a decent sized onion and three cloves of garlic and fry them in lots of olive oil. Add oregano, salt, black pepper and caraway seeds to the pan (have you noticed how many spices start with c?).
As they are frying gently, add boiling water to a pan along with salt and oil, and add whatever dried pasta you fancy – I like to use penne or rigatoni.

Add the onions to the a saucepan of tinned chopped tomatoes and let them simmer together as the pasta is cooking. Add a dash of red wine if you fancy a little deeper flavour.

When the pasta is ready, drain it, add it to the sauce and if you have it, throw in a handful of chopped basil.

Serve it in bowls, grate parmesan all over and if you fancy, drop a big dollop of yoghurt or soured cream on top (and if you need to spice it up, just a few drops of tabasco).

Kids are happy, I’m happy…

Back with a herring and a mandoline

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I used to turn over to those shopping channels from time to time and smirk at the infomercials selling the new “wonderchopper pro” a device so innovative that it would change your life by slicing, julienning(?) and chopping the hell out of anything that you dare to pass through its plastic protected jaws, but as far as I was concerned a good knife was all you needed to prepare anything you want. Year after year however, I’ve been gradually worn down to the point where I have come to the conclusion that a decent quality mandoline is probably a good idea. And so it was that this morning I succumbed and got myself one – not on the shopping channel – god no – but from somewhere probably just as bad – so bad in fact that I dare not speak its name.

Anyway, armed with mandoline and a desire to chop, I got myself some veg and a fish and set out trying to decide what to do with them. This is what I came up with:

Pan fried herring with courgette, onion and chilli salad

You need a herring for each person. Gut and fillet the herring and slice across the skin with a sharp knife (so that when you fry it, it doesn’t curl), then season the fillets and set aside.

Now take a courgette and julienne it, then put it in a bowl with finely sliced red onion, red chilli and basil or coriander leaves. Season well and add the juice of a lime and plenty of olive oil.

Fry the herring and when it’s ready serve with the courgette salad.

It’s very light indeed so would work well as a starter or with two fish for a main course. So light in fact that I’m still hungry…

Times Plus and the best breakfast

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It’s 10am on Friday and we’ve just spent the last 24 hours giving birth to the particularly troublesome child that is Times Plus (it’s uncanny how many parallels there are between having a baby and launching a website – the only notable exceptions being that the conception is considerably less enjoyable and the birth involves slightly fewer fluids).

Anyway, now I’m hungry. I’ve spent the last two weeks having this breakfast every weekday morning and it is so good, although perhaps a little too simple.

Granola with blueberries and yoghurt

At the start of the week, buy a 500ml pot of natural yoghurt, a 425g pot of granola (Lovedean is my favourite) and two punnets of blueberries.

Then each morning, take a few large spoonfuls the granola, a few spoonfuls of the yoghurt and a good handful of the blueberries. Put them in a bowl. Eat them. Then feel good about yourself for the rest of the day.

Do this every morning and, if you got the measures right, on Friday you can take the yoghurt pot with hopefully a welcoming glut of uneaten yoghurt looking up at you and tip in the remaining granola and blueberries – perfect.

The idea that I end the week having eaten everything I started the week with – and in the pot I bought it in – panders nicely to my need for symmetry

(By the way – you don’t strictly need two punnets of blueberries, but I like to allow for the theft off the odd sneaky handful for when I need perking up during the day…)

It tastes better than it looks...

A Spanish sausage…

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The shorts are baying for food and I have to appease them. We’ve been playing with Garage Band all morning – I even managed to get up into the attic and fish out an old microphone which never quite saw the action it was destined for – but now they’re hanging off my arms begging for snacks. Unperturbed, I drag them to the shops to go a find something a little more nutritionally acceptable than the cheese strings they have just seen flashed on the TV and are now shouting for. On the way out I notice a Moro cookbook which I have never graced with my attention. Here’s its big chance –

Chorizo with beans and tomatoes

Take a tin of butter beans, drain it and pop into a saucepan with a large handful of cherry tomatoes cut in half. Season and add lots of good olive oil.

In the meantime, cut the chorizo into healthy slices, and put in a hot frying pan. Finely chop a clove of garlic and just before the chorizo is lovely and crispy on the outside (should only take a couple of minutes) add the garlic into the pan. After another thirty seconds, tip all the contents of the frying pan into the now bubbling bean and tomato mixture and take it off the heat and tip into a serving bowl.

Finely chop a small red onion and a handful of parsley/thyme/basil/whatever you prefer.

Serve with bread and maybe even a dollop of soured cream if you’re feeling adventurous (or Polish)

Chorizo with beans and tomatoes

Breakfast

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Bit of a strange one this, but the shorts loved it so it is worthy of getting down on here (and it is a perfect use of my leftover Iranian rice – see below – and a great excuse for cooking too much of said rice). For the chronologically astute and the health conscious, I expect a certain level of concern over the fact that I am eating leftover rice that I cooked a week ago – I make no guarantees, but I stuck it in the fridge so I’m going to risk it. Just don’t try this at home. And don’t start commenting on here if you get a nasty dose of Bacillus Cereus. On second thoughts – go ahead and comment on here – I could do with a bit of adverse publicity to give dadattheweekend the global recognition it clearly deserves…

Sausage egg fried rice

Take a pack of sausages and fry them gently in a pan.

When they are almost done, take another frying pan with a good glug of olive oil and fry a finely chopped shallot. Once it has softened, add your cold rice and a few sprigs of thyme and heat for a few minutes on a moderate flame. If you’re using the Iranian rice recipe below, there is plenty of butter in it so no need for more. If you’re not, add a nob of butter.

Now break up the sausages with a wooden spatula (amazing how easy it is to misspell that word) and add them to the rice and pour in two beaten eggs. Now stir the whole lot vigorously for about 30 seconds ensuring the egg gets well distributed.

Sausage egg fried rice

Immediately take off the heat and serve. You’ll see from the picture that I got there a little too late with the camera…

Really, really good rice (Iranian style)

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I promised this last night and I just had a meeting cancelled, and its Friday, and this will only take a few minutes, and I’ve got P on my mind so this seems like the perfect time to explain how to make the best rice you have ever tasted. Seriously seriously good rice. Just give it a go and tell me that I’m not right – I challenge you…

I’m going to do this in proportions – I’ll leave the quantities up to you although to be honest there is absolutely nothing wrong with cooking too much rice – in fact you should try to cook too much rice – soo many things can be done with leftover rice, so just go crazy. Saying that, I reckon that half a mug of rice should just about do for one person…

Anyway, measure out how much rice you want and put it into a saucepan. Make sure it’s plain Basmati rice – no other rice will work for this recipe. Then pour in cold water from the tap and clean the rice by agitating it with your fingers. Pour out most of the water (while keeping the rice in the pan – it’s easier than it sounds) and refill with fresh water. Keep doing this until the water stops getting cloudy (this is you removing the excess starch from the rice), then drain off the remaining water.

Now add fresh water – one and a half times as much water as you had rice (that doesn’t read particularly well – so if you had a cup of rice, add a cup and a half of water…)

Add a LARGE knob of butter, a large sprinkle of salt, give it a good stir and put it on a medium heat on the hob. Uncovered. Once it comes to the boil, watch it closely.

As soon as the water level is just above the rice, put the saucepan lid, wrapped in a clean tea towel, firmly onto the pan. You need to make a tight seal so steam can’t escape. Now turn the heat to its lowest setting. Seriously – find the smallest ring on your hob and turn it down as far as it will go.

Now leave it for 40 minutes. Yes I know, but just give it a try. And don’t be tempted to have a peek. 40 minutes, all closed up and then open the lid to the best rice you ever had. It will have a golden crunchy crust on the bottom and the rest will be light and fluffy. Break up the crunchy bottom, give it all a little mix and serve it up. Oh yes…

poor little lamb…

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I got overzealous in the the supermarket this weekend while the shorts were here and now I’m left with an unused pack of lamb mince – I’m not really sure why I bought it, but for some reason it found its way into my trolley and now it sits meekly in the fridge peeking up at me each time I take a look inside. Tonight I can’t bear the guilt any longer so I decide to put it out of its misery – bit of an experiment this one…

Wrap

Minced lamb wraps

Fry the lamb and put it into a saucepan with a tin of chopped tomatoes. Now fry a finely chopped onion, half a red chilli and a good sprinkling of cumin seeds, caraway seeds, thyme, parsley and anything else you fancy. Add it to the saucepan, season well and let it cook together for 15 minutes.

 

Take a flour tortilla (or wrap – I think they’re pretty much the same thing) lay it on a plate and spoon some of the mince on to it with chopped lettuce, a nice dollop of sour cream and tabasco if you like it spicy.

Wrap the wrap and eat it quickly. Tastes good. And no more feelings of guilt…

Postscript:
A day later and I’ve got a load of last night’s lamb left over – so a couple of ideas: it would be really good as a stuffing for red peppers (ok so it’s a bit 70s but it’s pretty good – just give it a go – or try aubergine instead – perfect for lamb) – just chuck the mix in a red pepper and shove it in the over for half an hour at about 180 degrees. Or, with Basmati rice – even better… Next time I write, I’ll explain how to cook rice the Iranian way – by far the best rice you’ll ever eat…

A lovely lunch

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It’s August bank holiday weekend and the newspapers are trying to work out whether this was the hottest, wettest, windiest or coldest summer since records began. My bet’s on two of the above…

Anyway, as it turns out, the sun is out, there’s warmth in the air and I have a hankering for clams with linguine. Sadly the fishmonger is closed and Waitrose aren’t playing ball – but no worries, I decide to give it a go with mussels – here’s what to do:

Mussels with Linguine

Clean up your mussels, removing the beards and leave in water. They should all be pretty much closed – discard those that are not. Now get a saucepan with a few glugs of white wine and bring to the boil, then add the mussels and put on the lid. After a few minutes have a quick look – the mussels should now be open – take them off the heat and put to the side.

In the meantime, finely chop a couple of shallots, an inch of red chilli and a handful of parsley.

Fill a saucepan with boiling salty water and drop in the linguine.
Fry the shallots and chilli in a saucepan with butter and olive oil, salt and pepper. Pick the mussels from the shells (discard any that don’t fully open) and when the shallots are soft start to incorporate the liquid from the pan you cooked the mussels in and let it reduce.

When the linguine is ready, drain the linguine and throw in the mussels, chopped parsley and the reduced wine and shallot sauce. Mix it all together and serve with crusty bread (as always it seems) – Gorge!!

mussels