Freestyle Friday #17

At the end of this week, I ended up with half an onion and half a green pepper in the fridge. I can't even remember what the other halves of them were used in... Not that it matters. The remaining halves I gently sauteéd for a few minutes, then added some curry poweder and sauteéd for a few more.

Just after I added the curry powder.

While this was going on, I had some basmati rice cooking. I had originally planned to overcook the rice, mash it into a sort of paste, and then make rice patty kind of things. But, I remembered that basmati rice (which is the only rice I have) isn't as 'sticky' as other types such as long grain, so I changed my plan. When the onion and pepper were soft, I tipped the rice into the pan, along with a teaspoon or so of curry paste. I like to make my own curry paste usually, but I used some out of a jar I have had for absolutely aaaaages, because I hate waste! And there is nothing wrong with the shop bought stuff every now and then!

I cooked it like this for about five minutes, then flipped it onto a plate and slid it back into the pan to cook the other side.

I got a quick snap of it when I flipped it out as it stayed together remarkably well, in case it all fell apart when I put it back in the pan!

 



 

I know I could have used an egg to bind it. But that would be too easy. Anyway, it did actually stay together quite well. There were a few bits of rice that were crunchy, and the rest of it was just like normal rice, only with slightly more bite- but it wasn't the kind of undercooked 'bite'. As it is currently grey and raining outside, the warmth and spiciness of this was very much welcome. Although imagine my horror when, after washing up, I realised that I had forgot to add in the sultanas I was going to! Me. Forget dried fruit. Let us never speak of this occasion again... All I can say is that they made a nice dessert, along with a cup of rooibos tea!

 

Steamy!

 

 

I added some mint leaves as a garnish because I had some. That is all I can say about that. It's Freestyle Friday, after all.



Sweet Potatoes and Salsa

As my mum and dad are visiting today, and I am off on Friday (so I can do Freestyle Friday!), I only needed four meals for this week. But for once, I didn't have any idea of what I wanted to cook! I don't really know how it came about, but I ended up baking four sweet potatoes, and making some salsa to go with them.

The salsa has onions, green pepper, tomatoes and chilli powder in. Of course, I tasted it while it was cooking, and it isn't that sweet... so I think it is the perfect counterpart to the sweet potatoes. To bake the potatoes I just stabbed them all over with a fork, stuck a knife into each one and put them in the oven at Gas Mark 6 for about an hour and ten minutes. Perfectly cooked, I have to say! They don't have a crispy skin, but I will look forward to that for another day.

The onions and peppers for the salsa.

All ready!

Lucious, Luxurious Lamb and Lentils

I have been looking forward to this soup since  I decided to make it, earlier this week. It is one I have made before at home, and I multiplied the quantities by one and a half to make seven portions, which is enough for my week of meals. The name of the recipe is Lamb, Lentil and Chilli Soup, and there aren't really many more ingredients! Just celery, carrots, onion and stock. Oh, and ground cumin and coriander. But that still isn't many.

What looks like industrial quantities of vegetables!

My lovely browned lamb. I'm glad I took the time to brown it properly in batches, I do think it's worth it. This may not look like a lot for seven people, but the lentils and vegetables more than make up the amount so it does go quite far. I browned the lamb in chilli oil as the only chilli in the original recipe was the garnish. I'm not sure that it made a huuuuge amount of difference, but it's been quite a while since I made it so I don't know. Oh well, I'll just have to make it again soon with plain oil to conmpare...

The vegetables softening.

So. Close!

About half way through cooking.

Garnished with parsley, a blob of natural yoghurt and a blob of chilli paste.

 

 

I love this soup. As it simmers for an hour and twenty minutes, you occasionally give it a 'mash', so it is pretty much smooth by the time it's done. But, there is the lamb, and of course, you can probably see in the photo that not all the lentils are mashed. I wouldn't want it to be totally smooth anyway, the bite of the lentils is good. Next to the tender lamb, and the velvety spiced pureé of the smooth vegetables, this really does make for a very special dish. 

Crisp and Crunchy?

This is my last noodle post, I promise... For a week at least, anyway ;-) I said in this post that I wanted the noodles to be crispy, and that I had some ideas of what to do tonight to make them crispy. I have to say, it kind of worked! Again, the noodles weren't all crispy, but it was much closer to what I wanted so I can't be too unhappy. This is what I ended up with.

All I did was to tip the noodles on to a baking tray, add some peas and stick it on the top shelf of the oven. The edges of the mixture-spread-thingy did go really crispy, which was exactly what I was aiming for. The middle, not so much, but I actually really enjoyed it anyway. The dish changed in other ways as well, in terms of the vegetables. The peppers went quite soft and tasted even sweeter. The mangetout dried, and went crispy at the ends. And the peas which I just added this time, sort of dehydrated and had a more chewy inside but a slightly crisp outside. I would eat them like that as a snack! I've never had peas like that, and I'm pleased I found a new way of eating them. I also looked in the cupboard for something to drizzle on the top, and instead of the usual Chinese garnish of soy sauce, I went for oyster sauce. As the main taste of the noodles was quite mellow, the ever so slightly sharp oyster sauce really complimented them. Yes, it looks like a mess, but I was happy with it and that is what matters!

Freestyle Friday #16

Sorry if you're getting sick of posts about noodles... but I'm not. Especially ones with peanut butter in! Anyway, for Freestyle Friday with my noodles, I only needed to add one extra ingredient, which was an egg! I had only bought the eggs that day, but as I hadn't planned on using them for Freestyle Friday, it still counts. Well, I think it does!

What I made was an egg noodle... thing. I can never think of names for my dishes! Let me explain, and it will hopefully become a little bit clearer. To start with, I heated the noodles in the microwave to make them a little bit mroe malleable, so they would be easier to mix in the egg and shape. While that was happening, I heated a frying pan, and beat one egg. Then I just mixed the egg into the noodles and tipped the whole lot into the pan!

 

 

You can see that I rather messed it up getting it out of the pan, but it still tasted good! I wanted the noodles to go crispy originally, but I think the reason they didn't was because either because the pan wasn't hot enough, or the mix wasn't spread thinly enough. Or maybe both.

 

 

I have one more portion of noodles left, so I have another crack at getting them crispy. I have two ideas in mind, so I will try one of them tonight and let you know how it turns out...

Sumptuos Sesame and Perfect Peanut Noodles

Last week, I had a pretty firm idea of what I was going to cook as my meal for the week. I was going to do a beef stew, for no other reason than that I really wanted one! But then I got to thinking. I am going to be transporting this to work in a plastic tub four days out of the seven. As the tubs I'm using aren't 'click-lock' ones, there is slight potential for sauce leakage. Which would mean a smelly, wet bag, and wasted sauce. Neither of which are good. So I decied to wait until after work finishes, in four weeks time. The way the meals I want to make are stacking up, I'll have planned them until Christmas soon!

I am a little disappointed about the beef stew, but I did make something equally delicious. It is a recipe from the Kindle app I have on my ipad. I made a point of looking through them the other day because I always forget about them when I do my menus! I bookmarked all the larger serving recipes that would be good for my week-long meal plans as well. One that I came across was Sesame Peanut Noodles. It was a Nigella Lawson recipe. But you probably could have guessed that...

Theses are the salad ingredients; beansprouts, mangetout, red pepper, spring onion, coriander and sesame seeds...

...and noodles! I think I need to get bigger saucepans and bowls if the ratatouille and these noodles are anything to go by.

Even though the dressing has quite a few ingredients, quite a few of them you'll probabaly have in the cupboard already. Well, I do anyway! I have had very similar dressings before, and it is one that I really like- it has the whole sweet and salty thing going on. In this case, there was also a really great kick from some chilli paste. Plus, it had peanut butter in. And anything with peanut butter in can only be a good thing, right?

 

Even though it wasn't in the recipe, I added some tinned tuna. I knew I wanted to add something to it, and toyed with several ideas (sausages and chicken amongst others!) and in the supermarket I went for tuna. To be honest, you don't need to add anything, the noodles were yummy on their own, but the tuna did go very well. I have to say, I am really looking forward to this for the next week.

 

 

You may have read about the calzone I had for Freestyle Friday #15. Well, I did indeed have it for tea on Friday. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and it was quite handy to eat at the train station as I didn't need any cutlery and I could hold it in one hand while I got on the train! So if you find you have to eat on the go and still want to enjoy homemade food, calzone or a pasty could be the way to go. 

Freestyle Friday #15

I know this is a bit in advance, but I thought that as I've already made the meal, I may as well tell you about it. I had a pizza base in the freezer, as I quite often do, and I decided to use it in a slightly different way to normal. Instead of making a normal pizza, I made a calzone. If you don't know, a calzone is a folded over pizza... it is a bit like an Italian Cornish pastie really! Inside I had tomato pureé, a little mozzarella, some jalapenos, and slightly more unusual, turkey mince and capers. I have had pizzas with turkey mince and capers on, but never together. But you never know. It could be the best combination I've ever had. Oh, and I also added one each of a shredded cos lettuce and iceberg lettuce leaf, and some peas, just because I like a bit of vegetables/greenery with all my meals if I can! The turkey mince was a portion I had cooked previously and frozen, but the peas I just put in from frozen, as they don't take much cooking at all... and I could see through the hole that they are cooked so it was clearly the right decision...

 

Yes, it's a bit messy, but I don't mind (too much!). It was okay until I streched the half without the filling on over the top of the filling to seal it. Maybe it was a bit overfilled, but at least it will be filling, and I didn't want to have all crust and no filling. Saying that, I like a large crust margin on my pizzas, and I always eat the crust at the end! I didn't know how long to cook it for, but I just trusted my instinct and took it out when it was this lovely golden brown colour. As the meat was already cooked I wasn't too worried, but I didn't want the dough to be raw. I know the dough is cooked, as I had to break a corner off to fit it in my tub! It smelled lovely when it came out of the oven, very pizza-like- I can't believe I have to wait until Friday to try it!