In between blogs

Sorry for the lack of bloggage lately. 

Here is a little in betweeny blog.

I’m working on my next one that is not a recipe, entitled Expectations.

I am also working on some new recipes which I made up on the plane home from Bulgaria. 

We visited Kardjali last weekend and had a hectic weekend driving around the mountains in a 4x4; I think they say in Bulgarian, ‘bomba’ (courtesy of Borris), which means excellent.

On the last night we had an awesome feast in the hotel, Greek salad, really tasty kebab type things with rice and what kinda looked like fajitas with mince, but they were actually pancakes.  

So I have got some experimenting to do with mince coming up shortly with a couple of different sauces, savoury pancakes and some different types of rice.

I am also cooking cauliflower and potato soup tomorrow with halumi as I’ve a shit load of cauliflower left over and I don’t like to waste things.    

One last thing, I watched Shutter Island last night and it was AMAZZZINGGG – watch it!!  

Spaghetti with spicy bacon

200g spaghetti

6 slices of bacon

1 onion finely chopped 

1 garlic clove (pestle and mortar)

150-200g mushrooms

1-2 birdseye chillis

Jar of pasta sauce

Handful coriander

Cheese to finish (cheddar or parmesan) 

Garlic bread optional

Grated carrot optional

Serves 3-4

Prep time 10 mins

Cooking time 25 mins

I saw this recipe somewhere years ago but I’ve added some bits of my own.  It’s just a quick, easy one I have always remembered how to cook. 

Prep everything and then get the pasta going.

Fry the onions in a large pan with oil.  Add the bacon, garlic and chilli and cook for 1 or 2 mins.

Add the mushrooms and sauce and cook for around 15-20 mins.

Check how long your garlic bread takes.

Drain the pasta and gradually add to the sauce pan.

Serve with a sprinkle of coriander and grated cheese (and the garlic bread if you’re hungry). 

These aren’t the best pics, I grated some carrot on this occasion and sprinkled around the plate. 

You could try adding a bit of chopped carrot into the mix if you prefer or try celery.   I make this dish a lot, so just a few ideas to make it different.

Another quick and easy one to do similar to this is sausage pasta.  Swap the spaghetti for shells and use either Mattessons horse shoe sausage or frankfurters and I’d probably swap the mushrooms to peppers.

Enjoy

French onion soup

Ingredients

4 medium sized onions  

2 tablespoons of margarine or butter

2 tablespoons Beef broth (easiest to add 3 stock beef cubes to boiling water).

White wine (sherry will also do) or RED wine. 120ml / ½ cup

Dried / fresh thyme  1 teaspoon dried /

2 garlic cloves 

1 French Bread stick 

1 Gruyere or mozzarella cheese to top the bread (cheddar or haloumi will do)

½ teaspoon sugar

Method

*Please note I took this off the web but I can't find the link now as I copied it into Word.  

Its a really nice soup, I loved the twist of floating cheese bread - awesome :) 

So thank you, whoever you are.

___________________________________________

Start by peeling the four onions and chopping it into small bits. 

This is the most laborious part of this recipe - it takes 10 minutes or so to chop up four onions and the tears will flow!

Put the onions into a frying pan, add the butter, margarine or olive oil and turn up to a medium heat. 

Turn the onions every minute or so to ensure they are evenly cooked. Aim to cook the onions until they are a medium brown colour.

Transfer the onions from the frying pan to a large pan and add all the ingredients except the cheese and bread. 

Cook the soup on a medium heat for about 30 minutes. The aim is to get the onions so they are soft but not falling apart.

Cut up the French bread into slices and put them under the grill to very lightly toast them.  When lightly toasted, spread some cheese over each slice of bread.

Just before the soup is ready to be served, put the cheese topped bread under the grill and cook until the cheese starts to bubble.  The bread is then meant to be put on the top of the soup and served, however have it separate to dip if you prefer.

This looks like a snack-sized meal but in fact it's quite filling.

With enough toast and a crisp green side salad, it's a meal all on its own.

Veg & Potato soup with Haloumi

Ingredients

½ bag new potatoes

1 bag mixed veg

3 veg stock cubes 1300ml

3 garlic

1 large onion

Butter

Single cream

Haloumi cheese

APOLOGIES FOR THE LACK OF PICCIES

I think this is my first veggie recipe.

I am dedicating this to @redpepperjelly for the love of haloumi.

I’ve had this sitting on my laptop for ages, I think this is one I made up.   

So; fry the onions in butter. 

Add the stock, potatoes, veg and garlic.

Cook for around 30 mins or until the potatoes and veg are soft. 

Add a pouring of cream. 

Taste.

Serve with sliced haloumi.

The cheese softens and goes really well with the soup.

Try adding haloumi to onion or leek soup.        

I hate people

I have previously never thought of myself as a grumpy person; a slight angerball perhaps, but never grumpy. 

Having spent a few years with my wonderful but grumpy boyfriend, it does appear that I am indeed a complete and utter grumpy f**k and this being at all times of the month.   

I am stealing the fella’s motto ‘I hate people’ for this blog because I continually find myself saying it.

Please let it be known I don’t hate ‘all’ people you understand, this is just a general phrase we like to use for the useless, ignorant, imbeciles (yep imbeciles) that we unfortunately have to share our space with.

You will find a lot of these morons on the bus.  I get on the bus with money and the driver practically snorts at me and tuts, because the night before I didn’t have a premonition and magically realise that I may need the exact money to pay myself on the bus; what a complete b*stard I am.   Anyone would think I asked if I could pay by Visa.

Then you have these people who have obviously paid twice because they take up two seats and sit on the end so you literally have to ask them if you can sit down, like it is their bus or something.

The most annoying of all the imbeciles, is the one who thinks that they are so SPECIAL that the entire bus would want to listen to their ipod; how thoughtful of them.  Just the other day one got on right whilst I was in the middle of enjoying my book, I swear, if I knew I wouldn’t  get arrested for violence I’d have rammed it so far down her throat that a Dr would have to surgically remove it.  

There is etiquette people, etiquette.... when I am standing in a queue in the shop do not ask me if you can come in front of me because you only have two items.  The person behind you only has two items and the person behind them; shall I just wait till the shop empties before I am allowed to go home?

I can understand a little (maybe) why they asked, but that is my prerogative if I want to let you in front of me, because if you ask me, I am most likely to look at you like sh*t and say ‘NO’!!!!

If I hold the door open for you, you should say thank you.  You are not superior to me and by not saying thank you makes me think that you think you are, and subsequently, to be quite honest, makes me want to smash your face in.

I find as I am getting older and the world is producing several more nobbers than usual and the country is being run into the ground, I cannot abide people.

There are too many rules and too many things that are ‘so called’ bad for you. 

Everything needs a guideline or a process or an SOP, there are managers for the managers. 

We are no longer allowed to say how we feel because it may offend someone. 

When we all question the world and life and wonder where we all came from, my guess is that if there is a god he was clearly so disappointed in what he had created, I imagine he decided to start again. 

So watch this space for the next big bang!!  

Please remember people, you are not important, you are not better than the rest of us, the world doesn’t owe you a mother fucking thing. 

Deal with it. 

Wok cooked chicken with Greek basil leaves

Ingredients

3 boneless and skinless chicken breasts

The juice of 1 lime

Salt

Olive oil

Onion  

2 tsp grated fresh ginger

2 tsp garlic puree

½ tsp turmeric

1 tsp chilli powder

1 tbsp ground coriander

Tin chopped tomatoes

125ml warm water

3-4 tbsp Greek basil leaves

½ tsp garam masala

2 tbsp chopped fresh coriander leaves

3-4 green chillis

Nann bread

Basmati rice

This is a recipe out of my curry book but as always I have adapted it slightly. 

I’m using chicken breast instead of thighs.

Tesco online couldn’t find fenugreek leaves so I bought Greek basil leaves instead.

I have used fresh ginger instead of paste.

Coat the chicken with lime and salt and leave for 15-20 mins.

Chop your onion and peppers.  You can add or remove the seeds it doesn’t really matter as the seeds aren’t packing any heat.  This is not a hot dish so you will have to add your own spice if you want it to be hot.  Try some birdseye chillis or some ghost pepper sauce.

Fry your onion then turn the heat right down and add the garlic puree, ginger, turmeric, chilli powder and ground coriander. 

Empty half the tin of tomatoes, gradually increasing the heat and then chuck in the rest of the tin.

Now introduce the marinated chicken and cook for 4 or 5 mins; pour in the warm water and simmer for 8-10 mins.

Whilst the chicken simmers, if you wish to serve with rice, turn that on now.

Add the Greek leaves, coriander, garam masala and peppers. 

Leave this for 1 or 2 mins and stick the Naan bread in the oven.

 Enjoy

Slow cooked spicy sausages

Ingredients

1 garlic clove 

1 onion

6 or 7 sausages

150g mushrooms

1 tin of chopped tomatoes

1 or 2 (hot) birdseye chillis

Handful parsley

Gather all your ingredients to the chopping board.

Slice the garlic or crush in a pestle and mortar if you prefer.

Slice the onions in semi circles or however you want them.

Chop and prep the other ingredients.

I chop the mushrooms up really small.

Get a decent sized oven dish and put the raw sausages in.

Cover with the tomatoes, chilli, garlic, onion, parsley and mushrooms; add salt and pepper.

Spread the ingredients around equally. 

Cover with foil and cook on a low heat (150 degrees) for 2 to 3 hours. 

I keep a check on it to see whether the oven needs turning up or down to make sure they are not cooking too fast as I have made this up so it is just guess work.  The idea is to get a really slow cooked effect so if you’ve a slow cooker try it in there. 

I love sausages when they are soft and the skin isn’t toughened.  Any sausages will do I just use the thick Richmond ones.      

To accompany the sausages try cooking new potatoes then tossing them in oil and finish them off in the oven about 180 degrees for 10 mins to crisp them up. 

Today I have made home cooked roast potatoes.

I peeled 5 large Maris Pipers and cut them in half and part boiled them for about 10 mins in salted water. 

After draining the water I poured them back into the pan and gave the pan a good shake fluffing up the potatoes.  You can do this by using a fork but this way is quicker. 

Using some cheap sunflower oil put quite a few glugs into a large roasting dish and heat for a min or 2 in the oven about 190.  Add the potatoes.  They will take around 45 mins but you need to get them out every 10-15 mins to make sure they don’t stick to the bottom and using a spoon gather the oil and spoon it over the potatoes.  Do this a couple of times throughout cooking. 

If you’re hungry some nice warm bread goes well with this dish and olives to start with.

I made this for the first time for my boyfriend’s family as a Spanish themed meal, it is my own creation. 

We had olives, hot bread with oli oli which is garlic mayo, extremely popular in Spain.

To make Oli Oli I just crushed a load of garlic as small as I could and mixed with normal 

Hellmans mayo, or for extra garlicy do this with a garlic mayo.  It might sound naff but try it on some nice bread its lovely. 

I also made Spanish lemon chicken but I will post this another time.    

I insist this be served with wine.

Enjoy