Spicy Pork stew with sweet potatoes and beans

I'm on a bit of a mission to try to use up food from my freezer and dry goods from the larder.  I had four pork steaks in the freezer which with some extra ingredients would make a meal for Saturday and also enough left for Monday night's dinner.

I had picked up a copy of February's Delicious Magazine and saw a recipe for Spicy pork stew with sweet potatoes and beans.  The recipe combines spices and herbs with pork, tomatoes, sweet potatoes and kidney beans in a sweet and warming stew with just the right level of spice for me.  The recipe suggested serving the stew with crusty bread, but to make it go further I added some basmati rice from my larder supplies!

As the recipe contains both oregano and coriander, I am entering it for the Lavender and Lovage,  Herbs on Saturday which is being hosted this month by Vanesther at Bangers and Mash

Labels: Bangers and Mash, Delicious Magazine, Herbs on Saturday, Lavender and Lovage

posted by Janice @ 20:21 10 Comments

Seasonal Cheese and Leek Flatbread Sandwich

Jacqueline has set us a slightly different challenge for  this month's No Croutons Required,  she says "I would like to focus on what is often served alongside soup or a salad. I am thinking of the humble sandwich.  Toasted or plain, I would like you to come up with an interesting sandwich. The only stipulation is that it must be suitable for vegetarians."

My Mum probably makes the best sandwiches, she always ensures that there was plenty of filling and that the filling goest right to the edge of the sandwich, the best way to achieve this is by cutting off the crusts. But I'm not going to make that kind of sandwich because ever since the early stages of the Great British Bake Off, I've been hankering to make some flatbreads.
 I used the recipe for 'Magic Bread Dough' from Hugh Fearnly Whittingstall's River Cottage Veg Everyday.It's an interesting mix of strong and plain flour and something I haven't tried before.
  
There is plenty of dough to make several different flatbreads. For the dough for my sandwich I added some chopped rosemary.  You can cook the flatbreads on a griddle but I put them in a hot (240C) oven for about 5-10 minutes.

This one is more like a pizza.  I spread the dough with, one of my favourite sauces, Maggi Chilli and Tomato Sauce straight from the bottle.  Then sprinkled over some grated Lockerbie Cheddar Cheese.


For the sandwich filling, I adapted  Hugh F-W's  Leek and Cheese Toastie from River Cottage Veg to lower the calorie count.

Leek and Cottage Cheese Flatbread Sandwich

15g butter
2 medium leeks, trimmed and finely chopped (white and pale green part only)
A couple of sprigs of thyme, leaves only
3 tablespoons of cottage cheese
1 tsp cornflour
50g cheddar
1 large rosemary flatbread
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Melt the butter in a frying plan and add the leeks.  Cook gently until softened. Stir in the thyme.  Mix the cornflour with some of the liquid from the cottage cheese and add to the pan, add the cottage cheese and warm through.  Take off the heat and add two-thirds of the cheese .

Pile the leek and cheese filling onto one half of the flatbread and fold over, sprinkle over the rest of the cheese and place under a hot grill for a couple of minutes until the cheese melts.




Serve with salad

I served my sandwich with a Carrot, Cucumber and Apple Salad with chopped Pistachio nuts


To finish off, I'd like to show you the sweet flatbread that I made, using the basic dough a few dried apricots, chopped white chocolate and ground almonds.


After it was baked, I glazed it with honey and put it back in the oven for a couple of minutes. 
I'm entering this for No Croutons Required run by Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes and Lisa from Lisa's Kitchen.

Labels: apples, apricots, carrots, flatbread, ground almonds, Herbs on Saturday, Leeks, No Croutons Required, salad, sandwiches, Simple and in Season, white chocolate

posted by Janice @ 21:26 10 Comments

Roasted Butternut Squash and Tomato Tart - Herbs on Saturday

I'm not quite sure what I did before I discovered Butternut Squash.  It has to be the most versatile of vegetables, that sweet, firm flesh goes so well with so many different flavours.  I combined the squash with tomatoes, bacon and basil in this tart with a single small courgette from my garden which needed to be used up.  As I am trying to cut back on calories, I used 0% Greek yogurt in the custard mix and it worked really well.  I had very positive comments from the family about this tart.  Vegetarians can just leave out the bacon with very little detriment to the texture and flavour.

Roasted Butternut Squash and Tomato Tart

1 quantity of shortcrust pastry  baked blind

1 Butternut Squash
8 small vine tomatoes, halved
1 courgette, sliced
8 rashers of streaky bacon
1 tbsp olive oil
200g 0% fat Greek Yogurt
3 large free range eggs
salt & freshly ground pepper
8 fresh basil leaves

1. Peel squash and deseed.  Cut into even sized pieces and put into a roasting tin.
2. Cut tomatoes in half and slice the courgette, place in roasting tin with squash.
3. Pour over the oil and mix through the vegetables, sprinkle with 1/2 tsp salt
4. Roast in an oven 200C for 30 minutes until the butternut squash is soft and slightly caramelised round the edges.
5.  Chop the streaky bacon into pieces and spread over the vegetables, roast for a further 10 minutes until crisp.


6. Place the vegetables and bacon into the pastry case.
7. In a bowl, whisk the eggs and stir in the 0% Greek yogurt, season with salt and pepper.
8. Pour the mixture over the vegetables.
9. Tear up the basil leaves and spread them evenly across the tart, push them down into the egg mixture.

10. Bake at 180C for 30 - 35 minutes until the egg mixture is set.

 I'm entering this tart for Herbs on Saturday run by Karen at Lavender and Lovage.

Labels: 0% Greek Yogurt, butternut squash, Herbs on Saturday, Lavender and Lovage, quiche, roasted tomatoes, tart

posted by Janice @ 08:51 19 Comments

Mediterranean Fish on Herbed Potato Gratin

Mediterranean Fish with Herbed Potato Gratin

Ingredients
4 Tilapia Fillets
2 medium courgettes
4 tomatoes
2 cloves garlic
1 tbsp olive oil
salt & pepper
4 large basil leaves

For the potato
800g new potatoes
100g Gruyere cheese, grated
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp mixed chopped fresh herbs (rosemary, thyme, marjoram)

1. Quarter the potatoes and boil until just soft.
2. Mix one tbsp of olive oil, cheese, the herbs and seasoning into the potatoes.
3. Put the second tbsp of olive oil in the bottom of an ovenproof dish and put in the oven at 200C.
4. Press the potato mixture into the base of the dish and bake for 30 minutes.

For the fish
1. Oil four pieces of foil.
2. Place the fish fillet on the foil.
3. Slice the courgettes and divide between the four parcels,
4. Slice the tomatoes and divide between the parcels.
5. Tear the basil leaves and add to the parcels.
6. Season with salt and freshly ground pepper.
7. Fold up the foil into a tight parcel and place on a baking tray.
8. Bake in the oven for 15-20mins at 200C.

To Serve
1. After 30 mintues, remove the potato dish, loosen around the edges and turn onto an ovenproof plate, put it back into the oven for 5 minutes to brown. 
2. Remove the plated potato gratin and divide it into four slices.
3. Place the potato slice onto the plate.
4. Open the fish parcel and, using  a fish slice, lift the fish and vegetables and place on top of the potato gratin.

This is a really easy dish to make, it is light and fresh just like the Sharps Single Brew Reserve which I served with the dish.

Labels: beer, courgettes, fish, herbs, Herbs on Saturday, Lavender and Lovage, potatoes, Sharps Connoisseur Range, tomatoes, zucchini

posted by Janice @ 21:10 2 Comments

Beetroot with Chorizo, Feta and Mint

This recipe has been inspired by a recipe from BBC Good Food July 2012.  However, I made some changes in the method to suit my own purposes!

Labels: balsamic vinegar, beetroot, chorizo, feta cheese, Herbs on Saturday, mint, salad

posted by Janice @ 19:54 5 Comments

Cheese and Herb Scone and a Giveaway

It's Saturday.  It's lunch time, open the fridge...feta, celery, fennel and a couple of sweet cured herring.  So, I can make salad but... OH NO!  There is no bread, a dried up heel of homemade bread and nothing of interest in the freezer.  Not enough time to make fresh for lunch... but what is this?   A bag of scone mix made in June - PERFECT!

Honestly, that's how it often is when I am making lunch.  I seem to be able to plan the main meal of the day, but forage in my fridge and cupboards for lunch!

In the back of my mind, I am always wondering how I can fit my meals with a blog challenge, and Herbs on Saturday  hosted by Karen at Lavender and Lovage,  came to mind, so off to the garden for some chives, thyme and rosemary.  Do you like my new mixing jug?  I got it half price in the sales and I love it, my husband refers to it as my 'guzzunder' or 'potty' he is so coarse, it does look a bit like a potty though - ha ha!


Back to the recipe.  Scone, herbs and what else?  I remember Jac of Tinned Tomatoes blogged some fabulous cheese scones she made with her son, Cooper, when they were in Cyprus.  We always have lots of cheese so including that is no problem.

Basic Scone Mix

225g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
50g soft margarine or butter

Put the flour and baking powder in a bowl, add the magarine or butter and rub it in wiht your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.

This is your basic mix, you can double or treble it, bag or box it and freeze for up to three months.

For a sweet scone, add 25g caster sugar
For a savoury scone, add a pinch of salt

Heat the oven to 200C and lightly grease a baking sheet.

For a Cheese and Herb Scone add a tablespoon of finely chopped herbs, I used chives, rosemary and thyme, then stir in 100g of cheese, I used a mixture of Gran Padano and Cheddar (whatever you have in the fridge).

Crack the egg into a measure, lightly beat it and then make up to 150ml with milk.  Stir in the egg and milk and mix to a soft dough.  Turn out  and either roll out to 1.25cm thickness and cut out individual scone rounds or slap the whole thing on a baking sheet.

Grate over some more cheese to cover the top.  For individual scones bake for 10 minutes, for a mega-scone bake for 20 minutes until golden brown. Remove from baking sheet and place on a wire rack to cool.



I served the scone with some salad leaves from my garden  sweet pickled herring and Feta cheese, celery, fennel and walnut salad dressed with a French dressing of olive oil and white wine vinegar.


It was just perfect with the salad, I would probably add more herbs next time as they were rather overpowered by the cheese, but overall, it was an ideal quick bread.

And so to the Giveaway.  I mentioned that I foraged in my fridge and cupboards,  I also forage a bit in the hedgerows around my farm, I was watching Three Go Mad at River Cottage (fabulous) and thought I really should make Nettle Soup as we have loads of nettles.  Anyway, you now have the chance to win a foraging classic from The Works,  'Food for Free' by Richard Mabey. Did you know you could order books from the The Works online?  There are so many to choose from and such great bargains.

Follow the instructions on the Rafflecopter widget to enter.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Labels: Food for Free, giveaway, Herbs on Saturday, salad, Scones, win

posted by Janice @ 20:50 80 Comments

Tabbouleh - Bulgar Wheat Salad

Tabbouleh - Bulgar Wheat Salad

Labels: Bulgar wheat, Herbs on Saturday, No Croutons Required, salad, Tabbouleh

posted by Janice @ 11:51 4 Comments

Summer Vegetable Soup with Granary Bread

Summer is not really a time I associate with soup, however, it has been rather chilly recently and as I was going away for a few days, I realised I needed to use up the vegetables that I had received in my Farmison Vegetable Box.  Soup is the perfect vehicle for any kind of vegetables and with some beans added it makes a the soup into a meal.


So here are the vegetables: celery; carrots, onion, quarter of a fennel bulb; 2 courgettes, 2 potatoes and about a third of a head of broccoli.  It doesn't matter what you have although onion and carrots are always a good base.  Oh and there was on runner bean that had escaped me when I cooked those the other day, so that went in too.

Summer Vegetable Soup

1 onion, peeled and chopped
4 stalks of celery, finely chopped
3 carrots, peeled and chopped
2 potatoes, diced
1/4 fennel bulb, chopped
bunch of thyme, rosemary and marjoram tied together
2 courgettes, diced
1/3 head of broccoli, chopped
4 tomatoes, seeds removed and chopped
100g canellini beans, soaked and cooked for 20 minutes until just tender
3 litres vegetable stock
salt and freshly ground black pepper

 1 tbsp olive oil

1.Heat the olive oil in a pan.   Add the onion and celery and cook for 2 mintues, add the carrots, fennel and potoatoes, cook for another minutes.  Add the stock and herbs, season well and cook until the carrot is soft (20-30 minutes)
2. Add the chopped courgettes, broccoli, tomatoes and canellini beans and cook for a further 10 minutes.
3. Remove the herb bundle, adjust seasoning and serve with a sprinkling of fresh chopped thyme and rosemary and some Granary Bread.

I'm entering this soup for Karen's  'Herbs on Saturday' blog challenge, it was a really good tasty soup and the flavour of the herbs came through stongly without overpowering the flavours of the different vegetables.

 

Granary Bread

500g Granary Bread Flour
1 1/2 tsp easy blend yeast
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
50g butter
275g lukewarm water

I put all of the ingredients into the bread maker on the dough setting, then shaped the dough onto a baking tray, left to rise again and baked for about 30 minutes at 200C.  If you don't have a bread maker, follow the recipe on the Granary Flour packet.

Labels: Broccoli, celery, courgette, Farmison, Fennel, Herbs on Saturday, onion, potatoes, Rosemary, Soup, thyme

posted by Janice @ 16:30 5 Comments

Moroccan Baked Turkey with Chickpeas and Rice

Labels: Chicken, chickpeas, coriander, Delia, Herbs on Saturday, Lavender and Lovage, lemons, one-pot, Turkey

posted by Janice @ 21:10 6 Comments