Persillade - Chop Some Parley; Change Your Life

Shot with HTC m8 & Instagram

This is going to be the smallest food post yet and it’s a blog post dedicated to Chef Raymond Blanc (as it’s his persillade that inspired me to make one). This simple little addition changes the face of potatoes and lifts your dish to restaurant level with just 3 ingredients. You’ll need 1 clove of garlic, 1 (banana) shallot and 1 handful of parsley.

Finely dice the garlic & shallot, chop the parsley and add all 3 to a bowl. This, added to a pan of frying potatoes at the last minute, will change your life.

I serve mine with a nice piece of fried white fish and some wilted Swiss chard. You can serve yours with whatever you like.

Cost - £0. You can grow all of this in your garden/windowbox/balcony

Deep Fried American Buffalo Wings

HTC m8 with instagram

If I were to own a restaurant, it would be a deep fried chicken wings restaurant. Deep fried wings, tossed in various sauces, dripping with flavour and cheap as you like. My love affair started at Duke’s Brew and Cue in London. Primarily, it’s a smoky ribs restaurant with chicken wings as one of the side dishes. If you get the chance, it’s well worth a visit.

I wanted to recreate the wings I’d had so I jointed a pack of chicken wings, floured and deep fried them, tossed them in a bowl of ‘anything I could find in the fridge and cupboard’ sauce and chowed down. They were pretty good but hard to recreate and nothing like the wings I’d eaten at Duke’s.

Scouring Pinterest and the internet at large, there are hundreds of recipes for all kinds of wings, but I thought I’d start at the base level and work from there. The buffalo wing, I felt, was my starting point... and if I’m honest it’s a great place to start.

For my recipe, I bought a pack of value chicken wings from the supermarket. Sainsbury’s seem to stock them in more stores. Tesco stock them too, but only in larger stores and I’ve yet to see them in the likes of Aldi.  A pack of wings will usually set you back less than £2, so they’re great value for money.

To prepare, take a large kitchen knife and remove the wing tips. Cut the wings in half at the joint and throw them into a medium/large zip-lock freezer bag. To the bag, add a couple of heaped tablespoons of plain flour, a teaspoon of mustard powder, a teaspoon of paprika and a teaspoon of salt (kosher, rock, sea or table. It doesn’t really matter what you have in stock). Heat a large saucepan with around 5-7cm of sunflower or vegetable oil. To test the heat of the oil, throw in a little bit of bread. If it sizzles and browns, you’re ready. Shake off the excess flour from the wings and add 7-8 wings at a time into the hot oil. Set a timer for 4 minutes and give them a stir periodically to make sure they’re getting good colour.

In the meantime, you can make the tossing sauce to coat the wings. Heat up 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter with a quarter teaspoon of black pepper, a teaspoon of honey and a pinch of salt. You’ll need at least 2 tablespoons of a hot sauce of your choosing. I like to use Cholula original hot sauce because it’s not too hot, however if you wanted a bit more spice you can try Frank’s Redhot Wings sauce, Heinz Tangy Jalapeno sauce or even Nando’s hot peri peri. If you’re an idiot you can coat them in a habanero or scotch bonnet sauce, but why you’d want to do that is anyone’s guess.

When the 4 minutes is up, remove your wings from the oil and drain on kitchen paper. Repeat until all the wings are cooked. To make sure they’re all piping hot, put all the wings back in the oil for a further 2 minutes until crispy and golden.

Once drained, toss them in the buffalo sauce like you’re panning for gold. Once coated, pile into a bowl and fill your face.

Goes very well with a Caesar salad. Goes even better with a beer (see link for my current favourite).

NB. A lazier alternative is to buy a box of frozen Southern fried wings to bake in the oven. You need to cook them 20C higher and 5-10 minutes longer than it says on the pack to get them nice and crispy. Toss them in the sauce and away you go. No way near as good as the deep fried version but a hell of a lot less messy in the kitchen.

Oven Baked Southern Fried Wings

Pork Carnitas - Mexican "Little Meats"

Taken on an HTC One M8

I've just become a dad for the first time and I know that what I cook and certainly the way I cook will have to change. Sheerly because of the lack of time I now have it will put huge constraints on how I feed my new family, especially after my paternity leave ends and I once again return to the 9-5

Before my wife went into hospital I decided to stockpile a few freezer meals for when we arrived back home with our bundle of joy and black hole of free time. The obligatory ragout, the beef chilli, a stack of pulled pork portions, all staple meals that can be defrosted in the microwave and cooked up, quite literally, single handed. 

I knew that by having these on hand, should time be of the essence, I could knock something up (no pun intended) in no time at all and still eat well between the endless cycle of feeding, sterilising, changing, rocking and burping my little girl. 

I already had a chunk of pork shoulder in the freezer (purchased for a quarter of the price from the reduced aisle) and I knew I wanted to try and make a few meals for the freezer. I had a look around the usual recipe sites and Pinterest and came across Carnitas. 

Carnitas is like a Mexican pulled pork without the barbecue sauce. It translates as little meats and is used in tacos, sandwiches, burgers & salads and it tastes incredible. So I defrosted the pork and got to work. 

The ingredients are pretty straightforward. Pork shoulder, an orange, 1 tsp of cumin, 2 tsp of oregano, an onion, 5 garlic cloves  and oil. I threw in a few extra ingredients of my own so here it goes. 

Firstly, it's a good idea to get bit of browning on the pork so cut the skin off (set this aside to make some crackling by flattening it on a baking tray, oil and season it and pop it in the oven on the bottom shelf until crispy), cut the shoulder into 3 large pieces and roll in seasoned flour. Hard fry the pork on all sides and put it in a casserole pot with a very roughly chopped onion. 

In a pestle and mortar, grind the oregano and cumin with a little rock salt and fennel seeds, add 5 garlic cloves and a good glug of olive oil and sunflower oil. The recipes I read said to add the juice of an orange but I had the dregs a fresh orange juice carton in the fridge so I used that instead. Pour this mixture into the hot frying pan to deglaze it then into the crock pot. It may look a little dry at this stage so you can add water or chicken stock a but no more than half a pint as when the pork cooks it will release water and be too wet at the end stage. 

Pop the lidded pot in the oven on the highest heat for 30 minutes then turn down to 180c for 2 and a half hours. If after 2 hours it looks a little too wet, remove the lid for the last 30 minutes. 

Pour into a deep tray or plastic container (when cooled slightly) and fork apart to get a pulled pork style finish. 

Once cold I separated it into amounts of 200g, wrapped it up in cling-film and froze it in a resealable freezer bag for when I need it.

As and when you're in the mood for a mexican treat, just defrost it, fry it up in a small frying pan until dry & crispy and serve on a toasted wrap with avocado, and pickles. 

HINT: It's a good idea to toast the tortillas on the bare hob as it adds a smokey charred taste and it crispens them up a treat

Enough carnitas for at least 7 meals from a £5 piece of pork.

Money saving meals at its best.

In the picture above I used fried broccoli, hot sauce and lime to improve the wife's iron levels.

Side Sample

Taken from the internet - blogspot

This is just a quick idea. I don't even know if it'll work but I’m writing it down now so I can sell the idea to restaurants and/or put my name to something. Let me know what you think.

JOEY DOESN'T SHARE FOOD!

I eat too fast for my wife to have any of my food. Half of all my meal times are spent watching my wife eat, waiting for her to either offer me some of her food or leave some on her plate so I can, not so subtly, hoover it up.

When we go out for a meal there seems to be a rule that we have to share our food choices. Of late, I have been choosing more successfully than my wife, which means only one thing… I want her to share but I don’t want to share myself.

This is where my idea comes in. For an extra £1 per meal you can get a side sample for the other person. It’s cooked at the same time and is like an amuse-bouche with your meal. It means you don’t have to share.

This side sample isn’t only designed to be selfish, there are folks out there who don’t like people touching their food. You don’t want to be rude and say no to someone trying your food so you buy them a side sample. This may not be foolproof but it’s the start of an idea and I’d like to see if it works   

Any Port in a Storm

Taken on an iPhone 4s with Instagram

Wine is awesome, thought not ALL wine is equally as awesome as the next. With the credit crunch still looming and money not going as far as it used to, I’m going to teach you an easy trick to make your wine money go much further. I tend to find the best red wines have a deep, punchy character, very similar to port. So, if you buy a bottle of red that’s not quite hitting the spot, add a drop of port and it transforms your humble glass of wine into an absolute zinger. You can pick up a half decent bottle of port for around £8 at the supermarket (think of how many bottles of wine you could rescue from the depths with a few drops of port in each glass)

A short and sweet blog to help you spend less when times are hard. 

Moules and Cullen Skink



Taken with iphone 4s and Instagram

It's been a little while since my last update, I've moved house to a smaller kitchen and the lighting isn’t quite right for a good photo (along with stacked pots and pans not looking good in the shot) but I threw together a hearty meal last night which deserved an entry. Now, those of you who have read my blog will think this is a bit of a cheat as it's just a combination of 2 previous posts fused together. Mussels and Cullen Skink, delicious. I saw a photo of this on Pinterest and thought I'd have a go. The nights are drawing in again and this hearty autumnal soup will keep you going until you need to start prepping the turkey.

If you have some potatoes and shallots in the cupboard and some milk and wilting rocket in the fridge, you can make this on the cheap no problem. Pick up some smoked haddock fillets from the supermarket (the yellow dyed ones are just fine – contrary to what the telechefs tell you), buy a small pot of cream and small bag of live mussels from the fish counter. I've never used the cooked mussels or frozen mussels but I'm sure they'd be fine too. Buy a small crusty loaf as a tear and share.

To start, clean and de-beard your mussels, leave them to the side in some cold water until you need them. Poach the haddock in enough milk to cover them. If you have a bay tree outside or some bay leaves in the cupboard, throw one in with a few peppercorns to give it a little boost. Keep your eye on the pan because milk has a tendency to over-boil, after a couple of minutes remove the fish and set aside on a small plate to cool. Remove the peppercorns now because if you leave them in they'll be an unpleasant peppery crunch when you're eating it later. Add a big glug of milk to the pan and throw in your diced potato and sliced shallots. I tend to use rooster potatoes because they're floury and cook quite quickly. Simmer the potatoes in the milk until just cooked, add the cream and mussels to the pan and put the lid on (it's best to have a pan with a glass lid so you can see if the heat is on too high). Give the mussels 2-3 minutes before you open the lid and flake in the haddock. Just before you serve, chop up some rocket and throw it into the pan. Serve with some crusty bread and a little more rocket. No need to salt and pepper because you seasoned the milk earlier with the haddock and peppercorns. Enjoy

NB. You have two choices with the mussels. Because there'll be quite a few in the bag, you can either put them all in and when they're cooked, remove half of them from the shells. Or, you can only cook half of them and have moules and frites the next night. I chose the latter, mussels are far too tasty not to have them 2 days in a row!

Surf & Turf boyger (said in a New York accent)

taken with an iphone 4s

Just a quick burger blog for you. I thought I’d give this one a try, we knew we wanted burgers tonight but what kind? Chilli burgers? Bacon and cheese? Sun-dried tomatoes and pesto? So many options. Wandering past the fish counter I suddenly thought ‘surf and turf’. Lobster was a bit rich and prawns would be all over the place so I went straight for the seafood sticks. Mayo or ketchup? How about both, marie rose sauce it is then. Topped with a few slices of avocado and fresh rocket, you’ve got yourself a tasty treat.

TIP. You always see chefs peeling avocados then cutting them up. If you want to save on mess, cut the avocado in half, remove the stone and then use a table knife to cut strips into the avocado. Do not cut through the skin. Then, use a dessert spoon and curve it under the skin of the fruit and you’ll get clean slices of avocado to use. Pour a little lemon juice over then to stop them oxidising and going brown.

To make a quick marie-rose sauce use a large dollop of mayo with a squirt of ketchup mixed with a little bit of Worcester sauce and lemon juice, season to taste and start building your burger. Seafood sticks cost next to nothing and you can buy avocados individually so you don’t have to spend the earth to try something new.

enjoy

The Festive Pie

canon rebel

It’s Christmas time, there’s no need to be afraid. It’s the time of year when a festive pie is an absolute must and even though you’ll eat a years worth of poultry in the next few days you can still manage a chicken based pie to warm your winter cockles.

You’ll need some cooked shredded chicken, stuffing balls, a couple of rashers of bacon and the ingredients for a white sauce and of course a sheet of puff pastry. Use your discretion as to how much you want to use but a handful of chicken and stuffing is enough for 2 people. It’s a piece of cake to make so here goes.

Cut your bacon into little strips and fry the hell out of it. It needs to crispy so it adds another texture to the filling. When that’s cooked put it in a bowl to the side and fry your chicken until it starts to colour then add to the bacon. If you have stuffing balls as left-overs then break them up and fry them a little. If not make up a little batch of stuffing and roll it into small bite size balls then fry until golden.

Take 50g of butter (salted of unsalted it’s up to you) and melt in a saucepan, add 50g of plain flour and cook out for about 3-5 minutes on a medium heat then slowly add a pint of milk and whisk furiously so that it doesn’t go lumpy. Add a chopped up chicken stock cube to give it that chickeny flavour then add all of the chicken, bacon and stuffing to the sauce and mix, set aside to keep warm.

Roll out the pastry on a floury surface until it’s about as thick as a pound coin. Put the pie mixture in a baking dish, cover with the pastry and crimp the edges. Score the surface with a sharp knife and brush with either milk or egg wash. Bake for 25-30 minutes at 200c or until the pastry has gone golden brown and serve.

I usually serve mine with roasted squash, carrot and potato and a cranberry gravy. A Christmas treat, enjoy.

Roast Pork Belly with Bubble & Squeak Fritters

Canon Rebel

This is a Monday night meal without a doubt because there’s nothing simpler than roasting a pork belly and mixing some bubble and squeak together. It’s just what you need after a long day at work. It’s also a Monday meal because you have to use the left over veg from your Sunday lunch the day before. What you need is a very short list of ingredients, some left over veg, floury potatoes, a slab of pork belly and about 2 and a half hours.

Crackling on pork belly has been my arch nemesis for such a long time and I’ve tried so many methods (and I mean so many, probably about 14 ways) to get it crispy but only two of them worked. The problem with a square of pork belly is that when you put it in the oven the skin contracts and corners fold up so all the fat pools in the middle and it doesn’t crisp up. I’ve found if you roll the pork belly and tie it with sting it allows the fat to run off down the furrows of slashed skin. You need to make sure that the skin is open so the heat can get to it so you need to pour a kettle full of boiling water over the top which contracts the skin and shows the fat underneath. Now, moisture is the enemy of crackling so you need to dry it out, the best way I could think of was a hairdryer and it works a treat. When the skin is dry, rub with olive oil and generously dust with table salt and Maldon salt then roast in a really hot oven for 25 minutes until the fire alarm starts to go off. Turn the heat down to 170C, open a window and set the timer for 2 hours. If, after 2 hours, it's not completely crispy then you can turn the grill to full and keep an eye on it so it doesn't burn. The skin will bubble up and go crispy and you're done.

You usually see a big pan of bubble and squeak but it’s a lot more palatable in small fritters and they’re a doddle to make. Peel and cut your floury potatoes into medium sized chunks and boil until cooked. Mash with butter, milk and a good amount of seasoning, add your chopped up vegetables and thoroughly mix, shape into patties (helps if you have one of these) and set aside on a floured plate so they don’t stick to it.

When the pork is done, remove the skin (and eat a little bit) then wrap the pork in foil and set aside until you need it then simply slice into thick wedges. Fry your bubble and squeak patties in some olive oil until golden brown. Throw together some Bisto, water and apple sauce for a quick fruity gravy and that’s you done.  An absolute taste sensation for about £3 a serving, amazing.

Cullen Skink

Canon Rebel

Winter’s closing in and before you know it it will be New Year again. So while the days are short and the nights are cold you may as well learn how to make the best soup in the history of soups. Ladies and gentlemen I introduce to you… Cullen skink.

It’s basically smoked haddock chowder but I live in Scotland and it’s a northern Scottish dish and it’s a tasty treat.

You’ll need to buy some smoked haddock from the supermarket, you always hear chefs saying not to buy the dyed fish but it will do fine for this. You’ll need to buy a small pot of cream and a pack of parsley as well.  Make sure you have milk and potatoes at home (rooster potatoes are probably best as they’re really floury and fluffy not waxy) and either a small onion or shallot in the fridge. Put your fish in a saucepan, cover it with milk and gently heat for few minutes, it doesn’t need to boil because you only lightly cook the fish until it flakes apart. While you cook the fish you finely dice the shallot, cut the potatoes into big chunks and chop the parsley. When the haddock is cooked take it out of the milk and set it aside on a plate removing the skin. Add the shallot and potato to the milk (you might need to add a bit more) and gently simmer until the potatoes are almost cooked. Add the cream, haddock and parsley and heat through.

Serve with some crusty bread and butter (butter, not margerine!!)

Hand-Made Lamb Kofta Kebabs and coleslaw

Taken with a Canon Eos Rebel

Kebabs get a bad reputation as they’re usually a drunken treat to eat while you zig-zag up the wrong road home.  I made kebabs for a couple where one of them didn’t eat mince and the other was pretty much a vegetarian. Went down a treat.  So give these a go because they taste incredible

Kebabs

You’ll need a small pack of lamb mince and a handful of mint for the kebabs. Thrown in a teaspoon of ground cumin and ground coriander, an egg and handful of breadcrumbs (make your own breadcrumbs and store them in an old takeaway box). Mix it all together with a bit of seasoning, shape them around a wooden skewer then leave to the side while you make your coleslaw.

Coleslaw

I hate bought coleslaw. All it is to me is really bitter, raw tasting onion and cabbage in a sea of mayonnaise. However, I do like making my own because you can put whatever you like in it. With kebabs I like to make fennel and ginger coleslaw. I use shallots as well because they’re much sweeter than onions and they don’t overpower the whole side dish. I buy a small thumb size piece of ginger, a fennel bulb, a carrot and shallots and a red cabbage if there’s a small one knocking around the veg aisle, if not I grate beetroot into it for sweetness and colour. Finely slice the shallot and fennel (and the red cabbage if you bought one) then grate the carrot, ginger and beetroot into it. Add as much mayo as you like (I forgot to buy some so I made my own- 2 egg yolks in a blender and some sunflower oil poured slowly in). The good thing about this is you don’t need to measure, if you like onion add some more, if you like carrot do the same, if you hate ginger, leave it out. DO NOT SEASON IT, if you add salt it will draw out all of the liquid and you’ll have a bath of Gaviscon at the bottom of your bowl. Season just before serving.

Cook your kebabs in a griddle pan (like this one) to get the nice lines down the meat. Turn them on all four sides to make sure they’re cooked. Heat some naan breads in the oven for a few minutes until they’re soft and serve with a ramekin of minty yoghurt, the coleslaw and a bowl of grated beetroot.

Homemade Lasagna

shot with a Canon Eos Rebel

I say homemade because I made the lasagna pasta too. Now this wasn’t my intention but when you’re half way through making the lasagna only to find out you don’t have any pasta sheets in the cupboard you tend to have to think on your feet. (The astute amongst you will ask ‘why didn’t you just have spaghetti Bolognese?’ Well believe it or not I didn’t even consider that as an option) to make your pasta follow this link, I don’t need to write it out again.

I always find that people put too many ingredients into the Bolognese sauce, you don’t need courgette and mushrooms, and I’ve seen sweetcorn and broccoli in there before as well, no need. All you need to do is finely DICE a carrot, a stick of celery and a couple of shallots or an onion, I say dice because it works a lot better when everything is all the same size. Brown off the veg in olive oil with seasoning and sugar to help the onion along, also give the tomato some extra sweetness later on. When that’s done remove it from the pan and fry the mince with a beef stock cube to bump up the flavour and then add the veg back in. use a carton of own-brand passata from the supermarket (it costs less than chopped tomatoes and it’s thicker) add a small glass of water and let it cook out for 30 mins to an hour on a mid to low heat.

For the cheese sauce, if you haven’t made one before you can use a packet but seeing as I went to the trouble of making my own pasta I’m pretty sure you can boil three ingredients. Heat about 25g of butter in a pan till bubbling then add 25g of plain flour and mix. You’ll need to cook the flour into a paste (a roux) and keep cooking it or your sauce will taste like flour and nothing else. I find it’s best to keep it on a low heat and lightly whisk it from time to time. After about 4-5 mins you need to add three quarters of a pint of milk. This can go two ways, some people prefer to add a little bit of milk at a time and whisk continuously, others tend to add all the milk and whisk to make sure there’s no lumps. Either way works fine but you’ll find the longer you keep it on the heat the thicker it will get so keep it on a low heat and keep adding milk if you need to then add a handful of grated cheese (your choice) and whisk again.

Layer up your sauce, pasta, cheese sauce, pasta, sauce, etc until the last layer is cheese sauce and grate some cheddar over the top. If you’ve used fresh pasta you need to bake it for about 10 mins, if you’ve used lasagna sheets give it 35mins to be safe. 

word to the wise - Supermarket value pasta has the same ingredients as the expensive pasta so don’t spend more than you need to, it's all the same. Pasta simply means paste a.k.a flour and water.

Sausage Pancakes with Crispy Onions

Taken with a Casio exilim ex-z75

This one, I’m told, is something of a Norwegian speciality. When I had it for the first time it was with hot dog sausages but today I replaced them with good old British bangers. It’s a simple enough recipe and it doesn’t take a lot of cooking at all really. All you need is a couple of eggs, 100g of flour and 200ml of milk for the pancakes, some decent sausages and a pack of dried crispy onions (I used these from the European section of the supermarket)

Mix the pancake ingredients together and whisk furiously to make the batter. Fry, grill or oven-cook your sausages until almost done then start making the pancakes. Roll the sausages up in the pancakes with a small handful of crispy onions and serve.  Just like hotdogs you can have mustard or ketchup with them (or both) I’d recommend having some kind of sauce or they’d be too dry. Goes very well with a cold beer or a shot of Aquavit (i wouldn't recommend the Aquavit)

Open Ravioli With Grilled Chicken and Roasted Vegetables

Taken with a Canon Eos 300d digital SLR

I’m not going to lie to you, this one takes a bit of work. From making pasta to cooking a pasta sauce and char-grilling the chicken and courgette it’s not exactly quick (or easy) but it’s a tasty treat and it makes a change from all of the other pasta dishes you’ll regularly make. Open ravioli should be renamed lazy ravioli because you just pile it up like a loose lasagne but with fresh pasta.

PASTA

Follow this link for how to make fresh pasta, if you can't or don't want to then you can buy lasagna sheets from the supermarket but it's a lot cheaper to make it yourself. For the pasta above I used a duck egg that you can buy from Tesco and they aren’t that expensive.  One egg and a handful of flour makes enough for two people so it wont break the bank. You need to make your pasta first and cook it last so get it out of the way.

CHAR-GRILLING

You really need a griddle pan, not just for this but in general. They’re great for cooking meat and you can make your summer veg look a tasty treat when you char-grill them. Use a speed peeler to cut strips from a courgette and char them on the pan.  Cut a pepper into big pieces and do the same on the griddle. While the pan is still really hot oil up and season a couple of chicken breasts and pop them in the pan, leave them to sear so the heat cooks 1/3 of the way up the meat then turn them over to sear on the other side. They won’t be cooked in the middle but if you wrap them in tin foil and leave them somewhere warm they’ll cook through in around 5-10 mins.

SAUCE

Empty a can of chopped tomatoes into a pan with a chopped clove of garlic and some basil, seasoning and a good pinch of sugar. You need to cook the water out of them so reduce to a paste.

Cook the pasta for 3 mins and drain (you have to work quite quickly here or the pasta gets messy) put one sheet of pasta on the plate with some sauce, chicken and courgette, layer up like this for three layers then top with a slice of Parma ham and a handful of Parmesan. Drizzle with olive oil and serve. 

A fancy looking meal for just over £2 a serving

Mexican Chiliburgers

Taken on a Canon Eos 300d

I love a good burger. Nothing beats ordering a burger and it coming to your table with a million tasty toppings all wrapped up in a sesame seed bun. A Bolognese burger hits the spot most of the time with Bolognese sauce and mozzarella with basil, yum. A chiliburger is also a treat, a quarter pounder with a slice of tomato and a beanie mince chili pouring out of the sides.

My burger combines the chili with the burger itself so you don’t get as much mess. I also spoon a helping of guacamole on the top to add that ‘I’m eating a chili’ feeling. Now you have to bear in mind that you (well I do) cook a chili for a couple of hours so you wont get the exact flavour of a chili but we can sure as hell have a good go.

BURGER

Get yourself a pack of mince big enough to feed however many people you need to feed, for this I’ll assume you and your good friend just want a couple of burgers each. You don’t have to get lean mince for this so you don’t have to spend extra money especially as you’ll be buying ingredients for the guacamole. Dice one small red onion and add to a mixing bowl with the mince, add a couple of teaspoons of mild, or hot, chili powder and a teaspoon of oregano. Mix it all with your hands and add a good squirt of tomato puree, an egg and a small handful of breadcrumbs to soak up the moisture. Add half a teaspoon of ground cumin and a very small tin of drained kidney beans. Fry a little bit of the mixture in a hot pan to get of idea of what it’s going to taste like. If you want it spicier add some jalapeños or some more chili powder then form into the burger shapes (pat them a lot thinner than you think you should as meat contracts when it cooks and the middle of you burger maybe raw when you’ve fried the outside) and refrigerate for half an hour. In the mean time make your guacamole (see below)

You could either do all of the above or just buy a packet of chili con carne powder and mix it in, up to you, but don’t forget the kidney beans!

Fry your burger in a medium to hot pan until cooked and eat straight away.

GUACAMOLE

You can buy guacamole from the shop for a pound but as I’ve said before you can buy lots of things from the shop but if you want to make a show of something then make it yourself.

Take two ripe avocados, give them a squeeze before you buy them to make sure they’re a bit squidgy first (if they’re not ripe you can put them in a bag with a banana and the ripen up a treat). I see a lot of people getting into a mess with avocado so here’s a tip: cut the avocado in half and remove the stone, while it’s still in the skin cut it with a table knife lengthways then width ways so you have a grid. Take a dessertspoon and follow the curve of the fruit and hey presto you have little cubes(ish) of avocado. Add this to a mixing bowl and toss in half the juice of a lemon. Finely dice a shallot and add to the avocado. Add a dessertspoon of mayonnaise and a generous pinch of salt and black pepper because avocados need it. Give it a good mix and squash a few cubes to get a half smooth and half chunky texture. Now squeeze small dots of tomato puree into the bowl and fold gently. Cover and refrigerate until you need it.

When it comes to serving it you can do the norm of a burger bun, burger, slice of cheese, tomato and guacamole at the top. If you want to make it look a bit fancy make it an open face sandwich with a toasted ciabatta slice and build it up (although eating it like this goes again my ‘eating burgers and pizza with a knife and fork rule).

Enjoy 

Drink Like A (Posh) Hobo

Shot with a Canon Eos 350d

I’m not going to claim for one minute that this is a drink of my own invention. I first tried this superior  cocktail while drinking in Nottingham a few summers ago. I like to refer to it as the thinking man’s snakebite. When the summer comes along a summer drink is essential so for when Pimms just doesn’t tickle your fancy I introduce to you…the hobo.

HOBO

Possibly the easiest of cocktails to make. Take a pint glass (preferably a Hoegaarden glass if you’ve ‘acquired’ one from somewhere) half fill with Hoegaarden, top up with Strongbow and garnish with a big slice of lemon or lime. done

WARNING: This is snakebite and you will get very drunk after 3-4 of these. Drink responsibly 

A Very Satisfying Pasta Sauce

Taken with a Canon Eos 350d with Vivatar macro lens

You can buy pasta sauce in a jar. You can also buy a Sunday lunch in a frozen fast food box but sometimes it's nice to make your own isn't it? This one requires almost no work at all. All you need is 2 red peppers, a pack of tomatoes and a basil plant on your windowsill (and maybe a little bit of tomato puree in your fridge).

SAUCE
Slice your pepper into long strips and put in a small oven dish, splash with olive oil and season with a pinch of salt and a grind of black pepper.
You'll need twice as many tomatoes to peppers for this and you don't want them too small otherwise it will cook down to mush. Cut your tomatoes in half from top to bottom.

Tip 1. don't cut through the stalk, cut to the side of it, that way you only have to cut one bit of stalk out. simple.

Pop your tomatoes into a separate oven dish and splash some olive oil, S&P and a sprinkle of sugar over them and roast both the tomatoes and peppers in a hot oven at 180c for 35 minutes. After 35 minutes check then to make sure that they're not burning, if they are just mix them around a little (now's the time to make your pasta. Linguine, fettuccine or tagliatelle would be best ), turn the oven down and leave them cooking for another 10-15 minutes.
Remove from the oven and lightly mash them with a fork, squeeze in about a table spoon of tomato puree and mix again. Drain your pasta and add to the tomatoes, tear up some basil and mix it all together. top with cheese if you like and serve...with a beer

Bargain Barbecue part.1

I don’t know anybody who doesn’t like a barbecue. It’s always sunny, you’re never far away from your friends and you get to eat at least six different types of food and not be labelled a gannet. At no other time is it acceptable to make yourself some dinner where you have some beef, chicken, pork and maybe even prawns all on the one plate. Added to that a couple of different salads and dips, One could be considered something of a pig. Excellent.

Ribs aren’t always the first thing people think of when it comes to a barbecue but they’re cheap and guaranteed to impress. A pack of raw ribs from the supermarket cost about £3. Again not the most popular cuts of meat so you can buy them when they’re reduced for about £1.50 and freeze for when you need them. Bargain.

shot with a Canon Eos 350d  

RIBS

In a bowl pour a carton of passata with a handful of crushed garlic, a (really big) glug of Worcester sauce and a couple of tablespoons of honey. You can marinate it for a few hours if you like but you don’t have to. Put the ribs on a baking tray, pour over the sauce, cover with tin foil and bake in the oven for 30 minutes on 180c. Uncover and turn the ribs over, spoon some of the juices of the ribs and pop them back in the oven for another three quarters of an hour. Wrap them in foil and take them with you, you can eat them warm from the foil or you can burn them on the barbecue, your choice.

taken on a Canon Eos 350d

BURGERS

A pretty obvious one but people who like burgers like burgers more when you make them. A cheap pack of lamb mince does the trick, even lamb haters like lamb burgers. Throw in an egg along with a big spoon of dried mint, a small handful of breadcrumbs to soak up the moisture and a good bit of seasoning and you’re almost there. The next touch is where it becomes a little bit special. Roll the lamb into balls and press a little bit of goat’s cheese in the middle (make sure you can seal them back up otherwise you’ll have wasted your time filling them in the first place when it all melts out in flames) sear them on the barbecue for a few minutes each side then load them up with coleslaw in a seeded bun. A winner every time.

Croque-Madame For Breakfast

Taken on a Casio ex-z75 digital camera

I love a weekend breakfast. Bacon and eggs, toast and a bit of brown sauce, lovely. Give me a cup of tea and I’ll finish the lot. If, like me, you have a bacon and egg sandwich every weekend then sometimes it’s nice to have a slight change so a continental twist of breakfast is in order.

If you’ve ever been to France you may be aware of a croque-monsieur which is basically a cheese and ham toastie. Its feminine counterpart, a croque-madame is the same thing but with a fried egg on top.

BREAKFAST

For the British twist on the French classic (or the French twist on the British classic) use grilled bacon instead of ham. You can use ham if you have any cooked in your fridge but for a proper breakfast sandwich I’d use bacon.

Tip 1. BUY MIDDLE BACON!!! Middle bacon cost a little more than streaky bacon and back bacon but not a lot more. The benefit is that you get back AND streaky bacon all in one. Bargain.

Butter your toast, top with your bacon and a good lot of grated cheese and grill again until bubbly. While it’s under the grill, fry an egg so that the yolk is very runny. Top your sandwich with another piece of buttery toast (it needs to be buttery otherwise it ends up quite dry), top that with your fried egg and serve.

Brown sauce optional (or essential depending on your outlook)

Goat's Cheese & Caramelised Red Onion Pizza

Taken on a Casio ex-z75 digital camera

Goat’s cheese is amazing. It has a taste that no other cheese can match and it goes amazingly well with caramelised red onion. Now I know when you want a pizza you don’t think about doing any more than just opening and closing the oven but a little extra work goes a long way…

CARAMELISED RED ONION

Slice a couple of red onions as thick or as thin as you like and fry in a little bit of olive oil on a medium heat. Sprinkle with a good helping of sugar then season with salt and pepper. When they start to colour and cook down add a drop of water (about a tablespoon) and remove from the heat.

PIZZA

You can make your own dough for a pizza base. It’s cheaper and more satisfying but for a meal after work it’s not always feasible to do as it needs to prove and rise for a while. So…

You can buy a value pizza base from the supermarket for about a pound nowadays and the same applies for mozzarella so pick them up along with a good sized piece of goat’s cheese (I’d go for Capricorn because its gooey on the outside and crumbly on the inside)

Dot the caramelised onion evenly over your pizza followed by goat’s cheese and mozzarella. Do it this way round because your onions are already cooked and you won’t want them to burn in the oven. Season with a good bit of salt and pepper and cook in a high oven for around quarter of an hour.
sprinkle with rocket leaves and serve

Tip 1. If you can’t do without a bit of meat you can add some thin slices of prosciutto from the deli counter (don’t be afraid to ask for small amounts from the deli counter, you don’t always have to buy a kilo of salami or chorizo!)


A tasty pizza for 2 for around £3