My version of Jamie's 30mm 'Pregnant Jool's Pasta' - Ragu

After this photo was taken I added lots more sauce, cheese and black pepper.

I've been watching Jamie's 30minute meals, and brought the cookbook that goes with it, and saw this ragu recipe! I've never made a ragu, usually opting for spaghetti bolognese. But I saw a bag of multi-grain tagliatelle that Sainsburys have just brought back and thought this would be perfect with it!

I've modified the recipe, using the tagliatelle instead of penne, mince instead of sausages, red onion instead of the spring. But I thought it tasted delicious! My Boyfriend made 3 batches of it in a week!

Ingredients -

1 red onion

1 carrot

1 stick of celery

1 fresh chilli 

Pack of mince (either pork or beef)

Garlic

1 x 400g tin of plum tomatoes (chop the tomatoes when in the pan)

Herbs - Oregano or mixed italian

Balsamic 

Fresh pasta to serve - I like multigrain tag.

1. Blitz the onion, carrot, celery, chilli and garlic in a food processor until well mixed and then spoon into a hot frying pan with oil. Keep breaking it up and stirring it quickly.

Meanwhile, blitz the mince in the processor to make it finer. Then add this to the pan and stir.

2. Add balsamic and let it cook down and then add the tomatoes. Add some herbs.

3. Put the pasta on, if using fresh it should only take 4mins.

4. Add a little of the starchy pasta water to the sauce if needed to loosen.

5. Then drain the pasta and serve with the sauce and lots of cheese! Cheddar or parmesan work well, finally add some basil and black pepper.

Prawn Tomato and Spinach curry

Haven't blogged in a while but have done lots of cooking so time to catch up...

This curry is so quick, healthy and delicious! Good for a Friday or Saturday night. I like it with brown basmati rice with butternut squash (I think it's Tilda microwave pack from most supermarkets), but my boyfriend has his with plain white.

Ingredients -

- Makes 2 large bowlfuls

White onion, diced

Prawns

Peas - cooked in the microwave

Spinach (a huge bag) - wilted down in the microwave

Tin of chopped tomatoes - one per 2 people

Tin of tomato purée - again one per 2 people

Patak's Masala Paste - a tablespoon

Rice to serve

Fry the onion and add the masala paste and puree, then add the prawns and coat them until just cooked through.

Add the chopped tomatoes and then add the spinach and peas, cook down for a good 5 minutes (while the rice is being microwaved)

Then serve with the rice.

Healthy Vegetable Dhansak Curry

I found this recipe in a magazine about a month ago but only got round to cooking it last night! I love healthy, low-fat dinners like these. If anyone's tried an Innocent Veg Pot then it's along those kind of lines. It counts as all 5 of your 5-a-day as not only do the vegetables count, but also the red lentils! It's really easy to make and is so healthy and delicious :) Also I was going to add some prawns to this but forgot to get them out the freezer, but to be honest you don't really need any fish or meat and the lentils have lots of protein anyway!


Makes 2 generous portions (You don't any need rice because of the filling lentils)
Ingredients - 
100g red lentils
Vegetable oil
1 onion, peeled and chopped
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
2 green chillies finally chopped (I used 1 red chilli from my garden and kept the seeds in for extra zing!)
1 tsp peeled and grated root ginger (I forgot to buy this so used a spoonful of ground ginger)
1 large carrot, peeled and diced
1 medium sweet potato peeled and diced into 2cm cubes (I used squash but either works)
1 red pepper, seeded and diced
Large handful sultanas (Optional, I hate raisins in savoury so left them out)
1/4tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground coriander
500ml hot vegetable stock
1tbsp tomato purée
2 large tomatoes, cut into 8
100g green beans, halved
1tsp garam masala
Small bunch coriander, torn up

Method -
Soak the lentils in cold water for about 3mins then drain.
Heat the oil in a large pan. Fry the onion, garlic, chillies, ginger until the onion softens
Add the carrots, sweet potato/squash and pepper and fry for 5mins
Add the sultanas (if using), turmeric, cumin and coriander and cook for 1min
Stir in the lentils, stock, puree and tomatoes.


Cover with a lid and simmer for 15-20mins, stirring twice.
Add the beans and garam masala and then simmer uncovered for 10mins
Serve with the coriander.

The best ever risotto (If I do say so myself)...

This risotto used to be (and probably to an extent still is) my signature dish, it's complicated enough to seem like you've put some effort in yet simple enough to make and still taste delicious. It can be adapted to any season, the photo shows a summery version with peas and asparagus but I also use roasted squash in the autumn/winter. I've even made a bright pink beetroot version which was a bit strange albeit yummy!


There are 3 main rules to follow with this risotto - lots of stirring, lots of black pepper and lots of parmesan!


The basic recipe (before any adaptations) -

100g-150g risotto rice per person

Tiny piece of butter

2 garlic cloves, crushed

1 White Onion, chopped

Closed cup mushrooms

1 and a half breasts of chicken per person

White Wine (about 1 glass full)

Chicken stock (probably made up with 1-1/2 litres of boiling water but check the packets instructions depending on how much rice you're using)

Peas

Parmesan 

Black Pepper

Then you can add any or a mix of the following - 

Asparagus (Steam in the microwave with a tiny bit of water until just soft)

Roasted butternut squash, cubed into small pieces (   Roast the butternut squash – 200 degrees c, roasting tin, cube squash, sprinkle with garlic oil, roast until soft and starting to blacken)

Peas (Cook in the microwave)

Beetroot (Roast whole in the oven first and then remove the skin, grate into the risotto)

Pink beetroot risotto! Looks strange, tastes yummy!

More mushrooms/wild mushrooms

Or anything else you can think of!

Fry the butter, onions and chicken in a pan until chicken is almost cooked.

     Add mushrooms when chicken almost cooked

-       Add risotto rice to cook until translucent then add wine, stirring until absorbed

-       Add chicken stock a ladleful at a time, stirring all the time and only adding when all has been absorbed.

-       Add parmesan and black pepper in regular intervals

-       Then when all the stock is nearly absorbed, add the squash or asparagus/peas etc.

-       Add to risotto when stock is almost finished

     And then serve with lots of black pepper and parmesan!

Simple but delicious green tagliatelle with ham, peas, asparagus and red onion...

This pasta is so quick and easy but really delicious. I guess it's more of your student type food.
Basically -
Cut up some Wiltshire ham, asparagus and red onion and fry in a pan with fry-light spray for a couple of minutes. Meanwhile cook some fresh green tagliatelle (my favourite type of pasta) with some frozen peas for 4 minutes. Mix in with the mix in the pan and add a tiny bit of the pasta water to loosen...Et voila! Serve with some grated parmesan cheese.
-If you don't care about the fat content, some people might want to add some cream to this to make it like a carbonara. But I like to keep it healthy.

Chocolate and Pear Upside Pudding...

Had some friends and family over for lunch on Sunday so my grandma brought her incredible apple crumble (I'll post the recipe when I get a chance) and I made some chocolate meringues (See the recipe I posted for the chocolate pavlova and just use the mixture to make individual ones, cook for about 45mins and leave to cool in the oven, serve with ice cream and fruit) and one of my favourite ever desserts... Chocolate and Pear upside down cake/pudding. We were all stuffed for a long while afterwards!

The pudding: It's basically caramelised pears with a cake base on top and then you cook it in the oven and invert it onto a plate! It doesn't present that well but it's so scrummy....

From Market Kitchen 

For the pears:

35g butter

125g light brown sugar

4 ripe pears, peeled cored and thickly sliced lengthways

150g dark chocolate (either chips or a bar broken into chunks)

For the sponge:

40g cocoa powder

150g plain flour

1/2tsp bicarb of soda

1tsp baking powder

2 large eggs

125g light brown sugar

200ml buttermilk

75ml vegetable oil

Ice cream or cream to serve.

Method:

Pears - Melt the butter in a 20-25cm ovenproof frying pan over a medium heat. Stir in the sugar and heat for 2-3mins (stirring all the time) until the sugar's dissolved and it's a light golden-brown colour

Remove from the heat and scatter the pears over the caramel in a round circle, then dot the pieces of chocolate in. Set aside (You can make this a few hours in advance but don't put it in the fridge).

Sponge - Sift the cocoa, flour, bicarb and baking powder into a bowl. Then stir in the eggs, sugar, buttermilk and oil. - Don't overmix or the sponge may become heavy. (You can leave this mix in the fridge for a couple of hours)

Then when ready to cook, pour the cake mix over the pears making sure all is covered.

Bake for about 30minutes, at 200c/gas 6, but mine could have done with some extra cooking - it's hard to tell with a skewer because of the melted chocolate.

Leave to sit in the pan for about 2minutes and then quickly invert onto a plate so the pears are on top. - Put a plate over the whole pan and then swiftly flip over and hope that it all comes out well!

Sticky Toffee Cupcakes

I <3 cupcakes! 

They're so personal, versatile, delicious, pretty and the perfect size! I love finding excuses to make cupcakes and in August my boyfriend's birthday was the perfect occasion. I usually just do chocolate or vanilla with buttercream but he wanted some toffee/caramel kind of flavour so after lots of recipe searching I opted to go for sticky toffee cupcakes with a dulche de leche buttercream.

It's so hard to find recipes that are suitable for the UK, all the best recipes seem to be American with ingredients like 'butterscotch chips' which you can't really find in Sainsburys or Waitrose. Or the recipes need homemade caramel which I didn't really fancy making with all the hassle of a sugar thermometer and risk of getting scalded etc. So in the end I came up with a recipe that I could find ingredients for, including dulche de leche from waitrose and added it to normal buttercream (although it was a tiny bit too sweet) and made a traditional sticky toffee sponge with dates. As much as I love conventional cupcakes from chocolate or vanilla, these were definitely something special and I'd recommend making them. They also kept really well and were still delicious a good few days later!

The toffee cupcakes are the caramel looking ones. I also made some chocolate ones too.

Recipe - Adapted from Fiona Carins on the Good Food channel.
For the sponge -

180g dates, pitted and chopped

1tsp vanilla extract

180g self-raising flour

1tsp bicarb of soda

80g unsalted butter

150g muscovado sugar

2 eggs, lightly beaten

For the buttercream-

A good couple of tablespoons of dulche de leche (You can get the post version in the nice glass jar like I did, or just get the carnation tins - they taste almost exactly the same!)

Butter 

Sugar 

- sorry not sure on quantities for these, just use a good buttercream recipe, I think I used the hummingbird bakery but took a good part of the sugar out as the dulche de leche is soo sweet and the icing can be too sickly otherwise!

1. Preheat oven to 180c

2. Place paper cases into 12 hole cupcake tin

3.In a bowl, pour 180ml boiling water over the dates and leave to soak for 20minutes. With a fork, break up the dates and stir in the vanilla.

4. Sift the flour and bicarb of soda into another bowl and set aside.

5. Then cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy (about 5mins). Add the eggs gradually, beating well between each addition and slipping in 1tbsp flour halfway to prevent curdling. 

6. Then fold in the remaining flour and date mixture.

7. Spoon into cupcake cases and bake for 15-20mins. (Until the tops spring back, you know the drill with cakes)

For the toffee buttercream - 

Make a traditional buttercream (for 12 cakes), but leave out some of the sugar like I said earlier, then beat in a couple of tablespoons of the dulche de leche. Add more to taste if you need to, the colour should be a lovely light brown caramel. 

Pipe/Ice over the cakes and decorate!

Waiting to be displayed and eaten!