Random Eats

I like turtles!

2012-04-29T18:52:00.000+01:00

I'm back! New look (if I get it working, that is, otherwise ignore this bit), new address (something that's taken me way too long to get working, you'd never know I was technical, would you?) and now new posts :-)

So what's been keeping me from you lovely people? Well it's a very boring reason but it really has been my life, I know you probably don't want to hear that sometimes my life is a little bit more important than writing nonsense on the interwebs for you lot but unfortunately things got out of hand and before I knew it I'd not written anything for almost a year. Troubling indeed...

So what have I been up to? Loads. Mostly I've been concentrating on my new job which although it's great does seem to take up quite a bit of my time. Not that I've not been cooking, you understand, but finding the time to write about it has been nigh on impossible. There's probably a post or two in the pipes on the things I've been cooking (and the argument I had with the Great British Chefs google+ page about pictures of food containing things that weren't in the recipe, a pet hate of mine that I'm sure I've banged on about before) but I didn't really take pictures of what I was making so I'll probably have to just do them again and show you later.

My old problem of a lack of recipes to draw from has also been an issue but apparently that is about to be solved. I have absolutely no idea how but I'm told that help is on it's way. I'm sure that the solution will become clear soon but in the meantime I'm just as much in the dark about it as you (exciting, no?)

Clearly a triumphant return such as this deserves a glorious recipe to commemorate it but I couldn't be bothered to look too hard so instead I give you:

Buttermilk Roast Chicken (unashamedly stolen from smitten kitchen)

Ingredients:

2 cups buttermilk
5 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
1 tablespoon table salt
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons paprika, plus extra for sprinkling
Lots of freshly ground black pepper
2 1/2 to 3 pounds chicken parts
Drizzle of olive oil
Flaked or coarse sea salt, to finish

Now I've received a great deal of scepticism from certain people about chicken in buttermilk (especially from my dad until I realised that he thought that I was saying browning instead of brining, oh the joys of aged parents) and to be totally honest I wasn't sure what to expect but the picture of the end product looked lovely and Deb over at smitten kitchen raved so much about it that I just had to try.

Here are the beautiful ingredients (aren't they pretty?):

I think my photographic "skills" may have slipped slightly, ahh well.

There's absolutely nothing complicated about this recipe. In fact I'm not really sure what to write here but I'll give it a go anyway...

Take all your ingredients.
Mix them together.
Put them in a suitable container (the original recipe tells you to put it all in a bag but there was absolutely no chance that any bags that I have were big enough so I put them in a box) and refrigerate.
Wait for 24 hours.
Cook.

OK, it's not all that simple but you get the idea. The original recipe calls for 30 minutes at 425 Fahrenheit but I've not got an oven that works in old money so I took a guess and went for 220 C (that's a lie, I asked Google but you were impressed there for a moment that I could guess so accurately, yes?)

Simple or complicated, here's what I got for my efforts:

Not bad!

The verdict:

Sweet baby Jesus, this is good stuff. Brining chicken seems to be quite popular at the moment (that Heston is quite keen on it) and I'd been wanting to try it. Believe me when I say how good this is and that I managed to eat two bits in about 30 seconds, seriously good chicken. The only thing that I might change is that next time I'll probably cook the chicken on a rack as some of the fat on the thighs didn't fully render and chicken fat is grim. This is most definitely a keeper. Try it.

Lessons learned:

Brining chicken really does add a load of flavour.
Writing, it seems, is something that you can just pick back up again after a pause. Photography not so much.
Mmm, chicken.

The cost:

Chicken: £4
Buttermilk: £1

Grand total: £5 though it would have been a bit more expensive if I'd needed to buy the other ingredients but I really do think this is good value seeing as it makes a load.

OK, that's it for me for now. Let me know what you think of the new look and I'll be back soon (not making any promises this time as I'm bored of lying to you lot)

I'm off to cook a ham.

Laters!

May the 4th be with you.

2011-05-04T20:58:00.001+01:00

Ahh the royal wedding, what else could bring such joy to so many people? I can’t say I am much of a royalist and so took the opportunity to do a bit of shopping and it warms the cockles of my heart to think that whilst the happy couple were saying “I do” I was in the chilled section looking at cheese. Nice cheese, mind, it was a posh event after all.

Royal nuptials aside, today I was taught a valuable life lesson. If you have one of those new-fangled smartphones that are all touchscreen and you’re out and about reading an important email do not, under any circumstances, fail to lock the screen before crossing the road. Why? Because if you don’t what may happen is that by the time you’ve crossed the road the email that, if you recall, really was quite important will have disappeared into the ether without a trace. This actually happened to me today and I experienced a mild panic somewhat akin to having a near-death experience before eventually finding the email buried so deep in my email folders that I practically needed a ladder to get it back out. How the palm of my hand managed to do this without the assistance of my fingers is beyond me. Clearly I’ll have to keep an eye on the sneaky git.

Now it has come to my attention that although I find some of the rubbish I’ve been eating recently entertaining in an almost masochistic way not everyone shares my feelings and that I should probably cook something proper for my dinner for once. Some have even gone as far as to offer to buy me a book if I send them my address but I think this is more a thinly veiled attempt to stalk me rather than genuine concern for my well being. I’m looking at you, Debjani…

Far be it for me to defy public opinion so tonight I will be cooking this:

Roasted Onions with Marmite Sausages.

Ingredients:

8 medium onions
50g dried prunes, stoned and finely chopped
350g good quality sausagemeat
2 teaspoons marmite
1 level teaspoon chopped rosemary
fresh black pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil
25g unsalted butter

Ok, so I may have lied just a tiny amount about my intentions to reform immediately but in my defence this recipe was already picked out for me before peoples’ opinions became clear and it is actually rather intriguing. Just take a look at how pretty all of the ingredients look:

Guess how much the sausage meat cost me.

Alright, not actually that pretty (especially not the prunes) but this recipe is genuinely interesting and involves doing things that I wouldn't ever have considered doing in a million years. Take a look at what I’m supposed to do:

Bring a large pan of water to the boil and cook the whole and unpeeled onions, for 15-20 minutes. Drain the onions and allow them to cool until easy to handle.
Put the prunes, sausagemeat, marmite, rosemary and black pepper into a bowl and mash thoroughly - using the back of a spoon is an easy way to do this.
Pre-heat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6. Cut of the lid of each onion and scoop out the middle third of each onion with a teaspoon - you can always use this for a soup - and fill the hole with the sausage mixture. Drizzle with the olive oil and roast in the oven for 30-35 minutes. Great served with a leafy salad and some good crusty bread.

See? I get to boil onions and fill them with sausage. Now who could resist such a thing? Ahh come on, you know you want to! No? Shame.

Cooking this, as you might imagine from a recipe with just three steps is easy-peasy and it's genuinely amusing to watch the water slowly turn brown as the onions are boiling. The only thing I would say is if you're hungry do not under any circumstances wait for the onions to cool on their own. Get some cold water action going, your stomach will thank you. Oh and the butter that's in the list and the picture of the ingredients? Mentioned once and never used. Typical.

Bless, they look like tiny pumpkins!

The verdict:

Although these took quite a long time to cook and were really quite fiddly to make at points the results were actually good and opening them up was pretty exciting. Admittedly they are a bit 70s and the prunes are in no way necessary (the onions are sweet enough) but I kind of liked them. Maybe I'll ~~inflict them on~~ make them for my friends.

Lessons learned:

Trying to take the middle of an onion out is a lot more difficult than it sounds. Use a knife.
Sausage meat is like evil glue that sticks to everything. Handle only with wet hands.
Waiting for food is boring but a nice Gin & Tonic helps pass the time.

The cost:

Sausage meat: £1.
Prunes: £2.85

Grand total: £3.85 (I really couldn't find a smaller packet of prunes)

Righty, I'm off and will return in two weeks!

Laters!

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2011-04-20T20:28:00.001+01:00

It’s not very often that you see people wearing bowler hats these days, they seem to have faded into history along with large moustaches and smoking pipes, and I can’t really say that it’s a terribly bad thing. I’m not a huge fan of hats in general as they all make me look stupid (it’s the hat, honest!) but the bowler really is one of the more stupid looking hats available (not including intentionally comic hats, that is). So imagine my surprise when I saw on my way home today a fairly young chap wearing, without even the slightest hint of irony, a bowler hat and a pinstripe suit. He looked like a banker from the 80s but was clearly only in his 20s, quite a mystery. Perhaps he was trying to distract the world from his lack of a chin…

In other news I still haven’t found a new set of books from which to randomly choose recipes. It’s not that I’m short of books (far from it) it’s actually because almost all of them contain huge tracts of waffle about one thing or another. I’m not against the authors giving their perspective on things and I’m sure many people love reading those sections. The real trouble is that I was spoiled by my previous books where I could simply get a number from someone and it would guarantee me a recipe. Nothing quite l breaks the fun of doing this as having the following conversation:

Me: “Random person, pick me a number between 0.312 and a million.”

Random Person: “69. Heheheh” (you’d be surprised how many people do this).

Me: “Hmm, nothing on page 69 other than a picture of a cowpat and a diatribe about arable land. Pick me another.”

Random Person: “Er… 999,999.”

Me: “OK, you got me, the book isn’t really that big. Try for something under 200.”

Random Person: “12.”

Me: “Nope, that’s a diagram of a sheep’s stomach and what appears to be something on the transmutation of base metals into gold. Again. Pick me another”

And so on and so on and so on….

This gets very dull very quickly and has made me slightly phobic of the whole process so tonight I have chosen my own recipe. Not that I’ve been especially nice to myself. No, you might even describe my choice as vindictive. I’m not sure what I’ve done to deserve this:

Spaghetti with Marmite

Ingredients:

375g/13oz dried spaghetti
50g/2oz unsalted butter
1 tsp Marmite, to taste
freshly grated parmesan, to serve

This is an honest to goodness recipe from an actual TV chef. Don’t trust me? Here’s the proof: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/spaghetti_with_marmite_06786

I really cannot explain why I’ve chosen this, I think it might be the fact that this cannot possibly work at all really drew me to it or perhaps it was that the majority of the ingredients ae yellow. Look.

I fear that my parmesan might be a little too posh for this.

Now this recipe is for 4 and there’s no way that I’m cooking all of it. The prospect of inedible marmitey left-overs is too chilling to contemplate so I’m going to reduce the amount of spaghetti in the recipe but leave the sauce as it is the quantities are small enough as they stand and I don’t have to use all of it in one go. Just think of the marvellous things I can pour it over. The drain springs to mind…

Cook the spaghetti in plenty of boiling, salted water, according to the packet instructions.
When the pasta is almost cooked, melt the butter in a small saucepan and add the Marmite and one tablespoon of the pasta water, mixing thoroughly to dissolve.
Reserve half a cup of the pasta water; then drain the pasta and pour the Marmite mixture over the drained spaghetti, adding a little of the reserved pasta water to amalgamate if required.
Serve with plenty of grated parmesan.

Pretty simple, no? Here’s the result:

A pile of spaghetti, what more can I say?

The verdict:

I think it's fair to say that I was surprised by this dish. It really wasn't as bad as I imagined it would be and as far as quick meals go it's pretty good. According to the recipe this is a cheat version of an Italian dish and really should be done with proper stock and some rosemary which is something I will definitely be trying in the future. I'm going to label this as a qualified success.

Lessons learned:

I have far too many glasses and a horrible habit of using them all. I had to wash 27 of them today...
I hate washing glasses.

The cost:

Actually, I had all the ingredients at home so for the first time ever (in my recollection anyway) this was totally free! Excellent.

Righty, time for a glass of wine and Masterchef.

Laters!

There was a young man from Nantucket.

2011-04-14T18:58:00.001+01:00

Ding dong the witch is dead! Which old witch? ~~The Wicked witch~~ Microwave for one! Not, you understand, dead and buried. More like retired to a small village in the Cotswolds. I’m still pondering some form of Viking funeral for it, mind, but if I never, ever read it again then I’m sure I’ll be able to resist my more inflammatory urges. Maybe.

One small problem, however, is that I’ve totally failed to find any book to replace it. Now I know that you’ve all been very helpful and suggested lots of lovely books and I’m not saying that I’m short on options. No, what I’m saying is that I’ve totally failed to shop for a new book. Given my normal background level of Amazon-powered purchases (which can be anything in the range of “excessive” to “frenzied”) it’s a bit of a puzzle as to why I haven’t managed to get anything but there it is.

In the absence of a new book to work with I pondered, briefly, returning to the Good Food books and I even went as far as to pick a recipe at random. So am I cooking that one? No. You may well wonder why and the reason is very, very simple: it was for six people.

Six.

Clearly I was being taunted and/or mocked. One of the main reasons I’d given up was the leftovers and here I was being offered a recipe that might as well have been for 11 with the amount of leftovers I would end up with. It wasn’t even as if I could use less ingredients as it asked for whole cans of things so even if I didn’t cook as much I’d be left with a load of half-full tins that I would never use and would eventually throw out. This would never do.

Eventually I hit on a solution to my dilemma and that was to go to the Good Food website itself, limit the search to recipes for one and hit go. You’ll see why it’s an imperfect system in a moment but at least it gave me something to cook. Here’s the first result:

Shepherd’s pie potatoes

Ingredients:

2 tsp butter
½ onion , chopped
140g lean minced beef
250ml beef stock
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp tomato purée
1 large jacket potato , baked
small handful grated cheddar

OK so I’ve got two issues with this recipe. The first is one of nomenclature. Now I’m not an expert and I could well be entirely wrong but I am convinced that shepherd’s pie has lamb in it and not beef (in fact I’m sure I’ve covered this one before briefly). Sure I could go look it up to find out for certain but I’ve already typed this paragraph out and I’ll only have to go and replace it if I prove myself wrong.

The second is really my fault. You see I glanced very quickly at the recipe last night and thought to myself “cool, that’ll take about an hour to cook, that’s about OK”. Trouble is I didn’t notice that the recipe wants a potato that is already baked. How this is going to affect the timing is beyond me. I never usually bake potatoes so I’ve absolutely no idea how long this is going to take. This could, potentially, be another midnight posting…

Anyway, here’s a lovely family shot of the soon to be cooked and eaten ingredients:

Cheese and stock omitted for no good reason

What you can’t see here (because I hid it) is the second potato that I cowardly bought for microwaving if this all looked like it was going to take too long.

As you might imagine, this is hardly complicated stuff. Here’s how it works:

Heat oven to 200C/fan 180C/gas 6. Melt half the butter in a non-stick pan. Cook the onion for 3-4 mins, then increase the heat and add the mince. Fry for a further 3-4 mins until the beef has browned. Stir in the stock, Worcestershire sauce, tomato purée and some seasoning. Gently bubble for 15-20 mins until the mince is tender and the sauce has thickened.
To assemble, cut the jacket potato in half lengthways and scoop the flesh into a small bowl, leaving the skin intact. Mash the potato with the remaining butter and season well. Divide the mince between the potato skins, then cover with the mash. Transfer the potatoes to a baking dish, sprinkle with cheese, then bake for 15-20 mins until golden. Serve with your favourite veg.

Now it may not seem like this would take a long time but trust me when I say this took ages. Possibly the fact that I was tired and hungry didn't help but I didn't get to try it till 9pm. Which, for me, was far too late.

Still, I made it and here's how it looked:

Hmm...

The verdict:

Well what can I say? Overall this thing took too long and was extremely disappointing and I think I might have liked it more had I made an actual cottage pie out of the ingredients. It all seemed like a lot of effort just to make something that is a well known recipe in some way different and new. Not something I will be trying again.

Lessons learned:

Sometimes presentation is just that and nothing more.
Extra mature cheddar does not melt well (in my defence I bought it by mistake).
Three is a pleasing number and I should endeavour to learn more things.

The cost:

Steak mince: £1.40
Baking potato: 32p
Onion: 16p
Tomato purée: 43p

Grand total: £2.31 which is OK, I guess.

Time I should be went.

Laters!

Thora Hird

2011-04-07T20:20:00.002+01:00

It’s not very often that a group of people will simultaneously turn on a book and decide that they hate it (ok, I’ll admit it happens a lot) and I really wasn’t expecting the backlash that Microwave for One has received. I think it was the idea of putting Marie Rose sauce on lemon sole that truly made people turn. After all, who cares about turkey?

It’s with this in mind that I have decided that this will be the last week I’ll be using this particular book. From next week I’ll move on to something better. I’m not yet sure what it is I’ll do but I’m sure I’ll think of something (or one of you kind people will come up with a suggestion).

So seeing as this is Microwave for One’s last hurrah I, of course, decided that I would choose the best thing the book had to offer in the hope that it might be able to redeem itself, right? Wrong. I simply couldn’t be bothered to read through it and any attempt soon left me feeling nauseated. Bugger it. Let fate decide.

Fate chose page 63 which brings to us the culinary delight that is…

Soy Chicken

Ingredients:

75g soya sprouts
3 spring onions
2 chicken thighs
1 rounded teaspoon stock or gravy granules
2 tablespoons boiling water
shake of pepper

Now if you, like me, were expecting this to be something lovely involving chicken, Asian spices and soy sauce I’m sure that you’re feeling rather disappointed by this recipe (if you’re a lot like me you’re also feeling a little queasy at the prospect). This recipe makes no sense at all. For starters it’s got soy shoots and gravy in it for crying out loud. I’ve got absolutely no idea what this is going to taste like and I’m more than a little scared.

The second (and possibly most worrying) aspect is that it calls for chicken thighs. Hold on. Before you start shouting that chicken thighs have more flavour than chicken breast and that I’m a philistine for complaining about their use just think for a second. Imagine hot chicken thighs with the skin on fresh from the microwave. Have you got a mental picture of pallid, greasy skin and unrendered fat? I have and I don’t like it. Therefore I will be removing ALL traces of skin and fat from the chicken before it goes anywhere near the microwave. Seriously, I feel slightly ill now.

Anyway, onwards. Here’s my haul from Tesco:

Gravy...

You’ll observe that I’ve gone for bog standard beansprouts rather than tracking down actual soy shoots and I’ve assumed that the gravy is chicken. This is because I am bone idle and couldn’t be bothered to work at this. That and I really, really didn’t want to invest more time shopping for this than it would take to cook. Clearly I was pressed for time…

Here’s how the magic happens:

Wash and drain soya sprouts. Trim and chop spring onions.
Put into a 1 pint round cooking dish.
Wash and dry chicken. Place on top.
Mix together granules and water. Add pepper.
Pour over chicken mixture.
Cover with cling wrap. Puncture twice with the tip of a knife to prevent a build-up of steam.
Cook on full power for 6 minutes.
Stand for 4 minutes. Uncover. Serve.

Now this dish is described as having a “crispy texture” and I’m having a hard time believing that this is at all possible given that this is cooked in a microwave. Still, it’s cooked now. Check it:

Hmm, this doesn't look all that bad...

Verdict:

Fate is definitely messing with me. As soon as I decide that this book is a total waste of time it throws me a recipe that I quite like. I'm serious! This was actually quite nice. OK I could taste the gravy and because it was made from granules it didn't taste all that nice but there was something about this dish that I liked. In fact I liked it so much I ate it all. Promise...

Lessons learned:

Nope, I learned nothing other than the fact that fate has a twisted sense of humour but I'm sure I already knew that one.

Oh alright here's one:

Chicken thighs can actually be quite nice microwaved. Much nicer than I was expecting.

The cost:

Chicken thighs: £3.05
Beansprouts: 50p
Spring onions: 72p

Grand total: £4.32 which seems like a lot for one meal but I did have to buy a giant pack of chicken thighs which will do for other meals.

Righty, time for a G&T and Masterchef on catch-up.

Laters!

The Sole of Discretion

2011-03-30T19:21:00.001+01:00

Today I have been working from home. Which for those of you not fortunate enough to have experienced usually means that clothes are, at best, optional. But not today. No, today I was waiting for a plumber to come and prod my boiler and pronounce it safe for another year so I had to actually get out of bed and make myself and my flat at least vaguely presentable. Cue me frantically doing the washing-up and trying to hide the worst of it at 8am so that when he arrived at 9am he wouldn't judge me too harshly. Sadly 9am came and went and there was no plumber. Same at 10am and again at 11am. No plumber. When he eventually turned up I was dangerously close to running out of milk and beginning to panic slightly that I wouldn't be able to offer him a cup of tea. It turns out, however, that Russian plumbers don't drink tea, perhaps I should have got some vodka in...

Tonight was to see the return of Microwave for One and I had a recipe picked out and everything. Last week I failed to mention that Turkey in a Wood is on page 72 and today's is on the inverse of that, page 27:

Sole in Rose Marie Sauce

Ingredients:

2 level tablespoons tomato ketchup
2 rounded tablespoons thick mayonnaise (not salad cream)
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon medium or sweet sherry
a shake of Tabasco or cayenne pepper
1 lemon sole (225g)
2 slices of lemon for garnish
parsley or watercress for garnish

Ahh, garnish, how we have missed thee. How are the 80s? I'm also amused that the author decided that it was vitally important that we don't somehow become confused between mayonnaise and salad cream. I guess that this was a common mistake back when shoulder-pads and big hair were viewed by many as attractive. Clearly it was a mixed-up time.

Now, the more observant of you probably noticed that tonight was to see the return of microwave cooking but I've hit a slight snag. You see that my local Tesco Enormo doesn't have any sole of any description. I spent a good 10 minutes looking for the stuff and just couldn't find it (it's not all bad: I did find shampoo with a picture of Jenson Button on it so from tomorrow I'll have go-faster hair). This means that I can make the sauce but have nothing to put it on. I did, briefly, toy with the idea of putting it on prawns just to see what it tasted like but this blog has made me eat way more than my fair share of pink commas so I'm refusing.

Before anyone starts leaving comments about how stupid I am and that I could easily have substituted a different fish I would like to inform you all that I have already been told of the alternative fish and that I will cook using a different one if necessary. However it's my belief that changing things is not in the spirit of this blog so I'm determined to find lemon sole if it's the last thing I do.

Sadly this means that I'm going to have to stop here for the moment. Expect a second post soon.

Laters!

Oh and I apologise for the terrible pun in the title, I couldn't stop myself.

The Bagel of Despair

2011-03-23T20:44:00.002Z

I'm fairly sure that I've discussed in the past how certain things are out to get me and today it's my netbook. I'd written three fantastic paragraphs detailing the reasons that I'd stopped writing this blog (essentially the reasons were work and leftovers, but I'll come back to them) and I reached a point where I had to open my bag to check a name (Sonia Allison, not that the name means anything to you at this point). Now to get into my bag I had to shut the lid on my netbook as it was resting on top of my bag. No problem, when the lid shuts it should save its state to disk and go into hibernation and the first bit of that went really well. The netbook shut down and the power light started gently flashing. The second part didn't go quite how I planned it, however, and unfortunately no matter what I did it didn't want to wake up at all.

Problem...

Eventually I chose to shut it down completely and reboot in the vain hope that somehow my document might get auto-recovered and I would miraculously be saved. As you're reading this i'm pretty sure you can figure out how well that went...

But anyway, to put it briefly the reasons I stopped writing were twofold, one that hasn't really improved and one that I think I have a solution for. Let's deal with the insoluble one first, ok?

Pathetic excuse #1:

It's that old chestnut: work. Yes, I am once again blaming (partially) my employer for my absence. To be fair they're an easy target and I'm sure at least one of you is still buying that excuse...

Pathetic excuse #2:

Now this one genuinely did bother me and that was the sheer quanitity of leftovers I was generating. There came a point where I simply couldn't fit anything new in my freezer and I was forced to start throwing things away. Throwing food away always makes me unhappy so I took a break to try and work my way through my frozen food. I've only just finished, honest...

There is a cunning way to make PE#2 go away and that is the genius move of cooking much less food and I think I've found the recipe book that's going to do that for me. It was recently named “The Saddest Book in the Universe” by one Reddit user here but I know it by its more common name “Microwave for One” by Sonia Allison...

So lonely...

You'll notice from the not quite cutting-edge styling of the cover that this book was first published quite some time ago. Presumably when microwaves were new and cool and people viewed them as little miracle cooking devices that could do anything and although we know better these days there's such a sense of optimism in this book that I can't help but get excited. Having said that, the fact that the person on the cover (presumably Sonia herself) looks positively unwell probably means that I should perhaps temper my enthusiasm with a healthy sprinkling of cynicism.

This little gem of a book contains a myriad of 80s ~~culinary horrors~~ recipes (well, I say recipes but one of them is cooking a potato waffle) and is a little light on photographs so I've absolutely no idea what today's recipe is supposed to look like, see what your fevered imaginations make of this:

Turkey in a Wood.

Ingredients:

175g turkey breast fillet
125g trimmed leek
1 tablespoon flour
1 can (220g) prunes in syrup
¼ to ½ teaspoon salt

Yes, prunes, I've absolutely no idea what the author was thinking when she wrote this and it appears that fate has decided that my first recipe from this book is straight from the “challenging flavours” section. No matter, I'm ploughing ahead regardless and found everything I needed in my local super market:

Well it's simple, I'll give it that.

Sonia helpfully decided to add a difficulty rating to all of the recipes in this book and this one is listed as “fairly quick and trouble-free” here's how it goes:

Cut turkey into small cubes
Put into a 1 pint round cooking dish. Slit leek, thouroughly wash and cut into thin slices.
Stir into turkey with flour.
Cover with...

Oh bugger it, I really cannot be sitting here typing out this horrible thing. If you're really that interested you can buy the book! In reality the recipe should read like this:

Cut turkey into small cubes,
Do unspeakable things involving a microwave and prunes.
Order pizza.

But I'm not allowed to do that and so had to cook this thing according to the recipe, here's what it looked like:

There's more than enough for seconds...

The verdict:

Well it wasn't as vile as I'd imagined it being. The turkey was moist and went fairly well with the leeks and the sweetness of the prune syrup. Not as vile, but still pretty horrible, if you want to imagine it then I'd suggest starting with sweet and sour chicken and making everything worse. Luckily for me I have back up food that I can eat instead because there's no way I am ever going to eat that!

Lessons learned:

Turkey isn't a brilliant meat at the best of times and microwaving it doesn't improve things
A lot of things happened in the 80s and some of them should definitely stay there.
Prunes.

The cost:

Turkey: £3.00
Prunes: 77p
A leek: 30p

Grand total: £4.07. I've got to admit that I thought it was going to be cheaper than that...

Righty, I'm off to watch Masterchef, who's going to put the kettle on?

I think I have pre-senile dementia.

2010-10-05T15:29:00.001+01:00

Ahh Tuesday, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways... Zero, absolutely nothing. Many years ago I decided, through an unnecessarily convoluted thought process, that Tuesdays were the worst day of the week and as such should be abolished and unfortunately I think I may have repeated this conviction on a Tuesday sometime in the past and ever since Tuesdays have been out to get me, it's still the worst day of the week but recently it's seemed personal.

Not that this has anything to do with the reason I didn't write anything last Thursday, apart from them sharing a number of letters, so why mention it? To be completely honest I've no idea but I'll give you a run down of how last Thursday went and I'm sure you'll start to see some definite Tuesday characteristics.

So this Tuesday Thursday started early (as most do), well I say early but it was actually late. More specifically I was late, 2 hours late, when I finally roused from my slumber to find that I was due to be at work in 4 minutes time. Swearing myself out of bed I slung some clothes on and grabbed my, mercifully already packed, bag on the way to the door. The train ride was uneventful but it was on the Tube that the next bout of Tuesdayness occurred when the train driver informed us that the stop I use was closed “due to staff shortages” now I've no idea how many staff it takes to run a Tube station but I'm willing to bet that it can't be many. Surely they could have coped with one or two but apparently there's a minimum number of people required and they were under that number...

Actually, this is going to take an age if I try to list everything that went wrong on that day, let me summarise the rest:

Had to walk to work with bag full of rather heavy ingredients.
My work computer blew up suddenly and unexpectedly
My glasses broke
As it was the end of the month and the end of the quarter everyone and his dog wanted our attention

and finally, after all that:

The class was cancelled due to a lack of hot water in the classroom.

Yep, the reason that there was no blog from my course last week wasn't because I got caught trying to surreptitiously take photos of the ingredients, nor because someone thought it suspicious that I should be writing quite that much in a cookery course. No, it was for the most mundane of reasons and not even my protestations that it was OK because I didn't really want to do the washing up anyway would sway the powers that be. Class was cancelled. Go home.

What else could I reasonably do but go home and sulk over a pizza? I even ordered it from the train so I wouldn't have to wait too long when I got home. Sad isn't it? Frankly I by and large gave up on cooking for the entire weekend and existed on meals out and pizza leftovers.

Gave up, that is, until last night when in a fit of madness I decided that cauliflower, cheese and Marmite were a genius combination and that I had to cook it immediately. This is why I give you:

Cauliflower with Cheese and Marmite

Ingredients:

A cauliflower.
Some cheese (I used about 120g)
Marmite.

Now I feel that this is a recipe that is going to generate some derision and will probably be utterly hated by at least half of the people reading this but stay with me on this. You see what I was thinking about was something that had been served to me on Sunday and that was cauliflower that had been cooked in the microwave and then finished off in the tray that a chicken had been roasted in with cheese scattered over it. The taste was absolutely inreadible and I was desperate to recreate the sensation without having to roast a whole chicken every time I fancied it. This, my brain decided, would be best achieved by using Marmite. Told you I was delusional...

Anyway, making this is easy-peasy:

Steam the cauliflower using a method of your choice (I was lazy and used the microwave but you can use a steamer if you're really that bothered). Meanwhile grate your cheese and pre-heat your grill to a high heat. Once the cauliflower is done, drain and place in an oven proof dish. Drizzle as much Marmite as you feel you can handle over the cauliflower and cover with the cheese. Grill until golden brown.

This is what you should end up with:

The verdict:

So did I really manage to recreate the taste that I was aiming for? No, no I did not. For some reason I utterly ignored the voice in the back of my head that was trying to tell me that even though I'd drained the cauliflower it probably still had a load of water trapped in it and that I should give it a few minutes to dry. As a result the water dissolved the Marmite and formed a thin brown liquid that sloshed around as I removed it from under the grill and almost burned my hand. I am a muppet but in my defence it had taken me 2 ½ hours to get home due to yet another Tube strike and I think my hunger made me rush.

I don't think, however, that this concept is a total loss and I'm convinced that I can get it right. Stay tuned.

Lessons learned:

Marmite + steam = tasteless brown water.
Pizza stays edible for a surprisingly long time.

The cost:

I'm going to take a guess at the prices here as I can't find the receipt but I reckon that the cauliflower cost about 35p and I used roughly 75p worth of cheese. Marmite is, of course, a limitless resource so trying to give it a value would be meaningless.

Righty, I have just been given a bucket-sized coffee. If you need me I'll be the blur in the corner.

Laters!

Mummy, I'm hungry!

2010-09-28T19:32:00.000+01:00

I'm going to start today by making an assumption, now I know that assumptions are often dangerous and indeed that there is at least one well known saying that warns of the problems making assumptions can bring (although what Ume makes of all this I'll never know). However I feel that this assumption is so rock solid that it's a solid bet. So solid that I'd be fairly willing to put money on it if it weren't for the fact that by the time you've finished reading this post it would no longer be true.

So what is it that I feel is safe to assume but I know will no longer be true by the time you're done reading this? Easy, this:

Most of you are probably wondering about the frequency drop in posts recently and are probably assuming that it's something to do with work or some other excuse.

I'm right, aren't I?

This is not the case, however, the real reason the Thursday post is missing from last week is that I have done the unthinkable and joined a cookery course. Yes, you heard me, I'm actually (and for the fist time in my life) being formally taught how to cook. It's nothing fancy, mind, and it's actually about curry rather than actual cooking techniques but it's a start and one that I'm rather looking forward to.

So what's this got to do with me posting on a Thursday? Well that's when the thing happens so when I'd normally be cooking and writing weird stuff at you lot I'll be in a big kitchen with a bunch of other people trying to reproduce what I was shown how to do the previous week. Of course the clear option here is for me to write about the course I'm on and I'm sorely tempted but I'm given pause by the prospect of getting caught and the potential repercussions that might result. I've been told over and over by many people that there is no copyright on recipes and that I'd be perfectly within my rights to reproduce any recipe I want to verbatim. This may well be true but they'd probably be well within teir rights to kick me off the course.

Clearly I have some pondering to do, is the potential comedy goldmine that is a cookery course worth the risk? Stay tuned...

Now you're probably expecting me to write about food now, yes? Well that's what I thought and I've bought all the ingredients and lugged them faithfully home on the train but sadly that's where it's going to have to stop for tonight because every time I try to visit the website that this recipe is from I get the rather unfriendly message: "Error establishing a database connection" which isn't terribly informative. I'm fairly sure that I've got the pages I want open at work but that's many miles away and I'm definitely not going back there till tomorrow.

Ahh well, leftovers it is...

Ciao!

A piece of cake!

2010-09-21T20:32:00.005+01:00

I'm not sure what exactly it is that I've done recently to anger the Lords of Cooking but whatever it was it must have been bad as almost everything that I've attempted recently has resulted in total failure (yes, the ginger ale was flat as a pancake, ironically much flatter than my actual pancakes). Indeed, even things that I've never had an issue with in the past (making a white sauce, for example) have gone so spectacularly wrong that the only plausible explanation is the supernatural. Not that I'm a superstitious person, you understand, so it's probably best to look on the following paragraph as me hedging my bets.

Oh great and powerful Lords of Cooking! Please forgive this foolish mortal for his transgressions against you and allow him once more to manage something more complex than a pot noodle. He is terribly sorry for whatever it is he has done and promises he won't do it again just as soon as he figures out what it is, unless of course it's something he hasn't done in which case he promises to do it all the time in future. When appropriate, of course. He wouldn't want to do it all the time. Unless he's supposed to, in which case he will. Amen.

Crikey, that all sounds very reminiscent, perhaps my ex-girlfriend is one of the Lords of Cooking, although it seems unlikely...

Bearing in mind my recent lack of ability and my clear need for comfort food I have chosen a recipe sent to me by Rob, although he actually sent me a link to a recipe by Debs and it can be found here. As before I'm reproducing the recipe here for those with RSI from too much clicking.

Best Ever Chocolate Cake

200 g butter
200 g high quality dark chocolate (70% or 80 % cacao; I like Lindt)
200 g sugar (the original recipe by Trish Deseine calls for 250 gm, but I prefer 200 gm)
5 eggs
1 tablespoon of flour (cornflour also works well for the gluten intolerant)

Wicked, cake for dinner, how can I fail?

Whilst on my way home it occurred to me that I might actually be able to get all of the ingredients from my local 24-hour garage, which would have meant that this would be cake that you could have any time you wanted. Sadly they only had the chocolate (and not very good chocolate at that). Shame really, I was rather taken by the idea of 24/7 cake...

OK, so I said I wanted something simple and this one really is. Here's how simple:

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees Celsius. Grease the sides of an 8-10 inch round baking pan (or use a silicon one). Chop the chocolate and butter into pieces and heat until melted, use the microwave if you have one. Stir the sugar in and allow the mixture to cool a little before adding the eggs (you don’t want scrambled eggs!). Add the eggs, one after another, always mixing well after each one, don´t worry if starts to look curdled it will all come together in the end. Finally, mix in the flour. Pour the mixture into the baking pan and put it in the oven for about 20-25 minutes. Don’t do the toothpick test to see if the inside is finished, it can jiggle a little when it comes out of the oven. The sides should be cooked and the centre oozing; that’s what gives it the melt in your mouth taste.

Easy peasy! How can it possibly go wrong?

Hooray! It didn't go wrong!

The verdict:

Wow. Just wow. I'm rendered speechless by this cake. So simple, so easy and so very, very good. Gloopy, chocolaty and smashingly comforting. This one has win written all over it. Go on, make it now, it'll only take you about an hour. My only regret is that I've not found a way to make this whenever the fancy takes me, my infrequent bouts of insomnia wouldn't be cured by this cake but they would be a hell of a lot more interesting.

Lessons learned:

Yeast has an expiry date. Who knew?
I really need a palette knife, getting this one off the base was a real pain (one quickly forgotten, seriously this cake can cure anything).
Cake for dinner is perfectly is a perfectly acceptable thing.

The cost:

Eggs: £1.54
Butter: £1.30
Chocolate: £3

Grand total: £4.84 and by my reckoning that's pretty close to the real cost of this cake. Brilliant.

Righty, I'm off to ~~eat more cake~~ tidy...

Laters!

I'm a rocket man...

2010-09-15T15:55:00.001+01:00

So I think you're all aware that last Tuesday didn't go well and I'm afraid that the trend continued for the entire week, sadly preventing me from having any time at all to write some nonsense for you lovely people. It isn't that I stopped eating, that would be foolish, it's just that I was returned rather forcibly by time constraints to grabbing things on the go (and, I'm ashamed to admit, the occasional ready meal).

What was lovely were all of the responses I received from people echoing my sentiments regarding last Tuesday and transport workers. I was slightly less impressed with the pancake recipes certain shining wits decided to send to me, you know who you are...

That's the thing, you see, I didn't buy pancake mix because I was feeling lazy I bought it because some frazzled part of my brain had decided, despite all contrary indications, that's what the recipe called for. I'm not sure how this happened as I'm usually fairly literate but it happened alright and not just the once, after all it was supposed to be smoked salmon, not the fresh stuff I bought. This clearly is what happens when you get to run an entire department on your own for two days.

Oh and mum, thank you for the crushingly embarrassing offer of remedial pancake lessons. I'll be sure to take you up on the offer just as soon as my self-esteem runs dry (give it a few days). P.S. can I bring some washing over?

Although the week was mostly toast I did have big plans for saturday (ok, medium plans) as I had been sent a recipe for ginger ale by my friend Ben that I really wanted to try. The recipe can be found here here but I've also reproduced it in this post for the terminally lazy.

Home Made Ginger Ale

cane (table) sugar [sucrose] (1 cup)
Freshly grated ginger root (1 1/2-2 tablespoons)
Juice of one lemon
fresh granular baker's yeast (1/4 teaspoon)
cold fresh pure water

Now I was going to do this at home but before I'd managed to get around to it I received an emergency IT support call from Ben's fiancée Simone. Now Ben is far from IT illiterate but he was, at that specific time, in a cave dislocating his shoulder and as a result couldn't provide te assistance necessary. Gallantly I volunteered to go over thinking that I could pick up all the ingredients that I didn't already have on the way. A simple enough task that turned into a bit of an epic due to just one ingredient. Root ginger.

Root ginger, it turns out, is a lot less common than I'd lead myself to believe. I had naïvely thought that I could pop into any small supermarket and there it would be. Not so, at least not in my area, and although I don't recall the exact number of shops I visited I'm sure it numbers in the thousands. Still, I got some in the end...

As you'd imagine from the low number of ingredients the method is pretty simple, and it is:

Lay it out all the listed ingredients and equipment.
Use fresh ginger root (purchasable at most large supermarkets, or Asian food shops).
Add 1 cup sugar to the 2 liter bottle with a dry funnel. (Leave the funnel in place until you are ready to cap the bottle.) NOTE: Many have asked about bottling ginger ale in glass bottles. I do not recommend it because ginger ale is a very aggressive fermenter, producing high pressure fairly rapidly. Plastic bottles can be felt to judge pressure. Glass cannot. Tardy refrigeration can lead to explosions. Exploding plastic bottles are messy. Exploding glass botles are dangerous...
Measure out 1/4th teaspoon fresh granular active baker's yeast. (Fleishman's etc. We buy ours in bulk from the health food store.)
Add yeast through funnel into the bottle, shake to disperse the yeast grains into the sugar granules.
Grate the ginger root on a fine "cutting" grater to produce 1 1/2 Tablespoon of grated root. (Look at the large picture of the grater. This style of fine "cutting" teeth works MUCH better than the style with the sharp pointy piece of metal which crumble food. The design is also less likely to shred your knuckles. I have had to look far and wide to find a fine "cutting" grater. Mine says "Stainless Steel Denmark" on its handle...)
Place grated ginger in the cup measure
Juice a whole lemon. (Lemon is optional, giving a little tartness to the ginger ale. Try it both ways to see which you prefer. I like them both.)
Add the juice of a whole lemon to the grated ginger.
Stir the lemon juice and grated ginger to form a slurry.
Add the slurry of lemon juice and grated ginger to the bottle. (It may stick in the funnel. Don't worry, the next step will wash it into the bottle.)
Rinse containers with fresh clean water.
Add the rinsings to the bottle, cap and shake to distribute.
Fill the bottle to the neck with fresh cool clean water, leaving about an inch of head space, securely screw cap down to seal. Invert repeatedly to thoroughly dissolve sugar. (The ginger root will not dissolve, of course.)
Place in a warm location for 24 to 48 hours. (Do not leave at room temperature longer than necessary to feel "hard." The excess pressure may cause an eruption when you open it, or even explode the bottle!)
Test to see if carbonation is complete by squeezing the bottle forcefully with your thumb. If it dents in as in the picture, it is not ready.
Once the bottle feels hard to a forceful squeeze, usually only 24-48 hours, place in the refrigerator. Before opening, refrigerate at least overnight to thoroughly chill. Crack the lid of the thoroughly chilled ginger ale just a little to release the pressure slowly. You do not want a ginger ale fountain! NOTE: Do not leave the finished ginger ale in a warm place any longer than the time it takes for the bottle to feel hard. Leaving it at room temperature longer than two days, especially in the summer when the temperature is high, can generate enough pressure to explode the bottle! (Speaking from experience here...) Once it is thoroughly chilled, there is little danger of explosion.
Filter the ginger ale through a strainer if you find floating pieces of ginger objectionable. These are found in the first glass or two poured, and, since most of the ginger sinks to the bottom, the last glass or so may require filtering too. Rinse the bottle out immediately after serving the last of the batch.

All very easy and I was done in about 15 minutes and feeling pretty pleased with myself.

This, however, is where it all starts to fall apart. You see, it's now Wednesday and by now I should have had some tasty ginger ale to drink but unfortunately nothing seems to have happened. The bottle hasn't become any firmer and seeing as this process is supposed to take 24-48 hours I think this may well be an abject failure. Still, I will persevere and come what may I'm refridgerating the thing when I get home tonight and will be trying it tomorrow. You can pre-book ambulances, right?

As I've not tried it I can't really can't give you a verdict but I can give you this:

Lessons learned:

Root ginger has many, many tough fibres running through it that will not under any circumstances grate so you may occasionally need to give it a haircut.
When people find out that you bought pancake mix they look at you like you're an alien.
My friends are pisstakers, guess what Simone made me as a reward for fixing her IT emergency... Yep, pancakes.

The cost:

Sugar: 71p
A lemon: 31p
Root ginger: 63p

Grand total: £1.65 which is brilliant seeing as apart from the lemon I easily had enough to make 4 times as much. Not that it looks like it's working, of course.

Righty, that's it I'm done. See you on the other side!

Laters!

You all know what the Tube is, right?

2010-09-07T20:58:00.002+01:00

As my London readers will know for the past two days the capital of the UK has held to ransom by its tube drivers and what they laughingly call “industrial action” although how they get away with using the word action when the lazy, workshy bastards aren't actually doing anything is entirely beyond me. Better to call it “industrial apathy” or even “feck it, boys, lets have a holiday”. If you detect a certain lack of sympathy for the overpaid chimps who operate the tube then you'd be right, frankly the only people who strike more readily and with less reason are French air traffic controllers and at least with them you can put it down to their gallic tempers. With the tube drivers their strikes are a cold, calculated throttling of London. Fire them all and replace them with robots, that's what I say. Robot trains would as well, despite not quite being flying cars, at least make me feel that I was living in the 21^st century.

Not that all my distemper is down to the strike directly, oh no, the thing is that when there is a tube strike what most Londoners do is the sensible thing and “work” from home. Sadly I am not one of those people but at least the drop in passenger volumes helps ease the strain and can even make the journey pleasureable. Not today. Today everyone decided that they absolutely must make it into work because clearly society would grind to a screeching halt if they weren't there to hold its hand and mop its fevered brow. As a result I was late into work (however many millions of commuters there are do not fit into the three remaining trains that were operating today, no matter how hard they push) and I'm on a train that's going the long way round to my home at a time that I've normally been home for 20 minutes.

It's not all doom and gloom, however, as with all things there is at least a thread of silver running through and for me it was watching a train door actually break because of the sheer volume of people it was trying to shut on. I've never seen that happen before, having said that I've never seen someone kick a door back onto a train in a spectacular display of percussion maintenance before. Before today, that is.

Oh and this train doesn't have a loo. This is not a good thing. Not good at all.

OK, so today's recipe actually comes from my sister Cat who I believe stole it from Sainsbury's, which is why I have stolen all the ingredients from Tesco. Seems fair, right?

Now I didn't buy any of the ingredients at lunch as I really didn't like to think what a protracted journey on a series of stifling metal tubes would do to the prawns (and subsequently my innards) so it was off to the Tesco Gigantor that's near my house for a bit of shoplifting...

Prawn and Smoked Salmon Pancakes

Ingredients:

1 quantity of batter recipe
25g butter
25g plain flour
300ml milk
200g pack frozen extra large tiger prawns, defrosted
125g pack smoked salmon trimmings
15ml spoon fresh dill, finely chopped, retain a few whole pieces for garnish
5ml spoon lemon juice
freshly ground black pepper

No, I couldn't figure out what “1 quantity of batter recipe” was either (how can you have one amount of anything? What does it weigh?) so as you can see I bought some pancake mix instead, I'm sure it'll be fine...

Get your quantities together and shuffle them up like this:

Make up the pancakes following the basic pancake recipe.

To make the filling, melt the butter in a saucepan, remove the pan from the heat and add the flour. Return the pan to the heat and stir until the mixture lightens.

Remove the pan from the heat and add the milk gradually, return to the heat and bring to the boil, stirring continually.

Add the prawns, smoked salmon, dill and lemon juice warm through and season to taste.

Divide the mixture between the pancakes then roll them up and garnish with fresh dill before serving.

Well at least that's how it was supposed to go. It isn't how it actually went. Not even slightly.

So what went wrong? Many things: unnecessarily sweet pancakes that stuck to the frying pan, burned pancakes and lumpy sauce. I'm really not sure how it went quite so very wrong but it did. Look:

Lumps!

Burned, horrid pancakes.

Unfortunately these two things going wrong meant that dinner was a total write-off and I've ordered a pizza, it's the only rational response in the face of adversity.

Seeing as I've not managed to eat this dish yet I think it would be unfair to give it a verdict but I have managed to learn one or two things.

Lessons learned:

My non-stick frying pan is in no way non-stick when it comes to pancake batter.
Pancake mix is just wrong, I will make my own net time.
Tuesdays are hateful days and should be abolished.

I am considering attempting this again tomorrow so stay tuned but in the meantime I'm going to bed which is probably where I should have stayed this morning...

UPDATE: I am an idiot and clearly bought the wrong kind of salmon. Something is clearly wrong with me...

Challenge Week - Part 2

2010-09-04T17:02:00.001+01:00

So here we are in part two of challenge week and I've been puzzling over something all week, namely why on Earth I decided to call this challenge week. It's not like I've set myself a particularly difficult (or indeed challenging) task, is it? But if not challenge week then what? I couldn't call it competition week because you lot might get excited and start thinking that there's prizes to be had, nor could I call it “Nairn Cooks Two Remarkably Similar but Really Quite Different Recipes” week as that's just stupid. So there you have it: it's called challenge week because I couldn't think of a better way.

Another real problem is that I'm pretty much judging this on my own (except for my co-worker observing that my lunch smelled “nice” on Wednesday, which wasn't a great deal of help) so I've drafted in some assistance this evening in the form of the lovely Tiff. I'll admit that she's not tried the first one so she's not really in a position to judge but she will tell me if it's horrible, which will help.

Of course having a guest brings its own dangers, namely the late posting of blogs, so I would like to apologise if this is now Friday and I've only just managed to sling this up in the interwebs, I was probably “tired”. Conversely if it's still Thursday then I am a hero and if it's much later than Friday Tiff let me have a go on her motorbike and it didn't end well...

Today's recipe is, of course, Chorizo Stew and was provided by the individually named Stegzy Gnomepants (don't ask, I didn't) who as you will see has some fairly strong views on the word onion and a fairly innovative approach to vocabulary. Take it away Mr Gnomepants:

Chorizo Stew

(Makes a fair bit. Suitable for freezing to enjoy later)

Ingredients

1 Chopped onion (have you noticed how unyon is spelt onion and ewe-nion is spelt union?? No?)
3-4 cloves of garlic chopped
A fair chunk of chorizo - cubed (go fror about 4 inches thick but don't use slices as they're a bit pants)
A chicken breast
2 pints of chicken stock (or fish stock if using the fish option)
6 medium-small potatoes cut into chunks
1 tsp of smoked paprika (don't use the sharwoods stuff it's bobbins)
A large pinch of saffron
1 tin of chopped tomatos (in sauce rather than juice if you can get it)
a good handful (Bruce Grobblar size) of frozen peas
A tablespoon of either semolina or ground almonds

Optional ingredients
Some nice meaty white fish like cod or haddock,
or
Seafood
or
A cute fluffy bunny (skinned, filleted and cubed)

Nice cutty bread (to serve)

Now the recipe clearly calls for frozen peas and so that's what I bought, praying that (a) I wouldn't forget about them and leave them in the freezer at work (yes, bizarrely we have a freezer at work) or (b) the wouldn't melt on the way home and then refreeze into a solid mega-pea like mass when placed into my home freezer. The thing is you won't be able to tell either way from this picture, so I've no idea why I'm telling you...

As you can see I've decided to forgo any of the optional ingredients as I wanted to try this in its most basic form before messing with it. Having said that I'm using the same chorizo as Tuesday's as it was left over, sadly it's not the same as the chorizo described in the recipe but I don't think it'll make too much difference.

Having assembled the troops it was cooking time, here's how it went down:

In a big saucepan or stewpot, sauté the onions, chorizo and garlic in a teeny bit of olive oil until the onions turn translucent. Add your saffron and keep stiring until the onions go yellow. [Note: the quality of the saffron will determine the yellowness of the onions. Personally I find paying £2.50 for a farting amount of Sharwoods Saffron which gives it a sort of "off white" yellow colouring is a bit off really. Especially if you go somewhere like Julian Graves or your local ethnic food store and get nearly 4 times as much for a fraction of the price that gives a nice rich yellow colouring].
Add your chicken and gently sizzle until all pieces are white.
Next add your spuds. Keep stirring or it will stick to the bottom of the pan and you don't want that.
Add your paprika. Keep stirring
Add your stock and tomatoes. Keep stirring
At this point you might be tempted to add your fish and peas. DON'T! The fish will taste like rubber or disintergrate and the peas will turn to mush and be unpleasant and mushy peas are the same level as Beamish Irish Stout or Marmite and you don't want that. Instead, bring to the boil, pop a lid on the pan and simmer gently for about 30 minutes.
Now the tricky part - On removing the lid you will notice it is slightly watery and soup like. Give it a stir and add your almonds/semolina/thickening agent but you don't want it too thick you want it like a really thick soup. Don't rush it though or it will taste awful. This is the time to add peas and (if you are using it) your fish. Simmer for a further 10 minutes, if you are using seafood adjust your cooking time accordingly, I tend to put the seafood in about 7 minutes after the peas.

Serving

This is the most important part. Failure to adhere to these instructions will spoil the experience.

Ladle lovingly into big bowls (if you don't do it lovingly it will not taste right and you might as well give up now)

Serve with huge chunks of a nice loaf of cut cutty bread.

So slightly more complicated than the previous recipe but not a huge task, the only thing I had any trouble with was getting everything ready at the right time. I only have one chopping board and my kitchen is quite small so I found myself chopping things when I really should have been stirring but I don't think it made much difference and the end result looked remarkably similar to Tuesday's effort:

It seems Chorizo Stew is any colour you want, as long as it's red.

The verdict:

Both Tiff and I thought this tasted lovely although it was a little more runny than I'd expected (even after adding twice the listed amount to ground almonds and Tiff went on potato squishing duty). Don't let the watery texture put you off, however, it wasn't lacking in flavour at all. Tiff liked it enough to steal some and take it home! But how it tasted is only half the story, I've also got to rate how this measured up against the previous recipe and I'm afraid that this one is just beaten by Tuesday's. There's nothing wrong with it, far from it, if I were not trying to find a winner then this would be a top recipe but Tuesday's recipe is so easy and so utterly bomb-proof that it has to win. Sorry Mr Gnomepants.

Lessons learned:

Competitions are fun but they always result in a loser, no matter how good something might be.
Even after a week solid of eating chorizo I still love it, even with prawns.

The price:

Chorizo: 82.5p
Peas: £1.35
Potatoes: £1.39
Ground almonds: £1.04
Chicken: £3.19
Chopped tomatoes: 54p
An onion: 17.5p

Grand total: £8.51 which isn't bad considering the volume it produced.

Well that's me done and I've really enjoyed this week, perhaps I'll have another challenge week soon.

Laters!

Challenge Week - Part 1

2010-08-31T20:22:00.001+01:00

Ahh, I do so love long weekends, especially when it's the Monday that I get off as that makes the following week so much shorter. Happy days...

For those of you not in the UK who are wondering what the hell I'm on about yesterday was a Bank Holiday which means that I didn't have to go in to work and could spend the entire day in my dressing gown drinking champagne and eating quails eggs. Put simply Bank Holidays are awarded by the Queen to her loyal subjects whenever she feels that we've been very good pet humans or whenever the weather forecast says it's going to rain solid for three days in a row. Traditional Bank Holiday actvities include: underwater barbecuing, 100m familiy argument sprints and watching Bond films on the telly because it's shitting it down outside and everything interesting is either full or closed.

This weekend I eschewed such usual delights to attend the Rugby League Challenge Cup Final (for the uninitiated Rugby League is a sport not too dissimilar from American Football but with less padding and a lot more beer) and I had a fantastic day out with many revelations (including, but not limited to, the fact that people from the north of the country sound like the cast of Shameless when drunk). I think in future, however, that I'll stick to the Southern version: Rugby Union (more men, less money, more beer). Let the hate mail commence...

The differences between the two forms of rugby bring me nicely on to a problem that I knew I would face but didn't think would crop up quite so early, namely what should I do when two or more people send me what is in essence exactly the same recipe but clearly different enough that I can't just lump them together? As I said, I knew that as time went on the likelihood of a repeat would increase to such a level that it was a certainty but I wasn't ready for the eventuality.

So what should I do when two separate people send me two similar but not identical recipes?

Simple, do both.

So that's the plan, ladies and gentlemen, this week I will be cooking two variants of the same dish and then letting you know which I prefer. I'm excited already.

Both of this week's recipes are essentially chorizo stew but today's, sent to me by the lovely Becky, has a bit more to its name:

Chorizo, prawn and cod stew

The spiciness of the chorizo sausage works really well with fish. Serve this piping hot with masses of crusty bread to mop up the juices.

Preparation time 15 minutes Cooking Time 35 minutes Serves 4

100g (4oz) cooked chorizo sausage, chopped
1 onion, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, chopped
2tsp dried oregano
2 x 400g tins chopped tomatoes
200ml (7fl oz) passata (sieved tomatoes)
200ml (7fl oz) vegetable stock
1tbsp red wine vinegar
1 x 400g tin cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
200g (7oz) peeled raw king prawns
2 x 150g (5oz) pieces skinless cod, preferably farmed organic, cut into 2.5cm (1in) cubes
2tbsp chopped fresh basil
crusty bread, to serve

Seeing as I knew what I would be cooking on both days and that many of the ingredients would be repeats I decided that it would be a good to buy things in bulk (well, I say bulk, this for me usually means buying more than one onion at a time). What I hadn't counted on was this meaning that my bag would weigh about 20x more than usual (that's what it felt like, anyway). What you see here is about half of what I brought home. I need a nap:

You will notice immediately that those aren't uncooked prawns, nor are they of the king variety. This is not an oversight, I promise, the supermarket didn't have any uncooked king prawns so I went with these ones (besides, Becky said I could so there).

Here's how you get from that to the finished product:

Heat a large pan and cook the chorizo until golden all over. Remove from the pan, leaving the oil. Turn the heat down low and add the onion to the pan, allowing to cook for 5 minutes until soft.
Add the garlic for a further minute, then add the oregano, tinned tomatoes, passata and stock and let it simmer for 20 minutes before adding the red wine vinegar and seasoning to taste.
Add the chorizo, beans, prawns and cod to the pan just before serving and cook for about 5 minutes or until the prawns have turned pink, then fold through the basil and serve in bowls with warm crusty bread.

Per serving: 290cals, 8g fat, 3g saturated fat, 21g carbohydrate

Three easy steps and just a single pot to wash up at the end, this is my kind of recipe, and it really is that simple and quick to make. Here's what my dinner looked like:

Please excuse the rubbishly chopped basil, I almost forgot it and had to rush to get it in.

The verdict:

If I told you that I wasn't looking forward to this a great deal I would be lying like a big fat lying thing. On paper this looks simple, easy and fabulously packed with flavour and the reality is no disappointment. The combination of the chorizo, cod and prawns was fantastic and the strong tomato base worked really well to bind all the flavours together. I can't fault this dish at all and will be cooking this for my friends any time that I want to impress. Wonderful. Faultless. Brilliant.

Lessons learned:

Sometimes when a recipe says "Serves 4" it means "Serves 8" does anyone want any stew?
Chop basil gently and do it just once, beating it up with a knife does it no favours.
If Thursday's recipe makes as much I'm going to need a bigger freezer.

The cost:

In the interests of fairness I have tried, for once, to work out what this cost rather than what I spent as I'll be reusing some things on Thursday. Not sure if this will work but here goes...

Chorizo: 82.5p (See? Told you this would be weird)
Cod: £3.34
Prawns: £2.19
Chopped tomatoes: £1.08
An onion: 17.5p (Whew! That should even it out)
Basil: 85p
Passata: 99p

Grand total: £9.45. Which, by my reckoning, is 0.4p a serving.

Right, bring on Thursday!

Laters!

Friday night special.

2010-08-27T19:34:00.002+01:00

I am a bad man, a very bad man, a bad man who doesn't post blogs when he's supposed to and doesn't warn his readers. Bad Nairn! No biscuit for me!

The thing is that it wasn't that I couldn't be bothered to write anything yesterday. Far from it, I never intended to write anything yesterday. Not one jot. Why? Because it was my colleague Andy's leaving do and I thought he might take t the wrong way if I told him I wasn't coming because I wanted to write about food more than wish him well (or at least to make sure he was really leaving and this wasn't all a cunning ruse). That would make me a worse man (although that almost sounds like a rubbish superhero: WorseMan! I wonder what his super powers would be. Crochet, perhaps)

So there you have it, I wasn't ever going to write yesterday and I knew this for quite some time. I am bad. Sorry if I made you think I'd disappeared again.

Speaking of colleagues, tonight's recipe comes from another person I work with (although he actually stole this recipe from Delia's website): the fabulous Neal who is currently off work for at least 3 months having a bionic thumb fitted (it seems that he broke his last one although I wouldn't like to speculate how). So this one's for you Neal, get well soon!

Courgette Curry

675g sliced courgette

2 tbsp oil
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1 onion thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic crushed
1/4 t sp g turmeric
1/4 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp g coriander
1 tsp g cumin
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp tom puree
1 tin chop toms
150ml water
1 tbsp fresh coriander chopped
1 tsp garam masala

Sadly I have absolutely no way of weighing the courgette as my scales broke last week in a spectacular display of rubbishness so I've had to eyeball this one. As we've discussed before estimation isn't one of my strong suits so I actually spent quite some time staring at courgettes before picking the one you see in the picture below. I've no idea if it's even close to the right weight but it's one of the smaller ones given to me by my dad (yes, that is a small one, some of them are GIGANTIC).

Spicy!

OK, so this recipe has a fair number of ingredients but is relatively simple to prepare, here's how you go about it:

Trim and slice the courgettes into 1 cm slices.

Heat the oil in a heavy pan and fry the cumin and mustard seeds for 2 mins, until they splutter.

Add the onion and fry for 5 mins.

Add the turmeric, chilli powder, ground coriander, cumin and salt and fry for 2-3 mins coating the onions.

Add the courgettes, and cook for 5 mins, stirring all the time so not to burn them.

Mix the puree with the tom's and add to the pan with the water, cover and cook for 10 mins, until sauce thickens,

Stir in the fresh coriander and the garam masala, cook for further 5 mins until courgettes are tender

It's pretty lucky that this one is simple as I've managed to do what I quite often do when I decide to cook on a Friday night and that is agree to go to the pub. A pub that's about 30 minutes away that I have to be at 2 hours after getting home. This one's going to be tight, please excuse me if this is a little brief.

One thing that I didn't notice whilst I was cooking this is that although garlic is mentioned in the ingredients it doesn't make an appearance in the recipe itself. As a result my offering contains no garlic. Hope it doesn't affect the taste too much...

Mmm, fresh coriander...

The verdict:

One of the things I dislike about many curry recipes is that quite a few of them encourage you to cheat and use a sauce (or paste) and whilst I can appreciate that this saves time and makes peoples' lives a lot easier I always get a bit frustrated when I'm denied the opportunity to carefully measure out each ingredient like some mad scientist. So you can imagine that this recipe gave me great joy, and it did. It took about 20 times longer than it claimed which was annoying as I was on a time limit and was a bit watery (I suspect that if I'd have given it even longer this would have sorted itself) but the flavours were all there. Worth a second go when I'm not in a rush, methinks.

Lessons learned:

Recipes and ingredients lists may not agree, beware!
I still love chopping coriander.

The cost:

Fresh coriander: 85p
An onion: 17p
Chopped tomatoes: 65p
Tomato puree: 55p
Garlic: 27p
Mustard seeds: 75p

Grand total: £3.24. Nice.

Righty, I'm off to the pub!

Laters!

Sporty Rajah

2010-08-24T20:27:00.002+01:00

Back in the mists of time, when both the internet and I were young there was a certain type of email that I would receive regularly (usually from friends/relatives who had just discovered email) and that is the chain email. For those of you too young to remember these they usually consisted of some inane plea or claim that something wonderful would happen if you followed the instructions (conversely if you failed to comply then everything you loved would wither and die, true fact). Usually the instructions were to send something to the person at the top of the list, remove them and move everyone else up whilst adding yourself to the bottom (usually at position 50 or something similar).

Nowadays these kinds of emails have largely fallen out of favour, probably because most of the people who forwarded them on have either realised that they're rubbish or been stabbed, so I was more than mildly surprised to have one of these appear in my inbox. Whilst I was reaching for my Acme Stab-o-Tron 9000 (a device that allows you to stab people over the internet, more useful than you'd think) I accidentally started reading the missive and found myself intrigued...

You see this was no ordinary chain email, oh no, this one might as well have been specifically tailored to pique my interest...

How? It cunningly represented itself as a recipe exchange, guaranteed to make me read the cursed thing. Another point in its favour was the length of the list: just two, perhaps this one might turn itself around fairly quickly...

The plan is thus, send a recipe to person one, delete person one and promote person two, add yourself as the new number two (please excuse the gratuitous The Prisoner reference) and then forward to 20 of your friends. Lather, rinse, repeat. The only thing that disturbs me slightly is the claim that this will result in 36 new recipes and I can't figure that out. In a perfect world 20 of my friends will forward the message to 20 of their friends who will each send me a recipe. Now either I'm going mad of that's 400 recipes, which sounds like a lot.

So the question is “should I do it?” and if I do who wants in? Vote in the comments and if you want in drop me an email at the usual address (recipes@random-eats.com).

Right, I'm glad we've had this chance to chat, on with the cooking...

Today's recipe is one that was left in the comments to an earlier post and sadly doesn't appear to have a name, so I've decided to invent one myself:

WTF Soup

Why the odd name? Here's why:

1 pack of trimmed asparagus
1.5 tablespoons of butter
Half a carton of soya cream
5 Tagliatelle nests

OK, so this is basically asparagus and soy with a tonne of butter and some pasta. I am entirely unconvinced by this recipe and suspect that my stomach may well attempt to strangle me as an act of revenge for forcing it to digest such a thing but that's a risk I'm going to have to live with (or not) as I've already bought the ingredients, see?

Just four, count them.

As you might imagine the method is pretty straightforward:

Take one pack of trimmed asparagus. Cut in half. put in a saucepan with a tablespoon and a half of butter and a splash of hot water. Leave on a low heat until soft. Add half (ish) of a carton of soya cream. Leave on lowest heat till starts to bubble. Stir.

Meanwhile, add 5 'nests' of tagliatelle to boiling salted water. Once cooked, drain and add the adparagus and sauce (try to time so ready at the same time - the asparagus and sauce will take approx 15 mins).

Serves 2.

As the recipe promised it really was a mere 15 minutes before I had this in front of me:

Looks nice but are these looks deceiving?

The verdict:

As you may have gathered I really wasn't looking forward to this one. The idea of soya cream and butter did not produce (in my head) a vision of luxury and indulgence. Instead what I imagined was a kind of heavy greasy mass waiting to sit in my stomach and make me feel ill. However I was wrong (kinda). Although there was a certain amount of greasiness to the food it really wasn't all that noticeable and the asparagus did a very good job of cutting through the slightly oily feel and bring the flavours together. I must say I was very surprised by this one and urge you to try it. My only real complaint is I wish it had a bit more depth. I'm still calling it "WTF Soup" though, stop me if you can.

Lessons learned:

Slicing asparagus in half is a very boring task. Don't do it, kids.
M&S produce the imaginatively named "Soya Drink" which people actually buy.
I still can't quite place what the after-taste of soya reminds me of.

The cost:

Tagliatelle: 99p
Butter: 98p
Asparagus: £2.14
Soya cream: 68p

Grand total: £4.79. Cripes.

Cool, if you need me I'll be hoovering the goldfish.

Laters!

PS If you're puzzling over the title of this post it came from here and is entirely random.

Mr Forgetful Strikes Again

2010-08-19T21:32:00.000+01:00

I need to let you into a secret, it's a fairly personal secret but we're friends, right? I know I can trust you not to go blabbing my secret to everyone else, you wouldn't do that to me, would you? Didn't think so. You're trustworthy.

So here's my secret: my subconscious hates me, I mean really hates me. Now clearly you're going to want some evidence to back this rather extraordinary claim, and who could blame you? Certainly not me. Therefore I give you the proof:

This morning, as I was getting ready to leave for work, the thing that was the foremost on my mind was this blog. I was thinking about it as I packed my bag, as I locked the door and even as I was walking to the station. In fact the only thing that stopped my slightly obsessive musings was the sudden realisation that I'd forgotten my netbook. Not only had I not packed it but I'd only remembered when I'd reached the point where I was too far from the flat to go back and get it, almost as if someone (or something) had been specifically waiting for me to get that far from home before reminding me. Of course the only reasonable explanation is that my subconscious is evil and that it hates me. QED.

With no netbook I was faced with the grim prospect of not being able to write any of this post till I returned home, a scenario which inevitably leads to me falling asleep on my computer at stupid o'clock in the morning and submitting a post that consists mostly of the letter b. I don't want this and neither do you so I've taken the bold move of trying to write this entire post on my phone and so far it's going quite well. The is, of course, the ever present risk of terminal thumb cramp and the bizarre feeling that I'm writing the world's longest text message (I R teh Dstyvsky of txting, lol).

Enough of this, onwards!

Today's recipe comes from reader Zoefruitcake (presumably thusly named because her name is Zoe and she likes cake, although I suppose that it's equally possible that her name is Mildred and she's mental. Your guess is as good as mine.) and her recipe has a definite Spanish air to it:

Huevos a la Flamenca

AKA Gypsy Eggs

1 can chopped tomatoes
3 eggs
1 onion chopped
handful of mushrooms
half teaspoon chilli flakes
half teaspoon dried basil
1 pack spinach
7 olives, halved
1 cup rice
50g cheese

Obligatory photographic evidence:

The rice is there, it's just hiding. Honest.

Here's how it's done:

Heat oven to 200 degrees

Fry mushrooms and onions, and place in a large flat bottomed oven proof dish. Add the chilli and basil, the chopped tomatoes and olives. Wilt the spinach and add to the dish. Mix well and make three wells in the mixture. Break one egg into a cup and put in a well. Repeat with the next two eggs.

Put in the oven.

Put the cup of rice in a saucepan, and add two cups of water. By the time the rice is ready the eggs should be baked, aim for them to still be slightly soft. Drain the rice, and spread the rice over the top of the oven baked mixture. Sprinkle the cheese on the top, and either allow to melt, or return to the oven to melt it.

This recipe, although really quite straight forward, brought with it a challenge to one of my weakest areas. Namely: estimating how much I can fit into a container, I'm terrible at it and I spent a good 10 minutes trying to choose between my two oven-proof dishes (even going as far as to try both of them). Eventually I settled on the smaller of the two. Not necessarily my finest choice ever, as you will soon see...

The trouble really began when the rice was cooked. It was immediately apparent that I had made the wrong choice of dish as there simply wasn't enough room for the rice. Somehow I'd managed to completely forget that I was supposed to spread the rice on top. Problem.

My solution? Balance the rice precariously on top and hope for the best, here's the result:

Nobody move, it could blow at any moment.

As I have in the past I was also planning on showing you how it looked on the plate but unfortunately I'd set myself an impossible task and there was absolutely no way to get it on to the plate looking pretty so I've decided to hide my shame.

The verdict:

My incompetence aside this really is a fabulously easy dish and it makes a mountain (literally in my case) of extremely tasty food in very little time. I've never eaten eggs cooked in this way before and it's a revelation. I'm not sure I'll want them cooked any other way again. Seriously, if you've never tried this before I urge you to do so. Now. Not later. Now. I'll wait here while you cook.

Lessons learned:

I need more oven proof dishes. Just having a big one and a little one is stupid.
Blogging from a phone will make your wrists very sore not only that but anyone who sees you writing that much on your phone will give you very funny looks.
If you do it on a train lots of people will give you very funny looks but you will get a seat.

The cost:

Eggs: £1.72
Spinach: £1
Mushrooms: 89p
Olives: 99p
Cheese: £1.81
Chopped tomatoes: 65p
An onion: 19p

Grand total: £7.25 which may seem a lot but I'd run out of a load of stuff that I'd normally have in so think of this as a restocking as well.

So there you go, Huevos a la Flamenca, how'd I do Ms Fruitcake?

Balls, that is all.

2010-08-17T20:37:00.000+01:00

So here we are again, anyone remember how one of these go?

Although that statement is almost completely in jest I must acknowledge that there is a tiny bit of truth to it. I know how to write and, as most people I know will attest, once I get going it's hard to shut me up. But that's the main problem “once I get going” is all very well once you've managed to start but until that imaginary but powerful line has been crossed I promise you that all is silent and desolate (there's even tumbleweed for crying out loud!)

Fortunately we're well past that point and I can talk about my other little problem (no, not that one, you promised that you'd keep that secret) it being that now I have rid myself of the books and intend to crowdsource (this, apparently, is a word, it means you lot are doing it) my recipes I have absolutely no method for choosing a recipe. None.

After wracking my brains for at the very least a whole 60 seconds I was mentally and physically exhausted and no nearer an answer. Clearly I need assistance, but who to ask? I needed someone with style, wit and penetrating intelligence. Sadly that person is on holiday so I turned to the sage advice of Dr Daddy Deejay (he is all 3 of these things) and he valiantly leapt into the breech yelling “132!”, clearly I was going to have to explain things a little:

“No, it doesn't work like that any more.” I began.

“Yellow suffusion” he replied.

I was about to enquire as to the stock levels of hallucinogenics at the establishment where he works when it suddenly hit me: what I was being told to do, in a very zen-like manner, was to pick the weirdest recipe I had been sent. Well there was only one clear winner for that:

Curried Corned Beef Balls

Yes, do not adjust your sets, that is one of the recipes I was sent and nobody can claim that it's not weird. Go on try. It was sent to me by Kris (aka the blogger formally known as Punkchef) and as much as I'd like to imagine that it sprang fully formed from his fevered imagination he actually shamelessly ripped it off from the book entitled “We'll Eat Again” by Margueritte Patten, allegedly the recipes all come from wartime Britain but I have my doubts. This one may well have been invented by the other side...

So what goes into these unwholesome items? This:

1/2oz dripping or fat

1 tablespoon grated onion

1 teaspoon curry powder

6oz corned beef, finely diced

1/2 teacup soft breadcrumbs

1/2 teaspoon Worcester sauce

a little milk

1/2 teaspoon crisp breadcrumbs

Sounds lovely, doesn't it? Although I must say I find the use of “teacup” as a measurement charming. Here's photographic proof that I'm following the recipe as best I can:

Not shown: bread and milk, they were in my fridge and I forgot...

OK, so I managed to buy lard by mistake but I've got it now and I'm going to use it! Anyone trying to stop me will be forced to eat some raw. You have been warned.

The method for this ~~travesty~~ recipe is also quite brief:

Heat the dripping or fat and fry the onion for 5 minutes. Stir in the curry powder, cook for 2 minutes with the onion, stirring well, then add the corned beef, soft breadcrumbs and Worcester sauce. Press the mixture into small balls, brush with the milk then roll in the crisp breadcrumbs. Either serve cold, or heat under the grill, or in the oven, if this is in use.

Although it sounded quite simple there were a few challenges, for example I have never, ever in my life grated onion and it's a lot harder than it sounds, any previous experience you may be able to bring (such as, say, grating cheese) will be of no use whatsoever and you are guaranteed to scrape at least one bit of your hand. Any of you who have managed to mangle a finger whilst grating cheese will be wincing at that but I want you to imagine that self same scrape but this time with the juice of an onion rubbed into the wound. Yes. It hurts. A lot. Swearing ensued...

One thing that the recipe doesn't manage to mention is letting the mixture cool before attempting to make balls out of it. Not that I put my hand into the steaming hot mixture, I'm not that daft, but the thought did cross my mind. In fact letting it cool wasn't quite enough so after making the balls I put them in the fridge to cool for 30 minutes. Check these lovelies out:

Allegedly this is 4 "helpings".

The verdict:

I think the phrase that sum these up most accurately is "bizarrely moreish". When I fist bit into one I found the texture mildly off-putting and the taste of the cinnamon from the curry powder mixed with the saltiness of the corned beef was disturbing and not very pleasant at all. However I told myself that I had to eat at least one (for science, and all that) and as I continued a strange thing started to happen. Gradually I was liking it. It really is the weirdest thing but somehow my distaste had transformed into a kind of tentative pleasure from eating the thing. I really can't explain it but I'm going to have to try these on other people to see if the effect is real (told you this was science, I wonder how I make a placebo...)

Lessons learned:

Yes, everyone's favourite section returns as well and I've got 3 lovely ones for you...

Molten lard smells horrible (like the fat rendered out of overweight peoples' souls by the fires of hell, that bad).
Finely chopped corned beef looks like catfood (but without the delicious gravy... er... ignore that bit, thanks).
Grating onion is hugely unrewarding and will surround you in a fine mist of onion juice that will make your eyes water like nothing else.

The cost:

Corned beef: £1.59
Breadcrumbs: 74p
Lard: 35p
Curry powder: £1.25

Grand total: £3.93. Bargain!

Once again thank you to everyone who sent me a recipe but I will always need more so keep them coming (as an added bonus you can see that I'm daft enough to try most things so send me anything, especially if it's something you're too chicken to try yourself!) As before the email address is recipes@random-eats.com.

Cheerio!

Good lord! It's alive!

2010-08-10T17:29:00.000+01:00

Yes it's true, I am not dead. I had considered quite seriously feigning, if not death, at least some form of torpor to excuse my massive disappearing act but in the end I really couldn't. So what you're getting is honesty. Honest...

OK, so once again it was work that killed this blog, or at least that's what I thought. My workload had gone through the roof once more and I really couldn't face attempting to cook anything in the evenings, let alone blog about it afterwards, and ended up subsisting on a diet of take-away food and leftovers (with the occasional marmite sandwich thrown in for good measure).

Clearly this couldn't continue so I gladly accepted an invitation to stay on a farm with a group of my friends. What better? A lovely time to relax, worry some sheep and get the blog back on track. I thought it would be an idea time to get the domain sorted, move away from the crazy spotty theme and get some additional stuff written (like the "What the hell is this rubbish?" page I've been meaning to write from the start) but alas the motivation wasn't forthcoming. I thought I was all set to restart this blog and return in a blaze of glory (or at least something colourful, like ketchup) but clearly I was wrong.

Why was I wrong? If it wasn't work that was demotivating me (although I'm sure it has had its part in this) what was?

This question stumped me for a very long time. Had I just had enough? Was I out of inspiration? Actually no...

Ironically the thing that I could no longer face was the very thing I'd started this process for. The books. Yes, I'm sick of them. I'm pretty sure that there is a master book out there entitled 101 Identical Recipes that all new 101 recipe books are cribbed from. Now don't get me wrong, I've had a great time with the books and there have been some wonderful surprises along the way, but eventually most of the recipes blurred into one another and I just didn't feel any motivation to try and randomly pick a recipe that was inevitably going to be prawns.

So what's the solution?

You are.

Yes you, here's the plan: I want you my loyal (and let's face it you are loyal if you're still here) readers to send me recipes and I promise that I will attempt to cook and eat as many of them as I can. This can be anything you like (as long as it's not poisonous!) I would prefer it if it's something you like but really I'm up for whatever you've got to send me. The address to send your recipes to is: recipes@random-eats.com.

So there's the new challenge, get writing!

Summertime!

2010-06-22T21:42:00.001+01:00

It is official: I am fat. Not just a little bit overweight, you understand, but actively fat. I had been avoiding working out my BMI for some time (yes, I know that it's not completely reliable but it's an indicator) as I knew it would be bad news but I bit the bullet over the weekend and found out that I am less than one point away from being obese. Clearly something has to change.

So does this mean the end of Random Eats? Hell no! I'm sure I can find a way of losing 14kg and keep eating random stuff. I'll just have to start doing actual exercise and quit drinking so much wine. How difficult could it be? I'll keep you posted...

Although the format is unchanged I did find myself hoping that fate would be kind in the selection of today's book and give me something like the Healthy Eats one. Was fate kind? No, the git.

Oh yeah, this'll help me slim.

Whenever someone mentions 1-pot cooking to me I always think of stews and casseroles and other lard ridden recipes, not exactly the best start to my new found determination to lose weight. Having said that I'm really only doing this 2 times a week these days so I should be able to get away with the occasional fattening recipe. Barny provided the number of the day, 67.

Frying-pan Sausage Hotpot

Right, sausages and potatoes... Ahh well, it could be worse...

What is bizarre about this recipe is its inclusion on the list of ingredients this gem: “cooked sliced long-life potatoes”. Personally this is not a thing I was aware you could buy and a quick poll of the office indicated that I was not alone in this ignorance. Indeed not even Google appeared to know what this thing was and predictably I couldn't find any in Sainsburys. So instead I am going to go old school and cook and slice the potatoes myself! Brave, aren't I?

Another ingredient I am convinced is a ploy to force this dish into a one-pot recipe is the call for caramelized red onions from a jar. This one, however, I can understand as caramelizing onions takes half a lifetime and is generally unrewarding. The trouble is I couldn't (and have nevre been able to) find the item in question. Instead all I could find was caramelized red onion chutney. I've no idea if this is even slightly close to the ingredient the author intended but apparently it is “wondeful with cheese” so at least I'll have something to eat if this all goes wrong (yes, I have cheese, who doesn't?).

Enough of my prattling, here are some things on a chopping board:

Not shown: red wine

Also not in evidence: focus

Cook sausages in small frying pan, add stock and some red wine, add caramelized onions, wait for it to thicken slightly, put potatoes on top and grill until golden.

What actually happened was:

Get everything together, have 40 minute phone conversation with colleague, recheck ingredients, noitce flashing light on phone, listen to 2 minute voicemail from someone's pocket, cook potatoes, put sausages in large frying pan, cook sausages a bit, get bored, add stock and too much wine, stir in what seems like too much chutney, wait for it to thicken slightly, wait some more, give up and then realise that your pan is too big, transfer to smaller and pleasingly rustic pan, attempt to thicken sauce by power of mind, give up, start putting sliced potatoes on top of the sausages, watch 50% of them sink in the not even slightly thick sauce, grill for 5x the amount of time the recipe says you should, eat, go on cross-trainer, die.

Here's some photo evidence of what happened:

Sadly I had to zoom in to close you can't see how rustic the pan is.

and

Mmm, oily

The verdict:

OK so this one didn't work too well and I'm going to place the blame squarely at my own feet for once. I was way too distracted by other things and really didn't give this the care and attention it deserved and it's my opinion that done right this would work quite well. My only real problem with it is that it is in no way a one pot recipe unless you happen to chance upon (or already have) the mythical cooked sliced potatoes. Anyone claiming that they've actually seen these things in the wild will be required to submit at least two pieces of documentary proof and agree to a background check/sobriety test.

Lessons learned:

Quite a lot of people who write recipes are actively deranged and should not be allowed to communicate with others.
Cross-trainers can kill.
Red onion chutney really is wonderful with cheese.

The cost:

Tonight really wasn't too bad as I only had t buy 2 things.

Red onion chutney: £2.09
Saussies: £2.69

Grand total: £4.78

Time I hit the shower.

Laters!

How much is too much?

2010-06-17T20:57:00.000+01:00

Once again we have reached Thursday and I've not given you lovely people a proper update (apart from that nonsense I posted on Monday, which doesn't really count). I had concocted a fabulous excuse for this lack of output but unfortunately I completely forgot what it was so you'll have to make do with the truth, which is, as usual, boring: I'm having a horribly busy week at work and I really can't find the energy to write this in the evenings. This, you will all know, has happened before and I beat myself up so much over it that I felt like you were all going to shout at me for being away so I didn't write the blog for a while. Not this time, however, as I've had my guilt gland surgically removed. Huzzah! Blogging time!

(For those of you wondering if my newfound guilt-free status will encourage me to cheat at this task I will say one thing: you will never know...)

OK, that's that out of the way, on with the interesting bit. The food. Today's food comes from this book:

Now I know that I said I would never ask someone I worked with for a number again and I really meant it. In fact I meant it so much that I told the people I work with. This inspired Andy to immediately shout “seventy two!” and this left me with a quandary: do I accept the number or not. To explain let me give you both sides of the issue:

For:

The truth is that I had just been given a number and it was random, to reject it might offend fate and I could end up under a bus or worse eating prawns again. Also maybe I was judging them too harshly and tonight might be different.

Against:

Dinners chosen by my colleagues are almost invariably poison and I wanted to eat something nice tonight.

Now you might be expecting me to at this point reveal that I chose another number and if you are you're wrong. For some reason I decided to give the umber Andy chose a go and see what I got. Here's what fate had in store:

Purple Sprouting Broccoli Grill

OK, let's break this one down. Broccoli: good. Ham: good. Cheese: good. Crème Fraiche: good. Wholegrain mustard: good. The combination: hmm. I've got to be honest and admit that looking at the picture didn't really fill me with a sense of joy and excitement at the potential wonderment of my dinner. Rather it gave me a vague sense of unease and a slight headache. Yes, this recipe had fail written all over it and yet I couldn't bring myself to change it. I can't be 100% sure as to why I didn't change I but at least haf of it has to do with the fact that although I like everything in the dish I would never put them together in a million years and this process, for me, is as much about pushing my boundaries as it is forcing me to use the recipe books I buy.

There's not much to tell about the shopping as there's a) very little to this recipe and b) I had most of it. I did wonder if I'd be able to get any actual purple sprouting brocolli as the stuff my dad grows finished a long time ago and what he has growing out of the ground at any given moment is about as close as I get to knowing what's in season. Fortunately there was plenty.

Clearly cooking this was going to be a doddle...

Actually I can't complain about the cooking method as it's no sweat at all. Simply blanch the broccoli, mix half the cheese with the creme fraiche and the mustard, wrap the broccoli in the ham, chuck it in a tin with the goop and leftover cheese and grill for about 10 minutes. Easy. The only fly in the ointment is that as I came to blanch the broccoli I realised that I had way too much. Seriously, I had 400 grams and there was no way on earth I was going to eat all that so I halved it. This also meant that it would fit into one of my smaller roasting tins. Here's the result:

and served:

The verdict:

This was loads nicer than I'd expected and the combination of flavours was lovely. The only thing is I can't quite see how this qualifies as a meal, it's nice but sadly leaves you wanting more. Admittedly I only made half and then only ate half of that but I really couldn't imagine wanting to eat what the author considers a portion of this stuff. I mean, who wants to eat 250g of broccoli in one sitting? I absolutely love the stuff but that much is a step too far.

Lessons learned:

I can't say that this recipe really taught me too much apart from this:

Some people like broccoli way more than they should.

and

Those peoples' definitions of "meal" are weird.

The cost:

Ahh, yes, the cost... Cunningly I lost the receipt so I can't be definite. I know that the broccoli cost £3 and the only other thing I had to buy was the creme fraiche but I've no idea how much that was. I'm going to guess at £2. So the grand total is £5 which is probably vastly wrong.

Righty, I'm knackered so I'm going to bed (having already fallen asleep on the couch...)

Night!

P.S. Please excuse the general lack of captions on the pictures, I'm tired and cannot think of anything funny. If it annoys you simply think up random sentences for the pictures and pretend I wrote them.

Guest post time, please welcome the magic punkchef!

2010-06-14T22:56:00.000+01:00

So I made punkchef write something more and he decided to write about me, bless...

My friend, Nairn The Retard

Nairn is a lovely guy, he's in his 30's, and blogs about what he's made for his tea, using a random method to decide what he makes. He tries to buy his ingredients at Sainsbury's, every time he has to buy ingredients. Invariably they never have what he needs in, so he has to go to Tesco. One begins to wonder why he goes to Sainsbury's in the first place, he should probably enjoy his lunch hour, have a sandwich from Pret A Manger, or whatever it is those London based ponces eat for their lunch, probably something foreign. I'm a northerner, you see, I don't understand culture, for I am northern. Or at least, that's what northerners are supposed to be like.

Anyway, Nairn told me to write something, so here I am, writing. I don't know why I am taking advice from the man who spells “total” as “totaly” and then “totoal”.

Take two blogs into the shower?

2010-06-10T20:02:00.000+01:00

As I predicted I am seriously struggling this week and have come to the conclusion that 5 day working weeks are simply unnatural although I am unsure as to how to fix this. Barring a lottery win I really cannot see a way out of this without renouncing society and living off the land but I get the sneaking suspicion, however, that this would actually result in more work so I guess I'll keep buying those lottery tickets...

So now you know how tired and pathetic I am I'm sure you're doubly (or even triply) impressed that I've managed to write a blog on a Thursday. It's a miracle that's what it is, a bloody miracle.

Now I wasn't actually at home last night so bizarrely the book was picked on Wednesday morning, over 24 hours before I managed to post the update from Tuesday night. So in a sense the book is from the future if you were reading Tuesday's post just now that I didn't manage to put up till today. Hang on, does that make it simultaneously from the future and the past? I'm confused but seeing as it's not 101 Plutonian Platters I'm going to assume it's from the past. Here's what it really is:

Slightly less glamorous, I'll admit.

Now this book is both responsible for cheese covered chops and broccoli covered in what looked like sand so I was well aware that it was a mixed bag and it was with this in mind that I asked my colleague Mike for a number. After initially landing on the chops with the number leven he decided to aim high and picked 143. Promising? Maybe...

Best Bean Spread

Ah. Beans. Blended with some soft cheese. A kind of beany, cheesy purée... Let me state here and now with absolutely no equivocation that I will never, ever ask someone I work with for a number. Either I'm incredibly unlucky with their choices or the little gits have bought all of the books and have a master list of the worst ones that they choose from when I ask for a number. I know that the human brain is basically hardwired to see patterns even if there isn't one there but I'm starting to get suspicious...

You'll be completely unsurprised when I tell you that Sainsbury;s had absolutely everything and why wouldn't they. The picture may show a number of things but the recipe is only for the white stuff. I kid you not, the rest has to be considered a “serving suggestion” (although right at this point in time I could think of a few others, many of which involve propelling the stuff at Mike).

Is that the least number of ingredients I've had?

So you're probably thinking at this point that the cooking (or assembling, you choose) was really easy and I'm sure it would have been if I owned a food processor of any kind. Sadly I do not and so I had to make do with the little whizzing attachment that fits on the end of my hand blender. As I'm sure you all know these things aren't the most capacious of objects and so I had to do things in shifts and as a result rather than a smooth paste it resulted in a mixture of textures. Not necessarily a bad thing, mind.

As for the presentation I didn't really think that a dollop of it in the middle of the plate was going to cut it so I blatantly ripped off their serving suggestion and put it in wholemeal pitta with cucumber and cherry tomatoes and was pleasantly rewarded with this:

When in doubt steal ideas!

The verdict:

OK so I really wasn't looking forward to this one as I'd imagined it as being quite cloying and dry and I was right about the first point but not the second. I think it was the inclusion of the lemon juice and the olive oil that really brought these ingredients together and prevented them from sucking all the moisture from my mouth and as for the cloying sensation well the cucumber and tomato really helped deal with it. Let's face it you're never going to eat this stuff with a spoon on its own so as long as you remember to serve complimentary things with it there will be no problem. I rather think this stuff might work rather well as a dip, especially if I added garlic...

Lessons learned:

I really need a food processor and seeing as my birthday is a very long time away I think I'm going to have to buy one on my own. Any useful tips will be gratefully received.
With these books I'm going to have to start banning some numbers or I'll end up eating virtually nothing. On the other hand it would take some of the risk out and where's the fun in that?

The cost:

Butter beans: 55p
Boursin: £2.05

Grand total: £2.60. Very cheap but bear in mind that it's not in any way a meal on its own.

Righty, time for me to find some real food.

Ciao!

Pretend it's Tuesday...

2010-06-10T11:27:00.001+01:00

I'm not entirely sure when it was that I last worked a full week at work but I get the feeling that it was quite some time ago. The fact that I've been at work for two days and I find myself expecting tomorrow to be my last day of the working week would indicate that this is the case and I'm beginning to fear for my state of mind come Friday afternoon...

Speculating on my incipient madness is futile, however, and not what (I assume) people come here for. No, what you lot want is cooking and lots of it. Never fear! I am happy to provide and today's recipe is from this delightful book.

(You would tell me if you were here for the madness, right?)

Smashing, I'm sur you're all aware of my love of noodles by now (if not, you are now) and I'll take any opportunity to eat them. Not that this book always makes sense. Frankly from the title I'd expect a lot of Italian and Asian recipes and to be fair there are a lot of them. It's the recipes where they've taken something you really wouldn't put in a book and simply replaced the carbohydrates in the meal with pasta that rankle. The stroganoff was a prime example of this weird approach. I'm sure it fulfils the letter if not the spirit of the book's remit but it still strikes me as a bit of a cheat. Perhaps I could start writing my own set of recipes to go into this book. How does Fried egg and Spaghetti sound? No? Don't knock it until you've tried it.

My colleague Andy has been on holiday for the past week and a bit and I briefly contemplated asking for a number hoping that some of his holiday cheer would rub off and give me a lovely recipe for my tea. Then I remembered that every time Andy chooses a number tfood is inexplicably terrible and hurriedly hid the book from sight. Needing stealth I turned to the internet and my friend Daniel who used an indescribably nerdy method to choose the number which I don't even vaguely remember. Fortunately I didn't forget the number, it's 49:

Pork and Pappardelle

See? That's what I was talking about! There's nothing inhrently pasta-y (yes, I know, that's the best I could come up with, does anyone know the word for “having the attributes of pasta”? I'll gladly use it if someone can tell me what it is) about the food itself and I'm pretty sure that no one would bat an eyelid if I decided to replace the pasta with, say, new potatoes.

Speaking of replacing ingredients the only thing that Sainsbury's had that I needed was lemons. Seriously, just lemons. I'm not saying that's all they had (although I can't stop myself from imagining a shop full of lemons) far from it, they had lots of stuff. Sadly very little of it was what I needed. Typical.

My local Tesco Gigantor had everything I needed, however, so I was OK:

I'm going to make a confession here and admit that I wrote the above sentence before even going anywhere near Tesco. I think you all know by now that I write half of this blog on my way home and I think you're all pretty cool with the idea. That lie was so enourmous, however, that I couldn't leave it tere unremarked and had to own up. There, I feel better now.

As it turns out Tesco did/didn't have everything (remember to delete this when you get home then no one will ever know that you're still lying!).

Only kidding! I swear to you that I've now been and shopped and although I could find most of it I couldn't find Pappardelle so instead I bought something that looks similar. Pasta all tastes the same in the end anyway, right?

There's really nothing to cooking this recipe, in fact the only remotely challenging thing is the timing which thankfully I seem to be getting better at so everything came together at the same moment. It wasn't until I was halfway through cooking it that I realised that my Pappardelle substitute looked remarkably like octopus tentacles, not only was this immesurably cool but it also enabled me to do comedy Cthulhu impressions. This made me remarkably happy.

Finally tiring of holding hot pasta near my face and destroying the universe I finally relented and put it on a plate. Like so:

Pork and Octopus, my favourite.

The verdict:

I had some misgivings about this recipe as I was well aware that what I was making was a form of sweet an sour pork and I'm not a massive fan of sweet and sour (except cola bottles, they're different). So I was pleasurably surprised to find that although there certainly were lemon and honey flavours in abundance they seemed to be mellowed by the pine nuts and didn't totally dominate, a kind of happy medium was reached where all the flavours could live in harmony. How nice.

Lessons learned:

Just one tonight and I'm really not sure I've learned it so we may be seeing this one in the future...

Never tell yourself “I'll just do it tomorrow in my lunch break” this won't work in the slightest and you'll end up doing it on the train.

The cost:

Pork fillet: £4.07
Lemons: £1.35
Octo-pasta: £1.60
Pine nuts: £1.89

Grand total: £8.91 which is pretty good seeing as it feeds 4.

One final thing I would like to say is that unfortunately punkchef has decided to take an indefinite leave from his blog and to go and do something less boring instead (10 points for the first person to get that reference). Sorry to hear you've decided to stop, chap, you will be missed...

Right, this has got far to sombre. I'm off to beat someone with a rubber chicken.

Laters!

Wine delays play

2010-06-03T20:08:00.001+01:00

If parts of this post seems weird and out of date then never fear, it's not you it's me. I started this yesterday and then had some wine. Wine bad. Wine = No blog. I will be better in future, promise.

OK, my bad, I didn't post anything yesterday and I apologise to anyone who thought that the blog might be on its way out again or that I'd fallen in a ditch and died (those of you that hoped that I had fallen in a ditch are mean people and you make kittens cry). What actually happened is that I returned from my camping holiday and promptly fell asleep on the couch, not the most glamorous reasons for missing an update but an honest one.

Camping was fabulous, by the way, but my camping skills were shown to be a flimsy tissue of pretence when measured against my companions. Seriously, it was like being on holiday with Ray Mears and Jamie Oliver. If we weren't cooking on an improvised grill over an open fire then someone would either be making something out of wood (tripods, spits, bows, you name it) or disappearing off into the woods with a maniacal gleam in their eyes. By comparison, my proudest moment was lighting the fire with just one bit of newspaper and a lighter. Clearly I have some way to go.

Oh and one other thing that I think might be worth mentioning: I'm pretty sure I made it clear that I didn't have a recipe book with 101 suitable recipes and that I wasn't implying that there wasn't one. In fact there is and you can get it here.

But enough of me living in a field with no showers for 6 days, on with the cooking.

Book!

Excellent, I've not got much in the fridge so something from the storecupboard sounds good. I have had a few failures (one notable failure so horrible that I couldn't find it in me to blog about it at all) from this book but on the whole it's been pretty good (especially the Bobotie) although that might have something to do with it not turning up very often.

Today's number is 57, which is this:

Chorizo, egg and pepper tarts.

Yeah, storecupboard, right. I did a quick mental inventory and realised that I had a whole 1 of the ingredients that this recipe requires. Now I'm not the greatest at keeping things stocked (except when it comes to spices) so it's not that odd that I might be missing a few of the ingredients but seriously, who has ready-rolled puff pastry hanging about? I can well imagine that some people might have a block of it in the freezer but does anyone reading this right now have ready-rolled puff pastry in their home?

Speaking of puff pastry, that was the one thing that Sainsbury's didn't have. Bizarrely they must have had a sudden run of it as there was a hole where it should be and lots and lots of shortcrust pastry grinning evilly at me (that's another thing I cannot fathom, buying puff pastry makes sense but shortcrust?). Tesco had it, however, so all was saved.

Things!

As I said at the beginning of this post I had wine last night (yes, it's now Thursday welcome to the present, or the more recent past if it's not Thursday for you) and I must stress that I wasn't sitting at home getting drunk on my own. Not a bit of it. I was sitting at home with company getting drunk and that's a completely different matter! Simone arrived just as I was ready to cook so she can attest to the simplicity of this dish (if she ever figures out how to post a comment that is, bless) so there's really not much to say about the process other than when it's 25 degrees Celsius in your kitchen move fast when it comes to puff pastry. If you're not quick it takes on the consistency of glue and getting it off any surface it has decided to adhere to reminded me of the time my sister got chewing gum stuck in her hair. You have been warned...

Anyway, it all takes about 15-20 minutes to cook and it comes out looking like this:

Oooh...

and this:

This shot was taken by a professional. Can you tell?

The verdict:

Interestingly enough the panel is split on this one, Simone and Ben both said they liked it. They commented on the flavours and Ben especially liked the freshly ground black pepper on the egg. I, on the other hand, hated it. The peppers tasted of nothing more than vinegar, the egg was insipid and the chorizo sat there being a flavour all on its own and refused to play with others. In fact I think the thing that sticks in my mind is that none of the flavours really complimented any of the others and they certainly didn't come together at all. See? Split jury.

Lessons learned:

Don't take the puff pastry out and start working with it unless you are ready to immediately put it in the oven (isn't that right, Simone?)
I am not a chef nor can I wield a knife like one (any attempts to do so will result in hand mangling).
I'm not keen on recipes that involve putting things on puff pastry.

The cost:

Sundried tomato paste: £1.75
A jar of red peppers: £2.65
Chorizo: £1.30
Puff pastry: £1

Grand total: £6.70 (plus salad).

OK, I've still got to make something for my dinner so I'm off.

Laters!