Recipe

Kitty’s Soda Bread

~ Kitty ~ 3 Comments

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It is over two weeks since I posted this taunting photograph with the Leftovers Soup, and I have finally got around to writing the promised (and much requested) recipe. Apologies for being a bit slack.
Ingredients

  • 125 g / 4 oz Bread Flour
  • 125 g / 4 oz Plain Flour
  • ½ Teaspoon Salt
  • ½ Teaspoon Bicarbonate of Soda
  • 15 g / ½ oz Butter
  • 225 – 250 ml / 7½ – 8 fl oz Plain Yoghurt
  • Beaten egg
  • Salt and pepper
  • Poppy seeds (optional)

I usually use ½ wholemeal flour (i.e. 4 oz Wholemeal Plain or 4 oz Wholemeal Bread Flour).

If you do not have plain yogurt, milk can be used instead but make sure that you start with a much smaller volume and work up to the correct texture.

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Method

Pre-heat the oven to 200oC.

Sift the flours with the salt and bicarbonate of soda and then rub in the butter.

Add 225 ml / 7½ fl oz of the yoghurt all at once and mix quickly to make a soft dough, adding the additional yogurt only if necessary.

Shape into a 15 cm (6 inch) diameter ‘cake’ and place it onto a floured baking tray. Score deeply with the back of a knife into quarters.

Brush with beaten egg, then grind some salt and pepper onto the top. Seeds can be added at this point if you have them.

Bake in the centre of the oven for 30 minutes.

This soda bread is best served fresh from the oven. Enjoy with some nice butter, cheese and a lovely soup – such as this rather yummy one!

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Spaghetti with tomatoes and poached eggs

~ Kitty ~ Leave a comment

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Cheap, quick, easy and yummy – four of
my favourite things!
This fed two adults and a child (approximately 1/2 a tin of tomatoes per person and an egg each).

Ingredients:
1 Onion, chopped
1 Clove garlic, crushed
A few mushrooms, chopped
Black pepper
1 tsp Oregano
1 & 1/2 Tins tomatoes
A couple of squirts of tomato puree
3 eggs
A handful of grated cheese
Spaghetti

If I had them I might also have included bacon or anchovies, olives or capers.
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Method:
Fry the onion, garlic, black pepper and herbs in olive oil until beginning to soften. Add the tinned tomatoes, tomato puree and mushrooms and simmer until the mushrooms have cooked.

While the sauce is simmering away put the spaghetti on to cook, following the instructions on the packet for the quantity and cooking time.

When the pasta is nearly done crack an egg into a mug, make a little well in the sauce and pour in the egg; repeat so that there is one egg per person. Note, if your pan is not non-stick you will probably need to put a bit of oil in each well before you add the egg.

After about a minute, turn each egg with a spatula and then sprinkle the cheese over the sauce.

Drain the pasta and divide between shallow bowls. Put an egg onto each serving of pasta and then share out the rest of the sauce.

Enjoy!

Kitty’s Vegetable Curry

~ Kitty ~ 1 Comment

This was rather good. I made it up on the spot but it was based on numerous other curries that I have made in the past.
As usual, there are things that you can add/ substitute if the contents of your fridge is a bit different from mine; I wouldn’t play around with the core spices too much though.
If you want this curry to be vegan then use coconut milk instead of the coconut yoghurt; the only reason that I had coconut yoghurt is that someone brought me a pot to go with a yummy pudding (thanks again Penny – I’m making it go a long way!). wp-1453118274768.jpeg

Ingredients:

These amounts would serve 2 to 3 people; I ate two portions last night (couldn’t resist seconds!) and then had the rest for brunch this morning.

  • 1 Onion, chopped
  • 1 or 2 cloves of Garlic, chopped
  • 1/2 teaspoon Cumin seeds
  • 1/2 teaspoon Ground cumin
  • 1 teaspoon Ground coriander
  • 1 teaspoon Turmeric
  • 1 teaspoon Chilli powder
  • 1 teaspoon Vegetable stock/ 1 vegetable stock-cube
  • 1 large carrot, chopped
  • 6 small new potatoes, halved
  • 1 large mushroom, chopped
  • 1/2 tin of chickpeas
  • 1/2 tin tomatoes
  • 3 tablespoons of coconut yoghurt
  • Rice (1/2 cup per person)
  • Cardamom pods (approx 1 per serving of rice)
  • a pinch of Saffron wp-1453116265020.jpeg

Method:
Fry the onion, carrot, potatoes, garlic and spices in a high smoke-point oil (groundnut or rapeseed/canola); you need to be reasonably generous with the oil and keep a good eye on it.

After a few minutes add the tinned tomatoes, the chickpeas and about 1/3 pint veg stock. When this is bubbling nicely turn it down to a low simmer and leave until the potatoes and carrots are cooked (about 15 minutes), stirring occasionally.

Next add the chopped mushroom and coconut yoghurt; at the same time put the rice on, I use 1/2 cup per person and add a little veg stock, cardamom pods and saffron if I have it. A good rule of thumb for cooking rice is for the ‘height’ of the rice in the pan and the ‘height’ of the water above the rice to be approximately the same; then, when the water is gone the rice should be cooked (I’m sure that some of  my Asian friends would contradict me there, but that’s how I do it).

When the the rice is cooked take it off the heat and taste the curry, seasoning with a bit more salt and chilli if required.

Serve.

Nutella Biscuits

~ Kitty ~ 1 Comment

This is a fantastic store cupboard recipe with very few ingredients. These particular yummy looking (and, I can report delicious tasting) biscuits were made by my favourite little neighbour and she would like to share the recipe with you in her own words.wp-1453045864132.jpeg

Ingredients:

  • 200g Butter (softened)
  • 150g Plain Flour
  • 100g Granulated Sugar
  • Nutella wp-1453045509683.jpeg

Method:

Preheat heat the oven to 180C.

Then, cream the butter and the sugar until smooth.

Add the flour and mix to a soft dough, you may have to add more flour to get the right texture.

Next, make the dough in to little balls about the size of a walnut. Put about half of them on a greased baking tray and push down with the back of a tea spoon, making a dent for the Nutella .

In the dent put about a third of a tea spoon of Nutella and cover with another piece of flattened dough. Sprinkle with some demerara sugar.

Bake in the centre of the oven for 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and put on a wire rack to cool.

Enjoy with a cup of tea and Doctor Who.

Roast new potatoes with garlic coconut dip (a sneaky Friday evening ‘snack’)

~ Kitty ~ 5 Comments

In (partial) obedience to a 10-year old who has the measure of me…

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Ingredients:
New potatoes  (as many as you want to eat!)
1 small onion
Olive oil
Cumin seeds
Mustard seeds
Other dried herbs (I used some ‘Hierbas provenzales’ which my parents brought back for me from Mallorca)

2 tablespoons of coconut yoghurt
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/3 teaspoon salt

Method:

Preheat the oven to 200oC.

Chop the onion into quarters and the potatoes in half. Put in a small roasting tin with oil, cumin seeds, mustard seeds and herbs and roast for approx 20 minutes.

Put the coconut yoghurt in a small bowl and mix in the garlic, cayenne pepper and salt. If you don’t like things too spicy, add a little bit of cayenne pepper at a time,  tasting in between.

Serve in a couple of bowls in the centre of the table with a fork per person. Dip the potatoes into the yoghurt dip, making sure to fight over the last one. Enjoy with a Friday glass of wine!

I will make soup later, thereby abiding by the above instructions. The soup will be pretty similar to the carrot, lentil and cider recipe shared previously, although I may substitute white wine in for the cider so as to more fully do as I have been told by said 10 year -old.

Happy Friday everyone!

Kitty x

p.s. In case you were wondering, the coconut yoghurt was gifted to me by a friend who brought me a pudding when she came to dinner. No cheating!

Carrot, Lentil and Cider Soup

~ Kitty ~ 5 Comments

It’s time to use up the rest of the carrots before my next shop, so it’s soup time again! This particular pot of soup fed me for two meals.wp-1452710058423.jpeg

Ingredients:

  • 1 large onion/ a couple of small ones
  • 5 carrots (approx)
  • 1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
  • 1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
  • 1/2 teaspoon Curry Powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon Ground Coriander
  • Olive oil
  • 1 cup lentils
  • 1 pint vegetable stock
  • approx 1 cup of cider (I used some frozen home made cider; made into ‘ice-cubes’ in the same way as the turkey stock mentioned previously)
  • almond milk (you can substitute in any other type of milk)
  • seasoning

Method:

Peel and chop the onions and carrots and cook in some olive oil (just enough so that they don’t stick) along with the spices for about 5 minutes, keeping an eye on it and stirring occasionally.

Add the cider and cook on a medium heat for another 5 minutes.

Add the lentils and stock and simmer on a low heat for 10-15 minutes, adding more liquid if required.

Transfer to a blender and whizz until smooth, adding almond milk until the soup is nearly the right consistency. Pour the soup back into the pan, using some more of the almond milk to swill out the rest of the soup from the blender so you don’t waste any.

Bring the soup slowly up to temperature. Taste. Season with salt and pepper and serve.

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Store-cupboard cereal bar

~ Kitty ~ 8 Comments

As promised, here is a healthy-ish snack (‘healthy’ because it is full of oats and nuts which give nice slow-release energy, ‘-ish’ because of the sugar!);  it is based on a flapjack recipe but is slightly different every time (like the leftovers soup!) because it uses up odds & sods in my baking cupboard. So, not only is it healthy-ish but it is also pretty cheap and helps with the tidying up!

In this version I included prunes, pine kernels and the tail-end of some muesli; as mentioned previously I am not very good at breakfast so this recipe is rather good for using up cereal which I haven’t managed to get through.

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Basic Recipe:

  • 6 oz /175g Soft Dark Brown Sugar
  • 6 oz /175g Butter or margerine
  • 1 ½ dessert-spoons Golden Syrup
  • 9 oz /250g Oats
  • 1 teaspoon Ground Ginger
  • 2 tablespoons Dried Fruit and Nuts

Variations/ Substitutions:

The fruit and nuts can be pretty much anything you like; the joy of this recipe is that if you already have a few baking ingredients you don’t need to go shopping because you can use whatever dried fruit & nuts you happen to have in the cupboard. My particular favourite combination is date and walnut; however I have also been known to add sunflower seeds, pecans, crystallised ginger or, as in this example, prunes and pine kernels.

If you have cereal such as muesli that you want to use up I would suggest that you substitute it for about 1/3 of the oats; you may find that you need to then add a few more oats (~ a tablespoon) at the end so that the mixture isn’t too gooey.

Method:

Preheat the oven to 150oC. Line a 11″ x 7″ tin (or similar) with greaseproof paper.

Put the butter, syrup, sugar and ginger into a large saucepan and melt slowly over a low heat. When completely melted stir in all of the dry ingredients.

Transfer to the lined tin and bake in the centre of the oven for 40 – 45 minutes.

Lick the spoon.

Remove from the oven and let it cool in the tin for about 10 minutes before transferring it, still on the greaseproof paper, to a cooling rack. While it is still warm take a knife and score it into portions to make it easier to break up later on.

Puy Lentil and Mushroom Lasagne with Winter Salad

~ Kitty ~ 4 Comments

I love Puy Lentils. If you are a non-vegetarian who wants to cook for vegetarian friends and doesn’t know where to start Puy Lentils are fantastic, because you can substitute them in for minced beef in familiar dishes and get something which has a slightly ‘meaty’ texture and quite a rich, almost nutty, taste. As well as being great in lasagne they are also rather good in Chilli and in Bolognaise.

Puy lentils come either dried or cooked in bags (a little bit like microwave rice) and I tend to have both in my storecupboard; dried lentils are much cheaper but the ready-cooked ones are much better if you are in a hurry!

This yummy lasagne fed two adults and two children. I had thought that there might be enough left for my lunch the next day, but no such luck!

20160108_184442.jpgIngredients:

for the lasagne…

  • one or two cloves of garlic
  • a medium onion, finely chopped
  • 1 teaspoon oregano
  • ground black pepper
  • 1 tin of tomatoes
  • a generous squirt of tomato purée
  • 1 microwave bag of Puy Lentils
  • a good splash of red wine (I used frozen wine again)
  • Dried lasagne sheets (approx 1/2 a pack)
  • approx 3/4 pint of milk
  • heaped tablespoon of cornflour
  • approx six mushrooms, sliced
  • two generous handfuls of grated cheese

for the winter salad…

  • 1/4 of a red cabbage
  • 2 or 3 carrots
  • good olive oil
  • a splash of lemon juice
  • salt
  • pepper

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Method:

Preheat the oven to 180oC.

Fry the onions, garlic, ground black pepper and oregano in olive oil (not fancy olive oil if you have it – save that for the salad!). When the onions are beginning to become transparent add the tinned tomatoes, the wine, 1/2 teaspoon of salt and the puy lentils. Allow to heat through and reduce a little (5-10 minutes), taste and add more salt and pepper if required.

While the above is cooking get started on the white sauce. First, heat the milk slowly in a pan. Put a heaped tablespoon of cornflour in a measuring jug with a little extra milk to make a paste, trying your best to ensure that it is lump free. Next, and this is important, add the warm milk to the paste (not the other way around!), mix well and then put it back into the pan to heat through and thicken. Keep an eye on it and stir frequently, and when it has started to thicken add half of the grated cheese. When the cheese has melted set the sauce to one side.

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Now it is time to layer up the lasagne. Put half of the tomato mixture into the bottom of a rectangular dish and cover with a layer of lasagne sheets; you may need to break up one of the sheets into smaller pieces to cover it evenly. Next, put the sliced mushrooms on top of the lasagne sheets and cover with half of the white sauce and a generous grind of black pepper. Cover with another layer of lasagne sheets, add the rest of the tomato mixture and then add a final layer of the lasagne sheets. Finally, top with the rest of the white sauce, the cheese and more black pepper. Put in the top of the pre-heated oven for 30 – 40 minutes. To check if it is done, put a skewer in it and if you only get a little bit of resistance you are good to go.

For the salad; chop the red cabbage (half way between chunky and fine if that makes sense!) and use the biggest bit of your cheese grater to finely slice the carrot. Be very careful not to grate your knuckles! Put in a dish with a generous slosh of olive oil, a squirt of lemon juice, a good few grinds of pepper and a couple of pinches of sea salt. Try. Add more lemon, salt and pepper if you think it would improve it. Simples!

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Stewed Apple with Oats, Walnuts, Sultanas and Ginger

~ Kitty ~ Leave a comment

I have to say that I am usually pretty rubbish at making myself eat breakfast, so I am rather pleased with this little number which I made up last week when I realised that buying a pastry on the way to work wasn’t an option with my £5 a week budget! The apples I used came from my parents apple trees – hence the winter wrinkles.

Ingredients

  • One cooking apple
  • 1/3 cup oats
  • 1/3 cup roughly chopped walnuts
  • 1/3 cup sultanas
  • 1/2 tsp dried ginger

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This can be made either in a pan on the hob, or in the microwave. The  first time I made it I (somewhat miraculously) had time to make it on the hob before I left the house. The following morning was a bit more ‘situation normal’ however, so I took all the ingredients with me and made it in the microwave at work and had a number of rather jealous people peering over my shoulder.

Method:

Chop and peel the apple and put it in either a small saucepan or a microwave-proof bowl. Add a splash of boiling water, the fruit and the dried ginger and cook for a couple of minutes.

Add the oats and chopped nuts, stir, and cook for another couple of minutes adding a splash more water if it looks a bit dry.

Taste and add a little sugar if necessary (depending on the sweetness of the apple and your tastebuds) and enjoy with a steaming mug of coffee.

Leftovers Soup

~ Kitty ~ 6 Comments

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A family favourite  (apart from my sister who can’t stand the stuff) which is never the same twice. I always freeze leftover vegetables for this purpose and have recently made a habit of freezing meaty stock (often the extra liquid from my slow-cooker) in a silicone muffin tray, which can then be ‘popped’ out like icecubes.

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Tonight’s version used leftover roast potatoes from Christmas day, courgette, cauliflower and turkey stock.
The point of leftovers soup is that it uses up what you’ve got, so don’t worry if you don’t have all of the ingredients listed below. It is pretty important to have a base of onion and garlic but apart from that you can  experiment with different herbs and spices, I also rather  like to add bacon when I’m frying the onion if I have some. Note that if you use frozen stock it will probably be rather less salty than the bought stock which you are used to, so you may need to add more salt when you taste it.

Ingredients:
– an onion
– a clove of garlic
– a good pinch of mustard seeds
– a good pinch of cumin seeds
– stock
– paprika
– leftover veg, fully defrosted
– Almond milk (don’t worry if you don’t have this – any kind of milk will do)
– Creme fraiche

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Gently fry the onion, garlic, mustard seeds and cumin seeds. When the onion is becoming transparent turn off the heat and add the frozen stock (I used two ‘blocks’),  put a lid on the pan and leave the stock to melt in the residual heat.

Put your defrosted veg in the blender along with the onions and stock. Add Almond milk as you whizz it, continuing to blend until it is smooth and not far off the thickness that you would eat it. Return the whizzed soup to the pan, using some more milk to swill out the blender.

Slowly bring the the soup up to temperature,  trying not to let it boil. Add paprika,  salt and pepper to taste.
Serve with a spoonful of Creme fraiche and a sprinkle of paprika on top.

… and enjoy because you will never have another soup quite like it again!
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P.s. I made some rather yummy soda bread to accompany it, but that’s a recipe for another day 🙂