More family dinners: leek & ham gratin, cod & chorizo stew

Thought I'd try something different: leek and ham gratin with rosti topping (Delicious mag). Was OK, but not brilliant.

1) I misread the instructions which say to chop the leeks in thirds. I just cut them into rings.
2) the additional surface area to the cut leeks then soaked up all the butter so there was nothing to make the white sauce with.
3) maybe my cloves were a bit strong, but the sauce was quite heavily garlicky!
4) the rosti topping was really dry - I was a bit stingy with the butter as I'd used more of it earlier.

I think I'd try it again but with a mash topping. The rosti were a faff that didn't turn out to be worth it.



Thought I'd try something else different: cod and chorizo stew (BBC Good Food). Ding - winner!

The only thing I did differently was to add a bit more paprika when cooking the onion & chorizo, and add a dollop of sun dried tomato paste. It all worked brilliantly. Would try it again, especially with a cheaper fish like basa. Family had potatoes and I had cous cous (not enough potatoes...) - both worked.

Butternut squash casserole

An inevitably-tweaked BBC Good Food recipe. Ripe for slow cooker conversion but haven't done it yet - although it's so easy, as long as you have 30 minutes to really let it simmer it will be fine.

2 onions
1 clove garlic
500g each butternut squash and sweet potato (peeled, chopped, and handily frozen by Tesco...)
1 jar roasted red peppers (I buy them from the World Foods aisle where they are cheaper)
2 tins chopped tomatoes
1 tin chick peas
ground cumin
freshly ground cumin seeds
paprika
1 stock cube of your choice made up with about 100ml water


Chop the onion and fry along with the spices until translucent. Chuck in the peppers (chopped), squash and sweet potato, chick peas, tomatoes and stock then simmer until the squash and potato are soft.

Optionally, serve with grated cheese, fresh coriander, plain yogurt, and cous cous. But it's fine as a one pot.

Pork casserole

Didn't do this in the slow cooker but I think it is ripe for conversion to do so. One from Holly Bell's fab blog, it got the thumbs up in this house.

Lean pork shoulder (350g) browned in flour, an onion and a stick of celery chopped and softened along with a couple of carrots, sage and black pepper, chucked in a pot with a chunked bramley (or maybe two if smaller), a couple of bay leaves and pork stock (350ml) to round it out. I also popped in some chestnut mushrooms. An hour at 160°C (fan) did the trick.

Served it just with kale and courgette that we had knocking about and needed finishing. The kale worked especially well with the zingy sauce. There was a lot of liquid so at the end I also put in some leftover mash we had, which helped a bit. I think next time I'd put dumplings on the top, maybe made with a dab of wholegrain mustard, or serve with mustard mash. Savoy cabbage would be another good accompaniment.

Amatriciana chicken traybake

Nice easy dinner party recipe from BBC Good Food. The potatoes were a bit undercooked, which is odd as we cook new potatoes in the oven for a similar time when we do a roast and they are browned, soft inside and perfect... next time cook them in their own tray perhaps.

Top tips:

• Don't forget to add the bacon lardons (d'oh)
• Add some chopped red and yellow peppers to up the veg count, and use some multicoloured tomatoes for extra colour
• Slash and marinade the chicken thighs (or use leg quarters), and make sure the marinade is nicely garlicky
• Add some olives right at the end

Porotos granados (squash & bean stew)

This is one from HFW's Veg Every Day! book that for some reason I didn't blog before. It's become a bit of a favourite - a good tasty one-pot meal and a nice veggie recipe to add into our rotation. Can be done stovetop or in the slow cooker.

The recipe is online here but essentially it's a stew of squash, green beans, sweetcorn and tinned beans (we usually use black-eyed or pinto but any will do), in an onion, garlic and stock base, with smoked paprika and oregano plus a bay leaf. My only amendment to the recipe is, if I'm cooking on the hob, the usual pre-cooking of the peeled and chopped squash (I microwave it on high for 8-9 minutes while I do the onions and garlic) which ensures it's nice and soft in a reasonable cooking time on the hob. Nothing worse than being all ready for a comforting stew and finding hard chunks of squash that need more cooking :(

Slow cooker: it's fine after about 5 hours on high, depending on the squash.

I find it really benefits from plenty of herbs and black pepper, but the combination of soft squash and beans, and crunchy greens and sweetcorn, is great. It's a good winter warmer and goes well with dumplings on top!

When out of both green beans and sweetcorn I added (frozen, shelled) edamame. They keep their texture a bit more when slow cooking. A good squeeze of tomato puree and a dash of cumin also work well.

Chickpeas and spinach with ginger

Another veggie (vegan, in this case) one-pot recipe, chickpeas and spinach with ginger is very similar to the spinach and chickpea curry that we already do, pretty much just swapping curry paste for ginger. I don't think I've blogged the curry, since it hardly counts as a recipe, so this post covers both.

The ginger recipe is from Serious Eats, and part of a whole series of vegan recipes. Since it took a bit of searching to confirm the can sizes for chick peas and tomatoes, I'll just add that I used 2 of each, normal sized cans (~400g, or ~240g drained in the case of the chickpeas). Needless to say, I did not use the massive amounts of oil called for, but if your diet allows, by all means leave a comment to tell me what I am missing...

Fundamentally the recipe blends half the tomatoes with a good amount of fresh ginger, and adds it to cooked onions and garlic, then adds spinach, and finally chickpeas. Bay leaves, salt and soy sauce ramp up the flavour, although I omitted the suggested vinegar and oil for serving. I will say that I simmered mine for a lot longer to further soften the chickpeas, and ended up with beautifully silky spinach and a richer sauce. There wasn't really enough spinach as I thought the large bag I bought was big enough, but it really could take more. I didn't use the can liquid from the chick peas as suggested, and I think it would have been too runny if I had.

I served this on its own, and we demolished the whole lot in a greedy-pig-portion each, with some left over for Small. Next time I'll do it with rice or another grain, or possibly some sort of bread, plus more spinach, and make it last two meals. The flavour was excellent with the ginger, something I never would have thought of adding to tomatoes, and I can see it becoming a regular on our menu.

The curry we already do is very similar, without the blending. Cook the onions slowly in curry paste and some of the juice from the tomatoes. Add the rest of the tomatoes, chickpeas, and spinach, and simmer for as long as you want to. Butternut squash is another common addition if I have some already cooked (I often roast a squash, just cut in half, to use in various recipes through the week such as risotto, macaroni cheese, cous cous, etc.), but it takes too long to cook from raw in this recipe.

Hairy Bikers' lean lamb hotpot

I find the Hairy Bikers quite entertaining, and have seen some of the buzz around their Hairy Dieters series and the inevitable book(s) that sprang from it. As part of my effort to do more batch cooking, I fancied lamb hotpot this week, and their lean version came up in a search so I thought I'd give it a go.

As a special bonus, this time I even remembered to take photographs of the finished dish. Alex will be proud.

It was easy enough. Brown the meat, cook the onions and carrots a bit, add flour, herbs and stock, then cover with sliced potatoes and slow cook in the oven.

My main difficulty with this was the lack of a hob-to-oven casserole dish. I should have used a deep pan for the stove bits, so as to be able to combine the meat, veg and stock with the flour before transferring to an oven dish, but in a minor brain fade moment I didn't. So they didn't really get well mixed.

This may have been why the dish was disappointingly runny once its allotted time (and more) was up. I wanted thick and unctuous, and got what was more like a very chunky broth. The potatoes were a bit lacking as well, just a bit sad and limp - probably should have whacked the oven over to grill for a bit for a crispier top. Perhaps it's also down to the type of potato, which in this case I don't know as we bought a bag of unnamed ones from the greengrocer. I have a feeling they were waxy and probably should have been floury. We didn't peel them as the recipe said, but (a) I'm lazy and (b) that's where the goodness is anyway.


Another omission, this time on my part, was lamb stock - I thought I had some, but it turned out to be vegetable, which I combined with beef to try and get a darker, meatier flavour. The lamby flavour was therefore not as good as it might have been. Fresh thyme was a good call, though, and next time I might sneak out for a walk around the block, past a couple of houses that happen to have a big bay bush and rambling rosemary in the front garden (whistles innocently)...

I used lamb neck fillet instead of leg steaks, although I am not sure it made much difference to the taste. The meat was lovely and tender, although perhaps there was more fat from the neck than the suggested leg cuts, and I did find this made the potatoes quite greasy. Finally, in the absence of leaf greens (kale or savoy cabbage would be ideal), we had ours with peas, which added greenery but wasn't quite right taste and texture wise.

(Yes, you can see potatoes in the casseroley bit as well as the slices - I chopped up the ends into chunks so I could just have neat middle slices on the top!)

I know it's sacrilege, and apologies to any Lancastrians out there (sorry, Rob!), but next time I would not only mix the veg, meat, flour and stock more thoroughly but probably omit the potato topping as well, letting the hotpot bubble and reduce a bit more, and serve it with mash or even pop some dumplings in. Would be interesting to see if a proper lovely casserole dish a la Le Creuset would make a difference, but I don't think my blog is popular enough for me to start getting sent freebies :)

Jerk sweet potato & black bean curry

I am always on the lookout for easy, interesting, and preferably cheap meat-free meals. As well as making our budget go further, I think it's a good idea to eat less meat for environmental reasons too, but as much as anything I think it's good to mix things up and try a wide variety of foods.

This is (guess what) another BBC Good Food recipe. It caught my eye in the magazine as part of a "cook for a group of 10" article, but I usually halve it and make four decent portions. It sounded good to me as a combination of things we already eat often (sweet potato, pulses), things we're less familiar with (jerk seasoning, ready roasted peppers), all in an easy one-pot recipe. It's become a firm favourite!

Ingredients

• 2 onions, 1 diced, 1 roughly chopped
• 2 tbsp sunflower oil
• 50g ginger, roughly chopped
• small bunch coriander, leaves and stalks separated
• 3 tbsp jerk seasoning (I'd use less the first time you make it, until you find a balance between the brand of jerk you use and your own taste/tolerance - I found it pretty intense first time)
• 2 thyme sprigs
• 400g can chopped tomatoes (I use a whole can, less some of the juice, even if halving the recipe)
• 4 tbsp red wine vinegar
• 3 tbsp demerara sugar
• 2 vegetable stock cubes, made up with 600ml water
• 1kg sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
• 2 x 400g cans black beans, rinsed and drained (in some supermarkets these are in the "world foods" section (Jamaican), for some reason, rather than with the other canned pulses - or they're in both and the world foods ones are cheaper...)
• 450g jar roasted red peppers, cut into thick slices (these keep well if halving the recipe. Again, world foods aisle is the place for the cheap ones. Lidl/Aldi often have enormo-jars.)

Method

Whizz together the roughly chopped onion, the ginger, coriander stalks and jerk seasoning, and set aside. In a jug, combine the vinegar, sugar and stock.

Soften  the diced onion in oil, and when it starts to become translucent add the jerk mix. Fry "until fragrant", about 2-3 minutes, and then add the stock mix, tomatoes and thyme. Bring to a simmer and then leave bubbling for about 10 minutes to get the flavours well combined.

Drop in the sweet potato and simmer for 10 minutes or until the chunks are starting to become tender (might be longer - you don't want them crunchy!). Add the peppers and beans, and simmer for 5 minutes more. Chop the coriander and stir in just before serving, saving a few leaves for garnish.

We serve it with rice or tortilla wraps, or just a larger portion with no accompaniment, and plain yogurt on the side. I've slipped a few chopped green beans in when there have been some to use up, and they're a good addition. Butternut squash also works in place of sweet potato, but needs to be simmered for longer than 10 mins. Black beans work very well but you could probably substitute any pulses if you can't find them - I haven't tried others yet. This is one of those "even better the next day" recipes as the flavours really do their thing overnight in the fridge.

Simple suppers round-up

Having acquired 101 Simple Suppers (BBC Good Food) for 50p at a book sale, this week I went mad and tried four recipes.

Pork with paprika - basically pork fillet, onions, stock, paprika, half fat creme fraiche. I added mushrooms (lots of mushrooms) and served with roast squash and courgette. I also discovered that you can't freeze half fat creme fraiche because it splits :(  It was really very tasty but quite watery and of course the split CF detracted a bit. The mushrooms were a great addition though. I used lots of normal paprika and just a smidge of the hot smoked stuff. Would be good with mash I think - will definitely do again and keep refining.

Greek lamb with potatoes - lamb leg, potatoes, onion, garlic, stock - the only thing making this Greek was some oregano - and not even a lot of it. It was OK but not stunning, a bit boring frankly. I served it with roast courgette and cherry tomatoes. Probably wouldn't do it again.


Honey and soy salmon - this was very good - the salmon was just cooked, the sauce was a tasty mix of sweet and savoury with the pop of mustard seeds, and the stir fried veg (mange tout and shredded cabbage) were still crisp. A good non-stick pan made washing up painless too. Will make again.

Mix together 1 tbsp wholegrain mustard, 2 tsp clear honey, 1 tbsp soy sauce. Fry skinless, boneless salmon fillets for 5 minutes, turning once, and pour over the mixture. Bring to the boil and add 100 ml vegetable stock. Bubble for a few minutes. Serve with rice and stir fried vegetables.

Chick peas with bacon and cabbage - I can see this becoming a one pot staple. Below is my slightly amended recipe (pre-cooking the squash and cooking the onion in the bacon fat). It said to serve with cous cous, but we just had it as a one pot meal. Crisping the bacon is essential!

Peel, de-seed and chop a butternut squash. Microwave on high with a splash of water for 7-9 minutes to start cooking. Meanwhile, fry a couple of rashers of streaky bacon until crisp, and cut into pieces. Remove from the pan and cook a chopped large onion in the remaining fat. Add the squash and a cube's worth of stock,and simmer for 15 mins. Stir in 2 tbsb wholegrain mustard, 2 tins of chick peas (or 1 CP and one of another pulse, forvariety), the chopped bacon, and a good handful or two of shredded green cabbage. Cook for a further 5 minutes and season with lots of black pepper.

Something that's not cake - kale, pumpkin and bacon one-pot

A BBC Good Food recipe. Basically, cook bacon and shallots, add squash or pumpkin in smallish cubes,  chopped kale and stock. Simmer and serve when the squash is tender.

The recipe says streaky bacon but I would use back bacon next time - the streaky was too fatty and didn't crisp up (I was too impatient and/or it was supermarket bacon with added water). I did my usual trick of microwaving the squash for 7-8 minutes to start it off but I needn't have as the kale took longer than I thought. I also used home made chicken stock from earlier in the week and that was pretty good - ham stock would be good too I reckon. We didn't bother with the toast. I had a smear of Kozlik's maple mustard with mine and that added a nice little wow factor - could be good in the pot next time.We also agreed we could try small crispy bits of chorizo instead of bacon next time. Definite possibilities!

Chicken and vegetable one pot

Dinner the other night was kind of based on this recipe for one-pot chicken pilaf from BBC Good Food - but with so many tweaks it's only a distant cousin really.

I did at least use chicken thighs! Veg-wise I used green beans, broccoli, onion and mushrooms. All fine, but I also chucked in brown rice rather than white... which needs more cooking... which pulps the veg a bit, sadly. Next time, part cook the rice first. Rather than a bog standard curry powder I used garam masala, turmeric, and crushed coriander and cumin seeds.

Otherwise, a great one-pot dinner, easy to double up.