Chicken casserole with dumplings

 So good! Based on BBC Good Food recipe for chicken casserole with herby dumplings. All made in a hob-to-oven casserole dish.

Onion and carrot fried off with lardons and (this time) some scraps of leftover salami plus mixed herbs.

Chicken drumsticks, skin pulled down and trimmed, coated in seasoned flour and browned. Add a splash of red wine and deglaze the pan before adding the veg back in. Top up with chicken stock and tomato puree, add in some whole baby mushrooms and chopped parsley.

Cook (170° fan) for 20 mins covered, 10 mins uncovered. Meanwhile make dumplings: 100g SRF and 50g any butter/spread. Mix to breadcrumbs, season (I used a coffee-spice rub geared for tomato sauces), then add just enough water to bind. Divide into six and add on top of the casserole for another 10 minutes (uncovered) at the end.

Could be done in a slow cooker but the dumplings are better in the oven.

Ham, leek and ricotta lasagne

 Bored of the same old tomatoey lasagne I gave this a go, and it came out as a mishmash of various recipes.

9 lasagne sheets (I soak them to cut down the oven cooking time)

2 x 250g tubs ricotta, mixed with a generous dollop of Greek yogurt and some milk to thin it out and make it go further; plus fresh parsley left over from another recipe, parmesan, nutmeg, salt and pepper

~200g ham on the bone, roughly chopped (I always grab one of these when I see them reduced on the deli counter, usually about £4 for 400g+ of good quality ham and a bone for stock if that's your thing) plus a 90g pack of "cook's ingredients" diced smoked ham (also yellow-stickered) [see note for veggie options]

4 small-medium leeks, chopped small, softened in a pan with oil, garlic powder, mixed herbs; chuck in a couple of handfuls of frozen peas too

about half a jar of red pesto

grated cheddar and more parmesan for the top

I layered it up as leeks/peas (drained first), cheese, ham, pasta, pesto, repeated three times over, then finishing with the grated cheese. I thought making a white/cheese sauce would be too overwhelming so went with the pesto instead.

Thumbs up from the family, and without needing a sauce it was ridiculously quick and easy to make. You could possibly sub in something veggie for the ham, like marinated and baked tofu or quorn pieces, or garlicky mushrooms.

Feijoada (Brazilian pork stew)

Second recipe in a row that's Not Cake. See? I can do it.

Another BBCGF recipe, again not on the website yet, but there are a million recipes for feijoada out there, describing it as pork & black bean stew. Mine was different, because I forgot to put the black beans in... did most of the prep earlier in the day but decided not to drain the beans as I had no more fridge space, then during cooking got sidetracked by dish size issues, and forgot them. (That said, due to the dish size issues I don't know where I would have put them...)

 "Start by getting your biggest flameproof casserole" begins the recipe. Which is a fairly poor way to start if, like me, you have only one flameproof casserole dish and it's only medium sized. So my first tip for next time is to make only 4 portions, not 6. I *think* it's a 2.6 litre dish, and this recipe left it brim-full without the beans.

In any case, the result was a lovely, slow-cooked dish with tender meat, soft veg, and a nice thick sauce. It was very tasty and tangy, and extremely satisfying.

I don't think there are many adjustments to be made to the taste, as we thought it was pretty good. Maybe a bit orange-heavy, as it was very reminiscent of pork in orange sauce, but that's not necessarily bad. I'd like to try it with the black beans before making any changes. I also omitted celery this time as I didn't have any. The dumplings were fluffy but would benefit from some salt, and I'm not sure about the extra polenta on the outside which was very crunchy. I wonder whether they really need buttermilk or could just use yoghurt, as you have to buy more buttermilk than you need and then have to find a way to use it.

Update: on reheating for the next time, I added the beans. They are definitely worth adding, bulk it out and tone down the orange a bit. I don't think I'll tweak anything next time except the dumplings.

Ingredients for 6, including dumplings but omitting the onion relish from the original recipe.

900g diced pork shoulder
2 sticks celery, finely chopped
2 onions, finely chopped.
3 bay leaves
2 tsp dried oregano
1 tbsp each cumin, coriander, allspice
1 pork stock cube
2 400g tins tomatoes
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 orange, zest & juice
2 tbsp muscovado sugar
1 tbsp cocoa powder
2 red chillies, halved lengthwise & seeded or not, as you prefer
2 400g tins black beans, drained & rinsed
400g sweet potato, peeled & chopped
2 peppers, chopped

100g chilled butter, cubed
200g self raising flour
140g polenta
140g tinned sweetcorn (small can), drained
0.5 tsp bicarb
75ml buttermilk (or yogurt/sour cream?)
1 egg, beaten


Brown the meat in batches. Soften the onion & celery with the oregano & bay leaves. Add the spices, wait a minute, then add browned meat, plus tomatoes, orange, cocoa, vinegar, sugar, chillies, stock cube. Simmer 1 hour.

Add sweet potatoes, peppers, and simmer for  another 30 mins.

Meanwhile: Rub flour & butter to breadcrumbs, mix in polenta, bicarb and sweetcorn. Add buttermilk & most of egg (reserve some to brush tops). Mix to a workable dough, split into 12 and roll into balls, coating in more polenta.

Preheat oven to 180°C (fan). Stir beans into casserole, taste & season. Put 6 dumplings on casserole, and the rest on parchment/greaseproof in a tin, then brush them with the remaining egg. Bake for 25 mins.


Preparing ahead: in various snatched moments during the day I combined the tomatoes, orange, sugar, chillies, cocoa and stock cube; peeled and chopped the onion, sweet potato and pepper; combined the spices. But with the batch browning of meat ahead of the long cooking time, this is really a weekend recipe even with the prep.

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.

Spiced winter root vegetable cake

Hmm, sounds appealing, huh? It's delicious, honestly! Basically you can make this with either carrots or parsnips. If you want to try other root veg, you're on your own (but let me know how it turns out if you're brave enough!) It's a lovely seasonal winter cake.

I got this from the Moosewood Book of Desserts, and they say it's originally a USA pioneer recipe, which is why you have no perishable ingredients like dairy, eggs or fat. This makes it vegan, and moderately healthy but remember fat-free can still be calorific... especially if you use the full whack of sugar. The recipe is very easy as long as you plan ahead (and maybe have a food processor to do the grating!). It's American, so all in cups - I reckon 2 cups of grated veg is about 3 large carrots or 2 med-large parsnips. I keep meaning to weigh the ingredients myself next time I make it, but always get halfway through before remembering... (1 cup = 8 fluid ounces in a measuring jug if you don't have any measuring cups, or try this site to convert to grams for specific ingredients.)

Ingredients

• 2 cups (packed) finely grated carrots or parsnips
• 0.75-1 cup packed brown sugar [original amount in the recipe was 1.5 cups but I found it too sweet]
• 1.75 cups water
• 1 cup sultanas or other dried fruit (chopped to sultana size). Sultanas are great, but I also like apricots with carrots, and cranberries seem to go well with parsnips, but you could use dates, figs, whatever you have lurking. A small amount of candied ginger, finely chopped, can be a nice addition.
  
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 cups plain flour
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 0.25 tsp ground cloves
• 0.5 tsp ground nutmeg or fresh grated
• 0.5 tsp ground ginger, or 1-2 tsp fresh grated ginger
  [be a little heavy handed with the spices if you want more of a winter warmer gingerbread effect, but go easy on the cloves, tiger]
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp baking powder

Method
Combine the carrots, sugar, water, fruit (plus fresh ginger, if using) and vanilla in a saucepan - bring this to the boil, simmer for 5 minutes, remove from heat, cover, and let sit for >1hr or overnight. All the fruit plumps up and the flavours mingle. Yum!

Preheat oven to 300F / 150C / Gas 2. Grease and flour a 9-10" pan, or put cases in a 12x muffin tin.
Combine the dry ingredients (flour, spices, salt, baking soda and powder) in a bowl. Stir the carrot mix into the dry mix just until no dry traces are left. Pour the combined mix into the pan, and bake until firm/springy and a skewer comes out more or less clean (you want it to be moist, but cooked) - about 1 hr for a cake or roughly 30 mins for muffins I think (keep an eye on them).

Cool the cake in the pan for 10 mins, then on a rack. Optionally, poke a few holes in the cake while warm and drizzle a lemon/orange sugar syrup over the top. If you don't need the cake to be vegan, cream cheese based icing/frosting is decadent but occasionally called for :) (Cream cheese, icing sugar, citrus zest/juice or spices to taste - just make sure the cake is fully cool before spreading it.) But to be honest, this cake is good just as it is.