Beetroot Dip

This was in the Sunday Times a few weeks ago. The original recipe by Lucas Hollweg called for fresh beetroots you then roasted in the oven, but since I had a pack of pre-prepared beetroot that needed to be used I thought I'd give it a go!

Beetroot Dip (my version)

Ingredients
300g beetroots
6 cloves of garlic, in their skins
Extra virgin olive oil
Fresh thyme
Black pepper
200g tub of spreadable goat's cheese

Instructions
1. Roast the garlic in the oven until soft.

2. Finely chop the beetroots and add to a food processor with the garlic flesh, 4 tablespoons of olive oil and the thyme.

3. Season well and blitz till smooth. Add the goat's cheese and blitz again. Then serve!

It comes out a glorious pink that my photos don't really do justice! I served it with rice tortilla chips to dip. It complimented my flowers beautifully ;-)







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Lemon Risotto

I know you can't believe it... a post on this blog!

Big shock huh after nearly four months! Sorry for the hiatus, it was all due to moving house, and losing the camera, and then just life taking over! I was preparing dinner tonight though and suddenly felt inspired to put the recipe up on here. It's another of our regular favourites and to be honest I'm surprised it's not on here already as it is the Comedian's most frequent request. Don't panic too much about the time involved in cooking risotto. Yes you do have to keep checking it and stirring it, but I've found I've got quite good at adding a ladle-full of stock and then running and doing a quick job or check on the kids before getting back to stir and add another ladle-full. It doesn't necessarily mean standing and stirring non-stop for an hour! Here's my recipe.....


Lemon Risotto



Ingredients
1 Red onion
1 Shallot
2 or 3 garlic cloves
Tablespoon olive oil
Knob of butter
250g Risotto rice
1 Litre Chicken stock
1/2 glass white wine
Juice of two lemons
Lemon rind (I've put this separately as you don't really want the rind of both lemons! Just some)
1 Egg yolk
Parmesan cheese
Black pepper

Instructions

1. Grate the red onion, shallot and garlic. This will kill your eyes by the way, but is definitely worth it to produce a smooth and creamy risotto without big hard lumps of onion.



2. Put two large pans onto the hob; in one heat the chicken stock, in the other melt the butter and olive oil together and add the grated oniony mixture. Cook until softened.

3. Add the risotto rice and stir until coated with the oniony oily mixture.

4. Now comes the important part. Take a ladle-full of the stock and add it to the risotto pan, stir until it has absorbed. Repeat this process until the risotto is creamy but not too soft and puddingy. This may take 20 minutes or may take an hour. You may not use all the stock or you may use it all and need to top up with boiling water. It seems to be different every time I make it. About halfway through I substitute one of the ladles of stock for half a glass of white wine... just because I reckon all food tastes better with alcohol in it ;) Don't worry the alcohol cooks away, it just gives a lovely flavour.

5. At this point you have your basic risotto and can remove from the heat to add whatever flavour you fancy. For the lemon risotto I mix together the lemon juice, lemon rind, egg yolk, a generous helping of parmesan cheese and black pepper, and stir the whole lot in. Today I also added some peas and some leftover chicken I got off the bones before I turned them into the stock. You can add anything though, mushrooms also work well, or bacon.

6. Serve with a green salad on the side and lots more parmesan on top.



Risotto is such lovely comforting food, perfect for this chilly, rainy weather. The Comedian is rather addicted to the lemon version, but maybe over this season I can get him to let me branch out a little.

There we are, I've broken the blogging break. We're about to hit the season of Yuletide sewing so hopefully I'll be on here much more over the next month... once I work out which box the sewing machine is in!



I'd better run as Friday night is date night, so I've just run away from the table above, abandoning my husband, to quickly post this. By the way; the Midwinter Graphic ceramics above were discovered by my mum and I in a charity shop in Guildford. Just £15 for 16 plates, two casserole dishes and a sauce jug... bargain!

Honey mustard sausages

As requested by Tat ;)

This recipe is super easy and super yummy! It doesn't make for the prettiest photographs I'm afraid but here goes.....



Honey Mustard Sausages

Ingredients
1 pack sausages (any type but this time I used some delicious 75% meat ones)
2 tablespoons mustard (the mustard above is the best imo)
2 tablespoons honey

Instructions

1. Pre-heat oven to 190 degrees Celsius (gas mark 3).

2. Place sausages into a casserole dish, and place in oven.

3. Bake until cooked but not too brown... around half an hour.



4. Meanwhile mix the mustard and honey together in a bowl.

5. Remove sausages from oven and brush with the mustard honey mixture.




6. Return the sausages to the oven and continue cooking until brown and sticky. Baste occasionally with the remaining honey mustard mixture.



7. Serve however you like. Today we had them with cheese filled pancakes as it's pancake day!





That's it... easy peasy! You can adjust the amounts as you like and can even sprinkle the sausages with sesame seeds. It works well with cocktail sausages too for a party!

Beef Mexicano

I had no idea when I first started this blog that I'd be posting so many recipes! I guess it just shows how important food is to me and my family. I love cooking and more to the point I love eating!

This is another tried and tested family favourite. I don't know why it's called Beef Mexicano since there doesn't seem to be anything Mexican about the final flavour. The ingredients for this one look weird but trust me the final result is nothing like you would expect from that combination. You check this casserole every 20 minutes or so and the first few times you'll be stirring it wondering how on earth it is ever going to taste good. Then suddenly it changes, something miraculous happens and the ingredients combine. The result is a rich tomatoey stew with a subtle sweetness and beef that just falls apart. The carrots are a family addition to the recipe as we all love them and I always try to add extra veg to things. The recipe works just as well without them if you would prefer.



Beef Mexicano

Ingredients
500g Stewing Steak (diced)
2 Tins Chopped Tomatoes
1 large Onion (chopped)
2 cloves Garlic (crushed)
6 Carrots (peeled and cut into rounds)
2 tablespoons English Mustard
2 tablespoons Jam (any type)
2 tablespoons Branston Pickle

Instructions

1. Pre-heat oven to 170 degrees Celsius (gas mark 3).

2. Fry onions, garlic and carrots in a saucepan until softened.

3. Add beef and brown.

4. Add tin of tomatoes and the mustard, cook for 1 minute.

5. Add jam and pickle, transfer to casserole dish.

6. Cook for 2 hours (or more this recipe tastes better the longer it's left) stirring every 20/30 minutes.



I served this up at the weekend with new potatoes but it's great with jacket potatoes or rice too. As with any tomato-based dish it tastes even better the next day!

Avocado Goodness

The original recipe for this came from a pregnancy book, although i'm ashamed to say I can't remember which one..... maybe Gowri Motha? Anyway it became a firm favourite in pregnancy and has continued to be my back-up speedy lunch solver. As with most of my favourite recipes I don't actually have this written down anywhere (who knows what happened to that pregnancy book!) but just throw it together from memory when I have a need. It's a very handy and speedy little concoction that works just as well as a dip with nachos as it does spread inside a pitta bread or spooned into a jacket potato.


Avocado Filling

Ingredients
1 avocado, peeled, stoned and mashed
An equal amount of cheese (any type really, I'm going with sheep's cheese mostly these days)
1 Tablespoon lemon juice
A large dash of Tabasco

Steps:

1. Just mash everything together!

Povey loves this too (he likes to scoop it up with pitta) perhaps because I ate SOOOO much of it when pregnant with him ;)

Our Favourite Roast Lamb

This is our family's absolute favourite way to have roast lamb. I have no idea where this recipe came from originally, only that it was my favourite right from a child. I don't even have it written down anywhere (well until now!) I just know it all off by heart. What I love about this meal is that you cook the meat, veg and gravy altogether in one fell swoop! It's delicious with roast or new potatoes.


Glazed Lamb with bacon
Serves around 4
Takes 30 minutes to prepare, 2 hours to cook

Ingredients
Leg of lamb
Fresh rosemary
Two packs of smoked bacon
Jar of apricot jam
1 onion (chopped)
Bag of carrots (peeled and chopped into rounds)
Chicory (chopped finely)
1 pint stock (lamb or vegetable)


Method

1. Fry up the onion, chicory and carrots together until softened. Put them into a large deep metal baking tray and pour the stock over them.

2. Sit the leg of lamb on top of them. Cut slits all the way along the leg of lamb horizontally and put a sprig of rosemary and a slice of bacon into each slit.

3. Cover the whole leg with the rest of the bacon, cover the whole tray with tinfoil and pop in a preheated oven (180) for 1 hour.

4. After an hour remove the foil and cover the whole leg (over the bacon) with pretty much all of the jar of jam. Pop back into the oven for another hour (or so, it may take less time), stirring the vegetables beneath occasionally.



The bacon on top will turn black, don't worry this is what is meant to happen! The black crispy bits are the best bits :P When you come to serve, lift the lamb out of the pan onto a serving plate, let it rest for 15 minutes or so and then lift off the crispy bacon to carve the lamb beneath. Lift out the vegetables with a slotted spoon and pour the stock into a jug to be the gravy.

It's so good that I totally failed to get a photo of it all cooked before it got eaten! Maybe I can slot one in later as we have this for Sunday lunch quite often. Yum yum!

Oaty Cookies

It's difficult to find snacks and biscuits for the family when The Comedian can't have wheat, Povey can't have dairy, and I'm not supposed to have either!

When I get a chance I bake them myself and these little oaty cookies go down well with everyone... hence the name "vanishing"! The original recipe was off a pack of oats, but I have adapted it over time to suit our tastes...dairy/wheat-free, less sugar, more cinnamon etc.

Vanishing Mini Oats and Raisins cookies

Ingredients:
½ pound/2 sticks/ 226g dairy-free margarine, softened
1 cup/220g firmly packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1½ cups/180g Dove's farm gluten and wheat-free white self-raising flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3 cups/ 150g Oats (uncooked)
1 cup/ 40g raisins

Steps:

1. Preheat Oven to 175 Degrees C.
2. In large bowl, beat margarine and sugar until creamy.
3. Add eggs one at a time followed by vanilla extract, beat till well combined.
4. Add flour, baking soda and cinnamon, mix well.
5. Add oats and raisins, mix well.
6. Drop dough by rounded teaspoonfuls onto greased baking sheets.
7. Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until light golden brown.
8. Cool 1 minute on cookie sheets; remove to wire rack. Cool completely. Store tightly covered.

I find that wheat-free cookies tend not to spread much when they bake, so require a little shaping before you pop them in the oven. They are also more crumbly than normal cookies, although that's improved if you can resist eating them before they're fully cooled! If you don't want to make them wheat/dairy free, then just replace the flour and margarine. Also this recipe makes loads of cookies, (as you can see from the photos... that last batch was 90 cookies!) so if you don't need that many just halve the recipe amounts.

Enjoy :)