I'm back! 2 new recipes and a restaurant review

Hi all, sorry for the delay, my week off work was filled with car hunting then swiftly followed by illness. I'm happy to say I have lots to report back on!

This picture pleases me

Josh and I ventured over to Birmingham recently to visit friends and I finally got to Handmade Burger Co. As you will tell from the following pics, this was not a diet day



The restaurant was clean and had a good atmosphere, I like the fact that the tables were distanced far enough apart so that I wasn't on anyone's lap. The staff were friendly and weren't all over us at the table so that we could enjoy our food.

Me and Josh opted for the following:

• Beef Burger stuffed with Wensleydale and Cranberries (£7.95)
• Blue Cheese and Bacon Burger (£7.85)
• 2 portions of chips (£2.95 each)
•  Blue Cheese Mayo (3 Dips for £1.95)
• Garlic Mayo
• BBQ Dip
• Side of Guacamole (95p)

The dinner was really great overall and there were lots of positives. The highlight for me and Josh was the Blue Cheese Mayo! Massive chunks of blue cheese were balanced perfectly with the mayo! Josh had the Blue Cheese and Bacon Burger and he said that next time he would just have bacon burger and order extra of the blue cheese mayo as he felt the flavours were better. I loved the quality of the meat, it wasn't too greasy and was well cooked but still (yes i'm going to say it) moist. The burgers were also a good size and this is proved by the skewer that holds them together.

The chips came in a good size bowl and were nice and fluffy. 6 of us on the table had a portion each and the only thing that made me sad was the inconsistent size of the chip portions. I feel that when going onto the same table that should be important. Especially as me and Josh are both known for getting food envy! 

My wensleydale and cranberry burger was great, good amounts of each filling crammed inside the meaty goodness. I think when I order it next time I may do so without the salad. I found that the onion overpowered the cheese and cranberry together. As I cut my burger in half I managed to get the flavour in the second half.

Mmmmm

This is one small thing that I found that i didnt enjoy was the plates. As they were curved at the edge when I cut my extra larger burger in half i lost some of the filling :( 

Although I am a fan of table service, on reflection I feel that the set up of going to the till yourself and re-filling your drinks adds to the rustic and homemade feel of the restaurant.

You'd think after our massive indulgence we would have left it there but oh no...

me and my friend rich indulging!

Seano with Choc brownie

Me and josh had individual sundaes - lemon meringue and strawberry cheesecake. Sean and Rich opted for Sharing sundae. I dare say that all 4 of us could have gone for it!

The Handmade Burger Co is great for meeting up with friends and having good home made rustic food. If you can eat go for the holy trinity - burger, chips and dip, you're sure to be a happy diner!

The Flag speaks true -  I was stuffed!

The recipe section

This week(ish) I tried out 2 new dishes. As ever one was far more successful than the other. Probably my fault, you can decide!

The winner. Josh has said that this is his favourite new recipe of mine

Spicy African Chicken Stew 

The recipe is above. I found this easy to make and really flavoursome, a great depth of flavour. I subbed the chopped tomatoes for pasata as ever, so this turned out more like a curry than a stew. I didn't have any complaints though from Josh or from guinea pig Goose. I didnt use the drumsticks as I am not a fan of bone chicken. We also halved the quantity as there was only 2 of us!

When you mix the peanut butter and chicken stock together don't be put of by the consistency when you are first mixing it - keep going and it comes together into a smooth paste.

 Get your spices together!! Love this bit as i get excited by the flavour combination and the gorge smells!

Some of the cooking bits:

Adding the spices to the onion and stirring in! My excitement was not premature as the scents mixed beautifully together - a sensation if you will!

Swirly colours mixing the peanut butter mixture to the onions and  the spices

To this you add the chicken (or turkey in our case) and cook for 30 minutes.

In the recipe it says to add the sweet potato after this initial 30 minutes of simmering with the peppers. However, after doing this I would recommend putting them in at the same time as the chicken as I ended up cooking the mixture longer than the advised 1 hour 5 minutes to soften the potatoes further.

The finished product! I served this with basmati rice. As I am a carb fiend I always always over do the potato/rice mix. For this reason I would suggest something lighter like a pitta for the sauce and miss out the rice!

This recipe scored a fabulous 9/10. As I said before the stew turned out more like a curry, which is a happy coincidence as I dislike the word stew.Well worth the hour cooking time and the 15 minutes prep time! 



The ' needs more work recipe'

So I felt a bit excited about this cooking malarky and decided to branch out the new recipe test to the girls as well as myself and josh! As we have a resident veggie (Loz) I went for a black bean chilli.


This was also a BBC Good Food Recipe but for some reason couldn't find it online so here's the recipe:

• 2 tsp olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1 large red onion    1 large white onion for me as i'm allergic
• 2 large red chillis, chopped
• 3 tsp ground cumin
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 2 tsp paprika
• 1/2 tsp hot chilli powder
• 1 tbsp of tomato puree
• 2 x 400g cans of black beans
• 400g of kidney beans, drained
• 2 x 400g of chopped tomatoes   400g of passata for me
• 250 ml of veg stock

Now thanks to the wisdom of my local tesco (other supermarkets are available :P) There were no black beans!!! I had to go for kidney beans, chick peas and mixed beans (used for tacos)

Chopped onion garlic and chillis

Yummy spice mix - such a nice vibrant colour and rich fragrance

1: warm oil in your wok and once hot add the garlic, onion, chopped chillis and salt and simmer for 5/6 minutes
2: add the cumin, cinnamon, paprika and chilli powder along with the tomato puree. Stir well and cook the spices for a few minutes

Should look something like this

3:Add the beans, tomatoes and stock. Bring to the boil and simmer for 30/40 minutes and season to taste.

Serve! Simple no?

As I mentioned above the mixture of beans i used and the passata instead of chopped tomatoes overtook the blend of spices a little. After 20 minutes of simmering I topped up the cumin and cinnamon and allowed to simmer for another 20 minutes. Fortunately this addition made the mixture less tomato-y and added some depth in the flavour. I think I may have expected too much from the recipe and was let down as I felt this was just a posh chilli rather than something a little different. It was however, easy to cook and can see the appeal when catering for bigger numbers or short for time. We served it with rice, pitta, tear and share garlic bread and guacamole. With this there was enough for 6 of us to be full!

This was Josh's least favourite so far and he gave it 6/10. The girls rated it 7 upwards. As I was disappointed I did only give it a 7.

If you have a go let me know what you think!

I'll be back soon with more recipes.

Eat, Drink and Be Merry.

H x

Stir Fry, Curries and Baking!

Hello all! I've tried out 3 new things this week that I want to share with you. They range from great all the way through to 'must try harder' (think this one is more me related than the recipe itself though!)

The week favourite is.....

Simple Goan Curry! 

For the marinade:

I love love love spices and curry as you all know by now. This dish uses some of my favourites such as cumin, tumeric and coriander. 

These spices are combined together in a dish with some lemon juice and water. I must admit I got a bit excited with the tumeric adding a teaspoon rather than half. Mixed together as a paste it looks like this

 To this mixture add the chicken and marinade for between 30 minutes and an hour.

For the pan:

Sorry about the bluriness! 

Its a can of coconut milk, mustard seeds, onions and garlic. The idea of adding a whole can of coconut milk was a bit much for me, so I ended up using just over half and this proved to produce enough sauce for me and josh. The downside to my limit on the coconut meant the dish turned out to be more spicy than it perhaps should have been.This doesn't bother me as I like a dish that makes me sweat (I probably should say sweat in a food blog but alas).

The recipe sees that you fry the mustard seeds before adding chopped garlic and onions - do beware, those seeds don't half jump. Fortunately my glasses acted as a protective shield to my eyes when checking this process out.

I added the chicken to the mustard seeds, onion and garlic and the smells from the spices were amazing, rich and delicious! I cooked this off for around 5 minutes before adding the coconut milk. If you're like me it may be worth adding about half and seeing what you think. 

It says to simmer for about 12 minutes and I left it for about 10, it did reduce and thicken slightly but I was happy with the amount of sauce available!

The flavours were rich and potent in this dish. For Josh it was a little on the hot side and this maybe that I went a bit spice happy and didn't want to add that extra coconut milk. For that me and Josh thought this recipe was 8.5/10!

 Here is my finished product....

The average one of the week:

Nigel Slater's quick, mildly spiced beef recipe. 

I originally got the recipe from the guardian website at the beginning of October  I went back to get the link but it has expired. Everywhere else I search seemed to take forever to load so I'll type it out for you.

You will need:

• Oil for frying
• 500g of cubed beef
• 2 onions sliced
• 3 garlic cloves chopped finely
• 2 teaspoons of ground cumin
• 2 teaspoons of ground coriander
• 1 tablespoon of garam masala
• 500 ml of vegetable or beef stock  my hatred of watery dishes means I only used about half of this.
• 1 tablespoon of grain mustard
• 200 ml of double cream  As ever I removed this and used good old creme fraiche around 3 table spoons

 The recipe said it had enough for 4 but as ever it fed 3 of us providing 'normal' portions. One thing that myself and Wayne (a friend of mine and Josh's) said that it lacked was some form of veg. Josh of course thought more meat would have been the answer but there wasn't much bulk to the dish. Next time I think I would add some peppers for that extra bite.

The recipe says to season the beef and fry then remove from the pan. Although I can see that this may benefit in terms of adding extra flavours but I was cooking to a deadline so I firstly:

I added the onions, garlic and oil to my wok and fried until golden brown. I then added the cumin, coriander and garam masala for around 3 minutes. I then added my extra lean beef strips and cooked for a further 5 minutes, allowing the meat to mix in with the spices. I added my half measure of stock and left to boil for 10 minutes.

After this I added my mustard and the creme fraiche (mixing this in thoroughly) and let to simmer for a few minutes. The spice mixture for this dish  saved the day in all honest.  Yes it is quick and easy but it lacked that extra dimension that veg would have added. I'd say about 5 or 6 out of 10. I will try again one day and let you know how I go.

The needs more practice dish of the week:

As I mentioned when I started my blog, my forte and confidence lies in savoury dishes. My mom is allergic to eggs so pudding and pudding making always took a back seat in my cooking. I have been experimenting recently and my friend Jessie has been helping me with it. As an avid reader of the BBC food section I came across Marshmallow Brownies.

As I am so new to the world of baking, I always follow every instruction to a T and did so for the brownies. I must say I was shocked (and secretly excited) about the amount of sugar that went into these bad boys and as a result made them even more irresistible to me.

We didn't have any square tins so used circular ones. As we felt the mixture was a little on the thick side, we cooked for about half an hour rather than 20 minutes. We took it out the oven and chilled as advised. Whilst the outside was moist (shudder) and delish, the middle seemed to have remained gooey.

Should we have cooked for even longer and risked burning the outisde or have I missed something? Answers appreciated!

hmmm a little rough around the edges

Despite the hiccups the taste was great and the mashmallows were amazing next to the brownie. I even had to remove it from my house so i didn't try and eat the goo. I think that speaks volumes!

And the final one of the week is the 'trusted classic'. 

 Pork, Green bean and oyster stir fry.

When Josh and I moved into our house a friend bought me a recipe file and I stuffed it full of dishes I wanted to try. This one sat in there for a while and is now one of our favourites.

The ingredients I used are just here. As I didn't have any pork in the house (it is much more fattening) I used turkey steaks that i sliced into strips. 




Others are:

• Lime juice - 1 Tbsp needed
• Chilli sauce - 1 Tbsp needed (I add 2/3)
• Oyster Sauce - 75ml needed
• Soy sauce - 1 tsp needed (I use about 3 table spoons)
• Garlic cloves - 2 needed, finely chopped
• Onion - 1 needed cut into chunky pieces. The recipe actually calls for red onion but this doesnt agree with me so I use standard cooking onions
• Green beans - 140g halves (I use frozen green beans and just cook them for slightly longer)
• Noodles to serve

I know that me ADDING more moisture is rare but when I tried this for the first time I found that the sauce wasn't substantial enough to coat the chicken, beans and noodles so I added more.

Step 1 -

Mix the lime, chilli sauce, oyster sauce and half the soy in a bowl.

Step 2 -

Coat the meat in a dash of soy, salt and pepper. Once this is thoroughly mixed, heat the oil in the wok and toss in the meat. (Start to boil the water for your noodles)

Step 3 - 


Add the garlic onion and beans and cook for around 4 minutes.(If your beans are fresh the recipe recommends around 2 minutes) Add your noodles to the boiling water and cook according to packet instructions.




Step 4-

 Add the sauce to the wok and simmer for 2 minutes, it should thicken slightly.

Step 5 - 

Drain your noodles and add to the mixture, toss in until mixed together.

My finished product

The recipe offers a unique flavour, almost sour and salty with the oyster sauce and the lime. Extra tang offered in by the garlic. I often add a glug or 2 extra of the chilli sauce for that extra kick or even some freshly chopped red chilli depending on my mood. This recipe will serve 3 hungry people or 2 people with extra for a lunch time portion! All in all takes around 25 minutes including prep time!

I am on half term this week and I am travelling out and about! I'm sure I will do some cooking but I have a feeling next weeks blog with contain some restaurant reviews! 

Have a great week.

Eat, Drink and Be Merry!

H x

My week in food 15/10

Right, we are getting on track and I have finally caught up with my tales of yesteryear and food. 

Last week was fairly busy so I only have a couple of recipes to share with you. One is a trusted classic and a Josh favourite and one was a new find.

The Trusted Classic....

A good friend of mine Lucy introduced me to the Good Food Magazine books and I invested in the 101 Veggie Dishes which has a couple of good recipes in it. Josh being a strong carnivore couldn't understand the concept of eating a meal without meat so I amended the recipe to include diced turkey

Thai Satay Noodles

you will need:

• 3 Tbsps of crunchy peanut butter (I like to use the whole nut version as it gives the flavours a different element).
• 3 Tbsps of Sweet Chilli Sauce 
• 100mls of coconut milk (light option all the way for me)
• 100mls of Chicken Stock 
• 2 Tbsps of Soy Sauce
• 2 inches of ginger, grated
• 140g of broccoli florets
• 1 red pepper sliced
• 85g of baby corn, sliced in half length ways
• 50g Mangetout, sliced in half length ways
• 3 cloves of garlic, diced finely
• 2 nests of wholewheat noodles
• Olive oil

To start you need to mix the peanut butter, sweet chilli sauce (I usually add another tablespoon or so as I like it spicy), coconut milk, chicken stock and soy sauce. Mix them together until the peanut butter mix becomes smooth. One thing I forget to do regularly is to stir the coconut milk before adding. It makes the difference. It may not seem the most appealing in sight or smell but give it a taste here as I often add extra soy sauce.

Add a small amount of olive oil to a wok or large frying pan and add the turkey and cook through then add ginger, broccoli, peppers and corn for 3 minutes. I always tend to cook this for a little longer as I find that the broccoli can be underdone and too crunchy for my taste. Take your own taste after 3 minutes and see what you think. At this point boil the water for your noodles and cook as per packet instructions.

Add mangetout and garlic and fry for another 2 minutes. Add peanut mix and stir into vegetables and allow to boil for a couple of minutes. Once the noodles are cooked add to the mixture, stir and serve.

When I first made the recipe I wasn't too sure about it, especially the first phase, however it mixes well with the ginger and garlic to give a unique flavour. One thing that does often gripe me is the ability to mix the noodles in to the vegetables enough that they are spread evenly. You may benefit from plating the noodles first and then adding the sauce mixture. the recipe will take about 30 minutes to cook and prepare when you are in full flow and this should serve around 3 hungry mouths. I have had to sub in petit pois and normal sweetcorn at a push and it still works well.

I tried to find the link for this on the bbc good food website but no joy. If you want to buy the book this is what is looks like:

I got mine from W H Smiths but is available online too!

The new find...

So as you will know by now I have a love of curry. And I'm a fan of vegetables. I made this one and managed to persuade Josh to have this without meat! 

Quick Vegetable Curry

Now I'm not sure about you but quick to me is around half an hour but this recipe with all of its faffing would take at least an hour. As I was tired and impatient I must admit I cut a few corners and amended it to my taste 

*bad harriet*

 As you know this goes against my ethos of try the recipe first then mix it afterwards. If you have a read through the recipe I'm hoping you will let me off about this one.

The recipe says you will need the following. (Though I have crossed out the things I didn't use)

• 2 large aubergines, cut into quarters, thickly sliced
• salt
• good glug groundnut oil
• 2 onions, peeled and roughly chopped
• 3 large, juicy garlic cloves, peeled, chopped
• finger-length piece fresh root ginger, peeled and cut into fine shreds
• 6-8 cardamom pods
• 1-2 good pinches dried chilli flakes
• 1-2 tsp ground turmeric
• 1-2 tsp cumin seeds
• 6-8 tomatoes, roughly chopped    I used passata here
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• few good dollops natural yoghurt I omitted this as I felt it would be too creamy
• dollop crème fraîche
• small handful fresh coriander, roughly chopped
• small handful fresh mint leaves   I ommitted this as I didn't feel it would be to my taste.

• 
  
  I also added to this 2 potatoes (cut into quarters and boiled for 20 minutes) and 2 carrots (Sliced thinly and boiled for 15 minutes) and a can of cannellini beans to add some more texture and to bulk it out for my man

So for this recipe I changed a lot. Firstly it said to :

1. Place the aubergine slices into a colander set over a bowl. Sprinkle with salt and leave for 30 minutes to draw out the moisture from the aubergine. - No Thanks, I want to get this ball rolling!
2. Meanwhile, to a large pan over a high heat add the groundnut oil with the onions, garlic and ginger. Cover with a lid, lower the heat and cook for 20 minutes or so, until the onions have softened. I once again feel that this was too long to cook them for so cut this down dramatically.
   
   
   The next stage it says is:
   Crush the cardamom pods, extract the black seeds and lightly crush them in a mortar with a pestle (I don't have one of these at the moment as I broke mine so used a spoon to crush and extract the pods.) - a gold star so far.
   Add them to the same pan, along with the chilli flakes, turmeric and cumin seeds, and stir to lightly toast the spices (discard the empty cardamom pods) - once again this was fine.
   
   
   Next it says to add the Aubergines which you have to griddle cook first until brown which is fine. At this point I added my other vegetables and the passata. I also added a little water to the mixture to loosen it up slightly. I left it to boil for about 15 minutes. 
   
   
   
   

   The chilli was quite strong against the onions so at this point I added the creme fraiche to cool it a little. The portion fed 3 of us and I had enough left over. As there is a lot of veg in my version there wasn't really the need for rice but I can't fault having a Naan to mop it up. I didn't find the aubergine needed to have the moisture drained out and found that the veg worked together well.

Tomorrow Night I am embarking on some baking with my friend Jessie so I'll take lots of pictures and let you know how we get on.

Eat, Drink and Be Merry.

H x