credit crunch cookery class lanzarote

Its quite impossible not to gobble up  these little Nuremberg German sausages.

I cook them for the little ones lunch but have my eye on any leftovers!

Just in case anyone was wondering, yesterdays turkey casserole was accompanied by some yummy white bean mash.

Here in Lanzarote jars of legumes are such a basic staple and everyday food, a large jar costs around 50c

Heat some olive oil in a pan and grate in a clove of garlic before heating the oil. Heat until garlic slightly frizzled but not burned then add the beans.

When they are hot all the way through take off the heat and mash, season and add a little milk and butter like potatoes if you like or yogurt, cream. Its your choice  how thick or runny you want your stodge.

A top idea on the potato take is to add chopped spring onion, plenty pepper and butter for an Irish “champ” inspired dish

I’ll confess to feeling rather anxious this morning as we packed a suitcase for my 15 year son to go to Madrid for the weekend with  5 other kids and his rather aged, slightly odd,lady Art teacher.

I did calm down with a nice kitchen potter though.

I find comfort in the food preparing rituals and execution of a yummy lunch for the remaining family members.

After making him a suitably sustaining breakfast and packed lunch I got onto our Turkey and White Veg Casserole

A packet of frozen turkey escalopes can sometimes be a little dry and uninspiring, I often cut them in strips and add fajitas marinade but today i decided to make something more saucy…

A browse in the veg drawer provided fennel and a little bit of celeriac and so lunch was christened.

The turkey slices were chopped and mixed in witrh seasoned flour and then browned ina pan with olive oil.

1/2 litre of chicken stock de-glazed the pan and this was thickened by the flour mix.

I added the chopped veg and also a good bunch of chopped sage from the garden

Leave to simmer for around 20 mins

At this point of writing i haven’t eaten it yet and so am deliberating about adding a nice jar of cooked white beans or possibly cooking some basmati rice

Motto of the day” When in doubt, Cook!”

My new cook book this year was the Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall new one and I took inspiration from his oxtail stew recipe.

I haven’t actually ever cooked oxtail before, but as i saw some in the butchers on my weekly shop I thought i’d try it.

I couldn’t actually remember what was in Hugh’s recipe beyond star anise, which i already had in the store cupboard, so i my recipe just evolved from this point!

2 pieces of oxtail, 450g in total

1 onion chopped

chunk of celeriac

chunk of pumpkin 

dish of roasted onions and garlic (i did have this in my fridge from a roast turkey leg dinner from the day before)

glass or two wine, two lamb stock cubes

Star anise, black pepper, bay leaves, cloves, worchester sauce

Brown the oxtail in a little olive oil, add to slow cooker or large soup pan with all the other ingredients, cook for 4-6 hours.

Once you can chop the meat with a spoon, remove it and take out the bone, and any gristle. I reserved the meat chunks and blended the veg to make a thick hearty soup. we haven’t eaten it yet so i think it will be lovely for a sunday supper after a breezy day out.

Brownies are a very easy treat to make, just don’t over cook them.

Gangas Tias has a special offer on their very nice dark chocolate bar and this made for a very rich cakey bar.

continental choc bar

225g chocolate

225g butter or marg

250g sugar

3 eggs

125g self raising flour

1tsp almond essence

I used salted butter so didn’t need to add any extra salt.

It’s usual to add vanilla essence and please do if thats the fudgy taste you want but personally I love almond essence with chocolate.

Melt the butter and chocolate in the microwave and stir together.

Whisk the eggs and sugar until combined then beat in the melted choc mixture.

Sift the flour on top and then fold this in with a large metal spoon, stop as soon as it’s mixed in.

Pour into a shallow baking tin(20cm x25cm approx) and bake at 180C for 20m mins. A testing skewer should come out with a few moist cake crumbs still clinging to it. Leave to cool a little before cutting into squares.

very moist chocolate brownie

Enjoy!!

Today I didn’t have much in for lunch and so decided to make a “deli bowl” salad and wait for inspiration.

Half a bag of pasta spirals was cooked up with 2 star anise, a couple of cardomen seeds and a dst spoon of balti currymix.

Take care not to overcook the pasta as it will become more tender when draining and steaming.

Mix the drained pasta with

1/2 diced cucumber                     

1/2 diced red pepper

one pot of Greek yogurt

Season well and dress with olive oil and lemon juice. sprinkle over a little more curry powder to taste.

If you want this hot and spicy add some tabasco or chilli sauce.

This will make a family sized bowlful for about 1,50€

Suitably inspired I dug out some puppadoms and chutney to accompany our lush lunch.

On reflection I do have to compare this tasty salad to the “edible” pasta of yesterday and do feel it was lacking the LOVE in a homemade dinner…

I’m not really one for the old ready made frozen dinners but i did pick up some pasta and meatballs in the Gangas sale last week.

The findus pasta range was incredibly priced at 99c and with a 25% discount on the sale day reduced to 75c!

If the family are in need of a quick lunch i’d rather they had a “ping” micro dinner than a fry up and thought i would give this a whirl

It took 8 mins to cook it in a pan, and I must confess to adding more seasoning, dried oregano and a fair lashing of grated cheese. However the end result was very edible and a meal for five for a €.

Always a winner, and for me it has got to be brown sauce with a bacon butty.

English thick bread, crispy back bacon and a mug of tea.

Perfect combo for a late sunday breakfast

2011

One of my resolutions is to persevere with the cookery blog, and to try to update at least weekly.

I love being creative in the kitchen and am now compiling photos of our daily dinners partly for the blog and partly because I now have an idea to do a cookery book.

This idea came about due to a conversation with a dear friend who has very sadly since died. She was teaching her “girls” a few kitchen basics and cheats with packet mixes that all mums do when churning out the daily dinner.

Recipes and how we eat is such a legacy and influences generations.

I want to put something together for my friends family as well as my own. This idea is coming together as I have recently done a photo book with www.blurb.com and actually it was remarkably easy.

I’m glad I started this blog, even though it is so sadly neglected at times, but that is a reflection of the busy mum I am too.

Logging, blogging, diaries and archives are so interesting to look back on and the only regrets are that there isn’t more to see .

With this thought I am going to make efforts to add more content here and so gather recipes and ideas for my book.

I really think this time it will happen…

Hello, here again after another lengthy absence…. today I’m blaming school hols and spending too much time reading online forums and facebook to write my own blog.

However I was inspired to cook up a credit crunch buster as I was challenged to make a 30 portion curry for 20€ by the general poo-pooing gang of gazette live.

http://www.gazettelive.com/forum/index.php?topic=5532.msg60693#msg60693

How easy is that for me! I could make dinner for 50 people out of the dish cloth! It is my great forte, and so I present the taste sensation of “chickpea curry” aka

Chana Peshwari

300g dried chick peas, soaked overnight in water(just over half a packet, cost 35c)

2 tea-bags (yes, really), 2 bayleaves, 1 tsp whole cumin, 6 black pepper corns

cook the chick peas

Cook the soaked and rinsed chickpeas in a large pan with the above ingredients and just enough water to cover for half an hour or until the chickpeas are tender.

2 onions, chopped (70c)

4 gloves garlic, chopped (10c)

Fresh or dried  chilli

Tin tomatoes, tomato puree or even ketchup (60c)

Juice of a lemon (20c)

250ml stock made from a cube

Salt

1tsp ground ginger, 1tsp whole cumin, 1tsp turmeric, 2tsp garam masala or other curry powder of your choice.

 Fry the cumin seeds until they stop sizzling in 2tbl spoons of oil, then add onions & garlic, cook until translucent.

Add the ginger, chilli, curry powder and spices. I used a heaped tea spoon of chilli paste.

Add the tomatoes, a good squirt of tom puree/ketchup and the stock and cook on medium for 10 mins

Add the drained chickpeas, and lemon juice, season with salt if needed.

Cook for a further 30 mins on a low heat.

I like this curry quite saucy so check the liquid levels and add more if needed.

I actually put mine in the slow cooker and left it on medium for over an hour whilst i took the little one swimming yesterday, this meal is just so easy. It can be made super quick with a ready prepared jar of chickpeas at an additional cost of 50c or left to cook slowly without attention

The costings I have for this amount come to around  2.50€ with the seasonings and make  8 portions.

 I would calculate that you could make 30 portions for 10€ thereby turning in a 100% profit on the 20€ offered.

We enjoyed our curry with some home made flat breads and a yogurt and mint raita

I am entering the gangas curry competition, not because i’m any sort of a curry expert but because i like to join in “foodie” experiences and I think the curry comp will be fun.

I’m also not doing this recipe particularly for the comp but just felt i had to trump the grumps on Gazette live who moan about Gangas for no particular reason.

I would love to read any comments on this post but please don’t bother if you’re only going to comment on the cleanliness of my saucepans!!

Just a quick update here, i actually won 50€ for the third prize in the curry comp with this recipe so give it a go, its a prize winner!