Two salads: Quinoa and New Potatoes

In light of the gorgeous Spring/Summer's day we've had today I have made two salads for tea. A Butternut squash, chorizo and quinoa salad with a spring onion, pea and new potato side. One fairly healthy and low calorie (minus the chorizo) and the other, not so much.

  

Butternut squash, chorizo and quinoa salad

• Roast butternut squash seasoned with sage for 30 mins and throw in some halved tomatoes smothered with 2 chopped cloves of garlic 10 mins towards the end.

• Meanwhile fry a large chorizo and cook 7oz of quinoa, then toast some sliced almonds (an alternative to sunflowers seeds as I had run out).

• Slice the butternut squash and mix all ingredients together with a little dressing of grain mustard, wine wine vinegar and olive oil.
 

Spring onion, pea and new potato salad

• Boil the new potatoes then slice

• Chop spring onions and parsley

• Mix with mayonnaise

Recipes adapted from Tescos Real Food (again): Quinoa. New Potatoes.

Fabulous fish pie

If she reads this it will be with her mouth open in shock and awe - my sister that is.

Reason being, we both hate fish pie. It has been a long and drawn out hatred that stems from childhood, it does cut me deeper as until recently I have disliked fish, where as she has always been able to cope. But one thing we both couldn't cope with was Mum's fish pie. (Sorry Mum).

I can't really tell you why we hated it, but I can tell you we used to pour it into sandwich bags and hide it in the draws of the wall unit in the lounge so Mum would think we had eaten it. She found the bags months later, all rotten and stinking and thought they were our hidden school sandwiches that we didn't want. She will now know the truth. (Sorry Mum).

Anyway this obviously explains why I have never made fish pie before. And today is the day fish pie and I made friends.

Recipe taken and adapted (replaced shelfish with an extra leek, took out the double cream and used goats milk so my son could have some) from Tesco Real Foods magazine Oct-Nov 2011.

Choc chip shortbread cookies

We had some friends over this afternoon, and as the boys and I had been swimming beforehand and it had taken quite a bit longer than expected, I was late making lunch for everyone so I made a batch of cookies to entertain their stomachs. (Obviously I would normally open a pack of hobnobs - but everyone knows I am writing a blog now so I have to keep up appearances darling!)

Again I haven't made shortbread before and they were so easy.

• Mix 4oz butter, 2oz caster sugar, 50z plain flour, 1 oz ground rice (for crunch) to make bread crumbs.
• Chop up some dark chocolate to make 'chips' add them to the breadcrumbs with a bit of milk to make dough.
• Roll the dough into a sausage, cover with clingfilm and chill in the fast freeze for 10 mins.
• Take out and slice 1cm pieces, place on baking tray and cook for 15-20 min.

Recipe taken from (and adapted) an old Tesco Real Food mini magazine - I am so impressed by their recipes!!

English tea loaf

I was in Queens Park this week, I visited Gail's Artisan Bakery for my morning coffee and was inspired by all the beautiful breads they had laid about the place (extortionately priced by the way, but beautiful none the less!).

So I thought I would make something befitting their shop - not sure I managed to achieve the same aesthetics on this my first try, but it was tasty none the less.

 

Recipe taken from Lorrane Pascale's fantastic book - Baking Made Easy.

Mix 180g plain flour, 180g bread flour, 7g fast acting yeast, teaspoon ground ginger, teaspoon cinnamon and zest of 1 lemon

 

Make a well in the mix and add 150ml warm water, 1 egg and 1 tablespoon of treacle.

Mix and knead by hand for 5 mins (I took mine out of the bowl and stretched it like bread dough).

Then mix in 2 oz chopped dates and 3 oz of raisins.

 

Cover with clingfilm and put somewhere warm until the dough has doubled in size, then pull out of the bowl and place on a baking tray lined with baking parchment. Bake for 30 - 40 mins.

 

Serve warm! and yes we do have breakfast like this every morning ;)

Marinated chicken and mushroom pizza

Very quickly as we've been here before and it didn't get good reviews but what can I do - it's what the family want?

Same recipe as last time, added a few herbs into the dough when knocking it back. Rolled it out into a slightly strange shape - but got it much thinner this time.

Marinated some chicken strips and onion with paprika, chilli, pepper and garlic. Used this as topping with mozarella and mushrooms.

Ate half of it to soak up the cocktail!

Cocktail hour: Side Car

 

Friday night at the Patton house is Pizza night, and because I am going to bore you with another pizza I thought I would first start with a little cocktail!

The Side Car is two parts brandy to one part Cointreau and half a lemon (or more depending how you like to measure a 'part').

Mmmmm - I needed this after a day with a teething infant!

Spicy tuna and noodle broth

How does the title sound for this? I just made it up. I also made the recipe up, and it tasted very good!

I had to make one up because try as I did to find something inspiring and healthy that I haven't cooked before, was nigh on impossible, and if we ate one more baked good this week then I think we will need our cholesterol levels checking!

Saying that I am thinking of doing bread tomorrow.

Anyway, to make this I began with the marinade an hour and a half before by finely chopping coriander, ginger, garlic and red chillies and crushed it all together in a pestle and mortar with some olive oil. I spread the marinade onto both tuna steaks and let them chill in the fridge.

An hour and a half later I cooked clear spring soba noodles in half a medium pan of water and added a sachet of clear spring miso soup.

I then briefly stir fried bok choy, baby corn, courgette and carrot strips, sugar snap peas and french beans in a little Thai 7 spice, until the veg was coloured but still crunchy.
I added the veg to the noodle miso broth and fried the marinated tuna steaks - in much the same way you would fry a beef steak - oil the fish not the pan, make the pan as hot as h*ll, do it quickly.