Basa Fish with Carrots, Mayonnaise, and Coriander

Breaded Basa fish from Sainsbury's yesterday, at a good price. Cooked in a little sunflower oil in a roasting tray in the oven for 18 minutes at 220 deg C (preheated). Watch carefully in the last few minutes.

Served with batonned carrots cooked for twenty minutes in boiling water, with diced fresh coriander and some salt. Also served with two dessert spoonfuls of mayonnaise mixed with diced coriander, and some white pepper.

 Garnished with some sprigs of fresh coriander.

Simple and delicious!

Penne Pasta in a Danish Blue Cheese Sauce

The cheese sauce is made with about 100g of Danish Blue Cheese, crumbled into a mixture of milk (100ml)  and cornflour (a teaspoonful) which has been brought to the boil. Stir more or less continuously to avoid burning. Once the sauce thickens, turn the heat right down. Add white pepper, a pinch of dried parsley, 2 chopped spring onions, and cook for ten minutes.

During which time the pasta can be prepared in water which has been brought to the boil, and to which a little sunflower oil and salt has been added to avoid sticking. I used Dove's Farm gluten-free penne pasta, which is pretty reliable. Cook for nine or ten minutes, according to how much 'bite' you prefer.

Chicken Stir-Fry

Stirfried breast of chicken, with two colours of cabbage, red and yellow pepper strips, red onion, carrot strips, and beansprouts.

Chop two chicken breasts into small chunks and stirfry in a wok in a little sunflower oil, for fifteen minutes, until the pieces start to become golden brown. Keep the chicken pieces moving every half minute or so. Turn the heat down for the final five minutes, and use the lid of the wok, if it has one, to ensure thorough heating.

The vegetables were cooked in a separate wok at a high heat for three minutes, moving continuously, also in a little sunflower oil. The heat was turned down low, and the lid added. Stir once a minute for another 4 to 5 minutes to ensure thorough heating.

Serve with the chicken, and dress in some pepper and dark soy sauce.

Breaded Haddock with Garden Peas

Supermarket bought breaded haddock fillets. Cooked on the middle shelf of the oven preheated to 180 deg C for twenty minutes.Watch the fish closely in the last five minutes, since the efficiency of ovens varies quite widely.

Served with garden peas, boiled in slightly salted water, and white pepper. Also good with tartare sauce.

This is fast, healthy food!

Brocolli and Potato Soup, with Smoked Bacon

Some cheap brocolli on offer at the supermarket, so I decided to make a soup. Cut it into florets and steam until tender. Boil semi-skinned potatoes for twenty minutes. Add both to a lidded soup pot and mash together. Add two finely chopped red onion.

Boil for twenty minutes, and then blend the ingredients together for two minutes. Add paprika, smoked paprika, black pepper, 100g of tomato puree, coriander, oregano, two dried red chillies, and some vegetable stock.

Chop a rasher of smoked bacon into small pieces, and fry until it browns. Decant the bacon pieces and the fat from the bacon to the soup pot, and stir together. Cook at a low heat under glass for at least forty minutes.

Serve with a topping of finely grated cheese of your choice - Cheddar, Danish blue, Stilton, etc, and some chunky bread. Delicious!

Ham, Egg, and Oven Roasted Chips

I've liked chips since I was a child, but I can't remember the last time I deep-fried them. Those days
are gone. I used semi-skinned chpped potatoes here.

The chips were marinaded in a mixture of tomato ketchup, paprika, vinegar from a jar of marinaded peppers, black pepper, a teaspoonful of sunflower oil, a pinch of dried rosemary, a pinch of salt, and stirred occasionally until they were thoroughly coated.  The were roasted in an oven preheated to around 190 deg C for twenty five minutes. Always check the progress of chips roasting in the oven, particularly in the last ten minutes or so.

You can experiment with other herbs in the mixture. Coriander is a good choice, as is oregano.

Served with two slices of breaded ham from Morrison's, and a fried egg, cooked in a small pan, sunny side up. An old favourite.

Lamb Tagine

A Moroccan style lamb tagine, with ground lamb, red onion, spring onion, carrot, celery, root ginger, garlic, paprika, tomato passata, red and yellow pepper, lamb stock, coriander, and stoned and chopped dates.

I cooked this dish not in the traditional stoneware tagine, which is often available to buy in UK supermarkets these days, but in a large flat and lidded pan, and once all the ingredients were in the pan, It was allowed to simmer for more than three hours, after draining off the lamb fat.

Brown the lamb with the onions in the lamb's own fat. Then add the other ingredients. Cook until tender (about twenty-five minutes). Add boiling water. Decant to a pyrex glass vessel, and allow both the pan and the vessel to cool. When the lamb fat has solidified on top of the juices, which may take several hours, remove it with a spoon, and then add the juices back into the pot. Add the tomato passata, some lamb stock, and some coriander. Simmer under glass at a low heat for at least three hours.

Serve with basmati rice, or alternatively some north African couscous. Delicious!

Torunska Sausage Salad

A simple and quick to make salad with cured Torunska sausage. The ingredients are, in addition to the slices of sausage, spring onion, celery, yellow pepper, cherry tomatoes, and four leaf salad (red and green lettuce, chard, and spinach leaves).

Chop the tomatoes in two, and dice the celery, the yellow pepper, and the spring onion. Add the vegetables and the leaf salad to a glass bowl, and add some lemon juice (half a teaspoonful) and olive oil, with a pinch of salt. I also added a little vinegar from a jar which contains marinaded red peppers (optional if available, but half a teaspoonful only).

Stir together until all of the contents of the bowl are coated. Allow to stand for ten minutes then repeat, for half an hour to forty minutes. Put the salad into the fridge for at least half an hour before serving. Serve with a dash of tabasco sauce.

Ground Pork Chilli Hash

A ground pork chilli was in the fridge, and I used that as the basis of this dish.

The pork chilli component was made with stir-fried pork, onion, red pepper, red chilli. The pork was stir-fried with white onions and diced red pepper in sunflower oil until the pork began to brown. I added water and a hanful of oat flakes (oatmeal will do as well). It was simmered for at least an hour under glass, stirring every few minutes. I added two squeezes of tomato puree, and two dried red chillies, two pinches of dried sage, two pinches of paprika, and two dessert spoonfuls of dark soy sauce. It was cooked  until the dish began to thicken.

The hash was made with chunks of potato, two sliced red onions, some diced green, yellow and red pepper, four chopped spring onions, four finger chillies, a clove of garlic, and a handful of diced celery. The vegetables were stir-fried in sunflower oil until the potato chunks began to brown. After that I added a dessert spoonful of vinegar which had been used to preserve red peppers (ordinary vinegar will do instead), and then two cupfuls of water.

I added the pork chilli, and stirred it in thoroughly. Cooked at a high heat for five minutes, then at a low heat under glass for at least another forty-five minutes. Et voila: ground pork chilli hash. Delicious!

Plum Fruit Salad with Red and Green Seedless Grapes

Chopped plums with halved red and green grapes, served with cream. About seven minutes preparation time.

Put the salad in the fridge for forty-five minutes before serving.

You can add a little cinnamon or nutmeg to this dish.

Smoked Haddock in a Cheese Sauce, with diced Spring Onion

A simple and delicious dish of smoked haddock and a cheese sauce with diced spring onion (chives would do as an alternative).

Make up a mixture of cornflour and milk, and boil until it begins to thicken. Add grated Cheddar cheese, or two spoonfuls of cream cheese, and the diced spring onion. Allow to cool and set.

Roll the haddock and secure in place with a wooden or metal skewer. Spoon the set cheese and spring onion sauce into the rolled haddock, and place in a small metal roasting tray.

Cook on the middle shelf of a preheated oven for 15 to 18 minutes at 190 deg C. Watch the fish carefully in the last five minutes.

Decant to a serving plate, and spoon the liquid sauce over the fish.  Serve with flat-cut boiled potatoes, cooked with a little salt. Utterly delicious!