Chorizo Sausage with Baked Beans and Hash Browns

A fabulous breakfast. The potato slices were cooked in a pan with sunflower oil. Ready in around 18 minutes, depending on the thickness of the slices. If the potato pieces are cooked with the chorizo, then you require very little sunflower oil.

The beans were prepared in a separate pan, and dressed with some basil and black pepper.

Done in twenty minutes.

Honey Ham Omelette

A simple omelette, garnished with rolled up honey ham, cut into pieces.

The omelette mixture was made with some paprika and salt (plus a little water), and decanted into the omelette pan with diced green beans and pre-fried onion. Cooked under glass until it began to firm up (five to ten minutes).

The rolls of honey ham were added, and the omelette pan was put under the grill for a couple of minutes.

Placed back on the hob for a further two or three minutes, under glass. Dressed with the coriander leaf and the oregano.

Simple, delicious, and quick to prepare. Other vegetables can be substituted for the green beans, such as diced mushrooms, peas, diced brocolli or spring onions, or chopped red or green peppers.

Chestnut Mushroom Stir Fry

Mushrooms cut into eight pieces, and fried in a little butter in a small pan. The stir fry vegetables include two kinds of cabbage, carrot strips, bean sprouts, diced onion, plus three red chillies and a crushed clove of garlic. Cooked in a wok with a little sunflower oil for five minutes at a medium heat, stirring every thirty seconds. 

Served on a bed of dark soy sauce. Ten minutes preparation, hot and delicious!

Beef Bourguignon

One of the most famous French dishes, though it is lacking documentation before the nineteenth century. Essentially it is a beef stew, cooked with diced onions, mushrooms and garlic, and simmered for a couple of hours in beef stock and some red wine. Often cooked with a little chopped bacon, but this addition is an uneccessary detail. I added a little diced carrot to lend some sweetness.

The onions were fried in some olive oil until they began to brown, then the diced beef was added and browned for twenty minutes, stirring frequently. Add the quartered mushrooms and the diced garlic. Cook for another ten minutes. Add the beef stock and half a glass of red wine. Mix some cornmeal with water, and add to the pot, stirring for five minutes. Add the herbs.

Simmer under glass for between one and two hours, according to preference. Served in this case with brocolli spears, boiled in salted water for seven minutes under glass. More usually served with boiled potatoes or rice.

Chicken and Potato Pie

A Boxing Day dish, using up unused slices of chicken breast. The chicken had been cooked on a bed of sliced carrot in a lidded casserole dish, and the juices and carrots were decanted and stored in the fridge.

I chopped three spring onions and placed them in the bottom of a traditional pie dish. Then I added the carrots and chicken juices, plus a little seasoning (pepper). I diced the slices of chicken, and added those on top.

The pie topping was made with mashed potato and butter, plus a little paprika. The surface was textured with a fork.

Roasted on the middle shelf of the oven at 190 deg. C for between 40 and 55 minutes. The dish will be thoroughly cooked after 40 minutes, but the golden appearance of the pie topping is something which needs to be judged by eye.

Served with a dressing of black pepper, along with some American mustard.