Vegetable Pie

A simple vegetarian potato pie, made with carrots, red pepper, and spring onion.

The vegetables were parboiled for fifteen minutes, as were the potatoes. Added to a pie dish, while the potatoes were added to a pyrex bowl and mashed with salted butter.

The potato topping was added to the pie dish, and textured with a fork. Cooked in the oven for around fifty minutes at 180 deg C (judge progress by eye).

Thick Cut Bacon with Peppers in a Tomato Salsa

Half a 400g tin of chopped tomatoes, in which diced carrot, red pepper, and orange pepper strips were cooked at a medium heat for a couple of hours under glass.

The bacon pieces were cooked in a little olive oil for about twenty-five minutes, drained, and added to the vegetable salsa.

Add some white wine, a dash of bloody mary spice, the herbs and a pinch of paprika. No added salt or stock. Delicious!

Mango Fruit Salad

Bought from the local co-op as an 'exotic salad'. All I did was add cream to the mix. Delicious!
 

Chicken Minestrone

Minestrone has always been a dish based on using up various left-over ingredients. This version used left-over diced roast chicken and carrot. With added garlic and some red chilli. I used arrowroot as a thickener. Great dish!
 

Beef Chilli with Roast Potatoes

Ground beef, browned for twenty five minutes in sunflower oil along with diced spring onion, Then simmered in water for two hours under glass at a lowish heat. After which the vegetable stock is added, the chilli, the diced yellow pepper, and the haricot beans and tomato puree.

Arrowroot was mixed with some water and added during the last ten minutes (it functions as a thickener). Stirred thoroughly through the beef.

Roast potatoes were cooked in an oven preheated to 190 deg C. Cooking times will vary. These took fifty minutes, drizzled in sunflower oil. Judge by eye. Turned once to ensure even browning. 

 

Minced Beef with Sugar Snap Peas

Ground beef, browned and then simmered for two hours under glass, with herbs and paprika, plus diced onion, served with boiled semiskinned potatoes, and diced and boiled sugar snap peas. 

 

Strawberry and Blueberry Fruit Salad

A fruit salad with diced Scottish strawberries, and blueberries from somewhere, neither of which were doused in sugar or alcohol and marinated in the fridge. Just doused in single cream. It is still early in the season, so those things can wait. Delicious!
 

Shepherd's Pie

A dish made to use up some leftover ground lamb from the fridge. I added freshly podded peas to the minced lamb and lamb stock, plus the herbs rosemary and coriander and decanted the mixture into a traditional pie dish. Boiled potato was mashed with a little salted butter, and this made the crust of the pie.

Cooked on the middle shelf of an oven preheated to 190 degrees C, until it begins to brown. Which should be around an hour or a little longer. Watch carefully by eye, particularly if you don't have an accurate oven thermometer.  

Diced Pork Loin Steak with Cashews

The rice was steamed first and allowed to cool. Regulary turned with a fork until ready (20-30 minutes). Reheated shortly before serving the vegetables and pork on the bed of rice. The red pepper and the onion were diced, along with the mushrooms, garlic and chilli. Stir-fried along with the  (preroasted) pork steak pieces, and the cashews. Served together with a drizzle of soy sauce. 
 

Black Pepper Chicken

A classic Chinese dish, which is simple to make, and with minimal ingredients. Roasted chicken breast, diced, dressed in freshly ground black pepper (this is essential if the dish is to work - ordinary pre-ground black pepper won't do. Szechuan pepper is recommended). Celery stalks, topped and tailed, and cut into thin strips, and then diced. Add diced garlic. Add soy sauce and rice wine. Steamed for half an hour before serving.

Spicy Garlic Lamb and Spinach

Ground minced lamb which had been browned and then simmered under glass for two hours. Then I added diced mushrooms, lamb stock, oregano, and two bay leaves. Then simmered again under glass for another 45 minutes, with some onion gravy granules. I added diced spinach leaves and spring onion, plus half of a chopped yellow pepper. 

I added several crushed cloves of garlic, and a couple of red chillies, which I removed (along with the bay leaves) after an hour or so. 

Served with steamed potatoes (thirty minutes or so), and boiled podded peas. 

Blueberry, Banana and Walnut Fruit Salad

A simple fruit salad with blueberries from the fridge, chopped banana, and two handfuls of walnut pieces, in some single cream. Also excellent with Greek style yoghurt.