Chicken and Tomato Soup

A bargain pack of chicken drumsticks prompted this dish. Simply made with tomato passata, white onion, one green chilli pepper (deseeded and diced), the meat from the drumsticks, some turmeric, some Quixo onion granules (Aldi), freshly ground black pepper, chicken stock and herbs (in this case basil and herbes de Provence).

The diced vegetables were prepared first and put into a lidded pot. I added a pint of boiling water, and brought to a simmer. I added 150g of tomato passata, and the meat from the drumsticks (which I had roasted in an oven dish on the preceding day). Then the turmeric, the onion gravy granules, the black pepper, the chicken stock were added to the pot.

Simmer on the hob under glass for between 45 minutes and and hour. Add the herbs shortly before  serving, and stir together thoroughly.

Lamb and Green Bean Soup

Lots of  Egyptian green beans in the kitchen. So I made a spicy lamb and green bean soup. No actual lamb in the fridge and freezer, so the lamb flavour came from stock. In addition to chopped green beans, the dish is made with tomato passata (about 200g),  two chopped onions, five carrots, one red chilli, a pinch of oregano, a pinch of basil, a small handful of Khorasan wheat (for flavour and thickening), a quarter cup of green mung beans (green lentils could be substituted), and freshly ground black pepper. 

Two days after making the soup I roasted a lamb leg joint in the oven, and so the last of the soup had some actual lamb in it, in addition to the lamb stock. 

Lamb and Green Bean Soup

Chicken with a Tomato and Blue Stilton Sauce

Stir-fried pieces of chicken breast, in a Stilton and tomato sauce, with onion, red and green pepper, mushroom, chicken stock, black pepper, organo, basil, and served with brocolli spears and potato waffles. 

The chicken stew was prepared first. Once stir-fried until golden brown, the chicken pieces were decanted into a pot with some water, the chicken stock and the tomato passata, into which around 100g of Blue Stilton cheese had been added in small pieces, and stirred for ten minutes until all of the cheese is dissolved. Then the vegetables were added as they were prepared, while the sauce simmered. Add black pepper and cook under glass for between thirty and forty-five minutes, at a low heat. 

The brocolli spears were steamed for ten minutes until tender, and the potato waffles were prepared in a toaster (three minutes). An easy and delicious meal!

Chicken with a Tomato and Blue Stilton Sauce

Ground Beef, Parsnips, and Brocolli Spears

Made with Aberdeen Angus ground beef, peeled tomatoes and tomato passata, blended Bramley apple, chopped onion and green beans, with basil and oregano. Plus beef and vegetable stock. 

The beef (12% fat) was browned before the chopped onion was added. The peeled tomatoes, the blended apple, and the green beans were prepared first, in a steamer. The vegetables and the passata, and the herbs, were added after the onions were mostly cooked. Water and the beef and vegetable stock were added. Simmer under glass for ninety minutes.

The parsnips were boiled in the bottom of a steamer, for twenty minutes. The brocolli spears were added to the top tier of the steamer for the final ten minutes, and removed when ready. 

Ground Beef, Parsnips, and Brocolli Spears

Cottage Pie

Made with Aberdeen Angus ground beef, peeled tomatoes and tomato passata, blended Bramley apple, chopped onion and green beans, with basil and oregano. Plus beef and vegetable stock. 

The beef (12% fat) was browned before the chopped onion was added. The peeled tomatoes, the blended apple, and the green beans were prepared first, in a steamer. The vegetables and the passata, and the herbs, were added after the onions were mostly cooked. Water and the beef and vegetable stock were added. Simmer under glass for ninety minutes. Allow to cool. 

Boil five medium to large potatoes for twenty five minutes. Allow to cool. Then mash in a glass bowl with a large knob of butter and a couple of dashes of white pepper. Add the ground beef to the pie dish, and then spoon the potato on top. Texture the surface with a fork. Cook in an oven preheated to 150 deg C for an hour. Don't cook at a higher temperature, or the gravy will bubble vigourously, and break through the potato layer, causing it to sink. 150 deg C is fine. You can cook for longer if you want a crispier potato topping. Served with green beans. 

 Cottage Pie

Spaghetti Bolognese

Spaghetti Bolognese, made with Aberdeen Angus ground beef, peeled tomatoes and tomato passata, blended Bramley apple, chopped onion and green beans, with basil and oregano. Plus beef and vegetable stock. 

The beef (12% fat) was browned before the chopped onion was added. The peeled tomatoes, the blended apple, and the green beans were prepared first, in a steamer. The vegetables and the passata, and the herbs, were added after the onions were mostly cooked. Water and the beef and vegetable stock were added. Simmer under glass for ninety minutes. 

Served with wheat-free spaghetti and black pepper. Can also be served with parmesan or parmigiano reggiano cheese.  

Spaghetti Bolognese

Chicken Cambozola

Fried pieces of chicken breast in a spicy chilli and Cambozola sauce, served with wheat free fusili.

The chicken pieces were cooked the day before the dish was prepared, and stored in the fridge overnight. The sauce was made with stir-fried chilli, red onion, yellow pepper, red pepper. After cooking at a medium heat for ten minutes, stirring occasionally, I added tomato passata, and some boiling water to the saute pan. I cut about 100g of Cambozola cheese into strips and added them to the sauce, stirring constantly until the cheese melted (you might want to remove the rind of the cheese first). Add the chicken pieces and allow the dish to simmer under glass for twenty minutes or so. 

Prepare the fusili ten minutes before the dish is to be served. I used ASDA's own brand wheat free fusili, and cooked it in salted water, stirring frequently.  Add oregano and basil to the sauce, stir, and decant the chicken pieces and the sauce into a serving bowl. Add the fusili on top, and stir once with a fork. Add freshly ground black pepper to taste. 

Chicken Cambozola

Tomato, Onion and Brocolli Soup

You could make this with a tin of tomatoes or some tomato passata, but I made this dish with a bag of tomatoes bought for a bargain price at Lidl's supermarket. I chopped up about ten medium sized tomatoes, and cooked them in boiling water until they were soft (about twenty minutes or so. An Italian chef would take me to task for not removing the skins first by dipping them in boiling water and peeling them). Then I made the tomatoes into a puree with a hand blender. 

Add chopped onion, and about half of the spears from a head of brocolli, chopped into thin strips. Cook until both the onion and brocolli are soft enough to mash. Mash for one minute. Add shredded basil and a little oregano, plus some vegetable stock. Cook for another twenty to thirty minutes or so. Put freshly ground black pepper in the bottom of the bowl before serving (according to taste). That's it! Utterly delicious, and can be made from scratch in under ninety minutes. 

Tomato, Onion and Brocolli Soup

Ground Lamb with Garlic and Ginger

A delicious dish which can be made with a number of ingredients, depending on what is available, in addition to the core of lamb, garlic and ginger. 

Brown the lamb in its own fat for forty-five minutes or so at a medium heat, and drain the excess fat. Add the vegetables - chopped spring onion, tomatoes, carrot, red pepper, leek, finely chopped ginger and garlic, etc., and stir-fry for a further ten minutes at a medium heat. Then add boiling water, lamb stock, and some tomato puree or passata. Turn the heat down to a simmer, and cover with glass. Stir occasionally. Allow to simmer for at least an hour (one and a half hours is better). 

Serve with basmati rice. 

Ground Lamb with Garlic and Ginger

Copernicus Sausage Stew (Torunska)

A simple and delicious stew made with Copernicus sausage, which is a popular branding for the traditional sausage which has been made for hundreds of years in the now Polish city of Torun, on the river Vistula.

The ingredients are: one Copernicus sausage, one Spanish onion, half each of red and green Pepper, a stick of celery, green beans, half a courgette, and about 100g of tomato passata, plus herbs and ham or vegetable stock. 

Chop the sausage into chunks, and chop and slice the vegetables reasonably finely (the peppers in strips). Stir-fry in a saute pan at a low heat for ten minutes or so, until the onions are just beginning to brown. 

Add the tomato passata to the pan and some boiling water, and stir thoroughly. Simmer for half an hour to forty five minutes, until the volume of liquid is considerably reduced. Add oregano and the ham or vegetable stock to the stew fifteen minutes before cooking is complete, and stir thoroughly. Serve with boiled potatoes (unskinned in this case). 

 Adding the tomato passata 

Copernicus Sausage Stew (Torunska)

Wheat and Gluten Free Pizza

Home-made wheat-free pizza. Made with 'Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Pizza Crust Mix from the US, though it can be ordered from UK stockists.

Unproblematic to make. Just add eggs, water and olive oil. The mix contains a yeast packet and bakes just like a real wheat crust. Great texture and taste. It’s crispy and chewy and has the wonderful yeast flavor of a wheat crust. You can add basil, oregano, garlic, or finely chopped rosemary to the mix to expand the flavour range. Makes two 12 inch pizza bases.

Serves 8 people. Prep time: 15 minutes. Cook time is between 22 - 27 minutes. Resting time is 20 minutes.

Ingredients: whole grain brown rice flour, potato starch, whole grain millet, whole grain sorghum flour, tapioca flour, potato flour, evaporated cane juice, xanthan gum, active dry yeast, sea salt, and guar gum,

The topping contains tomato, tomato passata, sliced red pepper, sliced button mushrooms, spring onion, anchovy fillets, mozarella cheese, and lots of grated cheddar. With no added salt.

Wheat and Gluten Free Pizza

Pan-fried Pork Loin Steak in a Smoked Paprika Sauce

Pork loin cooked in a little bacon fat for 20 minutes at a moderate heat, under a lid covering 90% of the pan. The steaks were turned after ten minutes. 

The sauce was made with cornflour (half a dessert spoonful), tomato passata (about 100ml) , a teaspoonful of smoked paprika, a sprinkling of thyme, a pinch of powdered ginger, and a large pinch of white pepper. Bring to the boil and turn down the heat. Stir for four minutes till the sauce has thickened. Four fresh basil leaves were shredded into the sauce a minute or so before serving. 

Served with two raw chopped spring onions, and a thinly sliced vine tomato. 

Pan-fried pork loin steak in a smoked paprika sauce. 

Pollo Arrabiata

Pollo (Chicken) Arrabiata. Closely modelled on a meal I had at Vittoria's Restaurant in Edinburgh a couple of years ago. The ingredients are: pan-fried chicken breast pieces, tomato passata, green chilli, one yellow pepper, cut into thin strips, shredded fresh basil, chicken stock.

Pan-fry the chicken pieces until cooked and lightly browned. Add the pieces to the passata, the chopped chilli and yellow pepper. Cook for 20 to 30 minutes. The basil and the chicken stock can be added shortly before the dish is served. 

Serve with flat cut boiled potato. 

Pollo Arrabiata

Celeriac Chips, Roast Chicken, with Button Mushrooms

Most of this dish was prepared in the oven. 

I cut a celeriac root in half using a breadknife, and peeled the outside using it and a peeler. Then I used the breadknife again to cut the celeriac into chip sized pieces. I made a dressing for the chips in a glass bowl, using sunflower oil, tomato passata, black pepper, basil and two handfuls of tarragon. I stirred in the chips with a wooden spoon until all of the chips were evenly coated in the dressing. 

A pyrex roasting dish was brushed with oil, then the chips were decanted into it, and spaced as evenly as possible. They were cooked for 40 minutes in a pre-heated oven at 200 deg C. The chips were turned once during their time in the oven. 

The chicken breast was cooked for the same forty minutes at the same temperature, but was wrapped in aluminium foil in a separate roasting dish. The chicken was brushed with oil and dressed with paprika before it was sealed inside the foil. 

The Button Mushrooms were cooked slowly in butter for fifteen minutes or so, in a small pan on the stove. 

Celeriac Chips, Roast Chicken, with Button Mushrooms

Pork Fillets with a Blue Cheese Sauce

 Pork fillets cooked slowly in a saute pan until browned and tender, served with a sauce made with Danish Blue cheese.

The ingredients of the sauce: 200g of tomato passata, four stoned and liquidized plums (purple red or yellow), and a selection of herbs: a pinch of Basil, two pinches of Oregano, two pinches of Tarragon, a pinch of Fines Herbes, and a pinch of Chervil (a constituent of Fines Herbes). Plus some black pepper. The sauce was cooked slowly for fifteen minutes before the Danish Blue was added (about 4 grams), and allowed to cook for another fifteen minutes, stirring frequently to prevent any of the cheese sticking to the pan. 

Serve with flat-cut boiled potatoes, black pepper, and a slice of Danish Blue. 

Pork Fillets with a Blue Cheese Sauce

Penne Pasta in a Cheese Sauce

Cubed potato, sliced red onion, and half a yellow pepper, cooked in just enough boiling water to cover the vegetables. Plus 200 grammes of tomato passata added halfway. Cooked in a pan for twenty-five minutes altogether, until the potato cubes are soft. Add some crushed garlic, and stir occasionally.

Cooking bacon  was cut into cubes and fried in its own fat in a small pan until golden brown, and then added to to the body of the sauce. The bacon can be replaced with mushrooms if you want a vegetarian meal. Added some vegetable stock, a pinch of basil, two pinches of oregano, and two pinches of rosemary. Cooked for another fifteen minutes.

After the sauce is cooked, add two teaspoonfuls of freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese (or more, according to preference), and stir together.

Cook the penne pasta in salted water until it has the right degree of 'bite'. I use Dove Farm wheat-free penne at the moment, which is generally ready after eight to ten minutes of cooking after immersion in boiling water. Drain the penne, and add to the sauce, and stir gently until mixed. Serve.

Sprinkle another teaspoonful of freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese on each serving, along with a generous amount of black pepper.

Penne Pasta in a Cheese Sauce

Potato and Bacon Soup

Cubed potato, sliced red onion, and half a yellow pepper, cooked in just enough boiling water to cover the vegetables. Plus 200 grammes of tomato passata added halfway. Cooked in a pan for twenty-five minutes altogether, until the potato cubes are soft. Stir occasionally.

The cooking bacon was cut into cubes and fried in its own fat in a small pan until golden brown, and then added to to the body of the soup. Added some vegetable stock, a pinch of basil, two pinches of oregano, and two pinches of rosemary. Cooked for another fifteen minutes.

The soup itself is wheat free. Here it is served with an all butter croissant. Obviously the croissant is not a wheat free item, but it can be replaced with a wheat free version, if available, or wheat free bread. Or the bread component of the meal can be skipped altogether.

Potato and Bacon Soup

Pork and Apple Soup

Chopped roast pork, with thinly sliced apple, red onion, red pepper, rough cut carrot, tomato passata, plus rosemary and oregano, and black pepper. Plus pork and vegetable stock.

The onion, apple, red pepper and carrot were added to freshly boiled water, and brought to boiling point again, and simmered for fifteen to twenty minutes. Then the chopped pork was added, and the passata, and finally the pork and vegetable stock. The assemblage was left to simmer at a low heat for forty minutes under glass.

The soup was mashed for one minute, and then the herbs were added. The soup was allowed to simmer for another twenty minutes before serving (in this instance with homemade white spelt bread).

Pork and Apple Soup

Almond Lamb, with Ginger, Dates, and Cinammon

Lamb mince browned for half an hour in its own fat. Sliced Spanish onion was added and stirred in to the mince for ten minutes. Boiling water was added, and then about 200g of tomato passata. Other ingredients were then added - freshly ground almonds (two handfuls), sliced ginger, garlic, three finger chillies, half a dozen stoned and chopped dates, sliced sugar snap peas, a whole sliced yellow pepper, ground black pepper, lamb and vegetable stock, a pinch of oregano, and a cinammon stick.

The temperature was reduced, and the dish was left to simmer under glass for another ninety minutes. Served with basmati rice. Don't forget to remove the cinammon stick before serving!

 Almond Lamb, with Ginger, Dates, and Cinammon

Carrot and Bacon Soup

A large bag of carrots for 10 pence from the local  Co-op prompted this recipe. The carrots were prepared and boiled for twenty minutes in a saute pan. They were mashed, and then blended with a hand blender. A half cupful of tomato passata was added along with more water. A pinch of paprika too. I added some basil, coriander, thyme and oregano, plus freshly ground black pepper and a vegetable stock.

While the carrots were cooking, escalops of cooking bacon were slow fried in a small skillet, until slightly browned. The bacon was added to the main pot after its contents were blended.

May be served with grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, or two tablespoonfuls of single cream, and black pepper. Quick and easy. The slices of bread in the picture are from a wheat-free loaf.

Carrot and Bacon Soup