Sweet Potato Curry

Made with cubed sweet potato, onion, diced carrot, fresh root ginger, coriander leaves (the dressing), red chilli (deseeded), turmeric, and Madras curry powder. Served (Korean style) with black Thai rice and Basmati rice (cooked separately), and a four leaf salad.   

Meatloaf with Garlic and Potato Salad

Meatloaf salad, made with a four leaf salad of chard, rocket, spinach, and purple lettuce, spring onion (optional), drizzled with olive oil,

Garlic was finely chopped and crushed, and added to two dessert spoonfuls of mayonnaise. Cubes of boiled potato were added to the mayonnaise, with a little salt.

The meatloaf was made using pork sausage meat, oats, cornmeal, diced leek and herbs (rosemary in this case, but sage is also a good choice).

The ingredients were mixed initially by hand in a large pyrex bowl, until the vegetables and meat were thoroughly mixed together. I also added a little sunflower oil, and one large egg.

The mixing can take up to ten minutes. I added a little salt and the rosemary during this process.

After that I continued the mixing process using a medium sized wooden spoon for another seven minutes or so.

Then the mix was decanted into a silicon bread tin, patted down and textured with a fork. Cooked for one hour at 190 deg C on the middle shelf of the oven (check progress occasionally). The meatloaf will shrink a little during the cooking process, so there is no problem getting the loaf out of the tin in one piece after it has cooled.

Chestnut Smoked Pork with Five Leaf Salad

A chestnut smoked joint of roast pork (1.2kg), cooked with a small number of vegetables (leek, carrot and celery).

The roasting tray was covered with aluminium foil, and covered in the diced vegetables (a quarter of a head of celery, two medium size leeks, and two medium sized carrots).

The vegetables were drizzled in a little sunflower oil before the joint was added on top. 100mls of water was added to the tray. The joint was dressed with sea salt, and freshly ground black pepper, and sealed with more foil.

Cooked in the middle of an oven preheated to 190 deg C, for 1 hour and 45 minutes. With twenty minutes to go, the foil covering was removed, to allow the surface to brown.

Once cooled, the joint was carved with an electric carving knife (remove the string from the joint!). Served with a five leaf salad of chard, purple lettuce, spinach, rocket, and coriander. Plus garlic, diced spring onion, and baby plum tomatoes. Dressed in olive oil, and a little white pepper. Delicious!

Chicken Mayo Salad

A simple chicken mayo salad, with diced red onion, and salad leaves.

The chicken came from a roast chicken thigh, which had been chilled in the fridge. The diced chicken pieces were mixed with mayonnaise, a pinch of salt, and some white pepper in a bowl.

The red onion was julienned, and added to the serving plate.

The four leaf salad was dressed with a little olive oil and some freshly ground black pepper, and the chicken mayo was added. That's it!

 Adding finely diced garlic to the mayo is an option. Delicious either way.

Pork Wellington

A wellington type dish is anything wrapped in pastry, whether beef or some other meat, or which contains a savoury filling.

Apparently no connection with the famous Wellington, and the name does not appear in any recipe book from the nineteenth century, despite the fact that wrapping things in pastry was in vogue from the beginning of the century.

Strips of a cooked pork meatloaf, made with 500g of finely ground sausagemeat, diced onion (two small),  a cupful of porridge oats, and half of a Bramley apple, cored and diced, with the skin left on, and one beaten egg (search on the tag  'meatloaf' for further details).

I made duxelles in an omelette pan with diced red onion (one) and diced mushrooms (three), cooked in butter with a generous pinch of thyme. Duxelles were invented in the eighteenth century in France as a filling for savoury pastries which, owing to the reduced water content, were less likely to cause pastries to explode in the oven.

I rolled the puff pastry to a half centimetre thickness, and added the duxelles mixture, and some of the sausagemeat.strips. The pastry was then wrapped around the contents, and ends were crimped together. The pastry parcels were brushed on both sides with sunflower oil.

Cooked on the middle shelf of an oven preheated to 180 deg C for an hour (watch progress carefully in the final fifteen minutes).

Served here with a four leaf salad, and two dessert spoonfuls of mayonnaise. Fabulous!

Pork Meatloaf Salad

Meatloaf salad, made with cherry tomatoes, a four leaf salad of chard, rocket, spinach, and purple lettuce, spring onion (optional), drizzled with olive oil,

The meatloaf with it was made using pork sausage meat, oats, cornmeal, diced leek and herbs (rosemary in this case, but sage is also a good choice).

The ingredients were mixed initially by hand in a large pyrex bowl, until the vegetables and meat were thoroughly mixed together. I also added a little sunflower oil, and one large egg.

The mixing can take up to ten minutes. I added a little salt and the rosemary during this process.

After that I continued the mixing process using a medium sized wooden spoon for another seven minutes or so.

Then the mix was decanted into a silicon bread tin, patted down and textured with a fork. Cooked for one hour at 190 deg C on the middle shelf of the oven (check progress occasionally). The meatloaf will shrink a little during the cooking process, so there is no problem getting the loaf out of the tin in one piece after it has cooled.

Peppered Salami Sausage Roll

Peppered salami sausage and sliced mushrooms wrapped in a puff pastry. Essentially the same idea as beef Wellington. Or you can think of it as a spicy sausage roll.

The salami was thinly sliced (sourced already sliced from Morrison's 'Market Street' section).

The pastry was rolled out into a
rectangular shape, but not too thinly (to about a third of a centimetre thickness). Then the salami and the mushrooms were added, and the ensemble was rolled together, and the ends pinched.

Placed on a baking tray, and brushed with olive oil, top and bottom. The tray was put on the middle shelf of an oven preheated to 180 deg. C. Cooked for fifty minutes (watch carefully).

The trick with pastry is not to cook it at too high a heat. At 190 deg. C, the top is likely to be overbrowned while the base of the pastry isn't cooked properly. Better to cook it more slowly.

Served with a four leaf salad, drizzled with a little olive oil, and tomato ketchup.

Tomato and Basil Quiche, with Coleslaw and Salad Leaves

Four leaf salad, and coleslaw from the Co-op, a miniature quiche from Morrisons 'Market Street' section, and a lemon from Sainsbury's.

Two minutes to prepare! I laid out the salad leaves on the serving plate, and drizzled some olive oil over them.

 I added two dessert spoonfuls of coleslaw, and added the quiche, and two slices of lemon. And that's it. Serve with or without pepper.

Honey Ham Salad with Garlic Dressing

A simple salad made with honey ham cut into strips, and served with red pepper, five leaves - purple cabbage, green lettuce, rocket, spinach and chard, plus thin strips of carrot, dressed with a mixture of olive oil and vinegar, with minced garlic.

Simple and quick to prepare!

Wensleydale and Cranberry Salad

Such a glorious array of  flavours in this dish!

 Made with a four leaf salad, dressed in a little olive oil, Queen olives in a green pesto sauce, shredded tomato and yellow pepper marinated in an olive oil, vinegar and minced garlic dressing, plus some slices of Wensleydale cheese made with real cranberries.

The stoned queen olives were bought already in a pesto sauce. I made the dressing for the tomato and pepper myself, with four cloves of garlic, pressed and diced. The salad leaves were chard, spinach, rocket, and purple lettuce. If you don't like rocket over much, dressing the leaves in olive oil removes a lot of the intensity of the flavour.

Served with white pepper. Delicious!

Sweetcorn and Carrot Salad

A simple vegetarian salad that requires no cooking at all. Mix 100g of tinned sweetcorn with one dessert spoonful of mayonnaise and some white pepper. Grate half of a medium sized carrot. Serve with a four leaf salad of chard, rocket, purple lettuce and spinach. Less than ten minutes of preparation.

Beefburger with Mayonnaise and Four Leaf Salad

A quick and easy meal to make. Shop-bought beef burgers from Sainsbury's, two sliced or shredded salad tomatoes, two dessert spoonfuls of mayonnaise, and some four leaf salad from the Co-op.

The burger was cooked in a flat pan at a high heat for the first minute, then the heat was turned down. Cooked for twenty minutes at a lowish heat, and turned three times. For the last ten minutes the burger was under glass.

It took just two minutes to prepare the rest of the meal (tomatoes, mayonnaise and the four leaf salad). Plenty of time to wash the dishes and clean the worksurfaces!

Serve with black pepper.

Mustard Ham Salad with Black Olives

A delicious and quick salad, made with mustard ham, baby leaf salad (rocket, chard, purple lettuce, spinach), pitted black olives (in brine), shredded salad tomato, and sliced red pepper.

Wash the baby leaf salad, and dress in a little olive oil and freshly ground black pepper. Add the shredded tomato, sliced red pepper, and the black olives, and stir together.

The delicately flavoured mustard breaded ham came from Aldi's. Serve with two slices.

This combination is adaptable to almost any variety of ham or roast pork. I chose not to add any herbs, but basil and oregano would be good choices.

Egg Mayo Salad Wrap

A breakfast salad wrap, made with two hard-boiled eggs, mayonnaise, spinach wrap, babyleaf salad (spinach, rocket, chard, purple lettuce), baby plum tomato, spring onion, and white pepper,

Dampen the wrap and allow it to soften while you are preparing the contents. Cool the boiled eggs in a bowl of cold water. Chop the onion and shred the tomato. Shred a handful of the baby leaf salad, and mix together in a bowl with two dessert spoonfuls of mayonnaise.

Use an egg slicer on the eggs once they are free of the shell. Add to the vegetable and mayo mix together with a half teaspoonful of ground white pepper. Dice the mixture with a spoon, so that the egg pieces are thoroughly mixed with the mayo salad.

Roll the mixture in the wrap. Serve with a dressing of the babyleaf salad leaves.

There is a lot of scope for variation with this simple dish. Cumin seeds could be added for example. Coriander, marjoram, tarragon or other herbs. You could also add chopped red pepper, mushroom, sweetcorn, etc.

Potato, Onion, and Stilton Omelette

Finely chopped potato, spinach, and onion, with some shredded baby plum tomato, stir-fried slowly for fifteen minutes in sunflower oil, in an omelette pan.

Stir in a few grams of Blue Stilton cheese, thinly sliced, after ten minutes. Two beaten eggs were added to the pan, and the whole cooked slowly for between ten and fifteen minutes, for a little time under glass.

Served with a cheese coleslaw and black pepper, and a babyleaf salad of chard, rocket, spinach and purple lettuce.

Beetroot and Tomato in a Spinach Wrap

A commercially bought spinach wrap, from Aldi, with a beetroot and red onion salad in malt vinegar and honey, plus a four leaf salad  of chard, spinach, rocket and a purple lettuce; completed with some sliced baby plum tomatoes. Dress with freshly ground black pepper. 

Avoid overfilling the wrap, otherwise lots of the contents will spill out when the wrap is rolled. Cut the wrap (diagonally) in two.Serve with a garnish of the four leaf salad. Delicious!

Silverside Beef with Root Vegetables, and a Black Olive Sidesalad

A joint of Scottish prime silverside beef, slow roasted in the oven for two hours, at 180 deg C. Cooked on a bed of root vegetables - 2 carrots, 2 onions, one large carrot, and a chopped stick of celery (celeriac can be used instead). Sea salt was rubbed into the top of the joint, along with freshly ground black pepper. Roasted in a large casserole dish, with half a pint of beef stock.

The joint was allowed to cool overnight. It was cut into slices the following day, following the grain of the meat, rather than across it.

The gravy was made by liquidising half of the root vegetables and the stock from the roast. The rest of the root vegetables became part of the dish, along with the gravy.

The beef and the vegetables were reheated for 20 minutes in a pre-heated steamer, decanted onto a plate, and dressed with black pepper.

The side salad comprised black olives, a four leaf salad (red lettuce, chard, rocket, and spinach), dressed in fresh lemon juice.

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Pork Salad, with Apple Sauce and Beetroot

Roast pork slices, with a beetroot salad, comprising beetroot, very finely chopped onion and carrot (proportions approximately 70:20:10), soused in balsamic vinegar, with honey; plus a baby leaf salad, comprising red baby leaf lettuce, chard, spinach, and rocket, dressed in freshly squeezed lemon juice.

A pork and apple sauce was made with some of the pork fat and juices from the joint, with ten to a dozen spring onions, one large carrot, half a bramley apple, chopped, pork stock, vegetable stock, parsley, oregano, rosemary, thyme, two pinches of paprika, and a pinch of smoked paprika. Plus a couple of dashes of Nam Pla fish sauce and a squirt of tomato puree.

The sauce was simmered for an hour and then mashed. Cooked for another twenty minutes to half an hour, and then blended with an electric hand blender. Allow to cool to room temperature. 

Beetroot with a Rocket and Baby Leaf Salad

A delicious salad, made with three items available from the local co-op, plus some blue Stilton cheese, and six baby plum tomatoes.

The first of the three co-op items, the beetroot salad, comprised beetroot, very finely chopped onion and carrot (proportions approximately 70:20:10), soused in balsamic vinegar, with honey; the second was a cheese coleslaw (cabbage, onion, carrot, egg, cream, vinegar, plus a little grated coloured cheddar cheese); the third, the baby leaf salad, comprised red baby leaf lettuce, chard, spinach, and rocket, and was dressed in freshly squeezed lemon juice.

The additional components were six halved baby plum tomatoes, and about 40g of blue Stilton cheese, chopped into small fork friendly chunks.

The dish was put together in a pasta bowl, and served with freshly ground black pepper. Easily reconstructible if you want to make the dish from scratch. Delicious!

Potato Salad with Moroccan Hummus

Four components - a potato salad in Mayonnaise, a leaf salad with Iceberg lettuce, red onion, and diced rocket, cooked and chopped green beans (Egyptian dwarf beans to be precise) with Moroccan hummus (chilli and topped with some chickpeas), and finally some peeled tomato mixed with cooked and diced carrot, with cumin seeds, coriander and basil. 

Potato Salad with Moroccan Hummus

The potato, carrot and green beans were cooked a steamer, with the potato and the carrot in the bottom (20 minutes cooking). The beans were in the top half, and were steamed for ten minutes after being topped and tailed. The skin of the tomatoes (3) was cut, and they were blanched in boiling water for three minutes. After which the skin is easy to peel off. 

These ingredients were put aside to cool in cold water. The leaf salad with the onion was prepared (one quarter of a medium size red onion). Dressed in a little olive oil and lemon juice. Allow to stand for fifteen minutes and stir. 

After the vegetables had cooled, the diced potato was mixed with mayonnaise in a bowl. The tomato and carrot mixture was mixed in another bowl with a pinch of cumin seeds, coriander leaf and basil.  Then decanted into a serving bowl, as shown above. The green beans were decanted into a small serving bowl also, and topped with two teaspoonfuls of the hummus. 

Assemble on a plate, and serve.