Minestroni Soup, with Brussels Sprouts

Minestroni soup, served with minimal wheat brown bread.

The soup ingredients were: Spanish onion, Brussels sprouts (diced), and carrot. Plus some diced yellow pepper and garlic. Stir-fried in olive oil, before boiling water was added.

After simmering for a while, I added about 200g of tomato passata, and some vegetable stock.Plus a portion of broken spaghetti.  Cooked for about an hour.

Add herbs according to your choice (Basil and Oregano in this case). Plus half a teaspoonful of smoked paprika.

The bread used was from the loaf recently baked (scroll back). Keeps for a fortnight in the fridge. Quick and easy!

Pasta Salad

A simple pasta salad with lettuce, yellow pepper and red cabbage. Plus shredded carrot, marinaded red pepper, and white onion. The onion, carrot and yellow pepper were marinaded in a mixture of vinegar, olive oil, and minced garlic, for about an hour.

The lettuce and red cabbage was dressed in olive oil and white pepper. The pasta was wheat free and added last of all to the dish.

Delicious, filling,  and quick to prepare! Served with a glass of red wine.

Cottage Pie with Mushrooms and Peppers

A bargain tray of ground (minced) beef, 5 per cent fat, encouraged me first to make a beef chilli, and then to make a slightly spicy cottage pie.

The beef was browned for about twenty minutes, with a little sunflower oil, together with white onions. During the last five minutes of this period, I added sliced chestnut mushrooms, and deseeded red and green chillies. After that I added some beef stock, a bay leaf, and some Bisto browning (cornflour), in order to thicken the gravy. That was served with basmati rice.

For the cottage pie, made subsequently, preheat the oven while the semiskinned potatoes are boiling (to 180 deg C or thereabouts). Mash the potatoes in a glass bowl. Add two dessert spoonfuls of Greek style yoghurt and blend together. Add a little white pepper. Spoon the mash over the ground beef base, and texture with a fork.

Cook for an hour at least in the middle of the oven, checking during the last half hour that the potato topping is not overbrowning.

Minimal Wheat Brown Bread

Made with Dove's Farm wheat-free brown bread flour, with 20 per cent of Khorasan wheat (Kamut), which is an ancient variety that is often ok for people with a wheat intolerance to eat. So this is not a wheat-free loaf, but eighty per cent of it is wheat-free.

Essentially the process is easiest if you use two glass bowls, one for the wet ingredients, and the other for the dry ones.

Weigh out 400g of the wheat-free brown bread flour and add to the dry bowl. Weigh out 100g of the Khorasan flour, and add to the bowl also. Add sugar (one dessert spoonful), and a teaspoonful of quick acting yeast. Blend together thoroughly with a wooden spoon.

Add 400g of whole milk to the wet bowl. Add one beaten egg, six dessert spoonfuls of olive oil, one dessert spoonful of vinegar, and blend together with a whisk.

Gradually add the dry mixture to the wet bowl, and stir together. When it gets stiff, use an electric blender the rest of the way. Beat the mixture for five minutes and allow it to rest for a while. Then beat the mixture for another five minutes.

Allow the dough to rest, and to begin to rise. Then decant the dough into a standard bread tin (silicon ones are the easiest to use), and allow the dough to rise to the desired level in a warm dry place.

Bake in the oven at 190 deg C for around 45 minutes (middle shelf), checking by eye frequently toward the end of the process.

Generally the bread will keep for around a fortnight in the fridge in an airtight container.

Chicken and Potato Pie

A chicken pie made to use up some Polish Marliny chicken sausage.

I cut the whole sausage into wedge-shaped pieces. I added some Polish style red pepper, marinaded in vinegar, and chopped onion. I added a little gravy to the ceramic pot in which it would bake, made with water, chicken stock, and cornmeal.

Preheat the oven while the semiskinned potatoes are boiling (to 180 deg C or thereabouts). Mash the potatoes in a glass bowl. Add a little white pepper. Spoon the mash over the chicken base, and texture with a fork. Add a little paprika just before you do this.

Cook for an hour at least in the middle of the oven, checking during the last half hour that the potato topping is not overbrowning.

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!

Pork and Chestnut Meatloaf, with Hash Browns

400g of finely ground pork sausage meat from Sainsbury's prompted the making of this dish. I chopped up two small white onions, about 100g of Merchant Gourmet chestnuts (chopped), two handfuls of porridge oats, and a level dessert spoonful of cornmeal. Mixed together by hand in a glass bowl for about ten minutes. I added a little salt and a pinch of oregano. You can add a beaten egg to make sure the resulting loaf stays together, but it should be fine without it.

Place the sausage meat into a bread baking tray. I used a silicon bread tray since it is so easy to get the contents out, and to clean it. Texture the surface with a fork, and sprinkle a little paprika on the surface. Cook in the preheated oven for between fifty minutes and an hour at about 180 to 190 deg C. Check frequently toward the end of the cooking process.

The hash browns were leftover potato pieces from an earlier dish. Cooked and browned in an omelette pan. The sauce was made with onion, celery, yellow pepper and tomato puree in a small saucepan. The vegetables were stir-fried first until tender. Add a third of a vegetable stock cube and water, plus some oregano and rosemary. Simmer for twenty minutes.

Reheating the slices of meatloaf is easy in a flat lidded pan. Cook at a low heat under glass for at least fifteen minutes.

Ground Beef with Shredded Brussels Sprouts

Stir-fry chunks of carrot, diced mushroom, green beans, and onion in olive oil in a large saute pan, until tender (about fifteen or twenty minutes). Add 450g of ground beef to another saute pan and cook at a medium heat. After the beef has begun to brown, stir the beef and the vegetables together, and cook for another twenty to twenty-five minutes at a moderately high heat, stirring every minute or so.

Add the bay leaves (I added two), the beef stock, the paprika and the gravy granules. Add black pepper, a diced half of a green pepper,  Stir together. Cook for another hour, stirring every five minutes, before serving.

Cut the Brussels sprouts into six pieces, and steam under glass for about seven minutes. This is a common way to serve sprouts in Italy.

Burgers in a Chilli and Mushroom Sauce

Two beef burgers from Aldi, cooked in their own fat, along with two red onions and chopped tomatoes. Twenty minutes is sufficient to cook the burgers thoroughly, turning them twice. Move the onions around the pan during this time, so that they caramelise, but do not burn.

The sauce was made with finely sliced mushrooms, five finger chillies, some onion gravy powder, vegetable stock, and two squirts of tomato puree.

Stir fry the mushrooms in a separate lidded pan until they squeak. Add half a pint of water. Add the destemmed finger chillies, the gravy powder (two teaspoonfuls), the vegetable stock, and the tomato puree. Stir until the sauce thickens. Add one bay leaf.  Turn down the heat and simmer until the burgers are ready.

Once the burgers are cooked, decant to a serving plate along with the fried tomato and onions. Spoon the chilli and mushroom sauce, and serve. Delicious, simple, and warming!

Minestrone Soup

The ingredients of the soup are: shredded carrot, half a red pepper, one chopped red onion, chopped celery, haricot beans (actually half a standard tin of baked beans), tomato passata (about 150g), shelled peas, spinach and coriander, two pinches of oregano, a handful of spelt grains, and broken spaghetti pasta. Plus a dessert spoonful of cornmeal, chicken stock, and vegetable stock.

Start with the vegetables. Stir fry the carrot, pepper, onion and celery in sunflower oil at a medium heat until tender. Shred the spinach and the coriander and stir into the pan. Add about 200g of boiling water, then add the passata, the peas, and the haricot beans. Add the chicken and vegetable stock.

Add the broken pasta. Add some finely ground cornmeal in water, as a thickening agent (a flat dessert spoonful in about half a pint). Mix the cornmeal and water cold, then add to the soup in the pot. Turn down the heat to prevent adhesion to the bottom, and stir frequently. Simmer for one hour before serving, stirring regularly.

Cod, Haddock and Salmon Pie, with Sweet Potato

A simple fish pie made with potato, sweet potato, red onion, shelled peas, cornmeal, salmon, haddock, cod, Cheddar cheese, white pepper, salt, and turmeric.

The pack of fish pieces was bought from a supermarket, and was first steamed for fifteen minutes, while I stirfried the sliced red onion, and boiled the potato and sweet potato chunks until soft.

The sauce was made with four dessert spoonfuls of Greek style yoghurt (instead of the more usual milk), plus two heaped teaspoonfuls of cornmeal (instead of the more usual cornflour). Add water. Stir the ingredients together, and bring to the boil. Add a quarter teaspoonful of Dijon mustard, and a quarter teaspoonful of black pepper. Add two pinches of salt. Add a quarter teaspoonful of turmeric powder. Stir together. Finally, add about 80g of medium strength cheddar cheese, sliced into squares. Stir together until the cheese has dissolved into the sauce. Turn down the heat, and allow to simmer for ten minutes, stirring regularly.

The sauce was allowed to cool, and then half of it was added to the small casserole dish chosen for the pie. I added the fish pieces, the onion, and about 100g of shelled peas. I added a layer of grated cheese to the casserole dish.

When the potato and sweet potato had cooled after being drained, the pieces were mashed together in a glass bowl. The mash was added on top of the layer of grated cheese and grooved with a fork.

Cook in a preheated oven for fifty minutes at between 180-90 deg C. Serve with three dessert spoonfuls of the cheese sauce.