Diced beef with peppers, red onion, garlic, porcini mushroom, roasted new potatoes and green salad

 I made this lunch dish to use up some leftover roast beef - it disappeared so quickly I didn't managed to get a photo!

Ingredients

some (any amount really) leftover beef, diced into 1cm cubes
A few slices of red onion
2 cloves of garlic, peeled, crushed and chopped
A red pepper, deseeded and roughly chopped into 1cm dice
A small handful of Porcini mushrooms, soaked in boiling water for 30 minutes
Olive oil for frying or equivalent (I use Frylight)
2 New potatoes, cut into 1cm dice
Sweet Paprika
Spanish vinegar

Method

Preheat the oven to 200C .Cook the potatoes first: boil the dice for 5 mins in some salted water. Line a baking tray with greaseproof baking parchment, spray with a little olive oil then arrange the potatoes so they don't touch each other. Give them another spray with the oil and roast for 30 mins until cooked and golden on the outside.  

While the potatoes are roasting, heat a couple of teaspoons of oil in a pan then add the red onion, peppers and garlic and fry until they're just cooked through - it's fine if they're a little underdone as this will give a nice bite to the salad. Remove with a slotted spoon and put them on a plate.

Drain the mushrooms, keeping a little of the liquid behind, then add them to the same pan with the beef on a high heat to flash fry them.  Add a little of the mushroom water and a teaspoon of vinegar to the pan and coat the mushrooms and beef.  

Once this is cooked and the potatoes are done, add the meat and potatoes to the peppers, onions and garlic. Now sprinkle about half a teaspoon of sweet paprika and mix well.  Season with salt, pepper and more vinegar to taste, then serve on a bed of green salad.

This was inspired by a Tom Kerridge recipe for Turkey sausage.  I've adapted it for chicken and made it with Cauliflower coated with curry powder and garam masala and low fat oven chips.  Who'd have thought it was a low fat recipe for slimmers?  Don't throw the left over cauliflower stalks out by the way, they can be blanched and frozen and used for soups.

Ingredients

For the chicken sausage

1 finely chopped onion

2 crushed garlic cloves
Fry light

1 large chicken breast

6 sage leaves, thinly sliced
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
Chilli flakes to taste
1 egg

For the roasted cauliflower florets
1 Cauliflower, take the florets only cut into bite size chunks
1 teaspoon medium curry powder
1 teaspoon garam masala spice mix

For the chips
2 decent sized King Edward potatoes peeled and cut into chips
Fry light

Method

Fry the onion and garlic in fry light until browned and leave to cool fully.  First make the chicken mince in a food processor.  Trim the chicken breast and cut into rough chunks, add it to the food processor and pulse until you have mince.  Add the onion and garlic, the sage, fennel seed, chilli flakes and egg to the chicken and lightly blitz to mix them together.

Wrap the mixture in cling film and roll out to make sausages, I got eight sausages out of the mix.  Wrap them tightly and seal the ends by wrapping twisting them tightly together.  Now put them in the fridge for at least and hour to firm up.

Preheat the oven to 200C, take the sausages out of the fridge and cook them, covered, in simmering water for 10 minutes. then leave to cool while you prep the chips and cauliflower. 

Par boil the chips for 6 minutes and drain.  Mix together the garam masala and curry powder then spay the cauliflower florets with fry light and shake the spice mixture over them to coat evenly.

Put the chips on one baking sheet, spray with fry light, add a little salt and put them on the top shelf of the oven.   Put the cauliflower on another baking sheet and put them in the middle of the oven.  Bake for around 20 minutes until the chips and cauliflower are nicely browned.

About 10 minutes before the chips and cauliflower are done, carefully unwrap the chicken sausage and fry them in a non stick pan to brown them all over.

Serve and enjoy!

Mushroom pappardelle with kale crisps

 We had a lovely box of wild muchrooms with our veg box so I made a nice pasta dish that turned out well.  We also had a large bag of Kale, now I quite like Kale but there was too much of it for the week, we'd have to eat it every day, so I thought about cooking it in a really hot oven with some fry light and a little salt until it was nice and crispy, what a treat!

Ingredients

A good selection of wild mushrooms, any will do

20g dried porcini mushroom just covered in boiling water and soaked for about 10 minutes

1 onion finely chopped

4 cloves garlic, crushed

20ml single cream substitute - we use soya cream

1 tablespoon zero fat plain quark

a good handful of kale, stalks cut out and torn into roughly 4cm pieces

fry light - I used the olive oil flavoured one

100g Tagliatelle

Method

Preheat the oven to it's top temperature (250C for mine).

Make mushroom sauce in a sauté pan.  Wipe the mushrooms clean - don't wash them as this adds too much water, a damp cloth will get rid of any stray bits of dirt on them, then trim the stalks to get rid of the dried bottoms.  Slice them roughly.

Take the onion and garlic and fry gently in fry light over a medium to low heat until soft but not coloured. 

Add the fresh mushrooms and mix with the onion and garlic. Drain the porcini mushrooms keeping the liquid for later, roughly chop them and add to the pan, stirring well.  Once the mushrooms are cooked, stir through the soya cream and quark and stir to combine.  Add enough mushroom water to get the sauce consistency you want, then keep warm.

Cook the Tagliatelle as per the instructions, drain and add to the pan, mix together to coat the pasta in the mushrooms mix and keep warm.

Add the prepared kale to a non stick baking sheet, add a little salt and spray with fry light,  Put them in the top of the oven for a couple of minutes - no more - until they crisp up and start to brown a little.

Serve the pasta and top with the kale crisps and enjoy :-)

Reduced fat and calorie chicken korma

 We've been vey good over lockdown and eaten very little takeaway food, but last week we caved and decided to order a takeaway curry.  We went on the website to order and couldn't find an option to get it delivered and so we were gutted :-(  I did a quick web search and came across this recipe for a "restaurant style chicken korma" and decided to give it a try.  I was a bit concerned though that it uses quite a bit f cream to make the curry, so it was very high in fat and calories.  As we're both trying to lose weight I thought I'd try and reduce he calorie intake while keeping to the spirit of it.  I was really pleased with th results, it really does taste like a good takeaway, so we'll be having this again :-)

PS all orders will be for collection only and you'll need to order two weeks in advance!!!!!

Follow the recipe here: Indian Takeaway Chicken Korma - BBC Good Food but for the base curry sauce use a third of the ingredients for one dish - which is plenty for two people.  

Use fry light instead of oil and if it gets too dry add a dash of water instead of oil.

I left out the sugar, it wasn't needed, and instead of cream I used about 20ml of soya single cream and two to three tablespoons of quark.

Sweet and sour prawns

 We bought some lovely raw king prawns from the fishmonger so I thought I'd make some sweet and sour prawns.  I used the Andrew Wong recipe for the sauce at Sweet and Sour Prawns Recipe - Great British Chefs but shelled the prawns, used tinned pineapple and made a reduced broth to add to the sauce.  It turned out really well so here's the recipe.

Ingredients

12 Raw king prawns, shells on
1 teaspoon corn flour
1 tablespoon light soy sauce
1 tablespoon dark soy sauce
2 tablespoons tomato ketchup
1 tablespoon jaggery
4 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 banana shallots, peeled and chopped finely
4 rings tinned pineapple cut into 8 pieces per ring
a small bunch coriander roughly chopped

Method

First, preheat the oven to it's hottest setting, then peel the prawns and de-vein them keeping the heads and shells.  Rinse everything thoroughly, then put the shells and heads in a medium pan, crush them down as much as possible, just cover with water and boil rapidly, lid on, for 10-15 minutes.  

Prepare the prawns by seasoning, then sprinkle over the cornflour and mix well to coat the prawns.  At this stage the cornflour will become like a thin paste, that's fine.  Line a baking sheet with foil and spray with sunflower fry light, then place the prawns on this making sure they are well separated.

Next, take the shells off the heat and strain them, add the broth back to the pan and reduce over a high heat to about 20ml, then set aside to cool.

Make the sauce mix by mixing the soy sauces, ketchup, jaggery and rice vinegar and taste to get the right level of salt, sweet and sour.  Add the cooled shell broth to this.

Put the prawns in the oven towards the top and cook for 10 minutes, turning them over half way through.

To make the sauce, spay some fry light in a wok and over the shallot, heat the wok over a high heat and add the shallot, stir fry for about a minute, then add the sauce mixture from above and stir.  Now add the prawns, pineapple pieces and chopped coriander.  Serve with vegetable fried rice.

Smoked haddock with mustard sauce, spinach and oven roasted new potatoes

 Steve at the fishmongers gave me this idea, and what a cracker it is too, thanks Steve :-)

Ingredients

7 or 8 new potatoes

Butter fry light

2 shallots, skinned and chopped finely

300g undyed, smoked haddock

300ml skimmed milk

1 or 2 teaspoons cornflour mixed with a small amount of water to make a smooth paste

3 good handfuls baby spinach, washed and stalks picked off

Fresh herbs of choice - chives or dill go well, but parsley is fine too

Salt and pepper to taste

Method

First start the potatoes.  Preheat the oven to 180C. Make sure they're clean but leave the skins on.  Cut them in half lengthways and par boil them for 4 minutes, then drain.  Line a baking sheet with baking parchment and spray a little fry light on the parchment, then add the potatoes, arrange them cut side down, add a little salt and black pepper then spray them lightly over the surface.  Bake them for around 30 mins until crisp and golden.

While doing this prepare the fish.  Rinse under cold water and pat dry with kitchen towel.  Don't use too much water as you want to keep the smoky flavour!  

Heat a non-stick sauté pan over a medium heat, then spray with butter fry light.  Add the chopped shallots and cook until they are transparent but not browned.

Add the fish skin side down and sauté until the skin is browned.  Turn the fish over and add the milk.  Stir well to deglaze the pan and when the milk starts to boil turn the heat down to low.  Cook for a further 4 or 5 minutes until the fish is starting to flake.  Remove the fish and keep it warm while you make the sauce.

Add half a teaspoon of mustard of choice, I used half and half Dijon mustard and whole grain and stir well.  Add the cornflour to the sauce a little at a time until the sauce is the thickness you like.  Season with sale and pepper to taste.

To cook the spinach you can either add it washed to the pan and wilt for a minute or so, or you can put it in a bowl, pour over boiling water then drain and dry on kitchen towel.

To serve, pile some spinach in the middle of the plate, place the fish on top and pour over a little sauce.  arrange the potatoes around the side and serve.