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Still BBQing a lot. This was some 98% meat sausages on the grill and very nice they were. It does seem, looking back, that we have green beans with every meal, but we don’t. As for green veg we usually have spinach, green beans, broccoli, asparagus when in season, and zucchini (courgettes) which I like best sliced and sautéed in a knob of butter till they go a bit brown and slightly crunchy on the surface.
For our beans on the side, my go-to options are white beans (butter beans or cannelli) mashed with a wand blender and whatever cooking liquid there is to make white bean mash, any beans stirred into a soup or stew, or a variation of this, which is
1 can lentils (puy, usually, because they don’t go to mush)
small handful of bacon lardons (1/2 a normal pack or one of the small double packs from Sainsburys – pancetta or chopped streaky bacon works too)
a few green onions chopped or a 1/2 a leek
a dollop of Dijon mustard
pepper and salt if you feel it needs it
and sometimes a tablespoon of cream
I just fry the lardons till crispy, saute the onions or leeks in the oil from the lardons, dump in the drained and rinsed can of beans, heat gently for a few minutes, then stir in the mustard and cream (and you can mix them together first in a small bowl just to make sure it gets evenly distributed) If you have some or a way to make a small portion of chicken stock (like the liquid broth concentrate) a 1/4 cup of that works too, but I wouldn’t make a whole cup just to add such a small amount to this!)
I love making the pork with lemon and thyme, but I sense the family MAY be getting tired of it. So I tried something new.
8-10 pork loin steaks (trimmed of fat and cut into finger thick strips)
oil – something that can take the wok temperature. Macadamia nut oil, if you can find it, would work. I only had sunflower so while technically not perfect for slow-carb, it had to do
1 tbls each garlic and ginger
a whole mess 0′ green veg – I used a pack of thin green beans, a pack of mange tout, and 5 or 6 spring onions – chopped (the beans and pea pods in half, the onions diced)
4 tbls black bean sauce – without added sugar if you can find it.
can of Puy lentils (black beans would have been a good alternative, but I had lentils)
Heat the oil in the wok. Toss in the garlic and ginger and stir fry for a moment (do not let it burn)
I did the meat in batches as my wok is not great and we only have an electric stove, so I added the garlic and ginger in 1/3s, with each batch of meat. Stir fry until nearly cooked, 5-7 minutes should do it. Remove each batch to a side plate. When you add all the meat back in to the wok, add any juices as well.
Add the beans and onions and stir fry for a couple of minutes, then add the mange tout and the lentils or other beans, cover and let the veg steam a bit but not go limp. Stir in the black bean sauce, and serve.
I actually think this might have been good with spinach added, or maybe even over some lettuce for a hot-and-cold almost salad.
The black bean sauce I got was, I think, a little too salty, so I would try a few or use one you already know you like.
Another fish stew – a little different, much quicker, one-pot on the stove and not too bad for warmer weather. While I am quite happy eating cold food, salads and the like, in the summer, DH tends to like a hot meal except of the hottest of days. This doesn’t heat up the kitchen and is very tasty.
1-2 tbls olive oil
1 onion, diced finely
2-3 cloves of garlic, minced or a tbls of garlic puree
juice of one lemon
chopped fresh basil
300g fresh or frozen raw prawns/shrimp
400g can of chopped tomatoes (no sugar added)
100 ml chicken or fish stock
a couple of dashes of Tabasco
1 pouch cooked puy lentils ( or a couple of cups of your own cooked lentils, or even a drained and rinsed can)
Saute the onion and garlic in the olive oil till the onions begin to brown but don’t let the garlic burn. Add the lemon juice and let it reduce slightly.
Add the tomatoes and the stock and bring it up to the boil. If using cooked lentils, stir them in and add the prawns then cook for 5-7 minutes, until the prawns are pink and cooked thru. Frozen prawns will obviously take a little longer than fresh. If you are using canned lentils, you can add them, then let them simmer for 5 minutes, then add the prawns – to be honest I don’t usually cook the canned lentils for long at all and they are fine. Salt (if you feel it needs it) and pepper to taste.
Spoon into a bowl, drizzle over a bit of olive oil and scatter the basil on top. If you like you can add another squeeze of fresh lemon juice then serve.
Yummy with steamed fresh asparagus.
You can substitute any sort of bean you like, chickpeas, butter, haricot, whatever. You can use lime instead of lemon, and coriander instead of basil. You can use a mix of seafood, like scallops and calamari and shrimp, and that’s good too.
I am all about the cooking, usually, and try not to use a lot of pre-prepared stuff (although I do use a LOT of quick items like squeezy garlic and ginger!) but sometimes it’s all about the fast!
I don’t think DH has any idea how easy this one was – but he’ll know now.
Marinate the pork chops in an olive oil salad dressing. One with no added sugar. Just read the label and pick one you like. OR make a home made marinade like the rosemary and garlic with lemon. So long as it has some olive oil, some vinegar/citrus (lemon or lime juice is good with chicken, pork or fish, balsamic or plain old red wine vinegar is good with beef) and some herbs (I particularly like thyme, lemon thyme, rosemary or basil) and maybe garlic, it’ll work.
BBQ
Easy Peasy. I use the leftover marinade added to the Puy Lentils – so long as you cook them yo can tip in the marinade from the bag to flavour them, but make sure you heat them long enough, and a high enough temperature to kill any unfriendly bacteria. 10 minutes should do it on a medium heat, till the marinade boils.
A nice summer side is braised lettuce and peas.
I do this one quick:
roughly chop 4 baby gem lettuce heads, removing the tough stalk part
thaw a couple of cups of frozen peas
Saute some chopped onion, red onion, or leeks in butter
add the peas and a minute or two later, the lettuce.
salt and pepper well.
Serve it up!
I know I have not een adding recipes very often at the moment but we are keeping to the diet (more or less – a few cheats when we are out and about, like lunch at Jamie’s Italian on Bank Holiday Monday in Oxford – tsk, tsk) and doing a LOT of simple BBQ. Mostly a variation on this sort of dish – marinated meat, beans, veg. It’s all easy, and not really much to share. When summer hits fully I have a few salad-type dishes I’ll share but at the moment it’s all too simple to bore you with!
We have been doing a bit more fish recently so here is another one:
simple marinade:
Lemon juice
olive oil
plenty of ground black pepper
chopped fresh basil
Marinate the steaks in a bag in the fridge. Grill just a few minutes on each side till just cooked through.
I did the same with some shrimp skewers:
The leftover marinade I added to the puy lentils. Fab meal, very fast, very tasty.
Well, we have been eating “old” recipes most of the last few weeks, it seems. We’ve had the Pork Chops with white bean mash, the Turkey in red Pesto, BBQ lamb, the chicken thighs in mustard, and many more. LOTS of BBQ, nearly every night. But I did make these little fish parcels one night and realized I had never shared!
In a large piece of tin foil, make a parcel of:
any sort of white fish (cod, haddock, plaice, whatever is on sale!)
a knob of butter
a squeeze of lemon juice
pepper
herbs – I used a grinder with lemon, garlic, and thyme)
Seal the parcel completely and place on a baking tray. Pop it into a 180C oven for 15-20 minutes till the fish is cooked through and flaky. The cooking time will depend a bit on how thick the fish fillet is.
Fry off a pack of bacon lardons
Add a can of Puy lentils, drained and rinsed and simmer while the fish cooks.
When cooked, slide the fish onto a pile of the lentils.
This is a basic method – you cn cook any sort of fish with any sort of flavouring. Salmon with soy, sesame oil, and rice wine vinegar scattered with spring onions is good. Monkfish with thyme and a bit of lemon is good. The best thing is the clean up is so easy!
Lots of BBQ, so nothing really worth sharing last week, although I did do this side dish which went very well with some italian-style sausages done out on the grill. More of a method than an actual recipe.
peppers – we like the long red spanish peppers
onions – red and white
olive oil
salt and freshly ground mixed peppercorns
Chop the peppers and onions (I used 4 long red peppers, one large white onion and one red onion) and toss with a tablespoon or two of really nice olive oil. Salt and pepper and roast in the oven at 200C for about 30 minutes. You want the edges of the veg to go a bit charred.
Open, drain and rinse a can of Puy Lentils. toss them with the veg and pop it back in the oven for about 10 minutes, just to heat the beans thru and char the veg that tossing has exposed.
Lots of variations – immediate possibilities include some chili peppers, sliced fine, some fresh chopped basil, or cherry tomatoes. All good. This makes a great accompaniment to any grilled meat. You can also grill the peppers and onions then slice them and toss with a little more olive oil and mix in lentils you have heated in a skillet, if you prefer not to heat up the kitchen.
More BBQ this week, I’m sure.
Although I started this blog because I was not happy with simply dumping a can of this and defrosting a pellet of that to make my meals, and not in a position to eat out two meals a day, and while I do like cooking some days, many days it’s all about how fast I can get to “dinner on the table” from raw ingredients in the fridge. And I am not a food snob at all – I am happy to make use of pre-made or pre-prepared stuff, like garlic paste or ginger, squeezy tubes of lemon grass, and dried herb mixes if the taste is good at the end and I can get there faster.
My fall-back marinade for almost any meat is lemon juice, olive oil, garlic salt, pepper, and some fresh herbs (thyme because I love the smell and the taste is a fave, and rosemary because we have a HUGE rosemary bush it back so its on hand all year) but I do like to mix things up (lime juice instead of lemon, white balsamic vinegar or red wine vinegar instead of lemon with beef, etc) Looking for some inspiration in the spice cabinet I found an ASDA Garlic and Lemon Herb Grinder. It has all the named item plus fennel seeds, basil, mint, dried green olives, parsley, green peppercorns lemon myrtle, and toasted dried onions! Yowza.
In a bowl:
1- 2 tbls of the grinder contents
2 tbls of olive oil
the juice of a lemon
Into a Zip-lock bag. Add chicken breasts – we did six – and in the fridge for a couple of hours and BBQ
You CAN always do what it says and simply oil the chicken then grind over the mixture, but I think making the marinade deepens the flavour.
On the side I did leeks and peas, sautéed in ghee with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice at the end and some black lentils (pre-cooked bag) sautéed with a few grinds of the same spice mix, a splash of oil, and half a chopped red onion. The flavour of the chicken was wonderful, and it with the two sides made for a great meal. The herb mix isn’t the sort of mix I would make from scratch (even if I could get lemon myrtle easily) but it worked a treat for this. A single grinder would get be at least 4 -6 marinades.
I do know I will be looking at some of the pre-made spice and herb grinders in a new way after this. It was a fab way to add a real flavour kick with minimal effort.
Sorry, I’ve been slack this week as DH has been working hard and not home for dinner much. The fall back on those sorts of days, when I am cooking for myself or things that suit DD as well, tend to be roasted chicken or the sautéed pork chops or a pizza-treat for her and leftovers (usually chicken!) for me.
But last night was a rare night this week in that we were all home for dinner so I wanted to make something a bit nice, hopefully that everyone would eat, with leftovers for lunch.
8 chicken breasts (not massive)
1 tbls. olive oil
1 tbls garlic
finely chopped shallot
Saute the chicken, garlic and the shallots in the oil till the chicken is lightly browned. Don’t let the garlic burn!
Add 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar and cook it on hight till the vinegar reduces and glazed the chicken breasts. Remove the chicken.
Add two cups of hot chicken stock and 1 cup of red lentils. I added a handful of chopped basil at this point too. And lots of fresh ground mixed peppercorns.
Now here is where I have a problem! My pack of lentils (from Sainsburys) says to boil them for 10 minutes then simmer for 20. Rubbish. I know from past experience that these red lentils take nothing LIKE that long to cook! So I just bring them to the boil in the pan, add back the chicken and any juices that have come out on the plate, cover, and simmer till the chicken is cooked thru (about 20 minutes for normal sized breasts. I might try it in the oven next time, but it was quite warm today and in the oven, much hotter than needed for the chicken I already had a tray of the long, sweet red peppers and onions, tossed with olive oil and garlic and salt and pepper roasting. My word they were good! in a single layer, at least 200C up to 220C, for about 20 minutes, or until the edges of the peppers and the onion start to char. Sure, they would be better out on the grill, but this works in a pinch.
On a bit of steamed spinach, it all worked together very well. Add hot sauce if you like. I think green lentils may have held their shape a bit better (and remember that was well less cooking time then the red lentil pack suggests) but I do love red lentils. Further experimentation required!
I love salmon. It is one of the few fish I really enjoy. Trout is good too, and tuna (fresh or canned) but fish like cod and haddock and (ugh) mackerel just do not appeal. Perhaps it is because I am not very good at cooking them.
Anyway, it was salmon last night, simply cooked in a bit of olive oil and a bit of butter, then served over spinach piled with lentils and this dressing drizzled over the top. The capers really make the taste POP when you bite in to one, and as it is heavy on the lemon juice it works really well with the fish.
Pretty much a standard vinaigrette:
1/2 cup light or extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
salt and black pepper to taste
1 tbls Dijon mustard
2 tbls drained capers
I like to put it in a lidded jar and shake it up well, so the oil and lemon juice is emulsified. A couple of spoons over the spinach/lentil/fish stack is lovely. I might add some rosemary next time.
I used green lentils, because I felt I was in danger of always picking puy lentils since I love them so much, and in reality I suspect t would have been better with Puy. Next time.
Lovely with some fresh steamed asparagus.
