Winter Warmer recipe - Cheesy Sausage, Broccoli and Quinoa Bake

I wanted to share this dish I made recently from a recipe by the Chunky Chef as it’s a perfect winter warmer and easy to make.

The quantities can be easily scaled up or down - prepare some quinoa according to the pack instructions (rinsing then simmering on the hob). When cool, fluff with a fork.

Fry some sausages in a pan and at the same time, briefly steam some broccoli (I did this in the microwave). 

You also need a cheese sauce which you can either make from scratch or use a packet mix.

Mix the sausages, broccoli and quinoa into a large greased ovenproof dish and pour over the cheese sauce. Sprinkle the top with breadcrumbs and grated cheese and bake in the oven until brown on top.

The quinoa is a nice change as I don’t eat it very often but it works really well in this recipe. The cheese sauce is what brings it all together and while I made it with regular pork sausages, I am tempted to try this again with chicken sausage!

WeightWatchers Chicken Basque

This a great one-pot meal which can feed a whole family. It's actually a WeightWatchers recipe as it's fairly low in fat if you use skinless boneless chicken breasts or thighs - I used thighs for this recipe so it's good value as well. If you left the chorizo out it would be lower in fat but wouldn't taste as good!

According to the recipe which I found in an old WeightWatchers magazine, this has 9 and a half points per person. It involved scattering olives and orange slices over the top at the end which I didn't do, so I have left these out of the recipe.

To serve 4, you need:
8 skinless boneless chicken thighs
low fat cooking spray
1 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
1 onion, cut into thin wedges
2 red peppers, de-seeded and sliced
2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
75g chorizo sausage, skinned and sliced
50g semi-dried tomatoes (I used sun-dried, drained of oil on kitchen paper)
175g brown basmati rice
1 chicken stock cube, mixed with 225ml water
125ml dry white wine
1 tbsp. tomato puree
1/2 tsp paprika
2 tsp chopped fresh parsley

 

Season the chicken. Use an oven proof dish that can also go on the hob if you have one, and spray with low fat cooking spray. Brown the chicken on both sides - alternatively you can do this in a frying pan. Heat the olive oil in the casserole dish or frying pan and brown the onion and peppers, then after about 5 minutes add the garlic, chorizo and tomatoes.

Preheat the oven to 180C. If you're using a frying pan, at this point transfer the ingredients into the casserole dish. Stir in the rice until it's coated in oil then add the stock, wine, tomato puree and paprika. Put the chicken on top, making sure the rice is still covered by liquid, and put the lid on top.

Bake in the oven for about an hour until the rice has cooked and the liquid absorbed and the chicken is cooked through. Sprinkle with parsley to serve.

Tuscan Chianti Chicken Cacciatora

My Tuscan Chianti Chicken Cacciatora

There's something about the idea of spending a week in a villa in Tuscany that really appeals to me. The landscape looks beautiful, from rolling Italian countryside to the sandy beaches, the small medieval towns to the cities of Pisa and Florence, where I'd love to go sightseeing some day.

Having a villa would mean getting away from it all - I imagine a rustic farmhouse overlooking vineyards, sitting at a big wooden table with my husband as we tear into fresh bread and let a bottle of Chianti breathe.

I love the flavours from this region, from zingy lemons (and limoncello) to the earthy taste of truffles when they are grated over dishes. The red wines from this region are smooth yet spicy and Italian olive oil is renowned world wide.

I also like the simplicity of food from Tuscany. Pasta might just be served with a little oil and butter - when freshly made pasta is that good, why disguise it with a sauce? The best Tuscan food is locally produced and enjoyed according to the season; chicken is free range (probably wandering around the rustic farmhouse of my imagination) and mushrooms are foraged for.

There re two other things that stand out to be about Tuscan cooking. Food is about family, and typical dishes are prepared in large quantities to serve a big family around the kitchen table. It is also traditionally peasant cooking - in other words, cheap and not wasteful. Some of the best known Italian dishes are things that use cheaper cuts of meat, are bulked out with cannellini beans, use up stale bread (panzanella), and using local herbs and vegetables to bring out the natural flavours of the dish. These days rather than being something that is done through necessity, due to lack of money, this is something that many cooks aspire to - natural flavours coming through, cooking more economically and feeding a whole family with a robust, filling meal.

I was genuinely thinking of looking into booking a Tuscan villa for our holiday next year when I was invited to enter a competition run by To Tuscany, a website that specialises in villa rentals in that very region. It must be fate!

They asked me to create my own Tuscan-inspired recipe using typical flavours and influences from Italy, so I started to brainstorm a list of ingredients. I also thought about all the things I described above - cheaper cuts of meat, bringing out natural flavours, and a meal that could be cooked in large quantities if needed, and came up with this recipe for chicken cacciatora.

Cacciatora means 'hunter' in Italian and this is a kind of hunter's stew - perhaps something that would be waiting when they returned home from a day's hunt. It traditionally uses chicken, game or rabbit, and is cooked in a tomato-based sauce, sometimes with wine added, featuring onion and garlic, sometimes carrot or red peppers - there are various versions.

I decided to make mine even more Tuscan, if such a thing is possible, by making Chianti wine an important feature of the dish (Chianti is in Tuscany, if you didn't know). Italian olives stood out to me as a good addition, both for the colour that they give the dish and the different flavour and texture. I love balsamic vinegar and how it can bring out the flavour in dishes so decided to add a splash; my sauce was going to based on tinned tomatoes and the wine, with bay leaves and rosemary for flavour (and again they look great in the dish, though remove the bay leaf before serving).

Finally for a more modern, more indulgent twist, I sprinkled a little grated mozzarella on top of each chicken thigh just before serving, allowing it to melt - the cheese has a subtle taste but adds a little creaminess that is otherwise missing from the dish and to me just seemed to be the finishing touch. Serve the cacciatora with a hunk of fresh bread and a green salad - and the rest of the Chianti of course!

 

Tuscan Chianti Chicken Cacciatora - an original recipe by Caroline Makes

To serve four, you need:
4 large chicken thighs
pinch of salt salt
pinch of ground black pepper
1/2 bottle of Chianti
1 tbsp. olive oil
100g diced pancetta
2 bay leaves
sprig of rosemary
2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
a large handful of green Italian olives
400g tinned tomatoes
generous dash of balsamic vinegar
pinch of smoked paprika
1 tsp dried oregano
50g grated mozzarella

Season the chicken and marinade in the wine for at least one hour or overnight if possible.

 

Heat the oil in a large frying pan and fry the chicken, in batches if necessary, until browned. Add the pancetta to the pan and fry until starting to brown.

Preheat oven to 180C. Transfer the chicken and pancetta to an ovenproof dish with the wine marinade. Mix in the tomatoes, garlic, olives, bay leaf and rosemary. Add a splash of balsamic vinegar, a pinch of smoked paprika and the oregano and cover the pot with a lid.

 

 

Bake in the oven for 1.5 hours; for the last 10 minutes of cooking time add the grated mozzarella on top of the chicken.

 

Serve with green salad, fresh crusty bread and the chianti and enjoy.

.
I want to win a week in one of your Tuscany villas!

Slow Food: Braised Lamb in Cider with Apple and Pear



This is a recipe I was asked to create as part of a campaign around “living slow”. This campaign couldn’t have come at a better time as I really do need to take time to slow down.

 

I’m always busy at work – my workload has at least doubled in the past year for various reasons -  I have a long and stressful commute (thank you, Southern Trains) and when I’m at home I'm running the house. I’m lucky to be able to afford a cleaner but between meal planning food shopping, cooking, tidying up, laundry, dishwasher, and all the little things – sending someone a birthday card, replying to emails, choosing a restaurant to go out to etc – I never seem to have any time to relax. On top of all that we are planning a wedding (there are so many additional things for the bride to think about than the groom!)- and linked to that, I’m now getting up even earlier before work to go for a run as I’m trying to lose weight for the wedding.

 

I’ve also found out recently that I have high blood pressure – some days it’s been extremely high. So I’m looking into ways to deal with that (including possibly medication) – but one thing that I know is important to reduce high blood pressure is to eat healthily, in particular eating less salt, and to do more exercise.

 

I took part in a ‘mindfulness’ session recently which was very relaxing – mindfulness has been shown to reduce stress and even mean employees take fewer sick days off work. But since then I haven’t felt like I’ve got the time to sit down and be mindful, even just for ten minutes – I am literally constantly on the go, and even when I am watching TV in the evening with my fiancé I am multi-tasking replying to emails or cutting out paper hearts for our wedding.

 

So before I keel over from stress I think it definitely is time that I ‘slow down and smell the roses’. I was asked by Simply Beef and Lamb to create a recipe for either beef or lamb, on the theme of ‘live slow’. You might already be familiar with their Red Tractor logo, which means you can find quality assured beef and lamb in the supermarket.

This doesn’t simply mean cooking something in a slow cooker – as well as being easy, one pot meals, it should be value for money and affordable, and reflect the ethos of ‘live slow’: stop living life in the fast lane and take it slow for a change.

 

That can relate to all aspects of our lives, whether that’s not rushing around trying to fit a million things in; spending time in nature or with friends; working on something handcrafted; travelling closer to home and enjoying the journey itself; sewing to repair or make your own clothing or being creative; and even spending your money wisely on things that really matter.

 

When I do feel able to push the ‘to do’ list to one side, I love to handmake greeting cards. I think (or hope) people really appreciate receiving something handmade as they know time and effort has gone into it. I also find it helps me switch off as I’m focused on cutting or stamping, and I enjoy feeling creative.

 

I also travel by train a lot – to work as I already mentioned, and when I’m lucky enough to get a seat I always read. Losing yourself in a good book is a great way to start the day or unwind after a day of work. I’m still a relatively new and pretty nervous driver, so when I have to travel longer distances on my own, I prefer to take the train. So again that gives me a lot of time to read; mobile reception is sometimes patchy so I resist the temptation to go on Facebook or reply to emails and instead pick up a decent-sized book I’ve been meaning to read but don’t want to carry on my daily commute (I do have a Kindle as well, but prefer actual books!). Recently I’ve been going to Salisbury by train a lot as it’s where my family live and also the nearest station to our wedding venue, and I always feel happy and relaxed to see the rolling Wiltshire countryside and the lovely views as we pull into Salisbury station. I’m sure that does help my blood pressure!

What does #slowliving mean to you and your family and what do you do to relax?

 

So finally onto the recipe. I was thinking about what slow living might mean in terms of cooking and came across the Slow Food movement, which promotes using local produce and eating less but better quality meat.

 

Thinking about what was local, I started with my own garden. I’m hoping to get a small vegetable patch started (I was growing peppers last year but slugs ate them all) but at the moment don’t have anything other than herbs. But what a good starting point for a recipe – I have rosemary and a lot of mint, and mint is of course well known as a pairing for lamb.

 

So that was my starting point: making a recipe with lamb and mint. I decided to braise the lamb, as that is a slow method of cooking that is fuss-free, but obviously there had to be more to it than that. Apples are abundant in a lot of areas – my late grandmother had apple and pear trees in her garden – and cider is very English (and to some, slow living might mean relaxing in the garden with a beer or cider…). Apple and mint does apparently go together – I found several mojito recipes online using those flavours! So my recipe was starting to take shape: spring lamb, mint, rosemary, apples and pears, cider. I used Pear cider in this recipe, and decided that because lamb is quite expensive I would go with a cheaper, bulking out ingredient: pearl barley. So you don't even need to serve this with potatoes as it's really filling and tasty.

Making the apples and pears at the start takes a little while but you don't need to do much; then you bung everything else into one casserole dish, put it in the oven and that's it - leaving you more time to relax and take it easy! This is what I came up with: I hope you enjoy it.

Braised lamb in cider with apple and pear - an original recipe by Caroline Makes

To serve 2, you need:

1 tbsp. butter
2 apples, peeled and chopped
1 large or 2 small pears, peeled and chopped
3 tbsp. sugar
3 tbsp. raisins or sultanas

4 lamb rump steaks
500ml cider
half an onion, peeled and cut into chunks
100g pearl barley
half a leek, trimmed and sliced
sprig of fresh rosemary
handful of fresh mint

First make the apple and pear accompaniment and pre-heat the oven to 180C. Melt the butter in a pan, add the apple and stir. Cook for 5 minutes until it has started to soften then add the pear and the raisins. Add the sugar and 50ml water; stew, stirring occasionally, until the water has evaporated and the fruit has softened. This can be made in advance and kept in the fridge or made at the same time as the meal.

Rub the bottom of a casserole dish with a little oil and place the lamb in the dish. Cover with cider and add the onion and leek, pearl barley and herbs. Put the lid on the casserole dish and put in the oven for 1-1.5 hours, until the liquid has been absorbed and the lamb is cooked through.

Serve with the apple and pear mixture on the side.

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The apple, pear and raisin mixture



The ingredients for the casserole

Ready to go in the oven

Just cooked



Close-up

Served with the apple and pear on the side

 

In Praise of Canned Food: Pork & Fennel with Red Wine & Borlotti Beans Casserole

Last week we bought some pull-out shelves for the kitchen cupboards which makes everything much easier to get to. When I restocked the cupboard I organised everything by shelf - and for the first time I can find what I want within a couple of seconds. I realised how much I rely on canned foods when I had to devote two entire shelves to cans - one savoury, like tinned tomatoes, tuna, baked beans etc - and one sweet, with tinned fruit, Carnation caramel, and golden syrup.

Did you know that this week is actually Canned Food Week? It is promoted by Canned Food UK, a not-for-profit organisation made up of leading can and product manufacturers, which promotes the benefits of cooking with canned food.

Canned food is:
- affordable - often cheaper than buying fresh
- lasts longer
- is a useful standby to have in the cupboard in case you don't have time to shop for fresh
- can help reduce waste as you can buy a small tin of something that would only come in much larger quantities fresh
- have great nutritional content- canned foods are sealed and preserved by pressure cooking the food in the can, to lock the nutrition in

Canned Food UK has created seven new recipes to showcase some of the tinned foods you can add to meals to eat healthily at home without spending a fortune. They have also come up with seven healthy eating plans designed for people and families at the different stages of their life, whether that's growing teens, students, more mature or cooking for one or for a small army.

They sent me the ingredients to make one of these seven new dishes and I chose the pork and fennel casserole with red wine and borlotti beans. I chose this for several reasons: I know fennel has quite a strong taste and isn't to everyone's liking so I wanted to try a recipe where it is an integral part. I'd also never tried borlotti beans before, which are a good source of fibre, help to lower cholesterol and can help lower blood pressure as well due to the potassium they contain - all good things in my book!
I also liked the fact that this was very easy to prepare - about ten minutes to chop and fry off the ingredients then in the oven for just under an hour and a half. Perfect for a Sunday when you're at home but want to be getting on with other things!

You can find the full recipe here

To serve 4, you need:
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
400g very lean pork leg, diced
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 fennel bulb, roughly chopped
1Tbsp plain flour
150ml red wine
150ml vegetable stock
1 x 400g can unpeeled cherry tomatoes
Seasoning
Few sprigs thyme, plus garnish
1 x 400g can borlotti beans, rinsed and drained

Preheat oven to fan 160°C, conventional 180°C, gas 4.

·         Heat 1Tbsp oil in a large flameproof casserole dish.  Fry the pork in batches, browning well and set aside. 

·         Add remaining oil and fry the onions, when just beginning to brown add the garlic and fennel.

·         Add the meat and any juices back into the dish, sprinkle over the flour and stir well.

·         Gradually add the wine, stock and tomatoes, season well and add the thyme sprigs.

·         Cover, cook in the oven for one hour add the borlotti beans and return to the oven for a further 15-20 minutes or until the meat is tender.  Remove the thyme sprigs and replace with fresh to garnish.

 It's so easy to make, it doesn't really matter how fine you chop the vegetables, and if you buy a pack of diced pork the hard work with the meat is already done for you. You do need either a casserole dish or just any oven-proof dish which you can cover with foil if it doesn't have a lid.

Frying off the meat

Into the casserole dish with the onion, fennel, garlic and flour

 

With the tomatoes, stock and red wine

Baked in the oven for an hour

 

The borlotti beans - star of the show! These only cost 60p for a 400g tin, which is loads

Adding the beans to the casserole, then it goes back in the oven

A delicious, warming, easy, healthy and relatively cheap dish for all the family!

Thanks to Canned Food UK, who sent me the ingredients for this recipe

Pork in a Spiced Cider and Mustard Sauce

 I created this original recipe for the Co-operative Electrical's Winter Warmer competition. I thought about the flavours and textures that I like to eat on a cold winter's day and wanted as well to keep the recipe largely British, to showcase some of the Co-operative Food's best ingredients. Pork and apples is a great traditional combination so I decided to use cider rather than apple sauce and slow cook the pork in the oven in a casserole dish so it would be beautifully tender. I love the zingy taste of mustard and there are some great mustards available from the Co-op, so I decided to combine two of them from the Co-operative's Truly Irresistible range, the wholegrain and the dijon, in this recipe. However, I also wanted to add an original twist and a slightly unexpected flavour that people would enjoy and perhaps wonder what it was - so I used star anise. Mushrooms add to the texture and make the dish more substantial; what's more this is a relatively inexpensive recipe as you could substitute pork chops for the pork fillet.

To serve 4, you need:
about 750g pork fillet

salt

pepper

1 tbsp olive oil

1 small onion, diced

100g button mushrooms, halved.

150ml Co-operative Tillington Hills premium dry cider

100ml pork or chicken stock made up from a stock cube

1 tbsp Co-operative Truly Irresistible wholegrain mustard

1 tbsp Co-operative Truly Irresistible dijon mustard

2 star anise

150ml plain yogurt (optional)

1 tsp cornflour

Preheat the oven to 180C. In a large frying pan, season the pork fillet and sear on both sides in a little oil then remove from the pan.

In the same pan, fry the chopped onion and button mushrooms until browned.

Make up the stock cube and mix with the cider in a large jug. Stir in both mustards. Place the pork fillet in a large casserole dish, add the onion and mushroom and star anise, and pour the liquid over the top.

Cover and bake in the oven for 45 minutes. Five minutes before the end, remove from the oven, carefully pour off the liquid into a small pan and re-cover the pork to keep warm. It doesn't matter if a little of the onion and mushroom gets into the pan, but do remove the star anise.

Mix the cornflour with a little water and stir into the liquid in the pan. Heat, stirring, until the liquid has thickened and reduced.

If you want a thicker, creamier sauce, you can stir in a couple of spoonfuls of plain yogurt or creme fraiche. Slice the pork fillet on the diagonal and pour over the sauce to serve.

This goes really well with mashed potato and green veg like cabbage or broccoli and carrots. It's a lovely winter warmer!

I am sending this to Co-operative Electrical for their Winter Warmer competition; you can enter the competition here.

Chicken Provencale in a Heart-Shaped Le Creuset Dish

This is a great recipe to make for Valentine's day and it looks even better in a Le Creuset heart-shaped dish!

The recipe is adapted from one in a free calendar that came with Slimming World magazine at the end of last year. I bought this casserole dish from the Le Creuset shop at Bicester Village, the designer outlet shopping village, when I went in January. I came home with quite a few shopping bags that day! I'd had my eye on this casserole for a while and when I saw it was reduced from £45 to £27, I couldn't resist. Now all I need to do is find space for it in my kitchen cupboard....

My Le Creuset heart-shaped dish is made of stoneware and usually retails at £49; Le Creuset also has a beautiful cast-iron heart-shaped casserole dish, which costs £115. That might have to go on my wish list!

For this Provencale chicken casserole, to serve two you need:
2 chicken legs (here I've actually used one leg and two small breast portions)
400g tin tomatoes
1 courgette, thinly sliced - though as neither of us likes courgette, I pureed it so I could stir it in without it being noticed
1/2 red onion, sliced
1/2 red pepper, diced
1 clove garlic, crushed
2 tsp dried herbes de Provence
salt, pepper
2 tbsp tomato puree
100ml chicken stock

Preheat oven to 180C. Spray a frying pan with Fry Light, season the chicken and fry the chicken for a couple of minutes on each side. Then transfer to the casserole dish.

Scatter the pepper, courgette and onions over the chicken.

Add the tinned tomatoes, tomato puree, chicken stock and garlic. Sprinkle the herbes de Provence over the top.

Put the lid on the casserole dish and bake in the oven for about an hour until the chicken is cooked.

The cooked dish....

Serve with a few spoonfuls of the liquid and the slow-cooked vegetables on top. And if your other half really loves you, they will do the washing up!

I'm sending this to Cooking with Herbs, hosted by Karen at Lavender and Lovage; she has a dual theme this month of Chinese new year and romantic recipes for Valentine's day.

 

I'm also sharing this with Four Seasons Food, hosted by Anneli at Delicieux and Louisa at Eat Your Veg. The theme this month is "food from the heart".

Philadelphia Sausage, Bacon and Potato Bake

I was looking for a simple recipe that my boyfriend would like that would also give me leftovers to reheat after a choir rehearsal, so I had in mind some sort of one-pot bake. I came across this recipe on the Philadelphia cheese website, for a Philly sausage, bacon and potato bake. It was really good!

To serve three or four if you are having a side dish of vegetables with it, you need:

6 sausages

4 rashers bacon, cut into pieces

1 onion, diced

500g potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced

200g Philadelphia Light with Spring Onion and Black Pepper

120ml chicken stock

30g grated cheddar

Chop the sausages and bacon and fry with the diced onion until the meat is browned and the onions translucent.

Meanwhile boil the potato slices in salted water for about 8-10 minutes; it will depend how thick you have sliced them as you want them to be tender but not so soft they fall apart.

I decided to use a mixture of Philly and fat-free Quark as I had an open pot I needed to use up.

Melt the cheese in a saucepan with the stock but do not bring to the boil.

Spoon the sausage, onion and bacon mixture into a casserole or pie dish, pour over the sauce and sprinkle with cheese.

Bake for about 25 minutes at 190C until the cheese is golden and serve with a green veg or salad.