Lamb and Cypriot New Potato Pittas

Most of the time I don't miss vegetables that aren't in season but one thing I'd love to eat all year round is new potatoes. I'm sorry to say I get quite excited when I see new potatoes in Tesco and can enjoy them with melted butter and mint or as part of a potato salad.

 

Well, now you can get new potatoes in winter, courtesy of the sun-soaked island of Cyprus. Tesco have started stocking the 'spunta' variety which are really versatile - they can be boiled, steamed, roasted or baked and you don't need to peel them so preparation is minimal!

You can even grate them, as I have done in this recipe; even when par-boiled the potatoes are still nice and firm. For this recipe I thought about what I associated with Cyprus, thinking back to a holiday I had there about 12 or 13 years ago. The things that stood out to me were lamb, feta cheese and pitta breads, so I decided to make some lamb and Cypriot new potato patties and serve them with feta cheese inside homemade pitta breads.

You can buy read-made pitta breads for this recipe but don't be afraid to have a go at making your own pitta bread if you haven't before, it's super easy and they taste amazing straight from the oven!

Ingredients (serves 4):

 

250g Cypriot new potatoes
1 egg
1 onion, grated
1 clove garlic, crushed
300g minced lamb
salt, pepper
1 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp coriander
100g breadcrumbs
Oil or low-fat cooking spray
75g feta cheese, crumbled
2 tbsp. plain natural yogurt

for the pitta bread:
560g strong white flour

10g salt

300ml tepid water

20ml oil

5g dried yeast or 10g fresh yeast

Method:

Begin by making the pitta bread. If you have a freestanding food mixer with a dough hook, put all the ingredients for the pitta breads in the bowl of the mixer and run it for ten minutes until you have a pliable ball of dough. Alternatively, mix the ingredients in a bowl and knead on a lightly floured surface for 15 minutes then return to the bowl.

Cover the bowl with clingfilm and put in a warm place for an hour until the dough has doubled in size.

While the dough is proving, make the lamb and potato patties. Bring a pan of salted water to the boil and simmer the potatoes for 15 minutes. Transfer to a bowl and cover with cold water and leave to cool; change the water a couple of times as you feel it getting hot as this is the quickest way to cool the potatoes.

Grate the parboiled potatoes - you don't need to peel them - into a bowl. Beat the egg and mix in.

Grate the onion and crush the garlic and stir in, then stir in the minced lamb. Season with salt and pepper. Finally mix in the oregano, cumin and coriander until well combined.

Put the breadcrumbs into a shallow bowl. Form the mixture into small balls and roll in the breadcrumbs, then gently flatten the balls until you have patties about three quarters of an inch thick. Press each side in the breadcrumbs again to coat.

Repeat until all the lamb and potato mixture is used up.

When the dough for the pitta bread has had 40-45 minutes to prove, pre-heat your oven to its highest setting and place a pizza stone or flat baking sheet into the bottom of the oven.

When your dough is ready to use, separate into 6-8 pieces of the same size and roll out flat on a lightly floured surface into the shape of pitta breads. Place them (you will need to do this in two or three batches) onto the hot pizza stone or baking sheet and bake for 5-10 minutes until risen. You will literally see them puffing up in the oven and start to brown then they are done. Remove from the oven and leave to cool.

Heat the oil or low-fat cooking spray in a frying pan and fry the lamb and potato patties on each side until golden brown.

Slice open the pitta breads (careful of the steam that will escape!) and spread 1/2 tbsp. plain yogurt into each one. Fill each pitta with a couple of the lamb and potato patties and crumbled feta cheese. Enjoy hot with a green salad.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is my entry into the Tesco Cypriot new potatoes recipe challenge. I received a £10 voucher from Tesco to pay towards the ingredients. Cypriot new potatoes are available in Tesco now

 

 

 

 

 

Lahmacun - Weightwatchers Turkish Pizza

This Turkish pizza is topped with minced lamb and spices - and has no cheese, so it isn't what some people would consider a pizza, but trust me, it's delicious!

 

I found the recipe in an old WeightWatchers magazine - I can't remember how they work out the Points system but they say this has 5 points per serving. It uses a packet pizza base mix and lamb is quite a fatty meat so is not what I would call super-healthy but it obviously does fit into the WeightWatchers plan if you are following that.

To serve 4, you need:
Low fat cooking spray eg Fry Light
145g sachet pizza base mix
1 tsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
225g lean lamb mince
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 large ripe vine tomato, chopped (I left this out as we don't like tomatoes)
4 tsp sun dried tomato puree (I used regular tomato puree)
4 tbsp. fresh chopped parsley
lemon wedges to serve (optional)

Preheat oven to 200 C. Spray a large baking tray with low fat spray or Fry Light.

Make up the pizza dough according to pack instructions then divide into four and shape into ovals. Or if you want a larger meal make two - but if you are counting WeightWatchers points you will have to double them per person. Place the pizza bases on the baking tray and leave in a warm place for ten minutes.

Heat 1 tsp oil in a frying pan and fry the onion until softened. Add the mince, garlic and cumin and fry for 5 minutes. Add the tomato and fry over a medium heat for another 5 minutes. Season.

Spread the pizza bases with the tomato puree and spread the mince mixture on top.

 Bake in the oven for ten minutes then sprinkle with parsley to serve, and squeeze over a wedge of lemon if desired.

One-Pot Cheeseburger Chilli

I wanted to make spaghetti Bolognese for dinner but realised I’d run out of spaghetti, so instead of just using a different shape of pasta I decided to try out this recipe for “cheeseburger chilli”. It’s basically minced beef in a tomato sauce, served with pasta and topped with cheese. The chilli element comes from adding chopped red chilli and red kidney beans – I thought I had a tin in the cupboard but it turned out to be black eyed beans. I don’t really like those (it’s mainly the texture – I don’t eat baked beans either) so I pulsed them in a blender together with the passata to make a healthier tomato sauce with hidden veg. Both red kidney beans and black eyed beans are meant to be good to eat if you have high blood pressure, which I do, so that's another bonus.

 

The other thing about this recipe that stood out was the way that the pasta is cooked. This is a one-pot meal where you fry the mince and then add the pasta and water into the same pan. I used a bit too much water so it didn’t all get absorbed and I had to drain a little away, and I was worried that I was draining some of the flavour out of the meat, but it tasted really good. If you’re looking for a hearty, healthy meal that won’t mean a lot of washing up then I recommend you try this!
 

 

 

To serve two, you need:

half an onion, peeled and chopped

1 chilli or 1-2 tsp Very Lazy chopped chilli, to taste (err on the side of caution if you don't like it too hot!)

2 tbsp. olive oil or 1 tsp coconut oil which is what I used

300-400g minced beef depending on how big an appetite you have

100-150g pasta like penne or macaroni, ditto

300g passata

150g black eyed beans or red kidney beans (the latter is preferable)

2 tbsp. chopped fresh parsley

50g grated cheese like Cheddar or Emmental plus extra to sprinkle on top if you like

 

If using a whole chilli, carefully remove the stalk and seeds and chop it finely. Heat the oil in a large saucepan and fry the onion, chilli and mince until the mince has browned.

 

If you don't like the texture of the beans (or have children who won't eat it if they see them) then pulse in a blender with the passata and add to the mince. Or if you have more grown up tastes than I do, add the passata and beans straight into the pan. Season with salt and pepper.

 

 

Then - and this is the part I found weird - add the pasta to the pan and enough water to cover the pasta. Simmer until the pasta is cooked - you may have to drain off a bit of water. Finally stir in the cheese, and serve topped with fresh herbs and a sprinkling of cheese if you like.

 

Slimming World Nacho-Style Feast

I’ve cooked a fair bit of Mexican food recently and had been meaning to make this dish for a long time, ever since I saw it in a Primula cheese ad in a Slimming World magazine.

 

For anyone who hasn’t come across Primula before – it was a staple of my childhood in the 80s, but is still around – it’s a soft cheese that comes in a tube like toothpaste. It has a much stronger flavour than cream cheeses like Philadelphia, and they make various versions flavoured with chives, shrimp and so on. It’s made from Gouda and Cheddar apparently – I discovered a fun animation on the company’s website about how it’s made.
 

The thing I like best about Primula though – aside from the fun of squeezing the tube – is that a large part of the company’s profits go to charity. You can read more about that on their website (note – this is not a sponsored post or written at the company’s request).

 

Primula is the suggested ingredient in this particular Slimming World recipe, I think partly because Primula is low in “syns”, though you could actually use any cheese for it. You can view the full recipe here, so I won’t repeat it.

 

I wanted to make my own potato wedges but my fiancé only likes the shop-bought kind for some reason so I used those, and left out the optional jalapenos.

The meal turned out pretty well - there was a tiny bit too much liquid in the bottom, but it's a good way to serve mince if you are looking for something different.

Old El Paso Stand 'n' Stuff Kits

Mexican food is surprisingly easy to make at home, though it’s not something I’ve done very often in the past. Since going to Mexico earlier this year though my eyes were opened to a whole range of dishes that would appeal to even my super-fussy fiancé and most importantly are quick and easy to cook.

  

I thought that might be the thinking behind Old El Paso’s “Taco Tuesday” campaign – you can make midweek meals quick and easy by doing tacos or something similar. But a quick Google has actually revealed that the phrase comes from a happy hour event where bars and restaurants offer cheap tacos and beer on Tuesdays.

  

Even so, I’ll go with the ‘midweek made easy’ idea which Old El Paso is promoting. They invited me to a cookery evening recently at Food at 52, a cookery school in London’s Clerkenwell, which is a great little place. Upstairs, there are comfy sofas where we got to know each other over drinks and nachos, and then you go downstairs to the kitchen area. Each person had a workstation – Foodat52 runs a range of classes and can be hired for private events (from hen nights to corporate team building sessions) and the people running it were great. They demonstrated, we cooked, the wine flowed then we ate.

So what did we cook? We were divided into pairs or groups of three, with each making either a vegetarian or meat-based dish. We were all trying out the Stand ‘n’ Stuff soft taco kit, which apparently is being relaunched rather than a totally new product, but I’ve never come across it before. And it’s genius! In the past I’ve eaten tacos in those crispy shells, which don’t stand up by themselves so you have to lay them down and half the filling falls out, and you take one bite which cracks the shell and then the rest of the filling falls out. Or, I’ve eaten soft tortillas, which I prefer, but am hopeless at wrapping them properly and have to eat them with a knife and fork – if I pick them up, the filling falls out (are you starting to see a pattern here?).

These tacos are like little boats – they are soft, but stand up by themselves and allow you to pile in the filling, and when you hold it in your fingers and bite, you don’t lose any of the filling. I will definitely be using these from now on!

I was using beef mince and my recipe was very straightforward – brown the mince first. I learnt that you shouldn’t actually move the meat around while it’s browning, and you need the pan (and oil) to be very hot first. Once it’s browned, drain the mince and add the Old El Paso seasoning mix, which you either get in the meal kits or can buy separately, and a little water.

While the meat was cooking I chopped some lettuce and grated some cheese, while my partner chopped tomatoes. To serve, pile the mince into the taco shell, top with lettuce, tomato and grated cheese, and enjoy.

The pairs making the vegetarian recipe had a little more to do; they chopped courgette, red pepper, onion and sweet potato and added a jar of Old El Paso cooking sauce and a little water. The veg cooked for about ten minutes until the sauce had reduced, then they added some kidney beans. I don’t like kidney beans so didn’t try this particular dish but it looked very colourful and healthy and this has given me a great idea for the next time my vegan friend comes to dinner.

The Stand ‘N’ Stuff kits come in a variety of flavours – garlic & paprika; extra mild and smoky BBQ and retail at £3.79 (though Tesco has them for £2 at the moment) and you can buy the tortillas separately, for £1.89 for 8, if you want to make up your own flavour combinations. I will definitely be using these again for a quick midweek dinner and maybe trying shredded chicken instead of the mince next time.

Thanks to Old El Paso for inviting me to the event at Foodat52.

Turkey Koftas in Pitta Bread

 

 

Christmas was long enough ago that I think I can face eating turkey again! You could make koftas from any kind of mince but they work really well with turkey and it's a very low fat option compared to red meat.

 

These are very simple to make, and to serve two, you need:

250g turkey mince

1 tsp harissa paste

1 tsp fresh chopped coriander

to serve:

pitta breads

fat free natural yogurt

1 clove garlic, crushed

salad leaves

 

Mix the turkey, harissa and coriander in a bowl and combine well.

 

Form into balls and then either grill or fry in a frying pan sprayed with Fry Light until browned and the meat is cooked through (it's best to cut one in half to check).

To serve, split open a pitta bread. Mix the garlic with the yogurt and spread inside, then add a few rocket or lettuce leaves and the turkey koftas. Enjoy!

Turkey Mince and Potato Wedge Hash

I created this recipe to use up some leftover cooked potato wedges which I didn't want to throw away. I also had some turkey mince in the fridge which needed using up so I decided to make the mince into meatballs. At the last minute I wasn't sure if that would be enough so I cut up a few sausages and threw them into the frying pan as well, along with some onion.

I then added some passata from a carton as well as salt and pepper and a pinch of chilli flakes.

I then added the cooked potato wedges to heat through, and sprinkled some grated cheese on top.

Serve with some salad or green veg.

This was really tasty and a good way to use up leftovers. I think you could also use leftover turkey from your Christmas dinner!

Turkey Meatloaf With Apple and Celery

Christmas dinner is all about the roast turkey and I wouldn't do anything to the turkey other than roast it. However, I'm always looking for ways to use up leftover turkey after Christmas. I made this meatloaf with minced turkey for a Thanksgiving meal with friends and it worked really well as the main course, as it's easy to make in large quantities and you can make it ahead of time. But I think this would also work with finely chopped or even minced turkey if you have a mincer to use up the leftovers after Christmas. Or just make it for a regular meal!

I was inspired by this recipe on All Recipes.com though I made mine slightly differently. Here's what I did.

Serves 6

You need:
1 medium onion, chopped
1 tbsp. oil or Fry Light
1 stick celery, finely chopped
1 apple, finely chopped
2 slices slightly stale bread, turned into breadrumbs - either by hand or in a food processor
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
3 tbsp. milk
large pinch of salt
pinch of dried sage
750g turkey mince

                                  

Preheat the oven to 175C. Heat the oil in a frying pan and fry the onion, celery and apple until just starting to brown.

Transfer to a large bowl and add the breadcrumbs, cheese, milk, salt, sage and turkey mince.

Mix well, then press into a loaf tin. Bake in the preheated oven for 45 minutes then slice into six to serve.

The meatloaf was really good and even my boyfriend who has never had meatloaf before, and doesn't like apple or celery, said he liked it. It had quite a soft texture and I think could have used a little more seasoning but otherwise was pretty good. I served it with green salad and sweet potatoes with marshmallow.

My Thanksgiving spread complete with Thanksgiving paper napkins

I'm sending this to Family Foodies, hosted by Vanesther at Bangers and Mash, and on alternate months Louisa at Eat Your Veg as the theme is festive food and you don't get much more festive than turkey!

 

I'm also sending this to Credit Crunch Munch, hosted by Helen at Fuss Free Flavours and Camilla at Fab Food 4 All, as meatloaf is a cheap way to feed a lot of people - you can either use leftovers or mince is generally cheaper than 'better' cuts of meat.