Tomato and Chickpea Curry

15th February 2016

Another one from the Good Food Magazine, and a prime candidate for using up cans in the kitchen cupboard.

To start, put a pan of rice on to boil whilst making the curry. Next heat up the oil in a large pan and fry two onions until golden brown. Stir in garlic, turmeric, garam masala and ground coriander. This was all fried together for a few minutes and then a tin of chopped tomatoes was added to the pot. I accidentally got large plum tomatoes so I chopped them up with the spatula in the pan.

After 10 minutes, the coconut milk is added and simmered with some additional seasoning until the sauce begins to thicken.

Finally, add the chickpeas and fresh diced tomatoes briefly to warm through before serving with rice.

This was a beautiful creamy curry dinner. It was quite mild and could have done with a bit more umf but maybe this is my kind of spicy!

Minted Pea and Goats Cheese Wrap

8th February 2016

A couple more recipes from the Good Food magazines today. One for lunch and one for tea. This minted pea wrap looked pretty good from the pictures and very easy, and this will be a pretty short blog post!

To begin, I defrosted some frozen peas and mashed them with chopped mint. This was mixed with soft goats cheese into a kind of pea and cheese paste.

This was spread onto the tortilla and was topped with grated apple, chopped spinach and pumpkin seeds. I wrapped this in foil to take for lunch the following day.

Spoilers: whilst I hadn't eaten the whole ensemble on the day of writing this, I did try a spoonful (or two) of the filling and it was delicious! I can't wait to have the whole thing for lunch tomorrow.

Mexican Bean Soup with Feta Tortillas

8th February 2016

This looked like a nice winter warmer, given that we're bracing ourselves again Storm Imogen this week.

The onion was fried in a pot for a few minutes until golden. I didn't have any chipotle paste to add and to be honest, I'm a bit of a wuss with spicy food. I used a bit of chilli powder instead, and added this along with the kidney beans, black eye beans and passata. 

This was left to boil for around twenty minutes. In the meantime, I made the feta tortillas. In a bowl I mixed the feta cheese and garlic paste. This was spread onto half the tortilla and folded in half to toast in the panini press

The tortillas were served with the bean soup. Both were tasty and warming and were exactly what I needed on a cold day.

Baked Sweet Potato with Lentils and Red Cabbage Slaw

2nd February 2016

Second recipe of the week! This one had a number of components which I expertly put together with perfect timing!

First it was a matter of pricking the sweet potato and starting it off in the oven for a while. Apparently Sainsburys were only selling off gigantic potatoes this week so I baked just the one for two meals. We're trying to diet a little bit here, of course!

After around thirty minutes, I began to prepare the filling. I fried an onion with garlic paste, chilli powder and ground coriander. I prefer to use powdered chilli as I'm just such a wuss when it comes to chopping and eating fresh ones. This was all fried for a few minutes until golden, then the lentils and cold water were added and brought to the boil. I put a lid on and left this to simmer for twenty minutes. Fresh chopped tomatoes and a bunch of roughly chopped coriander was added and stirred into the mixture for a further few minutes.

Meanwhile, I started the red cabbage slaw. I cored and thinly sliced half a small red cabbage, grated a carrot and sliced a spring onion. This was mixed with lemon juice, oil, a handful of sultanas and pumpkin seeds.

Then began the construction! I split the half potato and spooned some of the lentil mixture onto the potato. This was topped with a dollop of natural yogurt.

Finally I added a portion of the red cabbage slaw and a little extra yogurt for dipping. This dinner was vitamin overload and incredibly tasty.

Masala Frittata with Avocado Salsa

1st February 2016

Well the last batch of recipes left me with tuppaware meals for over a week! In the meantime February's edition of the Good Food magazine turned up so I folded down some more pages to work through. After a heavy weekend it was time for some detox veggie goodness, and this one looked nice and simple. I'm a big fan of frittatas.

To start, I diced two and a half onions and fried them in a large frying pan until golden brown. Next a table spoon (and a bit...) of madras paste was added along with a pack of halved cherry tomatoes, chilli powder and paprika were added and stirred into the onions. The mixture was fried until the tomatoes were beginning to burst and the paste had thickened onto the other ingredients.

Six eggs and a bunch of roughly chopped coriander were mixed in a glass and then poured onto the onion and tomato mixture. This was stirred together to give an even distribution of ingredients and cooked on a low eat for just under ten minutes.

Once the bottom was cooked, the pan was put under the grill to cook the rest of the egg mixture until stiff.

Meanwhile, the remaining half an onion was mixed with a diced tomato, avocado and a small bunch of roughly chopping coriander. This was topped with juice from half a lime and mixed together.

A quarter of the frittata was served with a spoonful of the salsa which made a really light dinner after a day of snacking. Delicious!