Week Seven: Turkey burgers with onion marmalade

 Serves 4  - £1.70 per person
Ingredients:
500g turkey mince
1 egg
60g fresh breadcrumbs
A handful of fresh herbs- thyme, sage, bay...
Oil for frying

400g onions. finely sliced
2 dsps brown sugar
3 tsps red wine vinegar
Oil for frying

Method
First, mix together the breadcrumbs and herbs, then add the turkey mince and combine thoroughly with either your (clean) hands or a fork. Put this mixture into the fridge.

Now, start to make the onion marmalade by heating the oil and then adding the onions. Turn the heat down and leave to cook for about 15 minutes with a lid on, adding the sugar after 10.
Next, add the vinegar and cook without a lid on a higher heat for another 10 or so minutes, then remove from the heat and put to one side.

Return to the burger mixture. Shape this into 8 thinnish patty shapes. Heat the oil in a frying pan and place the burgers in - leave enough space to be able to turn them over easily. Leave for about 3 minutes then turn them over and continue to cook for another couple of minutes. Depending on the size of your pan, you may want to keep the cooked burgers hot in a dish in the oven while you cook the rest.

Warm the onion marmalade through then serve with the burgers, some bread rolls and salad.
Enjoy!

Week Six: Vegetable Pie

 Serves 4 Costs less than £1 per person!
Ingredients
For the pastry:
150g Self raising flour
75g Suet - I  used vegetable suet but either's fine
Water

For the filling:
A selection of vegetables.
I used:
1 leek
3 sticks of celery
1 turnip
4 carrots
6 shallots

For the gravy:
About 2 tbs oil
About 3 dsps flour
Marmite
Redcurrant jelly

Method:
 Heat oven to around 220C.







First, make the pastry by mixing the suet and flour, then adding water a tablespoon at a time until you get a firm but not sticky dough. Cover and put to one side.

Chop the vegetables into largish and similarly sized chunks.

Blanch each vegetable in turn, roughly 5 minutes for the turnip / carrot / shallots and 2 minutes for everything else. Don't throw the water away! Put the vegetables into the pie dish that you're using.

Now it's time to make the gravy. The first part is like making a roux but with oil; try to make sure you don't get any lumps by mixing thoroughly. Add the flour to the oil gradually until it's all mixed. Next, add the water from the vegetables a bit at a time, stirring each time until you end up with a thinnish gravy. The next part's down to personal taste. I added some marmite and redcurrant jelly to my gravy; you might like oxo, pepper or other seasonings.

For the last bit, pour the gravy over the vegetables, roll out the pastry and cover your pie. Cook for approx. 40 minutes or until the pastry is golden.

Week Five: Moroccan vegetable stew with couscous

Sorry for the silence over the past few weeks; work's been catching up with me a bit!

Serves 4
Ingredients:
1/2 carton of creamed tomatoes
1 small squashkin (about 300g)
1 onion, chopped
1 small handful of pinenuts
1 small handful of cashew nuts
16 dried apricots
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp coriander
1 tsp turmeric
2 tsp paprika
2 tsp cumin
400g dry couscous
500ml strongly flavoured stock

Method
Fry the onion and turmeric in oil, then add the squashkin. Cook for 2 minutes, stirring constantly.
Add the tomato and the rest of the spices. Allow to simmer for about 5 minutes, then add the remainder of the ingredients. I personally like the apricots to be nearly falling apart, so after about 5 minutes, cook the couscous by adding the boiling stock. Leave to stand for 5 - 10 minutes then serve with the stew.

An Ode to Creamed Tomatoes

As you may have noticed if you've been following my blog, I'm a big fan of creamed tomatoes. This is because, if I'm perfectly honest, I don't like tomatoes. I don't eat raw tomatoes and I'm not overly keen on whole tomatoes even when they're cooked, though I like the flavour.
There is a point to this!
In any of the recipes that I put up that include creamed tomatoes, you can switch them for chopped tomatoes, whole tomatoes, tomato puree, pasata...
I'm just a bit boring ;)

Falafel pictures

Here are the pictures I promised!

Week Four: Falafel with salsa

Pictures to follow.
Cost: approx. £1.50 per person
Serves 4
Ingredients
For the falafel
2 cans of chickpeas
2 onions, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
5 large handfuls of parsley
1 dsp of rosemary
2 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cumin

For the sauce
2 peppers, one red, one yellow
Sundried tomato paste
3 tsp brown sugar
1 tsp caster sugar
White wine vinegar
1 carton creamed tomatoes

Method
Drain the chickpeas then blitz in a food processor (if you have one) until coarsely ground. If you don't have a food processor, mash the chickpeas with a fork.
Add the rest of the falafel ingredients and blitz again until smooth. Put to one side while you make the sauce.

Chop the peppers into 1 - 1.5 cm squares. Chop the onions roughly and add with the peppers to a pan with a tablespoon of oil and fry. Add the sugar and continue to fry until softened. Add the remainder of the ingredients (sundried tomato to taste) and cook until hot and completely mixed.

Heat 2 tbs of oil in a frying pan. Shape egg sized amounts of falafel mixture into flattened rounds. Place them carefully into the pan and fry until golden underneath. Flip and repeat. *Warning! They are fragile!*. Continue until all cooked then serve with the sauce, bread rolls and salad.

Week Three Part 2: Chicken with potato rosti

Sorry this is so late! Keeping up with blogs and A levels is pretty hard work... Anyway, here's my version of chicken with potato rosti.
 
Serves 4
Ingredients
4 chicken breasts
500g all purpose potatoes such as desiree, peeled
1 onion
1 tbs rosemary, chopped
4 sprigs of rosemary
2 tbs oil / 30g melted butter     (I don't really like butter...)



 A warning: Grating onions is hard on the eyes. This week, I discovered the wonders of a food processor, so where it says to grate the onions, feel free to blitz away! (Don't do this to the potatoes. You will end up with paste.)

Method
Preheat the oven to 220 degrees C (425F / GM7).
Grease a 12 hole muffin tin with either the butter or the oil - this is what will hold your rosti.
Boil the potatoes for about 7 minutes or until they're just tender (if they're too well cooked, this next part may get a bit messy!) Drain.
Grate the potatoes and onion into a bowl and add the rest of the fat and chopped rosemary. Mix well. Put forkfuls of the mixture into the holes in the tin and push down gently. Bake for approx. 45 minutes or until golden all over.
While the rosti are cooking, cut each chicken breast in two and shallow fry. When nearly cooked (going crisp golden brown), add in the sprigs of rosemary and cook for a further 2 minutes.
Run a pallete knife around the rosti and serve with the chicken and either salad or vegetables.