This Week's Meals #2

Monday:  Caribbean Sweet Potato Patties with Spicy Coconut and Spinach Sauce from Cook, Eat, Live Vegetarian

Source: Cook, Eat, Live Vegetarian

Tuesday:  Eating at mums. I've just started yoga classes on Tuesdays within walking distance from my mums. My mum is a typical Turkish mum and wouldn't hear of me being that close and not popping in to eat with them, which is absolutely fine by me!

Wednesday:   On Wednesday me and my sister are taking a cookery class called 'Fire and Spice' at Morgan's Kitchen in Camden. We'll learn how to use spices and chillies and make our own mixtures to take home. I'm not that great when it comes to mixing different spices so this class is right up my street. At the end of the class we get to eat our dishes, so I'll post some pictures and hopefully a recipe!

Thursday: Turkish Stuffed Artichokes and Peppers from me! Recipe and post to follow later in the week.

Friday:  Singapore Noodles from 'Dietitian UK'

Source: Dietitian UK

Saturday:  Chilli Marrakech from BBC Good Food

Source: BBC Good Food

Sunday:  Caprese Ravioli with Roasted Tomato Pesto Sauce from 'Proud Italian Cook'

Source: Proud Italian Cook



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Falafel, Salad and Pickles

This was on this week's meal plan and I found the recipe on 'Flourishing Foodie'. I've tended not to bother making my own falafel as they always turn out too dry or too crumbly, but I really fancied falafel this week! This one was a bit crumbly but I know what to try next time to avoid that, for example using dry chickpeas like the recipe suggests rather than tinned chickpeas that I used. Next time I'll also add a bit more flour (I used gram flour instead of plain) and maybe another egg and keep them in the fridge for longer to firm up a bit more.

There is nothing else I would change as the taste was absolutely perfect!

We had them with lettuce, tomato, olives, gherkins and pink pickles that our neighbour gave us. I think they're pink because she used beetroot but can't be sure because there wasn't any pickled beetroot in the jar!? I also made a tahini sauce, with tahini paste, pinch of cumin, lemon juice and water. The idea was that we choose whatever we want from the platter and stuff them into pitta's, but I skipped the pitta's to save room for more falafel. Either way, this was a perfect Friday, night in meal.

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Turkish Pea Stew ('Bezelye')

Tonight's dinner was this pea stew. Like most Turkish dishes, the base of this is gently fried onions and either chopped tomatoes or tomato paste (or even pepper paste). You could serve it with it plain rice but its fine on its own with just a dollop of yoghurt. Turkish people tend to eat bread with absolutely everything and I like this with soft buttered bread dipped in the juices, yum! If you're veggie or just want a meat free dish you can easily leave out the chicken without effecting the taste too much.

Ingredients;
2 tbsp olive oil
1 heaped tbsp pepper paste
3 medium chicken breasts, cubed (optional)
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 large carrot, cut into small chunks
1 medium potato, cut into small chunks
400g frozen garden peas
1ltr vegetable or chicken stock
Salt and pepper

Fry onions for 2-3 minutes without letting them brown, add pepper paste and fry for another few minutes. Add chicken breast and stir fry until they turn a pale colour, add carrots and potatoe and fry for a further 5-6 minutes. Add peas, give it a good stir and add stock, salt and pepper. Simmer gently until cooked, about 40 minutes.

Hope you enjoy! Would love to hear from anyone that has tried this!!

I'm also submitting this recipe into 'Made with love Mondays' which is a weekly series hosted by Javelin Warrior's website 'Cookin' with Lov'  to "promote, share and celebrate foods made entirely from scratch. Always Fresh, Always from Scratch", my kind of cooking! 

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This Week's Meals #1

Because of my recent uncontrollable hunger, unless I pre plan and prepare weekday meals I can quite easily eat whatever is easiest or closest. This usually ends up being a take away or junk food so I'm trying to make an effort to plan mid week meals that's are quick, easy and nutritious. Here are this week's meals, I'll blog about how I get on with them too! The other thing about this weeks meals is that they are all made from ingredients we already had in the house!

Monday - Turkish Pea, Chicken, Potato and Carrot Stew ('Bezelye') from my mum

Tuesday - Eating at Mums

Wednesday: Chicken Wings with cumin, lemon and garlic from BBC Good Food with side of grilled corn on the cob 

Thursday: Sweet Onions and Lentils from BBC Food

Friday: Spicy Falafels from Flourishing Foodie with salad, pickles and tahini sauce.

Saturday: Jerk Chicken with Rice n Peas from BBC Good Food

Sunday: "Tidy Friday Pan Fry" from Nigel Slater on BBC Food

I'll be entering my weekly meals in to 'Meal Planning Mondays' over at Mrs M's blog from now on!

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Spinach Lasagne Rolls

I made this a few weeks ago when I was making a conscious effort to eat more spinach for iron. I found it on one of my favourite blogs Skinnytaste. I made it the night before we were going to eat it and then just put it in the oven when I got in from work (love it when I'm that organised!).

I used fresh lasagne sheets from Sainsbury's, they're really wide so I cut them in half length ways and made two rolls with one sheet. I finished it off slightly different to the original recipe in that I covered all the rolls in the tomato sauce and sprinkled on the the mozzarella (shredded a mozzarella ball in the food processor). The carrot made the sauce quite sweet so I might use less carrot next time.

Source: Skinnytaste 

For a pasta dish it was really light and genuinely delicious! A perfect midweek meal that freezes well too! 

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Nigel Slater's Spaghetti Bolognese

All this talk of beef and horsemeat made me crave Spaghetti Bolognese today. I've made this version before, its Nigel Slater's. Its really rich and tasty. The recipe includes milk and red wine which might sound strange but works really well.

The recipe suggests cooking it in batches and freezing it, a really good idea but with Mr A's amazing capacity for food, we hardly ever have leftovers in our house so I'd have to make huge, industrial size quantities. Having said that if I get really organised before baby comes I am going to make extra portions of meals and freeze them. I'm probably not going to have the time or energy to cook once baby comes. Although I know Mr A won't let us go hungry and will cook us up some meals too!

What's your favourite freezer friendly meals?

 

Mr A's spag bol mountain:

 

 

 

I'm putting this recipe forward for the 'Dish of the Month' challenge hosted by Farmersgirl Kitchen. I know this recipe isn't particularly challenging or different but it tasted bloody good when Spaghetti Bolognese was exactly what I wanted!

 

 

 

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Easy Dessert: Pavlova

We had friends over for dinner at the weekend. We had poppadoms, dips and onion bhaji's to start and Butter Chicken for main. Dessert is always an after thought for me, I'd much rather spend most of my time on the main that fraffing out with dessert - not sure why? I've never really had a sweet tooth, maybe that's why, although looking at my last couple posts I wouldn't blame you for not believing that!!

Pavlova has to be the easiest dessert ever and that's what I made at the weekend. All it is, is ready made, individual meringue, berries (or any fruit), double cream and icing sugar. Job done!

So, what's your favourite easiest recipe?

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Raw, Vegan, Gluten Free Chocolate, Hazelnut Cheesecake

I can't believe it's taken me this long to write about this. Late last year, we decided with some work friends that we would start our own version of 'Come Dine With Me', we've had two evenings so far and they've been so much fun. The first night was themed, we all went dressed in costume from our chosen decades.

Charlotte 1940's, David 1980's, Kirsty 1920's and me 1950's! 

I realised that night that eating food cooked by other people in their homes really is one of my favourite things to do! Not sure what that's about.... growing up our lives revolved around food and eating with lots of family and friends so I have lots of good memories of this. Although not many memories of fancy dress and food, so thats got to change!! Anyway one of my friends doesn't eat gluten, so when I was looking for gluten free desert inspiration I came across the mother of all deserts at 'The Sweet Life'.

Source 

It's a chocolate and hazlenut cheesecake and it tasted delicious! I made it over three days because each layer has to set before you add the next layer, a bit labour intensive but so, so worth it! It's very rich too so it can go a long way if you serve smaller portions. Enjoy!

My version;

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