Nigella's crab pasta

Tuesday night is running club night, so I always get in at about 8:30pm starving hungry and physically pretty much knackered. Dinner has to be quick, extremely easy, and warming (particularly when its snowy out like it was last night!).

This week I finally made a pasta recipe which I'd been recommended by my friend Alana AGES ago (sorry it took me so long to get round to it Alana!). It was a recipe for crab and linguine by Nigella Lawson.

As ever, I did adjust the recipe a bit as I went along, but you can find it here in its unmessed-around state.

These were my alterations:
I used a tin of white crab meat instead of fresh crab and added a handful of prawns to bump it up a bit. I used a lot less olive oil - about 1/2 or 1/3 of the quantity in the recipe. It just didn't seem necessary to make it that oily! Also we had a bit of red pepper and some cherry tomatoes in the fridge so I threw those in. No linguine in the cupboard, so penne instead. And finally, a mixture of rocket, baby spinach and watercress instead of just watercress.



Very easy, very quick, very tasty. Hurrah!

Thanks Alana!

In (late) celebration of Chinese New Year

It was Chinese New Year last weekend (14th February), but I had a busy weekend and got back late on sunday from playing the cello at a wedding, so my intended Chinese-style meal had to be postponed for a week. This turned out to be a good thing in the end, as leafing through this saturday's Guardian newspaper I came across a delicious sounding Thai/Chinese style salad which I decided to make for the main course.

I tried out Salt and Szechuan Pepper Prawns (I have made these before, so they can't count towards a Recipe of the Week!), which are always yummy. I love the flavour of szechuan pepper.

Also, steamed vegetable stuffed spring rolls. I used rice noodle wrappers for these, which were a disaster! Rubbish to work with; either too sticky or too easy to crack. The filling was delicious but the wrappers were completely inedible. Never again. I'll use wonton wrappers next time.

Then the piece-de-resistance, Pork and Mango Salad. I tweaked the recipe from the newspaper in the following ways:

I used Pork instead of Beef.
I didn't have any avocado so I left it out, but added a few cherry tomatos and a few slices of spring onion.
I had watercress in the fridge but no rocket, so it was a watercress salad for us.
Dan had the salad with oodles of noodles, I had it as it came. Both were good.

Delicious - thank you Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.



Find the salad recipe here

I also made crumpets this weekend; nice to have on a snowy day after a run across the hills.





They were quite time-consuming to cook though, and not so much better than shop-bought ones, so I think laziness will prevail in future and I'll buy them ready-made!

Sunshine = icecream

We had sunshine and blue sky in Oxford today, I also spotted snowdrops in my parents' garden...oh yeah! Spring is on its way.

So, the first icecream outing of the year. And my, what an outing it was!

Any of you who have never been should really get yourselves to Oxford quick-smart and try the icecream in G&D's. My venue of choice is the Little Clarendon Street branch:


But any of the 3 will do just fine.

Today I went completely over the top with a Dime Bar cookie and a MASSIVE scoop of creamy delicious dime bar crunch icecream. I savoured it a nibble at a time over the Culture section of the newspaper.

Who says comfort food doesn't work?! It did the trick for me.

Normal service (ie healthy eating) resumes again as of now, but it was sooooo worth overloading the calories on this particular occasion!

Must have a go at homemade icecream. Its so much better than anything I've ever found in the shops.

G&D's Website
and
wiki page

Smoked fish bake

My Dad has got involved!

He was very enthusiastic about this recipe when I went home for a visit last weekend. He picked up the recipe card in Waitrose & adapted it a little by changing double cream to creme fraiche and adding paprika.

I decided to have a go too (you can't ignore it when a parent pitches in), but in true Greenaway-fashion I couldn't resist tinkering with the recipe a little more. Consequently the creme fraiche has now become yoghurt, herbs have been added, and I have increased the proportion of fish and reduced the amount of potato.

Here's what I ended up with:

Smoked Haddock and Potato Bake

300g smoked haddock (I prefer undyed)
300g potato
150g plain yoghurt
100ml water (from poaching the fish)
1/2 onion
1 garlic clove
shake of paprika
a few mint leaves
handful of flat leaf parsley

Preheat oven to 200C.
Poach the fish for 5 minutes in simmering water, then take it out of the water and flake it. Reserve 100 ml of the cooking liquid.

Finely slice the potato, then cut into matchstick shapes. Slice up the onion and garlic. In an oven proof dish mix together potato, onion, garlic and fish.

Pour the yogurt and water over the top, sprinkle on the paprika and season with salt and pepper. Mix the whole lot together so that everything is coated in yoghurt.

Bake in the oven for about an hour until the potato is tender. Check after 20 minutes and if the top is browning too quickly then cover with foil for the remainder of the cooking time.

5 or 10 minutes from the end of the cooking time mix in the fresh herbs.

Served with peas it was indeed a very tasty supper - Thanks Dad!

PANCAKE DAY!

It may be my favourite day of the year!

And no, I'd never made pancakes before last night. At least I don't think so. I knew the basic principle because I have made Gallettes a few times, which are just a different kind of pancake; made with water and buckwheat flour.

Anyway, I made my batter in the morning and left it in the fridge to rest while I went to work.

300ml milk
1 egg
4oz (115g) plain flour
Whisk it all together

Then, I whisked it all up again and got myself prepared:


BUT, the pan was useless! The non-stick coating clearly isn't very non-stick any more so the pancakes stuck.
Scrape, scrape, bin. And repeat.

After 2 failed attempts I switched pans:


And hoorah, they worked! That's steam, not smoke, I promise!

Dan was pleased, as he got to use the lemon that his mate brought back from his place in Cyprus for the lemon and sugar topping (nice to have friends with homes in useful places):



And I was pleased because I discovered that I am pancake-flipper extraordinaire: I didn't miss a single catch. How marvellous.

curry for comfort

Families....who'd have'em?!

Last night I felt in the need for tasty, spicy comfort food. We had chicken in the fridge, rice in the cupboard, so chicken biriani was the decision. The BBC website came up with the recipe for me (simplified to aid preparation when feeling slightly befuddled), and it did the trick far better than a large slab of chocolate would have done (that was my fall back solution).

Here's the recipe. It was quick and easy. Perfect for a quick week-night supper. The only downside is that my hands still smell of curry spices.

Chicken Biriani for 2 people (fairly generous portions)

1 dessertspoon vegetable oil
125g basmati rice
1 medium onion (chopped)
4 garlic cloves (chopped)
2 teaspoons grated root ginger
2 chicken breasts (cut into bite sized chunks)
1/4 teaspoon hot chilli powder
1 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
generous pinch grated nutmeg
150g sheeps yogurt (or any greek-style yoghurt)
60g sultanas
Handful of fresh coriander leaves (chopped)
salt to taste

Heat oil over a low heat and gently stirfry the onion, garlic and ginger until the onion softens.
In a separate pan pour boiling water over the rice (add a shake of salt if you like), bring back to the boil and simmer until nearly cooked - about 10 minutes.
Add the chicken pieces to the onion and garlic and stir fry for 4-5 minutes until there is no uncooked meat showing on the chunks.
Drain the rice and then rinse with a kettle full of boiling water.
Add the spices to the chicken mixture and stir for about 1 minute, then add the yogurt, sultanas, rice and salt to taste.
Stir to mix everything together, then cover, turn the heat down as low as it will go and leave for 4 or 5 minutes.
Add the coriander leaves and stir.
Remove from heat and allow to sit for another 5 minutes before serving.
Serve with yoghurt and mango chutney on the side. You could have some chopped up tomatoes and cucumber on the side too if you fancied them.

Tonight is Pancake Day! Hooray! I have made my pancake batter in readyness, so its pancakes for tea. With sugar and lemon, of course.
I suspect my pancake flipping will not be up-to-scratch, but I will be having a try anyway!

Jerk chicken recipe...since you asked nicely

Right then....I'm not sure how authentic this is, but here's my slightly adapted recipe for Jerk Chicken kebabs. Served with sticky rice and some veg its enough for 2 people for a main meal (on a hungry day - I had run a decent distance in the cold and it filled me up).

You will need:

2 chicken breasts cut into bite-sized pieces
6 cherry tomatoes
1 courgette (zucchini) sliced into chunks

6 skewers
oven proof dish

Marinade ingredients:

1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon Ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
pinch ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon brown sugar (demerera)
1 garlic clove - crushed
1/4 onion - finely chopped
1 teaspoon vinegar (I used white wine vinegar)
Juice of 1/2 lime
pinch chilli flakes or chilli powder
approx tablespoon of water

Mix all the marinade ingredients together. Stir in the chicken until well coated with marinade. Leave to marinade for at least a couple of hours in the fridge (or overnight).
Preheat the oven to 180C.
Thread the meat, tomatoes, and courgette onto skewers, alternating meat and vegetables.
Arrange skewers in oven proof dish and bake in oven for about 20 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked through. Cook the rice while they bake.

You could serve this with flatbreads instead of rice, or on their own as a starter.
Also, I'm sure the kebabs could be grilled or barbequed just as effectively.

Enjoy!