Eat More Variety Alphabet Challenge: D: D for Date: Pork & Date skewers

Things have been really busy lately what with birthday parties, end of school ballet shows, graduations, courses and kids that seem to be going to bed later and later. Add all that to the fact that the limited free time I have, I prefer to relax and watch a couple of TV programmes....namely Great British Bake Off  with professionals and Poldark,which hasn´t left me much time for blogging. I decided to make these Pork & Date Skewers from BBC Food recipes awhile ago but haven´t got around to blogging about them until now.

They were fairly quick and easy to make and made a tasty change. We cooked them on the electric griddle and I don´t know if it´s because I bought the wrong cut of meat or I cut the meat too thick but as you can see the outer layer of the pork got a little charred. I also doubled the quantity of dates as 5 didn´t appear too be many so maybe the sugars in the dates also contributed to the charring. Unfortunately these weren´t a hit with my toddler,who usually eats everything, and my daughter(no surprises there though!) so I haven´t succeeded in getting her to try or eat any dates yet!!In the recipe given, the pork and date skewers were served with a couscous salad but I decided to serve it with a version of Nasi Goreng.

Cooking England County by County: Cambridgeshire:Huntingdon Fidget Pie

We´re kicking off the first "C" county with Cambridgeshire,again a part of England that is unknown to me including typical dishes from this area. Apparently as it is very flat, many airfields were built there during the Second World War and is still used for many army and RAF operations however Cambridgeshire´s economy is largely based on agriculture. It´s not surprising that one of it´s typical dishes is this Huntingdon Fidget Pie, which is packed with bacon & apples and was usually prepared during harvest time to feed the workers.It is a mystery how this dish got its name. I´d never heard of it before, let alone tried it but I´m so glad I have now. It´s definitely worth making  and it has become one of my favourite pies. The smell of it baking alone had me salivating! I mean, come on, bacon and apples in a pie.....what´s not to like?

I looked at various recipes including one in my Farmhouse Fare cookbook and one from the Essentially Catering website. I wanted to make as "traditional" a Huntingdon Fidget Pie as possible. I wasn´t sure if it was supposed to have a pastry bottom or just a pastry lid and whether to layer the filling as one recipe said or to mix up all the filling together due to the variations in the recipes. Also the quantities were huge, enough to make 4 pies so I ended up adapting the recipe from the Essentially Catering website. I had some frozen leftover shortcrust pastry ,which I had defrosted,and then I decided to chuck all the filling ingredients  in as this seemed a much quicker option than layering it.

Ingredients (for 2-4 people)

125g shortcrust pastry
112g streaky bacon (as I couldn´t get this I used smoked bacon)
80g onion,chopped
112g cooking apple(I used Reinetas),peeled, cored and cubed
4-5  fresh sage leaves,chopped
Pinch of salt & pepper
                                                      1/4-1/2 cup of water
                                                      Beaten egg for glazing

Method:
1.Preheat oven to 200ºC.
2. Chop bacon and mix with chopped onion and apple.Season with salt,pepper and sage.
3.Place filling in pie dish.
4.Roll out pastry for pie lid and place on top of the pie,crimping the edges and sealing well.
5. Cut a cross in the middle of the pie and fold back edges of cross to make triangles and exposing the filling. Add water.
6. Brush with beaten egg and bake for around 25 minutes until pastry is golden brown.

Eat More Variety Alphabet Challenge: C for Cabbage: Fried Cabbage with bacon

So we´ve arrived at the second C for cabbage recipe in the Eat More Variety Challenge,in which I decided to use cabbage as a side dish. Cabbage is a vegetable we hardly eat and neither of my children have tried it before and this is a great way to jazz up cabbage and make it more palatable for fussy eaters or those who aren´t keen on it. Add bacon and garlic and what´s not to like??We loved it and even my 1 year old gobbled it down although my elder daughter wouldn´t  even try it. So an epic fail on trying to get my fussy eater to eat more variety and get more veggies down her! I won´t be giving up though, I have found some other cabbage recipes that I´m going to try out and hopefully eventually one of them will persuade her to try it!!I do know that I´ll be repeating this cabbage dish and cabbage is going to become a vegetable we consume more often.

The recipe I used was adapted from Delia Smith´s Complete Cookery Course, with the changes being that I used less cabbage than in the original recipe.I used around 350g as although we are 4 I knew that both my 1yr old and my daughter wouldn´t eat a huge amount of cabbage and I think there was plenty...we even had leftovers. I still used the full amount of bacon though. I´d definitely reccommend trying this dish as the bacon gives the cabbage a lovely taste and the crispy charred bits of cabbage and bacon are full of flavour.

Don´t forget that you are welcome to join in the Eat More Variety Alphabet Challenge anytime. All you have to do is publish  your cabbage recipe on your blog linking it back to this post and leaving a comment on this post and at the end of this month I will publish a round up of all the recipes with links to your blog.

Cooking England County by County: Bedfordshire: Bedfordshire Clangers

One thing that has always irritated me a little and is probably what started off my foodie obsession...is the fact that everybody says that British cuisine is bland and boring and that the British can´t cook. So I´ve decided to cook England county by county to prove to people that English food is more varied and tasty than they think.Also, it gives me the opportunity to discover and try out food from my own country that I´ve never had before and also provide us with a more varied diet!

The first county I´m starting off with is Bedfordshire,which is renowed for the Bedfordshire Clanger,something which is completely new to me. Bedfordshire Clangers are very similar to Cornish pasties(again something which surprizingly I´ve never eaten!!)which have a savoury meat filling at one end and a sweet filling at the other end. The idea of the Bedfordshire Clanger was so that miners or agricultural workers could take it to work with them  for their midday meal as they didn´t have time to come home for a big lunch and in this way they could have a main meal and a dessert all rolled into one.

I wasn´t sure if I would like Bedfordshire Clangers as they sounded a bit strange and I´m not sure if the recipe I used is a traditional one but whether it´s traditional or not, it is very tasty.Even my 2 and a half year old ate it!!Here´s a link to the recipe I used: http://uktv.co.uk/food/recipe/aid/513570. The only thing I did was to halve all the ingredients....the recipe says it serves 2 but even when halved, there was plenty....in fact I think I overfilled my Clangers, which is why one has split open a little and I also had leftover filling. It managed to feed 2 of us plus my toddler! The most fiddly bit was making the wall to seperate the two fillings.
I really enjoyed this dish and will be making it now and again in the future!

Green Papaya Salad with Prawns and Meat

About two years ago upon my return from my honeymoon in Vietnam, I promised I was going to share with you some Vietnamese recipes but basically it went out of the window and I´ve hardly cooked anything Vietnamese since. One reason being that it´s difficult to find the ingredients where I live and the other being that I just haven´t got round to it.

I have cooked this salad before and enjoyed it so decided to make it again for my mum. It´s a lovely, refreshing salad, ideal for a hot summer´s day,which takes me right back to my honeymoon and the flavours of Vietnam. This salad is a bit of a faff to make though so I don´t do it on a regular basis but it´s great if you want to impress someone or for a special dinner party. This recipe is based on a recipe from the book Delicious Dishes from Vietnam.

Ingredients (for 2-3 people)

1 green papaya (about 450g)....if you can´t get a green papaya,a normal papaya will do
100g -150g pork belly
150g prawns (I think I used slightly less prawns as am not overkeen on prawns)
1 carrot, finely grated
a pinch of chili flakes or 1 jalapeño pepper,seeded,1/2 grated,1/2 minced
2 shallots, thinly sliced and soaked in vinegar for 10 minutes
2 tsp crushed garlic
50g roasted peanuts, crushed
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp fish sauce (if you can´t find fish sauce, use soy sauce)
4 tsp salt
2 tbsp lime juice
1/4 cup coriander, chopped
fried shallots or crispy fried onion
1/4 cup vinegar
bag of ready-prepared prawn crackers

Method

1. Peel papaya,remove seeds and grate,add the grated carrot to the papaya.Sprinkle 2 tsp of salt on the carrot and papaya and squeeze out the juices,then rinse and drain well.
2. Wash prawns. Mix 1/4 cup of vinegar with 1/4 cup of water and 1 tsp of salt.Place prawns in a saucepan and boil in the vinegar mixture for 5 mins. I used frozen prawns but still cooked them in this way...if using fresh prawns, peel shells but leave the tails on.
3. Boil belly pork in 1/2 litre of water and 1 tsp of salt  for about 20 mins. When cooked, slice into 3cm long pieces.
4. Mix fish sauce, chili flakes, lime juice,garlic and sugar together.
5. Mix papaya, carrot, prawns, meat,shallots,coriander together with the fish sauce dressing.
6. Sprinkle salad with fried onions and peanuts and place prawn crackers around the salad attractively and enjoy the taste explosion in your mouth.

Char Siu Pork

I love Chinese and funnily enough one of the things I miss from good old Blighty is good Chinese food as Chinese food here in Spain is somewhat lacking in taste or in quality although it is cheap!One of my favourite dishes is Char Siu Pork, a dish which so far has proved impossible to find here (the Spanish don´t know what they are missing!!!)so when I came across the following recipe on fellow blogger Debs´s blog The Spanish Wok, I thought I´d give it a try.

Oh Boy,am I glad I tried it!Deb´s recipe is simple and easy to follow and the result is tasty, succulent pork oozing with  flavours such as five spice and hoisin sauce, really reminiscent of your local Chinese takeaway back in the UK!! I teamed the Char Sui pork with Annabel Karmel´s Vegetarian Nasi Goreng and this is a winning dish that everyone can enjoy,even my daughter loved it!!This will be a regular dish in our house from now on!

Dublin Coddle for St. Patrick´s Day

Over the St.Patrick´s Day weekend,I decided to make something typically Irish and despite never having heard of or having tried Dublin Coddle, thought it sounded pretty tasty and since I had all the ingredients to hand, went ahead and made it.

Although maybe not the healthiest meal, it is certainly a very tasty one and it is a pretty easy and fairly quick meal to prepare. It is also suitable for toddlers and my daughter really enjoyed it, particularly the sausages, which she wolfed down. This is yet another dish that I will be adding to my monthly repertoire (the only reason  it won´t make a more frequent appearance is due to it not being the healthiest of meals!)

I adapted the recipe from the book Cocina Irlandesa by Anne Wilson and tried to make it a little healthier.  
I´m not sure how traditional this version of the recipe is!Apparently, it was traditionally eaten on a Saturday night.

Ingredients (for 3-4 people)
 7-8 pork sausages
4 rashers of bacon (I used smoked bacon)
1 onion, finely chopped
1-2 cloves of garlic, crushed
3 medium-sized potatoes, thinly sliced
1/4 tsp dried sage
a pinch of ground black pepper
3/4 cup of chicken stock
2 tbsp frozen parsley
olive oil

Method
1. Cook the sausage and bacon on a non-stick griddle pan,brushed with a little olive oil,till a golden brown colour.
2.Fry the onion and garlic until tender and add the bacon,cut into strips.
3.Place the potatoes in a shallow casserole dish and add a layer of garlic,onion and bacon.
4.Sprinkle the pepper and sage over it and then pour the chicken stock over everything.
5.Place the sausages on top and add the parsley.
6.Cook in a preheated oven at 180ºC for an hour until potatoes are cooked through and serve warm.Enjoy!

Spa weekend in Seville and two restaurant reviews

I haven´t been doing much wandering lately since I got pregnant and having Chloe but finally about a month ago now, we managed to escape for a short weekend break at a spa in Seville, taking Chloe with us of course. We met up with my parents in Seville and they also stayed at the spa, Andalusi Park, with us to help look after Chloe while we enjoyed the spa. We also gave them a night and a spa circuit as a favour for them looking after Chloe. The Andalusi Park is a lovely hotel, very clean and modern, with spacious rooms and we were really lucky and had the biggest balcony to sit out on and enjoy!Breakfast was included and comprised of a buffet which you could help yourself to as little or as much as you wanted. The spa, although fairly small was very relaxing and just what I needed after all those sleepless nights after Chloe came along. I´ve never been to a spa before but thoroughly enjoyed it, from the sauna-style room, to the water jets, jacuzzi and massage. My fav part was the jacuzzi and massage and my least favourite was the hot shower followed by a swinging bucket which when you pull the cord, drenches you in freezing cold water. Now why would anyone willingly tip freezing cold water over their heads? I would definitely reccomend this hotel & spa with it only being a hop,skip and a jump away from Seville city centre (about 10mins drive and there is also a shuttle service from the hotel) and it is also a reasonable price, around 65 euros per night with breakfast included.

The first night we arrived, we decided to eat locally at a restaurant within a short walk of the hotel. We ended up at a lovely restaurant, La Alacena (Cabo de Gata, Benacazón), which was decorated really nicely for Christmas.It was quite spacious so there was enough room for Chloe´s buggy. For starters we ordered some seafood bits & pieces (I can´t remember what exactly as I didn´t eat any of it seeing as I don´t like seafood very much) and some ham croquettes, which were very tasty. My mum and I ordered the "presa iberíca",a pork cut from the shoulder blade as far as I can gather with apples and a toffee sauce, which was absolutely delicious. The pork was lovely and tender and the sauce not too sweet or heavy.

My husband had fish and my stepdad had lamb chops. We were all too stuffed to order any dessert. I´m not sure what the bill was but dishes cost between 15-25 euros. Definitely worth a visit if you are in the area.

We spent a lovely day in Seville seeing the sights. I don´t know who enjoyed it more, us or Chloe...she loved taking in all the new sights and sounds and hardly slept a wink all day.That evening we decided to go back into Seville and try a Japanese restaurant.I haven´t eaten in many true Japanese restaurants and they don´t really grab my attention much as I don´t like fish or seafood much so sushi is definitely a no-no! It took us awhile to find it but with the help of the SatNav we finally arrived at Sakura (Avda.San Francisco Javier 19). It is a fairly small restaurant with modern decor and Japanese touches such as prints and pictures. I had a meat & vegetable dumpling to start with, which was tasty although I don´t know where the vegetable was as it tasted a bit sausagey! I then had rice and if I remember rightly duck teriyaki. Everything was delicious but the portions were fairly small and it probably cost the same as the previous night but for a lot less food. The food was very nice and I´d reccomend this restaurant if you want something a bit different but for me the portions were a little on the small side. Unfortunately, I didn´t get any photos of the food as I didn´t have my camera with me!

Bangers & Champ Mash for St Paddy´s Day

As tomorrow is St.Patrick´s Day and I´m actually part Irish, in fact my surname should be O´Brian but my Grandmother changed it, I wanted to try out an Irish recipe and settled on Champ as the ingredients are easy to find and it is a fairly quick and simple dish to make. Champ is basically mashed potato with spring or green onions added to it. I used James Martin´s recipe,the only changes being adjusting the amounts so it was suitable for two people and leaving the skin of the potaoes on to add more fibre and save time.

As Bangers & Mash is a very typical dish in Britain and Champ is basically mashed potato, I served it with some pork sausages, which I cooked on a grill (plancha)....that´s why they are very thin and long...I think I squashed them a bit! Anyway, it makes for a simple but tasty dinner, reminscent of pub grub and homemade comfort food. Traditionally Bangers & Mash is associated with the working -class and you can just imagine them coming home from a hard day´s work and tucking in to this hearty dish! Happy St. Patrick´s Day to you all!

Easy Sausage, Fennel & Red Pepper Pasta

I love sausages but they´re something I don´t really eat a lot of: 1) because I miss the big, juicy British bangers and 2) because they aren´t very healthy. Every once in awhile though, it´s ok to indulge. I came across this recipe the other day when wondering what type of pasta dish to make (pasta features at least once a week on my daily meal repertoire) in Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book and I have adapted it slightly. One of my favourite types of sausages which I discovered when I was in the US, are Italian sausages and I miss them as I can´t get them here in Spain. The orginal recipe actually calls for Italian sausage and as I had some leftover fennel, I added it to the dish, which is the next best thing!

Ingredients (for 2)

pasta shells or bow ties for two (I used tricolour pasta shells)
4 (6 oz.) pork sausages, sliced
1/2-1/4 fennel, chopped
1/2 red pepper, chopped
1/4 to 1/3 cup (depending how much sauce you like) vegetable stock (I used vegetable Oxo stock cube)
1/8 tsp black pepper
1 tbsp frozen/dried parsley
1 tbsp olive oil

Method
1. Fry pepper and fennel in olive oil until tender.
2. In meantime, cook pasta in salted boiling water until al dente and drain. Keep warm.
3. Add sausage and cook until sausages are brown or completely cooked through.
4. Add black pepper, vegetable stock and parsley and bring to boiling, lower heat and cook for 5 minutes.
5. Serve with pasta.

Pork & Peach Kebabs

I made this awhile ago but just haven´t got round to blogging about it until now. Unfortunately, I only have the one photo as we were starving and it was all we could do not to gobble it up, then and there! This is a recipe adapted from quite an old book, which I found in the library, called Miss Read´s Country Cooking and I think it´s a British recipe.

Ingredients: (to serve 2)

1/2 lb (around 230g) pork fillet/tenderloin,cubed

1/2 green pepper, chopped into thick squares

about 2-4 canned peach halves, quartered

1/8 pt peach juice (from canned peaches)

4-6 button mushrooms

1/8 pt water

juice from 1/2 lemon

1/2 tbsp of soy sauce

salt & pepper to taste

1/2 tbsp cornflour/cornstarch

4 wooden skewers

Method

1.Soak skewers in water to prevent them from burning. Chop all ingredients.

2. Blanch mushrooms and pepper in boiling water for about 5 mins.

3. Thread pork, peach halves, pepper and mushrooms onto skewers. Brush with olive oil and place in oven under the grill for about 20-30 mins. During this time baste with oil frequently and turn kebabs to cook them evenly.

4.Heat peach juice, water, lemon juice & soy sauce.

5. Mix cornflour with a little water and peach juice to make paste.

6. Pour peach & soy sauce mixture into paste and mix, then return it to the pan and cook for 5 mins, stirring continuously till sauce thickens. Season with salt and pepper.

7. Serve kebabs with rice or potatoes and vegetables and drizzle peach sauce on top of the kebabs.

Bilbao-style meatballs (Albóndigas a la bilbaína)

Although this picture doesn´t do the meatballs much justice and I can´t say much for my presentation here, but it is a delicious dish, trust me!! There are so many meatball recipes and this is my latest favourite. It is adapted from a recipe from the book Las 1000 Mejores Recetas de Cocina.

Ingredients (serves 2)

250 g pork &veal/beef mince (I had just under 200g)
1 slice of bread (made into crumbs) or 25g breadcrumbs
1 egg, beaten (only use half of it)
2 garlic cloves,finely chopped
oil
1tsp dried or frozen parsley
salt & pepper to taste
flour
1tbsp milk
Sauce:
1/2 medium sized onion,sliced
1-2 carrots, finely sliced
1tbsp olive oil
20g tomato sauce
1 (Oxo)beef stock cube made up to 1/4 cup
1/4 cup white wine
salt and pepper to taste
1tbsp flour

Method:

1. Soak the breadcrumbs in the milk, then place mince, breadcrumbs, garlic, parsley, salt and pepper and egg in a bowl and mix until combined.
2. Form into round balls of equal size and roll in flour.
3. Fry onions and carrots in 1tbsp olive oil till soft.
4. Mix the tablespoon of flour to the beef stock and add to onion and carrots.
5. Add tomato sauce and wine and season with salt and pepper-cook on a medium heat for 15-20mins till sauce thickens as shown in picture below:



6.While sauce in cooking, heat abundant olive oil in a small frying pan and when hot, add meatballs until browned.
7.Drain meatballs in kitchen roll to get rid of excess oil and then add to the sauce.
6. Cook for a further 20 mins in sauce until meatballs and carrots are cooked through.
7. Serve with potatoes, pasta or rice.(I´m not sure if traditionally these meatballs are served with anything in Bilbao but I like to eat it with one of the aforementioned carbohydrates!) Enjoy!

Look out for my upcoming posts about Mixed Mushroom Thai Red Curry and my review of a Sugarcraft DVD!

Pork Stroganoff

(Just added a photo to this post after making this dish again!)

I´d taken a pork fillet/escalope out which had been left over and was at a bit of a loss as to what to do with it seeing as I was only cooking for myself. In the end, I decided to use up some of my leftovers and although I wouldn´t say that I´m a very creative cook, I came up with this pork stroganoff dish without using a recipe,which turned out to be rather delish, even if I do say so myself! Unfortunately, I didn´t get a photo of it as I was so hungry that it hardly lasted two minutes on the plate before I had wolfed it down! This is roughly what I did!

Ingredients (Serves 1)

1 small pork fillet/escalope (it was so small I actually added the green pepper to bulk out the meal and add more veggies to the meal)

1 small onion or 1/2 a medium onion, chopped

1/4 green pepper, chopped

3 small mushrooms, sliced

1 tbsp plain flour

1/4 cup cream ( the remainder in my case)

salt & pepper to taste

1/4 cup of cider (also left over from other pork recipes)

olive oil or butter

Method

1. Chop pork fillet into thin slices.

2. Fry onion, mushrooms and green pepper till tender.

3. Add pork & season with salt & pepper and fry till browned.

4. Mix flour and cream together.

5. Add cream and the cider and cook till sauce thickens and pork is cooked through, about 5-10mins.

6. Serve with pasta or rice.

If the sauce reduces too much, add a little more cream (or milk in my case as I didn´t have any more cream). If anyone decides to make this recipe, I´d love to hear your feedback and any suggestions of how to improve it & make it even more tasty!

Spanish- style meatballs (18th Feb, 2009)

I made these last week as a special treat for Valentine´s Day as it´s one of my boyfriend´s favourite meals. It´s based on some blog recipes from La Cocina de Lala and La Cocina de Lechuza and what I can remember of the usual recipe I use in Spain from my recipe book, "1000 Mejores Recetas" so should be fairly authentic. Unfortunately, as you can see in the photo the meatballs didn´t retain their round shape and ended up a bit flat looking-more like a burger! However, the end result is moist, soft and tender meatballs.

Ingredients(for 2/3 people)

300g( just over 1/2 lb) of pork mince (it´s more authentic if you can buy pork and beef mince mixed)

1 slice of bread, crumbed (use 2 slices if bread is small or you can also use ready made breadcrumbs)

1/4 cup of milk (I used 1/2 cup and the mixture was too wet!)

1 clove of garlic, finely chopped

1tsp dried parsley

pinch of salt

pinch of pepper(optional)

1 egg

1 small onion, finely chopped

1 cup of white wine

2 tsps paprika

1/2 tsp flour

flour

2 tbsps olive oil

Method

1. Soak breadcrumbs in milk.

2.Mix pork mince, breadcrumbs, salt & pepper, parsley, garlic and egg in bowl. If meat mixture is very sticky, add a bit of flour to help bind.

3. Shape into balls, about 8 in total. Roll in flour.

4.Heat oil and fry meatballs till browned. Set aside.

5. Using oil left over from meatballs, fry onion until soft.

6. Add wine, paprika and flour and cook on medium to low heat till sauce thickens.

7. Replace meatballs and simmer until meatballs thouroughly cooked.

You can serve this with rice, pasta or fried potatoes whatever you prefer, the typical way Spanish people serve this is without any side dishes as this would be served as the first or main dish. Spanish meals usually consist of two large dishes. The first may be a soup, pasta, vegetable or fish dish usually followed by a meat or fish dish.