Indian rice

Rice is nice isn’t it? (Rhetorical.)

Put a scoop of butter and a glug of oil into a saucepan. Add a good tablespoon of garam masala. Fry for a bit.

Add some mixed veg from the freezer. Stir for a bit.

Add 50g rice per person. Measure this rice in cups so you know how “big” it is. Stir it round a bit.

Then add 2.5x as much boiling water as there was rice, cover and simmer for 12-15 minutes ish, or until cooked.

Ideally, as it’s rice you shouldn’t poke it too much, but if it looks like it is drying out then add a bit more water. The aim is that you won’t have to drain it at the end, just spoon it out.

Season with salt and black pepper, and squeeze a bit of lemon juice on if you are feeling posh.

Optional: stir in some dessicated coconut, sprinkle with flaked almonds.

Goes well with curry, or just a spoon of thick yogurt. Mmm!

Frozen fruit ice cream

Just watching Jamie’s money saving meals and have already cooked a recipe from it. He suggests freezing fruit when you’ve got too much which is a fab idea. The only problem is the reasons I waste fruit are both cant be bothered to eat it and can’t be bothered to prepare it. But will be using this tip a lot, especially when we move to the new house which will fit a chest freezer in the cellar! I will also be trying out his tip of freezing the ingredients for a smoothie together in a little bag, even including a few oats, so you can just tip them into the blender with milk. Yum yum!
Anyway, the ice cream. It’s supposed to use fruit you’ve frozen yourself but I had half a pack of bought frozen raspberries left over from a a raspberry bakewell I made so used them. There aren’t really any measurements, just trial and error I guess!

Blend frozen fruit with plain yoghurt (I used two pots of children’s apricot yoghurt as hadn’t got any natural) until smoothish but cold
Eat!

This is definitely in the permanent collection!

Shortcrust pastry

As with most things, this is easy. If you don’t have something just put something else similar in.

Ingredients
225g plain flour
100g butter or butter-a-like
A pinch salt
Water or something like it

Okay.

Put the flour in the food processor with the butter and the salt. I didn’t have any butter so I used the light stuff that they always tell you not to use. Also my hand slipped with the salt so I can confirm that anywhere up to a teaspoon of salt is fine.

Mix them up.

Add water bit by bit until it comes together as a dough. I was making sweet pastry so I put a bit of icing sugar in too. I once read that lemon juice was good in pastry but we didn’t have any of that as Juliet had used it in one of her extravagant recipes (see above… and probably below).

So I used Morrison’s Peach fruit and barley squash.

Once it’s together as a dough take it out, knead it a bit, and then use it.

Voilà!

I have been reading the blog and I see now why Juliet has not been keeping the house tidy. Posts will slow down now as I correct her behaviour. Enjoy your pastry.

Warning: may contain nuts

I have never made Nut Brittle before, but I will again. It is tremendously easy.

I used cashews as my mum had given me her leftovers from Christmas. I’m sure it would work with peanuts too. Or other nuts – let me know.

Ingredients
50g cashew nuts
50g sugar (I used golden caster)

Method

1. Put nuts and sugar into a pan.
2. Heat until the sugar caramelises.
3. Pour onto a sheet of greaseproof paper.
4. Let it set.

You might have noticed me struggling to string out the instructions. Really it’s just “mix, heat, cool”. You should wash your pan straight away though – if it cakes on it could be challenging.

To be fair there are probably better pans to use – I used a 30cm IKEA wok as we hadn’t done the washing up for a few days. I’m such a pro.

Red lentil and sweet potato pate

This is going quite well at the minute isn’t it? This pate is totally delicious. I was gutted this evening to find it was finished! Will hopefully be making it again next week because it’s a) delicious b) 1 of your 5 a day and c) low-calorie! Yum yum!

Ingredients
Oil
1/2 onion (I used a small one)
1 small sweet potato
140g red lentils
Thyme
Paprika
500ml stock
Red wine vinegar

Method

1. Heat the oil, add onion and cook until golden.
2. Add paprika and cook for 2 more mins.
3. Add sweet potato, lentils, thyme and stock. Cook for 20 mins and all tender.
4. Add vinegar and season. Mash/ blend. Add paprika/ olive oil/ thyme as wanted, then chill.

Another Julietbec special- easy and delicious. Whoop Whoop!

Lemony chorizo and prawn rice pot

Hello!

I am not as poncey as Chris, and as a result will be sharing only delicious and easy recipes which do not require the use of fancy biscuit cutters. Unless I make biscuits, in which case fancy biscuit cutters are OK, especially if baking with Panther (our small baby- she is only 11 months and therefore pre-cooking age, although in a future post I will share the story of when we made Halloween biscuits with her!)

This one comes from my good food magazine and it’s really delicious. So delicious we’re having it again this week. Keeping every new recipe on the menu will not be practical for very long so we’ll need to be careful, otherwise if we keep them all on we’ll be eating 50 meals a week after the year, which would really be too many!

Anyway, here goes (from memory):

Ingredients
200g prawns (recipe calls for raw, which you’d heat through at the end, I used cooked and left over from Christmas)
50g chorizo (for cooking, about 3 small ones, but could happily take more, sliced)
1 sliced onion
2 sliced peppers
2 crushed garlic cloves
1 red chilli, chopped
1/2 tsp turmeric
250g long grain rice (I’m not really one for measuring that much, and the scales don’t work, but this amount is quite important so it boils down to the right consistency!)
100g frozen peas
Zest and juice of 1 lemon

Method

1. boil kettle. Fry onion, peppers, chorizo, garlic and chilli for 3 mins
2. Add turmeric and rice. Stir. Add 500ml boiling water and cook for 12 mins, covered
3. Uncover and stir, should be nearly cooked. Add prawn and peas, and more water if not needed. Cook for 1 min until prawns are cooked (obviously this doesn’t apply if you use cooked prawns like me – they can be added later or even at the table!)
4. Stir in lemon zest and juice and eat. Serves 4 and is yummy!

Square potatoes

Let’s start off with something simple! This isn’t an exact-quantities recipe, it’s more of a make-use-of-what-you’ve-got-lying-around one.

Ingredients
Some potatoes
A bit of egg
Whatever else is in your fridge/cupboard

Special equipment
Biscuit cutter

Method

1. Boil potatoes in plenty of salted water.
2. Drain and mash when cooked through.
3. Add other things – I added a bit of sweet potato, you could add some sautéed spring onion or something (I don’t like them but I can see they would work), maybe a bit of cheese. I always recommend a knob of butter and some (not too much!) milk. And salt and black pepper of course!
4. Make shapes on a baking sheet (astute readers will have guessed that I boringly used squares) using your biscuit cutter. Brush with the egg and bake for about 15 minutes or until they are crisping up and going brown.

Cookery books never say “going brown” do they? I think I mean “turning a delicate golden colour”. Yes, that’s better.

Use more adventurous shapes and give your children some home-made smiley faces/alphabites!