Tasty Tuesday - July 11

Good Mornin'
First things first, I know I have been rather lacklustre with this blog of late, I have good intentions, they last a couple of weeks and then I run out of steam and it all goes kaput. Not much fun for me, not much fun for you!
So instead of me trying to do the stuff I want every single week, I'm concentrating on doing stuff monthly. Quality over quantity! :)
So yes, there will be less, but it will be more regular and much better... I hope. ;) Tell me if its crap ok.

Now I love food. Good food. I love it, and I am also greedy, always have been. 'Eyes bigger than my belly' and 'bottomless pit' my family used to say.
and if you can have good food thats also super simple and easy to prepare, all the better. Means you get to eat it quicker/with less hassle. woo-hoo. That cannot be a bad thing. (If any of you have some lovely simple recipes you would be kind enough to share with me please do, I love to try new things. Or, let me know if you fancy taking over my Tasty Tuesday one time too!)

This is something that I spotted on a blog I have become a regular reader of. A wee bit of cooking, and it inspired me to give baked gnocchi a bash. This has become a firm favourite in our home and its so super simple and easy anyone can do it. (I totally cheat and use pre prepared stuff from the supermarket! ha)

Ingredients

Gnocchi

Cherry tomatoes

Dried garlic

Dried chillies

Passata (I use the stuff with basil, yum)

Black pepper

Cheese (Parmesan, grated cheddar, mozzarella... whatever)

Spinach (or rocket, just a nice green salad to serve it with) 

Method

 Cook gnocchi as per pack instructions

(This takes about 3 minutes, and when its cooks it bobs up to the surface, so just remove from the pan with a slotted spoon)

 Place gnocchi into a baking dish and pour over the passata

 Add chopped cherry tomatoes and stir

Sprinkle with black pepper, dried garlic and chilli flakes

Add some torn fresh basil if you have some and sprinbkle with whatever cheese you have

Shove it in the oven for 25-30 minutes, until its golden brown and lovely

Serve with your salad and a slice of garlic bread

Hey presto, dinner is served

(told you it was easy)



Happy Eating. x



Tasty Tuesday - Spaghetti Bolognese

Ok, so I know that pretty much everyone knows full well how to cook good old Spahetti Bolognese. But this is another firm favourite in this household, my husband simply loves it (you know when sometimes you just get a craving for something and could happily eat it over and over for days on end? This is his favourite thing of the moment!) I thought, I'd do a super quick post on how I make it.

Ingredients

 Spaghetti (I know I have tagliatelle in the photo, It was all I had in the cupboard)

500g lean minced beef

1 red onion - chopped

4 tomatoes - chopped (or a good handfull of cherry tomatoes - halved)

2-3 peppers, any colour - choped

Beef stock (about 300ml)

Dried garlic (I use this so much more than fresh, its so much easier!)

 Lea & Perrins worcesteshire sauce

dried or fresh basil

black pepper

and if I have some, I shove some mushrooms in too!

Method
Fry light a large saucepan, Cook onions and mince until browned

add peppers, a good glug (around 1 tablespoon) worcestershire sauce, tomatoes, garlic, basil, black pepper and beef stock (sometimes it looks like it needs more/less stock, just add what you think is best, you can always add more if it starts to look dry while its cooking!)

add mushrooms if using

Stir well and leave to simmer for around 30 minutes stirring occasionally

While this is simmering away, cook your spaghetti

Then simply serve, with plenty of parmesan sprinkled on top and with either  a nice slice of garlic bread, or some lightly toasted ciabatta

Nice, quick and easy, and lovely comfort food. Just what you want after a day at work (especally if its a bit cold and raining!) x

Tasty Tuesday - Coated Chicken

This is a Slimming World recipe thats known as 'KFC Style chicken' I call it coated chicken because it tastes bugger all like KFC chicken in my opinion.
Not that it matters, because I actually personally prefer this to the take out 'finger lickin so good' version! (so good as a slogan just isn't as catchy as finger lickin' is it?)
We have this quite regularly, it does feel lik your having a naughty fast food treat.

Ingredients

2 Chicken breast

half a tub of Chicken Bovril paste

1 egg

1 clove crushed garlic - Or use dried like I did! (optional)

1 teaspoon of ground black pepper (optional)

half a teaspoon mixed spice (optional)

half a teaspoon of mild chilli powder (optional)

2-3 slices brown bread

1-2 teaspoons mixed herbs

Method

Place chicken breasts in saucepan of boiling water and simmer for 30min. When cooked, drain and leave to one side to cool

While chicken is cooking  preheat oven to 180deg C
Place bread and herbs into a food processor (I have one of those mini choppers!) and blend until made into breadcrumbs. Put them in a bowl to one side

in another bowl mix together your egg, bovril (I just guesstimate the half tub, dont bother measuring) mixed spice, garlic, chilli and pepper. Mix with a fork until a kind of gloopy paste is achieved

Cut the cooled chicken breast into chunky sized strips

(I always do the coating prep while chicken is cooking, so its never fully cooled by the time I cut it into strips. if its not fully cooled be careful not to burn your fingers!)

Get your baking tray and spray it with frylight now. Keep it close to hand

Take each piece of chicken, dip it first into the gloopy mixture, then into breadcrumbs

(this can get messy you could also just pop the chicken onto the baking tray and drizzle on the gloopy mix followed by the breadcrumb mix, I like mine coated all over though)

place coated chicken onto the baking tray, place in the oven and bake for around 15 minutes, until the breadcrumbs are nice and golden.

When chicken is cooked, remove from oven and serve! We normally have ours with some homemade chips/wedges, salad and coleslaw. Yummy

And you know whats best of all??... if like me you are following Sliming World, use the bread as part of your HEB and its totally syn free!

Let me know if you give it a try. xx

EDIT - I don't know whats going on with blogger and why some of the text is underlined, some not, some bold etc! It muddled everything up when it first published too, so apologies if you read it and wondered what the hell I was on about! :) thanks. x

Tasty Tuesday ... Rio Bravo (& Darrens B-day - Image heavy)

This was somthing I was planning on posting about sooner. We visited Rio Bravo, a Mexican restaruant in Market Harborough with friends for Darrens bday at the end of April.

We had a few drinks at a bar before we arrived (weekends they just have 2 evening sittings, 7pm-9pm and 8.30pm - close) browed the menu and ordered some corronas.

I'll mention now that the photos are terrible. My only excuse is that after the corronas we started on cocktails, and then tequilas. We had a good night.

Both Darren and me had Jalepeno Poppers for our starter. Breaded jalaepnos stuffed with cream cheese, served with a mexican salad and pepper jam. I didn't get a photo, but they were completely delicious. We both really enjoyed them.
For my main course I had Chicken Burritos. They came with refried beans, spicy rice, mexican salad and salasa,

ooh yes, and a tequila sunrise. It was wonderful. so tasty, and nice and spicy but not overpowering. I ate the lot. Everyone else said they enjoyed their meals too. All round the food was a resounding sucess.

We didn't have desserts. instead we ordered a couple of rounds of drinks.

It was a really really good night, good food, good company, good cocktails. I am sure it would be just a nice for a quieter meal, just as a couple enjoying a night out as well as a boozy birthday celebration. We shall definitely be returning.

  Unfortunatley you do not get to keep the sombreros! :)

Tasty Tuesday... Strawberry Cupcakes

This recipe is from a Slimming World recipe card I got when taking out a pre paid coutdown in April. I gave them a try at the end of April to take for my sisters birthday. The original recipe is for 16 mini muffins. I do not have a mini muffin tin, so instead I made 8 fairycakes.

Ingredients

3 eggs

60g low fat spread

6 tablepoons artificial sweetner

110g self raising flour

vanilla essence

8 teaspoons icing sugar, water, red food colouring & strawberries to decorate

Method

Pre heat oven to 180deg C

Whisk together eggs, Low fat spread and sweetner

Sive and fold in flour and a couple of drops of vanilla essence. Spoon mixture into the paper cases

Bake for 15-20 minutes. Remove and leave to cool.

Mix a little water and a couple of drops of red food colouring with the icing sugar... This is where I always mess up, and make the icing much to watery... Today was no exception

Spoon your nice thick gloopy non runny icing onto your cupcakes and garnish with a slice of strawberry.

Not the prettiest cakes I have ever made. This is what they are supposed to look like!

Mine look rubbish. Also, they didnt taste *amazing*. Perhaps they are nicer as mini muffins, perhaps I needed to whisk the eggs etc more than I did. I definitely need to make the icing thicker as it was waaaay to runny! Perhaps i'll try these small changes next time and see how they turn out. Perhaps I'll just stick to my tried, tested and super easy fairycake recipe.

The spotty cupcake cases are cute though right. ;)

Tasty Tuesday... Olive & Herb Flatbreads

Ooooh. One of my new features, Tasty Tuesdays. Each week I am planning on sharing a recipe, telling you about somewhere we have eaten, or even passing the buck to my husband Darren and letting him share one of his culinary ventures with you (he seems to be becoming a curry master! whoop. He also makes a killer  macaroni cheese type thing)

These Olive & herb flatbreads are incredibly easy and very tasty. and the best bit... because it's a flatbread it does not need too much kneading. The original recipe was given to me by my great friend Leanne, and I have made it numerous times since.

Ingredients

250g Strong bread flour (I use half white, half wholemeal)

2 teaspoons sea salt

Half a sachet of dried yeast

2 tablespoons olive oil

150ml warm water

85g chopped olives

Dried mixed herbs

Black pepper

Method

Preheat the oven to 200deg C.

Mix flour, salt, yeast ,1 tablespoon of olive oil and some for the water in a bowl. Mix with a fork until combined, adding the water as needed. It may take a little more than 150ml, it may take a little less.

Once you have a nice ball of dough (if you add too much water, just add a little more flour until you get a good manageable, not too sticky ball of dough) Knead for around 6-8 minutes

Place dough in a plastic bag, or back in the bowl and cover with cling flim. leave in a wram place for around an hour until the dough has doubled in size.

Here is a little tip/trick for you. If like us you don't have an airing cupboard but you do have a dishwasher... Put a load on before you start making the bread. Empty it out as soon as it has finished and place your dough in the dishwasher. It stays very warm and is perfect for raising dough.

When your dough has risen in size mix in your chopped olives....

This is where I defer from the recipe. Darren is not a fan of olives, and wouldn't eat my olive bread. So seeing as I had a little tub of Graze olives in the freezer, I split the mixture in two. Half was mixed with olives, and half with some chopped garlic.

Once they are all mixed in shape the dough into a ball and squish (technical term!) flat on a lined/non stick baking tray

Again. I have differed here and split my 2 different flavoured haves into 3. If you wanted to do mini flatbreads as I have on this occasion. Split your one whole batch into 6.

Leave on the baking tray for around 30minutes to finish rising (no need for the dishwasher this time!) brush the flatbread/s with the remaining olive oil and sprinkle with dried herbs and ground black pepper.

Pop inot the oven for around 30minutes for the one large flatbread, or around 18minutes for the 6 mini ones.

Then simply leave to cool and enjoy.

We had ours as a lunch time snack, and again with spaghetti bolognaise for dinner. I also *love* them with some homemade tomato soup. Delicious.

(also, personally. The garlic ones do not taste so great in my opinion. Next time I shall try roasting the garlic first. Or i'll just make the lot with olives and have it all for myself!)

Let me know if you give them a try. x