Spinach and Bacon Salad with Roasted Red Pepper Bruschetta

Try this salad for an easy weeknight meal this summer. Serve with roasted red pepper bruschetta on the side.

• 4 cups chopped fresh spinach, washed and drained very well (better yet, use a salad spinner)
• 6 slices thick bacon, cut into bits (Most grocery stores sell packages of bacon ends, which are cheaper than those nicely sliced breakfast rashers; it doesn't matter if they don't look pretty, because you will be cutting them up anyway.)
• 2 boiled eggs, chopped
• ranch dressing (see below for homemade recipe)

In a large skillet/ frying pan, fry the bacon until crisp. Pour off oil. Add the spinach and mix with the bacon. Cook until just wilted.

Sprinkle the chopped egg on top and drizzle with ranch dressing. Serves 2.

Homemade Ranch Dressing

1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 sour cream
1 tbsp each of chopped dill, parsley, and chives
1 clove of garlic, finely minced
salt and pepper to taste
4-6 tablespoons buttermilk

Mix the mayo, sour cream, and herbs together in a small bowl. Use the buttermilk to thin the dressing to desired consistency. Season with salt and pepper.

Roasted Red Pepper Bruschetta

1/2 baguette, sliced in half lengthwise

roasted red pepper slices with olive oil                 baby arugula/ rocket leaves 

1 clove of garlic

Slice the garlic clove in two and rub over the surface of the baguette halves. Spread the olive oil from the roasted red peppers over the baguettes. Layer the arugula leaves and red pepper slices on top. Toast in the oven until the edges of the baguette slices are golden brown and crisp. Serve immediately.


Recipe thanks to Maria Olaguera

Liver Two Ways: Italianese or Spicy with Rhubarb Yoghurt

Liver is a bit like marmite in that you either love it or, well, you don’t.

This liver was fresh from Smithfield’s market. Ox liver. I had never had good ox liver before, and I tried it over two days, two ways. Liver is cheap and nutritious, so it is a good value food if you can bring yourself to cook it!

Ox liver can be quite tough, but as this was fresh it was delicious. These recipes would also work with pig's or lamb's liver.

  

Before both, cut the liver into slices, perhaps 1cm thick, removing any sinew etc. wash and then pat dry with kitchen paper or similar.

  Liver Italianese

This recipe was given to me by Italian friends, and it is simple and delicious.

  

Saute onions- I did a mixture of red and white onion- over a low heat with olive oil

  

In a bowl mix flour (I used wholemeal), a pinch of salt and some thyme.

Turn up the heat in the pan, so that it is hot enough for the liver to sizzle when it goes into it.

Roll the strips of liver in the seasoned flour, and put into the pan. Turn the strips until they are brown on both sides- they should be in the pan for about 4 minutes. You want the liver to be cooked, not cremated, that way it is tender.

Serve with fresh bread for a simple meal, but make sure that you serve it piping hot and straight from the pan!

  Spicy Liver with rhubarb yoghurt

In the UK, liver always seems to be served with onions. Actually, this recipes would work with onions too, but it is very good without.

 

You need:

• One tomato per person
• Olive oil
• Enough sliced liver for each person
• Garlic
• Chilli flakes
• Flour (I used millet flour)
• Yoghurt

Dice the tomato and fry- you want them to reduce to a thick consistency.

Mix the flour (I used millet here, which has a slightly nutty, sweet flavour and is a wholegrain flour, but you could use any wheat flour. It is inexpensive and can be bought in many African or Subcontinental shops) with the chilli flakes, some salt if you choose and the diced garlic. My advice here is to go spicier than you think that you would like- the yoghurt takes away some of the heat and it combines beautifully.

Roll the liver slices into the seasoned flour, lightly coating, and place into the same pan as the tomato, at a high heat. You will need to turn the liver regularly, for around 4 minutes, so that it doesn’t stick to the pan. Coat it in the thickened tomato.

 Serve with a generous tablespoonful of yoghurt- the sweet and sour flavour of rhubarb yoghurt works well, but natural yoghurt, perhaps with a dab of mango chutney, would be delicious. Alternatively, try mixing some rhubarb or even gooseberry compote with your yoghurt.

Eat immediately, perhaps with plain or garlic naan bread and lentils.

Red Pepper Candy

This weekend I found some gorgeous red bell peppers at my local greengrocer's.

Roasting red peppers brings out their smokey sweetness - that's why I call it candy. I bet you'll find yourself eating them as fast as you can peel them.

Keep them packed in olive oil in the fridge and add them to sandwiches, pasta, salads, or have them on their own, sliced and drizzled with balsamic vinegar and chopped basil.

Red Pepper Candy

(Enough for a one-litre jar)
6 large red peppers
2 cookie sheets lined with foil
1 large glass bowl
Plastic wrap
1 1L glass jar with lid, sterilized

Cut the tops and bottoms off the peppers. Twist the stems and cores out.

Slit each pepper down one side and "unroll" the pepper, pressing it down with your palm to flatten, so that it ends up in one long strip. Lay it out on your cutting board, skin side down. Holding your knife parallel to the cutting board, run it along the pepper to remove the ribs. You may have to trim the insides of the tops, too.

Lay each pepper, skin side up, on the cookie sheet, along with the tops and bottoms. A cookie sheet will hold about 3 peppers.

Move your oven rack to the topmost level. If it is more than 3.5 inches from the heat element, use a cookie pan with sides, turned upside down, to bring the peppers within 2.5 - 3 inches of the element.

Slide in the peppers and turn on your oven at its broil setting. Depending on the size of your oven and cookie sheets, you may have to do one sheet at a time.

Roast the peppers until the skins are blackened in spots. This doesn't take very long, about 3-5 minutes.
When the peppers are done, pop them into your large bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let it steam away for 15 minutes. This cooks the peppers a little bit more and makes them easier to peel.

When they are cool enough to handle with your fingers, peel the peppers. You can eat them immediately or pack them in a jar with olive oil. They will last a couple of weeks stored in the fridge.

The Secret to a Full Stomach, Empty Bin and Jingling Purse!

As a working couple, we do a big shop every Saturday. To maximise freshness of food and minimise food waste we knock our heads together before we go out - we write a shopping list! It’s simple and quite effective:


- Talk: First we discuss when we are going to be home, whether there will be guests and who is going to cook for the next few days. Communication is key!!

- Plan: Then we put down what we would like to eat depending on individual cooking capabilities and time at hand. We are not very creative during the week but at weekends we make an effort of trying out new things (which can be incorporated into our weekday routine) or dishes that take longer to prepare. What’s going on the eating plan depends on following:

o If there is a dish that needs a little of e.g. cream, then we’d make sure there is another recipe on the list that also needs a little cream.
o Allow for seasonality of ingredients
o Dishes with ingredients that don’t stay fresh for long are cooked earlier in the week
o The shopping list takes us up to Wednesday

Then we pop down the ingredients needed on a list.

- Shopping: We try to stick to the list! If there is a great offer on we think twice whether we really need it and when we could possibly eat it. Pre-packed fruit and veggies are avoided where possible. They are usually much more expensive per lb/Kg so we only buy what we really need and avoid the packaging.

- Mid-week stock take: As I said, we only plan until Wednesday and we take food stock on Tuesday or Wednesday. It happens very often that there are some leftovers, not everything has been used up as planned, we weren’t home as planned etc. So we look at the fridge for what’s left, is there something expiring soon and how these things can be combine with other ingredients to make another dish. I.e we talk again what we want to eat for the rest of the week.

It takes being organised but it’s really worth it. I hardly have to get rid of any food because I know what’s in the fridge and what I can make with it...

A stellar spring dessert

Canadian WONDER woman Maria contributed this recipe from her blog

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A recipe for no-bake cheesecake came through my Twitter feed this week. I hardly ever make cheesecake because every recipe I've come across seems to be so complicated and expensive. This particular recipe, however, is nice and small, calling for only one 250-gram block of cream cheese and yielding 4 individual-sized cheesecakes.

You will need a hand-mixer to whip the cream cheese and cream. The whipped cream adds lightness to the mixture, and a dash of lemon juice adds a bright note. Once properly chilled, the resulting cheesecake is sweet-tart, with a full, rich bite.

The original recipe suggested blueberries for the topping, but you can use any fruit you like. I thought I'd use strawberries. I was at my friendly neighbourhood Asian market, and actually had a container of strawberries in my hand when I spotted this beauty: the star fruit.

Not only is this fruit good-looking and exotic, it is also rich in vitamin C, fiber, antioxidants and flavonoids. Eat it (minus the cheesecake) if you want to lose weight. Or eat it with the cheesecake but with a little less guilt, because each whole fruit contains only 30 calories.

If you want an extra shot of sweetness, glaze the star fruit slices with a little sugar syrup, or drizzle the tops of the cheesecakes with honey or balsamic vinegar syrup before serving.

As for the crust, I added ground-up macadamia nuts and wildflower honey to the usual graham cracker crumbs, to make this an extra-special dessert from top to bottom. (You could also use almonds or hazelnuts.)

For the crust:

1/4 cup graham cracker crumbs
1/4 ground macadamia nuts
2 tbsp honey

Mix in a small bowl with a fork until evenly moist and sticky. Press evenly into the bottoms of four small, clear dessert cups.

For the cheesecake:

1 250-g block of cream cheese
1/4 cup white sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice
Whip together until smooth, then fold in:
1/2 cup heavy cream, whipped

Scoop the cream cheese mixture into the dessert cups, pressing down lightly to ensure there are no air pockets.

Chill for at least 3 hours or overnight.

Bernie's Tiroler “Groestl” or “Roast”

I grew up in Austria, and this is my favourite “left over” recipe e.g. a little ham/bacon/veggies leftover and added to the potatoes that are always at home. It’s also quite simple to make and surprisingly tasty for the few simple ingredients used...

Tiroler “Groestl” or “Roast”

This is an original Austrian recipe which uses boiled beef, a regional speciality. I’ve adapted it so that it can be used with leftovers found in a British kitchen.

Ingredients for 2 people:

Basics

• 2 tablespoons oil
• 1 onion
• 400 g potatoes (boiled & peeled and sliced ca ¼ inch thick) These can be from the day before, unpeeled would also be possible but I always peel them.
• 1 teaspoon fresh parsley, chopped 
• salt & pepper 
• 2 fried eggs (optional)
• Veggie option
• 200g mushrooms

Meat option

• 200g of bacon, ham, cooked beef, roast pork etc (whatever leftovers there are)
• The original recipe quotes ca. 120 g cooked beef, 70 g bacon; I usually mix bacon/ham and mushrooms

How to make:

1. Boil the potatoes, peel and slice them.
2. Heat up the oil, add chopped onions and meat and/or mushrooms and let them brown slightly (ca 5 minutes).
3. Add the potatoes and roast everything through by stirring frequently so everything is heated up thoroughly (ca 5 minutes). The potatoes should be cold before adding to the pan to avoid stirring it into a “mash”.
4. Season with salt, pepper and parsley.
5. Serve immediately with a fresh salad, adding a fried egg on top (optional). Guten Appetit!

Serve with Almdudler!!!