Healthy Turkey Meatballs

I had turkey on my mind. This happens occasionally when I remember how cheap it is and how much healthier it is than red meat. It is true that I have tofu in the fridge, but somehow it never hits the meat spot!

Truly delicious- make into burgers, meatballs of a meatloaf.

You need:
500g  Turkey
1 egg
1 small- medium sized onion (red looks lovely but white is fine)
herbs- I used thyme, oregano, chives and LOTS of ground black pepper
salt (or I used a kallo stock cube)
Oat meal (one cup)

1. dice the onion
2. mix with the mince
3. add the herbs and stock cube dissolved in a centimetre of water
4. break in the egg
5. mix well (even better, whizz in a food processor)
6. Add the oatmeal until the mixture can absorb no more- it should be dough like. 

Form into patties and shallow fry, of bake in the oven. I'm tempted to bake them in cup cakes cases.

My Mother's Coronation Chicken

We're still in Jubilee Season, and I wanted to share my mother's amazing Coronation Chicken recipe. This makes amazing garden-lunch or buffet food, and, with a sprig of herbs on top is fit for a feast. What is more, once you have the recipe, you can riff with your leftovers!

CORONATION CHICKEN

4-5lb chicken cooked, flesh removed

25g butter

1 small onion, finely diced

1 level tsp curry paste (or 2 heaped tsps medium hot curry powder)

1 level tbsp tomato puree

4 fl oz red wine (or 2 fl oz sherry + 2 fl oz water)

Juice of half a large lemon

4 canned apricots, chopped, or 4 tsps apricot jam

Half a pint of mayonnaise

5 fl oz whipping cream

Salt and pepper

Cucumber to garnish

How to: 

1. Saute onions in butter till soft.  Add curry powder or paste, tomato puree, wine or sherry and lemon juice.  Simmer uncovered for 10 mins till well reduced.  Strain and cool.
2. Whip cream till floppy.
3. Put mayonnaise, apricot puree, whipped cream and onion mixture in large mixing bowl.  Add seasoning and more lemon juice if necessary.  Add chopped chicken.  Put in fridge overnight (not essential, but allows flavours to develop!).
4. The thing is to get the texture and general flavour, so apricot jam could be replaced by chutney, for example.  I have a note to myself to make 1 ½ times the sauce quantity, so you might like to allow for that.

How to, part 2.

When I made this for the next day, I doubled the amount for stage 1 and set some aside. Add more vegetables (frozen or fresh spinach, fresh peppers, tomatoes, potatoes [for a real vindaloo i.e. curry with wine and potatoes]) , and prepare some yellow rice for a warm version.

How to, part 3.

An excellent way to use up left over roast chicken.  

Banana Courgette Cake

I remember when I first heard of courgette cake as a child. It seemed preposterous- an insult against cakes. It was years before I tried one. My first attempt to make one was disastrous. But this recipe is brilliant. It combines bananas with courgette for nutritious cake.


8 oz plain wholemeal flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon salt
8 oz soft brown sugar
1 oz walnuts or pecans chopped
1 oz sultanas
6 oz (2 bananas) ripe banana, mashed
3 large eggs, beaten
8 oz finely grated courgette (no need to peel)
5 fl oz sunflower oil

1. Sift flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt into large bowl. Add sugar, nuts and sultanas.
2. Mix well, then add mashed banana and beaten eggs.
3. Stir in grated vegetables and oil.
4. Beat mixture thoroughly for one minute (it will be slightly lumpy).
5. Butter (or line with greaseproof paper) a 9-inch cake tin (or a large loaf tin).
6. Put mixture into tin and bake for 1 hour at gas mark 4 (350ºF/175ºC) until skewer comes out clean from centre of cake.

I would use half the sugar- this was very, very sweet. SO sweet, in fact, that I had to balance it out with a bitter lemon icing- lemon zest and juice with icing sugar. Equally good with sunflower seeds instead of the nuts.

Home-Made Pot Noodle

I now do a loooong commute. Even by London standards. And I want to make my own lunch a) to save money and b) to be healthy.

My pot noodle seems to be one solution. It is super healthy, can survive a commute (without spillage) and left me energised for an afternoon with Excel. Basically, it is based on noodles that cook with hot water and quick- cooking veg (or that which is appetising al dente/ raw).

I used my favourite (seriously, they have become my no.1 staple owing to their quickness and tastiness) glass noodles. Made somehow from mung beans, they only have to be soaked in boiling water for three or so minutes. I added slivers of frozen broccoli (my new freezer veg favourite) run under some cold water just to remove any ice (thawed nicely on the journey). A couple of finely sliced and fat spring onions, a thumb sized piece of diced fresh ginger, a teaspoonful of black miso (any will do but this is healthier) and dash of Japanese soy sauce and about one eggs' worth of Japanese egg roll (proudly home made). I made egg roll as part of last night's supper so had it left over. Small bits of tofu, diced, cooked meat (another leftover- saver) would also work. I have also used a generous handful of sunflower seeds as a nutty protein alternative. I filled up the rest of the box with bean sprouts.

So simple- pour into a bowl, pour over boiling water and leave for 4 minutes or so. Even better, pour over the boiling water and bung into the microwave for a minute or two.

Apple and herb pasta

We had one of those moments yesterday, where the best part of a kilo rather than a more modest amount for two people seemed to pour itself out of the bag into hot water. Half is now in the freezer, parboiled. The other half was in the fridge, awaiting salvation. There was very little in the fridge, but here (I am staying in a house with a herb garden) we had lots of onions, lots of herbs, and a sausage looking lonely. With fresh herbs, anything is possible. How I made it: slice sausage into as small pieces as possible and put into a large pan on a low heat (2) Dice a medium sized onion and add to the pan. Grate two small apples. Stir regularly to stop it sticking to the bottom of the pan. Ruth chop/ tear two are leaves of sage, a small sprig of oregano/ thyme, chives/ small glove of garlic. Add to the pan. Keep stirring. I had LOADS of rigatoni. Good for pasta bakes. Not so good for other stuff. I roughly chopped about a cup and a half of them into smaller rings and chucked it in with the sauce. Threw in a good teaspoon of dijon mustard from the cupboard. Sadly not the Grey Poupon I would eat on toast, but good enough to balance out the sweetness of the apple. Final touch- ROCKET is growing in the garden. I stirred and then dashed out with the scissors, cut a good bunch, washed, rough-chopped (with a couple more sage leaves) and stirred into the pasta. Into a bowl. Topped with a bit more oregano. The apple makes a lovely sauce. Equally, you could purée the onions and apple together in a food processor for a similar effect, perhaps whizzing in (or grating) a courgette. Still mulling over it a couple of hours later. Yep. Good leftovers recipe!

Prawn Fridge Buster

This is one of the yummiest things I've cooked in a while. I had frozen prawns in the freezer. Everything else was from my store or left overs.

I first tried Afghan rice with carrot and raisins years ago and it seemed like a perfect opportunity to use up the last carrot and get some extra vegetables. I am also a huge fan of Vietnamese food. This is an incredibly irreverent take on those influences!!!

This recipe makes enough for two.

For the rice

• one carrot, grated
• one cup of rice
• garlic glove, diced or crushed
• a fish stock cube

For the prawns

• olive oil
• quarter teaspoon dill
• quarter teaspoon chilli flakes
• quarter cup of grated/ creamed/ ground coconut
• two small onions, diced
• teaspoon dijon mustard/ rice wine vinegar
• 200g  prawns

Method

1. Put the rice, carrot, half the garlic and half the fish stock cube in a pan with enough water for the rice (about 2 cups of water) and cook until done
2. Whilst the rice is cooking saute the onions with the coconut, herbs, remaining garlic, and chili. When the onions are soft add the prawns, mustatd and remaining fish stock cube dissolved in half a cup of boiling water.
3. Once the prawns are cooked/ warmed through, serve hot!

This was crazily good reheated as egg fried rice with a couple of eggs beaten into it (I greedily ate most of the prawns in the first serving!)

Fishcakes, but not as we not them

Simple, quick, cheap and using my favourite freezer/ store cupboard ingredients- I haven't had much time for grocery shopping recently, so have been getting creative with my trusty old faithfuls- frozen spinach, sustainably caught frozen pollack, eggs and gram flour.

This took only minutes, most of which I spent catching up on emails and complying with various requests for information!

Serves two
1) defrost frozen pollack fillets and spinach in the microwave. Allow a maximum of 1 fillet per person and about 100-200g of frozen spinach each.
2) dice about 2 spring onions per person (or a small onion)
3) mash/ chop the defrosted fish and spinach into small pieces. Add the onion and spices to taste- I added a thumb sized piece of diced ginger, five spice, fresh black pepper and chilli flakes, but you could try fennel and garlic, or cumin, mustard seeds, turmeric and curry powder for a curried take.
4) Add half a cup of gram/ chick pea flour, slowly, stirring well. Continue adding until the water is absorbed and the mixture can be formed by hand into patties.
5) Pan fry 1cm/ 1/2 inch deep patties/ 7-10 cm diameter patties in a hot pan, until done (about 5 minutes each side).

n.b. you could also use left over fish of any sort in this recipe, and you could use less fish- just increase the amount of spinach and spring onion/ onion.

these are great cold so leftovers/ make extra for packed lunches.

make them smaller for an unusual canape or snack

Easy. Simple. Delicious