Tag Archives: easy recipes

Adventures with a Cook Book

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We had Toad in the Hole last night. During the week Julia had mentioned it and as we both like it we decided to make it. I managed to get her to do the hard work. For some reason we haven’t had it for years. We had it with some Aberdeen Angus beef sausages, broccoli and sweetcorn and rounded it off with treacle tart left over from the night before. A real festival of nursery food.

This is the first one in a cavalcade of new recipes we are planning to try. It is easy to get stuck in a rut and find you are eating the same old things week in, week out.  We had  Very Convenient Stir-fry and Noodles last week. The recipe is one bag of ready cut stir-fry vegetables, a pack of noodles and a pack of oriental-style sauce. We had sweet and sour sauce last week and will be having the same thing this week, but with plum sauce. It’s on special offer from TESCO and it’s quick and easy to make. We had it most weeks in lockdown and it was always a good night as it is tasty, healthy and easy. Those are three things I love in food. Two others are “cheap” and “fried”.

Toasted Teacakes

Tonight we had salad. Greenery, tomatoes, spring onions, red and green peppers, cucumber, pears, Stilton cheese and pine nuts. The pine nuts are really for a recipe that Tootlepedal suggested for Brussels. I’m still getting round to that, but it seemed silly to leave them there in the cupboard when I was struggling for ingredients. We haven’t got round to bringing all the kitchen ingredients, so had no olives and no dressing but it wasn’t too bad. Sometimes you have to suffer for your waistline.

This afternoon we finally got round to hanging pictures. It’s looking a bit more like a home now. We still have enough pictures to have things on the wall in Nottingham too. To be honest, we really do have to make more of an effort with this move. Living in two houses is trickier than I thought, and it’s not just books that we have too many of. Pans and paintings are also trying to take over.

To close the list of the day’s events, I have had an email and can now record my first acceptance of the year. That’s the advantage of sending out plenty of submissions – a rejection is soon balanced by an acceptance and the world seems a better place again.

Tea and mini-scones Brookfields Garden Centre

 

Simple Cookery from a Simple Man

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My soup recipe just got even lazier because TESCO are now doing vegetable packs specifically for soup, with everything cut small and mixed with onions and chilli. Add water, a stock cube and a hand blender and you have soup. I put garlic in this one too. And a few extra onions.

At this time of year our kitchen is so cold you can leave it in a pan on top of the cooker with no need to use the fridge. We’ve had it for tea once and I’ve had it for lunch three times. The rest will go in the vegetable curry tomorrow.

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Sweet potato, butternut squash, onion, garlic and chilli soup

We also had the lazy pie this week.

Chop leeks, celery, chicken, mushrooms and tarragon.

Soften the veg and brown the chicken, Stir in some flour and milk to make a sauce bit and bung it in a pie dish.  We had a gammon joint this week too, so I cubed some of it to make this a chicken and ham pie. This is optional.

Then unroll a sheet of ready-made puff pastry, cut off a bit about the size of the pie dish.

Argue about who had the pastry brush last.

Pour a little milk on top of the pie and rub it round lightly with your finger tips.

Add “pastry brush” to the shopping list.

Cook until it”s brown on top. This takes about 40 minutes if you put it in the oven cold but I really don’t see the point in heating up an empty oven first.

Serve with whatever veg you have. We had brussels and red cabbage (which I make in quantity and eat all week).  With hindsight I could have selected a less environmentally damaging combination. Think methane.

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Chicken Pie and vegetables – sorry about the smudge on the lens

I know ready-made pastry and “parachute pies” (ones with just a top and no bottom) are all frowned on on serious pie circles, but ask me if I’m bothered. It’s crispy, it’s flaky and it tastes good. You don’t need all that stuff underneath.

This cooking stuff really is quite simple. I can’t really see how so many people seem to be able to make a career out of it with TV and cookery books and  such. As for Delia Smith being made a Companion of Honour “for services to cookery”, well I am, for once, speechless…