A heart attack of my own making: Gateshead Eggs

In my high school days I spent a lot of time at my best friend Andrea's house. Once there, we used to inexplicably demand that her big sister Shelley make us food. I'm not sure why we thought being so bossy was okay, but Shelley really did make good cheese sandwiches. We used to routinely demand that she make us Anglesey eggs, which was always met with a resigned sigh. 

Nowadays, I understand that sigh. I made Anglesey eggs myself a couple of years ago, and whilst it was delicious, I ended up using every bloody pan and receptacle in my kitchen. By the end of cooking it, I was greeted by a kitchen disaster area that made my heart sink. 

 This evening, as I gazed into the fridge hoping for inspiration, I remembered the recipe and considered making it. Then I realised that I neither had all the ingredients I needed, nor the energy for hours of washing up, so I decided to make my own abbreviated version instead. Even then, I had to make some on the hoof changes as I got halfway through and realised that my milk had gone off and I had no mustard. 

I am calling it Gateshead Eggs. Just like a Saturday night out in Gateshead town centre, it is actually probably quite deadly if experienced regularly.The result ended up really quite pleasant and very comforting. 

Ingredients

• olive oil
• 6 eggs
• Whatever potatoes you happen to have lying about, diced. I used about 500g of Charlotte potatoes, but I'm guessing anything will do.
• 2 leeks, sliced. 
• 50 g unsalted butter
• 50 g plain flour
• 300 mL double cream
• 75g extra mature cheddar cheese, grated. A mixture of cheeses would be lovely too. 
• 6 rashers of bacon
• Some water
• smoked garlic salt, pepper, and chives to serve

1. Preheat the oven to 220 degrees or equivalent. 
2. Splash some olive oil around an oven-proof dish. If you want, pop in some finely chopped garlic or herbs, and pop in the oven.
3. Boil the potatoes and leeks in a pan together for a few minutes. Once softened, drain and toss in the dish with the olive oil. Put into the oven until nicely browned. I didn't time it, but I think it took about 20 mins or so.
4. In the meantime, hard boil the eggs and leave aside to cool
5. fry up or grill the bacon to your liking. leave aside to cool a bit
6. Peel and slice the boiled eggs
7. Chop up the bacon into chunks. 
8. Once the potatoes and leeks are done, place the sliced egg and bacon over them. You could do this in a pretty, precise manner, or you could just vaguely chuck it in like me. 
9. In a sauce pan, gently melt the butter over a low heat. Once melted, stir in the flour, then pour in the cream, whisking continuously, in three or four lots. Add enough water to make a pourable sauce. 
10. Pour the sauce over the dish contents. 
11. sprinkle the cheese evenly over the whole affair and shove in the oven
12. Cook until gooey and bubbly and lush. 
13. At this point, it might be nice to consider a bread crumb layer. I couldn't be bothered, but I imagine a bit of crunch could be quite pleasant. 
14. Season with garlic salt, pepper and chives as required.
15. Eat and enjoy the sensation of your arteries clogging up.

Like I say, this is definitely an occasional treat sort of recipe. It has that lovely comforting cheesy goo about it that makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. Perfect for a dark winter night, and ideally consumed in pyjamas under some sort of blankie. 

Hxxx

Completely inauthentic red beans and rice

You know when you think you’re all organised and you know what you’re going to cook? You have put the time aside for it, and you have all your ingredients, and you’re really looking forward to it? That’s what good cooking is all about, right?

Well it turns out that I almost never, ever cook like that. It’s just not in my nature to be so organised, and even when I *think* I am, I’ve always forgotten some major component of a recipe. My cooking is therefore mostly done on the fly, with a lot of last minute recipe changes or substitutions. As it happens, sometimes you end up nailing it accidentally. That’s what happened when I attempted to make authentic Louisiana red beans and rice the other day.

Firstly, the beans. It turns out that genuine red beans are fairly difficult to get hold of in the UK. No bother though, for I looked up alternatives and found out that the pack of dried black beans that have been in the cupboard for ages should be fine. Except for that I forgot to soak them overnight beforehand. Luckily, there was a dusty tin of kidney beans at the back of the cupboard which saved the day. Secondly, I have no idea at all what Andouille sausage is. I decided, apropos of very little, that chorizo would do instead. Turns out that it’s probably more like a smoked sausage, but never mind. Thirdly, I couldn’t find Creole seasoning anywhere. We searched three supermarkets before giving in and getting a Cajun seasoning instead. Fourthly: the ham hock was hard to find, so I ended up leaving it out.

And yet, despite all of this, I ended up with a really delicious slow cooker creation. It probably bears no resemblance to actual red beans and rice, but it was super tasty nonetheless. So here is my off-the-hoof, completely unauthentic, grab-anything-nearby-then-feel-proud-of-yourself-afterwards recipe for red beans and rice.

Ingredients
1 tin of kidney beans in water
One chorizo sausage, sliced.
1 large onion, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped into chunky pieces.
chilli flakes or one fresh chilli, to taste
2 cloves of garlic
1 teaspoon Cajun seasoning powder
Fresh basil
Cooked basmati rice.

Method:
Dump the entire contents of the kidney bean tin, water and all, into a slow cooker on high setting
Shallow fry the chorizo until it is browned. Plonk the sausage pieces into the slow cooker and reserve the fat in the pan.
Fry the garlic, onion and green pepper in the chorizo fat. Once softened and just browned, add to the slow cooker.
Add the chilli flakes, basil leaves and Cajun seasoning too.
I added a little water- about 100 mLs, although that made for quite a watery sauce and I don’t think you necessarily need to add that much.
Leave for about 4-5 hours. If it’s too watery
Cook the rice according to instructions. Spoon over the bean and sausage mixture and voila.

Enjoy :) xxx

Hayley's Italian Kitchen

Mamma Mia, a new addition to my kitchen family arrived the other week:

A shiny silvery new pasta machine! I sort of bought it by accident- we were planning to make homemade pasta again using the bicep building pastacise method we've used before. But, we were having a bit of a wander around the metro centre and ended up in Lakeland, where it was quite reasonably priced.

So we made lasagne, entirely from scratch. I've never really made lasagne that often in life, as it seems rather faffy- by the time you've made the ragu, you've then got to put it in the oven, but you could have been eating it already if you were having good old spag bol. When I have made it in the past i've just used jars or pasta sauce and white sauce, with dried pasta sheets.

This time however, we made everything. Red sauce, white sauce, and pasta. Short of rearing the cows to milk them then mince them, we couldn't have homemade anything else in this lasagne.

The pasta dough is made

My saucy kitchen

The finished product was definitely worth all the effort- much better than a mangey microwave lasagne. The pasta was beautifully cooked, and it just tasted so much sweeter with the smugness of knowing you've made it all yourself.

Nom nom nom

Easyville Stir Fry

Hi my lovelies,

Just thought I'd quickly tell you about this great little recipe. It's a REALLY easy and delicious stir fry which is just brilliant for a hearty but healthy mid-week post-work tea.

this stir fry was made with a standard stir fry veg pack, and topped with sesame seeds.

It's from a bento box book that i used to use all the time back in my bentobeautiful*days. The original recipe just uses beef and green peppers, but this stir fry is really versatile and great with any veg and/or any meat.

I dust beef strips with cornflour and stir fry with some garlic until just about nearly done. I'll then chuck in my veg, and stir fry for a few minutes until just nearly done.

Then, throw in your stir-fry sauce. to make this, mix together 1 tsp of oyster sauce, 1 tsp of rice wine (sake or mirin will do nicely- i usually use mirin as i end up swigging sake, lol) and 1/2 tsp of soy sauce.

Top with either sesame seeds or crushed black sesame seeds, if you wish.

beef with green and yellow pepper, topped with crushed black sesame seeds.

Stir fry for a few more minutes, and voila, a delicious, filling, healthy meal in minutes.

The New Exercise Sweeping The Nation: Pastacise!

This weekend, we decided to make some pasta.

If you've no idea what this is about, you seriously need to look here

But, instead of taking the easy open packet and boil route, we thought we would make some from scratch.

Now I don't have a pasta machine. Nor, indeed, do I have enormously strong Italian Grandma type arms (although they are getting much, much stronger thanks to Nancy and Tony at Newcastle Strength and Performance) So if I'm honest, I didn't hold out too much hope for a brilliant result.

However, any excuse for a trip to Mmm Newcastle, so we purchased our tipo 00 flour, bunged it in a bowl, and cracked a load of eggs into it.

And that's it. only those 2 ingredients. I had assumed that pasta would be made with all sorts of complicated ingredients, and I really couldn't believe that it's actually only 2, really simple ingredients. However, we started to mix them and realised that the result was THE most sticky substance known to the human race. I mean, this stuff even trumps the inside of Tunnocks Tea-Cakes and Marshmallow fluff in the sticking stakes.

We soldiered on with kneading the dough, and after a long time of a lot of hard work and effort, we ended up with a nice, smooth pasta dough, which we cut into tagliatelle. I swear, making pasta really does give your arms a brilliant toning workout. I can feel an exercise DVD coming on!

It cooked really nicely, and whilst it was quite thick, when paired with this delicious Nigella Lawson recipe ragu (and a generous sprinkling of parmesan cheese), it made for a really satisfying meal.

Good Ol' Potatoes

Many moons ago, (11 years to be exact- urgh) I packed up my little knapsack (several loads of stuff in my Dad's car),  and away i trudged to learn my trade (pharmacy) in the big wide world (Sunderland).

Before they waved me off (jumped for joy), my parents (mum mainly, dad was just pleased to get rid, bless him) wanted to reassure themselves that I would be able to fend for myself in urban jungle of Sunderland. And that would involve feeding myself. They invested in a number of student cookbooks for me (I still remember one which basically said for everything "If you can get it tinned, why bother cooking it?"), along with Delia's How To Cook Book One. Yes, that is the one that tells you how to make toast properly. 

So one of the things it was decided i would do was to Cook A Meal. I agonised over what to make for a long time, then decided on a chicken, bacon and cheese wrap thing, and Delia's Potatoes Boulangere. Because that sounded proper posh. I also made an apple cake

There was a LOT of panicking, particularly to do with timing, and a lot of whining for interventions from my mum, but in the end, I managed to pull together something edible. And imagine my joy, oh joy of joys, when my diners even asked for SECONDS! 

Since then, potatoes boulangere has become a firm favourite of mine which never really fails to disappoint it's eaters. It's really, very simple, and i'm not sure quite what it is about this dish, but it does always seem to win people over. It's rather easy to make, but can take a long time to cook, so may take a little bit of organisation to fit in with whatever else you're making with it. I think it's very deliciously comforting, because it is so simple. 

Because there's no use in reinventing the wheel, especially where Delia is involved, here is the recipe. I do have a few small adjustments to make to it though. I tend to sprinkle a bit of garlic over the top layer, and will apply a small (rather large, actually) sprinkling of cheese onto the top a few minutes before it's due to come out of the oven. Because what recipe is not improved by liberal amounts of cheese?

Why am I telling you all about this? Well, because I sort of recreated this historical meal at the weekend, except for the apple cake. And the potatoes were appreciated as much as they usually are.

So far, this dish has a 100% success rate!

Curry Night In

Hi all,

Expect a glut of posts today... I'm feeling a bit under the weather so am firmly planted on the sofa with a blanket, and catching up with blog posts seems like a nice thing to do to cheer me up on a poorly day.

I tend to binge cook. So, on a night when i'm not doing anything, i'll usually make some large batches of stew or a curry, then portion it off and freeze it all then have it for my lunch at work or as a quick and easy tea when i get in from work.

This is one of my favourite curry recipes that i wanted to share with you. It's actually quite healthy (adapted from a Slimming World Recipe) and whilst it's probably not quite as delicious as a takeaway curry it's very satisfying and best of all, it will make your kitchen smell absolutely wonderful as it's cooking. Because I'm lazy, I love to use Very Lazy products and I always have a stock of their red chilli, garlic, and ginger to hand.

Ingredients:
Fry- Light
1 onion, peeled and chopped as chunky or as small as you like
4 cloves
6 cardamom pods
2 tsp Very Lazy red chilli
1 tsp Very Lazy ginger
2 tsp Very Lazy garlic
2 dried Chipotle chillies
1 tbsp hot curry powder (ideally Madras powder, but normal curry powder will do)
900g beef fillet, cut into chunks, with any fatty bits removed.
2 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cumin
250ml beef stock

1. Spray a wok liberally with Fry light over a medium heat. Add onion, cloves, and cardamom and stir fry for 3-4 minutes.

2. Add the Very lazy chillies, garlic, and ginger, and the dried chipotle chilli and stir fry for a further couple of minutes.

3. Add the curry powder and beef. Stir fry for 6 minutes or so until the beef is browned and sealed nicely. Add the coriander, cumin, and stock and bring to the boil, Then simmer gently over a low heat for 1-1.5 hours until the meat is tender.

Perfect served with pilau rice and chappatis.