Veg and Chili soup

God I love soup! Especially after I saw some program on telly recently that told me that it keeps you fuller than the equivalent solid meal and it was on telly-so you know it's true ; )
So, yes this is my lunch for the week, I love the little bit of chili in my soup, but obviously it works just as well without it. I just love that little bit of excitement in my day!

Veg (and chili) Soup

Ingredients-
1 smallish Butternut squash
5 medium carrots
1 small parsnip(HATE parsnips, but they do add a little something to soup!)
1 small swede (or turnip or whatever you want to call it)
1 onion
2-3 cloves of garlic (I used 5 mmmmh smelly)
2 bird eye chilis
2 veg. stock jelly things
Dried herbs (I used rosemary and sage I think)
Ground coriander seed
Salt and Pepper


Method:

1. Peel and chop all of the veggies (I mean everything above-don't get smart!!) and dissolve the stock in 2 pints of water.

2. Put the squash in a tinfoil parcel with salt, pepper and some herbs,place in an oven at 200°C.

3. Fry the onion and garlic in some olive oil in the pot you are using for the soup (a big one) until they are see through (or brown like I did) then throw in the rest of the veg and keep frying for a bit.

4. Add the stock and a small bit more water (depending on how thick you want it), herbs, salt and pepper to taste. Bring to the boil and simmer for about 40 minutes, or until everything is really soft.

5. The squash should also be done now so take it out, make sure it's soft too, then pelt it in the pot and blend everything (I used my lovely hand blender)

6. That's basically it, adjust the salt and pepper and you're done!

There you go-see soup's easy peasy! Ooooh speaking of peas, I love me some frozen peas. So what I did was-at the end I added a few handfuls of frozen peas, and the heat left in the pot cooked them. I think it's lovely, might not be everyone's cup of tea (or soup, or whatever) but I like it!

That's all from me for this post, tune in next time for more boring cooking! Well I've had my fun, and that's all that matters : )  (please tell me someone got that?)

Jamaican Jerk Chicken

Once again I can't really claim that this is "authentic" Jerk chicken. For a number of reasons really, the first thing is that obviously I'm not Jamaican, and everything I know about it is what I could glean from the internet in the past couple of days. Also when I went to the supermarket to get the Scotch Bonnet Chilis that are supposed to go in it they had every other type of chili I could think of and even some I never knew existed, but no bloody Scotch Bonnets! So I got Bird Eye chilis for some heat, and some standard red chilis for some bulk!

Having said that it was really nice, I certainly liked it, so whatever it is, it's tasty!

Also I'm pretty sure this would go well with different sorts of meat, I used chicken, because I had it, and I like it in sandwiches, which is what I was cooking this for. Had one today for lunch actually, was gert lush!!

So then....here it goes-

Ed's Jamaican style Jerk Chicken (enough for 3 days worth of sandwiches, or 3 people I suppose)

Ingredients-
3 breasts of chicken (490g in total)
2 bird eye chilis
2 medium sized red chilis
1 medium onion
4 cloves of garlic
about 2-3tbs thyme-I kept going until I was bored of taking the leaves off the stalks to be honest!
3 tbs ground allspice
1 tsp ground coriander seed
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp salt
half of a nutmeg seed grated (about 1 tsp)
2 tsp golden syrup
3 tbs dark soft brown sugar
1 tbs olive oil
1 tsp white wine vinegar

Method (not much of a method here ha ha):

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C

2. De-seed the Bird Eye chilis and cut the ends off the other ones

3. Put the chilis, thyme, spices, salt, pepper, vinegar, golden syrup, sugar, oil, garlic and onion (or everything bar the chicken I suppose) into t blender and.........blend-it looks horrible, but it will taste lovely!

4. Slash the chick quite deeply, but not so deep it falls apart, put in a zip-lock bag with the blended mess, then into the fridge for I think it was 3 hours, because I had to go to Italian lessons, and that's how long it took to get home and cook it. No other reason!

5. Fry the chicken (with just the sauce that sticks to it) in a really hot pan until both sides are nice and browned.

6. Put them into a crock pot with the rest of the sauce, then into the oven at 200°C for about an hour, though I would imagine 40 minutes would do it, I kinda forgot, was still nice and tender though.

So there you go, Jerk chicken á la Ed! (,")

So basically I looked at a lot of recipes online and basically came up with the ingredients that I thought I would like the best together. If anyone is planning on making this one I would encourage you to do the same, because I'm sure what worked for me in this recipe and method won't work for everyone. As far as I can figure-the allspice, thyme and Scotch Bonnet chilis are the essential ingredients, the rest is fluff, tasty fluff though, damn tasty if I do say so myself  ;-) 

Thanks for reading, more to come soon!!


Some more notes on this one- using spring onions instead of normal onions works a little better.
Try not to over do it with the cinnamon. Most importantly taste it before you cook it, and adjust as needed!!

Gratin Dauphinoise (Kinda)

So, I had this with my chicken yesterday, but I got lazy and decided to do the post for it today. Now I didn't really want anything too bold with the chicken so strictly speaking this isn't really Gratin Dauphinoise, but my lower fat version one, and to be honest I actually really liked it. I don't usually like low at versions of things, but this one was very nice.

Let's call it:

Low fat Gratin Dauphinoise (about 3-4 people worth, depending on how hungry you are!!)

Ingredients-
2 quite big potatoes
1 onion
3-4 cloves of garlic
300g reduced fat crème fraîche
200 ml skimmed milk
1 chicken or veg stock jelly thing-you know the ones I mean.
flat leaf parsely
plenty freshly grated parmigiano reggiano
salt and pepper
butter for greasing


Method:

1. Preheat an oven to 200°C.

1. Start by rubbing a baking tray (mine is about 15cm by 20cm) with some butter.

2. Put the crème fraîche in a pot on the hob with the stock jelly thing, and the milk. Add the milk bit by bit, as you might not need the full 200ml, I can't really remember how much I put in, it was about that much.

3. Then slice the potatoes (I did it one at a time to stop the slices going brown in the air). The slices should be nice and thin, I did it with a knife, but I'm sure a mandolin would be much quicker and easier!

4. Layer the potatoes in the baking tray making sure to put some salt and pepper, and garlic and onion between each layer. Don't over do it with the salt, I over did it a bit, but I like it salty!

5. Put a little bit of finely chopped parsley on top of the potatoes, then pour over the hot liquid. Make sure that the potato is well covered, if not add some more milk, bearing in mind it will dry out a bit in the hot oven.

6. Grate some parmesan over the top, plenty of it, mmmmmmmmh parmesan! (",)

7. Put it in the oven for about 40 minutes-I didn't cover mine, just make sure it doesn't burn on top, turn the heat up to 240°C and leave for another 10 minutes or so.

That's it-easy as that!
A few notes on this one:
-As mentioned before I put a good bit of salt between each layer and it was very salty, so be careful with that.
-Also there is a lot of garlic in this one, it is very garlic-ey. I LOVE garlic, but not everyone does, so you might want to reduce the amount in this.
-You will get a softer result if you bake it covered at about 170°C for about an hour before the uncovered cooking for 10 minutes at 240°C to crisp it at the end, but I hadn't the time this time, and this timing works well enough, just not as soft.
-Finally the crème fraîche I used was about 15% fat-quite good compared to the usual double cream (about 50% fat or more!!) that this dish usually demands.


Enjoy, and as usual comments/critiques are appreciated.

Lemon and Mustard Chicken

Over the past couple of weeks I have been trying to put aside as much money as possible. In that vein I have had been making large meals at the start of the week and bringing some to work for lunch each day. It has worked amazingly well, as not only have I not had to spend as much money, but I've had a delicious lunch each day, that was exactly what and as much as I wanted, and I could count the calories a little, you know, to knock off some of those Christmas pounds!

Oh and this particular recipe was made up by me, I will let you know if ever I take inspiration from anyone, as I do, frequently!

So here we go- Ed's mustard Chicken (serves 3....ish, and you'll prob need some veg with it like : ) )

Ingredients-
3 breasts of chicken (490g total)
1 onion
4 cloves of garlic
1 lemon
1 fresh tomato and about 5 sun-dried tomatoes
2 tbs of strong English or Dijon mustard
1 tsp each of cumin and fennel seeds
Salt and Pepper

Method:

1. Preheat an oven to 150°C. I use a griddle pan for this one-so start with a really hot pan and put in the fennel and cumin seeds for about two minutes on their own.

2. In the meantime rub the chicken with some olive oil, salt and pepper

3. Then put the chicken on the pan, turn it over to get some good charring on both sides

4. Take the pan off the heat and start chopping the onions, garlic and all the tomatoes nice a finely. Mix that with the mustard and some of the oil from the sun-dried tomatoes.

5. Put the pan back on high heat and add the mustard mix for just about 30 seconds. Spreading the mix well over the chicken.

6. Then add the juice of the lemon and some olive oil and scrape the pan well and coat the chicken again.

7. Cover the pan with tin foil and put in the oven for about 40mins or until the chicken is cooked through.

Here is a picture-it's nice, but it sure ain't pretty :)

I had it with my next post. I have a picture, but the quality is very bad, so I didn't upload it!
Well there you go, mustard and lemon chicken. All comments gladly received and greatly appreciated.

Intro

So, I figure that I like cooking, and especially for other people! I don't get to do that very often for one reason or another so I've decided to start a cooking related blog about what I cook, how it was, and a recipe and instructions on what I cooked on that particular occasion.

I want to get one thing straight right off the bat- I'm not a cook, nor do I pretend to be, but I love cooking, and eating, and..well..food! So what I put on here is purely what I did to cook every meal I write about here, to my taste.Please feel free to give me advice on improving anything I make, but don't get all high and mighty about anything food related please. Life's too short, and there's a lot of food to get through.

So without further ado-my food blog! Enjoy!