All That I'm Eating

Recipe ideas for budget meals, everyday cooking and a little indulgence. Travel inspiration and restaurant reviews too.

Swedish Style Burgers

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Swedish Style Burgers
You would have thought that a burger lends itself well to good photo-ability. For some reason when it comes to taking a picture of a burger it never looks quite how I imagine it will. No matter what I try the burgers always shrink leaving even the smallest buns looking far too big. There is either too much or not enough salad so although I make them sort of regularly I rarely blog about them or take a picture. However, when the below recipe came through for Swedish burgers with Västerbottensost cheese I couldn’t resist. 

Recipe from Västerbottensost cheese as part of their ‘Swedish summer to remember’.

Ingredients

You will need (for two):

  • 350g minced venison (or beef)
  • 1 rasher fried bacon, chopped
  • 1 tsp crushed juniper berries
  • Salt and pepper
  • Västerbottensost cheese, grated
  • Buns of your choice and salad and condiments to serve

Method

Put the venison mince into a bowl and add the chopped bacon, juniper berries and salt and pepper.

Give everything a really good mix then form into four burger shapes (I made quite small ones).

Heat a pan to high and add a little oil to the pan. Fry the burgers until lovely and brown on the outside and cooked through. For the last few minutes of cooking add the grated Västerbottensost and allow to melt. read more

Creamy Pea and Bacon Pasta

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After my last £6 supper on BBC Radio Berkshire, Paul Ross was quite disappointed that the recipe included no frozen peas. It got me thinking that actually there’s plenty to celebrate in the humble frozen pea. They’re cheap, you can always keep some in the freezer and they are a welcome shot of greenness and sweetness at this time of year. This quick, easy and cheap meal is a little mid-week fanfare of the frozen pea. read more

Purple Sprouting Broccoli, Bacon and Cheese Pasta Bake

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It’s a bit weird here at the moment. The days are warm but the nights are surprisingly cold; light lunches but also still comfort food dinner season. The purple sprouting broccoli season is upon us and as much as I like it cooked simply, maybe with a butter sauce, I am craving carbohydrates and big warming meals at the moment. My bacon, purple sprouting and cheese pasta bake is ideal. read more

Potato, Swede and Bacon Dauphinoise

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Festive Potato Gratin
Roast potatoes are important in any roast dinner. Sometimes I find I can pay them a bit too much attention and end up spending less time on the other vegetables. This dauphinoise recipe is a great way to use some swede to make a great side dish and also incorporates potatoes so you can do a two in one. Not to be greedy but there’s no reason you couldn’t have this and roast potatoes for a roast!

Ingredients

You will need (for 4 as a side):

  • 350g potato, peeled and thinly sliced
  • 350g swede, peeled and thinly sliced
  • 1 garlic clove, crushed
  • 4-5 rashers smoked, streaky bacon
  • Oil for frying
  • 150ml double cream
  • Salt and pepper
  • Butter

Method

Fry the bacon in a little oil until crispy then set to one side.

Layer up the potatoes, swede, garlic, bacon, and add a little salt and pepper to each layer, finishing with a layer of potatoes and swede in an ovenproof dish.

Pour the double cream over the veg then dot the top with butter.

Place into an oven at 170C for 1 and 1/4 hours or until soft through when tested with a knife.

If you find it’s browning too quickly cover the dish with some foil before returning to the oven. read more

Christmas Couscous

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Christmas Couscous
Around every corner there seems to be some sort of turkey and cranberry and/or stuffing sandwich. All those crazy festive sandwich fillings come out now for us to enjoy in an intense but short space of time; some more questionable than others. It seems you can put almost anything in a sandwich; I’m waiting for one to come out with a Brussels sprout and mincemeat filling. It is nice to be able to take in all the flavours of Christmas in one mouthful but what about when you just don’t want any more bread? Have no fear because you can have all the tastes of a festive lunch in my Christmas Couscous.

Ingredients

You will need (as a light lunch for 4):
150g couscous
250ml chicken (or turkey) stock
50g walnuts, chopped and lightly toasted
4-5 rashers smoked, streaky bacon
10 sprouts, shredded
50g dried cranberries
Salt and pepper
Oil for frying

Method

Put the couscous into a large bowl. Bring the stock to a boil and pour over the couscous. Cover and put to one side for five minutes.

Add a little oil to a frying pan on a medium heat and add the bacon. Fry until golden brown.

While the bacon cooks add the walnuts and dried cranberries to the couscous with some salt and pepper and give it all a good mix together to fluff up the couscous. read more

Chard and Smoked Bacon Open Lasagne with Basil Oil

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chard and bacon lasagne
I think everyone has a particular vegetable that they always end up cooking the same way. I simply couldn’t have another plate of steamed or stir fried chard so I put my thinking cap on and set about making a chard and bacon lasagne. I also realised maybe chard isn’t the only vegetable I haven’t paid much attention to. Whenever I have leeks around they normally end up in a slow cooked pork stew; namely because I don’t really like leeks and I can’t taste them as much this way. Courgettes are another example (and I’m sure the bane of many vegetable gardeners’ lives) and they almost always end up as fritters. To avoid characterless chard this simple open lasagne is perfect.

Ingredients

You will need (for two):

  • 8-10 rashers smoked streaky bacon
  • 1 head chard
  • 2 large garlic cloves
  • 250ml crème fraîche
  • Salt and pepper
  • 3 sheets fresh lasagne
  • Small handful basil
  • Extra virgin olive oil
  • Small handful Parmesan

Method

Start by cutting the bacon into small strips and put into a frying pan with a little oil. Get the bacon frying while you prepare the chard.

Strip the chard leaves away from the stalks and put in to two separate piles. Slice the chard stalks to roughly the same size as the bacon and shred the leaves.

When the bacon is turning golden brown add the chard stalks to the pan and fry for a few minutes until the stalks have softened. Crush in the garlic and then add the chard leaves. Fry for another minute or so until the leaves have started to wilt and then add the crème fraîche, plenty of pepper and a little salt. Keep cooking this, stirring occasionally, until you have a thick sauce. read more

Wet Garlic, Bacon and Broccoli Pappardelle

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wet garlic
You know that saying about life giving you lemons? I was given some wet garlic (also called green garlic) in my vegetable box. Lemons can be made into lemonade but I certainly wasn’t about to start making garlic juice. I took some time to ponder its use. It looked like a skinny leek, but much longer, with the very pungent and distinct aroma of garlic. Firstly I thought it best to try it raw to see what I was up against. I think even now I have a faint whiff of garlic on my breath. Raw wet garlic would, I’m sure, be acceptable to the ultimate garlic aficionado but not for me. Cooking was to be the way forward but I wondered whether to treat it like a leek which needs longer cooking or treat it like garlic which burns in the blink of an eye.  You will need: 6-8 rashers smoked bacon, diced 1 small onion, diced 1 wet garlic stalk/bulb, finely sliced 100ml chicken or vegetable stock 1 small head of broccoli, cut into florets Pappardelle (however much it takes for you to be full) Oil for frying Salt and Pepper

Start by frying the onion in a little oil for a few minutes to soften. Add the bacon and fry for about five minutes until the bacon is cooked and the onions turning translucent. Add the garlic and reduce the heat. Fry for a few more minutes before pouring in the stock. Simmer this on a medium heat stirring occasionally. I used some of the chicken stock I had made from the leftover chicken.

While this cooks, add the pappardelle to boiling water. Four or five minutes before the pasta is ready, add the broccoli to the same water. The sauce should be reducing but turn the heat up or add a little more stock if it’s happening too fast or too slow. When the pasta and broccoli are done, add the broccoli and a little of the pasta water to the bacon sauce. Serve the broccoli, bacon, garlic mixture on top of the pappardelle. 

I was really surprised how the garlic mellowed with cooking. There was a definite garlic undertone to the dish but it was not as overpowering as I thought it might be. The salty bacon, sweet onion, pungent garlic and juicy broccoli were all married together beautifully with the chicken stock. If you’re lucky enough to get hold of wet garlic this is certainly worth a try (I also added it to frying Chorizo and it worked a treat), if you’re brave then you could try slicing it in to a salad. read more

Spring Green and Bacon Potato Cakes with Cheddar and Chive Sauce

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spring green and bacon potato cake
Spring greens offer so much in their name. They suggest that either spring is here or is just around the corner, they have disguised their cabbage relations with their seasonal pseudonym. I happen to think that spring greens also deliver a lot. They look shrivelled and unwelcoming with their leaves closed to the outside world but once you start to snap them off and slice them up they are wonderfully versatile. As a relation to the cabbage, spring greens lend themselves particularly well to a pairing with bacon. Spring greens and bacon are a delectable combination but don’t make for much of a meal on their own. However, when mixed into some mashed potato and smothered in a rich cheese and chive sauce, what a meal it makes.   
For the potato cakes:
600g potatoes (Maris Piper are ideal)
£0.54
Milk and butter (for the mash)
£0.20
6 rashers smoked, streaky bacon
£1.50
4-5 big leaves savoy cabbage (or Spring greens)
£0.20
Salt and pepper
£0.02
For the cheese sauce:
25g butter
£0.15
25g plain flour
£0.02
300ml milk
£0.10
75g strong cheddar cheese
£0.85
Small handful fresh chopped chives
£0.40
Total
£3.98

 
First and foremost make some mashed potato. Maris Pipers I found to be particularly good; they are fluffy enough to make mash like a cloud and yet waxy enough to hold the greens and bacon in. Mash your potatoes as you see fit; add milk, butter, cream and anything you fancy but don’t forget the salt and pepper. While the potatoes are boiling away, slice some bacon and fry in a pan. Snap the leaves of the spring greens off and shred it finely. Add to the bacon and carry on frying until lovely and golden. For two people I used four rashers of bacon and five large spring green leaves. read more

Boeuf Bourguignon with Dauphinoise and Purple Sprouting Broccoli

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Boeuf Bourguignon ingredients
Beautiful, traditional and French; a perfect meal for Valentine’s Day. This one’s a winner because the bottle of wine you need for the boeuf bourguignon you can then drink with the meal or yourself during the preparation as a reward for all your hard work. Being a slow cooking dish means once it’s on the go you don’t need to worry about it and you can get on with other things. If that wasn’t enough, it’s also incredible and actually quite cheap. 

Preparing the meat can be as difficult or easy as you like. Valentine’s Day brings out our flirtatious side and, not that I would advocate it of course, projecting a little of this new found eyelash fluttering on your butcher may result in your chosen cut being prepared for you. I’m not sure it would work with your greengrocer though. I used brisket for mine which needed a fair bit of trimming and preparing but I quite like doing that. read more

Brussels Sprouts with Bacon and Walnuts

By 14 Comments

The poor sprout. I don’t know of another vegetable that has to put up with as much ridicule. People turning their noses up at even the slightest mention of this poor brassica must be hard to deal with if you’re a sprout. Chances are those that turn up their noses have only tried them boiled to within an inch of their life. There’s much more to a sprout than as a soggy green mess at the side of the plate. There is a rumour that sprouts can cause side effects of the flatulent sort. This rumour is also rife for baked beans but it doesn’t seem to put people off. read more

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