There’s no denying that this is a plate full of colour; it’s also absolutely bursting with flavour. These Tandoori Chicken Flatbreads are a recipe of two halves: you can make it all at once, or alternatively, do as I did and batch cook the tandoori chicken and keep it in the freezer to make weeknight meals like this. The flatbreads are topped with a whole load of fresh salad, spiked yoghurt, mango chutney, the warm chicken and fresh chillies. They are really flexible too; you can add or leave out anything that you prefer.
Spring Vegetable Tray Bake
There’s a certain time of year where the contents of the veg box are suddenly more vibrant. There’s something red or orange which isn’t a carrot and something green which isn’t cabbage. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against a good brassica but when the first spring vegetables come through you know that it’s not long until the spring and summer veg are in full swing. To mark this occasion I made a spring vegetable tray bake; to celebrate all that is delicious at this time of year.
My Favourite Spring Recipes
There are different shades of green in spring; the deep greens of kale and purple sprouting broccoli and the vibrant greens of asparagus and wild garlic. It is around this time each year that things seem to come alive, the evenings are getting longer and the days warmer. Trees are blossoming and everyone seems to awaken from a winter slumber to shake off those cobwebs (literally and figuratively). I start to cook lighter meals at this time of year but there’s always room for something more indulgent for those chilly evenings that catch you by surprise. With so many things about to come into season there’s much to look out for and these are my favourite spring recipes.
A few of my favourite hearty meals, which also lend themselves very well to a bit of batch cooking and freezing, are all pasta related! There’s my Tuscan Sausage Ragu which was inspired by a meal I had in Tuscany; you’ll need excellent sausages for this. My Layered Ragu and Aubergine Pasta Bake takes a bit of time to make but it is so worth it, the more aubergines the better as far as I’m concerned. For something a little lighter, and my favourite way to cook with chard, my Chard and Bacon Open Lasagne is much less effort than a normal lasagne. I do love a bit of spice and a tomato based curry is one of my top comfort foods; this Slow Cooked Lamb Curry is full of spices and fresh flavours.
A quick and easy weeknight dinner is always a bonus; it allows for extra time in the garden on those long evenings. A baked aubergine is one of my favourite things to eat; be it with pesto, jerk seasoning or my Miso Glazed Aubergine. The smoky flavour of chipotle chillies and the sweetness of the sweetcorn work so well together in my Chipotle Sweetcorn Hash. For a real hint of summer my Artichoke and Red Pepper Gratin is just asking to be enjoyed outside with a cold glass of wine and some warm crusty bread.
Having some delicious veggie meals stashed away in the freezer means I always have something I can serve with baked potatoes, rice or bread and my Smoky Cowboy Beans and my Lentil and Black Bean Chilli are two of my favourite recipes.
It wouldn’t be spring without Easter and a wonderful Easter Afternoon Tea is well worth a try; sandwiches, sausage rolls, scones, chocolate shortbread and rice krispie nests. For something a little different to the usual why not give my White Chocolate Easter Egg Nests a go?
There’s always room for some baking and these Spanish Fennel Biscuits are similar to something I tried in Madrid. Delicious with cream cheese and sherry! I like my cookies crisp on the outside and gooey in the middle and my Double Chocolate and Orange Cookies are exactly that!
A few other things to look out for at this time of year are Bergamot lemons and I’ve got plenty of Bergamot Recipes to try: as a salad dressing, in a cake and in a cocktail! If you’re lucky enough to find some wild garlic there’s plenty of cooking inspiration if you take a look at these Wild Garlic Recipes. And don’t forget about the Purple Sprouting Broccoli and Rhubarb! What will you be cooking up this spring?
Vegetable Keema Rice with Crispy Paneer
At this time of year I get all the spices out of the cupboard and start to use those that I forgot about over the summer months. I found a tub of my homemade keema spice mix and although I know it’s delicious with lamb I wanted to try and make a veggie version. After trying out a few different vegetables and quantities I decided that I like this version of my vegetable keema rice the best. Not only is it easy and filling, it’s also got four different veg in and loads of texture from that crispy paneer.
ingredients
You will need (for two):
- Rapeseed oil for cooking
- 1 onion, sliced
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed
- 2 dsp keema spice mix
- 125g basmati rice
- 300ml water
- 2 nuggets frozen spinach (about the same as 4-6 tbsp blanched and chopped fresh spinach)
- 1/2 mug frozen peas
- Salt
For the crispy paneer:
- Rapeseed oil for cooking
- 1 heaped tsp turmeric
- 1 tsp cumin seeds
- Handful mushrooms, sliced
- 225g paneer cheese
- Salt
method
Heat a little oil in a lidded saucepan on a medium heat and add the onion. Fry for around 10 minutes or so until it’s starting to turn golden brown.
Add the garlic and the keema spices to the pan and cook for another minute or two.
Stir the rice into the pan so it gets all coated with the spices then pour in the water with a little salt. Pop a lid on the pan and leave for 12-15 minutes.
After this add the peas and spinach to the rice, stir the pan and then pop the lid back on and leave for another 8-10 minutes.
Test the rice to ensure it is cooked, all the water should have been absorbed by the rice, and add a little more salt if needed.
While the rice cooks you can get on with the crispy paneer. Start by heating a little oil in a non-stick frying pan on a medium/high heat. Add the turmeric and cumin and cook for a few minutes until smelling fragrant.
Tip the mushrooms and paneer into the spices and fry for 5-10 minutes, stirring regularly, until the mushrooms are soft and turning golden and the paneer is crispy on the edges. Add a little salt and check the seasoning.
Serve up the vegetable keema rice with the crispy paneer and mushrooms on top.
I really like the combination of veg in this meal. You’ve got sweetness from the onion and peas, a slight earthiness from the spinach and a rich mushroom flavour. By using a spice mix that you’ve already made (and which you can alter to suit your taste) means most of the hard work is already done and you can just sprinkle in those flavours! The crispy paneer is a fantastic way to add texture and it would be delicious to use some marinated paneer if you fancied.
Sticky Soy and Chilli Chicken Thighs
From time to time I get a recipe stuck in my head and I can think of nothing else until I make it. These sticky soy and chilli chicken thighs are exactly one of those recipes. There were several criteria that these thighs had to fulfil and anything short of my imagined flavour would not suffice. Most importantly they had to be sticky; properly glazed so that they left trails of marinade on the plate. Secondly, they had to have a salty soy base and a little chilli kick. The ginger, garlic, lime, onion and sesame were all added for depth of flavour. They were everything I wanted them to be.
ingredients
You will need (for two):
- 4 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
- 2 tbsp soy sauce (I used a low salt one)
- 1 tsp sesame oil
- Juice 1 lime
- 2 tbsp honey
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed
- 1 small piece ginger, around the size of a thumbnail, grated
- Pinch dried chillies
- 2-3 spring onions, sliced
method
Mix all the ingredients together except the chicken to make the marinade.
Put the chicken thighs into a roasting dish and pour over the marinade. Really mix the chicken and marinade together making sure you get some inside, over and under the thighs.
Put in the fridge to marinate for around an hour, longer if possible, but a shorter time wouldn’t be the end of the world.
Preheat an oven to 200C. Put the chicken into the oven with all the marinade and roast for 20 minutes. Remove from the oven, baste the chicken and return to the oven for another 20 minutes. Check the chicken is cooked through after 40 minutes total roasting time.
I served these sticky chicken thighs with a noodle salad full of fresh herbs.
Combining honey and soy together means you can’t go far wrong with a salty, sweet and sticky end result. The thing I love about roasting the chicken rather than frying it is that the chicken and marinade cook into each other and you’re left with a thick, unctuous sauce which is just asking to be spooned over the chicken. It would be delicious on the BBQ, you’d need to baste it often, and I think it would work really well with tofu too. This is my kind of comfort food. I can imagine a cold evening where I roast these, simply serve them with a bowl of white rice and let the leftover marinade mingle with the rice.
Lemon and Coconut Flapjacks
When I cut into a lemon I can’t help but give it a good sniff. It’s the same with lime and grapefruit. There’s something about that citrus smell that I just can’t wait to inhale; especially if it’s a drizzly day. I also love tropical flavours at this time of year: coconut, passion fruit, mango, you name it! Combining a bit of citrus and a bit of tropical was the idea here so I set about baking some lemon and coconut flapjacks.
ingredients
You will need (for 12 flapjacks):
- 125g butter
- 125g soft brown sugar
- 3 tbsp golden syrup
- 225g oats
- 25g desiccated coconut
- Zest 1 lemon
- Juice 1 lemon
- 4-6 tbsp icing sugar (I used unrefined)
method
Preheat an oven to 180C and grease a baking dish well, the one I used was 20cm x 20cm.
In a small saucepan melt together the butter, brown sugar and golden syrup on a low heat. Stir often to ensure everything gets well combined.
Stir the oats, coconut and lemon zest together in a large bowl.
Once the butter, sugar and syrup have melted pour them into the oats and mix everything together well to ensure that the butter mix has coated everything.
Tip the oats into the baking dish and flatten the top with the back of a spoon.
Bake for 20 minutes.
Remove the flapjacks from the oven and mark into portions while they are still hot. Leave to cool for at least 20 minutes before removing and leaving to cool on a wire rack.
To make the icing squeeze the lemon juice into a bowl. Sift in three tbsp icing sugar to start with and see how thick the icing gets. Keep adding more icing sugar until the icing becomes thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.
Drizzle, splat or dunk the flapjacks in the icing to decorate.
Now when you come to ice the flapjacks don’t be alarmed that the icing dribbles down in between the oats. That tangy lemon hit will settle somewhere inside and be delicious when you come to eat it. By using unrefined icing sugar the icing will come out a pale brown/yellow colour but if you use refined icing sugar it will come out white. I really like using chunky whole oats for flapjacks as I think it gives a great texture and mixed with coconut the overall texture of these is slightly chewy at the edges and soft in the middle. Just how I like them.
Salami and Mozzarella Open Ciabatta
Sometimes there’s nothing better than a sandwich. It could be a properly crusty, thickly sliced loaf filled with simple cheese and chutney, a bagel filled with pastrami, gherkins and mustard or some thin rye bread topped with smoked fish and herbs. I don’t think I could ever tire of something that you can just grab and eat with your hands. My salami and mozzarella open ciabatta is just the thing for a simple, no fuss, full of flavour dinner. Don’t tell anyone but I could have eaten all four pieces to myself.
ingredients
You will need (for two big sandwiches or four smaller ones):
- 1 ciabatta loaf
- Handful cherry tomatoes, halved
- 1-2 tbsp olive oil for cooking and extra virgin olive oil
- Balsamic vinegar
- Salt and pepper
- 1 garlic clove, peeled and sliced in half
- 1 ball mozzarella, torn into small pieces
- 8 slices salami
method
Start by baking the ciabatta according to packet instructions. Leave to cool before slicing in half lengthways and opening the ciabatta up, then slice it in half again so you end up with four equal sized pieces.
Turn the oven to 220C and put the tomatoes in a single layer in a baking dish. Drizzle over the olive oil and balsamic vinegar, add the vinegar to suit your taste, and then season.
Bake for 20 minutes or until the tomatoes are starting to brown at the edges.
Preheat a grill to medium.
Rub the garlic clove, cut side down, over each open face of the ciabatta. Drizzle some extra virgin olive oil over the ciabatta and then place under the grill for a few minutes until lightly toasted.
Remove the ciabatta and then load each slice up with the tomatoes, salami and mozzarella. Put back under the grill until the salami has crisped up a little but be careful not to let the ciabatta catch.
Unintentionally this reminded me of a pizza and actually, considering how easy it is to make I would definitely try it again instead of a pizza! I love this combination of flavours; sharp and sweet tomatoes, creamy mozzarella and punchy salami. There are so many variations of this that you could make. One I would really like to try would be some leftover griddled aubergine, goat’s cheese and pesto. Or maybe one with figs, blue cheese and honey. Or maybe…
Three Cheese and Cauliflower Macaroni
I often make macaroni cheese, or some variation of it. I like to play around with adding vegetables, different cheeses or flavours in the sauce. This three cheese and cauliflower macaroni cheese is one of the most delicious I’ve made. The combination of Emmental (for sweetness and stringiness), Cheddar (for bite and cheesiness) and Parmesan (for savouriness) means you get the best of all the cheeses! And don’t worry, there’s a cauliflower in there too; to add a little vegetable healthiness amongst all that indulgence.
ingredients
You will need (for two generous portions):
- 150g macaroni
- 1 small cauliflower, chopped into small florets
- 25g unsalted butter
- 25g plain flour
- 300ml milk
- 2 tsp Dijon mustard
- 75g strong Cheddar cheese, grated
- 75g Emmental cheese, grated
- 30g Parmesan, grated
- Salt and pepper
- Handful breadcrumbs
- Sprig fresh rosemary
method
Bring a pan of salted water to the boil, add the macaroni and cook according to packet instructions. Add the cauliflower to a steamer over the macaroni for the last 3-4 minutes of cooking. Drain them both well and put to one side.
To make the cheese sauce melt the butter in a small saucepan on a medium heat and then add the flour. Cook for a minute or two then gradually whisk in the milk. Keep whisking to ensure there are no lumps.
Continue whisking the sauce until it bubbles and becomes thick. Remove from the heat, stir through most of the cheese, the mustard and a little salt and pepper.
Mix the macaroni, cauliflower and cheese sauce together then tip into a baking dish. Sprinkle the remaining cheese over the top and then sprinkle over the breadcrumbs. Pop the rosemary sprig on top.
Bake in a preheated oven at 180C for 25-30 minutes, or until golden on top.
You might be thinking that the rosemary is a bit pointless just stuck on top of the macaroni cheese like that. Well, it’s actually deliberate. When the dish comes out of the oven you want to remove all the leaves from the rosemary and leave them on top. Then, when you serve it up everyone gets a bit of roasted rosemary which has such a great flavour. This three cheese and cauliflower macaroni is such a comfort food dish for me; cheese, pasta, cauliflower and woody rosemary are all so good together.
My Favourite Winter Recipes
One of my favourite things to do in winter is to get outside early, ideally before sunrise, and drink in that crisp cold air. If I’m lucky there’ll be a few birds jumping around on the frosty floor here and there and I’ll wander up the hill to see the sun spread over the pale morning sky. There’s nothing like it. Usually I’ll only get to do this at the weekend and during the walk I have time to think about which of my favourite winter recipes to cook up.
Winter in my kitchen sees a change in the cupboards and fridge. There are oranges, tangerines and satsumas falling out of the fruit bowl, nuts in the cupboards and green leafy veg aplenty. We’re eating thickly sliced toast slathered in butter and topped with locally made jam to remember the summer fruits, cheap cuts of meat are simmering in the oven in a rich gravy and from time to time we’ll have a thick hot chocolate in front of the wood burner while we warm up our toes.
There’s so much to look forward to in the winter months; from knobbly celeriac to flavourful cauliflower and plenty of room and time for chocolate treats as we get further into December. Here are some of my favourite winter recipes that I’ll definitely be cooking up over the next few months.
It won’t be long before the blood oranges start to appear and apart from looking amazing I love the flavour of them too. A really simple dessert to try is Blood Orange Posset which has a perfect balance of citrus and cream. Another pudding which I loved baking is my
Greek Chicken Tray Bake
I love a straightforward dinner. However being straightforward doesn’t mean there’s any skimping on flavour. Grabbing a few ingredients out of the fridge and cupboards, chucking them in a roasting tray and miraculously taking the finished dish out of the oven at the end is the weeknight dream. My Greek chicken tray bake is a two tray affair (I know, slightly more involved than one tray) and really delivers on flavour. The flavours of Greece; oregano, tomatoes, olives make this a wonderful dish for this time of year.
Ingredients
You will need (for two):
- 350g potatoes, scrubbed and diced
- 3 large garlic cloves, crushed
- 2 sprigs fresh rosemary
- Olive oil
- Salt and pepper
For the chicken:
- 2 chicken breasts
- 2 tsp dried oregano
- 1-2 tsp sweet paprika
- 1 lemon, quartered
- Tomatoes, still on the vine if possible
- Handful stoned olives
- Olive oil
- Salt and pepper
Method
Start by adding the potatoes to a pan of cold, salted water. Bring the pan up to the boil and boil the potatoes for 5-10 minutes or until just softened when tested with a knife. Drain the potatoes and put to one side.
In a roasting dish add 2 tbsp olive oil, the garlic cloves and rosemary ad mix everything together to ensure the garlic and rosemary are well coated in oil. Tip the potatoes into this dish with some salt and pepper and give everything another good mix.
Bake the potatoes in a preheated oven at 180C for 30 minutes.
Once the potatoes are in the oven, start on the chicken.
Place each chicken breast between two sheets of cling film or baking paper and flatten slightly with a rolling pin, you want each one to be around 1cm thick.
Sprinkle the oregano and paprika over each piece of chicken with a little salt and pepper.
Put a large frying pan on a medium/high heat with a little olive oil. Fry the chicken until golden on both sides then turn off the heat and put to one side.
In another roasting tray put the lemon wedges, tomatoes and olives. Arrange the chicken on top of the tomatoes then add a little more salt and pepper and a drizzle of olive oil.
Add this to the oven with the potatoes for around 15 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked through.
Serve with salad if you like.
I think a small red onion, cut into wedges and nestled in amongst the potatoes would be a fantastic addition to this tray bake. It would also be worth adding a little sprinkle of feta over the chicken for a deliciously salty kick. When the chicken has finished baking, don’t discard all the tomato and lemon juices that have gathered in the roasting tray. They are absolutely delicious and need to be savoured and poured over the chicken. My Greek chicken tray bake even manages to make its own sauce; what more could you need?
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- …
- 62
- Next Page »
