Mushroom and Ginger Soup

Today's recipe of choice comes from one of those tomes that you pick up in discount book shops for a few pounds.  It's been sat on my desk for years.  I flick through it at least once a week.  I find something I want to make but yet never get round to making it.  Even though the book is entitled "Quick and Easy" and should be full of recipes perfect for someone as time-poor as myself, I just don't seem to have the time to try them.

Never one to make life easy for myself, in addition to having a two-year-old toddler, a full time job with a ninety minute commute and penning this blog on a daily basis, over the coming month I also have to contend with the following obstacles.  "The Olympic Food Challenge" starting on 27th July, my mother's birthday cake and assorted bits for a celebratory barbecue on August 3rd (you can guarantee rain in Winchester that day), at least two different types of cake for the tea tent at my gorgeous cousin Laura May (aka @BridestockBride)'s Wedding Festival on August 4th, a belated birthday cake for my goddaughter on August 5th, a week long Prince2 Practitioner course and training for the Bristol Half Marathon - which is in late September but the training is going on now.

It took longer to eat than to cook (too hot!)

Oh and planning my new blog too.  Thankfully that's currently in the capable hands of one of my best friends who I've coerced into designing the background and logo for me.  More on that another night.

So forgive me for actually finally choosing a recipe from Practical Cookery: Quick and Easy for once.  It was quick, easy, tasty and meets the current criteria for low in fat too.  It also gave me the opportunity to try out dried mushrooms.  I know they're a little pricey, but given that I'm the kind of person who regularly buys mushrooms and then never gets round to using them and throwing them away when they're slimy, having the dried ones to hand means I won't ever waste them.  Unless of course, I accidentally split the packet and the scatter floor-wards into the mouths of my waiting pooches.

Watching them rehydrate reminded me of some fake worms you used to be able to get from joke shops when I was a kid.  I used to stick them in my grandad's cup of tea and watch them grow.  Highly entertaining to a delinquent eight-year-old.  Just like when my delightful toddler peered into my bowl this evening and announced "Euuuuwww.  Mummy, Dexter's done a pooney in your dinner"  Cue toddler giggles.

I did manage to enjoy the meal despite that image being firmly rooted in my brain forever.

Serves 2 (for a main meal)

• 15g dried mushrooms
• 700 mls good quality vegetable stock
• 1 nest medium egg noodles
• 3 garlic cloves, finely sliced
• 1 tsp ginger paste (or 2.5cm root ginger, shredded)
• 1 tsp soy sauce
• handful beansprouts

1. Soak the mushrooms for at least thirty minutes in half the stock for at least 30 minutes.  Drain, reserving the stock.
2. When the are ready, cook the noodles for 2-3 minutes in boiling water.  Drain and rinse.
3. Spray a large frying pan with spray oil and place over a  high heat.  Add the garlic, ginger and mushrooms and stir fry for two minutes.
4. Add all of the stock and the soy sauce to the pan and bring to the boil.
5. Stir in the bean sprouts and cook for 1-2 minutes until tender.  
6. Divide the noodles between the serving bowls and ladle the soup on top.  Serve immediately.

Chorizo Hash

As an analyst, the six P's are part of my mantra.  Piss Poor Planning Prevents Poor Performance.  Unfortunately, I fell foul of this yesterday when I realised too late that Chinese New Year was today and not next Monday.  Ooops!

With a busy day on the first day of a new secondment, there was no time to stop by the supermarket to pick up the veg I needed to make the dumplings I'd hastily researched last night so I had to abandon the plan and went with the Chorizo Hash I'd previously planned instead.

I feel a little guilty about this recipe.  Yesterday I was looking for a recipe for chocolate and beetroot cake and happened across a blog by a food writer who openly derided people like me who regularly turn to the internet for recipes.  He believes that the only recipes worth making are those that have been tried and tweaked and enhanced and tested and tweaked again to perfect them.  He finds things like the quick and easy recipes peddled by certain websites anathema.

Posh sausage, egg and chips

Well lucky him.  I'd love to live a life where I had nothing better to do all day than sit around perfecting recipes.  Instead, like so many other people, I juggle life's responsibilities and still take pride in the fact that I cook (nearly) from scratch every night - save for the odd night when the husband yanks my chain and dispatches me off to buy him a takeaway.  Even if it is a quick and easy recipe.

So tonight's effort was a variation on the husband's dinner.  He had sausage, egg and chips.  I had chorizo hash with poached eggs.  I originally happened across the recipe in Olive Magazine but this is a hybrid of several I've found - mostly based on the ingredients I had to hand.

Simple and tasty - although I'm sure it would've tasted even better if I'd fried the potatoes in oil rather than low fat spray and had fried eggs instead of poached - which I managed to drop whilst trying to balance on the top of the mound of potato and sausage, hence the rubbish picture.

On the subject of poached eggs, check out the fab Kitchen Bitching blog for advice on how to poach the perfect egg.

Recipe - Serves 2

• 300g baby new potatoes -  halved (or quartered depending on size)
• 150g cooking chorizo - diced
• 1 red onion, sliced
• 2 eggs

1. Boil the potatoes in salted water until tender.  Drain.
2. Saute the potatoes in a little oil until browned and crispy.  Remove and set to one side.
3. Saute the red onion in a little oil until soft and lightly browned.  Add the chorizo and fry for a couple of minutes.  Return the potatoes to the pan to warm through.
4. Meanwhile, poach the eggs.
5. Divide the hash between two plates and top each with a poached egg.

Lamb Tagine

If my mother had the time and inclination to read my blog (which apparently she doesn't) she'd probably have to sit down after reading this post.  Because I cooked and ate lamb for my tea.  Yes, that's right mother. I. Ate. Lamb.

Every time I express my frustration about Abigail's fussiness, my mother kindly reminds me that at around two I went through a phase where I would only eat roast lamb.  And then as quickly as the fad started, it stopped and I became obsessed with celery and peanut butter (it's amazing, plastered thickly into the canal bit!).  Since those days, I've never really eaten lamb again.  I think it has something to do with Bernard Matthews' lamb roasts.

The Matthews' 'roasts' were the Turkey Twizzlers of the Eighties.  And I hope if you've ever had one, you will agree with me that they were disgusting.  The scrapings from the meat carcasses bound together with bits of fat and other unmentionables and sold to cash-strapped housewives as the convenient way to put a roast on the dinner table mid-week.  I wish I'd had the conviction as a six-year-old to declare myself as a vegetarian as those meals scarred me for life.  It's only as an adult knowing that I can choose to eat less meat and have better quality cuts that I'm starting to learn to love other meats besides chicken and turkey (although Matthews bastardised those into his 'roasts' too).

Over Christmas, I bit the bullet and made my first ever dish containing stewing steak.  Ordinarily, I wouldn't even consider what I would deem to be 'fatty' meat, but I now know that cooked correctly, the cheapest cuts can be more tender and tasty than the expensive stuff.

Lamb Tagine on herby couscous

So today, it was a toss-up between a mixed bean curry courtesy of La Berry's Complete Cookbook or a Lamb Tagine from BBC Good Food, December edition.  I asked the good people of Twitter-land and the tagine won the day.  Out came the diced stewing lamb, replete with little bits of fat that would ordinarily have me reaching for a carrot to munch instead.  But once the meat was sealed, it looked beautiful.  And after 25 minutes simmering away in the most fragrant smelling sauce, it was so soft and tender that it melted under my knife.

It was also so simple to cook for a midweek, after work meal.  Just seal the meat, fry the onion and then leave to simmer in stock with tomato puree and spices until the sauce has reduced and thickened.  And despite it being lamb, it is surprisingly healthy too at 450 cals for a really hearty meal.

You can find the recipe here.

And yes, mother, if you're reading, I did take that photo and then eat the food.  You can pick yourself up off the floor now.

Spaghetti with Courgette, Goats Cheese and Lemon

Quick and easy.

Found on someone else's blog.

I eat far to many carbs and have realised I nearly qualify as a fake vegetarian.


That is all.

5 minute challenge - Chocolate Mug Cake

It was one of those days. A poorly child meant I had a bad night's sleep and missed my 4.30am alarm call for a pre-work run. Up for work at 5.30am, home at 4pm to tend to the poorly child. Child to bed. Cooked fajitas for the husband. Really didn't fancy trying the warm chorizo and avocado that seemed such a good idea hours earlier; nor did I fancy another attempt at getting up at 4.30am so I decided for a quick run this evening.

Home at 8.20pm and caught the end of the Great British Bake Off on iPlayer (well done Jo!) and toyed with the idea of just giving up on the challenge on day eight because I just couldn't be bothered. But then I found myself idly Googling five minute recipes.

Most were the kind where you do thirty minutes prep and five minutes cooking or vice versa, but time and again I stumbled over a five minute chocolate cake in a mug. So what the hell. I gave it a go. And aside from it taking about thirty minutes for the mug to cool down so I could handle it (point of note - don't use an earthenware mug in a microwave if you don't want third degree burns!).

It took longer to get all the ingredients out of the cupboard than to cook. And it's not bad for a five minute cake if you need a chocolate fix.

Give it a whirl - the recipe is here

So over the course of the year, I aim to find more five minute recipes that can be made from store cupboard ingredients. I already have the next one to try - Avocado Quesadillas.

PS: Note the healthy yogurt and mixed berries accompaniment!