Apple Nachos!

Apple Nachos

I’ve seen these dotted about a few places, so decided I would give it a go, as I am a bit of a peanut butter fiend! They are ridiculously easy to make, and quick to make. The most time consuming bit was slicing the apples, and that’s not exactly hard!

            Ingredients:

• 2 apples- sliced
• 3 heaps of peanut butter
• Handful of cashew nuts
• Handful of chocolate drops.

Slice some apples; spread them over your plate.

Melt peanut butter and cover it all over the apple slices

Throw over nuts and chocolate drops

Eat quickly so apples don’t brown!  

What I think:

These are a pretty tasty treat, and as far as desserts go, I guess sort of healthy? We were going to also spread over nutella, but du to already being full to the brim we decided just peanut butter would be better. I used one red and one green apple, thinking that this would add to the appearance, but the red apples didn’t work as well from the heat of the peanut butter. So two green will do the trick!

Ginger, Chilli & Honey Pork

Ginger, Chili & Honey Pork

So for dinner last night I wanted a little Chinese feast as the football was on. We had some pork to use so I decided on this. We did also pop down to sainburys and bought a big bag of prawn crackers and some duck spring rolls. We ate with rice and broccoli. Nom nom!

Apologies for the steamy photo! Despite the appearance this
was actually a very tasty meal! 

Ingredients:

Pork 400g1 onion diced

1 carrot grated

4 tbs of honey

A pinch of ginger, chilli & salt.

Cup of rice

To make I marinated the pork in olive oil, ginger, chilli and honey for about an hour before cooking. The gently browned some onions in the pan, then added in the pre-marinated pork. After a minute turn the heat down low, peel in one small carrot. This is more or less done from here, just add in a tablespoon, or two, of water and stir occasionally.

What I think: For a first attempt I was very happy with the out come. I wasn’t planning on blogging about it, so made absolutely zero effort with presenting (literally threw as much food onto the plate as it could hold!) But after I had a mouthful I realised that this was worth shouting about! So I apologise for the bad photo (I’m a Photography graduate as well, whoops!).  If I were to make again I would use a lot more chilli to give it a grater kick to really compliment the sweetness of the honey.  Without buying all the spring rolls & prawn crackers it is a very cheap meal, especially if using dry herbs it’s more or less you can make with the ingredients found in your cupboard. Will be making again!

Mediterranean Fish Tray Bake.

Mediterranean Fish Tray Bake.

After about eight months of picking up sainsburys recipe cards, the Boyfriend and I have finally found something that we want to make. Hurrah! We’ve not followed the recipe cards exactly, it’s more a case that we just like the sound of some things and ran with it.

Ingredients (enough to feed two hungry bellies):

8 new potatoes, sliced

2 Red onions, chopped roughly

2 Courgettes, sliced

Tinned tomatoes

2 trout fillets (we used salmon the other day, which also tastes delightful)

1 clove of garlic

A handful of herbs

Olive oil

(I also threw in the left over mix I had from making pasties earlier on in the day)

Place the potatoes in the oven to roast, and then allow the veg to follow about 10-15 mins later. Leave the oven well alone for another 20 mins, pull everything out and mix the roast potatoes into the vegetables. Add in a tin of tomatoes, and then place the fish fillets skin side up on top of everything.  Leave in the oven for 15- 20 mins.

Delicious! 

What I think: This has quickly become one of my favourite meals. It’s easy to make, and it leaves you felling full but healthy. Which is a lot better than full and guilty! I would be interested to try the meal with whole cherry tomatoes and a few sliced up, but not entirely sure how that would effect the overall meal as it could end up a lot dryer. The meal with Salmon is better, but there’s not really a lot in it, and this is a cheaper fish. 

Butternut Squash & Red Onion Pasty

My plate of squash pastys!

Coming from the very lovely, south West I have a certain fondness of pasties. I would also like to point out here I am not a politician trying to declare my love of the pasty to gain common ground with the poor British citizen.  Over the years it has been largely argued where the actual location of the pasty birth was, some say Cornwall, some say Devon, and being a Devon girl, I like to also believe it is Devon!

To make a traditional pasty, you don’t pre-cook the filling; you encase it in pastry and let the filling steam cook. I however have kind of cheated. Naughty, naughty! Using Butternut Squash as my main ingredient, I worried about how well the squash would soften, so cooked up my filling first.

All the pasty mix cooking away.

Ingredients:

2 small red onions, slice

1 butternut squash, cut into small cubes

A sprinkle of cracked black pepper, rosemary, and chilli

Freshly chopped Basil

For the pastry:

150g plain flour

50g sunflower spread

A few teaspoons of cold water

1 Free-range egg

A pinch of slat

To start I places the chopped onions in the pan, browned for a few mins and seasoned with a few different herbs. After that’s I added the cubed butternut squash in to the mix, added a little bit of water so the food didn’t dry out and left to cook away slowly on a low heat.

Whilst waiting for the mix to cook, I started to make the pastry. I tried the best I possibly could to remember the techniques I was taught in high school, but something makes me think I was a better pastry-maker at 15 years old. Sigh.

I sifted the flour into a bowl and added in the cubes of sunflower spread (I don’t like butter) and rubbed the mix through my fingertips until my flour looked like breadcrumbs. I then added my water in using a knife until the mix resembled some kind of dough that held together.  The next stage is wrapping up the dough in cling film and letting it rest for about 20 mins in the fridge. Giving me enough time to get around to turning the oven on, all the way up to 200 degrees.

The next bit was the bit that made me realise I needed more dough! So perhaps anyone following my recipe should double up the mix! So, to forming the pasty! This is just a case of rolling out the dough, placing two heaped spoons of butternut squash yumminess on each bit of pastry (this is a good time to grate some cheese over the mix if you want), roll out and use a fork around the edge to press down, creating a seal.  Place in the oven for 20-25 mins and viola! SQUASH PASTIES ARE MADE!!

Showing off the filling. 

What I think: Butternut Squash is easily one of my favourite vegetables! So I racked my brains and decided to come up with this little concoction. I’ve been planning on making it for a while now, and had a day off so finally did it. It wasn’t really as time consuming as I thought it would be. The only thing that was a hassle was chopping up the squash. So time consuming!

I think it was the right thing to pre-cook the veggies as it gave the squash some time to soften up. The only fault would have been the amount of pastry I made. I think I had enough mix left to fill two more pasties, so I’ll have to blitz that up and eat it as soup. Waste not, want not!

They did taste really good and I’m going to be making them again at some point, but I may give something like med-veg pasties ago! 

I love Mexican food.

Fajita Friday!

So I had everything I needed for a Mexican feast, and thought I’d give it a go to try some slow cooking in the oven.

 

To start with I had three pork steaks, so I marinated them for a few hours in some olive oil, garlic, paprika, chilli and a wee bit of rock salt. After two hours I popped it in the oven at 80 degrees, covered with tin foil to keep it moist. After that I more or less didn’t need to think about it, with the exception on checking on it every so often.

In the cupboard I had a tin of mixed Mexican beans, so I chopped up half an onion, added half a tin of tomatoes to keep it juicy, a clove of garlic and a sprinkle of smoked paprika and threw it all together in a Pyrex dish, ready for the oven. This was much the same as the pork- once in the oven it only required a check every so often. I eat an awful lot of Mexican food at home (because it’s one of the tastiest things to eat and it’s really, really easy), so I was quite excited to so how it turned out. I considered cooking it on the hob in a pan, but thought that oven cooking would give the best results.

Whilst I wasn’t needing to pay any attention to the pork and beans, I sliced up half an onion and six large peppers, covered in some olive oil, and again in to the oven with no need to worry about it!

Next up: salsa! For this I chopped up half a large onion, let it start to brown and added in some garlic and a chopped up green chilli. After a minute or so I added in a tin and a half of tomatoes, and left it to slowly simmer on the hob.

 

For me, one of the very best things about Mexican food is big fat dollops of guacamole! I hate going to Mexican places and getting food where they don’t put it on food. It’s just not right! Guacamole is ridiculously easy to make:

Chop a quarter of an onion, a clove of garlic, and half a chilli. Put them in a bowl together and add the zest of a lime. Chop some avocado (I used two) and blitz it with a food processer, when soft add in the bowl of mixed onions, lime, garlic and chilli. That is pretty much it… holy moly guacamole!

After all of this it was time to start taking everything out of the oven (which we did turn the temp up to about 180 for the final 30 mins). After taking out the pork we left it to rest, giving us time to chop and fry the mushrooms to mix everything in together. After resting the pork, chop the chops and throw it in with the peppers, once the mushrooms have cooked throw them in there as well! Somewhere in the last few minutes would have been the time to wrap the wraps in tinfoil and let them warm in the oven, and brilliant cheese-grating time!

What I think:

I don’t want to blow my own trumpet too loudly, but it was bloody lovely!  I really enjoyed the addition of the beans; the only problem was they weren’t so tasty when they were cooling down. Next time I will put them on something to keep them warm. The pork would be a whole lot better if it was originally a bigger joint (i.e. not steaks!), but I can’t complain. Allowing it to cook for the length of time I did made it full of flavour.  Probably an 8/10.