Oh Calzone, you delicious pizza pie.

Calzone for dinner!

Is there much better than a calzone? It’s like a pizza, and a pie- a pizza pie! Yummy! With this in mind, the Boyfriend and I set out to make some.

Ingredients

Half a Chorizo                      Half a large onion/ 1 small onion

1 X Red Pepper                    1 X Green Pepper

60g Mushrooms                    Garlic cloves X 2

1 X 400g tin of tomatoes       Tomato puree

Handful of spinach                Grated Mozzarella

Rosemary                              Basil

Pesto                                     Salt and Pepper

Pizza base mix (it’s not considered cheating when you need to knead anything for a good 10-15 mins!)

Above Image: Calzone mix cooking
Bottom Image: Calzone waiting to go in the oven.

How To:

Start by pre-heating the oven to 180 degrees.

Make the pizza base dough (all the instructions are on the side of the box. If not, mix flour with yeast until you get a dough like consistency. Roll out on a floured surface, and knead for 10 mins). I added in some rosemary and basil to add flavour to my base, and make it a wee bit prettier! Roll it out, and leave to rest on a pizza base tray for about 10 mins.

To make your sauce use your tin of tomatoes, and handful of herbs and tomato puree and crushed garlic cloves. Bring to the boil and allow to simmer away whilst everything else is cooking.

In a pan heat Onions in olive oil. After they brown add in peppers & chorizo (these both need time to soften).  Give to just under 5 mins and add in your mushrooms. Allow this all to stay cooking for another 10 mins.

In the last minute, add in your spinach. Then get 1/3 of your tomato sauce mixture and stir in to your calzone filling. Do this whilst on a low heat.

(You are holding the other 2/3 of the tomato mix to use as a tasty dip later! Mmmm)

Get your base and spread a good slather of pesto on half of the base.  Then carefully place your filling in the middle (The tip here is to not go too mental, if it is overfilled, it will leak out whilst cooking. You don’t want that!). Sprinkle a generous portion of mozzarella cheese over the mix, and then fold over the pizza base. Get a fork and press down along the edges to keep everything inside (just like a pasty!), and then brush over with a little milk. Sprinkle some more herbs over the calzone, place in the oven for 15-20 mins until base is hard and golden!

The finished piece! So delicious. 

Summer salad

Avocado, Melon, Lime & Chicken Salad.

There has been a little bit of sunshine recently, which has called for some lighter meals. Being such a big fan of avocado, I try to include it wherever I can, and thought that it would work well as a chicken salad, and what do you know? It did!

Ingredients:

4 X Boneless Chicken Things, chopped

1 x Lime

2 X Avocado, chopped

A pinch of Paprika, chilli, cumin

10 X Cherry Tomatoes, halved

¼ cantaloupe Melon, sliced

Spinach leaves (2 handfuls per dish)

This is so easy to make. Start my cooking your chicken things in a little bit of olive oil. Season with all three spices, and then squeeze the lime juice all over the chicken.

Prepare the salad of spinach, avocado, melon and tomatoes. Then add chicken.

That’s all there is to it! Super easy, Super colourful, Supper yummy!

I Love Curry

Butternut Squash, Red lentil & spinach Curry.

So the Euros are upon us! Finally we have football on the TV screen again, wahoooo! Obviously this calls for some food that go well with (ginger) beer, and festering in front of the TV for a while. And what’s better than curry?! In my personal opinion, vegetable curries are seriously underrated (along with vegetable pizzas, they are always better than pizzas with meat!), so with a big knife in one hand, and a butternut squash in the other, I set about to make my delicious curry!

Ingredients:

1x large onion

4 cloves of garlic

1x butter nut squash (diced into tiny little cubes)

A big, generous handful of red lentils

1x red chilli, chopped

1x tinned tomatoes

800ml chicken stock

Spinach

Cumin

Garam masala

Coriander

In a large cooking pan, heat oil.

Add in onions, keep the heat low, throw in a bit of salt.

After 5-10 minutes of cooking, add in garlic.

Allow flavours to come out, and add in red chilli.

Add in all of the herbs and spices.

By this point it should be smelling bloody lovely!

Add in your (what seems a huge amount) butternut squash.

Give this a good stir and then, throw in lentils.

Quickly after, put in all of the stock, and the tinned tomatoes. Give it another good stir and cover.

Allow the curry a good few hours to develop on the low heat.

Give it an occasional stir and don’t forget to put the rice on 15 mins before you dish up!

3-5 mins before dishing up add in a few decent handfuls of spinach and stir in.

What I think:

Overall a really nice meal. I’m always impressed when I make something with no meat (excuse the stock!) and my boyfriend appears to be a big fan. The colours were beautiful and the curry had a lovely texture throughout, and a tasty bearable heat. Had with rice (I made cute little rice towers), some kind of Bombay potatoes (need to develop that recipe) and some garlic nann bread the boyfriend picked up (I wouldn’t have a clue how to make that!). Easily made veggie by switching to vegetable stock! I enjoyed the meal even more when I realised how cheap it was! 

Mum-Ma-Mia! Slow that cooking down!

Slow cooked Italian Beef Stew.

On my days off from work I like to cook things that I’ve not tried before, or different ways of doing things. After recently receiving a slow cooker, I thought I’d try and do as much slow-cooked meals as possible, because they taste so much better!

Overall it took a good four hours to make, but that’s not bad because once it’s in the oven, its just a case of going back every 20-30 minutes to give a stir.

Ingredients:

400g Beef braising steak

1x red onion

1x onion

6x cloves of garlic

100g mushrooms

1x courgette

2x peppers (one red, one yellow)

2x tinned tomoatoes (400g each)

Basil

Rosemary

Start of with a large frying pan, heating up some olive oil. Once heated, add in both slices of onion. Gently cook on a low heat.

After about 10 mins, add in all of your finely chopped garlic.

After allowing the garlic to release its flavour, add in your beef. Remember to keep it on a low heat, you’re not really cooking here, just mixing with heat!

Season the meat generously with rosemary, basil, and a little salt.

Add in peppers, courgette.

Once everything is all in together, transfer to your oven-proof dish.

This is where you can add your two tins of tomatoes.

Place in pre-heated oven, should be about 110 degrees.

Pop back every so often, to keep an eye on the delicious pot of food.

What I think:

The food being slow cooked was so much tastier! The originally tough beef melted in my mouth! The whole dish tasted incredibly rich and full of flavour. Will be making again at some point for definite! If only I didn’t need to make sure I was in for the whole afternoon!  Tastes wonderful with some really good quality, fresh bread. Easy 10/10!

Chicken, roasted Peppers & Pesto Pasta.

Chicken, roasted Peppers & Pesto Pasta.

This meal is most probably top of my list for “comfort food”. I adore it! It’s one of those meals where you can tuck in, and continue to eat until it’s all gone (enough to make you feel like a labrodor!). It’s easy to make, looks good and isn’t as fatty as most other comfort food dishes.

Ingredients:

1 x Red onion, sliced

3 x peppers (more colour variety will of course make it look more appealing!)

2 x Chicken breasts, chopped.

2x tablespoons of pesto

180g Pasta

A good glug of olive oil

Start by slicing both peppers and onion, and place in a roasting dish, with the addition of a glug of olive oil.  Roast for about 20-25 mins (but keep an eye on it and give it a mix half way though.).

Begin to boil pasta.

Gently fry chicken breasts in a pan- try not to cook in too much oil as there will be plenty in the dish when everything I added together.

Rinse pasta.

In the roasting dish add your pasta, chicken and mix in the few tablespoons of pesto. Viola! Dinner is made!

What I think: I think I’ve already made it clear how much I adore this meal. Easy and tasty, and relatively effortless.