Cheap as Chips

"Potatoes are cheap as chips", a friend once said.  Well, yes, for obvious reasons.  As children we were raised on the potato staple.  How else was my mother to feed 4 children with hollow legs on a budget?  Potatoes can be used in such a variety of ways; just yesterday I watched a television chef make a creamy white sauce from leftover mashed potatoes.

I will eat potatoes in any form but I have to admit, I sometimes will make chips or roasted potatoes purely to have a little a lot of ketchup go along side them.  My dad used to ask me if I wanted some fries with my ketchup.  I still like ketchup and I'm not afraid to say it!

These potatoes are great whether you're a ketchup lover or not.  It's an adaptation of my mom's recipe; something she made a lot for us as children.  All you do is chop your potatoes into small cubes (about an inch or so in diameter), place them in a baking dish, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with oregano and salt and pepper and pop them in the oven for about half an hour at 200°C or until golden and crispy.

Until recently, I thought my mom was the whizz in the kitchen - and then she watched me make mashed potatoes.  I cut all the potatoes into small chunks so they cooked faster and she was impressed; she'd always boiled them whole.  I'm so glad I can make my mother proud in the kitchen with the little things.

Smoked Salmon Spaghetti

I may have mentioned once or twice (or three times) how much I like leftovers.  I like the challenge of turning one meal into something completely different, though sadly, not being able to replicate it ever again, because the same ingredients might not be available and I never ever write things down.  Until now.  Blogging about what I've made ensures I have a written record of my latest creation. 

About a month ago, I threw a dinner party for some girls I used to work with.  I had quite a few leftovers since I only used a little of the salmon to make the blinis and made an entire tray of roasted Mediterranean vegetables.  What followed was a dish so simple I'm surprised I haven't made it before.  I fried a little garlic and onion in some oil, tossed in some of the vegetables and the smoked salmon and threw in a few green olives.  Mixed with some whole wheat spaghetti, this was absolutely divine.  For something I just threw together it felt like I was eating in a restaurant; one where the dress code is very lax and so is the health code - think track pants and two dogs sitting next to me.

I won't be waiting for leftovers to make this again.  

A Few Tips For Hosting A Stress Free Dinner Party

It's been all about the Oscars for the past few days; best dressed, worst gaffs (I don't think Jennifer Lawrence's fall was that bad), the winners and those who were snubbed.  I don't have Sky so was unable to watch the show as it happened but caught up with Breakfast Television the next morning, drinking my coffee while the A listers were partying at Vanity Fair - after all these years of travelling and living abroad, time zones still fascinate me - and I'm not the only one, my grandma still asks "what time is it there?" whenever we speak on the phone.

 The topic I've noticed most on all the chat shows is dinner parties; what should you make, who should you invite, and how expensive they can be.  I absolutely love dinners parties; it's a great way to get your favourite people together in a comfortable setting and I think it's far cheaper than going out.  I recently had a few girls over from my old job to have dinner.  We usually try out a new restaurant every few months but this time I offered to host.  

 I'm no expert by any means but here are a few things I've learnt along the way to keep things relatively stress free...

1. Plan ahead 
Firstly, find out if your guests are allergic to anything or have an aversion to any foods.  Nothing worse than sweating over a steak pie to find out your guest is vegetarian!  Also, have a look at what you already have in your cupboards and plan around that if you can.  This will help with the cost and use up some of those ingredients you might otherwise have sitting around for awhile.  I had some dates that we didn't use over Christmas, which inspired my canapes and some tuna that worked great for my starter.  I also had some chicken breasts in the freezer to act as a main course.  I just needed to top up with a few extra ingredients to complete my menu.  Plan your menu, write down all of the ingredients needed and shop from a list so you don't forget anything.

2. Keep it simple
It's not fine dining, it's friends getting together to have a good time and eat some food while they're at it.  If you spend the entire evening in the kitchen working on your masterpiece, you'll be missing out on all the latest gossip and as the host, chatting with your guests is important.  Make dishes that you know how to make, can be prepared in advance and require very little prep once your guests arrive.  I had made everything in advance, assembled and cooked my canapes about a half an hour before guests arrived and the starter and main were ready to be put in the oven when needed.  The dessert went wrong (I used gelatine to set it but ended up with bits of gelatine throughout) but because I made it early morning I had plenty of time to start over.

3.  Plan your time wisely
You don't want to be hoovering in your comfy pants when the doorbell rings.  Clean your house the day before (unless your uber amazing and it's always white glove inspection ready) and shop for food then too.  The day of the party can be spent prepping the meal and putting on your face.  If it's getting to crunch time, get dressed in your party outfit and put on an apron to finish up in the kitchen afterwards.

4.  Have drinks at the ready
There's no need for an open bar.  Have a few bottles of wine for the meal (best to buy more than you need) and 2-3 choices for an aperitif.  Or have a "welcome drink" pre-made for when guests arrive - a signature cocktail, a fancy shot - these can be made 15 minutes before guests arrive and set at the door to give to guests as they walk in to enjoy with prepared canapes.  Have dinner ready to go shortly afterwards and guests won't have much time to get into the bar - don't want anyone drinking on an empty stomach, dinner conversation can get awkward otherwise.  Also, have some non- alcoholic choices available, juice, pop or sparkling water.

5. Play list and Table Settings
Plan music choices ahead of time.  Plug your mp3 player into the stereo or switch on the radio but either way have some background music going.  Keep centrepieces simple and set the table in advance.  A few candles or a small bouquet of flowers should be enough, anything too large and guests won't be able to see each other from across the table.  I used a few candles I already had on hand. 

Hoping I drop something from my plate.

As a guest, other than bringing good conversation to the party all you really need to remember is to bring a little something for the host; a bottle of wine or some flowers (the lovely girls from work brought both!) and be on time.  Fifteen minutes behind schedule is ok but don't be two hours late as we once were (I think I'm definitely a better host than guest) otherwise you better have a really good excuse.

Sleeping on the chair in the dining room having realised no scraps were coming their way.

What are your tips for a stress free dinner party?  What's your best/worst dinner party story?  Worse comes to worst, have takeaway menus at the ready - a good curry can solve any dinner dilema!

Here's what I made for the girls.  I haven't costed it but used ingredients that aren't incredibly costly and readily available in my local supermarket. 

Canapes

Smoked Salmon Blinis - slightly adapted from Good Food Channel
Makes about 30 blinis

For the blinis
75g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
pinch of salt
about 100ml milk

30g butter

For the topping

1/2 cup whipping cream

1/2 cup herb and garlic cream cheese

100g smoked salmon (I used trimmings which are much cheaper than the big perfectly formed pieces, because you only need a little bit for each blini)

coriander, parsley or dill to garnish

In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, eggs, salt and enough milk to make a thick batter.   Melt the butter in a large frying pan and drop a little of the batter with a teaspoon to make small pancakes, leaving room between each to spread slightly.  Cook for 1-2 minutes on either side - when the batter starts to bubble it is ready to be flipped.

Whisk the cream until thick and stir together with the cream cheese.  To assemble, place a dollop of the cream mixture on top of each blini and top with a small piece of smoked salmon.  Garnish with coriander, parsley or fresh dill if using.  Blinis can be made ahead of time and assembled just before serving.

Devils on Horseback

makes 20

1/2 cup blue cheese

20 pitted dates

10 strips of streaky bacon, cut in half

20 toothpicks

Remove the pits from the dates, if not already done, by slicing length ways on one side.  Stuff each date with a little of the blue cheese.  Wrap each date with a slice of bacon and secure together with a toothpick.  Line a baking sheet with foil and bake in the oven at 220­°C for about 7-10 minutes on each side.

Starter

Sweet Potato and Tuna Fish Cakes - adapted from Love Food Just 100 Calories

175g sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped

160g tin of tuna in brine, drained

4 spring onions, trimmed and chopped

1 tbsp grated lemon rind

1 tbsp chopped fresh coriander

pepper

lemon wedge to garnish

salad to serve

sweet chilli sauce to serve

Boil the sweet potatoes for 10-12 minutes or until easily pierced with a fork, then drain and mash.  Flake the tuna and add the potatoes, spring onions, coriander, lemon rind and pepper and stir together.  Using slightly dampened hands, shape the mixture into 4 rounds and lightly flatten.  Place fish cakes on a plate, cover loosely and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.  Preheat oven to 200°, place fish cakes on a non stick baking sheet and cook for 20 minutes or until pipping hot.  Serve on a bed of lettuce with a lemon wedge to garnish and sweet chilli sauce on the side.

Main

Goat's Cheese and Thyme Stuffed Chicken

served with Roasted Mediterranean Vegetables

2 courgettes, chopped

1 each of red, green and yellow peppers, deseeded and chopped

2 red onions, quartered

2 handfuls of mushrooms, sliced in half

2 handfuls of plum or baby tomatoes, left whole

1 garlic bulb, separated but left in the skin

olive oil

salt and pepper

Arrange all of the vegetables in a roasting pan, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Cook for about 40 minutes at 200°C or until edges of vegetables become light brown and crispy.

Dessert

Mini Millionaire Cheesecakes

makes 4

100g digestive biscuits, crushed

25g butter, melted

1/2 cup Carnation Caramel

100g plain cream cheese

1 cup whipping cream

1/2 cup Nutella, softened

In a bowl, mix together the crushed biscuits and melted butter.  Press into the bottom of small, individual, glass dishes (a small juice glass or larger shot glass will do) and place in the refrigerator to set.  In a large bowl, whisk the cream and use half to stir together with the softened Nutella.  Use the rest of the cream to blend together with the caramel and cream cheese.  Layer the caramel mixture on top of the biscuit base and top with the chocolate cream.  Leave to set in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours.

Roasted Pepper and Garlic Soup

It snowed!  It finally snowed!  It happens about once a year, usually in winter, though this is often dubbed "The Big Freeze" by the media.  People panic, lose the ability to drive or be able to leave the house because they are "snowed in" by two centimetres of the fluffy white stuff.  Working in an office a few years ago, I was the only one who made it to work in the morning and I had walked the 45 minutes to get there.  Leave it to the Northern Canadian to get to work in the snow.  It stems from my mother never allowing us to take a "snow day" - if the school was open, we were going and a few feet (yes feet!) of snow weren't going to stop us.  So you can imagine how confused I was to be alone in the office and find out the culprit was a few centimetres of snow.

 

We had to get out quick yesterday before it melted.  We drove up to the hills in hopes of some good shots but the fog had other plans. 

A little stick throwing and fetching...

And once back home, the husband and I had one of our psychic moments as he asked if I fancied soup and a grilled cheese for lunch while I was in the process of googling roasted red pepper soup recipes.  He was thinking more along the lines of open a tin of Heinz but I swore it wouldn't take me long and a half an hour later we had this:

When I get an idea for something I'd like to make, I begin by searching for recipes to see what ingredients are similar and where in the recipe has the chef put their own spin on it.  If an ingredient is present in most recipes I take that as a must and the others I feel I can play around with.  With this soup it was pretty much peppers across the board but every recipe differed on the rest of the ingredients.  So I decided on a tri-coloured pepper soup, with garlic and tomatoes - it's what I had in and I preferred to keep most of the red peppers I had on hand for stir-fries later in the week, like this one.

I also like to have a look at timings; how long should this roast for, how long should I cool this etc.  I thought 20 minutes for the peppers but searching for a few recipes had me doubting myself - one said 8-10 minutes, another said an hour??  I stuck with my 20 minutes at 200°C and did the peppers and garlic together and they turned out just perfect.  I drizzled a little olive oil and salt and pepper over both sides but roasted them skin side up.

If patience is something you possess, I'd suggest letting the peppers cool before peeling but since I feel no pain (and possess very little patience) I went straight in there - the little orange one refused to shed it's skin so I let it keep it, and my fingers couldn't really take the heat anymore.  The garlic popped right out of their little shells, they were so much more co-operative.

I then fried a little red onion in some oil, added the peppers, garlic, a little dried thyme, a tin of chopped tomatoes and some chicken stock to cover.

I let it simmer for about 10 minutes, let it splash up on the walls, whizzed it with a handheld blender and served it up alongside a grilled cheese.  It tasted so creamy and lovely, almost like I'd poured cream in it.  Though we both agreed a cheese sandwich was not its best compliment and that a crusty bread or crunchy plain salad would be much better.  The cheese just seemed to bring out the bitterness of the tomatoes.  Not sure if the parmesan cheese on top had anything to do with it either.

Now this is where you put your own spin on it - swap red onion for white, add some celery and carrots, stick to one pepper colour, choose different seasonings, maybe basil or oregano, add more peppers and omit the tomatoes.  There are so many options with soup, which is why I've chosen to share this one as this blog acts like my own recipe book.  I will definitely be making this soup again, just as it is!!

Roasted Root Vegetable Salad

Roasted root vegetables are a lovely accompaniment to any meal.  They are a winter favourite of mine, very simple to prepare and incredibly versatile.  I often make a large tray to ensure I have leftovers to get creative with long after the meal is over (well not too long).  I live for leftovers.  Before the original meal is finished, I'm already excited about what I can make with the leftovers.  How times have changed; from boys and clothes to leftovers and finding out sparkling water gets the red wine out of my brand new carpet.  I was also pretty thrilled when new french doors and windows were installed this week and every time I walk past I open the curtains and beam a little smile.  My new joys.  It sounds sad, but I swear, I'm fulfilled.

Anyway, back to root vegetables.  Like I said, they're easy.  I usually go with carrots, parsnip, sweet potato, red onion, beetroot (par boiled or the pre-prepared ones in the plastic packet) and whole cloves of garlic roasted right in the skins.  Swede and butternut squash or pumpkin would work nicely too.  I chop everything up to roughly the same size (large-ish chunks),  drizzle olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.  I roast a large tray for about 45 minutes in a 200°C oven.  Use them as a side dish, in pasta dishes (if you learned anything this week it's that I love pasta!), soups and salads.

I spent last year eating a lot of salads (nothing gets you motivated to trim up a little than a wedding dress) and feeding salads to my poor brother, who had to supplement his meals with sandwiches (or he was going to fit better into my dress than I was!).  This is a salad combination I came up with when living in New Zealand and I just threw what I had in the fridge into a bowl.  Sometimes this method works and, well, sometimes it doesn't - this time it had.  Simple: rocket and spinach salad leaves, topped with roasted vegetables, topped with cottage cheese, drizzled with a balsamic glaze (or dressing).  This salad has sundried tomatoes because I happened to have some and also a side pf pork chop because according to the men, a meal isn't a meal without meat.

Any specials meals planned this weekend?  Starting your Christmas baking?  Tree decorating?  (I have to wait till the puppies go first)  I've just convinced the fella to have fish and chips from the takeaway tonight.  An English Friday must have!  I'll tell you all about it next week.  Have a great weekend everyone!

Lamb Leftovers Take 2

As mentioned in yesterday's post, I still had loads of lamb leftover from my roast on Sunday and not wanting another wrap I had a look in the fridge and cupboards to see what I could come up with.  I love mixing up a lot of different ingredients without a recipe to follow.  It's fun to see how it turns out.  Sometimes it's fantastic but other times it goes straight in the bin!

I thought some sort of tagine would work nicely with the ingredients I pulled from the fridge.  Here's what I had to work with:

 And these are the spices I thought might work best:

Ah - just noticed the spelling mistake on my spice jars! The horror!

The roast vegetables (butternut squash, red onion, carrots and garlic - still in the skin) were also from Sunday's dinner and the sundried tomato paste was starting to near its expiry date.  This way I could use up all the leftovers one go.

Here's what I did:

Saute finely chopped onions in a little oil for a few minutes until soft.  Add a tsp each of cumin, turmeric and cinnamon.  Take roasted garlic out of the flesh and mash in with onions and spices.  Thinly slice red chili (or finely chop- however you like it and include the seeds for extra spice).  Chop tomato in sections and add to the pan.  Toss in the lamb already cut into chunks.  Add one can of chopped tomatoes and 2 tbsp of sundried tomato puree.  Simmer for about 10 minutes or until desired thickness.  Add the vegetables in at the end as they are pre cooked.  (For uncooked veg I would par boil or add in at the beginning with some stock to allow them to cook through)

I also tossed in a handful of raisins and dried cranberries (they are already pre mixed in a container as I have them on cereal).  This added a little sweetness to the spice and was really good.

I ate this over couscous. Really delicious.  It's fun to play around with different flavours and I hate waste.  So I gave myself a little pat on the back for this one.  Nothing ended up in the bin and there was enough for 2 servings too!  Win win.

Ghost...Uh Dinner of Christmas Past

I hope Christmas isn't too much of a distant memory.  Some of you very busy people may still have your tree up?!  There was once or twice, growing up, that ours was threatened to have Easter eggs hung from it!  Thankfully, I took all our decorations down the day after I arrived home from Canada - otherwise there's a good chance we'd be hanging some Valentine's hearts on it!  I have been extremely busy, and have neglected this blog somewhat.  As part of my new year's resolutions, I plan to make time for the things I love and find balance.  For those who don't know, I am currently training to be a teacher and planning a wedding - both of which will come to fruition in less than 6 months!  Can we say "steeeeressed"?!

So, a Christmas catch up is in order!  Because I would be going to spend Christmas in Canada with my family and friends, I began decorating much earlier than usual, so I could enjoy it!  Although, I did worry that the other half  Grinch would spend Christmas day throwing my holiday cheer into the fire.

I also don't feel Christmassy until I bake cookies (and Bailey's in my coffee helps too!).  So I spent a few evenings in December spreading flour around the kitchen.  I like to give tins filled with cookies to family and friends.

I made sugar cookies, buttertarts, gingersnaps, peanut butter cookies, Skor and chocolate chip and cranberry and white chocolate.  Shortbread and gingerbread men usually make an appearance but I didn't want to go overboard!  I won't list all of the recipes but I get most of them from The Joy of Baking website.

I flew to Canada on the 18th of December and enjoyed a plethora of Christmas goodness over the next two weeks.  I spent a few days in Timmins before making the trip to Toronto for the holidays.  Lots of time was spent eating, drinking, shopping and more eating.  Our Christmas Eve feast consisted of my mom's meatpie, homemade fried rice and lots of nibbles - cheese and crackers, veggies and dip, chips and dip etc.  This is standard and I can always count on it.  I thought I could count on Christmas Day being what I remembered it to be, but no.  We now have pork for dinner.  I was counting on turkey but apparently Turkey is reserved for Thanksgiving and my mom no longer makes it for Christmas.  I tried to fight it but pork was sitting firm on the menu.  I prepped the roast vegetables and par boiled the roast potatoes (English style) and when it came time to start cooking, I somehow took over.  Then it happened...

Dinner was just about ready (okay so it was burning slightly) and someone (you know who you are) decided to "help" and poured cold water into the Pyrex dish the pork was crisping burning up in. If you want a pipe bomb type explosion in your oven then this is the move for you. Glass went everywhere - in the food, in the oven, in my mother.

And so, this is how we ended up having pork (after slicing the bottom off it was glass free - at least I hope it was) frozen vegetables and mashed potato (I was not having leftover fried rice on Christmas day so I whipped some up quick).

 

When all was said and done it wasn't too bad.  I'm very thankful we had food to eat and family to share it with.  I had a great time with my family and friends, and there was plenty of snow!  Anyone else have any little Christmas dinner hiccups?