Category Archives: Rice, Pasta, Noodles & Pulses

Special Egg Fried Rice

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Yesterday my newest cookbook arrived and I’ve really been looking forward to getting my hands on it.  It is a copy of the new book from Ching-He Huang – Chinese Food Made Easy.  Thumbing through the pages last night I couldn’t wait for today to arrive so that I could make a trip to our local asian supermarket to stock up on ingredients to allow me to test drive some of Ching’s recipes.

When I got home I was ravenous and decided to whip up a quick treat and that took the guise of some Chinese style Special Egg Fried Rice using the contents of the fridge.

Special Egg Fried Rice

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Spicy Black Bean Hotpot

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As a working mum my time in the kitchen is very limited during the week and so I’m always on the look out for recipes which I can make in my slow cooker.
I came across this wonderful recipe on Mel’s Kitchen Cafe and it was exactly what I was looking for!
Take a look at Mel’s site, it’s excellent. She has lots of other helpful goodies in addition to her wonderful recipes.
Mel calls this recipe classic and simple and it really is that. Flavorsome and perfect for the slow cooker (or on the stove top). Minimum effort for maximum flavor!!
This is a modified version of the original from Mel’s site.

Spicy Black Bean Hotpot

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Arruzo Con Pollo

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Since we’re all still in the hold of this Global recession everywhere you look there are recipes for using up leftovers and ideas and tips on how to get the most for your money.

A new show which has been very popular on the BBC recently is Economy Gastronomy. It features money saving ideas to allow families to cook tasty, healthy and nutritious food on a budget.

One of the main cornerstones of Econonmy Gastronomy is to have a bedrock recipe which you use as the basis to create multiple meals for the week.

Our bedrock recipe this week was a roast chicken  and in order to use up the leftover roast chicken Arruzo con Pollo was the next recipe in the chain.   The recipe said it serves 4 but it’s 4 huge portions so I would say it feeds 6.

Here’s the recipe, enjoy!  We certainly did.

Arrozo con Pollo

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Green Chilli Risotto

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This is another rather unorthodox recipe from Sue Style and her great book Eat and Two Veg.  I must apologize to the purests among you but I’m no food snob and I like to experiment so I thought I would give this a try.. and what do you know, we loved it!!

See what you think..

Green Chilli Risotto

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Spaghetti Bolognaise

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This Nigel Slater recipe came from his show called a Taste of My Life.

I’ve been looking for a more authentic recipe to try and since my son adores pasta I thought this would be ideal for a nice relaxing family meal.

I was right, clean plates all round!  It was delicious, rich and filling, perfect!

Spaghetti Bolognaise

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Karen’s Speedy Courgette & Bacon Risotto

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This recipe comes from the New Covent Garden Soup Company’s  – Soup & Beyond book.  I can really recommend the Covent Garden cookbooks as I have a couple and so far all the recipes I’ve tried have always been delicious.  They saved my bacon on Christmas Day when I had a soup disaster and found I had all the ingredients for the Lentil and Bacon soup in the cupboard!!

Anyway, back to the risotto.  We were shopping at a local farm last weekend, at this time of year the local produce is amazing and they had some really great looking green and yellow courgettes so we bought a load and then weren’t sure what to make with them.  Mid week Stewart was looking through the cookbooks trying to find inspiration and the Covent Garden book fell open at this page and he decided to test it out. It was simply divine!  Really tasty!  Matthew loved it too as he had a little bit for lunch the next day!

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Coq Au Riesling

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Last night I was watching the new series from Nigella Lawson called Nigella Express. As you would expect from the title it’s about cooking great tasting food with minimal effort and time. The episode I watched showed Nigella’s take on an Alsacian classic, “Coq Au Riesling”. Living in here in Basel on the doorstep of Alsace good Alsacian wine is not difficult to come by so I decided I’d put Nigella’s claims to the test.  So here it is..

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Ad Hoc Turkey Lasagne

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What to do with a huge tray of turkey escalopes??? That was the question facing me today. I’ve been trying to use up all of the meat we had in the freezer and so over the past week or so we’ve been eating quite a lot of red meat and it’s much more than I’m used to so I really want to steer clear for a few days. There was a special offer on at the supermarket and since I can’t resist a bargain I bought a tray of turkey, my only problem was that there was 1.5kg of the stuff..

As I walked/waddled/hobbled around the supermarket last night I tried to figure out at least one dish I could use the turkey for… and then thanks to seeing some smoked bacon lardons I had one of those eureka moments.. I would make a lasagne. This would not be a traditional lasagne as Stewart doesn’t care for bechamel sauce. I have decided to try one of those, I’ll make it up as I go along recipes and hope it turns out ok.

Ad Hoc Turkey Lasagne

Baked Lasagne

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