Category Archives: Rice, Pasta, Noodles & Pulses

Jamie O’s Ragu Of Tiny Meatballs

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The doctor had referred me for a massage on Monday to help my back but it feels worse today than it did before. I was hoping to feel the benefit by now but instead I’m just having pangs of pain in one of my nerves. Good news is that I went to the Diabetes clinic on Tuesday and my blood sugar is well under control so the food plan is working!! I can’t tell you what a relief that is!

Anyway, back to food related matters….

After digging out my copy of “Cook with Jamie” the other night I’m on a roll and have decided to test drive another recipe. We both liked the chicken wrapped in pancetta the other night and as I’ve already said it’s about time I started to ensure that our freezer was was well stocked with homemade dishes. The bottom drawer of the deep freeze was still quite full of meat prime for making some casseroles etc and today when I looked I found a couple of packs of minced beef. Perfect!!

Whenever I buy minced beef I always make sure it contains no more than 5% fat otherwise I buy rump steak and ask the butcher to mince it for me. There is nothing worse than coming across a UFO (unidentified foreign object) in your mince after you have slaved away all day making a culinary masterpiece, it’s been my experience that the very lean minced beef has a much lower chance of containing anything nasty since you a pay a premium price.

I’m a bit predictable when it comes to recipes using minced beef, generally I make one of three things:

a) Chilli con carne

b) Meatballs (a recipe based upon one from Natalie which I think in turn was based on an Antonio Carluccio recipe)

c) Traditional Scottish mince and tatties

Instead of following my usual meatball recipe I thought it would be nice to give Jamie’s recipe a try.

Jamie’s original recipe was called Pappardelle With A Ragu Of Tiny Meatballs and he gave the recipe for making the pasta but I’m not bothering making fresh pasta.

Jamie O’s Ragu of tiny meatballs

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Thai Noodle Curry (Mi Ga Ti)

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As any regular readers know I love curries, especially Thai and Indian curries. Stewart and I also love noodles and so when I found a recipe for Thai noodle curry I knew this was one which had to tested.

This recipe is a slight adaptation of one from Appon’s Thai Food. I have featured recipes from Appon’s site in the past and they’ve always been a real hit.

You’ll find Appon’s original recipe here Thai Noodle Curry (Mi Ga Ti). I didn’t stray too much from the original and I must say that the combination of sweet, sour, spicy and nutty flavours was amazing! Thanks for another hit recipe Appon!!

thai curry noodles 1

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Crock Pot Chicken Casserole

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I have a rather shameful confession..

I have been the owner of a slow cooker for more years than I care to remember. Unfortunately since we moved to Switzerland it has sat dormant, rather neglected and unloved in our loft. With the baby on the way we have been clearing out (when I say we I mean Stewart) and this led to the rediscovery of our slow cooker.

I must admit to being a complete novice at this and since I have lost the instructions I’m just planning on winging it. I mean how difficult can this be.. surely the whole idea is that you chuck everything in and allow it to cook slowly and undisturbed all day and then voila dinner is made!! Or that is what I’m hoping! Fingers crossed the reality reflects my ideal..

You all know how I love to try and create meals from leftovers and this recipe was created by doing exactly that! I looked into the fridge and grabbed a handful of veggies and some chicken which needed used and this is what happened..

crock pot chicken casserole

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Paella Without Any Seafood For Stewart

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Stewart quite fancied some paella after I made Natalie’s Paella recipe the other night the only problem is – he doesn’t like seafood at all. I thought the perfect combination was chicken and chorizo instead and it was really delicious! The recipe is pretty much the same as the recipe I posted the other night (see the link above for Natalie’s Paella recipe) but this time I made the following changes:

I chopped two store bought roast chicken breasts and used this in place of the prawns.  Since my last paella was a little wet I decided to use much less stock and so I only used 600ml of vegetable stock with 150g paella rice.

After cooking for 20 minutes I added the frozen peas stirred well and replaced the lid and turned the heat way down to almost nothing to allow the rest of the stock to be absorbed by the rice and the peas to cook.
Complete sucess!!

paella for stewart no seafood

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Natalie’s Paella

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As I said in my post before I went to Glasgow my best friend Natalie is an excellent cook!! Natalie had prepared all of the ingredients to make Paella for my arrival on Thursday but after all the messing around due to my baggage problems we didn’t get back to her house until almost 10pm, we decided to put the paella on hold until Friday night and went for fish suppers on Thursday (very good choice!).

After shopping all day at Braehead shopping center in order that I had some clothes etc and visiting my little grandmother (she’s 84 in January!!) we returned to the flat and Natalie whipped up the most delicious paella. I had a real hankering for it again this week and so I asked Nat to share her recipe. I should have taken some photographs of Natalie’s masterpiece when it was dished up but I was too late and only thought of it after I had already polished off my plate and her and Gareth’s was almost finished but here is what the remained of Natalie’s Paella by the time I got my camera out!

I hope my attempt did Natalie’s version justice! Next time I will buy chorizo from the Spanish deli around the corner and will also use raw prawns instead of pre-cooked.

paella

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Simple Lasagna

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UPDATE 22 AUGUST : As Meeta quite rightly pointed out Italy is the most wonderful destination for a holiday and the two dishes which have a special place in my heart from Italy are pizza and Lasagna.

With that in mind I have decided therefore that it is fitting to make this my submission for Meeta’s Monthly Mingle#4 since the theme is “Holiday Cuisine“.

Firstly I would like to thank Ivonne from Creampuffs In Venice for sharing her mum’s wicked lasagne recipe, unlike Ivonne I left the meat in but next time I think I would take it out (and maybe use homemade pasta, I used store bought fresh lasagne sheets as we were going out last night and I had no time to make it fresh).

My lasagna wasn’t very photogenic but it did taste wonderful!!

After reading through Ivonne’s recipe I realized that in order to make a delicious lasagna you didn’t need to faff around making a bechemel sauce (this is what has always put me off, plus Stewart really dislikes bechemel sauce so normally doesn’t eat lasagna).

Here is my try at a simple lasagna recipe. Enjoy!

lasagna

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Chicken Chow Mein Glasgow Style

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I love chicken chow mein, the combination of egg noodles and chicken for me is heavenly.

There is a certain ingredient which many of the Chinese restaurants in Glasgow add to their chicken chow mein which gives it a very particular flavour and until the other night I had absolutely no idea what it was.

Chinese Black Vinegar!!!! That’s definately the special ingredient. So for my attempt at a Chow Mein Glasgow style I based my sauce on the Kung Pao sauce from the other night.

I was delighted with the result, the end product was delicious and as close as I think I will ever get to my favourite chow mein without catching two airplane’s back to Glasgow to pop to Sun City or Night Palace.

chicken chow mein

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Hoisin Barbeque Chicken with Spring Onion and Corriander Jasmine Rice

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I was browsing through A Spoonful of Sugar again last night and I came across another wonderful recipe thanks to Angela and those wonderful people at Cooking Light (where the recipe originated). I’m trying to stick to my Weight Watchers at the moment and just to add a little extra convenience Angela has already added the number of UK Weight Watchers points!! Couldn’t be easier.

This recipe again is quick, really simple and involves minimum time standing around in front of a hot stove – which is exactly what you need when it is 35°C at 7pm!

Without any further ado here is the recipe..

Hoisin Barbeque Chicken

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Boiled Turkey In A Spicy Sauce

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I was reading Appon’s Thai Food recipes today and Appon presented a fabulous dish of Boiled Chicken In A Spicy Sauce (Guy Op Sea Eaiw). I thought Appon’s recipe was fantastic and decided I would cook this for dinner tonight. I’m afraid I had to adapt it slightly only because I didn’t have all of the ingredients in the fridge. I also toned down the number of chillies, I love chillies but 3 was my maximum.

Enjoy!

Boiled Turkey in a Spicy Sauce

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