Chickpea fritters with Minted yoghurt dressing

For some unknown reason I have been really wanting to make this recipe since I first got my hands on the great book "In The Mood for Entertaining" by Jo Pratt and it did not let me down! These are the easiest, quickest fritters I’ve ever made! Everything goes in the mixer, couple minutes in the pan and voila!

Gorgeously bite sized, tasty bites! What more can you want in an appetizer?

This is a definite keeper of a recipe and will be featuring in my repertoire a lot! All of it can be prepared hours ahead which makes things even easier too!

Serves 6 as an appetizer – makes approx 30

Easy - requires food processor

Dip:

150ml natural yoghurt
1 bunch roughly chopped mint
Sea salt (I added a little black pepper too)

Chickpeas Fritters:

400g tin of chickpeas, drained
1 roughly chopped onion
1 garlic clove
1 green chilli, roughly chopped (I used red as had no green ones left!)
1 egg
75g plain flour
¼ tsp turmeric
¼ tsp cayenne pepper
½ tsp ground cumin
½ tsp ground coriander
1 litre sunflower oil

To serve (As per the book, though optional, I omitted as had lots of other things!)
4 spring onions, thinly sliced at an angle
Handful mint and coriander leaves
1/3 cucumber, halved and thinly sliced
6 small wedges of lemon

Make the dressing by blending the mint and yoghurt together and season to taste, place in fridge until needed

To make the super easy fritters, place all the ingredients, bar the oil into a food processor and blitz to form a thick paste/ batter. This can also keep in the fridge until required

Heat the oil in a large suitable pan, place teaspoonfuls of the mixture into the hot fat, I found using 2 teaspoons best for shaping, working in batches, fry for a couple of minutes or until golden, drain on kitchen paper.

Optional: To serve, arrange on plates a small salad of the spring onions, mint and coriander and divide the fritters amongst them, serve the dressing in small bowls if wanted and a wedge of lemon. As I had lots of other things going on with our dinner, I served the fritters on a large platter and a bowl of the dipping sauce for my guests to dive into!

We enjoyed the fritters alongside a sort of Mediterranean feast, I will be posting the other dishes shortly!

Spooky Halloween Baking!!

I can't take any credit for these wonderfully creepy cakes for Halloween as they were iced by my niece Alice - hasn't she done a fantastic job!!

The fairy cakes were made to the standard fantastic fairy cakes recipe, found on the Silverspoon Website. It works every time and makes great little cakes! Its not very clear from the pictures but I used both red and blue food dyes from Silverspoon, they look great when cut open!

I really like the new style dropper caps on these dyes, makes adding to mixtures much easier!

Many thanks to Silverspoon for sending the dyes, designer icing pens and sprinkles!



Finally back and a comforting Orzo Ragu!

Finally! I am back blogging! A month later than planned but hopefully back in the loop. I know its been a while sorry!

Since my last posting, we have been on our summer holiday to Turkey, the weather was beautiful every day but the hotel not quite so beautiful....won't be staying there again!! The food was of limited choice and I can't blog anything particuarly amazing but I did enjoy a lovely chicken salad one day at a nice little cafe:

Unfortunately, upon returning I have been plagued by a recurring nasty tummy bug amongst other health issues, which completely wiped both me and my appetite out! However this does now mean I can eat cream every day this week to get my weight back up!!

Fortunately my appetite is now finally returning, and I managed to actually cook a meal yesterday for the first time in weeks! I recently discovered Orzo, which is a type of pasta and have become a big fan of it. If you have not tried it before, its a similar texture to pasta but shaped like very large grains of rice. Some supermarkets stock it (My local ASDA has it in the world foods aisle!) but if not try a deli or similar shop. I've made a similar dish to this with Orzo before but without the meat and by roasting fresh peppers and tomatoes to make a sauce which was delicious, will remember to take a picture next time as I forgot!

This comforting, simple dish is ideal for the cold nights that are now drawing in, and depending on your supplies, you can probably make it without needing to visit the shops! I used a mix of frozen and fresh vegetables, though you could use whatever you prefer or have at the time. Whilst its not probably everyones choice, I did use Aberdeen Angus frozen minced beef for convenience, though you could just as easily use fresh if you prefer. A bonus is that its all cooked in one pan, so less washing up afterwards!

As with a lot of my recipes, some of the weights are approximate as tend to go by eye, rather than scales..I use a small soup bowl* normally when prepping, roughly 1 large cup sized...

Orzo Ragu

Serves 2-4

Easy

1 hour

200g Orzo

2 carrots, peeled and finely chopped (or blitzed in food processor!)

1 onion, finely chopped

500g passatta (sieved tomatoes)

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1-2 tsp dried italian herb mix, some fresh basil is good to add if you have any!

1 soup bowl* of frozen minced beef (or fresh, if you prefer)

Handful (or bowl) frozen green beans

Handful (or bowl) frozen garden peas or petit pois

S&P

Big handful grated cheddar

Boil the Orzo as per packet instructons until al dente in a large pan, for the last minute add the green beans, drain well in a colander and refresh with cold water. Leave to one side.

Using the same saucepan, return to the heat and gently fry the mince, onion, garlic and carrot (add a little olive oil if needed) until the vegetables have softened. Add 1/3 of the passatta, herbs to taste and mix well, cover and gently simmer for 15 minutes, add more passatta if it looks dry.

Now add the remaining passatta, the orzo, green beans and peas, mix really well, season with s&p and simmer for a further 15 minutes or until the orzo is soft and cooked through, stir in the cheese and serve in nice deep bowls. Garnish with fresh basil leaves.

Spanish Sausage Casserole

Apologies for lack of recent posting, either I have forgotten to take pictures of whats been cooking or I have not written down any quantities! This recipe falls into the latter but I have a rough idea of what went in! I am off on my summer holidays soon too but hope to get back in the swing of things when I return!

Also, this dish isn't really authentically Spanish, and loosely fits into the casserole heading, however its a very tasty, filling dish and also very purse friendly! Pearl barley is one of my favourite grains, and also very cheap at around 40p for 500g, which makes a lot of barley when cooked! This dish is ideal for students as relies on cupboard items.

Serves 4

150g pearl barley, soaked in water and rinsed
1-2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1-2 tsp smoked paprika
6 sausages (mine were frozen pork)
1 small red pepper, diced
1 onion, diced
2 inch piece of chorizo sausage, diced
400g tin good quality chopped tomatoes
1-2 tsp dried mixed herbs
pork or chicken stock, as needed - allow for 1 litre
s&p to taste

Firstly, cook the sausages in a large frying or saucepan until nearly cooked through and browned. Drain on kitchen paper. Dice them into 4-5 slices.

In the same pan, fry the onion, chorizo, garlic and red pepper for 5 minutes or until the onion is golden brown, add the pearl barley and some stock to loosen, add the tomatoes 1 tsp of the paprika and herbs, chopped sausages, mix well and add your stock to be about 2 cm above the barley, cover with a lid and reduce to lowest heat setting. Leave to simmer away gently for about an hour, topping up with stock as needed and giving an odd stir here and there.

When the barley is nearly cooked through and becoming soft to bite, check the seasoning. You may need more herbs or smoked paprika depending on the strength of yours, carry on gently simmering until the barley is soft and cooked through. Serve immediately.

I've made a similar dish very succesfully in the slow cooker before, start in a frying pan as above but when the first seasoning is added, transfer to the slow cooker and simmer on low for 8-10 hours.

Honey and Almond Cake

This recipe comes once again from one of my favourite cookbooks - Baking, by Star fire and is a new favourite. The cake is a little different from a standard sponge type affair, with a slightly more denser crumb and therefore ideal for dunking into your cuppa! It keeps well too which is a bonus. Another bonus is that with the pretty flaked almonds on top, it doesn't require any icing and also travels very well!

I used a standard runny honey this time but am tempted to try different varieties, I did spot some orange blossom honey the other day out shopping so think will have to pick some up next time and report back accordingly!

The cake was made as I was heading down to my lovely family in Devon over the weekend, and I always try to bake something before hand, unfortunately the previous Lemon Drizzle cake has been so much of a hit its been hard to match up, though I will keep trying! Though this did seem quite popular at least and despite myself not having honey cake before, my dad said it was a good example, I guess thats a compliment?!

Along side baking the honey cake, on that particular night I had my baking-partner-in-crime over, who can't have almonds, so I made her a seperate one with the base recipe but with 2 tsp of Polish extra-dark cocoa powder and a handful of dark choc chips added to replace the almonds, its a little ugly but tasted good! As above, it has a denser crumb but this is no bad thing, is quite nice to have something a little different from the million other victoria sponges I bake!

Ingredients for one sponge:

50g butter
25g caster sugar
125g clear honey
175g plain flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp mixed spice
1 medium egg
2 tbsp milk
25g flaked almonds
1 tbsp clear honey, to drizzle over

Pre-hear oven 180/350/ mark 4 or about 160 max in a fan

Oil and line a 7inch deep round cake tin ( I only have sandwich tins, just used a parchment liner!)

Gently melt together the honey, sugar and butter

Sift together flour, bicarb and mixed spice. Seperately beat the egg and milk

Make a well in the flour, beat in the melted mixture, drawing in from the sides. Add the egg mix, pour into the tin and smooth over, sprinkle over the flaked almonds and bake for 30-35 minutes or until risen and golden. (Mine cooked in less than 25 mins but is a very hot oven)

Allow to cool in the tin for a couple of minutes before turning out onto a wire rack. Drizzle with remaining honey and serve.

Suggests serving with greek yoghurt but we didn't bother!

Baked Spinach and Ricotta Lumaconi

Following on from my Taste of Italy post about an evening I spent with Bertolli and the lovely Gennaro, I came up with this tasty pasta dish, which is light and just perfect for a summer evening when you have had enough of salad but still needing something healthy! No cheese sauce in sight and packed with flavour, its a little fiddly but fun to fill all the shells and thats about all the effort required, great for a busy week night!

Out of all the Bertolli sauces the Basilico was my favourite, with a really gorgeously fresh tomato flavour and chunky texture, I wanted to make the most of it. Whilst you could make your own tomato sauce for this dish, this is one occasion where I probably would choose shop bought, for convenience and also more importantly, flavour!

Hope you enjoy!

Serves 4 as a starter, 2-3 as a main course

Ingredients

1 jar Bertolli Basilico sauce
16 Lumaconi shells (large snail like pasta shells, allow a couple extra for breakage!),
250g ricotta
260g fresh leaf spinach, any rough stalks removed
½ tsp nutmeg
S&P (lots of the p!)
15 basil leaves, 10 shredded
Handful grated light mature cheddar

Serves 4 as a starter, 2 for main course

1) Boil the pasta as per instructions, when cooked, drain and rinse in cold water. Pre-heat the oven 180 fan/ 200 gas.

2) Rinse and cook 2/3 of the spinach leaves for a couple of minutes until wilted, drain really well in a sieve or colander, pressing out any excess liquid, chop finely and allow to cool slightly.

3) In a bowl, mix the spinach, ricotta, nutmeg, shredded basil and season well, fill the pasta shells with the mixture either using a teaspoon or piping bag, whichever you find easier! I used a foodbag with a corner snipped off with good results.

4) In a deep baking dish, pour in the Bertolli sauce, cover with a thin layer of the reserved uncooked spinach

5) Place the filled shells on top of the spinach. Finely shred any remaining uncooked spinach and scatter over the base, top with the grated cheese:

6) Bake for 25 minutes or until bubbling and golden. Serve with garlic bread or a fresh green salad