Wholemeal Pancakes with a Spicy Bean Filling

Dish: Wholemeal Pancakes with a Spicy Bean Filling

Difficulty: Filling - easy, Pancakes.... let's just say we are pancakely challenged

Utensils Used: Wooden Spoon, Measuring Spoons, Spatula

Cock Ups: A little wild interpretation with some ingredients and some missing eggs. And pancakes. Yes.

Recipe Book: Sainsbury's Vegetarian Cookery by Sarah Brown (don't expect to find this one in the shops - it's as old as me, liberated by the Boyfriend's mother from a clear out at work... I think.)

Cooking: Did I say a week? Yeah, that was probably always going to be optimistic.

Anyway, I'm here now! With a brand new (old) recipe book.

Things started so well with an instruction to steam the 375g of French beans (trimmed and diced). Does anyone even have steamers anymore? They were dead popular for a while. I remember my mother reading this hot tip that the water collected by the steamer was full of nutrients and you should drink it. Needless to say, that experience put me off steamers forever.

So, I boiled my beans until they were just cooked and fried an onion until it was just soft.

As I was scanning down the spices I needed to measure out (2tsp Garam Masala, 1 pinch of chilli powder,1/2 tsp Tumeric) and make into a paste, I realised I didn't have any eggs for the pancakes. Hence there being a phone in this picture. I had to call Mum and get her to give an egg to the Boyfriend when he was on his way back from a run. Mum thought it was funny, the Boyfriend not so much. Well, running home with a box of eggs would probably look a little ridiculous I suppose...

The paste (a little too much water, oops) was then added to the onions and cooked for another few minutes.

Then I had to mix in 150ml of natural yoghurt. I figured this was about the amount left in the bottom of our pot and decided to forgo measuring it out. I also didn't have cornflour as stipulated by the recipe, substituting it with plain flour instead, upping the measurement a little. As is my precise and scientific approach to cooking. Yes, I know, I ask for disaster when I'm cooking...

The beans were added to the mix, making a sauce that was slightly too runny, if the picture in the recipe book was anything to go by, so I left it boiling down a bit and kept my fingers crossed.

Now it was pancake time. The disgruntled Boyfriend had reappeared with eggs and an admonishment about not reading the recipe properly when I asked him to buy the ingredients earlier. Yup. My bad.

The recipe said wholemeal flour, but we didn't have any, so we mixed 1/2 pint of milk, 1 egg and 4oz of plain flour and whisked it to a smooth batter. Reading through the recipe now, I've just noticed I was supposed to put a bit of oil in it too. Er... I must have missed that. I don't think it would have rescued our pancakes, all the same.

Smooth batter ready to go, it was time to get tossing. In the totally non-rude sense.

 Even with the Boyfriend on hand to use his pancake tossing skillz, our pancakes left a lot to be desired. In the picture in the recipe book, they looked like this:

Ours looked more like:

Yeah. But look at the fierce concentration that went into making them:

Washing Up Required: A fair amount. But it would have been even more if I'd used a steamer.

Result: The sauce did eventually boil down (liberally spattering my hob with blobs of yoghurty sauce) and looked fresh and tasty. The pancakes... euh.

Taste Test: The sauce was very nice - light and summery. The pancakes weren't exactly detrimental to the dish, but I don't think anything was gained for the effort endured to make them. Rice would have done just as nicely.

The Boyfriend gave it 5/10. I'm satisfied with that!

Overall Verdict: Easy enough, and tasty. I'd make this again, sans pancakes.

(not)Wholemeal Pancakes with a Spicy Bean Filling

Creamy Mushroom Stroganoff

Dish: Creamy Mushroom Stroganoff

Difficulty: Pretty easy

Utensils Used: Wooden Spoon, Garlic Crusher

Cock Ups: 2 ingredient mix ups, but otherwise this went almost smoothly

Recipe Book: http://www.cookveg.co.uk/vegetarian-recipes/recipe/creamy-mushroom-stroganoff/

Cooking: After missing the set off for Running Club by a mere 5 minutes, I suddenly found myself with some unexpected time. 

Cook something nice for tea, suggested the Boyfriend. Yes, he does know me. Very well. And he's not normally prone to optimism.

Sat all dressed up in my fluorescents with no place to go, I perused the internet in the Morrison's car park and decided on this recipe.

The recipe said to bring a pan of water to the boil and add tagliatelle to cook for ten minutes - suggesting you prepared the rest of the dish while you waited. Now, many times I've tried things like this and ended up burning the thing you leave cooking while I failed to prepare the rest in time. So I thought HA! You are not going to catch me out with THAT trick THIS time.

Such is my misplaced confidence that I know better than the recipe.

So instead I started by cutting up an onion and a load of mushrooms. The recipe did specify weights, but in the interest of saving on the time and washing up, I just measured by eye.

The onions and mushrooms were sautéed on a high heat (I remembered what sautéed meant, yay!) for about five minutes. I then added a crushed clove of garlic and 2tsps of paprika, cooking for a further minute or so, stirring frequently.

As you can see, it was sizzling nicely, with all the mushrooms reducing down. It smelled divine.

I had, by this point, decided it was safe to put the tagliatelle on, and it was resolutely refusing to come to the boil, despite being on the highest heat setting.

Three tablespoons of sherry (er... red wine. What? I'm not buying sherry I'm never going to drink!) 1tbsp of tomato puree and a squeeze of lemon (read 'a slosh of lemon juice leftover from pancake day') were added. I missed out the mustard for similar reasons I altered the sherry. This was all then cooked for another minute or so.

It had all turned a delicious brown colour and smelled of mushroom and wine - lovely. Then 150mls of crème frâiche was added...

... and made it look like sick.

While this mixture was warming up, I tidied away food waste into a new addition to the Disaster Kitchen - a recycle bin...

...and the pasta still refused to boil, making me regret my decision to ignore the recipe.

While I waited for the Boyfriend to return from Running Club, I chopped some fresh er... parsley. Yeah, honestly it wasn't some coriander I happened to have in the fridge. Does anyone actually pay attention to garnish anyway? I then removed the pasta from its almost boiling water to prevent it turning into Blancmange.

Of course, this meant by the time I came to serve it, it had set in a solid lump. 

Washing Up Required: Not that much.

Result: Despite timing issues and a few ingredient mix ups, I was pleased with the result.

Taste Test: Though it looked like sick, it certainly didn't taste like it. The Boyfriend picked up on the badly cooked pasta, but had no complaints about the sauce. Which, from him, is high praise indeed!

Overall Verdict: Pretty easy, pretty tasty. I'd make this again.

Creamy Mushroom Stroganoff

The Disaster Kitchen is Back

It's been a while.

In part that's due to my own laziness when it comes to cooking, but things have been busy about the house. Building work has gone on. And on. And on some more.

Things haven't been helped by the fact that Europe has been experiencing WINTER: THE EXTENDED CUT. But now spring is in the skies and the days are a little longer, I'm hoping to get my cooking mojo (or lack thereof) back.

So, tomorrow, a recipe. And hopefully another sometime in the week. And regularly from now on in. I need to be better with my diet with 10k races and a holiday that's definitely going to warrant bikini wearing coming up.

Now, let's see what I can blow up or burn this week...

The Disaster Diet

Like so many people out there, it's my New Year's Resolution to be a little more healthy. Except it's not really a New Year's Resolution - it's something I've been trying to do since joining my local running club in September.

I hoped running would be the miracle cure for my podgy belly, but while my calves started toning up, and my general fitness levels improved dramatically, I wasn't losing any weight.

I think the problem was - I had just hit the point where I was starting to burn enough to combat my eating and start losing weight. Then Christmas came around. The cold weather, plus limited time (and inclination) to run, over eating, a return to drinking alcohol (not much, but enough) have all eroded my stamina and fitness.

So I've been attacking it afresh, starting this week with a serious increase in mileage, training for a 10k race in May around my home town. And this just happened to coincide with a sponsored slim at work.

I'm not a great runner. In fact, I'd go as far as to say I am the least natural runner in the whole running club. To improve to the necessary levels for a 10k race, I'm going to need all the help I can get. And losing the extra chub around my middle can only help.

So I signed up for the sponsored slim. I've found the possibility of public shame is a big motivator for me and the thought of today's weigh in - the first after our baseline weigh in - has kept me from attacking the left over Christmas treats.

Being not enormously overweight, I was worried that I would not lose anything. Or that I would fail utterly, as I have at every diet ever in the past, and put on weight. To try and avoid this possibility, before the baseline weigh in, I ate lunch, drank a bottle of water and didn't relieve my bursting bladder. I weighed in at 11stone4 and felt confident that I would at least not get heavier than that.

There was no trepidation when I went to the weigh in today. I had been good with my portions, I ran 7 miles. My overinflated initial weight meant there was a large margin for error, so there was no chance of humiliation.

Except there was.

Apparently I have lost weight. Some weight. Just... not as much as the sponsored slim thinks I've lost.

4.6 pounds. Oops.

I know there's no way I could have lost that much. Short of starving myself, that is, which I haven't been doing.

Ah well, my dietary disaster does at least mean I'll score a good amount of sponsorship (it's by pounds lost) and a need to keep losing a consistently good amount of weight will be extra motivation not to crack into the biscuit tin.

I thought I'd try and reboot my better cooking habits as well, hence the post here. I've got a recipe from the sponsored slim for a casserole that I want to try out (just as soon as I get my hands on a casserole pan) and will post the probably inevitable disasters that ensue.

And in terms of tracking my actual weight loss - on my scales, first thing in the morning, before eating and with no clothes on, I weighed 11st last time I checked a couple of weeks ago. I will check again tomorrow morning and report back!

Disaster Kitchen Hiatus

Someone asked the other day why I hadn't done a Disaster Kitchen post in a while. In part this was to do with going back to work, but things have developed lately.

You see, at the moment my kitchen is a disaster. Quite literally.

We're having some building work done on the back of the house - render removal and replacement, new windows etc. For ages it was a waiting game for everything to start. Our furniture was piled up, turning our dining room into an elaborate game of Jenga, and we were psyched, ready for the disruption and the mess.

Then we were waiting a bit longer for a builder, then the job took longer, then the windows came, then they started late, then AAARRRRRGGGHH!

Fortunately, things are progressing nicely now. Of course, that means my kitchen is filthy, the sink covered with a wooden board, every surface sealed with a layer of brick dust.

Yes, that is daylight you can see through the side of my house.

My romantic dining room...

Cleaning the hob ahead of cooking tea - it still stunk when I turned it on.

So, while this work is still in progress (and I honestly don't know how long it's going to be until it's finished) I will be living on a diet of macaroni cheese and microwave meals. I find it hard to get inspired to cook at the best of times, but when I daren't touch ANYTHING in my kitchen, it gets a bit harder.

I am not gone permanently, though. Soon I will be back burning stuff, measuring things wrong, exploding stuff in the microwave in the way only I do quite so effectively.

Until then!

Roasted Vegetable Lasagne

Dish: Roasted Vegetable Lasagne

Difficulty: Coordination of the different parts was a little tricky, but otherwise fairly straight forward

Utensils Used: Wooden and serving spoons, spatula to serve, garlic crusher (at last!!), food processor (to do it properly)

Cock Ups: About 4. I lost count.

Recipe Book: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/10603/roasted-vegetable-lasagne

Cooking: After tiring of my one and only cookbook and failing to remember to pick some new material up from my mother's, I resorted to google, and came across this recipe. Being a long time fan of lasagne, I thought I'd give it a go.

After heating the oven to 180, I cut up 3 peppers. The recipe specifies red, but I used green and red. Because I'm a rebel. Two aubergines were sliced thinly and I threw in one courgette for good measure, also cut into big chunks.

The veg was put on lightly greased baking trays, tossed with a bit of Olive *cough* Sunflower Oil, seasoned, then put in the oven for 25mins. I thought this would be ample time to make the tomato sauce. Hah.

Also, did I get a duff aubergine? I've never had them with this many seeds in before...

To make the tomato sauce I chopped an onion and crushed (the recipe said slice, but I got excited to use the crusher) two cloves of garlic. I missed out the carrot from the recipe. Mostly because I hate peeling them. This was cooked for about 5 minutes until softened.

Meanwhile I genuinely accidentally misread the amount of white wine required for 300ml instead of 200ml, but there was a fairly easy solution to that error...

Add 2tbps of tomato puree, or squeeze in a generous dollop if you are too lazy to try and scoop it out of the tablespoon measurer and then wash it afterwards.

Cook for a minute, then add the wine.

The Boyfriend came home as I reduced the wine/tomato puree/onion mix down by 2/3rds and announced that the house smelled like a pub. I took this to be a promising sign.

Once the mix was reduced, I added two cans of chopped tomatoes. The recipe asked for half quantities of the homemade tomato sauce, but I kinda forgot that til halfway through, so just reduced the amount of tins of tomatoes by one. I wish I'd just gone for three - there wasn't quite enough of it to cover the whole of the lasagne.

I also threw in a few mushrooms, as there were some looking slightly past their best in the fridge. The recipe then states 'add a handful of basil leaves then simmer for 20 mins.' So, um, Italian Style Seasoning counts right? After that, you were supposed to leave it to cool and food-process it. But I don't have a food processor, so I left it hot and lumpy.

By this point, I'd already opened the door of the oven and turned it off to stop the roasted veg from becoming charcoal. The Boyfriend was expecting dinner to be ready any moment, but, foolishly, I hadn't checked how long it takes to cook - 45mins at 160. I'd also, stupidly, left the door of the oven open too long, so it took ages to heat back up again...

Layer the veg, tomato sauce, lasagne sheets and white sauce (the recipe includes a homemade white sauce, but I was too lazy and just bought one). It's supposed to stretch to three layers, but I found the third a bit of a pinch. Over the final layer of lasagne, pour the remaining white sauce, then break up a ball of mozzarella and sprinkle across the top. I also added some cheddar. Just because.

Cook for 45 minutes.

Washing Up Required: Well, it still all fit in my half size dishwasher...

Result: It looked and smelled delicious. Definitely worth the effort to prepare.

Taste Test: While I was generally impressed with the effort (despite it needing about another 5 minutes in the oven) the Boyfriend was less enthused.

'It looks... Like lasagne.'

After a hesitant taste, he declared: 'It's alright. It's better than that shit you made last time, anyway. It's edible.'

Charming.

Overall Verdict: A bit of an effort, but tasty and with all the veg in there, you could probably even argue it's healthy.

Roasted Vegetable Lasagne

Restaurant Review: Ambrosia

Restaurant: Ambrosia

Location: Market Drayton, UK

General First Impressions: I've been going to this restaurant for a while, so I don't really have a first impression that I can remember. It always smells delicious though.

Starter: I don't normally do starters here, but went for the vegetarian platter. It had onion rings, spring rolls and other veggie staples, along with a sauce for dipping. I honestly can't remember what the sauce was, because I normally pay no attention to them - I'm not big on sauce - but in the interest of thorough testing I tried a bit. It was okay, but for me added nothing to the delicious spring rolls. That's me though, the girl who doesn't like sauce.

But no amount of desire for integrity in my blogging could make me touch the seaweed.

The vegetable wonton did end up in my handbag at one point, but that was my own clumsiness, combined with the champagne I'd drunk before, not an attempt to hide it so I didn't have to eat it. Honestly, you can't take me anywhere...

Main: For my main I was boring and went for my favourite mushroom curry with egg fried rice. The portions are very generous and the curry sauce rich, so it's no easy task to get through the whole lot. I managed though, a testament to how much I was enjoying the food and the company.

It's very much a typical 'make your own bowl of food' from the heated serving dishes kind of place - no call for fancy presentation - though the duck is separated out for you, a process that usually really impresses me (easily entertained) but I think our waitress was fairly new, so it didn't have the speed or elegance that I've seen waiters achieve in the past.

Drinks: The Boyfriend shared a bottle of the House Red wine, which he said was very enjoyable.

Price: It was £20 per head for starter, main, rice and two shared bottles of the cheaper wine.

Overall: This is our only sit in and eat chinese restaurant, and has been a staple of celebratory nights out for me since I was seventeen. The fact that we keep going back time and time again says volumes about the quality of the food and the reasonable prices. It's not just because it's the only one, I promise.

Website: http://ambrosiachineserestaurant.co.uk