Broast potatoes, Baked onion deluxe and cumin carotts

Broast potatoes, Baked onion deluxe and
cumin

carrots

I serve this simple little combo with such dishes as
Garlic Roast Pork Tenderloin as it
cooks in around 40 minutes

Just cut a few potatoes in half, chop a carrot or two and peel some onions.

Season the potato's with mint, herbs de provance and salt; sprinkle some
cumin seeds on the carrots, place half a tomato on top of each onion and drizzle
everything with a little oil. Cook at 180 degrees in a fan assisted oven for 35
to 40 mins.

The spuds taste half way between baked and roast-- really nice and the onions
are truly beautiful.

 

Chester Food links

Some Food
Links

 

http://www.ukcities.co.uk/Chester/Food_and_Drink/

This page lists useful
Chester Food and Drink sites and related Food resources

http://www.touchlocal.com/nat/c-1393-t-5163

 Organic Food In
Chester

http://www.mycheshireeggs.co.uk/default.asp

 A Site About Free
Range Eggs in Chester! It Also Contains Free Recipes!

http://www.clarence.ndirect.co.uk/large/listings/restbyrank.htm

A Look At Eating &
Drinking in Chester

http://www.city-visitor.com/chester/healthfood.html

 Health Food In
Chester

http://www.findmynearest.co.uk/local/my-essentials/food-drink-shopping/l/Chester.html

Find Your Nearest Food
Shops of Various Kinds With This Handy Website!

http://www.martins-seafresh.co.uk/shopping/default.htm?affid=23208

Fishy! Buy Fresh Fish &
Lobster ONLINE!

http://somewherenear.com/static46CH.htm

Not Sure What You Want
For Tea?! This Site Lists Chester Restaurants of ALL Kinds

http://www.thekempgroup.com/restaurants-chester.html

 Restaurants in
Chester - WORLDWIDE!

http://www.yell.com/quickclicks/SP/T/Takeaway+Food/Chester/

Sometimes, Only A
Take-Away Will Do!

Creamy Chilli Chicken with pasta

Ingredients.

1 onion, 1 green pepper, 3 cloves of garlic, 2 chillies, small tins of Chick
Peas and Evaporated milk, 1tsp each of dried basil, oregano and herbs de
provance, 2 chicken breasts, pasta.

Method

Preparation is the key to this dish because it cooks in ten minutes. Before
you start to cook, chop the onion, pepper, garlic and chilli (if your not over
fond of chillies either cook something else or remove the seeds ;) ). Drain and
rinse the chickpeas and boil a kettle full of water! You need 3 pans, for the
Chicken, sauce and pasta. You need a little oil in the pans for the meat and the
sauce, and boiling water in the pasta pan. Light the gas or turn on the rings
and your ready to go. Below is a minute by minute guide to the cook itself- Good
luck!

Time remaining
10min	Tip the pasta into the boiling water- keep adjusting the heat so the pasta keeps boiling. Start to Fry the Chicken
9	Start frying the veg, and add the herbs, garlic and chillies
8	Pour yourself a glass of wine
7	Turn the meat
6	Add the chick-peas to the sauce mix
5	Stir the evaporated milk into the pan with the onions etc--- stir it often as the milk can turn to cake- which is nice but not what we want!!
4	turn the meat again!
3	take a sip of wine
2	one last time--- turn the meat over
1	relax
SERVING	Drain the pasta, plonk it on a plate with the Chicken breasts and pour the sauce over the top, garnish with italien cheese and fresh black pepper

Flash Fried Steak with Quick Dauphinoise potatoes and healthy Black Pepper Sauce.

Flash Fried Steak with Quick Dauphinoise potatoes and
healthy Black Pepper Sauce.

So often cooking is about using what you can get hold of, rather than being
able to cook what you want. To me cooking is about creativity- if i want the
same every time I'll go to McDonalds. This particular concoction came about
whilst house sitting at my Mother-in-law's house. The local shop yielded spuds,
onions, some 'frying steak', garlic seasoning and a tub of live yoghurt. A raid
of Sue's cupboard provided some tomatoes, mushrooms, milk, butter and black
pepper and we were in business!!

First of all- a word about the steak. It was pre packed, it was on sale in a
late night shop in Leeds, and had almost certainly once been part of a cow. It
was fresh, but had quite a lot of gristle running through it- in short 'beggars
can't be choosers' - you can't expect meat like this to be anything like as nice
as a prime fillet from your local butcher- even though it cost nearly as much.
There's not much you can do with it except cook it so long that the gristle and
fat turns crunchy, and hope the meat doesn't. I fried this steak for about 8
mins a side on a medium heat in oil and butter. I grilled mushrooms and tomatoes
on top of the steak to keep it moist.

Quick Dauphinoise potatoes are a real joy!- Personally i find the
traditional French oven cooked dish on the rich side and a lot of faffing about.
These are cooked in a pan on the stove, and are ready in about 20 mins. Slice
the tatty's thinly (peel them if you must) and boil them in salted water for
about ten mins. Drain them and stir in some milk mixed with yoghurt (just enough
to coat the potatoes after a thorough stirring) and season with plenty of salt
and garlic (ideally fresh and crushed- i just used the garlic seasoning from the
shop on the day though). Cover the pan and cook on a low heat for another 6 or
seven minutes, adding more milk and yoghurt if the dish starts to dry out or
burn.

Healthy Black Pepper Sauce is ready in moments, and has less calories
than the classic sauce au'poivre cooked with cream.- Finely chop an onion and
fry it in a little oil until softened, crumble in a beef stock cube and stir in
a cup full of natural yoghurt. Keep stirring as you mill in fresh black pepper
to taste- Continue to stir, and bring the sauce gently to the boil, pour it over
the Steak and Potatoes. Sit down, take a sip of wine, relax and Enjoy

Garlic Roast Tenderloin of Pork

Garlic Roast Tenderloin of Pork

Ingredients

Pork Tenderloin- about 8oz per person

Garlic

Soy Sauce

Chilli Flakes

Salt and Pepper

Preparation

Cut the meat into approximately 6" long strips, and cut into the meat
about every inch, nearly to the base of the fillet.

Finely chop 1 1/2 cloves of garlic for each portion and sprinkle it over
the meat and into the cuts. Add a few chilli flakes and season with sea salt
and freshly milled rainbow pepper. Drizzle on a little Soy Sauce (I use
'dark' but light is fine too) and finish off with a little pour of sunflower
oil.

Leave to marinate for 8 hours or so.

Cooking

Heat your fan assisted oven to 180 degrees (195 if you don't have a fan)
and cook for 40-45 minutes. This gives you a nice balance of crunchy and
juicy meat that you can only usually get with a big joint.

Serving

I usually serve this with Broast potatoes, Baked onion deluxe and cumin
carrots together with fresh greens and gravy as the combination of roasting
veg cooks in the same time as the pork!!

 

Grilled Tuna with Orange and Mushroom Sauce

Grilled Tuna with Orange and Mushroom Sauce

Ingrediants

12-16oz tuna cut into two steaks

small tin of Orange segments in Juice

medium onion

8oz mushrooms

two cloves of garlic.

Salt, pepper and ground herbs and chilli flakes to garnish

Tuna is a wonderful fish, and is quite safe to eat rare,
assuming it hasn't been frozen. Steaks like these pictured can be sealed quickly
for a couple of mins a side, or if you want them cooked right through about
5mins a side. I often grill a few small tomatoes in the same pan, as they go
well with this dish

The beauty of this dish is the sauce:- Fry the onion, mushroom
and garlic for about 3 mins, season with salt and pepper, then chuck in the tin
of oranges, reduce the heat to simmering and allow to thicken! Thats it- no
catch- and it tastes wonderful

I tend to serve this dish with boiled potatoes and grilled
cherry tomatos

Marinated Pot Roast Brisket of Beef with all the Trimmings:

Marinated Pot Roast Brisket of Beef

With all the Trimmings:

This is a typical example of my cooking. Most of the recipes on the sight so
far have been quick cooks to eat after work. This is an all day marinade and two
hours worth of cooking. Beef Brisket needs to be cooked long and slow, and
usually with liquid. This dish also marinades the beef for eight hours.

The meat is coated with mustard powder and crushed garlic granules, drizzled
with Thai Fish Sauce and Sesame Seed oil, and finally 1/2 a bottle of red wine
with some peppercorns, cloves and juniper berries. This joint weighed about 3
pounds or around 1.4kg. In an ideal world, keep turning the meat every couple of
hours, but if you leave it to marinate whilst you go to work it'll still be
fine.

Trimmings presented with this dish include baked carrots, mushrooms and
onions, roast potato, stuffed bell pepper, boiled veg including potatoes and
tomatoes

Big roast dinners are really easy to do as long as you have a good plan. I
don't need to write my timeline down these days, but if you're taking your first
steps into the joy that is a home cooked roast, a timeline is a good idea; you
can easily take your favourite elements of several dinners, adjust them for the
cooking temperature and create a hassle free bespoke meal.

The plan tonight was a romantic meal for two, with enough wine to float a
battleship, and leftovers to eat the next day. Coming up is the timeline
starting from two hours to go- the meat has already been marinated in its lidded
casserole, and the oven has been heated to around 170degrees Celsius

 

 

Remaining Time	Things to do
2 Hours	Get the meat into the oven. Not much to do for half an hour except all the prep for the Veg. If you dont get all this done now, it can easily overrun into the 1.5 hour to 1 hour slot- just make sure you get the roast spuds in in plenty of time with the oven at this low temperature. Prep: Roast Spuds: Peel & Chop 5 smallish spuds in half. Keep them in a bowl of water until nearly oven time Other Roast Veg: Plonk some baby carrots, mushrooms and peeled largish onions in a roasting tray. Season with salt and pepper, sprinkle cumin seeds on the carrots and dried garlic on the mushrooms, drizzle with olive oil and leave until 1 hour to go. Stuffed pepper: Cut the top off your pepper, and hollow out the seeds and white pith. Make the stuffing by finely chopping four mushrooms with a clove of garlic, and mixing that with about 1.5 oz grated mature cheddar cheese- you can add some mixed herbs if you like. Spoon the mix into the hollowed out pepper and replace the lid. Keep it handy until 45 min to go. Boiled Spuds: Chop half a dozen tatties into half or 1/4's depending on size- i like my spuds about an inch and a half long once cooked, but its up to you-- any bigger cook them for longer- or less if smaller. Dunk em straight into cold salted water to stop them discolouring. Put the pan on the stove ready to light the gas at t-minus 30 Other Boiled Veg: Things like broccoli, sugar snap peas, baby corn and cherry tomatoes. Place em all in a dry pan- towards the end they get covered with boiling water. I like crunchy veg- if you don't cook some bits for longer..... Stock: The sauce for this dish is made by mixing this stock with the cooking liquor from the joint. I prefer real beef stock, but rarely have it, so being real, use a stock cube- or some gravy granules if you want thick gloopy sauce
1.5 Hours	Roast potatoes into oven: Dry the spuds and place into a roasting tray with about 1/4inch of oil on the base, season with sea salt and ram em in. Tidy the kitchen, and maybe enjoy a few minutes sit down. Seriously tidying as you go helps cut the stress out of cooking; Have a glass of plonk by all means-- but don't overdo it yet ;)
1 hour	onion carrots and mushroom into oven. Anything not ready to be cooked yet most likely isn't going to be. Don't worry- the more you practice the better you'll get
45 min	Roast pepper into oven Set the table: Decide how your going to serve the food and make sure everything you need is laved out
30 min	bring Boiled spuds up to a slow boil on the stove
15 min	Check on stuff in the oven-- adjust your cooking time if needed. If anything is dark brown (apart from the meat) move it to the floor of the oven
10 min	Get some stock on the hob ready for the gravy. Last minute checks on the table
5 min	bring the beans/ baby corn tomatoes etc up to boil by covering with water out of the kettle- turn off boiled spuds and drain
Zero Mins	Zero min is when the meat comes out of the oven. There sounds a lot to do, but remember you have about ten minutes as the meat needs to relax Bring the meat in its casserole out of the oven, turn off and drain the boiling veg on the stove. Lift the meat out of the casserole and leave to drain covered with foil on a rack. Pour the cooking juice out of the casserole into the pan with the stock- whisk together and bring to the boil. Serve the other dishes out of the oven-roast spuds in a fresh bowl, but the pepper & the onions etc can go to table as they are. Put the boiled stuff into bowls and get that to the table. Put the joint on  a carving plate. If your partners ready, get them to start carving. Pour any last bits of juice from the draining rack into the sauce, stir, decant into gravy boat and serve. Sit down, relax and enjoy your hard work

 

Twenty minutes later there wasn't much left- the hard work had paid off, and
a good evening was had by all

 

Spicey Thai Style Beef Noodle Soup

Spicy Thai Style Beef Noodle Soup

Oriental Soups are so quick, easy and
healthy! This one is ready in about ten mins.

The basic idea is that you cook the
'lumps'- in this case, minced beef, green pepper, onion, mushroom and garlic-
Chillies go well too. Whilst the meat and veg are cooking, you bring some
noodles up to the boil, and finally add the cooked noodles and some flavoured
stock to complete the soup.

I like to use decent minced steak for this
dish- not something i do often, as most mince dishes need some fat.

Chop all your veg into small even lumps. Put
the mince in a pan on a gentle heat, allowing it to cook in its own fat, add the
veg and plenty of spices- a splash of sesame seed oil, 2 tbs fish sauce, 1 tbs
Thai 7Spice powder, Chilli flakes, 6 cardamom pods and salt and pepper. Leave
this mix to cook.

Break your raw noodles into a pan of boiling
water and cook for four minutes- As the noodles are nearly cooked add some
boiling water and a beef stock cube to the meat and veg mix. Drain the noodles,
and stir into the soup, bring it to the boil, and its done!