Month: May 2024

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Roasted Tomato Soup With a Kick!

tomato soup with garlic and chillis

Recipe: Roasted Tomato Soup With a Kick!

I spotted a certain influencer in the UK post her recipe for tomato soup last week that would have fed a pigeon. So when I harvested the last of the tomatoes from our polytunnel I figured I’d show you how soup is really, really simple to make.

Serves 4 people

Ingredients
1.5kg mixed tomatoes (size does not matter)
3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 – 3 small chillis, chopped
Generous glug of olive oil
Salt & Pepper
Basil to serve

Method
Chop the tomatoes into chunks. If you are using cherry tomatoes just leave them as they are. Turf the lot into a deep dish baking tray and drizzle with olive oil and season well with salt and pepper.

Roast in the oven at 170 degrees for 45 minutes to an hour. Until you have the level of char you’re happy with.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly before blitzing. Add the basil leaves at the very end.

I see a lot of people recommending you cook or roast fresh basil. It’s a very soft herb. Yes it looks lovely on camera and on baking trays but you will ruin the flavour. Add soft herbs at the end of the cooking process for the best flavour

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The Irish/Thai Yellow curry

The Irish/Thai Yellow curry is made with seasonal Irish root vegetables and served with a soft boiled egg. It’s a very budget friendly meal that is not spicy, but full of flavour. The perfect antidote to rainy miserable days.

Naturally gluten free, you can amend this recipe to make it vegan by using tamari instead of fish sauce and leaving the eggs out.

Read on below for the slow cooker adaptation.


Ingredients
• 300ml vegetable stock
• 2 small onions, diced
• 3 teaspoons Thai yellow curry paste
• 400ml tin of coconut milk
• 3 medium carrots, peeled and sliced
• 5 medium potatoes, peeled and cubed
• 1 medium turnip (swede), peeled and cubed
• 1 cup of frozen peas
• ½ head of broccoli, chopped
• 2 tablespoons fish sauce
• 4 soft boiled eggs
• 100g salted peanuts (or any nuts you prefer)

Method
Bring the stock to a simmer and add in the onions. Lid on for 5 minutes to soften the onions. Stir in the paste and turn off the heat this is important so that coconut milk doesn’t curdle. Pour the coconut milk into a large pot stirring often to make sure the milk doesn’t split.

Bring back to a simmer. Add the carrots, potato and turnip. Stir well to make sure they are coated in the sauce then turn down the heat and cover the pot. Leave the pot to slowly bubble away for 40 minutes. After which time, stir in the frozen peas and broccoli. Simmer for a final 5 minutes.

Serve with a soft boiled egg and peanuts on top.

***Slow Cooker Instructions*** Add all the ingredients as far as the turnip on the list to the slow cooker and stir well. Cook on high for 4 hours. After 4 hours, remove the lid and stir in the peas and broccoli, cover and cook for another 30 minutes. Serve with a soft boiled egg and peanuts on top.

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Recipe Sausage (actual) rolls!

Sausage roll a baguette and sausage meat in a roll


🌭🌭🌭
Ingredients

6 dinner rolls or hot dog rolls
6 tbsp of tomato relish
300g sausage meat
100g grated cheese
Method
Cut a long v-cut into the top of of each roll. Using your hand pull out the v-shape and set
aside the leftover bread for later.
Using the back of a spoon flatten out the inside of the groove in the rolls. Spread one
tablespoon of relish inside of the groove in each roll. Sprinkle the cheese on top of the
relish.
Divide the sausage meat between each roll and spread it on top of the cheese. Replace the
leftover bread that you removed from the top of the roll.
Bake in the airfryer for 20-25 minutes at 170 o C until crispy and golden. Or bake in a
conventional fan oven for 25-30 minutes on a baking tray at 180 o C.

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Umami Stew


Ingredients
• 500g lamb neck pieces (stewing meat)
• 1 large onion, sliced
• 2 large peppers, sliced
• 3 large carrots, sliced
• 500g whole baby potatoes
• 300ml beef or lamb stock
• 1 tbsp ginger and garlic paste
• 1 tbsp worcestershire sauce
• 3 tbsp soy sauce
• 2 tbsp oyster sauce
• Fresh coriander and parsley to garnish

Method
Combine the lamb, onion, peppers, carrots, and potatoes in a slow cooker. Stir the ginger and garlic, plus the three sauces into the stock. Pour the mixture over the vegetables in the slow cooker.
Place the lid on the slow cooker and cook for 6 hours on high.
Serve with chopped soft herbs on top.

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Vanilla Cake Traybake

White vanilla cake iced with buttercream and sprinkles.


Ingredients
• 150g Butter
• 150g Caster Sugar
• 3 Medium Free Range Eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 150g Plain Flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
Method


Preheat your (fan) oven to 170 degrees Celcius. Line your baking tray with greaseproof baking paper.
In a large bowl beat the butter and sugar until they are light and fluffy. Add the eggs one by one, beating after each addition to make sure they are well combined. If the mixture starts to curdle, add a tablespoon of flour.
Pour in the vanilla extract, beat for a minute until it’s mixed into the batter. Finally, add the flour and baking powder, beat lightly until it becomes a pale, smooth mixture. Pour the cake mixture into the pre-lined baking tray, no need to smooth out the edges this will happen naturally during the baking process. Bake for 20 minutes until golden brown on top.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool before icing and enjoying.

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Lentil Bolognese

Lentil Bolognese vegetarian bolognese with lentils and spaghetti

Every single ingredient comes from the press or the freezer in this comforting bolognese recipe. There’s no need to sweeten the mixture as the sweetness will come from the carrots and peppers.

Ingredients
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
50g chopped onions
2 tablespoons chopped garlic
50g chopped peppers
2 tablespoons tomato puree
100g chopped carrots
200g dried split lentils
1 tin chopped tomatoes
1 vegetable stock cube and hot water
1 teaspoon each of dried oregano, thyme, salt, and pepper
2 tablespoons chopped basil
Dried Pasta for serving

Method
Cook the onions in the vegetable oil in a large saucepan on medium heat for 5 minutes before adding the garlic, tomato puree, and peppers, and cook for a further 5 minutes. Add the carrots and lentils and stir well. Pour in the chopped tomatoes and 300ml of vegetable stock made with a stock cube. Add the dried herbs and seasoning. Stir so that everything is combined. Cover the saucepan and bring to a low simmer for an hour. Stir every so often so that the lentils don’t stick to the bottom of the pan.

*Recipe Suggestion: This recipe is perfect for the slow cooker. Pop in all the ingredients (excluding the basil), stir well and place the cooker on high for 3-4 hours.

To serve, cook the pasta according to the instructions, strain then combine with the sauce, sprinkle chopped basil on top.

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Triple Chocolate Brownies

Ingredients

100g dark chocolate
2 eggs
100g caster sugar
50g plain flour
50g cocoa powder/drinking chocolate (your preference)
1 teaspoon baking powder
150g chocolate chips


Method
Preheat the (fan) oven to 170 degrees Celcius. Line a square brownie baking tin well.


Melt the dark chocolate either in a bowl sitting over steaming hot water (bain marie) or by zapping in a pyrex bowl in the microwave at 30 second intervals. Stir after every 30 seconds until you have all the chocolate melted.


In a second bowl whisk the eggs and sugar until they are light and frothy. Once the chocolate is melted, carefully whisk it in bit by bit. Don’t put it in all at once or you’ll end up with scrambled eggs!


Finally, blend in the remaining dry ingredients (flour, cocoa powder and baking powder) into the whisked egg, sugar, and chocolate froth. I use a stand mixer so just turf them all in together and whisk quickly until they are combined. Chocolate chips on top are optional but I do recommend them!


Bake the batter in the oven for 25 minutes. Then leave to cool completely before slicing and serving. It is very squishy

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Beef Cheek Ragout

stewing beef, onion and peppers

feeds a hungry family of 4


This recipe is perfectly suited to long slow cooking or a blast in the pressure cooker. I get my beef cheeks from my butcher as they’re not the kind of ingredient you tend to find in a supermarket. There’s a lot to be said for the knowledge that your local craft butcher has about cheaper cuts of meat and the best way to cook them. You don’t get that kind of advice from packets on a fridge shelf.


Double up or treble up your ingredients for an easy batch cook.


Ingredients

1 trimmed beef cheek
1 chopped large onion
2 chopped peppers
2 chopped sticks of celery
1 tin of chopped tomatoes
4-5 cloves of crushed garlic (more or less if you prefer)
1 teaspoon each of salt, white pepper, paprika, sugar, and dried oregano
1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar


Method

Combine all the ingredients in the slow cooker pot and stir well. Cook on high for 8 hours or until the beef cheek is fall-apart tender. If cooking in a pressure cooker this dish will take about 3 hours.


To serve, break up the meat with a spoon and stir in some freshly cooked pasta. Garnish with chopped basil.


To make this meal stretch further add a drained can of chickpeas at the start.

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Raspberry Bakewell Tart Recipe

Raspberry Bakewell tart with shortcrust pastry and almonds


Serves 10-12 Adults

Ingredients
• 1 roll premade shortcrust pastry
• 125g butter
• 150g caster sugar
• 3 medium eggs
• 125g self raising flour
• 125g ground almonds
• 2-3 drops almond flavouring
• 200g raspberry jam
• 125g flaked almonds

Method

1. Preheat the fan oven to 160 degrees Celsius.

2. Line a baking tin with the pastry. Patch up any holes – you can see here that my roll of pastry wasn’t the right shape but that was grand. Prick the pastry, then line with some baking parchment. Pour some baking beans/dried beans/clean coins into the baking parchment. Spread evenly. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes remove from the oven and set the tray to one side while you prepare the filling.

3. Using an electric mixer, beat together the butter and sugar until combined, then add the eggs. Beat again. Next add the flour and ground almonds, followed by the almond flavouring. You will be left with a stiff batter.

4. Spoon the raspberry jam into the par-baked pastry case, spread evenly. Gently spoon the cake batter on top, making sure there are no gaps in the tart for the jam to escape.

5. Smooth the top of the cake batter. Sprinkle the flaked almonds on top of the cake batter and gently press the almonds onto the top so that they stick to the batter.

6. Bake in the oven for 35-40 minutes until the cake area is cooked through. It should be golden on top and if you use a skewer or a cocktail stick to test, it should come out clean.

7. Remove the tart from the oven and leave it to sit to one side for at least 15 minutes before removing from the tin, slicing, and serving.

8. Enjoy with lashings of tea, maybe some cream on the side.

Recipe Notes:
Yes this freezes so it’s a perfect make in advance tart.
Use whatever jam you prefer.
I only use free range eggs because that’s my preference.
The tin I use here is 30cm x 12cm with a removable base.
If you have a nut allergy you can substitute the 125g of ground almonds for more self raising flour. Do not use the almond flavouring

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Jam Tarts

This is not a complicated recipe but more of a reminder that jam tarts are incredibly easy to make at home plus taste so much nicer than shop bought.


Use a roll of ready-made pastry. Cut into rounds, ease the rounds in a muffin tin that has been greased and lined with a generous amount of flour. Press into a cup shape. Use empty muffin cases to hold dried beans inside of the cups of pastry. Bake in the oven at 170 degrees Celsius for 15 – 20 minutes until crisp and light.


Remove the beans and muffin cases, set to one side. Fill the baked cases halfway with jam or even nutella. Return the muffin tin to the oven for a further 5-7 minutes until the filling has warmed through. Remove the tray from the oven and use the bake of a spoon or spatula to spread out the filling evenly. Leave to cool to room temperature before enjoying