All posts filed under: recipe

Pork Chops with Mango, Peach and Halloumi Recipe

Published by

Tim and I are very different cooks. He is meticulous in his cooking – he will scour our shelf of recipe books and peruse for hours (literally!) before deciding on one and buying all of the necessary ingredients. This always results in a perfect and delicious dish. I tend to wing it! I take a look in the fridge, see what we’ve got, and just chuck stuff together. Occasionally it doesn’t quite work, but thankfully it usually does! This happened recently, as I’d bought some Yorkshire Halloumi at the Malton Food Lovers Festival when I was up visiting my Mum. I was very excited to discover Yorkshire Halloumi and couldn’t wait to experiment with it, so this is what I came up with… Ingredients – serves two  1 red chilli 1 mango 2 peaches 2 pork chops 250g halloumi Salt and pepper Olive oil (for cooking) Method Pre-heat the grill to a medium heat (this is for the halloumi). Chop up the red chilli into small pieces. You can taste how hot the chilli is by …

Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic Recipe

Published by

I adore cooking with garlic and so I couldn’t wait to try out some recipes from my new cook book, quite literally titled ‘Garlic’ by Jenny Linford, published by Ryland Peters & Small. It’s such a pretty book, with over 65 recipes, broken down into six chapters: Mellow, Sunshine, Comfort, Fiery, Go Wild and Celebratory. I decided to try out a recipe from the ‘Mellow’ section – Chicken with 40 cloves of garlic. Yes, you read that right, 40 cloves! Here’s the recipe: Ingredients – serves 6 1.8kg/4 lb free-range chicken 25g/1 and a half tablespoons butter 1 tablespoon olive oil 40 garlic cloves, separated but unpeeled. 100ml/one third of a cup of vermouth or dry white wine freshly squeezed juice of half a lemon 200ml/1 cup good-quality chicken stock a handful of fresh tarragon sprigs salt and freshly ground black pepper A lidded flameproof casserole dish, large enough to hold the chicke Method Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Season the chicken with salt and pepper. Heat the butter and olive oil in a …

Jamie Oliver’s BBQ Beans Recipe

Published by

Last weekend, we decided to crack out the BBQ and really fancied some home made baked beans to go with our meat. I remembered watching Jamie Oliver make some amazing baked beans when he was travelling across America years ago, and managed to find a similar recipe online. I decided not to include the sweet potatoes as we just wanted beans, and we didn’t do the bread and cheese stage as we were trying to be a little less indulgent than normal (!!), but it was absolutely gorgeous! Even if the pan did take a bit of a battering! My advice would be to allow it to cook in the oven for as long as possible. Ingredients (serves 6) 2 red onions 2 cloves of garlic 1 fresh red chilli 2 large carrots olive oil 1 heaped teaspoon sweet smoked paprika 1 level teaspoon cumin seeds 1 level teaspoon dried chilli flakes 6 medium sweet potatoes 1 x 700 ml jar of passata 2 x 400 g tins of mixed beans 100 ml BBQ sauce …

Braised beef cheeks with pear and bitter chocolate sauce

Published by

I know you’re probably thinking, what the hell? It does sound bizarre! But Tim saw Michel Roux Jr. cooking this up on a TV programme the other day and really fancied giving it a go. I’m all for unusual food and trying out new things, so we bought all the ingredients and cooked it over the Easter weekend! Ingredients For the white bean purée 85g/3oz dried white beans 2 bay leaves sprig of rosemary sea salt small knob of butter 200ml/7fl oz double cream, heated to a boil For the beef cheeks 2 pears 2 tbsp lemon juice 2 beef cheeks, trimmed and cut into 4 equal-sized pieces sea salt oil, for frying 1 onion, sliced 1 garlic clove, sliced 125ml/4fl oz port 1 orange, juice and zest 1 litre/2 pints beef stock 1 tbsp cracked black pepper 16 button onions, peeled 50g/1¾oz butter 60g/2¼oz chocolate, 70% cocoa solids, broken into squares Method For the purée, soak the beans in water overnight then drain well. Place the beans in a pan of fresh water and …

Amaretto & Meringue Eggnog with Waitrose Cellar

Published by

Have you ever tried eggnog? The thought of drinking raw egg might seem a bit hideous to some of you, but after being challenged to try out an eggnog recipe by Waitrose Cellar, I can confirm, it’s pretty amazing! As a teenager in Cyprus, my friends and I used to drink Snowball cocktails over Christmas (advocaat and lemonade), but I’d never tried eggnog on it’s own. Here are some things you might not know about this unusual drink… · Eggnog is made from a mix of cream, sugar, eggs, an alcoholic spirit and spice (the alcohol and spice you add is up to you) · It originated in East Anglia, UK and not the USA which is a common misconception as it only travelled there in the 18th Century · Christmas Eve is National Eggnog Day · The ‘nog’ bit of Eggnog is taken from the middle English word ‘noggin’ – a small carved wooden mug traditionally used to serve the drink · People all around the world create their own versions of this pudding …

A Royal Bath & West Show Sunday Roast

Published by

Last weekend, Tim and I visited the Royal Bath & West Show – you can read a full write-up about it here. As you’ll have read in that post, we bought lots of goodies while we were there to cook with, so on Sunday, we thought we’d put some of them to good use in a Sunday Roast. We used the Rapeseed Oil and Beer & Horseradish Sauce from Fussels and the Smoked Garlic from The Garlic Farm.     Ingredients 1kg Topside of Beef Fussels Rapeseed Oil The Garlic Farm Smoked Garlic 4-5 King Edward Potatoes 4-5 Sprigs of Rosemary 200g baby sweetcorn & mangetout Method Pre-heat the oven to 170C. Season the beef with salt and pepper and place on a lightly oiled oven tray (using the rapeseed oil). Cook for an hour and allow to rest for half an hour. We wanted ours rare and therefore it needed to be cooked for 20 minutes plus 20 minutes per 500g. If you prefer yours more well done, it will need to be kept …

Chicken Basghettilli Recipe

Published by

When I was a child, my mum used to make a chicken and tagliatelle dish called ‘Chicken Cacciatore’ – I always used to look forward to it! Looking at recipes for it online, it seems to vary quite a lot. So this is my own take on it, which I’m naming ‘Chicken Basghettilli‘ (basil, spaghetti and chilli…see what I did there…) Ingredients 2 free range chicken breasts 1 onion (chopped finely) 2 cloves of garlic (chopped finely) 1 red chilli (chopped finely) 4 mini portobello mushrooms (chopped into small pieces) 1 tin of chopped tomatoes 1 tbsp tomato purée Generous dash of red wine Handful of fresh basil leaves (chopped finely, plus a few for decoration) Spaghetti for two people (usually about a quarter of a standard sized pack of spaghetti) Salt and pepper to taste Olive oil for cooking Method Pre-heat the oven to 170C. Heat some good quality olive oil (I used PS Lambis Cypriot olive oil) in a pan on the hob (it needs to be a pan that can also go …