Amazing Falafel

Oh yum.

Falafel are amazing. So tasty, so healthy, so CHEAP...what's not to love?

Falafel in pitta bread


Serves 2


1 tin chickpeas
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 clove of garlic
1 tsp turmeric
1 small green chilli
1 shallot
s + p
olive oil
1 tbsp gram flour
1 tbsp plain flour


To serve:
Pitta bread
Rocket
Mayo
Ketchup


Finely chop the chilli, garlic and shallot. Put in a bowl with the spices, seasoning and chickpeas. Mash the chickpeas with a fork until you have a chunky paste-like consistency. Mix in the plain flour. Divide the mixture into four and form each quarter into a flat pattie. Dust the patties with the gram flour and stick in the fridge for 10 mins.

Nice n crispy now...

Fry the falafel in some olive oil for about 10 mins on each side, until crispy. Stick your cooked falafel in toasted pitta with some chopped rocket, mayo and ketchup and tuck into your frugal feast.

Weekly menu 20/11/11 - Veggie week

I feel like perhaps I've perhaps been over-doing it a bit recently. Sometimes it's nice to give your body a bit of a break, and I guess that's the rationale behind having a week of vegetarian dinners. I'm also going to take it as an opportunity to have a break from the booze and the cigs. I'm going to be positively virtuous.

The really great thing about resolving to cook only vegetarian stuff, is that it forces you to get a bit more creative with the stuff you serve up. There's no simple meat + veg + carb formula to revert to.

Here's what I've got planned this week:

Dinners:

Warm salad of black salsify, mushrooms and goats' cheese

Falafels in pitta bread with rocket salad

Penne with brocolli pesto and avocado (inspired by this recipe from Nutmegs; Seven - http://www.nutmegsseven.co.uk/2011/10/orzo-with-broccoli-pesto-and-avocado.html)

Spinach and sweet potato coconut curry with rice

Butternut squash, chilli and halloumi frittata

Lunches:

Quinoa, herb-roasted butternut squash and rocket salad with a clementine dressing

Sweet potato, butternut squash and chilli soup

Hummus with pitta bread and carrot sticks

Peanut noodle salad

Breakfast:


Oats soaked in blueberry yoghurt mixed with grated apple

Delicious purple goo

Mutton hotpot and a breakfast of leftovers

Hot (pot) to trot

Like Lancashire hotpot, but without the kidneys. I'm pretty good with offal nowadays but kidneys...well, I've had some unpleasant experiences with kidneys. Maybe one day...

Mutton hotpot


Loosely based on a recipe for Lancashire hotpot by James Martin, available here: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/9099/lancashire-hotpot


Serves 3 (The Bear and I had this for dinner one night, then he took the leftovers to work for his lunch the next day.)


500g diced mutton
olive oil
a small knob of butter
1/2 an onion
2 small carrots
1 tsp dried thyme
s + p
1 tsp marmite
2 tbsp plain flour
1 mug of chicken stock
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
about 500g potatoes


Preheat the oven to 140 degrees C.


Brown the mutton in a large casserole pan (one which can go in the oven and has a lid) with the olive oil, seasoning and butter. Finely chop the onion and carrot and add these to the pan with the dried thyme. Fry for about 10 mins, then add the flour. Finally add the chicken stock, Worcestershire sauce and marmite. 


Slice the potatoes into roughly 2cm slices and arrange on top of your stew. In between layers of potato add seasoning and a few blobs of butter.


Put the lid on your casserole dish and bung in the oven for one and a half hours. Remove the lid (don't forget to use oven gloves!) for the last 1/2 hour or so of cooking to crisp up the potates. We ate ours with some leeky greens made by sauting some leeks in butter and adding to some boiled savoy cabbage. T'was yum.

Dinner is served...

On another note, we had a lot of leftovers hanging around our fridge, so I turned them into a rather lavish breakfast: leftover savoy cabbage,  roast potatoes, carrots and parsnips became bubble and squeak - perfect with a squirt of brown sauce and topped with a poached egg - and leftover sharon fruit compote got whizzed up into a sharon fruit and banana smoothie. A pretty good start to the day if I do say so myself.

"How do you like your eggs in the morning?" With bubble and squeak. And brown sauce.  And smoothie. And NOW.

Cajun dirty rice

Dirrrrty

What to do with a bag of chicken giblets? Why, make some dirty rice of course. This is a good recipe even for the offal-phobic, as the chicken in chopped into tiny pieces.

Cajun dirty rice


Serves 2


1 chicken heart 
1 chicken liver
2 lumps of chicken fat (came in the bag with the giblets)
1/2 an onion
1 yellow pepper
3 sticks of celery
about an inch of chorizo
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp paprika
s + p
rice
chicken stock (I made mine using the chicken carcass left over from our roast dinner, the chicken neck, about a quarter of a leek, a stick of celery and a carrot)


Put the chicken fat in a saucepan and render. Finely dice the onion, celery, yellow pepper and chorizo. Add the vegetables, orgeano, paprika, cayenne, seasoning  and chorizo to the pan and sweat over a low heat for about 20 minutes. 

Sweated to the max.

Cook the rice in chicken stock until fully absorbed.


Finely dice the chicken heart and liver, turn up the heat and add to the pan with the vegetables. Once cooked, mix in the rice. Snip over a few celery leaves to serve.

Penne with chilli, anchovy and roasted romanesco cauliflower

Why hello there dinner.

So, when I found out we were getting one of these crazy beautiful vegetables in our weekly veg box, I wanted to use it in a dish in which it could take centre stage. This pasta is what I came up with.

I'm ready for my close-up...

It may not look anything particularly special, but this pasta dish sure tastes like it. Even though the pasta tubes look plain, in reality they are coated in spicy, garlicky anchovy flavour. I decided on roasting the romanesco as I recently discovered the magical transformation that takes place when you roast normal cauliflower - if you think cauliflower is a bit bland, you should really try it roasted - and using romaneco worked just as well. Don't be concerned by the gnarly burnt looking bits when you take the romanesco out the oven - these bits taste like AWESOME.

This could possibly be my new favourite pasta. Big words, people.

Penne with  chilli, anchovy and roasted romanesco cauliflower


Serves 2


Normal olive oil
Extra virgin olive oil
5 garlic cloves
3 anchovy fillets + the oil from the tin
1 tsp dried chilli flakes
1 small romanesco cauliflower
1 tbsp capers
Black pepper
Penne, to serve


Preheat your oven to 180 degrees C. Break up the romanesco into florets and mix in a roasting tin with the normal oil and the chilli. Place in the oven and roast for about 20 mins or until tender. 


Add the oil from the anchovies to a saucepan and fry the garlic and the anchovies until the fish has dissolved into the oil. Take off the heat, add a little extra virgin olive oil for flavour, the capers and plenty of ground black pepper. Mix the roasted romanesco into the oil mixture.


Mix everything with some cooked penne (or any other pasta you desire) and stuff your face.

Sharon fruit compote with vanilla yoghurt

The socially acceptable way to have the contents of a wine glass for breakfast.

Sharon fruit is a type of persimmon. I must admit, this is the first time I have ever tried one. It's a bit of a funny fruit really...the closest thing I can compare it to in terms of taste would be an apricot; in terms of texture, probably a tomato, but minus the seeds.

I got the idea for this layered compote / yoghurt thing from a recipe on the Abel and Cole website for a similar thing using plums. Having tried and enjoyed the original plummy version, when trying to work out what to do with my recently acquired sharon fruits, I figured it too could benefit from the same treatment.

It was very nice. In future I think I might peel the sharon fruits though - although this wasn't a major problem I think it might improve the overall consistency.

Sharon fruit compote with vanilla yoghurt

Serves 2

3 sharon fruit

1/2 an orange

1 tbsp honey

1 pot vanilla yoghurt ( I used an incredibly delicious one from Brown Cow Organics)

 Chop the Sharon fruit into small pieces and put in a saucepan with the juice of 1/2 an orange, the honey and a little water. Simmer for about 20 minutes, adding more water if necessary, until the compote is nice and thick and most of the fruit has disintegrated.

Behold the compote!

Allow the compote to cool down completely then layer in a wine glass (or any other vessel you fancy). Chill in the fridge until ready to serve. Breakfast done!

You got nommed.

Weekly menu 11/11/11

Our weekly veg box has arrived and that can only mean one thing...time to plan the weekly menu chez Bear.

Things I'm particularly excited about this week:

Hypnotising veg

Romanesco cauliflower.  The Bear has reliably informed me that the pretty green spirals are fractal pattens. So beautiful. And tasty. I will be turning this into a lovely little pasta dish.

How now etc.

Brown Cow vanilla yoghurt. This is the best yoghurt ever. I urge you to find some of this stuff. Perfect with a little fruit compote for breakfast.


Anyhow, here's what we're going to be eating...

Weekly menu 11/11/11


Dinners:


Roast chicken served with savoy cabbage and roasted potatoes, parsnips and carrots.

Cajun dirty rice made with finely diced chicken giblets, celery and yellow pepper.

Mutton Lancashire hotpot served with savoy cabbage and leeks.

Pizza with mozzarella, chorizo, yellow pepper and capers.

Penne with chilli, anchovy and roasted romanesco cauliflower.

Lunch:
Autumn minestrone soup

Breakfast:
Sharon fruit compote served with vanilla yoghurt 

*N.B. I am aware that there are in fact 7 days in a week, but I never plan for that amount as there are always nights where there are leftovers that need using / I can't be bothered to cook so we get something (chilli! curry! stew!) out the freezer / The Bear is hungry for a dirty takeaway.

The Hub, Liverpool

My friend Talisha and I were planning on a lovely leisurely midweek luncheon, and on her recommendation, we ended up at The Hub. The Hub's lunchtime menu features both a scotch egg and a pork pie, so I had high hopes for the food. (Scotch eggs and pork pies of course being two of the most delicious snacks known to man. See also - sausage rolls, pork scratchings, etc.)

Here is what we ate:

Pie!

Pork pie with Blue Bishop Stilton and red onion marmalade. Yeah, this was really good. I wish  had another one of these right now.

Sandwich!

Smoked salmon sandwich with horseradish cream. Good points - the sandwich itself. Absolutely bloody loads of smoked salmon in there. Nice, punchy horseradish. Bad points - the 'Hub slaw' - rubbish name, rubbish gunky coleslaw held together with way more mayo than required. Also - served with crisps. I am not a fan of being served sandwiches with some crisps on the side. Either give me chips or leave me the hell alone.

Salad!

Talisha thought the chicken caesar salad was good. I think it could have done with a few more anchovies. Although to be fair, I think most things in life could do with a few more anchovies. Mmmm. Anchovies.

Panna cotta!

Passion fruit and mango panna cotta with raspberry coulis. Was alright, nowt special. 

More pie!

T seemed pretty happy with the pecan pie. I had a bit of food envy on this one. Lesson learnt - if one of the options is pie, always go for the pie. Not going for pie will cause you to covet your neighbour's pie. Or something.

All in all it was pretty decent. I would go back. 

The Hub Alehouse and Kitchen,

Casartelli Building,

16 Hanover Street,

Liverpool,

L1 4AA

http://www.thehub-liverpool.com