Lamb, Bulghur & Butter Bean Stew

Despite having thrown a little shade at Martha Stewart not that long ago it seems that I have found myself adapting one of her recipes: it is something I repinned onto my lamb recipe inspiration board and didn’t even realised it was Stewart until I decided to cook it the other day. It’s good though and dead easy so I’m glad I did.

You’ll have noticed that due to the lag of cooking / writing up blog I am totally out with my seasonal cooking and in the summer was posting a lot of stews, casseroles and the like. And recently I seem to have posted some lighter and more salady fare. The fact is though that I don’t often take much notice of what I should cook when - if I fancy quiche and salad in the dead of winter that is what I will have. And if I fancy a lamb & bulghur stew in August, as was this case with this recipe, then that is what I will bloody well have.

By the way, the original had oregano in it which I have omitted here simply as I forgot it. I didn’t miss it and in honesty I’m not sure it is necessary but if you do want to add it, do so at the stage where you stir in the spinach and feta: 1 tablespoon of fresh or 1 teaspoon of dried. 

I’d added olives to the recipe which I think was a good call as they added a nice salty tang to the finished dish: the feta does a similar job and they complement each other well so I’d probably add a little more of that sprinkled on top next time.


Lamb, Bulghur & Butter Bean Stew
serves 2

1 tbsp olive oil
1 shallot, finely chopped
200g lamb mince
75g bulghur wheat
½ tsp red-pepper flakes
coarse sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
½ tsp sweet paprika
1 tsp harissa paste
small tin chopped tomatoes
125ml water
½ tin white beans, drained & rinsed
5-10 kalamata olives, stoned and roughly chopped
75 g spinach, chopped
50g feta cheese, crumbled, plus a little extra to serve

Heat the oil in a heavy bottomed pot (that has a lid) over a medium heat and add the onion, lamb, bulgur wheat, red pepper flakes, ½ teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon pepper. Cook, stirring to break up lamb, until the lamb is cooked which will take about 5 minutes.

Add the paprika and harissa, stirring for a minute until fragrant.

Add the tomatoes and water, bringing to a fierce simmer then turn the heat down to low and cover. Let the stew gently simmer, with the occasional stir, until the bulgur is tender, about 25 minutes.

Add the beans & olives at about 20 minutes in.

Once the bulgur is tender, stir in the spinach and feta and cook until feta is almost melted and the spinach wilted, about 2 minutes.

Serve in bowls garnished with a little extra feta if you like.

 

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Cod & Spinach Curry

I think I may have mentioned before that I really never used to like fish curries and they were certainly something I would never order in a restaurant or as a take-away. I am now qute partial to them: never too spicy or over-powering as fish of course has quite a delicate flavour and you don’t want to mask it too much but something like this with a nice mild heat and freshness of flavour.

Unfortunately I am not sure where this recipe originated: it is possible I came up with it completely myself but i can’t be 100% sure. I do know I served it with “cauliflower rice” so it was possible I was in a mega-healthy phase. This is excellent for such times as it is low in calories and fat but also super good for you. But even when those things don’t mean a lot to you this is really very good and extremely tasty.


Cod & Spinach Curry
serves 2

juice ½ lemon
½ tsp salt
300g cod fillets, cut into large pieces
10 sprays cooking spray (or ½ tsp vegetable oil)
½ cinnamon stick
2 cloves
2 green cardamom pods
¼ tsp black peppercorns
5 curry leaves
1 onion, chopped
2 green chillies, deseeded & finely chopped
½ tbsp grated ginger
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
200g can chopped tomatoes
½ tsp turmeric
¼ tsp Kashmiri chilli powder
1 tsp ground coriander
130g spinach, roughly chopped

In a bowl stir together the lemon juice, salt and pieces of fish and set aside.

Heat the oil in a large sauté or frying pan. Add the whole spices and curry leaves, cook for 3-4 mins, then add the onions. Fry until the onions are soft and turning golden at the edges, then add the chillies, ginger and garlic and cook for a minute or so longer.

Tip in the tomatoes and the remaining spices and cook, uncovered, on a low heat for 5-10 minutes, stirring frequently to prevent the spices sticking and burning.

Pour 75ml water into the pan, bring to a simmer, then add the fish. Cover with a lid and cook for 5 mins more. Add the spinach and when it has wilted remove from the heat and set aside.

Serve with cauliflower rice or plain basmati if you prefer.

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Lime & Soy Salmon Bowls

This was really very lovely indeed - and if I hadn’t used brown rice, and particularly if I hadn’t used the rice cooker, it would have come together very quickly indeed - probably 30 minutes max.

Keep an eye on the salmon, you really don’t want to overcook it. Take it out if necessary and cover with some foil while you get on with everything else - you’ll be rewarded with really succulent and extremely tasty salmon. Also you don’t need to toast the sesame seeds (and while I’m at it if you don’t have black ones just use the usual kind) but doing so will give a really nutty flavour that contrasts beautifully with the rich sweet sour umami sauce and tender fish.

Adapted from an Epicurious recipe.


Lime & Soy Salmon Bowls
serves 2

125g brown, basmati or jasmine rice
10g unsalted butter
1 large clove garlic, finely chopped
1 tsp minced ginger
½ tsp red pepper flakes
3 tbsp agave nectar or maple syrup (failing either, honey)
3 tbsp fresh lime juice
3 tbsp light soy sauce
½ tsp cornflour
2 salmon fillets, skin removed
½ tsp sesame oil
150g baby spinach
1 tsp black sesame seeds, lightly toasted

Preheat oven to 200°C.

Cook rice as directed (I liberated my rice cooker and cooked it in that - yay!).

In a small frying pan, melt the butter over medium heat and sauté the garlic, ginger and pepper flakes for about a minute until the garlic is lightly golden.

Add the agave or maple syrup, lime juice and soy sauce and simmer for 3 minutes. 

Meanwhile mix the cornflour with 1 teaspoon of water in a small bowl and then stir that into the sauce. Continue to cook until it has slightly thickened, about 1 minute.

Arrange the salmon on a foil-lined baking sheet and spread 1 tsp of the sauce over each fillet.

Roast in the oven until just cooked through which will take around 12 minutes.

While the salmon is cooking warm the sesame oil in a frying or sauté pan over medium heat and then add the spinach. Sauté until just wilted. Remove from the pan and set aside.

Divide the cooked rice between 2 bowls and top each with half of the spinach and a salmon fillet, broken into large pieces.

Drizzle with remaining sauce and sprinkle over the sesame seeds.

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Mixed Mushroom & Spinach Lasagne

We try and incorporate at least one, if not two veggie meals a week into our diet (as well as fish once or twice a week) and to be honest, while it is good to not have meat occasionally, I’m not too sure on how healthy some of the veggie dishes I come up with are as they often seem to have cheese or a creamy sauce.

I found this recipe which calls for cottage cheese rather than the usual ricotta: the cottage cheese stays moist during cooking but also adds a sharp tanginess which the otherwise potentially bland ingredients need plus, bonus, to my mind at least the fat content is lower.

Similarly I have used low fat mozzarella as well as Elmlea “fake” cream rather than full fat double cream. The decadent creaminess and flavour is still present in spades but the fat content has been cut. A little at least.

Adapted from recipe here.


Creamy Mixed Mushroom & Spinach Lasagna
serves 2-3

35g unsalted butter, plus more for greasing baking dish, divided
1 large garlic clove, pressed
260g bag of spinach leaves, washed, dried & roughly chopped
190ml double cream, divided
¼ tsp freshly grated nutmeg
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
150g cottage cheese
5g chopped parsley, divided
1 egg, beaten & halved
5 sheets fresh lasagne (ready to cook)
225g mixed mushrooms (I used chestnut, shiitake & portobellini), finely chopped
1 medium shallot, finely chopped
⅔ tsp thyme leaves, picked & finely chopped
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp fresh lemon juice from 1 lemon
2 tsp flour
150ml whole milk
115g mozzarella, grated, divided
20g parmesan or gran padano, grated

Preheat the oven to 200°C.

Melt 15g butter in a large saucepan over medium-high heat and add garlic. Cook, stirring constantly, until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the spinach in batches, allowing the previous batch to wilt before adding the next. Once all spinach is added, add 80ml cream. Bring to a boil, and reduce to a strong simmer. Cook, stirring frequently, until thick and reduced, about 15 minutes. Add nutmeg, and season to taste with salt and pepper.

While the spinach is cooking, combine the cottage cheese, half the beaten egg, and 2 tablespoons of parsley in the bowl of a food processor. Process until combined and cottage cheese is broken up to the texture of ricotta cheese, about 5 seconds.

Combine the cooked spinach and cottage cheese mixture in a large bowl.

Wipe out the spinach pan and return to a medium-high heat with another 15g of butter and heat until melted. Add the shallots and cook until softening, about 5 minutes and then add the mushrooms and thyme. Cook, stirring occasionally, until liquid evaporates and mushrooms start to sizzle, which will take about 10 minutes.

Add soy sauce and lemon juice and stir to combine. Add the remaining cream and bring to a simmer. Cook for about 3 minutes until lightly thickened. Season to taste with salt and pepper and transfer to another bowl.

Wipe out the pan again and return to a medium-high heat. Add the remaining butter and heat until melted. Add flour and cook, stirring constantly with a whisk, until light golden blond in colour. Slowly pour in milk, whisking constantly. Bring to a simmer, then remove from heat. Stir in 2/3rds of mozzarella and parmesan, then season to taste with salt and pepper.

To assemble the lasagna, grease a baking dish with butter and then layer up the cheese sauce, lasagne sheets and mushroom mixture then lasagne sheets again, spinach mixture, more lasagne sheets then repeat ending with a layer pasta before pouring the remaining cheese sauce over top. Spread this out evenly then sprinkle with the remaining 1/3rd of grated mozzarella evenly over top.

Bake in the preheated oven until the lasagna is bubbling around the edges, about 30 minutes.

Let cool for 10 minutes before serving.

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Spinach & Artichoke One-Pot Pasta

I have to admit to being extremely sceptical about the concept of one-pot pasta especially as the original came from, I believe, Martha Stewart. Enough said. This feeling of, shall we say, misgiving, didn’t improve when, a mere 48 hours before my intended cook date (which in itself was some time after “discovery date”) I read a rather scathing write up on Helen Graves’ food blog.

Oh well, I’d committed myself (in my head) and so misgivings or not I would be going through with my plan. After all, it is well known (isn’t it?) that a bit of pasta cooking water added to a pasta sauce is a good thing, lending as it does an added silkiness enabling more clinginess to the pasta.

But anyway, if you haven’t come across it before the idea of one-pot pasta is fairly straight forward and self-explanatory: the pasta and all the ingredients cook together in a stock in one pan: the intention being that the stock gets absorbed by the pasta and creates a thick, starchy, flavorful sauce. 

So there you have it.

I deviated slightly as I fried my onion off a bit (i’m not a fan of onion semi-rawness and wasn’t going to take the risk).

So - the verdict? Well in all honesty I’m mixed. First impressions were that the pasta was way overcooked. Which it most definitely was of course - Italian’s would find it an abomination - and it needed a surprising amount of seasoning before serving but all being said I really did like the flavour.

Yes, the one-pot thing is really handy in one way but you do have to keep stirring anyway so in all honesty I think a much better result could be had by cooking the sauce in a separate pot then adding your drained pasta when it is about 3 minutes from al dente. Mix the pasta in with the sauce then cover, off the heat and leave the flavours to infuse and the starchiness leach out of the pasta slightly for 5-10 minutes. Now this is something that is sometimes done in Italian pasta cooking - as previously displayed in the Sicilian knockoff here.


Spinach & Artichoke One Pot Pasta

serves 3, heartily

165g mushrooms, sliced
½-1 can artichoke hearts (in water) - about 175g, drained & roughly chopped
3 cloves garlic, sliced
1 small onion, finely sliced
825 ml vegetable stock
1 tbsp olive oil
200g fettuccine
1 tsp dried oregano
½ tsp dried thyme
freshly ground pepper
90g frozen spinach

Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan and lightly sauté the onion for 5 minutes.

Add the vegetable stock, mushrooms, artichoke hearts, onions, fettuccine, oregano, thyme, and a really good grinding of freshly ground pepper into the pot. 

Push the ingredients down under the stock as much as possible and bring to a boil. Stir the pot to evenly distribute the ingredients and prevent the pasta from sticking. Then turn the heat down to a low simmer and pop a lid on.

Allow to simmer for 10-15 minutes, or until the pasta is tender and most of the liquid has been absorbed but do give the pan a good stir every few minutes to prevent the pasta from sticking.

Once the pasta is al dente add the frozen spinach, stirring to help break up the clumps of spinach as they melt. Season well.

Serve immediately topped with a little Parmesan.

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Chicken, Butternut Squash & Quinoa Stew

This is another dish I cooked when I was 5:2’ing and this one in particular was adapted from a US based website: I upped the spices content and also added some spinach into the mix.

This is seriously good for you and, luckily, also delicious. A great thing about it is that you can adjust the ratios depending on what you fancy or how much you’re watching your calories. The olives for instance can be cut down or out completely for instance: they pack a big punch flavour wise though so even including a few is going to make a big difference to my mind.

I’ve used a quinoa & bulghur wheat mix but feel free to just use normal white quinoa if that is easier.


Chicken, BNS & Quinoa Stew
serves 2-3

340g butternut squash, peeled, seeded & chopped into 1/2-inch pieces
450ml chicken stock
310g chicken breast
½ tbsp olive oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp dried oregano
½ tsp cumin
½ tsp coriander
¼ tsp cayenne
200g tin chopped tomatoes
75g uncooked white quinoa, bulghur wheat & red quinoa mix
85g pitted and quartered kalamata olives
large handful baby spinach, chopped
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
2 tbsp finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

Place the squash cubes in a microwave safe bowl with a splash of water, put a lid on top and microwave for 5-6 minutes or until the squash is just barely tender. Remove half the squash and set aside. Continue microwaving the other half until it’s very soft, about 3-4 additional minutes.

Drain, then mash with a fork. Set aside.

In a large saucepan heat the olive oil until hot. Add the chopped onions, oregano, cumin & coriander, cayenne and garlic. Saute for 5-10 minutes, stirring often, until the onion is softened.

Add the stock and bring to a simmer then add the chicken and poach in the broth until cooked (about 10-15 minutes).

Remove the chicken to a plate and when it has cooled slightly shred with 2 forks. Keep to one side.

Add the tomatoes & quinoa to the stock in the pan and simmer for 10 minutes then add the cubed and mashed squash. Simmer for a further 5 minutes.

Add the shredded chicken & olives to the pot and season carefully.

Simmer for a further 5 minutes then stir in the spinach and cook for a minute or two until the spinach is wilted.

Stir in the parsley & serve in bowls.

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Potato, Pea & Spinach Curry

A really lovely vegetarian main here that is pretty quick to cook as long as you are parboiling the spuds.

A quick note about cooking with yoghurt which can often curdle when cooked. The trick is to make sure you have brought it to room temperature, whip it lightly with a fork and then add it to the curry off the heat.

And speaking of which, you can use coconut milk or yoghurt if you like rather than both. I was experimenting with using both so as to be a little less calorific (coconut milk can be a bit of a shocker).

Therefore neither Thai or Indian really but rather a delicious fusion of both


Potato, Pea & Spinach Curry
serves 2

400g new potatoes, halved
200g frozen peas
2tsp groundnut oil
2cm piece of ginger, chopped
2 large cloves garlic, chopped
2 banana shallots, chopped
1 tsp cumin seeds
3 cardamom pods, seeds only, crushed
1 tsp ground turmeric
1 red chilli, deseeded & finely sliced
1 green chili, deseeded & finely sliced
200ml coconut milk
125ml yogurt
100-150ml veg stock
1 tsp medium curry powder
juice of ½ lime
large handful of spinach, roughly chopped
2 tsp fish sauce
pinch sugar
small handful coriander, finely chopped

Boil a kettle & when it has boiled pour over the peas in a colander: drain them and set aside.

Meanwhile parboil the potatoes for about 10 minutes (until just tender to the point of a knife but not cooked through).

Whizz the ginger, garlic, shallots and 2 tbsp of water to a smooth paste in a grinder.

Heat the oil in a heavy based pan and when hot add the paste, cumin, turmeric, curry powder and crushed cardamom seeds. Fry over a medium heat for about 10 minutes until fragrant and the paste has thickened.

Stir in the chillies and potatoes so they are coated with the paste and spices.

Add the stock, a pinch of sugar and fish sauce and gradually add the coconut milk, stirring all the time. Cover and cook on a low heat for 20-30 minutes.

Remove the lid and if necessary increase the heat until a hard simmer for up to 10 minutes to thicken the sauce a little.

Add the peas and lime juice and cook another 3-5 minutes, then add the spinach and most of the chopped coriander.

When the spinach is wilted, remove from the heat and carefully and gradually stir in the yoghurt.

Serve with the chopped coriander leaves sprinkled over and, if you like, some lime wedges on the side.

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