Cheese & Onion Pasties (if you'd rather not shop at Gregg's...)

Ok, so I'm going to be completely honest. Last Sunday, coming home from my friend's house, I had the most almighty hangover. 
I took the bus back to my local high street where my husband met me. Please bear in mind, before you judge me too harshly, that I was truly suffering! As I alighted from the bus I noticed that there was a greggs opposite.
The ghost of my teenage self spoke to me: "A pasty! That will sort you right out..."

MY TEENAGE SELF LIED. I bought cheese and onion pasties for both of us and eagerly took my first bite... of lukewarm, flavourless, textureless, over-seasoned, floury mush. Yuk. As we walked home I said that I could come up with a better pasty than that! So I did. Here it is, enjoy... with or without the hangover.

Cut three new potatoes into quarters and put on to boil until tender. I had the bleu d'auvergne variety, so that's why they are purple! Preheat the oven to 200°C and line a flat baking tray with oiled greaseproof paper.

Finely chop a large onion and a big stick of celery. Heat up a little oil in a frying pan and, if you like, snip in a slice of bacon (seriously one is more than enough) and cook until opaque before adding the onion and celery. Cook on a low heat to soften without browning.

After the onion and celery has softened add in a big handful of thinly sliced mushrooms and continue to cook on a low heat. On the side, grate a nice big pile of mature cheddar and a slightly smaller pile of parmesan. Then drain the potatoes, wait for the water to evaporate, and chop them into little tiny cubes before adding them to the vegetable mixture in the frying pan.

Once everything is cooked through, remove the pan from the heat and sprinkle over all the cheese then mix it in well, grind in lots of fresh black pepper and season to taste.
Cut a sheet of puff pastry into two rectangles, and place on the prepared baking tray. Divide the filling between the two sections, then fold the pastry over and press the seams together with a little beaten egg. Gently score the tops of the pasties and glaze with the rest of the egg.

Bake for about 20 minutes, until they are crisp and browned, and serve with a little salad and some really good ketchup (I like Mr Organic's version).

Don't be afraid to mess about with the ingredients - use what you have, that's what I did. I have plans to try doing another batch with mashed potato, onion and cheesy bechamel, which would result in a more traditional high street version.    
 

Yoghurt-Sour Chicken Curry & Spicy Fried Okra

Please give this dinner a chance! Yoghurt-sour is a good thing, plus yoghurt helps all the spices to penetrate the chicken meat whilst tenderising it as well. 
The dry fried okra is really delicious and together they beat any greasy takeaway offering hands down, both on the healthy front and on the tasty front. 

This is inspired by a dish in "Indian Food Made Easy" by Anjum Anand and I would totally recommend this book to anyone who thinks they love a takeaway!

So, pop some chicken thighs into a bowl, 1-2 per person, and pour over one of those large pots of natural yoghurt.

Add 7-8 large cloves of garlic, smashed up or minced if you can be bothered to clean the mincer - I never can. Take 2-4 cardamom pods (depending on how much you like them) smash them open, extract the seeds, crush them with the back of your knife and tip them in. 
 Top with a large hunk of ginger chopped up very finely, a heaped tablespoon of ground coriander, a heaped teaspoon of garam masala, a teaspoon of chilli powder, and a generous pinch of cumin. 

Sprinkle in a good amount of salt, maybe as much as 2 teaspoons, and mix everything together really well - make sure every inch of the chicken is coated. Marinate for as long as possible, in the fridge overnight would be great, but if I'm honest I left it for an hour on the sideboard and it was tasty for just that time.

When you're ready to cook it, upend the whole lot into a pan and put on a reasonably high heat. In a separate pan, cook up a chopped onion and some green chillies. When they are soft, add them to the chicken mixture.
 

Cook the curry for 20 minutes, then stick a lid on it, turn the heat right down and cook for another 10 minutes. You can add extra water if it dries up. 

While the curry is cooking, slice the okra up vertically and liberally sprinkle gram flour, garam masala, chilli powder and salt over the top. Mix up well, heat up oil in a frying pan and, shaking off excess powder, fry the lot for about ten minutes.
 
Serve the curry with rice and shedloads of fresh coriander, plus the okra. 

Steak and Kidney Pie

This is another great winter dinner, although it does take a bit of effort to make. It can be expensive or cheap, depending on which cut of beef you use.  

Skirt steak (bavette) was awesome when I tried it on Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's advice (in the River Cottage Meat book), so if you can get it maybe try that, otherwise any stewing cut will do - long slow braising before the main bake is the key.

You also need some kidneys, lamb or calves is fine, but be very aware of the source as some calves liver will come from inhumanely treated veal calves, imported to the UK. There's a little bit more info about this in my earlier liver, onion & colcannon post.

I was feeding four fairly greedy people (including myself!) and used two 360g packs of beef skirt and six lamb's kidneys. This was enough to allow for two people coming back for seconds! Use scissors to snip them into bitesized chunks before rolling them in well seasoned flour and pan-frying in batches.

When all the meat has been browned, tip everything into a large pan, then fry up a large, thickly sliced onion in the juices, deglaze with red wine (a good, large glassful) and put this mixture into the casserole pan as well. Finally, add a couple of bay leaves, a dollop of English mustard, a dash of worcester sauce, a tablespoon of ketchup and a pint of really good beef stock.

You can now partially cover the pan and leave to simmer slowly for a good hour and a half. Add in a punnet of halved or whole mushrooms (chestnut are my favourite) for the last 15 minutes.Take the mixture off the heat and season it to taste.

Line your pie dish with puff pastry and pile the filling in. Cover with more puff pastry and any design you like on top, then brush all over with beaten egg. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and bake the pie for another hour. 
Serve with mashed potatoes and green veg, such as kale.

Balsamic Beetroot Soup

This is an easy, warming soup which uses up a bunch of lonely beetroot from the bottom drawer of the frdge. It was inspired by a recipe in the new HFW book "River Cottage Veg Everyday", but I pretty much completely changed the character of it based on what I had available.

Roast your beetroots with a few garlic cloves in the oven at 180 for about 45 mins to an hour, coated in oil and alongside some thyme leaves, a bay leaf, salt, pepper and a slosh of water. When ready, skin them and chop into smallish pieces.

Fry up an onion in a saucepan until soft, then add the beetroot and a pint (500ml) of stock. Bring up to a boil and then keep at a simmer on a low heat for ten minutes or so.

Season well with salt and pepper, then with a small dash of worcestershire sauce *, a squirt of lemon juice and a generous drizzle of balsamic vinegar. If the brew still tastes "unfinished", try a small blob of redcurrant jelly - it worked for me.

Shove the lot into a blender and process until smooth. Pour into bowls and finish with a swirl of cream and some fresh chopped parsley.

* btw, in case you didn't know, you can now get vegetarian worcestershire sauce if you are so inclined. I found this one on the internet, but am sure I also saw one in Waitrose the other day.

Ragu (Italian Meat Sauce for Pasta)

Ragu is a hearty, happy dish with bags of flavour and is a lot less work than might be expected. I do feel that it needs a fresh egg pasta to do it justice, but that might just be me and my penchant for rich food! Tagliatelle is certainly a fabulous type of pasta for this sauce either way.

This is my made-up version of ragu, it isn't nearly as good as my Mum's but hers has a list of ingredients that fills a an A4 page and takes hours to cook... this one is a speedy little number which still manages a beautiful flavour and a great texture. The amount below serves two hungry people, with just enough left over for one of you to have lunch the next day.

So, dice an onion, a stick of celery and a couple of garlic cloves and set them to gently fry in a pan. When they're softened, add in half a pack of mince (about 250g) and give it a good stir. Once that's going brown, add in a tub's worth of chopped chicken livers and keep stirring to brown those as well.

Throw in a diced carrot and a couple of bay leaves, and a glass of red wine. Let that bubble for a bit before topping up with a tin of tomatoes, a squeeze of tomato puree and a large pinch of dried oregano. Add a little water to help form a sauce and leave to simmer for as long as you can manage - a good half hour at least.

Finally, season with salt and pepper before serving with hot pasta.

Roast Goose Risotto with Squash, Thyme & Chestnuts

What to do on the third day of using up leftover roast goose (or turkey or chicken)? Make a risotto of course! Easy leftover using-up strategy.

The prep is key here, so start by roasting a peeled and cubed squash until soft along with a handful of chestnuts, and chopping up your goose meat into small peices. 

If you have leftover squash then use that, you could also use half of a vacuum pack of pre-prepared chestnuts if you like. Depends what you've got handy! Keep them hot in the switched-off oven if making the risotto right away, otherwise be prepared to reheat them before adding to the risotto.

As with so many recipes, kick off the risotto by finely dicing an onion, a couple of celery sticks and a fat clove of garlic or two. Warm up a splosh of oil and a big hunk of butter in a deep frying pan and gently saute them until soft.

At the same time, put a pint / 500ml stock in a saucepan on the heat to stay hot.

Add half a bag of risotto rice, about 250g, (to serve 4 people or 2 with leftovers) stir it in and let it sizzle for a few minutes before adding a wine glass of vermouth (or white wine). Stir until all the wine has been absorbed. Then, a ladle at a time, add the stock to the rice, stirring and stirring each time until it's all been absorbed into the rice. One thing I've found is that this goes much faster and works better if you keep the pan pretty hot, the stock should bubble a little when you add it to the pan.

Just as you finish the last ladleful of stock, add the squash, chestnuts, goose and lots of thyme leaves. Stir through to mix and then grate a load of parmesan into the dish, along with a few knobs of butter, some fresh chopped parsley, a squeeze of lemon juice, ground pepper and salt if needed.

Serve with a smile of satisfaction at thriftiness well executed.