Braised Peas

Another one from my Dad. In fact I don't even know why I say that as it's a given that 95% of the stuff I cook I learnt to cook from him.

I was lucky enough to be at home again this weekend. My Dad enticed me with the offer of roast chicken and let me choose what I'd want with it. The obvious answer for me is peas. They're my favourite vegetable to have with a roast chicken, in fact I think I look forward to the peas more than the actual roast.

Whenever I invite people over for food I always like to ask them if there's anything they don't eat. A surprising number of people say peas. Unfortunately this is like a red rag to a bull for me... as soon as they say it I see it as a challenge. I automatically decide I'm cooking them these braised peas... or "magic peas" as I named them while at uni.

So far they've converted 6/6 pea haters. I'm spreading the pea love...

Ingredients (serves 4... or more or less... depends how much you like peas)

Bag of frozen petits pois (I only use birds eye)

Smoked bacon

Half an onion

Clove of garlic

Thyme

Chicken stock

Little gem lettuce

Knob of butter

How to...

1. Finely chop onions and soften in a pan with a generous knob of butter.

2. Add chopped bacon and a smushed clove of garlic and gently fry until the bacon is cooked.

3. Throw in frozen peas. I use about half of one of the small bags at a time. Use a bit more or a bit less depending how many people you're cooking for.

4. Add enough chicken stock to not quite cover the peas. Also bung in a generous amount of thyme. (Stock from a good cube is fine, contrary to popular belief not always making your own stock is not a crime. If you have homemade stock, well done, you're doing better than me.)

5. Simmer for 10 mins.

6. Add chopped baby gem lettuce and simmer for another 5 minutes.

Serve... preferably with roast chicken and home-made gravy.

Whilst cooking I was listening to... The sound of my own voice talking to my Dad.

Cheat's Lamb and Olive Tagine

My Dad grew up in North Africa, and because of that tagine, cous cous and other North African delights make him think of warm summers spent as a child. Not surprisingly when its wet, windy and raining, he's always keen to whip something delicious up for dinner.

I visited home on the weekend and my Dad and I decided it was one of those days when only a tagine would do. Unfortunately as we were stuck at his hotel we didn't have a tagine to cook it in, nor did we have any preserved lemons. This wasn't going to stop my Dad and his awesome cookery skills. Needless to say the final dish was fabulous...

Ingredients (serves 6)

A shoulder of lamb diced (big enough to serve the number of people you're cooking for)

2 sweet peppers

Half a large onion

12 - 18 new potatoes

Half a jar of green pitted olives

1 unwaxed lemon

Garlic

Saffron

Whole coriander seeds

Dried chilli

Olive oil

Lamb stock (or chicken or veg stock)

Coriander leaves

How to

1. Finely chop onion, garlic and chop sweet peppers into large chunks. Soften over a medium heat with olive oil.

2. Add diced lamb to pan.

3. Splosh in about half a pint of stock.

4. Throw in olives, a pinch of saffron, a generous tablespoon or two of whole coriander seeds and a healthy pinch of chilli flakes.

5. Juice the lemon and save the juice for something else. Chop up the juiced lemon into big chunks and throw in the pot.

6. Cover the pot and simmer on a low heat for an hour and a half or so.

7. Add in the new potatoes peeled and cook for another 15-20 mins.

8. Serve with a handful of fresh coriander leaves.

Whilst cooking I was listening to: I'm Yours - Jason Mraz

Crab and Leek Risotto

Risotto is one of those things that I could eat every day and never get bored of. It can be vegetarian or meaty and its gluten free. This means it's always an option when I'm cooking dinner for friends. It's definitely a crowd pleaser. Unfortunately I've had a few over cooked mushy risottos which risked putting me off for life, but the memory of a good home cooked risotto has always rescued me.

This is a pretty simple risotto to make. I tend to make it when I'm missing home. I come from by the seaside where we can get big crabs pretty cheaply. My cupboard version with a tinned crab is perhaps not quite as amazing as using fresh crab, but I still adore it.

Ingredients (for 4)

400g risotto rice

1 x good quality tinned crab (or if you're lucky enough about 300g fresh white crabmeat)

1 leek

1 lemon

1.5l of fish stock

Glass of white wine

Pepper

Knob of butter

Fresh parsley

How to...

1. Finely slice the leek, having washed all the mud off beforehand.

2. Soften the leek over a medium heat with a knob of butter.

3. Zest the lemon.

4. Add risotto rice, half the lemon zest, a generous grinding of fresh black pepper and a slosh of fish stock to pan.

5. Stir the risotto adding stock and wine as it is absorbed. Keep cooking for around 15-20 minutes over a medium heat. The rice should still have some bite to it.

6. Add in 3/4 of the crab and stir.

7. Dish up the risotto topping each dish with a spoon of leftover crabmeat, some lemon zest and a big pinch of fresh roughly chopped parsley.

Today whilst cooking I was listening to... Everything by Micheal Buble.

Gazpacho

Every year I toy with what to get my Dad for his birthday. Except for another Hawaiian shirt, I always struggle to come up with something that won't just sit on his desk or table untouched.

My Dad loves his food as much as I do, if not more. In fact it's my Dad who really taught me how to cook. Cooking him dinner always seems like the best present I could give him.

I probably spent longer planning a menu for the evening than I would have spent shopping for a gift. It had to be something light and summery because of the time of year. All of the courses also had to be able to stretch to an unknown number of guests, we pretty much have an open door policy to friends coming over for dinner. Pork is a no-no for one of our closest family friends and my Dad has an aversion to chicken most of the time.

I toyed with the idea of different salads for a starter. Nothing really stood out though as we always have all kinds of delicious salads. I needed to think of something we wouldn't usually have.

Gazpacho seemed perfect. All the delicious componants of a salad, but different.

There seems to be a lot of controversy surrounding what is an authentic gazpacho. Does it contain bread? herbs? chilli? garlic? peppers? Should it be smooth or chunky? Keep or bin the tomato seeds? After a few hours of reading hundreds of recipes I thought my head was going to explode. I decided just to use what I had in the fridge, keep it basic, and hope for the best. It turned out pretty delicious if I say so myself.

Ingredients (for 8ish servings).

1.5kg ripe tasty tomatoes

Half a loaf of stale crusty bread

3-4 cloves of garlic

Slosh of red wine vinegar

Olive oil

Salt

Freshly ground black pepper

For the garnish:

Avocado

Red onion

Yellow bell pepper

How to...

1. Soak the stale bread in a basin of water for half an hour.

2. Use a sharp knife to score a cross in the base of each tomato, then immerse the tomatoes in boiling water for a minute or so until the skins become loose. Plunge into cold water and remove the skins which should come off easily.

3. Roughly chop tomatoes and garlic.

4. Blend tomatoes, garlic and the soaked bread (with some of the water squeezed out). If you only have a small blender you may have to do this in a few batches.

5. Season with salt and pepper and add a generous slosh of red wine vinegar. Taste to see if the seasoning is right and the vinegar has given enough tartness.

6. Chill for 4+ hours.

7. Finely chop all the ingredients for the garnish and mix them up.

8. Serve in chilled bowls or cups with a generous spoonful of the garnish on top and a glug of olive oil.

Today whilst cooking I was listening to... Hot in Here by Athlete

Marniated prawns with hot spicy tomato salsa

Prawns are something I always tend to have in the freezer. I go a little OTT every time I see a special offer on raw king prawns and end up buying 4 or more bags. This means I've always got the ingredients to treat myself to something prawn-based and delicious. I think it's important to use raw prawns (fresh or frozen), as using ready cooked prawns makes it so much easier to accidentally overcook them and end up with rubbery bullets of prawn. I also like watching them turn pink from grey. It's like magic.

Tinned tomatoes are the other thing I always have at home in excess. I probably eat tomato based meals 5 or 6 days a week. My tomato to other food ratio is always a little odd to other people's tastes so if you have a go at making this a little blob of the hot tomato salsa is probably enough for most people. I like to have half a plate so once I've piled it high on to each mouthful of prawn I can mop up the rest with fresh crunchy bread.

Marinated Prawns

Ingredients

Raw prawns

Fresh chillis

Lemon or lime juice

Garlic

Soy Sauce

How to...

1. Mix finely chopped or crushed garlic with finely chopped chillis, the juice of a lemon or lime and a generous swig of soy sauce.

2. Mix in raw prawns

3. Cover and leave in the fridge for a couple of hours.

4. Heat up a pan.

5. Cook prawns for a couple of minutes until pink. Be careful not to overcook.

Hot Spicy Tomato Salsa

Ingredients

Half an onion

Clove of garlic

Tin of high quality chopped tomatoes

As many chillis as you fancy

Salt

Olive oil

How to...

1. Finely chop onion, garlic and chillis.

2. Cook onion in olive oil until soft and translucent.

3. Add garlic and chillis and cook for another 2 minutes.

4. Add chopped tomatoes and salt.

5. Cook for 20ish minutes, or until the salsa is thick, rich and tasty.

Today whilst cooking I was listening to: Handle Me by Robyn

Sausage and Tomato Pasta Sauce

Sausages are one of those things I adore. Strangely when I was younger I hated them. Probably due to the poor quality sausages that got foisted on us at school. Still to this day I can't abide low quality sausages. My favourite type of sausage has to be a toulouse sausage. This not only has normal pork sausagemeat but also has bacon, garlic, herbs... mmmm. All my favourite things.

Because of my slight obsession with sausages I tend to keep some in the freezer at all times. Thankfully they're also quite a crowd pleaser. Fed up of cooking sausages with onion gravy (Yes! I know that sounds like blasphemy...), I decided why not merge my other eternal crowd pleaser, pasta with tomato sauce, with my beloved sausages. Match made in heaven. So good that I now get requests for it, and not just from my tummy!

Sausage and Tomato Pasta (serves 2 hungry people, probably more if you ration out the sauce and give people a big helping of pasta)

Packet of high quality pork sausages

Half an onion

Garlic

Olive oil

Tin of chopped tomatoes

A couple of chestnut mushrooms

Balsamic vinegar

Salt

Pepper

Oregano

Bay leaf

How to...

1. Soften sliced onions in a little bit of olive oil until they start to colour.

2. Add chopped up sausage bits. If you have fussy eaters take the sausage skins off as they can fall off in cooking and lurk in your sauce. I'm too lazy to do this. Even for my friends. Cook until the sausage starts to brown.

3. Add in mushrooms and garlic and cook for a couple of minutes. Don't add the garlic before now or it might burn and go bitter.

4. Bung in a tin of chopped tomatoes, some salt, pepper, oregano and bay leaf (preferably fresh but dried is ok).

5. Drizzle in a bit of balsamic vinegar. I feel any sauce with tinned tomatoes needs a bit of sweetness and a bit of acidity. You can really tell when this is left out.

6. Cook for at least half an hour on a low heat. If the sauce gets a bit dry just add more water. The secret to a tinned tomato sauce with good depth is making sure the tomatoes are cooked for a long time. If you don't have the time for this use delicious fresh tomatoes instead as they taste fabulous in minutes. If I have some overripe fresh tomatoes I add these in 10 mins before serving the sauce.

7. Serve with a mountain of al dente spaghetti and a shaving of parmesan.

Pepperonata

There are some things that I could eat every day. Pepperonata is one of those things. There are so many different ways I like to eat it. Hot on top of freshly grilled chicken, a few mouthfuls as part of a mezze, or best of all cooled down and piled high on top of fresh bread. In fact I think it tastes even better if it's been in the fridge overnight before I pile it greedily onto ciabatta. If I'm feeling really indulgent I'll crumble some rich, earthy goats cheese on top of it. It then make's the perfect starter, or even a little snack if I'm feeling decadent.

After a bad morning this morning, someone drove into my car at the supermarket, I decided I needed a treat. The logical thing to do, was to make a big batch of pepperonata.

Trawling through the internet it seems that everyone has their own recipe for it, and I'm no different. My recipe shouldn't be followed too exactly. I've tried to give measurements for the ingredients, but please don't treat them as law. How do I know if you have big or little peppers? Or whether or not you're slicing a dinky onion or a big beasty one?

In this recipe I haven't put any tomatoes. Some recipes call for them. If I know I'm going to be eating pepperonata hot, I often add a handful of quartered sweet cherry tomatoes in the pan after the peppers have cooked for about 5 minutes. They break down and make it a bit more saucy. Nice to have with pasta. If I'm planning to serve it on bread I tend to leave them out for two reasons. Firstly they can make the bread too soggy, secondly I have a strangely high number of friends who hate tomatoes.

Don't feel trapped into using sherry vinegar, like I have used, if you don't have it. A good white or red wine vinegar works just as well, so does a raspberry vinegar or even a balsamic of you like it sweet and sticky. I tend to go through fads of different vinegars and will use whichever one is my favourite at the time.

PEPPERONATA (serves 4 as a starter)

Ingredients

- 4 bell peppers (red, orange or yellow only)

- Half a large onion

- 2 cloves of garlic

- Olive oil

- Sherry vinegar

- Salt and pepper

How to...

1. Finely slice onions and peppers.

2. Cook onions until they're soft and starting to brown in a generous glug of olive oil.

3. Add finely chopped garlic and sliced peppers.

4. Cook on a medium heat until the peppers start to caramelise on the edges.

5. Pour in a generous splash of sherry vinegar (I probably use about 1-2 tablespoons), depending on how tart you like it. If unsure add a little, taste it, then add some more until you're happy.

6. Season with a pinch of salt and some freshly ground pepper.

7. Serve piled high on top of fresh bread once it's cooled down. Remember to save some in the fridge for lunch tomorrow.

Today whilst cooking I was listening to: The Sea by Morcheeba