Week 16 – Prawn and Chorizo Paella

It has to be said that new blog posts are a bit like buses on Kitchen Gems – nothing for weeks and then 2 come along at once!! However read it and weep because here is my second post of the evening! And its a goody so I’ll get right on it without any more preamble.

Prawn and Chorizo Paella

Perfect with a glass of wine!

Now I call this Paella but its more of a cross between a Paella and a Risotto because I can’t get the crispy bottom on my Paella as I don’t have the right pan…

I loosely followed a recipe from Good Food Websitebut essentially to make a good paella you need risotto or paella rice, stock, and anything to flavour it plus fish and meat. This was a great recipe though and the flavour was incredible.

I love the colours and flavours in Spanish cooking

To make the base of the paella fry the onion, garlic and chorizo over a low heat until the onions have softened. Then add the rice and stir thoroughly so the rice is coated with all the lovely flavours. Then add your stock – all in one go (which is so much easier than a risotto – no relentless stirring) and flavours and vegetables then simmer until the rice has soaked up most of the liquid and is cooked through. Just before serving add your cooked prawns just long enough for them to warm through – don’t leave them in too long or they go so hard and rubbery and not nice.

To serve squeeze a lemon wedge over the dish.

I love paella and risotto so I’m biased but I thought this recipe was simple to make, lovely to eat. Mr Gem really enjoyed this one as well so I think its a keeper!!

Week 15: Butternut Squash Pasta Bake

So its been a busy couple of weeks at Kitchen Gems HQ – although now I come to think of it I can’t quite remember what I’ve been doing. However it’s no excuse and with the summer approaching I’d better become more strict with my regime. However I’m going to try to make it up by bashing out a couple of catch up blogs this evening. So I’ll start off with my butternut squash pasta bake!

Butternut Squash Pasta Bake

Plated up with extra bacon!

I am a creature of habit, it was one of the reasons I started this blog. Once I find a recipe I like I tend to keep it in my regular repertoire and sometimes I can be guilty of overkill. When I bought a butternut squash it was with the intention of cooking an old favourite – butternut squash risotto but thought I’d look for something new to mix it up a bit.

I came across the pasta bake recipe on the Woman and Home website – who rather handily have an article dedicated to the top 20 butternut squash recipes! Excellent.

As it was a midweek night I was happy to find an easy recipe which didn’t require much more from me than the usual battle of peeling and chopping a squash – if I didn’t like the flavour so much I honestly wouldn’t bother, it’s such an epic challenge to get into one!

First of all peel and chop the butternut squash into large chunks and peel and quarter the red onion(s). Pop the butternut squash in a roasting pan and drizzle with oil for 40 minutes, adding the onion halfway through. I didn’t use any sage as I didn’t have any but I’m told it goes very well with squash!

Whilst the veg is cooking cook and drain the pasta. Lift the veg out of the oven and mix with the pasta, pour the pasta and veg into an oven proof dish, top with breadcrumbs and Parmesan and pop in the oven for about 10 minutes. I served with salad and topped with crispy bacon. It was a delicious and easy to make so for me the perfect midweek dinner!

Looks delicious coming out of the oven!

 

Week 14: Vanilla Panna Cotta

So… it’s been a while since I posted a blog, but I have been cooking, I don’t intend to miss any weeks recipes that I can possibly help, and as I already missed one I’ve been doing my best to keep up.
So in a bit of a change from my usual posting, this week I am excited to write about a a pudding! Despite having an exceptionally sweet tooth – I can eat an entire chocolate orange in about 10 minutes flat – I rarely make puddings. I think I lack the delicate touch required for puddings, however after trying my mum’s panna cotta on Easter Sunday I decided I wanted to have a go.

Vanilla Panna Cotta

When I decided to make this I was amazed by how easy it is, in fact first of all I discounted the recipe on the BBC website as I thought it seemed to easy to be true, however it turns out that it simply is that easy – so I went with this recipe for Vanilla Panna Cotta

Essentially bring the milk, cream, sugar and vanilla to the boil on a low heat. Whilst that is coming to temparature soak the gelatin in cold water – incidentally this was my first experience of gelatine, I found it surprisingly easy to use.

Once the cream and sugar mixture has come to a simmer remove from the heat and add the gelatine, stir until the gelatine is disolved and then and this is the tricky part…you pour it into the panna cotta moulds and leave it to set.

And that is it!

Unless you want to make a sauce, which I did by simmering raspberries, sugar and water over a low heat.

Simple, delicious and looks a lot more difficult to make than it is!

Week 12: Sichaun Beef with Orange Salad

Okay, so confession time – I don’t have a week 13 dish to write about this week, but there is a good reason for this – Mr Gem turned 30 last week and we went away for a few days, followed by a wedding and Easter Sunday, so in all honestly I wasn’t in enough to cook. So I’m taking the Mother’s Day lunch as a spare dish…and I’ll try and make two dishes for Week 14! I don’t know why I’m trying to justify it really!

But I do have a fab recipe to bring for Week 12. I know I keep wittering on about this health kick Mr Gem and I are on but watching what we eat means that this challenge is a bit more difficult, because I never look at a salad recipe and think ‘Ooh that looks tasty, I definitely want to try that’ until week 12…

Sichaun Beef with Orange Salad

I don’t really like salads. I’ve tried so many variations of them and honestly the only salads I like are the ones which contain as many calories as a burger, and even then I’d rather have a burger. However this salad I like! It is from the BBC food website and is one of Ching He Huang’s recipes. I think the reason I was drawn to this was because of the asian flavours.

It couldn’t be easier or quicker to make, making it a perfect midweek tea!

Simply mix together the ingredients for the marinade and put the beef in the marinade for about 15 minutes. Once the beef has rested in the marinade, pop a pan on a high heat with a dash of olive oil until it starts to smoke a bit then add the beef to the pan.

While the beef is cooking chop the mushrooms, and prepare the salad.

Once the beef is cooked to your liking, remove it from the pan and set it to rest covered in tin foil, then add the mushrooms to the pan (I also added onions and peppers for a bit more flavour) with the rest of the marinade to cook through.

And that’s it – serve immediately with the salad and enjoy.

 

Week 11: Mother’s Day lunch…

Mother’s Day – a date that is emblazoned on our brains from a young age. You do NOT forget Mother’s Day. Father’s Day, you’d be forgiven for forgetting Father’s Day but not Mother’s Day.

This year it was our turn to go to Mr Gem’s family for Mother’s Day and he had the lovely idea that we should cook a meal for his mum, lovely hey? Except that by we he meant me with a bit of help from him!

However because I was cooking in a strange kitchen I didn’t take any photos – but what I can tell you is what I made and how it went down!

What you need to know about Mr Gem’s family is that the men don’t really like the type of food that I cook, i.e. Asian flavours, spice, chilli, garlic…so I had to really step outside my comfort zone to come up with a menu everybody would enjoy.

So – for starters I decided on South American Fishcakes. This was a recipe from Jamie Oliver’s website this was my little rebellion, little nods to the food that I like with strong citrus flavours. So easy to make but a little odd – you poach the fish in milk but then throw the milk away…which seems a little wasteful to me but for a special occasion I went with it. Once the fish is cooked you mix it and the mashed potatoes with all the other ingredients, divide it into balls, roll in flour and shape into patties. Simple! You’re supposed to deep fry the fishcakes but I didn’t have enough oil so i shallow fried them which meant that they stuck to the bottom of the pan a little but they tasted great – I’d make these again!

Mains. I didn’t want to make a roast, oh no that would be too easy. I decided on spare ribs, coleslaw and cornbread. Easy peasy. Except my ribs where so fatty that the fat ran out of the ribs into the sauce which didn’t thicken and I had to get Mr Gem’s mum to help me. Nevertheless the sauce was delicious – I adapted a recipe from Simon Rimmer’s recipe – cocoa cola ribs but used pork ribs rather than beef ribs. They were absolutely delicious. The cornbread was kind of stodgy but I love the flavour of it so would make it again. Mr Gem prepared the coleslaw and of course it was delicious!

Finally pudding – well for a Mother’s Day lunch I had to turn to the queen of puddings – Mary Berry. I went with a lemon tart. I’m still not great with pastry – in fact I’ve asked Mother Gem for a master class – she makes great pastry – although when I spoke to her about shrinkage when blind baking she sniffed ‘oh no – I don’t bother with blind baking, who has time?’ but in fairness she’s never produced a soggy bottomed pud! Anyway I digress, so I thought I’d go with a shop bought pastry (again) I think I’m done with shop bought, it always shrinks, as it did on this occasion. Pastry aside the lemon filling was delicious and light. I served it with strawberries and the flavours were fab!

But my opinion doesn’t count – the proof was in the eating and the opinion of the family, I think they liked it, the fishcakes all went, the tart all went, the ribs where a bit fatty and I think that put people off. All in all, not bad! I’m better with my spices I reckon – so next week I’ll be back to what I know!

Eating Seasonal

I’m not sure how is happened but recently I’ve developed a conscience. I’m all about trying to buy local – which is INCREDIBLY difficult – my latest shopping spree found only two UK products – mushrooms and onions. Ridiculous – I’m thinking I will have to start going to farmers markets. So trying to shop local is making me try to understand seasonal produce – obviously in the supermarkets you can buy whatever you want whenever you want it – the only problem is you end up buying tomatoes from morocco and strawberries from Thailand, sometimes it boggles my mind that this is the way of the world!

Anyway – I happened across a website that I suspect I’ll be visiting regularly – it’s The Good Fish Guide page which aims to help consumers buy fish from responsible sources by highlighting what fish is in season. Currently its mussels so I’m going to make a mussel dish for my dish of the week this week…assuming I can get hold of any mussels!

Week 10 – Chicken Chow Mein

So the phone debacle is over – the insurance cheque came in and I have a new phone – with all my old stuff on it thanks to iTunes back up! So now that my life has its equilibrium back I can get back to cooking.

As I mentioned in the last post Mr Gem and I are on a bit of a health kick so I am all about the healthy recipes. I love Chinese and Asian cooking for low fat healthy meals and this week was no different.

Chicken Chow Mein

Interestingly chow mein does not refer, as I thought, to the sauce but to the fried noodles in the dish. There actually isn’t a sauce to go with chow mein when made traditionally. I used a recipe by Ching Huang – I’m a big fan of her recipes – you can find this one here on BBC food.

This meal was really simple to put together – marinate the chicken in the spices. While the chicken is marinating, cook the noodles according to the packet instructions (I like cooking but lift is far too short to make your own noodles) – then drain the noodles and rinse in cold water then toss through some sesame oil to keep the noodles from sticking. 

Heat a drop of oil in the pan and throw in the chicken and vegetables, stirring constantly until its cooked through, then add in the noodles and stir together over the heat. At this point I deviated from the recipe because I’m a fan of saucy dishes (ahem) so I ramped up the amounts of the marinade so that I had a bit over to create a bit of a sauce which I added to the noodles and chicken.

To serve simply pop in a bowl topped with some raw spring onion and a dash of soy. Absolutely delicious, and so simple to make. Much better than a salty takeaway any day!