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Recipe No.10 – Potato Wedges with Tuna.

 

Sometimes on a Saturday all you want is a quick snack that you can eat on your lap in front of the television. When that Saturday includes a Test match that England are winning and a Formula One Grand prix then there is even more of a reason. Today was one of those days.

This meal as well as being quick, is easy to cook and draws on ingredients that you would normally have in the cupboard. It’s once again from “Good Food – 101 Low-Fat Feasts” and although under the section ‘Starters and Light Meals’ is perfectly adequate for a lunch time meal.

 

Ingredients

• 3 large Baking Potatoes.
• 3 Tablespoons Olive oil.
• 1 Leek – Sliced.
• 200g tin tuna[in brine] – drained
• 2 x 400g tins chopped tomatoes with chilli. [I actually used chopped tomatoes with peppers and chilli for that extra bite.]

 

 

1. Wash the potatoes and cut into wedges place in a baking tray and drizzle over two tablespoons of oil. Make sure that all the potatoes are covered with the oil and place in a pre-heated oven [Gas Mark 7/ 220C] for around 30 minutes.
2. Heat the remainder of the oil in a pan and fry the leek until soft.
3. Pour in the tuna and tomatoes and mix well, breaking up the tuna.
4. Cook until heated through and then add to the cooked potatoes gently stirring to mix all the components. Serve immediately.

 

 

For  such an easy recipe this dish was very tasty indeed and on this typical British Bank Holiday weekend was just what was required to WARM you up!!!

I shall have it again on Sunday while watching the Belgium Grand Prix.

Recipe No. 9 – Chicken with Apples and Cider.

 

We’re back home after a few days away, a little heavier after eating in hotels for the last week. It didn’t start too bad as Helena cooked a lovely Sunday lunch of Spanish Roast Chicken together with roast potatoes and steamed asparagus. This was a Jamie Oliver recipe that was quite similar to the Italian Chicken that I cooked a few weeks ago and it was delicious! The steamed asparagus was divine , I must try steaming as a cooking method. You can find the chicken recipe here.

http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/chicken-recipes/super-tasty-spanish-roast-chicken

The rest of the week was spent in Cromer at the Sandcliff guest house and as the picture says we were treated to “home-cooked” food.

Lovely traditional English breakfasts and great three course evening meals with little consideration to cholesterol at all. Well you have to treat yourself sometimes!!!

Today’s recipe is again very simple using only five main ingredients, it comes from “Good Food 101 Low-Fat Feasts”.

 

 

Ingredients.

• 2 Tablespoons olive oil.
• 4 Boneless,skinless chicken beasts.
• 1 Onion, cut into wedges.
• 2 Eating apples, peeled cored and cut into segments.
• 1/2 pint [500ml] Dry Cider.
• 1/4 pint [150ml] Chicken stock

 

 

 

1. In a frying pan heat the oil and fry the chicken breasts until they are browned on each side,[about 3-4 mins. each side] set aside.
2. In the same oil fry the onions for around 2-3 minutes until turning brown, then add the apples and cook for about 5 minutes until golden.
3. Add the cider and boil under high heat for a couple of minutes, add the stock stir well and reduce the heat.
4. Return the chicken, cover the pan and simmer for about 5 minutes until the chicken is almost cooked .
5. Remove lid and continue simmering for around 5 minutes to thicken the sauce slightly.

The dish can be served with rice or mashed potatoes, I choose the rice.

This was a lovely dish to end the week with, even Poppy thought it had plenty of flavour and it therefore received the “thumbs up”. I must admit that she did require some tomato sauce, but then she generally does with most dishes [takes after her father].She likes to arrange her food in the plate that we bought back from Normandy and how appropriate that a Normandy plate should be used for an apple and cider dish.

Everyone else really enjoyed the dish and it’s one that I would cook again, it would probably work well with pork as well.

Recipe No. 8 – Spanish Rice & Prawn One-Pot.

 

Although shrimps and prawns contain a moderate amount of cholesterol [about 70 mg per 100g compared with a medium egg 185mg], recent research by the University of Surrey showed that eating 225g of prawns a day had no appreciable effect on blood cholesterol. They are also very low in fat and a good source of protein. The British Health Foundation suggests that seafood should play a part in a well-balanced diet and that it is much more important to cut down on saturated fats that this “dietary” cholesterol.

This dish is simple to prepare and easy & quick to cook, it’s quite similar to a Jambalaya but less spicy and without the chicken.

 

 

Ingredients.

• 1 Onion – sliced
• 1 Red Pepper – seeded and sliced
• 1 Green Pepper – seeded and sliced
• 50g chorizo – cut into small chunks
• 2 Garlic cloves – crushed
• 1 Tablespoon Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 250g Easy-Cook Basmati Rice
• 400g can Chopped Tomatoes
• 200g Peeled Prawns

 

 

1. Using a NON-STICK [see later] pan with a lid, fry the onion, peppers, garlic and chorizo in the oil for about 3 minutes over a high heat.
2. Stir in the rice and tomatoes and add 500ml of boiling water, mix well then cover. Cook over a high heat for 12 minutes.
3. Uncover and stir. Add the prawns with a little more water if the rice looks too dry.
4. Cook for another 2-3 minutes until the prawns are pink and the rice is tender. Serve from the pan.

 

Firstly a confession, I didn’t use a non-stick pan ! The rice consequently stuck to the bottom and was slightly burnt. This didn’t however deter my regular band of diners from tucking in and they all enjoyed it. Poppy thought that this dish “had Plenty of flavour” but couldn’t get enough of the prawns and kept on asking for more. Joey loved it although the chorizo proved a little difficult for him to chew so he spat it out and continued eating the rest. Victoria finished her first plateful and like everyone else had second helpings. A great easy to cook lunch dish!!

We are away now for a few days and it will be interesting to see if we can keep up the healthy eating when staying in hotels. I’ll try [internet access permitting] to keep you updated.

Recipe No. 7 – Sticky Lemon Chicken

 

Lemons have been used as a cooking ingredient since the 11th century, both for it’s properties as a flavour enhancer and for it’s nutritional benefits. Although most of the Vitamin C, that it is famed for containing, is destroyed in cooking, the acidic taste gives a lift to foods that might otherwise be bland. Lemons have been heralded by natural healers as a therapy for cramps, inflammations, gout and arthritic pain, and lemons do this without adding calories [A medium lemon containing about 17 calories and no fat.].

The British navy gave rations of lemons to all it’s sailors in the late 1800’s to combat scurvy. It was this ration that led to the nickname “LIMEYS”, in the belief that they were in fact over-ripe limes. Perhaps we should be more correctly referred to as “LEMONIES”?

There are many variations of this recipe around the internet including a Gordon Ramsey's one, the recipe I used came once again from “Eating for Lower Cholesterol”.

 

Ingredients.

• 8 Chicken Portions [I used leg joints but thighs or drumsticks would work]
• 3 Lemons
• 2 Tablespoons Runny Honey
• 3 Garlic Cloves – unpeeled
• 1 Tablespoon Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 2-3 Sprigs of rosemary

 

 

 

1. To reduce the fat content remove the skin from the chicken. [I actually didn’t do this!!].
2. Squeeze the juice from the three lemons into a large roasting tin, add the honey,garlic and olive oil and mix well.
3. Add the chicken and put the empty lemon halves all around.
4. Add the rosemary to the top of the chicken and place in a pre-heated oven [180 C / Gas Mark 4] and cook for around an hour or until the chicken is thoroughly cooked.

I served it with new potatoes and a small salad although it would go well with rice also. The lemons can be eaten as they come out sticky and caramelised.

The chicken was very moist and tender and was well cooked, if anything the overall flavour was a little too lemony, which I enjoyed. Sylvia wasn’t overly impressed as the promised “stickiness” just wasn’t there. This was certainly not one of her favourites!

Poppy, who ever since the couscous last week has been telling her mother that every meal “lacks flavour”, thought it was lovely and gave it a “thumbs-up”. However after squeezing a lemon on the chicken half way through her meal, no further chicken was eaten! Victoria [who had just popped by] loved the flavour but the extra Poppy lemon flavour was even too much for her.

Having seen some of the other recipes on the internet I think that next time I’ll try a slightly different variation to try to get more of the honey coming through. As there was some left over I will be trying the dish cold for my lunch tomorrow – I’ll let you know what that is like.

Recipe No. 6 – Mustardy Pork with Apples.

 

It’s often assumed that red meat shouldn’t be part of a low-cholesterol diet but while it’s true that some meat products are high in saturated fats lean red meat can be quite low in fat (4-8% with the visible fat trimmed). So the advice from all the experts is to eat red meat in moderate amounts and choose the lower fat options when you do. For instance a lean roast pork leg joint would have about a quarter of the fat content of a grilled pork belly joint. Red meat is a superb source of protein, Iron, Zinc, Magnesium and vitamins,especially the B group. Indeed it is the major source of Vitamin B12 which has a key role in the functioning of the brain and nervous system and in the formation of blood. So the advice from the British Nutritional Foundation is :

Choose lean meat. Generally, the more white you can see on raw meat, the more fat it contains. 

Cut off any visible fat and skin before cooking meat and try not to add extra fat or oil.

Try not to eat too many meat products such as sausages, salami, pâté and beef burgers, because these are generally high in fat including saturated fat. They are often high in salt too.

Try using smaller quantities of meat in dishes and more vegetables, pulses and starchy foods e.g. cut down on the meat in casseroles and stews but add extra pulses, pearl barley and vegetables.

Try to grill, roast or microwave meat  rather than frying. Roast meat on a metal rack above a roasting tin, so fat can run off.

So on with the cooking!!!

 

Ingredients

• 4 Pork steaks [trimmed of excess fat]
• 1 Tablespoon olive oil
• 2 Apples – cored and cut into 8.
• 1 Onion, halved and sliced.
• Handful of sage leaves – torn into pieces.
• 200ml chicken stock.
• 2 Tablespoons wholegrain mustard.

 

1. Rub the steaks with a little of the oil and season.
2. In a large frying pan brown the steaks on both sides for about 2 minutes each. Set aside.
3. Add the remainder of the oil to the pan and fry the onion, apples and sage for around 5 minutes until the apples have softened.
4. Pour in the stock and spoon in the mustard, return the pork.
5. Simmer for around 10 minutes until the pork is cooked through and the sauce has reduced by around a third.

 

I served the pork with mashed potatoes and spring greens.

After Friday’s poor outcome this was a triumph, full of flavour with the mustard complementing the apples and pork. The pork itself was very tender and had a good flavour, I used ASDA Extra Special Pork steaks and they lived up to their name. An excellent weekend lunch.

Recipe No. 5 – Cod baked in couscous & tomato paste.

 

Traditionally Friday is the day for eating fish, I’m not sure of when this started, but according to the Food Standards Agency it should be on the menu at least twice each week. Fish is a good source of vitamins and low-fat protein, but were you aware of all it’s other benefits? A study in France of 2000 people showed that by eating fish at least once a week significantly lowered the risk of dementia. Another study, this time in Sweden, indicated that the risk of prostate cancer was doubled in a group that ate no fish when compared to a group that ate moderate amounts. But it’s not only health benefits as fish can apparently make you law-abiding citizens according to a study in Mauritius. This showed that children aged 3+ who had a diet featuring plenty of fish were far less likely to have a criminal record by the age of 23. With all these benefits how can you resist!!!

Ingredients

• 200g Couscous
• 1 Egg
• 4 skinless cod fillets [I used frozen ones that had been defrosted]
• 4 tablespoons tomato puree
• 1 lemon

 

 

1. Put the couscous in a bowl and cover with boiling water. Cover the bowl with a plate and leave for about 5 mins.
2. After this time fluff it up with a fork.
3. Whisk egg slightly in bowl and dip each cod fillet in .
4. Coat fillets on both sides with the couscous, pressing it down to make a crust.
5. Place on a baking tray and spread a tablespoon of tomato puree on top of each fillet.
6. Place in a pre-heated oven [gas mark 4 – 180 C] and cook for between 18-20 minutes.

I served the fish with new potatoes and peas but mash or a salad would be a good alternative.

The good news is that the frozen fish was superb, lovely and solid with the flakes of fish just coming away as you ate. I certainly would buy this again as it’s easy to keep in the freezer for when required. That unfortunately was all the good news: the couscous added nothing to the fish except bulk. Even Poppy remarked “Grancher, this couscous needs more flavour”, very astute for a four year old but also very correct! I’ve written on my thoughts on couscous previously and this dish once again confirmed them. Even Victoria [who was just passing by] had little to suggest except that perhaps a North African spice [the name escapes me at the moment] could be added to “spice” the dish up.

Not one of the best meals that I have cooked but if it keeps my grandchildren out of jail, what does flavour matter!