Sausage and Lentil Stew

A great winter warmer -- the secret ingredient which knits together all the flavours is crushed fennel seeds.

Ingredients

• Six good-quality meaty Italian or French-style sausages
• 10-12 pickling onions or shallots
• 3 rashers bacon
• 1 carrot
• 2 sticks celery
• 4 cloves garlic
• generous glass of red wine
• 150g green lentils
• 2 tsp fennel seeds
• 100g vacuum-packed, canned or rehydrated chestnuts

Method

Chop the sausages into short pieces and top, tail and peel the onions. Trim any tough fat off the bacon and cut into strips. In a large Le Creuset or similar pot, fry the sausages, onions and bacon together for a few minutes, until some of the sausage skin is crisping. Meanwhile, dice the carrots and celery and crush or finely chop the garlic. Add to the sausage. Fry, stirring occasionally, for a few minutes more, then deglaze the pan with the red wine.

Crush the fennel seeds lightly in a mortar and pestle, then add to the stew, along with the lentils. Top up with a little hot water, so that the lentils can cook. Cover and simmer for 1-2 hours, checking and stirring occasionally so it does not stick to the pan. Cook until the onions are soft, sweet and falling apart -- usually slightly longer for shallots than for pickling onions. Stir through the chestnuts and allow to heat through. Serve with mashed potato or potato Colcannon.

Kangaroo Bolognese

Continuing my theme of using kangaroo mince in everything, I tried out a kangaroo bolognese. Like the mousakka, it was actually an improvement on the original, because of the leaner, tastier quality of the meat. Without all the fat from typical beef mince, the sauce no longer has that thick layer of red oil which coats and stains everything. Instead it's pure bolognese heaven -- fantastic on pasta or as a component of classic lasagne. I seem to be the only one in the universe who insists on mushrooms in bolognese, but whatever. It's not a real Italian sauce anyway, so I can put whatever I like in it!

Ingredients

• 1kg kangaroo mince
• 2 brown onions
• 2 carrots
• 1-2 sticks celery
• 500g button or smallish mushrooms
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 6 rashers bacon (back or streaky, either is fine)
• 680g tomato passata or 2x325g tinned tomatoes
• 150g tomato puree
• 2 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp dried rosemary
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 tsp dried red chilli flakes (optional, but I strongly recommend them)
• glass of red or white wine
• 1 cup milk or half a cup of cream (optional)

Finely dice the onions and fry with the kangaroo mince, breaking it up and stirring until the mince is brown and the onions are soft. Meanwhile, dice the carrots, finely dice the celery, and cut the small mushrooms in half, or slice them if they are larger. Crush the garlic and snip or cut the bacon into 2cm-long strips. Add the carrots, celery, mushrooms, garlic and bacon to the onion and mince, stir well, and cook until the mushrooms have softened.

Add the tomato ingredients, herbs, wine, and chilli flakes if using. Rinse out the tomato jar or cans with a cup of water and pour into the sauce. Stir until combined, then partly cover and simmer for 2-4 hours, until thickened and delicious. If the sauce starts to dry out, add a little water and completely cover, but don't reduce the cooking time.

Five minutes before serving, add the milk or cream. If you want to keep the bolognese in the fridge and reheat it later, or use it in a lasagne, I suggest not adding the milk or cream until you do come to serve it or use it, as it will keep better.

Pumpkin Chilli

Finding myself with a surfeit of pumpkin from the garden, and a craving for chilli, I searched around until I found this recipe. It really is a delicious combination, and you won't even notice that this is not a 'con carne'. That said, I love to throw in a little chorizo or bacon to smoke things up a bit. I modified the ingredients slightly, since I don't know what was in their 'chilli powder', but I assume you wouldn't want an Indian-style chilli powder, and that's all that's available here. You can leave this in the fridge for a few days and the flavours will keep developing.

Ingredients

• 1 medium red onion, chopped
• 2 red or green peppers, chopped
• 750g butternut squash or eating pumpkin, peeled and chopped
• 100g of smoked bacon or cured chorizo, finely diced (optional)
• 4 garlic cloves, crushed
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp ground paprika
• 1/2 to 1 tsp chilli flakes (up to you)
• 1/2 tsp cocoa powder
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 can diced tomatoes, including the liquid
• 2 cans kidney or black eye beans
• 300-500ml vegetable stock
• 2 avocados
• sour cream (optional)
• crispy tortilla strips
• fresh leaf coriander (optional, for garnish)

Method

In a large Le Creuset or sauce pan, sautée the chopped vegetables (onion, pepper, squash, garlic) and bacon or sausage, if using, in one to two tablespoons of olive oil on medium-high heat, stirring frequently, until the onions are translucent. Turn the heat down to medium-low and add all of the spices canned ingredients and stock, and stir. Don't use all of the stock if it looks like it will make the chilli very runny, but feel free to top up as it cooks if it looks too dry. Cover for about one hour, stirring occasionally.

By the time your chilli is done, the butternut squash should be nice and tender and the liquid should have reduced a bit, producing the hearty chilli consistency that we all know and love. Serve the chilli in individual bowls, topped with diced avocado and sour cream, if using. Use the strips to eat mouthfuls of chilli!

BBQ Stuffed Potato Skins

I'd been craving this for a while, for some reason. They were a meal in themselves - although we had a little side salad to offset the sheer decadence of the carb-fat-bacon-tastic skins :)

Ingredients

• six medium roasting or baking potatoes
• 4 full rashers of bacon (or 8 streaky, or 3 back)
• a small bunch of chives or two spring onions
• 100ml sour cream
• 120g cheddar or soft blue cheese

Put the potatoes in a pot just large enough to take them all, and top up with boiling water. Simmer for 15 minutes, until just soft enough to pierce with a fork. Remove and allow to cool for 10-15 minutes. Meanwhile, BBQ, grill or fry the bacon until crispy, then crumble; finely chop the chives or spring onions. Slice the potatoes in half lengthwise and scoop out the cooked flesh, putting it in a glass bowl. Leave a 2-10mm border of cooked potato in the skins, and try not to tear them.

Mash the potatoes and sour cream together in the bowl; stir in the chives/onions and crumbled bacon. Spoon back into the skins, packing the mixture in well. Top with a little grated cheddar or a knob of soft blue cheese. Brush a hot BBQ plate with olive oil and pop the potatoes on for 5-10 minutes, until the cheese has melted and the skins are crispy. (Alternatively, put in a hot oiled roasting tin and roast for 10-15 minutes.)

Sweet Potato and Bacon Frittata

The Internet told me to make this one. It was the end of the week, and we were running low on food, and the two things I needed to use up most were a large sweet potato, and a packet of bacon. So I typed 'sweet potato bacon' into Google, and auto-complete immediately suggested 'frittata recipe'. So I went for it! And it turned out wonderfully :) I also served it with a quick courgette ribbon salad from a blog that I simply cannot find again, but I'll cover that in another post.

I think grilled green pepper or even some okra would work better than peas; I might try that next time.

Ingredients:

• a medium sweet potato
• 3 full (or 6 streaky, or 4 back) bacon rashers
• 6 eggs
• 3/4 cup of frozen peas
• 25g cheddar
• 1 tsp paprika

Preferably using a mandolin, but a sharp knife and a steady hand will do, slice the sweet potato into 3mm rounds. Brush them lightly with oil and bbq them with the bacon; if you can fit them all on the grill, it should take about 8 minutes.

Meanwhile, break the eggs into a large bowl and whisk in some bubbles of air. Drop in the frozen peas. When the bacon is done, shred it finely and add it to the eggs and peas. When the sweet potatoes are done, make a layer of sweet potato discs at the bottom of an oiled, medium cast-iron skillet. Pour in half the egg mixture, then add another layer of sweet potatoes, then the remaining egg mixture, and then a final layer of sweet potatoes. Grate over the cheddar and sprinkle over the paprika. Cook on the bbq hot plate for a further 10-15 minutes, until set and coming away from the sides.

Any extra sweet potato discs are fantastic to snack on with a sprinkling of coarse salt.

Bacon and Chilli Yoghurt Muffins

I'm in a muffin mood! Specifically I seem to be hooked on bacon muffins. SO GOOD. This recipe comes from an awesome Christmas present, The Flavour Thesaurus. It's an incredible book in which the author set out to describe every possible flavour combination, scaling back from an insane number that could only be represented in scientific notation to a 'more feasible' 4,591 combinations - of which, to be fair, only the edible ones are described. It's brilliant to flick through as the prose is amusing and filled with interesting historical and cultural tidbits- it was in the 'everything goes with bacon' chapter that I came across this lovely recipe. I didn't have any cornmeal, so in place of the plain flour and cornmeal, I used a 'corn bread' baking mix, which is half-and-half white flour and coarse corn meal flour. Don't be scared by the quantity of chilli flakes: their heat is well-tempered by the yoghurt and butter. I also took the advice in the recipe and served with cream cheese: a wonderful combination.

Ingredients

• four rashers of bacon
• two eggs
• 450g plain yoghurt
• 50g butter
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 65g plain flour 
• 275g fine cornmeal
• 1 tsp dried chilli flakes

Fry or grill the bacon until crispy and easy to snip or crumble. Whisk the eggs together with the yoghurt in a large mixing bowl. Melt the butter and drizzle it in, whisking all the while. Combine the salt, soda, flour, cornmeal and chilli flakes in a bowl and then fold into the yoghurt mixture, stopping as soon as you no longer see any dry flour. Pop into 12-18 muffin cases or trays and bake at 200 C for 20 minutes, until golden and risen.

Bacon, Cheese and Apple Muffins (oh my!)

I received some lovely presents from my husband's brother and his wife: the sequel to one of my favourite cookbooks, The Kitchen Diaries, aptly titled The Kitchen Diaries II (: the Search for More Food?!), and some delightful silicone muffin cups and a matching tray. I put them both to the test with this simple recipe, about all I could manage while coming out the other side of the Great British Flu, a gift the entire Northern Hemisphere contributed to. They turned out really well, despite having to substitute plain old free-range bacon and Australian cheddar for the ridiculously artisanal ingredients used by Nige.

Ingredients:

• four rashers of back bacon
• a small apple
• 3 eggs
• 175ml yoghurt
• 100g cheddar cheese
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsbp sugar
• 275g plain flour

Pop the bacon on the barbie or under the grill until cooked but not too crispy, then snip into small pieces. Beat the eggs into the yoghurt, then grate 3/4 of the cheese into the mixture. Combine the baking powder, sugar and flour in a separate bowl. Peel and grate the apple last, so it has no time to go brown. Stir it, along with the bacon, into the yoghurt mixture. Fold the yoghurt mixture gently into the flour, stopping as soon as there is no more dry flour visible. Spoon into muffin cups (I used 12), and bake at 200 C for 20-25 minutes, until risen and golden. Nigel says to eat them on the same day, but I found the taste improved overnight, although the texture suffered a little.

Brussels Sprouts with Lardons

We borrowed this recipe from Nigella Lawson's Christmas book and since then, it's been the only way we've eaten Brussels sprouts! It's just fantastic and really transforms these mini-cabbages. If you're feeling festive you can chuck in a couple of peeled, cooked, halved chestnuts.

Ingredients:

• Several handfuls of Brussels sprouts
• 2-4 rashers of bacon, or 100g lardons

Pick over the Brussels sprouts, cutting off the toughest part of the base, discarding any discoloured leaves and finally halving. Steam for 5-6 minutes, until bright green but not soft. Meanwhile, heat a barest smidgen of oil in a wok and snip in the bacon, or drop in the lardons. Toss about and fry for a minute until no longer transparent. Add the Brussels sprouts, toss once and leave for a further minute; toss again and leave for another minute. You want the Brussels to be well-singed and cooked through, and the bacon to be crispy.

Farfalle with Savoy and Pumpkin

Another wonderful vegetable that is coming into season is the Savoy cabbage. Not the sad pale white cabbage that falls to sock-smelling pieces as soon as it is cooked, but the delicious bouncy dark leaves that can be plunged into boiling water, or quickly fried, and still retain their savoury bite and nutty aroma. It also lasts forever, even out of the fridge... and it takes a long time to eat a whole head! Tonight's recipe was borrowed from Jamie Oliver, and then edited by the SO into his own version.

Ingredients:

• a quarter of a pumpkin
• a few rashers of bacon
• 1 clove of garlic
• a handful of thyme, leaves stripped
• 5-6 large leaves of Savoy cabbage
• 250g farfalle or other pasta
• a big chunk of Parmesan

Cube the pumpkin and roast for 30-40 minutes, until soft and golden. Shred the cabbage into fine strips. Slice the bacon thinly and fry for a few minutes until cooked; add the garlic and thyme, cook for a further minute, then add the shredded cabbage; cover and cook for five minutes, shaking or stirring every so often to prevent it sticking. Meanwhile, cook the pasta according to its instructions, or until al dente. When the cabbage is tender (but not overcooked!) and the pasta is done, drain the latter and serve topped with the former, the pumpkin, grated Parmesan, black pepper and (as Jamie would have it) a glug of very nice olive oil.

Celery and Lentil Soup

And the prize for 'Most Boring Soup in the World' goes to this recipe, to which I turned only in a desperate attempt to use up a 1kg head of celery that my Most Helpful Husband had bought for 'only a dollar'. With copious amounts of blue cheese, chives and bacon topping, it was just about edible. And it's also the sort of thing you might want, if you were, say, suffering norovirus for a few days and needed something incredibly bland to ease you back into that whole eating thing again. On the plus side, I took a very pretty photo.

Less tasty than it looks.

Pasta Carbonara

Amazing. After a whole year blogging, I still haven't covered a recipe that I have always fallen back on when I can't think of anything else to eat. It's brilliant if you've been doing a bit of exercise, as it's basically a huge plate of carbs and protein, and it's also handy if you are running low on fresh vegetables, as traditionally it has none whatsoever! I also think of it as 'breakfast pasta', because of the eggs and bacon.

Ingredients

• a hand's grip of straight pasta, like spaghetti or fettuccine
• 6 rashers of streaky bacon, or more if you like
• 3 eggs
• 100g of parmesan, finely grated
• a small bunch of parsley, finely chopped
• a few tbsp crème fraiche

Take enough straight pasta out of the packet that you are holding it all in one hand, like a staff, with your thumb and fingers just meeting. This should be enough for two people. (Smaller people have smaller hands so need less pasta!) Drop it into a pan of salted boiling water and cook until a minute before the packet instructions say.

Grill or fry the bacon until crispy, then chop into small slivers. Break the eggs into a bowl and fork through a little, then season with pepper. When the pasta is done, drain it and return it to the pan over a low heat, adding in the eggs, bacon and half the parmesan. Stir occasionally until the eggs are cooked, scraping the bottom of the pan to get the good scruddly bits combined. Turn off the heat, add half of the parsley and the creme fraiche, stir through and serve, topped with the remaining parsley, parmesan and seasoned with black pepper.

Christmas Dinner Down Under

This was the second meal I had actually planned out a little in advance of everyone arriving. I wanted to keep some of the ingredients and themes that we often use in our usual Christmases, like turkey, parsnips, brussels sprouts and potatoes, but transform them into food more suitable for the expected summer heat.

The starter we only modified a little by using smoked Tasmanian trout, but we stuck to Philadelphia cream cheese (despite the outlandish Ozzie round pot!) on some focaccia left over from our epic homecoming meal on the 23rd.

For which of course we opened another bottle of bubbly! Next came the main meal, the big one, Christmas dinner! Which we managed to eat at a comfortable 4pm, which wasn't exactly planned, but wasn't unwelcome either :) The biggest variable was the BBQ'd turkey, a new experience for all of us...

We had booked the turkey a few weeks previously and asked the butcher to remove the main breastbone and leave the rest of the pieces intact, skin-on. So we were able to whack on a big stockpot of turkey stock for future turkey soup, almost immediately, and then laid the rest out on the BBQ, foil underneath and a few bacon slices on top. It took about an hour to cook, and then a few minutes to rest, and was possibly the best turkey we've ever had! Very moist and flavourful, with just a little smokiness from the BBQ and lovely crisp bacon to serve alongside. Not least because my oven wouldn't fit a whole turkey, I now can't imagine cooking it any other way.

To serve with it, we made:

• Soph's BBQ potatoes;
• Roast parsnip, beetroot and toasted pumpkin seed salad;
• Kiwi, avocado, tomato, basil and dill salsa;
• Stir-fried brussels sprouts with sesame seeds and soy sauce.

We also had cranberry sauce but unfortunately couldn't make our own, as I was unable to source fresh or frozen cranberries anywhere in the months leading up. Next time I'll get the family to smuggle them through in their hand luggage ;)

Usually to finish we have a Christmas pudding, no matter where we are or what we're doing. But the SO and I simply hadn't had time to make one this year, and weren't really sure that we would be able to face it in the heat. Instead, mum had a wonderful idea of soaking raisins in sugar and the strong sherry we usually use in the Christmas pudding for a few days, then serving them over vanilla ice cream with the sweet alcoholic sauce. A divine way to end a fantastic meal.

Guest Dish: Tray-Baked Chicken and Crushed Pots

This weekend we visited a friend of ours from our college days in Cambridge, and his lovely girlfriend. On the Friday night, I was totally zonked from driving for four hours during one of the busiest times of year, so couldn't help make any dinner. But it was no problem; he prepared this meal single-handedly in about half an hour, and it was absolutely delicious. I think it's a Jamie Oliver recipe; the SO guessed immediately because of the presence of cherry tomatoes. I've reconstructed the recipe from the dish itself, and portioned it for two.

Ingredients:

• 2 chicken breasts
• 4-6 slices of streaky bacon
• a handful of cherry tomatoes on the vine
• fresh tarragon, thyme and rosemary
• a few cloves of garlic
• 4-6 medium waxy potatoes
• 2-3 spring onions
• a big bag or bunch of fresh spinach
• a few tbsp crème fraîche

Preheat your grill to a high setting. Wrap the bacon around the chicken and in a non-stick pan, sear it quickly to seal the flesh. Place in a wide casserole dish or baking tray, add the cherry tomatoes on the vine, the fresh tarragon and thyme, crush in the garlic, and toss with a little olive oil. Grill for 10 minutes each side, until the bacon is crisp and the chicken is cooked through.

Meanwhile, parboil the whole potatoes for about 5 minutes, until just beginning to show tenderness. Sautee them whole with the rosemary, in olive oil over a moderate heat, and crush them downward with a potato-masher to break them into flattened ovoids. Turn once or twice so that you get plenty of good crispy bits.

Roughly chop the spring onions and sautee in a little olive oil. Rinse the spinach, add to the spring onions, cover and cook it briefly in its own juices. Remove, squeeze out the water, return to the pan, stir through the crème fraîche and heat through. Dash over a grating of nutmeg and season to taste.