Probably Not-That-Authentic Seafood Paella

Sooo.... kids really take a toll on my ability to blog. I can't believe it's been nearly 18 months since my last post. I have given birth to another human being since then. And in the intervening time, 95% of my cooking has been repeating things I already knew. There's just not much time to do anything else!

However, on some weekends we've had a chance to get a little fancier, and this weekend I had a real craving for paella, spurred on by a cool Spanish rice variety I bought a few weeks ago. So I cribbed from this receipe but changed it to be much less seafood-heavy. It's now actually doable in under an hour, without all that seafood prep! Still tastes excellent, too. This serves four people with salad or vegetables on the side.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup (125ml) dry white wine
• 1/2 teaspoon saffron threads
• olive oil
• 2 brown onions, finely chopped
• 2 red capsicums (raw and chopped or roasted, peeled and torn)
• 4 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1/2 - 1 chorizo sausage
• 2 large ripe tomatoes, halved, seeded, finely chopped
• 2 teaspoons mild Spanish paprika
• 1 1/2 cups (300g) medium grain rice (such as calrose)
• 2 cups (500ml) chicken stock
• 500 - 750g marinara mix
• 1/2 - 1 cup (150g) frozen peas
• chopped parsley
• Lemon wedges, to serve

Method

I need to dig out my decent camera! My phone
doesn't really do it justice. Anyway, note the crispy
crunchy tasty base. It was amazing.

Heat the wine and saffron over a low heat until just coming to a simmer, then stir and turn off the heat, reserving for later. In a paella pan or a large, deep frying pan, fry the brown onions and raw capsicum (if using), for five minutes, until the onion is soft and beginning to go gold. Add the garlic and chorizo and fry for a further thirty seconds. Add the onion, paprika, and rice, and stir together. Add the reserved saffron wine, and chicken stock, and cook uncovered for 15 minutes over a medium heat.

Stir in the marinara mix and frozen peas, cover, and cook for a further five minutes, turning the mix a little to get it all cooked through. Resist the urge to unstick the rice at the bottom of the pan, so that you get those authentic paella crunchy bits. Scatter over chopped parsley and serve with lemon wedges.

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I'm hoping in 2018 I can post here a little more. I have a funny plan for the first couple of months which I'm looking forward to sharing, along with more "fancy
 recipes from the weekend. We'll see... best-laid plans of mice and men...!

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!

Chick Pea, Chorizo and Orange Salad

I spent most of last week sleeping and reading, trying to shake off a nasty cold. As a result we hadn't worn down the food stores quite as much as usual, so this week I'm attempting to cook entirely using whatever I have left in the fridge from last week. OK - I definitely cheated here, as there was a HUGE bag of red peppers going cheaply at the grocers' when I popped into the park centre to buy milk, and I did have to top up the onion supply. Now that I've made this salad, I think it's actually worth going out to get the ingredients, as it was amazing! No internet link this time; I just had ingredients I needed to use and found the right flavours to link them together.

Ingredients:

• one tin of chick peas
• one medium white onion
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• a handful of green beans
• a small handful of raisins
• a fat, spicy chorizo sausage
• two roasted peppers, skinned
• an orange
• a small handful of mint
• 1 heaped tsp dijon mustard
• 1 1/2 tbsp white wine vinegar
• 3 tbsp olive oil

Drain the tin of chick peas and tip into a salad bowl. Thinly slice the onion into slivers, and fry over a very low heat until golden, translucent and falling apart - about 12 minutes. Add the sugar and cook for a further minute, then tip out of the pan onto the chick peas. Meanwhile, top, tail and blanch the green beans and raisins, then drain and add to the salad bowl.

If the skin of the sausage is tough, skin it, then finely slice the sausage and fry in the onion pan for a couple of minutes, until crisping up and colouring. If you like, blot the excess fat with kitchen paper before adding to the salad bowl. Slice or tear the peppers into strips and add to the bowl. Using a sharp knife, cut the peel and pith from the orange, then segment into the bowl; squeeze out the core over the bowl to retain all of the lovely juices. Finely chop the mint and add to the bowl.

Whisk the remaining ingredients together to form a dressing, pour over the salad, toss well and serve immediately.

Paellish and Cabbage & Apple Salad

Tonight I follow some extremely vague instructions from Nigel Slater's 'Tender' to make a 'sort-of paellish thing' which works really well, and has maybe 90% of the flavour with none of the hassle. I go for some fusion cuisine and serve with a traditional English cabbage & apple salad as both ingredients are super-cheap and super-tasty at the moment. A dressing of cider vinegar, dijon mustard and olive oil elevates the simple flavours to crisp perfection.

Ingredients:

• a white (brown) onion
• a couple of chorizo sausages
• a couple of sticks of celery or stalks of fennel
• 1 tsp vegetable stock powder
• a ladleful of rice (I accidentally used Thai white and it was fine)
• twice as much water as rice
• a handful of parsley

Peel and finely chop the onion and fry in a little olive oil for a couple of minutes. Cut the chorizo into fat coins and add to the onion; fry for another minute or so. Dice the celery or fennel and add, along with the stock powder and rice. If you like, you could deglaze with a little white wine at this stage but I didn't bother. Add the boiling water; cover and simmer for 10 minutes or so, until the rice is just done. Wash, finely chop and stir through the parsely; taste, season and serve.

Gnocchi and Peppers

... or capsicums, as I need to learn to say! This was just a quick modification of my usual pasta-and-peppers fallback, with a little shredded cooked chicken mixed in at the end for extra protein. And some wonderful grated Parmesan that makes me salivate just looking at it!

Mackerel with Butter Beans and Chorizo

Had a super-busy day cycling around Perth buying yet more things for the house. We needed something a bit more protein-rich than usual and this really fit the bill! Vaguely Spanish in inspiration but really, just something I threw together because I felt like all the flavours involved. Worked out really well!

Ingredients:

• 2 mackerel steaks
• a small bunch of coriander, finely chopped
• juice of half a lime
• half an inch of fresh red chilli, finely chopped
• one red pepper
• one green pepper
• one small white onion
• a small chorizo sausage
• a 340g tin of butter beans
• cooked brown rice, to serve

Set your brown rice cooking. Pop the steaks in a glass bowl and mix in the coriander, lime juice and red chilli; leave to marinade while you prepare the rest. Halve the peppers, brush lightly with olive oil and place underneath a hot grill for 15-20 minutes, until at least half of their skin has blackened. Drop into a bowl and cover with a plate, allowing them to steam in their own juices.

Finely slice the white onion into rings and the sausage into rounds. Fry together over a moderate-low heat for ten minutes, until the onion is golden and falling apart, and the sausage has taken on tinges of golden colour. Tip in the butter beans, turn off the heat, and stir together to warm through. Grill the mackerel 2-3 minutes each side, until cooked. Meanwhile, peel the skins from the peppers and tear into rough strips, adding to the butter bean mix. Serve!

Rotini with Chorizo and Peppers

Another simple meal tonight, using up the last of the contents of the fridge before a busy weekend. While we were baking the lasagne, I used the heat of the oven to simultaneously roast some peppers. As usual I dropped these into a pyrex bowl, covered with a plate and left them for a few hours. When I peeled the skin off, I found they'd also sweated out quite a bit of nice peppery juice, so I decided to save them for a main meal instead of just using them in a side salad. And thus tonight's meal was born.

Ingredients:

• 300g dried pasta, or enough for two
• a few inches of chorizo
• 4 cloves of garlic
• a pinch of oregano or mixed herbs
• 1 bay leaf
• two ripe tomatoes
• 3 roasted bell peppers, skins removed
• a generous handful of fresh parsley
• Parmesan cheese

Cook the pasta for the time required by its instructions. I'm a firm believer in cooking pasta in a big pan of salted water at a rolling boil. The SO likes to just cover it and simmer it, until it all congeals to the bottom of the pan in a soggy mess. Hmm, I wonder if he'll read this.

Slice the chorizo into shapes reminiscent of your pasta; tonight we used rotini (sold as fusili in Sainsbury's) so I sliced the chorizo into thin coins, then lengthwise into strips. Fry in a gentle heat in a trace of olive oil, so the chorizo cooks and colours. (If you're vegetarian, you could replace the chorizo with some pine nuts: toast them in a non-stick pan and add right at the end.)

Crush the garlic into the hot oil, stir, and cook for a further minute. Season well with black pepper and add the bay leaf and oregano: if you're using mixed herbs or dried oregano, just use the barest pinch or everything will taste like pizza sauce. With fresh herbs you can be a little more generous.

Chop the tomatoes and add them to the pan, and any juices from your roasted peppers. If your peppers were fairly dry, you can throw in a glass of white wine, or some chicken stock. Bubble the sauce over a moderate heat for about 5 minutes, until it has reduced and the tomatoes have softened. Tip in the peppers, reduce the heat and allow to just warm through. Finely chop the parsley, combine it through and season to taste. Serve over the cooked pasta, topped with grated Parmesan.

Scallops with Chorizo

I've not had a moment to write this week, but then I haven't been cooking much: the SO is off at a conference so I spent a few days just eating up leftovers we had in the fridge. Wednesday, the night before he left, we went to a 'supper club' at the new independent cafe in Cambridge, Stickybeaks. A colleague from work invited me, and we had a lovely time: I highly recommend it to anyone in the Cambridge area. The format was perfect: fifteen people entered in dribs and drabs, took seats and glasses of wine and introduced themselves. When everyone was seated, we were given a little introduction to the meal plan of the evening: a very delightful Italian menu.

Then we watched as the major steps of preparation were performed for the starter and main meal: butternut squash risotto with taleggio, and Italian-sausage stuffed bomb courgettes. After we finished these - delicious! - we watched Lucy and Catherine prepare the fastest cake in the world. They put that in the oven, and then we were treated to Blue-Peter-style slices they'd cut minutes before. The cake was rich and wonderful, and I would have loved a strong cup of coffee and a little chaser - but it was a school night. At last I know where childless 30-40-somethings spend their time!

Thursday and Friday I have nothing to report - leftover pancakes, leftover gumbo. Today was different! Having at last cleaned the fridge of the last vestiges of last week, I set out to the market for this week's shop. I made sure to buy only half as much food as usual by bringing only half the normal-size bag. Otherwise I'm totally helpless when surrounded by all the fresh produce. It was a beautiful spring day and I was glad to be out. I did miss the SO though - especially when standing vacantly in the veg stall having my groceries weighed, taking a minute to realise that without my usual pack mule, I'd need to pack and carry the backpack myself!

Sometimes people say that it's hard to cook for one. I mostly agree with this sentiment - it's certainly hard to start cooking for one. You look at the empty kitchen, you think 'well, I'm not that hungry', then you eat beans on toast and feel depressed. I like to think about it differently. I like to look at that kitchen and see a place to experiment, time to try something I haven't tried before. If I mess it up... well, there's always beans on toast!

Tonight I cooked scallops for the first time, and they went rather well. I couldn't resist using chorizo as the main addition as I find the smoky-sour flavour is just so perfect with seafood. The accompaniments were a salad that's become a staple in our family since we first made it a few Christmases ago, and some pumpkin bread I invented today. Scallops were not nearly as intimidating as I thought. The same rules apply to them as to almost any seafood: buy fresh, cook on the day, don't overcook, and serve immediately. And of course, enjoy eating more of them than you'd ever get in a restaurant, for a much lower price!

Ingredients:

• 6 scallops per person, or 2 for a starter (with or without coral is fine)
• Two 5mm slices of chorizo per person, or 0.5 for a starter
• 3 large lettuce leaves per person, or 1 for a starter (NOT iceberg)
• vegetable oil
• balsamic vinegar
• very good olive oil

Wash the scallops carefully, removing any grit or goo, but keeping the coral attached if yours came with. Season lightly with salt and pepper on both sides. Chop the chorizo slices into small pieces. Put a splash of vegetable oil in a heavy-based stainless steel frying pan or cast iron skillet, and put over a moderate heat. Toss in the chorizo and allow them to sweat out some of their oil, and fry until golden brown. Remove and set aside. Wash the lettuce leaves and place one on each plate.

Turn the heat up to maximum, and put the scallops in the pan. If you're cooking a large quantity, don't overcrowd the pan, as this will reduce its temperature and cause the scallops to sweat instead of sear. Fry the scallops for one minute and then turn over. The cooked surface should be have a dark golden brown ring on it and be seared shut. Cook on the other side for a further minute, then remove and place on the lettuce leaves on each plate. Scatter with chorizo pieces, splash with 1 tsp of balsamic per plate, and drizzle over your best olive oil.