Prawny fried rice

If you have left over boiled rice this is an ideal use - but it's worth making fresh too.  Chop loads of veg - today - spring onion, red pepper, carrot, kholrabi, radish, celery, mushroom.. and fry in peanut (or vegetable) oil at top whack, add crushed garlic, grated ginger and finely chopped chili.  Splash in soy sauce. Keep stirring until cooked, but some bite left.   Add cooked rice, and frozen peas.  Keep stirring for a couple of minutes.  Stir in prawns (if frozen, they need to be thawed first).  Taste - adjust seasoning.  Whisk 3 eggs together - stir rice - and flatten about  a 3 inch circle in the middle section - pour eggs in a shallow layer, into the shallow layer of rice - leave,... leave a bit more, when it starts to set underneath like an omelette - turn into the rice mixture very gently.  Turn gently until egg is cooked and all rice mixture is hot -stir in more soy sauce and rice wine to taste.  You might want to add - soy sauce, chili, oyster sauce, coriander ....  Victim said "yum, yum, bear" ... which is praise indeed around here.

Greek(ish) chicken stew, brown rice and garlicky spinach

Chopped an onion, some celery and a red pepper - sauteed in olive oil until a bit soft.  Added chopped red pepper and green beans cut into 2-3 cm pieces.  Chopped 2 x chicken breasts into bite sized pieces - and added them to the pan.  Kept stirring so that nothing started sticking, and everything had a coating of oil - then bunged in herbs - spice mix (some labelled as "greek spices", some mixed herbs, a bit of extra oregano and mint) and a teaspoon each of garlic paste and tomato puree. Crumbled in a chicken stock cube and added about 2 - 3 pints of water.  Peeled and diced a potato, and chucked that in  - mostly it thickens sauce.  Cook brown rice following packet instructions (in an aga (as we have) - bring to the boil in pan with water 1 inch above the top of the rice... steam in warming oven for 20+ minutes).  Spinach - boil a tiny bit of water (half a cup) with some crushed garlic - add spinach leaves, cover for 4 minutes.  Stir, grate in nutmeg and black pepper - drain, stir again, add greek yogurt and a squirt of lemon juice.  Victim wasn't keen on "slimy stuff" (meaning the spinach, which I loved) but ate the lot.  Result, I say!  3 pots left for kitchen fairies dinners :)

Baked sweet potato, black bean salsa and garlic yogurt dressing

Alright, it looks a bit of a gruesome pile - but it was very tasty, and very very healthy.  Bake sweet potato for about an hour in a hot oven (pricked like a spud and with olive oil lightly rubbed on the skin).  Chopped red onion, cucumber, celery, red pepper, radish, tomato, added sweetcorn and black beans.  Then mixed seasonning well, and adding enough olive oil to moisten.  At the end added a small handful of salad leaves.  The dressing is made of greek yogurt, garlic, salt and pepper and lemon juice mixed together.  I still think sweet potato is too sweet, but it is a superfood - and with all the chopped salad this has got to be a significantly health giving tea.  Victim didn't say much!  but ate it.

Spaghetti puttanesca

It's quick and it's tasty.  Sautee finely chopped onion and red pepper in a goodly puddle of olive oil. Put a big pan of salted water on to boil.  When it boils chuck in spaghetti, following packet instructions, usually about 8 minutes. To the sauteeing vegetables add chopped garlic, chili, black olives and capers, and some salt. (You can add anchovies, but victim isn't keen, so I left them out). Chuck in a tin of chopped tomatoes and simmer for a bit.  Add to cooked spaghetti, grind of black pepper, scoff.  Yum - for something so quick - adjust flavourings to suit yourself, I like it quite hot so added quite a lot of chili.

Lemon drizzle cake

There are dozens of recipes for lemon drizzle cake out there - and so there should be - it's delicious.  I (more or less) followed the one in the "Great British Bake Off" cookbook - but it could have been another - basically it's a chuck it all in the mixer and then bake - recipe.  The fiddliest bit is the spooning over the sugar syrup, let it cool spoon over some more bit - but the top is so delicious and crunchy that it is worth this very minor bit of faff.  So - zest of 2 lemons (or so, depending on how lemony you want it) - importantly zest it into the mixing bowl so that you catch every tiny spritz of the lemon oil which squirts out - that's the concentrated flavour - and don't keep grating until you get the pith - that makes it bitter.  Add 175 gms granulated sugar, 175 gms softened butter, 200 gms self raising flour, 1/2 tsp baking powder - 2 medium/large eggs (or in our case 4 tiny bantam eggs).  Mix until smooth (I am lucky enough to have a KitchenAid Artizan mixer which is a marvel - but you can do this in any food processor on pulse).  Pour mixture into lined 2lb loaf tin - and bake at about 180C until light brown (about 35-40 mins), and skewer pushed into the middle comes out clean.  Leave to cool for 5 minutes in tin.  Mix juice of 1 lemon with about 100gm granulated sugar.  Remove cake from tine and paper and stab (quite deep, but don't go through the other side of the cake, to much -the idea being to trap as much syrup as poss within the moist cake) with skewer at least 50 times.  Spoon over sugary syrup and let drizzle into holes and over edges of cake.  Wait 5 mins and drizzle on the rest of the mixture.  Leave for at least an hour to set - then cut and scoff - or deliver to batch of victims - let them cut and scoff... and give you huge thumbs up.  Took this round to some friends tonight and they assured me that it was scrummy.

A very british risotto

Ricey stuff was the plea - so ricey stuff was found.  but I tried to up its ante a bit.  We didn't have anything exotic in the fridge - it's not asparagus season after all - so - "a very british risotto" came to be.  I used olive oil - it could have easily been rape seed oil.  I used italian wine, because it was open - it could have been from the UK, or even cider if you had some.  But, is there any rice grown in the UK?  I don't know of any - I suppose you could use barley to make it totally domestic, but I had rice in the cupboard so used that.  However, the other ingredients - leek, celery, bacon, mushrooms, peas and cheese were all sourced locally. So - sauteed chopped leeks and celery for about 5 minutes in olive oil - stirring to prevent sticking.  When a bit soft add rice and turn until every grain is covered in a film of oil.  Add a glass of white wine.  Then stir in 2 good handfuls of chopped mushrooms and a handful (4 decent rashers) of chopped bacon - add some mixed herbs.  When wine has almost all been incorporated add a cup of chicken stock.  The risotto will probably take about 2 pints of stock in about 5 stages - keep stirring, let it absorb and taste.  Season and taste as you go through - I added a teaspoon or so of mushroom ketchup (available in Sainsbugs and other supermarkets) - but you could add marmite,  and salt and pepper - add good handful of frozen peas.  When the rice is just soft (no chalky bite, but not soggy) take it off the heat and stir in a handful of grated cheddar.  Leave to sit for 5 minutes.  Serve with grated cheddar on top.  Victim gave it 12/10 .. after STEALING mine when I went to get seconds.