Vegetable, cashew nut and noodle stir fry, with seared ginger soya steak

Steak

Peanut oil

Garlic

Ginger

Soya sauce

Spring onions

Garlic

Red pepper

Carrots

Mushrooms

Pak choi

Udon noodles (rice noodles)

Cashew nuts

Beansprouts

Rice wine

Rice wine vinegar

Oyster sauce

Tomato ketchup

Soya sauce

1.  Marinate steak, in crushed garlic, ginger, soya sauce and peanut oil.

2.  Chop the veg, into this slivers, for the stir fry, crush garlic.

3.  20 before due to serve - bring a pan of water to the boil, put a wok and a grill pan on to heat up.

4.  When the grill pan and wok are hot put the steak in the grill pan, and start the veg stir fry in the wok - using ingredients from the list down to the pak choi (the white bits of the pak choi, save the green leaves until the last stage.  Put the noodles in the water to boil for 5 minutes.

5.  After 2 minutes turn the meat.

6.  Keep stir frying veg, add condiments and a spoonful of noodle water, keep moving in the wok.

7.  Take the meat out of the pan and leave to rest.

8.  Drain cooked noodles and add to the veg, add beansprouts, cashew nuts and the green tops of the pak choi - keep tossing together.

9.  Serve, scoff ... was delicious.

Burritos - or something similar

 Tonight we felt a bit of an American vibe, so I thought we would go with burritos.  Probably not terribly authentic, but they tasted good and we were all filled up.

I cheated with microwave rice and shop bought wraps -but why ever not?!

There were two versions - one for the pescatarian and one for the veg dodger.  That's the beauty of things like this, people can pick and mic.

Onion
Garlic
Olive oil
Cumin
Red kidney beans
Red onion
Courgette
Red pepper
Fajita spice
Lettuce
Radish
Tomatoes
Avocado
Lime
Red chilli
Cooked rice
Salmon
Steak
Wraps
Sour cream

1.  Chop 2 red onions - one into small dice for the refried beans and one in strips for the spiced vegetables.
2.  Sautee the onions in olive oil, in 2 separate pans.
3.  Crush garlic and add to both pans.  Add a good pinch of cumin to the refried beans pan, and a pinch of fajita spice to the veg pan.
4.  Drain and rinse a tin of red kidney beans and add to the onion and cumin, add a splash of water and heat through.
5.  Chop courgette and red pepper into strips, add to the veg pan and stir fry.
6.  Chop the salad bits and present on a tray, spritz the avocado with lime juice.
7.  Roast the salmon in the oven for 15 minutes.
8.  Remove the beans from the heat and mash them gently, spritz with lime juice.  Keep warm in the oven.
9.  Sprinkle wraps with a little water, wrap in foil and put in the oven to heat through.
10.  Cook the steak - to your preferred level of done - ours was medium rare - 3 minutes on each side, leave to rest for 5 minutes.  Cut into strips.
11.  Serve, with sour cream and hot chilli mayonnaise …. scoff

Steak, with stuffed mushrooms and tiny roasties

Sunday night tea - nice bit of steak.... and with it some mini roasties, stuffed mushrooms, roast tomatoes and speiced squash (leftovers).

Potatoes
Olive oil
Cherry tomatoes
Onion
Garlic
Field mushrooms
spinach
cheddar
steak

1.  Dice the potatoes and roast in olive oil.
2.  Chuck the cherry tomatoes in to roast at the same time.
3. Sweat down chopped onion with some crushed garlic in olive oil.
4.  Roast the mushrooms in olive oil for about 10 minutes each side.
5.  Add spinach to the onion mix, allow it to wilt.
6.  When the potatoes are nearly ready - put cheddar into each mushroom, top with the spinach mix, and stick back in the oven.
7.  Fry the steak for a couple of minutes, on each side, in a hot pan.  Rest for at least 5 minutes.
8.  Serve, scoff ...

... and relax - film night for us.  "Inception" ... I won't do a review - but the others enjoyed it.

Beef stew

Nick Fielden's family butcher, Todmorden Indoor Market does this fabulous thing ... you hand over £20 and he hands you a Value Pack of various cuts of meat - all are excellent - today the stewing steak came out of the freezer, and was turned into this.    Tomato puree, olive oil, garlic and wholegrain mustard from me at The Mediterranean Pantry.  Veg from Garry outside and another Todmorden market special.

It takes a while for the steak to cook to soft rich yumminess, so settle yourself in for a couple of hours of chilling doing what every you do best - and then you can serve up this to a grateful table.  The vegetarian had halloumi (available from The Crumbly cheese) fried at the last minute.

Onion
Celery
Olive oil
Garlic
Stewing steak
Beef stock
Potatoes
Leeks
Carrot
Cabbage
Veg stock
Tomato puree
Grainy mustard

1.  Sautee onion and celery in olive oil for a few minutes, then add the steak and some crushed garlic.
2.  Add the steak, turning the pieces over until each side is a bit browned, then pour in beef stock and simmer.
3.  Cut the potatoes into chunks, toss in olive oil and put in a roasting tin.
4.  Prep the veg and then cook in a little olive oil in a wide frying pan.  Start with the leeks, when they are a bit soft add the carrots and a pint or so of veg stock, simmer.
5.  Add tomato puree to the stew, stir it around a bit - add more stock, water or red wine if its looking too dry.
6.  Add cabbage to the veg mix.
7.  This will probably have taken about 15 minutes - so, turn the heat off the veg and make a cup of tea.
8.  15 minutes later put the potatoes in a medium hot oven to roast - for about an hour and 15 minutes.
9.  Now is the time you get to read that book, do the crossword, put your feet up and watch the soaps .. or whatever (check on the stew now and again to check it hasn't gone dry).
10.  one hour later - pop the veg in the oven to warm up - stir a big spoonful of grainy mustard into the stew - and toss the potatoes around a bit.  15 minutes to dinner ...
11. Serve, scoff ... 2 of us ate enough for 4, but that's another story

Steak, new potatoes, summer vegetable medley

Delicious!  You can't call it a recipe, but you can call it delicious.  All ingredients available from Todmorden market - The Mediterranean Pantry, Bracewell's and the greengrocers outside.  The broad beans were from our allotment, and super sweet.

The only "recipe"  part is the herb and polenta encrusted courgettes - like this crispy courgette batons, but with herbs as well.

New potaoes
Onions
Olive oil
Courgettes
Polenta
Mixed herbs
Broad beans
Cabbage
Steak
Black pepper

Finished in 20 minutes, if you follow these steps...

1.  Wash and boil new potatoes.
2.  Chop and gently fry onions in olive oil, until soft.
3.  Pod beans, shred cabbage, pu over water to steam.
4.  Make courgettes - in batches - drain on kitchen paper and keep warm until the rest is ready.
5.  Fry steaks in HOT pan, leave to rest.
6.  Drain potatoes, serve things.
7.  Scoff.

Steak and roasted new potatoes, with garlic mushrooms.

Fantastic sirloin steak from J. Melling - quality butcher's from Todmorden Indoor Market - deserved simple treatment to bring out its natural flavours.  SO, back to the '70s we went - pepper steak, garlic mushrooms and some roasted new potatoes ... beat that!

Potatoes
Onions
Garlic
Olive oil
Mushrooms
Brandy (optional)
Sirloin steak
Black pepper
Salad leaves.

1.  Parboil the potatoes, then roast in olive oil for about 40 minutes.
2.  Sautee chopped onion in olive oiil, add crushed garlic.
3.  Add chopped mushrooms to the onions, and a splash of brandy.  Fry a bit - and when done, put in the oven to keep warm.
4.  Rub a splash of olive oil onto the steak, and grind on a little black pepper.  Fry in a HOT griddle pan, for a few minutes on each side (1-2 for blue, 2 for rare, 3 ish for medium rare etc - depending on the thickness of the steak).
5.  Take the steak out of the pan, and onto a plate LEAVE IT TO REST ... got it!  it's important - so LEAVE IT TO REST for at least half the time you cooked it for.
6.  Serve, with salad, scoff, smile.

Aztec steak and salad

Spicy and smokey ... very spicy, and very smokey (both as flavour, and from the chilies!) actually - I think I used too much on too thin a steak.

The flavour is great, but it is hot, hot, hot ... and, as previously said ... smokey.

Mix the spice rub with olive oil, and paint (sparingly) onto steak.  Preferably grill on a barbeque, but a grill pan will do (just watch the smoke) on a high heat, on both sides.

Rest the steak before you eat it.  Serve with something cooling - a salad, or several cold beers!

Mushroom and onion pasta, chopped salad - oh, and some steak

After making the carnivores suffer yesterday I relented and made them steak.  However, also needed the extras to be gluten free and go with salmon for the pescatarean.  So, I thought - some tasty mushroomy pasta for carbs and a fridge full of veg just begged to be eaten - best way, chop it all up and mix it togther, American's would call it chopped salad, so lets go with that.

It all went down extremely well.



Chopped salad

Celery
Cucumber
Radish
Carrot
Tomato
Frozen petit pois
Cress
olive oil
orange juice

Chop everything up into 1/2 cm dice - squeeze on juice of half an orange (I didn't have any lemons or limes) and a slosh of olive oil, season, stir.

Mushroom Pasta Salad

1 onion, chopped
6 large mushrooms, chopped
garlic
olive oil
pasta shells (gluten free, or otherwise!)
oregano

Fry onion in olive oil,  just as it is starting to caramelise add chopped mushrooms and garlic.  Fry until mushrooms are just soft.
Boil water, add pasta ... when cooked, drain.
Add splosh of olive oil, mushroom mix and fresh oregano and mix through.  Grind on plenty of black pepper.

Steak

Oil the meat, not the pan - grinding of black pepper.  Fry, in hot pan for a minute or so each side.

Scoff - one person had 4 helpings of the pasta!

Curry... innit - with steak mince and veg

Longish day at work, got home about 7:30... hungry, but wanted something tasty.  Steak mince from my butcher mate needed using - could have done spag bol, chili or no end of other classics - but fancied more complex flavours.  Hunted in spice cupboard, and found a curry mix I liked the smell of, cumin, cardomon and hot stuff.  Probably a "waste" of steak mince, but it was yummy.

1 leek, chopped
1 tbsp oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed
400g steak mince (doesn't have to be steak, obv)
1 tbsp spice mix (or mix your own)
1 pepper (orange this time)
Mushrooms
Fresh tomatoes
Green beans
Tin chopped tomatoes
Spinach

Chapatis - out of packet - microwave

1.  Gently sweat leeks in oil, turn up heat add mince, keep stirring around.
2.  When a bit browned (doesn't need a lot) make sure it's separated into mincy bits, not lumps.
3.  Add chopped veg, garlic and spices.
4.  Keep stirring, add water and simmer for a bit, chuck in tomatoes.
5.  Simmer, when veg is ready stir in spinach til wilted.
6. Scoff - I did, with chapatis.

Steak and noodle stir fry

Boil noodles according to packet instructions.  Chop steak into bite sized pieces.  Chop veg and grate garlic and ginger.  Stir fry spring onions in peanut oil, then add steak to hot wok - stir fry for a couple or three minutes - then add veg - in this case carrot, red pepper and mushroom, add garlic, ginger, chili and tomato puree.  Stir about a bit then add soy sauce and rice wine, and maybe a spinkle of sugar.     After a few stirs add a mug of water and put a lid on to cook them through for about 5 mins.  Slake a spoon of cornflour with water and stir in until sauce is slightly thickened.  Add drained noodles, chopped chinese cabbage and big handfuls of spinach. Toss until everything is distributed and spinach is wilted.  Add small handful sesame seeds and stir in.  Next time I think I'll use sweet chili sauce in place of chili flakes, to add a bit of sweetness as well as the heat, and probably balck bean paste for depth of flavour.  Still not bad for less than 30 minutes from fridge to plate.

Beef, mushroom and green bean stroganoff

Had a massive 4 bean harvest from pot of runner beans - so while they weren't going to be the main ingredient they featured in the dinner.  Also, veg box is not due for a couple of days, so there were not so many choices - hence curly kale and peas were added instead of more traditional stroganoff main stays.  Still, it was tasty.  So, chop and saute one onion in olive oil, add 1 clove chopped garlic.  Chuck in about 400g of steak, in bite sized pieces,  brown, then add other veg you are including - in this case mushrooms and green beans.  Stir in tsp grainy mustard, a stock cube and about a tsp of paprika.  Season, sprinkle with about 1 tbsp flour - stir until flour coats other ingredients, then add about a pint of water.  Simmer for about 20 minutes, ensuring that it doesn't go dry.  Meanwhile cook pasta according to packet instructions.  Chuck softer veg into sauce mix - ie. frozen peas and chopped curly kale, simmer until pasta is done.  Take off the heat, drain pasta and add to sauce, stir in 2 tbsp creme fraiche and 4 tbsp natural yogurt  (in this order, if the yogurt goes in when it is roasting hot it will curdle).  Served, sprinkled with a bit more paprika.  No comment at all from victim.

This, hopefully, is the first of some more regular posts - the gap being due to holidays, and not having the camera handy, rather than some kind of month long fast.  Some intersting meals were had whilst camping eg. rabbit macaroni and competition picnic-ing at outdoor firework concert, but sitting down to write a blog post was considered as boringly too much like work :) by other holiday maker(s).

Steak and spring vegetable medley

Steam whatever veg is around - I used tender stem brocolli and green beans.  Fried a finely sliced onion in a dribble of olive oil, added steak and browned, added mushrooms.  Stir for a couple of minutes and chopped mushrooms.  Stir again for a couple of minutes, tip in veg and sauce (spoonful of tomato puree, splodge of american mustard, Lea and Perrins, black pepper - let down with the same volume of water, stir until smooth).  Bubble mixture for a couple of minutes to ensure that the tomato paste is fully heated through, then chuck in big handful of spinach.  Served on a few raw spinach leaves.  Kind of an English stir fry.