Summer Lovin'

Well, I think we can safely write off Summer 2012.  A few warm days in between torrential rain and thunder storms does not really count as summer!

But last night for dinner we brought a little bit of summer into our living room (whilst also having to turn the heating on for an hour to take the nip out of the air!) in the form of beautiful, spicy, fresh, tasty chicken tikka wraps, yum!

I used a sachet of Chilli Papas 2 in 1 Tikka spice mix.  You can either use it to make a tikka masala that has a nice little nip to it, or add it to natural yoghurt along with some garlic, ginger, onion, lemon juice and your choice of meat, veg, fish etc to make a marinade.  The spice packet for this mix is so pretty, the beetroot powder gives the dish a lovely flavour and a stunning colour without the need for any nasty chemical additives...

 I used a couple of free range chicken breasts.  The lemon and yoghurt makes the meat lovely and tender and juicy and you can taste every spice in the mix, rather than it just being a flat spice flavour, absolutely delicious.  I marinaded the meat for about 4 hours, but if you need it in a hurry, 30 mins would do.  Then, as it was hardly barbecue weather, I just popped the chunks of chicken under a medium hot grill for about 15 mins or so.

The picture above is one I made a couple of months back using Warburtons square wraps, but last night I used some nice multigrain wraps.  I smother some more natural yoghurt over the wrap, put some nice fresh salad leaves on (I like a mix of baby spinach, rocket and watercress), put the grilled chicken on and top with another dollop of yoghurt and a wee squeeze of lemon juice.  It's a firm favourite in our house!  If you are particularly hungry you could serve with rice and salad, that would be lovely :)

Chilli Papas now also make their mild Mandalay mix as a 2 in 1 so you can use that as a marinade aswell.  Not tried that yet but it's on the list! (www.chillipapas.com)

Happy munching! xx

Back to school!

Yes, here in sunny Scotland the kids are all back to school, just in time for the weather to brighten up a little as per normal!

Little Pots of Love will be back soon with Round 2 of Chip Wars, but in the meantime I thought I would do a quick post about school dinners/packed lunches.  School dinners north of the border used to be well regarded, even by a certain Mr Oliver in his TV series to overhaul the sorry looking offerings dished up to kids.  I never used to mind if Alister wanted to have school dinners as they usually had a really good choice of hot meals, baked potatoes, salad bar etc etc.  Even if he didn't fancy something hot he would choose salad and a ham baguette, he's good at making healthy food choices.  But over the past year or so there seems to be more food being bought in and less being made from scratch by proper school cooks, which is a shame.  A few times when he had school dinners I found I was paying £1.75 for him to have a tiny hot dog and a yoghurt. I'm sure he could have chosen more but who would want hot dog and carrots, for example??

He's always preferred packed lunches anyway, but last term we both got a bit lazy.  He always asked for a wrap with cheese spread and ham, and it was easy to do so that's what he got. Pretty much EVERY day! So this year it's changing.  Packed lunches can be healthy, tasty, varied and cheap so I have bought a few different sized tubs and I am trying out some things on him.  Thank goodness I have brought him up to enjoy pretty much everything!

Today was his first day back.  Last night I cooked some pasta and stirred some green pesto through it, I toasted a few pine kernels and added them plus a handful of halved baby plum tomatoes.  He had that plus a yoghurt, some fruit squash, some grapes and a little biscuit for afterwards in the playground.  He loved it, except there was far too much pasta!

For tomorrow I have just made this:

Pasta again, although if I had any I would have used noodles instead.  I stir fried some sliced carrots, yellow pepper, green pepper and cooked pork in a little rapeseed oil, added some teriyaki sauce to warm ti through then added the pasta back in.  It smells lovely, or so the boy shouted from his bed anyway!

My next change I need to make is to stop giving him a bag of crisps for tuck at breaktime.  We've agreed he can have crisps on Fridays for a little end of the week treat but otherwise it will be something healthier.  He's a good fruit eater, but for a bit of variety I think I'll try some breadsticks, or cheese twists, or maybe make some mini muffins with fruit in them.  Apple and cinnamon muffins sound good!

All of your suggestions for healthy lunches and snacks are welcomed,  I have a lot of packed lunches still to make!!

Crisp... crunch... CHIPS! (round 1)

Hi, I'm Alister, I'm 9 years old and I'm Jill's son.  I would like to do a post about... CHIPS!

I've been going around Dunfermline trying chips from lots of places.  Not only on this post am I going to talk about chips, I'll also tell you about my lunch today at The Inn at Carnock, near Dunfermline.

But first... CHIPS!! About 2 weeks ago I went to Grill48 but we forgot to take pictures but we will go back!     The chips were lovely and golden with a lovely flavour.  They were so crisp on the outside that you could hear them crack as you bit them, and the middle was lovely and fluffy.  The steak ciabatta that I had with them was gorgeous.

Moving on to chip sample number 2!  At The Inn at Carnock, they looked amazing but the flavour wasn't as nice as the chips at Grill48. They were crunchy, but not crunchy enough.

So Grill48 wins Round 1.

My lunch today at The Inn at Carnock was a minute steak baguette with red onion marmalade.  Even though I'm a kid I ordered from the adult menu but was still surprised when 2 baguettes appeared!

I didn't really mind because the bread tasted so good!  The bread was nice and fresh, it was very soft, it was very crisp on the outside (maybe a bit too crispy for me) and had a lovely doughy flavour.

The red onion marmalade was too sweet for my liking (and my mum's!) but I did enjoy my lunch.

I'm going to try lots more chips to see if anyone can beat Grill48.

To be continued...

A little ray of lemony sunshine

School holidays can be...ummm...challenging! I am lucky enough to work term time so although I get lots of time off in the summer, it means my boy and I are with each other 24/7.  And so it's only natural that now and again we need to spend a little time in separate rooms!

So one day last week we had a nice morning but by lunchtime he was getting a little cheeky and I was getting a little short tempered. So he spent the afternoon chilling out watching TV and I spent it in the kitchen trying a couple of recipes I had on my to-cook list.

My last blog post dealt with the bran scones from that day, but I wanted something a bit special and light and zingy to counteract the dark, grey, wet, miserable summer days we were being dealt.  My younger brother (BAFTA award winning, no less!)  is filming a new TV show with chef Peter Sidwell at the moment and so I had a nose around the interweb for some of Peter's recipes.  Peter is the chef at Rheged in Penrith.  If you've never been to Rheged, do make time to pay it a visit if you're in the area, it's a great place... http://www.rheged.com/

There's a nice little bio of Peter on the website, along with one of his recipes which hit the nail on the head as far as I was concerned - Lemon Meringue Posset. A quintessentially British dessert with a twist, lemon curd on the bottom and crunched up meringue on top, lovely!  It got me thinking that I would like to do a regular feature where I take a recipe from a respected chef and make it at home.  A lot of people are scared to try, I'm a bit more haphazard and up for having a go!  So, hopefully, this might encourage someone to have a pop at something that seems tricky at first.

This is the recipe ----> http://www.rheged.com/files/Lemon%20Meringue%20Posset.pdf

And this is the end result:

If you do have a go, the measurements for the cream and the creme fraiche are a bit confusing as one says 300ml = 1/2 pint and one says 300ml = 1/4 pint.  Use 300ml of both and ignore the pint measurements.  For the curd, you need 6 egg yolks.  I used the egg whites to make my own meringues to go on top, they really are easy to make.  When you are separating egg whites/yolks break each egg into a little bowl just in case one of the yolks splits and you end up contaminating all of your lovely clean egg whites. Then add them one by one to a larger bowl.

I have always used Delia's measurements/timings for meringues and they have always been great.  For each egg white you will need 2oz of caster sugar. I like using golden caster sugar as I think it has a more natural taste, and it gives the meringues a lovely golden colour.  In a clean, grease free bowl whisk the egg whites on a medium speed until they start to firm up, then increase the speed and beat them until you get firm peaks.  At this point, add the sugar a bit at a time and whisk on a fast speed until you get firm peaks again that will be lovely and glossy.  Either split the mix into small blobs on a lined baking tray, or make one large meringue.  I made half the recipe for the posset dessert so only made 3 egg white meringue and there was LOADS. Pop it in a preheated oven at gas mark 2 or equivalent, then turn it down to gas mark 1 as soon as they are in the oven.  When the meringues are baked, turn off the oven and leave them in until the oven is completely cooled, this will dry the meringues out and give them a nice crisp shell.

Before:

After, with a lovely golden colour:

Easy peasy, honest!!

The recipe also calls for home made lemon curd which seems daunting but really is fairly simple to make.  Just follow the recipe and, most importantly, once you add the eggs to the bowl keep the mixture moving with a hand whisk so the eggs don't scramble.  I ended up making a double batch of the lemon curd the following day as it's so delicious, I'll never buy shop bought again! It was absolutely gorgeous on the warm home made bran scones that I made the same day.

The dessert really was one of the nicest I've ever tasted.  The very fussy 'wife' even gave it a 10/10!  Time consuming to make, but well worth the effort to make everything from scratch.  It just wouldn't have been as nice with shop bought lemon curd and meringues.  Go on, give it a go, bring a little bit of lemony summer sunshine into your day!

When life gives you lemons...

...make lemon curd! Obviously! Although life did't give me lemons, I bought them in Asda. Lovely big juicy unwaxed affairs they were too. Mmmmmm......

This morning, along with a nice cup of Earl Grey, I had this for breakfast:

And at the risk of blowing my own trumpet, I am in heaven!!  It's a home made bran scone, half topped just with butter, half topped with a little butter and a good dollop of home made lemon curd. I had a lovely day playing in the kitchen yesterday!

I had a conversation with my friend, Lynne, about bran scones (oh, yes. We're that interesting!) and how the bakers always seem to be sold out of them.  I've never seen them in the supermarket, so I thought I would hunt down a recipe and have a bash at them.  From Googling it, a lot of recipes suggested that this is a Scottish dish, which hadn't occurred to me. So if you have no connections with Scotland but have had a bran scone I would love to know!

I used the recipe here ---> http://www.food.com/recipe/scottish-bran-scones-117596 and used natural wheat bran, which I prefer to oat bran and gives the scones the nice dark flecking through them.  The dough was very wet and soft (I was a bit heavy handed with the milk!), but I played around with it and added a bit more flour and bran until it was a little more pliable.  It was probably still a bit too wet as I ended up baking it for almost double the time in the recipe, but it was well worth it!

The scones are lovely and soft.  I warmed one for my breakfast earlier and it was just lovely.  I'll definitely make them again.

As for the home made lemon curd, I made that as part of what turned out to be one of the most delicious desserts I have ever tasted, and that deserves its very own blog post!  Watch this space...

Tea and sympathy...

Actually, tea and shortbread, but I'm feeling a little bit sorry for myself.  I never really get ill, and if I get a cold I just get on with life and ignore it.  But this week I have been floored by Supercold! I've had no voice, streaming eyes and nose, headache, aching limbs, can't keep my eyes open...generally feeling absolutely dreadful.  It's now Thursday afternoon and I've been in my bed or on the sofa pretty much since Monday afternoon. Rubbish.

And the weather is awful, which makes me feel even worse. Mainly because I have no biscuits in the house and there's no way I'm going out to buy some!!  And let's face it, when you feel rotten and it's pouring rain outside, you NEED tea and biscuits!

So I had a rummage around the kitchen and came up with 1 slightly soft chocolate Digestive (whoo hoo!!), plus some flour, sugar and butter which screamed "MAKE US INTO SHORTBREAD!!!" at me.  Who am I to refuse the demands of 3 simple ingredients when they seem so desperate. (yes, I may have overdone the ibuprofen and lemsips today...)

I dug out my old Great Auntie Jean's book of Plain Cookery Recipes from The Edinburgh School of Cookery and Domestic Economy.  I don't think Auntie Jean actually attended the school, she probably bought or was given the book:

I love reading old books like this! There were also a few recipes cut out of 1950s newspapers tucked in the back for various sweets, jams and marmalades - lovely!  However, their shortbread recipe called for rice flour which I didn't have today so I ended up using an old recipe I have scribbled down that uses 175g butter (at room temperature), 250g plain flour and 75g caster sugar.  I only had 170g butter in the fridge but I'm not much of a stickler for exact measures anyway so just bashed on.

Auntie Jean was the sister of my Gran Blair - Agnes Irvine Blair.  My son has the same middle name as her.  She always appreciated that I had an interest in our family history and in passing things down through generations so she gave me her old cook books amongst other things dear to her,  I still miss the chats we had in front of her old fireplace in Dundee :(

One of my fondest memories of my gran is making shortbread highlanders with her on rainy afternoons whilst the boys were at the football.  So in her memory, that's what I made today.  If you come round for a cuppa and I offer you one, don't worry, I DID wash my germ ridden hands first!

It's such an easy recipe.  Heat the oven to about gas mark 3 or equivalent, so a fairly cool bake. I cream the butter and sugar together then sift in the flour.  Then just get your hands in and combine it all. Use a little drop of milk or water if it's a little bit dry.  I also added a teaspoon of vanilla extract.  Roll the mix into a long sausage about 2" in diameter.  Then put some demerara sugar into a baking tray and coat the whole roll in the sugar, making sure it's pressed in and that the ends are covered too. Pop it into the fridge for about 30-40 mins til it firms up.  Cut it into 1/2" thick rounds, place on a baking sheet and bake for about 15 minutes, or 5 mins longer if you like them darker.  Cool on a wire rack then get the kettle on and make a cuppa!

Even with a runny nose and achey body, who wouldn't feel just a little bit better after a cup of tea and a crisp, buttery shorty highlander?! Thanks to my Gran Blair for the memories xxxxx

A cheeky little tart

Who doesn't love a tart!? Or a pie? There's something lovely and comforting about crisp, warm, buttery pastry and you can fill it with all of your favourite things. Scrumptious!

A while back I decided that I had avoided making pastry for far too long.  I have a nice easy to use silicon tart case and I was determined to overcome my fear of pastry making and put it to use.  Pastry is one of those things that lots of people assume is going to be very tricky and time consuming, so they don't bother doing it. I was one of those people!  However, after trawling the interweb for a while one weekend, I realised that it probably isn't as challenging as I first thought.

I quite fancied making a mainly vegetable based tart and came across this blog post: http://food52.com/recipes/10062_potato_tart_with_gruyere_bacon_and_rosemary#

The recipe uses a butter pastry and I would definitely use it again, it was beautiful.  The key is to keep everything very cold.  I used my shiny new food processor that my brother and his wife bought me for Christmas and this made it super easy.  I weighed out the butter I needed about half an hour before I planned to make the pastry.  I chopped it up into little cubes, put it in a dish, and put it back into the fridge to re-chill it.  I also put a glass of iced water in the fridge so the water I was using would be really cold too.  When I came to make the pastry, I added the flour, sugar and salt into the food processor and gave it a quick whizz.  Then i added the chilled cubes of butter and pulsed the processor blades until the mixture formed crumbs.  I then added the chilled water and blitzed til the pastry mix started to come together in a ball.  Once it's in a ball, wrap it in cling film and chill for about an hour before rolling it out.  Don't work the pastry too much, just roll it then use it and you will get a lovely buttery, short pastry.

Now, the filling.  Honestly, what is not to love about potato, cheese and bacon encased in butter pastry??? Heaven!?  But I thought potato and pastry might be a bit carb heavy together for my personal taste, so although I used the pastry recipe, I tweaked the filling a little.  I opted for sliced sweet potato (counts towards your 5 a day, unlike starchy white potatoes), sliced leeks fried in a little butter with some chopped chives, fried off pancetta lardons, and a mixture of mature Scottish cheddar and Gruyere cheeses.

I lined the tart case with the rolled out pastry and layered all the filling ingredients inside, with a bit of black pepper.  It was a bit hit and miss knowing how long to cook it for.  The recipe called for 45 mins at gas mark 5.  I ended up with it in for just over an hour.  I got a bit impatient waiting for the sweet potatoes to become tender so I ended up drizzling a little olive oil over the top towards the end, hoping it might increase the temperature in the filling a little.  However, this resulted in the tart having a bit of a soggy bottom.    I plan to make it again but will try either roasting the sweet potato slices for a while before layering them in the tart, or possibly par-cooking the sweet potatoes as well as blind baking the tart case first.

Soggy bottom or not, the end result was lovely and the sides of the tart were beautifully crisp and buttery:

Yes, as usual our bellies needed to be filled so badly that I forgot to take a photo of the entire tart before we devoured it!!  But at least this way you can see the layers, and my soggy bottom ;)

So, go on, give pastry a go - and let me know how you get on!!

In a bit of a pickle...

...and over the moon about it!  Oh dear, I've found a new addiction, and it's yellow!

Anyone who has had the pleasure of dining in my company will know that I have an obscene passion for condiments.  Lamb must have mint sauce, fish must have tartare sauce, fried eggs must have brown sauce (preferably Daddies but I'm pretty free and easy and will take what I can get!), lentil soup must also have brown sauce and tomato soup must have curry powder and worcestershire sauce (blame those last two on my wonderful Grandad, Aly Keir!).  Everything has a condiment to go with it and if something contains vinegar it's pretty much a winner with me.  A couple of months ago I discovered a local Fife company called Chillilicious who make chutneys as well as a gorgeous range of glassware.  You can find their lovely stuff at http://www.chillilicious.co.uk/shop and their Facebook page is at https://www.facebook.com/Chillilicious.Products.UK

When I first started Pots of Love they very kindly sent me a sample of their red pepper chilli chutney.  I can take or leave peppers, and as much as I love anything pickley and chutney-ish I wasn't going to be an easy one to bowl over since it had peppers in it.  But my word, what a delicious surprise!  The peppers were really plump and sweet and still nice and chunky, I hate it when chutneys are too fine so this was onto a winner.  The vinegar wasn't too overpowering, the sugar wasn't too sweet, the chilli gave a lovely warmth to the chutney without it taking over completely.  A beautifully balanced chutney that was heavenly on some oatcakes with a big slab of tangy Anster cheese.  Gorgeous!

Not long after that, Chillilicious had a stall at a craft fair in Dunfermline.  Alister and I toddled down and finally decided on a jar of cheeky chilli piccalilli and some chilli and coriander oatcakes.  I LOVE piccalilli, always have done.  I reckon I would pretty much eat anything if it was pickled first!

Here's my jar of yellow heaven:

Divine. I could eat this with everything, I am completely hooked.  Actually I would be quite content eating it from the jar with a spoon!  The veg was crisp and chunky, the sauce had a tangy mustardy vinegar hit that I adore, the chilli heat in the background gave it a little special something - it's just flaming LOVELY!  I had it on the chilli and coriander oatcakes with some mature Lockerbie cheddar and it was phenomenal.  The oatcakes leave a lovely warm glow in your mouth and are nice and rough, just the way I like them.

Unfortunately this jar of yellow heaven is now very much empty, but it's such a pretty jar that it now holds some paper clips on the desk in my little office!

I was planning to go and visit them during the recent Open Studios North Fife weekends to see where they grow their chillis (yes, all Fife grown!) and also their glass studio.  Unfortunately far less interesting things got in the way of this and I never did make it to Ceres to see them.  Next year, for sure!

So another fantastic Fife company making high quality products, how fantastic! And there are still lots more for me to discover, my mouth is watering already!

Another quickie...

Loved our dinner tonight!  It's another pretty speedy one and, even better, you can prepare about 90% of it in advance and just reheat and finish it off when you need it. Win!!

Tonight it was mushroom stroganoff and rice for tea. Mushroom stroganoff contains a heap of my favourite ingredients, and because I'm keeping an eye on my calorie intake just now it's pretty healthy too. Yes, it would appear that if you sit on your bum being lazy but stuff your face with lots of good food, you put on weight! Imagine!  I lost a couple of stone last year but it's starting to creep on again so I'm nipping it in the bud now before it's all back on again.  I use a website called Weight Loss Resources to keep track (http://www.weightlossresources.co.uk), it's basically a huge food database so you log everything you eat and it works out how many calories you have had each day. It takes your personal height/weight info and rate of weight loss you want and sets you a daily allowance.  You also log your exercise and it's got me into the habit of doing exercise if I want to 'earn' more calorific foods.  Or I just don't have them.  The lovely people at WLR have kindly given me permission to use the nutritional info from their database to include the details to my recipe blogs.

Anyway, here's the recipe I used for tonight's meal...

Because I'm logging everything just now I had to measure how much of each ingredient I was using. I'm usually a chuck it in and hope for the best kind of girl but this has really made me pay attention to how much I'm eating!

Ingredients: (serves 2, or 1 hungry person!)

250g chestnut mushrooms, sliced

1 medium onions, sliced thinly

1 tbsp olive oil 

1 tbsp tomato puree

2 tsp Dijon mustard

1.5 tbsp vermouth

1 clove garlic, crushed 

juice of half a lemon

1 tsp paprika

100g half fat creme fraiche (or sour cream)

chopped fresh parsley

Method:

Heat the oil in a large pan on a med-high heat and saute the onions and mushrooms for about 5 minutes until they soften.  Add the garlic and paprika and fry for about 30 seconds, stirring it through the mixture.  Add the tomato puree and allow it to cook out for 30 seconds or so.  Add the mustard, vermouth and lemon juice and cook out for another 30 seconds or so.  At this point you can either save the mixture for later, or finish it off to serve immediately.  Lower the heat and stir through the creme fraiche and some chopped parsley.  Serve with pasta or rice, adding a blob of creme fraiche on top, if you like, and a sprinkling of chopped parsley.

I served ours tonight with a packet of microwaveable long grain rice between the 2 of us and the nutritional info for the meal is:

Nutrition Per Serving:

Calories (kcal)              307.4

Protein (g)                    6.8

Carbohydrate (g)          26.7

Sugars (g)                     5.9

Fat (g)                          17.4

Saturates (g)                 6.5

Fibre (g)                       2.9

Sodium (g)                   0.1989

Not bad for a tasty dinner.  And if you're starving you could eat the whole lot yourself and still have a very healthy meal for 600 calories (if you care!).

I'd love to know if you have any great, quick, healthy dinners you can recommend. Leave me a message, or pop over to my Facebook page and say hi there :o)       https://www.facebook.com/PotsofLove

Say yellow, wave goodbye...

Apologies for the title!  I've had Say Hello, Wave Goodbye by Soft Cell in my head for days so when I was thinking of a title for a post about a yellow curry... Yep, that's how my mind works! Although, the wave goodbye bit is apt since the yellow curry in question was devoured to leave very clean plates by not only the boy child but my very fussy 'wife' (i.e. the other person in my life that I cook for. Not an actual wife!).

Now, if you know me it is quite likely that at some point I've asked you, "Have you heard of Chilli Papas?", to which you've then answered, "Yes, Jill. You harp on about it all the time". Some things are worth harping on about!!

This is their website---> http://www.chillipapas.com/  Here's a link to their Facebook page --->  https://www.facebook.com/redhotchillipapas .  It's updated all the time with their latest news, products, where they will be direct selling, asking for customer feedback and opinions, recipe ideas - loads going on. I like companies that interact with their customers like this. And they do listen and take on board what people tell them.  And to put an extra smile on my face, they are based right here beside me in Dunfermline. Yes, my Fife foodie mission continues...

I've been using their products for a while now and my favourite mix changes all the time, but at the moment I am really into the yellow curry.  I love a curry, but if you've ever made your own from scratch you probably know the problems with it:

1. you buy a dozen jars of spices which take up a lot of room in the cupboard and go out of date before you're even halfway through them
2. it takes time to measure out all the quantities of all the different spices
3. if you're trying to watch calories and fat content then curry is a no-no

I do love making a curry from scratch but I have to have the time to spare, and as a very busy working mum that doesn't happen very often.  Chilli Papas provide 2 of their mixes in each pack and each sachet contains all the spices you need for each curry.  The 2 in 1 Tikka has beetroot powder in it too which gives it a fabulous colour without any artificial additives that you might find in shop bought curries.  I'll do a blog post on the tikka mix separately as I adore it!  The Chilli Papas tagline is "Authentic curry the oil free way", and it is!  I suppose if you really wanted to you could fry the onion and spices in oil first, but having tried all of their mixes using the age old 'bung it all in a pot and let it cook' method, I can vouch for the fact that oil really isn't needed.

So on Mothers Day this year, as nobody was likely to cook dinner for me (boo hoo...), I wanted something I love, something easy that I could leave to cook without having to keep an eye on it and something both the child and the wife would like too. I decided on yellow curry with roasted butternut squash, baby corn and green beans. Phwoar!  Along with the spice mix and my veg I needed an onion, a stock cube, a tin of coconut milk and some easy garlic and ginger (or you can use fresh but I was going for superfast, superlazy cooking, I even used microwave basmati rice!). And here it all is:

The butternut squash was chopped into chunks and roasted in the oven with a bit of salt and pepper and a drizzle of olive oil until it was tender. 

This is what is in one of the Chilli Papas sachets of yellow curry mix, spices plus kaffir lime leaves and lemongrass:

As I say, you get 2 of these in a packet so enough for 2 curries and all for the bargain price of £2. You can buy them as single units on their Facebook page, or they also offer bundles of 3 or 6 packets for £5 and £10 respectively. And even more good news, free postage!  The inlay card gives you cooking instructions and a list of ingredients you will need, along with directions on how to cook rice.

So, my butternut squash was roasted and into the pot it went with a bundle of green beans, a packet of baby corn, a chopped onion, a teaspoon of easy garlic, a teaspoon of easy ginger, the spice mix, a tin of coconut milk and half a stock cube. The pack says a whole stock cube but as I had put salt on the squash to roast it and don't like things too salty, I cut back.  You could leave it out altogether if you're keeping an eye on your salt intake, or use a low salt one.  Give it all a stir, leave it to cook for 20 mins or until the raw veg or meat is cooked, and serve with whatever you like!  I chucked an Asda garlic and coriander naan in the oven and a packet of microwaveable basmati rice in and we had a splendid dinner:

It's so easy to make a nice authentic curry using the mixes that I even had a cheeky nana nap on the sofa whilst it was cooking! (Well, it was Mothers Day!) As for the flavour, well the young one and the picky one both scoffed the lot in record time.  There was talk of licking the plate... Again, if you are watching calories etc you can swap the full cream coconut milk for a reduced fat version and it still tastes great. To be honest, the curries are very versatile so go ahead and add what you like!  A squeeze of lime juice would be lovely in the yellow curry, add a sprinkling of dried chilli flakes if you like it with a bit more bite or chuck a handful of chopped coriander leaves and stalks in at the end to give it some more freshness - it's completely up to you.

The Chilli Papas range at the moment includes a 2 in 1 Tikka (you can mix it with yogurt etc and use it as a marinade, or you can make it into a tikka masala sauce), yellow curry, Mandalay and a mild, medium and hot version of vindaloo.  They also put together brilliant hampers for any occasion and can include chilli chutneys, chilli chocolate, chilli seeds, pamper products, cakes, chillipapa or chillimama aprons ( I have one, I heart it!), anything you fancy really to suit your budget. Keep your eyes open later in the year too as they are looking to launch new mixes in the summer, including a fajita mix which I am probably more excited about than would be considered normal.  I can't help it, I LOVE fajitas!!!  But for now, if you want a fast, authentic tasting range of curries to have as a store cupboard essential, head over to Chilli Papas and get stocked up!

Just a quickie...

I just stuffed myself with one of our favourite quickie dinners in a hurry, so whilst I'm trying to figure out how to roll myself off the sofa I thought I would do a quick blog post to find out what your staple quick dinners are.

Unfortunately, we were far too hungry to stop and take any photos before stuffing our faces but never mind!  So this is my quickie cheats 'carbonara' for 2:

150g linguine (or spaghetti)

1 x 100g pack of diced pancetta

1 250ml tub of single cream

A good handful of grated parmesan

Ground black pepper

Easy peasy dinner - whilst the pasta cooks in a large pan of salted boiling water, empty the tub of pancetta into a hot frying pan.  You won't need any oil as the fat from the pancetta will render down and do the job for you.  When the bacon is crispy, reduce the heat and add the tub of cream.  Stir to lift all the crispy bits of pancetta off the bottom of the pan and heat the cream through. Increase the heat a little til the cream is simmering and begins to thicken a little.  Add in a good few grinds of milled black pepper and the parmesan and combine well.  When the pasta is cooked to your liking, add this into the cream mixture, allowing some of the water the pasta has been cooked in to go in too as the parmesan makes the cream pretty thick so this will loosen it a little. Mix the pasta into the sauce until it's coated in the sauce and serve in 2 bowls.  The sauce should just coat the pasta rather than drowning it.  Fast and a bit tasty!

So what's your best super speedy dinner?

Oh, one last thing before I go and let the button of my jeans out...  The lovely Darren @ Chilli Papas is arranging the Fife Food Fayre to be held in the Kingsgate shopping centre in Dunfermline on 12th May 2012. If you are a Fife based food business and would like to take part, or know of one that would, get in touch with darren@chillipapas.com and let him know.  Now. Do it now. NOW!!  Ta :D

Warm and sultry? Don't mind if I do...

It's taken me ages to get round to writing this review of Foodles Mixes but, like the product itself, it's worth the wait! Once you Foodles-ise your life you'll not go back!  A little background to the product - they are based in Markinch (yes, another fine Fife foodie product!), and currently produce 3 different mixes.  Warm & Sultry produces a lovely Moroccan spiced dish with a deep sweetness, Sticky & Sweet has an oriental twist with lots of star anise and soy, and their new mix, Fragrant & Fiery, a coconut and cardomom based curry mix.  You can order the 2 original mixes at http://www.foodlesmixes.co.uk/ or via their Facebook page, (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Foodles-Mixes/236091043076561?sk=wall)

I received one each of the mixes in December 2011 but with the whole Christmas chaos going on we didn't really do much eating of proper food.  My diet consisted mainly of party food and gin. Lovely, but it takes its toll!  So in early January, on a very grey, damp and cold Scottish day, it seemed the perfect time to make a Warm & Sultry beef casserole.  This is what is in the pack...

I love their packaging!  The first packet contains the spice mix, the 2nd contains lots of lovely sticky dates.  The cooking instructions are all on the back of the packet but it's pretty much a case of bung it in a pot, stick it in the oven and leave for a couple of hours.  All the ingredients are of a very high quality.  Yes, they could probably make the product cheaper but I think it's worth the price of £4.49 (website price, only £3.32 on Facebook, hooray!) for the excellent quality of the ingredients.

This is the end result...

Sorry I didn't make it look prettier by presenting it on a plate, but really, what's more welcoming and warming than a big casserole full of beef stew??  Loooovely!  The dates melt into the sauce to give it a sticky sweetness and wonderful depth, the spices are subtle and warming and fragrant.  We had it with mash one night and a huge baked potato with butter another night. If you like comfort food, this is for you!  My son is almost 9 and he ranks this as one of his favourite dinners ever. WIN!!

A few nights later I thought I should try another mix to make sure the success of the Warm & Sultry wasn't a one off. Ahem...  So I popped to the butcher, bought some pork ribs which, judging by the size of them, I'm not entirely sure didn't come from some mutant dinosaur pig, and tore into the Sticky & Sweet mix...

Again, fabulous packaging!!  The first packet in this mix contains a mix of sugar and spices including star anise and cinnamon, the second packet is soy sauce. Once again I was struck by the really good quality of the ingredients. The star anise were all large and chunky, the cinnamon was thick and coarse and held together rather than disintegrating into dust like cheaper variations are inclined to do, and the soy sauce was thick and rich and obviously excellent quality.  Again, it's a case of bung it all together and stick it in the oven to cook low and slow.  Here's our mutant ribs all tossed in the mix and ready to go into the oven...

Phwoar!!!  The smell even from the raw spices was amazing!  After a couple of hours in a low oven they became...

Not the prettiest presentation again!  I just threw some veg into a wok and did a quick stir fry to serve with the ribs, this picture was taken as my lad was on his way to munch on it.  Another success!

The quality of the ingredients really made this dish shine.  You can't go far wrong with good quality ingredients cooked simply.

I have yet to try the Fragrant & Fiery mix but I'm pretty confident it will become another favourite in our house.  So go on, treat yourself and stock up on a few Foodles mixes. And if you try them, please leave a comment below to let me know what you thought.

Also, if you like the idea of easy peasy mixes to throw in a pot and end up with a delicious dish, then watch out for my upcoming blog on one of my favourite Fife companies, Chillipapas.  (www.chillipapas.com)

Happy eating!