Claire's Cake Bake & Other Foodiness

Tonight we had a quick tea of chicken with some very easy puy lentils and roast tomato salad.

Puy Lentil Salad

• 4/6 tomatoes halved (drizzle with oil)
• 100g puy lentils
• 1/2 lemon juice
• 1/2 garlic clove
• 1/2 small red onion, sliced
• handful of coriander

1. Heat oven to 180°c & roast tomatoes (I put the chicken in for 15 mins first, then added the tomatoes for another 15/20 mins)
2. Cook puy lentils in a pan of cold water for 20 minutes
3. Mix lentils with lemon juice, garlic, onion & 2 tablespoons of olive oil (*).

Serve & eat.

(*) not necessarily required as I forgot this!

Based upon this Good Food recipe, tonight I made us some tarts.

Upon the puff pastry base I put some feta, little drops of pesto, a small amount of shallot, sliced tomatoes and a little more feta with a drizzle of olive oil.
Baked for 20 minutes on 200° then garnished with some olives & basil and a drizzle of olive oil and balsamic vinegar.
Tasty but the pesto did run so quite a lot of the taste was taken over by it.

From Something for the Weekend by Simon Rimmer (click link for recipe)

Even Hubby, who doesn’t like fish, thought they were tasty…

So this morning we popped over to Liverpool to buy some bin bags! and came home with a few bargains from Monsoon.

Numero uno - a rather nice corset (£65 reduced to £10)

Numero dos - a new t-shirt for Hubby (£30 reduced to £5)

Numero tres - some brown cord trousers for Hubby (£75 reduced to £5)
So a spend of £20 and a saving of £150! and some nice catalogue posing on the balcony ;)

We then came home & made some Huevos rancheros for lunch which is basically an onion, some garlic, a red pepper (which we didn’t have) and some chilli cooked down then a can of chopped tomatoes is added. After 5 minutes add 2 eggs, cover & cook until the eggs are done just like you want them.

Served with some wholemeal pita it makes quite a healthy tasty meal.

A Simon Rimmer recipe from Delicious magazine (June 07) - for 4 people

The paste (though it needed more chillies)

• 1 tsp each cumin & coriander seeds
• 5 Thai chillies (I used normal green ones, but only 2 - next time use 5!)
• 2 shallots (roughly chopped)
• 2 garlic cloves (roughly chopped)
• 4cm ginger, grated
• 2 lemongrass stalks, chopped
• Finely grated zest 1 lime
• 1/4 tsp turmeric
• 1/2 tsp palm sugar (I used golden brown normal sugar as we couldn’t find any)
• splash vegetable oil

Dry fry the spices & then grind with pestle and mortar. Put in blender & add the other ingredients.

And the veg

• 400ml can coconut milk
• 3 courgettes, thickly slicedd
• 250g shelled broad beans
• 250g asparagus
• 10 fresh basil leaves

1. Warm some oil in a pan & add 40g paste and cook for 2 minutes.
2. Add coconut milk & simmer for 5 minutes
3. Toss courgette in oil & griddle for 2 minutes each side
4. Add courgette to the curry & simmer for 6 minutes
5. Add the asparagus & broad beans and cook for 3-4 minutes
6. Stir in the basil

Our dinner…

1 onion.

1 clove garlic.

Soften in olive oil.

Add a generous glug of vermouth or white wine.

Add spinach (wilted) & a glug of single cream & parmesan.

Serve mixed into tagliatelle.

Not bad as a quick meal.