I also have my eye on this summer spelt recipe from Mostly Eating – keep up the good work Sophie!

Equipment & Ingredients

• Rolling Mat
• Sushi Rice
• Nori – the seaweed wrap
• Rice vinegar/seasoning
• Pickled, Sliced Ginger
• Soy Sauce
• Fillings – we started off tame & used cucumber, red pepper and spring onion (& a little green chilli in some)

Method

Cook rice as instructions on the packet, add rice vinegar & leave to cool for 30 minutes. Then…

1. Place Nori rough side up on rolling mat & place rice onto two thirds of it
2. Add filling of your choice then dampen the last third of the nori wih a little water
3. Carefully roll sushi using mat – keep a tight hold of the roll
4. Slice with a sharp knife ito slices about 1″ thick
5. Serve with soy sauce and ginger

Next time we need better fillings as these were a little bit bland. I have avocado and tuna in mind. Any more suggestions would be very welcome!

This years rituals included eating dinner at our parents house, drinking wine from the home of the opposition and sitting in the same seat. My parents were away this weekend but that didn’t stop us all piling round there for food & drink before sitting down to enjoy the match.

I had offered to cook – but then I realised it would be for 6 people, including my brothers who prefer their meat. I don’t eat much meat & really cant bear the smell of red meat cooking so I opted for a cheeky Cornbread Topped Vegetarian Chilli served with homemade Guacamole, Sour Cream & Grated Cheese.

The recipe I took from Nigella’s book Feast.

Ingredients (Serves 10 – 0r 6 hungry peeps + leftovers for freezing)

For the Chilli:

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 medium onions, finely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 red peppers, finely chopped
• 2 teaspoons dried chilli flakes
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 3 cardamon pods, crushed
• 300g red lentils
• 2 x 400g chopped tomatoes
• 750ml water
• 2 x 400g kidney beans
• 4 tablespoons tomato ketchup
• 4 tablespoons tomato puree
• 1 tablespoon cocoa

How to Do It

1. In a VERY large pan – heat oil & fry onion, garlic and pepper until soft
2. Throw in the spices – chilli, coriander, cumin and cardamon pods. Stir
3. Add lentils. Stir
4. Next, add the other ingredients – water, tomatoes, kidney beans, ketchup, tomato puree & cocoa.
5. Bring this mixture to the boil and simmer (with lid on) for 45 minutes – though check & stir regularly.
6. At this point you can proceed to cook or pop it in the fridge until your ready for the next stage (or cool it down and freeze it). It was at this point I packed everything up & took it to my parents house to finish.

For the Cornbread Topping:

• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 325g Cornmeal (I used ground corn as this was the nearest we could find – in Sainsburys)
• 3 tablespoons plain flour
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 375ml buttermilk
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon honey
• 2 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 75g cheese

1. Combine all dry ingredients in a bowl – salt, cornmeal, plain flour, baking powder & cinnamon
2. In a jug, whisk the wet ingredients – milk, oil, eggs & honey
3. Throw the liquid into the dry mixture & whisk to a batter NB. mine was more like a thick dough, maybe caused by measuring problems, but it worked.
4. Put you chilli mixture in a large dish (Nigella suggests 23cm x 32cm with a 7.5cm height)
5. Pour (or scoop) the batter on top of the chilli
6. Top with grated cheese.
7. Cook for 25 minutes at 220°c
8. Serve with guacamole, grated cheese & sour cream.

Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo in the rush to get warm food on the table. I do have a photo of the left overs though!

For pudding a quickly made some Passion Fruit Creme Brulee’s – a recipe from Delias website which can be found by clicking here.

The before cooking stage:

And the readyto eat stage:

Unfortunately England played well but couldn’t manage a win against those pesky Sarf Africans – nevermind. Maybe in another 4 years ;)

Last night I made the chilli & I am not a big fan of the stuff but Hubby quite likes it so this was really for him.

Ingredients (From Delicious magazine May 07)

• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• 300g frozen quorn (Tescos didn’t have any so I used a 350g box from the refrigerator section but its £1 more expensive!!)
• 2 peppers, chopped fairly small
• 3 cloves garlic, crushed
• 2 teaspoons of lightly crush cumin seeds
• 320g jar of tomato & chilli pasta sauce
• 1 tine of kidney beans

How to Do It

1. Heat oil & cook peppers for 5 minutes
2. Add garlic & cumin seeds & quorn – cook for for 3/4mins
3. Add kidney beans & sauce + a further 160g water – simmer for 20 mins
4. Serve with rice

We also had the suggested sour cream & guacamole.

It was very easy & the cumin really made it for me. For once, I am looking forward to the second serving of this which is sitting in the fridge.