Prawns with Mango and Rice Noodles

... recipe courtesy of Rick Stein's Far Eastern Oddessey

Fry an onion, a little chilli and a couple of crushed garlic cloves. Cook for 5 mins.
Add raw prawns, salt and pepper, the juice of two limes and a teaspoon of cornflour in a little water, and one whole fresh mango, cut into cubes. Cook for about 5 minutes or until the prawns are cooked, and serve with freshly cooked rice noodles.

Simple and delicious!

Pasta with Chicken and Chorizo

Not dissimilar to the recipe for pasta with a spicy prawn sauce, but subtly different. Really yummy!

2 onions (finely chopped)

3 cloves garlic, crushed

1/2 tsp chilli, crushed

8 tomatoes, skinned and in 8s

2 tbsp tomato puree

1 chicken breast, in strips

150 g chorizo, cubed

2 tsp lemon juice

fresh basil

salt and pepper

1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

Fry the onions, garlic and chilli. Add the tomatoes and tomato puree and cook a few minutes. Add the chicken and chorizo and cook until the chicken is fully cooked through. Add the lemon juice, balsamic vinegar, and season. Tear the basil into small pieces and add just before serving on freshly cooked pasta.

Enjoy!

Pasta with Spicy Prawns

Mmmm... spicy...

2 onions

3 cloves garlic

5 tomatoes

100 g fresh peeled king prawns

1/2 tsp chilli (of the very lazy variety)

2 tbsp tomato puree

3 tbsp chopped fresh coriander

1.5 tsp balsamic vinegar

salt and pepper

Finely chop the onions and fry with with the crushed garlic. Skin the tomatoes, and chope into 8s. Add these with all the other ingredients except the prawns. Cook until reduced down.

Add pasta to pan of boiling water, and at the same time add the prawns to the sauce. Serve as soon as the pasta is done.

Beef stew and dumplings

Yum!

500g casserole beef

3 small onions, chopped into 8s

3 garlic cloves, chopped

300 ml passata

75 ml red wine

200 ml beef stock

good squirt of tomato ketchup (~ 2-3 tbsp)

worcester sauce (1tbsp)

olive oil

1 small celeriac, peeled and diced

1 small leek, chopped

3 celery sticks, chopped

12 button mushrooms

12 cherry tomatoes

2 bay leaves

6 juniper berries

chilli flakes (to taste)

salt and pepper

Fry the onion, garlic and beef in the olive oil until the beef is browned and the onions soft and translucent. Add the passata, ketchup, worcester sauce, wine, stock, celeriac, leek, celery, bay leaves, juniper berries, chilli flakes, salt and pepper. Cook on a medium hob for about 30 minutes, then add the mushrooms and tomatoes. Cook in moderate oven for a further 90 mins or so, covered for the first 45, then uncovered for the last 45 mins to allow the sauce to slightly thicken.

Dumplings:

50 g self-raising flour

25 g vegetable suet

1 tsp horseradish sauce

sufficient water to make into thick doughy paste; mould into small balls (makes 4)

Add the dumplings about 20 mins prior to the end of the cooking time of the stew.

Apple and Cinnamon Loaf Cake

This is the recipe for an apple and cinnamon loaf cake that I made on Saturday. It came out, I have to say, rather well, and definitely didn't last long in the lab! It's adapted from the banana loaf in Nigella Lawson's "How to be a Domestic Goddess," which is probably one of the best baking books around. I like her style of writing and the pictures are good too!

Make sure you have the right size baking tin...

Ingredients:

100 g sultanas
25 ml rum
50 ml mulled wine (the kind you buy in a bottle ready to heat up)
175 g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
¹/₂ tsp bicarbonate of soda
¹/₂ tsp salt
125 g butter, melted
150 g sugar
2 eggs
3-4 apples (you want 300 g once peeled and cored
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cinnamon

Method

Put sultanas, rum and wine into a small saucepan. Heat until almost boiling, cover and remove from the heat. Leave for one hour for the sultanas to adsorb the liquid.

Chop peeled and cored apple into largish chunks. Place in a saucepan with some water and boil until soft, adding more water if necessary. Once soft, continue to boil until any remaining liquid has evaporated. Using a potato masher (or a fork), mash the apple - you want it somewhat lumpy, not entirely smooth.

Mix flour, baking powder, bicarb, cinnamon and salt in a bowl. In a separate (larger) bowl, mix melted butter (you can melt it in the steam from boiling the apples) and sugarand beat until blended. Add the eggs, one at a time, and then the apple, beating after each addition. Then add the sultanas (and any remaining liquid) and the vanilla extract and beat. Add the flour mix, a third at a time, mixing well after each addition.

Line (or oil and flour) a 23x13x7 cm loaf tin and add the mixture. Place in a preheated oven, 170 ^oC/gas mark 3 for 1 - 1¹/₄ hours. Once cooked, an inserted skewer should come out clean.

Leave to cool completely before removing from the tin.

Lamb Shanks in a Red Wine, Rosemary and Mint Sauce

This is the first recipe that I've posted. I'm a great fan of trying new recipes and, where necessary, making them up from first principles. This is a recipe I tried a couple of weeks ago - we decided to treat ourselves to lamb, and thought that we'd try the shank. The recipe book we have suggested a sort of tomato ragout to go with it, but I decided instead to try a traditional restaurant classic, the red wine, rosemary and mint sauce. It turned out fantastically; really really rich and tasty, and would be a fantastic sauce to make as a gravy if you prefered chops. I have to say, though, the natural fat in the shank makes it an ideal cut, plus it looks really impressive! The sauce made the right amount to casserole two shanks; if you're doing more you may choose to use larger quantities to enable the shanks to remain covered with sauce whilst cooking.

Ingredients:
1 lamb shank per person
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
250 ml beef stock (made with, for example, Bovril)
150 ml red wine
6 tsp mint sauce
1 tbsp dried rosemary
1 tbsp mixed herbs
2 bay leaves
250 g passata (sieved tomatoes, you can buy them in most supermarkets)
Worcester sauce
Salt and pepper

Method:
Brown the lamb shanks in a frying pan over a moderate heat for around 20 minutes. Place them on one side whilst cooking the sauce.

Skin and finely chop the onion; skin and crush the garlic. Fry over a low heat until soft. Add the stock and the wine, and simmer for a couple of minutes. Add the mint sauce, rosemary, mixed herbs, bay leaves, and passata, and cook fairly hard, stirring reguarly, until the sauce is reduced. Add worcester sauce, salt and pepper to taste.

Place the lamb shanks in a casserole. Pour over the sauce. Don't worry if part of the shank is uncovered, however in this case turn the shanks over every 20-30 minutes during cooking. Cook on a moderate heat for three hours. If necessary, reduce the sauce further post cooking to the consistency you desire; it should, however, be fine as it is.

Enjoy!

[Sauce contains 7 syns on original or green Slimming World eating plans]