Soya mince chilli with seedy rice

I know what you’re thinking. “Mmmmmmmm, soya mince”. But this is proper tasty. And ripe for freezing and reheating in the work kitchen microwave. I guess this could be made with beef mince too.

Chop a large onion. Chop up two cloves of garlic. Add to a big heated saucepan which has got some oil in it. Add some chopped mushrooms and a thickly sliced green pepper. Fry off for a bit, and add plenty of dried oregano and cayenne pepper, and throw in a can of kidney beans.

While this is cooking off, put around 120g of soya mince in a jug, and rehydrate with boiling water and a generous sprinkle of vegetable buillion powder. Lace with tabasco sauce and worcester sauce, stir and wait a bit until the mince has rehydrated before pouring into the pan. Add a can of chopped tomatoes, a handful of cherry tomatoes, and a couple of teaspoons of tomato paste.

Put a dollop of marmite in the bottom of the can the tomatoes came in, add about a teaspoon of buillion powder and fill with any remaining boiled water, stir and add the liquid to the pan. Add more cayenne pepper and/or chilli flakes to taste, and cook for around 15-20 minutes until the chili is more sauce than liquid.

For the rice, boil up 250g of American easy cook rice with a splash of oil. Half way through cooking, add a couple of generous handfuls of pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds.

This should make about six portions.

Vegetable chilli

I’ve been cooking a lot of asian food recently, largely to the amount of flavour I could get out of essentially just veg. So I thought I’d try a few subtle twists on a vegetable chilli. They’re twists in the sense that I’ve never used them in this kind of recipe before. I think it turned out well.

Ingredients
1 large onion, chopped
2 carrots, roughly chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
smallish chunk of ginger, finely chopped
6-7 medium-sized mushrooms, roughly chopped
can of kidney beans
can of chick peas
can of plum tomatos
1 green pepper, roughly sliced
1 red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
2 tsp of tomato puree
handful of oregano
sprinkle of pepper
generous splash of soy sauce
few drops of tabasco to taste
juice of one lime

In a stock pot or large saucepan, cook the onion in a small amount of oil, until browned. Add the chilli, garlic, ginger, oregano and mushrooms and cook unto the mushrooms have softened. To the mixture add the chopped carrots, green pepper, kidney beans, chick peas, tomato and tomato puree, with the soy sauce and enough tabasco to taste. Season with pepper, and ensure there is enough liquid to cook for 20-25 minutes. About half way through, incorporate the juice of one lime. The chilli is cooked when the carrot has softened and the sauce has thickened. Serve with rice, or cous cous, or whatever you’d normally have a chilli with.

Eggy bread breakfast sandwich

I made this yesterday morning. It’s the perfect hangover material without being too bad (or at least not as bad as a fry up).

Ingredients
2 eggs per person
2 slices of bread per person
haloumi cheese
sliced ham
splash of milk
tomato ketchup
ground white pepper

For the eggy bread:
Beat the eggs with the milk, and add a generous sprinkling of pepper (just like for making scrambled eggs). Soak each side of a piece of bread, and cook on a lightly greased griddle pan turning every now and again until both sides are browned. If making lots then make sure they stay warm, while cooking the others.

For the filling:
Slice up enough haloumi cheese to comfortably fill each sandwich, and cook on the griddle until nicely browned. Add the cooked cheese with a slice of ham to each sandwich, and a smudge of ketchup (or brown sauce) if you’re that way inclined.

Malaysian Chicken Soup

From the back of a Pret sandwich…

Ingredients
1/2 tsp dried, red chilli flakes
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
2cm chopped galangal (ginger)
1 1/2 tsp tumeric
2 medium red chillies chopped and deseeded
1 stick of lemongrass, finely chopped
2 medium shallots, finely chopped
1 1/2 tbsp vegetable oil

1ltr chicken stock
2 medium potatoes, diced
2 chicken thighs
200ml coconut cream
1 large sweet potato, diced
2 tbsp fish sauce
3 spring onions, sliced
Juice of lime

Rehydrate chilli flakes in water for about 5 minutes, then add the garlic, galangal, turmeric, red chillies, lemon grass, shallots and oil and fry for about 20 minutes. That’ll make the paste.

To the paste, add the chicken stock and potatoes and simmer until the potatoes are soft. Blend until smooth and add the sweet potato, coconut cream and chicken and cook for another 10 minutes until the sweet potato and chicken is cooked. Then add the fish sauce and lime juice, and top with spring onion to serve.

Potentially Healthy Muffins

They’ve been sold as healthy to me, although with all that butter and sugar I think it’s a rather flexible use of the word.

115g butter
110g brown sugar
3 mashed bananas
115ml milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
175g wholemeal flour
100g wheat bran
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
handful of chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 190. Mix sugar and butter until ‘creamy’. Add mashed bananas, milk, vanilla, eggs and milk. Combine the flour, bran, baking powder, baking soda and salt, and add that to the mixture. Pour generously into muffin cases (this should make about 14 decent sized muffins) and put in the oven for 20-25 minutes.

I have eaten some and frozen some. They look like this.