To buy or not to buy - a bread making machine

I remember being young and trying to cook bread with my mother.  I also remember that it often did not come out well and it was a whole lot of work.  But fresh bread is such a luxury.  I love the way bread smells as it's cooking and then breaking into a warm piece and eating it with just melting butter.  You just can't beat it.

So when my friend told me about her bread machine, I was very interested.  It's a Panasonic Bread Machine SD255.  You basically put in a number of ingredients, press a few buttons, wait a bit and presto, fresh bread.  Various different types of bread depending on your mood (and ingredients!).  You can time it so that it makes the bread for a specified time later.  Just put all the ingredients in, set when you want it to be ready for and that's it. Amazing - fresh bread for weekend breakfast!  But best of all?  It also makes pizza dough!

Homemade spring vegetable pizza

For the dough:

- 300 g flour

- 1 tsp salt

- 1 tbsp olive oil

- 1/2 teaspoon dry yeast

- 170 ml water

Put all the ingredients in the breadmaker.  Once the dough is ready, roll it out on a try and put it in a 180 C oven for 15 mins.  Take the dough out and stretch it out over the tray again - it will have shrunk a bit in the oven. 

Now for the toppings!

- Tomato sauce

- Pesto

- A selection of vegetables, such as asparagus tips, mushrooms, onions

- Dried chili flakes to taste

- Fresh buffalo mozzarella

- Fresh Parmesan

- Fresh basil

Cover the dough in your chosen sauce - we went for half tomato, half pesto.  Then arrange the vegetables and mozzarella cheese to your liking.  Sprinkle the chili flakes, herbs and finally grate some Parmesan over the top.  Pop it in the oven for another 15 mins or until the cheese is golden brown.  Enjoy with a cold glass of white wine!

Cold days need a hearty, warming soup

I'm so tired of the cold.  I feel that this year it has been cold forever.  And so much colder than it has ever been before.  To be fair, I probably think the same thing at around the same time, every year.  But surely this year it REALLY has been so much colder for so much longer!

So how better to warm up with than a big bowl of hearty soup.  I have been eating a lot of soup this year and I've grown quite tired of the same old recipes.  So when I came across this soup in Jamie Oliver's magazine I was very pleased.  I had been looing for something new to do with lentils, and this soup is just like a big, warm hug.  Of course I made some changes here and there - so here's my version of Jamie's soup!

Lentil and Pasta Soup

Serves 4

For the lentils:

300g puy lentils

water

1 bay leaf

olive oil

salt

For the soup:

1 onion finely chopped

3 cloves garlic finely chopped

olive oil

1 can plum tomatoes in juice

1 or 2 chillies (to taste) finely chopped

1/2 liter of stock

1/2 liter of water

200g small pasta

Fresh Parmesan to grate over the top

1.  In a big pot, cover the lentils with about 2 inches of water, add a splash of olive oil, bay leaf and salt.  Bring to the boil then turn down the heat, cover and let simmer for approx 25 mins or until the lentils are almost done - they should still have a bit of crunch.  Keep a cup of the cooking water for later and drain the lentils.

2.  Using the same pot, pour in a good glug of olive oil and saute the onions and garlic on medium heat for approx 5 mins.  Drain the tomatoes and add along with the chillies.  Simmer until the tomatoes have broken up.

3.  Add the lentils, stock and water to the pot.  Bring to the boil, reduce the heat, cover and let simmer for 10 mins.

4.  Add the pasta to the pot - if the mixture looks a bit dry, add more water.  Bring the heat up so the mixture bubbles and cook covered until the pasta is done.  Add salt and pepper as needed.
5.  Serve pipping hot with (the best bit!) a good amount of freshly grated Parmesan on top.  Delish!

Quick and simple - spicy vegetable tortelloni

As much as I would love to have enough time (and energy!) everyday to make amazing, fresh food, it does not always work out that way.  Last night was one of those evenings. Store bought  tortelloni is something we almost always have in the house.  It's quick (cooks in 2 mins!) and, with a little imagination, can be made quite interesting.  Make sure you always have freshly grated Parmesan cheese.  For the recipe below I used arrabiata filled tortelloni, but it would work just as well with most of the other flavours.

Spicy vegetable tortelloni
Serves 2, preparing and cooking time 20 mins

1 packet of tortelloni
3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
big pinch of dried oregano
big pinch of dried basil
1 clove garlic
1-2 dried chillies
1 courgette
4-5 mushrooms
2 handfuls of fresh baby spinach leaves
freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Mix the oil with the oregano, basil, garlic and dried chillies and set aside.

Bring a pot of water with salt to the boil.  Cook the tortelloni for one minute less than the packet recommends.  Reserve a couple of tablespoons of the cooking water then drain.

Grate the courgettes on the coarse side of your grater.  Repeat with the mushrooms.  In a non stick pot using 1/4 of the oil mixture, cook the mushrooms on medium high heat for 3-4 mins or until most of the liquid has been cooked out of the mushrooms.  Add the courgette and cook for another minute or two while continuously stirring.

Rinse the tortelloni quickly in cold water to stop them sticking together.  Add the tortelloni to the pot along with the rest of the oil mixture, cooking water and spinach.  Mix well and cook for a further 5 minutes or until most of the liquid has evaporated and everything is piping hot.  Serve with fresh Parmesan sprinkled over the top.

Get the Tayyebs smell!

You never think Tuesday night is going to be a busy night. Especially on a very cold evening a couple of weeks before Christmas. So imagine our surprise when we showed up at Tayyebs and had to wait almost an hour to get a table.

The menu has a large number of choices allowing you to order various meats in quite small portions. To make things simple, we opted for the mixed grill, sag alloo and the dhal, along with regular sides such as nanns and rice. Being Punjabi, the food is more spicy than what you may expect from your typical Indian restaurant. Even the poppadoms were spicy! The mixed grill included pieces of chicken (which I have to say were a little on the dry side), lamb kofta and the best bit, lamb chops to die for! Both the vegetarian dishes were also excellent - the dhal was thick and creamy while the sag alloo, although it did not look like much, was extremely well spiced and very tasty.

The only real complaint we hasd was the lack of ventilation in the restaurant. Many of the meat dishes are served on sizzling platters. Due to this, everything we were wearing or had with us smelt of cooking for the next two days. But this is a small price to pay to enjoy such tasty food at very reasonable prices. Also, if you want a beer or some wine, you'll need to bring it with you.