Lamb tagine with flatbread :)

I always forget about my beautiful tagine. This weekend I spied it hiding under the cupboard and decided to take advantage of a free weekend!

 I'm using Hugh fearnley whittingstall's 'magic bread dough' recipe again - it's honestly so easy you should definitely try it! You can play around with the ingredients in the tagine as long as you have a meat, some root veg, dried apricots, tinned tomatoes, stock and ras el hanout. 

Ingredients:

For the magic dough:

• 250g plain white flour
• 250g strong white flour
• 1½ level teaspoons fine sea salt
• 1 teaspoon instant dried yeast
• 1 tablespoon olive oil, plus a little extra for oiling

Recipe:

• Put the two flours into the bowl of the stand mixer with the salt and yeast. Mix well using the dough hook. Add the oil and 325ml warm water and mix to a rough dough. Knead for 5–10 minutes, until smooth. This is quite a loose and sticky dough, which is just as it should be – you get better-textured bread this way – so try not to add too much flour if you can help it, it will become less sticky as you knead.
• Trickle a little oil into a clean bowl, add the kneaded dough and turn it in the oil so it is covered with a light film. Cover with a tea towel or cling film and leave in a warm place to rise until doubled in size – at least an hour, probably closer to two – or if using the next day, wrap bowl in cling film and put straight into the fridge to prove slowly.
• When the dough is well risen and puffy, tip it out and ‘knock it back’ by poking it with your outstretched fingers until it collapses to its former size. It’s now ready to be shaped to your will.

For the tagine:

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp oil
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1 tbsp ras-el-hanout
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 600g lamb leg, diced into 2cm pieces, excess fat trimmed
• 200g butternut squash, diced
• 200g soft dried apricots
• 400g can chopped tomatoes
• 500ml lamb or beef stock
• zest 1 lemon
• small bunch coriander
• natural yogurt, to serve

Recipe:

1. Heat oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6. Heat the oil in a pan, add the onion and cook for 5 mins until softened. Add the garlic and spices and cook for a couple mins more, stirring to prevent them catching and burning.
2. Add the lamb, squash and apricots to the dish to brown
3. Then transfer the mix into the tagine, pour over the tomatoes and stock, season well and bring to the boil. Put the lid on and transfer to the oven. After 1 hr, stir the tagine and return to the oven, uncovered, for a further 30 mins.
4. Check the seasoning. Sprinkle over the zest and coriander, and serve in warm bowls with yogurt.

Aubergine and sweet potato Katsu curry

This is probably one of my best 'just made with stuff I found in the cupboard' dishes! It just so happened I had everything I needed for a delish Katsu curry. Next time I will blend the sauce a bit more though (as you can tell from the photo!)

Serves 2

For the sauce

A bit of olive oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic, minced
2 carrots, chopped
1 tbsp plain flour
1/2 tbsp curry powder
300ml vegetable stock
1 tsp honey
2 tsp soy sauce
1 bay leaf
A large pinch of garam masala

For the aubergines and sweet potato

Olive oil spray
1 free range egg, beaten
100g seasoned plain flour
200g panko breadcrumbs 

50g dukkha
1 sweet potato, peeled and sliced in to thin circly shapes
1 aubergine, chopped to the same width as the sweet potato

And some veg to serve, or rice if you prefer

1. Start by pre heating the oven to 180 degrees and setting up your egg, seasoned flour, dukkha and panko breadcrumbs in separate bowls then pop to one side
2. Heat a little olive oil in a sauce pan, then add the onion and garlic and sweat on a low heat for 2 minutes. 
3. Then add the carrot, pop the lid on and leave to soften, stirring occasionally. 
4. While the carrot is cooking away, prepare a large baking tray by spraying with olive oil, then take your slices of sweet potato, first coating them in the breaded flour, then dipping them in egg, then covering them in dukka or the panko bread crumbs (alternate which one you coat it with).
5. Place each one on to the baking tray and spray well with the oil and pop in to the oven for around 30 minutes.
6. Go back to your sauce and add the flour and curry powder and mix in well. 
7. Add the vegetable stock, soy sauce and honey, bring to the boil and simmer for around 20 minutes. 
8. After 20 minutes add the garam masala, then blend
9. Remove the vegetables from the oven (they should be lovely and golden brown) and stack on your plate along side the veg. 
10. Pour over the sauce and enjoy!

Salmon and greens

Nice and light and summery, with my quantities of veg (about 4 times too much for anyone else!!) season with whatever you have to hand, I had some fresh basil so basil salmon it is!

Ingredients:

One piece of salmon

A couple of big handful of green veg

Quinoa

Seasonings

Directions (do you really need them?!)

1. Cook the quinoa for 20 mins until slightly translucent 

2. Cook the salmon in a hot frying pan for 3 mins on each side

3. Cook the veg in a steamer or pan of water for 4 mins 

The salad to beat all other salads.

The photo won't do this salad justice. Nothing could. I could eat this every day for a month. So if your anything like me these ingredients will sell this salad to you and you will immediately drop whatever you're doing, rush out to go and make this :) sneak off, slink away, dash off, whatever you need to do...just eat this plate of deliciousness!! 

Avocado. (Im sold already.....). 

Smoked salmon. 

Assorted tomatoes (hello, assorted - fancy!).

Fresh garden peas. 

Rocket. 

Basil. 

Spring onion. 

Cucumber. 

Grapes. 

Olive oil. 

Chilli sauce. 

Recipe....

You really need a recipe? Throw together the ingredients listed above, season, and devour :) 

Lemon sole and caper salad

It's finally sunny!! And when summer is here all I want to do is lie outside in the sunshine, eat salads and rejoice that hibernation is over! Wahoo, time to et your legs out my friend! 

This weekend I had to trade off a little sunbathing in order to watch the tennis but wow was it worth it! 

Anyhow, when I had finally dragged myself away from both the tennis and the sunshine, I realised there was no food as I have been too busy sunbathing and watching tennis to go to the shops... Luckily there is always at least 3 kinds of fish hanging about in my freezer for such an occasion :)

You can probably guess the ingredients if not the recipe just from looking at the picture, but if you're a stickler for recipes here goes 

Ingredients: 

2 small fillets lemon sole

3 tbsp plain flour

3 slices lemon

Half a packet of lentils 

Salad (cucumber, pepper, whatever you fancy)

Olive oil

Balsamic vinegar

Seasonings 

1 tbsp capers

Recipe:

1. Place the flour onto a plate and coat the fish with it

2. Heat butter in a pan and cook the lemon slices for about 2 mins

3. Move the lemon slices to the side and add in the lemon sole- cook for around 2 mins on each side

4. Meanwhile mix the lentils, salad, dressings and seasoning together and plate up

5. Throw the capers in the pan for the lat minute, then take off the heat and place the fish, lemon and capers on top of the salad

6. Squeeze over some more lemon juice to taste 

Giant couscous with spicy meatballs

I've never tried giant couscous before and was meaning to try it for a while. I was going to have it with fish, one of my favourites to go with couscous, but then I  read about the meatballs and had to try them! 

Ingredients (per person):

50g giant whole wheat couscous

100g meatballs

Half an onion 

Half a can of kidney beans in chilli sauce

Extra chilli sauce, as required

Cumin, paprika (1 tsp of each)

Salt and pepper 

Green veg, to serve

Recipe: 

1. Fry the couscous for 2-3mins in oil, then add 100ml cold water and stir until softened for 15mins (ish)

2. Meanwhile, dice the onion and fry it with the meatballs

3. After 5 mins add the kidney beans and hills sauce and season to taste

4. Serve the couscous with the meatballs and green veg

(Mmmmm) chicken salad

As lunch-time salads go, this has to be one of the best - half warm ingredients and half cold, with a simple olive oil and balsamic dressing.

Ingredients:

Half a chicken breast

1 small beetroot, sliced

Lettuce leaves

A handful of vine tomatoes

Cucumber

5 dried apricots 

Cumin, salt and pepper

Olive oil

Balsamic vinegar

Lemon juice

Recipe:

1. Season the chicken breast and fry over a low heat until cooked, throwing in the tomatoes for the last 3 mins

2. Chop up all the other ingredients and throw into a bowl

3. Mix the olive oil, balsamic vinegar and lemon juice and dress the salad