A Sprout Is Not Just For Christmas.

In case you're not up to date, let me explain:

I moved to Berlin, like, three weeks ago.

Cooking at home has been unadventurous thus far (combo of lack of space to store/make things and lack of money, plus need to meet new people and therefore going for food to socialise...), but cooking at work has been challenging and interesting.

I work at a small high-end fashion label here, and we take turns to cook (though I tend to volunteer most days!) and then we all eat lunch together. Lovely!

But also, on a Tuesday, we get a big box of veg for the week, and we eat veggie meals. We've bought things to go with the veg (rice, pasta, eggs, yoghurt, curry paste, etc) but sometimes we get things we don't know what to do with - we roasted fennel last week (my first fennel experience).

Last week we got brussel sprouts (or Rosenkohl, as they call them here) - what does one do with brussel sprouts, other than eat them with Christmas dinner?!

We finally ate them today, and added them to the (masses of) leftover spinach and feta pasta from Friday.

I've got a lo-ve-ly bunch of brussel sprouts, di-di di-di

Wash 'em and chop 'em up small, and heat up a frying pan with plenty of butter in it.

Add salt and pepper and add more butter if necessary...they should be soft but with a bit of crunch on the outside.

Serve 'em as a side dish or chuck 'em in some pasta or something... (I reckon they'd be great in a stir fry and will endeavour to try this at some point in the near future.)

Fish In Bacon.

Does what it says on the tin - as published in some weekend magazine or other; simple, healthy and delcious.

This fed two of us:

2 white fish fillets (we had cod)
4 slices unsmoked bacon (the recipe called for 'thin bacon' or pancetta, but I don't like pancetta and I love bacon, and the cod/bacon combo was delish)

1/2 beef tomato
1 med courgette
1/2 yellow bell pepper

olive oil
thyme
black pepper
chilli (the recipe did call for chillies, but we wouldn't use them again and I had chilli powder in the house, so...)

------

Oven at 200 - ours is a fan oven, and the recipe didn't have an oven temperature on it (!) so this is an educated guess...

Chop up the veg. Place on a baking tray and sprinkle with the herbs+spices and drizzle on olive oil.
Place in oven for 20 minutes.

Wrap the fish in bacon and fry for a minute on each side to seal (I assume this part would work better with pancetta as our bacon just flopped about afterwards)
Place in an oven dish and bake for 15 minutes. (Veg and fish should be ready at the same time!)


served with a bit of salad and some crispy fried goats cheese (recipe as this link, but a warning: it is messy!)

Salmon Balls.

salmon balls.

does what it says on the tin.

much like meatballs, but considerably more fishy and pink.

you will need

one small tin of salmon

plain flour

butter

salt, pepper and thyme

drain the salmon and mash it with a fork, in a bowl with the herbs. add some flour and shape small handfuls of the mixture into ball shapes.

heat up some butter in a frying pan.

drop the balls into the butter.

add to pasta - here i added sliced mushrooms, broccoli and spinach to the salmon balls, and then chucked in some cooked pasta with a cream cheese&milk sauce. add some worcester sauce for flavour and flour to thicken if necessary, then grate some cheese on top. et voila.

Noodle Soup.

so the other night i fancied noodles, but not a stir fry.
WHAT TO DO.
soup, that's what.

for two small-ish, but very filling portions, you'll need:

- one portion of noodles (i use sharwood's rice noodles which are perfect cos you can snap them in half for smaller noodle pieces, whereas an egg noodle nest is harder to break into smaller pieces...)
- half a carrot, peeled and sliced into really long, thin pieces.
- a handful of spinach
- an onion, sliced into biggish chunks
- a handful of frozen broccoli

- a handful of beansprouts

- one vegetable stock cube

- sprinkles of salt, pepper, chilli powder, ginger, worcestershire sauce and coriander

- a knob of butter*

- water

--------------------------

in a large pan, melt the butter and fry the onions until soft.

add the carrots and then add some of the water and all of the herbs and spices, and the stock cube. then chuck in all the other ingredients (snapping the noodles in half so you have smaller chunks!) and cook until the soup thickens up a bit - add flour if necessary.

SO easy; and very tasty.

* or a dairy free alternative for a vegan dish!

Stuffed Mushrooms.

or, more specifically, stuffed mushrooms on spicy rice with salad, taken on an iphone.

sorry for the pic quality...

for the mushrooms

3 big-ish, flat-ish mushrooms*

1 slice bacon

half a white onion

half a garlic clove

a splash of milk*

sprinkles of: basil, oregano, salt, pepper

*i made this a bit spur-of-the-moment, so i just picked the biggest, flattest ones i had, but i've since bought an actual flat mushroom, on of the really big ones. gonna try a different filling, more of a bolognese affair (mince. tomatoes. etc.)

for the rice

one portion brown rice

handful of peas

squirt of ketchup

dash of worcester sauce

sprinkles of: chilli powder, basil, pepper, salt

+ any mushroom filling that won't fit in the mushrooms

-----------

interesting flavours all around here...

turn on the oven; warm it up like.

boil some water, set the rice off cooking.

cut (or pull...) the stalks from the mushrooms, and place the mushroom caps on a baking tray.

fry the rest of the mushroom filling ingredients - leaving the milk til' near the end, it's just to give a little moisture to the proceedings.

spoon into the mushroom caps. drizzle with olive oil, shove in the oven to roast.

when the rice is nearly ready, bung a few peas in there. when there's only a little water left in the pan (or, because i always put far too much water in - on purpose, kthnx - strain the rice&peas and leave a little water in there with 'em) add the other ingredients, including any leftovers from the filling pan that didn't fit into the mushrooms.

check the flavour/spice is to your liking; plonk on a plate next to some salad leaves.

the mushrooms should be slightly browned and a little shrivelled by now, but as long as they're warm through they're done. serve!

course, omit the bacon for a veggie alternative, substituting it for red pepper or parsnip chunks.


* water can be substituted for vegans!

Bean Burgers.

So I had half a small can of red kidney beans this one time.
And I didn't fancy making chilli.
So I googled recipes, and I got the idea for a bean burger.

ingreds

half a can of red kidney beans
one small mushroom (or half a large one); chopped into small chunks
a handful of oats
sprinkles of: salt, pepper, chilli powder, coriander

oil to fry

--------

mash the kidney beans in a bowl
add the other ingredients, and mix together
if it's too dry (falling apart), add a few drips of oil; if it's too wet (sticky, etc), add more oats

scoop up and form into a burger shape
whack it into frying pan with a little oil; fry until browned

I served between 2 small slices of toast, with cream cheese and ketchup, but only cos that's all I have - usually a burger goes in a toasted muffin with some lettuce and ketchup. nomnom.

Pork Stir Fry.

this is our snazziest bowl.

it is square. it is deep. it is perfect for stir fries, pasta, and salad. it is always - ALWAYS - on the drying rack, because there is always someone in this house who has just used it.

this is also my superamazing chopsticks, as bought in the shop at the design museum in london last year for a measly £1.50. go there, honestly, it's one of the best museum shops i've ever seen. and I know museum shops, trust me.

ok, so, I make stir fries at least once a week. they're quick, and easy, and you can put anything in them. they're an excellent way to use up leftover meat, and they taste goooooood.

this one was especially good, because I marinated the meat beforehand.

this is a recipe for a one person serving.

ingredients

a handful of pork (i used a boneless chop, but any leftover pork shall do)

1/4 red pepper

1/4 yellow pepper

1/4 red onion

1 small garlic clove

1 handful of chopped spring greens

1 handful of beansprouts

one bundle of rice noodles

splashes of:

soy sauce

lemon juice

worcester sauce

ketchup

honey

sprinklings of:

salt

pepper

coriander

chilli powder

ginger

-----

you can use different coloured peppers or onions, or add in other veg that you prefer, but if you're not sure which ones to add to the marinade, then leave them out. (I put only the peppers and onions in, and I would keep it at that.)

I use rice noodles (from Blue Dragon; I assume they are available at all good supermarkets) because I prefer them, but you can use any noodles you like, I guess! - just follow the instructions on the packet; most noodles require boiling or soaking in boiling water before being added to the wok/frying pan.

-----

chop up the pork and all your veg into bitesize chunks, then add the first group of ingredients (pork, peppers, onions, garlic) to a tub or bowl. add to these the splashes and sprinklings, but leave the ketchup and honey for now.

put these in the fridge and leave them for a couple of hours - i left mine for about 2 hours and went to watch Misfits and read blogs, but you can leave them overnight or do this on a morning in preparation for an evening meal.

chop and wash the spring greens and pat them dry on kitchen paper - leave them to dry fully. this is how you make crispy seaweed, but you'd need to fry it in a separate frying pan for it to work properly!

when the pork is marinated, the spring greens dry and the noodles ready, start throwing them in a wok or large frying pan with a little oil and keep on stirring. I put the pork in first and let it brown off, then threw in the rest of the veg from the bowl, then the spring greens, then the beansprouts from the freezer.

add a teaspoon of honey and a squirt of ketchup; keep on stirring...

add the noodles; and stir until they're covered in the sauce. everything should now be cooked thoroughly - the food should only be in the pan for a few minutes total!

serve!

fin.

- jenn.