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.)

Product: Garlic Card

this thing is genius; and i can't understand how it actually works, but work it does.

i give you the garlic card.

i bought it in the design museum when i was in london... (but you can buy it on amazon - it comes in a range of colours; i got red cos i have red chopsticks, also from the design museum. i see a theme developing here.)

...and basically, it purees garlic.

and you think "well that doesn't look like much!", but then you swipe the puree off the card with your finger, and into a pan/into a bowl and it looks like quite a lot of puree, AND THEN your meal is remarkably garlic-y.

i mixed it with pepper, oregano and soya butter.....

...then spread it on some bread and grilled. garlic bread! (perfectly garlic-y!)

served with fry-veg soup...?

i read this recipe on some site the other day and tried to recreate it from memory since i didn't bookmark it...

one large tomato, cut into chunks

one medium onion, cut into chunks

one large mushroom (or a few smaller ones), sliced

fry in olive oil until brown

add stock, mixed into a cup of warm water

add half a tin of chopped tomatoes

flavour with salt, pepper, basil, oregano and worcester sauce, and a squirt of ketchup if you are a fan of the sweet taste

put a lid on the frying pan and simmer until the sauce thickens (10-15 mins).

serve with crusty bread - or garlic bread!

a hearty but small tea or a great lunch dish!

NB: i also topped mine with thinly sliced goats cheese and pepper.

great tip!

in order to melt the cheese and keep the dish

warm while the bread finishes off browning, put

the pan lid on top of the bowl for a minute or two!

Tortillas.

decided on a whim that i'd like a wrap for tea the other night, but had no change on me to pop to the corner shop for tortilla wraps. a quick google told me i had all the ingredients and so i set about making em from scratch!

scroll down for tortilla recipes and some filling suggestions inc. one veggie/vegan option...

chicken & avocado tortillas with spicy rice

tortillas

this is really still in trial and error phase - i've made them on two occasions, both producing great tortillas, but of different sizes and amounts of tortillas. as such, this will, i think, make 2 decent sized tortillas (about 10 inches across, but very unlikely to be circular!)

4 heaped tablespoons plain flour

large dash of salt

1 tablespoon olive oil

warmed up milk (add as necessary)

pepper (optional)

you can also add other herbs/spices/flavourings as desired, but these make great plain tortillas!

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add flour, salt, pepper and olive oil to a bowl and stir together with a spoon. gradually add the milk (i heated a little through in the microwave) and stir or whisk 'til you have a slightly sticky dough. turn it out onto a floured surface and knead, knead, knead for a few minutes - it should take the stickiness out of the dough! split the ball into smaller balls (one for each tortilla) and leave to rest in the fridge for about half an hour.

heat a little olive oil in a non-stick frying pan.

flour up a rolling pin and a bench and roll out your tortilla - they should be as thin as possible, and you're trying to get them round (but mine were either square or wonky; no matter). you can also pick them up and let gravity do it's thing if they're thin enough! whack them in your pan for about a minute on each side (they should crisp up a bit and, well, look like tortillas!) then stick them on a plate. they can then either be filled or you can cover them in cling film and leave them in the fridge for a couple of days - great if you like to eat wraps instead of sandwiches!

**the website i got this from also included baking powder but i had none and didn't notice a difference!

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now you've got your tortillas, you can fill 'em. these are three fillings i've had in my tortillas over the last couple of days - 2 chicken-y numbers for tea (with homemade fries and spicy rice, respectively) and one for veggie lunch option.

chicken and humous - fills two tortillas (or one large one)

one small chicken breast, cut into strips & marinated

half a tomato, thinly sliced

1/2 a small white onion, sliced

1/3 red pepper, sliced

1/3 yellow pepper, sliced

a big dollop of humous

1 heaped tablespoon natural yoghurt

mint

for the marinade: olive oil, plus squirts and splashes of ketchup, honey, worcester sauce and fish sauce, and some chilli powder, basil, salt and pepper.

- slice your chicken and stick it in the marinade (i did this while my tortilla dough was resting), then put it in the fridge.

- the mint yoghurt is THE EASIEST THING EVER and is great. literally, sprinkle mint into some natural yoghurt. keep tasting it to get to the desired mint-y level and leave to one side...

- fry your chicken in a little olive oil for a minute, then add in the peppers and onions and continue frying until cooked through.

- spread humous on the tortilla - you should keep your fillings to the centre of the tortilla, leaving space at the bottom too! - then lay the sliced tomato on top. if you want to add salad (spinach is a great choice) put this on too, then top it off with your chicken-y mixture. dollop the mint yoghurt on top then fold the bottom up and the sides over each other! (i'm keeping mine together with skewers in the pic...)

chicken and avocado - fills two tortillas (or one large one)

one small chicken breast, cut into strips & marinated

half an avocado, sliced

dollop of cream cheese

relish:

half a tomato, roughly chopped

1/3 large red onion, sliced

2 small mushrooms, roughly chopped

chilli powder

large squirt of ketchup

a little worcester sauce

marinade:

tablespoon natural yoghurt

tablespoon lemon juice

teaspoon honey

big sprinkle of coriander

little sprinkle worcester sauce

pepper

salt

- as before, slice and marinade the chicken.

- for the relish, add the onion and tomato to a little olive oil in a pan and fry for a minute, then add the mushroom and fry for another minute. add the other relish ingredients and keep it simmering until the rest is ready.

- fry the chicken for a few minutes; until cooked through.

- spread the cream cheese as before. add the sliced avocado and the chicken on top of that, then place

the relish on top

and wrap. this was my favourite wrap of the three! the chicken marinade is wonderful.

(leftover relish goes into spicy rice, along with some peas. alternatively you can leave it in the fridge for another time!)

humous, tomato and avocado - fills one tortilla

one big dollop of humous

half a tomato, thinly sliced

1/4 avocado, thinly sliced

a little salad

this is simple - just layer up the ingredients, starting with the humous (i find wraps are best when they go like this: spreadable things/slices of things/chunks of things/sauces&relishes).

add some basil or pepper if you'd like!

this would probably be great with some cheese on top too!

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

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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!

Lemon Slices.

iphone pics are decent enough, right?

so, cake recipes aren't my forte, but that's mostly cos i gave up on weighing ingredients ages ago. and yknow? my cakes always turn out moist and delicious, so it's all good.

these are dairy free, cos i used soy milk and soy butter. just fyi.

sieve self raising flour and sugar into a bowl, then add an egg and some butter (i use about 1/5 of a tub of butter...) and stir in. add a few teaspoons of lemon juice (as lemony as you'd like!) and keep adding milk to the bowl as you whisk until you have batter - you want it thin, but not too thin. if the batter is too thick it won't be moist!

cook at a low-ish heat (our oven was on about 150 and it's a fan oven) for about 20-25 mins - i cooked these in a rectangular tin, which isn't as deep as a cake tin but deeper than an oven tray, and it wasn't brown on the top but was cooked all the way through. perfect.

if you don't know, cakes are done when you can stick a knife in the centre and there's no batter on it when you take it back out.

i let them cool for a little while (while i ran to the shop for icing sugar), then mixed up some icing sugar and water to a thick consistency and poured it over the top; let it set a little; then made some more (a little thinner) and added yellow food colouring, drizzling that over the top too.

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

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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

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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.

Curries! Galore

i know jenn has already posted a curry recipie (am i spelling that right?) (no, you are not, it is recipe. loveforyou - jenn) but here are 4 of my favourites...

Tikka Chicken (per person)
1 chicken breast
3 tablespoons natural yoghurt
2 tsps Tikka seasoning (this is available from most supermarkets, its bright red)
4 cherry tomatoes
fresh coriander
1 tsps garam masala
salt and pepper
squeeze of lemon

combine all the ingredients on a bowl, mix well and leave in the fridge for no less than 6 hours. mix everything but the chicken first and taste and add more spice the spicier you like it.
heat some oil in a frying pan, and pick out the chicken pieces and fry until they turn a darker colour. bung in the rest of the sauce and stir. add a little more yoghurt if it looks dry. preheat the oven to 180. put the chicken and sauce in a overproof dish and put in the oven for half an hour. when serving, blop on about a table spoon of yoghurt.

Vegetable Curry
for the basic curry sauce:
2 cloves of garlic
2 tsps Garam masala
1 tsps chilli powder
squeeze of lemon
seasoning
half an onion
half a can of chopped tomatoes

fry the garlic gently in oil, make sure you dont burn it. add chopped onion, and fry to soften them. add the garam masala and chilli powder, stir into the garlic and onions. add a little bit of water if it looks dry. add the lemon juice and seasoning, stir then add the tomatoes. at this point you can add any precooked veg you like. butternut squash is particularly good, and even spinach. when you've added the veg, pop the curry in the oven at 180 degrees for half an hour

Bombay Potatoes
follow the basic vegetable curry recipie, except cut out the chilli powder and tomatoes. add par boiled halved new potatoes. if the curry is too dry, use water to make the sauce less thick. still bake in the oven at the same temperature and time

Spiced Rice
enough brown or white rice for one person (half a cup)
1 tsps tumeric
1 tsps garam masala
2 tbs chopped onion (pre fried)
2 tbs peas

prepare the rice as usual. when cooked, add the spices, onion and peas. continue to heat through until all the ingredients are hot.