Hairy Dieters Lamb, Spinach and Potato Curry

Hairy Dieters Lamb, Spinach and Potato Curry

Well, it's supposed to be Lamb, Spinach and Potato but I didn't have any spinach in the house.  I did, however, have green cabbage, so I stripped the stems out, chopped it roughly and used that.

I reckon this would work well with chickpeas instead of the lamb for a vegetarian version.

I altered the amounts in the recipe to suit our budget a bit better as lamb is not cheap.


You will need:

400g lamb leg steaks

1/2 tbsp oil
3 large garlic cloves, chopped (I used lazy garlic from a jar, 3 small tsp)
1 1/2 large onions, roughly chopped (I used 2 medium onions)
20g chunk of root ginger (you could also use lazy ginger from a jar)
1/2 plump fresh red chilli (recipe called for a whole one, but I don't like things too hot, you can use a whole one if you prefer)
60g ready made curry paste
400g chopped tinned tomatoes
350g potatoes (preferably maris pipers in the UK) cut into 3cm chunks
400ml water
2 bay leaves
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp caster sugar
3 medium rip tomatoes, quartered
100g young spinach leaves (or green cabbage or kale, etc, but follow notes on timing)
freshly ground black pepper

Trim the lamb of any hard fat and cut into rough chunks of about 3cm.

Season the meat with salt and pepper.  Heat 1 tsp of the oil in a large non stick pan and fry the lamb (in batches if you need to) until lightly coloured on all sides.  Transfer the lamb to a plate as soon as each batch is browned.

Heat the remaining oil in a large flameproof casserole dish or ovenproof pan (I used the ovenproof pan) and add the onions.  Cook over a medium hear for 6 to 8 minutes until the onions are soft and lightly browned, stirring regularly.

Turn down the heat, add the garlic, ginger, chilli and curry paste and cook for 5 minutes more, stirring frequently.

Remove from the heat and blitz the onion mixture with a stick blender until blended to a puree.  I used a jug to get a bit more depth to the mixture, you could also let it cool a while then blend in a jug blender or food processor.

Return the mixture to the pan and put back on the heat.

Add the browned lamb to the spiced onion puree in the dish and cook over a gentle heat for 2 - 3 minutes, stirring.

Add the tinned tomatoes, potatoes, water, bay leaves, tsp of salt and the sugar.

If you are using cabbage or kale instead of spinach, also add this now, but if you are using spinach, that comes later.

Bring everything to a gentle simmer, then cover with a lid and place into the oven for 1 hour and 30 minutes or until the lamb is tender and the sauce has thickened.  Check after 1 hour and give the curry a good stir.

Just before the curry is due to be finished, quarter your tomatoes and get the spinach ready if you are using that.
Take the casserole dish or pan out of the oven and remove the lid.  Stir in the tomatoes and spinach leaves.

Cover once more and return to the oven for a further 5 minutes or until the tomatoes are soft and the spinach has wilted.

Serve hot with rice and some spoonfuls of plain yoghurt of you fancy.

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My Mom's Coffee Cake

First of all an explanation for my American readers.  Here in the UK when we say coffee cake we mean a cake that is flavoured with coffee.  Makes sense to me!

Anyway, recently I was sorting through some family photos and came across this one of my mom.  From the colour of the mix in the food processor I knew immediately what she was making.  This coffee cake.  Among anyone who knew of her baking she was famous for this cake and it was SO easy!  I wonder if they all knew how easy it was if they would still have thought she was so amazing for making it.

I knew I had to make the cake yesterday and had all the ingredients in. I remembered how much butter, flour and sugar to each egg, that's easy, but I wasn't sure about how much coffee or baking powder and how long to cook it, but I had a go and it turned out ok.

You will find a printable version of the recipe at the bottom of the post.

First off, preheat your oven to 180c. (That's 360f for my American friends). I remembered that OK.
Now I had to decide how much mixture to make. I knew that when my mom made this cake it used to have a 6 egg mix but she had these HUGE cake tins. Since I only wanted to use 8 inch tins, I decided a 3 egg mix would be enough.

Whenever my mom made this cake she always took the time to grease AND flour the tins, so I did the same.

First, grease your tins as normal, then put a tbsp or so of flour into them, and tip the tin until you have coated all surfaces with the flour. I am sure cake release spray would do the same job BUT I am trying to stick to what my mom did here, so I went with greasing and flouring.






Measure your flour, baking powder, sugar and butter into the bowl of your processor and then add the 3 eggs, having cracked them into a bowl first in case you get a bad one or any shell falls in.


Before you start mixing the cake, make up your coffee. I am not sure I have the amount of coffee right. I have upped the amount slightly from what I used, in the recipe below, but think it might still need more. We had the amount in the icing right but the cake could have taken more coffee flavour. Add as little boiling water as you can to make it up and then thin it out a bit with cold water, which also brings the temperature down.


Now back to the food processor. Mix on med high (or pulse) until the mixture is combined and smooth. Then add the coffee in a thin stream through the spout on the processor.


After a few more seconds your mix should look something like this.


Divide the mixture between your two cake tins.


Spread it out in the tins as evenly as you can.


Then place them in the preheated oven.


Leave to cool in the tin for 5 minutes.


Remove from the tins to a cake rack and leave until completely cooled.


Once the cake has cooled ice the top. You do this before filling the cake because the whipped cream is soft and you might squish it out if you ice after filling it.
Make up another small portion of strong instant coffee, 1 tsp of granules with about 1tbsp water, then make up some icing using that as your liquid. While the icing is still wet, sprinkle the walnuts over the top. My mom always used walnut halves when possible and used one to mark each portion of the cake. I only had walnut pieces, so I sprinkled instead.


Once the icing has set nicely you can whip the cream and get ready to fill the cake. I used 300ml of double cream here and you can see from the later photos it is quite a thick layer. But maybe that is what makes this cake so nice.


Pop the top on and your cake is ready to serve. If not serving immediately, keep chilled because of the cream.


Was it good? Yes, amazing! Was it as good as I remember? Not quite, it came out a little dense but there are a couple of things I know were not quite right. First I was using free range eggs from a family member's chickens, and they were on the small side, I am sure slightly larger eggs would have made a difference. Secondly I made the coffee up with as little water as possible and I think it could have taken a tbsp or so more. Finally I couldn't remember how much baking powder my mom used and guessed. I have upped it slightly for the recipe below and hopefully with those 3 things it should come out much better next time.




Printable version:

My Mom's Coffee Cake
Coffee Flavoured cake my mom used to make that was always a success no matter where we took it!

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Total time: 20 minutes

Serves: 8 decent slices

Ingredients:

6 oz self raising flour,
6 oz caster sugar,
6 oz soft margarine, (I used butter because it was what I had),
3 medium eggs,
2 tsp baking powder,
2 1/2 tsp instant coffee,
1/2 cup icing sugar, I didn't measure this,
Handful walnuts,
Whipping cream or double cream.

Instructions:

1. Grease and flour your cake tins.
2. Preheat the oven to 180c.
3. Set up your food processor with the normal blade.
4. Measure the first 5 ingredients directly into the bowl.
5. Take 1 1/2 tsp instant coffee and make up with a little boiling water.  Cool with a little additional cold water.
6. Switch your processor on to med high until all the first ingredients are mixed, then pour the made coffee in through the spout while the mixer is still moving.
7. Divide the mixture between your two tins and spread evenly in the tins.
8. Bake in the preheated oven until it begins to come away from the sides of the tin, is springy in the middle and a cake tester or fine knife blade comes out clean when inserted into the cake. For the size pans I used this took about 20 minutes, but I would recommend checking at about 15 minutes.
9. Remove from the oven and cool in the tins for 5 minutes.
10. Turn out onto a cake rack to cool completely.
11. Make up the remaining instant coffee with a little boiling water and a little cold to cool it back down.
12. Make up the icing sugar with as much of the coffee as you need to make a consistency that will spread easily but without being too runny.
13. Decide which of the cakes will be the top and spread the icing over it. Sprinkle the walnuts over that and leave to set.
14. Once the icing has set you can whip the cream and fill the middle of the cake. If your bottom cake is a bit uneven you may need to slice some off it to get it to sit flat first.
15. Keep chilled (because of the cream) and serve!

You can check out the sites I link up to over in my sidebar. Before you go, why not check out my recipes index page, or my craft projects index page, I am sure you will find something there to interest you.

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Menu Plan Monday

Another week, another menu.

I'm enjoying practising my lettering on our menu board.
This week we are using up stuff from the freezer and cupboard to keep costs down a bit.  The venison steaks are just for hubby and I for date night, I picked them up when they were on offer.  The mini pizzas are for youngest (18) and me only and everything else is for the 3 of us.

Next week I switch to some recipes from the new "Save with Jamie" book for a couple of weeks, before switching to some recipes from the "Economy Gastronomy" book for a couple of weeks.  YES, I have 5 weeks of menus planned, but I wasn't feeling well yesterday, so I sat on the sofa with notepad, pen and cookbooks in hand!

You can check out the sites I link up to over in my sidebar. Before you go, why not check out my recipes index page, or my craft projects index page, I am sure you will find something there to interest you.

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Menu Plan Monday

So how did your menu plans go last week?  We hardly stuck to ours.  I have to get better at making sure I get stuff out of the freezer in time!   Anyway, onto this week's menu.

Monday - Veggie Burgers, with potato wedges and salad
Tuesday - Tinned Soup (of each person's choice) with Fancy sandwiches (ciabatta, smoked ham, nice cheese and sliced pickles)
Wednesday - Mince and Vegetable Pie with Tumbled Spuds (from the Hairy Bikers new diet book)
Thursday - Chicken Tagine with Preserved Lemons (as above)
Friday - Fish with Thai Coconut Curry Sauce (again as above)
Saturday - Quick Butter Chickpeas with rice (recipe from Food.com)
Sunday - Traditional Sunday Roast

Hopefully this week will go more to plan than the last one.

Oh and one last thing - I'm enjoying writing our menus up on our chalkboard, if you want to check out the instructions for that, you can click the image below to get the instructions for what I originally did.

I would however suggest using more coats than that original tutorial suggests.  Because it eventually wore down and I had to replace it with sticky back chalkboard paper, which had to be fit together and leaves seams so it doesn't look as neat (you can see that in the top of the top picture).

You can check out the sites I link up to over in my sidebar. Before you go, why not check out my recipes index page, or my craft projects index page, I am sure you will find something there to interest you.

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Menu Plan Monday

Monday - Veggie Bean Burgers with Wedges and salad
Tuesday - Golden vegetable soup with nice bread
Wednesday - Cajun Chicken and wedges with salad
Thursday - Hubby and I have date night, he is using a meal kit from the supermarket and our adult boys are on their own for dinner.
Friday - Cottage pie
Saturday - Polenta Lasagne (yummy)
Sunday - Roast Chicken with all the trimmings

Most of our meals this week come from one of the hairy Dieter's books.  I will try and make time to turn one or two of them into photo recipes BUT it is back to school week here in the UK and for me that means back to work, so we'll have to see how that goes.  I know you can see some of the writing from the previous menus, I need to give my chalkboard a bit of a clean up.

I thought I would share with you my menu planning / shopping list sheet.  It's an excel file and if you click on the image below it should take you to Google docs where you can download the file.  There is a slight problem with the file as it appears on google docs and that is  it has all pages as landscape even though in my copy I have this sheet as portrait and the other sheet as landscape but you should be able to correct that fairly easily.

In the top line I put any events for that week.  The ones you see in there at the moment are regular events, I will add any others before I start menu planning.

You can see there are certain days I try to cook certain things.  Vegetarian twice a week, soup and sandwiches one day (which sometimes turns into vegetarian as well) and one day (at least) of fish. Although you can see from my chalkboard menu at the top that we don't have fish this week.
I make a note of which day of the week I will be doing the main grocery shop that week and then below each day's menu I list any ingredients needed for that day.  I cross through anything I know we have in, add into that bottom section any other things we need (not connected with specific meals) and make a shopping list from that.

If you can't open excel files, I do also have a pdf version and you can download that by clicking here.  Menu Plan Shopping List.  That doesn't have the issue with which way round the paper is, so if you prefer not to mess with that, I suggest using this version.


You can check out other people's menu plans by clicking the image below.

You can check out the other sites I link up to over in my sidebar. Before you go, why not check out my recipes index page, or my craft projects index page, I am sure you will find something there to interest you.

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Chickpea Cookies

I found this recipe on facebook.  It's almost gluten free.  I used standard baking powder, but if you substituted a gluten free baking powder they would be entirely gluten free.  To be honest I was not too hopeful of how they would turn out but they were amazing!

Chocolate Chip Chickpea Cookies

You will need:
1 1/4 cups canned* chickpeas, well-rinsed and patted dry with a paper towel
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons (165 grams) natural peanut butter
1/4 cup (80 grams) honey (agave would be amazing too!)
1 teaspoon baking powder**
a pinch of salt if your peanut butter doesn’t have salt in it
1/2 cup (90 grams) chocolate chips

Cooking Time: 10 minutes
Prep Time: 15 minutes

Take the time to dry them well.  I couldn't find any paper towel, so I used a tea towel instead.

There you go, from a full tin of chickpeas, I measured 1 1/4 cups and those on the plate are what was leftover.  I think with that few extra, in future I will just use the whole tin and not bother measuring.  Your tins might differ from mine, so worth checking the first time you make them.

Do you like my new kitchen scales?  Quite sleek aren't they?  If you spray your measuring cup with oil before scooping the peanut butter it makes cleanup easier.

I swear that scale read 80g when I picked the camera up.  Oh well.  Again, spraying with oil before measuring out the honey will help with clean up.

And finally, the chocolate chips.  I used plain chocolate, but I am sure milk chocolate would work just as well.

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat your oven to 350°F / 175°C.

Combine all the ingredients, except for the chocolate chips, in a food processor and process until very smooth. Make sure to scrape the sides and the top to get the little chunks of chickpeas and process again until they’re combined.  I think the fact that I used chunky peanut butter didn't help and next time I will make it with smooth.

Put in the chocolate chips and stir it if you can, or pulse it once or twice. The mixture will be very thick and sticky.

With wet hands, form into 1 1/2″ balls. Place onto a piece of parchment paper. If you want them to look more like normal cookies, press down slightly on the balls. They don’t do much rising.

Bake for about 10 minutes.

Soft, gooey cookies that do not in any way taste like chickpeas!  AMAZING!  They didn't last long at all so I can't give you any idea of their keeping properties!


You can check out the sites I link up to over in my sidebar. Before you go, why not check out my recipes index page, or my craft projects index page, I am sure you will find something there to interest you.

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