'Diet' cheeseburger with spicy sweetcorn mayo

Another astoundingly quick and easy weeknight supper, this one, and while it may lack the sophistication of last night's salmon and lentils, it was seriously good. Ten minutes from start to finish, although I had already made the burgers and just defrosted them this morning. Probably 15 if I'd done it all from scratch.

Normally I do burgers with oven chips, but today I was craving the spicy sweetcorn mayo my parents used to make, and fancied a crusty roll with my burger but only one set of carbs per meal.

This banquet came to 16 pro points. It could obviously be made healthier with low fat mayo and low fat cheese, but I long ago decided I'd much rather have the real thing, but a lot less often.

For 4 burgers, you need:

500g pack lean mince (extra lean perfect, but more expensive)

Half a medium onion, or one small, finely diced.

A large dash Worcestershire sauce

A dollop low fat yoghurt, to bind

Salt and pepper

To serve: 100g sweetcorn and tbsp mayo per person, salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, 10g extra mature Cheddar cheese per person and a crusty roll each.

You simply combine all the burger ingredients in a bowl (you could fry the onion first, but I like the stronger flavour that comes from my laziness), hands are easiest. Then split up into four, shape into burgers, and either cook straight away (see instructions below) or freeze, wrapped in grease proof paper within your chose container so you have a hope of ever prising them apart.

When you want to eat them, first defrost burgers for several hours in fridge, and then come suppertime, cook them in a George Foreman for about 8 minutes (That's for cooked through, I'm paranoid about mince), or longer on a griddle pan. Add 10g of extra mature cheddar on top three minutes before the end.

While they're cooking, defrost 100g per person of frozen sweetcorn by running under hot water in a sieve. Drain, and put in a bowl with a tablespoon of mayo, a pinch of salt, grinding of pepper and dash of cayenne. Mix, then bung the bowl in the freezer while everything else cooks because it's nicest ice cold.

When the burgers are done, leave them to rest for a minute while you toast the inside of the buns on the grill.

Assemble your goodies, with a side salad to mop up the extra mayo, and eat, rapidly and smugly.


 

Salmon, lentils, yoghurt

I didn't take a picture of this one before eating it - a little out of blogging practice.

But a simple, delicious, diet friendly supper.

I baked two salmon fillets in a foil parcel with a slice of lemon, salt, pepper and a pat of butter.

Meanwhile, I cooked some puy lentils. (ok, I cheated. I opened and heated a pre cooked packet. Next time I'll just boil them, it's as easy, cheaper, and you can add stock and make it taste nicer.)

I seasoned fat-free Greek yoghurt with lemon, salt, pepper, and a pinch of cayenne pepper.

Then I stirred basil and salt through the lentils.

I served the salmon balanced on a bed of lentils, with the juices and the yoghurt sprinkled over.

The whole meal took twenty minutes - including about five minutes actual work.

And it was wonderful.

Soup: celeriac and bramley apple

Last winter for a while I posted a soup recipe every week. This winter, as soon as the cold winter started, I started making soup again. For a long while I got away with last year's recipes, but eventually I got bored and started again.

 

I like this soup because the smooth, earthy flavour of the celariac goes so well with the sharp freshness of the apples. It's tasty, filling, easy and healthy - next to no fat, and no Weightwatchers points.

Knitting: a baby blanket

A very special baby is due next month.

Sunshine on window boxes

At about this time of year, I start to get hopeful. The mornings get lighter. I start to leave work as the sun sets, looking at my beautiful adopted city bathed in impossible - and impossible to photograph - colours. Then it gets lighter earlier still, and soon I'll be leaving the office in daylight. The quality of light starts to change - this could be fanciful, but it starts to feel stronger, richer. It is still freezing cold outside most days, but it starts to become possible to believe that some time soon, spring will come.

Smoked salmon, dill and cucumber open sandwiches

This is such a simple, fresh tasting lunch - very healthy, but every mouthful shouts 'luxury', not 'diet'.

 

As with all the best simple lunches, it's almost insulting to give you a recipe, but here goes.

Christmas knitting

So. It's been a while. To catch you up, there was a lovely holiday in the middle of nowhere, there was a wonderful Christmas spent between two families and before both of these things, the husband got a job after 11 months freelancing, and for the first time for a long time we were both able to breath and sleep propeerly.

There was also a lot of Christmas knitting, much of it done listening to audiobooks by a stove during the same holiday in the middle of nowhere, while snow fell and sheep baa'd.

Winter warmer: slow cooked pork and cider casserole

Adventures with my slow cooker continue. I still can't quite get over the wonder of chopping a few things before breakfast, flicking a switch, and coming home to a beautiful smelling flat several hours later.

This week, I tried pork, apples and cider, with a little thyme. The results were absolutely delicious - tender pork and sharp apples in a lovely rich, scented, sweet and savoury sauce. Again, much too much sauce - I would recommend using half the amount of cider I did - although eating my supper of stew and mash with a spoon only served to increase the comfort food factor. The apples disintegrate, but it serve to thicken the sauce (slightly).

I also used more meat than usual - about twice as much. For some reason, I instinctively serve more pork than other meats. You could halve it - this was a very generous, even snooze-inducingly large portion - but I'd add a littlemore root veg to bulk it out if so.

Knitting: baby hat and bootees

So. Someone I'm very fond of is pregnant. Once the screaming, squealing, and congratulating (and the three month mark - I'm superstitious) was past, I did what came naturally, and got out my knitting needles and some very brightly coloured yarn, knowing that this baby's parents won't want pastels.

Slow-cooked beef stew

I've been flirting with the idea of getting a slow cooker for a while now, but wasn't sure if I'd actually use it. I was pretty certain we didn't have space for it.

But when we went to visit my aunt and cousins a couple of weeks ago, my aunt served up the most delicious, sophisticated lemon and lamb stew. Which cooked in her slow cooker while we drank and caught up. My aunt, and my cousin, who is a student, talked about how useful their slow cookers were. My cousin will put a stew on for her housemates before going to lectures.

Not knitting! Emily Peacock Cross Stitch kit

When I was little, I loved counted cross stitch. I loved carefully following a diagram, and turning a blank sheet of fabric into a picture. I loved how complex shapes could be made from lots of tiny squares, and how the texture of the fabric could be completely changed as each square was replaced with a stitch. And I loved the calming effect of carefully putting the needle through the fabric, again, and again, and again.

A soup so scrumptious it got me blogging again: Thai carrot and coriander

The weekly huge batches of soup started up again about six weeks ago. Once again it's cold enough in Edinburgh for a huge mug of warm, comforting soup to be the best possible lunch option.

Up until this weekend I'd been repeating myself, cooking things I'd done (and usually blogged) before. One week the weekend was so busy we bought a stack of cans of soup instead. The world didn't end, although gratifyingly they weren't as good, as healthy or as cheap as the ones I make.

But this one is so good I had to share. It's based on one my aunt gave us for lunch when we went to visit last weekend - a delicious bought fresh soup. The budget's too tight for us to buy fresh soup for weekday lunches, so when we got home we decided to experiment, and came up with the following. It's got a kick to it, and is thoroughly warming and filling on a cool day. Lovely. And if you care about such things it's very low fat, and only one propoint a portion.

Simply scrumptious: lemon sole with chive butter

Sometimes, I crave simple, clean flavours. After a heavy weekend, being spoilt rotten, by Monday night I would have happily eaten nursery food

But on reflection, I decided that what I wanted most was the delicate flavour of white fish.

I know you shouldn't buy fish on a Monday, but I decided I trusted our local supermarket to only sell us something fresh, and sent the husband to investigate while I was at work. He returned with two lovely lemon sole fillets, some new potatoes, and some broccoli. This became a delicious 15 minute meal.

Guacamole-ish

I've been having some luck with the special offers corner in my local Waitrose lately. After the £1.11 beef joint which yielded two steaks and two rather yummy salads, I've been casting my eye over it every time I walk past. I've never got that lucky again, but for one, wonderful week, it became apparent that someone was putting the ripe and ready to eat avocados into the discount shelf at 6pm on the day they went out of date. As ripe and ready to eat avocados rarely are, I grabbed them thinking they'd be good - and most of them were. Bizarrely, though, one pack of two consisted of one gorgeously soft avocado - and one so hard it could have been made of rubber.

I'd planned to make this guacamole recipe, one from the hairy bikers that I picked because it didn't contain cream or mayo or anything else odd - I wanted it to taste super-fresh, not like a dip. But the recipe calls for three avocados. I'd planned to make it with two, reducing things slightly - I used a couple of chillies, rather than four, and just one tomato - which would have been fine. But after the rubber avocado, I found myself with a pile of chopped other ingredients, and just one av. So I shrugged and ended up making it with one.

It worked. The result was light, fresh and zingy. It still had the creaminess of the one super ripe avocado, but in texture it was more like a salsa. As someone who's never been that fussed by most salsas - I'm not the world's biggest tomato fan - it was like a perfect blend of salsa and guacamole.

It tasted so light and fresh I didn't want it with tortilla chips or anything greasy - so instead, we use lettuce leaves. They were perfect - little scoops. And because they were so healthy, I didn't feel in the least bit guilty about polishing off a lot of guacamole in one go!

Knitting: a finished snowdrop shawl

When I was in London in June I saw  Caroline, and could finally hand over her shawl. I've blogged about it before here and here, and actually finished it back in late May, but couldn't block it at the time because the spare room was such a mess I couldn't get the bed open. And also, I didn't want to blog about it before I gave it to her.

But when I eventually tidied up the spare room and did block it before travelling down, I forgot to take pictures. So Caroline very kindly took this one of the finished project for me:

I was really happy with the way it turned out, and the pattern was fun. I probably won't do another with a knitted-on edging, though, because picking up stitches for it was a complete nightmare, and when I got to the point, after several day's work, I wasn't at the point in the pattern repeat I should have been at. I had a choice of losing a great deal of work or... fudging it slightly. I'm afraid I went for the latter! At least with a edging that's knitted with the rest of the shawl you can read your pattern to see if you've gone wrong - that wasn't really possible with this one.

The pattern was Yarn Harlot's Snowdrop Shawl. There's a link to the pattern, and all the other details here. 

I'm now taking a mini rest from knitting, partly because it's summer, partly because I've finished a bunch of things I've promised people, and largely because I got not one, but three Emily Peacock tapestry kits for my birthday and I'm really enjoying making them. But that's a whole different post! However, there's enough beautiful yarn in my drawer, and fab patterns in my queue, to ensure I'll be back knitting again soon.

Nigel Slater's griddled chicken and aubergine stacks

So, as briefly mentioned in a previous post, we've treated ourselves to a George Foreman grill. A teensy-tiny one for our teensy-tiny kitchen, and also because I wasn't entirely sure we'd use it and thought we should at least get a cheap one that wasn't going to be a complete pain to store. I'd used my parents' while house-sitting and found it handy for cooking chicken breasts to go in a salad, and could see a few things we'd use it for, but there's always a risk with kitchen gadgets and I don't have space or money for big mistakes!

It's now in use almost every day. Partly, it's because it's summer, and simple griddled meat and veg are so appealing right now. But it also cooks steak well, quickly, and my homemade burgers in three minutes flat. And bacon for weekend breakfasts with a lot less faff then doing it in the proper grill. 

This recipe is one we've been doing for years. When I  met my husband, he had a large scrapbook of recipes his mother had typed and printed out for him when he left home to go to uni. In the back he'd stuck other recipes - pulled out of newspapers, mostly - that he liked the look of. Since we've been together we've supplemented it with other things pulled out of newspapers, and it's in constant use alongside my recipe file. It's a lot easier, because you can just stick things in, rather than writing them out again. But it's also now getting full.

This recipe has been typed out, but in a different font to all the others, so I think perhaps it's one he copied out himself. It says it's a Nigel Slater, and the version we have certainly reads like him, but I can't find it anywhere online, or in our books, and don't have the scrapbook with me, so the version below is the one I have in my head. 

Anyway, it's delicious and healthy and yummy. Using a griddle plan, as we used to, works well but is a bit of a faff as it takes so long and the kitchen fills up with smoke. But worth it. Using a George Foreman, though, makes it much, much easier.

Ingredients for two people

For the stacks:

Two chicken breasts

An aubergine, cut, ideally, into four slices, but I often end up getting six out of a big supermarket aubergine.

Pesto - about two tbsps.

For the tomato accompaniment

Four to six normal sized tomatoes

A few basil leaves

A shallot, or half a small onion

Olive oil

Grill the chicken breasts for about six minutes a side if you're using a griddle pan, or six minutes in total if you're using a double sided grill. Check they're cooked through, and put them aside to keep them warm.

Then griddle the slices of aubergine, for three minutes a side on the griddle pan, and three minutes in total in the grill - until done and yummy looking. If you're using a teensy-tiny George Foreman and cut six slices rather than four, you'll need to do this in two batches.

Spread one side of each of your aubergine pieces with pesto, and stack, making a sandwich with the chicken breast.

To make the accompaniment, while the chicken is griddling, dice your onion/shallot and soften it in a little olive oil, and dice your tomatoes. Then, while the last slice of aubergine is doing it's thing, warm the tomatoes through in the pan, and tear the basil leaves on top.

We have this with hunks of fresh bread to mop up the juices from the tomatoes. The bread below is the central slice from our home-made breadmaker bread, which why there's a strange dent where the paddle was.

Seared beef, lime, chilli and ginger salad

While we were on holiday in London a few weeks ago we ate at Wagamama's. They don't have a branch in Edinburgh, bizarrely - they have one in Livingston, but even the delicious noodles and discount shopping aren't enough to tempt me through. The Husband had never eaten at Wagamama's before and didn't really understand why I got quite so excited - and insistent - when we happened to be walking past a branch at lunchtime. He did when the food came. Yeah, I know Wagamama's hasn't been exciting or new for oooh... a decade now. But I like it. So shush.

It was a hot day and we decided to go for salad rather than a huge, steaming bowl of ramen. What we went for was the "ginger beef and coriander salad" - they described it as "seared steak with caramelised red onions,
beansprouts, red peppers, cucumber, carrot, mooli, ginger and coriander tossed with mixed leaves and
wagamama house dressing. garnished with sesame seeds." It was lush. 

Fast forward a couple of weeks and we were back in Edinburgh. I'd nipped into Waitrose on my way home from work for a pint of milk and happened to pass by the discount shelf. And then got a lot closer when I saw beef joints there. There was an amazing rib of beef which I was tempted to grab, but in my heart knew that two people would never be able to do it justice. But there was also a rump roasting joint - about a pound of lean aberdeen angus beef for £1.11. I swiped it and put in the freezer for the weekend.

I cut two slabs of steak from it, which we griddled and ate, juicy and rare, on the Saturday night. Mmmm. The meat was incredibly lean - so much so I'd be surprised if it was nice roasted, but it did very well as a steak. 

The next day, we decided to take the leftover bit - about 150g - and try to copy the salad. Not having the menu in front of me, and not remembering every detail, and not feeling like going on a mooli quest on the streets of Morningside, we didn't do it perfectly, but it was very, very good. 

Ingredients (serves two)

Juice of two limes

A red chilli pepper, diced (although it was actually much too hot and the ginger gave plenty of heat so maybe leave this out unless you're a chilli fiend)

A bunch of coriander

Pickled "sushi ginger" (we just got ours in Waitrose). A packet. That's not helpful. Um. Shall we say an ounce/30g?

Light soy sauce

Bag mixed salad (yes, I'm cheating, so sue me)

150g rump steak/sirloin steak/whatever 

I marinaded the steak for a bit (What's a bit? Um, a cup of tea then a Sunday morning shower and get ready... about an hour?) in the juice of a lime, with chopped up chilli and coriander.

I then had a play with my new George Foreman and grilled the steak until it was just slightly rare - probably for about three or four minutes? Cook the steak however you'd normally cook steak, basically. I did it for longer than usual as I get slightly squeamish about very rare meat once cold, unless it's steak tartare. 

Leave it to rest and cool slightly so it doesn't cook your salad.

Then I cut a carrot into matchsticks, cut the ginger into similar-sized slices, and finely chop the coriander.

I mixed the juice of the other lime with a good glug of light soy sauce to make a dressing. You could add toasted sesame oil if you wanted. I didn't. If you're using chilli, I'd combine it with the dressing too.

I divided the salad between two bowls, topped with the carrot, coriander, sliced beef, and then poured over the dressing.

And lo, it was good. Although not quite as good as it would have been if I hadn't put a silly amount of chilli in it.

Luxurious, easy supper: smoked salmon and "caviar" blinis

Sometimes, when it's a "treat" occasion - a Saturday evening just the two of us, a Sunday night when we're fighting off thoughts of Monday morning, any day when we have guests - I want to celebrate by cooking. Spending time in the kitchen, chopping, stirring, tasting, tweaking is as much part of the celebration as eating the meal.

But even though I love cooking and start to miss it when I haven't had a chance for a while, sometimes it's the last thing I want to do. Perhaps I've already made enough pack lunches to last us both for the week. Maybe I'm dog tired - the whole job hunting thing has meant this has happened a lot lately. Maybe I'm just feeling lazy.

Sure, a lot of the time when this happens we'll order a takeaway. But sometimes I want something that tastes "cleaner", without the grease and the complex flavours. And sometimes we just want something a bit more special.

That's when this comes in - blinis, heated gently, topped with a dollop of half fat creme fraiche, half topped with smoked salmon, half topped with lumpfish caviar. Chives snipped on top of the smoked salmon if we have any that are alive, and can be bothered. Generally eaten after splitting a big bag of crisps between us. Often also following a starter of asparagus, or shelled broad beans, or failing nice seasonal vegetables, avocado. 

It's so simple, but the slight crispness of the edge of the blinis, the smooth, sour cream, and the unctuous smoked salmon or salty, fishy caviar are just perfect. It takes minutes to make, and if it wasn't for the large bag of crisps would be somewhere near healthy. And it all costs less than the takeaway would have done - even if it's very far from being the budget option.

C25K progress report - starting over

So, a few weeks ago, I blogged about starting C25K, and about how the first week went. The first week ended up taking us a fortnight, because things like illness and socialising got in the way. We started the second week, did the first workout, found it hard but survived - and then we didn't do any more for a month.

There was a variety of reasons. A holiday was one of them. And the reasons that stopped me blogging for a few weeks were another. But the trainers were still there in the corner of the bedroom - apart from when they came with us on holiday and sat unpacked and unloved for ten days - and we'd never planned to give up.

So after having a week post-holiday to recover from the post-holiday blues, and discovering they took the other blues away with them, we decided to get back to it.

But rather than diving back in to week two, The Husband suggested starting over, and going back to the very first workout. I wasn't overly keen but I knew he was right, and so we hit the pavements.

I'm so glad we did. Because I found it hard, but I didn't walk when I was supposed to run once - I did it all! Properly! All the tips I'd learnt also helped - not running too fast, keeping my head up, setting goals - and it felt amazing when we'd finished. And I know another week at this level will get me a bit fitter, a bit better, and hopefully the step up to next week won't be so bad this time. Which will stop me making excuses not to do it.

The Husband had done a new playlist as well. He'd taken a few tips from the slightly esoteric one I'd pulled together originally, and so we were jogging to (amongst others) Goldfrapp, Marilyn Manson, Led Zeppelin and Kenicke.

My two favourite jogging tracks at the moment are Marilyn Manson's The Beautiful People and Destiny's Child's Survivor. Make of that what you will.

So, back to it. I'm actually really looking forward to the next run, which will be after work today. And I've bought myself some dirt cheap new t-shirts and a hoody of my very own so I don't have to pinch one off The Husband as an incentive. Oh, the endless glamour.

Griddled tuna, wedges, and homemade mayonnaise

 

So I'm back. A holiday did wonders, even one spent house sitting for my parents, and after a week back in sunny Edinburgh (and for once I'm not being sarcastic when I say that), I'm starting to feel like I've got my mojo back. I've been feeling drawn back to the kitchen. Rather than doing the same old favourites every time, I'm experimenting. And I want to share!

This one, though, is a bit of a cheat - hardly an experiment at all, but the first time I've done a number of things at the same time.

I do two types of wedge. These, peeled and parboiled, are closer to chips - but not deep fried and incredibly easy.

I made the mayonnaise (for which see entries past) in the morning. I've got cocky enough with mayo that I made it with all extra virgin olive oil - and the result was amazing, peppery and delicious.

Then, about an hour before we wanted to eat, I put the tuna in the marinade, while The Husband peeled and parboiled the spuds.

We cooked the tuna moments before we wanted to eat, and I dressed the salad.

For the tuna:

A decent sized tuna steak per person

Juice of a lime

Chopped chili

Half a bunch of coriander, chopped.

Lay the tuna out flat in a dish, squeeze over the lime juice, sprinkle on coriander and chili. Turn so everything's covered. Leave for half an hour to an hour, turning when you pass whilst topping up your wine glass/remember. As it marinades, the tuna will change colour and start to look cooked. 

Ten minutes before you want to eat head a griddle pan on a high heat. Then, when it's smoking, cook your tuna for a minute or so each side depending on thickness. You want it seared on the outside, but still slightly jelly-like on the inside. I find a minute plenty. You can tell how cooked it is from watching the side of the tuna steak change colour.  You can also do these on the barbecue.

For the wedges

200g-300g potatoes per person

Lots of olive oil

Preheat your oven to 220C/ 200 for fans. Peel and cut your potatoes into wedges. Parboil for ten minutes. While they boil, put a good lug of olive oil in a roasting tin and put it in the oven to heat up. When the spuds are done, drain, and tip into your hot roasting tin - watch out, the fat will spit a bit. Turn, glug more oil on if they need it, and put in the oven.

They tend to take about 40 min - turn them half way through, and check them at 30 minutes. You want them just going golden brown on the edges.