'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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Packed lunch: baked vegetable frittata

So, I'm not blogging much at the moment. Am I the only one who sometimes finds that when the to-do list gets too long, even if each and every one of the things on it is fun, everything becomes a chore, even the things that are meant to be a hobby? 

I'm tired, I've got a couple of (good) things I really need to think hard about, and one or two less fun things to worry at (a boiler being one of them. Sometimes home ownership sucks). There's uncertainty in the air right now, and that always messes with my head. So I've given myself a week or two off feeling guilty about things, for the sake of preserving my sanity. I'll probably blog a bit - the second I no longer feel obliged I'll want to - but it's not going to be every day again for a wee while. Sorry.

I have a holiday coming up in a week, and suspect that after that, I'll be back blogging more frequently.

However, I do need to share this recipe for baked vegetable frittata with you. I wish I could take credit for it, but it's actually (whisper it) from the Weightwatchers website. But it's yummy. And easy. And filling. And if you care about this sort of thing, it's only two propoints a wedge. Unless you're me and decide that the yummyness would only be improved by a tablespoon of mature cheddar on each slice. In which case it's three.

The thing is, I find frittata... hassly. Frying a selection of veg, then the omlette, it all sticking in the pan and being a pain, and the whole flat smelling eggy. But because for this one you cook the veg, then bung 'em all like a dish like a quiche and wander away while it bakes, it's easy. We've had it for dinner - in which case I'd allow a couple of slices, and serve it with something more substantial than a salad - and the leftovers for lunch. And it was so yummy sliced up cold the next day, the following week I made it and we had it for lunches all week. A wedge of not-fried frittata, baked with the cheese on top, and a nice salad. Yum. Go and make yourself some. It's lush.

Embarrassingly easy: jam swirls

So, last week, after defrosting some pastry for a quiche, I realised I had a little extra.

"Never mind," I thought, "You've got five meals out of that pack of pastry, you can just chuck the rest."

Nope. For the next couple of hours, that pastry played on my mind. I couldn't bear to throw away good food.

I also had an idea - there was a jar of no-added-sugar jam in the fridge, which was bound to go off quite soon.

I combined the two, rolling out the pastry into an oblong, spreading it with jam, and baking the result for 15 minutes.

The result was delicious - light, and slightly chewy from the jam. I'll do it deliberately next time - and perhaps even make an effort to make them a bit prettier!

Makes 20 bite-sized swirls
90g puff patry
50g jam (the no-added-sugar stuff, made with grape juice, works well. I used raspberry)
Um... that's it!

Pre-heat your oven to 180C ish.
Roll out your pastry to an oblong about 10cm by 20cm.
Spread it thinly with the jam.
Carefully roll it up into a long, thin sausage.
Cut it up into 20 slices, and place on a baking tray, lined with baking parchment.
Bake for 15 minutes.
Allow to cool a little - jam gets VERY hot.
Eat. Try not to eat them ALL in one sitting. Maybe get up and make another cup of tea halfway through.

(I've tagged this one vegan as a lot of bought puff pastry is vegan - obviously, check your labels beforehand).

Comfort food: cuppy egg

When I was a little girl, my mother would sometimes - as a great treat - give us cuppy egg for supper, or for lunch when we were off school sick.

It was the most simple thing - egg, chopped with butter and a pinch of salt, served in a tea cup, eaten with a teaspoon, with toast.

I've made it every now and then since, mostly as a quick snack for one - a lunch; a simple but luxurious solitary supper.

But the other day I was feeling brittle. Emotionally and physically tender, for no particular reason. And when it came to lunchtime, and The Husband was suggesting all sorts of special salads, I stuck my bottom lip out and explained I wanted cuppy egg.

It was only when I started cooking it that I realised I'd never served it to him - I've probably made it for myself when getting better from feeling ill once or twice, but never for him. In fact, he was expecting the slightly more sophisticated oeufs en cocotte - for which, a recipe another time, I promise.

But a smile broke out as he realised what he was actually getting, and the result - above - was delicious. I realised we didn't have any teacups, so instead I served it in a couple of mugs, with hot, buttered toast.

So, here you go. For the days when you're feeling a little fragile.

Cuppy Egg

Ingredients (per person)
Two eggs
Knob of butter
Chives (optional, my mum never used them, but they do add something)
Pinch of salt
Bread and butter for toast.

Hard boil your eggs (about 9 minutes, put the toast on about a minute before they're done), and then replace the hot water in the pan with cold, to stop the edge of the yolks going grey.
Working quickly, peel and quarter your eggs, one by one, and drop the pieces into your teacup or small mug.
Add a knob of butter and a pinch of salt.
Using two knives in a scissor movement, chop the eggs and butter up into small pieces in the cup, and mix it all up, until you have something that can easily be eaten with a teaspoon.
Chop the chives over the top if using.
The toast should pop up just about now. Butter it and quarter it, and serve on a plate with the cup or mug of egg, and a teaspoon. The teaspoon is important!

I eat it partly with the spoon, partly scooping the mixture onto the toast.

Now go and curl up somewhere with a good book and a cup of tea. It'll all be better soon.

An easy lunch at home: portabella mushroom and halloumi burgers

Another weekend lunch recipe that's just too easy to be called a recipe.

Portabella mushrooms instead of burgers is hardly a new idea. I first came across the idea in a Nigel Slater book years ago, and now they've made their way onto pretty much every pub menu as a veggie burger alternative.

But I hadn't done one at home for ages, and so on Saturday, we had this for lunch. And on Sunday, too, because the burger buns came in packs of four, we didn't have any room in the freezer, and it was lovely.

Per person:
A portabella mushroom, the size of a burger, or if you can only get smaller ones, enough to fill a burger bun.
A few slices of halloumi
If you have a jar of roasted red peppers around, or a red pepper, worth popping one in
Something with chilli - I used sweet chilli sauce
A scrape of mayo
A burger bun.

Grill the mushrooms and halloumi, turning after a few moments when needed. If you're using fresh peppers, grill alongside, if not, just whack 'em under the grill for the last few seconds to warm up a bit. At some point while they're grilling, put the burger buns under the grill for a few seconds to toast.

Whip out the burger buns, spread with mayo and your chilli sauce of choice.

When everything is done, assemble into an amazing stack of burger-like goodness and DEVOUR.

I was so keen to eat my burger that I didn't check if the picture I'd taken was sharp. I've done my best in photoshop, but sorry, it's still not great! I served it with green salad with a squeeze of lime juice on top - if it had been supper, not lunch, I would have added wedges alongside.

A summer work packed lunch

 

A few weeks ago, I stopped posting weekly soup recipes, because I'd stopped making soup for packed lunches at work.

But what have I been eating in the meantime? Now, I'll admit that, having spent more days not working in April than working, thanks to a magical combination of bank holidays and birthday annual leave, I've not had to be quite as organised as usual. And there have been one or two weeks where I've just nipped out to the Co-op near work or even to Pret if I was feeling flush.

However, most of the time it's been salads, based around beans or grains, with lots of veg, and a little bit of cheese, or tuna, to perk it up.

This is one of my favourites - bulgar wheat salad. Very loosely based on tabbouleh. Even more so at the moment, when my new parsley plant is looking too fragile to plunder and I'm not putting any in!

These quantities serve 4, or two people for two days. I'll admit that if we're having something like this I'll boil double quantities of wheat on Sunday, get it cold as quickly as possible, save half, and make up four portions. To me, the veg is ok when chopped for up to two days, the bulgar wheat for four, which is why I do it that way. But follow your nose and your own standards when it comes to how long you think food lasts for!

150g bulgar wheat

Stock cube/powder

Four tomatoes

Half a cucumber

Half an onion diced very finely, or four spring onions, or a large bunch of chives

Juice and zest of a lemon

Tsp mustard

20 or so black olives, pitted and halved

100g of cheese - feta, goats, or halloumi you cook while the wheat is boiling are all lovely (I know this quantity might sound mean, but actually, it's plenty)

Cook the bulgar wheat as per packet instructions, only substituting water with stock made up with the cube or powder.

Cool it down as quickly as you can - I find spooning it out in thin layers in the flattish Tupperware I use for packed lunches helps this.

While it's cooling, dice your veg and divide them, the olives and the lemon zest evenly between the four containers. 

Finely dice or crumble your cheese, and split it evenly between the containers.

In a jam jar or similar, combine lemon juice and mustard. Put the lid on and shake, or mix in a more sedate fashion with a spoon.

Split this between the containers, and use a fork to mix up the ingredients and fluff up the bulgar wheat. 

I keep mine in the fridge at home, and on my desk once I get to work, and have never yet given myself food poisoning!

A simple, special lunchtime salad

I can hardly call this one a recipe - it's more an idea, based on happening to have some rather lovely food in the fridge.

After the asparagus shopping spree I mentioned yesterday, I still had a couple of bunches in the fridge on Bank Holiday Monday.

And so when lunchtime came, I decided to use them in a warm salad at lunchtime. I also had parma ham left from wrapping salmon fillets a few days before. When the Husband went out to the shops for a breakfast baguette, I asked him to pick up goats' cheese as well, and with that, the contents of the fridge, and some leftover baguette, a lunch was born.

Asparagus and hot goats' cheese salad
Ingredients (for two for a main meal)
Bunch or two of asparagus
One head little gem lettuce, or whatever nice lettuce you have lurking in your fridge
Quarter of baguette, split lengthways
100g goats' cheese
4 ish slices of parma ham if you have it in or particularly fancy it, and eat the stuff (very optional!)
Wedge of lemon each

Boil a kettle and warm the grill while you prep the asparagus and spread the goats' cheese on the baguette pieces.
Cook the asparagus however you like to - I put it in boiling water in a covered pan for five minutes off the heat.
Pop your posh cheese on toast under the grill and keep an eye on it as it can turn quickly - I tend to find it takes about five minutes to go melty and slightly brown and lovely.
Wash your lettuce, tear into bite size chunks and put on the bottom of the plate.
Add your drained asparagus when ready, and your goats' cheese on toast and parma ham, if using.
Put a wedge of lemon on the side of the plate and serve!
I don't think this needs a dressing - the cheese and ham are rich enough without the extra oil - so I squeeze lemon juice over instead.

Friday night curry

A couple of years ago I bought myself Anjum Anand's Indian Food Made Easy. I hadn't watched the TV series - strangely, I don't much like watching cooking on television, I'd much rather read about it (although I'll confess to being addicted to Masterchef - largely because it's not really about cooking!)

It took me a while to get into it - for a long time I was slightly too scared of all the ingredients in each recipe. One or two I couldn't even find at the shops. But then Caroline over at Second Hand Shopper came to stay and told me how much she liked the book. She even posted me some dried mango powder to get me going.

And I'm very glad she did! There are a number of recipes in the book I love, but the one I come back to again and again is this one. 

Just to warn you - it's another marinade recipe so requires a little thinking ahead. What we always do is pop the chicken and marinade in a freezer bag in the fridge the night before we want to eat it.

It's enough food to feed an army, and so I tend to quarter the amount of chicken, but halve the amount of sauce and marinade - partly because to quarter it would result in just too little sauce to marinate anything in, and partly because the sauce is amazing.

The reduced quantities mean that the yogurt would reduce too quickly if I left it as it is, so I tend to pop a quarter pint of water in at the beginning and keep an eye on it. I've never made full quantities but suspect it wouldn't be a problem if you were.

And it works perfectly with low fat yogurt, which means that you can actually make it astoundingly healthy.

But the magical thing for me about this recipe is the taste of the sauce - it's spicy but not hot, fresh and just beautiful. Although the recipe says chicken, as the star is the sauce I think it would work equally well with vegetables, chick peas or meat substitute, adjusting the cooking times accordingly.

The result is pretty damn tasty. So tasty, in fact, that when I photographed it I did so in a screaming hurry to go away and eat, and didn't check the results before digging in. Hence dodgy blurred photo below. Apologies - just take it as proof of how good it tastes!

 

Lime and rosemary marinaded lamb kebabs

 

As the summer approaches, trees blossom and bulbs come to life, I find myself turning my back on the heavy, comforting foods of winter, and beginning to think of barbecues, outdoor dining, lighter meals for lighter evenings.

Of course, living in a first floor flat in Edinburgh, outdoor dining and barbecues won't kick in until later on in the year - until I trust the weather not to do something disgusting just as I've carted all the ingredients down the stair and out the back door.

So for now I'm throwing open the windows (then closing them again when it gets chilly) and inviting the summer into my kitchen.

And to do that, without the impractical fun of the barbecue, I've got out the griddle pan. 

I'll be honest with you - the griddle pan is an all-year-round feature in this flat. Got so hot it smokes and threatens to set off fire alarms, it's the only way I know to cook steak so it's charred outside but still red inside - and that happens all winter long.

Although I have a fondness for Le Creuset I only managed to fund by making an honest man of The Husband, my griddle pan is a cheapy from Ikea that actually predates him by several years. I got it as a Christmas present when I was a post-grad student in 2002. It's still going strong. 

But now I've started using it for other things - things I want to cook lightly, but intensify their natural flavour - a sure sign the summer is here.

This is one example, cooked on the first really summery Saturday of the year. Just to warn you - although it's incredibly easy, and probably takes only 20 minutes of work, it requires a little thinking ahead. If you're cooking it for dinner, pop the lamb in to marinate ideally at lunch time, but in any event, when you put the butternut squash in to roast, a good 50 minutes before you'd like dinner on the table.

For the lamb and marinade, serves two.

250-300g whatever lamb meat looks likely in the supermarket. Shoulder or leg, probably. Cut into chunks, fat trimmed.

Rosemary sprigs, just ordinary 6 inch ones from a packet if you've killed your rosemary plant like me, 4-6 depending on how much meat you've gone for.

Juice of one lime

For the cous cous

Half a butternut squash (or a whole one if you're hungry!)

Pinch of cayenne pepper

Frylight/olive oil

100g cous cous

Mint (fresh, ideally)

Parsley

Chives if you have them handy

Two tomatoes

Lemon or lime juice

Stock cube

Glug of extra virgin olive oil if you fancy

At lunchtime, ideally, strip all leaves but the top ones from the rosemary sprigs, chop lightly, and place in a non-metallic bowl with the lime juice. Toss the lamb in it, and cover with clingfilm to stop it drying out. Periodically, when you're in the kitchen for more tea, give it a stir. (You can add olive oil to the marinade if you like, it stops the lamb drying out so you don't need the clingfilm. But you don't need it.)

You can roast the butternut squash now, or later - I like doing it earlier on because then dinner itself is the work of minutes. 

Heat the oven to 180C ish (for a fan oven).

Tackle the butternut squash. Take a SHARP peeler and peel it. Then take a SHARP knife and halve it, scooping out the seeds, and cut it into inch sized chunks. The peeler and knife must be sharp - if you use something blunt, you'll probably lose a finger in the process of peeling and cutting the wretched thing, and you'll certainly lose the will to live.

Bung it a roasting tin with some frylight or olive oil, and a sprinkling of cayenne pepper if you fancy it, and roast for 40 minutes. Allow to cool (unless you're doing it at the last minute, when leave it hot!)

Just before eating, start to heat your griddle pan, and put the kettle on while you assemble the skewers. Use a real metal skewer or something else pokey and sharp to make holes in the lamb so you don't break your rosemary twigs, and thread the lamb on them.

Cook the lamb skewers in the griddle pan for up to ten minutes, turning regularly, depending on how pink you like your lamb. I think we did ours for about six.

Meanwhile, make up your cous cous according to packet instructions with the boiling water, but lob a stock cube in, and cover it and leave it to do its thing.

While you're waiting, cut up the herbs and the tomato and juice the lemon or lime. When the cous cous is ready, stir these through, with a good glug of extra virgin olive oil if you're not trying to be good, and the butternut squash.

Heap the cous cous into pasta bowls or deep plates, and put your lamb skewers on top.

Soup of the week: cheat's pea and ham

I love pea and ham soup, but rarely bother to cook it. The version I tend to make is a time-consuming process: split peas have to be soaked overnight, and either a ham hock boiled for hours, the stock reserved and the meat carved, or I need to have left over boiling liquid from a gammon joint and leftover shreds. And that's before I even cook the peas or make the soup! The result is delicious - salty, thick, comforting, filling - frugal, and absolutely the perfect thing in deep midwinter. But to be honest, I can rarely be bothered to make soup that needs me to plan it out the day before.

So when I saw this Heston Blumenthal for Waitrose recipe, using garden peas, skipping stock and frying bacon with the onion instead, and chucking in bought ham hock at the end, I was tempted.

But then I looked more closely at the method. Um, thawing peas on a baking tray lined with kitchen paper? It gave me visions of peas everywhere but the tray. And as for the mint oil and careful sieving - for a dinner party maybe. Not for a weekday packed lunch.

So below is my heavily modified recipe.

You'll see that we start with the same ingredients, minus the faffing round for mint oil doubled up as ever to make eight portions, although I didn't double the ham hock because I didn't want to pay for two preprepared packs, and I used a 275g pack of bacon, rather than the 320g that would have come from strict doubling, because that was the size of the packet in front of me.

To make 8 portions I used:
Splash olive oil
7 shallots (the amount left in the bag in my drawer)
1.5l veg stock
275g unsmoked bacon
One 180g pack pulled ham hock
1.8kg peas

Rather than carefully defrosting the peas, I just didn't put the bag in the freezer when I got it home from the supermarket!
An hour or so later, I fried up the diced shallots and scissor-cut bacon in a splash of oil to stop things sticking before the bacon gave up its fat.
I then bunged in the stock and brought it to a rolling boil.
Then I added the peas, which were still pretty much frozen, and waited for the mix to come back to the boil, which took a while. Long enough for me to wash up everything else!
I left it boiling for a minute, mostly because it had taken so much effort to get it there I wanted to leave it for a bit.
Then I got out my trusted stick blender, and ta-da!

Yeah, I'm fully aware it looks more like I've pureed Kermit the Frog than a kilo of peas, and that not sieving it has left it distinctly rustic looking. I've made my peace with that.

I then divided up the soup into containers, and popped bits of ham hock on top.

As you'll see, there was still plenty to go round, even without doubling up - in fact, there would have been far too much for my tastes if I had.

The result was completely different from the pea and ham soup I normally make. Fresh tasting, and predominantly sweet, because of the peas and the unsmoked bacon - I think next time I might try smoked to add another flavour it. And although it had much more actual meat in it than the version I usually make, which relies on stock for flavour, it had less of a ham flavour. To be honest, I think it would be nicer - as well healthier - made with a ham stock, rather than by pureeing up all that bacon, all the bacon was a very useful short cut.

But I like the simplicity and the lurid colour that comes from using frozen garden peas rather than yellow split peas, and will try that again next winter.

I say next winter, because I think soup of the week may be about to take a bit of a break. It's getting warmer and sunnier here in Edinburgh. I've got some holiday coming up, which means I won't be needing weekday lunches for a bit. And when I come back, I think it might be times for salads, cous cous, bulgar wheat and other warm weather alternatives. I hope so! I'll blog the ones of these that feel more like recipes and less like desperately thrown-together mixtures. Although I'll share the good ones of those too.

Recipe: bean and/or mince chilli to feed an army

Every now and then I like to do a huge batch of cooking. There are certain recipes that are a bit too much hassle to do well to feed two people on one evening - but scarcely any more effort to cook a huge quantity.

They tend to be recipes for delicious, relatively cheap food - dal, spaghetti bolognese, and this one - chilli.

I like waiting until I have a quiet Sunday afternoon and doing my future self a favour - cooking a huge pot of food, and freezing it up into two person portions in old takeaway containers to be defrosted and eaten, once a week or so, over the next month.

I know from experience that as I come home from work to a beautiful slow-cooked meal that actually took me ten minutes to throw together, I am deeply grateful for the little time spent a week or two before.

This time, I made chilli. I looked for recipes, but in a house with about 30 recipe books I found I only had two - a 30 year old Delia Smith that only had one spice in it, and a Nigella Express that cheats slightly eccentrically, with chorizo and sweet chilli sauce.

So I made up my own. Because we're trying to save money and eat more healthily, I've scaled down the meat and upped the beans. You could skip one or other altogether, to be honest - just double up the quantity of meat or beans.

I was planning to do enough for four meals, but as it bubbled over the top of my very biggest pot, I realised I'd overdone it slightly. It filled five takeaway containers - enough for ten hungry people. At a portion cost of about £1 a head, I reckon, and that's shopping at Waitrose, something I happily pay a premium to do because I don't want to kill people while I'm in there.

You'll see there's cocoa in the ingredients. Don't panic, try it. But do use cocoa, not sweetened drinking chocolate! This version is quite mild with a slight kick - if you like it hot, double the chilli.

Ingredients (serves 10, it turns out. Halved will serve four hungry people!)

1kg mince
Four cans beans - I used three kidney, one black beans, because three packs of kidney beans were cheaper. Drained and rinsed.
Four can tomatoes, or two huge ones
Two onions, diced
4-5 cloves garlic, sliced
Four peppers, diced
Two red chillis, chopped
1 tbsp cinammon
1tbsp ground coriander
1tbsp ground cumin
2tsp cocoa powder

Soften the onion, garlic, chillis and peppers in a large (enormous!) casserole dish.
Add the mince and stir till brown.
Add the beans, tomatoes, spices and cocoa.
Boil away till reduced - half an hour to an hour, depending on how much of a vat you're produced. Stir it every now and then so it doesn't stick.

Portion up, cool down and freeze.
I'll have some of this with baked potatoes and sour cream, some with rice topped with a bit of cheese, some with tacos - and if I'm feeling adventurous, I might try to turn some into burritos.

Soup of the week: cauliflower, smoked cheese and paprika

This week's soup comes from dashing out in my lunch-hour to pick up origami paper (yes, it was an urgent lunchtime dash, I'll explain all another time).

My office is in the West End of Edinburgh. It's surrounding by dinky sandwich shops, chi chi clothes shops for people paid rather a lot more than me, and the sort of places you can get origami paper at the last minute. So as I made my dash, I passed a number of chalk boards advertising various soups of the day. One of them said smoked cheese and cauliflower. I don't remember which shop it was, and I didn't nip in to pick some up - I'd already had a portion of butter bean, thyme and chilli oil soup - but the idea stayed in my head.

So when it came to making this week's vat of soup on Sunday, I decided to give it a go. And the result was great - I dipped a teaspoon in to taste it when it was done, and kept going back for more.

Ingredients (makes 8 portions)

 

Two cauliflowers

Two or three sticks of celery

Two onions
Two or three potatoes (afterthought - not pictured)
1.5 l or 3 pints veg stock (for a thick soup, add an extra half litre/pint for something thinner)
Two teaspoons smoked paprika (sweet)
150-200g smoked cheese (I used applewood smoked chedder)

Dice onions, celery and soften in a little oil.
Chop cauliflower into florets, finely chop stem, and add. Peel and dice potatoes, and add.
Add stock, paprika and bring to boil. Leave bubbling away for 20 minutes.

When soft, add grated cheese and blend using a stick blender.