MIXED BEAN CHILLI

Here's a little something for meat-free Monday! Even though we're a family of omnivores, I think it's important to incorporate meat-free food into our weekly menu, so I usually try to make at least one vegetarian dinner a week, and our lunches are often meatless. Actually, come to think of it, this particular recipe would be suitable for a vegan diet too, if you omit the yogurt accompaniment or swap it for a dairy-free alternative.

Sadly (although predictably), this chilli turned out to be a bit on the spicy side for my kids (and a bit on the vegetarian side for my husband, a confirmed meat-eater) but it freezes well so a batch lasts me a while. I like to eat it for lunch as a filling for a baked potato or, if I'm feeling slightly less virtuous, I'll serve with tortilla chips and a good dollop of cooling natural yogurt.

The vegetables and beans in this tasty chilli all count towards your five-a-day (although apparently beans only count as one portion a day, no matter how many you eat) so I reckon you'd be well on your way to this target if you ate this for lunch or dinner.

Mixed Bean Chilli (vegetarian/vegan)

Serves 4

½ tbsp vegetable oil
1 onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 fresh red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
2 tsp each ground cumin and paprika
1 tsp mild chilli powder
1 each red, yellow and red pepper, deseeded and diced (360g total prepared weight)
400-g can chopped tomatoes
400-g can mixed beans in mild chilli sauce
400-g can red kidney beans in water, drained and rinsed
200-g can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 tbsp tomato purée
2 tbsp chopped fresh coriander

Heat the oil in a large saucepan over a low-medium heat and cook the onion for 8-10 minutes, or until softened. Add the garlic and red chilli and cook for a further minute.

Add the cumin, paprika and chilli powder and mix until the onion is coated in the spices. Increase the heat to medium-high, then stir in the peppers, tomatoes, beans, chickpeas and tomato purée.

Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 30 minutes, until thick and reduced. Stir in the coriander just before serving.

CHICKEN FAJITAS

 

I must admit that I'm not exactly at the forefront of culinary trends these days, but it hasn't escaped my notice that tacos are a big thing right now. In our household we don't really do tacos but fajitas have long been one of our favourites. And that got me thinking - exactly what is the difference between a taco and a fajita?

I did a little research (where would we be without Google?) and have discovered that the term fajitas (which is Spanish and translates as 'little belts') actually refers to the meat (traditionally marinated, griddled skirt steak cut into strips) rather than the dish itself. A taco on the other hand is more a method of presentation where a filling - which can be anything really - is placed on a tortilla and served either open-faced or folded. Apparently, those hard taco shells you can buy in the supermarket are not traditional in Mexico, where corn or flour tortillas are used in tacos (although the tortilla may be fried to make it crispy). The really interesting thing about all of this is that it means that a fajita can be a taco but a taco can't be a fajita - so it turns out that I've been making tacos all along!

You might not think of spicy food as family food, but actually my 5-year-old will happily eat fajitas. She doesn't like peppers or onions, so she'll have her chicken cooked in a separate pan with some sweetcorn. She enjoys making up her own fajita (or  should I say taco?), adding the grated cheese and dollops of yogurt, and rolling it up. I'm still working on the 2-year-old - she likes the tortilla, sweetcorn, cheese and yogurt so far. I think it's definitely worth persevering as I've found that other foods have been accepted eventually if I just offer them enough times.

Chicken Fajitas

Makes 4 fajitas (enough for 2 adults as a main meal)

1 tbsp vegetable oil
300g chicken breast, cut into strips
2 tbsp fajita spice (follow link for my Home-made Fajita Spice Mix)
½ green pepper, deseeded and thinly sliced
½ red pepper, deseeded and thinly sliced
1 small red onion, halved and thinly sliced
juice of ½ lime

To serve
4 flour tortillas
1 small or ½ large avocado, peeled, diced and tossed in the juice of ½ lime
55g Cheddar cheese, grated
125-g pot full-fat natural yogurt or soured cream

Heat the oil over a high heat in a large saucepan. Add the chicken strips and fry, stirring frequently, for 5-8 minutes, or until the chicken is sealed. Add 1 tablespoon of the fajita spice, stir to coat the chicken in the spice and cook for a further minute.

Add the peppers, onion and the remaining fajita spice and stir until everything is thoroughly mixed. Pour in the lime juice and continue to cook, stirring frequently, over a high heat for 5 minutes, or until the vegetables have softened and the chicken is cooked all the way through.

Divide the chicken mixture between the tortillas. Scatter over the avocado and grated cheese and top with dollops of yogurt. Fold in the two opposite ends of each tortilla, then roll up to fully enclose the filling. Cut in half and serve.


Tips

• For beef fajitas, use strips of rump steak instead of the chicken.

BROCCOLI & STILTON SOUP

January is definitely a soup kind of month - there's something immensely comforting about eating a steaming hot bowl of soup when the weather is as chilly as it has been lately. It's also a great portable lunch - I often used to pack up a thermos of soup when I worked in an office. I admit that this recipe is not all that dissimilar to the Cauliflower Cheese Soup I posted a while back (link here) but I hope you'll forgive me because the end result tastes quite different. Although the cheese (and butter) in it might not be so great for the waistline, this soup does at least deliver one of your five-a-day. It's also s(o)uper tasty!

If I'm perfectly honest, my main reason for making this soup was to use up the last of our Christmas cheeseboard. We had a really nice selection of British cheeses this year - creamy Somerset Brie, crumbly Wensleydale with cranberries, tangy vintage Cheddar and strong blue Stilton. I do love a good cheeseboard, but I'm not someone who regularly eats cheese on its own so most of the leftovers were used up in cooking. I just love how oozy and gooey cheese goes when it's melted - yum! There are loads of tasty ways to use Stilton in cooking - my favourites are to add nuggets of it to macaroni cheese and to crumble it over a mushroom or squash risotto.

Broccoli & Stilton soup

Serves 3-4

10g butter
2 tsp vegetable oil
1 onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, chopped
150g (peeled weight) potato, peeled and cut into 1-cm cubes
225g broccoli, separated into florets
750ml vegetable stock (I used Marigold Swiss Vegetable Bouillon Powder)
100g Stilton (or other blue cheese), cubed
freshly grated black pepper and nutmeg, to season

Heat the butter and oil in a large saucepan over a low–medium heat. Add the onion to the pan and cook, stirring occasionally, for 8 minutes, until softened. Stir in the garlic and cook for a further minute. Add the potato, increase the heat a little and cook for 5 minutes.

Put the broccoli into the pan and pour over the stock - don't worry if the stock doesn't quite cover the broccoli. Bring to the boil, then partially cover the pan and simmer for 15 minutes, or until the broccoli is very tender.

Season to taste with plenty of black pepper and nutmeg. Remove the pan from the heat and, using a hand-held stick blender, process the soup in the pan until smooth (or leave the soup a little chunky if you prefer).

Add the Stilton to the soup, return the pan to a low heat and stir until melted. Transfer to bowls and serve.

Tips

• Skip the butter if you're counting the calories - it's there for the flavour but the soup will taste perfectly fine without it.
• I use the broccoli stalk as well as the florets - just remember to peel off and discard the thick outer skin before slicing.
• A stick blender makes the job of blending soup incredibly easy but you can, of course, use a blender or food processor instead. Just allow the soup to cool down a little before processing and work in batches if necessary.
• I like my soup thick, but feel free to add extra stock (or even a little milk) if you prefer a thinner consistency.

PAELLA-STYLE RICE

I hesitate to call this recipe 'paella' after Jamie Oliver got so much stick about the paella recipe that he tweeted recently (a lot of which seemed to concern his inclusion of chorizo). However, since 'rice with whatever' isn't a particularly catchy recipe title, I hope that calling it 'paella-style rice' will be acceptable to any Spanish readers. I've been lucky enough to visit Spain a few times (I've even eaten paella there!) but I shan't pretend that I know much about traditional paella. I've flagrantly disregarded most of the few rules that I do know about paella-making (i.e. that you should use Spanish rice; that, unlike risotto, you mustn't stir the rice while it's cooking; and that paella shouldn't contain chorizo) so I won't make any claims on the authenticity of this recipe. If anything, I'd say it's a British take on paella. Which is fine by me as it's pretty tasty, if I do say so myself!

While I'm being honest, I'll admit that this isn't a meal I'd give my kids at the moment. I hope it will be something they'll eat when they're a bit older, but they're currently going through a no-mixed-foods phase and my 5-year-old doesn't even like the different foods touching each other on the plate!

Tips

• I've used turmeric in place of the more traditional saffron simply because of the price. If you prefer to use saffron, soak the strands in a little of the stock and add along with the stock and passata.
• This dish can be reheated successfully the following day but do make sure that you cool down the leftovers as quickly as possible and promptly transfer them to the fridge, then reheat until piping hot all the way through. 

Paella-style rice

Serves 2 adults

½ tbsp olive oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
70g diced chorizo
175g chicken breast, cut into chunks
100g basmati rice
½ tbsp ground turmeric
½ tbsp smoked paprika
½ red pepper, deseeded and diced
2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
200g passata
200ml chicken stock
150g cooked king prawns, defrosted if necessary
2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
120g frozen peas
1 fresh red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped

Heat the oil in a large saucepan over a low-medium heat and cook the onions gently for 5 minutes. Add the chorizo and cook for a further 2 minutes, then add the chicken, increase the heat to medium and cook, stirring, for 3-4 minutes, until sealed all over.

Add the rice, turmeric and paprika and stir until all the ingredients are coated in the spices. Stir in the red pepper, garlic, passata and stock. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to low, cover and cook for 12 minutes, without lifting the lid.

Remove the lid and stir in the prawns, parsley, peas and chilli. Continue to cook over a low heat for 3-4 minutes, or until the prawns and peas are piping hot.

MUSHROOM RISOTTO

Before I say anything about this recipe, let me just put this out there – I LOVE MUSHROOMS! Unfortunately for me, my family hates them with an equal passion. As a result, whenever I'm dining on my own I usually cook something that is so utterly mushroom-heavy that none of them would ever eat it. This recipe fits that bill. It's the dried porcini mushrooms that do it. Before I tried adding those to my risotto it just wasn't, you know, mushroomy enough, but the porcini give it that extra depth of earthy mushroom flavour. Occasionally, if I fancy a bit of variety, I add a couple of handfuls of spinach a couple of minutes before the end of the cooking and maybe crumble over a little blue cheese too.

Risotto isn't the quickest meal to make but it's not exactly difficult either. I certainly don't stir it constantly – I find a quick stir every couple of minutes perfectly adequate. And, of course, the added bonus of making risotto for dinner is that it gives you an excuse to open a bottle of wine – and enjoy a glass while the risotto is cooking!

Mushroom risotto

Serves 1
10g dried porcini mushrooms
1 tsp olive oil
10g butter
2 shallots, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
150g chestnut mushrooms, sliced
80g risotto rice (I use Arborio)
½ tsp dried thyme
75ml dry white wine
225ml boiling vegetable stock (I use Marigold Swiss Vegetable Bouillon)
30g Parmesan cheese (or vegetarian alternative), grated

Place the porcini mushrooms in a cup and pour over boiling water to cover. Set aside to soak for at least 10 minutes.

Heat the oil and half the butter over a low heat in a medium-sized saucepan. Add the shallots and cook for 5 minutes, or until softened. Add the garlic and cook for a further minute. Increase the heat slightly, add the chestnut mushrooms and cook for 5 minutes. Stir in the rice and thyme.

Pour in the wine and simmer until the liquid has been absorbed. Add the stock a little at a time, stirring frequently, allowing each addition to be absorbed before adding the next. This process will take a good 20–25 minutes.

Drain the porcini mushrooms, reserving the soaking liquid, and slice. Add the porcini to the pan along with the reserved soaking liquid. Continue to cook, stirring frequently, until the liquid has been absorbed and the grains of rice are tender.

Remove the pan from the heat, add the Parmesan cheese and the remaining butter, and stir until melted. Enjoy!

CHICKEN & CHORIZO QUESADILLAS

This past weekend I seem to have come over all Mexican, what with fajitas (recipe to follow another time) for dinner on Friday, chilli con carne (recipe here) on Saturday and quesadillas for lunch on Sunday. It wasn't planned – it just happened like that!

Quesadillas make a really tasty a weekend lunch. The great thing is that you can vary the fillings to suit each person – for example, my husband doesn't like the spring onion so I'll leave it out of his tortilla, and the kids don't like the spring onion or red pepper but will have extra sweetcorn instead. The recipe below is for my favourite version but feel free to swap and change the filling ingredients to suit your own tastes (chopped fresh chillies and coriander make nice additions). The only thing I would say is that some kind of cheese is pretty essential as it 'glues' the two halves of tortilla together.

I guess I make my quesadillas in a fairly unconventional way because they're usually made by sandwiching the filling between two tortillas, whereas I fold each tortilla in half. I like my method because I find it easier to flip the individual tortillas, plus I think they hold together better when you're eating them too.

Everyone in my family likes to have something to dip their quesadilla into so I'll serve natural yogurt (which is lower in fat than soured cream) and occasionally some guacamole alongside. PLEASE NOTE that however many quesadillas you think you need, I'd highly recommend adding one more. We usually manage to get through five between the four of us – and that's bearing in mind that the toddler only has half of one!

Chicken & chorizo quesadillas

Makes 2
2 flour tortillas
80g ready-grated Cheddar and mozzarella (sometimes called 'pizza cheese')
40g red pepper, diced
2 spring onions, chopped
30g frozen sweetcorn, thawed
30g diced chorizo
40g cooked chicken breast, shredded
vegetable oil, for brushing
natural yogurt, to serve

Place the first tortilla on a flat surface (such as a chopping board or the worktop). Sprinkle 20g of the cheese over one semi-circular half of the tortilla, leaving a small gap around the edge. Scatter half of the red pepper, spring onion, sweetcorn, chorizo and chicken over the cheese-topped side of the tortilla, then top with another 20g of the cheese. Fold the tortilla in half to cover the filling. Repeat with the second tortilla and the remaining filling ingredients.

Brush a frying pan large enough to hold both tortillas (I use a 24-cm saut̵é pan) with oil and place over a medium–high heat. Once hot, place the tortillas into the pan with both folded edges in the centre. Cook for 3–4 minutes, or until golden brown underneath. Carefully turn each tortilla using a fish slice and cook on the other side for a further 2–3 minutes.

Transfer the quesadillas to a chopping board and cut into wedges (I find it easiest to use a pizza wheel to do this). Serve with natural yogurt for dipping.

CAULIFLOWER CHEESE SOUP

I've been wanting to make this soup for a few weeks but couldn't quite bring myself to do so because it would be like admitting that summer was over. I know that there are lots of lovely summery soup recipes out there, but for me soup will always be an autumn/winter meal – a cosy, comforting kind of food that is as synonymous with the chillier months of the year as falling leaves, winter woollens and crackling log fires. Well, it's now (as of yesterday) officially autumn here in the UK, so I figured that there could be no better way to mark the changing seasons than by cooking up a batch of one of my favourite soups.

I think this recipe started out as a broccoli and Stilton soup (which, in my opinion, is equally tasty) and evolved from there. If I'm perfectly honest, no-one in my family eats cauliflower (although I persevere with offering it to the kids) and my oldest child doesn't eat soup, so I'm not exactly on to a winner here with my family. It's no great hardship – all the more yummy soup for me!

It's important to use a good strong Cheddar cheese in this recipe. I like to use a bit of butter when I'm making a creamy soup because I think it adds to the flavour, but you don't have to – just use a little more oil. This is not a slimming soup (although there's no reason you couldn't enjoy it while dieting if you watch the portion size) but given that my body is going to be spending the next few months shrouded in layers of winter clothes I couldn't care less!

Cauliflower cheese soup

Serves 4

10g butter
2 tsp vegetable oil
1 onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, chopped
150g (peeled weight) potato, peeled and cut into 1-cm cubes
1 head of cauliflower, separated into florets (about 600g prepared weight)
750ml vegetable stock (I used Marigold Swiss Vegetable Bouillon Powder)
115g extra-mature vegetarian Cheddar cheese, grated
pinch of freshly grated nutmeg

Heat the butter and oil in a large saucepan over a low–medium heat. Add the onion to the pan and cook, stirring occasionally, for 8 minutes, until softened. Stir in the garlic and cook for a further minute. Add the potato, increase the heat a little and cook for 5 minutes.

Put the cauliflower into the pan and pour over the stock - don't worry if the stock doesn't quite cover the cauliflower. Bring to the boil, then partially cover the pan and simmer for 15 minutes, or until the cauliflower is very tender.

Remove the pan from the heat and add the cheese, stirring until melted. Season to taste with grated nutmeg. Using a hand-held stick blender, process the soup in the pan until smooth (or leave the soup a little chunky if you prefer).

Transfer to bowls, sprinkle over extra grated cheese and nutmeg (if you like) and serve.

PASTA WITH PESTO, HAM & PEAS

Following hot on the heels of my basil pesto recipe is this recipe for my family's favourite way to eat it. It's so simple - literally a four-ingredient, 15-minute meal. What's more, I'm guaranteed clean plates all round when I serve this up (which, frankly, makes a nice change).

Meals containing peas go down well in my house. Along with sweetcorn, peas are a vegetable that everyone will happily eat – my husband even goes as far as to call the humble pea 'the king of vegetables'. It's a shame that kale and broccoli don't receive similar praise, but I'm just happy that everyone's in agreement about something.   

I tend to leave the ham out of my toddler's portion because I try to limit her salt intake, but that's easy enough – I just serve hers up before I add the ham to the rest of the pasta. Occasionally, I'll make a vegetarian(ish – the Parmesan in the pesto obviously isn't vegetarian) version of this dish for myself with added halved cherry tomatoes and fresh rocket leaves instead of the ham and peas. You can also use bacon, or even chicken, instead of the ham. In fact, the possibilities are endless. I'd love to hear your ideas for jazzing up pesto pasta – what are your family's favourite ingredients?

Pasta with pesto, peas & ham

Serves 2 adults and 2 small children

300g (dry weight) pasta shapes
200g frozen peas
100g basil pesto

100g ham (slices are fine), chopped

Bring a large saucepan of water to the boil and add the pasta. Bring back to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 8 minutes. Add the peas, bring back to the boil and simmer for a further 2 minutes, or until the pasta is tender but firm to the bite.

Drain the pasta well, then return to the saucepan and stir in the pesto and ham. Dig in!

COURGETTE, PEA & FETA FRITTATA

I wouldn’t consider myself a fussy person (when it comes to food anyway) but I’ll admit that I’m not a huge fan of eggs. It’s not the egg per se, more the yolk (I know, I know - that’s supposed to be the best bit!) and I need my eggs to be cooked all the way through or it makes me feel quite queasy. Weird, eh? That’s what’s so great – in my eyes at least – about frittatas. Unlike with an omelette, which can be a bit gelatinous for my liking, when you make a frittata you place the frying pan under the grill to finish it off so the eggs are guaranteed to be fully cooked.

I’ve been eating frittatas for lunch quite often recently. They’re pretty healthy, very filling and a great way to use up odds and ends of ingredients. I also like the fact that they’re a one-pot meal – I have enough washing up to do come dinnertime without adding to the pile!

This version with feta, courgette and peas is one of my favourites – the salty feta adds a great hit of flavour. If I have a bag of salad leaves in the fridge (and they haven’t gone slimy yet), I’ll pop a handful of those to the top of the frittata to add to the veg count.

It's important to use the right size of frying pan for this recipe - too big and the egg mixture won't cover all the vegetables. The one I use has a diameter of 20cm.

Courgette, pea & feta frittata

Serves 1  

1 tsp olive oil

½ large courgette, diced

2 spring onions, sliced

Small handful of frozen peas

3 large eggs

1 tbsp milk

1 tbsp chopped fresh mint (or ½ tsp dried mint)

45g vegetarian feta cheese, cut into small cubes

Handful of watercress or other salad leaves, to serve

Heat the oil over a medium heat in a small ovenproof frying pan. Add the courgette to the pan and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes, or until the courgette has started to brown at the edges. Add the spring onions and peas and cook for a further minute. Meanwhile, preheat the grill.  

Crack the eggs into a jug and add the milk and mint. Beat well, then gently stir in the feta cheese. Pour the egg mixture into the frying pan and shake so it covers all the vegetables and the ingredients are evenly distributed.

Continue cooking until the underside of the frittata is brown and set, then place the frying pan under the preheated grill.  Cook for 3-4 minutes, until the top of the frittata is golden and bubbling. Slide out of the frying pan onto a plate. Cut the frittata into wedges and top with the watercress leaves. Eat!