Stuffed mushrooms

Picture to come

I use these mushrooms as an easy starter, or a side dish to go with steak.  Even cook them on the barbeque in summer.

• A selection of large flat mushrooms (if really big 1 per person, if for a starter and smaller, 2 per person)
• 1 tbsp butter
• 2 onions finely chopped
• 4 cloves garlic chopped or put through a press
• 1 ring chorizo chopped into small pieces (at least quarters or smaller)
• Smoked paprika
• half glass white wine
• 1 pack boursin or other garlic cheese 
• grated cheddar cheese

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.

Gently remove the stalks from the mushrooms to leave the caps in tact.

Melt the butter in a bowl in the microwave, take each mushroom cap and dip upside down in the butter (be careful not to burn your fingers) so that the mushroom looks like a bowl with the outside coated in butter.  Put the mushrooms upside down like this on a baking tray or dish with sides so that they can be filled.

Saute the onions with the garlic until soft.  Add the chorizo and continue to fry off.  Add the smoked paprika and ensure all is coated.

Put in the white wine and turn the heat up to full so it boils.

Add the boursin and keep stirring until it melts.  Put the heat on low and let it simmer for a little while until the sauce thickens a little.

Divide the mixture up between all the mushrooms so each one is filled.

Cover the baking dish with tinfoil and cook for 20 mins.  

Uncover and put a little grated cheese onto the top of each mushroom, put back into the oven for 5 minutes until the cheese is melted.

(To cook on a barbeque, wrap the mushrooms in 4s in tinfoil parcels)

New potato salad

Fantastic for BBQs in the summer :)

• 1 bag small new potatoes like Charlotte
• 3 sticks celery, chopped
• 4-5 spring onions, chopped
• half cucumber chopped into quarters
• half tub reduced fat creme fraiche
• half tub low fat Philadelphia (I used the chive one, but any could work)
• 1 teaspoon wholegrain mustard
• 1 teaspoon english mustard
• salt and pepper

Cook the potatoes and leave to cool.  Any large potatoes slice in half so all potatoes are roughly the same size.

Put the creme fraiche, Philadelphia and mustards in a small bowl and mix together.

Get a large bowl and put in the cooled potatoes, celery, onions and cucumber and mix well, then add the creme fraiche mix and mix until all the potatoes are coated.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

Beetroot, fennel, turnip and feta salad

• 1 packet feta cheese
• 3-4 small raw (unpickled) beetroot
• 1 fennel bulb
• 1 small turnip
• 1 bulb garlic
• assorted salad leaves
• cucumber and spring onion if desired

Peel the garlic bulbs and leave whole. Chop up beetroot into small wedges (about 8 from each root), and chop turnip up into same size wedges, cut fennel longway down centre and then peel each leaf off bit by bit until you get to the heart. Put all in a foil tray and drizzle with oil and balsamic vinegar. Put in an oven about 180C for 1hr until soft or cook on a hot BBQ.

Put assorted leaves into a bowl and pour hot roasted veg and all juices over. Sprinkle with crumbled feta cheese and serve.

Mojito marinade

This was one of my last minute inventions but turned out really well as a light marinade for chicken kebabs ;)

• Thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger, peeled and chopped
• 1 clove garlic, peeled and chopped
• 10 mint leaves
• Juice of 1 limes
• Glug of olive oil
• Teaspoon brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon of dark rum (I know mojitos use white rum but the flavour was better with dark for this!)

Add all ingredients to jug and add blender. Once all blended together, put in microwave for 30 seconds to melt sugar. Leave to cool then use to marinade any type of meat or fish. Best with chicken. We did kebabs with peppers, onions and mushrooms and chicken.

Barbequed leg of lamb with thai green spices

From JamieOliver.com with adaptations ;)

For the marinade:

• 10 kaffir lime leaves (I didn't have any so I used a mixture of thai basil leaves and lime basil leaves)
• 2 thumb-sized pieces of fresh ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
• 2 sticks of lemon grass trimmed and roughly chopped (ASDA Shaw do a new Thai spices bag near the fresh garlic which is ace for this, shame it doesn't have ginger in it tho)
• 4 cloves of garlic, peeled
• bunch of fresh coriander leaves picked
• 2 green chilles, roughly chopped
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• juice of 2 limes

For the lamb:

• 1 x 2.2.5kg leg of lamb butterflied (went to Darryl's at top of High Crompton - perfect)
• salt and pepper
• 1 x 400ml tin coconut milk
• 1 fresh red chille, deseeded and chopped

Preheat oven to 170oC/325oF.

Add to large pestle and mortar, or bowl/jug/foodprocessor for blending: lime leaves, ginger, lemongrass, garlic, most of coriander and green chilles. Make thick, fragrant green paste. Add olive oil and lime juice.

Pierce lamb all over with knife and then rub with marinade. Season lamb and place in a roasting tin, cover with clingfilm and leave for a while to marinade.

An hour before BBQing remove clingfilm and cover with tinfoil and place in oven for an hour.

After half and hour light BBQ. Have coals high on one side tapering down to the other giving a variety of heat across the grill.

After an hour take lamb out of oven and cut or break into a few big chunks so it's easier to grill.

Place lamb pieces on hot side of BBQ with the roasting tray and juices on the cooler side. Can add a little more lime juice to the tray if you wish at this point. Turn the meat regularly, basting it in juices from the tray as you go. Gives a nice, dark crust. Do the meat for about 10mins like this.

One meat done, remove from grill and place on a board and cover with foil to allow to rest. Add coconut milk to tray and let it bubble for a few mins to thicken.

Carve lamb into chunky slices, serve with the Thai sauce, sprinkles with chopped red chilli and the remaining coriander.