Time to Salsa

Like most students, I absolutely love fajitas, and have done for a very long time (as you can probably guess from how dated that post looks, wtf). They're quick, easy and incredibly tasty, and always feel like a treat.

That doesn't mean they have to be quick though. Don't get me wrong - they're great any way - but if you find yourself with a little extra time, it's super easy to do a couple of little extra things that make all the difference. In particular: the SALSA. It's super easy to make, and adds an extra element of luxury and impressiveness when you serve everything up. 

Ingredients:
- 100g tomatoes
- ½ a chilli
- 5 spring onions
- 1 clove garlic
- juice of ½ lime
- handful fresh coriander
- salt and pepper, to taste

1. If you're lucky enough to have a food processor, throw everything in and blitz (though not until it's a purée - aim for general salsa consistency!). If you don't, that's completely fine, you just need to chop everything finely then mix together in a bowl. 
2. That's it. Serve with fajitas or anything else you fancy, and enjoy!

A Vegetable Feast

Like a veritable feast, but with more vegetables. ALL OF THE VEG.

I haven't been cooking as much recently: there, I said it. Things have been too stressful and busy (which is why there hasn't been much blogging - there hasn't been anything to blog...), BUT last week I decided enough was enough and that I needed something super healthy and delicious to make up for it all. So I made this: baked, stuffed aubergine with cous cous, feta and all things lovely.

Ingredients (serves 1):
- half an aubergine
- 1 small red onion, roughly chopped
- 10 cherry tomatoes
- 3 cloves garlic, peeled but left whole
- 100g cous cous
- 200ml veg stock
- 3 spring onions, chopped
- 100g feta cheese, crumbled
- handful of fresh coriander, chopped
- salt and pepper, to taste

Method:
1. First, preheat the oven to 220°C. Place the aubergine into a baking dish with the onion, garlic and tomatoes, then drizzle with olive oil and a good amount of salt and pepper. Put this into the oven for 40 minutes, taking it out half way through to flip the aubergine and stir the rest of the veg.
2. Put the cous cous into a pan with the hot stock and heat gently for about five minutes, until the grains have expanded and the liquid has been absorbed.
3. Scoop the middle out of the roasted aubergine and add it to the cous cous, along with the onion, tomatoes and garlic (the cloves will be soft enough to just squash now). Stir in the spring onions, feta and coriander, then place the mixture back into the aubergine skin and bake for a further 15-20 minutes.

 
NB: There will be cous cous mixture left over but this is a good thing - my extras were eaten by our house mouse (aka Rebecca) but it would be great to put in the fridge and have for lunch the next day.
4. Sprinkle with an extra bit of coriander to make it look pretty, then serve with something delicious like sweet potato fries. Yum.

An Indian Feast

Before the end of term I decided I wanted to do a proper big dinner for a few of us, because I like cooking and I like people. Zosia had an 'Indian dip selection' in the fridge. That was that, really.

Sooooo I made a mixed bean curry and onion bhajis and chapatis and coriander rice. And it was exhausting. And also wonderful. The curry recipe belongs to a friend of my aunt and has been a favourite at home for years - it went down pretty well here, too! It's a long list of ingredients but don't be daunted: most of them are just store-cupboard spices. Also, because it needs time to marinade it's a good one to make earlier in the day.

Ingredients (serves 4):
- 1tbsp mustard seeds
- 1tbsp cumin seeds
- 1 small onion, finely chopped
- 1 clove garlic, finely chopped
- 2 chillis, chopped
- 1 tin chopped tomatoes
-  ½tsp turmeric
- 1tbsp ground coriander
- 1tbsp ground cumin
- ½pt boiling water
- 4 large tins of beans (I tend to use 2 of chickpeas and 2 of kidney beans)
- 3 balls of frozen spinach
- handful fresh coriander

Method:
1. Grab your biggest saucepan and drizzle in some olive oil. Add the cumin and mustard seeds and heat until they start popping.
2. Add the onion, garlic and chilli and soften 'til the onion becomes clear (about 8 minutes).

3. Add the chopped tomatoes and spices and cook for a few more minutes, then add the water.
4. Stir well, then put on a lid (or some tin foil) and simmer on a low heat for 30-40 minutes.
5. Add the beans and spinach and stir until the spinach has de-frosted, then allow to cool and marinade for as long as you have time for.
6. Cook through when required, then season and add the fresh coriander.

Simple. For the rice, I cooked some basic brown rice and then added a squeeze of lime juice, some salt and pepper and some fresh coriander to liven it up a bit.

The onion bhajis I made were a very yummy side, and seemed to work fine with gluten free flour.

And it's easy to make chapatis. You need a tablespoon of both wholemeal and white flour per person (OR you can buy chapati flour and use 2tbsp per person. All the flour in our house at uni is gluten free, so it was actually cheaper for me to do this). Add a drizzle of olive oil and enough warm water to bring it all together in a dough, then knead for a couple of minutes. Cover with clingfilm, and then leave for an hour. 

Divide the dough into pieces (4 each, so it depends how many you're making for): they'll look small, but it's all good. Roll out as thin as you can without breaking them, then grab a frying pan and and cook the chapatis one at a time, for about a minute each side (you don't need any oil). Once cooked, transfer to a plate and spread with butter, then onto the next!

Serve up to your hungry friends and enjoy your feast.

Vegetable Chilli (the best you've ever tasted)

This chilli is so easy to make that it's really impossible to get it wrong - it just takes a bit of time. It feeds a whole bunch of people (about 6) so is great if you're having friends round, plus it freezes brilliantly. It's also packed with the things your parents always ask if you're eating enough of, like BEANS (look, Mum!), and what’s more, you can adapt it to whatever you fancy or just happen to have in the fridge - use different kinds beans or vegetables, or play around with the spices to vary it.

 

Because of the awesomeness I ended up making it two days in a row last week - first to feed my friends before a night out, and the second time because Fraser requested it when he came to stay. I'd made double quantity the first night (there were 9 of us) but my hopes of leftovers were in vain!

Ingredients: 

- 1 onion

- 2 peppers (yellow and red)

- 2 sticks celery
- 1 large carrot

- 2 cloves garlic

- 2 chillies (red and green)

- 300g Quorn mince

- 1tsp chilli powder

- 1½tsp ground cumin

- 1tsp ground coriander

- 2tsp cinnamon 

- 1tsp paprika

- 1 glass red wine

- 2x 400g tin chopped tomatoes

- 2x 400g tin kidney beans (or any you like)

- 200ml vegetable stock

- 1 bay leaf

- 30g fresh coriander

Method:
1. Heat some olive oil in a large pan or wok. Roughly chop the onion, peppers, celery, carrot, garlic and chillies and add to said pan, then cook for about 10 minutes, until softened and beginning to colour.

2. Add the Quorn mince (straight from frozen, but bash it a bit to break it up first) and cook for a few minutes until it's browned, then add the spices and cook for a further 5 minutes. This is the only point where you really have to watch it, or the spices will stick to the bottom of the pan and burn.

3. Stir in the tomatoes, red wine, bay leaf, vegetable stock and beans (drained), then give it a good stir to mix it all together. Bring it to a boil, then let it simmer for about an hour, stirring every 10 minutes or so to make sure it isn't sticking.

4. Turn off the heat, then roughly chop the coriander and add it to the pan, along with salt and pepper to taste. You can serve it with basically anything - my favourite is in tortilla wraps with sour cream and a strong cheddar, but you could do it with rice and add chopped spring onions, or even just eat it by itself. The choice is yours! But do eat it - you're missing out until you do.

What to do when you win a coconut

First of all, I'm sorry for being a bit MIA recently. Life is mad, especially since I got a job at my local fruit and veg shop (yay vegetables), but I will make it up to you. Starting with this.

Because at the Royal Holloway Summer Ball this year, I won a coconut on the coconut shy. Here is a picture of me with my coconut.

Zosia would like to add here that she really reallllly was very very excited.

I named him Tarzan. I was very very excited and full of ideas of what to do with it... but a month later it was still sitting on my shelf, though at home now as we'd left uni. And then my sister suggested I used it to make some sort of Thai curry. AN IDEA WAS BORN. And my coconut became this:

Which was pretty darn good really.

What you need for a Bryony-style Thai green curry:
- 1 coconut
- 8 spring onions
- 2 cloves garlic
- half a red pepper
- half an aubergine (a whole one would be fine)
- a thumb-size piece of ginger
- 2 chillies (I used 1 red and 1 green, but it's up to you)
- 6-8 new potatoes
- handful green beans
- handful mange tout
- 1 1/2 tsp soya sauce
- 1 tbsp soft dark brown sugar
- 350ml water with half a knorr stock pot or 1 oxo cube
- zest and juice of 1 lime
- fresh coriander
- jasmine or sticky rice, to serve

And the SECRET ingredient (less secret now I put it on the internet in capital letters) is a 'Thai Taste: Easy Thai Green Curry Kit'. Which sounds like a massive cheat, but actually it isn't and is also the best money-saver ever. It includes coconut milk, Thai green curry paste and herbs - which, if you bought them seperately, would come to about £5-6, and I think this was £2ish. So no complaints.

It's quite a lot of ingredients, but I promise nothing is lost and it's totally worth it. This amount served three, but it would be a good one for bulking up and cooking en-masse, too - especially if you get people to pitch in for cost.

1. Start by getting into your coconut. We used a hammer and chisel, but the internet is full of suggestions. Once you're in, cut the fleshy bits into small, thin pieces and dry-fry them in a wok or frying pan until they're toasted. This alone is amazingly nice. Put the coconut water aside, and put the toasted coconut pieces in a bowl to cool down. Meanwhile, put your new potatoes on to boil for about 15 minutes.

2. In the now-empty wok heat up some oil, and then add the spring onions, garlic and ginger. Stir-fry these for a couple of minutes, and then add the aubergine, followed shortly by the green beans.

3. Once the vegetables are starting to colour and the aubergine is beginning to shrink, add the pepper, chillis and Thai herbs. Stir-fry all this for another 5 minutes or so, before adding in the boiled new potatoes (chopped), the curry paste and most of the toasted coconut. Cook for another few minutes.

4. Next, add the mange tout, the coconut water (the stuff that was inside your coconut), the coconut milk, the water and the stock pot/cube. It should be beginning to look more like a curry. Turn up the heat slightly and stir, and add in the sugar and soya sauce. Now is also a good time to put your rice on to cook, though it depends what sort of rice you're using.

5. After 15 minutes or so, your liquid should have reduced by about half, and should now be thicker and more sauce-like (although it isn't a particularly thick sauce, so don't worry). When you're happy with the consistency, add in most of your fresh coriander, the lime juice and most of the zest. Cook for another couple of minutes and then try the sauce and adjust whatever you need (if you need to) until you're happy with it. 

Serve with the rice, and the rest of the coconut, coriander and lime zest. You won't be disappointed.

Fajitas

These are very easy to make and immensely satisfying, and wonderful if you have friends over as Zosia and I did on Friday.

Fellow students, it's a win-win situation!

To make enough for four, you need:

- 1 large onion (or 2 small)
- 2 red chillies and seeds (depending on the type/your preference)
- 3 or 4 peppers
- 1 bag Quorn fillets or 'chicken style pieces'
- 1 sachet 'Old El Paso' fajita seasoning
- 1 tbsp cumin
- sprinkle of Tabasco
- squirt of lemon juice
- handful of fresh coriander

Chop your onion into long-ish strips and throw into a large frying pan or wok with a generous amount of olive oil. Then chop your chillies (the best way to do this is to make one cut from the stem to the bottom, and then slice into small pieces, cutting in the direction of the stem. This means you can hold onto the stem at all times, and so avoids getting chilli all over your hands and having to deal with the consequences of rubbing your eyes later in the evening). Add to pan.

Chop the peppers into strips - by the time this is done you can add them to the pan. Stir and take the opportunity to talk to your friends/esteemed dinner guests and food critics (depending on your chefy fantasies), as these need a good five minutes before you can move on.

The next step depends on what type of Quorn you're using - if it's the fillets, you'll need to defrost them in the microwave enough to chop them into small pieces. If it's the 'chicken style pieces' you can just throw them straight in the pan - they'll defrost in there as well as cook, and it makes life so much easier. Once they start to colour you can add the seasoning, cumin, Tabasco and lemon juice. You're now pretty much done - cook for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally to make sure nothing catches at the bottom of the pan, and add your fresh coriander before serving.

Best served with corn tortilla wraps, grated cheddar cheese, sour cream, salsa, guacamole and Tabasco.

The delicate art of how to fill your fajita in order to successfully make it close

YUM. Tesco also just so happens to sell all the dips together in a 'Tex Mex' dips set, which is a brilliant money saver.

Word to the wise - do not expect to be able to eat them without making a mess. It's half the fun.

Enjoy!