A really Simple After-Work Dinner

After a hard day at work, arriving home tired and wet, I can't be bothered to cook long complicated recipes. I still like to eat well though. Here's a colourful solution. A circle of roasted butternut squash, topped with a round of goats cheese, baked until soft and golden. I served this with stir fried leeks and red cabbage. I roasted the squash yesterday so this meal took no more than 10 minutes to prepare today.

Another Nearly Followed Recipe!

This recipe was called squash, chicken and couscous one-pot, and I nearly followed it. Inevitably there were changes I made because I didn't have the required ingredients, and also changes I made just because I could. I started with red onions, chipotle paste (should have been harissa), cumin and coriander and fried these until soft, then added a pack of chicken style quorn pieces (recipe said chicken breast). At this point the chipotle paste gave off a fantastic smokey smell which filled the house. Next I added two tins of tomatoes and a heap of cubed butternut squash. I left the pan on a very low heat for most of the afternoon. At tea time I added four quartered tomatoes, some bacon (ready cooked) and the zest and juice of a lemon. I cooked some quinoa instead of couscous and kept it separate from the casserole. The recipe said just bung in some couscous and let it cook in the juices. The end result is very good. Perhaps next time I would add a little less lemon. The bacon was an afterthought when I found it in the fridge nearly out of date. It would definitely look better on the plate with some greens

Fish on Friday

Time for fish again. I love cooking fish as it's so quick. This time it was a fillet of plaice, fried, and served with broccoli, cabbage, mashed potato with spinach and mushrooms. The brown zig-zag is balsamic glaze and makes a lovely addition to white fish.

Now it's Time To Empty the Vegetable Rack

Another freezer raid yielded a pack of prawns, while the vegetable rack sported a collection of tired looking plant material that urgently needed cooking or composting. In a pot in the fridge was the remnant of the honey, mustard and chilli dressing, made for the quinoa salad and which has already had an encore on the salmon yesterday. A stir fry seemed to be the ideal solution.

While I'm in the mood for yeast cookery, I made a batch of naan bread dough and experimented with flavours to create garlic and coriander naan. After the dough had risen I added a crushed garlic clove and some ground coriander. Fresh would have been better but I didn't have any.

The stir fry was made from red onion, cabbage, garlic, ginger, pepper, mushrooms and baby corn. Once cooked it was topped with leftover chopped and toasted hazelnuts (from quinoa salad) and the dressing.

Fantastic, now I've got an empty fridge and an empty vegetable rack. Time to start again.

Salmon with Leftover Sauce

I don't like throwing anything away, and this is reflected in the recycling that goes on in my kitchen. Here I have panfried a salmon steak and topped it with the honey, mustard and chilli dressing that I made for the quinoa, beetroot and squash salad. The salmon is served on a bed of potato crumbs, made by squeezing boiled potatoes through a ricer onto a baking sheet and then grilling it until the top turns brown. It makes an interesting texture and variation from mashed potato. Beside the salmon are wilted spinach, leftover from the quinoa salad and cauliflower and peas, leftover from the day before.

I now have a good dinner and an empty fridge.

The simplest Prawn Curry in the World

Just as it's name suggests, this was a quick 'ready, steady, cook' style creation from the freezer and storecupboard. I chopped and fried an onion then added a tablespoonful of tika masala paste. Next, in went a whole tin of reduced fat coconut milk followed by some diced up butternut squash. The whole lot was gently simmered until the squash was cooked and at the last minute a pack of prawns was added.

I served the curry with leeks, brown rice and a home-made naan bread. It was delicious. Curry flavour without any heat.

Quinoa, Beetroot, Squash and Feta Hot Salad

This dish was inspired by a recipe in the April Good Food magazine. The intended recipe was for a cold salad but in March this had limited appeal, so with a few small adaptations I created a hot dish.

I started out by roasting a chopped butternut squash, then towards the end of cooking time, adding a finely chopped red onion and a couple of ready cooked beetroot. Meanwhile the dressing was getting a good whiz in the food processor. Olive oil, honey, mustard, red wine vinegar and a red chilli combined to make a sharp but sweet vinaigrette with a kick of chilli to finish. I had never cooked quinoa before, so following pack instructions I boiled the grains until soft. Chopped hazelnuts were roasted for a few minutes alongside the vegetables. At the last minute the hot ingredients were tossed together and the baby spinach added to wilt down and cook in the heat of the other vegetables. Once on the plate, crumbled feta cheese and hazelnuts were added followed by the dressing. The completed dish was served with homemade naan breads and was absolutely delicious.

The naan breads are a recent addition to my cookery repertoire. I discovered that the dough can be made the day before and stored in the fridge, allowing fresh naans to be rolled out and baked in a very hot oven in less time than you can make a slice of toast. These are made with plain flour, milk, egg and dried yeast.

Possibly the desert that brings back more childhood memories than any other, this is 'Granny's' chocolate mousse. Made with just plain chocolate and egg, it's amazingly rich and needs to be served in very small dishes.