Category Archives: Food & Drink

Easy Vegetarian Lasagne – Pesto and Mushrooms

Food & Drink,

Easy Lasagne with Green Pesto

pesto-lasagneThe official name that I have given this dish is ‘Lasagne a la Portofino’ which is a small coastal town in Italy where I had this lasagne in a restaurant and I can honestly say it was the best lasagne that I had ever tasted! So the problem after that was trying to recreate something that I did not have the recipe for! The lasagne was totally melt in the mouth and was made up of fresh lasagne sheets with plenty of olive oil and green pesto. You can either make the recipe just like that or else add a few extras if you like.

I have made this recipe quite a few times and each time I vary it a bit just to see what it will turn out like but this is the staple that I start off with. If you have vegetarian guests then this is a great main meal or if you want to make the non-vegetarian alternative then you can add some chopped cooked chicken.

Vegetarian Lasagne Ingredients

The main ingredients are as follows – some are optional depending on your taste.

  1. Lasagne sheets (can be fresh or dried) – you will need around 4 to 8 sheets depending on the size and shape of your dish.
  2. Green pesto (homemade or from a jar) – one small jar will suffice
  3. Mushrooms (optional) – one standard pack of around 500g.
  4. Bechamel sauce – you can make this from a packet or else it is easy to make up a fresh jug of sauce yourself – see below. For this you will need, butter (around 2oz), flour (plain, 3 tablespoons) and around half a pint of milk – the measurements also depend on how much lasagne you want to make and how big your dish is but this should serve 4 people.
  5. Mozzarella cheese (or other cheese if you prefer) – one packet of shredded/grated cheese.
  6. Extra Virgin Olive Oil (if extra is required)

Quick Bechamel Sauce

For my simple bechamel sauce I find it easy to make it in the microwave and it does not come out lumpy.

Melt around an ounce of butter in the microwave. Stir in enough flour to soak up the butter. When this is mixed to a thick paste heat it in the microwave for about 20 seconds to slightly cook it. Then stir in around a half a pint of milk. Put the mixture back in the microwave for 30 seconds then take out and stir. Repeat this until the mixture thickens which should be after a minute (depending on how much milk you have added). As soon as it starts thickening stir it all together and you will have a nice bechamel sauce. Add some salt and pepper to this and a sprinkling of the grated mozzarella cheese. Don’t make the sauce too thick so that it spreads across the lasagne.

Lasagne Cooking Method

Layer up the lasagne
Layer up the lasagne

Cook the lasagne according to the instructions on the packet – some lasagne sheets need boiling first where others you can use straight from the packet. This works best if the lasagne is precooked.

Slice up the mushrooms and fry them for about 5 minutes in some butter with either half a chopped garlic clove (or more if you like your garlic!) or some garlic salt or powder and set aside.

Layer a dish with each item starting with the lasagne. Then add spoonfuls of pesto so that the lasagne is covered with a thin layer, adding extra olive oil if required, then a thin layer of the bechamel sauce and finally some mushrooms (see pic on right). Keep layering until the dish is full and finish with a layer of the bechamel sauce.

The finished lasagne
The finished lasagne

Sprinkle the grated mozzarella on top of the lasagne and then cook in a pre-heated oven for around 15-20 minutes (assuming the lasagne is pre-cooked, otherwise follow cooking instructions on the packet).

Making Lemon Curd In A Microwave

Food & Drink

Making Lemon Curd

Lemon curd has many uses and is very tasty when spread on bread or hot crumpets with butter but I wanted to make it to go in my Delicious Lemon Pudding recipe. It can also be used for many other dessert recipes and it is a really easy thing to make – particularly if you make it in a microwave. Added to that things always taste so much better when they are home made.

Lemon curd is also a great thing to make if you have a lemon tree and you are looking for things to make with lemons! Make it for friends and family or for sale at craft fairs or even at yard sales or car boot sales as a bit of extra income.

I think the main danger in making lemon curd in a microwave is that the curd would all go lumpy as I wouldn’t be able to stir it as I was heating it but it ended up coming out even better than when I usually make lemon curd on the hob!

Ingredients for Lemon Curd

So lemon curd is really very easy to make and does not take a lot of lemons as you might think. In fact you may already have all the ingredients at home anyway.

I just wanted to make enough for a small version of my lemon pudding so I used the following ingredients, but you can always double up if you want to make more lemon curd:

  • 2 eggs
  • 2 lemons
  • 6oz caster sugar
  • 4oz butter

 

Making lemon curd in the microwave is quick and easy and gives a smooth mixture.
Making lemon curd in the microwave is quick and easy and gives a smooth mixture.

Lemon Curd – Method

Firstly clean off the lemons so you don’t have a waxy surface on them, scrub the outsides if you need to. Then grate the lemon rinds into a bowl taking care not to get too much pith as this is quite bitter. Add to this the juice of both of the lemons.

Crack the 2 eggs into a separate bowl to ensure you don’t get any shell into the mixture. Give them a brief whisk with a fork and add them to the lemon rind and juice.

Add the rest of the ingredients into the bowl, cutting the butter into pieces.

Mix all the ingredients together as well as you can and then put them in the microwave on full power for a minute. This should melt the butter and allow you to blend the lemon curd mixture a bit better. Put the mixture back into the microwave for 1 minute intervals, stirring after each minute. After 2 minutes reduce the intervals to 30 seconds and stir each time.

The actual length of time will depend on how much mixture you have and the power of your microwave, but it should not take long after this for the mixture to start thickening up. As soon as you see some thickening at the bottom of the bowl, take the mixture out and stir it thoroughly. The rest of the mixture should thicken up at this point. Once you have stirred it all in, put it back in for 20 seconds to ensure it is all thickened up and then stir again and leave to cool.

Often when making lemon curd in the traditional manner it will curdle and you will get lumpy bits of egg in it but by cooking it in short bursts in the microwave you do not get the lumps, just a smooth and yummy lemon curd.

How to Make an Easy Stir Fry

Food & Drink

stir-fly-ingredientsStir Fry Ingredients

Stir frys are quick and easy dishes to make and there really is a wide range of ingredients that you can add to make your own version of this traditional Eastern dish. A stir fry does not have to taste particularly Chinese and does not have to be hot and spicy but can be as plain or as exciting as you want it to be.

You can make a stir fry really healthy if you do not use too much oil to cook in – you could use the spray on oil that just coats the pan to reduce the amount of cooking fat.

Although stir frys are usually made in a wok, you can just cook them in a normal frying pan without any problems.

To make your stir fry you first need to select your ingredients and then you need to cut all of the ingredients into similar sized pieces. If you make the pieces relatively small then they will cook quite quickly and keep in all their goodness and crunchiness.

So, here is a selection of ingredients that you can use in a stir fry. You have probably used or tried most of these before but hopefully I will give you a few ideas about other things you can add in:

Meat/Fish
You don’t actually have to have meat or fish in your stir fry but whatever you choose, cut it into small pieces so that it cooks quickly. As an alternative to meat you can use any kind of fish – often you can get slight scrappy pieces of fish for a cheap price which does not matter as you are going to cut it up anyway.

If you do use fish then don’t add the fish until almost the last few minutes as you don’t want to overcook it and end up with pieces of flaky fish. You can also use prawns but again, if they are precooked then you will literally just want to heat them through at the end.

Vegetables
You can really use most vegetables for stir frys – although you should stick to ones that can be eaten more raw (i.e. don’t use things like potatoes!). Favourites of mine are:

  • carrots (cut into very small thin strips)
  • courgette
  • broccoli
  • mushrooms
  • baby corn
  • green beans
  • onions/leeks
  • peppers

However, you can also try some other ingredients such as celery, cucumber or even beetroot, In fact you can try pretty much anything you like!

In addition to the meat and veg there are a number of other things that you can add for extra flavour and also extra texture:

  • cashew nuts
  • sesame seeds
  • pumpkin seeds
  • sultanas or raisins
  • water chestnuts
  • bamboo shoots

If you want to you can also add another element to the stir fry in terms of noodles or bean shoots and other varieties. This can bulk up the stir fry and add extra texture.

Flavourings

So there are a few things that you can use to add flavour to your stir fry – my stock items are chopped ginger and garlic (you can also use powdered versions of either of those) and of course salt and pepper, but you can add anything of your choice and maybe some chillies if you like it hot.

stir-fryCooking a Stir Fry

Firstly, you need to cut up all of your ingredients as stated above, into small but similar sized pieces. If you are a novice in terms of cooking and want something simple to cook then this really is it – just make sure you cut it small and you can just cook it quickly.

As mentioned, you don’t need a wok to cook a stir fry although it does help, you can just use a frying pan. Firstly heat up the oil in the pan – you can also choose pretty much any oil you like – peanut oil is good as it gets very hot, sesame oil adds extra flavour but you can also use olive oil or any kind of vegetable oil. Add about 2-3 tablespoons of oil to the pan and make sure the oil is pretty hot before you start adding any of the ingredients.

Once the oil has heated up you can add the ingredients. My method is the all-in-one method that is quick and simple. Throw everything in including your flavouring ingredients (apart from fish or prawns if you are using those) and keep stirring for about 5-10 minutes until they are all coated in the oil and cooked. If you are using fish then add this in about a minute before the end and make sure it all gets cooked by continuing to stir.

Right at the end you can add some liquid to give the stir fry a bit of a sauce – personally I add a dash of soy sauce and sometimes a dash of sherry. You could also try other ingredients like fish sauce or anything you may have in the cupboard! Stir through for another minute before serving.

How To Take a Tablet

Food & Drink, Health, ,
Some pills can be hard to take...
Some pills can be hard to take…

It is surprising how many people struggle to take a tablet – swallowing them whole just seems impossible and a gag reflex kicks in whenever they try – does this ring true with you?

Doing what seems normal to most people and swallowing a tablet with a glass of water is not possible in many cases. And most of us will have to take some kind of tablets at some point in our lives so learning a knack to taking a tablet is pretty much essential.

Well there is a relatively easy way, which was told to me by my mother (who also suffered from the same problem so maybe it is a hereditary thing?). Anyway, the best way to swallow a tablet is to chew up some food (I usually have a large bite of a biscuit) – something that has a good amount of texture to it is best – when you have chewed it to a minimal level that will enable you to swallow it, put the tablet in your mouth and swallow it with the chewed up biscuit.

Depending on the size of the pill you may need a bit more of a mouthful but I have found this a great way to swallow pills. I also use mouthfuls of cereal and add the tablet to that and this works well too (especially with granola or muesli).

Anyway, give it a try and hopefully it will work for you too.

Buying Fritos in the UK

Food & Drink, , , ,

So I spend a fair bit of time abroad and as a crisp-o-holic I like to try the various crisps (or chips if you are American) in other countries that are different to the ones you can find in the UK.

One of my favourite crips varieties is Fritos. I always have to buy a big bag of fritos when I am overseas and was always a bit disappointed that I couldn’t find Fritos in the UK.

Ok so there are plenty of other great crisps that you can get but sometimes you just have a craving for something particular!

So I was amazed and happy to find that you can actually buy Fritos in the UK! It has taken me some time to discover this so I am excited to be sharing this info with anyone who is as obsessed about crisps as I am.

Not only that, but you can buy loads of different American chips in the UK. OK so you have to buy them online and you have to search about a bit as some of them can be a bit expensive but if you buy multi-packs you usually get better value.

Here are a couple of my favourites – the Fritos of course and Bugles too 🙂 The link for the Fritos below takes you to a large pack which costs almost as much for delivery 🙁 – however, it will also show you some other packs starting from 69p (plus delivery) so you should be able to get some that work out at hopefully a not too extortionate price. Obviously the more you buy the more economical it works out with postage!

If you order some of the packs that are 69p then the delivery costs only increase by a few pence if you order 20 packs for example.

  

The good thing that I only realised about Fritos recently – well a couple of good things really – is that firstly they have no trans fat in them and secondly they are gluten free. In addition they are Kosher and MSG free so they seem to have a lot going for them. Am I trying to convince myself that crisps are good for me really? Hmm, maybe!

So as well as being able to buy the Fritos originals you can also get a few different flavours of Fritos ribbons, for example barbeque flavour and tomato flavour, so I will share these links below as well. These are sold by a South African company so likely they are branded as ‘ribbons’ there.

Another of my favourites in the Fritos range is the scoops – these must make the best snacks for dipping that I can think of as they have a ready made hole for all the dip! However at nearly £20 for one packet I think these are going to stay on my shopping list for a while longer or else I need to pick up some extra packets next time I see them abroad…