Quorn medley and Quinoa

My daughter absolutely adores Quorn. She now has ballet followed by pointe class on the same evening, so needs an early dinner that isn't too heavy on the stomach, I have started to cook special meals for her and then eat a different meal later with my hubby.

I have a packet of frozen quorn chicken shaped pieces in the freezer, that way I can take out as many as I need for one meal.

This was an experiment that has proved extremely popular.

Ingredients
2 oz quinoa
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small onion sliced
1/4 green or red pepper thinly sliced
a few small florets of broccoli (suitable to stir fry)
1 handful of frozen quorn pieces
a couple of mushrooms sliced
1/2 tin chopped tomatoes
1 heaped teaspoon of pesto
salt and pepper
worcester sauce to taste

Method

Pop the quinoa in a sieve and wash under the cold tap, you must stir it around the sieve with your hand to wash well. Pop in a pan cover with about 1/2 finger of water, add a pinch of salt. Bring to boil and then simmer until the quinoa shows it's spirals and looks a little translucent.

Whilst quinoa is cooking make the following.
In a frying pan, heat oil and fry onions for about 2 mins over a medium heat, add the pepper and broccoli, continue to stir fry, add the quorn and fry for another 3 mins. Pop in the mushrooms, cook further 1 min then add tomatoes.

Stir in 1 teaspoon of pesto, some salt and pepper and a couple of shakes of worcester sauce. Gently bubble for about 5 mins.

Drain quinoa and serve.

VERY BEST CHOCOLATE CAKE

I saw this on This Morning and thought it looked scrummy and I didn't want to lose the recipe, so here it is with a link back to the original article.

Recipe for Success - Mary Berry - This Morning

14/03/2007

Mary Berry is cookery writer, TV cook and baking master. Having spent nearly 40 years in the industry, she has written 60 cookery books to date with her recipe books are a fixture on the shelves of every family home. Whether it’s cakes or good honest family food, Mary Berry truly is the original domestic goddess!

VERY BEST CHOCOLATE CAKE

2 oz (50g) cocoa
6 tablespoons boiling water
3 eggs
4 tablespoons milk
6 oz (175g) Self raising flour
1 rounded teaspoon baking powder
4 oz (100g) soft butter
10 oz (275g) Natural caster sugar

For the icing and filling

5oz (150g) Bournville chocolate broken into small pieces
5 floz pouring double cream
3 tablespoons apricot jam

Pre heat the oven to 180C/160 fan/Gas 4

Grease two 8” sandwich tins and base line with baking parchment

First measure the cocoa and boiling water into a large bowl, and mix well. Add the remaining ingredients and beat again until combined. This can also be made in processor but be careful not to over whisk. Divide the cake mixture between the prepared tins. Bake in a pre heated oven for about 25 – 30 minutes until well risen and shrinking away from the sides of the tin.

For the icing and filling measure the chocolate and cream together in a bowl and stand the bowl over a pan of simmering water for approx 10 minutes until melted – stirring from time to time. Set aside and allow to become cold and almost set.

When baked, remove cakes and allow to cool completely. Spread the tops of each cake with apricot jam. Fill the cakes with half the icing and spread the remainder on top. Take the small palette knife and draw large “S” shapes to give a swirl effect – dust with icing sugar and enjoy!

AGA

Bake on the grid shelf on the floor of the roasting oven with the cold sheet on the 2nd set of runners for about 25 minutes.

How do you get kids interested in healthy food

A thread on UKScrappers has just inspired me to write this.

How do you get kids interested in eating healthy food?

Get them helping make pizzas. If you have a breadmaker, use the dough setting, chuck in the ingredients on timer if necessary so the dough is ready when they come home from school. Let them make the tomato sauce, really easy, onion finely chopped, fry until golden, add tinned chopped tomatoes salt & pepper to taste. Provide lots of lovely toppings and get them to make their own pizza. If you want to make the tomato sauce yourself, you can blitz in some carrots etc so they don't see them.

Involve the children in the cooking, when they are chopping the veg, steal and eat bits of raw carrot, celery, cucumber etc, core from cauliflower/cabbage, celeriac, swede.

Get them growing some of their own food, radishes, carrots, lettuce, they will love growing then eating them fresh. Pop in some peas, I never expected to get a meal, I let my DD graze on the produce in the garden, there's nothing like seeing them think they are being naughty picking a pod of peas and eating them straight from the pod.

How many times were we caught nicking chocolate, icecream etc, and felt wicked doing it, do the same with veg, my DD eats anything now. Nick the healthy stuff and they will too, hee hee, easy way to get the good stuff into them.

Also how about getting a children's cookery book, or simple cookery book, let them pick a new recipe each week, they take it in turns and cook together, they make the shopping list, help you shop for the ingredients choosing what they need, then cook it themselves, with your help. Let them make a mess, it doesn't matter, but boost their confidence in the kitchen, can't make the same dish twice, the good ones get added to your like list and can go into the normal cooking during the week. I used to do this with my mum and it was brilliant fun.

I used to make a lovely English curry from a 101 recipe book by Good Housekeeping, that involved onion, chopped apple, sultanas.

If you see an offer for cheap fruit get them making jam with you, great to have on some bread. No preservatives and so easy.

Raspberry Fool

Ingredients

1 punnet Raspberries

250ml Double cream

50g Icing Sugar

Method

Reserve a couple of raspberries to decorate the top of the dessert

Mash raspberries with icing sugar in a bowl, then push through a sieve (this is called "coulis").

Whip cream until soft (careful not to overbeat), then fold in 3/4 of the raspberry coulis.

Layer the coulis with the fool in a glass and then decorate with raspberries and a drizzle of coulis.

Middle Eastern Tabbouleh Salad

Ingredients

8 oz (225 g) cracked wheat (bulghar) (available from health food shops)

2 oz (50 g) parsley, finely chopped

8 spring onions, finely chopped (including the green parts)

4 tablespoons lemon juice

2 large beef tomatoes, about 1 lb (450 g)

4 inches (10 cm) cucumber, very finely chopped

4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

salt and freshly milled black pepper

Start off by measuring the cracked wheat into a bowl. Cover it with plenty of cold water and leave for approximately 20 minutes or until the grains soften and lose their crunchiness (which means, of course, you'll have to bite a few to find out how they're going).

Then have ready a large sieve. When the cracked wheat has softened, pour the contents of the bowl into the sieve, drain well to extract as much water as possible. Shake the wheat into a deep bowl and stir in the parsley and spring onions followed by the lemon juice and 1½ teaspoons of salt to combine thoroughly.

Meanwhile, finely chop the tomatoes quite small and add to the bowl containing the wheat. Next, add the cucumber and olive oil to the salad and mix to combine everything. Taste and season with salt and pepper.

Pasted from <http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/middle-eastern-tabbouleh-salad,731,RC.html>

Cheesy Dauphinois potatoes

3 potatoes, cut into thin slices

250ml double cream

125ml milk

55g Butter

1 garlic cloves, chopped

100g cheddar cheese grated

salt and fresh ground black pepper

1. Prepare the potatoes by cutting into thin slices 0.5cm . Preheat the oven to 190ºC/Gas 5.
2. In a saucepan heat the garlic, potatoes and cream and butter, add enough milk to just cover the potatoes. Cover and bring to the boil, reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Season with salt and freshly ground pepper.
3. Transfer the potato mixture to a shallow gratin dish, top with the grated cheese. Bake the potato mixture for 30 minutes.

Salsa

3 Tomatoes (finely chopped)

1/2 small onion (finely diced)

1/2 green chilli (finely diced)

Juice from 1/2 lime

Salt & Pepper

Method

Mix together and serve