Rustlers Burger Hacking Challenge

I think the abbreviation TGIF was invented for my family. Schoolday mornings are usually a painful affair. I get up first, plod to the kitchen to prepare breakfast for my guys, then it's time to wake them up, and oh boy, nobody is happy when I open the curtains in bedrooms.
Fridays are typically more cheerful, because there's a weekend ahead, and for Eddie, it's an extra special day as his best friend Peter is coming home with us after school.
The boys play and live Minecraft, so I leave them to it, offering snacks and drinks, and asking them to have a break from playing. They are days when they play chess, or some board games, but recently it's been Minecraft.
On Friday morning when we go to school, I ask Eddie what his friend and he would like to have for dinner. His choices are usually not very varied - pizza or burgers.

Last Friday I offered them a new burger - Rustlers Southern Chicken Burger. These burgers come with sachets of lightly peppered mayo.
Each chopped and shaped chicken burger is coated with a southern fried breadcrumb and comes in a sesame seeded bun.
Calorie wise it is 410kcal per burger.

If you read my blog even occasionally, you know that I enjoy cooking from scratch, but I also love shortcuts which allow me to have a break from cooking. With a special needs child who eats the same food on a daily basis, I tend to cook several different meals every day, to adapt to my family's needs and tastes (Sash and Eddie eats different meals, and now my husband decided to go vegetarian, so often it feels like I'm running a restaurant).
And there are days when I'm pretty knackered to do a restaurant shift.

Recently BritMums got in touch with parenting bloggers, asking to take part in Rustlers Burger Hacking Challenge. All participants received a £20 Tesco gift card to spend on products.

I confess that I haven't tried Rustlers before, I tend to buy fresh burgers which need cooking on grill or in the oven.
I was impressed to discover that Rustlers chicken burgers use only the finest quality chicken, fully traceable to the farm of origin. That is deserving commendation.
Twin packs offer smaller than average burgers (at just 140g each), so they are great for kids - handy to hold and easy to bite into.

Burgers out of packaging, before being cooked

Just pop them into a microwave for 90 seconds and add whichever toppings you fancy.
You don't necessarily need a microwave. We don't have one: I just heated up the burgers in the oven, and toasted the buns. I think buns should be toasted, even if you microwave the burgers.

Since both boys love pickles, I offered them a small dish of gherkins to go with burgers, plus a pink slaw (white and red cabbage, with carrot and red onion in cider vinegar) and a three bean salad with sweet corn and red pepper.
I am not going to take credit for either slaw or salad. The slaw was courtesy Tesco (and it's one of my favourites which I buy often), while the salad is from M&S.
Later they had a mango sorbet (which is Eddie's favourite ice cream).

What did we think of Rustlers?
They are handy to have in the fridge for quick and easy meals, either during the week or at the weekend.
You can be as creative as you like with all kinds of toppings and sides, be it fries, slaw or salad - for a balanced meal. The appeal of burgers, Rustlers or any other, is that you are able to personalise your meal to suit your tastes.
For example, our boys didn't fancy any peppered mayo. In fact, Eddie dislikes mayo with passion. But he loves ketchup, which works perfectly well with the burger.
The burgers disappeared very fast, and got thumbs up from both boys.

Eddie enjoyed his burger so much that we bought another pack on Sunday as a quick pre-cinema meal ( we went to see Early Man).

I used the leftover sachets of mayo to cook small sized Portobellini mushrooms - spread with peppered mayo and later topped with sliced smoked scamorza cheese, and cooked until the cheese melts.

How do you eat burgers? What are your favourite flavour combinations?

If you're looking for ideas on how to serve burgers, check out what some other family bloggers created for the Rustlers Burger Hacking Challenge:
Rustling up a manic midweek fakeaway (Madhouse Family Reviews)
Rustlers Burger Hacking Challenge (Dragons and Fairy Dust)

This post is an entry for BritMums "Rustlers Burger Hacking Challenge", sponsored by Rustlers.

Disclosure: Please do not be confused by the term "sponsored", this was not a paid for post. I received a £20 Tesco voucher to buy the burgers, which I still haven't had a chance to use two months later.

Italian meatball and pasta soup

Mention meatballs, and I'm going back in time to our old kitchen, with Mum making my favourite meals. I loved meatballs as a child, served either with mashed potatoes and gravy, or in a thick pasta or rice soup. For me this is one of those comfort foods which bring happy memories.

Most children that I know (in omnivore families) love meatballs.
My sons are quite fussy when it comes to meat, they wouldn't eat roast meat, for example. But sausages, meatballs and anything made with mince are a totally different matter. Eddie would even happily gobble up school lunches if there are meatballs or sausages on the menu, and I can just imagine the quality of those products.

Lean red meat is a versatile ingredient in many child-friendly meals, from cutlets to shepherd's pie, from Ragu Bolognese to chilli... Meatloaf, tacos, lasagne, sloppy Joes, pies, pirozhki, and so many more wonderful dishes could be cooked with red meat.
Food nutritionists recommend including red meat in children's diet from weaning onwards, as it provides important nutrients that are often low in toddlers and children - including iron, zinc, B vitamins, selenium and potassium.

Dr Emma Derbyshire, a public health nutritionist and mother, says: "Including a small portion of red meat in the diet a few times a week after weaning can help to bridge nutrient gaps and so help to maintain good health through childhood and beyond"

Recently BritMums and Meat Advisory Panel have invited bloggers to join in the #HealthyRedMeat challenge and create a delicious recipe including beef, pork or lamb - "to bring a little variety and inspire some enticing ways to include red meat into your family diet".

What shall I cook for the challenge, that my children would like? Meatballs, of course. I have quite a few recipes for meatballs on my blog - you might have seen my posts for Swedish Meatballs for Karlson on the Roof and Easy Midweek Dinner: Fusilli with Meatballs in Tomato Sauce, and Italian Baked Meatballs with Mozzarella.

This time I am cooking a pasta soup with vegetables and - you've guessed it - meatballs.

Italian meatball and pasta soup
Ingredients:
400g minced beef
500g minced pork
3tbsp Grana Padano, grated
1 slice of bread
a dash of milk
1 clove of garlic
1 medium egg
sea salt

1tbsp vegetable stock
1/2 white sweet onion
1 carrot
8 baby tomatoes
1tbsp tomato paste
50g stellette pasta shapes
4tbsp cannelini beans (tinned)
100g fine green beans
100g baby courgettes
2tbsp basil leaves, chopped finely

Ingredients for meatball pasta soup

First of all, make the meatballs. You will make about 44 meatballs from this amount of mince. I didn't use all of them at once. I have put more than a half in the freezer, once they were cooked and cooled - to use later in the week with spaghetti.
Toast a slice of bread, then cut off the crusts and break the bread into smaller pieces. Add a dash of milk and soak for a couple of minutes. Squeeze the milk out.
In a deep mixing bowl grate the cheese. You can use parmesan instead of Grana Padano. Add the beef and pork mince, a crushed garlic clove as well as the soggy bread. Mix all the ingredients together and season the mince.
You can skip the bread, but then the texture will be more dense.

I used a mix of beef and pork mince, as I believe this combination makes the best meatballs. Go for leaner mince - for example, 8% pork mince and 10% Aberdeen Angus beef mince is a tasty combination.

Pinch a walnut-size piece of minced meat and roll it, using hands, into a ball. Keep rolling until you use all the mince.
In a deep pan bring the water with half an onion and stock to boil. Cook meatballs in batches for about 5 minutes. Take meatballs out of the pan with a slotted spoon and put on a plate. Discard the onion.

raw and cooked meatballs

You will be left with a rather murky-looking broth.
Leave it as it is, or clarify it with a help of a beaten egg white which you add to the broth. Boil it for a couple of minutes, then strain the broth through a large sieve with a piece of clean cheesecloth. Discard the egg white with all the bits on it.

Peel a carrot and chop into small pieces, slice courgettes into little discs. Halve the tomatoes and slice the green beans.
First add the carrots to the broth. Cook for 5 minutes, then add the pasta shapes, halved tomatoes, green beans, tomato paste and cannelini beans. Cook for 6 minutes. Add the chopped basil in the last minute of cooking. Put the meatballs in the soup before serving.
Serve hot with 4-5 meatballs per person.

In this recipe I used De Cecco Stellette, which is a tiny star-shaped pasta, perfect for soups. If you cannot find Stellette, any small pasta shapes will do.

The verdict was unanimous - this soup is delicious. It has pasta and meatballs, and is an all-round crowd pleaser.

This post is an entry for the BritMums #HealthyRedMeat, sponsored by the Meat Advisory Panel.

Disclosure: I received a £10 voucher to buy meat for the recipe.

Strawberry, avocado and tomato salsa

"It's just another manic Monday, I wish it were Sunday"... or even better summer holidays. I am sooo tired of school. School mornings are a grim affair. Eddie gets up with an "I hate school" motto, though by the time he actually arrives to school, he is usually cheerful and eager to meet his friends.
I have just had another espresso to keep me going. After the weekend there is usually so much to do. The house looks like Genghis Khan and his army went through and stayed overnight, horses and all.
Instead of clearing the mess I am procrastinating, catching up on yesterday's episode of Poldark.
On Saturday Eddie and I went to see Despicable Me 3. Eddie liked it a lot, I wasn't so enthusiastic.

Our latest Degustabox delivery was over a week ago, and I still haven't used any of the recipe mixes in sachets. On Sunday I bought a whole chicken, partly for making soup, partly for roasting with a Pulled Chicken spice mix for pulled chicken sandwiches.
To complement the meal, I made a quick and easy salsa, with whatever ingredients I found in the kitchen. I had fresh tomatoes and a piece of cucumber, tinned sweetcorn, an avocado and a handful of strawberries.

1 medium avocado
2 medium tomatoes
3 big strawberries
1/3 cucumber
4 heaped tbsp sweetcorn
1/2tsp onion granules
1tbsp chilli-flavoured oil
1tbsp lime juice
1tbsp chopped fresh mint

The recipe couldn't be easier. Just chop all the ingredients, season with sea salt, chilli oil, lime juice, add onion granules (or fresh thinly sliced onion) and mix well. Make it just before you are going to eat.

For the roast chicken I used a sachet of Schwartz BBQ Pulled Chicken mix, which promises an authentic American flavour. It adds a rich smokey flavour to meat. Ingredients include caster sugar, salt, onion powder, smoked paprika, molasses powder, garlic powder, flavourings such as barley and mustard, malt extract and more. You just need to add 2tbsp of tomato ketchup and water to mix a paste, which you then rub into chicken before roasting. I have added juice of 1/2 lime to the paste.

Red kidney beans, peas and ham hock salad

There are days when I don''t feel like cooking anything elaborate. I can just about throw some ingredients together in a semblance of a meal. Salads are very forgiving in a sense that you can layer them up with whatever you have in the kitchen, mixing fresh ingredients with tinned foods and other staples that you might find in the cupboard. In my case, I had some ham hock in the fridge, the remains of lentil sprout mix and half a bag of salad. It could have easily turned out differently - ham hock could be replaced by tinned tuna, lentil sprout mix by tinned chick peas etc.

Red kidney beans, peas and ham hock salad (serves 2)
Ingredients:
1 tin of red kidney beans, rinsed and drained (240g drained weight)
80g frozen peas, cooked
3tbsp lentil sprouts mix
1/2 bag of mixed salad leaves with beetrout
50g shredded ham hock
3 cherry tomatoes, halved
1tsp English mustard
2tbsp olive oil
2tbsp cider vinegar
1tsp maple syrup

Open a tin of red kidney beans and rinse them in a colander under a running cold water. Drain well.
In a medium mixing bowl toss together beans, cooked peas, lentil sprouts mix, halved tomatoes and ham hock.
Divide the salad between two plates and arrange the bean-ham mix on top. Prepare a simple dressing from English mustard, olive oil, vinegar and maple syrup and drizzle it over the salad. Season with a little bit of salt, if you like.
Serve with bread.

And just because I used some odds and ends of packets in the fridge, I'm adding this recipe suggestion to #KitchenClearout linky hosted by Cheryl from Madhouse Family Reviews.

Easter lamb with juniper and rosemary in damson and sloe gin sauce

Classic FM channel has been on most of this weekend, as I'm trying to catch most of the Hall of Fame 2017. While I was making a cup of mint tea for myself after a late-ish Easter lunch, Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet was announced as moving 32 places down to no.101.
This is one of my Hall of Fame votes. Every year I change two other votes, but Prokofiev's Dance of the Knights holds a special place in my heart.
It reminds me of seeing Romeo and Juliet ballet in my home town. It was and still is one of my most favourite ballets. I think I saw it first when I was in high school, and I promptly fell in love with the ballet dancer who performed the part of Tybalt. He was a very good dancer, and was soon poached by one of Moscow theatres. That was a long time ago, and his name now escapes me.
In case you are curious, the other two votes from me were for Masquerade Suite by Aram Khachaturian (no.218 this year), and The Gadfly by Shostakovich, which appeared this evening at no.81 933 places up). I was quite torn whether to choose The Gadfly or The Jazz Suite no.2.

Our Easter started very early, as Sasha got up at some ungodly hour, when it was still dark. I fell back into an uneasy slumber, and in the meantime he wandered downstairs and raided the locked cupboard with sweets.
Eddie wanted to go to the Easter service, and came back loaded with more chocolate eggs and Easter books.
I dyed a few token eggs to put on a table as a centrepiece.
When Eddie came home from the church, he asked me: Mummy, are you cooking your tights? - It's true, I was wrapping up eggs with herbs inside the pieces of old (washed) tights. I cooked them in the boiling water with the food colouring. The pattern is not very clear, as the eggs were brown to start with.
I'm not sure why most of the eggs that you see in the shops are brown (or blue, if you buy local breed eggs), and never white. When we were kids, most eggs were white, and easy to decorate for Easter.

This is a pattern from mint leaves.

While Eddie went to the church with his Dad, I started cooking lamb. I have bookmarked recipe on Waitrose site. I don't often cook lamb, but the recipe for Juniper and rosemary lamb with damson and sloe gin sauce sounded very tasty. I'm glad I tried it, it was delicious, and I'm definitely going to cook it again, when we have guests for dinner.
I have slightly adapted it, but mostly followed the Waitrose recipe. Since I cooked just for our family, I used half a leg at 1.1kg weight.

Easter lamb with juniper and rosemary in damson and sloe gin sauce
Ingredients:
2 rosemary sprigs
2tsp sea salt
2tsp demerara sugar
2 cloves of garlic
1tsp butter spread like Lurpak
2tbsp olive oil + more
10 juniper berries
lamb, half leg (1.1kg)
1 red onion, thinly sliced
for the gravy:
2tbsp damson jam
sloe gin, about 100ml ( I used more than Waitrose's suggestion of 2tbsp)

Remove the leaves from the rosemary stalks, put into a bowl with garlic, salt, sugar, juniper berries, butter spread and olive oil. They suggest crushing the rosemary with a pestle. I used a handblender to blitz it all together. Definitely add some olive oil to make a spreadable consistency.
Rub the marinade all over the lamb and sit it on the thinly sliced onion in a roasting dish. Drizzle some olive oil over the onion too. Let it sit for half an hour.
Preheat the oven to 200C. Place the roasting dish in the oven for 10 minutes, then cook the lamb as you like it - 8 minutes per 100g of weight if you like it well done, or 6 minutes per 100g if you like it pink. Turn it once over, and occasionally baste with the lamb juice.
Once cooked, take the lamb out of the oven, wrap in foil and let it rest for half an hour. To keep it warm, put a clean towel over the foil.
For the damson sauce, tip the roasting tin to collect all the juices in a small pan, add the damson jam and sloe gin. Using a little whisk, break the jam, to achieve the right consistency. Reduce the sauce.
Serve the lamb with the damson gravy, and roast potatoes and carrots.

I also put a jar of mint jelly and redcurrant jelly on the table. I did buy fresh mint to make my own mint sauce, but was running out of time, and The Bay Tree mint jelly is lovely.
If you want to cook the same dish, I used Tiptree Damson jam and Gordon's Sloe Gin.

The Hall of Fame continues tomorrow, and do I dare to hope that the Lark Ascending will topple over. I would be pleased with any other piece of music getting to no.1 just to make it descend.

Beef stew with sweet pepper and carrot #ReadCookEat

Reading Donna Leon's bestselling Commissario Brunetti's novels, you can't escape the culinary descriptions and references. Food plays an important part both in Brunetti's life and in the series. I have bookmarked many a tempting recipe mentioned in the novels, with beef stew being one of them.
It appears in "A sea of troubles"

"He finished his lasagne and looked across at Paola. "Is there any more? It's delicious", he added.
"What else is there, Mamma?" Chiara demanded, appetite overcoming Raffi's warning.
"Beef stew with peppers", Paola asked.
"The one with potatoes? Raffi asked, his voice rich with feigned enthusiasm.
"Yes", Paola said, getting to her feet and starting to stack the plates.
The lasagne, to Brunetti's disappointment, proved to be much like the Messiah: there was no second coming...
... as he ate, his attention drifted from the chunks of stewed beef to the cubes of carrot, the small slices of onion. When he paused, Brunetti looked across at Paola and asked, "Did you put Barbera in this?"
She nodded, and he smiled, pleased he'd got it right".

So, what do we have here: beef, carrots, onion and red wine.
The Brunettis clearly have very good appetities, if they can eat stew after lasagne.

I have checked a few books on Italian cuisine, trying to find a recipe for any special Venetian beef stew.
I also have a book "A Taste of Venice/ At Table with Brunetti" by Donna Leon and Roberta Pianaro. There is a recipe for beef stew with pepper, onion and carrot, however, I was a bit confused. The recipe uses minced beef, and the final result sounds more like ragu than a stew. A stew is usually made with chunks of meat, though don't quote me on that.
I have adapted the recipe, deciding to try to cook the stew with minced beef, though serve it not with potatoes but with pasta, like tagliatelle, especially that the recipe ends with "This is a superb sauce for pasta", while the Brunettis have it with potatoes. You see, it is confusing, isn't it?!

Beef stew with sweet pepper and carrot
Ingredients:
3tbsp chilli-flavoured olive oil + 3tbsp olive oil
2 shallots, finely chopped
1 big white onion, finely chopped
 2 medium carrots, peeled and chopped, about 300g
400g minced beef (I used Hereford beef mince, 10% fat)
a bottle of tomato passata (540g)
250ml red wine
2 sweet peppers (orange or yellow)
a pinch of sugar, sea salt

In a deep frying pan heat up the olive oil, add the chopped onion and carrots, cook stirring for 10-15 minutes. In a separate frying pan, fry the beef mince with finely chopped shallots in chilli flavoured olive oil, until the mince is browned on all sides.
Put the beef in the frying pan with the carrots and onion, mix together, add the passata, red wine and chopped peppers. Season with salt and a pinch of sugar. Bring to boil, then lower the heat and cook simmering for an hour and a half, covered with the lid.
Serve with freshly cooked tagliatelle. You could also serve it with mashed potatoes or polenta.
It is a delicious beef ragu/stew, flavourful and moreish.
This amount of ragu will be enough to feed a big family. You can also freeze it in plastic containers.

In this recipe I used La Classica Passata from Cirio. This is an authentic Italian tomato product made with ripe luscious tomatoes, and it's a perfect base for any tomato sauce.

I used chilli flavoured olive oil from Filippo Berio. If you don't have it, just substitute with a standard olive oil, and add a bit of chilli paste, or fresh chopped chilli to add a nice kick to the dish.
I didn't have Barbera for the recipe, the red wine I added to the recipe was just average red wine which I think was part of dinner for £20 from M&S. In these deals they usually add a cheaper bottle of wine.

Have you read a book recently which inspired you to run to the kitchen and cook to your heart's content?

I hope you are inspired by books to join in the #ReadCookEat challenge.

The idea is to choose a book, either a world classic or modern fiction, or even memoirs and pick up a dish mentioned or described in that book and then recreate it in a recipe. Please say a few lines about your chosen book, and maybe even do a quote from the book.

If you decide to take part, please add the badge to your post and link up back to me, and either use a link-up tool or add the url of your post as a comment. Alternatively, email me with the link to your post (my email is sasha1703 at yahoo dot com).

I promise to Pin all blogs posts taking part in this challenge, as well as RT and Google+

Beef biltong stew for Mr Matekoni (Precious and Grace by A.McCall Smith)

Precious and Grace is the seventeenth novel from the much loved series No.1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith. I have read all the books in the series, and always look forward to a new book.
There is not much of a mystery involved in this installment, but there is a usual dose of kindness and philosophical thoughts on life, humanity and forgiveness.
Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi help a Canadian woman find her past. She spent her childhood in Botswana 30 years earlier, and wants to re-discover her past.
The case, though simple enough, is threatening to shake Precious and Grace's friendship. Will they fall out over the case?
Then there is a pyramid scheme, in which Mr Polopetsi is involved, a lost dog who wants to be loved, Mma Potokwani with her delightful fruit cake and much more.
There is a certain idealism in all the No 1 Agency novels. In Precious we see a symbol of Mother Africa, traditionally built, kind, wise and patient. She always finds good in people.

Reading Precious and Grace, I came across a detailed description of one of the meals Mma Ramotswe cooks lovingly for her husband. I was intrigued, and tried to google it.
I couldn't find any exact recipe. There is plenty of recipes for beef biltong stew, but none of beef AND biltong stew, so I had to "invent" it. This recipe is based on the authentic biltong stew recipes, but cooked with beef too, so it's a mix of several different variations of the stew. I hope Mma Ramotswe would approve.

"Mr J.L.B.Matekoni sniffed at the air. There was no doubt about it - Mma Ramtoswe was making his favourite stew. The aroma, detected even as he set foot on the stoep, was unmistakable...
Onions were the key to that: the recipe, developed specially for him by Mma Ramotswe, advised by Mma Potokwani, involved onions chosen for their smallness and sweetness - "not these football-sized onions they try to sell us", warned Mma Potokwani. These were gently softened in sunflower oil flavoured with a pinch of chilli flakes, and then the beef, fine Botswana grass-fed beef... was added in small pieces. this was then sealed before the addition of stock and a small quantity of chopped ostrich biltong, the dried and salted meat that people considered such a delicacy."

Beef biltong stew
Ingredients:
3tbsp mild olive oil
1tbsp chilli olive oil (optional)
5 shallots, finely chopped (about 150g)
450g beef, cubed
1tsp plain flour
1tsp ginger, grated
2tbsp tomato puree
2tbsp peanut butter
a mug of beef stock
1 tin of plum tomatoes (Cirio)
35g biltong (a pack of King's biltong)

In a deep frying pan heat 2tbsp of olive oil.
Finely slice the shallots and cook in the frying pan until translucent, stirring regularly. Once cooked put the fried onion in a big pan or pot where you're going to cook your stew.
Add more olive oil to the frying pan, and brown the beef cubes (dust them with flour before cooking). Season with salt, but not too much, as the stock has added salt. Put all the ingredients in the pot - chilli oil, grated ginger, tomato puree, beef stock and tinned tomatoes.
I used Waitrose Cooks' Ingredients beef stock. Place the pot in the oven preheated to 200C. Cook for 5 minutes, then lower the heat to 180C, and cook for an hour+, occasionally stirring.
You might need to get a bit more water if the stew becomes too thick. Add the biltong in the last 15 minutes of cooking.
Serve hot.
Biltong adds an interesting strong flavour to the stew, and more chewy texture. Mma Ramotswe used ostrich biltong. I couldn't source it locally, but even if it were available, I don't think I am very keen to try ostrich.

In this recipe I used two products from Cirio - tomato puree and plum tomatoes - which work perfectly in this rich flavoured stew.
I used chilli flavoured olive oil, but if you don't have it, a teaspoon of chilli paste or flakes would be a good substitute.

Italian baked meatballs with mozzarella

The recipe for Italian baked meatballs appeared a year ago in January 2016 edition of Delicious magazine. I don't buy every issue of Delicious, as my house is overflowing with cooking magazines as it is.
If anything, I need to declutter, and I have started to mercilessly recycle dozens of magazines, just leaving a few cutting from each issue, as we are running out of space. I have to be ruthless, though I am keeping some of the older issues of BBC Good Food and I am definitely keeping all Taste Italia magazines, as they are just too good to be recycled.

Delicious magazine runs a regular competition Cook the cover. Last year I did take part about 3 times, and a few times the year before, but have never been lucky. I am not even sure they see all the entries, as when you post a photo on Instagram with a hashtag, they don't seem to acknowledge it at all. Sainsbury's magazine runs a similar competition, where you need to post a photo of the dish from the current issue on Twitter, and they usually either like the photo to show you that they have seen it, or even tweet back to you.

Italian baked meatballs was the cover recipe a year ago, and this post has been in my draft since then. I have adapted the recipe to suit my list of ingredients, but if you fancy reading the original recipe, just follow the link above.
It is a proper Italian comfort food, perfect for cold weather, though also quite high in calories, so perhaps not for people on a diet. You could use leaner beef mince and skip mozzarella to make it less calorific, and use the oil spray.

Italian Baked Meatballs with Mozzarella
Ingredients:
For the tomato sauce:
4tbsp olive oil + more for frying the meatballs
2 anchovies (optional)
1 onion, finely chopped
1 clove of garlic, finely crushed
2 tins of peeled plum tomatoes (Cirio tinned tomatoes are highly recommended)
a pinch of dried thyme
1tbsp ketchup
a pinch of brown sugar

For the meatballs:
1/2 red onion, finely chopped
1tsp dried basil
500g beef mince
125g fresh mozzarella
zest of 1/2 lemon

First prepare the tomato sauce - heat the olive oil in a deep frying pan, add the anchovies, onion and garlic and fry over the gentle heat for about 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Add tinned tomatoes, thyme, ketchup and sugar. Bring to boil, then lower the heat and cook for half an hour, stirring often.
Make the meatballs by mixing all the ingredients except the mozzarella cheese together.
Using hands, roll the meatballs the size of walnuts.
Heat the oil in a frying pan, add the meatballs, and cook on all sides until well browned. Transfer the meatballs in a deep baking dish, pour the tomato sauce over them. Tear the mozzarella into pieces and scatter over the meatballs and sauce. Bake for 10 minutes at 180c until the cheese has melted.
Serve with a nice crusty bread to mop up the sauce.

The original recipe suggested cooking a garlic baguette, but I think there were robust flavours going on without the garlic bread.

As always, when you cook tomato-based sauces, source the best tinned tomatoes, for example, Cirio, which are well known for high quality and flavour.

Have you ever taken part in Cook the cover competition? Were you a lucky winner?

Roast beef with brown sugar, rum & mustard glaze

The Russian Orthodox Church celebrates Christmas on 7 January, following the old Julian calendar for religious events and holidays. While many celebrate Christmas on 25 December together with most of the western world, Russians are happy to use any excuse for a holiday with a feast.

A proper Russian Christmas eve is a day of fasting, when you would eat very simple fare like a dried mushroom soup or sochivo (a dish of wheat soaked with dried fruit and honey). The next day you eat to burst. The meal traditionally consists of 12 dishes to represent 12 disciples of Jesus.
As it happened, I didn't serve 12 dishes, but we had plenty of food and drink.

Last Saturday we invited friends over for dinner. I often tend to cook a roast chicken as a main meal, but this time fancied a different roast. The starter was a simple Russian dish of mushrooms baked in ramekins with lots of cream.
I cooked the beef with a glaze of brown sugar, rum and mustard, and it was a lovely combination of flavours.

Roast beef with brown sugar, rum & mustard glaze
Ingredients:
1kg beef roasting joint
2tbsp mustard powder
1 and a half tbsp brown sugar
3tbsp rum
1tbsp olive oil + more for the veg at the bottom of the tray
1 and a half tsp sea salt with thyme
1 fennel bulb
1 medium carrot
+ more mustard to serve with (not powder)

Make a paste from mustard powder, brown sugar, rum, salt and olive oil, and rub it all over the beef joint. Let it marinade for at least 3 hours, or leave overnight, wrapped in cling film.
Take the beef out of the fridge at least half an hour before cooking. Preheat the oven to 200C.
Slice the fennel bulb and carrot into big chunks and put them into a deep roasting tray. Drizzle with a bit of olive oil.
Place the beef joint over the vegetables. Put the tray in the oven and cook the way you like it.
According to Delia, you give it 20 minutes at the start, afterwards lower the temperature to 190C and cook for 15 minutes per pound/450g for the rare beef. Add 15 minutes for medium rare, and 30 minutes for well done.
Baste the beef a few times during the cooking. Pour a dash of rum over the beef, as it cooks.
Once the beef is roasted to your liking, remove the tray out of the oven and let it rest for 15-20 minutes before carving.
Serve with roast potatoes & other vegetables, gravy, or mustard or horseradish sauce.

In this recipe I used Tate & Lyle brown sugar with stevia (which is made from the natural extract of the stevia plant. 1 tsp provides approximately the same sweetness as 2tsp of sugar).

Since I managed to finish a little pot of mustard powder, as well as a bit of rum (a bottle which will last me ages, I guess), I'm adding this recipe to #KitchenClearout linky run by Cheryl from Madhouse Family Reviews.

Baxters Hearty range of soup

December is always a hectic month. What, with all the shopping and planning festive meals, school fayres, Nativity and Christingle, helping with end of term homework, I am feeling on the verge of collapse. Thanks goodness, the school is over for a while.
When you need a meal in a hurry, a soup is often the answer, especially when "the weather outside is frightful".
I'm a decent cook, and often make soup from scratch. But at lunchtime, when my guys are at school and work, I sometimes opt for a ready-made soup. Thankfully, in the last month I had help from Baxters.
Baxters Hearty range of soup offers a selection of recipes from around the world.

Hearty Tuscan Style Bean, Bacon & Pecorino if full of Meditteranean flavours.
This wholesome soup contains 3 of your 5 a day, no artificial colours or flavours
The blurb on the back of the tin says: "Inspired by my Italian travels, I created this taste of the Mediterranean by combining double smoked bacon with a medley of borlotti, cannellini and pinto beans. The distinctive, sharp and salty flavour of the Pecorino cheese adds another dimension to this recipe"
Ingredients include mixed beans, tomatoes, onions, tomato paste, courgette, red pepper, smoked bacon, green peppers, Pecorino cheese etc.
It could be included in a 5:2 diet or any low cal diet, as this is a low fat meal with 244kcal per can. It could do with lowering the amount of sugar as well, as it has 12.4g of sugar in a tin.
I love chunky Italian-style soups, and this soup follows the classic recipe.

Hearty Chicken & Sweetcorn Chowder is another classic recipe. Sweetcorn chowder is the ultimate comfort food, creamy and packed with flavour.
Soup stats: 1 of your five a day; 296kcal per can.
"This recipe cheers up even the dullest day! A rich and creamy soup made with a delicious blend of succulent chicken, potatoes, sweetcorn and a generous splash of double cream. A sprinkling of thyme is the finishing touch which compliments the chicken beautifully!"

Hearty Smoked Red Lentil & Smoked Bacon soup contains 2 of your 5 a day. I love red lentils-based soups, and often add them to whichever soup I'm cooking, they bulk up any soup nicely.
"The double smoked bacon in this delightful recipe combines perfectly with pureed red lentils & vegetables to create this wholesome & warming soup. The final touches are a warming blend of spices - coriander, turmeric, ginger & chilli to name but a few".
I do love spices in soup, but this was quite hot for my personal taste. A bit too heavy on the chilli. Perhaps a good spoonful of Greek style yogurt or soured cream would make reduce the heat.
Calorie-wise it counts 272kcal per can.

Hearty Beef, Bean & Vegetable soup is a traditional combination of flavours.
At 2 of your 5 a day and 188kcal per can, it will make a lovely lunch. Many people go on a diet in January or start counting the calories, and this chunky tasty soup could be just the thing.

"This recipe is big on fill and flavour. Tender pieces of beef are combined with chunky vegetables & cannellini beans to create this wholesome, hearty soup. A cheeky splash of red wine to enhance the flavour just finishes it off nicely".
I enjoyed this soup, but I have to say, it could do with more beef, it was more of a beef-flavoured soup as the chunks of beef were but a few and very small.

Hearty Butternut Squash, Sweet Potato, Chilli & Lime soup was my top favourite from the range. I love sweet potato and butternut squash, and lime adds a lovely zing to the sweet and earthy soup.
Stats: 3 of your 5 a day+ 232kcal
"For me this soup is a real treat! Butternut squash & sweet potato are such versatile ingredients. Blended with a selection of warming spices and finished off with some red chilli and a squeeze of lime, this recipe is truly delicious!"

I haven't yet tried the sixth flavour - Country vegetable, but expect it to be as hearty and flavourful as all the soups in the range.

Have you tried the Hearty range? Which flavour is your favourite?

Disclosure: I received a selection of Baxters Hearty soup for the purposes of testing and reviewing. All opinions are my own.

Mrs Fitz's Scotch broth (The Outlander) - #ReadCookEat

I binged-watched the first series of The Outlander just recently on Amazon, and started reading the first novel in the series amidst watching. I'm still half-way through with the book. Now, I love historical fiction, and I do enjoy time-travelling as a genre, but I am very much in two minds about both the fiction and the TV series. The historical background is fascinating, and once you "accepted" the time-travelling fluke, the plot becomes quite dramatic and almost epic. As a storyteller, Diana Gabaldon is skilled undoubtedly.
On the other hand, it is way too graphic for me. I'm not a prude when it comes to erotica, but this novel has a strange fascination with violence.
And there's too much sex. Once two main characters get married, they are at it like rabbits, non-stop, to the point of marital rape.
The last two episodes of the TV series were so violent and graphic, I kept fast-forwarding the action. The disturbing prison rape scenes went for ages. It was totally unnecessary to drag it for two episodes.
I think I'll be skipping the pages once I get there in the novel.
The Outlander series of books have zillions of fans and got raving reviews, but I do feel I'm not in the cheerleaders' camp. I'll try to finish the first novel, but it is verra long indeed.

Reading books, especially historical fiction, I always look for food mentions, and there was quite a lot of meals described, from very simple breakfast to feasts. Here are a few foodie quotes:

"I had no appetite for the parritch that Mrs FitzGibbons brought next for my breakfast, but pretended to eat in order to gain some time for thought."

"I found my appetite rather lacking... I really didn't care for herring, when all was said and done. The bannocks were freshly baked, though, and served with honey."

The bannocks with honey sounded especially appealing, and I think I will try to cook them one day. Parritch was less tempting.

"...the hall, now restored to its normal identity as a refectory. Enormous cauldrons of porridge were dispensed, together with bannocks baked on the hearth and spread with honey..."

"An even louder shout greeted the tubs of ale and whisky that now appeared on trestles, accompanied by platters of steaming bannocks and smoked beef."

Broth is mentioned quite a few times.

"Ah, lass! The aye be things for me to do! I'll send a bit o'broth up for ye. Do ye call oot if ye need anything else"
"He was right; food did help. We ate broth and bread in companionable silencce, sharing the growing comfort of warmth and fullness"

And so broth it was, I decided to cook a rich version, as might have possibly appeared in Castle Leoch, cooked by the mother hen aka Mrs Fitz.

Scotch broth
Ingredients:
100g dried soup and broth mix (pearl barley, yellow split peas, green split peas, marrowfat peas and red lentils)
1 lamb shank, about 400g
2 litres of water
2 stalks of celery
1 turnip, about 250g
4 baby leeks
2tbsp vegetable oil
1 sweet onion
2 carrots
5 big leaves of Savoy cabbage

Soak 100g of dried broth mix in cold water overnight, the next day rinse them well under the running water.
Put the lamb shank in a deep pot (or pan, if you're cooking on the hob) and add at least 2 litres of water. Add the broth mix to the lamb.
Put the pot in the oven preheated to 180C, cook for an hour. Chop the celery and add to the pot together with finely sliced white bits of leeks.
Heat up 2tbsp of oil in a medium sized frying pan, and cook finely chopped sweet onion and peeled and sliced carrots for about 10 minutes, stirring often, until the onion is golden brown. Add to the broth.
Peel and cube a medium sized turnip and add to the pot.
Cook the broth for another hour or so, add the sliced green part of leeks and cabbage in the last half an hour. You might need to add more water to the pot, so that it looks like a thick soup.
Remove the lamb shank from the pot, discard the bone and shred the meat. Return the shredded meat to the broth. Serve hot, with a nice chunk of bread.

This meal is probably best suited for a slow cooker, but as I don't have one, I cooked it in the oven.

I used a pack of soup and broth mix in this recipe, but if you have separate packs of pearl barley and peas, mix your own version.

If you don't fancy meat, there is a vegetarian broth recipe as cooked by Janice from Farmersgirl Kitchen - visit her post How to make Scotch broth like a Scot.