Category: tomato

Categories
beans sausages tomato

kinda sausage cassoulet

kinda sausage cassoulet

Sausage in a stew? I’m there. Whether it’s a pot au feu, a Sunday gravy, or a cumberland casserole, I love the instant seasoning hit you get from having a sausage do the leg work in a dinner.

This particular one is Jamie Oliver’s, from Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals. It’s dense and tasty, and packed with flavours. Beans, breadcrumbs and bacon? What’s not to love?

He served it with broccoli, in a tomato sauce. Which I couldn’t see the point of. Instead I made loads of cassoulet and stuck some in the freezer. Perfect.

Kinda sausage cassoulet (serves 4):

4 rashers smoky bacon, sliced

2 red onions, halved, peeled and sliced

A few sprigs rosemary

Small bunch of sage

3 bay leaves

2 leeks, finely sliced

6 – 8 decent sausages

4 thick slices of bread

2 cloves of garlic

1 x 680g passata

1 x 390g tin of butter beans

1 x 390g tin of haricot beans

  1. Pre-heat your grill to high.
  2. Put the bacon into a sturdy roasting tray with a splash of olive oil and put on a high heat with the herbs – hold a few sage leaves back for the breadcrumbs. Add the onions and leeks too. Add a splash of water to loosen, stir and leave to soften.
  3. Put your sausages in another roasting tray and pop under the grill.
  4. Pop the bread, garlic and sage in a food processor and pulse to breadcrumbs.
  5. Stir the passata and the beans (with their juices) into the tray of vegetables. Add half the breadcrumbs to the top.
  6. The sausages are probably browned on one side now, so get them out from under the grill and pop raw-side-up on top of the tomatoey veg, then top with the rest of the breadcrumbs. Pop back under the grill until the sausages are cooked through and the breadcrumbs browned.
Categories
bread harissa lamb oregano parsley tomato

leon meatballs

I was overjoyed to discover there was a Leon on my “doorstep” – Bluewater to be precise. Well it’ s not in London, so that’s a start. The family and I went there and tried out a bunch of things. It was little unconventional but healthy, hearty and good fun. The hands-down dish of the day was the meatballs, who have been praised by all sorts, including some Gordon Ramsay chap.

I was ecstatic to discover the recipe on the Guardian website. Trying it myself, it was a recipes of ups and downs. The sauce was a disaster, calling for 1½ tablespoons of harissa. Even taking it down to a teaspoon was still volcanic. Maybe I possess the hottest harissa on the planet, I don’t know. The sauce was ruined though, burning hot. The meatballs themselves was lovely though – the clever bit is torn-up soggy pitta breads, giving a earthy, toasted flavour that’d be really hard to put your finger on if you didn’t know what was in them.

So meatballs = yes, sauce = no.

(Incidentally, the leftovers made for a mean moussaka the following week topped with grilled aubergine and bechamel!)

Want more ideas for leftovers? Or what to cook with the things lurking at the back of your fridge? Check out Gumbo, a recipe search engine that I recently discovered. Gumbo helps you discover new recipes using the ingredients you have in your kitchen, thereby reducing your food waste. What a great way to make the most with what you already have.

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Leon meatballs

Servings 6 people
Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

For the meatballs

  • 6 pitta breads
  • 120 ml milk
  • 1 kg minced lamb
  • A small bunch of parsley finely chopped
  • A small handful of mint finely chopped
  • 1 tsp dried oregano
  • 2 cloves of garlic chopped

For the sauce

  • 30 ml olive oil
  • 3 cloves of garlic crushed
  • 2 x 800g tins of chopped tomatoes
  • 1 teaspoon harissa
  • A handful of basil chopped
  • A handful of parsley chopped
  • Salt and pepper

Instructions

  • Rip the flatbread into pieces and soak in the milk for 10 minutes. Then put the bread into a mixing bowl, add the mince and stir in the parsley, mint, oregano, garlic and some seasoning.
  • Mix well, then roll the mixture into walnut-sized balls.
  • On a griddle pan, brown the balls quickly - it's all about colouring them and not cooking them through ... five minutes total cooking time with about three turns on the griddle.
  • To make the sauce, heat the olive oil in a heavy-bottomed pan and gently fry the crushed garlic. Tip in the chopped tomatoes and harissa and simmer for 25-30 minutes, until the sauce has reduced. Put in the meatballs and continue to simmer for a further 20 minutes with a lid on until the sauce looks about right.
  • Lastly, stir in the herbs and have a final seasoning check.
Categories
mushroom tomato turkey wine

turkey bolognese

I’m a sucker for any bolognese recipes. It’s lifted from my favourite cookbook of 2010, Leon 2. The appeal of this one is in the turkey mince, both healthy and cheap. It’s never going to replace ‘proper’ bolognese but it’s dead easy, very tasty and freezes like a dream. Give it a try.

Turkey bolognese:

1 onion, finely diced

4 cloves garlic, minced

500g turkey mince

250g mushrooms, sliced

2 tins of tomatoes

Big glass of white wine

500ml chicken stock

Parmesan

Spaghetti

  1. In a large casserole pan, fry some onion in a little oil. When tender add the garlic and turkey and fry until browned.
  2. Add the mushrooms, fry for a minute then add the tomatoes, wine and stock. Pop the lid on and simmer gently for an hour and a half.
  3. When it’s ready, cook the spaghetti according to the packet instructions. Toss with the mince mix and grate over some fresh parmesan to serve.
Categories
chorizo mozzarella peppers pizza tomato

chorizo calzone

I had half the dough left over from pesto pizza, and it occurred to me that I’d never made one of my favourite Italian foods: calzone. That lovely folded pizza, like a Cornish pasty spending a gap year travelling.

I was bowled over by how tasty it was. It really was great, especially when paired with a zingy mustardy salad.

Chorizo calzone:

For the dough (makes 2 x 30cm pizzas; I used half for two calzones):

500g strong bread flour

100g fine polenta

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt

7g dry yeast

4 tablespoons olive oil

300ml lukewarm water

Filling:

100g chorizo, cut into chunks

1 yellow pepper, diced

1 tin tomatoes (a good brand will help you a lot here)

6 pieces baby mozzarella

A few thyme leaves

  1. In a jug mix the yeast, oil, water and sugar together and leave for a few minutes while you get on with the other dry ingredients.
  2. For the pizza base, bring the flour, polenta and salt together in a bowl. I use a food mixer which makes the next stage dead easy.
  3. Pour the wet mix into the dry and let a dough hook do its work for about 5-6 minutes. If you’re doing it by hand push and knead it together until smooth and elastic. Cover the dough with a damp teatowel and leave somewhere warm for an hour – it should double in size.
  4. When the dough has risen, pre-heat the oven as high as it will go. If you have a pizza stone, get it in now. Otherwise a cheap but conductive metal tray will work.
  5. Fry the chorizo in a hot dry pan until one side colours. Add the peppers and continue to cook until the peppers have softened slightly. Remove the ingredients to one side with a slotted spoon, leaving the oils behind. Add the tomatoes and thyme to this pan, keeping the heat very high. Let it bubble down and reduce until thick then remove from the heat.
  6. Push the dough into a thin, round shape on a floured surface. Go as thin as you can. Spread some tomato puree over half the calzone, dot with mozzarella and add half the chorizo/pepper mix. Spoon over a little more tomato sauce, then fold the calzone over, crimping the edges.
  7. When it’s ready take it to the oven. The pizza will bake for anywhere between 10 – 15 minutes, depending on the thickness of your base and the temperature of your oven. (Quicker is better). Serve with a green salad.
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