Showing posts with label cooking for two. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cooking for two. Show all posts
I have become very thrifty over these past weeks. Something I am ashamed to say that I should have been practicing all along. Nothing is going to waste in my kitchen. They are saying it could be six months until the present crisis is over and I am keen to make everything we have stretch as far as I can.
Any thing hash is a great way to make good use of just whatever you have in your refrigerator that needs using up and topping it with a poached egg, turns it into a well balanced meal, containing some carbs, plenty of veg and a protein.
It also makes a great vegetarian meal, for those of you who are not opposed to eating eggs.
The hash is composed of whatever you happen to have in the refrigerator that needs using up. In my case I had a baked potato left from the other day, which wouldn't have fed two people normally, but when you add a host of other vegetables to it, it becomes like the loaves and fishes and magically multiplies to feed more.
I had a head of broccoli in the refrigerator, some carrots and a swede (rutabaga). The stems on broccoli are often wasted and thrown away. They can tend to be a bit fribrous, but if you trim of any fribrous bits there is no reason why you can't eat the rest. You can also eat the leaves of broccoli.
All of my veg was cut into 1/2 inch cubes and tossed together with a small chopped onion and then cooked together in my iron skillet, along with some oil and butter.
I cooked it first over low heat, covered so that the raw vegetables could cook to crispy tender and then I turned up the heat, seasoning it all with some salt and pepper, and cooking it until I had some golden brown carmelised bits. The perfect hash.
You could of course add a quanitity of chopped cooked meat to this, along with some herbs, but I didn't have any lefover roast or any other meat that needed using and so I decided to top the hash with poached eggs.
You could, of course, do a fried egg, but I figured we would both benefit from the healthier option and so I poached us each an egg.
People can be a bit afraid of poaching eggs, but there is no need to be afraid really. I have given exact instructions to give perfect results.
It helps if your eggs are at room temperature. I also like to break them into a small bowl before slipping them individually into simmering water. Don't ever tip them into boiling water or they will break up all over the place.
Cook them on the heat for exactly one minute, then take them off, cover the pan and let them sit for exactly ten minutes. You will have perfectly poached eggs. Ready to scoop out with a slotted spoon onto kitchen paper towelling.
Once drained they are ready to use in any way you want. In this case, atop a nice plate of crispy anything hash!
Anything Hash & Perfectly Poached Eggs
Yield: 2
A delicious supper for two which makes a good use of what's in the refrigerator
Ingredients:
- 2 cups of vegetables cut into small cubes (today I used a leftover baked potato, some carrot, some swede(rutabaga), broccoli stems and a small onion)
- 1/2 TBS butter
- 1/2 TBS oil
- salt and black pepper
- 2 large free range eggs
Instructions:
How to cook Anything Hash & Perfectly Poached Eggs
- Prepare your vegetables. Peel the carrots and swede, trim any fibrous bits from the broccoli stems, saving any leaves. Chop them all into a uniform size along with the potato and onion.
- Heat the butter and oil in a heavy based skillet. (I used my cast iron.) Once the butter begins to foam, add the vegetables. Turn them to coat in the fat then turn the heat down low, cover and allow to cook over low heat for about 10 minutes until everything is tender. Remove the lid, turn up the heat, season to taste with salt and black pepper and cook, turning over occasionally until golden brown in places. Keep warm while you poach your eggs.
- Have all your eggs at room temperature and break each into a small bowl before you start. Bring a pot of water, to which you have added 1 tsp of vinegar, to a slow simmer over gentle heat. Once you can see tiny bubbles on the bottom of the pan, carefully add the eggs, one at a time.
- Simmer, without covering for exactly 1 minute. Remove the pan from the heat and let the eggs sit in the hot water for exactly ten minutes. (a timer is incredibly useful here) At the end of the time you should have a perfect poached egg, with a beautifully translucent and pefectly set white and a soft and creamy yolk. Remove the eggs with a slotted spoon, one at a time onto some paper kitchen toweling to drain.
- Divide the hash and spoon it onto heated serving dishes. Top each serving with a poached egg and serve immediately.
The skys have turned to pewter today and it is threatening of rain. March is about to go out like a Lion methinks! Oh well, so much for that old wive's tale as it came in like a Lion as well!
One place we always liked eating at back home were the small mom and pop diners! You always knew you were going to get a decent and tasty meal, as well as good value for your money.
My ex would always get a club sandwich with chips, and I would either get a BLT or a Western Sandwich. Or we would both get a hot turkey sandwich, depending on our mood. These were our favourites!
Just because we are on lockdown and unable to get out doesn't mean that our meals have to be boring. I do have limited fresh vegetables at the moment, consisting mainly of potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions and carrots. That is all about to change on Friday however! Yay!
Yes, with some diligence and determination I was finally able to get in touch with someone from our city indoor market who is making deliveries, and at a fair price.
On Friday afternoon I will have cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kiwi, apples, oranges and a few other bits. I am so very grateful for that. And they will deliver it all right to my door and leave it on the step.
In the meantime I was able to make my husband and I a sausage and vegetable bake today, using what I do have at the moment. It was delicious.
It is perfectly sized for two people, but you can very easily double the amounts to serve more.
There are potatoes, sweet potato, carrots and onion, plus two meaty sausages a piece, and a very tasty gravy, which does not use salty gravy powder. All natural ingredients.
My thyme is growing in the garden at the moment. I do wish I had some parsley, but oh well . . . we will live without it. I wish parsley was one of the herbs that comes back every year like thyme and oregano.
Rosemary and sage . . . but no parsley doesn't and neither does basil.
Back to the bake. This is so simple and easy to do. You just cut up your vegetables and put them in a baking dish. I used my trusty 7 by 10 inch dish, which is the perfect size.
A simple gravy mix is created and then poured in beneath the vegetables. Its actually probably easier if you put the gravy mix in first and then the vegetables.
The sausages are laid on top and then the whole thing just gets baked in a hot oven. I baked it for half an hour, flipped the sausages over and baked for a further hour. Easy peasy.
The gravy thickens up nicely in that time. There is no muss or fuss . . . no frying involved.
This is a meal that basically cooks itself. You really can't get much better than that!
Sausage Vegetable & Gravy Bake
Yield: 2
This is a simple all in one oven bake, built for two that produces perfectly cooked sausages, vegetables and a tasty gravy!
Ingredients:
For the Vegetables:
- 3 medium potatoes, unpeeled and cut into chunks
- 1 medium sweet potato, peeled and cut into chunks
- 2 carrots, peeled and cut into batons
- 1 medium onion, peeled and cut into quarters
- 1 clove garlic, peeled and minced
- 1 TBS olive oil
- 1 tsp dried thyme
- 1/2 tsp dried oregano
- salt and black pepper to taste
For the gravy:
- 1 TBS butter, melted
- 1 1/2 TBS plain flour
- 240ml chicken or beef stock (1 cup)
You will also need:
- 4 thick herby sausages
Instructions:
How to cook Sausage Vegetable & Gravy Bake
- Preheat the oven to 200*C/400*F/ gas mark 6. Have ready a baking dish deep enough to hold the vegetables and sausage. My 7 by 10 inch dish is the perfect size.
- Whisk together all of the ingredients for the gravy. Pour this into the baking dish.
- Toss the prepared vegetables in a bowl together with the oil, herbs, garlic and some seasoning. Pour them into the baking dish with the gravy. You will have lots peeking over top. This is perfect as they will caramelise a bit. Top with the sausages.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 35 minutes. Flip the sausages over and return to the oven and bake for a further half an hour at which time the vegetables should be cooked through and the sausages will be golden brown and cooked through.
- Divide the vegetables and sausages between two plates and spoon some gravy over top of each.
If you don't have sausages, I am sure you could use chicken pieces in much the same way. They would also be very good. How are you all getting along?
Our weather has been beautiful these last few days so its not been too bad. We've been able to sit out of doors and enjoy the sunshine and today I even saw butterflies. Spring is definitely here.
The other day I baked us a batch of Bran Muffins from a new recipe that, whilst they tasted alright, were very much of a disappointment to me. They were flat, overly sweet and just not a recipe I would recommend to anyone. I wanted to be able to share something delicious with you that you wouldn't be embarassed to serve to anyone.
I hasten to add that I didn't change anything in the recipe, but prepared it exactly as presented. I don't know why these things happen. One man's meat is another man's poison I guess! Anyways, I have this great muffin recipe book that I got maybe 11 years ago.
Entitled Mad about Muffins and written by Diana Bonaparte, it is a muffin cookbook that I cannot recommend highly enough. Every single recipe that I have baked from it has been a great recipe!
I was intrigued by the recipe for Honey, Tahini & Sesame Muffins. I love all of those things, and it also uses lemon zest. I had ear-marked it for use quite some time ago and this morning I finally got around to making them.
I did adapt the recipe by cutting everything in half. The full recipe makes 11 muffins, but I got six nice sized medium muffins halving it.
They are not uber sweet, despite the use of honey. I don't like my muffins to be extremely sweet. Thy are not supposed to be like cake. They are supposed to be more like a bread.
The flavour of these was exceptional . . . you can taste the tahini, but more of a "hmmm . . . I taste something that tastes a bit nutty." It doesn't whack you. Of course the subtle taste of lemon is there as well.
As you can see they rose beautifully. I did get a bit of cracking on top, but thats not at all unusual in a good muffin. I think the touch of demerara sugar and sesam seeds on top is also a very nice touch and quite attractive. It also provides a tiny bit of crunch.
As you can see, they have a beautiful texture. My honey did fall to the bottom of the muffin. Not sure how to get around that. Unless perhaps you used creamed honey instead of liquid for the centres? What do you think?
All in all I would call these an excellent muffin. We both really enjoyed them. They smelled lovely when they were baking as well.
In all truth I don't know why I waited so long to make them! Tahini is something I always keep in my store cupboard and this was a great opportunity to use some of it, however small! I highly recommend! If you don't have tahini you could use peanut butter, but in that case I would leave out the lemon zest and the sesame seeds.
Small Batch Honey, Tahini & Sesame Muffins
Yield: 6
Prep time: Cook time: Total time:
The triple combination of honey, lemon and tahini paste make for a very delicious muffin indeed. Sized for the smaller family but easily doubled to feed more.
Ingredients:
For the muffins:
- 165g plain flour (1 1/4 cup)
- 65g caster sugar (1/3 cup superfine sugar)
- 1 tsp baking powder
- pinch salt
- the finely grated zest of 1/2 lemon
- the juice of 1/2 lemon
- milk (see instructions)
- 50g oil (4 TBS)
- 25g clear honey (3 1/2 tsp)
- 15g tahini paste (1 1/2 TBS)
- 1 large free range egg
- 2 tsp sesame seeds
To fill:
- clear honey
To top:
- 1 TBS demerara sugar (turbinado)
- 2 tsp sesame seeds
Instructions:
How to cook Small Batch Honey, Tahini & Sesame Muffins
- Preheat the oven to 200*C/400*F/ gas mark 6. Line a six cup muffin tin with paper liners. Set aside.
- Rub the sugar together with the lemon zest until fragrant. Sift in the flour and baking powder and a pinch of salt. Combine well together.
- Heat the honey for the muffin together with the tahini and then whisk together to combine.
- Add the lemon juice to a beaker and then add milk to give you the equivalent of 85g/3 fluid ounces. Beat in the egg and oil with a fork. Then beat in the honey, tahini mixture. Add all at once to the dry ingrdients just to combine.
- Fill your muffin cups half full. Drop a tsp of honey onto each muffin and then cover with the remaining muffin batter. Combine the topping ingredients and sprinkle some over top of each muffin.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 20 to 22 minutes until well risen and a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean. The tops should spring back when lightly pressed. Transfer from the muffin tin to a wire rack to cool.
Not sure why but my recipes generator it not working today. Its an app that I actually pay for the use of so I hope that it isn't like this for long. When it comes back up again, I will replace this old format with the recipe card. I can see it, but it is not giving me the option to copy and paste it into my blog post. Between that and my facebook, I am batting zero this week! Its a good thing I am a positive person! Back to sort it out and its fixed! Yay!
Small Batch Cherry Cheesecake. My mother, God bless her, loved cheesecake. It was one of her favourite desserts. She was only the size of a bird, so tiny that a good breeze could have easily blown her over, but she did like to eat.
I don't know what her secret was to keeping her slim figure. I remember her asking me about seven or 8 years back did I have a good cheesecake recipe. I did and so I shared it with her. I don't know if she ever made it or not. I like to think that she did, and that she enjoyed it.
Of course with her lung cancer operation and all of the complications she had afterwards, her days of cooking were pretty much over, although by all counts she did have a fairly healthy appetite right up until she passed.
Her tastes had changed however and the things she liked to eat before, she no longer enjoyed. Funny how that goes. I suppose it was the dementia.
Cheesecake is not something I make really often. With there only being two of us, a full-sized cheesecake just is not practical anymore.
I will sometimes buy two slices in the shops, but they never live up to their promise. That's all I will say about that.
I once bought a frozen Cheesecake Factory one at Costco and that was very good. It was already cut into slices that you could just take out and eat as and when you wanted them.
But it was huge and cheesecake is something we only want once in a very blue moon, so again, highly impractical as I ended up giving most of it away. You can't keep these things in the freezer forever.
This quick, easy and delicious baked cheesecake recipe I am sharing with you today ends all of those problems. It is the perfect size for the smaller family!
You bake it in a 9-inch X 5-inch loaf tin. It cuts perfectly into 6 smallish wedges. I say smallish, but really they are all any one person really needs to be eating of such a rich dessert.
A delicious swirl of tart dark cherry preserves is baked into the cheesecake . . . I used an Italian brand. (Crosta & Mollica) It has lovely big bits of cherry in it, and I don't find it to be overly sweet.
If you don't like cherries, you could use peach jam, or blueberry jam . . . strawberry, raspberry . . . any kind of jam you want or desire.
I think you could even use lemon curd if you wanted to . . . now THAT would be extremely dangerous for me.
My husband might not even get a look in, I am that greedy when it comes to lemon. Sad but true.
It works out fine however because he isn't really fond of lemon anything so he doesn't really mind if I snuffle up all the lemon goodies.
Anyways, back to this dessert. Its gorgous. Its simple to make. It is quick to make.
And it is just the right size for us. If I had some sour cream I would have topped it with some and it would have been even better.
If you are a smaller family looking for a tasty dessert, or even if you are a normal sized family wanting something that isn't going to be hanging around for days, I hazard to guess that this dessert would be perfect for you.
Yield: 6 smallish servings
Small Batch Cherry Cheesecake
All of the lush deliciousness of a full sized version, but with less temptation to resist.
ingredients:
For the crust:
- 160g digestive biscuit crumbs (fine) (1 cup graham cracker crumbs)
- 60g butter, melted (1/4 cup)
For the filling:
- 16 ounces (1 pound) FULL fat cream cheese
- 95g granulated sugar (1/2 cup)
- 1 large free range egg, beaten lightly
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 9 tsp good quality dark cherry preserves
instructions:
How to cook Small Batch Cherry Cheesecake
- Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4. Butter a 9 by 5 inch loaf tin and line with parchment paper, leaving extra on the sides to lift it out.
- Mix together the crumbs and butter. Press into the bottom of the loaf tin evenly.
- Whisk together the cream cheese, egg, vanilla an sugar until smooth. Pour into the loaf tin on top of the crumbs. Add the cherry preserves in spoonfuls on top of the batter and then using a skewer, carefully swirl it.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 35 to 40 minutes. The centre will be almost set, but still have a slight wiggle. The top should be firm. Cool for an hour in the pan then lift out and chill in the refrigerator for at least 4 hour or overnight.
- Cuts into 6 small wedges.
We are supposed to have a nice weekend weatherwise this weekend. Here's hoping! Our back garden s squelching and we could use a few dry and sunny days to dry it out so that we can mow! Happy weekend everyone!
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