Author: vickyinthekitchencooking

It’s actually snowing outside but very pleased with my warming Spanish Colcannon. I fried 2 sliced cooking chorizo until crispy then added half a red onion, 4 chopped spring onions and a handful of frozen peas with a big knob of butter. When softened I threw in a couple of handfuls of spinach leaves and carried on frying for a few minutes until they wilted. I then poured contents of the pan and juices into the left over mash potato from yesterday (about 350g). Then patted into 2 cakes (giant cakes – we ate it all but you could have easily made 3, maybe 4!). I put back into the pan and fried the cakes on both sides till crispy then stuck the pan under the grill while I wilted more spinach in a steamer over a boiling pan of water and sliced and buttered a couple of slices of bread.  I took the spinach off the pan and poached 2 eggs in the water. While the eggs were cooking I put the colcannon cakes on the bread, then the spinach then the poached eggs and topped with sweet chilli sauce and coriander. Yum.

After I’d put my pie filling in the slow cooker disaster struck when I realised I’d run out of butter to make the pastry. So I made a suet pastry. 250g plain flour, 125g suet, salt, pepper and pinch of mustard powder and enough water to bring it together then cling filmed and chilled. Filling is just stewing beef, couple of garlic cloves, red onion roughly quartered, couple of glasses of red wine, about 500 ml beef stock and fresh thyme then in the slow cooker for 6 hours. Then I fished out the meat, put it in a pie tin. Made a rue and added the juices to make a gravy and put enough back in the tin to cover the meat, rolled the pastry, put it on top and egg washed. Baked for 30 min. Ta da!

We’re going to a pop up cafe and theatre event tonight so for a light, easy lunch I went for a classic ricotta, feta pie. Put layers of shop bought filo in a loose base cake tin. I sprayed each layer with Lurpak cook spray (but you could brush with melted butter). Fry chopped onion with 2 crushed garlic cloves till soft then add a bag of spinach and water cress. Fry for a few mins then mix in a 250g tub ricotta, 150g feta, salt, pepper and good grate of nutmeg plus 1 egg. Mix then put in the tin and pull pastry over the top. Bake for 25 to 30 min at about 180. Delicious!

In sorting out the freezer I found I had literally 15 jars of frozen chicken stock to use up. Including a cup of juice left over from the last time I made lemon chicken tagine. I fried a chopped onion, couple of crushed garlic cloves and about 2 tablespoons of grated ginger till soft. I added a teaspoon turmeric, a teaspoon of cinnamon and about 2 tablespoons of Harissa (I’d run out of Ras-El-hanout) . I added some chopped chicken (also from freezer I only partly defrost as easier to cut when semi frozen and will cook out). Fried a bit then added the tagine juice, about 500 ml chicken stock, few slices of preserved lemon, stick of cinnamon, salt, pepper and a handful of green olive and left to simmer for 40 mins. I forgot to add honey and remembered after I served so we just drizzled over – it made a big difference to the flavour so I’d add a few dollops before serving next time!