Winter Warmer Chilli Pot: with Bean, Courgette and Sweet Potato

I love a good Chilli - with meat, with beans, with veg, any which way as long as it's rich, spicy and warming, especially in this cold wintery weather (yes it's chilly in New Orleans!). It's so simple to make, and with my three secret ingredients (one I have recently discovered is Vegetarian), the sauce still tastes robust and meaty so you don't feel like you're being deprived of the carne even when you're a meat eater! I use two types of beans, always Kidney beans, but the other I just get whatever I fancy on the day, in this case it was butter beans...Enjoy :-)

Ingredients:

any two types of canned beans
good quality chopped tomatoes (trust me, it makes a difference)
thick chilli sauce, like Maggi's
1 x courgette, chopped into quarters
1 x sweet potato, chopped into 2 pence size chunks
1 x red onion, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 green chilli, finely chopped
olive oil
2-3 teaspoons Bisto original (yes, it's vegetarian!)
1-2 teaspoons Marmite
1-2 tsp ground cinnamon  (thanks to Sinne, by way of Nigella for this little gem)

For the Gaucamole:

1 x ripe avocado
garlic puree (not essential)
lemon juice (not essential)

To serve:

sour cream
grated cheese (i like to use a medium cheddar or feta for something different)

(Serves two hungry people with a small lunch leftover)

Instructions:

1. chop onion, garlic, sweet potato and courgette; drain bean and rinse.

2. fry onions in olive oil in a large saucepan until soft and translucent then add the garlic and chilli; stir for a minute before adding the beans and sweet potato.

3. Empty the chopped tomatoes into the pot and stir then add the chilli sauce to your taste (I use about 2 tablespoons).

4. Next add 2 teaspoons of Bisto, 1 teaspoon of Marmite and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon (you can add more later, but I think start small and then build up)

5. Cover and leave to simmer for about half and hour to 40 mins or until the potato starts to soften and the sauce thickens. Add the courgette after about 20 mins (check at 10 minute intervals to ensure it doesn't start to boil and to add more chilli sauce, Bisto, Marmite and Cinnamon to your taste).

6. Serve when all the ingredients are soft and the sauce is thick.

7. to serve I make a simple gaucamole that's quite mild to compliment the chilli by mashing an avocado and using a little garlic puree, a squeeze of lemon and a pinch of black pepper but simply mashing an avocado will do just fine.

8. Add some grated or crumbled cheese and a dollop of sour cream and it's good to go...

Faux York Crunchie-Butterscotch Cheesecake

This recipe is all about indulgence and it's totally up to you how far you go with the sweetness, i prefer a bit of 'tang' which is why I use quark (in addition to it allowing me to convince self it's a healthy dish!) and a bit of lime juice but it's totally up to you. My advice is add a little of the ingredients as you go with the cream cheese mixture, that way you'll get it just right!

Ingredients:

4 crunchy bars

Half pack digestives

200g butter

1 tub of quark (or cream cheese)

1 tub mascarpone

100g icing sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp lime juice

butterscotch sauce (to top)

Instructions:

1. Mash 2 crunchies and half a pack of digestives until smooth.

2. Melt 100g of the butter and mix with the crunchy and digestive mixture. Press into the bottom of a flan dish (mine's 8 inches).

3. Mix the quark and mascarpone together until blended then melt the remaining 100g of butter and stir into the mixture with the vanilla extract and lime juice.

4. Add the icing sugar in stages so that the sweetness is to your taste.

5. Crush the remaining crunchy bars and story them into the cheese mixture.

6. Smooth onto the biscuits and refrigerate to set for about two hours.

7. Drizzle with butterscotch sauce and serve.

voila, simples!

Jerk Chicken in Curry Sauce with Rice 'N' Peas

I've been making my version of Jerk chicken for just under a year now after falling in love with the dig in Brighton last summer. You can make your own jerk marinade or use a ready-made version (which, I have to confess, I often do as it cuts the cooking and mess in half!). 

Pre-Cooking Tips ;):

Rice 'n' Peas took me a few attempts to master but now I've got it just right and the secret? It's all in the saucepan lid. Also, those kidney beans need bubbling up for a good hour on a low heat. Low heat is the key for the whole thing in terms of the rice. Gentle steaming - a softly, soft approach :-).

The jerk chicken works really well with whole chicken legs rather than thighs and drums and I wouldn't even attempt to do it with breast meat, you need the juicy dark meat! We recently purchased a cast iron roasting dish from Sainsbury's, that faux Le Crueset style and it's brilliant for baking the chicken legs and creating a really tasty curry sauce.

The marinade is really spicy! The amount you use will depend on how hot you like it! As a guide, 1 tsp per leg gives a hot but comfortable flavour, 2 tsps per leg is a bit more fiery - use the whole jar and you're on another level but if you like it scorching then go for it!! You can do half and half (i.e. a few fiery and a few just a bit spicy, that's what I do).

Also, the recipe is gluten free and dairy free :-)

Ingredients

(serves two greedy people with one 'leftovers' lunch)

5 chicken legs
2 cloves garlic, finely sliced
1/4-1/3 can coconut milk

for the marinade: (or alternatively, I recommend a jar of Dunn River's jerk)
1/2 cup scallions, chopped
1 scotch bonnet, chopped
2-4 tsps fresh thyme leaves
1-2 tbs oil
1/4 - 1/2 tsp Jamaican all-purpose seasoning (add more to taste)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tbs apple cider vinegar (add to taste)
pinch of salt (optional)

for the rice and peas:

1 mug rice, washed and rinsed
1 can kidney beans, drained
2/3-3/4 can coconut milk
1/4 mug water
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2-3 sprigs of thyme


Instructions:

1. If you're making the marinade from scratch, simply blend the ingredients together to form a paste, adding the spices to taste. If not, then open the jar :)

2. Score the chicken legs a few times and then rub with the marinade. Stuff the sliced garlic into the flesh. Leave it to  marinade for about an hour. (if you've got longer, around 4-8 hours then that's fab but don't worry too much if not, it still tastes great.

3. Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees. Place marinated chicken legs in the oven (preferably in a cast iron dish) and set the timer for 50 minutes.

4. Place kidney beans and crushed garlic in a saucepan with up to 3/4 of the coconut milk and about a quarter cup of water, bring to the boil, then gently simmer for about 40  minutes or until the kidney beans are soft and some have split. Add salt to taste.

5. add the rice into the kidney beans, water and coconut milk and top with the thyme sprigs. Cover and ensure they are simmering very gently.

6. When the oven timer goes off at 50 minutes, pour the remainder of the coconut milk into the dish of chicken, ensuring you do not get any of it on the chicken skins - you want these to stay crispy! Continue to cook for about 10 minutes.

7. Check the rice after you've put the chicken back in the oven with the coconut milk. It should taste every-so-slightly hard. Switch off the heat and leave the lid on, allowing it to steam for 10 minutes while the sauce is cooking.

8. After 10 mins is up, get the chicken out the oven. Remove the sprigs of thyme on top the rice and break it up a bit so that the kidney beans are distributed.

9. Serve.

Ps - the curry sauce tastes really good drizzled over the rice :-)

1. Claire's 'Sincere' Sticky Chinese Style BBQ Ribs

As you may have guessed, there is nothing sincerely Chinese about these ribs, but they really are amazing, even if I do say so myself. They can be made gluten-free simply by substituting ordinary Soy Sauce for the gluten-free kind.

The main thing to focus on with ribs, is boiling them. Yes, I know, boiling meat sounds totally rough, but it really is the way forward in order to get them falling-off-the-bone-tender.

Ask your butcher for a rack of ribs to serve four. I prefer to use shorter, meatier ribs that the long ones, purely because I love meat, but it works just as well with either kind, as you can see here, I used the long ones.

First thing is to heat your water and pop the ribs in, for about two hours. Then remove them from the pan and let them cool.

For the marinade:

1 tsp sesame oil
3 tbs soy sauce (add more to taste)
3 tbs seasoned rice wine vinegar
2 tbs brown sugar
3tbs tomato sauce
2 tbs honey
1/2 tsp ground ginger (add more to taste)
1 tsp ground paprika (add more to taste)
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
about half cup water

Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl, adding more soy, ginger and paprika to taste. What I aim for is a tangy sweetness with a hint of ginger. Of course, if you like a stronger ginger flavour add more, even chop some fresh ginger root up if you like.

Once the ribs have cooled, cut them individually and marinate them in half of the sauce mixture for about an hour. If you can do longer, like overnight, great, but it's not essential. The first night this recipe was created was in response to a panic created by our Coeliac friend when we realised the sauce from the recipe book had gluten in it so it was a mad rush to get the marinade just right and an hour was fine.

Once you've marinated them, you want to heat the oven to about 180 degrees, pop them in a dish and bake for about 45 minutes, checking throughout that they aren't drying out. If this happens, add the sauce mixture bit by bit. The aim for the first half an hour is stickiness so they do need a bit of monitoring. You want them to look slightly caramelised.

Once the ribs are cooked, remove them from the tray and add water (and any remaining sauce mixture) and mix up to form a sauce. You shouldn't need more than half a cup of water. You can serve the sauce on the side, or do as I did and pour it over the ribs. This way you have the delicious, sticky but ever-so-slightly-crispy texture of the ribs combined with a juicy sauce, which tastes great on the rice as well.

Serve with steamed or boiled rice and Chinese greens, like pak choi, fried in a little sesame oil, soy and seasoned rice wine.