Italian Buffet Leftovers Three Ways

A couple of weeks ago I cooked an Italian Buffet for the girls (which mostly consisted of pizza!) and I had a fair few left over ingredients. There was a couple of chicken breasts left from the Chicken Pesto Pizza, some pasta salad, mushrooms, salsa (from the crisp dipping that always occurs on girls night!) and a few bits from the olive selection. So I decided to use these ingredients to feed me for the next week (just about!) and this is how I did it...

Leftovers 1

On the first day I basically bunged everything into a pan with some chopped tomatoes and a little balsamic and made a lovely rich, slightly spicy, tomato dish.

First off, chop a red onion and throw into the pan with a splash of oil (I actually just poured in the oil from the olive platter, so we already had some of those lovely flavours cooking away!)


Crush any left garlic from the olive platter and another clove for good measure, and stir into the onions. Then dice the chicken and add to the pan. Cook until all of the chicken is sealed, then add in the mushrooms, chopped.

As the mushrooms are starting to shrink, add the leftover salsa, a tin of chopped tomatoes, a dash of balsamic vinegar if you've got it, and some dried herbs. I can't honestly remember what I used but maybe something like basil and a little oregano would work well! Give it a good twist of salt and black pepper as well.

Simmer away then add the olives - chopped so that the flavour spreads throughout the dish. I included the chillies as well, but left out the stuffed peppers (I say left out - I actually ate them as I was cooking!!)

I would then leave with a lid part on for about 10minutes or so, making sure that the chicken is cooked through and has soaked up all of those yummy Italian flavours. But don't overdo it on day 1 as you'll be reheating this dish again!!

I served this with left over pasta salad, shredded iceberg lettuce, garlic bread and some grated parmesan over the top for good measure. Now tell me - does this look like a proper plate of leftovers or what?





Save the rest of the tomato chicken stew in the fridge - you'll need this again!

Then I popped the rest of the pasta salad in a tupperware, ready to take for a working lunch the next day!

Leftovers 2

The next evening I fancied rice instead, so I cooked a portion of rice according to packet instructions and heated up a portion of the tomato chicken. Served with some rocket and a little more balsamic - this was absolutely delicious!

Leftovers 3

The third variation on this dish was in a pasta bake. I cooked a couple of portions of pasta in a pan of boiling water until just underdone. Then mix in with the remaining tomato chicken and grate with a little parmesan. Bake in the oven for about 15minutes at 180degrees, or until the sauce is bubbling away and the chicken is heated through. This pasta bake then did the next night as well!







So there you have it - leftover ingredients from one meal, cooked in three different ways and lasting four dinners and a lunch! Not bad going really!

Italian Buffet with Friends!

Hello and welcome back! 

A huge thank you to everyone who has continued to check out my recipes and things, even though I've been blog-absent for far too long! I am so excited to say I now have a laptop again, so I plan to post weekly(ish) as before... And to kick it all off I thought I'd share a few super simple recipes that I made on Saturday night for the girls as a bit of an Italian Buffet Feast!


The recipes are for three different pizzas - Carbonara Pizza, Chicken Pesto Pizza and Pepperoni Pizza - and a Pasta Salad. The pizza recipes are my own, but the tasty pasta salad was taken from the handy little book, Everyday Pasta, published by Parragon 2009. Served with a basic green salad, some mixed olives and a ton of garlic bread, this buffet worked a treat (though I had to take the photo of the table before adding everything to it because the girls were dying to tuck in!) It made a wonderfully easy meal as it can nearly all be prepped in advance, so it's perfect if you don't want to miss out on any of the catch up! Admittedly a carb heavy buffet but undeniably tasty with a glass or two of a good Pinot and some lovely company.

Carbonara Pizza

pack of pizza base mix (for an 8" pizza)
1/2 cup of double cream
1 medium egg
black pepper
olive oil
1/2 red onion, sliced
a couple of handfuls of mushrooms, sliced
parmesan cheese
a few pieces of parma ham
a couple of handfuls of rocket (optional)
balsamic syrup (optional)

Make the pizza base according to packet instructions, but make sure to roll is out really nice and thin to get a lovely crispy base (mine was much bigger than the suggested 8"). Leave it to rise slightly on a piece of baking paper while you prepare the topping.

Whisk together the cream and egg. Add a good twist of black pepper and leave to the side for a moment.

Heat a splash of olive oil in a frying pan over a medium heat and add the onion. Fry for a couple of minutes then add the mushrooms for a further minute (these will be cooked in the oven so don't overdue them at this stage). Add the cream mixture to the pan and grate in as much parmesan as you want! Give it a quick mix around then empty back into your jug or bowl to cool.

When you're nearly ready to serve your pizza then preheat the oven to about 220 degrees. Spread the cream mixture over your base and rip over the parma ham. Grate a little more parmesan over the top and pop in the preheated oven for about 10 minutes or until the topping is turning golden and the edges are just starting to crisp up.

If using, then scatter rocket over your cooked pizza and drizzle with balsamic syrup. Enjoy!

Chicken Pesto Pizza

pack of pizza base mix (for an 8" pizza)

2 tablespoons of basil pesto (I used shop bought to save on time but if you can be bothered to make your own then definitely do!)

olive oil

2 chicken breasts, baked in the oven for about 30mins wrapped loosely in silver foil then sliced (or buy some ready cooked)

1 small courgette, grated

a handful of pine nuts

about 1/2 – 1 ball of mozzarella, depending on how cheesy you'd like it!

parmesan cheese

See above for making your base then preheat the oven to about 220degrees when you're ready to cook pizza. Spread the pesto evenly over the base and drizzle with a little olive oil, mixing it around on the pizza to thin the pesto slightly.

Spread over your cooked chicken pieces, grated courgette and pine nuts. Rip the mozzarella into small pieces and scatter over the top. Grate with a little parmesan then pop in the oven for about 10 minutes or until all of the cheese is melted.

Yummy!

Pepperoni Pizza

pack of pizza base mix (for an 8" pizza)

about two tablespoons tomato purée
about a tablespoon of water
olive oil
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 teaspoon of herbs (try basil and oregano if you've got them!)
salt and black pepper
a selection of pepperoni pieces
1/2 red onion, sliced
1 red pepper, sliced
1 ball of mozzarella


Make your pizza base as above, then preheat your oven to 220degrees when ready.

Mix together the tomato purée, water, a dash of olive oil, garlic, herbs and a good twist of salt and pepper. Spread this evenly over your base, then scatter the pepperoni, onion and pepper pieces. Finish by ripping mozzarella into small pieces and spreading around.

Cook in the oven for about 10 minutes or until the cheese is bubbling away, then serve!

Pasta Salad

As I mentioned earlier, this recipe is not my own - it was taken from the Everyday Pasta book, published by Parragon, and adapted for this buffet. The recipe asks for parmesan but I figured that the feast was already so cheesy that I'd leave it out, and it is also meant to be served warm (called Warm Pasta Salad in the book!) but I prepared earlier in the day and served cold. I've also changed the quantities to match my haphazard way of cooking - but seriously, who measures out pasta to the gram?!

2 or 3 handfuls of dried farfalle or other pasta shades

6 pieces of sun-dried tomato in oil, drained and chopped

4 spring onions, chopped

a handful of rocket, chopped

1/2 cucumber, deseeded and diced

2 tablespoons of parmesan cheese, grated (optional)

4 tablespoons olive oil

a good pinch of caster sugar

1 tablespoon white wine vinegar

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

salt and pepper

a few fresh basil leaves, finely chopped (or a teaspoon of dried if you forgot to pick it up like me!)

Make the dressing first by whisking the liquids together. Season with salt and pepper and add the basil.

Cook the pasta according to packet instructions, then drain and toss in the dressing.

If serving warm, then add the remaining ingredients and sprinkle with parmesan cheese (if using) now. If serving cold later then I'd recommend waiting to add your salad once the pasta has cooled to avoid the leaves becoming soggy.



And there you have it! A carb heavy, but satisfyingly simple Italian buffet... crack open a bottle of Pinot and enjoy with friends next weekend!

Ridiculously Tasty Pizza!

One of my favourite memories of birthday parties as a child was making our own pizzas... Mum used to buy a selection of toppings, a load of cheese, some pizza bases and tomato puree or BBQ sauce, and we'd all pick our favourite bits and make our own pizza. So the other day when I was wandering down the supermarket aisle and saw some pizza bases I just thought it would be nice to do it again!



I then decided to get a pizza mix, instead of a base, so that I could roll it out nice and thin to get a gorgeous Italian style base. Then I bought a load of different toppings and put them on with a pesto base... easy and ridiculously tasty!

Ingredients

pizza base mix
1 tablespoon green pesto
1 tablespoon sour cream
1/2 red pepper, sliced
1/2 red onion, sliced thinly
a small handful of walnuts, chopped (optional)
1 chicken breast, cooked and ripped into pieces
a few pieces of chorizo or salami
parmesan shavings
a handful of mixed green leaves (or just go for some rocket)
balsamic syrup

Mix the pesto and sour cream together (you might want to double the quantities if you're pizza is quite large).


Mix your pizza base according to packet instructions and roll out nice and thin. Pop it onto a piece of baking paper on a tray, then coat thinly all over with your pesto mix.




Build up your pizza with all of the toppings (except the leaves and balsamic). The order doesn't really matter but I would probably go veggie stuff at the bottom, then meat and finally scatter the cheese over.

Then pop in the oven for about 10 minutes, or until the base is lovely and crispy and the cheese is bubbling away.

Add the leaves and a drizzle of balsamic - a pizza and salad in one! Then serve it up with a glass of cold white wine (still on the baking paper if you fancy a rustic style dinner), cut it into pieces and dig in with your fingers!

Yum!!

First Meal in my New Flat

I'm back!!! I finally have internet in my new flat so I have loads to share with you... There's still some meals from my trip around Eastern Europe and a family holiday to Pollenca and, of course, tons of recipes from my own cooking and books!

I thought the best place to start would be the first meal I cooked in my new kitchen... it's a lovely open plan kitchen/dining/living room - perfect for entertaining as I can cook while still chatting to my friends! So the dish is just a very simple Chicken Tikka Masala - not fancy but absolutely fool proof and very tasty! So welcome back everyone, pour a glass of wine and enjoy the recipe!

 

Chicken Tikka Masala

Serves 3 (great for 2 people with leftovers for the freezer!)

olive oil
2 chicken breasts

1 onion (I used red this time but I normally use white)
large tablespoon of tikka masala paste
2/3 cup of rice
1 red pepper
6-8 mushrooms
tin of chopped tomatoes
handful of flaked almonds (optional)
handful of fresh coriander leaves
1 naan bread
2 tablespoons of natural yoghurt (optional)



Chop all of the ingredients and get a pan of water boiling ready for your rice.

Put a deep frying pan on a medium heat and add a dash of olive oil. Add the chicken and fry until it has turned white.

Add the onion. As the onion softens add the tikka masala paste and stir until it is covering all of the chicken.

Cook the rice according to packet instructions (I usually put it on at this stage and the timings tend to work well).

Add the peppers and mushrooms to the pan and fry for a few minutes, mixing with the chicken, onions and paste.

As the veg softens, add the tin of chopped tomatoes, most of the almonds and coriander. Leave to simmer and absorb all of the flavours for about 5 minutes. If you are serving with naan bread then put it in a preheated oven.

If you want a creamier curry then add natural yoghurt, but it is still delicious without!

Drain and serve your rice and spoon on your curry. Sprinkle the remaining almonds and coriander over the dishes and eat!



So there you have it... the simple and tasty dish that I made for my friend as the first meal in my new kitchen! It's a really great basic recipe that you can mix up with different meats, different veg and chilli if you want to add some more spice - delicious with spinach added towards the end of cooking if you fancy a tikka saag!

A good one for a Saturday evening if you fancy making it tonight or it can even be a fairly quick mid-week meal... have a lovely weekend folks and enjoy!

Food Delights in Belgrade

Well after a few weeks of dissertation madness, I've finally found time to blog again! Apologies that it's been so long, but I will attempt to make up for it with some more regular posts this month... finishing off the amazing food we had on our interrailing tour of Eastern Europe, some delicious meals from a family holiday to Pollenca, Majorca, and of course, some of my own recipes!!

Interrail Stop 6

So back to the interrail tour... this time I'll share with you some of the tasty treats we had in Belgrade, Serbia. We had a couple of stops before this in Budapest and Bratislava, but chose to spend our money on the beautiful and relaxing public baths instead of tasty dinners out.... so we were back to trying the local cuisine in Serbia.

? Kafana

One of the famous landmarks in Belgrade, the ? pub and bistro is about 200 years old and serves traditional Serbian food. From our experience of the local food, that means basically dishes with lots of meat and carbs - very  filling, stodgy and greasy - but oh so tasty!!


I think these few days in Serbia just about finished us off with greasy food, but we loved eating it at the time! The meal out to ? was absolutely delicious - I had a traditional burger which was nothing like burgers that we know in the UK, but more like a huge slap of meat mixed up with onions and shaped to about the size of my face!!








 My friend had something that we expected to be chicken... but it was unlike anything we had eaten before... basically chicken flattened to within an inch of its life and then rolled up around something that we couldn't name and coated in a sort of batter/sort of outer crisp. And somehow it tasted amazing! Then we shared a Serbian salad (basically cheese, tomato and white cabbage) and it just about balanced out all the stodge and grease.

The atmosphere of the place was awesome - we didn't get there until about 11pm as we had to run back for more money (being cheapskate tourists, we hadn't brought out enough cash!!) and the restaurant area was still buzzing. There were musicians playing to the tables and waiters happy to advise us on dishes.





A lovely meal and great place to try some of the unusual traditional dishes... definitely would recommend if you are visiting Belgrade. There's also an interesting history to the current name (involving the Church opposite disapproving of its name years ago as it was suggestive of a place of drinking and merriment, so they changed it to ? as a temporary name and then never changed it to anything else!)

Palačinka/Pancake

From a street cafe we also tried a Serbian palačinka... much like French crepes but somehow thinner and bigger, and we watched them make them like this!














We had them filled with ham, cheese, sour creme... yummy!! (although not to be eaten often - each mouthful felt like a day's worth of calories!!)

Pijaca/Green Market

Now a lot of the fruit and veg was cheaper around our Eastern Europe travels than it is in the UK, but nowhere was a cheap as the Belgrade Pijaca - we must have spent less than £2 and ended up with all of this!! Needless to say we had an all veg stir fry that night (and the day after, and the day after that!!) A great place to just wander around but you will come away with a lot more than you went for!!

So there you have it... after several weeks of not posting, here is a lengthy post about all the different food we sampled in  Belgrade!! I'd definitely recommend the ? Kafana and the Pijaca. Oh yeah, I should also mention that they give you a free shot of rakija on the morning walking tour... it's absolutely gross so take a bottle of water!!!

Cafes and Food Stalls in Prague

Interrail Stop 3

Firstly, an apology for being entirely absent from this blog the last couple of weeks... After the first few hostels on the interrail tour it got pretty tricky to upload photos, so I couldn't blog the delicious food we were sampling on our way around!! On the plus side, that basically means a short blog a day for a while with all my snaps and thoughts on the various Eastern Europe cuisine we managed to get our hands on!! So I'm sorry and please keep checking back for more! I will pop a couple of recipes up as I go along as well...

So, Prague - GORGEOUS city - everything you heard about the cobbled streets, colourful buildings, beautiful places of worship and red roof-top landscape is absolutely true!

We had an amazing time wandering the streets and the castle on walking tours, and managed to try some of the side street cafe culture as well as the delicious food offered on stands in every square!!

Street Stalls

The icecream in Prague was yummy - so many different flavours - from fruity and fresh to rich and creamy! We also saw stall after stall of various grab-and-go foods, such as this pork cooking in the main square and giving off a delicious smell!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Warming Goulash

Still not in Hungary, but another goulash tempted our appetite in an underground cafe full of wooden walls, ceilings and furniture and great beers (which are unfortunately completely lost on me!) One portion plenty big enough for two, served with dumplings that had a texture somewhere in between potato and bread and soaked up the rich sauce just lovely.

Eating Cheap in the Side Street Cafes

The currency conversion is about £1=30 Czech Koruna, so it takes a little bit of thinking about to realise that your 110CZK is actually worth very little! It did, however, manage to get us a set menu (intended for one but we shared it!!) in a lovely little outdoor cafe off a side street from the main square. We had a mushroom soup for starter, which was delicious and actually very filling in itself!

Then a mixed salad with chicken and a tasty bowl of chips followed - the fresh salad was very welcome after all the warm, hearty food we had eaten so far! 

 

Ironically, we had ordered this set menu deal because it looked like the most food we could get for the money we had, and didn't want to withdraw any more Czech currency before we left.. but later that afternoon we ran out of water and had to withdraw far too much money just to buy some more! So we probably should have just taken more out in the first place, but oh well, we tried to do it on the cheap!!



So there you have it... the selection of food we had in Prague. A lot more traditional food from a range of different countries to follow, so hopefully see you soon!

Why I can't diet and the book that made me try

James Duigan Clean & Lean Flat Tummy Fast

The Book 

 

I recently bought this book because I'd heard about it at work - James Duigan has been Elle Marpherson's personal trainer and I definitely wouldn't mind looking like her! Published by Kyle Books and priced at only £12.99, this book is all about eating right and exercising right for a flat tummy. There are some healthy everyday recipes that I plan to try soon, and lots of fitness plans. He talks a lot about which foods to eat a lot of, and which ones to try and avoid, and this general health information is why I wanted it. Interestingly, stress, caffeine and spicy food can all be a cause of tummy bloating... maybe I should just cut down on those three things!!

Turkey and Cucumber Snack

In the book there is a 14day diet that looks quite manageable - low carbs but a range of different meats, fish and veg. There is also a 6day diet, which I have attempted this week, consisting mostly of lean white meat, white fish, and a (small) variety of green veg. It also suggests you take fibre, multivitamin and fish oil supplements each day, as your body isn't getting quite everything it needs. Only drinking water, and apart from the occasional squeeze of fresh lemon or lime, no added flavours, sauces, dressings or any sort of cooking oil.

Why would I want to?

 

Next week I am going interrailing around Eastern Europe, visiting a load of different cities and interesting places I've never been before... for a month!!! I'm so excited and will hopefully be able to share a load of the different food I have on here, so keep reading!

So the reason I wanted to do a 6day diet was to shed some of the Christmas weight that I've still not got round to shedding (yes, I know we're in June!) and tone up a bit for short shorts and bikini wearing on the Croatian beach!! I thought... 6days of boring food, how tough can it be?

 

 

Tough

Egg White Omelette with Spinach

Tough motivating with nothing flavoured food, tough trying to do more exercise than I've done for a while with a much lower calorie intake, tough turkey that I left in the oven because I wasn't interested in cooking it, tough to refrain from temptation when your sister decides to bake for the first time in years, just tough full stop.

Cobbler and Purple Sprouting Brocoli

Now that's not to say that James Duigan doesn't know what he's talking about. The lean white meat or fish with green veg that he recommends has definitely made me feel less bloated and I feel like I've lost a bit of the chubs around my belly. I do think it is a good meal plan and exercise regime, and probably one of the most healthy and nutritous 6day diets I've seen.

But it's so boring!!! I found that I wasn't craving chocolate or a pizza, instead just desperately craving some flavour!

Baked Chicken and Asparagus

I stuck to it properly for the first two days, then the third day I ate the right food but added a little black pepper and/or lemon to some of the fish and chicken. Then today (day 5) I've decided I'm going to cook dinner. Nothing particularly bad for me, or with too many carbs, but just something to get my mouth tingling!

Haddock with lime and ginger

So yes, I've failed the diet. But I figured if I just eat healthy between now and going on Wed then I won't put anything back on and it won't have been a total waste of time! Good book, good results (probably) but terrible on my part!!! Sorry James, I don't think a quick 6day fix is right for me!