A Manly Steak Dinner!



First of all, I want to apologise for my lack of blogging over the last few weeks -I'm a total idiot and fell asleep with my laptop on my bed... it fell off and has completely broke. I even got a techy friend to have a look and it seems it cannot be fixed so I am currently laptopless and will have to sneak in a quick blog whenever I get chance on someone else's! So frustrating because I've got sooo much to share with you!

Anyway, I'm currently blogging from my boyfriend's laptop and so I thought it would be fitting to share the recipe for the manly steak dinner I cooked him a couple of weeks ago!
 

serves 2

 

Ingredients

2 steaks (I can't honestly remember what cut we had but I would say try get it from a butchers and pick your favourite!)

salt and black pepper

olive oil

1 large sweet potato, chopped into wedges with the skin left on

about a teaspoon of paprika

a sprinkle of cayenne pepper (if you'd a bit of a kick!)

a handful of breadcrumbs (throw a couple of nearly stale slices in a blender)

1 clove of garlic, crushed

a sprig of thyme

a handful of grated parmesan

6 small portabella mushrooms

1/2 onion, chopped finely
about 150ml single cream

Preheat the oven to 200degrees. Get your steak out of the fridge and season both sides with salt and pepper, pressing it in with your fingers to massage the meat a little. Leave to one side.

 

Lay the sweet potato wedges on a baking tray, and coat in the paprika and cayenne pepper if using. Season with salt and pepper and drizzle with olive oil. Mix the potatoes around the tray to ensure everything is coated evenly, then put in the oven for at least half an hour - if you want them soft then this will be enough, if you want blackened corners and a bit more of a crunch then leave in for another 10mins or so. Make sure you mix them around again about half way through cooking.

 

Put a griddle pan (or heavy bottomed pan) on the hob on a high heat and leave to become very hot.

Remove the thyme leaves from the stalk and mix together in a bowl with the breadcrumbs, garlic and half of the parmesan. Cut the stalks of your mushrooms and if you don't want to throw them away, then chop finely and add to the breadcrumb mix. Spoon the mixture into your mushrooms and place on a baking tray. Drizzle with olive oil, then put in the oven for about 10mins, or until slightly crispy on the top.

Add some olive oil to a frying pan and gently fry the onions.

Put your steak onto the griddle pan and leave for a couple of minutes on one side, before turning over and cooking the other side. Once sealed all over then take off the heat and leave to rest for a few minutes before serving. I'm not going to go into detail on this because I'm not the world's greatest steak cooker and we like it fairly rare which will not be to everyone's taste... But just don't overdo it!

 

Once the onions are turning soft and golden, then add the cream and parmesan and a good twist of black pepper. You can also mix into the sauce the juices that have run out of your resting steak.

Serve your lovely rustic sweet potato wedges, flavourful stuffed mushrooms and steak onto plates, and dollop on the sauce in a manly fashion. Pop a couple of beers on the table and enjoy!

 

Festive Feasts

Firstly, I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and are looking forward to a very happy new year!

Secondly, I have literally not stopped eating since about mid-December when it all started (so you might find my January recipes are verging on the healthy side to shed those festive pounds)! And I don't know about you, but this is the first time I've actually stopped since all the fun and celebrations... it just seems to keep going and as I'm back in Derbyshire I've been visiting all the family and cooking LOADS of food for everyone... Sunday Dinner for my Grandparents, meatloaf for my boyfriend's Nan, a huge Indian and Chinese feast for friends at New Year... and more! So I've got a ton of tasty Christmas food to share with you, but you'll probably have to come back to it next year now to cook it!

Pre-Christmas Dinner Party

Anyway, let's get going with the food! In the run up to Christmas I put on a little spread for some friends in my London flat.... not a Christmas Dinner but a buffet of all of our favourite Christmas flavours to get us in the mood!

As a kind of starter, I made some delicious Brie, Cranberry & Walnut Filo Parcels, loosely following this recipe. These were easy to prepare in advance and only took a short while in the oven to make some rich festive nibbles that mixed a gooey center with a crispy shell... yum!

Another pre-prepared finger nibble we had was Smoked Mackerel Pâté on Mini Toasts. The pâté was a recipe of my own, inspired by a friend at work who had it for lunch a few weeks ago on rye bread, topped with watercress. My recipe is simple - separate your smoked mackerel with a fork and put in a bowl. Add a dollop of cream cheese and mix together with a squeeze of lemon juice and a good twist of black pepper. You want a creamy consistency so use enough cheese to ensure all of the fish is mixed in (perhaps 1 heaped tablespoon of cream cheese to 1 fillet of smoked mackerel).

I also spent a bit of prep time with a friend in front of the TV, wrapping streaky bacon around some mini sausages ready to cook when people arrived. You just can't beat Pigs in Blankets at Christmas!

Next, I baked a couple of turkey breasts (rather than bothering with the whole bird!) with a few garlic cloves, onion, plenty of seasoning and some fresh rosemary for about half an hour (at about 180 degrees). Make sure to cover loosely with foil to keep the turkey moist and delicious! To go with it, I made some of my mum's sage & onion stuffing with added bacon and chestnuts to give it a Christmassy twist! I have absolutely no idea what quantities I used for this, but here is a lovely Jamie recipe that I (very loosely) followed!

I served with some bread cobs and homemade Cranberry & Raisin Chutney (recipe from a book at work that you can find here) for guests to help themselves... super easy Turkey, Stuffing & Cranberry Sarnies!

As we had boyfriends along for the feast, there was a need for a lot of meat!! So we also made an amazing Coke Gammon Joint following a recipe that has now been taken down from the internet - but if you search for gammon cooked in coke you will have a huge choice of recipes to choose from... and I promise you, this was truly delicious!

And to finish off the feast - a couple of veggies! I made Sweet Potato Wedges with a Sour Cream & Chive Dip and some Honey Roasted Parsnips (that I forgot about because we were drinking too much wine so they were VERY crunchy by the time I took them out of the oven!!).

For the wedges, chop your sweet potatoes into long thin shapes and arrange on a baking tray. Drizzle with olive oil and a generous sprinkling of paprika and season before shaking the tray to coat evenly. Pop in the oven for about 20-30minutes at about 180 degrees or until they start to crisp around the edges (you should still have a soft center). To make the dip just chop some fresh chives and mix into sour cream... then dip away!



For the parsnips, chop into strips and bake them for about 20mins in a bit of olive oil and some seasoning. Then add a dollop of clear honey and mix to coat all of the parsnips before putting back in the oven for another 10minutes (not another 20 like we did!) and they should just be turning deliciously crunchy and sweet!





Finally, to finish off I made Mary Berry's Yule Log after watching her Christmas TV programme with Paul Hollywood. The recipe should be available here, but the key is to roll your cake while it is still warm with some baking paper. Then leave to cool completely before unrolling, adding your cream and rolling back up again. This will ensure a smooth roll without cracks! I added some dessicated coconut for a snow effect and to add another flavour to the chocolatey pud!

 

Mum's Christmas Dinner

Here are just a couple of photos from Christmas Day to remind you of all of the delicious food we all consumed!

 

Decorating the Christmas Cake

I'm not going to dwell on this because a) I didn't make the cake (it was Mum's that she didn't decorate before going away) and b) it looks so pretty I just wanted to show you!!

Anyway, that's it from me for this Christmas!! I hope you all had a good one and enjoyed the pictures! If you fancy trying out some of these dishes then go for it - I apologize that the recipes don't have accurate measurements, but they're all fairly easy to make, so enjoy!

Happy New Year!!

Cooking for a Friend

Hoisin and Garlic Pork Medallions with Feta and Coriander Stuffed Sweet Potato

My friend came for dinner last night and I created a bit of a concoction, borrowing from a couple of different recipes. Everyone had been chatting about pork at work, so that was my starting point - pork medallions from the Tesco Finest range (on offer obviously!) My sauce was actually inspired by the recipe on the back of the pork pack, and adapted to use ingredients I already had. The sweet potato recipe is a variation of one of my absolute favorites from Jamie's 30minute meals - he mashes sweet potato and normal potato with feta, chilli and coriander (and it's delicious!). My friend isn't keen on chilli so I ditched this part and decided to bake the sweet potatoes as a change. It all took me less than half an hour, and received great reviews from my friend!

Ingredients

Pork Medallions
Hoisin and Garlic Sauce (I used ready-made because I already had some, but would be nicer homemade!)
Dark Soy Sauce
Garlic (fine chopped)
Ginger (grated or fine chopped)
Spring Onions (rough chopped)
Sweet Potatoes
Feta Cheese
Coriander
Veggies (carrots and broccoli for me!)

Recipe

Put the sweet potatoes on a baking tray into a preheated oven (about 180degrees).  They need about 20-30mins depending on the size of the potato.

Sear the pork in a hot pan for a couple of minutes each side, then put to one side.

Get a pan of water boiling for your veg.

Mix the hoisin and garlic sauce with a few dashes of soy sauce in a bowl. Fry the garlic and ginger in a drop of olive oil until just turning golden, then add the sauce.





Put the pork into the pan with the sauce and keep the heat on fairly low to cook through for 5-10mins.

Put the veg in your boiling water, or better steam it if you've got the right utensils (which I don't unfortunately!)

Take the potatoes out of the oven and cut in half. Cut slices through the inside of the potato, not cutting through the skin.



 Chop the feta and coriander together to mix all the flavours.

Then use your knife to push the mixture into the gaps you've just cut into the sweet potatoes. Pop back in the oven for a few minutes.

Then voila! Dish up, sprinkle the spring onion on top of the meat...

Eat!