Za'atar Dinner Rolls

It's a bold statement, but I think my all-time favourite spice mix is Za'atar. I think I've obsessed over this since encountering it for the first time in Beirut last year (oh, travel eating.. how you are missed). It's thyme, it's sesame, it's herby and nutty and a little bit tangy and I found it in Morrison's spice aisle so it isn't unknown to the UK!

I add it to every pizza dough I make, I throw it into any meat I marinade for a shawarma meal, and I haven't made a loaf without it since finding some. In lockdown, this is what I stockpiled. I am obsessed.

When I saw these little za'atar rolls, I pretty much made them for dinner the following day. 

So good. Make them now.

Vareniki - Russian Mashed Potato Dumplings

My favourite thing about travelling is eating new cuisines. In Russia last year I was super hungry and late one evening we stopped into a little diner. I ordered what is basically a bowl of comforting delights - mashed potato wrapped in dough. Perfection. Carbs on carbs, my kind of cuisine.

I have been meaning to make these for AGES but honestly, folding dumpling wrappers can be a little bit tedious. Then I saw a thing. A gadget. The coolest thing ever!

DUMPLING PRESS OMG

So this was an absolute breeze. Easy, delicious and kind of quick for dumplings! I don't think my recipe is strictly traditional but it was really really good. Usually you'd just have this on your own but I served it with some sausages for a little extra protein.

Pav Bhaji- Spiced Vegetable Mash

This is an absolutely delicious, wholesome, nourishing, spiced bowl of comfort.

Yes, there are dishes, but it's worth it

I affectionately call it spiced veggie mush, but it’s so much more than that. This is apparently a common lunch in India, where it is served with a lovely soft bap on the side. I’m salivating just thinking about it, especially with my delicious brioche bun recipe.

The good thing is, all you need are a few vegetable cupboard staples and some spices and you’re good to go. The spice mix is the only tricky bit, made by toasting and grinding whole spices.

It feels like a lot of ingredients and I know that not everyone obsessively buys whole spices. You can sub in the ground version of the spices if you need, but the flavour won’t quite be the same.

For a mix made of pre-ground spices, I’d suggest:

• 1.5 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp cumin
• pinch chili powder
• pinch ground cinnamon
• pinch ground cloves
• a good few twists of ground black pepper 

(the traditional recipe also calls for amchur powder which is hard to find. It is a dried mango powder and apparently is quite zesty, I just left it out because I find the chopped tomatoes zesty enough.)

I served mine with what I had to hand – wholemeal chapatti. I kind of wish I’d had a fresh brioche roll though.

Lentil and Black Bean Chili Non Carne

Look, it's not photogenic. But it tastes good, I promise.

So I guess we are all looking to our cupboards for what we can make from pantry staples. And I've basically got chilli without the meat, but with the same punchy flavour and very similar texture.

And it's also meat-free! It isn’t strictly veggie the way I made it, I had just fried some chorizo for quesadillas so I used that oil to fry off my onions for some extra smoky depth of flavour. But you can very easily just use vegetable oil and make this veggie/vegan.

I find it easier to stick to flavour profiles I know and textures I like when I'm trying something new. I LOVE lentils and beans. I LOVE Mexican flavours. And I love the versatility of Mexican food. Note - I did not use kidney beans because I hate them. Feel free to use them if they're your fave.

You could serve this on top of nachos, or with some guac, sour cream, or salsa on top. It would be a lovely meat-free filling for tacos or enchiladas. I had mine with mozzarella stirred through it while hot which gives it some cheesy goodness, and scooped it up with a soft tortilla wrap.

Cauliflower Coconut Curry

That meal prep life

More vegetarian food! And it's absolutely delicious!

My biggest problem with doing a “weekend big shop” is that you can never trust the meat to last more than 3-4 days, so by the time you’ve hit Friday, your options are really limited.

Bright yellow loveliness

A simple way to combat this, something I really should have considered earlier, is to lose the meat. This involves expanding the selection of veggies that I eat. I have a love-hate relationship with cauliflower. I hate when it’s made to be something its not – rice/pizza bases it is NOT. However, it brings an incredible texture to soup.  And I hoped it would be nice in a curry (don’t worry, it is).

This meal is great - low in calories, main ingredients unlikely to go bad in 5 days, delicious and easy to whip up! You could also mix up the veg – spinach, peas, carrots would all work here.

Paneer Coconut Curry

You guys, I’ve cracked it.

I’ve made the best curry I’ve ever tasted.

This is the pinnacle of creation. It was so delicious. It made my whole house smell amazing. It starts with this curry base that takes a decent amount of onion (there will be tears), what feels like too much oil (it’s ok, you need it and you can skim it off near the end), and a delicate hand with spices.

I’m never eating anything else.

You need a little time to make this but it is worth it. The base can be prepared in advance, it makes about 3x what you need and keeps in the fridge for a week, and can be frozen.

How's that for a slice of liquid gold?

Cheesy Stuffed Chillies

Ooh, I like all of these things. A bit of spice, a bit of cheese, some delicious smoky spices.

These are a great little side/snack. The original recipe called for jalapenos which I couldn’t find. So I got padron chillies which are a little smaller and just with a little spice kick. I think bigger chillies could be better because you can stuff more delicious couscous filling in them. You could even use sweet peppers if you have a spice-hater at home.

Versatile, easy, quick, yummy, veggie!

Green Rice

So, I won’t eat cauliflower rice. I just won’t do it. I love rice too much to substitute it completely away.

When I was in Edinburgh recently, I hit up Dishoom (a favourite Indian of mine, with loads of chains in London) and had the most delightful broccoli, pistachio, mint and chilli salad. It was intense and perfect with a skewer of delicately spiced chicken (and a huge pile of garlic naan).

I will re-create that salad one day, but for the meantime I got to thinking how good a side of broccoli was with curry/spiced food. And how maybe I could bulk out rice with some nice greens to easily increase my vegetable consumption. The great thing about this is the versatility, you could easily bulk it up further by adding pistachios and some sliced chillies.

So I decided to throw in what I had on hand - some random spices, shredded broccoli and peas into some cooked rice and see what happened.

The majority of the ingredients

What happened was deliciousness. See below.

Aubergine Curry

This is SO GOOD.

I love a good curry. This one is filling and wholesome and really delicately spiced. And veggie! I do want to reduce my meat intake slightly and I think Indian-style foods and spices are the perfect way to eat veggies.

I've had it for dinner yesterday and for lunch today - it's that good!

And it's a perfect one for a meal prep as you can add some delicious toppings and keep the variation up. I went with some flaked almonds and later (after photos) I added some shredded roast chicken. You could also add some fresh coriander, some pomegranate seeds, some pickled diced chillies.. whatever you fancy.

I also served mine with my favourite new creation of green rice (rice with shredded broccoli and spices) for which a post is coming soon.

Baked Onion Bhajis

These are an amazing side dish to curry. I don’t like deep frying things usually, so when I stumbled across the possibility that you could bake bhajis, I was on it like a car bonnet. The only slightly difficult ingredient to source was the chickpea flour - but I just blitzed some dried chickpeas in the food processor

These are really simple to make, delicately spiced, and an absolute treat. To be honest, next time I might double the recipe and smother the curry directly on top of this and ditch the rice.

Also, full disclosure, I was too excited to eat these so I didn't get any pictures of them plated. Because they were already on my fork and in my mouth.

Sweet Potato and Rice Croquettes

Crunchy, sweet, and filling, I’m kind of in love with these little flavour bombs. 

So, my love of the sweet potato must be boring everyone by now. Each time I post a new recipe, you must be thinking, finally, she’s found the absolute last way to cook a sweet potato. And then I post another!

So, in my search for more ways to utilise this most versatile of tubers, I came across the idea for these delicious croquettes, perfect for a side eg at a barbeque with some sweet chilli sauce, but I really liked mine alongside some curry, the saucy spiciness really complements the sweet crunchiness.

Sort of like a hash brown IN A DREAM WORLD.

Northern Irish Vegetable Soup

Some foods are so ingrained in your growing up that you don’t even notice them. Wracking my brain a few St Patrick’s days ago, I couldn’t think of any typical Irish/Northern Irish foods to make for the occasion. This would have been perfect, but for me it wasn't "traditional Irish fare" it was just what my mum used to cook for dinner in the winter.

So the other day I was really hankering for vegetable soup. Proper vegetable soup. I had a quick look on the online grocery stores for the soup mix packs which are ubiquitous in Northern Ireland. They basically have the mix of pulses or a mix of the vegetables needed. I couldn’t find any, so I did what any self-respecting Northern Irish girl would do – I called my mummy.

She knew what I needed, and I ended up buying the ingredients individually. But all that means is I have enough dry ingredients for so many future bowls of soup. Winner!

This is a very quick and simple dinner, all in you’re talking an hour for it to cook (with one instance of overnight soaking) and you can leave it to simmer away on its own for most of that.

I served mine like my mum does – with some shredded roasted chicken and some wheaten bread. I made the bread while the soup was cooking, because Irish bread is all about instant gratification – no rising time required.

makes 4 generous bowls of soup

Yemista - Stuffed Greek Peppers

Countdown to the weekend is on! Well, not for me, because I'm working this weekend. Feel for me.

But don't feel too bad, because I made these for dinner and they're amazing. You gotta try these. I have been trying to branch out on my side dishes, and I often get inspiration from food I try in restaurants.

After I had eaten them, I just knew I had to recreate these amazing stuffed peppers that I had in my favourite Greek restaurant. I have made some changes to the traditional recipe as I am wont to do.. Traditionally, as far as I can tell, you tend to include sultanas and mint, but I don’t like sultanas and I think mint can be overwhelming in savoury dishes. I also pre-cooked the rice a little because I only had brown rice and my boyfriend is very fussy with the way his rice is cooked.

Delicious filling!

These are great as a side, or on as part of a  little snack-y tapas feast!

Green Soup

Healthy eating is really hard and I totally fell off the wagon big style. Like, from Christmas. It’s now summer. That’s not good. So this seems as good a time as any to try to get back on it while getting the blog back up to regular updates!

I have been trying to think of ways to get more vegetables into my diet because I am quite immature in my vegetable tastes. I will happily eat sweetcorn and peas and carrots, but I really struggle with things like aubergine and spinach and cucumber. And I just point blank refuse to eat a green shake.

But I have an ace up my sleeve. Soup! I really like soup. It’s quick to make, you can throw a whole host of veggies in it and the best part is you can hide the veggies by blitzing the whole thing up to make a smooth and creamy lunch.

I find it easiest to make changes for my lunches. Gone are the sandwiches and crackers, behold the era of soup! For this soup, I knew I wanted to have the main part be broccoli, and the rest I just kind of threw in based on what I like and what was in the cupboard.

Halloumi and Onion Sweet Potatoes

It's January, so I suppose I better post something with stupid salad on it. We will be back to our regularly-scheduled sugar-bombs next week.

Having said that, in a bad mood as I root around for any nice Roses that are left in the box, these are actually a tasty treat. As I do love sweet potatoes, and I recently discovered the joys of baking them, I’m trying to get more creative.

I’ll be honest, I’ve had a lump of halloumi cheese in my fridge for AGES and I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do with it. My aunt is vegetarian and once fried me up some of this. It was delicious, a revelation, the food of the gods. I'd never cooked it myself, but I wanted to try something a bit different with it. And the lovely chewy texture is the perfect accompaniment to the soft sweetness of the spud. That description was TERRIBLE. But the final product is not!

These are incredibly simple to make, and a perfect side dish for other meals, I served mine with burgers, because I have an obsession with sweet potatoes and burgers for some reason.

Tandoori Halloumi and Cashew Rice

God, I love spice mixing

This was utterly delicious. I’m really impressed with the flavours of this meal.

So, my favourite restaurant is a little vegetarian restaurant that is near my flat. It serves the most amazing and creative food I have ever eaten, and I am constantly impressed with what their chef cooks up. The menu is also seasonal, so every two months there is a whole new list of yummy food to choose from. This has meant that I have had to go several times in that period to get a good try of all the delicious dishes on offer. NO REGRETS. I never regret food eaten, only food missed out on.

Aaanyway. Since sometimes I like to have a vegetarian dinner, I decided to have a go at home as well. I have a reliance on chicken, and it is refreshing to find simple and delicious alternatives. Enter halloumi. I love halloumi, and I’m not a cheese fan. It is spectacular, meaty and holds its shape perfectly throughout cooking. It isn’t overpowering on its own so it really takes the flavour of the tandoori marinade beautifully.

The rice is my new favourite thing. It is the only way I want to eat rice from now on. I have a love for rice, but being able to bulk it out a big with veggies is always great for reducing the old carbohydrate count.

One last thing, don’t fret about the number of spices in the halloumi mix. If you would prefer, you can buy pre-made pastes or powders with tandoori flavour. I just happen to have a weird predilection for collecting seeds and spices.

Mozarella and Roasted Squash Pasta

Ooh, autumnal cooking, I do like you.

I’m always looking for delicious pasta bake dishes for mid-week dinners. You see, I love to cook, but I really really love eating. So much so that I am incredibly impatient when it comes to cooking dinner after work. I will not be lovingly stirring a risotto for an hour when all I want to do is stick my head in a box of cereal for some nutrition.

And then, the clouds parted and heavens opened because I found this delightful little recipe, that even makes enough for leftovers! Dream.

This could very easily be a veggie recipe but I added the bacon last minute as I had a few rashers to use up, and they did add a lovely smoky, salty aspect.

Deep-Fried Sweet Potato Fries

Yes, here I go again with the sweet potato fries.

But, before I go into my love story about sweet potato fries, I just wanted to write something else. A belated “introduction” to my blog, if you will:

I love food.

I love cooking it, I love the feeling when something turns out *just* right. I love stirring a sauce until it thickens beautifully, or watching dough rise to the perfect height. On my days off I plan what I’m going to cook, with the luxury of a free day to mix, stir, leave to rise, and marinade. I get upset if something doesn't turn out right, or gets dropped. I’m not a photographer. You won’t catch me taking photos artfully, with a careless (but oh-so-planned) dash of flour scattered over my workstation. If there’s flour in my photos, it’s because I spilled it earlier. My plating isn’t complex, I don’t really do quenelles. Honestly, the photos of savoury bits that I take are my actual dinner for that actual evening. I’m too hungry at that point to take the time to make a dish look stylish.

Aaanyway, there is a South American- style restaurant near me which serves the most INCREDIBLE sweet potato fries. Unfortunately the last two (TWO!) times I’ve been in they had sold out of these crunchy orange morsels of pure heavenly delight.

So, what is a girl to do when she can’t get what she wants? Make them up at home for herself, of course!

I’ve made the baked sweet potato fries more times than I can count and they are incredibly wonderful and delicious. However, they do lack the crispy coating which is a hall mark of deep frying. So, these are definitely less healthy, but as a sneaky treat you can’t go too far wrong with these.

The seasoning is optional, feel free to go for just good old fashioned salt.