Vegetable Samosas

Pastry:
500g plain flour
3tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
large pinch curry powder or turmeric
80g chilled diced butter/cooking marg

Filling:
glug vegetable or olive oil
1 small onion finely chopped
2 garlic cloves crushed
2 cm piece of ginger, crushed
1 - 2 chili, optionally de-seeded and finely chopped (depends on your spice tolerance!)
About 400g leftover cooked potatoes roughly chopped(small cube and microwave if making from raw)
can substitute with other cooked root veg - sweet potato and carrot are good but sweeter than using regular potato
75g frozen peas
1tsp garam masala or mixture of cumin and coriander
1 - 2 tsp Pataks curry paste or to taste
2 tbsp fresh coriander choped
oil for deep frying

1.  For filling, heat oil and cook onion garlic ginger and chili and curry paste for 3 - 4 mins until softened and golden, not burnt. Add spuds, mashing down roughly.
2. Add the peas, garam masala and salt to taste.
3, Remove from heat and stir in the coriander (filling freezes well if you have too much for the pastry).
Leave the mixture to cool (if it's too hot it will make the pastry melt).
For pastry, whisk together the flour salt and curry powder, then rub butter into flour mixture. Stir in about 300ml water and knead to form a soft dough.
4. Take 60g lumps of dough and roll into balls.
5. Roll out each piece of dough into a circle (mine are not very circular as you can see), cut in half, then fold as in the photos to make a cone shape.

6. Spoon some of the filling into the centre, filling almost to the top, then pinch the top edge shut, pressing edges gently to seal.

7 Deep fry the samosas in about 5cm oil in a deep frying pan for a bout 3 minutes, turning until crisp and golden. Serve with the raita.
Raita
plain yoghurt
sliced onion
squeeze of lemon juice
chopped fresh coriander and mint
1/2 tsp sugar
chopped cucumber
optional small clove garlic, crushed
Mix together.

Carrot and coriander soup

See Veggie Daughter blog!

Tuna Lasagna

2 tins tuna
4 eggs, hardboiled
1 large onion
50g butter/marg
50g cornflour or plain flour
1 pint/500g milk + extra for topping
sprinkle dried mixed herbs
sprinkle dried tarragon (optional)
1 courgette (optional)
frozen spinach, about 100g
pack of lasagne sheets
mozzarella

Melt the butter/marg in a large frying pan, (if you're using tuna in sunflower oil, drain the oil into the pan and reduce the amount of butter slightly). Add the onion, courgette if using and mixed herbs and gently saute until onion is soft and transparent and courgette is soft and slightly browned.

Stir in the flour and cook gently for a minute or two, then gradually stir in the milk, heating gently and stirring until it boils and forms a smooth sauce. Add the frozen spinach and stir until it melts and is dispersed through the sauce. Then stir in the tuna and chopped eggs and remove from the heat.

In a baking dish put a layer of the sauce, followed by a layer of lasagne. Repeat until you are left with about half a cup of sauce, ending with a layer of lasagne. Mix in about half a cup of extra milk and heat to thicken it slightly, then pour over the top of the lasagne and top with torn mozzarella pieces.

Bake in 190 degree oven for around half an hour, until top is golden and lasagne is cooked - if it's burning, cover the top with foil and reduce the heat.

Fried chicken

This was based on the Tom Kerridge recipe on BBC Food Tom's fried chicken in a basket.

boneless chicken thighs - enough for a couple each
carton buttermilk
100 g flour
50g cornflour
spice mixture: choose from garlic powder/salt, smoked paprika, normal paprika, chili powder, oregano, mixed herb, onion salt, dried sage; depending how salty your garlic and onion powders are, you may need to add some salt. You can vary the spices to your taste - eg garam masala, 5 spice, ras el hanout...
olive oil

Soak the chicken in buttermilk for several hours.
Mix together the flour and spices in a bowl.
When you're ready to cook, take the chicken out of the buttermilk - you can re-use it once if you freeze it now. Shake off the excess buttermilk, then coat the chicken pieces in the spiced flour.
Shallow fry the chicken pieces in hot oil for a few minutes each side until almost done, then transfer to a baking tray.
Finish the chicken off in the oven to crisp up the coating and make sure it is cooked through.

Ethiopian style chicken stew

Totally inauthentic, but delicious. We were craving Ethiopian food and there isn't an Ethiopian restaurant anywhere near here. Note to self: don't try making injera bread again.

The chicken is the one at the back.

500g boneless chicken thighs, cut into biggish chunks
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp ghee (or sunflower oil with some butter)
2 big onions, minced finely (use the food processor for speed)
1 tbsp grated ginger
1 tbsp minced garlic
1 tbsp berbere spice mix (or to taste)
100ml white wine
1 tsp honey
250ml chicken stock
salt (may not need if using salted stock)

1. Marinate the chicken in the lemon juice and some salt for at least 30 minutes.
2. Melt the ghee or oil/butter mixture then very gently saute the onions for 15 minutes or so until very soft but not burnt.
3.Add the garlic and ginger and berbere seasoning and saute for 10 minutes very gently.
4. Add the chicken, stock, wine and honey and bring to the boil.
5. Cover and simmer  gently for 30 - 40 minutes until the chicken is tender

Ethiopian style Red Lentils - Misir Wot

good glug of ghee/oil
1 large onion, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, crushed
2 or 3 tomatoes, chopped
3 tbsp tomato puree
1 tbsp berbere spice, or more to taste
300g red lentils
700ml veg stock
salt (may not need depending on how salty the stock is)

1. Saute the onion in ghee or oil until soft and golden, not burnt.
2. Add the garlic and simmer for a moment or two.
3. Add the tomatoes and tom puree, and the stock and stir it all together.
4. Stir in the lentils and cook for 20 - 30 mins or so until the lentils are cooked and becoming mushy.

Ideally this would be served with injera bread, some other Ethiopian dishes, such as collard greens, beef curry, chicken curry and fresh cheese. I managed the chicken curry and I even made some fresh cheese, but the bread was a disaster. We ate it with rice, which was still delicious, but I love injera bread.

successful cheese

unsuccessful injera

Scones

I've tried lots of different recipes for scones. This one was from Rodda's, the clotted cream people. They should know what they're talking about. They were pretty good. I didn't have buttermilk, so I used a dollop, probably 2 tsp or so, of natural yoghurt made up to 150ml with the milk. Vanilla is down as one of the ingredients, but I didn't put it in. This is half quantity - there weren't many of us eating them.

225g SR flour
50g butter (I actually used Stork)
pinch salt
35g sugar
150ml buttermilk (or mixture of milk and a couple of spoons of natural yoghurt or sour cream)

Stir the salt into the flour, then rub the fat into the flour.

Stir in the sugar.

Mix in the milk until just combined - don't overwork it or your scones will be leathery. I found this made quite a wet mixture and added a touch more flour. The scones were hard to roll, but did come out deliciously light.

Shape into a ball, roll out to about 2cm thick, then use a pastry cutter to cut out rounds to the size you want.

Put the scones on a greased baking tray,  brush with beaten egg,  or with milk, or melted butter. I like to sprinkle a little sugar on the top at that point if I'm using milk or butter. Bake at 200C in a fan oven for about 10 to 15 mins until golden.

Serve with jam and clotted cream. I will leave the order you spread them on up to you.