Tomato Sauce with Meatballs

The most time consuming part of this recipe is the Tomato Sauce. But once that is cooked a real simple meat ball to add is with Sausage meat. It is all real easy in that you will just squeeze out the sausage meat into even sized balls and cook on medium to high heat.

Then you will add it all together with your cooked pasta & serve with grated cheese

Tomato Sauce

This is by far and away the best Italian Tomato pasta sauce I have ever tasted.

A good tomato sauce was something that always interested me but I was never happy with my efforts until I was shown this recipe by a good friend. What I learnt the most from it is that simplicity works.

The sauce has a few layers or stages to it and all up you will want to set aside about 2 hours to cook it. Within this time you do not have to be standing by the side of the sauce as you will cook everything on a low heat and only are needed to stir and keep a watchful eye on the sauce.

Potato & Roast Vegetable Mini Quiches

In my recent post regarding 'the €5 meal' I realized that the Quiche recipe I used cost €7 to make & the only reason for this was that I was using a larger baking dish for 3-4 people. In recent months I have become addicted to Pastry Pies so last night I wanted to try and make my own individual quiches, when made this way are considerly cheaper and really tasty as all of the flavours are condensed into individual servings.

What I decided to do this time is a Vegetarian Quiche with Potato & Roast vegetables and I served it with a light salad

Vegetarian Club Sandwich

There is nothing quite like a good sandwich, it is something that I am quite the expert at, I got to say. So what makes the perfect sandwich? 

Essientially it is ingredients that all compliment each other in taste and flavour, something you got to be able to take in your hands. If you eat your sandwich with a knife & fork there is something wrong….

If you check the Sandwich section to my blog you will see some other sandwich ideas but today I am going to talk about the Club Sandwich. 

There are a few golden rules in my book here before we start:

- The Club Sandwich is always a triple decker affair

- The Bread should be really fresh
- You will toast the middle piece of bread and let this get cool – this will offer the sandwich a delicious crispy crunch when you bite into it
- Use only fresh ingredients for best results (treat yourself to top quality tomatoes and cheese)
- Divide your sandwich into 2 distinct sandwichs that will sit on top of each other. You want the flavours here to compliment each other and not battle against each other.
- Use my Tomato Chutney in this sandwich

Roasted Vegetable Pasta

This pasta dish is perfect for a Vegetarian option or if you feel like a light & tasty pasta. Roasting the vegetables is similar to my previous post of Roast Vegetable Lasagne but this time you will add them to your pasta with a combination of cheddar cheese & a mustard/chilli/coriander cream sauce.

The Cream sauce is very much up to you, I like to use grained mustard with a hint of sweet chilli sauce with chopped coriander leaves. I find the mustard brings out the flavours in the dish. Also as I like things spicy I add 2 devil eye chilli’s when roasting the vegetables so if that is not for you do not put them in.

All up you get a very tasty pasta dish that is super easy to make, serve with my Mozzarella Garlic Bread for that perfect compliment

Nutty Chocolate Cake

I must admit that I do not have a sweet tooth so much so that mostly all of the baking in the house is done by my girlfriend. With this realisation I set about trying to replicate one of her favourite cake recipes and a favourite with all whenever it is baked. A Chocolate & Nut Cake.

The key to success here is to remember to get as much air into your mixture when you are folding in the ingredients. Also remember to grease your baking tin well. For best results it is best to leave overnight in a fridge so the cake will set completely

Prepare yourself for some serious Chocolate & Nut overload.....

Lime & Coriander Salmon Filo Parcels

The below recipe is a super healthy alternative when you are looking for that something different with a piece of Salmon. What I love about it is that the Salmon is wrapped in a light filo pastry & will cook in the lime & herb marinate in such a way that everything fuses together for a delicious crispy salmon parcel of goodness. Personally I like to spice mine up with some devil eye chillis but if you do not like things spicy you can skip this step.

All is cooked in a hot oven & can be served with your choice of sides.

Insalata di Frutti di Mare: Seafood Salad

A Salad from the Sea: I really do love this salad when I am looking for that something extra from my dinner salad. The principle for me here is to use up to 3 different types of seafood and add this to light & fresh salad ingredients.

Seafood wise fresh is always best of course but you can of course use tinned fish such as tuna & crab as it is considerably cheaper than the fresher alternatives. Other options are of course prawns & smoked salmon.

I like to combine all the ingredients together with a light lemon based vinaigrette which keeps the salad light, crisp & fresh.

Chicken Stroganoff

This recipe is a very old favourite of mine, now that the Winter is coming it will start to be on my weekly menu more often. What I love about it is the unique character you can give it. The basis of the meal is all about the flour & spices mixture. You want to have a consistency of 2:1 here. What this mixture will do is to give the sauce an amazing flavour while also acting to thicken up your chicken stock.

Also the beauty of this mixture is that you can really make it your own. So you can make it as spicy as you want, add other spices to it or even add dried herbs if you so wish. Really just play around with it and you will discover what you like & don’t like. Everything is cooked in a Large Wok so after you brown the chicken your onions/mushrooms are also cooked in the same oil so they immediately get the flavour from the spices.

This recipe works great for a mid-week dish and also can be cooked for a more serious dinner as like I said the flavour is very natural & delicious. I always serve it with potatoes but it also works with rice , whichever you prefer.

Seeded Brown Bread

For me brown bread was always Irish Soda bread so when a friend showed me this recipe I was intrigued by it as it was very different to what I was use to. The one thing you realize when making it is that it is actually very simple to make you just need to remember a few important factors before you start.

- Flour Ratio: I like to have it 4 parts wholemeal to 1 part white flour. This is my personal taste but you can play around with these ratios if this bread is not to your liking.

- Never mix Yeast & Salt together: This is major rule, do not let your yeast get in contact directly with salt as it will counteract each other. Mix it in at separate occasions with your flour.

- Seed it up: I like to use Pumpkin, Sunflower & Sesame Seeds. I also use a deluxe muesli also. You can use any seeds you want in this recipe. I keep the ratios 5 parts flour to 2 part seeds.

- Let your water get to blood temperature: The water should not be too hot, about 40C is perfect

- Let the mixture rise for 90 minutes in a warm place with a wet tea-towel over it. A warm oven or by a radiator or in the sun is a perfect place for the mixture to rise.

With all of the above as a background lets see how we can make this delicious bread:

Foaming Hollandaise

Hollandaise sauce is not as difficult as you might think to make. The below recipe is pretty fool proof in that you will fold in egg whites at the end so this will give the sauce a light, airy & foaming texture.

The main reason why I have chosen the below Hollandaise recipe is for the principle reason that it only requires half the quantities of egg & butter that other recipes use. For me this is of huge importance as I always have my hollandaise with poached eggs so it is way too much eggs for my liking.

Also this Hollandaise will keep in your fridge as it is possible to re-heat it the following day. Very simply re-heat it in a bowl over simmering water.

How to Poach an Egg

How to cook the perfect poached egg is something I have been trying to master for years. I now have the final piece of the jigsaw in place when I got the tip to use a frying pan instead of my normal saucepan I always used previously.

Its now time to share my thoughts on how to cook the perfect poached egg:

Steak Mushroom & Onion Pies

Finally the search for a suitable meat pie casing has come to an end. I combed many a website for the perfect one but in the end I found a very large muffin baking tray, it worked perfectly. The beauty of this method is that you can buy sheets of frozen pastry (flaky puff pastry) that fit perfectly into each meat pie so that all you need to use is different meat sauces as the pastry is easily available in your freezer. You want to find a pastry that is butter based & not oil/yeast based, this pastry will give the pie a beautiful flaky texture.

Previously I have made a Chicken & Leek Pie during the World Cup Kitchen but this time I wanted to make a more traditional meat pie filling. I went for a Steak Mushroom & Onion Pie. The key when making the meat sauce is: more time the better. In the recipe I say cook it for 2.5 hours but the longer the better. Turn the sauce temperature right down and let the sauce stew away would be the best philosophy. Let the mixture cool completely before you add it into the Pastry casings.

Baileys Banana Smoothie

There are 2 things Rox loves and that is Baileys & Banana. So I combined her 2 loves to make a very tasty Baileys Banana Smoothie.

The trick to impress is to melt your chocolate and swirl around your cocktail glass. Place it into the freezer so the chocolate will set. Whizz everything together in a blender and it is all super quick & very tasty!

Chicken Mushroom & Onion Quiche

   

Quiches are super versatile you can really combine any ingredients you like with your egg mixture and make whatever combination you choose. What use to put me off in the past to making them, was the hassle of making the pastry but now with frozen pastry readily available and super cheap you really have no excuses any more.

The Quiche below is a personal favourite of mine, I like to flash fry my chicken slices and then slowly cooking my onions before I add the mushrooms, garlic, chilli & cooked chicken. I will carmelise the mixture with some brown sugar and let cool before adding it in the part cooked pastry with your egg/cream mixture.

One serving will give you 6 very heathly slices

Why not try it? 
 

Potato Gratin

Potato Gratins are always a personal favourite of mine. But I never quite knew how to make the perfect one…normally I would par-boil my potatoes, then finely slice them and place the cream sauce in the middle of the dish with more potatoes & cheese on top. It solved the gratin fix but I was not really happy with my efforts.

It all changed when I found this recipe. With this recipe the potato will cook in an even amount of cream & milk with a whole onion & some crushed garlic for flavour. The simplicity of the dish is in allowing the natural flavours to release while you cook them in a saucepan, before transferring to the oven to brown.

I like to use as many combinations of grated cheese as I have in my fridge on top to compliment all the flavours within the gratin.

Hot Whiskey (Hot Toddy)

With the change of season we all know the sniffles and aches are going to start. If you feel either coming on, a hot whiskey is a great way to make you feel better. Just remember to not over indulge as then it defeats the purpose of having one.

Many people use brown sugar as the sweetener but I like to use Honey as it will also help if you have a sore throat.

Spicy Steamed White Fish

The below recipe is super easy & very healthy as steaming food is perhaps the most healthiest way to cook, as the food will retain the majority of its nutrients. 

This fish below will go beautifully with my Egg Fried Rice recipe.

Egg Fried Rice

I discovered this recipe one night when eating Teppan’yaki. The key to this recipe is ensuring your rice is completely cold. 

What I like to do, is the night before cook up extra rice and keep half of it for the next night and make this egg fried rice.

Red Snapper on the BBQ

Cooking fish on the BBQ is so easy as you essientially will steam your fish in tin foil and all you need to prepare is the fish and the marinate. When cooking place the fish a hot BBQ, the coals should be burned through and the heat should be consistent throughout the process.

Check out this whole Red Snapper recipe for a Summer dinner on a BBQ. As with most of Food Devil dishes it is actually not that hard at all..