Slow Cooked Chunky Beef Chilli

I love chilli made with minced beef but I love this recipe even more with meltingly soft and tender chunks of beef in a rich, spicy sauce.  You get far more texture and variety making chilli this way and the slow cooking makes the flavour awesome.  Smoked paprika may sound like an odd ingredient but it gives a sweet smoky depth to the stew.  Just make sure you use sweet smoked paprika or test the flavour first as you can get spicy versions.

Chilli flakes and powders vary (mine was a pretty new jar and the more recently the jar or pack is opened, the spicier it will be) so you may find this less spicy than you like.  My top tip though is to use some tabasco or other hot sauce to bring up the spice at the end if you feel that it needs it.  The problem with slow cooking is it tends to intensify the flavours of chilli so it's easy to end up with a chilli at the end which is more "blow your head off" than "gently warming" so I'd err on the side of cautious then correct the flavour at the end.  The other benefit being you then have a more multidimensional flavour.

Harissa Lamb Chops with Cous Cous

I had a sudden lusting for lamb while in the supermarket today.  Lamb isn't something I eat a lot of but there is something delicious about lamb with Middle Eastern and North African ingredients.

Slow Cooked Chinese Style Pork

I had some pork belly strips in the fridge and wanted to treat them so they'd end up in a sweet, sticky and spicy glaze.  This is what I came up with, with the crunchy vegetables it turned out to be a delicious feast.

Edamame Bean Salad

I love edamame (or soy) beans.  I had a delicious dish recently of some edamame beans in chilli sauce at a Japanese restaurant, they were utterly addictive.

This salad is less messy but no less tasty.  What's great as well is despite being all vegetables, the dressing brings it all together to make it taste like more than it is.  Super healthy.

Mixed Bean Chilli

I love chilli, I particularly love vegetarian chilli, slow cooked meat chillis, frankly I just love the heat.  What is great about this chilli though is as well as being vegan, it also contains mostly store cupboard and "likely to be in your fridge" ingredients.  It's so cheap as well and freezes brilliantly making it the ideal recipe for when the month is nearly up and your bank balance doesn't look quite so healthy.

You could mix up the beans in this; I would have used pinto beans if I'd been organised enough to soak and cook them (I couldn't find any in cans in my local supermarket.)  Of course you can use dried beans here which would make this even cheaper, just soak and cook them first as I find cooking them with something acidic like tomato if they're not already cooked through makes them a little tough.

Nuoc Cham

Nuoc cham is a dipping sauce served as a condiment in Vietnam.  It is frankly delicious and sums up that sour, spicy, salty, sweet combo which is so great.

I will give you the recipe here for how to make nuoc cham yourself and also give you a couple of ways it can be used.

Spicy Chicken Salad

This dish is something I've been making and tweaking for years.  It started off as a Vietnamese chicken salad with poached chicken breasts and a spicy dressing.  Over the years the recipe evolved to using thighs and baking the chicken then using the dressing as a marinade and here is where I am now.

Nothing authentic about it; in a way it's like a Vietnamese chicken salad meats caramel chicken mash up; sorry for the mish mash of influences.

Most of all though, it tastes great.  The harshness of the garlic and chilli are mellowed out by them being cooked.  The chicken thighs are much juicier and flavoursome than the poached breasts but benefit from the oven cooking to give them flavour and cook out some of the fat.  The freshness is still in the dish from the salad.

Prawns with Quick Pickled Cucumber

I hadn't made quick pickled cucumber for a while but it is absolutely delicious in a salad like this or accompanying a stir fry.  This is a sensational, light starter but you could make it more substantial by adding more vegetables or noodles.

I love the mixture of the soft, tangy pickled cucumber, the gentle spicing from the pickle and sweet chilli sauce and the hot prawns and crunch of peanuts.

Slow cooked lamb curry

This is a cracking frugal recipe which you could adapt to what you have available.  It makes the most out of quite a small amount of lamb.

If your lamb is on the bone, cook it in the curry bones and all and take them out later (if you like) as this improves the flavour.

Singapore Noodles

Woah!  Yellow!  Well there has to be turmeric in Singapore noodles, and how great is that for livening up a dark evening?

As far as I can tell, Singapore Noodles have nothing to do with Singapore.  They are probably a Hong Kong or even UK invention.  I suppose it makes sense in a way.  Having travelled in Singapore when I was younger, there is fantastic cuisine and a great melting pot of cultures and cuisines, particularly Malay, Chinese and Indian but Singapore Noodles?  Nope, didn't see it anywhere.

This dish though does make use of turmeric which is used commonly in Indian cookery.  If you believe the buzz on the internet, turmeric is the new health food as well.  Whether that's true or not, it gives the fantastic colour and a subtle earthy, almost slightly perfumed flavour.

There is some heat in this dish as I used hot chillis and extra for garnish, feel free to tone that down as this dish is more normally mild in flavour (but I just love chillis so I can't help it!)

Leftover Chicken Curry

I don't always have a full roast for a Sunday Lunch and there are other great Sunday Lunch ideas out there for meals for singles or small families.  That said, when I do make the effort to have a roast, I always love the fact there are leftovers in the fridge.

After a day or so though you want something to mix it up a little and a curry is a great way.  Of course you can reach for a pre-made sauce or paste but this is easy, dirt cheap to make and absolutely delicious.  Even though the chicken has been cooked once before as you're fully cooking it again, I still had the leftovers the next day for lunch (cue jealous stares from colleagues!)

Chickpea and Spinach Curry

I make no claims to be an authentic Indian chef, but this is going to university time of year and it's also coming to the end of the month.  All of us could do with a decent curry recipe which costs pence and tastes great whether you're a meat eater, a vegetarian, a vegan, gluten free etc.

Chinese Style Prawns with Green Beans

I currently have a glut of green beans.  My green beans or "French" beans have grown so rampant that the wigwam of canes currently supporting them has given up and they have sadly fallen over my slightly disappointing courgettes.  Nonetheless I'm still trying (and failing) to get the wigwam upright again but still getting a bounteous harvest from them.  Fortunately I am absolutely in love with fresh green beans.

Salmon Ramen

I don't mean ramen as in those packs of instant cup noodles or the packets so many students live on, this is an attempt to make lovely ramen soup at home but with delicious and healthy salmon.

In a moment of inspiration I bought a jar of miso paste a few months back, then forgot about it.  I have no idea why because it really adds depth to a soup, it's definitely going back on my shopping list again.

I've used ramen noodles here (as in the dried proper ramen noodle not the pack with the sachet of MSG filled flavouring) but if you can't get them, try egg noodles.  Not quite the same but close enough.

Vietnamese Summer Rolls

Summer rolls are funny, healthy, lovely things.  A spring roll may seem like a fatty, unhealthy thing but these Vietnamese style vegan summer rolls are almost embarrassingly healthy.

What makes them for me is that mix of textures from the crunchy peanuts and vegetables, the softer noodles still with bite and the sticky sauce.

Sticky Salmon Rice Bowl

Salmon, beautifully cooked with a delicious sticky dressing.  Healthy food at it's best.

I used to avoid a lot of carbs but I'm learning to love them again as the great thing about carbs, especially low GI carbs like brown rice is they really fill you up and it tastes so much better than white rice.  I have no idea why I ate boring white rice for so long!

Spicy Chopped Salad

This was inspired by the flavours of Mexico.  If you can get it, queso blanco would be lovely to include in this salad.  It's difficult to find in the UK so I've used deliciously salty feta.

Although this salad doesn't have a dressing, there is a lovely sweetness which comes out of the peppers and corn and the spice coming from the pickled jalapenos, surprisingly a dressing isn't needed.

This salad is easily made into a vegan joy by substituting the cheese for cubed, fresh avocado.

Sea Bass with Ginger Dressing

After a run I wanted something healthy but not too healthy.  There is something delightful about a sweet, sticky, spicy dressing with a salad, like the good stuff almost cancels out the bad stuff.  Kinda.  Ah just go with it, this tastes great.

Nachos

A while back I posted an easy recipe for salsa and suggested you could make some nachos with it; so here we are.  This is great with store bought salsa or with your own and is loaded with other tasty morsels which are still counting towards your 5 a day!

Quick tip, do keep an eye on it under the grill (broiler) and make sure you use a heat proof plate!

Seabass with Mexican Rice Salad

I've said before that rather than making rice from cauliflower, my way to make rice and carbs healthier is to include vegetables alongside it.  This was a great and filling dish as a result without feeling "cheated".