Too many ideas but what do I cook?

Tonight my mind was jumping from one recipe to another, what should I make and what do I fancy eating. I was thinking maybe risotto, potato cakes and focaccia but then I opened one of the few cupboards I have in the kitchen and there was the light bulb moment! So in the end I cooked coriander and cumin flatbreads with green lentils. I ate them with some lemon and chilli pickle I had made last week and cucumber raita.

Recipe for the easy to make flatbreads:

• 2.5 cups plain flour
• A pinch each of dried cumin, coriander, salt and sugar
• Quarter teaspoon dried yeast
• Warm milk

1. Mix the dry ingredients together.
2. Add enough warm milk to make a sticky dough.
3. Knead for five minutes. 
4. Place it in a bowl, cover and place somewhere warm to rise.
5. Once the dough has proved, lightly grease a baking sheet and turn on your grill to medium/high heat.
6. Take a tennis ball sized chunk of the sticky dough. Place it on the baking sheet and stretch it out with your fingers. The diameter will depend on how thick you like your flatbread. I normally stretch the dough into a naan shape which is around 5mm deep.
7. Place the flatbread under the grill and after a couple of minutes you will see golden spots appearing on the top of the bread. Turn it over and grill for another two minutes.
8. Remove and lightly brush with butter but you can eat it without the butter.

While the bread is rising you can make the green lentils and cucumber raita.

Recipe for the green lentils or my version of masar sabath dhal:

• 1 cup green lentils
• 3-4 cups water
• 1 teaspoon of ginger
• Half a teaspoon of turmeric
• Chilli flakes (quantity depends on how spicy you like your food!)
• For tempering - 1 tablespoon butter, half a teaspoon cumin and mustard seeds, pinch garam masala, 2 teaspoons chopped coriander
• Salt to taste

1. Place the washed lentils, water, ginger, turmeric and chilli flakes in a pan. Bring to the boil then simmer on medium heat for 30 minutes.
2. Once the lentils are cooked add salt to taste.
3. If the lentils are too dry add some boiled water to reach the consistency you prefer.
4. Heat a frying, toast the cumin and mustard seeds for a minute, add the butter. 
5. Once the seeds start to pop (be careful as they fly all over the place) add the garam masala and then take off the heat and stir into the lentils.
6. Finish with the coriander.

To make the cucumber raita, grate a 10cm piece of cucumber making sure you squeeze out the excess water from the grated cucumber. Mix the grated cucumber with 3-4 tablespoons of Greek or plain yoghurt, some mint and dill.

My quick and tasty samosas

After a night out I fancied some homemade samosas today but I had some leftover mashed potato and nearly a full loaf of wholemeal bread to use too. Light bulb moment - it was time for my quick and tasty bread samosas!

I love samosas but they do take ages to prepare and compile with traditional homemade pastry. My mum used to make the dough, roll out small circles of the pastry and cook the pastry on one side on a tawa. We would get two samosas from each pastry circle. I would then create the outer cone of the samosa, add the filling and then seal. This production line method was fun and relaxing but when we were making around a hundred samosas for a birthday celebration, it did take hours. It was definitely a job for a long lazy weekend.

So here is my recipe for making 12 baked bread samosas. I have used sweetcorn as well as peas because my boyfriend is obsessed with sweetcorn but you can use any filling that you like or have available.

• 12 slices of wholemeal bread rolled out thinly with a rolling pin
• 4 medium potatoes boiled and mashed/ chopped
• 1 cup of frozen peas and sweetcorn kernels
• 1 tbsp of oil
• Half a tsp each of mustard seeds, cumin seeds and garam masala
• 1 tsp of ginger
• Quarter teaspoon of chilli flakes
• 1 tbsp of chopped coriander
• Salt to taste
• Glue mixture - mix 2 tbsp flour and some water until you get a glue consistency
• Oil to brush each samosa

1. Add the oil, mustard seeds and cumin seeds to a frying pan and heat until the seeds start to splutter.
2. Stir in the frozen peas and sweetcorn.
3. Add the ginger, garam masala, chilli flakes, and salt. Stir and cook for a few minutes until the mixture is cooked. Finish with the coriander.
4. Add this cooked mixture to the potatoes and mix thoroughly.
5. Preheat the oven to 200C/gas mark 6.
6. If you haven't already done so, use a rolling pin to roll out each slice of bread until you can't roll it out anymore.
7. Add a spoonful of the filling on the right half of the slice. Brush the glue on the outer edges of the bread slice, then roll over the left side of the slice so it covers the filling, and press down the outer edges to seal. You can cut around the edges and take off the crusts.
8. Make all the samosas in the same way. Place on a baking sheet, brushing each samosa with oil.
9. Place the tray in the oven and cook for 30-40 minutes until the samosas are golden brown.

Bread making - practice makes perfect?

Who else has attempted making their own bread? I was brought up on homemade roti which is a mixed white and wholemeal flour flat bread made on a flat tawa, similar to a frying pan. I learnt to make this as a young child and remember rolling out the dough into all kinds of funny shapes as I just couldn't roll the roti in to a perfect circle. This is how my love of making bread started, helping my mum make rotis for us all. 

Once I mastered the roti, I moved onto parathas (slightly fried flat breads which can have a number of fillings), then deep fried puris and putooras. Yes, very healthy I know but we only had the fried versions on a special occasion. Honest. 

I have tried making varieties of breads including loaves and cobs, or as they call them up north, barmcakes. My first few attempts were poor, the whole process is so different to making rotis which have no yeast and do not need to prove or rise. I am getting better, slowly but surely and now the bread rises and is no longer dense!

One of my favourite breads is focaccia. Here is an image of my black pepper and rosemary focaccia bread.

• 225g strong white flour
• 1 tsp fine salt
• 1 sachet dried yeast
• 185ml water at room temperature
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• Topping - sea salt, black pepper, rosemary and olive oil

1. Add the salt and yeast to the flour with 3 tbsp of olive oil. Add enough of the water to make a soft dough.
2. Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface for 10-15 minutes. The dough will get stiffer the more you knead it. Place in a lightly oiled bowl and cover. Leave the dough in a warm place for 30-60 minutes until it has doubled in size.
3. Brush a baking sheet with oil. Knock back the dough to release the air.
4. Place the dough on the baking sheet and use your hands to stretch out the dough until it is around 5mm thick.
5. Press your fingers into the dough to create the classic focaccia dimples. Then brush with olive oil, and scatter the rosemary, salt and pepper.
6. Cover and leave to prove for 10-30 minutes.
7. Preheat the oven to 220c/gas mark 7.
8. Once the dough has proved, bake it for 10 minutes and then reduce the oven temperature to 190c/gas mark 5 and back for a further 15-20 minutes until golden.

Cheese and beans on toast, you're having a laugh right?

Move over fine dining and molecular gastronomy, the question is can you ever get bored of cheese and beans on toast? My boyfriend dislikes cheese so I am sure he would say yes but it's one of my favourite weekend brunch dishes and a staple when I am after a super fast evening meal following a tough day at work.

• It is simple, easy and quick to make.
• It includes one portion of fruit/veg.
• It is extremely filling.
• It can be eaten at any time of the day.
• It can be adapted to include additional toppings.
• And of course, its very tasty.

Grilled cheese on toast with a topping of baked beans just rocks!

Photo: Paul