Easy Nando's Style Spicy Rice in the Microwave

Who doesn't love a bit of spicy rice with their peri peri chicken?

(Blog in progress)

Ingredients

• 1-2 tbsp sunflower or mild and light olive oil
• 1 small onion, finely diced
• 1 small red bell pepper, finely diced (or use mixed colours if you like)
  
• 1 large red chilli, very finely diced (or to taste)
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1/2 tsp smoked paprika (sweet)
• 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper, or to taste if you like it really spicy!
• 225g white rice, e.g. 'easy cook' long grain*
• 1 chicken or vegetable stock cube, plus 450ml just boiled water (see method)
• 120g frozen petit pois (my preference for flavour) or frozen peas

* If you prefer, you could use 225g plain brown rice, and add 520g of boiling water and the stock cube, and adjust the cooking time to 20 minutes on medium, followed by 10 minutes resting time (this is included in the method).

Method

1. Sautee the onion, pepper and chilli in 1 tbsp of the oil until softened.

2. Add the ground cumin, and stir in cooking until fragrant, for about a minute or so.

3. Transfer to a large microwave proof bowl (e.g. Pyrex), rinse the rice, and add to the bowl.

4. Add the stock cube, the rest of the spices and measure in the 450ml just boiled water ( or 520ml if using brown rice - I find it easiest to weigh in, at 450/520grams) and give a good stir.

5. Cover with a microwaveable plate (or cling film, and pierce it), set the microwave to medium, and cook for 12 minutes (20 minutes for brown rice).

6. Leave for 10 minutes to steam, fluff up with a fork, add the petit pois and stir in. Re-cover, and leave for a further 2 minutes for the peas to . Fluff up the rice with a fork before serving.

7. Enjoy! You can chill or freeze any leftovers, and re-heat as needed.

Roasted Garlic and Roasted Onions

The great thing about roasting a quantity of alliums, is that as well as softening the harshness of raw garic in recipes, and intensifying the sweetness and flavour of onions, you can then freeze them for future recipes.

They are sooo versatile too! Roasted garlic is delicious in dips, mayonnaise, soups, butter (roasted garlic butter rubbed under the skin of a chicken before roasting - yum!), mashed potato, and many other things.

 

Roasted onion (halves) are equally as versatile - all of the above (chopped up for some of them, obviously), and also on the side of roast dinners, sausage and mash, and too many things to mention! 

Cook in bulk to make the most of using the oven, and in order to freeze, squeeze out the garlic cloves first.

How To Cook Brown Rice In The Microwave - Easily!

 

Okay, put aside your skepticism and try this way of cooking brown rice, for perfect results every time!

We all know brown rice is more of a pain to cook than white rice, and sometimes it feels like it takes forever. Well, no more under-cooked chewy brown rice, or soggy, mushy rice - this recipe gives consistent results every single time.

Serves four.

Sweet Cinnamon Apple Peel Crisps

A tasty treat from apple peelings!

Instead of throwing them in the compost heat, why not give this a go?

I've been making morning smoothies for everyone, and I've been peeling the apples in them as my children say they're 'bitty' when I add unpeeled apples. So, now I make a little bowl or container of acidulated water (just water, with a good squeeze of lemon juice), and peel the apples in relatively similar sized peices of peel (I go around the top and bottom in two strokes each, then vertically around the apple). Then, when I have three, I make this naughty little treat!! N.B. Apples with pink / red skins make pretty crisps - I like Gala, Braeburn etc.

Caesar Salad Dressing with Roasted Garlic

A delicious, creamy dressing, packed full of flavour.

This tastes a thousand times better than anything you can buy in a bottle, and you can tweak it to your own tastes.

It's also incredibly easy to make, and if you're gluten free, there's an easy substitution you can make for one of the ingredients, plus if you don't like the flavour of anchovy, you can skip it.

It will keep in the fridge for a week, so get yourself some Cos lettuce (tip: soaking the leaves in ice cold water whilst you prepare other ingredients will crisp it right up), and any 'illegal' toppings you fancy adding to it - I like grilled chicken and crispy bacon, but shhhh, don't tell the purists!

Quick and Easy Oven Roast Cherry Tomatoes

A delicious taste of sunshine all year round!

I'd say this is almost more of a method than a recipe, but either way they're so quick and easy to prepare it's hard to go wrong and you can adapt the 'recipe' to your own tastes.

I prefer to bake mine on Pyrex as the bottoms don't burn, and they don't stick. I've recently fallen in love with Pyrex baking trays, which I only discovered quite recently - especially as they fit really easily standing up in the plate rack of the dishwashers, and don't take up so much room as the good old Pyrex dishes which are always a bit awkward to fit in!

Dandelion Honey (which just so happens to be vegan!)

This tastes just like the real thing and is vegan friendly too!

So if you love honey, making things from what you've foraged, and maybe gifting some to friends and family, this is for you! Now that the dandelion season is almost over, and other flowers (and trees) have started blooming, the bees have had their initial food from waking up and we can share what's left over.

And what's more, if you pour the hot, finished product into hot, sterilized jars, it will last for a year or more in the fridge!

Easy (Cheat's!) Black Bean Sauce

Easy, tasty black bean sauce recipe - save yourself an absolute fortune on those tiny packets of stir fry sauces you get from the supermarket!

No need to buy those over-priced sachets from the chiller cabinet every again - all you need to do is slice up two chillies and grate some ginger, add a few more ingredients and you've got yourself over a litre of sauce that you can freeze which will make around twenty portions or so!

Not only that, if you buy yourself a six pack of Lee Kum Kee black bean garlic sauce (see here for where I get mine, affiliate link which won't cost you any extra), that's twelve lots of the below recipe, which is...erm...  around 240 portions, and it currently costs £12.60 for a six pack. So, if you do the maths, supermarket sachets or jars cost around £1 for a two portion serving (so that would be £120 for 240 portions), so for the price of a few chillies and some ginger root, and a few store cupboard ingredients, you are genuinely saving over £100 overall by making your own - I've even shocked myself working that out!!!

Anyway, without further ado, here's the recipe - oh, and I tried to take a photo of just the black bean sauce, but it just looked like a pan of black stuff (!), so I've used one of my photos of beef in black bean sauce that I've taken previously. I hope you enjoy it!

Easy Thai Red Curry Sauce

Thai red curry sauce is incredibly easy to make, and extremely tasty and fragrant.

 

Who doesn't love a spicy, warming Thai red curry, with all of the variations you can have, and the complexity of flavour.

 

 

Not only that, if you have Thai red curry paste in your fridge, there all kinds of other things you can make with it, such as Thai fish cakes, or crab cakes.

This quantity of sauce makes around eight portions. If you want to make a smaller amount, and a red duck curry for two, see here for my recipe.

Easy Satay Sauce

This is a delicious Thai version of satay sauce, that is ridiculously easy to make (and you can also freeze it) - try it, you won't be disappointed!

This is a scale-up of my original recipe, which also has a marinade for chicken skewers, and a recipe for pickled cucumber salad - the chicken and salad serve four as a main, or more as a starter - you can find the recipe here.

I found it beneficial to scale up, as then you use the entire tin of coconut milk, you don't have to stint on your portion of sauce if you're not limiting your calories, and it keeps really well in the freezer. And if you want to make your own Thai red curry paste, you can find my recipe here.

Wild Garlic Pesto

Make the most of seasonal fresh wild garlic by using it in a delicious pesto!

There's no cooking involved, it only takes a few minutes to make, and you can either store it in the fridge for a couple of weeks, or in the freezer for a few months or more.

What's more, you can forage it for yourself when it's in season for free if you're lucky enough to know where there is some - but remember to only take the leaves and not the bulbs, and only take as much as you need. If you can't find any for yourself, you can get it from certain shops when it's in season, or you might be lucky enough to have a friend who has it growing in their garden.

Easy One Dish Cauliflower Cheese - absolutely NO chopping!

No faff, no chopping, one-dish cauliflower cheese!

Forget making bechamel sauce and pre-cooking your cauliflower, you can cheat and do it the quick way instead, and no-one will know!!

 

If you want to make it even easier, you can skip the mustard, nutmeg and onion salt, and it will still taste great!

Honey Roast Cashew Nuts

Dangerously more-ish - make at your peril!

A lovely, naughty, sweet and salty, crunchy snack that ticks all of the boxes!

I don't need to say much more, other than 'Enjoy' (in moderation)!