It’s not the most complex recipe in the world ever, which is probably a good thing at this time of year.

Simple Festive Mulled Wine

When I first used to make them when I was a teenager, I tended to marinade the meat that I was using for a really long time, soaking in beer and spices, plus of course an obscene amount of chilli.
Times have changed since being in education full time however, and my cooking now is much more about cooking quickly, so I’ve changed the recipe to maintain the flavours from my former approach, but now only marinade whilst I chopping the rest of the ingredients.

This makes it much faster – you prepare the meat whilst chopping everything to go alongside it, and by the time that chopping is done, the meat is ready to be cooked. This recipe is for 2, but can be easily scaled up and down as required:

Put enough different types of chilli in (I like to mix them up where I can) to try out different amounts of flavour. Whilst the recipe I used today *only* uses chilli flakes, I often use scotch bonnets, jalapenos and whatever else I can get my hands on to mix it up. I also find that if I don’t have one of two of the spices that it is just as excellent, so I wouldn’t panic if you only have 1 type of paprika for example (I think the smoked one is best personally).

If you are not fond of spicy food, I’ve made really tasty versions of these for friends with no chilli at all, and it still retains a great flavour. Just be careful with the amount of cayenne pepper as well, as it’s hotter than you might imagine and has killed the taste buds of a few of my friends that I had tried to cook mild food for. It was mild to me, but it still burned!

I like to serve this dinner with a small side salad, a tin of sweetcorn, an avocado or pea guacamole, a mountain of cheese, some crème fraiche or sour cream and of course some tasty tortilla wraps!

This is without doubt one of the most popular dishes I ever cook for friends, and when I haven’t completely scorched them with chilli, they nearly always want more.

You don’t need to use Steak, Chicken & Chorizo – this just happens to be my most decadent version. Leaving out any 1 of the 3, or replacing the steak and chicken with Prawns will also work excellently.

I hope you try out this recipe and let me know how you get on with it!

If you fancy whipping up a sweet treat, may I suggest you give these chocolate cupcakes a try?  Although they only take minutes to prepare, they taste very decadent and will certainly give you a much needed chocolate fix!

Additionally, this is a great recipe for baking novices, as it’s hard to get wrong!

Ingredients for ‘Quick and Easy Chocolate Cupcakes’

(Makes 12)

* 110g of soft margarine

* 85g of self raising flour

* 25g of cocoa powder

* 2 large eggs

* A tablespoon of vanilla extract

How to make ‘Quick and Easy Chocolate Cupcakes’:

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees/Gas Mark four and line a 12 hole muffin tin with silicone cupcake cases.  If you don’t have any silicone, paper cases are fine.

Put all your ingredients into a large bowl, or a mixer if you have one.  Make sure all of your dry ingredients are sifted – this will make sure your cakes extra light and fluffy.

Whisk for 5 minutes, or slightly longer if you’re mixing by hand.  When the mixture is ready, it should resemble a smooth chocolate moose.

Next, spoon the mixture out into the lined muffin tin and place in the oven for around 15-20 minutes.  Your cakes should have risen and will be firm on top but still quite spongy.  Skewer one cake in the middle to see if they’re cooked – if the skewer comes out clean, the cupcakes are ready!

Leave your cupcakes to cool for a minute or two before taking out of the pan.

To decorate, either sprinkle with icing sugar or squirt a heap of buttercream icing on top and finish off with edible glitter and white chocolate stars.

Yum!

Tip: Instead of dishing out into cupcake sized-portions, try pouring your cake mixture into a loaf or cake tin and making a lovely chocolate sponge and serve with custard.  Enjoy!

I went to Tenerife last summer with my best mate, and his lovely Tenerifian wife, and got a chance to explore the local cuisine out there, dining on some fantastic seafood in places that tourists would never was a restaurant walking past it outside with this one ending up being 7 courses, followed by 4 of us sharing a free bottle of Jagermeister as an apertif! That was the start of an absolutely cracking evening, resulting in very little sleep and a very early trip on a sub holiday to Gran Canaria for a few days!

Prior to my trip, I’d been a little nervous about eggs playing a heavy part in foods out there – I knew that they were going to be involved at some point and I was apprehensive about it. More fool me, first taste that I trepidatiously placed in my mouth, and I was hooked on these Spanish Tortillas, or Omelettes as we might know them better in the UK.

I tried all sorts of variations, although my favourite ones were the ones that had Chorizo in them (as I get more of my recipes on here, you may come to realise that I am somewhat addicted to Chorizo, it makes just about everything taste even better). So, on returning, I decided to have a go at making them myself.

I’ve tried a few recipes, and didn’t really like any of them, so have mostly fudged myself this recipe together. Most elements of this are interchangeable – the basic ingredients of potato, egg and onion I would suggest are the only things that have to appear in them. If I were cooking this for a vegetarian, I would probably swap out the Chorizo and Smokey Bacon Lardons with some Sundried Tomatos, or jarred Spanish Peppers (to be honest, I add these to the basic recipe below anyway!

This recipe should make enough for 4 with a side salad, but if you are really hungry, perhaps just 2! I also love this cold the next day for lunch, and have had some admiring glances cast across at them in the office at times :)

What you need to make this great Spanish Tortilla Omelette with Chorizo & Smokey Lardons

2 Large Potatoes (or a similar amount of  smaller ones, waxy spuds seem best)

6 Large Eggs (I usually get these from my mum who keeps chickens, but Free Range from shops are usually ok)

1/2 Chorizo Ring, chopped into chunky “coins”

200g Smokey Lardons

Large Onion (white is best, red onions can discolour a little if you are saving it for lunch the next day)

2 cloves of garlic

Handful of Chives

Chilli Flakes (to taste, and optional really!)

Salt & Pepper

How to make this great Spanish Tortilla Omelette with Chorizo & Smokey Lardons

Chop up the potatoes into small cubes, and boil until soft (most recipes suggested frying the potatoes, but I find it easier to par-boil)

Chop up the onion to a fine dice, the Chorizo into fairly chunky coin shapes, and fry for a few minutes to soften the onions and release the tasty Chorizo oil

Crush the garlic into pan, and when the potatoes are soft, drain the water off, and add to the frying mix.

Meanwhile, crack the 4 eggs into a mixing bowl, add the salt, pepper and chilli flakes and give it a quick little whisk – you don’t want or need to overdo this

Add the mixture that has been frying to the mixing bowl, chop in the chives and stir your mixture together

Give your frying pan a quick wipe down (the tortilla will stick to the pan in a horrible scrambled egg style mess if you don’t) and get it back on full whack to get the temperature up.

Pour in your mixture from the bowl and spread out across the frying pan to even out the top surface – you can use a spatula, but I find that giving the frying pan a shake is just as effective.

Cook for about 5 minutes, or a bit longer so that the whole thing starts to firm up a little, and then comes the tricky bit – turning it! I typically get a flat baking try and turn it out onto that (over the sink, as this has been messy a few times) and then carefully slide it back into the pan to finish up cooking the bottom.

It usually only takes a couple of minutes to finish the bottom, although I do like to leave it 10 minutes to set.

Slide it out of the frying pan, and you should be greeted with something like this:

Don’t be put off by the colour here – this is exactly what it is supposed to look like, and it’s damned tasty.

Slice into quarters and serve with a side salad and it’ll be a wonderful tasty quick easy dinner!

To be honest, this recipe would probably not be used in Spain – I think they typically use parsley, which I am not overly fond of, but as I said before, most of the ingredients here are really interchangeable, and I think this would work with all sorts of ingredients that I am yet to try out!

Let me know how you get on with this recipe!

Hi there, thanks for sticking with us. In this half, I’m going to present a recipe for baked brie with pine nuts and pickle. As I alluded to before, this comes from a visit to our local pub after a hard day at the coal face of the internet. Truly, no-one has it harder than the man who stares at a computer screen all day, and has to put up with the mild discomfort of having to concentrate for more than an hour at a time. Except, perhaps, for everyone else.

Anyways, baked brie with pine nuts and pickle sounds like one of those things that’s pretty complex and fancy, but in reality, it’s quite simple to prepare and forms a robust dinner. If you’re going to serve to more than two people, you’re going to need a few more dishes if you’re going to serve it up to more than two people, however, so take this into account when you’re out getting supplies.

Anyway, without any further ado, may I humbly present for your delectation my recipe for baked brie with pine nuts and pickle.

Ingredients

Some Brie – decide how much you would like to eat, essentially. You’ll want to be able to slice it about 5cm thick

A handful of pine nuts

Your pickle of choice – you’ll want something a bit sweet, with a bit of a vinegary bite to it to cut through the creaminess of the cheese – something like onion marmalade would be perfect.

Some crusty bread

Salad leaves to serve – a mustard based dressing works well.

Method

First up, warm your oven up to 180C. While it’s coming up to heat, toast your pine nuts in a small frying pan, being careful that they don’t burn. Set aside. Next, cut your brie into two pieces (I’m assuming this is for you and AN Other) and put each piece into an individual tureen. If you’re feeling in a sharing mood, you could leave your brie whole and just use one oven dish.

Put the dishes into the oven for about ten minutes or so, depending on the size and thickness of your cheese, until it’s all melted and oozing out of its rind. Scatter the pine nuts across the top of the cheese, put back in the oven for a couple of minutes to make sure everything is warmed through, and then remove and leave to stand for a couple of moments. Watch out, though – it’s going to be super hot, so, like, don’t be tempted to give yourself a chef’s treat – you might end up with a couple fewer taste buds if you do.

To serve, plate up some salad (you’ll want something nice and crispy, I’d imagine – some watercress, some rocket, perhaps, maybe some radiccio) and slice up some crusty bread. Put your pickle (or pickles – go crazy!) in a nice serving dish, and then serve up it up, leaving the cheese in its dishes. Make sure you’ve got a table top that can cope with the heat, obviously.

This works, because the toasty crunchiness of the pine nuts and the sweet tartness of the pickle contrasts nicely with the warm creaminess of the cheese.

Hopefully, you’ll enjoy both of these recipes; if you pester Pete enough, perhaps I’ll come back and post another couple of recipes down the road. I am, however, the world’s worst photographer, so please don’t expect actual photos of anything. I know they say that half the eating is with the eyes, but in this case, half the eating is going to have to be in the mind. I’m trusting to the strength and richness of your imagination to stimulate your taste buds and give these a try.

Feel free to make any suggestions of your own in improving these both!

Thanks to Pete for letting me contribute a couple of recipes to his blog. I hope you all enjoy them. It’s worth pointing out that I’m a vegetarian and as such, neither of these recipes features meat, but rather, cheese, specifically, blue cheese and brie.

I’m sure you could add the still beating heart of a young chicken to spice things up, if that’s your particular cup of tea.

Anyways – Cheese. As a vegetarian, you have to be a little careful with cheese, in as much as, it’s not all made with vegetable rennet, but rather, chicken cloaca (or so is my understanding of the matter). It’s pretty easy to have a look at this in the supermarket, so like, if you do have friends coming round for tea who don’t eat meat, I’m sure they’ll appreciate the extra bit of effort. Brie can  be both, but parmesan almost always has animal rennet.

Anyways, this first recipe is for figs and blue cheese. I used to live in California, and one of the advantages of being in sunnier climes is that you can walk along the road and pick figs from the trees that grow roundabout. Of course, in England, apple trees abound (and I’ve even seen some quince trees on the country lanes of Sussex), but it’s hard to beat a sweet fig, freshly picked from the tree, warm from the sun. Anyways, enough reminiscing, and on into the kitchen.

Ingredients

Fresh Figs (2-6 per person, depending on how hungry / how big they are. Take that to apply to figs and persons)

Your blue cheese of choice – you’ll want something salty and tart, and enough to have a half a thumb sized piece for each fig

Honey

Butter

Salad leaves – something spicy, like rocket, would be ideal. Actually, some sliced red cabbage would work, too.

Italian Salad dressing of choice – you’ll want an oil and vinegar type dressing, as opposed to something creamy.

Method

Preheat the oven to 200, or 180, if you’ve got a fan oven. With a knife, cut a cross in the top of each fig down nearly to the base. Squeeze the bottom of the fruit so it opens up. When you’ve done this with all of them, put them on a tray, put a little bit of butter in the mouth of each one (if you’re feeling particularly decadent), drizzle in a bit of honey and season (remember you’re going to be adding cheese, so take that into account with the salt).

Cook for five minutes or so, and then add a small chunk of cheese to each. Place back in the oven for another five minutes – the cheese should be melting and starting to ooze out.

Whilst the figs are in the oven, you can put your salad together – dress the leaves and arrange on plates. If you’ve got some whole almonds, this would be a nice addition, too.

When the figs are done, take them out of the oven and divide them up between each plate; this is a pleasant starter or a summer main course if you serve it along with some crusty bread.

In the second part of this, we’re going to cook (or, at least, talk about), baked brie with pine nuts and pickle. If fresh figs with blue cheese is a summer special, then our recipe for baked brie with pine nuts and pickle is a real winter warmer – the brie will line your stomach, and no mistake. In fact, my inspiration was a visit to our local pub the other night, and when I saw baked brie with pine nuts and pickle on the menu, I wasn’t sure; it was, however, the only vegetarian option, so I ordered and ended up more than happy with what I got.

Sure, you could have a turkey sandwich or two, but they are swiftly going to become boring, so why not spice it up a little?

Todays recipe is brought to you by Matt Hopson, and he has offered up a tasty Rogan Josh style curry sauce for us. Everything here can be adjusted to taste but after  Matt has cooked this quite a few times we  think this is about right. It looks like a lot of ingredients but it’s pretty easy to remember as everything is either 1 or 2 teaspoons except the oil & tomato purée :)

What you need to make this great Rogan Josh Curry Sauce

How to make this Rogan Josh Curry Sauce

I also didn’t actually have a “traditional” Christmas Dinner this year, and instead went for a curry themed feast – with this sauce taking the place of the gravy – it was dead tasty. A slow roasted spiced lamb shoulder joint, fiery roast potato’s and some tasty chilli greens.

So, after a lengthy discussion on Twitter a few days ago, about assorted treats to liven up your day, Sarah agreed to share her long secret recipe for Peanut Butter Fudge – I haven’t yet had a chance to try these out, but they sound delicious!

What you will need to make Peanut Butter Fudge:

How to make Peanut Butter Fudge:

What you will need to make the Linguine in Hot Oil

Long pasta- spaghetti is good; linguine is better- if you’re using long macaroni it needs to be really thin
2 cloves of garlic
1 tin anchovies in oil
1-3 red chillis- medium heat, its for a spike, not to overwhelm the dish
Ordinary olive oil- Grade C or lower
Sea salt / flake salt /grey salt
Cracked white pepper
Fresh basil
Fresh mint

How to make the Linguine in Hot Oil

Make a paste with the garlic and some salt- use the back of a sharp-blade knike to work it into a paste on a chopping board.

Finely dice the chilli- the smaller the better, it needs to be distributed well throughout the dish.

Using a big heavy bottomed frying pan slowly warm through the whole tin of anchovies- oil and all.

Use a broad wooden spoon or spatula to mush it into an emulsion.

Add the fresh garlic paste and raise the heat a notch so that the oil begins to bubble/fizz lightly.

Add the chilli.

Now, add the olive oil a little at a time- you are looking to create a hot oil dressing for your pasta, rather than a coherent sauce.

Cook the pasta til its just there- a little bite is great as you want to taste the pasta in the finished dish, so it needs to maintain a bit of resistance.

Drain the pasta well. Because this isn’t a ragu it is better to use pasta that is dry enough that it allows the hot oil dressing to permeate into it a little.

Tip the pasta into the hot oil dressing and stir through, so that every ingredient has touched every other ingredient.

Chiffonade equal handfuls of the basil and mint together – to taste (be warned though, too much mint will bugger it completely!)

Serve the pasta topped with a sprinkling of the fresh herb mix, crunchy salt and white pepper.

Drink with a cheap chianti- the salt and the chilli are made for it!