The Must Have Kitchen Gadget

Morning all,

As someone that likes cooking and spending time in the kitchen I am always on the lookout for a new kitchen gagdet. I have all sorts of different (and for the most part useless) gadgets that are designed to make the life of the cook easier. Some of these include egg poaching pods, fajita warmers, microwave omlette makers, an avodaco peeler/slicer and 4 different types of cheese grater (you can never have enough of these!!!)

Anyway, my latest quest is to find the ultimate blender, I am fed up of being stood in the kitchen for hours crying. That's crying because I'm chopping lots of onions not because my wife has chained me in there in a some sort of Cinderella type way.

In my search for the best blender to get, some are too small, some not powerful enough, some are just plainly rubbish, I have come across this blender from the states. I simply had to share this with you as this looks like loads of fun. Not just to blend food, but you can blend almost anything as you will see....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAl28d6tbko

Blendtec is becoming quite a hit in the States - this video has had (at the time of writing) nearly 6,000,000 views on youtube...What an advertising campaign, free!

I don't know if Blendtec ship to the UK, but I am sure gonna find out!

I'll be back in the next few days with more food, pictures, recipes and who knows, maybe even some odd kitchen related advertising.

See you soon

Dave

Moroccan Tagine

Hiya and I hope you all had a fabulous weekend.

As promised here is the recipe for the Moraccon Meatball Tagine that I cooked up with my brother-in-law on Saturday night. It was a really nnice chilled out evening, cooking, chatting and sinking a glass of vino or two as we went along...

As you can see from the pictures it looks great and we did enough to feed at least four (yes, we did leave some and did not scoff the lot). Although we only used two eggs as we were not sure if these would freeze very well??!

To refer back to one of my ealier blogs I used the presentation rings for the cous-cous, again, it ust makes the food look very professional with absolutely minimal effort...

Talking of minimal effort I am being too lazy on this Monday to type up the whole recipe and method I thought I would be helpful and include a link to direct you to the recipe:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database/keftamkaouaraspicyeg_86797.shtml

Small changes for next time

As I am a fan of spicy food, if I made this again I would definitely add a few chillis in just to give it a bit of a kick, but as it is was really nice. Would love to know what you think if you decide to give this a go. It really is a recipe that looks much more complicated than it actually is.

Catch up soon

Dave

A Wonderful Saturday Evening

Saturday evening and my wife is out on a hen do...that is not the reason it has been a fabulous Saturday night! Tonight I was spending the evening with my brother-in-law and we decided to cook up something special.

So to start with we cooked up a blue cheese and caramelised onion tart with a few salad leaves and for main tonight we tackled a Rick Stein recipe of Moroccan Tagine with cous-cous.

A really straight forward meal even though it sounds complicated. For now I am going to focus on the starter and tomorrow I will add the pics and recipe for the Moroccan Tagine...

Starter:

1 x pack of ready made puff pastry

250 grams blue cheese cut into chunks (you will not need all of it)

1 x jar of caramalised onion chutney

half a teaspoon of dried thyme

Method:

1) Preheat oven to 200 dgrees (180 if fan oven)

2) Using a cookie cutter cut the pastry into circles (about 10cm) 1 per personn will be enough

3) Score around the edge of the pastry (about 2cm inside the edge)

4) Place on a lightly oiled baking tray

5) Put 1 x teaspoon of the chutney in the middle of the tart base and spread it around

6) Put some of the blue cheese chunks over the chutney and sprinkle over the thyme

7) Pop in the oven for about 15mins

8) Take out the tarts and add a few chopped sqaures of the blue cheese on the top

9) Put back in the oven for one minute

10) Serve with a light salad

Pleae don't take my words for how great this starter is...In the words of Andy, my brother-in-law, "now that's bloody lovely" need i say any more?

This is such an easy starter but it's very tasty and looks great, so is bound to impress your dinner guests next time round! Would love to know how you get on if you decide to try it!

See you soon

Dave

Turkey Burgers...The result.

I hope you have all had a delightful Saturday and have managed to enjoy the sunshine.

As promised last night here are some photos of me creating the Turkey Burgers, or helathy junkfood for a Friday night. As you can see in one of them they go very well with a dollop of mayonnaise on them!

Again you will see from the photos that we served them on half a roll each ast night, that was to help soak up some of the alcohol...as I mentioned yesterday, they really are very easy to make even after a glass or two of vino!

Tonight we are going for a Moroccan Tagine...more to follow tomorrow.

Healthy Junk Food for the Weekend

Healthy junk food...??? Surely that's a contradiction in terms?!

In today's society of healthy eating and calorie counting it is always tempting at the weekend to 'blow out'. After a hard week at work and watching what you eat it is alll too easy to think: "I've been good all week, so I deserve a takeaway on a Friday or Saturday (or both)"

Well, help is at hand, there is now no need to worry about having a 'treat' at the weekend and putting on all the calories you burnt off during the week. I have a recipe for Turkey burgers that are both tasty and healthy...surely that's the best of both worlds?

What makes this recipe even better still, is the fact that it takes about 3 mins to prepare and about 16 mins to cook, therefore tasty healthy junk food in under 20 mins...genius.

The added bonus with these is that you can even make them perfectly after a few glasses of wine...something that I have definitely tried and tested.

Ingredients:

- 500 grams Turkey Mince

- 2 x Spring Onions (chopped finely)

- 2 x table spoons Sweet Chilli Dipping Sauce

- 1 x table spoon Soy Sauce

- 1 x Lemon (the zest and juice of)

- Salt ad pepper to season

Tip: Don't worry about getting a fancy zester just use a fine cheese grater

Method:

1) Pre-heat grill

2) Mix mince, chopped spring onions, chilli dipping sauce and soy sauce together with the zest and juice of the lemon

3) Add a little salt and pepper

4) Divide ixture into four equal portions

5) Make into burger shape ith your hands

6) Place uder grill and cook for approx 8 mins each side

7) Serve with salad.

I'm making these tonighht, so I'll update you with a picture of them and how they turned out tomorrow.

Have a lovely weekend all and go and enjoy the sunshine - if the weather stays nice there is no reason why you could not dust off the bar-b-q and enjoy 'Chargrilled turkey burgers' or shape the mixture into little balls and make turkey koftas instead...

Have fun

Dave

A Challenge From Alix Martin

Hi all.

Well 'The 7 Hob Challenge' blog has been live now for three days and I have had a challenge. Certainly something I was not expecting or want to repeat too often, but hey, why not...

Alix asked me what I could create with the following ingredients:
- Breadcrumbs
- Fish
- Tomatoes
- Butter
- Sugar
- Wine

A challenge indeed - I would like to point out that I have not tried this dish yet, but I think it'll work nicely.

Also please note I have taken a few 'store cupboard items' to help with my initial thoughts...

I assume the fish is a white fish fillet, like sustainably caught Cod and the extra ingredients I have used are:
- Milk
- Potatoes
- Green Pesto
- Small amount of grated Parmesan cheese (optional)
- Lemonade

So here we go:
1) Preheat grill (medium) and spread a heaped teaspoon of pesto over the fish fillet
2) Press the breadcrumbs on top of the pesto and sprinkle with the grated parmesan
3) Peal then boil potatoes
4) Drain Potatoes and add a splash of milk and a nob of butter.
5) As potatoes are boiling put fish fillets under the grill (should take about 5 mins, but make sure the fish is opaque
6) Heat a pan on the hob and when hot add the tomatoes whole (tomatoes on the vine will be best)
7) Mash potatoes or put them through a ricer and fluff them up
8) When all ready serve the crumb encrusted fish fillet with the mash and the charred tomatoes.

In regard to the drink I would add a splash of lemonade to the wine to sweeten it up and then add a strawberry or two to the glasses to make it a fruity lonjg cocktail style sprizter!

If you fancy trying this dish I would be delighted to find out how you got on or let me know what you would do with similar ingredients.

Until next time have fun and enjoy cooking!

Dave

Simple dessert that looks brilliant

I’m the first to admit that when you sit down for dinner at a friend or colleagues house it can be all rather daunting when they bring out the most elegant looking food. Something that looks as though they have brought to life a picture from a cookery book and you’re sat there thinking “I could never produce anything like that...” or “they’re gonna laugh at the slop that I dish up”.

Well there is no need to worry, you can present like a professional even if you feel like a fake. I don’t necessarily mean with dabs of syrups and sauces but you can make your food look great by using presentation rings like these available at Lakeland...

http://www.lakeland.co.uk/F/product/5421_5422

What’s great about these is:

- They are easy to use
- They make your food look fab
- You can tell your guests that it took you ages to do!
- You can use them for loads of different things: Desserts, rice, scrambled egg, mashed potato, cous-cous and more. In fact, you can use them for anything where you can shape the food...all for £5.99 (no, I don’t work for Lakeland, but these things are just simply brilliant)

The picture is a quick and easy dessert I whizzed up today and I think it looks pretty special

Here’s how I did it:

Ingredients:
- Small amount of vegetable oil
- 5 or 6 digestive biscuits
- Nob of butter
- Pack of Angel Delight
- 1 Bar of chocolate (Cadbury’s Dairy Milk or similar) optional

Method

1) Rub a small amount of vegetable oil around the inside of the presentation rings (makes it easier to take the rings away at the end
2) Blend digestive biscuits (about 5 or 6) in the food processor to make crumbs
3) Melted a nob of butter in a saucepan, once melted take off the heat
4) Mix crumbs into butter well
5) Put presentation rings onto centre of the plate
6) Push the crumbs into the presentation rings and put in the fridge
7) Make up a packet of Butterscotch flavour Angel Delight (or supermarket version)
8) Pour Angel Delight over the bases (still in the presentation rings)
9) Put back in fridge to chill
10) Optional but I decorated with some chocolate scrapings – quite simply use a potato peeler on the back of a bar of chocolate to create these (or buy them at the supermarket already done)
11) When Angel Delight is set it’s ready to serve, take out of fridge and gently ease the presentation rings away...Ta-Dah!!

What you are left with is a professional looking dessert that is quick, easy and most of all tasty!

If you don't have presentation rings try this recipe but serving it up in a wide rimmed cocktail or wine glass it looks just as impressive!

Why 'The 7 Hob Challenge'?

Firstly welcome and thanks for reading my blog. I would like to make it clear from the start that I am by no means a ‘chef’, I have never worked in professional kitchen, nor had any training...this is by no means a professional food blog. I am just a normal person that enjoys food and wanted to share my food experiences... so the aims of this blog is:

· Share my cooking experiences by trialling recipes that I have come across that are both easy and not so easy with thoughts and suggestions
· Give my thoughts and reviews on restaurants and pubs including the food that I sample in them as well as the quality of the service, the ambience and overall experience
· Maybe prove to some other ‘kitchen-a-phobes’ that cooking is fun, relaxing and not that tricky...seriously, if I can do it, anyone can
· Give you the opportunity to discuss and comment on the recipes, add your food experiences and adaptations to the recipes

Why The 7 Hob Challenge?

Well, I was a self appointed ‘kitchen-a-phobe’ until 9th July 2007. It was on this day that we moved into our new home and stood in front of me in all its glory was a brand new Hotpoint Range Cooker decked out with a fan and a conventional oven, a grill, a plate warmer and yes, you guessed it, 7 hobs.

It was then that I decided it was time to throw away the micro-meals along with the menus for the local takeaway and learn how to use this beast of an oven properly. To help me stay motivated I gave myself ‘The 7 Hob Challenge’ which is to one day cook a meal using all seven hobs at one time. This is yet to be fulfilled.

In the last two and a half years I have become passionate about food; finding it relaxing and enjoying creating something that also looks and tastes nice (well, for the most part). I would love to think that maybe you will find this interesting and also help contribute or maybe even be inspired to cook.

I will also share some funny experiences and kitchen disasters - like the time I made Key Lime Splat...but more of that another time.