The Amazing Fusilli

I have this crazy, new obsession with Fusilli. We were "introduced" when I went to Tesco, stood in the pasta section and couldn't decide if I wanted my beloved organic spaghetti or some other form of pasta and then a friend said, "get this one," and handed a pack of fusilli over to me.

Fusilli cooks to perfection in exactly 5 minutes. Like 5 minutes on the dot! Isn't that amazing! Especially for a college student!

Here's how I enjoy my lovely, lovely Fusilli

Ingredients
Fusilli pasta (of course)
1 Shallot
2-3 tablespoons of Dolmio ("spicy") pasta sauce (depending on how much pasta you're making)
African Yellow Pepper/Cameroon Pepper/Any really hot pepper you can get your hands on
Salt
1 Egg
Sunflower Oil


Method

• Pour as much fusilli as need into a pot, boil some water, pour over the fusilli, turn the heat under the hob to max. and cook the pasta for exactly 5 minutes (set a timer if you have to)
• While the pasta's cooking, cut up (could be in a regular or irregular shape) one shallot
• In a frying pan, pour in about a tablespoon to a tablespoon and a half of sunflower oil and before it gets hot, pour in the cut up shallots and a dash of salt (this will not only get the shallots cooked, but also infuse the oil with the taste of the shallots).
• When the shallots have softened (and before they start browning), pour in the few table spoons of Dolmio sauce, stir everything in the pan together well.
• Add as much of the hot pepper you can get your hands on to the contents of the pan (I love my food spicy so I add A LOT)
• Fry everything for about 30 seconds stirring continuously
• Drain out 99% of the water in the pot the pasta was in and pour the pasta into the frying pan.
• Stir and turn over the contents of the pan till the colour of every fusilli has changed to at least a faint one of that of the pasta sauce and let the everything cook a little (you can add a little more oil here if you think it's needed)
• I would usually add some more pepper here, but you don't have to.
• Next, crack and egg and beat it in a cup or bowl, pour it into the frying pan and stir and turn over the contents of the frying pan to coat the fusilli with the egg.
• Let everything sit in the pan stirring occasionally until the egg is not visibly raw anymore before turning off the heat.
• Get a bowl, dish some pasta into it.
• Eat then get up, make some more of this and eat it up again.

Veggie Burger

¡Hola!

So, I'm sure it's no surprise that I'm going to be putting up a recipe for veggie burgers and not regular meat burgers.
Now, this recipe is going to have things that it's easier for me to get my hands on here. However, I will put in brackets (parenthesis) popular alternatives to those ingredients.
D'accord! On y va!


Ingredients:

• Black eyed beans (black turtle beans)
• Rice (quinoa)
• Onions
• Peppers
• Mushrooms
• Bread (breadcrumbs)
• Spices/Seasonings/Herbs
• Salt
• Oil of choice
• Optional ingredients - eggs, sun dried tomatoes, a bit of a sauce like piri piri or BBQ sauce
• Burger bread/bun
• Lettuce
• Tomato slices
• Cheddar cheese
• Optional ingredients - slices of onion, a bit of a sauce like mayonnaise, piri piri or ketchup

Method:

• Soak the beans for about 30-1hr in warm water (or slightly hot to reduce soaking time) then leave them out on a paper towel or cloth to dry up to at least 90%.
• Cook the rice till it's nearly done (not fully done)
• Cut up the peppers and onions and run them through a food processor then put them into a frying pan with a bit of oil and cook them a bit to release their flavour.
• Cut the mushrooms into halves or quarters.
• Stick a couple of slices of bread in the oven till they are hardened and can break relatively easily. Then stick them in a food processor or blender to make the breadcrumbs).
• Toss the mushrooms into a food processor and turn it on (you could use the pulse) till they are almost all pasty then add in the beans and the rise and turn on the food processor again. Add the onion and pepper mix and repeat. Put in your desired amount of salt, spices, seasonings and herbs (and the optional ingredients if you choose to use them (the egg helps with making the mixture stay together)) and repeat then add the breadcrumbs a little at a time turning on the food processor each time breadcrumbs are added till you have a kinda pasty mixture.
• Shape the mixture into patties of your desired shape and size (using wet hands to shape the patties might prevent them from sticking to your fingers. You could also spoon out some patties onto a surface with flour on them and sprinkle some flour over the patties before picking them up and shaping with your hands)
• Heat some oil in a frying pan and place your patties in the pan leaving them to fry for a while before flipping over.
• Slice you burger bread/bun in half (horizontally) and if you choose to have a sauce, spread some on the inner side of the bottom half of the bun then place your patty over it then your cheddar cheese then the tomatoes, lettuce, onions, a bit of sauce again (if you choose to have it) and then the top half of the bun (in the order mentioned).

Bon appétit! :)

An Amazing and Healthy Wrap

I made wraps yesterday for my cousins and I and they tasted WAY better than I expected so I decided to tell you guys about it and give you my recipe.

So, the wraps were healthy and I know people that that word (healthy) makes them cringe. Guess which word in this almost makes them stop breathing: it's vegetarian too.

I'm vegetarian so it is expected that when I cook, there's a 99% chance that I'm going to make something vegetarian and a 95% chance I'm going to make something vegan.

Okay! So here are the ingredients:

• Cut and frozen bell peppers (red, green, yellow and orange)
• Sunflower Oil
• Frozen plum tomatoes
• Frozen onions
• Eggs
• Salt
• Wraps (bought from ASDA)
• Peri-peri sauce

Here's how this delicious wrap was made (oh! and I made this for 5 people):

• I got out as much of the peppers, onions and tomatoes as I thought was needed and put the rest back in the freezer (you shouldn't let them defrost if you're not going to use them immediately)
• In a sauce pan, I heated up about a tablespoon of sunflower oil then tossed the onions in and sprinkled some salt on them. I let them cook for a while before adding the tomatoes and stirring.
• After about 2 minutes, I added the peppers, stirred it and left it to cook stirring occasionally.
• I broke 11 eggs and beat them till they were fluffy, added a pinch of salt and beat them again.
• In a large frying pan, I heated a little of sunflower oil then moved the pan around to make sure the oil got everywhere I thought the eggs would then I poured in the eggs.
• As the eggs were heating up and the sides starting to solidify, I used the frying spatula to move those solidifying parts to the middle for a while (the liquid part of the eggs will run to where the solidifying parts were over from).
• After doing that for a bit, I let the egg be and fry then I turned it over so the other side could fry. Once done, the eggs where cut up into much smaller bits and then put in a large bowl.
• Still stirring the contents of the sauce pan occasionally, I added a bit more of the sunflower oil (because the water content from the frozen veggies had reduced till it was practically all gone). 
• I stirred the contents up a bit more and let them cook then took the sauce pan off the heat once I thought the veggies were done.
• The wraps were heated in the grill part of an oven (they had been kept in the freezer to preserve them between when they were bought (in October) and now).
• Once the wraps were warm enough, they were placed on individual plate and one 1/3 of each wrap, the veggies where put in a vertical line then then the eggs put on on top of them. A few drops of peri-peri sauce was added then the wraps were rolled into a perfect cylinder with the veggies and eggs (with the peri-peri sauce on them, of course) in the middle of it. One end was folded up and that was it!

This wrap filled me up quickly (and 3 of the wraps filled up one of my cousins :) ). We all loved it and it was great that it was healthy.

Let me know if you try it out some time, okay?

Ciao,

~Sammy

Healthy Little Sauce

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Hello, everyone,

When it comes to sauces, I prefer to work with only natural resources. This means that I prefer not to cook with things with synthetic ingredients. Therefore, I avoid tomato purées (I know some are said to be fully natural, but I still avoid all of them).

I just had a late dinner and I made a little sauce with it. With this sauce, my aim was to preserve as much of the nutrients in the ingredients as possible and to keep the sauce simple. So, I didn't cook the sauce for a long time. I'll put my recipe below:

Ingredients

A quarter of a red bell pepper

A little bit (less than the pepper) of an onion

A little sprinkle of black pepper

4 fresh tarragon leaves (picked from my garden)

Preparation

Slice the red pepper into not-so-thin strips and chop the onions and the tarragon.

Heat a little oil in a pan turning off the heat when the oil's hot.

Pour the ingredients together into the pan and stir for approximately 8 seconds.

Take the ingredients out of the pan and onto the dish you plan on serving it in.

And.....that's all.

With this process, a smaller amount of the nutrients in the ingredients are destroyed due to the heat used in cooking.

I am done eating and I can tell you that that little sauce was good!

Here's another healthy sauce recipe:

Ingredients

Fresh vine tomatoes sliced into quarters or sixths depending on the size of the tomato

Half of a medium sized onion, chopped

A pinch of black pepper

Herbs of your choice in your desired quantity

A tiny bit of ginger (and garlic if desired)

Bell peppers of your choice

A bit of olive oil

Preparation

Toss all the ingredients in a bowl till they are well mixed.

Cover the bowl with cling film making just one hole in the middle.

Keep the bowl in a warm, dry place for about 2-4 hours.

And....that's it! 

The second recipe doesn't require any cooking so, I guess it's even healthier. Okay! I don't guess. I KNOW it's healthier.

Let me know if you try out these recipes and what you think about them.

Enjoy! :)

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Recipe: Yorkshire Pudding

In my family, we absolutely love Yorkshire pudding! My cousins and I, when we were younger, came up with a silly theory that it was because we're Yorkshire. By the way, I've never been to Yorkshire, believe it or not. Anyways, here's a recipe for my beloved Yorkshire pudding:

Ingredients

140g plain flour or all-purpose flour (this is about 200ml/7fl oz)

4 eggs (200ml/7fl oz)

200ml milk

sunflower oil, butter or vegetable oil, for cooking

1 1/2 teaspoons sugar (optional)

1/8 teaspoon salt (optional)

Preparation method

Heat oven to 230C. Drizzle a little sunflower/vegetable oil (or cubes of butter) evenly into 2 x 4-hole Yorkshire pudding tins or a 12-hole non-stick muffin tin and place in the oven to heat through.

To make the batter, pour 140g plain flour into a bowl and beat in four eggs until smooth. Gradually add 200ml milk and carry on beating until the mix is completely lump-free. You could use a mixer at medium speed if you don't want to mix the ingredients manually.

Season with salt and sugar and mix.

Pour the batter into a jug

Remove the hot tins from the oven.

Pour the batter into the holes carefully and in equal quantities.

Place the tins back in the oven and leave undisturbed for 5-10 mins then reduce the heat to about 175C still leaving the tins undisturbed until the puddings have puffed up and are golden.

Serve immediately.

Thanks for reading!

If you try out this recipe, please let me know what you think about it.