Alabama Shakes

Serving Suggestion.

Got the Alabama Shakes? (Not to be confused with the rattlesnake shake or the crap over hyped soul/funk band). Suffering from a red wine/peanut oil and Gin hangover c/w a lack of sleep and a throbbing temple spot? You need some of the early morning Shakes, a simple, quick and not too colourful but easy on the eye feast of carbs and protein to get you back into orbit and onto the M90 once more. The Shakes are on the left here, the other items are French toast and scrambled eggs - you know fine well how to do them so I'll concentrate on the big Ss.

You need: Olive Oil, boiled garlic new potatoes, cold ham, a few cocktail sausages, Worcester Sauce, seasoning.

Heat the oil and frizzle the sausages in a non-stick sauce pan, add the spuds and ham, let it all get hot and sweaty. Add the Big W sauce (carefully and according to your taste). Serve sizzling from the pot with breakfast normals as above or with toast or muffins. Head(s) cleared in 5!

Sweetie Sweet Chicken

Dished up with a little Basmati Rice.

From the oven ready to serve.

Ingredients:

Main part - 4 chicken breasts chopped, 2 sweet potatoes sliced, 1 onion sliced, 1 red pepper sliced, seasoning (also garlic if you like that sort of thing) and a little water.

Place it all in a casserole, layer the sweet potatoes on top. Cook in the oven in the casserole (with a lid on to keep it moist) at 200 for about an *hour till the chicken is hot hot hot and sweet potatoes are nicely mushy.

Sauce - one tablespoon of olive oil and one of vinegar, 1.99 teaspoons of sugar, big squirt of tomato puree, a little water. Boil and simmer to a nice saucy consistency and add the cornflour to thicken.

Add the sauce to the chicken mix at the end of the *hour in the oven and cook for a further half hour or so.

Serve with rice on a warm platter.

Top Ten Foods - eat healthy

1. Sweet Potatoes

A nutritional All-Star — one of the best vegetables you can eat. They're loaded with carotenoids, vitamin C, potassium, and fiber. Bake and then mix in some unsweetened applesauce or crushed pineapple for extra moisture and sweetness.

2. Mangoes

Just one cup of mango supplies 100% of a day’s vitamin C, one-third of a day’s vitamin A, a decent dose of blood-pressure-lowering potassium, and 3 grams of fiber. Bonus: mango is one of the fruits least likely to have pesticide residues.

3. Unsweetened Greek Yogurt

Non-fat, plain Greek yogurt has a pleasant tartness that’s a perfect foil for the natural sweetness of berries, bananas, or your favorite breakfast cereal. It’s strained, so even the fat-free versions are thick and creamy. And the lost liquid means that the yogurt that’s left has twice the protein of ordinary yogurt – about 17 grams in 6 ounces of plain Greek yogurt.

4. Broccoli

It has lots of vitamin C, carotenoids, vitamin K and folic acid. Steam it just enough so that it's still firm and add a sprinkle of red pepper flakes and a spritz of lemon juice.

5. Wild Salmon

The omega-3 fats in fatty fish like salmon can help reduce the risk of sudden-death heart attacks. And wild-caught salmon has less PCB contaminants than farmed salmon.

6. Crispbreads

Whole-grain rye crackers, like Wasa, Kavli, and Ryvita — usually called crispbreads — are loaded with fiber and often fat-free. Drizzle with a little honey and sprinkle with cinnamon to satisfy your sweet tooth.

7. Garbanzo Beans

All beans are good beans. They’re rich in protein, fiber, iron, magnesium, potassium, and zinc. But garbanzos stand out because they’re so versatile. Just drain, rinse, and toss a handful on your green salad; throw them into vegetable stews, curries, and soups; mix them with brown rice, whole wheat couscous, bulgur, or other whole grains.

8. Watermelon

Watermelon is a heavyweight in the nutrient department. A standard serving (about 2 cups) has one-third of a day’s vitamins A and C, a nice shot of potassium, and a healthy dose of lycopene for only 80 fat-free, salt-free calories. And when they’re in season, watermelons are often locally grown, which means they may have a smaller carbon footprint than some other fruits.

9. Butternut Squash

Steam a sliced squash or buy peeled, diced butternut squash at the supermarket that’s ready to go into the oven, a stir-fry, or a soup. It’s an easy way to get lots of vitamins A and C and fiber.

10. Leafy Greens

Don’t miss out on powerhouse greens like kale, collards, spinach, turnip greens, mustard greens, and Swiss chard. These stand-out leafy greens are jam-packed with vitamins A, C, and K, folate, potassium, magnesium, calcium, iron, lutein, and fiber. Serve with a splash of lemon juice or red wine vinegar.

le pain grillé français

Enough for three?

3 large eggs, a splash of milk, a knob of buttery substance, oil, rough cut whole meal bread (7 - 8 pieces), seasoning to taste.

Break the eggs into a pasta plate, mix with milk, add seasoning. Heat oil/butter in a frying pan. Dip the bread in the egg mix, two slices at a time and allow a little time to soak. Turn the bread over (more soaking up etc.) then using a fish slice drop the two slices into the hot oil. Sear each side and allow to brown. Serve with bacon, HP Sauce and whatever else you like for breakfast.

Alternatively once cooked you can dust the pieces with icing sugar and serve with jam or syrup.

High And Mighty

I'd never cooked roast pork or ham before so I saw mealtime on January the 1st as providing the perfect challenge. There is of course a lot of information and recipes out on the web, an easy google if you're new to this, pots of good advice from the old hands and experts.  Here's a Delia link that describes the mustard and sugar coated ham I prepared (on the right in the photo), it work surprisingly well. My main problem was understanding quite what kind of ham joint I had in the first place. I bought if from the (local) Hopetoun Farm Shop and despite having a conversation across the counter with the helpful butcher I failed to ask the correct questions. I was therefore unsure about how much of a soaking to give it, whether there was skin or fat and (oops!) how heavy it was. I therefore did what I usually do under these circumstances and hoped for the best and just did everything - strangely that seemed to work. Here's another recipe link, just to maintain a balance.

The pork (left) was much more straightforward, bought from Tesco with the minimum of human interaction there were instructions on the inner label (in a tiny font) that worked. I also knew the weight so it was simply a matter of rubbing in some rock salt and then roasting. I did both joints together at 180 degrees for about 2 hours, I then allowed the ham another 30 minutes at 220 to bake the added mustard glaze. The meat's best left to cool a little before you carve, then just serve warm with a gravy. Delia's further advice also helped.

I made the gravy by adding stock from both joints (they produce a lot) to some ordinary cranberry and sherry sauce I'd bought. I thickened it a little and hey presto, nice brownish colour too.  It was served with roast, mashed and sweet potatoes and various green veg. More than enough for the six of us in fact we'll be eating the leftovers for the rest of the week. The only mishap was my catastrophic dropping of a full bottle of champagne as the roast was being served. I flooded the dining room and soaked the guests in the process. Ho hum.

Poor Man's Noodles

Some people say that mackerel is a dirty fish, I have no truck with this point of view, apart from the odd thing they might gulp down by mistake they spend their lives drinking good Highland seawater, they're very well hydrated I'm told. I'm also sure that award winning director Hayao Miyazaki who feeds this meal to his animation team on a regular basis would agree, as it was his movie (extra features on the DVD) Spirited Away that brought this magnificent noodle recipe to our shores. So full credit to the undead, the spiritual bath house for the frog people and the flooded path and railway line that leads to the scary witch's house. Special thanks to Chihiro and Haku.

Ingredients for Poor Man's Noodles: Instant noodles - your favourite kind, cooked/canned fish in oil – chopped (mackerel will do but apparently there are many other fish in the sea), an egg, chopped spring onion or other vegetable (optional).

Method: cook the noodles normally, a three minute boil does, add the egg (slowly stir it so it cooks in the noodle's heat), add the chopped fish, simmer for minute. Throw away the spring onions, they'll only give you dodgy breath, drain and serve. Makes a good quick snack or an unconventional winter warmer.

Silver Darlings

Fife's Forgotten Fast Food has been overlooked too long so an revival is due. Here's the easy way to start educating your taste buds in how to savour the staples our forefathers enjoyed (?).

1 pot of roll mop herring from the Hopetoun Farm Shop (drained).

4 small slices of brown wholemeal toast a la Jack Nicholson, Five Easy Pieces.

Thinly spread with salted butter.

Combine.

Add a lot of pepper and quaff a glass of dry white wine.

yum

Japanese Lunch Boxes

Ok, these are not recipes at all, they're lunch boxes but kids lunch boxes as they are designed and prepared in Japan. Put simply these are weird, brilliant, inspirational and disturbing all at the same time. If you want to see more (and there are plenty) it's an easy google. Can it happen here?

Tank Commander Pasta

Bill of material: Kraft CP a la Gary, sausage, tomato, seasoning, cheese. Time to cook? 30 mins all in.

Based around the 67p classic Kraft pasta you know and love. Make it up according to the eighteen key words on the box. At the final sauce stage add a chopped up smoked sausage (or chorizo if you're flush), allow a bit of the liquid to boil away. Then lay it out mortician style in a Pyrex dish, add a sliced tomato, pepper and cheesy sprinkles according to taste. Bake at 150 for about twenty. Please ignore decoy banana that bombed the photo.

Here's one I ate a part of earlier.

Maple Sweet Potato

If you don't use sweet potatoes then you should, easy to use (apart from the peeling) and versatile. Here's the deal:

A dish (6 -8) Sweet Potatoes, maple syrup, seasoning, oil, garlic and chili peppers.

Peel the veg, lay in a dish, add a drop or two oil and the rest, drizzle with a decent MS and bake at about 180 degrees for 25 minutes. Mmmm.