Mushroom Stroganoff

This is a good recipe for using up leftover cream that would otherwise sit in the back of the fridge. The cream can be substituted with yogurt if you want to make it low fat, but it does curdle so don’t serve it to anyone too fussy. The amounts shown on the pictures are enough for one person; if you want to feed more people add more mushrooms. If you are going out after eating this add less garlic. It is ever so easy and quick to make, so let me show you in the medium of lists and pictures (not dance though… maybe if I start a vlog…..)

Ingredients

Mushrooms

1 Onion

Garlic (as much as you like)

 1 stick of celery

Wine (any colour)

A big splash of cream

Balsamic vinegar

Paprika

Salt

Pepper

Olive oil

Henderson’s relish (imported at great expense from Sheffield)

Method

Wipe the mushrooms down with a damp cloth or some kitchen roll. Mushrooms have a lot of water in them so you don’t need to add any more.

 

Chop up the veg (chunky as you like) the finer you chop up the garlic the stronger the taste is

 

Heat up the oil in the pan

 

Fry the onion and the celery for about 3 minutes.

Add the paprika, mushrooms and garlic and fry for another 3 minutes

When the mushrooms start to go oozy (let out water, there’s probably a technical term for this but I don’t know it) add the wine. Just a splash mind…. I said a splash

Put in some cream but remember that the mushrooms let out water when they are cooking so add a bit less than you think you need, you can always add more if you need it.

 

Add a splash of balsamic vinegar and a splash of Henderson’s relish. Add salt and pepper then cook for another few minutes (if you have any mustard you can add that as well as it gives it a nice kick.

 

 Eat!

 

It is very good when the  weather is like this

The nettle experiment

The first time I had nettles I was 17 and on a school trip to Wiltshire and I was staying in a reconstructed Iron Age roundhouse (it looked like the tellytubby house). One of my abiding memories of the night other than being freezing cold (it was March) was trying nettles for the first time and quite liking them.

Nettles are one of the new super food fads but not without reason; nettles are full of the vegetarian trinity of iron, protein and vitamin C. They behave rather like spinach when cooked.  I would not recommend eating them raw as they tend to be a little bit...stingy.

I got the nettles from the park over the road but they are available at every good area of wasteland, motorway verges and some gardens. I wore thick gloves and my red rain coat (because I wasn’t conspicuous enough). I got some funny looks, but quite frankly I have got beyond caring about stuff like that. You only want to pick the top few rows of leaves as they are the tenderest.

So without further ado let’s get on with the experiment….

Ingredients

Nettles

Salt

Water

Method

In a colander I rinsed the nettles very well. I found out at this point that some nettles can still sting after  being picked, so keep the gloves on till the nettles are cooked.

Put water on to the boil and add a good amount of salt

 

Put the nettles into the pan then let them boil for a few minutes  

 

Drain well and put into cold water to preserve the colour.

Dry with a paper towel. The nettles absorb a lot of water so be prepared for this.

 

Result

The nettles were quite bland as I may have over boiled them, so I fried then up with lots of butter, garlic, salt and pepper. It was really quite tasty as it absorbed all of the butter . I think nettles may be very good in the place of spinach in dishes such as chilli or as a side to something strong flavoured.

The Chinese Buffet, Trinity Walk, Wakefield

People have been raving about how good the Chinese Buffet is in Wakefield, how good the food is and how much variety there is; these people, however, are meat eaters. When I visited the Chinese Buffet there were no vegetarian main courses. I had to eat a lot of side dishes such as the noodles and chips (and bizarrely olives) to get my money’s worth, and even then all the dishes I could eat fitted on one small plate. The Hot and Sour soup I had as part of my starter was very nice, however, as were all of the side dishes I had to eat.   For dessert there were a number of options such as freshly made crêpes with a number of different toppings, fruit salad, and a number of pastries, ice cream and a chocolate fountain (only marshmallows- full of gelatine - provided with it). I went to town on the puddings as I was hungry.   

I must say in the buffet’s defence that the staff were very good at their jobs and took the used plates away very quickly and brought drinks quickly. The buffet was not massively crowded when we were there, however, so I can’t comment on how efficient the staff are at peak times.  The buffet is clean and well decorated and has a nice atmosphere. It is very family friendly, too, with more traditional kiddie friendly choices such as chicken nuggets, sausages – the usual stuff.

But due to the lack of food I could eat they will not be getting my custom again. Price-wise – for a vegetarian, very expensive for what I could eat. I paid about £20 for a plate of chips and noodles. Carnivores will love it though, and can undoubtedly get their money’s worth.

The website

My Pickled Onion Experiment

I love pickled food; I would probably live off it if I could. This experiment started off as a an attempt to pickle chillies after a glut of very very very hot chillies in my mum’s green house. I did not have enough to fill a jar so I added garlic and an onion to bulk it out. I poured Pickling vinegar over the top and left for a month. The resulting onions were volcanically spicy (and I like hot food) but the chillies had lost some of their heat which was one of the results I was looking for. I decided then to have as go a pickling some onions for Christmas



What I used

A chopping Board

Knife

2 jars (I put them in the oven to sterilize them)

Rubber gloves

Ingredients

1 bag of small onions

1 lieter of pickling vinegar (I used a bit less that this but that was the size of the jar it was sold in)

2 small chilies

1 cinnamon stick

Handful of pepper corns

Jar 1

I cut the majority of the onions into large chunks and de seeded and chopped chillies (use the rubber gloves while handling the chillies if you are like me and have very sensitive skin, no do, really really do)

partly filled jar shot.

 Put in a jar






 








Add some pepper corns.

 put more onions in the jar and use achop stick to mix everything about. Don't over fill the jar as you have to put the viniger in as well.



 




Top off with viniger

I left this for about 3 weeks in the pantry.

These had an extreme flavour, they were very strong and made my nose run. However I think if I had left them for longer they may have been milder.

Jar 2

I left most of the onions in this jar whole and just peeled them. After putting them in the jar with a cinnamon stick and covering with the viniger I left them for about 6 weeks before opening the jar.

A vast improvement on jar 1, had a slightly milder taste from being left longer and the taste of cinnamon has infused the onions however it was a very mild cinnamon taste. These onions are not for the faint hearted, but are much more palatable than the original experiment with the chillies.