Tasty Turkey Nachos

Today I’m going to tell you about the tastiest meal I’ve eaten in a long time. Hence the title. Thought I’d treat you to a bit of alliteration there…

Maybe it was just what I needed at the time or something, but every bite of these nachos tasted SO good!!!

But first, let me brag just a little bit about how lucky I am at the moment 🙂

1.) Surprise holiday!

2.) Tapir tickling at Dudley zoo ><

Not the most flattering picture, but guys, I’m tickling a damn tapir named Tallulah what more do you want!?

Actually, you might want a picture of this ADORABLE baby orang-utan licking the floor…

Truly did feel like I was the only being (human or otherwise) without a child to call my own that day… But I digress 😉

So now I’ve got that out of my system, check these out! So simple, but soooooo tasty 🙂

Notes:

The love ate them with wraps… Cos’ he likes to add bread to just about everything.

If you can’t find chilli-flavoured tortilla chips, just add some sliced chilli or dried chilli flakes to taste! 🙂

These would also be awesome with slow-cooked shredded beef… mmm… or chicken, or pork, or no meat at all! Ya know, whatever!

Serves 2.

• 100g chilli tortilla chips
• 1 small or 1/2 large red onion, sliced
• 2 spring onions, thinly sliced
• 200g turkey thigh mince
• 70-80g strong cheddar
• 2 tbsp sliced pickled jalapeño peppers
• guacamole, sour cream and tomato salsa, to serve

1. Heat the oven to 200ºc. While waiting for it to reach temperature, heat a little oil in a non-stick pan and add the red onion, cooking for a few minutes until beginning to soften. Next, add the turkey mince and stir it around the pan, breaking it up while it fries until you have small nubbly bits of cooked turkey.
2. Take an ovenproof dish (I used 2 mini ones) and layer with tortilla chips. Next comes the turkey, red onions spring onions and jalapeños. Finally, sprinkle over a generous handful of cheese and bake in the oven for 5-10 minutes, or until the cheese has melted.
3. Serve with your choice of guacamole, sour cream, tomato salsa and/or extra jalapeños. Enjoy!

I’ll leave you with this, because I love otters ❤

Naaw.

Salad Nicoise

*Clears throat*

“Cauliflowers fluffy and cabbages green,

Strawberries sweeter than any I’ve seen,

Beetroot purple and onions white,

All grow steadily day and night!

The apples are ripe and the plums are red,

The broad beans are sleeping in their blankety bed…

(whisper)

The broad beans are sleeping in the blankety bed

Yeah!”

So this is a popular harvest song, but seriously, today was the day I found out that broad beans actually DO sleep in blankety beds!!! It is so beautiful you guys – if you have never podded your own beans and peas, you need to put it on your bucket list. Even if you haven’t grown them yourself – doesn’t matter! I didn’t, but it made me feel so joyful somehow, revealing the perfect little innocent bundles of goodness all tucked up nicely in their natural cushiony houses… *sigh*…

Moving on then before my insanity becomes a popular topic of conversation.

I know I’ve all but abandoned my poor little bloglet… It’s not that I don’t love it, I do!

Lets just put it down to a confidence thing, okay? As in, *pah, who wants to know that?* or *this is so not Smitten Kitchen* or whatever.

But! This is one mouth-puckeringly intense salad that I would seriously recommend anyone to try!

I’m proud of it, mmkay? That doesn’t happen very often 🙂

Just one note before you read on: the instructions I have given that relate to timing only apply if you want to eat this salad warm. It will be equally delicious cold and far less stressful, as you can cook the different components whenever you’re ready.

Serves 2.

• new potatoes (about 12-18 dependent on size and halved if large)
• 2 large eggs
• handful of peas and broad beans, fresh and in their pods if possible
• 1 can of tuna in spring water, drained
• 2 tomatoes, sliced
• 5 anchovy fillets in oil, drained and finely chopped
• handful black olives (about 50g), finely chopped
• 1 garlic clove, finely chopped
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• handful basil leaves, torn

1. Start by boiling the potatoes in salted water until tender – about 15-20 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, make the dressing. Simply combine the anchovies, olives, garlic, lemon, olive oil and balsamic vinegar in a small bowl.
3. About 7 minutes before the potatoes are ready, put the eggs in a pan of boiling water and cook until the potatoes are done. Immediately rinse under cold water to prevent the yolk from going grey, although this shouldn’t be an issue after 7 minutes – you should have delectably oozy, soft-boiled eggs. Mmm… Obviously boil for longer if your heart so desires.
4. 2 minutes after you’ve put the eggs on, put the beans (freshly podded or no) into boiling water. 1 minute after that, add the peas to the same pan. Again, cook until the potatoes are done, then drain. This is multi-tasking at it’s best 🙂 well… at least I think it is… You want the beans and peas to be tender whilst retaining a bit of bite, so use your common sense here.
5. Now it is just a matter of assemblage. I layered mine like so: potatoes; tuna; beans and peas; tomatoes; dressing; basil; egg. Whatever floats your boat though – naturally I massacred mine within seconds to make sure there was a coating of that luscious dressing over each and every morsel 🙂

I really hope you enjoy this as much as I did!!!

Oh, oh! And I also served the dressing like this:

With halloumi, wheat berries, courgette and tomato 🙂 so it’s versatile too! Right on 😀

In Bruges

What else could I entitle this post? Have you seen the film!?

This is in the film right?

You should see the film.

But we saw him in real life!!! :3 He was very cute and very lovely, of course. A nice man took us to see him on a boat 😛

Cos’ canals are quite prolific in those parts.

But here’s an interesting fact for you: there’s only 5 boat owners in the whole of Bruges, and they are only allowed 4 boats each! I’d say that was a good rule – preventing canal blockage and all that…

So basically, we went to Bruges and it was delightful 🙂

We ate a lot of food, but of course we ate that before we took pictures of it… For your imagination they included waffles with butter and sugar; steak tartare! (of all things!); rabbit cooked in beer sauce (yum! plus, rabbit is on like, EVERY menu around! Why are we English so anti-rabbit-eating?); banana split (not particularly Belgian but hey – bananas and ice cream are nice partners); raspberry beer and dark chocolate covered oranges… The eating was good.

Here are the non-food-related pictures that I’d like to share with you anyhow 🙂

Stunning buildings wherever you look. The city is steeped in history and this is obvious from the inscriptions on a lot of the buildings – many of which were built in the 1600s!

They have 21 museums! If I recall correctly… Something like 16 public and 5 private?

We went to the Salvador Dali one. It was disturbing, to say the least. Does anyone else think it’s odd that the work he’s most famous for isn’t his insane rudey works? Because if you saw a collection of what he’s done you’d be like ‘Woah, like 10% of his stuff isn’t creepy and erotic, but that minority percentage is the stuff I’ve always liked him for!’ Well, you might not. Personally I’m a slight bit prudish and the likes of this were a bit much for me.

Sorry guys, I didn’t even know whether to include that one, haha. But it’s art right? And children were allowed in so…

Give me a spindly-legged elephant any day. They had miniature ones of these for sale and I SO would have loved one if they weren’t 63 euros

Cos’ the city is kind of expensive! But the produce they have available just oozes quality.

This is soap! Mmhmm 🙂

And of course the range of chocolate and other confectionery was fairly mind-blowing. I wish we got more pictures of that…

Another interesting discovery was that apparently, it is always Christmas in Bruges. Honestly, I really wish that we’d got pictures of the shop completely decked out in wreaths, full of toy soldiers and snow globes, but all I have to offer you in terms of proof is this:

You don’t have to tell me this is awful and tasteless, haha. Blame the love. He found it ‘funny’.

We both found this funny:

Sand-wishes :’) how cute! Cannibal toast!

I will leave you on that note. Goodbye! 🙂

Sesame-Crusted Tofu with Nuoc Cham

Negligence is becoming my middle name.

I am honestly starting to believe that my list of things to do would make anyone stop in their tracks and blink, dazedly. Even the person who is convinced they are the worst procrastinator in the world! I’m worse than that!!! I’m sure if I wrote it all out, it would cover miles of land… I’m picturing one of those enormous scrolls in cartoons that start out looking normal and average-sized, but with a shake of the wrist that unravels the lot… it is clearly formidable to the point of unrealistic goal-setting.

My excuses to avoid getting on with important things recently:

• My birthday! 😀

• The love’s birthday, and his mom’s

• Dog-sitting

Me and this bundle of beautiful have totally bonded. I want one of her.

He, on the other hand, is like a little old man. Adorable though.

And hilarious.

• The BBC Good Food Show/Gardener’s World!

(Haha :D)

• Symphony Hall

• Misc.

Especially the last one. Gosh how that takes up my time!

Included in the ‘misc’ category is Pinterest. Damn you Pinterest I never thought I’d get drawn in! I am weak when it comes to websites laden with beautiful images and ideas… Pinterest is where I found this incredible recipe 🙂

Which is actually one of those things I would happily have gotten round to earlier, only I couldn’t find black sesame seeds in any of my local shops 😦 and they make the finished dish look so pretty! Don’t you think? Luckily The Good Food Show was just around the corner and of course it didn’t let me down 😀 Thanks BBC Good Food! (Hire me!) ((Jokes, so not qualified)). You could of course buy some online.

Still, I made it a couple of days ago and I guess it taught me a lesson about striking while the iron is hot when another blogger I follow wrote about the same recipe this morning!!! Now that’s a bit frustrating when I had it all planned.

Oh, what’s that? Your now desperate to follow me on both Tumblr AND Pinterest!? Awesome! Don’t be shy, there’s links to both on the right hand side of my WordPress 😛 just in case you can’t find them I’ve totally helped you out by adding the links above too 😀

Anyhow, here’s my version:

Serves 2.

• 1 package of firm tofu
• 1 egg
• pinch of salt
• 3 tbsp breadcrumbs (panko would be best)
• 2 tbsp white sesame seeds
• 1 tbsp black sesame seeds
• oil for frying

For the Nuoc Cham:

• juice of 1 lime
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 2-3 anchovies, finely chopped
• 2-3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 2 fiery chillies (Thai if you can find them), de-seeded (if preferred) and thinly sliced

To Serve:

• Chopped mixed vegetables (I used spring onions, carrot, sweet red pepper and mushrooms)
• Noodles or rice

1. First you need to drain your tofu in whichever way you like to do so. I place mine between 2 chopping boards in the sink and balance something heavy on the top. I would recommend you do this at least an hour before you plan to start cooking.
2. At least half an hour before planning to eat, make the nuoc cham so the flavours have enough time to become well acquainted. Simply whisk all of the ingredients together and taste. It should be salty (but not too salty), full of interesting flavours, and with subtly ensuing heat from the chillies. The finer you chop the garlic and the chillies, the stronger tasting these aspects of the finished sauce will be.
3. In a small bowl, beat the egg with 1 tsp water. In a larger bowl, mix the sesame seeds and bread crumbs with the salt.
4. Slice the (now much firmer) tofu. I like mine to be in chunky cubes – you decide how you like yours and adjust cooking times accordingly. One at a time, dip each piece of tofu into the egg. Scrape off any excess, then roll it around in the bread crumb mixture. Put to one side while you finish the others.
5. Heat some oil in a large, non-stick frying pan and fry the tofu pieces for about 2 minutes on each side (if following my lead with chunky cubes). Serve with the nuoc cham, veggies and carbs of your choosing 🙂

The nuoc cham is, I think, meant to be used as a dipping sauce, but – tell me if it’s just me – I don’t have the patience for this at dinner time. At dinner time, I’m hungry and I want a bowl full of food. So I used it as a pouring sauce 🙂 make sure you distribute it evenly though if you do it this way, to avoid pungency overload on top and blandness on the bottom.

Unless there is tofu on the bottom – this stuff is not bland in the slightest! I just mean bland in comparison to the mouth-puckeringness of the sauce 🙂 The tofu is amazingly crisp, then meltingly moreish. It is perfect and I will make it again many, many times.

And I’m just realising that I should have put a disclaimer at the start of this post: Loads of pictures! Looooong post!

Thanks for reading 😀

Bye!

Early Summer Soup with Honey Beer Bread

This is the first time in a while I’ve made something that has given me a sense of achievement.

I’ve done lots of cake baking for birthdays, thank you gifts and other various occasions… and they’ve been pretty successful, but A.) they weren’t my recipes and B.) I have been slacking once again at meal times! So I’ve been guilt-tripping over that one a bit…

Here I have made a beautiful, light, full of goodness vegetable soup which is easy peasy lemon squeezy. And you might even want a squeeze of lemon in it actually…

Here is the recipe:

Serves 4 (with honey beer bread)

• vegetable oil, for frying
• 2 onions, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, chopped
• 2 x 400g tins chopped tomatoes
• 800ml vegetable stock
• 1-2 tbsp sugar
• salt and pepper, to season
• 100g green beans
• 100g asparagus tips
• 1 tin artichoke hearts, drained and cut in half
• 1 tsp fresh thyme, chopped

1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan. Add the onion and garlic and cook over a medium-low heat for about 5 minutes, stirring, until softened.
2. Add the chopped tomatoes, sugar and vegetable stock, then season with salt and pepper to taste. Cover and cook for 25 minutes.
3. When the soup has been cooking for 15-20 minutes, put a pan of water on to boil and cook the green beans and asparagus for about 5 minutes.
4. Drain the veg and add to the soup mixture with the chopped artichoke hearts and thyme. Cook for a minute or so then serve with bread.

It is just the perfect thing for a warm, breezy day like today when you are in the mood to celebrate the good, seasonal produce 🙂

I also chucked in a few slices of courgette as we had a little to use up in the fridge. It was good! Play around with the veggies, they like it.

Now for the accompaniment!

Oh my God.

It is the quickest, easiest, most beautiful bread I have ever made in my life, and if you were worrying about being hungry after a vegetable soup, don’t be – this bread will help you out.

It is quick because there is no need to knead (heh..) and no need to let it rise either. All you do is mix up the ingredients in a special and magical order, put it in a tin and bake! The outside becomes all biscuity thanks to the butter that is poured all over it…

Oh God.

There I go again saying His name in vain. But this bread!!! My mouth is watering and I just ate some!

Recipe uses cups as I was inspired byyyy filingawaycupcakes who I assume is from overseas 🙂

And I am too lazy to convert…

Makes 1 loaf.

• 5 tbsp butter, melted
• 1 tbsp honey
• 1.5 cups beer (I used Oxford Gold organic beer)
• 3 cups plain flour
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp salt

1. Preheat the oven to 180°c and fetch out a loaf tin. Pour 2 tbsp of the butter on to the bottom of the tin, then brush it all around the sides until it is nicely greased.
2. In a (not small, not enormous) mixing bowl, add all of the dry ingredients and give them a whirl so they all have chance to meet each other. Next, add the honey and beer, and give it a good old stir with as big old spoon. Use your hands if any of the dry stuff is stubbornly refusing to mix with the wet stuff.
3. Place the dough into your loaf tin, and pour the remaining butter over the top. I LOVE THIS PART!!! Then bake it for approx. 50 minutes, but check on it before you take it out just to make sure it’s done.

Ermagherd! (Which I understand is a popular phrase right now?).

It has just occurred to me that this may not be the best bread to give to children. Simply because having read this post back… you know, I can’t 100% say I haven’t been affected by the beer.

I SO hope you make this!

Bye 😀

xxxxxxx

Goat’s Cheese and Roasted Pepper Tart with Walnut Pastry

I happened across the idea for a goat’s cheese, walnut and roasted pepper sandwich. Tried it, loved it, wanted it in a tart!

NOT a confident pastry chef, I am always apprehensive when attempting to make pastry from scratch, but the recipe I used for this shortcrust is just amazing. It made pastry easy! And delicious of course. I know you can just buy the stuff but it bothers me so much when I can’t get something right it makes me even more stubborn to keep trying. It’s a recipe from a ‘Basics’ book I borrowed from the library, and is interwoven with the recipe for the filling which is mine.

This serves 4 and makes enough pastry to line a 23cm flan tin.

For the Pastry:

• 225g plain flour
• 100g butter
• 1 large egg, beaten, plus extra for brushing

For the Filling:

• 150ml log soft, rindless goat’s cheese
• 70g roasted peppers from a jar, drained
• 50g walnut halves
• 2 large eggs
• 150ml milk

1. Put the flour and a pinch of salt into a large bowl. Add the butter and rub it in until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs. Stir in the egg and about 1-2 tbsp water to form a soft dough. Knead briefly, then wrap in clingfilm and chill for at least 30 minutes.
2. For the filling, beat the eggs with the milk. Roughly crumble the walnuts and goat’s cheese and add this to the egg mixture. Roughly chop the peppers and add most of these, along with any seasoning you might like.
3. Heat the oven to 200ºc. Knead the pastry again and roll it out to the required size. This pastry doesn’t shrink so there is no need to chill it! Brush the base and sides with beaten egg.
4. Put the flan tin on a baking sheet and bake blind for 5 minutes (do not use baking paper or baking beans as this would stick to the egg wash). Add the filling and bake for 15 minutes more. Now turn the heat down to 180°c and continue cooking for 25-30 minutes, or until lightly set.

Serve with salad! 🙂

Errol and the Blackberry Apple Crumble Cake

Make this!

I did, for my Dad’s birthday, and it is THE BEST cake I have had in a very long time.

It made my Dad very happy too 😀

Partly because it contained all of his favourite things (cinnamon, apples, nuts, berries), and partly because the man likes cake.

This cake has been at the top of my cake-making bucket list for a few years now, and it is a shame that it took me so long to get round to it!

The fruit is the perfect level of sweetness, the crumble is delightfully cinnamony, and the cake batter itself makes the moistest treat you could hope for!

And! Thanks to the layers of crumble throughout the cake, the fruit doesn’t sink to the bottom! I found this amazing 🙂

The only change I made to the recipe was to substitute pecans for hazelnuts as I (strangely) didn’t have any hazelnuts in. I am excited to make it again with a different mixture of fruit and nuts! Perhaps raspberry and pear crumble cake with chocolate chips in with the crumble? Oooh…

–

Now, Errol has nothing to do with this fabulous cake other than the fact that he too was meant to be a birthday present. I just had to name this post ‘Errol and the Blackberry Apple Crumble Cake’ because it sounds like a book I would liked to have read when I was younger…

You may recall a post quite a while ago now where I pondered about what to get the love for his birthday. Safe but boring or slightly risky and amazing? I went with amazing 😀 and this is Errol:

Right!?

So he’s 28 days premature because stealth-pants went routing around some papers I left out and found an Amazon invoice for a book entitled ‘How to Care for your Pet Tortoise’!!!

…Admittedly I left said papers out for him to shred at work and had no idea I’d left the invoice in with them… But yeah, he managed to figure it out from there and figured it would be better to tell the truth than to act surprised on his birthday.

I appreciated that, but of course I was gutted too!!! I had plans to make a huge deal of it on his birthday, presenting the tank to him decorated with balloons and bunting… *sigh*

Still, Errol was received VERY warmly and VERY excitably (is that a word?) so I am super happy that I chose him 😀

Off to the butterfly farm tomorrow and then it’s half term!

Oh I do love this time of year 🙂 🙂 🙂

Umbrian Lentils with Homemade Sausages

I loved making these. And eating them!

It is an Antonio Carluccio recipe from his book Simple Cooking, changed slightly to suit my tastes.

The method for making sausages from scratch is so clever! I will be trying it again with different flavour combinations, and the puy lentils are so full of flavour – I had the leftovers for lunch the following day and it felt like such a treat. Also, this is a bit cliche but usually I cannot stand celery, but here it just seems to merge with the other flavours so well that all it does it heighten those flavours… I’m glad I took the plunge and threw the celery in or I may never have known that I could abide it in super-delicious circumstances!

A special meal 🙂

Serves 4.

• 2 garlic cloves, peeled and squashed
• 50g sun-dried tomatoes, cut into strips
• extra virgin olive oil
• 25og puy lentils
• 450ml chicken stock
• 2 celery stalks, chopped
• salt and pepper, to taste

For the Sausages:

• 500g minced pork
• 50ml red wine
• 1 tsp fennel seeds
• pinch of dried chilli flakes
• 1 scant tsp dried rosemary
• salt and pepper, to taste

1. For the lentils, fry the garlic and sun-dried tomatoes in a good glug of olive oil for a few minutes in a large pan. Then add the lentils, stock and celery. Cook for 30 minutes or until the lentils are soft. Cover and keep warm over a low heat.
2. Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, mix the sausage ingredients together well and season to taste with salt and pepper. Take a handful of mince and roll it into a sausage shape, about 8cm long and 3cm wide. Wrap tightly in a piece of foil, closing by turning in the ends as you would a sweet.
3. Bring a large pan of water to the boil. Poach the sausages in the water until they pop up to the surface (2-3 minutes). Leave to cool a little, then remove the foil. Poaching the sausages should ensure that they hold together. GENIUS! 😀
4. Moisten the sausages with a little olive oil, then fry or grill until golden on all sides, about 5 minutes.
5. Add the sausages to the warm lentils and allow to cook gently together for 5 minutes.

We had ours with boiled potatoes and pencil leeks. Mmm! But crusty bread would also be a lovely addition 🙂

 

Squidgy Chocolate Fondants

SO. MOREISH!!!

I expected these little nuggets of insane gorgeousness to be a disaster if I’m honest. They’re the sort of things that people tend to bang on about being difficult and “you have to do this at this exact time or else your efforts will have been entirely wasted”. Those fear-mongerers! I may have just been lucky, but these turned out perfect first time! And I recommend them 100%, especially if you’re in the mood to over-indulge slightly… you just will not be able to stop.

Particularly because these are mini versions and so it doesn’t feel quite so bad if you go for just one more 😛

The recipe I used was actually for 4 average-sized fondants, but I’d recently purchased a cute little heart-shaped silicone mould and I just had to use it, especially as I was making them to treat the love 🙂 it yielded me 8 little precious babies. I’m not over-reacting by calling them that, they are precious I tell you!!! I won’t tell you how many I ate *sniff*

Makes 8 miniature fondants.

• 2 eggs
• 50g brown sugar (I used soft light brown)
• 1 heaped tbsp plain flour
• 1 heaped tbsp cornflour
• 140g dark chocolate (minimum 70% cocoa solids) broken into small pieces
• 110g unsalted butter
• 3 heaped tbsp double cream

1. Preheat the oven to 200°c .
2. Use four average sized or 8 miniature moulds. Grease them and dust with flour or line with baking parchment. Place them on a baking tray covered with greaseproof paper.
3. Beat the eggs and sugar together until the mixture turns pale. Sieve the flour and cornflour together, add to the mixture and continue to beat.
4. Melt the chocolate, butter and cream in a bowl over a pan of simmering water.
5. Pour the chocolate cream into the sponge mixture and mix until you have a smooth paste.
6. Fill the moulds, put in the oven and cook for approx. 10 minutes for the mini fondants, or 15 for the average-sized ones. The cakes should be very soft to the touch. Turn out of the moulds and serve straight away with cream or ice cream 🙂

Luscious, Cinnamony Sweet Potato Tagine

Ghillie Basan is one of my favourite food writers, and not least because Moroccan food is one of my favourite things to cook!

But this is my favourite recipe BY FAR that I have used from her book Tagines and Couscous – and I’ve made a fair few now!

It was difficult for me to decide what to call this meal because every ingredient is a star and combines so beautifully with the others… The only word I could really settle on was luscious because, well… that is exactly what it is! I did however really and truly believe with my whole heart that luscious was spelt with an ‘h’ after the ‘sc’. *sigh* I was so much better at spelling when I was 10…

So yes, if I was being super fair and diplomatic to all of the highly deserving ingredients in this recipe I would call it ‘Tagine of Sweet Potato, Shallots, Carrots, Prunes, Cinnamon, Ginger, Honey and Mint – Syrupy and with a Hint of Coriander’. But it’s quite a mouthful. No pun intended. But it really is an amazing mouthful.

Anyway, the reason I picked cinnamon and sweet potato for the title is that the former just permeated the house with its sweet and mouth-watering smell, making me feel as though I was been taken under in a haze of Moroccan balminess… *another sigh* (if only!)… and the latter simply because it makes up the bulk of the meal. Well hey, people need some idea of what’s really going on!

So, here’s how you make it:

🙂

Serves 2 generously, or 4 as a side dish for grilled/roasted meat.

• olive oil
• 20g fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped
• 1 heaped tsp ground cinnamon
• 8 shallots, peeled and left whole
• 2 small-medium sized sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into bite-sized pieces
• 1 carrot, peeled and cut into bite-sized pieces
• handful ready-to-eat stoned pruned (about 60g)
• 2 tsp dark, runny honey or agave
• 200ml vegetable stock
• 1 tbsp fresh coriander, roughly chopped
• a few fresh mint leaves, roughly chopped
• salt and pepper, to taste

1. Heat some olive oil in a tagine or heavy-based casserole. Add the ginger and cinnamon – cook for a minute then toss in the shallots. When the shallots begin to colour, add the sweet potato and carrots. Sauté for 2-3 minutes, stirring, then add the prunes and honey. Pour in the stock and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat, cover and cook gently for about 25 minutes.
2. Uncover and stir in the mint and coriander. Season to taste and reduce the liquid, if necessary, by cooking for a few minutes uncovered. The vegetables should be tender and slightly caramelized in a very syrupy sauce.

 

Most often I would serve this with couscous and toasted flaked almonds, but we were OUT OF COUSCOUS! I know, shocker! So instead we had it with red and white quinoa – really yummy! Though it does smell a bit weird… It worked, just so’s you know 🙂

And finally, may I just plead with you – if you are using a brand new tagine, PLEASE treat it beforehand and be careful when adjusting it’s temperature so it doesn’t crack and momentarily destroy your life. Been there… just saying…

I am going to make this so many times!!!