The Food Wish List

I want to be the 'Mum who cooks'. The one who's always in her apron and when her children are older and have friends round, will have a freshly made Macaroni and Cheese or Cottage Pie to hand at any given moment.

I'm not quite there yet. There are so many things I would like to try and make. There are so many cookbooks staring at me as I type this, taking up the entire bottom row of my bookshelf. 

I need to make a pledge to make something new every week. It's so easy to get stuck in a rut of making the same things week in, week out. 

But I'm not looking to make complicated, advanced dishes. I want to get the basics right: Bread, pastry, the perfect roast dinner. Because, it's better to cook a few things well rather than a lot that aren't as good, right?

What dishes have you meant to make for the last few months but haven't actually got round to trying yet?

 

As I have just listed my Buttermilk Pancake recipe, I was thinking about the hero products we all have in our kitchen cupboards.

The products that spring to my mind straight away are:

Buttermilk

I buy a carton of this every week now. It's 52p for a carton from Asda (I'm pretty sure Tesco's stock it too). I use it to make cakes (any type of cake), as I think it makes them particularly fluffy and moist. 

I also use it in my pancake batter instead of regular milk as it has the same effect. 

Worcestershire Sauce

I pretty much use a splash of this little gem in every casserole, pasta dish or stir fry I ever make. I splash it on cheese on toast or in baked beans. I've never come across anyone who doesn't like this and I would feel lost if I ran out!!

Sweet Chilli Sauce

I'm sure someone out there will tell me it's easy to make this but I do admit I buy it in a bottle! I had some tonight in fact with salmon fillets and brown rice. It just adds a spark to so many savoury dishes and is also a quick cheat's dip to go with crisps or veggie sticks.

I'd love to know what your hero products are! Comment below!

Buy yourself a set of measuring cups. I order you. You can pick some up for under five pounds online (see the link at the bottom of the post). You will find quite a few recipes online now list cup measurements and they're oh-so-easy to use.

A perfect example would be tonight's recipe. I make these lovely, fluffy pancakes pretty much every weekend for breakfast and we're not bored with them yet!

Buttermilk Pancakes

Serves 4 very hungry people

3 cups self-raising flour
1 cup buttermilk
1 and a half cups milk
3 medium eggs

Whisk all of the ingredients together in a large bowl. The mixture should be pretty thick. If it's too runny, add some more flour. 

You can then add pretty much anything you like to the batter. Mashed or chopped bananas, grated apple, raisins, cinnamon, chocolate chips etc etc. The list is endless!

With a little oil in a frying pan over a medium heat, use a ladle to spoon out each portion. Cook until golden brown on each side. Check that they are cooked in the middle before serving. 

Happy Eating! 

Once served, they can be topped with honey, yoghurt, chocolate spread, jam or my preference, good old salted butter.

You can buy Buttermilk easily from a large supermarket. At just over 50p for a carton from Asda it also luckily equates to a cup!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=cup+measuring+set&tag=googhydr-21&index=kitchen&hvadid=34729082388&hvpos=1t2&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=473311154654610105&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_45621qph2v_b

Boston Sausage Goulash

 

Serves 4

You will need:

Ideally a cast iron casserole pot you can use on the hob and in the oven

1 medium red onion (roughly chopped)

1 red pepper (roughly chopped)

8 Boston Sausages

2 garlic cloves (crushed)

1 red chilli pepper (de-seeded and finely chopped)

75g chorizo sausage

1 can chopped tomatoes

1 cube beef OXO

1/2 tsp paprika

1 can chickpeas (drained)

dash of Worcestershire sauce

Small pot of sour cream to serve (optional)

Preheat your oven to 150 deg (mine is a fan assisted oven)

Using a little oil, brown all of the sausages in your pot for about 5-6 minutes.

Remove them and put them on a plate.

In the same pot, gently fry your onion, pepper, chilli pepper, chorizo and garlic until everything is golden and soft.

Put your sausages back into the pot together with your chopped tomatoes, chickpeas, paprika, OXO cube and Worcestershire sauce.

Give everything a good stir and add enough cold water to almost cover everything.

Transfer to the oven and leave for up to an hour and a half, checking half way through.

Serve in bowls with a dollop of sour cream and eat with warm, crusty bread.

Happy Eating!

I thought I would mention a couple of things -

My children both like food with a bit of a kick and as this was the first time making this dish, I thought it would be a bit too spicy. It wasn't at all but if you really don't like spicy food, I would leave out the red chilli pepper entirely and even the chorizo.

This dish went down a storm. In my opinion it would work with chicken, diced beef or pork. I will probably add a little more chilli next time and remember to serve it with the sour cream!!

http://www.bostonsausage.co.uk

 

 

 

My first featured recipe is in the oven as I type this but I couldn't wait to post!

I'm only 2 days into this blogging lark and I'm already breaking the rules! The recipe below doesn't actually have an ingredient produced locally but if it did, it would definitely be the honey (see the below link).

Now, I'm sure you have all encountered this problem. You have some very overripe bananas and you're not sure what to do with them.

Normally, I would make banana pancakes for breakfast but that opportunity had passed me by. So, I decided to get out my trusty recipe book and make the easiest Banana Cake in the world, ever.

I know a lot of you out there (including some of my friends, not naming names) think that it's just as easy to pop to the supermarket to buy some cake. Well, you have to look in some way presentable to nip there but you don't in your own kitchen! Plus, you would still have to throw out your bananas!

Easy Peasy Banana Cake

 

You will need:

4oz softened butter or margarine (I used Stork)
6oz sugar (granulated or caster)
8oz self-raising flour
2 medium eggs
2 large bananas (the riper the better)
1 tbsp runny honey

Preheat your oven to 160 deg (mine is a fan assisted oven)
On a plate, mash the bananas with a fork (good job for your children)!
Cream together the butter and the sugar. Mix in the eggs.
Mix the butter, sugar and egg mixture with the mashed bananas.
Stir in the flour.
Bake in a loaf tin for 40 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

Happy Eating!

http://www.bbka.org.uk/local/lincolnshire/contacts/index.shtml


 

Welcome to Mellow Belly! 

I've taken the plunge on this glorious sunny day and, amidst the noise of my children playing on their Leappads, am typing this introduction to you all.

My vision for Mellow Belly is for it to be an enjoyable and informative way of learning about what food is produced locally and in turn, being able to turn that produce into delicious meals and treats.

You can spend less than half an hour online and you will find everything from organic vegetables delivered to your door, a virtual grow-it-yourself allotment scheme and sausages that are so famous they're sold at London's Borough Market. 

The most fantastic thing is that all of these things can be found within a 20 mile
radius of Boston.

But, as I laud the praises of the more famous businesses in our area, I also want
to find more of them!

So, look out for my next post, which will be a recipe using at least one of
our local delights. 

http://www.bostonsausage.co.uk
http://www.woodlandsfarm.co.uk
http://www.abbeyparks.co.uk