Formula 1 Foods: Bahrain round-up and the next challenge

Last weekend's Grand Prix took place in Bahrain which was a hard one for many of us in food terms. The idea of the challenge is to make something from or inspired by the host country of each Formula 1 race and I'd never eaten let alone made anything from Bahrain before. So it was funny that of the three entries I had this month, two of us made the same dish!

Suelle at Mainly Baking made this Middle Eastern date cake, which uses rose water, cardamom, saffron and sesame seeds to give a moist and fragrant cake.

I made chicken machboos, which is a type of curry using a blend of Arabic spices - which naturally I didn't have so I mixed my own. I didn't follow the recipe exactly, as I never cook rice from scratch, but it turned out pretty well!

Jane at Onions and Paper also made chicken machboos and commented on the length of the recipe and list of ingredients; she didn't take as many shortcuts as I did and I have to say I think her dish looks a lot better than mine!

The next Formula 1 Grand Prix takes place over May 8-10 in Spain so add your Spanish-inspired recipes to the link up below! You've got a bit longer this time so I hope I get plenty of entries!

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Meal Planning Monday 2015 - Week 17

I’ve decided to stop following Slimming World specifically as I have been struggling with their plan and instead ‘eat clean’ and follow my personal trainer’s diet advice. It seems to be working as I lost three pounds last week!
 

This week will be hard though as I have a lot of meals out, and I mean a lot – a combination of a work colleague visiting from another office, my birthday and a party for friends who are moving abroad. I just have to make sensible choices and not snack in between.

 

Monday-

Lunch- jacket potato with prawns

Dinner- sandwich at cake decorating course

 

Tuesday

Lunch- sandwich – needs to be very quick as I only have 10 mins

Dinner – the Other Half is out so I will have a pork casserole I made ahead and froze

 

Wednesday

Lunch- probably out with colleagues as we are off site

Dinner: restaurant with a friend

 

Thursday

Lunch – restaurant with work colleagues

Dinner- sausage and mash with Quorn or Slimming World sausages for me

 

Friday

Lunch- salad

Dinner- At a Mexican restaurant for my birthday (which is next week)

 

Saturday

Brunch- at a friend’s to meet their new baby/ wish them farewell as they are moving abroad

Dinner- homemade burger and Slimming World chips

 

Sunday

Lunch- bacon sandwich for him; mackerel in mustard sauce on toast for me

Dinner- roast chicken

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Chicken Machboos

This weekend's Formula 1 Grand Prix is in Bahrain which was never going to be easy in terms of thinking of something to cook for my blog challenge Formula 1 Foods. I turned to the internet to search for recipes and one in particular kept coming up - a type of curry, usually with chicken, called machboos. Apparently it's the national dish of Bahrain and is a spiced chicken and rice dish with a blend of Arabic spices. It's similar to an Indian biriyani.



I found many recipes for this which were all slightly different and ended up choosing different elements of each; for instance my boyfriend doesn't eat chicken thighs or legs so I used breast; I didn't have any of the specific spice blend so mixed together what I had that went into it, and I have to admit making a big change that probably changed this dish quite a lot - rather than cooking the rice together with the chicken I used microwavable rice and added it afterwards. That is probably sacrilege but I didn't have much time (not getting home from work until 7pm and that's if the trains are running on time, which usually they are not) and I am hopeless at cooking rice from scratch!



So the recipe I used, pieced together from various others, was:

to serve 2:

1 onion, chopped

1 glove garlic, crushed

2 chicken breasts, diced

1/2 tsp black peppercorns

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground coriander

1/4 tsp ground cardamom

1/2 tsp paprika

1/2 tsp turmeric

squeeze of lemon juice

1 tbsp. oil

200ml chicken stock

200g tinned tomatoes



Fry the chopped onion and garlic in the oil in a large pan then add the spices.



Add the chicken and fry until cooked through.



Add the tomatoes, stock and lemon juice and cook until the sauce has reduced by half.



Serve with rice

I'm sending this to Formula 1 Foods, the blog challenge I host - you've still got a few days to add any Bahrain or Formula 1 inspired recipes!

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Movie Night: Chocolate Marshmallow Popcorn and a Beer Glass Review

Last April I bought my boyfriend a popcorn maker for his birthday and a recipe book, as he loves popcorn and I thought it would be fun to add some more interesting flavours – even though I knew I would be the one using the recipe book! That was right around the time we were preparing to move house so the popcorn maker ended up being packed – and then our house purchase was delayed, and stuff ended up in a storage unit. When we finally moved at the very end of August, the rest of the year was taken up with decorating and getting the house how we wanted it. So it was only very recently that the popcorn maker saw the light of day.

I’d bought a bag of ‘raw’ popcorn and was amazed at the tiny amount we needed to put into the popcorn maker to make a massive bowlful of popcorn. I know you can make popcorn in a saucepan but this machine was far more fun, and very quick. You do need a big bowl underneath to catch the popcorn as it comes shooting out!

I did have a look through the recipe book but as it was quite last-minute, I didn’t have a lot of the ingredients to hand and some of the recipes involved making the popcorn, covering it with toppings and then baking it in the oven, which I didn’t want to do as we wanted popcorn right away! So instead I threw together a couple of things and decided to share this in a post as it really did taste wonderful.

I simply made a chocolate sauce, by melting chocolate and butter and adding a little golden syrup, and stirring it through the popcorn along with some mini marshmallows. The chocolate cools quite quickly, so while you might get a little messy eating this, it’s not that bad. Popcorn is pretty healthy and you don’t need to add much chocolate or marshmallow to feel like you have a really indulgent snack.

The perfect accompaniment for your bowl of popcorn and a movie is a tall glass of your favourite tipple, whether it’s beer or a soft drink. I was recently sent a selection of products to review by Flamingo Gifts, a website that offers unique gifts for all occasions, ranging from funny novelty items to leading brands like Bombay Duck, Ted Baker, Orla Kierly and Sass and Belle. They also have a large range of Lolita glasses, which I’ve loved ever since I was given a martini glass for a birthday present several years ago. These glasses are beautifully decorated, all hand designed and painted in varying themes. They come in gift boxes and really do make wonderful gifts. Flamingo sent me this movie-night themed beer glass, which is large enough to hold a pint and the designs on the side make it feel very special – perfect for the man in your life to use on movie night. Just don’t forget the popcorn!

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Mini Egg Chocolate Brownies

Cadbury's Mini Eggs are very popular in my house and the fact that they are only available around Easter makes them extra special! I bought a couple of packets and wanted to use them in baking - then my boyfriend ate them, so I bought some more - then he ate those, so I bought some more! Eventually I got around to choosing a recipe and for me there was one clear winner - Mini Egg chocolate brownies.



You can add Mini Eggs to any chocolate brownie recipe; I used Nigella's everyday brownies recipe which you can find here.

In retrospect what I should have done is saved some of the mini eggs and added them on top of the part-baked brownie five minutes before the end; this would have ensured there were some to decorate the top as they all sank in! You can see the mini eggs inside the brownies though.

I am sending these to Alphabakes, the blog challenge I co-host with Ros of The More Than Occasional Baker; the letter I have chosen this month is B.

I am also sending these to Simply Eggcellent, hosted by Dom at Belleau Kitchen, as his theme this month is chocolate.

The theme for Tea Time Treats, hosted by Karen at Lavender and Lovage and Jane at The Hedgecombers, is also chocolate.

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Restaurant Review: Kipferl, Islington

There’s a little street in Islington called Camden Passage which has lots of lovely little cafes and shops, and sometimes a market selling everything from antiques to jewellery. I spent a work day with an agency we use not far from there and my colleague and I decided to go out for a quick lunch somewhere a bit different to what’s on offer near our usual base in the City. He spotted Kipferl, a Viennese café, and as we have both been to Vienna we were keen to try it.

Kipferl started out as a delicatessen, run by Austrian Christian Malnig, and has expanded to two full cafes (the other one in Kensington). It prides itself on being a proper Viennese coffeehouse, where you can sit with a coffee and read the newspaper for hours without being hassled to buy anything else. The man at the next table was working on his laptop (and eating lunch) but I overheard him say he pretty much rented that table to work at!

As well as proper Austrian cakes like Sachertorte there are both small and large dishes suitable for lunch and dinner (they also do breakfast). I was tempted by a Wienerschnitzel but decided I wanted a smaller dish at lunch, though still something Austrian. I chose the sausage and sauerkraut, which offered a choice of sausages – a pair of Wieners or Debreziners, or one cheese-stuffed Kaesekrainer, which sounded delicious – and it was. The sauerkraut was perfect – probably an acquired taste but having lived in Germany in my teens and 20s I love the taste of the pickled cabbage. It also came with some rye bread, which unfortunately I found very dry (I know it’s supposed to be but I’ve had much better), plus little pots of mustard and freshly grated horseradish, and some pickles. I’ve never had fresh horseradish, though I love horseradish sauce; on it’s own it is a bit strange and I wasn’t quite sure what I was supposed to do with it – sprinkle it on the sausage, or eat it by itself?

My colleague had a similar dish but with the two Wiener sausages and salad instead of sauerkraut; they were each priced around £6-£7 and made a pretty filling lunch.

If you’re looking for something a bit different to the usual sandwich and want a friendly, relaxed café where you can while away the afternoon (though in our case we went straight back to work) then you could do far wurst.

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Restaurant Review: Drake Manor Inn, Buckland Monachorum, Devon

Several years ago one of my closest friends moved to a tiny village in Devon - and I mean tiny. it doesn't have a single shop, but what it does have is a pub.



The Drake Manor Inn is the centre of the community; my friend worked there for a while and even got to know her husband there. 'The pub' as everyone calls it (it almost doesn't need a name) hosts the village New Year's Eve party, serves as the venue for community meetings (like the local cider makers club) , sells pints of milk as there is nowhere else nearby to get one if you've run out and even offers accommodation ( one room above the pub).



An English folk singer who I won't name as I don't think he'd appreciate it grew up there and his parents still live there, and he has been known to give impromptu performances in the pub.



I'd been to the pub a few times when visiting my friend and remembered the very low ceilings and the outdoor toilet (men's - thankfully the ladies is inside) but had never eaten there. This time I was visiting my friend and her new baby during the day so said I would treat us to lunch and she suggested the pub. I later found out that was the fourth time that week she had eaten lunch there!



I was impressed by the breadth of the menu and the sound of dishes like chicken with a spice rub; not as run of the mill as I had expected. In fact the pub prides itself on its food. I was going to have a baguette or the plough mans until my friend recommended the vegetarian lasagne - butternut squash, spinach and goats cheese. It came in a round dish piping hot from the oven on a plate with salad and garlic bread. The lasagne - homemade of course - was delicious. My friend had the same thing while my boyfriend, the world's most un adventurous eater, had a cheese burger. He had been expecting something snack sized as it was under the 'pub bites' section of the menu and only cost about £6 or £7, whereas the main meals part of the menu had a more expensive pulled pork burger. But his meal was huge!



The meal for three plus soft drinks came to £32- excellent value for money as we weren't even hungry by dinner time (though my mum, who we then went on to visit, cooked us dinner anyway).



If you remember to duck when you stand up, and can find somewhere to park, this is a great place to stop for lunch or go for a drink - it's the sort of place where everyone knows everyone else, but rather than strangers being eyed with suspicion, they are greeted, asked where they are from and drawn into the conversation. And you may be surprised at who you end up talking to - what were the chances that the man at the bar (who my friend knew as Geoff from down the road) was the now-retired West Country correspondent for - my former employer, the Daily Telegraph?

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