Old El Paso Restaurante Kit - Chicken Tinga

I don't often buy 'dinner kits', preferring to make things from scratch - or if I'm in a hurry just put on a pan of pasta. But  kits can be almost the same as cooking from scratch, and most importantly they save hunting around for ingredients and realising you don't have the right spices, which happens to me a lot!
I was sent two kits from Old El Paso - chicken tinga and Baja fish - and I tried the chicken one this week. They also make steak and pork kits in this range.

According to the company, "the origin of Chicken Tinga or “Tinga de Pollo” is most often attributed to the Puebla region of Mexico. Today, however, it is a popular street food throughout Mexico, especially during celebrations. The Tinga flavour is made with a mouth-watering blend of tomatoes, onions, garlic and smoked and dried jalapeños peppers known as chipotle chilies that give it a slight smoky taste."

Inside the box you get a packet of small flour tortillas, a sachet of chicken seasoning and another of chipotle sauce. It doesn't include the chicken, which means you can keep this box in the cupboard for when you run out of ideas for how to jazz up a chicken breast!

Following the packet instructions I mixed the chicken seasoning with water and cooked two chicken breasts in the liquid in a pan, until the chicken was soft enough to shred. I removed the chicken from the pan, shredded it and returned it to the pan, where the chicken soaked up a lot of the liquid.

I gently heated the tortillas in the microwave, then used some of the chipotle sauce to spread on each tortilla and filled it with chicken. The packet recommends you add onion and avocado but we don't like avocado and my fiancé doesn't like onion if it's big pieces so I left it out - instead I topped the tortillas with a little sour cream and a tiny bit of cheese for him. Fold and eat - it's as simple as that!


The tacos were delicious -a really good blend of spices. I served them with potato wedges and think this is definitely something I will be doing again!
Thanks to Old El Paso for the meal kits to review.

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Jus-Rol Pastry: Chicken, Squash and Sage Pithivier

Jus-Rol have been making pastry in Berwick-upon-Tweed for over 60 years and they have just launched a new campaign, Jus Create, to showcase what you can do with pastry.

I would think most people have used Jus-Rol at some point to at least make an apple tart, a chicken pie or puff pastry straws. But there are so many more things you can make, some of which I learnt recently at a demonstration evening.

I was invited by Jus-Rol, who have teamed up with Great British Chefs, to an evening at the Atelier des Chefs cookery school in London. Professional chefs Mark Dodson and Sally Abe, who have both got impressive credentials and many years of experience, had devised four recipes, including the chicken, squash and sage pithivier.

 

We watched a demonstration of the pithivier and of a chocolate and peanut butter ganache tart; you can see the recipe for the tart here. We were divided into two groups and made one recipe each; I made the pithivier but I did get to taste the chocolate tart as well and it was amazing! Really easy to make and a great recipe to end a dinner party with.

I'd never heard of a pithivier before; it's a French pie made with flaky puff pastry, but instead of having a deep dish base and a flat top as many pies have, this one has a flat base and a domed top. Did you know puff pastry was invented in the 17th century?

You can see the recipe for the one we made here.

It's a real crowdpleaser, and you can make them small or large - we watched Sally make a large one then made small ones ourselves. Most of the prep can be done before your guests arrive so you just pop it in the oven while you are chatting and mingling. That's my kind of dinner party!

 

I also picked up lots of useful tips, such as: take pastry out of the fridge 20-30 minutes before using. You want it to be chilled, but not too cold.

When lining a tin with pastry, let the pastry overhang the sides and bake it like that as pastry will often sink. Then trim off the excess afterwards, with a serrated knife.

This is where we came to make our own...

They were quite small so it was hard to get much filling on the base. It helped that I don't like mushrooms so picked them all out!

I also learnt - afterwards - that when scoring pastry you should hold the knife at an angle. If you hold it vertically like I did here, the cuts won't really show up after baking.

Egg wash is always important for a golden shell.

Here's one of the large pithiviers cut in half. It was lovely!

 

 

Thanks to Jus-Rol for inviting me to the event.

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Restaurant Review: Bourgee, Southend-on-Sea

Having played mini golf, eaten ice cream and decorated the bride-to-be with a sash, veil, fairy wand and balloons, the hen night was ready to go out for dinner. The bridesmaids had chosen Bourgee, an upmarket steak and lobster restaurant. I did wonder what they or the other customers would think as we entered with our helium balloons but we were very well behaved and the staff were very pleasant (though I didn’t really notice the reaction of the other guests!).

 

The head chef has worked at a Michelin starred restaurant before and you could tell from the menu – which did make us giggle. Side orders were called “accessories” and an amuse-bouche to be had between courses was called “intercourse”.

 

I was very intrigued by a starter described as “crispy duck, teriyaki toothpaste, pickled turnip, sweet stem ginger” and wondered aloud whether the toothpaste would actually come in a tube; it did indeed! I’m not sure whether this is innovative, pretentious or somewhere in between.

 

I had the baked Cambozola with champagne quenched sultanas and toasted baguette which was delicious – I’ve never had cambozola before but it’s a lot like camembert and the dish was really good. I decided it was pretentious rather than innovative though, at least in terms of the language used – I don’t quite know how sultanas can be quenched as they aren’t thirsty… shouldn’t they be ‘drenched’?

 
 

For my main course I had the lobster, which was prepared so all I had to do was pull out the flesh with a fork. It came with garlic butter and a choice of sides so I had garlic mash which was lovely, though there really wasn’t enough of it. Lobster is one of those things that you should never eat if you are really hungry!

 

 

Everyone else was having dessert so I gave in and did the same, and ordered the mini chocolate doughnuts, which came in a little paper bag with a smear of caramel to dip them in and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. The doughnuts themselves didn’t have a strong chocolate flavour and I think they needed more sauce to dip them in, but other than that they were pretty good.

 

 

The bill came to £60 a head which seemed a lot but for three courses and wine it wasn’t bad. The food was good and the staff very helpful – not as pretentious as the language on the menu! Everyone seemed very happy with their meal in particular the bride to be, which was the most important thing!

 

 

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Meal Planning Monday Week 42

The protein shakes seem to be having a good effect until I had two day off last week to make a wedding cake then went to the wedding on Saturday! Still I will get back on it on Monday. I will have to work late one night this week and probably not be home in time for dinner but I don't know which night it will be yet. I'm guessing Monday but could be wrong, which would then throw my meal plan out of whack slightly!

Monday – working late
 

Tues – Old El Paso chicken tacos (on the meal plan from last week but didn't have them)

Weds- stir fry (from freezer bag) for me, sausage and chips for him
 

Thurs – NB out to lunch. Dinner: inviting my future mother in law over. Will cook: baked cod with tomato sauce for us, chicken as the alternative for my other half who doesn't eat fish (my mother in law doesn't eat meat so I was always going to have to cook two different things!).
 

Fri- day off to meet with our wedding venue and suppliers
 

Sat – Lunch: don't know whether we will still be away in Wiltshire seeing suppliers or not as I'm still trying to make arrangments. Either way we should be home in time for dinner
Dinner: Lamb steaks and roast potatoes for me, steak for him
 

Sun- Lunch: bacon sandwich for him, Quorn or Slimming World sausage sandwich for me
Dinner: homemade fish pie for me, chicken pie for him

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Russian Honey Cake

I almost didn't make anything for this round of Formula 1 Foods as I have made Russian recipes before partly as I went through a period of really liking Russian dolls. I spent two days this week making a wedding cake and was at the wedding on Saturday and today have been a bit tired (and possibly hung over...) but mid-afternoon decided I couldn't miss my own challenge and that I would make something after all.

I found this recipe for Russian honey cake online. It involves several thin layers of cake, which is made from a dough rather than a traditional cake batter, and layered with icing in between. I didn't have any sour cream so used Greek yogurt that was flavoured with honey so it's a twist on a Russian honey cake rather than the real thing. Also, mine looks a lot less neat than the one in the picture! At least, from the outside -when it's sliced I think it looks quite good.

I followed this recipe on Beets and Bones.com so I won't reproduce it in full here. It tasted more like a dough or even pastry than cake and was slightly chewy but in a good way and the honey flavour definitely comes through.

The ingredients for the honey dough:

Bringing the dough together
 

Baking each piece in a roughly circular shape

Stacking the trimmed layer

With the frosting in between and around the sides, it looks quite messy at this stage!

Sprinkling the crumbs over the top

A layer showing the much neater inside!

I'm sharing this with Formula 1 Foods in honour of today's Grand Prix which took place in Russia. Who actually won? I've been too busy catching up on things I needed to do around the house as I was away last weekend and for half of this weekend so haven't been near a TV!

I'm also sharing this with Love Cake, where the bake must be made in less than an hour. Each layer of this only takes a few minutes in the oven and it's a cinch to decorate.

 

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Russian Honey Cake

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Homemade Wedding: Save the Date Cards

Regular readers of my blog know that I enjoy papercrafts and card making – and that I’m getting married next year.

 

 

 

One well meaning (future) family member took me aside soon after I got engaged and asked whether I was thinking of making all the invitations by hand, and kindly recommended that for my own sanity that I didn’t…. I have a few friends who have done this, and the resulting invitations look beautiful with an extra meaning knowing the effort that was taken in making them. But I’ve also heard stories of sitting up through the night cutting and gluing, and a production line mentality taking over as the wedding date nears…

 

With a full time job, long commute (about an hour and a half each way), blog to write, cat and future husband to take care of, oh and having a social life occasionally, I really didn’t think I would have time to do that. Much as I love the idea of making my own invitations, I think I would make half a dozen, then the novelty would wear off, I would get frustrated at the repetition and start to take less care over each one…. And I didn’t want to risk that.

 

On the other hand, I really did want to make some parts of my wedding myself. I’d love to make my own wedding cake but don’t think it’s a good idea (apparently it’s bad luck too) – there would be so much to do at the last minute, and I expect I will have other things to do the day before my wedding rather than be up to my elbows in icing. Also, as I will plan every inch of the day, it would be nice to have a surprise – where I don’t know exactly what something will look like until I see it. I have decided what I want to do about the cake, but haven’t started putting the wheels in motion yet as there have been more pressing things to do.

 

We decided not to spend money on printing and posting save the date cards –by the time we were ready to do this, we’d told all our family and several of our friends when and where we were getting married, so it seemed like a waste of cash. Instead, we designed a card on the computer which we sent by email as a PDF.

 

I knew I would get at least one raised eyebrow at not doing it ‘properly’  so to circumvent that, and to indulge myself a little bit with doing some crafts, I made a few save the date cards by hand.

 

I’m proud to say that my last name when I’m married will be Cowe – I think with my first name it sounds quite fun. There was never any doubt that we would have a subtle cow theme for the wedding – I did say subtle! – as the day will be mainly outdoors, with a relaxed, almost summer fete vibe. The venue is somewhere that is known for two annual music festivals (though I’ve never been) so we took to calling our wedding “cowefest” and it kind of stuck!

 

 

While I do want proper, more formal invitations printed on thick card, I thought I could have a bit of fun with the save the dates and make them more informal. So I started with a card blank which I cut in half to make a postcard rather than a greetings card you can open, and covered one side with cow print paper – which I’d bought a small pack of a long time ago!

 

I bought a ‘save the date’ stamp on ebay for a few pounds (which I plan to sell again now I’m done with it) and stamped that onto a piece of yellow card. I think pale yellow is about the only colour that really works with cow print!
 

 

I also bought a date stamp that looks like the ones from my school library, but as well as the date it has an option to choose a sentiment from the wheel. There wasn’t a ‘save the date’ so I went with ‘best day ever’, as I hope it will be! I also selected the date we are getting married and stamped that onto another piece of yellow card.

 

The only information we wanted to include at this stage was the date and location of our wedding (as a lot of our friends and my in-laws are based around London, we wanted to give them a heads up that it would be a Wiltshire wedding, and if people wanted to book accommodation this far in advance, they could). I did the wording on the computer and cut out the text to stick on the card along with a section saying ‘invitation to follow’ so people would know this wasn’t the proper invite.

 

Finally I wanted to add something else cow related. I had a bag of little resin cow heads I’d bought on Ebay some time ago; they were designed to be card toppers I guess. I stuck two onto a square of yellow card with a pink satin heart above their heads to represent me and my future husband, the Cowes.

It looks a bit silly and very homemade but that was the idea!
 

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