Dragon Noodles - Cheat's Phad Thai

Hello

Sorry, I know it has been a while again, safe to say we are starting to feel very settled in our new Australian lives and slowly, now that the house and the job are sorted, I am starting to have the time to blog again.

This recipe is one which I found on the amazing Budget Bytes website and which I have tweaked slightly for ease of finding the ingredients in Australia, this really is a fantastic veggie recipe though for quick and easy noodles which are very tasty indeed and evoke the spirit of a quick and dirty phad thai. I cook this all the time now, it is our go-to Saturday lunch and I can knock it out in around 15 minutes so it has quickly become a favourite in our house.

Basically you need:

1 200g pack of dry rice noodles (I use Erawan brand in Aus, you could use ready cooked to save further time, this serves 2 so buy enough for that)
3/4 spring onions
1tblsp soy sauce
1 tbslp sugar (I use soft brown)
1 tbslp hot sauce (I use the standard chilli sauce sold here but the original recipe uses Sriracha which I cannot find)
1 egg - beaten
Chilli flakes
a splash of oil
Chopped coriander 
Half a fresh lime
Chopped nuts

And what you do is: cook the noodles for the necessary 6/7 minutes and while they are boiling mix the sugar, hot sauce and soy sauce together into a sauce (I always dip a finger and adjust to taste, usually adding a further small amount of sugar or soy), put this to one side and chop your spring onions and coriander ready for use later. 

By now your noodles should be done so drain them and heat your wok or a large pan with a splash of oil (orig recipe uses butter but I am trying to lessen the calories a little), add your chilli flakes and heat until the oil is hot then drop in your beaten egg and LEAVE IT ALONE for about 30 seconds. At this stage you should give it a stir to break it up into nice chunks.

Turn the heat down and chuck in your noodles and then immediately add the sauce and stir it all together until the noodles are coated. Whack in the spring onions and coriander, give it another stir and bob's your uncle. Very tasty noodles.

I then add a bit of lime juice and also some chopped nuts if I have them (I didn't in the below pictures but it further enhances the phad thai feel).

In the wok at the end of cooking....

Bowl of tasty noodles!

In terms of health, each portion, based on the above ingredients, is around 460 calories and 3.7g of sat fat (11.5g overall), 88.7g of carbs (as calculated by Myfitnesspal).

Vegetable (or Quorn) Tandoori Masala

G'day all

I know it has been a while - I have been in the process of emigrating to Adelaide and it has therefore been rather a manic time...but things are starting to settle down and I have every intention of maintaining this blog as a place to find great, tasty vegetarian recipes.

I have to say there is a much more limited range of Quorn available in Australia (I am finding so far) and also that it is VERY expensive. Around $6 (£4) for a standard bag of frozen pieces or mince - I have yet to find any of the chilled ranges either.

We were aware from previous visits that finding decent Indian food - at least UK style Indian which is fabulous - is very difficult indeed. We have never on any of our trips found a curry house worth mentioning and in general the curries we have tried have been bland, watery and weird or dry and sauce less (much like Indian food in India but not the UK variant we are used to and love). It makes you realise how blessed the UK is with a fabulous British Asian identity and cuisine.

So - anyway - after two more disappointing curries in the last week I decided that enough was enough and ad libbed this Tandoori Masala from what I know of cooking curries - I did it with loads of veggies I needed to use up but it would work equally well with a bag of Quorn pieces (just chuck them in frozen) although I would also add veggies to the quorn version for a bit of texture.

We really enjoyed this and it scratched the curry itch we had so here is the recipe:

2 onions

3 cloves garlic

1 long red chilli or a couple of short ones

5 tblsp Pataks Tandoori paste (or other brand)

1 tin coconut milk

400g passata

Then I added:

1 large sweet potato cubed

1 yellow pepper cubed

2 small courgettes sliced

2 large field mushrooms chopped

Handful of chopped fresh coriander.

or you could add a bag of quorn pieces and some of the above veg to suit - just use up what you have to hand.

Method:

Chop the onions and stick them in a tbsp of oil on a low heat to sweat down while you finely chop the chilli and the garlic. I left the seeds in as we like it medium/hot but remove the seeds if you want it milder. Chuck in the garlic and chilli and sweat it all down until softened and fragrant.

Add the curry paste - amount is approximate, I used about a third of a jar. It should be sizzling away, stir it around the onions etc into a thick paste. Let it sizzle for a few minutes until you can smells the spices out of the paste.

Add the passata and give it a good stir, let it come back up to a simmer then add the coconut milk a little at a time (I did it in thirds) stirring in completely each time and bringing back up to simmer (doing it this way makes the sauce a very even colour). Add a can full of water and repeat.

Now if you are using any harder veg which require longer cooking add them now (sweet potatoes for me) and bring back up to a simmer, leave for ten minutes simmering then add everything else, give it a good stir and simmer for 20-30 mins until your veg is tender (or your quorn is cooked through).

Keep tasting it - does it need more chilli? A pinch of any salt?

Right before you serve it stir through the chopped coriander and there you have it!

Easy, tasty, UK style curry. Enjoy!

Quorn Slow Cooker Beef Madras

Hello all

It has been a while, I do apologise - we are caught up in preparing to emigrate and all the chaos that goes with it. I have not forgotten my pledge to continue blogging quorn versions of classic meals though and this one, I am proud to say, is entirely my own creation!

I wanted to make a slow cooker curry, having not done so before, and I had made a beef one with some cheap and cheerful stewing steak a couple of weeks before with moderate success. I knew, however, that a) it was nowhere near hot enough for my husband and b) it would need to be tweaked as no actual 'browning' would need to go on.

I am pleased to say that having balanced the spices (the slow cooker tends to cook the heat out of chilli so I had to allow for this) and changed the method somewhat, this version actually made a very nice, hot curry - I used steak strips for my beef but you could happily turn this into a 'chicken' version using the pieces or even fillets cut into chunks. I have noticed quorn have started selling lamb strips too - so maybe give that a go!

Anyway, this is what it looked like served up over some basmati rice:

You can see that the sauce is pretty thick - which is exactly how we like our curry, but you could aim for a thinner curry by adding extra water at the relevant point.

So, this is my recipe for a beef madras, Quorn style....

Makes 5/6 portions

2 medium onions
4 garlic cloves
square inch of fresh ginger, peeled
3 fresh chillies (whole)
4tsp ground cumin
4tsp ground coriander
2tsp ground turmeric
1tsp hot chilli powder
2tsp garam masala
2 cans of chopped tomatoes

fresh plain yoghurt and fresh coriander to taste

Method:

1) In a blender blitz the onions, garlic, ginger and chillies into a paste, you want it finely chopped and you leave the seeds in the chilli for a madras level strength (tweak accordingly if you do not want so much heat).

2) Heat a frying pan until very hot and then add the paste and cook it for a few minutes until the paste smells very fragrant and is sizzling.

3) Add the cumin, ground coriander and turmeric and stir into the paste for a minute or so until you have a dryish mixture which smells amazing.

4) Tip your bag of quorn pieces/steak strips into the slow cooker and add the onion mixture, tomatoes and half a can of water (or a full can if you want a thinner sauce),the chilli powder and then mix well. Switch on to low and leave for 8 hours or put on high for 4/5 hours.

5) Stir at intervals whenever you get the chance throughout the day.

6) 30 minutes before you are ready to serve, add the garam masala and a dolllop of fresh yoghurt, stir, taste and get it to the heat/taste you want.

7) Just as you serve stir through a handful of chopped coriander.

And there you have it!

Enjoy! 

Slow Cooker Quorn Sausage Casserole

Hello all

It's been a while I know - sorry about that, we have had a lot going on - not least of all organising and preparing to emigrate in March next year and lots of things associated with that. 

Anyway, I have a number of recipes ready to go on here and now I just need to get round to posting them. Those that I post now will be my own take on various recipes, usually using quorn or other veggie products. I love to create veggie versions of traditional dishes and proving that they can be equally tasty and I promise I will get back on the horse and start posting again!

So, as the days are getting shorter and the nights are closing in I have been using my slow cooker - A LOT!! I love being able to bang stuff in there in a morning, leave for work and come home to a fantastic, aromatic dish all ready to serve. I use my slow cooker for meat stews quite often and decided to wing it with a quorn sausage casserole, it turned out brilliantly and therefore I share it with you here.

The beauty of this recipe is also that you can ad-lib with whatever you have to hand, I used mushrooms, sweet potato, onions and some borlotti beans but you can use whatever veg and/or pulses you have to hand to bulk it out. This is a wonderfully hearty dish and makes 4 large, filling portions.

I used a packet sausage casserole mix but completely ignored all the instructions etc and just used it as a shortcut to a casserole base. You could also stick this all in a standard casserole dish for around 60 mins on about 180 degrees (for a fan oven) and achieve the same result.

Here goes:

In your slow cooker place two chopped onions, your quorn sausages, whatever veg you fancy (I used mushrooms and a large sweet potato), a tin of beans/chick peas (I used borlotti) and a tin of chopped tomatoes.

Fill the empty tomato tin with boiled water out the kettle and then stir the sausage casserole mix into this and sling it in the slow cooker, half fill the tin again and chuck that in too.

Add either a stock cube or stock pot in and stir everything together thoroughly (I used a knorr veg stock pot).

Switch the slow cooker to low for 8 hours or high for 4 hours and leave.

About an hour before you want to eat your casserole you can add some veggie dumplings by mixing 50g atora veg suet with 100g self raising flour and binding with 5-6 tbsp of cold water. Make a soft dough and split into 8 pieces then roll each piece into a ball and sit on top of your casserole. My husband is always starving (he runs a lot) and hence you will notice from the photo below that there are more than 8 dumplings - I do one and a half times the dumpling recipe to make it 3 dumplings per portion and try to fill his hollow legs. The propoints values below are based on this so if you only make 8 dumplings you can knock a point or 2 off the total (I haven't calculated it so this is a guesstimate).

Casserole with dumplings in towards the end of cooking (I promise that is not a deliberate placement of the Quorn cookbook, that's just where it lives!).

A hearty portion of casserole.

And there you have it! No added fat in this dish at all (aside from the suet in the dumplings) and it tastes amazing! I serve it either on its own as it is incredibly filling but my other half mops up the tasty juice with crusty bread. This recipe makes 4 substantial portions.

On it's own the weight watchers propoints value of each portion of this casserole is 14 (so a sufficient meal anyway!) broken down as follows: quorn sausages (4), beans (2), sweet potato (2), suet (2), flour (2), stock pot (1), casserole mix (1).

Quorn Thai Noodles

70/70


Well, this is the end of an era for me - the final recipe from the Quorn book and the end of this project (but not the end of the blog, worry not!).


It has taken me a while to do these last few because they were all salad-esque recipes and in the UK our summer has taken forever to arrive this year. However, this last few days have been glorious and this week I finally made Quorn Thai Noodles which is a light meal, perfect for warm weather.


There is no online recipe for this at the Quorn site but it is a very simple one and I will detail it here.


Basically you use quorn fillets for this and all you need to do with them is defrost them and saute them until browned and cooked through, then slice them diagonally into large chunks and put to one side. Your dressing is made by mixing the juice and zest of one lime, 2 teaspoons of soy sauce, 2 teaspoons of sweet chilli sauce, two chopped garlic cloves and a tblsp of oil (I used peanut). Tip this dressing over the chopped quorn chunks and leave to marinade for as long as you like.


The key with this recipe is to prep everything so it is to hand, this way it is very quick to cook, so chop one carrot and one pepper into thin slices, one small bunch of fresh coriander roughly and 4 spring onions finely. Cook 60g fine rice noodles and then drain and put to one side along with a good handful of bean sprouts. Now you are ready to assemble the dish! 


In a wok heat a tblsp of oil and fry off the noodles and chopped veg/beansprouts for a few minutes before throwing in the quorn pieces and marinade plus the spring onions and coriander, this is what it looks like while cooking:

You then literally warm it through and its done. The book advises to serve this at room temperature but I served it straight from the wok, here it is served:

Presentation wise I wish I had used a red pepper instead of an orange one as the overall look is quite orange and the contrast would be better but taste wise this was very nice indeed.


We did find it quite dry as there is very little marinade as you can probably see, the strongest flavours were the lime juice and the coriander but that did mean that the dish tasted quintessentially Thai.


This is quite a nice light supper dish and I probably would make it again, I would be tempted to beef up the marinade with more sweet chilli and soy sauces next time but it would be very easy to tweak.


In terms of propoints, although the recipe states this makes 4 portions, I made it make 3 as we had it for a main meal rather than as a lunch or light portion, based on it serving three therefore each portion works out at 7 points which is a bit of a bargain! It breaks down like this quorn (2), noodles (3), oil (2).


I quite liked this recipe and will do something similar in the future I am sure. I would give this a 7/10.


And that, folks, is all of the recipes from the Quorn book done!


I will blog soon with a round up of the experiment and my intention is to carry this blog on with more recipes (quorn and other) proving that veggie food can be fab!


Thanks for sharing this journey with me! x

Quorn Beef Empanadas

69/70

Ok, so Beef Empanadas then - I cannot find an online version of this recipe so will be explaining it with a bit more detail than normal. I knew this might not be one of our favourites as we are not too keen on shortcrust pastry in our household and that is probably why it got left so close to the end.

In terms of how they looked I was pretty impressed, this is the picture of the filling when ready to use:

And this is the finished empanadas:

Now, I must admit I cheated and bought ready-made pastry because I just did not fancy the hassle of making my own for a recipe I was not that keen on. It also made the whole thing a lot quicker and easier. The recipe calls for eight 6" circles of pastry to be cut out ready to make the pasty like empanadas.

Basically the filling is fried off steak strips, garlic, onion and peppers with some red wine, chilli and paprika. Quite a tasty filling. You then spoon a small amount into the centre of each circle of pastry, top with a small amount of grated cheese (the recipe asks for emmental but I used mature cheddar) and fold the pastry over into a semi circle before sealing and glazing with egg wash.

The empanadas take 20-25 minutes to bake in the oven and then they are ready to serve. I served them with potato wedges and it all looked a bit beige as you can see!

This recipe is labelled as a light bites/snack so I guess the implication is you would only eat one. I had one and found it quite substantial anyway due to the heaviness of the pastry. I would certainly not want to eat two. I also found it overwhelmingly salty - but I think this may be my use of mature cheddar instead of emmental cheese. I did not overly enjoy it to be honest.

And then there is the propoints. Of course the minute you wrap something in pastry the values shoot through the roof. Each empanada will cost you 11 propoints! This is because the pastry alone is 8 - the breakdown is as follows: pastry (8), quorn (1), cheese (1), oil (1). This is based on around a tbslp of oil to saute everything in and a very small amount of cheese in each empanada.

So pretty high values for a dish I was not overly keen on - but if you like pastry and these kinds of foods then it might be your bag! Personally I gave it a 5/10 and I don't think I would make it again but it is a new way to use quorn so fairplay to them for that.

Spicy Coconut & Quorn Noodle Soup

68/70

Over the Easter weekend I did two of the final three recipes in the book, this is one of them: Spicy Coconut Noodle Soup.

It is another Thai inspired soup, using curry paste and coconut milk as the base but it is surprisingly quick and easy to sling together and quite tasty and filling too. I had no shitake mushrooms and used chestnut instead of button for the fresh but it was fine.

Here are some pictures of the dish served:

Please note that the recipe in the link above is double the quantities of that in the book - my version served 4 good portions and was half of all the quantities of ingredients.

Very easy to make, first you set the dried mushrooms to soak (I had picked up a big bag of mixed dried Asian mushrooms from Aldi the other week for a quid so this was great timing!). Then you literally fry off the paste in a big pan, add the coconut milk, water from the mushrooms and quorn pieces and simmer for five minutes then add all the other ingredients in two batches (mushrooms then everything else) simmer for another few minutes and Bob's your uncle!

As it contains noodles this is quite a filling soup and would actually make a great light meal on its own. I did find it rather hard to serve because the soup base itself is very watery but the noodles mean it drips a lot and hangs in clumps - the easiest way to get it from pan to bowl was with a spaghetti server and then a ladle!

Based on this serving 4, each portion totalled 10 propoints which seems quite high but then the noodles, coconut milk and paste all have values which needed adding in, this is broken down as follows: noodles (5), quorn (1), light coconut milk (3), paste (1).

I did find this quite tasty but I am not sure I would make it again in a hurry as it sits uneasily between a full meal and a soup to me and also it is SO hard to serve without making a mess! Nevertheless we gave this a 7/10.