EAT AN ODDITY

Recipe: Egg Tomatoni

Time taken: ¾ of an hour

Ingredients: Eggs, cherry tomatoes, Quorn pepperoni slices & mayo

Hi readers,

It’s our last day of 2014! As I write we’re literally on the cusp of a New Year. It’s terrifying! Can you believe it’s been 15 years since we were celebrating the Millenium?? That was 15 years ago! My mind BOGGLES. I strongly recommend just pouring a drink later and trying really hard not to think about the big picture. That’s what I’ll be doing!

And I’ll be pouring a drink… in Newcastle! That’s right… after some stressful travel yesterday I left Sheffield’s snow behind and made it back up north for NYE in The Toon! To celebrate Geordie-style!

Aaaaaand I’m back in the proper ChefBeHere kitchen! Hurray! I’m back to having my own cupboard and using our beat up student kitchenware. And, after some hefty deliveries from Asda and Holland & Barrett, the house is full of food! Whey! In a student house, there is no greater joy.

And I’m back to having my freedom with food! In one way this is because when you’re a student at home, a lot of the time I guess you get looked after and fed up, and generally catered for by mum and dad. For a very brief while you have VIP status in the house and this tends to bring with it, at least in my home, some proper home cooked grub! So you relinquish your freedom over what you eat, and in turn you play no part in the preparation of any meals. It’s lush.

ALSO though, I think everyone has less freedom with food at Christmas. You’re dealing with buffets and restaurants meals throughout the festive season. A cheese board here and there. Some roasted chestnuts. Constant ‘nibbles’. On the big day, obviously, you’re eating a full roast. There’s usually some kind of pudding/fruit cake/gateaux/cheesecake/trifle (maybe all of them) involved. Then you’re eating turkey sandwiches for far too long in the Christmas aftermath. All those chocolates that were under the tree? You’re opening boxes left, right and centre. It’s never ending!

Half the time, I think, there’s a voice in your head that’s like “I JUST WANT AN APPLE… ONE APPLE”. Or, you know, something of the kind. When there’s a constant stream of rich foods and booze on offer it seems silly, but if I could have chosen my food this Christmas I think I’d have picked something much smaller and simpler a lot of the time!  

Now though, on December 31^st, we’re pretty much at the end of it all. And there’s a light at the end of the tunnel! Sure, you might have one more buffet to tackle tonight. Maybe the leftovers tomorrow. But then… you can eat ANYTHING. You’ve got your freedom back. And I encourage you not to be boring. You have power: go crazy! Literally, eat any weird shit you like. Throw things together that you never have before! Get ODD with it. Why not? You’re not feeding this food to a crowd of twenty anymore… just you!

So, this lunchtime, I had so many new foods in and I’m so unused to preparing my own food that I didn’t really know what to do with myself in the kitchen. I had the vague notion I should make something healthy. I wanted something warm as it’s frigging ICY here. I had eggs to use up. And so things got odd. But I prepared, readers, a masterpiece!

I call it the Egg Tomatoni. And here’s how to make yours…

1. Heat the oven to 200˚C and boil the kettle.

2. Place 3 eggs in a saucepan, pour your boiling water over them and leave the pan to heat on a hob.

ChefBeHere Top Tip: FOR CHRIST’S SAKE PUT A LID ON THE PAN. Otherwise, you will anger me. Things boil quicker with a lid on and so you need to have the hob on for less time. As a result, you use less energy. Hence, less global warming. Simples.

3. Leave your eggs to boil for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, chop 6 cherry tomatoes in half. Dance around.

4. After 10 minutes, remove your pan from the heat and drain away the water. With your eggs in a sieve/colander, pour cold water over them to cool them down.

5. Then use your hands to peel away the shells of your eggs. Bin the shells.

ChefBeHere Top Tip: First, tap each egg with a teaspoon in order to create a crack in the shell. Then you can get it off neatly.

6. Chop each of your eggs into quarters and arrange them around the edge of a bowl.

7. Place a cherry tomato-half between each bit of egg.

8. Arrange some Quorn pepperoni slices artistically in the centre of the bowl. I popped an extra cherry tomato in the middle of them, too.

9. Safely transport your bowl into the oven to warm for 20 minutes.

10. After 20 minutes, carefully remove your bowl from the oven and drizzle the contents with some mayo/salad cream/dressing. Serve up your lunch. Bon appétit!

I created this beauty!

Isn’t it odd? So odd! I was thinking this while it cooked. What a weeeeird bowlful of food. But, somehow, good. I liked this! I like eggs; I like tomatoes; I like Quorn. I’ve never had Quorn pepperoni slices before, but basically they just taste like spicy Quorn. Similar to all other Quorn. I’m going to put them on pizza soon. But, also, they worked in this lunch! It was a weird coming together of flavours. But it was a good one. Plus, it looks funky. And it’s not altogether unhealthy. Win!

So, to edit this recipe… I think the eggs are fundamental. But you could switch the tomatoes for maybe… olives? Button mushrooms? Little squares of pepper? And your Quorn pepperoni slices; they could be subbed with… any other kind of Quorn? (It all tastes the same!) Some halloumi cheese? A very mini quiche? Literally, anything that springs to mind that doesn’t sound undeniably awful.

And there you have it! Fancy a rather odd lunch? Definitely give this one a try. It’s up there with the oddest. And let me know what you think! Did you enjoy this? Would you ever eat it again? Fill me in! And I want to hear any suggestions you may have for equally odd meals I could try. I’m embracing all mealtime oddities this January. And I hope you do, too.

This will be us

On that note… all the best for 2015, amigos!

Party safely,

Hayley

EAT A RAINBOW

Recipe: Rainbow Salad

Time taken: 20 minutes tops

Ingredients: Some leaves, some cheese and some seriously colourful veg. I leave it up to you!

Hi readers,

Sunday’s come! The last and best day of the week… the day of rest. Have you been having a restfully festive day? I do hope you have! It’s now only four (YES FOUR!) days until Christmas, readers. How did that happen? Where did the days go?? Have I really eaten twenty one advent calendar chocolates already?! I know all old people say it but really I swear December goes faster every year. Not at all in a funny way. It’s dizzying.

So today HAS been lovely, I’ll give it that. I endured a visit to see my grandparents and was rewarded with only minor racism to deal with in conversation. Love them really. Next, me and the Father Bear attended a family get together over pub lunch and ate some gorgeous, really interesting food. And caught up with lots of lovely relatives from afar as distant Nottingham. Presents were swapped! Then it was off to the cinema with the Mother Bear. And this was a real treat.

Readers, (don’t be too jealous!) we went to see a live screening of a matinee performance of The Nutcracker, by the Bolshoi Ballet Company in Russia. !!!!!!! Can you believe it? You can really do that now! This is one of the biggest, oldest classical ballet companies in the world. They’re INTERNATIONALLY RENOWNED. And we got to go to Cineworld in Sheffield and attend the premiere of their Christmas performance, as if we were in Russia. Like, I was clapping along with the Russian audience at the end of each scene. It’s mind blowing.

As was the show! The ballet was, literally, breath taking. I can’t enthuse enough. Just for so many dancers to be so synchronised and polished, and to be able to do the things that they do! It was unreal. Should you get the chance to attend the cinema screenings of their Swan Lake performance in January, or the chance to go to bloody Russia, definitely do not turn this down. It’s something you DO NOT want to miss. Whether you take an interest in ballet or not (or even dance!), I fail to see how anyone could not be impressed by what they do. It’s like… HOW DO THEY DO IT?! Just unreal.

Buuuut, as festive as my wonderful day may have been… the countdown to Christmas is starting to scare me a little, readers. I don’t want it to end! And you know what’s even scarier than this? The countdown to the New Year! Bet you hadn’t even though of that one yet, eh? Well, now you have! (Sorry!) In ten days’ time it’s going to be 2015!! Unbelievable.

Suddenly life’s all about a fresh start with new horizons and unknown adventure. The next twelve months could hold anything. Just anything! And the prospect is… daunting. I’m sorry to have reminded you that if the days of 2014 were grains of sand in an hourglass, time is almost up. I am. But, to make up for this, I have one positive thought for you to hold with you and carry into the New Year. This is it: Summer will come. Without fail, unless something awful should happen to you (touch wood not!), in the next six months you’re going to be feeling warm sun on your skin. The wait for this is heart breaking, readers, but it will come.

It’s going to be like this, I promise

Thinking about this, I read a news article earlier today which said ‘Tis the season for comfort food!’ and I thought… really?? Like, obviously, IT IS. We eat more shit now than at any other time of year. And there’s nothing wrong with that! But, surely, tis the season also of so many better things than comfort food! Like spending time with family, giving gifts and taking some time off work. And you can still do all of those things while enjoying healthy food a little of the time, right? This way, you enjoy the comfort food so much more too, because it’s still kind of a treat to you, not just your everyday menu for a fortnight.

So, readers, I made a salad. Last night, I was sick of the festive conveyor of comfort food we’re all stuck on, and I was thinking ahead about 2015 and dreaming of summer. And I really fancied a salad. Wanted one! Not to be good. Not to deprive myself ahead of the big day. I JUST WANTED SALAD. And I made a really good one! I poured a summery rosé wine, just like in the photos, and chowed down on some seriously healthy stuff.

My gorgeous tea!

Rainbow coloured stuff! I read online, readers, that colourful food lifts the mood (healthy food does this too!) and it’s FUN so I want to inspire you all to…

a)      Think positively about the New Year. There could be twelve incredible months ahead of you, starting in ten days’ time. How exciting!

b)      Make a salad EVEN THOUGH IT’S DECEMBER. Because I bet you’ll really enjoy it and your body will literally LOVE YOU for it.

And…

c)       Make your salad into a rainbow! There isn’t any reason not to. Do you have a reason why not? No, you don’t. Raaaaainbow tiiiiime!

HOW, you ask? Well, the way I did it. I got a bag of mixed leaves and chopped up some cucumber, celery and spring onion. This is the standard stuff: the usual culprits. Then I ALSO added to my salad some cherry tomatoes, yellow pepper and radishes. Red, yellow and pink!

Can you see all the colours?

I normally love a balsamic dressing to jazz up a summery salad but we didn’t have any in at home, so I flicked a little salad cream over my rainbow and this worked a treat, as a substitute. Oh, and feta cheese! I crumbled some tasty feta cheese on top of this salad, for a taste of Greece. And it was delicious. This was a true taste of summer, in bleak mid-winter. So go make one!! Really, get your bum in gear and treat the inner you to a rainbow of goodness. Not to guilt trip you all so close to Christmas, buttttt remember the quote I wrote of the other day? “Love yourself enough to live a healthy lifestyle”. Yes sirree.

And, if you fancy a taste of adventure, go CRAZY with your salad. This could be your last of the year! Throw in sunflower seeds! Walnuts! Pomegranate seeds! I personally loooove to make a salad with grilled halloumi cheese and black olives, readers. These are my ULTIMATE salad ingredients. Squeaky and salty they are but GOD they’re good. It made me a sad that we didn’t have any in at home because nobody else likes them. On Earth, maybe. Do ANY of you like them?? Anyone out there?

Throwback to an olive-packed halloumified salad of mine!

Whatever you choose to include, I challenge you to fit one more salad into your 2014, readers. Can you cram in as many colours as I did?? Bet not! I ate that rainbow to the groundddd! And here’s a thought, I bet there’s a big chance that over in Russia the whole Bolshoi Company of ballerinas (hundreds of them!) are tucking into salads tonight. And every night, I bet. You’re eating the food of ballerinas. Does life get better? Ummm... hell no!

Get jazzy with it. And let me know if you have any salad tips! Which cheeses do you include? Do you add fruits to salad? I’m not convinced about this, but I could be persuaded to give it a try! I welcome all salading tips, please. :)

Ride the rainbow safely,

Hayley

09/01/2015 Note:

Readers, I'm entering my salad into a 'No Croutons Required' competition!

Check the competition out here:http://foodandspice.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/no-croutons-required-soup-and-salad.html

This is run as a joint project between the following two lovely lady bloggers:http://foodandspice.blogspot.co.uk/
http://www.tinnedtomatoes.com/

Check them out and wish me luck x


 

FAIL SAFE FUSILLI

Recipe: Italiano Pastapieces

Time taken: Half an hour

Ingredients: Wholewheat pasta, a little oil, Philadelphia/pesto/tomato sauce & any veg you can dream of

Hello there readers,

Welcome to the new week! It’s Monday again, but this doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Mostly, and quite often, it’s a bad thing. But not today! Today readers, this is a good Monday!

It’s a good Monday for me because tonight the Geography Society at Newcastle Uni are hosting their Christmas meal on the Quayside… at Newcastle’s oh so swanky Pitcher & Piano! I’m so excited! Tonight I’ll be getting my Christmas dress out again and dolling up for our special meal. Almost all of my course mates are going, and we get champagne and professional photos and then a 3 course meal!! You can’t knock it. Last year we had a lovely time and I’m really hoping for a top night with the girls later. I’m very excited!

So that’s why my Monday’s a good one. How about yourself? Wrack your brain and I’m sure there’s something positive about your day today. I’m confident that there is!

Anyways, today I’m determined to eat small seeing as we’re having such special food at the restaurant later. So I haven’t been whipping up any magic in the kitchen today. But I’ve been meaning for a while to share with you my key to the simplest student tea around: pasta.

I think it must be true that every student in the UK cooks pasta AT LEAST once a week, if not more. It’s such a versatile dish and there are so many variations and twists to be had with it! When you’re feeling rough, you can boil some up and eat it plain as a test of whether or not you’re keeping food down. When you’re in a hurry, you can get some ready-made pasta (in a fridge pack or in a tin like ravioli or even in a frozen ready meal) and there’s your tea ready in 5 minutes flat. And when you’ve time to spare you can craft a full on lasagne or whip together a pasta bake, and stick it in the oven for an hour. All these dishes have the same wonderful foundation: pasta.

And a lot of days, readers, I just like to make regular veggie pasta! It’s a cracking tea. There’s no whistles or bells to it, but you can’t fault this tea for its belly filling quality!

Here’s how I regularly rock a veggie pasta meal:

1. I set the kettle boiling and pop a couple of handfuls of brown pasta into a saucepan.

2. When it boils, I pour the water into the pan and put its lid on. I get this on a hob to heat for the next twenty minutes.

3. I chop up my veg.

ChefBeHere Top Tip: Anything goes here, readers! My favourite veg to throw in a pasta dish are olives, peppers and mushrooms. But, literally, there are no bounds. Anything you have in your fridge will probably work fine.

4. I heat some oil into a frying pan and tip in my veg.

5. I fry my veg for ten minutes.

6. I put a plate or bowl in the microwave to heat for a couple of minutes.

7. I remove my pasta from the heat and drain it using a colander, then return it to the saucepan.

8. I turn the heat off my veg and tip them into the saucepan with the pasta.

9. To the pan I add either a tomato stir-in sauce, a dollop of pesto or a dollop of Philadelphia cheese, depending on whether I want a tomatoy, basily, or creamy pasta.

10. I stir this up over a low heat for a few minutes, sometimes I season with salt and pepper, and then I serve my tea!

Pasta con Tomato

 

Pasta con Pesto

 

Pasta con Philly

 

And that’s all there is to it! Now, I imagine you’ve all made pasta before. I’m not revolutionising student cooking here. But have you made it like I do? How do you do it?? Which is better? I like my tried and tested method and I think it generally turns out a tasty tea. Carnivorous readers of mine, would this tempt you to switch the meat in your pasta dishes for some veg, perhaps?

I think this is a solid, sure-fire filler of a tea… and it’s never once let me down. So, even though I’m having fun trying out new recipes at uni and documenting them in this blog, I can’t pretend that there won’t be days still where I won’t reach for the pasta. Everyone does! And I hope this inspires you to maybe try something new with your pasta, the next time that you do.

Party safely,

Hayley

 

 

 

A RESTFUL RECIPE

Recipe: Scrambled eggs and tomatoes… on crumpets!

Time taken: Quarter of an hour

Ingredients: 2 crumpets, 6 little tomatoes, 2 eggs and a dollop of crème fraiche (plus, a little butter and a sprinkling of black pepper)

Hi Readers,

It’s Thursday! And today’s been such a good Thursday! How has your day been?? Awesome? Awe-some? Awesome-a-rific? Awesomified? AWESOMMMME??

My day’s been good because, well, because last night I went with my dad and his girlfriend to see Ben Howard at Manchester Apollo. So much excitement for his gig.

Ben Howard!

But I didn’t eat and I haven’t been sleeping well (3rd year life), then the heater in the car on the way there dried my contact lenses out, then there were lots of flashing lights at the gig… and I fainted. My first ever faint! It was awful. I dropped my phone… I was on the floor… my shoe came off… strange men had to pick me up. Also, I was NOT CONSCIOUS.

But then, things got better. I sat down with some water and then caught the end of the gig, which was SO GOOD. We got McDonald’s Christmas treats. We drove home and I got to sleep in my home bed (ten times better than my uni bed). And TODAY I’ve been resting up. In a heated home. Full of food!

And hasn’t it been wonderful! As is exemplified, I feel, by my lunch. Remember my ‘Breakfast for Tea’ post in November? Inspired by this but lacking croissants, I found something new to pair the timeless scrambled egg with… it's crumpets!

Here’s how it works:

1. Turn on your grill and put a couple of crumpets in the toaster, but don’t toast them quite yet.

2. Take a handful of little tomatoes and chop them each in half using a sharp knife.

3. Arrange them however you like in an ovenproof dish and put this under the grill.

4. Crack a couple of eggs into a glass and whizz them up using a fork.

5. Heat a saucepan over a medium heat with a little butter inside. 

6. When this has melted, tip your eggy goo into the pan. Add a dollop of crème fraiche.

7. Set your crumpets on to toast and pop a plate beneath your dish in the grill, so that the plate warms slightly.

8. Stir your egg mix vigorously. Watch the eggs scramble! Tip a pinch of ground pepper over them, if you have any.

9. When your toaster pops, take the plate and tomatoes out of the grill and turn it off.

10. Serve up your crumpets and butter them, if you like. Tip your eggs over the top and add your tomatoes on to the plate. Tuck in!

ChefBeHere Top Tip: I usually tip my eggs out onto some kitchen towel first, to absorb a little moisture from them so that they don’t soggy up the plate. This is just me, though.

And voila! Scrambled eggs and tomatoes… on crumpets!

Readers, where do you stand on these? My eggs were dreeeeameeee. And really yellow! I don’t know why, my dad must have bought especially yolky eggs. They tasted sublime. And as for eggs on crumpets… I like it! I’d maybe still choose croissants if I had them, and toast of course never loses its charm as the traditional option, but crumpets work too! Would you agree?

Also, I was fancying a warm, effort-free pudding. So I cut up some brownie bites and a cookie. Put them into a ramekin and put this in the oven for five minutes while I did the washing up. And this made for an extremely tasty treat! Go forth, readers.

Gig safely and egg safely,

Hayley

Breakfast for tea?

WHAT CAN THIS BE?

Recipe: Croissants with scrambled egg and tomato

Time taken: 15 minutes

Ingredients: 2 croissants, 3 free range eggs, 1 dollop of crème fraiche, 2 tomatoes, a little oil, a sprinkle of black pepper, and a few scrapes of butter

Hi there readers,

In my second (ever!) blog post, I’m going to tell you about my tea today. To clarify, by this I mean the evening meal. I’m northern English. Should you call the evening meal something else, like 'dinner', sub your word in whenever you see ‘tea’. You’ll be ok.

So today readers I'm typing with pretty weary fingers. I had another long day of uni to tackle today, like I did yesterday. It's been a fierce start to the week! Being on campus 9am-6pm takes it out of a girl... with travel that's ten whole hours away from your bed. :O

This evening I made it through the door finally, in a mood fit only for comfort food. BUT I STAYED STRONG. Health-kickers everywhere… I did not order takeaway. I did not go to the freezer. Instead, slumped by my food cupboard, I decided that what I really wanted most was breakfast food. This is undeniably my favourite genre of food. It's THE BEST. Breakfast is the bee’s knees. Totes. But is it appropriate at seven in the evening? My belly thought so!

I consulted my Morrison's Christmas Magazine (the new Bible), leafed through some recipes and found one that I remembered mentally bookmarking, for scrambled eggs on croissants! I've never EVER literally never put egg on a croissant before. Never in my life. But it was a warm, home-cooked healthy-ish option. Cheap, quick and easy… IT WAS ON.

So, my magnificent Morrison's had put salmon on their creation. I prefer my salmon still swimming, preferably somewhere in the wild in a raging ferocious river, leaping over rapids and evading the jaws of crocodiles. Alive and free! Bursting over the tops of a waterfalls and soaring through the skies. Landing safely in the river again.

Like this hero!

Basically, I don't enjoy salmon as food. Also, this recipe was notably not contributing to my 5-a-day (I was only on 4 at the time) so I decided to sub tomatoes in for the salmon. With this new, improved plan of action... I cracked on.

Here's how to replicate the magic that followed, in ten easy steps:

1.      Heat your oven to 180˚C.

2.      Cut your tomatoes into quarters.

3.      Place your croissants on a baking tray. Make a little boat out of tin foil and sit your tomato chunks in the boat. Place this on the tray next to your croissants (the boat is to stop any tomato goo leaking and giving your fluffy pastries soggy bottoms).

4.      Pop the tray in the oven to warm for 10 minutes.

5.      Meanwhile, crack your eggs into a small cup and whisk them together using a fork.

6.      Heat a splash of oil in a saucepan and then chuck in your eggs.

7.      Add a dollop of crème fraiche and use your fork to mix this all together.

8.      Season with black pepper and continue to stir until the egg scrambles.

9.      Safely take your baking tray out of the oven. Use your hands to split the croissants in half and then use a knife to spread them with some butter while they’re piping hot, so that your butter melts into the pastry. Mmm.

10.  Plate up your croissants with the scrambled eggs and warm tomatoes on top.

ChefBeHere Top Tip… When my eggs began to cook, I popped a plate in the oven for a couple of minutes to take the chill away from it! I think that serving food onto a warm plate helps to keep your food warmer for longer, so you can eat at a leisurely pace while you’re browsing my blog. :D

Here’s how my tea turned out!

 

What do you think?? I thought eggs and croissants together made a magnificent combination. If you haven’t tried this taste sensation already, then I vote you get your life together and get yourself to a kitchen! I will say, I’m doubtful as to how I can possibly class buttered croissants as part of my health kick, they tasted FAR TOO GOOD. But oh well. I regret nothing.

 

Cue a food porn close up... gah so good. 
I miss my tea already. Gone too soon!

 

Soooo have a go! Let me know how you get on with the recipe, what do you think? Did it work? And did it taste how you imagined? Honest feedback people. I hope this post inspires someone out there to try something new in the kitchen.

If you're not digging the breakfast-for-dinner movement, make it 2 eggs, 1 tomato, 1 croissant and a bit less of everything else, and it could just be breakfast. But where's the fun in that?

Scramble safely,

Hayley