Cookery School - Midweek Meals II

A new set of victims arrived at the school on Saturday - Helene with Sue and Jean, Naomi and Alex. Several of them had been given the day as a Christmas present (a VERY good present hahaha). As the name suggests this class is all about giving you ideas for when you're brain dead after a hard day at work/chasing kids and need some sustenance.
On the menu:

• Lamb tagine with herby couscous
• Prawn and avocado linguine
• Crispy pork belly with fennel, served with braised cabbage
• Lemon and garlic chicken
• Cardamon and banana raita for puds

It was went swimmingly, everyone's dishes turned out really well. The Lamb Tagine came out top in the opinion poll.

The dessert got a mixed review, memories of biting into whole cardamon pods and just a plain old dislike of raisins, put a couple off. But we agreed that a substitute for cinnamon and leaving out the evil raisins would be perfectly acceptable.

Alex and Helen put the finishing touches to the dessert. Lovely sprinkling action.

Sorry everyone but I failed to get a photo of Alex in his cute kitten apron, d*mn! Maybe next time. Note to other men attending, if you wear your girlfriend's apron to class you will get stick for it.

Sticky beef ribs *drool*

Reports from London will be heading your way shortly, as soon as I find the right cable to connect phone to PC! In the meantime I've not been slacking........having taken delivery of my Jamie's America book it was time to try out the BBQ beef ribs.

Simply get a huge hunk of meat from your friendly butcher. I used beef short ribs (they are dirt cheap yippee), covered them in a mix of chilli powder/mustard/black pepper/oil/salt then cooked them at 140degrees for about 4 hours. They should fall apart pretty easily after that. Then mix your marinade, into saucepan goes honey/brown sugar/butter/beef stock cube/a splash of water, heat that lot up then pour over the meat. Give it a good massage while you're at it! Jamie's recipe says to return it to the oven for 45min, but I just gave it a short 15 mins.

JO also said to cook it uncovered the whole time, but I think you'd get a better result if you covered your roasting tray in tinfoil. We had it with coleslaw and jacket potatoes. Nice!

I Love ManxChef - The launch

Last Friday saw the launch of a new cookery competition on the Isle of Man - I Love ManxChef

We're looking for people who can cook local food with flair. A modern look at Manx ingredients is bound to score well with the judges, or knock us out with your grandma's winning cake.

For the launch, with the help of Phil Gawne MHK (that's a Manx politician) and Ray Craine (he's a farmer yessir), we created an array of dishes:

• Miniature steak sandwiches with homeade mayo and mustard cress
• Pan-fried plaice with Gujurathi-style beans and a curry foam
• Quesadillas with black peppercorn cheddar, shredded lamb and crispy lettuce
• Rhubarb Fool with rose petal garnish

Sounds pretty good hey! It was Manx produce top to bottom, the only exceptions being the sugar/salt/spices.

For more information and to download an application form go to: www.ilovemanx.org

Easy Dinner - Chorizo Salad

So me and the boyfriend (let me introduce Stokesy) were peckish tonight, yeah yeah I know, no change from usual. He has been plastering ceilings today so extra hungry. But we were also not in the mood for mountains of washing up. Queue our old faithful standby of quesadillas, combined with our new standby of chorizo salad.

The quesadillas, or very flat and not very filling cheese sandwiches as Basil (another hungry friend) would call them, are great for when you are in a hurry. Just stick a dry pan on the heat, place in 1 tortilla, layer up grated cheese/ham/coriander/spring onion/peppers etc and them add your top tortilla. Fry until toasted, flip, fry again and then serve with guacamole or salsa. It is the law in our house to a dunking dippy sauce which we buy in. We are always on the look out for new ones. Currently gracing our table are Levi’s Reggae Reggae and Spanks Chilli Mein.

The chorizo salad recipe was nicked from the Moro cookbook. Up top you have a pic of the salad itself. Fried chorizo, chickpeas, parsley, tomato, red onion and dressing.

And the dressing, the olive oil lurking in the background is some posh stuff that my brother gave me for Christmas. Cheers Andrew! He lives in Milan so always provides good food presents. Thinking about Milan reminds me of eating burrata there. Burrata is the most amazing mozzarella style cheese, so soft and delicately creamy. Errm sorry just having a burrata moment………it is soooo good. Okay let’s get back on track….…olive oil! I only use the really good stuff in dressings where I’m going to get the best from the flavour.

Oh yeah so you'll want to know what's in the dressing. 1 garlic clove, big pinch salt, 1 tbsp red wine vinegar, 4 tbsp olive oil and a squeeze of lemon

Sticky Ribs

First up, this is our most popular quick n’ easy dish at the moment. Ribs!!! I just love the way the meat falls off the bone when you get these cooked just right. Pork is getting a bit trendy now isn’t it. These are also great for that caveman/woman style of bone gnawing, just make sure you have plenty of napkins ready.

Method: So easy, put 10 ribs in a big baking tray and cover with foil. Put in a 180 degree oven for about 2 hours. Cover with your saucy/marinade-y stuff for the last 15 minutes, keeping the foil on.
Approximate quantities for the sauce are: 1 tsp ground ginger, 1 tbsp soy sauce, ½ tsp chilli powder and a big squeeze of honey.

I get the ribs from Mark at Teare’s butchers in Ramsey