Sophie's Lasagne

Say hello to lovely Sophie who is going to try making some things for the blog. She is unable to eat gluten so all the recipes we do will be gluten-free. However, as I spend a considerable amount of my life cooking low-carb meals a lot of things I make are inherently gluten-free anyway so that makes everything quite stress free.

Making lasagne is actually relatively easy. It has three elements – a meat or vegetable sauce, a white (or béchamel) sauce and pasta. As you are unable to eat gluten we will use gluten free pasta and cornflour to thicken the white sauce, but anyone else following this blog can use regular pasta and plain flour. I like to add chicken livers to boost the flavour of the meat sauce but you can leave them out if you prefer.

Serves 4 (ish - depending on appetite)

2 tbsp oil 


1 onion, finely chopped


1 carrot, finely chopped


1 stick of celery, finely chopped


250g minced beef

250g minced pork


50g chicken livers, trimmed and finely chopped (optional)

100ml milk


100ml red wine


400ml passata

1 star anise

2 tsp dried oregano

1 tsp chopped fresh rosemary

2 tsp fresh thyme leaves

3 tbs cornflour

600ml milk

2 bay leaves

grated nutmeg

50g butter cut into small cubes

About 9 sheets gluten free lasagne (depending on the size of the sheets and your dish - you'll need 3 layers of pasta)


100g grated parmesan

Heat the oil in a large, heavy-based frying pan and fry the onion over a low to medium heat until softened. Add the carrot and continue to cook for 5 minutes, then add the celery and cook for another 2 minutes. Turn up the heat, add the minced beef and pork and stir and fry until the meat is no longer pink, then stir in the chopped livers and cook for another 3 minutes.

Add the milk and allow to bubble away until it has been absorbed by the meat then pour in the wine, passata, star anise and the herbs. Season with salt and pepper then bring to a simmer. Cover the pan partially with a lid, turn the heat down, and leave to simmer very gently for 2 hours.

Pre-heat the oven to 200C.

To make the béchamel use 3 tbs of the milk and mix with the cornflour to make a loose paste then bring the rest of the milk, the bay leaves and a good grating of fresh nutmeg to the boil. Reduce the heat to very low and whisk in the cornflour paste followed by the butter. Season and simmer gently for about 5 minutes until thickened.

To assemble the lasagne, take a deep, wide dish and coat the bottom with a third of the meat sauce, topped with a quarter of the béchamel (I tend to just blob it around using a spoon), and a layer of pasta. You can break the pasta into pieces to make it fit but the odd gap here or there won't make a big difference. Repeat two more layers, and then top the last layer of pasta with the rest of the béchamel and sprinkle over the parmesan. Cook for 40-45 minutes, until golden and bubbling.

Allow to rest for at least 20 minutes before serving – lasagne is nicer served warm rather than screamingly hot and giving it time to rest allows everything to firm up slightly. It is possibly even better the next day. In a toasted sandwich.

Belly Pork and Zingy Coleslaw

This is for my lovely friend Sara who has asked me so nicely for a low-carb recipe to hopefully inspire her to start cooking again.  It's messy eating at its best. Deliciously warm mildly spicy slow cooked pork with some cool crunchy cole slaw in a lettuce leaf wrap. If you can't get pork belly for any reason, about 1kg of diced shoulder of pork would do quite well instead.

If you are cooking for people who love their carbs then this is perfectly lovely stuffed into any kind of flatbread and makes a very satisfying and easy meal.

I know G will have a go but I suspect this will never ever appear on the menu at Chez H. 

If you can't get hold of garlic and ginger paste you can make your own by using the fine holes on a grater. You will probably need about 4 fat juicy cloves of garlic and a good thumb's length of ginger. If you don't have one already, I highly recommend a Microplane for this sort of thing. I love mine very dearly and take it with me when I go and cook for the supper club or anywhere else for that matter. Along with my Victorinox potato peeler which is frankly the only peeler worth having.

Serves 4

For the pork

10 large slices rindless belly pork

1 onion, finely sliced

2 heaped tbs garlic and ginger paste

2 green chillies (cut a slit along the length of each chilli)

1 star anise

1 tsp fennel seeds

150ml dry white wine or 75ml water and 75ml Chinese rice vinegar

3 tbs soy sauce

1 tbs fish sauce

For the coleslaw

½ a small white cabbage, cut into quarters and the hard centre removed

2 carrots

4 spring onions

2 handfuls of bean sprouts

1 red chilli, very finely diced (seeds removed if preferred)

1 tbs sesame seeds

2 tsp sesame oil

zest and juice of 2 limes

Whole leaves from a crisp lettuce or Chinese cabbage.

Slow cooker on low setting. Alternatively this can be cooked in a casserole at 140°c

Heat the oil in a large shallow non-stick pan and brown the pork belly slices on each side. Remove from the pan and put aside onto a plate.

Add the sliced onion to the pan and fry briskly until starting to brown at the edges, stir in the garlic and ginger paste, star anise, fennel seeds and chillies and continue frying for another minute.

Pour in the wine, soy and fish sauces and stir to combine and then pour the sauce into the slow cooker.

Add the pork slices and any juices which have collected on the plate and push the slices around to make sure each one has a coating of sauce.

Put the lid on the cooker and leave for 4-6 hours or until the pork falls apart when pressed with the back of a fork.

To make the coleslaw:

Finely slice the cabbage in a food processor (or by hand), zest the lime, grate the carrot and finely slice the onions. Tip everything into a roomy bowl and add the bean sprouts.

Toast the sesame seeds in a small non stick frying pan by stirring over a low heat until they turn a light brown colour. Watch them very carefully because they burn at the drop of a hat. This is not something you can leave to do by itself, you need to stand and watch but it only takes about a minute – so not terribly arduous. Add the toasted seeds to the bowl.

Whisk together the oil and lime juice then pour over the shredded vegetables. Stir thoroughly until everything is lightly coated - it might seem like there's not enough but keep going, I promise you it is, we aren't looking for a mayonnaise-style coleslaw here this is much lighter and fresher and the oil/juice is more of a seasoning than a dressing. If you honestly think it isn't enough then add more lime juice, sesame oil is a bit of a brute and less is definitely more in this case.

To serve: Roughly mash the pork into the sauce with a fork and pile onto crisp lettuce leaves along with some of the coleslaw, wrap into a parcel and eat.

Paper napkins are essential to wipe the juices off your arms. 

Sorry about that. #sorrynotsorry

Pork and Leek Pasta

Huzzah! We're back - new term, new recipes. And a new recipe tester too - hopefully G will be joining us. So it's brother against sister.

No pressure.

As this is the start of term you might want to have a get together with some friends and this one-pot dish will easily feed a crowd of 6 or 8, it's simple to make and really tasty. You could halve everything if that's too much or double it up to feed more - if you do that you will need two large pans. I cooked this amount in a standard 5L cast iron casserole with a lid similar to this. If you don't have any friends then this will put you into a pasta coma for at least six meals (it will freeze fine) but please try harder with the friends thing. I have used pork mince but turkey mince is cheaper and I've stated 500g but sometimes it comes in packs of 400g or 450g. Any will do fine. Frozen spinach is perfectly acceptable and cheaper and you can add any bits of veg hanging about - I added a handful of wizened mushrooms that were in the salad drawer in the fridge and half a courgette.

You could also make this veggie by upping the vegetables to an equivalent amount - but I'd recommend using softer veg like courgettes or broccoli rather than carrots.

Instead of double cream and blue cheese you could use a 200g tub of cream cheese - own brand basic is fine.

You will need:

1 medium leek, washed and sliced
500g pork or turkey mince
1 heaped teaspoon of fennel seeds
1/2 tsp dried chilli flakes
6 nuggets of frozen spinach
1 chicken stock cube
500g pasta shapes
Boiling water
100ml double cream
150g blue cheese, crumbled
chopped fresh parsley



Start by boiling the kettle and then heat a splash of oil in your pan over a medium heat and add the sliced leek and any other veg you might be using to the pan. Stir frequently making sure it doesn't brown. When the leek is soft add the fennel seeds and the crushed chillies then add the mince in two halves, stirring and turning the first lot until all the meat has lost any pinkness before adding the second lot. As soon as all the meat is done crumble over the stock cube and tip in all the pasta shapes. Add enough boiling water to almost cover everything, plop in the spinach nuggets, stir everything together and bring up to the boil.

As soon as the pan comes to the boil, turn the heat to low and cover with a lid and simmer for 10 minutes.

After 10 minutes the pasta should be just about cooked. Add the double cream and crumbled cheese (or the cream cheese) and stir thoroughly. Turn off the heat, replace the lid and leave to stand for another 10 minutes.

Serve in bowls sprinkled with chopped parsley.

Leftovers should be bagged up and put in the freezer as soon as everything has cooled to room temperature.

Cheese and Onion Pie

The Student is very busy with Uni stuff at the moment. I posted the above pie photo on the Facebook page and have been asked by a few people for the recipe/method. So I've decided to post it anyway.  The instructions were written with H in mind but feel free to hate peas and ponder on your Lancashire genes.

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The following recipe/instruction is for a classic Lancashire cheese and onion pie. In my completely un-humble view this is the best cheese and onion pie in the world. 

Despite you being a weird hybrid of being born in Yorkshire and living in Devon for most of your life you do have a massive Lancashire gene load – so you should be hard-wired to like this. There's nothing fancy about this pie, just simple pastry, cheese and onions. An equal weight of cheese to onion keeps things nice and moist and providing you make sure the onions are cooked properly, there's no squeakiness to be pooky about.

Today you are going to learn how to make pastry. You can make pastry with all butter, half butter and half lard, all lard, half margarine half lard or all margarine. You can even make it with oil. I use half butter half lard because that's what my mother and grandmother always did and they made the best pastry in the world. But you can use whatever you prefer/have in the fridge/can afford. I would say though that if you are going to use margarine you should buy the stuff that comes in a block like butter rather than the softer spreadable ones.

As this is a Lanky cheese and onion pie I have stipulated Lancashire cheese but in truth any crumbly white cheese would do if you can't get any for some reason, although possibly not white Stilton. Cheshire, Caerphilly or Wensleydale would be my suggestions for a substitute.

Make sure you read through all the instructions and understand what you are doing before you start. Then wash your hands.

You will need:

200g plain flour

100g fat (see above)

pinch of salt

cold water

250g Lancashire cheese

250g onion, finely chopped

Some milk

Make the pastry:

Put the flour in a roomy bowl. Cut the fat into small pieces and add to the bowl. Add the salt.

Now rub the fat into the flour. You do this by scooping up a small amount of fat and flour together then rubbing the mixture between your thumb and fingers, allowing everything to fall back into the bowl then repeat. Keep scooping and rubbing away making sure you go all the way to the bottom of the bowl. Gradually the two elements will mix together and you will find you have a sort of fine sandy rubble in the bowl. The way to tell when you've done enough is to pick up one of the bigger lumps and squish it. If it is mostly butter or whatever fat you've used then you need to keep going, if it looks like a paste then you're done.

Sprinkle a couple of tablespoons of cold water over the mixture in the bowl then take a kitchen knife and start cutting through the rubble and mixing in the water. Gradually the paste will clump together but you may need to add another tbs or so of water before it does. Go slowly with the water though – too much will make the pastry difficult to manage. You are aiming for everything to stick together and leave nothing behind in the bowl but not something so sticky it resembles an alien life form trying to assimilate into your body. Pat the pastry into a neat ball and either cover it with clingfilm or put it into a plastic bag then stick it in the fridge for half an hour to rest.

If you try and use pastry straight away it will shrink when you cook it and the end result won't be as nice.

While the pastry is resting prepare the filling:

Put the onion into a microwaveable bowl, add 4 tbs of milk and 2 tbs of water. Cover the bowl with clingfilm. Poke a hole in the top then microwave on high until the onion is completely soft. The ones I did today took a total of 9 minutes in three lots of three mins with a shake of the bowl in between each. Keep checking - some microwaves cook things more quickly than others. Once the onion is lovely and soft carefully remove the clingfilm and leave to cool a little.

You can also do this in a pan with a lid, over a low heat. It might take a bit longer to do but it is a perfectly acceptable way to do it. For some reason your Nanny always used the microwave, so I do too.

Grate the cheese on the big holes of the grater.

Preheat the oven to 180ºC/Gas mark 4

Assemble the pie:

Take the pastry out of the fridge and unwrap it. Cut off a third and set aside. Scatter a little flour on the worktop and your rolling pin** to stop things sticking and roll out the remaining pastry into a circle big enough to line your tin with a bit left over to hang over the side. Gently fold over the circle of pastry in half then into a quarter and lift it into the tin. Unfold and ease it out and up the sides of the tin making sure there are no air bubbles or gaps between the pastry and the tin. It helps to use a small wodge of pastry to push things into place - fingernails, however short, will cause holey damage really easily. If the pastry does tear for some reason don't panic, you can easily repair it – just break off a small piece, dampen it with a little water and press it over the tear until it sticks.

Once the pastry is in add the filling. I usually do a layer of onion then a layer of cheese. Don't worry if there's still a bit of liquid left in the onions, just stir it in before you spoon them into the pie. Repeat the layers until everything is in.

Now roll out the rest of the pastry making sure you roll it big enough to cover the top of the pie. Before you put the top on just wet your fingers and run them around the top edge of the pastry base to dampen it a little and help the lid to stick. Then place the lid on the pie and press all around the edge to seal. Trim away any excess pastry to leave a neat finish. You can now press all the way around the edge with the tines of a fork if you wish, it's just a simple way to 'crimp' the edges together but you don't have to if you don't want to, just make sure everything is glued together with water and a little pressure. Poke a couple of holes in the top of the pie to allow the steam to escape and brush the top of the pie with some milk if you like, this helps it look nice when it's cooked.

Put the pie in the oven and bake for 30-40 mins until the top is golden brown.

Remove from the oven and allow to stand for 15 minutes – it tastes much better when it has cooled slightly.

You can have this with salad (hollow laugh), or peas... [looks to camera], or baked beans and oven chips if you must.

**if you don't have a rolling pin, any straight sided glass bottle (wine, beer etc) will do the job perfectly well.

Thai Green Curry - New Tester!

My first non-student tester had a go at one of my recipes this week - why don't you have a go? It really is delicious and a lovely easy recipe to do. And extremely versatile... as you will see.

S: After the longest spell without cooking I wanted to give your Thai green curry recipe a go. I have veggies and most ingredients... Bar the essential Thai spice mix. Obviously at this stage I'm going to make it with whatever I have at home. What could I use instead? I have curry powder and some other stuff. Obviously I know that at this stage it stops being a Thai green curry, but hey, it'll be whatever it will be.


The spice mix was used as a shortcut for a poor student so it isn't essential, you can easily replace it. My usual spice paste has cumin in it and curry powder is often mostly cumin so I would use that instead. If you can I'd add a fresh chilli or two and lots of lime zest and juice. Other things to add if you have them or can find them - fish sauce (1tsp), Thai basil, a few black peppercorns, a bashed lemon grass stalk. If you have a blender I'd use that to make the paste because it's just easier Once the sauce has cooked for a few minutes give it a taste and add more of anything you think it needs. Don't stress about it too much, my green curry is different every time I make it!


S: Here are some pictures...

S: It was fantastic! Really, really enjoyed it.

I only had chicken because I am a fussy eater and don't like veggies, and no rice as I am low carbing again. My brother had veggies, chicken and rice. Husband has plenty of leftovers so that's good.

I used chilli powder, curry powder, cumin powder, peri peri spice mix and some lemon pepper spice mix. In addition to that I used some random powdered coconut (bought in Sri Lanka in our honeymoon) in addition to one can of coconut milk as it is what I had at home and wanted to make a big batch. For veggies I used courgette, aubergine, green beans and red pepper.

Delicious, thank you so much for inspiring me!

What a fantastic result. I am delighted it worked so well for you. (please note I didn't mention the muesli... :D xx)

Pimp My Potatoes

So here's another recipe/idea in the occasional series 'Things I Can Make Without Having Much Kitchen Equipment'. These potatoes are so much more than the sum of their parts. Of course you could just bake a potato, cut it open and sling the fillings over the top. But doing them this way doesn't take very long and the end result is delicious. I've used tuna here because I know that's what you are planning on using but you can use pretty much anything you like and in any combination you like. Things to consider include chopped ham, spam, corned beef, tuna, sardines, cooked chopped bacon or chicken, chopped peppers, snipped spring onions, sun dried tomatoes, Peppadews, prawns, smoked mackerel, leftover curry, leftover chilli, kidney beans or any other tinned pulses... I would say that the one thing you really must use is cheese. Preferably one you can grate or crumble so wobbly cheese slices probably aren't the best choice.

Be aware that when the potatoes have finished baking they will be full of steam and this can burn you really badly. So use the bear paw gloves to get the potatoes out of the oven and use a folded tea towel to hold the halved potato when you are scooping the middle out.

You will need:

1 large or 2 small to medium potatoes per person
A little salt for sprinkling over
25g butter or margarine
2-3 tbs milk
1 tin of tuna (or other fillings, see introduction)
Grated cheese to taste


Prepare the potatoes:

Wash the spuds but don't dry. Prick all over with a sharp knife or a fork and sprinkle with salt. Bake at 200ºc until soft when pressed (be careful) they will probably take between 45 mins to an hour and a half depending on the size of the potatoes.

Allow the potatoes to cool for 10 mins or so then cut each potato in half and use a spoon to carefully scoop out the soft, cooked potato into a roomy bowl, leaving a shell of baked potato skin behind.

Mash the cooked spud with a fork until smooth then mash in the milk and butter. Drain the tin of tuna and add to the bowl along with as much grated cheese as you like/can afford and stir until combined.

Spoon this mixture evenly between the empty potato shells and either sprinkle the tops with extra grated cheese or roughen the surface with a fork and top with a small knob of butter.

Put the filled potatoes on a baking tray or in a shallow ovenproof dish and put back in the oven for 15-20 mins, or until the tops are golden brown and the potatoes are piping hot in the middle.

I ate mine with salad. You will probably have baked beans.


***For students who don't have an oven, you can of course microwave the potatoes. Just be aware that the skins will be quite soft so scooping out the middles needs to be done with extra care. However, if split skins happen you can usually hide it quite well by spooning in the filling, pushing the skin around it and then nestling all the potatoes closely together so that they hold each other up. Then serve with a flourish and no one will know.

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H: Potate

Huzzah!

Is that a cooked potate?

H: Yep!

Looking good.

H: Ok pictures incoming:

Loving your work

Wasn't it easy?

H: I can't think of anything funny to say to be honest, it's a collection of terrible photos of me gutting a poor potato... It is a huge potato though.

Better or worse than you expected?

H: It was about what I expected really haha

And there we have it. Uninspiring a generation one recipe at a time.

H: I was tempted to eat the mash before putting it back in the potato...

Oh I do that every single time. Thank you chick xxx

You must do the pie now... I know I know... But PIE. And actually yum.

Wow look!

So Katie also decided to cook Thai green veggie curry too, and didn't she make a great job of it? She says it was really yummy and she enjoyed making it - proper cooking apparently :)

I am so delighted that the recipe worked for her and the effort was worth it.