Sweet Potatoes

I buy bags of sweet potatoes and they're one of my favourite comfort foods. Tonight's post is less of a recipe and more of a top 10 list of things I can make with any leftovers for a quick reference.

1. Jacket sweet potatoes with butter and pepper and any other toppings I have lying around. 

2. Sweet potato mash

3. Roasties with rosemary or mixed herbs

4. Wedges with paprika and salt

5. Sweet potato and spinach curry

6. Satay sweet potato

7. Sweet potato casserole (jury is still out on whether marshmallows should ever be on a main course but I'll include it here for reference anyway)

8. Fries

9. Cubed and fried with Mexican (or any) spices

10. Sliced longways and topped like bruschetta or pizza

Mince pie flapjacks

I wanted a reasonably healthy snack for my 3pm cravings at work and when I looked at the price of shop bought ones I realised that it would cheaper and super easy to make my own, and it's the right time of year to make my favourite twist on mince pies. All the stars aligned, this was basically fated to happen! 

Ingredients 

411g jar mincemeat (yes that is an oddly specific number, I'm sure there's some sort of historic reason for it, it's just the size Tesco sells it in) £1

200g Glacé cherries (I used morello ones but the normal ones work just as well) £1

150g Butter £0.75

6 tablespoons golden syrup £2 for a whole pot

400g rolled oats (the chunky ones if you can find them, just normal rolled porridge oats if you can't) £2 for a whole bag

Method 

1. Preheat the oven to 175C. Roughly chop the cherries and them with the mincemeat, butter and syrup to a fairly large pan and heat over a medium heat on the hob.

2. When the butter has melted, add the oats a little at a time and stir with a wooden spoon. It gets quite stiff but trust me, all the oats will get covered in the delicious goop if you keep stirring.

3. I did mine in this adorable loaf tin but a medium sized rectangular tray works just as well. If your tray is bigger you'll get thin and crispy flapjacks, if your tin is smaller you'll get fatter, gooier flapjacks, there's no right or wrong way. Whichever you choose, grease your tin, transfer your flapjack batter and press it down with the back of a spoon until it's fairly level.

4. Pop it in the oven for 12-15 minutes - you want the top to just be going brown and a little bit crispy. 

5. Attempt to let them cool before you fangoriously devour them. They'll keep really well in the fridge for about 5 days if they live that long! 

Coconut Rice

All of my rice recipes feel like cheating, they all have the exact same idea and it's just a case of finding the most delicious liquid that rice will absorb.

The basic premise is that I use 1 measure of any white rice and 2 measures of liquid. That measure could be a cup, it could be the tin that the liquid came in, it could be weighed (approx 90g per person). It could be any white rice - basmati, long grain and jasmine are the easiest and cheapest to find in UK supermarkets so I tend to start with those.

The other premise is that I'm bored of boring rice and I wanted to find different ways to make it more exciting. Why use water when you can use stock? Why use stock when you have coconut milk, etc. 

Coconut Rice is one of my staples, the flavour matches beautifully with mango, lime, chilli, lemon, Thai flavours, satay, sweet potato, squash, peppers, greens and of course other coconut based meals like mild curries. 

Coconut Rice

Ingredients 

1 tin Full fat coconut milk

1 tin White rice

1 pinch salt 

Method

1. Pour a tin of coconut milk into a saucepan. 

2. If you want fluffy rice, measure out the rice in the tin from the coconut milk pour it into a sieve and wash it until the water runs clear. If you like sticky rice you can skip this step. 

3. Add the rice to the saucepan with a tin of cold water and a pinch of salt. 

4. Simmer the rice over a medium heat for approximately 10 minutes, stirring occasionally as the rice absorbs the liquid. The cooking time will vary slightly depending on the type of rice you use so check the packet and taste it as you go along, if it's still a little too firm you can add a bit more water towards the end. 

5. Remove the rice from the heat and cover it with a lid or plate or foil for about 5-10 minutes, this lets the rice steam in any leftover liquid and gives you time to prep whatever you're serving with the rice. 

Recipe Ideas

When you make a serious blog, you're supposed to know who your audience is, who you're writing for, what you're going to post and how often. To be honest, I don't know any of those things. I know that I have a whole bunch of recipes floating around in my head and a whole bunch of meals that I just throw together with whatever I have lying around and I wanted a way to remember them when I need them.

 I want to be able to search through my memories of various lunches or fancy dinners or what to cook when I have leftovers from a Sunday roast (nearly always the answer should be Left-in-a-hole, my most genius invention that's a cross between toad in the hole and whatever leftovers I have). If I have half a bag of spinach and some rice, I want a way to remember that recipe for saag paneer that I used to make all the time. Mostly, I want to be able to make meal plans and lunches that I'm not going to get bored of. 

I started with pen and paper and a spider diagram that quickly got put of control when I started write down all the names of the recipes I wanted to remember. This probably doesn't cover even nearly everything, but it's a good start, so I'll start here and maybe add more as time goes on or as my beloved requests them.