May’s Recipes for Life challenge: cooking with rhubarb, lemon and spice

Take part in the Recipes for Life challenge and you could see your dish featured in SWALLOW’s new charity cookbook!

We are now well and truly into rhubarb season, as Sarah who works for SWALLOW knows only too well. She has a huge patch of rhubarb in her garden and she doesn’t know what to do with it. So this month we are using the Recipes for Life challenge to help Sarah out by providing her with lots of delicious ideas on how she can put her rhubarb to good use.

Of course, the rules of the Recipes for Life call for a trio of ingredients, and so we’re teaming the rhubarb with lemon and spice – ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, chilli, cardamom, star anise – whichever spices take your fancy and tickle your taste buds. All you have to do to enter the challenge is to combine these three ingredients to make a tasty, simple and wholesome dish and post it on your blog. Make sure any other ingredients you include are easy to come by.

We’re using Recipes for Life to come up with a stock of easy recipes for members of SWALLOW’s cookery club to make in their sessions. SWALLOW is a fab charity based in Midsomer Norton in South West England, supporting adults with learning disabilities to lead more independent lives. The challenge is running for six months and at the end, the best recipes will be included in SWALLOW’s new cookery book to help raise much-needed funds for the charity.

Recipes for Life: how to enter

1. Display the Recipes for Life badge (shown above) on your recipe post, and link back to this challenge post.
2. You may enter as many recipe links as you like, so long as they are based on the three main ingredients selected for this month and accompanied only by everyday items.
3. Send your recipe URL to me at vanesther-at-reescommunications-dot-co-dot-uk, including your own email address and the title of your recipe or post. The closing date this month is Tuesday 28 May 2013.
4. If you tweet your post, please mention #RecipesforLife, @BangerMashChat and@SWALLOWcharity in your tweet and we will retweet everyone we see.
5. Feel free to republish old recipe posts, but please add the information about this challenge and the Recipes for Life badge.
6. As entries come in, links to these will be added to this page and at the end of the month there will be a round-up of all entries received.
7. SWALLOW staff and members will choose their favourite recipe at the end of each month, and the winner will receive a small prize.
8. A selection of recipes entered each month will be featured in the SWALLOW cookbook to be published later this year, helping the charity to raise much-needed funds for its ongoing work.

As my first entry, here’s a very simple rhubarb compote. It’s lovely served with roast duck, pork or lamb, and I’m also rather partial to it in a big thick cheese sandwich.

Rhubarb compote

knob of butter
small onion, chopped
1 tsp chopped ginger
½ tsp mixed spice
150g rhubarb, chopped
handful of sultanas or raisins
2 tbsp apple juice
2 tbsp lemon juice

Melt the butter in a pan and gently cook the onion and ginger until soft and golden. Stir in the mixed spice and cook for a couple of minutes.

Add the rhubarb and dried fruit and mix well to coat the fruit in the spicy butter. Cook for a few minutes before adding the apple and lemon juice. Stir and allow to stew gently for around ten minutes until the rhubarb is soft and mushy but still holds its shape. Serve at room temperature.

May’s entries

1. Rhubarb, Ginger and Lemon Fool from Under The Blue Gum Tree
2. Rhubarb and Lemon Scones from The Garden Deli
3. Rhubarb, Lemon and a Spice from Fun as a Gran
4. Rhubarb and Vanilla Jam from Utterly Scrummy Food for Families
5. Rhubarb Crumble Muffins from Chez Foti
6. Spiced Rhubarb and Lemon Sorbet with Cinnamon Cookies from Bangers & Mash
7. Rhubarb Ripple Ice Cream with Hazelnut Oat Clusters from Elizabeth’s Kitchen
8. Rhubarb, Lemon and Ginger Friands from JibberJabberUK
9. Spiced Lemon & Rhubarb Cheesecake from Rich In Flavour
10. Spiced Rhubarb & Lemon Muffins from Farmersgirl Kitchen
11. Rhubarb Syllabub from Fun as a Gran
12. Lavender Poached Rhubarb with Ginger Custard Cream from How to Cook Good Food

Round Up: April’s Recipes for Life Challenge

It’s been another fantastic month for the Recipes for Life challenge. I must admit, when I was first told the three ingredients the SWALLOW cookery club had decided on for April, I wasn’t sure how many recipes we’d receive. But as ever you lot have excelled yourselves and we’ve ended up with an incredibly varied and mouthwateringly tempting array of dishes all using the three set ingredients of pork, sweetcorn and tomatoes.

So without further ado, let’s take a look at those delicious dishes and, most importantly, announce this month’s winner…

I got things started with these Rosemary and Garlic Pork Chops with Roasted Corn on the Cob and Spicy Tomato Relish. Roasting the corn gives it an extra sweet intensity and make sure you serve it with lots of lovely mashed potato to soak up the juices from the pork and the butter from the corn.

Slow cooker sweet and sour sausages

Don’t these Slow Cooker Sweet & Sour Sausages from The Crazy Kitchen look good? The list of ingredients might look long, but don’t be fooled – this is a quick and easy dish to prepare, just perfect for a midweek supper. And what’s more it’s a very frugal dish, making one pack of sausages go a long way.

Sausage chilli

We had to bend the rules slightly for this Sausage Chilli from The Garden Deli. Sarah was very keen to take part in the challenge but as Sarah is vegetarian, we really couldn’t make her cook with meat. So Sarah entered her sausage chilli using veggie sausages and then I (or rather my husband) tried out her recipe with pork sausages – see below. And we can confirm it works superbly both ways! Here’s how ours turned out:

Sausage chilli – mark two

The whole family loved it. Sarah’s chilli is a feast of colours, flavours and textures, and perfect for little ones as it has just the right level of spice without being too hot.

BBQ pork ribs with sweetcorn salsa

Next up is a dish that’s making me yearn for summer! Doesn’t your mouth just instantly water when you look at Under The Blue Gum Tree’s gorgeous photos of her sumptuous BBQ Pork Ribs with Sweetcorn Salsa? The ribs are smothered in a simple BBQ sauce made from store cupboard ingredients – the trick is not to marinade the ribs but instead to pour the sauce on for the last 10 minutes of cooking time – and served with a zingy salsa made from roasted corn and fresh tomatoes.

Slow cooker pork Creole

JibberJabberUK has come up trumps with this satisfying Slow Cooker Pork Creole – as she says it might not be 100% authentic, but it’s a great way to add a bit of spice to your family’s food. It’s an incredibly versatile dish, so you can throw in whatever vegetables you happen to have in the fridge or freezer.

Sausage pesto pasta

You may recall that Helen from The Crazy Kitchen entered not one, not two, but three dishes into last month’s Recipes for Life. And she’s worked her magic again! This Sausage Pesto Pasta is her second entry for April’s challenge and I know my own family would absolutely love this. The recipe is simplicity itself but you just know it’s packed with flavour and would satisfy even the grumbliest of tummies.

Oven baked tortilla

And for her third offering, Helen from The Crazy Kitchen brings us this ever so easy Oven Baked Tortilla – a great one-pan meal, which Helen says is one of her favourite dishes to prepare when they’re away on holiday as it’s just so simple to do.

Pork, sweetcorn & tomatoes with vermicelli rice noodles

The brilliantly named Fun as a Gran came up with a wheat, egg, dairy and gluten-free dish of Pork, Sweetcorn & Tomatoes with Vermicelli Rice Noodles. I love the fact there is ”no fancy measuring” and the recipe can be adapted up or down at the drop of a hat to cater for any number of people staying for dinner.

Pulled pork wrap with tomato and chorizo salsa and sweet sweet sweetcorn

Here’s a great first-time entry from Spurs Cook: Pulled Pork Wrap with Tomato and Chorizo Salsa and Sweet Sweet Sweetcorn. I’m a big fan of slow-cooked pork, especially when it’s seasoned with a whole host of rich, warming spices like paprika, cumin, cayenne, chilli and fennel, and I’m intrigued by the idea of the sweetness of the sweetcorn intensified even more with the addition of honey. Got to give it a go!

Very retro sweet and sour pork

How about this for a taste of summer sunshine? Chez Foti’s Very Retro Sweet and Sour Pork looks just glorious and I bet it tastes every bit as good as it looks. Sweet and sour flavours are always a firm family favourite and this looks so much better for you than the horrible battered version with a gloopy sauce you so often find in takeaways. Like Louisa, I think I might add a touch of chilli too in the adult version…

My Cheat’s Ciabatta Pizza is the next entry and to be honest hardly deserves to be described as a recipe as it’s just so easy to make. It’s simply sliced bread with your favourite pizza-style ingredients chucked on top and either grilled or baked in the oven. A quick and easy dinner to throw together when you don’t have time to make your pizza dough from scratch.

Red rice accompanied by pork, sweetcorn and tomato

And last but most certainly not least is a second entry from Fun as a Gran - Red Rice Accompanied by Pork, Sweetcorn and Tomato - another dish that’s easily adaptable depending on what you happen to have in. It features lovely nutty red rice served alongside pork steaks in a sauce made from a can of chicken or mushroom soup. It reminds me of some of my favourite student recipes!

Well, who would have thought pork, sweetcorn and tomatoes could lend themselves to such very different dishes? I look forward to working my way through these over the coming weeks.

But of course, what you’re waiting to hear is the name of this month’s winner. And so I’m very pleased to announce that the winner of first prize in April’s Recipes for Life challenge, as chosen by SWALLOW’s cookery club, is…

Helen from The Crazy Kitchen for her Oven Baked Tortilla!

Huge congratulations to Helen for her well-deserved win, particularly as this means she’s now scooped first place two months in a row! The guys at SWALLOW said they liked her tortilla because it features a good selection of veggies and was just a little bit different.

Special mentions also go to Under The Blue Gum Tree’s BBQ Pork Ribs and Chez Foti’s Retro Sweet & Sour Pork, which the group said both looked and sounded gorgeous too.

So well done again to Helen – a little gift will be coming to you in the post in the next few days. Watch this space to find out the three set ingredients for May’s challenge, and let’s see if we can knock Helen off the coveted top spot – surely she can’t make it three in row? Or can she?!

If you’d like to find out more about the work of SWALLOW and perhaps get involved in their Twenty for 20 appeal as part of the charity’s 20th anniversary celebrations, please take a look at their funky new website.

Cheat’s ciabatta pizza

Now that I’m working full-time again, the only chance I really have to play around in the kitchen is at the weekends. But then if I spend too much time in the kitchen, I feel bad that I’m not spending enough time with the kids. So wherever possible I try to involve Jessie and Mia in the cooking too.

On Saturday, after spending the afternoon in Bath shopping for new clothes (my girls are growing so blinking fast at the moment!), we rustled up some quick ciabatta bread pizzas for an easy tea. And the girls enjoyed deciding on their own toppings.

I’m not really sure whether to call these posh open grilled sandwiches or ciabatta pizzas – I guess they’re somewhere in between. And they don’t really warrant a recipe. I simply spread some passata on sliced ciabatta (you may prefer French bread or even a slice of cottage loaf) before the girls got going with their own special creations. Up for grabs was whatever we found in the fridge; leftover tinned sweetcorn, ham and salami, some chopped wild garlic leaves we’d picked from the hedgerows, black olives, capers and of course lots of mozzarella cheese.

Mia likes to play safe when it comes to food and kept her pizza topping simple. She isn’t a big fan of strong flavours like olive and capers. Despite that, she did go crazy with the wild garlic, and ate it all quite happily.

Jessie, on the other hand, has always been much more adventurous with food, and went for everything on offer. If there had been raw chillies, she’d probably have thrown some of those on there too.

Serves 4 (2 adults, 2 children with leftovers perfect eaten cold for breakfast!)

4 small part-baked ciabatta, sliced widthways
350g passata or crushed tinned tomatoes
3 x 125g mozzarella cheese

And any toppings you fancy – we went for…

cooked ham, roughly chopped
salami, roughly chopped
tinned sweetcorn
pitted black olives
capers
wild garlic leaves, roughly chopped (or any other fresh or dried herb)

Preheat the oven to 200°C/Gas Mark 6.

Smother the ciabatta with passata and decorate with your chosen toppings. Tear the mozzarella and place on top.

Place your ciabatta pizzas on a lightly greased baking tray and pop in the oven (or alternatively under a medium grill) for 10 to 12 minutes, until the bread is lightly toasted and the cheese has melted. Easy as.

As our ciabatta pizzas feature ham, salami, sweetcorn and tomatoes, I’m entering them into this month’s Recipes for Life, a challenge hosted by me and run in conjunction with SWALLOW, an amazing charity supporting adults with learning disabilities. Each month we set three ingredients and challenge bloggers to use these to come up with tasty, healthy and easy to cook dishes that can be made by SWALLOW members in their cookery class and at home. And this month’s three ingredients just happen to be pork, sweetcorn and tomatoes…

If you like this, you might also like to try…

The full English pizza

Slow roasted tomato and oregano pizza

Spaghetti with wild garlic pesto

Wild garlic risotto

April’s Recipes for Life challenge: get cooking with pork, sweetcorn and tomatoes

Take part in the Recipes for Life food bloggers challenge and you could see your dish featured in a new charity cookbook!

We’re already into month three of the Recipes for Life challenge and I’m rather excited about the three ingredients we’ve been set for April by the SWALLOW cookery club. They are: pork, sweetcorn and tomatoes.

Like last month, they might not at first appear the most obvious of culinary combinations. But give it a few moments’ thought and I’d be surprised if a whole host of tasty meal ideas don’t start whirring around your brain!

The rules of the challenge are the same as before; simply come up with a wholesome, delicious and easy-to-cook recipe featuring this month’s three key ingredients, and which members of the cookery club at SWALLOW can cook themselves.

Through its Fit for Life programme, SWALLOW runs cookery courses for adults with learning disabilities, giving them the skills and confidence to prepare simple, inexpensive and nutritious meals. They are looking for new recipes to cook on the course, and ultimately to include in their new cookbook.

So what meal could you rustle up with pork, sweetcorn and tomatoes? You can use any pork-based product you fancy – a whole joint or chops, bacon or ham, sausages or mince. The sweetcorn can be fresh, on the cob, tinned or frozen. And the tomatoes can again be fresh, tinned or perhaps sun-dried – you might even get away with a puree or passata. So you see, it’s really a rather versatile shopping list this month.

Recipes for Life: how to enter

1. Display the Recipes for Life badge (shown above and below) on your recipe post, and link back to this challenge post.
2. You may enter as many recipe links as you like, so long as they are based on the three main ingredients selected for this month and accompanied only by basic store cupboard items.
3. Send your recipe URL to me at vanesther-at-reescommunications-dot-co-dot-uk, including your own email address and the title of your recipe or post. The closing date this month is Tuesday 23 April 2013.
4. If you tweet your post, please mention #RecipesforLife, @BangerMashChat and @SWALLOWcharity in your tweet and we will retweet everyone we see.
5. Feel free to republish old recipe posts, but please add the information about this challenge and the Recipes for Life badge.
6. As entries come in, links to these will be added to this page and at the end of the month there will be a round-up of all entries received.
7. SWALLOW staff and members will choose their favourite recipe at the end of each month, and the winner will receive a small prize.
8. A selection of recipes entered each month will be featured in the SWALLOW cookbook to be published later this year, helping the charity to raise much needed funds for its ongoing work.

Pork chops are a firm favourite in our house – they’re almost as popular as sausages. When I was told the trio of ingredients for April, I knew I’d have to get in there first with some chops. So here’s my entry to get things started…

Buy your pork chops from the butcher and ask for them to be cut nice and thick – they stay much more moist and succulent that way.

I like to roast my corn on the cobs in the oven in a little butter with whatever herbs I have available; the end result is so much sweeter and tastier than if you simply boil them.

The spicy tomato relish includes some optional extras such as olives and capers but don’t worry if you don’t have these or you don’t like them – the relish tastes just as good without. And some simple mashed potato on the side is perfect for soaking up all those delicious buttery, meaty juices.

Rosemary and garlic pork chops with roasted corn on the cob and spicy tomato relish

Serves 4

4 thick pork chops
3 sprigs rosemary
6 cloves of garlic, crushed
4 tbsp olive oil
1 lemon
salt and pepper

4 corn on the cobs
50g butter
fresh or dried herbs (I used fresh thyme and sage)
salt and pepper

For the tomato relish

1 tbsp olive oil
Half an onion, chopped
1 tsp paprika
1 400g tin chopped tomatoes
2 tbsp red wine or cider vinegar
2 tsp sugar
salt and pepper
30g capers (optional)
30g black olives, roughly chopped (optional)
Handful fresh coriander, roughly chopped (optional)

Start by preparing the marinade for the pork.

Place the pork chops in a large dish. Pull the rosemary leaves off the woody stems, roughly chop and give them a good pounding with a pestle and mortar. Put the rosemary in a bowl with the crushed garlic and olive oil. Chop the lemon in half and squeeze the juice into the bowl. Chop up the lemon skin, give it a good bash with the pestle and mortar and add to the bowl with a little salt and pepper. Mix it all together before pouring onto the meat.

Get your hands in and rub the marinade all over the chops so they are well smothered. Cover and leave for a couple of hours.

Prepare the corn on the cob by firstly placing them on large sheets of foil. Generously smear each cob with butter, season and sprinkle over your chosen herbs. Wrap the corns in the foil, leaving a little room for the steam.

Preheat the oven to 200°C/gas mark 6.

When the pork is marinated, place on a wire rack over a roasting tray and bake in the oven for 20 to 25 minutes, depending on how big your chops are. Turn halfway through the cooking time. The chops are cooked when there is no sign of pink inside and are nicely browned on the outside.

Roast the corn in the oven at the same time, placing them directly on the oven shelf. They should take around 20 minutes. Test the corn with a sharp knife and remove from the oven when they are just tender. Leave wrapped in foil until you’re ready to serve.

While the chops and corn are cooking, make the tomato relish. Heat the oil in a frying pan and gently soften the onion until it is golden. Add the paprika and cook for a minute or two before stirring in the chopped tomatoes, vinegar, sugar, salt and pepper. If you are using, also add in the capers and olives. Cook gently for 10 to 15 minutes until the relish has thickened. Mix in the coriander right at the end.

Keep the relish warm until the pork chops and corn are ready and serve on warmed plates, ideally with some mashed potato on the side. That’s what I call proper family grub – it’s definitely finger licking good!

April’s entries

1. Slow Cooker Sweet & Sour Sausages from The Crazy Kitchen
2. Sausage Chilli from The Garden Deli
3. BBQ Pork Ribs with Sweetcorn Salsa from Under the Blue Gum Tree
4. Slow Cooker Pork Creole from JibberJabberUK
5. Sausage Pesto Pasta from The Crazy Kitchen
6. Oven Baked Tortilla from The Crazy Kitchen
7. Pulled Pork Wrap with  Tomato and Chorizo Salsa and Sweet Sweet Sweetcorn from Spurs Cook

8. Pork, Sweetcorn & Tomatoes with Vermicelli Rice Noodles from Fun as a Gran

9. A Very Retro Sweet and Sour Pork from Chez Foti
10. Cheat’s Ciabatta Pizza from Bangers & Mash
11. Sausage Chilli (Again) from the Garden Deli and Bangers & Mash
12. Red Rice Accompanied by Pork, Sweetcorn and Tomato from Fun as a Gran

Beetroot, carrot and feta cheese salad

Today is the last day to enter the March Recipes for Life challenge. So if you’re sitting on a delicious dish featuring beetroot, carrot and cheese – well, I hope not literally as that could get a little messy – then today is the day to let me know about it! Details of how to enter this month’s challenge are here.

For my last-minute entry, I bring you a fresh and zingy salad – one that we eat regularly in the Bangers & Mash house, or variations of it at least. It’s a surprisingly summery salad considering its winter root vegetable ingredients. This version uses of course beetroot and carrot, but you could also try it with turnip, swede, celeriac or any kind of red or green cabbage. It’s based on an Ottolenghi recipe and I love it for its versatility and its slightly sweet and sour dressing which is just mouth-wateringly tasty.

As I made it at the weekend for Recipes for Life, I tried it with some feta cheese this time. It worked extremely well – the soft tanginess of the feta is a perfect contrast to the earthiness of the beetroot and parsley. You can use whichever herbs take your fancy. The original recipe used parsley and dill but I went with parsley and coriander, simply because those are what I had in the fridge. It also features capers but you could leave these out if you don’t have or like them, or perhaps use olives or chopped gherkins instead. I left out the dried sour cherries from Ottolenghi’s version; sometimes I’ll use another dried fruit instead or chopped apple. But not this time, as I thought there was probably enough going on. Go experiment!

By the way, I use organic vegetables so I don’t bother to peel them for salads like these. But if you’re not sure what your veggies have been grown in, it might be best to peel them first.

Serves 4 to 6

3-4 medium beetroots, scrubbed and grated
3 large carrots, scrubbed and grated
large handful of fresh coriander, roughly chopped
large handful of fresh parsley, roughly chopped
200g feta cheese, cut into small cubes
30g capers
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp cider vinegar
2 tbsp sunflower oil
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp wholegrain mustard
1 tsp sugar
1 clove garlic, crushed
salt and pepper to taste

This is so simple. Place the grated beetroot and carrot in a large mixing bowl with all the other ingredients (keep back a few pieces of cheese to place on top at the end) and mix together well using your hands. Ottolenghi describes it as ‘massaging’ the ingredients, so that the vegetables get the chance to absorb all the delicious flavours.

Leave the salad in the fridge for at least an hour before serving, when you can throw in the last few pieces of brilliantly white feta, which I think look fabulous alongside the pink pieces.

This salad will keep in the fridge for a couple of days. I think it tastes even better the next day. I like to eat mine in a tortilla wrap with hummus and cold meats. How will you eat yours?

February’s Recipes for Life challenge: what can you do with sausages, onions and tomatoes?

Take part in the Recipes for Life food bloggers challenge for your chance to see your recipe featured in a new charity cookbook!

I am thrilled to be launching a new challenge for food bloggers called Recipes for Life.

Each month I’ll be calling for your tasty, wholesome and easy-to-cook recipes that revolve around just three main ingredients. The best of these recipes will be included in a new charity cookbook to be published by SWALLOW later this year.

Kicking off the challenge in February, our first three ingredients are: sausages, onions and tomatoes. What tasty dish could you rustle up with those?

SWALLOW is an incredible charity based just down the road from me in Somerset, supporting adults with learning disabilities to lead more independent lives. It runs a wide range of programmes for its members, empowering them with the skills and experiences to live their lives to the full, from therapeutic art courses and drama groups to domestic and work-based training.

As part of its Fit for Life programme, SWALLOW runs cookery courses, helping members learn to prepare simple, inexpensive and nutritious meals. SWALLOW is looking for new recipes for its members to cook on the course, and ultimately to include in its cookbook, that don’t require a lengthy list of ingredients and aren’t incredibly complicated to make.

And so we’re calling on the food blogging community to help us create an exciting collection of cheap and easy recipes, based on readily available, everyday ingredients.

For February we’re looking for recipes that focus on sausages, onions and tomatoes. The sausages can be meat or vegetarian, and the tomatoes can be either the fresh or tinned variety. Any other accompanying ingredients need to be the kind of basic items you’d find in any fridge or store cupboard, such as flour, pasta, rice, milk, eggs and so on. Nothing too fancy like artichoke hearts, preserved lemons or balsamic vinegar please!

Recipes for Life: how to enter

1. Display the Recipes for Life badge (shown above and below) on your recipe post, and link back to this challenge post.
2. You may enter as many recipe links as you like, so long as they are based on the three main ingredients selected for this month and accompanied only by basic store cupboard items.
3. Send your recipe URL to me at vanesther-at-reescommunications-dot-co-dot-uk, including your own email address and the title of your recipe or post. The closing date this month is Thursday 28 February 2013.
4. If you tweet your post, please mention #recipesforlife, @BangerMashChat and @SWALLOWcharity in your tweet and we will retweet everyone we see.
5. Feel free to republish old recipe posts, but please add the information about this challenge and the Recipes for Life badge.
6. As entries come in, links to these will be added to this page and at the end of the month there will be a round-up of all entries received.
7. SWALLOW staff and members will choose their favourite recipe at the end of each month, and the winner will receive a small prize.
8. A selection of recipes entered each month will be featured in the SWALLOW cookbook to be published later this year, helping the charity to raise much needed funds for its ongoing work.

Here are my easy sausage meatballs, based on a recipe in Nigellisima, to get the ball rolling…

Sausage meatballs

Serves 4

8 large pork sausages
2 tbsp oil (olive or vegetable)
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tsp dried oregano
100ml chicken stock
2 x 400g chopped tomatoes
1 bay leaf
salt and pepper to taste

Slit the skins of the sausages and squeeze out the meat. Roll the sausagemeat into cherry-tomato-sized balls.

Heat the oil in heavy casserole and fry the meatballs until golden. You may need to fry in batches, depending on the size of your dish. Remove all the meatballs from the casserole and fry the onion for about five minutes until soft and golden. Add the garlic and oregano and fry for another minute before returning the meatballs to the pan.

Pour in the stock and the tomatoes, throw in the bay leaf, and give it all a gentle stir. Bring it to a simmer and leave to cook uncovered for 20 minutes, until the sauce has thickened a little and the meatballs have cooked through. Taste and add some salt and pepper if needed.

Serve with rice or pasta.

I can’t wait to see what dishes you come up with for Recipes for Life. Any questions, please tweet or email me.

February’s entries:

1. Sausage Meat Sauce for Pasta Bakes or Sloppy Joes from Fuss Free Flavours
2. Sausage Lasagne from Under The Blue Gum Tree
3. Slow Cooker Turkey Sausages and Veg in the Red from On Top of Spaghetti
4. Thrifty Sausage, Vegetable and Pearl Barley Hotpot from Utterly Scrummy Food for Families
5. Sausage Casserole from The Good Stuff
6. Sausage, Bean and Veggie Hotpot from Chez Foti
7. Sausage & Onion Tarts from The Garden Deli
8. Jumbo Mediterranean Sausage Pasty from The Crazy Kitchen
9. Sausage Ragu from The Foodie Blog
10. Quick and Easy Soba Noodles from Fun as a Gran
11. Sausage and Pepper Pasta from JibberJabberUK
12. Jacki’s Sausage, Chorizo & Chickpea stew from Jacki Harrison-Stanley

January Herbs on Saturday blog challenge – win a copy of ‘Your Kitchen Garden’

Well, here we are in 2013 already. How on earth did that happen? I know I say it every year but 2012 really did feel like it was over in a flash. I hope you enjoyed a delicious Christmas and had a wonderful time seeing in the new year. Ours was lovely. Christmas was a whirlwind of visits from family and friends, while we spent New Year’s Eve very quietly, enjoying steak and chips, good red wine and Jools Holland on the telly. Splendid.

I’m extremely pleased to be welcoming in the new year here on Bangers & Mash by hosting the Herbs on Saturday blog challenge for Karen at Lavender & Lovage.

I first hosted Herbs on Saturday back in July and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. The challenge is a fabulous way to share delicious recipes that celebrate cooking with herbs, and I was fortunate enough to meet so many new and talented food bloggers as a result of hosting it last time. I can’t wait to see what comes in this month, particularly after seeing the recipes submitted last month.

To take part in the challenge, simply submit any recipe using fresh or dried herbs by emailing me with the URL for your post. And they don’t only need to be recipes made on a Saturday. At the end of each month, a ‘special blogger’ will choose their favourite recipe from all the entries, and the winning blogger will receive a fantastic cookbook as their prize. The full entry guidelines are below.

January’s prize is Your Kitchen Garden: Month-by-Month by renowned gardening author Andi Clevely.

Highly practical and easy-to-use, with clear illustrations and seasonal charts, Andi Clevely’s book is invaluable for creating a  well-managed kitchen garden providing a plentiful supply of vegetables, fruit, salad crops, herbs and flowers throughout the year. Each chapter focuses on one calendar month, setting out the tasks to be done and featuring crops that will be ripe for harvesting.

Herbs on Saturday for January – guidelines on how to enter

1. Send your recipe URL to me at vanesther-at-reescommunications-dot-co-dot-uk, including your own email address and the title of your recipe or post. The closing date is Thursday 31 January.
2. Display the Herbs on Saturday badge (as shown above and below) on the relevant recipe post, with a link back to this post  and also to the challenge page over at Lavender & Lovage.
3. Email me as many recipe links as you like, there is no limit and the recipes and posts can be from any day, not just Saturday!
4. If you tweet your post, please mention #herbsonsaturday, @BangerMashChat and @KarenBurnsBooth in your tweet – I will retweet all that I see.
5. The recipe can be one of your own or one you’ve seen elsewhere. You are welcome to republish old recipes/posts but please add the information about this challenge as listed above with the Herbs on Saturday badge.
6. As entries come in, links to these will be added to this page and at the end of the month there will be a round-up of all entries received.
7. A guest blogger will choose their favourite recipe at the end of the month, and the winner will receive a copy of Your Kitchen Garden: Month-by-Month.

If you have any questions, please feel free to drop me a line. I’m really looking forward to receiving your entries for Herbs on Saturday!

January’s entries:

1. Nigel Slater’s Hangover Salad from London Busy Body
2. Herbed Cheese and Bacon Souffles from Caroline Makes
3. Cumin Spiced Chicken with a Puy Lentil and Chargrilled Courgette Salad from How to be a Gourmand
4. Mushroom, Onion and Thyme Focaccia from Lancashire Food
5. Swamp Juice from Tinned Tomatoes
6. Parsley Pesto from Chez Foti
7. Slow Roasted Pork Neck in Thyme, Rosemary & Bay with Mint Flatbreads from Bangers & Mash
8. Creamy Lemon Butter Beans from The Garden Deli
9. Roast Chicken with Bulgur Wheat Stuffing and Roast Butternut Squash from Food Eat Love
10. Bacon-Wrapped Salmon from Fab Food 4 All
11. A Really Useful Asian Broth with Awesome Add-Ins from Food to Glow
12. Rosemary and Thyme Chickpea Pancakes (Socca de Nice) from Food to Glow
13. Saltimbocca alla Romana from Rita Cooks Italian
14. Spicy Pork Stew with Sweet Potatoes and Beans from Farmersgirl Kitchen
15. Parsley Pesto from The Botanical Baker
16. Chicken, Sausage and Vegetable Hotpot from Lavender & Lovage
17. Dukkah & Sun Dried Tomato Muffins from Fuss Free Flavours
18. Fridge-Raid Smoked Salmon Spaghetti from Crumbs and Corkscrews
19. Tiger Prawn Curry with Basmati Rice from Lavender & Lovage
20. English Parsley, Walnut and Stilton Pesto from Marmaduke Scarlet
21. Easy Shakshuka (Spiced North African Tomato and Eggs) from Food to  Glow
22. Carrot Ginger Lime Soup with Sweet Potato Hummus from The Taste Space
23. Butternut Risotto with Butternut Crisps from Chez Foti
24. Middle Eastern Chicken Salad with Hummus Dressing from Bangers & Mash
25. Chicken Breast Fillets with Sage from My Little Italian Kitchen
26. 5:2 Diet Minestrone Soup from Tinned Tomatoes
27. Rillettes de Canard from Blue Kitchen Bakes
28. Cauliflower & Pear Soup from Elizabeth’s Kitchen
29. Croustade de Canard (Duck Pie with Figs) from Delicieux
30. Roasted Mushrooms with Rosemary from Cherrapeno
31. Zero Effort Spicy Carrot Soup from Dinner with Crayons
32. Thyme, Black Garlic and Tomato Flatbreads from Blue Kitchen Bakes
33. Bresaola Spirals from Leeks and Limoni
34. Shakshuka from Exploits of a Food Nut
35. Peashoot, Bacon & Ricotta Penne from Anne’s Kitchen
36. Nigella’s Chicken Tagine from Blue Kitchen Bakes
37. Kroppkakor – Swedish Style Dumplings from Delicieux
38. Belleau Minestrone from Belleau Kitchen
39. Sicilian Style Tuna with Salsa Verde from 8&Ruth
40. Smoked Mackerel Salad with Yoghurt, Horseradish & Dill Dressing from Recipe Junkie
41. Lemon Chicken with Cannellini Beans and Rosemary from Lavender & Lovage
42. Cheesy Chorizo Flatbreads from Blue Kitchen Bakes
43. Goats Cheese Souffles with Thyme from Maison Cupcake

What brunch dish will you bring to the Breakfast Club?

Breakfast Club: because breakfast should be more interesting than tea & toast or coffee & cereal.

During December, I am delighted to be hosting Breakfast Club, a bloggers challenge created by the very talented Helen at Fuss Free Flavours to encourage more creativity in the kitchen for that all important first meal of the day. I really hope you’ll join in the fun by entering a dish or two.

Let’s do brunch!

The theme for Breakfast Club this month is Brunch. According to Marge Simpson’s charming Casanova of a bowling instructor, the über smooth Jacques, brunch is…

…not quite breakfast, it’s not quite lunch, but it comes with a slice of cantaloupe at the end. You don’t get completely what you would at breakfast, but you get a good meal!

Brunch is my idea of a perfect breakfast. The kind of lazy breakfast you cook and eat at leisure on a relaxed Sunday, when you’re not in a rush to get to work or school. The kind of laid back breakfast you take your time over with a large pot of coffee and a selection of papers.

So no, not the kind of breakfast I get to eat all that often, but I always make sure I indulge when the opportunity presents itself. And a very good idea to have a stock of good brunch recipes up your sleeve for when it does.

It’s very easy to enter a brunch dish into this month’s Breakfast Club:

• Email me with the URL for your brunch recipe blog post
• Mention in your post you are entering your dish into Breakfast Club, include the logo above, and add links back to both this post and the Breakfast Club page at Fuss Free Flavours
• Entries can be submitted to other events
• You are welcome to enter old posts/recipes but they must be republished with the logo and links above
• If you use Twitter please use #blogbreakfastclub and tweet your entry, and I’ll retweet everyone I see
• The closing date is Friday 28 December 2012.

Hopefully, that all makes sense but if you do have any questions, please comment below. I can’t wait to see your entries!

Oh and before I forget, Helen at Fuss Free Flavours is always on the look out for new guest hosts for the Breakfast Club, and last month’s round up is here.

To get things started, I thought I’d give you my brunch recipe. I found it hard to choose which one as I have so many brunch favourites. I love pancakes and did think about entering these indulgent lemon and ricotta pancakes.

Or how about a more virtuous start to the day with some homemade granola?

But then I do also find it hard to resist a good fry up, but really – who needs a recipe for that? And so I’ve decided on…

The full English pizza

I know it sounds a little crazy. Or maybe a lot crazy. But this is a perfect and fun weekend brunch, particularly when you’ve had a few drinks the night before and need some stodge to sort you out. It’s essentially all the usual suspects you’d find in a cooked English breakfast but on top of a pizza. Gorgeous. And you probably won’t need to eat for the rest of the day.

I get up early to make the pizza dough. Then go back to bed for a bit with a cup of tea while the dough rises. But if that sounds to you like too much of a palaver, then ready-made pizza bases would make life a little easier.

Makes 4 pizzas

For the dough:

400g strong white bread flour
1 tsp salt
1 x 7g sachet fast action dried yeast
2 tbsp chopped fresh oregano
250ml luke warm water
1 tbsp olive oil

For the topping:

200g spinach
knob of butter
passata, about half a jar
4 pork sausages, grilled and sliced
4 rashers bacon, grilled and chopped
mozzarella, 2 x 250g balls
4 free range eggs

To make the pizza dough, put the flour, salt, dried yeast and oregano into a large mixing bowl and mix well.

Make a well in the middle and pour in the lukewarm water and oil. Gradually work the flour into the liquid, making a soft dough. If it’s too dry, add a drop more water. If it’s too sticky, add a little more flour.

Flour your surface before tipping the dough onto it. Knead the dough by stretching it away from you, then pulling back into a ball. Do this for five minutes or so, until the dough is smooth and elastic.

Return the dough to the mixing bowl, cover loosely with cling film and put in a warm place for about an hour, until the dough has doubled in size. This is when I retire back to bed for a while.

Preheat the oven to 200°C/Gas Mark 6 or use the middle of the top oven of an Aga.

Uncover the risen dough and punch it back down. Flour the surface again and divide the dough into four balls. Stretch or roll out each ball until you have a thin circle about 22cm across. Place the pizzas onto slightly oiled baking sheets.

Melt the butter in a frying pan. Add the spinach and cook gently until wilted.

Pour a couple of tablespoons of passata onto each pizza, smoothing out with the back of the spoon. Spread some spinach over each base (squeeze out any excess butter), followed by the pieces of sausage and bacon, and finish with torn pieces of mozzarella. Be careful not to overload the centre of the pizza, where you’ll be cooking your egg later.

Bake the pizzas in the oven for 15-20 minutes. Remove from the oven and carefully break an egg into the middle of each pizza. Return to the oven for 3 to 4 minutes until the white is just cooked but the yolk is still soft. Enjoy at your leisure!

December’s entries for Breakfast Club:

1. Turkey, Cranberry & Stilton Christmas Brunch Muffins from Fuss Free Flavours
2. Beet Greens & Red Pepper Frittata from On Top of Spaghetti
3. White Chocolate &  Cranberry Christmas Cookies from Chez Foti
4. Buck Rarebit from Credit Munched
5. Courgette and Mushroom Omelette with Garlic and Parsley from Bangers & Mash
6. Swiss Scrambled Eggs, Croissants and Shakes from Fabulicious Food
7. Mushrooms on Rye Toast from The Garden Deli
8. Minestrone Soup from Divine Foods Living
9. Nduja Potato Cakes from Foodycat
10. Christmas Breakfast Muffins from Elizabeth’s Kitchen
11. Speculoos & Mascarpone Pancake Cake from Kavey Eats
12. Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins from Mondomulia
13. Brunch Quesadillas – Fab Food 4 All

Care to Cook: The Winner is Announced!

When I put out a call a month or so ago for people to send in their favourite family recipes for the Care to Cook recipe challenge I had absolutely no idea what kind of response to expect. Care to Cook is a challenge I set up with a fostering and adoption charity I work with called TACT in order to promote their cookbook, which they’re selling to support adopted children and their families.

But I had nothing to worry about. You lot rose to the challenge splendidly, supplying a fantastic assortment of family favourites, both savoury and sweet. The task set was to suggest a dish you would cook to welcome someone into your family home. For many children in care, family meals are simply something they are not used to. Each and every dish submitted into the challenge is one I know would make a vulnerable child or young person feel special, valued and welcomed.

Before I announce the winner, here are each of those delicious entries in turn. Warning – this list is guaranteed to make you hungry!

First in was this tasty little number from Under The Blue Gum Tree, which looks far superior to its McDonald’s namesake: Homemade Fillet O’ Fish and “Chips”.  The fillet is served in lovingly prepared carrot and cumin bread rolls, with potato skins covered in paprika and cayenne pepper, and some salsa and soured cream on the side. Now, who could resist that?

Homemade Fillet O’ Fish and “Chips” from Under The Blue Gum Tree

Next we have French Madeleines from Crêpes Suzettes. These pretty little cakes look so tempting and perfect for goûter, the snack French kids have at around 4pm. I think my children must be a bit French as they are always starving when they come home from school too!

French Madeleines from Crepes Suzette

For Reluctant Housedad, what to cook for this challenge was a bit of a no-brainer. It had to be his Peanut Butter and Salted Caramel Chocolate Cheesecake. Doesn’t it look incredible? I love puddings that combine sweet and salty and absolutely anything that contains peanut butter, so this is going straight to the top of my must-bake list.

Peanut Butter and Salted Caramel Chocolate Cheesecake from Reluctant Housedad

My fabulous mother Cheryl suggested this next dish Hokkien Mee, which she remembers eating as a girl growing up on the Malaysian island of Penang. It’s a hot and spicy noodle dish, featuring both meat and seafood, common in many South East Asian dishes. It’s a little different to the Singapore version but, as my Mum would tell you, much more delicious!

Penang Hokkien Mee from Cheryl Leembruggen (photo via vkeon.com)

Karen from Lavender & Lovage offers up these ’frugal but comforting’ Stuffed Tomatoes with Herbs and Oats, which I think look incredibly tasty and very satisfying. It’s a real family-favourite in Karen’s house; her daughter loved eating this when she was little, and still does now she is all grown up!

Stuffed Tomatoes with Herbs and Oats from Lavender & Lovage

My little sister Elly surprised me with her cooking skills with this next entry, her Nonya Chicken Curry from Malaysia. I just assumed she would submit a recipe for something sweet and sticky – she’s a great baker you see. But no, this is her curry dish that got a big thumbs up from her boyfriend’s dad. He’s from Malaysia himself and apparently not an easy man to impress!

Nonya Chicken Curry from Elly Rowe

Pasta and Pesto Sauce is our next entry which comes from A Trifle Rushed. Pesto is always a favourite in our house but I must admit it’s normally a meal-in-a-hurry using dried pasta and jarred sauce. Here Jude and her daughter lovingly make fresh pasta by hand and blend their own pesto in a pestle and mortar. I bet it tastes incredible; it certainly looks wonderful.

Pasta and Pesto Sauce from A Trifle Rushed

Louisa at Chez Foti now lives in the French Pyrenees and likes to cook classic French dishes whenever friends and family come to visit. This Boeuf en Daube is a particular favourite and I can see why; it looks so sumptuously satisfying! It’s one of those meals you can prepare in advance and leave to slow cook in the oven, so that your visitors arrive to the most glorious aromas emanating from the kitchen. Yum!

Boeuf en Daube from Chez Foti

When I received this next entry from Lavender & Lovage for Yorkshire Season Pudding with Herbs I had to try it straight away. We had it for brunch one Sunday morning, and it was perfect with our bacon, eggs and beans. I like the fact this is a traditional family recipe, and one that Karen’s grandmother used to make. I think it might just become a tradition for our family too.

Yorkshire Season Pudding with Herbs from Lavender & Lovage

Spinach and Bacon Macaroni Cheese from Sian at Fishfingers for Tea is next up. Macaroni cheese is the ultimate in satisfying comfort food and I do love this version, beefed up with tasty bacon and spinach and finished with slices of tomato and crunchy cheesy breadcrumbs on top. Another great dish for preparing in advance and popping in the oven just before your visitors arrive.

Spinach and Bacon Macaroni Cheese from Fishfingers for Tea

My Nana Barbara sent in two dishes for her entry: Courgette Bake followed by Vanilla Cream Terrine. She says the courgette bake works well both as a starter and as main course served with large hunks of crusty bread. My Nana is fantastic in the kitchen and as a kid I would love staying with her and Grandad as it always meant getting to eat lots of lovely cakes and pies.

Barbara’s Courgette Bake – perfect for anyone with a glut of courgettes on their hands

Chicken Basquaise is the delicious entry from Helene at French Foodie Baby. She warns that it might differ from traditional recipes but that’s what she likes so much about her mother’s cooking; she cooks from the gut. I love the way Helene relives her food memories through her blog and brings them into the present day as she cooks for her little boy Pablo.

Chicken Basquaise from French Foodie Baby

This Strawberries and Cream Birthday Cake comes from my step-mum Sue and is the cake she bakes every June to celebrate my twin sisters’ birthday. I’ve always been very jealous of them having a summer birthday when strawberries are in season! Now wouldn’t you like this for your birthday cake each year?

Strawberries and Cream Birthday Cake from Sue Hamer

The final entry is one of mine: Hainanese Chicken Rice. It’s a dish I loved to eat when I was a little girl on trips to Penang with my mum and little sister. I had no idea how to make it so I turned to members of my Chinese-Malaysian family for a helping hand, and my Aunty Lorene and Cousin Sisi did the honours by providing this recipe. How would I ever survive without Facebook?!

Hainanese Chicken Rice from Bangers & Mash

There you have it – a fine collection of family recipes if ever I saw one! But there can only be one winner in the Care to Cook challenge, and the unenviable task of selecting a winner was given to 15-year-old Josh, who lives with one of TACT’s foster carers in the South West of England.

Josh says it was a very difficult decision to make and he sat deliberating – and salivating! – over the list for quite some time and really struggled to choose just one winner. He really liked the look of both the Penang Hokkien Mee and the Strawberries and Cream Birthday Cake, but in the end it was the Peanut Butter and Salted Caramel Chocolate Cheesecake from the Reluctant Housedad that won his vote.

So a huge congratulations to Keith at the Reluctant Housedad for your fabulous entry, which Josh found he simply couldn’t resist! As winner of the Care to Cook family recipe challenge he will receive a copy of TACT’s Care to Cook recipe book, signed by the charity’s celebrity patron Lorraine Pascale.

Choosing one winner wasn’t easy but in the end our judge Josh couldn’t resist this Peanut Butter and Salted Caramel Chocolate Cheesecake from the Reluctant Housedad

And thank you to everyone who has taken the time to share their favourite family recipes, helping to raise awareness of this very worthwhile charity, which is working so hard to improve the lives of children and young people across the UK who haven’t had the best starts in life. More information of the work of TACT is available on their website.

Barbara’s Courgette Bake and Vanilla Cream Terrine for the Care to Cook Challenge

Knitting with my Nana Barbara back in the 1980s

My parents split up when I was very little. I can barely remember them being together. So much so, I’m not totally sure how old I was when they went their separate ways. Two perhaps, or three?

But despite that, my dad’s parents, my Nana Barbara and Grandad Peter, ensured they remained constant factors in my life – through my childhood and teens, my university days and when I started my own family and they became great-grandparents. My mum moved around the UK quite a bit as I was growing up, but no matter where we went, Nana Barbara and Grandad Peter would trek across the country to come and visit me. Because family is important. I grew up knowing that and knowing how much I was loved. And that is so important.

I am so pleased my Nana Barbara has entered these recipes into the Care to Cook recipe challenge to raise awareness of the fostering and adoption charity TACT. I always associated visits from my grandparents and then later, when I was old enough to go and stay with them in Lancashire and then the Lake District, with food. Homebaked cakes, pies, tarts, casseroles and puddings. Dinner round the table. Proper family food.

My Grandad Peter and my Nana Barbara with me and my daughter Jessie a few years ago

The two dishes Nana has entered are actually new ones on me, and I can’t wait to try them out…

Courgette Bake

In one bowl mix:

2 grated courgettes
1 grated carrot
1 chopped onion
5 rashers of chopped up crispy bacon
1 cup grated tasty cheese
1 cup self-raising flour

In a second bowl mix:

5 eggs, beaten
½ cup olive oil
salt and pepper
crushed clove of garlic
1tsp paprika

You’ll also need:

Parmesan or cheddar for sprinkling on top
Chopped fresh parsley to finish

Stir bowls one and two together, then spread into a lasagne dish. Sprinkle with Parmesan or Cheddar cheese.

Cook at 200°c for 30 to 40 minutes. Serve hot or cold, garnished with fresh parsley. Will serve six people.

Vanilla Cream Terrine

2 tsp vanilla extract
425ml whipping cream
11g sachet powder gelatine
85g caster sugar
425g Greek yoghurt
Mint leaves and raspberries to garnish
raspberry couli

Begin by placing the gelatine in a cup together with three tablespoons of the cream and leave to soak for 10mins.

Meanwhile place the rest of the cream in a saucepan with the sugar and heat gently until sugar has dissolved. It is important not to overheat the cream. Next, add the soaked gelatine to the warmed cream and whisk everything over the heat for a few seconds. Now remove the cream mixture from the heat.

In a mixing bowl, stir the yoghurt & vanilla together, then pour the gelatine cream mixture through a sieve. Mix very thoroughly and pour the whole lot into a plastic box (I use an old ice cream container). Allow to cool, cover and chill in the fridge for at least 4-6 hours or overnight.

Serve sliced, with fresh raspberries and mint springs, with a pouring of raspberry coulis.

Thanks Nana!