Hi,
I have launched my own website. Take a look!
http://practicallyperfect.org/
There are more recipes with step by step photos to make cooking easy and tasty.
You can also share your own recipes.
Happy cooking!
Pauline
This is a tasty healthy seafood dish.
You will need King prawns, red onion, garlic, tomatoes, salad and avocado.
- Fry the red onion and garlic in olive oil
- Fry the prawns with the red onion and shallots
- Chop the tomatoes and avocado
- Put the salad, tomatoes and avocado in a bowl with some olive oil
- Turn down the heat and add vinegar to the prawns
- Add the scrumptious prawns to the salad bowl and toss
- Enjoy!
The other day I bought some blackberrys in Portobello Market. I was planning to eat them neat, but sadly they tasted too sour. Luckily they did, as I decided to make some muffins :o]
You will need 400g plain flour, 175g caster sugar, 1 tablespoon baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 275ml jersey milk (this is rich and creamy milk. You can also use buttermilk), 2 eggs, 85g butter and lots of blackberries.
- Preheat the oven to 190 degress celcius
- Butter the muffin (ex yorkshire pudding) tin
- Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a bowl
- Make a well in the centre of the bowl
- Melt the butter
- Mix the milk, eggs and butter in another bowl
- Add the liquid into the flour bowl bit by bit mixing it in gradually
- Add the blackberries and mix gently
- Scoop the mixture into the muffin tin
- Put the muffin tin in the oven for 20 minutes, or until the muffins look scrumptious!
- De-tin and put on a wire rack to cool
- Enjoy!
This is a very tasty thai dish that I absolutely love and I hope you will too.
You will need duck fillets, red chillies, shallots, garlic (only 2 cloves), red peppers and plum tomatoes.
For the sauce you will need lemon grass, cumin, galangal, nutmeg, lime leaves, thai basil, red curry paste, coconut milk and a lime. You will also need rice to soak up the tasty sauce.
- Steam rice
- Prepare red chillies, shallots, garlic, red peppers and plum tomatoes
- Cut duck into bite sized chunks
- Fry oil and red curry paste and cumin and nutmeg
- Add garlic and chillies
- Add peppers and shallots
- Add coconut milk. Bring to a boil.
- Add duck and 1/3 mug hot water
- Simmer for 15 minutes
- Add lemon grass and galangal
- Add lime leaves, basil and tomatoes
- Serve and Enjoy!
This dish is ridiculously tasty and pretty healthy. You just need to be organised enough to marinate the beef the day before.
You will need sirloin steak, mushrooms, mangetout, onion, clear honey, mustard, light soy sauce, sesame oil, white wine vinegar and dry sherry.
- Chop onion finely
- Add the onion to steak
- Add 2 tablespoons sherry, 3 tablespoons soy sauce and 1 tablespoon sesame oil. Season with pepper.
- Cover with clingfilm and put in fridge overnight
- The next day steam rice
- Chop mushrooms
- Wash and chop the ends off the mangetout
- Remove the steak from the marinade
- Fry on a high heat for 1-2 minutes on each side
- Leave to cool on a wire rack
- Remove the onions from the marinade and fry them
- Prepare the dressing. Mix together 3 tablespoons sunflower oil, 1.5 tablespoons white wine vinegar, 2.5 tablespoons mustard and 1 teaspoon honey.
- Put the fried onions in the dressing
- Fry mushrooms and mangetout in the marinade
- Mix these with the onions and dressing
- Slice the steak into fine strips
- Mix the steak with the mushrooms, mangetout and onions
- Serve with rice and enjoy!
A friend of mine cooked me this delicious dish recently. Yummm... I have simplified it a little bit to make it feel more achievable, for myself and for you.
You will need chicken breasts, feta cheese, sundried tomatoes, unsmoked bacon. I had mine with potatoes and rosemary, but it would work equally well with rice, pasta or salad.
- Chop the potatoes in quarters and put them in a pan with enough water to cover them
- Bring the pan to the boil
- Pre-heat the oven to 190 degrees C
- Cut the feta cheese and sundried tomatoes into chunks
- Stretch out the chicken breast
- Place the feta cheese and sundried tomatoes down the middle
- Wrap the chicken around the feta cheese and sundried tomatoes
- Wrap the bacon around the chicken
- After the potatoes have been boiling for 3 minutes, drain them and place them in an oven dish with some olive oil and rosemary
- Put them in the oven
- Put the bacon wrapped chicken in an oven dish in the oven for 30 minutes
- Serve and enjoy!
The frozen banana is a great tasty and easy dessert which tastes like icecream but is healthier.
The frozen grapes are a great alternative to icecubes for refreshing drinks with.
You will need a banana and some grapes.
- Peel the banana
- Put the banana in clingfilm
- Put the banana in the freezer
- Wash your grapes and remove the stalks
- Put the grapes in the freezer
- When you fancy a healthy dessert take the banana out of the fridge and enjoy!
- When you fancy a refreshing and fun drink get the grapes out of the freezer and pop them in your drink and enjoy!
A lecturer whilst I was studying biology taught me one of the most useful things I learnt at university - the perfect drink to cure a hangover.
You will need orange juice, sugar and salt. No, you do not need more alcohol, this would only help temporarily but you're basically in pain because you're dehydrated. The trick behind this drink is that it is isotonic. By that I mean the drink has the same salt concentration as your cells in your body and your blood. This drink will help the body to replace fluid and minerals it lost while drinking.
- Fill your pint glass with half a pint of orange juice
- Add a pinch of salt and a tablespoon of sugar
- Stir
- Add half a pint of cold water
- Enjoy! Hope you feel better soon and remember next time to drink a little less alcohol and a lot more water :o]
This is a great summery dish with beautiful flavours and colours.
You will need unsmoked bacon rashers, mango, young spinach leaves, chillies, feta cheese and bread.
- Cut chunky bread cubes from a thick slice of bread (crust-free)
- Cut half a mango into cubes
- Put into a bowl
- Cut ~50g feta cheese into cubes and add to the bowl
- De-seed and thinly slice half a red chilli and add to bowl
- Chop ~75g bacon into chunks
- Heat some vegetable oil in a pan
- Fry the bacon
- When nicely golden place onto kitchen roll to drain some of the grease
- Wipe the pan clean with a kitchen roll
- Heat some vegetable oil in the pan
- Add the bread cubes and fry on each side till golden brown to make crunchy croutons
- Place on kitchen roll
- Wash the spinach and add to the salad bowl
- For the dressing, mix olive oil, white wine vinegar, salt and pepper
- Heat the bacon and dressing. Stir quickly.
- Add to salad bowl and stir
- Serve and do not forget to add the croutons!
- Enjoy!
This is an extremely tasty dish and it really is worth breading the chicken yourself. Note of warning however, the kitchen mess factor of this dish is high!
You will need chicken breasts, carrots, flour, golden curry sauce, rice and breadcrumbs.
- Cook the rice
- Prepare 3 dishes for dipping the chicken into
- Put equal amounts of flour and water in dish 1
- Stir
- Put flour with salt and pepper in dish 2
- Put breadcrumbs in dish 3
- Chop the carrots and boil them
- Pat the chicken dry with kitchen roll
- Heat some vegetable oil in a pan
- Put the chicken from dish 1 to dish 2 to dish 3 to the pan
- Repeat with second chicken breast
- Fry on both sides till golden brown. Make sure the chicken is thoroughly cooked
- For the sauce, remove some of the water from the boiling carrots
- Add the golden curry sauce
- Stir and reduce (boil off excess water till the sauce is to your desired consistency)
- Serve the chicken and curry sauce on a bed of rice
- Enjoy!
