I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but my recipes recently have contained paprika. This is due to the fact that my wonderful wife Claire bought me several ingredients at Christmas to inspire me to create some different dishes. I’ve had a tin of hot paprika begging me to use it recently so that is why recently most of the recipes have contained it

To make this you will need the following:

• 450g Lamb cut into cubes
• 55ml Red wine (or dry sherry if you wish)
• 100ml Olive oil
• 2tsp Paprika
• 1tsp Dried oregano
• 1tsp Dried Thyme
• Salt and pepper

Very easy to do this Throw everything in a bowl and mix together. Marinade the lamb chunks for at least 2 hours or even overnight if possible.

Now all you do is thread the marinaded lamb onto skewers and place under a grill, turning several times until the meat is browned. You can serve this with a salad as a nice light lunch.

I’m tempted to say I listened to LAMB of God listening to this, but I didn’t I was listening to Municipal Waste… Thrashing!

To continue my Mexican theme, I made some quesadilas.

For this you will need recipe you can choose whatever you want as your filling. I would suggest using 5 or 6 of the following:

• Chopped tomatoes
• Chopped spring onion
• Chopped red chili
• Sliced pickled Jalapenos
• Sliced pickled onions
• Finely sliced courgette
• Sliced red pepper
• Sliced mushrooms
• Black Olives
• Can of refried beans

You will also need:

• Sunflower oil
• Large flour tortillas
• Cheese (of your choice)
• Cumin
• Paprika

To make this, grease a large frying pan with the sunflower oil and lay down one of you tortillas. Cover with cheese and add the fillings of choice, I used courgette, red pepper, tomato, chili and sliced pickled onion. Sprinkle over the spices then place a second tortilla on top and press down. Cook for about 5 minutes or until the bottom tortilla is crisp and golden. Place a plate on top of the frying pan and flip over the tortilla onto the plate. Slide the tortilla back into the frying pan and cook on the other side, again until crisp and golden.

To serve, cut into triangles and serve with natural yoghurt and coriander.

Cavalera Conspiracy rocked me making this as I made this at the same time as the Paprika Mushrooms!

Typical, just as I say I can’t get pictures to upload, I get pictures to upload!

Anyway for the recipe I used the following ingredients:

• Butter
• 1/2 Leek finely chopped
• 6 Mushrooms thinly sliced
• 1/2 tsp Chili powder
• 1 tsp Paprika (or hot paprika as I used )
• 30ml White wine
• 30ml Red wine
• 1 tbsp Tomato sauce
• 1 tbsp Tomato puree

To make this, in a wok or frying pan, melt the butter and fry the leeks for about 2 minutes. Add the mushrooms and spices and cook for a further minute. Next add the white wine, red wine, tomato sauce and tomato puree, stir altogether and simmer for 4 minutes. If you feel it is getting too thick then you can add some water.

And that is it. Simple as that. As you can see from the picture I served mine with some natural yoghurt as a garnish.

This dish was also used as an accompaniament to the quesadilas I made.

I rocked out to the new album by Cavalera Conspiracy while making this!

To come in the next couple of days I will upload:

• Quesadillas
• Lamb Paprika Kebabs
• Paprika Mushrooms
• Chicken Pakora
• Breakfast Burrito
• Pan Fried Steak In Chipotle Sauce with Manchego Mash and Green Beans
• Jerk Chicken With Gungo Peas and Rice
• Picadillo Pie

So as you can see I have been busy!

I have to give credit to Lupe Pintos a deli with shops in both Glasgow and Edinburgh, for the inspiration for the last 4 recipes above. I have been meaning to go there for a while after Claire bought me some cooking products from there for Christmas, and I found myself in food heaven! They have a variety of goods from around the world for all sorts of cooking styles, so I think I might become a regular

As mentioned in a previous post, I was thinking of getting some sort of restaurant experience, but it has been suggested to me that I might try evening or a part time course. It is something that I’m going to look into now as it would probably be easier to get into than in a small restaurant.

That’s all for now, stayed tuned for the above recipes

Continuing my Indian feast, a turkey bhoona. Again thanks to the Ashoka Cookbook for inspiration.

For this you will need the following ingredients:

• Vegetable oil
• 1 tbsp fresh chopped garlic
• 3g fresh chopped ginger
• 1 chopped onion
• 2 tsp chilli powder
• 2 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp ground turmeric
• salt
• 450g diced turkey (or pretty much whatever meat you fancy)
• 150g chopped tomatoes
• 125ml water

Heat a little oil in a pan and add the garlic and ginger. Stir fry until the garlic starts turning light brown then add the onion and continue stirring until it turns golden brown.

Add the chilli powder, ground coriander, ground turmeric and a little salt and continue stirring for a further 5 minutes.

Add the meat and cook for about 10 minutes then add the chopped tomatoes and cook for a further 5 minutes. Slowly add the water and continue stirring to mash the tomatoes. Simmer for a further 5 minutes.

And that is basically that You should end up with what you see at the top. Serve with rice and some coriander for garnishing.

Well this has taken me 2 hours so far to try and upload this photo!

So here we go then! Turkey Tikka Kebabs. Thanks to the Ashoka Cookbook for the inspiration for this. You will need the following ingredients:

• Diced turkey breast (or chicken breast if you so desire)
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 3 tbsp tandoori paste (or tikka masala paste as I used)
• 3 tbsp natural yoghurt
• 1 garlic clove crushed
• 2 tbsp chopped fresh coriander
• Salt and pepper
• Onion, cut into wedges and split into layers

Very easy to do this. All you need to do is put the diced turkey into a bowl and add all the other ingredients making sure the turkey is well coated. Cover the bowl and leave to marinate in the fridge for 2-3 hours.

Preheat the grill and thread alternate pieces of turkey and onion onto skewers.

Brush the onions with a little oil then place under the grill for 10-12 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through, turning occasionally.

You should then have what is at the top of the post I served mine with a little coriander and had it as a starter.

I have discovered however that there are people looking at this site and printing off recipes so that is a bonus I didn’t realise this was happening

I have recently started a diet so there will be nothing on here too fattening anymore… unless I’ve a valid reason! Soon to be posted are some Indian recipes again, while I have been at home by myself Saturdays are becoming my day of cooking something nice from scratch.

The whole point of this blog is that I’m an engineer to trade but I want to make it easy to cook meals from scratch. Yes I am as guilty as anyone of cooking quick meals during the week, but at weekends when I have time to myself I want to cook something nice from scratch.

At the start of the year there was a campaign by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Jamie Oliver about the condition that Chicken’s are kept in that are sold in supermarkets. Yes I totally agree with them, but I also understand that people are on a budget and I would recommend that people buy chicken thighs rather than chicken breast. Much more juicy and also a fraction of the price

As I said I am on a diet so if people reading this are on a diet please contact me. I will put hints and tips up on this site for that as well now. I have been on a diet for a month now and I have lost just over a stone in weight so maybe we could start an online diet group or something.

Another thing I am considering is that now Claire is away for 5 months now that I would try and get some restaurant experience… I was thinking of visiting some restaurants and seeing if I could get some first hand experience of kitchen work for next to nothing in the way of wages just for something to do in the evenings, but we will wait and see if this happens.

Back shortly

A bit late in posting this up, this was the starter for Valentines Day!

Stuffed Mushrooms… Varying recipes on the internet and in the recipe books I have, so this is a combination of recipes.

I used the following ingredients:

• 4 large mushrooms (2 per person)
• Brie
• Parmesan
• Garlic
• Rosemary
• Salt
• Pepper
• Olive Oil

Peel the mushrooms and remove the stalks. Finely chop the stalks and place in a bowl. Finely chop the rosemary and place this into the bowl too. Add about 50g of brie to the bowl and mix together. Crush a couple of cloves of garlic and add this to the mixture. Brush both sides of the mushrooms with olive oil and place on a baking tray spoon the mixture into the mushrooms and spread out. Sprinkle over some salt and pepper and some Parmesan. Place in a pre-heated oven of 180 degrees for 10-15 minutes or until the cheese is golden brown. And there you have it!

I served this with a handful of rocket dressed in olive oil.

Another request from Claire as I had lots of spare time on my hands Also we had most of the ingredients so it was just a  case of finding something to do with them.

 For the stew:

• Olive oil
• Knob of butter
• 750g beef stewing steak (although for this I only had 400g so made up the rest with steak mince)
• 2 tbsp plain flour
• 2 garlic cloves
• 2 medium onions quartered
• 4 carrots cut into chunks
• 2 leeks cut into chunks
• 200g swede cut into chunks
• 150ml red wine
• 500ml beef stock
• 3 tbsp thyme leaves
• 3 tbsp parsley
• Worcestershire sauce to taste
• Salt and Pepper

Put some oil and the butter into a pan and brown the beef. Next sprinkle over the flour and cook for 2 minutes. Add the garlic and the vegetables and fry for 2 minutes. Stir in the wine, stock and herbs then add some Worcestershire sauce to taste. Season the mixture salt and pepper then transfer to a casserole dish, cover with a lid, and cook in a preheated oven of 180 degrees centigrade for 2 hours.

While this is cooking you can make your dumplings. Now I love dumplings, I can’t remember the last time I had them, my mum always made turkey stew at Christmas with the turkey bones and always put dumplings in. So I had to ask her advice on this.

You will need:

• 125g plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 60g suet
• water

Very easy this as it turns out. Sift the flour and baking powder into a bowl then add the suet and enough water to form a dough. Then with floured hands roll the dough into balls. This was enough for 4 decent sized dumplings and you should get as follows:

After the stew has been cooking for 2 hours, remove the lid and place the dumplings into the stew. Cook for a further 20 minutes and you should get this:

 Lastly I did some mashed potato’s to serve with this.

As I have said at the start, I like to use fresh ingredients. So here were are! I know it doesn’t look like much at the moment but these are seeds I’ve just started to grow. The picture on the right will soon have rosemary and thyme. The picture on the left is the seeds Claire got me for Christmas which I started growing a few weeks ago. In those pots are parsley, coriander and basil. I’ll keep you up to date with how these grow.

Also you will have noticed the layout has changed. After all my faffing around making sure I had the right one, when I put my links up they didn’t show properly. Maybe something to do with the design? I don’t know, that’s for the geeks ;P