#20 - Ways to cook salmon no. 2

So what is an easy way to cook succulent salmon? Answer - marinated stir fry! So this is what I did for my friend T coming over for dinner.

This time my salmon recipe did not go wrong lol!

I marinated the salmon fillets in an oriental mix of light soy sauce, thai fish sauce, chili oil, seasame oil and with fresh chillies, lemongrass and garlic:

A stir fry veg pack from Sainsburys was sliced and diced for the stir fry:


Then the salmon was grilled whilst the veggies were stir fried with the rest of the marinade from the salmon and served up together - too yummy to stop and take a picture I'm afraid!

For a palate cleansing desert and to use up a lot of blood oranges (also to avoid chocolate as this was lent time) I made a orange 'marinaded' desert:

The oranges were soaked in Grand Marnier and should have been served with a little cream, but were perfect with out = kinda like a lumpy cocktail! *hic*

The Camden Road Cook

#19 - What to do with lots of brown bananas....

Make banana cake!!

J had a tonne (not literally!) of bananas going brown, I had seen a recipe for brown banana cake on telly (BBC Nigel Slater) - so it was game on..

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/black_banana_cake_52982

First we had to break up the chocolate

The Camden Road Cook does not own a rolling pin, however this is substituted by one of the numerous bottles of wine hanging around to good effect:

Apart from a vast number of bananas, chocolate, & nuts the recipe required a lot of butter and some flour type ingredients

Batter was tasty - and here it is in the tin ready to go in the oven

And after coming out of the oven!

Ummm tasting time!!

Seeing as we had a LOT of bananas we ended up with 2 cakes and enough to feed all our friends and colleagues (but I resisted sending cake abroad!)

The Camden Road Cook

#18 - Chocolate cake/mess?

So my lovely friend T signed me up to a subscription for Oive magazine for my birthday this month - this is us celebrating the Royal Wedding in style (well champagne and PJ's!)

Having seen the front of the current magazine showing a gorgeous chocolate cake my flatmate J suggested this would be a good recipe to try out for Royal Wedding day - this is what I was trying to recreate:

ummm - yummy!

Suffice to say mine didn't *quite* turn out like that!:

The chocolate ganache icing just wouldn't set - so mine was more a chocolate soup with a rather large crouton in the middle.... however as you can tell from the picture, this didn't stop people from eating it and given the large quantity of sauce, the overall verdict?:

Fudgy 'death by chocolate'...

Next time its suggested to use less cream to allow the ganache to set quicker - will let you know what the outcome is when that happens!

The recipe if you are interested in trying it out for yourself can be found here:

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1190635/bestever-chocolate-layer-cake

The Camden Road Cook

#17 Pancake day!

So for pancake day this year we had an extravaganza!!

Starting out with the basic pancake - read crepe - recipe by Delia:

2 eggs
110g plain flour
pinch of salt
200ml milk mixed with 75ml water
2 tbs melted butter

Sieve the flour & salt into a large mixing bowl, then make a well in the centre and break the eggs into it.

whisk the eggs - with a fork or electric whisk if you have it - incorporating the flour from around the eggs bit by bit.

then add small quantities of the milk/water mix gradually - ignore any lumps becuase they'll disappear

the batter should end up smooth with the consistency of thin cream

when you are ready to cook the pancakes add the 2 tbs melted butter into the batter and stir in

melt a small amount of butter around the pan & tip excess out - next get the pan really hot and then turn down to medium - pour in about 2 tbs batter (you'll need to test for the optium amount for your pan - yum!), and swirl around until the pan is evenly coated with batter

cook for about 1/2 minute and then loosen from the plan and get ready to flip!

The result:

Savoury fillings came first:

A ham, mushroom, garlic, cream and parsleymix:
Et volia:-

Sweet fillings:

Banoffee pie! Bananas, duche de leche (sp?) and the ultimate base - crumbled oreo cookies:


All rolled up ready to devour!

Enjoy!

The Camden Road Cook

#16 - Exploding lentils! (way to cook salmon no1)

So whilst trying to create a short cut for dinner tonight I managed to explode a pack of ready made lentils all over my clean microwave.....





I'm sure I followed the heating instructions ok!





Anyway tonight's dinner was grilled salmon with lemon juice and chilli flakes, with ready made puy lentils (tomato & basil flavour - can be found in Waitrose).





To tart the lentils up, especially after losing some of the pack by *wallpapering* the microwave, I fried some sliced red peppers and mushrooms in olive oil and added chopped parsley et voila:




The Camden Road Cook

# 15 - ninja breadmen!!

The ultimate in Christmas ginger breadmen!!

The recipe I nicked from channel 4 food website - principally as it didn't involve treacle as well as golden syrup (which I've discovered comes in squeezy tubes = less mess!)

http://www.channel4.com/food/recipes/baking/gingerbread-recipe-07-12-06_p_1.html

Couple of top tips - if your egg and golden syrup mixture leaves the dough a bit dry and crumbly add a little water to help it stick (but not too much else you won't be able to roll it).

I used a medium egg and the mixture wasn't quite wet enough - a large egg and a heated spoon so the golden syrup slides off easier would have probably helped too - but water worked fine!

The ninja breadmen cutters I found from Urban Outfitters I think - but you can find them on amazon too:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ninja-Bread-Men-Cookie-Cutters/sim/B0045EQ8VC/2

Hope you have as much fun making them as I did!

The Camden Road Cook

# 14 - Chicken soup for colds...

My most favourite chicken soup because its easy to make, luxurious yet (fairly) low calorie, oh and tasty of course!

Beautiful pics! but now to the scientific stuff...

The recipe is from the 'cook yourself thin' cookbook and should serve 6 - but with my friends you need accompaniments with it if its to go that far (e.g. garlic bread!)

you will need;
2 teaspoons oilve oil
1 onion finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic (well it will scare a cold away!), peeled and chopped
300g risotto rice
200ml dry white wine
2 litres of chicken stock (I used stock cubes)
200g chestnut mushrooms, wiped and sliced
1 tbs low fat creme fraiche
1 tbs flat leaf parsley finely chopped
20g freshly and finely grated parmesan
1 cooked chicken breast, skinned and shredded
salt & pepper

start off by heating half the oil in a pan (in this case my lovely large le creuset - remember you need to fit 2 litres of liquid in here) & gently fry onion & garlic over low heat for 5 mins until softened

add the rice and fry for a further minute stirring and coating the rice with the oil

pour in the wine & stir until its all absorbed. Pour over chicken stock & bring to the boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook for 15 mins or until the rice is tender (it doesn't matter if it gets well cooked).

The soup will be quite thin but fills out when you add the other ingredients.

Meanwhile heat a large frying pan & fry the mushrooms in the remaining olive oil for 5 min until golden brown.

When the risotto is cooked stir through the creme fraiche, parsley, parmesan, chicken and mushrooms et voila!

the camden road cook