4 December 2013

BBC Good Food Vegetable Ragu

Do you have days when you just don’t feel like touching and eating any meat? Yesterday was one of those days for me. While I do love poultry and meat, I do occasionally feel like a good vegetarian meal such as Vegetable Ragu.

This year I started learning to make my own pasta sauce. Not only are they surprisingly easy, they also taste fresher and healthier. This vegetable ragu recipe from good old BBC Good Food is a gem as it is so cheap and easy to make.

20131204-074230.jpg


Since recipes aren’t set in stone, I omitted celery and red lentils in my version. I added dried basil and cayenne pepper to spice it up a little. And I’m currently in love with balsamic vinegar so I was rather generous with it too. As it cooked on the stove, the ragu was bursting with sweet smelling vegetables – the perfect healthy comfort food on a cold day.

This is to me the fun part about cooking – not restricting yourself to whatever the recipe calls for and taking initiative to tweak it to your preference.

3 December 2013

Jamie Oliver's Roast Chicken Recipe (half-arsed)

Today I tried out a Jamie Oliver's recipe – Perfect roast chicken. I do find myself avoiding recipes from celebrity chefs because 99% of the time their recipes are just far too fancy and complicated for my liking. However, this recipe has proven otherwise.



I tweaked the recipe by spreading herb butter under the skin of the chicken and added some dried thyme with the bunch of fresh rosemary and lemon in the chicken’s cavity.

The result is a crispy-skinned chicken that’s really juicy on the insides. Jamie Oliver didn’t lie about that!

So why did I call it half-arsed?

I got tired in the evening from walking around the Christmas market and couldn’t be bothered to make roast potatoes. I would have put in the extra effort if I had mint sauce, the magic that makes roast potatoes taste heavenly, to go with them. Taking the easy way out, I threw some garlic bread in the oven to serve with the perfect chicken roast.

20131201-204941.jpg


Seriously, this recipe is amazing! Give it a go if you have the time!