Stuffed Calamari Tubes

STUFFED CALAMARI TUBES with SWEET CHILLI

Ingredients for the stuffing

2 Tbls (15ml) oil

1 Onion

1 tsp (5ml) crushed garlic

1 small red chilli pepper, chopped finely
1 cup rice

1 cup white wine

1 cup vegetable stock
1 Tbls (15ml) tomato paste

1 tin (400g) diced tomato

1 tsp (5ml) mixed dried herbs

Pinch cayenne pepper

1/2 tsp (2.5ml) Turmeric

salt and pepper to taste

Ingredients for the tubes

1kg small calamari tubes

Olive oil
60ml sweet chilli sauce

Method for stuffing
- Fry onions in oil until translucent,
- add garlic and chilli
- Stir in rice
- slowly add the white wine, and vegetable stock, stirring gradually from time to time for about 10 minutes.
- add in the rest of the ingredients.
- cook over low heat until the moisture has been absorbed by the rice. (about another 10 minutes)
- allow to cool
Putting it all together
- Carefully spoon the rice mixture into the calamari tubes (I find a knife works well for this)
- Close the top of the calamari tube by 'threading'a toothpick through the tube.
- pour over a healthy amount of sweet chilli sauce
- heat some olive in a frying pan
- fry in small batches over a hot pan for a few minutes at a time (about 5 minutes), until the calamari is cooked (no longer translucent)

Tips:
- Just add the broken tubes and tentacles to the mix, they can get fried up with the rest of the "perfect'tubes.
- Wonderful as a classy finger snack at a braai - done on a flat plate over the coals.

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Anyonita Nibbles

Stuffed pimento peppers

STUFFED PIMENTO PEPPERS
I bought some beautiful huge pimento peppers the other day, mainly because I want to try and see if I can get the seeds to grow.  I decided on stuffing these beautiful peppers with a stuffing and baking them in the oven - they were delicious.  Here's the recipe.

Ingredients
2 large pimento Peppers, halved longways down the center
3 Tbls (45ml) Thick Plain yoghurt
4 sliced brown bread (wholewheat is great), crumbled
1/2 cup (125ml) grated cheddar cheese
1 tsp (5ml) capers
1/2 tsp (2.5ml) yellow mustard seeds, grinded
1/2 tsp (2.5ml) aniseed, grinded
1/2 tsp (2.5ml) cumin, grinded
1/2 tsp (5ml) dried sage
1/2 tsp (5ml) fresh mint leaves
Salt and pepper to taste

Method:
- heat oven to 190 degrees C.
- Cut the pimento peppers in half longways, remove seeds and pith
- Cut off crusts of bread and crumble with your fingers.
- Add, bread, yoghurt, cheese, and capers to a bowl, stir by hand altogether.
- Grind together the mustard seeds, aniseed and cumin, add to the bread mixture
- Add in remaining ingredients and mix
- Spoon into the peppers
- Baked in a greased pan for about 25 minutes until golden brown on top
- Serve with a lovely fresh garden salad for a light meal or as a side dish to a main meal.

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This Chick Cooks

Chilli Tamarillo Jam

STICKY SWEET CHILLI and TAMARILLO JAM
My garden is full of little bell peppers (like Pepperdews), Chillis and my Tamarillo tree is drooping Tamarillos.  So what better way than to utilize them all in a sweet chilli jam.  You can substitute the Tamarillos for tomatoes if you like.  It is absolutely delicious.

Ingredients
1 Cup (250ml) Tamarillos, skinned and chopped.
1 Cup (25ml) peppers, chopped. ( I used a mix of sweet caspium peppers and chilli peppers)
1 Tbls (15ml) Garlic, crushed.
2 Cups (500ml) Sugar.
1/2 Cup (125ml) White grape vinegar
1 Tbls (15ml) Dark Balsamic vinegar
2 Tbls (30ml) Freshly squeezed lemon Juice
1/2 tsp (5ml) Salt

Method
- Put all the ingredients in a medium sized saucepan
- Keep on a low heat stirring occasionally until all the sugar has turned to liquid.
- Turn up slightly and simmer for about 45 minutes until the jam turns syrupy.
- Test a bit on a spoon, the cooled liquid on the spoon must be thickish and syrupy  but it will thicken even more on cooling.
- Sterilize a jar in boiling water, and pour the warm jam into the jars.

Tips:
- Makes about 2 cups of jam
- will keep for about a month or so in the fridge
- Can substitute tomatoes for the Tamarillos


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Potato Chips

CRUNCHY POTATO CHIPS

Every now and then I just love fried potato chips (or french fries).  I'm not really fond of 'shlap' chips that they serve in fast food places - seriously - those are just so not cooked enough.  In my opinion they need to be a lovely golden brown and a bit crispy.  This is my recipe that works perfectly every time.  Easy, simple and yummy.  if the peels on the potatoes are nice - leave them on.  

Ingredients:

Potatoes, (work on about 2 potatoes per person)

A generous sprinkling of salt

sunflower oil (enough to just cover the potatoes)

paprika

Method:

- Put the oil in a deep pan to heat up

- Slice the potatoes thinly in sticks.

- Sprinkle the raw potato chips with salt (this is the trick to their crunchiness)

- Check that the oil is hot enough by putting one potato stick in the oil.  It must frizzle and rise to the surface.

- Add all the raw potato chips, carefully one handful at a time.

- Turn the whole lot over a couple of times to brown all over.  Don't turn too often or too soon, else they turn to mush.

- Drain on newspaper

- Sprinkle with more salt, and paprika

Tip:

You can re-use the sunflower oil a few times. I put mine in a large glass jar and store it in the fridge, until the next chip craving comes along

Brinjal Jam

STICKY BRINJAL JAM

This recipe comes from my friend Nadia.  It is super easy, yummy with cheese, and lasts for about 2 weeks or so in the fridge.  The recipe uses palm sugar, but you can substitute this for normal light brown sugar.  Palm sugar can be purchased at a Chinese food store.

Ingredients

2 to 3 Brinjals, sliced into thin rounds (about 250g)

5ml (1tsp) cumin seeds

5ml (1tsp) Mustard seeds (I used yellow mustard seeds)

1 Chilli, halved long-ways and seeds removed

250ml (1 cup) balsamic vinegar

125g palm sugar, grated

Method

- Grind the cumin & mustard seeds with a pestle & mortar

- Place all the ingredients in a saucepan.

- Simmer for about 30 minutes, until vinegar reduces and it is thick and syrupy. 

- Cool, and chill until required.   

This post links to:
Saucy, Dippy Jammy recipes Pinterest
Love Bakes Good Cakes
Cookin' for the Seven Dwarfs
My Snippets of Inspiration

Chicken Soup

THICK NUTRITIOUS CHICKEN SOUP
This is my hubby's recipe, he makes the most divine chicken soup, it is thick and full of nutritious goodness. One of those real 'feel good meals'.  A lovely winter meal or when you just need a pick me up, coz the immunity has dropped.  He never follows a recipe and just raids the fridge and veggie garden for whatever is in season and available at the time.  But this is more-or less, give or take the standard recipe.  He makes an enormous pot and then we freeze it in Tupperware, for a quick meal in nights to come.

Ingredients:
2kg of chicken pieces
enough water to cover the chicken and some
1 Tablepoon chicken stock powder, or 1 stock cube
1 large onion,  finely chopped
1 potato, peeled and cubed into 1cm blocks
2 stalks celery, including the leaves, chopped finely
1 large red caspium pepper, finely chopped.
4 cloves garlic, crushed
2 baby marrow (zucchini), top and tailed and finely chopped
1 red chili, finely chopped
2cm piece of ginger, finely chopped
1 cup soup mix or barley
1 teaspoon turmeric
Large pinch of cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon of ground black pepper
1 teaspoon sage
1 teaspoon parsley
1 Tablespoon Lemon Juice
1 Tablespoon soya sauce
Salt and pepper to taste

Method:
- Put the chicken in a large pot with chicken stock.  cover with water and boil until the chicken is tender and starting to fall of the bone.
- Take the chicken out of the water with a slotted spoon and put in a colander reserving the liquid in the pot that it was boiled in.
- allow the chicken to cool enough to work with and take all the chicken off the bones and add back into the soup pot.  Discard the skin and bones
- Add the remainder ingredients to the soup and allow to simmer for about 30-40 minutes until the barley and the potatoes are soft

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Herb Peppers and Lemon salt

HERB, PEPPERS and LEMON SALT
I love doing different salts to sprinkle over a fresh garden salad, or pasta, or whatever you fancy really.  They look fab and fancy on the table.  And are really easy to make.  I am fortunate enough to have the most wonderful herb garden,  (but you could also add dried herbs towards the end).  Use whatever herbs you got available to you.
The herb mix I used was:  Rosemary, Marjoram, Parsley, Vietnamese coriander, Chives, Mint, and Lemon basil.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup fresh herbs 
1/2 cup different peppers (chili, Caspium, pepper-dew)
1 teaspoon grated lemon or lime peel
1 cup Maldon Sea Salt Flakes

Method
- Cut and chop up the herbs and peppers finely.
- Mix everything together and place in a baking tray (don't grease)
- Bake in a low oven at 80 degrees C for 1 hour 20min.  Stirring occasionally

The Finished Product:
It will keep for a long time (up to a year) in a pantry, as salt acts as a natural preservative

This post links to:
Fab Savoury Recipes Pinterest
Flour me with Love
Veggie Gobbler
Love Laugh Rowe
The Best Blog Recipes
Stone Gable
VMG206
Frugal Foodie Mama
Cookin' for the Seven Dwarfs
Twelve O Eight
Love Bakes Good Cakes
Favorite Blogger Recipes Pinterest
Memories by the Mile
This Chick Cooks