Cheats Lasagne with optional stuffed crust garlic bread

 Based on John and Lisa's recipe.

Make the ragu bit of the lasagne using a 500g pack of frozen soya mince. The linked recipe one is good but last night I made one by: gently frying a chopped onion until soft. Add clove of crushed garlic and fry for another minute. Add the mince with 1 heaped tbsp tomato puree, a glass of red wine and 1tsp dried mixed herbs. Cook until the wine has reduced by half. Add two tins of tomatoes and chopped mushrooms, bring to the boil and cook for 5-10 minutes. Taste and season if needed

Heat the oven to 200C

Prepare the stuffed crust garlic bread if having (see below)

The 'cheat' bit: Break 7 sheets of dried lasagne into largish bits and stir into the sauce. Pour into lasagne dish. Top with blobs of creme fraiche (300ml in total) and gently spread to get a covering. Top with 200g grated cheese. Bake for 25 minutes.

Stuffed Crust Garlic Bread

Into a bowl containing 300g SR flour and 1tsp baking powder, put on 300g plain yoghurt. Combine to make a dough - knead lightly. On floured surface roll it out to a rectangle 20cmx40cm (the length is the important bit - make it over 40cm rather than under). Scatter over the best part of a 250g pack of grated mozzarella. Roll it lengthwise Swiss roll style.  Join the ends to make a circle. Put onto a baking tray with seam side down. With scissors, snip at 45 degree angles at regular intervals and gently tease the pieces apart.

Bake for 25 minutes - as in alongside the lasagne

Make garlic butter by combining 75g soft butter with 3 crushed cloves of garlic and a handful of chopped parsley. Brush it over the bread as soon as you remove the bread from the oven.

Fruity Turkey Tagine

Still to be tried

Heat 1tbsp olive oil in a large saucepan. Gently fry a thickly sliced red onion until softened. Add the 3 carrots carrots (thickly sliced on the diagonal) and 3 parsnips (thinly sliced on the diagonal), and cook for 8 mins until starting to soften and brown a little. Stir in 2 crushed cloves of garlic and 2tsp ras el hanout and cook for a further 1 minute. Add 500ml turkey stock, a 400g tin of chopped tomatoes and a drained rinsed 400g tin of  chickpeas. Roughly chop and add 140g mixture of dried apricots and prunes along with 150ml water. Season, bring to a simmer and cook for 25-30 mins until the vegetables are tender. 

Add 300g of cooked turkey (cut into chunks) and simmer for 5 mins to warm through. Stir in a good drizzle of honey, then scatter over fresh coriander and roasted flaked almonds.

Serve with couscous and Greek yogurt.

Fried Turkey Sandwich

One for the brunch list!

For two sandwiches

Mix 2tbsp mayonnaise with 1 tbsp salsa and 1 chopped spring onion. (No salsa? Finely chop a tomato and another spring onion and mix in with a pinch of chilli flakes). Season with good grind of pepper

Spread onto 4 slices bread

Add slice of gruyere cheese to each then sandwich with sliced turkey.

Fry in butter until golden brown and cheese melted.

Sticky Toffee Pudding

Love love love the sticky toffee pudding from Cartmel. When we can't get our hands on it this recipe is a good second best.

Chop 250g stoned dates into 5mm dices and put into a bowl. Pour over 175ml boiling water and stir in seeds from a vanilla pod. Steep for an hour until cool. Then mash with the back of a fork. Heat oven to 180C

In a separate bowl cream 100g of softened butter with 150g dark Muscavado sugar. Beat 2 eggs and then add slowly to the butter and sugar mix. 

In other bowl mix 175g plain flour, 2tsp baking powder and 1tsp bicarb of soda. Slowly mix this in along with 100ml of milk until a thick dough is formed. Be careful not to overmix - you want to just bring the ingredients together.

Mix in the dates and 2tbsp black treacle

Line a 25cmx18cm baking tray with baking parchment. Pour in the mix and bake for 60-75 minutes. If using a slightly larger tray then it will required less time. Check with a skewer to ensure you don't over back.

Sauce:

Heat 60g butter with 150g Muscavado sugar and 100ml double cream over a medium heat stirring continuously until sugar has dissolved. Stir in 1tbsp black treacle and another 100ml double cream. 

Mushroom and chestnut or turkey pie

Another recipe that caters for the carnivore and the vegetarian. This one uses up chestnuts and turkey left over from Christmas. It is based on a Hairy Bikers recipe

• Soak 15g dried mushrooms in 150ml of freshly boiled water
• Melt 50g butter and fry 2 sliced leeks over a low heat for 5 minutes covered. 
• Turn heat up slightly and add 350g mushrooms (button or chestnut - slice if large) and cook for 5 minutes. Drain the rehydrated mushrooms reserving the liquid. Roughly chop and add to the pan along with 2 sliced garlic cloves and leaves from a large sprig of thyme.
• Add 50g (heaped tablespoon) plain flour and stir 'until you see a roux has formed around the vegetables'. Stir in 1tsp Dijon mustard and 100ml marsala and stir until incorporated.
• Make up the reserved mushroom liquid to 300ml with vegetable or chicken/turkey stock. Gradually add it to the pan. Bring to boil then down to a simmer and stir until thickened.

Split between 3-4 individual pie tins. Add either whole chestnuts (from vac pac) or bite size chunks of turkey. 

Leave to cool

• When cool preheat oven to 170C Fan.

Cut out ready rolled puff pastry to create lids for the pies. Use a beaten egg to seal the pastry to the pie dishes and to egg was the tops. I used the remnants to create a 'T' or a 'C' on top of each pie to indicate if turkey or chestnut. Cut a couple of slits in each pie.

Bake in the oven until the pastry is golden brown (about 30 minutes)

Tinga - Turkey or other

Heat 2 tbsp olive oil in a large saucepan. Fry two sliced onions for 10 minutes or until softened. Add two crushed cloves of garlic and fry for another minute. Add 2tbsp chipotle chilli paste, 400g tin of chopped tomatoes and a heaped teaspoon of sugar (any type, although the recipe I based this on was light brown soft sugar). Simmer for 20 minutes until the liquid has reduced slightly.

If using left over roast Turkey or Chicken - add shredded meat at the most 10 minutes after the chilli and tomatoes. 

At that 10 minute mark I moved some of the Tinga sauce into a separate pan so the vegetarian in the family could have it with a plant based equivalent to chicken.

Serve in tortilla wraps with salsa, guacamole etc

Christmas Lunch 2020

Himself did a most excellent job of creating crown and boning the legs of the turkey.

We ate the stuffed turkey crown from Jamie Oliver's Turkey Two Ways recipe (the stuffed legs are in the freezer for a future date). 

For our locally sourced darn fine bird, 25 minutes per kilo at 180C and using digital thermometer to check was between 60 and 65C gave us a nice moist turkey.

Stuffing: 

I used Jamie's Apricot and Sausage Stuffing with a bit of a variant

Melt 50g butter with a dash of olive oil in a frying pan. Lightly fry two relatively finely chopped onions with about 20g torn sage leaves (mix of purple and green from the garden worked well), zest from 2 clementines, grated nutmeg and season with pepper unto the onions are starting to become translucent. Stir in the liver from the turkey (trimmed and sinews removed), 100g chopped dried apricots. Add 100ml Marsala (or something similar) and cook on medium-high heat for 15 minutes until the onions are soft. Leave to cool completely. Then add 200g breadcrumbs and 400g sausage meat and combine well using hands (aka squidge together!). Use half to stuff neck of bird and then the other half to stuff the boned legs. Roll and tie the legs. 

Gravy:

I added the vac pack chestnuts to the gravy as per Jamie Oliver suggestion for chestnut gravy. Lost the will to push through sieve after a few minutes - mainly as our sieves are too fine to make this easy - but the gravy was yummy despite this and I whizzed up the veg and chestnuts with stock and some left over veg for an extremely good soup on 27th.  

Parsnips with carrots, sprouts, stuffing balls (from a packet of sage and onion stuffing) with pigs in blanket traybake worked ok-ish. See https://www.itv.com/john-and-lisas-weekend-kitchen/articles/christmas-dinner-traybake for timings. Potatoes roasted separately and I added chestnuts towards the end