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Chilli Con Carne and Chiles Rellenos

Chilli Con Carne and Chiles Rellenos

Sue made a Chilli on Wednesday evening at the same time as the Monster Burger and used a couple of spoons in the Burger. The remained spent the night in the fridge. Actually recooking Chilli does improve the flavour in the same way as lot of Curry dishes. With the addition of a bit of Turmeric Rice we had a meal ready to go.

Chilli Con Carne is pretty much self explanation – Our recipe here is here.

The Chiles Rellenos were a bit of an experiment, something to make a boring looking dinner look a bit more interesting. OK it was me messing about in the kitchen and having a bit of a joke about my usually poor presentation….

Chiles Rellenos Ingredients (Far from tradition but nice crispy addition):-

5 dried Red Chillies each
Grated Cheddar Cheese
1 Egg, beaten
White Wine Vinegar
1 tsp Baking Powder
Plain Flour (Gluten free in our case)

Method:-

(1) Mix most of the Flour, Egg and the Baking Powder with enough water to make a thin batter.
(2) Dip the Dried Chillies in water and then Flour them lightly.
(3) Press a little grated Cheese around each Chilli and set aside.
(4) 5 minutes before you are ready to serve your main dish heat oil in a deep fat fryer to 180c.
(5) Add 2 tsp of White Wine Vinegar to the batter and mix quickly. The batter will bubble up. Don’t beat the life out of it!
(6) Dip each Chilli in the batter using the stalk as a handle and fry in batches.
(7) Once golden brown lift out of the oil and drain.

I made silly little towers with a bit of home pickled Red Cabbage and a bit of grated Carrot! Don’t bother with fancy presentation they won’t last long! But strangely and as far from tradition as you could get, they are really tasty dipped in Coleslaw.
 

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Our attempt at Siberian  Pelmeni.

A few days ago we decided to go on another of our little “Around The World for £4 or Less” adventures. Siberia isn't a nation state as such and this isn't a very traditional recipe. Our local butchers don't stock Bear Meat!
 
Our attempt at Siberian  Pelmeni.
 
Ingredients:-
 
Dough:-
 
300 g flour (We used Gluten Free)
3 eggs, whisked
25 g Margarine, melted
100ml water
Salt
 
Filling:-
 
150g Pork / Beef mince
1 Beef stock cube dissolved in 100ml of warm water
25g Margarine
2 peeled garlic cloves, thinly sliced
¼ tube of Tomato Purée
Salt & Pepper to  season
 
Method:-
 
(1) Mix the dough ingredients in a bowl to form a still dough which to will be able to roll out. If it feels too dry add a little extra water.
(2) Roll the dough into a ball by hand and let it rest covered.
(3) Mix the filling ingredients together.
(4) On a floured surface roll the dough out until it is about 2mm thick.
(5) Us a circular pastry cutter of large mug, in our case, to cut the dough into circles.
(6) In each dough circle add a little of the filling mix. Not to much as you need to close the dough around the meat fix.
(7) Form the dough into balls around the meat, using a little water to seal the edges.  If you are feeling very patient you could try to form a more traditional Tortellini shape.
(8) Boil or deep fry your Pelmeni.
 
We served ours dressed with Sour Cream and chopped Coriander, with fried Courgettes, Red Cabbage, Sautéed Mushrooms. 
 

Beef Stroganoff recipe - Eat Well on Universal Credit

We're at “R” in our Around The World for £4 Or Less experiment. So it had to be Beef Stroganoff really....
 
This is what Wikipedia has to say:-
 
“ Beef Stroganoff or beef Stroganov is a Russian dish of sautéed pieces of beef served in a sauce with Smetana (sour cream). From its origins in mid-19th-century Russia, it has become popular around the world, with considerable variation from the original recipe. “
 
Well we're not sure if this is the original recipe, but it's a pretty good gig regardless. We had a piece of rump steak from the local supermarket in the freezer which cost the princely sum of £1.97, so we're well within budget with this one.
 
Ingredients:-
 
Decent Beef, cut into strips. (You don't need a vast amount of steak as the sauce is quite rich.)
1 Onion, sliced
50g Butter or Margarine
100g of Mushrooms, quartered
1 tbsp Flour ( We used Gluten free )
1 Beef Stock cube
A pinch of Mustard powder
1 tbsp Tomato Purée
220g Crème Fresh / Sour Cream
Salt & Pepper to season
 
Method:-
 
(1) Season the Beef strips with Salt & Pepper.
(2) Sauté the Onions until they are translucent.
(3) Add the Mushrooms and stir for 2 minutes.
(4) Add the Beef and sauté 5 minutes.
(5) Stir in the Flour.
(6) In a bowl dissolve the stock cube in 500ml of hot water and add the Mustard powder and Tomato Purée and blend well.
(7) Add this to the pan and bring to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
(8) Spoon some of the sauce into jug with the Crème Fresh / Sour Cream and mix. This will stop it splitting.
(9) Add the tempered Crème Fresh / Sour Cream to the pan.
(10) Season to taste.
 
We served ours on a bed of boiled rice with a salad and pickled Courgette strips to add a bit of colour. 
 

Sunday Dinner in a Giant Yorkshire

We often say food on a (very restricted) budget, doesn't need to be boring. So here's our Sunday dinner at a cost of less than £4 to feed two humans and Buster the Dog!
 
Giant Yorkshire pudding – Recipe here – Total cost less than £1
Roast potatoes, red and green Cabbage and a couple of Carrots – say £1
½ a small Chicken – Exactly £1.06!
Chicken stock gravy – say 25p
 
There is a well known Yorkshire Pudding Wrap business in York where you could pay £6.95 for a quarter of that in a paper wrapper. But you do get a fancy branded napkin!
 

Chicken Kiev “Poppers”

Some folk go out on a Saturday night, have a meal in a restaurant and the few pints. Followed by a kebab to walk home with. Us? We made this unholy union of East meets West! OK it's perhaps not quite as unhealthy as the kebab, but we'll fry them in Lard next time!
 
Joking aside these mini Chicken Kievs in Onion Bhaji batter were really tasty and well worth the fiddling about.
 
Ingredients:-
 
½ a small Chicken boned out and cut into medium sized pieces
Garlic Butter. (Butter / Margarine, minced Garlic and dried Parsley)
Onion Bhaji mix – Recipe here
Flour (We used a combination of Gluten Free flour and Arrowroot)
 
Method:-
 
(1) Make your Onion Bhaji mix. (We also made and pre-fried the Bhajis. Our recipe is here)
(2) Make your Garlic Butter and put it in the freezer to harden for ½ an hour or longer if you have the time.
(3) With a boning knife remove every last scrap of meat from ½ a Chicken and remove the skin. Cut the breast meat into medium pieces.
(4) Wrap each piece of Chicken meat in cling film and beat out with a rolling pin.
(5) When the Garlic Butter has hardened put a teaspoon in the middle of each piece of Chicken meat and then press and roll the meat around the butter with your hands.
(6) Flour each piece so the batter has more chance of sticking.
(7) Heat your deep fat fryer to 190C. (You could also roast these in the oven at 180C to avoid the oil.)
(8) If you are frying pre-heat the oven to 150C
(9) Fry 3 or 4 pieces at a time until golden brown. The batter expands quite a bit so don't worry if some of your “Poppers” look a little small initially. Place in the oven to keep hot as you fry the remaining “Poppers”.
 
We served ours with home made Onion Bhajis, a salsa style dipping sauce, Potato fritters and a dressed salad.
 

Giant Yorkshire Pudding new recipe

Giant Yorkshire Puddings are a favourite here. A great way to fill up with inexpensive ingredients. But they do offer a bit of a challenged as Sue cannot have any Wheat / Gluten in here diet for medical reasons. So her recipe is always evolving. Jake from York Secret Helpers provided us with some Arrowroot from a commercial ingredients donation which they had received. Always good to try new recipe variations Sue created this. At first we though it was going to be a total failure. But it's just a slow starter! The results as you can see were pretty impressive. What you can't see in the picture is that the texture was considerably better than our previous recipe without the “Suggy bottom” Yorkshires sometimes have. In fact this is probably better than the traditional Wheat based recipe....
 
Ingredients:-
 
100g Arrowroot
40g Potato Flour
3 Eggs
140Ml Milk
Salt & Pepper to season
 
Method:-
 
(1) Mix the Arrowroot, Potato Flour, Eggs, Salt and Pepper and combine well.
(2) Place a deep sided oven tray with Oil in the over on 220C to heat until smoking hot.
(3) Add the Milk and give your batter a really good whisk.
(4) Pour the batter into the oven tray and cook on the middle shelf for 30minutes, until golden brown.
 
We have ours with a roast Chicken dinner with lots of vegetables and gravy with the roasting juices from the Chicken.

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