Category: Recipes

Best Cottage Pie Recipe

by Keelan LaForge, posted in Budgeting, Cooking, Food, Recipes

I love this cottage pie but I’d forgotten to make it for a while. I seem to forget about comfort food over the summer (unless chocolate counts as a comfort food, in which case I have plenty of it.) This meal is easy to make and my kids eat it.. well, they eat the mince and mashed potatoes and set the rest on my plate :/ The measurements for this are so rough because I tend to just throw stuff in a pan and hope for the best and with this it worked 🙂

Serves 2 adults, 2 kids or 2 hungry people

Ingredients

For the meat:

250g beef mince
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic
2 small carrots
2 sticks of celery
Beef stock to cover
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
Shake of salt and pepper
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp ketchup
1 tbsp red wine

For the potatoes:

8 potatoes
1 tbsp butter
A splash of milk
A shake of salt

For the topping – grated cheddar cheese

Method
Fry the mince on its own in a pan. Chop an onion, garlic, celery sticks and peel and chop carrots. (Cut the vegetables up small so they cook quicker.) Add to the pan and continue to cook on a medium heat.
When the onions are clear and the veg looks like it is softening, cover the meat with boiling water. I crumble in 1/2 a beef stock cup after doing this and mix it in. Add the wine, Worcester sauce, ketchup, salt, pepper and thyme. Reduce heat and let simmer until carrots and celery are soft. At the end, add in a couple of tbsps of cornflour mixed well with COLD water. (Do this in a cup first.) Stir continuously until sauce has thickened. Turn heat off.

In the meantime, peel potatoes and chop into chunks (so they cook more evenly and quickly.) Put in boiled water with salt and cook on medium heat for about 20 mins. Take potatoes off heat when they are just starting to break apart. Drain and mash with butter and milk. (Sometimes I use an electric mixer to make them extra smooth and creamy.)

Fill an oven dish with the meat mixture. Use a spatula to spread the mashed potatoes on top. Cover generously with grated cheddar. Put in the oven at 180c for 15 minutes to crisp up the cheese. Let it cook until it is browned on top and the sauce is visibly bubbling underneath.

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Raspberry, Pineapple and Kale Smoothies

by Keelan LaForge, posted in Budgeting, Cooking, Recipes

I should preface this by saying, in this smoothie, you can’t taste the kale. I can confirm based on the fact my children will drink it and one of them doesn’t like green vegetables; the other doesn’t like any vegetables. When my kids are asking for ice lollies constantly, it’s a good, healthy replacement. If you use lots of frozen fruit, it makes a slushy type of consistency that they can eat with a spoon. This recipe is more the consistency of juice. You can also freeze it in lolly moulds to make ice lollies.

Ingredients

1 frozen banana
handful of frozen raspberries
small handful of pineapple
handful of kale
apple/pineapple juice to just cover the fruit and veg.

Method

Add a frozen banana broken in two and a handful of frozen raspberries or other berries to the bottom of a blender. Place pineapple and kale on top and fill with juice until it just covers the ingredients. Blend until smooth.

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Courgette Cake/ Zucchini Bread Recipe

by Keelan LaForge, posted in Baking, Budgeting, Cooking, Recipes

Today I was in the mood for some baking and I recently remembered I used to make zucchini bread and how addictive it is. It sounds strange but the courgettes cook down into a treacly consistency, so it just tastes like a sweet, caramel-type cake. I decided to make two loaves since this always goes down well in our house.

(Makes two cakes.)

Ingredients

3 cups of flour
1 tsp salt
2 tsps cinnamon
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
3 eggs
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup oil
3 tsps. vanilla extract
2 cups of grated courgettes

Method

Sift the flour, salt, cinnamon, backing powder and bicarb of soda together. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs, sugars, oil and vanilla extract. Combine the wet and dry ingredients well. Add the grated courgettes and mix well. Put in two greased loaf tins. Cook at 160c for 45 minutes, covering with tin foil halfway through to stop the top getting too crispy.

Easy Chicken & Coconut Curry with Sticky Rice

by Keelan LaForge, posted in Budgeting, Cooking, Recipes

I threw this together today and it was surprising good for how easy it is to make. I usually cook a roast chicken and then divide it up into different tubs, freezing some, so it’s ready to use when I need it. Shockingly, my kids admitted to liking this – probably because it is such a mild curry and the coconut milk makes it sweet. The rice is so easy and cheap to make and goes with everything. I just use the value range long grain rice.

(Serves two – or add more chicken and mushrooms/rice to stretch it further.)

Ingredients

Curry

1/2 medium onion
2 cloves of garlic
oil
2 heaped tsps curry powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 can of coconut milk
handful of chopped mushrooms
handful of cooked chicken
handful of chopped cashew nuts
handful of coriander and more to garnish

Rice

1 cup of long grain white rice
salt
boiled water

Method

To make the curry, fry a chopped onion with crushed garlic in oil. When it turns clear, add the curry powder, black pepper and mushrooms. Stir until coated and mushrooms cooked. Add the tin of coconut milk. Bring the heat down to a simmer. Add the chicken and coriander. Cook on a low heat for twenty minutes.

For the rice, add 1/2 a cup of rice per person. Add double the amount of boiled water, add salt and cover with lid. Cook on a very low heat for 20-25 minutes. Don’t stir, but check intermittently to make sure the water hasn’t all been absorbed. It will clump together like sticky rice when cooked this way so you don’t need to drain it. Add some more coriander at the end to make the dish look pretty 🙂

Cheap Minestrone Soup

by Keelan LaForge, posted in Budgeting, Cooking, Recipes

This is my “I can’t be arsed going to the shops” recipe. It’s a good way to use up leftover vegetables and pasta too. I always keep frozen vegetables in the house so I can make healthy meals without having to go out and buy fresh stuff first. My kids mostly just pick the pasta out of this, eating around everything that is a vegetable/could be posing as a vegetable – but with their fussiness levels, that is to be expected. You can use any veg you like. It’s good with a mixture of root veg/greens/pulses.

Ingredients

1 onion
2 cloves garlic
2 carrots
1 potato
2 large mushrooms
1 tin of chopped tomatoes
900ml veg stock
Two handfuls of random pasta shapes
Broccoli/frozen green veg
Large handful of peas/beans
1/2 tsp dried basil
1 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp garlic powder
Generous shake of sugar
Salt and pepper to taste

Method

Fry garlic, onion, chopped carrots, potatoes, mushrooms (all fresh veg) in oil until onions are clear. Add tin of tomatoes and stock, herbs/seasoning and cook on medium heat for 15 mins. Add pasta and lower heat. Add frozen veg and beans/peas for last few minutes. Allow it to cook until thickened and flavours developed. This is good with homemade bread and cheese sprinkled on top.

Cinnamon Buns Recipe

by Keelan LaForge, posted in Baking, Budgeting, Recipes

This recipe was a bit of an experiment but worked out well. My kids devoured them which is a good sign since they turn their noses up at most homemade treats. I guess the absence of plastic packaging and artificial flavours makes them less appealing. But they were begging me for more of these and they are so easy to make 🙂

Ingredients

2 1/4 cups flour

1/2 tsp salt

2 tbsp sugar

1 packet of yeast

1/2 cup of milk

1/4 cup of water

2 tbsp butter

Filling:

2 tbsp butter

2 tbsp sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

Method

Combine flour, yeast, salt and sugar in a bowl. Heat butter, milk and water in a pan until butter is just melted. Mix with dry ingredients and knead for a few minutes. Cover with a towel and leave to rise for an hour or two.

Roll the dough out as flat and long as you can. Spread butter for the filling all over the dough and then sprinkle sugar and cinnamon on top. Roll up like a Swiss roll and then slice into 1 inch pieces. Grease the tray well because the butter melts and then hardens on it. Put into a preheated oven at 180c for 20 minutes.

Easiest White Bread Ever

by Keelan LaForge, posted in Budgeting, Food, Recipes

My daughter loves this bread and she doesn’t eat anything unless it’s coated in chocolate or filled with no nutrients, just sugar. It is so easy to make and is really good toasted too. I find most homemade breads crumble when you cut them. I always revert to plastic bread from the shop due to this, but I haven’t had that problem with this one 🙂 It is also still soft on the second day and toast-able after that 🙂

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp white sugar

1 packet of yeast

1 cup of warm (not hot) water

2 tbsp olive oil

Method:

Combine all dry ingredients with a spoon. Add the cup of warm water – I heat it beyond tepid but not so hot it kills the yeast. Add the oil and mix with a spoon until combined. Knead in the bowl (to make life and the clean up easier for yourself.) You don’t have to knead this bread for long – I find 5 minutes is usually enough. Set in a warm spot covered with a towel until doubled in size. Knock air out of it and put in a loaf tin – cover with towel and leave it to prove. When it has risen again, put in a preheated oven (180c.) Check it after 20 minutes and knock the top – if it sounds hollow it’s ready.

This bread has a brioche-type consistency so it is good with savoury toppings and also with anything you’d put on a croissant 🙂