improve my cooking skills

I haven’t cooked everything from my list below because just wasn’t feeling them, but I’ve been trying loads of new recipes in the past few months.

One thing I learned to cook is frittata and I make it now weekly (frankly, I don’t know why I hadn’t tried frittatas before). I just put in it whatever is in the fridge – mushrooms, leek, peppers, sweet potato, peas…. the more stuff the better and I top it with buffalo mozarella, mmmm….

Another thing I can’t get enough of is sweetpotatoes. I’ve experimented with different ways of making mash and I make sweet potato chips all the time. Sooo nice and satisfies my sweet tooth as well…

I regularly make a quiche for hubby for lunch, very easy once I realised I can use frozen ready made pastry ;-). I cook a lot of fish and been trying different varieties as well. I got some great ideas from the tv show ‘Caribbean food made easy’ recently, nom nom. Oh, and one of my favourite things – my super healthy burritos. I fill some wheat free pancake wraps (homemade of course!) with black bean chilli, top with buffalo mozarella and voila…

Couple of weeks ago I found a recipe for mixed bean and lentil hotpot. As I was making it, I realised it was very bland, so I put in some fennel seeds and coriander seeds and, omg, it was beautiful. I now make it all the time. Such an easy dish to make and perfect winter food.

I’m starting to feel very confident in the kitchen. I can now actually open the pantry, see what’s in there and whip something up, well, most of the times at least….

I’m cooking a lot these days and I’ve become much more confident and creative in the kitchen than I was a year ago. I can now improvise a little and make small changes to recipes and it’s good fun. Recently I’ve felt a bit bored, however, so it’s time to find new recipes and ideas to try. Last night I spent an hour flicking through few cookbooks and made a list of nice sounding recipes that I want to try.
This is going to be a loooong list, so apologies…

Brunches

Mushroom & tomato frittata (or leek) (fd58/87)
Omelette with beans (fd140)
Gramflour pancakes and salsa (gi106)
Sweet pepper and cashew nut flan (d79)

Lunches (or light meals)
Mash toppers (fd66)
Avocado and quinoa salad (fd93)
Tomato & red pepper soup with avocado (gi34)
Egg fu yong (gi60)
Mixed wholegrain salad with miso dressing (d118)
Sweetcorn chowder (d105)
Lentil and carrot soup (d38)
Beetroot, rocket, apple and cashew salad (d31)
Beans with creamed avocado dressing (d25)

Dinners (or protein dishes)
Chestnut and vegetable burgers (cv77)
Ginger, aduki bean and celeriac cakes (d38)
Thai beancakes with sweet pepper sauce (gi94) .
Tempeh burgers (gi151)
Butter bean and coriander potato cakes (d73) .
Quorn korma (i38) .
Coconut quorn (fd84)
Spicy millet and roasted hazelnuts (+quorn pieces) (cv80)
Leeks in red pesto and tofu sauce (fd106)
Butternut and squash risotto (cv67)
Garlic & chilli split pigeon pea curry (i115)
Bengali style aubergine cooked in yoghurt (i104)
Moroccan chickpea casserole (gi119)
Keralan potato curry (gi59)
Millet pilaff with baked aubergine (d128)
Tofu and pineapple stirfry (p124)
Corn enchiladas with tofu, spinach and salsa (d119)
Grilled lemon sole (d69) .
Asian fishcakes (fd118) .
Coconut and coriander fish (fd122) .
Bengali style baked fish (i77)
Coconut and chilli panfried halibut (i74)
Simple north Indian fish curry (i70)
Coconut mackerel curry (i69)
Tandoori monkfish (i64)
Haddock fishcakes (pf122)

Sides or snacks .
Leek compote (fd95) .
Split yellow peas with spring onions (fd132)
Coconut rice (i123)
Toasted spiced chickpeas (i109)
Fried spiced okra (i101)
Spinach with tomatoes (i94)
Five seed potatoes (i92)
Potato rosti (pf62)
Tofu &hijiki balls (gi160)
Veggie sushi (gi122)
Cabbage thoran (gi61)
Spinach curry (gi60)
Cumin roasted sweet potatoes (gi46) .
Crispy sweet corn fritters (d72)
Twice baked sweet potatoes (d70) .
Gujerati carrot salad (d62)

Dips, dressings etc
Green salsa (fd94)
Red salsa (fd95)
Yoghurt sauce with green herbs (fd95)
Salad dressings (fd114)
Marinades (fd126)
Sweet corn and avocado salsa (cv60)
Mango and avocado salsa (cv57)
Soya mayonnaise (d112)
Roas pepper and basil dip (d29)

Baking
Gingered carrot cake (pf50)
Date flapjacks (p42)
Date and walnut cake (pf42)
Banana muffins (pf34)
Sticky date bread (gi183)
Banana and cashew slice (d135)
Spiced baked bananas (d82)

I’m not going to set any deadlines for this, because I want it to be enjoyable and more about the cooking than beating a deadline, but I’d like to try at least 2 new things every week. It’ll still take a while (and I still have about 10 more cookbooks to go through and lots of recipes bookmarked online – i think i’ll try to finish this list first.)

I’m making corn chowder right now and later tonight I’ll be making twice baked sweet potatoes and some fish, maybe try one of the fish recipes above. Might even make spiced bananas for dessert….

I’ve been trying to be a bit more creative with lunches this week and am really enjoying trying new things. For a long time, I’ve wanted to learn to make a simple avocado dip/spread (or guacamole) and finally gave it a try today. It was very quick to make and much tastier than I expected – definitely will be making this regularly. I had it with some tofu on crispbread. Nom nom. And I took a picture. Not a very good picture as my kitchen lights have still not been fixed, but a picture anyway…

^{pictured: chutney cooking; finished chutney and samosas}

I love samosas. We usually buy them from the Hare Krishnas’ restaurant or market stalls but I wanted to try to make them myself after watching Indian Food Made Easy. I followed the recipe carefully and everything went swimmingly, until I realised that clearly her packet of filo pastry must be much bigger than mine, as I only had enough pastry for seven samosas!! (the recipe is meant to make 20). I have to say, I was secretly relieved, because I was getting sick of folding them after just a few samosas. The samosas were lovely, though, definitely worth the effort. I’m going to buy some puff pastry and use the rest of the filling to make small pastries or something.

I also made tomato chutney for dipping. Nom nom. very simple, too, though I think my tomatoes were not quite ripe enough or maybe it would have been better to use tinned tomatoes.
And I made anglo-indian tomato soup with lentils, which was ok, but something war missing from it, don’t know what… maybe I should’ve used more tomatoes? The recipe said 650g fresh tomatoes – i used one tin of tomatoes (apparently 2 tins = 1kg), but maybe i should’ve used 2… I’ll add some tomato puree into it today, maybe that’ll help.