Slow Cooked Pork Chops in Barbecue Sauce

This was such a delicious meal.   I would have said a few years ago that I didn’t really like barbecue sauce.   I didn’t really see what the fuss was about.   However, since I started making my own sauce, that opinion completely changed.   Of course, you can just make the sauce and not cook the meat in the sauce, but I love to cook pork ribs or chops in the slow cooker together with the sauce so that they absorb all the delicious flavours.  I love how the pork tastes afterwards and the way it just falls apart on the fork.

This recipe makes plenty of sauce so if you are just serving 2 people then you will have some sauce left over, which will keep in the fridge for a few days.   If you are serving up to 4 people, then as long as you have room for more chops in the slow cooker, then you won’t need to make more sauce.

The great thing about this dish is that it is so quick to mix together the ingredients for the barbecue sauce.  You can easily prepare it in the morning, put it in the slow cooker and then come home to a delicious meal in the evening.   I served it with salad and bread, but it would be lovely with chunky chips or potato wedges.

Ingredients – Serves 2 with some sauce left over

40ml balsamic vinegar

20ml Worcester Sauce

150ml tomato ketchup

1 tsp fennel seeds

2 cloves garlic, crushed

1/2 small red chilli pepper

1/2 small green chilli pepper

1 tbsp soft brown sugar

1 onion, chopped

2 pork chops (add more for more people)

How to Make Slow-cooked Pork Chops in Barbecue Sauce

1. Use a measuring jug to mix the sauce ingredients so you can easily see how much you are adding.   Add all the liquids first and then the fennel seeds, garlic, chillies and sugar.

2. Pour a little sauce into the bottom of the slow cooker.  Sit the pork chops on the sauce.   Sprinkle the chopped onion over the top and then top with the rest of the barbecue sauce. Add a little water so that the pork is almost covered, but make sure it doesn’t wash the sauce off the chops.

3. Cook slowly for 7-9 hours.

4. Take the chops out of the sauce and put the sauce over a high heat to reduce and thicken.  It should take a maximum of about 10 minutes.

5. Serve the sauce over the pork chops.

 

Easy Marinated Griddled Chicken

I have not been managing to blog very frequently lately and to be honest, I haven’t really had anything to blog about either.   I just haven’t really made anything new or different.   I wouldn’t really say that this chicken was new or different for me either but it was really moist and tasted so good I decided I’d better write it down for future reference.   Luckily I’d taken a photo before eating it, and also before loading everything onto my plate.   I also added a big dollop of houmous for dipping the vegetables into and some baguette.  It makes a really tasty and fairly light meal, depending of course on how much bread you eat with it, and it would be great on the barbecue when summer finally arrives.

Ingredients – Serves 2

2 chicken breasts

1 clove garlic, crushed

1/2 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

1/2 tsp coriander

1/4 tsp smoked paprika

Juice of 1/2 lemon

Drizzle of olive oil

How to Make Easy Marinated Grilled Chicken

1. Mix all the ingredients for the marinade.   Coat the chicken in the marinade and leave for 1-2 hours.

2. Heat a griddle pan and cook the chicken for about 15 minutes, turning half-way through.   If you don’t have a griddle pan then use a frying pan or grill the chicken instead.

3. Serve with salad and bread.

 

Greek Pita Pizzas

I am rather embarrassed to admit that I have not posted anything at all since last month’s Secret Recipe Club.  I made an effort.   At the beginning of the month I noted down all the dates of food blogging events I wanted to take part in, but somehow that’s as far as it got and I have no plans as yet to make anything particularly new or challenging, even though I do have time – it’s only the middle of the month.  If it wasn’t for the Secret Recipe Club I would probably not be blogging right now either.   Well, this month my assignment was Hezzi-D’s Books and Cooks.  Hezzi D loves to review recipes as well as being a talented cook herself, having won various cookoffs and contests.   I was once again spoilt for choice and was thinking of making a meatball recipe but in the end chose these delicious Greek inspired pita bread pizzas.  Now, I’m not sure that anyone in Greece actually eats this but it was certainly a lovely way to serve these ingredients. I’d made pita bread pizzas before but the main difference this time was using houmous instead of any type of tomato sauce.  I was a little sceptical but I thought it worked really well and I loved the dressing drizzled over the top.   The only change I would make would be to serve a few olives on the side next time instead of on the pizza.   I like olives but I found if a mouthful had an olive in it, it overpowered the other flavours.

I did make a few changes from the original recipe.   I used fresh tomatoes instead of sundried ones.   I didn’t put extra crushed garlic in the dressing, as there was garlic in the houmous anyway.  I used plain houmous instead of roasted red pepper houmous and I used cheddar instead of mozzarella as one of the cheeses.  It was really delicious and I would definitely make them again for an easy meal or quick lunch. I think if I was eating this outside in the sunshine I would almost feel I was on holiday.

Ingredients – Serves 1 – 2

2 small pita breads

1.5 tbsp houmous

1 tomato

1/4 of a small onion

4 olives

Small chunk of cheddar

Small chunk of feta

For the Dressing

1 tbsp white wine vinegar

1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1/2 tsp dried oregano

black pepper

How to Make Greek Pita Pizzas

1. Brush the pitas with olive oil and bake in the oven for 5-10 minutes until slightly browned and just turning crispy.

2. Spread the pitas with houmous.   Slice the tomatoes and place 2 slices on each pita.  Slice the onion very finely and put a few pieces on top of each pita. Slice the olives in half and put 4 halves on each pizza.

3. Grate the cheddar and put on top of the pitas and crumble the feta on top of the cheddar.

4. Mix all the ingredients for the dressing and drizzle over the pitas.   Return the pitas to the oven for 5 minutes until the cheese is melted.

To see what other Secret Recipe Club participants have made then click on the link below:

 

Chicken Tortilla Soup

I’d been thinking of making a tortilla soup for a long time when I saw it on Jen’s Journey, the blog I was assigned to this month for the Secret Recipe Club.  Jennifer claimed it was the best soup she had ever eaten so I knew it was going to pretty good.  I had to make one or two changes.  It’s not possible to buy cans of Rotel tomatoes and chillies here, or at least not where I shop, and so I just used a tin of tomatoes and some fresh chillies instead.  I hope that achieved a similar result.   Even if it didn’t, it was very very tasty and a soup that I can easily make again.

Ingredients – serves 2-3

2 chicken breasts

1.5 tsp cumin

1 tsp chilli powder

4 cloves of garlic, crushed

A little salt

400g tin chopped tomatoes

2 chilli peppers, sliced

1 red bell pepper, diced

1 red onion, diced

Handful of coriander leaf (cilantro)

A little grated cheese (I used cheddar)

500ml water

950ml chicken stock

2 tortillas (I used flour ones), cut into strips or triangles with a pair of scissors

How to Make Chicken Tortilla Soup

1. Mix the chilli powder, cumin, 1 clove of crushed garlic and a  little salt together.    Coat the chicken in a little oil and then sprinkle some of the spice mix onto the chicken.   Rub it in.

2. Put the chicken breasts on a baking tray and cook in the oven for 20 minutes or until done. At the same time, bake the tortilla pieces for just a short time each so they go crispy.  Shred the chicken using 2 forks.

3. Heat a little oil in a pan and add the onion, chilli pepper and bell pepper.   Cook for a couple of minutes and then add the crushed garlic and rest of the spice mix that did not go on the chicken.  Cook for another couple of minutes.

4. To the pan add the chicken, tinned tomatoes, tomato puree, stock and water. Simmer for 45 minutes.

5. At the end add some of the tortilla pieces/strips and the chopped coriander.

6. Serve topped with the grated cheese, chopped coriander and more of the tortilla pieces.  You could also garnish with avocado or sour cream.

 

Review: Hotel Chocolat Zebra Beastie Egg

I love Easter eggs.  Who doesn’t?  Each year I am lucky enough to get my husband to buy me one, and often it is from Hotel Chocolat .   I also do my best to win one each year by entering competitions on other blogs and last  year I did win one.   This year, I haven’t won one yet, but I was sent one to review by Hotel Chocolat.  I received the Zebra Beastie Egg, which is a hollow milk chocolate egg, with darker zebra stripes.   It comes with 6 mini eggs.   Three are pralines and three are salted caramel.  I loved the praline ones.   They were really delicious with a bit of crunch from the nuts.  Some pralines can be disappointing but these had a definite nuttiness to them.  I’m not really keen on salted caramel.   Why ruin something as delicious as caramel by adding salt to it?  I know it’s fashionable at the moment but I will be happy if this is a trend that disappears and caramel goes back to being just sweet delicious caramel.   But, that is just my opinion and I suspect I may be in a minority.   My husband thought the salt was fairly subtle and his favourite of the two mini eggs was the caramel one.    Aside from the mini eggs, the main egg was delicious.  Lovely high quality milk chocolate.   What more can I say about it?  If I had to complain it would just be that it was a bit small.   I would have loved a larger chocolate egg!

 

Cinnamon Apple Cake

I have had such a busy month and I realise writing this post just before the deadline that the last post I did was also for the Secret Recipe Club.  I really will have to try and do better in the next month.  So, this month I was paired with Heather from Join Us Pull Up A Chair.  She also began blogging as a way of organising her recipes and there were lots of delicious recipes to choose from.  I was torn between trying her sweet potato hummus and this recipe for apple and cinnamon cake.  In the end, the apple cake won as I had some apples that were turning a bit soft and as I don’t like to throw things away, a cake seemed the best way of using them up.  I also love the combination of apple and cinnamon, as you can probably tell from my baked apple pancake, apple and cinnamon and raisin scones and apple and cinnamon crumble.

The finished cake was really delicious, really soft and moist.  Just as delicious as I’d imagined.   The only change I would make next time would be to use slightly less sugar as I found there to be a little too much cinnamon sugar on the top and so a large piece felt just a little too sweet for me.

I am also linking this to Sugar and Slice Sunday.

Ingredients

200g + 100g sugar

115g room temperature unsalted butter

1 tsp vanilla extract

170g room-temperature cream cheese

2 eggs

200g self-raising flour

1.5 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

2 tsp ground cinnamon

390g chopped peeled apple (5 apples, peeled, cored and diced) (much less than in original recipe)

How to Make Cinnamon Apple Cake

1. Put 200g sugar, the butter, vanilla extract and cream cheese in a bowl and beat together.  Then add the eggs, one at a time and beat after each one.

2. Sift the flour, salt and baking powder and then add to the wet mixture.  Beat until combined.

3. In another bowl mix the cinnamon into the rest of the sugar.   Add 4 tablespoons to the chopped apple and stir to coat.

4. Add the apples to the cake batter.

5. Line the bottom of a 9 inch cake tin with baking parchment and coat the sides with oil or butter.  Spoon the batter into the cake tin.

6. Sprinkle the rest of the cinnamon sugar mixture on top of the cake and bake in the oven at 180C for an hour to an hour and 15 minutes.

7. Cool on a wire rack.

To see what other Secret Recipe Club participants have made, click on the link below:

 

Mulligatawny Soup

Firstly I have to apologise to Sarah.   My photo of this soup is not a pretty picture.   The picture on her blog, Sarah’s Kitchen looks much more appealing, and before you turn away in horror, it did taste a lot better than it looks.

Although I had heard of mulligatawny before making it, I had never actually had it before and didn’t really know what it was like.  All I knew was that it was a curried soup that dated back to the time of the British Empire in India. The style of the soup is therefore quite traditionally British but with some Indian flavours from the curry powder, ginger and coconut milk.  It makes a very thick warming soup that is hearty enough to be eaten as a main meal, especially if you serve it with some bread on the side too.   We chose to have garlic and coriander naan but any bread would be nice.  A crusty English roll would also go nicely.

I was paired with Sarah’s Kitchen for the Secret Recipe Club.  Sarah is a British girl living in the US and has a lovely mixture of British, American and international recipes on her blog.

Ingredients – serves 3-4

1 onion, chopped

1 carrot, diced

2 celery stalks, diced

3 tbsp tomato puree

1 tbsp curry powder

2 tbsp flour

1 apple, peeled, cored and grated

1 thumb-sized knob of ginger, grated

1/2 can coconut milk

600ml chicken stock

2 tbsp cooked rice

1-2 chicken breasts, sliced into bite-sized strips or leftover cooked chicken

How to Make Mulligatawny Soup

1. Heat a little oil in a saucepan.  If using raw chicken, add the chicken.  When cooked remove and set aside. If using cooked chicken start at step 2.

2. If necesary add a little more oil and add the onion, carrot and celery.  Cook for about 5 minutes until soft.

3. Add the tomato puree, flour and curry powder.  Stir in well and continue to cook for a couple of minutes.  Add a dash of water if it is too dry.

4. Add the ginger and apple and cook for another couple of minutes.

5. Add the chicken, rice, coconut milk and stock.  Bring to the boil stirring then lower to a simmer.  Keep stirring every so often so it doesn’t stick on the bottom.  It should soon thicken and then it’s ready to serve.

To see what other participants in the Secret Recipe Club have made, click on the link below:

 

Nigella Seed Flatbread

A few months ago I used my breadmaker to make dough for a focaccia bread for the first time.  It was so much less work than kneading it myself and I wondered why I had waited so long to try out another setting.   So, did I become a master baker, making dough every week and making all manner of interesting breads as a result?   I think you know the answer.

This month, with the motivation of Fresh from the Oven and flatbreads as the theme, I decided it was time to use the dough setting again.   I didn’t add lots of fancy flavours and spices, just nigella seeds, which I love in any bread.  The nigella seeds gave the bread a definite Indian flavour and they tasted lovely with the sour chickpeas and marinated chicken that I wrote about the other day.

Fresh from the Oven is hosted on alternate months by Claire at Purely Food and Michelle at Utterly Scrummy Food For Families

Ingredients – Makes 8

250g strong white flour

150ml water

1 tbsp vegtable oil

1 tsp salt

1 tsp nigella seeds

How to Make Nigella Seed Flatbread

1. Put all the ingredients into the breadmaker and set on the dough setting.

2. Divide the dough into 8 equal pieces.  Heat a dry frying pan.

3. Flour the work surface. Roll out the pieces of dough to about 3mm thick.   Put 2 in the frying pan.

4. After a couple of minutes the bread will begin to puff up.  Turn them over and cook for another minute.

5. Repeat with the rest of the pieces of dough.

 

Sour Chickpeas or Khatte Chhole

Me and my husband both love lemon in savoury dishes.  We also love Indian food, chillies and raw onion.   It should then be no surprise that the name of this dish, Sour Chickpeas (Khatte Chhloe), caught my eye when I saw it on Couscous and Consciousness.  When I read through the recipe and saw that the sourness comes from a dressing made with lemon juice, raw chillies, ginger and shallots, I had a craving for it as it reminded me of one of my other favourite recipes.   Even if I hadn’t tried the whole dish I was then in the mood to try out that dressing on something.   I know I would really like it on fish or steak but I decided to make the recipe more or less as it stood.   After all, I do like chickpeas as well.   I didn’t stir the dressing into the chickpeas as I liked the look of it on top of the dish.    We both really liked the strong flavours of the dressing against the chickpeas and it was certainly the dressing that made the dish special.

The dish was adapted from a Madhur Jaffrey recipe in Madhur Jaffrey’s Indian Cookery.

I am linking this dish to Bookmarked Recipes, hosted by Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes.

Ingredients – serves 2

400g tin chickpeas

2 tomatoes, diced

1 chilli pepper, thinly sliced

1 piece of root ginger, grated or finely diced

1 small onion, finely diced

Juice of 1 lemon

1 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp ground cumin

1/4 tsp turmeric

1 tsp garam masala

Pinch of Salt

How to Make Sour Chickpeas

1. Make the sour dressing first.   In a small bowl put half of the chilli pepper, the ginger and 1/4 of the onion.  Pour the lemon juice over the top and add a pinch of salt.   Leave until ready to serve.

2. Cook the rest of the onion and chilli pepper in a saucepan until soft.   Add the chopped tomatoes and cook for another couple of minutes.

3. Then add the chickpeas, the spices and about 200ml of water.   Bring up to the boil then lower the heat to a simmer about for 20 minutes.

4. When ready to serve, either stir the dressing into the chickpeas or serve it on top of the chickpeas.

I served the chickpeas as a side dish with marinated grilled chicken and flatbread but you could serve them just with rice as a main meal.

 

 

 

 

Mexican Chicken Stew

For a long time I have been tempted by the idea of making a stew with cocoa or chocolate in it.  You might think my experiments with cocoa pasta might have put me off but not at all.  When Choclette at Chocolate Log Blog announced that this month We Should Cocoa would have the theme, sugar free, I knew it was my chance to finally push myself to make a proper savoury cocoa dish.   After all, the pasta contained hidden sugar, but if I made a stew I would know exactly what was in it and there would be no chance of being surprised by an unwanted sweet chocolate taste.

This time, my savoury cocoa dish really was savoury and I enjoyed it so much.  The cocoa gave the tomato base for the stew a richer flavour with just a hint of bitterness.  There wasn’t an obvious chocolate flavour.  If you didn’t know it had cocoa in, you might not even guess, and I suspect that that is what most people want from a savoury cocoa dish.  An added layer of flavour but not an overpowering hit.

As well as We Should Cocoa, which is hosted on alternate months by Chele at Chocolate Teapot, I am also linking this to My Kitchen My World (the theme is anywhere) and Bloggers Around the World at Cooking Around the World.  The theme this month is Mexico.

Ingredients – serves 2-3

250g chicken, diced

400g tin chopped tomatoes

1 red pepper, sliced

1 red onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, crushed

1 red chilli pepper, sliced

Handful of Coriander (cilantro), chopped

2 spring onions, sliced

3 cloves

1/2 tsp cumin

1 tsp cocoa powder

How to Make Mexican Chicken Stew

1. Heat a little oil in a sauce pan.   Add the onion and chilli pepper and cook until soft.  Add the red pepper and crushed garlic and cook for another couple of minutes.

2. Add the chicken.   Cook until it is sealed on all sides, then stir in the cocoa, cumin, cloves and tomatoes.  Add a dash of water and leave to simmer for 20 minutes.

3. A few minutes before the end of the cooking time, stir in the spring onion and just before serving, stir in the chopped coriander.

4. Serve with rice or flatbreads.