Polenta Farmer's Eggs (Huevos Rancheros)

I love brunch. It's so nice to start a Sunday by having a nice hearty meal with your friends or family. Unfortunately most brunch meals require spending the whole morning in front of a stove cooking and very little time actually enjoying the meal and the company.

This recipe is a variation of huevos rancheros that can be baked, allowing more time to enjoy the morning. Huevos rancheros is a popular breakfast in Mexico and the US meaning "eggs ranch-style" or "eggs country-style". The dish traditionally was served for on rural farms for a mid-day meal.

In Mexico, huevos rancheros is made with corn tortillas, vegetables and eggs. In Europe, corn tortillas can be hard to find so I've made this with polenta and added large quantities of vegetables to make a wonderful healthy brunch.

Polenta Farmer's Eggs (Huevos Rancheros)
3/4 cup (125 grams) of polenta
1.5 cups (375 ml) of water
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cumin seeds
1/4 teaspoon coriander seeds
1 tsp olive oil
1 green pepper diced
1 onion diced
1 can of diced tomatoes (drained)
6 eggs

1. Combine the polenta, salt and water in a pot and bring to a rolling boil. As soon as it boils, turn the heat off and let the polenta cool slightly and absorb all the water.
2. Spread the polenta on the bottom of a greased 9x12 baking tray.
3. Crush the coriander and cumin seeds in either a blender or a mortar and pestle (you can substitute powdered spices but the flavor will be milder)
4. Saute the onions and peppers in the olive oil for about 5 minutes.
5. Add the spices and drained tomatoes and cook another 2-3 minutes.
6. Spoon the mixture on top of the polenta. Using a spoon make 6 indents in the vegetables where the eggs will go.
7. Crack the eggs into the indentations.
8. Cover the dish and cook at 180 degrees until the eggs have set. Approximately 20-25 minutes.

This recipe can be partially made the night before. Simply put the dish in the refrigerator after step 6 and finish in the morning.
Serves 3-6 people

Cooking time: 45 minutes
Active time: 15 minutes

Grandma's Tomato Sauce

Whenever I make this tomato sauce I'm reminded of my grandmother. She was a fantastic cook that could make almost any Italian dish without a recipe. She also was amazingly good at making food appear out of nothing. She would just look at what dried, frozen or canned ingredients she had in the house and somehow make a really nice meal from them. One thing that she always had frozen in the house were Italian fennel sausages. They were usually broken into pieces and mixed with beef mince in her lasagna. Occasionally she would make a rich tomato sauce out of the sausages serve it with a steaming bowl of spaghetti.

I now serve it with wholewheat pasta or spelt pasta because my tastes have matured a bit, but on the whole this is a recipe that Grandma would be proud of.

Grandma's Tomato Sauce
4 Tablespoons Olive Oil (for those of you who don't like to measure, a good glug)
1/2 an Onion or the white part of1 leek, diced
a large pinch of fennel seeds
1/4 of a red pepper, diced
4 Quigliano's Sausages (Italian Sausages)
2 Cans of diced tomatoes
Salt to taste
a pinch of hot pepper flakes

Heat the olive oil in a pot and fry the onion, fennel seeds and yellow pepper for 2 minutes. Remove the sausage meat from the casing and break into small pieces. Add the sausage pot and continue cooking for 5 minutes or until the sausages are browned. Add the two cans of diced tomatoes and let simmer for about 10 minutes. Taste and add salt and hot pepper flakes as needed. Let simmer for at least another 10 minutes. This sauce can be served immediately but is best if left to sit overnight before serving.

You can also add minced vegetables such as courgettes, spinach, mushrooms or white beans to this sauce. Add the vegetables a few minutes before you serve the sauce so that they don't get over cooked.

Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 27 minutes

Stir Fried Crab with Soba Noodles

I spent most of today studying nutrition; reading about shellfish and essential fatty acids, and ultimately getting hungrier by the moment. I do love fish, but I wasn't brought up in a family that ate fish regularly (or at all for that matter.) Therefore I usually struggle to know exactly how to cook fish properly. Today I was determined that I was going to try something different and make a simple seafood dish. So around noon I headed to the local fishmonger, only to find that it was closed on Sundays. A few more minutes of walking and I found myself at Waitrose. I scoured the fish counter, freezer section and then the canned fish section and brought home 1 can of lump white crab meat and determined that I would find a nutritious recipe that used that 1 can of crab meat and made a full meal.

Stir Fried Crab with Soba Noodles
1 portion of Soba Noodles (they usually come 3 portions to a package)
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 clove of garlic, chopped
1/4 teaspoon of chopped fresh ginger
1/2 red pepper roughly chopped
3 salad onions chopped into rounds, keep the green part separate from the whites
80 grams (about 1/2 cup) mange tout (snow peas) chopped into 1/2 inch pieces
1 can crab white meat drained
Juice from 1/2 an orange
1 teaspoon tamari soy sauce (tamari soy sauce has a richer flavor than regular soy sauce so you need less of it)
red pepper flakes to taste

Boil 1 liter of water and add 1 teaspoon of olive oil to it. Cook the Soba noodles for 5 -6 minutes. Drain the noodles and rinse them in cold water. Keep them in cold water until you are ready to use.

Heat the remaining teaspoon of oil and add the garlic and ginger on medium heat. Saute for 1-2 minutes. Add the mange tout, red peppers and the white parts of the salad onions. Saute for another 2 minutes or until the mange tout are cooked but still crunchy. Stir in the crab meat. Add the soy sauce and orange juice to the pan. Turn the heat down to low. Add the cooked soba noodles and heat until everything is hot.

Sprinkle with the green part of the the salad onions and serve with red pepper flakes.

Serves 2
Cooking time: 15 minutes
Active time: 9 minutes

Turkey Jambalaya

2 weekends ago I held my annual British Thanksgiving dinner, with the world's largest turkey as the main course! Every year after everyone has gone home stuffed from the thanksgiving dinner, I get to work cutting up the leftovers and making a meaty turkey stock that I can use with risottos and soups. To be honest after all that is done, I'm usually so sick of turkey that the last thing that I want is something that tastes like turkey leftovers. This year I discovered a new recipe and it is now my favorite way to use the left over turkey stock and turkey meat.

Spicy Turkey Jambalaya
1 1/2 cups of brown rice
3 cups of turkey stock
1/2 cup of cooked turkey
6 creole sausages (if you can't find creole use plain and add 1/4 teaspoon thyme, 1/4 teaspoon chili powder 1/8 teaspoon paprika)
1/2 an onion roughly chopped
2 portabello mushrooms roughtly chopped
1/3 cup of frozen sliced peppers (or 1 roughly chopped green pepper)
1 can crushed tomatoes
1/2 courgette roughly chopped

Boil the turkey stock and add the rice and turkey to it. Turn the heat down to low and cook until all the water has evaporated and the rice is soft (about 30 minutes) Remove the sausage meat from the casings and brown it in a large pot. Add the onion, mushrooms and peppers to the sausage meat and cook for 5 minutes. Add the canned tomatoes and the rice to the large pot. Bring to a low boil. Add the courgette and cook a further 5 minutes.

Serves 4
Cooking time: 40 minutes
Active time: 10 minutes

Lebanese Stuffed Peppers

My all time favorite food is stuffed grape (vine) leaves. When I lived in Massachusetts, I had a coworker with a Lebanese wife. Tim used to bring in these great stuffed grape leaves made with lamb and cinnamon that were absolutely divine. The grape leaves were fresh, picked from the many vines growing around their house, and the mix of spices gave the stuffed grape leaves a very different taste than the typical Dolmas served in Greek restaurants.

Since grape vines aren't prevalent in London, I wanted to see if I could make a similar recipe using peppers. The result is exactly what I hoped for!

Lebanese Stuffed Peppers
4 large peppers
500 grams (1 lb) of lamb mince (beef works too, or a combination)
3/4 cup of uncooked risotto (or regular rice)
1 teaspoon salt (don't use less, the recipe will be very bland if you do)
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1 lemon cut into slices plus extra lemon to squeeze over the top

Place the risotto in a colander and rinse with cold water. Mix the uncooked mince, risotto, salt, pepper, cinnamon and nutmeg in a bowl. Cut the tops off of the peppers and discard the stems and seeds. Stuff the meat mixture into the peppers. Make sure that the peppers are densely packed.

Lay 4 lemon slices on the bottom of a pot, place the 4 peppers on top of these slices with the meat mixture facing upwards. Place 1 more slice of lemon on the top of the meat in the each pepper. Any remaining lemon slices can be put in the pot. Half fill the pot with boiling water (the water level should be half way up the peppers.) Boil the peppers on a low boil for 40 minutes. The peppers may fall over while cooking but the recipe will still work!

Remove the peppers from the boiling water and serve. These can be eaten hot or cold and can be frozen.