The Solo Chef: October 2024

Scottish Clapshot Recipe

Portions: 1-infinity! Depends on how much mash and swede you have...

Ingredients

Potatoes
Neeps (Swede)
Small Onion
Chives
Butter
Salt & Pepper to taste

Instructions

Prepare equal amounts of potato and neep (swede) and cut in to small chunks and put them in a suitable saucepan (I've already got some leftover mash so I've only put in swede in this photo
Cover the potatoes and neeps with water and boil them until soft enough to mash
Dice the onion and fry it gently in some butter until it's nice and soft and then put to one side
When the potatoes and swede have been mashed, add the onion and give it a good mix, as the onion was fried in butter your mash will already start to be creamy - add as much butter as you like and mix it in
When you're happy with the consistency of the mashed potatoes and swede, sprinkle in some chives until it looks something like this
When you've dished it up, don't for get to sprinkle some chives on top.

Serving Suggestion(s)

A side helping of runner beans, lamb and some gravy goes very well with this side dish!

Slow Cooked Legless Chicken for One Recipe

Portions: 1-4

Ingredients

1 Small Chicken
Onions
Mixed Herbs
Mashed Potato
Cabbage
Stuffing
Gravy Granules
Asparagus

Instructions

Cut (not chop) up some onions and place in the bottom of the slow cooker - I cut my onions in to quarters
Put the chicken in the slow cooker - if like me and you only have a small slow cooker and even a small chicken wont quite fit then cut off its legs - Legless Chicken!!
Set the slow cooker to cook the chicken for 8 hours on LOW heat
When the chicken is either nearly ready (or it has finished the 8 hour timer and is now on the keep warm setting) start to prepare the rest of the meal
Make some mashed potatoes, leave in the saucepan and set aside for use later
Take the chicken of of the slow cooker and carefully remove the breasts and try to keep the skin on them.
1/2 a chicken breast per person should be enough so put the skin on chicken breast(s) on a baking tray and cook in the oven alongside the stuffing (stuffing normally takes around 20 minutes to cook which is enough time to crisp up the skin)
Remove the chicken wings and any other chicken meat from the carcass and set aside for either a late night snack or (depending on how much is leftover) use to make a curry the next day!
Fry some thinly sliced cabbage in some butter until it's nice and soft
Put the saucepan with the mashed potato in it back on the heat and give it a stir until it's piping hot and then add the soft cabbage and stir it in
Remove the colcannon (mash with cabbage) from the heat
Add some butter and garlic to a frying pan and cook the Asparagus
To make the gravy sieve the onion infused chicken juices from the slow cooker in to a small saucepan
Although you can use some cornflour to thicken the gravy I much prefer to use gravy granules as it not only thickens the gravy but adds an extra level of flavour
When you're ready to serve it up, put a couple of ready made frozen Yorkshire Puddings in the oven
Begin to serve it up and don't forget the Yorkies!!

Serving Suggestion(s)

ASDA 2 Christmas Variety Sweet Tubs now just 2 for £5

It's not rocket science but far too many people are not reading the above poster that is on all the tubs of sweets in ASDA right now and it's causing mayhem for the staff on the tills!

2 for £5 is a great offer as where else can you get 2 tubs of Christmas Sweet Tubs for £2.50 each?

So, what's the catch?

You have to have an ASDA Rewards card/app
One offer per customer
You need to scan a coupon that has appeared in your ASDA Rewards App on your mobile device
THIS WEEKEND ONLY - not Friday, not Monday, just Saturday and Sunday

In other words, it is 2 tubs for £5 per customer. No more, no less. If you put 4 tubs of sweets in your basket or trolley then you will pay £5 for two of them and full price of £9 for the remaining 2.

Homemade Pizza Recipe

Portions: 1 Pizza - enough for 2 to 4 people (or 1 and some leftovers for eating later)

Ingredients

Pizza Base Mix
Water
Semolina
Pizza Base Sauce (Click Here To See My Own Recipe)
Toppings

Instructions

If you were expecting to see flour and yeast amongst the ingredients then sorry to disappoint you but I use a packet mix for my pizza base dough. I still make it fresh by mixing in some water and it's still so much better than buying a premade pizza from the supermarket.

You can buy ready mix packets in most supermarkets with enough ingredients in to make 1 pizza. It does work out cheaper to buy a large 3.5kg of Pizza Base Mix from the likes of Country Range (readily available from Amazon) you just use 142g of the mix with 90ml of water.

Add the Pizza Base Mix to a bowl
Stir in the water and continue to mix until it becomes a dough
Remove the dough mixture and give it a good kneading
Sprinkle some Semolina in to the bowl
Put the pizza dough back in the bowl and sprinkle some more Semolina on top
Wrap a cloth (something like a tea towel will do) over the bowl
Leave to proof for a few hours (if you are pushed for time then use boiling/warm water in step 2 as this can speed up the proofing process a bit)
When ready to cook, sprinkle some semolina on a work surface (I prefer to use some greaseproof paper as it makes less mess)
Roll out the dough to the shape you require
If you have a Pizza Docker run that over the pizza to create a few dents in the dough - if you don't have one then prick it all over with a fork
Spread some Pizza Base Sauce over the dough
Sprinkle on some cheese - I like to use a cheddar/mozzarella mix
Add whatever toppings you like but try to avoid putting anything in the very centre so to make it easier to slice when cooked
You can use pizza tray but I've had a bit more luck with a Pizza Stone
Put the pizza in a preheated oven on a high-ish heat for around 8-12 minutes until it's done how you like it

Serving Suggestion(s)

Great eaten cold as a snack too - just wrap in tin foil when cool and keep it in the fridge.

How To Make Your Own Homemade Italian Style Pizza Base Sauce Recipe

Portions: Enough for around 1/2 a dozen medium size pizzas

Ingredients

1 Tin of Chopped Tomatoes
1 Clove of Garlic
3 tbs Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Oregano
1/2 tsp Basil

Instructions

Put all ingredients in to a bowl
Mix it all together

That's it!

It's perfect for freezing so don't worry about what to do with the leftovers or having to use it all up before it goes off, just use an ice cube tray I remove them from the tray when frozen and put them in to a freezer bag for use later on.

Serving Suggestion(s)

Funnily enough, this pizza base sauce goes very nicely on a pizza...

Slow Cooked Lamb Ribs For One Recipe

Portions: Enough For One!

Ingredients

2 Large Lamb Ribs (3 if you want one later for a snack)
Olive Oil
2 Onions
Rosemary
Gravy Granules
Salt
Mint Sauce

Optional Ingredients

Potatoes
Asparagus

Instructions

Heat a little olive oil in a frying pan
Sear each side of the lamb ribs to seal in the goodness
Whilst the ribs are searing, peel and cut the onions and place in the slow cooker
Put the nicely seared lamb ribs in to the slow cooker
Sprinkle the ribs with some Rosemary
Put on a low heat for 8 hours or high heat for 4 hours
HALF WAY THROUGH quickly turn over the ribs and sprinkle on some more rosemary
When the time is up and you're ready to eat, remove the ribs from the slow cooker and place on a baking tray and coat in a generous amount of mint sauce
Place under a moderate grill for 20-30 minutes, turning them over halfway through and adding some more mint sauce - the meat will be nice and tender and putting them under a grill will crisp up the fat on the outside of the ribs!
Boil some potatoes
When approx 12 minutes left to go, fry some asparagus in butter and garlic
Don't forget the gravy! Strain the juices (and onion) from the slow cooker through a sieve in to a small saucepan
Chop us as much onion from the slow cooker as you like and add to saucepan
You can use cornflour to thicken up your gravy, but that is one of the ingredients to gravy granules so either use some lamb gravy granules or onion gravy granules to thicken up this amazing gravy!
When the ribs are done, don't forget to add any juices from the baking tray to your gravy - the same goes with the garlic butter from cooking the asparagus, add it to your gravy for that extra zing
Serve and enjoy!

Serving Suggestion(s)

You can't beat gravy made from the juices of your meat that's been cooking in a slow cooker - simply delicious.

Todays Company Shop Haul - Oct 2024

Looking forward to the Crackling Pork Belly joints.

I also picked up a Jaffa Cake tin Clock:

Total price at The Company Shop was £21.25 but if I was to purchase the exact same items from a Supermarket they would cost £45.66 so a whopping £24.41!

Click here to find out more details on what the Company Shop is and how to Join.

Air Fryer Roast Chestnuts

15ish minutes at 180º in my Tefal 9 in 1 Air Fryer and they're just right!

As anybody who knows anything about roasting chestnuts knows, the only way to serve them is in a small paper bag!

Jacket Potato with Chilli (Microwave and Air Fryer)

Take one large Jacket potato, pierce it several times, wrap it in kitchen roll and bung it in the microwave for around 12 minutes. When it goes ping, remove it and rub in olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Pop it in the oven (or in my case my Tefal 9 in 1 Air Fryer) for around 20 minutes so the skin gets nice and crispy. Cooks perfectly in half the time of just the oven this way.

Add a dollop of butter on the jacket spud and a filling of your choice - chilli always goes down well in my house.

Chilli Con Carne with Doritos

A relatively quick and very easy meal is a bowl of Chilli. I've never managed to make a tasty chilli spice mix from scratch myself so I'll stick with a packet mix for now. I've tried both Colmans and Schwartz packets and in my opinion the Schwartz one is the best, a lot tastier for me.

Brown the mince and then add the spice mix along with some red kidney beans and chopped tomatoes! Simmer and stir occasionally for 20 minutes and your done!

Serve with rice, jacket potato or on it's own in a bowl with some corn chips!

Raw Tiger Prawns With Garlic and Chilli Recipe

Portions: Just enough for one!

Ingredients

6 Raw Tiger Prawns
Olive oil
Garlic
Chilli

Instructions

Fry the prawns in the olive oil on one side for 1.5 minutes
Add the garlic and as little or as much chilli as you like
Turn over the prawns and cook for a further 1.5 minutes or until the prawns turn pink
Serve and enjoy

Serving Suggestion(s)

If eating as a snack then a nice piece of sourdough or baguette would go very nice with this dish.

Personally I happened to have a piece of fish so served it with that along with a few oven chips:

Needless to say, when I finished enjoying this meal, I went back to the kitchen for the other 3 prawns!

Homemade Beef Burgers Recipe with a Secret Ingredient...

Portions: 4 1/4 pound burgers or several smaller ones depending on your preferences.

Ingredients

500g Beef Mince
1 finely chopped onion
1/2 Tsp salt
1/2 Tsp pepper
1 egg (whisked)
Secret Ingredient (revealed below)

Instructions

Put all the above ingredients in to a bowl and give it a good mix

It was at this point in the past that I made my patties but I recently discovered a secret ingredient to add to make them even tastier - bread crumbs...

Just half a cup is needed and believe me, they make all the difference. Not sure what they do, perhaps they soak up some juices whilst cooking - who knows! What I do know is I can taste the difference and they take them from being slightly bland to amazing.

Then all you need to do is make the patties, you can make them by hand by splitting the mix in to 4 portions (500g is approx 1lb so splitting in to 4 gives you 4 quarter pound patties).

Personally I prefer slightly thinner patties for my burgers so this is how I make them:

I use a piece of greaseproof paper to make it easier to separate from my burger press and also because I plan to freeze them for use another day and by using some greaseproof paper it makes it easier to separate when frozen in case you just want to cook 1 or 2 rather than the whole lot.

Serving Suggestion(s)

Obviously a great way to enjoy them is in a burger bun but I like to have them with a fried egg and on this occasion I had some mushrooms going begging so I cooked them in some butter with a little bit of garlic.

Polish HotDogs - Tarczynski Premium Chicken Fillet Hot Dog Sausages

Cost at time of review: £1.75 Purchased From: TESCO

For me I will always associate a hot dog as being made from pork and for in my experience it is a word associated with a low quality (cheap) product in a tin. Gradually over time, our UK supermarkets have started to sell much better, premium (or proper) hot dogs not only in jars, but in packets in the chiller section in various different guises.

I first noticed the Tarczynski branded hot dogs in the Polish section one of the chillers when I was shopping in Tesco so I just had to put them in my basket and give them a go. As with a lot of hot dogs (or frankfurters if you will) they are already cooked so you can either eat them cold or warm them up in boiling water or possibly in the microwave.

If you look closely at the packaging (and use Google Translate) you will see no mention of the word hot dog nor a photo of a hot dog bun, just some sort of dip and salad vegetables (tomato and cucumber).

After taking one bite you will soon realise these are not the poor quality hot dogs you get in a tin for 50p, these are a premium quality, meaty product that tastes equally good cold as they do hot and I'm sure I can taste a hint of smokiness to them.

They are rather small so you will need at least two of them in a hot dog bun if that's your method of eating, else chop them up and have them in a salad - or do what I did, heat two up for a hot dog and whilst waiting for some fried onions to cook, eat a couple cold from the packet!!

It might not look amazing, but it tasted delicious! Layered on bed of fried onions with Heinz tomato ketchup and then topped with some American style mustard - I think next time I have one I will put a few thin slices of tomato in there too just to enhance the flavour.

A tasty hot dog sausage that deserves a 4 star review, so that's exactly what I will give it.

Tarczynski Chicken Hot Dogs 180G - Tesco Groceries