Crispy kale

There's nothing new about this but it's lovely and I have just discovered it so I'm sharing.

You need
kale (take off the stems as it doesn't work with stems - throw them in the next veg soup you make!)
oil in a spray bottle
salt
spices as wanted.  I have been told five spice powder is good

Method
Preheat the oven to 130 (fan) - so a cool oven.  Don't be tempted to make it hotter.  It just burns.

Wash and dry the kale, if needed.  leave it as it is, tear it into bits or shred - whatever you like.  Spray over some oil - you don't need much.  Then 'massage' it in with your hands.

Place the kale on a baking tray and sprinkle over a little salt (it goes a long way) and any other seasoning you are using.

Bake in the cool oven for between ten and fifteen minutes - it took about 13 mins in my oven.

Enjoy hot or cold.  It is very like the crispy seaweed you get in Chinese takeaways.

A sort of sausage thing

I have no idea what this would be called - maybe you can help.

I had three chicken chipolatas which I cut into four chunks each.  I segmented some red onion and chopped some carrot, parsnip, sprouts, yellow pepper, mushroom, baby corn and tomato into chunks.   I mixed some balsamic vinegar, honey and garlic puree together.

I put the sausages, carrot, sprouts and onion in a roasting dish and sprayed it with oil and gave it a grinding of pepper.  After roasting it in a pre-heated oven for 15 mins, I added the rest of the vegetables, sprayed again and gave it all another 20 mins.
Then I poured over the vinegar-honey, mixed it well and gave it another ten minutes.

One more mix and it was done and very tasty it was too.  I won't add sprouts next time, the flavour wasn't quite right although they were nice.

Sorry for the darkness of the photo.

Leftovers: turkey casserole

. . . or, as we called it as children, turkey hotpot.

Whatever you call it, it's lovely, filling and frugal too, using up as it does, lots of Christmas/New Year leftovers.

Amounts are variable so see what you've got.  You can substitute (e.g. use oil instead of dripping)

I used
leftover turkey chunks, both brown and white
leftover turkey stock
some white wine
leftover ham, cut into chunks
bacon, cut up (or use cooking bacon - I didn't have any)
turkey dripping
carrot, onion, sweet potato, baby corn, celery, all cut into chunks - just use whatever veg you have really
bay leaves and dried mixed herbs
garlic puree
chicken stock powder (or a stock pot)
Boiling water
thickening granules

Method
Heat the dripping in a large pan.  Add the bacon and stir.  Once that gets going, add the carrot, onion and celery and saute until the onion is going translucent.  Then add the sweet potato, baby corn, ham, mixed herbs, bay leaves and garlic puree, and saute for a short time more.

Add the wine, the turkey stock, some chicken stock powder and boiling water.  Stir, bring to a simmer, cover and allow to slowly cook until the vegetables are soft, stirring occasionally.  Taste the liquid and adjust seasonings or add more stock powder if you want.

Add some thickening granules to make the liquid just a little thicker.  Then add the turkey chunks and stir very gently to avoid the turkey breaking up.  Give a good grinding of black pepper, bring back to the boil and serve.

I didn't add potatoes to this but you can.  In fact, they make the liquid just a bit thicker anyway so you might not need to use the granules.

This freezes well.

If you don't have turkey, get yourself a turkey leg.  They're so cheap and so tasty and have so much meat, especially the more flavoursome brown meat, you wouldn't believe it!  Best value ever!

You could turn it into a curry by adding some curry paste, if you like.

Dead easy cheesecake

I made this for Christmas Eve and I made it again yesterday and both times it was a total doddle.  Yesterday I modified the amounts and changed the ingredients a bit and it was still a doddle.

Here's a link to the original recipe:
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/11921/lemon-and-lime-cheesecake

You can see that it is a no bake affair which makes it remarkably simple and trouble free.

What I changed
Each time I used ordinary digestives but the first time I did the rest exactly according to the recipe.

Last night I cut the base down to 3/4 the amount because it really made too much.  I could cut it down further, maybe even to half because I also used a slightly smaller loose bottomed tin.

For the top, instead of faffing around with lemons and limes, I looked up the equivalent amounts and Google told me that it is around 2 tbsp of juice for each lemon or lime.  I used bottled juice that I always have in the fridge and it has made a lovely cheesecake with a thicker top although lacking the zing that you get when you use the zest as well.

I think this is going to become a standard in this home and there are lots of similar recipes out there.  Worth a hunt if you want a delicious dessert that is dead easy.

Leftover turkey biryani

I found this recipe via a link someone posted on Facebook and made it this morning.  It is very, very tasty and I am looking forward to dinner tonight when I will reheat it thoroughly in the microwave.

First of all, here's a link to the recipe.
https://realfood.tesco.com/recipes/leftover-turkey-biryani.html

Some notes:
I made half amount and it's made loads.  Enough for two big portions, possibly three if I'm not too hungry!
I used turkey dripping instead of butter and oil.
I used a mixture of turkey chunks, ham and chestnut and cranberry stuffing balls (cubed).
Thee curry paste was rogan josh.
Parsley (dried) instead of coriander as I am one of those unfortunates for whom leaf coriander tastes 'soapy'.
I shall add creme fraiche this evening as I have no natural yogurt right now.

I'm keeping this one.  It should work with other leftover roasts and it is very easy and delicious.

Christmas Hash

Hardly a recipe but so tasty and as simple as ABC.

In a large bowl, put your Christmas leftovers cut up small or roughly mashed.  I had turkey, ham, roasties, roast onions, stuffing, sprouts, broccoli, roast parsnips and carrots - not much of any of them.  Oh, and a bit of Beth's vegetarian crumble and her cranberry and chestnut stuffing.
I also had a few small slices of bread that had dried up so I zizzed them and added them too.
I mixed it all well and added some turkey fat from the top of the stock after I had boiled up the carcass.  Then I seasoned it with salt and pepper.  It was a right old mix-up!

I melted some butter in a pan, piled in the mixture, squashed it down a bit and let it brown before turning it over (in bits, it didn't turn whole) and doing the same again.
I ate it with some soy sauce.  Brown sauce would have been nice too.

I have some leftover mix and am going to use my burger press and freeze the results.

Nigella's parmesan shortbreads.

Beth brought these over on Sunday, having made them at home, and they were absolutely delicious, very more-ish so I thought I'd share the link.

https://www.nigella.com/recipes/parmesan-shortbreads

She lest one 'sausage' of dough here and it is now in the freezer.  When I use it, I will slice it more thinly and watch the baking time carefully as it will be shorter.