Recipe - Beef Enchiladas with Sweet Potato Chips

Now that we're into January it's probably time to stop grazing on the leftovers of that implausibly large turkey and the remnants of the multiple tins of Quality Streets you've gorged on for the last fortnight. Just me? This is a delightfully simple recipe to make a full meal to serve four people, or two quite greedy people.

Sweet Potato Chips

4 sweet potatoes
2 tsp paprika
3 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp black pepper
1 tbsp soft brown sugar
1 tbsp olive oil]
Sea salt to season

Peel and chop your sweet potatoes and boil them until they begin to soften. While your potatoes are on the hob mix together the paprika, garlic powder, oregano, black pepper and brown sugar.

Once the potatoes have softened to your liking drain and place in a bowl, drizzle on the olive oil then mix and season with sea salt. Add two tablespoons of the spice you prepared and mix well ensuring an even covering and then set to one side.

Beef Enchiladas

750g minced beef
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 onion, chopped
3 tbsp tomato puree
400g can chopped tomatoes
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1 red chilli, chopped
4 soft tortillas
60g grated Cheddar

First preheat your oven to 180 then fry your minced beef in the pan without oil, once it starts to brown add in your chopped onion. Once the beef and onions have fully browned add the garlic and fry for a further minute or so.

Now add half of your chilli (this can be left out entirely if you're not into spicy food), also add the tomatoes, puree, oregano and cumin. Bring this to the boil, then simmer for 10 minutes or so, until it starts to thicken slightly.

Once ready, spoon quarter of the mince mixture into the centre of each tortilla.

Fold the tortillas and place them in a baking dish. Sprinkle the grated Cheddar and the remaining half of your chilli evenly over the top of the tortillas.

 

 

In true Blue Peter style, remember the sweet potato chips you prepared earlier? Well, pop them on a baking tray and place both the chips and enchiladas in the oven for between 10 and 15 minutes. Serve with rice or a side salad and enjoy.

 

Recipe - Whoopie Pies

As you may or may not be aware, my girlfriend just happens to have a food blog (www.shecookssheeats.co.uk). This of course means not only do I get to eat lots fantastic food, but it's usually all cooked for me too. What people don't know is I'm not actually that bad in the kitchen myself. Not only am I a washer upper extraordinaire and an excellent coffee & tea boy but I can cook and, dare I say it, even bake.

I've been baking this week and it turned out so well I thought I'd share a recipe with you all for the best Whoopie Pies you're ever likely to try. It's based on a Simon Rimmer recipe but I've adapted it slightly to make it even more tasty.

Ingredients

125g butter
150g Chocolate, at least 70% cocoa solids (recommend Green & Blacks)
225g sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
250g flour
30g cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking powder

For buttercream icing

125g butter, softened
260g icing sugar
3-4 tbsp milk

First of all I'd recommend having three separate mixing bowls ready before you start or you'll end up running around and having to wash up whilst cooking. Once you're all prepared, preheat your oven to 180C and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.

Break your chocolate into squares and place it in a bowl, along with your butter, over a pan of boiling water, making sure the base of the bowl doesn't touch the surface of the water.

 
While your chocolate and butter is melting whisk the sugar, eggs and vanilla extract in another bowl. Make sure you keep an eye on the chocolate so it doesn't burn.

Once your chocolate and butter are melted fold into the egg mix a little at a time.

With a sieve, sift together the flour, cocoa and baking powder and then fold this, again a little at a time, into the chocolate mixture. It should thicken quite quickly at this point so just keep folding until you have a sticky brown mix.

Using a tablespoon place the mixture onto your baking tray, making sure not to put them too close together or they will become one giant chocolate mess as they bake. Put them in the oven for 7-9 minutes depending on their size. At this point you may wish to take some time out to lick your bowl.

While your pies are in the oven prepare your buttercream by beating the remains of your stick of butter in a bowl with half of your icing sugar. I find using a large metal spoon works best as the mixture tends to stick to wood. Once your mixture starts to become smooth add the remaining icing sugar and your milk until you achieve your desired consistency.

 

Once your pies are cooked place them on a wire rack to cool before spreading them with the buttercream and sticking them together.

Once you've sandwiched them together you should end up with a whoopie pie that looks something like this.

This recipe should realistically make twelve or thirteen pies of a medium to large size, all you have to do is try not to eat them all yourself.

Question Time

As anyone who actually reads this blog knows I am very new to the whole blogging thing. I'm still not very good at it either, and I'm trying to find new blogs to read that I like and am genuinely interested in. Then I can start commenting on blogs, which I really want to do but it's still virgin territory and therefore, metaphorically speaking, all a bit tight and nervous.

My lovely girlfriend (the real blogger) recently posted a "50 questions about her" post, and I thought that being as my blog is essentially about myself, the things I like, the things I get up to and some of the strange thoughts that run through my head I would resort to plagiarism, and answer the same 50 questions.

So here we go, 50 questions about a person you've never met and have no investment in, emotional or otherwise, and required reading for potential stalkers.

1. What time did you get up this morning?
I've been up since 7.34 after waking up from yet another night of weird nicotine patch induced dreams. It's now 11.36 and I'm still in bed. One of the great things about being my own boss is I can work not only from home but from bed. A little work first thing followed by a movie and then some blogging all before I properly work this evening.

2. How do you like your steak?
The natural question to follow the last, then? Well here it is the big confession...I don't really like steak all that much. I realise that that makes me a complete freak of nature in the eyes of most people but I've just had bad experiences in the past. Horrible tough steak I was made to eat as a kid, and whilst staying with a family in France I cut into a steak that was so rare it squirted blood and it's just put me off it. I'm no vegetarian and I'll happily eat a burger which is essentially the same, but I'd order that medium.

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema?
Yesterday Amy and I saw Tangled in 3D which was my 69th new film of the year for my challenge. If grown men watched Disney films and admitted to liking them the world would be a better, happier, safer place.


4. What is your favourite TV show?
This is my kind of question! 24 was my favourite show by a long way, I didn't start watching until season five and then had to get the box sets. I ended up watching them in just a couple of weeks. I love shows like Dr Who, Torchwood and Sherlock and I'll give most comedy shows a try too, especially if they contain Charlie Brooker or David Mitchell.


5. If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be?
They say home is where the heart is. I happy enough where I am even if it's far from perfect but I can cheat on the answer by saying I'd have holiday homes in Cardiff, France, Australia and the East and West coast of the USA.

6. What did you have for breakfast?
Cereal with soy milk, as normal milk would make me very poorly and instead of writing this right now I'd be lying on the floor crying.


7. What is your favourite cuisine?
What is your preoccupation with my dietary habits? I hope anyone who has a genuine interest in these answers is planning on buying me lunch. If that's the case it's probably in Italian but I'm happy with Mexican, Chinese & Indian too.

8. What foods do you dislike?
I don't like meat on the bone or anything that's so spicy it hurts.

9. Favourite place to eat?
I love eating out, especially when it involves putting on a suit, but I'm just as happy to eat off my lap in front of the TV.

10. Favourite dressing?
I find to the left that little bit more comfortable.

11. What kind of vehicle do you drive?
What, no more food questions for me? You don't want to know what I snacked on April 10th last year?
I drive a Fiat Stilo - It's a piece of crap but it's all mine. I'm a musician so I'm broke and need a car big enough to fit most of a percussion section into. Whenever we go on long journeys we take my girlfriend's lovely lovely little Fiat 500 to be eco-friendly. That and it will get us there and back whereas mine might not.

12. What are your favourite clothes?
I do love a nice sharp suit, but I will be mostly found wearing jeans and Converse. I have a slight coat/jacket fetish though.

13. Where would you visit if you had the chance?
I could easily visit every five star hotel in the world, maybe you could buy me dinner in one of them being as you're so interested in that? I've always wanted to see San Francisco and visit Alcatraz, probably my inner and outer movie geek there though. I'd love to go back to New York again too.

14. Cup 1/2 empty or 1/2 full?
Broken cup.

15. Where would you like to retire?
It would be great to think that a) I'll live long enough to reach retirement and b) I'll not turn into some grumpy old goat who gets bunged into some nursing home and only looks forward to staring out of the window and groping the occasional nurse. Joking aside, it would be good to be around the people I love at the end wherever that is and just relax.

16. Favourite time of day?
I'm much more of a night time kind of guy. It may be hard for you to believe this, but I've been known to be a bit of a grumpy git when I first wake up.

17. Where were you born?
Coventry in the UK. For those not familiar with it here are three fun facts for you.
A. It's where British actor Clive Owen was born
B. The term 'sent to Coventry' was coined when people realised how much of a shithole it was.
C. The city underwent some slight Nazi remodelling in the 1940's and since then a race of mutants has evolved from the rubble, of which the aforementioned Clive Owen is the first to take almost human form.

18. What is your favourite sport to watch?
Ice Hockey.

19.  Who do you think will not tag you back?
Doesn't tagging involve spray paint? Why the hell would anyone do this?

20. Person you expect to tag you back first?
If any of you even tried to spray your name on me I'd call the police. Stick to buying me dinner.

21. Who are you most curious about their responses to this?
Anyone. Please? Hello? Is anyone actually reading this far? I'd love someone to respond, especially as it's lunchtime.

22. Bird watcher?
Because on a list of 50 questions you could ask a stranger, ornithology comes before the halfway point right? The crazy man across the street keeps pigeons and I watch them crap on my car, if that counts?

23. Are you a morning or night person?
See question 16.

24. Pets?
I'll keep the sob story short. I have a ginger cat called Jedi and I used to have an Alaskan Malamute called Sylar, but after I got ill I took an office job for just over a year which meant I wasn't working from home and I had to have her re-homed. It was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do but it was the only responsible decision. I've heard she now lives on a farm and is very happy.

 

25. Any new and exciting news that you'd like to share?

Off to Paris at the end of March for my girlfriend's 21st birthday, I shall not be blogging that weekend, which will upset those of you who like to keep tabs on what I eat.

26. What did you want to be when you were little?

Lot's of things, and I'm still annoyed I never got to be an astronaut or a Ghostbuster. But I did get to be a policeman and a musician, so go me.

27. What is your best childhood memory?

Leaving home...but I ended up coming back, so that can't count. Two memories stand out. The first is when my baby brother was born. He's now 21 and built like a brick shithouse. The second is our first trip to Florida and having two weeks pretending to be a normal family.

28. Are you a cat or a dog person?

Definitely a dog person.

29. Are you married?

No, I have a younger girlfriend and no money. Hopefully time will rectify both of these issues.

30. Always wear your seat belt?

Only in the car, I find it very restrictive anywhere else.

31. Been in a car accident?

Yes a couple of times but nothing too bad. In the police I attended some bad ones though.

32. Any pet peeves?

How long do you have? So many little things piss me off and it's always people being arseholes. People are much bigger arseholes in their cars which is where I shout at them most. Large groups of people are usually arseholes too. So in short, I guess people in general. Bastards. Oh, and questions about food.

33. Favourite Pizza topping?

Back to food again, why don't you just tell me I ate all the pies and sod off with the culinary interrogation? Cheese, Pepperoni and Tomato.

34. Favourite Flower?

Nobody has ever bought me flowers *sob*

35. Favouite Ice Cream?

Chocolate & banana together.

36. Favourite fast food restaurant?

Given that there are no Taco Bell places near me in the UK I'll have to stick to Maccy D's.

37. How many times did you fail your driving test?

Zero. I passed first time. When I got home I went straight out in my car and accidentally cut up the guy who had passed me an hour earlier. I then lived in fear he would change the paperwork and fail me.

38. From whom did you get your last email?

Spam from Amazon.

39. Which store would you choose to max out your credit card?

I maxed it out years ago trying to stay clothed and fed, and I'm still paying it off. Don't do it, kids!

40. Do anything spontaneous lately?

I bought a rifle and took out Justin Bieber, saving mankind from a life of pain and suffering...would be a good answer, but I bought a DVD in ASDA I wasn't planning on buying. I like to be spontaneous when it's £3 or less.

41. Like your job?

Yes, actually, lots, but It's trying to make enough money being freelance to keep afloat that's the hard part.

42. Broccoli?

So now we're just naming foods are we? Like I'm some sort of man-whale that thinks about nothing else. Yes, I like Broccoli! I also like Van Gogh paintings, walks at sunset and the feel of a freshly made bed against my skin if you'd care to know something other than what my the contents of my stomach! Is this sponsored by Tesco?

43. What was your favourite vacation?

Me, my brother a big convertible and a Christmas in Florida.

44. Last person you went out to dinner with?

My girlfriend and 35 other people from our wind band went to an all you can eat buffet. If you like, food freaks, I can post an itemised list of what I ate and the order I ate it in?

45. What are you listening to right now?

The sound of my fingers tapping the keyboard and rain hitting my office window. (I moved from my bed if you thought you'd spotted a continuity error)

46. What is your favouite colour?

Blue

47.  How many tattoos do you have?

Two. Here are the pictures of my tattoos and people who can actually tell me what they are get one billion geek points.

48. How many people are you tagging for this quiz?

We established earlier that I really don't condone the use of spray paint in this kind of illegal and frankly irresponsible manner.

49. What are you doing when you finish this quiz?

Giving my studio a quick tidy before I start teaching tonight. Then I'm eating, but I'm not telling you anymore about that!

50. Coffee drinker?

Drink is a food related question, but wasn't 49 kind of a natural closing question? I love coffee. Strong & black but with two sugars. At one point when I was teaching in a college I was going through about 20 cups a day, but now I'm down to under five a week.