Recipe: Spanish Style Bravas Sausage Casserole

When I go out for tapas I always order patatas bravas. I love the crispy pieces of potato smothered in the garlicky, tomatoey bravas sauce. I’ve had it in my head to make a big Spanish style bravas sausage casserole in my slow cooker for a while. This summer has not been up to much and the rainy days have had me guiltily rustling up comfort food dishes, instead of summery salads and such like.

I confess I made my sausage casserole with Quorn sausages, but you could very easily make them with your favourite meaty sausages if you’d prefer. Making the sauce in the slow cooker and letting it bubble away gently to itself for a few hours makes it extra delicious.

Bravas Sausage Casserole

I browned the sausages separately and popped them into the sauce for the last hour or so. The great thing about Quorn sausages is that they take on some of the flavour of the sauce.

To serve I roasted some new potatoes in some oil and once they were cooked I spooned over some sausages and bravas sauce and added a dollop of incredibly garlicky aioli.

Spanish Style Bravas Sausage Casserole

Serves 4
A super simple, delicious and fairly frugal family meal.

Ingredients
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, crushed
2 500g cartons of passata
2 tablespoons of tomato purée
1 tablespoon of sweet chilli sauce
2 teaspoons of smoked paprika
1 teaspoon of sugar
2 tablespoons of fresh parsley, chopped
1 teaspoon of dried oregano
Salt & Pepper to taste
8 sausages (two per person) I used Quorn sausages

Instructions
In a frying pan gently fry the onion in 1 tablespoon of olive oil until it’s soft but not brown. Add in the garlic towards the end of cooking and cook through.

Tip the fried onion and garlic into your slow cooker, add the passata, tomato purée, smoked paprika, sweet chilli sauce, sugar and oregano and cook on medium for about 3 hours. Taste and adjust seasoning if you feel it needs it.

In the frying pan, fry your sausages until they’re brown, drain and add to the sauce and leave to cook through for an hour. Before serving stir through 1 tablespoon of fresh parsley.

Serve the Bravas Sausage Casserole with crispy roasted potatoes and aioli. Scatter with the remaining chopped fresh parsley.

Notes
I sometimes finely dice some peppers, cook them off and add them to the sauce to bump up the veg content. This sauce is perfect for hiding secret veg from your children!
This does make lots of sauce. If you have lots left over, it’s delicious warmed up the next day with crusty bread.

The Bravas Sausage Casserole was delicious and something I will be making over and over again. What’s more it’s very simple, pretty quick to throw together and fairly frugal. What’s not to love?

Recipe: Spanish Style Bravas Sausage Casserole

Foodie Firsts – Cooking with Tofu

Despite being a vegetarian for the last 27 years there is one ingredient I’ve always been afraid to cook with, but it is one of my favourite foodie things – tofu.

I’ve bought the ready pressed tofu, marinated and ready to use, but never a block of tofu, white and perfect and ready to be transformed into a thousand different dishes. I was asked by Morinaga if I’d like to try their silken firm tofu, and I knew it was time I stopped being a bit afraid of pressed soy puree and just tried cooking with it.

Morinaga tofu

After consulting a friend who is a vegan chef, he told me I’d need to press the Morinaga tofu. This was an easy job, you just take it out of its packet and put it on a plate, place a flat plate or board over the top and put a couple of tins of beans on there for an hour or two. The tofu should let out quite a lot of liquid which you just discard. Then it is ready to use however you want. Morinaga tofu Tofu tastes of nothing but is incredibly good at absorbing other flavours, so it’s perfect for marinading in whatever you like. It’s also low fat, high-protein, dairy and gluten-free.

I like tofu when it’s got a crispy crust, so I pressed and drained my tofu for a couple of hours and cut it up into bite sized chunks. I put some plain flour in a bowl and seasoned it generously with salt, pepper and chilli flakes, I gently tossed the tofu in that, taking care because it is quite delicate. I put a generous tablespoon of groundnut oil in a frying pan and added a splash of chilli oil and heated it up until it was very hot and fried the tofu, turning often until it was golden and crispy.

I’m a bit lazy when it comes to stir-frys, I often just buy a ready made packet of stir fry vegetables and stir-fry them with soy sauce, honey and some sweet chilli sauce, toss through some noodles and add a handful of chopped coriander and serve. Only this time I added my fried tofu at the end and it was delicious. Seriously delicious!

Morinaga tofu

Now I’ve tried the fresh tofu there is no way I’m going back to the ready made stuff which seems dull and chewy in comparison. The Morinaga silken firm tofu was perfectly crispy on the outside but soft and yielding on the inside. It was as good a tofu as I’d had in restaurants and I was impressed by how good it was, I didn’t think I’d be able to recreate it as I had done.

As a vegetarian I know that tofu is a good source of protein and contains iron and calcium, as well as a range of other essential vitamins and minerals. Morinaga tofu currently costs £1.24 for a 349g packet in ASDA and does not need to be stored in the fridge, though it does once it’s been opened, but it wouldn’t last that long in my house anyway.

If you’ve never cooked with tofu before, do not be afraid. Now I’ve tried it there is no going back for me, my little foodie mind is whirring away with tofu ideas and potential recipes. Do you have a favourite tofu recipe?

Morinaga silken firm tofu available in the ambient aisle of Sainsbury’s and ASDA. For more information visit their website or Facebook page.

We were sent some Morinaga silken firm tofu to try for ourselves. All images and opinions are our own.

The FoodMaestro App – managing dietary intolerances

We were asked to review the FoodMaestro app. All images and opinions are our own.

Growing up I had no food allergies; though I remember being tested to try and get to the bottom of why my eczema would sometimes flare up. It’s not unheard of for people to grow out of some allergies, but I managed to grow into some.

I turned vegetarian when I was 13, before the days of Quorn and Linda McCartney products. After about ten years of vegetarianism I developed an intolerance to mushrooms. I get hideous cramps and other things I won’t go into. Suffice to say it’s not worth me eating mushrooms.

More recently I’ve developed an intolerance to rich dairy; so cream and ice cream are out, cheese is eaten in moderation. I try and have a few entirely dairy free days a week to reduce the unfortunate consequences of this.

The boys are thus far ok, able to eat anything and everything put in front of them. It’s just me, the mushroom and dairy intolerant vegetarian who makes meal planning more difficult at home.

I was introduced to the newly launched FoodMaestro app which allows you to create personalised dietary profiles for each family member; logging allergies, intolerances and lifestyle choices that affect their diet.

The app was built in partnership with Guys & St Thomas Hospital Trust and makes it easier to manage food-related conditions. It currently has a directory of more than 75,000 products and 25,000 ingredients, with more products being added all the time.

It’s easy to search for food products by name or category and find items that are suitable for your diet. The app checks the nutritional information on each product and tells you if it isn’t suitable for you or your family to eat. This allows you to easily build lists of ‘safe’ foods and identify potential problems.

FoodMaestro

Once you’ve downloaded the free FoodMaestro app you just put in the details of your family members and their dietary requirements; it’s a simple swipe to choose from a range of allergy and intolerances as well as filtering into vegan, meat free, gluten free options, to name just a few.

You can then set about creating a shopping list. I went about my kitchen scanning the bar-codes of the items we were starting to run low on; as each item scanned the app would tell me if it matched our dietary requirements. You don’t have to scan the bar-codes; you can write up your list and the app will check each item for you. Once you’ve finished you can share your list, I chose to email it to myself so I could view my list when I went shopping. I normally have my shopping list on my phone anyway.

The FoodMaestro app currently lists products from most large brands as well as the supermarkets; Waitrose, Morrisons and Asda, and they are adding Tesco products to the app shortly.

I can see this app being very useful for me. Although I’m a keen reader of labels, sometimes I think a product is ok and it turns out not to be; then I’m poorly for a few days. This will also be great for when we have people round for tea who I know have food allergies and intolerances; helping me to double check that I’m not going to make them poorly. I think the FoodMaestro app is a big step forward.

You can find out more about the FoodMaestro app on their website and you can follow them on Twitter for news and updates.

FoodMaestro

= This is a collaborative post =

Exploring The Really Interesting Food Co.

Over the last few months I’ve been trying out a number of different healthy food brands, the latest one is The Really Interesting Food Co. who make a range of vibrant and imaginative soups and meals inspired by cuisines from around the world. I was sent a couple of their best sellers to try, and I was impressed!

The Really Interesting Food Co.

I tried the Spanish Chickpea Casserole and the Balinese Lentil and Pepper Soup. I was impressed by the vibrant flavours and the heartiness of the casserole and the soup, I served them both with a hunk of bread and they were filling and delicious meals in themselves. They’re a great store cupboard saviour, meaning when I’m tired and hungry I could just open a tin and have a healthy meal in minutes.

The Really Interesting Food Co. also have in their range –
~ Moroccan Chickpea Soup
~ Mexican Bean Soup
~ Sri Lankan Lentil and Coconut Soup
~ Thai Temple Curry
~ Thai Green Curry

The products from The Really Interesting Food Co. are free from artificial additives and preservatives, and are gluten, wheat, dairy and GM free, as well as being suitable for vegetarians and vegans too.

Products from The Really Interesting Food Co. range are available from all good supermarkets and health food stores.

Review: Free & Easy Foods

These days food intolerances are being taken more seriously. I know several people who are gluten-free and worryingly I am starting to develop a dairy intolerance, meaning if I have a lovely unctuous cheese sauce or nice creamy pudding I am very, very ill, so I’m starting to avoid dairy as much as I can, which does make life a little bit sad for someone who loves cheese as much a I do.

I discovered the Free & Easy Foods range, which are a boon for people with intolerances, or those who just wish to avoid certain foods. The Free & Easy products range from sauces and gravies, through to ready meals,curry pastes and natural soft drinks. Free & Easy Foods are available from health food stores, fine food retailers and online.

Free and easy foods

Free & Easy Foods are free from wheat, gluten, dairy, soya, celery, mustard, nuts and preservatives. They are low fat and suitable for both vegetarians and vegans.

I was sent a selection of nice things to try. I almost wept with joy at the sight of the red onion gravy. I’m a vegetarian and good gravy in a packet is hard to come by. This had sausage and mash written all over it and it was delicious, really flavoursome and with nice chunky pieces of onion. It would be brilliant with a nut roast!

The next thing we tried was the dairy free cheese sauce, I wasn’t sure what to expect but I griddled some courgettes and tossed them through the sauce with some tagliatelle. Neither of the boys notices the dairy free cheese sauce was missing the key ingredient and I wasn’t really ill afterwards. This is definitely going to be a staple in my cupboard from now on.

Working from home I do like to keep a tin or two of soup or something heartier in the house for those times I fancy a hot lunch. I tried the lentil and red pepper soup and the organic three bean chilli which were both perfect for lunch, really tasty and hearty. I ate them with a chunk of fresh bread and they kept me going all afternoon.

Lastly we tried the tikka curry paste and the rogan josh curry paste. These were really easy to use. For the boys I just marinaded some chicken in the paste for a few hours and then cooked the chicken in a sauce I made with some more paste, vegetables and reduced fat coconut milk, I served this with rice and they really enjoyed it. I made a veggie version of the curry using quorn, but you could also use it with paneer or just lots of lovely fresh vegetables.

The Free & Easy Foods range is great if you’re avoiding certain things in your diet, the food doesn’t taste like you’re missing out on something, which is a very good thing. Free & Easy foods are packed with flavour and are low fat and healthy, what’s not to love?

Review: Urtekram – The Danish Skincare Brand

I have an addiction, my addiction is to skincare products, specifically nice moisturisers; but I’m happy to get my fix where I can; soaps, hand creams, haircare products, lip balms, oh the lip balms. Anyway, I digress, I’ve recently stumbled across an interesting and exciting Danish brand called Urtekram. Urtekram produce a really lovely looking range of organic and vegan skincare products which haven’t been tested on animals, what’s more the packaging is really fresh looking and looks great in my bathroom. I was sent a selection of Urtekram products to try out, here’s what I thought.

Aloe Vera Hand Cream
This is a great hand cream for me, thick enough to really moisturise my dry hands, but light enough to be absorbed pretty quickly. It’s got a great scent too, there’s a lovely hint of orange zest which is fresh rather than sickly sweet. I love this.

Rose Body Lotion
It’s only fairly recently I’ve started to really like the smell of rose, this isn’t overpowering and is a lovely light fragrance. The lotion itself is light and absorbs quickly but leaves my skin feeling soft and supple. It’s going to become a favourite of mine I think.

Rose Soap Bar
A normal looking bar of soap, infused with the same delicate rose fragrance as the body lotion, an excellent bathroom staple.

Nordic Birch Shampoo
This is for normal hair, so it was ideal for mine. The bottle says it is infused with the smell of corn flowers, but to me it had a nice, light almost medicinal smell. I liked it a lot. The shampoo contains birch leaf and walnut leaf extracts as well as aloe vera to moisturise your hair. It left my hair feeling really clean and fresh. I’ll be looking out for this again.

Camomile Shampoo
This is for blonde hair and none of us are blonde, it is however the most gorgeous smelling shampoo, it is infused with wild camomile oils and aloe vera. Our hair smelt lovely after using this and it was squeaky clean.

Lime Crystal Roll-On Deodorant
I am naturally very cautious about deodorant as I am sensitive to some deodorants, but I gave the organic one a try. First of all the fragrance is fresh and zingy, if I want my armpits to smell of anything then fresh lime is a good thing to smell of. It’s not sticky on application and I think would be great to use in the summer as it feels instantly cooling.

No Perfume Baby All-Over Wash
Lastly, this unscented, organic body wash is great for babies, young children and sensitive types like myself. A little goes a long way and it has a no more tears formula.

I really enjoyed trying all the different Urtekram products. They feel gentle and caring on my skin which is important to me. They are not expensive either, with the shampoos currently available in a range of online stores for under £5 a bottle and body lotion at around £6.50. I think they’re really good value for certified organic and vegan skincare products of this quality. I will definitely be searching these out in the future.

For more information, visit their website.

Disclaimer: We were sent these Urtekram products for review purposes. All images and opinions are our own.

Recipe: Authentic Imam Bayildi Armenian style

My beautiful son is part Armenian. I have no hint of interesting ancestry on my side of the family, so I have wholeheartedly embraced some parts of Armenian culture to help him keep in touch with some of his roots. If I’m honest it’s mostly the bits which involve food.

Armenian food is very Mediterranean, you can find very similar food in Greece, Cyprus and Turkey. They do beautiful things with vegetables, so I’m sharing my favourite vegetarian Armenian recipe Imam Bayildi, I hope you like it.

Imam Bayildi is basically stuffed, baked aubergines. It is simple to make, you can prepare them ahead of time and then cook them when you need them and they are melt in the mouth gorgeous. I like to use good quality ingredients in this recipe as every single mouthful zings flavour. Fresh vegetables are essential and good quality tinned tomatoes are ideal, full of flavour and a little does go a long way.

This recipe serves four.

Imam Bayildi

Ingredients:
2 aubergines
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1 medium onion, finely diced (I prefer red, but a white onion works too)
2 cloves of garlic
1 green pepper, finely diced
Half a can of good quality tinned tomatoes
Big handful of chopped parsley
1 teaspoon of sugar
Salt & pepper

Method:
1. Cut the top off each aubergine, slice it in half lengthways and scoop out the flesh, leaving an aubergine boat, leave a little of the aubergine flesh around the skin so it can help retain its structural integrity while in the oven. Griddle the aubergine halves on a high heat until they have a little bit of char, then put in a baking dish so they are snuggled up close to each other, this will help them keep their shape in the oven.
2. Chop up the aubergine flesh and fry gently in the olive oil, while that is cooking (stir frequently) chop and add the onion and peppers to the pan. Cook until they are all soft and then add your crushed garlic cloves and half a tin of good quality chopped tomatoes.
3. Season well and add your sugar, cook and stir regularly until most of the liquid has evaporated and all of the vegetables are cooked and soft. Stir through the chopped parsley (reserving a small amount to garnish with later).
3. Carefully spoon the tomato and vegetable mixture into the aubergine skins. Add two tablespoons of water to the baking dish to help the aubergines to cook. Bake for 30 minutes at 200c.
4. Once cooked serve with salad, rice or bulgar wheat, maybe some pitta bread.

Imam Bayildi

We love Imam Bayildi, it’s a regular meal for us; really flavoursome and healthy as well as being a traditional Armenian meal. If you enjoy aubergines, you might also really like this Armenian Ikra recipe.

RawfullyGood Vegan Skincare Review

I am a sensitive soul. As a child I had eczema which I eventually grew out of, but then grew back into. I’ve got psoriasis on my feet and my skin in general is dry and sensitive.

My face when dabbed with the wrong products turns into something dry, red and itchy. I’ve got to be careful. My little monkey does too; he gets dry patches which we have to keep an eye on. It’s safe to say all our beauty products are for dry, sensitive skins.

I was given the opportunity to try a selection of products from local company Rawfully Good. The products are vegan, a lot of the ingredients are fair-trade and Amy who mixes all the products up herself keeps the products as natural as can be.

I was sent these products to try – Super Healing body butter with arnica & calendula, African black soap, lavender & tea-tree deodorant, Green Tea Cleanser and Aqueous Cream. We’ve used them for a couple of weeks now, so here are our honest thoughts.

Super Healing Body Butter with arnica & calendula
This body butter says it is great for sore, inflamed and itchy skin conditions, also for burns, eczema and nappy rash. It can be used to treat thread and spider veins as well as varicose veins.

I’d wholeheartedly agree, this was one of my favourite products. I have various scars, I applied the cream to them twice a day for two weeks and there was a definite improvement in the look of the scars, they have shrunk in size and the redness had reduced. We’ve used it on dry patches, psoriasis, chicken pox scars, bites, anything and everything. If I could butter my toast with it I probably would.

Aqueous Cream
This cream is usually a fairly standard piece of kit in any house with a small child. Generally the over the chemists counter versions contain paraffin oil or jelly, this aqueous cream is made with pure shea butter.

It was very moisturising, easy to apply and I used it on some of his sore botty bits. I also used it on my hands which are starting to suffer in the cold weather. It was a good, general, all purpose cream and we gave it the thumbs up.

African Black Soap
Honestly I opened this tin and thought “what the hell?” it looks like the innards of a fig roll and has a similar consistency. To the conventional eye this just looks plain alien. But I am assured its not, this is an entirely natural soap made in Ghana and is entirely biodegradable and contains no synthetic ingredients, no preservatives, Parabens, SLS, or Detergents.

To use this you take a little scraping from the tin and rub it on a damp flannel or sponge, against all conventional wisdom it lathers up nicely. I used it instead of shower gel and I came out squeaky clean. I noticed that the shower took less cleaning too which is always a bonus. It is gentle and kind and it didn’t dry my skin out like normal soap does.

Green Tea Cleanser
As I’ve already mentioned I have a very sensitive face. I was cautious about trying this but I needn’t have worried, it was fine, no red face, no adverse reaction, just lovely soft, clean skin. It contains natural Vitamin E and Green Tea to help protect skin, restore moisture, and improve the tone and texture of skin. Obviously I didn’t try this on the boy, but I used it morning and night for a couple of weeks, my skin appeared brighter and my skin was softer. If you’re looking for a sensitive cleanser then I’d recommend this.

Lavender & Tea-tree Deodorant
Cards on the table, no one likes talking about their pits; but like my face they’re sensitive. I’ve only found one deodorant that doesn’t bring me out in an awful, itchy, painful rash, so I was understandably worried that this would cause me all kinds of problems.

I tried it on freshly shaven and not quite so freshly shaven pits, not a problem. It comes as a stick which I thought would be sticky but it wasn’t. It doesn’t smell too strongly, is easy to apply and I imagine one stick would last for ages. I know what you’re thinking, did I have stinky pits? Well my lucky husband was forced to sniff them (in the name of science) every night and declared me sweet smelling.

This deodorant gets a massive thumbs up from me and I will definitely by buying it again in the future. I love that it’s natural and the shea butter in it conditions the skin rather than dries it out like my old spray on deodorant.

RawfullyGood products do seem awfully good, there are lots of lotions and potions on the website and I will be buying and trying more products for my family to use on our tricky skin.

I’m really glad I tried these products. I think people who have problem skin are often really cautious about trying new things. I’m glad I got the opportunity to give these products a go and I’ll be adding them to my shopping list in the future.

Disclaimer: I was given these Rawfully Good products free of charge to try for review purposes. If anything when reviewing products I’m more discerning than usual.