Sweet & Spicy Baked Carrot Fries

If you had told me 10 years ago that I’d be writing a whole blog post dedicated to carrots I would have covered you in chocolate cake crumbs whilst laughing in your face. I wasn’t a veggie person as a kid, though not through my own fault. My family just didn’t eat vegetables.

The only time I can remember seeing vegetables on my plate was on a Sunday afternoon when my Grandma cooked Sunday lunch. And I can specifically remember watching her spoon about a cup of butter into enough mashed potato to feed 6 people.

1 cup of butter divided by 6 people = amazing calorie-packed mashed potato. But my grandma wasn’t bothered about the calories – she was one big lady who wanted her family to have full tummies and smiley faces.

I now live with someone who will only eat vegetables prepared in that kind of way – good, hearty vegetables (does potato even count as a vegetable?) laden with cream, butter or cheese and mashed into oblivion.

But he won’t touch carrots in any form. I thought I’d be able to tempt him with these Sweet & Spicy Baked Carrot Fries. After all, they’re fries and he likes fries – everybody likes fries. But no – he wouldn’t even try them. Is it bad that a little part of me deep inside was secretly happy he didn’t like them because it meant I could eat them all myself?

Sweet & Spicy Baked Carrot Fries

Ingredients

1 medium carrot

1 tablespoon butter

1 teaspoon brown sugar

½ teaspoon garlic powder

½ teaspoon paprika

¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper

Salt & pepper to taste

Recipe

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F. Wash and peel your carrot. (Has the image of a snowman with a carrot nose popped into anyone else’s head?)

2. Slice the carrot in half horizontally then slice each half vertically into 4 chunky fries.  

3. Melt the butter in the microwave and stir in the sugar, garlic powder, paprika, cayenne, salt and pepper. Add the carrots into the bowl and stir until well-coated.

4. Place the carrots on a greased baking tray and bake for around 20-25 minutes or until lightly brown and crispy.  

I'd opt for these over deep-fried potato fries any day. 

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Pork & Apple Burgers with Apple & Sultana Chutney

I love homemade burgers and I know there are thousands of recipes out there for fantastic homemade burgers, but no matter how long I searched, I could not find a recipe for pork burgers that really worked for me. Instead of throwing the towel in and calling it a day, I decided to come up with my own recipe!

My method of cooking is a little haphazard to say the least. I stand over the hob and throw in whatever feels right. My Official Treat Taster hates this method because he’s worried that if I produce something amazing I’ll never be able to recreate it. Unfortunately, he’s completely right because I once made a gorgeous Chinese pork dish but for the life of me I can’t remember what I put in it, so I’ve never attempted to make it again.

My New Year’s resolution was to begin writing down my recipes, but I find that it hinders the creative aspect so much and makes it less enjoyable, don’t you think?  This recipe was one of my pretend-I’m-a-fancy-chef-who-knows-what-she’s-doing-and-just-throw-everything-in recipes that I actually remembered.

The recipe looks really simple but the flavours work so well together and the sweet apple chutney adds that perfect sweet and zingy taste to accompany the pork burgers perfectly. I served these on mini seeded baguettes but any kind of bread or roll will work well.

Pork & Apple Burgers with Apple & Sultana Chutney

Makes 2 burgers and a medium-sized jar of chutney

Ingredients

Burgers

200g pork mince
1/2 onion
1 clove garlic

1/3 cup breadcrumbs
1/3 cup grated apple

1 egg

1tsp parsley

1tsp sage

1tsp thyme

1tsp garlic powder

1tsp onion powder

1tsp brown sugar

1tbsp wholegrain mustard

Pinch of salt and pepper

Chutney

Recipe Adapted from BBC Food’s Spiced Apple Chutney

500g apples, cored and diced

50g sultanas

150g sugar

200ml red wine vinegar

1tbsp coriander

1tbsp paprika

1tbsp mixed spice

1tsp sea salt

Recipe

Burgers
1. Finely chop the onion and garlic. Fry in over a medium heat until softened - about 10 minutes.

2. Combine the onions and garlic with all the other burger ingredients in a large bowl and mix together well.

3. Divide the mixture into 2 and shape into 2 burgers. In a lightly oiled frying pan over a medium heat, cook the burgers for about 10 minutes on either side. Remember – these are pork burgers, so we don’t want any pink in the middle!


Chutney
1. Pour all of the ingredients into a saucepan and bring to the boil over a medium-high heat. Stir regularly until all the sugar has dissolved.

2. Simmer for 1 hour – mixing frequently to avoid the chutney sticking to the pan – or until really thick.

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Jazzed Up Colcannon

I really wanted to give an Irish side dish a go for my St Patrick’s Day line-up and really liked the sound of Colcannon – it reminded me of a simpler Bubble & Squeak. Unfortunately, after I followed this recipe, the product I was left with didn’t bowl me over, so I decided to liven it up a bit.

I added a few very un-Irish herbs and gave it a crispy outside by frying and baking it. The result was something similar to a hash brown – which I love! This recipe is really versatile and you can add whichever herbs and seasoning you like. This recipe makes a lot of generously-sized portions – around six.

Jazzed Up Colcannon

Ingredients

450g potatoes

½ cabbage

1 onion

Salt and pepper

Seasonings as required

Recipe

1. Peel and dice the potatoes and chop the onion and cabbage.

2. Cover the bottom of the frying pan with potatoes and layer the onion and cabbage on top. Pour over enough water to cover everything then boil for 15 to 20 minutes until the potatoes are cooked.

3. Season with salt and pepper before mashing everything in the frying pan until you have a texture similar to mashed potatoes. (If the mixture is too thick, add some milk.)

4. A traditional colcannon is ready to serve now, but I thought it tasted really bland and added some seasonings – 1tsp each of onion powder, garlic powder, mustard powder, provincial herbs, parsley and 1tbsp of Worcester sauce. Feel free to add your own herbs and seasoning.

5. Divide the mixture into portions and fry in an oiled frying pan for 10 minutes each side. Place in the oven and bake for a final 20 minutes at around 200C/400F or until crispy and golden. 


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Spicy Asian Noodles

These Spicy Asian Noodles are the perfect side dish to accompany any Asian-themed meal. Packed full of flavour with a bit of a kick, these noodles are peppered with toasted sesame seeds for added crunch. Although the ingredient list may seem a bit intimidating, these Spicy Asian Noodles hardly take any time at all to whip up.

You won't believe how long this blog post has taken me to write. I've managed to catch some sort of horrible cold bug and can't concentrate on anything for more than a few minutes. I can't even follow basic TV show story lines right now!

I needed something to help clear up my sinuses before they exploded - I'm sure that wouldn't really have happened, but you never know! I always used to grab a portion of crispy chilli beef from my favourite Chinese shop when I felt like this, but I couldn't drag myself up and hunt for the take-out menu to find the number, let alone actually get myself to the restaurant.

Instead, I decided to make something that would be easy on my throat and help me breathe a little better. I boiled some noodles and grabbed a load of spices out of the cupboard that I thought would work well together. Fortunately, these flavours worked brilliantly together and I could breathe almost normally for around an hour! This recipe makes two portions of yummy, sinus-clearing noodles.

Ingredients

200g noodles

1tbsp sesame seeds

1tsp sesame oil

1/2tsp cayenne pepper

1tsp ground coriander

1tsp cumin

1/4tsp ground ginger

1/2tsp mixed spice

1/4tsp ground garlic

2tbsp soy sauce

2tbsp honey

2tbsp water

Recipe

1. Boil the noodles according to the instructions on the packet and toast the sesame seeds in a frying pan over a medium heat until golden brown - this should take around 10 minutes. When the seeds are toasted, remove them from the heat and leave to one side.

2. In another pan, heat the sesame oil and add all the spices. Cook for 3 minutes, stirring regularly. 

3. Add the water, soy sauce and honey. Mix well and leave to simmer for around 5 minutes.

4. Drain the cooked noodles and add them to the sauce in the frying pan. Stir so that all the noodles are well-coated and leave for 5 minutes.

5. Toss the noodles with the sesame seeds and serve.

Papas Arrugadas

Papas arrugadas are a common staple in Canarian food. The name literally translates into English as ‘wrinkled potatoes’ which doesn’t sound appetising at all, so they’re usually given the nickname 'Canarian potatoes'.

This ‘recipe’ looks a bit simple and obvious at first – everyone knows how to boil potatoes, right? – but the difficult part of making papas arrugadas is getting the ideal water to salt combo to ensure that your potatoes are wonderfully salty, almost crispy on the outside whilst keeping the insides tremendously soft and fluffy.

After much trial and error, I think I've found just the right amount of salt and water to make the perfect potatoes. This recipe serves two but can easily be increased or decreased to suit you. Just remember that if you alter the amount of water, you must change the amount of salt accordingly.

Papas arrugadas are delicious on their own, but they are traditionally served with red and green mojo sauces.

Ingredients

8-10 Canarian Potatoes

500ml water

5 level tbsp sea salt

Recipe

1. Scrub each of the potatoes and place them in a large saucepan with the water over a medium-high heat.

2. When the water begins to boil, add the salt and stir. Keep an eye on the potatoes and sit them every five minutes.

3. After 20-25 minutes, the potatoes should be cooked, but slowly prick one with the tip of a knife to be sure – there will be almost no resistance against the knife when they are cooked.

4. Drain the water from the pan and turn off the heat. Leave the saucepan with the potatoes on the hob to dry – you’ll know they are ready when the skins are shrivelled and the potatoes have taken on a salt-crystallised grey colour.