Lili la Salad

Tags

delicious salads, green bean salad, healthy eating, mixed bean salad, nectarines, pulses, puy lentils, salad, summer, tomato, tuna, vegetarian

Two days, two blogs. Aren’t you lucky? Come summer, come salad and last night I had a plateful of delicious salads. I look forward to the fresh, crisp food of summer so much after the wonderful richness of winter stews. So I thought I’d share some of my favourites with you today. This is by no means an exhaustive list, in fact, I might post more in the coming weeks.

Mixed Bean Salad
Half a cucumber, diced
One punnet of mini pomodoro tomatoes, quartered
Half a red onion, diced
One red pepper, diced
One yellow pepper, diced
One can of chickpeas
One can of red kidney beans
One can of sweetcorn
A large handful of freshly chopped parsley

Mix well and dress liberally with a good strong vinaigrette dressing.

Nectarine, Feta, Puy Lentil and Mint Salad
Punnet of nectarines, sliced thinly
Pack of feta, cut into chunks
A medium handful of fresh mint leaves, chopped
One packet of ready to eat Puy lentils
One lemon
Olive oil

Mix ingredients well and squeeze over the lemon and drizzle liberally with good olive oil.

Tuna, Tomato and Green Bean Salad
One tin of tuna
Five vine tomatoes
Fresh green beans, trimmed and cooked
Mix all ingredients well and dress with a good vinaigrette and extra olive oil.

Love Lili
x

Lili’s Two Day Salad

Tags

eat clean, healthy eating, Melbourne Comedy Festival, salad, Travel

When my husband and I were in Melbourne for the Comedy Festival in 2008, I’d cook supper. As a lover of pasta, I’d normally do a real comfort food pasta dish. Once or twice we’d splash out and go and buy an awesome piece of steak. One of those thick, melt in the mouth, pieces of meat! To go alongside I made this fabulous salad. It’s really just a basic salad, it takes no skill whatsoever. We nicknamed it two-day salad because when the balsamic vinegar, oil and feta cheese combine over the other ingredients, it turns it this unappetising brown colour. It looks as if it has been sitting in the fridge for days! I always serve it with a large dollop of home-made hummus. Hell, could I BE any more middle class?

So here, darlings, is my two-day salad with home-made hummus. It’s utterly delish, even though it is just salad!

Serves 4 (as a side or large snack!)

For the salad…

1 small iceberg lettuce, sliced super thin

2 medium carrots, grated

1 punnet of cherry vine tomatoes or mini pomodoros, sliced in half

1 small cucumber, quartered and sliced

2 small apples, cored and chopped

1 pack of feta, cubed

a generous handful of toasted pine nuts

a large lug of both olive oil and balsamic vinegar

For the hummus…

1 can of chickpeas

3 tbsp of lemon juice (I like a super lemony hummus)

2 garlic cloves, crushed

1 tsp ground cumin

100ml tahini

4 tbsp water

3 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp paprika

Chop all the ingredients to a similar size. I like to cut them to a size that means I can eat them easily with a fork!

Combine everything well in a large bowl and leave to sit (out of the fridge) for at least half an hour for a really decent two-day look!

For the hummus, drain and rinse the chickpeas.

Pop the chickpeas, lemon juice, garlic, cumin, salt, tahini and water in a food processor and blend until smooth and creamy. Spoon it into a dish, adding more lemon, cumin, garlic or salt as you wish.

Serve the hummus (if you don’t have time to make your own, Sainsbury’s own is fine!) with the salad. I recommend adding a mouthwatering, medium rare, steak to this. Divine!

Enjoy.

Love Lili

Tiramisu? Don’t mind if I du!

Tags

Italian, La Notte, Melbourne, recipe, tiramisu

One of my all time favourite desserts is a divine tiramisu. The first time I did the Melbourne Comedy Festival with my husband in 2008, we stayed in the Italian quarter, right above the most divine Italian restaurant called La Notte. We’d eat there almost every night, and it got to the point where they would save us some tiramisu and we’d pick it up and eat it on our balcony. Happy memories.

Now, I make this dessert at least once a week and my family demolishes it in a couple of sittings. It’s not as traditional as some recipes, but it is super quick and delish and that is all that matters.

300ml double cream
250g tub mascarpone
80ml Amaretto, you can measure this out using the guide on the side of the cream pot. I know, clever huh?
5 tbsp golden caster sugar
400ml strong coffee, I use 3 Nespresso pods and top up with water
2 madeira cakes
25g chunk dark chocolate
2 tsp cocoa powder

Pop the cream, mascarpone, Amaretto and sugar in a large bowl and give it a really good whisk until the cream and mascarpone are completely combined and are smooth and thick.

Slice the Madeira cakes lengthways and in enough sections to cover the base of your serving dish. Then cover it with half the coffee and let it have a good soak.  Now spread over half of the delicious (completely calorie free?!) creamy mixture. Using a grater, grate over most of the chocolate and then repeat the layers (using up all the coffee), finishing with the creamy layer.

Cover and chill for a few hours or overnight, the longer the better!
To serve, dust with cocoa powder and grate over the remainder of the chocolate.

Voila! Delicious dessert in almost no time at all. Let me know how you get on.
Love Lili.  xx

Lili’s Fabulous Italian Puttanesca

Tags

food, Italian, puttanesca, spaghetti

Lili’s Spaghetti Puttanesca

I am a huge fan of ‘whore’s spaghetti’, not only is it stupidly easy to make but the explosion of really strong flavours make it a perfect choice for a winter supper. From the tang of the capers, to the heat of the dried chilli and the saltiness of the anchovies, every mouthwatering forkful is packed with kick-arse deliciousness. On a chilly evening, this can be thrown together in about 25 minutes with ingredients that are generally lurking in the larder.

So here, I share my recipe for this Italian favourite.

Ingredients

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 red onion, chopped
½ tsp dried chilli flakes
8 anchovy fillets (I prefer the tinned rather than the oily bottled ones) *
4 tbsp olive oil
800g chopped tomatoes
500g dried spaghetti
100g black olives (don’t buy pre-pitted olives as you’ll get better texture and flavour from unpitted. I use the ones from the deli counter, they are so delicious when soaked in the sauce)
1 tbsp capers, crushed
a large glug of good red wine

Pop the water for your pasta on a high heat, salt liberally and bring to a fierce boil.
In a large frying pan, soften the onion and the garlic in the olive oil. Add the anchovy fillets and the chilli flakes and cook until those delicious little anchovies start to melt.
Add the chopped tomatoes and a very healthy glug of red wine. Bring to the boil then turn down and simmer for 25 minutes, or until the sauce is rich, dark red and glossy. Stir the olives and the capers through the sauce and turn the heat down.
Cook the spaghetti in the boiling water until it still has some bite. Pop a couple of ladlefuls of the starchy pasta water into the sauce to loosen it slightly.
Combine the sauce with the pasta and serve.

Enjoy!

Love Lili

* If you really hate anchovies, stop it, you can’t taste them in the sauce! If you really, really hate anchovies, you can substitute in tinned tuna.

Lili’s Cowboy Chilli

Tags

chilli, cooking, cowboy, Derek McAlister, guacamole, spicy, street performer

Home, home on the range….

I’m a huge chilli fan, it’s the most perfect winter warmer and a real comfort food for me, especially when the weather is so bitterly cold. This always goes down a storm whenever I make it. The smoky chipotle chillies combined with coffee and the slow-cooked beef that literally melts in your mouth are a hit with friends and family alike. A dear friend of mine from the States, street performer Derek McAlister, gave me his guacamole recipe one Edinburgh Festival and I serve it whenever I make this chilli. It’s completely delish!

Chilli

2.5 lbs of stewing steak
1 red onion – roughly chopped
1 red pepper – roughly chopped
2 cloves of garlic – crushed
4 inches of chorizo – roughly chopped
1 red chilli – finely chopped
1 dried chipotle chilli – finely chopped
1 tin of red kidney beans
1 tin of black beans
2 tins of chopped tomatoes
small handful of sweet smoked paprika
1 tbsp of chipotle Tabasco
1 squirt of tomato purée
1 glass of red wine
1 tea cup of strong black coffee
olive oil
salt & pepper

Derek’s Guacamole

4 avocados smashed with the juice of 1/2 lime, salt & pepper
half a jalapeno chilli – diced
2 tomatoes – diced & seasoned
half a white onion finely chopped (I substitute the white for red as I prefer the sweetness of the red – sorry Derek!!)
half a cup (small bunch) coriander – finely chopped

Serves 4

Preheat the oven to 150 degrees.

Soften the onion, red pepper, garlic, chorizo, chipotles and red chilli in the olive oil over a medium heat. Once soft, add the beef to brown.
Once the beef is browned, add the paprika, the kidney and black beans, the chopped tomatoes, a squirt of tomato purée, the red wine, the coffee and the Tabasco.
Season liberally and pop in the oven for 2.5 – 3 hours, or until the beef is falling apart. You can, of course, adjust the seasonings depending on your personal taste. Don’t let the chilli dry out, do give it a stir now and then and chuck in some water if it looks a little dry.

For Derek’s Guac – mix the avocados with the lime juice, salt & pepper first. Then add each ingredient separately and mix well. Taste often and make sure there is enough salt and lime flavour coming through. Pop in a bowl, cover and chill until you eat. Enjoy!

Serve the chilli with some sour cream, long grain rice, some crusty bread and a healthy serving of guacamole.

Other things you can add:

A sprinkling of grated mature cheddar
A spoonful of tomato salsa (I cheat and use the fresh one from Sainsburys, you can find it in the chiller cabinet with the hummus and other dips)
Sweetcorn drizzled with lime juice,
A side of refried beans
Tortilla chips
Jalapenos

Enjoy!

Love Lili
x