Cook book challenge | Porotos granados

Another Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall recipe from his book Veg, which is quickly becoming a favourite of mine! I made this hearty stew after a long walk in the rain getting lost around box hill with Megan. This is another perfect store cupboard recipe, as you’re required to buy very little. I tend to batch by squash when they’re on offer, and chop them up to freeze in bags for a later time which is definitely handy!

Ingredients: olive oil//onion//garlic cloves//paprika//oregano//dried or tinned beans*//veg stock//butternut squash*//French beans*//sweet corn*//salt//pepper

Taste: Warm, like a hug in a bowl. Perfect for after a cold, rainy day out walking.

Good: Easy to follow, can be rustled up in a jiffy around other things. Easy to freeze and reheat.

Time taken: 35 mins cooking with tinned beans, more for prep, with time left in between to get on with other things.

Likeness to the book: I think mine was more watery, possibly because I added more beans and less squash than the recipe recommended?

Improvements: It wasn’t quite as spicy as I was hoping for a ‘Chilean stew’. I would definitely add a shake of chilli and some more paprika next time to give it a kick.

Cost*: £4.50 ish for the *ed items. I think I made about 6 portions of this, so a pretty cheap meal too at 75p a portion for the bought ingredients.

*I’ve only included ingredients you need to actively buy for this recipe, as the others I would consider store cupboard basics that I always have on hand.

Overall score: 4/5. Needs more spice!

You can find the original recipe here.

Cookie Exchange – My Turn

Hello lovelies, I hope you’re all having a lovely day! Today I wanted to share the recipe I used for the lovely Tam’s cookie swap!

When I tweeted Jemma to  see if there was anything she really liked she said nut butters, coconut, dark chocolate and dried fruit. I hunted high and low online for an unusual cookie recipe and found this one on my new favourite website SparkRecipes. Wow, this website is awesome – it’s mainly American based but you can find recipes for almost anything on there!

However, I made some very slight changes to this recipe and if I did it again I think I’d make even more changes!

The recipe said to only use 1 cup of canned pumpkin, but I thought the cookies looked a little dry, so I ended up using the whole can.

I made 24 cookies, instead of the stated 48 serving size. I’m not sure what Jemma thinks, but I think if I’d halved the cookies they would have been bite sized, whereas these were a bit more filling .

I have a gas oven which I put on gasmark 6 and baked for around15 minutes, not the stated 10-12.

If I were to do the recipe again, I think it would be really easy to add in a few more things. Again, I’m not sure what Jemma thought, but after I tasted a couple, I decided I loved the cranberry/almond mix. I think coconut or hazelnuts or dried cherries would work fantastically in there! The website also has some very useful suggestions of what else you could add in.

I also just want to apologise to Jemma for my very poorly packaged cookies! I made them on a spur of the moment one Tuesday evening, and then realised I’d have to take them all into work to post at lunchtime. I then had to go and buy the boxes and wait in the busy lunchtime queue for the post office in my lunch time, and I got a bit flustered. So, sorry Jemma!! I hope Jemma enjoyed them, and I think I shall be making them again in the near future.