Quick Quesadillas

Quesadilla

I made my first quesadillas and they were fab! Elizabeth especially loved them.

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp sunflower oil
• 1 cooked chicken breast
• some chopped up cooked ham
• 1tbsp tomato puree
• 2tbsp soy sauce
• about 50g grated cheddar cheese

Heat the oil in a frying pan and the chicken and ham on a low heat for a minute or two, then mix in the tomato puree and soy sauce. Cook for a further 2 minutes. 

• If I was making the quesadillas for myself, I would also add some red pepper and sweetcorn. I would fry them at this stage until they were starting to soften.

In a separate frying pan, lay a flour tortilla in the base of the pan and top with the chicken mixture. Sprinkle over the cheese and top with the other tortilla.

Cover the pan with a lid and cook over a gentle heat for 12 minutes. Flip the tortilla over - I put a large plate over the pan, tipped it so that the tortilla was on the plate, then I slipped it back into the pan. Cook for a further 1-2 minutes.

Remove the tortilla from the pan, allow it to cook slightly, then slice it into wedges.

I served this up with some Cajun potato wedges - peel several large potatoes and slice them up into wedges. Mix them up with a table spoon of oil and some cajun seasoning. Cook in the oven at 180 degrees for about 40 minutes. Turn them over a few times to stop them from sticking to the baking tray.

Lasagne

Bolognese Sauce

• 250 g lean steak mince
• 1 tin of chopped tomatoes
• 1 medium sized onion chopped
• 1 carrot
• 1 stick of celery
• 2 tbsp tomato puree
• 250 mls beef stock
• A few sprigs of thyme
• A bay leaf
• Olive oil (although I sometimes use sunflower oil and sometimes marg)
• 120 ml Red wine (optional - in my case depending on whether I have some in the house)
• Salt and Pepper
• Plus any other veg that's needing used up

Method:

• Fry the onions in oil until soft
• Add the mince, fry until it has browned
• Add the tomato puree, give it a good mix
• Add the tinned tomatoes and stock and mix
• Add the rest of the vegetables, herbs and seasoning
• Bring to the boil, then cover it and put it on the lowest heat to simmer for as long as possible! Probably at least an hour. I often let it thicken up with the lid off towards the end of cooking. But that's a judgement call.

I make a cheese sauce for my lasagne. This sauce is great for macaroni cheese.

Cheese Sauce

• A knob of margarine (about 30/40g)
• 2 heaped tsp plain flour
• 70-100 g of your favourite cheddar grated - we like Red Leicester
• About 120-150 ml milk

Method

• Melt the marg in a small pot
• Add the flour and mix until it all comes together
• Add a small dash of milk and mix it until all the liquid has been absorbed. Repeat this until you have a runny liquid, probably double cream consistency.
• Add the cheese and heat it up until the cheese has all melted and the mixture has thickened.

Next up is constructing your lasagne. I use a small casserole dish. You will need lasagne pasta obviously. But also I sometimes add a layer of pepperoni or chorizo if I have some in the fridge. It spices it up a little.

• Put a layer of mince, then lasagne, then cheese sauce, mince, pepperoni/chorizo, lasagne, cheese sauce etc until the mixture is all used up. With the cheese sauce on top.
• Cook it in the oven at about 160 (fan) for 40-45 minutes.

I usually serve it up with dough balls. But crusty bread is also good.

Mini Burger

Rebecca loves burgers. She loves that Shaggy and Scooby Doo loves burgers too! So I decided to try making some at home.

I based my burger on an Annabel Karmel recipe from My Favourite Recipes. But my husband is not fond of onions, so I skipped that step.

Ingredients:

• 250g lean mince beef
• 40g fresh breadcrumbs (2 slices of bread)
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 tbsp milk
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• about 1 tbsp of fresh oregano chopped
• salt & pepper

Method:

• Put it all in a bowl and mix together with your hands. 
• Divide the mixture into 12 small balls. Flatten them slightly. Cover and chill in the fridge.
• For cooking, I put them in the George Forman grill for a few minutes until cooked through.

The recipe for the rolls comes from an absolutely brilliant bread machine recipe book by Annette Yates called Fresh Bread in the Morning. I use the Bridge Roll recipe, but I make them into round rolls instead.

Ingredients:

• 1 egg
• Semi skimmed milk
• 1 tsp yeast
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp golden caster sugar
• 500 g strong white flour
• 40 g butter, cut into small cubes

Method:

• Break the egg into a jug and beat it slightly. Make the mixture up to 300 ml by adding the milk.
• Add the dry ingredients to your bread machine, followed by the butter, then the egg/milk mixture. Set your bread machine to the appropriate basic dough setting. On my machine the programme lasts 2 hours 20 minutes.
• Preheat oven to 180 degrees (fan)
• When the programme is finished, turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead it lightly to knock out the air.
• Cut the dough into 24 pieces. Shape into balls. Arrange on the baking try quite close together.
• Cover and leave it to rise (30 minutes or so).
• Put in the oven and cook for about 12 minutes, until golden brown and cooked through.
• Transfer to a wire rack and leave to cool.

These are really tasty burgers and the rolls are good with everything! The roll in the picture was glazed with an egg, which is suggested in the recipe book. However, I forgot to glaze them one time and found that they were just as nice without the glaze, so I save using up an egg and do without now.

Obviously the chips and sweetcorn are just a serving suggestion... but burgers without chips? Come on!