The temperatures fallen – just a tad
Little cooler tonight 31C with a gentle breeze helped by a floor standing fan!
Try to keep cooking time to a minimum and definitely as little time as possible standing over the hob, am all about the cool mamma or papa depending who is doing the business.
Go to quickies juicy mussels in a cream sauce with fresh crusty bread for dipping. Just five minutes and we are good to go. Now you can go old school and buy fresh but then it really depends what quality you get, I only buy fresh if they are Galician because they are huge and tasty. Am also not a fan of pulling out all the beards especially when it is hot and sticky. So I go for the plain steamed mussels and zhuzh the sauce up with cream, garlic and a sprinkle of jalapeno flakes.
Followed by chicken and chorizo with med veggies in a garlic and tomato sauce seasoned with smoked sage, paprika and lemon mixed with basmati rice. I don’t have a shorter or fancier title but if you have any suggestions fire away!
Recipe, now you know I don’t encourage that unless of course it’s cake. Basically, cut and fry off your veggies in this case red peppers, onions, mushrooms, then add chopped fresh chicken fillet and sliced fresh chorizo (or chorizo bits or cured chorizo depending on what is available to you).
Add a tin of chopped tomatoes. My favourite used to be Napoli but am obsessed with Mutti I buy the whole plum tomatoes and chop them myself I find the ready chopped a bit too sloppy, but I do keep them in for salsas and the tubes of paste are really lush. Am waffling.
Add the meats and seasonings turn the heat down to a steady simmer and put a lid on for twenty minutes tops.
My next hot tip is I now buy the ready cooked basmati in little tubs, one is generally enough for the two of us, they go in the microwave for one minute and the rice is light and fluffy. I don’t know about you but I can be hit and miss when I am cooking rice. One, I usually cook way too much and leave it on the hob for a second longer than I need to and it just goes sticky so I end up wasting loads. Although it’s probably more expensive to get the ready prepped in a tub in the long run I think am saving a fortune! I put two tubs in this when it finished cooking as I wanted to soak up all those lovely juices. Serve straight from the pan with the left over bread.
Prep time, a little hint if you struggle with the heat like me, sit down and have a fan whizzing away, we are open plan so I put our indoor dining table between the kitchen and lounge area so I can do all my prep sitting at the table much more sociable too and you can get others involved! So prep time 10 mins, cook time just the precooking five minutes, the rest it cooks itself really and the mussels just whizz in the microwave for a minute then drain the salt water off add the cream etc and pop in for another minute.
Enough left over for tomorrows lunch, sorted
