Busy Busy Busy

Haven't looked at the blog for a while now as I am forever distracted, suppose thats what happens when you have a home to manage and kids to look after.
At the moment we are slowly decorating the kitchen,I've been on painting whitework duty which I hate I might add!
We need to get some more tiles around the cooker to extend them up to the coving, then theres the ceiling to paint a couple of times,the boiler to tidy up as some of the white paint has chipped off and rusted.It basically looks a mess the whole kitchen and I cannot stand the crappy yellow and orange painted walls, why I decided on those colours I'll never know? I know why because I wanted to cover the shitty brown colour what was here when we moved in.It was the colour of poo,hideous! At least I know someone has worst taste in decor than me.

It will be all done shortly, its just finding the time and the energy to do it.


Gunna finally harvest the sweetcorn we've been growing tomorrow so hopefully I'll add photos to the draft post I've already done and get that published by the end of the week.

My oven is fixed!

Thankfully Leigh had a tinker with the back of the oven and messed about with some wires and clips and hey presto my oven now works!
I'm so pleased,I've been lost without it as its a huge oven and I can do some great batch cooking in there without waiting around for one little tray of stuff to cook before I pop the next one in.I had been using the oven program on my microwave so you can imagine the size of space I had.Most of my baking trays didn't even fit so it wasn't suitable for the long term but I managed for those few weeks when needed.

Hopefully this time the oven continues to work like a dream.

Leigh made homemade Samosa

 Last week Leigh made some keema samosa's which were delicious and pretty easy to make.He used a simple keema recipe with added peas and boiled potatoes,Google is great for recipes but I've found Facebook groups are also very good for authentic recipes.Just search for Indian cooking/recipes and there is lots of groups what love to share and encourage others to cook in a more traditional way.


                                                         Keema recipe
                                                         
                                                  2 Tablespoons of vegetable oil
                                                  1 pound of onions, sliced
                                                  2 teaspoons of salt
                                                  2 teaspoons of pepper
                                                  1/2 teaspoon of ground cumin
                                                  2 teaspoons of garam masala
                                                  pinch of ground cinnamon
                                                  1 1/2 teaspoons of hot chilli powder
                             1 pound of minced lamb (any minced meat can be subbed)
                           2 medium potatoes chopped into small squares, boiled till tender
                                                  1 large handfuls of frozen peas



Heat the oil in a wok or large frying pan, add the onions and fry till golden brown and tender, add salt, pepper,cumin,garam masala, cinnamon and the chilli powder for 2 minutes.Add the mince and gently fry for 20 minutes on a low heated not drain and stir occasionally so it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan.Add the cooked potatoes and frozen peas and carefully stir into the mince mix and cook for 1 minute.Remove from heat and let it cool down before assembling the pastry cones.
       

The Samoas dough is a very simple pastry

250g Plain Flour

1 teaspoon of salt

2 teaspoons of vegetable oil

1 egg, separated 

9 tablespoons of warm water

Mix the flour with the salt in a bowl, work in the oil and egg yolk with your fingers until it resembles breadcrumbs.(egg white needed later so don't ditch it) 

Mix the warm water gradually into the flour for a stiff unsticky dough, you may need a dip more water depending on your flour.Wrap the dough in cling film and chill in the fridge for 30 mins.

                                                   

 Pastry should be rolled out thinly to about 3-4mm,take a side plate and place onto rolled out pastry and cut round it to for an even circle, cut this in half.Take one half and make a cone, make sure the edges are closed well, we used the egg white as a glue as well as pressing the edges together to seal.Spoon the filling into the cone but don't over fill you need about a 1/4 space.Brush the top edge again with the egg white glue and firmly press to seal.It is important to have a good seal on all the open edges so they don't break apart when deep frying.

Sealed Samosa's can now be deep fried on a medium heat for about 5 minutes until golden brown, drain on some kitchen roll for rid of excess grease and then enjoy!

These are good in the fridge for about 3 days but they never last that long here, we like them hot but also they are ideal for picnics/packed lunch. You can choose many different fillings, could even do a sweet fruity version.

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