Date Night: Katsu Curry and Gourmet Popcorn

As much as I love cooking from scratch, I also like to cheat every now and again. The blue dragon katsu meal kit catches my eye every time I go to the shops, I swear the stuff is addictive. So I thought it would be perfect for me and my boyfriend to make. As I've said before my boyfriend eats meat so we made two separately, I had sweet potato (the kit suggests aubergine, sweet potato and butternut squash) and he had chicken. It was fun to make and tasted as good as I remember so I would definitely recommend it (especially as it only takes 20 minutes).

I think it would be quite easy to recreate from scratch as well so I'll probably try that next. I also saw (the godess that is) Gizzie Erskine make a low fat version on Cook Yourself Thin, so I might adapt a veggie version from that!

Of course date night wouldn't be complete without popcorn and a movie. I picked this Zaramama gourmet popcorn from Wisley gardens, which was a mixture of different kernels. The child inside me hoped that it would pop all colourful like the kernels, of course that didn't happen, but it still tasted pretty good.

And we watched Haggard in honor of Ryan Dunn. CKY, Haggard and Jackass were such a massive part of my child/teenage hood, so it's so sad to hear that Dunn died in such a horrific way. RIP man.

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Lemon Drizzle Gingerbread

I had a terrible cold last week, which left me craving lemon and ginger and as my cold got better that craving was naturally replaced with cake. So that's how this recipe popped in to my head. It was also down to the fact that Miss Annie Holland tweeted me saying 'I have a new aim in life....to make it onto Hef's Kitchen!'. It was probably sarcastic, nonetheless this post is dedicated to her. You can draw your own parallels as to why (hahaha).

Here's a picture of Annie and our other house mate Colin (RIP)

To make the Lemon Drizzle Gingerbread you need:

180g butter

150g dark brown sugar

2 large tbsp golden syrup (by large I mean it doesn't matter if it's dripping all over the shop)

1 large tbsp treacle

The rind and half the juice of 1 lemon

2 large eggs beaten

220g self raising flour

100g whole meal flour

1 tbsp of ground ginger

1 tsp all spice (optional)

Drizzle:

120g icing sugar

1 lemon

Start by preheating the oven to 180 degrees and buttering a bread tin. Put the butter, sugar, golden syrup and treacle in to a pan and cook on a low heat, mixing until the sugar has melted. Add the whole rind and half of the juice the lemon (reserve the other half of the juice of the syrup). Add the flours (sifted), eggs, and spices and mix well until you have a smooth batter. Pour in to the bread tin and bake in the middle of the oven for 40 minutes.

When the bread is ready, remove from the oven and pop the tin on to a wire rack to cool. Make the sugar syrup by putting the juice from 1 and 1/2 lemons and the icing sugar in a small pan and heating on a low heat until the sugar has melted. Keep stirring it and don't let it boil. Prick holes in the top of the ginger bread with a skewer or fork and pour the hot sugar syrup on top. Let the ginger bread cool fully (if you can wait) turn out and enjoy!

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Filo Pizza Pockets

My vegan friend Emma came round again this week with promise of earning cool points and going to summer solstice (sun rise at stone henge) but as we're poor we stayed in and cooked up another vegan feast. This time we made filo pockets filled with pizza sauce and vegan cheese. This is the first time I've tried vegan cheese and I almost pussied out after I smelt it (touching it put me off a bit too, it is seriously weird!) But in the end I decided to man up and use it instead of the real stuff and it was pretty tasty. It just melted into the sauce giving a nice pizzay flavour.

Serves 2

You'll need:

1 small red onion chopped

2 cloves of garlic

250g cherry tomatoes chopped

Fresh basil, rosemary and thyme (you can buy a mixed pack from Asda)

200 ml vegetable stock

8 sheets of vegan filo pastry

80g grated vegan cheese (we used mozzarella style cheezly)

Start by preheating the oven to 180 degrees. Make the tomato sauce by heating olive oil in a pan, then softening the onion and garlic for a few minutes. Once softened add the tomatoes and stock and leave to simmer on a medium heat for around 10 minutes until the mixture has reduced. Use two sheets per pocket laid on top of each other, put a dollop of the tomato sauce on then top with the cheese and repeat 4 times. You can add any other pizza toppings you like, emma wanted mushrooms (SICK) but I really, really dislike them.

Pop them in the oven for 20-30 minutes until the filo pastry is nice and thick and serve with some salad.

(Even Ruby liked the cheezly and she's a bit of a cheese connoisseur)

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My Nan's Piccalilli Recipe

Ever since I can remember my nan's made piccalilli, but up until a few years ago (like with lots of other things) I thought I didn't like it. I've wanted to try and make it since it's become a standard part of my roast dinner, and I've finally got the recipe off my nan (see below). I went to see my nan the other day, and she gave me some tips. One of the things she said was to make it my own as it never comes out the same twice, so this is how I made it.

I used:

1 cauliflower

2 courgettes

1 bag of shallots (200gish)

Salt

Water

1 1/4 pint malt vinegar

1 tbsp mustard powder

1 tbsp turmeric

3 tbsp brown sugar

1 1/2 tsp corn flour

You have to start the day before to salt the vegetables. So chop up your veg into small pieces and place in a large bowl cover with water and salt and mix well, place a bowl over the veg so that it is kept under the water. leave over night.

The next day rinse the vegetables, then pop in a large pan. Cover the veg with the vinegar and simmer for around 10 minutes. In a separate bowl mix the mustard powder, turmeric, sugar and flour then add to the vinegar. Mix well until it becomes a custardy texture. Pop into clean sterilised jars (I put mine in the microwave for a minute, our relationship has moved on since we first got it). Then leave to cool, and cut out circles of baking paper to pop on the top so the lids don't go rusty. And there you have it, some lovely homemade pickle!

WARNING: This stuff seems to stain the sides! My mum isn't very happy because not only are our sides yellow, but I also threw and sponge at her and it burnt through her top!

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