The Quirky Paella Night!!

Hola Amigos!!! Tonight we have enjoyed a spanish feast including the very yummy Quirky Paella!! In the home of the Quirky Nutshell we always try to spend time together and have our dinners as a family, I love it when the children help with the preparation and cooking, better still when they wash up!! Ha ha!!  But seriously, it's a special time when we can share our thoughts and activities of the day and just talk! I love spending time with my family and over food it seems to relax everyone and create a nice ambience. 

With my mission to save as much money as I can, I continue to shop at Aldi as I believe it to be the best value for great food. I shop there every week and have done for the last year and have saved a massive amount on my weekly shop. I love cooking great food and I don't buy processed foods if I can help it. As a busy full time working mother of three children it can be a challenge to try and cook healthy meals on a budget that do not take hours to make!! This recipe uses all ingredients from Aldi, with some stock ingredients already in my cupboard the whole decadent meal cost less than £10 and serves 4 people. This is including side dishes too! But not including wine! Although I do always buy my wine from Aldi, a personal favourite is their Castellore Montepulciano, but for today's recipe it has got to be a good Rioja. Check out some more beautiful wines by following the link:

Aldi Wine Cellar

If I can I will cheat at opportune moments as time is a precious thing. So today I will share with you my (cheating) Quirky Paella. I love cooking spanish food, it reminds me of holidays, my dad and grandparents live in Spain so it reminds me of visits to see them, eating out at Tapas bars and the memory of holiday. Paella is a fabulous dish to cook and I have and do cook the real thing when I have the time and when I have the budget. The recipe I will share with you is a budget friendly recipe that tastes great and doesn't take as long to make. 

Quirky nuts from the
Quirky Nutshell

Aldi Shopping List: 

4 x golden vegetable savoury rice @ 25p a packet =£1.00

1 chorizo sausage ring = £1.35

Pack of mixed peppers = 95p

Frozen jumbo king Prawns = £2.29

Medium fresh chicken @ £3.59 =£1.80

Asparagus tips £1.09

Ready to bake baguettes = 39p
TOTAL = £8.89

What a great price for an amazing meal, a great opportunity to eat together, celebrate an occasion (Today is Monday? always a good reason to celebrate), a graduation, leaving for university, friends over, whatever the cause this dinner is great! 

OMG what a bargain!!
The main ingredient, in fact the base for the whole meal is this wonderful Golden Vegetable Savoury Rice from Aldi, only 25p a packet!! The packet serves 2 as a side dish, but if you are serving as a whole meal within a paella I would recommend a packet for each adult. 

The Brilliant Staple to our Recipe!
What a bargain at only 25p a packet!!

So how do I make all this wonderful food?

Paella

What do I need?

1 red onion, peeled and diced

1 pack mixed peppers: Red, green and yellow: chopped

1/2 chorizo sausage sliced thinly

1/2 medium cooked roast chicken cut into bite sized pieces

225g frozen jumbo king prawns, defrosted

4 packets golden savoury rice

25g frozen petit pois peas

olive oil 

What do I do?

First heat the oil and fry your onions until they are translucent, add the chorizo and stir until the chorizo is starting to brown. Add the cooked chicken and the peppers, stir well incorporating all the juices from the chorizo into the chicken and pepper. Add the packets of rice and stir until the juices are all combined, then mix in 400ml of cold water. 

Put the heat up to high and mix until the paella starts to bubble, turn down the heat. Now add the grilled jarred peppers, tear them by hand then mix into the paella. If the rice is starting to stick, continue to add more water. You will need to add another 700ml so add little and often.  The rice will take about 15 minutes to cook within the mixture. 

                                                      

When the rice is almost ready, add the cooked prawns and frozen peas, stir well and let cook for another 5 minutes. 

Serve and enjoy!! Feel free to add the tapas dishes for a real Spanish feast. 

Chorizo in Red Wine
What do I need?

• 1/2 chorizo sausage
• 1 glass red wine

Use the remaining half of your chorizo sausage and slice thinly, put into a frying pan cover the sliced sausage with red wine. Heat slowly, turning the slices of sausages over every few minutes. After 10 minutes turn up the heat and  let the wine reduce. Serve and enjoy!

Use a nice red wine to cook your chorizo. 

Let the remaining
red wine bubble until
it reduces.

Griddled Asparagus with Balsamic Vinegar

What do I need? 

• Packet of asparagus tips
• balsamic vinegar

Using Aldi asparagus tips, put into a hot griddle pan, using a spoon keep turning the asparagus over. When the asparagus has started to brown serve in a bowl and drizzle over balsamic vinegar. Serve and enjoy!! Super easy!!  

When the asparagus tips are starting to
brown, turn over

Brilliant! Griddled asparagus with balsamic vinegar

Alioli 
As far as I am concerned, tapas isn't tapas unless there is alioli! We absolutely love it!! Again, it's so easy to make and tastes amazing! Serve with freshly baked baguettes. 

What do I need?

• 2 heaped tablespoons of mayonnaise 
• 2 cloves garlic
• drizzle of olive oil
• black pepper

Ingredients from Aldi

Put your
crushed garlic
in a bowl. 

Mix really well!!

Add 3 tablespoons of mayonnaise. 

Serve with freshly baked bread

I hope you enjoy your Spanish feast, thank you for reading xxx

All the dishes put together, our Spanish Feast

Love my neighbour who gives me lovely fruit & veggies

What's cooking in The Quirky Nutshell today? My very kind and lovely neighbour has just delivered a box full of fruit and vegetables fresh from her garden! Yay! She included tomatoes,  cucumbers and cooking apples. What to do with all these wonderful things?

I'm going to make some fresh tomato soup for lunch. It's super easy to make and tastes amazing when using fresh produce. 

What do I need? 

1 kg fresh tomatoes 

2 red onions

Fresh basil

Salt and pepper to taste

Olive oil

300ml Vegetable stock

What do I need to do? 

Wash your tomatoes, cut them in half and place on a baking tray. Drizzle with olive oil, then add sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Place the baking tray in a preheated oven, 190 degrees for approx 45-60 mins until just starting to blacken around the edges.

Whilst your tomatoes are cooking, roughly chop your red onions. 

When the tomatoes are cooked leave them to cool for a few minutes. Start heating a drizzle oil in a saucepan adding your onions when the oil is hot enough. Sauté your onions until they are starting to turn translucent, add the tomatoes juice and all! Stir and leave to simmer for 5 minutes. Add 200ml of hot vegetable stock, season with black pepper and let it simmer for 15 minutes. 

When your tomatoes are simmered add these to a blender and blitz on high for a few minutes, stir through then add the last 100ml of hot stock. Voila!! Your soup is ready!! Serve with s drizzle of creme fraiche and a few scattered basil leaves and enjoy!! 

Lunch was followed by Apple Crumble Loaf, again a really simple and quick bake, I do like to keep things simple!! The recipe gave us 2 loafs of apple-crumbleness so we delivered some to Grandma and Grandad. Follow the link to take you to the recipe from BBC good food. 

Apple Crumble Loaf

Thanks for reading xxx

Pizza night!!

Last night it was family pizza making night and everyone joined in. It was really good fun with flour puffing happily throughout my kitchen!! My family has diverse tastes and I often have to cook more than one type of dinner as I myself am the only vegetarian in the house, my youngest is super fussy and can't stand onions, peppers, mushrooms or anything spicy. My eldest luckily eats most things and my daughter doesn't like pizza. So our epic pizza making night ended up with a whole variety of dinners served, but as everyone was helping it didn't really make a lot of difference. 

The recipe for the pizza dough comes from Jamie Oliver's website, I use it whenever I make pizza or calzone, it never fails! And plus I love Jamie's recipes, he's super cool and I would love to invite him and his wife to a dinner party one day!! Better practise my cooking skills a bit more then!! 
Jamie Oliver's Pizza Dough Recipe

I have written the recipe for Pizza and Calzone as this is what we made last night, Calzone is a folded pizza, follow which ever recipe you prefer! Feel free to add/change your own toppings that's what I love about making pizza as it's each to their own. 

Pizza and Calzone Recipe
Follow the instructions for making the pizza dough on Jamie Oliver's website, use this link to take you there.

Jamie Oliver's Pizza Dough Recipe




Tomato Sauce Base

• 1 tin (400g) chopped tomatoes
• tomato puree
• 1 red onion
• 1 clove garlic, sliced
• dried basil and oregano
• olive oil

Chop your onion and fry in a small saucepan in the olive oil. When the onions are almost turning golden, add your sliced garlic clove. Stir around until the garlic is mixed well with the onions, add your can of chopped tomatoes. Squeeze your tomato puree in and mix in the dried herbs, a teaspoon of each. Add black pepper to taste. Let the tomato sauce come to the boil then turn down the heat and let simmer for approx 15 mins. Keep stirring the sauce while it is cooking as you do not want it to stick. Once the sauce has simmered for 15 mins take off the heat and let cool down. Once the sauce is cool, use a hand blender to whizz the sauce to make a smooth puree. 

Keeping stirring the tomato sauce

I used a hand blender 
to puree the
cooled tomato sauce

Toppings
These toppings are to make a Spicy Chicken & Chorizo Calzone (or Pizza)

• mozzarella
• cheddar cheese
• black olives
• easy chopped chilis
• peppers cut into thin strips
• onions, sliced
• pesto
• leftover roast chicken
• chorizo
• olive oil to drizzle

Assembling the Pizza

Grease some baking trays using a drizzle of olive oil, set aside. When the pizza dough is ready, roll out onto a clean board. Use a ladle to spoon the tomato sauce onto the pizza, now you are ready to add your toppings!!

My son added his 
own toppings for his pizza,
 ham and sweetcorn. 

Assembling your Calzone

Roll out your dough as if you are making a pizza, try to get the dough as thin as you can. Use the ladle to add your tomato sauce, using the back of the ladle to spread the sauce over HALF of the pizza base. Using a teaspoon, drizzle some of the easy chopped chilli over your base, depending on how hot you like you calzone you can choose how much chilli to add. Next add your sliced chorizo, scatter over the base, then your cooked chicken. Add your peppers, olives and onions. Place your mozzarella slices evenly across your base, then finally add your cheddar cheese. 

Take hold of the side of the pizza base that has not been decorated and fold over the top of your half pizza. Starting at one end of the calzone, press the two edges together and twist the dough into the inside of your calzone. Keep going until you have created a frilly edge all the way around your calzone. Place onto your baking tray and then drizzle with olive oil. 

Vegetarian Alternative

I omit the chicken and chorizo and add extra veggies, mushrooms taste great. I Personally prefer to add pesto to my calzone rather that chilli and just dot this on the tomato sauce base before adding the vegetables and the cheese. 

Cooking Times

The calzones will take 15-20mins in a hot oven (200 degrees) and the pizzas 12-15 mins. 

What to do with left-over dough? 

Make dough-balls!! Roll the dough into bite size pieces, place on a baking tray drizzle with olive oil, these take 8-10 mins. Serve with garlic butter or alioli, yum!!!



There's nothing else to do except, chill out with a nice glass of red wine and enjoy your time with your family!!

Our family feast!! 

The Spicy Chicken and 
Chorizo Calzone

My eldest son choose to 
have his spicy chicken 
and chorizo toppings 
on a pizza

My Little superstar!

My Little Superstar!!
A massive well done to my little man who got an A* in science for his first GCSE, he's just finished year 10 so next year he will sit his main GCSEs. We are very proud of him and his hard work this year! 

What's Cooking Today?

It's that time of the week when I am running low with food and I'm trying really hard to make do until Saturday when I do my weekly food shop. However hard I try to get my shopping list ready I still seem run out of stuff come Thursday, especially during the school holidays when our children are trying their hardest it seems, to eat us out of house and home!! 

I have been shopping at Aldi and this has had a massive impact on the weekly food bill, it is so much cheaper! Plus my kids don't like going there as there are no toys, games, clothes or CDs to look at. So leaving them at home with Dad again saves me money. I try to cook everything fresh and I very rarely buy processed foods. 

So today, what to cook when my cupboards are almost bare? I still have yet to cook my whole chicken so I'm going to base tonight's meals around that! I only have to cook for 4 as my eldest is out at his friends for dinner. 

I'm going to show you how to make Chinese style Chicken Fried Rice! A really simple family friendly recipe that is great for using leftover chicken, you can substitute the chicken for prawns, pork, beef or vegetables but my family likes the chicken version the best. The recipe below shows the ingredients for a serving for 2 people. 





What do I need?

• 150g Basmati rice (N.b this is the dry weight value for the rice) cooked
• 2 eggs
• half a cup of frozen peas (I prefer petit pois)
• 1 breast cooked chicken
• vegetable oil
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce (optional)
• sliced spring onion to serve

I precook the rice in my rice cooker, this is my saving grace of cooking as I always seem to mess up cooking rice! The rice then stays warm whilst I am preparing the other ingredients. I would highly recommend investing in a rice cooker, they dont have to be expensive but they are a brilliant kitchen gadget to own. 

This rice cooker is only £12.49 from Argos! Bargain!

Follow this link to Argos

What do I do?
Precook your rice using a rice cooker, or alternatively cook your rice according to the packet instructions. Do not allow your rice to completely cool or be at room temperature before frying it as this can cause all kinds of problems, see link:Can reheating rice cause food poisoning? 

While your rice is cooking, beat the eggs in a cup or bowl, add some of the vegetable oil to your wok. When the oil is hot add the eggs and stir quickly using a wooden spoon. You want the eggs to become like scrambled eggs, be careful not to overdo them. Tip the eggs into a bowl and set aside. 

Cook your peas according to the packet instructions, I cook mine in the microwave for easiness. Try to leave them a little al dente then set aside. 


Next, you need to add the cooked chicken to the wok, add more oil if you need to. Add your cooked rice and stir quickly, then tip in your cooked eggs and peas. Add your soy sauce if using. Stir through everything, making sure everything is piping hot! 






That's it! Serve onto warmed plates and enjoy! 

Easy Chicken Fried Rice

Chocolate Oreo Truffles!!

Here is my attempt at publishing the recipe for our amazing Chocolate Oreo Truffles. They are super easy to make and you and your friends will absolutely love them. They make great gifts for any occasion, you can even decorate them to look like christmas puddings and they look amazing!!

Ingredients:

• 2 packets of oreo (or similar) biscuits
• I pack (200g) soft cheese- philadelphia is a good choice here
• 2 bars good quality chocolate, you can choose which one to use milk, dark or white.
• extra chocolate for drizzling the finished truffles. 

What to do:

Using a food processor, blend the biscuits until they look like crumbs. Tip the biscuit crumbs into a large bowl and add the soft cheese. Mix together using a wooden spoon until the mixture starts to stick together. Then using your (clean) hands squish the mixture together until it forms a squidgy dough. 

Lay out some greaseproof paper onto a baking sheet. Spoon some of the mixture into your hands and roll to form a ball. Try to keep all the dough balls a similar size, You are ideally looking for bite size truffles as opposed to golf balls! Put all the dough balls onto the greaseproof paper, then put the tray in the fridge for a couple of hours. If you are in a hurry you can out the mixture into the freezer. 

Melt your desired chocolate using a microwave until all melty and runny. Take out the truffles from the fridge or freezer. Pop a truffle into the melty chocolate and cover completely, I like to use 2 spoons and try to let the excess chocolate drip back into the bowl. Pop back onto the tray. Once the first coat of chocolate hardens, you can drizzle over a different colour chocolate for a great effect. If you are using the dried raspberries these will need to be sprinkled when the chocolate is still wet. 

Pop the truffles back into the fridge to set.

Eat and enjoy!!!!!

The finished truffles!

I used freeze dried raspberries to top the truffles, they work really well with both white and dark chocolate and look very posh as well!

The very decadent toppping!! Looked amazing!!

Truffle dough all balled up and ready to go in the fridge.

Using melted chocolate to cover the truffles.

My little man making his truffles!

Getting there with covering the truffles!

Today is going to be a good day

Every day is a good day to be alive, whether the sun's shining or not.

Marty Robbins

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/good_day.html#Q6HJ2i2PJ0OLAMbP.99


I woke up this morning feeling energised, today is going to be a good day. I am on my summer holidays and they are flying by far too quickly. I have spent my day helping my son earn some pocket money by making then selling chocolate oreo truffles to family and friends. There is something really grounding about baking at home, especially with your children and we had a great time together. My little man is trying really hard to save his money so he can buy himself a game capturing device, as used by youtubers. He has dreams of one day joining those on youtube by capturing his gaming. Everyone has to have a dream so why not! So far he has sold lemonade, baked and sold his favourite rock cakes and now truffles! I will post the recipe for the truffles as they are so easy to make and really good to eat too. I'm a great believer of 'If you want something then you got to pay for it yourself'', in fact my other 2 children are a little bit jealous that he has made more money than them. But the ideas have come from him and I am more than happy to join in and support his budding entrepreneurial skills! Look out Dragon's Den!

I love the fact my son is so determined and it's so brilliant spending time with him, as quirky as he is he never fails to make me smile. He's now half way to his goal which is brilliant! His next big idea is a car wash! Watch this space.

So how did my positive start help me today? It made me appreciate my family and friends and how lucky I am to have them. It also made me feel good about myself as I've been feeling a bit low this week. Money isn't the key to happiness it's what you do with your life that worth a million pounds. And frankly my family is priceless.

The Quirky Nutshell

Welcome to the Quirky Nutshell!!

The home of my family, my life, my passions and creativity. 

Please feel free to comment on my posts I will reply to every comment I get.