Sausage and mash pie

I love a good sausage casserole and sausages on their own are losing their appeal (maybe I've had them too many times? They're so easy and tasty though!). I used to use the word tasty so much when I was younger that it became a family in-joke: "How was dinner, Jessie?", "very tasty!". Like all in-jokes, they only really work when you're in the moment. It looks particularly unfunny written down!
So I had this great idea to combine sausage and mash into one dish (and serve with vegetables), like a shepherd's pie. It is a bit more work but it's really tasty!

Sausage and mash pie
Serves 4

8–10 good quality sausages
1 small onion
1–2 garlic cloves
1 carrot

1/2 pint ale (my husband always keeps a good stock of bottled ale in the house)

1/2 teaspoon caraway seeds

2 tablespoons gravy powder
500g potatoes (I used Desiree)
Dash of milk

Put the sausages into a hot oven on a baking tray. Slice the onion thinly and add to a large pan with a little oil. Cook on a low heat for 10 minutes with the lid on to really soften the onion. (I actually used a cartouche - a piece of scrumpled up wet baking parchment or greaseproof paper - because I was feeling fancy, but it's probably not necessary in this case!)

Peel and chop up the potatoes and add to a pan of boiling water (I usually boil the kettle before I start cooking to speed up this stage).

Thinly slice (or crush) the garlic cloves and add to the onions along with the carrot, chopped into small pieces. Turn up the heat and add the ale. Let the alcohol boil off for a minute or two, then turn the heat down again. Add the caraway seeds. Add the gravy powder and as much water as is necessary to make a rich gravy.

Take the sausages out of the oven and chop into pieces (I find scissors and tongs works well here), straight into the onion-gravy pan.

Finish off the mash by draining the water off the potatoes, adding a dash of milk, salt and pepper and mashing.

Tip the sausage mix into a dish (or two, in my case) and spread the mash on top with a fork. Drizzle with olive oil (and garnish with a sprig of rosemary, if you like). Place back in the oven under the grill for 5 minutes.

Serve with runner beans from the garden! Or any other greens you have.

Quinoa dinner

I really like the nutty flavour of this grain – quinoa – but I only thought to use it as the basis of a meal the other day (when we had eaten pasta too often!). Halfway through cooking, I had the idea that vinegar and honey would complement the flavour of the quinoa, and it worked really well. I added a bit of pomegranate molasses for extra zing (I think lemon juice would work equally well).

The only problem was that I overcooked the quinoa – so don't try and make it look like the picture! I'm also still using up my (wonderful) glut of tomatoes and runner beans, but you could substitute the vegetables with other ones. I think butternut squash and spinach could work really well.

Quinoa dinner

Serves 2

100g quinoa, rinsed

1 tablespoon vegetable stock (such as Boullion)

A handful of cherry tomatoes

6 runner beans

1 yellow or red bell pepper

2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

1 1/2 tablespoons honey

2 teaspoons pomegranate molasses

Cook the quinoa according to the packet instructions (it's available in Waitrose, and don't let it lose its grainy-ness - mine turned into stodge quite quickly!). Add the vegetable stock to the quinoa and water as it's boiling and give it a quick stir. Add the runner beans, tomatoes and bell pepper towards the end of cooking. When the quinoa is cooked (you may have to drain excess water) add the vinegar, honey and pomegranate molasses, and season to taste. Serve hot with bread on the side (the bread in the picture is from a wonderful Turkish deli on Isabella street in Southwark).

Indian spiced pitta pockets

I was chatting to a friend at work this week and she told me about how her family cook Indian food. She was brought up in a Hindu home in Birmingham and explained that the base flavour of every curry consists of three spices: black mustard seeds, turmeric and ground coriander, and all the different variations of Indian dishes can be made from this base. I was inspired to try this for lunch today so I made this filling for pitta bread.  It had a nice, subtle flavour because I didn't add any chilli (which you could, of course, add if you like).

Indian spiced pitta pockets
Serves 2

2 pitta breads
1 chicken breast
10 cherry tomatoes
1 teaspoon sunflower oil
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon black mustard seeds
1/2 teaspoon salt

To serve:
Salad leaves
Mango chutney

Heat a frying pan to a medium heat with the oil and add the black mustard seeds. Heat until they pop, then turn down the heat and add the turmeric, ground coriander and salt. Chop the chicken into strips and add to the pan. Fry until almost cooked through and then cut each tomato in half and add them to the pan. Toast the pitta breads while the tomatoes are warming (I used our toaster, so much easier than the oven!). Cut open the pitta pockets and fill with the chicken mixture once all pieces are cooked through. Serve with salad leaves and a teaspoon of mango chutney on the side.