Here's some lovely family-friendly recipes - all from the wonderful Jamie Oliver. I love these dinners - proper homemade comfort food with some really interesting flavours.
Black Bean Burgers with Coconut Buns
This is a combination of a few recipes I've seen Jamie make - I popped these together for a Chinese-style feast at home. I made a vegetable and noodle stir fry, twinned with these delicious beef patties and coconut buns (chinese dumplings) in this instance used as burger bun style replacements.
For the Burgers:
500g lean minced beef
1 tablespoon black bean sauce
runny honey for drizzling over
25g sesame seeds
olive oil for frying
Method:
Mix the mince with a tablespoon of black bean sauce, and season with S&P. Divide into 4, and make round burger shaped patties. Fry in a little olive oil for around 10 mins. Then add some runny honey, and sprinkle over the sesame seeds, let the honey caramelise and the sesame seeds stick and brown making a delicious crust on the burgers.
For the Coconut Buns:
1 tin reduced fat coconut milk
2 tins of self raising flour
salt
Method:
Pour the coconut milk, flour and salt into a food processor and blend until you have a sticky dough. With a floured surface and wet hands separate the dough into 8 equal sized portions and loosely roll into balls. Pop each bun into a double layer of paper cupcake cases, and then place into a bamboo steamer. Steam above a pan of simmering water for 15 minutes until light and fluffy.
(Can I suggest with hindsight that you add a teaspoon of Chinese Five Spice, and a splash of Soy Sauce to the mix before steaming to add some extra flavour, as personally I found these slightly too bland - although they are a good flavour carrier - so they were great twinned with the yummy patties!)
Cut or break open the coconut buns and eat with the beef patties, and a vegetable stir fry.
Stir fry, patties and buns-a-steaming
The finished stir fry and black bean beef patties with sesame crust
Coconut buns! A weird phenomenon ... but satisfying to both make and eat (also good cold the next day with left over beef patties according to my husband!)
Falafel Wraps with Hummus & Griddled Peppers
These are along the lines of a Turkish style fajhita - meat free, but full of protein, very filling, and just so scrummy - I insist you all have a go at this easy and fun dinner!
For the Falafel:
1 tin of chick peas
1 tin of mixed beans
zest of 1 lemon
1 tbsp harissa paste
1 heaped tsp allspice
1 heaped tbsp plain flour
1 bunch fresh coriander
olive oil for frying
Method:
Place all ingredients into a food processor and blitz. Empty the paste onto the counter and divide into 8 equal sized patties. (Use wet hands as the falafel 'dough' is very sticky). Fry on a medium heat in olive oil until golden and crispy on the outside and heated through.
My falafel cooking
For the Hummus:
1 tin of chick peas, drained
30g/30ml of Tahini paste or smooth peanut butter
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 garlic cloves crushed
1 tsp ground cumin
4 tbsp water
2 tbsp Greek or natural yoghurt
2 tbsp Greek or natural yoghurt
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp paprika (I used hot smoked paprika for extra kick!)
salt and pepper to season
salt and pepper to season
Method:
It couldn't be easier - bung all the ingredients into a food processor and blitz until you have a thick paste. Spoon into a bowl and drizzle over some extra olive oil.
My homemade hummus
Griddle some peppers of each colour for 10 mins or so until soft and lightly charred. Once cooked pop your wraps into the microwave for 30 seconds to warm through & make pliable!
Picture this: a warm tortilla wrap smothered in homemade hummus, with sweet charred peppers and broken chunks of falafel, all wrapped up and ready to tuck into... what more could you want?
The meal all laid out ready to tuck in - seeded tortillas, griddled peppers, hummus and falafel (think Turkish style fajitas!)
Yum - the finished falafel - I will SO make these again and again - scrummy!
All ready to be wrapped up and devoured
Close up - all ready for wrapping!
I honestly didn't miss meat at all in this dish, it is a perfect vegetarian dinner, and a really good meal to make for a dinner party - so fun to eat, a very sociable dinner.
Why not give it a go?
I hope I've inspired you to give these fun but easy dinners a try....
Mrs B
xxx