Quorn Keema Masala

8th January 2017wheelie38 Leave a comment

Heeeelllooo! Welcome back, happy New Year to you all, I hope you all had a good one, this is my first recipe back for a long while. As you know I am a massive fan of the Indian curry Keema Masala, you’ll probably remember my review of Asda’s Keema Masala in a tin from July 2015. It’s one of my favourite meals I’ve reviewed, alas Asda in their wisdom don’t make it anymore but I’ve decided to give it a go.

Ingredients for my Quorn Keema Masala

You’ll notice from the snazzy picture above that Quorn is the main feature of this recipe, that’s because I was cooking it for the lovely Gemma, while she’s not a vegetarian she prefers it to mince. I was thinking that as I have two vegetarian friends it was a good opportunity to try using it. Keema is, as far as I can tell traditional done with Lamb and comes from the Hyderabad area of Indian and is usually made with Lamb Mince. I’ve based this recipe on a recipe I saw on Titli’s Busy Kitchen, Titli’s website is amazing and a hughe source of inspiration for me, make sure you check her out. I’ve made this twice now and I think the best result is when you use, as she suggests Garlic and Ginger paste, not lazy Garlic and Ginger like I did here.

The Ingredients:

Salt and Pepper
Oil for frying
500ml beef stock
2 Onions
2 Carrots
3 Potatoes
½tsp of Chilli flakes
1tsp of Turmeric
2tsp Ground Corriander
1tsp Lazy Ginger
1tsp of Lazy Garlic
2 x Tins of chopped Tomatoes
1 x 450g pack of Quorn Mince
½ Cup of frozen peas and a bunch of fresh Coriander (not pictured)

As with all the spices, you can add as much or as little as you want, when I made the recipe for the second time I didn’t use fresh coriander, but I did the first time, if I’m honest I’m not a fresh coriander fan but I think it added to the dish.

Preparing the ingredients for my Quorn Keema Masala

Now comes the fun part, peel and quarter the two onions, set aside, then peel the three potatoes… I like this recipe so much I even peeled all the vegetables on my own lol. Cut the potatoes into cubes and place in water for later on, then peel the two carrots.

Preparing the carrots and onions for my Quorn Keema Masala

Place the quarters of onions in a food processor and blitz, you don’t want a pulp but you do want them to be finely chopped. Then add the grater attachment if you’ve got one and grate the two carrots, if you haven’t you can grate them by hand or finely chop them but try and keep them the same size as the onion. If you do have a grater attachment press down on the carrots for a finer grate.

Quorn Keema Masala Spice Mix

Once you’ve done that you can leave them in the food processor bowl for now, then place the spice mix on the plate – apologies for the photograph it’s shocking, I wasn’t drunk your honour! The spice mix is:

½ teaspoon of Chilli flakes,
1 teaspoon of Turmeric
2 teaspoons of Ground Coriander (you can grind your own if you have a spice grinder or a pestle and mortar)
1 teaspoon of salt

Again as I said earlier, you can add to this or take away, some recipes use Garam Masala, I think I may try that next time as it adds a depth that you only get from a blend of spices.

The Quorn before anything is added to make my Quorn Keema Masala

Place the mince in a bowl, this is where the flavour begins

Adding the spice mix and the garlic and ginger to the Quorn for my Quorn Keema Masala

To the mince add all the spices and a teaspoon of lazy garlic and ginger. If you’re using a garlic and ginger paste add two teaspoons of it. Mix thoroughly, my one regret now is not cutting the ginger smaller, you can see it looks like bits of wood in the rubble that is the Quorn Mince.

Frying my carrots and onions for my Quorn Keema Masala

Heat a pan, once it’s come to temperature place the onion and carrot in and stir for a few minutes.

Adding the Quron mix to the pan for my Quorn Keema Masala

Add the Quorn mince and stir thoroughly cook for two minutes on a high heat.

Adding the peas to the Quorn Keema Masala

Next add the frozen peas and stir thoroughly to combine, cook for a fture two minutes on a high heat.

Adding the potatoes to the Quorn Keema Masala

Next add the potatoes and stir them through thoroughly to combine, I microwaved the potatoes for about ten minutes in boiling water so that they were slightly softer as they were hard the first time I cooked this recipe, and let’s be fair no one likes a hard spud.

Adding the tomatoes and stock to the Quorn Keema Masala

To the potatoes add two tins of tomatoes and stir thoroughly, then pour some boiling water in one of the tins, break up a stock cube and stir so it starts to dissolve. Pour the stock into the other tin of tomatoes picking up all the tomatoey goodness.

The Quorn Keema Masala ready to thicken

When you’ve added all the ingredients, give it a stir to allow all the ingredients to come together. Then place the lid on it and cook for 20-25 minutes on a low heat.

Cooking the Quorn Keema Masala on a low heat

Check on a regular basis, stirring occasionally keeping an eye to make sure that everything is not sticking and also that the potatoes are cooked.

Quorn Keema Masala after it had thickened

The aim is for it to thicken, this is how it was the first time I made it, it’s thicker and not so saucy. I personally like a saucier curry so the second time I didn’t let it thicken so much.

An option to add Coriander to the Quorn Keema Masala

I’m not a big lover of coriander but when I made it the first time Take the ramekins off the baking tray and place on a plate; this recipe is ideal to be served as a quick and easy, yet luxury breakfast over the bank holiday, or as a simple supper.

Quorn Keema Masala is an ideal recipe to cook for work

I’ve cooked this twice, both times I took it to work the next day, the other pot in the first photograph is my Spiced Butternut Squash Soup, which I also took in to work. I think it’s fair to say that Gemma enjoyed the curry, I was really chuffed her daughter tried it and liked it too… winner winner!

Quorn Keema Masala, boiled rice and poppadoms

We served it with packet boiled rice and some poppadoms, I can honestly say it was really enjoyable. It could have used some more heat maybe, but I’m not a fan of stupidly hot food as you know. This is a dish I order a lot from my local Indian takeaway, only theirs is made with lamb and it’s much hotter than mine was.

Quorn Keema Masala, boiled rice, poppadoms, pakoras and mango chutney for Gemma and I

Gemma picked up some Pakoras and some Mango Chutney from our local supermarket and they were a great accompaniment to this dish.

Quorn Keema Masala, boiled rice, poppadoms, pakoras and mango chutney

I thoroughly enjoyed this, I’d make it with lamb next time, or would I, to be honest it was great made from Quorn. It was easy to make and didn’t involve much fuss, especially if you use the good old food processor. I’ve used Quorn once or twice but wasn’t completely convinced but it works here and I’d definitely use it again. I’m a big fan of Titli, check her website out, her recipes are great and her videos, well they’re amazing! Thanks to Kirsty for her help cooking it, and to Gemma for her taste testing… thanks to both for their photography skills,

Remember to get in touch, I’d love to hear from you, don’t forget to come back on Wednesday for a great Waste Not Want Not recipe and then we’ll have a restaurant review on the weekend.

See you Wednesday

Time-Saving Tuesdays & 6 Nations of Food – Scottish Mussels in a Garlic and Butter Sauce

29th March 2016wheelie38 Leave a comment

It’s been a while since I last posted a Time-Saving Tuesdays review so I thought why not introduce it to the 6 Nations of Food feature, I know this is a slight deviation off track but bear with me as it’ll all make sense soon. I’m going to review something that my mother and I ate on Easter Weekend.

Time-Saving Tuesdays & 6 Nations of Food – Scottish Mussels in a Garlic and Butter Sauce

I love mussels, I’ve cooked them a few times and they’re fairly easy to cook, my mother bought this for me from Lidl. I hadn’t had them for years and was quite looking forward to them.

Scottish Mussels in a Garlic and Butter Sauce – Cooking instructions

The cooking instructions were clear and easy to follow and these mussels can be cooked in the microwave, boiled in the bag or in the hob. The guidelines are easy for all these cooking methods.

Scottish Mussels in a Garlic and Butter Sauce – Ingredients

I would have said that the muscle liquor tasted very winey, however, there was no wine in it. I don’t know what the predominant flavour was but the sauce was excellent. With hints of garlic and little flecks of carrots and tomatoes running through the sauce it really set the mussels off well.

Scottish Mussels in a Garlic and Butter Sauce – Nutritional information

I probably didn’t eat 100g of them because I had other things to eat as well and my mother was sharing them with me, but there were 4.6g of Carbohydrates in 100g. I suppose had I not been on my low carb diet I wouldn’t have even noticed.

Scottish Mussels in a Garlic and Butter Sauce – Nutritional information from the front of the package

Here is the nutritional information from the front of the pack, while the sugar levels are good the fat, saturated fat are not brilliant and there’s a lot of salt for half a pack. My mother and I are nightmares though we love salt, so this suited us.

Scottish Mussels in a Garlic and Butter Sauce – Ready to eat

The sauce was stunning as I’ve said, if I’d been eating bread I could have just had a bowl full of the sauce and dunked some bread in to it. Some of the mussels were a bit chewy and some were quite small, but those aside the rest were excellent, sweet and plump. This is a great way to try mussels if you don’t feel confident in cooking them yourself. They were quick and easy to cook, whichever way you chose to cook them, I say congratulations Lidl, these were a triumph.

Time-Saving Tuesdays & 6 Nations of Food – Scottish Mussels in a Garlic and Butter Sauce

My next recipe, and final instalment of the Six Nations of Food will be towards the end of the week and it will be Mags Welsh Cakes…. I’ll let you guess what country that comes from lol. I know I said I’d do Scotch pancakes but I couldn’t resist reviewing these Mussels.

Remember, you can get in touch; you can visit our social media pages below, or subscribe to the blog for regular updates.

Bye for now!

Time-Saving Tuesday – Asda Meatballs and Quick and Easy Tomato Sauce

9th February 2016wheelie38 Leave a comment

Time-Saving Tuesday – Asda Meatballs and Quick and Easy Tomato Sauce – The Asda Meatballs

Here’s a bit different of a difference, my mother’s obsessed with these meatballs, she buys them quite regularly and either serves them as meatballs or squashes them into burgers…. bizarre I know lol!

Time-Saving Tuesday – Asda Meatballs and Quick and Easy Tomato Sauce – Ingredients

I’m unsure whether this should come under the “Waste Not Want Not Wednesday” because these ingredients were leftovers from the Pizza Pies I made, but it’s also quick and easy so it’s a win win! Before we start cooking chop the chorizo, roasted red peppers and the onion, I’ve cut the onion into half moon and the chorizo into chunks.

Time-Saving Tuesday – Asda Meatballs and Quick and Easy Tomato Sauce – Frying the onions

I had some Oil that came in a spray bottle, spray a light covering on the pan and heat. When the pan is warm add the onions and fry them until they start to soften.

Time-Saving Tuesday – Asda Meatballs and Quick and Easy Tomato Sauce – Frying the onions and chorizo

When the onions start to soften add the chorizo and stir, you’ll need to cook them until they start to soften and also the oil from the chorizo comes out.

Time-Saving Tuesday – Asda Meatballs and Quick and Easy Tomato Sauce – minced ground garlic and chili flakes

In a small bowl add 1 tsp of ground garlic and a large grinding of chilli flakes. Give them a mix and set aside.

Time-Saving Tuesday – Asda Meatballs and Quick and Easy Tomato Sauce – Adding the Minced ground garlic and chili flakes to the pan

Add the chilli flakes and garlic to the pan and stir thoroughly to combine the onions, chorizo, garlic and chilli.

Time-Saving Tuesday – Asda Meatballs and Quick and Easy Tomato Sauce – adding the sun-dried tomato and char- grilled red pepper pastes

Add the Char-Grilled Red Pepper and the Sun-Dried Tomato Pastes and stir thoroughly, allow the ingredients to mix together and get to know each other, the party is starting now!

Time-Saving Tuesday – Asda Meatballs and Quick and Easy Tomato Sauce – adding the sun-dried tomato and char- adding the roasted red peppers

Add the roasted red pepper and stir thoroughly to combine all the flavours, these are some of my favourite ingredients and it’s shaping up really nicely now.

Time-Saving Tuesday – Asda Meatballs and Quick and Easy Tomato Sauce – adding the sun-dried tomato and char- adding the mixed dry herbs

Add the mixed dry herbs, if you don’t have a packet of mixed dry herbs you could use oregano, basil and coriander in equal measures.

Time-Saving Tuesday – Asda Meatballs and Quick and Easy Tomato Sauce – adding the tinned tomatoes

Pour in the tinned tomatoes and mix thoroughly, allow everything to come to temperature. You can add water if you want more of a sauce, or add a bit of stock if you want to make some up with a stock cube.

Time-Saving Tuesday – Asda Meatballs and Quick and Easy Tomato Sauce – all the ingredients cooking away nicely

Allow the mixture to simmer and come together nicely, turn the heat down and just check it from time to time.

Time-Saving Tuesday – Asda Meatballs and Quick and Easy Tomato Sauce – the sauce simmering and the meatballs frying

Fry the meatballs in a pan with a small splash of oil, you want to cook them until they start to brown all over, you’re going to finish them off in the sauce so don’t worry too much.

Time-Saving Tuesday – Asda Meatballs and Quick and Easy Tomato Sauce – bringing the ingredients together at the end of cooking

Once the balls are brown add them to the sauce and mix through when you stir everything, do it gently and to ensure that you don’t break the balls up.

Time-Saving Tuesday – Asda Meatballs and Quick and Easy Tomato Sauce – microwaveable basmati rice, a great accompaniment

Serve this with some quick and easy basmati rice, use the type that you can cook in the microwave and it’ll be ready in next to no time.

Time-Saving Tuesday – Asda Meatballs and Quick and Easy Tomato Sauce – a microwave, a busy cook’s best friend

The microwave is a great asset to a time starved family, I’m going to be featuring recipes that can be cooked in the microwave, like our Homemade Microwaveable Tomato Risotto. If you’ve got any microwaveable recipes then get in touch, I’d love to see them and try and recreate them.

Time-Saving Tuesday – Asda Meatballs and Quick and Easy Tomato Sauce -served and ready to eat

I really enjoyed this, it’s very similar to the Sausage Meatballs in a Spicy Tomato Sauce I made in September last year. It’s really enjoyable, slightly spicy and a great to use the meatballs, they’re handy to have in the freezer , they can be defrosted and cooked quite easily.

Time-Saving Tuesday – Asda Meatballs and Quick and Easy Tomato Sauce

I’m back to normal now, and on time 😆 what more can I do! I hosted a dinner party a couple of weeks ago, so I’ll be blogging about that on the weekend, more to come next week with a review and another recipe 😀

I’m going to be doing lots over the next few weeks, so will keep you updated even hoping to finally get my youtube videos up and running… here’s hoping 😆

6 Nations Of Food

Have you been watching the six nations, I’m going to try and cook something from each of the countries involved so brace yourself for a bit of welsh cakes, pasta, toad in the hole, Kedgeree, champ and something French…. six nations of food, happy days!

See you soon

Time-Saving Tuesdays – Princes Chicken in a White Sauce

3rd November 2015wheelie38 Leave a comment

How are you all, it’s November already and it’s almost bonfire night… are you going anywhere? We used to have a big family and friends firework night every year but it stopped as people got older and everyone drifted apart, I’m not complaining loud bangs and Brittle Bones don’t go well together really 😆

This is an interesting one, it’s a meal in a tin, which may not sound very appealing to some of you but let’s give it chance.

Time-Saving Tuesdays – Princes Chicken in a White Sauce, a meal in a tin

It’s Chicken in a White Sauce, I bought it when my parents were away a while ago and thought it was worth giving it a go. Don’t put your nose up to it, if you are someone who lives alone, on a low budget maybe or time restrained this is a meal in a tin – in my opinion it’s ideal.

Time-Saving Tuesdays – Princes Chicken in a White Sauce Nutritional Information and Ingredients

The ingredients are straightforward, there’s a few things in there that I haven’t heard of before such as Calcium Carbonate which is beyond my understanding. The calories were quite low 268kcal per tin, and a tin is two servings, the salt and sugar levels weren’t too bad either. It’s important to remember that you’d need to serve something with this tin, you can’t see it in the picture but I served it with mashed potatoes.

Time-Saving Tuesdays – Princes Chicken in a White Sauce Cooking Instructions

The cooking of it is straight forward, I warmed it through in a sauce pan, it’s important to stir it regularly and not to let it boil, probably because the sauce will split. You can microwave it and the microwave instructions are clear and easy to follow, and accommodate older microwaves like mine. I enjoyed this, it could be served with lots of things, it does need seasoning, especially pepper but like always that’s a personal choice. The serving suggestion is to top with short crust or puff pastry, brush with an egg wash and cook in a medium oven until golden brown. It also says for a luxurious meal add pan fried mushrooms or ham to the pie filling.

I’ve awarded this seven stars, it’s convenient, easy to cook and with a bit of seasoning and some accompanying vegetables it makes a great meal.

Time-Saving Tuesdays – Princes Chicken in a White Sauce ready to be eaten

I hope you buy this one, remember I buy (well either me or my mother) all the ready meals and other subjects covered on Time-Saving Tuesdays myself, if anyone has a suggestion of what I can cover please let me know because as you know I’d love to hear from you.

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Time-Saving Tuesdays – Princes Chicken in a White Sauce

We’ll be back again Thursday with a review of The Brecon Food Festival…. I know it’s well overdue but it’s coming I promise!

See you soon

Time-Saving Tuesdays – Tesco Chicken and Chorizo Paella

27th October 2015wheelie38 2 Comments

This was a surprise for me because my mother bought it while out shopping with her friend one day. I didn’t know what to expect if I’m honest but I thought I’d give it a go…. it’s rude not to 😆

Time-Saving Tuesdays – Chicken and Chorizo Paella in it’s packaging

The package weighed 330g which obviously included the packaging but I had my doubts as to how filling it would be, I was wrong it was really filling and certainly enough for a light lunch. The Paella can be warmed, see the cooking instructions below:

Time-Saving Tuesdays – Chicken and Chorizo Paella Cooking Instructions

The cooking instructions were easy to follow, and were very informative, they helped you to cook it from frozen or from chilled. The only negative would be that they didn’t take into account a lower wattage microwave…. like the one I bought off Noah when he dismantled his ark 😉 !

Time-Saving Tuesdays – Chicken and Chorizo Paella Ingredients

The ingredient list is also excellent because it doesn’t contain anything that I hadn’t heard of and the majority of them I’d used myself in previous recipes. The list was quite mouth watering really, it was almost as good as the meal itself.

Time-Saving Tuesdays – Chicken and Chorizo Paella Nutritional Information

You can see above the nutritional information, but you can find an easier to follow version on the front of the package in the image earlier. This was cheap… I’m not sure if my mother would have bought it otherwise 😆 but it was well worth more than the reduced price.

Time-Saving Tuesdays – Chicken and Chorizo Paella ready to eat

Here’s the Paella in all it’s glory, did I enjoy it… hell yeah! It was a warm, sticky and comforting. There was a depth of flavour that the Chorizo brought to the party while what I can only describe as the zingyness of the sun-dried tomato paste. The warmth came from smoked paprika, chili and turmeric while the Basil presence bought a slight anise flavour. I thoroughly enjoyed this as you can tell and for the price and for the ease of cooking would give it an eight out of ten.

We’ve got Strictly Suppers #3 Quick Step Leftover Fish Cakes coming up on the weekend and then a review of Princes Chicken in a White Wine Sauce on Tuesday.

What did you think of the recipe on the weekend, did you enjoy it , did you try it. Let me know, I’d love to hear from anyone who has tested my recipes, or my reviews. Not receiving updates from my blog, subscribe again and you’ll start receiving them, you can also check us out on the social media listed below.

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Had the pleasure of seeing one of my oldest friends (not in age of course in friendship duration) Marc one of my best friends from school and his mother Tuesday, it’s been a long time but it’s good to catch up. Hayleigh and Dave called up on Monday too, that was also lovely, it’s nice when people you don’t see often come to see you.

Time-Saving Tuesdays – Chicken and Chorizo Paella

See you on the weekend, if not before!

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Disability Food

Quorn Keema Masala

Time-Saving Tuesdays & 6 Nations of Food – Scottish Mussels in a Garlic and Butter Sauce

Time-Saving Tuesday – Asda Meatballs and Quick and Easy Tomato Sauce

Time-Saving Tuesdays – Princes Chicken in a White Sauce

Time-Saving Tuesdays – Tesco Chicken and Chorizo Paella