Happiness is... sausage hotpot

I always feel like a fraud if I'm blogging with no food in the house. Which is where I find myself this evening. I cobbled together our dinner from what was in the freezer and some decidedly lacklustre veggies. But that's the nice thing about cold weather dishes - it doesn't matter if your veggies are fridge-bottom leftovers, or that the rest of the ingredients have come out of the storecupboard. Sadly the same can't be said of summery salads. 

So tonight's dinner was Sausage hotpot. A dish I used to cook at uni, and the first thing I taught someone else to make. *proud* I'm not sure if this is still the same recipe I used to use, but this is how I made it tonight, and given the cold we both ate it from our laps. M even mopped up the leftover sauce with some bread.

Sausage hotpot (serves 3 hungry grownups - easily 4 or more if you served with green veggies, bread and butter)

1 tablespoon flavourless oil
1 pack of pork sausages (about 1lb) - I like Lincolnshire, but choose whichever ones you prefer 
2 cloves of garlic
3-4 carrots
1 red onion
Half a box of chestnut mushrooms
1 potato
3/4 pint beef stock (I used a cube and rinsed out the tin of tomatoes for the water)
1 tin chopped tomatoes
1 tablespoon tomato puree
Dash of worcestershire sauce
Salt
Pepper
Tablespoon unsalted butter

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees
Put the oil in a frying pan and over a medium to high heat brown the sausages
Slice the onion, carrots and mushrooms - I use the food processor, but you could easily do this by hand
Finely slice the potato - you want slices that are about half a cm thick
Brown the sausages in a frying pan - this took about 15 minutes

In a biggish casserole dish with a lid:

Layer half the potato on the bottom of a casserole dish
Add half the onion/ carrots/ mushrooms
Add the tin of tomatoes, tomato puree and crush in the two cloves of garlic
Season - be gentle with the salt as you're using a stock cube and worcestershire sauce
Put the browned sausages on top of the tomatoes
Fill up the tomato tin with water and add this to your stock cube, give a good stir and add a liberal splash of worcestershire sauce
Add the veggies ontop of the sausages 
Pour in the stock
Cover the top with a layer of potatoes, dot these with butter
Put the lid on and cook in the oven for about an hour, then take off the lid and cook for another 45 minutes
Serve with green veggies and some French bread and butter

• If you want to make this go further, chop the sausages up before you put them in the casserole dish. If you want to stretch it even further, add half a cup of lentils to the casserole and up the water by half a pint

• Also to borrow an idea from Michelle at Utterlyscrummy to bulk it out further, add either oats or lentils to the sauce - add extra liquid too though. I'd add half a cup of lentils and a cup of liquid to start with and see how that goes - I reckon that would easily make it do another 3-4 portions (more if you're feeding little ones)

• If you like a more intense savoury flavour in casseroles, then add a drained tin of anchovies to the veggie layer at the bottom. But be careful with your salt if you do that. 

Had I had any in I would have served this with some steamed and lightly buttered kale or greens.

Come over for dinner. There's plenty to eat! Chilli con carne

When talking about blogging people always say you should find your niche. To be entirely honest, I'm not sure what mine is, if I even have one that is. (M's input on this was to suggest that I was jumping the gun and it might be a nephew. NICHE!) However, when I look at how people find me, it's often with "how do I?" searches, and some of my more popular posts are the comfort, family food. It's logical really, it's the food I eat the most, and am most passionate about, because it's where anyone with any level of confidence in their cooking abilities can make a difference to their health and wellbeing with a few,small, easy changes. Moving from sugar and preservative laden jarred sauces to making your own, fresh, unprocessed meals is the biggest difference anyone can make to their diet. I'm not talking about weight loss here, but how you feel - not craving sweets all the time, feeling gently full, healthier skin and brighter eyes, from making that switch.

And with that - here is the Pantry version of how to cook Chilli con carne. Freezes beautifully. Works really well in the slow cooker - I just whack everything in before work, leave it on low and eat that night. Also, eats really well a day or so after making - so I made this on Friday night after work, and we had it today. The flavours have really developed and it was lovely.

This goes well with red wine, if you're having people over. If you want to be a bit more fancy and foodie about it, I picked up some dried anjo chillies at the Newbury show last year. I chop one with everything else in the food processor, and add one in whole to the chilli just before it goes in the oven. After cooking I take that one out, but if you're feeding someone that likes a bit of heat - pop it on their plate!

Penelope's Pantry does Chilli con carne

1 glug olive oil
2 onions, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, crushed or chopped
500g (or so) of minced beef
1 red chilli
1 teaspoon cumin (powder or seeds - if using seeds, crush first)
1 stick cinammon (or a pinch of dried if you've run out. Not that that happens here. Oh no *shifty eyes*)
1 teaspoon of chilli powder/ dried chilli
2 tins tomatoes
2 tins red kidney beans
About 100g of tomato paste (you can make your own by blitzing sundried tomatoes) or buy it. Either way.

Preheat oven to Gas mark 3/ 150 degrees
Either chop, or food process the onions, garlic and red chilli (if I'm being fancy/ organised and using home made tomato paste, I add the tomatoes into the food processor and blitz it all together)
Add to an ovenproof pan (with a lid) over a low heat on the hob, cook until the onions are starting to colour
Add your spices; cumin, dried chilli/ chilli powder
Add minced beef and cook, stirring regularly until browned
Add both tins of tomatoes - rinse them out with water and add that
Drain both tins of kidney beans in a colander
If you're using one, add the cinammon stick now
Add those, stir in
Put on the lid, and put in the oven for a couple of hours
Voila! - this easily makes 4-6 adult portions, I normally serve 4 and freeze the rest.


I've served this with cornbread or brown basmati rice, in tortillas, in tacos, with cheese on from a bowl on my lap. Anyway that suits me at the time.