Good Food February 2015

February 2015 Okay, it’s on a bigger scale (four ovens, several testers and a kitchen that’s busy five days a week), but we’re as conscious as any home cook about sticking to our budget, avoiding waste and, of course, creating realistically priced recipes for you to cook. So with our focus firmly on moneywise meals, this issue proves that you can enjoy fabulous, filling food with family or friends, without blowing your budget (p54). This month’s highlights include cheap but very cheerful ways to entertain, from hearty chillies (p80) to our cover star dish (posh toad!) on page 7. We’re also serving up new nourishing, healthy recipes that deliver on nutrition, but cost far less than you’d think. Enjoy all your cooking this month, P.S. Talking of food you’re sure…

Each month, BBC Good Food readers are the first to cook some of our brand-new recipes before they appear in the magazine. We send them the recipes and pay for the ingredients; they test the dishes at home and give us their verdicts. Read their comments on our recipe pages. Gareth Thomas, from Chorley, Lancashire, likes the spice of Italian and Mexican dishes. His top tip is to put garlic cloves in the microwave for 10-15 seconds so that they peel more easily. Adam and Clare Dolphin, from Hampshire, say they aspire to fine dining with friends, but occasionally they get it disastrously wrong! Chocolate brownies always cheer them up. Jim McGuckian, from Selkirk in Scotland, is keen on Middle Eastern food and his favourite chef is Yotam Ottolenghi. Jim’s…

LIVE SHOWS O ONLINE O DIGITAL O MOBILE This month, great food that costs less and healthy meals that taste great good food eat well SHOW Lorraine live! Our new Eat Well Show, featuring an exciting line-up of food, health and fitness experts, is dedicated to showing you how to balance your love of food with a healthier lifestyle. Watch TV chef and author Lorraine Pascale demonstrate some of her new healthy recipes on stage. Her recent book, A Lighter Way to Bake, is a collection of sweet and savoury treats with less sugar, fat and salt. • BBC Good Food Eat Well Show, London Olympia, 27 Feb–1 March. For tickets, visit bbcgoodfoodeatwellshow.com. New healthy eating magazine Make it easier to stick to New Year resolutions with our collection of…

Ultimate toad-in-thehole with caramelised onion gravy There are a few rules for achieving a perfect toad-in-the-hole. Use a heavy metal roasting tin or an enamel baking dish – something that will hold the heat well. A glass or ceramic dish just won’t do. Whatever you do, don’t open the oven until the pudding is gloriously puffed and on the darker side of golden brown. If your oven doesn’t have a glass door, be brave and wait! SERVES 4-6PREP 20 mins plus 2 hrs resting COOK40mins 140g/5oz plain flour 4 large eggs 300ml/1/2pt semi-skimmed milk 1 tbsp wholegrain mustard handful of woody herbs, leaves picked and chopped (we used 6 sage leaves, 4 rosemary sprigs and 4 thyme sprigs), plus a handful, fried until crispy, to serve (optional) 2 tbsp sunflower…

Season with seaweed As an island race,maybe it’s not surprisingwe’ve been eating seaweed forcenturies.Youmightbefamiliarwith laver–mostcommonlyused inWelsh laverbread–which is thesamevarietyof sea lettuce(as it’ssometimescalled)as Japanesenori, used insushi. More recently, foodwritersandtopchefs, includingReneRedzepi fromDanish restaurantNoma, havebeenusing seaweedtoaddasavouryumami flavour to dishes on theirmenu. Nowwecanall addalittleof thedeep, savouryrichnessof seaweedtoour plates as supermarkets are starting to stock seasoningwith added seaweed – for example, salt grinders fleckedwith seaweed(Bartorganicsalt&seaweed, £3.99,Waitrose, below). Oneof thebenefitsof seaweedasa seasoning is its naturally high iodine content, which is vital for good thyroid function. Inaddition, it isagoodsource of ironandhigh invitaminC. Dried seaweed alsomakes a good table seasoning without any salt; scatter small crumblesofdriednori overmiso soupsor rehydrate it (asyou would driedmushrooms) and add it tostickyricetoserve withakatsucurry. Ifyouwant totryotherdried varieties, such as kombu, dulse orseaspaghetti, they’reall availablefromtheCornish Seaweed company (cornish seaweedcompany.co.uk). Aswell as seasoning, fresh seaweed ismaking…

NATURAL FOODS Deliciously Ella by Ella Woodward (£20, Good Food offer price £18, Yellow Kite) When Ella developed a rare condition affecting her nervous system, she was determined to fight back through diet. She read all she could and started blogging about her efforts to devise plant-based meals that were healthy and delicious. Her recipes are all free from dairy, sugar and gluten, and are also easy to cook. Included are snacks packed with superfoods, plus menus for casual entertaining. An inspiring book whether you have to avoid sugar, dairy or gluten, or just want to cut down. EASY FIVE-A-DAY Five by Rachel de Thample (£14.99, Good Food offer price £13.49, Ebury Press) We know that we should eat five or more portions of fruit and veg a day, but…