The Eat the Week recipes this week were Paprika & Garlic Ostrich Fillets, Belgian Blue Beef Olives, Courgette & Chicken Bake, Buckwheat Blueberry Pancakes, Butternut Squash and Date Loaf, Baked Fish & Chips, Granola Crumble, Lebanese Kebab Platter, Spaghetti Meatballs, Macaroni Cheese with Meatballs, Turkey Cobbler

They also went wild garlic foraging with Andy Hamilton.  He said you need to go with the younger leaves, you need to pick one leaf at a time to prevent picking a poisonous leaf.  Never pick up roots and check local bylaws to ensure you’re allowed to pick them.  You can put the leaves into oil to preserve them, or you can dry the dried garlic leaves with salt and keep them in a small bottle.  You can also chop up the stems and flower – the flowers make a good garnish.

Michaela looked at British Asparagus with Greengrocer Tom. White asparagus is served with cream and ham in Germany.  Purple asparagus is a new variety that’s becoming  more popular.  They visited a Somerset farm where asparagus is grown and hand picked. Asparagus should be a nice bright colour, as fresh as possible.  You can steam asparagus, boil in water, or chargrill the spears.

Michaela visited Rob Haynes, master butcher.  They looked at guinea fowl. You roast them exactly the same as you’d cook a chicken.  Guinea fowl are a year round bird as they are farmed.  They also discussed and compared pheasant, partridge and quail and other poultry.   Partridges and quail are sometimes seen as a starter course as they are smaller.

Below is a quick overview of the recipes, as well as my own food cheats I’d use to make make the recipes faster.

Update: This Eat the Week episode was aired again on Sunday 29 April 2018.

Paprika & Garlic Ostrich Fillets

In this recipe sweet potato is baked and then peeled, mashed and cooled. Cumin, paprika, coriander, garlic puree, tomato puree and lemon juice are added to oil and defrosted ostrich fillets are marinated for an hour. Peppers and onions are then roasted and finally the ostrich fillets are fried.

• My Food Cheat: This is a long-winded and faffy recipe and the only food cheats would be to microwave steam the sweet potato instead of baking it – and to microwave the marinated ostrich fillets. I’ll not be bothering to make this “just for me” to be honest.

Belgian Blue Beef Olives with Sweet & Sour Peppers

Steaks are butterflied, then filled with a mixture made from pork mince, bread, garlic, bacon, parsley, salt and pepper. The steaks are then skewered and put into the fridge until it’s time to cook them. For the sweet and sour peppers, the ingredients are cooked in a pan for nearly an hour. To cook the steaks, sear each side in a frying pan, then finish in a pre-heated oven by cooking for about 12 minutes.

• My Food Cheat: This isn’t my sort of food at all – but a food cheat would be to microwave the sweet and sour peppers, or you could even cook that part in a slow cooker on high for two hours.

Courgette & Chicken Bake

Chicken mince, garlic and paprika are fried over a medium to high heat until they’re cooked; this mix is then left to cool and parsley and mozzarella are added.

Chopped tomatoes, garlic, tomato puree, salt, pepper and sugar are simmered in a pan for 10-15 minutes, with a squeeze of basil being added at the end.

A layer of tomato sauce is put into a casserole dish, then courgettes are halved and scooped out and put into the dish before being stuffed with the mince mix and topped with bread crumbs. This is then baked for 20-25 minutes.

• My Food Cheat: I’m not a fan of courgettes!  One food cheat here would be to cook the chicken mince, garlic and paprika in a microwave oven rather than frying – simply microwave on high power for a minute at a time, stirring after each minute, until it’s cooked and brown. The chopped tomatoes, garlic and puree could also be microwave cooked to speed it up.

Buckwheat Blueberry Pancakes

He said these are a  food for sporty kids. He used buckwheat flour, which is completely gluten free. These are cooked the same as any other pancake, in a frying pan, with the recipe being the ingredients, which include buckwheat flour, buttermilk, milk and an egg.  The mix should be quite heavy.  He added blueberries and cottage cheese. Syrup is made from boiling water, sugar, vanilla – the more you boil it the more syrupy it becomes.  It has to be completely cooled then before the basil is added and blitzed.

• My Food Cheat: There aren’t really any food cheats for this recipe that’d be of use or give anything like the same end result.

Butternut Squash and Date Loaf

This is a cake with butternut squash and dates in the ingredients, there are also pecan nuts and it’s flavoured with cinnamon.  A whole cubed butternut squash is roasted in the oven, then mashed. Once the cake ingredients are mixed together the cake is baked for an hour on the middle shelf.  It’s then covered in an icing made from full fat cream cheese, double cream, icing sugar and a vanilla pod with the seeds removed and decorated with pecan nuts.

• My Food Cheat: You can bake a cake in a slow cooker.  For a food cheat I’d cook this cake for 2-2½ hours on high.

Baked Fish & Chips

To make the crumb coating, dry polenta is mixed with lemon zest and seasoning. The fish is dipped into beaten egg, then the polenta, creating the crumb coating, then baked for 12 minutes in the oven. The fish is served with sweet potato wedges, which are cut and baked for 25-30 minutes. There are also side sauces of pea puree and tartare sauce made to accompany the fish and chips.  He pointed out you can use mint sauce to add to the peas to make a pea sauce rather than fresh mint.

• My Food Cheat: You can microwave the sweet potatoes for 3-5 minutes to reduce the baking time needed.  The pea puree can be microwave cooked to speed it up.

Granola Crumble

Granola, containing rolled oats, chopped pecans, pumpkin seeds, maple syrup, honey, coconut oil, a vanilla pod and dried cherries are mixed and baked in the oven for 8-10 minutes. Wedges of apples are then cooked with sugar, cinnamon stick, and butter until soft, before removing the cinnamon stick and adding bananas and mixed berries.  A custard is then made by combining ready made custard with double cream before all the ingredients are layered in individual serving dishes.

• My Food Cheat: The apple wedges can be microwave cooked in just 2-3 minutes.  A packet of instant custard mix can be used.

Lebanese Kebab Platter with Bean Dip

Chicken breast chunks are marinated in a mix of lemon zest/juice, sumac, ground ginger, white wine vinegar, crushed cloves of garlic, Greek yogurt, paprika, chilli flakes, dried oregano, olive oil, salt and pepper. This chicken in marinade is left in the fridge overnight. To cook the Lebanese kebab, slide the chicken chunks onto skewers and put them under the grill for about 8 minutes, basting with a lemon and butter mix as required. The skewers should be put into water so they soak right the way through before you use them, so they don’t burn under the grill. It’s then served with salad and flatbreads.

There’s also a Bean Dip blended in a food processor and containing washed and drained tinned butter beans, garlic cloves, tahini, lemon juice, flat leaf parsley, coriander, sumac and extra virgin olive oil.

• My Food Cheat: Instead of grilling the kebabs, you can microwave them in 4-5 minutes.  If you don’t have any tahini, then a tahini substitute is peanut butter

Spaghetti Meatballs

Meatballs are made from combining breadcrumbs/egg/milk with a mix of pork mince and beef mince, parmesan and and garlic cloves, then shaped into balls and put into the fridge to chill for 20 minutes, before frying in a frying pan for about 8 minutes.  The tomato sauce is made by frying garlic, celery and onions, tomato puree, a tin of tomatoes and some stock and bringing to the boil – this is then simmered for an hour.  The meatballs are then stirred into the tomato sauce. The spaghetti is then cooked in boiling water, topped with meatballs in tomato sauce.

• My Food Cheat: There are several food cheats here.  You can microwave cook spaghetti, you can also microwave cook the meatballs.  The spaghetti sauce can be microwaved before being put into a slow cooker to simmer on high power for 2 hours.

The leftover cooked meatballs were then used in the macaroni cheese with meatballs recipe.

Macaroni Cheese with Meatballs

Cooked macaroni is mixed with cooked meatballs and a cheese sauce flavoured with bay leaves, a garlic clove, cayenne pepper and mustard powder, flat leaf parsley and strong cheddar cheese. The bay leaf is then removed and cooked macaroni is added to the sauce.  The meatballs are then stirred in and everything is put into a casserole dish, topped with grated parmesan, before being put under the grill to brown.

• My Food Cheat: All parts of this recipe can be microwaved, except the final browning part, but you don’t have to brown the dish if you can’t!  You can microwave cook meatballs, you can microwave oven cook macaroni in a dish of water in the microwave and you can make any microwave cheese sauce or microwave white sauce.  I quite often make a microwave macaroni cheese.  Another food cheat would be to buy ready cooked meatballs from a supermarket chiller cabinet.

Turkey Cobbler

Turkey mince is fried with onion, carrots, garlic, tomato puree, rosemary, stock and seasoning, then brought to the boil before simmering for 30 minutes and putting into a casserole dish.  The cobbler recipe mix is then made from flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, butter and sour cream before being spooned onto the top of the turkey mince mix and sprinkled with feta cheese.  The turkey cobbler is then baked in the oven for 30 minutes until the topping’s browned

• My Food Cheat: You can cook the turkey mince and other ingredients in a microwave oven.  A slow cooker can then be used to simmer the mince mix on high power for 1 hour.  You can leave the turkey mix in the slow cooker and add the cobbler topping and cook the cobbler in the slow cooker for a further hour.  You will need to put the lid on the slow cooker, but to place some kitchen paper or a tea towel between the pot and the lid to soak up excess liquid so your cobbler topping isn’t soggy.

Eat the Week Recipes:

Eat the Week and Simon Rimmer are sponsored by Iceland supermarket, you can find the official recipes on their website: 

Update: The recipes have now been removed, they had been at groceries.iceland.co.uk/eat-the-week/episode-03

If you want to see the full list of recipes then I’ve made Recipes Index page: Eat the Week Recipe Index.