Traditional Seafood Soup

This is a great meal, tasty and healthy and a little different to the usual run-of-the-mill meals. It's a very simple tomato-based soup, but the seafood gives it great flavour and the addition of fresh basil makes it extra-special.

The ingredients I use are as follows although, as always, you should vary the recipe to suit your taste and style.

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
1 clove garlic sliced
250g Marinara mix
1 glass rose wine
1 stock cube
1 tsp Dijon mustard
2 tins tomatoes
½ cup tomato paste
½ lemon
½ bunch fresh basil shredded

Heat olive oil in large frying pan or wok then briefly fry the sliced garlic. Add the butter and marinara mix and fry gently until cooked, about 5 minutes. Add wine and reduce for 5 minutes, then add the mustard and stock cube and stir in. Finally add the tomato paste and tinned tomatoes and simmer gently for about 40 min.

When cooked, remove from heat and add the freshly squeezed lemon juice and half of the basil, torn or chopped. Stir in then garnish with the remaining basil and serve with some lovely crusty bread or rolls. Enjoy!

Mexican Beef Stir Fry with Wilted Greens & Popped Beans

I was confronted with a pack of ready-seasoned Mexican beef strips in the freezer and was scratching my head as to how to make this into a meal using the contents of the cupboard and the garden

I decided to have wilted asian greens as a base and to use fried red kidney beans as a side. Frying these in hot oil makes them slight crunchy, which makes for nice textural variation with the soft moist beef and greens.

If you want to prepare the beef strips yourself here's a recipe you can use.

Fry a well drained can of red kidney beans in olive oil with a clove of garlic and half an onion finely chopped. Cook over high heat initially then reduce and stir occasionally. The beans will develop a crisp outer shell and pop slightly.

Slice asian greens into strips and steam with white wine and salt until slightly wilted.

Stir fry the beef strips with half a chopped onion over high heat until cooked through.

Serve the beef strips on top of the wilted greens with a side serve of the kidney beans. Place a spoonful of greek yoghurt onto the beef and top with a teaspoon of chilli jam. Delicious!