We had a small piece of steak in the freezer which wasn’t really enough for a whole meal but was too much to throw away. We had no plan for dinner tonight so ended up stretching the steak by adding lots of vegetables to make fajitas. We haven’t had these for ages and they were really good, not sure why we left it so long.

Having over-catered somewhat on Saturday night, we ended up eating leftovers on both Sunday and Monday. While I’m not a fan of eggs, Stephen loves them so it was with great delight that he topped his leftovers with a fried egg on Monday night. I was out when he took this picture but I’m glad to see he followed the golden rule when it comes to egg shots: always make sure to show the yolk.

We had some friends over for dinner on Saturday night and, after exploring pretty much every cuisine we could think of, we settled on Mexican food. The reason it took us so long to decide is that we wanted to cook Maddhur Jaffrey’s chicken but in a different style. We both thought it would work brilliantly with a Thai twist but our local Thai supermarket is closed and we knew we would struggle to get all the relevant ingredients. So, we went Mexican instead since we had everything we needed.

The original Indian recipe uses yoghurt in the first part of the marinating process but we reasoned that lime juice would do a similar job. With hindsight, I think we should have used yoghurt as the flavours didn’t penetrate the chicken quite as well as they did last time. Aside from that, it all worked out pretty well. The chicken didn’t seem quite as moist as it did last time but it wasn’t too noticeable, some extra marinating juices would have been useful here though.

We also decided to try our luck with a pork fillet which didn’t work so well. Pork shoulder would be very good though due to all that extra fat.

Beans, green rice, tortillas and guacamole completed the meal.

(I’ll post the chicken recipe tomorrow, Stephen did most of the work and I’m not sure what went into the marinade).

Of course, there were leftovers. Unless you’re catering for a reasonable number of people then even a half shoulder of pork will be too big for two. We simply reheated the pork, added some oven-cooked black beans, some more of those pickled red onions and piled it all onto a wrap. I preferred this to yesterday’s dinner but that was inevitable given my fondness for beans.

We still barely made a dent in the pork so the rest went into the freezer. We’ve frozen and reheated this successfully in the past so it’s definitely worth cooking a larger piece of meat than you need, as long as you like leftovers that is.

Having been to Borough Market on Friday and replenished our supply of dried chillies, it seemed only right to cook something Mexican this weekend. While I was there, I visited the Ginger Pig and picked up a pork shoulder. Initially, we planned to roast it simply and eat it with some roast potatoes and vegetables but, craving something spicy, we decided to roast it Mexican-style instead. On looking up the recipe, we noticed the red onion accompaniment and since we have a surfeit of those, they made their way onto the table too. We followed this recipe but I think ours look prettier.

There’s a little bit of work to do upfront with this dish but once it’s done, the pork sits happily in the oven for three hours while you get on with your Sunday. We spent that time watching movies and eating Marmite popcorn (brilliant, give it a go) before cooking the green rice and sitting down to dinner.

The green rice didn’t turn out as well as last time and it looked far too unappetising to photograph, it tasted okay though. The pork took on much more flavour this time; after shredding it, we added it to the remaining chilli sauce and left it to heat through again before serving. I imagine it will taste even better tonight though, having spent 24 hours in the fridge.

This is something we often cook on a Monday if we’re fortunate enough to have leftovers from the day before. We often do have leftovers because we generally buy a larger piece of meat than we need – it makes for a quick and easy meal on a Monday night and I think the larger the joint of meat, the less chance there is of it drying out on the day of roasting.

There’s a few posts on this particularly leftover dish so I won’t go into much detail (you can find the method for the chilli sauce that the pork is reheated in here) but we have altered our bean recipe so I wanted to record that.

We’ve been making these beans for a while and really like them, the original recipe is a real faff though so we’ve been playing with it to see if we can simplify it without losing any of the flavour. This is much simpler and is a really versatile recipe that works well in wraps or as an accompaniment to other Mexican dishes. It freezes well too.

Mexican Beans
Serves Two

175g dried beans, preferably black (turtle) or pinto beans
1 onion, finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, chopped
1 bay leaf
2 red chillies, cored, deseeded and chopped
1/2 tbsp vegetable oil
Small tin chopped tomatoes
Salt

Put the beans into a pot, add cold water to cover.

Add half the chopped onion, half the garlic, the bay leaf and the chillies. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat, cover and cook until the beans are tender. The cooking time will vary depending on the beans and whether you’ve soaked them or not. Allow two hours but check regularly and top up with water if necessary. You want the water to have almost completely evaporated by the time you’ve finished this stage but you can drain the beans if you need to. I usually do this the night before I need the beans and refrigerate them at this stage, completing the next step on the following day.

About 20-30 minutes before the beans are cooked, heat some oil in a frying pan and soften the remaining onion and garlic. Add the tinned tomatoes and cook for about five minutes. Add a quarter of the cooked (and drained) beans into the frying pan and mash. Stir in the remaining beans, mix, season with salt and then serve.

The corn in Sainsbury’s was only 30p a head last weekend so we bought some. I keep reading about how cheap it is at the moment but I haven’t been food shopping for ages so hadn’t noticed it myself. This was indeed a bargain but I didn’t have a plan for it. Not so much of a bargain if it ends up in the bin so we boiled it up and turned it into a salsa. We’ve done this a few times before but this was definitely the best attempt so far. For dinner, we ate it with some refried beans and wraps but the leftovers were especially good stirred into salad the next day.

Mexican Corn Salsa
Serves Two

Two heads corn
Half a red onion, finely diced
Large handful of chopped coriander
One red chilli, finely diced
One avocado finely diced
Salt and pepper
Juice of half a lime

Cook the corn for about six minutes, or until cooked through. Leave to cool.

Combine with the other ingredients and reserve until needed. This is best made a little way in advance so that the flavours have time to combine.

I always knew it was going to be challenging to get this to look attractive, I didn’t think the picture would come out quite as badly as this though. It’s a truth universally acknowledged by all food bloggers (well, Stephen and I at least) that the quality of the picture often bears little relation to the quality of the dish itself and this definitely proves the point since these were really very good.

We used our usual refried bean recipe and added some baked fish, much like we did here. The beans caught slightly while they were cooking but rather than ruin the flavour, the smokiness seemed to improve things. I wouldn’t recommend intentional burning but you could attempt to replicate that flavour with something smoky like paprika.

This was good, really good but that’s all I can remember about it. One of the problems with food blogging (for me at least) is that often, once I’ve committed my thoughts and feelings about a dish to the page and hit submit is that I tend to forget the finer details, safe in the knowledge that I can refer back to the post. That only works if I write the post soon after I’ve eaten the dish and of course I didn’t with this and my brain is a little tired from all the summer holiday fun I’ve been having.

I can remember is that the combination of coriander and mint was unusual and a little challenging to begin with but really good after the first couple of mouthfuls. It tasted pretty good without the mint too so if that’s not your thing then you can skip it and still end up with a tasty bowl of soup. The chilli oil was brilliant and lifted the already-good soup into something brilliant. I think this would work with lots of different dishes, particularly soups but also just added to fish or chicken.

Slow Simmered Bean Soup with Mint and Pasilla Chile
Serves Two

1 cup beans
2 cups chicken stock
2 garlic cloves
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
1 tin tomatoes
2 dried chillies (I used ancho, the book specified pasilla), stemmed and seeded
Olive oil
1/2 tablespoon cider vinegar
1 teaspoon oregano
Salt
Handful coriander, chopped
Handful mint, chopped
Cheese, to garnish

Simmer the beans in the chicken stock for an hour or until cooked.

While the beans are simmering, roast the garlic in a dry pan, turning occasionally until blackened and soft – about 15 minutes. Once cool, remove the skins and finely chop.

Fry the onions until medium brown and soft – about 7 minutes.

Add the garlic, onion and tomatoes to the beans and simmer for about 30 minutes until the beans have softened right down.

While the soup is simmering, cut the chillies into 1/8 inch slices. Heat the oil over a medium heat, add chillies and the oregano and stir for 1 minute. Remove from the heat and add the vinegar, 1.5 tablespoons of water and a little salt. Leave to stand for half an hour, stirring occasionally.

Just before serving, add some water to the beans to bring the soup to the consistency of a medium-thick bean soup. Stir in the coriander and mint, tast and season with salt. Ladle into bowls, top with the chilli oil and cheese and then serve.

This is based on the recipe in Rick Bayless’s Mexican Kitchen but I didn’t follow all his measurements exactly and I used tinned tomatoes instead of fresh.

We knew we were going to have leftover pork so planned ahead to make pork wraps. Unfortunately, we had a small domestic emergency while cooking and had to down tools for a while to deal with it. This left us both a bit flustered and meant we forgot to add the lettuce and cheese to the final dish resulting in rather puny looking wraps and a less than brilliant photograph. We realised as soon as we started eating that something was missing and things improved immeasurably as soon as these vital ingredients were added.

Continuing the theme, the broad bean salsa was supposed to be broad bean and corn salsa but it was far too late to cook the corn by the time we remembered it so they’re still hanging out in the fridge. We did remember the guacamole though which was good because otherwise they’d be partying with the corn cobs.

Despite not being quite what we intended, the wraps worked out really well, largely due to the excellent chilli sauce Stephen made. The pork was reheated gently in the sauce which did a good job of protecting the meat from becoming too dry and added plenty of sweet, smoky flavour.

This is definitely one for the make-again-soon list, domestic emergencies allowing.

Chilli Sauce

3 dried arbol chillies
1 clove garlic
Small tin tomatoes
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon dried marjoram
Splash red wine
Splash red wine vinegar
Salt

Soak the chillies in water until rehydrated, drain and reserve the water.
Add the chillies, the water and all other ingredients to a food processer and blitz until smooth.
Heat the chilli mixture in a pan, add the pork and reheat until cooked through.