Winter Comfort Recipes

This week I've got some vibrant, balanced, nourishing recipes for you. Recipes include this super straightforward beef chilli. This is an example of something that I love to batch cook. I'm also going to share this sea bass and rice dish. Some variation of this dish makes an appearance in my kitchen at least once a week. If you have anything to ask me, drop me a comment. I'd also love to know which one you'll be trying out first. Let me know. For more inspiration, more ideas, more recipes, you can check out all of my ebooks over on my website. Let's get straight into this. Let's go. First recipe is this loaded sweet potato. We are going to stuff it with this beef chilli, which is just one of those types of recipes this time of year. It's the type of recipe that you could batch cook on a Sunday and just have multiple servings for your week ahead. Using a few simple ingredients, we're really going to ramp up the flavour within this chilli. We're going to build levels of flavour within this recipe. Ingredients for this include kidney beans. I've made so many variations of the beef chilli on my channel, so you've seen me use black beans, you've seen me use lentils. So use whatever beans or legumes work for you, whatever you have on hand, whatever you enjoy, use that. We'll also be needing some beef mince. I'm going to roast up a couple of sweet potatoes to go along with my beef chilli. We'll be needing some onions, some garlic and a pepper for the base of this recipe. Okay, starting off, we are going to put our sweet potatoes to cook. Now, I feel like this is the best way to get the softest sweet potato, and I've probably shown you before, but I'm going to show you again. So I just poked my sweet potato with a knife. I then wrap it up individually in some parchment paper, place it on a baking sheet and then place it in the oven until soft. So moving on to chopping up all of our ingredients, we're going to grab our onion and we are going to finely dice it, as finely as possible. We're going to do the same with our garlic. Actually, I used a garlic crusher. Following on by cubing up our red pepper, I'm using a touch of scotch bonnet for this, which I just finely chopped up. You do want some type of heat. So use whatever chilli pepper you enjoy, whatever you have. So we're going to grab a heavy-based pan and we are going to heat that pan on a medium heat. I am going to cook my beef first. This is completely optional. Sometimes I do the steps, sometimes I don't. I just fancy doing it today. So once the pan is heated, we are going to swirl in some olive oil and we are going to throw our beef mince in. Essentially, we're going to brown the mince. We're just going to let that meat sear. It just adds an extra layer of flavour. It also helps the beef release excess moisture, meaning that you're going to be left with this rich, indulgent beef chilli. Just keep everything moving in that pan. You can go ahead and add in some salt and some pepper. Like I mentioned, that excess moisture is going to be released. Eventually, everything will just brown in that pan and that's what we're looking for. So go ahead and set your beef aside in a separate bowl. Place your pan back on the hob. You can turn it down slightly just so you don't burn the pan. I just swirled in a little extra olive oil and then I threw in onions, garlic, red pepper and that scotch bonnet. The pan is just going to have all of that gorgeous flavour from the beef already but we're going to season it up with some salt, some pepper, some dried oregano, smoked paprika, ground cumin and some ground coriander. All of the ground bits from the bottom of the pan are going to get lifted once everything starts moving. So once everything has fully softened, we're going to go ahead and add in some tomato paste. Next step is to throw that browned mince back into the pan and just let it deepen in flavour from all of that seasoning that we've thrown in. After a few minutes of stirring, we're going to go ahead and add in our tinned tomatoes. As always, I'm using some plum tomatoes along with some stock of choice. You could use vegetable stock. I'm using some beef stock. Using your spoon in that pan, make sure those plum tomatoes get crushed. Next step is to rinse off the beans that we're using. I'm using these kidney beans. I had half a jar and it just made sense to use them for this chilli. Ideally, I would have thrown these fresh herbs in whilst I was cooking the onions but I completely forgot so that's fine. I'm just going to throw them in now. I've got some fresh thyme and some fresh rosemary along with those rinsed kidney beans. I know we've thrown some dried herbs in already but I just fancy throwing some more in. I know when my food needs more just by eye. So I threw in some more dried oregano. The next two ingredients that we're adding just really make this beef chilli what it is. So the first ingredient is some balsamic vinegar. This is just going to add that subtle sweetness. The next ingredient is some dark chocolate which just melts beautifully into that chilli. So adding in the dark chocolate just adds this layer of warmth, adds this richness to the sauce. So whilst the chilli cooks and gets even more delicious I'm going to prepare some guacamole. I love serving my chilli with some type of avocado. It's just, I don't know, it just goes hand in hand, doesn't it? So to a bowl, I placed in some avocado that I mashed along with some salt, some chilli flakes, some chopped red onion, some coriander and some lime juice. This plus a little touch of sour cream on top of the chilli. Listen. So after allowing that chilli to cook, just stirring occasionally, you're going to be left with something that just looks incredible like this. This rich, warm, comforting beef chilli that we are going to serve in our sweet potatoes. So removing the sweet potatoes from the oven, they are going to be caramelised and soft. And grabbing a plate and placing that sweet potato on. I just cut my sweet potato open. It was piping hot. I placed in a little bit of butter and then a generous serving of that beef chilli, a touch of sour cream, some guac. I placed on some leftover red onion that I had, a little fresh chilli and a touch of coriander. I tucked right into this. A beef chilli is that undefeated, easy one pot meal. You can make it up in big batches. That's a couple of meals sorted for me next week that I don't have to think about. 95% of the time, these are the types of meals that I throw together. Just random plates of food, random bowls of food, just using ingredients that I have. So this one right here is a combination of some crispy sea bass with a butter lemon caper garlicky sauce. I made up the most fragrant lemongrass and coconut rice, along with this thinly roasted cumin butternut squash, which I'm just obsessed with. We're also going to be serving it with some steamed cabbage, some steamed purple cabbage. So for the sea bass, we'll be needing some capers, some lemons, along with some other ingredients, like some butter and some fresh parsley. I'm going to cook up some basmati rice, which I'm going to throw in some coconut milk. I've got some leftover, along with some lemongrass. I've got some butternut squash that I'm going to peel and chop up and roast. And then, yeah, simply steam some cabbage. For my last video from the chickpea crumble, I had some leftover butternut squash and I just randomly put it to roast in the wheat. I thought, oh my goodness, why have I never just thinly sliced butternut squash like this and just roasted it? Like it's so, so tasty. So placing the squash onto a large baking tray, you can go ahead and place over some salt, got some ground cumin. You could use some cumin seeds if you'd prefer. I love both, work with what you've got. I also placed on some black pepper and a good drizzle of olive oil. Placing the tray into a 190 degree Celsius preheated oven and leaving the squash in there for about 25 minutes. Yeah, 25 minutes should do it. So next step is to cook up this rice. So we all know how to prepare our rice. We are going to wash it until the water runs clear. So rinse and wash and rinse and wash until the water is completely clear. Then going to add some water plus some coconut milk. I'm using some full fat coconut milk, some good salt and some lemongrass. To ensure that we extract all of that flavour from the lemongrass, we're going to use the flat of a knife. I like to cut the lemongrass in half before placing it into the pot of rice. So bring your rice to a boil, reduce the heat, cover with a lid and let it cook. So for preparing the fish, we're just going to get some ingredients ready. So we're just going to mince some garlic as well as finely chop some parsley. It's easier if you just have everything prepped beforehand because the fish is going to cook in minutes. So grabbing your sea bass fillets or fillet, using a sharp knife, you're just going to score the skin side. I then seasoned generously with some salt. I flipped the fish over and then seasoned with some salt and some pepper on the other side. All of the flavour is going to be in that lemon caper butter sauce. So you can just keep the fish super simple. So grabbing a frying pan. So you're going to heat your frying pan. You're going to drizzle in a little touch of olive oil. Place your sea bass fillets skin side down. You're simply just going to let them cook. You don't need to touch or move anything. Just let them cook. This is quite a chunky sea bass fillet. So I just let it cook for about four minutes before flipping over and letting it cook on the other side. So once cooked, you can remove your sea bass fillet from the pan. So lowering the temperature, place your pan back onto the heat. We're going to make that lemon caper butter sauce. So throw in some butter followed on by that minced garlic. I like a lot of capers, but I think that's just preference. If you don't want to throw so many in, you just want to work with a few, that's fine. But like I said, I like a lot. So I threw a lot of capers in. Along with a generous amount of black pepper. This sauce is salty enough for me. The salt from the capers is fine, but if you do want to add some additional salt, you can do that. Next step is to add in that fresh parsley, that finely chopped fresh parsley. I should have added in the lemon juice from the start, but it's fine. I'm just adding it in at this stage and just mixing everything so it forms this gorgeous sauce. So the only thing left to do is to steam some red cabbage. You can steam any vegetables that you enjoy. I had this red cabbage that just needed using. My steaming trays are probably one of my favorite pieces of kitchen equipment. I can't be without them. I think steamed vegetables are so underrated. So removing that butternut squash from the oven. I was left with these golden thin strips of deliciousness. So plating everything up. I placed on that fragrant lemongrass coconut rice, along with that cumin butternut squash, that steamed red cabbage, which I gave a swirl of olive oil and some salt, along with the pan-cooked sea bass, and topping everything with that lemon caper butter sauce. I love random throw-together bowls. This one came together so beautifully. The flavors were unmatched. So there we have it. Two very different recipes for you to take into your week. Let me know which one you will be trying out first in the comments. For more of my recipes, you can head over to my website. Go and check out all of my ebooks. I will see you in the next video. See you all soon. Bye.