Cooking challenges ahoy!

A second post in as many days?  Pick yourself back up off the floor it's true!
I've been doing a little housekeeping with the blog; primarily involving the list of blogs I follow.  Now this is not my full list, rather it's just those sites I feel that many people might find interesting.  There's a variety of subjects here.  (Although yes, a lot of cooking.)
On the old list some of the links were out of date and some of the blogs were long abandoned so please take a moment to peruse the new list and see if there's anything you like. :-) Several bloggers have challenges and *giveaways on at the moment which leads me to my next topic...

It's National Vegetarian Week here in the UK.  To this end I have been looking up lots and lots of lovely veggie recipes.  I fancy making a cannellini bean hummus - because cannellini beans are my current new big love.  I also want to make some form of Spaetzle (a variety of egg noodle/dumpling) to link in with Chris's German theme for this month's Bloggers Around the World. A cheese and onion one is favourite - or 'Käsespätzle' as it is more properly known.  (Also it will give me a chance to use the potato ricer a friend gave me to make spaetzle with, er, a year ago.)
Dom over at Belleau Kitchen has Simply Eggcellent as his new challenge (he used to run the wondrous Random Recipe challenge) and this month has set 'savoury' as the theme.  Which opens up a huge plethora of possibilities - I'd like to use one of the 2 avocados I have ripening at home in conjunction with the eggs here, and I have a feeling cheese may well make an appearance too!
And - I have a challenge to set for the Scotsman.  Being a self-confessed bad cook (read: never been taught) he has been challenging himself to make a new-to-him dish each week, with the added proviso that it should be healthier than his usual fare.  Now I am not one to promote stereotypes but....but... he does rather have the Scottish diet of legend down to a T. White bread and things in batter/breadcrumbs (albeit cooked in the oven rather than deep fried) with a distinct lack of regular intakes of veg, seem to form the major part of his diet.  Or that's the impression I've got from several hundred miles away.  ;-)

Cow Pie - I'm reliably
informed it went a bit wrong

He's been doing quite well on the challenge so far with the likes of a Cheese and Onion pie, Seafood Paella and a 'Cow' pie complete with horns.  (So picked because he had steak to use and the Dandy and Beano comics were published in Dundee; just down the road from Aberdeen.)  He slipped on the healthy part slightly when he decided a Honey Cheesecake was the way to go one week but considering he has a very sweet tooth I'm surprised there haven't been more desserts included so far.
Anyway, I've suggested told him that as it's National Vegetarian Week he should make something veggie.  Combine this with his new and exciting purchase of veg at the weekend (carrots, onions, potatoes, cauliflower, broccoli, garlic and spring onions) and it seems like fate.  [I have to mention here that I don't consider garlic to be a veg but rather a necessity that lives in the seasoning cupboard but don't forget he's new to this.]  I'm thinking a frittata / tortilla sort of thing as that way he can use some of most of those lovely veg.  So to that end I shall spend this afternoon (in between answering the phone at my temp assignment) writing him a recipe, unless any of you have alternative ideas as to what he could make with those ingredients?  Got to be veggie and fairly 'beginner friendly' but any suggestions welcome.

* Veggie week giveaways I've seen so far: 

• Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary are giving away a 'Froothie' - £300+ worth of juicer/blender here.
• Tinned Tomatoes has 3 giveaways - a Froothie here, a hamper of veggie goodies from KC Hampers here and £75 worth of meals (veggie of course) from Amy's Kitchen plus bag and bowls here.

If I come across any more I'll add them in or if you notice any on your travels then mention them in the comments below.

Happy Veggie week all - even if you try just one day or even one meal veggie, do enjoy it.  :-D

Someone else's kitchen Random Recipe - Sicilian Style Tuna with Salsa Verde plus a giveaway!

This month's Random Recipe theme from Dom over at Belleau Kitchen was to use a book picked from another's collection.  I asked my Ma and she dutifully counted all the books and booklets in the house and gave me a total of 37.  I used an on-line random number generator and we came up with 25 which was 'Fillipo Berio Winter Recipes' which flipped open to Sicilian Style Tuna with Salsa Verde.  *I've got a couple of the Fillipo Berio booklets myself but not the winter recipes one.  The recipe sounded packed full of flavour and fairly simple to do.  You can see it online here though they seem to have left out the instruction as to what to do with the second half of the lemon juice - I made the fairly safe assumption that it went into the salsa.
So - here we go - for precise measures see their recipe.  I'm sure it's copyright so I'm not giving them here. :-)  (I will say though that 1 lemon and 1 growing plant of parsley cover the requirements.)
Mix EVOO, half the lemon juice and chopped fresh parsley, season and marinate the tuna in it for an hour, turning periodically and stashing in the fridge in the intervening periods.

Meanwhile into a small blender (I'm soooo chuffed we got a little 'mill' blender attachment with the new blender the Chap's bro got us for chrimble - this was it's inaugural outing) put the rinsed capers, the rest of the EVOO, lemon zest (and remaining juice), garlic, parsley and anchovies and whiz it up.

Once the tuna has had it's allotted hour marinating cook it under the grill or in a cast-iron-ridged pan for 3-4 mins per side and serve with the salsa perched atop.  I sort of scooped up the marinade with the tuna and cooked it all in the pan together.
That's it - easy eh?
We made a meal of it by serving on spaghetti with some wilted spinach and the juices from the tuna pan stirred through, and plenty of black pepper.

This was lovely - really zingy and fresh and lemony.  We'd been slightly concerned it could turn out too salty with both capers and anchovies in but not at all.  We liked the salsa so much that I'd easily knock this up to stir through pasta for a quick and easy supper and if you buy your fresh parsley plant, lemon and tin of anchovies from Aldi it works out pretty cheap.  I also had the idea that this would work with the addition of a good handful of wild garlic which is even cheaper at nuppence!  Win win as the yanks might say.  :-)
I've decided to also enter this recipe to the Herbs on a Saturday blog challenge by Karen of Lavender and Lovage which is being hosted this month over at Bangers & Mash.  It seems appropriate with the use of a whole plant of fresh parsley.  This is my first ever submission to them so I hope they're as nice to me as the Random Recipe tribe were on my first time!

*I in fact have 3 of their booklets, 2 of which are the same one, so with such abundance on hand I will give one of them away.  :-)  Just leave a comment mentioning you'd like it and I'll pull a winner out on Sunday.  I'm not going to specify that you have to follow me as I want my followers to be because they find my witterings vaguely interesting and perhaps even informative.  Having originally started this blog kind of by accident to record stuff for myself it's somewhat odd / gratifying / worrying that there's folks out there reading this drivel!!  Thank you, even if you do it only through sympathy.  :-)