Curry with Chickpeas and Rice

A load of veggies, rogan josh curry paste and some chickpeas all went into making a delicious curry on Wednesday evening. 

Pie Minister Heidi (Filo) Rolls

I randomly signed up for a newsletter for Capricorn goat's cheese and they sent out a recipe for Pie Minister Heidi Rolls. I have never tasted them but the recipe looked tasty. To make it slightly healthier, I used filo pastry instead of puff pastry.

Ingredients:


1 large red onion

4 garlic cloves, peeled and halved

500g sweet potato, peeled and cubed

1 tablespoon of olive oil

120g spinach

160g goat's cheese

4 sheets of filo pastry

1 egg, beaten (for egg wash)

75g sesame seeds

Method:

1. Heat the oven to 180C/356F/Gas Mark 4. In a large roasting dish, add the onion slices, garlic, sweet potato chunks and drizzle over the oil, salt and pepper. Give a good mix. Roast for 20-25 minutes until the sweet potato is just tender and the onion is nicely caramelised. Allow to cool.

2. While the veg is roasting, wilt the spinach in a pan gently with a splash of water. Remove from the heat and strain the spinach to remove any excess water. Roughly chop and set aside.

3. Cube the Capricorn Somerset Goats Cheese into small dice and mix into the drained spinach. Roughly chop any large pieces of sweet potato and mix the sweet potato, onion and garlic into the spinach mixture. Mix well, taste the mixture and season. Place in the fridge to chill for 20 minutes.

4. Take a sheet of filo pastry, brush half of it with egg wash and fold in half, then cut the sheet into three. The filo sheets I used were 39cm x 30cm. I folded the longest edge over.

5. Egg wash the long edge and both short edges, place 1/12th filling in a straight line, in the middle of the pastry.

6. Fold the short edges over, onto the mixture and then roll the non-egg washed edge over rolling until the the egg washed edge makes a seal.

7. Place seam down onto a lightly oiled baking tray (or silicon sheet), brush the top with egg wash.

8. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes.

They make a really tasty snack. The combination of the inside ingredients is a great one. 

Summer Lasagne

I found this lovely looking recipe for 'Cheat's Mushroom and Spinach Lasagne' on the Cook Vegetarian website. Having made it and found it to be light and tasty I have renamed it Summer Lasagne.

I followed the instructions but layered in my own way and misread the bit about the tomatoes so, having layered it all without the tomatoes, I pulled it all apart again and just put them in without having reduced them.

I was then very sceptical about the outcome but was pleasantly surprised. The only think I would do differently is double the filling, well not the tomatoes but certainly the spinach and mushrooms as the flavours didn't come through very strongly. The 'cheat's' cheese sauce was really nice, it was just seasoned crème fraîche but  I think it was the nutmeg that made it. 

I served it with some boiled new potatoes. I have to write about them because they were absolutely delicious.  They came from the market stall as usual and were labelled as Devon new potatoes. They came all covered in dirt and were so light and creamy that no butter was necessary at all. 

Crumpet Disaster

I ordered the River Cottage Handbook No.3 and was desperately waiting for it to arrive last week. When it came I was too impatient to read through the fifty or so pages on bread before getting into the kitchen so I decided that I would skip the bread making and go straight to crumpets making instead.

The recipe is basically as follows:

450 g plain white flour
350 ml warm milk
350 ml warm water
5 g powdered yeast

Whisk up and leave for an hour until bubbly, then add...
10 g salt
1 tsp baking powder

Pour into ring and cook for about 5 mins until top is set and then flip over for 2-3 mins.

I am very upset at the results. I spent a sunny afternoon over a hot stove for no good reason it seems (boo hoo). Don't ask me why I decided to make crumpets on a sunny afternoon but I did.

First mistake was to fill the crumpet ring to the brim as you can see, the mixture went in OK but then bubbled over the top.

Secondly, I didn't wait until the top had actually set before flipping it over, as you can see from the photo above there were some bubbles but not lots as described in the book.

So it looked pretty good and I slathered it in butter and home made jam, drool (!), and cut it open only to find that it wasn't cooked inside. I ate it anyway and it wasn't unpleasant, the crumpet itself actually had a taste unlike the bland rubbery ones from the supermarket.

I read the instructions in the book and it said that if there weren't lots of bubbles then the batter was too thick and so add some water to thin it out. I added probably 100ml, didn't make any difference, added another couple of hundred mils and there were more bubbles but the batter was so runny that the bubbles just sealed over again.

No matter what I did the crumpets just didn't cook all the way through. I tried playing with the heat, the consistency of the batter, the amount of batter per crumpet and nothing worked. I repeat, I was VERY upset.

Array of disastrous crumpets 

Please leave any hints or tips for successful crumpet making. Has anyone else tried the River Cottage recipe?Please let me know how it went.

Double Locks Pub, Exeter

On Saturday evening Mr VST and I enjoyed a lovely stroll in the warm evening sunshine and ended up at the Double Locks Pub. We weren't really too impressed with the vegetarian options on the menu but we were nicely surprised. Both Mr VST's Ploughman's and my jacket potato with roasted vegetables came with a combination of green salad, beans and chickpeas and chunky coleslaw which were delicious. 

Banana and Chocolate Chip Blondies (or not)

On surfing around the blogosphere last week I came across this recipe for banana chocolate chip blondies. The blondies I had made previously were awesome even if I do say so myself and I fancied another foray into blondie land. I was initially torn between the dermiepie recipe and this recipe for banana blondie cake. I ended up making the demie pie recipe but with the same kind of results as the evil shenanigans one, but not quite as good!

Ingredients:

95ml or 1/2 cup sunflower seed oil
63g or 1/3 cup raw sugar (After trying to research this I still have no real idea what it actually looks like. I used Billington's Molasses sugar)
125g or 2/3 cup (light) brown sugar
95ml or 1/4 + 2 tbs milk of your choice (I used oat)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
175g or 1 1/4 cup plain flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 a banana cut up into the batter
about 70g 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips or chopped up chocolate

Method:

1. Mix the oil and two types of sugar together really well.

2. Add the milk, vanilla essence and almond essence to the sugar and oil mixture. 

3. In a separate bowl mix together the flour, baking powder and chocolate chips. 

 4. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients, add the oil mixture and stir.

5. Add the bananas to the mixture.

 6. Pour into a greased, lined brownie pan and bake at 175 Celsius for 25 minutes.

This is how mine turned out. Not chewy at all as the original recipe maker describes but more a dense cakey texture so not really a blondie in my book. The almond extract is quite strong and is the predominant flavour. The banana doesn't really come through. Worth a go though!

Veggie Mexican with Refried Beans

A quick, easy and healthy Friday night meal of veggies, cooked up with chilli, cumin, paprika and some tinned tomatoes and served with some refried beans all wrapped up in soft flour tortillas, yummy. I was really tired on Friday when I got home but had a craving for a big pan of veggies that this well and truly satisfied.

Leek and Feta Frittata with Salad

Quick and tasty leek and feta frittata tonight. 

Vegetarian Club Sandwich & Two Puddings

I went on a course on Wednesday and the description of the day said that there would be refreshments at 9am, 11am, 1pm and 3.15pm. I interpreted this as meaning that there would be constant feeding. I have been on courses before where I was served pastries, egg butties, as much tea and coffee as you like, a two course hot buffet lunch and mints. I had decided that this was going to be the same and so I didn't have breakfast just to make sure I could make the most of it. When I got there I was disappointed to find that refreshments for the most part meant tea and coffee. So I had a couple of herbal teas which kept me going. My tummy started grumbling about half an hour before lunch. We had had to pre-order our lunch from the bar and lounge menu. There was only one vegetarian option which was a club sandwich so I went for that. We had a £16 allocation and that took up only £6.50 so I went for a pudding. I chose the rhubarb and ginger tarte tatin with coffee ice cream and a fruit compote. I still had £3.55 left and the caramel shortbread from the tea menu was £3.45 so I ordered that as well, well I had missed breakfast!

The club sandwich was interesting, it had a very slim cheese layer, lettuce, it supposedly had egg mayonnaise but thankfully I couldn't taste it, it was OK. The vegetable crisps and coleslaw that were served with it were lovely. The rhubarb and ginger tarte tatin was slightly strange if I'm honest. The pastry wasn't very nice and a bit soft. The coffee ice cream didn't go with it at all. The fruit compote was lovely but didn't go with either the tatin or the ice cream. The caramel shortbread was also a desert option and someone messed up and brought me the desert version instead which involved two caramel shortbreads! I wrapped them up in a napkin and took them home for dinner.

Quorn Tortilla Stack with Spicy Sautéed Potatoes

On Tuesday I made a lovely Quorn Tortilla stack. I only had new potatoes so I sliced them up and sautéed them with some cumin, tumeric, chilli powder and paprika, yummy!

Easy Veggie Curry with Lentils

Made a quick easy veggie curry and threw in some lentils to bulk it out. Unfortunately I managed to kill my weighing scales with banana juice so I couldn't weigh the rice and I guessed the amount of water too. The result wasn't pretty but edible.

Toasted Focaccia with Goat's Cheese

Mr VST and a friend of ours, Mr Eco, were off on a crazy bike ride today which started at 8.30am in a town about 20 minutes away. Thankfully I managed to spend the day with Mr Eco's lovely girlfriend who arrived at the very human hour of 12.20pm. After a quick cuppa we headed into town to get some lunch. I wanted to go to the Real Food Store but unfortunately it is shut on Sundays. Instead we went to Giraffe and I had the toasted goat's cheese focaccia with potato wedges. It was yummy and huge and I didn't manage to eat all of it but was a lovely way to spend a Sunday afternoon. Before we knew it Mr VST had phoned to say they were on their way back and would we like to go for a dustbin lid pizza. I explained that we had just finished lunch but that we would happily accompany them!

Vine Ripened Tomato Soup with Puy Lentils

On Saturday I was still feeling full from the lovely meal at Spinacio's the night before but was also very excited to finally be meeting a new addition to our friend group who was born on 7th June. We took some lunch round to his parents and ate with them some soups (not home made I'm afraid), bread, cheese and crackers. I ate mine while cuddling the tiny new addition in one arm - a lovely way to eat a meal (although I am sure the novelty wears off for parents!). It was a special day. Mr VST and I weren't very hungry that evening when we got back. He had some veggie burgers and I had a couple of slices of soda bread toast.

Spinacio's, St Ives

Nearly a year ago now I was lucky enough to have a fantastic hen weekend down in Cornwall. Part of the weekend involved going to Spinacio's restaurant in St Ives. I had the most delicious sweet potato mash with ginger, chilli and grilled haloumi cheese. It was so good that I tried to recreate it for Mr VST when I got home. Unfortunately it wasn't quite as good as the restaurant version and I promised that I would take him there to try the real thing.

We finally got round to going there on Friday - my hen weekend was last August! There were six of us altogether and we tried a good variety of the food although I can't remember what everyone had.

To start I went for the Cornish oven baked feta with onion marmalade. It was truly delicious. The feta was creamy and not too tangy and complimented perfectly by the sweet onion marmalade. It also came with a small green salad and a slice of bread.  Mr VST went for the walnut and beetroot pate which came with cheese straws. This was also delicious and the only (rare) complaint from Mr VST was that there was quite a lot of it for a starter! Mr VST went for more beetroot for his main which was a beetroot burger. It was a lot of grated beetroot in a crispy shell. He enjoyed it but had OD'd on beetroot a little. I had little mushroom pies which were made with a cheesy pastry and filled with mushrooms and gravy and served with potato wedges, peas and carrots. The little pies were mouth watering.

We were extremely full by this point and had a break in between our mains and pudding and then shared one between two. Mr VST and I went for the polenta chocolate cake with ice cream. The chocolate cake was thick and chocolatey but also very light. I'm not sure what the polenta did to it but I would definitely recommend it.

Experiments with Bread: Soda Bread

Another experiment in bread this week and this time with soda bread. I thought it would be good to try a yeast less bread and googled some recipes a while ago. I found a recipe for white soda bread on the River Cottage website and when I tried to find it again came across this one instead and as I had some wholemeal self-raising flour in the cupboard I decided to go for it. 

Ingredients:

500g wholemeal self-raising flour, plus extra for dusting
10g salt
1 tbsp each linseeds, sunflower, pumpkin, sesame and poppy seeds
1 tsp fennel seeds
300ml buttermilk, or milk, or 50:50 milk and yogurt

Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/gas mark 6. Tip the dry ingredients into a bowl and whisk together to blend. Make a well in the middle and pour in the buttermilk, stirring with a wooden spoon to combine, then knead briefly on a lightly floured surface until you have a smooth dough. Divide into two, then shape into rough rounds. Pat them down to about 5cm high, flour all over and lay on a baking tray.

Cut a cross in the top of each dough round, almost down to the bottom. Bake for about 20 minutes, and leave to cool for a few minutes on a wire rack before eating.

I didn't have six seeds but I did have some so made it with sunflower seeds, sesame and linseeds too. I made my own butter milk by adding lime juice to the milk, mixed it in with the dry ingredients and was disappointed to find that it made a very dry dough that I couldn't get to stick together. I added some more milk, I reckon about 100ml after which I managed to get it to stick together. 

I followed the rest of the instructions by making the two rounds about 5cm in height and then cutting them nearly to the bottom before putting them in the oven. When they came out they looked fantastic and Mr VST and I tried a warm slice each with butter. Despite the heaviness of the loaves the bread itself was lovely and light. It had a nice soft texture too and was delicious warm with a bit of butter.

Unfortunately when it came to cutting further slices it was clear that it hadn't cooked at all in the middle and was still doughy. I tried to rescue it by putting it back into the oven but it didn't really work as I had discovered the doughy centres too late. The edges were yummy this morning toasted and piled high with last summer's berries and cherries jam though. 

Having gone back and looked at the original recipe I found that it calls for 400ml of buttermilk plus a bit of milk if necessary and it is baked at the same temperature for 40 minutes rather than 20. I will definitely be giving this loaf another try. 

Grown up Superjack: Flapjack with Dark Chocolate, Raisins and Nuts

I made some flapjack on Thursday to take down to some very good friends of ours who have just had a baby. I thought that flapjack was a tasty, remotely healthy (if you forget all the butter, sugar and golden syrup!) snack that provides plenty of energy for new parents. 

I didn't have the milk and white chocolate to make my usual superjack but I did have some dark chocolate instead. I chopped it up into little chunks, realising that it would probably melt but it really worked. It has made a great slightly more grown up flap jack. I love it when you make a random and great tasting new discovery! 

Fusilli Bolognese

A quick bolognese with fusilli as I'd run out of linguine on Thursday. 

Classic Chilli with Spring Onion and Sweetcorn Cornbread

Made this again on Tuesday and managed to get the portion size right this time. There's still some leftovers in the fridge!

Classic Chilli

Spring onion and sweetcorn corn bread

Pumpkin Curry with Chickpeas

On the Sunday my Mum and her partner had the newlyweds and a few of their friends around for lunch. There was a beef in beer option for the meat eaters and this lovely pumpkin curry for the vegetarians. These were served with baked potatoes and salad and of course left over wedding cake. Mum had also made a proper chocolate mousse and a boozy tiramisu too. They were delicious. I will have to get the recipes.

We were lucky enough to have some left over curry, jacket potatoes and salad to take home with us. We had a few mouthfuls in the car on the way home but were very full up and so didn't have any dinner.

We were still full up on Monday which was Mr VST's birthday. We had the day off work which meant a lie in and a late breakfast (11am). We ate the jackets, curry and most of the salad for lunch - at 3pm! We were planning on going out for dinner but didn't because we were too full up.



Mr VST was starting a new job on Tuesday and wanted to take in some birthday cake so I made carrot cake number two. I managed to take a photograph this time though. I made the icing with double the butter to make it thicker and therefore easier for Mr VST to transport. I also remembered to take a photo of the finished article this time!

Tomato and Sausage Pasta Bake with Salad

A quick easy tomato and pasta bake on Wednesday. Had to follow the recipe on here!

Wedding Breakfast

As I mentioned Mr VST and I were at a family wedding over the weekend. We were staying with my Mum and her partner. For real breakfast we had hot cross buns with some home made orange and whiskey marmalade. I'm not a big fan of marmalade but this was delicious. It had a kick but wasn't too bitter and was less of a jelly texture and more creamy. We brought a jar home with us too! It was made with mamade which I had never heard of before. I'll definitely be making some once we've depleted our current marmalade stocks.

The wedding was at 2pm and when we got to the reception the sweet treats (including my brownies) were served followed by the wedding breakfast itself.

We were on a table of vegetarians! There were seven veggies and only three meat eaters. To start we had a vegetable tapenade with toasted brioche, a small green salad and chutney. The vegetable tapenade was a little sickly for me but the chutney was good.

The main was a roasted vegetable wellington with a sauce that I couldn't identify and then a selection of vegetables, cabbage, carrots, roast potatoes, mashed potatoes. The wellington itself was a bit lifeless but the sauce was delicious.

We had a break for the speeches before the trio of desserts was served. We has a pavlova, lemon cheesecake and also a chocolate brownie with chocolate sauce. They were all delicious.

Cheese and biscuits were served later in the evening along with the wedding cake. I am biased but the wedding cake was amazing. My Mum made it. It is a death by chocolate cake which is a sponge cake cut into three and then layered with melted chocolate and a kind of brandy chocolate mousse too and then covered in chocolate ganache. It was white chocolate ganache with white chocolate cigarellos and then white chocolate maltesers as well. Mum made the same cake with dark chocolate ganache and milk, dark and white chocolate leaves for mine and Mr VST's wedding. It was awesome!

Full Fat, non Vegan, Chocolate Brownies

I attended a family wedding at the weekend which was lovely. When the invitation came a few months back it came with a request for a batch of sweet treats for serving at the reception to keep everyone going before dinner. I thought long and hard about it and then decided to go for a batch of the best brownies. Nigel Slater is very coy when he calls this recipe his 'very good chocolate brownie recipe'. I think I might die if I tried his very best brownie recipe!

I recommend reading the article even if you have no intention of making the brownies. It is gastro-porn!

Ingredients (makes 12 brownies)

300g golden caster sugar
250g butter
250g chocolate (70 per cent cocoa solids)
3 large eggs plus 1 extra egg yolk
60g flour
60g finest quality cocoa powder
½ tsp baking powder

Method

1. Set the oven at 180°C/Gas 4. Line the bottom of the baking tin with baking parchment. 

2. Put the sugar and butter into the bowl of a food mixer and beat for several minutes till white and fluffy. You can do it by hand if you wish, but you need to keep going until the mixture is really soft and creamy. - I had forgotten why I needed the food processor for this recipe - this is why!

3.Meanwhile, break the chocolate into pieces, set 50g of it aside and melt the rest in a bowl suspended over, but not touching, a pan of simmering water. As soon as the chocolate has melted remove it from the heat. 

4.Chop the remaining 50g into gravel-sized pieces.

5. Break the eggs into a small bowl and beat them lightly with a fork. 

6. Sift together the flour, cocoa and baking powder and mix in a pinch of salt. With the food mixer running slowly, introduce the beaten egg a little at a time, speeding up in between additions. 

7. Remove the bowl from the mixer to the work surface, then mix in the melted and the chopped chocolate with a large metal spoon.

8. Lastly, fold in the flour and cocoa, gently and firmly, without knocking any of the air out. Scrape the mixture into the prepared cake tin, smooth the top and bake for 30 minutes. The top will have risen slightly and the cake will appear slightly softer in the middle than around the edges. Pierce the centre of the cake with a fork - it should come out sticky, but not with raw mixture attached to it. If it does, then return the brownie to the oven for three more minutes. It is worth remembering that it will solidify a little on cooling, so if it appears a bit wet, don't worry.

I had intended to cut the brownies into heart shapes but my cutter wasn't deep enough and I'd forgotten how crumbly they were so I cut them into bite-sized squares instead.

One of the benefits of the failure to cut the brownies into heart shapes was the left overs. There were some brownie bits that couldn't be served to the guests so they sustained Mr VST and I on our long journey north. 

When we got there we had some carrot and coriander soup, home made bread, crackers and cheese for dinner.