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. 

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!

Roasted Butternut Squash with Goat's Cheese

I love this recipe. It's so easy and delicious and pretty healthy too, 350 calories per half a 'squash with all the cheese and veggies and pine nuts too. I did leave out the breadcrumbs this time and I used cheddar instead of parmesan. I may have been a bit generous with my 'pinch' of chilli flakes too as Mr VST got the sweats almost before he even had a mouthful!

Oil, garlic, salt, chilli flakes and thyme

'Twas the night before Christmas...

..and all through the house lots of creatures were stirring and having a mini Christmas!

We had a mini Christmas with my brother on Christmas Eve because he was spending Christmas day with his girlfriend and her family. Our Christmas Eve included a lovely meal, present swapping and a game of Who Wants to be a Millionaire (girls vs boys, the boys won :()

The meat eaters had smoked salmon fillets and the veggies had leek, mushroom and goat's cheese strudels. This was all cooked by my wonderful mother but the recipe for the veggie strudels was from BBC Good Food and can be found here. Both options were served with roasted new potatoes and green beans.

...and for pudding a lovely trifle. It was a Delia recipe with bananas in and home made custard. 

We didn't forget Father Christmas of course and left him some Bailey's, a home made sweet and one of my cinnamon mince pies as well as a carrot for Rudolph.

Vegetarians as guests....

Do you dread having vegetarians as guests? Whenever I have guests with special dietary requirements I usually enjoy the challenge of being out of my comfort zone cooking-wise. When Mr VST's coeliac cousin came to stay I served Dahl (which seems to be every diet proof) and made this gluten-free lemon drizzle cake with mashed potato, yes MASHED POTATO, warm for pudding with cream, it was absolutely delicious.

This weekend we were the dreaded vegetarian guests but our hosts did their usual wonderful job. Mr VST was doing the hell runner at Longmoor and we went to stay with our friends in Somerset so that we were (a bit) closer to Longmoor. Friday night's carbo-load was pasta and sauce with chunky roasted veggies and goat's cheese - delicious.

We got up to have the breakfast of champions (baked beans on toast) at an un-Godly hour for a Saturday and then made our way through the Winter wonderland to Longmoor. When we got there the ground was frozen as was the water in the bog of doom! Being the supportive wife I carried bags, cheered on when Mr VST started, got out of the bog and finished and provided him with a hot chocolate to warm up.

Here are some of the Hell Runners coming out of the Bog of Doom.

We had a couple of cheese and pickle sandwiches and delicious sticky toffee cake and chocolate brownie with thick chocolate butter icing on top to get us back to our friends' house.

When we got back we had pizza and chips and then later in the evening as we all were collapsed in a heap we nibbled on cheese and biscuits.

I also extensively sampled out hosts tea collection. Mr Host had bought himself the kind of tea box that is usually seen only in hotels and filled it with every kind of herbal tea imaginable. I was very jealous of his box. I think it may be going on my Christmas list!