A vegetarian feast

No photos and no recipes this time, just a list of dishes all based on those found in the River Cottage veg book. If you don't have River Cottage Veg Everyday yet, you should seriously consider buying it. I made slight tweaks to most of the original recipes, some intentional and some because I forgot to add a last minute ingredient. The result was a fabulous vegetarian feast - even the confirmed carnivore Ollie said that this meal was delicious. 

 

To start

Pistachio dukkah

Dukkah is an Egyptian spice mix made with toasted cumin, coriander and sesame seeds with dried chilli flakes and some shopped nuts. The version I made used pistachio nuts, and also a little chopped mint. 

The idea is to dip your bread first in some oil and then into the dukkah. It's pretty good and keeps for ages in a jar. It can also be used sprinkled over salads, roasted veg, grilled meats, anything, really.  

Cannelini bean hummus

This is made the same way as normal hummus but since the beans are very creamy when processed they don't need nearly as much oil. Not sure if I used rapeseed or olive oil in this recipe but both work equally well. 

Flatbreads 

I meant to combine the Jamie Oliver Moroccan chickpea flatbreads (add cumin and coriander seeds and chickpeas) with the HFW half plain half bread flour recipe. But since I didn’t read the recipe through before I started, I left the bread to prove without adding the chickpeas and spices. So I ended up with the River Cottage version with a bit more yeast, salt and sugar added.

I cooked these flatbreads in a hot oven (220 degrees C) rather than in a pan. This was probably a mistake. I took them out after almost 10 minutes by which time they were fairly crisp though had not puffed up as I expected. They tasted OK with the butter bean hummus and dukka though.

To follow

 

Roasted squash and shallots with merguez chickpeas

The trick to tasty chickpeas is to dress them while they are still hot. The ones in this recipe are delicious, and I would definitely make them without the roast veg as part of a tapas selection or to accompany to lamb chops. You can make the chickpeas a few days in advance as they will keep well in the fridge.

I didn't make the couscous or spiced yoghurt that you'll find if you follow the link above. Instead I made a few salads.

Date and orange salad with red cabbage and raw parsnip

Parsnips, it turns out, are an excellent raw ingredient in salads. Who knew?
I couldn't find Medjool dates for this salad so I just used regular ones. 

Sweet potato, puy lentil and watercress salad

The actual recipe for this dish uses roasted parsnips, but since I was using raw grated parsnip in the date and orange salad, I used sweet potato instead. This made the dish quite substantial but it still all got eaten, despite the fact that I forgot to add thin slices of the hard goat's cheese I'd bought to especially for the dish.
 

Tahini-dressed green bean salad and oven-roasted tomato salad

Tahini salad dressing is so moreish, especially if it includes a little honey as this one does. Since I don't like cooked courgettes I omitted them, and didn't replace them with anything. I oven-roasted the tomatoes for a little too long but once combined with the rest of the salad ingredients this didn't really matter. I think I forgot to add the mint at the end. 

Roasted aubergines with feta and pomegranate

To be honest, the dish I made was vaguely inspired by this recipe, but I could hardly say I followed it. I happened to have a handful of new potatoes so added these to some aubergines and roasted with some crushed whole garlic cloves. I added pomegranate seeds and crumbled feta to the dish before serving, but forgot to add the grated lemon zest and herbs. 

To end

Poached pears with chocolate sauce (not from River Cottage book, details to follow. Really.)

Henry salad

Warning: This salad is not for vegetarians. 

This is Henry.

Henry (right)

 
Henry had a very happy and, for pigs destined to end up on our plate, long life (3). 

Apparently he was especially partial to custard creams. I'd like to say the sausages made from him tasted of custard creams, but they didn't. They tasted of Happy Pig. OK, they didn't, they tasted of sausages. But very, very good sausages.

Last week was the first Salad Club of the New Year. Our lovely freelancer Janey Stapes offered me some sausages made from her parent's pig, Henry. Since I've been trying to convince Salad Club of the merits of sausage and pumpkin salad for some time, this seemed like the ideal opportunity to try it out on them. 


In the end, though, we made much simpler salad, with the sausages being the only ingredient that needed cooking.  

Henry (after)

Henry Salad ingredients

Serves 12-14

• 24 Henry sausages*
• 1 jar marinated grilled mixed peppers
• 1 large punnet cherry tomatoes
• 2 cans chickpeas
• 1 bunch basil
• 2 packs feta cheese
• 1 bag baby spinach
• 1 bag rocket
• Chilli flakes, to taste
• Toasted sesame and pumpkin seeds, a sprinkle each

 *If you can't get hold of Henry sausages, use top quality butcher's sausages. That is, buy them from an actual butcher's, not a supermarket. Or even better, from someone who makes sausages. 

Cooking with Henry

Gabi adds the finishing touches

It was thought that Henry, being an old (and happy) pig, may have turned a bit sinewy, and so rather than making him into chops and joints, he was made ENTIRELY INTO SAUSAGES! If I were a pig, that's the way I'd want to go.

This meant that Henry sausages had a very high meat content. It also meant he had a higher fat content than you'd find in most sausages.To remove some of the fat, I roasted the sausages on a grill pan at about 200⁰C in the oven . After 15 minutes I pricked the sausages to let more fat drain out, then continued roasting for another 20 or so minutes. There was a lot of fat. But we all know that fat means flavour. 

If your sausages aren't of such a high meat and fat content (ie normal sausages), you probably don't need to prick them, just roast for 30-40 minutes, turning once during cooking, till most of the sausage is browned.

How to make Henry sausage salad

I normally twist my sausages into half or 3rds before baking them for salads. That way you get lots of little individual sausages, each with its own skin, to bite into. Henry was having none of that, spilling from his casing when I tried to twist the links. Instead I cooked the links whoe then cut each sausage into 2, 3 or 4 pieces, just to give some variety.


All you need to do to make this salad cut the tomatoes in half, rip the basil into small pieces, and mix everything together with the oil from the marinated peppers.

Put more dried chilli flakes out for people to help themselves, along with the toasted sesame and pumpkin seeds.

Andrea, Sausage nosed Jane, Robbie

Salad Club: Tastes of Morocco

From left: Kate, Peggy, Yuki, Danielle

I've been on holiday for a week and in my absence it seems that Salad Club was also on a break.
On my return, we have a Moroccan themed Salad Club.

I am responsible for the hummus and roasted red peppers. I do my usual hummus recipe.

For the roasted red peppers, I do some online research, and find that controversy rages as to the best way of doing this. Some roast the peppers over a naked gas flame. This seems like a tedious and slightly dangerous method to me. So then. Oven? Grill? Whole? Quartered? Who cares? Does it really make that much difference? The answer is probably yes. Having cut and deseeded the peppers and roasted them in a hot oven for about an hour, I took them out and put them straight into a tupperware box with a clip lid, thinking this would make the skins easy to peel off when cool. Wrong. After about half an hour I ended up with an incompletely peeled pathetic little heap of pepper pieces.  I swear, next time I buy them in a jar.

Sorry for cutting your head off Danielle

The rest of the Salad Clubbers brought in the following:

• Cooked chickpeas
• Steak
• Tomato salad
• Artichokes
• Lemon couscous
• Halloumi
• Cucumber, cut into chunks
• Salad leaves
• Steak 
• Chopped dill
• Chopped parsley

For the couscous (Yuki)

Add the rind of half a lemon, some thyme and Moroccan spice mix to the couscous then cover with boiling water and leave to soak for about 10 minutes.

For the tomatoes (Kate)

• Dice tomatoes and add the following:
• Garlic
• Parsely
• Dill
• Spring onion
• Lemon peel
• Cumin
• Ras el hanout
• Curry powder
• Nutmeg
• Red wine vinegar
• Salt and pepper

 
As for the quantities, you're on your own here - this is Kate's secret recipe and She. Will. Take. It. To. The. Grave. 

For the steak (Peggy)

• 1 kg steak
• 2 cloves of garlic, pressed or very finely chopped
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 2 teaspoons cumin
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper, or more to taste
• 1/8 teaspoon chili pepper
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cliantro (coriander)
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons olive oil  

How to make the steak (as dictated by Peggy)

1. Stab the steak all over repeatedly with a knife. Pretend its that inconsiderate person that was taking up too much space on the tube this morning*
2. Dunk the steak in the 'marinade'. Apparently you are supposed to actually marinade the steak, though I have to say it worked perfectly well without marinading.
3. Make sure you poke some of the pieces of garlic into the holes made by stabbing the steak.
4. Fry the steak in the marinade for a while, then turn it over and fry the other side. My guess is as good as yours as to how long 'a while' is. The marinade will evaporate, leaving a paste.
5. Leave the steak to cool in the paste, then cut up into slices. 

*author's own addition.

All the homemade ingredients this week were exceptional, but the star Tosser had to be Peggy for the steak.

With thanks to article contributors Yuki, Kate and Peggy.  
Additional thanks to Yuki for HTML formatting help.

Hummus and pesto – tastes of summer

 

Two things I never buy are hummus and pesto. Why? Because supermarket hummus is a slushy gloop and pesto in a jar tastes of watery chemicals. Admittedly the stuff you buy in delis is usually good, but also expensive. Homemade versions outshine every time, and are so easy and cheap to make. Making your own also means you can adapt the flavours to suit your own tastes. 

It’s difficult to give exact measurements for these recipes – you will need to tinker to get the flavour and texture you want. The added bonus is that the dish will be unique each time you make it.

Give it a go – really, the hardest part is washing up the food processor. 

Hummus ingredients

• 1 can chickpeas, or equivalent cooked chickpeas.
• 1 small clove garlic, finely chopped. One of the cloves you find in the centre of a bulb is about the right size.
• 1 tablespoon tahini paste. There really is no need to explain what tahini is these days. If you can buy it in Sains, no need to explain.
• Juice of half a lemon.
• Olive or rapeseed oil and a little water, enough to make the hummus the consistency you like.
• Pinch paprika (optional).

A note on oil

What oil you use will greatly affect the flavour of your hummus. I like a subtle little kick to my hummus and so add a tiny amount of chilli oil (homemade of course) to the Spanish extra virgin olive oil I normally use.

This time, though, I used my new favourite ingredient – rapeseed oil. This produced a deliciously creamy hummus with a deep golden colour. It almost made up for the lack of sunshine outside on this soggy June day.

How to make hummus

1. Put the chickpeas, garlic and tahini, lemon juice and a large drizzle of oil into the food processor then switch it on.
2. When the mixture turns to a pulp, add a little water (or the juice from the chickpea tin/cooking juice) and process again.
3. With the motor running, slowly drizzle in more oil.
4. Stop and taste – season.
5. Add the paprika if using.
6. Switch on the processor again and continue drizzling in oil till you have the consistency and flavour you want – you may want to add more seasoning or lemon juice, or, if you think it’s too oily, add more water.

That’s it. It takes seconds.

And now you have a tasty snack in the fridge and a couple of free lunches.

Hummus for lunch

Hummus is great as a snack with raw veg such as carrots, sugar snaps and celery. Have you seen how much tiny tubs of these sell for in sandwich shops? Go on, whizz up some homemade stuff and take it to work – it will keep in the fridge for a few days in a plastic tub.

One of my favourite lunches is toasted pita bread spread with hummus and stuffed with salad. It even makes something as boring as lettuce and tomato taste interesting.

Hummus is actually quite filling, and so works well as part of a mezze with other salads or veg. Yesterday for lunch I had a green salad with a small amount of leftover roast chicken and toasted seeds, some homemade coleslaw and a dollop of hummus.

Or try some with a grilled lamb chop and green salad for your evening meal.

Pesto

Traditionally pesto is made with basil and pine nuts, but there are lots of variations, such as coriander and pine nuts, basil and cashew nuts, or rocket and walnuts. Here is the recipe for the traditional basil and pine nut pesto.

Pesto ingredients

• 1 handful pine nuts
• 1 large bunch basil
• 1 very small clove garlic, or half a normal clove
• 1 handful grated Parmesan
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Lemon juice, salt & pepper to taste

How to make pesto

I never fart around with the ‘bash using a pestle and mortar, slowly fold in the Parmesan’ school of pesto making.

Simply toast the pine nuts very lightly, rip the basil leaves a little, crush the clove of garlic, with the flat blade of a large knife, finely grate the Parmesan, and put the whole lot in the food processor, then add some olive oil and switch it on.

Turn off the motor, taste, and season with the lemon juice, salt and pepper.

Add more olive oil till the pesto is the consistency you like.

Done. Go on, Claire Ashtaker, give it a go.

What to do with pesto

Traditionally you use pesto as a light coating for pasta with a large surface area such as fusili or spaghetti. I like to stir it through some pasta then add smoked salmon or hot smoked trout with some cherry tomatoes. Roasted vegetables also work well. For a creamier (ie higher fat) version mix equal quantities (say 1 tablespoon) of pesto with mayonnaise.

But pesto works with any number of flavours and food types. Here are some of my favourites.

Fish

Spread some pesto over a fillet of white fish or salmon before oven-roasting for about 10 minutes at 190⁰C (the Magic Cooking Number).

Or poach the fish in water for 10 minutes and serve with a spoonful of pesto on the side.

Chicken

A dollop of pesto is a brilliant accompaniment to roast chicken, especially when served with roasted vegetables or salad and bread warm bread.

Mozzarella salad

For tomato and mozzarella salad you need to use really good tomatoes (or, as we used to call them, tomatoes). Flecked with pesto, a plate of white, red and deep green salad can sometimes be more inviting to the eye than it is to the palate.

Ripe, juicy peaches make a delightful partner to buffalo mozzarella, roughly torn into pieces. A little basil pesto on the side is just the saucy little wink this dish needs.

Sausage and squash or pumpkin salad

Here’s an easy dish that plays on the heavenly combination of pumpkin/squash and sausage. It’s so good I think Tom Archer should include it in his ready meals range. Leftovers make a great lunch, though someone has normally picked out all the sausages, leaving me with a pumpkin, feta and chickpea salad. It’s still a good lunch though. 

Sausage and squash salad

Sausage and squash salad ingredients

• 6 top quality butcher’s sausages
• Half a medium butternut or other firm squash, or pumpkin
• 75g feta cheese (about 3 slices from a 200g pack)
• A small bunch salad leaves
• A teaspoon dried chilli flakes
• Olive oil
• Soaked and cooked chickpeas 
• Pumpkin seeds (optional)

Soaking dried chickpeas

If this seems like a hassle, it really isn’t. I normally make 3 or 4 times the quantity of chickpeas I need then freeze them in individual portions in freezer bags. This seems to work well and they defrost in a matter of minutes. You can of course use drained tinned chickpeas if you prefer, but a bag of dried chickpeas costs about the same as a tin and takes up a lot less space in your cupboard.

How to make sausage and squash salad

Chickpeas

1. Using a sieve or colander rinse the dried chickpeas with plenty of cold water.
2. Tip into a large bowl, cover with cold water and add a teaspoon bicarbonate of soda.
3. Leave to soak overnight.
4. The next day, drain the chickpeas and rinse again in cold water.
5. Empty into a large pan, cover with cold water, and bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer.
6. Simmer till tender – about 45 minutes, depending on the age of your chickpeas.
7. Do not add salt while cooking as this will make the chickpeas tough.

The Magic Number 

Everyone knows that three is the magic number, except in cooking, when its 190⁰C (fan assisted).

8. Heat your oven to the Magic Cooking Number.

Sausages

9. Twist the sausages gently in the middle then cut in half to make 2 short, stumpy sausages out of each one. This makes them easier to eat plus quicker to cook through.

Or just use cocktail sausages which will cook even quicker.

Squash

11. Chop half a medium butternut squash into chunks and place in as large roasting tin with the sausages.
12. Sprinkle over the dried chilli flakes and drizzle with olive or rapeseed oil.Alternatively, drizzle with chilli oil instead of olive oil.

Roast and serve

14. Roast in the oven till cooked through – about 40 minutes.
15. Add some cooked chickpeas for the last 10 minutes of cooking to warm them through.
16. Remove from the oven and toss with any peppery salad leaves such as rocket or watercress and add some crumbled feta.
17. Scatter with toasted pumpkin seeds.

A variation

You could make this more of a lunchimte salad but substituting the sausages with some grilled bacon. A handful of walnuts and a sprinkling of sesame seeds adds crunch and texture.

Soup - lunch for free

I almost always make and take my lunch to work, so when I don’t I’m shocked at the price that people pay for a salad or a bowl of soup. That’s why I consider lunch made at home to be ‘free’. If you tried it for a week you could save yourself £25.

The inspiration for starting this blog came after a veggie single mum friend asked me for some meat and fish recipes to cook for her daughter. Although I rarely get home before 7, the odd fish finger sandwich aside, I always have a homemade meal. So I thought I would share my ideas, tips and shortcuts for creating quick, tasty and inexpensive meals.

My friends think I am a great cook but I am not – I’m just capable of following instructions. Admittedly I sometimes ignore those instructions and make things up myself.

The recipes will be written in easy to follow steps and include explanations where I think they are needed. I will unashamedly rely heavily on recipes developed by others, adapting them as I see fit.

The contents of my freezer, my friend

Today I took an inventory of my freezer and was ashamed at how disgusting the top drawer was.

There are strict rules about what goes in the middle and bottom drawers of my freezer but the top drawer is full of items such as half-melted ice cream, pine nuts, coffee beans and random objects that have since lost their identifiable purpose.

Throwing out the crap and cleaning the drawer was strangely satisfying and put me in the mood for making soup.

Split pea soup

I love soup. It is the perfect delicious nutritious solution to clearing out your vegetable rack and making free lunch.

However my soups do have a tendency to end up all the same. I need to expand my soup repertoire and introduce different ingredients.

My standard soups are generally based on some combination of the following vegetables:

Basic soup vegetables

• Onion
• Carrot
• Leek
• Celery

The vegetables are gently sweated until soft in a little oil.

Olive oil does not need to be extra virgin for cooking, though my mum always uses extra virgin which she buys from Lidl. I have recently started using rapeseed oil, which is produced in the UK. It has an earthy, apply taste – if Somerset was a taste, it would be rapeseed oil.

Then I add either:

Liquid for soup

• Stock, vegetable or chicken, or
• Water with Parmesan rind (thank you, Nigel Slater). I store these in my friend the freezer.

and add one of the following to thicken:

Thickening agents for soup

• Lentils
• Chickpeas
• Split peas
• Pearl barley

Potatoes can also be used, but I tend to reserve this exclusively for leek and potato soup which is possibly the easiest and most satisfying soup to make of all. My brother showed me how to make leek and potato soup after he was taught at primary school.

I add spices and herbs depending on what other ingredients I use. Here are some guides

• Coriander goes well with carrot or parsnip
• Cumin goes well with chickpeas
• Chilli goes well with pumpkin and squash
• Thyme goes well with mushrooms

Today I used the following:

Split pea soup ingredients 

• 1 large onion
• 2 sticks of past its best celery
• 2 carrots
• Stock made from boiling a gammon joint in water with a sliced onion, carrot and celery stick, bay leaf, peppercorns and rosemary sprig
• Split peas, rinsed and soaked overnight in cold water, drained, and rinsed again in cold water. This means you need to plan ahead the day before you want to make the soup but it takes no effort at all. Dried split peas are very cheap and make a good thickening agent. They are a good source of roughage.

How to make split pea soup

1. Fry the onion in a large pan while you chop the celery into small pieces.
2. Add the celery to the pan and sweat – this means you cover the pan with a lid while the vegetables cook slowly in the oil till soft.
3. Grate the carrot then add that to the pan, cooking till soft.
4. Add the stock and the split peas.
5. Season with pepper only. Don’t add salt – the peas will be tough and you will fart.
6. Bring to the boil.
7. Boil rapidly for 10 minutes
8. Reduce the heat and simmer till the peas are cooked.
   This could take 30 minutes or longer, depending on how long the peas have been in your cupboard.
9.  When the peas are cooked, turn off the heat. 
10. Leave to cool.
11. Liquidize in a blender or use a hand-held blender to puree.
    I like to leave some texture in the soup but make it however you like.

Notes on split pea soup

I suspect that my split pea soup is too salty because I had to cook the split peas for so long in gammon stock, thus concentrating the salinity of the stock.

O says the soup looks like sick. It does. I pureed the soup in response to this comment and it now looks like pureed sick. However it is yummy tasty and will provide me with five free lunches at work.