A ray of sunshine

Andrew and I are deep into the thesis writing. This means I was in the flat for two and a half days before I ventured outside. Very depressing. The weather has been awful this week, which has made my time spent indoors more bearable. When my veg box arrived it had a suprise vegetable, a pumpkin.

I know that a lot people in the UK don't eat pumpkins, just carve them for halloween. But I love them. When it arrived, I knew what we were going to have for dinner, pasta with roasted pumpkin. We first had this dish when we were staying at Andrew's parents house in Ireland. Thankfully, this is our last year of our PhDs and we will definitely be make a trip there next year.

Pumpkin, caramelised onion and feta pasta:

• 1 Onion, cut into thin wedges
• Pumpkin, peeled and diced
• Olives
• Feta
• Pasta
• 1 Lemon, zested and halved
  
• Olive oil
• Salt
• Pepper
• Dried chilli flakes
  

Put the diced pumpkin into a roasting dish. Coat with olive oil, salt, pepper and some dried chilli flakes. Place the lemon in a corner of the dish and cook at 200 degrees C for 30 mins until soft.

Meanwhile cook the onion in saucepan with some oil, on a low heat until caramelised (about 30 mins)

Stir the pasta and lemon zest into the onions. Then add the pumpkin, olives and feta. Squeeze in the lemon juice.

I am entering this dish into this weeks Presto Pasta Nights which is hosted by Kitchenetta at Got No Milk. Make sure you have a look at this weeks roundup.

This week in the veg box we got:

• Pumpkin
• Courgettes
• Beetroot
• Kohl Rabi
• Lettuce
• Carrots
• Onions
• Potatoes
  

First pasta in the new flat

Most of the boxes are emptied, kitchen arrangment is almost sorted out. Living in a top floor flat is always an advantage but moving the heavy boxes up 3 flights of stairs is hard work. We realised how much stuff we have accummulated. The new flat is great, the kitchen is much bigger than the old one. Two days without the internet was a little annoying and my google reader was bursting once it had been connected. The flat has loads of window sills, I am already pondering what to grow. The Veg Box delivery guy found us OK on Wednesday. This week we had:

• Broad beans
• Kohl Rabi
• Courgette
• Tomatoes
• Cabbage
• Lettuce
• Onion
• Carrots
• Potatoes

When Andrew and I were undergrads we used to make a sausage pasta dish. Being poor students this was literally pasta, tomato sauce and some grilled sausages stirred in. I remember seeing on Jamie @ Home a posh version of this. I substituted the peas for broad beans and courgettes.



Prepare a tomato pasta sauce.

Boil the beans for a couple of mins. Remove their skins and put to the side.

Add some olive oil into a frying pan and heat. Split the skins of the sausages. Squeeze the meat out into small meatballs directly into the fying pan. Fry until golden brown then add some sliced courgette to the pan and cook until soft.

Add the broad beans to the frying pan with the pasta and sauce. Toss to coat and serve.

It was lovely and the little meatballs were great. This dish was quick to make too.

I am entering this dish into this weeks Presto Pasta Nights. This week is hosted by Michelle at the Greedy Gourmet. Make sure you check out the round up.

Green veg cannelloni

One of my favourite pasta dishes is spinach and ricotta cannelloni. On Monday we still had a lot of green vegetables leftover from our box. So I decided to substitute the spinach for the other veg we had. We used cannelloni tubes but these could easily be substituted with fresh lasagne sheets, which you could roll with the filling to make tubes.

Green veg cannelloni
(Serves 2 greedy people or four with some bread and salad)

• Broad beans
• 1 Courgette, grated
• Broccoli
• Ricotta cheese, 250g
• Pecorino cheese, 3 tbsps
• Cannelloni tubes
• Tomato pasta sauce (we made our own, but you could use shop bought)
  
• Cheddar cheese
  

For the filling: boil the broccoli for 5 mins and beans for about 3 mins. Remove the beans from their skins. In a boil mash up the broccoli. To the broccoli add the beans, courgette, ricotta, pecorino cheese, salt and pepper.

Fill the tubes with the mixture.

Put a tablespoon or so of the tomato sauce on the base of a oven proof dish, they place the tubes in the dish. Cover the tubes with the rest of the sauce. Top with the cheddar cheese.

Bake at gas mark 6 for 20-30 mins, until cheese is golden and tubes are soft.

This dish made a great alternative to the spinach and ricotta classic and helped us use up the green veg left. The change also meant that we packed roughly 4 portions of veg into one meal (counting the tomatoes in the sauce, which do count by the way).

I am entering this into this week Presto Pasta Nights which this week is held by Ruth at Once Upon a Feast, make sure you check out the round up.

God bless Nigel!

We are not very religious people but we do worship somethings/people. For example we both worship Jonny Wilkinson, especially his right foot. I regularly give thanks for the existence of Le Creuset. Todays post is about someone that is also high revered, Nigel Slater. I love the way he writes about food. I am currently enjoying his Eating for England book. This Saturday we went to the Farmers Market and bought some lamb loin chops, with a recipe of Nigel's in mind. This recipe is from his Kitchen Diaries book. The orginial recipe contains aubergine but Nigel doesn't like people to follow his recipes to the letter. So we adapted it to the veg we had from our box.

• 1 onion, sliced thickly
• 4 garlic cloves, peeled and left whole
• 6 tomatoes, halved
• 6 small potatoes, halved lengthwise
• 1 turnip, chopped into large chunks
• 1 courgette, chopped into large sticks
• 4 lamb double loin chops
• Olive oil

Into a large roasting tin put the onion, turnip, garlic cloves , tomatoes and potatoes. Add about a tablespoon or so of olive oil, toss the veg so they are covered and season. If we had some thyme or rosemary I would have put this in too. Put this into a oven gas mark 6 for 30 mins.

After 30 mins, add the courgette and then top with the lamb chops. Turn the oven up gas mark 7 and cook for another 30 mins.

We love this recipe, its a roast dinner without all the washing up. Thank you Nigel!

Like that but not that.

A lot of the food I cook comes from reading recipes on the web and changing them in some way. Even more after we got the veg box, as we don't always have what the recipe states. It reminds me of a Mitchell and Webb sketch:



This is something that Andrew and I quote a lot. When we get the veg box, we get a newsletter which comes with recipe. This week's recipe was a courgette and broad bean pasta dish. So on Wednesday I decided to make this dish using gnocchi. We have a lot of potatoes, so gnocchi is a good way to use them up. For the sauce I fried onion and garlic until soft. I then added a sliced courgette again cooked it until soft. Some chopped tomatoes, olives and cooked broad beans. I then stirred in the gnocchi and put it an ovenproof dish. This was topped with mozzarella and pecorino and grilled until browned.


Today whilst I was looking for something to do with marrow. I came across a forum when someone said that they used marrow instead of aubergine in moussaka. So I started to look around for vegetarian moussaka recipes. What I made wasn't an authentic moussaka, nothing like it but it tasted great.

I fried an finely diced onion and crushed garlic in some olive oil. Once they were soft I added some chopped garlic and carrot. After 5 mins I added a tin of chopped tomatoes and a tinful of water, a pinch of sugar, dried crush chillies. A few handfuls of red lentils were added and this was simmered for 20 mins, until the lentils were cooked. I then added a tin of green lentils. I put a layer of sliced marrow (which were steamed for a couple of mins) in a greased ovenproof dish. Then I put a half of the lentil mixture, then another layer of the marrow, then lentil again. This was topped with sliced potato (which was also cooked). The potato was covered with a white sauce. This was finished with mozzarella and cheddar. Not at all authentic, but it tasted really great.

This week in the box we got:

• Marrow
• Courgette
• Broad beans
• Tomatoes
• Red Kale
• Cabbage
• Celery
• Potatoes
  
• Onion
• Carrots

I broke the rules . .

I have a silly rule, I think it comes from my Mum. We never have the same carbohydrate for dinner twice in a row. But this week I broke the rules. Andrew is away working this week, so I have spent most of my time writing up. And cooking is just the excuse I need to leave my thesis for long periods of time, so I have been cooking quick and easy things to resist temptation. Which means for the last two days pasta! In my defence they were at least different shaped pasta.

On Monday, another person in the lab passed their viva. We had a nice spread of food and champagne to celebrate. There were loads of leftover olives, so we all took some home.

On Tuesday I made a tapenade (olives, capers and olive oil) and then stir this into pasta put it into an ovenproof dish. I then added some tomatoes, topped with grated pecorino and pine nuts. I cooked it on gas mark 6 for 20 mins, until the cheese had melted.

Today I had spaghetti. Again with olives, there were quite a lot. I still have some left. So whilst the pasta was cooking. I heated some olive oil in a frying added some sliced garlic, then add some chopped tomatoes, capers, olives, pinch of dried chilli flakes, couple of spoonfuls of the pasta cooking water and a splash of red wine vinegar. When the pasta is cooked and to the sauce. I topped this with grated pecorino and griddled courgettes.

I am entering this pasta dish into this week's Presto Pasta Nights roundup, which this week is hosted by Gay at A Scientist in the Kitchen. The roundup should be up on Friday.

If at first you don't suceed . . .

When I was at the Farmers Market I saw some smoked mussels. Andrew loves smoked fish, so I bought them. I did have an idea of what I wanted to do with them. The idea was to a tomatoey rice/paella thing. Not exactly clear, I know. But I knew what I wanted to make.

The first time I tried this I used long grain rice and did it on the hob. It was OK, but not how I wanted it. So this time I took inspiration from Bill Granger's Baked Risotto. It turned out much better, just as I had imagined. The Smoked mussels were great too.

Baked paella risotto

• olive oil
  
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 180 g risotto rice
• chorizo, chopped
• 1 tin of chopped tomatoes (400g)
• 375 ml vegetable stock
  
• A couple of handfuls of frozen sweetcorn
• 1 courgette, sliced
• Smoked mussels
  

Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 6

In a casserole dish cook the chorizo in some olive oil until it releases its fat and starts to colour. Add the onion until it softens but doesn't colour. Add the rice and stir for a minute.

Add the stock and tomatoes and bring up to the boil, stir in the sweetcorn and courgette. Cover and put in the oven for 20-30 mins until rice is cooked. Stir in the smoked mussels and serve. We had some creme fraiche on the top.

Eating our greens

The veg box arrived this week bursting with greens, this week:

• Courgettes
• Broad beans
• Broccoli
• Spring cabbage
• Kohl Rabi
  
• Tomatoes
• Onions
• Potatoes
• Carrots

I seem to cook pasta on the day of the box arrival. I am not sure why but again we had pasta today. Once I saw the courgettes, beans and broccoli. I wanted to make a creamy lemon pasta with these veg.

So I blanched the beans in boiling water for a few minutes, for the last minute I added the broccoli. I fried a sliced garlic clove on a medium heat for a few seconds before adding one sliced courgette. After a couple of mins I added the broccoli and cooked for a minute. I then added the beans, lemon zest and lemon juice. I added some of the pasta cooking water, creme fraiche and pecorino cheese. I then stirred in the pasta. This topped with a bit more pecorino and toasted pine nuts. The lemon worked really well with the green veg and the pine nuts added a nice crunch.

We are starting to get a lot of tomatoes in our box now. So I expect that next weeks pasta dish will have a tomato based sauce.

Again this will be entered into this weeks Presto Pasta Nights will be hosted by Ruth @ Once Upon A Feast. The round up will be posted on Ruth's blog on Thursday.

The Weekend

On Saturday I went to the Farmers Market. I bought some salmon with a specific dish in mind. With the pak choi in the veg box, I wanted to make a Bill Granger recipe. The recipe was taken from Simply Bill, its glazed salmon. Its a simple dish which is served with brown rice and steamed pak choi.

When I went to the Farmers Market I also bought some lamb neck fillet. I had intended to use this to make kebabs, but the weather on Sunday was a bit grim. So I fancied something warming. Andrew had wanted to have Lancashire hotpot for a while. So I decided to use the neck fillet in a hotpot. I have never been to Lancashire, so I have never taste the authentic dish. I am not sure how this measures against it.

I thinly sliced a kohl rabi (leftover from the veg box) and potatoes and covered the bottom of the casserole dish with it.

I then lightly fried an onion in vegetable oil. Once soft I put this on top of the potatoes.

The meat was cut into medium chunks and coated in seasoned flour. This was fried in oil and bit of butter until brown and then put into the casserole dish, I also tucked in some large chunks of carrots. I added some (about 1 tbsp) Worcestershire sauce.

This was then covered with more thinly sliced potato. Vegetable stock was poured over, just enough to cover the top of the potatoes. This was then covered and put in the oven for 20 mins at gas mark 6, then turn down the oven to gas mark 1 and cook for 1 hour. The lid was then removed and the oven was turned up to gas mark 6 and it was cooked for a final 20 mins to brown the top.

We had this with some pickled cabbage. This was bought from a deli and we both really liked this, So I will definitely make some.

This was delicious and I expect that we will make many more this winter.

Sweet Nothings

When we went down to Andrew's parents I acquired a new recipe, for teabread. I have been told by Andrew that this is a Broadway speciality. Apparently if I am ever to get Broadway behind my name I have to learn to make this and also pavlova, another Broadway speciality. So one down, one to go.


Teabread

• 6 oz Currants
• 6 oz Sultanas
• 8 oz Dark brown Sugar
• 1/2 pint Hot black tea
  
• 10 oz Self raising flour
• 1 beaten egg

Put the sugar, currants and sultanas in a bowl, pour on the hot tea, stir well. Cover and leave overnight.

Grease and line a loaf tin. Heat oven to gas mark 2.

Stir in the flour and egg into the fruit and sugar mixture.

Mix thoroughly, put in the tin and bake for an hour and 45 mins.

Turn out onto a wire rack to cool.


Last week, I also made a carrot cake for a lab meeting. My supervisor had been given some very special chocolates from a swanky meeting he went to in London. He took them to the meeting but nobody touched them but my carrot cake went down a storm. I will definitely be making it again. I used a recipe from BBC Good Food. If you make it be warned that the recipe seemed to make too much icing, I would half it.

Cabbage Pesto

I have been wanting to make pesto for ages, but with amount of Basil needed for a traditional pesto made it quite pricey. The last time we were visiting Andrew's folks we were given 3 basil seedlings. As you can see for the photo they are doing well but not well enough to make pesto from.


I have seen loads of recipes for pesto made with rocket, spinach and watercress. So with spring cabbage in our box this week I decided to give a cabbage pesto a go.

I suppose pesto is a bit like Thai Green Curry paste everyone has there own recipe with different ratios of ingredients. SoI gave it a go. I used 2 tbsp of pecorino cheese, a handful of pine kernels, 1 garlic cloves, lemon zest, juice of half a lemon, cabbage leaves which had been cooked for 4 mins in boiling water and olive oil to loosen.

Andrew had gone climbing so I prepared everything beforehand. Its the scientist in me!


So when Andrew came back, I fried a courgette. I then added the tomatoes until they had soften slightly. The pesto was added, as was a pinch of chilli flakes. Finally cooked penne and a handful of black olives was added.

I didn't tell Andrew what the pesto was made with and he thought that it was made from parsley, so the cabbage taste obviously wasn't over-powering. I did put a lot of cheese in it though.

For the third week in row I will be entering this into this weeks Presto Pasta Night which this week is hosted by Hillary of Chew On That. Have a look at the round, which should on Hillary's site on Friday.

Broad Beans

After the runner beans in last weeks box, this week we had broad beans. I wanted to put them with some pasta, so I started hunting around my book collection. I came across a recipe for broad bean and ricotta pasta in Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diaries. I only made a couple of changes.

I podded the beans and boiled them until they were cooked about 8 mins. I then skinned the beans. I then gently fried some sliced garlic cloves, without browning, in some olive oil. After a minute, I added the beans and a handful of spinach. Then I added 25o g of ricotta and the juice of a lemon. The cooked pasta was added to this mixture.


Then pasta was dished with a drizzle of olive oil and some grated pecorino.

I am entering this into this weeks Presto Pasta Nights, which this week is hosted by Ruth @ Once Up A Feast. Make sure you have a look at the round up.

With the decent weather we have been having the veg box is getting a bit more exciting:

• Purple Kohl Rabi
• Spring Cabbage
• Spinach
• Broad Beans
• Lettuce
• Tomatoes
• Onions
• Carrots
• Potatoes

If you can't beat them, join them!

After reading the weekly curry posts from Jules and this post from stonehead at the weekend. We decided to have Rogan Josh for dinner on Sunday. I really love curry and the fact it is so loved in Britain. Whenever we have a new person in the lab I'm always directing them to my favourite Indian restaurant as well as my favourite Scottish restaurants. As you can see from the photo this was washed down with a pint of Black Sheep. Some people seem to have the perception that curry is a difficult thing to make but its dead easy!

Rogan Josh (Serves 4-6)

• 1 Kg beef or lamb, we use stewing beef
• 2 onions (chopped)
• 125g plain yogurt
• 1 tsp chilli powder
• 1 tbsp ground coriander
• 2 tsp cumin
• 2 tsp ground cardamon
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• 1 tsp tumeric
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 tbsp grated ginger
• 400g can of chopped tomatoes
• 1 tsp garam marsala
• Almonds
• Fresh coriander

1. Fry onions in some vegetable oil until soft.
2. Stir in yoghurt, garlic, ginger and spices.
3. Add tomatoes, season and simmer for a few minutes.
4. Add meat.
5. Cover and cook for 1-1 and a 1/2 hr.
6. Take the lid off and reduce sauce.
7. Toast almonds.
8. When the sauce is thick enough, add the garam marsala and coriander.
9. Serve and top with almonds.
   

Bravo tatties

I have only been to Spain once, a quick trip to Barcelona. When I was there I had some wonderful food including octopus. The one thing I didn't have is patatas bravas. So I am not sure what the authenic article tastes like but this is my version.

I fried some chorizo which I got from the farmers market (puddledub). After it was brown I added some potatoes and sliced onions. Once these were browned, I added a chopped green chilli and some paprika as the chorizo didn't seem to have as much as Spanish versions. I then added a can of tomatoes and also a can of water and simmered until the potatoes were cooked and the sauce was thickened.

We ate this with a green salad. I know that in Spain that this would be a tapas but it made a great meal.

Actually quite nice!

I remember the first time I had gnocchi, it was in Carluccio's Caffe at Bluewater Shopping Centre. I know that not everyone likes gnocchi. But I love it, light and fluffy potato dumplings. They are so simple to make too.

Potato Gnocchi (Serves 2)

• 400g potatoes
• 100g flour
• 1 egg yolk

Boil the potatoes for 8-10 mins until soft. Drain and put them back in the pan on the heat to drive off as much water as possible. Mash the potatoes, then add the egg yolk and flour. Mix, until it comes together. Then knead on a well floured surface. Take a handful of the mix and roll into a sausage. Then cut into 2 inch pieces and place on a well floured tray. Repeat with the rest. Press a fork into the gnocchi. Bring a pan of water to the boil. Cook the gnocchi in batches, they are ready when the float to the surface. Drain onto kitchen roll.


This week in the box we got some spring greens. I thought about making a pesto with it but I chose to do this instead.

I chopped an onion and lightly fried it in olive oil. I then added the spring greens which were finely sliced, after a couple of minutes I added some vermouth and let it reduce a little. At this point I would have added some creme fraiche but I didn't have any, so I substitute it with some yoghurt. Then stirred in some pecorino.

I put the gnocchi in an ovenproof dish and put the spring green mixture over the top and finally some mozzarella. This was then grilled until golden.


Andrew was a bit worried cause there wasn't a sauce as such but apparently it was actually quite nice!

In the box this week:

• Spring greens
• Lettuce
• Rocket
• Celery
• Tomatoes
• Carrots
• Onions
• Potatoes
• Rhubarb

Refuelling

One of the great things about doing a Munro apart from being outside, is the feeling that you have earned a good meal. The best thing to have after a walk is a steak pie and a pint. I didn't have time to do that by the time we got home. So we settled for pizza and a beer.



This was followed by rhubarb crumble and custard.



In a ovenproof dish, I mixed rhubarb and caster sugar together, 100g of sugar to 450g of fruit. Then to make the topping rub 75g of butter into 175g of flour when it looks like breadcrumbs add 50g of sugar and put on top the fruit and bake for 45-60 mins at gas mark 4. Perfect after a day in the hills

Asparagus risotto

After picking our own asparagus last weekend and watching the first episode of River Cottage Spring. I now had a taste for it. So for dinner tonight we had Nigel Slater's asparagus and lemon risotto from The Kitchen Diaries book. Its very simple just add asparagus (which have been prepared and chopped into bite sized pieces) after adding the first couple of ladles of stock. When the rice is cooked, stir in some parmesan and the juice and rind of a lemon.


As the asparagus season is so short you really need to make the most of it. I am sure that I will post more asparagus recipes before the season is over.

Dhal Wars

This week in Veg Box we got:

• Lettuce
• Tomatoes
• Celery
• Spring greens
• Spinach
• Rhubarb
• Carrots
• Onion
• Potatoes

Andrew suggested that we had lentil dhal. I prefer to make mine with red lentils whereas Andrew prefers to use brown lentils. So here is my recipe, I am sure that Andrew will put his recipe on later.

• 200 g red lentils
• 1 onion, finely sliced
  
• 1 red chilli, finely sliced
• 1 thumb-sized piece of ginger, sliced
  
• 1/2 tsp tumeric
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 2 tsp ground coriander
• 2 tomatoes, roughly chopped
• 1 handful of spinach
• 1 lemon

Put lentils, onion, red chilli, ginger, spices and tomatoes into a saucepan. Top with water, bring to the boil and then simmer for 20 mins or until lentils are soft. Then add the spinach and lemon juice, stir. Make sure the spinach has wilted and serve.

Andrew prefers the brown lentils as they keep their shape better. My dhal has a much softer texture.

We had it topped with yoghurt, served with rice and Andrew's flatbread.

Brain food pt 2 . . .

The thesis is slowing turning my brain to mush. So I am stepping up my campaign to save my brain. I have been having tinned tuna as part of my lunch this week. On Monday we had kedgeree. When I first knew Andrew, he told me that he didn't like fish. Well, he does now. He loves smoked fish the best, I use smoked haddock in my kedgree. I always put something green in my kedgree depending on what we have it can be kale, spinach or peas.

First of all you need to poach the haddock in water and milk, 300ml of each. Put the fish into a pan with the liquid bring to a simmer and then turn off and leave to cool. When the fish is cool enough to touch, flake it and put it aside. I then cooked an onion (sliced) in a pan with some oil until soft, then add the rice (175 g) for a couple mins. Then add 2 tsp of curry powder. Some peas were then added and 400 ml of the poaching liquid and cover. Let this cook on a low heat for 10-15 mins until the rice is cooked. I served the rice with the haddock on top, with a soft boiled egg and lemon.

The battle to save my brain against the evil thesis continues . . .

This week in the veg box (just a small one this week) we got:

• Little gem lettuce
• White cabbage
  
• Rhubarb
• Spinach
• Potatoes
• Carrots
• Onions
  

Pickling vinegar

At Christmas Andrew's mum gave us a huge jar of pickle onions to take back with us. This jar has lasted us well and is still going, but I know that I should get a head start on making some more. I copied the recipe down from Andrew's Mum's book. So tonight I start the first step in making my first batch of pickle onions.

First of all here is the recipe:

• 24 black peppercorns
• 24 cloves
• 2 tbsp mustard seeds
• 2 tbsp allspice (I used berries not ground)
• 2 2tbsp dried chillies (I used flaked)

You put all the spices in a glass bowl and add two pints of vinegar. You then put the bowl over a saucepan which has some water in. Cover the bowl with a plate. Then bring the water to boil, take off the heat and let it steep for 2 hours.


Then strain out the spices and bottle the vinegar. You can add the spices to cold vinegar and steep for 6 weeks but our supply is running out!!!

I now need to go and buy some onions/shallots before the next stage, watch this space . . .