Chocolate orange profiteroles & sibling rivalry

So here it is - or there it was - Christmas is over and the New Year nearly upon us. A time of reflection and anticipation etc etc. It's been an important year in the Recipe Junkie household on many levels - the big move west in February and all that's brought for us, Blue getting the big all clear from his leukaemia in the summer, 5 years after the end of his chemo, and yes, I've mastered choux pastry.

Not perhaps as significant as the other 2 major highlights of the year which have impacted in a major way on all of us, but as a personal highlight, it ranks pretty highly (and who am I kidding, the mob are pretty chuffed that these are now no longer a dessert dream, but a very real pudding possibility).

Another major milestone was my parents' celebrating a milestone birthday in March, which saw all of us (my parents, me, my brothers, our spouses, children and Fred the dog) gathered at a rather luxurious barn conversion outside Bristol for a long weekend. Significant in itself that we were all together in the same place which is at best an annual event these days, it was lovely to spend time with my parents and brothers, all of whom I love very much and don't see enough of, and to see the cousins getting on so well. It was also endlessly entertaining watching Fred the dog do his best to catch one of the Koi carp that floated langorously in a pool outside...

The barn had the most amazing kitchen with the most enormous AGA I've ever seen - I suspect you really needed a licence to drive it - and plenty of gadetry, but astonishingly hardly anything to actually cook with or on, pans and tins-wise. We who had elected to cater had to be inventive. My contribution to proceedings was a massive Sunday roast, with one of my brothers knocking up dessert.

And knock up he did - profiteroles, just like that. Choux pastry made with no scales or anything. As far as I could work out he just did it by eye - and this from the bloke who's spent a significant part of his adult life mapping jungles in Africa (or something). To say the man has hidden talents would be an understatement.

And while I was, as you'll understand, delighted not to have had to make a pudding, having slaved over roast pork for 12, that little corner of my soul reserved for sibling rivalry that we all like to pretend doesn't exist now we're all grown ups and can put the the irritants of childhood behind us (yeah, right), was definitely awakened, agitated, and up for the challenge.

Or not - because at least once a week since Easter, I have thought to myself, right, choux pastry. And then thought - may be not, After all, it's quite decadent once you fill everything with cream. And the leftovers will only get left in the fridge and I'll just eat them. And we're busy this weekend... Nervous? Afraid of failure? Too worried about whether I'd be unable to better (or frankly, even equal) the brother's efforts? You bet. Sibling rivalry sucks...

But no longer, I have broken by choux pastry duck thanks to the magic of Vicky North and her nascent Vic North Cookery School (runner up in the Best New Cookery School of 2014, doncha know?!) nestled in the beautiful North Pembrokeshire countryside not very far from here. A day of pastry included sweet, savoury, puff and choux. Inspiring and practical, I am no longer scared of making pastry, and am now fully equipped to make profiteroles, much to the delight of my family.

These are filled with a mixture of the orange curd I made the other day and softly whipped cream and topped with the most divine chocolate 'ganache' which is not ganache at all in the conventional way, but made with coconut oil, cocoa and honey. A complete revelation. You should try it.

And in a break from tradition, I made sure everything was ready before I began. Another revelation...

Chocolate orange profiteroles

Makes many

125g plain flour,
225g water (yes - weigh it!)
60g unsalted butter
1/2 tsp salt
4 eggs

300ml double cream
jar of orange curd (or whatever you fancy - or not at all)

60g runny honey
30g coconut oil, melted
20g cocoa
pinch of salt

Pre-heat your oven to 180C.

Sift the flour into a large bowl, and put the water, butter and salt into a pan.

Put your eggs by your mixer, K beater/paddle attachment fitted, and get a piping bag ready with a large nozzle.

Line 2 baking sheets with greaseproof paper - I usually secure it with clothes pegs for the piping part but remember to whip them off before putting them in the oven.

Ready to go? 

Bring the water butter & salt to the boil.

Tip the flour into the boiling water, reduce the heat and beat the mixture as vigorously as you can with a wooden spoon for 4 minutes. It's a killer, but worth it.

When the mixture is glossy and comes away from the sides of the pan, tip it into the mixer bowl and beat for a minute.

Keep the beater running then add the eggs one at a time. You may not need all of them - keep an eye on the mixture. You're aiming for a smooth glossy mix that will hold its shape when being piped.

Dollop this into your piping bag and do the thing. I'm no expert piper - you could also dollop the mixture out using spoons I think. Leave space between your mounds of paste to allow for rising during baking.

Bake for 15-20 minutes till puffed up and golden. When the buns come out of the oven, immediately make a small slit in each one to let out the steam and stop your buns going soggy.

Leave to cool.

Whisk the cream up with half a jar of orange curd if using and pipe that into the buns - easier said then done - I made a bit of a mess if we're honest, but the cream tastes darn good, and really is anyone going to mind??

Mix together the honey, coconut oil and cocoa, and working quickly, smear on the buns and chill till required.

So it just remains for me to wish you all Happy New Year. Thanks for following my blog this year - looking forward to 2015. xxx

Builders' Tart

When I wrote about the Cardigan Pizza Tipi a few weeks ago, I didn't mention that pizza is only served from 6 p.m. Go to eat earlier than that, on a warm sunny lunchtime (they do happen in Wales), and you'll find quiche on the menu, but not just any old quiche.

Oh no. Delicious, buttery individual pastry cases packed with perfectly paired, locally sourced (where possible) ingredients; salads bursting with flavour, and freshness, full of sunshine.

I went with the kids and my parents earlier in the summer. Pink was in disagreeable mood. 

"But I don't LIKE quiche. What am I going to eat?"

Unfortunately, the alternative was mushroom soup. Pink has an avowed (and most disappointing) hatred of mushrooms, and I was starting to get a little bit weary of the whinging, which she can keep up for an admirably long time when the mood takes her, when I hit upon the solution.

Yes, I pandered to her.

"Well, look, this one with sausage and bacon in it - that's not quiche - that's a TART."

Problem solved.

I don't really approve of my actions, but needs must and all that, and it was worth it to get her to eat the Builders Quiche that I knew she'd love: sausages, bacon from the local butcher, cannelini beans, the usual eggy cheesy filling. I don't even know why she objects to quiche in the first place - omelette, eggy bread, poached eggs - probably some of her favourite things to eat.

I wanted to recreate the quiche/tart this week for some friends. Off to Dewi James in Cardigan for chipolatas in natural casings and streaky bacon (I got my eggs there too), and, as advised by the pastry chef at the Tipi when we asked him - the best Welsh butter I could find.

Pastry's not my forte - I'm not going into that again - and my finished shell, post blind-baking was not a thing of beauty, but I was pleased with the flavour and the butteriness of the pastry as part of the end result; and while that end result might not quite have captured the full essence of the Tipi's own Builder's Quiche (I'm wondering if I was missing some sliced tomatoes), it was definitely getting there.

Builders' Quiche/Tart

Serves 8 generously

Ingredients

300g plain flour
150g best Welsh butter
1 large egg yolk
around 50 ml cold milk

1 large onion
8 rashers of streaky bacon
8 good quality chipolata sausages
2 tablespoons of rapeseed oil
5 large eggs
500 ml semi-skimmed milk
fresh ground salt & pepper
400g can cannellini beans
75g grated cheddar

Method

Make the pastry: in a food processor, whiz the flour and butter to crumbs then add in the egg yolk and pulse to combine. Slowly add the milk till the mixture just starts to come together, then bring it together with your hands, knead it briefly to form a ball, flatten, wrap in clingflim and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Once the pastry is rested, remove it from the fridge.

Pre-heat the oven to 170C.

Line a 28 cm, deep quiche dish and bake blind for 20 mins - I line my uncooked pastry case with greaseproof and add baking beans (because I have them) for this bit, then remove the beans and paper and cook for a further 5 minutes.

At the same time, chop the onions relatively finely, and snip up the bacon in to bitesize strips.

Combine the onion and bacon in an oven proof dish, drizzle over 1 tablespoon of oil, mix together and pop in the oven for about 30 mins, stirring every so often.

Put the sausages in an oven proof dish, drizzle with the remaining oil and pop in the oven too for around 30 mins, shaking the dish every so often (when you stir the onions and bacon).

While the pastry is baking blind and the onions, bacon and sausages are in the oven, whisk up the eggs, add in the milk and the fresh ground salt and pepper.

Grate the cheese, drain the cannellini beans.

Once the case is baked and the onions bacon and sausage are cooked as indicated, you're ready to assemble.

Scatter the onion and bacon mix over the bottom of the pastry case, and arrange the sausages, fan-like, over the top. Scatter over the cannellini beans, then the cheese, finally pour in the eggy mixture on top then return the whole thing to the oven for 30-40 minutes, till it's baked and golden.

I'm afraid my photos of the finished product were rubbish, but I quite liked this one...

Camping food - Cheese & Marmite Pasties

We had another camping trip this weekend. A quick one in that we didn't head off till Saturday morning, and didn't go far - just to where we keep a sailing dinghy on Southampton Water. The view is not beautiful (Fawley oil refinery, although it does have a certain industrial beauty) but it's situated in a lovely country park, and there is a camping field attached to the club. Nothing grand, but a flat sheltered field - and frankly that's all you need.

Anyway, now we have Daisy the campervan, which is fully stocked and ready to go at a moment's notice from a 'kit' point of view, my main concern (well, isn't it always) is food. Clothes too, but I've long since learned that for a weekend trip, there's no point packing much in the way of 'changes of clothes'. I just try to make sure there's a jumper and some waterproofs, for any inclement weather that might be rude enough to strike, and appropriate easy access footwear (crocs or wellies). If you were looking for it, I can't really offer much more advice than that on the packing front as far as clothes are concerned. I also don't have a 'master camping list' to share with you - of a type which I once saw passed from one friend to another, kept as a reference document for future trips. As long as I know there's gin on board, I can live with out a dustpan and brush...

Not just gin, but treats. Some form of cake (this weekend, there was brownie). Bacon, for sandwiches on Sunday morning. Proper coffee (Daisy has her own stovetop coffee maker - yes, I know, proper coffee probably smacks more of glamping than camping, but I don't care - you can't beat an alfresco bacon buttie with a mug of proper coffee of a morning). This weekend, we also had cheese & marmite pasties.

Pasties are a great thing. What's more, I don't know a man who doesn't find his food infinitely more attractive if it's wrapped in pastry. I might try wrapping myself in pastry one of these days and see what reaction that provokes - or may be not.

Despite dashing the collective male hopes in the RJ household when the response to the question "Have they got meat in them?" garnered the response "No.  Well, they do have Marmite", the verdict was that they were pretty good.

They started out as  Good Food recipe, but frankly, I am always suspicious of pasty filling quantity these days, having over produced on several occasions, despite having followed filling to pastry ratios in a number of recipes to the letter. So I reduced the filling ingredients to something I thought more likely, and added in a good handful of chopped parsley.

Cheese & Marmite Pasties

Made 7 decent sized pasties and a small one.


500g shortcrust pastry
350g peeled, grated potato
100g grated cheddar
60g fresh breadcrumbs
4 spring onions, finely chopped
1 large handful of flat leaf pastry, finely chopped
1 large & 1 medium egg
salt & pepper
1 good tablepoon of Marmite Line a baking sheet with greaseproof paper.

Pre-heat the oven to 160C/140 fan, and line a baking sheet with greaseproof paper.

Mix together the grated potato, cheese, breadcrumbs, spring onions and chopped parsley with the large egg and a good grind of salt and pepper.

Roll out the pastry on a floury worktop and cut out 16-17cm circles of pastry (our cereal bowls are the right size) - as many as you can: hopefully you'll get about 7.

Melt the Marmite in a saucepan with a splash of water, and brush onto the pastry rounds, leaving a border all the way round of about 1-2 cm. Divide the filling between the pastry circles, placing in the middle of the rounds. Beat the remaining egg, brush lightly around the border of each circle, then draw up the sides and squeeze together to make your pasties. Brush with the remaining beaten egg*, then place on a lined baking sheet and bake for between 50-60 minutes (mine took 55) till golden brown.

In an effort to come over all vintage picnic chic, I packed my pasties in my favourite cake tin, lined with a tea towel. Wrapped in foil, or in a plastic bag would do just fine.

I'm linking up to a new blog challenge - Four Seasons Food, which looks like fun!


Four Seasons Food hosted by Delicieux and Chezfoti




*The original recipe states that these can be frozen once the pasties are formed but before you brush them with the beaten egg, and then baked from frozen till the centres are piping hot. I didn't but it's a top tip, guaranteed to elevate you in the pasty queen stakes...

Pastry - and pasties

OK, so I don't want you to think I'm getting too big for my boots here, but allow me to whisper something

*I may have cracked pastry*

There. I won't say it too loudly, but 3 times in as many weeks, I have made pastry and it's worked out OK.

Admittedly not 'short as short' shortcrust pastry, but pastry nonetheless.

First, I made Hugh F-W's swede and potato pasties from Veg Everyday, which involves his rough puff pastry. A bit of rolling and turning is required, but really, this is very little effort pastry and tastes brilliant.

Then, a rather unusual rapeseed oil and spelt flour affair as part of a leek tart that appears in Rose Elliot's 30 Minute Vegetarian. My mother in law was down for the weekend a couple of weeks ago. She is a vegetarian and this book is a great resource - the meals are brilliantly easy, very tasty and dead quick. Not necessarily a good thing, I'll grant you, if you were hoping to escape to the kitchen for a while - although don't ask ME why you'd want to do that, oh no... But I digress. I'd planned this for Sunday lunch, but she had to leave early, so we spent the day in the garden and I made this for tea. And in case you were wondering, because she'd gone home, I added some ham. 

The pastry literally involved mixing the flour and oil together with a little water, then rolling it out between clingfilm 

 

before lining the tin and baking blind. 

OK, so may be a little patching was required

The Husband thought it was a bit odd - it does have quite a strong flavour - a combination of the rapeseed oil and the spelt flour - and the texture of the pastry, once baked was a little crumbly, but I liked it. Actually, the tart as a whole was pretty good. Pink didn't like it that much, but Blue who I was expecting to wail and moan about it, pronounced it delicious. The filling is what you'd expect from a quiche, but without the eggs. You thicken the filling (cream, leeks, say no more) with cornflour, pile it into the pastry case, and give it a final blast in the oven.

Thus inspired, and hot on the heels of my outing with the kids in Daisy to Bracknell forest last week, we loaded up the van last Sunday, and headed out to a relatively local beauty spot/place of interest called Combe Gibbet (or 'Combe Giblet' as Pink rather endearingly insisted on calling it). As you might have guessed, it's a hill where they used to hang people. Rather a grisly destination, but the kids were pretty delighted by the potential horror of it all, and all things considered, the view was pretty spectacular at the top.

It was quite windy, though!

"All this wind plays havoc with one's hairdo..."

Anyway, an outing requires a picnic, so I used my new found pastry confidence (and the fact that I had no plain flour left in the cupboard, only spelt flour) to adapt the swede and potato pasties from Veg Everyday to make some mini swede, leek and potato pasties.

We ate them with brown sauce, followed by left over chocolate cake. A feast indeed! 

The Sunday Bake Off - the Festive Episode & Christmas Cake Part 3 - The Icing

So here it is - pretty much. Christmas 2012. 

We had our annual outing to the panto yesterday (Oh yes we did!) - Aladdin at the Theatre Royal in Winchester with my mother in law who buys us the tickets as a Christmas present, and then went out for a pizza before returning home. I'm not a lover of panto, but I like the one at Winchester. This is the third year we've been. A lot of the actors are the same every year, and the dame is always exceptional. This year there was much heckling from the junior members of the audience and as a result, much improvisation from the cast, which is always a good thing. We had a good meal, and despite the unseasonally mild, wet and windy weather, Winchester looked beautiful with the lights illuminating the high street. Actually, I watched the Wartime Farm at Christmas the other day, and was very interested to learn that the myth of our 'white Christmases' is almost entirely down to Charles Dickens who experienced the frost fair years of the early 19th century and perpetuated the idea that it is always a white Christmas, frosty, glorious in his novels. But I digress.

I was up early this morning. There's no denying that I am a 'lark' and I consider the early morning at the weekends to be 'my time'. The kids have unfettered access to the TV, the Husband sleeps, and usually, I will be out walking the dog. The dog has been staying with mum for the last 10 days, so this morning, I had a rare opportunity to potter in the kitchen.

First up was a mushroom and bean casserole to go in the slow cooker for lunch. My mother in law is a vegetarian, and this seemed to be a likely candidate for an easy lunch, out of a book by Rose Elliot which my mum gave me as an early Christmas present - quick vegetarian meals: a kind of 30 Minute Meals for veggies. Obviously, by adapting it for the slow cooker, I extended the cooking time somewhat, but the principle was the same - easy and tasty. Necessary food sorted, on to the good stuff.

Cranberry Bakewell Tart. I made cranberry jam yesterday, and the pastry (left overnight in the fridge), so it was a matter of lining the tin with the pastry, spreading in the jam and making the almond sponge topping. The pastry was direct from the recipe in Feast - it's a great pastry: including ground almonds, clementine zest and icing sugar with the flour - but you could use shop bought. The quantities in Feast are for a 26cm loose bottomed tart tin. Mine is smaller than that so I had the opportunity to make more mince pies.

The sponge is made by beating together 125g of caster sugar and ground almonds with 3 eggs, and then mixing in 125g of melted slightly cooled unsalted butted. Once it's all mixed, pour it over the jam, sprinkle over some flaked almonds and bake at 180 for about 45mins. You might want to check after 20 minutes and if it's looking like it might brown too much on top, cover with foil.

Just before serving I made a runny icing using the juice from half the clementine and drizzled it over the top of the tart. Nigella goes for a full on covering of royal icing and golden stars, but I've got wise to her sweet tooth, and the clementine-tinged drizzle was enough.

 With the left over pastry, I made some more mince pies. The ones I made a couple of days ago were OK but this pastry was much better, and if I get a chance tomorrow, I may make some more. I used the Cherry & Almond Mincemeat I made a few weeks ago.

 
















Once the tarts were in the oven, I got on with some bread. I have been neglecting my bread making, but re-enthused by the River Cottage course, I've had a sourdough starter up and running and it's now ready to use. I mixed up a 'sponge' last night (using a third of the flour, dried yeast and liquid I was intending to bake with), and then made my full dough this morning, using the sourdough starter as part of the liquid content, as well as the 'sponge'.  There's going to be a lot more of the bread in the New Year, so for now, you'll just have to be satisfied with a photo. 

good & "rustic"!

Last but not least, I iced the Christmas cake. In the end, Dr Oetker answered all my decorating needs. I came across a can of silver shimmer spray in the Co-Op yesterday when I was supposed to be buying a paper, and was irresistibly drawn to it. I already have a pack of ready to roll white icing in the (beautifully ordered) cupboard, so in the end I went for the path of least resistance. After a minor panic when I couldn't remember where in the beautifully ordered cupboards the box of decorating bits had gone, including the heirloom Father Christmas and Polar Bear, all was well, and I went for marzipan and icing stars, all sprayed liberally with silver shimmer. Marvellous.

All in all a very satisfying potter. 

After all that, the mother in law enjoyed her casserole and left with a big slice of the Cranberry Bakewell, and my parents have arrived, bringing the dog back. We've been out for a long walk to gather in holly, the tree is up, the presents are bought and wrapped. We have a full house till Friday, my parents, one of my brothers and his wife, then my father in law. On Saturday, we're off to London to see some fabulous friends, then we're back to host more fabulous friends here for New Year. It will be busy, foodie and fun. So now, with the scent of clove and onion infused milk wafting from the kitchen, ready for the bread sauce, I am setting down the lap top for a while, but I'll be back in 2013, refreshed and ready to blog.  

I wish you all a very happy and peaceful Christmas.  Enjoy!

What?! More cranberries? Cranberry Jam & possibly a Bakewell Tart

Now you'd think I'd have learned - the fact that I had a bag of cranberries in the freezer left over from last year which I turned into cranberry & orange sauce ready to accompany the Turkey on Tuesday, says something about the way I shop when I'm not concentrating and my head is turned. So what possessed me to virtually chuck a couple of bags of fresh cranberries into my virtual shopping trolley AFTER I'd made the aforesaid sauce is a mystery. But chuck I did, and rather than consign them to the freezer ready to be discovered next year, I decided that this year would be different.

Once again, Nigella has come to my rescue. She has a whole section devoted to cranberries in Feast, first up is Cranberry Jam.

Cranberries are full of pectin so it's a really easy jam to make - just an equal amount of cranberries to caster sugar. I had 600g of cranberries so I put a splash (literally, just enough to cover the bottom of the pan) of water in a large pan, added the cranberries and 600g of sugar and stirred over a low heat till all the sugar was dissolved.

If you haven't sterilised your jars, do so first, and make sure you keep them warm, either in the oven or in a bowl of hot water - otherwise they may crack when you decant the hot jam into them.
It does take a bit of time, and you can tell when it's all dissolved when the syrup that's being produced around the berries looks clear rather than cloudy. If you scoop a little out on the spoon and feel it, the sugar is dissolved when you can't feel anything but sticky syrup.

Then you have to increase the heat and bubble up the contents of the pan till it reaches setting point. This is where I always get the fear with any sort of jam. I was feeling more confident because I know that cranberries set very easily, but even so. In the end, although I did bung in the sugar thermometer, I also set the timer for the 7 minutes the Goddess indicates. The jam hadn't quite reached temperature at the 7 minute point but it was looking pretty jam like and I was worried that it might start to burn.

The jam went straight into the jars, and there was enough left over to go on the brioche that I made yesterday, for breakfast. Happy times.

And if I get round to it, there will be a Cranberry Bakewell Tart on the menu for tomorrow's lunch. Watch this space!

I am, of course, linking up to Maison Cupcake's Forever Nigella event, hosted this month by Laura on her blog lauralovescakes . Enjoy!

Blackberry frangipane tarts

On Tuesday, I found the first decent blackberries of the season. Typically I was out with the dog and had nothing with me intended for blackberrying purposes, so I had to make do with one of the bags I carry around (I have at least one in every pocket I own, often more) to clear up after the dog. It hadn't been used for its original purpose.

I didn't get many berries, but enough to turn into a pudding and make the kids feel cherished (perhaps) after their second day at school. They seemed to be knackered already after their first day back. I should be used to this by now - it happens every start of term, never more so than after the 6 week break, but it's hard going. The Husband had been away since Monday morning as well, so the kids were missing him as well as trying to settle into their new routine.

Good then, that tea was a big hit on a number of levels. We had crispy potatoes (thinly sliced, new-ish potatoes, par-boiled, then roasted on a baking tray with a sprinkling of sea salt, olive oil and crushed garlic in a hot oven till crispy) green & runner beans and poached eggs, all of which came from the garden (smug meal - sorry!).

I based the tarts on a recent Good Food recipe, but as usual made a few little changes. I couldn't find the original on their website so I can't link, but it was in the September 2012 issue.They are very, very good.

















Ingredients:

300g shortcrust pastry
cherry jam (which is what I had to hand - raspberry would be nice, or blackberry if you have some)
100g soft butter
100g caster sugar
100g ground almonds
1tbsp plain flour plus extra for rolling out the pastry
1 large egg
drop of almond extract
blackberries - I used about 60
a handful of flaked almonds
icing sugar


Method:

Pre-heat the oven to 200C/180 fan/gas 6.

Flour your work surface and roll out the pastry. Using an 8-9cm cutter (or the top of a pint glass, like I did), cut out 12 rounds and use to line a 12 hole bun tray. Put about 1/2 tsp of jam into the bottom of each case.

You'll notice how I go for the 'rustic' look...

 Beat together the butter, sugar and ground almonds, add in the egg, almond extract and flour and continue to beat together till light and fluffy.

Divide the mixture between the cases - it's quite tight but you'll get about a heaped tsp, maybe a little more to each case. Press the blackberries gently into the top of the mixture - I used 4-5 per tart as they weren't huge - if you buy them you'll probably get bigger fruit so will need fewer - and sprinkle over the flaked almonds. Bake for 15-20 minutes till lightly golden.

Allow to cool and dust with icing sugar to serve if desired (pretty cake stand optional, but I got this for my birthday earlier this year and decided I hadn't used it enough - and isn't it LOVELY??).

Tomato and 'Vegetarian Pasta Cheese' Tart

After our lovely trip to the Farmers Market this morning, I was trying to find a tomato tart recipe that I’m sure I have got somewhere. I couldn’t find the one I was thinking of, but tomato tart was what I wanted to make with the gorgeous baby plum tomatoes I bought from The Tomato Stall.

well - I didn't buy ALL of them, just 2 punnets

I made the easy tomato tart from Simon Rimmer’s ‘The Accidental Vegetarian’ a couple of months ago, so I thought it only fair to give St Hugh’s version a go. It’s in Veg Everyday, and is basically an open tomato tart. These open tarts are just brilliant and dead easy. You can put almost anything on them – all you need is a block of puff pastry. Keep it in the freezer – it defrosts really quickly and is a complete winner. Even better, this version gave me an opportunity to break into the Bookhams ‘Twineham Grange Vegetarian Pasta Cheese’ that I also bought from the market this morning.

So, for tonight’s supper, here’s what I did:

Tomato and Vegetarian Pasta Cheese Tart

Ingredients: 375g puff pastry, 400 g baby plum tomatoes, each sliced into 3-4 slices (on the diagonal is pretty if you can be bothered) depending on how big they are, 1 finely chopped garlic clove, 50 g Vegetarian Pasta Cheese, finely grated, 1 tbsp finely chopped rosemary, salt & pepper, olive oil

Method: Set the oven to 190⁰ C, lightly oil a baking sheet – the one I use is a shallow rectangular one, approx 23 cm x 34 cm, then roll out the pastry to fit, and score (but don’t cut through) a 1 cm border all round the edge. Sprinkle the garlic over the pastry, then arrange the tomato slices on top. I was feeling particularly artistic this afternoon, so I tried to alternate the red and yellow slices. Grind over some pepper and salt and trickle over a little olive oil, then bake for about 15 minutes.

When the tomatoes are looking tender and starting to brown, take the tart out of the oven, sprinkle over the rosemary and cheese.

Return to the oven for another 10 or so minutes. The cheese will be melting and may be even a little browned, and the pastry cooked.

I served it with Yotam Ottolenghi’s Green Lentils, Aparagus,and Watercress salad from Plenty, amd broad beans, also from today's haul,

Not Quite Veg Everyday, but trying: Simple suppers

This weekend has been a bit chaotic already, and here, now in the calm before the storm that will commence at 11.00 a.m. when a hoard (well, may be 12 - I'm not quite sure how many are coming) 5 & 6 year olds descend on us to celebrate Pink's 6th birthday, I wanted to quickly blog about last night's supper.

We were at friends' for lunch (and delicious it was too) but my mother in law was coming later on for the night (and above-mentioned celebrations) so I knew I needed to produce something more than a boiled egg for an evening meal. She is vegetarian, and although I have been cooking much more veggie food generally, I always feel a challenge to cook something other than the heavily lentil and garlic based dishes that we tend to have at her house. With an eye to the fact that I had to ice a pink heart birthday cake and make the werewithal to 'pin the crown on the princess' last night, it had to be easy. I also made extra on the basis that when the apocalypse is over, we (adults) might actually want something more substantial than cheese sandwiches and fairy cakes for lunch.

Summer Vegetable soup

The soup is based on one out of the current Good Food mag,. The recipe doesn't appear to be up on the website yet, so no link to the original, and here is my version:

3 sticks of celery, finely chopped
3 leeks, finely sliced
3 courgettes - quartered lengthwise and chopped
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
11/2 litres of vegetable stock (I use marigold bouillon powder)
125g asparagus spears, woody ends removed and cut into inch long pieces (leaving the lovely tip bits intact)

Heat about a tablespoon of olive oil in a big pan, and gently cook the celery and leek till soft - about 8-10 mins. Add the courgette and garlic and continue to cook for 5 mins or so, then add the stock, bring to the boil and simmer with the lid on for 10 mins. Throw in the asparagus about 4 minutes before the end of the cooking time, season and serve.

If you've got the magazine, the recipe is called Summer Vegetable Minstrone. I was a little confused as to the minestrone tag because there didn't appear to be any pasta or other carbs in it, and another time, I might add some little pasta in as soon as the stock started to boil. It would need to be little pasta though (quick cooking) because you wouldn't want to over cook the veg.

Sinple Tomato Tart

The tart was really good and dead easy. I got The Accidental Vegetarian secondhand on Amazon and it's definitely worth a read. I didn't quite follow his recipe, adding in some thyme, and I used more pastry to have a little left over for lunch today (although it was so good that there's not much left...). This could also be called 'How frozen puff pastry can save your life' - there are many, many variations on a theme of just topping a sheet of puff pastry and whacking it in the oven for 25 minutes. Genius.

375g pre-rolled sheet of puff pastry
8 plum tomatoes
a couple of sprigs of thyme (leaves only)
2 tsp of caster sugar
salt & pepper
1 good knob of butter, melted

First, peel the tomatoes. yes, I know, I wasn;t going to either, but then I thought I would just do it and I think it was worth it. So put on the kettlr, put the tomatoes in a bowl and as soon as the kettle is boiled, pour the boiling water over the tomatoes and leave them for a couple of minutes. One by one, get a tomatoes frm the water (you can spear them with a fork if the water is still too hot) and using a knife, make a slit in the skin. You should find that the skin just kind of shrinks back and you can just pull it off  quite easily. Slice them into pound coin thick slices.

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees fan.

Lightly grease the baking sheet you are going to use and put the pastry onto it. Lay the tomatoes onto the pastry, leaving a rim of uncovered pastry all round the edge. Youc an slightly overlap the tomato slices and it will look quite pretty! Sprinkle over the thyme leaves, and caster sugar and grind over salt and pepper, then brush with the the melted butter - or you could drizzle with olive oil - and then bake in the oven for around 25 minutes till the tomatoes are looking cooked and caramelised and the pastry is golden and puffed.

I did serve, as suggested with rocket, dressed with 3 tablespoons of olive oil and 1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar (shaken together in a jam jar first).

Nettle and bacon (or BACON and sssh nettle!) quiche

Nettle quiche.  I served up a vat of nettle soup  one lunchtime while my French friends were staying and they thought it was très bon. We got on to talking about how their village holds an annual food/foraging festival, each year focusing on a different plant, with lots of different dishes made from said ingredient. They said that one year it had been nettles, and that they were very good in quiche.

I scribbled nettle quiche onto my menu plan for this week, then rashly declared to the world that I was indeed going to be making nettle quiche when I posted my menu plan as a comment on Jen’s Place’s post on Monday. Kind of meant it would be a cop out not to.

As ever with these things, a little more time would have been good. I managed to get some pastry knocked together using the only recipe which works for me which is Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s pastry recipe in River Cottage Everyday – the recipe for poached leek and blue vinney tart (delicious altogether by the way). It’s probably his standard pastry recipe but now I know where it is, I always use it from that book. I’d forgotten how labour intensive collecting the nettles can be, but as they were just at the bottom of the garden, I managed a colander’s worth and to dump them in a sink of cold water before I had to leave to get the kids from school. I also managed not to get my hands stung, and, remembering the pain (metaphorical and physical - and that despite wearing rubber gloves) that stripping out the stalks was when I made the soup  I tried to just take the top 2-4 leaves, to save me the trouble later on. 

When I got back from the school run, I managed to fill the time I had before Pink needed escorting to Rainbows by lining and blind baking the pastry case, frying up the onions and bacon (yes, I felt nettle quiche would be more attractive to the hordes if it was nettle AND BACON quiche – or perhaps nettle and bacon quiche - a cop out perhaps, but who cares?) and wilting the nettles. To be honest aside from the stinging potential, I treated them just like spinach, and the taste is not dissimilar, although less earthy – which might be a good thing in some people’s book (although I just adore spinach). So I steamed the leaves, chopped them up and squeezed out the water, then just scattered the mashed up green stuff – because let’s face it that’s what it looks like – over the onions and bacon in the base of the quiche.

The rest of the quiche last night was 2 large eggs and a small bantam egg plus the egg white left over from the pastry recipe (which uses a yolk) the remains of a carton of crème fraiche – probably a good rounded tablespoon plus a bit and some salt and pepper all whisked up and poured on top followed with some grated cheddar. If I hadn’t had the egg white to use, I might have thinned the custard mixture out with a little milk.

I baked it at 180⁰ for about 30 minutes – until the custard is set enough and the top is a light golden brown (ish). 

Et voila, as they say in France

ok, so perhaps the nettles got a little unevenly distributed, but hey...

I wouldn’t say it was a hands down raging success, but worth the effort. Objectively, it was good. The Husband and I enjoyed it with new potatoes and some p.s.b. and Blue and Pink ate most of it without too much moaning, which is about as much as I was hoping for as neither of them are particularly keen on spinachy type greens. Blue was defeated by the last bit by the pastry crust - interestingly, this is my favourite bit - just because I’m not great at making pastry doesn’t mean I’m not a pig when it comes to eating it  ...

Finally, just because I am so rubbish at making pastry, please do admire the pastry case that I managed to produce for the quiche - not a crack to be seen - I was so pleased with it. But then, I don't get out much...