Cheese & Onion Pasties (if you'd rather not shop at Gregg's...)

Ok, so I'm going to be completely honest. Last Sunday, coming home from my friend's house, I had the most almighty hangover. 
I took the bus back to my local high street where my husband met me. Please bear in mind, before you judge me too harshly, that I was truly suffering! As I alighted from the bus I noticed that there was a greggs opposite.
The ghost of my teenage self spoke to me: "A pasty! That will sort you right out..."

MY TEENAGE SELF LIED. I bought cheese and onion pasties for both of us and eagerly took my first bite... of lukewarm, flavourless, textureless, over-seasoned, floury mush. Yuk. As we walked home I said that I could come up with a better pasty than that! So I did. Here it is, enjoy... with or without the hangover.

Cut three new potatoes into quarters and put on to boil until tender. I had the bleu d'auvergne variety, so that's why they are purple! Preheat the oven to 200°C and line a flat baking tray with oiled greaseproof paper.

Finely chop a large onion and a big stick of celery. Heat up a little oil in a frying pan and, if you like, snip in a slice of bacon (seriously one is more than enough) and cook until opaque before adding the onion and celery. Cook on a low heat to soften without browning.

After the onion and celery has softened add in a big handful of thinly sliced mushrooms and continue to cook on a low heat. On the side, grate a nice big pile of mature cheddar and a slightly smaller pile of parmesan. Then drain the potatoes, wait for the water to evaporate, and chop them into little tiny cubes before adding them to the vegetable mixture in the frying pan.

Once everything is cooked through, remove the pan from the heat and sprinkle over all the cheese then mix it in well, grind in lots of fresh black pepper and season to taste.
Cut a sheet of puff pastry into two rectangles, and place on the prepared baking tray. Divide the filling between the two sections, then fold the pastry over and press the seams together with a little beaten egg. Gently score the tops of the pasties and glaze with the rest of the egg.

Bake for about 20 minutes, until they are crisp and browned, and serve with a little salad and some really good ketchup (I like Mr Organic's version).

Don't be afraid to mess about with the ingredients - use what you have, that's what I did. I have plans to try doing another batch with mashed potato, onion and cheesy bechamel, which would result in a more traditional high street version.    
 

Breakfast Frittata (or "how to use up spare egg whites")

I had three egg whites left over from making ricotta gnocci last night, so this morning a frittata for breakfast seemed like a great way to use them up. 

For two people, three egg whites plus two full eggs is about right.

Chop a small bell pepper and slice a purple onion, then throw them in a frying pan with a little oil and get them cooking until nicely softened and sweet.

Meanwhile beat your eggs with salt, pepper, grated parmesan * and torn, fresh basil leaves. When the pepper and onion mix is ready, pour over the egg mix.

Cook until pretty firm and then sling under the grill to finish off - this is not for flipping like a pancake, or at least not first thing in the morning whilst still bleary eyed. Serve hot, in quarter slices with a tomato salad.

* - If you're vegetarian you can buy a cheese very similar to traditional parmesan but which is made without animal rennet. "Twineham Grange" is one brand but I'm sure there are others out there.

Roast Goose Risotto with Squash, Thyme & Chestnuts

What to do on the third day of using up leftover roast goose (or turkey or chicken)? Make a risotto of course! Easy leftover using-up strategy.

The prep is key here, so start by roasting a peeled and cubed squash until soft along with a handful of chestnuts, and chopping up your goose meat into small peices. 

If you have leftover squash then use that, you could also use half of a vacuum pack of pre-prepared chestnuts if you like. Depends what you've got handy! Keep them hot in the switched-off oven if making the risotto right away, otherwise be prepared to reheat them before adding to the risotto.

As with so many recipes, kick off the risotto by finely dicing an onion, a couple of celery sticks and a fat clove of garlic or two. Warm up a splosh of oil and a big hunk of butter in a deep frying pan and gently saute them until soft.

At the same time, put a pint / 500ml stock in a saucepan on the heat to stay hot.

Add half a bag of risotto rice, about 250g, (to serve 4 people or 2 with leftovers) stir it in and let it sizzle for a few minutes before adding a wine glass of vermouth (or white wine). Stir until all the wine has been absorbed. Then, a ladle at a time, add the stock to the rice, stirring and stirring each time until it's all been absorbed into the rice. One thing I've found is that this goes much faster and works better if you keep the pan pretty hot, the stock should bubble a little when you add it to the pan.

Just as you finish the last ladleful of stock, add the squash, chestnuts, goose and lots of thyme leaves. Stir through to mix and then grate a load of parmesan into the dish, along with a few knobs of butter, some fresh chopped parsley, a squeeze of lemon juice, ground pepper and salt if needed.

Serve with a smile of satisfaction at thriftiness well executed.

 

Squash, Rosemary & Olive "Bread"

This recipe is a real gem from the Abel & Cole cookbook. It can be on the table in under an hour and has a wonderfully moist, dense, almost cakey texture. It's very filling and, at least in my mind, contains two of your five a day!

First of all grate a squash of any kind, honestly I'm not even sure what kind of squashes I used, I think any barring the squat pumpkins you get at hallowe'en would be fine (the carving pumpkins are watery and fibrous, not really good eating). 

I did enough to fill a teacup to overflowing, even with the gratings pressed down hard, which is probably about the same as the mugful suggested in the recipe.

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees C.

In a large mixing bowl add the squash to a cup and a half of self-raising flour, a large pinch of salt, about half a cup of grated parmesan, lots of black olives (halved), a generous tablespoon of dried rosemary and lots of ground black pepper.

Using the (now empty) teacup, whisk up 2 eggs and a tablespoon of milk with a fork, then tip this into the dry mixture above. Mix with your hands until you have a sticky ball of dough.

Line a small baking tray with greaseproof paper and wipe with oil, then drop the sticky dough ball on top. Grate over some extra parmesan and sprinkle with flour. Bung in the oven for 45 minutes.

Leave it to rest for 10 minutes before you eat it; we had it for dinner with prociutto and a tomato and basil salad.

Chicken & Broad Bean Risotto (Leftovers day 1)

Leftover roast chicken has lots of uses but I think risotto is one of the more obvious ones. Saying that, risotto is a bugger to get right and I'm definitely still learning the trade. 

For years I've ignored the requirement for some kind of special rice (arborio, carnaroli) and, fair enough, my risottos have tasted wonderful... but they took 3 hours to make. Here is an attempt with arborio rice, I'd say it took about 45 minutes. Yeah. Fair enough then. I'll pay for the stupid special rice in future.

I used up some of the stock that I made earlier in the week, if you made some you'll see it's all wobbly and a bit like jelly - that's a good thing. I had about 700ml, which went into a pan on the hob to heat up.


I chopped up a couple of onions and sticks of celery, heated up a large frying pan with oil and butter, and cooked them until they were soft - thinking about browning but not going brown. In went a teacup of rice, stirred until coated in the oil and butter and warmed through. Then a teacup of white wine, which sizzled and bubbled when added to the pan. I stirred that until the wine had disappeared.


At that point, in goes a big spoonful of stock (I think my ladle was in the dishwasher) and stir stir stir until it's all absorbed, before adding another spoonful. Keep going until all the stock is gone. The rice wasn't quite entirely cooked yet, the grains still had just a little too much bite to them, so I added a little hot water to finish it off.


I popped some broad beans on to simmer, ready to skin them. They are a beautiful peircing green when you take off their jackets, the only issue we had with them is that they were quite elderly beans, picked late off the plant, so they did have a slightly mealy texture to them. Lovely young peas or beans is what you really want.


Then stir in the leftover chicken, the broad beans and lots of grated parmesan.

Finally, when the risotto was hot through again, I stirred in some chopped parsley and seasoned with freshly cracked black pepper and a knob of cold butter.

White Truffle Tricolore

My husband was out last night: fleeing to a friend's house to watch the apprentice as I absolutely hate it! He was also going to get an Aroma, which is possibly the best kebab in the world, without me. Damn. 

Again the thought of an easy takeaway floated through my mind, before I remembered that we're going for a Chinese dinner with his parents on Sunday. So, a quick scrabble about in the fridge and I came up with this comforting dinner.

The concept is inspired by something I saw Nigella cook once, she used cream, egg and white truffle oil for a pasta sauce. Genius.

I haven't used particularly fancy pasta: I like the tricolore because it's so pretty, but homemade this is not. Get it on to boil first, as the sauce doesn't take long to make.

Heat up a pan and add some thick cut bacon or pancetta. Once mostly cooked, add a diced stick of celery, a sliced purple onion and some thinly sliced mushrooms. 

In a separate bowl, beat a raw egg with cream, white truffle oil, lots of pepper and salt, and some grated pecorino (or parmesan, or hard cheese of any kind really).

Once the pasta is cooked and drained, dump it in the pan with the vegetables, turn off the heat, and stir in the sauce. It's lovely. It's quick. And it's a little bit naughty.

Not another boring salad!

This is, I promise, not a boring meal. Salad can sound dull. My husband asked me "what's for dinner" and frankly I wasn't really that hungry and didn't fancy a long stint in the kitchen. I said "how about a salad" and his face fell, as though I had just suggested we eat shredded cardboard.

This one did do the trick though and he ate the lot without any complaints, by which I take it he didn't mind "just salad" for dinner after all!

The base of it is shredded cos lettuce, sliced yellow pepper, quartered tomatoes, cubed cucumber, julienned carrots and black olives.


The things that made it special were:

1) Parmesan shavings.
2) Pan-fried squares of bacon.
3) Croutons, made by cutting slices of bread into cubes and grilling them with a drizzle of garlic oil

Finally, a simple dressing of olive oil and lemon juice, whisked up with salt and pepper.

It isn't gourmet dining, but it is reasonably healthy, filling and fast as lightning to make.

Lazy Latin Lunch

This is a wonderfully easy and healthful lunch, especially on a warm day when you'd rather be in the garden than the kitchen. Thought it was worth a mention as it is really, really delicious.

Ingredients:
Quartered baby tomatoes
Torn watercress
Cubed cucumber
Torn lettuce
Slices of prosciutto
Black olives
Shavings of parmesan

The dressing is literally just unfiltered olive oil, white wine vinegar, sea salt and pepper, whisked up and poured over the top.

Beautiful!