Pasties

I tried a recipe from the BBC Vegetarian Christmas Good Food magazine, a magazine I wish they still did a monthly copy of.

Their recipe was for a whole pie, which you rolled out to the size of a dinner plate.
I preferred to make smaller pasties than a whole pie.
They don't look as pretty as a whole pie would (and I changed the pastry from short crust to puff) but still taste good.

I made 5 and have frozen most of them for the future.

You chop 3 or 4 leeks and put in a pan with a knob of butter and some rosemary.

Cook on a low heat for 20 mins.

Slice 450g of potatoes, put in cold water and bring to the boil, cook for 5 minutes.

Mix both pans together, leave to cool.

Mix in 150g grated cheese.

Roll out the pastry and add the filling. Brush with egg round the edge and squish on the lid.

Brush with egg and cook at 200 degrees for about half an hour.

Halloween Goulash!

Since I had a pumpkin for Halloween in my organic box yesterday, I thought I'd use it up in goulash.

This is a recipe from a Student Veggie cookbook. I'm not a student any more, but I find that student books are often full of more inspiration than the usual run of the mill veggie books.

So I started with pumpkin, a red pepper, a carrot, an onion and a garlic clove. Sautéed the onion and red pepper, then added 2 tsps of paprika, stirred for a minute, then added everything else, plus 85g of red lentils, 500ml of stock a tsp of sugar, and salt and pepper.

Brought everything to the boil, then covered and cooked in the oven for an hour at 160 degrees C.

Once it was done, I topped with some natural yoghurt and a sprinkle more of paprika.

Delicious :)

Upside Down Pie

I had some peppers and half a tin of tomatoes that needed using up so I used a recipe from the Market Vegetarian book I had out the library in May, but adapted it slightly. Sadly I do not have a frying pan with a heatproof handle, so had to improvise and use a pyrex oven dish for the final cooking. Still turned out nice, and might make a good thing for the xmas list ;)

Filling :

1/2 each of red & yellow peppers

a red onion - thickly sliced

1 garlic clove, chopped

1/2 tin of tomatoes

salt & pepper

Pastry :

125g wholemeal plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

75g grated cheese

1/2 tsp sea salt

25g melted butter/marg

1 beaten egg

33ml buttermilk (I didn't have any so used normal milk with a couple of drops of vinegar to sour it)

Put the dry pastry ingredients in a food processor, pulse, then whilst mixing, add the wet ingredients.

Let it stand for at least 30mins whilst you do the topping.

For the topping, fry the peppers, onion and garlic, then add the tomatoes and simmer for 5-10 minutes.

If you're using a frying pan with a heat proof handle you can roll out the pastry and put it on the top, for me, I put the topping into an oven dish, then added the pastry on top.

Bake for 25 mins at 180 degrees, until pastry is cooked.

Broad Beans

I love broad beans, so was very excited to have a bag of them in last time's box.

I decided to use up a few bits left over from the cannelloni the other day, and also make a salad for work.

I used the left over tomato sauce to create a base on puff pastry with the rest of the ricotta crumbled/dotted over.

I cooked the broad beans for 5 minutes, putting frozen peas in for the last couple of minutes too.

Mixed in some mint, then put them on the tart, then added chopped feta too.

I cooked it for about 20 minutes.

This was the result :

Was very tasty too!!

So, with the left over beans and peas, I mixed in mint and feta, then added half a chopped pepper, and a vinigrette made with 3 parts olive oil to 1 part brown rice vinegar, and a small handful of wholemeal mafalda corta pasta.

Looks very tasty too! Will be looking forward to lunch tomorrow :)

Cannelloni

In my veggie box this week I had a bag of spinach, so thought some cannelloni was in order.

I blanched the spinach, then chopped it up, and mixed it with 3/4 of a tub of ricotta, 1/2 a beaten egg and some nutmeg.

I then had a slight disaster with the piping bag, but managed to fill 9 tubes with my mixture.

I made a tomato sauce out of an onion, a couple of garlic cloves, some carrots a tin of chopped tomatoes, half a cup of water, some tomato puree and dried oregano.

The sauce simmered for a while whilst I was wrestling with the tubes (maybe about 20 minutes?) then I covered the filled tubes with the sauce and baked it for about half an hour.

So I have dinner for tonight and tomorrow, and a portion for the freezer.

A good result :)

Noodles

I wanted something with leftovers for lunch for the next couple of days, and had a lot of green things in my box this week, so decided on a stir fry type thing with noodles.

I realise now that there were a lot more things I could have added in, but this combination worked well.

I stir fried the veggies, garlic and a bit of ginger in toasted sesame oil to start with, then added in the sauce (which was based on a recipe in BBC Vegetarian from way back in the past...1996/7 possibly.)

I didn't use all the sauce, but may pour the left overs over the left overs :)  in the morning if the noodles soak it up whilst it's chilling.

Stir Fry Sauce :

300ml stock (I used a cube which makes 500ml but only filled to 300 for stronger flavour)

3 tbsp light soy sauce

2tbsp brown rice vinegar

1 tbsp honey

1tbsp tomato puree

Pasta with broccoli, walnuts and ricotta

I am trying out some recipes from Market Vegetarian which I have on loan from the library.

This one caught my eye since I have a lot of purple sprouting broccoli in this week's organic veg box.

I subbed tagliatelle for the spaghetti, and made a smaller portion than the recipe, but everything else was the same.

The results were ok - edible, but not one to keep.  It could be made better with a couple of tweaks I think, but don't know if it was nice enough to bother.

Some of my walnuts were a bit overcooked from being roasted then fried, so gave the dish a slightly bitter taste - if you try it then don't overroast the walnuts!!

Adapted from Market Vegetarian (Ross Dobson)

For 4 portions :

100g walnuts

1 head of broccoli

3 tbsp olive oil

3 galic cloves, thinly sliced

1 handful of fresh parsley

zest and juice of 1 lemon

200g ricotta

400g pasta

salt & pepper

Roast the walnuts for 10 minutes in a medium oven.

Fry the broccoli for 5 minutes until tender.

Add garlic, parsley, lemon zest, and walnuts and cook for 5 minutes.

Reduce the heat to medium and add ricotta and lemon juice.

Season & mix with the cooked pasta.