Potato, Fontina and rosemary tart

This looks pretty tasty.  It’s a shame that it wasn’t very good.

Its not what you can see, but what you can't that matters here.

Alarm bells should have started ringing with the title: potato tart.  Pastry doesn’t really need more starch added to it… still, pasties have potato in and are tasty so it’s not a hopeless idea.

Where this goes very, very wrong is that the potato is not cooked at all before going in the pie: it is just sliced very thinly.  Anyone who cooks knows that this is going to be dangerous, and with an oven like ours is downright silly.  You par boil potatoes.  They need par boiling.

So although the tart above looks really rather tasty, it was basically uncooked.  We then had to microwave it to death to get the potato to cook.  The end result was still OK, but the pastry was a little tough and just not the fresh yumminess it should have been.  I like the idea of a rosemary cheese pie, but I think more varied veg would be better.

Who made it: Anna and Dan jointly.

Recipe: The daily cook book, by Love Food, November 11th.

Butternut Squash Risotto

This is now such a regular feature in our house that we just make it up as we go along.  This qualifies as the “Summer Risotto”, being based mostly around herbs for flavour instead of spices and alcohol.

Summer Risotto with Butternut Squash and white wine

Of course you can do basically anything with risotto.  They key is getting some flavours in, here provided by mint and basil in a white wine and stock.  The next most important thing is making sure it has enough vegetables in  that you like.

Ingredients: 

1/2 Butternut squash, 1 carrot, 1/2 onion, 1/2 leek, 2 garlic cloves, 1/2 pepper, 2 mushrooms, pine seeds, butter, white wine, fresh herbs.

Method (serves 2):

To make the butternut  squash, peel (1/2 a fair sized squash) and chop into chunks, drizzle with oil and balsamic vinegar and bake (evenly spread) at 200 degrees for an hour. (optionally sprinkle on pine seeds after 30 mins).

Meanwhile for the risotto, fry some onion, leek and garlic in a dollop of butter.  Make 500ml of vegetable stock.  When the onion starts to go soft, add 1 small cup of rice (risotto if you have it, but actually most rice types work) and a small amount of stock, and turn down to a simmering heat.  Keep adding stock when it needs it to keep the consistency sticky but not wet.  Add the thinly sliced carrots and simmer for 10 minutes, then add the diced pepper and simmer for a further 15 minutes.  Then add the mushrooms and a good guzzle of white wine, and give it an additional 10 minutes.

When the rice is cooked (which should take about 50 minutes), add a dollop of butter with a handful of two of your favourite chopped herbs (say, basil and mint). Mix and leave to “breath” for a couple of minutes.  Serve the squash on the risotto, with grated cheese on top… and a salad on the side if that floats your boat

Griddled courgette quiche with cheese and rocket salad

This was our first go at Quiche from scratch, and it was pretty good.   We disagreed a little on whether it was awesome or just nice, due to the intensity of herbs used.  The main flavour here is rosemary, and you have to like a really intense hit – for me it was just a little too much.  We had a salad with it, which was about the best salad I’ve ever had.  It was only a rocket, grape and walnut mixture with a dressing, but somehow it worked really well.

Rocket powered salad makes a nice launch.

The Quiche first.  We bothered to make our own pastry, for two reasons: firstly, short crust pastry is the easiest thing in the world, and secondly this was “enriched”, so used half egg and half butter instead of only butter.  It gives it a slightly more solid texture and richer flavour.  The filling is a courgette, 3 shallots and 2 tbsp mixed nuts (though pine nuts are recommended) all griddled until brown, mixed with 2 small eggs and 75ml double cream and 1 1/2 tsp pesto and 1 tsp chopped rosemary.  (Admittedly, we used way more than this…)  You just mix the lot together, drop on the pastry, and bake  for 30 minutes at 200 degrees celsius.

Whoops, we forgot a sprinkling of parmesan… now I’m not going to lie to you, everything does taste better with cheese.  But in this case, we didn’t miss it.

On to the salad. This was supposed to be a main meal, with roast chicken in, but we just left out the chicken and it worked really well.  Rocket, celery, cucumber , spring onion, walnut, Stilton and grapes make up the bulk with the dressing being olive oil, sherry vinegar , mustard and mixed herbs.  I think the key is to go lightly with the strongly flavoured ingredients, since everything in here is actually quite interesting to eat in its own way.

Who made it: The both of us.

Recipe: The salad is “The daily cook book” by love food, september 8th.  The Quiche is from “the complete vegetarian cookbook” by Sarah Brown, page 255, with the pastry on page 254.

The sa

Italian Cod/Halloumi

This slightly surprising way of eating cod was well adapted to Halloumi, although Anna assures me the cod was better. Still, it was a very pleasant dinner for not a huge amount of effort.

"Italian" Cod with breadcrumbs, with tasty potato cakes.

As you can see from the picture, the basic idea is to bake some cod with a breadcrumb topping that goes all crisp, and stops the fish from charring.  Onto this is placed a “dressing”, which is basically herbs and lemon – as usual I went overboard with the parsley

Halloumi baked with breadcrumbs and mixed yumminess.

The halloumi replacement works very well, although the flavours don’t compliment the subtle flavourings in the drizzle and breadcrumbs in the way cod probably does.  It also sticks if you forget to grease the pan (which is why all the breadcrumbs fell off mine, and then were piled up on top…)  What makes it Italian is up for discussion – perhaps the herbs?  I’m pretty sure that the Halloumi is not served “Italian style” at any rate!

We had these with a favourite way of cooking potatoes – “leek and potato cakes with Gruyère”.

The Cod/Halloumi recipe (about 3 servings…)

To make the breadcrumbs: Melt a knob of butter and then mix well with a crumbled slice of bread, the rind and juice of half a lemon, 15g chopped walnuts, a sprig of rosemary and a tbsp chopped parsley.

To bake the cod/halloumi: grease and line a baking tray with tinfoil; cut 75g of halloumi into strips and lay our, or 150g cod fillet (per person). Sprinkle the breadcrumbs over and bake at 200 degrees celcius for 20-25 minutes.

To make the dressing: chop 1 tbsp parsley, 1 crushed garlic clove, the remaining lemon juice and rind, 1 sprig rosemary and mix in 2 tbsp oil; sprinkle over the cooked food when serving.

The potato cake recipe:

Boil 250g peeled potatoes, add milk or butter as needed and mash.  Meanwhile, Fry 1 well chopped leek  with 2 garlic cloves in butter.  Mix the potato and leek mixtures together when both are cooked, and remove from the heat.

Mix well with 1 beaten egg, 50g grated Gruyère cheese, 60g creme fraiche, 1 1/2 tbsp parsley and salt and pepper to taste.

Place the mixture on a greased tin and bake for 20-25 minutes at 200 degrees celcius until well browned (whether as cakes, or in muffin/yorkshire pudding tins).

From experience, it does seem that cheddar isn’t as good for this, although it doesn’t matter hugely.  Gruyère seems to make for a more solid cake.

The vegetables:

Remember to eat some greens!  Saute in melted butter if you are feeling naughty*.

Who made it: We both did different things as a combined effort.

Recipe: Leek and potato cakes with Gruyère: “The complete vegetarian Cookbook” by Sarah Brown, page 177. Italian cod: “The daily cook book” by Love Food, February 20th.

* The vegetables, obviously.  What were you thinking of?

Baked cheese Frittata

This baked cheese omelette is based on a dish we made a while ago.  It is really easy but a very tasty way of making omelette.

 

Omelette should come with chips. Sorry, frittata should come with chips. That's what I said...

 

Its dead easy:

1. Fry some onion, garlic, and whatever other veg you like: pepper, mushroom, beans, brocolli, chilli…
2. When they are cooked, add spinach, and your favourite herbs: coriander, parsley, dill, etc.  Also add fennel seeds.
3. Mix these in with 2 beaten eggs per person, mixed in with cheese – here we had about 50g of feta cheese.  Season…
4. Bake for 20-25 minutes at 200 degrees.

That is it. Obviously any variation is fine.  Meaties can add bacon; whatever veg is in the fridge will work well.  I think some herbs or spices are important but anything goes – a curry style mix would also do well, with cumin, paprika and coriander.

Who made it: Dan and Anna

Recipe: Made up, but based on “the complete vegetarian cookbook” by Sarah Brown, page 180.

Salmon/Halloumi Ramen

Anna wanted to try something a bit different with fish; I was left to do something inventive to make it work for vegetarians.

 

Salmon Ramen = Salmon noodles. With lots of flavour!

Halloumi Ramen = Haloumi Noodles. Also with lots of flavour!

 

The recipe is an interesting one, and worked very well – with the modifications we made.  It has several components:

1. The marinade: Teriyaki.  This is an intriguing mix of (1 tbsp) sake, dark soy sauce and sherry, with (1 tsp) brown sugar and some garlic and ginger.
2. The “meat”:  either fish or Halloumi, covered in the marinade (“glaze”) and grilled.  (I fried the Halloumi, but the effect is basically the same).
3. Stock (vegetable stock mixed with garlic and soy sauce).  We also added plenty of vegetables here!
4. Noodles (Ramen if possible, or whatever).
5. Coriander, chopped chillies and beansprouts, for topping.

The recipe sounds complicated, but it actually works out very simple and only takes about 25 minutes.  You heat the stock and simmer (adding the veg as it needs it, e.g. carrots go in straight away, bamboo shoots and spinach go in at the end).  Meanwhile, mix the Teriyaki, and pour over the fish/halloumi on a greased dish.  Grill this until the fish crumbles but is pink inside, or until the Halloumi  is crispy on top.  Then cook the noodles (taking about 3 minutes) and serve by putting a bed of veg with noodles on top, add the fish, then the topping.

The dish is slightly hot and just a little different to anything we normally have.  Because we added plenty of veg, it was well balanced – unlike the recipe below, which had a very sad amount in!  I particularly like the teriyaki, which would work well in many dishes.

Who made it: A joint effort between Dan and Anna.

Recipe: “The daily cook book” by Love Food, February 7th.

Vegetable and Halloumi Pie

This pie is (broadly speaking!) an adaptation of this fish pie.  But it is also completely different, so I’ll give a fill recipe.

 

Pie with pastry, as pie was meant to be.

 

The meaties at the table tried a little of my pie and concluded they would be happy with it as a main, so this was a definite keeper.  The halloumi is very salty but still has a delicate flavour, and everything benefits from being heated in the creamy sauce, soaking up a gentle richness not found in the veg alone.

Ingredients:

50g puff pastry (or make your own!)

100g Halloumi cheese

50ml white wine

50g mushrooms

100g other veg (e.g. baby sweetcorn cobs, pepper, leek)

30ml double cream

50ml water

butter, for frying

1tsp flour, for roux

herbs (e.g. tarragon)

pepper, for seasoning

Method:

Chop up the halloumi into chunks and fry until golden on both sides.  Then sauté the vegetables in more butter and pepper them to taste.  Make the sauce by heating a knob of butter and adding the flour, mixing well to form a roux.  Add the white wine and water slowly, stirring continuously, then add the cream.  The sauce should be slightly thick, about the consistency of tomato ketchup – add more water if needed, then the herbs, and remove from the heat.

Throw the lot into a heatproof dish, then roll out the pastry to fit and pop it on top, crimping  the edges to make a firm fit and pierce the pastry with a fork.  Then paint the pastry with either egg or milk and bake for 25-30 minutes at 180 degrees celcius – to prevent the pastry from burning (in our oven at least) it is best to cook the pie covered for the first 20 minutes.

Oddly enough, I made the sauce a bit too thick this time, and also poured it on as a top layer.  Although it did penetrate the pie, it also stuck a lot to the pastry, which made for a really interesting texture and taste. This might be a trick to remember for the future – perhaps coating the underside of pie pastry with sauce before baking.

We will be trying something very similar to this in the future.

Who made it: Mostly Dan, with some assistance from Anna

Recipe: My own, but based on a heavily modified fishermans pie recipe from the link above.

Fisherman’s Pie

Anna made this fishy pie when friends were coming over – I had a different pie (details with recipe in the next post) based on the same idea.

Mush.

Despite our very poor presentation, this went down very well.  As usual with fish pie, it has a mash potato topping – in my mind a real waste of the opportunity to have pastry!

Basically, you start by baking some white fish in white wine with a good scattering of tarragon on top.  Whilst this cooks, sauté some mushrooms in butter (and boil the potatoes for mashing).  Then make a white sauce by making a reux from flour and butter, adding the liquid from the fish and some cream.  Then mix up everything with some prawns, add the potato on top and bake.

The pie seemed to have a delicate flavour, and whilst in the dish looked very pleasant! A shame about the presentation, but flavour is what counts I suppose!

Who made it: Dan and Anna jointly.

Recipe: “The daily cook book” by Love Food, February 6th.

Nearly-Christmas food

A quick post mostly to remind me what we had when my brother and his girlfriend came over – I didn’t take pictures so I’ll just summarize.

Starter: Coconut and Sweet Potato soup, World Food Cafe 2 by Chris and Carolyn Caldicott, page 140. This tasty soup never disappoints: the buttery sweet potato goodness is mouth meltingly tasty.  I always seem to make it a bit thick though; I really ought to remember to add more vegetable stock before blending.

Main part 1: Feta cheese and cranberry tarts, The Daily Cook Book by Love Food, December 27th. These very simple tarts are good appetizers, or shrunk would be good canepes.  They taste quite simply of the main ingredients: Feta cheese, cranberries and onions.  Because you can buy filo pastry pre-rolled, and the ingredients just get dumped in together, they are very easy to make, though I think could do with being held together by a sauce.

Main part 2: Mushroom and nut Wellington, The Co-op magazine Winter ’09. I really like this variant on nut roast, mostly because the whole thing gets wrapped in pastry making it a lot less dull than most nut roasts.  Another neat trick is to caramelise some onions with some butter and sugar to act as a bottom layer, adding a great little zing.  This one will probably appear sometime in the future with a proper post and instructions.

We has some other stuff, it was yummy.  Just imagine a tasty roast and you are probably there.

Crazy Childsplay at Halloween

Oh my.  We really went all out on this one.

Scary food. No really - there are twiglets in it!

The skull and crossbones pizza was made by cutting out a pizza base into the right shape, adding a home-made sauce and cheese, then olives for the eyes and pepper for the teeth.  Naturally this is served with wedges and onion rings, which you could probably give a Halloween theme too, but there is a line not to be crossed, in case the witches come and get you.  In the background are “broomsticks” made from bread sticks and twiglets tied together; obviously these are to be dipped into creepy dips.  (food that glows like the cream cheese dip in those selection packs of dip is pretty scary…)

In case you wondered what the innocent looking orange things are, here is a closer view:

Cut just above the second knuckle - you know, where you might cut a finger off to take a ring.

Yes, those fingers are carrot sticks with pepper fingernails and a bloody tomato dip.

For afters, we had ghostly ginger cookie monsters:

When the ghosts and the spiders put aside their differences to gang up on you, it means it is time to RUN AWAY!

All fun food!  Although it tasted nice it isn’t anything special to taste, the joy is the way it looks.  Except for the cookies, which work really well; they are only gently gingery, and quite short, which means they seem to melt on your tongue in sweet biscuity bliss.

Who made it: A joint effort between Anna and Dan, though Anna did a greater than even share of the hard graft.

Recipe: Came from the Morrisons magazine Sept/Oct 2010.  Try your luck at  www.morrisons.co.uk/magazine.

PS: No spiders or ghosts were harmed in the making of this dinner.