Fiorentina Pasta Bake

I had a fantastic week at Hadrian's Wall, it was really interesting. We had guided walks and tours to all the main sites on Hadrian's Wall, with talks given by the archaeologists who actually excavated each of the sites, which meant that they were on hand to answer any questions and they really knew about each site.

Whilst I was away I read Barbara Kingsolver's book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, which is about a year of her and her family eating seasonally and mostly from things they grew or made themselves. It was really interesting and inspiring. It made me want to start canning tomatoes and make my own cheese! I am also now freezing the over abundance of produce that is now coming from mine and my mum's gardens so that I can have lovely vegetables in the winter and hopefully save some money along the way!

This pasta bake is one of my staples, I make it whenever I have mushrooms and spinach, which need using up. It is really easy to make and freeze. The last batch I made was just before I went on holiday to try and finish off the odds and ends I had left in the fridge.

I modified the original recipe from Good Food Magazine slightly by adding artichoke hearts. I also make my spinach and cheese sauce differently. Although I buy a pot of ready made four cheese sauce from the supermarket, I add in fresh spinach which makes for a better taste and texture overall.

This I served with coleslaw and tomatoes with vinaigrette.

Fiorentina Pasta Bake (adapted from Good Food Magazine January 2007)

(Serves 4)

300g pasta (Rigatoni or Penne is best but works with anything)

1 tbsp olive oil
500g chestnut mushrooms, halved or quartered if large
2 garlic cloves, chopped
350g carton cheese sauce
100g spinach
50g Parmesan cheese, grated

half a can of artichoke hearts

Boil the pasta for 10 mins, drain, then tip back into the pan. Meanwhile, heat grill to medium. Heat the oil in a large frying pan, add the mushrooms, then cook over a high heat for 5 mins until lightly golden. Reduce the heat, add the garlic, then fry for another min until softened, add the spinach and stir for another min to wilt. Season and spoon into a large, shallow baking dish.

Tip the cheese sauce and half the cheese into the pasta, then put back on the heat for a few mins until heated through. Season to taste, then spoon the pasta over the mushrooms and spinach in an even layer. Scatter the remaining cheese over the top and grill for about 5 mins until the cheese is golden and the sauce is bubbling.

Daring Cooks August 2009: Rice with Mushrooms, Cuttlefish and Artichokes

Just before I went on holiday I made the Daring Cooks dish for this month Rice with mushrooms, cuttlefish and artichokes, this month picked by Olga from Las Cosas de Olga. I love eating paella but have never attempted cooking anything like it myself, so this was a bit of a challenge, plus when I leave things on the hob I feel the need to stir them every so often and this one I had to leave alone!

I couldn't find cuttlefish anywhere so I used squid instead, and I used the red peppers from my garden, which were delicious. All in all this recipe was really tasty, the allioli really complemented the dish and it wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be to make. I will definitely be trying to make some more Spanish dishes.



The recipe was as follows:

Rice with mushrooms, cuttlefish and artichokes
Cooking time: 45 minutes

Equipment:
1 Chopping Board
1 knife
1 medium saucepan
1 Paella pan (30 cm/11” is enough for 4 people. If not available, you may use a simple pan that size)
1 Saucepan

Ingredients (serves 4):
4 Artichokes (you can use jarred or freezed if fresh are not available)
12 Mushrooms (button or Portobello)
1 or 2 Bay leaves (optional but highly recommended)
1 glass of white wine
2 Cuttlefish (you can use freezed cuttlefish or squid if you don’t find it fresh)
“Sofregit” (see recipe below)
300 gr (2 cups) Short grain rice (Spanish types Calasparra or Montsant are preferred, but you can choose any other short grain. This kind of rice absorbs flavor very well) – about 75 gr per person ( ½ cup per person) Please read this for more info on suitable rices.
Water or Fish Stock (use 1 ½ cup of liquid per ½ cup of rice)
Saffron thread (if you can’t find it or afford to buy it, you can substitute it for turmeric or yellow coloring powder)
Allioli (olive oil and garlic sauce, similar to mayonnaise sauce) - optional

Directions:
Cut the cuttlefish in little strips.
Add 1 or 2 tablespoon of olive oil in a frying pan and put the cuttlefish in the pan.
If you use fresh artichokes, clean them first. Cut artichokes in eights.
Clean the mushrooms and cut them in fourths.
Add a bay leaf to the cuttlefish and add also the artichokes and the mushrooms.
Sauté until we get a golden color in the artichokes.
Put a touch of white wine so all the solids in the bottom of the get mixed, getting a more flavorful dish.
Add a couple or three tablespoons of sofregit and mix to make sure everything gets impregnated with the sofregit.
Add all the liquid and bring it to boil.
Add all the rice. Let boil for about 5 minutes in heavy heat.
Add some saffron thread to enrich the dish with its flavor and color. Stir a little bit so the rice and the other ingredients get the entire flavor. If you’re using turmeric or yellow coloring, use only 1/4 teaspoon.
Turn to low heat and boil for another 8 minutes (or until rice is a little softer than “al dente”)
Put the pan away from heat and let the rice stand a couple of minutes.



Sofregit
Cooking time: aprox. 1 hour

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons of olive oil
5 big red ripe tomatoes, chopped
2 small onions, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped (optional)
4 or 5 garlic cloves, chopped
1 cup of button or Portobello mushrooms, chopped (optional)
1 Bay leaf
Salt
Touch of ground cumin
Touch of dried oregano
Directions:
Put all the ingredients together in a frying pan and sauté slowly until all vegetables are soft.
Taste and salt if necessary (maybe it’s not!)

Before the rice went in:



With the rice:

Allioli a la moderna (Modern recipe)

Cooking time: 3-4 minutes

Ingredients:
1 small egg
1 cup extra-virgin olive oil (as above, Spanish oil is highly recommended)
1 garlic clove, peeled
1 Tbs. Spanish Sherry vinegar or lemon juice (if Sherry vinegar is not available, use can use cider or white vinegar)
Salt to taste

Directions:
Break the egg into a mixing bowl.
Add 2 tablespoons of the olive oil and the garlic cloves, along with the vinegar or lemon juice.
Using a hand blender, start mixing at high speed until the garlic is fully pureed into a loose paste.
Little by little, add what's left of the olive oil as you continue blending.
If the mixture appears too thick as you begin pouring the oil, add 1 teaspoon of water to loosen the sauce.
Continue adding the oil and blending until you have a rich, creamy allioli.
The sauce will be a lovely yellow color.
Add salt to taste.

Summer Chicken and a Bento

I have again been trying to use up some of the courgettes from the garden, luckily I am now in somewhat of a lull, they are too small to use at the moment which is good as I am away all next week. The beans are also doing well, why is it that veg always tastes better when you grow your own?

Last week I made a Courgette, Feta and Olive Rice Salad for a bento. It is something I dreamed up last year when my Mum had too many courgettes. It is based on a risotto recipe but is really nice as a rice salad. I had this with raspberries from a pick your own, waffle and a bunny of sugar for dipping.



Then I snuck some into a recipe that didn't call for courgettes at all. This is a really lovely good food recipe which is perfect both in summer and on long dark winter nights when summer is just a memory. I served it with home grown peas, beans and colcannon.



Summer Chicken (adapted from Summer in Winter Chicken, Good Food Magazine, February 2005)
(Serves 4)

1 tbsp olive oil
4 chicken legs, skin on
200g pack cherry tomatoes
1 courgette, sliced
3 tbsp pesto
3 tbsp crème fraîche (half fat is fine)
fresh basil, if you have it

Preheat the oven to 200C. Season the chicken legs all over with a little salt and pepper, place on a baking tray and bake in the oven for about 40 mins or until the skin is golden and crispy.

Heat the oil in a frying pan and saute the courgettes until they are golden brown. Halve the tomatoes and throw them into the pan, stirring them around for a couple of minutes until they start to soften. Reduce the heat and stir in the pesto and crème fraîche until it makes a sauce. Pour the sauce over the chicken, scatter with a few basil leaves if you have them and serve.

Pork and Watercress Stir Fry

Kenwood House yesterday was fantastic despite the weather. Hampstead Heath was very relaxing and there were amazing views of London.



The house is also lovely and tidy, I now only have the bedroom left to do, it feels very cathartic to clean everything from top to bottom and its amazing how dirty everything has got in such a short space of time. After all that cleaning I really don't want to stand in front of a stove for ages so stir fries are perfect. I had half a bag of watercress left from a potato salad and thought it would be perfect in a stir fry and I was right. It really did work well. I also used red peppers out the garden to make this and although they're tiny they are really sweet.

Pork and Watercress Stir Fry

(Serves 4)

1 tbsp sunflower oil
2 pork loin steaks, cut into strips
1 red or yellow pepper, deseeded and chopped into large chunks
1 red onion, chopped into large chunks
2 x 75g bags watercress

2 packs straight to wok egg noodles

For the Sauce
3 tbsp hoisin sauce
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 large knob of fresh root ginger, peeled and finely grated
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tbsp sesame oil
2 tbsp rice vinegar or white wine vinegar

To make the sauce, mix all the ingredients together in a small bowl until completely blended.

Heat the oil in a frying pan until very hot. Throw in the pork, pepper and onion, then stir-fry for about 4-5 mins until the chicken is cooked, add the noodles and stir fry for a minute more. Pour over the sauce and simmer with a splash of water. Remove the pan from the heat, then stir through the watercress just before serving.

Braised Chicken and Beans

I am now officially on holiday! Yesterday I went to the Hayward Gallery to see the exhibition Walking in the Mind, and today I am off to Kenwood House. I have also been trying to get tickets for the theatre but both the plays I want to see, Waiting for Godot and Jerusalem are sold out, so instead I have been scrapbooking in the evenings.

I have collected a whole load of magazine cuttings and cards over the years and they have just sat in a box in my parents house, so now I have bought an A3 bound book and I am creating a book not just of pictures but of memories as well, as many of the cards were bought both by me, for me and sent to me whilst I was at University. It really has been a trip down memory lane.

I seem also to have spent a large amount of time cleaning, not very exciting but the flat needs it! I am going to my parents house on Thursday so I am not buying any food at all this week, just using what I already have in. This is one of those simple meals using chicken from the freezer and beans from the cupboard and it was mighty tasty. I was worried about it becoming too watery so I did simmer it uncovered for 30 mins to evaporate some of the liquid off. I also snuck some courgettes in there which really added to the flavour. The courgettes will keep reappearing throughout the week, I think I've eaten in different ways in almost every evening meal and there are more still growing!



Braised Chicken and Beans (from Good Food Magazine March 2008)
(Serves 2)

1 tbsp olive oil
4 skinless boneless chicken thighs
1 onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, chopped
1 tsp dried thyme
300ml white wine
400g can flageolet beans , rinsed and drained
handful parsley leaves

Heat the oil in a wide pan with a lid, add the chicken, then quickly cook to brown it all over.

Tip in the onion, garlic and thyme, then fry for a further 2 mins. Pour in the wine, 150ml water and a little salt and pepper. Bring to the boil, then simmer for 20 mins, covering halfway through the cooking time, until the chicken is tender.

Stir the beans into the pan and briefly warm through. Roughly chop the parsley, then scatter over to serve.

Spinach Ricotta Lasagne

Work has been very quiet so far this morning and I'm hoping it stays that way! This is my last day before my two weeks off and I have pretty much got everything under control before I leave, which is a lovely feeling. I'm not doing much with the first week of my break, I'm staying in London, probably wandering around art galleries and shopping. The second week I am spending in Northumberland at the Hadrian's Wall Pilgrimage. It is only held every 10 years and includes a series of lectures and site visits to various parts of the wall to look at new archaeological developments. It should be fascinating.

On another note, how do you photograph lasagne so that it looks appetising? I still have no idea, and it looked even worse on the plate! It was however very tasty if a little brown and crispy on top. This was because I forgot to put the garlic bread into the oven until 5 mins before the lasagne was supposed to be cooked.

The recipe I used was a combination of one I found on a Sainsbury's recipe card and also Jamie Oliver's recipe for spinach and ricotta cannelloni.

Spinach and Ricotta Lasagne
(Serves 4)

50g butter
1 onion, peeled and finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1kg pack finely chopped frozen spinach, defrosted, excess liquid squeezed out
2 x 250g tubs ricotta cheese
125g mozzarella, finely diced
Freshly grated nutmeg
9 lasagne sheets
700g jar passata
1 ball mozzarella, sliced
Freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 180°C, 350°F, gas mark 4. Melt the butter in a pan and fry the onion and garlic for 4-5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Remove and combine with the spinach, ricotta, mozzarella, pepper and nutmeg. In a suitable ovenproof dish place a layer of lasagne sheets, top with some spinach and ricotta topping and some passata sauce. Add another layer of pasta followed by spinach and ricotta and passata.

Finish with lasagne sheets, passata sauce and mozerella slices on top. Place in the oven and cook for 40-60 minutes.

Serve immediately with salad and garlic bread.

Menu Plan Tuesday

After the minor technical hitch of yesterday I now have my Menu Plan sorted. Hurrah! Last weeks menu plan went fairly well, I changed a few things around but mostly I stuck to it, I still can't believe how much less food I waste. I ended up being out for lunch on Wednesday and had a burrito, I didn't want another tortilla for dinner, as per the plan so I went for something simple. Sausage, Egg and Chips. I haven't had this for ages, I made it slightly more healthy and baked the chips instead of deep frying them and of course added the obligatory salad!



This weeks menu plan has courgette snuck into it all over the place, I have so many yellow courgettes now that I'm having to give them away! I am seriously looking at meals to find out where I can sneak courgettes into them so I don't get too bored.

Sunday
Lunch: Eggs Benedict
Dinner: Braised Chicken and Beans with Courgettes

Monday
Lunch: Spinach and Feta Pasty, Salad
Dinner: Watercress and Pork Stir Fry, Noodles (Good Food)

Tuesday
Lunch: Out to the pub with colleagues
Dinner: Prawn and Pesto Pasta Salad

Wednesday
Lunch: Dumpling Noodle Soup
Dinner: Out for Mexican

Thursday
Lunch: Salad with Salami, Cheese etc
Dinner: Out for dinner for my Dad's birthday

Friday
Lunch: Courgette, Olive and Feta Rice Salad
Dinner: Meatballs with Egg on top (Hairy Bikers), Chips

Saturday
Lunch: Potato and Green Bean Salad, Chicken Tenders
Dinner: Summer in Winter Chicken with Courgettes, Salad

Prawn and Samphire Stir Fry

Usually right about now I would be posting my weekly meal plan, however I used Word 2007 on my laptop at home to write the menu plan, and when I tried to open the document at work this morning to post, its all scrambled! Work only has Word 2003! I forgot to convert the file! Grrr so hopefully I'll get that posted tonight.

I have been taking part in this round of Adopt-a-Blogger, and my adoptive parent is Hopie of Hopies Kitchen, we got off to a slow start, but now we're motoring, and she has been giving me lots of tips! She has a fantastic blog of her own, written in both French and English, and I've been learning a lot, and improving my French, just by reading through that. I can really recommend Adopt-a-Blogger if you're just starting out in the blogging world. I recently did an interview with her and she has just posted it on her blog, so go and check it out! I am going to try one of her recipes in the not too distant future so watch out for that as well.

This meal was a quick one I had after coming home from a very long day at work last week. It took me all of 10 minutes to prepare and cook. The longest part was cooking the rice noodles I served it with. Samphire is one of my favourite vegetables, it has a really short season typically only 5-6 weeks and is grown on salt marshes in and around the coasts of Norfolk. Usually I just steam it quickly and serve it with a bit of butter on top with fish or game. It tastes like nothing else I can think of, but is so good and it works really well in this stir fry. I used enoki mushrooms instead of leeks as I had no leeks and the mushrooms needed using up.



Prawn and Samphire Stir Fry (from Chinese Food Made Easy by Chine He Huang)
(Serves 2)

1tbsp groundnut oil
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
6-8 cooked large prawns
1 tsp shaoxing rice wine
150g fresh samphire wood stems removed or marsh samphire, preserved in brine
150g baby leeks, trimmed
2 spring onions, trimmed and cut into 2 in pieces
1 tsp light soy sauce
sea salt to taste

Heat a wok until smoking and add the groundnut oil. Add the garlic and stir fry for a few seconds Add the prawns and stir fry for 1-2 mins, then add the shaoxing rice wine and cook for another few seconds.

Stir in the fresh samphire, then add the leeks and spring onions. Stir fry for one minute, then season, to taste, with the light soy sauce and sea salt.

Courgettes, Courgettes, Courgettes

My courgette plants seem to have taken over my little veg patch! The lettuces just peek out from underneath enormous leaves and the beans at the back, whilst producing seem rather anaemic due to the lack of light. I think we have had a good combination of sunny days and rain this year, which has done wonders for my plants.

But I really wasn't expecting quite such big plants and they all have lots of courgettes on them. Now I don't mind courgettes every so often, but everyday and I'll get so bored of them I'll never want to eat one again. So I've been trawling the Internet and my cookbooks for freezable courgette recipes, and I have to say there actually aren't that many beyond soup, probably due to the high water content in courgettes which makes them difficult to freeze.

So that's what my first freezer courgette recipe was, Courgette and Watercress Soup. However even the recipe suggests that just reheating this will change its colour, but I have frozen it so we shall wait and see!

Courgette and Watercress Soup (from Leiths Vegetarian Bible)

(Serves 4-6)

2 tbsp olive oil

900g courgettes

1 onion, sliced

1 leek, trimmed and sliced

salt and pepper

1.1 ltrs vegetable stock

85g watercress

Heat the oil in a large saucepan and add the courgette, onion and leek. Season with salt and pepper, cover and cook over a low heat for 5-8 mins until soft.

Add the stock and bring to the boil, then lower the heat and simmer gently for 10-15 mins.

Add the watercress to the hot soup. Cook for a further 2-3 mins, then puree in a food processor or blender and adjust the seasoning to taste.

The second courgette recipe that I went for was Courgette, Cheddar and Sage Pasties. I love pasties, I recently made some more spinach and feta pasties, they are such an easy thing to keep in the freezer and just put into the oven, leave for 20 minutes to reheat and there's dinner. I'm not sure again how well these will freeze but hopefully the pastry will afford some protection.

The original recipe called for Parmesan, but I don't like Parmesan as the dominant taste in food, so I used cheddar instead. It also used wholewheat shortcrust pastry but I didn't have time to make pastry that day so I got out my trusty roll of puff pastry from the freezer and used that. These were really simple to make. Saute the filling ingredients and then assemble and bake, what could be easier!

Courgette, Cheddar and Sage Pasties (adapted from Leiths Vegetarian Bible)

(Makes 6)

3 sheets of ready rolled puff pastry

For the filling

1 tbsp oil

1 onion, very finely chopped

1 medium potato, cut in 1/4in dice

2-3 tbsp vegetable stock or water

225g courgettes, trimmed and cut into 1/4in dice

12 fresh sage leaves, shredded

salt and pepper

110g cheddar cheese grated

Preheat the oven to 190C

First make the filling: heat the oil in a frying pan, add the onion and cook over a low heat for 5 mins. Add the potato and stock or water and cook for a further 10 mins.Stir in the courgettes and sage and season with salt and pepper. Cook for about 10 mins until the courgettes are tender and the liquid has evaporated. Remove from the heat, stir in the cheese and allow to cool completely.

Cut the sheets in half to make two puffs, and spoon the mixture on to half of the strips leaving a border around the mixture.

Brush the egg or milk around the border and fold the rest of the pastry over so that the filling is covered and the border sticks together.
Egg wash the tops of the pasties and put them in the oven for 15-20 mins at 200C or until golden brown and serve with salad.

Baked Fish Cutlets with Tahini

I love Lebanese cooking but very rarely eat it, let alone cook it. There just don't seem to be that many Lebanese restaurants around, that, or I'm looking in the wrong places. I love these little women's weekly cookbooks, they have really good but simple recipes in them and the instructions are always very clear. This recipe called for cutlets, but I only had a fillet in the freezer so I used them instead.



I served this with Turkish rice, which I thought I'd ruined but was actually yummy, and salad. I have to say the fish wasn't a success, I have discovered that I actually don't like the taste of tahini by itself. I don't mind it in hummus, but not on its own, so I ended up eating this with a huge dollop of sour cream to take away some of the tahini taste. The onions, however were lovely and sweet and complemented the fish really well. I am off to see Phedre tonight at the National Theatre, which I have been told is very good, so I am looking forward to that.

Baked Fish Cutlets with Tahini (from The Australian Women's Weekly Lebanese Cooking)
(Serves 4)

60ml olive oil
2 large brown onion, sliced finely
4 firm white fish cutlets
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
125 ml tahini
2tbsp lemon juice
lemon wedges
2 tbsp finely chopped fresh parsley

Heat the oil in a large frying pan; cook onion, covered, stirring occasionally, about 15mins or until very soft and lightly browned.

Place the fish cutlets in a single layer in a shallow ovenproof dish; sprinkle with salt and pepper. Combine tahini with lemon juice in a small bowl; beat with a fork until smooth.

Drizzle tahini mixture over the fish and top with the onion mixture. Bake uncovered in a hot oven for about 15 mins or until the fish is just cooked.

Serve with lemon wedges, sprinkled with parsley.