Category: Love food

Categories
Love food Sweet stuff

Honey & tahini cookies

For a change, or an addition(?), to the usual Rosh Hashanah honey cake, I can thoroughly recommend these cookies. I had to stop myself eating the dough before it got to the oven.

Do take note that this is one of those recipes that needs to be prepared ahead of time. The dough needs to rest in the fridge for at least three hours before it can be baked. I left mine overnight.

I made my cookies a little smaller than recommended in the recipe. Next time I make these I think I will freeze some of the dough in cookie sized portions. We’ll get through them but really we don’t need that many biscuits hanging around the kitchen tempting us.

Link to recipe

Tip

To get a better coverage of seeds, I suggest putting your seeds and salt onto a saucer, flatten your dough balls and then press into the saucer. You may need a few extra seeds but don’t increase the salt.

Categories
Fish Love food Main event

Horseradish crusted salmon

This dish is, in my humble opinion, restaurant quality. The crust and the sauce elevate boring old salmon to something quite special. Don’t be put off by the recipe suggesting it takes 1-2 hours to prepare – there is no way it takes even an hour to prepare. So while it is special you don’t need to save it for a special occasion.

Lovely served with mashed potato and roasted broccoli.

Recipe link

Categories
Love food Main event

Sweetcorn fritters

These cheesy sweetcorn fritters have been a staple in our house for a very long time indeed. If you are lucky to have any left over then they freeze brilliantly. Just re-heat in an oven for a maximum of 10 minutes. You can defrost or cook from frozen.

Ingredients

  • 100g self raising flour
  • 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 1 large egg
  • 150 ml milk
  • 40g grated cheddar
  • 198g sweetcorn, drained
  • seasoning
  • oil for frying

Method

  • Put the flour, baking powder, milk and egg in a bowl or jug. Use a hand blender to mix to a smooth batter.
  • Stir in the cheese and sweetcorn
  • Heat the oil in a large frying pan and drop large spoons of the mix in the pan.
  • Once bubbles have appeared on the surface and the underside is golden flip with a spatula to fry the other side.
  • Enjoy eating your cheesy sweetcorn fritters.
Categories
Love food Main event

Marmite Carbonara

Who doesn’t love a simple bowl of spaghetti for a quick, simple supper. I’ll admit that this recipe does sound a little odd – Marmite, egg yolk, parmesan and spaghetti – but it really does work. On top of that, its quick and easy to make, what better recommendation do you want?

Link to recipe

Categories
Love food Main event

Baked Blue Cheesecake

Another delicious Ottolenghi star recipe that I have tried and tested for you. Well…, I say I but actually Liora spotted and made this recipe. She assured me that it was easy to make. I can tell confidently tell you though that it was delicious.

We didn’t have the pickled beets but I think they would make a very good accompaniment. I can’t remember what we did have but it would have been a couple of lovely salads. You can also see that we made it one big cheesecake rather than individual servings. How many of us have those little single serving saucepans at home anyway?

Link to recipe

Tip

If you make one large cheesecake as we did, then Mr Ottolenghi says you will need to double the base mix and increase the cooking time to 45 mins. You will also need to let it cool for approx an hour before being able to serve.

We, however, kept the base quantity the same and used 3/4 of the filling recipe. That seemed to work fine. Ultimately it will depend on the size of the tin you choose. Whatever you do, make sure you use a springform tin.

Categories
Love food Main event

Roast aubergines with almond tarator & feta

While I was attracted by the picture for this recipe, I was a little dubious when I looked at the recipe. Throwing caution to the wind, I decided to give it a go. I’m so glad I did. Served with a simple strawberry, avocado, spinach and rocket salad it made a perfect summer lunch. It is simple to make and doesn’t take very long, although a little forward planning is required as the aubergines need to be roasted for an hour.

You will notice from my picture that I swapped out the dill in the recipe for spring onion.

Link to recipe

Tip

If your hand blender is a sturdy one you can use that to make the tarator rather than getting out the food processor. I guess a Nutribullet or similar would also work.

Categories
Love food Salads Vegan

Green veg salad with Asian dressing

A lovely fresh salad which we had with the salmon in my previous post. The eagle eyed among you may notice (if you take a look at the recipe) that I forgot to add the chili. So annoying as I really do like a good scattering of chili. As Liora will attest to, I regularly miss out a key ingredient of a dish. It’s probably down to trying to do everything too fast.

You will see that I have changed the title of this salad from the original. That is because it works just as well without lentils if they are not something you especially like. However, if you don’t have a strong view either way then you should definitely add the lentils. Lentils have great health benefits so are definitely worth eating. It also makes the salad a more substantial side.

The recipe

Some tips

  • While the recipe asks for puy lentils, unless you’re happy to buy the pre-cooked pouches, these are not always easy to find. Green lentils do the job just as well though.
  • Make sure you don’t over boil your lentils, you want to make sure the lentils retain their shape and not turn mushy. I boiled my green lentils for 20 minutes. I also didn’t use stock, just water.
  • Don’t dress your salad too early as the acid from the dressing starts to ‘cook’ the veg. 10 to 15 minutes ahead of serving is perfect.
Categories
Fish Love food Main event

Salmon with Pomegranate & herbs

Thank you to Pete Evans for this wonderful beautiful dish, in taste and looks. This dish is easily halved, as I have done here. All the components can be made ahead of time and assembled at the last minute. If you have any left overs this will keep in the fridge for a few days and still taste wonderful.

Link to the recipe

Some tips

  • I recommend not adding the olive oil to the herb crust until you are ready to dress the salmon. The olive oil will over a long length of time reduce the freshness of colour from the herbs.
  • I don’t add the full amount of olive oil to the crust, it is not necessary. The purpose of the oil is to bind the crust ingredients together. Pour in a bit at a time and mix until you feel it is the right consistency.
  • Note that only half the quantity of the tahini sauce is needed for the salmon. The recipe suggests using the other half to serve on the side. Personally, I don’t think this is needed so I just make half the quantity
  • and finally, the recipe suggests using a food processor for making the tahini sauce. What a waste of washing up! You only need a fork to mix up the tahini ingredients. Note that it should be a fairly thick paste as it forms a layer on top of the salmon for the herb crust to stick to.
Categories
Love food Main event

Summer vegetable & pesto tart

For most of you, you would not be making this for a weekday family meal but as a dish to impress this is a great tart. I give it 10 out of 10 for looks and flavour. It’s a bit of a faff but you can prepare each of the elements ahead of time. Just assemble and cook when you are ready to eat.

The recipe can be found on BBC Good Food.com. They don’t though give you the rocket pesto recipe, any fresh shop bought recipe can be used but really it is so simple to make, I’ve given you a recipe below. I think this probably makes more than the 150g needed for the recipe but it keeps well in the fridge if you know you will use it within a few days, otherwise freezing works very well.

I found that the vegetable strips took a little longer to cook in the microwave than the recipe suggested but that really wasn’t a big issue.

Rocket Pesto: blend all ingredients below in a blender or food processor

  • 50g chopped rocket leaves
  • 25g pine nuts
  • 40g parmesan
  • 8 tbsp olive oil

A couple of pictures here before the tart went in the oven and half eaten, in one sitting between three of us!

Categories
Love food Salads

Tomato & pomegranate salad

Another great Ottolenghi salad. As with many salads it is very often the dressing that makes it. It is especially true of this salad and so you can feel very comfortable swapping out some elements and adding in others. For example in the version I made here I swapped out some of the tomatoes for a diced yellow pepper. A greater ratio of peppers to tomatoes has the advantage of reducing the tendency for the salad becoming too watery in the fridge, if you make ahead of time or have any left overs.