Categories
Breads, muffins etc Love food

Nigella seed & feta muffins

We may not be looking forward to winter weather but the cold days do mean that we are likely to be enjoying some great bowls of soup. These tasty savoury muffins are a perfect accompaniment to any bowl of soup. They are packed full of flavour, are easy to make and freeze well. I recommend having all your ingredients ready before starting ie grate the parmesan, grate the sweet potato, crumble the feta and melt the butter. Putting it all together then will very quick. Before doing any of that though, brush some melted butter over your muffin tin.

Recipe link

Sweet Potato Nigella Seed and Feta MuffinsDownload

Categories
Love food Main event

Risotto cake

This is a great ‘make ahead’ dish, it freezes well and reheats in the oven very well. In fact I think it is possibly even better when not eaten on the day it is made.

While I have called this dish risotto cake, I should warn you that it will not deliver a creamy traditional risotto. As you can see from the pic, this results in a more solid baked slice.

Ingredients (serves 6)

  • 325g arborio rice
  • 350g courgettes, grated
  • 5tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • 2 onions, finely chopped
  • 2 garlic cloves, crushed
  • 3 medium eggs
  • 150g cheddar
  • 4 tbsp/60ml double cream
  • 2 tbsp chopped rosemary

For the tomato sauce

  • 80g butter
  • 2 garlic cloves, chopped
  • 675g ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped
  • 40g tomato puree
  • 150ml water
  1. Preheat oven to 180C and line or grease a 20cm spring-form cake tin.
  2. Cook the rice in boiling salted water for 8 minutes and then drain.
  3. Heat 2 tbsp of the oil in a frying pan and fry the courgettes and onion for 5 mins. Mix in a bowl with the rice, garlic and remaining 3 tbsp of olive oil. Leave to cool slightly.
  4. Add the eggs, cheese, cream and rosemary and some seasoning to the rice and courgettes.
  5. Spoon into the tin and level off to a smooth surface.
  6. Bake for 25/35 mins until firm.
  7. To make the sauce: melt the butter in a pan and sweat the garlic – don’t let it burn
  8. Add the tomatoes, puree and water and bring to the boil. Simmer gently for 15 mins, stirring occasionally.
  9. Season. If you like a smoother sauce, blend with a hand blender.

Categories
Breakfast/brunch Love food

Veggy sausages

Sunday breakfast/brunch/lunch is probably the meal I most consistently enjoy and look forward to. A fry-up is on my list of old favourites, served with these very tasty veggy sausages. They also freeze brilliantly if you don’t eat them all.

Do take a look at some of my other favourite breakfast/brunch recipes.

Recipe (makes approx 16)

  • 200g unsalted cashews, soaked overnight if you have time
  • 200g cooked vac-packed chestnuts
  • 250g firm tofu
  • 1 small red onion, peeled and grated
  • 1 red chilli, deseeded and roughly chopped
  • 150g breadcrumbs
  • A few sprigs of fresh thyme, leaves picked and roughly chopped
  • 100g cheddar cheese, grated
  • 1 tbsp soy or tamari sauce
  • 1 egg, beaten

How to make

  • Put the cashew nuts and chestnuts into a food processor and blitz to a fine-ish breadcrumb texture.
  • Mash up or finely chop the tofu (depending on whether it is silken tofu which can be mashed or the other type) in a large mixing bowl
  • Add the rest of the ingredients except the olive oil and mix well.
  • Put a little oil onto your hands and shape the mix into sausage shape. Lay them on an tray and put them in the freezer to firm up for 5 minutes or so if cooking straight away. Otherwise put them in the fridge until you are ready to fry them.
  • If freezing, they can be reheated in the oven either defrosted or from frozen.

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
Love London

Talks for foodies

The British Library has rescheduled its season of Food themed talks to take place online, starting 14 September. Each talk is £5 and can be booked here.

The first talk in the series is the chef, writer and campaigner Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall talking about sustainability, food provenance and wellbeing with award-winning food writer Bee Wilson. My particular interest is the talk on 21 September in which Claudia Roden and historian Simon Schama will draw from their research and personal experience to discuss the history, evolution and culture of Jewish food. I had booked to attend this event back in May, it was of course cancelled so I was quite excited to be able to re-book. Do look through the whole season as there are some great talks in the series,

Separately, I also spotted, and booked for, Stephen Fry in conversation at the British Library on 1 October.

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.