Cauli Mac and Cheese

30th March 2016

Right after a gym session, you always need a bit of mac and cheese! I love all things cheesy but I've never made more than a Kraft box before. My roux sauces have never been perfect either so I thought it would be a bit of a challenge. It definitely took longer than the recipe suggested too!

First, the easy bit! Boil a pan of water and add the macaroni. Done. While the pasta was under way, I chopped a cauliflower into small florets and then added that to the pan.

While all that was boiling, I made the roux. The butter was melted in the pan and then I screwed up. It said to stir in the flour next which created delightful lumps in the pan. I'm pretty sure that's not what's supposed to happen. I quickly started to add the milk and whisked vigorously to try and break the lumps down. I continued adding the milk slowing, allowing it to heat up and hopefully melt the lumps some more. I'm not 100% sure I got rid of them all. I didn't need all the milk but it didn't really bubble a lot, just steamed. I added the grated cheese and some garlic paste and whisked continuously until it looked a little darker and thicker.

I poured the sauce over the mac and cauli in the casserole dish (after having to take out a Tupperware full of macaroni and cauliflower for space!) and stirred it all in. I scattered some breadcrumbs over the top and put it under the grill for about 10 minutes.

When it came out it was bubbling but the sauce still seemed thin. I just rolled with it since I was starving but as it cooled slightly this seemed to thicken it up. It tasted just as you'd expect mac and cheese to taste, to be honest! Not bad for my first attempt and there are three more portions for the week! Score.

Lemon and Blueberry Cake

25th March 2016

A friend made this cake a couple of times recently and it has been quite possibly one of the best cakes I've had in a long time. So I made it for my parents for Easter while I was home. It tasted great but didn't have quite the aesthetic appearance that the others did. Here's the recipe for reference.

Baking-wise, it was a fairly simple sponge cake recipe. Softened butter was creamed with white and brown sugar, then the beaten eggs and vanilla were mixed in. The dry ingredients - flour, baking powder and salt - were weighed and sieved separately (finally get to use a sieve!) and then mixed in to make a stiff cake batter. A very stiff one actually.

Next, I zested and juiced three lemons and mixed these into the batter along with the milk. The blueberries were tossed with a spoonful of flour and stirred into the mixture to prevent them from sinking.

This mixture was more than enough to fill three sandwich tins, and it probably could have done four smaller ones at a push! They were baked for approximately 25 minutes and they came out quite pale still, but cooked through. I left this over night to properly cool.

The frosting was a mixture of cream cheese and butter beaten together and then icing sugar. The mistake I made was not beating the butter enough, or letting it soften enough. Once I started spread it over the cake layers it was apparent that there were still little lumps of butter still in there and it wasn't smooth. Nor did it have the nice yellowish colour that my friend had! I also left the greaseproof paper on the middle later and had to deconstruct things a little and make a huge mess.

Overall it tasted great but looked an absolute nightmare! I saved some of the blueberries to decorate the top which hid some of the travesty. I had to put this in the fridge for a few hours because the icing was just running off it like a waterfall. That seems to happen with all the frostings I make, and this time I even omitted the cream ingredient which would have made it runnier! 

Once we cut into it, it looked pretty good for the first three-tier cake I've ever made. You can kinda see where I had to slide out the paper as there's less frosting between two of the layers. My friend added lemon curd in the layers too which I regret not doing. Next time!

Pearl Barley and Carrot Salad

22nd March 2016

I've been putting this recipe off for about a week now after being daunted by the packet instructions to cook the pearl barley for an hour fifteen. Who has that long to cook dinner in the evenings?? But I'm glad I finally got round to it.

In actual fact the pearl barley only took about half that time to cook which meant I spent a lot of the time cooking preventing it from sticking to the bottom of the pan.

Meanwhile, I chopped carrots, shallots and some remaining courgette, drizzled with oil, garlic paste and fennel seeds, and roasted them in the oven for 40 minutes.

When the veg looked almost done, the pearl barley was drained and tossed with some chopped parsley, some leftover cabbage and leek from the previous week, feta cheese and a dressing made from red wine vinegar, lemon juice and olive oil.

Finally, the roasted veg was added into the bowl and mixed in. This made four huge portions at surprisingly low calories. Its the first time I've cooked pearl barley but I'll be sure to use it again in salads.

Stuffed Red Peppers

18th March 2016

Stuffed peppers have always been a veggie favourite and this was just another variation of that which I really enjoyed eating. The assembly was less enjoyable...

First, the couscous and raisins were put into a bowl and covered with hot water. This was left for 5 minutes or so until it as all absorbed and the couscous could be fluffed up by a fork. This was then stirred into a mixture of chopped parsley, pine nuts, some of the feta and what should have been a pinch of cinnamon but was more like a teaspoonful!

The filling was then generously stuffed into jarred pre-roasted peppers. The peppers were preserved in oil so handling them whilst trying to stuff with couscous was incredibly slippery and I couldn't get them stuffed all the way down without splitting the peppers. In the end I resigned to stuffing a little bit and allowing some to just spill out on the baking dish.

This was topped with the remaining feta and baked for 15 minutes in the oven. The result was delicious, but I might use the remaining filling in actual peppers for structural stability! I served the peppers with a small green salad.

Lentils with Grilled Aubergine

14th March 2016

I'm really feeling a lentil kick right now. They're a lot easier to cook than I remember when I was just starting out as a vegetarian, and an awful lot quicker than most recipes suggest. Maybe I bought super fast cooking lentils or something. Similarly, I'm still going through my aubergine phase so this recipe was right up my alley.

To start, the recipe recommends to grill the aubergines over a gas hob for speed. However, with only electric rings I had to resign myself to grilling in the oven for about an hour until the flesh had shrunken away from the crispy skins.

Meanwhile, I actually baked a cake... Another citrus and white chocolate loaf for a charity bake sale at work. You can find this recipe here.

Once this was done I made a start on the lentils. These were boiled in a pot of water along with carrots, onion, celery, bay leaf and mixed herbs for flavour. This was simmered on a low heat for around 25 minutes or until the lentils are tender. These should have been drained and the veg removed but I'm a sucker for wasting food so I just left it all in.

More carrots, celery and cherry tomatoes were chopped and put in a roasting dish in the oven mixed with brown sugar, salt and oil and left to roast for half an hour.

Once the aubergines were done, I cut them open and scooped out the flesh, being careful not to include any of the skin and drained it in a sieve. Once fully drained they were generously seasoned with salt.

When all the components were cooked, the dish was assembled by serving a scoop of grilled aubergine flesh on top of a serving of lentils with the roasted veg on the side. This was all topped off with a spoonful of natural yogurt.