Roasted Sweet Potato and Bean Salad

30th May 2016

Back on the healthy kick (again) so a summery salad tea was just want I needed.

To start, the sweet potato was cut into cubes and coated in olive oil, salt, pepper and chilli powder. I left the skins on because I love the crispy roasted skin taste.

The rest was easy! While the potatoes were roasted I mixed together the sweetcorn, black eyed beans, avocado, red onion, tomatoes along with some additional red pepper and cucumber and mixed in the juice of half a lemon and some more olive oil.

Once the potatoes were cooked it was just a matter of mixing the whole lot together and serving it up. It was delicious, and so simple to make.

Blueberry Scones

30th May 2016

Baking hasn't really been in my schedule for some time but this weekend seems to be go go go! For a charity event I baked a couple of chocolatey things which sold out so fast I never even got to try it!

So after reading the latest GoodFood magazine I was keen to bake something for brunch over the bank holiday. It was the blueberry scones that caught my eye. They didn't look too hard to get my baking hands back on.

To start, the butter was rubbed into the flour, baking powder and lemon zest. Then the blueberries were mixed into the dry ingredients so they were fully coated to prevent them sinking.

In a separate jug, I whisked the eggs, cream and vanilla paste. This was poured into the dry ingredients and I kneaded this into a dough. Which really hurt my wrist, by the way. This started out fine but got mushier and wetter as it went on which led me to believe I'd over kneaded it and created extra moisture from bursting some blueberries.

I tipped this onto a prepped baking tray and squashed to approximately 2cm thick. It was too wet to cut up and bake the pieces separately so I used a bread knife coated in flour to cut roughly eight pieces and so the heat would get into the centre of the dough.

This needed slightly longer than suggested to bake, probably because it was mostly in one doughy lump, and arguably still wasn't done when I finally caved to hunger and took it out the oven. It was a little undercooked in places but I think that was mostly due to the burst blueberries. But it still tasted amazing. And a day later once it had cooled and set, it was just about perfect.

Asparagus and New Potato Frittata

23rd May 2016

I love a good frittata and I'm a big fan of asparagus occasionally. This is made slightly different to how I'd normally make a frittata and perhaps slightly easier.

To start I parboiled the potatoes in salt water. When they were almost done I threw in the asparagus tips to cook for just a minute and drained.

The onions were fried until soft and I threw in some leftover mushrooms for good measure. You can never go wrong with mushrooms.

I cracked six eggs and beat them with the remaining dribble of milk I had. I mixed in all the grated cheese, which I later read was wrong and I should have kept half for the top. Oh well! Too much cheese can't be a bad thing, right?

I left this to fry on the hob for a few minutes an then popped it under the grill with some more cheese grated on top. I served this with a salad and some sour cream dip in the absence of mayo. It was probably one of the best frittatas I've made. I think the cheese in the egg mix made it.

Chickpea Fajitas

22nd May 2016

Summer is coming, and this is one body I'm not happy with right now. Holiday plus grief plus birthday parties have destroyed my diet and exercise and I'm feeling a bit gross. So I think I'm going to clamp down on all the snacking and processed food and focus on home cooked meals. And we start with some chickpea fajitas.

First the chickpeas were put into the oven to toast for 20 minutes, seasoned with a bit of paprika. Next the tomatoes and red onion were chopped and tossed with red wine vinegar to slightly pickle. Finally the avocado was chopped into small chunks and lightly mashed. Which really hurt my wrist... Lemon juice and a pinch of salt was used to season.

Once the chickpeas were brown and crispy it was time to build the wraps! First I put a dollop of sour cream dip onto the warm tortilla, topped with the salsa, avocado and finally the chickpeas. I made two for good measure and they were super tasty.

Pearl Barley Salad

14th May 2016

This recipe actually called for farro but there's only so many different grains a girl can be bothered to cook with. So I used pearl barley, which is growing on me to become my new #1 grain. And this was really easy to make.

Because I was using pearl barley there was no need to soak for hours on end, so it was put into a pot of water and simmered for 25 minutes.

Meanwhile the courgette, pepper and cherry tomatoes were diced into small pieces, drizzled with oil and garlic with some seasoning and put into the oven to roast for half an hour.

The pearl barley was drained and put into a mixing bowl with the roasted veg. This was all mixed together with lemon juice and a handful of pine nuts. I totally forgot to mix in the olives but I did throw in a handful of grated leftover mozzarella that gave the whole dinner a delightfully cheesy flavour.

In the meantime I used up the remaining puff pastry and goats cheese to make a cheese and onion pie for tomorrow's dinner.

Pea Pesto and Sausage Lasagne

11th May 2016

After a few weeks of holidays and tragedies, its about time I got back to cooking properly and not just eating on the fly. Ordering pizza and eating badly has really messed up my stomach over the last week, so I need to get back to a low gluten and high fruit and veg diet. So whilst this does have gluten pasta in the recipe, its so much better than the cheese sandwich I might have made out of laziness.

To begin I fried the sausages as they were frozen. Once they had thawed a bit I could chop them into smaller pieces to cook faster. Meanwhile, the cherry tomatoes were seasoned with salt, pepper and drizzled with oil and roasted for 15 minutes. I also started the broccoli and peas simmering to tender in a separate pan. 

The greens were combined with the sausages and the mascarpone and pesto were stirred in and heated gently to make a cheesy pesto sauce.

The milk and butter was gradually heated in another pan. The remaining mascarpone and some of the grated mozzarella was whisked in gently until a cheese sauce consistency was reached.

Next the assembly! I used half the sausage and veg mixture on the bottom, then came half the roasted cherry tomatoes and finally a layer of pasta sheets. The same was layered again to make the second tier. I totally forgot to stir in the fresh basil into the sausage and pesto mixture so I sprinkled it over the top tier before the pasta sheets. the cheese sauce was poured on the top, spread out across all the pasta, and finally topped with pine nuts and mozzarella.

This was baked for 35 minutes, which was slightly too much as the cheese had got very brown and crispy (burnt). However, it tasted amazing. It was a really interesting take on the traditional lasagne.