Spinach and Lemon Polpette

11th September 2017

...well whatever that means... First day of unemployment meant I had enough time to experiment with something a bit different.

To kick things off, I put the lentils in a pan of water to simmer as this would take some time.

In a large mixing bowl, I measured out some nutmeg, garlic, lemon zest and panko breadcrumbs.

The spinach was dry fried in batches until it had withered and lost most of its moisture. This, along with the drained lentils, was added to the mixing bowl with an egg to bind. It was a bit of a solid mass for my blender to cope with so I had to bind the mixture by hand and wooden spoon. This was seasoned with salt and pepper.

Supposedly this mixture should have made 20 balls... I just about managed 18 and some were very tiny. It was a wet gooey mess to try and roll into balls, but I suppose that means they'll be nice and moist after baking? The balls (polpettes?) were baked for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, I put a small pan of spaghetti on and made the sauce. This included lemon zest, garlic, chopped almonds, olive oil, basil and cherry tomatoes. This I could blitz in the blender, but it turned out much runnier than expected despite following the quantities pretty precise. In fact less tomatoes were used.

It wasn't exactly pesto textured, but it wasn't too runny once it was mixed up. It was very garlicky, however. Mmmmm.

The spaghetti was drained and plated up, topped with a few of the balls.

I dolloped some of the tomato sauce on top to finish. It was very interesting and different and I was very pleased with how the polpette turned out.

Summer Wellness Bowl

29th August 2017

Another wellness/goodness bowl full of good things and it tasted amazingly healthy whilst being jam packed full of things.

These are so easy to make, and can be different every single time. A Modern Way to Cook  has lists to pick a grain/pulse, 2-4 seasonal veg, something to boost flavour, a dressing, herbs and something to texture.

I started with some lentils which I cooked in vegetable stock. I bulked this out with a mixture of kidney beans and cannellini beans for extra protein.  The veg I chose was grated carrot and tomatoes, with spring onions for flavour. 

With a bit of rocket and mixed toasted seeds, topped with tahini dressing, this salad bowl was very nourishing and healthy and provided a great crunch and flavour for lunch time.

Millionaire Shortbread

1st September 2017

And finally on to some baking for a Macmillan bake sale! I have to admit I was a little nervous about making something good after a few shoddy bakes in recent history. This is a recipe I've been meaning to try out for a few years actually. I'll leave the link here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/millionaires_shortbread_76712

Biscuits have never been my strong suit but I had a helpful advisor to tell me when it looked done. I mixed butter with flour to make a breadcrumb like consistency. I added a little more flour when it started to ball up in the mixer, just to keep it loose and friable. Caster sugar was rubbed in next. The shortbread mixture was then pressed down into the lined baking tray, making sure there were no gaps around the edges. This was then baked for around 30 minutes.

Once this was done and cooled slightly, I mixed butter, golden syrup and condensed milk until it was all melted and slightly reduced. The heat was increased slightly to a simmer until the mixture began to change colour to something that resembled caramel. Some did begin to burn on the bottom of the pan so I continued stirring the pan for 5-10 minutes...

....Until it looked more like this!

The recipe says to let the caramel cool slightly before pouring onto the shortbread, but there was a serious danger that I would eat it all with a teaspoon before this was ready... I have to say, this was my first time making caramel and it tasted pretty darn good!

To be fair, the deconstructed dessert below would be totally acceptable to serve in this state somewhere in east London..!

The caramel was poured on and I left it covered over night to set.

In the morning, chocolate was melted the traditional way over a pan of boiling water.

This was poured over the top of the caramel and smoothed out into the corners in an even layer. I left this in the fridge to set for another 24 hours.

After some careful slicing around the edge, I was able to remove the shortbread from the tray in one big slab with such beautiful layers!!

How I'm to cut this without cracking the chocolate and squeezing the caramel out is anybody's guess. Spoon anyone?

Chilli Green Beans with Paneer

10th August 2017

Paneer is a personal favourite so I wasn't turning this page in a hurry.

Firstly, the onion and garlic was chopped and added to a pan of hot coconut oil to gently fry on a medium heat. Meanwhile, the green beans were topped and tailed and chopped in half.

Cumin, turmeric, chilli powder and dried coriander were added to the pan and fried with the onions and garlic. Chopped salad tomatoes and ginger were added in next for another few minutes before the green beans, honey and lemon juice were thrown in too and coated with the spices.

To prevent the veg drying out, I splashed a bit of cold water in which also helps cook the beans a little quicker.

Once everything is thoroughly covered in spices and the water has mostly evaporated, add in the chilli and paneer cubes to coat with the tomato and spices. Season well with salt and pepper and serve with rice or flatbread if you fancy something extra.

Vegetabel Noodle Crunch

7th July 2017

Gahh such a backlog. Sort of. I've barely had an evening to cook anything over the summer with such busy plans. I'm going to attempt to do some catch up and remember what I did!

This was one from the Oxfam Veggie book, which usually contains some slightly more traditional recipes. This one is a bit of a noodle lasagna.

First, I sliced up a tub of mushrooms and layered these on the bottom of a dish. Meanwhile there were leeks sautéing in a pan and I had vermicelli noodles simmering until al dente. 

The sauce was made up of a large tub of low fat natural yogurt, a lot of garlic and salt and pepper seasoning. The noodles were stirred into this and half were layered on top of the mushrooms. Then the leeks were layered on top of the creamy noodles.

The mushrooms and noodles went for another layer on top of the leeks in a lasagna fashion.

Finally, the panko breadcrumbs were rubbed into margarine to create a crumble, which was combined with grated cheese. This was spread on top of the dish.

This was baked in the oven until the top was golden brown. It was delicious. I used way too much garlic but I quite like it. It was a nice low carb option for lasagna with a bit of a twist.

Aubergine Stuffed Pepper

3rd June 2017

I've gotten a bit exhausted with some of the other veggie cookbooks. Its becoming a lot of veggie side dishes rather than full meals, which is great sometimes, but not when I'm bulk cooking for work lunches. So I turned to some old fashioned recipes.

Smaller cubes of aubergine were set to fry in a large frying pan with salt, pepper and garlic until it began to soften. Then I added the passata and stirred in some grated cheese.

I poured the aubergine mix into a bowl and used the tomato and spices left in the pan to briefly fry either side of a halved pepper to soften it. This was then filled with the tomatoey aubergine and topped with grated cheese. The peppers were baked for approximately 10 minutes until the peppers are cooked through and the cheese is melted.

I served the peppers with a quorn steak which was novel, I normally don't eat vegetarian substitutes. But it was actually pretty nice. The whole meal was really delicious. The recipe made enough for a second portion of stuffed peppers for a future lunch at work.

After such a delicious cheesy lunch, I just had to go for a sunny walk along the river and drink some Pimms. Cheers!

In the Meantime..

Various dates in May 2017

In between the other recipes in May, I made a couple of quick things.

The first was vanilla and camomile cupcakes which can be found in an earlier blog post here: http://cookingwithgingers.blogspot.com/2015/04/camomile-vanilla-cupcakes.html

There wasn't a lot of difference with this batch other than I made the cupcakes smaller and go further. I think this was probably the most successful batch of butter icing actually. The consistency was beautiful and there was the perfect amount to cover all the cupcakes fully.

I also made a couple of stir-frys from the mix and match pages from A Modern Way To Cook. This provides lists of ingredients under the headings "greens", "crunchy", "sweet", "carbs" etc. which allows personal taste and preference in creating wholesome meals.

In my favourite combination so far, I used broccoli, sweet potato, tofu, sugar snap peas, vermicelli noodles, chilli and sesame. It was pretty high in calories but really tasty and across the board healthy.

Quinoa and Pearl Barley Risotto

23rd May 2017

I'm not sure if I made this correctly or not. I mean, I made it like the recipe said, but it ended up being way more than the 4-6 portions suggested and it was very oniony. Still, pretty good.

First, the leeks were finely chopped and gently fried in coconut oil until slightly browned.

The quinoa and pearl barley were added along with some lemon juice and vegetable stock. This was simmered for around 20 minutes, when most of the liquid was absorbed and the grains were tender.

Petit pois and spring greens were stirred in and cooked briefly. Finally, the small cubes of feta went into the mix along with salt and pepper for seasoning and topped with basil. This lasted me over a week of meals, and was very filling and nutritious. However, I was very ready for a change of lunch by the time I got to the last portion. Note to self: sometimes I eat way less than a recipe suggests!

Ricotta & Courgette

1st May 2017

I should be better at writing this blog in a timely fashion...

So more salady recipes as we enter summer! First, we got a big slab of ricotta cheese and topped it with honey, lemon zest and chilli powder and baked it in the oven.

Meanwhile, I finely chopped some pepper, chilli, spinach and added some courgette spaghetti to a bowl.

When the cheese was supposed to be browning on top (the honey was getting golden I guess...?), I added the pistachios for a further few minutes to roast.

Finally this was all mixed together with a little pesto to create a creamy salad. It was a great lunch option for a couple of days, although pretty high in calories when you think about the cheese and nuts. Proteinous!

Black Eyed Bean Stew with Herb Smash

30th April 2017

I'm really into spicy food right now so I quite fancied giving this one a go. 

To start, the leek was chopped very finely and fried gently in some coconut oil. After a few minutes, chilli and garlic were added too. I included some mushrooms and courgette for additional veggie goodness. 

When the veg was beginning to brown, the black eyed beans and passata were added to the pan along with the juice from half a lemon. I chopped the remains of the lemon into segments and put them in the pan for flavour whilst the stew simmered. 

Meanwhile, I made the "herb smash". Fresh coriander, green chillis, garlic, honey, sunflower oil and lemon juice were put into a blender and blitzed together. Chopped walnuts went in next for a light blitz to create a smooth green paste. Although I perhaps put in too much oil since it was a little on the runny side. I also stirred in extra pine nuts for good measure. 

Finally, once the passata had reduced significantly, I mixed in chopped spinach for the last couple of minutes. 

This was served in a bowl with the herby dressing on top, along with some pitta bread. Despite the three chillis in here, it wasn't spectacularly spicy. I will have to add extra chilli flakes when I reheat the rest. Really need that spice kick at the moment!

Carrot Cake

22nd April 2017

For my boyfriend's birthday, I baked one of his favourites - carrot cake. I borrowed the recipe from his sister, Kerry the Lady of Cakes: https://theladyofthecakes.wordpress.com/2015/04/07/carrot-cake-cupcakes/

It was a pretty simple cake recipe to do, and a good one to do after so long away from my cake tins. First, the wet ingredients were combined in the mixer, the butter, eggs and sunflower oil. Next the grated carrot, raisins and orange zest were mixed in, and I included some of the orange juice too. 

Finally, the flour, bicarbonate of soda, nutmeg and cinnamon were mixed in until smooth. The cake batter was quite runny but this is apparently fine. Instead of cupcakes, I poured the mixture into two sandwich tins to make a larger sandwich cake. 

This was baked for 40mins which my oven decided to brown a little too much! Thankfully nothing was damaged. 

While the cakes cooled, I made up the cream cheese frosting. I've never ever been good at frosting, even following recipes to the letter. This was no exception! I beat the butter with a wooden spoon until fluffy and then mixed in the icing sugar to made a slightly crumbly consistency - so far so good! Then I added in the cream cheese bit by bit until about two thirds quantity to make the frosting. It was juuuuust turning too runny at this point. I just don't even...

I trimmed a bit off the top of one of the cakes to make a flat top, spread in a third of the frosting and lay the second cake on top. The rest of the frosting was spread over the top with a palette knife and the cake was put into the fridge to help the frosting set...and prevent the top sliding off!!

The cake was delicious, and I thank Kerry for the fantastic recipe. It went down a treat with Carl and we devoured the thing in less than 3 days! 

Quinoa, Plantain and Flapjack - Welcome back!

27th March 2017

Hi blog-face!! It's been again. I've been so bad at quick starchy meals lately. I just got back from a week in Italy and boy do I need to purge my body and eat vegetables again. 

I've been using my newest cook book lately (insert name) which has tonnes of recipe trees to create salad and goodness bowls. This is an excellent idea and means you can work from the same page for multiple meals. 

But tonight I tried something a little Caribbean. I miss the Caribbean!

To start I weighed out the quinoa, adding twice as much water and a stock cube and left it to summer for 15 minutes. Meanwhile the tin of black eye beans was put in a pan with some chilli powder and cinnamon and slowly boiled off the liquid. And in a larger pan, the leeks and mushrooms were sautéed.

Next I peeled and stoned the avocados and mashed them in a bowl with lime juice and chilli powder. Once the beans had reduced down I mashed these slightly in another bowl. 

Finally the plantains were peeled and sliced and gently fried on either side. I've had plantains before and they were super sweet and soft, but mine just got harder. I added a little water and salt to the pan to soften and flavour it a bit. It mostly had the texture of potato than banana. Maybe I need to try this again for the sweeter flavour. 

Dinner was assembled with the quinoa in the bottom, a spoonful of beans and leeks, topped with some plantains and finally the guac. It was quite tasty overall, and very different to anything I'd made before which was exciting. I realised it was 100% vegan also which was an added surprise.

But also, let me tack onto this post the flapjacks I made for the work bake sale the other week. Far beyond healthy I made double quantities, meaning there was 500g butter and 500g sugar in one large pan and I almost had a heart attack looking at it! I made an orange marmalade flapjack, so added some orange zest and juice to the mixture, and finally drizzled marmalade syrup all over the top for a beautifully sticky topping.