I often make macaroni cheese, or some variation of it. I like to play around with adding vegetables, different cheeses or flavours in the sauce. This three cheese and cauliflower macaroni cheese is one of the most delicious I’ve made. The combination of Emmental (for sweetness and stringiness), Cheddar (for bite and cheesiness) and Parmesan (for savouriness) means you get the best of all the cheeses! And don’t worry, there’s a cauliflower in there too; to add a little vegetable healthiness amongst all that indulgence.
Greek Chicken Tray Bake
I love a straightforward dinner. However being straightforward doesn’t mean there’s any skimping on flavour. Grabbing a few ingredients out of the fridge and cupboards, chucking them in a roasting tray and miraculously taking the finished dish out of the oven at the end is the weeknight dream. My Greek chicken tray bake is a two tray affair (I know, slightly more involved than one tray) and really delivers on flavour. The flavours of Greece; oregano, tomatoes, olives make this a wonderful dish for this time of year.
Gnocchi, Kale and Spinach Gratin
Sometimes I end up with an awful lot of veg in my fridge. I use bits and bobs throughout the week but despite my best brassica consuming efforts I still get left with some of it. These leftovers often end up in a soup (my autumn minestrone is a great way to use kale) but recently I wanted to make something different. I really like green veg with pasta so I grabbed my veggies, some gnocchi and cheese and set about making a gnocchi, kale and spinach gratin.
ingredients
You will need (for two big portions):
Golden Beetroot Remoulade
Beetroot has to be one of my favourite root vegetables. I love all the different colours you can get and a recent addition to my veg box was a bunch of golden beetroot. At first I thought about boiling it and mixing it with white wine vinegar and some spices. Then I got to thinking about proper comfort food and a golden beetroot remoulade would be the perfect finishing touch to a rather traditional dinner. A fantastically earthy alternative to using celeriac.
ingredients
You will need (for a good bowlful of remoulade, enough for dinner and leftovers for the next day):
Beetroot and Feta Dip
Beetroot is one of my favourite vegetables; it’s sweet, earthy flavour is like nothing else. I like to roast it with other root veg, boil it and add a little rich balsamic vinegar for a simple side or salad and I have tried smoking it on the barbecue in the past too. This latest batch of beetroot however I decided should be turned into a beetroot and feta dip. Firstly because the colour would be glorious and secondly because I wanted something punchy and full of flavour to serve with some delicious sourdough.
Chargrilled Broccoli, Potato and Pesto Salad
It was one of those evenings. You know the ones, where you look in the fridge expecting a sudden moment of inspiration and the fridge just stares blankly back. I’d put something down on the meal plan but for one reason or another didn’t manage to cook it; sometimes I forget to buy an ingredient or I use it all in another meal forgetting to save any for later in the week. My potato, chargrilled broccoli and pesto salad came out of seemingly nowhere. This meal’s saviour turned out to be a little pot of pesto; it transformed a sorry looking collection of vegetables into a rather tasty meal.
ingredients
You will need (for two):
- 2 large handfuls new potatoes
- 1 small head broccoli
- Small handful green beans, sliced diagonally
- 3-4 tbsp pesto (fresh from a deli or homemade if you like). You could use a vegan pesto to make the meal vegan
- Small handful pine nuts
- 2 handfuls washed rocket
method
Start by scrubbing the potatoes and then chopping them into halves or quarters depending on their size and how you like them. Leaving them a little larger just means they will take a little longer to cook. Put the potatoes into a pan of cold salted water and bring the pan to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Simmer until cooked through.
Chop the broccoli into small florets and pop them in a steamer over the potatoes for 1-2 minutes until bright green but still crunchy.
Get a griddle pan onto a medium/high heat and tip the broccoli in. Keep the broccoli moving occasionally but allow it to get chargrilled at the same time.
Re-use the same steamer and pop the green beans above the potatoes for the last few minutes of the potato cooking time.
Drain the potatoes and green beans and put to one side.
Put a small frying pan onto a medium heat and add the pine nuts, moving them round the pan often until they are toasted.
Mix the broccoli and pesto into the potatoes and beans and then serve up with the rocket and top with the pine nuts.
The chargrilled broccoli adds such a great flavour to this salad, if I was having a barbecue I’d definitely try the broccoli on there before mixing into the salad. This is a really hearty and filling dish and would be a great side but I enjoyed it just on its own. A few halved cherry tomatoes, some leftover chicken or salmon would be delicious additions and would probably leave you enough for lunch leftovers the next day.
Sausage, Broccoli and Spinach Pasta
Using sausages when making a pasta sauce is a great way to add depth and flavour to the sauce and cut down on cooking time too. My most recent recipe creation came about because I had one too many broccoli heads in the fridge; so my sausage, broccoli and spinach pasta was born. I used some delicious Italian sausages for this which were flavoured with plenty of herbs and a little fennel. The spinach was added as an afterthought but actually I really liked the earthiness it brought to the dish.
Ingredients
You will need (for 6 portions, it freezes well):
- 1 onion, finely sliced
- 6 Italian sausages
- 2 cloves garlic, crushed
- Pinch dried chilli flakes
- 1 head broccoli, cut into small florets
- 150ml chicken or vegetable stock
- Handful fresh spinach, roughly chopped
- Salt and pepper
- Olive oil for cooking
Method
Start by adding a little oil to a large frying pan on a medium heat. Add the onion and fry for 10 minutes or so until softened.
Squeeze the sausage meat from the skins into the frying pan. Fry the sausage and onion together until the sausage is cooked through and starting to turn golden brown. Break the sausage meat down with a wooden spoon while it cooks.
Add the garlic and chilli to the pan and fry for another minute or two.
Tip in the broccoli and stir everything together well then add the stock and pop a lid on the pan.
Bring the pan to a boil then remove the lid and let it reduce to a thick sauce. Add the spinach for the last minute or so of cooking.
Cook the pasta according to pack instructions while you’re waiting for the pasta sauce.
Drain the pasta and season the pasta sauce then mix everything together and serve up.
I like how some of the broccoli breaks down and some stays in larger pieces and it gets really mixed through the sauce. The spinach ends up all silky and the chilli adds the tiniest bit of warmth to the sauce but it’s by no means spicy. Depending on which sausages you use the sauce will taste different so it’s a great excuse to play around with all sorts of flavours. If you mixed this with a little tomato or béchamel sauce I reckon it would make a spectacular pasta bake.
Carrot Falafel and Quick Pickled Onions
I’ve tried to make falafel a few times before without much success; it seems to fall apart when I cook it. Experimenting with this falafel recipe, a bit more of this and a bit less of that, means that I’ve now ended up with a pretty sturdy recipe. These carrot falafel are really easy to make; everything gets blended together, and I’ve served them with all my favourite sides. Quick pickled onions will be appearing on everything from now on!
Ingredients
You will need (for two):
- 1 tin chickpeas, drained and rinsed
- 100g carrots, grated
- 1 clove garlic, crushed
- 1/2 tsp ground cumin
- 1/2 tsp sweet paprika
- Zest 1 lemon
- 1/4 tsp chilli powder
- Salt and pepper
- 1 tbsp plain flour
- Sesame seeds
- Oil for frying
For the Pickled Onions
- 1 red onion, thinly sliced
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 100ml white wine or cider vinegar
Sides
Runner Bean and Tomato Stew
It’s bean season at the moment. There’s runner, French, broad and all manner of other beans popping up in the veg box, at the farmers’ markets and in friends’ gardens. I love a perfectly cooked and simply dressed bean salad; a little drizzle of oil, a squeeze of lemon and a little seasoning. However, from time to time it’s nice to do something different and this runner bean and tomato stew is a much slower way of cooking with green beans.
Ingredients
You will need (for four servings):
- 1 onion, sliced
- Olive oil for cooking
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed
- 1 tsp smoked paprika
- ½ tsp cumin
- ½ tsp dried chilli
- 8 large tomatoes, roughly chopped
- Large handful runner beans, sliced into finger sized pieces (you can use other beans here, French beans would just need halving)
- 2 tins borlotti beans, drained and rinsed
- 150ml vegetable stock
- Salt and pepper
- Few sprigs fresh marjoram or oregano
Method
Get a large frying pan onto a low/medium heat, add a little oil and the onions and fry gently for 15-20 minutes until well softened and just starting to turn golden.
Add the garlic and the spices and cook for a few more minutes.
Tip the tomatoes into the pan, turn the heat up to medium and leave the tomatoes to break down and soften for around 15 minutes.
Add the runner beans and vegetable stock to the pan and continue simmering for another 10 minutes.
Stir the borlotti beans into the pan and cook for a further 10 minutes.
Check the seasoning and add salt and pepper as needed. Pick the leaves from the oregano and stir these through just before serving.
Serve alongside some crusty bread.
The lightly spiced tomato sauce works so well with the softened runner beans and hearty Borlotti beans. Using fresh oregano makes such a difference to this dish as you get such a wonderful punchy flavour. I ate most of this with a spoon and then tore off hunks of bread to mop up all the spiced juices from the bottom of the bowl. A fantastic stew, perfect for this time of year; a dish full of summer flavours.
Moussaka – without frying the aubergines
Moussaka is one of my favourite dishes to eat. It’s a bit of an involved one to make, you need four different cooking pans going to make all the component parts; that’s why I don’t make it very often! Frying the aubergines, I think, is one of the most laborious parts of making the moussaka so I’ve got a different way of doing it. My moussaka without frying the aubergines is every bit as good as the original and you use far less oil than if you fry them. Win win.
Leaving the bay leaf in the sauce while it bakes really helps to impart a lovely flavour into the béchamel sauce. I’m not sure the potatoes on top are necessarily that traditional but I know so many people who add them to the top that I can’t imagine eating moussaka without them. This is a rich, full of flavour meal and cooking the moussaka without frying the aubergines does make things easier. The once or twice a year I make moussaka I try to make a double batch so that I can keep one in the freezer for a rainy day.
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