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.
My Favourite Autumn Recipes
There are several things which tell me autumn has arrived. I suddenly find that I am wearing my wellies more than previously, apples and pears have appeared in the fruit bowl again, I’m having porridge for breakfast and the wood burner comes alive. Then I notice that the leaves have turned orange and are falling from the trees, there’s a bit more rain than before and I really fancy a roast dinner. I wanted to share some of my favourite autumn recipes with you. I love cooking during autumn; there are so many colours around to enjoy, woody herbs get popped into pots and pans and there’s always the inevitable squash or pumpkin.
During the autumn season in my kitchen you’ll find fruit crumbles hot from the oven and smothered in thick cream, hearty pasta bakes which bubble over the edge of the dish, a batch of sloe gin on the go in the back of the cupboard and all manner of combinations of vegetables roasting in the oven.
You can’t go wrong with an Autumn Vegetable Minestrone. Whichever vegetables you happen to have in your fridge can be added to this hearty soup which is so full of flavour. Adding both pasta and beans means this minestrone is really filling too.
If you’ve not tried making Sloe Gin before then maybe this year is the year! You can wait until the first frost, or you can pick early and freeze the sloes at home before you start infusing those beautiful purple berries with gin and sugar. A glass of sloe gin by a roaring fire when your warming your feet up after a soggy walk; there’s nothing better.
Staying in on a rainy day and getting something on the hob to blip away in the background is what my Proper Ragu is all about. The longer you cook it, the more intense the flavours become and it’s fantastic served with pasta, used for lasagne or other pasta bakes. It takes some time but it’s so worth it.
Similar to the sloe gin above you can also try making some Quince Gin. It is a really beautiful colour once it’s done and doesn’t take as long to infused as sloe gin. A really delicate and fanitly tropical flavour there’s nothing quite like it and it means you can mix up my Lime, Thyme & Quince Gin Cocktail too!
Autumn is such a great time for baking and I find myself craving some rather chocolatey things. My Chocolate Fudge Cheesecake Brownies are a real indulgence and perfect with a big cup of tea on a drizzly weekend. If you’re a fan of a Millionaire’s slice (I have to say, my biscuit/bake of choice whenever I’m out) then this Millionaire’s Tart is worth a try, complete with salted chocolate ganache.
Venison comes into season in the autumn months and knobbly celeriac starts appearing at the markets. They are delicious as seasonal ingredients served together in Celeriac Remoulade, Venison and Sourdough Open Sandwiches.
This year the blackberries have been out for a little while and there are still plenty more to pick. I absolutely love using wild blackberries, they have such a delicious sweet flavour which is far nicer than those you can buy in the supermarket. Whether you fancy trying a Blackberry and Pear Pavlova, my Baked Blackberry Cheesecake or some Blackberry and Perry Jelly get your hands on the berries fresh from the hedges.
I don’t mind a butternut squash, but I’m not the biggest fan of them. Mixed with delicious spices and turned into a soup it results in something bright and vibrant which I do actually quite enjoy eating! You can try my Curried Squash Soup with Toasted Spice Pumpkin Seeds and see for yourself!
There are so many varieties of apples and pears I love finding new ones to try. I love baked apples, they are so simple to make and my recipe for Baked Apples with Salted Toffee Sauce is really straightforward and tastes so good! Poached Pears are also a favourite of mine and even better if you can find some elderberry wine to poach them in!
This is the time of year to get out and forage for some wild ingredients, including blackberries! If you can find some cobnuts, also called wild hazelnuts, then you could have a go at making my Wild Hazelnut Brittle. Keep an eye out for elderberries too as they make fantastic
Elderberry and Apple Turnovers
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.
My Favourite Quick Recipes
You know the feeling. When you get home from work, you’re tired and don’t want to stand around in the kitchen getting dinner ready. This feeling is magnified if it happens to be raining and/or you have a cold at the same time. Part of you wants to pick up the phone and get a takeaway but part of you knows that you really should cook something, especially if you already have all the ingredients. I have found a secret way to get round this and it relies on two things: firstly, that you can call upon your favourite quick recipes and secondly, the moment you start to chop the ingredients you’re committed. Once you’ve picked up that knife and sliced through that onion you’ve started dinner and suddenly, even on the worst days, it’s not such a mountain to climb.
I wanted to share my favourite quick recipes as they have been invaluable for me and on a busy weeknight are just the perfect thing to cook and take away any temptation of the takeaway. All these recipes are ready in under 30 minutes, create minimum washing up and are easy to cook. I just need to make sure I get that onion chopped before the OH catches my eye and both sets of eyes move towards the paper menus.
Smoked Chicken Caesar Salad
I do cheat a little with my take on a Caesar Salad and use a good quality ready made dressing. Adding a handful of green beans turns the salad into something a little more substantial and it’s delicious if you stir through some steamed potatoes. Also good served with crusty bread and it really is worth searching out some smoked chicken for this recipe.
Roasted Aubergine and Tomato Pasta
The reason I love this aubergine and tomato recipe so much is because everything roasts in the oven together, you just need to chop, drizzle, roast and then pop the pasta on. Mozzarella is my cheese of choice for this but a little mascarpone or ricotta stirred through would be great too.
Chipotle Sweetcorn Hash
This is a two pan dinner and it’s so worth it for a bit of spice, smoke and sweet midweek. The chipotle sweetcorn hash makes up the base of the dish and you could top it with all sorts of things; chicken, steak, tofu, roasted cauliflower or stir some leftovers into the mix.
Olive and Fontina Baked Courgettes
Perfect served alongside all your leftovers on a Friday night, these olive and fontina stuffed courgettes are so good served with a few olives, salad leaves, bread and whatever else you have left at the end of the week. Fontina is such a great cheese for this but there are alternatives you can use over on the recipe.
Miso Glazed Aubergine with Pickled Cucumber
I love anything with aubergine and when they’re glazed with miso they make such a great veggie dinner. The red rice takes a little longer than other rice to cook but you can always use brown or wild if you prefer. And when I say ‘quick’ pickled cucumber, I really do mean quick!
Harissa Lamb with Tabbouleh
Tabbouleh is something I turn to often, especially if I have leftover herbs in the fridge. The marinade for the harissa lamb is so simple and would work on plenty of other things (chicken, tofu, veg, fish) for a bit of variety.
I have a certain air of smugness after I have eaten the home cooked meal and not caved in! What are your favourite recipes that are ready in a flash?
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.
Smoked Chicken Caesar Salad
There’s something about an iceberg lettuce and I feel it is sometimes a little overlooked. When it’s properly crunchy it’s so refreshing and I think rather delicious. My Smoked Chicken Caesar Salad is a recipe which is perfect for the hot weather we are having at the moment. I didn’t make the dressing myself but a homemade dressing would be fantastic. Personally I didn’t fancy all that whisking, I much preferred the idea of sipping a well iced beverage outside. As green beans are in season at the moment it would have been rude not to add a handful.
Ingredients
You will need (for two):
- 1 smoked chicken breast (or pack of smoked chicken)
- Handful green beans
- ¼ iceberg lettuce, washed and shredded
- Large handful mixed salad leaves
- Good quality Caesar dressing
- Parmesan
- Crusty bread
Method
If you can get your hands on some smoked chicken from your butcher I find it always has a great flavour and a delicious texture. I have seen it in supermarkets too which would be good to use. Dice or slice up the smoked chicken and put to one side.
Tip the green beans into a pan of salted boiling water and cook for two minutes then drain. You want them to retain some bite.
Layer all the ingredients up in a bowl, drizzle over the Caesar dressing (I am pretty liberal with mine!) and then add some shaved Parmesan over the top.
Serve with a nice crusty bread.
I made an extra serving of this and had it for leftovers for lunch the next day. A few of the salad leaves looked a little sad but as the flavours had had time to mingle together it had a great flavour.
Where’s the bacon? Well, because I used smoked chicken in this recipe I don’t feel that bacon is really necessary but you could add some if you so wish. I also didn’t add any croutons as I prefer to share some warmed bread which you can rip in to and mop up those last bits of dressing in the bowl. Crisp leaves, flavourful chicken, savoury Parmesan and sweet green beans; all rounded off with rich Caesar dressing, this is simple food at its best. Using some hot smoked salmon would be delicious in this recipe, especially with a little sliced cucumber.
Strawberry and Peanut Tart
Minimum fuss and maximum results were the name of the game with my most recent dessert. Another hot day, the last thing I needed was to be baking pastry, so I didn’t, but made a tart nonetheless. My Strawberry and Peanut Tart makes use of a few sneaky kitchen shortcuts to make a delicious and impressive pudding. A chocolate and peanut base smothered with cream and stacked high with fresh fruit it almost seemed a shame to cut into it. But, you know, someone had to.
Ingredients
You will need (for 6-8 servings):
- 180g dark chocolate digestives
- 2 heaped tbsp peanut butter
- 3 tbsp salted butter
- 300ml double cream
- 150ml low fat Greek yoghurt
- Strawberries and cherries (or other berries)
- 2 tbsp peanuts
Method
Start by heating the peanut butter and butter together in a small pan on a low heat. Stir from time to time until melted and mixed together.
Add the digestive biscuits to a bowl and then smash them up with the end of a rolling pin until you have a breadcrumb texture. Pour over the melted peanut butter and butter and mix together well.
Line a 20cm spring form cake tin then tip the biscuit mix into the tin, spread out over the base and flatten the top using the back of a spoon.
Refrigerate for an hour minimum, longer if you have it.
Prepare the fruit; chop the green bits off the strawberries, stone the cherries if you like, and put to one side.
Add the peanuts to a small, dry frying pan and heat on medium to toast the peanuts. Remove from the heat when lightly golden and smelling marvellous then crush in a pestle and mortar or in a bag with a rolling pin.
Whip the double cream until you have firm peaks. Gently fold the yoghurt through the cream.
Remove the base from the fridge and put onto a large plate. Pile the cream on top of the base and then top with the fruit. Sprinkle over the crushed peanuts.
This was one of those desserts that was so satisfying to cut through with a knife. Firstly you have to move it through the heavy fruit into the fluffy cream, then you meet a little resistance at the base with a very satisfying chink when knife meets plate. The dark chocolate in the digestives gives a hint of chocolate throughout the tart without being too overwhelming and the peanut taste in the base mirrored by the peanuts over the top brings a great taste and texture. Adding the yoghurt to the cream not only makes the cream go further without adding any extra fat but also gives a nice tang and freshness to the whole dessert. Juicy strawberries and cherries made a fantastic topping for this but any berries would work well too.
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