Afghan Leek Pies

Posted on April 9, 2014 by tenuoustoaster

I don’t usually make this sort of thing as I’m not a big fan of shallow frying things in lots of oil. They just can’t be healthy. That said they caught my eye so I thought I’d give them a go.

These are pretty simple to prepare – but take quite some time to fry. I think the proportions are all off in the recipe too as I have over half the filling left over after using up all the pastry!

This is basically a flour, salt and water dough – cut into thin circles (I used a cocktail shaker which had a handy 9cm diameter !) and filled with a mixture of mashed potato, leeks and spices.

The recipe says you’ll make 20 but I made nearly 40!

They are quite nice and we tried them with an assortment of dips from Creme Fraiche to Ketchup to Garlic Jam (from the Isle of Wight Garlic Farm). I think keeping it simple with something like yoghurt or creme fraiche is best. Ketchup overpowered them even though they were quite spicy.

There is clearly a lot you could change here – any filling would probably work as long as it was quite solid.

It wasn’t the best choice of dinner as these are really better placed in a buffet or in the middle of the table in a meeting at work (that’s where the 30 left over ones are going). Eating five each was enough – and we usually eat much lighter food than this.

That said – if these were in front of you and you were distracted with a good film – or like we were with the first episode of Season 4 of Game of Thrones – then you might just munch your way through all of them without realising it.

I had another one of these before going to bed (just like Nigella might) and they weren’t as crisp as they were when they were freshly fried – but the recipe does say they keep well – so we’ll see tomorrow.

Roasted Parsnips and Sweet Potatoes with a Caper Vinagrette

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We were in a rush to cook something quickly before going Rock’n’Roll dancing and I realised when we got home that I was pretty much one ingredient short on almost all the recipes I wanted to make.

Fortunately I had all the ingredients for this – Roasted Parsnips and Sweet Potatoes.

Unfortunately I didn’t have enough time to make it – so I had a choice – go dancing and not eat – or eat and not go dancing. Dancing won the day ! And it’s good we went everything seemed to fall into place and we started getting the moves right. Superwoman’s, flat hand pushes, and ‘the ladies rest’ all seemed to come together beautifully. Happy days. Now we have three moves – the sky’s the limit!

We got home around 11pm and I resumed the cooking – and finished it this morning – so we’re having it for lunch today.

Essentially you roast some parsnips, red onions and sweet potatoes in garlic, rosemary and thyme and towards the end throw in some cherry tomatoes. After a 90 minutes roast (from start to finish) you dress the roasted vegetables in lemon juice, olive oil and capers. It’s very easy – just takes time in the oven. Even the prep is easy as you don’t even need to peel the vegetables!

If you were a roast dinners kind of person this would be a very nice twist on some otherwise plainly roasted vegetables. I think it is a great dish in its own right – the lemon juice and capers really brings a whole new flavour to the vegetables.

You really can’t go wrong with Ottolenghi.

Pomegranate and Cucumber Salsa

Posted on April 7, 2014 by tenuoustoaster

Another late dinner for us. – way past 9pm. And there was a choice. More Mung Bean Casserole (see previous post) or something else. Something else won the coin toss.

This is another dish from Veggiestan by Sally Butcher.

Once I’ve made more than half a dozen things from a book and liked them I can safely recommend the book. Apart from the shocker that was Figs and Fried Eggs, everything else has been awesome – and there’s still half a dozen things I haven’t made yet.

The keen eyes amongst you will realise as I did that this dish could have been called anything – there are a lot of ingredients in this dish other than the two in the title. Pretty much every ingredient in this dish is in equal proportion. Pomegranate, cucumber, tomato, peppers, spring onions, mint, coriander – lots of very fresh ingredients. There is also a hot chilli pepper to give it some kick. I added a Scotch Bonnet. There’s even more zinginess from the juice of some limes.

This recipe is in the Meze section of the book and is supposed to be part of many other dishes. We had it on its own as it was getting late and I realised I had missing ingredients for the other things I wanted to make. It is very enjoyable on its own anyway.

I never feel bad eating salad late at night – it’s hardly going to pile on the pounds. In any case we can dance it off tomorrow night when we go Rock’n’Roll dancing!

Mung Bean Casserole

Posted on April 7, 2014 by tenuoustoaster

There are some days when you just can’t be bothered. Today is one of those days.

In fairness the reason I can’t be bothered is I took the day off work to sand and paint the outside of our boat and it has been raining since yesterday evening. You can’t really sand in the rain. Electricity and water don’t mix particularly well. Even if it stops raining, the sanding disks just clog up with damp paint so it’s a fruitless task.

So. Eleven I clock came round and I figured I should make something for lunch and just hope that the rain goes away. I wanted something warm – salad wouldn’t cut it this time.

The mung beans I ordered from souschef.co.uk arrived at the weekend so this seemed like the most appropriate Winter warmer to make for such a wet day.

This is a one pot affair. Just make sure you have a big one. A lot goes into the pot.

After frying off the vegetables and spices and chillis, you add the mung beans, potatoes and capsicum peppers and simmer until the beans are done. You then add an inconceivable amount of spinach, tomatoes and lime juice and it’s done.

It’s pretty easy and it tastes so good.

It makes ever such a lot. I reckon we will be eating this for a while. It has a lovely warming flavour but it isn’t spicy even if it does have a Scotch Bonnet chilli within.

This is the best thing I’ve made from Veggiestan so far. I really like thing kind of ‘curry’. It’s not really a curry but it could easily pass one.

The recipe suggests you might want to eat it with rice but I can’t see why you’d want to have it with anything. It’s a meal all by itself.

Well it seems to have stopped raining so off I go to the boat!

Fattoosh

Posted on April 4, 2014 by tenuoustoaster

When it’s 9pm and you haven’t eaten yet you have a choice. Don’t eat, or knock up a fattoosh. I made this in less than 15 minutes!

I’ve made a number of fattooshes (fattooshi? not sure what the plural is). Ottolenghi’s fattoosh has a buttermilk dressing and is diced smaller. This one is very chunky – those cucumbers and tomatoes in the picture are 1.5cm dice.

Fattoosh belong to a family of dishes known as fattat – which tends to use stale flat bread as a base – which usually has sumac over it to give the dish a sour taste and it will usually have parsley in it.

Fatt means crush! oosh is just a suffix – so fattoosh I guess means crushed.

This dish – like a number of dishes in Veggiestan – has a lot of fresh herbs. This has a handful of parsley, coriander and mint (well it’s supposed to – I always put more – much better than throwing it away).

This is incredibly zingy, crunchy, fresh and tasty. The olive oil, garlic and lemon juice dressing really gives it a kick.

Also in the dish are peppers, black olives and spring onions.

And I really love the toasted bread in olive oil, dusted in sumac. Sumac is amazing – it always brings toasted bread to life.

The recipe calls for pitta – but I didn’t have any so I just diced a french stick and did it with that.

The other good thing about a fattoosh salad (we just decided the plural of fattoosh is ‘fattoosh salads’) is that – even at 9:30pm – you can stuff your face with this endlessly and never feel full up.

Veggiestan Waldorf Salad

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When I read this recipe in Veggiestan I thought ‘hmm, might be a bit boring’. How wrong could I be.

This is a very exciting take on a Waldorf Salad and would make the perfect side to anything from fish to chicken to Halloumi – I could go on.

We both thought that it could be made into a perfect main with the simple addition of some bread (maybe pitta or garlicky croutons) and some cheese (maybe shaved parmesan – or Freya’s preference Stilton).

I like this kind of dish on a work day because you can take all the ingredients to work in their raw state and just prepare it when you want to eat.

There’s nothing worse than preparing a salad in the morning, popping it in some Tuppaware and then seeing it degrade before you get to eat it. You can prevent this somewhat by keeping the dressing separate but as soon as you start cutting apples or such-like they will lose their colour – so it’s best you just do it when you want it.

A traditional Waldorf salad is made from fresh apples, celery and walnuts, dressed in mayonnaise, and usually served on a bed of lettuce. This dish differs slightly with the addition or raisins, chopped coriander and chopped mint, green pepper and onions. Also there is no mayonaisse. The dressing is made from yoghurt, oil, saffron, seasioning and cider vinegar.

I used some really colourful little gem lettuces (with nice purple tinges), and red onion in my version to make it look less green.

I love this. It packs a punch and has lots of different textures and flavours running through it. It’s a great salad – and it’s made with ingredients I usually have knocking about. I’ll never make a traditional Waldorf again.

Eating out when you’re a Vegetarian

Posted on April 2, 2014 by tenuoustoaster

When I started dating Freya we would quite regularly go out to eat with Freya’s parents.

Now, at the time only Freya’s mum was a vegetarian and we would always try and find places to eat that had a good vegetarian menus. This was harder than we could imagine.

With the possible exception of ‘Incanto’ in Harrow on the Hill and ‘Vanilla Black’ in Clerkenwell (you really must go to these places once you’ve saved up the money) there really isn’t much to choose from. Apparently ‘The Gate’ in Notting Hill is good too but I’ve not been there.

We have been to so many restaurants and failed. There’s usually one starter, one main and of course all the desserts. But why? It just doesn’t make sense.

If you’ve looked at anything else on this blog you’ll see there is so much you can do with so few ingredients – so why is it always soup, souffle or some tart or other.

If I ever want a change of lifestyle – and win the lottery – I’ll be doing my best to stop this!

For now – we just stay in – and enjoy my cooking. Freya says she’d rather stay in and eat my cooking any day rather than go out. Unless it’s Vanilla Black. Eek !!!!

Figs with Halloumi

Posted on April 2, 2014 by tenuoustoaster

Saved by the Figs!

You will find a rendition of this dish in almost every Middle Eastern cookery book. Figs and Halloumi are made for each other and this version is as good as any I’ve had previously.

The winning formula – so prevalent in Ottolenghi’s books – of leaves, nuts, fruit and cheese – works every time. In this dish it is Rocket, Pistachios, Halloumi and Figs.

We would eat this sort of dish every day. It is really satisfying.

The dressing works well too if you follow it to the letter – but I guess not many people have Raspberry vinegar (souschef.co.uk sell it).

A wonderfully simple dish from Veggiestan by Sally Butcher

There’s an amusingly seductive tone for the recipe of this dish. You need to play some sexy music on your Hi-Fi – get the candles out – throw this together – and expect your evening to go very well. That said, I’ve had a lot of Dates (see previous recipe) – I think my chances are slim!

Fried Eggs with Dates

Posted on April 2, 2014 by tenuoustoaster

This is weird. In fairness when we saw it in the book we said – that looks weird, we should try it.

If you think about it too long, you won’t try it. Because it’s dates and fried egg mixed together. That’s it nothing else.

I feel kind of sucked in by the narrative under the ‘Western International Breakfast’ where the author says ‘Because the best food in the world is often the simplest’.

This may be true – but only of other dishes – not this one!

Freya didn’t like this – as was apparent when we swapped plates once I’d eaten three quarters of mine and she’d merely moved her food around the plate. Obviously I have concerns for how regular I might become having consumed 250g of dates – but I’m sure I’ll be fine!

I only made this while I waited for the Ocado man to deliver our groceries. Freya was hungry and in need of a quick nibble. I should have waited 15 minutes – although I guess I’d have made it eventually.

Have I got across to you all that I won’t make this again? Good!

Veggiestan – Sally Butcher

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This is the first Vegetarian only cookery book I’ve cooked from. I borrowed it from my future mother-in-law quite some time ago and haven’t gotten round to cooking from it.

I like the down to earth writing of the author of this book – it’s a very modern writing style.

In searching for this week’s recipes I only got to page 80 before I’d shortlisted 20 recipes – and then stopped. This book compliments all the Ottolenghi books – and many of the recipes are strikingly similar but with slight twists. The middle eastern style of cooking really suits me. I hope I can go there on a holiday once we’ve sorted our boat out !

I particularly like the ‘suggestions’ of how to modify the dishes and customise them to your own tastes.

Anyway all this week’s recipes are going to come from this book. I’ve plumped for lots of simple to make, smaller dishes as I don’t have a lot of spare time this week. I hope you enjoy them !

This week I’ll be making:

Turkish Pizza Bread
Spinach Fatayer
Afghan Leek Pies
Beetroot and Orange Salad
Cucumber and Pomegranate Salsa
Waldorf Salad
Fatoush
Herby Omelette Thingies
Onion and Herb Salad
Fried Eggs With Dates
Figs and Halloumi
Cheese Baked Egg-Stuffed Tomatoes
Tomato, Fennel and Arak Soup

I’ll also make Mung Bean Casserole – but I have to wait for those to arrive from souschef.co.uk, they take a few days to deliver based on past experience.