Textures of Beetroot

Posted on June 13, 2014 by tenuoustoaster

Anyone that follows what I eat knows that I eat a lot of beetroot. I love the stuff. Not that awful prepackaged stuff – or the stuff that comes in a jar pickled in vinegar – but proper raw beetroot.

Roast it yourself (I always do mine in a halogen oven) and all the flavour just comes out – yummy. The books always tell you to wrap them in tin foil but I never do. They seem to come out just as well whether you wrap them up or not.

One big issue with this though is your cooking time – and the time it takes to get the food on the plate is increased by at least an hour. You can’t really roast a raw beetroot in less than an hour – and once you’ve waited for it to cool down so that you can peel the skin off, you are looking at 90 minutes before you’ve even started with the fun stuff.

Thinking a little outside the box I’ve started roasting my beetroots in the morning. Just stick them in the halogen oven for an hour and the oven turns itself off, the beetroots go cold while you’re at work – and presto – you come home and you’ve saved yourself 90 minutes!

Maria Ella presents four beetroot recipes in her book ‘The Modern Vegetarian’. They can all be served together ‘meze’ style and they go together beautifully. The four dishes are:

Beetroot Tsatsizi
Spiced Caramelised Onion and Bulgar Wheat Pilau
Beetroot Keftedes
Greek Beetroot Salad

All are pretty simple. All I’ll discuss in separate posts.

The first time I made this I spattered the pages with oil – resulting in a ghastly PDF once I’d despined and scanned the book!

I’ve made this many times since, but computer screens are far more wipe free than the pages of a book – so no further incidents have occurred.

As a complete meal I can thoroughly recommend these four dishes together. It looks beautiful (my photo doesn’t do the meal justice) and there are such variety of textures and flavours. All from one purple root vegetable!

Rosemary and Butternut Squash Polenta Chips

Posted on June 13, 2014 by tenuoustoaster

Now here’s a wonderful find. I don’t think I’d have been drawn to these if it weren’t for the really good photo that accompanied the recipe in ‘The Modern Vegetarian’ by Maria Ella. Basically the chips were arranged in a kind of Jenga tower and they looked very impressive. As you can see I didn’t copy that presentation!

I’ve decided that keeping a packet of polenta in the cupboard is a good thing! I’ve only ever made one thing with polenta – Polenta and Sage Pizza – but this is far cooler. I think I could even convince my six year old daughter to eat these – she’d never know they weren’t potatoes.

Making these is pretty easy – but not necessarily quick. There’s not a lot of cooking time – just a lot of waiting time for things to cool.

Firstly you dice some butternut squash very small and boil it with some rosemary. Then you add polenta – and when it thickens you pour it out into a greased tray (or one lined with parchment) and allow it to cool. You really need to season polenta well as it is broadly tasteless. I pressed a load of sea salt and pepper into the top of my slab.

When it is cool enough to put it in the fridge, do so – or do what I did and whack it in the freezer. As you all know by now I eat at stupid o’clock most evenings – we ate these past 10pm again – so the freezer was the quickest way to get this nice and solid.

Once it’s set – turn it out. It’ll look like this:

Cut it into chip sized errr chips, dust them lightly in plain flour and fry them.

I did mine in two different ways – in a halogen oven – and in a frying pan. It’s pretty hard to take a picture of the excitement inside a halogen oven – so here’s a picture of a frying pan!

I have to say the crispier chips came from the halogen oven. And they stayed hotter for a lot longer.

Once they are nice and golden and done, take them out and roll them in some very finely grated parmesan cheese. If you have one of those fancy microplanes like I do this really does the trick beautifully.

I served Freya’s chips with mayonnaise and my own with ketchup. I think mayonnaise was the better option!

The book suggests swapping out the butternut squash for either peas or sweetcorn. Both of which I plan to try. I have to say I couldn’t taste the butternut squash, nor the rosemary. I think it would be better not to add the rosemary to the butternut squash when you are boiling it – I just think it ruins the herbs. It might be better to add it in when you are stirring the polenta – just to keep it fresher!

I really liked these – I could eat a bowl of these anytime – even if they are really just a side. The slab was big – so we had these again the next day as a ‘starter’ while I cooked up our next dinner!

Fresh Borlotti Bean Cassoulet

Posted on June 10, 2014 by tenuoustoaster

Does anyone know where to get Fresh Borlotti Beans? I don’t so I couldn’t really make this as per the recipe. If I’m honest I only chose this recipe because I found a couple of tins of them whilst packing up our food as part of our house move and figured I could swap them out without much fuss.

This dish is also from Maria Ella’s ‘The Modern Vegetarian’ – and was pretty easy – and is really just one of those ‘throw it all in a pan’ affairs. The end result is ‘posh beans on toast’ (if you serve it with toast!).

This was nice and quick and took me less than 30 minutes to make – although the recipe suggests that the longer you leave this to infuse the more tasty it will become! We ate really late last Sunday (when I made this) so the flavours didn’t have a chance to infuse. That said the leftovers were definitely more tasty when we had them at work the following day.

To make this you simply fry celery, onion, carrot and garlic (all diced very small) into some olive oil. Once soft add bay leave, sage and oregano, the beans (I used two 400g tins), chopped fresh plum tomatoes (I had a lot of Heritage ones that were very very ripe so I favoured these) and cook.

Now ordinarily in the recipe you would add water to cover the beans and cook for 50 mins or so. But my beans were already cooked so I didn’t bother with this step. I just added enough water to keep the consistency of my beans similar to that of a tin of baked beans.

When it’s all ready you remove from the heat – add lemon zest and lemon juice and some basil and serve with some toasted bread.

As quick dishes go – this was very quick. But I did cheat. This would take far longer if you used fresh beans.

This is quite a nice go to dish if you’re short of time. And it is far better than a tin of baked beans!

Butternut Squash Barley Risotto

Posted on June 10, 2014 by tenuoustoaster

It seems like ages since I posted something. I’ve been cooking – I just haven’t had the time to post the reviews!

Moving house and moving onto a boat all at the same time is a recipe for disaster. Especially challenging when you still have to go to work, and your new mooring is a very long way away from where you live. That said, only two weeks left and all these issues should be over!

Anyway – back to the cooking. This is another recipe from ‘The Modern Vegetarian’ by Maria Ella. I’ve made this before. I think in November last year and my memory of it made me want to make it again.

It’s not quite as spectacularly bright and colourful like the Spinach Pearl Barley Risotto I made some time ago – but it is as tasty.

One thing I noticed this time round is butternut squashes all look the same don’t they! But do they taste the same? To me, this risotto didn’t taste as ‘squashy’ as the one I made before. Maybe squashes aren’t really in season in May/June – and lack the taste of an autumn one.

One thing I’ve taken away from this recipe is ‘why use rice’. I’ve never found rice particularly fulfilling. You eat it – you get full – bloated in fact – you go do something and half an hour later you’re hungry again. Barley is a super substitute. It has three times the carbs, five times the protein, three times the calories and a whopping ten times the fibre. Basically you’ll get more energy from it – and you it’s better for you !

There are many steps to this recipe – and it seems very long winded – but it isn’t – and it is worth it.

To make this you peel a butternut squash, and put the peelings with some onions (peel and all), garlic, carrot and water in a big pan and boil it up to a stock.

Obviously you could cheat here and just use Bouillon or a vegetable stock – but for the effort, and the fact that you have the waste product anyway it seems silly not to. I think in hindsight here you could pep up your stock (if your squash isn’t that flavoursome) with something like that Knorr vegetable stock concentrate.

While that’s reducing down from something like 2 litres to 1 litre, you prep your squash. Dice and roast the end with the pulp with lots of olive oil. I did mine in a halogen oven (hence the round ring).

Next, fry off the other end of the squash in a pan. I messed this up last time I made it by not reading the recipe properly – I ended up roasting the whole squash. To be honest I don’t think it makes the blindest bit of difference. You fry the squash with shallots (I used some left over spring onions) and some spices.

Once you’ve done that – the prep is done.

From here on it’s all plain stirring. Fry the barley, some onion (I used red onions for added colour and the fried diced butternut squash and add some wine to get it going.

Once the wine is absorbed, gradually add your butternut squash stock – risotto style – ladle at a time until each ladle is absorbed. This took around 30 minutes for me.

Once the barley is to your liking (I like mine to have some bite) add the roasted squash (which you need to puree first) – and then some parmesan cheese (how much is up to you!).

I think this is a yummy, filling, wholesome dish which fills you up and leaves you full. I didn’t go overboard with the cheese – but you could if you wanted to – depends on how you like your risotto. I like mine to be a little sloppy and still have some of the liquid unabsorbed.

As I already said this dish is a little more labour intensive but it is worth it. Give it a go!

Smashed Pea, Dill and Feta Crostini

Posted on June 4, 2014 by tenuoustoaster

I love green food. I love peas. Fresh peas. And this dish from Maria Ella’s ‘The Modern Vegetarian’ caught my eye whilst I was shortlisting things to make this week.

If you leave out the bread, this is a raw dish. No cooking. Very very simple. Toasting bread isn’t cooking anyway – unless you are one of those toast burners out there. So this really is a no cook dish.

It was another quite late dinner for us as I foolishly placed an Ocado delivery for 8pm. I chose this recipe because it was the quickest and I was hungry. Very quick to make this one!

You can make this in less than 10 minutes. And here’s how:

smash some garlic in a pestle and mortar
smash some dill and salt into the garlic
smash some fresh peas into mix
add olive oil, keep smashing
add lemon juice keep smashing
add parmesan and smash a bit more
add crumbled feta – ease off on the smashing
toast some ciabatta – try not to smash it
serve with some pea shoots on top – if you can find them

You want a texture a bit like this – rather than a massive mush!

One thing you must be careful not to do is watch the last five minutes of Season 4 Episode 8 of Game of Thrones whilst doing all this smashing. It just doesn’t sit well !

This is a great simple easy dish – looks lovely – tastes amazing – and you can adjust the amount of parmesan (or leave it out all together) if it’s too cheesy for you.

This was supposed to be a starter for us – but it was filling enough that we didn’t need to eat anymore.

I’m sure this will be one of those go to dishes when I’m time starved or just want a quick bite.

Shakshuka

Posted on May 27, 2014 by tenuoustoaster

Some dishes taste better than they look. This is one of them I think.

This dish is a typical Middle Eastern breakfast dish – but yet again because we were late back from the boat – 10:30pm this time – I ended up throwing this together in about 25 minutes.

It rained all day on Sunday so we decided to take a trip to IKEA to pick up two small sofas to go in the wheelhouse of our boat. Sadly – we did the bad thing which was changing our minds on what we wanted – picked something a little bit bigger and found it didn’t fit ! It was a real shame as it meant we just lost a tonne of time driving all the way back to IKEA to return the oversized items and then had to queue for a refund and buy what we had originally planned to buy. By the time we’d done these two trips (from Maidenhead to Wembley) and assembled, dismantled, reboxed, returned, then assembled the smaller sofas it was very late indeed.

We were happy with what we should have bought in the first place though so it really doesn’t matter. Just lost lots of time!

Anyway, this dish is basically poached eggs in a tomato and red pepper sauce. Very simple and very tasty.

After dicing a couple of red peppers and chopping a good half kilo of ripe tomatoes, you fry them off with some Harissa (again!) garlic, cumin and tomato puree until you get a nice thick sauce.

At this stage you make some wells in your sauce and crack eggs into them – then cook until they are done. While they are cooking you wiggle the whites into the sauce a bit – and that’s it!

You serve this dish with Labneh or a thick yoghurt. I used creme fraiche – given I hadn’t made any Labneh (it does take at least a day to make it) and wanted to keep our yoghurt for something else.

Basic, fast, and very tasty. A definite dish to have in the bag when you have no time on your hands.

We definitely have to get out of the habit of eating so late. It’s not good for us! But better than eating nothing and going to bed on a rumbly tumbly.

Parsley and Barley Salad

Posted on May 27, 2014 by tenuoustoaster

Cooking seems to have been put on the back-burner (pardon the pun) this week. We’ve just been so busy that eating seems to be the least of our worries. After this week things should settle down and I can get back to cooking properly again.

This very very simple salad is pretty much all I could manage on Friday after I had picked my daughter up from her ballet class, a mere 100 miles away from where I live! Another late dinner – it was definitely past 9pm by the time we ate this. Which isn’t good for you I know. Still it was quick and easy – you can make it in less than 30 minutes – easily!

This is another Yotam Ottolenghi recipe from Jerusalem. I seem to have messed up somewhere and not reviewed his book. I’ll do that soon – as there is so much in that book I want to make. I just don’t seem to be focused on much more than getting our boat relocated to Brentford this week – so my head is in the clouds.

All you do with this recipe is boil then simmer some pearl barley – and not much either – and while it is getting ‘al dente’ chop some parsley, green pepper and spring onion. You also toast some nuts (I overdid mine quite a bit – but it didn’t seem to matter).

Once the pearl barley is to your liking you drain it and let it cool – and then mix with all the other ingredients, some lemon juice, oil and then crumble in some feta.

This dish is so fresh and really delicious. And it keeps pretty well too.

I’ve made this before – as has Freya – and we both keep coming back to it – so it must be good.

It’s a shame the parsley from Natoora was so leggy. Much like the recent batch of spinach from them, the parsley was all stalks and little parsley – and the parsley itself was very papery. I wasn’t overly pleased – which is a shame because usually Natoora are my go-to vegetable and fruit supplier at Ocado.

Pureed beetroot with yoghurt & za’atar

Posted on May 22, 2014 by tenuoustoaster

The countdown has begun and we are beginning to panic. We move the boat a week today – and we are very nervous. There is so much to do – and not enough time to do it. This weekend is a write off due to family commitments – so we are going to the boat after work and working until there is no light left. Last night we worked until 9:15pm – got home at 10pm – and then I started cooking. This was part one of our dinner.

Fortunately I’d already roasted the beetroots for this dish the previous day – so this could be made in less than 20 minutes. Very simple indeed.

Whizz the beetroot, Greek Yoghurt, Garlic, Olive Oil , Za’atar and a Red Chilli in a Magimix – until blended. Don’t blend it too much as you want it to remain coarse.

In the book it says thicken it with mashed potato if it is too runny. As luck would have it I had 4 potato and spinach cakes that I hadn’t cooked yet just sat in the fridge – so I blended them in too to make it thicker. It didn’t change the flavour at all – just made it thicker!

Once blended to the consistency you want you top with roasted hazelnuts, spring onions and goats cheese. Very very simple.

Freya popped over to her parents and pilfered a couple of slices of bread – which we toasted and dipped into the puree. It was very late when we ate dinner – almost 11pm. Not ideal to go to bed straight after work but we were both exhausted. It had been a long day! We made lots of this – and took the rest to work and shared it with our colleagues at lunchtime.

Za’atar appears in a number of Middle Eastern dishes. Wiki says – ‘Za’atar is using a mix of ground dried thyme, oregano, marjoram, or some combination thereof, mixed with toasted sesame seeds, and salt, though other spices such as sumac might also be added’. My pot of Za’atar came from my Ottolenghi ingredients box that Freya’s mum bought me. It smells lovely – and really brings the beetroot to life.

This recipe can be found in Jerusalem – another great book by Yotam Ottolenghi.

I think this would be really good as part of a Meze, or with pitta bread – a really good substitute – or rival for Houmous.

I’m guessing tonights dinner will also be a very late one. But at least the end is in sight – and in a week we can take a well earned rest!

Dates and Turkish Ewe’s Cheese

Posted on May 22, 2014 by tenuoustoaster

After three days of eating bread and cheese (our go to lazy eating solution when we are at the boat) we got back to work and made this for lunch.

Another Yotam Ottolenghi recipe from the book Plenty. This very simple salad is both very quick to make and incredibly tasty. I think it looks pretty awesome too.

I can’t imagine many people will find Ewe’s Mozzarella in their local supermarket. Ottolenghi himself goes to a cheese specialist not far from his restaurant in London. I used a good quality Buffalo Mozzarella as I didn’t have the time.

Ottolenghi does this a lot. A green thing, a nut thing, a fruit thing and a cheese thing – with a dressing. And I have to say it seems to work everytime (except with Verjus !).

This one is rocket, mozzarella, almonds and Medjool dates. The dressing is olive oil and pomegranate molasses. There’s some basil and dill in there too.

I love this – very fresh – very summery – looks beautiful – and got me back in the mood for cooking again.

Lovely.

Sweet Potato Cakes

Posted on May 22, 2014 by tenuoustoaster

From the time consuming – to the incredibly quick and easy!

You may have noticed I haven’t been posting much lately. We’ve been so busy trying to get the boat finished. We are moving it next Thursday from Maidenhead to Brentford – a two day voyage along the River Thames – by two absolute novices in the piloting of a boat. Our best efforts so far include Kayaking up to Bourne End – and almost causing a passenger boat collision on the canals of Amsterdam in a Pedalo!

I’ve always liked Yotam Ottolenghis myriad pancakes (note the correct use of the word myriad! – not a myriad of…) – he has many variations on a theme – this one I like – mainly because I really like sweet potatoes.

We’ve been packing up our cottage this week as well – getting all our stuff together – and that included looking in the freezer and seeing what we had in there. Quite frankly not very much. A couple of frozen meat based dishes which have clearly been in there for more than six months (we’ve not cooked with meat since November), some ice-cream (obviously) and a bag of frozen sweet potatoes and a bag of frozen butternut squash – both cubed.

With time not on my side – nor energy – I’d spent most of the day making steps for the outside of the boat from 3.6 metre decking boards (so was exhausted) – I simply tipped both bags of frozen veg onto a roasting tray – drizzled with Olive Oil and roasted for a good 30 minutes.

After letting them cool and draining off any liquid (of which there was very little anyway) you mix the roasted vegetables with flour, spring onions, a chilli, some soy sauce and a little bit of sugar. I Magimixed mine – which was maybe a little brutal – I think a potato masher might have done just as good a job.

You then make small burger sized patties and fry them in butter. I made 16 I think. In 2’s.

I served mine with a yoghurt dressing made from greek yoghurt, soured cream, lemon juice, olive oil and coriander.

These were really yummy, and really quick, and required very little effort. Just what I needed – I had little desire to be fine chopping stuff with Global knifes – and have a tendency to clip my fingers when I’m too tired.

It’s a shame the photo isn’t that exciting. These are really tasty – but don’t look like anything special.