Chicken Tikka Masala

My Mum’s kitchen is one of the main advantages of living at home for me. Having a ‘flour cupboard’ of every flour you can imagine, or a row of labelled jars of different grains and a shelf in the larder stocked full of different Lidl dried fruit and nuts come in very handy when baking or cooking and is something I know I shall miss when I go to uni in October, no matter how much I may joke about it now. I find the lengthy ingredient lists for curries can be intimidating, but a search through the cupboards showed me that we already had everything needed to make this dish…apart from the chicken.A quick trip to Sainsburys later and this problem was solved and I was ready to get cracking! I wanted to make a curry from scratch to practice balancing different spices and flavours and also to have a go at making one of my favourite convenience dinners. My family have our Marks & Spencer ready meal favourites sorted: a moussaka for my Mum, pizza for my Dad and always a curry (and some sneaky Percy Pigs) for me. This recipe was from Sorted Food which is a group of guys who run a YouTube channel and website that I love – proved by the fact that I currently have 25 of their recipes bookmarked! This recipe intrigued me because you marinade the chicken in a spice paste and then add this to an onion base mixture containing several other spices, almost like making two separate curries and combining them halfway through cooking. The curry was spicy for a spice wimp like me, but nothing that an extra dollop of yoghurt or drizzle of cream couldn’t solve. I was really happy with the end result and, marinading time aside, it probably didn’t take too much longer than walking to Marks and back to pick up a curry. You can find the recipe here – enjoy!

French Onion Puffs

Puff pastry is one of those ingredients that I never manage to use up all at once. There is always a little bit at the end of the packet, tucked up and put back in the fridge…and then normally forgotten about until it’s too late. Leftover carrots, the end of a mozzarella ball and spare egg whites also fall into this category. Well, I’m still working on being better with those last three but I can safely say there will be no more sad bits of puff pastry languishing in my fridge in the future!I used the end of the flaky pastry I had made at school to make these – after spending 2 days making it from scratch there was no way this was ending up in the bin. I’d seen the original French Onion Puff recipe on Joy the Baker and knew it sounded good, but I felt a bit decadent buying and using a whole packet just for little canapés. I’m so glad I got round to trying them because the recipe did not let me down. Crispy pastry filled with sweet caramelised onions and melting cheese – a few of these still warm from the oven alongside some salad made the perfect lunch. And the rest made perfect afternoon snacks…I followed the recipe fairly loosely, halving it to suit my smidge of pastry (I still got 10 little puffs) and using half a mug of vegetable stock instead of wine, but to be honest I think it’s easily adaptable to any quantity of ingredients you have. These would make a very popular canapé as you could make them ahead easily and just bake them off at the last minute – just be warned you may need to make a few more than you need as they are very addictive! You can find the recipe here – enjoy.

Tomato and Mozzarella Risotto

Pasta with tomato sauce could easily be a desert island dish for me. I know it’s not that exciting and doesn’t exactly take much skill but I don’t mind. That’s part of it’s charm and appeal! It’s my ultimate comfort food after a day of ‘chewable’ soup at cookery school (more of which on Sunday), the meal I make when I have no time, the meal to line your stomach before a night out, the meal for when there’s nothing in the fridge. The meal for when I’m tired, a storm is brewing outside and Downton is on (hello last Sunday evening). But, much as I love it, it’s not the most interesting dish to share on the blog and even I need a change (however small) once in a while. Enter, tomato and mozzarella risotto. Obviously this contains all the the things that make pasta and tomato sauce great: carbs, cheese, tomato, a bit of herbage. Just in a way that makes it a little bit different and makes me feel like I’m doing some actual cooking! This recipe uses the same method as a basic risotto, just with the addition of a tin of tomatoes to the hot stock. Although it was only one tin, the resulting tomato flavour was surprisingly intense but I suppose you could add a blob of tomato puree as well to boost the flavour even further. I loved the final result – the strings of melting mozzarella, soft rice with just a little bit of bite left, sweetnesss from the onions… exactly what I needed! And fancy enough to serve to friends too. You can find the recipe here – funnily enough, right underneath a recipe for pasta and tomato sauce…

Sausage Plait

Today is the second instalment in the ‘Lucy’s Recipes’ series of podcasts over on podium.me and it is one of my favourite recipes – sausage plait! I spoke briefly about this a few months ago but it really is a weekday favourite at my house. With only 4 ingredients it is so simple but worth it and perfect for after a long day at work or school – and then the leftovers are just as good in a lunchbox the next day. It’s also really versatile to adapt to your favourite flavours – you an experiment with different types of sausages, herbs and spices. It also doesn’t require exact quantities – if you have some leftover sausagemeat or puff pastry it is You can find the recipe below and listen to the podcast here – enjoy! Sausage Plait

Ingredients: 350g puff pastry
8 sausages
1 apple
1 onion

1. Preheat the oven to 190’C. Dice the apple and onion – there is no need to peel the apple.
2. Remove the sausages from their skins by making a small cut in the casing and peeling it off. Add the sausages, apple and onion to a large bowl.
3. Mix with a wooden spoon or your hands until the apple and onion are evenly distributed throughout the sausage meat.
4. Roll out the puff pastry on a floured surface to a large rectangle, a few mm thick. Shape the sausage mixture into a rectangle down the centre of the puff pastry.
5. Cut diagonal slits an inch apart in the puff pastry either side of the sausage mixture, towards the same end of the plait on both sides.
6. Starting at the end nearest you, fold the pieces of pastry over the sausage meat alternately, forming a plait effect. Bring up the ends of the pastry and trim off any excess.
7. Brush the plait with beaten egg and place on a large baking tray. Bake for 30minutes until the pastry is risen, crisp and golden. Enjoy!

Red Pepper Sausage Rolls

I’m currently working at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships, serving in the umpire’s restaurant.  I’m essentially a posh dinner lady (think the mass catering challenges in Masterchef) but it’s actually really enjoyable, soaking up the Wimbledon atmosphere and listening to the stories of the different umpires. The umpires come from all over the world to judge the tennis – from Sweden, Italy, Australia, America, China and more. One bizarre fact I have realised whilst serving them at lunch is that many of the ones travelling from further afield have never tried a sausage roll before! I wasn’t aware that sausage rolls were a particularly English thing, but time and time again this week I have watched as the umpires point curiously at the sausage rolls and ask me to explain exactly what they are before nervously deciding to try one out. As a result, this week’s recipe is in honour of them!I’m not going to lie, I made these ages ago. I was going through my photos on my computer and discovered these hidden away in an obscure file, dated November 2012. 7 months have passed between the baking and the posting of this recipe, for no explainable reason as they were so good!Sausage plait is a midweek favourite at my house (I’m surprised I’ve never blogged it) and is something I’ve gradually introduced all my friends to as they have come for dinner at mine or I had it in my school packed lunch. It has also recently been made more famous here in the UK due to Nanny Pat frequently making them on Towie. Essentially, a sausage plait is just a giant sausage roll that can be sliced and shared, but this Alice Hart recipe shakes it up a little with some added flavour from sweet roast peppers. The result was really delicious, super juicy, bursting with flavour – I think the umpires would be a big fan! You can find the link to the recipe here – enjoy!

Caramelised Garlic Tart

I normally bake when I’m home alone, meaning that I have full decision making power in the kitchen and can choose to bake whatever I want from my books, magazines or To Bake list. However, last week these decisions were taken out of my hands as my Mum put in her requests for her Mother’s Day meal. For our main course she chose this Caramelised Garlic Tart, from Ottolenghi’s latest book Plenty. I love Ottolenghi’s shops and recipes but I don’t think this would have been a recipe I would ever have chosen on my own, despite its intro saying ‘‘I think this is the most delicious recipe in the world’ wrote Claudine after trying it out for me’. However, I’m glad that I did get to try it out as it certainly was delicious!It was maybe a little bit more involved than savoury recipes I normally do, but really I think it wasn’t that difficult and you can do parts of the recipe while other components cook. Anyway, the results were worth it! I’m not normally a big fan of goats cheese but I really loved this tart and I think it worked really well with the garlic. Speaking of which, garlic is definitely the predominant flavour – with 40 cloves (3 heads) of garlic it would be strange if it wasn’t! This sounded overwhelming, but after being blanched, fried and caramelised for 10minutes garlic loses its super intense flavour and becomes much more mellow, sweet and soft. Another unusual aspect of this tart was the puff pastry base – I’ve used puff for more rustic galettes, pies and turnovers but not pressed into a fluted tart tin. When you had to bake the case without beans the base completely puffed up but I just pressed it down and it was fine. I was slightly worried that when I went back to the finished tart the filling would be all over the oven floor, but it was all good! Overall, the tart definitely had an intense flavour and was rich but really good with a simple rocket salad on the side. You can find the recipe here and I strongly recommend you give it a try, even if like me it doesn’t sound like something you’d normally make. Enjoy!

An Edible Mosaic's Virtual Book Launch Party

I’m so excited to be part of this online event, a virtual book launch for the wonderful Faith of the blog An Edible Mosaic and her new debut cook book, An Edible Mosaic: Middle Eastern Fare with Extraordinary Flair. Middle Eastern cuisine is one I have very much enjoyed eating, but am yet to do much cooking of, and so I’m sure the 100+ recipes (mainly from the Levant) in the book will be fascinating and keep me busy for a long time! I always enjoy reading Faith’s blog and learning about new recipes and flavours, so I’m sure the book would be great, and the photos I’ve seen show its a pretty stunning one too. Can’t wait to get it and start experimenting. The recipe Faith chose for us all to make for the virtual book launch event was Saffron Rice with Golden Sultanas and Pine Nuts which I thought was a clever idea as then everybody can twist it up to suit them and pair it with a million different dishes. I skipped the golden sultanas, simply because I didn’t have any in the house, and my family had the dish with Green Chicken Curry. I know blending these dishes is quite unusual, not exactly a traditional combination, but they still both tasted good! I don’t think my photos of the rice could really do it justice, a sit was a classic dark November evening and my hungry family ate super quickly, so I’ll use the lovely one from the book:As I expected, the rice was very tasty. I don’t often make interesting side dishes, sticking to plain rice and simple vegetables, so it was fun to make something a little bit different and more complex as an accompaniment.  I loved the deep nuttiness of the toasted pine nuts against the sweet onion and soft rice and this combination is definitely something I’ll remember in the future as it was so simple but effective. I definitely recommend heading over to the book launch to see what everybody did with recipe, and if you’d also like to learn more about Middle Eastern cooking the book is available on Amazon. I’ll leave you with the recipe…

Saffron Rice with Golden Raisins and Pine Nuts

ROZ MLOW’WAN

Recipe courtesy of An Edible Mosaic: Middle Eastern Fare with Extraordinary Flair by Faith Gorsky (Tuttle Publishing; Nov. 2012); reprinted with permission.

Serves 4 to 6

Preparation Time: 10 minutes

Cooking Time: 20 minutes, plus 15 minutes to let the rice sit after cooking

1½ cups (325 g) basmati rice, rinsed
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons pine nuts
1 onion, finely diced
4 tablespoons sultanas (golden raisins)
1¾ cups (425 ml) boiling water
¾ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon saffron threads (or ½ teaspoon turmeric)

1. Soak the rice in tepid water for 10 minutes; drain. While the rice is soaking, put half a kettle of water on to boil.

2. Add the oil to a medium, thick-bottomed lidded saucepan over medium heat. Add the pine nuts and cook until golden brown, about 1 to 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Transfer the pine nuts to a small bowl and set aside.

3. Add the onion to the saucepan you cooked the pine nuts in, and cook until softened and just starting to brown, about 5 to 7 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the rice and cook 2 minutes, stirring frequently. Stir in the sultanas, boiling water, salt, and saffron (or turmeric), turn the heat up to high, and bring it to a rolling boil.

4. Give the rice a stir, then cover the saucepan, turn the heat down to very low, and cook until tender, about 10 minutes (do not open the lid during this time). Turn the heat off and let the rice sit (covered) 15 minutes, then fluff with a fork.

5. Transfer to a serving dish and sprinkle the toasted pine nuts on top; serve.

Tomato and Pesto Tart

Recently I’ve been getting more into savoury cooking. As this blog quite clearly shows, I’m always more of a sweet than savoury girl. I don’t like popcorn but I know if I did I’d be sweet or toffee rather than salt. I’m one of those people who never finds anything too sweet and always makes room for dessert no matter how big the main course. Case in point: in France recently, after ordering the very innocent-sounding ‘steak’ from the menu, what arrived was one of the best but biggest meals of all time: a humongous steak, an onion tart tatin, a pile of garlicky gratin dauphinoise, three different types of vegetable and fries – all on one plate! It was incredible and I severely regret not taking any photos but I still ordered a tiramisu for afterwards…which also turned out to be on the large side. It came in one of those kilner jars, but whereas often desserts are served in mini versions of these, this restaurant served it in full size ones. Full to the brim. Needless to say, it had been a case of eyes larger than stomach and I couldn’t finish it all but I think it proves my dedication to my sweet tooth. However, like I say, I’ve recently become more into savoury cooking.This tart has been a summer staple in my family for a long time and so was a perfect way to begin my savoury journey. When I was younger, I wasn’t the biggest fan of this but now I totally cannot understand why – it is so simple, so addictive and so perfect for summer! Ok, so the weather here at the moment is still a little resistant to admit that it is summer now (it’s July!) but even in the rain this combination is delicious. This recipe was one of those family ones that I’ve always seen my Mum make but never a recipe and as I was home alone I just made it up using a combination of recipes. To be honest, this is so simple it hardly needs a recipe – if you were to use ready made pastry it would just be an assembly job but homemade is often so much nicer.

Tomato and Pesto Tart

Ingredients: 125g butter

190g plain flour

40g grated Parmesan

50ml water

150g pesto

6 plum tomatoes, sliced

1. In a food processor blend the butter, flour and parmesan until it resembles breadcrumbs. Slowly add the water until it forms a smooth dough. Shape into a disc and chill for at least an hour until firm.

2. Preheat the oven to 180’C. Roll the dough on a floured surface to fit a 20-cm buttered fluted loose bottomed tart tin and place in the tin. Line with greaseproof paper and fill with baking beans or dry rice. Bake for 15minutes, remove the paper and beans and bake for 5-10minutes more until golden. 3. Spread the pesto over the base of the tart case in an even layer. Arrange the sliced tomatoes in rings on top of the pesto, and bake for a further 15minutes until the tomatoes are cooked slightly – keeping an eye on the edges of the pastry so it does not burn. Enjoy!

Chicken Pasties

As this blog clearly shows, savoury cooking is not my thing like sweet cooking and baking is. I do cook and enjoy savoury food, of course, but it rarely features on this blog because I don’t often stretch myself or try new things as often as I do with desserts. Something I rely on in savoury cooking quite often is chicken as it’s an easy staple we always have in our house and there’s so many ways to cook it. As this is a baking blog, I also often use pastry in my savoury baking. Today I combined the two to make jumbo chicken and carrot pasties.I’d had these saved in my Savoury To Make file for a long time, and one blustery day I just really had a craving for a properly hearty dinner. I made them in a few stages – the pastry and filling one day, and then basically cooked them to order the next day whenever somebody wanted one, just rolling out a wodge of pastry and forming the pasty and cooking one or two for that meal. I originally found them on this blog here where I think they were made for a picnic but I made mine much bigger. They were perhaps a bit too big – but they were filling and delicious! I added a slosh of cream to the filling and think perhaps they could have done with another small chicken breast, but overall I was pleased with how easy and successful they were. They have piqued my interest in savoury explorations! Enjoy :)

Cheese and Onion Tear and Share Bread

I love a good foodie television show. There’s Masterchef – tears and shouty John and Gregg (who’s restaurant I did work experience at last year!). There’s Nigella’s series – fairy lights, dressing gowns and ‘cookie crumbs tumbling like Mexican mud’…There’s Nigel Slater and his gorgeous garden, Simon Hopkinson with slow-mo falling egg graphics or Sophie Dahl’s series where she cooks and reads poetry. Currently, there is The Great British Bake Off – which the week before last featured this delicious bread.Each week of the Bake Off is themed – and so this obviously came from Bread week, a challenging one that I know I would have found really hard. One of the contestants Jason, an 18 year old baker from Croydon, made this and after watching I couldn’t get it out of my mind. Melting cheese, soft bread and a crunchy top plus the onions in the mix – what’s not to like? Happily, the recipe is featured in the new book to go along with the show, and the next day another yeast adventure was going on in my kitchen. As I’m still very much a bread and yeast novice, this took me ages to make. It was an enjoyable process, just long because rolling, stuffing (with two fillings) and folding nineteen balls of bread dough is not going to be a quick process. Add in three sets of rising times and in turned into quite a days baking but the end result was worth it, and could have been even more so had I got it perfect. The problem was I placed all the nineteen dough balls too far apart before they went in the oven so they didn’t join together to properly make a tear and share bread. This meant they were a bit drier then would have been nice and so went stale faster. I had some straight out the oven when the cheese inside was still melting and warm and it was delicious! Sadly one person cannot eat 19 rolls very quickly :( Still, I would recommend the recipe as I think this could be irresistible if done properly! There are a couple more recipes from the Bake Off book that I want to make, so hopefully I’ll get a chance to do them soon. Enjoy :)

Mini Pork Pies

I just don't get the jelly in pork pies.

The pork sausagemeat: obviously, yes, delicious. The pastry: thick, crunchy, preferably in generous amounts.The hard boiled egg: technically we're talking a Gala pie now but still very much acceptable and welcomed. The jelly? No. Not a fan. A strange added layer squeezed between the pork and pastry which I find slimy and tasteless and annoyingly time consuming to remove. Hence why I got rather excited when I saw Lorraine Pascale’s Pork Pies with Cider recipe – due to its total lack of jelly.I’m sure that to a lot of people a jelly free pork pie seems like sacrilege (and a jelly-free pork pie with a quails egg in the middle even more so) but stick with it. These are delicious. I made these with my friend E. (my fellow foodie friend and a savoury cooking genius) on a bake day. We had an immense day and have another day planned – involving duck dumplings! We didn’t have any cider for the pork pies so we used apple juice which worked very well as you could taste the sweetness this brought and made the meat mixture extra juicy. These were mini pies, so they were a bit time consuming to make, but really enjoyable and strangely relaxing! It was our first time making hot water pastry and although we found the bright white lard a bit strange, the pastry was very easy to work with. I’d also never used or even tried a quails egg before – they are so adorable!The end results were delicious. Whilst the recipe states it makes 8 pies, we ended up with 12 – a happy bonus. They would be perfect for a picnic or a delicious summer lunch with salad. The pies got our imaginations going and we are looking forward to making more variations on pork pies – spiced ones, herby ones, a large one in a loaf tin with a whole line of full eggs. So, maybe I just haven't tried a good enough jelly-included-pork pie yet. Perhaps it is a taste that grows with age. Until then, I'm more than happy eating these little guys instead. Enjoy!

Chicken Tikka and Naan Bread

So, it’s been a while. To put it simply, I had twenty-three big exams lasting for a month and once they finished I was off to Glastonbury festival to celebrate. I have missed this blog and have definitely missed reading all the other great blogs on a regular basis. I’m back now, on my summer holidays until September, and look forward to getting this blog busy again with lots of delicious things planned! Starting with…a savoury dish!I don’t often cook savoury food, and so the ideas of proper amounts of spicing and seasoning are not familiar to me. I thought a good place to start would be Indian food – giving me a chance to use new flavours and see the awesome combinations that make spicy food taste so good. I love curry (my Mum makes a fab chicken korma and Thai green curry that I really want to learn to make) but as we’re in July I wanted to make something a little more summery so I made chicken tikka, cucumber raita and naan bread. I can imagine making large batches of this chicken for summer barbeques or cold for a picnic: delicious.  Both the chicken and the breads were surprisingly easy. I used a Mary Berry chicken tikka recipe (her recipes are always foolproof) and a naan bread recipe from Anjum Anand’s book, Indian Made Easy. The naan bread recipe doesn’t use yeast which makes it really simple and quick. I used caraway seeds and black onion seeds (also known as nigella seeds) from above to top the naan breads and they were delicious. The black onion seeds in particular are just perfect and give off a very tempting aroma. The chicken marinade was simple to make and I was surprised by the inclusion of ground nutmeg – not something I expected to see there.  Once the three components were ready it was time for the all important taste test. Spicy chicken, cooling raita, crisp buttery naan bread. Eaten in my garden in the July sunshine, it was good. Very good. All in all, a delicious introduction to Indian cookery for me and I look forward to making more. If all savoury cooking gives results like today then expect to see a lot more of it around here!The recipe for the naan bread can be found here, although there is a typo: the bread needs to be left to rise for 1hour, not 10-15mins.
Chicken Tikka from Mary Berry’s Complete Cookbook
Ingredients: 750g skinless,boneless chicken breasts, cubed
Marinade: 2tbsp plain yoghurt
2tbsp tomato puree
1 small onion, finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, crushed
1tbsp tamarind paste
1tbsp paprika
1tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cumin
large pinch of cayenne pepper
large pinch of grated nutmeg
1. In a bowl, combine all the marinade ingredients.
2. Toss the chicken in the marinade. Cover and marinate in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours.
3.Thread the chicken on to the skewers, put under a hot grill and cook for 3-5 minutes on each side. Serve at once, with a cucumber raita.

Sun-dried Tomato & Thyme Fougasse

 You’ll have to forgive the night time photo, but I made something savoury, I used yeast and attempted bread making! None of these things often happen so a slightly dodgy photo wasn’t going to stop this bread reaching my blog. The recipe came from Lorraine Pascale’s TV series – Baking Made Easy. Lorraine used to be a model before turning to cooking and baking and now owns a cake shop I am determined to visit extremely soon! This TV series was her first but I hope it won’t be the last – the recipes were original, easy and al looked irresistible.

It was difficult to choose just one recipe to try, and I hope to try out some more, but I felt it was time to go out my comfort zone. Fougasse is a fern shaped French bread, and this version had sun-dried tomato and dried thyme added. It was  easy to make – I used the KitchenAid to do the kneading. This was the first time I had done this but I would do it again – it saves time and messy worktops and gives me a chance to do a spot of cleaning up! However, if making a dough with lots of add-ins I don’t think my dough hook is quite right as it doesn’t disperse these ingredients evenly. Somewhere along the way I think I went a little wrong as my dough didn’t seem to fully rise – but happily this didn’t affect the final taste! Chewy, studded with sweet spikes of tomato (I was using this instead of chorizo but would like to try this another time for a hint of spice) and rather moreish – dipped in good olive oil this was a winner. You can find the recipe and see Lorraine Pascale making it here: enjoy!

Carrot and Coriander Soup

Surprises. My Mum can’t stand them – from who’s left Strictly Come Dancing to a surprise birthday present, she just needs to be in the know. But I think there can be good surprises: finding £5 in your pocket, a day forecast to be rainy turning out sunny, a botched up recipe turning out well after all! My good surprise today was a gift in the post… This book was destined to give good results – the recipes are from the WI  after all! As with all cookbooks, I flicked straight to the dessert/puddings/baking section (or in this case, all four of them – the book is organised by seasons!) and of course found plenty of gorgeous things I look forward to trying. But what also struck me about this book was the fabulous collections of soups that came at the start of each season. So many varieties of and new twists on tomato soup, but also dozens of vegetable, fish, bean and meat soups. Plus, with our summer weather slowly slipping away and the rain creeping in I thought I better get practising a truly delicious winter repertoire! I forgot that I had already made a carrot soup, but this version was different in every way: taste, appearance, texture, cooking style and the flavours involved. This soup also taught me the important message of seasoning, something I knew I need to learn more about. After taking the first spoonful, I was concerned that the soup was a bit bland and the carrot goodness wasn’t coming through. The trick? After pureeing, hit this soup with A LOT of black pepper. There is no point being shy here, just taste as you go along and slowly the flavours appear! Gorgeous. I was a big fan of this soup. Because of the true carrot flavour, you just know this soup is good for you. A large amount of coriander adds heat and the amount of work required from you is minimal. How could you not be a fan? This soup is from the Spring section of the book, which is a couple of seasons away for me, but I found it just perfect for a rainy Autumn afternoon. Enjoy!

Carrot and Coriander Soup from Best-kept Secrets of the Women’s Institute

Ingredients: 25g (1oz) butter
1 onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, crushed
25g (1oz) plain flour
1 litre (1.25pints) chicken or vegetable stock
450g (1lb) carrots, grated
2tsp chopped fresh coriander (I probably used double this)
salt and LOTS of freshly ground black pepper
cream or yoghurt, to serve

Method:
1. Melt the butter in a pan and soften the onion and garlic slowly.
2. Blend in the flour and then add the stock gradually, stirring all the time over a low heat.
3. Add the carrots and coriander. Bring the soup to the boil and then let it simmer for 15minutes.
4. Remove the pan from the heat and adjust seasoning. Pour into a food processor and blend until smooth.
5. Divide between four bowls and add a swirl of yoghurt/cream to serve.

Spinach and Feta Pastries

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. When life gives you spinach, make spinach and feta pastries!

I was recently fortunate enough to receive a gift of a large bag of home grown spinach from the garden of my Mum's close friend Jan. Fresh, vibrant, bursting with colour - I knew this gift would not be waiting long to be used. After a Bank Holiday trip to the Suffolk seaside inspiration had dutifully struck. Thanks to hot pastries bought from Lawsons Deli and eagerly consumed on the beach, this spinach had been found a use! Once home, the cooking began. 

Mixed with salty, crumbly feta cheese (my current favourite thing: joining lunchtime salads every day.) and wrapped in flaky flaky puff pastry: these were ready. Well, after a speedy 15-minute trip to the oven - these were ready. The pastry rose, the feta melted and the spinach darkened. Just to warn you - these give a  big hit of spinach flavour. As someone still learning to love spinach in forms other than cannelloni, they occasionally erred on the too-spinachy side. However, they were balanced nicely with sweet tomato salad and I know for anyone who likes spinach they are delish. So next time you find spinach lurking in your kitchen? You know what to do :)

Spinach and Feta Pastries
As these were based on Lawsons Deli pastries and a gift of spinach, I didn't use exact measurements, so these are rough approximations. These quantities made 6 pastries, with two per serving for a main meal. You can easily scale the numbers up or down for different amounts of people.

Ingredients:
1 onion, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, peeled and crushed
200g carefully washed (no one wants soil in a pasty), destalked and cooked spinach
1 egg
150g feta cheese
1tbsp mint, finely chopped
1tsp thyme leaves, finely chopped
250g puff pastry
1 more beaten egg

1. Preheat the oven to 190'C.
2. Saute the onion and garlic slowly in two large knobs of butter until the onion is softened and golden. Meanwhile, squeeze all excess water out of the spinach and chop into more bite-size pieces with a large pair of scissors.
3. Take the onion off the heat and add in all the remaining ingredients other than pastry. Season well and taste, then add more of whatever is lacking.
4. Roll out the pastry very thinly and cut into 10cm squares. Place a large tablespoon of the spinach mix into the centre of each pastry square. Brush the edges with beaten egg and bring up to the top, pinching together diagonal edges and twisting the corners. Brush the whole top with more egg.
5. Place on a baking tray and bake for 15-20minutes until the pastry is risen and golden and the feta is melted. Serve warm with a salad in the sunshine and enjoy! 

Roasted Tomato and Thyme Soup with Twice Baked Potatoes

For my birthday, I received some fabulous foodie gifts. So much so, I thought I would make a mini-series as I revealed each one and made something using each one. So, today is the day I start!

Gift: Sophie Dahl’s book “Miss Dahl’s Voluptuous Delights”

Recipe: Roasted Tomato and Thyme Soup with Twice Baked PotatoesNow strictly speaking, these recipes aren’t in the book. Which is a travesty because they were in the TV series that accompanied the book and are both fabulous dishes! The book, like you might expect from a former model, is beautifully laid out, full of pretty pictures and glamorous stories but most importantly to me – good food! Like this deep, rich, hearty-yet-summery, velvety soup. My sister and I have been meaning to make this soup for ages and today regretted waiting so long as it filled the house with the best smell of slowly roasting tomatoes. Sophie Dahl’s recipe is super easy because it cuts down on any fussy chopping, peeling, boiling etc. Everything is just halved and put in a roasting tin, left to cook in the oven and release all their gorgeous juices, then whizzed up in a blender and enjoyed. That was the basic plan, but this leaves a very thick soup – more like a tomato puree or sauce for pasta. After years of extremely smooth Heinz tomato soup, I do look for a smoother soup so after a quick boil and slosh of cream the soup was perfect. And all made by my sister who originally found the recipe. So on to the side dish, made by me…Twice Baked Potatoes. Which essentially means you bake potatoes, cut them in half, scoop out all potatoey goodness and then mix with cheese, chives, and a dollop of yoghurt, replace in the potato and bake for a tiny bit more to crisp up the top. Gorgeous and quite filling by themselves, let alone with a big bowl of soup! These are something I would like to repeat because they make a refreshing change to ordinary jackets and could make good use of odds and ends from the fridge. Individually – delicious. Together, curled up in front of the Doctor Who finale as it rains in the middle of June – perfect. Find the recipe and video of Sophie Dahl making both recipes here, and I do also recommend the charming book! More recipes from that and other birthday gifts to come soon :) 

Rosemary and Olive Oil Focaccia

Recently, my message was opinions can change. Today, my message is much more basic but just as important: Always Read The Recipe Thoroughly.Unlike when I first made cinnamon rolls and thought the dough was so lovely and easy to work with. Turned out I’d forgotten the egg. Or when my friend E made gingerbread men and simply forgot to add the flour. And definitely not like today, when I didn’t read to add most of the water to my dough and simply poured it all in nicely, before adding an extra two tablespoons of olive oil. Smooth. This not-so-clever mistake then led to fifteen minutes of kneading and liberal additions of flour every now and then. Gradually, slowly, my sticky determined-to-get-everywhere dough morphed into a smooth, calm and elastic dough ball. Then it was ready to get to a warm place, rise, be taken out, stretched out onto a tray, doused liberally in olive oil and salt and set back to its warm place. After a sprinkle of chopped rosemary and twenty minutes in the oven, everything was ready. The family settled down to watch Great British Menu, everybody with a generous square of bread on their plate. Crunchy on top, soft and chewy within. Scented and flavoured with olive oil, salt and rosemary – simple but classic. I think this may be one of my favourite things I have made, simply because I couldn’t stop eating it! Find the recipe here, (the dough recipe is linked to on the page as Classic White Loaf) and my only adaption of course was to leave out the red onions. Enjoy!

Cheese, Onion and Potato Pies

As summer creeps back in, my thoughts inevitably turn to picnics. As soon as we have three consecutive days of strong sunshine, out come the summer dresses and meet-ups in the parks. Picnics vary from just sunbathing on the common with a friend, to a full blown Marks and Spencer’s feast…A picnic from last summer…
So as you can easily tell, I love picnics. Relaxing, laughing, tanning, eating – what’s better? But nowadays my friends and I need our money spent elsewhere, so its time to make our own picnic food. Next time, I’ll be bringing these pies. Move over sandwiches, these are so much better. A tiny bit of a faff to make, but each step is extremely simple and the recipe works so that whilst something is chilling, something else needs grating, whilst something is cooking, something else needs chopping. Always busy! The potato filling for these pies (diced potato, spring onion and a myriad of different cheeses) is delicious and, happily, the recipe makes much more than you will be able to make pies from but is just as lovely on its own as simple potato filling. But back to the pies… Sturdy and savoury (always a shocker around here!) the pies are perfect picnic food. Having said that, I ate a pie for three meals over two days just at home, as the weather proves itself not quite ready for picnics. I think these are best warm – melty cheese, hot pastry – but a treat anywhere. I did really like Nigella’s recipe but if I made it again would make a few minor changes – more cheese, cut the potato smaller, few more herbs – basic stuff. Otherwise, enjoy the summer picnic goodness!

 

Pitta Crisps

My Mum made these for a party the other day, and let us try them straight out of the oven beforehand. Bad idea. Very quickly, a large proportion had disappeared and more had to be rustled up – with the order to Eat. No. More. Tricky stuff. There’s just something about the sharp crunch and the salty olive oil coating that makes these irresistible. Plus, they are a snap to make so perfect for a last-minute canapé or pre-dinner nibble. Personally, we enjoyed these in front of the Friday night television – they make a great change from Kettle Chips!

First, take one pitta bread. Then, cut all the way around the edge of the pitta, leaving you with two halves – one thicker and doughy and the other thinner.

Take one pitta half and cut in half again. Using two cuts, take one of these halves to form three triangles of pitta bread. Repeat this with all the pitta breads, preferably keeping the thinner pitta crisps separate from the doughy ones (they cook at different rates). Spread a bunch of either thick or thin triangles on a baking tray sprinkled with olive oil and toss them to be covered on both sides. Sprinkle with a zatar seasoning, and place high in a hot oven for 4-6 minutes.Remove from the oven, pile high on a plate and enjoy!