Pea, Prosciutto and Tomato Pasta...

Gigli Pasta - cone shaped flowers

This is just a simple pasta dish that is really, really delicious. I'd been craving pasta for a while so made a really quick sauce last night and just added some peas, prosciutto ham, basil and onion. I really wanted to use orecchiette pasta (also known as little ears) which would have held the sauce well but unfortunately Sainsbury's didn't have any. So instead I got 'Gigli,', the next most unusual looking shape, which is rolled into the shape of a conical flower. I think it's the prettiest pasta I've seen and was really delicious. It's hard to use exact quantities, this is more of an idea for a quick pasta dish rather than a proper recipe so just use as much as you like.


Ingredients - (for 2)
2 portions of any type of pasta
Peas
Prosciutto ham
Small white onion, finely chopped
Handful of basil
Clove of garlic, finely chopped or crushed
Can of chopped tomatoes
Tin of tomato puree 
Grated cheese, parmesan or cheddar. 
Black pepper


1. Boil the kettle for the pasta. Get the sauce going by frying the onion and garlic in a little olive oil. Once softened, add the basil and tomato puree for a minute or 2. Then add the chopped tomatoes and simmer for a good 5 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, cook the peas in the microwave and tear the ham up. Cook the pasta according to it's instructions. 
3. Add the peas and ham to the sauce and stir in. Add some black pepper.
4. Once the pasta is cooked, drain and coat in the sauce. Divide into bowls and add some cheese, then serve.

Parma Ham Wrapped Cod with a Shallot and Sage Risotto

For an early Valentine's dinner, my Boyfriend and I cooked dinner together. I had been thinking about cooking some fish wrapped in parma ham for a while and so it seemed like a good opportunity. The recipe is for cod (we were going to get monkfish but cod was better value in Waitrose) wrapped in parma ham and baked in the oven served with a simple shallot, sage, asparagus and pea risotto. I really like shallots in risotto, they're much more subtle and sweeter than regular onions, the sage goes well with them too. It was really delicious. I think next time though, I'd put a cocktail stick to hold the ham around the fish a bit better. For dessert we had meringue kisses (see previous post) with vanilla ice cream and raspberries. 


Ingredients - Serves 2
2 x white fish loins or 1 large one
Parma/prosciutto ham slices, about 2-3 per person and fish loin
3 small shallots, chopped
250g risotto rice (I like arborio)
Small knob of butter
2 small cloves garlic
Asparagus
Peas
Chicken stock (about 1 litre)
White wine (optional)
Sage leaves
Black Pepper
Parmesan cheese, grated


1. Preheat the oven to 200c. Prepare the fish by placing the slices of ham in a lightly oiled baking tray and add a bay leaf (see photo) then lay the fish on top. Roll up and secure with a cocktail stick.
2. Put in the oven and cook for about 20-25minutes until the fish is cooked through.
3. Start the risotto by frying the garlic, shallots and a couple of  roughly torn sage leaves in the butter. Then when the shallots are softened, add the risotto rice and stir until translucent. Then add a glug of wine (if using) or a splash of stock and stir until well absorbed. Repeat a few times before adding some parmesan and black pepper. Keep stirring over a low heat and gradually adding more stock. 
4. Microwave the asparagus and peas until cooked and set aside. Check the fish, if there is any juice in the baking tray, pour this into the risotto. Keep stirring the risotto.
5. Once the risotto is nearly cooked (you want it to be soft with a tiny bit of bite - al dente), add the asparagus and peas.
6. When the fish is cooked through, serve on top of the risotto with a tiny bit more parmesan and black pepper. 

Below are some photo's from my Valentine's Day. Some are pictures of presents my boyfriend made for me (the orchids in a drawer and the LOVE picture). The other is of me at 'Cupid Green', appropriate for the occasion.

Valentine's Cupcakes and Meringue Kisses

Many people think that Valentine's day is a product of commercialism, an excuse for restaurants to charge more and for shops to fill the gap between Christmas and Easter. But I love Valentine's day and while we should show our loved one's how special they are everyday, it's nice to make an occasion out of it. Plus there are so many pretty heart inspired products in the shops around this time of year. Food is an important aspect for Valentine's day, as the old saying goes 'The way to a man's heart is through his stomach'! With my boyfriend this year we are cooking in rather than going out to a restaurant. In addition, I've baked these cupcakes and some meringue 'kisses', 2 small piped meringues sandwiched together with chocolate.


Cupcakes -
For me, any special occasion wouldn't be complete without cupcakes! I've made these using the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook (see this link to my previous post) using chocolate sponge and vanilla frosting. I added a handful of chocolate chips to the sponge mixture so that they'll be extra chocolatey. I used cases with little hearts on and decorated them with a range of toppings. I used heart shaped jelly beans from M&S, some pink love heart sweets and a mixture of sprinkles.

Meringues -

Meringues are always popular with me as we always have so many eggs to use up (from our lovely chickens) so when I saw a recipe by Lorraine Pascale in the Sainsbury's magazine for chocolate meringue kisses, I thought it would be a great idea for Valentine's day. These meringues are the best I've made yet, the lemon juice and cream of tartar added when whisking really stabilises the mix, making them easier to pipe and their texture at the end is perfect. She uses chocolate buttercream to sandwich hers together but I just dipped them in melted chocolate and she also adds some toasted (175g) pecans to the meringue mix but again, I wanted to keep them simple. The cute meringues would be great for a light pudding at a dinner party or as part of an afternoon tea. To pipe the meringues, I find it easiest to use a sandwich bag and cut the end off and then put the piping nozzle in that. It's then easy to throw away the bag rather than waste hours washing your piping bag.


Ingredients - 
5 large egg whites
a squeeze of lemon juice
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
275g caster sugar
Chocolate or a chocolate butter cream to sandwich them together.


1. Preheat the oven to fan 100c and line 3 baking trays with nonstick baking paper. Using a whisk, whisk the egg whites and lemon juice to stiff peaks.
2. Whisking all the time, add the cream of tartar and sugar, a few tablespoons at a time. Keep on whisking until you have a stiff, shiny meringue. Then spoon the mixture into a piping bag with a star nozzle and pipe 50 x 3-4cm blobs on the baking trays.
3. Bake for an hour and then leave to cool on the trays. I leave them in the oven with the door ajar to reduce cracking.
4. Then once cooled and dry, carefully lift the meringues off of the baking paper and sandwich together then leave in the fridge for a while to set properly. If using buttercream, sandwich a couple of hours before (no earlier). 

Happy Valentine's Day <3 

I'll be posting what we cooked in the next couple of days. 

Ikea's Daim Cake...

As well as visiting Leon at the weekend, I went to Ikea. Being Swedish they sell lots of Swedish food - some of it is slightly dubious like smoked or pickled herrings but they also sell DAIM bars. Daim's are delicious and I think you can buy them in our normal supermarkets or newsagents but in Ikea they have them everywhere. They sell bags of miniature daims, chocolate bars filled with daims, they give them out free at the checkouts but the variation I particularly love is their Daim cake. They sell it by the slice in their cafe but you can buy a whole frozen cake in their food store at the end. It's made by 'Almondy'  and is an almond tart with a biscuit base, custardy cream and chocolate covered crushed daims. I always thought that Daims tasted of burnt caramel, like a butterscotchy taste but all of their packaging says it's an almond flavour but it doesn't taste like almonds...?
Anyway, I'm going to try and come up with a recipe to make this daim cake but in the mean time, get yourself to Ikea and pick up a cake :). It's frozen but defrosts within 10 minutes and we served ours with ice cream. So if anybody has a recipe, it would be good to try and make it.

Leon...

I've really fallen for the Leon brand with their healthy cookbooks and quirky restaurants. Their 'healthy fast food' is a great concept and their restaurants are popping up all over the place. I first went to one on the Strand about a year ago and have only just got round to going again. The problem with all of these delicious restaurant chains (I'm also a huge fan of Yo Sushi, Wahaca, Wagamama, Pizza Express etc) is finding the time to visit them! We have to choose carefully when we go out (most are in London) as to which one to eat in. So anyway, last night my boyfriend, my parents and I went to Leon in Brent Cross. It's only been open for a couple of months and looks really lovely with twinkly lights and a chandelier. Unfortunately, we'd looked at the menu online and wanted the dinner 'grazing dishes' available after 6pm but Brent Cross doesn't serve these. So instead we ordered some flatbread and houmous to start (very good) then 5 lunch hot dishes between the 4 of us, they all come in a box with rice and dressed 'slaw which wasn't ideal as we then had to split the dishes and share out all the rice. I think the concept of the grazing dishes would be better, just ordering a good selection of the meat/veg dishes so you can try the all and getting the rice and salads separately. But anyway, the food was really delicious even if it was all mixed onto one plate. We had a Pork Jambalaya (probably my favourite) -  mexican slow cooked tomatoey cajun spiced pork, Grilled chicken with garlic and aioli, chilli chicken - grilled chicken with chilli sauce on the side, sweet potato falafel and the Leon Gobi a coconut based cauliflower curry - all with so many yummy flavours. And it was a definite winner for me serving brown rice and giving free water (in retro jugs with slices of lemon). 
You're probably wondering why, in a blog filled with sweet baking and puddings, that I haven't mentioned any pudding. And that's because like the grazing dishes, they didn't serve puddings with ice cream or anything. On the counter they have brownies or pecan pies but we wanted something proper after our mostly virtuous meal so came home for it instead.
So Leon is a great healthy place to go for breakfast (yes even their breakfasts are healthy and look delicious), lunch or dinner, just try to pick a branch that serves the grazing dishes and puddings in the evenings. Also, an added bonus is that if you sign up to their 'Leon love club', you get 40% off! So all of our food came to £26. 


The boxed chicken aioli, rice and slaw. 

 Our plate with a bit of each lunchtime dish.


















P.S I've only tried one thing out of the Leon cookbook so far (pancakes) but as I go through and try the rest out, I'll be blogging them :)

Chicken and Vegetable Kebabs with Couscous

The idea for this came from a 'winter barbecue'; a summer al-fresco one seems so far away. So by making this in mid January, you can have all the flavours and ingredients you'd eat in abundance in the summer months while it's actually dark and cold outside. It's basically just some chicken and vegetables on skewers served with couscous, salad and pitta breads. The kebabs are made with a technique from Jamie Oliver, instead of cutting the chicken into pieces and then threading them onto skewers, you put 4 skewers through a chicken breast then cut down between them (see photo below, a picture tells 1000 words). These are so versatile, you can put any type of meat or vegetable and serve it with rice or 


Ingredients -
1 to 1 1/2 chicken breasts per person
Vegetables such as cherry tomatoes, peppers, mushrooms, courgettes, onions, cut into sizeable chunks that can be threaded
Couscous (I use Ainsley Harriot's dried roasted vegetable couscous that you just add boiling water)
Brown Pitta Breads
Salad


2 skewers per person


1. Load up the skewers with the meat and vegetables, see photo for the easy way to thread the chicken. 
2. Then cook or grill in a griddle pan over a medium to high heat until the chicken is cooked through. 
3. Prepare the couscous to your packet's instructions and serve with your favourite salad.
4. When the chicken is cooked, remove the skewers and toast the pittas in the griddle pan for a few minutes on each side.

Mexican Lasagne with Guacamole (From Nigella Kitchen)

Note that this photo doesn't at all match up to the one in Nigella's cookbook.

Continuing with recipes from my new cookbooks, I cooked a Mexican Lasagne from Nigella's 'Kitchen' last night. It's such a great idea, layers of tortillas filled with tomatoes, peppers, onion, chilli, sweetcorn, beans and cheese. It would be great for a crowd as her version serves 8. We halved the recipe and just used 3 tortillas instead of her 8. We also added some spitroast chicken which was a good addition. But I'd say the recipe needs a little tweaking and here's what I'd do when I make it again:
Put some extra chilli in the sauce, it needed zinging up a little to be more 'mexican'.
Maybe add some cajun seasoning for more mexican flavour.
Not put the extra water in that she recommends, it made the sauce way too liquidy and it didn't bake up enough.
We served it with salad and my boyfriend had his with some guacamole which he said made it much better.


Ingredients - serves 8
For the sauce: 1 tablespoon garlic oil
1 onion, peeled and chopped
1 red pepper, de seeded and chopped
Pinch of salt
2 tablespoons coriander stalks, finely chopped
2 x 400g can chopped tomatoes, plus 400ml water swilled from empty cans (it definitely didn't need this, I'd advise you to leave it out and only add a little water if it's too thick)
1 squirt of tomato ketchup
For the filling:
2 x 400g can black beans, drained and rinsed
2 x 250g cans sweetcorn
250g mature Cheddar
Some spit roasted chicken (optional)
1 packet (8) soft tortillas


Salad and guacamole to serve.

1. Preheat the oven to 200c. Then make the sauce by heating the oil in a pan, frying the onion, pepper and chilli. Add the salt and cook gently for 15minutes, once soft add the coriander. Then add the chopped tomatoes (and water, see note above). Spoon in the ketchup and let it simmer for about 10 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, make the filling by mixing the drained beans and sweetcorn in a bowl and most of the grated cheese. (we put the chicken here too)
3. Assemble the lasagne by spooning a third of the sauce in the bottom of an ovenproof dish (approx 26cm x 6cm deep) then layer 2 tortillas so they cover the sauce overlapping slightly.
4. Then add a third of the beans and cheese mixture, covering the tortillas and then add a quarter of the remaining sauce and 2 tortillas to cover.
5. Repeat with another 1/3 of the beans and cheese and some more sauce before layering another 2 tortillas.
6. Finally. add the last layer of beans and cheese and nearly all the sauce before covering with the last 2 tortillas. Then spread the last of the sauce with the remaining cheese before baking in the oven for 30minutes. Then let it rest for about 10 minutes before slicing and eating with the salad and guacamole. 


- Nigella also notes that this can be made 1 day ahead and refrigerated until needed but with an extra 5 minutes cooking time. You can also freeze it for up to 3 months by wrapping the dish in a double layer of clingfilm and a layer of foil. Then defrost in the fridge overnight and cook as above.