Enchiladas! Finally!

I mentioned the other day that I'd been meaning to make these butternut squash enchiladas for about 10 days...and last night I finally managed to make them!

The original recipe called for quite a lot of cheese, and browned butter, but I wanted to make it healthier so I left out the cheese and butter, used unsweetened almond milk for the sauce, and instead of tortillas I used Mountain Bread corn wraps (which I get from my local organic supermarket). I also halved the recipe - although I ended up getting a bit overenthusiastic with my squash chopping, so I had some of the filling left over which I'm going to have with pasta for tomorrow's supper. And I got some lovely black kale in my veg box this week (no Veg Box Day post, though, I'm afraid - I got home late on Tuesday night after a book launch party and just chucked everything in the fridge!) so I put some of that into the filling as well.

It wasn't the most attractive of things to photograph...

...but it tasted really good!

On another note, the Christmas lights are up in Ealing. I checked back through last year's posts, and they've been switched on a whole 10 days earlier this year! I suppose it's definitely beginning to look a little bit like Christmas...

Roasted butternut squash pizza...

I love my Riverford veg box, but it does occasionally create veg mountains. As well as the perpetual potato mountain (there are currently two bags of potatoes in my fridge and another is arriving on Tuesday...I need to find more things to do with potatoes...!) this week I had two butternut squash taking up space in the fridge. For about a week now I've been meaning to make these butternut squash enchiladas, but various things keep getting in the way and I just haven't managed it. I considered making them on Friday night, but a rather scary (and thankfully now fixed) water leak on Thursday evening put paid to Friday's supermarket trip, so I didn't have any tortillas. I still fancied making something with squash, though, so I decided to have a go at a pizza.

I used Jamie Oliver's pizza dough recipe, which always comes out perfectly, cutting the proportions down to a quarter of the original recipe to make one generous pizza for greedy old me. While the dough was doing its thing I roasted the squash, and then I put the whole thing together with the remains of that tomato and pepper sauce I made the other week and some yummy mozzarella (and possibly just a little touch of Laughing Cow blue cheese..!)

It was fab! Perfect Friday night food.

Fireworks!

Bonfire Night isn't until tomorrow, but this weekend has been full of organised fireworks displays all over the place. I'm lucky enough to have a particularly fantastic one right on my doorstep at my local cricket club - people come from miles around and there's a huge crowd, mulled wine, an enormous bonfire and a brilliant half-hour fireworks extravaganza. Apart from one shower, the weather was crisp and cold and perfect for fireworks!

I went with a gang of running club people, and of course rather than attempt to cram ourselves into one of the local pubs afterwards, we sent a couple of the boys down to the corner shop and crammed ourselves into my flat instead for dodgy wine (apparently the only white on offer was Black Tower...!) and a ton of crisps and pizza. Thankfully I'd done my 12-mile run in the morning!

I also went to the V&A's Hollywood Costume exhibition yesterday, which was fab. I really don't know a lot about films (it's always best to assume I haven't seen things, because I probably haven't...) but even I could recognise the iconic costumes from films through the ages. My favourites were a perfectly 60s green skirt and jumper combo from Mildred Pierce, and a navy sparkly number from Chicago. And of course there were Dorothy's iconic ruby red slippers - although they're more than a little shabby and faded these days! I'd definitely recommend going if you can get a ticket!

 And finally, this week I discovered this...

Ooh yeah. Can't wait to make a butternut squash risotto and stir a bit of that in! In other news, I've started my Christmas shopping...

Veg Box Day: 30/10/12

No drama this week! My veg box arrived on time and with everything where it should be. Plus it was cheap as chips, thanks to the lovely people at Riverford putting a £5 credit on my account to make up for the mix-up with the last box!

So my box contained a butternut squash, some carrots, a few onions, a bag of potatoes, broccoli, a Savoy cabbage and some cherry tomatoes. All good stuff, although I am getting a little tired of small potatoes - I want to make mash and jacket potatoes, and small ones are no good for that!

Anyway, I had an evening in last night so I decided to do some cooking. I still had carrots, potatoes and a sorry-looking red pepper left over from my last veg box, so I made carrot and coriander soup and a roasted tomato and pepper pasta sauce. For the soup I fried an onion with garlic, ground coriander, cumin and turmeric before adding the carrots, some chopped potatoes and some veg stock and simmering it until the veg was all nice and soft. I then used my stick blender to whizz it into a smooth soup - although I did manage to splatter myself and the kitchen in the process! The sauce was even easier - I just whacked the tomatoes and chopped-up pepper into the oven with a couple of cloves of garlic, a spritz of olive oil and some black pepper, and then when it was roasted I whizzed that up as well. It smells delicious and I can't wait to eat it!

In other news, I spotted some festive lights last night! Usually I'd moan about it being too early, but since the clocks went back at the weekend I still haven't got used to these dark evenings, and with the weather being so chilly it's nice to have a bit of sparkle around!

Veg Box Day: 16/10/12

...or The Mystery of the Missing Box!

Yes, this post is a whole week late. That's because there was a bit of intrigue surrounding last week's veg box delivery! Mainly because it didn't arrive on Tuesday as it ought to have done. I emailed my delivery person but didn't hear anything, and I started to wonder whether I'd got the wrong week (apart from the fact that the money had come out of my account).

Then, on Thursday morning, I went downstairs to go to work and there was my veg box, sitting in the hallway! There was a note attached from a very apologetic neighbour of mine, who evidently also has Riverford boxes delivered - they'd delivered mine to her house instead, and it had taken her a day to realise it was the wrong week for her box! Very nice (and honest) of her to return it - and she was mortified by the fact that she'd eaten my swiss chard!

So eventually, I got my box - minus the chard but with a cute little butternut squash, a green cabbage, potatoes, red peppers, carrots and mushrooms. I then went away for the weekend, so I haven't used much of my veg yet, but this evening I made some yummy fajitas.

I just fried some onion, one of the peppers, a load of mushrooms and a big handful of cabbage with some smoked paprika, chilli flakes and a clove of gorgeous smoked garlic (which I picked up at a fab smokery near my parents' house) and wrapped all the veg up in a couple of tortillas. Well, actually they were Loyd Grossman chapattis, which I've been meaning to try for ages - they're far lower in calories than tortilla wraps (under 100 per chapatti) and they were really tasty!

A bit of crumpet...

Ooh, missus! : )

Yep, this evening I decided to have a go at making crumpets. And it was a great success! I'd been out for an enormous pub lunch (I had a gorgeous grilled aubergine 'steak' topped with tomato sauce and grilled goat's cheese, with just about every vegetable imaginable - cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower cheese, carrots, roast butternut squash, parsnips and roast potatoes - and a Yorkshire pud) but I still fancied something for supper. I thought about making some pancakes, or maybe scrambled eggs...but then the idea of crumpets popped into my head and I decided to be brave and give it a go! It was a bit scary because the recipe involved yeast and yeast is always a bit of a worry for some reason, but I should have known good old Delia wouldn't let me down.

I halved the recipe because I didn't think I could quite manage 12 of them in one sitting, and while they came out a bit flatter than Delia's (I didn't have a crumpet/egg ring so I just spooned the mixture into the pan, which meant they didn't have any support to let them form proper crumpet shapes) they were absolutely delicious and I was seriously impressed by how easy they were to make!

Just perfect with butter...or blueberry jam...yum!

WIAW: It was all going so well...!

Yep, I'm back on the What I Ate Wednesday bandwagon again! Today has been quite tasty, but not exactly as I'd planned...

I started off with good old apple and blueberry Oat So Simple...

(...yes, that is the same photo as last time!)

And then I made use of my latest amazing discovery - toaster bags for making toasted sandwiches in the toaster. Our office only has a very basic kitchen, so being able to make a toasted sandwich is a real revelation! This one started life as an M&S egg and watercress one - sounds like an odd choice for a toastie, but it was lovely! I also had a salad from M&S on the side - their 'classic side salad' which had cherry tomatoes, lettuce, cucumber, spring onion, radish and chive dressing.

I'm trying to get back into doing Pilates, so instead of my usual Wednesday run, I headed off for a Wednesday Pilates class. Which required fuel in the form of a banana...

Pilates was good (I think my stomach muscles will be complaining tomorrow but that's the point - core strength!) but when I took the homemade carrot, chickpea and lentil curry I'd been looking forward to out of the fridge, I spotted mould on the top of it. Not happy! Mind you, it was the last of the batch and it had been in the fridge for over a week, so I'm not all that surprised. So I had to raid the fridge for something to eat, and ended up with a Tilda microwave pilau rice pack with added frozen spinach and a sprinkle of dried chilli flakes. It was nice enough, but it wasn't my delicious curry!

Go and have a look at what everyone else around the web has been eating...!

Veg Box Day: 2/10/12

This is the first veg box I've had for ages, what with being away and everything. It's a good one, though! I got onions, carrots, salad potatoes, cherry tomatoes, courgettes, broccoli and what they called 'true spinach', which just means proper big spinach leaves instead of the little baby ones.

I used some of the spinach, broccoli and potatoes to make a big salady thing with mustard mayo to go with a poached salmon fillet, and I also made a batch of carrot and chickpea curry, with lentils and more of the spinach, which went in the freezer. Nigella made a pasta and courgette thing on her Nigellissima programme the other night, which may well feature in my culinary future! Or I could make my mum's amazing zucchini cake...

Somerset apple cake...

As promised, here's the apple cake recipe! It's been a family favourite for many years - I have no idea where the original recipe came from, but it's written on the inside cover of my mum's Dairy Book of Home Cookery from the late 70s, so it's been around in my family for as long as I can remember!

It's a really easy recipe - you just rub butter and flour together and then chuck in all the other ingredients, and it's so packed full of apples that you end up with chunks of apple lightly bound in spiced cake mix rather than a traditional cake batter! Which can surely only be a good thing. I also love it because it doesn't involve sultanas (why do so many apple recipes insist on including the horrible little things?) but if you don't have a sultana aversion, feel free to chuck a few of those in as well.

Somerset apple cake

4oz butter or margarine (we use Stork for cakes)
8oz self-raising flour
4oz sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon mixed spice
8oz peeled and diced cooking apples (3-4 medium/large apples)
A little milk

Rub the butter and flour together, then add the sugar, spice, egg and apples and stir until well mixed. Add sufficient milk to make a sticky consistency.

Grease and flour a 7–8” cake tin, spoon in the mixture and bake at 180C for about an hour in the centre of the oven or until firm and golden. You can test with a skewer but you might need to give it a few pokes because you'll often find some apple on it rather than uncooked cake!

Autumn jam-making adventures...

As I mentioned, some of the rhubarb from my parents' garden found its way into a crumble, and some was destined for jam. A few months ago my mum was given a jar of homemade rhubarb and ginger jam by a neighbour, and it was so good that she had to find out how to make it. A quick Google came up with this ridiculously easy BBC Good Food recipe - you just chop up the rhubarb and stem ginger and put it in a big bowl with the jam sugar, lemon zest and juice and grated fresh ginger, and then once the rhubarb has released all of its lovely juice and the sugar has dissolved a bit (we left ours overnight) you just boil it all up until it reaches setting point. Easy! And absolutely gorgeous.

 

Then we used more of our home-grown apples to make our favourite autumnal jam - caramel apple. This is the third year we've made it and it's always good (you can see the 2010 and 2011 batches here and here!) and again it's a really easy one to make. Apples, two types of sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg, and boil boil boil. The original recipe calls for pectin but we never bother with that - we just boil it up until it reaches setting point, as apples have plenty of pectin in them.

Two lovely jam recipes to see us into Autumn...and the weather definitely seems to have turned autumnal as well!

What I Ate Wednesday...The Return!

I haven't done What I Ate Wednesday for ages, but the theme at the moment (as you can see) is 'Fall into good habits' and after a few less-than-healthy weeks, that's definitely something I want to do!

I've been using MyFitnessPal to log my food intake - I find keeping a diary of what I eat helps me to make better choices (most of the time...although I do slip up fairly regularly!) so I want to really focus on logging everything and not 'cheating'. It's not a 'diet' - although I have a calorie goal that I want to stick to in order to shift the pesky half a stone I've been meaning to shift for about six months now, I'm in charge and I can play around with my food to account for treats and occasional slip-ups.

So here's what I ate yesterday...Wednesdays are running days so my evening meal is always really uninspired (beans on toast or an omelette or whatever's quickest and easiest to make when I get home) so I thought I'd post my Tuesday food instead!

Breakfast was a bowl of Oat So Simple apple and blueberry porridge. We've got some lovely chunky new bowls in the office (I always have breakfast at work) and they're perfect for our descent into porridge and soup season!

Lunch was some lovely vegetarian sushi from M&S, with one of their edamame salads. My sister sent me a photo of the amazing sushi she'd made on Monday evening and it looked so nice I ended up fancying sushi for lunch! I also had an apple, but I didn't take a photo of that. You know what an apple looks like!

Then, with the autumnal weather we've been having, I really wanted something warm and comforting for supper. I made a really easy spinach and chickpea dhal by toasting some spices (cumin, mustard seeds, garam masala, curry powder and chilli flakes) in a pan and adding red lentils, a small tin of chickpeas and a few chunks of frozen chopped spinach. Then I added a bit of veg stock and let it all bubble until the lentils were cooked and the whole thing was nice and thick. It was gorgeous (if not very photogenic!)

And finally I treated myself to a little slice of homemade Somerset apple cake (there's a post about that on its way too, don't you worry...) while watching the Great British Bake Off. I love the Bake Off!

All of that came in within my goal for the day, and it was all delicious! Have a look at the WIAW post on Peas and Crayons to see what everyone else has been eating...

Apple and rhubarb crumble...

We really are coming into apple season now and as there's a nice cooking apple tree in my parents' garden, we made good use of the apples while I was at home! There was also still a pretty big patch of rhubarb left, so we turned some into jam (but that's for another post) and made some into crumble.

I just used a classic crumble recipe - I chopped up the apple and rhubarb (three or four decent stems of rhubarb and a couple of big cooking apples) and layered it in a baking dish with some sugar and a couple of lumps of chopped stem ginger, and then the crumble was 8oz of flour and 4oz of butter, which I rubbed together before adding 4oz of sugar. I also threw in a large handful of oats and a couple of tablespoons of chopped nuts, and then the whole thing went in the oven at 180C for about 45 or so minutes, until the top was golden brown and the fruit was just starting to bubble up at the sides. We had it with custard but it'd be equally nice with some vanilla ice cream. Or with custard and ice cream!

Maple cake...

I've been down in Somerset for the last week, and you know what that means - lots of baking! It's so nice to have people to bake for, and there's a bit of a tradition in my family of making sure there's always cake available when people come to visit.

I'd already decided what to bake first - I'd stumbled upon the Baker's Daughter blog (which sadly doesn't seem to have been updated for a while, but there are some amazing recipes on there) via Pinterest, and as soon as I saw the Maple Cake recipe I knew it was one to try. Having spent four years in New England as a child, I developed a serious love of maple syrup, and it's a love my mum also shares, so I had to make this gorgeous cake for her.

The original recipe calls for one 9" tin, but we decided to bake it in two 8" sandwich tins and use the lovely maple icing to fill and top the cake. It worked really well and the sponge is beautifully light and delicate. It doesn't keep quite as well as an ordinary Victoria sponge, but the buttercream keeps the cake moist and it's so delicious it won't last long anyway - we devoured most of it in one sitting (although there were five of us...!)

I think it would make the perfect cake for an autumn birthday, too...hmm, wonder who's got a birthday coming up in the next few weeks...!

Veg Box Day: 21/08/12

I had an amazing weekend - a wedding on Saturday, a country show featuring cider, ice cream, big pigs and The Wurzels on Sunday, and as I'd also taken Monday off work we headed down to gloriously sunny Lyme Regis for lunch and more ice cream.

But more of that later! Yesterday was veg box day, and here's what I got...

...salad leaves, spring onions, portobello mushrooms, charlotte potatoes, cherry tomatoes, carrots and the biggest pointed cabbage I've ever seen!

I also finally got round to buying myself a salad spinner - all the things like salad leaves, spinach, rocket and watercress that come in the veg box need washing, and until now I've been washing them in the sink and then using industrial-sized volumes of kitchen roll to attempt to dry them. But now I have this!

Of course I had to get an expensive one (well, it was more than the flimsy £5.99 ones in the cheapo kitchen shop, anyway) because I only wanted a small one. This one fits in the fridge (if you store your salad in the spinner it keeps longer, apparently) and it's solid and the plunger on top locks flat onto the lid so it's really easy to store (very important in my tiny kitchen).

So supper last night was a salady affair - some of my freshly washed leaves with grated carrot, toasted pine nuts, new potatoes, a hard-boiled egg and a dressing made from tahini, lemon juice and a bit of water. I'll have to think of something to do with that cabbage now!

Amazing fish pie...

I made this fish pie when I was at my parents' last week, and it was amazing firstly because it tasted gorgeous (I used ordinary cod, smoked cod, prawns and peas, but you could use haddock or any white fish, or salmon even) and secondly because it was completely gluten- and dairy-free! I based the recipe loosely on good old Delia, just to get an idea of cooking times really, but it's obviously nothing like Delia's fish pie. Here's what I did...obviously if gluten and dairy aren't a problem for you, you can just use 'normal' ingredients! It sounds quite involved but it's really easy and it's a lovely thing to do if you've got a Saturday night in.

Fish pie

Serves 4 greedy people (like me and my family) or probably 6 normal people

2 smoked cod fillets
2 plain cod fillets or loins
1 pint non-dairy milk (I used unsweetened almond milk)
About 300g raw king prawns
3 tablespoons rice flour (or other gluten-free plain flour)
1-2 tablespoons sunflower oil
Large handful parsley, chopped
Large handful frozen peas
About 1kg floury potatoes, peeled and chopped into 2" chunks
About 1 tablespoon Pure sunflower spread
Big splash of non-dairy milk or soya cream
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat the oven to 200C.
2. Place the fish fillets into your ovenproof serving dish and pour over the pint of milk. Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes until just opaque.
3. Lift the fish out of the milk and place on a plate to cool slightly, then sieve the milk into a jug.
4. When the fish is cool enough to handle, remove any skin and bones and place in large chunks back into the serving dish, along with the prawns and peas. Season (not too much salt as the smoked fish may be quite salty).
5. Make the sauce by combining the flour and oil in a pan to make a roux. Cook for 1-2 minutes on a medium heat, then remove from the heat and add the milk you poached the fish in. Whisk to get rid of any lumps, then return to a low heat and whisk until the sauce thickens. Season with pepper and stir in the chopped parsley. Pour the sauce over the fish and leave to stand.
6. Make the mashed potato by putting the chopped potato in a large pan, covering with water and boiling until tender. Drain and mash with the Pure and a splash of non-dairy milk or soya cream. Season.
7. Top the pie with the mashed potato, fluffing up the surface with a fork. Bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes, until the top is golden brown.

Veg Box Day: 7/8/12

Haven't blogged for ages, have I! I went on a week-long jaunt down to the Westcountry and did a LOT of cooking (and a bit of DIY...) so you can expect a few posts about that in the near future. In the meantime, here's this week's veg box - I haven't had one for a month, as I skipped my last delivery knowing I'd be away. This box is extremely summery, with a salad pack, spring onions, sugarsnap peas, carrots, cherry tomatoes, mushrooms and new potatoes, and it's all from the UK!

Unfortunately I was a bit hungry and I ate my supper before I remembered to take a photo of it...but it wasn't particularly interesting anyway, just some of the salad with chopped spring onions, a hard-boiled egg, new potatoes, cherry tomatoes (both of which I browned with a spray of oil in a frying pan for a warm element to the salad, yum yum) and a drizzle of balsamic.

Amazing yogurt and tahini dressing

The other night, I made this aubergine salad for supper and it was lovely - but what was really lovely was the yogurt and tahini dressing that went with it. The amounts in the recipe made a whole jam jar's worth of dressing, so last night I had it with roasted carrots, potatoes and chickpeas and I think it was even nicer having been in the fridge for a couple of days!

It's creamy and garlicky and lemony, and there's quite a kick from the cayenne pepper (I added a good pinch, but you could obviously use as much or as little as you liked) and it's ridiculously easy to make. You can also make it as low-fat as you like by using fat-free yogurt - I actually used some plain soya yogurt that I had in the fridge and it was fab and dairy-free to boot. I reckon it'd be amazing with grilled fish, or any kind of roasted vegetables, or a peppery rocket and watercress salad.

Gluten-free vegan peanut butter cookies

I do like a bit of peanut butter. Recently I was discussing peanut butter with some friends (mainly the controversial issue of whether to butter one's toast before spreading it with peanut butter - I say absolutely not!) and the subject of Meridian's no added salt or sugar peanut butter came up. Apparently it's the best there is! So of course I went out and bought some...and then wondered what to do with the half-jar of Whole Earth (which might be organic but has added oil and salt) sitting in my kitchen.

I had a bit of a Google for peanut butter cookie recipes, but most of them seemed to include a ton of sugar, or sugary things like maple syrup. So in the end I totally made up my own recipe, and I was amazed to find that it worked really well! I made them gluten-free because I fancied using buckwheat flour and I thought 'in for a penny, in for a pound, let's make them totally GF!' And they happen to be vegan as well. They're seriously easy and really tasty. I'll definitely be making them again!

Gluten-free vegan peanut butter cookies

Makes around 20 cookies

1/2 cup buckwheat flour
1/2 cup Doves Farm GF plain flour (or ordinary flour)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 ripe banana
1/2 cup (around 130g) peanut butter

1. Preheat the oven to 180C and line a baking tray with baking parchment.
2. Mix the flours and baking powder together in a bowl.
3. In a separate bowl, mash the banana well, then stir in the peanut butter until well combined.
4. Tip the flour mix into the peanut butter and banana, and stir together to form a dough.
5. Break off pieces of dough and roll into balls about 1" across. Place on the baking tray and flatten with the back of a fork.
6. Bake for 10-12 minutes, until golden brown.

Weird Food: chia seeds

I've been reading about chia seeds on food blogs and healthy eating blogs for ages now, but I hadn't tried them until this week. Until quite recently they were reasonably difficult to get hold of in the UK - or they were expensive, with the only bags I'd seen being massive £12 ones in Holland & Barrett. But now they do little 100g bags for around £2, and so I decided to take the plunge and buy some.

I was inspired by Laura's raspberry chia seed jam, and so that was the first thing I tried. It wasn't really a recipe - I just mashed about 100g of raspberries, added 5g of chia seeds, and stirred it all together. Left in the fridge overnight, the chia seeds did their thing and made it quite gelatinous in texture, very much like a slightly runny jam. It's delicious - I didn't add any sugar because I had gorgeous sweet British raspberries, but it is quite tart so if you decide to have a go you might want to add a bit of icing sugar to taste.

I think I'm going to try mixing some chia seeds with Kara chocolate coconut milk (one of my new obsessions - it makes the most incredible hot chocolate!) for a chocolate pudding-type thing...we'll see how that goes!

Veg Box Day: 10/7/12

Another slightly soggy one, thanks to this glorious July weather! This fortnight's box had vine tomatoes, an aubergine, two mini cucumbers, some spring onions, new potatoes, carrots and a TON of broad beans.

So far all I've done is mix some of the tomatoes and cucumber into a potato salad, but this evening I'm planning a variation on this aubergine salad recipe, with the cherry tomatoes and maybe some smoked tofu.