Tag: Vegetarian
Tomato, Basil and Puy Lentil Salad

Tomato, Basil and Puy Lentil Salad

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As promised here’s the starter dish I made for my friend Emma’s 18th Dinner Party the other day. Basil, tomato and mozerella is a match made in heaven, so it’s no wonder that when put on a plate all together it tastes insanely good! It’s also surprisingly simple and healthy for one of my dishes. With the puy lentils and mozerella there’s plenty of protein and all the tomatoes load up the plate with vitamins and fruity/vegetably goodness. These portions are fairly small as I was making them as a starter, but if you want to make this into a hearty meal you can just double all the quantities.

Recipe

Serves 4

Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients

  • 200g Puy Lentils
  • 8 Golden Cherry Tomatoes
  • 8 Cherry tomatoes
  • 2 Beef Tomatoes
  • 1 Ball of Mozzarella
  • 3 tsp Pesto
  • A few Basil leaves

Method

  1. Cook the puy lentils according to the packet instructions. Then spoon the puy lentils onto your plates.
  2. Slice the beef tomatoes into thin slices and then half the others and arrange them around the puy lentils.
  3. Tear the mozzarella into pieces and place on the plates.
  4. Spoon the pesto over the salad and finish with a drizzle of the pesto oil and garnish with the basil.

Thanks for reading!

Emma x
Vegetable Curry

Vegetable Curry

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I love a good authentic curry as much as the next person, but when you go to make your own at home it can often end up  bland and lacking in flavour – nothing like the ones you get in restaurants or at take-outs. A good way of avoiding this is to make your own paste for the sauce, but who honestly has the time in the middle of the week to spend ages grinding spices in a pestle and mortar?? I’ve found that the best way of getting a flavoursome curry with as little elbow grease as possible is to cook the spices a little before using them in the sauce. This will unlock the aromas and give the curry more oomph. The best way of doing this is to add the spice mix to the onions once they’ve just started to caramelise, and then fry it all together for another 2-3 minuteness before adding the wet ingredients to make the sauce.

I chose to make a vegetable curry for this post as I had a lot of vegetables floating around my kitchen which I wanted to use up, but a homemade curry is also a really good way of using up cooked meat. For example leftover roast chicken or turkey can be shreded up and then added to the sauce with some vegetables and voila, you have a delish meat curry ready to go!

 

Recipe

Serves 8

Time: 1 hour (including cooking time)

Ingredients

  • 1 Large potato
  • 1 Sweet potato
  • 1 Aubergine
  • 1 Red pepper
  • 1 Corguette
  • 2 tbsp Vegetable oil
  • 6 tbsp Medium Curry Powder
  • 1 Red onion
  • 430g Tomato Passata
  • 400g Coconut milk
  • Salt and pepper to season

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 200˚C.
  2. Now prep the veg. Peel the potato and sweet potato and chop into chunks. Chop the aubergine into similar sized pieces. De-seed the pepper and chop it into small chunks, slightly smaller than you chopped the potatoes and aubergine. Then slice the corguette down the middle and then chop it into bits of a similar size.
  3. Put the chopped vegetables into a large roasting tin and drizzle with 1 tbsp of the oil. Sprinkle over 2 tbsp of the curry powder and stir around the tin to coat evenly. Put into the oven to roast for 30-35 minutes, stirring half way through, until the veg are soft and just starting to crisp.
  4. Meanwhile peel and dice the onion. Put the rest of the oil into a large saucepan and put over a medium heat. Add the onion and fry, stirring occasionally, until it begins to caramelise and go brown.
  5. Add the other 4 tbsp of curry powder and stir to coat the onions in it. Fry for another 2-3 minutes to slightly cook the powder and then add the passata and coconut milk. Stir to combine and then leave on a gentle simmer for 10 minutes.
  6. When the vegetables in the oven are ready take them out of the oven and add them to the sauce. Leave everything to simmer for another 5-10 minutes until all the veg are cooked through and infused with the spices in the sauce.
  7. Season the curry with salt and pepper to taste and then serve with rice and/or naan bread!

Thanks for reading!

Emma x
Tomato Soup

Tomato Soup

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Over new year I spent some time in Northern Italy, and for me there’s nowhere where the food is better. One of the things that really sticks in my mind from the trips I’ve made out there is their tomatoes. It’s an odd thing to pick up on, but their tomatoes are 100% better than any you find in the UK. Because of volcanic soil they manage to grow ones which are full of an intense, sweet and sour flavour which makes incredible tomato sauces and soups.

Whilst we don’t have direct access to this incredible produce, the UK does have it’s fair share of delicious vegetables and this soup is a great way of making use of this. Especially now we’re hitting the cold and wet season, and everyone seems to be getting flu, a quick, warm and nourishing bowl of soup is what we need. Packed full of good stuff and deliciously filling this soup is a perfect mid-week winter warmer.

Recipe

Serves 6

Time 25 minutes

Ingredients

  • 1 White onion
  • 2 Garlic cloves
  • 1 Medium Carrot
  • 1 Celery Stick
  • 2 tbsp Vegetable oil
  • 900g Ripe tomatoes
  • 2 tbsp Tomato puree
  • 2 Stock cubes
  • 1 Litre of boiling water
  • Salt and Pepper to season
  • Basil and Pine nuts to garnish

Method

1. Begin by prepping the vegetables. Peel and dice the onion, garlic and carrot. Then take the ends off the celery and chop it into chunks about the same size as the carrot.

2. Put the oil into a large saucepan and heat gently. Add the prepared vegetables once the oil just starts to bubble, and gently fry until the onions begin to caramelise – this’ll take about 5 minutes.

3. Meanwhile chop the tomatoes into chunks. Once the vegetables are ready add the tomatoes and puree to the mixture, stir to combine. Then leave with the lid on for 5 minutes to soften.

4. Next make up the  stock by putting two stock cubes into a jug and pouring over the boiling water. Stir with a fork until the stock cubes have dissolved.

5. Pour the stock over the vegetables and leave on a medium heat to gently simmer with the lid off for about 15 minutes, or until all the vegetables are soft and the liquid has reduced slightly.

6. Take a hand-blender and blend the soup until it’s as smooth as you want it. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

7. Ladle into bowls and garnish with pine nuts and fresh basil. Serve with fresh bread and enjoy!

Thanks for reading!

Emma x
Potato and Leek Soup

Potato and Leek Soup

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It’s the second bake of detox January and I’ve gone for the classic diet staple of soup. I know it doesn’t look like much – trust me, it’s very hard to make potato soup look sexy – but it tastes really good, which when you’re dieting is a big plus. As you can see from the recipe it’s very simple and quick to make as you only really need to chop up some veg. You can also alter the quantities depending on how you like the consistency of your soup; essentially the more potatoes you add the thicker it will be. If you’re not in detox land at the moment and you want a deluxe version I’d recommend adding a couple of rashers of grilled bacon and 50ml double cream to the mix before blending!

Recipe

Serves 5

Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients

  • 1 Knob of butter
  • 1 White onion, chopped roughly
  • 3 Medium leeks, sliced into discs
  • 3 Medium potatoes, peeled and chopped into chunks
  • 1 Vegetable stock cube
  • 100ml Single cream to serve (optional)
  • Salt and pepper to season

Method

  1. Put the butter into a large saucepan and melt gently over a medium heat.
  2. Add the onions and fry, stirring occasionally, until they begin to caramelise and brown.
  3. Add the leeks, potatoes and stock cube. Then pour over enough boiling water to cover all the vegetables. Stir to dissolve the stock cube and then leave to boil until the veg are soft.
  4. Puree with a hand blender until smooth. Season to taste and then serve with a drizzle of cream and fresh bread!

Thanks for reading!

Emma x
Baked Egg Pots

Baked Egg Pots

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Now that it’s 2018 we’re into the new year and new years resolutions are flying all over the place. One that I’ve taken on along with thousands of others over the country is to eat more healthily. Whilst I can’t see this lasting long for the main reason that I write a bi-weekly food blog and I love patisserie, I thought a detox January would be a good way of exploring healthy food. So you can expect a month full of healthy (or healthy attempts) of recipes.

I first heard of baked eggs when I was on French exchange and loads of my friends were being served them by their host families. Since then I’ve wanted to give it a go and so now here we are! I instantly liked making these as I could just delve into my fridge and pull out the first things I could see which I thought would work well together. Whether you have some leftover roast chicken, or some about-to-go-off tomatoes, this is a great way of using it up. I’ve included three variations at the bottom of the post to get your imagination running as to how you could personalise your own baked egg pot.

As well as being really versatile in terms of ingredients, they also have loads of uses. As they’re so quick to make they’re a great little warm snack for a cold day, or you could serve them as simple starters at a dinner party. This is especially useful as they take very little preparation and can be easily altered to suit different dietary requirements! Alternatively you could do what I do and make one for lunch and serve it with a side salad to get a healthy, high-protein meal.

Recipe

Serves 4

Time: 10 minutes prep, 15 minutes to cook

Ingredients

  • 3 Plum tomatoes
  • 1 Small pepper (I went for yellow)
  • 12 tsp Light Cream cheese
  • 8 Large eggs
  • 2 Cherry tomatoes
  • Pinch of salt and pepper
  • Basil to garnish

Method

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 180C.
  2. Chop the plum tomatoes into chunks and put them into the bottoms of 4 ramekins.
  3. Chop the pepper up into chunks and again distribute them between the ramekins.
  4. Take a teaspoon and put three little blobs of cream cheese into each pot.
  5. Crack two eggs into each pot – you don’t need to whisk them up or anything, just pop them straight in.
  6. Chop the cherry tomatoes into quarters and put two quarters into each pot.
  7. Season with salt and pepper (a very important step so do not miss!)
  8. Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes, the time will vary depending on how you like your eggs cooked.
  9.  Take out of the oven and garnish with fresh basil. Eat with bread and/or a side salad!

Variations-

Smoked salmon – Take out the plum tomatoes and instead add 1 handful of wilted spinach to each pot. Then put some smoked salmon in with the cream cheese before you put on the eggs. Serve with sour cream and chives!

Bacon and Cheese – If you’re not bothered about the whole healthy eating thing you can use full fat cream cheese, or even go two steps further and add bacon and cheddar cheese to make them really indulgent.

Chicken and Sweetcorn – Take some leftover roast chicken, or chopped up cooked chicken breast, and 4 tbsp cooked sweetcorn and divvy it up between the pots with the cream cheese, eggs and seasoning.

Thanks for reading!

Emma x