Courgette Cake and a Lowry Jigsaw

It was Fraser's birthday last weekend. Sadly, there has yet to be an opportunity to make birthday pie, but we had a very nice time with a bit of walking, Fraser's mum's courgette cake and a 500 piece L.S. Lowry jigsaw (which it can only be assumed was created by a sadist).

So technically this post is cheating a little bit because I didn't make the cake, BUT I will definitely be doing so soon, as our courgette plants are producing courgettes like there's no tomorrow and we have 6 as big as your forearm sitting on our kitchen windowsill. Not even joking.

Also: courgette. In a cake. I know it sounds weird, but I promise you it isn't. It's wonderfully moist and sweet and a little bit spiced, and you should make it.

Ingredients (makes 2 loaf tins worth):
- 2 cups plain flour
- 2 cups sugar
- ½tbsp cinnamon
- 2tsp baking powder
- 1 cup sunflower oil
- 2tsp vanilla extract
- 3 eggs
- 2 cups finely grated courgette
- 1 cup raisins
- 1 cup chopped nuts

Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180°C and grease two loaf tins (if you can find a way to use half an egg, then by all means half the whole recipe and just use the one tin!).
2. Sift together the flour, sugar, cinnamon and baking powder in a large bowl. Then pour in the oil, vanilla and eggs and mix well.
3. Add the courgette, raisins and nuts and stir together.
4. Divide the mix between the two tins then bake for an hour, until a knife in the middle comes out clean.

Fraser reckons the jigsaw took us about 10 hours in total, and I'm not sure we could've done it (at least without it taking even longer) without cake for fuel. I'm planning on having some handy for essays once term starts again, 'coz if it can get me through that jigsaw, it can get me through anything!

Here Comes The Sun

As soon as the sun comes out my cooking motivation and ideas go wild, and I also want very different sorts of food to the kind I crave when it's cold. This particular one I'd been fantasising about for a good 4/5 days before I got to make it, but boy was it worth the wait.

I admit it's not the most visually stunning, but my god you have to taste it because it is brilliant. It's also super-duper easy to make which is perfect, particularly after a day like this:

I LOVE THE SUN. Also now that it's hot we can eat in the conservatory, which is beyond awesome.

Ingredients: (serves 4)
- 1 large red onion (or 2 smaller)
- 3 cloves garlic
- 1 red pepper, de-seeded
- 1 courgette
- 3 carrots, peeled
- 200g cherry tomatoes (approx)
- 1tbsp dried thyme
- salt and pepper, to taste
To serve:
- tortilla wraps (or GF pasta for a gluten-free option)
- 150g pot natural yoghurt
- 200g pack feta cheese
- 1 standard size pot of hummus (I happened to have a 'chargrilled red pepper and hummus dip' which was brill)

Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 220°C. Grab your veg (you can really use anything you like) and chop into similar sized pieces so they'll all cook at a similar time, then throw them all into a big dish they can be roasted in. Drizzle with olive oil, then sprinkle over the thyme, salt and pepper before giving it all a good stir and bunging in the oven for 45-60 minutes (stirring every 15 minutes or so).

2. Sit down and enjoy a glass of wine or similar. Because roasting the veg is basically all the cooking in this whole recipe so drinking alcohol has now become an actual instruction. ENJOY.
3. If you're gluten-intolerant, put 75g of GF penne on to cook 10 mins before the veg has finished roasting. Zosia used all the other serve-with things and said it was bon, so you can do that easy peasy. Otherwise, warm up the wraps, spread with hummus, then add the veg. Dollop on some yoghurt and feta, and wrap up all the lovliness. Then eat in your conservatory/garden because it's warm and beautiful and LIFE IS GOOD.

Alive and Cooking Ratatouille Pasta

So I'm still alive. Promise. And I'm still cooking, just about... 

For those newcomers to the blog, HI I'M ZOSIA. I'm the other half of the "we" that Bryony's always talking about when she talks about our blog, and this year I've been ridiculously busy. University work and students' union commitments have taken up all my time, which has meant that I haven't been able to cook anything more ambitious than tomato pasta sauce and a few risottos here and there. Being completely honest the majority of my eating has been done in the library. I'm THAT girl...

Eating one of Bryony's cupcakes in the library

But Bryony's been bugging me to blog. For a long time. A reaaaalllyyy loooooong time. Thing is though, when I do have time to cook, I don't have time to even take photographs, let alone write up a blog post afterwards... 

But now it's exam term, so I have time to think for once. Which means I've actually got time to de-stress by cooking. I was sat there in the library today thinking about cooking, and I went to the weekly fruit and veg market at the SU and bought all sorts of vegetables, and after I came home from my eight hour library session I made Ratatouille Pasta Sauce.

Serves three people, plus enough for lunch the next day, plus some for the freezer... Possibly about six people...

For the sauce:
1 Large Onion
2 Cloves of Garlic
Splash of Olive Oil and a Knob of Butter
3  Courgettes
1 Medium Aubergine
1/2 a Large Red Pepper
3 Tins of Chopped Tomatoes
Red wine (I half filled one of the tins with wine, topped it up with water and added this)
2 Teaspoons of Chilli and Tomato Pesto (or just use red pesto with a dash of chilli powder instead)
1 Teaspoon of Herbs de Provence
1 Teaspoon of Italian mixed herbs
1 Oxo cube
Salt and Pepper to taste
Generic Chopped Fresh Herbs (I used some basil and some parsley, but use what you've got. Rosemary would work)
Grated Cheese to Serve.

Plus pasta, however much you fancy.

Here's what you do:
1.  Melt the butter in a pan with a splash of oil. Chop the onion nice and small. Chop the garlic too, then add this all to the butter and oil. Let it simmer for five to ten minutes while you're chopping the rest of your vegetables.
2. Chop your courgettes into round slices and add to the pan. Stir it all around and let it simmer for a few minutes while you chop your aubergine.
3. Add the chopped tomatoes to the pan, along with the wine and water. Mix in the aubergine, the herbs, the oxo cube and the chilli and tomato pesto.
4. Make sure everything is combined well, put a lid on the pan and let it all simmer for ten to fifteen minutes.
5. After ten minutes or so, put your pasta on. Season your ratatouille sauce with salt and peper, and about five minutes before the pasta is done, stir in the chopped fresh herbs.
6. Serve your sauce over your pasta, with some more basil and plenty of cheese. Unless your name is Harry. In which case you don't eat cheese. Because you're quite frankly a bit weird.

We served three people (Harry, Bryony and Me), and I had enough for tomorrow's lunch, plus a sizeable amount to put in the freezer.

Dinner with Hazzaaa

(Dear Bryony: I COOKED. I BLOGGED. Are you happy now?)

Cooking bombardment: week at the boyfriend's

This last couple of weeks has been very hectic, as I've been flicking in between staying at home and with the boyfriend, and working in between. I'm sure every blog post I ever write begins with an apology and an explanation of hectic-ness, but there you have it!

There has been a lot of cooking though. So in this post I'm bombarding you with it. Although this isn't even a real post as I didn't write all the recipes, but you should trust my foody-judgement anyway. Hopefully. ENJOY.

Fraser made us THIS courgette pasta bake which was pretty awesome. We used creme fraiche instead of fromage frais (not gonna lie, that sounds weird) and if you don't have passata then generic chopped tomatoes would be fine. Also we ate half and then took the next half on a walk up a fell/down a valley/to an old slate mine the next day and ate it with a spork. Packed lunch FTW.

A couple of days later, I experimented with baked sweet potatoes. Which were awesome. Recipe as follows:

- 2 sweet potatoes
- bunch spring onions
- 2 cloves garlic
- handful of fresh herbs - preferably parsley and chives
- 4 tablespoons creme fraiche
- salt and pepper
- handful grated cheddar.

Scrub the potatoes, prick them in several places with a fork, place on a baking tray lined with tin foil and bake at 200°C for 45 minutes.

Meanwhile, use the last 10 minutes of the potato-baking-time to make your filling - chop the spring onions and garlic and lightly fry in a teensy bit of olive oil for 5 minutes. Then add the creme fraiche and the cheese and stir on a low heat for a few more minutes, so the cheese melts and you get a very lovely smelling, slightly messy-looking mixture.

Once the potatoes are cooked through, remove them from the oven, then scoop out most of the insides and put into the pan with the creme fraiche mixture. Mash it up a bit and make sure it's all stirred together, then add the herbs and season to taste, and put the mixture back into the potato skins. Add more grated cheese on top, because cheese is awesome.

Serve with something like salad or baked beans. Hungry as we were, we found that both together were a bit much.

Aaaand then yesterday we made a variation of THIS leek and parmesan risotto, which is stonkingly good and very very simple. We added a few more spring onions, some green beans (add a few minutes after the leeks and spring onions), some fresh parsley and a bit more cheese. And it was so very, very good. 

With it, I made baked asparagus, which is one of my favourite things in the world.

To recreate you will need:

- 1 pack/bunch of fine asparagus, or asparagus tips

- a couple of knobs of butter

- parmesan

- olive oil

- salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 220°C. Chop the ends off the asparagus and give them a wash, then line them up in a baking dish. A non-metal one works best, but use whatever you have.

Place the knobs of butter over the asparagus. Tempting as it is to use loads I do try (despite often failing) to restrain myself, as it all melts and covers everything anyway. Next, grate enough parmesan over the asparagus to pretty much cover it. Season, drizzle with olive oil, and cook for around 20 minutes. BEST. THING. EVER.

Unfortunately I was so busy eating risotto and asparagus that I forgot to take pictures of them, but the risotto looked very similar to this and the asparagus should look like this.

It was a lovely, foody week. There was also apple pie, but I've decided that was so epic it gets its own post. So keep your eyes peeled folks.

Green Pasta

I love pesto. Which is not surprising really, seeing as I love herbs and pesto is basically a herb sauce-thing with added pine nuts and cheese. What's not to love?

One day I will make my own pesto with my own herbs. For now I'm content with the Sacla variety (I really am a snob and am highly suspicious of Tesco's own brand), and to pesto lovers everywhere I present this recipe. I'm also going to add that when I came home in the Easter holidays I made it for my fussy sister and it's now one of her favourite things. Just saying.

For 2/3 people, you will need:
- a generous handful of pine nuts (depends how much you like them)
- a decent amount of french beans (ditto)
- 5/6 asparagus spears
- 1 large courgette
- Sacla 'classic basil' pesto. General rule = 1/4 of a jar per person.
- 75-100g tagliatelle per person
- parmesan, to serve (optional)

You can pretty much use any vegetables you like, so long as they're green. That's the rule. I don't usually bother with asparagus as it's so expensive and it's fine without it, but the last time I made this Jamie and I had gone to the street market in Staines and got two bunches of asparagus and 5 courgettes for £2.50. WIN.

1. Start by putting your pine nuts into a frying pan - no oil. Our uni hob takes forever to heat up and actually cook them so I tend to only start preparing vegetables once the nuts are already in, but if you have a gas hob (or a generally decent one) you should do the prep beforehand.

2. Wash and chop your beans (cut off the ends and then half) and do the same to the asparagus, only cut them into smaller bits and put the tips to one side. For the courgette, whap out your vegetable peeler and use it to make your courgette into courgette ribbons. This takes quite a while but is kind of fun and definitely worth it.

























3. Once the pine nuts have begun to colour, add some olive oil to the pan and then toss in the beans and all but the tips of the asparagus. They take less time to cook, so they go in later on. Cook these for about 5 minutes, and then begin to add the courgette ribbons. The way I do this is to push the rest of the veg to the side and lay as many ribbons in the pan as I can fit in, like so:

Side note: Zosia and I found that if you let the ribbons cook for long enough they turn all crunchy and are awesome. Sadly they wouldn't really work crunchy here, but I recommend you try it some time all the same

4. Cook the ribbons for about a minute, then move them over to the side and add more. Make sure the pan has plenty of oil in, and that you keep moving around the veg that's being pushed to the side so it doesn't burn. Once about a third of the ribbons are in, add the asparagus tips. This is also usually a good time to put the pasta on, depending on how long yours takes to cook (the stuff I use says 7-9 minutes). If it's done too soon you can always put it aside and run it under the hot tap to warm it up!

5. Once all the ribbons are done, transfer the contents of the frying pan over to the saucepan you cooked the pasta in (once you've drained it, obviously) along with the pesto. Stir in. Dish up to fellow hungry students along with the parmesan. 

Side note #2: I know this is not tagliatelle. This is because I photographed Zosia's, and she has wheat free pasta and there was only penne. Sorry.

Done. I challenge you not to make 'mmmmmmm' sounds when you eat it.