Omelette and Chips (the awesome way)

HELLO INTERNET! 

If you're a fellow student (especially if you're a lucky third year like we are) you'll know that it's been a very busy month, and so hopefully you'll excuse our dismal lack of posting. If you're not a student, I ask that you just trust me because everything is insane.

Last week I was on the phone to Mum, and said I didn't know what to make for tea because I didn't have much in. She suggested I made omelette and chips, and gave me the recipe below (or a version of it, because I can never leave a recipe alone...). 

It. Was. Amazing.

 

Ingredients (serves 1):
- knob of butter
- 2 eggs
- 1 small onion
- sprinkle dried thyme
- handful fresh parsley, chopped
- salt and pepper, to taste
- small handful grated cheddar cheese

For the chips:
- a few medium size potatoes (depends how many chips you want!)
- olive oil
- salt and pepper

For the omelette, onion is my preference (and also all I had in), but you could use a red onion, or try some mushrooms instead. Go wild.

1. Start by doing the chips. If you can't be bothered/have no potatoes/are going to use frozen oven chips, skip straight to step 3; otherwise, heat your oven to 200°C and peel your potatoes. Cut them into chip shapes.
2. Put the potatoes into a pan of salted water, then bring to the boil. Once bubbling, cook for 5 minutes, then drain and place on a baking tray. Drizzle with olive oil and crack over some salt and pepper, stir to coat then pop in the oven for 45-50 minutes (turning them half way through). Voila.

3. After your chips have had 30 minutes or so in the oven, make a start on the omelette. You need to cook the onion first, so slice it thinly, then whack it in a small frying pan with the thyme and some olive oil. Cook for about 5 minutes, until softened and starting to colour.
4. Meanwhile, break the eggs into a bowl and beat (not excessively, just to mix). Add the salt, pepper, the fresh parsley and the cooked onion and stir everything in.
5. In the frying pan you cooked the onion in, add the butter and melt it. The pan should be fairly hot when adding the omelette (have it on a medium heat), so it's important that you get it up to heat. Pour in the omelette mixture, and stir gently with a wooden spoon, making gentle cutting motions across the pan. You only need to do this a couple of times - it just helps ensure the egg is cooked through.
6. When the mixture is beginning to brown on the bottom and beginning to set on top, sprinkle over the cheese and fold in half. Continue to cook for another few minutes, or until the cheese has melted.

7. Serve! For me, chips like these are always best with liberal amounts of salt and vinegar, but obviously you can do what you like. This is so much healthier than many other recipes, especially the chips, though I promise you it doesn't suffer for it! Try it and see for yourself.

Sweet Potato Chips

Jamie and I often have a version of these at Bar 163, and they're fantastic. They're also so, so easy to make, and people are always super impressed with them. I made them a couple of times for Harry and he was particularly keen: he decided I should sell them, and eventually made me my own advertisement:

That dedication right there? That's how good they are. 

Ingredients:
- sweet potatoes
- olive oil
- salt and pepper

That's literally it. Peel your sweet potatoes and chop into long-ish strips so they're vaguely chip-shaped, then put them on a baking tray. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, give it all a good stir and bung it in the oven at 220°C for 30-40 minutes.

When they're crisped up nicely, sprinkle with more salt and pepper then put them in a bowl to make them look pretty. Then eat. ENJOY.

I also sprinkled mine with rosemary before putting in the oven. Because I'm fancy.

Spanish Bean Stew

Or 'Spanish Bean Cassoulet', if you're trying to feed someone fussy (*COUGH* Shannon, *COUGH* Alex) who gets put off when they hear 'stew'. The recipe belongs to my Mum's friend Christine, so I'm hoping I've done it justice and that my alterations aren't frowned upon too much! It's super cheap to make and the flavours are like nothing else I've ever had, and oh lordy the smell.

Ingredients:
- 3 shallots
- 2 cloves garlic
- 3 peppers (not red)
- 2 sticks celery
- 10 new potatoes, washed
- 3 large tomatoes, chopped
- 400g tin green lentils
- 400g tin chickpeas
- 400g tin borlotti beans
- 2tbsp smoked paprika
- 1tbsp sweet chilli sauce
- water to cover
- 1 glass red wine
- 100g curly parsley

The celery is Mum's addition, and the wine is mine. Not just because I'm a student and that's what we do... I think it gives it an extra depth of flavour and helps everything else to come alive. Also, in terms of the beans, you can pretty much use what you like - this time I had cannelini beans instead of borlotti, and they were brill. ALL OF THE BEANS.

Method:

1. Roughly chop the shallots, garlic and celery into small-ish pieces (you're not going to blend it at the end like a soup, so however big you chop everything is pretty much the size they'll be at the end) and throw into a large pan with some olive oil.

2. Cook on a low heat while you chop the peppers, potatoes and tomatoes, and then add those too. Cook for a further 10 minutes or so, until everything's softened.

3. Stir in the beans and lentils, then add the smoked paprika and sweet chilli sauce. Pour in the wine and enough water to cover everything, then bring to a low boil. Cover (use tinfoil if you don't have a lid) and simmer for about an hour and a half, stirring every 20 minutes or so (I usually take the lid off for the last 20 minutes, too).

4. Once it's nicely reduced and you just can't stand the smell any longer, chop up the parsley and add to the pan along with some salt and pepper. Serve with lots of bread and butter.

NB: You can freeze any leftovers, though it does make it go slightly mushy. Still good though!

Red Wine and Onion Gravy

I came home from a long day of revising Gregorian papal reforms and the persecution of minorities in twelfth century Europe and discovered that all my boyfriend Alex had eaten that day was two slices of cake and two bags of crisps. What a balanced diet. Nonetheless, he was in need of a good square meal.

Onion and red wine gravy had been playing on my mind all day, and as I had two bags of veggie sausages in the freezer I figured bangers and mash with onion and red wine gravy was a plan. Turned out to be an incredibly good one.

Normally my mum makes an epic gravy involving most of a bottle of red wine, the better part of four hours and some Bisto onion gravy granules but I had neither the time nor the Bisto. SOO I did a variation on this gravy recipe from BBC Food instead.

This served two very hungry people after a long day of revision…

For the gravy:

1 onion (I used a red onion but a white onion would work just as well)

Large splash of olive oil

1 large (we’re talking really large) teaspoon of wholegrain mustard

Large glass of red wine
½ an oxo cube

½ pint of water plus two large table spoons, added if necessary to keep your gravy from burning

2 drops of maple syrup (you could use sugar. Or honey. This was just the first sweet thing I grabbed)

Pinch of fresh chopped rosemary

For an excessive quantity of mashed potatoes: (I had a hungry Alex to feed)

3 large potatoes (I used baking potatoes but you’re supposed to use floury potatoes)

75ml cream

Splash of milk

Large knob of butter

Salt and pepper

For the sausages:

four or five veggie sausages (two for a normal person (me) and three for Alex)

Olive oil to cook

Serve with plenty of peas.

1. Chop the onion in half, then cut it into slices so you have long strips of onion. Add to the pan with the olive oil. Cook for 7-10 minutes, until soft. Stir in the mustard, then add the red wine. Let it simmer. 

2. While your onion and wine are cooking, peel your potatoes and dice them into small cubes. This means they’ll cook faster. Boil in slightly salted water for 10-12 minutes.  

      

3. MEANWHILE, back to the gravy. When the red wine has reduced down a bit, add half an oxo cube, half a pint of water and the rosemary. Let it all simmer gently, and if it gets stuck to the sides of the pan or starts to look too sticky then add a more water.

4. Put your sausages in a frying pan with a little olive oil and fry them. My veggie ones took about ten minutes to cook, but it'll depend on whether you're using meating sausages or not.

5. When the potato is cooked (spear a bit with a fork and bite it, you’ll soon be able to tell if it’s done or not) drain off the water and prepare to MASH.  Put the potatoes back in the pan with the cream, the butter and a splash of milk. Mash to your heart’s content, til everything is all smooth and well combined.

     6. Serve your sausages and mash with peas and a liberal helping of gravy. Eat on the sofa while watching rubbish on television.

Disclaimer: This meal is ridiculously filling.

Carrot, Leek and Potato Soup

 Soup has a special place in my heart. It makes me think of childhood and snow and freshly made bread rolls and Fridays, and this particular soup is one of my favourites. It's Mum's recipe, and I've lost count of the number of times I've made it at uni - though yesterday we made it at home with THIS LEEK from the garden:

Impressive, right? But onto the soup.

Ingredients: (serves 4)
- 500g leeks
- 2 large carrots
- 250g potatoes
- 25g butter
- 550ml water
- 1 Oxo cube
- 300ml milk
- ½tsp grated nutmeg
- sprig fresh thyme
- salt and pepper, to taste

Method:
1. Wash and chop the leeks, and peel the carrots and potatoes before chopping those too. Aim to have the pieces all the same size - that way they'll cook at about the same time.
2. Melt the butter in a very big saucepan or stock-pot, before adding the veg. Cook gently for about 10 minutes until it's softening, then stick everything else in. I should mention that this is the easiest recipe in the world.
Tip: with the thyme, you don't need to bother picking the leaves off as they'll fall off by themselves as it cooks, then you can just take out the stick (so make sure you don't have teeny little sticks if you're doing it like this). I'm calling this trick 'a thyme saver'. Oh yes I did.

 

3. Mix it all together, then stick the lid (or some tin foil) on and cook for about 30 minutes, until all the vegetables are properly softened.
4. Take out your thyme sticks and blend until smooth-ish, then serve.

This soup freezes brilliantly, so any leftovers can be saved for a rainy day. Or a day with essays due and no time to cook, though I tend to find that's when I do the most cooking... sure that's just coincidence.

 

This Is Uni Christmas Dinner

There is something quintessentially British about a roast dinner, particularly at Christmas, and I'm sure I'm not alone in saying it's my favourite day of the year. We've just had our last weekend at university before the holidays, so we decided to make it our honourary Christmas so we could celebrate together. Earlier in the week we Christmas-ified the house, and yesterday Jamie and I went out to pick holly before I embarked on the epic mission that was the roast dinner. It was beautiful.

 Not just the food (though that was pretty darn good if I do say so myself), but the company and the laughs and the cracker-hats and just everything. It was a good day. BUT I'll stop being sentimental now and get on with the recipes - I'm going to go through all the elements (in the order I started making them), so this'll be quite a long post, but it'll be totally worth it, promise.

Meat substitute:

I decided to make some awesome veggie pies, because I couldn't find anything nice in tesco. This made enough for four of us, as I did gluten-free red onion and rosemary sausages for Zosia.

Ingredients:

- 1x 500g pack puff pastry                                            - 150ml white wine                         

- 25g butter                                                                  - 1½ tbsp plain flour

- 6 shallots, roughly chopped                                       - 250ml veg stock          

- 2 cloves garlic, crushed                                              - 75ml double cream                   

- half an onion (save the other half for gravy)              - sprinkle of dried thyme            

- 4 new potatoes, peeled and chopped                        - salt and pepper             

- 1 pack asparagus tips, washed and chopped              - 1 egg       

1. Melt the butter in a pan and add the shallots, onion and garlic, then cook until soft and just beginning to colour - about 8 minutes.

2. Add the thyme, new potatoes, asparagus (not the tips yet) and wine, and boil 'til the wine has almost gone. Add the flour and stir well.

3. Pour in the stock and add the tips of the asparagus, then season to taste. Simmer for 10 minutes, stirring fairly regularly so it doesn't stick to the pan.

4. Add the cream and cook for another 3 minutes. Voila, filling done.

5. Roll out the pastry to about 1cm thick, then cut into small and large circles (I used a cup for the smaller ones and a bowl for the larger). Put the smaller ones on an oiled baking tray, then pile on as much filling as you can stack up, leaving a rim around the edge. Wet the rim and then put the larger pastry circle over the filling, making sure it sticks to the rim of the smaller circle. If you like you can also make decorations for the top, and stick those on with water too.

6. Beat an egg, then brush the pies with it. This will make them all golden and lovely. Once that's all done, they want about 30 minutes at 200°C in a preheated oven.

Roast potatoes:

This, like the yorkshire puddings, is Andy's recipe - a mix of his ideas, Nigel Slater's and Nigella's. A mix which certainly works, because roast dinners should not be as good as Andy's are, so I'm copying.

1. Begin by heating about 1-2cm of vegetable oil in a roasting dish at 200°C.

2. Peel enough potatoes for the number of people, and put into a pan of cold water. Bring to the boil, and cook for a MAXIMUM of 5 minutes.

3. Drain the potatoes in a colander, then put the colander on top of the empty pan and place the pan lid on top for about 5 minutes, or until you're ready for them. This will steam dry them and make them extra crunchy later.

4. Sprinkle over some plain flour (or semolina powder if you have it - I was on flour) and some salt and pepper, then do the hokey cokey (aka shake it all about) and get them all scuffed.

5. CAREFULLY, place the potatoes into the super-hot oil, making sure they're completely coated. Really do be careful - I was rushing too much yesterday and I have the burn-marks to prove it.

6. Put the dish back into the oven and let the potatoes cook for 35-40 minutes, checking and turning them half way through.

I over-did them a bit, but honestly it just added to the crunch. YOU CAN'T LOSE WITH THESE.

Yorkshire puddings:

This was my first time making Yorkshire puddings, though I've had Andy's and Mum's homemade ones for years. Mine therefore weren't quite as awesome as hoped, but practise makes perfect.

Ingredients (makes 12 - you'll need muffin tins):

- 4 eggs

- 250g plain flour (I used gluten free)

- 350ml milk

- pinch sea salt

1. Preheat the oven to at least 240°C, and fill each muffin tin cup with 1cm of vegetable oil. Put the tins in the oven for the oil to heat while you prepare the batter.

2. Whisk the eggs, milk and salt in a bowl for about 5 minutes using an electric whisk, longer if by hand. The mix should increase in size and be all bubbly, then leave to stand for 15 minutes.

3. Whisk in the flour a little at a time 'til there are no lumps. You should have a smooth batter, and the oil in the oven should be beginning to smoke slightly. 

4. Evenly distribute the batter into the muffin tins (I found it was about 4tbsp per cup), being very careful 'cos they're pretty darn hot. Bake for 20-30 minutes, leaving plenty of space for them to rise. Do NOT open the oven door while they're cooking, or they'll sink and it will be sad.

No, mine weren't as spectacular as Andy's, but it was my first time. And also I was using gluten free flour which is a bitch to work with. So really, all in all: SUCCESS.

Roast carrots and parsnips:

1. Grab enough carrots and 'snips for the number of people, then peel them all and top and tail them.

2. Carrots - chop roughly in diagonal-ish chunks, then place in one half of the baking dish. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and a handful of either tarragon or thyme. You can also add garlic too, if you fancy. Give them a good stir so they're completely coated in everything.

3. Parsnips - chop either into small chunks, or cut them vertically and keep them long and thin. Pop them in the other half of baking dish and do the olive oil/salt and pepper thing like with the carrots, then give them a squirt of either honey or maple syrup. Stir to coat.

4. Cook for 30-45 minutes at 200°C, taking out to stir every 15 minutes or so to prevent them burning on top.

I forgot to get a picture of them cooked, but you can see them on the finished plate.

Cheesy leeks:

This is my Mum's recipe adapted from a Jamie Oliver one, and for me no roast is complete without them.

Ingredients (serves 4-6):

- 800g leeks, washed and chopped

- 2 cloves garlic, crushed

- 30g butter

- tsp mustard (French is always best)

- 200ml single cream

- 100g cheddar cheese, grated

- thyme (6 sprigs fresh/decent sprinkle of dried)

1. Melt the butter in a saucepan, then add the garlic, leeks and thyme. Cook for about 10 minutes, until the leeks have softened and shrunk down.

2. Tip into a baking dish, then season, add the cream, mustard and half the cheese and mix together.

3. Top with the remaining cheese and bake for 20-25 minutes, 'til golden and bubbling.

This is not my picture. I forgot to take one... though in my defence I was incredibly busy. I'll update this the next time I make them, and for now you can have Jamie Oliver's as a rough guide (although I use a deeper dish and fill it more).

Greens:

You can use whatever you like for these - I used a pack of tender-stem broccoli, some green beans, a few handfuls of kale and some sprouts. Because even though I hate sprouts, it's Christmas, and in my house that means being given two sprouts and being made to eat at least one of them. It's all good fun.

1. Chop the broccoli, sprouts and beans how you want them. Melt some butter in a saucepan, then add the broccoli and sprouts. Cook these for about 8 minutes, stirring regularly, and then add the beans and cook for another 5 mins.

2. Finally add the kale, and cook for about 3 more minutes, until it's shrunk down. Then season well and add a good squirt of lemon juice, and serve.

Gravy:

I made up a pint of Bisto caramelised onion gravy, to which I added a teaspoon of marmite, a dessert spoon of cranberry sauce and (after frying in olive oil 'til soft) the other half of the onion left over from the pie filling. Waste not want not.

Merry Christmas, all.

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.

What to do when you win a coconut

First of all, I'm sorry for being a bit MIA recently. Life is mad, especially since I got a job at my local fruit and veg shop (yay vegetables), but I will make it up to you. Starting with this.

Because at the Royal Holloway Summer Ball this year, I won a coconut on the coconut shy. Here is a picture of me with my coconut.

Zosia would like to add here that she really reallllly was very very excited.

I named him Tarzan. I was very very excited and full of ideas of what to do with it... but a month later it was still sitting on my shelf, though at home now as we'd left uni. And then my sister suggested I used it to make some sort of Thai curry. AN IDEA WAS BORN. And my coconut became this:

Which was pretty darn good really.

What you need for a Bryony-style Thai green curry:
- 1 coconut
- 8 spring onions
- 2 cloves garlic
- half a red pepper
- half an aubergine (a whole one would be fine)
- a thumb-size piece of ginger
- 2 chillies (I used 1 red and 1 green, but it's up to you)
- 6-8 new potatoes
- handful green beans
- handful mange tout
- 1 1/2 tsp soya sauce
- 1 tbsp soft dark brown sugar
- 350ml water with half a knorr stock pot or 1 oxo cube
- zest and juice of 1 lime
- fresh coriander
- jasmine or sticky rice, to serve

And the SECRET ingredient (less secret now I put it on the internet in capital letters) is a 'Thai Taste: Easy Thai Green Curry Kit'. Which sounds like a massive cheat, but actually it isn't and is also the best money-saver ever. It includes coconut milk, Thai green curry paste and herbs - which, if you bought them seperately, would come to about £5-6, and I think this was £2ish. So no complaints.

It's quite a lot of ingredients, but I promise nothing is lost and it's totally worth it. This amount served three, but it would be a good one for bulking up and cooking en-masse, too - especially if you get people to pitch in for cost.

1. Start by getting into your coconut. We used a hammer and chisel, but the internet is full of suggestions. Once you're in, cut the fleshy bits into small, thin pieces and dry-fry them in a wok or frying pan until they're toasted. This alone is amazingly nice. Put the coconut water aside, and put the toasted coconut pieces in a bowl to cool down. Meanwhile, put your new potatoes on to boil for about 15 minutes.

2. In the now-empty wok heat up some oil, and then add the spring onions, garlic and ginger. Stir-fry these for a couple of minutes, and then add the aubergine, followed shortly by the green beans.

3. Once the vegetables are starting to colour and the aubergine is beginning to shrink, add the pepper, chillis and Thai herbs. Stir-fry all this for another 5 minutes or so, before adding in the boiled new potatoes (chopped), the curry paste and most of the toasted coconut. Cook for another few minutes.

4. Next, add the mange tout, the coconut water (the stuff that was inside your coconut), the coconut milk, the water and the stock pot/cube. It should be beginning to look more like a curry. Turn up the heat slightly and stir, and add in the sugar and soya sauce. Now is also a good time to put your rice on to cook, though it depends what sort of rice you're using.

5. After 15 minutes or so, your liquid should have reduced by about half, and should now be thicker and more sauce-like (although it isn't a particularly thick sauce, so don't worry). When you're happy with the consistency, add in most of your fresh coriander, the lime juice and most of the zest. Cook for another couple of minutes and then try the sauce and adjust whatever you need (if you need to) until you're happy with it. 

Serve with the rice, and the rest of the coconut, coriander and lime zest. You won't be disappointed.

Sunny Sunday with the Madre, as you do.

I made this tonight, after a lovely sunny London day, involving random medieval art, cats in flatpack furniture and the Cutty Sark.

The Cutty Sark. (Plus bunny shaped cloud.)

And then we came home and I maaaaade Glamorgan Sausages with Red Onion and Chilli Relish. Courtesy of the Hairy Bikers. AND IT WAS AWESOMMEEE.

That recipe shows you how to make the stuff on the left. I'd write it out again but I didn't actually change anything because this was a new one to me... Okay, I maay have mucked about a bit with most of the quantities but I'm pretty sure the original recipe is miles better. 

All that was served with rocket leaves aaand roast potatoes. A la my Madre.

They look so crunchyyyy.

The trick is to peel em, boil em til they're ready to eat then you roast em. Put them in a deep oven tray, drizzle them with plenty of olive oil and then cook them at 200 degrees celsius for about an hour. Every now and then, take the tray out, give them a shuffle around and a bit more olive oil and they'll be as crunchy as anything. Simple really...

Cooking en masse

Occasionally, before doing a night out, people come round to our flat for pre-drinks. And occasionally they come for dinner too. The most I've cooked for to date was 15 - a terrifying task when in a kitchen not *really* big enough for the 6 it's given to, with a hob that takes an age to heat up and an oven that only works when it wants to. The way to avoid panic is to plan, and to make something that manages to be delicious, filling and easy all at the same time. 

My solution is twofold: 

1. Plastic plates and cutlery. Because it's all very well being green, but who wants to wash up for 15 people?

2. A savoury puff pastry tart with a potato salad and green leaves.

Photos from when I recreated at home - despite my organisation, there just was not time to stop and take photos while the masses were hungry waiting for food. Apologies.

Tart: (serves 6)
- 375g pack puff pastry
- 250g cherry tomatoes
- 1 red onion
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 orange pepper
- 50g sundried tomatoes
- 125g pot goats cheese
- 2tbsp (approx) Sacla red pesto
- handful fresh basil
- salt and pepper

Potato Salad: (serves 4)
- 450g new potatoes
- 4 spring onions
- 3tbsp mayonnaise
- 3tbsp creme fraiche
- handful of both fresh parsley and chives
- salt and pepper

Lots of things can be done earlier on in the day, so when people start arriving you can swan around in your lovely dress having done your hair and make-up and avoid this situation:

All dressed up for Harry Potter night. I am the exhausted, not-quite-ready-looking girl on the left, not the one on the right in the apron as you might expect. I believe that was donned to prevent food/drink spillage on the white shirt.

- which is never good when it's only 8pm. With this particular meal, you can do the potato salad in the afternoon which is a big plus.

A funny shaped potato. I had to get it in somewhere.

1. Start by washing the potatoes and cutting away any sprouting bits. Bring a large saucepan of salted water to the boil and then put the potatoes in. Bring back to boiling and cook for 20 minutes.

2. Allow to cool. Meanwhile, chop your spring onions and put into a large bowl. When the potatoes are no longer too hot to touch, chop them into small pieces and add them to the bowl too. Follow with the creme fraiche, mayonnaise and herbs, and season. Voila. This can now go in the fridge until you need it (though admittedly, it is nicer at room temperature - so perhaps take it out 20 minutes or so before you want to use it).

The tart is equally easy to make, and bits of it can still be done in advance.

1. VEGETABLE PREPARATION TIME. Wash and half the cherry tomatoes, de-seed and chop the pepper into smallish pieces, chop the red onion and the garlic and put them all in a baking dish. Season and drizzle with olive oil, then put into a preheated oven at 220°C for 15-20 minutes. This part could be done in advance, as if necessary you could then cover with cling film and come back to them later on.

2. Roll out your pastry on a floured surface. You want to get it approximately 1cm thick and as even as you can. Then, take a sharp knife and roughly score where the crust of the tart will be. This means that when the vegetables are added and weigh down the pastry in the middle, the bits around the edge are free to puff up to their heart's content. Score along the sides too - as this will help the layers to separate and also aid the puffing-process.

3. After letting the pastry rest for a couple of minutes, spread the area you want the vegetables to lie on with the pesto before using a slotted spoon to heap on the vegetables (the slotted spoon stops so much juice coming with them, and helps prevent a soggy bottom on your tart). Add the sundried tomatoes and sprinkle over the goats cheese - when I last made this meal at home I only used half a pack of the latter to avoid being accused of using too much cheese, but my sister said she would've liked more and I should've used the whole pack, so really it's completely up to you.

4. Tear the basil and sprinkle over, and then bake for about 20 minutes, until the pastry is golden and it's all looking good. Note: I think it says 15 minutes on the pastry packet, but you'll need a few minutes longer as there's so much topping. When it's done, you can garnish with a bit more basil just to add to the wow-factor, and you're ready to serve.

And as for the salad - buy yourself a few bags of baby salad leaves and whip up some Honey and Mustard Dressing during the day, and you're set. All done together, it gives you time to do this...

Hello from Tonks and Luna

...if you want to. Feeding the 5,000 has never been so easy. Unless you're Jesus. But that would be a whole different blog post.

Potato and Butterbean Curry

This has been one of my favourite things for a long time. 

When Mum says "what do you want for tea on your birthday", I often ask for this. It's utterly gorgeous and special enough for an occasion, but it's also relatively simple and easy to make. Winners all round!

I made this the other day at my dad's house in London, and it's somehow different to Mum's despite following her recipe, but Dad tactfully said it was "different but just as good" to avoid argument between Mother and myself. (Side note: I wasn't sure if we should post things that we hadn't cooked AT university, hence the lack of posts for a while, but Zosia pointed out that we're still students and we're still cooking! So looks like you won't be free from us in the summer hols after all, sorry folks.)

THE RECIPE:
- 8-10 small/new potatoes
- 1 onion
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 or 2 fresh red chillies
- 1 rounded tbsp flour
- 2 1/2 tbsp med. curry powder
- 2 tsp ground ginger
- 1 desert spoon of chutney*
- squeeze of lemon juice
- heaped des. spoon peanut butter
- 400g tinned tomatoes
- 2x 400g tin butterbeans
- 2 bay leaves
- 2/3 large pot of natural yoghurt

*we use our homemade marrow chutney but any would do - best would perhaps be a mango one.

It's a lot of ingredients, but I promise it's worth it. Plus the majority of it is larder-foods, which you can use over and over in other recipes. So there. ALSO this makes enough for 6-8 hungry people, so you can freeze your inevitable leftovers and use on a a lazy-day.

THE HOW-TO:

1. Chop the potatoes into small pieces and boil for 10/15 minutes, until tender.

2. Chop the onion, garlic and chilli(s). Put some olive oil in a wok or large saucepan and fry the onion garlic and chilli until soft - about 5/10 minutes.

3. Add the dry ingredients - the flour, curry powder and ginger - and cook for another 3/4 minutes. At this stage it should look something like this:

4. Add the tinned tomatoes, then fill the empty can 3/4 full with water and add that too. Also add the chutney, lemon juice, peanut butter and bay leaves.

5. Drain and rinse the butterbeans, and add those too. Season, and cook gently for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

6. Add the potatoes. Put on the pan lid (or an upside-down plate if you don't have one) and simmer for a further 15/20 minutes.

7. Add the yoghurt and EAT.

Best served with long grain brown rice and chapattis. At home we make these ourselves, but that's just too much faff at uni so I bought some. Easy peasy. 

If you DO want to make them though (say, if you want to be gluten-free) - the mixture is a heaped tbsp of both white and wholemeal flour per person, drizzled with olive oil and enough warm water to make a dough. This is kneaded and left for at least an hour. It's then cut up into small pieces (4 per person) and rolled out, then dry-fried for about a minute each side and spread with as much butter as you dare.

And there you go. You can add or miss out anything you want - when I did the leftovers for myself and Rebecca yesterday I added some more ginger and a desert spoon of wholegrain French mustard. Plus, Rebecca said it was the best thing she'd ever tasted in her life. Beat THAT.

A Sort-Of Roast Dinner

Is a great way to feel indulgent and healthy at the same time.

I've never made a 'proper' roast dinner, but last weekend I had a craving for roast potatoes, so it had to be done. Though I warn you, this is not a roast dinner as you know it.

Firstly, I didn't bother with making gravy. I've never really been a fan - it often makes everything soggy and all taste the same, which completely defeats the point of having different elements to the dinner. If you want that just make soup. (ELEANOR I DO LIKE GRAVY. I just have to be in the mood for it :D )

Second, there's no meat. Zosia and I are both vegetarian, so instead I made something up with Quorn fillets. Quorn can be the most boring and un-appetising thing in the world - which is why I always try and cover it with as much flavour as possible. In this case, I made a sauce by melting some strong cheddar in a pan with some milk, fresh parsley, salt and pepper and a dash of lemon juice. I then coated three quorn fillets (defrosted) in said sauce before covering them in breadcrumbs and pan frying them in a bit of olive oil.

They weren't as pretty as I'd hoped - mainly because we don't have a food processor so instead of using proper breadcrumbs I had slices of bread cut up as small as I had the patience to make them... and they were reluctant to stick. But despite the fact that this caused the breadcrumbs to have more resemblance to croutons they were dead yummy, so I consider that a success!

Element number two was cheesy leeks, which my Mum makes at home adapted from a Jamie Oliver recipe (Jamie Oliver's Cheesy Leeks). YUM. This also provides a sauce, so in my opinion makes up for having no gravy.

- 400g leeks, washed and chopped
- 1 clove of garlic, peeled and chopped
- 1tsp French mustard (I like the wholegrain stuff - it gives a gorgeous texture)
- 50-75g cheddar cheese
- 100ml single cream
- salt and pepper to taste

Preheat your oven to 200°C. Put a large saucepan on a medium heat and add a glug of olive oil followed by a knob of butter. To this add the garlic, and when the garlic begins to colour add the leeks. Turn up the heat and cook for approx. 10 minutes, until the leeks have softened.

Remove from the heat. Season and add the cream and mustard, and half of the cheese. Mix together and transfer to a baking dish (leek layer approx 2.5cm). Sprinkle over the remaining cheese and bake for 15-20 minutes, until golden and bubbling. 

I think the necessary greens should be made as good as possible. As I'm sure was the case for many, over-cooked, watery vegetables were heaped on to my plate so often as a child during school dinners that it's an achievement in itself that I haven't been put off them for life.

And so, following the rule of good-ness, there was tender-stem broccoli, french beans and curly kale, which were all stuck in a saucepan with a bit of butter (and olive oil), seasoning and a squeeze of lemon juice. The broccoli and beans were cooked for about 8 minutes, the kale for 4-5. And boy was it good. I can't decide if my favourite thing was the taste or being able to tell Mum about it so she'd stop worrying that I'm not getting enough iron (I'M FINE MUM).

And finally, the roast potatoes. The entire reason for making this dinner. And I'm sad to say - they did not work. 

This is partly my own fault, as having never made them before I had a moment of stupidity and didn't think to peel the potatoes first, though in my defence, the recipe I was following (from The Vegetarian Student Cookbook: Great Grub for the Hungry and the Broke) said nothing of this, and talked with great enthusiasm about 'crispy little skins'! However, we did get some very nice jacket potatoes which Zosia was kind enough to be enthusiastic about, so that was something. I will be trying this recipe again at a later date, and I am determined to make it work! 

So watch this space.

Croutons anyone?