Flatbreads and Bean Dip

My madre always complains that I don't eat enough beans. 

 

At the beginning of the year I turned up at uni with thousands of cans of beans and chickpeas and things and when it came to it, I think I used about two of them. Maybe she's right but I'm not usually a bean fan. 

BUT when it came to the end of term, I was using up whatever was around. And that just happened to be beans.

These flatbreads were super easy to make and delicious with bean dip.

AND here's how you do it:

For the flatbreads:
1 cup of flour (I used Dove's Farm gluten free bread flour but this will work with ordinary flour too)

1/2 a teaspoon of yeast powder

1/4 of a teaspoon of sugar,

1/4 of a teaspoon of salt

1/3 of a cup of warm water (add more water if the dough gets too stiff and more flour if it gets too sticky)

1. Mix together the flour, yeast, sugar and salt.

2. Gradually add the warm water, mixing with a wooden spoon. 

3. Knead the dough about ten times. 

4. Form into eight balls. Flatten each with a rolling pin.

5. Heat up a frying pan. You don't need to use oil or butter.

6. Dry fry the flatbread for about 2 minutes on each side, or until it looks done.

For the bean dip:

400g can of butter beans

3 cloves of garlic

a splash of lemon juice

2 tablespoons of olive oil

lots of mint leaves

salt and pepper to taste

1. Drain the butter beans.

2. Chop and crush the garlic. Add to the butter beans along with the olive oil and lemon juice.

3. Blend this all together into a paste with a blender.

4. Chop the mint leaves. Stir them into the dip along with salt and pepper. Serve with the flatbreads.

Frying eggs in two directions

I only learnt how to fry eggs this year.

(The first time I typed that it came out as fly. That would be far more exciting.) 

But they make an excellent breakfast lunch or dinner food. And talking to a few people, I found out I wasn't the only one who got a bit baffled by eggs. So hopefully, this will be the first of a few simple ways to cook eggs.

Here's the basic method...

Two eggs.

One tablespoon of olive oil.

1. Heat up the oil in a pan. 

2. Crack the first egg. (Someone told me once that you gotta put a hole in the egg shell before you bin it. Otherwise witches will use them as boats. Of course, I'll leave you to make up your own mind, but those pesky witches can get anywhere.)

3. Tip the egg into the pan. When it has set a bit, repeat with egg number two.

4. Let the eggs cook for about two minutes. If the oil starts to spit, turn the heat down.

5. Occasionally spoon some of the oil over the tops of the eggs as they're cooking to help them set. 

6. When the yolks are still wobbly but the rest of the egg is solid, scoop them out of the pan with a slotted spatula-ey thing. 

7. Voila. Fried eggs.

Now to serve... Here's the simple way:

Salt, pepper and buttered toast.

And the fancy way:

Salt, pepper and buttered toast yet again, except this time, spread the toast with goat's cheese and sprinkle with fresh herbs - I used thyme but you can use whatever you fancy.

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.

Life is Hectic.

Always is, but these last few weeks have been particularly crazy. Various parties and a newspaper and last minute lectures (ta v much history department!) and a helluva lot of packing means that we're now totally done with first year. And we've moved out of Runnymede, the halls Bryony and I lived in. Sad times.

Runnymede Block JK. In the snow...

AND NOW it's summer...

Bryony and I, having been soaked in the rain. BRITISH SUMMER. (With a statue of a former king that Freddie threatened to headbutt. Violent boy.)

ALL IS NOT OVER however. Throughout the summer we'll still be posting as many recipes as we can, some cooked over the last few weeks of term when we were super busy, as well as other recipes we've cooked at home.

Just because we don't HAVE to cook now, doesn't mean we don't want to.