What a Tart

So I thought it was about time I blogged something savoury because all I seem to be doing at the moment is cake, bread and pudding, though that's a pretty accurate representation of my current diet...

 

I made this in the summer holidays for my sister, who likes neither leeks nor anything that even vaguely resembles a quiche, BUT when I gave her this she ate it all and went back for seconds. And when Rebecca ate it yesterday she exclaimed 'I don't even like leeks!' as she also went back for seconds. It's an excellent crowd pleaser, very easy to make, and it looks awesome.

Also Dad's lent me his fancy camera, so I can now take food photographs again without having to beg Zosia to leave the library and trek all the way over just so I can take a picture of my soup/cake/etc, which is just great for everyone (except maybe my Dad's nerves).

Ingredients:
Pastry
- 175g plain flour (I use 100g of white and 75g of wholemeal)
- 110g butter, cubed
- ½tsp salt
- sprinkle of black pepper
- ½tsp thyme leaves
- 2-3tbsp cold water

Filling
- 25g butter
- 2 onions, chopped
- 1 large leek, washed and chopped
- 1tsp caster sugar
- 2 cloves garlic, crushed
- 200ml double cream
- 1 egg, beaten
- 125g soft goat's cheese, crumbled
- 1tsp French mustard
- salt and pepper
- 1tsp thyme leaves, plus a few extra sprigs for decoration

Method:
1. First, make your pastry. Using the tips of your fingers, rub together the flour and butter until it resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in the salt, pepper and thyme, then add the water a little at a time. You only need enough to bring everything together into a dough, so be careful not to over-do it.
2. Wrap the dough in clingfilm, and put it in the fridge while you get started on your filling.
3. Put the butter, onions, leek and garlic into a pan, then turn the heat up and add the sugar. Make sure you stir fairly often so it doesn't stick and burn, but there's not much else to it! Cook for about 15-20 minutes, until everything's lovely and caramelised, then take off the heat and put to one side. At this point you should also turn on your oven, and set it to 180°C.
4. Take your pastry out of the fridge, lightly flour your worktop and roll the pastry out to about 5mm thick. Then use your rolling pin/bottle to drape it into your quiche dish (if you don't have a quiche dish, you can use the lid of a casserole dish or anything similar - just make sure it can go in the oven).
5. Gently ease the pastry to fit properly in the dish, then grab a fork and prick lots of holes in the bottom of the pastry (which is a great alternative to baking beans) before blind baking in the pre-heated oven for 20 minutes.
6. While your pastry case is baking, you can get the filling sorted out. Grab a large measuring jug and measure out the cream, then add the egg, mustard and goat's cheese and mix it all together (alternatively, you could put a third of the goat's cheese to one side and sprinkle it over the top before baking). Tip in the leek mixture, the salt and pepper and half the thyme leaves and stir together.
7. Once the pastry is out of the oven, trim the edges and tip in the filling. Sprinkle the goats cheese (if using this method) and the rest of the thyme leaves on top, then put back in the oven for 30 minutes.

8. Voila! Decorate with the thyme sprigs, and eat with something yummy like potato wedges (or a salad if you've been living off cake like I have). Jamie and I intend to take the leftovers to eat on our Windsor Great Park picnic tomorrow, along with some very exciting blackberry and elderflower cakes which I shall also blog soon. NOM.

Northumberland Coquetdale and National Cheese Week

It’s the British National Cheese Week!

Bryony and I absolutely love cheese. Most of our posts here at This is Uni Food feature cheese. You could tell how dangerous our addiction was when we shared a fridge and there was a 3 for 2 deal on cheese at Tesco. You could not move for cheese. We’d probably buy six blocks each, at least half of which were goats cheeses. I mastered the art of eating a whole block of goats cheese, with Ryvita, in one sitting. I'm pretty sure Bryony can match me on that. Needless to say, we genuinely really quite like cheese.

I don’t really have a favourite cheese (unless you count ALL of the cheeses) but I like to try random varieties when I can. So when I was up in County Durham with my family this week, I naturally wanted to try some (relatively) local cheese.

At the Wolsingham Show

We went to the Wolsingham Agricultural Show (which is apparently the oldest agricultural show in the country, fancy that) and amidst all the sheep, oversized vegetables and the monster trucks (why would there NOT be monster trucks? They were pulling other cars apart in tugs of war, it was awesome.) I found a rather lovely cheese called Northumberland Coquetdale. It has a lovely strong flavour but not too overpowering and it’s now one of my favourites. Although when it comes to cheese, I’m easy to please...

Baked stuffed mushrooms with Yorkshire puddings, roast potatoes, red wine and onion gravy and some roasted veg

I decided I would incorporate my Coquetdale into my Sunday roast, so I made cheesy baked stuffed mushrooms, which taste much cheesier than they look. You can add breadcrumbs to the stuffing and sprinkle some over the top for a crunchier version, but I couldn’t be bothered to make breadcrumbs, so yknow… 

Here’s what you need for four:

4 large flat mushrooms

3 small mushrooms

2 tsp red pesto

1 (or 2 if you’re feeling antisocial) cloves of garlic, chopped or crushed.

Handful of basil leaves, chopped

Handful of rocket leaves, chopped.

Salt and pepper

Olive oil

A really large handful of grated Coquetdale. Or you could use Parmesan or another similar cheese.

1.Preheat your oven to 200C.

2.  Carefully cut the stems out of the large mushrooms, and place the cap of the mushroom gill side up in a small roasting tin. Do you like my fancy mushroom terms? I googled them. 

3. Take the mushroom stems and chop them up into very small cubes. Cut your (whole) small mushrooms into similarly sized pieces and combine in a bowl with the pesto, basil, rocket, garlic, some of your Coquetdale/Parmesan and a small splash of olive oil. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

4. Divide your mushroom-pesto mixture equally and spoon into the caps of your flat mushrooms. If you’re feeling fancy, you can place a slice of mushroom on the top for decoration. Sprinkle the rest of your cheese on top, and drizzle them all with olive oil.

5. Bake your mushrooms in the oven for around half an hour, take them out and serve - I ate mine as part of a roast dinner, but you could easily serve with toast for a simple lunch or supper.

A gratuitous photo of the beautiful valley we were staying in. From our cottage door looking towards Wolsingham.

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.

 

It Is Risotto O'Clock

Risotto was one of the first things I cooked at home independently. Mum doesn't have the patience for it so I'd only ever had it in restaurants, but it became something of a tradition that when Fraser came to stay, that was what we made. We even had a song (can you guess from the post title?).

In some ways this is an adaptation of a couple of my other recipes - the roasted butternut squash from one and all the leeky goodness from another, but in my opinion this just makes it the best of everything.

Ingredients: (serves 5)
- 1 medium/large butternut squash
- 50g butter
- 1 large onion
- 2 medium leeks
- 4 big cloves garlic
- 375g/15oz arborio rice
- 2 glasses white wine
- 1.5 litres vegetable stock
- between 50g-100g parmesan, to taste
- handful fresh parsley
- generous sprinkle dried rosemary
- salt and pepper, to taste

Method:
1. Peel, chop and de-seed the butternut squash (if anyone has a method of doing this that takes less than half an hour then for the love of god please share it), and cut into rough cubes before placing in a baking dish.
2. Drizzle over some olive oil, then add the rosemary, some salt and pepper and one of the cloves of garlic (finely chopped). Give it a good stir and put into the oven at 220°C. You'll need to take it out and stir every 15 minutes or so, but it should take about the same time as the risotto. Awesomeness.

3. Chop the onion and leeks, and add to a large pan or wok along with half the butter. Then, grate the rest of the garlic and add that too. I don't know why but grating releases double the flavour and is sooooo good. Cook for about 10 minutes, 'til it's all soft and lovely and has shrunk down a bit.
4. Add the rice and cook for a couple more minutes, then tip in the wine and simmer. Once that's been absorbed, you can begin to add the stock, a ladle-full at a time, stirring continuously. The whole stock-adding process should take about 45 minutes with this amount.
5. Once all that's done, add the butternut squash (which should be done by then), the parmesan, the parsley and the rest of the butter. Season to taste, serve with plenty of garlic bread and ENJOY.

Also, do this with the leftovers. You're welcome.

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.

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...

The Food Of The Gods: RISOTTO

Or the god of students anyway. But when life kicks you in the teeth there is nothing you can do but try and cook (and eat) your way out of it, and use it as an excuse to indulge in things like butter which you normally try not to have too much of.

And so, risotto is a natural choice. Especially when you just so happen to have made up a new recipe for one a few weeks ago which was the best ever. Win.

I'm going to vaguely call this 'green vegetable risotto'. I made enough for five people (note: Zosia believes this was more like enough risotto for eight people. Bryony loves to feed the world. Just sayin. :D), as there were three of us and I wanted some leftovers (the amazing things made with said leftovers will be posted in the next few days, so stay tuned folks). Soooo, I used:

- 1 large onion
- 1 medium-sized leek
- 4/5 spring onions
- 2 cloves garlic
- a good handful of French beans
- 375g/15oz arborio rice (75g/3oz per person)
- 2 glasses of white wine
- 1 1/2 litres veg. stock (75g rice = 375ml stock)
- approx. 100g parmesan, to taste
- and the SECRET INGREDIENT. Which is, one Tesco Finest green vegetable side dish. It sounds unimpressive, but everything in there is beautiful and it's miles cheaper than buying all the vegetables separately - plus it comes with the most gorgeous herb butter. Trust.
 


 Put some olive oil in a pan, and add a generous knob of butter. Chop up your leek, onion, spring onions and garlic and throw them in. Let them soften for about 5 minutes, then add your French beans.


Add the rice and stir to coat, then pour in the wine and simmer until slightly reduced. Now begins the epic stock-adding mission. As annoying as it is, stock should be added a ladle-full at a time, and the rice should have completely absorbed it before any more stock is added - meaning that you will be doing this for about 45 minutes. You also need to stir your risotto relatively regularly or it will stick, so pull up a chair and put some music on, and think of it as a work-out for your arm.

The 'Parmesan Grating Stance'

The strange 'before stock' stage

 
Once all the stock is in and has been absorbed then add your Secret Ingredient - but NOT the herb butter yet. Let your risotto cook for another 5 minutes or so, then add the parmesan and herb butter, and season.

And VOILA! It is time consuming but it's so easy, and certainly worth the effort. I served it with fresh herbs to garnish and some home-made garlic bread (mix spreadable butter with a clove of garlic per person, a squirt of lemon juice and some parsley, and spread over part-baked bread. Stick it in the oven - usually for about 10 minutes, until the edges of the bread are becoming golden and the butter has melted. Heavenly.).

Check back here soon for the best 'what-to-do-with-your-left-over-risotto' recipe ever. Trust me - it's well worth it.

We love herbs

And Americans don't get them.

At least, the Americans we lived with in the first term of uni didn't. But I LOVE HERBS, and hence on our kitchen window-sill there is a large plastic pot containing basil, parsley, mint and coriander.

The Hunny pot is our watering can.

It's a family trait I think. As well as making everything taste better there's a certain pride about cooking with something that you've looked after, if not grown from scratch because you're a student with no space/money/resources. I have such big plans for the garden in our house next year...

My favourite at the moment is parsley, which is why I have a GIANT pot of that. And also why I invented a new recipe a couple of weeks ago that uses shed-loads of it. It's basically my take on a cream and white wine pasta sauce, but it sure is yummy.

- 2/3 shallots or 1 onion
- 1 large clove of garlic (because garlic is amazing)
- 3/4 baby leeks, or 1 small normal-sized
- decent handful of french beans
- large glass of white wine (plus one to drink - chef's perk)
- half a stock pot*
- 150ml double cream, or to taste
- 1/2 handfuls of fresh parsley
- salt and pepper

*I like using half of one of those posh Knorr vegetable stock pots, which gives a lovely fresh flavour without being too strong. An OXO cube would be fine, but I'm lucky enough to have several boxes of these which my mum sent down in a food parcel. Thanks Mum :D

Stick some olive oil in a sauce pan and melt a knob of butter (adding the oil first will stop the butter from burning). Add your shallots, baby leeks and garlic and cook for a couple of minutes before adding the beans. Cook until they're starting to colour a little and smelling pretty good - about 8 minutes - then add the wine and let it simmer down a bit (about 5 minutes).

Next add your stock pot/cube, the cream and half the parsley so the flavours can infuse. This will take quite a little to reduce and thicken, so now's a good time to drink your own glass of wine and have a dance around the kitchen.

When you're happy with the consistency and the amount of sauce you have add your seasoning - I think it's important to taste with this recipe to get it spot on. Add the rest of the parsley, and voila!

I think this is best served with some sort of ravioli, and something bready like garlic dough balls to get all the sauce at the end. Parmesan (real cheese, not the weird pot stuff that claims to be vegan) finishes it off beautifully.

And a word to the wise, never leave your herbs unattended with Americans around. It's just not worth it.