Mushroom and nut crumble

If you like mushrooms and crumbles, this recipe is for you!


Makes 6 big ramequins or 8 small ramequins

750g chestnut mushrooms, sliced (you can use a mixture of mushrooms, for a stronger flavour)
400ml vegetable stock
60g butter
1 onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, finely chopped/crushed
60g plain flour
100ml double cream
2 TBSP chopped parsley

for the crumble topping:
90g porridge oats
90g wholemeal flour
50g mixed chopped nuts
60g chopped pistachios (unsalted)
1 tsp dried thyme
salt and black pepper
90g butter
1 TBSP fennel seeds, to sprinkle

1. Put the sliced mushrooms and stock in a large sauce pan. Bring to the boil and simmer for 15 minutes. Drain, reserving the stock.

2. In a non-stick saucepan, melt the butter and fry the onion and garlic gently until softened. Add the flour and cook for 1 minute. Gradually mix in the reserved stock, stirring well. Bring to the boil and cook until thickened. Add the mushrooms, seasoning, cream and parsley. Stir well and spoon into ramequins. Alternatively, you can use one single shallow ovenproof dish.

3. To make the crumble, mix all the ingredients but the fennel seeds with the tips of your fingers until it resembles breadcrumbs. Spoon on top of the mushroom mixture in the ramequins. Sprinkle with fennel seeds.

4. Cook in a 180C pre-heated oven for 25 minutes.

Serve hot as a starter or as a main course with side vegetables.

Grilled courgettes and halloumi with fried eggs

We LOVE halloumi! We discovered this Cypriot cheese at Manoli's, a London café, during a weekend spent at Longcat's. It is perfect for grilling. And really, this would be a perfect vegetarian breakfast. We ate twice the quantity shown above, but in two rounds, as the grill is not quite big enough to cook everthing at once.

Serves 2:

4 eggs
1 medium-sized courgette, sliced in 2 cm thick slices
250g halloumi, sliced in 1 cm thick sliced
1 handful cherry tomatoes
2 rosemary sprigs
2 slices of bread
salt and pepper, to season

Grill the vegetables, rosemary and halloumi (barbecue or electric grill). Fry the eggs and toast the bread. Serve immediately.

Pasta with white wine sauce

We wanted a quick and easy meal when we came back from our long weekend in Slovakia so pasta seemed good, especially as there were a few courgettes to pick and use up.



Serves 4:

800g dried pasta shapes
150ml single cream
200 ml dry white wine
2 TBSP plain flour
1 TBSP olive oil
1 courgette, sliced
1 small broccoli, cut into florets
50g Cheddar, grated
2 tsp mixed Italian herbs
black pepper

1. To make the sauce, heat the oil in a non-stick saucepan. Add the sliced courgette and fry on high heat for 3-5 minutes until the slices start to brown. Add the wine and herbs and stir well. Add half of the cream, 2/3 of the cheese, and all the broccoli. Heat through. Depending on how thick you want the sauce, add none, 1 or 2 tablespoon of flour, stirring constantly until well mixed and the sauce thickens. You can then add some more cream to adjust the required thickness.

2. In the meantime, cook the pasta 'al dente'. Drain.

3. Serve the pasta into warm bowls and spoon the sauce over. Sprinkle with the remaining cheese and black pepper.

Potato, carrot and lentil madras

I recently purchased a book entitled A vegan taste of India. I am not vegan but it is nice to have such a book on the shelf. This is my first vegan and my first Indian cooking book. And this recipe is the first I tried.

I really like this Indian dish, because despite the spices, you can really taste the vegetables. When they are from the garden, you don't want to miss out the taste!

Serves 4

500g new potatoes, diced
500g carrots, sliced
100g red lentils
400g tin crushed tomatoes
1 onion, finely chopped
1 red chilli, finely chopped
1 TBSP groundnut oil
1 TBSP tomato purée
2 tsp curry powder (the book specifies Madras curry powder, but I don't have any, so I used normal curry powder)
1 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp cumin seed
1/2 tsp paprika
black pepper
chopped coriander, to sprinkle

+ 1 cup basmati rice, steamed or boiled.

1. In a very large saucepan, boil together the lentils, carrots and potatoes for 5 min. Drain, keeping the cooking water.

2. Heat the oil in a non-stick frying pan and fry the onion and chilli for 3-5 minutes. Add the spices and fry for another 30 secs.

3. Add the mixture to the vegetables & lentils, then add the canned tomatoes, tomato purée, and 250ml of the cooking water. Season with pepper and stir well. Bring to the boil, cover and simmer for 25 min, stirring from time to time to prevent sticking. Add more cooking water if necessary.

Serve with basmati rice and sprinkle with the chopped coriander.

Menu week 36

Stuffed courgettes

Creamy potato and Carrot quiche

Pizza (Broccoli, tomatoes, peppers)

Creamy bake
(cabbage, potatoes, tomatoes, courgettes, pepper)

Chatouille

Since we came back from Slovakia, our cat Chatouille has not forgiven us for going away.

Worse: our new neighbours have been feeding her for a few days, as they believe that the cat was from another house which has a reputation for not taking care of their cats. We paid them a visit yesterday evening and asked them to stop feeding Chatouille. And they have. Except that she has now taken the nasty habbit of going next door :(

Chatouille is now much less cuddly and does not stay on our lap for as long as before. I hope this does not last long as I am very sad that she spends a lot of time next door.

I know she may have felt abandoned (we had someone checking on her and feeding her once a day, no need to call the RSPA), but still, I hope her mood will return to how it was before.

;(

PS - Sunday 31st August:
Chatouille is now back to normal, coming on our laps, purring and eating properly :D
I am happy!

Stuffed courgettes

I am very proud of this recipe.

Although I rarely strictly stick to recipes from books, I am most of the time using a recipe book as a basis. Not this time. I started with a blank sheet. Or rather, with a courgette weighing 1 kilogramme (!!!) which we picked on our return from Slovakia.

I think it tastes great and if you happen to have oversized courgettes (you may want to use marrows), this recipe is perfect.

Serves 4:

1 very big courgette (~1kg) or 2 medium marrow or 2 medium to big courgettes
1 sprig fresh rosemary
250g chestnut mushrooms, minced
1 TBSP tomato purée
4-5 TBSP millet seeds
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
1 handful sundried tomatoes, chopped
100g cheddar, grated
2 eggs
salt & pepper to season

1. Remove both ends of the courgette. Cut the courgette, once in the length, once in diameter.

2. Blanche the courgettes with the rosemary sprig for 5 min in boiling water. (Like I did you can reserve the water to boil the side dishes later on, whether peas, potatoes, etc... they will have a subtle rosemary flavour.)

3. Scoop out the flesh of the courgette with a spoon or knife, taking care to leave a nice shell to put the filling in. You can discard the seeds if you are not too keen on the large seeds found in bigger courgettes.

4. Dice the courgette flesh you have scooped out and place into a bowl. Add the minced mushroom, garlic and the rosemary sprig (retrieved from the water).

5. Heat up a non-stick saucepan and fry the diced courgette flesh + mushroom + garlic + rosemary in olive oil until all the juice has evaporated. Add 2/3 cheese, millet seeds, tomato purée, sundried tomatoes and eggs. Season to taste.

6. Spoon into the courgette shells. Sprinkle with the remaining cheese.

7. Bake into a 180C pre-heated oven for 30 minutes, or until hot and golden brown.

Serve with fresh vegetables of your choice.

Menu week 35

I has been a while I have not posted any menu, but we have been eating, don't worry. Here are the delicacies we have prepared/will prepare this week:

Pasta, with courgette, broccoli and a creamy white wine sauce (NEW!)

Stuffed courgettes (NEW!)

Potato, carrot and lentil Madras (NEW!)

Grilled courgettes and halloumi with fried eggs (NEW!)

Mushroom and nut crumble (NEW!)

Time to catch up

I have neglected this blog lately, but not the cooking! So I'm back with a few new recipes, some totally improvised which turned out to be truly delicious.

We came back from Slovakia on Sunday afternoon. We spent 5 days there and had a lovely time.

We arrived just over an hour before departure at the airport (our train to the airport was late) and there was a big queue at the check-in desk. We had hand luggage only and could have checked-in at home, if only they did not charge £5 more per person for the privilege to do so. It surely should be the other way round: if people check-in at home, they don't need to employ many desk people, they save cost and we should therefore pay less. Or did I miss something here? As we checked in the boards were showing "Final Call" for our flight, AAAGGGHHH!

No time to lose, we ran all the way, jumped all the queues right to the front (even if they were going to wait for us, we did not want to delay the flight, and decided that jumping the queue was the best option). We assumed that everyone on our flight would do the same. There were many of us who would be late at the gate.
And then, crawling at the front of the security check, after apologising for ignoring the queuing system, someone shouted: "hey, you've just jumped the queue by at least 5 people!" (we jumped the queue by at least 300 people...) We said our plane was taking off in 10 minutes. To which the guy replied that so did his. We said that in which case he should obviously jump the queue too! He did not look happy.

We caught our plane. It was delayed by 30 minutes.

Arriving at Bratislava Airport, it took us some time to find out how to buy a bus ticket into town. There was a sign pointing towards a machine, but there was a price against a specified time (10min, 30min, 1 hour, 1 day, 3 days) so I assumed this was for the car park. NO! It was for the bus. In Slovakia, they seem to love measuring and weighing things. You pay public transport according to how long it takes to get from A to B. And in restaurants the weight of each dish on offer is written on the menu, before the price. So we finally got onto an empty bus, took a seat, and after a while, the bus was quite crowded and there was not much room to move around, with all seats taken and many people standing so we could not move. The bus had been going for 10-15 minutes when we heard in English: "Hey, Mr. Amnesty, are you not going to leave your seat to a woman carry a baby?" This was Mr. Grumpy from the airport! In a perfect sarcastic tone, he indicated that his wife/partner (who seemed very embarrassed by his intervention) needed a rest. Now, I am all for leaving my seat to older people/pregnant women, etc... BUT here were the circumstances:
1. the woman was quite large and had an enormous back-pack type thing in which there was a child big enough to walk, taking so much room it would have been impossible to reach the closest seat.
2. even if the bus had not been so crowded and she could have reached a seat, she could not have possibly sat on it because of the enormous backpack thing.
3. the guy who tried to make us feel guilty of not letting our seat to his partner was not even carrying the tiniest purse while she had this shell on her back!!! and he was clearly stong enough to support it.

So we did not feel too guilty and left him to his grumpiness. They left the bus a few stations before us. He called Trave "Mr. Amnesty" because of the Amnesty International T-Shirt he was wearing.

This was for our travel to Bratislava. We walked into the centre in the evening and had dinner there. The following day, we took a train to Piestany where we stayed a couple of days. We had a very interesting wine serving experience, and enjoyed cycling through the Slovakian countryside, particularly maize fields. We returned to Bratislava early on the fourth day to visit the capital city, as we had to fly back the following day.

I will try to post photos from this beautiful country soon!

Cycling to WOMAD

So, going to WOMAD festival and back, we did 150 miles through the English countryside, which was lovely. We travelled light this time, which was very pleasant. The drawback is that we had to buy everything we ate instead of cooking on a little gas burner, so it turned out to be quite an expensive weekend.

First stop to eat a well deserved cereal bar:

Off we went:

This field was striking blue with some kind of flower. No idea what it was, but very pretty:

We passed the four-shire-stone, which marks the corner where 4 different English counties meet: Gloucestershire, Warwickshire, Oxfordshire and Worcestershire.

This is where we stopped to eat the sandwiches we had prepared the previous evening. It was a very nice spot. On top of a hill in The Cotswolds so we had a beautiful view whilst enjoying our lunch.
This part of England is lovely with its small stone-house villages and cottage gardens.

We also passed a deer park:

And here is my sporty husband!

Oh, during that weekend, I passed the 5,000 miles milestone on my bicycle-mileometer. I have had it since January 2006. So, that's 2,000 miles a year, not bad, eh?

And finally...

not cycling related but this is quite a good photo. I started reading this book and stopped because I was a bit tired and had the sun in my eyes. Dave took a photo and finds it very funny because of the title of the book.

Strawberry and blueberry milkshake

When I made this delicious strawberry and raspbery tart, Trave had bought some blueberries too, and I also had some strawberries left which I did not use for the tart topping, so I decided to make a fruity milkshake.


Makes 800ml (4 glasses)

1/2 punnet strawberries, washed and diced
1 punnet blueberries, washed
200ml milk
1 scoop raspberry/vanilla icecream

Mix it all in the blender, and enjoy!

Feta and potato cakes

These little cakes are very tasty and simple to make. Before making them, take into account that you need to let the mixture to chill for 1 hour, it will hold its shape better.


Makes 8 to 10 cakes:

500g potatoes
200g feta cheese, crumbled
1 egg
black pepper
1 tsp mixed Italian herbs

+ 3 TBSP plain flour
2 tsp chilli powder
Olive oil, for frying

1. Boil the potatoes until very well done, drain and mash well. Mix in the feta, egg, pepper and herbs and leave to cool down then chill for an hour.

2. Shape the mixture into walnut-size balls.

3. Mix the flour and chilli powder into a plate and roll the balls into the flour mixture.

4. Heat the oil in a non-stick frying pan and place a few balls onto the pan and flatten them with a spatula. Repeat by batches until all the balls are fried. Serve hot with green vegetables of your choice.

Menu week 32

Here is the menu for this week, including last weekend:

Feta & potato cakes with French beans (NEW!)

Stuffed peppers with wild rocket (NEW!)

Mixed sprouted seeds with bulghur and quinoa,
and broccoli (NEW!)
Summer taglietalle

100% home-grown veg meal

I was very proud of producing this meal as ALL the vegetables and herbs came from the garden. If we had chickens then we would have our own eggs too, but I don't think that a chicken would be a good friend for Chatouille, the mischieveous cat of ours.

What did we have in the garden then? Courgettes, French beans, potatoes.
+ a variety of herbs (thyme, rosemary, oregano, parsley, sage, chives, lemon balm).

So, using a recipe recommended by my friend from Bonn, Germany, I made some courgette patties/fritters served with boiled potatoes and beans. Very easy and extremely lean and healthy!

Serves 4:

2-3 medium size courgettes, grated
3 eggs
200g feta cheese, diced in small cubes
60g bread crumbs
2 tsp thyme, chopped
black pepper


1. Mix all the ingredients together in a big bowl.

2. Make golf-ball size balls in the palm of your hands and place onto a baking sheet.

3. Flatten the balls with a spatula and place into a 200C pre-heated oven for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.

Serve with side-dish vegetables. Here, new potatoes and French beans from the garden.

(sorry to go on and on about the vegetables from the garden, but this is extremely satisfying!)

Merci Annie, pour m'avoir recommendé cette délicieuse recette !

Rice-stuffed peppers

This is one of the several stuffed peppers recipes I have tried, and quite a nice one too. It makes a very good starter (1/2 pepper per person) or main course (two halves per person with a side dish).

Serves 8 (starter) or 4 (mains):

4 large peppers (choose various colours for visual effect)
200g brown/wholemeal rice
1 TBSP olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
200g goat's cheese
100g mushrooms, roughly chopped
4 tomatoes, roughly chopped
Italian herbs
Parmesan, grated
Black pepper

1. Cut the peppers in half and remove stalk and seeds. Blanch them in boiling water for 5 min. Drain well and place onto a greased oven-proof dish.

2. Boil the rice until cooked. Then drain well.

3. Heat the olive oil and fry the onion for 5 min. Add the mushrooms, herbs and tomatoes. Mix to the rice together with the goat's cheese.

4. Arrange the rice mixture into the peppers. Sprinkle with the parmesan cheese and black pepper.

5. Place in a 180C pre-heated oven for 20 minutes, or until golden brown.

Serve with side dish vegetable or a green salad. (here, home-grown wild rocket with Parmesan shavings)

Must-try raspberry and strawberry tart

I am very proud of this dessert I made on Sunday: the pastry was crunch, the filling creamy and thick, and the fruit at the right ripeness. It was my first 'creme patissiere' and it was very successful. I made the tart half with raspberries, the other half with strawberries, it was like having made 2 cakes! Both were delicious, but the strawberry side had something extra to it as the cream tasted of strawberry the following day.

I do not advise to make this tart the day before though: despite the irresistible strawberry taste of the cream, the pastry will not be as crunchy, and will get somewhat moist/soggy after a few days. I should not worry too much though, the tart is likely to be eaten before then!


For the pastry case:

180g plain flour
80g butter (I use olive-based margerine)
2-3 TBSP caster sugar
1 egg yolk
1/2 TBSP maple syrup
2-3 TBSP cold water

1. Mix the butter and flour with your fingertips until it ressembles breadcrumbs.
2. Add the sugar, egg yolk and maple syrup and knead thoroughly. Add the water one spoon at a time and keep kneading until you obtain a very smooth pastry. You may not require all the water.
3. Roll out onto a greased dish, prick with a fork and bake blind for 15 min with baking beans in a 180C pre-heated oven. Remove the beans an bake for another 5-10 minutes until the pastry is completely cooked.
4. Leave to cool down completely.


For the creme patissiere:

4 eggs
100g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
25g plain flour
25g corn flour
500g milk (I used semi-skimmed)
1 shotglass of dark rum (you can also use Cointreau, Brandy, or a fruit-flavoured schnapps)

1. Using a blender, mix the eggs, sugar and vanilla. Add the flours and milk. Blend well.
2. Pour into a big saucepan and heat on medium heat, stirring constantly with a whisk (or a wooden spoon if using a non-stick pan), until the mixture becomes very thick.
3. Mix in the rum and leave to cool down, stirring occasionally.
4. Once the cream is completely cold, spread into the pastry case.


For the fruit topping:

Use the fruit of your choice. I used for this tart 2 punnets of raspberries and half a punnet of strawberries. Wash and don't forget to pat-dry the fruit, or the cream and pastry may become soggy.
Arrange the fruit on the tart.