Goat cheese pasta bake

This is very much based on the delicious Goat cheese potato bake, and is equally nice.

Serves 4:

400g penne
150g goat cheese, sliced
4 medium-size tomatoes, sliced
2 handfuls of wild rocket salad (ours came straight from the garden!)
250ml creme fraiche
125ml vegetable stock
30g Parmesan, grated
bread crumbs to sprinkle
Black pepper

1. Cook the pasta according to cooking instructions. Drain well.

2. Place a layer of pasta at the bottom of an oven-proof greased deep dish (souflé type). Cover with slices of tomatoes, then the rocket. Sprinkle with freshly cracked black pepper, then a layer of slices of goat cheese. Cover with the remaining pasta, then the rest of the goat cheese.

3. Mix the creme fraiche and vegetable stock and pour over the pasta. Sprinkle with the Parmesan and bread crums and cook in a medium-hot oven for 25 minutes.

Broad bean risotto

I was not sure I like broad beans but it turns out I do!


As we did not have quite enough broad beans in our vegbox, we added the few French beans that were ripe in our garden, a jar of asparagus which had been in the back of our cupboard for a while, and a couple of handfuls of frozen peas, and we had a nice green risotto!

Serves 4-5:

2 TBSP butter/olive spread
1 onion, chopped
150ml dry Vermouth
500g arborio/carnoli rice
1 litre vegetable stock
1 bowl of broad beans
+ any other veg you like (optional)
50g Parmesan cheese, grated
Freshly cracked black pepper

1. To prepare the beans, shell and wash them, then boil for 3-4 minutes, drain and let cool down, and finally squeeze them gently to allow the bright green bean to 'pop out' of the light green/white pod.

2. Heat the butter and fry the onion for 2 -3 minutes. Add the rice and stir until coated with butter. Add the Vermouth: it will evaporate almost immediately.

3. Gradually add the vegetable stock until the rice is cooked (will take up to 30 minutes).

4. Add the beans and any other green vegetables you want to add.

5. Stir in 4/5 of the cheese, keeping some for sprinkling. There is not need for salt, the stock and cheese will make the risotto salty enough!

6. Serve into warm bowls. Sprinkle with Parmesand and black pepper.

Chocolate rum cake

Now this is some chocolate cake!!! It did not raise as much as I thought it would, but it looked amazing nonetheless and tasted delicious.


Serves 8 - 10

For the sponge:
200g plain chocolate
100g butter (I use only olive spread nowadays)
3 eggs, separated
100g dark muscovado sugar
50ml dark rum
75g self-raising flour
50g ground almonds

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180C. Grease and line a 20cm diameter cake tin.

2. Melt the chocolate using the bain-marie technique.

3. Place the 3 egg yolks and the sugar in a bowl and whisk with an electric whisk until pale and creamy. Add the melted chocolate and the rum . Mix well. Fold in the flour and almonds.

4. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites until firm, then fold into the chocolate mixture.

5. Pour into the prepared tin and bake fo 45 minutes. Leave to cool down completely on a wire rack and cut the cake in half horizontally.

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For the filling and icing:
225g plain chocolate
100g butter, cubed
3 TBSP apricot jam, warmed

1. Melt the chocolate bain-marie, add the cubed butter and the apricot and stir until thickened.
2. Spread half of it on the bottom layer of the sponge. Cover with the top sponge.
3. Pour/Brush the remaining of the icing over the cake.

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For decoration:
1/2 apricot, thinly sliced, for decoration
3 TBSP apricot jam, warmed, for the glazing

1. arrange the apricot slices into a flower shape on top of the cake.
2. Brush the warm jam onto the cake to glaze.

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For the ganache piping:
175g plain chocolate
4 TBSP single cream
50g butter, cubed
2 egg yolks
1 TBSP rum

1. Melt the chocolate bain-marie with the cream. Leave to cool slightly then beat in the butter a little at a time. Beat in the egg yolks and rum and leave to cool until firm.
2. Spoon into a piping bag with star nozzle and pipe little rosettes to decorate.

Menu week 27

Based on our weekly vegetable box, this is what we will be cooking this week:

Pasta bake
with goat cheese, tomatoes and wild rocket from the garden (NEW!)

Broad bean risotto (NEW!)

Vegetarian sausages with carrots and potatoes

Creamy chard with spiced basmati rice (NEW!)

Cabbage bake
with celery and tomatoes, sprinkled with mixed seeds

Menu for guests

We had guests coming for lunch on Saturday and more guests coming for coffee and cake in the afternoon. Here is what was on the menu:

Linguine timbales

Summer vegetable gougere

Chocolate Rum cake

Menu week 26

Buckwheat galettes

with creamy mushroom (day1)
with mediterranean vegetables (day2)

Lentil croquettes
(with mange-tout and baby sweetcorn)

Potato and goat cheese bake

Courgette and carrot muffins

I tried this for the first time last Sunday as a side dish, and it was very nice. You could also have them as a snack or appetizer.
Makes 12 muffins:

2 medium-sized courgettes, grated
2 medium-sized carrots, grated
250g plain flour
4 tsp baking powder
1 pinch salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg (powder)
60g mixed chopped nuts
2 eggs
250ml milk
90g butter, melted

1. Pre-heat the oven at 210C. Grease a muffin baking tin.

2. Place the grated courgettes and carrots into a large bowl. Add the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and nuts. Mix well.

3. Blend together the melted butter, eggs and milk.

4. Make a well in the carrot and courgette mixture. Place the egg mixture into the well at once and mix quickly with a fork or wooden spoon.

5. Divide the dough into the muffin cases and bake for 15-20 min until golden brown.

Remove from the cases and leave to cool onto a rack. Serve warm or cold.

Carrot mousseline

Ok, 'carrot mousseline' is just a posh name for 'mashed carrots', but it is one of my favourite ways of eating carrots, so I'll tell you how I make this.

Serves 4 as a side dishe:

500g carrots, peeled and sliced
1-2 TBSP double cream
1 pinch of ginger
1 pinch of cinnamon
1 pinch of nutmeg
salt & pepper

1. Boil the carrots for much longer than usual until they are very well cooked. Drain.

2. Mash the carrots with a potato masher or a fork. You can also use a food processor for a smooth finish, but I like the visual aspect of the coarse mashing.

3. Return the mashed carrots to the heat. Add the cream and spices, stirring constantly.

Apple & blueberry tart (2)

Simplicity itself, this recipe literally involves just a pastry case and fruits!

Serves 6-8

For the pastry:

180g plain flour
80g butter
20g caster sugar
3 TBSP water
1-2 TBSP sesame seeds

For the filling:
1 kg cooking apples, peeled, cored and diced
Juice of 1 lemon (to sprinkle on top of apples so they don't get brown)
1 punnet of blueberries
2 TBSP sliced almonds
3-4 TBSP demarara sugar + some more for sprinkling
1 tsp cinnamon

1. To make the pastry, mix the flour and butter with your fingertips until it resembles breadcrumbs. Add the sugar and knead a little. Add 2 TBSP and knead more to make a soft dough. You may need to add the 3rd tablespoon of water. Roll out onto a floured surface. Sprinkle with the sesame seeds and roll a little more. Place the pastry into a greased and floured tart dish.

2. Bake blind with baking beans for 10-15 min, then without the beans for another 5 minutes.

3. Place the apples with a little water into a saucepan and heat up. Add the sugar and cinnamon and cook until the apples are cooked.

4. Place the cooked apples into the baked pastry case. Sprinkle with blueberries and almonds, then with demarara sugar.
5. Return to the oven for 10-15 minutes, or until the blueberries have started to 'explode'.

Enjoy!

Tomato & red wine sauce

- 3 big tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped (or 1 can of chopped tomatoes)
- 2 TBSP tomato purée
- 5 TBSP red wine
- 1 TBSP red wine vinegar
- pinch of caster sugar

Bring to the boil and cook until tomatoes have reduced. Blend or press through a sieve.

Mushroom vol-au-vent with creamy port sauce

These look quite impressive but are actually easy to make (a little time-consuming, but simple!).

Makes 4 vols-au-vent:

500g ready-made puff pastry
1 egg, beaten

750g mushrooms, chopped (you can use mixed wild mushrooms)
25g butter
6 TBSP port
4 TBSP double cream
2 TBSP parsley, chopped

1. Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured surface to make a 20cm square. Divide the square into 4 squares.

2. With a sharp knife, mark a square about 2.5cm from the edge, cutting half-way through the pastry. Draw a pattern on the inside square.

3. Place the four squares onto a baking tray and brush with the beaten egg. Be careful not to let egg go in the cut. Bake in a 220C pre-heated oven for 35 minutes.

4. Cut out the central squares. Discard the soft pastry inside the case, without breaking the base. Return to the oven for 5-10 min.

5. To make the filling, melt the butter into a non-stick saucepan. Add the mushrooms and fry on full heat, stirring constantly, for 3-5 min.

6. Add the port and cook for 10 min until the mushrooms have softened. Stir in the cream and chopped parseley and season with salt and pepper.

7. Fill the pastry cased with the filling, place the 'hat' back on and serve warm with fresh vegetables.

Tomato & mozzarella salad

I like a simple salad as a starter, and the combination of tomatoes and mozarella, with the right dressing, is particularly pleasant in summer. I like it with either balsamic vinegar dressing, or very simply with a good quality olive oil (unfiltered is best I think).

Serves 4-6:

200g buffalo mozzarella, sliced
500g tomatoes on the vines, sliced
300g mixed leaves salad (containing wild rocket and baby spinach if possible)
salt & pepper
unfiltered extra virgin olive oil

Chocolate & Hazelnut Palmiers

These little chocolate treats are the easiest thing to make AND don't involve much washing up :-)

Makes ~ 20 palmiers:

- 1 ready rolled puff pastry
- approx. 8 TBSP hazelnut & chocolate spread
- 50g roasted chopped hazelnuts (you can also mix roasted chopped hazelnuts with ground almonds)
- 2 TBSP caster sugar

1. Pre-heat the oven to 220C.

2. Roll out the puff pastry and spread with the chocolate paste. Sprinkle with the chopped hazelnuts/ground almonds.
3. Tightly roll from both ends and make them meet in the middle. Dampen the inside edge with water to make both ends stick together.

4. Slice thinly and place onto baking sheets. Flatten with a palette knife and sprinkle with sugar.

5. Bake in the oven for 10-15 min until golden brown.

Cooking for guests

We had some guests at the weekend so I had a little more than usual to do in the kitchen. It was quite fun to prepare. So, this is what was on offer at our place on Sunday:

Tomato & mozzarella salad with mixed leaves
(Secret ingredient: organic unfiltered extra virgin olive oil)
Mushroom vol-au-vent in creamy port sauce
Served with:
Carrot mousseline,
Boiled broccoli florets,
Courgette & carrot muffins
Tomato & red wine sauce

Lemon & thyme creams with Lemon madeleines

And for our afternoon tea, I had made a very simple but tasty apple and blueberry tart, sprinkled with almond flakes.

Apple & blueberry tart

We have also eaten our first strawberries, which are absolutely delicious. Looking forward to being able to eat more than 1 at a time, for there are not many of them ripe yet.

Cinema

We went to see Caramel yesterday, except the movie was not on because the projection room was used for a "free prostate cancer blood testing" evening. Charming. We did not go for the blood test and went to the pub instead. We shall try again tomorrow Thursday. Caramel is a Lebanese "romantic comedy", set in Beirut.

And on Monday, we will go and watch Persépolis, a French cartoon-type movie about a young girl/woman growing up in Iran after the Islamic revolution.


Let's hope they have not rented out the cinema room tomorrow night!

Catwalk on wobbly fence and killing machine

Chatouille can now climb onto the fence and jump to the front of the house, where the traffic is :'(
Trave caught her on camera as she was walking on the (weak) fence on Sunday (you can hear the churchbells in the distance). She is much better at this now. We think that she wanders about looking for us when we are at work. Poor Chatouille!

Also, I am sorry to report that she caught her first birds at the weekend. We were still in bed on Saturday morning when we heard a loud bird-type shriek coming from downstairs: eeek! So here is, step by step, what we did:

- closed all the doors so that the bird could not fly anywhere else in the house
- took the cat away from the room
- opened all access to outside (windows & French windows)
- put some gloves on
- found the scared little bird, took it slowly in my hands, and took it outside on the grass
- made sure the cat was not nearby for at least 2 hours

So, we saved the first bird (female blackbird), but unfortunately, we saw Chatouille coming towards the house, towards the catflap, with a tiny little bluetit in her mouth. It was too late for this one.

Now we can see the truth: Chatouille is not a cute little kitten anymore, she is a KILLING MACHINE...

Garden update

A lot has happened in our garden since the extensive cutting back of the hedge.

The potato plants which we are growing in planters on the patio look almost as big as the apple tree. However, I am a bit worried that some might being attacked by potato blight. As it is the first time we have grown potatoes, we don't really know. I hope I am wrong...

The courgettes and purple sprouting broccolis are looking very healthy, thanks to our daily slug-hunting sessions.

There are 2 small French beans on our plants. That's great, but I am looking forward to more!

We have planted the wild rocket and carrots only 2 weeks ago, but they are sprouting slowly. The leeks are looking healthy too, although one of them (the tiny weeny one) is missing somehow.

The apples are the size of something between pistachios and walnuts. Our only worry is caterpillars, who seem to have established themselves in the apple tree, gggrrr...

The raspberries now have a few flowers on. Only one plant has not sprung. They are of an autumn variety so we will have to wait until October to eat them.

We have had our first strawberries today. I am waiting for Trave to come home to share them with him: he better be quick!

Also looking healthy are the aromatic plants: rosemary, thyme, parsley, sage (overgrown!), hidden oregano, lemon balm, and lavender.

I have weeded and dug the front border last weekend, and have planted the following: some grassy-looking plant, lupins, heather, and marigolds. At the far corner, I wanted to plant another lavender but maybe it will be a bush of yellow roses, to remind us of our wedding ;-) I am also planning to plant in the front borders: lilly-in-the-valley, crocuses, and the tulip bulbs I have brought back from Amsterdam last Friday.

Dinky? Binky? Thingy?

Whilst I was making some cashew nut biscuits this morning, I heard Trave saying from the living room: "There's a dog in our garden!" I looked up through the window and indeed, there WAS a dog in our garden!

I went out, tried to chase him out of our lawn, but the poor thing just sat down and looked up at me with his sad-looking eyes... He had a collar, but no name tag or anything like that. I went back to the house, took a photo with the intention of knocking on the neighbours' doors, asking if anyone had lost a dog. As far as I knew, none of our immediate neighbours had dogs. But then we heard a voice from the other side of the hedge calling for 'Binky'/'Dinky'. Trave suggested that they give us the dog's leash over the fence and we would walk her home (I think it was a girl). When the dog saw the leash, it was so happy! I returned the dog, who was cared for by the neighbours for a couple of days while a friend of theirs was away.

Chatouille's reaction was not too bad. She did more or less what she does when confronted to other cats, that is: following them. (We think that it is her way to try to make friends. We have so far no proof of the success or lack of success of this particular technique. Who knows? It might work well for cats!)

The dog escaped to our garden again later on in the day. I took it home by hooking a bicycle 'bungee'/elastic band, onto its collar.

Still not sure what the dog's name is: Dinky? Binky?

Oscar et la Dame Rose

I have read this very short book this afternoon: Oscar et la Dame Rose (Oscar and the Lady in Pink) by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt. Amazing story. Thought-provoking. This book is part of the "Cycle de l'Invisible" (Cycle of the Invisible), comprising three stories, each dedicated to a different religion. Oscar et la Dame Rose talks about Christianity through the eyes of a terminally ill child. I have already read Monsieur Ibrahim and the Flowers of the Coran, which as suggested in the title, is about some aspects of Islam. The third book is entitled Milarepa and talks about Buddhism.

You should not be put off by the fact that Oscar and the Lady in Pink is told by a terminally ill chil. The story is full of humour and not all that sad.

I am looking forward to read Milarepa, but before that, I will be packing Two Caravan by Marina Lewycka in my travelling bag.

Lemon madeleines

A variation based on my previous Honey and Cointreau madeleines, these little cakes are absolutely gorgeous. And I was really pleased because they raised better than last time, so that they had a nice hump on their back!


Makes ~24 madeleines:

3 eggs, lightly beaten
120g self-raising flour
100g butter
80g caster sugar
Grated rind of 1 lemon
1 TBSP lemon extract (or Limoncello)
1 pinch cinnamon
1 pinch salt

1. Melt the butter on low heat.

2. Mix together the eggs and sugar. Add half of the melted butter and honey, mixing slowly.

3. Add the sieved flour then the rest of the honey/butter mixture. Add the Limoncello/Lemon extract, lemon rind, cinnamon and salt.

4. Pour into the madeleine pans, 1 tablespoon into each form.

5. Leave at room temperature for 1 hour, then in the fridge for 45 minutes, then at room temperature again for 20 minutes.

6. Bake in a 230C pre-heated oven for 8 minutes. Then lower the temperature to 180C and cook for another 5 min until golden.