Technique of the Week!! Poaching

Poaching is a technique you don’t see a lot but it’s actually a lovely way to cook food. Most people will have tried poach chicken and fish which keeps the food moist and full of flavour without added fat, however what about poached vegetables?

The difference between poaching and boiling vegetables in water is subtle, poaching is using flavoured liquid, just covering the vegetables and keeping it on a low heat. I used a recipe from Yotam Ottolenghi’s cookbook ‘Plenty’ as my guideline and it was delicious!

It is important to have a wide deep pan so that your veg isn’t too piled up on top of each other, also there is no need to do much food prep as you can keep the veg whole or just simple sliced in half.

The vegetables poaching

The liquid I used is based on Ottolenghi’s recipe but I changed it slightly to make it abit healthier and cheaper. I used the following quantities-

400ml Water
200ml White wine
100ml Extra virgin olive oil
2 Bay leaves
1/2 Onion
1 Celery stick
Pinch Salt

Boil off the white wine for 2 minutes first then add everything else in and simmer for a few minutes. The vegetables I decided to poach included 1 bulb of fennel, 2 carrots, 2 baby leeks and 1 courgette. The carrots and fennel went in first for 3 minutes then everything else went in for a further 4 minutes and that’s pretty much all it needed.

Beautifully poached vegetables

I wasn’t sure what they were going to taste like but when I tried each vegetable I was surprised in a very good way! Oh wow, they keep their individual flavour but it’s enhanced by the flavours in the poaching liquid. The leeks in particularly were my favourite because they were soft and succulent with a slight sweetness. I could have eaten a whole bowl of poached leeks.

I also like the fact that the vegetables keep a bit of crunch, especially the courgette which I’ve never cooked in water before (except if chopping up small and adding to soup).

Ottolenghi recommends serving them simply with a caper mayonnaise which I think would make a fantastic addition to a tapas board or mezze but I also think these would be a perfect side dish to a stew or lasagna to lighten up the meal.

You can keep the wonderfully flavoured poaching liquid to use either for further poaching or to use as a stock or the base of a sauce. I saw a recipe where they added some further vegetables to the liquid to create a sauce so I would like to try this . Whatever you do though, don’t throw it away!

Have you ever tried poaching vegetables? Is it something you would try?

Mushroom and Celeriac Soup with Porcini ‘Glitter’ and Walnut Croutons

Quick go see the recipe over at This is Rocksalt

I’ve done a guest post! The recipe for this soup can be found over at RockSalt blog! Blogger Carol Ann is taking part in the National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo) challenge where she will be writing a novel in just 30 days.  From what I can tell on Facebook the progress seems to be going very well! Good luck for this last stretch!

This soup is creamy, rich in flavour and given a nice little spice hit by adding a dried porcini and dried chilli dust (it sparkles so I call it glitter). I added walnuts as a crunchy element instead of bread croutons as I’m trying to eat less carbs and more good things like nuts and seeds at the moment.

I hope you enjoy and thanks again to Carol Ann for letting me do a guest post for her

I Officially Declare Soup Season OPEN!

Brrr it’s cold isn’t it! Oh no I’m being very British again and starting a post with a comment on the weather, it’s not even properly winter yet but the temperatures have dropped very suddenly around London and the nights are getting dark from 5pm and my woolly jumpers have found their way out of the cupboard. So I officially declare soup season OPEN!

I love soup because it is filling and versatile. You can jazz your soup up with a variety of toppings and add depth with added yoghurt or spice or asian flavours such as soya and mirin. For a good home made soup you need a good homemade vegetable stock. I think it makes a real difference using your own stock and it is easily freezable so whenever you fancy making some soup you can just pull a tub of stock out of the freezer. This stock is my mums recipe which I originally posted in June and it has since become a staple in my kitchen.

The vegetable stock slowly simmering away

Generally people are so busy these days (I know that I am at the moment) that using a stock cube speeds up the process of making a meal but often the meal then has a salty and synthetic flavour. A homemade stock, however, takes 5 minutes to prepare and 30 minutes to quietly simmer while you are doing something else. Then it can be stored in the fridge or freezer.

Makes approx 1 litre

1 Onion – quartered
2 Carrots – chunks
1 Leek – thick sliced
2 Celery – thick sliced
2-3 Garlic – depending on size, sliced
2-3 Bay leaves -
1 tspn Dried thyme
Lots of parsley and parsley stalks (You can freeze parsley/ coriander stalks for when you want to make stock)
1 ½ litres of water with teaspoon of salt added
100ml of white wine (or 1 small glass)
8 black peppercorns

To make the stock simply put all the ingredients in a pan, except the wine, bring to the boil, cover with a lid and put on a gentle simmer for 15 minutes.

After 15 minutes add the white wine, check the seasoning and adjust but do not add too much salt because this can be adjusted with your final soup dish.

Strain the stock and discard the flavourings.

Then you can make some of these fabulous soups!!

Kale, Lentil and Ginger Soup

Great for getting rid of those colds!

Nettle Soup

Beautiful rich and healthy Nettle Soup!

Pea, Leek and Fennel Soup

A comforting blended soup with mild fennel flavour

Cauliflower, Lentil and Spinach Soup

I love lentils in soup! Plus Cauliflower is a nice seasonal ingredient

Have you started eating soups yet? Do you have a favourite soup ingredient? I think at the moment mine is celeriac!

Autumnal Overnight Oats: A perfect Office Breakfast

Figs look beautiful against the creamy white oats

I only discovered over night oats recipes this year, before I would make porridge in my microwave at work with the occassional handful of dried cranberries or raisins thrown in to make it more interesting. In case your wondering, over night oats is a recipe where you soak porridge oats, fruits, seeds etc in soya milk (or your own preference of milk) over night and in the morning you have a lovely fluffy, gooey breakfast! The oats soak up all the milk and the fruits go tender.

I started to realise that eating a variety of all different foods every day was going to be the only way to be the healthiest I could be, sounds obvious but when your pushed for time and watching your weight it’s very easy for meals to become too simple (pasta and tomatoes or a plain sandwich). I’ve become more of a grazer than I was before so now I will have a banana, berry and spinach smoothie around 7am, I will have my over night oats around 8.30-9am at my desk, lunch (usually soup) around 12pm, fruit and often a punnet from my graze box around 2-3pm, a raw fresh juice when I get home at 5.30pm and dinner at 7.30pm. Then I try and not eat anything else!

When I first started making overnight oats I tried blueberries, strawberries and cinnamon which was nice but as the season is changing I wanted to find something abit different. When I do my food shopping list I simply write “Overnight oats fruits” and then browse the shelves seeing what is on offer, what was grown in the UK etc and that way I vary it each week and it’s a chance to get creative.

This combination came about really from the fact that figs were quite cheap (4 for £1 which in the supermarkets here is cheap!) and then when I got home I had a look at what I had in the cupboards. I had tonnes of poppy seeds left over from my cake making, I also had some sunflower seeds and some ground flax, pumpkin seeds and goji berries from the Linwood Superfood range.

Serves 1- Rough measures of what I use

1/4 Cup Porridge Oats
1/2 Cup Soya Milk
1 Fig cut into 8 pieces (I quarter it then cut each quarter in half)
Sprinkle of Poppy seeds
Sprinkle of Sunflower seeds
Sprinkle of nutritional stuff like flax seeds, chia seeds, ground goodness! Check out the Linwoods website in my link above for suggestions
Small Handful Raisins/ Sultanas

Mix all Ingredients together and put in the fridge over night! No cooking needed, the oats will soak up all of the milk and become lovely and creamy over night. I sometimes add a splash more soya milk if it looks like it won’t be enough. This is also another fantatsic way of sneaking some raw foods into your diet, raw figs are a good source of calcium and potassium which helps lower blood pressure, they are also an excellent source of fibre and energy!

Variable options: You could add cinnamon, maple syrup, chopped ripe pears, berries,

Tofu, Lemon and Tomato Soup (Or Mock Seafood Soup): Meatfree Monday!

Mock Seafood Soup with lemony Tofu, rich tomato soup and griddled lemon slices

For all you Seafood lovers out there, please forgive me, for I have made a delicious but very vegan mock seafood soup! Seafood soup is my all time favourite dish but I decided I needed to try a version without the seafood. I haven’t cut fish 100% out of my diet yet but I always enjoy making veggie versions of the classics I used to eat all the time.  Should this even be called “Seafood Soup” since it is entirely devoid of seafood? I’m not sure but it has the fundamentals of my favourite recipe, ie rich tomatoes, hints of lemon and fennel and soft white tofu instead of white fish.

If anything it is just a really beautiful lemony tofu soup!

The seafood soup would usually contain some form of white fish like cod, maybe some salmon, small prawns, large prawns and mussels! I couldn’t think of a prawn and mussel replacement so I kept it simple and just focused on replacing the fish.

Silky Smooth Tofu is a perfect match for the soup base

The base of this soup is very similar to my Tomato Soup with Basil Gnocchi   but I made some subtle changes to keep it in line with the seafood soup we have on holiday.

Serves 2 – Soup is freezable but I’d recommend frying fresh tofu each time.

1 Onion
2 Sticks Celery
1/2 Red Pepper
1 Large Garlic Clove
1 teaspoon Paprika
1 teaspoon Fennel Seeds
1/2 teaspoon Chilli Powder
8 Cherry Tomatoes
1 Can Tomatoes
300ml Vegetable Stock
2 Lemons – one for juice and one for the garnish slices
200g Firm Tofu
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Salt and Pepper

To prepare the vegetables finely dice the onion and red pepper and finely slice the celery and garlic clove. Halve the cherry tomatoes

In a large pan heat some olive oil and then soften the onion and celery for 5 minutes untill it starts to brown (don’t let it get too brown) then add the red pepper and garlic. Add a splash of water if it is browning too fast.

Once the vegetables are all softened add the spices/ fennel seeds and stir, cooking for a further 1 minute, untill everything is completely combined.

Add the canned chopped tomatoes, halved cherry tomatoes and the vegetable stock. Simmer gently for around 20-30 minutes. Taste and season to taste (season after adding the stock as stock cubes can be quite salty.

Drain the tofu and slice it into pieces roughly 2 inches long (it really doesn’t matter but I’ve made mine rectangle). Place the slices in between some kitchen paper and press firmly to remove extra moisture. I use Cauldron’s Original Tofu which is quite firm so for the purpose of this recipe I don’t feel the need to press it too much.

In a frying pan heat some olive oil and add the tofu pieces so that they are quite spaced out in the pan. Squeeze half the lemon over the tofu and cook on one side for 2-3 minutes untill it has began to brown slightly. The lemon won’t let it brown completely. Turn the pieces over gently and squeeze a little more lemon juice over.

Add a few slices of lemon to the pan whilst cooking the tofu and allow them to brown on each side.

Serve up the soup into bowls and top each portion with the cooked tofu and some browned lemon slices and a drizzle of olive oil. Serve with some good crusty white bread and definitely a glass of dry white wine!

Mock Seafood Soup

Tandoori Roasted Cauliflower with Curried Yoghurt Dressing in a Naan Wrap: Meat Free Monday

Use your hands and naan to scoop up the delicious fillings then tuck in!

This is anther recipe where I had a very exact idea in my head of what I wanted to create but I wasn’t sure if the idea would translate well into real life. Fortunately I think it has, it’s a great little dish for a weekend lunch or light evening dinner. The spicy Cauliflower is the base flavour of the dish, the curried yoghurt is to add some moisture and another flavour level, the raisins and flaked almonds add bursts of sweetness and a crunch. I never used to add raisins to curries but Scott always did when he cooked a curry at uni and since then it’s become normal in our house. You can swap raisins for chopped dried apricots for an equal sweetness. You could also swap flaked almonds for cashew nuts for a slightly different texture but equally as delicious.

Cauliflower florets coated in a little bit of spray oil and some tandoori spice mix

I love roasted Cauliflower it has so much more flavour than boiling it, adding a spice like tandoori mix enhances the flavours and transforms the cauliflower to an almost meaty base which can be used in a curry, warm salad or like this – topped with curried yoghurt, garnishes and rolled up in a naan.

Naan topped with curried yoghurt, roasted tandoori cauliflower, raisins, flaked almonds, sprouted lentils and quinoa and fresh coriander

This is very much a ‘hands on’ dish, I piled all my ingredients on to a board and then used my fingers to scoop up a mixture of everything into my naan bread and rolled it up to eat. I couldn’t fit all my cauliflower into the wrap so I finished it off with a fork. Next time I would try finding a larger flatter naan bread – or making my own! You could also use a flat bread, tortilla wrap or roti to scoop up the fillings.

The curried yoghurt was very simple and would be a nice dip to accompany many Indian starters or just to scoop on to some rice to spice it up. I used soya yoghurt because, although I can occasionally eat dairy without feeling ill, yoghurt is something which really does not agree with me. I found the soya milk a fine alternative once the curry paste had been added but by its own it was a little sweet.

The different textures and flavours all complimented each other really nicely!

Serves 2

1/2 Cauliflower (roughly 4 or 5 florets each)
Sprinkle of Tandoori Spice Mix
1 Small Onion – finely diced
2 tblspn Curry Paste
3 tblspn Yoghurt (Soya)
Handful Raisins
Handful Flaked Almonds
Small Bunch Coriander
Handful sprouted lentils and quinoa (optional)
Sunflower oil for cooking (Spray variety if you have it)

Pre heat your oven to 190c (fan oven temp). Wash your cauliflower and place in a  baking tray, spray with sunflower oil (or drizzle with a little oil if you don’t have spray oil) and sprinkle generously with the tandoori spice. Roast in the oven for 15-17 minutes.

Meanwhile in a frying pan add a little sunflower oil and fry the onion untill softened, add the curry paste and continue to cook for 1 minute stirring to combine the onions and curry paste.
Put the yoghurt in a bowl and then add the curried onion mix and mix to combine completely.

Heat up a naan/ roti/ wrap and place it on a plate then top with the roasted cauliflower, yoghurt, raisins, almonds, sprouts and coriander.

Eat by wrapping up the naan with the filling or with a knife and fork. This could also be served with rice or salad instead of a naan if you wanted a low carb curried treat.

Might need a bigger naan…

I have submitted this recipe to the Weekend herb Blogging event  over at Graziana from Erbe in Cucina (Cooking with Herbs)

Potato, Spinach and Sweetcorn Chowder Pie: A recipe revisited

To continue the theme of this first birthday month I have got another “Fix that dish” post where I have taken a recipe from my early blogging days which I felt could be improved and I have re-made it using my new knowledge and food ideals. Last week I freshened up my Quesadillas recipe and this week I have decided to look at my Spinach and Potato pies , a recipe which me and Scott both enjoyed but I just never felt it lived up to the creamy potato pie I was trying to create.

30th September 2011

6th August 2012

In my first recipe I layered a ‘creamy’ vegetable sauce in between very thinly sliced potatoes and topped it with filo pastry, I knew I wanted to keep the filo pastry lid because it made it a proper pie and I like the crunchy pastry contrasting with the filling. This time I began by thinking about what sort of potato dishes I had cooked in the past which I enjoyed and I remembered a summer many years ago when I went through a phase of cooking potato and sweet corn chowder every day for my lunch, I couldn’t get enough! If I could bulk this up and add some more vegetables this would be a great pie filling…and it was!

Chowder Pie Filling

I used pretty much the same ingredients as before except I swapped the vegetable stock for soya milk. If you’d rather have a less creamy pie then using vegetable stock will work fine. Using soya milk and extra light Philadelphia cream cheese makes these little pies under 300 calories (based on my fitness pal calculations) which means they are perfect as a treat.

Serves 4

2 Onions – chopped
1 Large Carrot – sliced
1 Leek – sliced
2 Medium sized Baking potatoes – peeled and diced
2 Garlic cloves – crushed
2 tspn Dried Thyme
300ml Soya Milk
3 tblspn Extra Light Philadelphia
2 tspn Wholegrain Mustard
200ml Water
1 tblspn Plain Flour
1 Handful Spinach
3 tblspn Sweetcorn
2 Filo Pastry Sheets

Preheat the oven to 200c.

Saute the onion, carrot, leek, potatoes and garlic in a pan for 5-6 minutes untill the veg has all began to soften. Then add the thyme and some salt and pepper.

In a jug mix the soya milk, cream cheese, mustard and 200ml water and mix well untill combined.

Add the flour to the vegetables in the pan and stir, then add the milk mixture, sweetcorn and spinach. Cover the pan with a lid or foil and simmer on a medium heat for 10 minutes or until the potato is soft. Pour the vegetable mix into 4 individual sized pie dishes.

Cut the filo pastry sheets in half and place one half on top of each pie dish, scrunch the pastry slightly to get good texture, also it looks prettier!

Cook in the oven for 10-15 minutes until the pastry is golden and the filling is bubbling hot. Serve with greens such as broccoli or peas.

Crispy pastry and a creamy chowder filling

Globe Artichoke and Pink Grapefruit Salad (Jamie Oliver recipe): Friday Challenge!

I’ve seen ALOT of recipes pairing artichokes with citrus fruits but I chose this one because it used grapefruit instead of lemons, which I think is really different and abit more exotic. I have never been a fan of the grapefruit it’s so sharp and tangy but I thought the artichoke and salad leaves all together would tone it down. This recipe is from Jamie’s book “Happy Days with the Naked Chef” which you can buy here.

There were a few changes I had to make to the recipe, not because I disagreed with Jamie (I always try and stick as closely to the recipe as possible because at the end of the day I am doing this to learn) but because I just couldn’t find the ingredients or I couldn’t justify buying the ingredient. I omitted the Pecorino cheese shavings and feel a little sad about this because it would have added a whole other dimension to the salad, but I’m feeling the pinch this month so a block of cheese just for one recipe was out of the question. Also I could not find Frisee salad anywhere so I bought watercress and spinach leaves as I am using these for another recipe too. And finally I already had a bag of raw almonds which had the skin on them unlike the ones in Jamie’s recipe – but I decided these would be fine to use. I also added some seeds which needed using up!

As you can see Jamie’s is slightly lighter and fresher looking than mine due to the different salad base however I particuarly liked the watercress with mine. The peppery flavour really complimented the honey dressing, grapefruit and artichokes. The salad has a dressing made from lemon juice, honey, olive oil and black pepper which just bought the salad alive it was so delicious.

When I had a mouthful of just artichoke and grapefruit I was unsure that this salad worked, but when I added the dressing and watercress to the equation it was simply gorgeous and very satisfying. I liked the nuts it made it more substantial and this would make for a perfect appetiser or light lunch on a summers day.

What I have learnt about Globe Artichokes:
The artichoke is very happy when matched with citrus fruits, it brings it alive and helps tone down the tang of the fruits. The artichoke is perfect in a salad, its fresh and light and as long as it is not over whelmed it can help heighten a salad. Theres just a fine balance between bringing out it’s best and losing it behind the other strong flavours. Also I used canned artichoke and I think this is perfectly acceptable because it meant this salad took me 5 minutes to throw together!

A Photo Guide to the Globe Artichoke: Friday Challenge

I’ve wanted to prepare a globe artichoke for so long now but whenever I read instructions I feel baffled because it refers to the heart and the choke etc and I don’t know which bits these are! I can now tell everyone else out there putting this off that it is really very easy and it becomes obvious as you dismantle the artichoke which parts are which! For this I followed my trusted River Cottage Veg instructions for ‘Simple Globe Artichoke’. He suggests to serve it with melted butter and lemon juice but I used olive oil, balsamic vinegar and lemon juice.

The point of my Friday Challenges is to learn new skills but also share these with everyone so I decided that I wanted this post to be a step by step guide of how to prepare a globe artichoke so that you can eat the leaves and then remove the heart. So I think I don’t need to say any more (I will find that hard!!) and I’ll let my photos do the talking:

Trim the stalk so its around 3 – 5cm long

Just incase it wasn’t obvious I had cut the stem!

Pull off the tougher leaves around the bottom – I just guessed which ones were meant to be tough and it worked out fine

Place the artichoke into a steamer and cook for about 30 minutes (Stand it upright if your steamer is big enough)

It will now look like this, pull away the outer leaves

The leaves should pull away easily. You can eat the fatter bottom part of the leaf and dip it into the lemon/ balsamic dip!

Stop eating when you get to the thinner leaves! You need to remove all of these and discard them

Underneath all those thin leaves you’ll find this hairy little fella (the choke)! sooo cute! DO NOT EAT……

Scoop out the choke with a spoon! It came out quite easily and was obvious where it ended. Discard the choke!

When you are left with this trim the edges so that the rough outer skin is removed from around the heart and the stem. Then you can eat the heart too! or do what I did – pick it up dip it in the lemon and munch away – an artichoke heart on a stick haha!

I’m afraid there is no photo of the finished trimmed artichoke heart because I didn’t get that far I just took it as you see it in the last photo and dipped it in to the balsamic and lemon and ate it! Delicious! (I didn’t eat the rough skin or stem!)

If you just want to use the heart then I’d just buy canned as it seems an expensive waste to remove all of the leaves without atleast steaming and eating them! If preparing it like this then take your time and enjoy it! It’s such a wonderful vegetable

Next week I’ll actually cook with it!

Braised Cabbage with Butter Beans: Meat Free Monday

As usual this is a recipe which started with just an image in my mind of the end product but I had no idea how to get there! I love cabbage but I’ve never cooked it in wedges before so I decided to just get all of my intended ingredients out and follow my instincts. I have found on numerous occasions now that actually by working this way and just listening to my instincts and making decisions once I have seen how the dish is panning out I have ended up with something better than I could have imagined….if I may say so myself I think this is one of those times!

I knew I wanted the cabbage to have some colour to it which is why I pan-fried it first and also I knew I’d want to use some sort of herb/ spice mixture so I dived into my cupboards and ended up pulling out my trusted fennel seeds! I think they give the dish a real kick and also add a different dimension to the flavours. I really adore fennel seeds now, especially mixed with a nice rich tomatoey sauce!

If you read my post “A Balanced Diet for a Balanced Well being”you will know that I have been quite high on my carb intake and I want to make sure I am eating healthily with a better balance of protein and carbs. Well this dish is a perfect example of the changes I am making because before I would have made the cabbage with a tomato sauce and then served it with rice however because I’m more aware of my dietary needs at the moment I decided to add butter beans (lima beans) because they are high protein and fiber with a lower more moderate level of carbohydrate. I had this for dinner as a complete meal and felt satisfied! They are also a great source of source of iron, copper and magnesium.

So on to my recipe – as I said I was literally seeing how it went at each stage and making decisions as I went along so if you read this and think I have turned one simple step into 3 or 4 steps then please let me know!

Serves 2

1/2 White Cabbage
1 teaspoon Fennel Seeds
Pinch Sugar
1 Garlic Clove
300 ml Vegetable Stock
1 Can Chopped Tomatoes
I heaped tablespoon Tomato Puree
1 Can Butter Beans (approx 300g)
Large Bunch Fresh Parsley
Salt and Pepper
Spray oil for cooking

I used half of the cabbage for this recipe and kept the other half for a soup recipe. Slice one half of the cabbage into 4 even wedges. Heat some oil in a large deep frying pan on a medium heat and once hot place the cabbage wedges into the pan and cook for 3 minutes on one side. Then sprinkle the cabbage with half the fennel seeds and sugar and turn the wedges over to cook for another 3 minutes on the other side. Sprinkle the other half of the fennel seeds and sugar onto the other half of the wedges.
You can be quite generous with the spray oil at this point as you don’t want it to burn.

Turn the cabbage wedges back over again (be really careful to not let them fall apart) and add the crushed garlic clove to the pan for one minute then add 300 ml of vegetable stock.
Cook uncovered for 15 minutes (let it bubble away slightly) and then turn the cabbage slices over again. You don’t need to turn them more often than I have mentioned as they will begin to fall apart so less touching them the better!

Add the canned tomatoes, tomato puree, butter beans, chopped parsley and some salt and pepper and stir. Don’t worry if the vegetable stock wasn’t all evaporated as that little bit left in the pan will make the sauce nice and juicy! Use a small spoon and stir the tomatoes around the cabbage making sure you don’t disturb the cabbage too much. I liked leaving the pale colour of the cabbage peeking out so I purposefully didn’t coat the cabbage with the tomatoes.

Cook for a further 10 minutes uncovered stirring occasionally so nothing burns or sticks to the bottom then garnish with more fresh parsley and serve!

This was one of the nicest meals I’ve had in ages and I feel like I’m finally getting myself back around to a healthy balanced diet I should be eating! Plus I love butter beans so this was just my cup of tea!