Goats Cheese & Chive Soufflés

After all the talk on programmes like Come Dine With Me and Masterchef I really thought that it was going to be hard to get these to rise, however I was grateful to have no problems at all. They did start to sink gradually after they had been taken out of the oven, but it wasn't really a big problem for an everyday supper, and once I started tucking in it was the last thing on my mind. Before attempted them I read a tonne of recipes for the 'perfect soufflé' online, and this is the version I finally came up with - it's a lot simpler than many that I read, that add in extra steps such as a bain-marie, and various other different ways to get the soufflé to rise that extra inch such as breadcrumb-coated ramekins - by all means, add these in if you wish, but for me they weren't all that necessary.

Serves 2

Ingredients 

Butter

20g plain flour

20g butter

150ml milk

75g goats cheese, crumbled into small pieces

1 tablespoon chives

2 eggs, separated

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 200c/fan 180c/gas mark 6.

2. Butter two ramekins.

3. Melt the butter slowly in a saucepan and mix in the flour to form a thick paste. Cook this for two minutes.

4. Add the milk bit by bit, stirring until smooth, and slowly bring the sauce to the boil. Once it has been brought to the boil, empty the sauce into a large bowl and leave to cool for a few minutes.

5. Add the cheese and the chives to the sauce and stir until smooth. Add the yolks one by one and continue to stir in.

6. Whisk the egg whites in a separate bowl until stiff (you should be able to hold the mixture over your head without it falling out!). Add a couple of spoonfuls to the sauce, and fold in with a metal spoon. Do the same with the rest of the egg.

7. Divide the mixture between the ramekins, they should be roughly 3/4 filled.

8. Cook in the oven for 15 minutes until risen and brown.

Calamari with Chorizo and Cannellini Stew

Squid's never something I've cooked before now, I've only really ever had it out in restaurants, thinking that, not only would it be hard to get right, but also that it was a bit on the expensive side for everyday. But, being in the middle of exams, I needed a little 'pick me up' and this is the result! I didn't want to deep-fry the squid, so I decided to just put a light coating on it and shallow fry instead, which, although I was a bit apprehensive beforehand, turned out to be delicious, and really let the flavour of the squid come through.The Chorizo and Cannellini stew goes extremely well, adding a touch of spiciness and keeping in well with the Mediterranean-y feel. Lovely!

Serves 2
Ingredients

For the Calamari

250g raw squid, cut into rings

4 tablespoons olive oil

Plain flour (as needed)

Salt

Pepper

For the Stew
2 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 onion, finely chopped

50g chorizo, cubed

1 tin Cannellini beans

1 glass red wine

Method

1. For the stew, fry the onions in the oil over a medium heat until just starting to colour.

 

2. Add the cubed chorizo and cook for 2 minutes.

3. Add the cannellini beans, and cook everything together 2 more minutes, stirring thoroughly.

4. Add the glass of wine, and cook the stew until this has cooked off. Now take the stew off the heat while you cook the squid.

5. On a plate, put some plain flour, a generous sprinkling of salt and pepper. Roll the squid in this mixture until it has a light coating.

6. Heat up 2 tablespoons of oil in a frying pan over the highest heat possible, when the oil is starting to spit, add the squid and cook for 2-3 minutes, stirring frequently. Once cooked place on some kitchen paper to get rid of excess oil.

7. Repeat with the rest of the squid, and serve with the stew.

Wahaca, Covent Garden

While I was in London, I took the opportunity to eat out somewhere a bit different, to sample something that I won't get near to where I live, so Mexican seemed perfect, and after doing a bit of research on the internet, the consensus seemed to be that Wahaca would be a wise choice, tasty food, and also importantly, affordable. We headed over to the Covent Garden branch at about, 5.15pm it must have been, thinking that we would be able to get a table almost straight away. How wrong we were! I thought that noone else in London would be eating that early, but surprisingly it was absolutely packed, and so we were told to come back in half an hour, which we did and then were promptly seated.

If you didn't already know, Wahaca has a kind of tapas-style menu, made up of lots of different small plates that are perfect for sharing. They recommend 2-3 dishes per person, and surprisingly I found that 2 plates was enough to fill me, but I think I was still a bit full from afternoon tea the day before! Having quite different tastes, me and my sister opted not to share, with her going just for one of the larger dishes, which was a perfect size for a main course.

We actually started off with some nachos and salsa, which were really nice. The salsa was really fresh, full of different flavours, definitely a thumbs up.

 

Then, the first dish I had was these Pork Pibil Tacos, which were so tasty! The meat was melt in the mouth and juicy, and for me the dish was flavoured just hot enough.

Afterwards, I went for this Chorizo and Potato Quesadilla. Chorizo is one of my favourite foods and Wahaca advertise that they make their own, so how could I not try it? What I normally love about Chorizo is the spicyness, the smokyness, the hit of flavour, so when I bit into these, I have to say, it was disappointing, pretty bland, and to be honest if it hadn't mentioned the sausage in in the name of the dish, I doubt I would have known it was there.

And, although the food in general was pretty good, for me the biggest let down of all was the Horchata, which for those of you who don't know is an almond and rice drink. As soon as I saw it on the menu, I knew I had to try it, as it was something I drank all the time when I was working in Spain, and absolutely loved it. Perhaps I had been spoiled, but to me what Wahaca was serving wasn't Horchata, it was so watery, chalky and overly cinnamon-y. Although I finished it I didn't bother to order another. All-in-all it was a pretty mixed bag, but that said, I probably would go again. Overall, the food was enjoyable, it's just not somewhere that I would rave about.

Prêt-à-Portea: Tea at The Berkeley

Right so, as I said, I went to the Berkeley Hotel in London, for afternoon tea a couple of weeks ago, which of course was amazing! Although before I went, I did have reservations about spending over £40 on afternoon tea, I can honestly say this was worth every penny, it was that good.

Before the main stand itself came out, we were presented with these little plates of sandwiches. I can't remember exactly what they were, but I remember being really impressed with the bread, as I think each was flavoured with something different, although, let's be honest, I was just trying to eat them as fast as possible to get to the main event!

 

On the bottom tier of the stand, there were some savoury tasters and my favourite were these shot glasses of gazpacho, which were actually pretty spicy, but I also enjoyed the salmon, and the feta cheese and wasabi with crispy pitta bread.

 

 

But obviously the best bit was the cakes. I have literally never seen anything like them, and the they tasted just as good as they looked. It was also nice that once a tier was finished, the waitress would come over and ask if we wanted any more and of course we said yes! At the hotel itself we must have got through over a stand worth of cakes each...

 

 ...and then when we were finished for good we were asked if we would like some cakes to take away, and we were given these cute little boxes.

 

Finally, as we went for afternoon tea, it only seems appropriate to mention the tea itself, I loved the Pear Caramel flavour I had first, as it was just sweet enough but wasn't so flavoursome that it overpowered the cakes. I then moved on to the Vanilla a bit later, and I have to say was a bit dissapointed, it just didn't really taste special. Luckily, my sister was happy to finish it off, and I had her Funky Fruits, which was probably the best fruit tea I've ever had. The ones I've tried before didn't have a very strong taste, but this was just right.

If it wasn't obvious enough I would definitely recommend this. It's definitely not something that you're likely to make a habit of, but for once in a while or even for a one off it's a nice treat - I'm already eyeing up the special afternoon tea they're doing for the Jubilee!

Homemade Pizza

Pizza is probably the meal I eat the most. Not actually through choice, but because it's my boyfriends favourite, and we have 'Pizza Friday', every week without fail we make our own. Here I'm going to give you some advice on what I find works best when making homemade pizza, but the great thing is that it can all be customised to suit your taste.

For the pizza dough, I've tried out quite a few recipes but I've found the best one to be this by Jamie Oliver. Every two weeks I make up half of this recipe, use it to make two pizzas that same day, and then freeze the rest in portions for two pizzas the next week. I roll the dough out as thin as possible, with a rolling pin on a floured surface, and then I transfer the dough onto baking paper to finish with sauce and toppings. As you can see from the picture below, I don't really worry about getting a rounded shape...hey, it's rustic!

When it comes to sauce, I've tried making my own using chopped tomatoes with oregano, basil and garlic, and while it tasted good, it made the base quite soggy. The same happens with passata, so normally I just use tomato puree on it's own, which is good for me as I like the intense flavour it adds to the pizza.

Toppings are a personal thing, but my favourites would have to be pepperoni, olives, prosciutto and onion, but you can add anything you want. Normally I like to experiment with recipes, but in my opinion pizza is one of those things you want to keep simple. At the end of the day, it's comfort food, and I want to use things I know I'm going to like. When baking the pizza, make sure to preheat your oven to the highest setting possible, and this way it should only take around 5 minutes to cook, but be sure to check regularly.

Off To London

Yep, I'm off to London this weekend so I won't be blogging until next Tuesday probably. Whilst the main reason for visiting is to go to the Harry Potter Studio Tour (!), I'm also hoping to eat some good food while I'm in the capital. I'm going with my sister, and on the Friday we're already booked in to have afternoon tea at The Berkeley Hotel...I'm so excited, it's something I've always wanted to do. Apart from that, though, our food plans are pretty up in the air...I'm thinking maybe Wahaca? MeatLiquor seems to get really good reviews? I really have no idea to be honest, but it has to be somewhere affordable, and not too out of the way, any good ideas?

Scones

Last weekend the weather in the UK was SO NICE! Apparently it was hotter here then in some places in the Med, and for me sunny weather means one thing: scones. There is nothing better to me then sitting outside in the warm, with a cup of tea in one hand and a scone with cream and jam in the other, and I don't get to eat them very often so it always feels like a real treat. The recipe I used is just for a batch of plain scones, though some dried fruit such as raisins and sultanas could be added if wanted.

With these there's always the controversy over what order the toppings should go in: should the jam go on first or the cream? Apparently in Cornwall (where I was born) it's jam first then cream, but in Devon (where I live) it's cream then jam. To me it doesn't really matter, it tastes the same either way, and actually with these I used cream instead of butter as that's what I had to hand, it was still delicious. They only use ingredients that most people have in their stock cupboard so it works out really cheap (I got 8 scones out of the recipe), and when lots of cafes near me are charging £5+ for a cream tea, it's pretty handy to be able to whip a batch of these up at a moments notice. I'm actually about to make ANOTHER batch of these for tomorrow, as part of a homemade afternoon tea, hopefully they'll turn out just as well again!

Recipe can be found here

Vegeree

Kedgeree is supposed to be a breakfast food which I always find a bit weird; it has fish in it which is not something I usually fancy in the mornings, nor do I have the time on a weekday to make anything more complicated then porridge. It is, however, something that I enjoy for dinner sometimes, so when I saw the veggie variation in Veg Everyday I thought it would be worth a try.

The recipe was simple enough, roast some vegetables (Hugh suggests aubergines, courgettes and onions) in curry powder until soft, then combine with cooked rice and hard boiled eggs.

For me, there were two problems with the end result: firstly, it was nowhere near curry-y enough. I don't know whether it was that there wasn't enough powder on the actual veg, or the fact that it didn't combine well in to the rice, but it just didn't work. Secondly, was the way he suggested that you cook the rice, which ended up like one sloppy mess (you are supposed to cover the rice by 1cm of water, simmer, then when all the water has nearly evaporated, put the lid on and cook for a further 10 minutes, then leave for 5 minutes at the end); it sounded like too long when I read it, but tempted at the thought of fluffy, separated grains of rice I persisted. Next time I will cook it as I know how! It's actually a real shame because all the other recipes I've cooked from this book have been really enjoyable...nevermind! I think I'll stick to the traditional version next time.

Butternut Squash Lasagne

Lasagne is not something I make often; in fact I've made it only once before this, and that was a vegetarian one too, with kale and mushrooms, instead of the traditional red and white sauces. It was nice but it's one of those things which for me is a bit of a hassle and can end up taking quite a long time, but nevertheless, I had the leftover lasagne sheets from the one I made before, and not wanting to waste them, I made another, this time using one of my other favourite vegetables, butternut squash. I should probably explain here that I'm actually not a vegetarian, I've just started to eat a lot more vegetable-based dishes since getting the River Cottage Veg Everyday book. That said, this is my own recipe, and it's good because it's quite quick. Here there's cheese instead of a white sauce, and the tomatoes can just cook for as long as you've got, in my opinion it doesn't add any flavour cooking them for hours and hours on end, although of course it will thicken the sauce.

Serves 4
Ingredients

1 butternut squash, peeled, deseeded and cut into 1cm cubes

Pinch chili flakes

6 sage leaves, chopped

1 onion, finely chopped

1 tin chopped tomatoes

3 tablespoons tomato puree
250g ricotta

9 dried lasagne sheets

150g ball mozzarella, torn into pieces

Parmesan or pecorino cheese

Method

1. Roast the squash in a little olive oil with the sage and chili, at 220c/gas 200c/gas mark 7 for around 35 minutes.

2. In the meantime, prepare the tomato sauce, fry the onion in olive oil until it starts to brown, then add the tomatoes, and tomato puree, and leave to simmer for 20 minutes.

3. When the squash is cooked, mash slightly to form a chunky paste, and add in roughly half of the ricotta.

4. Coat the bottom of an oven dish with half of the remaining ricotta, on top of this then place a layer of lasagne sheets, then the butternut squash mixture, another layer of lasagne sheets, then the tomato sauce and mozzarella, and another layer of lasagne sheets. Finish with the remaining ricotta and a good sprinkling of parmesan cheese.

5. Bake in the oven for 30 minutes!

Rosemary & Sea Salt Focaccia

So for my Italian class today, seeming as it's the end of semester, we're having an aperitivo. Everyone's going to bring in something small to eat to share with the rest of the class, so I got thinking, what should I bring? I considered some piadine (filled flat breads) but thought they might have gone a bit cold and stale by the time I got to my lesson, but then it hit me...focaccia!

This is a recipe I've made quite a few times, and it's especially nice topped with caramelized onions, but I thought they might not be to everyone's taste and so I went simple with some rosemary and sea salt...it's going to take all my effort not to eat it before I get onto campus!

Makes one loaf

Ingredients

250g strong white bread flour

1 tsp salt

7g dried yeast

1 tbsp olive oil (optional)

200ml warm water

Dried rosemary

Coarse sea salt

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 220C/fan 200c/gas mark 7.
 

2. Combine the flour, salt and yeast in a bowl.
 

3. Add the oil, and then bit by bit the water, making sure that each part is fully combined before adding more.

4. Either turn the dough out onto a oil coated surface, and knead for ten minutes by hand, or use the dough hook on a food mixer to knead the dough for the same amount of time, on a low setting.

5. Form a ball out of the dough, and put in a clean, oiled coated bowl, cover with a tea towel or cling film and leave to rise in a warm place until doubled in size.

6. Line a baking sheet with baking paper. Tip the dough out of the bowl, and flatten on to the baking sheet, stretching it to cover the whole surface. Cover again and leave to prove for an hour.

7. Chop some rosemary and sprinkle over the loaf, along with a few pinches of sea salt. Sprinkle with olive oil, and bake in the oven for 20 minutes.

Beetroot Risotto with Bresaola

Risotto is my favourite comfort food. I absolutely love the stuff. Does anyone watch Saturday Kitchen? Well, if I were ever to appear on there it would definitely be my food heaven, and it must be the dish that I have made the most, in fact in my second year of University I must have made it every week without fail, much to the disapproval of my boyfriend; 'but it's just rice and cheese'. It is so much more than that!

Obviously, risotto is normally made with rice, but for a change I decided to use pearl barley, which I had never tried before, and it turned out delicious, in fact I actually preferred it to a 'traditional' risotto which was surprising. The beetroot is sweet, and turns the whole risotto purple, while the bresaola adds a salty flavour (although this could be left out if preferred).

Serves 2

Ingredients

Butter

1/2 onion, finely chopped

170g pearl barley

1 glass red wine

1 litre stock

200g pre-cooked beetroot

30g grated parmesan (or pecorino)

4 slices bresaola

Method

1. Fry the chopped onion in a knob of butter, taking care not to burn, for around 10 minutes.

2. Add the pearl barley and cook for a further 2 minutes.

3. Add the wine and simmer, stirring frequently until no liquid remains.

4. Add a quarter of the stock, and simmer, stirring frequently, until no liquid remains. Repeat with remaining stock. It should take around 30-40 minutes for all the stock to be absorbed.

5. As the last portion of stock is added, add the beetroot to warm through.

6. Remove the risotto from the heat, add the grated cheese and stir through. Leave to sit for 2 minutes.

7.  Serve the risotto topped with the slices of bresaola!

Macaro(o)ns

There are times when I bake and I seriously end up thinking, why do I bother? and this is what I've ended up thinking both times previously when I've tried to make macarons. We have a history, and to say I find them difficult is an understatement.

The first time I tried to make these little delights, I got to the end only to find that the shells were literally glued to the baking paper. And I mean literally. Impossible to get off. You would pull the outer shell off only to find the inside still stuck on the tray. The second time, I ended up with one giant macaron in the oven, (did I pipe them too close together?). It was not pretty.

But needless to say, I didn't want to go down without a fight so, on Thursday, I tried again, spurred on by the Ladurée Sucré book, which my sister kindly bought for me for my birthday (which by the way is so cute!). Obviously I also read up online on for and tips and tricks that would make the experience as easy as possible (ha!). Oh, and I roped my boyfriend into being my 'sous chef' ; )

The chocolate ganache to fill them with was simple enough, chocolate, hot cream, butter. It's in the fridge chilling, but now the hard part as always, the shells. I melt the chocolate, whip the egg whites, food process and sift the almond flour, icing sugar and cocoa powder (which takes forever as I have a mini food processor!), and eventually get the three things to make a homogenous mixture that I can now pipe onto trays lined with baking paper (do I not learn my lesson?).

Piping is definitely not my forte. The mixture just seems to go everywhere and yet again I think I piped the shells slightly too big, but neverthless they were not that bad. In fact when they came out the oven I thought they were actually alright, slightly cracked, not perfect, but alright. Until I go to peel them off the sheet, and destroy about ten of the shells in the process.

The book suggested to, after taking the macarons out of the oven, pour a few drops of water between the baking paper and the tray, to create steam, which should hopefully make the macarons easier to lift off, and don't get me wrong, I gave this a go, but the macarons were so soft at this point that if I tried to lift the paper up, the shells would break, so I gave this idea a miss, and decided to come up with one of my own (!).

The only way I could get anything slightly resembling a macaron shell off the paper was to flip them upside down. So, you see the picture above? What I did was place a tray on top of that tray, and then literally flip it, so the macarons ended up looking a bit like this below. Then and only then was I able to peel the paper gently off the macarons and cut them free.

Let me make this clear though, I love macarons, I really do love eating them. But making them just seems to be one of those things that I cannot master, no matter how closely I follow a recipe, or how much effort I put in. To contradict this, however, of course I'll be making this recipe again, but this time, I was thinking maybe I should bake them for a little bit longer, so that maybe they'll be easier to release...what does everyone think? What experiences have you had with baking macarons, good or bad?

Chocolate Chip Cookies

So, last Sunday I had a bit of spare time to do some cooking, and, on the request of the boyfriend, I decided to bake some chocolate chip cookies. I don't often bake sweet things, having been on diet, for a long time they were ruled out, but now I'm not being so strict with myself, and I got some new baking equipment for Christmas (upcoming post!), I feel I can get a bit more into it.

The original recipe for these came from the Good Food website, but I changed it ever so slightly just to fit the ingredients I had at the time. The website is always one of the first places I go to if I'm looking to cook something new, I've always had good results with the recipes on there, and it's a good place to browse if you're looking for new ideas, which I frequently am.

I was a bit sceptical at first, as the cookies didn't contain any cocoa, I thought they might be a bit bland, but turns out I was wrong, they were pretty good and so, so easy to make. They maybe weren't as chewy as I wanted, but instead their texture reminded me a bit of a Viennese Whirl. It said there would be enough mix for 30, but needless to say I ended up with less than half that number of cookies, which seems to happen to me every time I make something like this? Anyway, there aren't many left now! The verdict was, and I quote, "they're far more Tesco's Finest than Maryland'. Maybe you'll only understand if you live in or have been to the UK, but that's a pretty good judgement by anyone's standard! 

Makes 12 cookies

Ingredients
150g softened butter (or margarine)
150g light brown soft sugar 
1 egg 
1 tsp vanilla essence 
300g plain flour 
1/2 tsp baking powder
200g chocolate chips (any mixture of milk, plain, white)   

Method
Preheat the oven to 190C/fan 170C/gas mark 5 and line a flat baking sheet with grease proof paper. Cream the butter and sugar together and then mix in the egg and vanilla essence. Mix in the flour, baking powder and then the chocolate chips, making sure to get an even spread through out mixture. Put dessert spoonfuls of the mixture onto the baking tray, leaving 2 cm between each one and bake for around 12 minutes, until slightly brown. Remove from oven and leave to cool. 

Original recipe can be found here

Hello?

Right guys, this is it! I'm finally starting my own food blog! I've been putting this off for quite a long time, and made excuses that I was too busy, or didn't have enough to write about, but what the hell...what's the worst that can happen?

I'm an undergraduate student at the moment, studying in the south-west of England, and next year I'll be going on to do a Masters. I've found that this year (now I'm living with my boyfriend!) I’m cooking from scratch for the both of us pretty much every night, as well as baking my own bread and the (occasional) cake. I’ve also become a member of Slow Food on Campus this year, so I’ve become a lot more aware of food-related issues, and where it comes from. Don’t get me wrong, I go to the supermarket just like everyone else, I neither have the time nor the money to buy my food from independent shops all of the time, but now I’m just making more informed decisions.

Apart from one summer of waitressing (!), I have absolutely no experience in the food industry, and, unfortunately, still being in education, I’m on a bit of a tight budget. Basically, don’t expect anything particularly complicated or sophisticated from me for the moment, but instead hopefully I’ll be able to show you some quick and interesting recipes, and maybe even give you some new ideas. I want you all to be as enthusiastic about food as I am, and I want there to be something here for everyone, from the beginner who’s never cooked anything before, to the expert who has hundreds of recipes under their belt.

That’s it in a nutshell. I’ll be back sometime this week with my first ‘proper’ post (I‘m going to bake cookies right now!), and hopefully a better idea of what I’m doing. In the mean time feel free to comment and let me know what you'd like to see on here in the coming weeks.

Bye for now!