Month: February 2020

Gypsy Pie

Seaneen's Sunnyside KitchenLeave a comment
Gooey and delicious.

I made this sort of by accident. I meant to buy condensed milk for another dessert I was planning to make. The short story is that I was distracted in the supermarket and bought evaporated milk instead.

Don’t panic if this looks very puffy when it comes out of the oven.

Rather then waste it, I remembered a recipe using evaporated milk I had seen in an old recipe book I bought in a charity shop. I still have no idea how it got its name. But I do know its delicious, incredibly tasty and very sweet. This is a pretty straight forward recipe, you could even buy a premade pastry case if you’re short on time. The filling has only two ingredients, but once baked this turns into fudgy, caramely deliciousness. We had custard with this, but ice cream would also work.

Just two ingredients for the filling.

Serves 8 – 10

Ingredients

For the pastry

200 Grams Plain flour

100 Grams Butter

1 Tbsp Caster sugar

1/4 Tsp Salt

1 Egg yolk

3 Tbsp cold water

For the filling

280 Grams Muscavado Sugar

410 ml Tin of Evaporated milk

Whisk until light and fluffy.

Method

  • In a food processor add the flour, butter, salt, sugar and egg yolk and whizz until it looks like breadcrumbs. (You can use the “rubbing in” method of you prefer, but I think it’s easier and quicker to use a food processor)
  • Add cold water to the crumb mix until it starts to come together, and you can form a ball.
  • Wrap in cling film and refridgerate for 30 minutes.
  • After 30 minutes take the pastry out of the fridge and preheat your oven to 180 degrees. Brush a a loose base 9 inch pie tin with melted butter
  • Roll the pastry out as thinly as possible on a floured surface and line your pie tin with it.
  • Place a large square of baking parchment (larger than the inside of the pie tin) on top of the pastry and cover the base with baking beans (I keep old dried rice in a jar to use when I need to blind bake pastry) bake for 15 minutes
  • After 15 minutes remove from the oven, and carefully lift the baking parchment by the corners taking care not to spill the rice/baking beans on the pastry. Pierce the bottom of the pie base all over with a fork and return to the oven for another 10 minutes
  • Put the muscavado sugar and evaporated milk in a bowl. Mix with an electric whisk for 5-10 until with sugar and milk are no longer grainy, and becomes lighter in colour and looks frothy.
  • Remove the pie base from the oven. Fill the pie base with the sugar and milk mixture and return to the oven
  • Bake for a further 25 minutes. The filling may puff up in the oven, but don’t panic, it deflate as it cools.
  • Allow to cool completely before cutting

Vegetarian Moussaka

Seaneen's Sunnyside Kitchen1 Comment
Vegetarian Moussaka

I’ve loved moussaka ever since I first tasted it. But it can be very rich, so this version even though it’s still packed with protein is a little lighter.

This is based around a Jamie Oliver recipe and it’s proper comfort food. I added some roast red peppers, as I think it brings a little bit more freshness to it. There’s still enough cheese to make it still taste decadent.

The only draw back is that this is a time consuming recipe. I usually wait to make this at the weekend when I have more time, but it’s worth the time and effort, and tastes so much better than some gloopy supermarket version. This is also a great dish if you have a group of people to cook for.

Serves 8-10

Ingredients

4 Aubergines

4 Roasted red peppers (I used a jar of red peppers to save time)

500 Grams Potatoes

2 Tins Chopped tomatoes

2 Tins Chick peas

1 Sprig Rosemary

1 Small bunch of sage

100 Grams Green lentils, boiled until soft (or 1 can of lentils)

2 Onions, sliced

400 Grams Feta cheese

50 Grams Butter

50 Grams Plain flour

500ml Milk

25 Grams Parmesan (or other strong, hard cheese)

Olive oil

Salt and Pepper

Cut strips in aubergines with a peeler before slicing for roasting.

Method

  1. Heat your oven to 200 degrees, peel the potatoes and cut into 2cm slices. Rub the potatoes with a little olive oil, place on baking trays and bake until tender and golden brown
  2. Peel strips into the aubergines, and then cut into 2 cm rounds before sprinkling with salt and leaving to drain a colander for an hour
  3. Wipe off any excess moisture and the salt, and sprinkle the aubergines with a little olive oil and place on baking trays and bake in the oven until tender, just as you did with the potatoes
  4. Add 1 Tbsp of oil to a large frying pan and add the onions and herbs to pan. Cook gently until the onions have softened (I keep the herbs on the stem so that they are easier to fish out of the sauce later.
  5. Add the cooked/tinned lentils and chick peas to the pan along with the tinned tomatoes. Simmer over a medium heat for 10-15 minutes until the sauce has thickened, check the season and add salt and pepper if necessary
  6. When the vegetables have finished roasting and the sauce is ready, it’s time to start assembling the dish
  7. Spread a thin layer of the sauce on the bottom of a large oven proof dish, then top this with a layer of the cooked potatoes and crumble over some of the feta cheese. Top this with another layer of sauce and then add a layer of roasted peppers sprinkle with some of the feta cheese. Top again with the sauce and add the cooked aubergines and any left over feta
  8. To top this you will need to make a white sauce, in a medium sized saucepan, melt your butter over a medium heat, then stir in the flour to make a smooth paste. Continue to stir as you add the milk (if you find that you are getting lumps there is no shame in breaking out a whisk to beat the living daylights of the sauce to get rid of rid of them).
  9. The sauce will start thicken as it heats, so continue stirring and reduce the heat and allow to cook for another 5 minutes or until the sauce no longer tastes “floury”. Add the grated hard cheese and mix well
  10. Top the layers of vegetables and with the white sauce and bake at 200 degrees for 30-40 minutes of until all bubbly, brown and delicious

Rumbledethumps

Seaneen's Sunnyside KitchenLeave a comment
Rumbledethumps fresh out of the oven.

This recipe comes from one of my co-workers Ruth. She knows I love a good recipe and was kind enough to share this. It’s one of the things I like about food. Everyone needs to eat, and everyone has a favourite food. Many of my recipes come from people who just wanted to share something they really enjoyed.

This is a traditional Scottish recipe, and was probably developed to use up left over vegetables. I wasn’t that organised so I made this from scratch, but if you plan ahead and have left over veggies then this can be really quick to make. The name supposedly comes from the fact that cabbage and turnip can make some people a bit “windy”. Rumbledethump refers to the noises they may make. Thankfully this wasn’t my experience.

Rumbledethumps are traditionally fried, I oven baked these to make them a little healthier.

Yummy as a meal in itself.

These make a great side dish or are delicious served with a fried egg.

Makes 8

Ingredients before being combined.

Ingredients

500 Grams Potatoes (peeled and cubed)

200 Grams Turnip (peeled and cubed) – in England this is known as swede, but in NI we call it turnip)

1/2 Onion (finely sliced)

125 Grams Cabbage (finely sliced)

1 Egg yolk

50 Grams Cheddar cheese (grated)

2 Tbsps Oil

Salt and pepper

Ready for the oven.

Method

  1. Cook the potatoes and turnip until soft, drain and mash roughly before allowing to cool
  2. Add 1 Tbsp of oil to a pan and gently fry until soft, allow to cool
  3. Combine all the ingredients (except the remaining oil), in a bowl. Check the seasoning, I found this recipe needed quite a lot.
  4. Preheat your oven to 200 degrees. Get your hands into the mixture, and make 8 equal sized patties.
  5. Set the patties onto a greased baking sheet. Brush with the remaining oil and bake for 25-30mins

Walnut Skordalia

Seaneen's Sunnyside KitchenLeave a comment

This is a traditional Greek dip and is super easy to make and super delicious. I made this as part of a meze at our February supper club, and it was the most popular dish of the night.

Delicious as a dip with vegetables or pitta bread

While you can use it as a dip, I’ve also used this as filling in wraps and sandwiches along with salad and chopped vegetables and it was amazingly tasty. It’s also really good drizzled across roast vegetables. To be honest you could spread this on a flip flop and I’d eat it, it tastes that good. This is also vegan, so you can keep all the non meat eaters in your life happy with something totally scrumptious.

Just 5 ingredients, and 5 minutes of your time to produce something totally tasty

Ingredients

80 Grams Walnuts

40 Grams Breadcrumbs (I know I bang on about it, but one of my favourite kitchen hacks is making a big batch of bread crumbs to keep in the freezer, it makes recipes like this a 2 minute job)

1-2 Cloves of garlic, roughly chopped (I used 2 and it was pretty garlicky which I don’t mind, but adjust to your own taste)

2 Tbsp Red wine vinegar (Again adjust to your own taste, the first time I tried a the recipe out it was a bit too sharp for me, so I’ve reduced the amount of vinegar but have a taste and you can always add more)

100ml Olive oil

Method

  1. Add the walnuts to a food processor and blitz for a couple of minutes until the nuts are finely ground
  2. Add the breadcrumbs, garlic, oil and vinegar and blitz again. The mix is meant to be quite thick, but if it is too thick for you, you can a small amount of water and and blitz until you get the consistency you like
Also great in wraps and sandwiches

21st March Supper Club, the Italian menu is the winner!

Seaneen's Sunnyside Kitchen2 Comments

I couldn’t decide between menus for the next supper club, so I put it to a vote on Facebook. For a week or two the French menu had a strong lead, but got pipped at the post by the Italian menu. So thanks to everyone who voted.

February’s supper club sold out weeks in advance so remember to book early.

Some of the lovely people at our February supper club.

The menu for the 21st March will be

Starter – Gnocchi with Hazelnut Pesto

Main – Chicken Marsala, (Vegetarian Option-Aubergine Parmesan), Italian Salad, Homemade Italian Bread

Dessert – Tiramisu

The ethos behind the Supper Club is simple. Everyone eats the same menu at a communal table, with the chance to meet new people, chat and enjoy a bit of craic.

October Supper Club

N.B. We have a 24 hour cancellation policy.

February Supper Club – A good time had by all.

Seaneen's Sunnyside KitchenLeave a comment

Well, the February supper club has come and gone and we had a ball.

February Supper Club

Coming to a strange house to sit down and eat with people you haven’t met before is the stuff of nightmares for some people. However, if you’re brave enough to try something new you’ll enjoy good food and meet some lovely people.

Just some of the dishes from the meze starter, beetroot hummus, Greek salad and tzatziki.

I was really bad, and forgot to take more photos, but to be honest the craic was good and I was enjoying myself too much. We had a fantastic group of guests, conversation was brilliant and among other things some surprising celebrity gossip was shared.

Vegetarian moussaka, not the most glamorous of dishes, but really tasty all the same.

A massive thank you to everyone who joined us. If this sounds like your type of thing give us a try. The next supper club is on 21 March.