Month: September 2020

Rainbow Salad with Walnuts

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Like a lot of people I’m prone to getting stuck in food ruts. You buy the same thing every week, and you cook the same thing all the time, it’s easy but it is boring.

I started getting vegetable box deliveries and sometime I choose an option that’s a bit of a luck dip so that I’m forced to make something different, and you’re forced to work with new ingredients. (This week’s box came with a packet of sauerkraut!, but that’s a whole other recipe).

I had been over indulging in the “pure filth” recipes lately and wanted to feel I was eating something good for me for a change. So with a box full of lovely colourful ingredients I made this fresh crunchy salad with a dressing made with creamy tahini, tangy ginger and a little bit of chilli heat. I like to sprinkle it with nuts, for extra protein.

This is a great vegan dish ( I eat big bowls of this on its own), but is also a great side dish. I used the vegetables I had in a vegetable box, but the beautiful thing about this is that you can adapt the vegetables depending on availability and what’s in season.

Do yourself some good and enjoy a delicious crunchy multi-coloured big bowl of fibre and vitamins.

Ingredients

2 Carrots (grated)

1/2 Red pepper (finely sliced)

1 Large gold beetroot (grated)

2-3 Radishes (finely sliced)

4-5 Stalks of Rainbow chard (finely sliced)

1 Small Celeriac (grated)

For the dressing

1 Red chilli (finely sliced)

2 inch piece of ginger (grated)

3 Tbsp Tahini

Juice of one lemon

Method

  1. I was lazy and used a food processor to grate many of the ingredients. If you don’t have one a box grater does the same job, it will just take a little longer
  2. If you’re using celeriac make sure to cover this with the lemon juice as soon as you grate it to prevent it from discolouring
  3. Combine all your ingredients in a bowl (once you have grated or sliced your vegetables).
  4. In a separate bowl add the dressing ingredients and mix well. You want to add a little water to loosen the dressing, depending on how thick your tahini is.
  5. Add the dressing to the salad and mix thoroughly
  6. Top with walnuts, or toasted cashews or pine nuts also work well.

Red Pepper and Chorizo Gnocchi

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The Summer has pretty much been a wash out, (when I made this I was watching torrential rain battering my window). So comfort food was the order of the day. Chorizo makes anything taste good, add some gnocchi and cream and you have a little bowl of heaven.

Bursting with flavour

Ingredients

500 Grams Gnocchi (I use shop bought)

75 Grams Chorizo (finely sliced)

1 Onion (thinly sliced)

1 Large red pepper (cut into 2cm cubes)

50 Grams Sun dried tomatoes (finely chopped)

2 Tbsp Olive oil (I sometimes like to use the oil that the sun dried tomatoes comes in, as it has loads of flavour)

1 Tbsp Tomato puree

125 ml Double cream

Salt and pepper

Method

  1. Heat 1 table spoon of oil in a large pan, and fry the chorizo, red pepper and onion until soft, remove from the pan and set to one side
  2. Add the rest of the oil to the pan to heat, add then and the gnocchi, and brown gently all over.
  3. Stir in the tomato puree and cook for another 1-2 minutes, add the sun dried tomatoes and the chorizo and peppers and onion you removed from the pan earlier
  4. Add the cream and stir well ensuring everything is well coated, check if you think it needs salt or pepper. Cook for another 2-3 minutes to reduce the cream if necessary

Pork Chops with Sauerkraut

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I know this recipe might divide opinion and I’ll admit sauerkraut isn’t something I normally buy. I ended up with a monster sized pack of it from my vegetable box delivery as a substitution.

I asked round family and friends if there was anyone who was a sauerkraut lover, and couldn’t find a taker. One of them come back to me to explain that I should try to do something with it, as sauerkraut along with other fermented foods like kimchi are amazingly good for your gut health and we should all be eating more of these.

The only recipe I could think of was one I tasted about a million years when I lived in Germany. Kathy, the love lady I worked for made this dish for me once. It might sound a bit strange, and I know sauerkraut and pineapple aren’t two ingredients you would naturally think of together, but give it a chance. When they’re teamed up with pork chops, it works kind of like sweet and sour pork. The sauerkraut also helps make the pork really tender. This makes a great uncomplicated mid week dinner.

Ready for the oven

Ingredients

4 Pork chops

500 Grams Sauerkraut (drained)

350 Grams Can of pineapple rings

Method

  1. Place pork chops in an oven proof baking dish
  2. Cover with the drained sauerkraut, and top with the pineapple rings
  3. Cover with foil and bake in an oven pre-heated to 200 degrees for 20 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for a further 20 minutes

Lemon Tiramisu

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Before tiramisu purists start, I know this is not strictly speaking a tiramisu. I’m a card carrying coffee fiend, but I’m not a fan of coffee flavour in sweet things.

Delicious slice of tangy tiramisu

What I do love is lemon flavoured desserts. This recipe gives you the creamy unctuous texture of a tiramisu, with the refreshing tang of lemon that stops this being sickly sweet.

The coffee flavour is replaced with lemon and ginger tea, and a shot limoncello gives an extra zing of flavour. This is a good recipe if you’re entertaining, you can make it the day before and it’s easy to plate up.

(N. B. This recipe contains raw eggs and is probably best not served to potentially vulnerable groups like pregnant women, the elderly and very young children)

Ingredients

500 Grams Marscapone cheese

250 Grams Sponge fingers (lady fingers)

2 Eggs

125 Grams Caster sugar

1 Lemon and ginger teabag (you can use other fruit teas if you prefer, but I think this works well)

1 Lemon (juice and zest)

1 Shot of limoncello liquor (optional)

250ml Boiling water

200 Grams Lemon curd

Method

  1. Soak the teabag in the boiling water for 5-10 minutes before removing the teabag. Allow the tea to cool and add the limoncello to the tea
  2. Separate the eggs. Add the caster sugar, lemon juice and zest to the egg yolks and whisk with an electric whisk until light and fluffy. Add the marscapone and whisk again until the ingredients are combined
  3. In a separate bowl whisk the egg whites until they reach firm peaks. Fold the egg whites into the egg yolk mixture with a metal spoon, making sure its thoroughly combined
  4. Briefly dip half the sponge fingers in the lemon tea mixture and line a layer in a 9 x 12 inch dish. When you have a layer of dipped sponge fingers, spread this layer with one third of the lemon curd
  5. Top this layer with half of the marscapone mix
  6. Dip the remaining sponge fingers in the lemon tea mixture and lay on top. Spread this layer again with one third of the lemon curd
  7. Top with the remaining marscapone mix, dot the top with the remaining lemon curd and then drag a knife through it to create a marbled effect
  8. Cover with cling film and leave to chill in the fridge for 3-4 hours, or ideally overnight